Blizzard's Community Relations

[Malakili]

He drops a lot of gold with GF gear on.  He is close to a waypoint, runs are fast.  He is easy to kill even with GF gear on.

Each run takes < minute.

[waffel]

Sarkoth is in act 1. He's very easy to get to because there is a quest/way point that spawns you near him. He's called the "hoarder of treasure" or something, and resides in the Dank Cellar (which has about a 55% spawn chance, used to be 100% before it got nerfed many patches ago)

He's farmed because he drops a ton of gold every kill (because he 'hoards' the treasure from the chest, you see...) With goldfind gear you can pull in between 2k-9k a kill. Ranged classes can kill him from the doorway before he even moves or attacks.

A failed run looks for the dank cellar, doesn't find it, ports to town, leaves the game, hits resume from the menu. A failed run at most is 15 seconds, less if you're a Wizard with teleport.
A successful run takes at most 30 seconds. He also drops blues/rares/legendaries/sets.

DH bots can do 300-500k an hour. Wizard bots can do 500k+ an hour.

[Malakili]

Interview

In threads that I've responded to in the past, there were several follow-up questions and suggestions which I kept seeing over and over again. Rather than go back to those older posts and respond individually, I thought I would round them all up and provide answers here.

Since these types of posts can draw a lot of attention, please try to keep your responses as civil as possible. In the end, I'm hoping this helps provide some developer insight into a few of the recurring questions from this forum.

Questions:

1) You said you're inherently okay with players stacking certain stats over others. If this is the case, why did you nerf IAS?
One of the biggest issues we discovered with IAS was that it actively limited build diversity. While IAS was pretty strong on its own, when coupled with certain gear and skill combinations, it simply became too alluring for a lot of players to ignore. So, instead of seeing an increase in gear and skill diversity over time, what we actually saw was more and more players shifting to IAS-focused builds almost exclusively. On a scale large, it was crippling experimentation and skill diversity.

A lot of players think we reduced the value of IAS because it made characters too powerful. While that's not a totally unreasonable conclusion to jump to, it's definitely not true. We don't think "doing a lot of damage" or "doing too much damage" is enough reason for us to nerf something outright. IAS was an outlier -- it's not that it made characters too powerful, but rather that it caused a few builds to become vastly superior to others. On top of that, it introduced a ton of bugs just due to how fast characters were attacking when stacked to its upper limits.

The initial iteration of IAS was flawed in many ways. So, in effort to promote skill diversity and remove several game-impacting bugs from the environment, we reduced the value overall. We're fairly happy with where IAS is right now, as well as skill diversity in general (though we're going to need to do some additional skill balancing to bring it up to where we want).

2) So, when are you going to nerf Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage affixes?
We've no plans to nerf +Crit Chance or +Crit Damage. While +Crit Chance and +Crit Damage are very strong right now, there's nothing inherently wrong with something being strong. As mentioned above, players doing too much damage is not enough reason for us to bring out the nerf bat. Neither affix is having a negative impact on build diversity (we're seeing a pretty good balance overall), and there aren't any technical issues with them being stacked to higher values. It's something we're keeping an eye on of course.

3) Why aren't monster affix combinations restricted in some way?
Monster affixes are actually grouped into categories and then restricted based on those categories (to a degree). Our restrictions aren't as tight as some players have suggested, but in the end we found that adding extra limitations often made Elite pack encounters very predictable and repetitive, which kind of went against our design goal for these types of monsters.

