Diablo 3 item drops to be tweaked

There is nothing more frustrating then getting a Legendary item to drop after a boss fight in Diablo 3, only to find that it is not as good as a Rare you have, or worse yet, a duplicate Legendary drop. Blizzard is looking at ways to fix that problem, as well as how to maximize farming monsters and minimize using the auction house.

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There is nothing more frustrating then getting a Legendary item to drop after a boss fight in Diablo 3, only to find that it is not as good as a Rare you have, or worse yet, a duplicate Legendary drop. Blizzard is looking at ways to fix that problem, as well as how to maximize farming monsters and minimize using the auction house.

In a post on the Diablo 3 blog, Game Designer Travis Day addressed several aspects of itemization, including changing Legendary and Set drops to reflect the level of the monster that dropped it, adding "game changing effects" to character-specific items, and dropping the frequency at which Rare items drop. On the latter point, he said:

We don't feel it's necessary to present the player with hundreds of bad Rares for every one that they might want. As an example, suppose items currently roll between 1-100 Intelligence. Now, imagine that we dropped 25% as many items, but the Intelligence range was instead somewhere around 75-100. In the end, you'd find fewer items, but more of the items you find would be worth equipping. That's our goal.

The team is also looking at ways to decrease the reliance on the auction house without eliminating it entirely, such as "targeted Legendaries" from named NPCs and coming up with a system that eliminates the randomness of Rare and Legendary items and makes them more useful for your class.

Contributing Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 5, 2013 2:34 PM

    John Keefer posted a new article, Diablo 3 item drops to be tweaked.

    There is nothing more frustrating then getting a Legendary item to drop after a boss fight in Diablo 3, only to find that it is not as good as a Rare you have, or worse yet, a duplicate Legendary drop. Blizzard is looking at ways to fix that problem, as well as how to maximize farming monsters and minimize using the auction house.

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      March 5, 2013 2:37 PM

      Waiting for the first expansion before I pick up DIII again, if at all. :p

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        March 5, 2013 2:45 PM

        same. Although its not a matter of "if at all" for me, im definitely on that shit. until then i havent played in forever, and i think ill wait and take in all the changes at once at lose my shit again instead of gradually piecemeal

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        March 5, 2013 3:15 PM

        Yeah, might be hope that it sounds fun to me by then at this rate.

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        March 5, 2013 3:52 PM

        Same, it seems like Blizzard doesn't know what they want to do with Diablo 3 gameplay right now.

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      March 5, 2013 2:38 PM

      [deleted]

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      March 5, 2013 2:38 PM

      8 months late is better than never?

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        March 5, 2013 3:06 PM

        Only if you ignore all the other great changes they have done in the past 8 months.

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          March 6, 2013 1:33 AM

          If they made you believe that, it's great. You totally bought in on their marketing machine-bs :)

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        March 5, 2013 3:12 PM

        you mean 10 months late. the game came out in may of last year.

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          March 5, 2013 3:15 PM

          True, but it took a while for people to see how bad the itemization really was, especially on the high level gear. I'll give them a few months grace period for that.

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      March 5, 2013 2:38 PM

      Last week or so MP10 drops seem to have increased dramatically. If it went up any more it would be kind of too much.

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        March 5, 2013 2:40 PM

        They aren't talking about increasing the drop rate, in fact his example involves decreasing it to around 25%

        He's talking about increasing the quality of the rolls on the stats.

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        March 5, 2013 2:41 PM

        do you have any spare awesome wizard loot still good sir >_> <_< or monk >_> <_<

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          March 5, 2013 2:59 PM

          Umm, not really, I may have a few things but nothing that qualifies as "awesome".

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      March 5, 2013 2:40 PM

      it's amazing how quickly diablo 3 was consumed. despite its flaws, people VACUUMED the content completely.

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        March 5, 2013 2:46 PM

        the result of 10 year long blue balls from diablo 2

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          March 5, 2013 2:52 PM

          So this

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          March 5, 2013 3:25 PM

          I played diablo 2 off and on for years. I have no desire to ever return to d3. It was never about the speed of consuming the content. The game just isn't that fun. And so many things are wrong with it.

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            March 5, 2013 4:38 PM

            Feel the same way.

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            March 5, 2013 11:37 PM

            Compared to Diablo 2, yes Diablo 3 really isn't that fun. I could invent my own fun with different builds and weapon set in D2. I actually feel like playing more D2 just thinking about it. They need to make the world more random, kill the auction house the best they can so the item hunt can be fun again and add some other events that people want to find and work towards.

