Blizzard Entertainment recently updated the content and game launcher for their popular MMORPG Diablo III. The changes the developers made are small, but significant, and should change the experience for gamers.
More Pools of Reflection
Diablo III players now gain a 25 percent experience bonus when visiting Pools of Reflection. This bonus persists until players reach a set level of bonus experience points. Gamers also gain extra bonus experience points by visiting up to ten different Pools of Reflection. This allows players to stack experience point bonuses from ten different pools, increasing the amount of experience points received, even more, and this bonus continues even after you log out.
Nephalem Glory awaits
Diablo III players can now do more damage in the form of golden lightning bolts and increase their speed by picking up Power Globes. Power Globes are dropped by monsters when damaged or killed. Players can now pickup three Power Globes and stack the extra lightning damage and speed bonus.
Resurrect in different locations
Players that die while playing Diablo III can now decide to resurrect at their body, in town, or at the last checkpoint passed. Gamers aren’t able to resurrect near their body during Boss fights, and can only resurrect a maximum of three times in a row.
Diablo III bosses retuned
The mechanics of many of the Boss monsters have been retuned and updated in Diablo III. The enrage timers for The Butcher, Zoltun Kulle, Belial, Ghom, Siegebreaker and Rakanoth, now only enable in Torment I and above.
New character class and updates
The developers of Diablo III updated the character classes, but no patch notes were available. The developers have indicated they’ll add notes on the changes later.
The developers have also added new character statistics, such as Toughness, Healing, Splash Damage, Cooldown Reduction and Resource Cost reduction.
New Crafting and Artisan updates
The Crafting System in Diablo III has received criticism for taking up to much space in character inventories. The developers have reduced the amount of inventory space needed to keep required crafting materials around by increasing the amount players can store in one inventory spot.
All crafted items will now be created with proper statistics for the character crafting them, using the 2.0 Smart Drop system.
Fighting your way to Diablo just got harder!
The difficulty system of Diablo III is completely changed. Monsters will now level up at the same time as characters. Fortunately, the developers adjusted the monster density across all acts to account for the changes, so gamers should also see more monsters on-screen.
There are now five difficulty levels in Diablo III to select from: Normal, Hard, Expert, Master and Torment. The developers also added a difficulty slider to the mix, which provides six more levels of difficulty to the game.
Cursed Chests Add Entertainment
Players can now find Cursed Chests or Shrines near Sanctuary, which start an event once found.
New Smart Drop system
Items Diablo III players find during play will now be bound to their account. Characters can trade legendary and set items, with other characters who were present at the drop, for two hours after finding the item.
Items characters find while playing Diablo III will now have a better chance of including bonuses more suitable and useful for their character class. New item bonuses, like Splash Damage, Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction, and more bonuses specific to character class are now possible.
Item bonuses in Diablo III have also been separated into two categories: Primary and Secondary. This is to prevent statistics directly or indirectly increasing character power from competing with one another, according to the developers.
Updated Diablo III monsters
The developers have changed monster powers in Diablo III to offer a tougher battle. Arcane Enchanted spawn effect now indicates which direction it will rotate. Desecrator power starts low, but soon begins to do significant damage. The number of frozen orbs monsters can throw are greater and now they do area of effect damage to nearby characters over time before exploding.
Elite and champion monsters have new attacks, including Frozen Pulse, Orbiter, Poison, Thunderstorm and Wormhole.
New Paragon leveling system
The Paragon system in Diablo III has been totally changed. Players can now rise as high in the Paragon ranks as they wish. The developers have removed the cap on the number of levels a player can gain.
Characters no longer receive statistical bonuses upon leveling up to the next Paragon level. Players now earn Paragon points, upon moving up a level, which they can use in four different categories: Core, Offense, Defense and Utility.
New Diablo III Clans and Communities
Diablo III players can now create or join a Clan. Players can only join a clan by invitation, be part of one Clan at a time, and each clan can have up to 120 members.
Players can also start a gaming community on Diablo III. Communities are organized according to different categories, like the type of game, the geographical region and even character class. Community members have access to the member roster, a dedicated chat channel, and a news and information tab for sharing community news and stories.
- Diablo III players can join as many communities as they want to and communities have no set limit on the number of members.
- Diablo III communities are either private or public. Membership is by invitation only.
These are some of the changes Blizzard Entertainment has made to your favorite video game. You can take a look at all the updates here.
I will bring you a review on the Diablo III updates announced during the next few days. I need to play the game a little more to get an idea of what all the changes mean for players.
You can join me on the Diablo III game site. Just look for ‘Deathdealer’. I will be starting a new Clan, during the next few weeks, and I will be looking for a few good ‘killers’.
Published: Feb 26, 2014 09:10 am