Time for a public test server?

[Gamer3427]

Snip

I like the idea in theory, but I worry that it wouldn't realistically work as intended. I do think that at the very least, it should be several representatives per job, and they represent individual jobs rather than the role as a whole since expecting one person to treat all the jobs in their role with equal consideration and experience is a bit unreasonable. I would say that each job should have two representatives per region, with a "Raider" representative to view things from the viewpoint of those playing the hardest content frequently, and a "Standard" representative to view things from a gameplay standpoint that the average player would look at, since those who raid, and those who don't raid tend to have very different outlooks on what is needed for their job, and how changes will affect them......

SAM is a good example in that regard from the early previews, since it appears to be geared more towards having high enough DPS that it is still usable in raids even without utility skills, but more than a few players are concerned that its personal DPS will be too high in standard content as a result. Having a representative for both groups would make it so that there is less of a chance that one would skew the gathered feedback to suit the type of content that they prefer. I also think that it's important to have representatives from each of the major player regions as well, (JP, US, EU), since the community for each region is very different in how they approach the game, which could mean very different outcomes depending on where the representatives are from if they're not equally representing each region.....

The main question after that though, is how would these representatives be chosen, exactly? Leaving it up to player voting might not be the way to go in this sort of situation, both because there is the chance we'll see the ones with extreme view points being loud enough and vote more that someone with a very skewed opinion might get into the position, and because the alternative is that we'll likely see someone with a strong following that can simply get votes from them, (such as a Youtuber), end up in the position, rather than someone who would actually do well in the role. The only reasonable way to have the representatives be picked and remain at least semi-neutral is by the dev team, but then how would they be able to judge who would accurately represent the classes in question? Raw stats or play time wouldn't be the way to go, because it wouldn't necessarily indicate that someone would do a good job as a representative, but at the same time they can't exactly go through and read all the posts everyone on the forum has ever made to determine who would fill the role best from a social and reasonable argument view point. I'm honestly not sure what the best way of even choosing representatives who are actually qualified for the positions should be. Either way, the representative has to be someone who actually plays the game, and class in question, because they are the ones who would be testing and ensuring that changes are actually what the players would want, rather than just sounding good on paper......

[Araxes]

I've always thought it odd that an MMO of the size and scope of FFXIV didn't use a public test server.

PS 4 restrictions.

[Laerune]

I wouldnt mind seeing PTR, but only if they made it so the players can not test the MSQ or wander into zones. Just put them in building with enemy mobs and let them test the skills there. I just cant trust the players with keeping story (a major part of this game) events to themselves.

[Voltyblast]

I think a PTR would be useful, especially to avoid big failures like Diadem and the insane difficulty spikes we had in A3S (if I'm correct). Those are things that with a PTR they could've been resolved.

Without it, expect more unbalanced and unfinished content in the future, just like Diadem and to a certain degree LoV, aquapolis and PotD.

[JunseiKei]

I think a PTR would be useful, especially to avoid big failures like Diadem and the insane difficulty spikes we had in A3S (if I'm correct). Those are things that with a PTR they could've been resolved.

Without it, expect more unbalanced and unfinished content in the future, just like Diadem and to a certain degree LoV, aquapolis and PotD.

That's not what PTRs are for. They are for bug testing, which can arguably be done in Early Access. What you're talking about is having creative input on what the developer team is making.

[Naunet]

That's not what PTRs are for. They are for bug testing, which can arguably be done in Early Access. What you're talking about is having creative input on what the developer team is making.

No, PTRs are not only for bug testing but player feedback on content. If your testers are all saying "X isn't really working/isn't enjoyable for Y reasons/could really use Z/etc" then that can be taken into account for changes prior to release.

[Jijifli]

No, PTRs are not only for bug testing but player feedback on content. If your testers are all saying "X isn't really working/isn't enjoyable for Y reasons/could really use Z/etc" then that can be taken into account for changes prior to release.

It's likely that unless we get enough people on the test servers, it'd only end up as as bug testing server. It's in a company's best interest to not change balance unless either A) Enough of various skill levels test it, or B) It's very clearly so bad that it's impossible to miss with a small pool.

The issue with PTR's is that there's not enough people. And because there aren't enough people, the skill levels of players in it are too crazy to use.

