"Balance team tests the fights themseslves"

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Maybe the absence of a public testing environment makes people suspicious. That was generally the norm, but here it would be difficult to keep from spoiling anything.

Apparently most games that have them dont even really use the feedback anyway. just as early access.

[Jojoya]

Maybe the absence of a public testing environment makes people suspicious. That was generally the norm, but here it would be difficult to keep from spoiling anything.

Public rest environments are 98% marketing and publicity to generate hype and product sales, 2% developers caring about player feedback on content and job balance.

It's very easy to point to the go-to MMO target with a highly publicized PTR and see just how much the developers have cared about player feedback. Content would still get released bugged despite weeks of reports saying "the content is bugged", classes would release awkward and unbalanced despite the theorycrafters and players who play at the top competitive levels (whether PvP or PvE) warning there are problems with design and/or balance.

Then the player base has to wait weeks if not months for things to get fixed if they are not literally game-breaking in the intended sense of the phrase.

FFXIV patches have generally been released with far fewer problems needing major corrections despite the lack of a public test environment than that other game does with a public test environment. Personally, I like it this way. Everyone gets to experience new content fresh at the same time. If there's a problem with something, the developers take responsibility instead of trying to pass it off as "testers on the public test realm didn't give us enough feedback" or "no one reported the bug" (even when it was easy to quickly point to where in the PTR bug report forum it had been getting discussed). The patch notes give us a list of known issues so we're usually not completely caught off guard if we run into a problem.

A PTR is a mistake. It means the game company doesn't want to bother hiring a quality control team to check for problems to be fixed. They'd rather use players as unpaid labor and the majority of players aren't there to do that. They're there to get their free demo and bragging rights that they got to see content before release.

If the company is so cheap they don't want to pay for a quality control staff to do the bug testing for their game, you can bet they're cutting corners on other parts of development as well.

[Deveryn]

Public rest environments are 98% marketing and publicity to generate hype and product sales, 2% developers caring about player feedback on content and job balance.

It's very easy to point to the go-to MMO target with a highly publicized PTR and see just how much the developers have cared about player feedback. Content would still get released bugged despite weeks of reports saying "the content is bugged", classes would release awkward and unbalanced despite the theorycrafters and players who play at the top competitive levels (whether PvP or PvE) warning there are problems with design and/or balance.

Then the player base has to wait weeks if not months for things to get fixed if they are not literally game-breaking in the intended sense of the phrase.

FFXIV patches have generally been released with far fewer problems needing major corrections despite the lack of a public test environment than that other game does with a public test environment. Personally, I like it this way. Everyone gets to experience new content fresh at the same time. If there's a problem with something, the developers take responsibility instead of trying to pass it off as "testers on the public test realm didn't give us enough feedback" or "no one reported the bug" (even when it was easy to quickly point to where in the PTR bug report forum it had been getting discussed). The patch notes give us a list of known issues so we're usually not completely caught off guard if we run into a problem.

A PTR is a mistake. It means the game company doesn't want to bother hiring a quality control team to check for problems to be fixed. They'd rather use players as unpaid labor and the majority of players aren't there to do that. They're there to get their free demo and bragging rights that they got to see content before release.

If the company is so cheap they don't want to pay for a quality control staff to do the bug testing for their game, you can bet they're cutting corners on other parts of development as well.

I agree 100%

[Nihility]

They know all the mechanics and intended strategies before even stepping in and, as they've said before, do it in max ilvl gear rather than what normal people would have like crafted sets.

I would imagine they have a pretty easy time of things

[Jaquan]

They know all the mechanics and intended strategies before even stepping in and, as they've said before, do it in max ilvl gear rather than what normal people would have like crafted sets.

I would imagine they have a pretty easy time of things

Actually if the posts before it is accurate it's the opposite. The only advantage they initially have are wipe prevention mechanics which allow them to learn the fight at faster pace (less restarts). Afterwards they need to clear it with min ilvl needed for the instance and without wipe prevention.

