I know the feeling all too well, my knowledge doesn’t come from programming but instead ‘only’ from logical gate creation, the most I did was assembler code when I initially learned my first job, so I can’t make a program but I can do things like creating a smart home system from scratch, including a clock for a multiplexer system and hence the first stages of a proper bus-system in microelectronics.
It has the same trickle-down issues presented as in programming, having to build up systems from scratch if you don’t have enough foresight to create the basic structures accommodating the functions beyond… and even more dangerous of proper and streamlined documentation on the design-parts isn’t done.
Which is also while I know of those issues I think a large portion of those can be handled with proper foresight, proper documentation and especially proper flowcharts for the singular segments. It might seem overkill to invest that amount of time into something like this but in the grand scheme of things like repositioning people, bringing new people into any part of the project and making up for sick-leave… it actually saves time despite the heavy investment initially, especially if a proper guideline for programming as well as documentation is provided, optimally in detail if it’s known how many ticks any respective command line uses to make said program as efficient as possible.
It’s how for example ‘Factorio’ went along with their game, they’ve taken their game concept and are also using it for their programming, making everything as streamlined and effective as possible.
You can see it with the sheer scale of changes they present in a short amount of time as soon as they start to sit down on something, their Friday-Updates are a delight to follow simply for the explanations of what’s been addressed and how. It describes their thought-processes, what they actually did in detail on a programming baseline and clearly showcases how a well oiled programmer team can cause literal miracles in a short amount of time.
For example their speed for adjusting an UI into a ridiculously in-depth and overly functional thing any engineer drools over is ridiculous, I would imagine giving them the MG UI and they would re-make it in a month to be on par with the trade site of PoE while going beyond with the database access to make everything smooth as butter while also reducing the strain on that poor burning server we currently got for the bazaar.
Generally… I see quite a lot of similarities between engineering and programming, in a oversimplification it’s after all taking single parts and making a functional whole out of them with the least points of problems and highest efficiency possible.
So I simply think the two major bottlenecks for most studios is programming efficiency as well as asset creation.
Oh, for me as well, absolutely agreed.
It’s a easy and permanent revenue stream though for the devs, currently we have the one time payment for the game… they got ongoing server costs though. For any life-service game the steady funding stream is important, which is why I’m saying I would guarantee it as soon as possible to have a feedback on how well it performs and how much the studio can be safely scaled up without ever falling in danger of well… falling apart.
I’m not talking about the ‘whole’ QA there, just the bits which seemed to have ‘gone under’.
Which is the ‘polishing’ aspect of the game. ‘Does Node ‘n’ function correctly?’ or ‘Is this aspect of the UI existing?’ and ‘Does this UI element function as necessary?’
We’ve seen a few issues there in all of those, and they generally leave a very bad aftertaste.
Checking for the right numerical values should be a given, hasn’t been done though since we got broken ward nodes having a decimal error.
We also are missing a functioning security check for controller when choosing the mastery. It defaults to ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’.
Also we have for example missing affixes in the bazaar, especially for idols.
All those 3 aspects are things which a single person can check on even, all falling under the core aspects of quality control which is a necessity to get 100% right every single time without fail.
Why I’m saying ‘1 person’ is that it doesn’t need more solely for this aspect… but it needs someone dedicated mainly to that and only helping out otherwise when there’s time. Which means someone making a character of every class, clicking through every single conversation line and possible UI interaction available and making sure every single one is implemented and done right. Also repeating that with the controller.
With debugging it’s easily a job handled in a week’s time for a single person to check those things… which hasn’t been done though, the proof being that not a single or 2 mistakes are there but several major ones in total, the amount culminating showcases that nobody was clearly solely dedicated to that task… but that’s one of the most important tasks to handle at latest a month before release to make sure any last minute adjustments can be re-done again afterwards.
Yeah, balance is another topic, I’m solely speaking about actual functionality being there. Balance is also a completely different topic and demands a lot of time for testing. The biggest issues for D4 also were misaligned hitboxes and utterly nonsensical color-choices for the combination of enemies and their respective areas they’re found in, quite a few of them being nigh invisible when they happen.
Those are errors created by a bad testing method or testing environment. For such things a boss for example needs to be tested in their respective environment you’ll see them later… and Blizzard clearly screwed up taking visibility into consideration, which is baffling given that PoE struggles with that since ages and hence with the much much cleaner combat methods and less clutter issues D4 should’ve had that easily down to a dot as their main competitor provided more then obvious examples of those mistakes.
Absolutely!
But I can’t know that for example when giving a Steam review. Who knows who might read it? New person coming into the genre? New gamer overall? 5k+ hour fanatic for ARPGs of that type?
So I can’t write one in good conscience with a positive one as doing that would potentially lead those without experience or knowledge into the game and hence having a bad experience. Especially if they pick the game to experience the story and ARPG is a secondary thought for them… which is a group of people that exists.
So I can only recommend it after personally talking to someone, which lowers my reach accordingly.
Yeah, who would’ve ever thought for that to turn out bad, right? 
EHG needs to take measures to hinder RMT through the bazaar, so one way or the other a re-work on how it’s working with taxes, scaling prices and so on is a necessity… but otherwise I would say the core framework at least exists, so it’s a start. They got a myriad of input from a variety of players and I’m definitely curious which parts they take and deem as the ones viable to implement in their time and the highest necessity.
I’ll say that outside of short testing I’ll probably not play if in 1.1 there’s no measures to at least allow actual priority sorting and hence price-checking. I’m someone who enjoy interacting with markets, having been a trader in Eve Online… and hence I can’t deem the market as being very functional since core mechanics for someone wanting to invest themselves into it are simply missing still.
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