14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard has just rolled out a brand new hot fix update for Diablo 3, increasing the chance of legendary loot in Nephalem Rifts, as well as tweaking the drop rates for items from chests, unique monsters, or from the merchant Kadala.
Diablo 3 received a huge overhaul of its loot system in the form of patch 2.0.1 earlier this year and, soon after, the Reaper of Souls expansion made its debut worldwide for PC and Mac.
Now, a few days after update 2.0.4 went live on the Battle.net online service, Blizzard has confirmed on its forums that it's just rolled out on the game's servers a fresh hotfix.
The new update doesn't require a download from players, as it will automatically be read by the game on the official servers.
Blizzard has targeted specific loot issues with the patch, concerning unique monsters, chests, Nephalem Rifts, or Kadala.
First up, the biggest change is happening to Nephalem Rifts, which, in Blizzard's opinion, should be the most efficient play method in the game, but aren’t exactly living up to that goal due to several reasons.
"Part of this has to do with the high level of efficiency in farming that players find doing things like farming Manglemaw, Razorclaw and any other number of unique monsters. Another contributing element is that farming chests without having to actually fight monsters is far more effective than actually fighting the monsters. It is very important to us that chests are exciting to find and feel rewarding but presently they are far too common and reliable to farm in certain areas of the game," the studio said.
As such, a few changes are now live for Diablo 3 players in the America and Europe regions, and will soon go live in Asia.
First up, unique monsters will now drop less items, especially on lower difficulties.
Chests will be less frequently spawned but they'll still deliver a good amount of loot when they're found by players.
In Nephalem Rifts, the legendary drop rate has been increased from 25% to 100%, which means way more great gear dropping from monsters inside these challenge zones. Blizzard also warns that, if you open bounty bags in rifts, the new bonus will not be applied.
Kadala, the merchant who deals in blood shards, has also seen her legendary drop rate "significantly increased," meaning there's a bigger incentive to try and win gear from her.
Expect to see more tweaks to the loot system in Diablo 3 in the near future, as Blizzard is constantly monitoring the game.