Diablo 3 Dev Journal: Patch 1.0.5 Defensive Skills Buff

A new developer's journal post has been added to the battle.net blog. The blog post explains why and how players defensive skills will be changed and what developers are doing to offset those changes to result in a defensive buff for Diablo 3's patch 1.0.5.

The basic layman's idea of what will occur is as follows:

1. Reduce the effectiveness of select defensive skills.
2. Reduce monster damage by more than the mitigation lost by these skills.
3. Putting both changes together, players actually take less damage than before

The post is an interesting read. For those interested in learning all the gory details you can read the full post here.

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Inferno Codex: The Ultimate Diablo 3 Strategy Guide

Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.5 New Features

A new post on the battle.net blog offers a glimpse of what is to come in Diablo 3's patch 1.0.5. Some really cool and new features of patch 1.0.5 will include defensive skill enhancements, a new infernal machine event, and a new monster power system. The details of the post are as follows:

We’ll have articles in the coming days providing all the details on the upcoming patch, but we wanted to give you a sneak peek at what major features to expect.

Defensive Skill Changes
In our eternal quest to promote build diversity; we’ll be making changes to defensive skills across the board while simultaneously reducing incoming damage. The net result is a survivability buff for players, and an increase in build options as defensive abilities become less “mandatory.”

New Event: Infernal Machine
The Infernal Machine is a device that will allow level-60 players to battle “uber” versions of some of Sanctuary’s most nefarious bosses. While the rewards for defeating these bosses will be great, some assembly is required.

New System: Monster Power
Similar to the “Players 8” command in Diablo II, the Monster Power system is designed to give players more control over how challenging enemies are in each difficulty.

This and more is coming in Patch 1.0.5! Stay tuned for all the gory details.

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Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.5 Character Class Changes

A lot of rumors have recently been flying back and forth over whether or not character classes will be nerfed in the upcoming Diablo 3 patch 1.0.5. Apparently word got out that someone had datamined the patch and many character classes were going to be nerfed. However, Blizzard has contacted some Diablo 3 fansites to let us know that some were too quick to jump to conclusions and that these patch changes were being taken out of context. Character classes will actually be benefiting from the changes and will get buffs not nerfs. Blizzard plans to release a blog post sometime in the near future to explain the details of these changes.

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Diablo 3 Billionaire Strategy Guide

Diablo 3 Invisible Legendary Item Drops

 

Many players are having some difficulties in noticing legendary item drops. Due to the brown/orangish coloration of the drop, legendaries sometimes blend into Diablo 3's backgrounds and become almost invisible to players. In a recent forum post on the battle.net forums Blizzard addresses this issue:

We’re aware that some players have reported difficulties noticing Legendary item drops, and we’re working on some solutions to make them much more apparent. We do not anticipate that they will be hand-delivered by vibrantly-colored equines, however.

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Diablo 3 Speed: Power Leveling Strategy Guide

Diablo 3 Followers Getting A Strength Boost

Currently many players feel that the followers in Diablo 3 seem very weak. Aside from being somewhat useful as a crowd control meat shield, and providing some buffs for your character, there is no question that followers are definitely in need of an overhaul. The good news is that Blizzard has recently stated that they are currently looking into increasing the strength, survivabilty and usefulness of Diablo 3 followers. No word yet on if this will be a feature of the upcoming patch 1.0.5. However, in a recent post on the Battle.net forums Blizzard mentions that patch 1.0.5 will include more features than have recently been announced.

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Diablo 3 Billionaire Strategy Guide

New Diablo 3 Shrines In The Works?

Blizzard has hinted at the possibility of adding new shrine types in Diablo 3 in a recent forum post on the battle.net forums. The possibility of adding enlightened shrines in inferno mode was also mentioned. The full post is quoted below:

We actually talked about introducing additional Shrine types in the future during a meeting we had earlier today. We’re also currently discussing the possibility of adding the Enlightenment Shrine into Inferno mode since the +XP bonus would be particularly appealing to players working towards their Paragon levels.
 

 Source: Battle.net Forum

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Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.5 Crowd Control Changes

Some new changes to crowd control skills in Diablo 3 are being planned and will be featured in the upcoming release of patch 1.0.5. The development team has decided on creating some new rules to improve the diminishing returns of crowd control skills in the higher difficulty levels of the game.

