I think it's time to start a Beta Branch, Frontier

[Sclurp]

I mean no disrespect to the hard working devs who are working on PC2 but after today's update, I feel just more disappointment.

These updates are not doing what they need to.

Restaurants were never going to be the feature of all features to bring the whole experience together, but this is another case of something not hitting the landing. In the last update the western scenery was added but it wasn't Planet Coaster 2's take on the western theme. But if we are to compromise and just get that old scenery from PC1 ported over, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Yet the assets looked lower quality than not just the other PC2 pieces, but how they looked in the first game as well.
Before that update we had the fumbling over the situation where we were presented with more DLC to buy despite all the issues the game has.

The update and care given to flumes was welcome. Absolutely.

But now, with being presented with these very limited and kinda broken/ janky restaurants, Frontier should consider bringing the community in closer with the ongoing development of this game and invite willing fans into a beta branch to give crucial feedback on what is happening, before the trigger is pulled on them. Cos damn, it just feels like we are still seeing the same mistakes happening over and over again.

Can you please consider giving us the means to actually help. Even a stream that showcased these features in depth, where you can collect feedback in time to adjust the development of these features, would go a long way.

It worked for Crusader Kings 3's team, after one disastrous update/DLC after another. Now they know the value of dropping the secrecy and inviting feedback BEFORE something gets rolled out and becomes something else that needs to be fixed.

 

[_Tilly-Tony_]

100% agree.

I was very excited for restaurants but as soon as i tried to use them, i realised how limiting they are!
You cant connect a table to more than one restaurant!
I want to reduce queues by having more than one restaurant counter but cant connect all the tables to all of the counters!

Would have been really cool if restaurants merged together to become a bigger counter, if two or more are placed next to eachother.
We could make bigger counters and different shapes like L shape counters.

 

[Valdo82]

While i do agree, that an open beta would be nice in some way, they probably dont have the ressources for it.

Beta tests costs money/time. You need an QA, maybe an CM too, just to run it. This are two full paid positions just for the Tests.

It is probably not even the willingness to want more on Frontier's side, it is a more the matter of ressources.

 

[danny420]

this is a great idea. One that ive even suggested months ago. When i look at other games that offer this kind of beta branch i see much more community interaction and better updates. Look at manor lords, such a small dev team and they are realy delivering some amazing features and asked changed into the game. Before each major update you get to play the update on a beta branch before its release and you can playtrst and give your feedback to devs.

I think its realy time to change this especially with frontier beeing a much bigger company. However i dont think we will get anything close to that. I have the impression, and thats just my opinion, that frontier has a set plan that they will follow no matter what.

 

[lilibat]

I do UAT (User Acceptance Testing) which is a final QA pass with people who are basically customers which is what is being proposed here for another game, if I could help test this stuff I would definitely come back to do so. One of the reasons I stopped playing was how janky, rushed and untested everything seems. All they really need is a CM to wrangle the testers a bit, and a lowbie dev or internal QA to liaison. Neither is a full time job** especially if your testers have some experience in submitting testing/bugs.

Anyway, I like the suggestion.

** I used to be the wrangler/liaison for UAT at a CNET years ago.

 

[Valdo82]

I do UAT (User Acceptance Testing) which is a final QA pass with people who are basically customers which is what is being proposed here for another game, if I could help test this stuff I would definitely come back to do so. One of the reasons I stopped playing was how janky, rushed and untested everything seems. All they really need is a CM to wrangle the testers a bit, and a lowbie dev or internal QA to liaison. Neither is a full time job** especially if your testers have some experience in submitting testing/bugs.

Anyway, I like the suggestion.

** I used to be the wrangler/liaison for UAT at a CNET years ago.

Yes it maybe not a full time job, but it is still a job

The reason i am saying this with the ressources either paul or imay told me here in this forum that they don't have the ressources for a Q&A or Dev Diary, which is way less expense than a full on beta test...

i for example would love, if the team is more like paradox interactive for example, who are great at this in my opinion, but frontier doesn't think it is not a good idea to 'waste' their budget this way.

 

[lilibat]

Yes it maybe not a full time job, but it is still a job

The reason i am saying this with the ressources either paul or imay told me here in this forum that they don't have the ressources for a Q&A or Dev Diary, which is way less expense than a full on beta test...

i for example would love, if the team is more like paradox interactive for example, who are great at this in my opinion, but frontier doesn't think it is not a good idea to 'waste' their budget this way.

They can hire more QA, hire someone to wrangle volunteers, or keep getting roasted and losing players for janky features and decor. ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Sclurp]

They can hire more QA, hire someone to wrangle volunteers, or keep getting roasted and losing players for janky features and decor. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Very. Much. This.

 

[Sclurp]

I just want to say I do like this new update but in 15 minutes I was able to identify numerous issues that I feel like surely must have escaped Frontier's notice because these are things they would not ordinarily be happy to push out (imo). For instance, the textures on the pirate themed well is completely broken and where bricks should be we have a mish-mash of textures, including wood.
There's a structure in the fairytale theme that is supposed to be white and instead it's bright green-yellow and black. With no option to change colours.

There's lights in the fairytale themed scenery that flickers/ flashes with a glitchy quality that could pose a danger to people with photosensitivity/ epilepsy. The least worrisome aspect of these items is that they're just unusable as they look awful while they're like this.

The witch animatronic looks like she's been tethered to the back of someone's car with a rope and driven along the entire length of the M25 (the amount of dirty looking textures that are applied to her).

The firefly jar emits a white light (which cant be changed) while the sibling scenery piece that is attached to a post, emits the proper green light.

There's other scenery pieces as well where the textures aren't quite right. Or in the case of some of the larger pieces (such as the fairytale dragons) the textures are not of the same quality as pieces from PC2's scenery, which features sharper quality visuals.

 

[danny420]

I just want to say I do like this new update but in 15 minutes I was able to identify numerous issues that I feel like surely must have escaped Frontier's notice because these are things they would not ordinarily be happy to push out (imo). For instance, the textures on the pirate themed well is completely broken and where bricks should be we have a mish-mash of textures, including wood.
There's a structure in the fairytale theme that is supposed to be white and instead it's bright green-yellow and black. With no option to change colours.

There's lights in the fairytale themed scenery that flickers/ flashes with a glitchy quality that could pose a danger to people with photosensitivity/ epilepsy. The least worrisome aspect of these items is that they're just unusable as they look awful while they're like this.

The witch animatronic looks like she's been tethered to the back of someone's car with a rope and driven along the entire length of the M25 (the amount of dirty looking textures that are applied to her).

The firefly jar emits a white light (which cant be changed) while the sibling scenery piece that is attached to a post, emits the proper green light.

There's other scenery pieces as well where the textures aren't quite right. Or in the case of some of the larger pieces (such as the fairytale dragons) the textures are not of the same quality as pieces from PC2's scenery, which features sharper quality visuals.

Just wanted to add, the new lights that came in are missing the feature of being triggerable and also have no option to be turned on during day or only at night…

 

[Aaronroberts12567]

I feel slightly disappointed too, they're on break now I think they said? So they've left the flumes with rafts starting in an awkward position, also rafts float up into the run out lanes because they didn't update those to match the new rounded track, there's still a lot of clipping issues on flat rides but they've at least acknowledged some, they acknowledged a issue in the tracker about prebuilt track pieces, so hopefully most of those will be sorted, but it does leave me feeling enraged when there's an issue in the tracker, with an easy fix, and it just expires :/