I would like to share my thoughts with the development team regarding quality of life and general changes that I hope Blizzard considers implementing for future Patch 2.5…
QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES
Separate currency tab that is account-wide that allows stacking of runes, gems, keys, organs, essences and tokens
Locate Cain next to Stash in Act 5
Add in-game Holy Grail Checklist
Add in-game Horadric Cube Recipe and Runeword Encyclopedia
Add Loot Filter that is curated by Blizzard so everyone has access to same filter
Add option to show iLvl on items and enabled via a toggle in Options Menu (helps when crafting and socketing)
Add item quality indicator for Normal, Exceptional, Elite (helps when upgrading)
Add refresh button to Merchant Screen for available wares, similar to Gambling
Druid can now cast Battle Orders and Battle Command in shapeshifted form
On Character Selection Screen, add ability to move characters up and down on screen rather than list of last played
Add option to launch game in Legacy Mode and enabled via a toggle in Options Menu
Add option to turn off Mature Language Filter via a toggle in Options Menu
Add option to turn off Enemy Health Bars via a toggle in Options Menu
On the controller, allow player to move the minimap by using right thumbstick
On the controller, allow player to allocate attribute points in intervals of 10 (tedious when respecing)
GENERAL CHANGES
Improve item durability as many items have too low durability to be useful, especially weapons (break too quickly)
Add innate damage reduction for medium armor (3% DR) and heavy armor (5% DR) to make it more competitive vs. light armor
Add 2H-weapons will now receive 3% bonus damage per point of Strength (vs. 1% for 1H-weapons) and will have innate ability to roll with Chance of Blocking
Lower strength/dexterity requirements for Crossbows and will have innate ability to Ignore Target’s Defense
Lower cost of Recharging Items
Change Throwing Potion damage to now scale with character level
Change Ghosts/Flyers to drop their loot on the nearest platform if they are not located on a droppable area
For Hell difficulty, change Crypt, Cave, Hole, Tristram, False Tal Rasha Tombs and Uber Portals to be Area 85 Levels
Update weapon tooltips so dexterity required and strength required is flipped so strength is always listed first and dexterity second, same order on Character Screen
Unless this is only allowed in solo games, or a personal/instanced loot scenario, disagree on this. This is a safeguard vs cheaters/hoarders.
All this really does is encourage players to break the terms of service easier. Fix the things that are broken though, such as linking a “Bastard Sword” but this isn’t necessary.
Add in-game Horadric Cube Recipe and Runeword Encyclopedia
Add Loot Filter that is curated by Blizzard so everyone has access to same filter
Add option to show iLvl on items and enabled via a toggle in Options Menu (helps when crafting and socketing)
Really hope they add the ilvl display toggle.
Add item quality indicator for Normal, Exceptional, Elite (helps when upgrading)
Add refresh button to Merchant Screen
Druid can now cast Battle Orders and Battle Command in shapeshifted form
Allow players to pick up unidentified Anni/Torch/Gheeds, but prevent them from being identified while one is already in inventory
I agree with Tanis on this one, seems like something that can be abused somehow and it seems like it’d take a lot of work. Currently you can stash as many unique charms as you want in the shared stash, I think that’s good enough.
On Character Selection Screen, add ability to move characters up and down on screen rather than list of last played
Add option to launch game in Legacy Mode and enabled via a toggle in Options Menu
Add option to turn off Mature Language Filter via a toggle in Options Menu
Yes, ridiculous that this wasn’t included at launch at still hasn’t been added. All other modern Blizzard games has the option to disable the filter so it seems weird that it’s enforced here.
Add option to turn off Enemy Health Bars via a toggle in Options Menu
On the controller, allow player to move the minimap by using right thumbstick
On the controller, allow player to allocate attribute points in intervals of 10 (e.g. tedious when respecing)
GENERAL CHANGES
Improve item durability as many items have too low of durability to be useful
Add innate damage reduction for medium armor (3% DR) and heavy armor (5% DR) to make it more competitive vs. light armor
Add 2H-weapons will now receive 3% bonus damage per point of strength (vs. 1% for 1H-weapons) and will have innate ability to roll with resistance
Lower strength/dexterity requirements for crossbows and will have innate ability to ignore target’s defense
I really like these ideas, it’s true that a lot of weapons are hampered by poor durability (which is why indestructible is so important for fast attacks like zealots, fury druids, or whirlwind barbs) and medium/heavy armor aren’t currently worth using, I think the small innate DR% bonus could be a good change.
