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  1. #21
    LepantoESP's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by Veldaz Go to original post
    Gets more complicated with multiplayer. But any company worth their salt makes sure things are ready before releasing a patch that might be broken or not. Not every company is worth its salt though.
    It's not as simple as you make it be. Remember Apple Maps to name an exceedingly high profile fiasco?

    So, yeah, if certification = more testing -> Gimme.

    Originally Posted by Veldaz Go to original post
    Consoles have NOT avoided that either. Regardless of you "100%" claim.
    Originally Posted by LepantoESP Go to original post
    It was an isolated event for a AAA game, but one which consoles have avoided as far as I can tell 100%.
    My claim was VERY much around my own knowledge as my comment stated, so if you have contrarian examples I'd be more than happy to know of a similarly high profile game having similar game breaking issues as BAS has had/still has, on PC.
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  2. #22
    Veldaz's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by LepantoESP Go to original post
    So, yeah, if certification = more testing -> Gimme.
    Also not that simple. Some devs just get lazy or are happy with the result (which may or may not be warranted, depending). There's also such a thing as "field testing" (the playerbase basically) which can slow down patches in general if players can't test things that might get fixed faster otherwise. Not being able to "quickly test results" can actually slow down a games growth too, more so when it's multiplayer. That's sort of what's happening with TD and isn't a bad thing in and of itself but in this case it's gone into the realms of being a bit on the unfair side. Where we feel like we're never testing enough and remain stuck with something "broken".

    There's also countless games that weren't ready at launch, let alone patches. And therefor absolutely demands quick patches. So yes, it is that simple. It's a simple case of "Give us a(nother) patch to fix this ****". But again that's the COMPANIES fault if they release games and patches that aren't ready yet. If it's got problems then it shouldn't be released (Or if they are they better be planned for fixing ASAP). Which is where steam, Sony and Microsoft also come into play. But it's not like they can go "Change the patch like this" either. So they can't really do anything about the patches themselves. It might slow things down for things to get fixed but if you ask me I think the companies themselves should get into the habit of making sure things work before releasing them.

    If someone shoots me that's on their head. Body armor by another company could slow them down but it doesn't stop the root cause of the problem. Which would be the one holding the gun. In this case the one holding the gun is the company that made the patch/game. With the body armor being Sony, Microsoft and steam. We have multiple leaves (steam, Sony, Microsoft) but the root problem (companies trying to rush things out) is still there.
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  3. #23
    LepantoESP's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by Veldaz Go to original post
    Also not that simple. Some devs just get lazy or are happy with the result (which may or may not be warranted, depending). There's also such a thing as "field testing" (the playerbase basically) which can slow down patches in general if players can't test things that might get fixed faster otherwise. Not being able to "quickly test results" can actually slow down a games growth too, more so when it's multiplayer. That's sort of what's happening with TD and isn't a bad thing in and of itself but in this case it's gone into the realms of being a bit on the unfair side. Where we feel like we're never testing enough and remain stuck with something "broken".

    There's also countless games that weren't ready at launch, let alone patches. And therefor absolutely demands quick patches. So yes, it is that simple. It's a simple case of "Give us a(nother) patch to fix this ****". But again that's the COMPANIES fault if they release games and patches that aren't ready yet. If it's got problems then it shouldn't be released (Or if they are they better be planned for fixing ASAP). Which is where steam, Sony and Microsoft also come into play. But it's not like they can go "Change the patch like this" either. So they can't really do anything about the patches themselves. It might slow things down for things to get fixed but if you ask me I think the companies themselves should get into the habit of making sure things work before releasing them.

    If someone shoots me that's on their head. Body armor by another company could slow them down but it doesn't stop the root cause of the problem. Which would be the one holding the gun. In this case the one holding the gun is the company that made the patch/game. With the body armor being Sony, Microsoft and steam. We have multiple leaves (steam, Sony, Microsoft) but the root problem (companies trying to rush things out) is still there.
    It must be my own shortcoming but I fail to see how this is relevant to TD and where you are trying to go with this argument. I apologize but "Some Devs", "Countless games", "Companies", "another company" statements have left me wondering where you are trying to get.

