Diablo 3 Hotfix Increases Drop Rates and Removes Act I Limit for New Players

[Shawn Zipay]

Earlier today, Blizzard rolled out a server-side update for Diablo III. This update increases the drop rate for higher level items in the later acts of Hell and Inferno difficulties. In addition, they also "fixed" the "unintended bug" of limiting legitimate new owners of the game from progressing further into Act I until a period up to and including three days' time had passed.

Items
General
- The drop rates for high-end items (items level 61-63) have been increased for Acts III and IV of Hell difficulty and Acts I – IV of Inferno difficulty:

The new approximate drop rates are as follows:

Hell – Act III and Act IV

iLvl 61: 9% to 13.9%
iLvl 62: 1.9% to 3.45%
iLvl 63: 0% (no change)

Inferno – Act I

iLvl 61: 17.7% to 23.9%
iLvl 62: 7.9% to 12.6%
iLvl 63: 2.0% to 4.8%

Inferno – Act II

iLvl 61: 18.6% to 23.3%
iLvl 62: 12.4% to 18.6%
iLvl 63: 4.1% to 9.3%

Inferno – Act III and Act IV
iLvl 61: 24.1% to 27.1%
iLvl 62: 16.1% to 21.7%
iLvl 63: 8.0% to 16.3%

Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug with several items that would allow those items to block pathing when dropped on the ground

Bosses
General
- Bosses are now guaranteed to drop at least 1 Rare item for players with 4 stacks of Nephalem Valor and at least 2 Rare items for players with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor

Bug Fixes
General
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when a player was interacting with environment objects (e.g. opening chests or clicking on a lectern)
- Fixed several additional game and service crashes

(via)