Diablo 3: Blizzard Adds Bug Fixes

Blizzard has added a number of bug fixes to Diablo 3 to address various service issues affecting the game.

The first major change fixes "even more game and service crashes", while another update targets a specific bug that allowed players to earn additional stacks of Nephalem Valor or guaranteed item drops.

Players were able to boost their rewards by killing multiple monsters simultaneously in the same Champion or Rare packs, which contain very hard collections of opponents.

The changes have been made using a hotfix, where Blizzard automatically updates the software on its servers rather than requiring users to download a new patch.

Some of the hotfixes go live the moment they are implemented, while others require a user's realm to be restarted to go into effect.

Blizzard has also asked users to provide feedback on the Magic Find feature in the game.

Magic Find increases the odds that items dropped by monsters or found in the game will be "higher quality" and are more likely to be magical, rare or legendary.

A tactic has been identified by Blizzard where players keep a Magic Find item in their inventory and swap to that just before they kill a major monster to try and make it drop a better quality reward.

"Philosophically we don't have a problem with the practice," Blizzard said on its official Diablo 3 blog. "While players getting more Magic Find for their kills is not a game breaker for us, many players have said they don't enjoy doing it but feel the benefit is too large to ignore."

To find a solution to the problem the company has proposed five options that it wants gamers to decide on.

They include: setting a Magic Find cap; slowly adjusting Magic Find over time so it doesn't immediately increase when you swap to an item; using a player's average percentage or their lowest Magic Find from the last five minutes; setting Magic Find to zero for three minutes after an item swap; or knocking off a stack of Nephalem Valor when swapping gear.

Blizzard said its staff are currently having their own discussions and tests of how well these options would work but opened the discussion up to its players.

"We're interested to hear your thoughts. We'd mainly like to hear which approaches you like, if there are any specifics you like or don't like about it and why. Having the context of how this affects you personally really helps us," the blog post said.

Feedback can be posted in a dedicated thread at the Diablo 3 forums.