May 5, 2024 • 38 mins
In this episode, I started by explaining why there weren’t any shows for a month. I got very sick from a food
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
- Coming to you fromsomewhere in Sanctuary.
(00:02):
This is episode 4 5 2of Shattered Soul Stone,
your Diablo Community podcast.
This episode is called NoBlis Con, which some
of you may have heard about but I'll go
into details in just a minute.
Today is April 4th, 2024 and this is Jen.
So I'm starting off of course
with the update on this year's BlizzCon
(00:24):
and Blizzards 2024 live events post
that was posted on April 25th.
But I'll get to that in just a minute
because some of you may have noticed
that I skipped an entiremonth of podcasting
and the reason was I havea ton of food allergies
and there was somethingI ate that had a specific
allergen in it that mybody cannot break down.
(00:45):
So I really was sick fora very long time, like all
through March and um,part of April
and it was really bad.
I didn't need to behospitalized or anything
'cause there would be nothinga hospital could do for me
to fix that and it was just excruciating
and painful and exhausting.
But I'm back now. So here we go.
(01:07):
So again, I'm gonna start withthe Blizzard, uh, post titled
and update on this year's BlizzCon
and Blizzards 2024 live events.
And I'm just gonna read itto you. It's not very long.
This is what they wrote. Aftercareful consideration over
the last year, we at Blizzardhave made the decision not
to hold BlizzCon in 2024.
(01:27):
This decision was not made lightly
as BlizzCon remains a veryspecial event for all of us
and we know many ofyou look forward to it.
While we're approachingthis year differently
and as we have explored differentevent formats in the past,
rest assured that we arejust as excited as ever
to bring BlizzCon back in future years.
Over the next few months we'llbe sharing more details about
(01:50):
our launches coming laterthis year, including World
of Warcraft, the War Within
and Diablo Four's firstexpansion vessel of hatred.
I'm gonna stop there for a second.
I remember them doing a live broadcast
that included some imagesfrom the vessel of hatred
expansion, some kindof excited to see that
(02:12):
or play that I haven't beenplaying Diablo for in a while
because as I said I got sick.
But I'll get back to it Tocontinue on with this post
to celebrate these upcoming releases
and to bring our communities together
in new and special ways.
We will soon share some exciting plans
for other industry trade shows
and conventions like Gamescom.
We can't wait to tell youmore about those plans soon.
(02:35):
We're also looking forward
to the Overwatch Championseries Stops at both DreamHack
Dallas and DreamHack Stockholm
and we're thrilled to be planningmultiple global in-person
events to commemorate the30th anniversary of Warcraft,
which will be held in addition
to the in-game celebrationsacross our Warcraft games
throughout 2024.
(02:55):
While these events aredistinct from BlizzCon,
we're harnessing all of our creativity
and imagination to ensure thatthey carry the same spirit
of celebration and togetherness.
Our hope is that theseexperiences alongside several live
streamed industry events wherewe'll keep you up to date
with what's happening in our game,
universes will capture the essence of
what makes the Blizzardcommunity so special.
(03:17):
No matter how you choose to connect
with us at these events thisyear, whether it be in person
or virtually, we can'twait to see you there.
So I figure that's a goodway to start off this show
considering you haven't seen me anywhere
or heard my voice in a while.
So there we are. This was posted on
April 25th, 2024 video games.
News posted Microsoft has quote,
(03:37):
let Blizzard be Blizzardend quote following its
acquisition Studio says.
So here's a little bit from that.
This one was written by Jordan Midler.
Microsoft has let Blizzardbe Blizzard following its
acquisition of the studio last year.
That's according to HollyLongdale, executive producer
and vice president of Worldof Warcraft who discussed
what life at Microsoft hadbeen like for the developer
(04:00):
during a recent interview with VGC quote.
If anything, it's just been helpful.
Longdale said we got timewith Helen Chang from mojang
and we were sharing information.
So it's almost as if we haveaccess to what worked for them.
We got to speak to theElder Scrolls online team
and share what we're upto and what's been working
and it's, it's almostlike we get a benefit.
(04:21):
There is no one asking us to do anything.
She continued World ofWarcraft is doing very well
and they're very proud of whatit's been able to accomplish.
So it's almost like just let it be
and let it keep being awesome.
They've been tremendously supportive
and it's like let Blizzard be Blizzard
and that's probably all youneed from that one is kind
of a short post, butthat's what's going on.
(04:44):
I think the purpose of thispost, if I were to take a guess,
is that Microsoft isnot coming to Blizzard
and saying You must do this
or thou shall not do that kind of thing.
So I think that works pretty well.
We've also got uh, windowscentral.com who wrote a thing.
This is written by Jez Cordon
with con contributionsfrom Samuel Tolbert.
(05:05):
Again, this is in fromApril, so it's the title is
BlizzCon is Skipping 2024 in favor
for multiple globalevents to showcase World
of Warcraft Diablo's expansion and more.
So here's what you need to know,
there's a few little bullet points here.
BlizzCon is Blizzard's famedconvention event typically
annualized and held at theAnaheim Convention Center
(05:26):
in the United States.
Since 2005, BlizzCon hasserved as the primary platform
for sharing major world ofWarcraft, Diablo, StarCraft,
and Overwatch News.
This year, blizzard has revealed
that BlizzCon will skip 2024 in favor
of multiple global events.
Instead, BlizzCon is not canceled however
and will return in theusual format in the future.
(05:49):
Update Blizzard confirms thisdecision was made internally
at Blizzard, not higher up at Microsoft.
So here's a little bit of stufffrom this. It's an update.
Blizzard Entertainmentconfirms to Windows Central
that the decision to skipBlizzCon in 2024 was made
by Blizzard and not fromhigher up at Microsoft.
(06:09):
When this news initially brokesome speculation on social
media questioned wherethe decision came from.
This is a Blizzard decision.
We have explored differentevent formats in the past
and this isn't the firsttime we're skipping BlizzCon
or trying something new.
While we have greatthings to share in 2024,
the timing just doesn't line up
for one single eventat the end of the year,
(06:31):
a Blizzard spokespersontells Window Central.
Instead, we want to focus onhighlighting individual games
and their moments, Warcraft'smultiple anniversaries,
the upcoming releases of Worldof Warcraft, the war within
and Diablo force's first expansion vessel
of hatred in particular.
So there's that. I've alsogot another thing here from
(06:53):
Blizzard, which was kindof a surprise to me.
This one was posted on, whenwas this posted? Exactly?
I'm not sure, but sometime recently.
So it's a press release titledThe Blizzard Entertainment
and Net Ease Renew Agreement
to bring beloved titles back to China.
Microsoft Gaming Net Ease.
Enter broader collaborationBlizzard titles to return
(07:15):
to Mainland China beginning summer 2024.
Microsoft gaming and Net Easedeepen their relationship
with a strategic partnershipbased on their shared desire
to bring new gaming experiences
to players across platforms and markets.
So here's the presser in its entirety.
The rest is kind of hype
and most people probablystop reading there
unless they're tryingto do a show like I am.
(07:37):
Okay, uh, beloved videogame titles from Blizzard
Entertainment that captivated millions
of players in China will return
to the markets sequentiallybeginning this summer under a
renewed publishing deal.
Blizzard Entertainmentcomma, Microsoft Gaming comma
and Net Ease announced today.
I don't know what date this is on there.
(07:58):
So today could be whenever, I'm not sure.
Uh, after continuingdiscussions over the past year,
both Blizzard enter entertainment
and Net Ease are thrilledto align on a path forward
to once again supportplayers in mainland China
and are proud to Reaffreaffirm their commitment
to delivering exceptionalgaming experiences.
The renewed publishingagreement will encompass games
(08:19):
Chinese players had access
to under the previousagreement World of Warcraft,
Hearthstone, and other titlesin the Warcraft, Overwatch,
Diablo, and StarCraft UniversesBuilding upon more than 15
years of past collaboration.
Blizzard and Net Ease areworking diligently on relaunch
plans with further detailsto be shared at a later date.
(08:40):
Separately, Microsoft gaming
and Net Ease have also enteredinto an ag, an agreement
to explore bringing newNetea titles to Xbox consoles
and other platforms.
Quote, we at Blizzard are thrilled
to reestablish ourpartnership with Net Ease
and to work togetherwith deep appreciation
for the collaboration between our teams
(09:00):
to deliver legendary gamingexperiences to players in China.
Said Joanna Ferries, presidentof Blizzard Entertainment.
We are immensely grateful
for the passion theChinese community has shown
for Blizzard games throughout the years
and we are focused on bringingour universes back to players
with excellence and dedication,
celebrating our collaborations.
We are thrilled to embarkon the next chapter,
(09:21):
built on trust and mutual respect
to serve our users inthis unique community
that we've built together.
Said William Ding, chief,chief Executive Officer
and director Net Easequote, our commitment
to providing more exhilarating
and creative entertainmentexperience remains unwavering
and we are excited to seepositive synergies fostered
(09:42):
to encourage and empowercollaborations to bring the joy
of gaming to a broad community.
