Cue the wailing and moaning and knashing of teeth....

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

27 minutes ago, Captain Jack Shadow said:

Gaming has gone in a bad direction.  That is, everybody feels they have to rush out and buy an Alpha game.  Then every frustrating thing about the game is put down to, "It's an Alpha," or "It's early access."  I miss the days when you bought a game that was finished, and maybe only needed a small patch to fix it, at most, after launch.

I don’t entirely disagree with this. It is completely debateable whether the movement towards EA is a good one overall for the industry, particularly for the player experience. I think there are points for and against.

[Rickyh24 22]

9 minutes ago, Daesig said:

They released this alpha with some ridiculously fun trailers, basically baiting players into buying and trying the alpha. The current early access even feels to early to be close to releasing in EA. A huge portion of the code is an ARK copy paste and yet doesn't work. These things didn't have to be tested by us. I feel like the devs didn't bother to test ANYTHING. 

The problem game development is turning out to be a joke in this time and age, you could work on your game for 14 days, release it in an early access state, farm money and have white knights defend your ass cause it's branded "early access". 

I'm sure that a lot of the problems with this game come from their servers, the lag. Cause i saw huge improvement over the last 5 days. But what the fuck are they even doing with the current changes. It's like they don't see what's wrong.

They enjoyed this game on their 50 player dev private server. Of course it's flawless over there. I'm sure they didn't even bother to farm a full island of metal. Nothing was done.

Yup.  The problem with gaming is early access not the customers giving these guys a chance.  Wildcard just needs to man up and actually release a game the normal way.  Finish it and release it.  After this and ark they shouldn’t have early access privileges anymore.  It’s just gives them a built in excuse to be incompetent.  

[Bradley1928 25]

I fully support EA programs, when done right. Its a great way to let us help mould, shape and change the core gameplay while they develop. Something they'd have to hire a QA or testers and that compared to this is a completely different spectrum.

HOWEVER. This goes completely out of the window when a game is hyped as if it was a full release, when it isn't. Lets all be honest the trailers looked amazing, the trailers looked like a polished, complete game. When in reality its no where near. I don't want to call it baiting but it feels a little misleading when you stand back and look at it from a 3rd person perspective.

This is a 50/50 topic with positives and negatives as boomervoncannon said. Its not a win/lose situation.

10 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

 

I do agree with what has been said though. Its stupid to limit skill points so early in the game, let us test, let us mess around with perks. If you have 50,000 players with 5 maxed out tree's you'll find issues/bugs/op mechanics ALOT quicker than if you only have 50,000 players with 1 maxed out tree. Maths would say you'd find it 5 times as quick...

[Evir 38]

26 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

Au  contraire mon Freire. Not all changes in Ark were steady and gradual. My memory is quite different from yours. I remember reactions to the flyer nerf being every bit as volatile and extreme as the reactions here and now. And when the redwoods were put in? Thylocoleos being introduced? The level of “ZOMG GAME UNPLAYABLE I CANT FLY ANYWHERE!!!! WTFBBQSAUCE DEVS!” was cringe worthy. Since we’re talking about skill points, people wailed and moaned constantly about not being able to take every single engram, some are still to this day. I know of players who won’t play on a server unless skill points are bumped in ini to allow taking of all engrams.

Look you’re still arguing math. Let me be clear here. I’m not arguing the merits of the change at all. Go back and look at my posts  Nowhere have I said “This change is good. I like this change.” What I’m pointing out is that in EA change is to be expected, and further history and horse sense suggests that the most radical changes are likely to come earlier in the process. Most of them that turn out to be obvious bad ideas tend to get corrected back to something more reasonable fairly quickly. Although my long-standing opinion of Ark’s devs has been they tend to come up with great ideas, then fall short on the execution of those ideas.

At the end of the day I’m not arguing for the change, merely for a tempering of attitudes in reacting to change and a resetting of expectation with regards to change in EA. This change will be but one of many. To the extent that people understand and are prepared for that fact, the process will improve for all concerned.

You are talking about things that were well over a year into the EA release as if they were early things. The flyer nerf? are you talking about where they increased the damage they took by X3 because they were impossible to defend against when they picked you and dropped you over and over until you were out of parachutes and couldnt kill them or some nonsense late in development change? Were you there for the OMG MY DINO DIED BECAUSE IT FELL AN INCH bug when they introduced fall damage for the first time?

You seem like a late comer to Ark's early access. Most of the issues this game is currently having, were in Arks first weeks/months of EA, and now they are back. They even have the same level caps for animals and players. Especially with the game bugs such as things constantly spawning without stop. having piles and piles of creatures spawning in one area. The issue is, no one has any significant tames to take care of them.

