Developer Journal: Multiplayer Improvements

In sitting down to plan out features for patch 1.0.8, we decided as a team that we really wanted to improve multiplayer co-op. We have other more long-term improvements planned as well (like the itemization updates Travis discussed earlier), but we knew there would be a lot of immediate benefit if we could just made it easier and more rewarding for people to play with each other.

Making Two Heads Actually Better Than One

From day one, it’s been our goal to make Diablo III a great co-op experience, but right now it's not living up to its full potential. Even if you enjoy playing with your friends, it can often feel easier and more efficient to play solo.

Playing solo has a number of advantages. For instance, you can choose your own route. If you're farming for something in particular (like a specific recipe), you can do it as many times as you want. And you can pause the game and attend to things in real life without making anyone wait.

Of course, multiplayer is awesome, too, and comes with its own benefits. For example, leveling up characters with a group of friends can be an amazing experience. Working together with other players to take down bosses or destroy Elite packs super quickly makes for great farming runs. There's resurrections and the banner system, and don't forget farming for Infernal Machine keys and organs. But, there are also disadvantages, like having to coordinate where you're walking and what you're attacking, losing your followers, and trying to find groups that have similar goals to yours without a defined matchmaking system in place.

The point is that multiplayer can be lot of fun, but given the downsides it can often feel not worth the effort. By making it easier for players to find one another, improving social features, and providing direct buffs to co-op groups, we hope to change that perspective.

Multiplayer Improvements in 1.0.8
Here are some changes going into 1.0.8 that we feel will help achieve our multiplayer goals:

Matchmaking Tags
Patch 1.0.8 introduces the ability to specify what we call a "matchmaking tag" for Public Games. The way this new system will work is pretty simple: in addition to selecting a difficulty, quest, and MP level, you can also select a tag that will identify what kind of gameplay you're looking for from a Public Game. The tags going onto PTR are Questing, Full Act Clear, Keywarden, and PvP. Selecting one will tell the matchmaking server to place you in a group with other players who have selected the same tag as you.

The goal is make it easier for players to find groups that fit their personal play style or will yield the best experience during any given play session. We'll be evaluating these tags during PTR, so if you have suggestions for other tags please don’t hesitate to let us know!

Multiplayer Bonuses
Many players have already figured out that if you coordinate well with your party, you're more efficient. That's definitely true, but we'd like this benefit to be more explicit. So, we're going to straight up add a bonus for playing in multiplayer.
 
We're still working on the details of what that buff is going to be, but at the moment we're looking at 10% more XP per extra player in the game for a maximum bonus of 30% more XP in a 4-player game. This bonus will be multiplicative with MP bonuses. For example: suppose you are playing on MP10 with an XP bonus in Inferno of 510%. This means a monster is worth 610% of its normal XP (510% more). If you are playing in a 4-player game the monster will be worth 793% as much XP as normal. On top of this, you will also earn a flat 10% Gold Find and 10% Magic Find for each additional player in the game, and this bonus can exceed the 300% Gold Find and Magic Find caps.

Monster Health
Monsters currently gain 70% extra health per additional player in the game. This is being reduced from 70% to 50%. This means in a two-player game, monsters have 150% as much health as a single-player game. In a three-player game, they have 200% as much health. And in a four-player game, they have 250% as much health (compared to 310% on live).

This further compensates for some of the inefficiencies that come with playing in a group. Ideally, this will allow you to play with someone who is less geared than you and still be better off than playing solo. It also means if someone strays from the group temporarily in a 4-player game (which inevitably happens from time to time), you'll still be at a greater advantage than if you were playing on your own.

Identify All
As previously mentioned, 1.0.8 adds Identify All to the game. In addition to being a huge quality of life improvement, ID All is good for co-op play too!  We found during our playtests that a common time for players to get separated from one another is when somebody's inventory was full and they spent a non-trivial amount of time in town identifying items, so this should help keep players together.

Archon Kills
For the Wizards out there, many of you don't play multiplayer because you need those kills to fuel your Archon. In 1.0.8, your Archon duration will also be extended by assists, so as long as you’re around when a monster dies, your Archon duration will be extended. (We have it on our radar to review other mechanics such as Life on Kill bonuses, but that's not something we'll be addressing this patch.)

