Tek Tier

[Toni]

Hello Wildcard,

You said that Tek Tier wasn't released in december because "We are in holidays and can't have a look at balancing problems for the next 2 weeks. Generally all the Tek Tier thinigs are ready".

So why you pushed it to the 20. January when its already finished now? Why stick it together with many many dinos? We all know, you are not able to release so much things in one build... each time you had such a big list, 50% of the list was removed/delayed.   Sorry but this is simply a realistic view Why you do not learn from the past and the capabilities of your studio?

So whats your real/realistic plans? Will we get the Tek Tier on 20. or will we get the dinos? ^^

 

 

[Jostabeere]

They pushed it to the 20th because they think the 20th is the best day to release it.

[ilShadow]

Honestly i wish they would push it even further back and bomb out some stability patches and general Quality of life improvements. Fix the render order, so buildings show up before dinos. 

Then balance the things already in the game.

THEN release TEK Tier.

Content is great, but stability is better.

[TimeSpiral]

7 hours ago, ilShadow said:

Honestly i wish they would push it even further back and bomb out some stability patches and general Quality of life improvements. Fix the render order, so buildings show up before dinos. 

Then balance the things already in the game.

THEN release TEK Tier.

Content is great, but stability is better.

My personal opinion--as a hobby game designer and developer--is that waiting so long to fix fundamental and game-breaking bugs is a huge and potentially costly mistake.

It's a circular argument to say, "they are waiting until everything is out to fix the bugs, because if you fix the bugs first and then introduce new stuff, the new stuff could cause new bugs." Because if you introduce everything first, and then go back and fix the bugs--get this--the bug fix is new stuff and will break other parts of the game. That's the nature of bug fixes. They fix one thing and break other things (this won't make much sense if you don't code, but fixing bugs isn't exactly correcting obvious errors, but sometimes completely rewriting entire segments of code and fundamentally changing the interaction between elements). I think it is far more practical to develop new content and new gameplay mechanics--like they are doing--and then work on creating a stable environment, fixing bugs, etc. Then, once you have a stable build with minimal bugs (definitely nothing game-breaking), you add a new wave of content. Rinse and repeat. Each wave of new content will increase the complexity of the bug hunt, but you'll have the roadmap of the bug fixes to get to each new current state. 

I think this approach, of letting game-breaking bugs run rampant, and piling new content on top of it, and letting tons of paid customers play in this environment was a colossal error in judgement. But that judgement call has already been made. What confuses me is that they seem to be doubling down with a major content release planned for later this month. Very bizarre to me. 

Spring release? No way. Not possible. Spring of 2018 maybe. And I'm not being pessimistic, but there is a tremendous amount of work to do. 

[theronin]

8 hours ago, ilShadow said:

Honestly i wish they would push it even further back and bomb out some stability patches and general Quality of life improvements. Fix the render order, so buildings show up before dinos. 

Then balance the things already in the game.

THEN release TEK Tier.

Content is great, but stability is better.

I think we pretty much abandoned the whole "fix the little things before new content" ethos when they went ahead with a DLC.  If they prioritize DLCs over wall glitching, delay rendering, etc, I'm pretty sure they are going to prioritize tek tier if anything for one reason ... $.

[Suave]

10 hours ago, theronin said:

I think we pretty much abandoned the whole "fix the little things before new content" ethos when they went ahead with a DLC.  If they prioritize DLCs over wall glitching, delay rendering, etc, I'm pretty sure they are going to prioritize tek tier if anything for one reason ... $.

You do realize that without that DLC money WC would probably have tanked right?

[Lewiatan]

12 hours ago, TimeSpiral said:

My personal opinion--as a hobby game designer and developer--is that waiting so long to fix fundamental and game-breaking bugs is a huge and potentially costly mistake.

It's a circular argument to say, "they are waiting until everything is out to fix the bugs, because if you fix the bugs first and then introduce new stuff, the new stuff could cause new bugs." Because if you introduce everything first, and then go back and fix the bugs--get this--the bug fix is new stuff and will break other parts of the game. That's the nature of bug fixes. They fix one thing and break other things (this won't make much sense if you don't code, but fixing bugs isn't exactly correcting obvious errors, but sometimes completely rewriting entire segments of code and fundamentally changing the interaction between elements). I think it is far more practical to develop new content and new gameplay mechanics--like they are doing--and then work on creating a stable environment, fixing bugs, etc. Then, once you have a stable build with minimal bugs (definitely nothing game-breaking), you add a new wave of content. Rinse and repeat. Each wave of new content will increase the complexity of the bug hunt, but you'll have the roadmap of the bug fixes to get to each new current state. 

I think this approach, of letting game-breaking bugs run rampant, and piling new content on top of it, and letting tons of paid customers play in this environment was a colossal error in judgement. But that judgement call has already been made. What confuses me is that they seem to be doubling down with a major content release planned for later this month. Very bizarre to me. 