Edited December 27, 2018 by Evir

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

2 hours ago, Evir said:

You are talking about things that were well over a year into the EA release as if they were early things. The flyer nerf? are you talking about where they increased the damage they took by X3 because they were impossible to defend against when they picked you and dropped you over and over until you were out of parachutes and couldnt kill them or some nonsense late in development change? Were you there for the OMG MY DINO DIED BECAUSE IT FELL AN INCH bug when they introduced fall damage for the first time?

You seem like a late comer to Ark's early access. Most of the issues this game is currently having, were in Arks first weeks/months of EA, and now they are back. They even have the same level caps for animals and players. Especially with the game bugs such as things constantly spawning without stop. having piles and piles of creatures spawning in one area. The issue is, no one has any significant tames to take care of them.

No. No that’s not the issue at all, IN THIS THREAD. Look, if you want to make a thread to discuss that issue, you should feel free. No one is stopping you. I made this thread to discuss the reality of change in an EA game , to forwarn players who may be less familiar with the process that more change is inevitable. The only reason I even addressed your statements about Ark’s EA was to establish that not everyone’s experience of EA was similar to your perception. I see now that was a mistake because it seems to further encouraged you to focus on things not germaine to the central point of the thread. You are focusing on the particulars of this change, comparing it to particulars of Ark’s EA, and making pointed criticisms. All of that is fine, but it is not what this thread is about. This thread is about the process of Early Access, not complaints about the effects of recent changes.  Please stick to the thread topic instead of trying to drag it in directions you want to discuss.

[warhealer 25]

Lvl to max and you can unlock about 2 full skill tree's.

Stop building ships and bases. Kill monsters/animals.

It's not that hard folks.

 

if you want an easy game then get yourself a private server or play something else.

[LockeMurdock 9]

1 hour ago, warhealer said:

Lvl to max and you can unlock about 2 full skill tree's.

Stop building ships and bases. Kill monsters/animals.

It's not that hard folks.

 

if you want an easy game then get yourself a private server or play something else.

Do you mean that everyone should spec into combat, farm XP until they hit max level, then respec out of combat in order to be able to do crafting lines? Because if so, that's not very fun at all and defeats the purpose of players being able to assume different roles or specialties. 

Another problem is the tax of needing to unlock skill trees further down the line. It'd be a different story if all the trees were unlocked from the start, so that you didn't need to burn points on the way to unlock Piracy. I didn't mind getting Archery to unlock Firearms when I was spending 1 point along the way for everything, but if I *never* use a bow, why should I have to waste skill points on that line to work towards Firearms? Why does a pirate or even a captain have to know how to build ships if they're not a crafter? Working firearms, I need to unlock gunpowder for ammo, but that means unlocking the mortar and pestle line.

My small company and I were having a ton of fun just last night (playing until 3am, even, because we were so excited for the stuff we all were doing), but today none of us can step back into the roles we'd carved out for ourselves. Our cook / farmer can't do more than plop down a cooking pot now, because you still need to be able to survive in combat and have to mitigate other basic survival taxes like vitamin depletion.

It's easy for you to say that folks should just battle-grind, but the very first post in this topic summarizes everyone's reaction to the patch change: "It isn't fun." This is a game first and foremost. It's supposed to be fun. It currently isn't, so that should be corrected. Yes, it's early access and in development. That's why our feedback matters. The overwhelming majority echo the same thought of "undo the skill change or make it far, far less expensive."

[osnugglebunnyo 0]

i thought this was a dicussion of skill points, turned into a shoving match real quick lol.

[Goldfish The Builder 105]

Trial and error! Tis the EA way!

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

18 hours ago, warhealer said:

Lvl to max and you can unlock about 2 full skill tree's.

Stop building ships and bases. Kill monsters/animals.

It's not that hard folks.

 

if you want an easy game then get yourself a private server or play something else.

Where's the facepalm emoji when you need it?

Monsters?  Fight monsters with nothing?  Are you daft?  Have you even looked at this abomination of a skill tree?  To get to what you need, you have to go levels into another skill tree.  You have to have many levels before you can actually spec into combat sufficiently.  But wait...there's more.  Who is going to spec into armor and weapons making?  And who is going to do agriculture?

And think about this...since you didn't think...do you want to be the last to put that big advertisement on the shoreline that you are building a medium or large ship?  Are kidding me?  Those with fleets first, will go around destroying half built ships.

The whole concept with these ships is not thought out at all.  A ship MUST have a safe harbor.  Period.  Freeports MUST be safe harbors where your ship is safe, and DOES NOT deteriorate out from under you.  This game WILL NOT survive without that mechanic.

 

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

On 12/27/2018 at 5:56 AM, Rickyh24 said:

“It’s early access they said”

me while playing ark 6 years later and people are still hiding under the mesh.  

Given that Ark went into EA in 2015, and it's currently the end of 2018,  you WEREN'T playing Ark six years ago. People are still hiding under the mesh, but you tend to destroy your own credibility when you make obviously untrue statements that anyone can easily fact check.

