Blizzard removes Scrolls of Reforging and companion pets from Diablo III beta

Blizzard has continued making changes to the Diablo III beta, and the most recent change to the game has been the removal of Scrolls of Companion and Scrolls of Reforging.

According to a post on Battle.net, Blizzard felt in both cases the features were not only underdeveloped, but "just not quite good enough" for the game in the current state.

"The companion pets felt like they were mandatory to maximize play efficiency and some of the pets were too cutesy for the gritty, dark world of Sanctuary," wrote the community manager. "Neither of those are issues we felt like we could solve without a lot of additional work, and we’re trying to close in on a solid release date for the game, not move further away.

"When weighing these systems against releasing the game, we decided to cut these scrolls and stay on track for the game’s release."

The post goes on to say that if companion pets were to be included in the game, it would have to be a "much cooler system" both mechanically and visually. The developers are currently looking to evolve the reforging scrolls into a more meaningful system "at some point in the future," so for the time being, neither will be available for the initial release of the game.

Patch notes reflecting changed to the beta will be updated to reflect these changes.