Spring release? No way. Not possible. Spring of 2018 maybe. And I'm not being pessimistic, but there is a tremendous amount of work to do. 

In evey programming/coding course at University you are being told: Write the segment of code. Compile it. Check if there are some bugs. Fix it. And then write next fragment of code.

This is basic thing you are tought. If you didn't do that, you would get huge amount of erros, bugs and it will be a pain to track it down, because one broken part of code affects 3 others. The change of one fragment break 3 others. Wildcard makes huge mistake for not fixing bugs regurarly.

[ilShadow]

On 1/6/2017 at 7:06 PM, TimeSpiral said:

My personal opinion--as a hobby game designer and developer--is that waiting so long to fix fundamental and game-breaking bugs is a huge and potentially costly mistake.

It's a circular argument to say, "they are waiting until everything is out to fix the bugs, because if you fix the bugs first and then introduce new stuff, the new stuff could cause new bugs." Because if you introduce everything first, and then go back and fix the bugs--get this--the bug fix is new stuff and will break other parts of the game. That's the nature of bug fixes. They fix one thing and break other things (this won't make much sense if you don't code, but fixing bugs isn't exactly correcting obvious errors, but sometimes completely rewriting entire segments of code and fundamentally changing the interaction between elements). I think it is far more practical to develop new content and new gameplay mechanics--like they are doing--and then work on creating a stable environment, fixing bugs, etc. Then, once you have a stable build with minimal bugs (definitely nothing game-breaking), you add a new wave of content. Rinse and repeat. Each wave of new content will increase the complexity of the bug hunt, but you'll have the roadmap of the bug fixes to get to each new current state. 

I think this approach, of letting game-breaking bugs run rampant, and piling new content on top of it, and letting tons of paid customers play in this environment was a colossal error in judgement. But that judgement call has already been made. What confuses me is that they seem to be doubling down with a major content release planned for later this month. Very bizarre to me. 

Spring release? No way. Not possible. Spring of 2018 maybe. And I'm not being pessimistic, but there is a tremendous amount of work to do. 

While not a programmer myself, i get both sides of the argument, but as an avid gamer, of both console and pc, i know every patch breaks some thing that needs to be tracked down, i may not know the technical sides of it, but i can generally see the results through playing and messing around with things. Any gamer worth their salt knows a bug fix breaks something everytime, no game will ever be bug free, but general tlc passes after each content increase (measured by additions to the game that are not fixes IE new maps , weapons and the like). Break some stuff and then fix what you can, break some stuff, fix what you can, its a long process, its a difficult process, but the more they dont fix, the more they will have to.

[vargata]

On 07/01/2017 at 11:35 AM, Suave said:

You do realize that without that DLC money WC would probably have tanked right?

well, this is a pretty poor excuse. you realise wc have sold ark in like 5 million pc copy... with an average of $20 price its 100mill just from pc sales of the base game, then add the dlc and the ps4 & xbox... yeah i think the last thing wc has to worry about is money, even with their lost case.

 

On 07/01/2017 at 0:06 AM, TimeSpiral said:

My personal opinion--as a hobby game designer and developer--is that waiting so long to fix fundamental and game-breaking bugs is a huge and potentially costly mistake.

It's a circular argument to say, "they are waiting until everything is out to fix the bugs, because if you fix the bugs first and then introduce new stuff, the new stuff could cause new bugs." Because if you introduce everything first, and then go back and fix the bugs--get this--the bug fix is new stuff and will break other parts of the game. That's the nature of bug fixes. They fix one thing and break other things (this won't make much sense if you don't code, but fixing bugs isn't exactly correcting obvious errors, but sometimes completely rewriting entire segments of code and fundamentally changing the interaction between elements). I think it is far more practical to develop new content and new gameplay mechanics--like they are doing--and then work on creating a stable environment, fixing bugs, etc. Then, once you have a stable build with minimal bugs (definitely nothing game-breaking), you add a new wave of content. Rinse and repeat. Each wave of new content will increase the complexity of the bug hunt, but you'll have the roadmap of the bug fixes to get to each new current state. 

I think this approach, of letting game-breaking bugs run rampant, and piling new content on top of it, and letting tons of paid customers play in this environment was a colossal error in judgement. But that judgement call has already been made. What confuses me is that they seem to be doubling down with a major content release planned for later this month. Very bizarre to me. 

Spring release? No way. Not possible. Spring of 2018 maybe. And I'm not being pessimistic, but there is a tremendous amount of work to do. 

this. sadly for the layman its a good excuse that the game is in development and so its riddled by bugs and today's developers use this excuse a lot, wc straight outta abuse this excuse. all the content to be pushed out is to keep players busy and turn them away from the issues and getting bored/annoyed with the problems... as long as they can do it, ppl will keep playing and they are getting new sales... im very much waiting for the final release to see how broken the game will be when they will abandon it/start a new dlc etc... unless they will really push back the release to... not even 2018 but rather 2019 spring...

