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    • CSGO
      vans

      F0rest and friberg extends their contract for 2022 in Dignitas

      vans

      The 33-year old will remain with the team for a third year.
      Coming up this 2022, F0rest (33 years old) and friberg (30 years old) have extended their contract in Dignitas for another year, so they will have to compete the whole 2022 in their team.
      The ex-NiP players have commited for another year in Dignitas - good news; F0rest is still in a great perfomance level, even though he's now 33 years old and a lot of people were questioning if he should retire or keep competing. Of course, he is still in the highest level-perfomance so it makes sense this extension of contract.
      F0rest were 8 years in NiP team, and he signed up for Dignitas two years ago, in January 2020; so he will be another year in Dignitas, looking to win his second Major trophy, as he has already won the ESL One Cologne 2014 playing along with NiP side.
      During f0rest's two years at Dignitas, the squad struggled to achieve any international success, only managing to take a few trophies from regional tournaments such as Nordic Masters Spring 2021.
      Despite this, the veteran has managed to retain a 1.09 rating throughout his stay in the squad.
       
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      346 • 0

    • CSGO
      tRv56

      Team Liquid confirm shox signing!

      tRv56

      Following the previous article from shox: Vitality benches Shox , yesterday we could confirm that Shox signs for Team Liquid (the North American team)
      The move comes as no surprise, with the 29-year-old having been linked with a transfer to Liquid back in November after it became clear that Vitality would be signing the exiting Astralis trio of Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif, Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen and Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen come the end of the year.

      The Liquid roster now consists of:
       Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski  Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic  Josh "⁠oSee⁠" Ohm  Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon  Eric "⁠adreN⁠" Hoag (coach)  Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip (inactive)  Michael "⁠Grim⁠" Wince (inactive)  Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo (inactive)  
       
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      356 • 0

    • CSGO
      vans

      ESL announces the team list for IEM KATOWICE play-in stage

      vans

      ESL Counter-strike has announced previously this week in Twitter the full team list for IEM Katowice play-in stage. We can see some epic team names such as NiP, fnatic, or even Astralis - but we also see new faces there, such as entropiqteam or ogcs.
      Below we leave you the Twitter where ESL Counter-strike confirms all the teams participating in the play-in stage:
       
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      309 • 0

    • CSGO
      tRv56

      Vitality benches Shox

      tRv56

      The 29-year-old's time on the team comes to an end after over two years.
      Vitality have announced the departure of Richard "⁠shox⁠"Papillon from their roster, bringing an end to his lengthy tenure as a part of the team during which he won a handful of notable events, including EPICENTER 2019, IEM Beijing 2020 Europe, BLAST Premier Fall 2020, and IEM Winter 2021.
      This comes as a surprise, as Shox was one of the main players when Vitality was created years ago.

      With Liquid announcing that Michael "⁠Grim⁠" Wince, Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, and Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip are no longer on their starting lineup as of Tuesday and shox's departure from Vitality now being formalized, further announcements can be expected to follow in the near future.
      This is the tweet where the french team says goodbye to Shox:
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      265 • 0

    • CSGO
      tRv56

      s1mple: "Right now, I'd say we're in the NA'VI era"

      tRv56

      Four consecutive LAN victories and eight trophies overall in 2021 puts NAVI among the top teams in CS:GO history, s1mple says.
      Natus Vincere finished off 2021 with a bang, winning their fourth straight LAN event, including the PGL Major in Stockholm, to culminate a year that saw the CIS squad bag eight trophies. The year that will go down in the books as one of the most dominant individual performances by a single player, as Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev accrued eight MVP trophies, breaking the previous record of seven held by Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz.

