Beta testers, leaks and consequences towards playerbase

arcanjo86 · February 2019

From what was leaked recently from some beta testers, dont they think whats at risk when leaking real or fake info about a module they were providing feedback to the developers team during the testing period, basicly undermined the event of getting the game community closer to the developers team, lower the trust between the two parts and also undermined them selfs of being worth of trust from the community when releasing their own content about the game next time. @nitocris83 dont give up on inviting other players for the testings, we still have players with strong opinions and feedback about content, classes, mechanics, etc., that can help improve this game even further.Ty.

minotaur2857 · February 2019

@arcanjo86 I don't know how Cryptic select their beta testers for NW, I used to do it for CoH when Cryptic owned it and after.

It's a legitimate concern that all their beta testers are BiS because a lot of the changes in the past and in Mod16 are the right thing to do to solve the issues for BiS people but make the game MUCH WORSE for people whose best char is say 15K in today's terms and others are lower. Remember the 18Ks are a pretty small but vocal minority and massively overrepresented on the forums.

Mod 15 is not broken till you get up to pretty high IL, many people NEED what you consider to be broken, because the dungeons are set up for that environment. The 18Ks largely play with each other, and a group of 14-15Ks need all the things you list in endgame dungeons.

Nothing is more certain to cause a mass exit of players than rendering content they could previously do too difficult. The bonding nerfs VERY nearly did that with me, I was just getting to the stage where I could consider trying endgame dungeons, then I was suddenly 6 months away again.

silverkelt · February 2019

to me.. if a tester was doing active participation.. whatever advantages they might have , is probably ok. To run everything, with act, pinpoint issues, problems, curves that are wrong, incorrect, inaccurate, over or underwhelming.. takes alot of time.

Here is the biggest issues, is players "think" that somehow these players dictated what the gaming company was going to do .. they were not, they didnt nearly have the input you think they had.. some things were changed, some things were not, dont blame them.. we have a "second" wave of a chance now.. where everyone will see it.. there might be "additional " changes coming after the second test wave with everyone.

However, from what I hear , there were a # who didn't really participate any any meaningful manner.. well that is a issue, they get their free knowledge advantage.. they should've been kicked off the testing team honestly, Im not really here to say this or that.. but maybe in the future, if someone doesn't supply ancillary feedback once a week or something, they are removed from the team.. Otherwise, they are doing nothing.

Its sad, that players do that.. but they will.

Will we all have the SAME view point as all the testers.. of course not, I would think the company understands that 4+ year veterans and new players simply do not have the same realm of knowledge and capability to earn ad as them and distribute ways that both can play and have fun.

I frankly do not have much hope that I will enjoy mod 16.. is it a needed ? maybe.. for those who play the game for different reasons then I do.. all I really care about is a enchant exchange.. if they give us that.. then I will be fine . If they dont.. meh..

I never cared to be the best at anything.. just want to log on and get enough stuff to run with friends without being a drag.. so I can participate in the game and enjoy the community..

Others want to splash and dash and get every % out of it they can..

The best games make everyone a bit unhappy for the good of all.

checkmatein3 · February 2019

The beta testers were chosen because they have a fascination with determining the usefulness and synergies in the formulas. The game for them is figuring out the mathematical facts and making builds based on these facts. Moreover, the beta testers are those who have published their findings for other players, so that any player of any level would have a knowledge of how the game is played. Most, then, are players who have been in the game a long time, and understand its historical and mathematical roots. I am glad and have no problem with any of the players that I know where chosen because they will grind down to the nth decimal place to find a problem.

As for leaks, I know of two players personally who are invited to the NDA test, and they have shared nothing (I am not counting youtube videos of players I do not know personally). Breaking that NDA is a huge risk for the tester, from what has been shared on youtube about the NDA. With the dev posts out about changes, one does not need to be an NDA tester to start to understand the major changes that are coming and prepare (or ignore) generally what will happen. Everyone does this at their own risk based on how patient they are with not knowing. What is not known is the best mathematical way to prepare for mod 16. That information has not leaked out. We will know soon enough when it releases on preview.

