We are currently 2 weeks deep into the PTR and NO balancing changes were implemented.
Im not really sure where is the technical difficulty of the patch process.
Is some Blizzard internal team acceptance is required to change one value in code?
Is the codebase of D3 such a mess that updating a numerical value is a 2 weeklong User-Story that needs to be done by multiple developers?
Or is the technical process of pushing changes into the servers such a chore/costly activity that its better to leave things as they are for upcoming 3 months of season instead of updating some values on PTR let’s say, every 3 days?
I understand that D3 does not generates profit anymore and resource given by Blizzard are scarce, so why putting weeks into unwanted shadow clone thingy-dingies where you could update some numerical values in .property files.
Omg I really wanted to just ask when PTR Update comes, but it ended with a large pinch of salt. Sorry.
After few years of this, i’ve learned a thing or two about ptr’s:
-The balance changes comes after first week ( this ptr implemented the changes in two phases so it is new )
-And after ptr’s duration finish they also make an update on balance changes ( most part of the time ), this i would preffer to change so we would have the oportunity to test the changes.
It is not like they dont listen, we just have too many diferent requests at same time probably… so far on the threads just in first page people asking for:
-Wizz changes;
-Necro changes;
-Monk changes;
-Cruzader feedbacks;
-Seasonal theme feedback;
-Item changes;
and the ptr’s bugs including the misterious lag and the 395002 errors, i believe it is just too much. I’m not saying they are right or wrong, just pointing that changing this much isnt easy or fast and certainly wont be donne in a single ptr / season.
I’m glad it took a week to test the seasonal buff.
As you can see, it has numerous side effects on the game and they need time to sort them out still. I’d rather them fix it now rather than after the season starts.
HOPEFULLY, we will see some changes between now and when the extended PTR is finished, as these 2 quotes from the stickied post possibly suggest.
The game is in the hands of the Classic team…they were offered two options…maintain it on OS’ on PC’s like D2 (touching nothing ingame) or tinker a little with it…they chose to give us new themes and modify numbers.
The fact they chose that was great but they are a very limited team, they are not the original D3 dev team and with limited dev resource they will not change mass amounts.
Expectations of now D3 changes with the Classic team need to be tailored with the context of the Classic team.
They potentially have months/years/multiple patches to continue to fine tune the numbers but they simply cannot do it all at once.
I’m so sick of hearing that excuse. Diablo 3 is one of the top 20 best selling games of all time. Furthermore, Activision-Blizzard is a multi-billion dollar corporation. We all get the game is in classic mode now, however “expectations” should not be tailored at all, due to those two FACTS alone.
I think they (the team they have) do a decent job, but half the community letting them off hook due to the embedded idea of low expectations is ridiculous. If this was just Blizzard I could understand, but it is not anymore.
As I’ve said to others before, programming isn’t easy and takes time.
Ok, let me rephrase that.
Programming is easy. Fixing Bugs takes time. Any software developer worth their salt knows that they cannot change a variable or constant or line of code without repercussions. And in most cases fixing a bug can have the unintended effect of introducing a new one.
So please, don’t blindly demand that Blizzard change a single value in a few minutes and not expect there to be problems.
It’s the fact that most of the people complaining about anything, do so towards the d3 “team” not the company as a whole. This is asinine as they have to do what the company allows them, including resources.
Furthermore, since when does how much money a company is worth mean anything about what they will do for the consumer? They are in it for themselves first, if it means throwing the consumer a bone to make them buy then they will but other than that, they don’t care.
A companies worth means a lot. Money equals resources. Activision-Blizzard, has enough money, i.e. resources, to allocate more than “two people” to a classic team.
Furthermore, Activision-Blizzard is not in the business of making Super Mario. They make continuous games, some of those games are updated via pumping out a new title in a series every year and a half (see C.O.D), while other are perpetual products that are continuously updated until their next product is finished (this is how it normally works), and finally they have subscription games which are continuously updated with larger expansions (see WOW). So, when that is your product model, and that is where you get all your money from, that is what dictates what you’ll do for the consumer.
Edit: Just saw my post count… out of curiosity did they reset this at some point?
Not sure on post counts Besides when they moved to new forum maybe?
And yes, I see what your saying but when people continue to site the D3 team (or classics) they miss the point on a company dictating what can be done. When I go to work, my “team” doesn’t get to do what ever we want. It has to go through higher management and be approved. Sometimes even lacking equipment that will make our work much easier and faster to get the product out. We make a request and our options yet it gets turned down because they don’t want to spend the money on it. They have it, they just don’t want to and expect us to get it done regardless.
This is the point I was making for those who continue to only blame the D3 dev(s) currently working on this 8 yr old game.
Not everything that could be changed in D3 is a bug.
A lot of changes are just numerical, like changing a value from 7.000% to 10.000% on a set or a reduction of a Cooldown, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not an attack or a critique, but for me as someone who has very little experience in programming (I did some basic modding with Diablo 2 LoD files), it seems odd that just changing some basic numerical values on a set, a skill, a legendary etc, would take so much effort / such a long time.
And we are not even talking about fixing bugs or changing or implementing new mechanics…
This is also NOT a critique on Blizzard or the devs, it is just me and other wondering about that.
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When I modded D2, I regularly backuped the files in case something would go wrong when editing the files, and just simple numerical changes to Resource Costs or Damage Values just took a few minutes, including to import these changes into the game/patch files.
You’re missing the point. As a similar game programmer, I’m well aware that if you change one aspect of code, it will inevitably affect other (sometimes unrealized) areas of your program. Testing and adjusting multiple multipliers requires exhaustive data before you can get it balanced. Couple that with the fact that the game is no longer in the original developers’ hands, you’re looking at a pretty steep learning curve. Does Blizzard have the resources to completely overhaul this game? Absolutely. Does it make sense for them to spend them on a game that requires no subscription and brings in less and less revenue each year? Not really. Be thankful they change anything at all or even run seasons to keep it interesting. Balance is a never-ending process, and our job on the PTR is to evaluate the changes, not the performance of the developers. There’s not many games out there that try to reinvent the meta every few months.