General Discussion (dev branch)

[txalin 2]

Hi all,

Thinking about the next release of the last campaign episode, Win, by BIS on 20th of March, a quick reflexion came to my mind that maybe could be usefull tu BIS on his next products.

Right now, the schedule created by BIS on this campaign is the following:

- Dev branch release during the lasts days of this week

- Stable release on 20th of March.

So, assuming that they will release the dev branch campaign on 15th of March, Saturday, they will have only 5 days to fix the bugs we find. If we take a look to any guide to software development, we will find something very similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Beta, and talking about open betas, we can read this on wiki:

"Open betas serve ... [to] testing among an extremely wide user base likely to bring to light obscure errors that a much smaller testing team might not find"

So, the main idea for the open beta, as BIS has said a lot of times, it's to help them in finding bugs, but if we only have 5 days to complete the campaign and report the bugs.... how can they fix the bugs we find? Maybe they could think.... ok, if in the open beta they find critical bugs we can pospone the release date and problem solved, and for minor bugfixes, we will have enough time. Let me say NO, and as an example in the second point, let's talk about "adapt" campaign release.

- Official release was 21th of January, 2014

- Dev branch release was 11th of December, 2013

We have one month to play with, and in that month lots of people reported, as a quick example, that the side missions were hard to find, i even finished the campaign without making any side missions because i don't know that this feature exists. And in the official release, this "lack of documentation" was still in the campaign, luckily, no critical bugs were found. And what could happen if we found critical bugs on this WIN episode? Ok, as i said, maybe they can pospone the release date, but this could lead to a bad feeling in the potential customers of BIS products, because, let's be honest, in the videogame market, BIS is not considered as a "bug-free" development studio.. so, this can lead to a loss of sales on BIS next products.

So, what can BIS do about this?

It's a very easy answer. Don't say anything about release dates until bugfixing process in the dev branch has finished!! The main idea is:

- Release XXX new product in dev branch

- Start with marketing stuff without saying anything about release dates (or something like... latest 2014, give yourself enough time!!)

- Bugfixing process ( bugfix -> new dev version -> bugfix -> new dev -> bugfix -> no more bugs)

- Announce release date

- Release a tested product without critical bugs

So, here you have my two cents, hope it's usefull for someone here :P

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

I dont know where to ask things like that but: is someone missing his "Reload animation" too? When my Soldier is moving and i press R for reload he is kind of like hovering over ther ground, the legs arent moving, i tried stable and devbranch, both the same. Can someone help me and tell me where i can find this animation?

[Tonci87 163]

Wel, if you didn´t notice already, BIS definitions of Alpha, Beta or Final are kind of vague and blurry.

[Ypulse 10]

is maxmem and vram 8196 now, on 64 bit os?

[sadovsf 20]

So first of all, again we are not able to reproduce problem. Second in rpt file is nothing about weather or time change, last thing rpt is nice for such a think like check if there is logged somethink about weather changes but it's nearly useless for thinks like crash to desktop. So solution:

1. Send whole crashdump for us to be able to find a problem

2. Send us scripting command which always begins to cause FPS problems and what setup so we can reproduce and fix this issue as well.

3. We are here for you, for players so please stop being angry and instead help us to make your playing better and better. Because this is the reason why all of us are here ;-)

---------- Post added at 09:06 ---------- Previous post was at 08:49 ----------

Finally :D one of our designer found a way how to reproduce it :-) So i can now look on it an fix it. Stay tuned for another update and thank you for your patience ;-)

---------- Post added at 09:31 ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 ----------

So another try and again thank you for your patience. Problem is straightly related to forceWeatherChange command which can make clients to resending this command between each other in some circumstances. So i made a fix and in meanwhile just don't use forceweatherchange in MP games. Fix will appear in rev. 116078

[maddogx 13]

Problem is straightly related to forceWeatherChange command which can make clients to resending this command between each other in some circumstances.

Sounds like this could also have been the cause of high bandwidth usage issues some people were reporting.

[SaOk 112]

Switched from official build to latest DEV-version, noticed that AI paratroopers have big difficulties to land without dieing. Watched 4 men jumping off chopper, they first glide normally, but then 3 men of 4, one at time, leaned much forward to drop last 20-40 meters very fast and hit ground dieing. Only one of them came down good.

[novemberist 2]

Switched from official build to latest DEV-version, noticed that AI paratroopers have big difficulties to land without dieing. Watched 4 men jumping off chopper, they first glide normally, but then 3 men of 4, one at time, leaned much forward to drop last 20-40 meters very fast and hit ground dieing. Only one of them came down good.

Did you give them a waypoint on the ground or did you just drop them?

[SaOk 112]

They have waypoints created already when in chopper, but shouldnt have effect until they land.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Switched from official build to latest DEV-version, noticed that AI paratroopers have big difficulties to land without dieing. Watched 4 men jumping off chopper, they first glide normally, but then 3 men of 4, one at time, leaned much forward to drop last 20-40 meters very fast and hit ground dieing. Only one of them came down good.

