Is it time we had Public Test Servers?

[Knoahl]

Hey,

Following the recent upset with job changes I've seen, and from issues with balancing the past 2 expansions and ARR, do you think this game would benefit from a Public Test Server so players can try out changes and give feedback before they go live?

Maybe this would help communication with the devs. When we Beta tested ARR story cutscenes were omitted so no spoilers got out and a lot of content was limited, I think this could be done again to help improve the game over the long term maybe.

What are peoples opinions? Do you think this could help?

[CorbinDallas]

Maybe, only if it was limited to a select few who actually know the jobs inside and out, and recognise the current problems and can identify any new ones.

Opening such a thing up to just anybody will lead to disaster.

[Doozer]

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.

[NekoNova]

There's really no need for that...

[TheMightyMollusk]

The biggest problem tends to be server load, and a limited test won't cover that.

[Kathryn]

I honestly don't know what the issue is a lot of the job changes are perfectly fine, even my husband who has played Scholar since its inception is perfectly content to carry on playing it because he see's no issues.

So no I don't really feel there's a need for a Public Test server at all personally.

[LashL]

I mean a ptr would be fine we've had some awfully strange choices in the past that completely break things like 20% balance... or just lack luster changes to help certain things. Would a ptr help though no because the language barrier would stop everything anyway sadly i imagine. Not sure why everyone here is against a ptr they work perfectly fine in other mmos.

[Knoahl]

I mean a ptr would be fine we've had some awfully strange choices in the past that completely break things like 20% balance... or just lack luster changes to help certain things. Would a ptr help though no because the language barrier would stop everything anyway sadly i imagine. Not sure why everyone here is against a ptr they work perfectly fine in other mmos.

we had different language areas for feedback on the ARR Alpha/Beta forums so that's how we used to report changes. We ended up with a well balanced game a part from Scholar and Warrior, Scholar was OP because it was introduced just before launch with no testing, and Warriors broken state was due to a Bandaid patch rework the pushed out mid raid tier without any testing either.

All of the issues we have had regarding balance can be sourced to lack of testing in a public environment.

[Lexocpma]

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

[Kalise]

There already are Public Test Servers.

They're called the Live Servers.