Combat Alerts
When you're playing co-op, one common practice is to say "e" in chat when you come across an Elite pack.  So we thought—why doesn't the game just do this for you?

Starting in 1.0.8, when a player deals damage to or takes damage from an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin for the first time, a notification will be sent out to the entire party to let your teammates know what you've found. This will be accompanied by a "combat" icon on the mini-map so other players in your group can locate those enemies. On top of that, we're also going to put a combat icon over your banner in town. This way, players who are in town will know that you're fighting an Elite pack or Treasure Goblin and be able to quickly determine whose banner to take to get right into the action.

Players Near You
Similar to the feature in StarCraft II, the "Players Near You" window will display all players who are logged into Diablo III from your local network. This feature is great if you're playing while at a university dorm or frequent Internet cafes, and will help you easily connect with other local players.

Private Chat
We're also adding private conversations in 1.0.8, which will allow you to chat with up to 99 of your closest friends. Think of private conversations in Diablo III as being similar to multi-user conversations in your favorite IM client. You're not making a permanent "channel," you're simply inviting multiple people to chat for the duration of that session.

This is really just the first step in the process of improving the social experience in Diablo III and supporting its vibrant community. We know that players want bigger and more varied group chat functionality (like guilds and chat channels that are more permanent), and we do have concrete plans for additional features in the future. In the meantime, we hope private chat is a useful tool and look forward to delivering more systems that foster player interaction.

Testing, Testing 1 . . . 2 . . . 3
This is just a snapshot of the improvements coming in 1.0.8, and you'll be able to test out these changes and more before they go live by hopping onto the PTR. We definitely encourage you to participate, test out what's new, and let us know what you think!

Wyatt Cheng is a senior technical game designer for Diablo III. He is currently toying with molecular gastronomy recipes. For science!

KILDE

Replayability and ideas like Endless Dungeons come up a lot around the office. We definitely have plans to expand the game in these areas. Adding more monster power levels is also something that we have discussed. I personally love the idea of an endless dungeon, don't take that as a quote that I promised we are adding them though! At the heart of that idea is something really compelling, wave events, endless dungeons, hold out missions etc. Standing as the lone hero, or one of a party of heroes, against an onslaught of demons really sells the fantasy of Diablo, it's just a matter of taking the seed of that idea and iterating on it to a point where it feels like it fits into the game as a piece and not just "the only thing to do". I do hope that down the road we can find some way to make that idea a part of the content options players have at their disposal. I've said one numerous occasions, in a perfect world, when a player sits down at their computer for the evening to play the Diablo the question I want them to say to themselves is "What do I feel like doing tonight?" not "Ok time to run Act 3 again".

Kilde

I think Blizzard is getting ready to introduce a lot of new legendaries and generally improve drops.

Vaneras: Pretty much this, and I am pretty sure the game will feel quite different to play once you get your hands on one of those game changing legendaries :-)

Vaneras one simple question, new or reworked ones ?

That's a good question, but unfortunately one I cannot answer yet. More information on this will be posted once it becomes available though.

The developers participating in this Q&A round include:

Wyatt Cheng, Senior Technical Game Designer
Travis Day, Game Designer
Don Vu, Associate Game Designer

We're doing things a little differently this time around and will be providing developer answers in several parts spread over multiple weeks. Below are the answers for part 1.

Q. Will all legendaries found on Inferno roll level 63 base stat values (armor and dps values) and level 63 "non-base" (affixes) stat values?

Travis: Yes, our plan is to handle Legendary items in a similar fashion to how we handle Rare items. Legendary items will roll at a level equal to the creature that dropped it. This means that, in addition to a Legendary’s stats rolling at the monster level, the base item stats will also roll at the monster's level. Right now, Rares don't work this way. Instead, their affixes roll at the level of the monster, but their base armor and weapon damage remain unchanged.


Q. "Love Leoric's Signet, but hate wearing a level 17 ring? Me too. Instead of farming Act II Normal to find a Leoric's Signet, let's go farm Inferno and get a level 63 version of the ring!"

Does this mean that every set and legendary item will have a chance of dropping in Inferno?


Travis: Yes, Legendary and Set items will be valid drops from monsters at whatever point in the level range they are first introduced.

