The Devs should hire players to test/give Job feedback

[Kazrah]

I'd say the bigger problem isn't from the testers, but rather from the method in which jobs are tested.

Yoshi had mentioned once in an interview that all jobs are tested on two fields: one being on a target dummy and other being in a raid environment. Although it would make sense to do this sort of testing for the overall feel of the job (dummy test) and job efficiency amidst distractions (raid test), except this still leaves out a good portion of information because solo content isn't being tested. Now I'm sure the counterargument that would be presented would be something along the lines of "it's an MMO, you should be doing things in a group", but not only do a sizable number of players do content solo (especially open-world content), but some content like quests have don't give the option of doing things in a group.

The removal of Sustain is a really good example of this. The reasoning why it was removed was along the lines of "it wasn't being used that often"; a perspective only gained from data acquired from group content where pets typically take reduced damage from major attacks and get enough offshoot heals from AoE healing effects that pet jobs could get by with not having to worry about using Sustain....until they have to fight in open-world or forced solo content, where pet healing abilities such as Sustain are the one skill keeping what would be a pathetic pet from getting trashed in three hits to being able to adequately help the almost-as-pathetic caster.

In short, it's that lack of solo questing perspective that make FFXIV testers seem substantially more incompetent than they probably are.

[Theodric]

Overwatch was cited as a success for having a PTR and yet that doesn't really change much at all - the game in question is still plagued by balance issues, clunky or dubious abilities and a lot of the feedback amounts to 'buff my favourite character and nerf their counter character'.

[DynamoAce]

Get Mr Happy to be a tester. I'm sure he'd love that.

[Theodric]

Get Mr Happy to be a tester. I'm sure he'd love that.

He's too controversial a figure. He isn't exactly humble and there's a personality cult surrounding him. Furthermore there would be a conflict of interest - he'd want as many views as possible for his videos and as such would likely let bias leak in. He could also be completely wrong about something but his more rabid followers would kick and scream all over the forums demanding that the developers change things a certain way anyway. Much like how it plays out with major streamers who are tied to WoW.

[Minas-tepes]

Get Mr Happy to be a tester. I'm sure he'd love that.

Oh god please no, he's like the worst personality to pick up

[Kazrah]

Get Mr Happy to be a tester. I'm sure he'd love that.

Yeah, that's the exact opposite person you'd want as a tester.

For a tester, you'd preferably want someone who hasn't and doesn't really made a lot of noise, has some moderate level of understanding of both the game and the jobs, and has (most importantly) no preference toward they're playing. They'd also have to be able to follow baseline parameters set for testing as well as be able to coherently and briefly (which rules out Mr. Happy) provide constructive analysis on whatever it is they're running with. Lastly, they'd need to be brought in under the terms that they're not intended to provide a showcase, but instead provide acceptable analysis and reasonable suggestions as needed.

The other noteworthy thing is that SE would want more than one person testing any given job, as more people testing leads to more data.

[Beskar]

Just gonna jump in on this seeing as people now seem to be going on about QA testers.

With that amount they supposedly have, I dont think they'd be able to find all issues that currently plague the game. For example when it comes to job changes, there may be very few people actually testing each of the available jobs with more attention more than likely being given to the two new jobs. Any issues found would then get put into the database and then for all we know, designers, production or whoever could essentially go 'That's not a bug' or 'That's intended' and close the bug off.

QA could very well have found all of these issues and they've either been ignored or the fixes have been pushed back for later. They might not even have had the correct amount of time for them. Who knows.

As someone else said, more testers could get hired but then that could make things worse. Throwing numbers in QA does not always solve the problem. Sure more issues will more than likely get found but more intricate and complicated issues would probably get overshadowed by a lot of other minuscule stuff.

Unfortunately, we have very little information in how the QA department and overall studio works when it comes to this game.

[loreleidiangelo]

I don't know how anyone can claim that player testers or just in general BETTER playtesters than the ones we have now wouldn't benefit this game in some fashion when basically every patch there's some sort of adjustment made along the general reasoning of, "players figured out how to play our classes better than we did".

[Remedi]

Is this coming from the community that failed to understand the changes to WHM and considered it utter trash without even testing it?

[Lycieus]

You guys need to hire more people to test your changes, and no I will not "wait" for patch 4.1, then 4.x or whatever. I did that during the Final Coil SMN MP struggle, to then get blessed in Heavensward, and now the job is hot garbage. With drastic changes like these, you lose the confidence and faith of players in your ability to gauge what works well, and what does not.

I don't know if they need separate people. I just think the people making the changes need to play the game themselves.