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        March 5, 2013 2:58 PM

        The game doesn't have the same longevity, though...'cause map layouts were the same for so many levels. :(

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        March 5, 2013 6:18 PM

        The Auction House made it so that people could have amazing items in no time.

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        March 5, 2013 11:06 PM

        The auction house made it crazy easy to get to inferno. I never played past nightmare in Diablo 2 because grinding for gear was too boring to bother with.

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      March 5, 2013 2:41 PM

      I wonder what the stats are on that game now, surely it's had a massive drop off rate.

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      March 5, 2013 2:44 PM

      this game is going to be amazing when i start playing it again after the first expansion/DLC comes out in 3 years

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      March 5, 2013 2:51 PM

      Howzabout they rework all the voices and a good portion of the scripting...like, from scratch. That's a good start. Next they should expand the current map sizes about twice what they are and THEN work on the loot. Hey a bonus would be more somber artwork but that would totally be a bonus and not expected.

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        March 5, 2013 3:00 PM

        Story and voice acting is the last thing they should bother with fixing in a game like this. Who even cares about that shit after the first time through, really? An option to turn it all off so we don't have to manually skip it each time would be better.

        I'm all for some more randomness to the maps, larger levels, new areas and variety, and all that kind of stuff though. Some quality over quantity when it comes to drops is a change I can get behind as well.

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          March 5, 2013 3:05 PM

          The voice work was absolutely cringe-worthy and took away a good deal of seriousness and ambiance from a game that should be dripping with malevolence and horror.

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        March 5, 2013 3:01 PM

        and then they should fire that jerk off guy...oh wait...

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        March 5, 2013 3:08 PM

        I would be totally okay with an expansion pack that altered and ret-conned the first four acts, as well as the inevitable search for the black soulstone that we didn't destory at the end of Act Iv despite Adria still banging around somewhere out there holy crap that pissed me off.

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        March 5, 2013 3:45 PM

        they can fix this by removing story mode (removing quests and activating all bosses everywhere no matter what quest you're in if you've finished Inferno) and adding travel through acts.

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      March 5, 2013 2:58 PM

      I just stalled in Act 2 of Hell.....I'll go back eventually but, sort of tired of it at the moment

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      March 5, 2013 2:59 PM

      offline SP mode? I mean dear lord, your RMAH is still going to be used, most people who want offline SP are not going to use the RMAH anyway.......

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      March 5, 2013 3:00 PM

      I don't remember getting one drop I was excited about in Diablo 3, hopefully this will help. Borderlands 2 is pretty weak like that also compared to the original.

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      March 5, 2013 3:09 PM

      Awesome. I have gotten back into the game recently and was very happy with where they have taken the game. I get about one legendary item every 3 hours on MP4 and that is pretty fucking great, not to mention the new crafting system has given me 3 upgrades within the first 50 reagents I spent.

      Blizzard has done some pretty great stuff, it's hilarious to watch people bitching about this game when it is mentioned despite the great changes it has gotten.

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      March 5, 2013 3:41 PM

      still no pvp yet?

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        March 5, 2013 3:42 PM

        I thought token PvP was in. Brawling or something.

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          March 5, 2013 3:43 PM

          It is.

          It's an unbalanced, pointless mess, but it's in; it can even be fun for giggles but it's nothing spectacular. About the same as Diablo 2 pvp.

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            March 5, 2013 3:49 PM

            So, people are ambushing others as they head out to the desert in Act 2?

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              March 5, 2013 3:52 PM

              It's limited to one area; I was more referring to the pointlessness and lack of balance.

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                March 5, 2013 3:59 PM

                As was I, BiteR, as was I.

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                March 5, 2013 4:54 PM

                it would have to be a totally separate game to have any balance at all. I was honestly expecting them to scrap it sooner than they did.

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            March 5, 2013 6:35 PM

            So those high dps guys out there that can do 100+dps, would they kill my 25k HP barbarian 4x over in one second? Cause that would be stupid.

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      March 5, 2013 3:43 PM

      Growing up sucks. D3 was not made for us 30 somethings, it was made for our 12 years ago selves, or 14-25 year olds nowadays.


      After D3, I think both D2 and D3 are worse than I thought they were before D3 came out.

