Transparency in playtesting

[CKNovel]

"Every job is viable" copium that used to intoxicate the community is hitting back very, very hard in this tier.

There are 3 logged MCH clears, 2 logged RPR clear. Around 90% of the ranged players are DNC.
We had a MCH in our comp and couldn't pass the DPS check even with multiple perfect runs. If we had a Dancer, we counted around 15 runs that could've been a potential clear and 11 that were a 100% clear.
We stopped aiming for week 1 because we were smart enough to realize that we aren't good enough to compensate for what the MCH lacks.

That tier balance has been the worst since early Heavensward.
I really hopes this shakes things up and ends once and for all the "every job is viable" mentality.

[Kachou_]

True. eVERY JOB Viable is such a stupid copium.

[Ransu]

"Every job is viable" copium that used to intoxicate the community is hitting back very, very hard in this tier.

There are 3 logged MCH clears, 2 logged RPR clear. Around 90% of the ranged players are DNC.
We had a MCH in our comp and couldn't pass the DPS check even with multiple perfect runs. If we had a Dancer, we counted around 15 runs that could've been a potential clear and 11 that were a 100% clear.
We stopped aiming for week 1 because we were smart enough to realize that we aren't good enough to compensate for what the MCH lacks.

That tier balance has been the worst since early Heavensward.
I really hopes this shakes things up and ends once and for all the "every job is viable" mentality.

Every job has been viable for years...They are currently changing their design approach whether good or bad is going through hiccups. No balance is ever perfect, but that mantra existed because its been factual for years.

As far as dev playtesting goes. There is never going to be any kind of transparency on how they do things internally. That is simply just not going to happen.

[Kabooa]

Every job has been viable for years...They are currently changing their design approach whether good or bad is going through hiccups. No balance is ever perfect, but that mantra existed because its been factual for years.

As far as dev playtesting goes. There is never going to be any kind of transparency on how they do things internally. That is simply just not going to happen.

There have been peeks into it, or at least, they provide snippets and from there we drew assumptions. For example, there was an interview shortly before 5.2 where they were talking about the difference between Titan and Shiva tuning, where they claimed to have slashed the dps requirement on Titan by 15% from what they were testing, but only did 10% on Shiva.

I don't remember the entire discussion, but from there, the assumption was made that the devs playtest in Tome Gear, and they slash based on expected values on pentamelded Min Ilvl so that the encounter is achievable. 15% sounds like a lot, but the extra is due to differences in intended strategies vs prog strategies, so, again, the assumption is that the slash is overestimated because if an up-time strategy exists, it is not likely to be the first one that catches on.

So while the P8s explanation is raising skepticism, rightfully I'll add, it's not exactly out of line of what they've told us so far. This time they made a mistake, and it isn't even the first time they've made the mistake, because E4s and Titan presented a similar situation.

[Kachou_]

Every job has been viable for years...They are currently changing their design approach whether good or bad is going through hiccups. No balance is ever perfect, but that mantra existed because its been factual for years.

As far as dev playtesting goes. There is never going to be any kind of transparency on how they do things internally. That is simply just not going to happen.

Well, there was an interview in 3.0 detailing how savage content is tested. They also said a lot in the 6.21 patch note. I don't see why they can't provide more detail. For example, do you test your game with all jobs?