This game needs polish!

[Justinian]

Double post

Edited August 20, 2014 by Justinian

[Bryy]

 

 

There seems to be a fair few posters who seem to think that because this is a beta and because it's the first 24 hours we shouldn't be calling out the games flaws. That's rubbish. I can only react to the game state I'm seeing right now, not the one that will exist after a patch or two.

I would hope - this being the beta and all - that people will be honest about the flaws. Otherwise it won't get fixed because Obsidian will think its okay.

Fully agree.

 

1) Nobody is saying you should not be addressing the games flaws. What we're saying is that if you expected it to be "more done", then you were fooling yourself. I'm sorry that you are now facing the realities of making a complex product, but these are the realities.

 

2) The idea that Obsidian won't do **** if we don't report it is complete bull. This is their job.

[ctn2003]

Hey dont worry wastland 2 doset ever resemble what it looked like in 2013 lol so POE well most likey be a totely deffrent game in about 4 months - ina good way.

[Marceror]

Hey dont worry wastland 2 doset ever resemble what it looked like in 2013 lol so POE well most likey be a totely deffrent game in about 4 months - ina good way.

 

I'm playing the WL2 beta and loving it. If you check my posts on the inXile forums they are almost universally positive, well, minus the bug reports of course.

 

A major difference between that beta and this one, is that its around 2.5x longer (~10 months). The other difference is that backers have been able to beta test about 50% of the game, having the opportunity to provide critical feedback on so much of the game. WL2, I know, is going to be a much stronger game than it otherwise would have been due to how it approached the beta.

[Bryy]

Yeah, Obsidian is really going to just be twiddling their thumbs from now until launch. If it comes out in mid-November, that gives them maybe three and a half months before gold. If it's December, that's four. So far, none of these bugs are things that should take more than a few days to weeks. 

[Marceror]

Hey Bryy, I have every confidence that Obsidian will be working their asses off to deliver this game. Every confidence.

[ApolloX75]

I think a good distinction to make when comparing the PoE beta to the WL2 Alpha/Beta process is that WL2 used the actual main campaign opening from the beginning. They structured it on the fact that everyone would be playing through the actual story build even in Alpha so there was never a need for a separate entity to test. The PoE Beta is an isolated chunk of the main game pared down for us to enjoy/poke/stab/test without absorbing any of the main story. That is significantly more difficult to manage since they are updating a separate entity from the main game.

I think it was noted before on here that we have no idea how far back the code for our beta is compared to the actual current build. Not to mention what the effects were of cutting a chunk of game out to serve up and those are excellent points.

 

Marceror to be clear I'm not disputing your statement at all; it is good to bring up your reservations, but I think Obsidian has worked hard to earn our trust and we'll see a huge amount of rapid improvements in the coming weeks. That being said I really haven't encountered any "game breaking" bugs yet and I've put a good amount of hours into the beta already. Strange and bizarre bugs? Yes. But nothing that has stopped me from playing that's for sure!

[tinderbox]

It's buggy but I really like what I've played so far. My BBfighter got totally stuck in place post one combat and I had to restart. But, yano, whatevs. They'll fix it. If they have to push it out into early 2015 to nail it I'm cool with that too.

[PrimeJunta]

1) Nobody is saying you should not be addressing the games flaws. What we're saying is that if you expected it to be "more done", then you were fooling yourself. I'm sorry that you are now facing the realities of making a complex product, but these are the realities.

 

For the record, I was expecting it to be more done, especially the combat. I'm not worried about it though. In a way it's exciting to be allowed in this early.

[kozzy]

Seeing how much a game like Wasteland 2 improved over time, I have no worries with this to be honest. The UI in Wasteland 2 bothered me so much when the first version came out, but later on now I love it. Same goes for the performance early on it was meh performance wise and now it is fantastic in that aspect. I would expect Obsidian to crack down on the bugs and optimization, this is usually the time for such things. They have the rest of the year if im not mistaken to work on bugs/polish,etc..

 

Same goes for Divinity original sin to some degree (but not as extreme as wasteland 2 imo), the issues I had in beta where fixed by the time the game came out. Now until the end of the year is a good amount of time for Obsidian to hunt down the bugs n add some poish.

