Diablo 4 lead says "obvious" bad ideas used to [get through] because the devs didn't fully realize "doing this 2,000 times is actually terrible.

[Gamernyc78]

Diablo 4 lead says "obvious" bad ideas used to "fall through the cracks" because the devs didn't fully realize "doing this 2,000 times is actually terrible"

"We've made that mistake enough times that now we're very cognizant of it"

www.gamesradar.com

Diablo 4 lead class designer Adam Jackson says some features that were widely maligned simply didn't go through enough testing for Blizzard to realize they were tedious in design.

Talking to streamer Raxxanterax (timestamped here), Jackson explained that the Diablo 4 team's process of internal feature testing today is a little more robust than it used to be. Although it's not clear exactly what's changed, it sounds like the developers simply put more time into making sure new features will be positively received.

"This is where you get things that seem obvious to players that were bad ideas but sounded like good ideas when we're sitting in the room talking about it," Jackson said, pointing to an example from Season 4's new tempering system in which an unskippable animation is played when tempering items.

"Sometimes things fall through the cracks of, 'hey, doing this 2000 times is actually terrible because you have to wait forever' versus 'well, we want a moment of celebration and for the cool thing to be cool'. Balancing these things is what can be harder to do internally. We've made that mistake enough times that now we're very cognizant of it. We make a new feature or new activity and we're like, 'hey, how does this feel doing this for 200 hours?'"

Of course, it also helps that Diablo 4 Season 4 is the first season to be put through a public test realm before making the jump to full release, giving testers plenty of time to identify pain points and communicate them with the developers. It's for that very reason that the Diablo 4 Season 4 patch notes are an eye-watering 10,000 words of balance adjustments, bug fixes, and quality of life improvements.

 

[Sircaw]

Watched the stream/interview.

What always surprises me about these people is they have one of the greatest RPGs ever made in diablo 2,to look back on, and its like they don't use it as a reference point.

Half of the errors they have made with the game world and could have been so avoidable.

Not having Ptrs for example. a lot of the issues could have been picked up by ones in the past, but Blizzard has been so bloody-minded in their estimations that they knew best.

I want Diablo 4 to succeed, but I hate these types of interviews where they come out with their epiphany moments, we have learnt so much, bla bla bla.

 

[Gediminas]

Watched the stream/interview.

What always surprises me about these people is they have one of the greatest RPGs ever made in diablo 2,to look back on, and its like they don't use it as a reference point.

Half of the errors they have made with the game world and could have been so avoidable.

Not having Ptrs for example. a lot of the issues could have been picked up by ones in the past, but Blizzard has been so bloody-minded in their estimations that they knew best.

I want Diablo 4 to succeed, but I hate these types of interviews where they come out with their epiphany moments, we have learnt so much, bla bla bla.

it is almost like that trend - newborn virgins.

this is the same with this - epiphany moment, like gaming started yesterday and they didn't know anything.

 

[Gediminas]

Watched the stream/interview.

What always surprises me about these people is they have one of the greatest RPGs ever made in diablo 2,to look back on, and its like they don't use it as a reference point.

Half of the errors they have made with the game world and could have been so avoidable.

Not having Ptrs for example. a lot of the issues could have been picked up by ones in the past, but Blizzard has been so bloody-minded in their estimations that they knew best.

I want Diablo 4 to succeed, but I hate these types of interviews where they come out with their epiphany moments, we have learnt so much, bla bla bla.

i would add that, you don't even need to invent something new, innovating or anything.. just do, what's work.

look at Stellar Blade for example, AA, what they done is nothing new, but they done all the right things in quality matter and it translated into wonderful game which will sell millions.

implementing what works as important as implementing something inventive, it must work.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Watched the stream/interview.

What always surprises me about these people is they have one of the greatest RPGs ever made in diablo 2,to look back on, and its like they don't use it as a reference point.

Half of the errors they have made with the game world and could have been so avoidable.

Not having Ptrs for example. a lot of the issues could have been picked up by ones in the past, but Blizzard has been so bloody-minded in their estimations that they knew best.

I want Diablo 4 to succeed, but I hate these types of interviews where they come out with their epiphany moments, we have learnt so much, bla bla bla.

What's crazy is that the ARPG community as some of the best feedback for any game genre because there's so many of them that plays only these type of games.
Raxxanterax and co. really has a good grasp on everything from balance, content, UI/UX, etc..
What long time players would like/hate, what the casual might think of something etc...

Everytime I watch one of the ARPG guys feedback videos I'm like: Yeah, these guys have identified problems and potential pitfalls of new systems and changes in like 4 hours of testing with some of them even having a priority order of what is most in need of attention vs the amount of time it might take to change from a dev's perspective.


