Does patch 13 feel like a finished game? Are there still alot of bugs and have they been cleaing up the biggest bugs from previous patches. Heard a rumor that some peoples downloaded patch 13 has a title somewhere saying "final version"............ hoping you guys who have the beta think it's getting there and a "soon" release is at possible.
Does patch 13 feel like a finished game? Are there still alot of bugs and have they been cleaing up the biggest bugs from previous patches. Heard a rumor that some peoples downloaded patch 13 has a title somewhere saying "final version"............ hoping you guys who have the beta think it's getting there and a "soon" release is at possible.
Even if bugs are squashed, there is a lot of buzz that the current design changes need to be revisited.
While a fair question, I get the sense that it would be very difficult to determine this from the beta since it only covers a small sliver of the content. It seems like most of the recent, larger changes to the game had more to do with core systems and game balance -- which, to me, are things that need to be tested over the course of the entire game.
So while I would love for beta users to reply "YES...it seems good to go", the truth is that only the developers themselves likely are in a position to make that determination.
Does patch 13 feel like a finished game? Are there still alot of bugs and have they been cleaing up the biggest bugs from previous patches. Heard a rumor that some peoples downloaded patch 13 has a title somewhere saying "final version"............ hoping you guys who have the beta think it's getting there and a "soon" release is at possible.
Even if bugs are squashed, there is a lot of buzz that the current design changes need to be revisited.
The UI is pretty bad but the rune system is good to go. The usual vocal minority is up in arms about it, but that's to be expected. I've seen just as many people on Battle.net who are more than happy with it. Just about every change Blizzard makes is met with some conflict. There's also the matter of them having no more time left to dick around with a brand new iteration. The time for SoonTM passed a while ago.
I think the game is as close as it's ever been. Besides, if Bobby Kotick told investors Q2, it's going to be Q2. Number one rule at Blizzard/Activision is: You Don't Disappoint Bobby. If the game slips to 2013, I imagine the entire team will be fired and Blizzard HQ will be burned down to make room for a statue of Bobby Kotick as a reminder to future developers who team up with Activision.
I think the game is as close as it's ever been. Besides, if Bobby Kotick told investors Q2, it's going to be Q2. Number one rule at Blizzard/Activision is: You Don't Disappoint Bobby. If the game slips to 2013, I imagine the entire team will be fired and Blizzard HQ will be burned down to make room for a statue of Bobby Kotick as a reminder to future developers who team up with Activision.
Weren't the investors also told Q4 2011 before it got pushed back?
I like the changes. The only thing I don't like about the patch is new skill UI. It just don't seem "as polished" as rest of the game. But I'm pretty sure it will be great before game launches. From what I saw from beta streams, there are not many bugs, but I've seen a few mobs that do no damage even tho they hit you. Nothing that can't be fixed easily...
I cant say cause i have no key yet but from what i've heard there are lots of bugs now, but its understandable since after a big patch there always comes bugs, if i had to guess we will still get one to two more big patchs (not as big as 13 was) before the release so, dont worry too much.
patch 14 might be awesome, since they'll take everything we loved about patch 13 and leave it there, bugfree, and take out/change what we hated (which there is a big list), so hopefuly they do listen to their community.
It was a pretty buggy patch. Now, when I open up the program it says my video card isn't supported (Geforce GTS 250) even though it most definitely is (at max settings even). Thankfully there was someone on the forums with a workaround (changing a file and then hitting esc to ignore the message).
The skill UI needs some major tweaking as well. I've heard public games aren't working so well in this patch as well.
I feel like everything is finished and polished except for the rune system and UI. The rune system seems 'finished' but not to a degree I would say was polished. The UI is just awful, much worse than the old one, so I wouldn't even consider it finished.
although they still have some glitches and they need to change a few things the game feels WAYYYY more done. a lot better interface screens and looks a lot neater. probably still need 1 more major patch for finishing touches.
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
I feel like everything is finished and polished except for the rune system and UI. The rune system seems 'finished' but not to a degree I would say was polished. The UI is just awful, much worse than the old one, so I wouldn't even consider it finished.
Do you mind elaborating on why the patch 13 UI isn't good?
The main complaint I read about, regarding UI, is the chat interface.
Everything else (from what I saw in patch 13 videos on youtube) seems to be pretty good to go, in my opinion.
I like the changes. The only thing I don't like about the patch is new skill UI. It just don't seem "as polished" as rest of the game. But I'm pretty sure it will be great before game launches. From what I saw from beta streams, there are not many bugs, but I've seen a few mobs that do no damage even tho they hit you. Nothing that can't be fixed easily...
I don't know if this will make you feel better, but 7 years after the launch of WoW I still find monsters that do this. And I mean this as "you can't determine how close the game will be because of that".
Getting a party going with you friends is once again a nightmare in patch 13.
The public games list is glitched so when you hit level 11, you can no longer join public games, and on top of this, when trying to find some friends to party up with, it more than often doesn't allow you to join their party / game, or for them to join yours due to errors.
