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    Diablo PSA: Remember last year, do not get your hopes up

    October 21, 2019

    Diablo PSA: Remember last year, do not get your hopes up

    PSA: Remember last year, do not get your hopes up

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 05:17 AM PDT

    Lower your expectations. The more hyped you are, the more likely you will be disappointed.

    submitted by /u/Anubis_Black
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    List of Major Problems on PTR so far (cross-post)

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 09:46 PM PDT

    Original forum post: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/list-of-major-problems-on-ptr-so-far/4706

    -------------------------

    Just want to consolidate all the major problems that we have so far on the PTR, with the hope that this will increase the likelihood of the devs fixing them…

    Bugs and Exploits

    1. Angels in GR can one-shot RG on any level (including 150). This is the most blatant and game-breaking problem on the PTR right now.
    2. Potential cow level exploit - when the player(s) get to 95% progression in a GR, they can go to the cow level (without dropping the stacks) and build up to around 480 kill streak, then go back to the rift (without dropping the stacks), and get to 500, which will both spawn the angels and the RG, which will be one-shot (by the angels).
    3. 300-kills ring of fire kills teammates.
    4. The seasonal buff interferes with set dungeon objectives. They need to be disabled inside set dungeons.
    5. Many other kill streak buffs are way overpowered (like the 15-kill twisters). When 90% of the damage you deal in a greater rift comes from these special buffs, there is a big problem. The core gameplay is no longer about slaying demons, but manipulating the kill streak bonus. It feels very exploitative and really takes away the feeling of accomplishment when you get a high clear by playing legit.

    Nerfing and Buffing

    1. The biggest elephant in the room right now is Star Pact. The fact that they are not doing anything about it while nerfing Chantodo's and Thorns is beyond me.
    2. Chantodo's Archon is over-nerfed. It should be tuned back a little bit to preserve some viability.
    3. Whirlwind Rend is too strong. If blizz truly cares about maintaining some semblance of balance, then Rend needs to be nerfed along with Star Pact.
    4. The new monk set is too weak, both in terms of damage and defense. It struggles even on GR95, WITH THE SEASONAL BUFF. Imagine playing this set in nonseason… Not a single set in this game struggles on 95 at this point. This monk set does. It would be a shame if no one ends up playing this set because the damage is so garbage.
    5. The new crusader set also needs buffing. Many people also complain that its mechanics (or the lack thereof) is very lackluster. More pressingly, the set is just not that strong, in both offense and defense.
    6. Even after the thorns necro nerf, it still works exactly the same as before, just slightly slower on Blighter. Blighter will still be one of the ideal RGs, and thorns necro will still be the RGK meta (assuming the angels are fixed). If blizz is really against the playstyle, then what's needed is nerfing or changing the Aberrant Animator passive, so that the build mechanic is no longer viable.
    submitted by /u/DeepTerminal
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    Behind the Gear: Crusader Shields

    Posted: 20 Oct 2019 11:02 PM PDT

    Crusader Shield commons and Legendaries

    When we were planning the Crusader class for the Reaper of Souls expansion, we knew that we wanted to give the class at least two categories of class-specific gear. From vanilla Diablo III, we knew that class-specific hidden slots (rings, amulets) felt underwhelming and class-specific skintight items were a lot of work for medium payoff. Knowing that the Crusader was going to be a strong martial character, we decided early to make unique snap-on held items.

    Even in vanilla, we planned on setting aside the visual/concept space of a "massive shield user" for a future class. All heroes can use shields, but we knew we were going to big with the concept on this one. The crusader was going to use shields and feature them in his skills. We were going to require an equipped shield for some skills, something that we generally avoided because it forced the player into certain gear choices. But we decided the Crusaders should wield their own category of super-heavy shields, shields that in concept are so large that you need special training to use them. We even animated the Crusaders to brace themselves dramatically, in anticipation of the giant boards they would hide behind.

