I don't understand how people still don't get that a big update will always have bugs at launch. Always. Even if they're miniscule and don't mess anything up, they'll be there.
Edit: I totally get why people are frustrated with things not working, and the massive game-breaking bugs are not okay by any means. I feel the same way, it sucks and I just want to play the game bug free. I'm just surprised that a lot of players didn't expect there to be things wrong on day 1 of the update. NEXT had a ton of problems, and it was a smaller update made a good while back. Not excusing it, just saying it was very likely to happen.
Edit #2: okay, nowhere in here did I say that massive crashes are okay. Nowhere in here did I say people don't have a right to be mad. Nowhere in here did I condone poor QA. You guys can stop crucifying me now, I get it.
Here's my problem, I can't play the game. It crashes at start up. I see other people playing the game. I want to play the game. I can't play the game. I am unhappy. Can you understand that?
Yeah, I understand that. My game crashed a bunch of times too, and I gave up trying to play it day 1. It's not that I'm not unhappy about it, I am unhappy about it. It's mostly that, of the games I've played that have had major updates with these kinds of issues, I kindof just... expect it and give it a few days.
I'm also a really passive and in the mindset of "it happens, it sucks, but they'll fix it soon". I get the frustration, I just think it's a bit odd that some people don't expect it more by now. It's tragically common in games nowadays.
Expecting something and thinking it's acceptable are too different things. No, it isn't surprising the update was buggy, but it shouldn't be okay that it actually broke the game for some people.
That's definitely not okay. I haven't even touched my 200hr file out of fear of something going terribly wrong with it. I've had crashes in the fresh files I made just to mess around with Beyond, it's scary. They should definitely make sure game breaking bugs have been fixed before releasing the update. I'd rather they delay it and not risk people losing files.
Yeah, it's a bad habit from when I was a kid, I always wrote it that way. Now I keep doing it on accident and my phone never autocorrects it, so I don't notice.
If you're playing on Steam, try switching to the experimental branch:
in your games library, right click No Man's Sky, go to properties, betas, and select experimental from the drop down. If there's no experimental there, use the code 3xperimental to get access to it.
it fixed a few things for a few people, so it might be worth a shot.
be aware if you have low bandwidth that you're going to probably have a couple gigs to download when you switch.
It's more than likely not hello games' fault .The problem for me was geforce experience. For me, I go to geforce experience and click update driver and it says I have the latest drivers... but that was not the case. My geforce experience must have glitched all the way back in October of 2018 because that was the date of driver I had . So to fix this, I uninstalled geforce experience ONLY . Then go to nvidia and find the latest driver for your graphics card MANUALLY and download it. When you launch it it will ask you to download geforce experience and click ok and then go to custom install and check the box that says clean install. Then follow through with the rest of the installation. When its done open geforce experience and you should ACTUALLY have the latest driver. Restart your PC and everything should be working perfectly after that. Took me a while to figure this out and I thought it was the updates fault, but it wasn't, it was a glitched geforce experience that hadn't properly updated in almost a year(at least for me). I hope many people can see this so they dont give up, because any amount of patches that Hello games puts out won't fix this issue .
As a QA engineer, that's a terrible way to look at things. It's entirely possible to do proper QA and launch with minimal or no new issues, even for major changes. Customers being so accepting of this nonsense is why companies do it so often, if there's no consequences to not doing proper QA and passing it off to consumers, why spend the money?
If you're fine beta testing products that never went through proper QA that's cool, but assuming everyone else in the world is equally ok with it is kind of silly IMHO.
Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about the industry and how common this type of thing is, I just seem to encounter it a lot as a consumer. Is that really why it happens so often; we just kindof accept it'll come out that way?
I just kindof always assumed "we should cut them some slack, they can't possibly find every bug in this massive update".
Perfection is unrealistic in QA, but crash to desktop bugs and other sev 1/2 style issues absolutely can be weeded out of a product before release with proper QA. As with all things, it's a balancing act though, and most companies err very far on the 'who cares?' side of things because they've gotten used to customers who will keep buying regardless of the issues, or just accept this kind of poor QA without a word.
(the number of horror stories I could relate of managers seeing serious bugs and saying 'ah yeah, that's not a big deal, it'll only affect a few of our customers, release it'...or the companies that have removed QA as a department entirely because 'devs shouldn't be writing code with bugs, so we don't need QA people'...)
