Some of these were much needed. The so-called 'Re-Quirkening' completely overhauled quirks, taking them from something applied on an ad hoc basis to something that was, if not scientific, then at least methodical.
InfoWar was another feature. It was something desired from the early days of closed Beta.
It didn't work.
There was a proposed change to lasers that was widely despised. Assault mechs were left groping blindly. Lighter 'scouty' mechs could see halfway across a map but lacked weapons to do anything with it.
Unfortunately the need to reallocate resources (employees) for the Steam release meant PGI up and abandoned months of work with little to show for it. And then never came back to it which is a pity. I liked the concept of it, and the PTS showed what didn't work which is sometimes the only way to figure something out.
But now it feels like we are in the same place and heading towards the same result.
The first ED PTS was okay. Not great, but showed a lot of potential. It was simple, straightforward, and easy to understand. There were no arcane rules or complex calculations that are part of ghost heat.
The follow-on PTSes (PTSii?) did away with it. Instead of one damage=one ED, weapons got their own arcane values that mostly boiled down to 'we said so'. This deprived ED of what I saw to be one of its greatest assets, the ease with which new players could grasp it.
The Energy Draw PTS also suffered, and continue to suffer, from a number of failings:
1) Players are punished for testing since nothing they do on PTS will carry over to their live accounts (ie, they are burning time playing PTS, and not even getting the c-bills they earned).
2) Players are not rewarded for PTS. Russ took to Twitter to explain that this would not be possible "Without a lot of work and I'd rather not spend our resources there". (Russ has also commented favorably on World of Tanks/Warships, they offer their players stuff to play on the test servers)
3) The population is so low that a new game-mode (4v4 QP) had to be made
3a) This does not give the players an accurate reflection of QP, and distorts any impression of ED
3b) Faction Warfare is disabled. Invasion in particular plays very differently than QP, because of homogenous tech, difference in maps and objectives, etc. As a result ED for FW looks like it is becoming "we'll cross our fingers and hope for the best"
Another issue, PTS isn't actually testing Energy Draw:
-Energy Draw, the little gauge with how much 'energy' you have and the rate it fills has remained static, or nearly so, since PTS #1
-The actual 'changes' being 'tested' are all changes to tech (weapons, heatsinks, etc.) that is already in the game.
-There has been no effort to test radically different concepts (try three bars, one pegged to each weapon type, with vastly reduced 'power')
And while this is being done...
-It seems like nothing else is happening
-Revamped Assault was supposed to be activated in spring. Now it is supposedly waiting a PTS of its own and pushed back in the schedule behind a 'fifth' QP game-mode
-FW round-tables were pitched as a forum to discuss simplistic changes to tweak FW for the better. It took more than a month to come up with a list to improve bukkets that is not simplistic, goes well beyond what round-table discussed, and, what, 5 months from round-table to injection (if it makes the December patch?)
Edited by Kael Posavatz, 22 September 2016 - 10:22 PM.