Blizzard Previews Giant Diablo III 1.0.4 Patch

It's been four months since one of the most anticipated PC games of this decade dropped back in May 2012. Despite breaking retail sales records—almost unheard of for a PC-only game—the Diablo III player base began tapering off as players reached Inferno and became bored with the lack of an end game. The game launched without PvP, one of the reasons why Diablo II multiplayer remained fun. Players also complained of the lack of good loot dropped, yet another motivator in keeping players engaged.

To address the various complaints that its fans had with the game, Blizzard promised various design patches, starting with patch 1.0.3, to tweak the game.

Blizzard's just about ready to unveil its next design patch, numbered 1.0.4. Diablo III Systems Designer Wyatt Cheng wrote a blog post on the official site previewing the enormous patch incoming. These are the following changes:

  • To encourage co-op, Magic Find averaging will be removed from co-op multiplayer games. Loot drops will now be dependent on each player's individual Magic Find stat.
  • Also to encourage co-op, the monster health multiplier has been changed from a 75/85/95/110% scaling upon each new player joining to a flat 75% increase overall. Essentially, new players entering the game will not astronomically increase the difficulty of the game.
  • Normal monsters and Elite Packs (Champions and Rares) will no longer have a huge disparity in difficulty. Normal monsters will have a 5-10% increase in health, while Elite packs are having a 10-25% decrease in health. Do note that the increase in difficulty for monsters will come with a four times increase in chance that they'll drop a magic item.
  • Fire Chain and Shielding affixes will be tweaked so that they are no longer quite as difficult to deal with
  • Damage output of monsters will be reduced so that players won't be instantly killed.
  •  To better balance dual weapons and two-handed weapons, Blizzard is giving two-handed weapons a boost with better affixes.
  •  Clarity in skill affix descriptions will be coming too. For example, "Deals 75% weapon damage for 5 seconds" will be changed to "Deals 75% weapon damage over 5 seconds."
  •  Monsters' enrage timers and ability to heal back to full will be removed.
  • High-end items will have their repair costs reduced by 25%
  • New legendary weapons crafted and dropped after 1.0.4 is released will be much improved. This does not apply to existing legendary weapons
  • Invulnerable Minions affix will be removed from the game.

Cheng also explained that sweeping changes were coming for each class. Diablo fans should expect skillsets to be heavily modified. Descriptions of each change will be coming in another blog post, since the changes are so massive.

There's still no sign of PvP yet. Then again, the existence of the auction house does make it a challenge for Blizzard to implement PvP in the first place. Maybe it's something we can expect for Patch 1.0.5?

Contact Us for News Tips, Corrections and Feedback

  • They said PvP will be in 1.1 just fyi :)
    Reply
  • Ragnar-Kon
    They need PVP to keep it alive.

    Personally... it was my first Diablo game, and it will probably be my last. Beating the game and only being level 30 didn't make me want to beat the game another 2-3 times to get to the max level.
    Reply
  • wiggers
    Hmm. Can't see the 'can play without constant internet connection' improvement. Perhaps on the next patch.
    Reply
  • animeman59
    Playing a single player campaign with network lag is just ridiculous.

    After playing Normal and Nightmare, single and co-op, it just stopped being fun after going through the third time. Especially when the game just becomes frustrating, and doesn't reward you enough to have you keep pushing forward. Why in the hell would my Shaman want to use an item with dexterity? Give me health or intelligence, dammit! My friends and I couldn't imagine the hate that would be generated if we went through Inferno. Slowly, what used to be daily sessions now became a sporadic pickup game, and even then the games wouldn't last for more than an hour.

    Haven't played in almost two months now. Back to League of Legends, and Super Monday Night Combat.
    Reply
  • bystander
    The problem isn't their DRM, it's the lack of an end game, besides Inferno. Your character stops progressing in skills and stats at Hell, which doesn't take that long to beat. You get one last difficulty, which becomes nothing but a gear check.

    Without level progression, without the need to create multiple characters to try something different, without some sort of reward system in place, other than the increasingly rare chance to get something worth using or selling on the AH due to no item ever leaving the ecosystem, making what is considered decent more and more rare, players become bored and or frustrated.

    Without something to keep people playing, the game becomes old fast. These changes won't keep people playing. It could actually speed people along to quit earlier, because they should more easily beat inferno.
    Reply
  • YAWN
    Reply
  • dragonsqrrl
    "Monsters' enrage timers and ability to heal back to full will be removed."

    Thank you.
    Reply
  • aoneone
    muahahha Skidrow diablo 3 is all I needed and NOT one cent went to Blizzard! I win ^_^
    Reply
  • Can't play this game. Beat it through once, reached level 35, spent $20 on the RMAH for godly gear. No motivation to play whatsoever. Needs to be more sandbox oriented.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    aoneonemuahahha Skidrow diablo 3 is all I needed and NOT one cent went to Blizzard! I win ^_^if a game that isnt worth buying Original, it isnt worth wasting ur time pirating at all. Spend ur time elsewhere on games u actually bought. Pirating it is only telling Blizzard that you want the game but u wont pay for it. Boycotting it all together by not touching it at all is telling them to change.
    Reply