There was a small discussion on this in another topic I posted. But I think it deserves it's own thread. There is a large group of people that have been waiting a tremendous amount of time for Diablo 3, and while they enjoy new diablo 3 information, they do not want to have the storyline spoiled before release.
So that begs the question: what will the beta be?
Will they give all of normal, spoiling the story completely? Will they use normal, without any boss names while using placeholder models? Will it be a small confined area with little to no spoilers and placeholder models?
I for one think it will be all, or almost all of normal. Reason being is if beta is going to take ~6 months, there will probably be a lot of content to test. Also, I dont think PvP balance will be a very big part of the beta, just because Blizzard has stated they wont be focusing too much on the arena aspect for balance.
I'll try to pin point some important aspect of the game that Blizzard should focus during the beta.
This is just my own thoughts and should not be the standard of any other beta.
1)
Storyline should be "completely removed" from the beta. Why? If you spoil the game, then sales will drop.
If blizzard wanted to test the "functionality" and the player's opinion on the quest system, then they can simply do so using temporary quests that are irrelevant to the story line.
2)
PvP; This is probably going to be the "heavy" focus in the beta. Let me tell you some of the reasons why.
- PvP is the hardest to balance. I don't mean 100% balance, but even to get it to 70% balance where the game seems enjoyable and balanced to some measure. I highly doubt that Blizzard has the capability to balance PvP without giving the full PvP system to the hands of beta testers. This is just like what happened to SC2. You can't internally balance the game within the testers working at Blizzard. Just simply look at 5 Rax Reaper, this highly broken "build" was fixed few months after the "official release". The point is, the game won't be balanced even after the beta.
Beta is to balance the game as much as you can, so PvP is a must and should be their top 2 priority. (PvE and PvP)
Honestly, I don't know what blizzard should release and what not to.
Should people provide feedback on the crafting system? but you have to know that by releasing some of these features could backfire on them. People are highly anticipating for this game, and their expectations are so high that if somethings are very poor in design then they might consider not buying the game.
The critics will judge the game based on the "Beta". And if Diablo 3 does not live up to the expectation of people around the world who've waited for god knows how long... then their sales could expect to drop drastically.
I just wish they hired 100 PvP testers just to get the ground work all complete. I would even work for free, as I imagine many of you would as well. Beta won't really work for Diablo 3... It's too late to release the beta now.
Just go ahead and release the game without spoiling ANY features of the game. Not even the actual graphics that will display on our monitors.
Considering beta is going to be ~6 month and PvP is not going to be the main focus I would say 2 acts should probably be for sure. But that again limits to test nightmare and hell modes, which are very important. Blizzard even said that in D2 hell wasn't really balanced so I think they want to balance everything here.
Even if they are going to show full content of the game I wonder how many buyers are going to be spoiled. Beta testers is small part of all buyers and again only a comparable small part is going to watch vods/streams so overall I think it would be like ~<10% of gamers gonna be spoiled - not that much.
I simply disagree. You can't expect Blizzard to release the actual quests in Diablo 3 for the beta.
What they are doing is, testing the functionality of each system that require 10000+ players to actually test if it works. Quests are a big portion of the game, and could easily be tested within 10~20 game testers working in blizzard.
What they might do is implement a temporary quest to test the UI and Design of the quest to see if they are easy to follow and not too overly confusing to the mass gamers. This is how they would go about getting feedback, not on whether or not each one and every quest in act 1 and act 2 is "Good". That is very stupid way to go about testing.
Secondly, PvP is going to be the heavy emphasis whether or not you agree. Why?
Blizzard knows the importance of balance, whether or not if it's their main priority or not. They are not going to completely dismiss PvP component and put their game in jeopardy upon releasing the game.
You can't expect 20 game testers to come up with all the possible builds and skill trees and skill + rune combination with trait system etc and have it balanced. The resource and the time it takes is too long.
This is where 10000+ beta testers come in to play a big role. Of course every PvP wont be balanced but we can get it to a point where something does not 2 shot kill you. 6 months would go to waste if you just test quest system which probably wont be anything like in the real game.
Edit: I believe Jay Wilson did say "PvP is not going to be main focus of the game"
This does not mean they do not care about it.
This simply means, they dont want to screw up PvE where most people will play just because some skills don't work for PvP. However, Blizzard will put both "emphasis" on both PvP and PvE.
Zerg, if not thoroughly balancing PvP would get the game out 3-4 months earlier, they wouldn't do it. That's why it makes sense that the beta won't be about balancing PvP but rather polish and balance the PvE content. And a beta that lasts so long means there HAS to be thorough testing.
