- Coming to you from somewhere in Sanctuary. This is episode 4 5, 1 of Shattered Soul Stone, your Diablo Community podcast. This episode is called ha, happy Mouth Anniversary. It is March 30th, 2024. And this is Jen. I'm gonna start off with some news articles about things that are good or bad for workers. This one comes from Game Developer and was written on March 27, or at least was posted on March 27 by Chris Care Sega of America.
Union Workers Secure raises layoff protections with first collectively bargained contract. Unionized workers at Sega of America have secured a major victory after voting to ratify a first collectively bargained contract. The news was described as a quote watershed moment, end quote for A-E-G-I-S dash CWA union members who will now benefit from an improved contract that contains better protections for organizing workers and guarantees base building raises for every employee in the unit.
Quote, some workers received regular raises, but some did not. This was often based on title or department. The raises were widely different. Person to person explained a CWA spokesperson. These base building raises ensure that everyone gets a raise and Sega can always grant additional raises based on merit. End of quote, the ratified contract also includes layoff protections, including the recall rights for temporary layoffs and severance for permanent layoffs.
A commitment to properly crediting all workers on relevant projects, including early QA testers, and a codified commitment to continuing hybrid work initiatives for at least six months. It was noted that Sega doesn't currently intend to change its hybrid work policy, but now Aegis, I guess is, I guess that's how you say it. A-E-G-I-S dash CWA has that commitment in writing.
Uh, Aegis dash CWA also secured a codified annual bonus plan, retirement benefits, health insurance, parental benefits, including permission for parents to pump breast milk on the clock and expanded bereavements leave better pathways for requesting job related trainings. Were baked into the new contract alongside a commitment that will require Sega to provide a worker led committee with advanced notice when it wants to implement policy changes, including all those related to AI usage.
There's more than that. Everything I talk about today will be in the show [email protected]. Another one from Game Developer, uh, titled, GameStop commits to layoffs despite concerns over business quote, strain ends end quote, also written by Chris Care on March 27th, or at least posted on that date. The retailer said the job cuts are part of its strategic plan to achieve profitability.
GameStop is laying off an unknown number of staff, but admits the cuts might strain its existing resources. The video game retailer shared the news annual 10 K report quote, as part of our strategic plan to achieve profitability. We have recently undertaken cost reduction measures and other initiatives to improve the efficiency of our operations, including initiatives to reduce head count.
It wrote these initiatives could strain our existing resources and we could experience operating diff operating difficulties in managing our business, including difficulties in hiring, managing, and retaining employees. If we do not adapt, we may experience erosion to our brand. The quality of our products and services may suffer and our operating results may be negatively impacted.
GameStop noted that it, it exited its operations in Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria during the 2023 fiscal year and said it will continue to evaluate its business portfolio to validate their quote, strategic and financial fit end quote. It kind of goes on from there. So the first one was a, a great bargain for the people working for Sega, but I guess game developer doesn't care about their employees very much.
I don't know exactly why they decided to bounce out of three different countries, but that's what they're doing and that is not a good way to treat your employees. And yeah, I do think that they are gonna have trouble getting people, like new people to be hired in, you know, their, their stuff there because everybody who's, you know, online can read about this particular article and others that are probably similar. So yeah, good luck to you. Good luck to you GameStop.
I think you made a terrible decision also in game developer, uh, written by Justin Carter on March 27. The article is titled Report Nintendo of America Laying Off Contractors Ahead of Switch to Launch, which they shouldn't be doing either if they'd like to have more employees, you know, that's how this works. You treat 'em well, they stay, you treat 'em bad, well you get like a really bad mark, uh, in your portfolio, I think as a company. Alright, so here's a little bit from this one.
The layoffs have hit Nintendo of America according to Kotaku sources told the outlet, the US arm of Nintendo is undergoing a quote, massive downsizing end quote that we'll see over 100 contractor layoffs. Along with those cuts, a Nintendo spokesperson told Kotaku a significant number and quote of full-time positions will be created. However, these new jobs will reportedly move those affected out of software testing. And then it says, uh, NOA, I don't know what NOA is, but it's in brackets.
