Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo IV patch 1.0.3 makes things easier: all bugs fixes and updates
Diablo 4 players are going to have an easier time during their demon-slaying adventures thanks to Blizzard fixing Nightmare dungeons and XP grind balance.
Blizzard has just released Patch 1.03 for Diablo 4, and the list of changes is massive. Thankfully, apart from general bugs and errors, the developers focused on fixing the endgame balance for all classes, which will in turn make players feel much more powerful than they did when the game was released.
In what is sure to be seen as the example to follow for the game going forward, Blizzard Entertainment addressed many of the problems that have been plaguing the game, and for which players have been taking to social media to complain about. From necromancers having issues with disappearing corpses (which to them is an important resource for most of their abilities), to unfair advantages to Rogues who could practically become permanently invisible during PvP, most of the known annoyances so far have been dealt with.
The pain is gone, but the grind remains
Most important of all the changes is what the developers did to experience rewards, which has lessened the XP grind that players came face to face with after reaching the Endgame. Previously, it would be as if your characters hit a brick wall after reaching level 85. Suddenly you would need to grind for days to reach the next level, and no matter how upgraded your gear you would feel dramatically weaker against the level-scaled monsters in the game than you did just a few levels before.
Part of this fix has to do with Nightmare Dungeons, an activity that presents you with harder versions of the standard dungeons around the world with the promise of better rewards. Usually far from fast travel points, it is now possible to teleport directly to whatever dungeon you wish to clear, so farming for unique gear and grinding for experience is now a much more tedious chore. Their rewards have also been increased considerably, both in bonus XP and their bounties.
You can find the complete notes on Blizzard’s official blog post, but here are some of the most important patch notes:
Experience Rewards
- Significantly increased the experience awarded for completing Nightmare Dungeons.
- Significantly increased the experience gained from killing monsters in Nightmare Dungeons.
- Helltide chests now provide substantially more bonus experience when opened.
- Significantly increased rewarded experience from completing individual Whispers across the board.
- Fixed an issue where no experience was awarded for completing the hold out style event that can occur after finishing dungeon objectives.
General
- The Helltide Roaming bosses will now more consistently drop higher quality loot.
- Players can now teleport to their Nightmare Dungeon directly through the map.
- Weekly bonus caches from world bosses no longer have a level requirement for opening.
Developer’s Note: We are currently working on increasing the monster and elite density of end-game content and plan to introduce this change early in Season 1.
Balance Changes
Developer’s Note: We’re continuing our efforts to make all Class builds feel fun and powerful with another round of balance updates. In particular, we have seen community feedback stating that Basic Skills aren’t impactful enough in combat. These changes will not change the fundamental relationship between Basic Skills and Core Skills, but we hope that they help smooth out the leveling experience while we explore additional ways to strengthen them. We are also increasing the power of some Skills that players feel are lagging behind their peers. As we look forward to future updates, we’re monitoring other heavily discussed topics, such as Minion survivability and build parity. Please keep sending us your feedback, and we’ll see you in Sanctuary!