Hello there,

So with the recent drop of patch 6.2.1, there is an increasing number of threads about a lot of changes brought by the patch. Apart from the multiple bug report threads, there is some recurrent topics that are brought up by the community, the one I'm gonna talk about now being the new Amplifier UI.

Here's whatever threads I could find about the subject since the update dropped :

• Yeah... The new amplifier panel needs to go
  
• Just my two cents on the current Situation (Interface, Bugs, Exploits)
  
• The new character preview window... isn't good at all
  
• Proposal - Revert Character Sheet Changes + Make Amplifiers Collapsable
  

This is just only about the first page of the General Section, maybe there's more but I didn't check.

However, the important part now is that we had a PTS session that allowed us to test the new UI changes to amplifiers. So, players had the time to test early these changes, and give feedback around those on the thread created by Daniel Steed.

I took the time to scroll through said thread, through the specific 21 answers posted by players in fact. Out of all these answers, eight of them were talking about the fact that the new character sheet UI needs some work/isn't good. This is more than a third of the total feedback gathered, even more when you notice that five of the posts in this thread were almost off topic.

Now comes the question that I'd like to ask the Bioware Dev Team : What is the purpose of the PTS ?

Because it seems that even with proper feedback given by the players, no changes were made between the PTS release and the live version of the game, so I'm naturally wondering if maybe, we as players, have misunderstood something when it comes to PTS usage. And this is why I believe that these questions may need some official answers :

Is the PTS actually for gathering feedback about new features ? Or is it maybe just to see if new content can be debugged early before release ?

Is there any plans to use whatever feedback is collected through PTS ? Are the changes brought by our feedback going to be implemented "in a later update" or not at all ?

These questions are important because it seems that the Bioware team is doing its best to deliver content with a limited amount of developpers and designers working on the game. If the PTS is not used to gather feedback in order to make changes before an important patch, then maybe we don't need a PTS at all in the end ?

On one side it will not change from our current cycle (patch drops, peoples talk about bugs/bad features, bugs/bad features get fixed later), and on the other side it actually gives Bioware more development ressources to put into the live game instead of having to maintain a PTS that has no real purpose.

I hope that this thread will catch the eyes of somebody at Bioware who can help us understand how decisions and feedback are taken regarding to PTS, as the current situation seems to be more harmfull than beneficial for players at the moment.

As usual, take care everybody and see ya all somewhere in the galaxy,

Elia

I don't understand the point of a PTS either if the most negative feedback related to a change isn't redressed in time for the live release.

It feels like they have their live release date and can't change it, so if desired fixes can't be made in time, they decide to abandon making any changes for that patch and fix them in future patches in order of importance, and there's always some that pile up on the back burner because in the middle of the cycle the creative crew comes in and says "work on this we need new content!"

I'm pretty tired of it tbh, the team needs a lot more time devoted to just fixing things; if the bigwigs aren't happy about delays they should eat it.

it seems that even with proper feedback given by the players, no changes were made between the PTS release and the live version of the game

Which has happened more than once, which is why I no longer exhort people to rush out to the public test server to try out new things. BW will not re-invest the money and dev time rebuilding just because we ask.

They've done their design work. They've implemented. They're done. We're just the unpaid beta testers, and the devs are looking for bugs far more than they are any feedback that might rattle their design.

The only time I can recall when PTS feedback garnered a significant reaction was when the Alderaan stronghold was modified prior to it going live. Beyond that, I'd be hard pressed to connect the dots where what was suggested during PTS testing made it to live.

It's the same as the purpose as these forums: So they can pretend they're "listening" to the players, which they never actually do. It reminds of an old Seinfeld bit: Any one can go around taking feedback. That's easy. It's the LISTENING that's difficult.

This is not new, BW has been doing it for years. It's quite sad, really:

- Players ask for more Ops and FPs... BW gives us more CM crap.

- Players ask for balanced classes... BW gives us OP Vanguards/PTs.

- Players ask BW to do something about broken Skank Tanks in PVP... BW does nothing.

- Players ask BW to fix bugs in the game... BW adds more bugs instead.

The list goes on and on. BW is a part of EA, which is one of he biggest (if not the biggest) company in the industry, with one of the biggest licenses (Star Wars) that you can get, and yet they put the absolute bare minimum of resources into this game. Compare this game (and the content it gets) to any other MMO, and it's absolutely laughable.

