Season of the unknown killer, Formerly Season of Witchcraft

PC General Discussion
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Welcome to the bug-filled season, which I’ve affectionately named the Season of “Unknown Killers.” Seasons like this can really zap your motivation to play. I’ve seen a lot of players bail early on, and even fewer are sticking around for the next season, which is a real bummer.

The removal of death potions was, let’s be honest, a pivotal moment where Blizzard’s reputation took a nosedive, buried under a mountain of bugs and lackluster content. This season promised thrills and chills but ended up being a scavenger hunt for tiny rewards that require players to traipse all over the map. Sure, it’s meant to encourage exploration, but come on!

Sadly, it seems the development team prioritized content variety over fixing bugs and exploits. Maybe the QA team needs a few more members or a crash course in bug hunting?

Let’s be real for a second. After grinding for gear, leveling up glyphs, and spending hours farming reputation, only to have your champion bite the dust due to an Unknown Killer, it can get a bit tedious and downright infuriating.

The silver lining this season is that you don’t have to redo your class quest, especially if you’re a druid. The class quest indicator is still there, though, which feels like a “We’re already dropping the ball, so why prioritize this?” moment.

Death potions could have been a lifesaver against those pesky insta-deaths from unknown killers. Kudos to the genius who decided to remove them—truly a masterclass in player disengagement. Maybe they’re a double agent for POE?

For those unaware, “unknown killers” are those random deaths that can happen from just standing around or being obliterated by mobs way below your level. From Twilight Warding mishaps to plummeting through the floor, the deaths are plentiful. Ignoring bugs like the Andariel phase mechanics or running through the open world only to see your tombstone pop up instantly is just part of the charm. I wonder if the fancy tombstones have something to do with it… nah, that’s just silly, right? Though, I do seem to die less when I leave the tombstone at default.

Out of the 20 champions that have met their demise this season, only 2 fell due to my own mistakes. The rest fell to the Unknowwnnn Killlleerrrr.

The Dev, QA, and PM/PO teams are probably thinking, “This player has no clue about the work that goes into the next season.” To that, I say: wrong! I’m sure your sprints have a detailed plan for development, testing, and release, but the higher-ups might be a bit too full of themselves and missing the mark. Maybe a little shake-up in the PM/PO hierarchy wouldn’t hurt!

I’ll even come take over, for a price.

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If you play HC, you have to expect to die and lose your character. thats pretty much the deal. I mean, im not against death potions, as i dont care about HC, but dont those kinda defeat the purpose of HC?

For all i know, i dont die to “unknown things”, unless im really brain afk and watch netflix on my second screen.

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It is one thing to die to your own mistakes, and maybe poor hardware performance, which you can control. It is an entirely different thing when you die from something that is beyond it.

But you are right, where is the balance? Death potions or fix bugs? I don’t mind dying, HC mentality and all. Heck I’m still around where the rest of my friends list has either left of swapped over to SC, and then shortly stop playing because the content gets too mundane.

The Unknown Killer is not when you don’t pay attention and you die, that is your mistake. The unknown killer is when the game doesn’t know what killed you and labels your death by, “Unknown Killer.” You could be standing there, or run through the open world, or go to the next phase in the dungeon only to see your tombstone instantly appear and nothing around you.

Remember the first season where you were killed by Ballistas shooting you from off screen? You would be running along in the peaks and boom, instant tombstone and the only tell tale sign of what killed you is a faint missile trail. That wasn’t a bug, but an over tweak of the Ballistas. Oh those were fond, memories.

No, Unknown Killer is like the Twilight Warding bug, but not having it equipped and not having anything else happen except you maybe casting a shield … and you die.

Oh another positive thing. Kudos to more diversity of champions reaching high tiers, like Druids, Barbs, Necros. 3/6 isn’t bad and better than the 1/6 from last season.

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Blizzard games have so many bugs and exploits that it’s hard to care.

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There are no bugs in Blizzard Games. Only “features” that can be “improved” :see_no_evil:

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Everything your complaining about is simply something that you sign up for in an hc game and cheat death potions make hc meaningless and have no place in the game

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Not in the slightest bit is that at all based on reality or fact. LOLOLOLOLOL

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watched a youtube about spiritborn p222 in a pit45 and got insta-killed by blood bishop. :rofl:
wth is happening?

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I totally hear you that it is not fair for you to lose a game because the game itself broke it’s own rules. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a huge banner on their HC mode that says specifically that the game may kill you this season without reason and it is not recommended to play at this time.

