I’m not the only one who thinks this latest patch launch was a disaster on the Time Rifts. Many are left wondering HOW these events made it to live and HOW thoroughly they were tested before hand. Because lets be honest the majority of PTR testers are mainly raiders or Mythic+ runners.
I think we need to start including incentives in retail for stress testing public events like Time Rifts to get more bodies thrown at it to thoroughly test it before it makes it to live.
Incentives could be something like “Help us stress test 5 different Public Events on PTR and Receive this Stress Ball toy that squeaks and does an emote when you use it!” Little things that any true collector of this game will jump at the chance to get.
I cannot believe that Time Rifts made it to retail how they are right now. Please add incentive to get more than just Raiders and Mythic + runners to test your games!’
Edit: I’d like to add that Diablo 4 had Live Game incentives for stress testing and beta testing the game. Why can’t WoW?
One way to do this could be to do focused testing during a weekend maybe a month prior to launch. Something like:
“This Saturday, we’re doing focused testing for the upcoming world event in patch x.x.x. Between 6PM and 10PM, participate in this event in order to get <insert reward here>”.
It doesn’t have to be world events, it could be class tuning after a rework, a mega dungeon, new player experience, Chromie Time etc.
Connect it to Tender’s, already existing in game mog or something. I’d love for it to not be something new (as in not forcing collectors to do PTR) and also allow the player to have a choice in picking a reward. Also, having it being already existing rewards would also remove any FOMO parts.
The intention of the example I gave was not to make the reward a one time exclusive to that specific patches PTR, more like something you can work towards off and on. Like say you only tested 3 events in .1.5. Next PTR .1.7 you can test 2 things to achieve the reward. Creating more FOMO is not my intention and I’m sorry if it came off that way.
I do like the idea of involving Tender as an incentive.
Think one of the issues is even a ptr stress test won’t have the level of people you’ll get on live. The lag though seems better on the time rift boss.
This is the point of offering incentive in the retail part of the game FOR stress testing on PTR. Never underestimate the power of offering a shiny in an MMO for doing something relatively easy.
(Edited to include the following sentence) Echoing my sentiments regarding the PTR, including other issues that incentives would resolve for retail:
PTR ought to be incentivized better. Whenever I have been on the PTR, it was to practice a dungeon or raid per a PVE guild in a very structured environment that did not promote seeking bugs or issues. And if I happened to find a bug in that content, I would report it.
There is so much else to report on. Look at the Bugs subforum: We have the right eye texture of the Dracthyr being incorrect. It appears to be broken on other races too:
And also the monk tier set being broken for the chest, legs, belt and boots for 3D assets:
Monks are still stuck with a broken tier set appearance even weeks after reporting it in-game as a bug and through the forums.
Taking one look at the Bug Report subforum really delves into the ‘why’ incentives would be good.
In an ideal world, we would all be motivated to utilize the PTR and have more people finding bugs through quantity (more eyes on these changes).
Realistically, incentivizing looks like the way to execute it best so that these things don’t make it to live, including a much-needed stress test that can be properly conducted.
Everyone and their dog could’ve figured out by just seeing how the Time Rift was being created that it would cause massive and massive lag, something about having 100+ people in a tiny room.
We had this problem in AV and Ashran when its 40v40 with pets, NPCs and flashy spell effects, and we’ll have it in any other content with this scale.
I remember Blizzard saying they had the best servers money could buy.
Tomorrow is the start of a new patch and with it a new public event. I will not be able to see how badly it runs this week due to work schedule but let me know.
The latest Renown exploit was an absolute disaster and had there been people to test PvE content other than Raiding and Mythic + would said exploit have been found faster and fixed before live?
It remains to be seen. But testing PTR content other that WFR and M+ needs to be done and what other way to incentivize people to do so than to offer a shiny?
It’s a difficult one, I don’t think the players should be responsible for the quality of the game, there needs to be (better) communication between QA and Devs.
What I could see is that you can f.e. Progress a Renown Track on PTR and keep some of it for the Retail launch. (You can get renown to level 5 on PTR) - this way you ensure some testing.
Yeah I was going to add the same. It would be nice to see “stress test weekend” events in the WoW PTR to incentivize people and have less bad events like the time rifts. Even super blooms are still a little laggy with a full group, and I have a pretty good computer. A decent amount of people might look at PTR content who normally wouldn’t if they got a pet, bakcpack transmog, or some other unique transmog (and maybe a Feat of Strength)
I don’t think adding any power advantages or head starts for PTR would be good to implement. Some people have obligations they can’t reschedule outside of a 6 hour window that stress test may be on. Better to reward cosmetic over power gain.
While the topic revolves around stress test - I meant it more over the whole duration of the PTR so there is no need to rush it and you get a big sample size of ppl doing rep stuff.
While there needs to be incentive aka a reward for stress test, I agree with Artemisha. A headstart on a Renown track is too much of an advantage and rewards should stick to being cosmetic like a mount, pet, toy or piece of cosmetic gear. That alone is enough to get a good handful of people to test the content that needs to be tested.
To get people to test the right thing that needs to be tested, Blizz could add a progress tracker such as a temporary quest objective on PTR that will display your progress on testing towards your reward. Say like test the Emerald Frenzy 2 times or Gain 2 Renown levels with this new Renown track.
Regardless though something needs to be done to get more people onto the PTR other than just Mythic + and Raiders.
