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krazikilla

Priority of Bugfixing and features of BIS

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Please stop discussing about MP or SP is more important -its derailing and totally useless. Everyone got his own preferences and BIS is trying to satisfy both groups.

Edited by KrAziKilla

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From SITREP #00033:

Before the release of "Survive", we mentioned intent to work on fatigue. This is about to kick off on devbranch. Designer Radko Voda will start publishing tweaks in the next few days, as well as to detail and discuss them on the forums. The goals are still to introduce better calculations and enhance authenticity of equipment affecting performance.
Just to remind people that something not having been gotten around to yet does not mean "BI isn't interested in realism", no matter how much these people may mistake the devs' differing priorities for that.

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To be perfectly honest I'd much rather have fewer features that work perfectly than a whole bunch that work somewhat. I believe A2 was a perfect example of the latter.

If BIS would have gone this way, we would still be at the amount of features which were in OFP, and even less.

Alot of the featuers ingame right now, are not perfect or near perfect.

Opening doors anyone?

Most of the featuers are in a very good playable and useful state, which is mostly enough for a huge game like this.

Therefore i always would vote for 10 features in a good state, instead of 3 in a "perfect" state.

And i am not talkin about content here, not like more vehilces, more guns- just about gameplay features like "weaponrest" - "good medical system" - "grenade throwing which actually gives u the chance to roll it into a room or drop it around a wall".

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Anything from the DEVs about the discussion?

Why so much small fixes like: grenade cast shadows, and rearlights of hemtt trucks, and cinemetic borders now hide GUI elements,... are done but hardly any high voted feedback tracker thingy?

- For example, in the "bad italian translation" topic, 2-3 DEVs answered like a few minutes after it got created.. Whats going on here?

- a, for sure nice improvment of UAV is goin to be implemented (SITREP), even its nowhere near the top voted and awaited features.

I for sure love this game, nothing comes even close. I am just annoyed that it could be so much better, if concentrated, focused on some.. other things and reading the devbrachn update, everday makes me a bit sad.

Edited by KrAziKilla

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the answer to your question is that game artist can't work on fixing coding problems. So they fix their own problems.

Edited by nicolasroger

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the answer to your question si that game artist can't work on fixing coding problems. So they fix their own problems.

Indeed.

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If I were to find excuse I'd hope features like weapon resting, wind, walkable vehicles ( I hope much refined physx just need bit more time and they're not simply done with it ) will come in some sort of DLC / expansion like the operation arrowhead but what I think is that BI is never going to bother with most of these features and if I were to assume and /or guess why -

the problem is in my eyes - the same as in a2 to a2 oa - when you bring essential thing later is the game wirh a dlc . them have only the new things the new features ,,, same is thermal textures in a2 ao - only ao has it the other new stuff not

....

---------- Post added at 07:10 ---------- Previous post was at 06:58 ----------

As Kju said it best, a lot of the issue is with the fact that BI knows and has known what the community really wants for a long long long time and continue to basically ignore them.

true true true 100%

i play the game with the ofp demo start. i have all dlc and the others ... and no - i play no boring sandbox sp with small editor missions with strange ai . 98 % i play tvt or cti in arma then the last years since 2001. te only campain was i playes to th end was the ofp campian red hammer and resistance. the other was ...not so nice. i dont a plan why bis made the playing models and side models only fpr sp or coop - the coop comunity is only so big in arma - then the rest is not optimal !!!ofp - arma - arma 2 the Infantry gameplay.) because bis will this not see ? the game liv from the multiplayer not from a editor wehre you need days for set your correct buildings ( no 3d placement ) and no good help for neebys ^^ . this is because the mp part is terrible!! . look the very fast sunk numbers of mp players in arma3 - this is not because all play sp - that is because the terrible perfomance in this mode ! and this is not because all play in the editor with himself ..... thats the point ! sry for my bad english

---------- Post added at 07:38 ---------- Previous post was at 07:10 ----------

It feels at times that the vehicles we have are just to make multiplayer pvp balanced.
not one has say to your mission maker - he place all vehikles on the map ! is good for the most - when you not need - then not use it ;) not all will play the dark big player - propagande terrorist lie wars Edited by JgBtl292

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Well its very unfortunate that still no BIS employee has posted on this thread. I remember a long list of "confirmed" features and it was a shame to see this list of "confirmed" feature to grow into a "what we will never see in Arma 3"-list. Feature after feature was axed and now they are just ignoring the wishes of the community, some features on the feedback tracker have thousands more votes than any of the stuff that is being implemented.

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Well its very unfortunate that still no BIS employee has posted on this thread.

