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Why I quit ARK after 256 and what wildcard can do better


64Tiger

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The flyer nerf has been widely regarded as a huge mistake, but it's not the only change WildCard has made in 256 that has upset players and caused some like myself to give up on the game's future. I'm going to take some time to highlight some of the mistakes that were made in hopes WildCard actually takes the time to read this thread and take something of value from it. Before anyone replies with 'oh it's beta or early access' etc I want you to take the time to understand that once you've had a game in beta/early access for several years a large portion of your user-base will have become accustomed to the way things are and have been, major changes need to be thought through beforehand to avoid backlash like that which was seen from the flyer nerf in 256. Others have stated things they could've done differently regarding this nerf and while I will mention it, it's not the only purpose of this thread, beyond the fact that once you release DLC for something it's no longer a valid excuse to call it Early Access or Beta. While a developer may be actively improving upon a product if you're releasing DLC for it- it has entered official release, weather you admit it or not, it's out of the beta phase and you're providing DLC content for a released product, even if that product is not the final version.

My three big gripes with 256 were as follows:
-UI Change was poorly implemented
The new layout is actually good, I like it, even though a 6 column wide row for inventory will take some getting used to compared to the previous 5 column row- overall the new layout is an improvement over the previous layout. The biggest problem with the new UI is something any design student or professional can point out immediately as a bad choice and a giant step backwards. Put quite simply- the problem is legibility. If you put colored text on a background of the same color it adversely affects readability. Items in the hotbar and other parts of the inventory actually take longer to recognize now than they do prior to 256 because not only is the pictographic representation of the item completely obfuscated by text now- making it difficult to recognize an item with a cursory glance, that same text is often difficult to read, especially when it's an item of non-primitive quality. Take an item of journeyman quality for example- the item has a purple glow on top of it with purple text of the same color on top of that, and only some very mild text-shadow to help identify the edges of the text. This should not have ever been an accepted idea much less made it out of internal testing. (Which I have increasing come to believe does not occur at wildcard to spite the fact that it's standard practice for software development. I really can't imagine that they don't have an internal SVN) Furthermore there is a lack of consistency wherein ascended items previously represented by red for quality are now represented by a cyan color very close to the color of primitive items, making them much more difficult to visually distinguish at a glance. Of course there are a number of possible fixes for these problems. Personally I suggest keeping the new layout, removing the quality 'glow' from all items, aligning the text to top or bottom and setting it's color to accurately reflect the quality of the item, there are other solutions, some easier to implement than others. I'd love to see a discussion about this in the replies.

-Flyers were nerfed into oblivion
Nerfs, Buffs, and balance changes happen- but they should not be so arbitrary and heavy-handed as to blatantly remove all usefulness. One should not nerf something into oblivion and make it completely useless then buff it incrementally later. This method only serves to enrage your user-base and is hardly ever effective. The inverse is also true, if you buff something too much and make it OP your userbase will become upset- eventually get used to it being 'the new meta' and then be outraged when this invariably changes in what is often a hard-nerf. What SHOULD be done is a great deal of internal testing and the dev team should set CLEAR and CONCISE goals for re-balancing while adjusting values in the test environment before releasing it into the production environment. Remember, you're not in beta anymore no matter how much you might claim to be, your product has been available for years, you've released DLC and you have to be more considerate towards your user-base or risk losing them. You need to identify the strengths and intended purposes of what you're adjusting before you consider how to adjust it for the desired effects. In the case of flyers I'll use the two biggest examples. Quetzels and Tapjiras. Quetzels prior to 256 were widely use for their utility as heavy material carriers and dino transport- hauling resources great distances and hunting down new tames as well as transporting those new tames back to base. The nerf made it so that their distance was greatly limited by their stamina and their speed (or blatant lack there-of) made it infuriating to try and use them for any of these tasks. Many players were confused or upset about falling out of the sky due to no stamina. Transporting harvested materials via sky became pointless to players who realized they could transport the same amount much faster via speed pumped land dinos. I personally had a speed pumped thylacoleo(1000.1%- just one of many thylacoleos i bred and pumped different stats on)- that could make the trip to and from the island's volcano to safe haven/herbavore island over a dozen times in the time it took the quetzel to do it once, while also being better at combat- this made the quetzels so obsolete and pointless that i killed both of mine off to spite not having a viable replacement for long-range dino transport, the quetzels useful-range had been obliterated by the nerf. Prior to 256 Tapjiras were liked for their speed and maneuverability, as well as their ability to cling to surfaces. This ALL went away with 256, stripping the tapjira of it's utility, and therefore it's usefulness. What matters to most players is utility- Land dinos that had utility (Snails, Beavers, Therinzenos, Anklyos, Dodies, Thylacoleos, etc. were never irrelevant pre 256 and certainly arn't now. People like what is effective or useful. the flyer nerf stripped All usefulness from flyers and did nothing to replace the lost functionality- that is precisely why there was so much backlash. Finally, I'd like to reiterate that you need to have clear goals and a lot of testing for issuing balance changes, if your goal is a major change- subjecting your userbase to a series of smaller buffs or nerfs towards that goal over a period of time is often a great way to ease them into such a change. Buffing something too much is bad, nerfing something too hard is bad, People don't like massive change- even when it's necessary- It's important know where you're going with a balance change and ease your users into it to get a better response rather than pulling the rug out from under them and expecting them to not be upset.