    Looking at the common Crusader Shields, what you see is a staggered linear gear progression, one that reflects some lessons we learned making items in Diablo III vanilla.

    1. There is visual progress across the range. With a few hitches. The shields trend from wood and cheaper materials to increasing metal and expensive materials. The shapes tend to become more complex. The size tends to increase, though these game icons don't always reflect model size. There is an overall increase in presentation and ornamentation. This is connected to our standing goal for common items that lower-level gear read sent as "lesser" to the player's eye than higher-level items. The corollary to that rule is that it should not be a perfect progression. The reality of Diablo games is that lower-level item art will appear on powerful rare items, and so making a perfect progression with actual crappy items at the bottom is a detriment. We wanted, and got, an imperfect progression full of cool items.

    2. The progression goes where players expect, and where it doesn't. You have to simultaneously give players what they want when they sign up for a play experience, and also surprise them. The iconic Crusader is a blocky, nearly colorless combatant covered in steel armor. These shields support that concept while providing structured deviation. You probably weren't looking for a Zelda-inspired sky-blue heater, but you get one on your upgrade journey, and it still works.

    We also added clear iconography tying the items back to the class. One thing we wish we had done better with our vanilla classes was to brand them in the universe. It was very useful for the Crusader order to bear the trident symbol, and we were able to use that prominently on his signature shields. This helps set them apart from normal shields in the item pool, and emphasize the class theme. The black and white crusader kite was immediately iconic and helped inform the visual concept of the character. It's no surprise you keep seeing that shield in new renditions of the character, on posters, or in Heroes of the Storm.

    Then it was time to do CShield Legendaries. Scheduling out Reaper of Souls, I had planned the character and item art budget, and I had allotted the Crusader eight Legendary Crusader Shields. I figured that we would use one for a Set or other special purpose and that the remaining seven could follow several basic item notions that I wanted to explore:

    1. A sibling for the classic D2 Paladin Shield, the Alma Negra.
    2. A shield that looked like a church's stained-glass window.
    3. A shield that looked like the tombstone of a venerated Crusader.
    4. A shield that looked like it had a gnawing demon head strapped to it.
    5. An "Ultimate" design that exaggerated all the qualities of a Crusader shield in heavy wrought iron.
    6. A mirror shield.
    7. A shield designed top-to-bottom to honor one of our most passionate artists.

    While planning these concepts, I would often take walks with our lead concept artist, Vic Lee. He gave all my crazy ideas patient, legitimate consideration. Sometimes he told me that they were unworkable, or not visually cool. But he would often improve the idea or add a twist that made it better. Like many of our artists, he was a great collaborator.

    So here's how my seven item concepts shook out:

    1. The Alma Negra sibling was a slam dunk. The Diablo II Paladins and the Diablo III Crusaders, in the lore, are religious cousins, and I wanted the item to connect the classes. I also had a goal to tie our legendaries to our team members, so I talked to our environment artist Richie Marella. Richie was excited to participate and gave us a Rondache design that reflected the old item. When we talked about using his name, he instead asked that we honor his grandfather, Oscar. I thought it was a sweet request, and we ended up with the Piro Marella –
      "I have shaped too much steel for the purpose of killing. I offer these shields in the hope that you will bring safety and mercy back to our world."—Mastersmith Oskar Iach on presenting the Alma Negra and the Piro Marella to Akkhan

    2. The stained-glass window was problematic. Some devs are very literal ("How would a shield made of glass work!?") and some take too many liberties ("It only matters that it looks cool!"). In this case, people said I was asking for too much suspension of disbelief, but the idea was saved with a design that evokes a stained-glass window. And after I saw the concept art, I couldn't complain. We had a beautiful, Crusader-appropriate item that looked holy and didn't resemble anything else in the game. Instant success. I named it Hallowed Bulwark.

