PTS Golden Pursuits – A Way to Improve PTS Participation

FabresFour · January 5

Personally, I believe the ESO PTS is an essential tool to ensure the quality of the game’s updates. However, in practice, it suffers from two major issues: low player participation and the use of the PTS mainly for testing specific builds. As a result, the PTS often ends up being more of a build-testing environment than a space to actually test new game content.

What I propose is the following: Golden Pursuits with PTS-exclusive rewards tied to specific PTS content. Items that players can only earn there, by completing tasks that actively test the content available on the PTS. For example, if the new DLC were, say, Central Elsweyr, there could be a Golden Pursuit where players are required to complete the new region’s main quest, defeat world bosses, collect skyshards, and so on.

From my perspective, this could significantly increase player participation on the PTS and, as a result, increase the amount of feedback provided by the community. Later on, these items could return as Crown Store items. I don’t know: it just feels like a valid alternative to boost player engagement and participation in the PTS, with the goal of improving the overall quality of the game at its official launch.

I also imagine this would be a very fitting way for ZeniMax to reward players who dedicate their time to helping improve the game. What do you think—are you for or against something like this? Do you have any ideas that could help increase PTS participation?

Gabriel_H · January 5

Going to vehemently disagree. If anything I think the PTS should be more limited.

Participants should be required to fill out surveys and reports, so that even build testers are forced to be bug/system testers.

Then of course the major change - ZOS actually listens to the feedback from everyone, not just YouTube celebs, and fixes the bugs reported so they don't make it into Live.

noblecron · January 5

You're forgetting the fact that when we do PTS ZOS rarely responds to feedback and listen to players. That's why the participation is so low. There's no point in doing PTS when you report a bug and it doesn't get fixed till long after it goes live.

Treeshka · January 5

I believe majority of the players does not get into PTS environment because it requires you to download the game once again entirely. If it was like differently handled, like you only need to download the latest patch, and then hop into PTS it might be better for accessibility.

Nowadays probably only end game raiders, very enthusiastic players and content creators are using the PTS environment in my opinion.

For example i participate in the PTS raids that the guild i am in do. In the past i have downloaded PTS specifically check the achievements they have added and deleted it afterwards.

While the idea is good, i believe it is heavily gated by the fact that redownloading the entire game.

Gabriel_H · January 5

noblecron wrote: »

You're forgetting the fact that when we do PTS ZOS rarely responds to feedback and listen to players. That's why the participation is so low. There's no point in doing PTS when you report a bug and it doesn't get fixed till long after it goes live.

I spend a lot of time reporting bugs in Live. I used to spend a lot of time reporting bugs on the PTS - I gave up the latter having reported dozens, if not hundreds, of bugs all of which made it to Live.

Danikat · January 5

They'd have to offer an alternative for console players who have no access to the PTS.

But IMO the best reward they could offer as an incentive to use the PTS is listening to our feedback. That's why I stopped using it except to try things out for my own interest, ZOS made it very clear we were wasting our time doing anything else. Obviously I don't expect them to do everything players ask for (that would be impossible) but even obvious bugs reported by dozens of people are ignored. Time after time updates have been pushed through to live in whatever state they hit the PTS with no changes at all, and it became obvious that's always going to be the case so it's not worth wasting time trying things out and reporting bugs and feedback.

I'd genuinely be happy to go back to using it if they changed that one thing and unless they do I'm not interested in using it to grind out some reward I may or may not want.

Destai · January 5

IMO, the most effective way to get PTS engagement is to demonstrate it changes something. If I had confidence that PTS feedback actually changed the outcome of a release, I'd be far more willing to participate. In years past, when I had participated, I had pointed out simple things like quest giver placement. Nothing changed.

You've had big fiascos around U35, U46, U48, Writhing Wall. It doesn't change anything. Seems like the preference is to "let it blow over" or just shovel the fix onto the backlog.

