- It is time for Shattered Soul Stone, featuring the latest news from Sanctuary and beyond. Each episode, a heroic party of Nephilim Band together to help keep you informed on everything in the Diablo universe. And now your Diablo Community podcast - Coming to you from somewhere in sanctuary. This is episode 4, 3 6 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called Deck the Hells. It is December 2nd, 2023. And this is Jen.
I'm gonna start you off with the Blizzard Gear store because yes, there is still loot for you to purchase and the best part is they're offering things at 20% off. So if there was something that you really wanted to get and maybe couldn't afford it or you wanted to get it for someone else and just have, haven't quite gotten there yet, there's a lot of stuff that's 20% off of the original price in the Blizzard Gear store. There are some exclusions that apply.
The first thing I'm seeing here is um, the statue stuff. They're definitely pushing the statues and the one you see first is this like Lilith statue as you've probably seen a picture of before. Or maybe you have one, but this one is entirely red, like red acrylic or something like that.
And that one's, um, apparently 20% off, but there's other statues as well, um, from different games with, you know, within Activision Blizzard there's an Anari statue with like the light wings coming off and there's a bunch of World Warcraft stuff and some Overwatch stuff. So whatever you like, it's there. There is a Diablo four Sanctuary Gunner Blue Light Glasses. It's literally a pair of glasses. I'm not really sure like how that's supposed to work.
It looks like the lenses are tinted, kind of a yellow. I'm not sure what's going on with that. There's a statue of Diablo four Common Bone Spirit Necromancer seven inch statue for $30. I dunno what the price was originally. I can't really tell you that. There's drink wear with, um, an Aria and Lilith, uh, separately going on. There's um, all kinds of T-shirts and stuff like that. Some are Warcraft, some are not. I'm just kind of focusing on what I'm seeing here.
Uh, there's a bunch of plush to look at, you know, that sort of thing. Little Dragons and stuff from Warcraft and Little Merles and things like that. I'm not sure what else is in here exactly. I was hoping for more, oh, here we go. We can do like apparel and collectibles and things like that. I just saw somebody on Twitter who bought the T-shirt that says What Sword, which was like the Big swords stuffed into Zaro whenever that, that was kind of neat.
There's a really cool, uh, Diablo four hoodie with like, you know, red coloring on it and all the little circular stuff you'd expect. It's $115, which probably isn't terrible depending on your budget. Um, there's jackets, there's holiday sweaters, which I always find ridiculous. There's a World of Warcraft piece on Azar Roth holiday sweater and it's got Horde and Alliance kind of together. There's a Overwatch one. I don't really know what the characters are 'cause I haven't really played that.
There's definitely a Lilith four or a Diablo four Lilith holiday sweater that each of these is $65. At first glance. Uh, it might be hard to tell that you're wearing a holiday sweater with the Lilith one. If people don't know the game or your relatives maybe don't play it, you know, it's kind of, you could probably get away with that maybe. Right? A vast variety of other T-shirts and hoodies from different things.
There's collectibles, which is mostly the statues that I mentioned a little bit, but there's actually three of these like skeletal things. So the Diablo four Common Bone Spirit Necromancer seven inches tall is $30. There's another one. The first one has kind of got a purple color around some of his clothing and like a gray, uh, chain mail kind of thing going on. The second one is the Diablo four Epic Sumer, uh, necromancer seven inch action figure.
Also 30. He's a very, very gold and has red instead of purple. And then the last one is the Diablo four Rare Corpse Explosion Necromancer or something. And that one is mostly black and a darker gray. There's also ones from, um, there's, there's more. There's uh, Diablo four Sorceress. These are all, look, it looks like they're all $30 each, but there's, yeah, the Sorceress, there's one of the, uh, Diablo four Common Death Blow Barbarian and the Epic Whirlwind Barbarian as well.
