Hm… sorry but I really dont want to look up where (I think) Jens Erik explained how their team is set up.
It was like one team working on content (dungeons, new features, such things), one on visual stuff, one for fixing and more.
I would agree on asking them to temporarily moving some of the content creating team over to said “tech” team. To hopefully be able and fix all these issues a little faster. Though if one takes a peek at player numbers, I doubt they can grow worse.
I guess they underestimated the number of new bugs which got introduced ever since the full launch client and with all those patches following that.
Thus the team working on fixes has a giant workload and could use some extra resources.
I have been excitedly awaiting some new test live builds for us to break, trying to narrow down where the bugs are. I couldn’t care less if we have to push back the pet system another month or so, as long as we get some bug testing done.
Before implementing new features, we need the core systems running near optimal quality, so that when things do break (and we know they will) it’ll narrow down the scope as to the cause of such problems. Put down the hacky sack you’ve been kicking around and please fix the old issues before inviting new ones to join the circle.
So this dev team refuses to look at bugs, with Funcom forum posters stating there is a nebulous “tech side” (LOL) that looks at bugs while the dev team focuses on other stuff.
So basically, they’re communicating they don’t want bug fixes to happen and want to continue to BS their players with deflection like “tech side is looking at bugs.”
Personally I would not say that they are refusing to look at the bugs, the issue list does say that they are working on it or ivestigating at least. But as Nuria said they should not be having technical resources working on new content now until the core mechanics are working.
Anyway, what dissapoints me in this weekly-newletter once again, is the lack of information except new content.
It seems the ones craving for new content are winning their attention and I do admit it makes sense marketing-wise.
What I wonder is just how long they can keep players engaged with new content until they get put off by currently existing bugs.
I understand there are several teams with different scope and abilities, sure an artist is not as good as coding as a dev and vice-versa so I do not want to tell them to stop with creating new content at all.
I would simply be more pleased to finally hear more about the current state of the game and reported issues, but hey at least they mentioned issues in a short sentence.
The pet system I could not care less at the moment, the thing will be to expand my base in a way to hold the pens, maybe catch some and then go on to administrating my small server and help new exiles out.
Would be so great the current content would work for all of us.
Thing is the current bugs and inconsistencies create enough content to make up for the content currently not working as intended.
Instead of fighting Purges and optimising my base to withhold those attacks I bought the DLC to upgrade my Khitan palace to Aquilonian. Since that did not work (what I figured after spending around 1h to replace the big gate first, real pain) it gave me the opportunity to spend about 4h dismantling my existing palace, farm for hardened bricks, rebuild the palace and place the maproom and everything again up to the point where I struggled to put a nice roof on top of it (stability with wedges FTW).
Now, due to the game letting me believe it is ok to build pillars down from a wedge ceilling onto a square foundation (because pillar gets 100% stability first) but after some server-restarts losing said stability it will give me the chance to dismantle the entire building, about the size of the palace I rebuilt, because I need to switch out the placement of the foundations.
So as you can see, I got enough to do already, maybe the work-arounds for the inconsistencies are part of the content, figure as much since it keeps me busy for hours and hours
Posted this on reddit but I don’t think anyone’s going to read it so here it is:
great but can we get some of these bugs fixed? servers are full of thrall spam, npc combat is glitchy af, shrines sometimes disappear when upgrading, spawning on an unrendered structure means you fall through it so putting a bed at the top of a structure can mean spawning to a falldeath, thrall ai breaks sometimes and is unresponsive during purges, sitting in a chair and attacking breaks the player, player corpses falling off the map after death, thralls launching into orbit, falldamage and its related perk are straight-up bugged etc.
They were all noted in june and say “fixed in the testlive release”… There are very serious issues with the game at the moment, promising more stuff isn’t very valuable to us when normal stuff already isn’t functional or reliable. Even the DLC had broken items. Seriously address these things.
For real though, as a player I can’t even rely on the game to function on basic levels, and explaining to new players “oh you just lost all your crap because the game bugged out and your corpse isn’t there” is infuriating for them, it turns people off.
