Far be it for me to question how Frontier do things, but I have to question how Frontier are doing things.
I'm no software developer but I have done programming for people in my time and even I can see this is not the right way to do things.
I can understand that 1.5/Horizons is the focus now but you cannot let that take the focus of critical gameplay issues today. Do you really want or need people being pee'd off and complaining from now until 1.5 and then beyond that because a supposed fix wasn't done properly ?
Far better to get things fixed now (or soon) so they can be tested out during the rest of 1.4 and then when 1.5 comes out you know they will no longer be issues.
I'm referring to things like the NPC AI and SMAA issues which are slated for 1.5. I find this totally bewildering.
The AI in Res Zones are really poor now. If you approach from behind and open fire, more often than not, the ship will just sit there rolling from side to side until you stop firing or it's shields go down. Even then there is no guarantee it will move. So you just come to a stop and fire until you destroy it, Elite Anaconda or not. Also their ability to smack into asteroids is like they never made it out of pilot training. I have videos of both of these issues.
One time I was firing on a ship when it collided with another ship (clean) and thus my laser hit this clean ship just once and I got a 200cr bounty (can't we relax this so friendly fire doesn't give you a fine unless you fire 2 or more times on the vessel??). Not only that but that clean ship then ran off being chased by another pirate who then blew him up and it was ME who got the fine for the murder !! Now I'm Wanted there for the next 6 days. Great !
The SMAA issue is somethng else that needs sorting before 1.5. As with the NPC AI, you just can't keep people waiting until 1.5 to sort this out. The NPC AI diminishes gameplay and the SMAA an inconvenience but still....
On both of those issues it says "will be looked into for 1.5". That doesn't even mean fixed ! Honestly that's just not good enough.
What if you 'look into' these things, think you've sorted it, launch 1.5 and it's still broken or not right. Then you have more work to sort that out after 1.5.
You have much more chance of making 1.5 a great update if you fix the issues in 1.4 along the way.
Making interdictions 'slightly easier' is fine. But what about the repititions ? Hopefully something, like some different logic, can be applied there for 1.5
Lastly are the small things like the 10CR Repair bug (it IS a bug because the logic of it is flawed), the black text on the HUD, should all be sorted by now. Those are issues you can fix over a cup of coffee so why are they still there ?
Saying "it's a known issue" is nothing. We know it's known because we know it. That you know it tells us nothing about what's going to be done about it and when.
I really think Frontier should be more forthcoming and communicative with details. Also with all the mess that came with 1.4, the changlog which was originally posted here is a disappointment.
I'm not one to make posts of this nature but after seeing this response from the devs I felt I had to as I'm just not able to hide how disappointing this is that bugs we have now are not going to looked at until 1.5. I don't understand this way of doing things.