[Serious] What is the point of a beta to Blizzard?

[Hitokiribaka]

It's amazing how many unemployed people could successfully run a multi-million dollar MMO better than blizzard.

This guy gets it!

[Thenatural]

That was really, really cringeworthy to read.. And also irrelevant. It's Blizzard's job to manage these expectations, not the playerbase. Of course there will be demanding imbeciles wherever you go - you don't screw up your own timeframes just to cater to a few raging nerds, and Blizzard's well aware of this.

The only thing cringeworthy in this thread is you trying your very hardest to make this thread out to be some sort thought-provoking discussion topic.

[grexly75]

Out of curiosity, why do people like you two bother posting at all? You're contributing literally nothing to the discussion. If you don't want to discuss it, go find another thread to derail with your nonsense.

Blizzard themselves have said that the 3 specs the OP mentioned are not in a good state, and will be receiving changes well after launch. How is it unreasonable to criticise this?

He's not complaining directly about changes/nerfs that he doesn't like, he's asking why this isn't being fixed BEFORE the game goes live, when they've known about the issues for many, many months, and it's pretty important to the people playing those 3 specs.

So it is now illegal to comment in a thread? I suppose if you had your way you would make it illegal just out of spite.

[MinTDH]

I blame the players more than the devs. Every end of an expansion, the collective whiners lose their shit about content droughts.
So in order to appease these impatient entitled little fucktards, they're pushing out the next expansion as soon as possible.
Never mind the fact it's not ready yet and needs at least another 6 months in the oven. They're being forced to rush it because of you fuckers constantly breathing down their necks.

In what ways are we forcing them to release it earlier than it needs to be? What stopped them from delaying it a month or two?

[grexly75]

I blame the players more than the devs. Every end of an expansion, the collective whiners lose their shit about content droughts.
So in order to appease these impatient entitled little fucktards, they're pushing out the next expansion as soon as possible.
Never mind the fact it's not ready yet and needs at least another 6 months in the oven. They're being forced to rush it because of you fuckers constantly breathing down their necks.

Exactly, it is pretty much a case of Blizzard can never win.. Have a long end of xpac content drought before the next xpac to try and get it right, and people bitch and moan about it taking too long.. Have a short end of xpac content drought before the next xpac to appease, the whinging and QQing from the playerbase and yet they still complain about the next xpac feeling that it is being rushed..

[Guardian Bob]

You think they want you to beta test for your input, when they just want to use you to test their code and server stability. You can give class balance input, but they will take it with a huge grain of salt, cause you will have a bias towards your class. It will take a lot for them to change their mind.

[MinTDH]

You think they want you to beta test for your input, when they just want to use you to test their code and server stability. You can give class balance input, but they will take it with a huge grain of salt, cause you will have a bias towards your class. It will take a lot for them to change their mind.

This rings true for Overwatch PTRs as well. They'll hesitate to divert from their original plans quite a bit until everything is live, then fix it later if it continues to be a problem. Only when it's super obvious it shouldn't make it into live will it change.

[beanman12345]

I don't think beta is for class design or number tuning. It's for bugged quests where you drop through the world stuff like that. They are very protective of class design. Unfortunately we had celestalon and he sucked, and now that he is finally Gone we're seeing changes that are need, most well come in 8.1 but better late then never.

[grexly75]

I have to admit I know nothing of game development. It's a field I've been avoiding like plague, because "it's problematic" in terms of cashflow and people management (tends to burn out people, no career paths etc). But I do know a thing or two about software development and running software companies.

First - I think Blizzard are doing fantastic job as a business. They're extremely hard to beat and they have strong franchises and great strategy. I also realise that WoW as a product wasn't really designed for this kind of longevity from the start - not many games (or software products in general) are, so pretty cool that they're still adding stuff to it. But then again, the MUD I coded in -92 is still running and actively developed, so go figure - even messy C code can survive decades. I'm lucky I don't have to provide commercial 24/7 multi-language support for it though...

But - I think current day Blizzard (and WoW especially) suffers greatly from extremely poor community management. The forums are a joke. The regional split of the forums is even bigger joke. The devs are maybe communicating, but the feedback loop between customers and designers isn't really working. Video Q&A's with pre-processed questions aren't really doing much, they rarely go into the necessary detail.

CMs are probably doing good work outside the forums (apparently they do lot of "meetings"), but again, the CMs can't give us any authoritative answers - they're just useless messengers between us and the devs in their ivory tower. And in EU .. well I don't even know what they do in EU. Not a lot.

