16 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

https://soundcloud.c...164-paul-inouye

After listening upon the podcast, i had an idea.

What about just opening the Play-Test Servers? That way the lot of us are free to see the values we proposed, experiment, and you wouldn't have any problem trying to roll back changes.

[SPNKRGrenth]

This, this exactly. Put that public test client to use. It's a safe environment to test suggested changes, without messing with the main game until kinks get worked out and fine tuned.

Someone tweet this suggestion to Russ, use the PTS for testing community balance changes.

Edited by SPNKRGrenth, 12 February 2018 - 05:54 PM.

[LordNothing]

what if we go to a 2 month content patch but do weekly balance (xml only) patches?

[El Bandito]

LordNothing, on 12 February 2018 - 06:21 PM, said:

what if we go to a 2 month content patch but do weekly balance (xml only) patches?

Changing number values on XML sheets is too hard for PGI, unfortunately.

[N0ni]

Much better than just shoving down a patch and saying "Here you go, test it. Don't like it? Too bad deal with it.".

[Y E O N N E]

I just want to point out that it costs money and manpower to:

1.) Operate that server

2.) Have active development of test client

[The6thMessenger]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 February 2018 - 08:20 PM, said:

I just want to point out that it costs money and manpower to:

1.) Operate that server

2.) Have active development of test client

Hmm, is it more costly than people closing their wallets and leaving the game? Just a thought.

[Alcom Isst]

The6thMessenger, on 12 February 2018 - 08:43 PM, said:

Hmm, is it more costly than people closing their wallets and leaving the game? Just a thought.

Implying that enough wallets will open simply because PGI setup a test server, offsetting the cost?

[Y E O N N E]

The6thMessenger, on 12 February 2018 - 08:43 PM, said:

Hmm, is it more costly than people closing their wallets and leaving the game? Just a thought.

I don't know. Only PGI can know. But it's still a real thing they have to consider when weighing whether or not to open up the test server again.

Plus, players on test means less players on live, which can impact the core experience.

[N0ni]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 February 2018 - 09:04 PM, said:

Plus, players on test means less players on live, which can impact the core experience.

Just run it for certain time periods before locking it down again (not perma shutdown, just a break as to not affect Live servers too much. easier said than done i know). Also, i cannot stress this enough:

DO NOT RUN EVENTS ON LIVE SERVERS DURING TESTING PERIODS. Might as well just keep PTS offline otherwise if hardly anyone gets on because they're doing challenges.

[Mcgral18]

LordNothing, on 12 February 2018 - 06:21 PM, said:

what if we go to a 2 month content patch but do weekly balance (xml only) patches?

El Bandito, on 12 February 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

Changing number values on XML sheets is too hard for PGI, unfortunately.

According to them, far more work than that

Not a good design choice, but too ingrained to do anything about.

[FupDup]

Mcgral18, on 12 February 2018 - 09:56 PM, said:

According to them, far more work than that

Not a good design choice, but too ingrained to do anything about.

I remember a few years ago one of the PGI guys said that all of the various testing and other phases involved with an "XML change" would take something around 8 hours of work total, right? Even if we give a super conservative estimate of 24 work hours that would still make it hard to explain how things are getting changed at such a slow rate.

[Wil McCullough]

Yeonne Greene, on 12 February 2018 - 08:20 PM, said:

I just want to point out that it costs money and manpower to:

1.) Operate that server

2.) Have active development of test client

does anyone have a rough figure for the cost of this?

like educated estimates, not i-am-a-used-car-salesman-and-this-is-what-i-think-it-costs kinda figures.

[A Man In A Can]

Have the community crowdfund or small donation monthly sustain the PTS to keep it open that don't involve mechpacks. Then have the modders go nuts with it under the stipulation that like a VM it will get reset if something breaks. Once there's a consensus, hotfix anything from the PT that can be copy-pasted without errors or malware. Schedule for future patches anything else that proves to be more involed. After that, ??? Profit.

That's of course IF PGI realizes it is in their best interest to work with the community to co-create their game.

If not, I can think of several other ways of getting the community to yank development away from the developers if diplomacy and boycotting aren't getting things done fast enough. It's up to the truly fed-up and daring to band together and decide to do so, though.

But hey, that's just the musings of a tired ol player. Don't mind me.

[LordNothing]

Mcgral18, on 12 February 2018 - 09:56 PM, said:

According to them, far more work than that

Not a good design choice, but too ingrained to do anything about.

i think the problem is that they overthink the problem. someone wants to change a value they do a 3 month case study on the change, apply all kinds of metrics, and then decide not to do it. balance is a dynamic problem and inaction is not the answer. when i made mods my approach to balance was to tweak, and then test. you can iterate this test every 15 minutes. we currently iterate every month, that is if they do any balance tweaks at all. some months have been completely dead in this regard. inaction tells me either that they have deluded themselves into thinking that the current level of balance is adequate, or they simply do not care.

[Deathlike]

FupDup, on 12 February 2018 - 10:11 PM, said:

I remember a few years ago one of the PGI guys said that all of the various testing and other phases involved with an "XML change" would take something around 8 hours of work total, right? Even if we give a super conservative estimate of 24 work hours that would still make it hard to explain how things are getting changed at such a slow rate.

In other words.... longer than 60 to 90 days.

[Brain Cancer]

What scares me is they may not run PTS because it'd take too many players from actual gameplay.