Update 9/9: New PTR expected next week along with ladder 2 start date

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/e ... /140654/24

Blizzard wrote:

Hi all -

I know it has been a bit quiet on the D2R front especially this week as all other Diablo titles have had some sort of news.

But fear not, we are hoping to share some news about PTR next week. A bit late I know and a bit outside of our windows we were aiming for with ladder seasons but the team is working on a feature that they would like to test in PTR that is pretty big and they want to make sure we can get accurate feedback on it before it goes live in the PTR.

Hoping we can share more next week and if not, it surely will be the week after.

https://twitter.com/PezRadar/status/1560796379731075072

Blizzard wrote:

Aiming for something next week and if not then, shortly thereafter.

Team has been hard at work on something for 2.5/Season 2.

Wonder what this "feature" will be that needs its own PTR, currency stash tab? Loot filter? Something else entirely? Guess we'll see, but I'm excited!

Thanks for sharing this great news!

just expect 80% fuck-up from blizzard and you will not be disappointed.

DarkMaster wrote: 2 years ago

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/e ... /140654/24

Blizzard wrote:

Hi all -

I know it has been a bit quiet on the D2R front especially this week as all other Diablo titles have had some sort of news.

But fear not, we are hoping to share some news about PTR next week. A bit late I know and a bit outside of our windows we were aiming for with ladder seasons but the team is working on a feature that they would like to test in PTR that is pretty big and they want to make sure we can get accurate feedback on it before it goes live in the PTR.

Hoping we can share more next week and if not, it surely will be the week after.

https://twitter.com/PezRadar/status/1560796379731075072

Blizzard wrote:

Aiming for something next week and if not then, shortly thereafter.

Team has been hard at work on something for 2.5/Season 2.

Wonder what this "feature" will be that needs its own PTR, currency stash tab? Loot filter? Something else entirely? Guess we'll see, but I'm excited!

What is a "PTR?"

lscottl wrote: 2 years ago

DarkMaster wrote: 2 years ago

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/e ... /140654/24

Blizzard wrote:

Hi all -

I know it has been a bit quiet on the D2R front especially this week as all other Diablo titles have had some sort of news.

But fear not, we are hoping to share some news about PTR next week. A bit late I know and a bit outside of our windows we were aiming for with ladder seasons but the team is working on a feature that they would like to test in PTR that is pretty big and they want to make sure we can get accurate feedback on it before it goes live in the PTR.

Hoping we can share more next week and if not, it surely will be the week after.

https://twitter.com/PezRadar/status/1560796379731075072

Blizzard wrote:

Aiming for something next week and if not then, shortly thereafter.

Team has been hard at work on something for 2.5/Season 2.

Wonder what this "feature" will be that needs its own PTR, currency stash tab? Loot filter? Something else entirely? Guess we'll see, but I'm excited!

What is a "PTR?"

Public Test Realm - think of it as a staging environment before they push the new patch to "production" or GA (General Availability) etc.

Maybe a fix to DClone...

nothing wrong with dclone

Th3ory wrote: 2 years ago

lscottl wrote: 2 years ago

DarkMaster wrote: 2 years ago

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/e ... /140654/24

Blizzard wrote:

Hi all -

I know it has been a bit quiet on the D2R front especially this week as all other Diablo titles have had some sort of news.

But fear not, we are hoping to share some news about PTR next week. A bit late I know and a bit outside of our windows we were aiming for with ladder seasons but the team is working on a feature that they would like to test in PTR that is pretty big and they want to make sure we can get accurate feedback on it before it goes live in the PTR.

Hoping we can share more next week and if not, it surely will be the week after.

https://twitter.com/PezRadar/status/1560796379731075072

Blizzard wrote:

Aiming for something next week and if not then, shortly thereafter.

Team has been hard at work on something for 2.5/Season 2.

Wonder what this "feature" will be that needs its own PTR, currency stash tab? Loot filter? Something else entirely? Guess we'll see, but I'm excited!

What is a "PTR?"

Public Test Realm - think of it as a staging environment before they push the new patch to "production" or GA (General Availability) etc.

Cool

Question for historical players : does start of PTR usually mean "end of ladder season + ladder chars to non-ladder" ?

Thanks !

Necrarch wrote: 2 years ago

Question for historical players : does start of PTR usually mean "end of ladder season + ladder chars to non-ladder" ?

Thanks !

There is no history for that. This is the first season in D2:R and D2 didn't have that same (PTR) system yet.

An educated guess (also based on other games) would give you the following chain of events though:
1) PTR begins
2) PTR concludes
3) A possible small break for post-PTR coding updates and the like
4) Patch is rolled out and season 1 ends
5) A likely small break to ensure it didn't break too much (or at least to claim to do so, in true Blizz fashion)
6) Season 2 begins

The actual end of S1 would imo most likely be at a point where they feel comfortable accurately planning when the patch will hit live. That's typically not while PTR is still going strong but would be either with point #3 or more likely with point #4 (we know from the last PTR that they can end the season without an extra patch so it could be prior to #4). Most likely (again imo/educated guess), we'll go through the entire PTR cycle (or multiple such cycles, depending on patch content/significance/brokenness) with S1 still continuing. After the PTR ends and finishing touches are put on the patch, the patch will be rolled out to live and will end S1 at the same time. S2 would then begin probably a week or two after that (so 1-2 weeks with no ladder season active) so the patch has a chance to show just how much it broke live first.