The details of the current planned changes to crowd control skills are as follows:

How It Works:

• Monsters have a "CC resistance" that is stored on a per-monster basis.
• The CC resistance starts at 0%.  For every 1 second CC that is applied to the monster, the monster receives 10% CC resistance.
• Monsters lose 10% of their CC resistance every second that they are not CC’d.
• Elite monster CC resistance is capped at the current reduction values already active for Elites. 
• In other words, CC resistance on most Elite monsters is capped to:
• 35% in Normal
• 50% in Nightmare
• 65% in Hell
• 65% in Inferno

What This Means For the Player:

• From a high level, diminishing returns are applied on consecutive stuns to reduce their effectiveness.
• You will never get an "Immune" message due to diminishing returns.
• Diminishing returns on Elite monsters cap out at the same values that are currently applied to Elite reductions.
• As previous mentioned, this means that near-infinite CC strategies will still work.  We're okay with these strategies remaining viable, as we love how powerful it makes players feel. (That said, we will continue to keep an eye on these strategies and may make some changes in the future if we feel it will be better for the health of the game.)
• If two players are in a co-op game, the order in which they apply their stuns doesn't generally matter, so you shouldn't feel totally "screwed over" by the other person applying their stun before yours.
• A character using only the occasional CC every 10-15 seconds will always get the full duration in all difficulty levels.

Source: Battle.net Blog

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Diablo 3 Speed: Power Leveling Strategy Guide

Diablo 3 Invulnerable Barbarian Exploit

Amazingly, just after yesterday's invulnerable wizard bug, there is another exploit making the rounds, this time allowing for an invulnerable barbarian. Expect that this new exploit, like the last one, will be patched very soon. Until then, watch this video for more details.

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Inferno Codex: The Ultimate Diablo 3 Strategy Guide

Diablo 3 Invulnerable Wizard Hotfix

As we reported earlier, a new Diablo 3 exploit was recently discovered which allowed wizard characters to become invulnerable. Blizzard has posted a response on the battle.net forums and are currently patching the bug, which explains the current emergency server maintenance restarts.


Source: Battle.net Forum

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Diablo 3 God-Mode Invincibility Exploit?

Lately a lot of rumors have been going around about a new found exploit in Diablo 3 that allows players playing the wizard character class to become invincible. No doubt that, if the rumors be true, Blizzard is already taking measures to quickly patch the bug. Take a look at the video below to see the exploit in action.




Source: Gameranx.com

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Diablo 3 Upcoming PVP And Legendary Item Features

In a recent interview Blizzard's Jay Wilson talked some about Diablo 3's upcoming PVP features and changes to legendary items. The fine points of the interview are as follows:

Player vs Player

• PVP will occur as an arena style deathmatch.
• Players will be able to create a team of four characters to compete against an opposing team of four players.
• An automated match-making system will also be in place for team building for those players who need teammates.
• PVP matches will last for up to ten minutes.
• PVP mode will also feature an announcer.

Legendaries

• Legendary items are currently being upgraded.
• New loot technologies are being added to the game which will allow for some really cool new legendary item features.

Source: Gameranx.com

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Diablo 3 Billionaire Strategy Guide

Blizzard's Mike Morhaime Addresses Diablo 3 Players

Blizzard's president, and co-founder, Mike Morhaim, has recently written a long post addressed to Diablo 3 players on the battle.net forums. The post, discussing the release and also the future of Diablo 3, reads as follows:

Dear Diablo Players,

Now that Diablo III has been out for two months, I would like to take a step back and discuss the launch, the feedback from the community, and talk about what the future holds for the game.

We’ve had an enormous amount of feedback since the launch. I speak for everyone at Blizzard when I say that we appreciate the passion and affection many of you have for the Diablo series. We truly believe “Every Voice Matters,” so I want to thank you for sharing your experiences in an effort to help us improve the game. Your support makes it possible for us to continue doing what we do, and we never take that for granted.

The launch week of Diablo III was memorable for many reasons -- some positive, and some not so positive. We were thrilled that Diablo III had the biggest PC-game launch ever, surpassing the lifetime sales of Cataclysm (the previous record holder for biggest PC-game launch) in a matter of weeks. We’ve been floored by the response.

