Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha Final Phase Impressions

After a week of expected maintenance, Blizzard has successfully launched the final phase of the Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha.

What Changed?

 

There were a few small bug fixes but two very major, very important changes were implemented.

Accounts Reset

 

All Technical Alpha accounts had their gold refunded and purchases refunded to their Battle.net account balances. All levels gained during the previous technical alpha were lost, both hero levels and account levels. However, Blizzard has stated that this is the last reset of the Alpha, meaning all future purchases and levels gained will carry over into the finished game.

Server Regions

 

Previously, the Technical Alpha took place on a server under heavy load to stress test and work out any problems that could happen from server load. After months of testing, they had the Technical Alpha server running stable enough that they could proceed to set up the regional servers.

The Good and the Bad

 

Technical Alpha Headstart and Hero Levels

The Good
Technical Alpha players have a lot to teach new players.
The Bad
Technical Alpha players are going to absolutely murder new players when the game goes full launch.

Players in the technical alpha had a head start in personal experience with the game, and now they will have a clear headstart in levels and heroes acquired in the game. The hero leveling system locks the use of abilities on heroes until a certain level is reached with that hero. Heroes unlock all of their abilities after about 4 games. However, during those 4 games, they are playing as a handicapped version of that hero. There has been a lot of debate about the purpose of the leveling system and whether it is fair to handicap new players off the bat. An argument for the system is that it prevents new players from feeling overwhelmed by choices and presents them with a specific build path for a hero before opening up the whole kit. An argument against the system is that it unnecessarily handicaps the player in a team based game, and thus handicaps the team. Other arguments against the system include: it affects heroes purchased with real money, 4 games is an arbitrary amount to have to play, and the order in which talents unlock does not make sense on some heroes. In the end, the personal experience will matter more than the levels when it comes to technical alpha players having a headstart, and the level issue is more of a fundamental game design decision that may be changed before release.

Server Regions!

 

The Good
Lower latency and more communication between players.
The Bad
People switching regions can more easily disrupt matches.

If you have ever played a game with people who do not speak your language, you know how important it is to have proper server regions. When setup right, players are matched with people similar enough in culture that they can communicate more clearly with each other and work together more easily. If you have played a lot of DotA2, you know that server regions don't always work out that way. It is too early to tell if Blizzard has it set up in such a way that people from other regions aren't forced to switch regions to get a better queue.

More Information

 

Official Blizzard Post :: Technical Alpha is Back Online!

Shameless YouTube Plug

 

I am currently uploading Part 7 of my Clive Barker's Undying playthrough. Check it out on my channel :: SaikoGekido Gaming

Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.4 Notes - Simplified

     Patch 1.0.4 is live on the Americas realm. Below is a simplified look at the notes, boiling them down to buffs and nerfs for classes. The other areas, such as the Auction House and Battle.net have a few major changes and several minor changes. Consider this the highlights of the patch notes. You can read the full patch notes here.

Auction House

     Major Changes -

          The first thing you'll notice upon opening the new Auction House (referred to as the AH), is that the number of searchable item property fields has been doubled. The initial limit on the fields was a design choice towards the end of development to force players to focus on a few stats instead of trying to find items with 6 perfect stats. In practice, it just made it really hard for players to find items with 6 perfect stats. This is probably the biggest change to the AH that most people will find useful.

          The second major change is the ability to cancel auctions if there are no current bids on the item. This is extremely useful for most players that are trying to clear out their inventory quickly, but are having a tough time with the 10 item auction limit. Now, if they have an item that's been up for a day without bids, they can take it down and re-auction it at a better price. This also shouldn't impact bargain bid snipers, who wait till the last minute to get the best deals. Bidding on the item will lock it out from being canceled, so those bid wars will proceed as planned.

     Minor Changes -

           Several item properties that existed on items but were not searchable, such as Attack Speed on Quivers, are now searchable properties. Reduced Level Requirement items will show up properly in item level searches. Before, you would need to search for level 60 items with a minimum Reduced Level Requirement of 10 or what have you. The compare tooltip is working in several more areas, but there's still no stat comparison underneath. Finally, the listing price of unsold items will appear on the completed page, which should help out all those people that don't create Excel spreadsheets to operate the AH.

Battle.net

     Major Changes -

          None.

     Minor Changes -

          Mousing over a Quick Join game will display all the players in the game in a new window, as well as the amount of open slots. Reporting for Spam will now automatically decline the message. Before, you would have to manually decline the spammer after reporting them.

Bosses

     Maghda : A new interaction. Her insect projectiles can be slowed. They're already slow...

