4 réponses à ce sujet

[Saigeo]

So far this last week and weekend has shown us what a great game this had the potential of being. I won't lie, it's been the most fun I've had here since February when things started getting old.

Promotions are always going to remain an issue that is not resolvable, and a requirement for playing higher levels. People who play this casually will never have the basis to play the higher levels no matter how talented they are, causing a rift among the community as to who is willing to play with whom.

Constant rules changes are an issue. The community should never be a testing ground. We want the finished product. Constant drastic character changes (nerfs, buffs) are irritating to say the least. We spend a lot of time figuring out what works and what doesn't, only to have the rug pulled out from under us. Instead we end up with the character of the week, which right now appears to be the reaver. These lobbies should be short and fun, not long and tedious.

Right now there seems to a new bunch of bugs, yet minor in comparison to what we've faced. Admittedly, due to the fun this game is at the moment they are not glaring, however these need to be prioritized repairs before anything else happens.

Glitches that alter outcomes are frustrating to the community who wants to play and win within the rules we are handed, rather than cheat our way to the top. There are small ones and large ones. The hunter glitch doesn't seem major, however people who psychologically cannot handle not having the highest score have exploited this one to no end. Before the weekend challenge I was in a perilous lobby where all players went from 1 to 18 in one game. We paid closer attention during the next game where the same thing happened and noticed some were getting double kills, possibly associated with the new bow. At this point it didn't feel right, and it didn't happen in the new lobby we generated so it was apparent that there was something here that certain individuals would seek out for advancement. Using any of these methods is cheating, plain and simple, and ruins the game for those of us who want to advance fairly.

Finally, and this needs to be mentioned, those people who put in the most time into this game have become the ones who have been most short changed. There was a lot of effort put in by certain people, to figure things out, to increase stats, etc... and then Bioware comes along and starts changing the gameplay so all this work has become meaningless. As I said, we should never be the test bed for a game.

Other than that, I must commend the hard work on the part of the developers to take something essentially broken and turn it into a wonderful product.

[Billy Buskell]

Hey folks,

 

Thanks for the feedback.  We're always reading and listening.  

 

Here are some thoughts based on some of the concerns noted in the original post and throughout the thread:

 

Constant/Ongoing Rule Changes

This is a reality with a live service/game.  With ME3MP, we pushed updates (rebalancing tweaks) every week that the game was in active development post-launch.  Whether you're playing DAIMP, ME3MP, Destiny, WoW, Smite, or LoL, you're going to see regular updates.  This is required maintenance to keep things running smoothly.  Earlier in the lifecycle of DAIMP, we did fewer of these, as Luke joined we changed a few philosophies of how we would approach these balance tweaks.  

The game is not done... 

100% correct.  The game is not done, it's a live service.  This ties in to the previous point.  The game being "done" when speaking of a live service title generally means the game is no longer being worked on, or the servers are being shut off.  So in that sense, I do not consider the game to be done.  It's an evolving game, and the feedback and data we get from you playing and sharing your experiences is what helps us to evolve it hopefully in a direction that can be enjoyed by the most amount of people possible.

 

Beta testing is not the responsibility of the community

Agreed.  It's not the responsibility of the community.  We've elected to offer beta testing as a result of the issues we encountered early on in the lifecycle of DAIMP.  We did hours, days, weeks, and months of internatl QA and dev testing on Destruction and early patches.  Even with that, there is no way to catch every single issue that could come up.  The community is very creative in how it tackles gameplay, challenges, and the various ways to overcome them.  The Beta testing program is optional.  Players have to sign-up for it.  If you want to participate, awesome.  We appreciate the help.  If not, no worries.

One point of clarification for anyone not in the Beta program.  We provide items and gold for players to use on an alternate version of their account. Progress from live service and Beta do not carry over to each other.  They are completely separate servers.

 

We appreciate everyone's feedback.  We all play the game.  There are so many different player and play styles.  It's what I truly love about co-op multiplayer experiences and running a live service game.  The issues that affect you affect us too.  My stats on my accounts tend to not be as high as many on the leaderboards, not because I don't play as much, but because I rotate through multiple platforms.  If you watch the streams on Friday mornings, those are our real accounts. No dev hacks.

