"Balance team tests the fights themseslves"

[Maltothoris]

I don't it was properly tested but it definitely didn't consider all variables though especially considering one of their big selling points has been any class/any comp can clear the fights and then something like this shows up which shows this isn't the case. It does seem there is a disconnect between job designers and battle content guys cause there's the whole issue from the paladin buffs. However, recent duties have been designed to include features that reduce stress on tank and melee DPS jobs, such as significantly larger boss targeting circles. Because of these design choices, the unique advantage of paladin's high sustained damage loses its impact. They've basically cornered themselves making all the jobs revolve around the 2 min burst window.

[AmiableApkallu]

So, am I surprised they might've played with a party comp they were comfortable with, and just taken it for granted that it was doable with all party compositions? Not really; I can easily see that happening.

As I put it in another thread:

5 choices for melee * 3 choices for physical ranged * 3 choices for magical ranged * 6 tank pairs * 6 healer pairs = 1620 possible seven-person party compositions with one player per job. Multiply that by… 4, I think, to get the number of eight-person party compositions? Anyway, I doubt SE is devoting the resources to exhaustively test that many combinations.

They're taking shortcuts, and it's not difficult to imagine how it might work to set the DPS check:

1. They start with the internal testing team's DPS with their chosen party compositions. They have some expectation for how players of some certain skill level playing those same compositions compare to the testing team, so they take the testing team's DPS and shift it up or down to get something appropriate for the players.

2. They then take into account that some party compositions will naturally perform worse than the ones they used in testing, so they shift the DPS down to accommodate those less-performant compositions.

3. They then take into account natural damage variance and shift the DPS down to cover some not-small range of that variance.

So, it doesn't matter how well SE understands job balance (2) and damage variance (3) if they start from a bad baseline (1) because they misjudged where the players would land relative to themselves, which can happen when their testing team's performance improves unexpectedly.

[Saraide]

What reason do you have to doubt it was tested considering the number of teams that still managed to clear week 1?

That's not the problem, the problem is that some jobs underperform. Evidently the devs didnt test on a comp with a lot of those.

[Deveryn]

That's not the problem, the problem is that some jobs underperform. Evidently the devs didnt test on a comp with a lot of those.

You spelled allegedly wrong.

[Elkanah]

I'm more interested in WHAT gear they were using when clearing the content for all 4 savage tiers (ex as well). If they were using fully upgraded tomes gear (all except 1 additional tome ring), or even all savage gear (including weapon)- the damage might've actually scaled different.

This entire thing sounds like nobody was in a full crafted gear set (maybe +barba ex weap) fully melded when they completed each of the tiers of content.

[Avenger]

I am sure they do extensive testing and don't have any issues clearing the fights
however it really rubs me the wrong way that they pretend as if the dev/tester prog experience is the same as the player prog experience
you cannot and will never convince me that dsr was cleared during testing without the use of dev tools to checkpoint each phase and prog each independently

meanwhile actual players must always go back to phase 2 each wipe.
yes, you didn't need 3rd party tools to clear dsr, you had 1st party tools that are a million times more cheaty and powerful than any 3rd party tool

In one of the producer letters they explained how during testing they use an HP refill mode (refill rather than KO) to avoid having to wipe and restart. This intentionally enables the testing teams to go in blind but learn the fight much faster than regular players would. After they know the fight, the now-expert team confirms that it can be cleared with all the comps in regular player mode at min ilvl and without HP refill. I imagine Yoshi-p (busy as he is) would also use HP refill mode to learn the fights, and would probably clear them with experienced teams (though maybe still at min ilvl for a bit of fun.)

Obviously if they gave this sort of wipe invulnerability to players during progression it would make learning the fights much faster and easier. Players would also probably complain that the fights were too quick and easy to clear.

I think Yoshi-p also explained that the dev/testing teams are good players but not "world class" players, and they're always impressed at how well players optimize the fights (I imagine, without any evidence of course, that they're also grudgingly impressed with players finding and exploiting bugs and unintended behavior, even if it results in major headaches.)

[Gemina]

I'm more interested in WHAT gear they were using when clearing the content for all 4 savage tiers (ex as well). If they were using fully upgraded tomes gear (all except 1 additional tome ring), or even all savage gear (including weapon)- the damage might've actually scaled different.

This entire thing sounds like nobody was in a full crafted gear set (maybe +barba ex weap) fully melded when they completed each of the tiers of content.

They clear the content at the min ilv requirement set for the instance. They also said this tier would be harder to clear than the previous. Like, significantly.

In my eyes, all that matters is that they clear it while not having any kind of advantage over the players. And I find it odd that composition is all of a sudden being scrutinized when class homogenization is griped about to and fro day in, day out between the patches.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why the difficulty of the game is constantly trivialized, and when the going gets rough, then the devs becone this well of misinformation to their playerbase?

[Tlachtga]

Can anyone enlighten me as to why the difficulty of the game is constantly trivialized, and when the going gets rough, then the devs becone this well of misinformation to their playerbase?

because you're smashing together 3 or 4 different discussions into one to be contrarian?

[Packetdancer]

...that it can be cleared with all the comps in regular player mode...

I feel safe in suggesting there is next to zero chance they actually try every possible comp. Just for the first seven, assuming no duplicate jobs, one pure healer/one barrier healer, and one of each role, you have (assuming my top-of-my-head math isn't wrong):

6 possible combinations of tanks (assuming no duplicates)
4 possible combinations of healers (assuming 1 pure healer and 1 barrier healer)
45 possible combinations of 3 DPS (1 out of 5 possible melee, 1 out of 3 possible casters, 1 out of 3 possible physical ranged)

For I think 1080 total possible party comps just for 7 of the 8 slots.

Whichever three DPS are picked, there are 8 possible DPS jobs remaining (4 out of the 5 melee, 2 out of the three caster, or two out of the three physical ranged). Now, not all of those possibilities apply, of course; MNK for your melee role and SAM for the extra is no different than SAM for the melee role and MNK for the extra. But even allowing for that, you have literally thousands of possible party compositions.

The chances that the team hand-plays through the entire tier at minimum ilevel with every single possible standard comp are breathtakingly unlikely, just given the sheer number of possible standard comps. I absolutely believe they did it back in ARR and, say, maybe Heavensward. But now? The chances are very, very slim that they actually have the time and manpower to play through the fight with every single party comp. Especially if there were any balance work to be done afterwards, when you'd then need to play it through on everything again. You almost certainly pick several 'representative' party compositions you assume give decent coverage, and judge the fight balance from those.

Which I suspect is precisely why this problem arose; those representative party compositions were probably insufficiently representative.

[Saraide]

You spelled allegedly wrong.

Mmmmmmmmmm no.