The server I play on has a nice community apart from the regular bob the builders making 1 foundation high paths around the map. But the performance is horrible. It can cope with 15 max 20 players, anything above that and it goes on it’s knees. We have multiple arenas where we do pvp fights, no healing/no looting, which is very good fun. The problem is that currently the long time players are only refreshing the decay timers because of the issues.
I worked in the gaming industry for 6 years or so as a designer and wanted to chime in here with a little context for the people complaining about team priorities.
The burn rate per day, the cost to keep the doors open and the lights on, for dev studio is INSANE. You have a group of decently paid tech professionals salary, benefits (which are normally generous), perks and amenities (paid food, beverages), expensive hardware, office space, climate control and power, licensing, etc. The list goes on and on. These companies absolutely devour money and not through any poor decisions, this is just the cost of doing business in the industry.
These teams have to constantly provide new revenue streams or the doors will close. It happens all the time. In a traditional developer/publisher paradigm, the developer needs to start trying to secure a new project/contract a year or more before their current project is finished because the process is glacial. If you finish what you are working on before the next project begins, you are going to burn through whatever you have in the bank in no time. That absolutely devastates a dev studio.
So yes the game needs work, but you guys need to accept the hard realities of the business. Funcom has to have a revenue stream. They can’t just stop production on everything and fix bugs for 4 months. That would put revenue out months past that. They’d have to finish the DLC work, then put it out there and wait to be paid. It just isn’t feasible. The studio would shutter, the game would die, and the everyone would lose their jobs.
So by all means, demand they fix the bugs, but you need to understand that the studio HAS to make money or there won’t BE a studio.
Hi, I understand what you are saying, but… I would like to point out some things. They did sell 1.5 million copies, I’m not saying they are covered for years to come but they should not be having to be in a situation where they need to release 2 cosmetic DLC in 3 months after release. And I’m also not going to say that cosmetic stuff is cheap, but it is relativly cheap compared to the more techical stuff. Again I’m not saying I do not want DLC, but reality is that we are mainly complaining about core mechanics on official servers, not about bugs that you can work around. What we are also saying is that releasing DLC at that moment was unfortunate and has probably lost revenue because of it. Releasing a DLC when your population is low will result in less people buying it, we can argue about that for hours if you want but that is how I feel about it. e.g. working purges would have attractted many lvl 60 players back to the game. On top of that I would also like to point out that my complaint is also about the pet system which is free added content and should not have priority over those core mechanic issues. If they would release the pets now while still working on the thrall issue, the behaviour of the pets would be horrible, it would add another layer of complexity to get to the original issue, add another layer of frustration with the players and hurt the reputation even more, how would that be in any way profitable in the medium term?
Test Live gets a bug fix patch tomorrow, and possibly a very large content patch next week. If you’re not too vested with a particular server currently, I would like to invite you to join us for some thorough testing to help get feedback on whether things get fixed or what else is broken.
It will be hard to get any kind of load testing (mobs stop aggroing after x players) if we don’t have enough people to give it a proper shake down. Thank you for your considerations.
It should come as no surprise that a business has different teams tackling different issues. Which is exactly what FunCom appears to be doing… If they were doing otherwise, I’d be worried.
I see a clear track record of FunCom addressing bugs alongside developing and releasing new content and DLCs. Sure, the bugs are not yet sorted out, but they are working on them (or at least report that they are doing so).
Personally, if I am to stay interested in this game they need to release new content. If they stop developing and releasing new content they will likely lose me as a player. Why? Because the game, at least what I am playing, is playable and enjoyable. In fact, on our PS4 PvE rented server, we have already lost many players, not for lack of bug fixes, but for a content drought once they hit level 60.
Keep doing what you are doing, FunCom, but hurry up with that parity patch because we need purges to work as intended to keep people interested at level 60, in addition to the release of new content!!!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for new content, only after the thralls work again, purges working correctly and mobs attacking you. I’m very pleased that they are making progress and are aiming for testlive tomorrow.