      s1mple holding his record-breaking eighth MVP medal of 2021
      It wasn't easy for Natus Vincere to finish off 2021 with a victory, however, as right after traveling to Copenhagen for the BLAST World Final they lost their opening match to Liquid, slowly gaining steam in the lower bracket with victories over Heroic, G2, Liquid and Vitality, before a CIS clash against one of their main rivals early on in the year, Gambit.
      Following NAVI's grand final victory, we talked to the Ukrainian star about the team's feat as well as his own individual prowess in 2021 as he shared his views on the year as a whole, the tournament in Copenhagen and the grand final against Gambit, as well as what lies ahead for a team that has proven to be dominant like no other in the closing part of the year.
      *Article taken from: https://www.hltv.org/news/32998/s1mple-right-now-id-say-yes-were-in-the-navi-era
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      306 • 0

    • Blizzard
      vans

      Diablo IV - Quarterly Update (December 2021)

      vans

      Hello and welcome to the year-end Diablo IV Quarterly Update.
      We hope you enjoyed October's deep dive into sound design, the atmospheric ambient tracks, and peeking behind the scenes of how game sounds are made.
      Since our last blog, we've been hard at work adding new content and systems to the game. We’ve made big strides, with every build of the game containing a host of expanded content, new art, balance changes, and other iterations. In fact, the team is currently playtesting an internal release of the game that represents a significant milestone. We have much to share with you today as a result, so let's dive in.
      First, Lead Systems Designer Joe Piepiora will discuss updates to key elements of itemization. These include the return of +Skills on items, a new way to interact with legendary powers, and some early work on targeted drops. After that, grab a warm beverage and a comfortable chair as he walks us through Diablo IV's completely new end-game character growth system: the Paragon Board.
      Next, Lead Visual Effects Artist Daniel Briggs will describe the philosophy that allows our talented VFX team to create huge explosions and eye-popping skill effects while keeping the game clear and readable, even when there are many players and monsters on the screen at the same time. He'll also go into detail on how Diablo IV's new game engine has allowed us to make frame-by-frame combat more precise and nuanced, while leveling up our effects to take advantage of the new lighting system. Finally, feast your eyes upon a plethora of skills across all four announced classes that show off our skill-driven death system.
      We hope you enjoy this update and look forward to your thoughts and reactions. We'll be back in the new year and are ever grateful to have you with us on this journey.
      -Joe Shely,
      Game Director, Diablo IV
      Back to Top

      THE ITEMIZATION OF DIABLO IV
      Greetings, Heroes of Sanctuary!
      We are thrilled to once again dole out a whole heap of info on the state of systems and endgame in Diablo IV. I’m Joe Piepiora, the Lead Systems Designer, and today I’m going to share some details on two major features of Diablo IV: itemization updates and our plans for Paragon.
      +Skill Rank Affixes
      In Diablo IV, the +Skill Rank affix returns. As players invest points in skills, they grow in potency, and finding items with +Skill Rank can speed that along. As a bonus, when the player equips an item with +Skill Rank for a skill they haven’t learned, they will have access to that new ability. It’s a great way to try out new skills before you’re able to invest in them. Getting a lucky drop that nets you a skill you’d like for your build ten levels before you would otherwise have access to it is a huge boost!

      Legendary and Unique Items
      As Joe Shely discussed back in our December 2020 update, Legendary and Unique Items remain a core part of the Diablo item chase experience. We’ve made a foundational change to Legendary items in Diablo 4 by allowing legendary powers to appear on multiple item slots. Now, if you’re searching for a legendary power, like Martial Arts—which enhances the Barbarian’s kick ability—you may find it on rings, chestplates, or helmets; there’s no need to hunt for a specific item type any longer.
      Now, the real question is what happens when you find a power on an axe when you really wanted it on a ring? Or you found a great legendary amulet, but can’t use the power? Well, that is when we get to introduce our new friend, the Occultist.

      The Occultist can extract a legendary power from a Legendary item, crystallizing it into Essence while destroying the item in the process. That Essence can then be implanted into another Legendary item, overriding the power that was present in the item at that time. Essence material can also be stored and used at a later time.
      Unique Items cannot be modified in this way, keeping their fantasies intact—and as their name implies—unique.


