KendraP Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 What BW is proving to be unable to fulfill their overly ambitious plan in their stated time frame and its likely to be delayed? No one saw that coming! Oh wait, it was my first comment when they announced 6.0 in September. I fully expect them to ignore most major feedback from PTS and for there to be multiple game breaking bugs that take another 6 months to even acknowledge too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JattaGin Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 What BW is proving to be unable to fulfill their overly ambitious plan in their stated time frame and its likely to be delayed? No one saw that coming! I lol'd hard. It's funny because it's true. I cannot imagine that the expansion comes in September. Or if it does, it will be even smaller than I fear. The lack of communication can only mean one thing. Invasion. No, I mean, everyone is fully busy helping getting things done. I bet our community manager does different things than managing the community at the moment. Not that this is any different to the last 7+ years, but anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdast Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 (edited) I'm of a mindset that some will likely view as contradictory. Let's start with the important distinction between "bugs" vs. "balance". Right now on the PTS, it is essentially the new class abilities being tested with the notable exception of the new scaling. But that is still "balancing". I am firmly of the view, however, that the new gearing system is introducing so many new variables that "balancing" will inevitably be a long-term, ongoing, and arduous process. I fully predict it to be chaotic and messy. They will have a lot more feedback and data to work with, however, six months after release. Most of the feedback I have read on the forum tends to fall along the lines of the set bonuses are decidedly "meh" and that some of the tactical items miss the target (e.g., too much linked / tied to Force Speed for sorcs). I haven't seen too much, however, in terms of game breaking bugs. Like others, I have internalized they will exist and there is no way BW has the QA staff numbers to catch them. Put bluntly, that duty will fall to us to help the BW team in a (hopefully) collaborative fashion. As such, I'm of the conclusion that since we know they are at-best going to tweak a few numbers, it is better to release sooner. The only variable is when they release it. The two constants, however, are: 1) there will be bugs that I don't think the PTS will identify; and 2) a few balancing tweaks here and there over the next few weeks on the PTS will in no way stop the chaotic deluge of balance issues we will uncover as we play the game. Assuming no absolute game breaking bugs, which they won't identify regardless of when it is releases, it makes sense to release as scheduled, or shortly thereafter. Dasty Edit: I assume also they don't want to step on Star Wars Fallen Order's Nov. 15 release. Edited August 9, 2019 by Jdast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 (edited) Edit: I assume also they don't want to step on Star Wars Fallen Order's Nov. 15 release. You also have WoW classic releasing later this month. If people leave to go play that more while waiting around for 6.0, then they may not come back. I am really looking forward to SW fallen Order. I was watching some game play yesterday and it looks amazing. Edited August 10, 2019 by TrixxieTriss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthCasus Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 You also have WoW classic releasing later this month. If people leave to go play that more while waiting around for 6.0, then they may not come back. I am really looking forward to SW fallen Order. I was watching some game play yesterday and it looks amazing. You're right, the MMO genre already is back in cruise mode so the lack of marketing for this expansion will already work in favor of competitiors both inside and outside of the genre. Fallen Order is no exception to that but it looks pretty meh honestly. I like the setting and idea so far but the gameplay looks 'oof'. Force Unleashed, Jedi Knight Academy and Revenge of the Sith fare better with those melee systems but are dated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damask_Rose Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 1) there will be bugs that I don't think the PTS will identify; and 2) a few balancing tweaks here and there over the next few weeks on the PTS will in no way stop the chaotic deluge of balance issues we will uncover as we play the game. Assuming no absolute game breaking bugs, which they won't identify regardless of when it is releases, it makes sense to release as scheduled, or shortly thereafter. Dasty The PTS hasn't been up for nearly enough time for most bugs to be found. They are changing so many things, and as we all know, a change to one little thing can have a ripple effect breaking many others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdast Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 (edited) The PTS hasn't been up for nearly enough time for most bugs to be found. They are changing so many things, and as we all know, a change to one little thing can have a ripple effect breaking many others. Where we disagree, which is fine, is that you think the PTS will be able to identify those bugs. I am highly dubious. It is August 10th already; it is clear the PTS is designed for tweaking numbers -- at best. I'm concerned about the bugs (not balance) that will inevitably creep up once we start playing the game. I don't think the PTS is capable of identifying those. The balance issues will be an ongoing issue, as it is for most MMORPGs, though more pronounced here given the small staff. Hugs, Dasty Edited August 10, 