[Atmora]

That's not what PTRs are for. They are for bug testing, which can arguably be done in Early Access. What you're talking about is having creative input on what the developer team is making.

No that's a thing some developers do with their PTRs, they invite top raiding guilds and the like to them so that they can test the balance of the instances and class changes.

[Atmora]

Wait why do you think the top end NA/EU community is less qualified when the skill level is much higher than JP at the top.

Edit: I'm sorry I'm really having a hard time understanding these points, I know English may not be a first or even second language for you but this is all very poorly structured.

There's also no plyer beta test even on JP, at least not in the same way as in other MMOs. I think you also are fundamentally misunderstanding the reason you'd want high level players to be testing in the first place. It's to check things like fight tuning so things like Gordias don't happen again and fracture the player base. It's not necessary to have testing like that but some MMOs have opted for it in the past to decent success.

[KisaiTenshi]

Wait why do you think the top end NA/EU community is less qualified when the skill level is much higher than JP at the top.

Edit: I'm sorry I'm really having a hard time understanding these points, I know English may not be a first or even second language for you but this is all very poorly structured.

There's also no plyer beta test even on JP, at least not in the same way as in other MMOs. I think you also are fundamentally misunderstanding the reason you'd want high level players to be testing in the first place. It's to check things like fight tuning so things like Gordias don't happen again and fracture the player base. It's not necessary to have testing like that but some MMOs have opted for it in the past to decent success.

I'm explaining what happens in test servers using experience from non-beta tests that I have participated in that were NOT FFXIV. If I had access to a FFXIV test server, I would not even be on the forums, because that would be breaking the NDA. I shouldn't even be talking about test servers, so I still have to be careful explaining a test process without explaining the reasoning for it.

In short:
1) FFXIV only has one development branch, not one for each localization.
2) All development of the game is done in Japanese, because the developers are Japanese. It would slow development down if everything had to be translated back and forth between developers that do not speak Japanese.
3) FFXIV is localized as features become "final"
4) One a feature is considered final for that patch, localization tests on "final" builds are done for the MSQ, side quests, new areas flavor text, and dungeon cutscenes. Localization testers are not testing mechanics, the mechanics may get some feedback about difficulty, but there will never be any changes made to mechanics unless the localization is not clear.
5) Internal test teams for mechanics and difficulty are only done in the language the game is developed in so that ticket triage doesn't involve translation. This is entirely why V1.0 screwed up so bad. By the time it reached the external feedback, it was too late to change anything.
6) External tests (alpha/beta/media feedback) are only about finding bugs related to capacity and getting people exited to play the game. Anyone who tested beta tested V1.0 will tell you that Square Enix didn't even allow feedback from anyone outside Japan (filing a ticket was responded with a "we aren't accepting feedback on this.") All feedback was ignored, and as a result V1.0 was released and the media tore it to pieces. Why would they repeat this again?

Like on the surface it looks like Square-Enix is repeating it's mistake made with V1.0, where they made changes that external testers didn't like, and have dismissed external feedback as "not trying it", and it's now too late to unroll any of it. We're going to have to wait a year and a half for V5.0 to see any substantial changes made to the jobs again. Unless you want V4.0 to be delayed another 6 months as they go back to the drawing board.

At some point you just have to go with what you have, no game is ever released in a perfect state because you can't account for everyone's play styles, and even if there was an open test where they allowed 1000 people from every country try the game, they would never get any useful feedback because the vast majority of them do not give useful feedback, they just complain that something changed in a way they don't like.

Look at how many threads the WHM changes created. Look at changes to the Tanks, What exactly could SE have done to anticipate the amount of complaining on the forums without even playing the game yet. In someone's mind on the development team these changes made sense, and it's very likely the majority of the players are perfectly fine with these changes. It's just the 2% of the players that actually do raiding are complaining about the small losses of DPS these changes are going to create.

If SE makes proactive changes with anticipation of the negative blowback to those changes, then we will keep getting power-creep nerfs to content instead of actually interesting skills, because right now, all the tanks are samey, and all the healers are samey because if they aren't, one gets favored over the other, and you get stuck in a "one true tank", "one true healer", "one true dps" configuration, and no amount of testing is going to create that organically.