      Hunting for Items
      Sanctuary is a vast world, filled with forlorn trails through werewolf-infested forests, withered heaths crawling with cannibals, and fog-choked graveyards crawling with the restless dead. There are plenty of enemies and monsters for the hero to encounter. Each of these monsters seem to enjoy collecting certain types of items and will be somewhat more likely to drop those items than others. While bandits are fond of Maces, Crossbows, and Boots, if you’re hunting for a new pair of Pants, you'd do well to kill some of the Drowned instead.
      In past discussions, we’ve received feedback that it seems deflating for so much of a character’s power to be delivered through the gear that they have equipped. Customizing and planning a character feels less rewarding if it doesn’t play a big role in how the character performs in combat. We hear you loud and clear, and in Diablo IV, we have placed a stronger emphasis on character power that is earned by all the little decisions you make while leveling up and exploring the world of Sanctuary. While we aren’t talking about everything we have planned for character power today, I’m happy to talk about one feature in particular, the Paragon Board.
      The Paragon Board
      In Diablo IV, we have placed a heavy emphasis on build customization, ensuring that you can have plenty of control over how your hero grows. The Paragon Board unlocks for each class at level 50 and is a distillation of this focus. Your hero begins their journey through the Paragon system at the central starting tile of their class’s intro board, and from there, you make selections radiating outward. Once your hero reaches a gate tile, you’ll choose which new paragon board you would like to attach to at that location. The desired outcome is a personalized set of bonuses that will empower your hero and honor your dedication to their progression, that will remain fun to tweak and adjust over many playthroughs.
      There is a lot to take in with the image below, so I’ll walk through some aspects of what we’re looking at here.

      The Paragon Board is comprised of many fixed tiles. As the Barbarian earns experience, they will earn Paragon points, which are used to unlock a connected tile. There are a few varieties of tiles that I want to walk through.
      Normal Tiles
      These tiles are straightforward, providing a small but meaningful stat boost. Normal Tiles are connective tissues that can be found throughout the board and are quite common.
      Magic Tiles
      Magic Tiles are found in clusters throughout the board and provide a potent, more diverse set of benefits. As you might expect, they are less common than Normal Tiles, but are still plentiful.
      Rare Tiles
      Rare Tiles offer significant boosts in power. Upon entering the Paragon Board for the first time, these represent great goals for players to chase, particularly once you’ve narrowed builds down towards highly specific goals. Rare Tiles also have additional powers that unlock once the hero has raised an attribute to a sufficient level, requiring some choices to be made when plotting your path through the board.
      Legendary Tile
      After the first Paragon Board, each new board has a single Legendary Tile that can be found at its center. Legendary Tiles impart a new Legendary Power to the character that earns it.

      Glyphs and Sockets
      A Socket is a special tile that can contain a Glyph. Glyphs are items found throughout Sanctuary that, when embedded into a Paragon Board, confer various benefits based upon the number of active tiles within their radius.
      Glyphs can also be leveled up by delving into some particularly dangerous dungeons. Leveling up a Glyph extends the radius of their effect, allowing each one to draw power from or impart power to even more active tiles.

      Gate Tiles and Board Selection
      A single Gate Tile lies at each edge of the Paragon Board. As you progress through the Paragon Board, you will eventually reach a Gate Tile, which upon unlocking will allow you to select a new Paragon Board to attach to your existing Board. Each of these boards has unique Tile layouts, new Magic and Rare Tiles, and a new Legendary Tile at the center.
      The Paragon Board is extended from these Gate Tiles. Upon selecting from the Paragon Board list, you will be able to place the board down, connecting it to the newly unlocked Gate Tile. You may also optionally rotate that newly placed board.