Think opposite than StarCraft II. There, the multiplayer needed balancing to be good as an e-sport and the campaign, since it was single-player, didn't need outside testing.
Now on Diablo III, while the campaign may aswell be done solo, the co-op mode of the campaign is the main thing Blizzard is focusing on. PvP is nice and all, but not the center of attention.
See now why a good lot of us think they're going to include a big part (if not all) of the game with the beta?
I have no doubt there will be PvP in beta and blizzard cares about that but they simply care more about PvE. PvP testing is very simple - if they allow PvP in beta then huge amount of players simply gonna play that, but the problem comes how to test PvE?
I think one of the hardest things to balance is hell mode end game and I think they really want that to be balanced, but that at the same time is hard to test without sploiling much.
Actually PvE is the most easiest to balance. Note that Blizzard hired game testers and that is enough for PvE.
PvE is about scaling, if something does too much damage to players, then simply scale it down. This can be fixed with 20+ players playing the game for ..... like 1 year now? I am 90% sure PvE is balanced to tip top shape. There are no variations to what you can do in PvE, It's simply damage output vs damage taken. Find the balance between the two.
However, PvE is completely different. There are just too many variations that affect the overall balance. Hence, it takes the longest. If I was Jay Wilson, I would devote all 6 months into PvP, giving players entire array of runes.
Sort of like the small demo they had at the blizzcon 2010 where people were able to play 3 vs 3.
In my own opinion, the concept of balancing "PvE" is very stupid to say the least. Are you asking blizzard to let you fight every single monsters in Diablo 3? What is the point?
Damage output scaling is something blizzard is expert at doing, they don't need our help with PvE aspect as much as they need for PvP.
God knows what will happen when we get 2 patches every day just to fix the most broken PvP system known to human kind upon release of Diablo 3.
I would assume PvP is probably the most complicate system in D3 with so much variation that could take place.
It's not as simple as that, Zergy. You see, with Diablo II it was very well the case. In Hell difficulty the monsters/bosses just had increased damage and hit points. All the player had to do was get some damage reduction gear, increase his damage and spam potions. Yeah, spam potions won't work anymore
Now the game will have a "somewhat" more tactical approach to combat. Bosses will be different than they used to be aswell. The difference between someone who plays solo and a party of 2, 3 or 4 is huge. Make the bosses too powerful when more people are in the game and they're broken. Make them too easy and they're not fun.
So according to you PvP balance is very hard because there extremelly huge amount of skill combinations, etc, but in PvE it's not?
It's same thing for PvE - there are TONs of different skill/rune/trait combinations and it should be balanced in all different modes (N,BM,Hell) with different equipment. Do you honestly think this can be balanced with 20 people playing? LOL
A lot of skills are very different and pure math is not enough to balance everything. Imo PvE balance is very difficult, blizzard wants all characters to be viable but no overpowered.
PvP on the other hand is hard to balance but blizzard understands that and they said numerous times that they don't aim for perfect balance because they want players to find stronger skill combos and use them in PvP. But that's not the case in PvE - they want as much skills being viable in PvE as possible, after all most of players going to play PvE.
You make it sound like PvE is easy to balance while it's very hard imo.
This is going to be my last post because I have a feeling you are just clueless.
1) Jay Wilson said PvP will not be the main focus, but he did not say he doesn't work as hard as he can to achieve the closest he can.
2) You treat as if Diablo 3 PvE is different from any other PvE in other RPG games. It's something that Game developers strive to balance without the "Beta". The balancing factor is taken into consideration into the 5 year that it took them to make Diablo 3.
4) You think Blizzard puts in skills, runes into the game and expect us to balance it completely out of the blue?
You must be kidding me. As much as I dont like the number of iterations they go through, when the final product is pretty much balanced. The skill design is built from ground up, making it good and bad in other situations. What we need to find is the "strategy" that completely destroys other characters or teams.
The skills are designed for PvE initially, as you said. So PvE won't have much of a problem. They need to test it for PvP
5) PvP is harder to balance than PvE because there are so many strategies to consider. The notion of testing PvE is absurd. You cannot simply test their PvE because you would have to play the entire story and come across entire act 1 ~ act 4 monsters, unique bosses, final monsters. This is what 20+ beta testers spend their time the most.
Not many games that have great PvE system hold betas. Why would they? It's their job as a game developer to release a polished and well balanced game.
