Patch 9.1 Hotfixes - July 21, 2021, Activision Blizzard Sued By California

Update: Added Blizzard's statement on the lawsuit

Patch 9.1 Hotfixes - July 21, 2021
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
  • Druid
    • Born Anew's (Conduit) primary stat bonus reduces to 20 upon the beginning of a new encounter.
      • Developers’ note: The intent of this bonus is to provide a benefit when using resurrections in combat. But it is best to avoid situations where players might feel compelled to min/max something like this before starting a pull.
  • Priest
    • Shadow
      • Shadow Crash's (Talent) ground visual will now match the area effect.
      • Void Volley's (PvP Talent) ground visuals will now match the area effect and has more defined edges.
  • Warrior
    • Arms
      • Fixed an issue where Swift Patrol (Niya Soulbind) caused the auto-attack timer to reset.

Creatures ad NPCs
  • Players now have a 2 second grace period to keep their vision of targets within the area contained by the Soul Chains between the Soul Cages during the Mor'geth encounter.
  • Reduced the number of Prince Renathals in Sinfall. Press F to pay respects.

Dungeons and Raids
  • Sanctum of Domination
    • Defeating Sylvanas Windrunner on Mythic difficulty will now reward 2 Vengeance’s Reins.
    • Remnant of Ner’zhul
      • Players can no longer cause a second orb to become non-interactable while carrying an Orb of Torment.
  • Plaguefall
    • You must now defeat the first three bosses of the dungeon before the door to Margrave Stradama opens on all difficulties.
      • Developers’ note: The first two bosses of the dungeon were frequently being skipped in lower-difficulty dungeons, typically by groups who were trying to earn Renown much faster than intended. To improve players' Renown earnings, we've also added a chance for Renown to be earned by completing layers in Torghast (see hotfix below).

Items and Rewards
  • Teleporter Repair Kits should no longer have a Unique count and will now stack to 50.
  • Repaired Riftkeys will also now stack to 50.
    • Developers’ note: Early in development, Teleporter Repair Kits and Repaired Riftkeys were only available from the vendor. Based on player feedback of not knowing if they were worth purchasing, we decided to have them drop occasionally as well. Now that these items dropped and became out of player’s control, we should have removed the unique cap on the Teleporter Repair Kits then. Also, since you have access to purchasing the Teleporter Repair Kits or Repaired Rift Keys, we are disabling them from going to mail if you loot one with a full inventory so they will no longer fill up your mailbox.

  • The item levels of Conduits sold by the Rated PvP vendor have been corrected.
  • Fixed an issue where the Salvaged Fusion Amplifier was not dropping for Marksmanship and Beastmaster Hunters.

Quests
  • Fixed an issue during “Nal’ragas” that caused internal text to be visible to users of certain nameplate addons.

Torghast
  • Renown is now a possible reward from Torghast completions, with better chances at Renown coming from higher Torghast difficulties.

Activision Blizzard Sued By California
According to a Bloomberg law article, Activision Blizzard is being sued over 'frat boy' culture after a 2-year investigation by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. For more information, check out the article below, and read the full court filing.



Blizzard provided Polygon with a statement responding to the lawsuit:

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
We value diversity and strive to foster a workplace that offers inclusivity for everyone. There is no place in our company or industry, or any industry, for sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind. We take every allegation seriously and investigate all claims. In cases related to misconduct, action was taken to address the issue.

The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. They were required by law to adequately investigate and to have good faith discussions with us to better understand and to resolve any claims or concerns before going to litigation, but they failed to do so. Instead, they rushed to file an inaccurate complaint, as we will demonstrate in court. We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family. While we find this behavior to be disgraceful and unprofessional, it is unfortunately an example of how they have conducted themselves throughout the course of their investigation. It is this type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State’s best businesses out of California.

The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today. Over the past several years and continuing since the initial investigation started, we’ve made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams. We’ve amplified internal programs and channels for employees to report violations, including the “ASK List” with a confidential integrity hotline, and introduced an Employee Relations team dedicated to investigating employee concerns. We have strengthened our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and combined our Employee Networks at a global level, to provide additional support. Employees must also undergo regular anti-harassment training and have done so for many years.

