Supporter newsletter 54

Supporter Newsletters
← #53 February 23, 2014	Issue #54 Published March 2, 2014	#55 → March 9, 2014

Issue

This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #54, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hello Supporters,

This week is full-on getting the finishing touches on the Sacrifice of the Vaal expansion, so this will be a short newsletter.

Unique Design Process (and Insider Info)

There is a new sequence of quivers for the new challenge leagues. We are adding a number of new quiver unique items to go with the new sequence. Two of these will be ready for 1.1.0, but there are two role filling quivers that won’t be ready for 1.1.0, and will appear in a future patch.

These quivers fill specific roles, and I want to show you some of the early design plans. First there is an early game quiver to provide Dexterity and to support off-stat archers. This is intended to fill a similar role as the old Light Quiver.

This quiver was designed by our new designer, Nick, and an early iteration looks something like this:

DEX Quiver [Journeyman’s Kit] Blunt Arrow Quiver (level 16, ~34% Stun Duration on enemies) +35-45 Dexterity +15-25 Strength +15-25 Intelligence +5-10% Attack Speed +10% Area of Effect radius

As it being made to fulfil a specific purpose, you can see it has not had a lot effort put into flavour yet. All the initial work has been put into making the quiver fit for the purpose of supporting bow use for non-Dexterity classes. The Area of Effect bonus is something that you would not get on a quiver, and supports the bow builds players use.

Rory was tasked with making sure there was a quiver that supports CI bow users. He also took the approach of focussing on what supports these builds:

CI Quiver Serrated Arrow Quiver Critical Strikes trigger Energy Shield Recovery +120 Energy Shield 30 Dexterity x-y Added Chaos Damage 8-12% increased Attack Speed 8-12% increased Cast Speed Wow. Much Chaos. So Resist. Very Recover. - Shibinu, The Doge of Sarn

Here the name and flavour text is not useful for providing flavour yet. This focuses on one new and powerful mod. It is a scary enough mod from a balance perspective that it will require a lot of testing, but it certainly enables the CI bow wielder.

Both these items are likely to have a lot of changes, but I thought you might want an insider’s view of what the very early steps of a unique design looks like.