First impressions

[peregrine]

I recently bought the game and have enjoyed playing it so far, the map is well laid out and easy to use for the most part, and I like the various levels of complexity. What I haven't liked so far is the general feeling that the CSA is ahistorically powerful, especially with their economy, also it seems that on higher difficulty levels the AI cheats pretty badly, and still doesn't show much in the way of smarts or aggressiveness. Will the AI be improved in later patches? I hope so, because fighting ridiculous battles where your AI opponent defeats you no matter the circumstances gets old pretty fast.

Overall I'm still playing it but I'm more and more unhappy with the AI opponent the higher the difficulty is set.

[Gil R.]

Changes are being planned for the upcoming patch that would address your concerns to some extent. Use the time spent waiting to learn the game -- you've got a massive manual to digest!

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

Changes are being planned for the upcoming patch ...

And when might that be? Last I saw was early January which by my reckoning has come and gone. [;)]

[Gil R.]

You're twisting my words: I never said "early January," I said "early Januaryish"!

The reason that prediction has proven inaccurate is that we're putting far more into the patch than we originally intended. That takes time to program and to test. But we'll be addressing a lot of the major concerns out there, so it's well worth the delay.

[elmo3]

Well as long as it's a biggerish patch then I'm OK with late Januaryish.

[Johnus]

Gil R.:

I mean this as a genuine question, without sarcasm. What is the rationale behind delaying a patch for new improvements, as opposed to setting a deadline for things to be addressed and issuing a second patch for the new improvements ? Are two patches a big complication over one ? Erik has said, when addressing a problem: "That is corrected in the beta I'm using." It makes the consumer think: "If that is fixed, why don't I have the fix ?"

[Gray_Lensman]

ORIGINAL: Johnnie

Gil R.:

I mean this as a genuine question, without sarcasm. What is the rationale behind delaying a patch for new improvements, as opposed to setting a deadline for things to be addressed and issuing a second patch for the new improvements ? Are two patches a big complication over one ? Erik has said, when addressing a problem: "That is corrected in the beta I'm using." It makes the consumer think: "If that is fixed, why don't I have the fix ?"

Or at least a "Beta" patch, for the general public to mess with. There were a lot of "Beta" patches for WITP, followed by comprehensive patches, and all of them were well received. As a matter of fact, that is the reason I purchased FoF, even though I had already read that there were some bug problems.

[Twotribes]

If the two are now combined they have an obligation to test it so that NEW bugs are hoepfully caught and crushed before issueing the "patch". Valid question before the two , patch and new stuff, were combined, now it may be moot.

[ericbabe]

ORIGINAL: Johnnie
Gil R.:

I mean this as a genuine question, without sarcasm. What is the rationale behind delaying a patch for new improvements, as opposed to setting a deadline for things to be addressed and issuing a second patch for the new improvements ? Are two patches a big complication over one ? Erik has said, when addressing a problem: "That is corrected in the beta I'm using." It makes the consumer think: "If that is fixed, why don't I have the fix ?"

It's much more efficient to test many things in a longer length of time than to test fewer things in shorter lengths of time.

[decaturkev]

Patches and upgrades are two separate activities. Normally, patches are used to correct coding errors. While updates are used to add new or addtional features to the program.

[Gil R.]

But "updates" are issued through patches...

[Joram]

I don't mind small incremental patches but I hate beta patches.  That's all we got in CoG!  Hope you fix all the bugs you set out to fix in the patch!

[General Quarters]

I'm impatient for the patch too, but I am glad a lot of things are going to be changed instead of only a few and that a lot of beta-testing is going into it to avoid unintended consequences.

[General Quarters]

I also meant to say, in response to the complaint about the AI, that I see the role of the AI in a game like this to be primarily a learning tool or sparring partner. This game is ideally suited to PBEM, and players who want a real and interesting challenge should move to PBEM.

[Feltan]

In most software environments, patches fix user/developer reported defects and new versions introduce added features. This is done for a number of reasons, a prime one being that testing is more straight forward and you can reduce the probablity of introducing regression defects (a regression being a defect caused by fixing a previous defect -- the bane of software development). Smaller development organizations tend to mix the two together -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not. We've all probably witnessed worse case scenarios where a released patch actually makes the game worse, and the developers have in essence lost control of a stable baseline. It happens. However, the good sign here is that testing seems to have a high priority.

Regards,
Feltan