A new kind of balance team

[AdmiralZeech]

There's a paradox when it comes to community balance patches.

- People complain when balance patches are made live, because they don't think they're tested enough.
- People can't be bothered playing the beta and testing it.

Perhaps rather than coders and architects to work on balance changes, we should instead devote some resources to a "balance tester / demonstrator" team?

- Vote or appoint some players to be part of the team. These players are chosen by the community on the basis, "I trust this person's skill to fully exploit any potential imbalances."

- As part of their role, this team takes feedback on upcoming patchnotes, and then either proves or disproves the forum theorycrafting that people like to spout. They can either do that by holding matches with each other, "We'll try to use this new buffed Titan and see if it can win matches," or they will play matches against the naysayers, "Nerfed unit X is still viable, I challenge you and I'll beat you with it to prove it."

- As part of their role, they will also participate in regular Beta tournaments, to demonstrate general competitive gameplay.

- For all of these events, replays / VODs are posted so the community can see the results. No-one can claim that betas are not tested, anymore.

[biass]

Well
uh
Funny enough
We already have a balance testing team, see the bright blue names? that's the team. memberlist.php?mode=group&g=21

Most of the stuff in the new patch we tested ages ago and refined the numbers for this patch you see now, like nano, and RAS

[AdmiralZeech]

Well
uh
Funny enough
We already have a balance testing team, see the bright blue names? that's the team. memberlist.php?mode=group&g=21

Most of the stuff in the new patch we tested ages ago and refined the numbers for this patch you see now, like nano, and RAS

Are they doing their work in a structured way, with replays and VODs to demonstrate results, and inform public discussion?

Are they laying the smackdown on forum naysayers, by proving them wrong (or right) in proper matches, publically viewable?

It could be a matter of visibility / promotion / transparency. The balance testing team's efforts might be multiplied if their work was more public.

[Exotic_Retard]

in equilibrium we just use the awesome power of our loyal fans:

1. we ensure that the eq beta is playable at all times, if its not it gets fixed the next day, and we ask people to try it again. that way it doesnt get the reputation of being broken all the time

2. we test everything in sandbox after every single change we make, even if it was adding a comment. this sounds like its excessive but it actually helps a lot.

and this means we get few test games per day. and i mean proper teamgames, ect.
by comparison, beta gets a lot more daily activity, however unlike equilibrium where each of those games was monitored for errors (i.e. if you find sth it will be reported)
most of official beta is just 900 rated players who dont read aeolus, some 0 rated player vs ai, and rehosts xD

currently beta has this reputation of being unplayable. this is because it had issues where the game actually crashed quite often, and other things like desyncs on pings ect. partly this is because of lack of testing from the developers side - they all expect beta testers to do that for them but currently theres no incentive for that, so most people stay away from that.

ive heard many great stories about how developers already test everything so much, but really pretty much every bug ive reported was found like this:
i look at the change so i can see what i need to do about it in equilibrium - i find some stupid bug within 2 minutes of spawning the unit or w.e.
in the end it doesnt matter how much time was spent on this testing; it just means something is wrong, and if lots of time is being spent on it then theres something wrong with the testing.

beta testers wont really test for things like this, in fact its pretty hard to notice things like this if you are busy being ingame.
their job is to catch the things you missed that require a lot of stuff to happen like lots of units on the map or are pretty rare bugs ect.

have a nice day, your beloved balance terrorists <3

[Zock]

This team does exist. Just two topics above yours: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=12492&p=127465#p127465

Now, a large majority of the people who applied aren't doing anything, and it's easier to communicate with the few who are helpful directly, so the team is unfortunately largely a relict of the past due to lack of participation. It only takes a few motivated testers to revive it though. The team is also used to find suitable candidates for the balance team.

[biass]

I think "public balance testing" is a solid idea however, maybe casting some test games or whatever

[keyser]

Obviously people in "balance team" aren't active, but it's the same way for people in general on the beta.

Which mean both solution we had aren't good enough.

the only solution is to increase the attract of doing testing :
by rewarding people with avatar. (the "tester team" avatar was already done but never got pushed on server by sheeo/downlord)
by doing tournament.
by mainly casting beta game


or you can also force people to play on "beta". And it's actually what's happening (even if not a deliberate act) by pushing it into the game, and gathering the feedback of people that are complaining afterward.

(also from time to time i decide to host a beta game, but whenever people realize it's a beta game they leave lobby, so i prefer to not tell them)

Are they doing their work in a structured way, with replays and VODs to demonstrate results, and inform public discussion?

I've been trying to get this stuff going, but as i said motivation and being aware that there is test to be done is one of the main issue.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11643&p=119277#p119155

there is also a lack of communication (link to the lack of awareness about if test are needed) :
we have some stuff like a part of the forum dedicated to balance tester.
and we tried to do an auto-join to "tester team" channel in chat but this stuff is broken and softly (or washy i don't remember) can't figure out how to solve this issue. (this would greatly help though)

[Exotic_Retard]

by rewarding people with avatar. (the "tester team" avatar was already done but never got pushed on server by sheeo/downlord)
by doing tournament.
by mainly casting beta game

1. sure why not? theres an avatar for that already (hue). we just need to be very prompt on removing it so it doesnt become the new tourney participant avatar/useless
2. already had discussion about that with tokyto and the boys - bscly if its competitive with prizes and stuff no one wants to play a buggy game.
3. well if we can manage that, it would be cool. if a caster cant find a beta game to cast then obv he will just cast regular. we could do some things like organize replays of beta games to cast or sth to help that a long a bit. maybe

all this is dealing with symptoms though. the main reason to play beta is that you prefer some change in it to faf. currently that simply appears to be not true.
not my job to solve that though so xD

[vongratz]

Another approach.
1 - BALANCE
Balance patches could be created AS MODS by two or more crews, with distinct ideas, and disponible for playing by the members in the vault.After a LOT of time the balance modifs that people loved to play could be incorporated.Beside that,a stable BALANCE version would be disponible for al lplayers.

2 - IMPROVEMENTS
Improvements of all types always could have a Beta version for use at our own risk, BUT the most important would be a LAST STABLE VERSION, Always disponible.This will mantain the people focused in playing the game .
Best regards

[AdmiralZeech]

This team does exist. Just two topics above yours: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=12492&p=127465#p127465

Now, a large majority of the people who applied aren't doing anything, and it's easier to communicate with the few who are helpful directly, so the team is unfortunately largely a relict of the past due to lack of participation. It only takes a few motivated testers to revive it though. The team is also used to find suitable candidates for the balance team.

Ok, well it sounds like lack of motivation, memberships and time generally then, I guess. I have no suggestions for that.