There is, there's a World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King thing. Uh, it looks like it's audio or something. I'm not really sure there's a Diablo figure or, uh, Diablo four figure for an S. Now I got one from, um, it wasn't from this, this one's from something called U Twos, but I think I got it from somewhere else. And I can't remember the name of the company right now, but you've probably seen it online. I didn't put it there, but you know, you get the idea.
There's a lot of these weird little statues and stuff like that if you wanna, if you wanna get one of those for somebody. Uh, there's accessories, there's drinkware, there's oh, more of these weird glasses. I don't really understand how that works 'cause I personally wear glasses. I don't do contacts or anything like that. And I kind of feel like, okay, so what is the purpose of these?
Like, there is no possible way that you're gonna get your exact, you know, glasses lens subscription or, you know, prescription kind of thing and have this work. I, I'm not really sure what this is supposed to do. Is it like tinted yellow glass on there or plastic or whatever it is? And I'm just not really sure how the, is this something for people who have a hard time looking at a screen for a long time? I honestly don't know. It's, I don't, I don't, I don't understand.
There's some lanyards, there's some desk, uh, mat kind of things. There's some blankets, you know, if you want a, an alliance blanket or a hoard blanket, you, you got it . You can get it really easy. There's some pillows with Alliance and Hoard. I don't see a lot of Diablo stuff in this section, but it could be. So in any case, if you're looking for stuff like this, you can, um, you just go to the blizzard store [email protected], everything will be in the show notes later.
There's pins and stuff like that I've probably mentioned before, but you're, you know, you, you've got a limited amount of time before Christmas if you want to give this to someone for Christmas or if you want to suggest someone get it for you.
So just so you know, there's also books and art and posters and all kinds of stuff and they look pretty cool actually overall, you can also buy, like if you haven't been playing World of Warcraft like in a really long time, there's an art box of the covers you can get it seems. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but there they are. And I'm just gonna move on now.
Rock Paper Shotgun has an article titled Read Pop quote, investigating and quote, the sale of RPS, which is Rock Paper Shotgun Owners Gamer Network. The potential sale will also include Eurogamer VG 2 47, dice Breaker, GI Biz and More. This is written by Catherine Castle. Uh, November 27. There are 82 comments at the end of this article. I'm not going to read you 82 comments.
So Catherine wrote this, it's hard to know where to begin with this, but let's just rip the plaster off and get it over with. Read Pop have today announced that they're investigating the potential sale end quote of RPS Owners Gamer Network. This also includes our friends at Euro Gamer VG 2 47 Dice Breaker and games industry biz, not including, not included in the sale our UK events, EGX or MCM or the website Pop verse. There's not a lot more I can say at this stage.
We ourselves still have lots of questions that need answering first, but I'll endeavor to share more with you, our readers as soon as I can. For now, here's the broad strokes of what's happening for now. It's business as usual. Reid Pop told the Gamer Network staff today that they have to decided to quote, investigate and quote options for selling the gamer network business, which means they'll be looking for a buyer for the business over the coming months.
Read Pop acquired Gamer Network in 2018 to bolster its already extensive range of pop culture events, which included pax New York Comic-Con Star Wars celebration and more going forward. repop will remain focused on growing its events business retaining the UK based events, EGX and MCM. In a statement the company said repop part of RX has reviewed its UK business and decided to investigate the potential sale of its gamer network and associated editorial digital properties.
We believe that new ownership offers the best conditions for the growth of the business. Gamer network includes Euro Gamer, rock Paper, shotgun, VG 2 47 Dice Breaker games, industry Biz Shareholdings and outside Xbox Digital Foundry Hook shot and a number of partners. This does not impact any of the other read pop properties in the uk, including MCM, ComicCon, EXG, and Pop first. Um, so they don't really know what's going to happen yet, but that's part of what's happening.