Quote, blizzard
and Net Ease have done incredible work
to renew our commitment to players.
Blizzards universes have been part
of players' lives in theregion for many years.
Returning blizzard's legendary games
to players in China while exploring ways
to bring more new titles toXbox demonstrates the commitment
(10:03):
to bringing more games tomore players around the world.
Said Phil Spencer's,CEO of Microsoft Gaming.
I happen to have an Xbox and I like it
and I've been playing games on it.
I haven't been playing Diablo four yet,
but I'll probably jump intothe new season as it happens.
But this is kind of good news
and I think this sort ofcollaboration with, um, Microsoft
(10:24):
and Net Ease and Blizzardand Net Ease and Xbox
and Net Ease, I think that'sgonna like fix what was broken
before while um, Bobby Kotek was in charge
of Activision Blizzard.
So I think this is like a renewal
and things are gonna go really good
and I'm actually really excited
that they're gonna have moreXbox stuff for me to play with
(10:47):
and others who have an Xbox to play with.
So I think that's kind of cool.
Moving on, we have games beat here, um,
and it's from Venture Beat actually.
It says Activision Blizzard
and Able Gamers FundraiserChampions Inclusive Design.
I always like what happenswhen people do stuff
for the Able Gamers group.
There's a, a logo here of AbleGamers with a little joystick
(11:08):
and then Activision Blizzard next to it.
Um, who wrote this one?
I don't actually know who wrote this one,
but it's here on Venture Beat.
So I'm gonna read you some of this.
Activision Blizzard announcedlast week that it's working
with able gamers on anew fundraiser last week.
I don't know exactly whenthis was posted, but okay.
The company has opened a sweepstakes
(11:30):
where participants areeligible to win special prizes,
including special trips to Tray arcs
and Blizzard Studios while all funds go
to Able Gamers Mission.
The campaign is open right now
and runs through May 10,so you have some time
to get into that if you want to.
The two entities havecollaborated on three
different experiences.
One for Call of Duty, one for Diablo,
(11:52):
and one for World of Warcraft.
All three offer different prize pools
as I guess you wouldassume though the top prize
for each one is a trip totour the development studio,
parentheses tray arc for Callof Duty blizzard for Diablo
and wow with paid Hotelstay and round trip tickets.
Other prizes include acustom made Ghost mask,
(12:13):
a signed Dragon FlightCollector's edition,
and a Diablo four uh,
times Hot One's hot saucebottle called Lilith's Hatred
that part's in parentheses.
The sweepstakes alsopromotes Able Gamer's mission
of combating social isolation with games.
The charity says that onthe fundraisers page quote,
we empower people with disabilities
(12:35):
to forge meaningful connectionsthat aren't confined
by their geographic location or abilities.
End quote, Activision Blizzardalso praised able gamers
efforts in the game designspace in its announcement post
quote, inclusive game designis a key pillar throughout our
organization because we knowthat we have a responsibility
to create worlds whereeveryone can feel welcome
(12:56):
and play their way through its accessible
players experience training.
Able gamers has equippedActivision Blizzard developers
with the knowledge and resources
to develop more accessible games
and I think that's fantastic
because very often if youhave a group of people
that have some sort of disabilities
but really wanna play videogames anyway, there's ways
to make that happen and I thinkthey're all working on this
(13:19):
together as a group for,you know, able gamers
and um, Activision Blizzard and,
and all of this kind of stuff.
So, um, some of it is like,here's some prizes you can win,
but I think the rest ofit is that, you know, time
and time again, ActivisionBlizzard really, really does want
to have people who have disabilities able
to access their games andenjoy their time in those games
(13:41):
and it's gonna depend on, you know,
what disabilities you may have
or how you're gonna getaround those things.
But I think it's good thatthey're at least like trying
and you know, trying to makesure that hey, you know,
you may have disabilities,like I have some disabilities,
I'm dyslexic as fuck, right?
So, um, I'll get words wrongand stuff once in a while.
You've probably heard, butlike there's a lot of people
that uh, have other disabilitiesthat are not like mine
(14:04):
that could really benefitfrom this kind of thing.
I, there are, I don't thinkthere's too many companies
that are gonna be like, okay,
so we have this new cool game we're gonna,
we're gonna put out orwe have a new expansion
for this game we wanna put out
and like just ignore all of the things
that would make it possiblefor people with disabilities
(14:24):
to play the games, you know,so they, they need this group
because they wanna play too
and I think they shouldbe able to play as well.
Moving on, we have from MaxwellGigi, uh, written by Drey
who as I've said many times
before, gets everythingright in my opinion.
Um, so this is the seasonfour campfire chat wrap up.
(14:44):
Did I watch the campfirechat? No, I was sick.
, this was posted acouple days ago on May 2nd, 2024.
So I'm just gonna read this to you
and you can get all theinformation that you'd like
to glean from this, but red site's
exceptionally good atthese types of things.
So here we go. The seasonfour campfire chat took place.
The panel consisted ofJoseph's Joseph Ppor,
(15:05):
associate game director, AdamJackson, lead class designer,
Colin Finer lead live gamedesigner, Derek Nunez,
lead seasons designer
and Adam Fletcher, associatedirector of community.
The topics included PTR learnings.
They did have a PTR, let melike go into that for a minute.
There was actually a PTRfor the upcoming season.
(15:27):
I, I guess the new season ifI'm, I may be wrong about this
but from what I've seen online,
it seems like the new seasonis gonna be accessible
with your older charactersso you could go back
and run through like thestoryline if you wanna do that.
And also there could belike a seasonal aspect.
So I think that thatwould be kind of neat.
So the topics include PTR Learnings,
class balancing season four and Q and A.
(15:49):
See all the major points below.
So here's the general part,
the dev team discussedgeneral items, the PTR
and what has changed since then.
Legendary items give equalamounts of veiled crystal
as rare items sacred andancestral breakdown into two times
and three times the craftingmaterials respectively.
Greater apexes now havean easy weight, sorry,
(16:11):
easy now have an easy torecognize, lemme try that again.
Greater apexes now have an easy
to recognize icon in the namewhile on the ground as well
as sitting in your inventory.
Imprinting costs have goneway down allowing players
to imprint as they want to.
Nightmare Dungeon Glyph XPacquisition has been increased
by 25%
(16:32):
and ARDS now scale
with higher nightmare dungeon runs giving
more at higher tiers.
Resplendent spark, whichlooks like some kind
of gem now drop off yourfirst tormented boss kill Uber
Lilith kill and completethe reputation reward
with the iron wolves itemization.
There was a reiterationof the changes to items.
(16:53):
Rare items have onlytwo apexes Legendaries
have three apexes.
Greater apexes are a cool new addition
that can give you 150% ofthe normal bonus to an AFIX
or Forex, whichever.
Also lowering the quantity of affixes
but upping the quality on them on
gear was a big step forward.
They eased how some damage works.
(17:14):
Damage on Tuesday that's in quotes
and simplified some requirementsslash conditions killing
monsters at level 100 now guarantees.
Item power 925 lootreducing inventory sifting.
Ultimately it's about gettinga good item and working on it.
Tempering, not too much haschanged since the PTR allowing
players to skip the animations was added.
(17:35):
Also a stat range was added to the preview
of the rolled apex to helpmake it clear how good
of a role it is.
Master working, a lot ofthe system is unchanged.
The skipping feature has been made better
with the non-criticalranks being autos skipped.
There is no fail rate for thelater ranks of master working.
However, material costs are adjusted.
(17:55):
A little bit to compensate.
Also the conversion ofmaterials with caches was stated
to be made better from thePTR with a long-term solution.
In the works Post season four, the Pit.
The pit was stated by thecommunity to be a little too easy.
Adjustments have been madeto increase Monster Health
to not always be one shot.
Also master working materialshave been shifted into deeper
(18:17):
tiers of when you receive them.
Tier one materials equalslevel one through 30 was one
through 20, tier two materialslevel 31 to 60 was 21
to 40 tier three materialslevel 61 plus was was 41 plus.
So those are definite upgrades
that seem like could they could work.
The players in a group thatdid not open the pit level
(18:38):
should receive 50% ofthe rewards of the player
that did open it.
This was an increase
and hopefully not makegroup running the pit feel
so punishing Boss Ladder
and Ariel has been added along
with the tormentedversion monster level 200.
The effort versus versusreward wasn't good enough.
The team reduced the summoningmaterial requirements
(18:59):
for tormented versionsonly from three x, uh two,
three x from five x
with five x the totalrewards given other bosses
besides Durel and
and Darel have a similar chanceto, sorry, smaller chance
to drop an Uber unique now season journey.
This is gonna be kind of interesting.
uh, the Dove teamwill be curating a bunch
of legendaries that arefocused around a certain build.
(19:20):
These will come from completingcertain objectives slash
chapters to help getplayers up to speed quicker.