And this is part of a quote, it's actually a start of a quote has reorganized its product testing functions to drive greater global integration in game development efforts. The email reads quote, the changes will also better align NOA with inter-regional testing procedures and operations and quote, thus far, layoffs have managed to hit nearly every developer in the industry.
Big and small. Nintendo marks the last of the big three to have staff cuts as Sony and Microsoft had theirs earlier this year, several contractors told Kotaku they haven't recently tested any major first party titles. They further claimed that no one on staff that they know of has tested the Nintendo Switch to, which has reportedly moved out of a late 2024 launch window into early 2025 contractors for NOA previously made claims of a harmful work culture and pay inequity.
In 2022, NOA was also taken to task for allegedly firing employees, for discussing potential union unionization efforts. Yeah, that's illegal . That's completely illegal. You're not allowed to do that in America. You cannot simply say, Hey, these people over here, they're talking about getting a union. We don't want them to have a union, so let's just kill their jobs. That's not legal. And that could get them in huge, huge trouble. So I hope they fix that shit pretty soon.
And another one, this is from, uh, video Games Chronicle. This one is from March 26th and it's written by Tom Ivan. Xbox claims mass layoffs were the outcome of a quote concerning and quote, lack of industry growth. And here's, you know, a picture in here and all of that. Microsoft's head of gaming has said the company's decision to cut 1,900 jobs was ultimately the result of a lack of growth in the industry. Does anyone believe this? Really?
In January, Microsoft announced plans to lay off roughly 8% of the 22,000 people employed across Xbox, Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. The company completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October of 2023.
In the process, taking ownership of franchises including Call of Duty, world of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch in a message sent to staff when the job cuts were announced, Spencer, meaning Phil Spencer said the decision was taken after Microsoft and Activision's leadership teams quote, set priorities, identified areas of overlap and ensured that we're all aligned on the best opportunities for growth.
Reflecting on the layoffs in a new interview with Polygons, Spencer said a lack of industry growth was forcing publicly traded companies across the industry to cut costs, gave developer Farhan nor who had been tracking job cuts dating back to the start of 2022 on video games. layoffs.com estimates that around 10,500 games industry employees were laid off last year and less than four months into 2024, some 8,000 planned job cuts were already thought to have been confirmed.
I'll say the thing that has me most concerned for the industry is the lack of growth. Spencer said. And when you have an industry that is projected to be smaller next year in terms of players and dollars, you get a lot of publici publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth. Because why else does somebody own a share of someone's stock if it's not going to grow the side of business?
That then gets scrutinized is the cost side, because if you're not going to grow the revenue side, then the cost side becomes challenged and it goes on from there a little bit. And I'm kind of, you know, I hate when big companies do this to people that have been at their jobs there for a while. Or in this case, if you were part of Activision Blizzard King, I don't know if they bought, I don't know if if Microsoft, uh, or Xbox or whatever bought King probably all the same, right?
If you're there just doing your job and you're fine and then you know, shortly after everything gets shaken out and you end up with Microsoft, you shouldn't have to lose your job because of, oh, there's too many workers. I mean, don't you want more workers? I mean, I don't know. It doesn't make any damn sense to me and I hate when companies do this kind of stuff. Moving on to Polygon, this is, um, about a handheld Xbox. In fact, the title says a handheld Xbox question mark.
Microsoft's gaming chief can't stop thinking about it. So there is a little picture here of a graphic of it. It has the Xbox logo and some green lines, and it's got the buttons on the side so that you can play your game. There's a button there that says Steam in case you're using Steam for something, you know it's there. So this one is posted by Chris Plant from March 25th, 2024. Phil Spencer has tried all the new PC gaming handhelds the ass, rogue Alley, the Lenovo Legion Go and the Steam deck.
