The PlayStation 4 side of the launch got off to a rocky start where there were general technical issues for several hours which were eventually resolved. Besides the usual impatient folks who expect an open beta (which normally entails stressing all portions of the infrastructure to have enough data to see what things need to be improved/addressed) to go off smoothly, most took it in stride.
On the Xbox One side, players were playing from the get go (no major technical issues); the biggest difference was likely attributed to concurrency. Xbox requires a Gold subscription for players to even do multiplayer games whereas PlayStation, a PS+ subscription isn’t needed. Thus on the PS4, anyone who was curious could try out the game, adding significant load to the infrastructure. In several Xbox streams, lower questing areas were nowhere near as congested as it was compared to PS4 ones once many of us were able to get in. Simply put, Xbox One players ended up having a much better open beta playing experience.
The pegasus flight platform in Velika turned into a client crashing lagfest and the input queue for several NPC’s were overloaded (requiring multiple tries to turn in and accept quests). I had at least 20 client crashes just trying to navigate the overloaded portions of Velika (moving slowly usually helped in order to reduce the de-synchronization between server and client).
The client also has a tendency to completely freeze even after being idle for a period of time (like say 45 minutes). Unlike the above crash, this one produces no error code. EME and Bluehole will need to nail this one down before launch because console players aren’t going to be as sanguine.
EME to their credit communicated on a timely basis during the PS4 issues on their website, Twitter, and through several streamers. Once the first server had stabilized (allowing connectivity), a second one was added.
Load balancing for actual launch is going to be one of their bigger challenges since some of the client crashing issues are directly related to player load at several questing choke points. Since each server (like the PC version) are their own individual realms, the end result is that it splits the player community. Hopefully EME has a solid plan to quickly consolidate servers once the initial launch wave subsides in order to keep most of each console platforms respective communities together (as opposed to a few on a relatively dead server).
As far as the conversion to console, I would say Bluehole did a fairly excellent job. Since I’m play testing on a smaller 19″ LCD, the user interface for the skill bar is a bit too small (this was obviously designed for 24+” screens) but shouldn’t be a problem for most of the target demographic. Menu’s are fairly intuitive and easy to navigate once you’ve been through them several times. I still feel that Blizzard’s circular menu design for the console version of Diablo III is one of the best implementations around when it comes to inventory and specific item types though. Bluehole provides a similar radial dial which players can add stuff like potions and scrolls for quick access (8 slots available).
Given that character movement is WASD on the PC version (which also has native game pad support), direct control with the joystick translates very well. Where the console version shines with a controller is in the user interface (the PC’s point and click UI is not really suited for use with a controller). While I know it won’t happen, it would be nice if the PC client had a granular software abstraction where having a controller connected, would change the menu to use the one designed for the console.
Overall (despite the crashing and overload in the low level areas), I found the console adaptation enjoyable to play. I won’t be switching my gameplay from PC though because at least for myself, I still find the action combat more engaging via mouse and keyboard. Once TERA for console officially launches though, I will probably level some characters in it (to have something when I want to do “couch potato” sort of play.
UPDATE: There are some folks actually asking for compensation for all the issues in this open beta test… I know it’s frustrating but this is the exact purpose for the “open” part of the beta test. It’s an invitation to break the infrastructure and the game in order to reveal what needs priority fixing. If the release launches in similar fashion, then there would be some justification.
As for the open beta test rewards, EME could have done a much better job at specifically wording things from the start that those, would not transfer over (only the masks from the community challenges will be available to players on official launch). Myself, I already knew the first set of rewards were only for open beta but I can understand how many thought that earning them during the OBT would be awarded during release.
UPDATE #2: EME recommends saving the console install for the next beta test. Makes sense since they do need to come up with better load balancing as well as hardening the client. The game currently dumps all players in channel 1 when it really needs to auto load balance and place players in the other channel instances. One of the main hub cities (Velika) also needs to have additional channels that spin up (and also auto load balances) at least for the initial console launch.
The client struggled heavily and would just lock once there was a degree of desynchronization. Even resorting to walking my character (and stopping when I saw others player running/on mount), all it took is just one fast movement to lock up the client if I happened to move while someone was running/on their mount (and yes, they would crash too).