Supposedly, there's some changes coming to how PTS is handled. Seeing is believing though.

freespirit · January 5

People become less and less inclined to spend time testing and then reporting, often in great detail, bugs and issues in the PTS environment......

Because time after time their input and hard work is ignored!! 😒

scrappy1342 · January 5

great idea... but not sure if zos would be into it. they don't seem to listen to anyone from the pts. we need some sort of incentive for zos to listen to the feedback from the pts. because clearly making the game better isn't incentive enough. it seems like by the time things are put out to pts, they have already made all decisions and nothing matters anymore

Lykeion · January 5

I support ZoS providing some rewards in the live server to encourage people to participate more in PTS, as many contents require a large number of participants to obtain meaningful feedback (trials, PvP change, etc.). However, I don't think it is appropriate to include it in Golden Pursuit. Pursuit is a reward activity for all players, and PTS clearly makes the threshold for this activity too high.

valenwood_vegan · January 5

The things that limit my PTS involvement are #1 the fact that it seems like our feedback is generally unwanted and ignored - PTS is more a preview of what we're *going* to get (with maybe minor adjustments and fixes for the most severe bugs, NOT a true test server); and #2 the fact that it requires downloading a second copy of the game.

tomofhyrule · January 5

Simply put: people stopped using PTS because it doesn't change a thing. If ZOS wants it to be effective, they need to listen and acknowledge it.

The players who use PTS are unpaid testers, so blaming them for bugs is certainly a choice. But ZOS seems to imagine that the PTS is specifically their preview server so their content creators (the majority of whom have stopped creating content for ESO, awkward...) can show it off to the three people who still regularly watch content creators anymore. Obviously this is not going as they planned it to.

U48 specifically had too few people to test the Writing Fortress for one simple fact: there were really no combat changes in U48, despite the balance still being in the toilet since June. If there's nothing combat-related to test, then a lot fewer of the actual good players who know what they're talking about will come around to just test "yep, the combat balance is still terrible." That means you're really only left with the handful of testers who just run the overland quests on PTS.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · January 5

I second what others have commented.

the perception of PTS for 90% of players is 'Log in check the new sets and abilities once on pts first going up' doesn't matter what's wrong with them it's unlikely to have any changed or changes will be completely random and arbitrary so no point in actually testing until the last week if anything because changes wont happen.

Then if you tied rewards into this players would feel forced to do it due to fomo and would just aim to get the rewards not bothering with other testing.

Additionally players prefer to do new content such as story/bosses etc live. Writhing Fortress was explained to be a 'one off live event' why would people want to pre-test this and not experience a 'cool one off event' for the first time with other players.

ZOS / MS has a QA department, this was one of the biggest features advertised with their season pass. It's not on players to tell the team that dragged out boring content, inexplicable % changes and disparities and core gameplay elements are broken.

If anything they should have held a different 'staging' event on PTS separate to the main storyline they were intending to add. Like the Vengeance system which was supposedly a 'testing' system when it launched.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · January 5

Treeshka wrote: »

I believe majority of the players does not get into PTS environment because it requires you to download the game once again entirely. If it was like differently handled, like you only need to download the latest patch, and then hop into PTS it might be better for accessibility.

There was also the Server Planemeld a few years ago that ended up locking a lot of testers out of the Live server during the Anniversary Event. I’m not sure how big of a long term hit that was, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t one.

Soarora · January 5

You know what would improve PTS participation?

Not having to dig through boxes in boxes to get gear then pull out a transmute station because it’s not always in the right trait.

Fixing that will single handedly make me go back to playing PTS for more than just “is the questing any better this time?”, “lets try out new dungeons for 2 weeks before EU obliterates us again”, and “lets dig for some sneak peaks in the menus”.

tomofhyrule · January 5

Soarora wrote: »

You know what would improve PTS participation?

Not having to dig through boxes in boxes to get gear then pull out a transmute station because it’s not always in the right trait.