[Rickyh24 22]

36 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

Given that Ark went into EA in 2015, and it's currently the end of 2018,  you WEREN'T playing Ark six years ago. People are still hiding under the mesh, but you tend to destroy your own credibility when you make obviously untrue statements that anyone can easily fact check.

Oh man you got me.  My credibility is ruined and you are the smartest person ever for quickly realizing I wasnt exaggerating at all and literally meant 6 years. You win the the internet today.  

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

33 minutes ago, Rickyh24 said:

Oh man you got me.  My credibility is ruined and you are the smartest person ever for quickly realizing I wasnt exaggerating at all and literally meant 6 years. You win the the internet today.  

Nothing about your post even hinted at exaggeration and if you don’t think people don’t pull this kind of crap being serious all the time you’re not really paying attention.  This is what emojis and other context tools are for. Don’t hold me responsible for a tone or implication you fail to convey.  Of course your response could also just be a cheap CYA out.

[megdiadotexe 4]

On 12/27/2018 at 3:00 PM, Captain Jack Shadow said:

Gaming has gone in a bad direction.  That is, everybody feels they have to rush out and buy an Alpha game.  Then every frustrating thing about the game is put down to, "It's an Alpha," or "It's early access."  I miss the days when you bought a game that was finished, and maybe only needed a small patch to fix it, at most, after launch.

You should tell bethesda that xD

[Verisan 4]

I love how you use the EA argument but this is a total different beast as far as I am concerned.

As someone who actually works in software development, though not games, this feels like their internal process is seriously lacking.

The 7.0 update should have never gone past their internal testing. Even if you put your game out as EA, the first test should be done by the people who make the code.

The should have automated testing in place and dev branches on which to launch the update. It would have instantly showed the issue with the ghostships.

Same with the skilltree change, this is one guy in charge of the leveling code and one in charge of the skill trees and one changed the values without telling the other.

You can't explain to me that this is intended behavior of the game, and if it is, it should have been accompanied by a community post explaining why they decided on this.

Pushing stuff like this to your keyusers( aka the EA players) without internal testing first only results in outlash, negative feedback and your project getting scrapped in the long run. 

So to the devs I say, fix your internal system, change or explain the skill tree change and disable ghostships till it works on your internal branch.

And I agree with your opening statement, it's EA expect change and alot of it, but I disagree that the 7.0 patch can be classified under this argument.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

4 minutes ago, Verisan said:

I love how you use the EA argument but this is a total different beast as far as I am concerned.

As someone who actually works in software development, though not games, this feels like their internal process is seriously lacking.

The 7.0 update should have never gone past their internal testing. Even if you put your game out as EA, the first test should be done by the people who make the code.

The should have automated testing in place and dev branches on which to launch the update. It would have instantly showed the issue with the ghostships.

Same with the skilltree change, this is one guy in charge of the leveling code and one in charge of the skill trees and one changed the values without telling the other.

You can't explain to me that this is intended behavior of the game, and if it is, it should have been accompanied by a community post explaining why they decided on this.

Pushing stuff like this to your keyusers( aka the EA players) without internal testing first only results in outlash, negative feedback and your project getting scrapped in the long run. 

So to the devs I say, fix your internal system, change or explain the skill tree change and disable ghostships till it works on your internal branch.

And I agree with your opening statement, it's EA expect change and alot of it, but I disagree that the 7.0 patch can be classified under this argument.

I agree completely that EA is not a catch all excuse for slipshod internal processes.  I don’t know the first thing about software development, but as a longtime MMORPG player what you are saying makes perfect sense to me because while we should expect changes, we should also reasonably expect those changes to have undergone some internal process and right now many don’t feel like they have been. Some outright feel like “how could you have even thought this was a good idea?” Case in point, in the new patch notes it says they are making food spoil more rapidly when sailing. In the name of Dog why? It makes no thematic sense whatsoever, and gameplay wise, why would you alter a mechanic to limit sailing and exploration in a game whose core draw is sailing and exploring? 

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

20 hours ago, osnugglebunnyo said:

i thought this was a dicussion of skill points, turned into a shoving match real quick lol.

This was totally a discussion of skill points if by skill points you mean Early Access and by shoving match you mean skill points.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

52 minutes ago, megdiadotexe said:

You should tell bethesda that xD

*Has never played Fallout, still knows what you mean.*

Oh how the mighty have fallen.  GrapeCard and every other aspiring development studio should heed the lesson of what is happening with Bethesda right now or risk a similar fate.

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

20 hours ago, Goldfish The Builder said:

Trial and error! Tis the EA way!

True, but I would posit that the more extreme the level of trial and error that EA players are subjected to, the greater the negative impact on your game’s reputation by the time it reaches launch. If it reaches launch.