      D3 now feels good, like D2 after LoD, except the skill system is better than the D2 tree. But it also feels smaller and duller. D2 didn't have the obnoxious storytelling but the story wasn't very good either. Our expectations are much higher than they were 12 years ago.

      Also acts 2 and 4 are much worse than acts 1 and 3, so the game feels confined to a small area because you can't travel through acts.

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        March 5, 2013 3:44 PM

        Have you tried playing Diablo II recently?

        That shit is still fucking fun.

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          March 5, 2013 3:55 PM

          Yeah I have. It has much more atmosphere and charisma than D3.

          but after level ~25 you feel D3 system is better.


          I do think that there should be only 3 difficulties (Hell should be Inferno or vice-versa)

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            March 5, 2013 4:03 PM

            I don't know you are referring to post level 25 and the d3 system.

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              March 5, 2013 4:40 PM

              It's that D2 locks you into a single skill build really early or your character will be irretrievably gimped. D3's character progression system is orders of magnitude better than D2 because there is an option besides reroll.

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                March 5, 2013 6:44 PM

                That's what I like about D2.

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                  March 5, 2013 11:43 PM

                  That's part of what made D2 fun. Making a specialized character with certain gear in mind really created a drive to play on top of the loot hunt.

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                    March 5, 2013 11:48 PM

                    I can see his point, though. Coming from someone who didn't get that far in D2, and not knowing how easily I could fuck myself by picking the "wrong" skill(s), if I got that far and then realized I'd have to reroll because of a mistake at lvls 10-20, I might just play something else.

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                      March 6, 2013 2:57 AM

                      I remember that on a couple characters, but it was never bad enough a skill mess up to cause me to reroll. A later patch allowed you to reroll all stats and skills once if your character was in Hell difficulty and had completed the first quest.

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                March 6, 2013 4:38 AM

                You have 3 free respecs and more that you can farm. My preferred trapper uses Wake of Fire through norm / 1/2 of nightmare before respeccing to end game skills.

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                March 6, 2013 4:49 AM

                POE nailed it. Respec points/orbs of regret, and you still build characters with permanency.

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                  March 6, 2013 5:06 AM

                  PoE does so many good things. Graphics may be weak, but Diablo 2 looked like ass when it came out as well. PoE mechanics, loot, and atmosphere are all spot on.

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          March 5, 2013 5:16 PM

          I have, and you know what? It was fucking boring and inferior to Diablo 3 in every way accept for the dumb AH shit and lack of offline play.

          As a game, it was significantly slower and less fun, giving my character skills/stats felt stupid, and everything was sort of washed out and ugly.

          I honestly can't believe how long I played that game.

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            March 6, 2013 2:48 AM

            [deleted]

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              March 6, 2013 3:03 AM

              I fucking *LOVED* Diablo 2, for so long. I'm not even that crazy about Diablo 3, though I think they've improved it a good bit since launch.

              But in terms of just sitting down and playing the game with a few friends (my recent D2 experience being at a LAN party), D3 is just more fun in every possible way. I was not the only one who, while playing said "Wait...why did we think this was awesome?"

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          March 5, 2013 5:55 PM

          yup, I recently went back and got hooked all over again, I tried D3 again the other day and it just isn't for me.. thankfully I can still play D2, Path of Exile and hopefully Grim Dawn comes out in the next few years.

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          March 5, 2013 6:12 PM

          [deleted]

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          March 5, 2013 11:47 PM

          You guys should all try Median XL (or whatever nomenclature it's at right now).

          Median XL is fuckin' epiiccccccc!

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          March 6, 2013 2:45 AM

          [deleted]

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      March 6, 2013 9:05 AM

      Nice to see they are continuing to tweak the drops.

      If they want to continue to push this into the future...

      They need to make way point jumping between acts possible in game. Why should I be forced to leave the game to continue playing it?

      They need to speed up the overall feel of the game too. An easy way to do this is just increase base run speed. Not a bunch, just a little bit.

      The main enticing thing of about D2 was never "loot whoring" like the D3 team seemed to think it was. It was about fast paced action and the eternal climb to get stronger. Loot was just a welcomed by-product that rewarded you for killing to get stronger.

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      March 6, 2013 9:41 AM

      How do you know if you're a Blizzard FanBoy? Dedicate 300 hours of your life to this terrible game and one Legendary drops and you feel it was all worth it.

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