Median XL - Version Log

Median XL 2017

- Patch 1.1.3 -

General

MAIN

All realm uniques, runewords, sets and cornerstones of the world are now available on Single Player
Reduced the size of the Kurast Docks and moved the NPCs closer together
New item: Greater Signet of Experience (old one renamed to Large) - gives 7500 experience per clvl and drops in the Torajan Jungles
Thorn Strike: no longer has next delay, weapon damage increased to 75%
Treewarden: big hand attack max fpa reduced to 7
Divine Judgment: damage is now spread more evenly across the duration of the skill. Total number of hits reduced by 20%
Symbol of Esu: now restores a percentage of maximum life, rather than a flat amount. Fixed bugs
Shuriken flurry: removed next delay
Lemures: no longer have next delay
Sorceress Melee skills may now be used with Orbs

ENDGAME QUESTS

Teganze: increased density and respawn rate, all spirits can drop all essences and added champions with boosted drop rates
Torajan Jungles: increased density and drops, reworked sig bias, will drop all signets in the game now, increased experience gain
Toraja: monsters can now drop the Edyrem Key, which can be used to create a portal to Toraja
Ruins of Ureh: added more obvious clues to find the Kingdom of Shadow, fixed palettes
Caldeum: removed waypoint to avoid confusion, added Dimensional Sanctum on minimap, no longer leads to the Desolate Road
World Nexus: now located at the end of the Desolate Road, instead of Kingdom of Shadow turrets
Lord Aldric Jitan: has 100% charm drop chance, increased health, minions no longer have shield aura
Eve of Destruction: Baal will no longer spawn minions on Terror difficulty
Minigames: removed dogmas (now drop in Torajan Jungles)
Improved the drop rates of Xazax, Kabraxis, Zorun Tzin, Uldyssian and Athulua

BUGFIXES

Great runes will no longer drop on Terror difficulty
Fixed the randomly generated names for rare items
Into The Void oskill now works under baneblade skill
Monsters in the Torajan Jungles and Teganze no longer disappear
Fixed minotaurs in glacial trail having FPBE name
Fixed the drops of multiple superuniques and preset monsters
Terror diablo should now always drop the Scroll of Fear
Reduced drops from Tal Rasha and King Koth as they could be abused
Increased light in the Web of Deceit stage
Fixed Valthek's resistances
Fixed descriptions of Wildfire, Poison Flash and Quillstorm
Might have fixed #1336 errors, please report if they continue

Median XL 2017

- Patch 1.1 -

GENERAL

M17 CORE

Character corpses now spawn in town after death (and you cannot have more than one corpse)
Monsters in Hatred difficulty now use area level, just like they do on Terror and Destruction
Increased range of gold auto-pickup
New functionality that enables us to create Red Portals to quests

LEVELS REWORK [+]

The levels rework consists of giving each endgame quest its own location and keeping it lore appropriate. Previously it didn't make sense to, for example, be walking in a cave and entering a hole that somehow becomes a cathedral. Additionally, Median is loyal to the Diablo lore and the locations of many bosses were not accurate. Many of you might find the storyline to be an irrelevant aspect of the gameplay, but the reality is that it adds a lot to the experience and makes the game more immersive by giving a meaning to the content that you play. It also makes Median feel more like an Expansion rather than "a mod where the devs decided to put a whole city inside a Crypt".

This rework also resolved the "all ubers in your face" issue. Previously it felt like you were trapped in the original storyline, and whenever you put a foot inside a non-quest location hundreds of overpowered monsters would instantly wreck you. Now a lot of the endgame areas have been pushed away and made less invasive and many of the side areas of the original game have been restored. Currently these areas are places where you can find many elite monsters. We will look into making these areas more unique in future patches, while still keeping them as optional content. These are the areas that have been re-introduced thanks to this rework:
Crypt
Mausoleum
Hole Level 2
Underground Passage Level 2
Tower Cellar Level 4
Ancient Tunnels
Arachnid Lair (location swapped with spider cavern)
Ruined Fane
Forgotten Temple
Pit of Acheron
Abaddon

Two brand new major areas are the Torajan Jungles and Caldeum. These are as close as it gets to having new acts. Combined, these alone host over 14 endgame quests.