I don't find it very surprising considering anything a BIS employee says can and will be used against him as you just demonstrated.

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Moreover, I distinctly remember how that "discussion of axed features" was almost single-handedly responsible for the devs suddenly adopting a "no promises" attitude, with I believe one dev even suggesting that their own mere wishful thinking could be/was being misinterpreted as 'promises'...

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It seems like saying

First of all, i like this game series since 2001 operation flashpoint
is the number one credibility statement on these forums. almost to the point where it is bland.

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Claims to be into the series since CWC are like swearing on one's mother's grave...

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And on that note: I remember discussions asking for firing from cargo positions all the way back to Operation Flashpoint!

But, seriously, it seems like we've been hearing that BIS will try to implement that particular feature in every release since then. Meanwhile, I can now swim underwater.

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Anything from the DEVs about the discussion?

Why so much small fixes like: grenade cast shadows, and rearlights of hemtt trucks, and cinemetic borders now hide GUI elements,... are done but hardly any high voted feedback tracker thingy?

- For example, in the "bad italian translation" topic, 2-3 DEVs answered like a few minutes after it got created.. Whats going on here?

- a, for sure nice improvment of UAV is goin to be implemented (SITREP), even its nowhere near the top voted and awaited features.

I for sure love this game, nothing comes even close. I am just annoyed that it could be so much better, if concentrated, focused on some.. other things and reading the devbrachn update, everday makes me a bit sad.

1. Maybe they want to fix up what they already have working before adding new features. That's the part of the cycle they're in. Early alpha was the time to get them to change their feature set, not post-release (and many of the ideas on the tracker were probably too big to shoehorn into an already very tight dev deadline). Right now, feature requests will probably need to wait for the expansion, though that's no reason not to start plugging for them ASAP, of course.

2. The amount of time required to do a lot of these things is not available, especially with DayZ and the campaign in the works. DayZ is already terribly behind any expected schedule anyone had for it. I don't know how many people have moved over, but I imagine getting that out the door is the next big priority for BIS.

3. They don't agree that the features are worth the time/expense to implement them. Sorry, but devs have a different viewpoint on things, and also the hard realities of making X happen may differ significantly from laymen's expectations of how easy X is to do. Now, bipods, yes that should be easy to do easily (and has been done via scripting already). But doing it right with correct animations and collision detection can take much longer. Much of the rest of the tracker are far more complex issues that might not even be possible. I have pushed heavily for "grass at a distance", but I recognize that it's not the sort of thing you expect to happen. Some things (climbing) I've seen devs hint at being in the works. Some things (female soldiers) might be coming in a campaign update. Some things (shooting from vehicles) might be... not to the dev's liking (fairly pointless and not worth the effort).

I don't find it very surprising considering anything a BIS employee says can and will be used against him as you just demonstrated.
Seriously. Devs get a ton of flak from members after entering threads and engaging, either because they didn't engage enough or because someone didn't like what they said. Probably why you don't get outright statements of "that's not going to happen for this release" or "we can't do that right now", because some posters would get apoplectic and run all over the forums quoting that dev and linking to the thread... Devs speaking their minds here can sometimes be tossing redbull to swine. Edited by DNK

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(and many of the ideas on the tracker were probably too big to shoehorn into an already very tight dev deadline).
Holy crap, this. Did no one see the writing on the wall from Steamworks announcement?
2. The amount of time required to do a lot of these things is not available, especially with DayZ and the campaign in the works. DayZ is already terribly behind any expected schedule anyone had for it. I don't know how many people have moved over, but I imagine getting that out the door is the next big priority for BIS.
I'd point more to the campaign -- which, by the way, slipped its forecasted release date (to stable branch) by almost three weeks -- than to DayZ, mainly since DayZ nowadays isn't even tied to a release schedule anymore but rather "whenever we hit certain feature/performance milestones"... and I distinctly recall Rocket saying that he wasn't doing any more release date/window forecasting because of how many times DayZ had already slipped previous ones. A bigger deal is that the devs found out at some point after June 25th that the campaign wouldn't be done in time for September 12th, they made the announcement before September 12th, they forecasted that it'd be out within four weeks... and then they blew that by three more weeks anyway for eight missions, yet they're supposedly going to have more missions ("ADAPT") out by December. Color this curious if you ask me...
3. They don't agree that the features are worth the time/expense to implement them. Sorry, but devs have a different viewpoint on things, and also the hard realities of making X happen may differ significantly from laymen's expectations of how easy X is to do.
Hahahaha, this is the part that a dev will never admit to, considering how badly the vocal members here take being told no... :icon_twisted:
Some things (shooting from vehicles) might be... not to the dev's liking (fairly pointless and not worth the effort).
I'll say re: "shooting from vehicles" that both Dwarden and Rocket addressed this one; Rocket to say that he took at look at how VBS2 implemented it and described the VBS2 solution as unusable for Arma 3, while Dwarden outright said 'told to work on something else' (suggesting that a dev decided that shooting-from-vehicles was not a priority).
Seriously. Devs get a ton of flak from members after entering threads and engaging, either because they didn't engage enough or because someone didn't like what they said. Probably why you don't get outright statements of "that's not going to happen for this release" or "we can't do that right now", because some posters would get apoplectic and run all over the forums quoting that dev and linking to the thread... Devs speaking their minds here can sometimes be tossing redbull to swine.
I've already seen certain posters make panic-induced threads based on whatever they saw from a dev comment even if it was months out of date or flat-out misinterpreted... some of whom (the panic posters) are in this thread and aren't me. If I were a dev, why would I want to deal with it?