And yeah, not having a PTR for a numbers game like Diablo 4 is stupid.
It's all about the details, because those games are made to be viscerally felt, you kill stuff and loot stuff.
If the moment to moment gameplay sucks, you're going to have problems, people are going to quit the Season reaaaal fast.


Edit: Also, let's not forget the math spreadsheets

 

[Gediminas]

What's crazy is that the ARPG community as some of the best feedback for any game genre because there's so many of them that plays only these type of games.
Raxxanterax and co. really has a good grasp on everything from balance, content, UI/UX, etc..
What long time players would like/hate, what the casual might think of something etc...

Everytime I watch one of the ARPG guys feedback videos I'm like: Yeah, these guys have identified problems and potential pitfalls of new systems and changes in like 4 hours of testing with some of them even having a priority order of what is most in need of attention vs the amount of time it might take to change from a dev's perspective.


And yeah, not having a PTR for a numbers game like Diablo 4 is stupid.
It's all about the details, because those games are made to be viscerally felt, you kill stuff and loot stuff.
If the moment to moment gameplay sucks, you're going to have problems, people are going to quit the Season reaaaal fast.

PTR is one of those interesting ideas. Diablo 3 had it, and it helped massively. so why, they didn't with Diablo 4? looks interesting.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Damn im slacking with Diablo.

 

[Sircaw]

What's crazy is that the ARPG community as some of the best feedback for any game genre because there's so many of them that plays only these type of games.
Raxxanterax and co. really has a good grasp on everything from balance, content, UI/UX, etc..
What long time players would like/hate, what the casual might think of something etc...

Everytime I watch one of the ARPG guys feedback videos I'm like: Yeah, these guys have identified problems and potential pitfalls of new systems and changes in like 4 hours of testing with some of them even having a priority order of what is most in need of attention vs the amount of time it might take to change from a dev's perspective.


And yeah, not having a PTR for a numbers game like Diablo 4 is stupid.
It's all about the details, because those games are made to be viscerally felt, you kill stuff and loot stuff.
If the moment to moment gameplay sucks, you're going to have problems, people are going to quit the Season reaaaal fast.


Edit: Also, let's not forget the math spreadsheets

Yep, so much information is given to them by their fans, but it really seems like they choose to selectively ignore most of it.

It's like their Q and A section, I am so sick of the easy, lowball/easy asked questions that they get asked all the time, the same crap like will we be getting another character spot for the next season?, this kinda rubbish takes up what I would consider valuable time to answer or discuss more important aspects of the game.


I watched Rax last night before his interview chat, and he talked about runewords.

I recall the developers talking about it months before they released Diablo 4 and that they wanted to implement them as a system.

Rax explained, and rightly so, that the runeword system that they wanted to implement in Diablo 4 was just a runeword system title and had very little to do with the way it was implemented in d2.

I worry that they are creating a system now that is fundamentally different and acts nothing like the one from the original game, aka a system in name, not in practice.

My main issue now is, they are being all secretive about it and not allowing us, the fans to comment on its creation.

Blizzard developers, especially Diablo creators, have this horrible habit of telling people it is done when it's done and not allowing us to critique the system when its being devolped. They need to stop being so secretive and tell us what they are doing so we, the fans, can help them build systems.

The last thing I want is where they get to the point where they release the entire new system, and it completely sucks and has to be redone all over again, just like their shitty version of itemisation they had.

And the pit, is this really the best endgame system they could have come up with, Greater Rifts 2.0?

This is why i believe they don't listen to feedback half the time, there must of been hundreds if not thousands of ideas on the forums, not all might be good but there must of least be a couple of good ones.

Damn, i am ranting away today.

 

[Gediminas]

Yep, so much information is given to them by their fans, but it really seems like they choose to selectively ignore most of it.

It's like their Q and A section, I am so sick of the easy, lowball/easy asked questions that they get asked all the time, the same crap like will be getting another character spot for the next season?, this kinda rubbish takes up what I would consider valuable time to answer or discuss more important aspects of the game.


I watched Rax last night before his interview chat, and he talked about runewords.

I recall the developers talking about it months before they released Diablo 4 and that they wanted to implement them as a system.

Rax explained, and rightly so, that the runeword system that they wanted to implement in Diablo 4 was just a runeword system title and had very little to do with the way it was implemented in d2.

I worry that they are creating a system now that is fundamentally different and acts nothing like the one from the original game, aka a system in name, not in practice.

My main issue now is, they are being all secretive about it and not allowing us, the fans to comment on its creation.

Blizzard developers, especially Diablo creators, have this horrible habit of telling people it is done when it's done and not allowing us to critique the system when its being devolped. They need to stop being so secretive and tell us what they are doing so we, the fans, can help them build systems.