Dark Summoning is a really clever feature that allowed us to add new content to the game by reusing existing areas. However it has some major flaws. You can just spawn a hundred minions and precast many spells before you summon so the spawned monsters wouldn't stand a chance. Thus most of the fun and challenge in these quests would be lost. The same goes for Heroic bosses who additionaly had a long and arduous spawning process. For these reasons it must go. The levels rework is not yet finished, but you can expect that Dark Summoning will not exist anymore after patch 1.2.

With these two types of quests being replaced the endgame scheme had to be revamped as well. Endgame quests are now organized by their location on the two continents of Sanctuary: the Western Kingdoms (Acts 1, 2 and 5) and Kehjistan (Act 3), and the Wastelands which are not part of the mortal realm, are usually accessed unconventionally and contain some of the hardest challenges in the game. The functional aspect of the new scheme is based on proximity, which will allow players to connect ubers with each other and remember their locations more easily.

DROPS REWORK [+]

NoDrop Rework: player count will have a greater effect on NoDrop reduction, which means more drops the more the players
Superunique monsters (for example: Griswold, Lachdanan) will now have much better drops
Yshari Sanctum and Bastion of the Triune now have new drop tables on all difficulties
Some bosses, such as Kabraxis and Uldyssian, will now only drop Sacred items (in addition to their main reward)
Teganze, The Void and Toraja now have new drop tables on Hatred and Terror difficulties
New arcane crystal/shard drop bias for all Prime Evils (after Hatred Diablo)

Fixed a major Diablo II bug that caused TC (Treasure Class) groups to not work in Hatred difficulty. What these groups do is assign the proper TC to a monster based on their level. This bug is the reason why for example, you wouldn't find a rune higher than Dol (31) on Hatred, even though Slain Souls were level 95. With this rework, you may now find up to tier 5 items on Hatred, as well as better runes - up to Um (47). This fixes the massive drops gap between Hatred and Terror. Hatred uber drops will now also be improved thanks to this change, however the qlvl (Quality Level) of items was capped at 60 to match regular areas.

QLVL Rework: bottom line - the higher the qlvl, the rarer the item. There were multiple issues, for example, a Gothic Plate was twice more common than a Studded Leather which did not make any sense. And some items, such as Naginatas or Ancient Armors, were extremely rare outside of Duncraig. These two charts will display the exact changes, and the flaws with the old settings:

1.0 World Drops vs 1.1 World Drops

Duncraig: the "Sacred Bias" has been reworked. This wasn't a proper sacred bias, instead, it was a "bias for items with high qlvl". This bias caused Duncraig to monopolize the drop rates because high qlvl items such as Ancient Armor or Naginata were 10 times more common there. Yet low qlvl items such as sacred Leather Gloves were rarer than anywhere else on Destruction. The new bias will increase the chance to drop of all qlvls by an equal amount - which will make duncraig effectively the best place to find each and every sacred item in the game. We created some charts for duncraig as well:

1.0 Duncraig Drops vs 1.1 Duncraig Drops


ENDGAME QUESTS

GENERAL

Automaps: The following levels now have it - thus all levels in the game have proper automaps: [+]
Nexus Bridge 1 and 2
Black Abyss, Planes of Sin and The Void
Khalimgrad
Bremmtown
Toraja
The Black Road
Kingdom of Shadow (formerly Ureh)
Bastion of the Triune (formerly Triune)
Removed avoid from Slain Souls, Imperius, Malthael, Assur, Terul & Atanna Khan and increased their health to compensate
Increased charm drop chances - 1/4 for Rathma Square and Lord Aldric Jitan, 1/9 for Khalimgrad and Kurast 3000 BA
Tweaked some reward stats, reduced some endgame charm flat stats and moved some stats to earlier charms
Witch Queen and Mirror Mirror minigames removed
Stony Tomb is no longer a heroic level
Removed Inarius' Revenge quest, reward moved to Idol of Vanity
The area level of most uber areas has been changed in Hatred difficulty