With so-called fans like these, who needs haters...

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@Krazikilla

You clearly have been around for a long time, so you know this is how it works. Why do you just assume the entire studio is going to change how it works for this specific release? This is how the series has evolved since forever. Arma 1 was basically a half-finished, rushed version of OFP 2. Arma 2 was the supposedly "finished" game they wanted originally, which itself was full of bugs and incomplete or poorly implemented features. OA fixed up a lot of issues, but itself needed further polishing, and even by the end of it was still riddled with bugs and gameplay issues (like, walking through a door? Still impossible). A3 is by far the best release I've seen, and they've added/improved at least as much as for any other major release - more I'd argue. It has issues, and at this point I'd rather, say, not get permastuck in objects all. the. time. than have bipods.

Just be happy the release is as good as it is, the game really hasn't strayed far from its milsim roots (contrary to all the intense worries over that at the alpha stage), and everything is, more or less, functional and beautiful, and the devs are still as committed to the series and ongoing support as they have ever been (not to mention engaging the community). This glass is 85% full, and will likely get a decent bit fuller over the next 6-12 months. Compare that to AAA titles at release (especially EA's).

(suggesting that a dev decided that shooting-from-vehicles was not a priority)
And why would it be? I really don't understand what it adds to gameplay. A good number of tracker issues are like that. Even my personal fav, the grass at a distance thing, really doesn't add much - it's a nice graphical polish, adds a bit of added tactical difficulty, and a dash of increased realism/immersion. That said, it probably would take 50 man-hours to implement at least. Is it worth it? Not my call, and the devs clearly have decided for the time being on it being not an efficient use of resources.

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@Krazikilla

You clearly have been around for a long time, so you know this is how it works. Why do you just assume the entire studio is going to change how it works for this specific release? This is how the series has evolved since forever. Arma 1 was basically a half-finished, rushed version of OFP 2. Arma 2 was the supposedly "finished" game they wanted originally, which itself was full of bugs and incomplete or poorly implemented features. OA fixed up a lot of issues, but itself needed further polishing, and even by the end of it was still riddled with bugs and gameplay issues (like, walking through a door? Still impossible). A3 is by far the best release I've seen, and they've added/improved at least as much as for any other major release - more I'd argue. It has issues, and at this point I'd rather, say, not get permastuck in objects all. the. time. than have bipods.

Just be happy the release is as good as it is, the game really hasn't strayed far from its milsim roots (contrary to all the intense worries over that at the alpha stage), and everything is, more or less, functional and beautiful, and the devs are still as committed to the series and ongoing support as they have ever been (not to mention engaging the community). This glass is 85% full, and will likely get a decent bit fuller over the next 6-12 months. Compare that to AAA titles at release (especially EA's).

And why would it be? I really don't understand what it adds to gameplay. A good number of tracker issues are like that. Even my personal fav, the grass at a distance thing, really doesn't add much - it's a nice graphical polish, adds a bit of added tactical difficulty, and a dash of increased realism/immersion. That said, it probably would take 50 man-hours to implement at least. Is it worth it? Not my call, and the devs clearly have decided for the time being on it being not an efficient use of resources.

Really? Of all things you pick out a serious graphical issue that should be addressed as your example? Here is why they need to fix it. As it currently stands it is harder to detect someone within ~30m (depends on your settings) of yourself because the grass and foliage provide so much concealment. However, someone a mile away camouflaged among shrubs and trees sticks out like a sore thumb because at your distance they don't appear concealed at all. This is why a medium - long visible grass is needed. Its not for eye candy. It's so that when the player is prone in a field, and can't see more than a foot in front of them because of all the grass, doesn't get picked off from a mile away because they look like they are lying on flat green terrain.

