You should take individuals who play ops and ask them their play times and have them form a "PUG" group... I'm sorry but this is a mistake you make OVER AND OVER....

I cannot stress enough that if you want to make the OPS more accessible, you need to see how well an actual PUG can do it. Regular OPS groups and Guilds that play together will come in screaming it's too easy, you will overtune it, and you will lock out whom you said in the stream was your intended target for SM OPS...

I'm presuming (hoping) that there will be class changes, both positive and negative in the patch. If so, PvP players should be allowed to test these changes. Class changes are content for PvP. For example you have overturned certain encounters (classes) for PvP and made some trivially easy to defeat.

Test your Ops boss, but offer other long term players an opportunity to opine on changes that affect their play.

I'm presuming (hoping) that there will be class changes, both positive and negative in the patch. If so, PvP players should be allowed to test these changes. Class changes are content for PvP. For example you have overturned certain encounters (classes) for PvP and made some trivially easy to defeat.

 

Test your Ops boss, but offer other long term players an opportunity to opine on changes that affect their play.

I presume those changes will come in when they make the PTS open and include the other stuff such as the new daily area. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong Eric.

You make a completely fair point. We invite Ops groups of all skill levels from very casual Ops players, to top-end Guilds. We will also invite individuals who are interested in Ops (for the reasons you highlighted), but just not at the very first stages.

 

-eric

In testing the balance of the Ops you also need to consider the balance of classes so that the fight is not too trivial for the higher parsing classes while the lower parsing ones can still complete it. To be honest the balance needs to be adjusted as the spread is too big. Hopefully you will address class balance in conjunction with this PTS cycle because the state of the classes is not the best at the moment. I know that the PTS is about the new boss, and it should be, but you have to realize that the balance of the classes, dps, tanks, and healers, affect the difficulty of bosses. There is a reason mercs and powertechs were so popular for Ravagers and Temple of Sacrifice. Don't make the same mistakes with regarding to class balance that were made then.

top-end Guilds.

Top what? In game? Now? Who?

Eric,

Why is a single operation boss being placed under a closed PTS with an NDA? This seems very counterproductive considering the amount of people that have left the game, and the larger amount of people that have a tos violation and are blocked from testing (hint, this is one of those times you want people that have exploited to find the new ones and report them, so they won't go live).

The PTS for this should be an open one (like 2.0 was, where only your secret story stuff was behind the NDA), so you can get as many people testing it as possible to ensure that it will be smooth.

Eric,

Why is a single operation boss being placed under a closed PTS with an NDA? This seems very counterproductive considering the amount of people that have left the game, and the larger amount of people that have a tos violation and are blocked from testing (hint, this is one of those times you want people that have exploited to find the new ones and report them, so they won't go live).

 

The PTS for this should be an open one (like 2.0 was, where only your secret story stuff was behind the NDA), so you can get as many people testing it as possible to ensure that it will be smooth.

I actually understand the TOS violation in regards to cheating.... Cheaters cheat, and that will not change. Odds are those people will find the exploits and not report them in the hopes they make it thru then abuse them once they are released.

Having done testing on games for a long time, I can tell you most experienced testers are a resourceful bunch and as long as they know how something is supposed to work, they can do a pretty good job of breaking it.

I'm more concerned on 2 fronts.

Eric addressed one already, in that we don't get another Rav or ToS where it's overtuned even for SM. Hopefully they follow thru on that. Not attacking on this point, just going by history.

The other is that they won't communicate HOW the instance is supposed to work. I know they want people to figure it out, to see if it is easy/hard to figure out. At the same time, they need to divulge this information so it can be broken...

I actually understand the TOS violation in regards to cheating.... Cheaters cheat, and that will not change. Odds are those people will find the exploits and not report them in the hopes they make it thru then abuse them once they are released.

