FD Devs, please don't take this the wrong way...

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Do the programmers suck? No! They're amazing. The management however... not so amazing. It often seems like they miss out step 4 below.

1. Alpha test to find the crashes.
2. Fix the crashes.
3. Beta test to find many of the bugs (bugs == exploits, bad mission design decisions, massive mission payouts, etc.).
4. Fix the bugs.
5. Release the update.

The game would be much better if they always did step 4, even if that meant delaying the update and even doing a beta#2.

Delaying update isn't always possible and bugs sometimes manifest in huge pool of player base not in controlled environment at company.

Management does not have to be loved. They have to deliver results. FD management does, despite what we might thing about some of their decisions.

 

[Zeede]

As a relatively new player to Elite: Dangerous, I have to say that the quality control is a bit sub-par. Bugs will happen, even with seemingly innocuous changes to small parts of the game, but player-killing bugs like the falling skimmers from the last patch should not have been allowed to persist for months.

It seems a bit strange to me to have your customer service people (who are really awesome, btw) run around restoring things people lost to falling skimmers...instead of hot fixing it. No, I don't know anything about coding, but I do know that other games will try and fix serious bugs like this ASAP, not wait until the next major patch.

 

[Jack Schitt]

As a relatively new player to Elite: Dangerous, I have to say that the quality control is a bit sub-par. Bugs will happen, even with seemingly innocuous changes to small parts of the game, but player-killing bugs like the falling skimmers from the last patch should not have been allowed to persist for months.

It seems a bit strange to me to have your customer service people (who are really awesome, btw) run around restoring things people lost to falling skimmers...instead of hot fixing it. No, I don't know anything about coding, but I do know that other games will try and fix serious bugs like this ASAP, not wait until the next major patch.

See, that is a reasonable and considered argument that highlights a specific problem and politely questions why FD seems to do things a bit differently.

"No offence, but do you suck?" isn't.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Don't take this the wrong way, but you suck [haha]

That is genius, I have to rep that.

I'm still trying to figure out what is the "wrong way" to take being asked whether you suck at your job.

Well, there are certain professions, but I'm afraid this is a family forum.

 

[Leo Sagan]

But do our programmers suck?

This is way too harsh, uncalled for and probably counter-productive.

Thanks to the devs : I appreciate all the hard work you are putting into the game, I respect you as workers and human beings and I'm grateful for the beautiful game you brought to us over the years.

And this is coming from someone who is regularly called a "hater" on the forums.

 

[UnhappyDev]

So I have to ask, do our programmers suck?

Over 2 million units sold of ED....I'm going with 'no'.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

As a relatively new player to Elite: Dangerous, I have to say that the quality control is a bit sub-par. Bugs will happen, even with seemingly innocuous changes to small parts of the game, but player-killing bugs like the falling skimmers from the last patch should not have been allowed to persist for months.

It seems a bit strange to me to have your customer service people (who are really awesome, btw) run around restoring things people lost to falling skimmers...instead of hot fixing it. No, I don't know anything about coding, but I do know that other games will try and fix serious bugs like this ASAP, not wait until the next major patch.

This is only gripe with FD. They should get CI and hot fixing and cherry picking for critical bugs. I hope they sort this out.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Up until 2.4, ED has been extremely stable for me. No major crashes, and bugs were avoidable.

Unfortunately, 2.4 or AMD have borked something and now ED crashes all the time. Bah.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[xondk]

So I have to ask, do our programmers suck?

I plain and simply don't think you can comprehend how difficult it is to create procedural generation like this, you say 'the visuals are nice' but here's the thing, this isn't a game where visuals are created by some person sculpting and designing each model, this is a programmed procedural generation, that is insanely difficult to create.

You are saying 'the flow' which is game design, frontier's idea on what is or isn't fun, and if anything you could argue towards the gameplay designers aren't great, but programmers? with so few bugs, and yes it is relatively few, look at games that use precreated engines that offer many features right out of the box, yet manage to have an enormous amount of bugs.

So yeah, what you might see as a player might seem 'simple' but I can tell you that Elite for all its DESIGN flaws is very very well programmed compared to most of the things that are out there.
And as for 'simple things' unless you've done implementation and such yourself, please do not use the word simple. The nature of procedural generation means that you can test a lot, but you might only find 97% of all issues, and then there's one system that triggers insane amounts of payout for example edge cases.

So in short.
Great programming, but game play design has some issues.

 

[GunnerBill]

I have to say that IMO OP is right about the module storage/swapping thing. It is so clunky as to be the very definition of MEH! Having all those E grade modules... but I suppose that the programming required to have the click and drag type GUI you might hope for is just not a priority?

However possibly a simpler addition that would make things a lot easier here would be a "user notes" box for the module and a better indexing system.

 

[uliando]

Do programmers suck? Complains about game design. WHAT?