      We’re hard at work on these and other features that we’ll be able to share more about in future updates. Though for now that’s all from the systems team. Thanks for reading and please share any feedback you have on social media, Reddit, or our forums! We’ll see you in Hell!
      Back to Top

      VISUAL EFFECTS IN DIABLO IV
      Thanks for joining us! My name is Daniel Briggs, and I am the Lead Visual Effects Artist for Diablo IV. The VFX team gets to contribute to features across the entire game, but today we will focus on the work we do to support combat. VFX artists collaborate with designers and other art teams to create strong thematic identities for the hero classes and breathe life into monsters, in order to deliver the visceral, gruesome combat players have come to expect.
      VFX is an integral part of the combat experience for all Diablo games. With Diablo IV, we wanted to step up the fidelity of our effects using Physically Based Rendering (PBR), as well as better support the core pillars of gameplay: deep hero customization, itemization, and combat readability.
      Visual Effects - Philosophy
      Every effect plays a role in the final composition of our game. It is important to understand the context of an effect, and how it best serves your experience.
      One of our core values at Blizzard Entertainment is “Gameplay First,” and this drives a lot of the artistic decisions we make while developing visual effects for the game. Moment-to-moment gameplay is the focal point within the composition of Diablo IV: it should draw your attention. To achieve this, we must consider things like player skills, monster telegraphs, traps, damage areas, and character states. The visual effects for each of these components must be readable in all areas and lighting conditions, so you can quickly understand what is happening and use that information to make informed decisions.
      In the chaos of combat, you’ll need to be smart—seeing a Legendary item drop is exciting, but picking it up is not as important as reacting to a monster’s attack that can one-shot Hardcore characters! Our goal is to balance the primary, secondary, and tertiary reads to help you understand what is happening. To do this, we reserve visually loud FX for powerful skills, like ultimate abilities, while weaker skills meld into the background. Each class has abilities that range from low to high in costs, cooldowns, and power. In tandem, classes have a range of visual intensity that increases with skill power.
      Combat Improvements
      To enhance the feel of combat, we have made several improvements to the way damage is applied in our game. In previous iterations of Diablo, an area-of-effect (AOE) or melee skill would be a single area of damage that is applied on a single frame. Thanks to our gameplay engineers, we can now animate target areas (what we call payloads) over multiple frames, which allows us to line up the animated target areas with the animated VFX that play out.
      For example, Whirlwind in Diablo III is a cylinder shape surrounding your Barbarian, which applies damage every couple of frames at a rate based on your attack speed. In Diablo IV, Whirlwind is an animated pie shape that animates with your character. AOEs expand outward with time, and melee swings match the motion of your weapon. Animated target areas improve accuracy to the way we apply damage in Diablo IV; it makes combat feel more impactful, and monster ragdolls more visceral. Animated payloads also add a subtle timing aspect to a variety of skills.
      Additionally, we have revamped the way we apply hit effects to monsters, so impacts flow with the direction of a spell or melee attack. We use data defined in the animation and animated target area to find the most accurate place to hit a monster, and where to apply a directional physics force to the ragdoll. In so few words, if you hit a goat-man in the knee, the blood spray would come from his knee. The physics force applied to the goat-man’s knee would send it flying as if you kicked the legs out from under him.
      Visual Effects - Casting and Receiving Light
      In Diablo IV, we use a PBR (physically based rendering) lighting model, which means our materials look and react to light in a realistic way. This approach brings huge rendering improvements, but this can be counterintuitive to what a player might expect for class and monster abilities. As an example, think about what a campfire looks like in full daylight—pretty lackluster, right? Next, imagine what a dust cloud or smoke plume would look like in the dead of night—it'd be nearly impossible to see. To account for this, we’ve built an engine and shader library that lets us break PBR rulesets in artistic ways. This ensures important gameplay moments shine through as clearly as possible while keeping immersive elements full PBR so they can realistically react to lighting.