However, the launch had many challenges as well. It has always been difficult to forecast how many players we will have. With World of Warcraft, it was a challenge to handle the immediate demand when we launched back in 2004, and that was just in North America. We eventually expanded to other regions and reached nearly 5 million players by the end of the first year, and there were a lot of growing pains with that. However, we’ve never gone from 0 to more than 6 million players across multiple continents within a few days with a brand-new game. For Diablo III, we looked at historical sales for Blizzard games and other top-selling PC games and watched preorder numbers. We even upped our estimates to ensure we had additional capacity, or so we thought. In the end, it just wasn’t enough, and that is something we will work hard to conquer for future releases.

In response to the immediate and overwhelming demand for the game, the team worked around the clock to support all regions, increase capacity, ship additional hardware to our datacenters, and troubleshoot and fix bugs as they sprang up. While things have by and large been running smoothly for several weeks now, various game-related issues have come up that we have either already responded to or are continuing to investigate (such as the latency issue some of you are experiencing) and make adjustments for. Rather than address every subject individually, I’ll just say that even as we work to address or resolve current issues, it’s always possible that further issues will crop up. We hope that our actions in the past have demonstrated that above all else, we’re committed to delivering an awesome game experience, and we hope you’ll have faith that we will continue to keep that commitment and respond to any new or outstanding issues quickly.

We are not satisfied with breaking launch records; we want people to continue playing and enjoying Blizzard games for a very long time. The Diablo III team has made an epic, entertaining, and beautiful gaming experience. That being said, we know that it isn’t perfect. Our teams are working hard to improve the game balance, build on our design, and listen to what players are saying to make it the best game it can be.

You’ve seen some of that work already in patch 1.0.3, and you’ll see additional improvements with patch 1.0.4. On the game balance front, this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team’s goal of promoting “build diversity,” with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities. Another topic we’ve seen actively discussed is the fact that better, more distinct Legendary items are needed. We agree. Patch 1.0.4 will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won’t be expecting.

We’re also working on a number of interface updates, including social improvements that will allow players to more easily view their friends’ achievements, more quickly join games, and more efficiently communicate with each other. In addition, we’ll be making updates to the auction house in the future to provide players with better information through tooltips and notices, offer improved search functionality, and more.

Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Black market trading sites can put accounts at risk and create many customer service challenges. We felt that the players themselves also deserved the opportunity to benefit from the extra loot they found, as opposed to having all of the benefit go to the black market/illegal trading organizations. We know the auction house isn’t perfect, but with your help and feedback, we’ll be able to continue making it a better experience for those who choose to use it. On the flipside, we are also committed to ensuring you have a great experience with Diablo III without feeling like the auction house is mandatory, which was never our intention. Thank you for all the feedback about that.

One other common topic we’ve seen in the forums is the always-connected experience, and the perception that the online requirement is nothing but an ineffective form of copy protection that has already been cracked. While we’ve never said that this requirement guarantees that there will be no cheating or game cracks, it does help us battle those problems (we have not found any fully functional cracks). More important to us is that the online requirement is critical for the long-term integrity of the game experience. I fully understand the desire to play Diablo III offline; however, Diablo III was designed from the beginning to be an online game that can be enjoyed with friends, and the always-online requirement is the best way for us to support that design. The effectiveness of the online elements -- including the friends list and cross-game communication; co-op matchmaking; persistent characters that you can use by yourself, with others, and in PvP; and some of our customer support, service, and security components -- is tied directly to the online nature of the game. These and other online-enabled features are essential to our design for Diablo III. That said, there are still improvements we believe we can make to expand the online experience and make co-op play even more rewarding, and this will remain one of our priorities moving forward. Overall, while there are some downsides to the online-only approach, I still believe this was the best long-term decision for the game.

I know many of you are also looking forward to patch 1.1, our PvP update, which will provide new experiences and give you a whole new way to apply the skills you’ve picked up while battling demons. This patch will also build on the social and auction house changes I mentioned above, and the team will continue to fix bugs and further tune game balance as well.

We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.

As always, we appreciate your candor and passion. Your constructive feedback and thoughts are valuable -- they will continue to help us be a better company. I just want to reiterate that while we can’t claim to have ever shipped a perfect game, we are committed to supporting our games relentlessly and making improvements where we can. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

Source: Battle.net Forum

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Diablo 3 Speed: Power Leveling Strategy Guide

Diablo 3 Game Creation Limits To Be Re-Enabled Soon

In a recent battle.net forum post Blizzard has stated that they will soon be re-enabling game creation limits in Diablo 3. A few weeks back this feature was introduced to help combat cheating and the use of bots in Diablo 3, however, it had a nasty side effect affecting legit players which caused Blizzard to disable the feature.

