As someone who's getting a bit burnt out on D3 it's nice to know I have a little bit more incentive to keep playing. Still, doesn't quite fix all the problems I have with the game but those problems are the kinds that can't be fixed.

I'm stoked about the nerf to monster damage in a party and the NV change as I'll net more rares overall now. The gemcrafting update seems good in theory, but gems up to Flawless Square drop all over the place in Inferno anyway.

I'm sad to no hear any news about the Commodities AH coming back up yet, though. C'mon, I need to sell all these cheapo gems I've got.

I'm stoked about the nerf to monster damage in a party and the NV change as I'll net more rares overall now. The gemcrafting update seems good in theory, but gems up to Flawless Square drop all over the place in Inferno anyway.

I'm sad to no hear any news about the Commodities AH coming back up yet, though. C'mon, I need to sell all these cheapo gems I've got.

@Turambar: Actually do you know when this patch is rolling in? I know they're taking down the servers tonight for something but I'm not sure if it's for this and I can't seem to find a date for this anywhere.

I hope with this patch they hide the general chat like it was at launch, if they don't get rid of it, that would at least dent the plans of the spammers that are there like roaches now.

@Turambar: Actually do you know when this patch is rolling in? I know they're taking down the servers tonight for something but I'm not sure if it's for this and I can't seem to find a date for this anywhere.

@fox01313 said:

I hope with this patch they hide the general chat like it was at launch, if they don't get rid of it, that would at least dent the plans of the spammers that are there like roaches now.

I hope that at the very least, they make the Block Communication option do something. I report and block every spammer I see but 50% of the time, they don't actually get muted.

@Turambar said:

@eroticfishcake said:

@Turambar: Actually do you know when this patch is rolling in? I know they're taking down the servers tonight for something but I'm not sure if it's for this and I can't seem to find a date for this anywhere.

All it says in that news post is it's coming later this month, so I have no clue.

Well turns out the patch that's up now is 1.0.2b so it's not 1.0.3. that I hope it was. Well, no matter. I needed a break from my lvl 60 Wizard and DH anyway. A loooooong break.

Gem crafting is a lot more reasonable now.

I fully understand them holding onto a lot of those changes until they are better tested and all, but they need to put in the damned jeweler fixes already. I'm sitting on piles of gems because I'm not wasting an extra one and the gold for every higher version I want to craft.

Nice, this will make me go back to D3 in a major way.

Untill then i'll level some alts after being done with dragons dogma

This isn't the patch that hit today, it's the next one. Today's was 1.0.2b which is mostly just a bunch of bug fixes and allowing you to sell damaged items on the AH.

I hope with this patch they hide the general chat like it was at launch, if they don't get rid of it, that would at least dent the plans of the spammers that are there like roaches now.

-Inferno Equipment and Difficulty Curve Nerfs: I'm okay with this. Right now, killing Act 1 Inferno Butcher is about the furthest you can conceivably make it in HC progression. It'd be nice to be able to 'finish' the game in HC eventually. Act 1 was fine, but the jump up in Act 2 made it not really feasible without dying at least once. I want it to be hard, but I still want it to be possible.

-Group Damage Nerf: I don't like this. They say this is to make both group play and solo play viable, but to me this means that group play is always going to be superior to solo play. I feel like I am going to have to always run with a full group now to maximize progression.

-Repair Cost Changed to 4x-6x as high: I LOVE this, best change they made. The whining of all the SC players who won't be able to throw their corpse at things til they die is fantastic. Death should be something that everyone tries to avoid. Seeing my friends like two difficulties/20 levels ahead of me with less Vit/Resists than I have is just dumb. The only thing I am concerned about with this change is that it isn't enough. I'd like to see XP loss (if not straight up de-levelling) added in the future.

-Gem Changes: Not sure how I feel about this. Money was already easy to come by, and selling decent quality amethysts before the market went down was one of my biggest money makers. The degree they are nerfing it really seems excessive.

Does "adjusted" mean lowered?

Because killing 17 million HP reflects damage packs is literally impossible as a demon hunter with sub-100k DPS.

A guaranteed rare from elites is nice to here, as going through a hellacious fight and getting nothing to drop can be VERY shitty.

@Addfwyn: I'm happy about the "bonus damage when in party" thing. It's a wholly bunk thing to increase the DAMAGE of enemies when partied up instead of increasing their HEALTH. Here's the basic idea: when you are partying up, it means you have more damage to output...but you are all sitting on a specific health pool. Let's say you are a warrior in Act 2 with 35k HP. If something hits you for 12k in solo, then it now hits you for 20k AND getting more health, then it means that your stats for health remain static but...the enemy gets buffed on both? You don't get a buff to damage or health by partying up, so it's problematic and unbalanced. In turn, I am happy about the loss of extra damage when you are in a party. The monsters will still get increased health, which is necessary to offset the DPS you can dish out...and in the meanwhile, Inferno will still be hard enough in a party.

Repair cost increase seems fair for making the drops more consistent. I'm perfectly fine with that as well. Hopefully the more consistent drops will help balance out the pricing on the AH a bit more as well. I've had really good luck with the AH up to this point, but I know that wizards and witch doctors are getting bent over hard right now for the pricing on their gear.

As for the nerfs on Inferno... I've been a staunch believer that people just need to nut up or shut up on that stuff. However, having been farming in Act 2 and 3 Inferno recently, I can say that there ARE times when the damage gets too spiky for its own good, and it gets a bit annoying. Despite that, I still wish they'd leave it be and give it a little time to see if that needs to be changed or not. Less than a month after release to nerf the highest difficulty? That's a little bit of a pushover ideal, but beyond that, it feels like a tactic being used to keep people playing the high end content in order to promote the RMAH when it comes out.

