I'm legitimately surprised

General Discussion
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I’m…not sure how to feel about this upcoming ptr patch.

This has to the potential to be one of the best patches in D3’s history. LoN not only being cleared up so you can use ring slots, but also having it effect non-ancient items? Excellent change. A bounty of new legendary affixes to the game? Excellent. A seasonal buff that…honestly sounds really interesting? Absolutely excellent.

With that being said…I don’t know how to feel about this. On one hand, I love these changes. On the other, I guess it kind of feels like a bit of a let-down that it’s coming so late in D3’s lifecycle? What I’m trying to communicate is I don’t know Blizzard’s plan for D3. A patch like this would have originally indicated to me that Blizzard intends to keep developing D3, maybe with an expansion down the road, so I would have been more than happy to get back into things and play my heart out. But all likely indicators point towards D3 just trying to hold people over until D4 given the DImmortal fiasco.

Is anyone else struggling with this feeling atm? I want to give credit where it’s due, because this is objectively a good patch update, but at the same time I don’t want to re-invest myself in D3 if it’s just going to be dropped for D4 within a year.

Maybe I’m not looking at it in the right way? I’d love to hear what other people’s thoughts are on this, especially if you’re also struggling with it.

tl;dr- Patch is good, I like what I’m reading, but I can’t find myself to be excited if the game is going away soon.

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Diablo 2 has not gone anywhere and it has been out for almost 20 years. We still get updates to make sure it plays on modern PCs and Season restarts.

Diablo 3 is not going anywhere. It is being updated by the Classic Games folks (I think) same as D2. It will continue to get QoL and balance tweaks as well as new Seasons.

If you like to jump in and play D3 for a bit, be excited. Enjoy what time you spend there. If you don’t, then don’t? Games are all make believe anyway. They are for entertainment. How new or old a game is does not really matter if you enjoy the time spent.

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Diablo 2 has not gone anywhere and it has been out for almost 20 years. We still get updates to make sure it plays on modern PCs and Season restarts.

That’s a fair point, I guess I didn’t quite articulate myself particularly well, so I’ll try to communicate it better.

So the difference between D2 and D3 is that D2 didn’t particularly need much revision, other than just making it work on modern systems. Maybe this is just my particular opinion and not the community’s, but from my perspective D3’s biggest failure was that management didn’t believe in it. There have been good, small steps in the right direction, but it never became as great as it could have been.

What I’m getting at is that I would want to reinvest in D3 if Blizzard itself was willing to reinvest in D3. Are we going to get more patches like this, or are we just going to get “adjust so it runs on modern systems” from this point on? That’s ultimately what concerns me. I would happily play D3 if this patch were a sign of the future for the game, but if this is the end of the road, I just don’t see the point.

I hope I was able to communicate this better. It’s such a pot of emotions right now I’m not sure what to think of this series anymore.

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I wonder how this relates to the recent publication of a story (which I’ve seen in several publications) that parts (or all) of D4 has been shown to Blizzard employess in France.

I don’t believe they would lie about that, yet there’s nothing but silence from Blizzard regarding that issue.

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I certainly can relate to the OP’s sentiments, but also agree with @MissCheetah here. And perhaps the items that are being changed for the better this late in the D3’s life-cycle will mean that such things are infused in D4 at launch.

At this point, I think we all wish D3 had been much closer to what it is now in 2012, but the cookie crumbled a bit differently to say the least.

Furthermore, who knows what shape D4 will even take? Blizz has had some surprises that have taken us old-D3-heads quite by surprise, so continued improvements to D2 and D3 are welcome. :slight_smile:

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I would not put too much stock in rumors. Staff do get access to Alpha stages of games for play testing, once they reach a certain point. Even then, the staff are covered by a very tight legal Non Disclosure Agreement. Blizzard always has games in some stage of development for all their franchises (and maybe new ones?). So expect there to always be concepts, storyboards, ideas, demos, etc floating around. Many of which never make it to full development stage.

Until I hear something official from Blizz directly, I am not going to speculate outside of assuming normal software dev practices continue to occur and that SOMETHING for the Diablo franchise (whatever they call it) will eventually happen.

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I’m in process on a blog that explains more about this. I don’t have a release date for that, but it’s coming. We want to be clear and transparent about Diablo III’s future. It just take a lot of time and coordination for communication of that level to happen.

For now, I hope you enjoy the PTR and give us a lot of feedback on what we have so we can make 2.6.6 the best we possibly can. :slight_smile:

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Oh, that doesn’t sound good. Maintenance mode officially confirmed?