WESTERN KINGDOMS

Horror Under Tristram: the Butcher's Lair is now in Tristram (new area)
Infernal Machine: optical detector now grants +1 to Maximum Skill Levels (due to Mirror Mirror removal)
Chapel of Vanity: new name, now located in the Cathedral. Removed Inarius' Revenge quest
Bull Prince Rodeo: will always spawn once now, can no longer be summoned, increased health
Eve of Destruction: reworked [+]
Baal on destruction difficulty is now an endgame quest
Boss has been completely reworked with brand new skills (and some old favorites), new mechanics and new AI
Fight is no longer static. Baal gains new skills and more mechanics come into play with each higher difficulty level
Twin Seas: renamed to Island of Skartara, fixed map issue
Ghosts of Old Bremmtown: is now located in Fauztinville, doubled experience gain
Xazax: fixed a bug where Skyfall would not be cast near walls, lowered fire resistance reduction when cursed
Duncraig: increased the size of the very small jump areas
Nephalem's Sacrifice: reworked [+]
Prime Edyrem Baal: reduced damage and removed health regeneration
Uldyssian: reduced health, slightly increased damage
Uldyssian's Edyrems: slightly increased health and speed

KEHJISTAN

Caldeum: new area, located north of Travincal
Horazon's Sanctum: the Dimensional Sanctum is now located in Caldeum
Kurast 3000 BA: now has 4 map variants, located in the Torajan Jungles, doubled experience gain
Torajan Jungles: new endgame farming area with signet bias, located southeast of the Kurast Docks
Akarat: now appears in the southern Torajan Jungles
Rathma Square: can now be found in the Bastion of the Triune
Legacy of Blood: Bartuc now spawns in the Chamber of Blood (new area) in the Torajan Jungles
Lord Aldric Jitan: now spawns in the Torajan Jungles, guarding the Web of Deceit
Teganze: new area next to Torajan Jungles, replaces Unformed Land. Reworked mob sprites, name and AI
Quov Tsin: now spawns in the Vizjerei Temple (new area) - accessible after killing Kentril Dumon in Caldeum
The Triune: reworked quest [+]
renamed to Bastion of the Triune, located in the Profane Cells (new area) in Caldeum
reduced the stats on some cycles
Vaca Loca: no longer drops cycles
Arihan: greatly reduced the damage of the fissure which starts erupting when he is below 50% health
Toraja: reworked quest [+]
Can now be found in the Torajan Cemetery (new area) in Teganze
Greatly increased map size to make it more efficient to farm
Archers are now goatmen, quest boss is now Zagraal
Enemies will no longer become permanently invulnerable after being frozen
Celebrants will now give 250% more experience
Increased Lilith health by 150%
Kingdom of Shadow: renamed from Ureh, now located in the Ruins of Ureh after the Desolate Road (new areas) east of Caldeum
Astrogha: now spawns in the Web of Deceit (new area) in the Torajan jungles
Yshari Sanctum: reworked quest [+]
Modified all stages to make them more easily walkable and visible
Monsters now spawn dynamically instead of always in the same location
Fully disabled player teleporting
Quest is now divided in two parts, the stages and boss area, both located in Caldeum
Specter of Hatred: new area, replaces Mephisto's dungeon
Dream of Anguish: new area, replaces Andariel's crypts
Phantasm of Terror: new area, replaces Diablo's mesa
Figment of Pain: new area, replaces Duriel's jungle. Demon Lords replaced with Shroom Turrets
Snare of Destruction: new area, replaces Baal's worldstone
Yshari Sanctum: new area where Valthek is located - going through all stages is no longer required
Archbishop Lazarus: now spawns in Genesis (new area), located in the Proving Grounds

WASTELANDS

Khalimgrad: doubled the experience gain from monsters
Lord of Lies: is now located in the Realm of Lies (new area), located in Ancient's Way. Reworked AI and sprite
The Black Road: Kabraxis now spawns half as many skeletons per pounce, they have double health
Spirit World: reworked quest [+]
Mbwiru Eikura replaces the Hidden Fortress, and is now located in Teganze
Terul: now guards the entrance to Mbwiru Eikura
Zorun Tzin: is now a static spawn, modified rewards, reduced teleport damage and increased devastation damage
Citizens: increased attack rating
Statues: reduced range of the immunity aura
World Nexus: reworked quest [+]
A red portal might spawn in the Kingdom of Shadow after killing a turret, granting access to the World Nexus
Atanna Khan: renamed from Startled Witch, increased nova damage and chance to cast, removed knockback from volley
The Void: reworked quest [+]
Is now the first endgame quest to be located in Act IV
Can now be accessed with a new portal oskill obtained after killing Inarius and Assur
May only be entered directly after killing Diablo on Destruction Difficulty
All planes are now connected, with boss room after the Plane of Pride
Black Abyss: new area, entrance to the planes
Plane of of Sloth: new area, containing sloth dungeons
Plane of Gluttony: new area, containing gluttony sewers
Plane of Greed: new area, containing greed fortress
Plane of Lust: new area, containing lust graveyard
Plane of Wrath: new area, containing wrath courtyards. Soul of Wrath no longer knockbacks
Plane of Envy: new area, containing envy dungeon
Plane of Pride: new area, containing pride worldstone
The Void: new area, containing boss room
Mendeln: increased Starshot damage, meaning he will do more damage to Rathma and players

