While I understand why Riot is keeping the test server, and anything regarding it private. I feel this is going to ultimately ruin your game. Not only are you not getting opinions from long time players, You end up making changes that people are not happy with. Then having to go back and fix them. Wasting a huge amount of your time, and ours.

Do you know why Blizzards WoW has lasted so long? ANYONE can jump in the server and try out the changes, Then give feedback on them. The game really has become User balanced, because Blizzard listens to it's customers. Even DotA still lives on because of constant community feedback. It's been nearly 8 years for DotA as well.

This is what LoL needs, Because while you staff at riot, and the limited test realm testers feel that the changes are good. You are a very small percentage compared to the actual amount of people that play the game. When making changes of this proportion to any aspect of the game, it is best to get feedback from as many people as possible.

What you need to do is open the Test Server, preferably, for 2 days, at least 2 days before the patch is supposed to come out. Why? Because this gives the players time to analyze, test, and give feedback regarding changes made to the game. You will then have Feedback to analyze yourself, and time to do small changes before the patch goes live. It also gives you a chance to catch bugs before they come out with the patch, You have far more people playing, Which means a greater chance at finding them.


If you want this game to live for years to come, You need to start listening to your players and customers, Instead of going around the forums trying to justify the changes when you clearly have a huge amount of players upset about them.

Regards,
A Concerned Player,
Ake

Yes, Blizzard listens to it's players, You actually have to be on the PTR to test and give feedback, rarely do they listen to QQ on the forums.

In regards to your recent hero LeBlanc, and how she's going to be getting tweaked in the next few days. This is just yet another example of why we need a public test server. Her burst damage is stupidly high early-game, most anyone on a public test realm could've told you this. She was completely wrecking tanks....

I think it's a good idea, though. It would definitely improve the game.

I agree. Didn't riot say a game based on dota is supposed to be community driven?

QQ on the forums after each patch. People upset about changes.

That happened with free sign up ptr too.

I'm pretty sure riot does use players of different skill levels in its test server

The whole point of PTR is to get feedback. If people are QQ'ing about changes on the PTR this is a form of feedback, Chances are something needs to be changed. That's WHY PTR exists for games like WoW, LoL, even HoN has a Dev mode that allows you to test out new heroes before they're implemented in-game.

They may have different levels of skill testing it, But the amount testing on the server is hardly enough to get enough positive feedback. They need to open it publicly so that they have more people testing it, Changes to the game affects everyone from Riot to you the user at home playing it. I would like to have a voice, as would many others. In the changes for each patch. It would make this a better game.

You act like WoW PTR makes every single patch they put out a perfect bundle of daisies.