I like the idea behind upping the strength bonus for 2H weapons, but I’d also like if they took a look at balancing base weapon damage in general for all exceptional/elite weapons. When 1.10 released monster life was greatly increased while weapon damage wasn’t buffed to compensate (yes synergies were added but those don’t benefit melee as much as they did casters).
I also like the idea of crossbows having innate Ignore Target Defense, though I think their maximum attack rate could be sped up a tiny bit too, like 1 frame faster max attack rate. They are just horribly slow compared to bows.
Lower cost of recharging items
Change Throwing Potion damage to now scale with character level
Change Crypt (Hell), Tristram (Hell) and Uber Portals to be Area 85 Levels
Indifferent about recharge costs, I do like the idea of scaling throwing potions. Definitely agree with upping the Crypt to alvl 85, I think the Uber areas could actually even be lifted up to alvl 90 or something to make them a bit harder (and to even make them a very niche farming area, since keys take some time to get you couldn’t effectively target farm them like alvl 85 areas).
Update weapon tooltips so dexterity required and strength required is flipped so strength is always listed first and dexterity second, same order on character screen
Eyy, glad to see this made it into your list.
Some additions I’d make:
Increase character slot limit from 20 to 50 on Bnet
Give Classic players the expanded + shared stash
Stackable currency stash tab (keys, gems, runes). No stacking in inventory though, just the currency stash tab only
Allow console players to make unlimited characters offline, they are currently limited to 30 character slots
Item label prioritization: Quest>Uniques>Sets>Crafts>Runes>Gems>Magics>Superiors>Sockets>Normal items>Everything else.
If there’s a huge screen-wide heap of garbage on the ground with one rune in the mix, the runes item label will be prioritized to always show before the junk.
Eliminate Boss Quest drops:
I think they should make bosses drop the same no matter if it’s a quest or non-quest kill. Either permanent quest drops for all bosses as they are now, or find a happy medium between quest and non quest drop rates and set it there. It’s time to make bugging the drops a thing of the past. They’ve already done this with Andariel.
I think that the item labels being prioritized would be a better idea than actually doing loot filter. It’s more fair for the current system, though I’d probably put Gems under sockets, above normal items. As for adding in the quest drops full time with no bugging…While I like the idea, it feels like just another way to increase drops for all without actually increasing them, considering the fastest way to get most of your endgame unique items and most of your set items is teleporting to Meph on a starter Sorc. I’d rather incentivize actually playing the game as opposed to end-run around mechanics. While this would eliminate the end-run around, it would also make the tele sorc starter easier. The Andarial bug was a bug, the other methods I feel are just simply more abuse. So I agree, but I don’t agree…aargh, wishy washy me much? lol
That’s why I thought of finding a happy medium between quest vs non-quest drops. The reason why is because of people bug quest dropping, which if it remains as is, people will continue to do. But I feel that access to those drops should not be limited to just those who know how to it…
Sort of further work to get rid of the “secret society”. A lot of it was cleaned up with the DClone rework.
While you probably won’t like what I’m about to say, but I’d say that the happy medium would be updating the solo no drop for mobs to players 3 (keeping boss drops at p1), and always giving the quest drop bump. It provides the quality of life to not abuse the mechanic, while balancing out being able to have drop rates while playing the game for non teleporters. Might even appease some of the players x supporters, and limit the abuse of hijacking public runs for better drop rates.
The game still has a long way to go for future improvements… I just hope they pay close attention to power creep and character progression/development and keep the overall gameplay feel of the original game a part of the game.
Yeah, I think that the dev team has an internal road map of what they want to do for the game, and that they are dripping it in by season and mid season patches, while watching player reactions and retention rates. I dunno if I read too much into this, but during that Gnomon livestream Rob did, someone asked about heat maps and he talked about tracking the in game economy. I have a feeling something might come down the pipeline with that, and they want to do their homework before they overdo it like with D3.
Yeah I was hoping they’d release some more statistics like they did during the beta test… I’m curious how many Tyrael’s Might armors are floating around.
Love these. True QoL that just make the game better.
I like your QoL changes more than General changes as the general changes change more of the core game, but I don’t disagree with them.
Adding DR to medium and heavy would be interesting but it would be a nerf to existing AP enigma for example. People would really only want heavy low strength bases to get that DR boost. Seems a bit OP actually and definitely a power creep change.
Hopefully we do get a past year retrospective and a next year roadmap blog for the one year anniversary. Total radio silence, or even just a few bugfixes / new ladder, would be super disappointing.
