Yeah, I'm having to make several template characters for testing things instead of being able to test them on my own characters. I really wish the PTS could be split more evenly between EU and NA, as it feels like more often than not a PTS cycle ends with it staying on EU.

Yeah I don't get why we need so many Boxes. Like the PTS doesn't take THAT much bandwidth to just have everything already unlocked for any template characters, does it? There can't be THAT many people that it's that much of a strain. It's not just Sets either, it's having to dig through the Consumables, the Crafter crate, and a couple of others ones too.

The Gear one is the biggest offender though. Dungeon > DLC/Base Dungeon > Light/Medium/Heavy DLC Dungeon > Find whatever set > Armor Jewels and Weapons > get which items you need. Or Crafted > Base/DLC > Find the Set > Light/Medium/Heavy > Armor Jewels Weapons > get the items you need (including needing to go through each Armor piece for the Trait you want).

Like was already suggested, it would cut out a bunch of time setting up template characters if every piece of Gear was just unlocked in the Stickerbook and an Infinite Geode plopped directly into our inventory instead of needing to dig through Boxes that don't even make sense. Instead of being in the Consumables, it's in Crafter's > Traveled Crafter. Why?

I just don't get why we can't have the PTS swap servers every month or so. Does it really take that many resources to swap it?

It'd be really cool if there was some kind of export one could get and carry over to the PTS, and just use it to set up a character. A lot of the setup is stored in an Armory Assistant slot, so a way to have that be a file for PTS would do much of the work. Another export that has the character design, name, race, and class would complete it.

If there's a name collision, the player can resolve it during character create.

I think ZOS needs to stop doing the account copies all together. A better way would be to snapshot the character settings for each account then allow players to choose which snapshot to apply to the template.

So, the UI would look something like a dropdown listing all your character names and server realm then next to it the option of which template to apply the snapshot to. And when applied it will apply the race, class, champ points, skills, etc settings to the template.

Basically, cloning that character. All players would have to do is pick a new name and get whatever gear they want to test out of the template boxes. It would also cut down the, down time for the pts. They would not have to copy the whole server just scrape the character information.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I don't really get what the problem is, if there's no mirror update then you don't lose the character you create either so just use the template, set it up once and then it will be left there for your testing purposes.

Reasons such as 'I want to try out a PTS House with my current collection of live things' - Well this isn't what PTS is for, you can wait until there's a copy available.

Would it be nice to be able to choose the mirror you use at the time of using the template? Yes.
Should they waste dev time on this? Absolutely not.

Out of curiosity, when is the last time you've set up a template?

I see in your sig that you play on both servers. That means you don't need to do it regardless of which mirror is up.

Maybe take an alt account onto PTS at some point and see just how quick and easy it is to set up a template. "Oh, I just need to unlock these two sets. Now where did they come from? Oh, that's the wrong box. Wait, my inventory is full? Ok, there we go. And... ew, this isn't working. Maybe a different set? Uhh... oh, I don't have it? Wait, I need to open more boxes?"

And again, this does bar people from testing other things. Like I want to test one thing specifically: they said that Noth was removed from Vvardenfell so you don't hear her whine for characters who have done the questline. But she's also in Mournhold, and nobody mentioned that one. With an EU mirror, I can:

1. Set up a template (takes 30 min-1 h)
2. Run that entire questline (takes a few hours)
3. Walk into Mournhold and check if she's disabled properly (takes less than a minute)

So... why am I going to bother?

And as for "wasting dev time on this..." see the post above:

Soarora wrote: »

The collection USED to be auto unlocked. It really helped with setting up a character. That changed early 2024. We still haven’t gotten an answer why. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/651864/no-collection-on-pts

One solution is go back to how it was. Why did they "waste dev time" on making it harder to set up a template?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

I don't really get what the problem is, if there's no mirror update then you don't lose the character you create either so just use the template, set it up once and then it will be left there for your testing purposes.

Reasons such as 'I want to try out a PTS House with my current collection of live things' - Well this isn't what PTS is for, you can wait until there's a copy available.

Would it be nice to be able to choose the mirror you use at the time of using the template? Yes.
Should they waste dev time on this? Absolutely not.

This feels like a bad faith post from someone who doesn't know the breadth of things that need to be tested on the PTS, but in case you're being sincere, I'll take the effort to explain this to you.

There is currently no way to test new luxury furnishings, crate furnishings, and furnishings from crown furnishing packs on the test server. They cannot be acquired and therefore cannot be tested on the PTS. For the past year, every crate has come out with at least one broken furnishing that would have been easily identified had we access to them on the PTS, and the fixes usually only hit live after the furnishing stops being for sale. For the past year, there has also been a broken luxury furnishing about once a month that, again, would have been identified on the PTS had we access to them. It's also necessary and worthy to test how various furnishings interact with one another in a build, and hundreds of furnishings are luxury furnishings. That's a lot of potential bizarre interactions.

This is the equivalent of new gear sets, acquired with real money, never being available to test on the PTS before hitting live. And the way you test new furnishings is by decorating. You decorate to see what the problems will be. Because that's what the use case will be on live.

As far as achievement and antiquity furnishings go: template characters get one copy of each achievement and antiquity furnishing, when they're included at all (that's inconsistent, too.) There are simple problems you can't test for with a single copy of an item, like, for instance, if they can stack. A problem that happens on live all the time is that multiple identical instances of the same item won't stack. Without relevant achievements unlocked, we can't see if there's a bug with purchasing new antiquity and achievement furnishings -- an existing problem on live, by the way, is that many antiquity furnishings can't be unlocked for purchase when the requirements to unlock them have been fulfilled.

It might not impact you personally, but the personal impact on you doesn't dictate the absolute worthiness of testing.