Diablo 3 (The Butcher)

Just when we thought we'd covered enough Diablo 3 news today, from the first two players valiantly beating the game in hardcore mode on Inferno difficulty, to Blizzard offering refunds to Korean players, another issue has surfaced for the game that just keeps giving. And by giving, I mean giving money to Blizzard while giving problems to players.

Server issues, DRM and hacks aside, Blizzard's decision to force players to be always connected to their servers means that during weekly server maintenance there is literally no possible way purchasers of Diablo 3 can play their game. This Tuesday, the game was down for a good 10 hours in order for the 1.0.3. patch to be implemented. But with it came another problem for new buyers of the digital version of the game.

The latest Diablo 3 patch (read the full 1.0.3. patch notes here) introduced a new restriction for anyone who purchases a digital copy of the game, where upon activation, they are stuck with the "Starter Edition" of the game for up to 72 hours. What this means that for up to three days after purchasing the game, players are restricted to playing what amounts to limited demo of Diablo 3. They cannot progress past level 13 and they can only play Act 1 up until the Skeleton King boss.

Seeing as how in one solid evening a player can get to level 13 and past Act 1, if you bought the game and played it up to that part, you cannot play further. You have to wait until Blizzard lets you play the game you purchased. Players in their first 72 hours also cannot play with friends who already have the game (they can only play with other Starter Edition players) and cannot access the auction house.

Why? Blizzard's official response to angry forum commenters:

"Outside of the issue that we fixed, digital purchases do require a review period before they kick over from Starter to Full editions. We apologize for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone's play experience."

This and the DRM are in place for only one reason: for Blizzard to protect their real-money auction house, a system which allows Blizzard to keep a percentage of every in-game transaction for themselves. The only reason somebody's "malicious activities" would affect "everyone's play experience" is because Blizzard forces us to be connected to everyone when we play by ourselves or just with friends.

Destructoid's Jim Sterling said it best; this is but another example of a video game publisher pushing their security issues and problems onto the entire community and taking any control over the gaming experience away from gamers. It's another anti-consumer act that only hurts one group of people: the players and fans who buy the game legitimately.

The worst part is, Diablo 3 as an experience continues to be harmed because of Blizzard, and it's a game fans have been waiting on for such a long time, hence it becoming the fastest selling PC game of all-time. But because of that and Blizzard's business decisions, it's setting a bad precedent for the industry from a consumer standpoint.

Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes.

Source: Blizzard

Diablo III Patch 1.0.3 - v.1.0.3.10057

The latest client patch notes can be found here.

Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of known issues.

Hotfixes made in addition to changes in patch 1.0.2c can be found here.

Table of Contents

  • General
  • Battle.net
  • Classes
  • Items
  • Crafting
  • Followers
  • Bosses
  • Monsters
  • Bug Fixes

General

  • To prevent monsters from being unintentionally kited into town from other areas of the game, portals have been placed at both ends of the bridge from New Tristram to The Weeping Hollow. Towns have always been intended to be a safe haven from combat, and this change will help keep the denizens of New Tristram safe from the dangers that lurk beyond its walls.
  • The rewards provided for replaying quests have been reduced
  • The real-money auction house is now available for Chilean, Argentinian, and Brazilian currencies

 

Battle.net

  • General
  • Friends will now sort alphabetically by name within the Friends List, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag
  • The Quick Join menu will now also sort alphabetically by name, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag
  • Chat settings and preferences will now be saved whenever you log out
  • Reporting another player using the Report > Spam option will now mute that player for the duration of your gaming session
  • Bug Fixes
  • Using the /who command in a heavily populated chat channel should no longer cause the client to crash
  • The "Invite to Party" button should no longer become grayed-out if a player:
  • Requests a party invite and then declines it
  • Accepts a party invite, but then immediately leaves the party
  • Declines a party invite
  • The character screen should now always display the correct act and quest information
  • If Real ID has been disabled for a Battle.net account, attempting to add a Real ID friend in Diablo III will now prompt the player with the following error message: "Battle.net is unable to add friends because you have Real ID disabled."

