Bishop Steiner, on 12 September 2015 - 09:18 AM, said:
Cool. You do realize that's part of the point? It's not to win matches, it's to gather data, actual IN GAME test date to compare. The more data, especially on the BAds, the better.
The Community always cries they want to be in on balance decisions, yet what happens whenever you invite the public in, is they simply gravitate to whatever is easiest, and play it like they are playing the game for rewards, etc. So Bad mechs are simply ignored, etc, and no useful data is gathered.
Yet when they invite small groups of squirrels in to actually test, the Community as a whole cries.
Mind you, playing it on an even t weekend? Kinda ludicrous..... won't deny that.
I did a bunch of drops on PTS already. No direction, data I'm 'testing' felt so broken that I'm not sure what any value would be in what I'm doing. I don't care about double XP weekends - leveling mechs is part of the fun of playing the game to me.
However in the current environment there is absolutely no real way to test if, for example, the buffed IS to the Atlas is that big a deal when the now heavily buffed (as in all the energy negatives functionally removed) TW, working like it did back pre-quirk, pre-TW nerfs, obliterates your 'extra strong' side torso with 1/2 of 1 extra alpha. Which is no big deal given that his lasers don't have the same head issues, burn time increases or slowed cooldown.
What the PTS tells me right now is 'Clan vs IS balance is broken as hell without big quirks'. Also 'the sensor stuff is alright, I wouldn't mind it in game but it's going to make the learning curve even steeper now that it plays like every mech has ECM'. It tells me nothing useful about the mobility quirks or structure quirks because the biggest, most important, most impactful and relevant metric in the game (weapon balance) is badly broken.
If they made the PTS IS vs IS I could test and provide tons of data. Same with Clan vs Clan. This? Feels like wasted time. It's like asking me to weigh feathers to see which are heaviest while I'm falling out of an airplane. How about we fix the falling at 100mph issue, so I can actually pay attention to something as small and nuanced as feather weight.