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DocHolliday

Disclose all changes in patch notes?

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Dear Grapeshot,

One common issue I have seen in the short time we have been testing this game is communication.  It has been quite poor at times, but I do admit it is improving.  One area I believe it needs to be improved in is the patch notes.  We as your paying testers are playing this game, enjoying it, getting angry at it and trying to test it.  Many times we notice things change we are left in the dark wondering if this is a bug or game balance tweak.  We check the logs and see no mention of this change.  We refer to these are ninja updates.  They have a negative connotation to them in that your team snuck the change it without telling us because you  know it will be poorly received.  This is the assumption being made that could easily be rectified with full patch notes. 

Make a commitment to detail all changes large and small.  An informed player/tester base is a better base that can more intelligently speak on the things we observe.

 

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An example would be the new cargo carriers. How much can they hold? How much is the weight reduced by? We have no idea as we have not been told.

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They haven't released those items yet.  That's in the may update.

something more referred to may be damage changes to hydra, cyclops, dragon etc, all undocumented nerfs. While I understand why and justified, but not documenting it could have wasted a lot of time for some.

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2 hours ago, trqfreak350 said:

They haven't released those items yet.  That's in the may update.

something more referred to may be damage changes to hydra, cyclops, dragon etc, all undocumented nerfs. While I understand why and justified, but not documenting it could have wasted a lot of time for some.

I don’t see any reason whatsoever to justify a change that was not documented. Regardless of the reason. Any change needs to be noted. No excuses

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6 hours ago, AntonyVW said:

An example would be the new cargo carriers. How much can they hold? How much is the weight reduced by? We have no idea as we have not been told.

Eerm, its not in game yet and they probably don't know the numbers themselves. 

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1 hour ago, Willard said:

Eerm, its not in game yet and they probably don't know the numbers themselves. 

Im aware of that fact. The reason I highlighted it was because they frequently tell us about things like this and then never follow up by giving details on it. The hope is that they might consider doing so when it is released rather than the community funding out by trial and error.

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11 minutes ago, AntonyVW said:

Im aware of that fact. The reason I highlighted it was because they frequently tell us about things like this and then never follow up by giving details on it. The hope is that they might consider doing so when it is released rather than the community funding out by trial and error.

They give us details when its released or you see that details ingame. What do you want? "Hey guys, we are giving a new pike item ingame, it has 10.0 weight, hits for 30 with left click, hits for 35 with right click". Cmon, they don't need to give us details of smt which is clear ingame.

Stealth changes are bad, but these details, cmon. For example that cargo carrier - you will see the details the exact moment you build it and use it.

Edited by Willard

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Every small or big patch, every changings or adjustments they made is documented in the patch notes.

And if they write "changed a issue, that player don't fall thru... Bla bla", so it's more than enough information for us players. Or du you need the exactly codeline?

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When did they put in the patch notes the increase of dmg from 10 raw fish and raw meat from 95 to 110?

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19 minutes ago, gadefence said:

When did they put in the patch notes the increase of dmg from 10 raw fish and raw meat from 95 to 110?

Dmg from eating raw fish meat and raw meat? And u had that calculated? 1 meat took 9,5 HP and now it takes 11 HP right? 

Jees man really? This starts to be funny 😄 btw they also denied us an information of changing the look of our tree in front of our base. I think one of those branches looks little different. I demand patch notes !! 😄

Edited by Willard

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5 minutes ago, Willard said:

Dmg from eating raw fish meat and raw meat? And u had that calculated? 1 meat took 9,5 HP and now it takes 11 HP right?

Jees man really? This starts to be funny 😄

I used to eat 10 raw fish, 10 raw meat, 25 berries and 25 vit A or 5 farmed vit A to keep equilibrium up when I was low. It keeps your vitamins in balance and left you with around 5 HP. I do that when I'm farming for tames for an hour or two running around the island and don't want to run back to a fire to get food constantly.

Now if I do this, I end up running back to my corpse. I need to wait 10-15 seconds for my monkey and equilibrium to bring me back to eat more levels of hp.

But this isn't about my play style. It's about the claim that all changes are documented.

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1 hour ago, gadefence said:

I used to eat 10 raw fish, 10 raw meat, 25 berries and 25 vit A or 5 farmed vit A to keep equilibrium up when I was low. It keeps your vitamins in balance and left you with around 5 HP. I do that when I'm farming for tames for an hour or two running around the island and don't want to run back to a fire to get food constantly.

Now if I do this, I end up running back to my corpse. I need to wait 10-15 seconds for my monkey and equilibrium to bring me back to eat more levels of hp.

But this isn't about my play style. It's about the claim that all changes are documented.

