Season 20 in Diablo 3 introduces a new mechanic that is active throughout the entire season. Players are demanding that it stays permanently. However, Blizzard explains why that isn’t possible.
What is this mechanic? As a special gimmick for Season 20 in Diablo 3, Blizzard allows all seasonal characters to utilize Kanai’s Cube as they see fit.
This Kanai’s Cube is an item in the game that grants characters legendary properties extracted from weapons, armor, or jewelry. Normally, the cube is designed so that only
- one weapon property
- one armor property
- one jewelry property
can be equipped at the same time. However, the new mechanic in Season 20 allows the 3 slots to be filled with weapons, armor, or jewelry in any combination. For example, there can then be room for 3 legendary weapon properties that the cube passively grants to players simultaneously.
Why is this so popular? By removing these restrictions, there will be many more options for players’ builds. We believe that Season 20 will likely change every build in Diablo 3.
Players have long wished for this change to Kanai’s Cube. Accordingly, the mood in the community was very positive when Blizzard announced this for S20.
“I love the theme. It’s going to be fun to go crazy with every build for 3 months,” writes a player.
On our site MeinMMO, Ardyn writes, “The first theme that really interests one. WoW”
On Reddit it even goes so far that a player wishes: “I really hope that removing the item class restrictions in Kanai’s Cube becomes permanent.” But Blizzard explains what the problem is.
What does Blizzard say about this? In the comments on Reddit, community manager Nevalistis responded to the player’s wish. She writes:
I have said this pretty much every season we’ve added a new mechanic, but whenever I see this feedback (and we’ve seen it for almost every seasonal theme), it means we probably did a good job with the seasonal theme. 🙂 We want them to be compelling and different and to change the way you play. It should be exciting!
But, and I think this is very easy to accept, making something crazy and powerful permanent tends to have a negative effect in the long run. Such a change could make the current playstyles that are fun obsolete, and too strong a combination could actually limit the variety of builds we are trying to expand with our other efforts.
We are still actively working on balance (slowly, I admit, but surely). There will likely be more than one ridiculous combination, some of which we probably won’t see until during the season; people are infinitely creative, and there are a lot more of you than us.
Playing around with extreme power changes is fine as long as it’s only temporary. But transitioning into the broader game is much harder to roll back even if it ultimately causes harm.
People generally don’t like to be nerfed, no matter how good it may be for the game. That’s why we are very selective about such changes when they become necessary and provide them with as thorough an explanation as possible.
While it’s not impossible, if it doesn’t get nearly as crazy as we imagine, it’s a pretty big risk. And I don’t think it’s likely that we will introduce this particular change permanently.
Source: Nevalistis on Reddit
A player responds that Blizzard doesn’t really know whether something crazy and powerful would actually have a negative effect permanently because that has never happened in Diablo 3.
Nevalistis responds that Diablo 3 actually made a seasonal bonus permanent when they incorporated the Legacy of Dreams gem into the game. That was a direct consequence of how well the seasonal theme resonated with players.
In general, Blizzard is not against the idea of permanently incorporating a theme if it is well received. However, ultimately, it should be a positive effect with little risk that is worth the resources to implement.
Further insights into the future of patches in Diablo 3 were recently shared by Blizzard.
