0.10.8 Information and Race Updates

We're going to go ahead with the Act Three Merciless changes discussed here. The feedback on this was generally very positive. Most people were in favour of the change, but the players opposed to it brought up some very good points that need to be addressed. We will also be making some changes to maps. We will pay close attention to the results of the changes and may well make further tweaks in point releases.

Likely changes to Merciless Act Three:

• Merciless Act three zones will be changed somewhat similar to the changes outlined in the Manifesto Post.
• Maps higher than level 66 will not drop outside of maps.
• Merciless Piety will get a Map drop slot which may sometimes drop a map.
• Large chests in Merciless may sometimes spawn as dedicated map chests. These chests may either be rare and drop Maps every time, or common and not drop them every time. This change may be in a later patch.
• Lunaris Temple Level 3 will be made around 15% smaller.
• The waypoint before Lunaris Temple Level 3 will likely be moved.
• The Marketplace waypoint will be moved, and will be predictably close to the Catacombs Entrance.

Maps

• Maps will get signature monsters: one dedicated pack slot with the rest random. This reduces variance.
• Rewards will be revisited.
• We are currently investigating implicit mods and new map zones. This will probably not make it in to 0.10.8.
• Map bosses are being reworked. In 0.10.8 Asphyxia will be redone.

We're looking at rebalancing every skill in the game. The first four are:

• Puncture
• Lightning Warp
• Freeze Mine
• Discharge

These skills will hopefully be rebalanced in 0.10.8. We're expecting to perform numeric rebalancing and reviewing what their quality bonuses are. If we run into problems. some of them may be pushed to a later patch.

Unwalkable tiles no longer appear on minimap. There may be more changes to the minimap in the near future.

There will probably be a small pathway towards Alira's Camp in the Western Forest. This should make it a little easier to find.

If things go well, this patch will include support for Paysafecard as a payment method on our site.

Season Two Race News

From Season Two event 57 onwards, we've modified prizes so that they go down to lower levels and have slightly increased random rewards.

Here are the current standings in the Season Two signature events. For more information about these and their prizes, check out the original announcement.

Duelists:
grindis123 (Level 31, 6217724 experience)
asdfman (Level 31, 5519620 experience)
essau (Level 30, 4928130 experience)

Marauders:
AlkaizerX (Level 29, 4158347 experience)
Rydek (Level 28, 3719641 experience)
Goratha (Level 28, 3548388 experience)

Rangers:
nugiyen (Level 27, 3382463 experience)
Kurgan8 (Level 27, 3281631 experience)
tagpt (Level 26, 2938848 experience)

Shadows:
Condemned (Level 27, 3165833 experience)
IMDisappoint (Level 26, 2966335 experience)
Veu (Level 26, 2765332 experience)

Templars:
Krippers (Level 33, 7983586 experience)
Absurdd (Level 32, 6454135 experience)
ssnodgrass1283 (Level 31, 5743966 experience)

Witches:
eype (Level 29, 4166762 experience)
Powster (Level 28, 3963232 experience)
Invalesco (Level 27, 3442856 experience)

I am very pleased with how the Merciless/Map changes in 0.10.8 have worked out. People keep suggesting we're caving to the masses, but these changes are motivated by our internal testing and design philosophies that we have been following since we started the project.

A large part of any decision we make is asking ourselves what we would want as players. We're in a unique position where we can make the decisions that are best for the game without being held back by some parent company or oppressive publisher. I am very confident that these changes will result in a big improvement in the areas that we felt were problematic. If they don't, we can undo them very easily. Even if it wasn't a beta test, I'd be happy to undo any change that didn't work out.

Having Merciless Act Three pitched at higher levels does make it harder to progress through it in one sitting. You do have to repeat areas. It is an intentional part of the design that there comes a point (in the higher difficulties) where the game is too hard for your character and you have to improve it by gaining new items before you can progress. I completely agree that there's substantial work that can be done to make earlier areas feel a little less grindy.

Another thing to note is that these area levels are mostly just a standin for Act 3X. Once we introduce new areas like the Gardens and the Sceptre of God, further level adjustments will be necessary. Act Four will cause even more rebalancing of levels, though that's a problem for 2014.

Many people have commented that the presence of level 66-68 areas makes the lower maps unnecessary. Level 66 maps are still the only way into higher maps and are just as challenging as they always were. It's just that there are now more places to play if you don't want to start maps.

We were sorely missing repeatable end-game boss runs. It was a major oversight to launch Open Beta with Piety runs as lacklustre as they were. These changes make her a lot more rewarding. It's a lot of fun to do Merciless Piety runs and actually have a chance at decent items and experience.

Maps are still necessary for top-tier items and the best shot at 90+ experience gain. We are not afraid of adding other things for players to do in their 70s and 80s, and will continue to add more interesting goals over time. These are just a set of easy ones that we know we can fit into the 0.10.8 patch and have done very well in our testing so far.

We do greatly appreciate the feedback. I'm not trying to argue against it - it has influenced many of our decisions. Our design discussions take place with forum posts open that we quote and reference as we work out our plans.

"

Moosifer wrote:

"

Chris wrote:

I'd be happy to undo any change that didn't work out.

Chaos res?

Can you privately forward me some reading on feedback related to that? It honestly isn't on my radar of potentially problematic changes.

"

FenerStyler wrote:

Hmm.. actually nothing new, I see no changes to end game maps ..
Interested on minimap change a bit, but that was it =(

I hope patches get better like the first ones where you could see so many new things..

These aren't the full patch notes - they're just some changes that we wanted to discuss so that you can see some of what's coming up in the next week.

For example, new uniques!