D4 is a different game altogether that is likely years away, and will have its own set of issues.
My concern is D3 and if they can’t even handle this old game from 2012 and communicating simple stuff clearly, what makes you think they’ll be able to handle D4’s problems?
Diablo 4 will have challenges of its own:
Problems with itemization
Problems with microtransactions
Problems with class balance
Problems with bugs
Problems with PTR’s
Zero communication about any of this?
If they can’t get D3 right now which is 8 years old, and they can’t even make simple statements, what makes you think they learned anything at all?
It’s the end of 2019 and D3 players are still left completely in the dark about this game, patch after patch no one understands why things change or what the vision for the game is.
Partly, yes. Also partly due to Nev getting really sick post Blizzcon and there being no other CMs.
She had planned to release the Season 19 preview News Blog last week I think. Final Patch notes are usually released on Patch day.
However, I feel major changes from the PTR build should be announced ahead of time along with an explanation. The “just tell them on patch day” bit, does not sit well with me. We have a lot of questions about the Barb gear.
I have to go back and look, but I’m 99% positive the last handful of patches have included final changes that only became public info literally on the day the patch hits. Remember Mortick’s Brace?
The broader problem is this pattern:
Short, usually one week PTR
PTR is shut down abruptly with no mid-PTR adjustments for further testing
Changes happen behind the scenes that no one knows about.
Silence.
Patch day hits with final patch notes. Too late to enact feedback and make changes.
Changes are now live and won’t change until the cycle begins again, which means a season (sometimes more) where players are stuck with whatever mistake they made
Exactly!!! Well said. That is indeed the issue. I don’t mind when it is fairly small stuff, but major things that impact end game meta should be communicated ahead of time.
I am still not happy with how the stash tab patch changes went down. We were going to get 5, then they changed the PTR notes without telling anyone to go look. If you happened to re-read them on a whim, you realized it. If not…Surprise! It was not a good surprise If they had updated the PTR with the stash changes and announced it then it would have been disappointing, but the communications would have been much more acceptable.
Hopefully this is something the Classic team can read over and consider changing for future D3 patches.
Though I suspect they put this scaffold in place due to various budgetary or staff restrictions, it doesn’t work to create a satisfying game environment. The product suffers. Blizzard is a big company, and if they can’t figure out a better way to do the above, they shouldn’t be in the business of doing it.
It could be possible that one week is long enough for them to collect the data that they need. During this week, Blizzard opens two forums: PTR feedback and PTR bug report so that players can provide feedback.
For the 1 week PTRs, Blizzard explicitly noted that the PTR lasted a week. In reality, it lasted a week or more. I would not say it was shut done abruptly.
During this time, I suspect that the developers are analyzing the game data and player feedback to make number adjustments.
The players provide feedback on the initial PTR. For simple number changes that do not involve changes to game mechanics, I do not know why a second PTR is necessary. Of course, I will admit that it might makes sense to err on the side of caution to make sure that the new numbers are “right” in the developer’s eyes with further player testing.
True. However, if players are sandbagging the PTR and telling other player’s not to push their favorite class, I am not sure that the developer’s are 100% to blame when they get a number wrong.
“It could be possible”
“i suspect”
“i am not sure that”
You sure do engage in speculation and innuendo a lot in your posts instead of data. Are you a D3 dev?
At any rate, it’s demonstrable fact that their approach is poor communication. See Mortick’s Bracer, announced and paraded only to be secretly removed at the last second. Players only found out about the last minute change the day of the patch.
This secretive approach to PTR’s results in changes like Vyrs being overtuned for ages and is now being nerfed.
There’s many examples of this problem throughout D3’s patches. Not sure why you’re justifying their crazy and inconsistent number adjustments.
I am not a Blizzard employee. I speak for myself only (that is why I put qualifiers on things). I think that some of the criticism being made simply is not fair to Blizzard/the developers/Nevalistis, especially in consideration of simple truths of corporations.
Cherry Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew are my beverages of choice.
No one is forcing Blizzard to behave this way or handle Diablo 3 this way.
Currently, a simple post explaining their decision making would be a great step towards communicating.
But as my post explains and their own behavior clearly illustrates, they simply do not communicate in an effective manner.
Which is why you nor any player has any clue what is going on with this product, on any patch, until the patch is actually live and it’s too late for feedback.
That is why you can’t answer any of the questions about the patch in my post. Because Blizzard has you in the dark.
If you enjoy being in the dark then cool but don’t try to justify the lazy behavior they are giving us.
Don’t respond to Micro, the guy is literally a troll on every Diablo forum board just looking to get a rise out of people while padding his post count.
Nope. Having multiple patches to test and nake sure the final patch is tested before it goes live is better than just do one patch, get data and make the second one in the dark and push it to live server. That’s just doesn’t work, most of the time.
Look at League of Legends, the most sucessful game of all times, they have a pbe (like ptr of Blizz) which is updated almost daily so 99% of the changes will be tested by various number of players in different levels. I don’t think that success is a coincident.
If they had updated the PTR with the stash changes and announced it then it would have been disappointing, but the communications would have been much more acceptable.