 

Classes

  • Barbarian
  • Active Skills
  •  Overpower
  • Skill Rune — Crushing Advance
  • The tooltip has been updated to represent that both melee and ranged damage are reflected
  • Weapon Throw
  • The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player's maximum Life
  • Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be slowed: "Hurl a throwing weapon at any enemy for 100% weapon damage and Slow the movement of the enemy by 60% for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  • Ignore Pain
  • Skill Rune — Contempt for Weakness
  • The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player's maximum Life
  • Passive Skills
  •  Relentless
  • Now reduces the Fury cost of all skill by 75%, down from 100% (the 50% damage reduction remains unchanged)
  • Demon Hunter
  • Active Skills
  •  Grenades
  • Skill Rune - Stun Grenades
  • Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: "Hurl grenades that have a 25% chance to Stun enemies for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  • Cluster Arrow
  • Skill Rune - Dazzling Arrow
  • Tooltip now displays the correct type of weapon damage dealt by Dazzling Arrow: "Enemies hit by grenades have a 55% chance to be stunned for 2 seconds and changes the damage to Physical." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  • Bug Fixes
  •  Caltrops
  • Skill Rune — Jagged Spikes
  • Effect will now only stack up to 10 times on a single target
  • Elemental Arrow
  • Skill Rune — Nether Tentacles
  • Tentacles will now only hit each target once
  • Monk
  •  General
  • Monks can now use two-handed axes, two-handed maces, and two-handed swords
  • Active Skills
  • Seven-Sided Strike
  • Skill Rune - Sustained Attack
  • Mantra of Retribution
  • Tooltip has been updated for clarity: "Reduces the cooldown of Seven-Sided Strike to 23 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  • Damage will now cap based on the maximum Life of the target
  • Serenity
  • Skill Rune — Instant Karma
  • The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player's maximum Life
  • Bug Fixes
  • Near Death Experience
  • Fatal damage absorbed by Serenity will no longer trigger Near Death Experience
  • Witch Doctor
  • Active Skills
  • Summon Zombie Dogs
  • Skill Rune — Leeching Beasts
  • Tooltip has been updated for clarity: "Your Zombie Dogs heal 50% of the damage they deal as Life divided evenly between themselves and you." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  • Wizard
  • Active Skills
  • Magic Weapon
  • When activated, a buff icon will now appear that displays the amount of time remaining
  •  Meteor
  • Skill Rune - Star Pact
  • Now deals damage as Arcane instead of Fire
  • Diamond Skin
  • Skill Rune — Mirror Skin
  • The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the amount of damage absorbed by Diamond Skin
  • Passive Skills
  •  Paralysis
  • Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: "Lightning damage dealt to enemies has up to a 8% chance to Stun the target
  • for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  • Bug Fixes
  • Magic Weapon
  • Fixed a display issue that was causing Magic Weapon to increase the character sheet damage value by an incorrect amount (the functionality of the skill has not changed)

 