Here is the full forum post:

In the near future, we'll be re-enabling the limit on how many games a player can create within a certain amount of time. We've further tuned and tested the conditions that trigger this limit to ensure, as much as possible, that it only affects those abusing the Diablo III game service in a way that violates the Terms of Use – for example, by using bots that create games in rapid succession.

The use of bots not only impacts the stability of the game service, but it also has an impact on the player-driven economy. While we regularly take action against accounts for the use of unauthorized third-party programs and bots, this additional measure will help us further preserve and protect the integrity of the game and economy in between ban waves.

Once this change goes live, we're looking for your feedback to help ensure that the limit is working as intended. If you encounter the "Input limit reached" message and feel you should not have, please let us know how many games you were creating and why. This information will help us ensure the limit minimally impacts legitimate players while still protecting the game against bots.

We'll continue to tweak the game limit as necessary, as well as continue to go after the few cheaters and botters that are out there in other ways. Our goal is to help ensure that Diablo III continues to be a fun gaming environment for all of our players, and we're looking forward to hearing your feedback on this change once it goes live.

We will update this post and unlock the thread once game limits are re-enabled.

 

Source: Battle.net Forum

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Diablo 3 Gold Now Available For Real Money Auction House

Just after yesterday's maintenance period Blizzard added gold as a tradeable commodity for Diablo 3's real money auction house. Have fun buying and trading.

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Inferno Codex: The Ultimate Diablo 3 Strategy Guide

Blizzard Addresses Diablo 3 Community Questions And Suggestions

Blizzard staff has responded to a few pertinent community questions, suggestions, and player feedback in a recent post on the battle.net forums.

Here are the details:

Questions:

1) You said you're inherently okay with players stacking certain stats over others. If this is the case, why did you nerf IAS?

One of the biggest issues we discovered with IAS was that it actively limited build diversity. While IAS was pretty strong on its own, when coupled with certain gear and skill combinations, it simply became too alluring for a lot of players to ignore. So, instead of seeing an increase in gear and skill diversity over time, what we actually saw was more and more players shifting to IAS-focused builds almost exclusively. On a scale large, it was crippling experimentation and skill diversity.

A lot of players think we reduced the value of IAS because it made characters too powerful. While that's not a totally unreasonable conclusion to jump to, it's definitely not true. We don't think "doing a lot of damage" or "doing too much damage" is enough reason for us to nerf something outright. IAS was an outlier -- it's not that it made characters too powerful, but rather that it caused a few builds to become vastly superior to others. On top of that, it introduced a ton of bugs just due to how fast characters were attacking when stacked to its upper limits.

The initial iteration of IAS was flawed in many ways. So, in effort to promote skill diversity and remove several game-impacting bugs from the environment, we reduced the value overall. We're fairly happy with where IAS is right now, as well as skill diversity in general (though we're going to need to do some additional skill balancing to bring it up to where we want).

2) So, when are you going to nerf Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage affixes?

We've no plans to nerf +Crit Chance or +Crit Damage. While +Crit Chance and +Crit Damage are very strong right now, there's nothing inherently wrong with something being strong. As mentioned above, players doing too much damage is not enough reason for us to bring out the nerf bat. Neither affix is having a negative impact on build diversity (we're seeing a pretty good balance overall), and there aren't any technical issues with them being stacked to higher values. It's something we're keeping an eye on of course.

3) Why aren't monster affix combinations restricted in some way?

Monster affixes are actually grouped into categories and then restricted based on those categories (to a degree). Our restrictions aren't as tight as some players have suggested, but in the end we found that adding extra limitations often made Elite pack encounters very predictable and repetitive, which kind of went against our design goal for these types of monsters.

We know that not all players will see eye-to-eye with us on how these categories are organized, and we expect some criticism and disagreement, especially from such a passionate group of gamers. While we're happy with where affix combos are right now, we're open to feedback and especially constructive discussion. :)

Here are the categories:

"Strong CC" (Limit 1):

• Knockback
• Nightmarish
• Vortex

"Defensive" (Limit 1):

• Avenger
• Extra Health
• Health Link
• Horde
• Illusionist
• Missile Dampening
• Invulnerable Minions
• Shielding
• Vampiric

"Aggressive" (No Limit):

• Arcane Enchanted
• Desecrator
• Electrified
• Fast
• Fire Chains
• Frozen
• Jailer
• Molten
• Mortar
• Plagued
• Reflects Damage
• Teleporter
• Waller

4) Is Whimsyshire considered an Act I or Act IV zone?