Also, many players' names are blanked out, so I've often found I could've even try invite some people from the newly implemented chat because they're talking to me with a blank name, and when looking through the list of players in the channel, half of them also have blank names.
I think the game is as close as it's ever been. Besides, if Bobby Kotick told investors Q2, it's going to be Q2. Number one rule at Blizzard/Activision is: You Don't Disappoint Bobby. If the game slips to 2013, I imagine the entire team will be fired and Blizzard HQ will be burned down to make room for a statue of Bobby Kotick as a reminder to future developers who team up with Activision.
Weren't the investors also told Q4 2011 before it got pushed back?
They were.
The investor call means nothing. Fact of the matter is Blizz has no idea when any of their games are going to go out and they are lying, and have been lying for the past few months on expected dates. With that out of the way, back to the topic.
Patch 13 feels VERY unpolished. There are many bugs that flat out prevent people from even launching the game, let alone play it. The servers are still fairly unstable. The restructuring of when skills are given has left very awkward holes in some of the classes to say the least. The new skill runes are also making things worse. I can honestly say the system is flawed. The concept of the design is nice, but how it actually pans out in application is horrible.
The WD for example has devolved into a poison dart spam once you hit level 6. Sure you have your mongrels running around, but you really have no reason to use any ability other than the runed poison dart. The damage and mana consumption just make it a no brainer.
Removing the rng from getting skills runed was a nice though. With how severe skill runes change play style, having them be "unlocked" as you level up is just bad form. If the skill runes just improved quality of life then they'd be fine, but they don't, they literally change how you play a character. Having access to the skills but not the things that make them what you want/need is just unfun.
Completely agree with the rune comment. The WD goes from barely doing any damage to destroying everything in his way once he gets that rune. The runes for most classes turn the game into a one button spam feast. Once you get the barb cleave rune you can spam. Once you get the witch doctor dart rune you spam. For all the talk about encouraging players to use more than 1 skill, you would think they'd avoid changes like this. I know it's only normal difficulty but it's still disappointing. I'm hoping to enjoy the entire game, not just Hell/Inferno.
Completely agree with the rune comment. The WD goes from barely doing any damage to destroying everything in his way once he gets that rune. The runes for most classes turn the game into a one button spam feast. Once you get the barb cleave rune you can spam. Once you get the witch doctor dart rune you spam. For all the talk about encouraging players to use more than 1 skill, you would think they'd avoid changes like this. I know it's only normal difficulty but it's still disappointing. I'm hoping to enjoy the entire game, not just Hell/Inferno.
lol u have access to just 1 rune for the first few spells calm the eff down. every classes best spells and runes cant be used in the beta.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
I feel like everything is finished and polished except for the rune system and UI. The rune system seems 'finished' but not to a degree I would say was polished. The UI is just awful, much worse than the old one, so I wouldn't even consider it finished.
Do you mind elaborating on why the patch 13 UI isn't good?
The main complaint I read about, regarding UI, is the chat interface.
Everything else (from what I saw in patch 13 videos on youtube) seems to be pretty good to go, in my opinion.
It's hard to change skills in a way that you want. By default, you don't even have the option to choose what button you want to assign a certain skill. It's locked to a hotkey based on the type of skill that it is. Even if you change the option, as soon as you exit the game it reverts back to the blizzard handholding way. Even with the option turned on, it's a giant pain to change skills. It took me awhile to realize that the setting actually did anything. The look of picking your skills remains the same. However, now there are left/right arrows that will allow you to look at the other pages of skills if you can figure out how blizzard decided to categorize the skill.
It should be a drag and drop system and the skills should all be on one page if you choose the non-handholding way. Switching skills on your bar is a giant disaster. If you want to switch the skills on 1 and 2 you have to do a giant round-about way. You can't just switch them. Also, this triggers the cooldown to further increase your rage.
Overall, I'd say that the "under the hood" game systems feel pretty much done now. I can't imagine them making any more big changes in that regard before the game is released.
What they do have left to do is lots of bug fixing and hopefully a bit more work on the UI. The new skill/rune UI can be made to do most things you'd want, but it can be pretty darn clunky. A drag-and-drop UI would be much more intuitive and user friendly. There's also a few fixes/improvements that need to be made to the AH UI (filtering by stats basically doesn't work, and I don't think they've even added the Str/Dex/Int stats to the filter list yet).
Finally, I think they are still working on itemizing the Legendary and Set items. The data files that define those items were taken out of the beta back in Nov and have yet to reappear. Its possible they may be adding a few more affixes after the skill/rune changes as well. Its possible they are basically done with these and just haven't added them back yet, but I'm 99% sure they need to be in the client come release.
So, I'd say we should be hearing about a release date Soontm ;-)
It's all been said already but just putting in my vote along with everyone else.
New skill interface changes: pure failure.
The concept of locking a skill order and position for people who don't understand games so that they can get the hang of it without being confused by options is understandable.
The only reason this should be in the game is for people who have never seen a video game before. The "elective mode" option does nothing until I'm leveled to unlock all my slots and even then I can't have duplicate skills up I can't click and drag between slots and the skill list has become a huge pain for no reason I can see.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Even if bugs are squashed, there is a lot of buzz that the current design changes need to be revisited.