      Previous iterations of Diablo use primarily “unlit” particles, meaning they are not affected by the environment’s lighting. These particles give you amazing control over what the art will look like: what you paint is what you get. The downside to unlit particles is that art may look too bright in a dark dungeon, or VFX color schemes may not feel cohesive within every environment.
      In Diablo IV, we use lit VFX that meld into the environment’s lighting, creating a more immersive experience. Using Whirlwind as an example (seen in the video above)—in bright daylight, the blade reflects light from the sun. In a dark dungeon, it will reflect more subtle light sources, like torches. The dust kicked up by the skill is also lit by the environment, so it blends artfully into the world.
      If we rely solely on environment lighting and follow true PBR rules, then gameplay readability is muddied, particularly in dark environments where a weapon swing would naturally be hard to see. To counteract this, many VFX have emissivity to cast light onto the environment. Several ultimates in our game will even allow you to change the weather and lighting of the environment for a limited duration. We strive for a healthy balance of gameplay clarity and thematic immersion.
      Dynamic Player Skills
      At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the art looks like if the gameplay isn’t fun. One of the goals for creating player skills is to ensure that the System Design team has a variety of modifiers they can utilize to create meaningful skill trees, class mechanics, Legendary items, and Paragon Boards.
      Choices should affect more than your character’s stats. Once we have a class skill we are happy with, the VFX team adds the ability for developers to dynamically change the size, intensity, and duration of a skill. The visual intensity of a skill will increase as you stack upgrades and items that increase the power of that ability.
      In addition to these skill modifiers, we create variants of abilities that completely change the functionality of a skill or the damage type that it deals. These skill variants can be changed by the scale, intensity, and duration modifiers as well. This allows variants of skills to be affected by a wider range of legendary modifier groupings. Your skill tree/paragon decisions, along with the items you have equipped, will make your character look and play differently from other characters of the same class.
      Each of these ranges is handcrafted by an artist to ensure the art holds up at all supported sizes and intensities. We do not uniformly scale every piece of an effect when changing size and intensity; we modify things like spawn rate, velocity, emissivity, and color ranges to make certain the art still fits in the world of Diablo.
      We want your character to look incredible as well! Our items are built in a way that allows us to easily apply weapon buffs to any weapon in the game. Not only will your legendary items do awesome things, but they will make your character look amazing as well. Here is an example where we apply the same fire and poison buff to several weapons in our game.
      Skill Driven Deaths
      Sanctuary is a dark, gothic world filled with horrific monsters that do horrendous things. To survive in this bleak landscape, you must be merciless toward your enemies. We are bringing back a popular feature from Diablo III: skill-driven deaths. This system allows you to decapitate, bisect, freeze, shatter, eviscerate, and burn your enemies, to give a few examples.
      With our new PBR pipeline, we can make blood, viscera, and gore even more realistic by having it react properly to the lighting of an environment. Every monster is built with a skeletal and muscular structure used for killing them in brutal ways. If your character is in the thick of combat, they will be covered in the blood spatter of nearby monsters. Over time, your character’s armor will transition back to being spotless.
      The Sorceress studies the art of elemental magic. They slow enemies with cold before freezing them solid and shattering them to pieces. They strike their enemies with stunning bursts of lightning, causing bodies to pop and sizzle. Enemies collapse to the floor and char to the bone as the Sorceress engulfs foes in fire.


