1.0.0 Balance Changes

I don't know. I'm excited for release but damn. I don't even see a significant benefit when I farm (at the expense of serious defense) with MF gear on at 39/229. I hope the diminishing return starts really late in the curve or this will be yet another way people who don't exploit a single mechanic will suffer because of those who do.

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There's slightly less emphasis on personal MF values and more on environmental ones. We believe that's a good thing.

The problem is that you're providing VERY specific environmental MF variables that a person chooses to engage in or not on a very hard to get to and small number of mobs compared to everything else, at the cost of a personal MF nerf to everyone, whether they decide to farm bosses or not.

And since you're adding DoT scaling, has the DoT/IIR problem been fixed or will that only create more drop problems for DoT builds that want to use those gems?

I don't quite understand a lot of the other 'balance' changes. The stalling point in terms of gearing has ALWAYS felt to be around 65-70 and 4L and 5Ls aren't incredibly hard to come by either. Am I even playing the same game as everyone else? And with flat cost aura's moving to % even the cookie cutter builds I leveled recently to give me a shot at progressing will be harder to play solo.

And lastly, are the Quest rewards for Cruel any different than the rare items we currently get for quest rewards? Because the vast majority of rares I've ever gotten from quest rewards were absolute garbage but you make it sound like they'll be almost guaranteed upgrades that just need fused.

I'll roll with it.. whatever. But forcing people into even LESS rewarding play sessions because a handful of people who can play all day have too much wealth just seems like a really good way to disappoint a lot of people who can't play all day or at the level of people who can. I play a LOT for an adult with a full time job. But I walk a way from a lot of play sessions feeling totally unrewarded as it is. If I'm doing something wrong after leveling as many characters as I have then maybe it's time I just give up.

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We're roughly doubling the rate of item drops from important bosses in Merciless difficulty. We want Vaal, Piety and Dominus runs to be a great way to stock up on rares and Unique items. While you won't find the absolute best top-tier gear from these bosses, they're probably the most time-efficient way to get a lot of wealth that can be traded with mappers.

No chance at AP/Lunaris-->7-10 min Bossruns--->Too long

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Many players want to kick off their shoes when they get home from work and farm The Docks (or similar areas) for hours without having to think about the difficulty of running Maps or Bosses. While this strategy obviously can't yield the best items in the game, we've decided that players should be able to get to level 100 eventually by playing these areas. We're changing the experience equation so that you don't encounter as much experience dropoff farming late Merciless difficulty. This won't make it any faster than it currently is for players to get to level 100, but it will open up area farming as a way to get there (so that you don't have to be part of a 74+ mapping group to have a shot at the upper ladder).

Patch 1.0.x "Due several players botting docks 24/7 we decided to change it back"

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Maps are the best place to find end-game base types and high Unique items. This is appropriate because they're gated behind high currency requirements (to reroll the mods you want). In addition, the highest ones are great for experience gain. They also offer the highest challenge levels for extreme players who want to test themselves against brutal combinations of mods.

Still horrible map drop chances in merciless.

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To solve this, we're making auras more powerful but are increasing their mana reservation costs. There are new aura cost reduction passives that allow you to specialise in having many auras if you still want to be a full-on aura character. Now each aura that affects you can really be felt and there's a lot more diversity in aura loadout. When we're testing high level characters it's amazing how different they feel when different combinations of auras are selected.

Why don't you limit auras to 3 and add keystones which allow +1 possible aura?
Seriously the game already has enough cost problems. Clarity being even more expensive? But then characters need a regeneration of like 200 Mana per Second without stacking manareg nodes/Eq.

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While it's completely intentional that poor character builds should struggle (to encourage people to plan a better character), we found that many players were giving up because their item progression was stalling their progress. We're making the following changes to address this:

It's approximately 233% easier to obtain four linked sockets.
It's approximately 25% easier to obtain five linked sockets.
Quest rewards for Cruel difficulty onwards have been improved so that you receive more rare items as rewards.

The links weren't a problem in Cruel. It was a major problem to pay the cost of 3-4 linked spells!




No change in Oneshot Gearcheck mechanics?Why running a passive tree then? It's just like D3 then giving the illusion the Passive tree changes anything.

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defektiv wrote:

And lastly, are the Quest rewards for Cruel any different than the rare items we currently get for quest rewards? Because the vast majority of rares I've ever gotten from quest rewards were absolute garbage but you make it sound like they'll be almost guaranteed upgrades that just need fused.

+1

item rewards == alteration shards. i had NEVER had anything even remotely useful spawn in the reward box. maybe let us pick all crap items instead of carefully selecting king-of-the-crap?

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Hilbert wrote:

"

To solve this, we're making auras more powerful but are increasing their mana reservation costs. There are new aura cost reduction passives that allow you to specialise in having many auras if you still want to be a full-on aura character. Now each aura that affects you can really be felt and there's a lot more diversity in aura loadout. When we're testing high level characters it's amazing how different they feel when different combinations of auras are selected.

Why don't you limit auras to 3 and add keystones which allow +1 possible aura?
Seriously the game already has enough cost problems. Clarity being even more expensive? But then characters need a regeneration of like 200 Mana per Second without stacking manareg nodes/Eq.

THIS THIS and SOOOOOO MUCH THIS!

1 simple question , will be skill tree reset after all these changes? ive got like 5 builds already and now to make new will take some time....

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Chris wrote:

Socket Fusing and Level 40-55 Quest Rewards
These two topics may not appear related, but we're improving both as the result of a specific observation: some players have a very tough time after around level 40 and often fail to get to the end-game.

While it's completely intentional that poor character builds should struggle (to encourage people to plan a better character), we found that many players were giving up because their item progression was stalling their progress. We're making the following changes to address this:

It's approximately 233% easier to obtain four linked sockets.
It's approximately 25% easier to obtain five linked sockets.
Quest rewards for Cruel difficulty onwards have been improved so that you receive more rare items as rewards.

That is a really really nice change. When you are leveling up on a fresh league and your damage is dropping right off, your gear sucks and the mobs are hurting the last thing you want to be doing is trying to save up fusing to make items work properly.

Aura change is interesting too. I'd agree auras are too easy to run as it is, I have a Reave ranger who uses 5 auras (Purity/Hatred/Wrath/Anger/Grace) all on mana, with no passive reduced mana investment at the same time as using Reave on mana (with Mind Drinker leech) and no broken uniques like Soul Taker. There is no choice, because I can just run all the auras I need without hassle.

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zeldzioszka wrote:

1 simple question , will be skill tree reset after all these changes? ive got like 5 builds already and now to make new will take some time....

yes

I have a question about the Chris' remark

"Farming: ... This won't make it any faster than it currently is for players to get to level 100, but it will open up area farming as a way to get there (so that you don't have to be part of a 74+ mapping group to have a shot at the upper ladder)."

What does it exactly mean? I guess the EXP gaining curve will be canged, in mid and high levels too, then it should be faster than it currently is. Or am I missiong sth?

What is this? Captains message to the world? Pff

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Everyone is given a one-off passive skill respec which allows them to alter old characters to the new balance.

means everyone get a full respec ?