And then I have one here from game developer.com, uh, written by Chris Kerr or Carr, K-E-K-E-R-R maybe it is Care, uh, read, pop investigating sale of Euro gamer games, industry, Bizz, rock paper, shotgun and more. And here's a little bit from that article.
repop is prepared to sell its entire gamer network business, which includes major game industry publications like the ones I just said a little while ago in the other article, games Industry Do Biz Broke the News and said its parent company is investigating a quote, potential sale and quote, notably, the sale wouldn't include UK based events, MCM ComicCon or the Eurogamer Expo XG read pop, which runs Global Video Game Festival pacs and oversaw an ill faded attempt
to revive E three purchased gamer network in 2018 and described the acquisition as a once in a lifetime opportunity under the company's stewardship. However, US gamer was shut down after all four remaining staffers were laid off in 2020 that that same year also brought the departure of Gamer Network founder Rupert Loman. After two decades, ReedPOP has stated its UK based publications are more likely to thrive under new ownership.
repop part of RX has reviewed its UK business and decided to investigate the potential sale of its gamer network and associated editorial digital properties. We believe that new ownership offers the best conditions for the growth of the business.
Wrote the company in a statement, although repop claims its editorial roster would be better placed for success under another owner, a number of journalists and writers in the space are shunning corporate ownership altogether to take charge of their own destiny. Earlier this month, former the escapist employees, Nick Kalandra and Ben Crosha established independent outlet Second Wind after Kalandra and other staffers were fired by the escapist parent company Gamers, G-A-M-U-R-S.
Prior to that, a group of ex Kotaku journalists reunited to form aftermath a worker owned media company that was described as a quote continuation of the irreverent and hard hitting journalism pioneered at Kotaku. So what does this mean for gamers that aren't part of this? You know, you're not part of the, if you're not part of that company, you're probably not getting fired.
Um, some of these people might be able to bounce over to a couple of the ones that were mentioned by Chris Care here who, you know, might need some more people to come join them.
But typically this means that if it's sold, if these uh, companies are sold either in a bundle or individually to different owners who wanna do whatever with them or maybe change them entirely, this could be really bad for gaming journalism and it, it will make it harder to kind of catch up on things like win one of these uh, you know, game developer or any other thing that talks mostly about video games, has like an interview with somebody high up in a big company
or a new game that's coming out, that sort of thing. It's gonna be harder to find that information and I really have concerns that this might end all of these different little companies that are talking a lot about video games and stuff like that. So I'm hoping for the best.
Uh, these articles were both posted in late November of this year and it's just kind of like me personally, okay, me personally, I think it's absolutely terrible to right before, you know, the holidays start at the end of the year for most, most people. Not everyone celebrates Christmas or any of those things, but some do.
And to have the idea that the company you are working for could fire you with no reason because you've been sent to another company who maybe doesn't want as many people or only wants to pick and choose some people, that's a hell of a lot of stress to put on people and it's not right to do to people at all in my opinion. You know, you can't just cut someone off right before the Christmas holidays.
That's like the biggest shopping, at least in the United States, probably other countries that we as well that is like the biggest shopping time of the year where a lot of money changes hands and people buy stuff for the people they love and maybe stuff for themselves as well. It's terrible to do this at this point. That's what I think.
So I believe that if this all goes through the way that this company wants, whether they piece meal off all of these things or they just lump them all in one sum and say it's yours now to whoever it was that wanted to buy these things, I mean it's gonna be a struggle. It's gonna be a huge struggle because there's gonna be people that get laid off in the process as well. And I don't like this at all, but I wanted y'all to know, uh, what was going on here, what's probably going to happen here.
It is highly unlikely that some companies going to say yes, we will take them all at all of your people because that's not generally what happens during the Christmas season, so to speak. So it's gonna be a little dicey, it's gonna be harder to find information on um, gaming that's part of this group that seems to be about to be split up and that's just not right at all.