"We're listening to your feedback," they say. Words mean nothing. Actions mean everything. They don't listen to our feedback. They don't care.

It's the same as the purpose as these forums: So they can pretend they're "listening" to the players, which they never actually do.

They have made changes in the past based on the forums. Lest we forget the thread storm we had last summer for conquest, the thousands of posts, the back-and-forth between forum mains and those campaigning to bend conquest to their own needs. All two of them. Those two won on sheer noise alone, and acquiring conquest points got nerfed.

The devs listened again to the forums, when more voices complained that they over-nerfed, which is what Bioware does, and they relented on some points, partially restoring some means of getting points.

The devs listened, when someone on the forums complained that reworking the starter worlds, which was mentioned by the devs as something they were looking into, would overwhelm their 15-year-old computer. We've never heard another word about that revamp.

They listen, but how isn't up to us, not even the majority.

They have made changes in the past based on the forums. Lest we forget the thread storm we had last summer for conquest, the thousands of posts, the back-and-forth between forum mains and those campaigning to bend conquest to their own needs. All two of them. Those two won on sheer noise alone, and acquiring conquest points got nerfed.

 

The devs listened again to the forums, when more voices complained that they over-nerfed, which is what Bioware does, and they relented on some points, partially restoring some means of getting points.

 

The devs listened, when someone on the forums complained that reworking the starter worlds, which was mentioned by the devs as something they were looking into, would overwhelm their 15-year-old computer. We've never heard another word about that revamp.

 

They listen, but how isn't up to us, not even the majority.

Except they brought in those changes now, or close enough to it. Enough that it has killed crafting as a viable CQ choice for most people.

Except they brought in those changes now, or close enough to it. Enough that it has killed crafting as a viable CQ choice for most people.

Not to derail the thread's original intent about the purpose of the PTS, there's plenty of examples of fallout from that.

The only time I can recall when PTS feedback garnered a significant reaction was when the Alderaan stronghold was modified prior to it going live. Beyond that, I'd be hard pressed to connect the dots where what was suggested during PTS testing made it to live.

The worst of it is that there have been actual bugs(1) found on PTS that were noted *there* as being bugs, and apparently fixed *on*PTS* but later recurring on Live.

(1) Example: empty Renown crates. Eric acknowledged my complaint about this by casting doubt on my veracity(2), but also by acknowledging that it was a bug. It was allegedly later fixed on PTS. It still happens occasionally on Live.

(2) "If you're seeing this"... Yes, dude, I'm seeing this. I'm not making it up.

I recall they made a bunch of changes to a stronghold based on PTS feedback. Sadly it appears to be a major exception that I can remember.

Part of the problem, as we perceive it (part.. because it doesn't account for the actual bugs that make it to live), is that when they do something unpopular for a reason, us not liking the end result doesn't take away their reason, doesn't make them inclined to change it.

In the case of the amp panel, people are now asking for it to be able to collapse, but while there have been additional tweaks, as far as the UI goes that would bring it back to where it was before. If I were to guess at reasons for the change.. then the most obvious one would be that they felt not enough people were making use of their shiny credit sink, and having that panel always open makes sure that nobody can miss it.

Whatever reasons we have for disliking it would not change this. Their priorities are not the same as our priorities.

If I were to guess at reasons for the change.. then the most obvious one would be that they felt not enough people were making use of their shiny credit sink, and having that panel always open makes sure that nobody can miss it.

Well... I mean. Why would I roll amplifiers again if I already have all of those I want at gold quality. Having the panel in front of my face won't change anything... Except making me hate them even more.

Well... I mean. Why would I roll amplifiers again if I already have all of those I want at gold quality. Having the panel in front of my face won't change anything... Except making me hate them even more.

You probably wouldn't. But it's also not relevant. If you can click it away, then everyone can click it away. They don't want everyone to click it away, they want everyone to be reminded of the shiny credit sink.

You probably wouldn't. But it's also not relevant. If you can click it away, then everyone can click it away. They don't want everyone to click it away, they want everyone to be reminded of the shiny credit sink.

