Some guilds will have a unfair advantage even if Nightmare is not on the PTS since they will have a few players that will be in Biowares own testing group and on the "superdupersecret PTS". I remember we had a few players that were invited to test out previous content but since all in our guild are in EU it would be to much of an effort to send someone to Bioware Austin just to test it on the PTS. However I do know that some guilds that are in the top when it comes to progression had players that did answer these invitations and did test it on the superdupersecret PTS, before everyone else.

In all fairness thought, I don't really care if the content is on PTS or not, as long as the content continues to be very challenging and the fights are designed in such a way that even thought you have some clue about the mechanics, the execution still needs to be perfect. Then the advantage of "knowing" some or even all of the mechanics becomes insignificant, for example Kephess 16man Nightmare, everyone knew the mechanics but it still took ~2 months before the boss went down, since executing the fight perfectly was almost impossible.

The way I see it, we have only a few options here:

1) The raids don't get tested at all, they probably get released completely undertuned or overtuned, nobody is happy

2) The raids get tested by a chosen few, the bosses get released in a mostly working fashion, but favoritism abounds, and nobody is happy about this except for the people who got to test (this is how it was before PTS transfers were open)

3) Everyone gets to test the raids. The bosses get released in a mostly working fashion, and the playing field is as even as it's ever going to get.

I preferred the first solution.

I preferred the first solution.

So you like buggy, broken encounters that don't work properly and mess up progression on live?

Okay then, that's your opinion, but I have the freedom to say that I think your opinion is dangerous for the PvE community. Broken content is a good way to lose your playerbase.

By making this post, he just proved he makes boo hoo posts. I'm glad you're a fan of his but KBN is literally only a theorycrafter - he is nowhere near the cutting edge of progression in this game. His posts are not sacrosanct and his analysis can be suspect. If you're upset with me being flippant, oh well.

 

Too bad.

Well, the reason I responded like this is not that i'm a fan of KBN. I don't know him besides the forum nor do I ever met him ingame. I believe in the words of someone who said to treat each other the way how you want to be treated. I just can't stand unjustice. I try to treat everybody with respect alltough I sometimes fail at it myself too.

If it were you who I would defend. If it was someone else I would do it too.

Anyway ..... besides saying to bad ... which is ofc a very good arguement I have to give you that. What other options can you come up with to enhance the competition?

I can't imagine you want to rolfstomp the new NiM's on day 1. I wouldnt feel proud about getting a world 1st like that. No honor if multiple guilds get it by either skipping the hard bosses, if they got practise at PTS or the bosses are bugged.

If you want to have NiM PTS opses than why not include the PTS into the competion? Because over there is the real progression. Not the faceroll some had with TfB and Scum.

But hey..... its your party mate. I just tried to offer idea's to make it more fun for you.

The merits (or demerits) of this post have nothing to do with me. I'm not just a theory crafter, and you would know that (Rhom) if you did any research at all, but it doesn't actually matter. I'm not claiming to speak for the progression elite, I'm just opening the topic. Judging by the diversity of replies here, I think I did my job.

I think it's worth rebutting the point about WoW's PTR though. WoW has two things that SWTOR does not have.

First, the progression raiding community in WoW is several hundred times the size of SWTOR's. There isn't even any comparison. So, if five or six guilds log onto the PTS in SWTOR, that's nearly all of the guilds who are going to be in serious competition for world firsts. If five or six guilds log onto the PTR in WoW, that's an absolutely insignificant percentage. Thus, the time spent practicing fights on the PTR has a proportionally much, much smaller effect on the WoW raiding community than it does on SWTOR.

Second, instances in WoW are actually legitimately hard. The longest any instance in SWTOR has required for a clear was just under 40 days, and that was 16 man EC NiM. That's the longest we've seen, and the two roadblock bosses in that instance were both nerfed, one after the other. Most top-tier instances are cleared within a week or two at the most. Thus, any amount of practice time on the PTS has a dramatic impact on where guilds are in the progression curve. If we had really difficult instances that required months to down, I wouldn't be up here complaining, even with the progression community being as small as it is.

So you can't really compare WoW's PTR policy with SWTOR in any way. They're just not the same thing, and they have very different effects on the community.

Also, regarding the NiM DG enrage, I don't think anyone would argue that the boss wasn't overtuned relative to the rest of the instance. Honestly though, I would have preferred that the entire instance were buffed up to NiM DG levels, rather than the other way around. There were guilds that came very close to beating the enrage pre-pre-nerf. Hatred enraged Kelsara at 7% after having lost and rezed a DPS in the second phase. Suckafish at 5% if I recall. Republic Gentlemen on their second kill (still pre enrage nerf) lost a DPS in the final phase and still only enraged at 1%, which says to me that the enrage was reachable. It's a moot point though. Every boss should be a last-gasp stomp to the finish sacrificing players one after the other to the hard enrage, at least on a first kill. That's what Nightmare Mode is for.