It's not as simple as that, Zergy. You see, with Diablo II it was very well the case. In Hell difficulty the monsters/bosses just had increased damage and hit points. All the player had to do was get some damage reduction gear, increase his damage and spam potions. Yeah, spam potions won't work anymore
Now the game will have a "somewhat" more tactical approach to combat. Bosses will be different than they used to be aswell. The difference between someone who plays solo and a party of 2, 3 or 4 is huge. Make the bosses too powerful when more people are in the game and they're broken. Make them too easy and they're not fun.
Do you really think "Blizzard"... we're talking about Blizzard needs us to balance Boss fights?
Really? I'm starting to wonder you are talking about some High school project.
It just bothers me so much why you can't see the obvious. Blizzard is not going to spoil any story or any boss.
The most you can see is the dungeon that we've seen for the past 3 years, with screen shots.
They'll prob add it just for fun, not neccesarily for balancing. As I said, if you wanna balance PvE, which blizzard doesnt need us for. you would have to play the entire act 1 ~ act 4 since fixing act 1 doesnt gurantee a fix in act 4.
It is already fixed... dont worry about PvE. Just worry about PvP match up having imbalanced strategy or PvE skill being overpowered in PvP. They need to find the balance where PvE skill wont do too much damage to Pvp
All i'm saying is that there's no point for a 5-6 month long beta unless we get THE GAME to test.
PvP is not something they want to balance too much. They said so. Which leaves the PvE content. 6 months beta to test 2 acts is overkill, don't you think?
That's what's pretty obvious, not the possibility of spoilers (that can be easily avoided by placeholder models and removed quest texts).
All i'm saying is that there's no point for a 5-6 month long beta unless we get THE GAME to test.
PvP is not something they want to balance too much. They said so. Which leaves the PvE content. 6 months beta to test 2 acts is overkill, don't you think?
That's what's pretty obvious, not the possibility of spoilers (that can be easily avoided by placeholder models and removed quest texts).
Well we know that the beta will start 6 months before release, but not that it will be live the whole time. Just like in the SC2 beta, they took some months off. And they've gone way out of their way to not say anything about the lore, so I don't see why they'd ruin parts of the game for people. I mean, every time somebody says 'When you kill Diablo' they say 'We haven't confirmed Diablo is in the game yet.' Obviously that specific example could be hidden by placeholders, but if you're venturing into Hell it would be pretty clear that you're at least killing one of the Prime Evils. I think even the areas we go to is something they want to be a surprise, and thats something that would be spoiled by a full beta.
I would bet that the beta is actually live for more like 4 months, with a month long break before release and another month off at some other time. Even if there is very little content, I think they'd favor testers getting bored over spoiling locations, so I would say we would get the first two acts tops. Even that sounds like a bit much.
man, i reallly wwant to get into this beta. then again so many others do as well...
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man, i reallly wwant to get into this beta. then again so many others do as well...
Be ready to hear things like "We'll be talking more about beta in the upcoming Blizzcon 2011" in the May conference call.
I'm not saying it will happen, but there is a possibility. But realistically, even if they announce the Beta in Blizzcon, they are only going to get booed. Remember what they said? "we're giving out 1000 beta keys".....
Yea exactly, this isn't that big of a news, and plus blizzard is not going to get the credit for it.
Its already been to long, and the last thing we want is the beta going over 2012..
The reason I started this thread is because no matter what you think it kind of makes sense... Giving the whole game, sure why not, i mean its going to be ~ 6 months... why wouldnt it be the whole game...
...it cant be the whole game because they've gone so far out of their way to keep the lore under wraps...
...but they could just use placeholder models and remove quest text...
...its blizzard they can handle balancing boss fights on their own, why would they need our help for what they do best?....
...what, you think its going to be focused on pvp, jay wilson straight up said pvp probly wont be balanced...
...that doesnt mean they wont try to balance it...
On another note, my prediction is beta announced during the confrence call, solid release date sometime after Blizzcon. If you look at Blizzard's track record, release dates arent something they announce at large events like blizzcon.
they've gone so far out of their way to keep the lore under wraps...
I just wonder what the reaction will be if it is shown that the "fired tester" was correct about this. And they haven't kept it under wraps at all - you don't need a leak to fill in the blanks on most of the first two acts.
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So that begs the question: what will the beta be?
Will they give all of normal, spoiling the story completely? Will they use normal, without any boss names while using placeholder models? Will it be a small confined area with little to no spoilers and placeholder models?
I for one think it will be all, or almost all of normal. Reason being is if beta is going to take ~6 months, there will probably be a lot of content to test. Also, I dont think PvP balance will be a very big part of the beta, just because Blizzard has stated they wont be focusing too much on the arena aspect for balance.
