9 replies to this topic

[Logen Ninefingers]

About me: I' m a professional soft- and hardware tester for a company producing cameras, with a development team in Germany and one in Vancouver, Canada.

I'm not going to talk about LRMs and the loss of fun in this game, others did that and it is no fun to play at the moment. I know, i know some LRM guys will say... it's beta, l2p, etc...

I'd like to talk about your internal testing procedures. I f they are anything similar to my expieriences with different companies I've worked for this has happened:

Tester: Boss ECM works fine and Artemis is ready, we've tested them for 2 days now.
LRMmechPilotBoss: Good news... good job.... but... not so sure about ECM, I think it's a little OP. We should delay it and "balance" it a little more.
Tester: Why it's working as intended and it's balanced, Artemis would be OP without it, should we delay it also?
LRMmechPilotBoss: No, i think Artemis is ok as it is, no need to delay it..
Tester: .....ok...... you're the boss....
Tester leaves.
LRMmechPilotBoss calls developer: Hi devel, testers are saying lasers need a nerf in the upcoming patch, LaserJennerPilotManager is not going to like it but it's essential for the balance of the game.

LRMmechPilotBoss grins, he really doesn't like LaserJennerPilotManager...

[Tokra]

Scissor is fine, Paper is OP.

sincerely Rock

Edited by Tokra, 07 November 2012 - 02:35 AM.

[Gabriel Amarell]

spot on, if this was tested at all in house it would have been realized that it was broken...
in house testers need to get on the ball...

[John MatriX82]

In house testers are probably guinea pigs I guess..

[Elizander]

I've been testing online games for almost... 8 years now? Maintenance, major patches, testing features, making recommendations, coordinating with developers and all that. The current patch results should raise a red flag that the current QA process for patching is not up to par. They should look at how they do things and improve in areas where they are lacking. They can't keep on releasing patches with major problems or players will stop looking forward to patch day (that's a bad thing).

It's also possible that they already know about the problems and the higher-ups simply waived off the known issues and ordered it to be patched anyway.

[Hanabishi Hideaki]

IMFHO, probably not no.

[XtremeLord]

they aint testing it, they just give it to beta tester

PGI boss: i have 5,2M in my wallet and now what should i do?
PGI crew: buy a lambo sir and play with it
PGI boss: good advice
PGI crew: i want a ferrari
PGI boss: lets play our new car
beta tester: now i know why they never test the game

[Slanski]

I agree with the OP. This patch iteration shows a flaw not in design decisions or gameplay decisions, but in the QA and management process.

Redesign your process, improve documentation along each step of the iteration. Give QA teeth and let them test for breaking, not for working as intended. MWO will only get more complex and harder to handle (look at EVE-online to see what a monster of code your creation can become if it survives its launch to become successful).

If you do not put sound processes into place now, the MWO code will soon have grown to be completely beyond your control.

[Logen Ninefingers]

Imagine what would have happened if PGI had communicated the contents of this patch the day before yesterday...

- We decided to change LRM flight angle back to 90° but damage is still 2 per missile....
- Pulselaser nerf... (it' s a nerf, because of the dhs nerf, with dhs 2.0 it would have been ok...)
- Artemis works this way...
- SRM not guided with Artemis...
- Streaks with random hit location (ok), oh and 100% hits are gone Streaks can miss now and they do (they are supposed to hit 100% but randomly)
- New mech variant...
- ...

I know now why the patchnotes are not complete, even they don't want to read all of this, because it makes you think about your decision making process...

[Crimson Fenris]

Kottlewski, on 07 November 2012 - 07:30 AM, said:

I know now why the patchnotes are not complete, even they don't want to read all of this, because it makes you think about your decision making process...

Yup, agreed.
The patch notes must at least state ALL changes in game balancing, like numbers and all those little things testers have to figure the hard way, mostly for their greater disappointment each time...
Thing like what Heat generate pulse lasers now, how did they modifiy flight course and spread of missiles, etc. must clrealy be stated if possible BEFORE patch release, or at least make more complete patch notes than they currently are.

We are still beta-testers, fully part of the testing process, and if PGI keeps those major modifications hidden from us, how could possibly tracks accurately gameplay balancing ?
For example, how did we know if LRM new behaviors are intended or a bug ? How can we judge balancing if we dont know if this is because of hibox detection improvement or a complete overhaul of the current weapons ?

Think about it, and let us know before you forum collapse in a whining black hole about X or Y thing is totally OP...

Edited by Crimson Fenris, 07 November 2012 - 07:43 AM.