could we have a week long cyro campaign on live that was a test campaign?

Wing

make it so they could mess with battle spirit buffs / debuffs and various campaign features to see how the game would play out.

pvp is literally at the most boring gameplay wise and horrid performance wise that its ever been, and I would love some place to test possible changes that could make it more interesting.

Kel

Wing wrote: »

make it so they could mess with battle spirit buffs / debuffs and various campaign features to see how the game would play out.

pvp is literally at the most boring gameplay wise and horrid performance wise that its ever been, and I would love some place to test possible changes that could make it more interesting.

Unlikely.
It seems like a ton of work for little to zero reward.
Not to mention there's a PTS that rarely has any population to test as is...most PvP testing on PTS comes in the way of dueling.

Moreover, I don't see a point of putting in a test campaign with a bunch of wonky, meaningless changes that would most likely have any impact on the live game, and think players would set foot in it for the sake of just testing. Again, it seems like a ton of work at a time Zos is testing performance fixes to add something maybe a handful of player would use. And most likely for things that would never be realized.

If you're finding PvP to be "the most boring", maybe it's time to take a break.

Wing

Kel wrote: »

If you're finding pvp to be "the most boring", maybe it's time to take a break.

clearly your not in any kind of business position.

when people are not enjoying a product, the company should never answer "maybe you should take a break"

people playing pvp too much is at the opposite end of the problem spectrum in pvp right now.

I have no doubt that a large portion of this community would love it if ZOS just completely abandoned pvp altogether, however myself and an a few others still enjoy the concept.

and modifying pvp through battle spirit rather then through skill / set audits that only *** off the ENTIRE community would actually be far more simple and closer to the "balance pve and pvp separately" screaming we here so often.

or would you rather all pvp healing be gutted because its overperforming in pvp?

or maybe re tune ALL damage over time effects across the entire game because of pvp?

would it not be more simple to have a battle spirit modifier go from -50% dot damage to -60% and see how that plays?

crazy.

Kel

Wing wrote: »

Kel wrote: »

If you're finding pvp to be "the most boring", maybe it's time to take a break.

clearly your not in any kind of business position.

when people are not enjoying a product, the company should never answer "maybe you should take a break"

people playing pvp too much is at the opposite end of the problem spectrum in pvp right now.

I have no doubt that a large portion of this community would love it if ZOS just completely abandoned pvp altogether, however myself and an a few others still enjoy the concept.

and modifying pvp through battle spirit rather then through skill / set audits that only *** off the ENTIRE community would actually be far more simple and closer to the "balance pve and pvp separately" screaming we here so often.

or would you rather all pvp healing be gutted because its overperforming in pvp?

or maybe re tune ALL damage over time effects across the entire game because of pvp?

would it not be more simple to have a battle spirit modifier go from -50% dot damage to -60% and see how that plays?

crazy.

First, I'm not "The company".

Second, what you're asking just isn't feasible, in production or practically.

You can, again, look at PTS to see how far and effective test realms are in a PvP sence. In short, they are not. You have a few hardcore players who run around an empty Cyrodiil, get frustrated because it's empty, and end up dueling.
Not to mention anything about how you think any changes you might want to see would be implemented anyway. Do you honestly believe if Zos wanted to play around with battle spirit they would've done so already? This, after all, isn't some new suggestion you've brilliantly just thought of...it's been around and has never been implemented in any shape or form.
Let alone the close moderation needed to run yet another test server that would serve no purpose but to appease a few bored players with changes that would most likely never affect the live game...making this idea utterly pointless.

You're better off asking for new live game PvP modes..not some pointless test realm that has no justification for the time or cost aside from "I'm bored"

Crazy indeed. 🤷‍♂️

Tommy_The_Gun

Actually, it is not a bad idea...

World of Tanks (online 15 vs 15 team arcade - pseud-realistic tank shooter game) has something called: "Sandbox server"

What a Sandbox server is, is a almost always online (24/7) "test" server in which devs of the game can introduce a prototype of various changes (new mechanics, maps, new ammo types etc.), very early concepts and allow community to test them.
This server only goes off-line if devs want to change something to introduce updated version.

That way they (devs) get better feedback as people have a lot of time to test those changes, as these "sand box" servers are almost always online.

Only if the changes will be positively accepted by the community after various tweaks , those changes then go to an actual "test server" (equivalent of eso's PTS server) to see how final "product" / version is like.