We know that not all players will see eye-to-eye with us on how these categories are organized, and we expect some criticism and disagreement, especially from such a passionate group of gamers. While we're happy with where affix combos are right now, we're open to feedback and especially constructive discussion. :)

Here are the categories:

Strong CC (Limit 1):
Knockback
Nightmarish
Vortex
Defensive (Limit 1):
Avenger
Extra Health
Health Link
Horde
Illusionist
Missile Dampening
Invulnerable Minions
Shielding
Vampiric
Aggressive (No Limit):
ArcaneEnchanted
Desecrator
Electrified
Fast
Fire Chains
Frozen
Jailer
Molten
Mortar
Plagued
Reflects Damage
Teleporter
Waller

4) Is Whimsyshire considered an Act I or Act IV zone?
It's considered an Act III/Act IV zone, depending on difficulty. The monsters in Hell are considered Hell - Act IV monsters, and the monsters in Inferno are considered Inferno - Act III/Act IV monsters. The drop rates buffs from June 28 affect the zone accordingly.

----

Suggestions:

1) Allow to gems to stack up to 100.
Totally reasonable request. We're looking into it!

(We originally set the stack size to 30 so it would fit in with the other "3" gem values. Now that it only requires 2 gems to combine into the next tier and the pattern has been broken, we've no issue increasing the base stack size. Good suggestion.)

2) Allow players to create multiple gems and items with just one click, if you have enough materials.
No plans right now to implement this kind of automated queuing for crafting.

3) Allow users to buy multiple health potions with one click.
Also a cool idea! We're looking into it.

4) Allow the Town Healer to heal your active follower too.
Ditto. We'll definitely consider this.

5) Add an option to block follower conversations.
Understandable annoyance, but no plans at this time to add in an option. Still good feedback!

I don't particularly have any issue with anything that was said, but it is pretty damned lame they are forcing me to sit there for 10 minutes and click "craft" every time I want to make a new gem.

[01101010]

Questions:

1) You said you're inherently okay with players stacking certain stats over others. If this is the case, why did you nerf IAS?
One of the biggest issues we discovered with IAS was that it actively limited build diversity.

Maybe they would like to meet IAS's friend AllResist. I am sure they will have much to discuss.

[Paelos]

I was going to say the same thing about All Resist.

Also, the fact they don't restrict the Agressive Categories on elites is the PROBLEM.

[Lantyssa]

Most of the bots use AutoIT or Autohotkey.

I've been using AutoIt to automate some menial tasks at work, and updating old scripts for others.  It's a great little program.

[Ingmar]

How does resist all restrict build diversity? It restricts *gear* diversity, but I don't see how it affects builds.

[Paelos]

How does resist all restrict build diversity? It restricts *gear* diversity, but I don't see how it affects builds.

Try and find an inferno barb that doesn't have the War Cry with the impunity rune on his bar.

[waffel]

How does resist all restrict build diversity? It restricts *gear* diversity, but I don't see how it affects builds.

Try and find an inferno barb that doesn't have the War Cry with the impunity rune on his bar.

Or monks without 'one with everything'

[Hutch]

How are Frozen and Jailer not "Strong CC"?

[Paelos]

How are Frozen and Jailer not "Strong CC"?

Wording?

[Ingmar]

How are Frozen and Jailer not "Strong CC"?

They don't move you around uncontrollably.

[Llyse]

Yeah, I'm thankful for that post from waffel.

That's just the 10 ton anvil that's killed even logging in with my Hardcore characters and levelling, I got my moneys worth in time but somehow feel cheated because it wasn't as fun at the end as it could have been.

Onto The Secret World!

[waffel]

So um... apparently there is a new hack that is coming to light that allows you to purchase an item for its minimum bid, instead of it's buyout. There have been more and more reports about people putting an item up for say, 500,000gold minimum bid with NO buyout and having the item sell within 20 minutes.

The best part is, the hack works by editing two hex values: swapping the bid and buyout buttons.

I can't even imagine how much money whoever discovered this made before it started to go public, or how much money people are still making with it considering it's still active and not patched.

Blizzard... never ceases to amaze me.

[Lantyssa]

How the code could possibly written to allow for that...

... it's mind-boggling.

[Abelian75]

How the code could possibly written to allow for that...

... it's mind-boggling.

So mind-boggling that I'm sorta skeptical, especially of the "button-switching" mechanism to allow it.  But hey, who knows.