Edited August 20, 2014 by kozzy

[Waywocket]

Yeah, Obsidian is really going to just be twiddling their thumbs from now until launch. If it comes out in mid-November, that gives them maybe three and a half months before gold. If it's December, that's four. So far, none of these bugs are things that should take more than a few days to weeks. 

Strongly disagree. Leaving aside the straight-up bugs, at the moment, the UI probably needs at least a dozen iterations before it's up to par with even BG2, and playtesting that properly takes time.

 

I haven't even bothered reporting most of the UI issues aside form ones that are seriously bad (though others have made many good suggestions), because it feels like the UI design and implementation is in such an early stage that bug reporting would be meaningless - like pointing out to somebody painting that they've missed a bit when they've only just made the first stroke.

 

Think about what WL2 was like three months after the beta began, and compare that to how much better it is now. And even that's a little optimistic, since WL2 was in a much better state when the beta started.

It's possible that the UI can be taken from its current point to where it needs to be in three or four months, but realistically I think that kind of schedule is going to require at least a new build per week.

[SophosTheWise]

 

Yeah, Obsidian is really going to just be twiddling their thumbs from now until launch. If it comes out in mid-November, that gives them maybe three and a half months before gold. If it's December, that's four. So far, none of these bugs are things that should take more than a few days to weeks. 

Strongly disagree. Leaving aside the straight-up bugs, at the moment, the UI probably needs at least a dozen iterations before it's up to par with even BG2, and playtesting that properly takes time.

 

I haven't even bothered reporting most of the UI issues aside form ones that are seriously bad (though others have made many good suggestions), because it feels like the UI design and implementation is in such an early stage that bug reporting would be meaningless - like pointing out to somebody painting that they've missed a bit when they've only just made the first stroke.

 

Think about what WL2 was like three months after the beta began, and compare that to how much better it is now. And even that's a little optimistic, since WL2 was in a much better state when the beta started.

It's possible that the UI can be taken from its current point to where it needs to be in three or four months, but realistically I think that kind of schedule is going to require at least a new build per week.

 

 

lolwut

[Justinian]

Seeing how much a game like Wasteland 2 improved over time, I have no worries with this to be honest. The UI in Wasteland 2 bothered me so much when the first version came out, but later on now I love it. Same goes for the performance early on it was meh performance wise and now it is fantastic in that aspect. I would expect Obsidian to crack down on the bugs and optimization, this is usually the time for such things. They have the rest of the year if im not mistaken to work on bugs/polish,etc..

 

Same goes for Divinity original sin to some degree (but not as extreme as wasteland 2 imo), the issues I had in beta where fixed by the time the game came out. Now until the end of the year is a good amount of time for Obsidian to hunt down the bugs n add some poish.

 

The Wasteland 2 beta is actually the metric I'm using to conclude that the game will unlikely be ready for release in 3-4 months. At release the Wasteland 2 beta felt less buggy than this and it's still taken them over 8 months to get to where they are now. That said, they did add a lot of content and features during the beta period, which Obsidian won't need to do but still...

 

I think Obsidian's reputation with buggy releases is preceding them and influencing concerns aswell.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Justinian

[C2B]

 

Seeing how much a game like Wasteland 2 improved over time, I have no worries with this to be honest. The UI in Wasteland 2 bothered me so much when the first version came out, but later on now I love it. Same goes for the performance early on it was meh performance wise and now it is fantastic in that aspect. I would expect Obsidian to crack down on the bugs and optimization, this is usually the time for such things. They have the rest of the year if im not mistaken to work on bugs/polish,etc..

 

Same goes for Divinity original sin to some degree (but not as extreme as wasteland 2 imo), the issues I had in beta where fixed by the time the game came out. Now until the end of the year is a good amount of time for Obsidian to hunt down the bugs n add some poish.

 

The Wasteland 2 beta is actually the metric I'm using to conclude that the game will unlikely be ready forere they are now. That said, they did add a lot of content and features during the beta period, which Obsidian won't need to do but still...

