Personally, I don't think they need to test much in regard to Reaper of Souls. They can handle testing monster damage of the new mobs themselves without much trouble, they can fine-tune Crusader skills on their own, they don't need us for that.
However, things like Loot 2.0, Paragon 2.0, Loot Runs, Nephalem Trials, can be tested by all of us to provide insight into how the standard game will feel, without ruining any bigger aspects of the expansion or allowing people to get bored of playing the Crusader (even on a PTR) before the expansion actually releases. I'm positive some people playing the Crusader on the PTR would end up talking themselves out of bothering with the class and end up not buying it.
Besides which, unless something else was announced that I didn't hear, the major system updates, while being paired and refered to with Reaper of Souls, are coming in a free patch, so...theoretically, even people who aren't planning on buying Reaper of Souls will still get Loot 2.0, Paragon 2.0, Loot Runs, and a few other major things for free.
Thus, I would think MORE people will be experiencing the system updates than the expansion, so...I think those things need to be tested more than the expansion content.
I read somewhere that beta would start in 2013 and they would lets us play from 61-63 or something like that. Anyone else hear aboot this?
Josh said they "hoped" a beta would start this year, but they have never confirmed when, or what content will be in the beta. We'll find out at Blizzcon maybe.
Well, to be fair, the D3 beta was only up to the Skeleton King, and I still put in like 60+ hrs on that, maybe more, it spoiled some, but they will need to test the Crusader, and Blizz knows there are just somethings that gamers can do that they can't, and we know how to break characters
I'm of the same mind set. I can't see Blizzard passing on a beta period for RoS.
Although, I wouldn't be surprised if they left Act V out of it and just let us test loot 2.0 and the Crusader.
I just hope if they do decide to do a beta, they open it to the public and refrain from the nonsense that occurred with Vanilla.
No I like the closed betas I still have the "one of the chosen" on my banner lol
How does that help the game, though? Wouldn't more testers be welcome?
It wouldn't do any good. You might as well keep it a closed beta with a couple thousand in to build hype. You'll never get all the millions of people that will play at launch to play at beta, so you'll STILL be unsure of exactly how many are going to flood the game. They only need a couple thousand to try for bugs / general logging in issues from different countries / difference machine specs. No need to open for a game that they already know millions will play.
I was thinking less "bugs and server issues" and more "game-related issues": glaring imbalances and stuff like that. I mean, for example, we all saw those legendaries at launch. Do you really think that, had we been able to play with them in an open beta, that they would've released like that? The outcry could've been heard from the Moon. Instead, they used (what had to be) a tiny in-house team and look at the results.
I can't argue against that, but I still lean more towards that it wouldn't have helped, not without sufficient time for everyone to get max level and to have been farming for awhile.
Now that they have a good basis to go off of, I think balancing is going to be a lot easier this time around.
^^Let's hope so.
I was in the beta, and that thing had next to nothing in terms of testable stuff. Seriously, levels 1-13? There's nothing to 'break' at those levels.
They could test some server loads, I suppose, but it was mostly pointless (in my opinion).
I'm hoping there will be no heavy restrictions this time around (aside from most of act 5 being blocked off). And possibly let us transfer our level 60's or create premades.
first loot 2.0 PTR then in 2014 beta for RoS they cant put both togheter since u will need beta keys for Ros beta and since loot 2.0 staying in classic diablo 3 there is you answer logical
first loot 2.0 PTR then in 2014 beta for RoS they cant put both togheter since u will need beta keys for Ros beta and since loot 2.0 staying in classic diablo 3 there is you answer logical
They've been PTRing the new expansion plus the free-for-everyone expansion pre-patch in WoW since at least WotLK now. They definitely have the know-how to do it - the only question is whether or not they translate that experience to D3.
Personally, I don't think they need to test much in regard to Reaper of Souls. They can handle testing monster damage of the new mobs themselves without much trouble, they can fine-tune Crusader skills on their own, they don't need us for that.
I completely disagree. Every heard of 2 heads are better than 1? You think a team of even 500 people are more creative than a legion of nerds? LOL. Even Blizzard knows the players are more resourceful and smarter than they can foresee.. Hence the entire "and then we doubled it" debacle.
I was fine before the inferno nerfs, most weren't. Regardless, it was clearly a mistake on their part and they went back on so much they had said because the game wasn't properly tested. In fact there were abilities that didn't even need to be tested to know that were clearly broken. They just overlooked them, I mean after all they are human and make mistakes. If we had gotten to use the abilities, they would have seen a lot of the broken things before it even went live.
I just hope if they do decide to do a beta, they open it to the public and refrain from the nonsense that occurred with Vanilla.
I really hope so too, a lot of the problems with end game progression issues could have been brought earlier to light if more of vanilla was allowed to be test.
