How Deeply Does BHVR Test Systems?
I started out in QA and used to develop for some mmo's for level design outsourced, map building, and pvp balance (yes, literal pvp balance overhauls in the mid and late 2000s).
People are mad, malding, and all of the above. So I gotta ask how deeply do you play your own game?
I say this because, if theres any question the people on your team are out of touch with the game you guys are working on or disenchanted @BHVR just make them play the game. I don't mean just a little bit. I mean off the clock hardcore hours. We had a dedicated group of people split off from their normal desk tasks for months at a time to on and off the clock, literally just play the game and do it hardcore. Our lead coder spending the most time off the clock, followed later by essential bits of the design team.
Not send a QA team to do it, no. Not looking for blockers. Just our guys. Sit there, play the game, engage in pvp, at the highest level. Players would always run skirmishes in our game where there wasn't really anything at stake except gloating rights and mass zerg. (aka pvp for fun) You get your guys to get into the grit of things at the highest level against the strongest players in the game, and actually work their way up, and its an eye opening experience. You get to see little bits of ######### how did that get there on your maps, and you get that up face to face up close and personal look into exactly what people are experiencing at the highest degrees. (also conveniently lets you find gold sellers, albeit DBD doesn't have to worry about that), minus the hacker thing. (I mean going free for a week or so is gonna pull some sketches...like...obviously)
But with that experience you get WAAAAAAAY more inside knowledge about how and if your systems are working properly. You get an actual hands on look to see, hey does this skill need a buff? Nerf? Overhaul? Do people need more skills, are their skills even working effectively given the numbers, does your own servers latency inhibit functionality, does your local ping inhibit functionality, if you only had 1 arm is your game even functional for someone? Then come Monday, you get behind the rig and go, "Ok we released a new class. Ok this skill we playtested before, its a great skill....on paper, and its a great skill....in the perfect scenario...but in general practice its just trash. And since people don't like to invest in trash (aka becomes a blight to player experience lowering the value of what you spent man hours creating), it would be ideal to make this skill actually viable even if its on a niche build." Run a new skill on test, get the script, test it and then throw it in the next maintenance. I dunno if BHVR does this, I mean you'd never know since its kind of an in house practice because from all intents and purposes you're a player. But if they aren't doing it, they should, and by should I don't mean casual, I mean HARD CORE. (aka that guy who spends 100s of hours on your game per month, yeah you're that guy for the next few quarters) A chef shouldn't just Taste their food, it should be part of their lifestyle. No difference in cooking and video games IMO.