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Great! Very glad to see new items in the patch. It opens up several new builds. I look forward to testing it. Thank you.

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I’m surprised by the new Flavour of Time legendary power. Think it’ll go the same as Mortick’s Brace and be removed? It seems somewhat overpowered, it might become compulsory for GR pushing.
Then again Mortick’s Brace is back and they’ve said they intent to keep it available.

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I wish I could give multiple fave’s on a post, because I was not at all expecting this kind of response. That’s exactly the sort of communication that I appreciate, and I would like to thank you for doing so. Even if whatever Blizzard has to say may not align with what I or the community would like, being open and transparent about it is exactly what avoids bigger controversies. I eagerly await the PTR, and I look forward to your post whenever it does happen.

I know it can be frustrating with the levels of communication, but I would just like to personally express gratitude that you’re giving what you can.

Now I’ll be looking forward to when the D3 Character Planner updates with a PTR build. My curiosity has definitely been poked with some of these new legendary affixes.

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You are sounding a little pessimistic there…Don’t assume anything until you actually read that upcoming blog post.
My guess is that it will tell us that new seasons will continue to be implemented after future projects are released, maybe even with some at least minor patches, for balancing and such.

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This is kind of my take on it too. I don’t expect an expansion or new class for D3. I do kind of expect new Season Themes, items/item powers, balance changes, and QoL changes to continue for a long time to come. Nothing spectacular, but enough that coming back for a patch or season is a fun way to spend some time.

What I THINK is going on for structure, based on media reports that were made public:

*Incubation Team: New team modeled after the Hearthstone small mobile team concept. Tackles some of the more risky concepts and ideas that benefit from streamlined development or new methods. May be hits or misses, but always good learning experiences. Diablo: Immortal is being handled by them.

*Team 3: This is the main Diablo Franchise team. They work on whatever game is the main focus which could be D4 or maybe something else we don’t know the name of yet.

*Classic Team: Handles WC3, SC:R, SC, D2, and D3 as far as I think. They keep the games up to date on modern systems, do seasonal iterations, revitalize older games, and even do some QoL and patch changes. I think they are currently working on, among other things Warcraft 3 Remastered. Maybe someday D2 Remastered as well?

*Publications and Media type teams: Book of Adria, Nintendo Amibo Collaboration, Promotions on various platforms that might include new game content (pets, transmogs), Diablo Art book, any Diablo comics, shows, movies. Contests related to the franchise are here too.

That is how I THINK it works, but they won’t ever show me an org chart so I have to rely on the news interviews they have released.

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Well, we all know the D3 future, blog post about it could only contain something worse - less servers, subscription mode etc…

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That’s because Mortick’s doesn’t buff Barbs at all.

A full explanation can be found here: PTR Notes 2.6.6 - #10 by Free-1746

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So that gigantic thread where you sought feedback and implemented none of it, absolutely none of it, was what? A gigantic waste of time? You guys say your listening, but all WE’re hearing is silence.

I mean, come on. Firebirds could have simply doubled the 6 piece set and we could have worked with that. It’s a simple number change.

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That thread was the basic PR and Legal statement. Yes, they (the team handling D3) do listen, but they can’t won’t do everything we ask. PR/Legal?Mgt…not so sure they listen.

That said, a LOT of the things we have asked for have shown up in the past few patches. Some of it is QoL like stash search, and other things are balance or item changes. Even things like “Hey you guys really liked the LoN buff and how it opened up build so here is a new Leg Gem that helps you keep that going”. They gave Morticks Brace back too. That seems to me that they are listening to some of it. Not every change everyone wants is going to be something they can do, or can do fast.

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Come off it. The issue is they did NONE of it. Nothing. No attempt was made to address the issues, implement our solutions, or could up with some of their own. Literally. Nothing.

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Okay… Just done reading the patch notes and I’m quite pleasedly surprised. I have questions about Flavor of Time but I see that designers sort of left unnecessary number bloating and more focused on item and affix synergies. That’s at least a good sign on my book. Those new tweaked crafted Sets, I bet I can find a few use for them in traditional builds for higher pushes. And Triune buff was a brilliant call too I think.

I hope I see some major changes on skills at this fashion as well but I’m not holding my breathe. I suppose it’d be a slow process if it’s planned for already.

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Personally I find this somewhat a best strategy to proceed. It’s great to hear the real situation of D3. I still haven’t been able to lose hope of new class dlc so any news are good and relieving news.