Any thoughts?
This is just my own thoughts and should not be the standard of any other beta.
1)
Storyline should be "completely removed" from the beta. Why? If you spoil the game, then sales will drop.
If blizzard wanted to test the "functionality" and the player's opinion on the quest system, then they can simply do so using temporary quests that are irrelevant to the story line.
2)
PvP; This is probably going to be the "heavy" focus in the beta. Let me tell you some of the reasons why.
- PvP is the hardest to balance. I don't mean 100% balance, but even to get it to 70% balance where the game seems enjoyable and balanced to some measure. I highly doubt that Blizzard has the capability to balance PvP without giving the full PvP system to the hands of beta testers. This is just like what happened to SC2. You can't internally balance the game within the testers working at Blizzard. Just simply look at 5 Rax Reaper, this highly broken "build" was fixed few months after the "official release". The point is, the game won't be balanced even after the beta.
Beta is to balance the game as much as you can, so PvP is a must and should be their top 2 priority. (PvE and PvP)
Honestly, I don't know what blizzard should release and what not to.
Should people provide feedback on the crafting system? but you have to know that by releasing some of these features could backfire on them. People are highly anticipating for this game, and their expectations are so high that if somethings are very poor in design then they might consider not buying the game.
The critics will judge the game based on the "Beta". And if Diablo 3 does not live up to the expectation of people around the world who've waited for god knows how long... then their sales could expect to drop drastically.
I just wish they hired 100 PvP testers just to get the ground work all complete. I would even work for free, as I imagine many of you would as well. Beta won't really work for Diablo 3... It's too late to release the beta now.
Just go ahead and release the game without spoiling ANY features of the game. Not even the actual graphics that will display on our monitors.
-Sorry if this got too long
in which case the beta fails to serve it's function
unless you want them to waste time creating extra content not related to the story just for the purposes of the beta which is just as silly
beta is going to be the game and you'll test it. if you don't want it spoiled don't test it
that pretty much cuts all the lore references. all you see is where you go, but not who you encounter or why you do the things you do.
I simply disagree. You can't expect Blizzard to release the actual quests in Diablo 3 for the beta.
What they are doing is, testing the functionality of each system that require 10000+ players to actually test if it works. Quests are a big portion of the game, and could easily be tested within 10~20 game testers working in blizzard.
What they might do is implement a temporary quest to test the UI and Design of the quest to see if they are easy to follow and not too overly confusing to the mass gamers. This is how they would go about getting feedback, not on whether or not each one and every quest in act 1 and act 2 is "Good". That is very stupid way to go about testing.
Secondly, PvP is going to be the heavy emphasis whether or not you agree. Why?
Blizzard knows the importance of balance, whether or not if it's their main priority or not. They are not going to completely dismiss PvP component and put their game in jeopardy upon releasing the game.
You can't expect 20 game testers to come up with all the possible builds and skill trees and skill + rune combination with trait system etc and have it balanced. The resource and the time it takes is too long.
This is where 10000+ beta testers come in to play a big role. Of course every PvP wont be balanced but we can get it to a point where something does not 2 shot kill you. 6 months would go to waste if you just test quest system which probably wont be anything like in the real game.
Edit: I believe Jay Wilson did say "PvP is not going to be main focus of the game"
This does not mean they do not care about it.
This simply means, they dont want to screw up PvE where most people will play just because some skills don't work for PvP. However, Blizzard will put both "emphasis" on both PvP and PvE.
Think opposite than StarCraft II. There, the multiplayer needed balancing to be good as an e-sport and the campaign, since it was single-player, didn't need outside testing.
Now on Diablo III, while the campaign may aswell be done solo, the co-op mode of the campaign is the main thing Blizzard is focusing on. PvP is nice and all, but not the center of attention.
See now why a good lot of us think they're going to include a big part (if not all) of the game with the beta?
Actually PvE is the most easiest to balance. Note that Blizzard hired game testers and that is enough for PvE.
PvE is about scaling, if something does too much damage to players, then simply scale it down. This can be fixed with 20+ players playing the game for ..... like 1 year now? I am 90% sure PvE is balanced to tip top shape. There are no variations to what you can do in PvE, It's simply damage output vs damage taken. Find the balance between the two.
However, PvE is completely different. There are just too many variations that affect the overall balance. Hence, it takes the longest. If I was Jay Wilson, I would devote all 6 months into PvP, giving players entire array of runes.
Sort of like the small demo they had at the blizzcon 2010 where people were able to play 3 vs 3.