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To one’s own mistakes like pushing beyond your gear. Dying to a mechanism in a boss fight you didn’t know about, etc. But the game is currently killing HC toons basically at random with no idea of what to do the next time to prevent it. The thing many HC players love is learning all the do’s and don’t’s of the game. But there’s nothing to be learned from “Unknown Killer”

Imagine this – you’re tempering a weapon in town. When, out of nowhere, a monster runs up and kills you while you’re in the crafting menu. That’s currently a thing this season. WTH is the way to deal with that?

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That’s definitely playing above your gear. If you can’t handle a sneak attack in a hostile world, you know?

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I hope that’s snark… I’m still coffee deprived this morning so I can’t tell… but towns are supposed to be safe zones. But for some reason not this season.

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firepixie385

766 posts

4h

Everything your complaining about is simply something that you sign up for in an hc game and cheat death potions make hc meaningless and have no place in the game

No, it isn’t a complaint, they are facts.

ontheleft

931 posts

39m

I hope that’s snark… I’m still coffee deprived this morning so I can’t tell… but towns are supposed to be safe zones. But for some reason not this season.

That is the point. It is understandable to die when you attempt to kill mobs above your gear and skill, it is another thing when you down-tier to help a friend out (like Pits) and die in the open world to … nothing, no mobs, no traps, not even lag, but even if it was lag, there is still nothing around.

Another positive note. I have a surplus of Scroll of escapes.

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The old joke about bugs and features goes… “Any bug that’s sufficiently documented becomes a feature.” The problem with Blizzard’s bug bonanza is there are so many of them that nobody can possibly document them all.

Like why do some players have to edit (or delete) their LocalPrefs.txt file just to start the game? And, no, it’s not because of the nVidia driver updates. This was happening months ago to AMD and nVidia players alike and is still happening. There’s no crash file when it occurs so there’s nothing to send back to Blizzard. And despite dozens of threads in the bug and technical support forums there hasn’t been a peep about it from Blizzard.

Then once you do manage to get into the game you’re still facing issues. Like porting to town only to have the screen go black with a partial UI at the bottom. Again, there’s no crash, no way to report the issue to Blizzard. Dozens of threads about it. Still no response from Blizzard. I can already hear the screams of “Potato!” but this happens on machines with 64 Gb of RAM, high end cards, fast SSD… it’s some bizarre race condition and there’s no end user solution to the problem.

And on, and on, and on… then you get the seasonal bug festivals… the start of every season is a nightmare of broken features, crashes, and more. It’s like a beta release (more like alpha) with a Battle Pass slapped on it.

Does anyone really think the patch on the 18th is going to go smoothly? That within a few hours there won’t be a “hotfix” to disable something that is massively borked? Has a patch ever not had a hotfix or three?

But there’s $25 pets in the shop and you’ll be able to pet the raven. Oh boy! That, according to Blizzard, is what matters.

Of course all these problems are nothing but minor annoyances to non-HC players. At worst you lose some boss mats or an Under City key, pay some gold to repair you gear, and you’re back at it. But they absolutely destroy the game for those of us who want the HC experience. Remember, “Play your way”? What a crock that turned out to be.

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I believe Blizzard had been working with the business model of leave bugs in to continue “player interest,” and had been doing this since the early days of WoW. Their business model isn’t about selling games, but subscription and after purchase purchases, the latter tending to pull them away from what is truly necessary. However, different teams develop different aspects of the game, so Frenemies abound…

I’m sure if Blizzard converts Diablo games into subscription base, we would see improvements in management, and likely improved games.

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I have named the season already and it cant be improved on so your season of unknown killers has lost to mine:

Season of Glitchcraft.

Best name for season.

Just admit it.

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I’m an HC player and I’ll admit your name is clever but doesn’t convey the royal PITA that those “glitches” cause. “Unknown Killer” is way, WAY more common and towers above losing an Undercity tribute or spending some gold to repair your armor. Sure, some glitches can be fatal, but others can let sorcerers clear Pit 150. But UK? 20, 50, or 100 hours down the drain.

I haven’t played the game in weeks. Waiting, hoping, that Blizzard will finally address the issues plaguing the game. From the looks of the patch notes (and past experience) I’m guessing I’ll be sitting out the whole season at this point. I’m not pouring days of time into characters just to have them randomly deleted.

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The only real solution to this is to do 2 things

  1. Latency test for joining a HC server/shard. Don’t meet the requirement or if you drop below, you get kicked out to the main menu immediately.

  2. If there’s a HC server/shard issue, no deaths are recorded for a grade period. It would be pretty obvious when the server is derping up because a bunch of people will have the same problem.

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Can you post us a link to a video showing this happen?

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Look at the last patch notes. Blizzard fixed the issue but only for one town. It’s happening in others but there’s no indication they’re doing anything about it.

  • Fixed an issue where enemies could spawn inside the town of Backwater when a Headhunt was active in the area.

It’s not the only town this can happen. Why they didn’t check the rest of them is beyond me.