Fixing that will single handedly make me go back to playing PTS for more than just “is the questing any better this time?”, “lets try out new dungeons for 2 weeks before EU obliterates us again”, and “lets dig for some sneak peaks in the menus”.

Yeah, the change from "the template has everything unlocked" to "rofl just dig it all out of the nested boxes yourself" was... a choice.

I really would like them to go back to a fully-unlocked template that doesn't take over 5 hours of just unlocking things to be able to actually start testing things.

SolarRune · January 5

Got to agree with running sentiment mentioned by a few here - I used to participate in PTS - but after seeing too many bugs and issues detected and reported through the forums in the first 1 or 2 weeks make it through to the live game.

Soarora · January 5

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

You know what would improve PTS participation?

Not having to dig through boxes in boxes to get gear then pull out a transmute station because it’s not always in the right trait.

Fixing that will single handedly make me go back to playing PTS for more than just “is the questing any better this time?”, “lets try out new dungeons for 2 weeks before EU obliterates us again”, and “lets dig for some sneak peaks in the menus”.

Yeah, the change from "the template has everything unlocked" to "rofl just dig it all out of the nested boxes yourself" was... a choice.

I really would like them to go back to a fully-unlocked template that doesn't take over 5 hours of just unlocking things to be able to actually start testing things.

Exactly. I used to use PTS as a platform to experiment with off-meta builds. Now I cannot be bothered to even remake tried and true setups on EU character copy.

I know PTS is for testing but being able to use PTS as a sandbox for buildmaking and housing entices people to have it downloaded. If they have it downloaded, then they’re more likely to participate in the PTS patches.

Erickson9610 · January 5

FabresFour wrote: »

Personally, I believe the ESO PTS is an essential tool to ensure the quality of the game’s updates. However, in practice, it suffers from two major issues: low player participation and the use of the PTS mainly for testing specific builds. As a result, the PTS often ends up being more of a build-testing environment than a space to actually test new game content.

What I propose is the following: Golden Pursuits with PTS-exclusive rewards tied to specific PTS content. Items that players can only earn there, by completing tasks that actively test the content available on the PTS. For example, if the new DLC were, say, Central Elsweyr, there could be a Golden Pursuit where players are required to complete the new region’s main quest, defeat world bosses, collect skyshards, and so on.

From my perspective, this could significantly increase player participation on the PTS and, as a result, increase the amount of feedback provided by the community. Later on, these items could return as Crown Store items. I don’t know: it just feels like a valid alternative to boost player engagement and participation in the PTS, with the goal of improving the overall quality of the game at its official launch.

I also imagine this would be a very fitting way for ZeniMax to reward players who dedicate their time to helping improve the game. What do you think—are you for or against something like this? Do you have any ideas that could help increase PTS participation?

I think this is a neat idea. There may be some issues with its implementation (what if this system is bugged? How would it be tested, if the focus of the PTS is on the actual content?) but I think this would be the time frame for rewards:

Week 1 - Week 2: PTS copies PC-NA characters, so there's a 2-week Golden Pursuit on PTS to grant the corresponding rewards for your PC-NA account via the in-game mail.
Week 3 - Week 5: PTS copies PC-EU characters, so there's a 3-week Golden Pursuit on PTS to grant the corresponding rewards for your PC-EU account via the in-game mail.

heimdall14_9 · January 6

FabresFour wrote: »

Personally, I believe the ESO PTS is an essential tool to ensure the quality of the game’s updates. However, in practice, it suffers from two major issues: low player participation and the use of the PTS mainly for testing specific builds. As a result, the PTS often ends up being more of a build-testing environment than a space to actually test new game content.

What I propose is the following: Golden Pursuits with PTS-exclusive rewards tied to specific PTS content. Items that players can only earn there, by completing tasks that actively test the content available on the PTS. For example, if the new DLC were, say, Central Elsweyr, there could be a Golden Pursuit where players are required to complete the new region’s main quest, defeat world bosses, collect skyshards, and so on.