    Again, it might be my bad but I fail to realize what it is that you are trying to bring up and how it ties to TD. Perhaps we've strayed a bit too far from the OPs post?
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  4. #24
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    Essentially, so everyone has an equal chance of playing the patch / DLC at the same time, unless, of course, money is involved.
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  5. #25
    Veldaz's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by LepantoESP Go to original post
    It must be my own shortcoming but I fail to see how this is relevant to TD and where you are trying to go with this argument. I apologize but "Some Devs", "Countless games", "Companies", "another company" statements have left me wondering where you are trying to get.

    Again, it might be my bad but I fail to realize what it is that you are trying to bring up and how it ties to TD. Perhaps we've strayed a bit too far from the OPs post?
    Oh come on, surely you're aware that TD hasn't "fixed" a lot of the issues in the game with this unpolished and as of yet to be truly even finished game. Technically not "broke" as such but close enough to be considered needing to be patched up right. As a result some patches might need to be brought out faster then others. While other patches will most certainty need to be held back a bit to be done right.

    That's not to say every complaint about 1.6 should be patched up, mind. But at the same time if there's another 1.3 with mobs not scailing to players I say it's time to stuff in another patch to fix the problems ASAP. For PC and console alike. Even a "broken"/temporary patch can be more helpful then one that does nothing at times. Provided it's not game breaking.

    In that light perhaps the game needs more patches at times. Hell, there's already been threads asking for that. Not sure if I can agree with the reasons behind it but sometimes there can be good reason for a quicker patch rather then a slower one. At the same time "patch rushing" shouldn't become a habit either.

    And I'm very much on topic thank you. It's about patches and why I think console players shouldn't have to wait if there's a patch to fix something like mob health that doesn't scale to the number of players. As an example. Likewise PC players shouldn't have to wait if there's a patch ready to fix that as well. That kind of problem shouldn't even have existed considering other games already scale to players. And is something a quick patch can solve since others have the answer already and can involve just a bit of tweaking. not quite that simple of course but it's something that can get fixed up quicker then other things. It's a single thing that is (was in this case) a large problem that can be fixed, not a complicated game balance issue that involves multiple types of armor and weapons in PVP. It could as easily be an example of a small selection of items needing to be balanced out. The longer a game goes on without a "fix", the longer the game will suffer for it. Or even a game breaking bug that was overlooked, which of course will absolutely demand a quick fix. not waiting in line for Sony and Microsoft to stop sucking their thumbs.

    Not sure how devs manage to fix issues quickly when they pop up on consoles. I'm sure they do though. I imagine they have to sign an agreement with Sony and Microsoft stating they can do that or something? Obviously they can't keep the players waiting when there's problems popping up.
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  6. #26
    gt2k's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by LepantoESP Go to original post
    It must be my own shortcoming but I fail to see how this is relevant to TD and where you are trying to go with this argument. I apologize but "Some Devs", "Countless games", "Companies", "another company" statements have left me wondering where you are trying to get.

    Again, it might be my bad but I fail to realize what it is that you are trying to bring up and how it ties to TD. Perhaps we've strayed a bit too far from the OPs post?
    I don't know what he is getting at. I understood what you were saying from the post above. I think people are trying to read what they want from the comments instead of understanding what you or anyone is saying.
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  7. #27
    Originally Posted by Veldaz Go to original post
    Oh come on, surely you're aware that TD hasn't "fixed" a lot of the issues in the game with this unpolished and as of yet to be truly even finished game. Technically not "broke" as such but close enough to be considered needing to be patched up right. As a result some patches might need to be brought out faster then others. While other patches will most certainty need to be held back a bit to be done right.

