Blizzard details 1.0.8 multiplayer improvements

Blizzard has gabbed before about focusing on Diablo 3's co-op experience in patch 1.0.8, but what does that actually mean? What's new? What about me? What about my needs? Thankfully, Blizzard's thinking of me, and has explained a lot of changes to make multiplayer friendlier and less frustrating.

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Blizzard has gabbed before about focusing on Diablo 3's co-op experience in patch 1.0.8, but what does that actually mean? What's new? What about me? What about my needs? Thankfully, Blizzard's thinking of me, and has explained a lot of changes to make multiplayer friendlier and less frustrating.

"From day one, it's been our goal to make Diablo 3 a great co-op experience, but right now it's not living up to its full potential," senior technical designer Wyatt Chang has written a big blog post. "Even if you enjoy playing with your friends, it can often feel easier and more efficient to play solo."

He details a big long list of new features in 1.0.8, which I've squeezed down to this:

  • Matchmaking Tags - Find players with similar goals by tagging games

  • Multiplayer Bonuses - more XP, Gold Find and Magic Find

  • Monster Health - bonus health per player reduced from 70% to 50%

  • Identify All - less waiting around for people who are off identifying

  • Archon Kills - Archon duration extended by assists too

  • Combat Alerts - automated calls to signal Elites and Treasure Goblins

  • Players Near You - finds people on your local network

  • Private Chat - multi-user private chats

Beyond 1.0.8, Blizzard's still looking at jazzing items up to be more exciting and reduce reliance upon the auction house. Former game director Jay Wilson commented last week that Blizzard hadn't predicted that players would use the auction house quite so much, and that sending people shopping rather than hunting monsters for loot "really hurt the game." The PlayStation 3 & 4 edition cuts it out entirely.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 3, 2013 11:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Blizzard details 1.0.8 multiplayer improvements.

    Blizzard has gabbed before about focusing on Diablo 3's co-op experience in patch 1.0.8, but what does that actually mean? What's new? What about me? What about my needs? Thankfully, Blizzard's thinking of me, and has explained a lot of changes to make multiplayer friendlier and less frustrating.

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      April 3, 2013 11:10 AM

      and so botters and multiboxers shout "HUZZAH" for making their life more easy...
      still good to press some issues but still not nearly enough to make me come back, maybe when the ah is fixed or shut out

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      April 3, 2013 11:27 AM

      [deleted]

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      April 3, 2013 12:34 PM

      Boring, lackluster game.

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      April 3, 2013 1:00 PM

      i already blow up mp7 in a 4 player game, less health again...sigh i guess i dont need 349k dps on my monk

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        April 3, 2013 1:05 PM

        You could go to MP 10. Also, rumors are swirling about adding even more Monster Power options.

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          April 3, 2013 8:31 PM

          Even though I'm sure players would eat up added difficulty I'm not sure what they could really do to the reward system to make it worth it.

          Already MP10 doesn't feel like the reward increase is anywhere near equal to the difficulty (ie: gear requirement) increase.

          I can do MP10 quite easily on my Wizard but I don't feel like the XP or Loot increase is really all the great compared to doing MP5 in a more glass cannon quick manner.

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      April 3, 2013 2:45 PM

      Yawn, bad game.. apparently end game involves.. farming rings.. to get more experience.. to farm better versions of the same ring.. derp... yeah, I uninstalled it..

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      April 3, 2013 2:47 PM

      Why would they make it even easier? Why?

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      April 3, 2013 2:50 PM

      Identify all - why did it take so many patches for them to implement this?!

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        April 3, 2013 2:52 PM

        I believe their stance has always been 'we wanted that feeling of unwrapping a present each time' or something.

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          April 4, 2013 3:39 AM

          I guess they finally realized unwrapping AH junk 99% of the time wasn't exciting.

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      April 3, 2013 2:53 PM

      Attn Wizards : Archon Kills - Archon duration extended by assists too

      This is both awesome and entirely broken for group farming.

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        April 3, 2013 2:55 PM

        OMG

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        April 3, 2013 8:01 PM

        yeah it's awesome because I didn't like group archon because other people would "steal" my kills so my archon would end pretty fast.

        I don't think I'm coming back to the game before the expansion though, I just don't have the time and War Thunder is pretty fun.

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      April 3, 2013 7:00 PM

      If you read this article but are not playing Path of Exile yet you are missing out! It is the game Diablo 3 should have been, and 100% free to play!

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      April 3, 2013 9:13 PM

      Awesome post! I would have ding up on my Barbarian someday.

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      April 4, 2013 3:04 AM

      [deleted]

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        April 4, 2013 3:55 AM

        it won't be fixed as long as the AH exists. for as many times as they've denied it, itemization/lot quality was balanced around having the AH available to all players. I think they've admitted it, but it was pretty clear from the beginning.

        I agree, although fixing itemization would crash the AH and probably anger a lot of people who spent real money on stuff.

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