The big announcement from Blizzard: PTR is scheduled to launch on May 27. Well, it should be hype, but reception has been the opposite. The official tweet was calling forth all defenders of Sanctuary to “take up arms,” but the replies were mocking, sarcastic, and downright scathing with criticism.
What’s up? The PTR is done for changes to be put before the player base, to test it before it is available in the game. According to the replies, however, the Diablo community is far from adoring it. Joey Knish, alluding to the situation, said it was like Path of Exile 2 early access: “PoE2 early access is literally $30, just login dude.” That stung.
And then it was off to season-long content gripes. A couple of players accused Blizzard of recycling mechanics. “Still the same crap, powers with the same interface but they just changed the colors and effect animations,” said Shaibi. Riccardo kept roasting the Nightmare Dungeon: “Season of Nightmare dungeons. Wow. You can chain 3!!! WOOOOW. WHAT A FKING AWESOME ENDGAME.”
They were up to ranting about necromancers: Mike Derouen opined that minion builds were DOA, mages did SHIT damage, and they needed a 1,000% damage increase to even be viable. Meanwhile, Druid players such as HeracrossBoss affirmed that class diversity was still non-existent, with one build getting nerfed and another getting buffed but nothing really shaking the meta.
And then comes the Hydra debate. Somebody is excited for the Hydra unique, but then again, The Capn gutted Blizzard for overlooking Masterworking once again. “Masterworking ignored again is a huge let down,” they tweeted. “On principle, I am not pushing perfect MW anymore, the grind is not worth it.”
Frustration arose less from the mechanics themselves and more from the value they reckoned they were netting out of it. Plural players said, citing the $60 for the game and a $40 expansion price tags, that the seasonal updates were a cheap river-market approach. “We pay $60 for the game and $40 for the expansion, but apparently only $3 goes into developing new seasonal themes,” said Shaibi.
Even the format of the announcement was roasted. Spopes made the point “I call that demented. Why not just drop the video instead of linking to an article?”
But hey, not everything is perceivably negative. SeekretKareactr was basically hyped, something along the lines of, “Looking forward to this!” with a hype video. There’s that one guy who simply asked, “What’s the word on Diablo V?” Classic.
So yeah, there’s a little work for Blizzard to do. The PTR might be the stage on which new things can finally be tested, but judging by reactions to new stuff, devs have to start listening very carefully to feedback. Or else the defenders of Sanctuary could merely carry their arms elsewhere.
The Diablo IV PTR launches May 27. Will players show up or rebuff, that is yet still to be seen.
