Why is new Trial content included in PTS?

baguette_poolish · December 13

Seems like it takes all the fun out of doing world first. It can be a great opportunity to bring hype and actual competition to the raid scene, it should be a big event similar to what Bungie does with their raids, it would also open the door for other players to get involved just to be able to compete.

LatentBuzzard · December 13

So that players can test it.

Frugog · December 13

baguette_poolish wrote: »

Seems like it takes all the fun out of doing world first. It can be a great opportunity to bring hype and actual competition to the raid scene, it should be a big event similar to what Bungie does with their raids, it would also open the door for other players to get involved just to be able to compete.

As someone coming from WoW, where their semi-limited PTR testing of the highest difficulty of new raids (sans the final boss; they don't test that at all other than strictly internally) still leads to bugs that cost entire world first guilds a day or more of progression wasted, I don't agree with the prospect of removing endgame content from public test servers just for the sake of world first. If anything, removing that content from public test servers makes it more frustrating for world first endgame players, because they're the ones that have to deal with the slew of bugs that make some bosses unbeatable.

Desiato · December 13

In classic MMOs, the end game seemed to captivate the entire community and the top raiding guilds were famous.

ESO isn't like this at all. There's no world first drama that I can see. I think most people in the ESO trial community would prefer the content to be tested and vetted -- especially because trials don't get priority attention for post-launch bug fixes and adjustments.

baconaura · December 13

They first need to do a better job testing their own game and investing more into QAing and internal playtesting at normal/vet/vethm difficulties instead of depending on a limited amount of players giving feedback on PTS(which often also gets ignored and bleeds through into live).

A good example is FFXIV, which I feel does a pretty good job testing a lot of the stuff inhouse so new dungeons/raids arent spoiled with a PTS for players to try before it goes live. So when new chapters coming out, it is pretty cool to see who is going to be world's first when everyone is on the same page.

Frugog · December 13

baconaura wrote: »

They first need to do a better job testing their own game and investing more into QAing and internal playtesting at normal/vet/vethm difficulties instead of depending on a limited amount of players giving feedback on PTS(which often also gets ignored and bleeds through into live).

A good example is FFXIV, which I feel does a pretty good job testing a lot of the stuff inhouse so new dungeons/raids arent spoiled with a PTS for players to try before it goes live. So when new chapters coming out, it is pretty cool to see who is going to be world's first when everyone is on the same page.

I'm 100% with you there that heavy internal testing should be the norm. But most MMO companies do a lot of things to make money/save money and public test servers are a cost-cutting measure. Plus, I would imagine a lot of that goes above the devs' head, so the wrong people to make the decision not to invest more in QA and internal playtesting are the ones that ultimately make that decision anyways.

virtus753 · December 13

Personally I think creating and encouraging a competition from an unseen piece of content on live would exacerbate the immense friction with the current state of performance. Many groups can’t keep all their players at playable ping or even connected as is. It feels bad enough that that can prevent mere completion, much less competition.

Better (imo) people get an opportunity to explore the content, find bugs, and identify mechanical or balance issues before it hits live. It may not be fixed before live (another reason why competition is necessarily limited), but at least it will make it on a list of things to be addressed.

Soarora · December 13

Anyone on PC has the opportunity to join PTS, though if you’re lacking in space you may have to switch the live server for PTS. So, it’s not really an unfair advantage. A lot of balancing happens during PTS based on devs watching streams of the content as well as player feedback.

Servadei · December 13

Desiato wrote: »

In classic MMOs, the end game seemed to captivate the entire community and the top raiding guilds were famous.

ESO isn't like this at all. There's no world first drama that I can see. I think most people in the ESO trial community would prefer the content to be tested and vetted -- especially because trials don't get priority attention for post-launch bug fixes and adjustments.

The bolded part can't be emphasized enough. ESO is mostly casuals and we really couldn't care less about what raiders do or who they are. We're not starstruck by endgamers in PvE or PvP.

N00BxV1 · December 13

baguette_poolish wrote: »

Seems like it takes all the fun out of doing world first. It can be a great opportunity to bring hype and actual competition to the raid scene, it should be a big event similar to what Bungie does with their raids, it would also open the door for other players to get involved just to be able to compete.

Bungie has always been good about releasing new content for Destiny 2 at the same time for all platforms (Steam, Epic, Windows, PS4, PS5, XB1, XBSX -- Cross-Save and Cross-Play between all). It's funny how Bungie can manage to do that but ZOS tells us they can't because of Microsoft/Sony certifications... There's a reason we have a PTS for ESO: testing by the customers is free labor lol.

And when a new raid, dungeon or other content is released in D2 everyone gets the same first day experience. Day One Raids and Dungeons are something special in D2. Remember when the Last Wish raid released and it took the first team over 18 hours to complete it? Good times.

gronoxvx · December 13

baguette_poolish wrote: »

Seems like it takes all the fun out of doing world first. It can be a great opportunity to bring hype and actual competition to the raid scene, it should be a big event similar to what Bungie does with their raids, it would also open the door for other players to get involved just to be able to compete.

