by Hotstreak - 10 years ago     show comments

The folks over at Diablofans have put together a list of information that was given during the Anniversary Dev Stream. This list includes some details about Seasons, Tiered Rifts, Nephalem Rifts, Itemization, and some other interesting information. This information is some pretty interesting and exciting stuff that I can’t wait to test on the PTR hopefully soon.

Nephalem Rifts

• Rift Guardians will get some tweaks to make their fight last approximately equally long for comparable times in tiered Rifts. (Orlash’s disappearing for a shorter time specifically mentioned)
• RNG in Rift generation is going to be tweaked (expect more similar density levels) to make the times more comparable.
• The progress bar during Rifts will now advance according to monster health, elite packs will account for much more than they currently do.
• Rift-only zones are being looked at now that Adventure mode has given designers more freedom.

Tiered Rifts

• Concept: Each Rift has a timer (15 minutes mentioned). Rifts get increasingly difficult up to the point where you can’t handle them anymore.
• There will be Leaderboards for Tiered Rifts (Separate for HC/SC, Season/Non-Season, classes and group sizes)
• Tiered Rifts will be used as a benchmark to measure class balance (solo capabilities, group synergy, high vs. low difficulty farming speed to be taken into account)
• 2.1 has been worked on for multiple months now. Tiered Rifts are working in the internal build, though some UI elemts are only prototyped.
• Opening Tiered Rifts will require normal Rifts for a new type of key.
• After clearing a Tiered Rift, the key for the next tier drops, allowing you to open it once.
• Rewards for Tiered Rifts are still being worked on but they should be the most rewarding thing you can do on a certain diffictuly (Legendary Gems hinted on)

Seasons

• Season’s Leaderboards will probably be per class not per account.
• Season length has not been decided on yet, they’ll likely not be uniform with the first season probably being rather long.
• Later seasons might change the rules of the game around.
• Season only items will be rolled into the droppable item pool in non-season games after the end of a season.

Crafting

• More Transmog options will be available in the next patch (Class sets, Class restricted items – their Transmog won’t appear for other classes though)
• Treating crafting Mats like Currency and removing it from the stash is being discussed continuously.

Itemization

• Legendary items with elemental damage % are supposed to be flavorful, having a Cindercoat for every element is not happening.
• The Healing stats as a whole aren’t where they need to be right now (part of the issue being that there isn’t a gamemode [in SC] where it matters enough).
• The balancing for two-handed weapons is being influenced by Crusaders. It’s still being looked into (note that a 50/50 ratio between the usage of 1h/2h amongst all classes is not desired, though).
• Certain Legendaries only dropping from specific monsters is not being planned right now as players doing the same thing over and over again to get what they want is not desired.

Classes

• Wizard
  • Hydras proccing a lot of Lightning Bolts on Electrified packs will be looked into.
  • Teleport changes were not because of Calamity/Wormhole, but instead to buff the average wizard.

Art Development

• Tools used: Maya, Photoshop, Blizzard’s own editor, ZBrush (wasn’t used by anyone but the cinematics team until a year ago)
• Easter egg: Act 2 has a Hydralisk head in an abandoned town (in Stinging Winds?).

Story / Lore

• Explaining with mood is preferred to explaining things with dialogue
• The writers have to compromise when writing their story because it has to fit from a gameplay perspective and can’t be too expensive, art-wise.
• Skovos and Ureh were both supposed to be in the original Diablo 3, but were cut because they didn’t seem to fit in.
• Class skill sets are designed before their actual backgrounds, so which classes are being added to the game is decided from a gameplay perspective first and foremost.
• The initial idea for Lorath was just “Tyrael has got to save someone’s life in the cinematic”, and when he was told to find the Player he suddenly had to actually be in the game to do just that, making him become a much more important character.
• Imperius and many other angels are shaken by Malthael’s betrayal itself more than by what he did to humans, especially he was the eldest on the council.
• The angels fear the potential to choose good or evil in humans, specifically the Nephalem as he/she has become very powerful and him/her potentially turning evil is scary even to Tyrael.
• Malthael had the Power of the Prime Evils in him after consuming the Black Soulstone (to be able to defeat the Nephalem), not being possessed by them but rather him being able to channel their powers.
• After the death of Malthael, the combined Prime Evil Diablo was released, rather than the individual Evils.

Cain’s Death

• Was supposed to happen later, but didn’t seem fitting from a gameplay point of view.
• Since Tyrael (and later Adria) also took the role of the “Old Wise Man”, there wasn’t much for Cain to do, at this point.
• Letting Cain be killed off by Lea accidentally (her not being able to control her powers) was also an idea, but since Maghda was the Villain of the hour at this point in the game, the decision went in her “favor”.

Misc

• Competitive PvE is still being looked into, even beyond Ladders and Tiered Rifts. How to measure success? Is highest Level in a season really the best measure?
• The PC and Console versions of the game influence each other and features from one may carry over to the other in the future.
• Adventure mode being better for leveling than Campaign mode is not really intentional, it should simply provide variety and its own rewards.
• There will likely be more community buffs in the future.
• Paid DLC is probably not going to happen, big expansions and free patches are Blizzard’s way.
• The Clan and Community features will be expanded in the future.
• The Infernal Machine event might get expanded in the future, with better rewards added to it.
• Jay Wilson was the main force behind the combat design in Diablo 3 as well as its physics engine.
• Devs playing at home are not able to cheat.