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What is the POINT of Beta

Calenmir

Well-Known Member
For a long time I read many posts made in live by respected members telling those of us who were interested in impacting the changes the game was making to join beta. That the POINT of beta was to test the changes so that LIVE wouldn't be impacted. Yet all I see is changes made in beta, then a week or two later, those EXACT SAME CHANGES are made to live.

Inno admits there are mistakes, but STILL import them to the live game. I rather got the impression that having a beta game to help with testing and give feedback. That the feedback would then be used to change (or not change) the update and ONLY WHEN IT WAS SUITABLE take those changes to the Live game.

That, however, is never what happens. To date, they make changes in Beta. We test those changes and give feedback. The latest being why I'm asking this question. Moderators have brought messages out that Inno AGREED that the changes sucked and were working on a fix. OK. Further that spells would be made available in BETA to help compensate. WONDERFUL!

Now, on May 16th they released those EXACT SAME changes that they KNEW would create havoc, destroy cities, halt progress and anger players in the live game. But on May 17th, a day later, they released IN BETA the compensation.

Please EXPLAIN TO ME WHY you released that in Live? Why didn't you wait KNOWING the problems you would create? WHAT is the point of beta feedback? Why are we doing this when you KNOW you will release it anyway in the live game?

I have always known a beta system to be a testing system. That the changes are tested and made sure to be compatible with the game and until they were FIXED they would not be released. Why then do you release these exact same changes to the live game if you KNOW you are going to provide updates? Why are you willing to endure LOSS of players when you can easily avoid it by HOLDING THE UPATE UNTIL YOU CAN GIVE OUT THE COMPENSATION??

Does anyone get how avoidable all this is? Does anyone at Inno really care? So - really - what is the ACTUAL POINT of being a beta tester if you are hell bent on releasing the same crappy updates on live anyway? I rather thought the point was to AVOID the pitfalls, nasty feedback and loss of players. Your largest player base is in the live game, so please, someone tell me the point. Oh, and answer my questions rather than just ignore me.
 

Dony

King of Bugs
That the POINT of beta was to test the changes so that LIVE wouldn't be impacted.
i have never heard of this statement, there are 0 perfectly polished games on the market
there must be a border in development so they can actually release something or else there wouldnt be any game at all if dev would just hear feedback, make adjustments, hear followup feedback, make followup adjustments and so on in an infinite loop, there would still be some people who wouldnt like something and would like it to be changed
 

Calenmir

Well-Known Member
That's not the point. The point is... you don't create havoc in a system - a live system - if changes are needed. Imagine if you job did that to you? I worked for an oil company and we tested the changes needed before they went live and if they impacted the live system negatively then they weren't released. If you think this is alright, then you and I can agree to disagree.

If you've missed the point, and clearly you have, the point of my note is WHY WAS THIS RELEASED LIVE when they KNEW they would make changes. WHY weren't the changes release simultaneously with the residence and spell? If they MUST change those buildings, then IN LIVE it should all happen simultaneously. Clear now?
 

Deleted User - 60152

Guest
From what I've the Beta sever is NOT treated like a Beta environment. INNO has a hard and fast (set in stone schedule) and it seems like only an act of god will prevent them from releasing on that schedule. I believe the only time they held back an update was the initial change to the trader - they made a few tweaks before releasing to live.

Personally, instead of having a set in stone schedule that says we have to have an update on a set schedule, it would be better for the game and the players if updates were made when needed and when actually ready. This latest update is a prime example. They held to their hard and fast schedule instead of waiting to release when everything was ready - the nerf, the compensation package and the new spell.

Of course games such as Elvenar and games that are growing are not perfect and need to be updated and even rebalanced the longer they continue. However, updates that create serious impacts on the players like this one did (and a few of the ones in the past) should be released as a full package - not piecemeal starting with the damage done, followed by opps we didn't realize it would be this extreme so here's a few compensation gifts - however, the cool part still isn't here and we don't have a timeline for that yet - so good luck recovering from the damage done. (Yes, the Beta server told us this would happen and offered suggestions on how to mitigate the issue - but we couldn't be bothered to delay the release on live to explore some of those suggestions, or we just didn't care enough to bother because we have this release schedule that is set in stone and if we deviate from it Chaos will engulf the world)
 

Ashrem

Well-Known Member
The developers aren't going to stop everything just because we don't like it. The point of a beta is to prevent game-breaking changes from reaching Live. As inconvenient and irritating as the rebalancing was, it didn't break the game. I don't like it, and I wish they'd done it differently, but the rebalancing is what their plans called for and they're using the beta server exactly as intended. It has caught a number of game breaking problems over its life, and has caused them to rethink non-game-breaking things and adjust them a few times. Expecting that they will never deploy anything that the people Beta don't like is asking too much.
 

Deleted User - 60152

Guest
I don't disagree with you @ashram - I just believe they put more priority on sticking to a schedule that appears to be set in stone instead of actually looking at the feedback and asking if there are adjustments or tweaks they can make that make certain changes more palatable for the players. I don't expect them to stop everything we don't like, but to actually consider when something is going to have a huge impact on players like the last rebalance did.