2019 by Jdast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KendraP Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 Where we disagree, which is fine, is that you think the PTS will be able to identify those bugs. I am highly dubious. It is August 10th already; it is clear the PTS is designed for tweaking numbers -- at best. I'm concerned about the bugs (not balance) that will inevitably creep up once we start playing the game. I don't think the PTS is capable of identifying those. The balance issues will be an ongoing issue, as it is for most MMORPGs, though more pronounced here given the small staff. Hugs, Dasty I agree. PTS is obviously intended for minor number tweaking at best, major bugs will make it into the expansion (and I doubt they will "creep" up on us so much as be blatantly obvious). I guess I will say, what is promising, is that I havent seen the massive "hey this isnt working" statements on the PTS threads. (I.e. the whole bound mod/enhancement issue that people were screaming about on PTS that was later announced to have been done... on purpose). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damask_Rose Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 Where we disagree, which is fine, is that you think the PTS will be able to identify those bugs. I am highly dubious. It is August 10th already; it is clear the PTS is designed for tweaking numbers -- at best. I'm concerned about the bugs (not balance) that will inevitably creep up once we start playing the game. I don't think the PTS is capable of identifying those. The balance issues will be an ongoing issue, as it is for most MMORPGs, though more pronounced here given the small staff. Hugs, Dasty It's not that I think it will be able to identify some of the bugs, but that it should be able to, if it were kept up longer than a day here and there. It feels like the pts is being used to preview gear changes rather than identify any problems, which is just a waste of all our time. Given how horribly buggy even the most minor of patches have been, I think bug stomping should be a higher priority than it clearly is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 It's not that I think it will be able to identify some of the bugs, but that it should be able to, if it were kept up longer than a day here and there. It feels like the pts is being used to preview gear changes rather than identify any problems, which is just a waste of all our time. Given how horribly buggy even the most minor of patches have been, I think bug stomping should be a higher priority than it clearly is. 100% agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdast Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 It's not that I think it will be able to identify some of the bugs, but that it should be able to, if it were kept up longer than a day here and there. It feels like the pts is being used to preview gear changes rather than identify any problems, which is just a waste of all our time. Given how horribly buggy even the most minor of patches have been, I think bug stomping should be a higher priority than it clearly is. Like Trixxie, I also 100% agree. The problem is: Shoulda, coulda, woulda! Dasty P.S. On a more serious note, I'm more worried about "bugs" breaking the game like what happened a while back when -- if you chose one option for Koth, you simply could not progress in the game. Ditto with the Vette bug. Those are game breaking. Sure, if using a certain gear set destabilizes the game, then the PTS servers a purpose. I just don't think those are where the game breaking bugs will be found. Nor do I think that postponing it two weeks or a month will do squat. No harm, no foul. Plenty of people have disagreed with me before. You and Trixxie aren't the first and I doubt you will be the last. Hugs, Dasty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tashia Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 as someone has already said here ... I too am saying October -- if not then, then not November ( interferes with other new SW game coming out ); if not October, nor November --- <sigh> next year ( Holiday vacation is December through January, remember ) and I too hope it is September or October, otherwise ... well, there you are, I am sure you can see the patterns ( and they are not good ones) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 (edited) Like Trixxie, I also 100% agree. The problem is: Shoulda, coulda, woulda! Dasty P.S. On a more serious note, I'm more worried about "bugs" breaking the game like what happened a while back when -- if you chose one option for Koth, you simply could not progress in the game. Ditto with the Vette bug. Those are game breaking. Sure, if using a certain gear set destabilizes the game, then the PTS servers a purpose. I just don't think those are where the game breaking bugs will be found. Nor do I think that postponing it two weeks or a month will do squat. No harm, no foul. Plenty of people have disagreed with me before. You and Trixxie aren't the first and I doubt you will be the last. Hugs, Dasty In the old days of PC game testing I used to do paid closed beta and that was the only type of testing done till open beta testing started to be a thing with increased internet speed. (They used to have to send me out disc’s with the game data on them). Beta testing wasn’t just a few hours of play before the new discs, nor was it a week. I think the fastest I ever got beta updates was about 2 weeks. In that time I had to play on average 30-40 hours to find balance issues or bugs and try and provide feed back daily. When internet speed increased and data downloads were not as expensive, it moved into weekly downloads unless a big mistake was identified early and fixed. Now I’m sure Bioware have internal closed beta, but the problem is it has to be small scale or extremely limited because the amount