 

 

That last thing is actually very much more important than you'd think.

[PrimeJunta]

Speaking from personal experience here -- debugging and stabilizing while simultaneously adding new features is several times slower than if you're in feature freeze.

 

If WL2 took 8 months, it's entirely reasonable to expect P:E will get there in 2 or 3, given the amount of stuff they had to flat-out add and change in WL2.

[Amentep]

 

 

 

There seems to be a fair few posters who seem to think that because this is a beta and because it's the first 24 hours we shouldn't be calling out the games flaws. That's rubbish. I can only react to the game state I'm seeing right now, not the one that will exist after a patch or two.

I would hope - this being the beta and all - that people will be honest about the flaws. Otherwise it won't get fixed because Obsidian will think its okay.

 

Fully agree.

 

1) Nobody is saying you should not be addressing the games flaws. What we're saying is that if you expected it to be "more done", then you were fooling yourself. I'm sorry that you are now facing the realities of making a complex product, but these are the realities.

 

2) The idea that Obsidian won't do **** if we don't report it is complete bull. This is their job.

 

There's things that are broken, and there are things that are subjective.

 

Something that is broken is obviously broken - losing equipment, for example a bug existing in the demo.

 

The subjective stuff, though, is important too, because you can have a mechanically excellent game that is no fun to play. So my reference to observations is more on the subjective stuff. The idea that people should give the beta "slack" because its a beta would mean the beta in itself is meaningless.

 

If the systems are ultimately unfun, people should express that (mind you, constructive criticism is always best). Do I expect Obsidian to scrap everything and start over? Not necessarily but it can help Obsidian filter all of the feedback and try to make fixes to improve the experience for everyone. Otherwise, there is a risk that Obsidian will assume that people are fine with subjective areas; there's an old saying when making policies that I think is valid here - don't make a policy you can live with today that you can't live with a year from now. If Obsidian doesn't know people aren't enjoying something today, how can they anticipate how people will react to it when its still the same when the game is released?

 

Now vitrol and all isn't really helping anything, but yeah constructive criticism seems to be as much a point of a public beta as bug squashing.

[Marceror]

Not trying to add fuel to the fire here, but I was challenged by a fellow forumite to be more specific in my concerns, and so I want to take the time to do that. So I am sharing a few of my key concerns, and this is by no means an exhaustive list.

 

Incidentally, I have played the Wasteland 2 beta at length, and to me the experience of this beta starting out is far below where WL2 was – and the Wasteland 2 beta has lasted for 9 months vs. the 4 planned for PoE. So I’m concerned that we won’t be able to achieve the level of quality we want and expect for PoE in the next 4 months, which I understand to be a fairly rigid timeframe due to budget constraints.

 

I sincerely hope that OE will take a similar tact to inXile, and find creative ways to increase development time if it is needed. Steam Early Access brought in a lot of extra money for WL2, and in fact inXile is spending around 2x their Kickstarter budget to develop WL2 ($6M USD vs. $3M).

 

Personally, I feel that Obsidian released the backer beta prematurely. There are bugs that are unforgiveable in my estimation, so this suggests to me that they may be a little too focused on deadlines over quality. I don’t know really what’s going on behind the scenes, but I write this post to implore OE NOT to let this game fail. There’s TOO MUCH riding on it, we've been waiting too long (some 15 years by my tell), and the game just has way too much potential to be allowed to be anything but amazing!

 

So with that out of the way, here are my top 5 issues:

 