From my perspective, this could significantly increase player participation on the PTS and, as a result, increase the amount of feedback provided by the community. Later on, these items could return as Crown Store items. I don’t know: it just feels like a valid alternative to boost player engagement and participation in the PTS, with the goal of improving the overall quality of the game at its official launch.

I also imagine this would be a very fitting way for ZeniMax to reward players who dedicate their time to helping improve the game. What do you think—are you for or against something like this? Do you have any ideas that could help increase PTS participation?

this would be good if PTS was on XBOX /PLAYSTATION but with it not it leaves 2 parts of the game buying something others could achieve simply for being on PC

Freelancer_ESO · January 6

I think you'd probably get a better economic return from hiring another person or two to test than you would from spending the resources to get things to transfer from the PTS to Live along with the costs associated with giving out good rewards and having people potentially be less motivated to buy new content as they've already played it. I know I've done content on the PTS that I either never bothered with on Live after I bought it or had content I didn't buy because I didn't like it that much on the PTS.

You'd also have to deal with complaints from consoles as they lack PTS access and will thus miss out on the rewards.

When I look at the bug reports that other people make on the PTS or after things hit Live it can frequently include things I didn't notice when I did the same content on the PTS as I wasn't paying that close of attention or things that would never occur to me naturally because it's not how I play naturally.

I'd also note that while reporting a bug in game should work better as it likely provides ZOS with more data I get a far higher fix rate when I report a bug on forums than in game.

Further, I'd note that the streamers don't necessarily have that much more pull than regular people. I reported the bug that occurs with server maintenance taking out the competitive battlegrounds leader board months ago via a steamer to see if it'd get a faster fix than forums and it did not get a faster fix at all.

Renato90085 · January 6

you need download other 100gb+ game,spend 2-4 hour take gear and build your toon,but dev never listen any feedback , bug and bad thing still go live ,but you think a pet or costume/mount with some gold or ap can clean this problem?

DragonRacer · January 6

Well, I mean, PTS isn’t even available for XBox and PlayStation to even attempt to test and provide feedback, so…

But it’s cool, not like we matter at all anyway.

katanagirl1 · January 6

The argument that things couldn’t get fixed once they hit PTS in past years was always - the schedule. Now that we have these Seasons, ugh I hate that term, they completely gave themselves the green light to be able to spend more time on the PTS testing and actually make the bug fixes.

I am confused as to why this is not happening. They are no longer constrained to a fixed schedule, right?

This opens the door for people to participate in PTS testing and for the devs to get the bugs fixed. So, more people will participate if their time is seen as valuable and helpful. Seems like a no-brainer.

EDIT: typo

Freelancer_ESO · January 6

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The argument that things couldn’t get fixed once they hit PTS in past years was always - the schedule. Now that we have these Seasons, ugh I hate that term, they completely gave themselves the green light to be able to spend more time on the PTS testing and actually make the bug fixes.

I am confused as to why this is not happening. They are no longer constrained to a fixed schedule, right?

This opens the door for people to participate in PTS testing and for the devs to get the bugs fixed. So, more people will participate if their time is seen as valuable and helpful. Seems like a no-brainer.

EDIT: typo

I could be mistaken but, I don't think the shift to seasons will really would free up the scheduling that much.

My impression is that with most big budget entertainment items the people that produce them aim for a specific release windows and spend significant amounts on marketing for that window.

ZOS with Seasons may not need to hit the exact same times for releases and the exact same size for releases but, they'll still need to be dropping content at times when they think it's an optimal time for people to buy and when they have planned their marketing to hit which is going to limit the ability to extend testing on the fly.

wolfie1.0. · January 6

At this point the only thing I will do with the PTS is read the notes and discuss it hear. I am not touching it again until ZOS does something meaningful with it, like delay deployment until bugs are fixed.