     Ghom : Nerfed. Gas cloud spawn time increased. Less damage to minions. Invulnerable bug fix.

     Cydaea : Minor bug fix.

     Azmodan : A new interaction. The slow moving fireball of death can now be affected by slows.

     Izual : Several bug fixes, especially with his charge ability. It was sometimes not damaging players, or damaging them twice.

     Rakanoth : Bug fix. Fully immune to CC during enrage.

     Diablo : Leaves players in the Shadow Realm, even if they defeat Shadow Diablo, because why wouldn't he/she/it? Just kidding. Only minor cosmetic bug fixes, and an exploit nerf on monks using seven sided strike to avoid Shadow Clone creation.

Classes

     Barbarian -

          Buffs : Damage buffs to

• Bash
• Ancient Spear
• Cleave
• Hammer of the Ancients
• Rend, Seismic Slam
• Weapon Throw
• Whirlwind

Leap can now be used while CC'd, but won't break the CC. For instance you can Leap while Jailed, but you're still Jailed where you land.

          Nerfs : Proc coefficient nerfs to

• Hammer of the Ancients
• Overpower (No longer procs on hit effects)

     Demon Hunter -

          Buffs : Damage buffs to

• Bola Shot
• Chakram
• Cluster Arrow
• Entangling Shot
• Evasive Fire
• Impale
• Rain of Vengeance
• Rapid Fire
• Sentry
• Smoke Screen (Choking Gas Rune)
• Strafe
• Vault (Trail of Cinders Rune)

Cost lowered on Multishot. Brooding healing no longer paused by taking damage.

          Nerfs : Proc coefficient nerfs to

• Caltrops (no longer triggers on hit effects)
• Chakram
• Grenades

     Monk -

          Buffs : Damage buffs to

• Exploding Palm
• Lashing Tail Kick
• Seven-Sided Strike
• Tempest Rush
• Wave of Light

Spirit generation increased on Crippling Wave, Way of the Hundred Fists, The Guardian's Path Two-Handed Weapon specialization and Exalted Soul now generates 1 Spirit per second. Cyclone Strike can now trigger on hit effects. Duration of Sweeping Wind Master of Wind Rune doubled to 20 seconds.

          Nerfs : Fixed the exploding palm exploit that allowed Monks to gain multiple rare drops by exploding all mobs in a Champion or Rare pack simultaneously. Mystic Ally can no longer trigger on hit effects.

     Witch Doctor -

          Buffs : Damage buffs to

• Acid Cloud
• Corpse Spiders (they now benefit from +Critical Damage)
• Firebats
• Firebombs
• Gargantuan
• Grasp of the Dead
• Spirit Barrage
• Spirit Walk (Umbral Shock and Severance Runes)
• Soul Harvest (Vengeful Spirit Rune)
• Wall of Zombies
• Zombie Charger (Leprous Zombie and Wave of Zombies Runes)

Circle of Life spawn chance increased to 30%. Grave Injustice health and mana gain doubled. Base Mana regeneration increased by 225% to 45 (ha, bet you got all excited about that big number). Spellcasting animations have been tightened. Spirit Vessel form can now walk through monsters and the heal has been increased(incoming exploits?) Tribal Rites affects Zombie Dogs, Gargantuan, and Mass Confusion. Pets should now be much more durable.

          Nerfs : Pet coeffecients drastically reduced (Gargantuan can no longer proc effects). Spirit Vessel duration reduced to 2 seconds.

          ??? : Rush of Essence now returns 49 Mana at Level 60, instead of 30% of the Spirit Spell's cost. Vision Quest redesigned to grant 30% Mana regen instead of 300%, but with a much more forgiving cost. I don't have a level 60 witch doctor to try these out on, so if anyone knows the answer to whether that's a buff or nerf, let me know.

     Wizard -

          Buffs : Damage buffs to

• Arcane Torrent
• Archon (Arcane Destruction Rune)
• Diamond Skin (Diamond Shards and Mirror Skin)
• Electrocute, Explosive Blast (Time Bomb Runes)
• Hydra (Arcane, Lightning, Frost, and Mammoth Runes)
• Ice Armor (Jagged Ice Rune), Meteor, Shock Pulse (Fire Bolts)
• Teleport (Calamity Rune)

They finally fixed the tooltip on Cold Blooded (which has always affected all damage, but the tooltip said only Cold damage was increased). Ice Armor has an increased chance to freeze targets.

         Nerfs : Proc Coefficient on Energy Twister cut in half. Melee Wizards take note.

Crafting

     Major Changes -

          You can craft new Legendaries compliant with the 1.04 changes!

     Minor Changes - 

          Blacksmith figured out how to repair items.