      Some examples of death types that Sorceresses can trigger:
      Freeze/Shatter - Break frozen monsters into pieces Char - Singe the corpse of a monster with lightning Burn – Scorch the monster’s flesh, leaving the remains of a charred skeleton The Barbarian takes pride in their physical capabilities. Their arsenal of weaponry makes them deadly in close combat. With the power of their ancient bloodline, Barbarians crush foes into piles of gore or send them flying across the battlefield. Their brute strength is equally matched by their speed and ferocity as they unleash fury on the battlefield, dismembering limbs from all that stand in their way.


      Some examples of death types that Barbarians can trigger:
      Crush – Flatten a monster under the weight of a heavy object Decapitate - Remove a monster’s head from its body Cut In Half - Sweet :) Break Lower Limbs- The monster’s lower body is shattered, splitting several of their joints The Rogue is dexterous; their attacks are methodical. Monsters are often oblivious to their presence until it is far too late. A precise stab from one of their daggers, or a well-placed arrow, is enough to bring most monsters to the floor. The Rogue finds the most opportune time to take on a fight, and they imbue weapons to gain an advantage. Shadow magic can make a superb distraction, but their shadow clones are as deadly as their blades.


      Some examples of death types that Rogues can trigger:
      Eviscerate – Spill the insides of a monster Shadow – Shadow energy deteriorates the life from a monster's flesh. Freeze/Shatter - Break frozen monsters into pieces Poison – The monster’s skin melts off leaving a heap of muscle and bone Flay – Flay the skin from an enemy, leaving the muscle structure intact The Druid is one with nature magic. They conjure storms and call down lightning on their enemies. They control the battlefield with gusts of wind as their animal companions tear the flesh from monsters. Druids manipulate the earth with nature magic, molding it to their will and bludgeoning enemies from afar. As their enemies approach, they see the innate power of the Druid, shapeshifting fluidly between an agile werewolf and a hulking werebear.


      Some examples of death types that Druids can trigger:
      Roadkill – The monster is crushed by a moving object, leaving a smear of blood on the ground Devoured– The monster's flesh is eaten away by a swarm of ferocious bites Lightning Gib – Lightning causes the monster’s body to pop, exploding into pieces Maul – The monster’s skin is completely mangled, covering them in blood That is everything we have to share with you today. It has been a dream to work on this franchise, and I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to share some of our development process with the community.
      Thank you for reading our last quarterly update blog for 2021. I hope you found it exciting and interesting. We are actively listening to your feedback, and we strive to make Diablo IV the dark, gothic game we all want to play. Please continue to share your thoughts and provide feedback on social media, Reddit, and our forums!
      *Article taken from: https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo4/23746639/diablo-iv-quarterly-update-december-2021#Joe
      Read more...

      310 • 0

    • Rust
      vans

      Egoland 2 - Confirmed to start 2022!

      vans

      Yes, this is it!
      Some of you might not know what Egoland is. Egoland was one of the most famous events, where over 100 famous spanish streamers were together in a single Rust server, and they played one against the other. They could team up (Maximum of 8 per team), and they had some guidelines per day, so they could advance at the same time (as you can imagine, Rust proffesional-streamers are also in, so to balance things).
      Egoland 2 was just confirmed a couple days ago by Alexby11. He is the one who created Egoland last year in January, and because of its popularity, it's time for the second part.

       
      Now this is a thing. We're all really excited for this to happen. Last year this event had a really nice numbers of viewers, and I'm sure that this second part will even have more people.
      The trailer is released in YouTube:
       
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      517 • 0

    • LoL
      vans

      Ibai Llanos and Piqué announced a new Esports Club: KOI

      vans

      Ibai Llanos and Piqué creates new Esports Club: KOI
      Yesterday, December 15th 2021, Ibai Llanos and Piqué did announce a new Esports Club, in the Palau Sant Jordi, which is located in Montjuïc, Barcelona. They did a live streaming in Ibai Llano's twitch, and they presented the following: Their new Esports Club, named KOI, two of their 'beta' team's T-shirt, their League Of Legends team, and also that they will participate in Valorant with a team that they will announce within the following weeks.
      They have also presented 12 streamers Content Creators which will be streaming under KOI team different kind of games and different content.
      KOI also presented four sponsors, which are: Finetwork, Disney+ , Cupra, Kelme. Fun fact: the previous house where Ibai and his previous team lived, has now been called "Disney+ House", and it will be used for the Esports club players to bootcamp in a daily basis.
       
      KOI League of Legends Team:

      KOI League of Legends team are the following:
      EU - SLT (Enzo Gonzalez) as Top Laner EU - Koldo (Luis Pérez) as Jungler EU - Hatrixx (Jørgen Elgåen) as Mid Laner EU - Rafitta (Rafa Ayllón Zapata) as Bot Laner EU - seaz (Daniel Binderhofer) as Support EU - Plasma (Pedro Simões Ribeiro) as Sub/Sup KOI did a matchup vs the famous French team "Karmine Korp", in which KOI won 2-1 in a really close match-ups to the french team. First match was a big come-back from KOI, and they could comeback to win the first match. The crowd on Palau Sant Jordi was crazy, as there also were French supporters of Karmine Korp.
      They will play in the tournament LVP (Spanish tournament) with the League of Legends team.
      Ibai Llanos and Piqué also announced that they will participate in the LVP tournament for a Valorant team, which they could not yet release any information as it's not confirmed, but they stated that within the following weeks they'll announce it.
       