Items

  • General
  • + Attack Speed bonus values on weapons and armor have been reduced by 50%
  • This change does not apply to quivers
  • High-end items (items level 61-63) will now drop in all Acts of Inferno and Acts III and IV of Hell difficulty
  • Please see the Patch 1.0.3 Design Preview for more information and specific details
  • The new approximate drop rates are as follows:
  • Inferno - Act I
  • iLvl 62: 7.9%
  • iLvl 63: 2.0%
  • iLvl 61: 17.7%
  • Inferno - Act II
  • iLvl 62: 12.4%
  • iLvl 63: 4.1%
  • iLvl 61: 18.6%
  • Inferno - Act III and Act IV
  • iLvl 61: 24.1%
  • iLvl 62: 16.1%
  • iLvl 63: 8.0%
  • Hell - Act III and Act IV
  • iLvl 62: 1.9%
  • iLvl 63: 0%
  • iLvl 61: 9%
  • Repair costs have been increased for item levels between 53 and 63
  • Magic Find will no longer be considered when looting objects in the environment such as chests, barrels, vases, pots, and corpses
  • The item quality of all components needed to craft the Staff of Herding, as well as the Staff of Herding itself, have been changed from Common to Legendary
  • (i.e. their item names will appear orange in color)
  • The Staff of Herding can no longer be salvaged or dropped
  • Crafted items that are dropped on the ground due to a player’s inventory being full can no longer be seen or picked up by other players
  • Unique monsters in Hell and Inferno difficulty are no longer guaranteed to drop two Magic items when slain
  • Weapon racks will no longer drop weapons 100% of the time
  • Destructible objects no longer have a chance to drop items, and will only have a small chance to drop gold when destroyed
  • Weapons and Armor
  • "Balanced" superior items (i.e. Balanced Short Sword) will now grant a percent attack speed increase that only affects the weapon itself, rather than a flat
  • increase to attacks per second that affected both equipped weapons when dual-wielding
  • Crowd Control Reduction from items and skills will now reduce the percentage value of Slow, Chill, and Attack Speed debuffs rather than reducing how long the debuff lasts
  • For example: previously, if you were debuffed by a 60% slow that lasted for 2 seconds while wearing gear that provides 20% Crowd Control Reduction, your movement speed would be reduced by 60%, but only for 1.6 seconds. Now, the same amount of Crowd Control Reduction will reduce the Slow effect to 48%, but the effect will remain for the full 2 second duration.
  • Manticore now has one additional bonus affix
  • User Interface
  • Minimum damage and Maximum damage values will now display separately in an item's tooltip (i.e. "+2-4 Damage" will now display as "+2 Minimum
  • Damage” and “+2 Maximum Damage")
  • Tooltips for items on the ground will now show comparison stats
  • Resist values will now be taken into effect when calculating the Protection comparison stat (the Protection value is an average protection estimate of all your resists)
  • When comparing a two-handed weapon against two currently-equipped one-handed weapons, the game will now simulate the removal of both one-handed weapons (instead of simply removing the main-hand weapon, which resulted in an inaccurate comparison)
  • When selling items to a vendor, the most recently sold items will now always display at the bottom of the Buyback tab
  • Bug Fixes
  • Items level 50 and above will now display their item level in the tooltip
  • Damage Over Time (DoT) skills will now properly benefit from items with the +Critical Chance affix
  • Legendary items with the +Attack Speed bonus will now correctly provide a bonus to attack speed
  • Please note that this fix will only affect new Legendary drops. Existing Legendary items will be addressed in a future patch.
  • Players wearing +Life on Kill items should no longer receive a benefit from this affix when "killing" friendly monsters (e.g. when a witch doctor re-summons a
  • Spider Queen while another Spider Queen is still active)
  • Fixed a bug with linking items with socketed gems in chat
  • Fixed a bug where vendors would occasionally not have any items for sale
  • Fixed a bug where selling more than 12 items to a vendor and then buying back 1 of those items could cause multiple items to disappear from the Buyback tab
  • Fixed a bug where swapping a 1-slot item (i.e. a ring) with 2-slot item (i.e. a weapon) in the second or third tab of a player’s stash would sometimes cause the 2-slot item to be filtered incorrectly to the first tab
  • Fixed a bug that was causing Collector's Edition dyes to sell for the same price regardless of stack size

Crafting

  • General
  • The gold and material crafting costs for all items level 1-59 have been reduced by 50% to 75%
  • Blacksmith
  • The gold cost to level the Blacksmith has been reduced by 50%
  • The number of Pages of Blacksmithing, Tomes of Blacksmithing, or Tomes of Secrets required to level the Blacksmith has been reduced
  • Milestone levels now require 2 pages/tomes, down from 5
  • Base levels now require 1 page/tome, down from 5
  • The number of Pages of Blacksmithing and Tomes of Blacksmithing required to craft items level 1-59 has been reduced
  • Items with 3 affixes no longer require Pages of Blacksmithing or Tomes of Blacksmithing to craft
  • The gold cost of crafting items with 4 affixes and 5 affixes (including items in Inferno difficulty) has been reduced
  • Weapon crafting costs have been reduced
  • The chance for level 60 items to produce Legendary crafting materials when salvaged has been reduced
  • Jeweler
  • The gold and material cost to combine gems ranks 2-8 has been reduced
  • Combinations for these ranks now only require 2 gems, down from 3
  • The gold cost to combine each rank of gems is now as follows:
  • Rank 2 - Flawed: 10 gold (down from 500 gold)
  • Rank 3 - Regular: 25 gold (down from 750 gold)
  • Rank 4 - Flawless: 40 gold (down from 1250 gold)
  • Rank 5 - Perfect: 55 gold (down from 2000 gold)
  • Rank 6 - Radiant: 70 gold (down from 3500 gold)
  • Rank 7 - Square: 85 gold (down from 7500 gold)
  • Rank 8 - Flawless Square: 100 gold (down from 20,000 gold)

 

