How to Rock the PTS: Top 10 Must-Haves to Improve PTS Participation!

Discussion in 'Test Server: Discussion' started by Edfishy, Apr 12, 2014.

  1. Edfishy

    RadarX has mentioned he'd like to encourage more PTS participation, and so I've collected the top suggestions by players and organized it into a nice and neat cheat sheet!


    1. Better awareness of an upcoming test.

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    - Tweet in days, hours, minutes in advance (All of the PS2 devs; make use of RT)
    - Alert players playing in live servers when a PTS is going on.
    - Have a PS2 dev participate and interact with testers.
    - Have Clegger/Higby/T-Ray Twitch stream it. Players sometimes don't know the fun of the PTS!
    - Tweet the current test population and encourage people to join. ("200 peeps; moar!"/ "big fight; moar!)
    - If you've got a new toy on PTS, tweet that it's in that evening's PTS session!


    2. Easier to find PTS download.

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    - Make it the PTS the headline article for the Launch Window, i.e. "Download Test Server Here!"
    - Make http://planetside2.com/pts.zip always contain the latest PTS client.
    - Add stickied threads to both PTS Forums for location of the PTS download.


    3. Consistent times to join.

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    - Consistent times means everyone can get caught up with patches in advance.
    - Thursday/Fridays would be best.
    - Same time of day (5:00pm Pacific was good)
    - Weekends should be reserved for Live play, not PTS testing.


    4. E-mail redeemable codes for participation.

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    - At two periods during test, loop over participating PTS tester accounts and e-mail redeemable reward codes:
    * 1st half hour: Reward package of 500 certs redemption code
    * 2nd half hour: Reward package of 24 hour X2 Experience Boost redemption code

    - Loop over all player accounts who've sent reports and give them an extra 250 cert redemption code for their efforts.
    - Do not be be cheap on the rewards -- The more you give will be the more you get back from players. No decals or camos.
    - By heartily rewarding players who test on Friday, they're likely to play Live on Saturday to use their rewards.


    5. "Message of the Day" bulletin upon joining PTS.

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    - In a PTS session you can explain what's being tested that evening.
    - When not testing you can explain to people when the next big test will be.


    6. Feedback & patch notes in the PTS Discussion Forum.

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    - What's in, what's out, and what needs to be tested.
    - Keep it simple! No cute anecdotes, just the serious development beef.


    7. Title and goal for each major sprint.

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    - It makes the testers feel like they're helping to deliver something.
    - Cool names like "Hydra". Or OMFG if you want to go all Smedley about it.
    - Stated Goals for Sprint: Performance? Weapon balance? Getting the game to a better state?


    MINOR REQUESTS

    8. Dev command: "TEST HERE" sticker on the map.
    - Make it easier for everyone testing by showing them where they need to be. (Hint: hijack the "Defend Here" map icons)

    9. Dev command: Modifiable resource income rates.
    - Instead of getting the resources every 2 minutes, you set the rate to 20 seconds ( or 2 seconds)
    - Can be changed during a test session to simulate normal rates when needed.

    10. Dev command: Invincible Sundies.
    - Alternatively just make a command to set its HP to 1,000,000... might even be fun!
    - Every major PTS I was in there were situations where we needed the sundies to stay alive to better test.

    Bonus: Chat command to add more certs.
    - "/tell SOE moarcerts" adds 100,000 certs to your test character.
    - You'd be surprised at how fast you can spend 100,000 certs, and re-certing takes up test time.
    - Testers are smart, they'll tell each other about it.
    __________________________________________________

    Conclusion:
    That seems to be the jist to kick the PTS into high gear. Anything I missed?
    • Up x 31
  2. Elrobochanco

    I don't know if all this is feasible, but I think most of it is.

    I think the test server needs a better way to track participation, maybe something like a "TESTING" Alert type which is for overall faction score on a continent or base over a 0.5-1h time. You play for even a short while in a live fire environment, you get flagged for participation. Obviously the end payoff for an alert is meaningless on test so it's really just meant as an idea to encapsulate a test session. It's difficult to find a reason to play on test when nothing there matters for your live character currently.