      This is how the Team T-shirt looks like:

       
      Remember that these T-shirts are a simple BETA, which means that changes may appear in the brand's location, size, and also there might be more sponsors that joins the club within the following weeks.
      KOI CEO's stated that in mid-January they will have the final version of the T-shirts. If you purchase them now in https://www.kelme.com , they will have a 20% discount during today and tomorrow's day. People will receive the FINAL version of the shirt, and NOT current one.
       
      We're excited to see KOI in action. We will see what happens once the LVP season starts, as the team will have now a big work and a big challange to work with!
      Read more...

      407 • 0

    • Blizzard
      vans

      Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 2.4 | Coming Soon early this year!

      vans

      Greetings, Heroes of Sanctuary!
      Blizzard has announced that a Patch is under development, and it's inminent to its release. We're talking about Patch 2.4. Now, what's new on this patch? Well, there are absolutely great news, and I'm sure that Diablo players will love it.
      First Ladder Season
      Diablo II: Resurrected was launched with no Ladder season, as testing purposes. Blizzard has had many troubles with servers, few bugs, and long queues. All this needed to be fixed prior to releasing the Ladder Season, as it would make impossible for everyone to play properly. They said that their priority is that the Ladder has to be a smooth experience for all players.
      Blizzard has stated that the Ladder Season will be launched early next year.
      Diablo II Resurrected will have the following Ladder modes:
      Standard Ladder: The casual version of Ladder play that encompasses playing with four acts. Hardcore Ladder: The hardcore (only 1 life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing with four acts. Standard Expansion Ladder: The casual version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content. Hardcore Expansion Ladder: The hardcore (only 1 life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content. The duration of the Ladder climb is still not defined yet. Blizzard is thinking about it, and trying to find the best timeframe for Ladder rotation that meets our expectations. They will keep taking a look at our preferences, and they will finally state it with the new patch coming out earlier next year.

      New Ladder Runewords!
      What we thought it was impossible, turns out that they've made it! There are new Runewords, which there are not details yet, but Blizzard has stated:
      "For the first time, players will have the chance to unlock a host of new Rune Words in the Ladder system! To be clear, these Rune Words have never existed in the game before, and they will not be accessible in non-Ladder play like the previous set of Ladder-only Rune Words in the original Diablo II experience. At the end of a Ladder season, players who successfully made these Rune Words will have their Ladder characters be moved into a “non-Ladder” version of the game. Then at the beginning of the next Ladder season, players will make a new Ladder character and start all over again to earn new rewards. Currently, we don’t have specific new Rune Words to showcase, but if you tune-in to our Developer Update Stream (more details below) hosted by content creator MrLlamaSC, you’ll be able to receive a glimpse!"
      Class Balance Changes
      After many requests from the community, Blizzard has stated that they will do some class balance changes to find new ways to play within the characters. One fun fact: this is funny, as the last patch to make balance changes to classes in Diablo II Legacy was Patch 1.13c, which was released on March 23, 2010 (maybe the new patch will be around same date?). Here we have all characters:
       
      Amazon:

      The Amazon's agility and versatility are profound. Generally, we like the current state of the Amazon class and believe her to be quite balanced. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve the Amazon's melee skills. We want to buff the strengths of certain underused melee skills such as Impale and Fend to give more reasons to use them. We are also looking into freeing up synergy requirements for melee skills to give more skill point freedom for other possibilities.
      Additionally, we are also considering buffing certain skills in the Bow and Crossbow tree to help improve bow gameplay in higher difficulties.
       
      Assasin:

      The Assassin vanquishes evil from the darkness with great ease. However, for this class, we see an opportunity for the Martial Arts builds to shine brighter. Martial Arts skills can become increasingly challenging to perform in higher difficulties, so we are re-evaluating how to improve generating and spending Combo Points.
      Furthermore, various Trap skills are not often used. So, we’re re-evaluating synergy requirements to promote more trap builds and damage scaling buffs.
       