Followers

  • General
  • Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug where the maximum Life of your followers was being displayed as different values in different parts of the game UI
  • Enchantress
  •  Skills
  • Mass Control
  • Radius reduced from 15 yards to 8 yards
  • If Enchantress also has Reflect Missiles trained, Mass Control will no longer accidentally hex the player when both skills are activated
  • Skill will now correctly target enemies in all circumstances

 

Bosses

  • General
  • Bosses have had their pathing improved
  • The quality of the item for the fourth stack of Nephalem Valor from bosses has been slightly reduced
  • Skeleton King
  •  Abilities
  • Will now summon Skeletal Archers in Hell and Inferno difficulties
  • The Warden (mini-boss)
  •  General
  • Now has Fast and Molten affixes, in addition to Jailer
  • In Inferno difficulty, the Warden will also gain the Desecrator affix
  • Butcher
  • Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where the corner panel fires in the Chamber of Suffering were doing twice as much damage as intended
  • Ghom
  •  Abilities
  • Gas Cloud
  • Radius of Gas Cloud has been slightly reduced
  • Slowing effect has been removed
  • The amount of damage dealt by Gas Cloud when first entering the cloud has been reduced, but the amount of damage incurred for remaining in the cloud has been increased
  • In Inferno difficulty, Gas Clouds will last longer, spawn 2 at a time, and (after 4 minutes) spawn more quickly
  • Maghda
  • Bug Fixes
  • Punish Dust projectiles can no longer be reflected
  • Zoltun Kulle
  •  General
  • Zoltun Kulle will now enrage in Inferno difficulty after 3 minutes, teleporting to the player more frequently and dealing damage when arriving at the player’s location
  •  Abilities
  • Ceiling Collapse
  • Can now be cast at a player from any range
  •  Fireball
  • Can now be cast at a player from any range
  • Fireball attack now moves slower
  •  Teleport
  • Will now Teleport and run away from the player less often
  • Will now occasionally Teleport to the player
  • Belial
  •  General
  • Belial will now enrage in Inferno difficulty after 3 minutes in his final phase, increasing the number of green pools dropped across the entire encounter platform
  • Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug that was causing Belial to use his breath attack away from the player rather than towards the player under certain circumstances
  • Siegebreaker
  •  General
  • Overall damage has been reduced
  • No longer vulnerable to Confuse and Charm effects
  • Will now drop a health globe every 25% health mark (i.e. at 75%, 50%, and 25% health)
  • Now enrages after 4 minutes
  • In Inferno difficulty, Siegebreaker will now gain the Reflects Damage affix
  • Cydaea
  •  Abilities
  •  Spiderlings
  • Spiderlings will now have an easier time hitting players, but their damage has been reduced by 20% to compensate
  • In Inferno difficulty, Spiderlings will now live longer, be more spread out, and (after 4 minutes) spawn more often
  • Rakanoth
  •  General
  • In Inferno difficulty, Rakanoth will now become much more aggressive after 3 minutes
  • Izual
  •  General
  • The number of Oppressors that join the fight has been reduced from 4 to 2
  • Will no longer target Followers or Tyrael as frequently
  • Health pool has been increased
  •  Abilities
  •  Charge
  • Knockback has been removed
  • Will Charge slightly more often, but will only target players
  • Charge damage has been reduced
  • Frozen Bombs
  • Bombs will now explode faster
  • Only 8 Bombs will now spawn around the player rather than 12
  • Bombs will spawn at Izual's feet less often
  • Frozen Bomb damage has been reduced
  • Frost Explosion Frost Explosion damage has been reduced by 70%
  • Duration of freeze has been increased
  • Damage dealt to players while frozen will now break the effect
  • Players can now use defensive cooldown while frozen
  • Players can no longer avoid being frozen by doing high amounts of damage to Izual
  • Base Attacks
  • No longer does Cold damage on top of base attacks
  • Base attack damage has been lowered
  • Bug Fixes
  • Izual will no longer spawn twice if a player skips his introductory cut-scene
  • Diablo
  • Bug Fixes
  • Damage Over Time (DoT) effects will now be properly cancelled when Diablo becomes invisible and casts Shadow Clones in Phase Two
  • Diablo "Stomp" ability is now correctly classified as a debuff instead of a buff
  • Fixed a bug that was causing pets to not attack Shadow Clones

 