-Leeds are far too common and very difficult to fight effectively, making rafts a pointless waste of resources for most players
Rafts are cool and fun to build. Now imagine you're a new player- a raft is a relatively safe way to get around on places like the island or the center- oh you'll still aggro things you can't handle and wind up dying- but over all they allowed you to collect and transport resources, build up without too much fear of dying every 3 seconds as you might were you traveling over land with your stone pickaxe and hatchet. Now comes along a leeds, which crops up every few metres even in impossibly shallow waters - completely ignores all armor and walls and destroys rafts with very little effort- and there's almost nothing players can do about it unless they have an OP follower or weapon with them, meaning new players using a raft to collect resources they need to advance in their progression are pretty much boned. Completely encasing a raft in metal or tek does nothing to protect it, making them a pointless waste of resources for even max level players. I'm personally bothered by this as I had branched out to other servers and started building a massive raft (utilizing a mod present on a server) only to find that rafts are now completely pointless and easily destroyed by what is now the most common animal in the sea. (Seriously- stunlock is a bad mechanic- Shame on you WildCard) eels and jellyfish can at least be avoided by a raft but rafts are now pointless to build on and utilize for any purpose because you can expect them to be destroyed fairly quickly. It seems 256 was meant to piss off every single player it could and ruin ALL methods of transportation that weren't level 542 thylacoleos bred for the singular purpose of being entirely OP. Alas, i'm getting off-track. Leeds, or something to make rafts less safe IS NOT a bad idea. That's right, as much as I hate what's been done here- the motivation isn't bad- what IS BAD is the implementation that results in rafts being entirely pointless. Leeds should be made less common and be hindered or blocked by more advanced material types- such as metal or tek. This would make encounters more meaningful and give rafts, and upgrading them have a purpose again. A little forethought and testing should have made this obvious.

-256 does not appear to have been play-tested in-house.
every other gripe seems to cover this in part- but seriously, do you not review your changes and how they might impact your players prior to releasing them? Some of the issues i've brought up could have easily been avoided entirely with a little forethought, internal testing, or review.

I do hope wildcard finds this useful and other users find something to latch onto and start a productive conversation about. I am aware that some of these issues may have been made less prominent (hopefully even fixed) with the most recent re-balance update- which i have not played as it came out the day after I killed off all my dinos destroyed my huge base, and uninstalled ARK. I did for the most part enjoy most of the time spent- but after seeing some of WildCards practices (which I do sincerely hope change) I've put down ARK and moved on. While I am glad to hear wildcard has taken some of their users concerns into consideration- and hopefully for the rest of you- fixed their mistakes- it was a case too little too late for me, and a sign of more mistakes to come- something i did not want to subject myself to.

Other game issues present before 256 that really should be addressed:

  • Rain rendering inside structures to spite the fact it obviously doesn't re-hydrate players if they're inside a structure.
  • ridiculous pea-soup fog even underwater (i'm aware this is on the todo list)
  • ceiling clipping issues
  • both wild and tamed dinos getting stuck on trees they could easily knock down with an attack, but don't because there is no check present to see if they've actually managed to move successfully.
  • plane and timer trigger function below the map used to teleport players back above the map if they fall through does not account for admins using the ghost command and can make some tasks very difficult.
  • it's possible for dinos to get stuck on top of the world ceiling after clipping through it and cannot be retrieved even by an admin using ghost.
  • quetzel head follows players when they're behind it, often obstructing ther view. I'd be curious to see a poll to find out how many players have accidentally (or purposely) shot their quetzel because of this.I've personally turned and killed one because it annoyed me so much.
  • collision with dino tails obstructing movement. I understand this in some cases, and not others.
  • collision/bounding boxes becoming offset from dinos.
  • occasional client-side issue resulting in platforms visibly and functionally detaching from dinos.

i'm sure there are a great deal more issues that can be raised- it's my only hope that wildcard appropriately addresses some of these in future updates to avoid losing more of their playerbase and garnering a terrible reputation. Peace Out.

