I am fine with that - as long as Illfonic does not try (harder) to explain themselves, it is absolutely fair to treat them as a black box :) Or just make the managers responsible…
I just think, for all those Illfonic guys, who do an outstanding job, and those who design the game play, the atmosphere, the designs, most of the vivid “virtual reality” and so on, it would be nice, if we all could, from time to time, say something nice…
We obviously all love (and hate too:) the game - for some reasons. The guys behind that reasons did and do quite well. It often is forgotten in this forum…
I do not say, that you do so - my impression is, that you belong to a more “differentiated” kind of people here (I do not know whether “differentiated” is the right word in English - I mean, you seem NOT to be a simpleton), so, no harm taken… :)
I just had the urge to say something nice to the guys, who give their best…
I would like to think I’m not a simpleton , but opinions may vary 😁 and any complaint I have at this game is directly to whatever asshat keeps fucking it up . Its been almost a year and its the same issue that keeps popping up
which might endorse, that it is the same underlying reason (e.g. data structures:) and together with that, the same guy(s) responsible for that behind the scenes…
Yeah like i said i’ve been in several forums that the devs where more focused on the players and tried there best to fix issues and bugs brought to them. but i find this one a shitshow of just whiny assholes who act like assholes to everyone that has a idea or a way to do a more generic fix to the current shit meta. This forum need to be maintained and look over by more than one dev to route out the actual good ideas and balancing issues and test them in a test sever a get feedback from players or members of staff.
Wont they have some sort of data collection? For the bugs at least like error reports? As for the player feedback I think they have their heads too far in the clouds or they are backed into a corner , its unfair to say they aren’t trying I know they are obviously working on it , but if you need to patch you’re patches? Clearly there is something they can’t get a hold of to cure it . It might be like you said and it was rushed but besides that they are trying to prolong the playerbase with making then wait for the content they would expect and the game modes . Clash was a disaster
No trust me, it is not, at least not in the way that Illfonic does it.
Yes User Testing is a significant Task in Software Development now, and for good reasons, since you develop the Product to be used by the Users and they are the ones that need to test it to make it better.
But it needs to be done in a coordinated and structured matter, which doesn’t happen here at all. (I studied UX Design last year, which basically makes me the person to coordinate such test sessions and collect insights and feedback from Users.)
I’d say it might be even less than half of the number. Maybe 20 people at all who have direct impact on the Game Design and Development.
This Game was released as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), which is a trend in Software Design.
You create something with the minimum of features to make it usable and develop it further by the User feedback you collect, and the latter is Illfonics biggest issue.
But thats the point im trying to make they where so far from a finished product that the game fell short from the start the lack of content the lack of communication and the joke of a game we currently have. If the game released with the clash mode and the 4 maps from day one with proper tracking of dailies and weeklies while in a match and kills of both predator and ft kills the game would have been better off. The thing is that all these patches are doing is band aiding the problem that where in game since day 1 and now they have introduced more problem with the shit patches. Im not saying there not trying im saying that the work at the alpha and the release was lack luster and should have been tested and worked on more. i would have been fine if the game had came out this year than last year because they would have had more time to work on it
I know this already with destiny 2 i no longer trust game companies i dont spend a shit ton of money on collectors editions or pre orders because i know the games will be shit
That is true. And by the way, I am no promoter of user testing at all - I prefer creating software, which already is tested well…
I just was saying, the reality is another one. There are some nice models of how companies should arrange their software development process - one of the maybe oldest (but not the worst:) models out there e.g. is the V-Model.
After some three decades of earning my money with professional software development, I can tell you: theory and reality differ…
Take the example of the V-Model (which exists in several flavours yet, but…), on the left hand you would at least need different persons for doing the job of a
On the right hand you would need as much people testing in the different phases. Additionally you need people, who do the art work, the documentation, the translation, the management, the marketing, the … and so on.
With some twenty people, there just would be one person for each job. In reality, small or medium sized company just do not have enough employees to fill out all positions properly.
In all my professional life I just encountered a SINGLE company REALLY sticking to such a process. It had far beyond 100 employees and might be well known…
By the way, I am working in areas, where errors might have fatal consequences - user testing in a way Illfonic does it, would be a veeeery bad idea there:)
So, I wish you, that you experience another software development environment - which is less tolerant against noobs… But considering the quality of software out there at the moment, and we are not just talking about games, I doubt it:(
But the challenges connected with the development of highly parallel processes - which is the nature of online-multiplayer-games - should not be underestimated.
There are just a few people out there, which really can do a proper software design for a really concurrent system.
Dangling threads, deadlocks, asynchronous data structures are just a bunch of challenges which one has to keep in mind.
But there are still a lot of software developers out there, who even have massive problems with understanding the principles of object oriented software development - a principle well established since 1987…
Software just is as good as their developers are:)
So, the basic challenges of PHG are huuuuuuge, if you ask me - whether you start with a MVP or not…
True. But people does not “live from air”, they need to earn money sometime. The company might be penniless, if they had chosen to postpone the release…
That is the difference between theory and reality. In reality, you have deadlines. In reality you do not have enough people do to everything in a way you would like to. In reality you also have colleagues, who are noobs, messing up all you did well. In reality…
Nevertheless, I think, with the bad maintenance of this forum you and @Vargaresa are right, if you ask me. The integration of the user feedback into the software development process seems to be poor - at least, out of POV of this forum.
On the other hand, it is seldom that I find a helpful post here. Most of my questions even have not been answered at all by the forum. So, why should Illfonic read it at all?..
Summed it up nicely. But anyways anything complex suggested here would be integrated later after they meet their original goals for this game that have been in the works.
They clearly already have a schedule and deadlines set for planned content and have an idea of what they’re able to put out monthly.
I actually think they were aiming way, way too high with monthly release schedules but it looks like most of the content was in the works before launch and they just cut it from the game with a few exceptions.
Not so sure about that… Maybe most of the team already is focusing on a completely new game? Who knows…
Anyways, I doubt that those errors in the underlying software design will be or even can be (with reasonable, economically appropriate effort) fixed. This probably would need a rewrite of certain parts of the software. Its very seldom that companies do this…
I am afraid, we have to live with patches patching patches and all those bugs from funny to irritating… But I tell you what: the game nevertheless is a great one, I still love it (although I already despaired several times due to those horrible crashes and unnerving bugs)…
The asymmetric game play, one baaaad alien vs several good but just human humans, combined with the really vivid and nice jungle…
I am still addicted - admittedly with periodic timeouts of despair :) Fire on…
Meant to say if it all woops but they are hiring a bunch of lead software engineers, likely for a different project. Granted the company’s like 70 people and theres maybe 20 or so working directly on this game.