Monsters

  • General
  • Champions, Rares, and Uniques have had their pathing improved
  • Elite packs (Champion/Rare) now drop an additional item for players with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor, which is guaranteed to be of Rare quality
  • Damage from monsters in Acts II, III, and IV in Inferno difficulty has been reduced
  • Colossal Golgor base damage has been reduced
  • Herald of Pestilence tentacle attack damage has been reduced
  • Soul Ripper and Soul Lasher damage has been reduced and both monsters will now run away less often
  • Wasps in Act II, Mage Constructs in Act II, and Winged Mollocks in Acts III and IV will now run away less
  • Succubus monsters will now run away less and for a shorter distance
  • The health pools of Woodwraiths in the Highlands now match the health pools of Woodwraiths in the Fields of Misery
  • Lacuni and Scavenger Rares and and Champions will now un-burrow when called by their allies
  • Bloodclan Warriors no longer knockback when buffed and attack slightly slower
  • Morlu no longer have the Invulnerable Minions, Health Link, or Fire Chains affixes
  • Plagued, Arcane Enchanted, and Electrified monsters no longer have resistance to Poison, Arcane, and Lightning damage (respectively)
  • Leaders of Invulnerable Minions packs have had their health pools reduced
  • Mortar monsters can now hurl projectiles farther, but their minimum range (dead zone) has also been increased by 100%
  • Bug Fixes
  • Interrupting a monster attack before it lands will now properly trigger its cooldown
  • Treasure Goblins will now drop gold piles for all nearby players
  • Lacuni Warrior Rares and Champions will now reset their enrage timer correctly in Inferno difficulty
  • The Succubus "Blood Star" debuff will no longer affect the player if the damage from the projectile is dodged/blocked/etc
  • The damage from the Succubus “Blood Star” debuff will now scale based on the current cost of a player's skill, even if the cost is reduced by items or skillrunes
  • Monsters with the Extra Health affix should no longer gain more health every time players leave and join the game
  • Monsters with the Reflects Damage affix will no longer reflect Follower damage back to the player
  • Monsters with the Health Link and Knockback affixes will no longer knockback friendly monsters
  • Fixed a bug that was causing some Elite monster packs in Inferno difficulty to not reset their enrage timers and heal to full health as intended
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to avoid or delay the enrage timer reset on Elite monster packs in Inferno difficulty by running through a dungeon portal
  • Fixed a bug that was causing Champion Wallers to occasionally create walls at their location rather than the player's location
  • Fixed a bug where Sandwasp projectiles could sometimes become invisible

 

Bug Fixes

  • General
  • The experience bar for characters at level cap on a Guest Pass account will now display 0/0 experience. If the account holder upgrades to the full game, their characters will be at 0/41000 experience towards the next level.The speed of the animation that plays when resurrecting another players should no longer scale with your attack speed
  • Attempting to cast a skill while spamming the Town Portal hot key will now correctly interrupt the Town Portal cast and animation
  • Players who use Town Portal while in a tar pit will no longer keep the tar pit debuff after being teleported
  • It is no longer possible for players in Hell difficulty to skip to Inferno difficulty by creating and leaving Public Games
  • It is no longer possible to prevent character death in a single-player game by pausing the game in one game client and then logging into the same account from a different game client
  • Fixed a bug where The Lyceum in the Southern Highlands was not appearing
  • Fixed a bug where players could switch their offerings in the Trade window right before clicking "Accept" and, due to high latency, the game would not always be able to verify that both players were accepting the same offerings
  • Fixed a bug that was allowing players to temporarily pick up items that belonged to another account
  • Fixed a bug that was causing players to become stuck when using a banner to port to another player that was in an "un-walkable" location (i.e. to a barbaria in the middle of performing Leap)
  • Fixed a position desync bug (aka "rubberbanding") that could happen when some movement skills (Strafe, Whirlwind, Tempest Rush) ended because the player ran out of the appropriate resource
  • Fixed several issues where a player's character would get stuck or "rubberband" while moving if their movement speed was slowed in any way
  • Several performance improvements have been made to both the PC and Mac client
  • Auction House
  • Item tooltips in the auction house will now correctly reflect stat bonuses provided by socketed gems
  • Items with class-specific affixes should now display the class restriction properly
  • It should no longer be possible for players to purchase a stack of items so large that it cannot be sent to their stash
  • The data displayed in each auction house tab should now properly reset when logging out