Yet Another Bait-and-Switch Gauntlet Release Date

PC General Discussion
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There was an official post earlier today that stated the Gauntlet was releasing on the 27th, but that’s been pulled hours after it was posted. Why in the world are we still waiting on an official ladder, that not only should’ve been in the game since launch, but at least should’ve been included with season 3 ship?

Ladders have been a standard ARPG feature since 2001. The fact we don’t have one yet is a complete clown fiesta. Imagine being a multi-billion dollar company, with two rotating seasonal development teams, and are still incapable of releasing a complete season? Meanwhile, Path of Exile pumps out bigger seasons with more content, with a single development team of around 8 people.

News flash: Releasing a chunk of a season’s content later on is suicide for ARPGs. There is an exponential player drop off in these types of games after one single week of a new season, and releasing a piece of its headline content halfway through will bring a tiny fraction of those players back. First AoZ, and now this. D4’s lack of depth also means players fall off even faster than PoE. A quick glance at Steam charts show how big of a player decrease that game gets after a month.

As an addendum, here is nearly a decade’s worth of player activity date from PoE: https://i.imgur.com/Ss0NleR.jpg

In this graph, we can clearly see peaks and valleys. The former is a league launch, while the latter is that doldrums period during the latter chunk of a season. This type of fluctuating engagement is part and parcel for ARPGs. While these numbers are not wholly accurate, as they do not account for console players, nor PC players using the standalone PoE client, it provides a good indication. Every day the Gauntlet is delayed, the closer to the deepest “valley” of player retention we get.

Another stat, while again not wholly reliable, is Twitch viewership: https://twitchtracker.com/games/515024

A quick glance at this chart shows D4 has lost over 90% of its viewership on Twitch (S3 launch: 29,260 vs. right now: 2,837). Twitch viewers tend to watch live streams of the games they’re currently playing. Again, while this metric cannot be taken as gospel, a >90% drop off is absolutely indicative of a loss of interest.

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What would ladders do? You won’t even be in the top 500. What do you care?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham's_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg

Your post is a 4th tier at best (contradiction). Try again.

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It was a legit question.

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I wonder how many of the people who are venting will even be able to advance to the higher levels.

I never really cared for the cheater boards in D3, most likely will be the same for me in D4.

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I have every seasonal achievement completed and can 1 shot any boss in the game with 4 player HP. Gauntlet is literally the only reason I’m still playing this season, as I have nothing else to achieve.

This is a baseless ad hominem attack. The quickest way to dismantle your own argument is to use a logical fallacy.

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They will be competing against players like wudijo, lol.

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okay, Gary. :+1:
^^^^^^^^^^^^

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Average players will not have a chance vs players who are at home all day playing.

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The leaderboards are class-based and locked to which server you’re on. In the case of Wooden Joseph, he mains a Rogue on Hardcore. I will not be in the same bracket as him.

This is called a red herring fallacy. It does absolutely nothing to refute my original point, and it’s attempting to turn the argument toward somebody’s capability of competing for rank 1. Take this topic to another thread, as it has zero relevance to mine.

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I’d rather they take their time than release something half-arsed. Especially after the string of early releases, including the game itself. 10 delays are better than releasing something unfinished.

People always complain when things get delayed but they enjoy them more when they’re done properly no matter how much time it takes.

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We all know the answer to this, because during development the D4 team was, and perhaps to some extent still is, a complete mess.

Eventually, the game will have all the features a AAA title should have on release, it will only likely take a decade and half a dozen paid expansions for it.

I completely agree with this. At this point I wouldn’t mind in the least if leaderboards were delayed to S4 to make sure they don’t come with a million bugs, it’s the pace of how things are evolving that is disheartening.

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Wait, you don’t even play HC?

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This ship sailed when they released D4 massively under-baked. Again, ladders have been a standard ARPG feature since 2001. Giving us a ladder system is not rocket surgery.

I agree. Season 3 should not have shipped until Gauntlet was ready, period.

The thing is, we’re paying customers. These problems, are Blizzard’s problems. It’s solely their responsibility to address and amend them. Instead, they’re releasing half-finished seasons and making it our problem, despite us paying good money to play this game.

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I fear not the player playing at home all day, but the one that is playing in the office all that.

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There’s been a lot of standard features that aren’t in this game, lol. But they should definitely not repeat the same mistakes by releasing systems early just because they released the entire game early. That makes no sense and would only make things worse.

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And it will likely continue to be our problem for a while. I am of the opinion that the game will be ready for “release” when the first expansion ships, just like what happened with D3. Until then, I find it easier to just accept that we paid to play a beta version of it.

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No disagreement here. I still stand by my point that this season as a whole shouldn’t have been implemented until all its features, including Gauntlet, were complete.

https://i.imgur.com/Ss0NleR.jpg

Just look at these charts. Blizzard is releasing Gauntlet where the biggest valleys are, and not the biggest peaks. It doesn’t take a genius to realize how monumentally stupid this decision is.

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Bro, you got players who go in and kill Echo of Lillith at lvl 60 and you think you are going to be top 500?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Go away and learn how to argue. What you’re saying means exactly nothing.

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