1. Disappearing Items – For me, this bug is a showstopper, and I’m truly befuddled as to why OE would release the backer beta in full knowledge that bug exists (as seen in one of the Gamecom streams, and admitted by OE on the forums a couple of hours after the beta was released). Maybe I’m just unlucky, but my equipment has disappeared EVERY TIME I’ve tried to play the demo. I have never cast a wizard spell, because my wizard never has his grimoire by the time I get to the first combat. Since equipment is key in a game like this, having characters essentially rendered useless is not acceptable in my opinion, not even in a beta. There is a certain level of readiness that should be delivered even in a beta, and for me, this bug is far below that level. I’m not playing the beta further until this is resolved, because I simply don’t feel that I can properly experience the beta and provide feedback until a certain stability level is reached.
2. Combat – Based on the very short amount of combat I’ve been able to experience, my feeling is that this game would work far, far better with turn based combat. In its current iteration combat feels rather chaotic. This is in part due to the fact that classes tend to have a lot of selectable skills/abilities. If the game was turn based, the process of selecting and using different tactics and abilities would be more uniform and elegant. With RtwP (which I have loved in the IE games by the way), I just feel like the combat is getting away from me. I’m sure some of this is my learning curve, but my feeling is that the combat in the game is in need of A LOT of refinement.
3. Combat Difficulty – I generally love a challenging game, and have played such IE mods in the past as Improved Anvil, Tactics, etc. But I feel that the current difficulty curve is too high for the sort of game this is. I have done fine on easy, but normal is a bit over the top in my opinion. That said, I suspect that part of the reason for this is our crappy starting equipment. We start at level 5, and my suspicion is that had we played the full release game from the beginning, at the point we reach the beta content we would likely have much better gear. Gear is king in games like this, and with our fairly paltry starting gear, we are at a disadvantage. So it may well be that part of the problem is how the beta drops fresh characters into mid-game content.
4. Pathfinding:  Pathfinding can be a real problem in combat, in particular.  Characters often get bunched up, and it can totally create unnatural advantages or disadvantages if either the player or the AI can’t reach their enemies. So this results in a lot of extra micro to move each character individually in order to work around.
5. The Game Content – I admit that I haven’t gotten to see much of the beta content, because the disappearing gear bug has pretty much stopped me in my tracks. But what I have seen feels hollow in a lot of ways. If I go into a building and talk to someone, unless they’re associated with a quest, they really don’t have much to say. So in some regards the personality of the game is still lacking, and personality is a critical part of a game like this. Again, I realize it’s still early beta, but I worry that 4 months isn’t enough time to address such issues not only in the beta, but in the other 145 odd maps that we still haven’t seen, on top of dealing with the mechanical issues that are present in the beta, and the assuredly large number of mechanical issues with systems we haven’t seen yet (e.g. the Stronghold, the Endless Levels of Od Nua, etc.).

It could be that I'm off base, and Obsidian will have this all nailed by December, but my instincts tell me that we are going to need more time, and that a December release will prove slightly disastrous. I'd love to be wrong though.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Marceror

[hairyscotsman2]

I know what you’re thinking. Of course it does, stupid! It’s still in beta.

 

Yes I get that, but the number of issues that I’m seeing with such a small portion of the game has me very concerned. I mean, I presume that OE took the time to make this beta demo as good as it can be. It is still lacking and, well, what about the rest of the game? If the 3 – 5 hour backer beta needs this much work, what about our stronghold? The 13 odd levels of Od Nua. Two major cities, and so on and so on? Can a December 2014 target still be attained? For me the beta isn’t even playable, as in 3 separate games my party members have consistently had their equipment disappear. Try playing a wizard without a spell book!

 

Let me be among the first to say that I fully expect the release to get pushed back. I just don’t see Winter 2014 happening. You figure, they’re going to want to release at least a little before Christmas, so at most they 4 months to get this out on time. I just don’t think there’s going to be enough time.

 

Now let me pause to say that the “wrapper” of this game is fantastic. I love the graphics. I love the Infinity Engine feel – obsidian has nailed this! I love the varied classes and races and sub-races. I truly feel that this game has all the potential to be the first worthy spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, and perhaps even end its 15 year reign as the King of cRPGs.

 

But I hope that OE will take the time to give it the polish it deserves, and release it when its truly ready.

It's got more content than the D:OS Alpha did (Alpha in Dec) and that was released in Aug. So D:OS took 8 months (with all the usual balancing, bug fixing and reworking, plus a whole new skill tree) to get from Alpha to release. Obsidian have a lot more staff than Larian (I've been told 250 compared to 40 by my GF), so I think they'll be fine.