The five build stylesare for the barbarian.
It is the Dust Devils forthe Druid, it is pulverize
for the Necromancer it is minion army,
which makes absolute sense to me
because that's what Necromancers do have.
(19:40):
I played one in D four,not yet. Rogue has barrage.
I've played a rogue before in the game
and a barbarian and some other stuff.
Um, and Sorceress has incinerated.
That's the ones they're getting.Then there's the hell hide.
A lot has changed with hellhides the accursed rituals
to summon the bloodmaiden for great Luth Lu
and Boss summoning materials.
The threat meter as itfills up more ambushes
(20:03):
and visits from the hell wormhappen more frequently when a
full hell born not a hell worm.
A hell born attacks youdefeating it grants more loot
and summoning materials for Lord's.
Zero hell ties are now inworld tiers one and two.
That's new. Some elementslike the meteorites
and roaming bosses aren't present.
This is to make hell tide fun
(20:23):
but not too crazy for lower levels.
Here's some more information.
Cinder drop rates weren'twhere the team wanted them.
They went back and upped the drop rate
to get it where they wanted it.
Bain full heart drops were inconsistent.
They don't want players tohoard them so they made the rate
of getting them more stable.
Increased rewards have beenadded to those who contribute
(20:43):
to summoning the blood maiden.
Extra legendary items, uh,include forgotten souls,
exquisite blood, and a chance
that other boss summoningmaterials can drop there.
Doomsayers no longer have a small chance
to drop a doomsayer chest.
Instead they just drop that loot directly.
That's kind of cool. And nextis season four Loot reborn,
(21:03):
which is from
what I've been seeing online is a pretty
accurate uh, description.
So this has to do with the iron wolves.
If you dunno who they are,they've been in a bunch
of different uh, Diablo type games.
So, uh, or Diablo games specifically.
So iron wolves are apermanent part of Hell Tide
and season four seasonalplayers will be able
to heed the quote callof the Wolves End quote.
(21:25):
As you participate and workthrough the seasonal quest line,
you'll earn reputation
for earning juiced uprewards capped off at the end
with a resplendent spark.
It's a little stone Cosmeticsas well can be earned.
And there's a little picture here
of something called profane mind cage
and it just shows you like what it can do.
Finally, exclusive to seasonalcharacters is a new elixir,
(21:47):
profane mind cage.
It increases hell Tide,monster level cinder drop,
cinder drop rates and threat gain.
They are obtained from hell born
and also through the reputationrewards class updates.
Here we go. The dev teamdiscussed itemization, the PTR
and what has changed since then.
PTR lessons, end game survivabilityissues, enemies are kind
(22:09):
of easy and then they one shotyou hard to balance on top
of survive, uh, top endsurvivability variability
and player defensivenessis high Armor is confusing.
Some stats can get very highallowing for crazy things.
We like crazy things
but have to take computerperformance into account.
Ballots changes and bug fixes.
The team brought up three major areas
(22:30):
that they took lessons from PTR.
They received a lot of feedback and
and addressed each one for season four.
So armor season three,physical damage mitigation,
physical resistance cap of85% amount of armor you need
to be at the 85% cap is based on the level
of the monster you're fighting.
Examples level 50 monstersis 5,265 level 100
(22:52):
monsters is 9,230.
Level 150 monsters is 12,960.
Players never know when they're done
with armor the hidden systems.
Now for season four,here's what's changed.
Same as season three, uh,physical damage mitigation,
physical resistance cap of 85%still need escalating amounts
of armor as monster level gets higher.
(23:12):
Armor now cap when fightinglevel 100 monsters.
Once you get 9,230 armor,
you are finished with your journey.
The armor being an in an infinitescaling stat right now in
season three, the team went back
and capped the amount of armoryou'll need at level 100.
This is to give the playera goal, to hit a goal
that is clear and not hidden
(23:33):
and most importantly notwaste gear apex slots
by going over the capped amount.
There's some stat caps.
I'm not gonna read all of this to you.
Balance updates, okay,I'm gonna read that one.
Lots of balance changesbased on feedback changes due
to combat readability andto balance player power.
Fewer dust devils, fewerfractured winter glass,
frozen orbs still going to spot a lot,
(23:54):
just not crazy amounts.
Fortify damage reductionincreased from 10% to 15%.
Many tempering effects updates.
Druid Wolves Health increased by 200%.
RESP spawn rate reduced by 50%.
And then there's like some uh, things
that are make it clear at the PTR.
Here's somebody in a buildingwith a bunch of fire going
(24:15):
around them and I can't even
see what the character is in there.
There's all these numbersjust overlapping each other.
That was in the PTR in season four.
Some of those numbers stilllook like they're overlapping
and it looks like the season four one.
This is actually training dummies
that they're fighting at this point.
Then there's uh, dust devils,there's visual improvements.
So the PTR it was thisbig glowing round thing.
(24:37):
And then season four,it's gonna be a little
bit less than that.
The new scoundrels kissoriginally made a line of arrows,
meaning rogues would have to get up close
and a little too personally toget all the damage out of it.
In season four, you just point click
and all arrows go to that location.
Instead there's some bug fixes, uh,
Druids hurricane incorrectly,scaling damage ebb
and piercers extra missiles incorrectly
(24:58):
had a lucky hit chance.
Oops. Fixed an issuewhere FLA Weaver was able
to split a fire bolt multipletimes if the firewalls were
stacked on top of each other.
Still discovering andworking on other fixes.
And then there's some questions in here
that you can check out, butthis is all from Dread site.
Who does great work with this.
Um, I don't think I wouldbe able to parse out all
(25:19):
of this anywhere near as well as he does.
So when I find somethinglike this that he's posted,
in fact very recently,just a few days ago, I try
to like let all of youknow about it as well.
Over on P Diablo, there's acouple of things to talk about.
This was written by uh, rush.
That's the author's nameis Rush on April 26th.
So some of this is April,we just got into May.
It's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
(25:40):
So this is titled Diablo two resurrected
and Diablo three coming to GForce.
Now two classics heading
to the cloud soon courtesy of nvidia.
Now this might make somepeople extremely excited
if they're using GForce.
Now here's a little bit ofuh, what was written on this.
If you enjoy some cloud gaming,
there's news from theNvidia camp this evening
regarding Diablo two resurrectedand Diablo three on GForce.
(26:03):
Now, while most of youprobably won't take advantage
of this, it will be anoption in the near future.
According to Nvidia,
there is no date when thesetwo classic Diablo games are
being added, but at leastwe know they're coming.
In February, Nvidia announced
that Diablo four Overwatchtwo Call of Duty HQ
and Hearthstone were beingadded to the service.
The way it works is that ifyou own the games on Battlenet,
(26:25):
you can stream them from NvidiaGForce RTX powered servers
in the cloud and don't haveto worry about your hardware.
Download the games to try these out.
You can use the free pricingoption for a quick test
or take out a monthly subto access all the games.
Find out more about pricing here.
There's a link to herein that particular thing.
Another thing from Blizzard wehave is galvanize your legend
(26:46):
in season four loot reborn
and there is a blacksmithtrying to like modify
or fix a sword with all theselike embers flying around him.
So that's kind of interesting.So here's what this is.
I dunno how long this is gonna be,
but I'll read it to you anyway.
Uh, since I've been gone for so long,
the forages burnwith renewed vigor, stoked
(27:06):
by braziers to hone the steel
of sanctuaries finest across the land.
Hell's expanded legions gather
and multiply, marshaling theirstrength to ambush wanderers
that fall prey to their hell tide.
Fresh from our first publictest realm in Diablo four,
season four loot rebornbegins on May 14 at 10:00 AM
(27:27):
pt use the itemization overhaulon new systems tempering
and master working to change anoteworthy blade into a force
to be feared across all world tears.
Hell Tide is reborn slave monstrosities
to fill your threatmeter, marking you as prey
for the hell born preparedto fight side by side
(27:47):
with the iron wolves.
A seasoned mercenarycompany of brethren aiming
to quell the demons itemization
Reforge master working tempering
and more seasons within Diablo four Bear.
Their mark on sanctuary in theseasonal realm are unearthing
new quests and fresh mechanicsto explore and master.
Season four loot rebornI they really named it.
(28:09):
This, I think,uh, takes on a new theme,
overhauling many coregame systems to refresh
how items are earned, how they function
and how they improve as you level
through world tiers during the season.
Unlike previous seasonal themes
that affect only the seasonal realm
with season four loot reborn,
these itemization changespersist beyond the seasonal realm
(28:30):
and affect the eternal realmas well read on to learn
how itemization willchange the way you loot
and reap your way across allof Diablo form all updates
to our new items classes
and skills will beavailable in our season.
Four patch notes which are available here.
I didn't bring that into the show though.
Following our developerupdates stream on May two,
which was couple days ago.
(28:50):
General item updates.
One of our several goals forthe itemization changes is
to make it easier tounderstand which items
are upgrades when they drop.
