No Public Beta Testing: good bad for the game?

[YukikoKurosawa]

I am curious how this community feels about the lack of a public beta test realm. On one hand, I see the advantages: it’s FUN for us all to figure out the story and jobs on our own. I had so much fun figuring out how things changed and hopefully improved for my favorite classes. It even got me to try Bard, which is my favorite job this expansion.

Post should've ended here as you just perfectly explained why there should be no PTR.

[Darthgummibear]

PTR's are historically pointless in the games that have them because they are used primarily as marketing tools, not for feedback they will act on. The actual working developer builds are always multiple steps beyond whatever you see on the test servers.

[Lihtleita]

im not paying 10 quid a month to test a game for a multi million dollar corporation

[Awarewolf]

Post should've ended here as you just perfectly explained why there should be no PTR.

Why do you say that? Because I’m enjoying Bard?

[Soge01]

If they could find testers for jobs like DRK where they won't completely twist the job for their own personal benefits, then I'd be fine with it.

I often watch a youtuber called Xeno who talks about the pros and cons of tank jobs and would love to see someone like him able to give a in depth opinion on the problems with the Tank classes to the devs and how to fix them.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Why do you say that? Because I’m enjoying Bard?

I mean because you answered your own question as to why PTR is a bad thing as it ends up spoiling the game for you months in advance rather than letting you experience it yourself when it releases. Also, as others have mentioned, why would you want to pay a monhtly fee to test the game for SE?

[Krotoan]

I don't wish to pay a sub to do what others get paid to do, nor for developers to have ANY incentive to incentivize playing a PTR, such as special in-game rewards or boosts.

I don't feel that "competitive" clearing of content is healthy to the extent that people go to when they have things like PTR's to go off. People get invested in the test versions of jobs and then rage when day 1 release fixes are applied, messing up their strats and causing them to go on tirades about changes that are basically bug squashing and balance. It also incredibly quashes the discovery and "wonder" of new things.

I don't believe that there is any incentive beyond epeen for classes to necessarily be released in a perfectly balanced state. Classes should work without excessive bugs or obvious exploits present, anything further is a matter of taste and player creativity/preference and in a non-competitive PVE environment can be adjusted slowly or left to make individual job preference and style matter.


TL;DR: PTRs are bad for FFXIV

[Nyxs]

We dont need a PTR. It would do more harm than good.

[Espon]

I actually like there being no PTR. Everything is a surprise and isn't already found, solved, or datamined before release. There's nothing to look forward to in WoW, you already know who you're going to fight or what you should be doing. If you're in a guild that's interested in hardcore raiding, you'll be testing the fights on the PTR. I find watching world first racing more interesting when everyone is going in blind.

Square Enix actually does a pretty good job with their internal testing, I hardly ever see any serious bugs. Class balance might not be as good as it could be, but that's true for WoW as well. You look at all the first boss kills for the top guilds and you'll see the same few class specs dominating in all of them.

[kejakalope]

I am curious how this community feels about the lack of a public beta test realm. On one hand, I see the advantages: it’s FUN for us all to figure out the story and jobs on our own. I had so much fun figuring out how things changed and hopefully improved for my favorite classes. It even got me to try Bard, which is my favorite job this expansion.

But, it also meant that so many jobs were released with clearly unfair advantages and disadvantages compared to other jobs, something that would come up on a PTR.

Do you feel FFXIV content would improve for having a PTR?

I think it would, but only if they let us test the new job/job changes on the previous expansion’s content. I don’t want story spoilers or to even see a new zone.

WoW's PTR is a huge embarrassment and complete net negative to the game.

XIV releases new patches with the content still actually fresh, and manages for it to be well-balanced and with very very few bugs, and those bugs generally of a very minor nature, quickly fixed.

A PTR would be a massive detriment to the game. Square does quality internal QA testing.