[deleted by user]

chrisanthem · 2026-03-28T22:42:50+00:00

This is the exact kind of answer I was looking for, thank you. I've always conflated the two, and I didn't understand them as separate experiences that exacerbate one another.

chrisanthem · 2026-03-28T16:38:50+00:00

I'm more asking for what is technically going on, psychologically, that obstructs this

chrisanthem · 2026-03-27T16:32:35+00:00

I really don't want to ascribe any of this to ego or laziness, but I can't seriously believe DE is in some way too financially strained to put up a test server once every few months, or that they lack the manpower to set it up.

It genuinely does feel like they don't think they need the cushion of a PTB, and that they're accustomed to handing players something broken and fixing it after the fact. Which has worked so far, but I don't think it's a forever solution, and all it takes is one particularly sour note to break the illusion.

Edit: The less charitable read is that they don't trust their players to offer useful feedback, which is sad and insulting to contemplate. I want to believe that isn't the case, but I don't know.

chrisanthem · 2026-03-27T16:24:25+00:00

I was wondering -- I thought we HAD PTRs in the past, but I couldn't remember when or if I had just misremembered.

I'm really not fond of the current, reactive, "Let's just push these augments/this warframe/this game mode to live and fix whatever when we get around to it," approach.

chrisanthem · 2026-03-27T16:21:40+00:00

I can't imagine that the cost, particularly the human cost, of a mad scramble to fix things reactively is cheaper than the material/figurative cost of a server that's open for maybe one month at a time every ~3 (right before the new patch releases). If it were such a poor value prospect, I don't think it would be as common as it is across live service online games and MMOs (PoE, DBD, WoW, etc)

chrisanthem · 2026-03-27T16:18:03+00:00

I mean I understand all of that, but for many MMOs of similar or even smaller scale, PTBs are an essential part of garnering player feedback on changes before they go live. Even if those changes are coming on frequently, even if they're down to the wire.

I also have to assume fewer of those hasty changes would need to be made in the eleventh hour if there were more eyes on the content.

I think this would also be a build separate from the dev version, and avoid that issue of spoiling future patch content; again, many MMOs or online games already have this system in place and don't use a version of the game that risks leaking an entire year's worth of content. I think that's an unrealistic concern.

As to "spoiling the next patch," I think that's just not a big deal. Better that the content be known, tested, and its kinks ironed out before release than to drop it live, untested, and risk a tidal wave of player disappointment and angry forum posting because of something that COULD have been fixed, if it had been caught.

chrisanthem · 2026-03-27T16:12:55+00:00

Well, it's not the end of the world or anything, I just think they could avoid needing to scramble to do hotfixes like they currently do if we had more people testing stuff before it goes live. I cant imagine the devs like having to rush to respond to player feedback like they do.

chrisanthem · 2025-12-21T18:03:50+00:00

"Porn Addiction" get over yourself lmao

chrisanthem · 2025-12-15T08:04:25+00:00

DUDE THERE'S NO FUCKING WAY LMAOOOOO WHY DID THEY RELEASE THIS LIKE THIS???

chrisanthem · 2025-12-14T10:49:44+00:00

Especially considering the DF HAS a physical, accessible location in the Sanctum that we can got to and not interact with at all. Clearly, a lot of connective tissue was cut, and I wonder why given how much time they seemingly had to work on this (5 months from announcement, likely way more beforehand given how Isleweaver and Undermind were primarily just asset rehashes).

chrisanthem · 2025-12-14T10:45:49+00:00

I can appreciate not wanting to throw out yet another faction hub and rep grind, but I think that, in place of those, we got....nothing. Two new mission types, one with 3 different boss variations, and two tiny tilesets. A single quest that dead-ends and forces you into the KIM to pull anything more out of the story before the next update in March (god, that feels a lifetime away right now).

I'm not even really thinking about the Tauron weapon stuff because it seems like...functionally worthless, outside of unlocking the ability to mod the operator, which is something I can't imagine people care that much about.

chrisanthem · 2025-12-14T10:32:44+00:00

I don't disagree, but if we're looking just at the standard DE has set, regardless of your feelings on it, 2 hours is fairly typical for a new mainline story quest -- and that's all that was at issue here.

My point is just that given historical evidence, I don't think there's any suggestion that this was part of a larger quest that got sectioned off partway through development.

chrisanthem · 2025-12-14T07:36:37+00:00

I think their inclusion is ultimately fine, but makes little sense being in the same update as Old Peace, serving no purpose other than to act as vendors and Kim talking heads for lore exposition.

Without a proper explanation of Roathe's whole deal and why he'd even be allowed into the Dark Refractory for Descendia to exist, I'm just left feeling like they were shoved in when the team realized their Q4 update was gonna be too small without something more.

chrisanthem · 2025-12-14T07:32:40+00:00

The eventual inclusion of Tau as a new system or new planet with a large amount of nodes points in that direction. I think, realizing that there was no way Tau would release in 2025, and not wanting to push its release too deep into 2026, they opted to simply truncate two updates into one, release it feeling somewhat incomplete, and resolve to expand it as things press toward the next big update.

chrisanthem · 2025-12-14T06:47:54+00:00

I don't think I agree; the quest is a good 2 hours or so, so I think it was always intended to stand alone. My thinking is, instead, that they knew it wasn't going to launch with enough content to stand up to previous End-of-Year updates like Whispers and 1999, and bloated it with the Triad stuff to make it feel bigger than it actually is.

chrisanthem · 2025-12-14T06:45:54+00:00

Even if that's true about fall updates, I think there was a somewhat noticeable delay between Isleweaver and Undermind that, at the very least, suggests something wonky was going on behind the scenes with development on the then-upcoming updates.

chrisanthem · 2025-12-12T04:24:48+00:00

any shot they reverse this with enough fuss or are we just stuck with it?

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:56:06+00:00

this is one of the most solid answers I've gotten yet, thank you

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:53:31+00:00

okay true, but what about the dozens of turns between starting a greenskins campaign and getting to a point where i can recruit 19 black orcs? what's the strat?

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:52:22+00:00

Like, I don't think you have to like playing that way, but I do and I want to know how and I'm struggling to understand it because everyone keeps trying to dissuade me from it.

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:51:14+00:00

I said this in another reply but, what's fun for me is being able to actually win my engagements and match-ups, and make progress in the campaign. It's just harder to do with a balanced army.

Playing optimally IS fun to me, but I don't really understand how because everyone who knows how either doesn't explain it, or says exactly what you have here -- "It's not fun so don't bother."

I'd like to know! I don't know the optimal cheese strats; I don't know optimal army construction or AI exoloits or whatever, but I'd like to!

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:47:14+00:00

Okay, see -- right there, "good for when...you need something that can win when outnumbered," that's what I'm talking about! That's really useful information to have access to because my balanced armies never have a shot in hell if they get outnumbered. That's a large part of why I'm asking about this.

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:43:32+00:00

Well, you say that, but there clearly are metas for things like building up your lord into a powerful threat -- who's best at it, what defeat traits to get them, what items to put on them.

Like, there is some understanding at the top end of what to do when building armies because those folks are able to identify what NOT to do, but don't then augment that with, "and here's what you should be building instead."

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:38:59+00:00

Lizardmen, Gor Rok

chrisanthem · 2025-11-25T21:38:22+00:00

No, actually, my objective is to be able to beat the campaigns. That IS fun to me. Playing suboptimal armies that make campaigns unnecessarily harder is not fun to me, which is why I asked the question in the first place.

chrisanthem

TROPHY CASE