A relative newcomer, but I like his videos...I'm tempted to
Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
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His second vid related to China is really interesting.A relative newcomer, but I like his videos...I'm tempted tosubscribepledge to his channel
Yeah, definitely someone to keep an eye on, like Bootcha back then but with less controversy - for now.
It's well written, calm, self-conscious, looks like informed and nails it right away.
Top Comment said:Luke, you've switched off your MFD'S, what's wrong?
But damn, that Polaris result.
(I guess that kinda means it might get optimised down the line, and was just T0 torpedoed into the PU. But the variability across the legacy fleet suggests it's just the cost of having lavish bespoke UI per ship...)
That and Building Blocks is probably rubbish
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
The thing is that what Chris Roberts promised was 2025 as a year with focus on playability. Not just "stability". In his own words: "... if the current game, as it stands today, ran smoothly with fewer obstacles and bugs..."It's cool, he's stabilised the definition of 'year of stability' now:
The top level aim of 2025 is to ensure a stationary car doesn't crash
Stability can be a bit of an abstract concept without taking the time to define it, as the definition can change from one person to the next. The internal definition that we use for what is considered a stability issue is pretty narrow and refers specifically to crashes an disconnections. I'm the one that established both the internal definition for it, as well as the data model that we use for how we measure server and client stability in reference to crashes and disconnections. That data model is then used to aid producers in decision making for if we should be prioritizing fixing crashes and disconnections, or if developers should be focusing on gameplay issues such as what you describe in your question.
Think of it like a car. Stability is how likely it is to flip over and crash. Performance is how well it can accelerate, corner without flipping over and crashing, etc. Usability is how well the driver can interact with the cars various features.
So are things more stable in the year of stability? Yes but that's not really what you were asking about so it doesn't help if I focus on that.
You're concerned about the frustrating experiences that are occurring due to gameplay bugs and performance issues. I can't really comment on the prioritization of the gameplay issues, as that's not the area that I'm in charge of. Performance I can comment on a bit since the team I'm on helps out with that process. Fixes for performance issue are something that is iterative. It takes a lot of slow and steady work over time. We do performance captures for every single PTU build and public environment multiple times to provide our developers with the information they need to investigate implement performance fixes. However, fixing performance issues is much like pealing back layers of an onion. When one performance issue is fixed, the next worst one usually rises up to take its place and limits the efficacy of the fix that went into place. Sometimes getting big performance gains requires new tech or complete rewrites of old systems and there's definitely some of that still going on. But even those new systems are going to have their own iterative performance work that has to happen.
Stability is obviously part of playability, but far from being the only thing needed for a game to be playable. SC´s omnipresent and pervasive game breaking bugs, broken core systems such as physics, poor design choices and lack of quality of life (among other things) obviously destroy playability and should have been the focus aswell.
So far most of these seem to actually be getting worst instead.
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
There are a few things in there that do not seem to check out. He says he actually lives and works in China so I would have expected a much more clearer picture.His second vid related to China is really interesting.
Yeah, definitely someone to keep an eye on, like Bootcha back then but with less controversy - for now.
IIRC he mentions that once CIG starts selling the game in China they wont be able to sell jpgs for "hundreds or thousands of dollars", but then he states that ships may be able to cost around a hundred dollars (??) which still is outrageous enough. It is not clear to me why or how the price of jpegs would be arbitrarily regulated down by the Chinese authorities. I may have missed it but I dont recall Chinese authorities forcing lower dlc prices on other pay2win games, gacha or otherwise, sold over there.
If they do reduce the prices artificially then there will be a huge arbitration opportunity obviously. Grey market pundits buying jpegs cheap in China and reselling at a huge profit elsewhere. The Chinese authorities can not regulate the grey market as it is likely not based in China, or even realistically force CIG to impose different rules to different sets of buyers, as there will presumably be tons of ways to circunvent that by creative grey marketeers or money launderers. And that despite the intended new regulations over there.
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Yeah he's done his standard weasel wording there. It's everything and nothing in some ways. (He's mainly just striving to make it sound different from the prior QoL initiatives which, like this, just inched the rock up the hill for a while).
I wouldn't say the bugs and systems are getting worse though per se. They just absolutely aren't getting any better.
What did change notably for a bit was server stability (logging in, 30K frequency etc), and to a degree server 'health' regarding FPS. (Although that definitely still varied wildly with server pop).