In my own opinion, the concept of balancing "PvE" is very stupid to say the least. Are you asking blizzard to let you fight every single monsters in Diablo 3? What is the point?
Damage output scaling is something blizzard is expert at doing, they don't need our help with PvE aspect as much as they need for PvP.
God knows what will happen when we get 2 patches every day just to fix the most broken PvP system known to human kind upon release of Diablo 3.
I would assume PvP is probably the most complicate system in D3 with so much variation that could take place.
Now the game will have a "somewhat" more tactical approach to combat. Bosses will be different than they used to be aswell. The difference between someone who plays solo and a party of 2, 3 or 4 is huge. Make the bosses too powerful when more people are in the game and they're broken. Make them too easy and they're not fun.
This is going to be my last post because I have a feeling you are just clueless.
1) Jay Wilson said PvP will not be the main focus, but he did not say he doesn't work as hard as he can to achieve the closest he can.
2) You treat as if Diablo 3 PvE is different from any other PvE in other RPG games. It's something that Game developers strive to balance without the "Beta". The balancing factor is taken into consideration into the 5 year that it took them to make Diablo 3.
4) You think Blizzard puts in skills, runes into the game and expect us to balance it completely out of the blue?
You must be kidding me. As much as I dont like the number of iterations they go through, when the final product is pretty much balanced. The skill design is built from ground up, making it good and bad in other situations. What we need to find is the "strategy" that completely destroys other characters or teams.
The skills are designed for PvE initially, as you said. So PvE won't have much of a problem. They need to test it for PvP
5) PvP is harder to balance than PvE because there are so many strategies to consider. The notion of testing PvE is absurd. You cannot simply test their PvE because you would have to play the entire story and come across entire act 1 ~ act 4 monsters, unique bosses, final monsters. This is what 20+ beta testers spend their time the most.
Not many games that have great PvE system hold betas. Why would they? It's their job as a game developer to release a polished and well balanced game.
Do you really think "Blizzard"... we're talking about Blizzard needs us to balance Boss fights?
Really? I'm starting to wonder you are talking about some High school project.
It just bothers me so much why you can't see the obvious. Blizzard is not going to spoil any story or any boss.
The most you can see is the dungeon that we've seen for the past 3 years, with screen shots.
They'll prob add it just for fun, not neccesarily for balancing. As I said, if you wanna balance PvE, which blizzard doesnt need us for. you would have to play the entire act 1 ~ act 4 since fixing act 1 doesnt gurantee a fix in act 4.
It is already fixed... dont worry about PvE. Just worry about PvP match up having imbalanced strategy or PvE skill being overpowered in PvP. They need to find the balance where PvE skill wont do too much damage to Pvp
PvP is not something they want to balance too much. They said so. Which leaves the PvE content. 6 months beta to test 2 acts is overkill, don't you think?
That's what's pretty obvious, not the possibility of spoilers (that can be easily avoided by placeholder models and removed quest texts).
I would bet that the beta is actually live for more like 4 months, with a month long break before release and another month off at some other time. Even if there is very little content, I think they'd favor testers getting bored over spoiling locations, so I would say we would get the first two acts tops. Even that sounds like a bit much.
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"Except real money trading has always been present in Diablo 2. Except now it's going to be officially supported which will reduce scams, prevent the funding of the black market so your kids will no longer be exposed to dangerous life ruining drugs like the cancer causing marijuana."
Be ready to hear things like "We'll be talking more about beta in the upcoming Blizzcon 2011" in the May conference call.
I'm not saying it will happen, but there is a possibility. But realistically, even if they announce the Beta in Blizzcon, they are only going to get booed. Remember what they said? "we're giving out 1000 beta keys".....
Yea exactly, this isn't that big of a news, and plus blizzard is not going to get the credit for it.
Its already been to long, and the last thing we want is the beta going over 2012..
...it cant be the whole game because they've gone so far out of their way to keep the lore under wraps...
...but they could just use placeholder models and remove quest text...
...its blizzard they can handle balancing boss fights on their own, why would they need our help for what they do best?....
...what, you think its going to be focused on pvp, jay wilson straight up said pvp probly wont be balanced...
...that doesnt mean they wont try to balance it...
On another note, my prediction is beta announced during the confrence call, solid release date sometime after Blizzcon. If you look at Blizzard's track record, release dates arent something they announce at large events like blizzcon.
I just wonder what the reaction will be if it is shown that the "fired tester" was correct about this. And they haven't kept it under wraps at all - you don't need a leak to fill in the blanks on most of the first two acts.