He's impressed, but he can't shake one question. How would he make them more Xbox quote, I want my Lenovo Legion go to feel like an Xbox Spencer told Polygon in an interview during the annual Game Developers conference, I bought the Legion Go, I brought the Legion, go with me to CDC, I'm on the airplane and I have this list of everything that makes it not feel like an Xbox. Forget about the brand. More like are all of my games there? Do all my games show up with the save files that I want.
I'll tell you one game that doesn't right now it's driving me crazy, is Fallout 76. It doesn't have cross save. I want to be able to boot into the Xbox app in a full screen, but in a compact mode.
And all of my social experiences there, like I wanted to feel like the dash of my Xbox when I turn on the television, except I wanted on those devices according to Spencer, the Xbox Hardware team led by Ron Rowan, Rowan, Sonos, I think is how you say, is considering quote different hardware form factors and things that they could do that they could go do and quote as it plans the future of Xbox Hardware. What should we build that will find new players?
Spencer said that will allow people to play at times when they couldn't go play in the past. It continues on from here. It's kind of a long article, so there's a few more paragraphs and stuff like that. And another fancy picture of some kind of handheld game. Hey, remember Diablo three , a lot of us played it for years and years and years. And the uh, blizzard News, blizzard Entertainment has information on season 31 season of the Forbidden Archives.
It's a preview and this was posted on March 27th, 2024. For some reason, blizzard doesn't specifically state who wrote it or who contributed to it, but that's just how things go. So season 31, there's a little bit here. Uh, sanctuary needs you to answer its call for aid in season 31 season of the Forbidden Archives, starting on April 12th at 5:00 PM P-D-T-C-E-T-K-S-T Nephilim can harness the Power of Forbidden Archives theme, which first debuted with season 20 for an in-depth.
Look at what's coming, read below and it shows you like that popup screen that shows you that there's a season going on you can jump into. So I think that's kind of cool. Here's the season theme. Season 31 is the season of the Forbidden Archives. Many adventurers have come to learn the power that dwells within the ancient Nephilim artifact Kanas cube. However, none understands this power better than the equally celebrated and reviled harri.
Zoltan Kool Kool was able to unlock and harness the power of the cube like none before, leveraging its power to siphon the and archive the energies of powerful items. With season 31, we explore the power cool might lend to your fingertips if his experiments went unchecked for the duration of season 31. The slots and cannas cube that allow you to equip three legendary additional legendary powers will not be restricted to their usual categories.
That's interesting. While normally a player can equip one power for each from the weapon armor and jewelry categories, season 31 players can mix and match between all three. This might allow you to run two weapon powers with one armor power, or perhaps you might choose to run three amulet powers instead, the choice is yours. And we're as eager as you are to experiment with the new build opportunities this creates. So here's the cosmetic rewards we've got.
I think I've seen some of these before. . Uh, beginning with season 17, we began reintroducing previous seasonal rewards to make them available to players who may have missed them the first time around For season 31, this means awards originally available from season seven are returning to the season journey. So we have here a character with very large shoulders and some a lot of gold type things looking out from it.
It's a helm and like the shoulder pieces, there's a, I think it's like a little image thing so that if you wanted to use that instead of the typical thing around your character, when you look at it off in the corner, you know there's one of those, it looks like something's been snowing on that one. And then there's this like really rather deformed unicorn thing with glowing red eyes.
I've got that one I think, I dunno if I have the rest, but you know, these are some of the, that was seven, that was season seven. So that's, that's what's there to continue. However, we know it's nice to have something new to aim for if you've participated in previous seasons. We're bringing back end of journey rewards as introduced in season 17 with not one but two new cosmetic rewards for those who complete the entirety of the season journey.
Feast your eyes upon the valor portrait frame, which looks like you'd think it's gold, it's shiny, it looks like something an angel would, uh, have their portrait put into or something like that. And then also there is an angelic treasure goblin pet and it is spinning around in this particular article and it's wearing like armor that looks like an angel and has a big old pack on its back that it's holding up with one hand, which is kind of neat.
