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The first thing about testing... is COMMUNICATION...


Morten_Venisse

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So that:

1) You do not waste people's time who do not want to test what you specifically are trying to test. This is especially respectful, mindful and good manners when you aren't paying them (in fact they're paying you) to keep you employed.

 

2) You make it VERY clear EXACTLY what is being tested in detail so that testers can target their actions to HELP you discover technical, design and unexpected issues i.e. We are testing the combination of restricted subsets of abilities to see how they synergise when used in combat. The following missing abilities will be available to all characters in the relevant class at a later date... These abilities will be changed/merged/removed from the game...

 

3) Being secretive and furtive about FULLY disclosing what you are changing to "improve" the experience has NOTHING to do with safeguarding spoilers and EVERYTHING to do with being fearful that what you've been planning, programming and intending for years now will actually drive subscribers away.

You aren't 2 years out from release and barely pen to paper on this, you are less than 6 months from release! This isn't pre-Alpha testing you are somewhere in open Beta! So you have already decided and baked in to your past 12-24 months endeavours a whole bunch of re-design decisions for the "new" version of the game you want to release.

 

I hope that the Marketing/Communities lead is going to jump in and CLEARLY respond to ALL the threads already raised since PTS was re-opened to FULLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY explain, reveal and assuage what needs to be said to get us all on the same page about expectations, intentions and a new hope.

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Good point. Very well said.

 

I did feel - within minutes of starting out playing on Onderon - like this was a waste of my time. So I went back to playing on Live servers instead of PTS. I'll try testing on PTS again after they make changes.

 

I felt the same :/

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BioWare has always had the worst communication.

 

Not entirely true actually , as demonstrated here ---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9889956#edit9889956

 

...and here ---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9852711#edit9852711

 

....as well as here---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9946716#edit9946716

 

...and heck even here---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9924899#post9924899

 

Just to give 4 quick examples. Plus, JackieKo is a superb communicator and from what i've noticed, most everyone on the forums appreciates her & her efforts.

 

The problem it seems, is that the BioWare Developers (coders & producers) don't communicate enough.

 

And of course, when certain things are left out of the 'patch notes' (accidentally or otherwise) , it slowly erodes the trust of our playerbase.

Edited by Nee-Elder
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Not entirely true actually , as demonstrated here ---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9889956#edit9889956

 

...and here ---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9852711#edit9852711

 

....as well as here---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9946716#edit9946716

 

...and heck even here---> https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9924899#post9924899

 

Just to give 4 quick examples. Plus, JackieKo is a superb communicator and from what i've noticed, most everyone on the forums appreciates her & her efforts.

 

The problem it seems, is that the BioWare Developers (coders & producers) don't communicate enough.

 

And of course, when certain things are left out of the 'patch notes' (accidentally or otherwise) , it slowly erodes the trust of our playerbase.

 

Yup, they aren't doing much to win favour from the concerned.

 

Communication to put fires out is hardly a ringing endorsement of "great communication" it is just indicative that someone is worried about losing their job (or getting a poor performance review and no bonus).

 

Jackie has written a mostly considered response with several significant failings. Everything she's "explaining" i.e. excusing or sugar-coating is stuff that would've been known long ago and certainly before the PTS "launch" and could have been talked about and published before players got to try things out. That would've been expectation management, a key skill in communication about dramatic and significant change to a supposedly prized community's operating environment and certainly one to be good at in the days of flame wars, rage quits, impulse reactions vlogs, likes and all the other BS brought about by social media self-indulgence and vanity.

Early on there is a typo so not exactly reassuring in a short but supposedly seriously considered response.

She makes assertions about how the gameplay is affected by the bloat and other evolutions of the game over the years without actually evidencing where this analysis has come from; who has been telling them such and such that must be fixed (when so much we the gen pop have been reporting remains unfixed)?

There's plenty more that's been picked apart in numerous threads since the "response" so I'll defer to those very noteworthy commentaries.

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Yup, they aren't doing much to win favour from the concerned.

 

That's because anything they say is going to be BS, largely. Does anyone here seriously believe they're going to meaningfully rebalance ALL CONTENT to account for the culling?

 

And if they do, I have a story to tell them about a Nigerian Prince...

Edited by DjiiniTwo
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That's because anything they say is going to be BS, largely. Does anyone here seriously believe they're going to meaningfully rebalance ALL CONTENT to account for the culling?

 

And if they do, I have a story to tell them about a Nigerian Prince...

 

Oh they will "Rebalance" it alright. By simply removing health/dmg and prune iconic abilities from bosses lol.

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Oh they will "Rebalance" it alright. By simply removing health/dmg and prune iconic abilities from bosses lol.

It really does feel like the only way they have to pull this off is by basically making everything brain dead so you can kill any boss with any loadout.

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