[D4 beta] A Dire Warning

General Discussion
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Fellow Diablo community members, please, for the love of god and the game, do Not allow yourselves to fall victim to hype and gaslighting. Please, pay attention to how Blizzard handle the D4 upcoming beta…

Typically (or at least that is my impression from some of their betas), Blizzard either don’t allow you to test the real game (D3 is a perfect example), or none of the player concerns are actually addressed (D3 test realms, WoW: Legion and BfA betas).

We’ll see whether D4 will be good on release in regards to progression, itemization and whether the endgame activities are fun based on what ends up being included in the beta.

And here’s the key:

The devs already said, that the story in D4 is non-linear and you can just go and do something else.
Therefore, there can be no valid excuse not to allow us to test the actual game on max level.
They should allow us to test the full game, as in endgame activities, progression and itemization with merely the story being locked.

They can certaily do that if they want to… the important question is, are they going to… and based on what they do, we’ll have a pretty good indication as to whether ot not D4 will be worth purchasing on release.

Never forget the D3 beta. If they attempt to pull off the same crap they did with the D3 beta, where they deliberately locked players to low level, supposedly to “protect the story” (even though, suppposedly their core values are Gameplay first… and in retrospect, everyone and his mom should have figured out by now, that this was not the real reason they didn’t allow us to test endgame), then expect the game to be yet another disaster.

Also, please, demand from Blizzard to provide a real beta test, and not just use the beta as a hype machine by providing keys merely to internet personalities, whom I can (charitably and generously) describe merely as fake gamers.

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Why would you play a beta at all? You either work for free or as the new standards with “early release”, you actually PAY to test their game.

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I thought it was obvious. To get a good grasp on whether the game is good, and to provide feedback, so that if something is broken, it maybe gets fixed prior to release, in order for people to have good experience on launch.

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You just explicitly stated that it was a waste of time since nothing changed, given numerous examples of Blizzard games.

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I hope things will be different this time, but I might end up being the fool yet again. Time will tell.

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Stop taking games so seriously.

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They can pay me $1 a day to play for 15 minutes, like a reverse 976 number.

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I find it a bit strange and paradoxical for people to literally take the time to read and post about video games on a dedicated forum, then act, as if they don’t care and thell others, that they care too much.
If you’re not passionate enough, why take the time to read and post in the first place?

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35 h u lvl 45+ thats 3 days by falowing storyline but there is way faster ways to lvl up i think by aoe farming or spaming same dungeon over and over whts problem beta last months

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Things do change in betas. I would gladly play the beta so there was less need to guess about stuff in the feedback.

Early Access aka. Paid Betas on the other hand… no thanks.

Yeah, they have to test both early and late game. D3 beta was a big mistake.
But, I also think they should protect the story, and the world exploration.
So, have two test servers. One where you can play the early game. And another where you start as a max lvl character in endgame, but only with 1 of the big zones available.
We dont really need to test all the content (as in story, zones etc.), we need to test the systems.

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I personally don’t care about spoilers in the slightest.
But for those, that do, the solution is simple: lock the story.

Hmm… they said certain gear will be targetable in specific dungeons, so we should have one or two as an example of how this works… same for the rest… as in one or two zones per activity, the ones, that would spoil story the least.

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Agreed, all the different activities that exists in the game should be available. We just dont need all 150 dungeons to test dungeons, etc.

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I disagree here.

I don’t want the story spoiled for me. I’m a story driven player in an ARPG. Diablo stories have always been far from perfect, but I want to experience it myself as I play. I don’t want to be watching a stream or watching some commentator and find out Snape kills Dumbledore on page 687 (or whatever it was). Watching events unfold is part of how I enjoy the game. I like some RP in my ARPGs.

I totally hear what you’re saying though about a proper systems test. It needs to be done. The progression needs to be tested. It will have a feel. That is highly subjective and with their non-linear concept there are going to be lots of different impressions of that. And of course, we know the end-game is going to have its own feel. Lots of mechanics add up the longer you go. Typically, the leveling is a slow introduction to a ton of new game mechanics and the full game starts at max. As much as I loathe this structure, Blizzard has embraced it and it’s not going away. So, they have to test each of those features meaning beta testers need to have access.

My suggestion is that this be allowed in alpha testing and in a closed beta with non-disclosure agreement (NDA). A server infrastructure stress test can be done as an open beta. This way, select players will get an opportunity to put the game through its paces properly, but we will still have a few surprises for the general public when the game launches.

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I dont think the story need much testing at all. Commenting on the story will be irrelevant anyway, and Blizzard is surely capable of testing that the quests etc. work without our help. If we ignore the bad storytelling, the campaign worked perfectly fine in D3. Having tested it would have made no difference.
The endgame was what primarily needed testing.

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you and i dont grow from the same tree.

GAMES ARE LITERALLY MY ENTIRE LIFE. IF I COULD TIME TRAVEL I WOULD JUST DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.

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i will. i can’t help it. i will play the beta hard. hard.

but it never fails, if there is one inkling teeny tiny sign of MTX, i will drop D4 like Amber Herd did Johnny’s bed.

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reason: the game isn’t finished

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I’ve done Early Access before. You buy in and get to play through maybe a year or more before eventual release. You play while the game is not complete and run into all sorts of bugs where the content ends. The maps and terrain may not be complete, so each time they update, the move stuff around and you must re-learn where things are and re-evaluate how objects in the environment work. Everything you interact with may not work. Every update may break things that were working before. Typically, they wipe whatever progress you’ve made so you’re starting again from scratch with nothing. Sometimes they give you templates of advanced characters to test later game systems. Sometimes they don’t.

You’re expected to look for bugs and write proper bugs reports with proper documentation, so there’s a lot of observation while playing that makes it feel more like work than pleasure.

And after a year or so of that, believe me, by the time they’re ready to release the final product, you’re not terribly excited to play it because for you, you’ve been through it 100 times before.

I enjoyed the work, particularly when I was able to suss out something difficult others had missed. I did not enjoy paying for the privilege to do the work after the initial novelty wore off. I definitely was logging on out of a sense of obligation at points. Sometimes you want your hobbies to remain your hobbies and not become your job.

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Yep. D3 beta was just the start up through the Skeleton King. It was more to build hype than test anything. I don’t expect more from the D4 beta.

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My biggest concern for D4 isn’t in the story or game mechanics. My biggest concern is their cash shop. Is it gonna have pay to win elements in it. I know what they promised, but the bosses of the ones that promised it might have other ideas or had them say things that can still be argued semantically that it is still correct. Much like how Wyatt’s semantics that Immortal doesn’t sell gear, which is true. But that doesn’t mean that Immortal doesn’t sell power, because it does.

Yes I am still concerned about the rest, but I am sure that if there are any missteps that they either will be handled before release. Or it will release similar to D3, although not nearly as bad as D3. But will be fixed quickly after launch or in the expansion like with D3.