ESO PTS Schedule Changes

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · January 28

Hi, everyone. We wanted to share a change to our PTS schedule that we intended to communicate earlier. With all the other communications efforts, circulating this change with you fell off our radar so we do apologize for not sharing this with you sooner. With the transition to simultaneously launching all updates and incremental patches on PC and console servers, we are reducing our PTS cycles to four weeks. The reason for this is to allow for the necessary time needed for the various certification processes. We also mentioned this in the PTS Week 3 patch notes, but wanted to give this its own dedicated post so it doesn’t get lost.

Your feedback after the PTS cycle ends still matters and is valuable. It just means any related fixes or changes will not go into the update launch build, but rather a later patch. There are also some exceptions to this, for content that will launch later in a Season. For example with Season Zero, the Night Market and test Tamriel Tome will remain on the PTS until late February. We will continue to take hands-on PTS feedback and bug reports for both – as well as the Update 49 content – through that time.

Thank you for your ongoing support and feedback, and please let us know if you have any questions. We will continue to do our best to be transparent with you about what fixes and changes will go into which updates and incremental patches, and where we are with ongoing work. We will also let you know if there are any future changes to our PTS schedule.

thejadefalcon · January 28

The obvious question is "why not push back release a week instead?" ESO hasn't exactly had the most upstanding reputation with feedback from the PTS being listened to. While the announcement at the start of this year has definitely made me give you the benefit of the doubt, this change is counterproductive to that as it feels like it's one step forward and two steps back again. The last thing this game needs is less testing.

PeacefulAnarchy · January 28

Why can't you start pts a week earlier (or release a week later)?
I can understand maybe something happened and this isn't possible for this pts cycle, but this sounds like a permanent change going forward and I don't see how shortening the cycle is better than the other options.

DeathandDebauchery · January 28

Why not either:

A ) Push back a week instead

B ) Start PTS a week earlier

Less testing seems like a terrible decision given the main issue in the last 6 months has been lack of polish.

ZhuJiuyin · January 28

If I remember correctly, we previously mentioned that the new release model would make new patch releases more flexible, right? Why can't we release them in multiple parts? Release the parts that are already completed or nearly completed, such as New-DK, first, and continue testing Night Market and Tamriel Tome on PTS? Especially since Tamriel Tome still seems to have many bugs.

ThePainGuy · January 28

To be honest with you. I see responses above posting either A or B scenario, but why can't they do both. Start PTS a week earlier AND push releases a week back. Zos is in full control of release dates on their products. This is a very complex game with so many moving parts and it requires as much feedback and testing as possible to continue moving it in a positive direction.

But maybe I'm in the minority on this one.

Erickson9610 · January 28

I'm glad PC and consoles have the same release date for content, because that allows Crossplay to happen. If the price is a shorter PTS cycle, I can live with that.

MidnightDuel · January 28

As the PTS schedule is being looked at, could some serious thought please be given to the order of the Character Copies? Specifically, the order in which characters are copied first (historically NA) and the duration each copy. As it stands now, the second copy (EU) remains on the PTS for extended periods of time and is unfair to NA players for the following reasons:

The first copy is typically 2 weeks long, and only rarely 3 weeks. With the shortened 4-week PTS schedule, NA characters would never have more than 2 weeks each cycle (8 weeks per year). This compares to the 44 weeks per year that EU characters are accessible on the PTS.
The first two weeks of each PTS cycle often have the most bugs. So players spend considerably more time submitting bug reports early in each PTS cycle.
Testing with one's own characters, houses and other assets is far more productive than creating template characters, and setting up template characters takes time and effort. When there are combat changes that affect existing builds, whichever characters are copied last are more likely to experience the changes that will go live, giving those players more time to test, develop and refine builds before a patch goes live.
Whenever an official PTS Cycle ends, there is a long period where the last character copy remains on the test server. This allows players to return to the PTS to perform other personal tests with their characters and builds will all the skills, materials, and assets acquired over years on the live servers. Additionally, these players have access to nearly unlimited access to crowns, transmutes, and other template assets. This has allowed some players to unduly benefit personally from a longer copy.
Also, players with characters in the last copy can easily jump back on the PTS after the official cycle ends with little effort and minimal expenditure of time, to quickly test an idea without concern for wasting their materials and resources on live if the idea doesn't pan out.

There is a relatively simple solution to this inequity: Alternate which charater copy starts the first two weeks of each new PTS Test Cycle. By rotating which live server is copied first, over the course of a year the amount of time each copy spends on the PTS will be nearly equal.

KCMail · January 28

I am happy PC and Console get to have the patch at the same time, I don't think that should play into why I disagree with this change. It feels very much like the feedback of "We need more testing" or "We need more time on PTS so the developers can actively action major issues before release" was ignored entirely here. I understand release schedules are likely in place to hit Microsoft release periods (That's why all our favourite live service games update the same week, which isn't annoying at all

) but I think this is something that could have been handled better. From my own perspective and from most players I've talked to we want more testing, more bug fixing and less time waiting for an incremental after release.
Edit: I do want to say thank you for the clear post, it was missed and that's understandable but I am glad we got this post instead of just the footnote most people missed in the PTS patch notes

Emeratis · January 28

I understand why people are anxious given we are in uncharted territory, but I am hoping the pts to live testing gap leads to our findings on pts being adjusted before things make it to live. I also appreciate them reassuring us late feedback will also be taken into account, even if it might mean it makes it into a later patch.

