Double Cache Weekend in Diablo III

A community buff follows a bug-fix patch, and action taken against exploiters

Diablo III - Double Cache Community Buff
A community buff is active this weekend through Sunday evening in Diablo III, giving a bonus cache when completing Bounties. That follows a busy week of fixes in Diablo III, including a small update to Patch 2.3 to take care of a number of issues. The banhammer swept the game, taking action against players who had exploited a bug to gain more than one passive from the Hellfire Amulet.


Double Cache Weekend
Bounties are all the rage this weekend, with the double cache bonus. Both the Horadric Cache and the Bonus Cache from completing the proper bonus Act are doubled, giving an even greater incentive to do the Acts in the proper order. There is a buff across all console Diablo III versions, although only the current-generation Ultimate Evil Edition consoles receive the double cache bonus.

Kanai’s Cube has changed the face of Diablo III forever, and it’s a hungry Horadric artifact! We hope you’ve been enjoying this versatile addition to the game, and to help you take even greater advantage of its powerful transmutation abilities, for this weekend only each full set of bounties you complete will reward double Caches! This applies to both Horadric and Bonus Caches, so be sure to hit up those bonus acts for extra rewards.  

This bonus period begins in the Americas region this Friday, September 25, at 12:01 a.m. PDT and ends on Sunday, September 27 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.


Haven’t jumped into Patch 2.3.0 or Season 4 yet? It’s never been a better time to log in and seek nephalem glory! Good luck, have fun, and we’ll see you in Sanctuary!

*For more information about this buff on consoles, click here.

**For PC, the buff will start and end at the noted times in each gameplay region according to its local time zone (PDT for the Americas, CET for Europe, and KST for Asia). For console, the buff will start and end in all regions at the same time, listed above. For time zone assistance, click here



Patch 2.3.0a
A small patch landed this week, that applied a slew of hotfixes to the game. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 Ultimate Evil Edition versions of the game also received a patch, that also included the fixes to Area Damage.
Patch 2.3.0a deployed earlier today, which included a number of hotfixes:

Bounties
  • Fixed an issue where Pazuzu would not spawn in the Desolate Sands during the "Kill Pazuzu" bounty (9/22)


Crafting
  • The Blacksmith UI now properly displays the number of items that can be crafted when using the "Show All" filter (9/22)
  • Kanai's Cube
    • Haunt of Vaxo is now able to have his legendary power extracted (9/22)


Items
  • It is no longer possible to simultaneously benefit from more than one passive acquired by a Hellfire Amulet (9/22)
  • Crafted Legendary off-hands now properly roll with increased damage when they are Ancient (9/22)
  • Deadly Rebirth
    • Now properly rolls with its Legendary affix at all item levels (9/22)


Witch Doctor
  • Wall of Death
    • Rune - Fire Wall
      • Made some optimization changes to improve game performance (9/22)
    • Rune - Ring of Poison
      • Made some optimization changes to improve game performance (9/22)
  • Fetish Army
    • Rune - Head Hunters
      • Pets spawned by this rune no longer have player collision (9/22)


Bans for Hellfire Amulet Exploit
Along with the other hotfixes, the recent patch added the final fixes for an exploit where players could get more than one extra passive from a Hellfire Amulet. Actions were taken against players who had abused the exploit. Some exploiters who tried it out were banned for a few days or a few weeks. As discussed in multiple threads, players who used the exploit to the fullest saw their battle.net accounts permanently banned.
UPDATE - September 22 @ 3:07 p.m. PDT

While this issue has now been resolved, we know a lot of players may be curious about what happened and how we responded. We'd like to take a moment to discuss a few of the details with you.

Following the launch of Patch 2.3.0, players discovered an exploit that, through a series of very specific steps, allowed them to equip more than one additional passive using the Hellfire Amulet. This was not intended and, while in some cases could have potentially happened by accident, there were some who continued to repeat these steps in order to gain an unfair advantage over other players.

As soon as we were able to verify the exploit and identify its underlying cause, we immediately began working on a fix for PC. This wound up being two separate deployments, as part of the issue required a patch to resolve. The original hotfix was deployed late evening on September 11, which made the following change to the game:

  • Generate an error if too many passives are active on a character
  • Added a check for and regular removal of surplus passives

This fix technically still permitted the exploit to occur, but for an extremely limited period of time that was no longer practical or useful. A fix that fully prevents this exploit from occurring is included in Patch 2.3.0a, which deployed earlier today in all regions.

From there, we looked at the complexity and impact of the exploit and elected to action accounts on a case-by-case basis. One of three situations applied:

  • Accounts which were found to have used the exploit excessively were permanently banned. This includes users who actively promoted the use of this exploit.
  • Accounts which were found to have used the exploit to a beneficial, but not excessive, degree were suspended with warning.
  • Accounts which were likely utilizing this exploit by accident were effectively pardoned.

Regardless of whether penalties were applied, accounts that were found to be utilizing more passive skills than intended had their progress removed from the leaderboards.

We continue to see an overwhelming amount of support from the vast majority of players who value fair play above personal gain. We appreciate that so many of you brought this issue to our attention immediately through channels like hacks@blizzard.com, our online webform and ticket system. We heard your concerns on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and these forums too! On behalf of all of us here at Blizzard, from our development to support teams, thank you for taking the time to notify us, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused as a result.

As noted in our original post, maintaining an enjoyable and fair gameplay experience is very important to us, and we’re going to continue to monitor the game as well as take steps to prevent exploits like this from happening again.


Spirit of Arachyr Toad Fix
In patch 2.3 a new Spirit of Arachyr Witch Doctor set was added with items like Arachyr’s Carapace. The 4-piece set bonus provides an innate Hex - Toad of Hugeness. That bonus will be tweaked in the next patch, to make it work in a smoother fashion.


Ghost Fix Ahead
The ghost-type monsters have some rather annoying abilities at the moment. Those will be toned down in an upcoming patch, so that regular ghosts aren't automatically more difficult than most elites of other types of creatures.
Thanks for the constructive feedback on this, folks!

We're planning a few adjustments to ghost-type enemies (particularly their Soul Siphon power) in an upcoming patch. They'll need to be closer to attack, will deal less damage overall, and their channeled attack damage will be spread out over a longer duration.


Set Changes in Patch 2.4
The developers are planning a lot of set changes and additions in Patch 2.4. The Tal Rasha's and Delsere's sets are among the current sets scheduled to be updated in that patch.

Special Affixes in Kanai's Cube
The recent patch fixed Kanai's Cube so that the ability from the Haunt of Vaxo amulet can now be used in the cube. Certain other items with unusual Legendary powers still cannot be extracted into the cube, however.
Posted by: BassBalls

I tried to extract the legendary power from Haunt of Vaxo on my season WD and the item itself is not listed as one that can have the power extracted. Is this intentional or a bug?

There was a bug preventing Haunt of Vaxo's special affix from being added to Kanai's Cube. It's fixed now though! You can find the rest of our most recent hotfixes here.
Posted by: NoizeMachine

I've noticed that Corrupted Ashbringer also cannot be extracted.

Posted by: normalice

what about halycon's ascent? Not that I have any plans of using it or anything.. just curious.

Good question. These two Legendary items are fundamentally different from others in how they work, so their unique affixes aren't able to be extracted into Kanai's Cube.
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