Is it time we had Public Test Servers?

[Singularity]

Tbh people would just use it as an opportunity to play the game asap and learn anything and everything about the content before it comes out, instead of actually testing. That's what happened to wow and what i love about 14, prog is actually prog and not just a race to see who can do the preset strategies faster. a PTR would be awful for this sort of environment

I agree with this. I don't want content to be playable before release. It would only create tension between those who want to experience the game spoiler-free and those who want it done as quickly as possible.

That said, for things like job changes, I believe it would be OK. Just something like the media tour - one zone (not even a new zone, can be a repurposed old zone or one purpose-built for testing) with some striking dummies, a variety of mobs and maybe a repurposed dungeon and trial to test party stuff would be enough to try out how the jobs play and give feedback.

[TitaniaZero]

You know what would come of a Public Test realm...

"They aren't listening to our feedback at all" (See WoW)

[TalithaSolarien]

Tbh people would just use it as an opportunity to play the game asap and learn anything and everything about the content before it comes out, instead of actually testing. That's what happened to wow and what i love about 14, prog is actually prog and not just a race to see who can do the preset strategies faster. a PTR would be awful for this sort of environment

This is what happens on ESO everytime they put a new trial on their PTS system. Doing a "world first clear" just mean who (on PC) can execute the strategies fastest on launch day.

Also, most companies don't bother to include their Console population in their test environments (Overwatch or ESO for example), making this kind of early access unfair.

[Kaedan]

No, not a public one. A private one with well-known and proven players might work. Public test servers are just toxic vats of nasty people who just use it as an excuse to play early and then whine about everything.

[SaberMaxwell]

I would say no for right now; any player suggested adjustments would probably be ignored or the dev team wouldn't have time to implement them.

I agree wholeheartedly with Sebazy, they need to expand Sato's team. They have four people working on seventeen jobs with quandaries like "We can't take verraise away but letting RDM keep it makes prog a bit wonky and it's hard to balance around that capability" stopping them in their tracks even when not dealing with healers.

In my layman's opinion they need to increase their combat development staff, and perhaps reach out to the community that has so far been theorycrafting their work anyways, and create a bit of a dialogue.

If there were a test realm I'd like it to be established after an expansion of the team, and be one with a parser enabled so the theorycrafters could be hand in hand with the developers.

[Gula]

People would only argue more because they had a greater taste of part of what could be changed. They just see the tooltips right now and flip their nut over it, imagine how enraged they would be if they got to partially experience it firsthand. When people don't have all the information possible they tend to fill in the gaps with the worst possible thing they can imagine. I don't think it would be a good idea.

This really. In literally every. single. video from the media event, there is a big bold NOT FINAL AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE somewhere on the screen. And what do people do? Ignore it like it's not even there and throw the ultimate in tantrums save video rants as though it were final.

Then call you names and get nasty when you dare call them out on it.

[White_Wolf_X]

Most problems ffxiv got are server or code related really.

[Valderen]

I don't think it's needed, first no consensus would be reach as far as design and class balance because people want different things, the community in any games has never agreed on what they want. Most notably, people want their class to be the best.

Since as far as I am concerned, FF14 has done a great job of releasing with few bugs, most of which have not been game breaking...so their internal testing team is doing a good enough job as far as bug reporting.

I don't see the point really.

[Noitems]

I would say the Media Tour is the closest thing people will have to it past playing at events like E3 and the like before it's release. If you want to be cheeky you can say "Preorder early access is!" but to be completely honest we know those servers are going to drop like a rock for most of the 28th.

I wouldn't advise a Public Test though in a normal sense. It sounds good as an idea but as multiple people said it would absolutely be exploited. People would be posting raid guides far before the others and it would take a lot of the coming experience.

What I would say would be a neat idea is to specifically craft test zones (maybe have it in the style of Omegascape as it's got the digital feel), giving encounters similar to what we would fight in the main game albeit on a far less grander scale.

You could have them mirror guildhests in terms of how they function offering multiple instances for different encounters but at the new level cap and with the new toolkit. Doesn't have too be glamorous for the encounters and could be simple enemy models/aoes but would at least allow people to feel the flow of the jobs on a general level.

[RukiaFae]

As stated above the media tour is our version of a public test. They received feedback from people who actually play the game and they are getting preliminary feedback. That's all they can do before going live. They will make adjustments before release and immediately after release. People still won't be happy but that's life.