The problem with PTS...

kaithuzar · February 2020

Honestly, and I’m guilty of this too, the biggest problem with every single PTS is that ANYONE who has a forum account doesn’t even have to have the PTS installed to post ridiculous comments about their own agenda & opinions.
When we were beta testing, I remember we had to fill out a form prior, explaining why we thought we would be good candidates.
It wasn’t just open to everyone, there was a vetting process.

Now, the open access has fueled tons of people, that either have bad opinions or just seem to latch onto the most popular bad opinion of others.

This type of agenda pushing & “being the loudest”, pushes any threads with actual data or attempts to provide solid testing, questions & feedback; it’s essentially pushing them to the back of the line.

Please provide some type of vetting process so we don’t have a million duplicate threads of agenda pushing.

Septimus_Magna · February 2020

First of all, its not like ZOS blindly follows the feedback of people on the PTS so it might look like an issue on the forums but in reality testers have little influence. This has pros and cons because we sometimes end up with imbalance that was predicted by everyone on the PTS.

Secondly, if ZOS has to approve people it could be viewed as only granting access to players that tend to agree with the developers decisions. Its important to have an open discussion, if everyone just loves all the changes on the PTS there's little benefit in testing. Besides that, it takes time and resources to vet people and you'll never know their true intentions even if they fill out a form.

I do think its important for people to test and provided constructed feedback, let the developers decide if they agree with the arguments for changes. If feedback is well constructed and many people on the forums agree with it its up to the developers to capitalize on that.

Turelus · February 2020

I think more refined ways of providing feedback could be helpful it cutting some of the hyperbolic comments out from the people giving strong constructive criticism.

However even when the later has been given on an issue, we've seen ZOS go ahead with their plans because it's what they wanted and they're not interested in changing course with that.

It's the joke and kind of truth that once something hits PTS it's basically there to stay. ZOS doesn't include the community early enough in an idea to gather information on something before they put developer time into it, meaning they're already invested in something by the time we see it and freak out.

idk · February 2020

Pretty much what Septimus said.

Zos can probably tell the difference between someone talking about changes of what they prefer from just reading the patch notes or threads in the forum vs a player who actually did some testing. The player that did some testing would have some actual information to provide vs just spewing an opinion.,

Also, At least three PTS a year requires people to group. This is important for the group content and it is easier to get players from your raid guild or other guilds to test the content vs trying to form from random people we know. We actually schedule times to test the new trial when the chapter hits the PTS. Less players would be available if they had to go through some application process and restrictive acceptance policy.

Kenndrah · February 2020

Yep yep. All the random complaining threads on the PTS forums is really starting to get old.

I play on console, don't even have a gaming PC atm, and I come here to get insight into how things are looking for the upcoming patch wrt actual gameplay and testing. Sorting through all the bs threads to find people providing meaning information and feedback is exhausting.

It would be quite difficult to monitor and exclude people but zos could at least move non-PTS section appropriate posts into general to discourage it. Or straight up delete them. Just do *something* to moderate it and get this place back on track.

Deter1UK · February 2020

Also it would be nice if there was a separate section for PVE feedback.

I understand that changes and additions affect PVP greatly and so a lot of threads are generated

But, if I want to get an idea of how the game is progressing outside of PVP its is very difficult to get a handle on it.

Brandathorbel · February 2020

The problem with PTS is that Zos should be in this forum regularly having discussion with people testing.

Nifty2g · February 2020

problem with pts is that its 5 weeks and you basically have 1 patch in that 5 weeks that addresses proper changes before it is live

MincVinyl · February 2020

90% of the posts on the pts forums could be moved to the combat and abilities forum. There are actual real test threads and very important new bug/mechanic threads that get washed out of the forum from people with random opinions about live that have never read the patch notes. For instance some random guy(who later claimed to be drunk) made a post complaining about how op onslaught was(even though it has a simple cast time to dodge it) and how it needs to be nerfed, but he obviously didnt take the time to read the patch notes since it did get nerfed.

Did you guys know........

