Should Obsidian let beta testers play bigger chunks of the game before the launch of the next PoE game?

[IndiraLightfoot]

I have been one of the lucky ones - with few bugs and then almost always minor ones - but still I do acknowledge that there are hundreds of bugs that the Obsidian test players missed, many of them simple to notice too (at least if you're a CRPG veteran, and if you don't know the game beforehand).

 

So, personally, I'd love to see Obsidian letting beta players test bigger chunks of the game sometime before launch in order to find many obvious and important bugs - then they have the time to iron them all out before launch.

 

What do you think?

 

I've added a poll.

Edited May 18, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot

[Taurus]

IMO No.

But they should have some for the bugs, and others for the combat.

 

"Here, test these many encounters and see how they play out".

[DexGames]

I thought about it too, maybe not as far as the entire content, but at least the whole package of mechanics.

No restrictions like lvl 9 where, practically speaking, you get to test 3 or 4 abilities.

 

Removing Level restrictions, would have allowed us to give feedbacks on :

• Testing all Abilities & their Power.
• Test the Level Scaling.
• Test the High End Difficulty.
• Overall Tuning Feedback before release.

Edited May 18, 2018 by DexGames

[E.RedMark]

I say No..

 

I mean whole game , sheesh..imagine if one of them decide to spoil the whole thing . 

 

if they can use part of the game like @Taurus said , just combat without context or anything..maybe . 

[IndiraLightfoot]

@Dexgames & E.RedMark: Wow, you bring up stuff I didn't even consider - the problem of leaking the content and worse. Well, I should adapt my title and question a bit, I reckon.

Very good points!

[E.RedMark]

and Beta tester , unless they keep testing for a year or 2....can't really catch everything everything .

 

When Xcom came out I remember , I was waiting hanging on Steam . Alot of peoples , with better pc then mine couldn't even make it launch . 

 

there are countless issue sure , but there are also countless computer and not everyone running the same setting and hardware . 

 

I mean , beta can catch some . But not everything . I had one playtrough and the game only crashed 3 times on me..and I'm pretty sure it was cose of my own pc going funky . And the bugs were mostly quest and dialogue and nothing that would stop me from playing. 

[Juodas Varnas]

I'd rather they just hired some QA to test their games

[Rhaeg]

but still I do acknowledge that there are hundreds of bugs that the Obsidian test players missed, many of them simple to notice too 

 

Hundreds of bugs? I'd like to see a list with those!

[freche]

Things and issues will always come up after release. The amount of beta testers and those that actually report things can't possibly test all variables and different crazy stuff that 100 000 players will do.

 

And personally I'm not really that bothered with difficulty imbalance in a single player game, although in Deadfires case it could probably have been done a bit better even at release. I'd rather have not all information and theory min-maxed classes before the game is released.

[Aramintai]

I think they should let beta testers test all the mechanics of the game, not just non-spoilery ones. So many bugs related to save imports, companions, dispositions and relationship system could have been avoided at POE2 release if only they were introduced in the beta...

[flamesium]

I understand why they don't, and tbh it's hard to understand how they didn't notice that difficulty/level scaling and imports were so broken from their own testing.

 

I appreciate it will be difficult to test every possible import combination, but that doesn't seem to explain the Vela situation for instance (you either took her or you didn't) or that level scaling was -afaik- universally not working. It shouldn't take extensive public beta testing to catch these sorts of problems.

[Ryz009]

Yes if only to see which bugs are deal breakers for players that they probably see as minor issues.

[wih]

Actually, what is the problem if beta testers can play through a part of the story or even the entire story? Someone will decide to spoil it? PoE 2 released more than a week ago and already there are many players who have finished it and can spoil the plot for the majority of players that aren't. So what? I am only at level 9 still and nobody has spoiled the game for me (because of course I am careful to avoid spoilers and also the forum is structured in such a way as to make avoiding spoilers possible).

[yoyolll]

Volunteer (or paying) beta testers are no replacement for proper QA.  This game, and just about every Obsidian game ever, needed a lot more time with QA before release.

[illathid]

Volunteer (or paying) beta testers are no replacement for proper QA.  This game, and just about every Obsidian game ever, needed a lot more time with QA before release.

 

While volunteers are no replacement for proper QA, there some bugs that are impossible to find in house (like the shader bug that some people had on macs).

[Urocyon]

Providing access to more of the abilities would have gone a long way to help balance and flesh out the classes. They wouldn't even necessarily have to spoil any content. It could have just been a series of encounters for which you could run some builds through to see how powers interact. This testing area could have even been kept for release and accessed through the start menu so that folks trying to figure out what they want to play could fire it up, make a character of a specific level, and beat on an encounter in a neutral environment without having to do the Berathian walk of shame a dozen times.