    3. The gravestone idea was also a bust. Given the many cemeteries in the game the Crusader's penchant for carrying the heaviest possible defense, I thought it was a perfect marriage. But the artists found that the visual skewed cartoonish fast. However, the exploration yielded a page of wonderful sketches, and from them came the design for the final product. You look, and you can still the original idea of a tombstone encased in a carrying frame. It ended up as Akarat's Awakening.

    4. The "shield with a head strapped to it" was a victim of its own success. You can say "this item is made of crude materials" and "it's like a redneck trophy" but if you give that task to an artist that makes things look powerful and beautiful, then you are going to get something powerful and beautiful. Once this piece started going through the pipeline I couldn't tell them that they were doing it wrong. It became its own thing, and that is game development. It's about making the best thing possible, not the thing you want. The shield became Hellskull.

    5. The "Ultimate" shield went perfectly. In the first round we had a page of concept art that hit the idea hard. The final art is a perfect reflection of that initial pass- a heavy, spiky, reinforced shield meant to be the final word in classic Crusader design. It ended up Sublime Conviction.

    6. The mirror shield did not fly. There are things you can say in a meeting that will make programmers irritable, and one of them is "mirror". I knew that we could find ways to convey the notion of a mirrored shield without literally incurring the GPU cost of drawing the game world twice, but reading the room, and I could tell that my appeals to the mythological significance of mirrors were just not landing. I called it a day, and the artists came up with an evocative design without a lick of input from me. In the end, the idea of vision stayed with the item- The Final Witness.

    7. The Jeff Kang shield is equally sweet and stupid. Jeff is a talented artist who put a ton of himself into the Diablo III environments. I worked with him for years, but he was eventually offered an opportunity elsewhere that he could not refuse. I knew that the Crusader was his favorite class, and I worked with Vic to come up with a special item. As ridiculous as it may sound, we decided to stylize Jeff's electric skateboard into a shield and put it in the game. Vic did the concept, I gave it the name and flavor text, and until now, no one outside Blizzard was the wiser. It's a tiny bit stupid when you know the backstory, but I love the Jekangbord -
      Centuries ago, the traveling warrior Jekang found allies among the Crusaders of Westmarch and joined their order. He fought with the order for many years, and when he departed for lands unknown he made one last gift of his renown holy shield.

    Modeled, the items passed into the hands of the system designers, and then the tech artists who art-ified their special powers. It was a wonderful process to be a part of, watching all these little player experiences march through the pipeline of creation until one day they start dropping in the game. And hopefully, when they did, it was meaningful, or beautiful, or exciting, or a story-enhancing moment. Because each of these items was made to tell a story, and fill in the lines of the much larger story of the game. These stories were text, and color, and style, and made by people who loved Diablo as much as the players that they knew would one day play their game.

    It makes me so happy to think back on how these items came to be. I hope this look behind the gear has brought you some enjoyment as well.

    submitted by /u/lutsock
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    What is your favourite Diablo and why?

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 10:00 AM PDT

    Personally, I would order them as: Diablo > Diablo 2 > Diablo 3

    I'll explain my reasons below.

    Diablo:

    A very unique game with an atmosphere I still fail to see match, even with amazing graphics and quality like the Dark Souls games of today. I think what Diablo had over the other games is the whole premise.

    You're very much a human with very human qualities (very relatable, even as a sorcerer who was still human) with a simple task - descend below a church until you reach hell. As you go down each floor, it becomes more and more dangerous with creatures literally being able to bombard you and fly your health down to the bottom in seconds if you don't utilise doorways and positioning.

    Not only was the atmosphere unique, it was straight up horrific! That time you opened that one door and the butcher runs out at you, leaving behind the many humans he's decapitated. That time you get betrayed by that creature you're trying to help, or when the skeleton king and his army charged at you.

    The game induces fear and a simple but effective premise and achieves it gloriously. As an RPG it was far from perfect, especially for today's standards - but to me, always holds a special place in my heart.