    That's not to say every complaint about 1.6 should be patched up, mind. But at the same time if there's another 1.3 with mobs not scailing to players I say it's time to stuff in another patch to fix the problems ASAP. For PC and console alike. Even a "broken"/temporary patch can be more helpful then one that does nothing at times. Provided it's not game breaking.

    In that light perhaps the game needs more patches at times. Hell, there's already been threads asking for that. Not sure if I can agree with the reasons behind it but sometimes there can be good reason for a quicker patch rather then a slower one. At the same time "patch rushing" shouldn't become a habit either.

    And I'm very much on topic thank you. It's about patches and why I think console players shouldn't have to wait if there's a patch to fix something like mob health that doesn't scale to the number of players. As an example. Likewise PC players shouldn't have to wait if there's a patch ready to fix that as well. That kind of problem shouldn't even have existed considering other games already scale to players. And is something a quick patch can solve since others have the answer already and can involve just a bit of tweaking. not quite that simple of course but it's something that can get fixed up quicker then other things. It's a single thing that is (was in this case) a large problem that can be fixed, not a complicated game balance issue that involves multiple types of armor and weapons in PVP. It could as easily be an example of a small selection of items needing to be balanced out. The longer a game goes on without a "fix", the longer the game will suffer for it. Or even a game breaking bug that was overlooked, which of course will absolutely demand a quick fix. not waiting in line for Sony and Microsoft to stop sucking their thumbs.

    Not sure how devs manage to fix issues quickly when they pop up on consoles. I'm sure they do though. I imagine they have to sign an agreement with Sony and Microsoft stating they can do that or something? Obviously they can't keep the players waiting when there's problems popping up.
    Based on the volumes of text you've typed in this thread, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your job does not involve software development in any way, shape or form.

    The reason why client-side updates on consoles have to pass certification with Sony and/or Microsoft is mainly down to quality control and compliance. S/M know their systems better than any developer so their first priority is making sure the update doesn't cause any sort of crash-type issues. Second, they have certain requirements about the way things need to be done and they'll check that the client code sticks to those. While this process is mostly a pain for the developers as it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, there are times when bugs are actually found so it is useful.

    As to the OP, the only time I see PC "patches" be delayed to coincide with console release is when its a content update. Unless there is an exclusivity deal in place, publishers typically want content releasing on all applicable platforms at the same time. If its a hotfix type of thing, PC will get patches before console. I've seen this happen many times in the past. So I'm really not sure what the issue is here.
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  8. #28
    LepantoESP's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally Posted by googlebright Go to original post
    Based on the volumes of text you've typed in this thread, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your job does not involve software development in any way, shape or form.

    The reason why client-side updates on consoles have to pass certification with Sony and/or Microsoft is mainly down to quality control and compliance. S/M know their systems better than any developer so their first priority is making sure the update doesn't cause any sort of crash-type issues. Second, they have certain requirements about the way things need to be done and they'll check that the client code sticks to those. While this process is mostly a pain for the developers as it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, there are times when bugs are actually found so it is useful.
    Blam! That's EXACTLY what I was trying to get at in my prior post about Apple vs Google App Stores and precisely why certification is great.

    Originally Posted by Veldaz Go to original post
    I imagine they have to sign an agreement with Sony and Microsoft stating they can do that or something?
    This my friend Veldaz is frankly an absurd statement. You IMAGINE developers sign and agreement that they will fix problems they don't know about? I've worked in IT. I WORK in IT, and sometimes the biggest issues are solved with a line of code, and sometimes they mean entire rewriting of complete chunks of code. Run your imagination less, developers fix their stuff fast because the are very smart and they work their butts off.
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  9. #29
    Veldaz's Avatar Senior Member
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    Based on the volumes of text you've typed in this thread, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your job does not involve software development in any way, shape or form.
    1: I never claimed I had a job in that area so I'm not sure where that comment came from. 2: Just because I write in detail you assume I'm an idiot? What interesting logic you have...

