Environmental Improvement
I have no intention of blaming either Survivors or Killers. I simply want to share my thoughts from the perspective of how we can improve the PTB (Public Test Build).
If you have any good ideas, I would love for you to share them.
It has been mentioned in past posts that there are few participants in the PTB, and I believe there are several reasons for this:
- Console players cannot participate even if they want to.
- Even on PC, you need to download tens of gigabytes of data to join the PTB, and the same again to return to the live server.
- Recently, the PTB has been scheduled to overlap with major events such as the Anniversary Event.
- There are no meaningful incentives for participating in the PTB.
Regarding point 1, it is as stated. As for point 2, even if someone wants to casually try out new characters or environments, it takes at least several minutes—and in some cases hours—to download the necessary files.
Moreover, if you want to use a newly released character that everyone is eager to try, there’s often a long queue, with wait times of up to 30 minutes just to get one match.
For players who only have a bit of time in the evening after work or other commitments, they may only be able to play one or two matches before calling it a day.
Even if they want to return to the live server for a quick change of pace, they’ll face another long download, making the barrier to simply play the game extremely high.
Now that we have the new Modifier system, how about incorporating the PTB into this system so that even console players can participate and experience the content?
Point 3 is also a major reason for the low participation rate. PTBs are often launched during ongoing events.
Given the choice between a PTB—where you can barely play due to time and effort—and a live event that’s immediately accessible and full of rewards, most players would understandably choose the event.
If the concern is that not enough data can be collected due to low participation, then perhaps the issue lies with the PTB’s scheduling and duration, and those aspects should be reconsidered from the ground up.
As for point 4, the lack of any incentives for players who go through the trouble of downloading, testing, and providing feedback is also a big factor in the lack of motivation to participate.
For example, even a small reward like 1000 Iridescent Shards for PTB participants would likely increase the number of players willing to join.
Furthermore, the PTB should not be a one-time thing. Based on the data collected from the first round, a second or even third PTB should be conducted to refine the balance.
If that had been done, critical issues like Last Standing or Urban Evasion bugs could have been resolved before going live.
Also, if BHVR is aware of a disconnect between themselves and the players, then they should actively play both Survivor and Killer roles on the live server.
While past livestreams have mentioned internal playtesting, if that were truly happening, they would have definitely noticed bugs like the pipe UI issue.
The fact that they didn’t notice suggests they are not playing the game at all. Instead of relying on a safe, internal environment, they should experience the real conditions in which players are engaging with the game.
How tough it is for solo Survivors, how prevalent tunneling is, how common Survivor taunting and gate teabagging are—these are things that can never be fully understood through internal tests alone.
In my opinion, only when BHVR understands what kind of environment players are currently dealing with and creates a system where it’s easier to participate in the PTB, can we say that they are truly starting from the right place.
Comments
PTB would be more attractive if more changes was adjusted to release after it. PTB now feels more like “try buggy thing the first if u can’t wait for your fav char rework or some additions”
PTBs are mainly for the hype nowadays. The thing is, BHVR only has a few days after PTB-Launch to push the Patch to Live, since it takes around 2 weeks for all platforms to launch the Patch. So there are only a few days where feedback can be considered and most of it is basically used for the Hotfixes.
@Topic:
As I said before, PTBs are mainly for the Hype, so I dont expect that they will change anything. Furthermore the big PTB-size was due to an engine Update, usually PTBs are not as big as they were with the TWD-PTB.
But I agree overall, I think they should do a different approach and offer more PTBs. And one step for that would be to have a separate PTB-Client, which is inactive/not accessible when no PTB is live, but when a PTB is live, players can update it and play the PTB without having to leave the Live Servers. This would also allow it to make PTBs accessible for other platforms aside from Steam.
And it would allow for more PTBs and more testing outside of the regular 6 weeks period you have for Chapters and Midchapters.
They def can’t keep up with a pace. Studying game design myself I just understand that they probably don’t have enough people to work on project up to deadlines they planned. And that’s since Wesker release, I assume… technical minor issues go unsolved for months, and the tangled code remains a complete mess.
Then they decide to update the engine... and we're in tartarus :₽
I hope they’ll be more clear with technical struggles and allowed themselves to have time to fix everything instead of working on every new chapter. Quantity over quality always leads to income drop later