    Diablo 2:

    A creative and huge leap from the first game, the variety was gob smacking. However, it did lack the one thing that really drew me into the first Diablo, and that was the descent into hell, and into the unknown. By opening the map, letting you explore all types of terrain, the game expanded the simple concept I very much was attracted to from the get go.

    I felt like Diablo 2 didn't captivate me the same way the first one did, but was still an amazing game and most definitely a better RPG experience than the first. For me though, a memorable and unique experience comes before all of that, hence why it got the second spot.

    Diablo 3:

    Now onto a game I personally didn't enjoy, as much as I wanted to. It really went away from the original formula, gone were the relatable humans and replaced with characters (even warriors) who could fly their weapons across the screen, ground pound and generally act as if they had super powers.

    Although cool as a gameplay mechanic, really removed the whole premise of what I enjoyed about the original Diablo. This, coupled with the WoW art style (where's the dark, horrific atmosphere?) as well as the difficulty being far too easy on a first playthrough (yes I'm aware it gets more difficult later on, but that should have been from the moment I started the game).

    For these reasons, I really failed to enjoy Diablo 3 on the same level as the original, not saying it's a bad game - but in my book it isn't and never will be "Diablo" or what Diablo was to me.

    What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

    submitted by /u/Razorfisto
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    Diablo 3 NA Challenge Rift Week 122 Barb

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 03:39 PM PDT

    Diablo 3 Challenge Rift #122 Map and Strategy Guide (North America)

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 05:38 PM PDT

    Fury Slam Barbarian SpeedFarm GR95+

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 07:53 AM PDT

    I have this unrealistic wish that the Diablo 2 remaster will look like Sui Generis

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 02:18 PM PDT

    Sample vid https://youtu.be/AvAkHI3IZRs

    I really didn't like the art style of Diablo 3 and hope they don't go in that direction but that seems the be the current Blizzard look.

    submitted by /u/Slaytounge
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    Eggman's team clears GR150 on season 19 PTR in 8:23 using "cnec" rift guardian killer.

    Posted: 20 Oct 2019 11:52 PM PDT

    I dont understand why this weapon doesnt do more damage then my current one

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 02:32 PM PDT

    so "crushbane" does 89.5 damage, my sword only does 79.5 damage, both have a socket. I put the +220 damage gem into it, my sword becomes over 300 in damage, "crushbane" only comes in at 279.5, a lot worse. even though crushbane has very noticably higher base damage, hell even doing the maths it doesnt add up, that is clearly not +220 damage thats less.

    I dont understand whats happening?

    submitted by /u/Normacont
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    What Fortnite's Success Says About the Future of Diablo

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 01:34 PM PDT

    Fortnite has gotten to the point that it is almost a dirty word within hardcore, PC gaming communities. It is equated to being incredibly casual and kid-friendly (read: for shitter noobs) for various reasons from the art design to the simplicity of it's game play, but one thing that can't be denied is its player base. Fortnite captured millions of eyes around the world for more than 24 hours with their latest update. Millions of people tuned in and stared at a literal black hole for hours on end, and in the end witnessed one of the most massive content updates to ever go live in the history of gaming. Massive in terms of scope, and not in terms of actual content. While many systems were overhauled, many were also reverted to older mechanics that had been popular in the past. So what causes a game to reach such a massive audience over a single update? Availability.

    Fortnite was one of the absolute pioneers when it came to terms of making itself available to the the widest player base possible, all thanks to enabling cross-platform play. Now it didn't matter where you were in the world, or what system you used for gaming: if you could get online, you could get Fortnite. That availability opened more people across the world to play with their friends and to make new ones than ever before in the history of gaming. Because it wasn't about what console brand you were loyal to, it was about what game you wanted to play.

    Cross-platform play has been one of the largest requests from console gamers throughout the last dozen or so years, and there was never a company or a system that got it right, because the technology was not there yet (TM Blizzard). The emergence of cloud based services and storage, however, has changed the way that a company like Epic can ship ONE version of a game to every single platform and have them just work together, and every single big name in the gaming industry is well aware of the fact that Epic got there first, and they've been playing catch-up for more than a year now.

