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Do we still need the PTB?
This is a genuine question, why not just release the content when the PTB is supposed to drop so EVERYONE not just PC players get it early and then after 3 weeks (or the next week since the changes are made based on 1 week worth of player data) just do the changes? A lot of PTBs recently have launched with very minimal changes and just feels like more of an excuse to hype content rather than actually gather player feedback before pushing an update live especially when sometimes the live update is bugged worse than the PTB build.
Imo the PTB system is very dated and there's not really a reason as to not just release content flat out and do the whole waiting 3 weeks just to see 3 bugs get fixed and an add-on change when you could just release the content earlier and do the changes a week after release
(Edit: Another thing I thought of is the fact its somewhat ineffective at its job since its only based on one single weeks worth of data off one platform that not everybody even tunes in. I mean Skull Merchant's PTB everyone thought she was useless and below F tier with no actual viable strategies and it wasn't until launch when a large group of people got to play her that her flaws and issues were revealed. It showcased an issue that could've been highlighted and worked on 2-3 weeks earlier but wasn't due to insufficient data
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PTBs are only there for the hype, nothing more. The Devs only have a few days to implement any changes from the PTB to Live and I would guess that most changes are in the pipeline already (e.g. during the Blight-PTB the PTB featured an outdated version of Blight, so there was not really a point in testing it anyway).
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Didn't the PTB drama kinda Start after Ash Williams? Who was I think the only simultaneous release? I heard that he released and mettle of man was so bad that they had to rush out a patch to fix it. And the PTBs started after that drama.
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No, PTBs have been a part of the game since 2016, long before Ash.
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The PTBs are still good to prevent bigger problems for the live servers. Like I am pretty sure everyone is happy that the PTB Twins didn't came to the live servers or that Vecna felt on his release smoother and not like a slowdown.
However, it is sometimes frustrating when the developers completly ignore every feedback and give a ######### about it like they did last PTB with the Perks and Knight. This is really disappointing and also makes me think what is the point of a PTB when you ignore Feedback.
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Huh mk. I just heard he didn't have one or smthn. It's been years lol. Even if I was there I don't quite remember that far back.
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Yep, Ash Williams was released without a PTB.
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Whats funny was I was thinking of Twins PTB-Live release when I made this post and how there really wasn't much a difference. Twins launch is still regarded as one of the most buggy releases ever and I'm pretty sure were worse when they hit live than they were in the PTB. Not to mention that this reminded me of the fact Nemesis DESTROYED DBD on console because console had no way of testing or trying out the gameplay so they had no idea that he was just completely horridly optimized until he launched on consoles and destroyed the game for console players for weeks on end
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The ptb is there for bhvr to test and fix stuff before it goes live and breakes some serious stuff, of course it often happens that there are still bugs that aren't the best but normally they don't break the game. Of course the ptb also hypes stuff up but it makes sense for sure to test and balance the things before release, especially because there's almost always something that makes the killer harder to use or even impossible in the ptb. The main-excampel for that at the moment would probably the huge punishment for hellfire if you cancel it and the way too long charge-duration of the pounce as well as the speed of the wolf, I'm 100% sure that they'll buff it before release otherwise he would be pretty weak.
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Thats…sort of embarrassing. Its also very telling that BHVR deliberately excludes console from their hype trains. I switched over to PC since cross progression which I am so thankful for, but at the same time it really feels like BHVR doesn't care about their console playerbase sometimes and PTBs are one of many things that make me believe that
(edit: Meant to be a reply to @Aven_Fallen but the reply part got deleted on accident)5 -
Well ive learned from PTBs that they are more marketing than anything. Even if some major complaints go out from the playerbase it still gets released and only mildly changed, rather than having it cancled completely.
For example anyone thought the haddonfield map rework just swinged the favor into the other side, where it was previously survivor sided, now its killer sided. Anyone saw it, anyone said instead of making the same mistake but mirrored, they could also just leave it. And it still got released, causing alot of frustration among players.
The only time where i witnessed a PTB not going through due to negative overall feedback was the finisher mori one… oh wait… now years later its back on the horizon to come.
So yeah i dont bother with PTB anymore, no point giving feedback that is not listened to.4 -
But why do they need a PTB to do this? Again, using an extremely small sample size of only one singular platform within a very short time frame won't provide meaningful changes or discussion about said changes. PTBs only last a week so they're using give or take the opinions of around 10,000 people (generous estimate) on one single platform who only got to try for a week but more often times less than a week to balance something and bug test it? Whats stopping them from just releasing to live and then the week after releasing a patch to address these issues? This isn't even mentioning they have no idea how these chapters will perform on consoles before launch which we've seen happen before (IE Nemesis)
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You should never release untested stuff on live servers because it can break serious things and it's probably unbalanced anyways so there will be a lot of complains. It's probably not good for selling the chapter too if it's unbalanced and broken on release. There's just no reason to release it insantly and without testing, it would just be a risk for the game and confuse people why it's so badly balanced on release.
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This is a great question, and the answer to it is a little long and comes in a couple parts.
The first is that releasing an update on all platforms requires us to send the update out for certification on each platform. This would add a pretty substantial delay before we can get it into your hands for testing, which in turn reduces the window of time we have to make changes until the update is properly released (any follow up update would also need to go through the certification process). Releasing a PTB in a separate branch on Steam does not have this requirement, so we can put the latest and most polished build out for testing very easily.
Releasing it as a beta separate from the main game also provides more safety and flexibility to try out bolder changes. If something doesn't pan out on the PTB, it's no big deal; we can tone it down or revert it before the update is released. In the meantime, you can switch back to live servers once you're done testing and it no longer affects you. Meanwhile if something is pushed directly to the main game and turns out to be way too powerful, it could take a week or more before we're able to release another patch to fix it. You'd have no choice but to go against it until then.