Just like we had a ton of UI implemented at the time of command rank to be reminded it existed. I know. I was just pointing the flaw in the design. I usually am more of a "propose idea" kind of guy, but most of the time with BW recently I just end up talking about why it doesn't work. I wish they'd teach us about Swtor and bad decision-making in game-design school tbh.

Just like we had a ton of UI implemented at the time of command rank to be reminded it existed. I know. I was just pointing the flaw in the design. I usually am more of a "propose idea" kind of guy, but most of the time with BW recently I just end up talking about why it doesn't work. I wish they'd teach us about Swtor and bad decision-making in game-design school tbh.

Well.. one could argue that it's only a bad decision being made if it doesn't work.

Not like they would tell us, of course.. but.. take the social bar turned advertisement bar that many people, myself included, were (are) not at all happy with. I am still frustrated that I have to close that thing 20-50 times a week, and that I still have to drag it to the place I had the social bar now and then, but it's not something worth canceling my subscription over. I imagine it's not for most people that were/are unhappy with it. Now what if it actually resulted in a measurable increase in CM browsing, or even in CM sales? To the powers that be that may sound like the perfect reason to decide on implementing more loud and in-your-face UI elements.

If this now results in a higher percentage of players clicking the shiny credit sink buttons, while all the complaining players keep spending what they'd otherwise be spending, then they may very well consider this an utterly fantastic decision. We may also be seeing more of this kind of thing before long.

Well.. one could argue that it's only a bad decision being made if it doesn't work.

 

Not like they would tell us, of course.. but.. take the social bar turned advertisement bar that many people, myself included, were (are) not at all happy with. I am still frustrated that I have to close that thing 20-50 times a week, and that I still have to drag it to the place I had the social bar now and then, but it's not something worth canceling my subscription over. I imagine it's not for most people that were/are unhappy with it. Now what if it actually resulted in a measurable increase in CM browsing, or even in CM sales? To the powers that be that may sound like the perfect reason to decide on implementing more loud and in-your-face UI elements.

 

If this now results in a higher percentage of players clicking the shiny credit sink buttons, while all the complaining players keep spending what they'd otherwise be spending, then they may very well consider this an utterly fantastic decision. We may also be seeing more of this kind of thing before long.

Overall I understand why they want to do it. But even adding the option to close it after opening the character sheet wouldn't have changed much imo, apart from reducing screen clutter. As a side example (more a funny anecdote than anything tbh, but worth mentionning), cluttered and hard to navigate interface was one of the really bad point of FF14 before it's 2.0 rework, as even opening the slightest window would make spawn a ton of unfriendly tabs hard to read/understand.

Another important thing to take into consideration is the new player experience as well, especially since amplifiers aren't introduced until you drop... Well high level purple gear. There is no point/incentive to have this huge window open on the screen of a new player only to tell him "you will worry about it later". Again, swtor lacks a lot of tutorials and "soft" knowledge progression. Introducing amplifiers at low level has absolutely zero interest, since the feature is usually reserved for endgame content. Just like the galaxy map is disabled when you don't have your personnal ship unlocked, I don't see the point of having the amplifier window show up until you need it. Especially since unlike most other games, you don't have a way to upscale or downscale individual tabs of the UI.

Overall... Maybe a whole UI revamp could do the game some good. But seeing how long it took them to do this work, I'm not sure it is even possible for BW at the moment.

Edit : For the amplifier UI, funny thing after having checked, it doesn't show up if you don't have anything with an amplifier equipped. So I will take that back, at least. It also doesn't prevent you from moving your character panel to the right of your screen. As soon as you equip something with a single amplifier however...

Except they brought in those changes now, or close enough to it. Enough that it has killed crafting as a viable CQ choice for most people.

Crafting in it's current breadth should never have been a conquesting guild's purpose, and I don't understand why they'd boost conquest by letting anyone kill any old thing or make any old thing for points. They could have just as easily tailored more significant low-level activities to conquest and gave decent points for them, but not enough that max-levels would waste their time somewhere like Heroics on Hutta.

Making everything you could possibly craft contribute to points was just a stupid idea. If War Supply crafting wasn't dead around the onset of Eternal Throne and the stupid intermediate assembly components/grafts, it definitely was when changes meant you could just bot farm mats and bot craft any old thing, basically gaining a passive income stream of CQ points without doing a damn thing in the game.