In addition to the helm and shoulders slots of the exclusive conqueror set, you'll be able to earn a series of portrait frames that embody the snowy foreboding era aura of the eternal woods. If you need a little, if you need a warm little pal to keep you cozy through your cold journeys, the dream of pi, that's the um, unicorn looking thing. If you need a warm little pal to help keep you cozy through your cold journeys.
The dream of PI's fiery nature should do the trick when he's not instilling night terrors at the local fauna season journey. Rewards. If you've been diligently slaying demons for the past few seasons and reached conqueror in the season journey, each time you've surely acquired, uh, sorry, accrued a few extra stash tabs, you'll earn one additional tab each season by finishing the conqueror tier up to a maximum of five. So here's what this entails.
Guardian of sanctuary finish a level 70 Nephilim rift on torment 13 within five minutes. Gem of my life, level three legendary gems to level 55. All I do is win complete two conquests this season. Kill You, kill gom or gum at level 70 and under 30 seconds on torment 13 difficulty Money ain't a thing. T-H-A-N-G slay greed on torment Difficulty 13 take you there. Reach greater rift level 60 solo power am amplification.
Use Kanis cube to augment an ancient legendary item with a level of 50 plus gem and cubic reconfiguration. Use Kanis cube to Reforge a legendary item. There's also a seasonal conquest. We want to prepare your conquest or want to prepare your conquest plan for season 31. Here are the challenges you'll face. Returning for season 31 is sprinter slash speed racer, where you've, you're challenged to complete the entire Diablo three campaign from act one to act five five at level 70 in under one hour.
Next is Arvis Ravita where you can, where all that glitters is gold. That is if you can complete a 50 million gold streak outside of the vault or its inner sanctum on a good day slash I can't stop encourages you to upgrade your legendary gems level three legendary gems to 65. To complete this challenge, push your way to Greater Rift level 75 to complete divinity slash lion hearted.
Lastly, a fan favorite For those who enjoy unconventional builds, the thrill slash superhuman requires completion of a greater rift level 45 solo. And without any set items equipped, there's also Hadrick gift, which we've seen before. So I'm gonna skip ahead through this part and just tell you what you get depending on what class you're playing in Diablo three, the sets for season 31, the Barbarian gets Wrath of the Waists.
Crusader gets Roland's legacy Demon Hunter gets Unhallowed Essence, monk has Reignment of a thousand Storms, necromancer bones of rma, which Dr Hell Tooth Hardness and Wizard Tal Russia's elements. So those sound like fun. Some of these things I've finished, I think I finished almost the whole journey one time with just what I just read to you. That's the class sets that you can get from Hadrick.
I've also got a blog post here from uh, Kay LA's blog and she is a multimedia artist and storyteller. She's worked in the entertainment industry in various roles and her post here is from 2016. She reposted it intentionally and it's titled of Dragons and Demons, the Art and Legacy of Kevin Kana Griffith. And there is a framed Maal sketch by the late Kevin Kana Griffith in 2013, next to his Frost warnes, uh, sword. So there's some little bits in here you might wanna read.
So I'm just gonna skip into some of this blog and you can pick it up for yourself later. There's a section called Memories of Kevin, Kevin Kana. Griffith's birthday is March 24th, and he would've been 34 this year. Unfortunately, sometimes the lights that burned the brightest are sometimes snuffed out far too soon. And Kevin passed away in October seven on October 17th, 2014 from Alveolar Soft Parts Sarcoma, A SPS Cancer. He was 32 years young.
Kevin was a senior artist at Blizzard Entertainment. And if you've played World of Warcraft or Diablo three, you were undoubtedly touched by his artistry and if you were lucky enough to know him, you were awestruck by how authentic and giving a person Kevin Kenai Griffith was. She says, I first met Kevin in 2009 at a sketch group.
He'd helped get up and running at Blizzard at the time I was working on the first community development department and was eager to stretch my creative muscles and connect with like-minded individuals. I'd been directed to the Sketch group by a fellow artist, Jessica Johnson. And in short order I connected with Kevin and he was off and getting me set up on creative mailing lists about sketch groups, live drawing sessions, art challenges and more.
