Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls revealed

The first of the two planned expansions for Diablo 3 has just been revealed.



- New class, the Crusader (shield based)
- The Mystic returns, able to enchant, enhance and transmogrify items
- New Act
- Loot 2.0 (Bigger, better loot. Legendary items that will define builds.)
- New Smart Drops system will attempt to drop items tailored to match your class
- New level cap of 70 with new skills and runes for all 5 existing classes
- Paragon levels are now account-wide and there is no cap on them
- Manually assign 5 attribute points each Paragon level
- 15-20 minute Loot Runs mode with completely random setups. Random dugeon, random weather, random enemies and a random Boss.




Minute by minute updates:
http://www.diablofans.com/news/1975-d3s-expansion-reaper-of-souls-was-just-confirmed/
http://diablo.incgamers.com/
 
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Blizzard just confirmed that all changes to the game systems will be free for all existing owners.
This includes the Mystic, Loot 2.0, Smart Drops, infinite Paragons, new skills for the existing classes, etc.

Only the new content (new class and Act) will require you to actually buy the expansion.

Not sure what category the Loot Runs mode falls under.
 
Anyone else on TE looking forward to this?

Everyone who shied away from the game because of the Auction Houses and weak itemization has reason to return.
The Auction Houses are being removed and the itemization has been revamped with things like SmartDrops (rare items have a chance to be tailored to fit your class) and build-defining legendaries that will change the entire way you play a particular class (finally).
 
I will believe all the itemization changes when I see it. Will definitely not get this at launch, maybe later when the prices drop. All the story, item and auction house issues aside, I didn't get a satisfying gameplay experience due to the constant server connection requirement. It was frequently too choppy and sometimes hits didn't register at all.
 
I will believe all the itemization changes when I see it. Will definitely not get this at launch, maybe later when the prices drop. All the story, item and auction house issues aside, I didn't get a satisfying gameplay experience due to the constant server connection requirement. It was frequently too choppy and sometimes hits didn't register at all.
Did you happen to play only during the launch stages? That's the only time the game had connection issues, otherwise the connection quality has been stellar unless you have a bad ISP.

If anything I now prefer that this game was online only.
Just look at the console version; there's so many hacked characters and items that it has completely killed the integrity of the multiplayer scene what with people sporting 5000dps weapons with 500% attack speed.
 
^^ I played the for the first three months, then came back after a long gap. Had rubberbanding both times, on Airtel. The thing is, I prefer to play by myself. I shouldn't have to deal with spikes and hits not registering while playing alone. But it is what it is, and I have moved on to other stuff. Maybe when the new patch hits I'll give it another shot.

They overdid the server side part IMHO. You can completely remove piracy with far less tighter coupling with the server, just look at Dota 2, LOL, Path Of Exile etc etc. You don't need to query the server for each hit, each movement or each spell cast. It's a bad design.
 
Blizzard just confirmed that all changes to the game systems will be free for all existing owners.
This includes the Mystic, Loot 2.0, Smart Drops, infinite Paragons, new skills for the existing classes, etc.

Only the new content (new class and Act) will require you to actually buy the expansion.

Not sure what category the Loot Runs mode falls under.
Loot Run (Adventure mode) will require RoS purchase. I'll probably get it.
 
The connection problems are still prevalent. I don't know which region you're playing on, but I play on Americas where I usually get 30ms with frequent bursts to 600ms for no apparent reason. I'm certain it's not a problem with my ISP since I've tried multiple connections. The problem is definitely server side and given that there are not too many players playing this game right now, they have no excuse for these lag spikes. I'm also going to wait for the reviews a few months into the launch and follow the feedback on connection quality before I consider getting back in.
 
For me, the issue with the game more than the rubber-banding an all was the skill system.
I really miss my diablo 2 amazon withe the different trpes of arrows and all.
Love it they have improved to incoperate more skills to easy access than mashins Fx to mix up ur skills.
But the skill tree in diablo 2 was on a league of its own. Messing with that didnt go well with me.
Barbarian was all right, didnt like witch doctor or the monk that much. Wizard was a only class i felt worth a second playthrough.
 
Dead in the water....what can I say, I may still end up buying it because D III without the expansion is going to be worse than it is now. I still like to play about once a week for maybe 2 hours...
 
They overdid the server side part IMHO. You can completely remove piracy with far less tighter coupling with the server, just look at Dota 2, LOL, Path Of Exile etc etc. You don't need to query the server for each hit, each movement or each spell cast. It's a bad design.
Not really since Dota2 and D3 both work in the same manner; character movement is client-side while attacks and spellcasts query the server which causes some indiscernible delay.

PoE is also the same except it has server de-syncs to deal with where the entire server state can jump back a few seconds causing you to lose any great items you might have found.
D3 does something similar sometimes (rubberbanding) but it doesn't rob you of any items found during.

I play on Americas with 300ms and it has been perfect. Not saying no one has any problems but that they are the exceptions and not the norm.


Dead in the water....what can I say, I may still end up buying it because D III without the expansion is going to be worse than it is now. I still like to play about once a week for maybe 2 hours...
That's not fair. You have an MP10 capable character into which you've invested nearly 700 hours (such a horrible game it must be that you spent that many hours on just 1 class :p), obviously the game will start to feel dead to you at this stage.

Time to roll another class.
 
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We must be playing different games. I just fired it up again, just to see how things are. Solo play on US server, 291 latency. The teleport strike of my Monk always lags, and so does my roundhouse kick when too many enemies are knocked back. Singapore server, 161 latency, things are better, but still could see that lag when too many things happen with too many enemies on screen. Not always, but not rarely either.

I play Dota 2 extensively, on US E/W, EU E, Singapore and even Australia. Even at 350 ms latency I have never seen any rubberbanding or lag during a team fight. It has a mostly better netcode than D3.
 
You are right, we are playing different games.
Forget 350ms, even 200ms feels boggy in Dota2 as it becomes quite hard to reliably last-hit.
And if there's even 1% packet loss, the game starts to frame and skip hero locations. Hell I have seen entire ultimate casts reversed.

Btw did you play D3 for a while or just fire off a few skills after a fresh launch and quit? The game doesn't precache everything and the first few casts will cause heavy amount of HDD thrashing which might be construed as network lag.
It gets smooth after a couple minutes and it only happens upon the first launch after a system boot.
 
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I have heard people having this packet loss issue with Dota 2, never saw it myself though. I played for about 10 minutes of D3 in each server to check out the gameplay. I plan to start afresh with a friend as soon as I am done with TL2 and Van Helsing, let's see how it goes.
 
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