Windows Central has an article with a very long title quote, we have no plans to bring Xbox Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo and quote Xbox CEO Phil Spencer on console hardware the future of Activision Blizzard and much more. It was posted by Ju Corden yesterday. So here's some from the article. Microsoft Gaming, CEO and Xbox Lead Phil Spencer is currently at CCXP 2023 presenting alongside other major entertainment companies at one of Brazil's biggest comics, movies, and gaming conventions.
Spencer's attendance at the show caps off one of the busiest years for the Xbox team in years potentially as the team jetted all over the world. To answer regulators on its massive acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Spencer and Company also ran events in LA before the summer attended Gamescom in Germany, spoke on stage at BlizzCon 2023 in Anaheim. Spencer even appeared at the Final Fantasy Fan festival as part of a renewed partnership with Square nx.
Jazz Cordin writes this kind of work schedule might have been the death of me, but Spencer was infectiously brimming with energy fully fired up during my interview with him yesterday. The Xbox platform is under constant scrutiny from every angle. Part of it is because of how differently Microsoft does things, but part of it is definitely self-inflicted. Microsoft is known for confusing messaging a and creating a perception of inconsistent commitments.
This perhaps accentuates the difficulty of running what has become arguably the most diverse gaming portfolio in the history of the industry. A 10 cent like mobile gaming division, a traditional PlayStation like console gaming department and expanding PC gaming footprint and new paradigms like cloud gaming and gaming subscription services. How does Microsoft manage all of these diverse and occasionally conflicting interests? And what does the future of Xbox look like?
We spoke to Phil Spencer to get answers to some of these questions as we close out 2023 and move into what is looking like a bright 2024 for the Microsoft gaming operation. There's an interview in here and I'll leave you to read it 'cause it's very long. I'm sure it's interesting and entertaining, but I don't have enough of show to put all of that in. There's an article here from Blizzard Watch now I think.
Um, last episode or previous episode, Javi, you wanna call that Blizzard Watch was having trouble financially yesterday. Uh, there was a post put up and it's written by Elizabeth Harper and it's titled A Blizzard Watch the State of the Site as we head to the end of 2023. So here's what there, uh, what she wrote. It's been a tough year for Blizzard Watch, particularly in the last half of the year when reduced advertising revenue forced us to drastically shut cut down on posting.
You've probably noticed that we're only doing a couple of posts per day because that's all the budget will, all the budget allowed. But as we head to the end of the year, things are looking pretty good for the site and that's thanks to you, our community. You probably read our call for Patreon support to keep the site running and I wanted to update you on how things are going now with your generous help.
We've managed to boost our Patreon to $4,781 per month, which is a little shy of our $5,000 per month goal, but will also allow us to increase our daily post count and write more long form articles while news is usually light through through the holiday season. We should see more posts on the site during December, which we intend to maintain into 2024, but we aren't just relying on Patreon.
We're also working to boost our ad revenue, which I hope will bring the site back to where we were before we hit this crisis. For more details on what we've been able to accomplish over the past few weeks, I'm going to hand things over to Dan O'Halloran who has worked alongside us at Blizzard Watch and wow Insider before that you don't see his, his name on the site except to post our podcast, but he handles behind the scenes business and administrative functions for the site.
Here's Dan. This is what Dan wrote a deeply heartfelt to thank you for everyone who either subscribed to our Patreon or increase their subscription tier that increase in monthly Patreon money will keep us afloat while we work on acquiring new ad partners. Also, I know many of you were not in a position to contribute monetarily, so we very much appreciate the kind messages of support you sent us. As you may have seen, we have a new ad partner in place for the site.
We are very glad to be working with them as they specialize in ads for the gaming community. There will be a few hiccups as our ad partners partner tries different configurations. So if you see anything odd or out of place IE autoplay video ads with the sound on end of parentheses, please let us know. We have also signed up with an ad provider for our podcasts, which we hope will offset the cost of producing eight to 10 podcasts a month.