This might not seem like a big deal to many since Kevin was an artist, but it takes a certain kind of person to see the best in others and be willing to spend time and energy helping people. And well, Kevin was just that kind of guy. And there are some pictures here from some of these things, you know, and there's some links in here as well. There's a lot of stuff in here, but I'll read you these little like pinpoints that she had put in.
Kevin kept a blog with much of his artwork here, and there's a link to that. Kevin's Health blog is located here. Another link, uh, you can check on the out the bonus Camel blog for Blizzard Sketch Group. And there's a link to that. And there's just so much stuff. And if you scroll down to the bottom, you can see a whole bunch of artwork.
One of them is like a bunch of goblins dressed in kind of little fancy Christmas sweaters and one's got a hat and um, just, you know, it's, it's one of those critters that throws little tiny critters at you, you know, , there's just something funny. And then there's like a Valentine one and some other things and a little seasons wishes final illustration in there from the woman who wrote this article with like a little demon child holding up a strange looking creature. So it's kind of neat.
There's a lot of art in here you can check out. Some of you maybe, I don't know, I don't know how many of you that are listening to my voice right now played Diablo three, but um, that's where Kanis came from. That's why you go get it. And you know, you have Zol Kool following you around for that towards like the later end of Diablo three.
So I just figured I'd put that in because I know there's gonna be people who were too young to play the game when that came out or people who have never played. So it's just kind of a really nice blog and I'll leave you to read it because it is well put together. Diablo, the Diablo count on, uh, x slash Twitter wrote, no one can stop death and put a little like skull emoji. It's, and asks what were you doing on March 25th, 2014 when Diablo three Reaper of Souls was released?
There's a video with this. Now, before I go into that, if I remember correctly, um, my husband Sean and I went to an event to release the Reaper of Soul's expansion. And we got to talk to a bunch of people that were very into Diablo three at the time. That was new. We didn't know exactly what would happen in that expansion except for there was at least one video out that I'll I'll point out to you in just a minute.
And there was like food and there was drinks and there was, you know, friends and all of that stuff. And there was food. And I remember that, uh, one of the drinks they had was a red colored drink. That was something, something about Soul Stone, right? And I'm like, well, that's for me 'cause that's my, that's my podcast, you know, . And we just had a good time. Really it was inside a church, uh, that had been converted into like an event place. It was really fun. So I do remember that.
And then we all got our boxes for, um, rehearsals expansion and had a bunch of developers sign it. It was really fun. But there is this cinematic from 10 years ago. Oh my gosh, that was 10 years ago. and, um, it's Reaper, uh, Diablo, three Reaper Souls opening cinematic and it's, you may have seen this before. So there's like angels trying to do things with the soul stone. It's four minutes and 26 seconds.
Again, it'll be in the show notes and I think, I think you'll enjoy it if you haven't seen it before. If you're new to Diablo three, you know, check this out. It may contain spoilers, I'm not sure, but it's, it's just fun. It's just a really good, you know, cinematic in there. A lot of the rest of this is coming from wow head. So we've got, um, all 12 new unique items in Diablo for PTR patch, 1.4 0.0 posted two days ago by Siic.
And it has a graphic here of a character that has, it's probably a rogue, this uh, character has a crossbow on their back and there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 pieces of armor with red lights coming off the top of them. That's how, you know, it's like a fancier thing I suppose is the color codes. They did that in Diablo three as well. So here's what we've got and this is, uh, coming from Blizzard itself. So here's the new items. Uh, all classes Tes mite, Uber unique chest armor.
While at full life your skills unleash a divine barrage dealing damage. Jens blessing, unique boots casting a skill has a 20 to 30% chance to cast a non mobility non ultimate skill that is currently on Cool down. This effect can only occur once every 12 seconds. And then we have all the pieces for the different classes. So we have the barbarian, its unique item is arias bearing. They are unique pants ancients you summon are empowered.