Conquesting should require participating in things that involve actual effort and teamwork, it shouldn't be contingent on how many players your guild has who can find the easiest method of grinding points solo and do that non-stop to the Force-knows-what end.

Now comes the question that I'd like to ask the Bioware Dev Team : What is the purpose of the PTS ?

Because it seems that even with proper feedback given by the players, no changes were made between the PTS release and the live version of the game, so I'm naturally wondering if maybe, we as players, have misunderstood something when it comes to PTS usage. And this is why I believe that these questions may need some official answers

The reason for the PTS

To allow players to test content, report bugs, and give suggestions on newer content matter that the Dev's can change/improve "At a later date" if the players do not like it. The dev's spend lot's of time and money coming up with new things for the game and from a business point of view, they can not just delete it because people post that they don't like something. They can however do what they did with the Command System which was to change it over time to be something people were happy with. They would certainly have problems trying to explain to their bosses why said time and money was just arbitrarily dropped let alone give reasons to continue to receive funds to keep the game going if they did just drop content.

Hello there,

<snip> :

PTS exists for the same reason the TSA exists in airports. The only purpose it serves is for the illusion that it creates.

TSA is the illusion of security.

PTS is the illusion of player input into game design. PTS also exists for BW to deflect on complaints that they don't listen to the players. BW can deflect and say "hey, go to the PTS and give your feedback, it exists!"

PTS exists for the same reason the TSA exists in airports. The only purpose it serves is for the illusion that it creates.

 

TSA is the illusion of security.

 

PTS is the illusion of player input into game design. PTS also exists for BW to deflect on complaints that they don't listen to the players. BW can deflect and say "hey, go to the PTS and give your feedback, it exists!"

Sadly this often feels like the truth when they ask for player feed back and then ignore it and push bad patches or content live.

I could explain the entire affair:

** the lack of desire to do right by those who use the PTS and pay attention to what is being said.

** the difference between " how we see the game .. and what is intended to be developed "

** and frankly put the ol' cookie jar right on the bottom shelf in such a fashion that even a noob inside of BW would get the message!

Unfortunately:

** some inside of said company would be offended (that's never good) ... Yeah I can be really BLUNT when needed.

** I would loose self respect.

** Most importantly I would loose respect from JackieKO (someone who actually reads the forums). This one item is the one reason I WONT go there !!

To be perfectly honest this entire affair has reached the point of being just plain nuts !!

The idea of the PTS is a good one ... IF it were used properly !! Heck ... I've participated in it !!

** UGH **

Ya know ... there is so much more we could be doing in a positive manner !! So much more potential. I'd prefer to be a friend to anyone on the team... but for some strange reason a wall has been built !!

And I don't like it !!!

/snip

My comment wasn't about crafting, it was about the pts, and how they ignore our feedback, the crafting change was reversed originally, then reversed again (the new changes), so in essence, they did listen first, but somewhere along the lines they stopped. That was what the comment was about.

The debate about crafting itself is off topic, and doesn't belong here.

The PTS is exactly as it says - Public Test Server.

BW uses the server to test for major bugs, etc, and having the 'public' use it, has a greater chance of exposing bugs, etc.

However, I doubt that the PTS was ever intended to get player input on changes, etc (even though they may say so, just to quiet the masses). The PTS would obviously only appeal to a certain subset of users and probably does not reflect the majority of the player base anyway. So, it wouldn't be prudent for BW to base things on PTS feedback alone.

The PTS is exactly as it says - Public Test Server.

 

BW uses the server to test for major bugs, etc, and having the 'public' use it, has a greater chance of exposing bugs, etc.

 

However, I doubt that the PTS was ever intended to get player input on changes, etc (even though they may say so, just to quiet the masses). The PTS would obviously only appeal to a certain subset of users and probably does not reflect the majority of the player base anyway. So, it wouldn't be prudent for BW to base things on PTS feedback alone.