Although that would completely defeat the point of Bioware mentioning that they want to "re-socialize" players by not dishing out permanent bans. Bioware can closely observe player behaviour if they want to. They can see whether an offense was due to cheating, insulting, credit spamming, falsely flagged, or anything inbetween. By locking out all these people under the pretense of "they might cheat again" or "they do it again", Bioware effectively defeats the point of their temporary ban system - to make players play fair next time. If treated like criminals, players will eventually behave like criminals.

The second issue is much more fundamental then that: Elite guilds cheat. I can already see the outrage of anyone who still considers himself part of an elite guild, but that isn't really an unfounded statement. I've been raiding in an elite guild for most of BC and WotLK and we'd use an advantage for a world first whenever we saw it. Nobody of us ever had a ToS violation though. We just used all these advantages we found. That's happening regardless of whether you police former ToS violations on the PTR.

You might claim that's not "competitive", and it isn't, but that's simply how many things at the top work. Nobody who has become successfull in a given system wants to change that system.

Eric addressed one already, in that we don't get another Rav or ToS where it's overtuned even for SM. Hopefully they follow thru on that. Not attacking on this point, just going by history.

I will go and say that (based on history) this PTR plan will result in chaos. It took them months to even remotely fix underlurker with public feedback. I'm guessing that whatever period they have planned for serious, broad-audience testing won't be enough to gather a large amount of feedback, plan out a fix, and then apply it to the encounter to test that feedback for the masses. They might prove me wrong, but history can repeat itself.

You should take individuals who play ops and ask them their play times and have them form a "PUG" group... I'm sorry but this is a mistake you make OVER AND OVER....

 

I cannot stress enough that if you want to make the OPS more accessible, you need to see how well an actual PUG can do it. Regular OPS groups and Guilds that play together will come in screaming it's too easy, you will overtune it, and you will lock out whom you said in the stream was your intended target for SM OPS...

^^ wants to see the first boss, but does not want to work in an organized group and provide group based and coherent feedback to actually improve the encounter.

Using random PuGs to test is a BAD idea. They are a suboptimal approach in game, and hence even worse for beta testing cycles.

Why? Because you do not tune an OP, or even part of an OP (like the first boss) based on a bunch of random players who have no affiliation or real interest in working together AND providing solid feedback. I think it is fine to let a few PuG group test sequences AFTER the encounter has been tested and tuned for organized groups who know each other, work together, and hence test the limits of the encounter. The PuGs would test the lower limits of the encounter... since they are by definition sub-optimal.

Context is important here.. this is not an open PTS.. but rather a closed PTS. The studio is well within their rights to set the conditions and limits of access... and clearly they want credible teams of players that they trust to provide organized and coherent feedback.

^^ wants to see the first boss, but does not want to work in an organized group and provide group based and coherent feedback to actually improve the encounter. .

Actually you could not be more wrong (well you could but...)

They said in the live stream that they wanted SM OPS to be MORE accessible. Not my words, theirs. In order for that to happen, it has to be tested by groups that do not normally play together and don't chat together.

I have been testing game content for YEARS. All the way back to EQ. I know how to road map and qualify testing parameters. They have set a bar (I'll be it a low one), and there is a path to that from what they have said.

You can sit here and attack me on this all you want. Bottom line is anyone who knows who I am, knows how much time and effort I have put into testing games and giving feedback. I have people I play with if I want to see the boss. This isn't about me. This is about what they said they wanted.

You make a completely fair point. We invite Ops groups of all skill levels from very casual Ops players, to top-end Guilds. We will also invite individuals who are interested in Ops (for the reasons you highlighted), but just not at the very first stages.

 

-eric

I fit more into this group these days - would it be worth applying initially then for this or will you let us know when you would be looking for us more "casual" puggers?