of stupid bugs that make it live are bad and they would have been identified in the old days early on. Other games run open beta for many months to iron out bugs and this is what Bioware need to do on the PTS if they want to eliminate them and not spend lots of money on closed beta. Or they need to expand the closed beta program to include more players from in the game. The PTS is the perfect environment to do this. But Bioware don’t utilise this resource properly. Testing a change for one to two days is not enough unless you have 100s of people testing because it comes down to how many hours are put into that testing and most thorough testers will put in 4-6 hours of actual play time a day and spend many other hours documenting bugs or issues to report. What surprises me is they pull down a PTS build just as the weekend starts and not put it back up till mid next week. It makes more sense to leave it up all weekend because more people have the time to test, even if Bioware are fixing bugs over the weekend in the next build. They should leave the PTS up until they are ready to deploy the next build. Not pull it down for half a week or a full week. The more time people have to test, the more bugs and constructive feed back can be given to them. Pulling it after a few days is really a bit of a joke because that isn’t enough time to test. This is why the PTS won’t find bugs. As I’ve pointed out, testers don’t work under “crunch time” development schedules like Bioware pushes on their dev teams, especially unpaid testers. The PTS is under utilised because, any and all changes should have started to appear on the PTS early June and patches should have been applied as new changes to the builds were made, they shouldn’t need to take it off line. Not using it this way is why the PTS is useless for detecting bugs. Bioware keep making the same mistakes in this game’s development and never seem to learn from the mistakes of old. It just annoys me that they use live play to bug test 99% of the game and not the PTS where it should be tested. That is why I think it needs more time and is being rushed. They could put a prelaunch beta on the PTS for real testing around the timing they’ve proposed for live launch and then run it for 2-3 weeks and have an extra 3 weeks after testing and during testing to identify and fix as much as possible. Then a mostly smooth and issue free live launch in November and not a “problem child” launch in September. Regardless, I’ve unsubbed due to other issues I’m having with Bioware’s CS. WoW classic now has me focused at the moment and I’ve been server load testing and bug testing before the launch in a few weeks. I will of course keep reading these forums regarding the expansion, but I won’t be resubbing unless and until Bioware have it running smoothly and my CS issues are sorted out. I won’t pay for two game subs at a time because I dedicate myself fully to a game and stick with it. I don’t bounce back and forth. Edited August 11, 2019 by TrixxieTriss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolodome Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 In the old days of PC game testing I used to do paid closed beta and that was the only type of testing done till open beta testing started to be a thing with increased internet speed. (They used to have to send me out disc’s with the game data on them). Beta testing wasn’t just a few hours of play before the new discs, nor was it a week. I think the fastest I ever got beta updates was about 2 weeks. In that time I had to play on average 30-40 hours to find balance issues or bugs and try and provide feed back daily. When internet speed increased and data downloads were not as expensive, it moved into weekly downloads unless a big mistake was identified early and fixed. Now I’m sure Bioware have internal closed beta, but the problem is it has to be small scale or extremely limited because the amount of stupid bugs that make it live are bad and they would have been identified in the old days early on. Other games run open beta for many months to iron out bugs and this is what Bioware need to do on the PTS if they want to eliminate them and not spend lots of money on closed beta. Or they need to expand the closed beta program to include more players from in the game. The PTS is the perfect environment to do this. But Bioware don’t utilise this resource properly. Testing a change for one to two days is not enough unless you have 100s of people testing because it comes down to how many hours are put into that testing and most thorough testers will put in 4-6 hours of actual play time a day and spend many other hours documenting bugs or issues to report. What surprises me is they pull down a PTS build just as the weekend starts and not put it back up till mid next week. It makes more sense to leave it up all weekend because more people have the time to test, even if Bioware are fixing bugs over the weekend in the next build. They should leave the PTS up until they are ready to deploy the next build. Not pull it down for half a week or a full week. The more time people have to test, the more bugs and constructive feed back can be given to them. Pulling it after a few days is really a bit of a joke because that isn’t enough time to test. This is why the PTS won’t find bugs. As I’ve pointed out, testers don’t work under “crunch time” development schedules like Bioware pushes on their dev teams, especially unpaid testers. The PTS is under utilised because, any and all changes should have started to appear on the PTS early June and patches should have been applied as new changes to the builds were made, they shouldn’t need to take it off line. Not using it this way is why the PTS is useless for detecting bugs. Bioware keep making the same mistakes in this game’s development and never seem to learn from the mistakes of old. It just annoys me that they