Ick creates an earthquake that deals physical damage over four seconds. When he leaps Taik leaves behind dust devils that deal damage while he whirlwinds. Modoc ignites the ground burning enemies for an additional damage over four seconds when he upheave the ground twin strikes. That's gloves. Those are unique gloves for the barbarian. After casting double swing four times, your next double swing will hit two additional times, each dealing 10 to 25% increased damage for the druid.
The druid starts with earth breaker, a unique ring. It says this about it landslide causes the ground to erupt and tectonic spikes which continue to deal 0.6 to 0.9 damage over two seconds. Casting landslide in this area has a 20 to 30% chance to cause additional landslide pillars to spawn within wild heart hunger unique boots. So you get two things each it seems when you shape shift into a werewolf or a wear bear, you gain wild heart for five seconds.
Wild Heart grants you one to 1.5% increased damage with shape shifting skills every two seconds stacking 20 times. Here's for the Necro answer the ebb and piercer. It's a unique emulate blight also shoots four smaller projectiles that pierce enemies and deal shadow damage over three seconds. Also, you get uh, Coors embrace. These are unique gloves and it does blood surge. Blood surge consumes corpses to cause mini Novas dealing damage.
Damage is increased by 10% per target, drained by the initial cast up to 50% damage is also increased by 20% for each corp consumed, which sounds disgusting unless you like playing an acro answer, which I did in D three, but I haven't really done one in uh D four yet. Okay, the rogue, uh, scoundrels kiss, it's a unique ring rapid fire now LOBs exploding arrows that deal 15% to 25% increased damage.
And then saboteurs signet, a unique ring casting flurry has a 15 to 30% chance to release stun grenades that deal physical damage and stun enemies for one second. Your grenade skills have a 5% lucky hit chance sorcerer fractured winter glass unique emulate casting frozen orb has a 35 to 50% chance to spawn a random conation when it explodes Lucky hit your conation have up to a 70 to 100% chance to launch a frozen orb at nearby enemies. And then there's also Flame Weaver. These are unique gloves.
Casting fire bolt through your firewall causes it to split into four bolts each dealing 80 to 100% more damage. So that's what to look, that's what to look for after the PTR is done. I'd also like to say I never expected that Diablo four was gonna have a PTR, but they decided to go ahead and do this one for, uh, season four. We're in season three now, which is the one with the ALS and things like that. I've been playing a little bit of it and so here's a little bit more.
Uh, this one is also posted by SEK from two days ago and it's on wow head Diablo four PTR Patch 1.4 0.0 patch notes now available. Itemization rework class changes. I wonder if this is the same thing as before. Let's check it out. No, there's a lot more in here. So here we go. If you're interested in, uh, what this is gonna be, blizzard has just released the patch notes for the upcoming Diablo four PTR patch, 1.4 0.0, including the itemization rework class changes and much more.
The PTR will start on April 2nd. That's just a few days from now and last until April 9th. All classes are getting significant changes with overall net positive buffs. Some classes such as barbarians are seeing nerfs to overpowered skills such as charge, but the vast majority of adjustments will provide more power to players.
Itemization changes are also on full display, completely altering builds across the board along with the codex of power, redefining how legendary aspects work with sweeping changes to systems such as held tides as well as entirely new systems such as the master working and tempering. Season four of Diablo four seems to have taken to heart many of the community's requests that have been fielded since the launch of Diablo four. So here's some stuff from Blizzard. Change is coming.
Wanderer, do you dare immerse yourself in What lies ahead for all of sanctuary? The first public test realm, PTR for Diablo four is on the horizon, offering you the chance to test upcoming changes and features for season four ES. Escalation point PTR will be available from April two through April nine for players with a PC battle net account. Oh, so that's how that's gonna go. Yeah, I, okay, I have said this before and I'm grumpy about it still.
I can't play Diablo four on my Mac, so I'm doing it through an Xbox, which means I won't get into the uh, PC battle net account, you know, like it's just for PC to kind of, you know, slog through and see what works and what doesn't. So I'm gonna leave it to them because I can't get in anyway. There's a little bit more here. The purpose of the PTR is to test updates and features alongside you before the launch of season four.
