From what I can tell, a lot of the tooth-gnashing over the recent Gears of War games is due to micro transactions. Not sure how much of that would be tied to Furguson's role as a producer.
I'm not concerned about Rob Fergusson. The Gears games are good products. And actually, they're pretty dark and gritty games, and thematically it should be an easy transition for him. And honestly, his list of credits is quite impressive.
What is concerning, however, is that Blizzard felt the need to bring in an outside hire to run this project and this franchise. That doesn't bode well for the current state of D4, and it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence in Blizzard. They're really struggling right now, and while this might be good news for the franchise to bring in some strong leadership that has delivered a lot of really solid games over the years, it's also kind of a bad look regarding the current state of things.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
I mean the game is also in pre-alpha. Now is exactly the time to recognize deficiencies and bring people on board to address them.
The last 2 Gears games have been technical cluster fucks to the point where I am glad I got 4 on sale and gamepassing 5. That probably won't happen at Blizzard. Hopefully. 5 has a shit ending, too, but probably not his call either.
I'm not concerned about Rob Fergusson. The Gears games are good products. And actually, they're pretty dark and gritty games, and thematically it should be an easy transition for him. And honestly, his list of credits is quite impressive.
What is concerning, however, is that Blizzard felt the need to bring in an outside hire to run this project and this franchise. That doesn't bode well for the current state of D4, and it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence in Blizzard. They're really struggling right now, and while this might be good news for the franchise to bring in some strong leadership that has delivered a lot of really solid games over the years, it's also kind of a bad look regarding the current state of things.
There's just not enough information to read into this sort of stuff. But all the rumors from the past year or two paint the picture of Blizzard execs being dissatisfied with the state of the company and reshuffling to pin most of their hopes on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 specifically. By all accounts D4 is in a very early state, but everything we've seen about it so far has been promising IMO, and it speaks well that they're taking it seriously this early on by bringing on big name talent to run the show.
I mean, weren't Jay Wilson (Diablo 3) and Josh Mosquiera (Console Diablo 3 followed by Reaper of Souls) basically new hires for the projects they lead?
I'm not concerned about Rob Fergusson. The Gears games are good products. And actually, they're pretty dark and gritty games, and thematically it should be an easy transition for him. And honestly, his list of credits is quite impressive.
What is concerning, however, is that Blizzard felt the need to bring in an outside hire to run this project and this franchise. That doesn't bode well for the current state of D4, and it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence in Blizzard. They're really struggling right now, and while this might be good news for the franchise to bring in some strong leadership that has delivered a lot of really solid games over the years, it's also kind of a bad look regarding the current state of things.
There's just not enough information to read into this sort of stuff. But all the rumors from the past year or two paint the picture of Blizzard execs being dissatisfied with the state of the company and reshuffling to pin most of their hopes on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 specifically. By all accounts D4 is in a very early state, but everything we've seen about it so far has been promising IMO, and it speaks well that they're taking it seriously this early on by bringing on big name talent to run the show.
I'm confused as to how they want the company to be at this point. Blizzard/Activision leadership doesn't seem to want the Blizzard of old; which took a long time for development and released few products, though of high quality.
What do they want now? To pump out a new game every year, quality be damned? To maximize shareholder value at the expense of their brand and consumers? Sure seems like it.
I'm not concerned about Rob Fergusson. The Gears games are good products. And actually, they're pretty dark and gritty games, and thematically it should be an easy transition for him. And honestly, his list of credits is quite impressive.
What is concerning, however, is that Blizzard felt the need to bring in an outside hire to run this project and this franchise. That doesn't bode well for the current state of D4, and it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence in Blizzard. They're really struggling right now, and while this might be good news for the franchise to bring in some strong leadership that has delivered a lot of really solid games over the years, it's also kind of a bad look regarding the current state of things.
There's just not enough information to read into this sort of stuff. But all the rumors from the past year or two paint the picture of Blizzard execs being dissatisfied with the state of the company and reshuffling to pin most of their hopes on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 specifically. By all accounts D4 is in a very early state, but everything we've seen about it so far has been promising IMO, and it speaks well that they're taking it seriously this early on by bringing on big name talent to run the show.
I'm confused as to how they want the company to be at this point. Blizzard/Activision leadership doesn't seem to want the Blizzard of old; which took a long time for development and released few products, though of high quality.
What do they want now? To pump out a new game every year, quality be damned? To maximize shareholder value at the expense of their brand and consumers? Sure seems like it.
I don't know what the problems actually were or what they want to change exactly, but I think it's mostly that they felt they had spread themselves too thin. There certainly isn't any sign of a yearly release cycle coming to any of their franchises. I think D4 is going to be much more of a live game with ongoing monetization compared to D3, which I would be happy with (since it means more active support). Overwatch 2 might do the same, since I never got the impression that OW1's monetization was wildly successful.