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Despite your first few lines highlighting the fact of people pointing out that this is early access (not beta yet) I'm still going to be "that guy"

Indeed it's early access and a lot of things like this will be happening more and more often as they try to find that perfect balance and trust me not everyone will like them.

But if you're willing to throw your toys out the pram after the flyers first pass then that's your choice, even though you've clearly stated that it's not the final "balance" they will be doing.

All I can do is wish you luck in finding something else to pass your time and suggest you stay away from early access / alpha builds if these sort of things make you want to stop playing.

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5 minutes ago, RagedDrew said:

Despite your first few lines highlighting the fact of people pointing out that this is early access (not beta yet) I'm still going to be "that guy"

Indeed it's early access and a lot of things like this will be happening more and more often as they try to find that perfect balance and trust me not everyone will like them.

But if you're willing to throw your toys out the pram after the flyers first pass then that's your choice, even though you've clearly stated that it's not the final "balance" they will be doing.

All I can do is wish you luck in finding something else to pass your time and suggest you stay away from early access / alpha builds if these sort of things make you want to stop playing.

Firstly @ The OP

A very well thought out and put together post, you made some valid points and I read it through carefully and you deserve the +rep. At this stage though WC seems persistent on either locking or merging the Flyer Nerf threads so they lose visibility and outright just denying they made a mistake with this one. Now its just coming across as arrogance, it's like arguing with a guy about a subject and you can see in his eyes he just realised he was wrong, what does he do? he arrogantly just keep arguing the point to save face. WC thinks they are 'saving face' here by repeating the fact that it wont be reversed or it won't go back to how it was, but you can see it in their proverbial eyes that they know they are wrong. That in itself makes them appear arrogant and are plainly just embarrassing themselves at this point. 

Wheres the V3 thread? a pinned thread like the others detailing they are listening and adjusting like last time, they apparently are not going to create one because they are "busy working on it" what a load of absolute nonsense. They basically are in damage control mode trying to merge and lock threads about the nerf hoping the problem will disappear like the other outrage at previous nerfs. The ostrich approach won't fly this time (no pun intended) you can't just bury your heads this time WC, it's time to man up and apologuise and fix it, listen to your community before there is no community left.

secondly @RagedDrew

He isn't throwing his toys out the pram, he made concise and constructive points. Telling him to stay away from early access is so unbelievably arrogant it just makes you look like a bit of a ****

You have any Idea how difficult it was as a solo player with a family and a job and real responsibilities to get and raise a wyvern over 4 days on an official PVE? Getting milk and imprinting 100%? You have any idea what a monumental time sink and waste that is for someone with rent to pay and a family to feed. I'm a casual player but play PVE so I can enjoy the game without the toxic PVP meta. I can experience content that wasn't possible on all 5 of my lvl 90+ chars on other PVP servers.   Then in one fell swoop, have a 4 day tame nerfed into obscurity? You have any idea about that?

People are mad, it's no secret now no matter how much they try to cover this up calling us the "vocal minority" but when a mod that undoes the flyer nerf had 67,290 downloads in just a few days actually is MORE than the high peak of players for today (66 thousand) you dont something wrong, admit it, reverse it and apologise. It's the only course of action. 

 

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People crying about the flyer nerf really are the most linearly minded people I've seen.

 

"I have to actually land now! My quetz is useless!!!" pointless whining. A wild quetz is unencumbered by any additional weight, so it can remain flying. A tamed quetz is almost always carrying extra weight (even if just a normal saddle.) Of course it is going to tire out faster. And the ability to stand on the saddle and regen stamina was stupid, because that's not how resting works. Landing should always have been the only way to regain stamina, period.

