1 reply to this topic

[Victor Morson]

This suggestion is to help balance both bugs, and weapons, without risking pushing them to the general public yet.

The idea is simple: PGI offers a chance for a number of teams, both hardcore and completely casual, to get put onto the "Alpha Program."

The idea is simple - an Alpha build is pushed to these teams more frequently - not necessarily the latest build PGI has, but rather, a version of the build they plan to push next. From here, tests could be scheduled or left to adhoc.

This isn't a new idea and it's been done for a long time. We likely would have prevented the meta that's angering newbies/vets alike for different reasons (Newbies hate the PPCs, vets hate the missiles) and also seen these crash/HUD bugs coming long before they actually appeared.

There's a lot of dedicated units out there that would be happy to do ACTUAL field testing for PGI (I would even volunteer the Aces to that end) on unstable builds, in particular if it spared pushing bad updates to the general public.

Again, I can't stress enough that it would be best if diverse teams were picked to offer feedback from different perspectives on balance, while players of all experience can help offer information on bugs.

TL/DR: Select a mix of teams from various experience levels to receive major patches at least a week early of the general public, to help test said patches and offer a smaller focus group to give feedback. I believe many of the recent problems could have been avoided this way!

Edited by Victor Morson, 28 April 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[Straften]

What, like the PBE on LoL?

Seems to work well there. A lot of changes they try there are removed or changed before release.

Edited by Straften, 28 April 2013 - 11:48 AM.