That ZOS keeps claiming to listen to players and the community but ignores bugs doesnt help.

That ZOS temporary banned players that used the PTS doesnt help.

That ZOS rolls out controversial changes that players tell them will be broken doesnt help.

That zos never finishes a long term initiative doesnt help.

xR3ACTORx · January 6

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Going to vehemently disagree. If anything I think the PTS should be more limited.

Participants should be required to fill out surveys and reports, so that even build testers are forced to be bug/system testers.

Then of course the major change - ZOS actually listens to the feedback from everyone, not just YouTube celebs, and fixes the bugs reported so they don't make it into Live.

Just asking out of interest and because of the way you use dashes and commas... Do you let a LLM write your comments?

Gabriel_H · January 6

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Going to vehemently disagree. If anything I think the PTS should be more limited.

Participants should be required to fill out surveys and reports, so that even build testers are forced to be bug/system testers.

Then of course the major change - ZOS actually listens to the feedback from everyone, not just YouTube celebs, and fixes the bugs reported so they don't make it into Live.

Just asking out of interest and because of the way you use dashes and commas... Do you let a LLM write your comments?

It's called basic grammar and style.

A "-" called a dash is used to add emphasis to what comes after it.
A "," called a comma is used to add clarity and non-essential information.

Example:

“If I had killed the real Strider, I could kill you. And I should have killed you already without so much talk. If I was after the Ring, I could have it – NOW!’, spoken by Aragorn, Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 10.

First lesson is free. I charge for the subsequent ones.

xR3ACTORx · January 6

Gabriel_H wrote: »

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Going to vehemently disagree. If anything I think the PTS should be more limited.

Participants should be required to fill out surveys and reports, so that even build testers are forced to be bug/system testers.

Then of course the major change - ZOS actually listens to the feedback from everyone, not just YouTube celebs, and fixes the bugs reported so they don't make it into Live.

Just asking out of interest and because of the way you use dashes and commas... Do you let a LLM write your comments?

It's called basic grammar and style.

A "-" called a dash is used to add emphasis to what comes after it.
A "," called a comma is used to add clarity and non-essential information.

Example:

“If I had killed the real Strider, I could kill you. And I should have killed you already without so much talk. If I was after the Ring, I could have it – NOW!’, spoken by Aragorn, Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 10.

First lesson is free. I charge for the subsequent ones.

Then have a, look over your comments - with your eyes, and enjoy.

All my lessons are free.

My apologize if you got this wrong somehow.

Gabriel_H · January 6

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Going to vehemently disagree. If anything I think the PTS should be more limited.

Participants should be required to fill out surveys and reports, so that even build testers are forced to be bug/system testers.

Then of course the major change - ZOS actually listens to the feedback from everyone, not just YouTube celebs, and fixes the bugs reported so they don't make it into Live.

Just asking out of interest and because of the way you use dashes and commas... Do you let a LLM write your comments?

It's called basic grammar and style.

A "-" called a dash is used to add emphasis to what comes after it.
A "," called a comma is used to add clarity and non-essential information.

Example:

“If I had killed the real Strider, I could kill you. And I should have killed you already without so much talk. If I was after the Ring, I could have it – NOW!’, spoken by Aragorn, Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 10.

First lesson is free. I charge for the subsequent ones.

Then have a, look over your comments - with your eyes, and enjoy.

All my lessons are free.

My apologize if you got this wrong somehow.

I was simply pointing out I learned grammar and my style from a variety of great authors. The exact same authors that LLM are programmed on, as well as being programmed on the entirety of the internet, of which I have been publically posting on for many decades.

So it is not that I am sounding like a LLM, but that they are in fact sounding like me, and in part they have been trained on my works.

heimdall14_9 · January 6

if player count is low on PC why dont they switch PTS into CTS and give console players the testing, see how much that helps over giving 1/3 of the pop free things they could simply get 2/3 of the pop into doing testing since the 1/3 that can dont want to anymore