Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.4 Reduces Difficulty, Out in a Few Weeks

After announcing that it's going to announce more details about Diablo 3's patch 1.0.4, Blizzard has now started posting actual information about the upcoming update, including a general overview of the biggest changes that are included in it.

Diablo 3 was released three months ago and, after more than 10 million units were sold, developer Blizzard is continuing to make modifications to the role-playing dungeon crawler.

After several patches in quick succession, the next update, 1.0.4, has been awaited for quite some time.

Thankfully, the studio has finally started to share some details about the patch with its fans.

As part of a lengthy post on the Diablo blog, Senior Technical Game Designer Wyatt Cheng has highlighted some of the most important changes included in update 1.0.4 for Diablo 3.

First and foremost are some changes designed to encourage cooperative play, ranging from the removal of the average Magic and Gold find stats, to the lowering of the health multiplier for monsters.

"The first change we’re making in 1.0.4 for co-op is to remove averaging in multiplayer games of Magic Find and Gold Find. You’ll benefit from your full Magic Find stat, independent of other players in the game."

" Along the same lines as the change in 1.0.3, we’re going to be lowering the health multiplier for monsters per additional player in co-op games. It’s going to be a flat 75% in 1.0.4 for all difficulty levels, as opposed to the scaling 75/85/95/110% it is now."

The game will also get a bit easier, as Blizzard is trying to close the gap between regular monsters and the Elite packs (aka Champion or Rare ones) by buffing the normal ones while reducing the health of powerful enemies.

"In 1.0.4 we’re increasing the health of normal monsters by approximately 5%-10% in Inferno, but also increasing the likelihood they drop magic or rare items by a factor of four. We’re correspondingly lowering the health of Champions and Rares by 10-25% and editing specific affixes to shrink the difficulty gap. To further reduce the gap between normal and Elite monsters, we’re adjusting some of the more frustrating monster affixes, such as Fire Chains and Shielding."

As another effort to make grinding for loot more enjoyable, Blizzard is also removing the Enrage timers and the "heal back to full" behavior of Champion and Rare packs. What's more, seeing as how the previous increase in repair costs has a been a bit too high, patch 1.0.4 will reduce the costs for high-end items by 25%.

Blizzard believes that patch 1.0.4 for Diablo 3 will be available for download "in a few weeks" so, until then, look forward to hearing more about the upcoming update.


Via: Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.4 Reduces Difficulty, Out in a Few Weeks