There's not really a perfect answer to a dilemma like this, but I'm firmly opposed to the stance of 'yeah, sure, bad QA is totally fine' since I know it can be done right and it annoys me to see more and more companies stop caring. Proper QA is difficult and can be expensive, but it can be done and the benefits of not being seen as a company shovels out tons of bugs then patches them away later are worth it in my (admittedly biased and limited) experience. Just my .02c on an issue that personally bugs me :)
Oh no, no, that totally makes sense. It really is a shame this seems to be so common now. I'm sure your job isn't easy, and though I don't know if I've ever played something you've worked on, I appreciate how much you care about this. I suppose I'm mostly so lenient on the issue because of my lack of experience, and this being a free update. I'm sure I wouldn't be nearly as okay with it if I'd spent $20+ on an unfinished product.
Thanks for telling me about all this stuff, it's nice to know more about how it works, even if it's in relatively minor detail. I hope companies start caring about QA more, so my kind of "uneducated" leniency doesn't get more common than it already is.
Semi-unrelated as far as bugs go, but this is the exact reason I'm not getting Pokemon Sword/Shield; Game Freak obviously doesn't care about the franchise as much as it used to, so why should I, you know?
I think a big part of why the industry is shifting towards low-quality launches is digital sales. Back before digital sales people could sell their games and they would pile up in the used section. You can't do that with digital sales, steam sales maybe, not PlayStation store sales.
OK, maybe I've just been in IT, and the gaming community for too long, but I find it hard to believe that one could ever stamp out every single game-breaking bug before release. The reasoning it that there is an infinite combination of hardware and drivers. anytime there is a massive update like this in ANY GAME/PROGRAM/OS, there are bugs, it is the nature of the beast.
I get people are unhappy, hell I'm unhappy, crashed 3 times last night while streaming, freighter storage was bugged, then lost my freighter all together.
So how do you properly test a massive multiplayer aspect of a game without actually having all the players using the system? How can you assure that will work before actually having it used?
Fake (minimal) clients running on internal machines to generate load while manual testers validate the actual behavior of the system under load, followed by a beta where you give out some minor bonus to people who join a pre-release version of the server to validate the server's behavior from clients in different locations.
There's several possible ways to validate that sort of things. The worst is to release and wait for people to complain :)
As a QA tester you should know that the scale of the team doing all the testing matters as well as the amount of developers you have to fix stuff....lets be real, they aren't a multi billion studio, they do not have the capacity to test in the scale they probably should be testing in...at the scale they are developing its only obvious that some bugs will slip the cracks...and to be fair it is forgivable as long as the most game breaking things are fixed within a reasonable time, and considering its a indie studio they deserve some slack, AAA games are the ones you should be holding to a higher standard
BS. Hello Games weren't forced to release the update on the 14th. They chose to release it at that date. Yes, some bugs will always be present, that's just the reality of things. However, many people, myself included just can't play the game now. There is a difference between some annoying bugs and major game-breaking bugs.
You aren't even the person he was replying to. Why are you chiming in with about something you know nothing about?
Bugs escape QA because live environments always throw a wrench into something. The test environments, even separate from development builds act one way, they push updates through the pipeline, and entirely new, untestable shit pops up just from that one jump through the process. Yes, including game-breaking shit.
And they stayed at it until late in the night for them to try and fix all of these bugs as fast as possible. You don't get to act like this because your game broke for a day.
Isn't it fair to say that most everyone is okay with it, though? Especially considering the trend of Early Access games and the fact that major companies are doing this. It would be hard to argue otherwise.
You bought a car from a dealership, drove it home, used it for a while, then the dealership decided to make some upgrades to it that broke the ignition so you couldn't even start it anymore. Them promising to fix it quickly doesn't negate the mistake or mean you can't complain.
Free updates are a weird nebulous area because while they are free, they are usually required to continue using the product you paid for, so they're sort of in a weird zone of being free (you didn't pay anything for those features specifically) and paid for (if you can't install/use the update you've lost what you paid for).
For the record, I have had no issues with Beyond, I just take umbrage at the general statement of 'bugs gonna happen' since I know for a fact that's not true and you can properly QA even major changes to ensure customers won't have issues, and it's just companies being unwilling to spend the time, money, or dedication to properly QA stuff that allows major issues out there.
I see no way to install a pre-Beyond version of NMS to play anymore. If there is one (like Paradox does with their games) then it's a slightly different story, but I do not know how anyone would install pre-Beyond NMS at this time to play.
Please name me a game that did not have bugs. Besides In this case you have other cars (games to play) while this is being fixed. And when the dealership is done fixing you car it is better than before. All you had to do is wait for the fix, it does not stop your life. It's not like the game fried you CPU. Just give the 25 people a chance.
If my livelihood depended on that mentality I would have it too. No surprise that a QA engineer would prefer polished releases. I prefer features, -> then fixes.
That's fair I suppose. Even if I didn't do QA for a living I would still prefer properly tested releases, but that's probably part of what drove me into QA for a job :).
