Great update...but...

[DistortAMG]

(I posted this in the Frontier Forums, I wanted to post it here too, to see what the wider community thinks).

Big fan of the update. The game is certainly heading into the right direction, but come on, where is the quality control??!!

You fix one bug, create 2 more. The game even hard locks for me after update 3 on the workshop. With the whack o mole that I see with bugs, it makes you wonder how badly you've turned the source code into spaghetti code?!

MANY of the bugs are so blatant and obvious that it's quite alarming to wonder how they get missed before pushing the update. Even things that are getting fixed. This alone proves that you can't be QCing properly as you wouldn't get bugs this obviously if you was. Case in point, your headline features....HEADLINE features of update 2 and 3, custom audio, billboards, deformable rafts, western theme had / have some really obvious and blatant bugs, that it's comical they were missed. As a company, I would be embarrassed that I am putting out such buggy code, especially in the big new headline features of any new given update. Once or twice would be acceptable, but it's time and time again. People are angry because the game was missing features and had little QC, so after making people wait for months to get features they really want, it would perhaps be prudent to make sure that atleast the highly anticipated and headline features work properly, on release.Not via a hotfix a week later. Did you guys not learn anything from the games launch?? It would appear not.

Once or twice would be acceptable, but this is happening time and time again.

I know you have the issue tracker, a great tool for sure, many use it, but most probably don't. I feel you are over relying on the community to find bugs for you. Most people simply cannot be bothered to write a report, upload a screenshot or two and send the information. I know I can't be, I live a busy life, I want to get home and play games, not do the work you guys should be doing. I am not saying here having the tracker is a bad idea, it's not, it is great, but it is clear from the state of the code being released and the sheer amount of issues, that you are heavily relying on it for quality control. I'm not finishing my week and doing some QC, I will just play something else instead, the same as many people.

I know this all sounds harsh, but it's the reality. People will just move on and play something else, we don't want to do your QC work, not when the amount of bugs are massive and we would have to report so many. Most people don't mind reporting the odd bug here and there, but when it's bug after bug after bug, no chance. People will just go elsewhere and play something else. Only the very dedicated small minority will report the bugs, but I suspect they won't keep the lights on.

This isn't a dig at the devs, they are doing a great job and are clearly very talented, I suspect the issue is above them in management. As the main issue here is not allowing everything to have enough time in the oven so to speak.

It's quite ironic don't you think? The game unfortunately underperformed on release, and it is unfortunate as I love Frontier. The reason why it underperformed from what I can see is mainly because the QC was awful and the game was a mess on release, missing alot of features. The hype for the this game was HUGE pre release, you literally had a win in the palm of your hands.....but you messed it up, due to a massive lack of QC.

Logic would tell you that perhaps it might be wise to apply some more hefty internal QC to each update, that you are releasing to fix the initial mess that you created. Rather than make people wait months for their favorite feature, then make them wait even longer because when it is finally added, it's broken and buggy. Further annoying the community.

I'm not sure who makes the decisions and I am sure financial constraints make some decisions, but customers don't take crap QC in games anymore, not since Cyberpunk 2077, that was a turning point for the industry I think. Even Ubisoft nearly ruined themselves due to their lack of QC of many years and delayed their brand new AC Shadows game as a result. There are many, many other examples in the industry too, Planet Coaster 2 and it's launch, Cities Skylines 2, another, any recent Ubisoft game...the list goes on and on, always the same result, underperformed, loss of trust....Every. Single. Time.

Management surely can't be so disconnected from the real world?? That's probably not it, it's probably difficult balancing resources to be fair, but it's an essential must. In 2024/5, people want polished experiences not buggy rubbish. If you don't deliver that, or partially deliver it, you end up in a mess.

Sure, you might pull it back and I hope you do, but at what cost to your loyal fan base and reputation?

