Blizzard have given the first major update to Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls, and have also provided some nice details on the update.
As befits a Blizzard patch, it is rather large and contains many things, including Seasons Leaderboards, The Cesspools and some tweaks to the combat.
For those of you wondering what Seasons are, they work in a fairly similar way to Diablo 2’s ladder system and are apparently designed to give player’s a chance to “to periodically start fresh, leveling their level 1 characters and artisans from scratch.”
This will also grant you “exclusive rewards and unique Legendaries as well as the thrill of climbing all-new Leaderboards by completing achievements, earning Conquests, or running Greater Rifts”.
Greater Rifts were previously known as Tiered Rifts, as are a special type of Nephalem Rift which give you ways to “measure your gear progression and efficiency”.
Completing these will net you some nice rewards in the form of Legendary Gems which are “infinitely upgradeable, and provide special Legendary powers when socketed into the appropriate gear slot”.
As you might expect, the Leaderboards track your progress for Greater Rifts, your seasonal Achievement points, and Seasonal Conquests. You can of course compare your progress across the gameplay region, friends and clan members.
As for the combat changes, they include each point of Dexterity earning 1 point of Armor instead of Dodge Chance for the Demon Hunter and Monk classes.
Finally, rounding up the patch are Cesspools. These were originally intended to be the sewers of Westmarch, and is a new area for you to explore.
Blizzard rounded off things by providing this statement;
“We weren’t quite able to include the Cesspools in the list of playable environments in Reaper of Souls by the time the expansion launched.Still, we loved the look and feel of this festering, dank underworld and we’ve spent some time polishing it up for use in Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts. You’ll have a chance to spawn Cesspool levels while in a Rift, and we hope you enjoy this new randomized landscape!”
