Pec har fødselsdag i dag! Congratz! Loot?

Nephalem Valor; en central feature i Diablo 3, der gør, at spilleren kan opnå mere magic find og gold find. Systemet havde som udgangspunkt til formål at sikre, at den gængse spillestil ikke skulle afspejle de klassiske hurtige 'runs' som i Diablo 2, hvor især Mephisto måtte lide døden utallige gange på få minutter, for at skaffe spilleren uniques, rares og set items på kort tid. Nephalem Valor skulle derimod opfordre til en spillestil, som skulle bringe spilleren mere rundt i større dele af Sanctuary i Diablo 3, og ikke opfordre til en bestemt rute på en varighed af 1-2 minutter.

Community Manager Lyllirra hos Blizzard har netop svaret på et indlæg fra en spiller, der som udgangspunkt var begejstret for NV-systemet, men som nu har indset, at det er 'dumb'.

After testing out the Nephalem Valor system for the last 6 months, I have become pretty disappointed with it. When I first heard about the system, I was really excited. I immediately thought “GREAT! Now we don’t have to farm one spot all the time, and there will be motivation to move all over the world!”. For a while, I really enjoyed the system.

Now, I am realizing that it feels really dumb. It doesn’t feel fun to go out and hunt down Elite packs, just to get 5 stacks of this buff, before you start MFing. I always liked to turn to Diablo when I had 20 minutes before I had to leave the house for work or class, I could get in a couple Mephisto runs and maybe get some quick loot to be excited for when I got home. That is no longer possible, seeing that it will often take 20 minutes just to get your 5 stacks up. Now, a magic find run that could be 5 minutes has turned into 45 minutes. Diablo used to be the contrast to WOW for me, because it was casual, and had immediate gratification, wheras you’d have to dump lots of time to accomplish something in WOW. Now that’s how it feels in Diablo 3.

This post isn’t meant to be a Diablo to WOW comparision, or a casuals vs. hardcore players type of thing. What it comes down to for me is that doing magic find runs for loot (what this whole game is about) feels like it’s too arduous and grindy of a process. I propose you remove Nephalem Valor, and just let us farm where we want and when we want. Up the quality of boss loot, and don’t make us travel all over the world to do a MF run.

Lylirra: Overall, we think Nephalem Valor does a great job at addressing two core needs. First, it helps make sure that extremely short play sessions (i.e. < 1 minute) are not the optimal way to play. Second, there's a lot of value in being able to swap your skills at will and tailor your builds to the environment around you, but there's also gameplay to finding a build that really works for you in a variety of situations -- we like that NV helps balance these two concepts, and allows players to feel like there is some commitment to a skill build without also feeling like they’re locked into that build forever. So, while there are definitely some issues with the current design, we currently think that the pros outweigh the cons of how the game would probably feel if the system were not in place.

That said, you're right -- the system isn't perfect, and we're definitely looking at ways we can do better. Certainly, one of our goals is to allow people to play game sessions that are about 5 to 10 minutes in length and still be rewarded well, but we need to make sure that in the process we don't make rapidly flipping games the go-to method. It's all about striking the right balance for a wide variety of players, and we'll definitely be keeping your feedback in mind (as well as other threads on the topic) as we explore options for how to improve NV.

Kilde

Jeg bliver nødt til at erklære mig enig på det punkt, at jeg savner de hurtige ture, som eksempelvis gik til Mephisto, Diablo, The Countess, Travincal og så videre. Hvad er det, jeg savner ved disse hurtige ture? Hovedsageligt bunder det i, at der var en øjeblikkelig gevinst i sigte; hermed ikke sagt, at jeg var sikret et fantastisk item for enden af den korte tur, men at der droppede mindst et set item eller unique item næsten hver gang. Langt de fleste gange var disse items ubrugelige, men følelsen af at finde netop uniques og set items, var ofte nok for mig til, at jeg gentog disse runs op til hundrede gange om dagen. Min pointe er, at synet af low level uniques og low level set items, holdt håbet oppe om, at ét af disse sjældne items på et tidspunkt ville droppe som et high level item. Det var engagerende for mig. Og det holdt min gejst oppe, da jeg spillede Diablo 2.

I Diablo 3 dropper der (så vidt jeg ved) ikke low level legendary og set items på inferno, hvilket udelukker muligheden for, at legendaries og set items kan droppe i flæng, som de gjorde i Diablo 2 ved act bosses. Når jeg læser, at Blizzard arbejder på at skabe et bedre system for item farming, håber jeg, det indebærer, at der tilføjes flere brugbare items i alle level ranges, således at det vil blive lettere at finde legendaries og set items. Meget få af disse items ville være brugbare for high level characters, men det ville virke mere engagerende på mig, hvis jeg så en tand mere til denne type items, og man ville sandsynligvis spille med større gejst.

