Bioware, comon... your patches are horrible.

 

One whole week of what should be a full game design house and 1.1.4 is all that you could come up with?

There are soooo many existing problems that are more important than the things you've selected to be fixed.

 

1. Warfront Exploiting

 

Constantly logging into sides having stacked players in Hutball, only to grab the ball and hold onto it for 60 seconds to win the round.

As soon as the weekly warzone quest resets the warzones are ripe with exploiters.

This should be pretty high up on your list of things to fix, because it frustrates the hell out of people.

 

2. Ilum Quests

 

You have a system where the five points in Ilum go into your quest log as quests. Why? They don't do anything as quests. On top of that, each time a point is flipped from say Republic to Imperial, your PC has a heart attack and freezes for a few seconds. Why not just implement a small rectangle that shows 5 little circles and a colour for which point is being held by which faction? It would be so much easier. I'm tired of getting back to the Republic Fleet and going to pick up a quest and having it tell me my quest log is full because the 5 x Ilum quests are still stuck in there.

 

3. PvP Medals

 

Figure out something to make PvP more enjoyable and less about farming medals. Two nights in a row now I've been told off by my own team for helping them kill someone because they "were going for the solo medal". When PvP hits the point in a game that it becomes about farming medals then it's doomed. It should be about fun with a reward on the side.

 

4. LFD Tool

 

God help me that I'm even asking for this, considering that I never run PUGs and absolutely despise LFG/LFD tools because I feel they kill world-PvP, but in this game considering the entrances to all your dungeons are inside the safe zones anyway, there's no reason why you wouldn't include a LFD tool.

 

 

That's just the tip of the iceberg of things that can be implemented or fixed.

 

At the moment you are taking a whole week to release a set of patch notes that really affects 1/10 players. People will continue to leave until you actually show that you're interested in fixing what game you have there and start implementing things reguarly rather than once a month. Looking over other games patch notes (the latest being Rift), their patch notes are as 5x the size of yours, and IMO you're game has more problems than theirs did, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

 

Time is running out guys.

Edited February 16, 2012 by ThalantyrDSL

too soon, they add stuff on friday normally.

I wont even comment on your lfd idea..

Edited February 16, 2012 by ElitehunterDS

for patches that are released every week, I would say they are "beefy" enough

i see you there, saying they have a lot of bugs to fix, and not listing a single bug (i guess the ilum one technically is)

 

(note not saying there aren't bugs, there are, your post is just extremely ironic)

Edited February 16, 2012 by DarthVenizen

annnnd here it comes. let er rip about how you don't like the patch people.

for patches that are released every week, I would say they are "beefy" enough

 

This.

 

If you want "beefy" updates, look to patches 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and beyond. The third digit in patch numbers, are historically used for "minor" updates to the software.

 

If the patch notes for 1.2 is the length of the 1.1.4 notes, THEN you (the OP) can start complaining. But I highly doubt it.

If you want "beefy" updates, look to patches 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and beyond. The third digit in patch numbers, are historically used for "minor" updates to the software.

 

It's about the length of time that it takes to release the small patches. If they're going to be patching ONCE a week, with the rare occasion where they bring the server down for an exploit outside of the weekly maintenance patch, then they need to contain more. Small patches should be released every few days at the most because it doesn't take a week to figure out and fix the kinds of things that are in the "minor" patches.

Small patches should be released every few days at the most because it doesn't take a week to figure out and fix the kinds of things that are in the "minor" patches.

 

I did not realize you had experience in game development. Care to share what experience you've previously had?

 

It's -rare- to get weekly updates, in the fashion that Bioware has done so far. Sometimes it can go months before getting a "minor" update.

http://forums.riftgame.com/official-rift-news/patch-notes/index3.html

 

That's how patches should be done.

Note the reguarly hotfixes that contain more than one fix.

 

Also note what a 1.2 patch should look like.

http://forums.riftgame.com/official-rift-news/patch-notes/185421-rift-1-2-spoils-war-5-10-11-na-11-5-11-eu.html

 

It's been clear since the launch of SWTOR that they do not have the kinds of resources applied to fixing the current in-game problems that they should. You don't have to be a game developer to realise that, and you don't have to be a game developer to realise how long something should take to be fixed. Plenty of gaming developers before this have proven that it can be done 10x better and faster than what it's being done for SWTOR.

http://forums.riftgame.com/official-rift-news/patch-notes/index3.html

 

That's how patches should be done.

Note the reguarly hotfixes that contain more than one fix.