It's considered an Act III/Act IV zone, depending on difficulty. The monsters in Hell are considered Hell - Act IV monsters, and the monsters in Inferno are considered Inferno - Act III/Act IV monsters. The drop rates buffs from June 28 affect the zone accordingly.

Suggestions:

1) Allow to gems to stack up to 100.

Totally reasonable request. We're looking into it!

(We originally set the stack size to 30 so it would fit in with the other "3" gem values. Now that it only requires 2 gems to combine into the next tier and the pattern has been broken, we've no issue increasing the base stack size. Good suggestion.)

2) Allow players to create multiple gems and items with just one click, if you have enough materials.

No plans right now to implement this kind of automated queuing for crafting.

3) Allow users to buy multiple health potions with one click.

Also a cool idea! We're looking into it.

4) Allow the Town Healer to heal your active follower too.

Ditto. We'll definitely consider this.

5) Add an option to block follower conversations.

Understandable annoyance, but no plans at this time to add in an option. Still good feedback!


Source: Battle.net Forum

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Inferno Codex: The Ultimate Diablo 3 Strategy Guide

Blizzard Talks Diablo 3 End-Game Sustainability

Fact is, Diablo 3 is still only around a month and a half old. With the game still so young, there are going to be a lot of issues left to address, and a lot of content still yet to be added. The good news is that Blizzard has been showing recently that they are thinking ahead and open to player feedback.

To give you some idea of what Diablo 3's future holds, here is the latest forum post by Blizzard addressing end-game sustainability:

We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now.

We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it's a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out.

Source: Battle.net Forum

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New Diablo 3 Real Money Auction House Commodities Available Soon

Blizzard has recently announced that some new commodities will soon be available for trading in Diablo 3's real money auction house. However, it should be noted that trading gold as a commodity will not be included in the update but will be available at a later date.

The tradeable commodities include the following:

• Gems
• Dyes
• Crafting Materials
• Blacksmithing Plans
• Jewler Designs
• Pages of Training

Source: Battle.net Forum

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Diablo 3 Billionaire Strategy Guide

Blizzard Weighs Options On Diablo 3 Magic Find Gear Swapping

A new blog post by Blizzard lays out several options on the table that they are considering to help with the issues of magic find gear switching in Diablo 3. They are asking fans for their input regarding the issue, so if you would like to voice your opinion you can do so here. Battle.net Forum Post: Magic Find Gear Swapping.


Quoting from the blog post:

Since release it has become an increasingly common practice to keep a Magic Find (MF) set in your inventory, and swap it in shortly before a kill. Philosophically we don't have a problem with the practice. While players getting more Magic Find for their kills isn't a game breaker for us, many players have said they don't enjoy doing it but feel the benefit is too large to ignore. Since the call for a solution really comes from all of you, we'd like to invite you to chime in with your opinion on what the solution could be.

It's worth keeping in mind that if we do implement a method to alleviate gear-swapping in combat, we'll simultaneously be looking at ways for players to get an added MF bonus to compensate.

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Here are the solutions we're currently considering, and would appreciate your feedback and opinion on what seems the most reasonable for you, and why:

Option 1: Set a Magic Find Cap

We could set an MF cap between something like 100% and 200%. Nephalem Valor provides 75%, so you would need between 25% and 125% to reach the hard cap. Everyone could find ways to hit the cap for MF% on their gear and then stop.

Pros: Creates a gearing-game around trying to hit the "MF% cap" that some players enjoy. It also solves the swapping issue for people with enough gear to hit the cap. Players who want to min-max and gear swap can do so, and players who think it's stupid but feel "compelled" can try to hit the new cap instead.

Cons: Depending on where the cap is set, it may not actually alleviate gear swapping, and players who wish they didn’t have to will feel compelled to do so. It also devalues a highly valuable stat, and desired stats mean desired gear, which helps diversify the item hunt.

Option 2: Slowly Adjust Magic Find Over Time

When you equip an item with Magic Find, we don't let your MF% change right away. Instead your Magic Find slowly "drifts" towards the target Magic Find -- potentially something like 1% every 3 seconds. If you open up your Character Details sheet, you can see the number change "8%... 9%... 10%." Even though you could in theory switch to Magic Find gear for the killing blow and get a few extra percent, it’s probably not worth it. 

