Don’t wait it out too much.
Hand over the PTR a bit earlier, so you can adjust and fix within the PTR procress and we can test out the adjusted and fixed stuff too, within the PTR process.
One week isn’t enough, if we can just play a few days without testing the final release version we see, what will happen.
If we would know what classes you are focussing on, we could “pre-gather” required thoughts for you and your developement team.
Peace 
Thanks for the suggestion Mortred.
We’re going with at least a two week PTR for this upcoming one. More information soon!
It’s not so much about duration but iteration.
If a new feature is broken or off the mark it doesn’t require a longer PTR - it requires updates during PTR.
Yes. Very much yes. It really doesn’t help if you try to fix all the reported issues after the PTR and think that’s enough. The fixes need to be implemented during the PTR and retested again because new issues can be found and the implemented fixes themselves can cause their own issues.
Having a short PTR period might have streamlined the overall process but it also has had a seriously negative impact on quality control.
2 minutes after post a blue answer, oof xD
Thank you for the information.
I really hope, we can bring more quality to the patch rollouts.
That would required a lot of effort and manpower, which is not possible for one intern.
Pretty much. Its like people think Diablo 3 has a full time full staff and not just a couple of people working on the whole project.
People need to remember that D3 is not fully staffed. Its now a low tier game.
It is not so much the length but rather a couple of iterations with amendments in between that is important.
Agree with others regarding iterations.
This isn’t about spending 2 weeks with the same build, but making sure that stable doesn’t get hit with a version that was never publicly tested and can include some nasty stuff (like how current season started)
Which was the result of a too short test period. Believe it or not it takes time to verify that an adjustment may be needed unless it’s a blatant bug.
PTR should be at least three weeks. Wanting to get seasonal players back on the treadmill has done way more harm than good in terms of game quality.
I am very glad to hear we are having a bit longer PTR. But, as others said, what really matters is that Blizzard do a few key things:
RESPOND to feedback, even if all you say is that you will not be able to make X change in this patch build but will consider it for the future. We do realize that by the time the patch hits the PTR, major changes are unlikely.
ITERATE! Please, make changes to the game before releasing the Live patch. Nobody likes a buggy Season start. Players, for good reason, feel the PTR feedback and testing is ignored so why bother.
COMMUNICATE changes based on the PTR clearly. Do not stealth edit original PTR Patch notes with a major change without telling anyone that a change occurred. Most people don’t re-read patch notes unless they are told an update happened. The worst recent example was the change to Stash Tabs. We got one instead of 5, but that was not announced openly. I ended up making the post myself pointing to the unannounced patch note changes. We can handle bad news, just be up front about it.
I have no idea if something like this is feasible or not. But a simple grid that lists major feedback for that specific PTR patch and the current stance would be helpful. Fake example.
| Description | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Item A overpowered | % value changed to Y PTR patch Z.Z.Z |
| Spell bugged | Fixed for PTR patch Z.Z.Z |
| QOL Request | Changed for PTR patch Z.Z.Z |
| QOL Request | Evalute for future Patch |
| Item B overpowered | Evalute for future Patch |
| Change Skill | Evalute for future Patch |
| Skill X does Y | Working as intended |
| QOL Request | Technical Limitations |
Yes, sadly. Also taking 10k Paragon players as reference to do nerfs.
No, that was the Lamentation Stealth Nerf and the total ignorance regarding the huge petition threads.
Mind - I’m 90% sure the nerfed Lamentation would have been in this season if the botched doing-150-Sader had not forced them to do a second patch.
It is nice having Matthew around now, but I won’t take any promises from our community management any more. Only actions. Responses to feedback and resulting game fixes, no less.
Btw - the “dump all D4 feedback into D3 General” is just another ongoing failure in community management. And the Egg-Exploit appears to have taken up two months worth of Brandy-Posts. A “merry Xmas” would not have hurt…
I can say for certain that is not the choice of the Community Team. They would MUCH rather have an organized D4 page so that they could easily collect feedback in one place, and also monitor accurate D4 engagement metrics. Mixing it all together makes the job for Community a heck of a lot harder.
While they were happy to discuss a specific example, they don’t take only 10k paragon players as references. They collect a HUGE amount of data from everyone playing the PTR to use for metrics. Will they look at the extreme cases? Sure? But that is not the core reference for them. I think they just don’t really explain their methodology to us very well.
Regarding the Xmas thing. She personally did on her own Social Media.
The official messages come from the actual Blizzard accounts. Diablo used the general Blizz xmas message on the Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/Diablo I am guessing a decision was made not to do something specific for the Diablo Franchise.
For WoW they did the Twitter thing, and a 2019 wrap up post. Thank You For a Great 2019! - General Discussion - World of Warcraft Forums
OW did the Twitter thing, and a live stream yule log. Nothing on forums.
Hearthstone did the Twitter thing - retweet of the general Blizz xmas message. Nothing on forums
HotS Twitter used a fan made Holiday Image. Nothing on forums.
SC I don’t actually see anything.
Well, Forum Organization and Forum Feedback Collection is part of community management. If it isn’t at Blizzard they are overall badly organized.
It looked like “whoops, Darpatator did a good run so nurrrfff” to everybody.
Yes, they are being neglected badly. 
If the Community Team was the one who decided when to roll out new forums, when to allocate resources to them, when to stand up a specific D4 reporting chain, they would. This is one of those issues that happens with large companies. Management above has to decide they want to open official D4 forums, task the Web Team to create them, allocate staff and resources, dedicate official meeting time to reviewing collected feedback or reports, etc.
Nev can’t just switch on a new page on the D3 forums infrastructure and call it D4. Those who have ever done smallish forum admin themselves are a bit spoiled because we can just do what we want without having to go through layers of approvals and bureaucracy.
The Community team can ask for D4 forums, but they can’t MAKE it happen.
How about 7.7K paragon. 
144 cleared in non season by 7.7K paragon Barb.
What’s funny is that when patator did 140 he said he could probably do 145 on live. Then the build got nerfed. Then buffed again but nerfed from the ptr by ~1-2 gr levels. And now he’s done 144 (and another guy p7700 also did 144). So pretty much on point with his estimate of 145. Which everybody on the barb forum was saying was impossible and the PTR 140 rift was amazing and nothing would top that.
So yeah, feed back from top clears should be taken, because as usual, they know better.
Image what his paragon would be now if he was not banned before.
He never got banned. He just didn’t start botting as early as other higher paragon players.
Oh he did. His tween also. When he was in NBD just like me. Did not start with 0 paragons but with some nice paragons on bought account.