use live play to bug test 99% of the game and not the PTS where it should be tested. That is why I think it needs more time and is being rushed. They could put a prelaunch beta on the PTS for real testing around the timing they’ve proposed for live launch and then run it for 2-3 weeks and have an extra 3 weeks after testing and during testing to identify and fix as much as possible. Then a mostly smooth and issue free live launch in November and not a “problem child” launch in September. Regardless, I’ve unsubbed due to other issues I’m having with Bioware’s CS. WoW classic now has me focused at the moment and I’ve been server load testing and bug testing before the launch in a few weeks. I will of course keep reading these forums regarding the expansion, but I won’t be resubbing unless and until Bioware have it running smoothly and my CS issues are sorted out. I won’t pay for two game subs at a time because I dedicate myself fully to a game and stick with it. I don’t bounce back and forth. Strongly agree. Also, timeline of things feels like they're way behind. IIRC, they indicated on the livestream something like a couple months ago (I forget when exactly the livestream was) that they wanted to get stuff on PTS so they'd have time to take feedback into account. But it's been so slow and on there for such a short period of time, it feels like a practical joke. And if you're pointing this stuff out, with no insider knowledge on the game, I would imagine some devs working on the game are thinking it too. I doubt they will extend the release date beyond September because of complications to do with contracts and funding and all the lovely stuff to do with being beholden to a game publisher, along with possibly some shareholder laws relating to when they are expected to deliver the product based on advertising and the expected profits to come with it. But it sure seems like they need to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 based on advertising. What advertising? I’ve seen no formal advertising. This is another thing that bugs me. They don’t advertise the game and we all wonder why it’s not as popular as some other games that do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolodome Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 What advertising? I’ve seen no formal advertising. This is another thing that bugs me. They don’t advertise the game and we all wonder why it’s not as popular as some other games that do. I meant the fact that they have announced it as being released in September might complicate things to do with it being under the wing of a publicly traded company and whatnot. Can't say more than that cause I don't know much about how it works, but I vaguely remember something about that in relation to Maxis, which is also a developer under EA. Something about how they have to be really careful about when and how they announce stuff, so they don't get in trouble for misleading shareholders. Saying the expansion will come out in September and then moving it to another month might fall under that kind of issue, not really sure. Kinda just speculating. But yes, formal advertising, I've not seen it either. Just the announcement and a livestream or two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemmar Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 (edited) OMG, will you people stop b****ing? If it gets delayed, it gets delayed. Better that than a broken product. The team is working hard on delivering a good expansion. Stop the cynicism for a moment and give them a chance. Also, don't act like every other mmo patch isn't buggy at launch and needs patching... And stop saying how advertisement is needed. EA is the publisher and has obviously jumped off this ship already cause they didn't even bother to show it at E3. It's only Bioware here now, and best you can expect is the same online advertisement done for Jedi under siege. Interviews, article and you saying the game is worthwhile (word of mouth) is the advertisement this game will have. At least until that can get EA's attention, wich might be bad in it's own way too. Edited August 11, 2019 by Nemmar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celise Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 OMG, will you people stop b****ing? If it gets delayed, it gets delayed. Better that than a broken product. The team is working hard on delivering a good expansion. Stop the cynicism for a moment and give them a chance. Also, don't act like every other mmo patch isn't buggy at launch and needs patching... And stop saying how advertisement is needed. EA is the publisher and has obviously jumped off this ship already cause they didn't even bother to show it at E3. It's only Bioware here now, and best you can expect is the same online advertisement done for Jedi under siege. Interviews, article and yous saying the game is worthwhile (word of mouth) is the advertisement this game will have. At least until that can get EA's attention, wich might be bad in it's own way too. Bioware is EA, there is no distinction beyond the logo. So when you are saying there is nothing coming from EA, you aren't being honest. EA is still very much supporting this game and still develops it. The annonucement itself was an advertisement to let the world know that the expansion is on its way, then there has been a livestream through twitch that show cases what is coming up which is also an advertisement for the expansion and this game, the same with the Onderon developer blog recently to show case that out as well. You can expect the same for Mek-Sha and the Corellia flashpoint, details on characters, any short stories and the like, all if it is a showcase the expansion as an advertisement. It is designed to make you want to get at it because it is all new fresh and exciting. So i completely disagree with everything you have