Test Server Feedback

I didn't see a thread on this in the first few pages of threads, so here goes:

What does everyone think of adjusting SiSi in such a way that all pilots are set at 0 SP every time it's mirrored but they also have 100 million SP's in unallocated skill points? Additionally, how difficult would it be to give the 'move me' bot a sister called the 'reset me' bot for the purposes of resetting SP's to 0 and 100m as they would be theoretically set during a mirror under this idea?

Before you say it'd reduce incentive to participate in mass tests, I'm pretty sure people who log into the test server in the first place are already not your average players. People on the test server generally have an interest in actually testing things and shouldn't need a lot of extra motivation to join in the mass mayhem of mass tests. Besides, it'd give people the opportunity to say things like, "Okay, army A should set their Gunnery skill to 3 and army B should set it to 5 for this next experiment," or whatever they feel is appropriate at the time.

Pros and cons, go.

This is a testing environment people! (Not just a playground)
The test environment (as with any other test environment) depends on variables being consistent as with the "real-time" (TQ) environment, Changing too many things to be different from "TQ" in this case causes issues, and when it comes down to it CCP will only end up seeing people testing ships, fits, and setups that have maximum backing from skills instead of the normal stuff handed around and fitted normally.

To clarify, the meterics for testing will be skewed, we will see less variation in skill levels related to fitting and spaceship command I.E.: Average Lifespan of a HAC with level 2 and Meta 4 guns VS a "perfect" HAC pilot.

Now to get on the physical mechanics for SP
I'd say that it's generally a bad idea.
Recently the database broke because they were implementing new features and tricks for Cirius
The player database itself is huge, simply giving out SP is hard enough on the QA Staff
The idea of wiping the entire database and applying 100m in un-allocated SP isn't hard however it would be the so-called "Reset Me" channel that would cause issues, even though a simple database lookup and set function wouldn't be hard, it's my experience that individual skills and their values are kept for every toon, meaning that this process would require a decent (Still small) amount of time in order to query, wipe (all of your skills), and set (100m un-allocated SP) function FOR EVERY TOON that uses it, I'd imagine that this kind of tool would be used and abused more often than a free masochistic hooker.





Oh right... This tooo :D

The arguments of , "This isn't the originally-intended purpose of the test server," and, "People will only test with max skills," may both have some merit, but neither of these arguments express how this change would clearly outweigh the increased flexibility of letting CCP know which new metas may be most desirable and letting people see for sure whether a skill does what they think it does before they acquire it on Tranquility. If this mentality had been adopted by CCP, then they'd have poo-pooed EFT, EVE-HQ, and other such tools years ago.

More than that, Singularity has been configured to let every player get every T2 ship and fitting practically for free on an unlimited basis. This idea would merely be an extension of that precedent and it could provide data which is at least as valuable as which currently-existing skillsets play out in exactly the same way as they would on Tranquility. So, yes, it would encourage people to compare their existing skills to what they could get if they maxed something out. It would show CCP just how far their system will stretch the abilities of characters when clearly being abused by people who are being told to abuse them for great justice and the lulz.

As for the database changes ... it wouldn't take any more time than a mirror currently takes and the script bot would only be a processing load worth noticing for people who spam 'reset me' faster than the existing anti-spam scripts will let them type. If you're worried about spam in the help channel, then a fix would be as simple as posting a notice to join the 'reset me' channel, if it even needs to be taken that far.

I don't believe that to be the case, even if CCP explicitly stated it to be so at any point in time. If it were, then we'd be limited to a truer mirror of Tranquility which includes the market, POS towers, sovereignty ... everything. None of that is really suited to a test environment and often takes as much time and resources to acquire as a good skill set. Besides, like I said, giving people a few million SP's in a test environment isn't really encouragement to join in a scheduled for-fun event. The encouragement is the fun itself, AND we're routinely handed millions of SP's anyway just to have people test the skills CCP is looking to have tested. This solution would circumvent the need for the whole process of determining who needs the bonus SP's and would serve the same purpose at all times instead of only during mass tests.

i don't think people understand the concept of SINGULARITY IS FOR CCP DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING.....not ours.
Us getting to use it is a by product of that. Be happy you arent stuck to using EFT for your testing .

Again, you are correct. How are you not understanding that your point remains valid? Such things are not suited to a test environment.

um. For a quite a bit of testing we are stuck with EFT, if we havent trained the particular skills yet, then its eft to see what changes from where we are now.

im not sure how this is a point in favor/against addition of SP on Sisi

See, this right here is a response I can live with. I can respect this opinion.

Still, assume we live in a perfect magical world where dev's had infinite time and could always write perfect code with unending enthusiasm for always getting everything just right. What then? What would you feel would be added and/or taken away from the test server?

And forget the SP we should only be testing what we are able to use / fly on TQ therefore the Skills should be the same on Sisi

So, your preference for Sisi would be that, in all practicality, the only things testable by the general playerbase should be whatever the devs are focusing on at the moment? i.e., giving people some sp's and free supercaps in the event of a supercap tweak? Would this method of execution be designed to keep people off of Singularity unless there's a planned mass test?