I just remember that they canceled a Starcraft FPS and pulled people off of HotS, and probably the Classics team as well. Then they supposedly put those people onto D4 and OW2. It sounded pretty sensible to me honestly, even though I think they mishandled the HotS transition pretty badly.
I tried the new sets, and poked around the season leaderboard a bit.
Lots of people are playing builds that weren't changed at all, but that's nothing new for PTR. :rotate: There's also a lot of people not using the seasonal bonus at all, but part of that is many builds just can't get away from the conventional wpn/arm/ring setup. Barb especially, usual cube with maybe a furnace tossed in.
Some seasonal ideas I did see pretty well represented:
- (Cr) LoD Blessed Shield + Furnace + ( Echoing Fury or Messerchmidt's)
- (DH) the previously mentioned N6M4 Multishot
- (DH) Crimson's Unhallowed MS + cubed Echoing Fury
- (Monk) Istvan's/Shenlong's w/ PoJ
- (Necro) Multi-scythe LoD Singularity or LoD Iron Rose Nova
- (WD) Spirit Barrage + Wormwood (or Starmetal + fetish belt, or even Aquila's)
- (Wiz) Channeling Hydra + explosive blast/orb of infinite depth
Which brings up my main criticism of the new wiz set- it's still just channeling (for now?). That said, I tried non-channeling frost/lightning/arcane hydras and it was still pretty fun in torment. We'll surely see changes to this one as right now everyone is just running LoD Mammoth Hydra.
Doc's new set seems the most balanced out the gate, but that kinda makes sense given it was already a build. The increased attack rate of the manitou (spirit above your head) looks really cool, visually at least.
The barb set is nice if you like pure frenzy, but that also puts it in a strange middle ground. It's so strong that T16 feels clunky, like battle rage bloodshed can sometimes one shot white mobs and then you're just back to running... while in higher GR's you're literally just standing there holding left click and waiting.
I'm very interested to see what the next iteration looks like, given that the monk and crusader sets ended up quite different.
So here’s Bigdaddyden (doc streamer) with a spirit barrage speed build. Gameplay starts around 11:50 with the manitou blooming everywhere thanks to Grin Reaper
You can, just not a speed-focused goldwrap/boon version. The GR build uses ring of emptiness, haunt, and locust swarm (with some getting that from wormwood w/ season 20 cube bonus)
e: top clear on season 20 ptr is mundunugu's, gr122 w/ 1050ish paragon
I wonder what the start date of the next season will be. PTR goes until what, Feb 20th? And then usually there would be another week before the next season? So perhaps, the 27th or 28th for S20 start?
If it works out to that, for the first time in like 6+ months it lines up beautifully with my schedule and I could start on day one. Hoping it works out that way!
I can't make any guarantees about myself, but this season there are quite a few builds I want to try, so I might last longer than I normally do.
Also I might be a bit optimistic about the start date. Who knows!
What is the worst possible date for the season to start according to your work schedule? I'd place my bets on that being the date if past history is any indication.
Feb 28th would be great, its the first day of a week off. March 6th would suck, its my first shift back at work... the first of three 12h night shifts. So it'll probably be March 6th.
Somehow season starts ALWAYS line up with me working weekends
Well, I've finally collected 5 pieces of both Sunwuko and Patterns of Justice (and like 15 of Inna's, thanks game), so can try either variant of the Tempest Rush build. I still need some of the supporting legendaries, so I'm curious: which of the two Tempest Rush builds do you folks prefer? The speedfarm build of Sunwuko sounds very laid-back and lazy, which is exactly what I'm looking for.
Sunwuko should probably use Wave of Light for speeds. Sunwuko Tempest Rush is for high end greater rifts... higher 6pc damage but also higher gear requirements (massive resource reduction)
I preferred PoJ for speed. Vengeful wind is no longer mandatory, but the movement speed is quite nice. You can mow through everything lazymancer style with TR:Electric Field, and still have dash if your drop the blind.
Sounds good, thanks! I need the Balance daibo for that build, and it looks like a pretty critical element. At least the daibo pool is smaller than, say, bracers or something.
Is anyone getting Wolcen? Is there a thread? I only recently started paying attention to it but the weapon&skill interaction sounds fun, as well as building out the town or something? I was still able to get the early access price this morning so I bit.
D3-wise, hopefully we see some PTR changes today, which I hoped was the purpose of the two week duration.
