Public Test Realm Patch Notes 1.12 (Overview, Respec Tokens & Gear)

Blizzard wrote:

PTR OVERVIEW

The Public Test Realm (PTR) is a special realm where we can test balance, bug fixes, and other enhancements we make in Diablo II: Resurrected. This test environment is available to all owners of the game, who can play a critical role in testing features and sharing their feedback to improve the overall experience for all players.

To acquire access to the PTR, open your Battle.net launcher application and select the Diablo II: Resurrected tab. Above the “Play” button and under the “Game Version” text, select the dropdown menu and click “Public Test Realm.” Now you’ll be able to download and install the test version of the game. Once finished, simply select “Play” to launch the PTR. As normal updates are automatically downloaded by the Battle.net launcher application, so too is the PTR.

The focus of the first PTR will revolve around fixing database issues 670 and making the online environment more robust and flexible under high-volume conditions. This test will be imperative, as it will assist us in stabilizing the gameplay experience ahead of the implementation of Ladder rank play.

PATCH NOTES

A new Diablo II: Resurrected patch is in development and now available for testing. To share your feedback or report any issues, please post in the PTR Feedback 833 and PTR Bug Report 173 sections.

Please note that the below patch notes only include changes currently available for testing on the PTR. While many of these changes may also be available on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch in a future patch, the PTR is PC-only and only reflects changes coming specifically to that platform.

GENERAL

Character saves are now saved on the regional database, rather than the global database, alleviating database stress and mitigating server stability issues

DEVELOPER COMMENTS: To help us test these database changes, we encourage players to play and log in and out A LOT. Furthermore, it would be helpful if players could creator characters of different types (Hardcore, Classic, etc.). This will assist us in gauging the fix on our end. We’ll be providing players with level 99 characters for their first journey in the public test realm.

PezRadar's comment on the Gear and Skill Respecs on PTR characters:

Blizzard wrote:

Hi all -

Just an update on this PTR. We have seen the comments about how gear may not match exact builds. The team is basing these off of just gear from some setups that aren’t specific to this meta and more from a QA environment. As this PTR isn’t fully focused in on testing any balance, we aren’t going to make widespread changes to the existing gear right now, but you can expect all the needed gear to be available in the 2.4 PTR which will arrive soon and after this instance of PTR so we can ensure we get proper feedback on the balance changes.

As for specs, we are going to roll out an update which will have a mule character available with tokens that will allow you to respec your characters on PTR. That character will be rolled out this afternoon and the tokens can be passed along in the shared stash.

Thanks!

source

Delete the Bowzon and MartialArts characters and relog for Respec Tokens and Fixes:

Blizzard wrote:

The above character changes have been implemented.

To access some of the changes to characters we have adjusted, please delete the Bowazon character and the MartialArts character from your character list. Log out and log back in. You will be given a new Bowazon named “IthIsTheNewIst” with some fixes to the items and a new character named “Tokens” which will provide you tokens for respecs.

source

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
One step closer to the damn Ladder Season 1.

But we still can't create characters there, can we?

You can, you just have to delete one of the premade characters.

I'm very surprised by the level of detail they went into gearing these characters. I never thought I'd see a Grief & Last Wish

Whirlwind barb in the PTR.

I'm also scared to play too much though. If I end up dropping a

Jah at the

Travincal on the PTR barb I'd probably quit.

BillyMaysed wrote: 2 years ago

GENERAL

Character saves are now saved on the regional database, rather than the global database, alleviating database stress and mitigating server stability issues

DEVELOPER COMMENTS: To help us test these database changes, we encourage players to play and log in and out A LOT. Furthermore, it would be helpful if players could creator characters of different types (Hardcore, Classic, etc.). This will assist us in gauging the fix on our end. We’ll be providing players with level 99 characters for their first journey in the public test realm.

Sounds like this may allow them to disable the 60 second lockout on new game creation.

"Character saves are now saved on the regional database, rather than the global database, alleviating database stress and mitigating server stability issues"

I wonder if this changes anything. Would this make characters region-specific?

Bisu wrote: 2 years ago

"Character saves are now saved on the regional database, rather than the global database, alleviating database stress and mitigating server stability issues"

I wonder if this changes anything. Would this make characters region-specific?

I really hope they thought it through!

Maybe it's like the servers then copy the files over before "playing" with them and copy them back upon quitting the game.
If they make it region-specific, that would be a way too big change for trading communities.

From what I remember reading from previous blueposts on the matter, they don't expect this to change the current 'regionless, play wherever' model. It's supposedly just a server-side optimization that should improve server performance without changing our ability to play in any region. There's still going to be a global database, they're just optimizing how they all communicate with each other on their backend.

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

From what I remember reading from previous blueposts on the matter, they don't expect this to change the current 'regionless, play wherever' model. It's supposedly just a server-side optimization that should improve server performance without changing our ability to play in any region. There's still going to be a global database, they're just optimizing how they all communicate with each other on their backend.

That’s fantastic news if that’s the case.

They didnt even give you any gear to test out... All the same Grief, hoto, cta, infin, Enigma.......wheres the Dragon, Dream, Doom, Death, botd, Beast, HOJ, etc. or maybe give us a char full of runes and another with bases and we can roll stuff...
Wheres the keys to kill ubers with these chars? need a toon full of keysets

Azer-Archon wrote: 2 years ago

They didnt even give you any gear to test out... All the same Grief, hoto, cta, infin, Enigma.......wheres the Dragon, Dream, Doom, Death, botd, Beast, HOJ, etc. or maybe give us a char full of runes and another with bases and we can roll stuff...
Wheres the keys to kill ubers with these chars? need a toon full of keysets

This version of the PTR doesn’t have any changes, it’s just a server test.

Woaglagin wrote: 2 years ago

Azer-Archon wrote: 2 years ago

They didnt even give you any gear to test out... All the same Grief, hoto, cta, infin, Enigma.......wheres the Dragon, Dream, Doom, Death, botd, Beast, HOJ, etc. or maybe give us a char full of runes and another with bases and we can roll stuff...
Wheres the keys to kill ubers with these chars? need a toon full of keysets

This version of the PTR doesn’t have any changes, it’s just a server test.

They could still have added other runewords.... Im too poor to make an auradin.... would have loved to see double Dragon hoj or something. I played the PTR for 1hr 30 minutes and got bored with the cookie cutter gear.

While the normal point of a PTR certainly isn't to give people a playing field to mess around with random gear they wouldn't otherwise have, in this case I'd actually be inclined to agree.

Since the entire point of this particular PTR version is to test server changes and stability, they should really be adding some sort of incentive for people to actually play on it. And since content-wise absolutely nothing has changed yet, that's really only achieved via letting folks play with all sorts of stuff they otherwise don't have access to yet. Now, that is possible to some extent here, due to including at least some of the typically more expensive gear (Phoenix, Infinity, griffon's, ...), but it really doesn't offer too much flexibility in terms of proper experimentation. And as a result, you get the PTR we have now, with all of 5 games going on, and that's it. Probably not all too useful in terms of large-scale stability and load testing.