News: [PTS]Live Tests this week

[ChipMHazard]

Just had a fun little hide and seek with Higby. Sadly I will not be able to present Hamma and Jenny with a hair trophy.
Also Higby was totally speed hacking... Going to have to report him now.

Something really needs to be done in order to attract people over to the test server. Perhaps some official wee competitions, advertised on the official forum and the launcher. Might get more people to stay on and test the changes.

[CrimsonTemplar]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Just had a fun little hide and seek with Higby. Sadly I will not be able to present Hamma and Jenny with a hair trophy.
Also Higby was totally speed hacking... Going to have to report him now.

Something really needs to be done in order to attract people over to the test server. Perhaps some official wee competitions, advertised on the official forum and the launcher. Might get more people to stay on and test the changes.

Well it seems the devs are getting better at announcing times, a couple o days in advance. Managed to get some of me outfit runnin around.

However yes I agree something like a competition or objective.

Anyway Malorn mentioned something about 'experimental' changes for the test this evening. Perhaps it's some form of program that will bring PS2 out of a game and into physical reality...or it could something else.

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by CrimsonTemplar

Anyway Malorn mentioned something about 'experimental' changes for the test this evening. Perhaps it's some form of program that will bring PS2 out of a game and into physical reality...or it could something else.

Considering I haven't needed to update since late last night, I doubt there was anything experimental going on...

...Other then whatever was causing me to crash every 15 minutes or so...

[CrimsonTemplar]

Originally Posted by Whiteagle

Considering I haven't needed to update since late last night, I doubt there was anything experimental going on...

...Other then whatever was causing me to crash every 15 minutes or so...

My thoughts exactly.

[Shogun]

i was on the road when the test was sheduled, so i could not attend

but if there were too few testers, some kind of incentive may help.
maybe do it like startrek online. they always have some small gift for everybody who tests their new stuff at a weekend before release. and this gift is for the live char, not for the one on testserver.
maybe make a portion of the xp earned during a sheduled playtest carry over to one or all livechars. or grant a special decal, camo. helmet or even an exclusive weapon-skin.

if you think giving something to live chars is bad, at least reintroduce the ps1 testserver classic: the xp fountain.
reward ridiculous amounts of xp at the end of a playtest to everybody who attended for a specified amount of time. to let people boost their testchars even more.
this would not only help to make people want to help out, it would also help to better reflect the battlerank situation on the liveserver for the next test.

[TheSaltySeagull]

Originally Posted by Shogun

i was on the road when the test was sheduled, so i could not attend

but if there were too few testers, some kind of incentive may help.
maybe do it like startrek online. they always have some small gift for everybody who tests their new stuff at a weekend before release. and this gift is for the live char, not for the one on testserver.
maybe make a portion of the xp earned during a sheduled playtest carry over to one or all livechars. or grant a special decal, camo. helmet or even an exclusive weapon-skin.

if you think giving something to live chars is bad, at least reintroduce the ps1 testserver classic: the xp fountain.
reward ridiculous amounts of xp at the end of a playtest to everybody who attended for a specified amount of time. to let people boost their testchars even more.
this would not only help to make people want to help out, it would also help to better reflect the battlerank situation on the liveserver for the next test.

The thing I find amusing here is how many people both on this forum and the official ones demanded a test server and openly criticized SOE for not having one. And now that they have given you one nobody ever uses it. But you can be sure that when new updates go live those people will bitch up a storm about new things they dont like when they could have played on test and offered feedback then before shit went live.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

The thing I find amusing here is how many people both on this forum and the official ones demanded a test server and openly criticized SOE for not having one. And now that they have given you one nobody ever uses it. But you can be sure that when new updates go live those people will bitch up a storm about new things they dont like when they could have played on test and offered feedback then before shit went live.

i think most people who demanded a testserver are using it.
but that´s it. if we can´t draw in additional players we can´t test properly.
so to draw in the selfish players who think attending a playtest takes away from their live char, soe needs to provide an incentive.
testing the harasser was ultimate fun. and i am actually sad that i couldn´t test the new changes yesterday, but i like to hop on the testserver to see what´s up.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

The thing I find amusing here is how many people both on this forum and the official ones demanded a test server and openly criticized SOE for not having one. And now that they have given you one nobody ever uses it. But you can be sure that when new updates go live those people will bitch up a storm about new things they dont like when they could have played on test and offered feedback then before shit went live.