We reduced the numberof apexes on items down
to three on legendaryitems, two on rare items
and made these apexes, yeah,I can't pronounce this right,
made these apexesapexes more effective.
Instead of seeing an apex
(29:12):
that relies on con conditionalvalues plus 10% damage on
non-injured elites, you'll seeapexes such as base increase
to your movement speed max life
or single ranks of a core skill.
Dropped items are nowsimpler to re to evaluate
and we've moved their complexity
and customization to ournew crafting systems.
Tempering and master working,
(29:33):
which we will describein more detail below.
We've also increased theoverall values of these apexes.
So they should feel more powerful.
There's a couple of screenshots in here.
Uh, by making items moreindividually impactful,
we've significantlydecreased the number of items
that drop when slaying monsters.
The goal here is to spendmore time obliterating
and less time sorting throughthe many items that drop.
(29:53):
The result is that feweritems will drop overall,
but those items will bemore likely to be valuable
to compensate and stayon par with the norm.
Materials gained from salvaging
and crafting have beenadjusted to match this change.
Also forgotten souls can nowbe earned from whisper bounties
and are rare drop from all elites.
The gold cost to re-roll itemswhen enchanting now has a
(30:14):
maximum and we've cut downon the materials needed
to perform all activitieswhen at the blacksmith.
Additionally, which worldtier you play in will directly
affect the rarity of theitems you earn Sacred items
or higher only drop in world tier three
and only ancestral items willappear in world tier four.
Similarly, legendary itemsdropped from enemies over level
95 will always have avalue of 925 item power.
(30:38):
However, keep an eye out foruniques, some have a chance
to appear starting in world tier one
and two, all uniques have a chance
to drop Starting in world tier three
and uber uniques can start appearing
as once you're killing monsters
that are level 55 at max power level.
There's more in here. Itgoes on and on quite a bit.
So I'm just gonna kind of drop it here
(30:59):
and you can read all this stuffon chattered soul stone.com
when I start putting upeverything I talked about.
We've got another onehere from Pur Diablo.
We just talked about the ironwolves a couple of times.
So, um, this one isalso about iron wolves.
So iron wolves chronicles ablood forged alliance written
by grich relive thestoried history relief,
(31:20):
relive the storied history ofthis mercenary band of magees.
Season four theme iron wolves.
As we all know, the firstDiablo four PTR ran from
April 2nd through April 9th.
During that week, some datawas mined from the PTR patch,
which suggested that theiron wolves would be featured
as part of the season four theme.
A handful of articles followed
that shared some detailsabout what had been uncovered.
(31:41):
These details included an updated version
of the Iron W Wolves emblem,
which you can see in this article as well
as several more icon
and detail files, whichindicated a clear link
to iron wolves.
Content included
among the icon files wasa map marker comprised
of an iron wolves emblem highlighted
with a seasonal green leaf symbol.
Earlier today, blizzardpublished a blog post
(32:03):
that confirmed the inclusion
of the iron wolves in season four.
However, most of the recentIron wolves news has thus far
been focused on the seasonalmechanics and cosmetics.
Nevertheless, there's much more
to know about this famous fellowship.
So let's take an in-depth lookat their remarkable story.
I'm not gonna read you the whole story,
but I'll read you a little bit.
Honor bound the Iron Wolvesare a storied mercenary company
(32:25):
from Stan whose prowess
and battle was matched onlyby their fierce loyalty.
Unlike other bands ofbrigs who could be bought
and sold the iron wolves,first and foremost valued honor
and duty, all their memberswere sworn to the the quest
of protecting and shelteringthe weak and innocent
and punishing the wicked.
These combat veterans camefrom all walks of life,
(32:45):
including MAs, cell swords,rangers, and archers.
Those who were Fort Wright
and willing to conform
to the clan's ideology werewelcomed into the fold.
It was also their traditionto reclaim the armor
of their fallen, so it may continue
to serve the greater good.
Then there's the Iron Maiden,
not the band, unfortunately.
Uh, perhaps the one fact
that most commonly mentionedwhen discussing the history
(33:07):
of the Iron wolves isthat they were founded
by a woman named Ashra.
In his memory, the fallenangel Terio briefly described
her as follows.
Ashira spent many years as a member
of various unscrupulous mercenary outfits,
despising the brutal tacticsemployed by these groups.
She eventually forged the iron wolves
(33:29):
and order of cell swords that holds honor
and duty above all else.
I know Ashra to be strictwith her followers,
but also even handed.
That's a quote from Teria Ashra.
Stu shared an unspokenbond with her retainers
and was always willing tofight side by side with them.
Under her command, they rigorously adhered
to their strong moralcode without hesitation.
(33:51):
Ash Shira's, most solemn vow was
that no harm would ever come to those
who were under their protection.
Despite her blunt tone, she was unable
to hide her genuine concern for anyone
who had been entrusted to her care.
She also had a low opinionof the Zacker Room Church,
considering it to be bothlacking and inferior to sco.
I don't know what that oneis. The story goes on in this
(34:11):
and if you'd like to readmore, there's a whole lot
of words here you can get into,
but this is just kind of the main idea.
And I do like reading stories,
but I think, you know, Idon't need to read everything.
Moving on, we've got, uh,a thing from wow head, uh,
Diablo four, season fourLoot reborn Developer Update
livestream summary.
There's a video in here andthat's kind of about it.
(34:32):
There's a little bit ofdescription that seems
to have come from somewhere else, uh,
but you can check that out if you want to.
Also over on wow headnew seasoned blessings
coming to Diablo four.
Season four increased ParagonGlyph XP OAL drop rate from
Hell Tides posted two days ago by arcane.
Uh, here's a little bit ofthis anticipation is building
(34:52):
as Diablo four's fourth seasonLu reborn is only a few weeks
away, while much is alreadyknown about the changes coming
with the release of season four.
There is still new informationbeing released regularly in
the recent blizzard blog post.
Alongside other new information,
the seasonal blessings were revealed.
So here they are. There arethree new seasoned blessings
to unlock as you progressthrough the free tiers
(35:13):
of the battle pass, whichmeans you need an Xbox.
I think as you reach certain milestones,
you will unlock smoldering ashes,
which can be spent in order to unlock
and upgrade each ofthe seasoned blessings.
These will grant various boonsto age you in your journeys.
During season four, earn
of Nightmares boost ParagonGlyph XP earned in nightmare
dungeons Earn of iron,boost your reputation
(35:34):
with the iron wolves fromhell tide activities earn
of B burning Obel boost the amount
of obel you can find in held tide chests,
which contain obel during this season.
Increasing Paragon GlyphXP is a huge player.
Convenience as you beginto approach end game
as it will help save aconsiderable amount of time.
This means the less time spentfarming nightmare dungeons
and more time for the newand improved held tides
(35:56):
or the pit of Artificersexclamation point.
The reputation increase
with the iron wolves in seasonfour can potentially be quite
profitable early game as their reputation.
Rewards will includeseveral tempering manuals,
which are a critical component
of upgrading your gear in the new
and improved crafting system.
Increased a drop rate
of ovals from held tide chests might seem
(36:16):
to be a lesser choice thanthe others at a glance.
However, with the adv adventof the itemization overhaul
and new crafting system,
blizzard has also simultaneously
decreased the drop rate of items.
Rare items will no longerflood your screen constantly
as you play the game, but ifyou are on the hunt for a piece
of gear to craft onto, Obelcan come in quite handily
as a means to supplement your drops
(36:37):
with exactly what you need.
Plus, if you want to tryyour luck at getting a better
legendary aspect role to put in the Codex,
Obel are a fantastic option.
It goes on from there. AndI've got a few things here
to round out the show.
You may have seen onTwitter, holy Night, 3000,
who has been making amazingartwork about various characters
within the Diablo universe.
(36:58):
And, uh, he's got the wholething over in Deviant Art.
So there's a whole thing andit's like really tiny to see,
but if you click on thesethings one by one by one,
you could see everythingthat he's posted and created.
You know, it's obviously arttaken from the Diablo series,
but I don't think anyof the Diablo workers
or the company, I think they're,
(37:20):
they'd be really happy about.
You know, how he's pared this out.
I think that's really cool. Andthe center of it is the, uh,
thing you've seen probably when you
were playing Diablo three.
And it has like all of thecharacters, you know, in,
in battle basically withlike gold behind them.
It's kind of neat. Um,
I highly recommend youcheck those things out
and that's where I'm goingto end the show for today.
(37:43):
Yes, it went a little long,
but I skipped a whole month, so I tried
to give you a little bitmore in this episode.
You have been listening toepisode, uh, what is it now?
4 4 51. I think it's 4 52of the Shattered Soul Stone.
Your Diablo communitypodcast missed an episode.
You could find the show blog
and listen to the show archives at
www.shatteredsoulstone.com.
(38:06):
Come join us in game.Our in-game, community
and clan, both namedShattered Soul Stone are open
to anyone who would like to join.