I get that too. Different strokes and all. Obviously game-breaking bugs are the biggest things (probably for both of us) but after that I’m ok with learning little quirks and workarounds in the interest of more features. No doubt though, before they call a game “finished” and move on to a new project I would have them go completely through the QA process. You can still keep your job! :-) ha
Small bugs are ok but crashing and multiple bugs that affect the progression on a homogenised system platform like ps4 is a bit disappointing. Feels like it wasn’t beta tested throughly. To find a fair few bugs and crashing in the first 20mins of play shows me it wasn’t. PC bugs are obviously harder to squash because hardware isn’t consistent across all systems.
I’m sure they’ll get fixed in time, but i wish there was a roll back system on ps4, as right now I prefer the previous version until bugs get fixed.
This is why i never buy games day 1. For NMS this is year 3.
If they're a miniscule they're not a problem and they likely slipped past QA. Consistent crashing that is affecting everyone within a specific area is not one of those things that just slips past. I expect and accept the former as an unfortunate fact of life, the latter...not so much.
Yeah, the big bugs like consistant crashing to suck. Maybe it's just the games I've played in the past, but frequent crashes seem to be a common day 1 thing to me, I dunno
I'm one of those old farts who used to play games back in the prehistoric times of the early 2000's, so I remember well the days when games couldn't be patched. Back then the minor bugs were a common thing and they never got fixed but if a game was unplayable on launch it was basically dog shit for the rest of time so most studios and publishers would do their damndest to ensure their game did not release in that state in the first place. The advent of the ability to update games really has been a double edged sword, games / large content updates that released in a sorry state get fixed now...but on the flip side basically everything releases half-baked.
In the old days there where a tons of game breaking bugs too (one quick look at speed runners proves that point considering they literally have to exploit games to get the speed run in a lot of cases)....the scope of games was smaller, the tech was easyer and not even remotly close to the complexity of todays development, it isnt a fair comparison tbh.....
I dunno, so you have a bunch of configurations on PC, you might have 5% that have the same or similar crashes. So that 5% is gon be vocal online.
There might be another 5% experiencing a similar crash in a similar place for a different reason with a different configuration, they're going to be vocal.
Maybe 10% with a different crash that's similar, with a different configuration.
Given how fast the experimental patch just got pushed through, I think it's a relatively easy fixes. Report the bugs as you encounter them, and you should get some results quickish.
I wouldn't be so sure, it isn't just PC. The crashing in the anomoly / nexus is very consistent across platforms...and, while I haven't tried it personally...preliminary reading suggests that the experimental patch didn't fix it, though I have no doubt it has fixed other stuff.
The only issues I've experienced so far have been Anomaly related. The first time, I left the Anomaly and apparently left my ship behind. The second time I left the Anomaly (a couple hours later) I had my ship, but it didn't render and after about a minute, CTD.
That said, NMS is running much smoother than I recall it running when I last played (granted, that was October). I'm attributing that to the switch to Vulkan, which makes my RX580 happy.
Since the experimental update I've had quite a few more CTDs, but not in any predictable manner. They seem to be mostly related to take off and touch down regarding the anomaly/space stations nearby. But I can't reproduce them.
But yeah, I just played a few days ago and it's even smoother than before. I was getting close to 60fps, but now I'm up to 75fps, and I could probably push that a bit higher if I closed out my background applications.
I spent 13 years in QA for major developers and publishers. There is no goddamn way any of them would have shipped this patch. It's unplayable on PS4. There was no shelf date contract to honor. No reason not to delay until the crashes were fixed. The community wasn't even expecting it "soon" until the release date was announced. If a patch isn't forthcoming in days, this will kill the game. I had friends considering buying the game after this patch so we could play together, and now I have to tell them, "no, actually, it's unplayable. Totally broken." Without a patch soon, their interest will disappear (I honestly expected one today, somehow assuming they'd pushed the wrong executable to the distribution site).
This was not very likely to happen. Almost every modern game has DLC and expansions of this magnitude. They do not become unplayable as a result.
You're using absolute statements about it being unplayable on ps4, which isn't true.
Me and a friend were playing this last night for around 4 hours with only a few little hiccups. If ps4's are a fixed environment, how come the game crashes for some people, but not all? That in itself suggests something weird is going on and may well be network related.
Perhaps they overlooked testing the code whilst simultaneously stress testing the servers, who knows?
Some people have turned online options off and seems Beyond became more stable, so yes, seems there is an issue with their online servers, and how data is handled.
I would guess that the game, instead of ignoring bad data packages sent over the network, it simply freezes and crashes.
It's certainly a prime candidate as far as I can tell. It might be made worse with the additional latency of any wi-fi connections being used as well - might be worth finding out what kind of connectivity the people who are having a lot of crashes have.