    I think a lot can be done with just some better education to the masses on testing on the PTS. And some neat cosmetic rewards would be cool too. Maybe instead of just boosts or whatnot a unique camo or hood ornament or something for each month of testing participated in.

    Doesn't need to be anything crazy, but people reallllly jump at anything time limited and unique in cosmetics. Maybe some "broken" variants of faction cosmetics (like ESF fins that aren't pristine), or decals of a given months test mission.

    Maybe make test cosmetics be free to use for people who participated in the month previous, and then when updated for a new month they go on sale for everyone else (and testers get access to the new set but lose the old). Thereby making it it's own sort of exclusive access club.
  3. kadney

    And please upgrade the "patchnotes" more often. Just downloaded another 350 MB patch and I have no clue what it changed...
    • Up x 2
  4. Caserion

    Agreed with all of them. The rewards don't even need to be that great. Just 100-500 certs for participating during the test depending on how long you've helped would really help while not being so rewarding that it ruins the economy or something.
  5. Ozade

    Most of it seems reasonable. The main one I agree with and have been talking with outfit members about is reward scheme for testing. Right now the only time there is anything on test is for publicly organized events or a brief period after each major patch to test new stuff. The only way to encourage people to leave live and go to the effort of testing stuff is 'free stuff', its been done before with PU01 and its just a nice little incentive to get people onto test. Whether it be a unique cosmetic (something small like the golden snowman sort of thing or a decal/camo) or just a small xp/resource boost (some would argue the boosts aren't viable because people who have purchased heroic boosts don't get any benefit) it has to be something that will justify the player base downloading an extra client and spend their time NOT playing in live.
  6. Admiralty

    I think your example of the 500 cert reward is a bit too much, the last time they gave out rewards for being on the PTS was a 1 day/hour (?) exp boost which I felt was just right. The only problem was that you got it as long as you logged onto the PTS during the dates specified and that I'm assuming many players such as myself only logged on to get the boost, try out a few weapons etc. I.e. nothing that actually helped squash bugs.

    I think the right way to go about this would be to only reward players who have contributed (reporting bugs), have stayed on the PTS for a certain amount of time (or by extension, in a certain area for a certain period of time) and reward them with small rewards such as hood ornaments, decals, special camos, titles but nothing cert related.
    • Up x 1
  7. Edfishy

    Well, I guess since 100-200 is the average certs a casual player (*cough*likeme*cough*) can get during an hour long session, so that'd probably be fair. Point is to make testing on the PTS also improve your live account during major test jams, with a little sizzler to make it worth your while to download an 8 gig patch in advance. Camos, decals and ornaments work as a sizzler too I guess... honestly I figured peeps would be insulted. :rolleyes:

    I'm working under the assumption they have a minimalist staff (judging by the OMFG videos), and so they need to have simple and reliable results with minimal efforts. Adding a console dev command "/issuerewards" that loops over account e-mails so reward e-mails can be dished out within 24 hours is simple enough (just export the usernames into a .txt file).

    Adding in automated systems that track user session time potentially adds needless bulk and could waste a coder's time in debugging any small little glitches that happen (and they will).

    Rewarding players who report bugs should be easy enough though. Grab the user accounts of everyone who reported bugs during the test session's time period and e-mail them all redeemable 100 certs. Then tell the ticketing dept. that for every valid ticket they should add the contributing player's e-mail to a Google Docs spreadsheet (low tech here) so RadarX can just issue out the extra 100 certs as they come in.