It's such a shame because Frontier is a company close to my heart, and even in it's current state, Planet Coaster 2 is an amazing achievement on both a technical and creative level. It's proves that Frontier are world leading in CMS and has some very talented people at the company. But it doesn't matter how good your game is technically if it's frustrating to play because of all the bugs and issues, people will just remember the bad things and not the many great things. It also doesn't matter how good your developers are if you don't give them to resources and tools to properly debug and QC. Kind of makes them look incompetent when clearly they are not. But that's how it looks to the average person, which must be frustrating too.

Come on Frontier, we expect and you can do better!!

We're not asking you to be up there on the same polish as a mainstream Rockstar Games title, but a little bit better QC and a bit more time in the oven would be nice. No matter what you tell yourselves, most people are not going to report issues when the issue rate is so high, they will just play something else with the limited free time and with so many things competing for that free time.

The bottom line is, and I do love you Frontier, but trying to rely on us, your paying customers to find and report the majority of your bugs, ramming it down our necks on the forum, then have the audacity to turn the bug reporting process into some sort of game show with a voting system for what might or might not get fixed......we paid money here, it is insulting to us, our free time and the time we spent to earn the money we used to buy the game!!!

The voting system works OK when the state of any given game is relatively bug free and you can vote about what you want fixed next. But when the bugs are quite literally EVERYWHERE, it's an outright insult to everyone who paid money to suggest we vote on a mountain of bugs just to make a game playable.

I get that resources are constrained, but we are paying customers. If you can't get the resources to fix your bugs, properly, before launch, every time, then lower your scope, people will and are going elsewhere. It's such a shame, because mis management is killing this game prematurely.

Edit: Just to point out, I brought the deluxe edition, I brought the badly timed DLC. I WANT to support you guys and I will support you, it is just frustrating how things are now.

This is someone who also owns Planet Coaster (and all the DLC), Planet Zoo (no DLC as Zoos are not my thing), Elite Dangerous (plus all the expansions). RCT3, many times over. I am a huge fan of Frontier, some of my best gaming memories have been and I am sure will be made in Frontier developed games. I would even go as far as saying that Frontier are my number 2 as far as my all time favorite developers go, with number one being Rockstar Games, due to their amazing world building and story telling and you've been number two since I was playing GTA San Andreas and RCT3 way back in 2005!! I will almost buy a game purely on the strength of the Frontier brand itself, sometimes irrelevant of the actual game. So to see brand damaging, bug filled releases is disappointing. I hope it can be turned around. As while the game has QC issues, the underlying game is truly great, we must not forget that. It's a technical and creative masterpiece, it's just the wider community, journalists and everyone in between, forget and don't celebrate that, when there are so many problems growing things out.

The key takeaway though, is things are moving in the right direction and we'll. It's nice to see. It just hope it's not to little too late because of the QC and the player base can grow, it deserves too, the game overall is fantastic.

But while headline features are going to bring players back, the large amount of bugs and bugs that have released with almost all headline features in every update, very quickly send players away again. You are shooting yourselves in the foot!!

[chris CKM]

Thank you.

[McChicken]

couldnt agree more. ive already seen that post on frontiers forums and gave it a like there also. i just wonder if frontier will ever have the balls to actually for once reply to all these negative issues we are pointing out. probably not, and if they do it will probably just be another copy paste sentence about "yeah we passed it on to the team"...

[chris CKM]

Originally posted by McChicken:

couldnt agree more. ive already seen that post on frontiers forums and gave it a like there also. i just wonder if frontier will ever have the balls to actually for once reply to all these negative issues we are pointing out. probably not, and if they do it will probably just be another copy paste sentence about "yeah we passed it on to the team"...

Exactly.

[McChicken]

adding another one to the long list of the lack of attention and dedication:
where tf are the nongrid walls of the western set??? are those only for the base sets and all future sets wont have those? is frontier going to select on their own will which sets will have those nongrid walls?
like wtf is even going on at this point

[chris CKM]

They dont have the money to do whats not copy and paste..