That's getting off-track though. My only point with NiM DG is that I would really prefer instances landed on live in a vastly overtuned state than in an undertuned state. More importantly, I would prefer vast overtuning to an extensive PTS cycle where everyone who was going to even try to clear the content first week, now has cleared the content and is just waiting for it to go live.

So you like buggy, broken encounters that don't work properly and mess up progression on live?

Okay then, that's your opinion, but I have the freedom to say that I think your opinion is dangerous for the PvE community. Broken content is a good way to lose your playerbase.

It is supposed to be a race downs boss . It is as if in a race to 1 km, some players leave knowing the path and 300m ahead .

In this case it is useless to boast of this or that boss down before the others.

A guild that does not farm pts and that is one boss in 5 days while the guild B starts 2 days to do it but having made ​​2 weeks before Pts above , is less developed and less " interesting " that other. It's a shame .

So yes I like in a game won, and if we went through a buggy boss , well it does not matter everyone is at the same stage.

I do not ask any raids has not put on the Pts only passing nightmare mode.

The bulk of mechanical and bosses are set there should not be many problems.

The only instance that did not really Farme was Denova nightmare, because there was Asation I think at the same temperature that was a little eclipsed this event , many matches have broken teeth top and little stratagie leave really are .

Mode Nightmare on pts is simply a destruction of what challenge race downs .

Sorry for the English . This is not my language.

Ygnox , Guardian Tank a small French guild also finished the PvE content.

The amount of guilds that this effects is so small I'm not sure how big of a deal it really is. How many legitimate world first contenders are there? And, to follow, how many of them won't be on the PTS? KBN, I know you're not only a theorycrafter, but you're also not at the level of legitimate world first race. There's what maybe 4 or 5 guilds that are? Considering our server first for TFB NiM came at the end of October..and there's still only 3 guilds..and S&V has only one guild with a NiM clear on our server that happened at the end of December I don't think a couple weeks on the PTS will make a huge difference.

Like a few others have mentioned the PTS is available to everyone now so even though I'm not in the competition...I don't see how it's not fair.

There is no such thing as "overtuned" for a Nightmare content. Bugs - yes, but speaking about overtuning is ridiculous. Fights are supposed to be almost impossible to beat

Translation: "There is no such thing as overtuned, except when they're overtuned."

What if a fight required roughly double the max item level currently in game to overcome? Would you call it overtuned then?

Because it's not bugged. That's not a bug.

The merits (or demerits) of this post have nothing to do with me. I'm not just a theory crafter, and you would know that (Rhom) if you did any research at all, but it doesn't actually matter.

You're on a server that, I've heard, didn't have a dragonslayer clear until the alts of a different guild from POT5 transferred there as a joke. It's why I can't take some of your commentary about progression seriously. But my objection to your post had nothing to do with you, you're right - it has everything to do with this stupid Nerd Honor Code inherent in the attitude of people who support your position. To sum the attitude up - only behavior approved by Honorable Nerds count as legitimate gameplay. You become an Honorable Nerd by... what, popularity (on the forums)? Interestingly, Honorable Nerds almost universally attempt to delegitimize the accomplishments of Dishonorable Nerds who clear things faster than them.

First, the progression raiding community in WoW is several hundred times the size of SWTOR's. There isn't even any comparison. So, if five or six guilds log onto the PTS in SWTOR, that's nearly all of the guilds who are going to be in serious competition for world firsts. If five or six guilds log onto the PTR in WoW, that's an absolutely insignificant percentage. Thus, the time spent practicing fights on the PTR has a proportionally much, much smaller effect on the WoW raiding community than it does on SWTOR.

Except all the good WoW guilds get on PTR, so it doesn't matter. The hundreds and hundreds who don't didn't have a chance of ranking anyway. Next!

Second, instances in WoW are actually legitimately hard.

Questionable, and irrelevant. IIRC Heroic SoO was cleared by top guilds very quickly. Embarrassingly so.

That the WoW instances are harder is immaterial to whether or not it's fair to get on PTS. Not sure how you tied the two together, inasmuch as I only brought up WoW's PTR to illustrate that the practice of putting difficult PvE content up for testing (for all) was not an outlier unique to SWTOR.

Thus, any amount of practice time on the PTS has a dramatic impact on where guilds are in the progression curve.

So get on PTS if you're concerned about losing place in the world rank. It's fair - everyone can do it. If you don't want to, that's your decision to make with what you do with your raid time. What isn't right is for you to ask Bioware to hamstring better and more motivated guilds and their own testing process by not putting up the content for public testing just to make your ranking (potentially) better.