Items

     Major Changes -

          Pretty much every item you find from here on out is going to be much better than what you would have found in previous patches. Legendary weapons and armor now have unique properties, and can roll for much higher stats than before. Remember that all of these changes are not retro active. Items from pre-1.04 are referred to as "Legacy" on the AH. Make sure you aren't scammed while buying.

     Minor Changes -

          Stack size of Gems is now 100 instead of 30. Repair costs reduced by 25%. Two-Hander stats received a massive buff. Quiver drop rate finally reduced! The hex code trick to let players identify the stats of of an item before identifying the item has been fixed. There's a market for unidentified items that was recently threatened by the mass discovery of this exploit.

Monsters

     Major Changes -

          Drop rate from normal monsters increased by 400% of the previous value. Less bonus bonus health when players co-op. Inferno monster damage and health nerfed across the board. No more enrage timer. No more Invulnerable Minions. Shielding Monsters nerfed. Fire Chains nerfed. Arcane Enchanted nerfed. Nightmarish Monsters can no longer chain fear players. Mortar should no longer land in the dead zone. Oppressor charge will no longer deal damage to players twice (bug).

     Minor Changes –

          Quite a lot of monsters were bugged. Their bug list is extensive. Some monsters were dealing double damage (like the Oppressor charge), while some monsters were spawning in weird areas or without loot.

Diablo 3 Patch 1.04 Paragon System - The Breakdown

If you haven't read the patch 1.04 preview for the Paragon system, check it out here. Most of the relevant information in that article can be found directly below "Introducing the Paragon System". Those bullet points are the bare bones of the system, such as how Paragon levels are gained and what effect they have on the character. Basically, they add Gold Find, Magic Find, and a little bit of the base stats to your character, as well as giving you a slightly cooler looking portrait every 10 Paragon levels.

Jay Wilson went on to talk about the length of time involved in acquiring the levels, and the solution to the magic find item property issue which has been bugging the community for a while. It should take roughly the same amount of time that it takes for a level 1 Diablo 2 character to reach level 99. This means that reaching Paragon level 100 will take several months for most people.This ties in nicely with the solution to the Magic Find problem.

There is going to be a cap of 300% Magic Find and Gold Find in 1.04, which does not include Nephalem Valor. At Paragon level 100, the player will naturally reach the cap and only gain a further bonus from Nephalem Valor stacks (reaching a maximum of 450% Magic Find and Gold Find) instead of from items.

This will help phase out the highly priced Magic Find items on the AH very gradually. A sudden shift could have resulted in economic turmoil. Over the next year, expect Magic Find gear to be phased out of the top tier items as players gain more Paragon.

David Brevik Throws Diablo 3 Creators Under a Bus: Gaming Community Dissapointed That It's Only a Figure of Speech

What Jay Wilson could have said, "David Brevik certainly has a few points. However, he doesn't know how hard we are working on the item overhaul, the class skill redesigns, and other surprises being released in patch 1.04, this very week. There are a lot of gears turning behind the scenes to tackle the issues brought up in that interview. That aside, we shouldn't overreact to this. I feel David was trying his best not to point the finger or accuse us of anything we didn't do. I wish him the best of luck with his upcoming Marvel Heroes MMO."

What Jay Wilson actually said, "Fuck that loser".

Sources:
[Diablo 3 Team Spars with Series Creator Online]

Diablo 3 Review

 Some people play for the story, and some people play for the game. The ones that can keep those two aspects in balance are victorious as great games. Maybe they won't necessarily become best sellers, but they'll definitely be remembered. This is the basic philosophy behind how I review most games. The only difference is in multiplayer games, where the focus is on gameplay and community.

Diablo 3 is a multiplayer game with single player support. Usually, that's the other way around, but the always on connectivity places a heavy emphasis on playing with friends. If you have to be connected, why not use it? That could make it difficult to make a proper decision, but I have come up with a solution. We'll discuss it as both.

As a single player game, it offers a rich storyline. The game is oozing with lore. There are ancillary NPCs fully voice acted with their own dialogues about their friends and family which can be interacted with throughout the progression of events. That will go overlooked by many players, because there isn't any need to talk to Villager A who will tell you about life before the fall of Tristram, but for those that wish to delve deeper, there's a lot of substance there. On top of that are the books and monster lore hidden in dungeons and towns. One of the most interesting aspects of this were the diaries left by characters, such as Leah and Cain in Act 1. They will periodically update their entries as the Act goes on. :: MINOR SPOILER When Leah is following you in Act 1, enter her room for some unique audio clips ::