Yep. I have to plead guilty to this.

I have been on the test server a few times although not, I admit, last night nor the other scheduled test.

However I won't be complaining about the lattice, I think it's good. I will be complaining about those fast hack times if they are transcribed into live, which I seriously doubt they will be.

One thing I am uncertain about is the max abilities. Yesterday I saw the NC max shield (not in the scheduled test), I don't know what to think of it at present. Does it enable NC maxes to kill quicker? They can hardly kill more quickly than instant which is what they do at present.

I like the new tower design. It's not much of a change and to be honest I like the tower before the design.

I've gone through the new player tuition twice. A good start I would say but I'd ask that it is built in chapters that you can do, leave and then pick up later. Sort of like the tutorial in PS1 (which also came along well after launch).

I'd also urge that example bases are put into VR and incorporated into the tutorial also - Malorn said something about similar being a possibility.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by ringring

One thing I am uncertain about is the max abilities. Yesterday I saw the NC max shield (not in the scheduled test), I don't know what to think of it at present. Does it enable NC maxes to kill quicker? They can hardly kill more quickly than instant which is what they do at present.

no problem. the maxes that are able to kill even faster now are the tr and the vs.

the nc max only gains a defensive bonus. after all, weapons are deactivated while the shield is active, so no faster killing.
fun fact: i don´t see many nc maxes in the game at all, because they are utterly useless outside of buildings. but still every tr and vs keeps on bitching they were overpowered. but not a single nc weapon is overpowered anymore. don´t know how it looks like on other servers, but on miller the only way to win a fight for nc, is bringing twice the manpower the enemy has. that´s why you never see a cont that is "last won by nc"

[TheSaltySeagull]

Originally Posted by Shogun

no problem. the maxes that are able to kill even faster now are the tr and the vs.

the nc max only gains a defensive bonus. after all, weapons are deactivated while the shield is active, so no faster killing.
fun fact: i don´t see many nc maxes in the game at all, because they are utterly useless outside of buildings. but still every tr and vs keeps on bitching they were overpowered. but not a single nc weapon is overpowered anymore. don´t know how it looks like on other servers, but on miller the only way to win a fight for nc, is bringing twice the manpower the enemy has. that´s why you never see a cont that is "last won by nc"

NC shield is good for breaching which is a big part of organized MAX play and it can synergize well with close range advantage of the NC MAX as it can be used to block damage as you move in. Its meant to be a situational tool like lockdown is for TR. You will have situations where it will shine and situations where it will not.

As far as the NC as a faction goes they are sitting pretty good overall. They are especially nice if you want to snipe or play HA since you start out with the best weapon available to you as your default. Any failings with NC on miller is not because of your faction but because of the player base of that server. Matherson and waterson NC do not appear to struggle much at all.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by TheSaltySeagull

NC shield is good for breaching which is a big part of organized MAX play and it can synergize well with close range advantage of the NC MAX as it can be used to block damage as you move in. Its meant to be a situational tool like lockdown is for TR. You will have situations where it will shine and situations where it will not.

As far as the NC as a faction goes they are sitting pretty good overall. They are especially nice if you want to snipe or play HA since you start out with the best weapon available to you as your default. Any failings with NC on miller is not because of your faction but because of the player base of that server. Matherson and waterson NC do not appear to struggle much at all.

i know what the shield is useful for, but ringring asked if the nc is now going to kill even faster than instant, and that´s not the case. the shield is indeed only useful for direct storming. it doesn´t protect the sides or back of the max, doesn´t speed up the max, and deactivates the weapons.
nothing that speeds up anything.
the tr get a speedup on all weapon functions and the vs get a speedup of the max itself (and the weapons if i remember it right).

really? the nc on the us servers are not the overwhelmed underdogs? so maybe the miller server suffers from too many language barriers, but this would affect the other factions as well.