Most of us hated the nerf to the CL/BS AW - but while it was a huge annoyance it really wasn't damaging to the players - they just had to adjust their play style a little bit. But a change that causes player go into the negative with population and culture is something that needs a second look - and several reasonable suggestions were made - amongst all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. The devs could have delayed the release to live and examined those suggestions and possibly made some changes so it wasn't so damaging to the players who were hit by this. Personally, I gained about 200 pop and only lost about 1300 culture so it wasn't a big deal for me - but I am still upset by the poor way this was done - especially when BETA feedback said exactly what would happen and it did
 

Ashrem

Well-Known Member
Everything humans do needs to be looked at in context. I don't know how many people arre committed to Elvenar, but I suspect it's at least a dozen, and probably more. Between designers, artists, and coders, let alone any support staff. If all of those people have to stop what they are doing until a decision is made about something, that's money bleeding out on the floor. It makes no sense for a commercial venture to stop everything in its tracks to respond to unhappy customers, especially since you don't know if what you decide is going to make them any happier. It makes sense for them to stick to the plan for anything that doesn't break the game, and to try to appease unhappy players on the go, instead of waiting to figure out the answer that will make enough people happy to move forward.
 

Wowwie

Well-Known Member
that just goes to show that there was a great imbalance in the game if it went to such negative numbers, players are holding on to old culture buildings and not replacing them as they advance so now we get an overhaul.I was negative over 3500 population and lost culture took me one to rearrange everything and get my city bk to positive now i am happier then I was before the gift of the magic res differently ,helped but I had so tear down and rebuild to bring my game up to par,
This not the first time and will not be the last
 

SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
that just goes to show that there was a great imbalance in the game if it went to such negative numbers
I don't think is it fair to draw that conclusion:
Imagine this:
We reduce the population that residences give by 25%.
Players go into negative population.

Should we conclude that we did the right thing since this proves residences were overpowered and needed the rebalance?
 

Ashrem

Well-Known Member
I don't think is it fair to draw that conclusion:
Imagine this:
We reduce the population that residences give by 25%.
Players go into negative population.

Should we conclude that we did the right thing since this proves residences were overpowered and needed the rebalance?
Good point. It's natural to assume the developers know what they're doing but it isn't a given.
 

Dony

King of Bugs
Personally, instead of having a set in stone schedule that says we have to have an update on a set schedule, it would be better for the game and the players if updates were made when needed and when actually ready. This latest update is a prime example. They held to their hard and fast schedule instead of waiting to release when everything was ready - the nerf, the compensation package and the new spell.
while this would be really nice it will never happen, dont be confused with the number of lines in official patch notes on live servers, there is much much more in every update which is not publicly announced but is very needed for the game for whatever reason, last week update was mandatory to happen no matter what just because new law takes place from this friday and all behind the scene tools had to be updated, if they postponed this update to this weeks thursday and something would go wrong, there just wouldnt be enough time to fix it and big companies just cant risk that.

while you dont see changes just yet you will in a future and this changes also majority of people wanted anyway
 

DeletedUser

Guest
For a long time I read many posts made in live by respected members telling those of us who were interested in impacting the changes the game was making to join beta. That the POINT of beta was to test the changes so that LIVE wouldn't be impacted. Yet all I see is changes made in beta, then a week or two later, those EXACT SAME CHANGES are made to live.

What I don't understand is why they couldn't have given out the information about the compensation and update spells in the live servers before or at the same time as nerfing the culture to save a lot of upset and anger? How hard is it to put a small update in the news?
 

DeletedUser607

Guest
well, it's simple.

the new features that hit the live-servers, they need a final polish, erasing the little inconveniences that occur only sometimes.

that's beta. it's not the playground where new features hit a server for the first time.


but... developers listen more carefully here (evil people would say, they are listinging only here)
 

DeletedUser607

Guest
well, I don't know of other servers...

but in my experience, they are listening here more carefully than on the german servers.

maybe the difference is insignificant, but it's a bit more.

and here, I see some sort of reasonable responses.
 

DeletedUser2387

Guest
I wonder all the time what that is supposed to be to test an event on Beta, which will not give it in this form on the Live Server :confused:
That makes me doubt the meaningfulness of the Beta ;)
 

Dony

King of Bugs
I wonder all the time what that is supposed to be to test an event on Beta, which will not give it in this form on the Live Server :confused:
That makes me doubt the meaningfulness of the Beta ;)
i think this is a prime example why they are doing this, people expecting this event to hit live server next week, but i doubt that
this is the first event with this mechanic and i think they want to test it on beta to get more data, last couple of days before it was released on beta amount of goo per chests were adjusted and they want to monitor it and do changes if necessary before it hits live
there will be second questline for live server with generic quests like always which we have tested multiple times already, but the chances to get all 3 grand prizes are too complicated to count now so they are doing this for testing it which is exactly what beta is for
 
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