Does gw2 need a PBE?

[CJH.2879]

@Airdive.2613 said:

@CJH.2879 said:I've always believed in public beta testing for any major/significant changes to GW2, to be fair I'd recommend selecting players at random to get a more general idea of the final results.

And what will make these randomly selected players run an incomplete, unstable and imbalanced GW 2 build instead of the current one?

Incentives/rewards to those specific players whom agree to test the current beta release or people whom just want to help make a more balanced & properly working GW2,either way would work. After all its about making a more fun/stable/inviting/balanced game for everyone to play & I don't foresee people by & large just saying that they won't do it. Give people the opportunity & let them decide for themselves.

[Ayrilana.1396]

If there were to be a test server for balance changes, only those that know the classes should be invited. If you go online for your builds then you are not qualified. If you follow written rotations as well then you’re definitely not qualified.

[Kathul.1280]

The more I play GW2 I am being reminded of the game I left. DDO. they have massive issues with balance and game design, but they also have a test server. Ironically they still don't use player feedback lol. So the idea is only good if the developers actually use the test server data. Please GW2 don't become DDO. Be more like Warframes devs

[Substance E.4852]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:You do realize PvE also needs balancing, right? And actually, that's pretty much the only area where they have had players testing content. Kinda invitation only, but they did have raiding guilds testing some upcoming raid wings. Not sure if they still do it or not, but they have in the past.

Well no shit, but it's also incredibly easy to do.

You don't need to crowd source a thousand people to know whether there's dps imbalances in pve.

The problem's not a lack of knowledge on their part. They just don't really care all that much.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:A public test = more people. More people = more reliable data. That's what a public or semi-public server would achieve. Again, the resources are already being "wasted", the cost of scaling the servers is very small compared to the cost of setting them up already.It's more of a question of are they using those resources correctly with the really limited number of players being allowed in, or would the game benefit more from more data, especially for balance purposes. In my opinion, and given the sorry state of the game's balance. I'd say yes.

In my opinion, more people does not necessarily mean more reliable data. Let's assume that when ANet selects testers, the testers are given guidelines on how to provide meaningful and useful feedback. Let's also assume that if such testers give garbage feedback, they will not be invited to subsequent tests. If that's not the case, I'd be surprised.

With a public test environment, anyone can join. This greatly increases the amount of feedback provided, and thus the amount of work needed to review it. Given that balance devs already look at data on profession performance from live, giving them even more to do seems like a recipe for either siphoning resources from other projects or slowing balance patches even more.

Public testing also increases the likelihood that the feedback will be garbage, if not outright obfuscation. Some people will push their agenda and others will troll because they can. More signal will mean more noise. The current ANet approach is more likely to generate a better signal-to-noise ratio than either a public or semi-public environment would.

The fact is, there are few if any "massive" games out there in which there is anything approaching a consensus on balance being good. I might agree with you if I'd ever seen a game with a public test environment in which the community "consensus" wasn't that the devs had still kittened things up because they didn't listen to the testers. Unfortunately, I've never seen that.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:A public test = more people. More people = more reliable data. That's what a public or semi-public server would achieve. Again, the resources are already being "wasted", the cost of scaling the servers is very small compared to the cost of setting them up already.It's more of a question of are they using those resources correctly with the really limited number of players being allowed in, or would the game benefit more from more data,

especially

for balance purposes. In my opinion, and given the sorry state of the game's balance. I'd say yes.

In my opinion, more people does not necessarily mean more reliable data. Let's assume that when ANet selects testers, the testers are given guidelines on how to provide meaningful and useful feedback. Let's also assume that if such testers give garbage feedback, they will not be invited to subsequent tests. If that's not the case, I'd be surprised.

With a public test environment, anyone can join. This greatly increases the amount of feedback provided, and thus the amount of work needed to review it. Given that balance devs already look at data on profession performance from live, giving them even more to do seems like a recipe for either siphoning resources from other projects or slowing balance patches even more.

Public testing also increases the likelihood that the feedback will be garbage, if not outright obfuscation. Some people

will

push their agenda and others will troll because they can. More signal

will

mean more noise. The current ANet approach is more likely to generate a better signal-to-noise ratio than either a public or semi-public environment would.

The fact is, there are few if any "massive" games out there in which there is anything approaching a consensus on balance being good. I might agree with you if I'd ever seen a game with a public test environment in which the community "consensus"

wasn't

that the devs had still kittened things up because they didn't listen to the testers. Unfortunately, I've never seen that.

I'd be amazed if personal feedback is more than 30% of the data they use. In fact i suspect it's less than 15%. Most of their data probably comes from data-logs, not from what players write back. And that's the data that matters from a test server. Not what players say. And that's pretty much what everyone thinks. That somehow they'd be swamped in bad feedback and hindered by it, that's hardly the case.

[Imperadordf.2687]

This thread is just "My opinion matters!" and "I'll give useful feedback!".

No it doesn't, and no you won't.

[CJH.2879]

The original discussion was about whether or not we needed PBE (public beta environment) for testing. If the changes made help to make GW2 more stable/balanced & the results are confirmed by the public beta test players then I say every ones opinions do matter & there feedback is definitely useful (even in this thread before any testing/changes are made). Discussion is always important for implementation to take place.