This is strange to me - in all the software companies I've worked at, the devs at R&D are the 3rd line support and service tickets and bug reports just like everyone else - sure, the 1st and 2nd line tend to answer the bulk of them, but for example in betas, the devs ARE the frontline - because they're still developing stuff and they are supposed to interact directly with the customers to hear about concerns so they can change things rapidly. Building a huge, long and complicated feedback loop into beta would be... weird...

At Blizzard it seems that the main designers (who don't even code anything, they just "design", sort of a architect type) are the top dogs who don't have to interact and don't have to bother with talking to customers or answering to feedback or reports. Maybe this is just "the Blizzard way" but I haven't seen that functioning anywhere else in the software industry (even with the big players like Oracle and Microsoft - if you're important partner, you have direct channel to R&D folks, especially during betas).

Yeah it is one of these things that we will never really know how Blizzard do things.. Especially from what you said of how the companies that you have worked for did things.. Maybe one day we will get an ex Blizzard employee explain the inner workings of Blizzard as from what you have said they seem to do things very much differently..

[Weeps]

Honestly, Blizz needs to clean up their code.

Everyone who has even the most elementary understanding of coding knows this. It shows every time a patch goes live. They find odd behaviors (class spell not working, class severely nerfed or buffed accidentally, etc).

What it will take is blizzard committing a team of 10 people whose strengths lie in cleaning up code and eliminating redundancies. When it is all done, downsize to 3-5 and keep them on to help perform routine code cleaning.

What do I know, anyway? They may already be doing that. Worst patch rollout ever.

Clean code that enables easy editing and has a strong template to work from for next expansions. Stop fucking changing the dps system. Go back to MoP for most classes and upgrade it from there.

[Darkguyver2020]

Exactly, it is pretty much a case of Blizzard can never win.. Have a long end of xpac content drought before the next xpac to try and get it right, and people bitch and moan about it taking too long.. Have a short end of xpac content drought before the next xpac to appease, the whinging and QQing from the playerbase and yet they still complain about the next xpac feeling that it is being rushed..

Exactly. I wish people would realize the amount of work that goes into a game as big and complex as WoW. It doesn't help matters that the devs are also scrambling about trying to fix about 14 years of old content as well after the numbers/ilevel squish broke a ton of things.

Honestly, Blizz needs to clean up their code.

Everyone who has even the most elementary understanding of coding knows this. It shows every time a patch goes live. They find odd behaviors (class spell not working, class severely nerfed or buffed accidentally, etc).

What it will take is blizzard committing a team of 10 people whose strengths lie in cleaning up code and eliminating redundancies. When it is all done, downsize to 3-5 and keep them on to help perform routine code cleaning.

What do I know, anyway? They may already be doing that. Worst patch rollout ever.

Clean code that enables easy editing and has a strong template to work from for next expansions. Stop fucking changing the dps system. Go back to MoP for most classes and upgrade it from there.

Instead of bitching on MMO-Champion forums. How about you go apply for a job at Blizzard, Mr. Knowitall.

[grexly75]

Honestly, Blizz needs to clean up their code.

Everyone who has even the most elementary understanding of coding knows this. It shows every time a patch goes live. They find odd behaviors (class spell not working, class severely nerfed or buffed accidentally, etc).

What it will take is blizzard committing a team of 10 people whose strengths lie in cleaning up code and eliminating redundancies. When it is all done, downsize to 3-5 and keep them on to help perform routine code cleaning.

What do I know, anyway? They may already be doing that. Worst patch rollout ever.

Clean code that enables easy editing and has a strong template to work from for next expansions. Stop fucking changing the dps system. Go back to MoP for most classes and upgrade it from there.

Problem could be is how much of a mess it is if it exists and how long it would take them to clean it up.. Considering you are looking at 14 years worth of changes to the base game..

[Flurryfang]

[Serious] The point of a beta can be many things, but when it comes to WoW, it is done for multiple specific reasons. It is for example done to stress test areas, events or functions. It is done to gather opinionated feedback from the players, but also feedback from the players in the form of data gathered from their actions within the game. It is also done to see players interact with the enviroment and see if they encounter bugs.... That is actually the biggest part of betas in WoW, clearing out bugs and making the game playable for launch.

