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MinMax Damage Changes, Rob Pardo on Jay's Departure, "Easy" Fixes

Jan 20 2013 04:37 PM | Unseen

Patch 1.0.7 MinMax Damage Changes


EDIT: Vaeflare confirms that the following nerf to "black weapons" will not be taking place: Click to read.

The following was not written by me, credit goes to Burrfoot from the TeamLiquid forums. I wanted to share this awesome post with all of you, as it's fairly important.

Quote (Source)

Thought this topic was worth making for those that don't read the patch notes too carefully. The change isn't active on PTR yet as far as I can tell, but it is something that will likely get addressed, specifically due to the new red gems. I always make a point to cash out before every patch, and this is no different. (Monk snapshot was a known bug for months and finally getting addressed in 1.07, so I cashed out all my snapshot gear)

The bug fix in the notes:

Official Blizzard Quote (Source)
MinMaxDam Affix is calculating the damage bonus on weapon incorrectly.

The main reason was to allow the new boosted Red Gems to work properly if they are +150 min and +150 max damage, as it would have varying affects on different weapons unless this "bug" is fixed.

What popular weapons are likely affected by this bug? "Black Weapons" or those with +Min and +Max. But only if their damage range is fairly close - Windforce is a "black" weapon, but is/will not be affected because it's min damage is much lower than its max damage. The way damage calulations have worked with the MinMaxDam affix, was that since the min damage and bonus was added first, if the Base Min + Min affix > Base Max, then the Base Max got set equal to Base Min + Min affix + 1 , and then the Max affix added on top of the new Base Max.

What does that mean exactly? Would probably be best to just show some examples of some popular weapons:

Skorn: Will get nerfed from 1428.2 to 1309.8


Echoing Fury: Will get nerfed from 1300.2 to 1137.8


Rare Spear: Will get nerfed from 1245.6 to 1069.2
Click to see.

Rare Wand: Will get nerfed from 1304.1 to 1090.95
Click to see.

Windforce: Not getting 'nerfed' because the base min damage + min affix is still < base max. Interestingly enough if it did calculate, it would be less damage than on live. (1333 vs 1407)
Click to see.
(side note: if the Windforce listed above had a socket, it would then be bugged with the 150 gem and get boosted from 1407 to 1851 bugged, but only 1752 with it fixed)

As for your beloved Manticores, WKL, Shenlongs (ok maybe just me), they are not affected because they are ELEMENTAL DAMAGE, and are added after the "black" / base damage is affected.

Manticore: (elemental damage with +31 max)


tl;dr Pay attention to what happens with how Blue responds or addresses this "bug fix" listed above. Your weapons may be worth much much less if it goes thru as suspected.

I took the Echoing Fury example above: and with the +150minmax gem on 1.06 now it would bump from 1300 dps to 1757dps. If the bug is fixed, the 1300 would drop to 1137, but with a +150minmax gem would get boosted to 1442, which is what I suspect Blizz's goals are. So I'd start selling those black weapons now for 90% sure! ;-D

Rob Pardo on Jay's Departure


Official Blizzard Quote (Blue Tracker | Source)
This thread saddens me greatly. I know that the Battle.net forums have earned a reputation for rough justice, but I do not believe justice is being served by how people are speaking about Jay’s departure from Diablo III.

I am very proud of the Diablo franchise and what the team was able to accomplish with Diablo III. As a gamer I have enjoyed the game and played for many, many nights with friends and family. I’m not, however, going to use that as an excuse. The Diablo community deserves an even better game from Blizzard and we are committed to improving it. We have a talented team in place and have no intention of stopping work on Diablo III until it is the best game in the franchise.

I’m the only person in this thread who has actually worked with Jay. I hired Jay to head up the Diablo project and had the pleasure of getting to work with him, both in building the team and designing the game. He has great design instincts and has added so much to the franchise with his feel for visceral combat, boss battles, and an unparalleled knack for making it fun to smash bad guys. I’ve worked with many, many designers at Blizzard and Jay is one of the best. He has a great career at Blizzard ahead of him and I guarantee that you will enjoy Jay’s game designs in future Blizzard games.

If you love Diablo as much as we do, then please continue to let us know how you feel we can improve the game. If you still feel the need to dish out blame, then I would prefer you direct it at me. I was the executive producer on the project; I hired Jay and I gave him advice and direction throughout the development process. I was ultimately responsible for the game we released and take full responsibility for the quality of the result.

"Easy" Fixes


Official Blizzard Quote (Blue Tracker | Source)
One statement I’ve seen over and over on these forums and elsewhere are proposals for “easy” fixes and overarching assumptions about how long implementation for a variety of changes “should” take.

The reality is, game development is a hugely iterative and time-consuming process, with many people involved along the way. Design takes time, Coding takes time, art takes time, QA takes time: you name it. There are also multiple steps in the pipeline for each and every proposed change and bug fix, no matter how minor, and what issues are being worked on in what order and by who can and do change as new matters arise. Sometimes extra testing is also needed for bugs that come back broken and need to be retested, because we didn't want them to go live with a bad fix.

While there may indeed be a list of known issues and bugs that run alongside some patches, for every one you are aware of, there can be dozens or hundreds being worked on behind-the-scenes that you likely never be aware of. We do things just as quickly as we can, but even then, it’s a process that takes time.