D3's 2.5 PTR backlash continues to amaze me

Seriously, I haven't seen press coverage like this of a Blizzard game, any Blizzard game, since D3's Error37-laden launch. It's amazeballs.

Today's gem comes from MMO Examiner:

The Diablo community are always one to voice their opinions, and a recent thread in particular has certainly got tails up on the official forums. Players have been called upon to sum up in one sentence the single worst thing about Diablo III.

This as expected prompted a number of diverse responses. There isn’t much of a recurrent theme, though a few players did point out their disdain for RNG (Random Number Generator), with users such as Zeddicuus stating: ” RNG on my gear for the quality of the gear that just RNG’d is getting a bit much.” For those unfamiliar, RNG in a nutshell is that stats on dropped items in Diablo III are randomly generated from a list of possible stats for that corresponding weapon/armor slot.

Others are quick to point out what has been a criticism ever since the content revealed at Blizzcon 2016, in that there is little to enjoy from re-releasing previous features. Province’s biggest problem is “Re-worked existing crap instead of new content.” Others go on to point out a lack of trading, no advanced skill tree system and a lack of creative freedom for players during the game.

The lack of robust RPG elements has been a sore point since the game launched without them, and then failed to add them in the Reaper of Souls expansion, and the game's over-dependence on items (and thus RNG) is a direct result of that. Any sufficient deep dive into D3's official forum will turn up thousands of posts on these subject, going all the was back to the pre-launch beta.

So, none of this new. Today is, however, the first time I've seen an item pop up in a Google News search that actually acknowledges these long-standing issues. You'd almost think that Blizzard had jumped the shark, or something.

GG, Blizzard. GG.

Yes, I'm still banging on about D3's latest PTR...

I can't help it. I'm finding the reaction Blizzard's latest D3 PTR to be rather fascinating.

The next take? Paul Tassi's, at Forbes.

Blizzard just rolled out the patch notes for 2.5.0 for Diablo 3, and while they are adding a few welcome features to the game, they show just how dry the well is starting to run as well.

Positive changes include new tabs for materials to free up stash space, a quasi-buff to bounty rewards, and a new “loadout” armory system where players can save not just gear, but skills, socketed gems and even Kanai Cube powers to be able to switch easily between builds.

[...]

But the one addition in the patch that’s managing to roll a lot of eyes in the yes-we’re-still-playing-Diablo community is the addition of Primal Ancient Legendary weapons.

Right now, there current system in place has Legendary/set weapons/armor that drop with special properties and increased stats over “normal” items. For a while now, there has been a chance for each of those items to drop as an “Ancient” variant, which has increased stat ranges in categories like Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, Resist All and so on.

Now, Primal Ancient Legendary Weapons will be even more rare, and have a chance to drop with even better stats than those.

Why is this bad? More powerful gear is fun right?

Yes and no. The problem is that this puts yet another insane level of RNG into the game as a way of artificially extending playtime without actually adding anything new or valuable. The concept of an “Ancient Ancient,” or a Primal Ancient, is the definition of pure power creep.

[...]

This may not be a big deal, but it’s emblematic of Blizzard sort of throwing in the towel when it comes to supporting Diablo 3 in what are apparently the last stages of its life. The Darkening of Tristam event was very underwhelming, and now the answer to “now what?” is just creating yet another god tier of items that push power creep up to new heights, and make players feel like the builds they’ve perfected so far are now trash.

What can I say? I agree with all of this.

I did take issue with one thing that Tassi wrote in his article, though, when he described the Armory as "something every game in this genre desperately needs." D3 definitely needed an Armory, because D3 doesn't have characters in the way that most RPGs have characters. Instead, D3 has loadouts, which means that switching around your equipped items changes your entire build. 

Games with robust RPG elements don't work this way. Path of Exile, for example, has a passive skill tree that profoundly affects the way your character plays, and which simply cannot be respec'ed in a few seconds with a couple of button clicks. PoE has characters, and encourages players to make more than one character in order to experiment with different builds and various game mechanics, all of which would render an Armory system like D3's useless. 

By saying that every game of this genre desperately needs an Armory-like system, Tassi is either saying (a) that Diablo III isn't an ARPG, or (b) that he knows very little about ARPGs, and needs to play some Path of Exile, stat. Or Torchlight II, or Grim Dawn, or Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem... or, really any real ARPG.

Go on, Paul. Give it a go. You're bored with D3, anyway.

OK, I know that I said I was done with Diablo III, but...

... I simply could not let this pass without comment.

First, the set up.