[Desdinova]

You fix one bug, create 2 more.

I see someone's obviously not a developer, because they're pretty much describes fixing bugs. Fixing one bug causing other bugs is bog standard in software development, to the point it's a running joke among people who actually know what they're talking about.

Which is to say, I can safely ignore everything else you said because it's coming from a place of ignorance.

[chris CKM]

Originally posted by Desdinova:

You fix one bug, create 2 more.

I see someone's obviously not a developer, because they're pretty much describes fixing bugs. Fixing one bug causing other bugs is bog standard in software development, to the point it's a running joke among people who actually know what they're talking about.

Which is to say, I can safely ignore everything else you said because it's coming from a place of ignorance.

And THATS where qc comes in before release....

[Lv1 Magikarp]

Originally posted by chris CKM:

Originally posted by Desdinova:

I see someone's obviously not a developer, because they're pretty much describes fixing bugs. Fixing one bug causing other bugs is bog standard in software development, to the point it's a running joke among people who actually know what they're talking about.

Which is to say, I can safely ignore everything else you said because it's coming from a place of ignorance.

And THATS where qc comes in before release....

Exactly this.

People need to get their head out of the sand. They're sounding like they've been paid to defend Frontier at this point.

[DistortAMG]

Originally posted by Desdinova:

You fix one bug, create 2 more.

I see someone's obviously not a developer, because they're pretty much describes fixing bugs. Fixing one bug causing other bugs is bog standard in software development, to the point it's a running joke among people who actually know what they're talking about.

Which is to say, I can safely ignore everything else you said because it's coming from a place of ignorance.

Pot. Kettle. Black. 🤣🤣. I couldn't care less if you ignore what I say because it was aimed at the developers, not you. Sorry to hurt your ego.

Who cares if I am a developer or not, that's not the point of the post. For the record though, you've heard of spaghetti code right Miss Developer? Well written code doesn't always create more bugs when you fix one, if it did, it would be impossible to completely fix a game, as every single bug fix, would create more. You should apply some logic before you open your mouth, or don't open it at all, thinking your a development expert after 10 hours of C++ Youtube tutorials.

Take your head out the sand, we as consumers should not and do not accept buggy messes of games anymore. Many developers manage to squash most bugs before releasing, many don't and end up like this. Your logic doesn't add up, because it would be impossible to make ANY game very stable if EVERY bug fixed always created two, for most games it doesn't, so maybe it's you who should learn a little about coding.

[FourteenInchGaz]

Originally posted by Desdinova:

You fix one bug, create 2 more.

I see someone's obviously not a developer, because they're pretty much describes fixing bugs. Fixing one bug causing other bugs is bog standard in software development, to the point it's a running joke among people who actually know what they're talking about.

Which is to say, I can safely ignore everything else you said because it's coming from a place of ignorance.

Yes, keep on ignoring posts by spending time writing patronising replies to the posts you're ignoring.

Whilst you're replying to the posts you're ignoring, make sure to leave nobody in any doubt that anything you say holds no value and is full of entirely stupid opinions. That way, we can all do the right thing and ignore you.

[Kain Mightyena]

Originally posted by FourteenInchGaz:

Originally posted by Desdinova:

I see someone's obviously not a developer, because they're pretty much describes fixing bugs. Fixing one bug causing other bugs is bog standard in software development, to the point it's a running joke among people who actually know what they're talking about.

Which is to say, I can safely ignore everything else you said because it's coming from a place of ignorance.

Yes, keep on ignoring posts by spending time writing patronising replies to the posts you're ignoring.

Whilst you're replying to the posts you're ignoring, make sure to leave nobody in any doubt that anything you say holds no value and is full of entirely stupid opinions. That way, we can all do the right thing and ignore you.

Dont even bother with morons like him. Hes just a sad corporate shill that thinks devs are the equivalent to the second coming of christ. Let him keep embarrassing himself so that we are thoroughly entertained LOL