• Home
  • Reddit Q&A Roundup

Reddit Q&A Roundup

by - 9 years ago

The Diablo dev team did a Reddit Q&A session over on /r/Diablo earlier today where they answered a lot of questions regarding Season 4, Patch 2.3, and the future of Diablo 3. You can check out some of the more interesting responses down below!

  • They are aware of the efficiency gap between solo play and group play (more detailed answer down below).
  • The team wants to add a more valuable gold sink to the game and has something in the works for patch 2.4.
  • They think that adding a tooltip to show if a legendary has been extracted into Kanai’s Cube is a cool idea.
  • No plans to allow players to craft Ramaladni’s Gift with Kanai’s Cube
  • Pride of the Invoker set has been reworked for patch 2.4 and will fully embrace the thorns theme.
  • The Shadow’s Mantle, Might of the Earth, Jade Harvester, Firebird’s, Akkhan’s, Invoker’s, and Marauder’s sets are already reworked and will be making their way into patch 2.4
  • They want to make it easier to keep track of buffs.
  • There are currently no plans for a stat squish.
  • They want to add more viable options for weapon sockets.
  • There is a special event that happens with King Kanai based on what month it is.
  • They think they made some good steps with build diversity in patch 2.3 and hope to continue to do so.
  • No plans to change any of the paragon stats.
  • There are no plans as of now to add any purchasable cosmetics or stash space.
  • They have been discussing ideas internally about how to provide appealing gem sinks, but they have nothing to announce at this time.
  • They plan on adding new recipes to Kanai’s Cube in the future but have no plans of changing existing ones.
  • There may be some hidden recipes in Kanai’s Cube that no one has discovered.
  • Shadow’s Mantle will be a melee based set for Demon Hunters
  • They will also be allowing Demon Hunters to equip both a melee weapon and a quiver.

 

Any plans for gold sink? I’m 20 hours into my S4 character with 600m+ gold…

We want gold to be a more valuable resource to players and have some designs in the works to this end in our next patch.

TravisDay

 

Is it possible to add or add any sort of indicator, to show that a legendary item has its power already extracted in the cube?

Thanks, jiminee, that would be useful and we will look at it.

Blizz_KevinMartens

 

Can we get a way to craft Ramalandi’s gift via cube? Even if its hyper expensive…

This is a popular request but we have no plan to do anything of this sort. Ramaladni’s Gift is a very useful item and also completely unique in what it does, it’s great that players want them and I would prefer to have more things like the gift that are totally unique and exciting to find.

TravisDay

 

Any plans on Thorns? The latest scaling buff was nice, but it’s still lacking faaar behind any other sets. Now that the Invoker Set only drops for Crusader, I expect there to be more changes to Thorns in the future.

Thorns is something we have iterated on in the past and continue to evaluate. Patch 2.3 increased the damage bonus given from primary stats to its full value which makes it slightly better. Our current plan is to fully embrace the thorns theme of the Invoker set and we are working on a revamp for the set in 2.4.

TravisDay

 

Hey guys! First off all, I would like to say a big thank you to all of you guys at the dev office. The patch is freaking awesome and I love it! My question would be the next: With so many newer and stronger class sets, some of the old class sets (e.g. Firebird’s Finery, Jade Harvester) became extremely weak. Are there any plans to rework these sets in the near future? (possible 2.4?) I really like Firebird Wizard, but it is just so underwhelming right now… Thanks for answering, and keep rocking! Edit: Typo

Yes, 100%, absolutely. Internally, we have already updated, revamped, or redesigned completely many of the 6pc sets that are currently not seeing use. The ones that are already done include Shadow’s Mantle, Might of the Earth, Jade Harvester, Firebird’s, Akkhan’s, Invoker’s, and Marauder’s. Sunwuko and Inna’s is being worked on. The goal is to bring all of these sets up to the power level of the current top 2.3 sets/builds.

You all will see these updates in the near future in patch 2.4.

_JohnYang

 

Certain builds require keeping an eye on your buffs to maximize your damage (for example Tal’Rasha, Taeguk, Convention of Elements). However, when playing in a party, these buffs can disappear once you get more than 8 buffs. Is it possible to allow players to choose which buffs they always want to see, so these buffs are easier to track?

The inability to see important buffs that affect your moment-to-moment gameplay is something we want to address.

We have been avoiding simply adding more buffs because having a large number of buffs on the screen is not only visually unappealing, but it can be just as frustrating to locate the buff that you care about in a sea of buffs.

I view buffs broadly in 3 categories Category 1: “Always On” buffs. Really obvious ones are the Multiplayer buff, or when there is a Community event in place. These buffs are great to know, but they take up one of your precious buff slots. Monk Mantras are a slightly less “always” version of this. If I’m in a party with a monk wearing Inna’s, suddenly all players in the party have half of their buff slots tied up.

Category 2: “Reassuring buffs”. These are buffs that you want to know they are on you, but they don’t affect your moment to moment gameplay. A good example of this would be Storm armor on the Wizard, or Frenzy stacks on a Barbarian. Many times you want to know the skill is working correctly, but you aren’t checking on the buff in the heat of combat

Category 3: “Moment-to-moment buffs”. These are the buffs that actually affect you moment-to-moment and are usually the source of complaints. Focus and Restraint are a great example here.