Sunwuko should probably use Wave of Light for speeds. Sunwuko Tempest Rush is for high end greater rifts... higher 6pc damage but also higher gear requirements (massive resource reduction)
I preferred PoJ for speed. Vengeful wind is no longer mandatory, but the movement speed is quite nice. You can mow through everything lazymancer style with TR:Electric Field, and still have dash if your drop the blind.
So, T11 was a bit touch-and-go with the Raiment of a Thousand Storms generator build (granted, I don't have Shenlong's), so I was hesitant to try PoJ without all the pieces. I shouldn't have been; things literally melted. I didn't have to stop or double-back at all, other than to pick up DBs. I bumped it to T13 with similar results - I only had to double back a few times.
I have the Sweeping Wind belt, and I'm fishing for Vengeful Wind. I'm using Captain Crimson's right now, because that's what was in the build I found online, but it occurred to me this morning that that's for the more progression-oriented build that uses Tempest Rush - Flurry and a bunch of cooldowns. I am absolutely not using that. I'm doing the Tempest Rush - Electric Field build (as you suggested), because I'm only interested in builds can be played effectively by a cat lazily batting at the mouse. No cooldowns means that Captain Crimson's isn't super necessary; I'll just replace it with the Sweeping Wind belt and Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan.
Curious to see if I'll be able to finish the Season Journey in time. The tremendous increase in clear speed that switching to this build offers should do wonders.
Is anyone getting Wolcen? Is there a thread? I only recently started paying attention to it but the weapon&skill interaction sounds fun, as well as building out the town or something? I was still able to get the early access price this morning so I bit.
D3-wise, hopefully we see some PTR changes today, which I hoped was the purpose of the two week duration.
I didn't even pay attention to this on my radar. Read through Koopah's thread and looked at some photos. The photos look like a D2/3 type game which sounds interesting, but the complex play style sort of turned me off at this time. It is funny since I used to like that, but there are times when I just want a simple monster killing game.
KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
I watched a video of the new barb set and it looked kinda boring? Which is unfortunate cause frenzy is my favorite skill conceptually but in practice its never very exciting
Oooh, I need to watch this video. If hydra is a viable build I might try it out next season. I loved casting those heads all over the place while leveling it.
Unless it is like the Necro wizard builds, then bleh...
Like necro in what way? It shouldn’t be anywhere near as fragile as a necro if that’s what you mean
As in the Mage build was spam huge mages and run around. While it was a summoning build, it didn't feel like a summoning build should be.
I'm guessing I am thinking more like how DH Marauder does it with their sentries for the Hydra? Or is that a wrong assumption (I can't watch the video at work).
Ya I guess it’s kind of similar? It’s like if polar station froze enemies and had a short range breath/cone attack. You drop up to two hydras right on a pack, or space them out, and they stay there until you recast elsewhere.
Ya I guess it’s kind of similar? It’s like if polar station froze enemies and had a short range breath/cone attack. You drop up to two hydras right on a pack, or space them out, and they stay there until you recast elsewhere.
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edit: oops, apparently the barb helm has giant horns, i didn't see them at first on my laptop screen and cut them off
Steam: betsuni7
What is concerning, however, is that Blizzard felt the need to bring in an outside hire to run this project and this franchise. That doesn't bode well for the current state of D4, and it doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence in Blizzard. They're really struggling right now, and while this might be good news for the franchise to bring in some strong leadership that has delivered a lot of really solid games over the years, it's also kind of a bad look regarding the current state of things.
We'll probably get a chainsaw staff now, though.
There's just not enough information to read into this sort of stuff. But all the rumors from the past year or two paint the picture of Blizzard execs being dissatisfied with the state of the company and reshuffling to pin most of their hopes on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 specifically. By all accounts D4 is in a very early state, but everything we've seen about it so far has been promising IMO, and it speaks well that they're taking it seriously this early on by bringing on big name talent to run the show.
I'm confused as to how they want the company to be at this point. Blizzard/Activision leadership doesn't seem to want the Blizzard of old; which took a long time for development and released few products, though of high quality.
What do they want now? To pump out a new game every year, quality be damned? To maximize shareholder value at the expense of their brand and consumers? Sure seems like it.
I don't know what the problems actually were or what they want to change exactly, but I think it's mostly that they felt they had spread themselves too thin. There certainly isn't any sign of a yearly release cycle coming to any of their franchises. I think D4 is going to be much more of a live game with ongoing monetization compared to D3, which I would be happy with (since it means more active support). Overwatch 2 might do the same, since I never got the impression that OW1's monetization was wildly successful.
I just remember that they canceled a Starcraft FPS and pulled people off of HotS, and probably the Classics team as well. Then they supposedly put those people onto D4 and OW2. It sounded pretty sensible to me honestly, even though I think they mishandled the HotS transition pretty badly.