We put tremendous effort in creating fair and rewarding compensation packages and policies that reflect our culture and business, and we strive to pay all employees fairly for equal or substantially similar work. We take a variety of proactive steps to ensure that pay is driven by non-discriminatory factors. For example, we reward and compensate employees based on their performance, and we conduct extensive anti-discrimination trainings including for those who are part of the compensation process.

We are confident in our ability to demonstrate our practices as an equal opportunity employer that fosters a supportive, diverse, and inclusive workplace for our people, and we are committed to continuing this effort in the years to come. It is a shame that the DFEH did not want to engage with us on what they thought they were seeing in their investigation.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 9.1 Hotfixes - July 21, 2021, Activision Blizzard Sued By California started by Stoy View original post
Published on 2021-07-22 02:18 AM
356 Comments
Comments 355 Comments
  1. terminaltrip421's Avatar
    "Also, since you have access to purchasing the Teleporter Repair Kits or Repaired Rift Keys, we are disabling them from going to mail if you loot one with a full inventory so they will no longer fill up your mailbox."

    "rather than clutter your mailbox with something valuable we did you the favor of only making it available to loot directly or for purchase."
  1. LordVargK's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Antherios View Post
    Now we know why Afrasiabi left Blizzard suddenly and deleted his social media, he is quoted on the lawsuit as basically being a creep and harassing young female Blizzard employees.
    Also that explains why J. Allen Brack just went live yesterday into the Game Maker's Notebook podcast for 1 hour to talk about female rights and the "inclusion" Blizzard is doing .. they are on active damage control.
    Anyone know why the court filing speaks of "Crosby suite" and "Bill Crosby" instead of Cosby?

    Also that teleporter thing and renown from Torghast are top tier QoL changes.
  1. Adamas102's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yas-Queen Rochana View Post
    I'm not pretentious enough to claim I understand the entire context and important details of what lead to that event. And neither should anyone else. It might look bad on the surface, but I choose to believe this woman was not a superficial person and that there might've been some depth to her decision.
    I don't know which is more pathetic: your attempts to sweep this under the rug as just some sort of groundless witch hunt or the idea that you aren't "pretentious enough" when you seem to think you of all people know what's REALLY behind the state's long running investigation .
  1. Voidism's Avatar
    Now all the sudden 'woke stuff' recently makes sense. Preemptive damage control. They don't actually care about social justice, like all companies. It's performative, shallow slacktivism designed to be something they can point towards as improvements in the company.

    Real social justice isn't about how many trans characters you can fit, it's the quality of the characters and actually understanding the issues.
  1. JoakimB's Avatar
    Im not surprised, at all. Happens way too often but im happy its being announced. Its really hard to respect women, always been. Men cant behave.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by GnomeEU View Post
    I wish a Was a woman and could sue because I don't get a promotion. 95% of men don't get a promotion but when a women does a horrible job and don't get promoted she can sue the company
    Go troll somewhere else, really. You have really no clue if you comment something like that.
  1. Sorshen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yas-Queen Rochana View Post
    There is nothing more incompetent and malicious than the state.
    Lol, it's settled then. We can't trust anything that comes from authorities!
  1. Dracullus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Voidism View Post
    Now all the sudden 'woke stuff' recently makes sense. Preemptive damage control. They don't actually care about social justice, like all companies. It's performative, shallow slacktivism designed to be something they can point towards as improvements in the company.

    Real social justice isn't about how many trans characters you can fit, it's the quality of the characters and actually understanding the issues.
    Most SJWs are shallow in general, it's just another ideology that replaces critical thinking and actual care for other person (don't have to help anyone to feel better if you can just 'support the cause'). It's scary how it's geting more violent every year (both from SJWs and, ekhem, 'feedback' from other side), we all know where it leads.

    At these point I don't know if 'woke stuff' for damage control even works or it's just defensive instinct. For sure many people or companies do that.
  1. Mendzia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azerate View Post
    Just because sexual harassment was rampant and no one dared speak about it doesn't mean it was "the normative culture" you piece of shit. People like you genuinely disgust me and I don't care if I get infracted for this.