First, there could be more factors why you are dying. Second, of this changes it doesn't have to be intentional. It could be a result of changinf something else or it can be just a bug. Which ofc won't be in patch notes. Just eat 1 less raw meat.

They are doing a good job informing us about changes, at least from my point of view.

Edited by Willard

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Just a reminder we are more than just players.  We are testers.  When changes are made we need to know the details of these changes so we can test them.  If they fix a specific bug we need to know what that problem is and how to reproduce it if possible.  Want to fix an issue tell us how to break it.  We'll abuse the crap out of it in every way imaginable so it can be resolved.

The way things are handled now we are left guessing and a lot of the time we cannot properly test changes made.  We have to feel our way through it and hope for the best.  These games are built on numbers and the more visible these numbers are the more closely we can watch them and call out issues.  I see lots of good feedback, but it could be even better and more detailed if changes made were better documented and reported to the player/tester base. 

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I agree with the Op. It is ridiculous for any changes to be made and they not tell us. it can be something like:

Change to pistol damage to do less during PvP.
increase overall ship weight.
decrease spawn time metal nodes.

so forth and so on  
this at least gives us an idea something has changed, without giving us exact numbers.  As players, it's reasonable to expect a heads up when they change the basic mechanics of the game. After all, we did pay for this game, it's not that much to expect a heads up to when the game is changed. 

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Its not too much to ask and I hope they work out a process that allows them to provide more detailed patch notes.  Whenever we see something different or someone asks a question the first thing we do is check the patch notes.  Sometimes we have an easy obvious answer.  sometimes we see nothing.  We replicate what that person is doing to see if its something they are doing wrong or an actual change to the game play.  When we find these global changes and no patch notes or what I consider incomplete ones we are left at a disadvantage including game play and actual testing. 

 

Going forward I want to see more detailed patch notes so we can be better informed and provide better feedback.  Not letting us know and creating confusion does more harm than good. 

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- Good example of needing better documentation.  Confusion over Discovery Point changes.  We can calculate what we are getting, but is that right?  Is it consistent?  Is that intended?  No clue. 

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Now I think that the developers themselves do not know everything about the game, they are silent to deceive us less.

I was not eaten by two lions yesterday. I ran away from a bear that bit my ass 10 times. I'm naked, I have 70% of my health. Why?

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On 5/7/2019 at 5:54 AM, Willard said:

Eerm, its not in game yet and they probably don't know the numbers themselves. 

If they don't know them how are going to add it to the game,? of course they know the numbers.so there is no excuses to not put them in the patch notes, so that players can make informed choices about wether they want to build or use them .

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1 hour ago, uli said:

If they don't know them how are going to add it to the game,? of course they know the numbers.so there is no excuses to not put them in the patch notes, so that players can make informed choices about wether they want to build or use them 

Can you tell me 1 game where developers post exact stats and exact functionality of everything they put in game BEFORE they actually release it? They ofc know they want to add cargo boxes on ships which will reduce resources weight but that does not mean they know exact numbers of weight reduction, what types of materials etc MONTH before they release it. Its work in progress.

Those items are not even in the game yet and you want exact stats of it. I don't know what is more ridiculous. This demand of yours or simply your inability to figure out anything in game by yourself.

Edited by Willard

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Same with ships related skills. How do they works? 

I have reduced sinking time skill, reduced debuff time skill, my crew eats less, and has longer pay period - all by skills. So what should I do to make them work? Should I be just in some radius from ship? Should I be at the ship? Should I be at steering wheel?

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17 minutes ago, George Catcher said:

Same with ships related skills. How do they works? 

I have reduced sinking time skill, reduced debuff time skill, my crew eats less, and has longer pay period - all by skills. So what should I do to make them work? Should I be just in some radius from ship? Should I be at the ship? Should I be at steering wheel?

You do have a problem with testing things during early access don't you? You need exactly 2 people including yourself and 2 minutes of your time.

But I will test it for you if you want since I prefer devs working on bugs and patches instead of explaining basic mechanisms of the game to people who are too lazy to figure out these mechanisms themselves 🙂

Edited by Willard

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i think the devs could shoot out some more information. Not about things, they will maybe once implying in the game. 

No I think about tabellas and lists like: how many DP you need for each lvl? They got these lists but don't share them. I'm pretty sure they laugh together, while they read the speculation thread about it.

Or a.e. the shipyards. How exactly are they work now? Since the wipe the community is testing and trying out but it would be easier, if they would shoot out this tabella too. Why they let us discuss about for so long?

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A real example would be the multiple changes they have made to shark NPC's.

At first they buffed shark HP, then they buffed the agro radius, and now they have seemingly buffed the spawn rate and density.. so if you even touch the water multiple sharks are chomping on you.

It's definitely an interesting change, and adds another layer to being in the ocean, but it would have been nice to know what the hell was going on.

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