Overall our goal is to find alternate ways to communicate Category 1 and Category 2 buffs so that Category 3 buffs can take center stage on the buff bar.

We don’t have anything to share at this time, but I assure you that with the introduction of all the extra powers players have from Kanai’s Cube, combined with new legendary items that make you powerful but require some degree of buff tracking (vyr’s / chantodo’s comes to mind) the desire to address this is greater than ever

wyattcheng

 

Have you, or are you considering a “Stat Squish” at some point? It would make the numbers a lot more manageable for players, and I’m certain smaller numbers wouldn’t hurt server performance.

We aren’t currently planning a stat squish or a change to damage numbers display though both have been discussed. This is something that we monitor.

Blizz_KevinMartens

 

Diablo III has been quite the ride. Since its release, we’ve had a new act, a new class, a new play mode, new character skills, new sets, changes to old sets, new bounties, new rifts, a new rift type, new gems, seasons, new difficulties… everything has changed, except for one thing: the ONLY option for a weapon socket is an emerald. Will this ever change?

I am hugely in favor of this. In general I love balance in all things because that means more than one choice is good.

For the case of gems in weapons, buffing Amethyst is a great idea, because the benefit it provides (+Life on Hit) is a completely different choice from the current leading gem – Emerald = Critical Hit Damage. Buffing Diamonds (+Elite damage) and Rubies (+Flat damage) is slightly less interesting because it will probably come down to one mathematically correct answer depending on the weapon and build. Lastly, our goal is to have Topaz be the gem to use for the Invoker’s set.

_JohnYang

 

Hey guys! Thanks for this Q&A. This patch has been great, a real blast. Especially with the introduction of Kanai and Kanai’s Cube. It was incredible going through the Ruins in search of the cube, and coming upon a lore book that speaks of this legendary warrior. Then, I would get chills realizing that this was based on a real person, and their memory. My question is, what was the character creation process like with Kanai, and how were you effected during Kanai’s creation? Thanks again for an amazing patch!

Thanks for the kind words.

The most important thing was to make sure that we were paying homage to him. For example we didn’t want players to click on Kanai while he was sitting on the throne, that didn’t feel right to us.

There is also a hidden event surrounding Kanai that is based on what month it is. That event really was a way for us to play one last time with him, to have him adventure with us again.

As to how it affected people on the team; there are no words I can use that would properly convey how important this was to us. The hole this has left in our team is one that cannot be filled and shouldn’t be filled.

Thank you for the kind question.

BlizzMatthewBerger

 

what are your thoughts on the current build diversity? 

I will never be happy with build diversity until every build is completely equal in power level for both the top players and average players. This is a hugeNo plans o goal of ours every patch. That said, it’s really really hard to achieve perfect balance because we don’t have a large team of the top players testing every build every patch for a long period of time.

I will say that I think it’s improved in 2.3. We saw Barbarians get a Hammer of the Ancients and Seismic Slam + IK build to compete with the top WW builds. WW+Rend is also now a thing (again). Witch Doctors saw Helltooth builds perform near equal to Carnevil builds. Monks now have a generator build and a Uliana’s build. If we do our jobs right this trend will continue.

_JohnYang

 

Any Plans to change some of the Paragon Stats? for example Gold find or thinks like maximum mana are kind of worthless in my opinion

Maximum max resource is useful for Hammer of the Ancients build!

To answer your question – we have no plans to change some of the paragon stats.

_JohnYang

 

Are there plans on adding purchasable cosmetic items, such as pets, portraits, wings, etc.? I ask because it seems like the new wardrobe screen seems to be a lot bigger than necessary for one or two pets/wings.

There are a lot of different factors that go into decisions like this, including various regional or local market considerations. We know that some of these features would be ones that players in several regions might enjoy, but we don’t currently have plans to support these in other regions.

That said – I love that there is room for lots of pets, wings and portrait frames. I hope we’ll be able to use this system for various rewards. For example many of you may have seen that you can earn a unique Heroes of the Storm Portrait Frame and Pennant for reaching account level 12 in Heroes. There’s also the Season Journey rewards with the Frost Hound pet and the cool new Portrait Frames. (I just got my Slayer in Hardcore last night, working on Destroyer next!)

wyattcheng

 

Is a proper gem sink being considered, maybe via a cube recipe or whatnot? As it stands, gem are in high demand early into a season and then they become even more inflated than gold.

We have been internally discussing ideas to provide appealing gem sinks in the game in an upcoming patch. No details to announce yet though.

TravisDay

 

Can we see more/improved Kanai recipes down the road? Such as removing the 9 gem limit, or reforging ancients.

The cube has been incredibly well received and we are very happy with it. We plan on adding more recipes over time but there are no plans to change any of the existing recipes as they each have a very unique purpose that we are happy with.

TravisDay

 

Are there any hidden recipes with the Cube that have yet to be discovered?

No comment. (This is technically a comment but does it mean anything about recipes? Does it???)