-Overload is double hitting within one tick,
-Also can use all 500 ult in one heavy without doing damage
-Also can perma movement slow you to the heavy speed
-Also can stack the animation and audio, causing your game and others to dramatically lose fps
(not to mention if you use OL heavy on live you could be banned)

-When being burst within one gcd, a player now gets granted 100% mitigation (can survive with 0 health against 3-4 hits)

-CC break now has instances that heal players by 30-40% of their hp

-Roll dodge has not been synced to its animation for a number of years now, and nobody has been pushing for it to be changed(recently came up with bosmer race changes but didnt get fixed, instead zos just worked around it)

-Zos said they made sets that should proc off heavy attacks proc off overload, but half of them dont work

-Passives on sorc were changed in a previous pts, but nothing was put in the patch notes

This is some stuff that ive gone over and actually tested/seen again on the pts, because some of it was washed away back in elsweyr/summerset.

ZOS_GinaBruno · February 2020

The only real way to limit who can submit PTS feedback after actually testing on the PTS is by using /feedback in-game when actually on the PTS. Since your forum account isn't directly tied to your game account, there's no way to gate forum access based on what you've done in-game.

MincVinyl · February 2020

@ZOS_GinaBruno
Is it possible for moderators to move forum threads though? (I know it would be a painful full time job)

Solariken · February 2020

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

The only real way to limit who can submit PTS feedback after actually testing on the PTS is by using /feedback in-game when actually on the PTS. Since your forum account isn't directly tied to your game account, there's no way to gate forum access based on what you've done in-game.

That's not entirely true, you guys could easily make PTS forum email-invite-only based on some trigger for logging into the PTS.

MincVinyl · February 2020

I mean, I would say this is a major issue with eso. There are so many things passed to live that were noticed day 1 of pts, but get washed away. For instance looking at the top threads, only two of them are really relevant. Yet even those are still people making threads that are simply opinions. If you look at the authors, there are people that hop on the pts forums and proceed to spam random opinion threads, can't this be stopped in anyway or atleast discouraged by zos?

ZOS_GinaBruno · February 2020

MincVinyl wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno
Is it possible for moderators to move forum threads though? (I know it would be a painful full time job)

Absolutely. If you use the Report feature on a thread and just make a note that it appears to be a PTS discussion in the wrong section (or vice versa), they will take care of it.

Tannus15 · February 2020

I'd really like to know what kind of information ZoS want when it comes to testing skills and combat in PvE.

Mostly I just on PTS and just parse away on the 21m, but is that useful to them?
I test with what I consider a trial setup (false god, sorrow, zaan with 16k max health) not the dummy humping siroria & parse food setups. But I have no idea if ZoS care about this info at all.

Is a vMA run useful?
I could solo some of the easier vet dungeons I guess, but is that helpful at all?
It's a lot harder to convince some of my guildies to jump on PTS and run something like scalecaller on vet, but do ZoS care? would an ESOLog of that be useful for judging how their changes have worked out, or are there too many variables, like how good or bad at the game we are?

It would be really great if someone could outline what's good data @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

Xvorg · February 2020

MincVinyl wrote: »

I mean, I would say this is a major issue with eso. There are so many things passed to live that were noticed day 1 of pts, but get washed away. For instance looking at the top threads, only two of them are really relevant. Yet even those are still people making threads that are simply opinions. If you look at the authors, there are people that hop on the pts forums and proceed to spam random opinion threads, can't this be stopped in anyway or atleast discouraged by zos?

As I told you before in a different thread, you cannot blame people for being vocal on what they dislike, even less if the right to be a tester is giving to you after buying the product. As a consumer you are entitled to give your opinion about the product, not just do a "semi professional" job double checking what developers have done.

If there was a subforum in the PTS in which people could express their opinions about the course of the PTS cycle, maybe it would be easier to track and differentiate bugs from opinions, but there's not such sub-forum.

And you cannot even think on shutting your customers mouths for the sake of order, that's an invitation to unsubscribe ESO+ or not buying the product, or even worst, uninstalling the game. You have to be careful on how you deal with your customer's opinions, even if those opinions are pure BS.