A couple of years back, when Blizzard was in the process of adding the Ancient tier of Legendary items to the game, I had this to say about it:

ALs are a terrible idea. They add no new gameplay, since they're exactly the same items just with bigger numbers; they solve none of the game's existing problems; and they make existing problems, like power creep, worse, not better. And they're only necessary because Blizzard's most recent attempt to deal with item over-dependence (leveling out the drop rates of the game's Legendary items so that you can find what you need for your build) basically eliminated ultra-rare item-hunting -- without actually solving the problem of item over-dependence! And once added, they effectively can't be removed, and will make all of Blizzard's subsequent attempts to deal with the game's issues harder.

Ancient Legendaries are a terrible design, the latest link in a cascading chain of terrible design decisions... and so, of course, Blizzard is set to add them to live servers next Tuesday. GG, Blizz. GG.

I was right, too -- Ancient Legendaries were a terrible idea. They did make the game's creeping decimalism problem worse, they didn't solve the rare-item drop rate issue (i.e. the items which hold all the best gameplay in D3 basically never dropped), they didn't add any new gameplay, and, having been added, they couldn't be removed. It may not be the worst design element of D3, but it's close.

And so, naturally, Blizzard are about to repeat this mistake. Because of course they are.

From the 2.5.0 PTR patch notes:

Apart from the word "primal," that's almost exactly the same description that Blizzard gave for non-Primal Ancient Legendaries when they were added to the game... except that this time they didn't even bother to explain why they're doing this yet again. No new gameplay, no problems solved or even mentioned, and worse power creep/creeping decimalism, all for the laziest fucking piece of copypaste game design that I've ever seen. They've literally just upped the numbers another x%, put a different coloured border around it, and called it a day.

The comment section underneath these patch notes tells the tale:

And so on... and so on...

BTW, for the mathematically inclined, if the stat range on PALs is 30% higher than ALs (the same ratio as ALs to Normal Legendaries), then 13 equipment slots worth of Primals will roughly equal a 30-fold power increase. That's 30 times the damage output of current all-Ancient builds, in a game where a Witch Doctor's pets can already critically hit for tens of billions in damage.

This is the kind of lazy, creatively bankrupt nonsense that inspired me to delete by Battle.Net account and, man oh man! am I ever glad I that did. I am well out of this shit.

#fuckyouBlizzard

‘Diablo 4’ Release Date: Major Announcement at BlizzCon 2016!!!!

Or... not. Because Blizzard haven't announced anything at all, yet.

I've been seeing articles like this one, from GameNGuide, popping up every few days for a few weeks now:

‘Diablo 4’ Release Date, News & Update: Major Announcement at BlizzCon 2016; New Game Or Expansion Coming?

BlizzCon is set to happen on Nov. 4 and 5, 2016 in Anaheim, California, and fans are already excited for big news. Blizzard Entertainment previously shared that they have a huge announcement to make, which many believe involves "Diablo 4," among others.

iTechPost reported that "Diablo 4" fans were dismayed when Blizzard did not have any fresh details about the franchise at Gamescom in August 2016. Many thought that the game company may have saved big news and updates for their own major event - BlizzCon 2016. The "Diablo" official Twitter account stated that they have something great to reveal in 2016.

Some "Diablo" fans speculated that Blizzard may be preparing an enhanced version of "Diablo II" or "StarCraft." There are rumors that Blizzard might remake either of the two hit titles to suit current platforms. Others opined that the game creator might feature a prequel, sequel reboot or expansion for "Diablo III." Others shared that there might be a mobile "Diablo" game. The rest are hoping that the company will introduce "Diablo IV" soon.

In another iTechPost report, there has yet to be a suitable replacement for "Diablo" game director Josh Mosquiera. Blizzard is reportedly looking for more staff members to work on the "Diablo 4." There are talks that senior designer Wyatt Chang might replace George Musketeer as game director, although he will continue some of the work already commenced. Even if "Diablo 4" is already in the works, it will take a while to complete, so an announcement about a "Diablo II" remake or "Diablo 3" expansion seems more likely to arrive at BlizzCon 2016.

For those counting, these are the actual facts in this excerpt:

1. BlizzCon is indeed set to happen on Nov. 4th and 5th;
2. there are indeed many rumours and much speculation flying around Diablo fan sites, forums, and Reddit about what Blizzard might announce at BlizzCon about Diablo, if anything; and
3. iTechPost has indeed posted multiple articles filled with those rumours and speculations.

That's it. Speculation aside, Blizzard haven't announced who the next game director of Diablo will be; George Musketeer was never actually announced as Diablo's game director by Blizzard, and there's no evidence that he was replaced as such, by Wyatt Cheng or anyone else. All the older "Diablo team" job listings have vanished, and new ones have been posted, suggesting that some folks were hired and that they're hiring more, but right now, that's all we know for sure.