So you can't really compare WoW's PTR policy with SWTOR in any way. They're just not the same thing, and they have very different effects on the community.

You have insufficient evidence (read: none) to support this conclusion. They are more similar than dissimilar, their scale relative to each other is irrelevant.

 

I, for one, would like to experience the growing pains of an un-player-tested operation, nerfs, buffs, bugs, all of it aside from the internal QA. It's not like the major bugs like Dread Council weren't very quickly hotfixed anyway. That's more 'hardcore' than logging in to a cumbersome PTS and killing the buzz of the new content before it even goes live.

That would be fun logging in on NIM patch without a clue what will be going on. But can they pull it off without major bugs and without putting it on the PTS?

This, the problem is that Bioware does not have the QA to ensure that the bosses go live in a doable state. .

They will probably have to $pend extra money paying for the extra hours or the people who will test it internally and make sure it's mathematically possible... That means.. more company expenses o_O.

lol just talking on the top of my head. Did NIM TFB/DG Council go into the PTS? I can't remember.

There is no such thing as "overtuned" for a Nightmare content. Bugs - yes, but speaking about overtuning is ridiculous. Fights are supposed to be almost impossible to beat

Translation: "There is no such thing as overtuned, except when they're overtuned."

 

What if a fight required roughly double the max item level currently in game to overcome? Would you call it overtuned then?

 

Because it's not bugged. That's not a bug.

I totally agree with FridgeLM here there are some cases where fights might be overtuned, Shandellon clearly has no idea what he is talking about

.... You become an Honorable Nerd by... what, popularity (on the forums)? ...

Perhaps you become an "honorable nerd" by engaging in actual discourse or debate, rather than posting:

... tl;dr boo hoo

When you disagree with something.

My two creds... FWIW..

• NO NIM ON PTS!
  
• Historically BW QA is LACKING a LOT on the last couple of releases - maybe they should focus on that issue!
  
• Release ONE NIM Instance at a TIME (Instead of this massive BLAST of two).
  
• Focus on "BUG FIXES" hard core for 2-3 weeks on that one instance. (IE: Emergency Patch if needed, following Tue MANDATORY Bug Fixes)
  
• Stop coding LAZY on 16 man versions! Having 2x/3x Damage Tic on Spit from 8man vs 16man TFB 1st Boss NIM was LAZY Coding. Same example with RNG One Shot of the Healers/DPS on Zero and Brontos for DF HM (16 man vs 8 man). Folks can adjust for this poor setup, but it just shows the issue that 2x doesn't always "Work" and more thought is needed for 16 man to be balanced.
  

Some Suggestions to please the "Masses" of people:

• Triple your OWN QA - then do it again. Then do it AGAIN... then have different BW people do it again.
  
• No more NIM/HM Lockout (Yes we heard about tech issue, but this is still needed xx Years later)
  
• No more STUPID (Yes STUPID) 50% Chance on Ear/Implant crap. FORCE it 100% drop in NIM!
  

I'd rather see a LESS BUGGED Version hit LIVE server and not PTS at all. I think the whole "Server First, World First" race seems to jade people's impression of what should be done in the interest of others. Release a better bug free product and I think most folks will be happier with that approach.

I would be fine with skipping a PTS release IF AND ONLY IF Bioware could demonstrate that it is able to properly QA test the NiM versions by themselves.

So far they have failed to do this, but not only that, they have demonstrated that even when players point out the most glaringly obvious issues that half the time they don't even fix them before release. Whether it's a lack of manpower on Bioware's part, whatever, doesn't matter.

So honestly I don't trust them at all to put out a working, properly tuned PvE product. I'd rather have a working product than a surprise.

It's better to buy yourself a working iPad then receive a surprise gift iPad that doesn't turn on.

I would be fine with skipping a PTS release IF AND ONLY IF Bioware could demonstrate that it is able to properly QA test the NiM versions by themselves.

Agreed. Small bugs should be fine (how would you describe a smalll bug anyway?) but major bugs like bosses that kill themselves should not be in live. (this was NIM TTFB for a short while iirc)

edit: or bugs like what shandellon posted below.

Translation: "There is no such thing as overtuned, except when they're overtuned."

 

What if a fight required roughly double the max item level currently in game to overcome? Would you call it overtuned then?

 

Because it's not bugged. That's not a bug.

