Diablo III Patch Settles Your Disputes With Duels

[Steven Bogos]

Diablo III Patch Settles Your Disputes With Duels

PvP, a feature promised shortly after the game's launch, will finally be added to Blizzard's dungeon crawler.

When Diablo III launched in May last year, developer Blizzard promised us that the PvP patch would be put out scheduled to go live on Wednesday in all regions. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116270-No-PvP-For-Diablo-3-At-Launch]

Duelling is a new feature accessed by speaking to "Nek the Brawler," an NPC located in New Tristram. He will teleport up to four players to a specially designed duelling world, where players can duke it out for bragging rights. Dying has no penalty for duelling players - your gear won't take any damage and you will be instantly resurrected. Even hardcore characters can join in the fun, as duel-induced deaths are not permanent.

Also included in the patch are some changes to the Wizard and Monk classes, a new tier of gems, a new crafting reagent and some crafting recipes to go along with it. Wizard and Monks are getting buffs to some lesser-utilized spells such as the Wizard's Arcane Orb and the Monk's Exploding Palm. The new tier of gem, the Marquise Gem, has stats in line with the current gem progression, and will cost you three Radiant Star Gems, 20 million gold and one of the new crafting reagents to create.

The new crafting reagent and recipes seems to indicate the success of patch 1.05's Infernal Machine [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZJ7717_-tc] event, which allowed players to collect reagents from bosses and craft a legendary ring. In 1.07, Players will be able to collect "Demonic Essences" from elite monsters, which can in turn be used in five new crafting recipes to create rare quality armor. Players can choose the primary stat of an item when crafting it (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence) meaning that they can take a little bit of randomness out of the RNG.

The patch is the third "major" content patch of Diablo III, following patch 1.04 which introduced the Paragon leveling system, and 1.05 which introduced the Infernal Machine event and Monster Power. You can read the full 1.07 patch notes here. [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/8414570]

Source: Battle.net Forums

Permalink

 

[Carnagath]

If this was there from the start, it might have kept me in the game for slightly longer. Right now, it's not enough to being me back. It's dueling for bragging rights, and there's noone to brag to when none of your friends have touched the game for half a year and don't have any plans to ever again.

 

[walrusaurus]

for a company that is (in)famous for its "when its ready" philosophy their handling of D3 has been shocking. PvP was a -if not THE- vital part of D2's longevity. That they thought it was a good idea to release the game w/o that functionality is mind boggling. That it took another 10 months to get it into the game is even more shocking, and something that old blizzard would never have done.

My theory is that it has everything to do with the decline of World of Warcraft. Cataclysm was a massive failure. Delivering a huge blow to the game it took out nearly 20% of WoW's subscriber base. With Heart of the swarm delayed and the next wow expansion on shaky ground, i can see from a boardroom perspective why actiblizz would want to push D3 out in the first half of last year. Its sad really...

 

[Richard Allen]

Yeah, imagine that, someone comes out with another game that blows the pants off of D3 and shit starts happening over at blizzard. Too little too late. I'll be playing Path of Exile, never have I been more disappointed in a game. 10 years for d3 and it's a mess.

D3 was the last game I'll be looking forward to from them. They have lost their way and I hope they can bring it back with the secret new IP that has been rumored for what 4 years now? Doubt it but I can't bring myself to actively root against blizzard, even after they started dicking around with DRM and pay to win.

 

[Richard Allen]

for a company that is (in)famous for its "when its ready" philosophy their handling of D3 has been shocking. PvP was a -if not THE- vital part of D2's longevity. That they thought it was a good idea to release the game w/o that functionality is mind boggling. That it took another 10 months to get it into the game is even more shocking, and something that old blizzard would never have done.

My theory is that it has everything to do with the decline of World of Warcraft. Cataclysm was a massive failure. Delivering a huge blow to the game it took out nearly 20% of WoW's subscriber base. With Heart of the swarm delayed and the next wow expansion on shaky ground, i can see from a boardroom perspective why actiblizz would want to push D3 out in the first half of last year. Its sad really...

At blizzcon it was constantly repeated that the devs felt the pve aspect of the game was more important and that any pvp would be an addition. I don't disagree with you, I'm just saying the devs felt the complete opposite.

 

[Artemis923]

Diablo 3 was one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

I will not be slow to forget that, Blizzard. No amount of content can fix the shit you've done to my beloved franchise.

 

[Xeorm]

Huh, I thought pvp would be the same as the dance studio. Something fun but unnecessary that would never actually come out. Too little too late though.

 

[Slash2x]

Waaaaaaaaaaay to little way to late. Already jumped off that ship, swam to shore and started playing another game.

 

[Croaker42]

Good to hear the pussed up pvp. That just completes my thought that Bliz has flushed the series.

 

[TheProfessor234]

This is good to hear. After I got tired with Diablo 3, I knew all I had to do was wait and things would slowly ramp up to being playable again. Maybe after the fourth major content patch, or whatever, I can head back to Diablo 3 and see how things hold up.

Until then, there are plenty of ARPGs to go around.

 

[Covarr]

If you're going to build always-online DRM right into the core of your game, you'd better have a damn good game to back it up (*cough* SimCity *cough*). Releasing something without one of the most anticipated features is not a good start. While I actually have a bit of respect for providing post-release support for the game beyond paid DLC, the fact that it's by all rights something that should've been included from the start does not speak as well for them. But then, really nothing about this game has gone right for Blizzard, and if they wanna try and fix it, more power to 'em.

P.S. Thanks

P.P.S. Why is it that so many of the people who complain about SimCity being always-online didn't speak up when Diablo III did it (and to a lesser extent, vice-versa)? It's the same thing for both games, and your stance, whatever it may be, should be consistent for both.

 

[darkszero]

Nitpicking: it's patch 1.0.7 and not 1.07
It's not a decimal number.

Also, they renamed it to brawling

 

[Radoh]

Diablo III is still a thing?
I thought that game died before I had a chance to play it.
Good to know a function I have no interest in is being fixed for a game I have had no reason to play.

 

[Zeraki]

I keep forgetting this game exists... and I own it. That's how disappointing and forgettable it was for me.

Way too little and waaaaay too late Blizzard. I already moved on to other ARPGs like Torchlight 2 and Path of Exile.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

Classes arent balanced enough to support pvp.. so you can have a crappy version of pvp that we already told you is broken. As long as you remember that this isn't actually up to our standards.

Sounds like someone has performance anxiety >_>

if only diablo wasnt so much better than tl2 and poe :/

 

[Little Gray]

for a company that is (in)famous for its "when its ready" philosophy their handling of D3 has been shocking. PvP was a -if not THE- vital part of D2's longevity. That they thought it was a good idea to release the game w/o that functionality is mind boggling. That it took another 10 months to get it into the game is even more shocking, and something that old blizzard would never have done.

Ummm pvp was not really a vital part of diablo 2. It was a horribly unbalanced mess and never very popular among the masses. Sure it had a dedicated crowd but they were a small portion.

 

[Covarr]

Some of us aren't entitled little pricks

Your argument would be totally valid, if the game were free. But a lot of people paid money for a game that didn't meet their expectations, and they felt ripped off. There is nothing unreasonable about paying good money and expecting a good product in return.

I get it, you like the game. That doesn't mean you have to cry and moan every time somebody mentions they don't.

P.S. Thanks

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

PvP was a -if not THE- vital part of D2's longevity.

For a vocal minority only.