Pros: High degree of visibility as your stat sheet updates. Still allows you to swap your gear when you get an upgrade in the world without having to feel bad about putting the item on. 

Cons: May not alleviate the problem for players who still feel compelled to get a few extra MF%. Depending on the rate, some players may just swap in an item during the last 20 seconds of a fight even though they don’t want to.

Option 3: Use your average MF% or your lowest MF% of the last 5 minutes

We could sample your MF% every 30 seconds or so and create a moving average, or use the lowest MF% the game has seen on your character in the last few minutes. 

Pros: A lot of the same benefits as Solution 2, but harder to game. Still allows you to switch gear when you get an upgrade, which is great. 

Cons: Difficult to communicate. We'd have to communicate this on the Details page somehow, but during normal gameplay there could be the sense of not knowing what your "moving average" is and wanting to look at it. Magic Find is already a difficult number to feel at any point in time, so hidden rules that modify Magic Find feel that much worse.

Option 4: Zero-Out Your MF% for 3 Minutes After Swapping Gear 

When you swap gear, your Magic Find is disabled for 3 minutes.

Pros: Absolutely effective at discouraging gear swaps. Still allows you to swap gear when you find an upgrade, and the 3 minute duration is probably short enough that if you kill an Elite pack and get an upgrade, you can put that upgrade on and have your Magic Find active again by the time you get to the next pack. 

Cons: Players who are unfamiliar with the system may open up their details page and see their Magic Find as 0% and not understand why. We could mitigate this by making the 0% MF colored with a tooltip stating the countdown until your Magic Find would work again, as well as what your Magic Find will be when the time expires.

Option 5: Gear Swapping Interacts with Nephalem Valor

There's a whole class of solutions that interact with Nephalem Valor. For example, we could remove a stack of Nephalem Valor when you swap a piece of gear. 

Pros: Stops gear swapping just for the last kill, while still allowing the player the option to do so. 

Cons: Some players will lose a stack by accident. We could put a confirmation box in to address accidental loss of a stack, but game-interrupting popups are potentially character-killing. It also causes co-op players to drop out of sync. One person may switch gear and lose a stack or two, and if it happens before a boss they'll want to clear two more packs before hitting the boss, but the other party members may not want to -- causing some tense social situations in co-op play. Finally, it tightly couples two systems together and generally tightly-coupled systems don't function over the long haul as well as loosely-coupled systems. In other words, future changes to the Nephalem Valor system or the Magic Find system (or systems related to those two systems) become harder to make as both systems would be impacted.

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While we're having our own discussions and tests of how well these options could work, we’re interested to hear your thoughts. We’d mainly like to hear which approaches you like, if there are any specifics you like or don't like about it, and why. Having the context of how this affects you personally really helps us.

Source: Battle.net Blog

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Inferno Codex: The Ultimate Diablo 3 Strategy Guide

Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.3b Delayed

The release of Diablo 3's patch 1.0.3b, which was slated to be delivered later this week, has been delayed due to some testing issues. However, some new hotfix udpates (originally part of patch 1.0.3b) are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. The hotfixes include changes to increase the drops for inferno difficulty.


Source: Battle.net Forum

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Diablo 3 Billionaire Strategy Guide

Some Diablo 3 Digital Download Restrictions Removed

Along with patch 1.0.3a Blizzard has removed a few of the temporary restrictions to the Diablo 3 digital download version. As we reported earlier, those who purchased the Diablo 3 digital download version of the game were not allowed full access to all gaming features until their payment was fully verified. Gamers could be stuck playing a limited demo-like version of Diablo 3 until payment was verified and in some cases this process could take up to 72 hours. These restrictions were put in place by Blizzard as a security measure to deter credit card fraud.

Blizzard will now be removing the level 13 character cap restriction and will also allow for further exploration beyond the Act 1 area restrictions. However, for security reasons, many temporary restrictions will still be in place, such as:

• No public game access for unverified digital purchasers.
• No auction house access (real-money or gold) for unverified digital purchasers.
• Unverified digital purchasers cannot trade items or drop items for other players to receive.
• Unverified digital purchasers are not able to chat in any public or game channels.
• Unverified digital purchasers cannot attach a custom message to friend requests, but they can send/accept friend requests, and play with their friends.
• Global Play is not available for unverified digital purchasers.

Source: Battle.net Forum

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