      Barbarian:

      The brawn of the Barbarian is unmatched. Nonetheless, we see opportunities to add more diversity to Combat skills. We're looking into adding more possibilities with Combat Skills such as Leap Attack and Grim Ward, while also re-evaluating skill synergy requirements to promote more reasons to spend points on certain Combat Skills.
      Additionally, we think Throwing Barbarians can be more viable, so we are looking into enhancing the Double Throw and Throwing Mastery skills.
       
      Druid:

      The bestial ferocity of the Druid makes all tremble. With that said, we see exciting opportunities to level up certain aspects of this class. From our perspective, Druid Fire skills are underperforming. We're re-evaluating Casting Delays for Fire skills, exploring improvements to some of their Physical Damage components, and improving synergies. We’re also looking at potential tweaks affecting other Elemental skills that are underused. We want to improve the controls for Arctic Blast too, such as allowing more free form while channeling and no longer locking your targeting onto one enemy at a time.
      Regarding Summon skills, we believe Summons are weak in high difficulty. On this front, we’re evaluating health gains per level, quality-of-life improvements, damage output, and new synergies for Ravens, Wolves, and Vines.
      Lastly, we're evaluating improvements to the Werebear skills, primarily focused on synergy improvements.
       
      Necromancer:

      The commander of death sends his foes to an early grave. Like the Amazon, we like the current state of the Necromancer class. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve specific Summons we believe are underused. We're balancing elemental damages of Skeletal Mages and making lesser used Golems more effective.
      Additionally, we see opportunities for Bone skill improvements in high difficulty. We’re tweaking synergies on this front.
       
      Paladin:

      The wrath of the holy zealot is glorious. Despite this, we believe certain Combat skills are underused. We’re exploring ways to make lesser-used skills (I.e., Fist of the Heavens) more utilized, so players have more reasons to spend skill points to unlock these skills. 
      We also see an opportunity to scale Offensive Aura skills as well. This includes making improvements to AoE Damage auras to make them more effective at closer range. We also want to improve Thorns so that it can scale better and deal more reliable damage at higher levels. 
       
      Sorceress:

      There is no greater master of elemental magic than these mages. We're very satisfied with the Sorceress’s current state, but we see a few of opportunities for improvements. 
      Regarding Cold Skills, we believe there can be more diversity with the armor skills (I.e., Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, and Chilling Armor) for distinctive advantages.
      We are also looking into adding more build possibilities around lesser used Lightning skills by exploring more skill synergies.
      Lastly, we’re also revisiting Fire skills, to improve underused ones, like Hydra. Similar to Arctic Blast, we're exploring making player control improvements to the Inferno skill so that it is less clunky to use.
       
      Mercenary Changes & New Rune Words
      And we’re not done. Class Balance changes aren’t the only updates players want to see. We’ve seen a lot of feedback from the community around the subject of Mercenaries, and we are making improvements to Mercenaries in a variety of ways. Many players enjoy using the Desert Mercenary, and we want to give more reasons to use the other three mercenaries, so we are looking into improving their skills and stats to enhance their identity and fantasy.
      New Horadric Cube Recipes, Set Item changes, and new Rune Words are on the horizon! New Horadric Cube Recipes being implemented will allow for upgrading the item quality of Set Items to give more item build possibilities. Set Item changes will update underperforming Set Items, to have more bonuses, giving players more incentive to pursue Partial and Full set items that can complement the skill changes alluded above. Lastly, new Rune Words will be added to complement the Skill and Mercenary changes coming in the update.
       
      Developer Update Stream
      Everything we've explained in this article will be explained by the community content creator, MrLlamaSc, Diablo II: Resurrected Design Lead, Robert Gallerani, and Senior Game Producer, Matthew Cederquist, in their upcoming livestream.
      This stream will be scheduled for today, December 16th 2021, at 11:00 AM PST (8 PM CEST) in: https://www.twitch.tv/mrllamasc
       

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