I have seen some people speculate over whether or not this means the experience bonus on Leoric's Signet will increase, and the answer to that specific question is "yes," but how each bonus on a Legendary or Set items scales will ultimately depend on the bonus itself. Some bonuses (such as the +EXP bonus on Leoric’s Signet) scale equally well from level 1 to level 60. On the other hand, some bonuses like procs that generate pets, or procs that deal damage effects, don’t always scale well as you get to the higher levels, but those will be changed wherever possible to scale with the level that they drop at.

Ultimately, we want to make sure the things that make Legendary and set items interesting continue to make them interesting at the end game, and in some cases they already do, so we just need to fix the other stats on the item.


Q. Will there any way for the players to have some control over the item stats. Such as implementing the mystic?

Don: Giving players more control and customization of their item stats is something we talk about a lot in our office. There have been a lot of ideas thrown around here and some great suggestions from the community, but we have not finalized any systems yet.

To give you an idea of what direction we're heading toward, though, here are just a few ideas that we're considering right now:
The ability to change a portion of a particular stat on an item to another stat of your choice

The ability to augment an existing item with a stat bonus of your choice
The ability to create an item with one or several fixed affixes—similar to the Rare recipes introduced in 1.0.7
We've also discussed adding other types of "socketables" with a wide variety of possible affixes that you can put in your socketed items instead of gems

All of these systems have their positives and negatives, so we want to make sure we make the right choice and consider all other changes we plan on making before deciding which systems we want to implement.

As far as the Mystic goes, she's a cunning lady. I’m sure we haven't seen the last of her.

Q. Where is my add socket?

Wyatt: When the game was in development, we the Blacksmith had the ability to add a socket to an item. Adding a socket makes the item better, so you pretty much always wanted to do it, and we found adding the socket felt like a small chore that didn’t actually increase the gameplay depth. You already need to insert gems to a socketed item, and felt having to add a socket as well would be a step too many.

With that in mind, there are still some gameplay benefits to adding a socket that we’d still like to capture. Although having to add a socket every time can feel like a chore, if there was a mechanic that made it a legitimate decision, that is something we could explore. Additionally, there’s something to be said for feeling more invested in an item—taking steps to improve an item increases your emotional bond with it, which is something we could definitely do better at.

So, to answer your question, it’s something that’s definitely on the table for the future, but it likely won’t be identical to the system that was in Diablo II or the early iterations of Diablo III.

Q. Will there be new craft-able items added in the future? I'm thinking weapons and/or legendary items...

Wyatt: It’s hard to say for sure, but I don’t see any reason why not. As we revisit items in general, we’ll be looking at how crafting fits into the big picture, and it’s certainly possible that we’ll add more recipes at that time.

Q. So you have a plan to reduce the number of dropping items but increasing their quality. This will result in a smaller amount of items that can be salvaged into crafting materials for the Blaksmith, With this in mind – do you plan balance the amount of crafting materials gained from salvaging against the material requirements of blacksmith’s formulas?

Don: Yes, we plan to take all of our future changes into consideration when balancing the amount of reagents needed for crafting recipes. We haven't decided on a number to reduce the number of drops by yet, so we can't go into specifics on how or if existing and future crafting recipes are going to change.


To be continued in part 2. . .

Vaneras:
We’re working on making all dyes work for Legendary items, but there is not yet an ETA on this as our artists still need some time to redo the textures on all the Legendaries in order to make them dye-compatible.

Diablo III Patch 1.0.7a – v.1.0.7.15295
The latest client patch notes can be found here.
Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of known issues.

CLASSES
Wizard
Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue introduced in 1.0.7 that caused: Archon Disintegration Wave, Disintegrate, Energy Twister, Meteor and Ray of Frost to grant double the amount of Arcane Power when Arcane Power on Crit triggered.

FOLLOWERS
Bug Fixes

The Enchantress should no longer sometimes cause an error to occur after casting Focused Mind.

QUESTS
Bug Fixes

Players are no longer prevented from progressing when another player joins or leaves the game during the “A Royal Audience: Talk to Asheara at the Gates of Caldeum” quest step.

BUG FIXES
Fixed several issues that could cause crashes to occur.
Players will no longer be killed by DoT damage after zoning out of Scorched Chapel.
The Siege Breaker Assault Beast and The Savage Behemoth will no longer reflect damage from pets.

I'd be keen to hear more Legendary ideas from you guys, as well as opinions on the suggestions that other players have already made.

Let's get creative all up in here! :)