[waffel]

This is the same AH that allowed you to roll your PC clock time backwards to cancel an auction...

[Abelian75]

OK, random maintenance on a thursday is admittedly making me slightly less skeptical.

Edit:  Also, wow at that "turning back your clock" auction cancelling bug.  And yeah, I would have expected something like that would have been pretty obviously server-verified as well, so... god damn, man.

[MrHat]

OK, random maintenance on a thursday is admittedly making me slightly less skeptical.

They shut down the AH even earlier.

[LK]

 

All this stuff is absolutely incredible.

[Xanthippe]

Remember when Blizzard meant "polish"?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Now it just means Polish.

[Fabricated]

lol, this game fucking sucks.

Everything that should be handled server side is handled by the client and the stuff that should be handled by the client is handled by the server.

[Lantyssa]

Heh.  Hehehe.

[Rendakor]

How are Frozen and Jailer not "Strong CC"?

Wording?

Waller is another one that ought to be in that category.

[Xanthippe]

How are Frozen and Jailer not "Strong CC"?

Wording?

Waller is another one that ought to be in that category.

So you can still have a

Vortex, Vampiric, Teleporting, Waller, Jailer

which is just wrong.

[Rokal]

This is why the game should have required a constant internet connection. 

[koro]

The best part is, the hack works by editing two hex values: swapping the bid and buyout buttons.

How is that supposed to do anything? From what I understand from what other people have told me (I'm not technically minded), swapping the bid and buyout buttons should do precisely nothing.

[Lantyssa]

It depends how they accomplish it.  Theoretically it should just be a change in graphics.  It sounds like they're full-on objects though, so by swapping the Bid for a Buyout, Clicking tells the server the player just put down enough to buy the item.

And as there is no server-side verification, it just accepts it as true.

[Abelian75]

The only thing I can think of is that at one place in the code it is checking button ID, and in another place it's checking which element in some array it is, so that reordering them switches the second number and not the first.  And then on top of that, the server for some reason is able to be told something that makes it do something stupid.  I don't know.  I don't get it.  I can at least imagine how the clock-setting-back auction canceling one works, although it is crazy that the server didn't verify that it was an acceptable time to cancel an auction.

Edit:  Given the "clock setting back" stupidity, I'm guessing that maybe all that is happening is that switching the button order means it grays out the wrong button (probably the point where they aren't checking button ID, but rather button ordering), which lets you press what is actually the "buyout" button, allowing you to send a buyout request on an item that you shouldn't be able to.  And then their server has a horrible bug that obeys a buyout request for an item with no buyout, using (allegedly) the current bid price as the buyout price somehow.  I could believe that combination of bugs actually happening.  Not in a "forgivable" sense, but in a "I can imagine someone fucking up that bad" sense.

[Lightstalker]

Effectively swapping IsEnabled values seems likely.  Client (or server) side validation could save them from allowing bid-buyouts of items with buyouts listed, but that (possible) validation path probably falls down when there is no buyout value set.

Lack of Server Side Validation was probably justified in the name of performance.   

[Ironwood]

 

[Lantyssa]

And then their server has a horrible bug that obeys a buyout request for an item with no buyout, using (allegedly) the current bid price as the buyout price somehow.

Buyout (500k) > Buyout (0)

"Yep, 500k is more than nothing.  Sold!"

[Ice Cream Emperor]

So you can still have a

Vortex, Vampiric, Teleporting, Waller, Jailer

which is just wrong.

Wrong, but super easy to kill?

Okay, I guess not everyone is melee. But if every elite mob had that loadout I would probably be finished Inferno by now.

[Hutch]

So you can still have a

Vortex, Vampiric, Teleporting, Waller, Jailer

which is just wrong.

Wrong, but super easy to kill?

Okay, I guess not everyone is melee. But if every elite mob had that loadout I would probably be finished Inferno by now.

Instead, melee's get Vortex Desecrator Molten Waller Arcane, amirite.