Playing the campaign on higher difficulties has been a common request, and in Season 15, Expert and Penitent difficulties will now be unlocked upon completion of the Prologue, instead of requiring campaign completion.
In addition to this, the Game Feature Updates in Season 15 also include:
- Increased Bonus Experience from Torment Levels and higher Pit Tiers
- Reduced Experience Orbs by Helltide Maggots.
- Increased Experience Orbs from most other sources, including:
- Baseline War Plan completion in Torment X and above.
- Magic, Rare, Legendary, and Mythic Experience Reward nodes in War Plans.
- Whisper Caches
- Jade Epiphany Undercity War Plan node.
- Increased Gem and Gem fragment drop rates for Elite enemies
- Increased Gold, Gem, Cube Material, Salvage, and Key cache rewards from Whispers
You can read the full patch notes here:
Game Feature Updates
Bosses
- Increased overall loot quality for Echo of Mephisto, including a guaranteed Mythic Drop.
- Fixed an issue where only one player would receive credit when defeating Belial in a party.
- Fixed an issue where defeating Belial could fail to progress quests if the hoard is opened quickly after spawning.
Dungeons
- Fixed an issue where Dungeon Delve could appear as an affix on Escalation Sigils.
- Fixed an issue where bosses in Refuge of the Lost could fail to become Staggered.
- Fixed an issue where Royal Gems could repeatedly drop from Seer’s Reach dungeon completions.
- Fixed an issue where monsters could spawn outside intended play areas in Seer’s Reach.
- Fixed an issue where players could bypass a firewall mechanic in Vault of the Crucible.
Helltides
- Reduced the chance for Plague Maggot Young spawned by the Hellmouth Helltide node to drop Experience Orbs.
- Portent of Pain and Plague Devourers now drop 1-2 Experience Orbs instead of always dropping 2.
Infernal Hordes
- Fixed an issue where Infernal Hordes could fail to grant Grim Favor.
Kurast Undercity
- Added Forgotten Souls to Tribute of Refinement and Greater Tribute of Refinement rewards.
- Doubled the number of Experience Orbs spawned by the Jade Epiphany Undercity node.
- Fixed an issue where Goblin’s Legendary Kurast Undercity Tribute cache would only drop Tribute of Armaments.
- Fixed an issue where Exit Portal map icons in the Undercity could fail to appear.
- Fixed an issue where Undercity Rune Tributes could award no Runes when certain Bargains were selected.
Monsters
- Significantly increased the number of Gem Fragments dropped by Elite enemies in Torment X and above.
- Significantly increased the chance for Elite enemies to drop a random Royal Gem in Torment X and above.
- Fixed an issue where multiple Life Link monsters would give experience equal to one enemy.
- Fixed an issue where enemies executed by Balazan’s Bite effects could fail to drop loot.
- Fixed an issue where Gilded Affix enemies could drop significantly less gold than intended.
- Fixed an issue where certain Monster Affixes were not properly affected by Weaken.
Quests and Campaigns
- Fixed an issue where NPCs could appear to be floating after completing the Faith and Failings quest.
- Fixed an issue where a Resplendent Chest in What Was Given could be repeatedly farmed by reconnecting to the game.
- Fixed an issue where parts of the Catacombs of the Old City were missing from the map.
- Fixed an issue where the City of the Ancients did not properly appear on the World Map.
- Fixed an issue where player characters could become stuck while interacting with a table during the side quest Ashes in the Eye.
The Pit
- Doubled Experience from Progress Orbs while the Choron’s Soul Pit node is active.
- Increased Bonus Experience from higher Pit Tiers.
- Example: Pit Tier 150 increased from 1800% to 2700%.
- Fixed an issue where the Protective Barrier could fail to appear after defeating a Pit Guardian.
- Fixed an issue where Pit Guardians could spawn incorrectly while party members were transitioning between floors.
- Fixed an issue where Glyph Upgrade rewards were not properly reduced when failing Survival Mastery objectives.
- Fixed an issue where Pit completion messaging referenced an incorrect mastery objective.
War Plans
- Experience rewards from War Plans have been increased, and they scale heavily with Torment levels.
- Increased the baseline number of Experience Orbs awarded for completing any War Plans node in Torment X and above from 2 to 4, regardless of reward type or rarity.
- Doubled the number of Experience Orbs awarded by Magic, Rare, Legendary, and Mythic Experience reward nodes.
- Fixed an issue where teleporting to War Plans could cancel skill animations.
- Fixed an issue where additional reward chests from Waking Spoils could be looted by players without the associated War Plans node.
- Fixed an issue where Duriel’s Invasion could continue occurring after the player who enabled the modifier left the activity.
- Fixed an issue where the Gauntlet Nightmare Dungeon modifier failed to function correctly in multiplayer sessions.
- Fixed an issue where Infernal Deception Belial ambushes failed to award loot in Infernal Hordes.
- Fixed an issue where Nemesis Tide bosses could drop outdated boss materials.
- Fixed an issue where Ultimate Nemesis Lairs could be repeatedly reset and farmed for rewards.
Whispers
- Increased Experience Orbs from Whisper Caches from 3-5 to 4-6, with an additional 2-4 Experience Orbs in Torment X and above.
- Increased Gold Cache rewards by about 3x. At Torment XII, rewards increased from approximately 35 million Gold to approximately 100 million Gold.
- Approximately doubled Gem Fragment rewards from Gem Caches.
- Gem Caches now drop 1 Royal or Grand Gem, depending on difficulty, instead of a Flawless Gem.
- Increased Horadric Cube materials from Cube Materials Caches by approximately 2-3 times.
- Increased all salvage materials from Salvage Caches by approximately 2-3 times, with a larger increase to Forgotten Souls in higher Torment difficulties.
- Keys Caches now grant 2 times the number of random Tributes and 5 times the amount of Sigil Dust.
- Keys Caches now have a small chance to contain a Mephisto Key or Trace of Echoes.
World Tiers
- Expert and Penitent difficulties are now unlocked upon completion of the Prologue, instead of requiring campaign completion.
- Increased Bonus Experience from Torment Levels.
- Examples:
- Torment X: 1200% to 1300%
- Torment XI: 1300% to 1500%
- Torment XII: 1400% to 1700%
- Examples:
UI/UX
- Added Obol cost information to Silent Chest tooltips.
- Fixed an issue where Tribute of Ingenuity was missing from Advanced Search.
- Fixed an issue where The Broiler map could fail to load completely.
- Fixed an issue where the Reliquary token notification appeared too large.
- Fixed an issue where Screen Reader could not be turned off on Steam Deck.
- Fixed an issue where Cabochon Merchant inventory pricing and quantities could display incorrectly.
- Fixed an issue where map notifications could persist after being cleared.
- Fixed an issue where some item affixes displayed missing text.
- Fixed an issue where Armory Talisman tooltips did not display correctly.
- Fixed an issue where Pathfinder visual indicators could blend into environmental terrain.
- Fixed an issue where Screen Reader narration duplicated certain profile menu text.
- Fixed an issue where Screen Reader incorrectly read Season Journey Rank 1 notifications.
- Fixed an issue where character creation and onboarding controls were not fully narrated by Screen Reader.
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where Laurels would not show on players’ profile when far apart.
- Various stability, performance, and visual improvements.