Got the same issue and sometimes the Paratroopers are exploding or something when they hit the ground. Some very annoying stuff going om there

[novemberist 2]

They have waypoints created already when in chopper, but shouldnt have effect until they land.

Not sure about paratrooper units placed in the editor, but when I drop units in the Air in Zeus and give them a waypoint, they will steer their parachutes towards it and adjust their speed accordingly for a safe landing at least.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

The effect started with latest patch

[novemberist 2]

Has it always been the way that single units will always run even if you set them to "relaxed" ? Doesn't happen with groups though.

May be related to this ticket:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=17674

[SaOk 112]

No, these are spawned units. Waypoints in this case were from BIS patrol function. So randomly those are far or near the LZ. Gets little more tricky if you need to add LZ waypoint too now.

[bigpickle 0]

Tweaked: Sounds of weapon closures

Does that mean that closure sound class has been fixed? because since alpha it has been broken and a bug placed of the bug tracker

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=9661

*Edit *

Your tweaking a broken feature :mad:

Edited March 12, 2014 by Bigpickle

[[lb] boggler 10]

So first of all, again we are not able to reproduce problem. Second in rpt file is nothing about weather or time change, last thing rpt is nice for such a think like check if there is logged somethink about weather changes but it's nearly useless for thinks like crash to desktop. So solution:

1. Send whole crashdump for us to be able to find a problem

2. Send us scripting command which always begins to cause FPS problems and what setup so we can reproduce and fix this issue as well.

3. We are here for you, for players so please stop being angry and instead help us to make your playing better and better. Because this is the reason why all of us are here ;-)

---------- Post added at 09:06 ---------- Previous post was at 08:49 ----------

Finally :D one of our designer found a way how to reproduce it :-) So i can now look on it an fix it. Stay tuned for another update and thank you for your patience ;-)

---------- Post added at 09:31 ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 ----------

So another try and again thank you for your patience. Problem is straightly related to forceWeatherChange command which can make clients to resending this command between each other in some circumstances. So i made a fix and in meanwhile just don't use forceweatherchange in MP games. Fix will appear in rev. 116078

I'm not angry at all, i was just a bit unsettled caused by the lack of other reports concerning this bug.

But I checked much more than twice and couldn't find a mistake in our setup.

Just once again, to make it clearly, i didn't use any scripts. The issue was was shown in all of YOUR missions, I haven't had any problems in custom missions.

And once again, the bug started with the dev update last Friday, I'm not sure if you really changed the weathersystem in that patch.

But I hope you found the right bug and really appreciate your efforts.

[danil-ch 165]

BIS should really be ashamed that so many sound features (closure sounds, sound occlusion, falling bodies sounds) were left broken. :(

[msy 22]

I think the only answer is the win episode is very short, maybe again like a warfare mission in ARMA2.

[Lib3r8eR 10]

JIP on the task modules doesn't seem to work, (only tested on server) as it used to work prior to even patch 1.10. Anyways, it used to work if I set it to "All Playable", so just doesn't seem to work automatically. Tasks work fine if your there on mission start. Maybe they changed the way it works now?

[dude20 10]

is maxmem and vram 8196 now, on 64 bit os?

On my 4GB GTX670, GPU-Z shows stable 2.9GB VRAM usage for hours after the update. Before the update, it fluctuates between 1.6GB and 2.6GB every few minutes. Maybe they updated the VRAM usage policy to take advantage of new graphic cards.

[*362* 10]

These modules were created primarily for campaign purposes. In the course of development, we've decided to handle the functionality they were supposed to have to be done differently (using Sites, getting rid of dynamic spawning altogether). You've mentioned some problems these modules had, and considering there were no resources to keep them up to date, removing them was considered the best solution.

I agree though that their removal should have been documented in the sitrep / spotrep and would like to apologize for any incovenience caused to community mission makers.

I would very much like to see the return of these modules they were very useful to me. PLEASE BI!

[izaiak 1]

Wel, if you didn´t notice already, BIS definitions of Alpha, Beta or Final are kind of vague and blurry.

huh ... :x

[benjamin1 10]

What we've been testing is templates, infantry, weapons, vehicles, and mission processes. With these templates working and tested over a longer period of time there is little testing to be done but instead 'tweaking' this specific word has been used 'tweaking'. The first episode was released longer on dev before the actual release, the second and the last one closer to the official release. What doesn't need to be tested, doesn't need to be released on dev branch as it is ment for debugging, it makes sense to me.

[pils 49]

There are still these annoying tank crew bugs [Multiplayer]. Reported them in this thread several weeks ago. I've submitted a report in the feedback tracker now.

Please have a look on it.

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=17786

[markocro 66]

since patch on stable, grenades cant go trough windows