Text/Kakabu [www.gamermarch.com of the Aircraft Club (please indicate the source for reprinting)]
In the gaming world, every new game is born with countless expectations and challenges. For Diablo IV, a high-profile large-scale action RPG, the difficulty of its internal testing was described by the designers as "cursedly difficult". This is not only an extreme challenge for the game design team, but also a test of patience and enthusiasm for players.
In a recent online interview, Chief Professional Designer Adam Jackson and Associate Director Joe Piepiora of Diablo 4 will launch Season 4 Reborn on May 15, and they discussed playtesting in depth. Adam Jackson admits that the level of dedication that testers have to sacrifice their personal lives in order to truly test the game content is unimaginable.
This is very different from what most Chinese who have never been to a Western country think of as "the way foreign companies work abroad", and Westerners also work hard and work overtime.
In the interview, Adam Jackson revealed how they incorporated player feedback into the game's design. They identify and list areas for improvement by regularly monitoring comments on Reddit forums, live streams, official forums, and other channels, as well as playing games in person on a daily basis. They were able to look at a variety of data to determine which campaigns were popular, which changes were working, and whether there were conflicting player reactions and opinions.
(Pictured, Diablo 4 Chief Professional Designer Adam Jackson (left) and Associate Director Joe Piepiora (right))
(Pictured, Adam Jackson working out at the gym)
However, for a completely new system, it is very difficult to rely on in-house testing alone in the absence of data support. Diablo 4's vast gameplay system is so interconnected that no data can represent the experience after hundreds of hours of gameplay. This makes in-house testing a daunting task that requires the tester's full dedication.
Adam Jackson also mentioned their testing of the "Precision Casting" system in the PTR (Public Test Realm). Originally, players were required to watch a short animation every time they crafted, but after the launch of PTR, players immediately reacted that they were impatient to watch hundreds or thousands of animations. For this reason, the system added a "skip" function, which became a difficult problem to detect in internal testing. The design team had to find a balance between "wasting time by watching the animation repeatedly" and "celebrating the success of the craft to make the animation look cooler."
The challenge of Diablo 4 is not only technical, but also a deep understanding of the player experience. Fueled by social hotspots, every detail of this game has been closely watched by the player community. From the hardships of internal testing to the importance of player feedback, Blizzard Entertainment has demonstrated its relentless pursuit of game quality and respect for player voices.
As the Treasure Hunt season approaches, the enthusiasm of players is further ignited. The story of Diablo 4 is not only an adventure of the game, but also a profound exploration of game design and player interaction. Let's wait and see how Blizzard cracks the "curse" of internal testing to bring us a truly memorable gaming experience.
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Blizzard
Introduction: Blizzard Entertainment is a well-known game production and publishing company, founded on February 8, 1991 by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce, three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles, under the name Silicon & Synapse; In 1994 the brand was officially renamed "Blizzard". Blizzard has launched a number of classic series: Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft. Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, and StarCraft are all featured in many prestigious esports competitions and are highly regarded in the computer game community. On July 9, 2008, Activision Blizzard was officially merged into Vivendi, the holding company that includes the Blizzard Entertainment brand name. In July 2013, Activision Blizzard bought back a majority stake from its parent company, Vivendi, to become an independent company. Blizzard Entertainment is now an independent division of Activision Blizzard, a U.S. video game publisher, and both operate independently in the development process.
Founded: 1991
总部： 美国加州尔湾（Irvine, California）
代表作品：The Lost Viking，Rock and Roll Racing，Diablo series，Overwatch