Blizzard has outlined changes coming in the next patch for Diablo III, which include modifications to item drop rates in Inferno. This setting is only playable after running through the content on Normal, Nightmare and Hell difficulties, and represents the end game of Diablo III. Complaints have arisen about the steep ramp up in challenge, which requires you to replace your gear with better versions that may not be available without using the Auction House or doing a mind-numbing amount of farming in Act IV on Hell against less powerful creatures that aren’t as exciting to fight.
As Blizzard senior technical game designer Wyatt Cheng explains, “The way the game is currently set up, Act I drops [item level] 61 gear and below, Act II drops ilvl 62 gear and below, and Act III and IV drop ilvl 63 and below. Unfortunately this has caused two main issues. The first is players who find an Act too difficult feel compelled to use the auction house in order to progress. The second is that certain classes, skills, and play styles are less gear dependent than others, so although great items are making their way into the game economy, people feel pigeonholed into a handful of viable strategies.”
Cheng says that after patch 1.0.3, there’ll be a chance for even ilvl 63 items to drop in Act I on Inferno setting. He provided a table showing the updates in a post on the Diablo III site:
Also on the subject of softening the blow of Inferno, Blizzard will be modifying the difficulty at the outset of Act II. “Inferno balance right now has a difficulty gap in which Act I feels about right, but Act II feels like trying to bust through a brick wall,” said Cheng. “If a monk or barbarian is geared well enough that they can use a heavily offensive build and murder everything in Act I, they should be able to swap to a more defensive build and do okay in Act II.”
If you prefer to play in a group in Diablo III, then perhaps you’ll also be relieved to hear Blizzard will be reducing the bonus damage of enemies as more people join a group. “We feel the bonus monster damage per additional player is one of the biggest inhibitors to wanting to play with your friends,” said Cheng. “In a perfect world, single player and co-op would be absolutely equal, but that’s not attainable when you consider item properties such as “Life on Kill” or skills such as Archon which simply scale better when you are solo… our goal is to make them as close as possible but err on the side of co-op in cases where we need to make adjustments.”
Cheng outlined a number of other changes to the cost of fusing gems, the attack speed affix, the Nephalem Valor bonus, and revealed that armor repair at level 60 will soon become much more expensive. “Current repair costs at level 60 are barely noticeable, and because of that we see a lot of people wonder if “graveyard zerging” tough enemies or “chain rezzing allies on a boss” is intended gameplay – it definitely is not.” As a result, Blizzard will be increasing repair costs of level 60 items between four and six times.
Blizzard will not be making major adjustments to class balance in 1.0.3, those changes are being held for patch 1.1.
Source : ign[dot]com
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