Its you and you-alike people that like to use that kind of statements. I would find a way to beat the fight, while you would spend time posting on forums. I'm talking bugs like floor suddenly dissapearing or boss reseting every 10 seconds. If enrage timer on boss would require everyone in raid including healers and tanks to do 4k dps, you would call it overtuned and whine on forums, while I would make my group spend hours and hours cutting corners and killing it after all

If you like beating easy content, fair enough, but dont try to enforce it on other people

Its you and you-alike people that like to use that kind of statements. I would find a way to beat the fight, while you would spend time posting on forums.

So rather than draw attention to a literally impossible hypothetical encounter, you'd bash your head against it forever like a crazy person even though it requires double your raid's gear value to kill.

Don't ask why people won't take you seriously in the future, because all you have to do is reference your own insane position.

If enrage timer on boss would require everyone in raid including healers and tanks to do 4k dps

But hey, that is mathematically impossible!

So rather than draw attention to a literally impossible hypothetical encounter, you'd bash your head against it forever like a crazy person even though it requires double your raid's gear value to kill.

 

Don't ask why people won't take you seriously in the future, because all you have to do is reference your own insane position.

Translation : "I'd like to have all fights nerfed to the ground, so I never have to break a sweat"

Quite an attitude for so-called progresion raider

But hey, that is mathematically impossible!

Was wondering when someone was going to dig up that dead horse's bones and whack them with a bat

This thread did not disappoint

Translation : "I'd like to have all fights nerfed to the ground, so I never have to break a sweat"

 

Quite an attitude for so-called progresion raider

Translation: "I'd rather slam my **** into a door against an encounter that wouldn't be killable until several tiers later than have actually challenging, well-tuned content"

Quite an attitude, indeed

But hey, that is mathematically impossible!

D&T and GJO really shot themselves in the foot with that statement, but technically they were right when they are talking about hitting enrage as no team pre pre nerf was able to beat the enrage timer.

As for the topic at hand. Besides epeen why do people care what the top guilds do? Hatred, suckafish, D&T, severity, hmd Magenta, aurum gaming, yes, Dilih, and a couple other top guilds will likely be on the pts and will all compete with each other for world first. While this may take the excitement put of the race for live a race is still a race albeit not a blind one. The only practical use of a world first or server first is recruiting so why does it matter if content is tested on the PTS? So some can save face while others know the content? The whole reasoning seems rather selfish. This is a game people. Competitiveness is a part of that sure, but to release buggy content just so some font get an advantage on the hardest content in the game seems asinine.

The point of pts is to test buggy content before it hits live. The last game that didn't test their **** before hitting live was rift and that made more guilds quit than push the content because they were expected to be beta testers on the live server?

Its you and you-alike people that like to use that kind of statements. I would find a way to beat the fight, while you would spend time posting on forums. I'm talking bugs like floor suddenly dissapearing or boss reseting every 10 seconds. If enrage timer on boss would require everyone in raid including healers and tanks to do 4k dps, you would call it overtuned and whine on forums, while I would make my group spend hours and hours cutting corners and killing it after all

Your heroism and determination noted, the point of a PTS is to hammer out issues and ensure a healthy product from release. Tuning should be done before live release. What is frustrating is the obvious negligence in releasing NiM TFB with tuning that was so far off the mark compared to PTS. Remember how BW basically took that following week off? They clearly admitted to the mistakes: it was not intended. There was not even a response from BW for almost that entire week. Do you have faith that NiM TFB was internally tested before release? I mean, do you really believe that BW attempted the DG fight as it was on live release? Could any rational person ignore the mistakes??

If you like beating easy content, fair enough, but dont try to enforce it on other people

The top tier guilds and dedicated players have paid good money in subs and have participated in the cartel market scheme. Demanding a working-as-intended product is justified. You will see much discussion and commentary on the forums because it is what you do when you care. Thank the players that put in extra effort to test your product before release because they are not only paying subs and buying flair, they are putting their valuable time into testing something that our money should be getting us from BW. When our money and time gets us a buggy/erroneous product we should blame our guilds for not having thick skulls for brick walls. Because that lack of feedback from the community to the devs is really going to help this game grow. Kick your feet up and get a sandwich BW, we got this!

As for the topic at hand. Besides epeen why do people care what the top guilds do?

Have you ever watched a stream hosted by a group of players doing things in a coordinated fashion while promoting live commentary and inviting active discussion? It's a lot of fun! And, it even has the element of competition, which is known to be an important part of games. Oh, yea, don't forget, it's an MMO! People play with other people and talk about it. Cool stuff.

Have you ever watched a stream hosted by a group of players doing things in a coordinated fashion while promoting live commentary and inviting active discussion? It's a lot of fun! And, it even has the element of competition, which is known to be an important part of games. Oh, yea, don't forget, it's an MMO! People play with other people and talk about it. Cool stuff.

This. Progression raiding is a spectator sport as much as anything else. Streaming and recording for later consumption is an important part of the game.