    So where does Blizzard, and more importantly Diablo, fit into this equation? Well, if you assume the goal of any business it to make money, then you have to assume that they are going to follow the trends in their market that lead to the highest amount of potential revenue. Over the last few years we've seen Overwatch and Diablo III extend to multiple consoles. Even on Nintendo, typically thought to be a platform geared for younger audiences. Now we see that they are extending into the mobile market with Diablo Immortal, which rumored to be scheduled for a quiet release in the Asian markets before Blizzcon. These facts, along with their integration into Facebook and Google paints a picture that is very plain to see: they have extended their reach into every single possible platform that the gaming market covers. So again, if we assume that our goal as Blizzard is to make as much money as possible, then what do we need to do when we have millions of customers spread out across half a dozen platforms? Consolidate the player base. Release one version of their games. No more hassle of updating for different consoles, and no more saying "I can't play with my friend because they have a PlayStation and I have a PC".

    We've all heard the rumors that this Blizzcon is going to be big. A new World of Warcraft expansions seems to be on the horizon without a doubt. Overwatch 2 has been rumored to be a possibility. The Diablo community has been abuzz waiting for too long now for a true successor to the series (or possibly even a reboot entirely). Diablo 2 remastered, for the old hardcore players who want that nostalgia drip feed that Classic has given millions. What if we're on the verge of Blizzard 2.0. After all, it was earlier this year that they tried to make the transition from Battle.net to Blizzard in name as well.

    Is the reason we're expecting an "Overwatch 2" so soon into the games life because it is going to relaunch the same way "Fortnite 2" did? Is the reason we got a toned down version of Diablo III at launch because they had to be marketable to the console audience in order to consolidate the market? Could the "obvious cash grab" of Diablo Immortal actually be a means to secure the phone market for the title that releases after Diablo Immortal? Is the name Diablo Immortal itself an allusion to the fact that the franchise intends to live on? Is the reason classes in WoW have 8-10 core abilities because they need to be playable with console controllers and on mobile screens?

    Has Blizzard been pulling the wool over our eyes? Are we about to see the biggest Blizzcon in the history of the convention? They've had data on what the market wants for years, and now they've got their reach extended enough to join that data with the technology available to their market. Could this year be the year that Blizzard's gaming service goes wireless? We'll find out in 11 days. Just don't forget where you heard it first.

    submitted by /u/TheDigitalSherpa
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    Weekly Challenge Rift Thread - 10/21/19

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 07:00 AM PDT

    Welcome to week 121 of the Challenge Rifts. Please feel free to use this thread to discuss this week's Challenge Rift. Feel free to post guides, tips, and tricks.

    Make sure you specify your region, as different regions have different Challenge Rifts.

    submitted by /u/GharbadTheWeak
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    Was dodge removed from the game?

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 11:40 AM PDT

    I can't see dodge chance in my monk's specs. Does 500 strength give him the same toughness as 500 dexterity?

    submitted by /u/jjjggk
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    [2.6.7] Diablo 3: FIST OF THE HEAVENS & AEGIS OF VALOR GR110+ Crusader Build

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 10:28 AM PDT

    Looking for a game like Diablo that doesn't require builds

    Posted: 21 Oct 2019 06:47 AM PDT

    So I really like games like Diablo and Titan Quest, but I really don't like the idea of needing to follow an online build or spent hours upon hours trying to make your own and compete. What games besides Diablo let you do this? Path of Exile seems like the opposite of what I want even though the gameplay looks fun, so not that. I just really want a loot game where you don't have to follow strict rules and can just use whatever high rarity loot and cool gear you find, sorta like Destiny or something but more of a dungeon crawler.

    Edit: Should have said it a bit better, but I know that Diablo doesn't really require a build and is really good, but I was mostly looking for other options.

    submitted by /u/MrSnek123
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