You could also join us onDiscord for the ultimate team
and community based experience,
find the Discord invitationlink on our Twitter at shattered
stone, as well as theShattered Soul Stone website.
Thank you for listening,
and thank you for being patientwith me while I was sick.
- Coming to you fromsomewhere in Sanctuary.
(00:02):
This is episode 4 5 2of Shattered Soul Stone,
your Diablo Community podcast.
This episode is called NoBlis Con
of you may have heard about but I'll go
into details in just a minute.
Today is April 4th, 2024 and this is Jen.
So I'm starting off of course
with the update on this year's BlizzCon
(00:24):
and Blizzards 2024 live events post
that was posted on April 25th.
But I'll get to that in just a minute
because some of you may have noticed
that I skipped an entiremonth of podcasting
and the reason was I havea ton of food allergies
and there was somethingI ate that had a specific
allergen in it that mybody cannot break down.
(00:45):
So I really was sick fora very long time, like all
through March and um,part of April
and it was really bad.
I didn't need to behospitalized or anything
'cause there would be nothinga hospital could do for me
to fix that and it was just excruciating
and painful and exhausting.
But I'm back now. So here we go
(01:07):
So again, I'm gonna start withthe Blizzard, uh, post titled
and update on this year's BlizzCon
and Blizzards 2024 live events.
And I'm just gonna read itto you. It's not very long.
This is what they wrote. Aftercareful consideration over
the last year, we at Blizzardhave made the decision not
to hold BlizzCon in 2024.
(01:27):
This decision was not made lightly
as BlizzCon remains a veryspecial event for all of us
and we know many ofyou look forward to it.
While we're approachingthis year differently
and as we have explored differentevent formats in the past,
rest assured that we arejust as excited as ever
to bring BlizzCon back in future years.
Over the next few months we'llbe sharing more details about
(01:50):
our launches coming laterthis year, including World
of Warcraft, the War Within
and Diablo Four's firstexpansion vessel of hatred.
I'm gonna stop there for a second.
I remember them doing a live broadcast
that included some imagesfrom the vessel of hatred
expansion, some kindof excited to see that
(02:12):
or play that I haven't beenplaying Diablo for in a while
because as I said I got sick.
But I'll get back to it Tocontinue on with this post
to celebrate these upcoming releases
and to bring our communities together
in new and special ways.
We will soon share some exciting plans
for other industry trade shows
and conventions like Gamescom.
We can't wait to tell youmore about those plans soon.
(02:35):
We're also looking forward
to the Overwatch Championseries Stops at both DreamHack
Dallas and DreamHack Stockholm
and we're thrilled to be planningmultiple global in-person
events to commemorate the30th anniversary of Warcraft,
which will be held in addition
to the in-game celebrationsacross our Warcraft games
throughout 2024.
(02:55):
While these events aredistinct from BlizzCon,
we're harnessing all of our creativity
and imagination to ensure thatthey carry the same spirit
of celebration and togetherness.
Our hope is that theseexperiences alongside several live
streamed industry events wherewe'll keep you up to date
with what's happening in our game,
universes will capture the essence of
what makes the Blizzardcommunity so special.
(03:17):
No matter how you choose to connect
with us at these events thisyear, whether it be in person
or virtually, we can'twait to see you there.
So I figure that's a goodway to start off this show
considering you haven't seen me anywhere
or heard my voice in a while.
So there we are. This was posted on
April 25th, 2024 video games.
News posted Microsoft has quote,
(03:37):
let Blizzard be Blizzardend quote following its
acquisition Studio says.
So here's a little bit from that.
This one was written by Jordan Midler.
Microsoft has let Blizzardbe Blizzard following its
acquisition of the studio last year.
That's according to HollyLongdale, executive producer
and vice president of Worldof Warcraft who discussed
what life at Microsoft hadbeen like for the developer
(04:00):
during a recent interview with VGC quote.
If anything, it's just been helpful.
Longdale said we got timewith Helen Chang from mojang
and we were sharing information.
So it's almost as if we haveaccess to what worked for them.
We got to speak to theElder Scrolls online team
and share what we're upto and what's been working
and it's, it's almostlike we get a benefit.
(04:21):
There is no one asking us to do anything.
She continued World ofWarcraft is doing very well
and they're very proud of whatit's been able to accomplish.
So it's almost like just let it be
and let it keep being awesome.
They've been tremendously supportive
and it's like let Blizzard be Blizzard
and that's probably all youneed from that one is kind
of a short post, butthat's what's going on.
(04:44):
I think the purpose of thispost, if I were to take a guess,
is that Microsoft isnot coming to Blizzard
and saying You must do this
or thou shall not do that kind of thing.
So I think that works pretty well.
We've also got uh, windowscentral.com who wrote a thing.
This is written by Jez Cordon
with con contributionsfrom Samuel Tolbert.
(05:05):
Again, this is in fromApril, so it's the title is
BlizzCon is Skipping 2024 in favor
for multiple globalevents to showcase World
of Warcraft Diablo's expansion and more.
So here's what you need to know,
there's a few little bullet points here.
BlizzCon is Blizzard's famedconvention event typically
annualized and held at theAnaheim Convention Center
(05:26):
in the United States.
Since 2005, BlizzCon hasserved as the primary platform
for sharing major world ofWarcraft, Diablo, StarCraft,
and Overwatch News.
This year, blizzard has revealed
that BlizzCon will skip 2024 in favor
of multiple global events.
Instead, BlizzCon is not canceled however
and will return in theusual format in the future.
(05:49):
Update Blizzard confirms thisdecision was made internally
at Blizzard, not higher up at Microsoft.
So here's a little bit of stufffrom this. It's an update.
Blizzard Entertainmentconfirms to Windows Central
that the decision to skipBlizzCon in 2024 was made
by Blizzard and not fromhigher up at Microsoft.
(06:09):
When this news initially brokesome speculation on social
media questioned wherethe decision came from.
This is a Blizzard decision.
We have explored differentevent formats in the past
and this isn't the firsttime we're skipping BlizzCon
or trying something new.
While we have greatthings to share in 2024,
the timing just doesn't line up
for one single eventat the end of the year,
(06:31):
a Blizzard spokespersontells Window Central.
Instead, we want to focus onhighlighting individual games
and their moments, Warcraft'smultiple anniversaries,
the upcoming releases of Worldof Warcraft, the war within
and Diablo force's first expansion vessel
of hatred in particular.
So there's that. I've alsogot another thing here from
(06:53):
Blizzard, which was kindof a surprise to me.
This one was posted on, whenwas this posted? Exactly?
I'm not sure, but sometime recently.
So it's a press release titledThe Blizzard Entertainment
and Net Ease Renew Agreement
to bring beloved titles back to China.
Microsoft Gaming Net Ease.
Enter broader collaborationBlizzard titles to return
(07:15):
to Mainland China beginning summer 2024.
Microsoft gaming and Net Easedeepen their relationship
with a strategic partnershipbased on their shared desire
to bring new gaming experiences
to players across platforms and markets.
So here's the presser in its entirety.
The rest is kind of hype
and most people probablystop reading there
unless they're tryingto do a show like I am.
(07:37):
Okay, uh, beloved videogame titles from Blizzard
Entertainment that captivated millions
of players in China will return
to the markets sequentiallybeginning this summer under a
renewed publishing deal.
Blizzard Entertainmentcomma, Microsoft Gaming comma
and Net Ease announced today.
I don't know what date this is on there.
(07:58):
So today could be whenever, I'm not sure.
Uh, after continuingdiscussions over the past year,
both Blizzard enter entertainment
and Net Ease are thrilledto align on a path forward
to once again supportplayers in mainland China
and are proud to Reaffreaffirm their commitment
to delivering exceptionalgaming experiences.
The renewed publishingagreement will encompass games
(08:19):
Chinese players had access
to under the previousagreement World of Warcraft,
Hearthstone, and other titlesin the Warcraft, Overwatch,
Diablo, and StarCraft UniversesBuilding upon more than 15
years of past collaboration.
Blizzard and Net Ease areworking diligently on relaunch
plans with further detailsto be shared at a later date.
(08:40):
Separately, Microsoft gaming
and Net Ease have also enteredinto an ag, an agreement
to explore bringing newNetea titles to Xbox consoles
and other platforms.
Quote, we at Blizzard are thrilled
to reestablish ourpartnership with Net Ease
and to work togetherwith deep appreciation
for the collaboration between our teams
(09:00):
to deliver legendary gamingexperiences to players in China.
Said Joanna Ferries, presidentof Blizzard Entertainment.
We are immensely grateful
for the passion theChinese community has shown
for Blizzard games throughout the years
and we are focused on bringingour universes back to players
with excellence and dedication,
celebrating our collaborations.
We are thrilled to embarkon the next chapter,
(09:21):
built on trust and mutual respect
to serve our users inthis unique community
that we've built together.
