Sharp Decrease in Patch Quality Lately

Discussion in 'FAQ & Feedback' started by TheEthanEffect, Dec 19, 2019.

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  1. TheEthanEffect

    TheEthanEffect Ensign

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    Look, I'm not normally one to criticize how people do their jobs, and I'll admit I'm pretty frustrated as I write this, but that's what feedback is for. Starting with the 11.5 rollout, Eleon has really dropped the ball. It has taken me less than five minutes after the release of every patch that's made it to Stable to find a major issue with the game, some of which were observed and clearly noted on experimental feedback. Some of these aren't even clearly related to published changes/fixes, and in the case of this most recent patch, it was only available on Experimental for a couple of hours before you pushed it to live, resulting in this https://empyriononline.com/threads/...-of-mass-clearly-more-than-intentional.91772/. Issues like this, the blueprint bug, and SV turn rates going insane are not obscure, remote bugs that will only be encountered by a sliver of the player base in rare circumstances. These are everyday problems that are encountered through the course of normal gameplay that have a significant impact and are very easily observable with even a minor amount of interaction with the basic game, and the fact that these problems are even making it to experimental (let alone stable) makes me wonder if you guys are even playing your own game.

    Now I don't want this to be interpreted as a personal attack. I've logged over 2500 hours in Empyrion because it's a fantastic game that I have a lot of hope for, and I do not want to see this trend of just throwing stuff together and then rushing it out the door continue. I'm also not one to criticize something without offering a better option. So here you go.

    First, test your patches internally. If you're already doing this, do a better job of it. Have a standardized testing routine. Get yourself 10 HVs, 10 SVs, and 10 CVs of various types and handling. I recommend half of them being highly used blueprints from the workshop, like Jrandal's stuff. Document each of their handling by including linear acceleration on all axes of movement, as well as rotation speed and acceleration as well as a brief written description on how the thing is supposed to fly/drive. Have a save game where each of these ships is already spawned in. Test the version that's already spawned by flying it around briefly, perhaps through an obstacle course for standardization, and compare its performance to existing documentation. Then spawn that vehicle from blueprint and repeat this process. Do this for all 30 vehicles. It will take one tester roughly three hours. This kind of benchmarking will pick up all kinds of performance abnormalities right off the bat. If this is not something you have the manpower for, DM me and I will happily assemble a team of volunteers to do it for you.

    Second, if you're going to push a patch to Experimental, actually document EVERYTHING that's being changed. Half of the purpose of patch notes for Experimental is to give public testers a road map for things to test to discover anything that might be wrong, and it seems as of late that numerous parts of the game are being tweaked or changed with no word to the public. This is counterproductive to the purpose of experimental releases.

    Speaking of things that are counterproductive to the purpose of experimental releases, actually leave the patch on Experimental for a while to let people test. 11.5 was nowhere near tested thoroughly enough, and each experimental release since has had less and less time to be tested. If a patch hasn't had enough time to be thoroughly tested, DON'T PUSH IT TO STABLE. If, upon viewing the bug report forum, there's any indication that a feature might not be working properly or there's any sign of other problems, don't push it to stable. I know there was a lot of backlash about CPU extenders (even though I personally liked them not being craftable), but that is not an excuse to cram a bunch of stuff into a patch and shove it out the door, then do the same to attempt to fix resulting issues after the fact.

    Finally, from here on out, don't push major patches at the end of the week or right before a bunch of you go on holiday. Push on Monday or Tuesday, and be ready for rapid response just in case there's something that got through undetected. The blueprint bug that was introduced in 11.5 was live on Stable for almost a week before it was fixed. Had this happened right before a sale or something, new players would have gotten the game, downloaded a shiny new ship off the workshop, spawned it in, rightly said, "This thing flies like s***," uninstalled, refunded, and left a negative review. And they would have been right to do so. That is not in your best interest as developers nor in our best interest as a community, especially with competing dreadnoughts like Starbase and Dual Universe creeping closer.

    I want to close with a bit of positive feedback on the things you guys are doing right. You've got a really solid product that I've never even briefly questioned your passion for until recently. It's a lot of fun. As developers, you guys are down to earth, very easy to approach, and you listen to feedback, which is why I took the time to write up this post. I believe in this project and I believe in you all. So, for all of us, please let these past few weeks be a fluke and return to the standard you held yourselves to that got you this far instead of burning out and running off like so many other Early Access games. Thank you.

    (Also, please give us back higher speeds in space and better acceleration again. The ship handling in 11.1 was pretty close to perfect. If it's too much for some people, maybe give them an option to manually lower their turning speed/acceleration through a settings tab.)
     
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  2. IndigoWyrd

    IndigoWyrd Rear Admiral

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    "I'm about to anyways."
    And there you have it. Here's the thing, there's already a team of volunteers testing stuff from the workshop (which is no way Eleon's responsibility to test user-made content), as well as testing every avenue of the game - they're known as "Us". Remember, we signed on to this knowing full well this is an Early Access Game. In case you've forgotten, that means what was working today could be broken tomorrow. It's part of the development process. And what works "in house" may not work "in the wild", though there's no real way to know that until it's tested there and feedback received.

    Have something in particular in mind? Got an example? There's also this curious thing that happens when developing complex software - a change made in one area, seemingly unrelated, manifests in another area, with unforeseen consequences. This is typically referred to as a "bug", and is a big part of what we're doing here, by playing and testing and reporting things that go wrong.

    So much for not telling people how to do their jobs... look, I get it. I get frustrated too. The recent issue with ships going out of control, bouncing off the ground, falling through worlds, and all that, especially since it started rather suddenly, was particularly frustrating, but also par for the course. I've been though enough closed alpha, closed beta, open beta and Early Access titles to know these things happen, almost never intentionally (one title I can think of actually stated they were leaving a particular bug unpatched through the holiday season, because it was actually a fun bug and didn't break anything). It's just not worth getting all bent out of shape about All these things will get fixed, as soon as they get fixed. It's not like this is a released title yet or anything. I'm looking forward to a release version as much as anyone else - I'll love to bring a server or three up and offer some custom gaming I'm sure plenty of people will enjoy. I'm not really willing to do much more than the fundamental work required to have things in place when that time comes though, because there's still so much development left to be done.

    Eleon has always been a cut above most Early Release developers out here - they're responsive, active, and it shows. Yes, it can be headbutt-a-unicorn annoying at times, when things go awry. But they're going pains, and they'll pass.
     
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  3. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    No TLDR? I dont have time to read walls of texts really.
     
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  4. IndigoWyrd

    IndigoWyrd Rear Admiral

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    TL;DR: OP is frustrated and not telling anyone how to do their jobs by telling people how to do their jobs.
     
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