Blizz_KevinMartens

 

Any chance for a “close-quarters” DH build? They have plenty of knife based skills.

Done! The Shadow’s Mantle set is the redesign that I’m the most excited about for 2.4 so far. The idea of a melee-weapon oriented build that doesn’t involve bows/xbows has always been in the back of my mind. Here’s what it currently looks like:

2pc While equipped with a melee weapon, all damage is increased by 1000%. 4pc Shadow Power gains all runes and lasts forever. 6pc Impale deals 30000% weapon damage to the first enemy it hits.

The idea is that the set is extremely strong on single-target damage, but weak on AoE. To help with that, a new dagger will have the power “Every second, the damage of your next Fan of Knives is increased by 250-300%.” To help with movement, a pair of bracers has the power “After using Impale, Vault costs no resource for 2 seconds.” That item will allow you to Vault into position to Impale the high-value targets.

Additionally, we’re also allowing Demon Hunters to use melee weapons with quivers because the fantasy of this quick-moving assassin build is about speed, not walking around with a shield 😉

_JohnYang

 

Right now the gap in efficiency between solo play and group play is quite large, does your team have any plans to not necessary completely close the gap but at least narrow it somewhat?

I realize this is a hot topic right now in the community and I know a lot of people are eager to understand how we determine the right rewards for single player versus multiplayer game modes. I’d like to go in depth on this question especially.

For us it is an issue than the efficiency of groups who are stacking XP% don’t get to wear their awesome, face-melting gear. The game should be about slaughtering monsters to get rewarded with epic loot. It’s a lot less fun when you don’t get to do the slaughtering.

Exacerbating the situation isn’t experience farming itself, it’s how different the activity is from other activities in the game. I was listening to State of Sanctuary and one of the hosts actually mentioned this – in 2.1 XP farming wasn’t considered as big a deal, not only because the rate of XP gain wasn’t as large, but more importantly, XP was a natural by-product of trying to get legendary items, blood shards, or generally melting faces. Today, the activity that maximizes your experience per hour is no longer the same as the one that maximizes blood shards and legendaries with a poweful build. Because the activities aren’t the same, it forces players to choose between playing the core game as it was designed and wearing XP% gear in a specifically calibrated environment. We agree that these activities need to be re-aligned again, and that’s what we’re re-examining.

Some people have asked if our intent in changing experience sharing in Patch 2.3.0 was to better balance multiplayer rewards. Functionally speaking though, there isn’t a difference before and after the patch. Players can still wear the exact same amount of bonus XP gear and perform about as well in Greater Rifts. The difference is that before only 2 people would be getting all the benefit. How the rewards are split is a separate topic from whether XP gear provides too much benefit.

Let’s talk philosophy. We want people to play together. I think everybody understands that groups should be better than solo, but there’s debate about how much that difference should be. If I’m playing by myself and then a friend joins me, I should be a little bit better off, right?

The issue is that this is only true when you and your friend are exactly the same power level. Realistically, in Diablo III, the power level of players varies widely. You may be in full Ancient gear with your 6-piece set bonuses and all the appropriate complementary legendaries while your friend only has their 4-piece bonus and a non-ancient weapon. Is it okay for your friend to join your game and your experience to be worse?

We took a long look at the way the game has evolved over the last three years and made a judgment call: as much as possible, we want a friend joining your game to make your experience better, not worse. People shouldn’t feel they need to inspect you when you join a public game and your friend that stopped playing for two months shouldn’t feel like a burden for wanting to play with you. Generally, you should prefer to have company in your game than not.

Then there’s the suggestion that we should remove the 30% bonus to experience gain in multiplayer. It comes from a well-intentioned place. However, once you examine all the sources of advantages in multiplayer groups, that 30% experience bonus is the least significant. It’s easy to pay attention to because it’s the most visible of the multiplayer bonuses, so it’s also perceived as the most advantageous.

Here are the main advantages to playing multiplayer and farming experience:

Adding an extra person increases potential damage up to 100% or more, but monster health only increases by 50%. Similarly, in a 4-player game, monster health doesn’t scale to four times the amount in solo; it only goes up 2.5 times the amount. This is clearly a greater benefit than 30% experience. Another source of advantage for groups is skill synergy. When groups are synergizing their group buffs and enemy debuffs to their maximum, the advantage provided blows the 30% experience bonus out of the water. Finally, another source of advantage for farming XP is being able to have some people in XP% gear. As noted previously, the problem here isn’t that the XP% is averaged, it’s that the XP% gear has such a positive effect at all. The fact that it’s averaged now just means everybody benefits, which is better than only the people wearing the gear benefitting (despite everybody contributing). It also removes the social awkwardness of arguing over who gets to wear the XP gear. If you feel that XP% gear shouldn’t be this good in the first place (regardless of whether you’re in a group), then that’s fair. My long explanation is to explain why we are happy with the 30% bonus in groups, but we are examining the other 3 major contributors to see what we can do there to shrink the gap between solo and group play while still keeping group play better – even when your undergeared friend joins.

wyattcheng

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


hotstreak

-


Comments are closed.