Context is important here.. this is not an open PTS.. but rather a closed PTS. The studio is well within their rights to set the conditions and limits of access... and clearly they want credible teams of players that they trust to provide organized and coherent feedback.

that feeling also bugged me. i didnt even thought about going on the PTS here after i heard what it was like.

i did this in wow regularly for a time. and it was uncomplicated.

also wildstar was great. but wow and w* were bigger

even swtor was great. but after release it felt it was not realy finished, like all betas

and betas are nothing else then demos back in the 80th/90th and 2k.

and i hope there is something realy good comming this falls when its done.

if its the usual, well then.

i will wait till i resub like one time every 1 1/2 year untill content drop so slow.

ps:;

wishlist for improvements ( with the ulterior motive sheldon stands before me = bioware )

hope u make trash harder and meaningfull to group play,story vice versa, and enjoy able. because that i miss since Jarg und Sorno. that is the best fight in game. make more voiceover in this kinda way. and let em then act to our progress and talk more. and after a boss is done,give us story where DvL is involved to make a path through the raid, like ramification. and by the way,dont be so greedy with mini bosses. put them straight in the way with trash packs. not bypassing at all. do or do not. thats why flashpoints failed a lot ! if there is a path don make it so open. some grp play feels by the time bigger than way to the bosses. and since u gave us walker, let them be parts of the raid to trigger things, also bring back more puzzles in the way to a boss. this would work great to the ramification.... and by that, why cant the last boss jump in to help out in a fight,then comes the trigger for walkers,snowbalcannons and grenades to interrupt ! would be awesome. and put on that a time limit counter. that pushes the droprate for every boss fight. so much ways to solve and make all easy and profitable with little.

reminder.: hunter and collector instinkt

and give out more gear from ops and ranked only for a weekly. like 10 extra boxes from cxp wich include 1x box 100% drop to chose for ! or how did u said in ya stream why u made cxp in the 1.st way ;to make gear easyer accessible to the role and class with set gearbonus. so keep in mind what u did. u pushed all and everything to endgame now, by guild-xp,events,boosts,quests ,story and solo chapter story bonus exp gain that u have a lot of toons. even cap was raised for and even DvL was all about it. by not putting this in the count, it wont last long. if u still insist on cxp and tweek around.

at the end it still come to the same ending by the time

Eric,

Why is a single operation boss being placed under a closed PTS with an NDA? This seems very counterproductive considering the amount of people that have left the game, and the larger amount of people that have a tos violation and are blocked from testing (hint, this is one of those times you want people that have exploited to find the new ones and report them, so they won't go live).

 

The PTS for this should be an open one (like 2.0 was, where only your secret story stuff was behind the NDA), so you can get as many people testing it as possible to ensure that it will be smooth.

I assume the daily area and the story content as well. Still, you do not do closed PTS for limited content like that...

This is more of hype building move to make us feel there is much content coming. I will be surprised if the daily area is even half decent. As for the boss, it is first boss of an ops... Not much more can be said here.

Eric, I would love to join in, but unless something major changes this week, my sub is up on the 7th.

Well that's major but if your sub is up then you don't meet the qualifications

Eric,

I have a question. I am in an ops group and our ops leader is going to apply for us. I know that in the future, you will be opening it up for individuals and small groups. Could I also send in an application for the later testing in case our group does not make it in?

I assume the daily area and the story content as well. Still, you do not do closed PTS for limited content like that...

The reason for the NDA is simple. This game is more story driven then most. Realistically they want to keep the story as quiet for as long as possible...

While leaks inevitably do happen (unfortunately), this lessens the impact.

The reason for the NDA is simple. This game is more story driven then most. Realistically they want to keep the story as quiet for as long as possible...

 

While leaks inevitably do happen (unfortunately), this lessens the impact.

They also change things during PTS, and don't want the original, or variations disclosed to the public unless it is the studio that decides to.

There is also the issue of people spoofing about what is actually on PTS (probably for drama) ..... which I'm sure is why the NDA requires that you not even acknowledge your are under NDA or have been invited to the closed PTS. Most of these NDAs never expire now days either.