[Video] January update, was this what we ASKED?! & Fleet carrier delay...

[babelfisch]

You test, look at feedback on performance (i.e. what did people find wrong / not working) and once the major problems and listed fixes seem to be fixed in follow up feedback / build then you release. You don't release yet more untested code because you are then undoing your testing phase and making it redundant. The stutter is an excellent example of this- it would have been instantly commented on, but was not because it was a new problem introduced in a new build. I found severe (i.e. CZ breaking) bugs in my testing, I can't know until live if they sorted them out.



The official feedback area, i.e here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forums/january-update-beta.409/

Personally I believe that some (not all) bugs don't appear in their RC. For some reason they only appear when the update goes live. So no amount of testing would've helped. I can live with that as long as there are efforts to fix these bugs ASAP.

On the other hand, I believe there are also bugs introduced by changes they made after the public beta which could've been identified by QA if they had more people / time / experience.

So in my opinion they should always have a public beta for the RC and only go live if no more issues* are reported. But in that case we should also accept that bugs are still possible.


*no more issues = no more general bugs which happen on every computer and are easily reproducible. I understand they can't fix every issue for every configuration.

 

[Sunyavadin]

NMS seem to have updates with bug fixes and content....black magic?

Aside from that one update that made the game crash to desktop upon loading any save for a whole bunch of us. For TWELVE MONTHS.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Aside from that one update that made the game crash to desktop upon loading any save for a whole bunch of us. For TWELVE MONTHS.

Not unlike me with the September patch where I had to wait for FD to solve it. Admittedly 6 months but...

 

[M00ka]

Not unlike me with the September patch where I had to wait for FD to solve it. Admittedly 6 months but...

So you are saying you haven't been able to play, as in physically can't play the game for the last six months? Really, wow, and you never complained once, what a saint.....

 

[Rubbernuke]

That, I am afraid, is precisely the prerogative of the developer. They have full control on their own development process. Their money and resources, their game, their rules. By all accounts, in addition to the stutter, many bugs have been actually addressed aswell. If they want to do an open beta and then add code to it internally it is their choice to make and their risks to take.

You are of course free to judge the result as a gamer, and as a consumer you are fully free to act accordingly going forward. Such is the magic of the free market.

It is entirely their choice- that is undeniable.

But, from a consumer perspective outside of out bubble here, how does that look having perpetual problems that can be fixed 'out of sight' with us?

"You are of course free to judge the result as a gamer, and as a consumer you are fully free to act accordingly going forward. Such is the magic of the free market."

And I have. My playtime has nosedived thanks to FDs approach to testing and quality in September (by making the game unplayable via network, play and CTD stability issues) and I have not bought anything for a long time. I'll wait for 2020 NE and hope that FD support features they effectively abandoned for years.

 

[Stigbob]

Yep, the morally outraged, the 'I don't know what I am upset about but I have to be upset otherwise nobody will take me seriously' crowd.

Not sure of your vintage Commander but I would love to see some here have to deal with what some of us old timers had to put up with regarding fixes to games. Way back when, we would buy a game and cross our fingers it would work the first time. If it did, you smiled and did a little happy dance. If it worked 'most' of the time, you smiled, put up with the bad bits and continued playing. If it didn't work at all you hoped like hell the shop had a refund policy on software because a lot didn't due to piracy issues.

If there was a problem, you prayed that the developer was important enough to get their patch included in one of the various computer game magazines that were popular back then. So you waited for each monthly issue to drop, hoping that your game was listed on the cover. If you were really lucky, the patch was in the form of a file included on the disk attached to the magazine (if Rob Stevens*, the newsagent son hadn't stolen the damn disk yet, god I hated that kid). If not, the fix was inside the magazine, normally several pages of assembly code to type in and hope beyond all hope that the game publisher got the code right, the magazine publisher printed all the code, in the right order and didn't leave a segment out to put another advertisement in and that your assembly language program was compatible. If all worked according to play, you got to fix your game several months after buying - if you got to fix it at all.

Yeah, it is terrible there are problems with a patch that may be fixed within 24 hours, the world is going to end !

*Not his real name of course

The other great thing about those disks were the demo's. I'm suspicious of any game that doesn't have one, if the products worth showing off show it off.

Then why is it the beta that was tested was not the release candidate? The beta had fixed goals, you then need one more test to make sure they are gone and release. You then repeat for the second patch coming this year.

Maybe they don't consider the quality of the feedback they get to be worth the hassle, given they already discontinued beta's once they can't value it that highly.

You remember the bug with CZ's where the wrong faction got the increase from a win they were asking for bug reports about it with specific data requests like location, faction, affiliation, pilots, station used for handing in, date/time all that jazz. I put one in and got asked to remove it by my faction for opsec, passed that onto FDEV who said I was the only player who had actually submitted a bug report on it (despite it being a constant groan in dang dis) and they'd like it to stay up as an example to hopefully get more info so they could actually fix the issue. A week or so later the anonymous bug reporting idea was introduced by FDEV.

They want info, they just don't get it. Hence the constant cut and paste dev reminders in moan threads to submit bug reports instead of just complaining.

 

[Rubbernuke]

So you are saying you haven't been able to play, as in physically can't play the game for the last six months? Really, wow, and you never complained once, what a saint.....

Play is so sporadic I gave up until the beta which worked great within its scope.

"Really, wow, and you never complained once, what a saint....."

Because, like the adult I am I waited and hoped FD would fix it.

