--- snip Updates bad with dumb example of Rail Gun slow motion Nerf ---

There is plenty of evidence that CCP/Shanghai is lacking in demonstrative skill sets for any software development much less game development.

Adding your requirement of one minor thing at a time would mean that we would need to play Dust for decades. Why? Because each test will take a week. Do the math. Not gonna happen.

As far as the low level of professionalism they lack decent QA, the product does not spew bug logs, even as an option and possibly not even on developer systems for QA. That is evident if you have ever tried to establish a problem with [email protected]. No, they have to match your setup, get into a battle and see for themselves what is happening. Dude/dudette you should be able to get that information in a text file. Really.

They have released into the wild items that were only for developer consumption. The release trigger was pulled and the Pilot Drop Suit variant was in the system. Documented with, luckily, no way to buy it. So just a portion of it got out. A proper system designed by software developers that knew what a release system is and how it should work never would have let that happen. It is just one example.

And the best one is about releasing a new product after months of Beta on a different product? That is not portray genius level thinking here.

The tendency to deliver Day 1 OP weapons might well be part of the business model, driving more SP/ISK/AUR use, but it more likely that they truly don't understand the problems they are presenting to their customers.

The fixes that happen between patches have gotten better. A significant portion of them used to fail or took much longer to actually get the system running once again.

Some improvement has happened. But they are very slow about getting to a proper release cycle.

Many of these balance issues could be solved or at least make very clear with a proper API. Let us see what the most effective weapon is, the average number of bullets fired by that weapon and the average number of rounds required to kill various suits. An OP will pop to the top, even New Berries would be able to see it as an issue.


* And the RG example was just a sideways attack that I disagree with.

The rail turrets not being able to turn or aim up and down...are you serious? They would be useless, and for what reason? Because the OP doesn't like tank snipers...don't get me wrong I hate them too, when they are on my team. They are useless, but the reason why updates fail is that the issuing of simultaneous nerfs and buffs only reverses the imbalance.

Example number one: CCP buffed tanks and nerfed AV at the same time. Result: militia tanks that can barely be killed with prototype AV.

Example number two: armor buffs and shield nerfs at same time. Result: Caldari players now have to try to armor tank to survive being looked at in a fire fight.

The worst part about these examples is that they are short sighted. Shields got the nerf not because armor was weak, but because the player base was still butt hurt about the Caldari logistics suit's horrible shield bonus. AV got the nerf, not because it was OP, buts because it had prototype level and vehicles still only had advanced, even though standard to standard and advanced to advanced were pretty close to balanced. This community tends to push for role reversal over balance, with a mind set along the lines of "I got kittened too many kittening times...now it's their kittening turn to deal with that bull kitten!" I would like to say that this will change, but honestly I don't see it changing as long as CCP keeps listening to the idiots that push these "fixes."

Changing to many things at once, especially things that coincide with other things, instead of changing one thing at a time test it then moving on to the next thing, you put them all in at once and something is bound to f**k up somewhere.

Im a tanker, and I havent run a tank in a few weeks, looking at all these tank posts and what you should do.

I say start on one of the problems, I think the rail gun its a long hard look at before anything else and the posts suggesting to fix them, dont just decrease damage, range, rotation speed, charge time, angle of attack or ammo per clip. Pick one that stands out try it out if theres no change revert and try the next. Yes it will take longer but do you really want everyone at your heels again saying they suck change it back its just a vicious circle which im sick of.

I personally think if the railgun tank could only shoot straight ahead and not being able to look up or down the rest could (key word could with a chance of not working) the rest of its OPness may balance out, red line tanks would have a hard time lining up a shot and would either waste time trying to, or leave the redline to try and get that sweet spot. Dropships would stop complaining as much as the only way to get at them would be to angle themself on a hill to be able to aim at them, in which they are vulnerable to anything right in front of them while they move back and forward to get the right shot on, if your sitting like a duck you deserve to get popped by the railgun since the effort put into aimming on you means your camping. We would see more railguns moving into battle, if a railgun drives right upto u drive up a hill and down the other side, use the railguns advantage to aim at you dropships etc against him. Whether or not this is applied to installations wouldnt bother me since im not concerned about them as much as the tanks.


Now, if that doesnt work try something else, test it out blah blah blah, you see where im going withthis, the same should apply to dropsuits weapons everything, to many changes in one hit (sings aloud) two worlds collided . Anywho my 2 cents whether its read acknowledged or not. Take it in and think again before you change evrything again.


Peace out.

Fire the current patch makers and get a hotfix team :) dump the old slowpokes and bring in some fresh concepts

Have you ever reverse engineered a pile of noodles all knotted up on your plate? What you are asking would be just like that. It is hard enough for the current Dev team to go through the uncounted thousands of lines of code that make up Dust514, let alone someone unfamiliar with the code, to find the errors.

Yes there are most likely common programming practices being used such as commenting the code, but his still doesn't separate the good, the bad and the ugly. Something that has taken years to debug (not fixed yet but Soon TM) for the current team would take longer for the backup coders.