We'll be keeping an eye on the ad loads versus user experience to let us know how you're doing and it goes on a little bit from there. But what I wanted to get across here is that it looks like Blizzard watch is going to be able to push through whatever it was that shut down ads or change things for them. It feels to me like I don't know all of these people personally. I don't hang out with really any of these people personally.
'cause you can't really, well I can't, I can't usually go outside without getting sick lately. But this is a group that really, really feels like, to me it feels like they really love what they're doing and they wanna keep doing it and it seems like that's gonna happen for them. It probably was a little unnerving when their funding ran out from whatever ads or something like that, but I'm glad to see that they've got it going on now and it's gonna be better.
And who knows, maybe they'll maybe, you know, if all these other gaming sites shut down, maybe Blizzard watch will like be the prominent one for talking about video games. Wellhead has a description of the mid-winter blight overview and it's uh, it's a Diablo four thing. It's from a campfire chat during a BlizzCon and I'll tell you a little bit about what's in here. There's some like screenshots and stuff like that. So here's what you need to know.
Mid-winter blight will only take place in fractured peaks. That's it, that's all. It's not like season two where you can go anywhere and the blood hunt moves around to different places. But, um, this one's only gonna happen in fractured peaks. Fractured peaks has been enveloped in a storm freezing out. The locals fractured peaks is eternally dark. As the storm blocks out the sunlight, new horrors lurk in the shadows preying upon the inhabitants.
The developers will post a new article to discuss the midwinter blight in more detail in the upcoming days as the event approaches its launch. Um, so there's that. There is a map here. There is, let's see, the midwinter blight event goes live on December 12th, 2023 and ends on January 2nd, 2024. The event potentially happens every year, but this has not been confirmed by the developers. Um, wow. Head will update if anything about that, you know, pops up. Where does the quest line start?
Players will meet an NPC named Jillian a wandering bard in Voad at the Hial square, which is um, I think it's, where is that? It's a midwinter totem. Okay, that's where it is. I guess at the center of the Hial square we could find the totem of midwinter. The developer didn't wanna spoil its significance, but hinted that the totem of midwinter plays a role in the event itself.
What do we know so far? As players explore the fractured peaks, they will find sinister snowman structures known as frigid husks with the, which the blight fiends build as a tribute to their leader. These frigid husks are crafted with recently killed humans and freshly decapitated heads, limbs and body parts. So they're gruesome little things there. The demons are causing terror throughout the fractured peaks under the orders of their mysterious leader.
The red cloaked horror and it looks like a kasra wearing a red cloak and carrying a big weapon. That's what it looks like. You'll find groups of blight fiends dancing around these frigid husks. You'll also find events deemed after the midwinter blight. If you disrupt enough of these events, you will end up annoying and summoning the wrath of the red cloaked horror.
Participating in the killing of this boss will reward you with resources that you can take back to Hial Square to increase your progress and obtain rewards. Think of this event as a winter themed variation of the blood harvest with a hunter's board, which unlocks rewards. As you rank up, the developers will provide further details on exactly the reward and progress systems, how they work very soon. There's a bunch of rewards you can get, looks like weapons and things like that.
Um, and I just wanted that to kind of be a thing, you know, if you wanna do this thing, it's as gruesome as you would expect for Diablo four. There's also an update, uh, here by Pez radar on the US forums for Blizzard for Diablo four. Uh, and he wrote this a quick few notes prior to the 1.2 0.3 update coming to Diablo four on Tuesday via a same day server side.
Hot fix. The melted heart of Selig will no longer count as the player spending resources when resources drained from damage taken in PVP zones. We are doing this because of an interaction that is causing some performance issues for players per our earlier commitments. We will make our best efforts to not Nerf builds during the season and we are only applying this as it is impacting player game performance for season three. This will be fixed for all areas outside of PVP as well.