Lots of people are playing builds that weren't changed at all, but that's nothing new for PTR. :rotate: There's also a lot of people not using the seasonal bonus at all, but part of that is many builds just can't get away from the conventional wpn/arm/ring setup. Barb especially, usual cube with maybe a furnace tossed in.
Some seasonal ideas I did see pretty well represented:
- (Cr) LoD Blessed Shield + Furnace + ( Echoing Fury or Messerchmidt's)
- (DH) the previously mentioned N6M4 Multishot
- (DH) Crimson's Unhallowed MS + cubed Echoing Fury
- (Monk) Istvan's/Shenlong's w/ PoJ
- (Necro) Multi-scythe LoD Singularity or LoD Iron Rose Nova
- (WD) Spirit Barrage + Wormwood (or Starmetal + fetish belt, or even Aquila's)
- (Wiz) Channeling Hydra + explosive blast/orb of infinite depth
Which brings up my main criticism of the new wiz set- it's still just channeling (for now?). That said, I tried non-channeling frost/lightning/arcane hydras and it was still pretty fun in torment. We'll surely see changes to this one as right now everyone is just running LoD Mammoth Hydra.
Doc's new set seems the most balanced out the gate, but that kinda makes sense given it was already a build. The increased attack rate of the manitou (spirit above your head) looks really cool, visually at least.
The barb set is nice if you like pure frenzy, but that also puts it in a strange middle ground. It's so strong that T16 feels clunky, like battle rage bloodshed can sometimes one shot white mobs and then you're just back to running... while in higher GR's you're literally just standing there holding left click and waiting.
I'm very interested to see what the next iteration looks like, given that the monk and crusader sets ended up quite different.
So here’s Bigdaddyden (doc streamer) with a spirit barrage speed build. Gameplay starts around 11:50 with the manitou blooming everywhere thanks to Grin Reaper
~ Buckaroo Banzai
You can, just not a speed-focused goldwrap/boon version. The GR build uses ring of emptiness, haunt, and locust swarm (with some getting that from wormwood w/ season 20 cube bonus)
e: top clear on season 20 ptr is mundunugu's, gr122 w/ 1050ish paragon
If it works out to that, for the first time in like 6+ months it lines up beautifully with my schedule and I could start on day one. Hoping it works out that way!
D3: HexDex#1281, PSN: DireOtter, Live: DireOtter
Also I might be a bit optimistic about the start date. Who knows!
What is the worst possible date for the season to start according to your work schedule? I'd place my bets on that being the date if past history is any indication.
Somehow season starts ALWAYS line up with me working weekends
Pfft, that just means that you'll be done with the season in one day instead of the entire weekend.
So jealous you get to to to Japan.
Steam: betsuni7
That said, 2.6.7 was a one week PTR from 10/17-10/24 and it started 11/22. With this being 2 weeks, it’s probably at least 3/12.
I preferred PoJ for speed. Vengeful wind is no longer mandatory, but the movement speed is quite nice. You can mow through everything lazymancer style with TR:Electric Field, and still have dash if your drop the blind.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
D3-wise, hopefully we see some PTR changes today, which I hoped was the purpose of the two week duration.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
I have the Sweeping Wind belt, and I'm fishing for Vengeful Wind. I'm using Captain Crimson's right now, because that's what was in the build I found online, but it occurred to me this morning that that's for the more progression-oriented build that uses Tempest Rush - Flurry and a bunch of cooldowns. I am absolutely not using that. I'm doing the Tempest Rush - Electric Field build (as you suggested), because I'm only interested in builds can be played effectively by a cat lazily batting at the mouse. No cooldowns means that Captain Crimson's isn't super necessary; I'll just replace it with the Sweeping Wind belt and Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan.
Curious to see if I'll be able to finish the Season Journey in time. The tremendous increase in clear speed that switching to this build offers should do wonders.
I didn't even pay attention to this on my radar. Read through Koopah's thread and looked at some photos. The photos look like a D2/3 type game which sounds interesting, but the complex play style sort of turned me off at this time. It is funny since I used to like that, but there are times when I just want a simple monster killing game.
Steam: betsuni7
D3: HexDex#1281, PSN: DireOtter, Live: DireOtter
Frost hydra’s lookin gud
Oooh, I need to watch this video. If hydra is a viable build I might try it out next season. I loved casting those heads all over the place while leveling it.
Unless it is like the Necro wizard builds, then bleh...
Steam: betsuni7
As in the Mage build was spam huge mages and run around. While it was a summoning build, it didn't feel like a summoning build should be.
I'm guessing I am thinking more like how DH Marauder does it with their sentries for the Hydra? Or is that a wrong assumption (I can't watch the video at work).
Steam: betsuni7
Cool, I'll have to check this out then.
Steam: betsuni7