Senest så vi, at en del af denne tankegang blev indført i Diablo 3, da man fik muligheden for at finde tre forskellige keys fra i alt tre forskellige unique monstre spredt ud på tre forskellige områder i spillet, når spilleren havde fem NV-stacks. Dette gav spilleren et langt mere konkret mål og et bestemt håb om drops fra et bestemt monster. Dette tiltag blev af mange betraget som et godt tiltag, og jeg er enig. Jeg ville dog ønske, at samme princip ville gøre sig mere gældende blandt hovedsageligt act bosser; at 5 nephalem valor stacks ville give rigtig god chance for et legendary item eller set item hos She-ablo, Azmodan, Belial og Butcher. Ikke nødvendigvis gode items men trods alt items af en bestemt sjældenhed, der kunne virke engagerende på en spiller som mig. Jeg vil dog understrege, at jeg stadig synes om selve NV-systemet, da det rigtigt nok skaber mere variation end de gamle boss-runs. Ikke desto mindre åbner Lylirra op for, at der bliver udarbejdet ændringer til NV-systemet, som i fremtiden kan supportere, hvad der kaldes for "shorter play sessions";

There are no current plans to remove NV, but we do feel like we there are ways that we could continue improve the system to allow for a broader variety of play styles (i.e. shorter play sessions, as mentioned).

Kilde

Hvad tænker I om Nephalem Valor- og dropsystemerne? Hvordan ville I forbedre dem? Kan de overhovedet forbedres?

Det er ikke fordi, dette er en stor nyhed, da de fleste nok havde udelukket muligheden for PvP i Diablo 3 i år. Men vi skal da alligevel lige have Jay Wilsons tweets med om emnet, som dog antyder en mulig opdatering på PvP-udviklingen i slutningen af året.

We are not likely to post a PvP update until the end of the month. Note: that is not a promise. That’s all I’ll say about that. –JayWilson

Vi har vel også en patch 1.0.7 til gode inden PvP-patchen.

Kilde: https://twitter.com/Angryrobotics/

Real Money Auction House - er det noget, du har benyttet dig af? Er du blevet fristet af at købe dig til succes, eller sælge ud af dine items for ægte penge?

Læg din stemme, og kommentér gerne nedenfor.

Mange spillere oplever i dag problemer med at logge på Diablo 3-serverne. I skrivende stund  er denne tråd på Blizzards officielle forum oppe på 116 sider med folk, der brokker sig over, at de ikke kan spille Diablo 3, fordi de i login-processen sidder fast ved "Retrieving hero list".

Blizzards Lurdlespor skriver:

We're restarting the services at the moment to get everything back online, I don't have an ETA just yet and I'll let you know as soon as we have one or futher news.

Det er beklageligt, men folk må vente, indtil Blizzard har fikset fejlen.

Under Blizzards tredjekvartals 'conference call', bekræftede Mike Morhaime i går, at Blizzard arbejder på en expansion pack til Diablo 3. Dog var dette det eneste, der slap ud om emnet. I øjeblikket står StarCraft: Heart of the Swarm til at være næste udgivelse fra Blizzard, og vi må nok forvente, at vi ikke hører meget nærmere, før denne titel er på markedet.

Link til alverdens kedelige finansielle oplysninger kan findes nedenfor.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACTI/2159384312x0x612530/8efb3a44-ce95-4b82-ab7c-2dc6cce28732/ATVI_Q3_2012_release_and_tables.pdf

Blizzard har planer om at ændre måden, hvorpå den såkaldte 'death timer' fungerer i Diablo 3. I en kommende patch vil de sørge for, at der altid kun vil være fem sekunders ventetid, inden man kan 'revive' sin character ved seneste checkpoint. Denne nyhed kommer i forbindelse med Lylirras reaktion på en fans ønske om, at banners kan sættes de steder, hvor man ønsker at genoplive sin character, efter den dør (et forslag der ikke synes at vinde opbakning hos Lylirra, der dog forsikrer os om, at de gerne vil give banners en større rolle i spillet).

As some players have pointed out, allowing characters to revive at their banner's location does create some complications and could lead to certain kinds of gameplay that we'd prefer to avoid in Diablo III (this is actually why we don't allow players use Town Portals in the same way that you could in Diablo II). We definitely appreciate the feedback, though, and will continue to consider how we might be able to accommodate this suggestion -- or at least something similar -- in the future.

That said, we completely agree that banners in their current form are pretty boring and we'd love to make them more useful. If you have other ideas for banner uses, please share them!

(On a note that's somewhat related to respawning, we also happen to agree that incremental resurrection timers are overkill -- especially given the other penalties you incur when dying -- and are looking to change it so that players can always revive at the last checkpoint five seconds after death in an upcoming patch.)

Kilde