 

Also note what a 1.2 patch should look like.

http://forums.riftgame.com/official-rift-news/patch-notes/185421-rift-1-2-spoils-war-5-10-11-na-11-5-11-eu.html

 

It's been clear since the launch of SWTOR that they do not have the kinds of resources applied to fixing the current in-game problems that they should. You don't have to be a game developer to realise that, and you don't have to be a game developer to realise how long something should take to be fixed. Plenty of gaming developers before this have proven that it can be done 10x better and faster than what it's being done for SWTOR.

 

Or you have no clue. I'll go with that one.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Nocorras

for patches that are released every week, I would say they are "beefy" enough

 

Yep. They're pretty much just meant to be hotfixes anyway. Big content comes in the 1.x, not 1.x.y

This can be thought of kind of like the project management triangle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_triangle

 

Except with software patching you can think of it like a choice between these three.

 

Features

Stability

Speed

 

Pick 2, and sometimes one . From experiance, focusing on any of them heavily will reduce the others. In this case you want either more fixes (stability) or more features (more line items!) and you want them fast, weekly or faster.

 

This is not how things work. And its not as simple as throwing more people at it either. Their patching pace for the client is a bit fast for my taste and we seem to get a few nasty bugs each patch. This could probably be lowered with more testing (character copies ), but bugs happen.

Bioware, comon... your patches are horrible.

1. Warfront Exploiting

 

Constantly logging into sides having stacked players in Hutball, only to grab the ball and hold onto it for 60 seconds to win the round.

As soon as the weekly warzone quest resets the warzones are ripe with exploiters.

This should be pretty high up on your list of things to fix, because it frustrates the hell out of people.

 

.

 

Hey, this particular issue is addressed in 1.1.4, it's just not in the PTS patch notes right now.

 

Please understand that we usually do not include exploit-specific issues in the test server patch notes (though we will be adding this one in). They are usually added in the final patch notes when the patch hits live.

 

regards

-- Georg

How about instead of only reading what was put into the patch notes, you actually get on the PTS and do some actual testing. Then come here and report any bugs the new patch caused. You know, the sole reason this PTS Forum exists.

 

This thread is of zero use for the PTS Forum.

I vote delete.

Hey, this particular issue is addressed in 1.1.4, it's just not in the PTS patch notes right now.

 

Thankyou for adding that in Georg.

And there was much rejoicing.

These weekly patchnotes are beefy enough for me IF the issues are fixed for real. But it doesn't seem to be the case always... notes say fixed but the issues persist.

Hey, this particular issue is addressed in 1.1.4, it's just not in the PTS patch notes right now.

 

Please understand that we usually do not include exploit-specific issues in the test server patch notes (though we will be adding this one in). They are usually added in the final patch notes when the patch hits live.

 

regards

-- Georg

 

Can't tell you how much communication like this means. Totally awesome! Thank you!!!

Are you doing anything about the /stuck exploit on Ilum?

It's about the length of time that it takes to release the small patches. If they're going to be patching ONCE a week, with the rare occasion where they bring the server down for an exploit outside of the weekly maintenance patch, then they need to contain more. Small patches should be released every few days at the most because it doesn't take a week to figure out and fix the kinds of things that are in the "minor" patches.

 

It most certainly can. See the biggest problem with bugs is FINDING THE DAMN BUG. Once you do that it's usually fairly simple to fix. USUALLY. After that some testing is required to make sure it doesn't cause more bugs with existing code or create balance head aches. Theirs your week. To be honest I think in some cases they should probably take a bit longer with the bug fixes. Make sure its fixed. PTR charachter copy will help that out though.

Edited February 16, 2012 by TonyIommi

I think the size of these weekly bug-fix patches are fine. It sure beats LotRO where they basically would wait and roll the majority of bug fixes into their quarterly/semiannual content patches. So you'd have class traits and whatnot bugged for like half a year or more. Just checkout LotRO if you really want to see what slow updates are like. Edited February 16, 2012 by Dinadan

I wanted clydesdale. They only gimme pony. I haz sad. kthxbai

Hey, this particular issue is addressed in 1.1.4, it's just not in the PTS patch notes right now.

 

Please understand that we usually do not include exploit-specific issues in the test server patch notes (though we will be adding this one in). They are usually added in the final patch notes when the patch hits live.

 

regards

-- Georg

 

And did you also fix players cheating using the /stuck command?

i notice a distinct lack of a merc interrupt and battle rez as well..

They need to do more with Ilum then what you suggested imo. Why not have a set time War? say every 2 hours that lasts 1 and at the end which ever side has the most wins tokens (If equal, then who ever held most bases the longest) I don't know. I used to play a few MMOs with these features(RF online, myth of soma) and that was the best way imo. I used to get excited for the wars!!! On here I don't even go to Ilum, I'd like to but theirs no incentive. Just an idea I'm sure no one will even read.