CHARACTERS

GENERAL

New innate skill for all classes: Move Only. Clicking on monsters with this skill will not trigger any animations
Minion health cap increased to 260k, slightly reduced minion health gain at higher skill levels
Incrementally increased the mana cost of most skills
Life and mana steal efficiency increased to 8% on Destruction difficulty, however bosses now have 40% resistance to leech

AMAZON

enfilade: weapon damage increased
asterism: maximum damage to weapon per base level increased
magnetic field: weapon damage increased
thundercrack: weapon damage increased
Stormcall: slightly reduced damage
Hammer of Zerae: weapon damage and bonus lightning damage increased, hammer hit box increased
Hyena Strike: oskill version can now be used with Naginatas

ASSASSIN

Twin Fang Strike: now benefits from both energy and dexterity
Cluster Bomb: damage increased
Shuriken flurry: damage increased, target seek range increased
Psionic Scream: cooldown now also gets reduced by points in any other Psionic tree skill
Singularity: damage increased

BARBARIAN

Slightly reduced the weapon damage of all Barbarian throwing skills
screaming eagle: no longer benefits from the increased duration item stat, attack speed slow reduced
overkill: now receives more magic damage from Gladiator's Dominance
fortress: now receives more magic damage from Gladiator's Dominance
mountain king: slightly reduced bonus at higher skill levels
iron spiral: swords will now always pierce, weapon damage increased, hits per attack and elemental conversion reduced
death gaze: damage increased, cold damage now increases with base level, increased axe hit box, elemental conversion reduced
ice burst: slightly increased cold pierce gain per base level
earthquake: weapon damage increased
shamanic trance: enhanced weapon damage per base level in the spirits tree now capped at 15% per point
blood hatred: life on attack per level increased
gladiator's dominance: slightly reduced stats

DRUID

thorn strike: bonus physical damage increased, weapon damage increased, number of hits per attack increased
Freezing gale: damage slightly increased
Nova Shot: weapon damage and bonus fire damage have been increased

NECROMANCER

carnage: damage greatly increased
rotting flesh: damage slightly increased
frostclaw totem: damage slightly reduced
death shards: damage increased
widowmaker: bonus physical damage removed, bonus magic damage reduced, weapon damage slightly increased
Sacrifices: fixed a bug where it was doing too much damage to low level enemies

PALADIN

Slightly increased the damage of all holy caster spells
solar flare: duration of skill unlock increased to 10 seconds. You may now recast this skill while it is still active, damage halved
Dragon Wyrms: fireball casting rate increased
retaliate: weapon damage increased
divine judgment: completely reworked the damage mechanics of the skill, dps and area coverage are now greatly increased
plague: damage slightly increased
dragonheart: physical damage bonus per base level increased, maximum defense bonus increased to 1250%
colosseum: weapon damage and bonus fire damage increased
dragonform: all attribute bonus scaling increased
Tainted Blood: no longer works on pets, fixed potential abuses
lemures: now releases 8 spirits regardless of the enemies around you in order to not be useless for single target, damage increased
Euphoria: slightly increased pierce gain per base level
Hymn: base duration increased
vindicate: is now a party buff rather than a curse, duration increased to 30 seconds but no longer affected by buff duration
Vessels: fixed a bug with vessels and their passives when obtained as oskills

SORCERESS

thunderstone: sightly increased damage
flamefront: slightly increased damage
Firedance: now it only takes 15 base levels to remove cooldown, down from 25
Arcane Torrent: Mana Synergy cap raised to 50k, however damage gain per skill level is decreased at higher levels
Mana Sweep: Mana Synergy cap raised to 50k, however damage gain per skill level is decreased at higher levels. Clarified description
Immersion: damage and range increased
chronofield: increased the reduction to enemy resistance, amended description to show that the debuff works for mana spells
Witch Blood: amended description to state bonus only applies to class spells and that the bonus is different to regular spell damage
Antimass: fixed an issue which caused the skill to stop working at high mana levels
Symbol of Esu: fixed an issue which caused symbols to often heal for twice the intended amount, healing increased
Force Wall: may now be cast while buffed with Baneblade