That's assuming there really is some sort of significant updating done with the patch.

Thanks a bunch @Schnorki for your detailed answer. Seems a logical staging / production cycle indeed.

RichyK wrote: 2 years ago

nothing wrong with dclone

everything wrong with DClone

i see nothing wrong. just butthurt ppl who want it to be controlled by a few, hard to do by casuals etc

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Necrarch wrote: 2 years ago

Question for historical players : does start of PTR usually mean "end of ladder season + ladder chars to non-ladder" ?

Thanks !

There is no history for that. This is the first season in D2:R and D2 didn't have that same system yet.

An educated guess (also based on other games) would give you the following chain of events though:
1) PTR begins
2) PTR concludes
3) A possible small break for post-PTR coding updates and the like
4) Patch is rolled out and season 1 ends
5) A likely small break to ensure it didn't break too much (or at least to claim to do so, in true Blizz fashion)
6) Season 2 begins

The actual end of S1 would imo most likely be at a point where they feel comfortable accurately planning when the patch will hit live. That's typically not while PTR is still going strong but would be either with point #3 or more likely with point #4 (we know from the last PTR that they can end the season without an extra patch so it could be prior to #4). Most likely (again imo/educated guess), we'll go through the entire PTR cycle (or multiple such cycles, depending on patch content/significance/brokenness) with S1 still continuing. After the PTR ends and finishing touches are put on the patch, the patch will be rolled out to live and will end S1 at the same time. S2 would then begin probably a week or two after that (so 1-2 weeks with no ladder season active) so the patch has a chance to show just how much it broke live first.

That's assuming there really is some sort of significant updating done with the patch.

Align with this - and Klenkogi in our Discord put together a fun one to read:

Timeline 1:
day zero // today // August 22nd
week 1//starting August 22: Blizzard announces a PTR to start the next week.
week 2//starting August 29: The PTR starts and runs one week.
week 3//starting September 5: They take 1 week to make changes to the game after the PTR.
week 4//starting September 12: They start the ladder, but they tend to do it on a Thursday, so I'd guess fastest possible ladder reset date is September 15.

To be clear, I think this is an exceptionally optimistic timeframe, it doesn't include a 2nd round of PTR testing, has everything moving about as fast as could reasonably be expected, and as such is probably not realistic. However, it is useful because I think it demonstrates that it is unlikely that we see a ladder reset coming before mid September. So if you were holding out hope still for the end of this month or the start of next month, I think your best served to let that go and go enjoy something else for a few weeks.

Timeline 2:
day zero // today // August 22nd
week 1//starting August 22: nothing
week 2//starting August 29: Blizzard announces a PTR to start the next week.
week 3//starting September 5: PTR runs
week 4//starting September 12: PTR runs and concludes
week 5//starting September 19: PTR changes are analyzed and changes made
week 6//starting September 26: PTR changes are finalized and ladder reset is announced
week 7: Ladder reset occurs on October 6th, (they tend to like to launch these on a Thursday)

Tragically, I don't even think this is a particularly pessimistic timeframe. I think this is just a reasonable baseline estimate for how things could likely unfold. I think it is possible that one could theorize a 3rd timeline that is like this 2nd slower timeline but slower by a few more weeks because they do another round of PTR testing, or random unforeseen things went wrong. In that kind of Scenario we would be looking at a ladder reset towards the end of October or Early November.

As such these are how I'd weight the probabilities:
before September 1: less than 1% chance
by September 15: 40% chance
by October 6: 75% chance
by October 27: 90% chance
by November 10: greater than 99% chance

tl;dr = Tuesday

Sweet! Fingers crossed for loot filter!

... or stackable gems and runes !
... or direct putting in / selling from cube
... or...

Necrarch wrote: 2 years ago

... or stackable gems and runes !
... or direct putting in / selling from cube
... or...

The cube UI improvement would be my favorite. Move the cube drawer panel from the left half of the screen to a small pop-out window at the edge of the inventory or stash, and keep the left half available to see the stash or vendor tabs.

Stackable gems and runes would be nice and reduce the number of mules everyone has. Obviously, stackables have been done before in mods, but I guess the technical complexity would be higher for the D2R dev team versus other potential improvements they could have worked on since the last patch.

Seems unlikely for any PTR news today unfortunately, Blizz usually tends to post announcements in the morning it seems and it's already 12:26 PM PST.

My prediction is similar to Klenkogi's:

1. PTR announced this week (guessing Tuesday Aug 23) (I made this prediction a few days ago, seems unlikely for PTR news today now so changing that to Thursday Aug 25)
2. PTR runs for 2 weeks (Aug 29 - September 9 or so, they have a big "feature" that needs testing)
3. At least 1 week off for PTR feedback
4. Patch 2.5 releases Sept 20
5. Ladder resets Sept 30

We'll see though, I hope the news doesn't get delayed to next week. Trying to contain my excitement but failing to.

I am most curious about what feature qualifies as "pretty big".

Bisu wrote: 2 years ago

I am most curious about what feature qualifies as "pretty big".

This...

Do not touch or mess the game engine underneath I pray to the lords of Diablo. Don't break it.