Said William Ding, chief,chief Executive Officer
and director Net Easequote, our commitment
to providing more exhilarating
and creative entertainmentexperience remains unwavering
and we are excited to seepositive synergies fostered
(09:42):
to encourage and empowercollaborations to bring the joy
of gaming to a broad community.
Quote, blizzard
and Net Ease have done incredible work
to renew our commitment to players.
Blizzards universes have been part
of players' lives in theregion for many years.
Returning blizzard's legendary games
to players in China while exploring ways
to bring more new titles toXbox demonstrates the commitment
(10:03):
to bringing more games tomore players around the world.
Said Phil Spencer's,CEO of Microsoft Gaming.
I happen to have an Xbox and I like it
and I've been playing games on it.
I haven't been playing Diablo four yet,
but I'll probably jump intothe new season as it happens.
But this is kind of good news
and I think this sort ofcollaboration with, um, Microsoft
(10:24):
and Net Ease and Blizzardand Net Ease and Xbox
and Net Ease, I think that'sgonna like fix what was broken
before while um, Bobby Kotek was in charge
of Activision Blizzard.
So I think this is like a renewal
and things are gonna go really good
and I'm actually really excited
that they're gonna have moreXbox stuff for me to play with
(10:47):
and others who have an Xbox to play with.
So I think that's kind of cool.
Moving on, we have games beat here, um,
and it's from Venture Beat actually.
It says Activision Blizzard
and Able Gamers FundraiserChampions Inclusive Design.
I always like what happenswhen people do stuff
for the Able Gamers group.
There's a, a logo here of AbleGamers with a little joystick
(11:08):
and then Activision Blizzard next to it.
Um, who wrote this one?
I don't actually know who wrote this one,
but it's here on Venture Beat.
So I'm gonna read you some of this.
Activision Blizzard announcedlast week that it's working
with able gamers on anew fundraiser last week.
I don't know exactly whenthis was posted, but okay.
The company has opened a sweepstakes
(11:30):
where participants areeligible to win special prizes,
including special trips to Tray arcs
and Blizzard Studios while all funds go
to Able Gamers Mission.
The campaign is open right now
and runs through May 10,so you have some time
to get into that if you want to.
The two entities havecollaborated on three
different experiences.
One for Call of Duty, one for Diablo,
(11:52):
and one for World of Warcraft.
All three offer different prize pools
as I guess you wouldassume though the top prize
for each one is a trip totour the development studio,
parentheses tray arc for Callof Duty blizzard for Diablo
and wow with paid Hotelstay and round trip tickets.
Other prizes include acustom made Ghost mask,
(12:13):
a signed Dragon FlightCollector's edition,
and a Diablo four uh,
times Hot One's hot saucebottle called Lilith's Hatred
The sweepstakes alsopromotes Able Gamer's mission
of combating social isolation with games.
The charity says that onthe fundraisers page quote,
we empower people with disabilities
(12:35):
to forge meaningful connectionsthat aren't confined
by their geographic location or abilities.
End quote, Activision Blizzardalso praised able gamers
efforts in the game designspace in its announcement post
quote, inclusive game designis a key pillar throughout our
organization because we knowthat we have a responsibility
to create worlds whereeveryone can feel welcome
(12:56):
and play their way through its accessible
players experience training.
Able gamers has equippedActivision Blizzard developers
with the knowledge and resources
to develop more accessible games
and I think that's fantastic
because very often if youhave a group of people
that have some sort of disabilities
but really wanna play videogames anyway, there's ways
to make that happen and I thinkthey're all working on this
(13:19):
together as a group for,you know, able gamers
and um, Activision Blizzard and,
and all of this kind of stuff.
So, um, some of it is like,here's some prizes you can win,
but I think the rest ofit is that, you know, time
and time again, ActivisionBlizzard really, really does want
to have people who have disabilities able
to access their games andenjoy their time in those games
(13:41):
and it's gonna depend on, you know,
what disabilities you may have
or how you're gonna getaround those things.
But I think it's good thatthey're at least like trying
and you know, trying to makesure that hey, you know,
you may have disabilities,like I have some disabilities,
I'm dyslexic as fuck, right?
So, um, I'll get words wrongand stuff once in a while.
You've probably heard, butlike there's a lot of people
that uh, have other disabilitiesthat are not like mine
(14:04):
that could really benefitfrom this kind of thing.
I, there are, I don't thinkthere's too many companies
that are gonna be like, okay,
so we have this new cool game we're gonna,
we're gonna put out orwe have a new expansion
for this game we wanna put out
and like just ignore all of the things
that would make it possiblefor people with disabilities
(14:24):
to play the games, you know,so they, they need this group
because they wanna play too
and I think they shouldbe able to play as well.
Moving on, we have from MaxwellGigi, uh, written by Drey
who as I've said many times
before, gets everythingright in my opinion.
Um, so this is the seasonfour campfire chat wrap up.
(14:44):
Did I watch the campfirechat? No, I was sick.
So I'm just gonna read this to you
and you can get all theinformation that you'd like
to glean from this, but red site's
exceptionally good atthese types of things.
So here we go. The seasonfour campfire chat took place.
The panel consisted ofJoseph's Joseph Ppor,
(15:05):
associate game director, AdamJackson, lead class designer,
Colin Finer lead live gamedesigner, Derek Nunez,
lead seasons designer
and Adam Fletcher, associatedirector of community.
The topics included PTR learnings.
They did have a PTR, let melike go into that for a minute.
There was actually a PTRfor the upcoming season.
(15:27):
I, I guess the new season ifI'm, I may be wrong about this
but from what I've seen online,
it seems like the new seasonis gonna be accessible
with your older charactersso you could go back
and run through like thestoryline if you wanna do that.
And also there could belike a seasonal aspect.
So I think that thatwould be kind of neat.
So the topics include PTR Learnings,
class balancing season four and Q and A.
(15:49):
See all the major points below.
So here's the general part,
the dev team discussedgeneral items, the PTR
and what has changed since then.
Legendary items give equalamounts of veiled crystal
as rare items sacred andancestral breakdown into two times
and three times the craftingmaterials respectively.
Greater apexes now havean easy weight, sorry,
(16:11):
easy now have an easy torecognize, lemme try that again.
Greater apexes now have an easy
to recognize icon in the namewhile on the ground as well
as sitting in your inventory.
Imprinting costs have goneway down allowing players
to imprint as they want to.
Nightmare Dungeon Glyph XPacquisition has been increased
by 25%
(16:32):
and ARDS now scale
with higher nightmare dungeon runs giving
more at higher tiers.
Resplendent spark, whichlooks like some kind
of gem now drop off yourfirst tormented boss kill Uber
Lilith kill and completethe reputation reward
with the iron wolves itemization.
There was a reiterationof the changes to items.
(16:53):
Rare items have onlytwo apexes Legendaries
have three apexes.
Greater apexes are a cool new addition
that can give you 150% ofthe normal bonus to an AFIX
or Forex, whichever.
Also lowering the quantity of affixes
but upping the quality on them on
gear was a big step forward.
They eased how some damage works.
(17:14):
Damage on Tuesday that's in quotes
and simplified some requirementsslash conditions killing
monsters at level 100 now guarantees.
Item power 925 lootreducing inventory sifting.
Ultimately it's about gettinga good item and working on it.
Tempering, not too much haschanged since the PTR allowing
players to skip the animations was added.
(17:35):
Also a stat range was added to the preview
of the rolled apex to helpmake it clear how good
of a role it is.
Master working, a lot ofthe system is unchanged.
The skipping feature has been made better
with the non-criticalranks being autos skipped.
There is no fail rate for thelater ranks of master working.
However, material costs are adjusted.
(17:55):
A little bit to compensate.
Also the conversion ofmaterials with caches was stated
to be made better from thePTR with a long-term solution.
In the works Post season four, the Pit.
The pit was stated by thecommunity to be a little too easy.
Adjustments have been madeto increase Monster Health
to not always be one shot.
Also master working materialshave been shifted into deeper
(18:17):
tiers of when you receive them.
Tier one materials equalslevel one through 30 was one
through 20, tier two materialslevel 31 to 60 was 21
to 40 tier three materialslevel 61 plus was was 41 plus.
So those are definite upgrades
that seem like could they could work.
The players in a group thatdid not open the pit level
(18:38):
should receive 50% ofthe rewards of the player
that did open it.
This was an increase
and hopefully not makegroup running the pit feel
so punishing Boss Ladder
and Ariel has been added along
with the tormentedversion monster level 200.
The effort versus versusreward wasn't good enough.
The team reduced the summoningmaterial requirements
(18:59):
for tormented versionsonly from three x, uh two,
three x from five x
with five x the totalrewards given other bosses
besides Durel and
and Darel have a similar chanceto, sorry, smaller chance
to drop an Uber unique now season journey.
This is gonna be kind of interesting.
of legendaries that arefocused around a certain build.
(19:20):
These will come from completingcertain objectives slash
chapters to help getplayers up to speed quicker.
The five build stylesare for the barbarian.