Then we'll take your feedback from PTR to make adjustments to season four before it goes live for everyone, your experience in sanctuary is shaking up in a big way. Here's an overview of what you need to know and there is so many things in here. So I'll read you some of these itemization. We have three guiding pillars for our itemization updates, quality over quantity, the best items, having a journey of power and improvement that you can work toward.
And of course having items feel satisfying and exciting to use. For a full list of what's new for or adjusted for classes, there's a patch notes update you can check on, but the summary of the itemizations, uh, here's a summary of the itemizations changes basic item updates, reduced number of apexes now three on legendary items and two on rare items. Smaller pool of more potent, a apexes more relevant apexes. Example of ranks of a single core skill.
Only sacred items in world tier three, only ancestral items in world tier four apex values are turned up to be punchier. We want you and the fiends of sanctuary to really feel them New apexes and positioning of apexes resource per second resource on kill, lucky hit apply vulnerable life per hit and basic skill ranks. Miscellaneous updates, I always like the miscellaneous ones because it's like we dunno what to call this yet.
Uh, legendary items dropped from enemy levels 95 plus are always 925 item. Power gems are simpler, more useful, and have a much longer crafting tail. Gems now have core stats and the more conditional bonuses have been simplified. Salvage crafting and rewards have all been tuned significantly Reduced item drop rates, less time sorting, more time slaying item re-rolling. Gold cost capped when enchanting material removal and consolidation.
Forgotten souls can now be obtained from whispers and are now a global rare drop from elites. Uniques appear earlier, some uniques are now dropping in the world. In world tier one and two, all uniques can now drop in world tier three. Uber uniques can start dropping from monster level. 55 drops at 925 Item power. There's the tempering system, which I tried doing and I didn't quite understand what I was doing.
There's a graphic here that helps and it does say in development content, not final off in the corner. It's a new enter interface with whatever blacksmith you're talking to. So here's some of what this says. This new system will allow you to add apexes to your items at the blacksmith through a new reusable item that can drop from most content in game called temper manuals. These are categorized like the codex of power example, resource mobility, et cetera.
Once gained, you retained these for unlimited use. Each manual contains a handful of apexes. You are able to attach one at a time. Apexes can be re-roll up to the items temporary re-roll limit. Ancestral items can have two tempered apexes from different categories. Greater apexes only appearing on ancestral, legendary and unique items. These are more powerful versions of normal apexes with a 1.5 times multiplier on the AP X's maximum roll.
An item with greater apex will be immediately obvious with a unique audio cue as well as a one up to four, IV four next to the item name indicating how many apexes are greater. So for example, helm ancestral and it's got two behind it like you know, little two little lines too, not a number two specifically. Each apex on the item has a chance to be greater. In world tier three and four players cannot enchant into a greater apex. They can only be found.
There's master working, which has another interface pretty similar to the one I was just looking at. A late game crafting system to upgrade items including using materials gathered from the pit. I don't know where the pit is, but I'll probably try it when this, uh, season four goes live improves the value of your current apexes. There are 12 upgrade ranks every four ranks. A single apex is massively upgraded. Other ranks slightly increase the value of all apexes. There's more to be had in here.
There's also like, looks like codex of power, so you can kind of pick and choose from there. There's hell Tide reborn. They wrote a Tide. So nice, we made it twice. Here's what's new in the revamped Hell Tide event to bring the depths of hell to the surface of sanctuary. The hell Tide threat as you battle through hell tides you will generate threat. How much will be determined by the difficulty of Monster and how often you're securing tortured gifts within hell.
Tide dying will reset your threat, so you might lose it. There are three hell tide threat tears with each increasing the danger and frequency of monster ambushes. At tier three, you become hell marked. Achieving maximum threat will initiate a brief ambush frenzy of maximum enemy density. The ambush will end with a final hell born spawn and immediately and immensely powerful agent of hell resurrected from the tortured souls of sanctuaries.
