Phase two of the Midnight Alpha is here and with it, players in the test will be able to level from 83 to 88, explore the Zul’Aman zone, and more.
4 Likes
Make sure to test this extra good because we don’t want a repeat of how terrible the buggy game is right this moment on launch.
It would be a better idea to work on LIVE server issues instead of Alpha testing imo.
I’d love to be in the Alpha! I promise I’d provide lots of feedback! I’m super interested in the new UI stuff especially!
Make sure you don’t give players Mage Tower skins in the alpha too!
Yall already dug yourselves a nice deep hole, don’t need to go further.
2 Likes
Can you also include what feedback you plan on caring about and listening to? So people don’t waste time giving feedback that you don’t plan to read or implement anyways and we can skip that part.
3 Likes
I accidentally a coca-cola
I mean, I get why you did it - inviting thousands of people into part of the beta in which you’re actually focused on iteration is a recipe for disaster, so you moved the productive part of beta into alpha, but it is disappointing for some of us who can actually offer meaningful feedback (and not use beta as an erstwhile early access), because I think you are still making the same mistakes.
I’m not talking the class overhaul - that’s not my wheelhouse. As long as balance is playable, I’ll roll with the punches. But there are little things Blizzard takes for granted because they are stuck in the echo chamber of a minority of players, of which I am not. And these are issues that never seem to be learned even after they blow up after go-live.
For instance - it has always been a Bad Idea to commingle profession “leveling” (skill-ups) with the end-game talent point system. Not only does it force people NOT interested in end-game professions to engage in end-game professions; but it also creates skill-up choke points, which leads to frustration. To wit:
- There should never be situations where there is no node that offers a skill-up, or a lack of recipes that offer a skill-up.
- Skill-up recipes should always be on a profession vendor. Leave the special access recipes to end-game. I should not have to go through a week of quests to get the only cooking recipe that offers skill-ups past a certain level.
- Profession skill-ups should be part of the 80-90 (in this case) questing experience. You should hit 100 skill points when you hit max level.
- Once you hit max level in skill, you should get 100 talent points to make up for waiting for the end-game talents to unlock.
- Fishing should have no more than 100 skill points.
- Fishing needs a more robust gameplay. Why Blizzard abandoned the WoD fishing design is beyond me.
- There should be no recipe that requires end-game crafters to do dungeons or raids - the power lock out should be a maguffin that is acquired in dungeons and raids to be used in recipes. If professions are meant to be stand-alone, that means not needing to do other end game content in order to do your end-game content.
- Monthly DMF profession quests should go back to offering 5 skill-ups (though the most to every expansion’s talents is a nice touch).
- NPC work orders should not have “some” or “none” ingredient work orders if the player is not at skill cap.
- You should always be allowed to respec.
- The gameplay has got to change from simply being more stat-juggling nonsense - that is a raiding theorycrafter mentality. Gameplay for professions should be what ACTIONS can I take to make a better quality item, not what BUFFS can I acquire.
- Blizzard still hasn’t fixed the core issue with professions - it is nothing more than just click a button, make a thing. FFXIV IIRC gives you 2-3 buttons you can choose from, each with their bonuses and detriments, with an “energy” bar that depletes with each go. Or, for gathering, you get a choice of items to extract from the node. We need more of THAT kind of gameplay - not click a button, execute the profession, mess around with a half-dozen obtuse stats to produce an “optimal” build.
- There needs to be a catch-up mechanic for alts, which, by definition, have less time /played than the “main” character.
- Artisan acuity needs a severe rebalance - we went from too much of it, to being resource starved - which makes casual endgame professions practically impossible.
That said, I get that Blizzard wants alpha to be both marketing and feedback from players they trust will be partners in the effort, and I get that. The issue I have is that Blizzard only courts the mindset of a very narrow view of players - ones who do not represent the majority of players by definition. And while no one person is going to represent everyone (this is why you have several focus groups), Blizzard has the Elites and the AoTC crowd providing all the feedback, and those demographics are extremely biased, if not outright derisive, against casual players. Blizzard does not NOT have friends and family casual representation during alpha/early beta. BEING a friend or family is not the same as being part of the “friends and family” (meaning casual) community; but it is that casual community which will have the majority of new players and/or players looking to engage with the game in non-competitive throughput way. Instead of Blizzard listening to what the elites think casual players want (and y’all ALWAYS get it wrong). Maybe Blizzard should bring some actual casual players into the part of beta where it would be easier to make a change, instead of finding out when it is too late to do anything about it (which seems to be the case most of the time).
In the meantime, those of us not interested in min-maxing to the teeth, and are simply looking to get skill-capped on most alts will just have to hope that Blizzard stumbles into development choices that sufficiently align where the gameplay experience aren’t so outrageous. But it would be nice if, maybe this expansion, we get a bit more of even the influencer community pointing out issues and Blizzard going: fair point, and fixing it before Midnight goes live and Blizzard is stuck patching fixes for the next year and a half.
I would rather a delay with a more polished product than on-time/early and the initial experience leaving a lot to be desired.
I’d also be thrilled to offer my background in software dev management to help provide structured Q/A feedback (and eventually I’ll get there: I did buy the CE, but likely too late to make a difference).
And I’d love to offer my M2 MBP to confirm Mac performance in the wild earlier than later (unless this is the year Blizzard abandons the Mac in which case I’d rather know now because I have some decisions to make - I generally do NOT support backwards migration, which is why I refuse to buy Diablo IV, even though I did buy Diablo III.