It is the Dust Devils forthe Druid, it is pulverize
for the Necromancer it is minion army,
which makes absolute sense to me
because that's what Necromancers do have.
(19:40):
I played one in D four,not yet. Rogue has barrage.
I've played a rogue before in the game
and a barbarian and some other stuff.
Um, and Sorceress has incinerated.
That's the ones they're getting.Then there's the hell hide.
A lot has changed with hellhides the accursed rituals
to summon the bloodmaiden for great Luth Lu
and Boss summoning materials.
The threat meter as itfills up more ambushes
(20:03):
and visits from the hell wormhappen more frequently when a
full hell born not a hell worm.
A hell born attacks youdefeating it grants more loot
and summoning materials for Lord's.
Zero hell ties are now inworld tiers one and two.
That's new. Some elementslike the meteorites
and roaming bosses aren't present.
This is to make hell tide fun
(20:23):
but not too crazy for lower levels.
Here's some more information.
Cinder drop rates weren'twhere the team wanted them.
They went back and upped the drop rate
to get it where they wanted it.
Bain full heart drops were inconsistent.
They don't want players tohoard them so they made the rate
of getting them more stable.
Increased rewards have beenadded to those who contribute
(20:43):
to summoning the blood maiden.
Extra legendary items, uh,include forgotten souls,
exquisite blood, and a chance
that other boss summoningmaterials can drop there.
Doomsayers no longer have a small chance
to drop a doomsayer chest.
Instead they just drop that loot directly.
That's kind of cool. And nextis season four Loot reborn,
(21:03):
which is from
what I've been seeing online is a pretty
accurate uh, description.
So this has to do with the iron wolves.
If you dunno who they are,they've been in a bunch
of different uh, Diablo type games.
So, uh, or Diablo games specifically.
So iron wolves are apermanent part of Hell Tide
and season four seasonalplayers will be able
to heed the quote callof the Wolves End quote.
(21:25):
As you participate and workthrough the seasonal quest line,
you'll earn reputation
for earning juiced uprewards capped off at the end
with a resplendent spark.
It's a little stone Cosmeticsas well can be earned.
And there's a little picture here
of something called profane mind cage
and it just shows you like what it can do.
Finally, exclusive to seasonalcharacters is a new elixir,
(21:47):
profane mind cage.
It increases hell Tide,monster level cinder drop,
cinder drop rates and threat gain.
They are obtained from hell born
and also through the reputationrewards class updates.
Here we go. The dev teamdiscussed itemization, the PTR
and what has changed since then.
PTR lessons, end game survivabilityissues, enemies are kind
(22:09):
of easy and then they one shotyou hard to balance on top
of survive, uh, top endsurvivability variability
and player defensivenessis high Armor is confusing.
Some stats can get very highallowing for crazy things.
We like crazy things
but have to take computerperformance into account.
Ballots changes and bug fixes.
The team brought up three major areas
(22:30):
that they took lessons from PTR.
They received a lot of feedback and
and addressed each one for season four.
So armor season three,physical damage mitigation,
physical resistance cap of85% amount of armor you need
to be at the 85% cap is based on the level
of the monster you're fighting.
Examples level 50 monstersis 5,265 level 100
(22:52):
monsters is 9,230.
Level 150 monsters is 12,960.
Players never know when they're done
with armor the hidden systems.
Now for season four,here's what's changed.
Same as season three, uh,physical damage mitigation,
physical resistance cap of 85%still need escalating amounts
of armor as monster level gets higher.
(23:12):
Armor now cap when fightinglevel 100 monsters.
Once you get 9,230 armor,
you are finished with your journey.
The armor being an in an infinitescaling stat right now in
season three, the team went back
and capped the amount of armoryou'll need at level 100.
This is to give the playera goal, to hit a goal
that is clear and not hidden
(23:33):
and most importantly notwaste gear apex slots
by going over the capped amount.
There's some stat caps.
I'm not gonna read all of this to you.
Balance updates, okay,I'm gonna read that one.
Lots of balance changesbased on feedback changes due
to combat readability andto balance player power.
Fewer dust devils, fewerfractured winter glass,
frozen orbs still going to spot a lot,
(23:54):
just not crazy amounts.
Fortify damage reductionincreased from 10% to 15%.
Many tempering effects updates.
Druid Wolves Health increased by 200%.
RESP spawn rate reduced by 50%.
And then there's like some uh, things
that are make it clear at the PTR.
Here's somebody in a buildingwith a bunch of fire going
(24:15):
around them and I can't even
see what the character is in there.
There's all these numbersjust overlapping each other.
That was in the PTR in season four.
Some of those numbers stilllook like they're overlapping
and it looks like the season four one.
This is actually training dummies
that they're fighting at this point.
Then there's uh, dust devils,there's visual improvements.
So the PTR it was thisbig glowing round thing.
(24:37):
And then season four,it's gonna be a little
bit less than that.
The new scoundrels kissoriginally made a line of arrows,
meaning rogues would have to get up close
and a little too personally toget all the damage out of it.
In season four, you just point click
and all arrows go to that location.
Instead there's some bug fixes, uh,
Druids hurricane incorrectly,scaling damage ebb
and piercers extra missiles incorrectly
(24:58):
had a lucky hit chance.
Oops. Fixed an issuewhere FLA Weaver was able
to split a fire bolt multipletimes if the firewalls were
stacked on top of each other.
Still discovering andworking on other fixes.
And then there's some questions in here
that you can check out, butthis is all from Dread site.
Who does great work with this.
Um, I don't think I wouldbe able to parse out all
(25:19):
of this anywhere near as well as he does.
So when I find somethinglike this that he's posted,
in fact very recently,just a few days ago, I try
to like let all of youknow about it as well.
Over on P Diablo, there's acouple of things to talk about.
This was written by uh, rush.
That's the author's nameis Rush on April 26th.
So some of this is April,we just got into May.
It's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
(25:40):
So this is titled Diablo two resurrected
and Diablo three coming to GForce.
Now two classics heading
to the cloud soon courtesy of nvidia.
Now this might make somepeople extremely excited
if they're using GForce.
Now here's a little bit ofuh, what was written on this.
If you enjoy some cloud gaming,
there's news from theNvidia camp this evening
regarding Diablo two resurrectedand Diablo three on GForce.
(26:03):
Now, while most of youprobably won't take advantage
of this, it will be anoption in the near future.
According to Nvidia,
there is no date when thesetwo classic Diablo games are
being added, but at leastwe know they're coming.
In February, Nvidia announced
that Diablo four Overwatchtwo Call of Duty HQ
and Hearthstone were beingadded to the service.
The way it works is that ifyou own the games on Battlenet,
(26:25):
you can stream them from NvidiaGForce RTX powered servers
in the cloud and don't haveto worry about your hardware.
Download the games to try these out.
You can use the free pricingoption for a quick test
or take out a monthly subto access all the games.
Find out more about pricing here.
There's a link to herein that particular thing.
Another thing from Blizzard wehave is galvanize your legend
(26:46):
in season four loot reborn
and there is a blacksmithtrying to like modify
or fix a sword with all theselike embers flying around him.
So that's kind of interesting.So here's what this is.
I dunno how long this is gonna be,
but I'll read it to you anyway.
Uh, since I've been gone for so long,
(27:06):
by braziers to hone the steel
of sanctuaries finest across the land.
Hell's expanded legions gather
and multiply, marshaling theirstrength to ambush wanderers
that fall prey to their hell tide.
Fresh from our first publictest realm in Diablo four,
season four loot rebornbegins on May 14 at 10:00 AM
(27:27):
pt use the itemization overhaulon new systems tempering
and master working to change anoteworthy blade into a force
to be feared across all world tears.
Hell Tide is reborn slave monstrosities
to fill your threatmeter, marking you as prey
for the hell born preparedto fight side by side
(27:47):
with the iron wolves.
A seasoned mercenarycompany of brethren aiming
to quell the demons itemization
Reforge master working tempering
and more seasons within Diablo four Bear.
Their mark on sanctuary in theseasonal realm are unearthing
new quests and fresh mechanicsto explore and master.
Season four loot rebornI they really named it.
(28:09):
This
overhauling many coregame systems to refresh
how items are earned, how they function
and how they improve as you level
through world tiers during the season.
Unlike previous seasonal themes
that affect only the seasonal realm
with season four loot reborn,
these itemization changespersist beyond the seasonal realm
(28:30):
and affect the eternal realmas well read on to learn
how itemization willchange the way you loot
and reap your way across allof Diablo form all updates
to our new items classes
and skills will beavailable in our season.
Four patch notes which are available here.
I didn't bring that into the show though.
Following our developerupdates stream on May two,
which was couple days ago.
(28:50):
General item updates.
One of our several goals forthe itemization changes is
to make it easier tounderstand which items
are upgrades when they drop.