It's interesting to see, just one content patch later, that 4.1 has already started to fall apart again though, even on the server stability front. (As evidenced by the Bearded-CIG thread just now). And mission locations have been spanked on the FPS front the entire time. 4.2's additions look set to double down on that.
And yeah, the core systemic stuff: The PES lag, the Tier 0 feature dysfunction (docking collars, freight elevators, instanced hangars, etc etc) and legacy systems (transit, physics, surfaces etc) are still fundamentally bug-ridden. Just tat stacked on tat. Nothing's meaningfully changing there. And it probably can't overall
(Mainly because CIG is primed to stack more Tier 0 tat, in the form of engineering, fire, Planet Tech V5, with base building downstream etc. Ain't no way even the odd transit rebuild is gonna keep pace with these core scaffolding shifts...)
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
It certainly looks like they are, contested zones becoming worst...
Servers getting worst... and that has a knock on effect on bugs in general. The worst servers get, the worst bugs get etc:
Spectrum - v7.46.6
RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...
robertsspaceindustries.com
And this is just the "latest".
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It certainly looks like they are, contested zones becoming worst...
Servers getting worst... and that has a knock on effect on bugs in general. The worst servers get, the worst bugs get etc:
Spectrum - v7.46.6
RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...
View attachment 431325
And this is just the "latest".
Yeah I clipped that clip
. (And Morph isn't saying those contested zones got particularly worse, other than via standard post-launch server ageing. He's saying they were bad from the start. Just like the new 4.2 one ). I also gave a nod to the bearded-CIG stuff in my post. but think it's worth noting that there were some short-form improvements. (And that a backsliding from that doesn't constitute 'worse overall' per se. Although I'm sure CIG can achieve that, given more time
)What Twitch (and reddit chatter etc) have shown over this period is that there were some performance-related improvements over Q1 & Q2, and that did hold back some bug variants in places. But as their focus has moved back to content additions, all of that is unravelling again.
We're just heading back to baseline CIG...
This is interesting. I didn't realise that the $$$ ships now get firewalled behind Wikelo when they slow-drip into the game.
Suddenly the painfully unfun process, and loot box nature of the ship rewards, makes more sense
(I guess this is what they were trialing with the Pyro station missions. That had the lootbox format. Just needed more exclusivity, and pain...)
Suddenly the painfully unfun process, and loot box nature of the ship rewards, makes more sense
(I guess this is what they were trialing with the Pyro station missions. That had the lootbox format. Just needed more exclusivity, and pain...)
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
I think he actually does. He uses the words "right now" to describe CZ current woes (he speaks of current PU CZ even if was playing PTU). Which indicates that it was better, even if ever so slightly, in the past. Does not look like he was referring to post launch server ageing in particular, although technically it could be.Yeah I clipped that clip
That kind of issue is serious. Certainly did not happen into status quo servers that we have seen in the recent past. It has even a worrisome 3.18 ring to it:I also gave a nod to the bearded-CIG stuff in my post. but think it's worth noting that there were some short-form improvements. (And that a backsliding from that doesn't constitute 'worse overall' per se. Although I'm sure CIG can achieve that, given more time
I mean if you think this is par for the course or at the same average level as recently maybe CIG has managed to already succeed at making you normalize crappier stuff already
watch out! They are really good at that.This is a clear regresion and worsening spaghetti code sign, to me at least, compared to the last couple years or so, even if they manage to optimize. After 12 years servers should be getting more stable, not worst. We can blame it on "server meshing" if we want but it should not be regressing this bad if stability is at least the same (nevermind improving).
Fully agree. But the above and a few other symptoms we have seen do not suggest they are staying put at recent levels of brokenness either. Things point rather to a general deterioration.
They may recover some of that in the future but hey
they should not have been needing that kind of recovery in the first place if things were at the same level of stability.Attachments
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Watch the full rant. He's talking about a baseline of badness. (The 'right now' just refers to it being still broken because it arrived broken).
That kind of issue is serious. Certainly did not happen into status quo servers that we have seen in the recent past. It has even a worrisome 3.18 ring to it:
I mean if you think this is par for the course or at the same average level as recently maybe CIG has managed to already succeed at making you normalize crappier stuff already
This is a clear regresion and worsening spaghetti code sign, to me at least, compared to the last couple years or so, even if they manage to optimize. After 12 years servers should be getting more stable, not worst. We can blame it on "server meshing" if we want but it should not be regressing this bad if stability is at least the same (nevermind improving).