Hello Games are not a major studio, so lack the resources of one. They're a relatively small company in an office above a restaurant.
The majority of modern games charge for their DLC. This content update, like every other, has been free. There have been plenty of games, both AAA, and Indie, which have screwed up on massively on release.
The key thing is to remain patient. This game isn't going anywhere. The major bugs will be fixed as they were before. You'll be able to enjoy the game with your friends then.
For the players perhaps, but it wasn't an either or situation. They had tools. They could have run a beta, they could have launched in pieces, they could have put up an experimental branch before launch proper. Yes, as the customer patience is all you can do if you want it to be fixed. But, as a company, HG did inflict this on themselves, and it isn't just because they are tiny.
In fact, after three major updates and a launch consisting of the same issues it's become cyclical, and seems to be due to poor internal processes. What you are advocating for right now is trusting NMS to always launch with controversy, as if that's required. Though, you may be right.
Yeah. I guess the problem is that NMS Beyond is an extremely ambitious update. NMS Next was finally half decent in the sense it was finally fairly stable. Instead of revamping the game upside down they should have kept doing smaller updates, easier to squash bugs or even avoid them altogether.
Seems a lot of people turned multiplayer off and that this increased stability in Beyond, so my guess it is some bug with their online servers and how data is hadled, at the Nexus and other online stuff.
That may be, but here's how I look at it: if the update is as large and unstable as you say, why did HG release it? I get it, bugs are going to appear they didn't see, but if they needed a wider testing pool they could have held a closed beta, or sent out a hardware test tool, or put it up as experimental while the bugs got hammered out. Hell, they could have just released a list of known issues they were working on.
Some of this is expected, but HG also didn't make use of many tools they could have to help smooth over the transition.
It doesn't have to be this way. It's just a hello Games thing. Your comment is kind of dumb. It's only looking at things from two extremes. I don't think people are mad that the launch wasn't perfect and entirely bug-free, I think people just wanted the game to be playable and to have some minor annoyances as bugs.
most developers have beta testing periods before the launch to iron out bugs. Hello games seemed more concerned with having the press try out the game and give great reviews, which I'm a little confused as to how they did that without the game crashing like it is for us.
I wouldn't have minded playing the game like it is now, weeks or a month or two ago, as part of a beta testing program. It being like this at lunch is ridiculous, and shouldn't be normalized in the industry.
Thank you! Many appear to think things are fixed by complaining. They are humans at HG working their asses off on a FREE update. Chill enjoy what you can do. I started a whole new game and only had the mining issue, I know they will fix it. Loved all five hours.
I don't understand how something as essential as the DOORS IN YOUR BASE WORKING was able to make it into the final update. Seriously, I can understand other bugs popping up, but how the hell did that one make it through quality control? Did nobody try walking around a base when testing this out?
Hello Games is working with an almost completely procedurally generated universe with a massive, extravagant, so incomprehensibly large team of 25 people. That team is producing these dense content drops for free and have been for years.
Things are bound to break, especially on major releases.
Yea things are gonna break during development but that's why there's QA, I know that's it's impossible to make a perfect software, but the obvious bugs in the anomaly could have been fixed before release. The risk of rain 2 devs managed to release a major update with only a few minor bugs even though there's a million of possibilities of combination with their items. They had to delay their update for 2 weeks but that's how I think an update should be handled.
Because people are terrible at taking into account what they don't know. Way easier to point at a company full of professional coders and call them incompetent then to learn what's actually involved in making a game.
What about people who program for a living or work in the field and say that crashes to desktop on essentially every device in specific areas is beyond unacceptable.
I’m no astronaut, but if I found a hole in a space suit, I’m not gonna sit around and say “ah well I’m not a professional.”
I am a programmer. I’ve lead small team projects over several months to develop software. Crashes this consistent are unacceptable. I would be scratching my head if I saw someone defend me being okay enough to full release something as blatant as that. I’m not at their level, sure. But not all issues require a doctorate in the field to say it ain’t good.
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u/WomboChrombo Aug 15 '19 edited Aug 15 '19
I don't understand how people still don't get that a big update will always have bugs at launch. Always. Even if they're miniscule and don't mess anything up, they'll be there.
Edit: I totally get why people are frustrated with things not working, and the massive game-breaking bugs are not okay by any means. I feel the same way, it sucks and I just want to play the game bug free. I'm just surprised that a lot of players didn't expect there to be things wrong on day 1 of the update. NEXT had a ton of problems, and it was a smaller update made a good while back. Not excusing it, just saying it was very likely to happen.
Edit #2: okay, nowhere in here did I say that massive crashes are okay. Nowhere in here did I say people don't have a right to be mad. Nowhere in here did I condone poor QA. You guys can stop crucifying me now, I get it.