 

The initial nerf was excessive, and they knew it when they put it in. They've explained why they do it that way. I don't personally agree with it, but that's just my opinion. I think the second pass was a little closer to how things should be. Though I wouldn't have given the Quetz a buff to weight. The point of the nerf was to make it so that flyers are not the best option unless what you're doing is 3 minutes away or less by land. (For instance, if you were trading with your neighbor within render distance, pre-nerf you would still have used a quetz to haul the materials. Even though the Bronto would have done it in a single trip, and might have been faster because of it.) With the second pass, my quetz went from carrying 50% of the weight my bronto does, to 60%. That's a massive boost, and makes the Quetz once again a better option for short range transport and long range transport. Completely counterproductive to the stated purpose of the nerf. The Quetz should absolutely be the best option for long distance transport, that's its purpose... but for short range, the Bronto should be the absolute best, because that's its purpose.

 

Every dino that is intended to be the best at something should be. The Wyvern should be the best flyer for killing things (not there yet, but they're working on it. The Giga should be the best on land for killing things (and it is, if you have a good one. Though a really good Rex can match or exceed the killing power of a lesser giga, which is acceptable) The bronto should be the best hauler or tank depending on how you spend points.

 

Regardless, instead of whining about how useless something is now... Why don't you look at ways it can still be useful? Even before the second pass, I had no trouble getting around on any of my flyers. Just had to be smarter instead of just sprint flying from one end of the map to the other. Know the areas you're flying over and know safe places to land. It's not hard.

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Software development cycles do not quite work like that. Your typical game can expect a development time of 3-5 years (or more) depending on team size, experience, project complexity, and weather or not they also need to produce the engine. ARK utilizes UE4, an existing engine with extensive support, libraries, and assets the long-established c++ language - something I personally find to be a great boon over UE4's spiritual competitor the Unity Engine which utilizes C# (a language that comparably falters in handling of switch case fallthrough and various other things I have personally become accustomed to in c++ however- I'm not here to debate my preference in tools and languages, so I must digress. ARK has been in 'early access' for at least a couple of years now. We'll assume it took them about a year to get to that point. They have not had to develop and engine or tools from scratch. We should be able to reasonably assume at the time of early access release that a fair amount of code and assets had already been produced by their team, the basic mechanics of the game were in place- and clearly they do have an enjoyable foundation to build upon. It's been a couple of years since early access began and if you were to objectively look at where ARK is currently at- they are at worst in late BETA- but more realistically in the post-release support phase - for the most part the game is feature-complete, especially since what they're working on now is mostly bug-fixes and and new content(to keep players interested- something that has to be done to retain users during open cycle development that occurs with early access titles- which I assure you- i am no stranger to.) The open cycle of 'early access' seems to confuse a number of people as to where in the development cycle a project really is, and some studios tend to stick with that 'version' title much longer than they objectively should. Take Tripwire for example KF2's official release came long after it was well and truly done, they're still making and releasing new content and bugfixes to keep players interested and improve stability (something done throughout the post-release support cycle) but the game itself was complete more than a year before it was officially released.

Now I'd like to point out that my problem with ARK is not just the flyer nerf itself- so please don't just latch on to that and forget everything else mentioned. This really isn't about that itself- but the way it was approached. I do in fact agree there should be caps placed on the stats of ALL dinos. Is it fun to run around on a level 542 thylacoleo with 1000% movement speed? Hell yes- is it fair, balanced, and practical? Absolutely not. Should it be fixed? You bet! The problem I have attempted to address here, that I feel you have completely missed- is in the way WildCard approached the 256 update as a whole and the way it's been handled after- which RobersDee has made a few good points about- that I'm sure at least some other users will agree with, though I'm sure it's not representative of everyone.

Back on track- there are a number of studios that develop bad habits and practices that drive users away. A Georgia based company called Hi-Rez studios is a good example of this. Players of their first and second games- Global Agenda and Tribes: Ascend can attest to the studios long standing disregard for their playerbase, false promises, abandonment of projects, and generally scummy behavior towards their users. Meanwhile you have other studios like Bethesda that nobody I've ever met or seen has had any real problems with. Am I comparing an indie studio to a AAA publisher? Sure, but I could just as easily compare Bethesda to EA (another AAA publisher) that most people can agree have made a slew of horrific mistakes and a number of people will outright avoid entirely. The differences here are not so much the quality of their games, but their practices.

