What's the point of the PTS roller-coaster?

CleymenZero

If building hype is the goal then I'd suggest going the other way around...

Instead of overhsooting then spending 3 weeks nerfing things, why don't you guys just go more conservative at first and proceed to buffing?

As simple as it sounds, the impact is much more positive than reading the first notes, looking somewhat forward to changes bar a few and then being disappointed every week with every update.

I'd say I'm now rather lukewarm to the coming patch. Plentiful harvest nerfed, power level nerfed, no CP adjustment based on CP (that I was aware of day 2-3 of PTS but it's part of the frustrations).

So? What's the point?

Xebov

If something is strong you can count on players finding ways to exploit and use it. This way you can notice if it might be to strong. If its to weak however players will mostly ignore it and just complain about it.
This makes overshooting much more benefitial for developement than undershooting.

Mahabahabtha

Selling Companions as a damage x-tra after a damage nerf.

CleymenZero

Xebov wrote: »

If something is strong you can count on players finding ways to exploit and use it. This way you can notice if it might be to strong. If its to weak however players will mostly ignore it and just complain about it.
This makes overshooting much more benefitial for developement than undershooting.

A genuinely good answer. I have to admit that I didn't see it this way but also have to say that some things are less obvious than others and that things that have changed are hardly exploits.

There have been a lot of CP changes that, especially since they said they've been working on CP rework for a year or more (remember exactly but has been months), are just changes that can hardly be qualified as an attempt to curb exploitation.

The loss of the few hundred points in stam/mag and all other CP damage passives don't look like they're an attempt at fixing something that is too strong. I can already point at a few things in the red tree that hace more potential for exploitation vs the few pen crit and stam points nerfed after the first or second week.

So as small as the power level nerf in CP were, they were still nerfed so my question still stands for those specifically. If the aim was to further reduce the amount of vertical progression then why not just reduce the amount of stages while keeping the total power intact? A nerf, as small as it can be, is still perceived negatively.

Now for the harvest passive nerf, it is 100% weaker now than it was last week. If that was a miscalculated overshoot then that's quite the oversight. The fact that it was, from what I can gather, going to attenuate the inflation we've seen on the market on the past few months further increases the disappointment.

The only possible explanation for the sudden drastic changes to that passive is the fact that, although the whole system has been in development for months, this passive was introduced only recently in reaction to the said inflation.

The game constantly changing in part due to player's influences, they are bound to make minute adjustments and they reacted initially too strongly to the problem and are now backtracking.

Xebov

CleymenZero wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

If something is strong you can count on players finding ways to exploit and use it. This way you can notice if it might be to strong. If its to weak however players will mostly ignore it and just complain about it.
This makes overshooting much more benefitial for developement than undershooting.

A genuinely good answer. I have to admit that I didn't see it this way but also have to say that some things are less obvious than others and that things that have changed are hardly exploits.

There have been a lot of CP changes that, especially since they said they've been working on CP rework for a year or more (remember exactly but has been months), are just changes that can hardly be qualified as an attempt to curb exploitation.

The loss of the few hundred points in stam/mag and all other CP damage passives don't look like they're an attempt at fixing something that is too strong. I can already point at a few things in the red tree that hace more potential for exploitation vs the few pen crit and stam points nerfed after the first or second week.

So as small as the power level nerf in CP were, they were still nerfed so my question still stands for those specifically. If the aim was to further reduce the amount of vertical progression then why not just reduce the amount of stages while keeping the total power intact? A nerf, as small as it can be, is still perceived negatively.

Now for the harvest passive nerf, it is 100% weaker now than it was last week. If that was a miscalculated overshoot then that's quite the oversight. The fact that it was, from what I can gather, going to attenuate the inflation we've seen on the market on the past few months further increases the disappointment.

The only possible explanation for the sudden drastic changes to that passive is the fact that, although the whole system has been in development for months, this passive was introduced only recently in reaction to the said inflation.

The game constantly changing in part due to player's influences, they are bound to make minute adjustments and they reacted initially too strongly to the problem and are now backtracking.

I should have used a different wording. With exploiting i refered to make use of something, not exploits.

For some parts you are right that it looks a bit odd and some dev explanation here and there might have been helpful.

codierussell

Mahabahabtha wrote: »

Selling Companions as a damage x-tra after a damage nerf.

From the early on tests I have seen this morning damage barely went down. I have seen a few people around the 100k mark.

Rungar

codierussell wrote: »

Mahabahabtha wrote: »

Selling Companions as a damage x-tra after a damage nerf.

From the early on tests I have seen this morning damage barely went down. I have seen a few people around the 100k mark.

its always this way. 1 million nerf cries and somehow somehow dps goes up.

Tigertron

Until it goes live it’s “tweaking” 2/3 or more of the player base has no idea that any of this is going to happen. Then 2/3 of the remaining are not worried about it one way or another.

When it goes live expect buffs to appease the masses that were blindsided.

ThorianB

Rungar wrote: »

codierussell wrote: »

Mahabahabtha wrote: »

Selling Companions as a damage x-tra after a damage nerf.

From the early on tests I have seen this morning damage barely went down. I have seen a few people around the 100k mark.

its always this way. 1 million nerf cries and somehow somehow dps goes up.

Plot Twist: Dummy's also felt the nerf bat so they don't have resist anymore but they "forgot" to resist nerf all the hostile NPCs.

Faded

Building hype isn't the goal. They do that with streams and cinematics and social media. The percentage of the player base who even know the PTS exists is probably single-digit.

Theoretically the PTS is about finding and squashing bugs before rolling things out to the live servers. Even widely-reported bugs tend to go live, so that's more ideal than reality. And they make a few adjustments based on feedback and presumably their internal data.