 

That said, please keep the feedback coming.  We review it regularly.  We appreciate the effort you all put in sharing your thoughts and experiences.

 

Thanks,

 

Billy

[Billy Buskell]

Question;

With all the DAI beta testers, paid DAI beta testers, and Dev's supposedly beta testing the game,

How in the hell did something as major as the key drop glitch occur?

Did it manifest only after launch?

I get the "we are few and cannot possibly test all scenarios" logic, but something as major as the key drop?

So, how did it make it into the game post launch?

 

It was an issue that was unfortunately there at the launch of the game, but never manifested until we introduced the small creatures in the free "Destruction" DLC pack.  Even after the issue was noted by players in the wild in December, it took some time for our team to be able to reproduce it reliably, diagnose the issue, fix it, and finally have it go into a patch (which has its own set of scheduling considerations we have to take into account).  

 

As noted by others in the thread, the key drop issue was exactly the one that sparked us to go ahead with Beta tests for future patches.  We had not done any Betas prior to that patch and DLC.

 

THANK YOU to everyone that has replied to the thread as well.  The team and I read these forums daily, often just observing and taking notes.  Sometimes just liking posts.  But we enjoy chatting with all of you and try to chime in whenever we can to provide additional clarity or context around the issues being discussed.  There are times we can't go into extreme detail, but when we can, we like to be as transparent as possible.  Your passion and enjoyment of the game is what drives us to keep trying to improve the game.  Thanks, all!

 

Billy

[Billy Buskell]

The key glitch was bad but that was months ago so forget it.  Frankly the issue pointed out seems to have been one built into the original source code.  Hence potentially design.  Seems like the "invalid" point about lessons learned was just refuted by none other than the team themselves.  LOL

 

Not quite as simple as that.  Here's a bit more detail for those interested:

 

The Key Drop Issue:

When we say the issue was there at launch, it means that had the small creatures that exposed the issue been present at launch, the issue would have almost for sure cropped up then.  Since the content that exposed the issue was created after the main game development completed, it was not seen until after the DLC was added, post-launch.  The reason it wasn't caught during the DLC development and internal testing was more to do with the very specific circumstances, or criteria, that needed to be true for the issue to occur.  That criteria proved very difficult to repro and diagnose when attempting to do it.  The reason it felt so sporadic for some, (personally, I didn't experience the issue until well into January, while others had it nearly every match over the December holidays) was that when you're playing with friends, or in a PUG, you're all playing and doing your thing, not necessarily tracking your actions, and it just occurred due to the criteria being met.  And yes, it was multiple things (creature type, ability type, health/damage gates, damage dealt -- including rate at which it was dealt, combos, etc) had to be true for the issue to occur, hence the delay in getting a 100% fix (took 2 patches to fully catch it).

 

Are lessons being learned?

I try not to speak for the whole team too often, but I feel this one is pretty straight forward.  I believe anyone on the DAIMP team would respond simply with, "Always".  We are ALWAYS learning from what we observe in the game, in weekend events, in forums, social media, in discussions at cons, etc.  It's a requirement of our job.  We all believe very strongly in trying something, learning from it, and improving.  It's at the core of what the team believes in, and aims to do everyday.

 

Hope that helps to shed some light on the topics.  Thanks for taking time to chat with us, folks! 

 

Billy

[Billy Buskell]

Thanks folks!  

 

It's always amazing for each of us on the team to be able to come and read constructive feedback from all of you.  No matter what your rank on the leaderboard, how many characters/classes you play, or which platform, the feedback is welcome and necessary for the game to evolve and improve over time.  We truly appreciate all of the passion and effort you put into playing and taking time to type up your comments, concerns, questions, and feedback here in the forums and in social media.  Please keep it up! 

 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!  I'll be online on PS4, Xbox One, and PC (main game and Patch Beta) this weekend.  Feel free to invite me if you're online and need someone to round out your party :-)

 

Billy

 

PSN: ehlien

Xbox Live: ehlien

Orign: ehlien12 (main game) / BillyBTwitch (beta)