RT @ohmygrace: When you name your dog after a video game character and then realize if he gets lost nobody is going to know how to say his…

Noted!

A tetrahedron.

The #1 recommend skill for any community manager is knowing how to handle, sort, and parse feedback. That means letting salt roll of your back and sifting through frustrations to get at the golden feedback that lays below. ;)

I've had a few years to hone this skill. So don't worry about me. <3 I do what I do for people like you; those who are just as willing to take the time to let us know how we're doing when it's good as when it's not. Ultimately, people comment (negatively or positively) because they care. And the people who take the time to be constructive about it? Well, that takes more time and effort to do, and we really appreciate that.

Okay, Veruca. ;P

JesusSaves:

Nev, Please tell us you’re reading this

Yep. I keep checking in.

Alexismad:

something is wrong they don’t have to deal with it until Monday.

I personally hate doing this. It just makes me anxious all weekend. Sometimes we have to publish on a Friday if that’s how the schedule works out, but I much prefer publishing during the week in case of typos that missed the editing process or if there are opportunities to discuss the blog content with the community.

Either way, it’s on its way. Just had some other things to talk about today.

Nope. Completely new sets, including art, for each class.

New mostly means new powers, not necessarily completely constructed from the ground up. We definitely have some "disappointment offenders" in the list of items to review for this purpose.

For now. Not by the end of the week. :)

Boubou:

@Blizzard : please pin this conversation so we don’t need to bump it every 2 days or so !!! TY !!!

Done.

Thanks for putting this together, Dragonmaster, and for everyone who’s contributing!

Here's an update on our ongoing development efforts with Diablo III. 🖤 Read: https://t.co/LYcyOBLIxu https://t.co/uD4z0k6iM7

Whether your personal journey with Diablo III began today or nearly seven years ago upon our launch, we want to give you an update on our ongoing development efforts with the game. Here’s what you can expect going forward from Seasons and patches.

Ongoing Content & Seasons

Beginning with Season 14, we introduced Themed Seasons. The goal was simple: change the expected gameplay loop and create unique experiences from Season to Season. Whether mixing up where the most rewarding gameplay lives or altering the source of your character’s most potent legendary powers, we want to continue to explore new and exciting ways to change how you play Diablo III.

Since the addition of themed Seasons, Season 16 was one of the most popular Seasons overall, with Season 17 showing similar participation. On PC alone, we saw nearly as many people return for Season 16 as Season 11, the first Season in which the Necromancer was available. We've heard your feedback about wanting new ways to play and to change up your gameplay experience. Based on your positive feedback and increased participation in Themed Seasons, we think we are moving in the right direction. Continue to let us know how we can make your adventures even better!

Our crew is hard at work crafting additional Themed Seasons, a new set for each class, dozens of Legendary powers, and some class balance changes. Quality of life and the occasional gameplay system updates are also within scope, as we evaluate how we can keep bringing new magic to the world of Sanctuary. These updates won’t arrive all at once, so if you don’t see something for your class right away, don’t worry; there’s something coming for everyone.

PTR and Feedback

For Season 16, we tried a new approach to launching and executing a PTR. With only one week of public testing, patch notes were provided in advance and a follow-up preview into the final changes was posted before the patch went live.

This approach was highly successful. In the past, we would lose a lot of development potential to deploying additional PTR builds for incremental changes and, consequently, increase the amount of time it would take to deploy on our various supported platforms. PTR participation drops extremely rapidly after the first week, as does the amount of data and feedback, so we plan to continue to use this condensed PTR format going forward.

We also want to better highlight the changes made as a direct result of feedback. Not all changes happen because of PTR testing. Occasionally it’s from an amazing forum thread we read mid-season and have worked on (and tested internally) for several weeks in advance. Sometimes that “simple” quality of life request winds up being more complex than anticipated and gets punted to a future patch or cannot be implemented at all without unforeseen consequences. Other times someone swung by a designer’s desk at work and a brainstorm happened while they swapped tales about their Season Journey.

While one source isn’t always the reason behind a change we’ve made, we’re going to do our best to call out great feedback when it’s given, as well as further emphasize design intent and inspiration (when applicable) to changes in future patch notes. One thing is certain: we greatly appreciate the feedback and ask that you keep it coming, because inspiration comes from all places.

Being Clear, Being Communicative

One thing we’ve been asked for is to clarify what our plans are, what (exactly) we’re working on, and where the future will take us. This blog is one of our first steps. More frequent presence and interaction from our community team on our new forums, especially around patches and PTR cycles, is another. We want to be able to talk and interact with members of our community around the world on a regular basis about the thing we love that brings us together: Diablo.

We hope we’ve provided you a better idea of where we’re at with Diablo III. In the meantime, we want Sanctuary to feel like home to all heroes, so you can return whenever you have the itch to slay monsters, don powerful Legendaries, and always find something a little new.

RT @pratmakerskan: I wish I could quit you! (but not really) Years of glorious fun, thank you! 🥳🤓 #Diablo3 #Blizzard @Blizzard_Ent @Diablo…

RT @bigbobaz: I just witnessed greatness as @ThatsLeviathan hit 3000 paragon in SSF HC!!!! @Diablo @TheChatGem what an incredible feat!!!!…

RUNtoFUN:

-haters simply have to flag a few times on any content, and their enemies thread is gone.

I mean, that’s now how this works. The flags simply alert the moderation team (and other employees, like myself) to take a look into a thread. Whether it gets removed or not isn’t automated; manual review from a human being happens first.

This has been mentioned, but we don’t permit discussion of moderation on these forums. If you have concerns, you are welcome to discuss them with our Support team through the appropriate channels, per our Forum Guidelines.

Without delving hugely into it, I'd like to recommend you check out Storm of Light by Nate Kenyon. It covers the events between Diablo III and Reaper of Souls and you get some perspective on what being the Aspect of Wisdom means through Tyrael's eyes (after he takes up the mantle at the end of D3).

It's not wholly unmaddening, and Tyrael spends a fair amount of the story attempting to piece together Malthael's thoughts and motivations behind his disappearance. Probably my personal favorite of the Diablo novels.

Hey all! Been doing some digging on this and we did discover there was a brief issue. It should now be resolved. Thanks for the reports (and your ever-appreciated patience)!

DogBone:

They will be available Soon™

Accurate.

I have two blogs in the works. As soon as they’re ready, they’ll be posted. Just keep an eye on the front page and social media.

That's some pretty significant engineering work. I'd probably put it as unlikely, but it's certainly a QoL request we've seen a lot.