Vanyelxp5:
If you're just going to sit here and call someone a whiner for bringing up actual valid points regarding a studios practices, you're not being at all productive. It's perfectly fine to disagree with me, but please try to be constructive in doing so. If you think i'm wrong in my evaluation- please- point out where and how. Also, In case you haven't noticed I've made it pretty clear I haven't played 'the second pass'. nor do I intend to at any point in the near or foreseeable future because of how WC has handled the 256 update (As a whole, not just the flyer nerf) While I do agree with some of your sentiments I think you've completely misunderstood my original post, perhaps you haven't read it entirely? "The Quetz should absolutely be the best option for long distance transport." This I agree with entirely. I also agree with your sentiments regarding the Bronto for short distances. Believe it or not I'm also fine with having to land a few times on long distance trips- this is nothing new, i've raised several Quetzels from low levels. It seems to me you've skimmed the opening paragraph and completely skipped the rest of my original post while making some very contrived assumptions about it's content. =/

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10 minutes ago, Captnmorgan said:

No only polite to say goodbye when someone says they are leaving. So why haven't u left yet.

What is polite is if you have nothing constructive to say, say nothing at all. By the way, if you don't care why are you still posting in this thread? If you're going to troll the forums please try a little harder to be more original.

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1 hour ago, LilNastyGurl said:

Oh cool wall of text and somebody explaining why they're quitting. Haven't seen that before.

He at the very least gave constructive feedback and expressed his feelings without being infantile or snarky while doing so. Not every one seems to be able to conduct themselves with such character qualities. 

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9 hours ago, Robersdee said:

@RagedDrew

He isn't throwing his toys out the pram, he made concise and constructive points. Telling him to stay away from early access is so unbelievably arrogant it just makes you look like a bit of a ****

 

 

And quitting an early access game due to changes makes him look like he's throwing his toys out the pram.

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After all the crying that's been going on in the forums here, I didn't hold much hope for this thread.. bit of a wall of text but I read it all.. actually some quite valid points and I could agree with some and not with others. Yes wildcard should have handled this better but it needed to be done.. good luck with what ever game you pick up next @64Tiger.. 

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I addressed the point I have the most knowledge of, the flyer nerf, and the fact that at least half of the threads created since it happened have been whining about it. That comment wasn't directed at you specifically.

 

Even before the second pass, none of my flyers were completely useless. Though they did require more thought to use, and they did take longer to do what I wanted.

 

Honestly, I'm perfectly fine with not being able to level speed. But I think that if they're not going to get the speed boost from imprinting, it should be shifted to Stamina instead.

 

 

I have yet to run into any Leeds, I avoid the water as much as possible. I have a high speed Ichthy and a good scuba tank for when I need pearls, or I want to go deep sea loot hunting. Otherwise, I stay out of it. There are far too many things that want to eat me, and too many directions they can come from. So I'm not really qualified to discuss them. I do know that since they only aggro when attacked, or when there's a raft (if the information given was accurate) they won't bother me. When I do transport over water, I use one of my brontos. They're only slightly slower than the Raft, and can carry more tames. And if I get attacked by most things, a couple of tail swipes kills pretty much anything that hangs out near the surface (I have really good brontos.)

 

There's a lot I hate about the UI. Most notably the new font. It's way harder to read, and in the chatbox it seems smaller than the old one. It really needs to be something we can customize. The color chosen is far too bright on my monitor, gives me a headache if I try to use it too long. That's another thing that should be a customization option. Even just adding a little bit of red, and darkening the color slightly would be a massive improvement on that one.

 

As for the issues listed at the end of your post. It has been stated many times by many people over many many many threads. While they do fix major game breaking bugs as soon as possible, minor bugs (such as being able to see the rain while inside your house) are not even in the to do list until everything else is in the game. Because every time you add something, it could break the fix you just put in. How many times did they have to fix Allos spawning in people's houses? (not the yards, actually inside the fully foundation supported house)

 

And FYI, clearly they do in fact test things in house, otherwise there would have been many patches that wouldn't have been delayed to fix major bugs in them, because they'd have never known that the bugs were there in the first place.

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14 hours ago, 64Tiger said:

in hopes WildCard actually takes the time to read this thread and take something of value from it.

Haha thats the funniest thing I have read all day. Thanks.

I'm also not far from quitting myself, my patience with these clowns is running out. I no longer recommend the game to anyone who asks and my feedback on XBOX has been changed to negative. the game is broken in so many ways which was expected when I bought it, but there is no sign of them even trying to fix it, they just continue to break it further.

The only hope for ark to "evolve" is for a good reputable company with skills to buy the game and take on the development, a company who has proper programmers and can really take it to the next level where is belongs, stable and bug free. The current clueless idiots at Wild Card are lost beyond belief.

