Behavior could do more with the PTB before bringing a chapter live.

TLDR: Splitting and lengthening the PTB to 3 parts would help allow behavior and us as players to better address bugs in the upcoming updates, while also allowing for better balancing and observation of quality before it goes live. Kaneki and Hound Master both went to live without proper balancing and it has harmed the game experience, which the PTB could help outright prevent if used differently.

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Behavior made an AMAZING step in the right direction with the skull merchant 'preview', and even went back to do it a second time to get our opinion on the changes instead of immediately going through with it! Even if I don't like the changes of the second preview from the first, the fact they did that at all buys A LOT of good will for the devs in charge of balancing and coding (at least for me). However I think that there are more opportunities to streamline the development and feedback from the community to the devs. (because let's be honest, plenty of us in the forums ALONE make me worry for the mental health of the community managers. The ability to soften the blow and get an early read on how people feel about these things could make those people less caustic AND help make balancing/debugging easier and quicker)

I understand the value in having actual players help find bugs in a match, however I feel there is a missed opportunity on balancing in a reasonable manner in that time. Simply put I think there needs to be a lengthened PTB period, split into three parts. The first stage let's us find the bugs and give you time to solve them before worrying about anything balance related, The second stage we can try them with fewer variables getting in the way of an accurate experience for balance and fun factor. Then a third final stage that allows you to test potential changes or additional bug fixes before it goes live, just for extra time and maybe some idle experimentation (after all, you never know where the next inspiration for a killer might come from).

Kaneki and Hound Master are two examples of the extremes caused by the current method.

Kaneki was way stronger than anyone thought in the PTB, and it was only realized when he went to live with all of those bugs holding him back removed. The player base hit an immediate slump and queues became VERY crowded for killers. Survivors HATED going against kaneki, and had to deal with that until today's update released. It was unpleasant for all parties involved.

Hound Master, though, got the worst of it in my opinion. She was such a buggy mess that it took an entire patch dedicated to bug fixing AND additional fixing in the Mid-chapter update, which I thought was meant to be dedicated for reworking The Nightmare, for her to function as was intended from the start. In that entire time? We couldn't tell how much of her issues were from clumsiness and how much came from the bugs. Now that some people have bought her in an unbugged state, it's very obvious she isn't great. Commanding the dog is unpleasant and clunky as many have said, while the powers are not that notable even after you consider the 'variety' (a glorified hinder that can be stunned and prevents your cool down or apply a status effect after a very minor haste buff, those are your two "powers").

Both killers were WAY outside of what we had expected of them, all because the PTB gave us a false impression and we never got it corrected until after it was live. Having an opportunity to see what the community likes and doesn't about each iteration, without worry of how bugs interfere, will help provide more insight and ideas on what could be done. This also would be a great excuse to spread out the time between updates slightly to devote more time and quality to each individual update on release, or just give more wiggle room where you can better deal with unexpected issues without sacrificing time or quality towards the update. The time increased doing updates this way will be MORE than made up for when it comes to focusing on mid-chapter updates and fewer bug fixing patches siphoning resources and manpower from everything else.

Thank you for reading and any potential consideration of my concerns and ideas, I look forward to what you have in store next!