@Alcaro : Well said, and all very true. Being me, though, I will go further - if anyone wants to know my [not
too lengthy, this time] opinion.
Nobody's going to like my viewpoint - and I won't re-hash
all of the reasons why Elvenar's Beta Server is a test server in name only (the primary and very obvious reason being the fact that Beta players must
buy [or grind for] Diamonds, and must also produce, themselves, at the standard slow in-game pace, all 'free' in-game Resources, too - rather than being freely given both of those, in unlimited amounts, to do real, broad-spread testing, as is the case on every other game test server of my experience) - not only this, but also, in my [long-standing] opinion, the main reason why the Beta Server and therefore its Forum are
both dying is the same reason why the rest of the English-language Forums [I don't know about any others] are also dying; namely, because Inno wants it to be so.
Inno are, I am sure,
never unaware - far from it, in fact - of their no doubt very detailed in-game and Forum data. They aren't making some kind of strangely amateurish mistake or misjudgement.. about this, or about anything else, in fact. Examples would include : the 2020 Tourney Formula and its inbuilt 'lever' effect - the end-Chapter grind - the [new] early-Chapter grind - the negative impact of re-valuing Rune Shards - all of it.
It's become quite apparent, over about two years, that Inno now sees Elvenar as a mobile game, with a few still-lucrative/influential browser-based players. And on that basis, consider how most [other] prominent mobile gaming companies typically behave with respect to testing:
- Do most mobile games not even
have a public test server, or
any forums at all, unless you can call Social Meeja and/or easily ignored or brushed-off Play Store reviews 'forums' of sorts? Instead, do mobile games instead always publish their news, PR material, and 'player incentives' on FB or similar - or in Inno's case, either parallel with or, increasingly, before/instead of on their Forums?
- When changes to the game require testing, do mobile games simply impose game changes upon their Live playerbase, usually without announcement (unless the change is meant to be a high-profile revenue-earner, such as Events), and then test the changes themselves, often via randomised so-called A/B testing and metrics [and in some cases also by auto-scraping key-words from various comment sources, as well]?
The answer to both is : Yes, they do this, whether or not [most of] their players realise any/all of it. And has Inno gradually moved to doing all of the above, even though they have access to an expert, voluntary, playerbase, here, who are more than happy to test extensively for them? Yes.
With specific reference to the Beta Forum (and subsequently the EN Forum too - and ? I think also the US) : Did Inno, a while back, 'un-person' any Forum member - including many of Elvenar's most expert and vocal commentators [and critics...] - by suddenly deciding that all accounts which did not log into the Forum within one month would be deleted (actually : renamed as DeletedUserXXXX) - as I've never seen any other Net forum do, in 30+ years? - meaning that even if new players join the Forum, searching for old content has become extremely difficult? Yes.
And do Inno very rarely invite players, in-game, to start a Beta Account - and if so,
almost always when content Inno wants to promote is being 'tested' - or, more accurately, voluntarily bug-hunted, since the comments Beta players are invited to make are so rarely actually heeded? Yes.
Are the two English-language Live Forums always told, when players try to address the developers, that Inno's devs don't read the Forums? Yes.
Has anyone ever seen a comment from a developer on any Forum? To my knowledge : No, but if anyone knows any differently, I'd love to know.
And does
any of this indicate that Inno values its Beta players' opinions, as of course a normal test server's community is highly valued?... No.
I'm not a prophet, so I can be wrong, but I see a very
deliberate effort here, on Inno's part, to sideline the Beta Server, Forum, and community.