    Originally Posted by LepantoESP Go to original post
    This my friend Veldaz is frankly an absurd statement. You IMAGINE developers sign and agreement that they will fix problems they don't know about? I've worked in IT. I WORK in IT, and sometimes the biggest issues are solved with a line of code, and sometimes they mean entire rewriting of complete chunks of code. Run your imagination less, developers fix their stuff fast because the are very smart and they work their butts off.
    You're getting dangerously close to being insulting. It also seems you missed my point. Did it occur to you that there ARE signed contracts about "This thing can happen and we can do this and that" in general? It all has to go down on paper, known and the not yet known but still accounted for unknown. And I imagined nothing. I made a speculation about the possibility of that may or may not happening. I never claimed to know either way. If I had went "I imagine it doesn't work that way" you'd probably be telling me off for imagining things there too since you seem to have a problem with my "imagination". At least have a stronger argument then "Because imagination". There could be a simple contract along the lines of "Approved to change stats of X item without needing to check in" for example. Yet another part of a contract could state "If some new item is put in the game we need to approve it first". One is a known thing that gets changed later, even if the change in stats themselves is not known what is changed IS known, that is the item/in game content itself. Somehow I doubt Sony and Microsoft will be sitting there on the phone listening to every change in stat numbers all day. Would the company need to file a list of every change in stat numbers for every item in the game every time it happens (which could take days if not weeks to look over)? Or just state "These are the things that were changed" and having that be enough? Would it apply to every game or perhaps some games with one and other games doing things a little differently? You might have worked in IT but have you worked with contracts and what's legally allowed or not or been a game dev that would know about this kind of thing? This' isn't some coding that needs fixing and this isn't customer service, this is a legal issue. As such I'm taking into account what I don't know and asking questions and using my "imagination" to ponder possibilities and the lack thereof. I'm guessing a file would be sent over with things like "Items were changed stat wise" and a phone call would be made for "We added a new game mode, could you approve this". That last part is my imagination and I WILL use it in the pursuit of attempting to obtain answers. Which so far haven't been provided. Instead of claiming you know it all show me proof of that. Which is, shock and horror, what I actually want. To know how and why there's things like console certifications to begin with. Beyond "sloppy devs rushing patches out". Which IS a thing that happens when they're not "working their butts off". If that's not the reason we have things like certifications then what is? One poster here claims devs rush out patches which is why certifications exists, the other claims they work their butts off (and again if that's the case why certifications at all?). It can't be just one or the other. More likely sometimes one happens, other times the other happens. Either that or one of you is a liar. Which is it?

    developers fix their stuff fast because the are very smart and they work their butts off.
    Riiiiiight. Guess you missed No Mans Sky then. And that's not even down to imagination. Oh, how about peter molyneux making the fighting ridiculously easy in Fable? And if you're implying TD devs are working their butts off when they can't even put in challenging for all missions and actually skip to legendary... And then there's the chicken dance PVP... You also seem to have overlooked the part where I mentioned mobs not even scaling to players (a prime example of rushing things and being sloppy which can easily happen with patches). Yea, when the problems in the game are fixed then that comment will fly. Until then... Credit where it's due though. TD is at least now working on things if nothing else. After a year... My, what hard workers TD devs are. I honestly don't mean to mock them and I know balance and such is hell but it can't be argued that this game isn't doing too well for itself atm.

    SMART devs work their butts off. But not every dev is smart. TD is an example of a game with an idea but a failure in terms of execution. Which is a shame because the idea itself was pretty good. The idea was PVP focus. The failure was the devs not taking PVE players into enough consideration (I recall a post stating the devs were surprised at the numbers with PVE players). It's reasons like that why things need to go down on paper in the first place. Smart people don't go around killing. There will always be exceptions to the rule. hence a law for it. Killers. Law. Devs. Contracts/certifications. If you can't grasp the simple logic of accounting for idiots or at least people that assume they have the answers which can end badly (which is why such things even exist at all) then I give up.
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  10. #30
    gt2k's Avatar Senior Member
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    His statement preferring certification over not having one is a simple one. You are reading way too much into it and arguing over nothing at this point.
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