Managing Expectations is Key to Improving Diablo 4 - Rod Fergusson Interview with GamesRadar

Diablo IV Posted 2023/08/24 at 4:38 PM by Archimtiros

interview with GamesRadar

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Fergusson states that "one of the things we recognised early on was that we had made some sort of mistake in managing expectations. It was hard because we felt like what we were doing for the game were the right things to do."

"But there were other parts that needed to go along with it," the Diablo franchise lead continues. "We were trying to move a little fast, we were trying to be very responsive and agile. So we were like 'hey, we have two-thirds of a solution. So let's give them the two thirds, and we'll do the other third later.' And that didn't work out in our favour."would not be another patch nerfing classes as hard ever againrecently announced Season 2 update

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Fergusson also adds that "the previous couple of updates were very buff-oriented, and so the notion of getting out in front and saying 'hey, we need to have all builds be viable, we want a level playing field so everybody can be successful with all kinds of builds' - we didn't get out in front of that enough."

"And so because we realised it was an expectation management problem, we had to just own that and recognise we have to do better to get patch notes out before that. We were doing patch notes at the moment the patch dropped, we weren't doing live streams ahead of time to talk about it," the Diablo lead says. It's true that Blizzard was delivering patch notes with rapid cadence in the weeks after Diablo 4 first launched in June, constantly trying to keep its player base informed as to what to expect.several positive quality of life updatesmanaging expectations

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Going forward, at least, Fergusson acknowledges that the "biggest thing for us was just really like 'hey, we have to manage expectations correctly.' And we're going to do better, and we're just going to keep making a better game."

Comment by Tig0BittiesInteresting.....Comment by WockHow does he still have his job?Comment by kewldude96Manage expectations? So they have zero remorse over the half baked game that they've had in development for "over 10 years"? The game is fine but it's player's expectation of the game that went wrong? rofl

People WANT this game to be good but it's quite apparent that they do not know what they're doing - It's not like they've had PoE or Lost Ark to draw inspiration from or anything. In what world is it okay for them to blame anything on mismanaged player expectations?Comment by SleepyodinIt's a $100 game. The expectations are those set at a price point that much higher than other triple A titles. It's an unfinished game that wasn't tested thoroughly enough but has completely functional monetization with more added twice weekly.Comment by BakhadiHow will managin expectations make this game less of a nausea inducing cash grab?Comment by Larryg121I swear to God I cannot wait for the industry to finally accept that customers want their products completed to almost perfection before they're released. We don't live in a perfect world - bugs will go unnoticed, but the game being feature complete is all people $%^&ing want.

But hey, I guess I should have just managed my expectations...Comment by hobbidaggy*Insert principal skinner out of touch meme*Comment by Sleepyodin"We have two-thirds of a solution. So let's give them the two thirds, and we'll do the other third later."

They knew they released the game in this state. 2/3 of a solution is the same as no solution. How does he have a job still? Does Blizzard just think they've got an ecosystem so insulated that gamers won't care that they're openly admitting to cheating them out of their money. They released an unfinished cashgrab and while it takes time to fix players will migrate elsewhere but Blizzard got paid.Comment by Vestezen"New Feature: Stash can now be filtered and searched" in a 100$ game.

If this is something to advertise as a feature, then theres not much gameplay wise to look forward to.Comment by LykaiosSo, we have to expect indie quality game from a AAA Company?Comment by bluebird91That's some high-tier Buddhist copout, I almost respect it - "the key to happiness is to expect nothing", wow, really?
"The main issue is expectations. The players expected a good game. And we weren't prepared for that". Tonedeaf much? Lol.Comment by Kerathras“Managing expectations” are you kidding me, roflmao! Yeah, no sh*t expectations weren’t managed. People expected D4 to be a good game and it most definitely wasn’t. These guys are such clowns I just can’t even. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤣Comment by singularity0Lmao so their solution is to tell fans "don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed".Comment by ChristofuhrIt's Blizzard. It took them well over a year to remove covenants and like 8 months to remove conduit energy. There ability to take 10 years developing a game with 1000s of employees and still make a game less cooked than their competition who have like 1/50th of their budget and probably 1/20th employees should surprise nobody.

It didn't surprise me much that most of their teams had never played an ARPG. But it did surprise me that none of the lessons learnt from D3 were really passed on to this development... I'm sure D5 is gonna be lit though!Comment by Nerdelbaum"So we were like 'hey, we have two-thirds of a solution. So let's give them the two thirds, and we'll do the other third later.' And that didn't work out in our favour."

Yeah, too bad these two thirds were to nerf all the good builds and the third missing was to lift everything up to be fun again. No idea how the community didn't praise them for that.Comment by NocularIn other words, don't expect much and you won't be disappointed?Comment by GaddThat's the lesson ? Managing expectations ? Our expectations were the problem ? How about listening to feedback ? Addressing the real problems ? Not adding a coat of sugar on top of a pile of excrements ? Being proactive ? Fix the game first, seasons next ? Quicker, better ? Any of those really.Comment by cateauyeah, i dont have any expectation left for D4, New PoE season already debunked this gameComment by Tyowinn"Manage expectation"? You still want to give the players content and not just reused assets.. Not giving real content or close to nothing is not "managing" anything lol!Comment by masudoManage expectations? So they have zero remorse over the half baked game that they've had in development for "over 10 years"? The game is fine but it's player's expectation of the game that went wrong? rofl

People WANT this game to be good but it's quite apparent that they do not know what they're doing - It's not like they've had PoE or Lost Ark to draw inspiration from or anything. In what world is it okay for them to blame anything on mismanaged player expectations?