At first, the PTS was used by a majority of players for testing and to provide feedback in the hopes of contributing to a game they loved. However since the devs continuously didnt listen to the feedback provided and let broken things go live (and in some cases months/years), the PTS has turned into nothing more than a theorycrafting instance of ESO so people cant get ahead of the incoming meta because most things fall on deaf ears at zos. Even things deemed as "easy wins".

gronoxvx · December 13

Desiato wrote: »

In classic MMOs, the end game seemed to captivate the entire community and the top raiding guilds were famous.

ESO isn't like this at all. There's no world first drama that I can see. I think most people in the ESO trial community would prefer the content to be tested and vetted -- especially because trials don't get priority attention for post-launch bug fixes and adjustments.

There use to be a lot of competition in the early days, however most of those players quit the game years ago due to various things. Predominantly due to the lack of content (1 trial a year is hardly enough to keep anything competitive) and the direction and state of the game.

sarahthes · December 13

gronoxvx wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

In classic MMOs, the end game seemed to captivate the entire community and the top raiding guilds were famous.

ESO isn't like this at all. There's no world first drama that I can see. I think most people in the ESO trial community would prefer the content to be tested and vetted -- especially because trials don't get priority attention for post-launch bug fixes and adjustments.

There use to be a lot of competition in the early days, however most of those players quit the game years ago due to various things. Predominantly due to the lack of content (1 trial a year is hardly enough to keep anything competitive) and the direction and state of the game.

There were 2-3 groups in contention this year. The ones who got world's first made sure to be online before work, cleared first thing, then went to their day jobs.

UntilValhalla13 · December 13

I mean, world first doesn't really mean anything anyways. "Hey, we beat vmol before anyone else years ago. Remember that? No? Bueller?"

sarahthes · December 13

UntilValhalla13 wrote: »

I mean, world first doesn't really mean anything anyways. "Hey, we beat vmol before anyone else years ago. Remember that? No? Bueller?"

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/284084/beyond-infinity-world-first-vet-maw-of-lorkhaj-hard-mode/p1

It took from March to August (5 months) for the first team to beat it.

gronoxvx · December 13

sarahthes wrote: »

gronoxvx wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

In classic MMOs, the end game seemed to captivate the entire community and the top raiding guilds were famous.

ESO isn't like this at all. There's no world first drama that I can see. I think most people in the ESO trial community would prefer the content to be tested and vetted -- especially because trials don't get priority attention for post-launch bug fixes and adjustments.

There use to be a lot of competition in the early days, however most of those players quit the game years ago due to various things. Predominantly due to the lack of content (1 trial a year is hardly enough to keep anything competitive) and the direction and state of the game.

There were 2-3 groups in contention this year. The ones who got world's first made sure to be online before work, cleared first thing, then went to their day jobs.

Good to know there were a couple of teams going for it.

There use to be way more teams at one stage across multiple platforms before the mass exodus of the end game raiding community. Would be awesome to see it again as it was a great time to raid

BahometZ · December 14

It wouldn't hurt to only have segments of the trial up on PTS at a time, didn't they do that with Rockgrove? Players can test what is available but not everything together.
I know it would only be a speedbump, but having teams already get the trifecta multiple times on PTS kinda deflates the achievement on live servers imo.

I know people here on the forums can be quite dismissive of endgame but the game used to have a sizeable population of people who cared. And for people striving to beat the hardest content it is interesting to see what elite players make of it.

sarahthes · December 14

BahometZ wrote: »

It wouldn't hurt to only have segments of the trial up on PTS at a time, didn't they do that with Rockgrove? Players can test what is available but not everything together.
I know it would only be a speedbump, but having teams already get the trifecta multiple times on PTS kinda deflates the achievement on live servers imo.

I know people here on the forums can be quite dismissive of endgame but the game used to have a sizeable population of people who cared. And for people striving to beat the hardest content it is interesting to see what elite players make of it.

Some aspects of endgame are healthier than they've been in a while - I know there's 2-3 world record pushing groups on NA right now and it looks like there might be the same on EU? Which is healthier than it's been in a while.

code65536 · December 14

sarahthes wrote: »

It took from March to August (5 months) for the first team to beat it.

There is a reason it took that long. They beat it on the day the Q3 patch came out because the HM was literally impossible due to a bug with the Lunar mechanic that wasn't fixed until the patch.

Which kinda demonstrates why PTS is important. Back in those days, the PTS templates were nothing like what we have now, and nobody cleared the trial on PTS, and while there were a number of reasons for that, some of those reasons were the result of PTS limitations back in those days.

I recall that they even added a way to bypass twins towards the end of PTS just so that they could get people to test Rakkhat. The relative lack of testing of Rakkhat and Rakkhat HM in particular is why the trial was released with a bugged HM.

The next trial also had a botched PTS, because Morrowind was the first "chapter", and ZOS for some reason decided that it was a great idea to smother it in NDAs. People had to agree to a NDA to test PTS and not everyone was granted access. And people were prohibited from sharing screenshots or streaming. The result was that the devs (who often watch groups stream PTS runs) didn't get to see what people were doing in vHoF, and so when vHoF was released, there was a flurry of big, significant readjustments to the trial (including even reworking some mechanics) literally every single week for over a month after the trial was released (this was also back when we had an incremental patch every week), because the kind of watch-how-people-play-the-content feedback that should've happened during PTS ended up taking place on Live instead.

Frankly, making sure that bugs like the Rakkhat HM bug are caught and that devs get to see how groups actually play the content are far more important than some silly thing like world first (that most players don't care about anyway).