Two more days (most likely) and we will know.

arcanjo86 · February 2019

minotaur2857 said:
@arcanjo86 I don't know how Cryptic select their beta testers for NW, I used to do it for CoH when Cryptic owned it and after.

It's a legitimate concern that all their beta testers are BiS because a lot of the changes in the past and in Mod16 are the right thing to do to solve the issues for BiS people but make the game MUCH WORSE for people whose best char is say 15K in today's terms and others are lower. Remember the 18Ks are a pretty small but vocal minority and massively overrepresented on the forums.

Mod 15 is not broken till you get up to pretty high IL, many people NEED what you consider to be broken, because the dungeons are set up for that environment. The 18Ks largely play with each other, and a group of 14-15Ks need all the things you list in endgame dungeons.

mod 15 is broken because you only rely on 1 dps and 4 buffer to run content thats the meta spread across every lfg messages ingame, no tanking/heals needed, just max damage resistance buffs based on power(base power and buffed power) and powershare/power buffs to boost main dps damage, they dont need that, i always public queue, i rarely have private inv as cw mof and so far im at 16k il, i stopped worrying to rush into new dungeons, focused on what stats i need, how much ad i can make to fill daily cap, how much rp i need to upgrade my stuff, if i have lower power stat value, that tells me my dungeon run will last longer nothing else, 2 days ago did my first CR run on REQ 1 op 1dc 1gwf 1 cw dps 1 cw mof support(me using dps gear) dc was giving heals, op was tanking and dungeon was done in 27min.

silverkelt · February 2019

you could use 1 dps and 4 buffers for a loooong time, not just mod 15

It was just done more with certain groups.. as those groups kept running so didnt the requirements.

you can run most content without this setup though.. so its a bit silly when i see poeple getting a gf/op/sw or mof and a dc together to run a raq.. sure its faster.. but , the extra mins you spend getting a perfect set up to run a silly raq.. you couldve been done with it just by taking almost anyone..

So there is that.. as well. game company cant help players from being silly .

ambisinisterr · February 2019

I am tentatively going to leave this open for now but please do not insult players who are willing to spend time testing features in an effort to make Mod 16 the best they can.

The players who were chosen to be in the playtest were hand selected by the developers for their sometimes infamous ability to break down the mechanics of the game. They have all shown over the years that they not only are willing to provide valuable criticism to the game but also able to back up their opinions with detailed numbers, statistics and they are well versed in explaining how to reproduce their results for others to confirm.

As for it not being done again, thanks for the sentiment but this isn't up to @nitocris83 . Heck it probably isn't even up to @mimicking#6533

It was a long battle for the players and devs to be able to get a smaller group of players to be able to interact with the dves during a more malleable and part of the design process and the teams are definitely dedicated to making the best outcome from this initiative.

mithrosnomore · February 2019

minotaur2857 said:

Don't be too sure about that last point, a number of people from my alliance are either taking a break from the game or have gone since the dev blogs and are not coming back. Another group are actively trying to find another game to play.

I'm going to get on the preview server and test, but am not hopeful. I will take one character through the new content in live, and make up my mind then. I will also be influenced by how heavily I have to change enchants, as that is the expensive bit. Exchange facilities for guild boons that use the removed stats and enchants would help a lot.

No, that last point is correct, at least to a point.

If you have guildies and allies leaving now then that's their prerogative, but that doesn't mean that the game is doomed and it doesn't mean that any of them really know how things are going to pan out once mod16 goes live.

My disagreement with that last point is that even if you were in the test group you still can't definitively declare the game dead or alive based upon whatever you know.

minotaur2857 · February 2019

mithrosnomore said:

minotaur2857 said:

Don't be too sure about that last point, a number of people from my alliance are either taking a break from the game or have gone since the dev blogs and are not coming back. Another group are actively trying to find another game to play.