OSKILLS

Fixed inaccuracies in several skill descriptions, converted all oSkill weapon damage fractions to percentages
Fixed transparency issues of multiple oskill icons
Tantrum: weapon damage increased from 15% to 20% (tooltip previously was inaccurate)
ATMG: increased weapon damage from 6% to 10%
Lightning Arena: fixed an issue that caused some projectiles to stop moving
Pounce: oSkill from Cornerstone of the World no longer has a cooldown and can now also be used with a naginata
Supernova: fixed an issue which caused the Mercenary version of the skill to do too much damage
Conquest: now gives 50% chance to avoid damage instead of immortality, reduced velocity bonus
Fire Cannonade: fixed a bug that caused it to deal too little damage
Culling of the Herd: reduced duration (debuff used by Astrogha and Archbishop Lazarus)
Mage Rage: renamed to Scream of Trag'Oul

ITEMS

GENERAL

All weapons now have increased durability
Greatly reduced the repair cost of runewords made using Great and Elemental runes
Elemental runes socketed in weapons now provide twice as much elemental damage
Fixed a bug that caused some unique reanimates to have vastly more damage than intended
Dragon reanimates will no longer enable players to reroll rare items

UNIQUE ITEMS

Habacalva's Firestar: removed and replaced with a new unique - Habacalva's Legacy
Stone of the Skatsim: removed and replaced with a new unique - Galeona's Lash
Ramcharge: removed and replaced with a new unique - Greenwalker's Charge
Astrogha's Fang: removed and replaced with a new unique - The Defiler
Hand of Naz: removed and replaced with a new unique - Adjudicator
Scream of Nature: removed and replaced with a new unique - Mind Rake
Goblin's Skull: removed and replaced with a new unique - Skull of Viz-Jaq'taar
Jewel of Luck: fixed level requirement
Shamanka: no longer dispels Tiefling Form
Farsight Globe: removed teleport proc, cast rate changed from 5% to -5%
Tennousuuhai: magic resistance roll has a greater variance
Spirit Walker: magic resistance roll has a greater variance
Event Horizon: now triggers singularity on melee attack with a higher probability, increased variance of absorb rolls

SETS

Cinadide's Craft: set bonus no longer locks skills to melee/buff/summon only
Satanic Mantra: lamias will no longer reanimate the wrong monster
Zerae's Divinity: now grants Divine Judgment rather than Stormblast

RUNEWORDS

Triune's Blessing: now properly works when socketing 4 poison runes in Barbarian shields
Herfjotur: reduced chronofield proc level

SHRINES

Slightly reduced some of the stats granted by some shrines
Transmuting a Shrine Vessel (1) will now return a Shrine and Oil of Craft instead of Shrine Vessel (0)
Enchanted Shrine: increased magic/physical spell damage
Spiritual Shrine: now gives faster cast rate and mana regeneration instead of gold and magic find
Stone Shrine: removed
Gloomy Shrine: removed
Trinity Shrine: new portable shrine
Intimidating Shrine: new portable shrine

MISC

Fixed an issue where some unique mystic orbs didn't have the damage rework applied
Fixed a bug that caused skeleton reanimates from mystic orbs to have too little life
Book of the Wise: fixed description
Mystic Shard: will no longer get eaten if cubed with a rerolled Trader's Chest
Wyrd oskill now spawns with a higher level on rings
Flamefront on striking chance slightly reduced to compensate for the consecutive buffs received

MISCELLANEOUS

Boss health bar extension is now always the same, and no longer contains parenthesis
Improved game performance in situations where multiple monsters would die in a short time frame
Graveyard: reverted to original map
Throne of Destruction: reverted to original map
Lut Gholein: fixed waypoint location on the automap (thanks Inertia)
Snotspill superunique (Cold Plains) reworked
Three new superuniques: Skull Crusher (replaces Wrathraven), Kentril Dumon and Gorst
Fixed an issue where monsters using the Diablo Sprite would become locked in block recovery animation
Necrolyte mercenary - increased hunting banshee damage and passive spell damage
Reduced mod strings from 12000 to 7000 and ordered, making Median much easier to translate to other languages