Diablo III: Reaper of Souls: Better, Faster, More Fun
What Reaper of Souls Does Differently
The Auction House (both Real Money and gold-powered) is gone. Blizzard has openly acknowledged that the AH, while an interesting idea, ultimately worked against its own goals for the game. Farming the AH isn't fun, and Blizzard recognizes it. High-end equipment and recipes can be shared among party members for up to two hours after you find an item, but you can't sell anything above a rare item to another player.
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The new Mystic can enchant your gear -- often for a hefty price
New Loot System: Drop rates have been tweaked to guarantee higher quality items (more legendaries and set items) while the Smart Loot system ensures that the vast majority of gear you find is tuned for your specific type of character. Barbarians find Barbarian loot, Wizards find Wizard loot. There's enough variation in the system to ensure that you can still see a great drop for an alt character while playing on a main, but the vast majority of equipment is specific to the class you're playing at that moment.
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The Pandemonium Fortress
New End-Game Content: Players who finish the new Act V will be treated to the new Adventure Mode, where they can earn an alternate form of currency used in gambling for new items, complete timed or competitive trials, and fight "Rift" bosses after completing all the Bounties in an area. Adventure Mode offers a much faster XP gain and more chances at top-tier loot than the standard game does. Blizzard clearly anticipates that most players will move to Adventure Mode after finishing the standard game.
New Itemization: Along with Smart Loot, the new system focuses explicitly on a set of core "useful" statistics. The number of points allocated into core stats has climbed dramatically. Certain affixes, like life steal, have been cut while others, like Magic Find, are significantly less common. Drop rates and item availability have been increased to compensate; it's common to find legendaries and set items at lvl 70.
New Itemization: Along with Smart Loot, the new system focuses explicitly on a set of core "useful" statistics. The number of points allocated into core stats has climbed dramatically. Certain affixes, like life steal, have been cut while others, like Magic Find, are significantly less common. Drop rates and item availability have been increased to compensate; it's common to find legendaries and set items at lvl 70.
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New legendary affixes for old items and a few new ones on top of that.
Legendary items have themselves taken an interesting and extremely creative turn. There are legendary items that spawn treasure goblins, legendaries that reduce the mana cost of particular skills by enormous amounts, and legendaries that make you immune to certain kinds of damage. Some new items allow you to explode for massive amounts of damage periodically, or reflect huge amounts of damage against an attacker, or make it rain treasure every time you hit an enemy.
Unlimited, Shared Paragon Levels: Players who hit lvl 70 (or have previously hit 60) and continue playing will now keep their Paragon levels across all characters. Previously, each of your characters could be a Lvl 100 Paragon, but there was no sharing Paragon levels across characters. In addition, Paragon levels are no longer capped. Want to be a Lvl 320 Paragon? You can be.
There are a ton of other changes that don't fit neatly into bullet points. Crafting has been streamlined, there's a new time of socketable gem (Diamonds), and a new Mystic that can re-enchant items. There are some hardcore-specific items that will allow players to resurrect -- provided they've crafted, and are wearing, an expensive one-shot item that has to be re-crafted in order to function again. There's a hardcore unique that accelerates your town portal, reduces the damage you take while casting it, and makes it uninterruptable.
Unlimited, Shared Paragon Levels: Players who hit lvl 70 (or have previously hit 60) and continue playing will now keep their Paragon levels across all characters. Previously, each of your characters could be a Lvl 100 Paragon, but there was no sharing Paragon levels across characters. In addition, Paragon levels are no longer capped. Want to be a Lvl 320 Paragon? You can be.
There are a ton of other changes that don't fit neatly into bullet points. Crafting has been streamlined, there's a new time of socketable gem (Diamonds), and a new Mystic that can re-enchant items. There are some hardcore-specific items that will allow players to resurrect -- provided they've crafted, and are wearing, an expensive one-shot item that has to be re-crafted in order to function again. There's a hardcore unique that accelerates your town portal, reduces the damage you take while casting it, and makes it uninterruptable.
