[Bashar]

Why is everyone arguing that betas should be done by people who test properly? Anyone who behaves differently in beta from how they do in the normal round is helping to generate the artifical universe of the beta. You might be able to test how one ship acts against another, or how certain fleets act against each other, but what the hell use is that? You can do that far easier and quicker with an excel spreadsheet or a battle calc. Testing whether those are the actual results can be done piss easy by running a simple simulation with the combat ticker (putting the values in the database and click "go"). That sort ot testing is artificial and quite simply misleading as it is not in a real situation.

The testing that is needed is testing of how the stats, gameplay etc. stand up when given to the community, how they get used and how it all balances out with the use it gets. The rest is just people looking at the stats through the combat engine, which can be done far quicker by anyone who knows what they're doing in excel etc. The input those people then give is simply an opinion of the stats, and yes, they may need further balancing, they may not, but without testing them in an accurate real round simulation, the input can only be opinion based on a different context. The main problem is that the context the betas provide is totally wrong. The main problem with the way testing is done is that it is too artificial.

All that's needed is people who can play as they normally would but who can interpret what happens, describe it and analyse it for flaws. People doing anything other than that are actually causing detriment to the testing in my view.