I'm going to get on the preview server and test, but am not hopeful. I will take one character through the new content in live, and make up my mind then. I will also be influenced by how heavily I have to change enchants, as that is the expensive bit. Exchange facilities for guild boons that use the removed stats and enchants would help a lot.
No, that last point is correct, at least to a point.

If you have guildies and allies leaving now then that's their prerogative, but that doesn't mean that the game is doomed and it doesn't mean that any of them really know how things are going to pan out once mod16 goes live.

My disagreement with that last point is that even if you were in the test group you still can't definitively declare the game dead or alive based upon whatever you know.

That wasn't what I meant at all. I'm going to see if the game is fun after the release, recently every release has sucked fun out of the game and I think the news of this release was the last straw for a lot of people. This is not a few people, I'm in one of the largest alliances in the game and another small to medium sized one, and of all the opinions I've seen, like 5 are positive then some "wait and see"s and about 5 times as many "what other games are around".

My issue with the test group is that they are likely to be the sort of people with totally min-maxed characters. Were they for example given the instruction to build an average 13-14K character and try the content with a group of those ? There are WAAAAAYYYY more of those than there are 18K+, and most of them don't play the game as well as the testers will.

arcanjo86 · February 2019

minotaur2857 said:

mithrosnomore said:

minotaur2857 said:

Don't be too sure about that last point, a number of people from my alliance are either taking a break from the game or have gone since the dev blogs and are not coming back. Another group are actively trying to find another game to play.

I'm going to get on the preview server and test, but am not hopeful. I will take one character through the new content in live, and make up my mind then. I will also be influenced by how heavily I have to change enchants, as that is the expensive bit. Exchange facilities for guild boons that use the removed stats and enchants would help a lot.
No, that last point is correct, at least to a point.

If you have guildies and allies leaving now then that's their prerogative, but that doesn't mean that the game is doomed and it doesn't mean that any of them really know how things are going to pan out once mod16 goes live.

My disagreement with that last point is that even if you were in the test group you still can't definitively declare the game dead or alive based upon whatever you know.
That wasn't what I meant at all. I'm going to see if the game is fun after the release, recently every release has sucked fun out of the game and I think the news of this release was the last straw for a lot of people. This is not a few people, I'm in one of the largest alliances in the game and another small to medium sized one, and of all the opinions I've seen, like 5 are positive then some "wait and see"s and about 5 times as many "what other games are around".

My issue with the test group is that they are likely to be the sort of people with totally min-maxed characters. Were they for example given the instruction to build an average 13-14K character and try the content with a group of those ? There are WAAAAAYYYY more of those than there are 18K+, and most of them don't play the game as well as the testers will.

item level has nothing to do about the testers invite according to this: "The players who were chosen to be in the playtest were hand selected by the developers for their sometimes infamous ability to break down the mechanics of the game. They have all shown over the years that they not only are willing to provide valuable criticism to the game but also able to back up their opinions with detailed numbers, statistics and they are well versed in explaining how to reproduce their results for others to confirm." .

for example FBI, its 11k/12k il to queue for it but if the player only focus on reaching that il and didnt bother do campaign boons they going reach an idea the content is impossible for them to do, so all i deed was make sure previous campaign + skt campaign base boons + the epicenter quest that gives the 30% everfrost charm at the end of the quest is the beggining to be abble to think am i capable of doing it, made sure i have the right amout of armpen to ignore enemies defenses, crit chance and power(dps classes), right amount of defense/recovery(mod 16 will be recharge speed) as a tank, the right amount of power/recovery(mod 16 is recharge speed) as a healer, (this will depend on what rotation most class pages around fb, forum provide to help you improve your class role, each dungeons have a different approach, you will always run into players that want run dungeon faster or players that just want to have fun running a dungeon without the rush time), these "18k+" were once 13-14k il and provided the devs with info on past years, when those were the max il reach.

Beta testers, leaks and consequences towards playerbase

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