The last thing I want is where they get to the point where they release the entire new system, and it completely sucks and has to be redone all over again, just like their shitty version of itemisation they had.

And the pit, is this really the best endgame system they could have come up with, Greater Rifts 2.0?

This is why i believe they don't listen to feedback half the time, there must of been hundreds if not thousands of ideas on the forums, not all might be good but there must of least be a couple of good ones.

Damn, i am ranting away today.

how it is a rant? people invented so many negative words in last decade to just downplay other people's input.

it is not a rant. you just sharing your experience and observations of the history of this game and games in general about this game.

sometimes i think like, this is conundrum for them.. to do what have been done or ''invent'' something just for the sake of invention even if it is really a shitshow.
in the end, it can all tied to the budget, but still, if you are changing or redoing it, it means, you had the budget.

that's why i like a lot Borderlands because they keep their core in tact. and hope they will keep.

 

[Sircaw]

how it is a rant? people invented so many negative words in last decade to just downplay other people's input.

it is not a rant. you just sharing your experience and observations of the history of this game and games in general about this game.

sometimes i think like, this is conundrum for them.. to do what have been done or ''invent'' something just for the sake of invention even if it is really a shitshow.
in the end, it can all tied to the budget, but still, if you are changing or redoing it, it means, you had the budget.

that's why i like a lot Borderlands because they keep their core in tact. and hope they will keep.

I am normally a bit more positive in my discussions; last few days with the Microsoft shit and then this, I feel like I am ranting away.

I generally don't want to be negative or overly critical, but in the last few days, a couple of things have gotten the better of me.

Its a personal state of mind for me, that's all I am saying.

 

[Systemshock2023]

There is a certain element of arrogance in the gaming industry. It's like they always know better and can't do no wrong. IDGAF if you know how to code, don't let your shit taste get into the game.

Also tired of the developer defense force. It's like everything wrong in games is due to publishers and execs and poor devs can never do wrong.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Hey quick question? With every one being leveled up now and even though it's PvE would it still be worthwhile to jump in for me? Or will I be part of a group and just feel under leveled?

 

[Maverick]

The game was launched as half baked. It still needs a couple years. Blizzard needs to see games as an entertainment not as a software.

 

[Gamernyc78]

The game was launched as half baked. It still needs a couple years. Blizzard needs to see games as an entertainment not as a software.

Thts why I never got it due to the half baked talk.

 

[Maverick]

Thts why I never got it due to the half baked talk.

They are changing itemization with S4 which is a good thing but they are fixing the game slowly. Like @Sircaw said they didn't use D2 as reference. Meanwhile both Path of Exile and Torchlight took a lot influence from Diablo II and modernize it. They could easily do it too and polish it but somehow they didn't.

 

[Sircaw]

Hey quick question? With every one being leveled up now and even though it's PvE would it still be worthwhile to jump in for me? Or will I be part of a group and just feel under leveled?

The new season starts next week on Tuesday; what that means is that you can start a brand new character along with everyone else at level 1.

Its a completely fresh start, everyone is equal to each other.

 

[Sircaw]

Thts why I never got it due to the half baked talk.

The game is getting better and better, I would say its now at the stage where it should have launched.

IMO, the combat is still very fun and visceral. Game systems need to be flushed out a lot more, but it's getting there.

If you are looking for something to play for a few weeks, a month say, etc, the game is really good for that; a fully fleshed-out character with some good gear can probably take around 40-50 hours of play and will see most of the games content, hardcore players will do it a lot less.

People like @TubzGaming and me, make a character, spend a lot of time flashing it out, then move onto an alt and repeat.

If you want to completely gear up your character will full paragon systems, best items, an uber unique etc etc, that could take far far longer and in some cases never completed.

 

[Gamernyc78]

The game is getting better and better, I would say its now at the stage where it should have launched.

IMO, the combat is still very fun and visceral. Game systems need to be flushed out a lot more, but it's getting there.

If you are looking for something to play for a few weeks, a month say, etc, the game is really good for that; a fully fleshed-out character with some good gear can probably take around 40-50 hours of play and will see most of the games content, hardcore players will do it a lot less.

People like @TubzGaming and me, make a character, spend a lot of time flashing it out, then move onto an alt and repeat.

If you want to completely gear up your character will full paragon systems, best items, an uber unique etc etc, that could be take far far longer and in some cases never completed.

Gracias.

 

[anonpuffs]

All the talent that made Blizzard great in the 1990s and 2000s is long gone.

 

[Sircaw]

All the talent that made Blizzard great in the 1990s and 2000s is long gone.

yep, the golden days of the blizzard died a long long time ago.