Interesting tease from Grimiku in a forum post today, when asked about increasing experience rewards in Diablo 3 Multiplayer games.
[blue]I know this hasn’t been announced, but i’m pretty sure i’m getting about 1.5x more XP in Public games. The bar seems to be filling way faster.
Grimiku: There haven’t been any changes to the amount of experience you gain while in a multiplayer game yet, but this week we’ll have some interesting updates on that subject. Maybe they’ll be the sort of updates you can read about, and even test before they go live.[source]http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/8517952614[/source][/blue]
I added underline for emphasis, since he seems to be saying we’ll get a v1.08 preview this week, and it will include a previously-unannounced buff to experience gains in party games. That would be a great change, IMHO, and one that’s long overdue. After all, bigger exp bonuses (along with more item drops) were one of the main reasons to play party games in D2.
Those benefits were eventually made player-selectable via the [d2w]Players X[/d2w] command, but in D2 that option merely replicated the effect of more players in the game. D3’s [wiki]Monster Power[/wiki] system is a much more complicated and feature-rich version of Players X, as it boosts experience per kill (along with Magic Find, Gold Find, and monster damage & hit points). You can enable MP values in party game, but nothing in D3 (thus far) provides additional bonuses to experience gain (item quality/drop rates or )in party games. Sounds like that’s about to change.
While we’re quoting forum posts that make accusations of stealth hotfixes, check this one out:
[blue]Dear Blizzard: please stop ninja buffing monsters
So I have died at least 10 times in the same area I always play in. Assassins Vault, MP8. No changed on my end, but I die over and over again. At least tell us when you are buffing elites.
Grimiku: We haven’t made any changes to monster damage. Alterations to monsters are usually saved for a patch or hotfix, and we’ll document those changes in the patch notes or hotfix blogs.
Personally, I run the Vault of the Assassin for Nephalem Valor stacks quite often while hunting the keywarden in Act II. Most of those runs go without a hitch, but that place has some really spikey damage, and a bad string of luck will leave me with a much higher death count than I’m used to. I like that it keeps me on my toes, though.[source]http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/8518012496#9[/source][/blue]
Elsewhere, the final Blue post of the day answered a quick question about dyes for Legendary items:
[blue]Vaeflare: Dyes for Legendaries are still being worked on, but they will not be coming with patch 1.0.8. As I mentioned previously, our artists actually have to go back and redo the textures on all the Legendaries in order to make them dye-compatible, which is why it isn’t a quick-fix.[source]http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/8518532694[/source][/blue]