 

[krylite]

Just looking at the achievements of the cobra engine where it can accommodate the procedural and networking challenges of the bar-setting ED, and then having great motion (and sound!) effects such as planets and stars zipping by in supercruise, SLF fighter buzzing near the mothership bridge to take point, the 3D effects, good framerate. And with their engine tech, how solid Planet Coaster, and now the great looking new Jurassic World Evolution trailer looks with the dinos, precursor and testbed of future ED "big game hunting" /w spacelegs on an atmosphere planet with jungle forests, tree lines, and clearings etc.

I'm guessing the procedural tech behind materials is on-the-fly randomized creation of the particular mission when generatd also genrates a possible and particular material award. So in any instance it's always a percentage possible for a material to show up at a blasted outcrop/mesoderite or a new generated mission. To have some pirate lord offer interactive clues to a particular material in some system could have to entail an entire new type of procedural mission generation and already set material and keeping track of it since it wouldn't be randomized. It seems like a lot of work to make another procedural system that would scale to literally thousands of stations and bases that offer missions. Winged missions in 3.0 seems to be their next step in implementing persistence among procedural missions shared by wings. I'm just guessing but it sounds like a lot of work while still amazed at what they've done so far.

Well, looking at whatever is called 3.0 in the RSI world, they still have one buggy mission giver "Miles". At the farcical "deadly ramp" gamescon past Aug. , they didn't even show what happened with Miles and quickly cut the session short at the end where the player would have already "failed" the mission, lol.

 

[Whitehair]

But do our programmers suck?

So I have to ask, do our programmers suck?

WOW.

Do you have programmers? How many? Do your programmers write games software?

If you are unhappy with what your programmers do, maybe you should pay them more, then they would make stuff better!

 

[andrak]

Let me know when your 9 year old daughter releases her space game. I'll check it out and give you a solid critique...

 

[starman]

Any one who remembers BBC B micro game design will see this design philosophy here. To keep the player 'busy' lots of obstacles were put infront in terms of how the plyer/user would interact with the 'game' since sue to limits on hardware but limits on the game.

Obviously we have almost 'unlimited hardware' potential. But obviously in the beginning the 'game' was being developed while it was being played so a convoluted series of step were put in place for the user text interface, Since any kind of cinematic exposition due to the big difference that existed in the past between retendered and live graphics . Which no longer exist today. This also explains the use of the color orange since Orange monitorea were a thing in 1984.

The same issues can be seen in the Windows operating system. The grammer of the os no longer applies. Since none of the physical objects that are used as referenced apply.

Ideally of course there would be a space station bar were commander could interact instead of ranting on forums. Missions would be delivered by animated actors. There would be an actual escape pod sequence so cmdrs would stop talking about being 'killed' u are not. Progressive damages to suits is a interesting concept.

The cargo insurance place holder text still remains.

Behind the scenes the system has grown to the extent stuff breaks when chances . There is a drive to refactor code . The other games are not multiplayer so that simplifies things a lot and were built with ought a need to meet some kind of legacy demand.

It would hasve been interesting to see how Planet coaster parks would have to competer against each other.

And that you could deliver 'cargo' to Planet copaster and JP. lol

 

[Khazid]

So, your evidence for Frontier's coders being bad is several design choices they probably had no say in, and the (previous) existence of two bugs?

This...

Devs are not designers. They work on requirements based on the game designers' work

 

[Elgered]

Feedback is important. Maybe we (the forums users here) should create some sort of feedback form, that refines and focusses all the commanders wishes.

Yes - the outfitting based module "inventory" is horrible, NPC interaction is missing (btw. player interaction may be greatly improved too), grinding for everything is boring. There already were tons of threads regarding this and lot of other issues.
I guess the reason, why they are not addressed is, that either it would require a complete overhaul of the game structure or they are saved for future releases. In the past months and years, we got passengers, we got planetary landings, we got wings, ... so I guess, we'll get a player-NPC-/economy, NPC interaction, real storage, advanced computers, onboard interfaces for ship customization, ... in the future.

 

[amadeus1171]

Wow! Great stuff, guys! I may have to wait another day to comment.

 

[Crank Larson]

I'm waiting for all the "if you don't like the game so much, leave" threads to make their run. They always seem to come first. Tomorrow, others will read my post critically and make thoughtful responses. I'll give my own response then.

I read your post. I'm critical. I'd thoughtfully suggest that it's all hyperbole, and I'll therefore treat it as such and move on. If I've misunderstood and you're actually serious, then that's all the more reason for me to move on.

 

[Happy Shrapnel]

....and how dare they charge nothing for all these 'upgrades', I demand expensive PAY-TO-WIN updates that only the few have access to so I can boast on my trendy and air-head friendly Twitch stream. Take note Frontier!. I'll be playing World Of Tanks until you sort this situation out.