Ive seen no talk about issues being fixed and i still havnt been able to play since the pre release stuff. it would be helpful to know whats being actively worked on
So game development changes fast, particularly moment to moment, so I feel daily updates might not prove very helpful here other than seeing âyup, thereâs still work done on it,â which in my experience people tend to get a bit weary of. I can push for more âthis is being worked onâ in the community updates, however.
13 Likes
It would totally help if there would be some kind of roadmap/bug or feature list that is being worked on. Some kind of transparency. It would help you to reduce the posts with questions to things that might being worked on. Add some priorities to that list and as a cherry on top some ETA.
Sounds like a lot of work which it is, but right now it feels (to me) that a big core majority of the player base is frustrated. Just my 2c
Cheers
Chris
5 Likes
Is your whole department shutting itself behind locked doors or something? This is absurd. It shouldnât take a week or so to get an answer from a department lead on the communityâs biggest concerns with this game. Like come on, Iâve worked with a game dev before and theyâre usually quick to respond to issues that I ask them - even a simple," yes we acknowledge this and are working on it", is enough for me.
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Well thatâs the nature of the problem. If youâre followed our history, weâve ETAâed before, and itâs made us very cautious.
The way I see it, from a CM perspective, is daily status updates can create expectations that things are always going to turn out well. The fact of game dev is, is that things are cut, changed, delayed, or re-prioritized quite often. What happened one day might change to something different the next. And that can cause upset externally.
For what itâs worth, we do maintain a list of known issues, both in this forum, in our patch notes, and in our support portal. Weâre working on these issues, and say we are, but people seem displeased with that, and likely will continue to be until the issues are fixed. In my experience, people want to see more âthis is fixedâ rather than âthis is being fixed (for x amount of days you see this status continually)â as the latter can be a longer time period, depending on what we find, changing systems and technology, etc.
I can for sure push for weekly updates when info gets more solidified, however, rather than pushing piecemeal daily that might confuse people.
[Edit: typo]
7 Likes
Thanks for the reply and i agree with you on the expectation part and that people would rather read âitâs fixedâ but a summarized in a table format locked and maintained by CMs on a weekly basis might help a bit. There are the known issues where people can still talk but your answers and bent stasis might be flushed away by the complaints. But right now all these âKNOWN ISSUESâ could and should be consolidated.
Thatâs why i can only tell from my it project management background, that such an bullet point list can help with transparency.
Cheers,
Chris
2 Likes
I would appreciate daily updates posted on this forum. Iâm sure others would as well. People have been constantly criticizing the lack of communications on this forum: One week from launch, no statement? (edit: We had an update/statement but it's uuuh...) - #23 by HK77
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Itâs an interesting idea weâve batted around before, as well. I canât promise weâll have a document like that [like a master post of solved issues outside of what we have in the support portal], but Iâd be willing to float the idea by the team again, of course.
4 Likes
Yeah, as stated, it shouldnt be on a daily basis as you guys have enough stuff to do, but once a week on a friday e.g. the big list would get an update after a jour fixe with the dev team (or better, let them update it, thats what i do in RL 
).
Something along the line like
| Known Issue | priority | Adressed by DEV | Status | ETA | nex update when? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Server Instability | 1 | yes | done | 09.12. | / |
| Untrusted WinTab32 DLL | 3 | yes | 16.12. | ||
| Commodores Vestures Showing no cosmetics | 3 | yes | 16.12. | ||
| hot_join_party_hub_failed | 3 | no | 16.12. | ||
| Connected Devices ⌠| 2 | yes | 16.12. | ||
| Missing cosmetics | 1 | no | 16.12. | ||
| out of memory | 1 | yes | testing | 16.12. | |
| GPU_HANG CTD | 1 | yes | ongoing | 10.12.
|
16.12. |
| ⌠| |||||
| ⌠| |||||
| . | |||||
| . |
and of course a list / or checkmark of solved issues, as that shows of course the progress as well ( or strike through) so people will understand, that things ARE being solved and got that visually. People online are the same people that we all work (mostly) together with, sometimes as customer, sometimes as delivery unit.
That being said, I really love reading from you (and Hedge) and respecting the work, just trying to help where I hope to.
Cheers,
Chris
6 Likes
With the RNG do you look at the forum feedback and then think âmore rng, less funâ is the way forward? With the day one toughness break do you ever think that maybe the community has good ideas and maybe shouldnât be treated with open contempt from the design team?
6 Likes
This sound great!
I know from experience that daily updates are often more bothersome than helpful and therefore I would rather have weekly updates (once a week, not necessarily at a fixed day).