This also doesn't fix anything because the problems with one bug being fixed and then reappearing are most likely the result of an old copy of Dust being used to patch a newer version that has had a bugfix applied can replicate the bug in the newest version.

Most often these are things like math errors or typos. Sometimes is a fail balance pass over/under nerf and buff all at the same time. All of these thing are just human errors of which the solution to any and all of these things are usually just putting more man hours into them. Adjusting and fixing them as they are discovered.

Do your part by filing accurate bug reports, it can be a huge help to the team and ultimately this is a wiser solution than bringing on a whole new Dev team that potentially wouldn't be any better or worse than our current one. I for one have faith that the people working on Dust right now are the ones capable of fixing the problems so long as they can down enough Quaffe Ultra to keep them sound of mind and wide awake.

Have you ever reverse engineered a pile of noodles all knotted up on your plate? What you are asking would be just like that. It is hard enough for the current Dev team to go through the uncounted thousands of lines of code that make up Dust514, let alone someone unfamiliar with the code, to find the errors.

Yes there are most likely common programming practices being used such as commenting the code, but his still doesn't separate the good, the bad and the ugly. Something that has taken years to debug (not fixed yet but Soon TM) for the current team would take longer for the backup coders.

This also doesn't fix anything because the problems with one bug being fixed and then reappearing are most likely the result of an old copy of Dust being used to patch a newer version that has had a bugfix applied can replicate the bug in the newest version.

Most often these are things like math errors or typos. Sometimes is a fail balance pass over/under nerf and buff all at the same time. All of these thing are just human errors of which the solution to any and all of these things are usually just putting more man hours into them. Adjusting and fixing them as they are discovered.

Do your part by filing accurate bug reports, it can be a huge help to the team and ultimately this is a wiser solution than bringing on a whole new Dev team that potentially wouldn't be any better or worse than our current one. I for one have faith that the people working on Dust right now are the ones capable of fixing the problems so long as they can down enough Quaffe Ultra to keep them sound of mind and wide awake.

If it was DUST's stand alone engine running it? then sure bringing in new blood and then having to teach them to run off your engine and develop around it can be a learning process...

But this is Unreal Engine 3... Thief The Recent Playstation 4 game was done on UE3... which performed at high frames rates consistently. Even though the texture tears and pop in's That Unreal Engine 3 is known for it was still solid.

There are expert's in Unreal Engine 3 out there... Most of the developers at CCP are young and probably havent done much with UE3 before they had to make the switch from the Carbon engine to the Unreal Engine 3...

UE3 works well for budding developers.. Because a Developers license costs 100 bux. When you Release the game to public its 25% royalties on revenue earned... or a million bux for the license.

DUST will have the same problems until More budget for DUST 514 is put aside to develop, optimize Or purchase a license agreement from a better engine..

Updates fail not because they change too much.

They fail because they don't add enough content, and they spend too much time balancing vs fixing.

Content should have been the priority long ago (like PVE), but second to that should be actual fixes for things like hit registration, lag, broken terrain, sticking, etc. Balancing shouldn't even be done at this early stage.

Content is one thing entirely different from having a working game Buster, we've discussed this in the past and I agree more content more game but if you build this content on bad code are we ever going to have a working game?

I understand your point as well, but we don't have players with a stale game. You probably know my little mantra, and I think it's appropriate here:

Players will play a flawed but interesting game. They will not play a boring but flawless game.

My point being that content does trump stability....to a point. Now many will claim that we're already at that point but I disagree. There are plenty of buggy, unstable games out there that are very successful. Many of these games are actually quite a bit more buggy than Dust.

What they have that Dust does not is a compelling reason to log in and play.

I understand your point as well, but we don't have players with a stale game. You probably know my little mantra, and I think it's appropriate here:

Players will play a flawed but interesting game. They will not play a boring but flawless game.

My point being that content does trump stability....to a point. Now many will claim that we're already at that point but I disagree. There are plenty of buggy, unstable games out there that are very successful. Many of these games are actually quite a bit more buggy than Dust.

What they have that Dust does not is a compelling reason to log in and play.

I agree with that as well, its at a by-pass 50-50, maybe abit more to one side or the other, but the new content has been given more attention then bug fixing.

As to the other nitwit that posted, this isnt just about nerfing, its about fixing and I dont think you understood tit properly, that was my "PERSONAL" opinion, yes given its not popular being a tank I think railgun tanks need a look at, the point being is changing to much in one hit will cause unforseen bugs exploits etc. So either read it through or dont bother posting again :)

You are quite right anaboop, changing too much at once does lead to problems as seen with the nerf hammer updates we have had thus far in Dust history.

In all reality failing to make the game in the way you specifically want it to be does not equal a failure, merely that they did not succeed at doing what you wanted them to. They can't be faulted for that because in all reality there are at least 3500 other people playing, many of which give opinions, ideas and feedback about what they want devs to do, it is the devs choice what they include and what they don't.

Updates fail not because they change too much.

They fail because they don't add enough content, and they spend too much time balancing vs fixing.

Content should have been the priority long ago (like PVE), but second to that should be actual fixes for things like hit registration, lag, broken terrain, sticking, etc. Balancing shouldn't even be done at this early stage.