[Payadopa]

Ok so; Week 1/2 raiding is an activity that a subset of the community really enjoys, and it's something that only gets to happen like 3 times every 2 years.

For two tiers in a row, certain peoples main jobs have been essentially unplayable (particularly in pugs) during this time, making something they looked forward to for months and months very disappointing.

I know a bunch of people who decided to just quit the tier when they reached P8S and realized they weren't having fun anymore. That is not a good thing for the health of a game, and is bringing back flashes of things like A3S.

HP got reduced, problem solved. Mistakes were made, apparently. I understand the problem, but it's making mountains out of mole hills.

[LittleImp]

HP got reduced, problem solved. Mistakes were made, apparently. I understand the problem, but it's making mountains out of mole hills.

No, it really really isn't.

Two tiers in a row this has happened. That's 2/3 of the expansions raid tiers, and we only get 3 of them total every two years. This is the content that keeps an entire section of the playerbase coming back, and it's been crap two times in a row, and has only gotten worse the second time around.

This is the exact kind of stuff the people that love to bash WoW constantly for will cite as major problems in WoW. I know a bunch of people who saw the situation this tier and either quit when they reached p8s, or decided not to raid at all. It's not good for people to feel alienated by the content that brings them back to the game.

There is absolutely no sign this won't just happen a third time, and be even worse than the first two times, so people are reasonably extremely concerned at the direction job design and encounter design is being taken.

[xbahax92]

No, it really really isn't.

Two tiers in a row this has happened. That's 2/3 of the expansions raid tiers, and we only get 3 of them total every two years. This is the content that keeps an entire section of the playerbase coming back, and it's been crap two times in a row, and has only gotten worse the second time around.

This is the exact kind of stuff the people that love to bash WoW constantly for will cite as major problems in WoW. I know a bunch of people who saw the situation this tier and either quit when they reached p8s, or decided not to raid at all. It's not good for people to feel alienated by the content that brings them back to the game.

There is absolutely no sign this won't just happen a third time, and be even worse than the first two times, so people are reasonably extremely concerned at the direction job design and encounter design is being taken.

I thought only a small percentage of the playerbase only does savage, even less ultimates?
I dont know how this arguments holds up, as many players are just playing for the casual content. But one thing is certain, the entitlement in this thread reeks.

[Iyrnthota]

I thought only a small percentage of the playerbase only does savage, even less ultimates?
I dont know how this arguments holds up, as many players are just playing for the casual content. But one thing is certain, the entitlement in this thread reeks.

What's the point of even bring casuals into the discussion?
If this whole issue is stricly the 1% having issues, the 1% complaining about the balance that only affects them, and the changes made only affect the 1% with casuals being otherwise unaffected, why even bring them up?

I don't mean this disparagingly btw, I just don't see how they have a leg in the game here

[LittleImp]

I thought only a small percentage of the playerbase only does savage, even less ultimates?

There are servers on JP with a savage tier clear rate exceeding 50% in some tiers. P5S was actually the fight with the most clears logged week 1, ever. People really need to stop trying to frame Savage as niche content, because it isn't and hasn't been for a very long time.

I dont know how this arguments holds up, as many players are just playing for the casual content. But one thing is certain, the entitlement in this thread reeks.

If casual players aren't playing this content, they should probably stop participating in a discussion around something that doesn't impact them then.

But one thing is certain, the entitlement in this thread reeks.

Why is it entitlement to expect the game to maintain similar tuning standards? Why is it entitlement to expect to be able to play my main job while raiding? This is the same community that constantly spins the "Anyone can clear any content uwu" and "Every job is viable uwu" bs as some kind of weird virtue signal about how perfect and inclusive the game is, but the moment the game has serious balance issues we're suddenly not allowed to care about it lol.

Stop trying to use 'entitlement' nonsensically to dismiss people you don't agree with, especially on a topic that isn't even relevant to your own experience in game.