One thing is important to note: Betas are not there for the game to be perfect, but it is there for the game to be developed in a way where interactions and designs are improved through people interacting with it, who are not developers themselfs. When the beta ends, it does not end because there is nothing left to do, but because the development process have lasted as long as it could in this stage(or as long as the plan would allow) and it is then launched. It is pretty much impossible to fix all problems of a specific system, application or game before it launches as there is always a constant battle between improving, adding and polishing things for your product.

So when Blizzard launches an expansion which still lacks things, have bugs and which can use more development time, it is often not because the beta have failed or anything like that. Most of the time, the beta has done its job of supplying the developers with the data they need. The problems are often located in timeplanning, time management, indeciesiveness and overall mistakes in the development process, not just during the beta. I bet you that Blizzard have 300% or more data from the beta than what they can actually use in making improvements based upon their time constraint, but that data is then lead over to further development teams, which luckily can develop ahead of the beta crew and might already have worked out solutions for the first major patch of the game, for problems found out during the beta.

[Angeredsoul]

You forgot the part where they kept telling everybody that the internal beta build was 2-3 builds ahead and not to worry about the problems

Love when they drop this bad boy on any legimate issue that is raised only to completely ignore it.

[Hawkknight97]

I except the launch of BFA is going to be on the levels of WoD. Where its going to be 3 days due to server crashes.

[grexly75]

Exactly. I wish people would realize the amount of work that goes into a game as big and complex as WoW. It doesn't help matters that the devs are also scrambling about trying to fix about 14 years of old content as well after the numbers/ilevel squish broke a ton of things.

Pretty much, but unfortunately try telling that to some of the playerbase, who seem to think that it is just an easy matter of clicking ones fingers and everything will be working perfectly..

[FelPlague]

I except the launch of BFA is going to be on the levels of WoD. Where its going to be 3 days due to server crashes.

why? Legion went perfectly, why should BFA be much differant?

[Themerlin]

It seems every expansion we run into the same issues and cycle.

Class changes announced.
Side A: That is broken and will really hurt class A. Class B will be ridiculously overpowered if this happens.
Side B: It's just announcements anything can change.

Alpha is released.
Side A: Whoa this class plays horribly and needs to be changed or this will be a major problem in {insert expansion here}.
Side B: It's just Alpha, anything can change

Beta is release.
Side A: Ok this is even worse than Beta and some of these classes really need to be toned down."
Side B: "It's just beta. Chill."

Pre-Patch.
Side A: " Sigh..."
Side B: "Wait until the expansion. This is designed for {insert level cap} with {insert class change item (Artifact, Azerite, iLvl, etc..)}. It'll get better.

Launch.
Side A: "This isn't fun. Class X is wrecking me in PvP. This isn't balanced at all. Class Y is completely broken and almost unplayable and really not fun to play."
Side B: "Well they said they were going to a pass after Mythic raiding just wait."

Five Weeks into Mythic Raiding.
"Insert 10 pages of patch notes for class changes that should have been at launch."
Side B: "See...?"

Look it's a cycle and it happens all the time. Cataclysm Druids were beyond broken and Paragon stacked them like crazy to down Nefarian. It appears that Rogue is going down that path with all three specs being monstrously strong now and from my experience in Beta just as strong at cap with Azerite. It seems that feedback is given over and over to fall on deaf ear with legitimate feedback and complaints.

Now we have three specs that are getting substantial changes in 8.1 because "Blizz ran out of time" (when they admit to having the most amount of people on staff than ever before) and had several issues ignored during Alpha/Beta. This always seems to be an issue with their betas and PTRs such that they don't listen, it launches, we see hot fixes to address it, and only once it is large enough for people to really start calling them out do they do anything though the feedback and data was there all the time.

Thus I ask, what is the point of Beta or PTR if these substantial issues continue to exist even after constructive and great feedback is given to them?

The point of Beta is to report a floating Monelite Ore that is unreachable.

Its the important stuff dummy.

[morph4037]

Pretty much Alpha/Beta is just testing server stability and free press via "Influencers", then more free press as it goes to others as well.

Could be off base, that's just what this last a/b appeared like. Considering I'm waiting till sometime after 8.1 to get my spec looked at and balanced right...

[MinTDH]

why? Legion went perfectly, why should BFA be much differant?

Never know, really. I don't expect it to go anywhere NEARLY as bad as WoD's at all, but anything can come up to cause issues (Garrisons worked flawlessly til they hit live servers for some reason, communities was what was breaking 8.0 somehow, etc.)