by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Today has seen an unbelievable flurry of news updates from our favorite Death Maiden, Community Representative Nevalistis, peppering the forums with her blue text. Chief among her writings were many words regarding the Patch Test Realm and what is currently happening as you read this. First, here is the schedule for today’s changes, which you should have already begun to observe on your PTR account if you have (had) Seasonal characters copied over:

PTR Season 1 Ending – November 20

Greetings,

In preparation for ending Season 1 on the PTR, we’d like to encourage players with Seasonal characters to copy over their heroes to the PTR and participate in the rollover process as we launch PTR Season 2. For more information on how to copy over your character to the PTR, please click here.

Below is an estimated timeline for how (and when) the PTR Season end and rollover process will work.

 

• Thursday, 11/20 @ 1:00 p.m. PST: All PTR participants in the Seasonal games will receive an in-game message noting that PTR Season 1 will be coming to a close at approximately 1:30 p.m. PST
• Thursday, 11/20 @ 1:30 p.m. PST: PTR Season 1 will end, all active Seasonal games will close, and the Season roll-over will begin. For more information about Season roll-overs, click here.
• Thursday, 11/20 @ 4:30 p.m. PST: The pre-season for PTR Season 2 will begin. For more information about pre-seasons, click here.
• Thursday, 11/20 @ 5:30 p.m. PST: PTR Season 2 will begin and all PTR participants will receive an in-game notification. At this time, Seasonal heroes and Seasonal games can be created. In addition, the Seasonalshared stash, Paragon experience, currency, artisans, achievements, leaderboards, and Personal Best records will all be reset.

Please note that all times listed above are subject to change. If there are any modifications to this schedule, we’ll be sure to update this post as soon as possible. Thanks so much for continuing to help us test Patch 2.1.2 and the next Season!

The rest of the posts go on to explain the rollover process in terms of what will happen to your once seasonal items and where to find them while also describing what to expect in the “calm before the storm” of Season 2 (what the team calls PTR Season 2 Pre-Season). If you’re curious about the details, click this link to be taken through.

PTR Season 2: Community Buffs Active

With the Season 2 testing being available tonight, the development team thought it might be nice to help the community get on their way a little faster by showering us with what can only be deemed as insane buffs. These numbers are ones you should NOT become too familiar with as this will not translate over to the “real world” when Season 2 goes live (although we may see some version of community buff to start Season 2 similar to what we experienced in Season 1 with gold and goblin bonuses). Have I piqued your curiosity? Read on for the dirty details below:

As Season 2 begins on PTR, we realize it may be challenging to level up and gear effectively with a short testing window. In order to facilitate Seasonal testing, particularly for our new Conquests and Seasonal Legendaries, we’re activating several Community buffs to help you along the way.

The following buffs will be active on the PTR for all characters (both Seasonal and Non-Seasonal) once Season 2 begins:

• 300% Bonus Experience Earned
• 2000% Bonus Chance to Find Legendaries
• Double Goblins
• Double Blood Shards

These buffs will be available for a limited time and will not last the full duration of the PTR, so if you plan on testing Season 2 Conquests, now’s the best time to jump in and take advantage of them!

As always, your feedback is appreciated and we thank you for participating in our latest testing phase.

Patch 2.1.2 Focused Feedback

Last, but certainly not least, Nevalistis acknowledged the hard work of the community in providing all of their feedback during this PTR test so far. She noted that further changes are coming in a future PTR patch that they would like special attention given to in terms of focused feedback. This includes yet another revision to the now infamous Demon Hunter’s Marauder’s Set, so if you’re a DH fan, you’ll want to pay close attention to these changes for testing:

Finally, we’ve already got some additional changes pending for the Embodiment of the Marauder. It’s great to see that players are enjoying the more active gameplay of this redesign, and we want to further shift the source of damage from your Sentries to your Demon Hunter. To accomplish this, the set bonus order is being shifted around and retuned. Bear in mind that tuning on the exact number values will likely continue through the PTR and are not yet final.

Here’s our latest anticipated changes, which will be coming to the next PTR patch:

• 2 Piece Bonus
  • Companion calls all companions to your side.
• 4 Piece Bonus
  • Sentries cast your Hatred spender when you do.
• 6 Piece Bonus
  • Your generators, Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, and Cluster Arrow deal 100% increased damage for every active Sentry.

This should bring the set’s damage potential closer to what it currently provides on live, if not a bit better. Once again, thank you for your ongoing diligence in PTR testing!

She also goes on to clarify that the bonus damage from the new 6-piece bonus only applies to the shots of the Demon Hunter his or herself, not the ones from the Sentry, which is in line with their reasoning for this revision of the set.

So, what do you all think out there? Have you been playing PTR? Are you observing the madness from afar? Do you think the team is on the right track with the changes in 2.1.2 so far? Let us know.