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Do note that I put a lot of effort into getting that feature added.

Also note that it isn't 500m+ distance grass draws, because that would be nigh impossible for a non-voxel-based engine without dropping FPS to like 1. It is adding a grass-like alpha texture drawn over units relative to their Z-position to create a more seamless, camoflaged, and realistic look. It's actual gameplay value would be somewhat minimal since the current "grass invisibility" layers are usually so low as to make units still quite visible.

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And why would it be? I really don't understand what it adds to gameplay.

First of all, it leads to me not feeling useless and bored when I'm not actually driving the car. Second, maybe a good reason for it to be a priority is that it has been one of the most requested features for this series for more than a decade. Honestly, what does scuba diving add to gameplay?

Which isn't even the point. This thread is asking for for clarification as to what BIS's development priorities are. Are they working on adding new features? Do they plan on adding new features? Or do they pretty much consider the game complete at this point?

Hahahaha, this is the part that a dev will never admit to, considering how badly the vocal members here take being told no... :icon_twisted:

I find it far more frustrating to not be told anything than to be told no. If BIS has, for example, abandoned the idea of adding Java to the game, then that's fine (not really, I would be sad) and I can move on. On the other hand, it's pretty upsetting that there have been like 4 or 5 threads asking for updates on that specific feature and there hasn't been a single official response. That's upsetting. It makes me feel like I've spent my time and money on a company that does not value me as a customer.

This thread is 10 days old and has 70 replies and no response from anyone from BIS. Maybe they should hire a community manager or something... I'm sure there are several people who would even be willing to do it for free for some insight into the dev process.

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"I find it far more frustrating to not be told anything than to be told no."

Well I am pretty sure that most people feel that way, but when they actualy hear a NO they still all act like it is the end of the world.

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This thread is 10 days old and has 70 replies and no response from anyone from BIS. Maybe they should hire a community manager or something... I'm sure there are several people who would even be willing to do it for free for some insight into the dev process.

They do give insight with the SIT and SPOT reps. The SITrep's a weekly progress report and a SPOTrep's made if there's something specific that has to be addressed. They flat out say what they're working on and what has their attention.

http://dev.arma3.com/

I think they actually do a pretty good job informing us on overall progress with those. I wouldn't get your hopes up with more serious public dev involvement into the community until the final chapter is released and the bulk of the production capacity can shift to non priority stuff. Once the game is a bit more into it's life-span the devs might give a post-mortem to identify missed opportunities and trouble spots. Right now it's just not beneficial in any way.

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I actually somehow feel that BIS is loosing the contact and the feeling for the community more and more, in some aspects.

I know quite some dudes, also longstanding arma fans, who already stopped playing and left the communitie because of this issues.

This thingies like: "wait a bit until they fixed other, more important stuff", i was willing to believe and even said it to other guys over the last 5 years and even more years ago, but somehow i stop believing it myself. And if u check the forums a bit, also lot of other, also long standing members are kind of losing patience and getting a bit frustrated.

Somehow there is always other stuff which needs to be done before the communities long standing wishes are heared, worked on, or even seriously commented. (again: big exeption is graphics/physix)

No idea what, but i feel that some thing is wrong. (maybe internal mgmt or policy stuff. Also Dwarden is quite quiet since several weeks.)

I find it far more frustrating to not be told anything than to be told no. If BIS has, for example, abandoned the idea of adding Java to the game, then that's fine (not really, I would be sad) and I can move on. On the other hand, it's pretty upsetting that there have been like 4 or 5 threads asking for updates on that specific feature and there hasn't been a single official response. That's upsetting. It makes me feel like I've spent my time and money on a company that does not value me as a customer.

This thread is 10 days old and has 70 replies and no response from anyone from BIS. Maybe they should hire a community manager or something...

This.

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That's upsetting. It makes me feel like I've spent my time and money on a company that does not value me as a customer.
This entitlement attitude with many members has to stop. You are 1 customer out of perhaps hundreds of thousands. Why do you think you're entitled to anything more than the game + updates? They don't owe you 1 feature, sentence, or even word beyond that, because you, personally, are a miniscule drop in the bucket of fans and customers they have to serve. The devs have more important things to do than respond to every single thread someone makes. Everyone feels their issues are important. Everyone wants the devs to respond to them, and so many seem to get hurt when they don't...

You all can't be the center of the universe, unfortunately. We'll have to pick someone to be it, I guess. I vote for Chortles.

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