Attendees: Blizzard Caleb Arseno Chief Producer, Chris Gierhart Senior Systems Designer
On February 21, at the BlizzConline, a discussion about the technical alpha test of’Diablo Immortal’ was also held. The major developers who attended the media video interview on this day received various feedbacks through Technical Alpha, and announced their plans to develop the game based on this. It means that it will add a variety of content such as an automatic movement system, various PvP, PvE end content, and top-level expansion, and expand test devices so that you can enjoy the game in more diverse environments. Through this, the intention is to maximize the fun of the game originally intended.
The following is the full text of the interview.
Q. In the case of the dungeon, the first clear experience is interesting, but there is a problem that the play method does not change and the direction of a specific section is too long, so the more you repeatedly enter to perform the daily quest, the more boring you are. What has changed in the structure of dungeon play since the alpha test?
Chris Gyerhart. In the future,’Diablo Immortal’ will continue to add additional dungeon content. Also, the technical alpha test did not provide enough content. In the future, additional content related to PvP and PvE will be provided. Incidentally, each time you play the dungeon, it changes randomly except for the boss monster. In addition, the difficulty of the boss also changes, so I think this part will act as a variable.
Q. Where did you get the most feedback after the technical alpha test?
Chris Gyerhart. There was a lot of feedback on specific areas. For example, unlike before, it has a personality of MMO, so you can play with many players, so various problems can arise. It’s like sweeping away all the monsters you need to kill. In this case, since it was judged as the user who attacked first, there was a lot of feedback, and all the characters that did damage to it were judged to be killed. In the same way, the boss was able to receive recognition for loot or killing. Secondly, there was feedback that the wizard was less powerful than other professions. Mainly aggressive players play wizards, and many pointed out that the slowing speed of cold attacks was fast. Therefore, the duration was increased by overlapping the slowing effect only for the wizard.
Caleb Arceno. There was also feedback on the location of the western park. It is an area where you can feel the MMO, and according to user feedback, it was pulled to the front of the line so that you can meet it quickly. It also plans to expand testing on Android devices.
Q. I was able to move on to the next level only by doing a bounty quest or an event that I could meet in the field. I decided that it was to give an MMORPG-like experience in the field after trying various contents. Is this process intended?
Chris Gyerhart. It is intended to be correct. Looking back at the content flow, the first half focused on adventure. In the case of end content, it is similar to the adventure of’Diablo 3′. It was to learn about end content while playing. This is to make it easier to perform various activities even after reaching the highest level.
Q. The test area is limited. When will the test targeting more diverse areas be conducted? Also, where do you think you are testing?
Caleb Arceno. It has been tested in some influencers, media, and Australia. In the future, the test will also expand all participants and regions. The goal is to be able to test more devices. End content will be added in future tests, and the highest level will be expanded.
Q. I am curious about the share of the participants in Technical Alpha by OS and hardware, and are there any examples of those who conveyed inconvenience in terms of specifications?
Caleb Arceno. The public testing conducted in Australia was 100% Android. During the technical alpha process, it was easiest to deliver the build through Google Play. For media and influencers, iOS was also included. Among the feedback, there were several parts about compatibility, but as it was an initial test, the goal was to start with a narrow range of servers, etc. In the future, we plan to expand by adding tests. The core goal is to make the game playable to as many players as possible.
Q. Unlike other mobile MMORPGs, Diablo Immortal is focused on manual play. Do you have any plans to support controller play on smartphones?
Caleb Arceno. This is the part that received the most feedback since the Technical Alpha. In producing action RPGs, the improvement of the feeling of operation is the most important, but we are contemplating in various ways. Although it cannot be confirmed at this time, we are doing several investigations and we are aware of this kind of feedback.
Q. Regarding the user data for Technical Alpha, is there any information on the most selected characters and the least selected characters?
Caleb Arceno. It is difficult to comment on specific data, but the part that helped me a lot in Technical Alpha is in which job the highest progress was made. The demon hunter seemed to go farthest from the rift. Nevertheless, I still think that other occupational groups also showed outstanding appearances. Most of them were selected uniformly, but there was also a tendency for certain occupation groups to be more selected.
Q. Please introduce the end content currently being planned as publicly available.
Caleb Arceno. We are currently working on end content development. We will continue to provide content that is repeatable and enjoyable even after reaching the highest level. End content will be provided for both PvP and PvE, and social features will also be combined.
Q. As the skill rune disappeared, the effect of the legendary item became more important. Are you going to build a character build around the effects of legendary items?
Chris Gyerhart. In the process of building character builds for users, the most important thing is to acquire legendary equipment with the desired effect. The effects obtained through skill runes are now replaced with legendary attributes. There was not enough time to see how the design actually worked, and in the future, we plan to provide items with various attributes to enable build diversification.
Q. The quality of graphics and directing are unbelievably low as these days. Is there room for improvement?
Chris Arceno. In the future builds we will support, there is also a graphical configuration option available. If you want to get the frame high, you can lower the graphic setting, and if you set it to a higher level, you will get great graphics. I don’t think that this Technical Alpha showed the quality of the launch level.
Q. When entering the end content, it seems that there are users who feel overwhelmed by repetitive manual operation. Do you have any plans to introduce combat-related convenience features?
Caleb Arceno. The focus of the development process is that you have to enjoy every moment in the various processes. We are taking this very seriously. We are concerned that automatic combat will hinder the fun of combat, and there is no plan to introduce it. If there is feedback that it is boring to fight monsters, I think we should make it more enjoyable, and automatic combat is not an alternative. There are plans to add automatic elements in some areas, such as moving to other areas. Rather, it is because I think the moving part can give you more fatigue. There is also an automatic movement system in’Wow’, which will be similar.
Q. Due to the change in skill cool time and character resources, it has become impossible to play with infinite main skills like’Diablo 3′. I wonder if there is a device that complements the cooldown and resources during the future build, and if there is, it will be possible to play infinite skill.
Chris Gyerhart. Basic attacks for each occupational group can be used without restrictions, but the reason for the cooldown applied to other skills is for combat diversity. This is because if you stick to the pattern of repeating only certain skills, you will lose interest. It was designed this way to encourage enjoying the synergy that comes from various combinations.
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