[2021] What are the pros and cons Public Test participation?

As the guy who's job it is to pass along the Feedback, I can tell ya that's not true <3

Yes, issues slip through. Our PTS is used, but it's not a healthy enough environment to get strong enough data from. Feedback is helpful in telling us what to look into though, and the faster we can find the pain points the sooner they can be addressed.

As to the issues you mentioned:

The balancing process of this (or lack of the ability to do so pre-0.8.0) is something we acknowledged as taking far too long on Live Server. That's why Subs have been handled in such an extremely different manner.

It took about 7 months to lock CVs into the state they are in now (for the most part. Rockets were significantly adjusted after due to more Feedback and observed interaction problems)

Some things just have to go through the process. While Dead Eye and Secondaries were very large complaint areas, both of those were addressed in the end.

Secondaries, for instance, can now reach levels of accuracy that didn't exist prior to the Commander Rework on German Battleships.

Homing is in a vastly different place then it was before. It's been iterated on several times.

If you'd like information on how to avoid Homing Torpedoes even when pinged, please check out this video:

Raw Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1hL9yioEF0

This is true, and identifying issues is extremely helpful. However, the coding for an update can take months, so it's not easy to simply alter things in a week or two.

Here's a different way to think about the Commander Rework issues:

1) Issues identified in testing/PTS. Noted for observation
2) Patch is live, Issues stay Issues, but data is needed for tuning.
3) Data Collection process underway, ~2 months of data gives a good basis for re-balancing. Alter skill or replace skill?
4) 3-5 Months of coding/iteration/integration. Re-enters wide-form testing.
5) Eval'd and goes live.

So remember, the Commander Rework happened in the Beginning of January. So on this time table...
a) roughly 2-3 months go by for data collection
b) then 3-5 months go by for changes/coding
c) then it goes live
Commander Rework happened in January, and the changes hit around August/September.

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It can feel slow/glacial as a player, but it's quite fast in terms of live development. We push a really grueling pace to get content out to our players.

Some folks may challenge our value on content, but balancing teams are working at the same time as the content teams are.