You're probably right, especially after recent developments, but I know a lot of people downloaded the PTS, and played there, to test it, and add their feedback, in the hope that things bad for the game, not just bugs, would be caught there and never go live. As it stands now though, a lot of people just don't feel the urge to even bother, as nothing they say will actually. Which in turn will probably affect how effective they are at finding bugs :/

You're probably right, especially after recent developments, but I know a lot of people downloaded the PTS, and played there, to test it, and add their feedback, in the hope that things bad for the game, not just bugs, would be caught there and never go live. As it stands now though, a lot of people just don't feel the urge to even bother, as nothing they say will actually. Which in turn will probably affect how effective they are at finding bugs :/

Last time I tested on the pts and found a heap of bugs that a bunch of us documented to do with chapters and walkers being broken. That was 6+ weeks before they went live with that release. I spent a whole week and about 40 hours doing that testing to find bugs and provide feed back on changes to difficulty.

But somehow nearly ALL of those bugs made it into the live game and we were plagued with those Walker bugs for nearly 12 months. At least the difficulty feed back was “sort” of listened too, but not enough to make it playable for most casuals.

That’s what pisses people off. We really care about the game as much as the devs do and we want to make it better and HELP the devs find the bugs before it goes live. So we spend our own time on the pts running boring or old content to see if it still works or to find bugs. Then write up detailed posts to explain what we found. If we are lucky we get a yellow post per feed back thread, but normally we hear crickets and then they push the game live without fixing anything. It’s no wonder people question wether they read the feed back or care.

And some of the changes are game breaking and could have been delayed till they were fixed. They were not urgent and they didn’t need to go live. Like this new amplifier UI. Chris basically admits that’s it’s not perfect and a work in progress. So why release it live at all when it’s a work in progress and could be many months till it’s where they envisage it. It’s basically exactly the same as it was on the pts mid January when they said it needed improvement and asked for feed back. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between the pts version in January that was a WIP and the one they pushed live.

All of the negative feed back they’ve been getting about the UI this week is nearly exactly the same as was given on the pts in January. So I ask, what was the point in pushing this live when the feed back was so negative. Even the suggestions on the pts on how to improve it were totally ignored. Ie, make it collapsable, don’t remove the other stats window, don’t put the weapons in the middle between the Armor pieces. Everything that could have been done to make the new UI better was ignored and they wonder why people hate it.

No one is going to bother testing on the pts if this continues like this. I stopped downloading it myself because I saw they don’t pay attention to bug reports or feedback.

Lastly, what really kills me about the pts is how long it takes to download and that you can’t play the live game while it’s downloading. So you spend all this time downloading it and can’t play the actual game. Then you finally get to test it and Bioware ignore bug feedback and push it live. It’s a total waste of our time from downloading it and not being able to play the live game while Bioware ignore us.

I’ll happily spend my time testing if it actually helps. Bioware have a valuable FREE resource of passionate players they piss away because of this attitude.

For the pts to really work properly they need to reorganise how they run it and the feed back. And they need to allow us to download it while we play the live game.

 

Lastly, what really kills me about the pts is how long it takes to download and that you can’t play the live game while it’s downloading. So you spend all this time downloading it and can’t play the actual game. Then you finally get to test it and Bioware ignore bug feedback and push it live. It’s a total waste of our time from downloading it and not being able to play the live game while Bioware ignore us.

I never thought to one day say this, but Blizzard did manage to implement easier PTS download. By making it copy the base game's files onto the PTS folder then applying a special "PTS Update", where you only download what's changed. This is an enormous time gain, especially when looking at how wanky most mmos launcher are. I wish BW would do something similar. It wouldn't be the first time they try to emulate something first done by Blizzard too.

And basically, +1 to your whole post, as I didn't want to copy/paste it entirely.

My comment wasn't about crafting, it was about the pts, and how they ignore our feedback, the crafting change was reversed originally, then reversed again (the new changes), so in essence, they did listen first, but somewhere along the lines they stopped. That was what the comment was about.

The debate about crafting itself is off topic, and doesn't belong here.

You made a pointed example of how changes and feedback heeded or unheeded "killed" a feature of the game, and I was simply trying to express why I think that that is an exaggeration. They do what they want to do that'll make money and as much as people cry about not listening to the player base, most of them will get over something like that. The crafting changes are small fish compared to actual gamebreaking stuff, which is what the PTS should be for.

We could have left it at that 2 replies ago but I don't understand the need people have to charge other members with "irrelevance" or "necroing".