 

I also think narrowing focus of the project scope so more time could be spent on fine tuning things like encounters, quest depth, and item diversity would have helped alleviate some of the complaints I have seen.

 

For example, sidekicks are neat and all but maybe the effort to make them could have been used to provide more substantial companion quests or a larger variety of soulbound items.

[mazeltov]

>Bugsidian

>testing

 

Pick one. No but seriously, now they can make a major balance overhaul another selling point for the forthcoming DLC. Twofer! 

[Townsendvol]

I had early access but didn't use it much because I wanted to go into the game pretty fresh.  However I do believe that the earlier that companies give some players access the better, that why its better tested on many different set ups.  Ofcourse I mean players that have the games best interest at heart.

 

I sometimes feel a bit bad that I didn't play the beta more to try and help find bugs but that wasn't the reason I backed at the level I did. 

[yoyolll]

I sometimes feel a bit bad that I didn't play the beta more to try and help find bugs but that wasn't the reason I backed at the level I did. 

Generally, people will get paid to do this, so don't feel too bad.

[PIP-Clownboy]

You can't properly beta test when the build is consistently 3 months behind the dev. 

 

Not to mention, and I called this, people were crying because their half-naked party was wiping to the Titan in beta. People were posting how it was 'impossible' (when it wasn't). It's no real surprise that POTD at release turned into an outright Attack Move simulator. 

[Wintermist]

Since I have no idea how they actually did their testing, my response was just a Yes, because naturally there should be testing. There is no doubt there already was testing start to finish, you can't release a game without doing so. Some things are hard to discover though, and some things only appear with certain hardware and other situations. There will always be bugs thanks to that.

 

Bugs I don't like though are obvious ones, like respeccing and losing skill upgrades. That should have been spotted and fixed before release. Things related to maths and pure logic should have been avoided simply by thinking things through when implementing the features. They are the shameful bugs, in my opinion.

 

Overall though, none of the current bugs stopped me from having fun and getting through it. They are, however, annoying still.

[Katarack21]

Anybody else remember when companies used to release games with bugs that would literally uninstall your Windows partition?

I mean, this game has bugs, yeah, but let's not go all "bugsidian" on this. This is a pretty normal release for any company in the modern world.

[SonicMage117]

Anybody else remember when companies used to release games with bugs that would literally uninstall your Windows partition?

 

I mean, this game has bugs, yeah, but let's not go all "bugsidian" on this. This is a pretty normal release for any company in the modern world.

No, it's not. That's just a myth that older members here go-to every time they hear someone call out Obsidian for their rough releases.

 

To generalize modern games as buggy, whether we're talking rpg's with alot of freedom or of all genres, would be a flat out lie. I've played alot of games on Steam and consoles for the last few years and barely any of them had bugs. Obsidian has a reputation much like Bethesda, on that the games - even when delayed still turn out to be a bugfesta.

[Tigranes]

I wish I could comment, but funnily enough, my installation of Deadfire is almost entirely bug-free. It wouldn't be fair of me to assume that others' assessments are lies, though, or that my own knowledge must be objective. That would be rather boorish of me.

 

I 'fondly' remember dozens of games, RPGs and otherwise, that fell on my lap with all sorts of gamebreaking bugs, some of them with a big reputation for bugs (oh, Troika), some not. I suppose with Deadfire I'm lucky.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Tigranes

[Katarack21]

 

Anybody else remember when companies used to release games with bugs that would literally uninstall your Windows partition?

 

I mean, this game has bugs, yeah, but let's not go all "bugsidian" on this. This is a pretty normal release for any company in the modern world.

No, it's not. That's just a myth that older members here go-to every time they hear someone call out Obsidian for their rough releases.

 

To generalize modern games as buggy, whether we're talking rpg's with alot of freedom or of all genres, would be a flat out lie. I've played alot of games on Steam and consoles for the last few years and barely any of them had bugs. Obsidian has a reputation much like Bethesda, on that the games - even when delayed still turn out to be a bugfesta.

 

They *used* to be. I haven't encountered an actual bugfest in an Obsidian game since Stick of Truth. I have encountered bugs, but *NOTHING* like they used to be.

 

Every major game that comes out is buggy at first. Not just RPG's; everything from Grand Theft Auto to Mass Effect to freaking Far Cry 5 are *FULL OF BUGS* on release. And this isn't "modern games"; as I mentioned, even back in the day every game that came out was full of bugs. Consoles are different; they have standardized hardware on all versions of the same console, so it's a *WHOLE* lot easier to predict hardware/software interactions and keep bugs low. Independent and small-studio games are also different; the games are generally much smaller and simpler, which again means inherently lower opportunity for conflict and bugs.

 

Show me a major PC release from a moderate-to-large studio in the last 20 years that was bug free on release.