Supporter newsletter 55

Issue
This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #55, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hello Supporters,

The Sacrifice of the Vaal mini-expansion was released last week.

I am excited that it is out now. One of the reasons for being excited about it, is that I can finally mention it in more detail in the newsletter!

The mini-expansion was a pleasure to work on, even with the very tight time we had to create it, with a lot of time being taken up by Christmas and post-release tasks.

The expansion content was very much driven by its core themes. As well as presenting more information about the Vaal civilisation and Queen Atziri, the themes of sacrifice and corruption drove a lot of the creativity.

Having these keywords worked very well at every step of the design. In fact, the theming was so strong that even in the last week when we should only have been focusing on getting what was planned done, people were still coming up with new ideas that were too cool not to include.

The founders, Chris, Erik and Jonathan were very heavily involved, not just in their core roles, but also as designers.

Erik drove the aesthetic of the Atziri fight, as well as lore, art direction and side areas. A lot of Chris’ design focused on the Ambush league, which is something he has been planning for some time (under the codename Operation Rhoabeak). Jonathan was focused mostly on the Vaal skills. It was great to see them focused on the core of the game, and getting to see what it would have been like when it was just the three of them working on the game.

As well as the founders, game design elements came from the artists, programmers, the designers and QA. I hope you all enjoy playing this season as much as we enjoyed making it.

-- Carl

Unique & Design Info

Rory here, back from my honeymoon and mostly recovered now.

I’m finally able to start work on supporter uniques again, and there is a huge backlog of emails from supporters. We’ll be starting Nick out by communicating with a few supporters as well, which hopefully evolves into both Nick and myself working on supporter uniques. We’ve got a large number close to completion for upcoming patches, some which have already been delayed from 1.1.0 because they needed a little more attention than we were able to give at the time!

Insider Info

This week, Rory’s going to give an example of enforcing elegance in design, something that came up while working on uniques for 1.1.0. We’ve talked about simplicity in item design before, but it’s worth reiterating and giving a specific example.

These boots were to be one of the most valuable drops from Atziri. I decided on a pair of Evasion/Dodge based boots, as other playstyles and slots were represented elsewhere in the 1.1.0 unique set.

This is the original stat list for the boots:


 * 180% increased Evasion Rating
 * 8% Attack Dodge Chance
 * 5% Spell Dodge Chance
 * When hit, 25% chance to dodge fatal Damage
 * 50-65 Life
 * 30% Movement Speed

It became clear we didn’t have time for a dangerous stat like this that didn’t have a strong impact on play - Here, the stat was only a flavourful and eye catching bonus, as it wouldn’t be noticable when it occurred or happen that frequently in the life of a character. We decided to remove the chance to dodge fatal damage, and not replace it with another complex mechanic. Stat wise, even without this mechanic, the item was still powerful and desirable, with an inherent cost of not having the resists players desired. As such, it was definitely very desirable, but not always superior to a rare.


 * 180% increased Evasion Rating
 * 8% Attack Dodge Chance
 * 5% Spell Dodge Chance
 * 55-75 Life
 * 30% Movement Speed

Though the item remained powerful, it had lost some of what had made it special and memorable. It had become a baby acrobatics, rather than a strongly themed “Dodge everything, even death itself”. Rather than adding more mechanics, the solution was to simplify and improve the bonuses it had - I removed the Dodge (Which was already a stat that could be found in another form on a unique pair of boots) and improved only the Spell Dodge Chance (A very impactful stat, as it was previously available from only one source, Phase Acrobatics). This will be one of the only, if not the only, item to have Spell Dodge Chance on it, as it’s a stat that is very dangerous at high numbers, and is very powerful against many bosses.


 * 180% increased Evasion Rating
 * 14-16% Spell Dodge Chance
 * 55-75 Life
 * 30% Movement Speed

The result is considered very desirable, is easy for a player to understand and was very quick to implement. It’s always worth considering when designing an item what stats are the focus and which are just fluff or flavour, and whether having less on an item will give you a more powerful result. It’s worth noting that because the item is from Atziri, it can be slightly more powerful than most supporter uniques.