However, I still wish people would stop saying that getting through Act 2 and Act 3 is not "viable" or "possible". Bullshit. It's very much possible. I've done it.

Overall, I think I'm pretty damn satisfied with the ideas behind this patch...whereas I was originally a firm believer that this patch would cause more problems than help.

@Addfwyn said:

-Group Damage Nerf: I don't like this. They say this is to make both group play and solo play viable, but to me this means that group play is always going to be superior to solo play. I feel like I am going to have to always run with a full group now to maximize progression.

I respectfully disagree. Blizzard is already forcing us to play online, so they might as well rig the system to reward players who group. The game is supposed to be more fun co-op, right? The average player won't come out of their shell and play with strangers if there's no incentive to do so.

As a guy who hasn't played the game in about 2 weeks now, I'm glad they're adjusting so much. Lots of little things have been fixed since I last played with more on the way. I'll probably end up coming back to it at some point in the next week just to see how the 1.02 patches have done to the game.

Also, I think I'm one of the dudes who made the mistake of getting to Hell difficulty too soon. People say it isn't that difficult, but I'm guessing they had the right level and, more importantly, the right gear when they got there. But that's what I get for rolling around with 2 buddies who, at the time, were Level 60 and in Act III of Inferno.

Yeah, I read the post this morning. Every single change is fantastic and they're all changes that my friends and I have been discussing. Super satisfied with it and I honestly can't wait.

It seems all this stuff in the next patch is fair and good and all, but it still blows me away that Blizz is changing inferno so fundamentally, only 3+ weeks post launch. Obviously they are on this shit full focus. Good on them.

@Floppypants: Absolutely fair point. I play solo (I don't trust pub HC games) and they really aren't doing anything to nerf solo play, so it honestly doesn't actually affect me whatsoever. If they make it better for co-op players, that's good for them. I just worry it may make things too easy in that sector.

Given the amount of changes, and that it a lot of the details still seem to be up in the air, I would guess that we're not going to see this update for at least a week or more.

I think I deserve a cookie for beating Act II with only 20k DPS on my DH.

Where is my cookie?

That said, I am full of hype. Now if only they would detail the class tweaks they're doing.

@StarvingGamer: I think I deserve a cookie for beating act 1 and act 2 with 20k hp and 50 resistances!

Yes to everything.

shit, i i can only beat hell to get into inferno, stuck on diablo right now.

My question is how exactly do they intend to nerf +attack speed% ???

It's a very clear cut buff +X% is exactly what you get as the stat says. There is no conversion to do like with main stats DEX=blabla STR=blabla, the re is no proc chance, nothing. Attack speed % is attack speed %. The only way I can see them do it is give it diminishing returns like DEX and dodge, where attack speed gives you lees for each point as you get more. But again this is hella contrived as there is no conversion going on in the first place. OR they ahve to make +X% speed worth more in terms of gear stat allocation points, so there is less of it overall on gear, but this would require adjusting every piece of existing gear, which is something they are for example not doing for legendary item buff.

This is sad, I've been playing a fats attack DW monk untill I got to inferno and attack speed is a great force muliplier when combined smartly with other dmg stats like your primary stat multipliers.

@Tennmuerti: To quote Blizz from the source in the original post:

"There are two different solutions we’re considering to reduce the effectiveness of Increased Attack Speed. The first is to simply reduce the value on all the items to their desired values. In general our desire is to never change items as that makes them feel less concrete, but the upside is you would still be able to look at an item and know exactly what you are getting. The other approach is to change the formula used for attack speed aggregation so that stacking attack speed from multiple slots suffers from diminishing returns. The downside of that approach is that it introduces yet another hidden modifier on an item property (and many people dislike hidden modifiers), and complicates the already difficult decision of item gearing.

We’re currently leaning toward the first solution, to simply reduce the value on items, but we’d be interested to read people’s thoughts on the problem."

All around this seems very nice, encouraging me to keep playing since I just started a new character

I've only just managed to beat Diablo on Normal today, so these sorts of changed don't really make a difference to me because I can still just play badly and get by, but having never been part of an MMO or anything, I like how Diablo will be subtly changing for a while.

I've really got to delve deeper though, currently I just equip whatever gives me the highest + modifiers on the bottom three stats of an item.

@Quipido said:

@Tennmuerti: To quote Blizz from the source in the original post:

"There are two different solutions we’re considering to reduce the effectiveness of Increased Attack Speed. The first is to simply reduce the value on all the items to their desired values. In general our desire is to never change items as that makes them feel less concrete, but the upside is you would still be able to look at an item and know exactly what you are getting. The other approach is to change the formula used for attack speed aggregation so that stacking attack speed from multiple slots suffers from diminishing returns. The downside of that approach is that it introduces yet another hidden modifier on an item property (and many people dislike hidden modifiers), and complicates the already difficult decision of item gearing.

We’re currently leaning toward the first solution, to simply reduce the value on items, but we’d be interested to read people’s thoughts on the problem."

Oh wow, it's kind of scary how spot on I was on the 2 methods o.O

Freaky.

Little concerned about nerfing difficulties. If it's in fact too hard, then that's one thing. If it's just people expecting it to be easier... Either way I don't know, haven't played the higher difficulties yet.

@SargeGulp: well, tbh they don't really need to nerf the difficulty. They just need to smooth it out. While that means some parts will become easier, others would get harder too. The problem atm is that the difficulty changes mid-act are very subtle, while it changes drastically between acts.