Separately, when 1.2 0.3 hits, we will have a known issue with advanced tool tips on the tiers of blood glyph where it will show bonuses as additive. The icon is incorrect and it is actually multiplicative That will also be noted in the hot fix notes for Tuesday. So that's what they're fixing. There's some patch notes for Diablo four and this was, uh, posted December 1st. So here's the latest patch notes. Uh, gameplay updates starting on December 5th.
Battle legions of Zer Z's minions and Race Against Time and a new end game Pinnacle Dungeon Abattoir of Zer. For more information, there's a link embedded in there. You can go to check it out. I might pop that up here if I have time. A full list of possible apexes can now be previewed in the Enchantment menu using the new view possible apexes button.
Earned glyph experience from most nightmare tiers was increased tiers one to 17, no change by tiers 30, uh, from 66 to 79, tier 50, 106 to 1 39, tier 75, 1 56 to 2 39 and tier 100, 206 to 339 developers note after reviewing gameplay data and player feedback, we recognize that completing higher nightmare tiers was not as rewarding as we initially hoped for with many players stopping their journey after reaching tier 50, the experience increased to glyphs at higher tiers was made with the intent
of incentivizing players to push their builds, making their arrival at tier 100 feel that much more fulfilling. We will monitor how this change experience pans out for players and encourage you to provide us with any feedback you have around this system. They also introduced further support for Nvidia reflex technology and there's a game setting to do that if you wanna do that. There's a couple of bug fixes here.
Fixed an issue where the screen reader didn't announce the required PACS for vampiric powers fixed an issue that made the screen reader malfunction on the steam deck. Those are problems if you're, if you're reliant on a screen reader because there are players, there are several players I've at least heard of that may be partially blind or totally blind that would probably need the screen reader to tell them what was in front of them. So I'm glad that they're fixing that there.
There's also some other weird stuff in dungeons happening or it was fixed. An issue where the mechanical box wouldn't respond if the player was killed by the boss in the bastion of faith fixed an issue in the fallen temple dungeon where the objective to destroy the idol of the fallen temple could not be completed properly if the was destroyed instantly.
fixed an issue where the duff effects in the fallen temple could be avoided when leaving and reentering the dungeon fixed an issue where enemies from the sole survivor event could spawn behind locked doors in the hallowed ossuary blocking event. Mastery completion fixed an issue where nightmare dungeons wouldn't properly reset.
After all, revives were exhausted when playing in local co-op fixed an issue where enemies spawned by animus carrying monsters with the sumer A effects unexpectedly carried animus. The apex did it, I guess, uh, fixed an issue where bonus elemental damage apexes of nightmare dungeons scaled their damage too low or too high for their respective tear. And then there's some other stuff in here. There's a little bit about season of blood, so I'll give you that too.
Fixed an issue where blood harvesters could quickly disappear after spawning fixed an issue where the novik enemy could spawn repeatedly In certain co-op situations fixed an issue where seeds of hatred extracted by being hatreds chosen did not count toward a season journey. Objectives progress fixed an issue which made potent blood dropped from a blood. Well. Inaccessible developers know a previous hot fix allowed players to walk through blood wells to access potent blood.
This change reversed, reverts the ability to walk through blood wells, but in exchange, potent blood will no longer spawn in the middle of blood wells. So it can be easily picked up, fixed an issue where Doel wouldn't spawn when the player reentered the boss arena after res spawning. And there's a little bit more in there and I'll leave you to check all of that out if you'd like to.
Moving on to Diablo Immortal, which I started playing a little while ago again and uh, it was just for the heck of it. And then, um, I think I went back to D four Diablo immortal. The uh, account on Twitter slash x has a little video here. It says The deeper you wander into the dark wood, the wilder it gets dare to enter our newest event in the dead of winter and earn handsome rewards daily for your heroics. It is a video, um, I don't have the sound on, but it'll show you like what's in there.