    Low tech, low cost; programmers can continue their hard work on H1Z1. :p
  8. Levtech

    I agree with most of this, but there are a few things. PTS shouldn't be advertized in major places such as the game launcher or main website pages, its unprofessional and might already be confusing new players as they download/look at the game. I say advertize it on the devs social media, in the games livestreams, and (like you said) on a stickied post. The rewards for testing should probably be something less like a few hour boosts or maybe some special cosmetic items because not everyone has the space for PTS, desire to test, or time to test. Also, the PTS should not be how you earn your certs in the live game, it should be for people who want to keep up with the new stuff and test it and that should be the main reward in itself.
  9. Elrobochanco

    The problem with boosts is that they are useless to people who already have them/have heroic ones or alpha squad ones hoarded. The more likely you are invested enough to be on PTS the less likely it is you still need boosts.

    Cosmetics everyone always wants. Certs/immediate XP also almost always in demand since they are immediately useable in a tangible way. Unless you have been BR 100 for a year you likely still have stuff to upgrade.

    I don't think any "voucher" idea will really fly because that's probably more work for some dev. If you could play on Test during a actual test session and just have the XP you gained be replicated and given to the first character you log in on live would be pretty nice. I mean that's work for someone to code, but simple in administration. Play during a designated test, make a few thousand XP and actually be somewhere other than VR, go back to live game and get that XP on your main or whoever you want by logging in to them first.
  10. Bruno Puntz Jones

    I think a more substantial reward for play testing would be to set aside specific Triple Test Weekends (up to one each month), and put all certs earned during those weekends while playing on the test server into a pool that could be redeemed on any character on the same account on the live server.

    The trick would be, (1) set the baseline XP and resources gain for all players on test to be equal to what you get from having a membership and Heroic boost on live, and (2) give triple XP on top of that.

    There could also be an overall cap to the cert pool that could be rolled over, to prevent really extreme farming.

    Basically, make it so that playing on test for the designated weekend gives you at least as much or even a lot more tangible gains for your live character compared to just playing live.

    This isn't something that could be done all the time on test, because otherwise live would become a graveyard. But if allowed only for focused, designated, all out testing weekends, it ought to work very well at getting a substantial population to go over there and work the server over for a couple days.
  11. Bruno Puntz Jones

    I never want them, and I won't use them even if they're given to me for free. I actually like the default look of pretty much everything in the game compared with 99% of the cosmetic "upgrades" that are available.

    To many players cosmetics are basically an insult as a "reward" for time invested.

    Not saying some people won't appreciate them or they should not be included. But they're basically zero incentive for some people if that's all you get.
  12. Elrobochanco

    I hadn't really thought of that, but I understand. To some players the vanilla look is best, and the rest might just be unnecessary fluff.

    I mostly meant it because in the game cosmetics are the one thing that is only attainable with cash, which is why many find it to be the higher incentive than certs or XP which given time can always be had for free.
  13. Edfishy

    They already have a built-in voucher system via the redeemable codes. Only work involved is some minor DB work to make a command loop over playing players and export their SOE account names into a .txt file. Surely from there they have the ability to mass e-mail designated players? (We're only talking 500 people, tops).

    I imagine this would take more work, but hey, I guess we don't know their infrastructure. :confused:
  14. Norington

    Why aren't those playsessions announced officially on this forum?

    I find it kind of weird that we rely on the private Twitter account of some dev for vital info... I don't even use twitter.
  15. Edfishy

    They do make announcement posts, don't they? I'm just saying to nab the people who don't often visit these forums.

    (Those Tweets in the OP were photoshopped by the way)
  16. LordMondando

    • Up x 1
  17. Selerox

    /signed

    This sort of thing would make me a lot more likely to use the PTS.
  18. TheBloodEagle

    Hey great job on the graphics on your post. Really well done actually.
  19. Wobberjockey


    This man is someone you need to follow
    http://www.reddit.com/user/shaql

    his PTS patch notes are pretty much required reading if you want to know what's going on.
    • Up x 2
  20. Bvenged

    I would ask for 2 things:

    - Infinite resources
    - Automatic BR 100

    That way you don't have to grind to level 10 for the squad leader equipments every time you make a new character, and no more sitting around on your *** waiting for resources for Scrims.
    • Up x 1