Why does the PTR exist?

General Discussion
1

Blizzard does not use the PTR to test balance changes (even though they really should, and there is no excuse for them not to). They only use it for ‘bug testing’.

But how often do we actually see glaring bugs with the game fixed? The answer, basically never.

Heroes that have been buggy as hell since launch/since they were added:

  • Reinhardt
  • Sombra
  • Roadhog
  • Mei
  • Doomfist
  • Widowmaker
  • Genji

Reinhardt received ‘bug fixes’ that did not actually work. Sombra has had some of her bugs fixed, but Blizzard stopped halfway and never continued. Roadhog is only beginning to get some attention. Mei has had 1 bug fix since launch, and that was Roadhog’s hook pulling her out of cryo and putting it on cooldown. Doomfist is in the same situation as Reinhardt. Widowmaker’s grapple could be fixed by copying + pasting the code from Hammond’s grapple, but still hasn’t been fixed. Genji + Hanzo’s wall climbs still have minds of their own.

Blizzard has failed to use the PTR to fix these glaring issues. So why does it exist? It’s not used to test balance changes, and it doesn’t fulfil its role of bug fixing.

2

To make sure it doesnt break the game literally

6 Likes
3

Sombra can literally glitch herself out of the map during a comp game currently. It almost feels like she’s hacking her own hero with the amount of crazy bugs she has at any given time

4

The few balance changes that have been brought through in the past because of the PTR would beg to differ. The amount of people testing the build is small so they can’t make many changes until it hits live and they get a clearer picture of balance, but the claim that they don’t use it for balance at all is objectively wrong.

Also, fixing bugs is hard. It’s not something that happens instantly and it’s not something that works every time. The PTR functions as a net to catch the really utterly gamebreaking things, like if rocket punching a wall crashed the game for all players. Again the small population is a kicker, because not only does it make it harder to find issues with less people playing the build, it’s also harder to find the causes of those issues with less sources to report it from.

tl;dr game dev is hard

5

Ya played PTR lately?
before the last patch, from what i have heard rein caused servercrashs… so they disabled him tempoarily till it got fixed- thats something that wont work on live.

There are also alot of bugs that get fixed- getting into unintented places etc.
PTR has a reason to exist.

6

I know, it’s really stupid that people have gone out of their way to compile extensive lists of all her bugs and how to reproduce them, and Blizzard just hasn’t done much.

7

Actually, it is objectively correct. There has never once been a balance change put onto the PTR that has been iterated on and adjusted BEFORE being released to live servers. If they did use the PTR for testing balance changes, that’s what they would’ve done.

Simply putting new balance changes on the PTR does not mean they are testing them.

8

Remember that one time when Watchpoint: Gibraltar lost its floor?
That’s why.

This isn’t true. While uncommon, it has happened. (They reverted multiple of Sombra’s PTR changes a while back for instance)

9

This still means that they aren’t using it to test balance

10

Yeah, I never said they weren’t right, just that your statement was untrue.

11

Genji isn’t buggy anymore. He’s been fixed.

12

Software is incredibly complex. If you fix one thing, it can break another. “Fixing bugs” is not a easy task.

13

That’s not true though, it’s rare but they do change things before they go live. Sombra is the most recent example.