PTS Servers and Cycles

eovogtb16_ESO

Other than Archage, ESO, and EVE Online, do any other games have PTS servers and cycles like this? I feel like the PTS doesn't really add much to the game and actually divided the community as it really gives many groups/people advantages that they else wouldn't have if there wasn't PTS servers. I'm talking about months of head-start and practice on new trials/dungeons before they even hit live. Wouldn't it make groups more inclusive if there wasn't a system like this in place so players would all be able to experience the content as it is released? Wouldn't it be beneficial for the community as a whole to not have such a system like this and have either internal testing or tweaking as the patch is live or weekly to do hot-fixes as there is almost weekly maintenance anyways?

sbr32

PTS servers are great if the development team actually reads, listens and engages with the testers' feedback. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if that is something that should continue here.

eovogtb16_ESO

Yeah i feel like making these massive changes every 3 months really doesn't help at all. They do semi-weekly patches anyways so why not do small incremental patches that doesn't make the entire player base have to change their entire wardrobes or raid setups every 3 months.

VaranisArano

Warframe doesn't usually run a PTS, and only does a brief amount of testing when they do before they launch.

Of course, it's also affectionately known as "Bugframe" and their recent Angels of the Zariman launch was so buggy and unstable that the new Director admitted she wished she had held it back a week.


That being said, I'm not sure what "advantages" you are seeing. Every PC player can download the PTS, so there's no advantage between different PC guilds. Console and PC players aren't ever in direct competition with each other, so there's no advantage there.

It would be beneficial for Console to have access to the PTS, but I'm afraid you're going to have to take that up with Sony. Getting quick turnaround on approval for Live code is also an problem with your idea to do this testing on the Live servers, so say nothing about how players are going to feel about being treated as guinea pigs for weekly tweaks.

merpins

I'd rather then not do PTS cycles every 3 months. Here's how I'd want it;

1. They do minor adjustments each week or two. Minor adjustments to abilities and skills go a long way over time, and allow for more precise changes without completely overhauling everything. No more sledgehammer nerfs, just small 1-6% adjustments here or there to skills or sets. Big changes are for number 2.
2. The PTS is always open, rather than only sometimes open. In this PTS, we can actually test dev ideas, and vote on ones we like for them to incorporate them at a later date. They don't need to be complete things, and they aren't rushed into the game with only 4 weeks of testing; instead the stuff in this PTS can be tested over a long period of time, rolled back, or adjusted. This includes big changes like in this PTS cycle. Whatever it is, they can test them with the public.
3. They could sometimes have the PTS goes into a kind of beta test server, where people are invited to test a hush hush thing under NDA, like new weapons or classes, and then remove them from the PTS when it goes back up. Then introduce that thing into the PTS more than 4 weeks before it is launched, preferably 5-8 weeks beforehand, to let many more hands run the things and test them for feedback. This kind of thing is reserved for new content only, not big sweeping changes. Big sweeping changes can be tested in this format several months in advance for long periods of time to get them to where the community agrees with them.