 

[Trellek]

If the game is so screwed up that it requires years of fixing... then isn’t it better to get the years of fixing done first?

 

[Viajero]

But, from a consumer perspective outside of out bubble here, how does that look having perpetual problems that can be fixed 'out of sight' with us?

I guess that is the part where we need to mention that your personal opinion may not be the same as other people’s (either here or outside the “bubble”). For example, if we were to judge Elite by the opinion of new players coming to the game in Steam (I know, Steam right!?) it would seem the last few months of reviews have been increasingly and significantly more positive.

 

[Rubbernuke]

If the game is so screwed up that it requires years of fixing... then isn’t it better to get the years of fixing done first?

The dilemma FD are in is ED is an ongoing project, and the way its done is we are playing in a continual open beta with test phases which are more about opinion gathering. Large scale issues with the BGS, Powerplay, networking etc are very visible and highly disruptive in this manner. Other devs have separate test servers where people can test in as near live environment as possible away from consumers, catching problems not possible in QA due to pool size.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Thats not what the poster said.

Ahem.

That wasnt a beta

 

[Rubbernuke]

I guess that is the part where we need to mention that your personal opinion may not be the same as other people’s (either here or outside the “bubble”). For example, if we were to judge Elite by the opinion of new players coming to the game in Steam (I know, Steam right!?) it would seem the last few months of reviews have been increasingly and significantly more positive.

And the sad thing about ED is that once you get over the initial wow you see more and more bugs, issues and wonder why they don't get fixed and bounce out. I'd love to know the churn rate of ED- going by the trophies its pretty high.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Ahem.

OP pointed out that the beta was not properly testing.

You then say:

So, the betas we paid for as backers or some people paid $10 to access, were not actually betas? That's false advertising then! Quick, someone start a refund sub!

How is that on topic? Hence, not what he said.

 

[Stigbob]

And the sad thing about ED is that once you get over the initial wow you see more and more bugs, issues and wonder why they don't get fixed and bounce out. I'd love to know the churn rate of ED- going by the trophies its pretty high.

Nothings perfect. ED's a lot more stable for me than anything Bethesda ever made, and I still enjoy Bethesda games. YMMV.

 

[M00ka]

And the sad thing about ED is that once you get over the initial wow you see more and more bugs, issues and wonder why they don't get fixed and bounce out. I'd love to know the churn rate of ED- going by the trophies its pretty high.

Strange thing is if one looks for faults, one will find faults even if faults don't exist, you will invent ones just to satisfy your own paradigms.

 

[ArchEmperor]

There have been big orbital shipyards around some systems with Fleet carriers being constructed? It would take years to construct these huge things. The delay is very immersive if the shipyards prove to show these Fleet carriers being built. Much easier to wait for as a player if so.

Also, when they launch, they will be doing tests. So do not expect to be able to do everything from the get go. It is work in progress for the engineers in Elite ( and irl for the developers ), and it will be balanced and features added over time.

Jump range will be short, and require lots of mats, to begin with, but can probably get better when players upgrade their carriers using exotic materials and engineering expertise in game.

All the bug fixes are great, even if there are still some annoying glitches when unloading your mission cargo ( flicker, pause and stutter? ).

 

[Rubbernuke]

Nothings perfect. ED's a lot more stable for me than anything Bethesda ever made, and I still enjoy Bethesda games. YMMV.

Thats great until you get into the BGS or Powerplay, where issues then wreck effort from weeks and months. The main superficial loop of ED is mostly fine, its once you step out of that the duct tape starts showing and the problems and inconsistencies creep in.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

OP pointed out that the beta was not properly testing.

You then say:



How is that on topic? Hence, not what he said.

He said the betas they did were not proper betas. If so, then FD owe everyone who paid for the betas their money back.

They were betas, there were badly implemented though. My point comes back to my earlier point, in that when we move forward with new content updates, even if they are betas, even "proper" betas, my money is on them being full of bugs once they hit release, and overall, nothing will have changed.

I mean, its just my opinion/prediction, and only time will tell. I guess the first acid test will be when they release the FC update. If they are buggy messes, i can say "told you so" and if not others can say "told you so".

 

[Rubbernuke]

Strange thing is if one looks for faults, one will find faults even if faults don't exist, you will invent ones just to satisfy your own paradigms.

OK, so I imagine:

missing icons

CTD issues

CZ black screens (not me nodding off in them)

Network problems

MC problems (like, all of it)

BGS exploits

Powerplay exploits

Badly made skins

Models that clip through themselves, or station parts

Missing sections of models and gaps

Typos / descriptions / lore badly written (as in syntax and grammar)

Game balance issues

Supercruise issues (juddering on interdiction like you are fitting)

Incorrect ship states on surface bases / sizes

Exploitable C + P

Wing bugs: missions almost impossible sometimes

Mission bugs (NPCs not appearing, doing odd things)

Security ship bugs (mainly from NPC wings)

 

[Stigbob]

Thats great until you get into the BGS or Powerplay, where issues then wreck effort from weeks and months. The main superficial loop of ED is mostly fine, its once you step out of that the duct tape starts showing and the problems and inconsistencies creep in.

I've been playing the BGS for three years or more. Seems absolutely fine to me, most of the time when people claim its broken they just don't understand how it works. Power play I just dabble in for the special stuff but again it works fine for me.

If you go by the forum the biggest "bug" with both the BGS and powerplay is one shared BGS, which in reality is working as intended. People just fail at pre-purchase research.