Upcoming Diablo 3 patch 1.0.4 detailed
Blizzard tries to make co-op more appealing.
Diablo 3 developer Blizzard has outlined a ton of changes it'll be making to its top-selling dungeon crawler in the upcoming 1.0.4 patch due the fourth week of August.
First off, Blizzard would like more people to play in co-op. "Ideally we would like players who want to play solo to be able to solo, and players who want to play co-op to play co-op. At the moment though playing solo is the clear choice, even for those who would prefer co-op with some of their friends," said senior technical game designer Wyatt Cheng on the official blog
To accomplish this, Blizzard will be removing averaging of Magic Find and Gold Find in multiplayer games, so players will benefit from their full Magic Find stats independent of other players.
"We originally added Magic Find averaging so optimal play did not involve people stacking what we call 'adventure stats' to the detriment of their party. While this may re-emerge as a problem, we think the current solution feels like too much of a penalty, and is doing more harm than good," .
The health multiplier for monsters per additional player will also be lowered to a flat 75 per cent for all difficulty levels, as opposed to the scaling 75/85/95/110 per cent it is now. "This makes enemies far more manageable in co-op games, and rewards a co-ordinated group with a higher farming efficiency than playing alone," Cheng explained.
Additionally, Blizzard would like to shrink the gap between normal monsters and the champions and rare ones. "Normal monsters die quickly and are usually just fodder, and champions and rares can feel like a brick wall. In general we're looking to bring normal enemies up a smidge, and champions and rares down."
Weapon damage will also be retooled significantly. "One of the general improvements we'd like to make to our item game addresses the difference between an item having a chance of being good vs. knowing the item isn't going to be good before you even identify it," said Cheng. "To help give weapons a fighting chance, the raw damage value on all level 61 and 62 weapons will be able to roll damage that extends all the way to the top end of level 63."
Enrage timers are being removed from champion and rare monster packs. They'll still be used on bosses however, but Cheng said, "The original intent behind enrage timers was to have a few encounters that served as a 'DPS check' that also add tension and excitement. Due to the randomness of champion and rare monsters, combined with a general philosophy of efficient farming, this was simply the wrong approach for us to take."
Repair costs will be reduced on high-end item by 25 per cent as Blizzard felt they were just too high in version 1.0.3.
Elsewhere, Blizzard will be "making a metric-ton of changes to classes," each one will be detailed in future blog posts.
For the full list of changes, check out Blizzard's development blog.