    Oh look, another idiot.
    Wow dude... You are so brave...
    We are here to discuss not saying 'idiot' or 'you piece od shit' to each other.
    Calm down.
  1. Mojo03's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BaumanKing View Post
    Huh, so that's why Alex Afrasiabi just vanished. When will Blizzard remove all references to him in the game?
    There isn't any actual claim against him yet, other than he was a little too friendly with women, and it was unprofessional.

    The Cosby room thing could literally be "one" person who said that in their interviews and they put it in the document to strengthen their case. There is so much grey area with this stuff.

    The women making the claims are also financially motivated. They get fat paycheck if California wins. It's literally on the last page of the court document. Hard to fully trust their claims are 100% truthful...
  1. Gaidax's Avatar
    If the claims are judged real, then of course there should be appropriate damages, sentences and compensations.

    I would be wary of jumping on this too fast. Bogus charges that get thrown out in court are not unheard of, as I can personally attest.

    I was personally indirectly involved in one such case by 2 specific female employees that were basically fishing for $$ and for not getting fired in case of one of them. The case eventually was thrown out, because it was BS, but it took time and one of them literally got salary while this all lasted outright without deserving it, by simply not working knowing she can't be touched while case is up.
  1. Voidism's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dracullus View Post
    Most SJWs are shallow in general, it's just another ideology that replaces critical thinking and actual care for other person (don't have to help anyone to feel better if you can just 'support the cause'). It's scary how it's geting more violent every year (both from SJWs and, ekhem, 'feedback' from other side), we all know where it leads.

    At these point I don't know if 'woke stuff' for damage control even works or it's just defensive instinct. For sure many people or companies do that.
    I think it's about the movement controlled by the money - distractions from the real problems of poverty and stuff that, if focused on, would make people support things that would hurt the rich ones in power, and making the followers feel good by performatively prostrating themselves (but mainly attack others). It's quite genius to pit groups against each other in a way to steal more of the common person's value.
  1. stoffe's Avatar
    how reliable is this source I mean is a...blogg?
  1. Mojo03's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidax View Post
    If the claims are judged real, then of course there should be appropriate damages, sentences and compensations.

    I would be wary of jumping on this too fast. Bogus charges that get thrown out in court are not unheard of, as I can personally attest.

    I was personally indirectly involved in one such case by 2 specific female employees that were basically fishing for $$ and for not getting fired in case of one of them. The case eventually was thrown out, because it was BS, but it took time and one of them literally got salary while this all lasted outright without deserving it, by simply not working knowing she can't be touched while case is up.
    The problem is the vast majority of it is anecdotal hearsay claims by women who are financially motivated...

    The Bloomberg article was also pretty deceptive about what it really says on the court case.

    Specifically one example is about the girl who took her life. She was in a relationship with her supervisor and took her life due to him on a business trip is what it says. It's really not clear at all why. "One" employee think its possible a photo of her genitals was passed around at a holiday party.

    Quite different than what the article made it sound like...
  1. aeuhe4yxzhds's Avatar
    If it was such a problem, how come, it seemed like nobody hardly ever spoke out about it?
  1. Knight Meta's Avatar
    People considering a "blogpost" a reliable source for this kind of topic, all the while not being able to separate the art from the artist: this is the pinnacle of why s**t hits the fan for no reason.
  1. Clozer's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by aeuhe4yxzhds View Post
    If it was such a problem, how come, it seemed like nobody hardly ever spoke out about it?
    I can remember posts about this for years and years. Hardly ever spoke is probably the opposite. Just google it and you find tons of articles going back to 2016 etc.
  1. Verdugo's Avatar
    I see that everyone is humouring the local fash for some reason. Please ignore Rochana, you will get nothing from him.
  1. Azerate's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mendzia View Post
    Wow dude... You are so brave...
    We are here to discuss not saying 'idiot' or 'you piece od shit' to each other.
    Calm down.
    I will be calling people who approve of sexual harassment idiots and pieces of shit no matter where I am. Piss off.
  1. Ted Mosby's Avatar
    It would probably be a good idea to wait till the matter is resolved in court before passing judgement.
  1. Raetary's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Knight Meta View Post
    People considering a "blogpost" .
    How about the literal court file linked on the front page?
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