michaelcshow Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 It seems that PTS testing vs Live server patch testing is lacking something. Playing the game on the live servers for merely 5 minutes with this new patch would have revealed both the stronghold deco problem and the guild invasion tab problem. This can only be solved internally of course, please abstract ideas on how to resolve the PTS vs Live problem, the current 'go live with immediately obvious issues' reflects poorly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkTergon Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 (edited) as it's the pts, do people even have strongholds there? I can't imagine anyone would go through the hassle of decorationg a s/h only to have it deleted when the servers are taken down/wiped. Can't test something that doesn't exsist? Unless they bring in an option to transfer a stronghold to the pts, the live server is the only way to find this type of bug Also it's probably the same with invasion, I don't think anyone does it on the pts (But I could be wrong) Edited April 12, 2019 by DarkTergon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelcshow Posted April 12, 2019 Author Share Posted April 12, 2019 (edited) That's sort of the point I guess, those things need a way to be tested /edit - brainstorming here: Strongholds Every PTS character gets a stock test stronghold with a handful of decorations of each type, some rotated and offset, some standard. Perhaps at least one of each hook type. Conquest Every PTS character gets put into a 'Testing Guild', with a dozen or so fake developer characters with points on each to see how that looks. Edited April 12, 2019 by michaelcshow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xordevoreaux Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 It seems that PTS testing vs Live server patch testing is lacking something. People. It's lacking people. I have yet to ever see anyone else logged into PTS when I am. It's not guaranteed, but there's a greater window to catch more errors if we had more eyes looking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 as it's the pts, do people even have strongholds there? I can't imagine anyone would go through the hassle of decorationg a s/h only to have it deleted when the servers are taken down/wiped. Can't test something that doesn't exsist? Unless they bring in an option to transfer a stronghold to the pts, the live server is the only way to find this type of bug Nonsense. Everything you do on PTS is temporary, for sure, but if you have some credits (is the credit dispenser on the starter worlds and Odessen still working), you can buy a cheap stronghold (5K for DK / Coru, remember?) and a few decorations and see what happens. Of course nobody would have bothered as such, since there weren't new SH features, but *that* is the reason for it, not the lack of a stronghold-import button. (When the first iterations of the Rishi SH were on PTS, lots of people bought it and went there.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rion_Starkiller Posted April 12, 2019 Share Posted April 12, 2019 (edited) People. It's lacking people. I have yet to ever see anyone else logged into PTS when I am. It's not guaranteed, but there's a greater window to catch more errors if we had more eyes looking. Agreed. I occasionally participate in PTS testing, but re-downloading the entire game is very off-putting. I have no desire for SWTOR to take up 60 gigs of SSD space. This may be why there is very little PTS participation. That, and lack of incentives. Edited April 12, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandrosw Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 Until recently I had a very slow download speed (5mb/s), so downloading whole PTS would take several days, while it would severely limit any other usage of connection - this could be helped by changing the PTS client so it would be possible to copy the game into different folder and run a patch to only download changed files, same as when patching the game. It is possible, other games did and do that. It could also help those that have download limit x GB per month. Sometimes I wanted to check some new feature, but not enough to dedicate a few days to download PTS while being unable to play the game. While it is possible to copy a character and get money/equipment from PTS NPCs, as many mentioned, not everything is copied to PTS. If my SH were copied, I would notice right from start that something has changed. When character is copied without guild (and the npc that allows guild creation still requires 4 ppl instead of only 1 to create a new guild on PTS), it is hard to check any guild features. Not everyone wants to test on PTS, so even if I ask my friends, I may end up with less than 3 other ppl that want to download the PTS, log on on the same time, go make a guild... It might help if there are more PTS NPCs that would allow for quick setup of anything that cannot be copied, or if the character copy could include more data about character. As for testing, I know many are happy with checking out new feature that is vaguely described in some yellow post, many just want to see their parse with a new equipment, but if you want a thorough test, there would have to be a much more detailed change log of what was commited to code. For example now I had no idea something was even done with stronghold decorations, so why would I go to set-up stronghold, place decorations, rotate them, leave stronghold, go back in? This test would take maybe 3-4 minutes, so it could be easily done, but.. how could we know that something like this should even tested, when there is no mention about overhauling SH decorations and how they are displayed? I doubt even 100 ppl on PTS would help, when they don't know what changed and what should be tested. They would just run around a bit, check the new feature, make a screenshot or two to show their friends and log off. I doubt they would go to check some old and working features, quests, FPs or anything unless they knew what exactly should be checked. As far as incentives go - I don't think they need to be anything big, some games gave out untradable pets, some nothing, it does not matter much. People usually don't go to PTS to get some reward, they want to check out the new patch. So the easier the access to PTS is, the more people would be willing to put some time to actually log in there. And if they log in, it should be easy to create anything that was not copied from live server, so people don't log off before they can even make basic things like guild. And when all this is easy and fast, having a detailed log of changes would help people to spread out and test things - stronghold decorators would go check out the new changed decorations, while guildleaders would go create a new logo for their guild, Star Fortress farmers would run one with their companion out when using lift.. Unfortunately, all those things would first need to be provided by BW. Otherwise I doubt that there would be any change in PTS participation if everything stays the same as it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phazonfreak Posted April 13, 2019 Share Posted April 13, 2019 Agreed. I occasionally participate in PTS testing, but re-downloading the entire game is very off-putting. I have no desire for SWTOR to take up 60 gigs of SSD space. This may be why there is very little PTS participation. That, and lack of incentives. Agreed. I downloaded the PTS portion last year mainly because of several titles (ie. The Cutting Edge) that are shown in your collections that can be attained by completing specific milestones. I was disappointed to see that these titles no longer unlock in your collections if you reach the milestone and have basically become a worthless remnant. Adding new and more milestone rewards like titles and flairs would convince more people to be on the PTS, it sure would convince me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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