And this is what I think this game lacks. Every new major update, all changes feel rushed with haste. As a result what we get on live server is half-tested stuff with broken quests, achievements (no time to test those on PTS) and even game play mechanics or even something more like cicatricial bugs (items dispersing / doubling etc.).

What do you think ?

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_BrianWheeler
@ZOS_Gilliam

oxygen_thief

Wing wrote: »

I have no doubt that a large portion of this community would love it if ZOS just completely abandoned pvp altogether, however myself and an a few others still enjoy the concept.

you said it like pvp wasnt abandoned long time ago

Bobby_V_Rockit

Thats actually a really good idea. A live test campaign. ZoS would have access to full stress tests, player power balance, set and skill balance. And if they could isolate to one “beta” campaign it’d far out weigh the current PTS only available on PC, which from what I can gather is mostly practice running new trials anyways

Kel

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Thats actually a really good idea. A live test campaign. ZoS would have access to full stress tests, player power balance, set and skill balance. And if they could isolate to one “beta” campaign it’d far out weigh the current PTS only available on PC, which from what I can gather is mostly practice running new trials anyways

I seriously don't think it's justified.

I don't think changes to battle spirit are a bad idea at all. It's a great idea I've seen and supported many times.

Three problems with this idea of a live test server.

1) Time and money. I think we all agree (to an extent) Zos's time and resources are better spent improving and fixing what we have first before they would implement something like this. Who's to say something wouldn't bug out from one server to the other and stick you with some crazy issues they can't or won't fix until the next incremental patch?

2) This idea assumes players will participate in large numbers.
We know they won't. Players are begging for Kaal to be unlocked because that's where pop is and the new highly asked for unlocked campaign can't fill. Do you honestly believe players would forgo the main campaign to run some test server on live? Players are complaining about 2 campaigns and how only one can be filled...you think some test sever will syphon off more when a highly requested campaign can't do that?

3) PTS already exists.
Ask yourself why this can't already be done on the test servers, perhaps between content releases. PTS is a ghost town in PvP land for the most part. Outside of a few content creators and some hardcore PvP'ers looking to get an edge, no one tests now. Why would they test on live with changes that may not even see live or have any meaning whatsoever?

This may be a good idea...in theory. Realistically, I doubt it'll be what you're expecting it to be...

VaranisArano

It has potential...assuming that ZOS fixes the crippling performance issues so that we actually get enough PVPers back in order to fill more than one competitive campaign.

Tweaking and changing things up aren't going to save Cyrodiil if the performance doesn't improve.

They've been tweaking skills for the last two years and yet we still have problems with skills not firing properly in high lag during large fights.

Or look at the last big changes: collapsible bridges and milegates, more outposts, and Volundrung. None of that revitalized Cyrodiil because the crippling performance issues remain unfixed.

NBrookus

Kel wrote: »

2) This idea assumes players will participate in large numbers.
We know they won't. Players are begging for Kaal to be unlocked because that's where pop is and the new highly asked for unlocked campaign can't fill. Do you honestly believe players would forgo the main campaign to run some test server on live? Players are complaining about 2 campaigns and how only one can be filled...you think some test sever will syphon off more when a highly requested campaign can't do that?

Pretty much this. A test campaign might have worked when we had the population to fill it. Now the remaining pvp'ers just want action so they all crowd into Kaal despite the issues.

Aside from the player inertia of staying in Kaal, ZOS also has a long history of ignoring bugs and feedback on the PTS. They'd have to overcome that image for a test server to feel like anything but a waste of player time.

Joy_Division

It would be a waste of time because people dont PvP as it is on the PTS, ZOS does not listen to us even when we do go on the PTS, and PvP is boring for reasons that go way beyond Battle Spirit.

tinythinker

I suggested something similar long ago, but only for limited time like a weekend at a time (not "always on") and treated like an event with rewards for participating, dev participants, etc.

Advantage of doing it on the PTS = not on main server so no accidental problems on live. Could really open up some very radical changes just to collect data. Disadvantage = not the same stress load as live servers.

Advantages and disadvantages of doing this on live are the reverse of the above.

The one time they tried anything remotely like this the people who flocked to the PTS test server crashed over and over. You'd log back in and almost immediately crash again.

Don't see that ever making a return