I do very much agree with others, though, on it would be preferred to leave five weeks to test and maybe move around dates and schedules if possible. I don't think that is too much to ask. If it is though, please let us know here as to why. I think that might help people accept the changes more.

Finally, I do worry about this exacerbating an already big pain point of for a while now pts in the off-testing season is left with the EU copy, meaning those of us on NA who want to test things on PC do not have access to our characters or resources. There are still things players test in the offseason and as was mentioned above this means NA gets 8 weeks of testing a year, all of which are during the active testing period but never in the offseason. For me personally, this can be frustrating because I only play on the NA server, and even making a template, I don't have access to my done every quest character's worldstate or my characters' appearance sliders or my crown purchased cosmetics I have access to on NA live. There are solutions to some of this like unlocking all crown only/crown crate/etc styles with the template cosmetics crates, but for worldstate based on quest progress or character's sliders/presets there really isn't an acceptable pts answer currently. Flipping server copies on the offseason might help give off season testers more windows to test things but it still means there are gaps in NA or EU access.

DoofusMax · January 28

I'm already out there on other threads pointing out that more testing rather than less would be a good thing and this thread doesn't do anything to change that view. I'm glad to hear that ZOS is going to continue to gather PTS data pretty much up the time that U49 launches, but it still seems to me that rolling out a less buggy product would be preferable to "meet the deadline and patch it later."

tomofhyrule · January 29

Since the gap between PTS and Live will be much longer now, would we be able to have the .4 patch go up on PTS while the certification is ongoing?

At this rate, we’ll get the last PTS patch (.3) going live on Feb 2, and then the Live patch (.4) will release on Mar 9. That’s over a month between them.
If the .4 patch went on PTS in the meantime though, then we could still test things so the team could post a “Known Issues” with the Live release and also already have those issues targeted for the first incremental.

Also, I’ll echo the desire to equalize the regions on PTS. NA always gets the most unpolished versions of each patch (we didn’t even get Tomes with our characters at all) and we have it for two weeks a cycle, and EU get it for the next few months. That means if an NA player wants to also test builds or cosmetic things, they need to compete with testing the patch to get it done before the PTS is cleared. On the other side, EU always has to wait for two weeks to get to test anything for themselves.

It would be better if sometimes EU would start the cycle and NA got the long haul afterwards, and sometimes NA starts and EU finishes.

lillybit · January 30

I feel like a shorter PTS where they're listening to us and giving regular feedback and explanations is still better than a longer one where we're ignored

Tyrobag · January 30

There is obviously a ton of work still to go on the DK refresh (more now than there was in week 1 funny enough). Wouldn't it make more sense to have a longer pts so feedback can actually be implemented rather than just forcing through poor or unwanted changes to live?

lillybit wrote: »

I feel like a shorter PTS where they're listening to us and giving regular feedback and explanations is still better than a longer one where we're ignored

That would be better... Too bad we're getting a shorter one where we're still ignored lol.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · February 6

Hi, everyone. As we wrap up week 4 of our Update 49 PTS, we wanted to circle back to this thread and provide an update. We, too, would like to do more with the ESO PTS, and while the Update 49 PTS was only 4 weeks, we are exploring options that would allow us a little more flexibility with the schedule while not putting our build and cert schedules at risk.

With how Seasonal content is releasing in a more staggered manner, it makes more sense that the PTS would be a little more fluid, too. You're seeing a little of that already with how the PTS Tamriel Tome and Night Market will remain on the PTS server for additional testing and feedback after the Update 49 PTS concludes. This works because those two features are launching after Update 49, as part of Season Zero.

While we haven't solidified the exact plan yet, we wanted you to know we do hear you and are talking about options. Thanks again, and we hope everyone has a great weekend.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · February 7

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

I think if you are considering changes to how the PTS is run it might be a good time to bring back the 'test events' idea. Lets take the example this time around of the 3 sided BG's. I'm sure you guys can see how many BGs were actually completed on the PTS to test this feature - my guess is a very small number.

Similarly was the Night market tested in a fully maxed out instance / can more instances spin up?

We used to have occasional events where players could earn live game rewards - I appreciate that console players may feel left out of this but equally the rewards as long as they are not unique new items would only impact the PC server.

Even without the rewards players enjoy playing the content if they know they will be playing with Devs.

Let the first week or 2 remain as it is for players to jump on test new builds / initial content and report bugs but then consider in weeks 3 and 4 running some scheduled tests with a few devs participating to get a feel of how the community interacts with the content and get real feedback. I think this would help avoid situations like we found ourselves in with the event last year where content didn't work at scale.