DE, Never Sellout Please

[(XBOX)DakVoidcloaker]

On 2019-01-08 at 11:03 AM, (PS4)Awesomenisticus said:

Which critical bugs? (I'm generally curious which ones you're speaking of; you noted a "friend of Lotus" issue, if it's easier, PM me) And more importantly, do you feel that DE has "soldout" by not addressing these bugs?

I hope you don't read this as aggressive or antagonistic. This game has had an interesting lifespan so far, and being a part of how it develops over time has been quite enjoyable, despite all the bugs. Their (DE) development targets have changed over time, and I think it's growing pains instead of nefarious actions. And, at some point, some way, a company needs to be profitable, otherwise, they're just hobbyists. You mentioned you were in software development, any game development?

I think the tricap lure bug is the one that really gets me.  I was experiencing it at least 25% of the time (seemingly slightly lower when not originating from the Konzu mission), where at time of capture some or all of the lures are ignored and the beast is killed instead.  I've had very few kills (almost entirely captures), yet my stats are trashed and I feel I've missed out on a lot of arcanes I rightfully earned, not to mention how difficult it makes earning the rare ones that only drop for hydrolysts.  This is an end-game content bug, and I suspect that end-game users don't spend nearly as much on platinum as new users, since they likely are able to earn some when needed.  I haven't run a tricap in many months because the frustration wasn't worth the rewards.  I eventually stopped checking patch docs for the fix, so I suppose it may have been addressed by now, but I would bet money it hasn't.  Support wouldn't even acknowledge the issue when I tried to discuss it, and directed me to a non-working link to submit a bug report.  They certainly were unable to see the lost rewards in any log, and were therefore unable to reimburse players when this happened.

No aggression detected.  I'm probably oversensitive to those players that seem to jump in blindly to defend DE any time something negative is discussed.

No game development to speak of here, but considerable experience in different styles of development and developer management.  Successful development-driven companies almost always have a strong Director of Development, or a wise CTO, who are able to balance new development and bug fixes so that the codebase is relevant but also robust.  From my experience, when Marketing or especially Sales departments start to drive the company, the wheels tend to fall off.

Warframe is a very grindy game, with which I'm fine or I wouldn't be here.  But I think it exacerbates the frustration when you've put your work in on the gridstone and then the game just fails to deliver.   I agree that Digital Extremes needs to be able to make money on Warframe (or it disappears), and I actually think they are generally very close to the right formula here, but I wish they'd take a few extra days a month to squash important bugs.