New Hotfix Patch

(CCP115) #1

So what do you guys think?
I’m assuming you’ll all love this patch, they just did a bunch of good stuff.

[spoiler]Gotta love being in New Zealand, I can make the thread while every American is asleep B)[/spoiler]

(KattiValk) #2

Phantom is still borderline useless, stickies still go AWOL, and Arty still sucks.

Melee is nice now though. Still a bit funny, but much better than the arthritis epidemic we had to live through.

(Jostabeere) #3

Melee isfine now. Phantom is still not a invisibility-cloaking merc he should be.

(srswizard) #4

Melee is better, obviously, but still a shit.
Not a fan of SD’s approach to balancing things.

(Gi.Am) #5

It’s a hotfix pretty much a “we throw the stuff in we got finished/working and that doesn’t need that much testing” minor release. In this regards it is a mighty fine hotfix, it solved some bugs (and no we can’t choose which one gets resolved first). And it changed melee for the better again. Which I think everyone can agree on, is more usable than it was after the last patch (wether you like the direction melee is going now or not, is a different discussion).

(Edzer) #6

People should remember a Hotfix is not like the Fine Tuning Update they threw at us some time ago, but it’s just a Hotfix. A Hotfix contains nothing more than a couple of bugfixes and sometimes some minor balance changes.

If people are going to get angry at a Hotfix not having fixed enough problems, then these people seriously have some issues. I mean it’s not like this is a major balancing patch but just a hotfix. :confused:

(D'@athi) #7

Same here, it fixed stuff (yeah phantom will still need work, but at least you are able to use meelee again, now… with every class) and drums it didn’t invent new bugs, at least I didn’t see any. That’s a step forward.
But probably the guys doing the forum-maintanance could get those biased polls patchted out?

(ostmustis) #8

Imo they should have released a hotfixed that removed the melee change the day after the fine tuning patch. The new melee is horrible, not quite as horrible as the previous patch but still unacceptable.

I dont understand why they would try to fix a problem by creating a new problem, its a stupid ass way of doing things.

(D'@athi) #9

Dunnno, inability of fixing the underlying problem due to some stuff limited by the engine, missing manpower or just missing skills of programming this engine? I imagine, we can guess all day long.
At least I don’t think they do it on purpose, to anger their customers, even if that’s the outcome.

(Ardez1) #10

If anybody feels like they could do a better job, Splash Damage is hiring. Go apply and let us see what you can do. :slight_smile:

Now, I was going to leave this post at that, but I figured I should explain further.

Dirty Bomb has a small development team. This limits their manpower. Manpower determines how many things on their todo list they can work on at a time. So if they finish working on something they generally move to the next thing. When players become outraged at a change and they need to go back to it and adjust it they pretty much need to drop whatever they were working on to address this demand. This means the more demands the community makes the slower the progress of new updates, features and bugfixes.

Now on to the definite of a hotfix. A hotfix is generally an unplanned patch. Usually a development team has a schedule or cycle of patches they like to follow. In the case of Splash Damage for Dirty Bomb, they tend to do one patch every 2 weeks with a good amount of content or changes. When the release a hotfix it is because of either an urgent issue that need to be address asap or a massive demand by the community. The current hotfix came about because of the recent changes to melee and NOT the recent changes to Phantom. That is why you are not seeing Phantom changes in this patch. It wasn’t the intent of the hotfix to adjust Phantom. It was planned to adjust melee, they had even announced this. Any other fixes added in were just things that were tested and good to go. They would have been in the next patch anyways and were not rushed out for the hotfix(most likely).

Now, why am I talking about all of this? Because the players need to understand what limitations the Splash Damage team is facing. There are limits to what they can accomplish in any weeklong period. Add testing onto that and changes can get pushed back even further, in particular when an issue is found. The reasons for this testing is so that the players suffer as little as possible from any negative patch affects. If the negatives are too extreme, the patch or the particular changes causing the negatives is pushed back until those issues can be weeded out.

TLDR: There is a lot more to a patch then just making a change and releasing it tot he publoc. Players need to understand the reality of the game development process.

(Edzer) #11

Well said Ardez. Really have no clue why people would even dare complain about a hotfix.

(KattiValk) #12

I wouldn’t say anyone is really complaining, but the poll is seriously lacking in options. A hotfix is a hotfix, and I know it isn’t a massive balance rework, but it certainly didn’t solve all my problems.

(Backuplight) #13

This. Not sure why this deserves a thread really. Hotfixes are tiny things.

(CCP115) #14

This. Not sure why this deserves a thread really. Hotfixes are tiny things.[/quote]

To provoke discussion among the community. Besides, it gave Ardez a chance to educate the uninformed.

(XavienX) #15

The melee is better, but it’s just still horrible with how they are trying to balance the hitbox duration and the turn speed, especially when the mercs in this game runs really fast for a FPS game.

(MisterMurder) #16

Hotfix…? More like a COLD one.

(Ghosthree3) #17

Where is the middleground option? Obviously it didn’t solve everything, but it was a good patch regardless.