To be very clear, updates are not ready to be released by the time the PTB rolls around. The last few weeks are a very important time for fine tuning, polish, and bug fixes. This means the PTB build will often contain bugs that are planned to be fixed before the update releases. We wouldn't not feel comfortable releasing the update at the time of the PTB on all platforms with some of those issues present. Having it on a separate test build allows us to start collecting feedback and prepare things for the release despite a few extra bugs being present.
I can safely say that it's not for hype. It's far more exciting to have everyone experience it at the same time rather than splitting up people's first experiences between a PTB and live release. PTBs are mainly to find serious issues (balance or otherwise) before a release. We tend not to make radical changes between a PTB and release unless necessary because the PTB is the safest place to test major changes, not the live servers.
This is true, though PTBs at first were a little different than they are now. It was not standard for new Chapters to have a PTB before they released, this only became a recurring thing with the Curtain Call Chapter on the second anniversary.
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PTBs are mainly to find serious issues (balance or otherwise) before a release. We tend not to make radical changes between a PTB and release unless necessary because the PTB is the safest place to test major changes, not the live servers.
So all that feedback we gave you (you = the developers) about Knight and some Perks (Iron Will and Darkness Revealed) in the last PTB were not issues for balance or otherwise even though we wrote billions of essays and explained why they are balance issues, went in the wrong direction, or are bad play design choices?
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Releasing it as a beta separate from the main game also provides more safety and flexibility to try out bolder changes
It's obvious not for try out bolder changes. Every killer since Knight was underpowered on PTB and was buffed. The only one really bold ptb was last Twins, but I don't know how they made it to ptb in this state to begin with. Hard to believe no one on a team didn't understand that it was ridiculous, not just bold.
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I can't help but feel that "testing" is less of your concern and more so of the fact that people get to play the content sooner than you is the main problem.
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PTBs are a fine enough idea, but make it so EVERYONE can opt in. Otherwise console users never get to have feedback.
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Console players can... they just need to also own a PC that can play DbD and have access to Steam.
Blizzard used to do a PTB for Overwatch back in the day, (although they still do it for WoW). OW2 however now just tests things in the live game for a period of time. Want data on a new character, Blizz made them available for a weekend for everyone to try; regardless of platform, a month before they intend to release them. Could a similar thing be viable for DbD, well maybe... but let's be real, the game already has a ton of bugs; some even game breaking, we don't need to make it worse.
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I mean, can you imagine if they had tested the mori / Unbreakable base kit changes in the live servers? The ones that everyone hated because they made the game miserable for both sides?
Guarantee if they did that, the forums would be filled with "WTH why are you pushing wild changes to the live servers when you could run a test branch first?!?!"
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The dev are not obligation to change anything from direct feedback. They may change elements of the game from PTB but they also may not. The PTB is important for testing bugs and seeing how the character plays on average. PTB allow them to adjust the killer if that killer is too powerful or increase the killer's power if the killer turns out to not play well.
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What about having a separate thing to install for consoles so they can try out the ptb stuff? Something similar to Sea of Thieves Insider or Minecraft Previews that way it's still separate from the live version but console players are still able to test and give a wider range of data
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I play on steam/PC btw and haven't even opted into this PTB because I'd rather play 2v8 but I have some friends who dont own PC or down the PC copy of DBD and actually are excited for this chapter but can't experience it. Plus I did play on console until 2019 and I remember for the first few PTBs being disappointed I couldn't experience them or try them out. Not everyone has problems with something just because it effects them
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Yes. Not only to find bugs, but BHVR have been making pretty solid balance tweaks based on PTB feedback too recently.
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Peanits this was a serious question: Do you, the developers, really think you did a good job and did the right thing with the Knight rework and the buffs to Iron Will and Darkness Revealed? If yes, why did you never respond to our feedback and suggestion? We spent so much time and effort in it but you never responded to us and you did what nobody wanted/asked for. Also if you think you did the right thing, can you explain why our suggestions were wrong? At least, this would be great to understand what went wrong and how we can do it better next time. Of cause, every other developer can answer this too. I would love to see an answer.
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Not all feedback is usable feedback. They are working on a huge list of perk changes and some changes they're making now may be to account for future changes to other things.
That would be my guess at least. They've been saying for months that they're making a lot of perk changes, people are going to be complaining every update about it. Doesn't mean they should ditch the plan.
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I know and you're right with your guess. When I see some Perk buff suggestions, I am sometimes happy that the developers don't listen always to us. However, when many players have the same opinion and can explain it in an understandable justification (so not something like "Bring back original DH because it was fun!!!11!!" or "bring back old NOED because I can no longer 4k with it"), I don't understand why they at least explain why they decided against our proposal - don't have to be a long post but at least something that shows that they thought about our feedback. In addition, that was also on the PTB section where they ask for specific things and not someone came up with a random buff suggestion. Now is the problem that a Perk like Darkness Revealed will still be useless while Knight will still be pathetic to play in a different way because now they are busy with the next updates.
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Don't forget, there have been PTBs with some pretty big changes that then didn't go live. I think they once did a major change to healing speeds that didn't go to the live game. And of course there's the mori finisher/built-in unbreakable test they did. Or there was that PTB where people stacked as many instances of Endurance as possible. If those things had made it to the live game and then had to be removed, it would've been a mess. There are players who would have actually uninstalled the game over some of those, not even exaggerating.
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I agree, especially as half the time things that come out of PTB will still clearly be changed again anyway.
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