Most powerful champions, there are five variants representing each class in Diablo. For upon activating the hell born ambush, your threat will reset. And there's another image in here of a bunch of um, there's like a shaman and bunch of these little red guys running around. So, and one player character in there. A cursed ritual. This one's got a really interesting piece of art on it.
Gainful hearts can primarily be earned through opening tortured gift chests and can be used at the cursed ritual location. A scene of shocking gore. The A cursed ritual is the ultimate testament to the disturbing lengths of the manic cultist who will go to appease their dark wishes. It is here where you can begin the accursed ritual deposit three Bain full hearts to begin the ritual. And you will be swarmed with a dense demonic ambush.
Other players within your sub zone will be alerted that the ritual has begun. If they wish to join you in your fight. This ambush will climax with the arrival of the blood maiden, an immensely powerful demon demonic creature who will offer great reward upon her death. And this image here, it's got three sort of blood fountain type things.
There's a circle on the floor with some ruins in it and some writing and that of course you cannot understand there are three body, three bodies lying in the spaces between these like blood fountain things and all of them are missing their heads. So there you go. And there's a character standing there like what just happened here. There's a little bit more from that. There's also the pit of artificers.
There are rumors that deep within the network of dungeons crisscrossing the north of sanctuary, there are strange varieties of or perfect for crafting exceptionally crafted armor with secret her Rodrick techniques. And again, this one is also in development content not final. It's got a very glowing thing with a whole bunch of stuff flying around it. Okay, upon entering world tier four, you'll receive a priority quest to complete a tier 46 nightmare dungeon.
Upon completion, you'll begin to collect r shard During end game activities, collect enough r shard to ultimately activate the obelisk in serga, or I think that's how you say it. Activating the obelisk will send you to the pit. Your goal will be to slay enough monsters before a 10 minute timer runs out. Each player death removes time from the clock. First death removes 30 seconds. Second death removes 60 seconds. Third, and subsequent deaths will remove 90 seconds.
So you gotta move, move, move in there. If you slay enough monsters, a portal will appear. Taking you to the boss's arena, killing the boss before the timer expires will grant you master working materials and unlocks the next tier of the pit, killing the boss within four to six minutes. Despair, grants, uh, despair, grants you an additional tier unlock killing the boss with six or more minutes to spare grants you two additional tier unlocks. The pit has hundreds of tears of difficulty.
If the mastery timer expires before you finish running through the pit, you'll still receive loot but won't receive any master working materials. The pit can be undertaken with groups up to four with the player who opened the pit, receiving the lion's share of materials. Only the player who opened the pit has the chance of receiving the materials used for summoning tormented echoes. And then there's a Boss Ladder update in here. Features offered for testing. This is about the PTR.
It's talking about campaign completion mount and skill points, fog of war, altar of Lilith, stat bonuses, um, a bunch of other stuff. What kind of things you can get from it. There's a piece in there about how to provide feedback and how to install the PTR. So those of you that can play this game, meaning Dia Levo on a pc, go for it. I won't be able to do it. I'm not really salty about that. I just, I didn't figure you could do a PTR through like an Xbox anyway.
But you know, still there's a whole like talk through to, to get you in there and get you into the game. There's also a couple of new items down here and one of the materials might, which is like a chest piece kind of thing. While at full life your skills unleash a divine barrage dealing damage. Jen's blessing is unique. Boots cast casting a skill has 20 to 30% chance to cast a non mobility non ultimate skill that is currently on Cool Down.
Uh, there's aspect of Frosty Strides and then there's some other stuff in there too. And there's a whole bunch of things on. I think I've already read the stuff to you about the different classes. So with that, this show is getting a little bit long. So I think I'm gonna stop here. You have been listening to episode 4 5, 1 of the Shattered Soul Stone. Your Diablo community podcast missed an episode. You could find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www do shattered soul stone.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. It also initiates to improve. Let me just try that paragraph again. Quote, as part of our .