So while I would love for beta users to reply "YES...it seems good to go", the truth is that only the developers themselves likely are in a position to make that determination.
The UI is pretty bad but the rune system is good to go. The usual vocal minority is up in arms about it, but that's to be expected. I've seen just as many people on Battle.net who are more than happy with it. Just about every change Blizzard makes is met with some conflict. There's also the matter of them having no more time left to dick around with a brand new iteration. The time for SoonTM passed a while ago.
I think the game is as close as it's ever been. Besides, if Bobby Kotick told investors Q2, it's going to be Q2. Number one rule at Blizzard/Activision is: You Don't Disappoint Bobby. If the game slips to 2013, I imagine the entire team will be fired and Blizzard HQ will be burned down to make room for a statue of Bobby Kotick as a reminder to future developers who team up with Activision.
Ha. Bagstone.
Weren't the investors also told Q4 2011 before it got pushed back?
patch 14 might be awesome, since they'll take everything we loved about patch 13 and leave it there, bugfree, and take out/change what we hated (which there is a big list), so hopefuly they do listen to their community.
The skill UI needs some major tweaking as well. I've heard public games aren't working so well in this patch as well.
Do you mind elaborating on why the patch 13 UI isn't good?
The main complaint I read about, regarding UI, is the chat interface.
Everything else (from what I saw in patch 13 videos on youtube) seems to be pretty good to go, in my opinion.
I don't know if this will make you feel better, but 7 years after the launch of WoW I still find monsters that do this. And I mean this as "you can't determine how close the game will be because of that".
The public games list is glitched so when you hit level 11, you can no longer join public games, and on top of this, when trying to find some friends to party up with, it more than often doesn't allow you to join their party / game, or for them to join yours due to errors.
Also, many players' names are blanked out, so I've often found I could've even try invite some people from the newly implemented chat because they're talking to me with a blank name, and when looking through the list of players in the channel, half of them also have blank names.
They were.
The investor call means nothing. Fact of the matter is Blizz has no idea when any of their games are going to go out and they are lying, and have been lying for the past few months on expected dates. With that out of the way, back to the topic.
Patch 13 feels VERY unpolished. There are many bugs that flat out prevent people from even launching the game, let alone play it. The servers are still fairly unstable. The restructuring of when skills are given has left very awkward holes in some of the classes to say the least. The new skill runes are also making things worse. I can honestly say the system is flawed. The concept of the design is nice, but how it actually pans out in application is horrible.
The WD for example has devolved into a poison dart spam once you hit level 6. Sure you have your mongrels running around, but you really have no reason to use any ability other than the runed poison dart. The damage and mana consumption just make it a no brainer.
Removing the rng from getting skills runed was a nice though. With how severe skill runes change play style, having them be "unlocked" as you level up is just bad form. If the skill runes just improved quality of life then they'd be fine, but they don't, they literally change how you play a character. Having access to the skills but not the things that make them what you want/need is just unfun.
lol u have access to just 1 rune for the first few spells calm the eff down. every classes best spells and runes cant be used in the beta.
It's hard to change skills in a way that you want. By default, you don't even have the option to choose what button you want to assign a certain skill. It's locked to a hotkey based on the type of skill that it is. Even if you change the option, as soon as you exit the game it reverts back to the blizzard handholding way. Even with the option turned on, it's a giant pain to change skills. It took me awhile to realize that the setting actually did anything. The look of picking your skills remains the same. However, now there are left/right arrows that will allow you to look at the other pages of skills if you can figure out how blizzard decided to categorize the skill.
It should be a drag and drop system and the skills should all be on one page if you choose the non-handholding way. Switching skills on your bar is a giant disaster. If you want to switch the skills on 1 and 2 you have to do a giant round-about way. You can't just switch them. Also, this triggers the cooldown to further increase your rage.
What they do have left to do is lots of bug fixing and hopefully a bit more work on the UI. The new skill/rune UI can be made to do most things you'd want, but it can be pretty darn clunky. A drag-and-drop UI would be much more intuitive and user friendly. There's also a few fixes/improvements that need to be made to the AH UI (filtering by stats basically doesn't work, and I don't think they've even added the Str/Dex/Int stats to the filter list yet).
Finally, I think they are still working on itemizing the Legendary and Set items. The data files that define those items were taken out of the beta back in Nov and have yet to reappear. Its possible they may be adding a few more affixes after the skill/rune changes as well. Its possible they are basically done with these and just haven't added them back yet, but I'm 99% sure they need to be in the client come release.
So, I'd say we should be hearing about a release date Soontm ;-)
New skill interface changes: pure failure.
The concept of locking a skill order and position for people who don't understand games so that they can get the hang of it without being confused by options is understandable.
The only reason this should be in the game is for people who have never seen a video game before. The "elective mode" option does nothing until I'm leveled to unlock all my slots and even then I can't have duplicate skills up I can't click and drag between slots and the skill list has become a huge pain for no reason I can see.