According to what I've read here about this game, it seems the testing phase is going to be difficult because of the huge amount of combinations you can do in your party through the several episodes this game has.
Perhaps when the game reaches the open beta stage we could create some kind of spreadsheet and try to take note of every possible party combination for every episode.
But first of all, I'd like to ask: is this game divided "physically" in episodes, like for instance Defenders of Oasis for the Game Gear (where a chapter number and a title appears at every episode transition so you can unmistakably see when you're entering a new one) or does it play seamlessly through the episodes?
If it's similar to Def. of Oasis, then if there's an open beta phase after Wildbill and Sylardean have concluded their first beta pass, the people who are willing (and given permission, obviously) to test it can check out that spreadsheet and see if a certain combination of characters has already been tested for the episode they're in, and they can chose other party members for their playthrough and test new things. And the people who gain access to the final patch(*) can do the same as well and avoid using in their playthroughs party combinations that have already been tested in the previous phases.
(*)I say "people who gain access to the patch" because I'm aware you're still deliberating whether you'll offer the patch publicly or not.
I hope I've conveyed accurately what I wanted to express, given I'm not native English speaker, hehe. I'm going to make a sample spreadsheet as a visual example of my idea and I'll edit this message when I'm done, with a link to it. I don't know the name of all the characters in this game, so I'll make up some of them.
Edit: Here it is. It would be something similar to this. It's quite raw yet and I'm sure it can be improved a lot. It's more a "proof of concept" than something usable right out of the box.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0