Gameplay-wise, I have some bones to pick with it. The old click control scheme requires heavy usage of the shift keys to get the most out of it. I had just finished Diablo 2, again, before Diablo 3 came out so that I could get familiar with the controls and storyline, so I'm not sure how clear the shift key usage is to new players, but I didn't notice a useful tooltip for explaining it. I also witnessed my friends playing without the shift key, and dieing a lot. They're making a slow progression through Act 1 Inferno, hampered by this and a few other things. A new idea for the game is making boss monsters actually large. In comparison to D2, the boss monsters take up over 1000% more screen real estate. It looks awesome, but in practice it can cause movement issues with the character, since clicking is both moving and attacking. My friend died to the Butcher in Inferno more than once by getting stuck in a corner and being unable to click past him before dieing.

As for the skills and abilities, they have a lot of multiplayer potential. The majority are single person buffs or DPS focused, but there are a few, such as the Monk mantras, that are team focused. I'm very interested in the PVP builds that will start coming out in a few months. Already, some broken single player builds have been discovered. Quite cleverly, a Wizard used one ability that reduced all incoming damage to a maximum of 35% of his HP, and another passive that caused him to heal over time. Sacrificing all of his vitality, enemies were hitting him for less than he was healing. Allegedly he managed to solo Diablo on Inferno. What I found the most interesting about this were the statistics for his build. Less than 0.5% of players were using that ridiculously good build. That either means that not a lot of people thought about it, or that there are other builds people are coming out with that are even stronger. The diversity promises to make playing with any new players a learning experience. "Oh, I've never seen that move before. What's it do?"

Fortunately, the community is large and open. After spending a lot of time lurking r/diablo3 (I avoid GD forums at all costs), I found that most posts are funny light hearted memes, or build discussions and gameplay tips. There are a lot of videos of people showcasing their talents in game, as well as plenty of Error 37 criticism. Playing online, you can expect to find a diverse assortment of people, but don't expect too much discussion during gameplay, because it's pretty hard to type and use the mouse at the same time. Look for places like r/diablo3 and diablofans.com for real discussions.

It's a tough call, but I'd have to say that Diablo 3 is a pretty good game. The gameplay is familiar to veterans, though not perfect, and the skills and abilities have a lot of potential for discovery and unique builds. The community is awesome, but you're not going to be talking much while playing, and the lore is astoundingly vast. The biggest bone I have to pick with Diablo 3, I can't really talk about. I don't want to spoil the main plot for anyone, but the characterization and ending leave much to be desired.

Overall :: 4/5

The Launch That Couldn't Be Stopped

The most peculiar thing happened earlier this week. Millions upon millions of video gamers ran into a DRM (Digital Rights Management) issue, which is oft maligned and treated with grave sincerity when matters of properly purchased software become rendered inert by their arcane forces. DRM requiring the user to have an active internet connection has been seen as the hell spawn of corrupt business practices. Many a game publisher has been guilty of indulging in this practice, and they were all soundly put in their place by the angry barbarous shouts of the gamer horde. All of them except

Diablo III

There were certainly a bold few to stand up to the challenge of upholding the traditionalist values of gamer society, which say specifically to shun all DRM that makes a game unplayable. On the launch of Diablo 3, millions of gamers attempted to connect to Battle.net and were rejected. The ripple of "Error 37" messages blew up Reddit and echoed off Facebook. But these weren't the actions of an enraged mob focused on a publisher, like every previous attempt at a similar DRM. People were mad, because they really, really, really wanted to play Diablo 3.

When the dam finally broke, and the people were allowed to enter Hell once again, the protest died. No one cared about the online DRM, Diablo 3 was just too good. While this lingering knowledge of obeisance to future publisher treatment is still stuck in every gamer's head that participated in the launch event, the tiny whispers of doubt and fear are just a minor annoyance. If Activision-Blizzard can do it, so can EA and Ubisoft. What if the success of the Lord of Terror reinvigorates these old gamers' adversaries. All new forms of heavy DRM could be let loose upon the masses, hidden in the gorged bellies of beloved franchises.

Assassin's Creed 3 is perched on the horizon. A bit foreboding, but let's dive away from this topic for a moment.

The actual game, Diablo 3 that is, seems simple and dumbed down at first glance. Once one delves into the multiple difficulty layers they discover the various abilities they've been sampling have a subtle range of flavor, like the difference between dark chocolate and milk chocolate. The goal is to get fat on loot, but the game must be paced and enjoyed, lest one suffer a heart attack.  SPOILER a lot of people may have already suffered at least a headache from the ending. END SPOILER All in all, the game is quite delicious and fulfilling. It was well worth the long wait and even the snooty service.