[CTMalum]

I think I remember that odd German publication with an interview from a supposed WildCard dev predicted the next development.  I remember I was quite dubious when I saw it because it looked like a kind of small-time publication with pretty big news for Ark- a week before the December update, they confirmed with a dev that the update would be delayed until January, and they were accurate.  They also said that Tek Tier would be pushed back to January but would again be delayed until February.  It won't surprise me in the least if this is true.  I think the biggest problem is here is that they have a solvable problem that they're refusing to solve.  They had to have known that Tek Tier wasn't going to launch last update at least a week before.  I imagine they didn't say anything about it to boost their holiday sales and players, which is smart from a business point of view, but it made an already weary and vengeful community much more angry when they waited for the day of the update to announce that it was delayed. 

[ehuhoser]

there was another news release from an online site when a dev stated it was sort of not ready hence it taking til the 20th for the testing and refinement which while I hate waiting I understand as well and would rather a high end armor would want them to take their time on since you can do so much with it.

I've been waiting for a lot of things that stated for release yet it's been months like the bridge.   I've been looking forward to that bridge for some time.

[PuffyPony]

10 minutes ago, ehuhoser said:

there was another news release from an online site when a dev stated it was sort of not ready hence it taking til the 20th for the testing and refinement which while I hate waiting I understand as well and would rather a high end armor would want them to take their time on since you can do so much with it.

I've been waiting for a lot of things that stated for release yet it's been months like the bridge.   I've been looking forward to that bridge for some time.

Yeah, I think that the guy who initially gave the "not ready" statement was someone on the development itself who was giving his opinion on the project, though the team as a whole still wanted to try to get it done, which is why we didn't hear about it until late in the game.

[theronin]

On 1/7/2017 at 3:35 AM, Suave said:

You do realize that without that DLC money WC would probably have tanked right?

That's even scarier!!  And if I'm not mistaken, in violation of Steam EA policy which suggests you should be funded to release PRIOR to engaging in EA.

Sorry I don't buy it.

[Lewiatan]

2 hours ago, ehuhoser said:

there was another news release from an online site when a dev stated it was sort of not ready hence it taking til the 20th for the testing and refinement which while I hate waiting I understand as well and would rather a high end armor would want them to take their time on since you can do so much with it.

I've been waiting for a lot of things that stated for release yet it's been months like the bridge.   I've been looking forward to that bridge for some time.

It seemed that someone realised that Tek armour may have been too OP to release without any way to counter it in lower tiers... HOWEVER. I loath the fact they KEPT Tek Tier armour in patch notes  even though then knew it would not make it. I LOATH that. Sadly they do this for evey update. Nothing was improved with their "overpromise, underdeliver".

Did everyone forget how long we had been waiting for Breeding Phase 3? Over 6 months. It was in every damn patch note and removed from it at the release of patch. 

I will be really suprised if they release this game in Spring/Summer 2017 finally. But after 1,5 year I have liitle to none faith in them.

[Leviticus]

On 05/01/2017 at 11:01 PM, Toni said:

Hello Wildcard,

You said that Tek Tier wasn't released in december because "We are in holidays and can't have a look at balancing problems for the next 2 weeks. Generally all the Tek Tier thinigs are ready".

So why you pushed it to the 20. January when its already finished now? Why stick it together with many many dinos? We all know, you are not able to release so much things in one build... each time you had such a big list, 50% of the list was removed/delayed.   Sorry but this is simply a realistic view Why you do not learn from the past and the capabilities of your studio?

So whats your real/realistic plans? Will we get the Tek Tier on 20. or will we get the dinos? ^^

 

 

Its wildcard dude, they never release anything when they say they do and always have a lie to get them out lol l wouldn't be surprised if it takes another 6 months before tek tier comes out lol

[IInstiG8]

Tek tier will most likely ruin the game even more

 

[ehuhoser]

10 hours ago, IInstiG8 said:

Tek tier will most likely ruin the game even more

 

it all depends on how its managed in the end...I think it will bring a good element to strong dinos, but ya it does not matter if an alpha has tek tier items as they can destroy your hut without running into with the armor.  As well I'm sure many alphas will try and horde the resources needed to make it making it harder for others to rise up.

[Chewytowel]

I think one reason was because they can release more Tek items around the 20th with that planned release.  So the delay is perhaps to tweak what they already have in further testing as well as be able to test the other Tek items as well.  I get that yeah why not release the suits now argument though, but I guess this is how they want to do it.

[xgamerobx]

Hurry up and wait.... It should be great fun, another level to the ARK adventure... plus a new outfit.