There's a, it looks like, um, someone with a couple of crossbows, uh, in the air behind like a really, really bright moon . That's kind of what it looks like and that's all there is to that one. So, uh, if you're interested in that, that's something you can try. There's also from the Diablo Mortal account on Twitter slash x and they wrote this happy, horrifying holidays, mortals we're decking the hells. And December is sure to be full of festive fright. What events are you anticipating the most?
So here we have decking the halls with hell prepare for exciting updates and spine tingling seasonal events. So starting on Thursday the seventh, there's a whole week after that called grim preparation, which is partitioned with a splintered souls launch. The next week is the Splintering Dark and the Darkling plane. And then the last week is Bruine survivor's Bane and Phantom Market. And there is like this weird looking tree somewhere in, uh, the Diablo Immortal universe I suppose.
And I'm not sure how much of this links up to like the flavor of the thing I just read you with the Diablo four stuff. Um, but you know, if you wanna check it out, you can also, there is a Diablo three PTR 2.7 0.7 preview going on. This was posted on December 1st, 2023 on the Blizzard News site. So I'll read you a little bit of that. It starts with Hail Nephilim. We welcome you to the Diablo three patch 2.7 0.7 PTR from December 5th through 12th.
We'll need your help in testing balance changes for all classes and two returning season themes that are being permanently added to the game for all modes, rights of sanctuary and divisions of enmity. And here's some stuff. Okay, PTR focus and details. The patch 2.7 0.7 PTR will soon be underway. During this time there may be periodic maintenances outages, hot fixes or minor patches.
We urge you to focus your play through on the following rights of sanctuary and visions of enmity based on positive community feedback. We saw these season themes were such a hit that we've decided to make them permanent players can harness the might from the altar of rights and diabolical fissures to dream up unique class builds and achieve new levels of power class balance to ensure that the most significant class changes receive an ample amount of attention.
We'd love for you to focus testing and providing feedback on the balance changes for all classes. PTR unique buffs will be active to help you on your journey, increased experience gains and double blood shard drops. You can also buy new gear for testing from the special PTR vendor Dank meme.
It is DJ A NK MI apostrophe M looks like a giant Cora who will exchange blood charts for class specific bags full of legendary items that we'd love for you to test so that we can efficiently review your post. Please provide feedback in the PTR feedback forum and bug reports in the PTR bug forum. Here's some tips with our previous. As with our previous PTs, this testing period is short, so it's best to hit the ground running.
Whether you are a PTR veteran or newcomer, we thought we'd pass along A few tips to get you started. Because of the limited duration of this PTR, we ask that participants pick a particular por uh, portion of the update to focus on testing.
For example, if you are primarily a witch doctor player, consider what changes impact the witch doctor, specifically what you like best, what you think may still need adjustment and what you'd want to see in the future, even if that may be beyond the scope of this patch. All are good questions to ask yourself before submitting feedback, try to break things. Just tell us when you do so we can make sure that the patches launches as smooth as possible when providing feedback.
Focus less on a solution and more on your experience. How do the changes make you feel? Did something seem incorrect or insufficient? Suggestions are always welcome, but identifying the issues themselves is most important. New permanent features, rights of sanctuary and visions of emity backed by popular demand. The rights of sanctuary and visions of emity season themes have become a permanent fixture of Diablo three. I'm really glad to hear that 'cause those were fun.
Um, I think one was still live maybe I'm not sure. Um, anyway, while we are extremely excited to make these features always available to ensure your time slaying demons remains balanced, we have had to make some adjustments to the bonus bonuses provided by the altar of rights when existent. Alongside visions of enemity continual season themes and adjustments to class balance, we felt the game's balance would benefit from adjustments to rights of sanctuary.
Here's what changed. Force is decreased damage from plus 100 from two plus 200. Shadow is decreased missile damage reduction to 5% from 25%. Exodus has decreased movement speed uncapped to 10, uh, 10% or plus 10% from plus 25%. It goes on from here with all the different things you could possibly run into or have developers note.