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2 hours ago, Mrmetalman said:

I happen to agree the flyer nerf was unneccesary and dumb. I hate the pvp arguement , I have made many a flyer regret trying to pvp me while walking around it wasnt that hard. Also, like others have said before me, Ark is a sandbox open world game, if i want to make my dinos the way i want to let me do that.

You are allowed to, within the parameters of the game. Assassin's Creed is another game that's often pitched with the words open world and sandbox. However, you can't run around that game stabbing every civilian you see without modifying the game to not "desynchronize" you for doing so.

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9 hours ago, ciabattaroll said:

You are allowed to, within the parameters of the game. Assassin's Creed is another game that's often pitched with the words open world and sandbox. However, you can't run around that game stabbing every civilian you see without modifying the game to not "desynchronize" you for doing so.

Yeah thats true, i think its just bullpoop to nerf the flyers so badly. I'm dealing with oyher issues preventing me from playing atm, I went into my tribes sub tribe to start it, I was the only one in the tribe logged in to find my character kicked out of the tribe somehow and my tames are stuck on the sub tribe.... still waiting to hear from an admin / dev i put it tickets about it too... :( damn ark life

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On 4/9/2017 at 10:03 AM, vanyelxp5 said:

 

And FYI, clearly they do in fact test things in house, otherwise there would have been many patches that wouldn't have been delayed to fix major bugs in them, because they'd have never known that the bugs were there in the first place.

Do they? Releasing a UI update where the tribe log doesn't work 9 out of 10 times the menu containing it is opened doesn't count as a major bug? How about the disappearing dinos and sudden food/hunger changes that occurred on some servers (there were more than a couple threads complaining about this) when the update rolled. What about the uptick in client crashes it caused? Actually- on a personal note my game client had never crashed prior to 256. It'd crashed countless times in the days following 256. I'm sorry, but so much of this was pushed out of the door without any consideration that a number of users (myself and tribe mates included) were honestly hoping it was a terrible april fools prank, when it turned out not to be and issues persisted you get to see the kind of outrage that has users outright leaving, and others complaining on the forums and steam reviews. 256 itself was repeatedly delayed- and while some users were frustrated about the delay- Personally I'd rather wait and get a stable release than a buggy, crash-pone release that clearly hadn't been thought through or even seen a half-decent amount of testing that would've turned up MANY of the problems we've seen.

 

Quote

Because every time you add something, it could break the fix you just put in. How many times did they have to fix Allos spawning in people's houses? (not the yards, actually inside the fully foundation supported house)

The answer is PEBCAK.  Source Control systems exist for a reason, this is one of them. Failing to adequately manage your codebase results in problems like this. Under normal (sane) conditions, pushing updates into production would not reintroduce bugs that have already been fixed. Even if one finds that somehow this HAS occurred (ideally through internal testing rather than finding out immediately after releasing something into production without testing it)- the solution is usually had very quickly and easily by utilizing subversion to trace back the commit that reintroduced it as well as the commit that introduced the fix for the problem.The great thing about subversion is- if implemented properly every user has their own account with just the permissions they need- meaning it will also tell you who is to blame for introducing the commit- allowing the person(s) responsible for managing the SVN and code base to address the source of the problem, fix it, and prevent it from happening again, and if necessary- slap the idiot responsible upside the back of their head. I'm sorry, but you only seem to be arguing in defense of wildcard's inept practices. UE4 has built-in subversion support. There is literally NO EXCUSE for the problem you've described if they're using the readily available FREE tools they should be AND testing in-house rather than releasing direct to production. Using the problem's symptoms as an excuse for it's existence just doesn't work- it's both backwards and counter-productive. If they're actually doing internal testing- obviously they need to re-evaluate how they're approaching it. QA Testing is a very real thing, and with a game that has a sizable community- it's easy to find volunteer QA testers. In fact, Valve enables companies to encourage this through opt-in beta programs, allowing publishers to push two separate code-bases at the same time. It's not at all uncommon. Tripwire, Facepunch, Obsidian, Valve, and many other publishers have made various degrees of use out of it.

note: There is another option for source control in UE4 called Perforce that is typically a little faster than Subversion for large projects- but has a very similar feature-set(though Subversion is still better in my opinion).For the sake of my argument I've used Subversion as people will be more familiar with it than Perforce, which one wildcard uses is both unknown and irrelevant as they both offer these same features i've mentioned.

Again- this all boils down to Wildcard's ineptitude and lack of consideration.

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