The quantitative info we have (complaint post type and volumes, etc) and the qualitative (Twitch streams, etc) say that, while the game is still a dumpster fire at heart, it's not currently at 3.18 levels.
The stuff Bearded-CIG discussed is still mainly at outlier levels at the moment.
It's a descent from the 'Oh people are suddenly signing up again because they can actually log in' uptick of Q1 etc, but it hasn't delved into the full depths of dysfunction that CIG are capable of.
The SC rollercoaster continues...
¯\(ツ)/¯
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
I did watch the full piece, the "right now" definitely does not look to acknowledge a "same state as before". Perhaps just my non native English, but older CZ clips that I can recall suggest a less broken gameplay state (still broken) than the one he describes here for sure (massive glitching thorugh walls etc). If it had been the same, the "right now" would have been a tad superfluous aswell. Unless he actually had hopes they will improve when he spoke which, given the rage quit, does not look like it. At least in the short term
I do not think I mentioned it was currently at 3.18 levels, but that the issue is significant and has a definite ring to 3.18 given the people inability to access servers for long periods and interactable items not responding.
Even the dev posting so long and detailed about it acknowledges the issue is significant, out of the ordinary, and more complex to solve than other issues in the recent past. CIG may still recover it (at what cost for the code?), but the point is this should not have happen in the first place if stability had been maintained (nevermind improved), and clearly points to worsening spaghetti code and degradation.
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Wikelo dislike intensifying...
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/1l3d53e/is_every_new_ship_going_to_be_wikelo_lootbox_from/
Lots of debate about whether this is going to be the only route to get $$$ ships in-game from now on. (With a minor undercurrent of 'Watch them start selling scrip in the store... full monetized lootboxes...')
In the meantime CIG have thrown them a minor bone to chew on... some pain removed from the process:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/1l3gpk8/all_backer_ptu_star_citizen_alpha_42_ptu_9831127/
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/1l3d53e/is_every_new_ship_going_to_be_wikelo_lootbox_from/
Lots of debate about whether this is going to be the only route to get $$$ ships in-game from now on. (With a minor undercurrent of 'Watch them start selling scrip in the store... full monetized lootboxes...')
In the meantime CIG have thrown them a minor bone to chew on... some pain removed from the process:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/1l3gpk8/all_backer_ptu_star_citizen_alpha_42_ptu_9831127/
Oh yes you nailed it. I just send these screenshots to CIG and they give me ingame credits, that's how I made my 5+ million credits
Hopefully these garner enough interest to get a couple more millions...Pretending to be hauling goods from city to station...
Pretending to clean some bunkers...
Pretending to bounty hunt some players along the way...
And dwelling deep into caves to hunt alien fauna for their pretend horns...
And then being greeted by the nicest views returning to surface...(if you know you know).
You can call it the money shot.
Hope these please Roberts cause I just splashed 3.5M in this bad boy:
Argo Raft aka Gertrudes (Betsy's Aunt). Old Gerty for the crew, when I find them.
Ah, and I got rid of the moustache. As in, Dany got caught with illegal goods and is currently serving some time.
Tanya, his sister, is now trying to make enough creds to bail him out. Wish her luck!
If only there was a way for players to try the game for free and decide for themselves that would show cig, it would realy hurt them...
Oh wait...
It often does friend. The new player that is
Oh wait...
Yep, 0.8 billion raised from ~2.5m paying backers. (Conversion rate from free tester to paying backer is ~42%. Used to be ~50%).
CIG are doing fine. The deliverable products, less so...
But you don't need to care friendo. Your starter pack doesn't keep the show rolling. The whales do that.
Even though many of them calve off from the project, unimpressed with their pre-orders, and out of pocket...
The grift continues...
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
It certainly looks like they are, contested zones becoming worst...
Servers getting worst... and that has a knock on effect on bugs in general. The worst servers get, the worst bugs get etc:
Spectrum - v7.46.6
RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...
View attachment 431325
And this is just the "latest".
AkCtChUaLlyY
Just to be fair - the guy was there, he just didn't see him. Yeah, don't blame him for assuming though. Invisible players have been fairly rife in PTU...