Do we want features or bug fixing to be a priority?
RevivedShadow
Australia Join Date: 2015-07-28 Member: 206468Members
Australia Join Date: 2015-07-28 Member: 206468Members
This afternoon I saw THIS in Trello: https://trello.com/c/TPb2WWLP/4972-lost-river-rib
Awesome! Epic concept art for the long awaited lost river biome! Can't wait!
I've had a similar reaction to many other trello posts and skechfab 3D models. The constant flow of new concepts and features that are coming to Subnautica keep on coming, due to the game's massive potential. And the devs push this content into the game at a remarkable pace, considering their small(ish) team.
But... what about bug fixes? These don't seem to be much of a priority at the moment. With the release of the seamoth update I was hoping for more bugs fixed, but few were actually fixed. The new features are being pushed forward and worked on, and the bugs are kind of forgotten about. Play testers have done a great job at reporting bugs, and other players, but fixing them isn't really a priority unless they are game breaking. Many bugs need to be fixed soon.
We still need an in game options menu with customization for sound (creatures, music and ambient), graphics and controls. We need things like a death screen, renaming saves and, of course, the ability to exit to main menu instead of restarting the game. See this post I made for details on these things: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/138841/important-things-subnautica-is-missing
Oh yeah, and we still have placeholder textures for fragments still (though I believe the devs plan to revamp the entire fragment system). Also the power generators still need textures. And the life pod still needs first aid. And the inbuilt lockers of the cyclops don't work yet. Creature AI could do with improving. Don't forget those hatch and ladder animations that are being worked on. The list goes on and on. These things seem to be pushed aside to be worked on later while the cool new features are worked on. They give the game an unfinished feel.
I know the devs have said many times that they want to give us content a little unfinished so that the community can enjoy the game while it is still being made and influence the making of it. But the features are coming faster than the bug fixing, and are higher priority. I suppose once they have enough content that they are satisfied with they will fix bugs and polish existing content.
Should bug fixing/content polishing to be a priority for the devs? Or do we want more creatures, biomes, vehicles, items and story to be worked on first? Let me know in the poll or in the comments. Also tell me what you think of the lost river concept art.
I've been meaning to make a post like this for a while, and I've seen many others saying similar things. Personally I think there needs to be some sort of mega bug fixing update that also revamps fragments and the other things I have listed. Sorry about this being such a big post, but it needs to be.
NOTE: I have not included a poll option for having both being prioritized the same amount because most would chose that and I (and hopefully the devs) would not get good results. I want to know what people want more.
Awesome! Epic concept art for the long awaited lost river biome! Can't wait!
I've had a similar reaction to many other trello posts and skechfab 3D models. The constant flow of new concepts and features that are coming to Subnautica keep on coming, due to the game's massive potential. And the devs push this content into the game at a remarkable pace, considering their small(ish) team.
But... what about bug fixes? These don't seem to be much of a priority at the moment. With the release of the seamoth update I was hoping for more bugs fixed, but few were actually fixed. The new features are being pushed forward and worked on, and the bugs are kind of forgotten about. Play testers have done a great job at reporting bugs, and other players, but fixing them isn't really a priority unless they are game breaking. Many bugs need to be fixed soon.
We still need an in game options menu with customization for sound (creatures, music and ambient), graphics and controls. We need things like a death screen, renaming saves and, of course, the ability to exit to main menu instead of restarting the game. See this post I made for details on these things: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/138841/important-things-subnautica-is-missing
Oh yeah, and we still have placeholder textures for fragments still (though I believe the devs plan to revamp the entire fragment system). Also the power generators still need textures. And the life pod still needs first aid. And the inbuilt lockers of the cyclops don't work yet. Creature AI could do with improving. Don't forget those hatch and ladder animations that are being worked on. The list goes on and on. These things seem to be pushed aside to be worked on later while the cool new features are worked on. They give the game an unfinished feel.
I know the devs have said many times that they want to give us content a little unfinished so that the community can enjoy the game while it is still being made and influence the making of it. But the features are coming faster than the bug fixing, and are higher priority. I suppose once they have enough content that they are satisfied with they will fix bugs and polish existing content.
Should bug fixing/content polishing to be a priority for the devs? Or do we want more creatures, biomes, vehicles, items and story to be worked on first? Let me know in the poll or in the comments. Also tell me what you think of the lost river concept art.
I've been meaning to make a post like this for a while, and I've seen many others saying similar things. Personally I think there needs to be some sort of mega bug fixing update that also revamps fragments and the other things I have listed. Sorry about this being such a big post, but it needs to be.
NOTE: I have not included a poll option for having both being prioritized the same amount because most would chose that and I (and hopefully the devs) would not get good results. I want to know what people want more.
Comments
1. Game breaking bugs
2. Content
3. Other bugs
this game needs objectives missions something to do cuz ppl get tierd of it fast...i havent played the game for days, and i think im going to wait a few months for a lot of content to be added, till i go back.
The story line is we are terraforming mission in search of a planet for humans, so give uz missions rebuild or dismantle aurora build citys, research the planet, something to keep ppl interested and busy....
anyway that is my opinion, i regularly played 4 to 5 hours a day so it get old fast...and then when the updates come i have to start all over again and that makes it worse ...GIVE ME CONTENT /MISSIONS
Make up your mind.
This. Obviously, game-breakers should be ultra-high priority, as they basically cripple everything. After that, other bugs like a hitbox that's too big or too small is not really important to me.
It's best to follow a cycle of sorts imo : Content, content, bug fixing, content etc
That is what will happen if you completely ignore bug fixing and just add more and more content but as far as I understood that isn’t what is asked for. The question is what the priority should be, not if they should add content OR fix bugs. Also it does not make sense to invest too much work into fixing a system that you might have to change anyway. No matter how well thought out UWE’s concept for the game is, during implementing and testing new great ideas will come up, some of which will require rewriting portions of the existing code and make adjustments to existing features. That means if you constantly polish the code and features before moving on a lot of work will be lost when you have to change it and you will have to polish again (which also creates a psychological barrier to actually adding said ideas). So for now the game just needs to be stable enough to allow for testing and evaluating of new features and content. Once we have reached a point where we have a decent amount of content to play with, the focus will naturally shift more and more to polishing and improving said content and eventually to optimizing the engine for the content which is the point where we will have reached beta status. So no, I don't think making a game is like building a house. When building a house changing the foundation to fit what you have built on top is quite a bit trickier for one.
Well there's no stopping an art team from continuously developing their assets, or flayra from designing new concepts and features, but programmers only have the development time to either fix bugs or implement new features, so there can be bottlenecks sometimes but not always.
I think UWE definitely prioritizes content obviously, which is great as it keeps people interested in the product while it's in early access. And those same people can be very forgiving of bugs they encounter during this time.
However if the bugs get to be too much due to code debt, it will begin to negatively impact the reception and reputation of the product.
So a balancing act must be maintained.. and as it is right now, looking at our publicly available play testing trello, there are quite a few bugs and the list is ever growing..
I guess I see your point, hadn’t thought of that.