said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlameYOL Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 OMG, will you people stop b****ing? Its the SWTOR forums. The answer is "No". B****ing is intrinsic to this place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdom Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 Nemmar has a point. We're getting a new expansion and all I can see is negativity. I'm also worried about things going wrong, becoming unbalanced etc. The fact of the matter is though, I have to take everything I hear with a pinch of salt since nobody has actually seen the finished product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolodome Posted August 11, 2019 Share Posted August 11, 2019 OMG, will you people stop b****ing? If it gets delayed, it gets delayed. Better that than a broken product. The team is working hard on delivering a good expansion. Stop the cynicism for a moment and give them a chance. Also, don't act like every other mmo patch isn't buggy at launch and needs patching... And stop saying how advertisement is needed. EA is the publisher and has obviously jumped off this ship already cause they didn't even bother to show it at E3. It's only Bioware here now, and best you can expect is the same online advertisement done for Jedi under siege. Interviews, article and yous saying the game is worthwhile (word of mouth) is the advertisement this game will have. At least until that can get EA's attention, wich might be bad in it's own way too. I've played multiple MMORPGs pretty extensively over the years. None can I recall coming close to how buggy and messy SWTOR is on patches. I remember having issues sometimes with major updates for Rift where guildies and I would be waiting around for what seemed like hours for the server to come back up and everything to be working and ready. With GW2, I don't remember much in the way of delays or major bugs at all. With SWTOR, along with the times I've been around to see it, going by how things have been with updates of the past, this game is embarrassingly consistent in how messy and broken patches are, and how long it takes to fix them. And it's not a matter of hours, it's a matter of days or weeks. I mean just recently we had the issue with the conquest XP change. Something like a month's worth of patching and delays, including a week full of ability lag during double XP, just to implement a change where XP gives you CXP. To act like the levels of buggy and broken they have here is normal just makes me think you have no experience with other MMORPGs. Honestly, part of the problem with this game is even when something does get delayed, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work great. The conquest XP change was delayed and it still caused major problems when implemented. I take no pleasure in pointing this stuff out. I can feel empathy and it hurts to imagine people working hard on this game, only to see it be an absolute mess when it reaches the player. It's also just a pain to deal with as a player. But I won't lie and pretend like it's all fine. This is one of those weird cases where so-called "cynicism" is just being realistic. We've given them chances. An immeasurable number of chances. And they botch it more than they get it right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 Its the SWTOR forums. The answer is "No". B****ing is intrinsic to this place. I’ll go even further and say it’s often essential for a robust discussion on this forum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrixxieTriss Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 I've played multiple MMORPGs pretty extensively over the years. None can I recall coming close to how buggy and messy SWTOR is on patches. I remember having issues sometimes with major updates for Rift where guildies and I would be waiting around for what seemed like hours for the server to come back up and everything to be working and ready. With GW2, I don't remember much in the way of delays or major bugs at all. With SWTOR, along with the times I've been around to see it, going by how things have been with updates of the past, this game is embarrassingly consistent in how messy and broken patches are, and how long it takes to fix them. And it's not a matter of hours, it's a matter of days or weeks. I mean just recently we had the issue with the conquest XP change. Something like a month's worth of patching and delays, including a week full of ability lag during double XP, just to implement a change where XP gives you CXP. To act like the levels of buggy and broken they have here is normal just makes me think you have no experience with other MMORPGs. Honestly, part of the problem with this game is even when something does get delayed, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work great. The conquest XP change was delayed and it still caused major problems when implemented. I take no pleasure in pointing this stuff out. I can feel empathy and it hurts to imagine people working hard on this game, only to see it be an absolute mess when it reaches the player. It's also just a pain to deal with as a player. But I won't lie and pretend like it's all fine. This is one of those weird cases where so-called "cynicism" is just being realistic. We've given them chances. An immeasurable number of chances. And they botch it more than they get it right. Sad, but true. I also take no pleasure in pointing out these issues. I know the guys work hard to do the best they can in the time frame and resources they get. I would like nothing more than to be able to White Knight the hell out of these guys and the game. But like you said, it isn’t cynicism discussing what happens, it’s more a dose of realism and being prepared so you don’t have your expectations dashed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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