It's true that Blizzard wants to hide as much of the story as possible to at least have some selling point, but it's not like for those who really seek it they can't get it already from the datamine notes.
I really hope that all these new systems: nephalim rifts, adventure mode, reforging via mystic, gheeds, devils hand, etc. all get a pretty through testing especially at end game before RoS goes live.
I agree with both of you but I have to go with Maka on this one. Although the "casual" community's verbal community and their opinions might hurt the game, more testers means more thorough out testing for me.
Could you elaborate on that? I don't think real casuals would ever even touch beta, as that is somewhat out of scope for any casual player anyways. But D3 is definitely catered towards casuals, so I don't see how casual's opinions would hurt the game in any way. To the contrary. I don't think that listening to the pro gamers only will do any good.
I'd really like to hear your definition of "casual" and "pro gamer". Because I would never describe myself as a "casual gamer", but neither would I describe myself as a "pro gamer".
I don't have one, I don't think there is one. It's also a matter of perspective. It's one of the reasons I'm asking... getting more context why he thinks that anyone's opinions would "hurt the game".
(If you Google casual gamer, there's also no clear definition but it's often contrasted by "hardcore player", which doesn't really fit for Diablo 3 as hardcore refers to the game mode already - that's why I chose "pro gamer". But let's not completely derail here, this is about the RoS alpha/beta and what players should participate in there.)
I didn't pry for exact details, so I don't know the extent of how far they will let us progress.
However, things like Loot 2.0, Paragon 2.0, Loot Runs, Nephalem Trials, can be tested by all of us to provide insight into how the standard game will feel, without ruining any bigger aspects of the expansion or allowing people to get bored of playing the Crusader (even on a PTR) before the expansion actually releases. I'm positive some people playing the Crusader on the PTR would end up talking themselves out of bothering with the class and end up not buying it.
Besides which, unless something else was announced that I didn't hear, the major system updates, while being paired and refered to with Reaper of Souls, are coming in a free patch, so...theoretically, even people who aren't planning on buying Reaper of Souls will still get Loot 2.0, Paragon 2.0, Loot Runs, and a few other major things for free.
Thus, I would think MORE people will be experiencing the system updates than the expansion, so...I think those things need to be tested more than the expansion content.
You're a wizard Harry.....
Josh said they "hoped" a beta would start this year, but they have never confirmed when, or what content will be in the beta. We'll find out at Blizzcon maybe.
I can't argue against that, but I still lean more towards that it wouldn't have helped, not without sufficient time for everyone to get max level and to have been farming for awhile.
Now that they have a good basis to go off of, I think balancing is going to be a lot easier this time around.
Considering what happened at launch, I think we can safely say they were absolutely worthless in that regard.
I'm hoping there will be no heavy restrictions this time around (aside from most of act 5 being blocked off). And possibly let us transfer our level 60's or create premades.
They've been PTRing the new expansion plus the free-for-everyone expansion pre-patch in WoW since at least WotLK now. They definitely have the know-how to do it - the only question is whether or not they translate that experience to D3.
Agree completely, they absolutely needed people to test the entire end game.
I completely disagree. Every heard of 2 heads are better than 1? You think a team of even 500 people are more creative than a legion of nerds? LOL. Even Blizzard knows the players are more resourceful and smarter than they can foresee.. Hence the entire "and then we doubled it" debacle.
I was fine before the inferno nerfs, most weren't. Regardless, it was clearly a mistake on their part and they went back on so much they had said because the game wasn't properly tested. In fact there were abilities that didn't even need to be tested to know that were clearly broken. They just overlooked them, I mean after all they are human and make mistakes. If we had gotten to use the abilities, they would have seen a lot of the broken things before it even went live.
I really hope so too, a lot of the problems with end game progression issues could have been brought earlier to light if more of vanilla was allowed to be test.
It's true that Blizzard wants to hide as much of the story as possible to at least have some selling point, but it's not like for those who really seek it they can't get it already from the datamine notes.
I really hope that all these new systems: nephalim rifts, adventure mode, reforging via mystic, gheeds, devils hand, etc. all get a pretty through testing especially at end game before RoS goes live.
Could you elaborate on that? I don't think real casuals would ever even touch beta, as that is somewhat out of scope for any casual player anyways. But D3 is definitely catered towards casuals, so I don't see how casual's opinions would hurt the game in any way. To the contrary. I don't think that listening to the pro gamers only will do any good.
I don't have one, I don't think there is one. It's also a matter of perspective. It's one of the reasons I'm asking... getting more context why he thinks that anyone's opinions would "hurt the game".
(If you Google casual gamer, there's also no clear definition but it's often contrasted by "hardcore player", which doesn't really fit for Diablo 3 as hardcore refers to the game mode already - that's why I chose "pro gamer". But let's not completely derail here, this is about the RoS alpha/beta and what players should participate in there.)