It allows players to test new content and relay issues to support team.

It's kind of like yelling into a void, sometimes the void yells back and Nerfs DK. Other times they don't listen and remove Magden from PvP

Basically nothing, apparently. In theory it's supposed to identify balancing and technical issues with new content releases so that they can be addressed before content goes live.

In actuality, most of the player feedback regarding either during the PTS cycle tends to be ignored so we have releases with both gamebreaking bugs and overpowered item sets that usually must be substantially adjusted one patch later, so much so that most players at this point basically accept that "meta defining new sets" are basically the selling point of new chapters and DLCs.

Not bashing, this is literally just an objective observation of the last 4 or 5 PTS cycles -- the current server downtime and patch notes themselves document both of these facts over time.

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Basically nothing, apparently. In theory it's supposed to identify balancing and technical issues with new content releases so that they can be addressed before content goes live.

In actuality, most of the player feedback regarding either during the PTS cycle tends to be ignored so we have releases with both gamebreaking bugs and overpowered item sets that usually must be substantially adjusted one patch later, so much so that most players at this point basically accept that "meta defining new sets" are basically the selling point of new chapters and DLCs.

Not bashing, this is literally just an objective observation of the last 4 or 5 PTS cycles -- the current server downtime and patch notes themselves document both of these facts over time.

Assuming the problem is the database like they've said - and there's no reason at all to lie about it - there's a good chance that they could not have tested for the issue that they ran into on the PTS. Population on the PTS is smaller to a significant degree. I don't know enough to speculate on what the problem is, but I do know that you can't replicate a lot of things with a much smaller sample size. You'll never catch everything.

And that's even assuming that it's a problem that had a chance of occurring to begin with, and with the database for the PTS being significantly smaller, that's not a guarantee either.

Someone (several someones, likely) had to work late to get this up and running and that's in addition to the probable crunch that comes ahead of an expansion launch. Cut 'em some slack here.

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Jaclynn wrote: »

It allows players to test new content and relay issues to support team.

And yet they rarely listen to that feedback.

Tbh it mostly seems to be a way for streamers to hype new content

I can only speak from my experience, but submitting tickets, and posting in appropriate forums has resulted in many bugs being fixed.
I can't even imagine how many reports they get per day. I don't stream, and I don't work for ZOS. I've been playing since launch, and tbh, annoying as extended maintenance is, especially with new content debut, I'll be back at it as soon as I can log in.

Jaclynn wrote: »

It allows players to test new content and relay issues to support team.

This. The main purpose is for us to find bugs for Zenimax to fix. While they do not get all fixed before the update goes live, they do get some fixed.

DakhathKilrathi wrote: »

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Basically nothing, apparently. In theory it's supposed to identify balancing and technical issues with new content releases so that they can be addressed before content goes live.

In actuality, most of the player feedback regarding either during the PTS cycle tends to be ignored so we have releases with both gamebreaking bugs and overpowered item sets that usually must be substantially adjusted one patch later, so much so that most players at this point basically accept that "meta defining new sets" are basically the selling point of new chapters and DLCs.

Not bashing, this is literally just an objective observation of the last 4 or 5 PTS cycles -- the current server downtime and patch notes themselves document both of these facts over time.

Assuming the problem is the database like they've said - and there's no reason at all to lie about it - there's a good chance that they could not have tested for the issue that they ran into on the PTS. Population on the PTS is smaller to a significant degree. I don't know enough to speculate on what the problem is, but I do know that you can't replicate a lot of things with a much smaller sample size. You'll never catch everything.

And that's even assuming that it's a problem that had a chance of occurring to begin with, and with the database for the PTS being significantly smaller, that's not a guarantee either.

Someone (several someones, likely) had to work late to get this up and running and that's in addition to the probable crunch that comes ahead of an expansion launch. Cut 'em some slack here.

Concerning this, and today's issue, moving the update to live is always a concern.

If the information we have been given is accurate I have to assume that the current issues keeping the game offline is not due to testing on the PTS but a database issue.

If used properly and if used by enough people the public test server can solve many of the problems encountered before the game is launched on live servers.

Glitches can be found addressed (hopefully). Feedback on content is helpful for the developers in knowing what people like or don’t like and if that feedback is early enough could warrant changes to be made that make it more appealing to players.
Balance changes is one thing developers try to pay a lot of attention to on public test servers and it is also one of the hardest for any game to keep control of and that is mainly due to how few people actually utilize the PTS and play it as though it were the live server.

Some games I have played would host events to encourage players to participate for a day or two on their test servers in hopes to get enough people running around to find bugs or other unforeseen problems.

In the case of ZOS they do all they can on the PTS to solve as many problems as they can before launch but without people actually utilizing the PTS in the way that actually helps find the problems many more issues will find their way onto the live servers.

doesurmindglow wrote: »

DakhathKilrathi wrote: »

Someone (several someones, likely) had to work late to get this up and running and that's in addition to the probable crunch that comes ahead of an expansion launch. Cut 'em some slack here.

I mean this was definitely my mentality 6-7 buggy releases ago. It's a complicated thing to be sure, and not everything will be caught on PTS despite player feedback.

But at this point it's getting very old. Buggy releases and extended downtimes are now the rule, not the exception.

As someone who has extensively done software bug testing, there is just no way that you can account for all possible scenarios where a bug can arise before an update goes live. There will always be something that was unexpected. Especially in a game like this, where the server load alone between pts and live is drastically different and all it takes is 20 more players doing some specific action to cause an unforseen issue.

My own reservations aside with the issue of the PTS and general Feedback problems. Testing is very important. One day of Live Data exceeds months of internal testing. There's no way that any Company could bug test a product 100% , there will always be new bugs arising that are hard to simulate and reproduce so they can be fixed. But with public testing, that's several thousand hours that you can review.

And yes I think the Feedback loop does need to be improved immensely, but the PTS is primarily for Bug Testing, not to complain about bad balance changes, which is a secondary feature of the PTS.