[Panteleimon]

PoE is legitimately in beta. It's feature complete and the rest of development will be spent polishing, balancing and bug fixing, with late-game implementation of "small" stuff like some UI and VO.

 

Wasteland was about as "beta" as DayZ is now. It was the nowadays all-too-common move of trading early access to a half-finished game for money. There is literally no comparison.

 

Stop hand-wringing and listen to PrimeJunta. He's one of the only people in the thread who's speaking sense.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Panteleimon

[Headbomb]

The bugs so far, are also just that, bugs.

 

Take the disappearing item bug for instance. It is a major, critical, throughoughly game-breaking and fun-killing bug, and it has widespread implications. But fix that (let's say worse case it takes a week to one guy, full time), and you've fixed several issues which all ride on that one bug screwing things up (like the disappearing grimoire preventing wizards from casting, keys not working, not having lockpicks, etc...). [see how to dodge the major bugs: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/67358-tips-to-avoid-the-more-annoying-bugs-in-the-beta-mini-spoilers/ ]

 

And there's many other people around too, working on all aspects of the games. I haven't encountered anything that truly needs to be redesigned from the ground up. Yes there are critical bugs, balance issues, etc..., but there's nothing I've seen in this build that can't be tackled in 3-4 months of hard work. Especially since there's no critical problems with quests that doesn't seem due to save/reload (save some final rewards), and tells me Obsidian can script quests without too many problems. This means that when you move to new areas, new quests, etc..., we shouldn't see half a zillion quest breakers.

 

So yes, this beta is in bad shape and it is not yet feature complete (although it's close). But it's also the first public bulid, so I'm not losing any sleep over it. We'll have cause for concern if the next one is released in two weeks and is only slightly less crappy.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Headbomb

[ReyVagabond]

Guys We are BETA TESTERS! Your job right now is not playing the game and getting all exited!

 

Is finding BUGS! Reporting then and giving your opinion on the Subject!

Act like a professional tester (slap)

 

Of course there are bugs of course is almost unplayable! But I wanted to test the game. I wanted to report bugs!

 

I wanted to state hey Why the **** does the ranger boar respawn multiple times.

 

Once you find enough bugs, Wait till they fix them, and test again!

 

You are not in beta to enjoy the game you are there to help it make it better for all the other players!

 

So suck it up, Test or wait for an update, or don’t test,  but your not here to enjoy the game your are here to help obsidian to make this game the best it can be.

So report those bugs, test that balance, and do your job as a tester!

[Freshock]

No offense but seems like people don't get what beta is - it's supposed to be filled with bugs and problems. It's a way for the fans to participate in finding the issues and report them for a better final product. Many of the comments I've seen the past days makes me worried people take a look at the beta and just take it for the final result. There's still alot left to do, yes, but I think fixing bugs are a faster process than making what they have done so far. 

[Leferd]

[*]Combat – Based on the very short amount of combat I’ve been able to experience, my feeling is that this game would work far, far better with turn based combat. In its current iteration combat feels rather chaotic. This is in part due to the fact that classes tend to have a lot of selectable skills/abilities. If the game was turn based, the process of selecting and using different tactics and abilities would be more uniform and elegant. With RtwP (which I have loved in the IE games by the way), I just feel like the combat is getting away from me. I’m sure some of this is my learning curve, but my feeling is that the combat in the game is in need of A LOT of refinement.[/.

You know, may be on to something here. It's too late for Obsidian to make this change (which would go back on this being an IE "feels" game) but a lot of the issues with combat pacing, feedback, and pathfinding could be reduced, if not outright eliminated with a turn based system. I do think however, that the team will get the combat feel right for the final release with enough tuning.

[Caerdon]

There are bugs that are unforgiveable in my estimation

 

Unforgivable? Right.

[Volourn]

Uh. I've been hard on Obsidian but this is a silly thread. Of coruse, it's not polished. That is supposed to be expected. Whining about the existence of bugs in a beta  - even if they 'ruin' the game - is silly.  Just report them and hope they fix them before release whenever that is. be it November or next year or the year after.

 

Bugs are 'forgiveable'.

 

NOT A BIG DEAL.