[Daboo]

There was a pretty big blue post made on the official forums today, and it talks about many of the issues that a lot of players are up in arms against at the moment, a very interesting read:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6018173

Important stuff from the article:

Interesting Stats:

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• On average players have created 3 characters each.
• 80% of characters are between levels 1 and 30.
• 1.9% of characters have unlocked Inferno difficulty.
• 54% of Hardcore players chose a female character.
• The majority of Hardcore deaths (35%) occur in Act I Normal
• The most common level 60 build in the game is only used by 0.7% of level 60 characters of that class (not including Passive diversity)
• The most used runes for each class at level 60 are Barbarian: Best Served Cold, Demon Hunter:
• Lingering Fog, Wizard: Mirror Skin, Monk: Peaceful Repose, Witch Doctor: Numbing Dart

Skill nerfs and balance

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• Some skills were too effective, and were hence nerfed.It's okay to be op to a certain extent, but not game breaking (like the ones nerfed), These will have to be corrected.
• If a skill is deemed absolutely necessary to survive at a certain difficulty level, then in goes against the basic design principle i.e to promote diversity.
• The nerf caught some people unaware, next time there will be a post on the forum called "upcoming changes" before the nerf.

Inferno difficulty

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• Keeping an eye on inferno difficulty, it is supposed to be hard, but it is a bit harder than expected, as the damage your dealt is very "spikey".
• Shifting focus from survivability to efficiently dealing damage, in voluntarily placed risky situations.
• A lot of people are attempting inferno without proper gear.

Itemization

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• People are comparing high level blues to low level legendaries, and claiming imba.
• Will be exposing items of level 63 in the next patch (1.03) to help people compare items.(i.e blue level 63, vs legendary item level 60)....I dont really understand what this means.
• That said, Legendary items will be buffed coming in PvP patch(1.1), will not affect previously found items.
• Long term goal:Increasing affix diversity and legendary bonuses.

Blacksmith,crafting and Gems

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• Blacksmith is an alternative source for upgrades, use him to bridge itemization gaps at level 60.
• Working on reducing costs for training blacksmith, through both pages and gold.
• Reduce the cost of combining gems, maybe use two gems to make a greater one, upto flawless square.

Patches

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• Patch 1.02 will come up next week, will mostly be service issues.
• 1.03 a little bit later, is the real balance patch.
• 1.1 will be PvP patch.
• Looking to open up a PTR soon to test PvP.
• For changes to the game,the game will depend on patching primarily, for urgent needs, hotfixes will be used.

Edit:Just realized, nothing much was said about the auction house or the rmah, maybe they think the game isnt ready yet. I guess they'll have to get the gold house working properly first

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nirvAnA: