D4 had over 1 million closed beta access players, with multi-millions expected this weekend. Wow.
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Yeah I only only made a cameo in that other thread for the luls. I mean really, do the handful of the diehard PoE folks posting in OT about D4 honestly believe we are about to see some sort of disaster? It's laughable. The edgy banter here is a fart in the wind compared to the launch storm that is brewing. We are looking at multi-million player launch week, regardless if folks here may detest that fact. It flat out doesn't matter.
As for the slam, they def did go a bit too hard on the skellies but they will figure it out. I understand what they were trying to do. You manage your zoo and should pay attention, so it's not an afk snoozefest, but nobody wants to have painful boss and elite mob fights either. Beta helps them see stuff like this. I'm sure it will be fine with some numeric tweaks. I have zero concerns. My friends have zero concerns. D4 is perfect for us, perfect for the time we have to invest, perfect for the amount of flexibility it provides from an accessibility standpoint. The dude in the other thread was trying to actually say that D4 won't work for me or any of the more average players. Lol. Imagine even approaching that sort of arrogance. Like seriously, I will be fine my guy. You do you. If you dont like D4, ok sure. What does that matter to me? If D4 offends the elite sensibilities we see far too often here, well...too fucking bad. No D4 players need permission to enjoy the game. Speaking of which July should be very interesting with D4 season 1 starting right around Exilecon and the new PoE league. Blizz ain't playing around here. They know when Exilecon is, and they know about when the new PoE league will launch. It's pretty clear they don't give a single fuck what GGG is doing. Bout to swallow half a year from them. PoE 4.0 better be in an absolutely epic state at Exilecon, or they are in some serious deep shit. Even then I dont see how average, casual, run of the mill players, are going to choose PoE2 over D4 anyways if given the option. The longer GGG spots D4 the time to improve, the less likely it is that they will be able to bring those folks back. If GGG needs an additional 6 months or more into to 2024, that's catastrophic. Might be some painful decisions ahead if the losses are significant, and sustained. I'm sure there is some anxiety over this. This is when the consistent alienation of an entire segment of players comes home to roost. GGG has no one to blame but themselves for how this plays out. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln |
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One thing that has surprised me is how overwhelmingly positive the beta feedback is on reddit. Doesn't happen often.
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" It is a pretty chill sub BUT the PoE community was by a mile the nicest, most positive bunch of folks before release too. It's part of why I like to beta hop: usually games are cheaper in Early Access, people are far more hopeful, the devs are in the trenches and it's nice to see where things go. The worst thaf can happen is it goes nowhere and you paid a sub-premium price for a handful of hours. With DIV being neither indie (so success is much more likely) nor free to play (f2p games traditionally attract a lot of trolls) nor particularly competitive (its passive coop is low-key joyful for me so far), I don't expect the good vibe to sour overnight but it is probably inevitable. Enjoy the ride while it lasts, I say. Said ride might crash entirely if the release is rough. Hence the beta tests and the slam. The devs know that unlike PoE's f2p leeway and 3 month window allowing a rocky expansion deployment, people aren't going to forgive a disastrous launch. Not after error 37. But it cannot be ruled out. And as with the woefully unprepared Wolcen, we know a success can very quickly turn out to be a catastrophe. Too many people eager to play your game can be ironically worse than too few. And with that we are come full circle: this is exactly what happened when PoE left closed beta and the population fucking *exploded* overnight. The name says it all. Last edited by 鬼殺し#7371 on May 15, 2023, 7:40:43 AM
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^
The key word is "was". The PoE community now compared to then is massively different. Not just in sheer numbers obviously, but the overall demeanor. It's really crazy. Maybe that's just how it goes as a game population increases, but damn it went from a true community feel, to now, if your not on board, have some criticism or feedback, even if its reasonable, it's like an us vs them mentality. It really sucks tbh, compared to what it was 10+ years ago. I'm sure there is some wistful nostalgia there to a degree, but wow. Hell the devs themselves are so different both in how they act with the players, but in how business success has changed them. Humility right out the fucking window when the millions started rolling in. That part of the story definitely isn't unqiue to GGG or even gaming in general, but if you told some of us back then in 2012-2013 what would happen, we wouldn't have believed it. Anyways the expectations on D4 have been intense, under as much scrutiny as you can get for a AAA title. By all accounts the state of the game will be solid at launch, not an easy task mind you nowadays. There is room to nitpick for sure, or maybe it isn't some folks cup of tea (mmo aspects for example), but as a whole this is about as successful as they could have hoped for. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln |
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https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/necromancer-minion-adjustments/18800
Like I said, hella reactive. Just got done with the sub. Christ, what an awesome love-in it is right now. I suspect it's a result of the slam not really being much of a slam but it's still nice to see. It seems the whole "DIV is for people who don't want to think or learn" attitude we see here is in fact more like "DIV is for people who enjoyed D1 and D2, found D3 too simple and PoE, if they even try it, far too involved". Which, if you think about it, is a *lot* of people. I love how engaging these first 20-25 levels have been. You only get a few skills and you really have to figure out how to use them once you step past obvious meta choices. We explored a huge area stuffed with shit to do AND a pretty good first chapter -- minimal mcguffins and a clear focus (pursue Lilith, help Neyrelle, learn about the core conflict of the game). Then I see what sort of cool cosmetics people have unlocked just playing the game and I am like...it's a whole different approach to just following quest prompts. Awesome mix of random cosmetic drops and fixed pool of legendaries from certain enemies. Fucking load that shit straight my veins please. (The fact that you have to dismantle an item to get its skin is just icing.) Really good betas feel like mini complete games to the point where you are both satisfied and quietly awed at how much is left to be revealed. I felt this way about D1 shareware, D2's closed beta, Guild Wars 1's beta...but not D3's and obviously not PoE's given I knew GGG actually didn't have much else ready to go between closed and open beta, or open beta and release. Which is fine -- f2p games rely on iterative appeal, not super chunky mind-blowing full releases. I keep reading Ashava's theme is a fucking beast but I will wait to face her myself to hear it. Damn, I am probably gonna pre. Oh well. Paid more for worse -- already gotten 60 hours out of the game for free. The name says it all. Last edited by 鬼殺し#7371 on May 15, 2023, 10:45:35 AM
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" Cameo my Half arse. :p You are arguing with someone who literally said the following as though they even vaguely make sense together: 1) people who play DIV are braindead and don't want to learn 2) "I try to play like a new player" Lolololollol stooooooop please The name says it all.
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Haha I cannot help myself sometimes admittedly. Although it did go a bit sideways in that GD thread.
And you are right many of that guys posts are truly hard to follow although I think there is some esl issues combine with poor logic. An awful combination really. Anyways I too was amused that 6 hours after Rod's Twitter post a hotfix was put in. That's amazing. I was with my Mom and family but I did see that in my feed. The positive momentum going into the D4 launch is palpable. Its almost too good to be true, like nothing has even gone wrong, even in beta, besides some queue times which were snuffed out quickly. Seriously a top notch job by their whole team. I'm very much looking forward to the few hours I will have on the 1st for some early access before I go on vacation. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln Last edited by DarthSki44#6905 on May 15, 2023, 10:27:29 PM
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At my most cynical, I could believe that all content past the beta is nowhere near as polished or balanced buuuuuut this is Blizzard. Pretty sure they have a QA staff pool bigger than all of GGG. Even now. That and as long as the game is aimed at we braindead casuals, they have some wiggle room regarding balance -- a really good ARPG doesn't live or die on its metagame tuning but simply how good it feels to play and replay. After all, would *anyone* argue that Frozen Orb Sorc or Whirlybarb were balanced compared to, oh, teethmancer or kicksin? Nope nope, but both of the latter were still a lot of fun to play.
So really until the endgame loop, it should be all about ensuring players have as many viable paths to the credit roll as possible. After that...and ONLY after that, should metagame concerns be a priority. And balancing viability against the game is muuuuch easier than balancing skills against each other. The poll of "what people intend to play on release" on the sub spoke volumes. 7k or so votes last I checked and no class under 1k. Sorc and rogue with a moderate lead despite hydrasorc being a bit of a rofflestomp. The barbarian is probably the weakest atm given melee struggles and the need to build adrenaline...with melee...but enough people believe the logic that more weapons=more legendaries at once=late game power to see sufficient interest in the Darth Grievous approach. ...Man I can't wait to hunt skins. The character models are already MMO-worthy in their detail. That and collecting titles. The fashion game is going to be really strong. Weeell the GF has 2 and a bit weeks left with the tv and Zelda it seems. The name says it all.
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" That was certainly the case in closed beta with regards to polish, the other areas outside of Fractured Peaks had noticeably more broken side quests and dungeons, missing textures, placeholder text everywhere and such but they would have gotten a lot of feedback on that & had enough time to rectify it. I don't think we'll see something like the Wolcen launch where Act 1 was ok & then the subsequent acts felt like they only started working on them a couple of weeks before release. Last edited by Randall#0850 on May 16, 2023, 4:53:46 AM
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My poor stupid Wolcen. I have been corresponding with their Discord dev/CM about a whole slew of ps4/5 fuckups and I am dead sure they will never get them fixed. But I disagree that only chapter 1 felt polished -- all 3 had a nice flow to them and kept me going. Chapter 4, on the other hand, is a bloody mess. It all leads to the same endgame and I still find that mode quite sufficient for altoholism but it is glaringly clear they rushed it out the door.
There is a better timeline out there where the devs figured out how to turn the alpha version of Wolcen into a full game, but in our timeline it is the poster child for overpromising and underdelivering. --- There is no way they're releasing DIV with placeholder text. For an endgame balance closed beta? Acceptable. Especially the closed bit. In hindsight there was never placeholder stuff with PoE's own closed beta and alpha testing which is kind of impressive. Best to keep that sort of WIP image behind the curtain. Even if player testers are told it's going to be rough, they're inevitably going to judge even if they do what they are there to do. The name says it all.
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