We reduced the numberof apexes on items down
to three on legendaryitems, two on rare items
and made these apexes, yeah,I can't pronounce this right,
Instead of seeing an apex
(29:12):
that relies on con conditionalvalues plus 10% damage on
non-injured elites, you'll seeapexes such as base increase
to your movement speed max life
or single ranks of a core skill.
Dropped items are nowsimpler to re to evaluate
and we've moved their complexity
and customization to ournew crafting systems.
Tempering and master working,
(29:33):
which we will describein more detail below.
We've also increased theoverall values of these apexes.
So they should feel more powerful.
There's a couple of screenshots in here.
Uh, by making items moreindividually impactful,
we've significantlydecreased the number of items
that drop when slaying monsters.
The goal here is to spendmore time obliterating
and less time sorting throughthe many items that drop.
(29:53):
The result is that feweritems will drop overall,
but those items will bemore likely to be valuable
to compensate and stayon par with the norm.
Materials gained from salvaging
and crafting have beenadjusted to match this change.
Also forgotten souls can nowbe earned from whisper bounties
and are rare drop from all elites.
The gold cost to re-roll itemswhen enchanting now has a
(30:14):
maximum and we've cut downon the materials needed
to perform all activitieswhen at the blacksmith.
Additionally, which worldtier you play in will directly
affect the rarity of theitems you earn Sacred items
or higher only drop in world tier three
and only ancestral items willappear in world tier four.
Similarly, legendary itemsdropped from enemies over level
95 will always have avalue of 925 item power.
(30:38):
However, keep an eye out foruniques, some have a chance
to appear starting in world tier one
and two, all uniques have a chance
to drop Starting in world tier three
and uber uniques can start appearing
as once you're killing monsters
that are level 55 at max power level.
There's more in here. Itgoes on and on quite a bit.
So I'm just gonna kind of drop it here
(30:59):
and you can read all this stuffon chattered soul stone.com
when I start putting upeverything I talked about.
We've got another onehere from Pur Diablo.
We just talked about the ironwolves a couple of times.
So, um, this one isalso about iron wolves.
So iron wolves chronicles ablood forged alliance written
by grich relive thestoried history relief,
(31:20):
relive the storied history ofthis mercenary band of magees.
Season four theme iron wolves.
As we all know, the firstDiablo four PTR ran from
April 2nd through April 9th.
During that week, some datawas mined from the PTR patch,
which suggested that theiron wolves would be featured
as part of the season four theme.
A handful of articles followed
that shared some detailsabout what had been uncovered.
(31:41):
These details included an updated version
of the Iron W Wolves emblem,
which you can see in this article as well
as several more icon
and detail files, whichindicated a clear link
to iron wolves.
Content included
among the icon files wasa map marker comprised
of an iron wolves emblem highlighted
with a seasonal green leaf symbol.
Earlier today, blizzardpublished a blog post
(32:03):
that confirmed the inclusion
of the iron wolves in season four.
However, most of the recentIron wolves news has thus far
been focused on the seasonalmechanics and cosmetics.
Nevertheless, there's much more
to know about this famous fellowship.
So let's take an in-depth lookat their remarkable story.
I'm not gonna read you the whole story,
but I'll read you a little bit.
Honor bound the Iron Wolvesare a storied mercenary company
(32:25):
from Stan whose prowess
and battle was matched onlyby their fierce loyalty.
Unlike other bands ofbrigs who could be bought
and sold the iron wolves,first and foremost valued honor
and duty, all their memberswere sworn to the the quest
of protecting and shelteringthe weak and innocent
and punishing the wicked.
These combat veterans camefrom all walks of life,
(32:45):
including MAs, cell swords,rangers, and archers.
Those who were Fort Wright
and willing to conform
to the clan's ideology werewelcomed into the fold.
It was also their traditionto reclaim the armor
of their fallen, so it may continue
to serve the greater good.
Then there's the Iron Maiden,
not the band
Uh, perhaps the one fact
that most commonly mentionedwhen discussing the history
(33:07):
of the Iron wolves isthat they were founded
by a woman named Ashra.
In his memory, the fallenangel Terio briefly described
her as follows.
Ashira spent many years as a member
of various unscrupulous mercenary outfits,
despising the brutal tacticsemployed by these groups.
She eventually forged the iron wolves
(33:29):
and order of cell swords that holds honor
and duty above all else.
I know Ashra to be strictwith her followers,
but also even handed.
That's a quote from Teria Ashra.
Stu shared an unspokenbond with her retainers
and was always willing tofight side by side with them.
Under her command, they rigorously adhered
to their strong moralcode without hesitation.
(33:51):
Ash Shira's, most solemn vow was
that no harm would ever come to those
who were under their protection.
Despite her blunt tone, she was unable
to hide her genuine concern for anyone
who had been entrusted to her care.
She also had a low opinionof the Zacker Room Church,
considering it to be bothlacking and inferior to sco.
I don't know what that oneis. The story goes on in this
(34:11):
and if you'd like to readmore, there's a whole lot
of words here you can get into,
but this is just kind of the main idea.
And I do like reading stories,
but I think, you know, Idon't need to read everything.
Moving on, we've got, uh,a thing from wow head, uh,
Diablo four, season fourLoot reborn Developer Update
livestream summary.
There's a video in here andthat's kind of about it.
(34:32):
There's a little bit ofdescription that seems
to have come from somewhere else, uh,
but you can check that out if you want to.
Also over on wow headnew seasoned blessings
coming to Diablo four.
Season four increased ParagonGlyph XP OAL drop rate from
Hell Tides posted two days ago by arcane.
Uh, here's a little bit ofthis anticipation is building
(34:52):
as Diablo four's fourth seasonLu reborn is only a few weeks
away, while much is alreadyknown about the changes coming
with the release of season four.
There is still new informationbeing released regularly in
the recent blizzard blog post.
Alongside other new information,
the seasonal blessings were revealed.
So here they are. There arethree new seasoned blessings
to unlock as you progressthrough the free tiers
(35:13):
of the battle pass, whichmeans you need an Xbox.
I think as you reach certain milestones,
you will unlock smoldering ashes,
which can be spent in order to unlock
and upgrade each ofthe seasoned blessings.
These will grant various boonsto age you in your journeys.
During season four, earn
of Nightmares boost ParagonGlyph XP earned in nightmare
dungeons Earn of iron,boost your reputation
(35:34):
with the iron wolves fromhell tide activities earn
of B burning Obel boost the amount
of obel you can find in held tide chests,
which contain obel during this season.
Increasing Paragon GlyphXP is a huge player.
Convenience as you beginto approach end game
as it will help save aconsiderable amount of time.
This means the less time spentfarming nightmare dungeons
and more time for the newand improved held tides
(35:56):
or the pit of Artificersexclamation point.
The reputation increase
with the iron wolves in seasonfour can potentially be quite
profitable early game as their reputation.
Rewards will includeseveral tempering manuals,
which are a critical component
of upgrading your gear in the new
and improved crafting system.
Increased a drop rate
of ovals from held tide chests might seem
(36:16):
to be a lesser choice thanthe others at a glance.
However, with the adv adventof the itemization overhaul
and new crafting system,
blizzard has also simultaneously
decreased the drop rate of items.
Rare items will no longerflood your screen constantly
as you play the game, but ifyou are on the hunt for a piece
of gear to craft onto, Obelcan come in quite handily
as a means to supplement your drops
(36:37):
with exactly what you need.
Plus, if you want to tryyour luck at getting a better
legendary aspect role to put in the Codex,
Obel are a fantastic option.
It goes on from there. AndI've got a few things here
to round out the show.
You may have seen onTwitter, holy Night, 3000,
who has been making amazingartwork about various characters
within the Diablo universe.
(36:58):
And, uh, he's got the wholething over in Deviant Art.
So there's a whole thing andit's like really tiny to see,
but if you click on thesethings one by one by one,
you could see everythingthat he's posted and created.
You know, it's obviously arttaken from the Diablo series,
but I don't think anyof the Diablo workers
or the company, I think they're,
(37:20):
they'd be really happy about.
You know, how he's pared this out.
I think that's really cool. Andthe center of it is the, uh,
thing you've seen probably when you
were playing Diablo three.
And it has like all of thecharacters, you know, in,
in battle basically withlike gold behind them.
It's kind of neat. Um,
I highly recommend youcheck those things out
and that's where I'm goingto end the show for today.
(37:43):
Yes, it went a little long,
but I skipped a whole month, so I tried
to give you a little bitmore in this episode.
You have been listening toepisode, uh, what is it now?
4 4 51. I think it's 4 52of the Shattered Soul Stone.
Your Diablo communitypodcast missed an episode.
You could find the show blog
and listen to the show archives at
www.shatteredsoulstone.com.
(38:06):
Come join us in game.Our in-game, community
and clan, both namedShattered Soul Stone are open
to anyone who would like to join.
You could also join us onDiscord for the ultimate team
and community based experience,
find the Discord invitationlink on our Twitter at shattered
stone, as well as theShattered Soul Stone website.
Thank you for listening,
and thank you for being patientwith me while I was sick.
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