In addition to the desire for all of Diablo three's systems to feel both fun and challenging, the altar of rights adjustments were made to maintain a sense of progression throughout playing not while coming into conflict with other features. Then there's class balance changes. Striking a middle ground between fun and balanced is our top priority when it comes to classes.
As we mentioned in our season 29 article going forward, a series of iconic themes from seasons past will be reintroduced roughly every three months. The below class change balance changes will be made, were made to ensure each class remains both fun and balanced as powerful season themes return to Diablo three. Here's the developer's note. Over time we have seen some builds gain a massive amount of power leaving other builds behind and in need of updates.
The Wizards Meteor has dominated the battlegrounds of sanctuary for far too long, as well as some other sets we believe to have found a good avenue for each build to perform in and have improved sets across each class to work towards this goal. Given the number of changes we have made for this PTR receiving feedback from the community is crucial in ensuring we hit the mark. So for a barbarian, they're talking about the bite of earth and the legacy of Rayor builds.
Crusader is Roland's legacy, Aegis of valor, Han's Manacles blade of prophecy and Faithful memory. And this is just, you know, what they're doing in the PTR and probably will go through, you know, after the PTR demon hunter has the shadows, mantle and embodiment of the Marauder. The monk has arraignment of a thousand storms. Oliana Stratum and Ky Sheros blade Necro Maner has pestilence an aria.
I guess that's a build an aria, uh, trigs avatar masquerades of the burning Carnival, blood tide blade grasps of essence and corpse whisper cauldrons. And the witch doctor has arraignment of j the jade harvester, which is one I thought was fun when I used to play that. Uh, tu harness, mungus regalia, spirit of Iraq here and Zuni MA's haunt. The wizard has del Sears Magnum Opus tell R's Elements the smoldering core, the twisted sword. And that's pretty much it.
There's a thing on here if you would like to participate in the PTR. It will tell you it'll walk you right through it. So you can go do that whenever you want. Wellhead has another article and this is where I'm gonna end the show out. It's the Abattoir of Zu Runs. And When You Die, BlizzCon interview roundups, give new insights into Diablo four. And there's some art in this that we saw during BlizzCon. If you're watching, I was watching it. Um, I didn't go but I was watching some of it.
And yeah, so there's a whole bunch of stuff in here. There's, um, a bunch of different interviews and there's no way I'm gonna go through all of this at once. But I can tell you that A Game Informer spoke with Rod Ferguson and Joe Shelley screen rant spoke with Joe, uh, pre PRA and Tiffany Watt. There's um, another one, . There's like a very interesting image here of these like stuff that's gonna happen for the mid, the mid-winter thing.
It seems like the same people kind of like, you know, did a bunch of interviews for different sites and things like that. But if you wanna read like the, the highlights of that, wow Head's got it for you. And that's gonna be the end of this show with, um, one more thing I wanna say. I started streaming again on Twitch I used to years ago and got tired of it and probably got really busy and then forgot. So I just started again.
The Twitch thing is Barbarian Cobalt as in, you know, tiny bit mighty and I've used that name for quite some time. I'm pretty good at playing Diablo form as you, you know, I'm not like the best in the world, but I'm like, I'm, I do pretty well with that. But the problems I'm having are with the software between, uh, how I'm getting the, the game on Twitch and things like that.
So when I get that like set up better and have like a actual like timing of what days I'm gonna stream, I'll let you know. But it's kind of a work in progress, but it's something I wanna try again and it might be fun. So we'll just see how that goes. And that's where I'm gonna close out the show. You have been listening to episode 4 3 6 of the Shattered Soul Stone. Your Diablo Community podcast missed an episode.
You can find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www.shatteredsoulstone.com. Come join us in game our in game community and clan, both named Shattered Soul Stone, are open to anyone who would like to join. You could also join us on Discord. For the ultimate team and community-based experience, find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter at shattered stone as well as the Shattered Soul Stone website. Thank you for listening.