What I also mean: I am sure that most people would be glad if you, Fatshark, but also you, @Aqshy, would not overextend yourself.
We are relentless customers/ fans, true, but not without heart, humour and some patience =)
Keep up the good work!
I think, at this point, what people want most is honesty and transparency.
I donât envy the position youâre in of having to juggle what the design team is comfortable sharing versus what the community is asking for. But on the other hand, the design team needs to understand that reviews post-launch have gone way down, and player counts are dropping.
One suggestion (following from the above), would be to pick a day (e.g. Thursday afternoon your time) to post a status update using an easy to modify chart. List the issues and group them into a few categories:
- Item is designed and in process for implementation (e.g. being coded, QAâd, tested, etc.)
- Item is in design and plans to be implemented (and hereâs the design direction)
- Item is under consideration (and hereâs the factors influencing this)
- Item is not under consideration at this time, with no ETA for when it might be revisited
Once you get this list assembled, you can add a little âupdatedâ emoji or whatever next to the line so people know week to week whatâs changed. Certainly some items will sit in their spot on the list for a while.
Overall, a âlivingâ project management task list like this that is community facing would go a long way towards building some trust and transparency. You could supplement the weekly list update with a few notes highlighting any key points, upcoming dates, etcâŚ
If you can provide general timeframes, that would be good. And feel free to attach whatever disclaimers (e.g. tentative, subject to change, etc.) you need. People are fine if things get delayed, so long as they know the status of whether itâs being worked on or not. If an item gets delayed, just say âran into some technical issues during testingâ etc.
As for a brief starter list of issues weâd love a response to:
- Crafting system - implementation of remaining features, way to craft gray items
- Basic item shop improvements (ways to cycle items outside of hourly timer)
- Expansion of the mission terminal to allow custom mission selection + parameters
- Private and solo mode support
- Bot enhancement - bots to use playersâ alternate characters, AI improvements
- End of mission score board
- Shared resource & inventory across characters (âun-siloedâ progression)
- End of mission reward overhaul - difficulty, bosses, demonhosts, secondaries affecting awards
- Rework to weekly challenges (e.g. remove completion bonus, tie to overall account)
- Penance adjustments - fix bugs and rework most punishing penances on some classes
- Overall balance pass - weapons & class feats
- Prestige levels for going above level 30 (even just a counter)
- Premium cosmetic shop enhancements (full inventory, no timers, way to earn premium currency)
These are the things Iâm tracking, but based on reading the forums here and r/darktide, it seems to be more or less the âbig listâ of stuff people want to see addressed (outside of class-specific balance).
EDIT: A big part of the communityâs frustrating right now is that we âjust donât knowâ what is in the cards for the future of the this game. And so we have no expectations. Itâs all hopes and dreams being dashed. If there are items I listed above that are not going to change anytime soon then JUST SAY SO so people stop getting their hopes up about it.
I saw a great quote during the loading screen last night:
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment
Itâs a bitter quote - but honestly people just want to know.
12 Likes
honestly i just want a post to say what issues are actively being worked on, and whatâs been fixed and how, at this point i have to open up the game to see if the issues have been fixed. I still havnt been able to play the game since launch
@Aqshy a triage document of major issues and priorities would be nice to see, (not the known issues tab cause that doesnt show everything, and none of the errors i get are even on there)
I donât view the forums too much and am new to tide games / Fatshack so hoping this is a different perspective but just wanted to say, for me, this would be amazing. Being able to pop into the forum and have a quick glance at a single thread on priorities, acknowledgements, and (importantly as well) things that arenât going to change / being worked on would be amazing. There is communication now, but itâs not collated and hard to find.
At the moment when I look at threads Iâm constantly seeing people linking CM single posts where the pertinent information is (sometimes after multiple topics on the same). Feel like I almost need to go look at posting history of all the Fatshark flared accounts to know what is going on. Individual threads on issues do show them as tracked but itâs too fragmented.
Need to define the goals first but for me it would be:
- Changing the narrative / perspective of lack of communication
- Changing the narrative / perspective of the community being âignoredâ
- Improving the atmosphere / tone in the community (following on from above])
- Actually providing information easily and quickly.
- I would say a tool for tracking community feedback but I fully expect there are better internal processes being used for that already.
For me it would be something like this as the main pin above the forums:
- Disclaimer - Game Dev is tough, timelines will not be listed, priorities can and will change and no guarantee all this will make it to production
- Exec summary (i.e. the TL:DR) key priorities, overall statement (i.e. current focus until further notice is stability)
- Major requests or recurrent community issues - with a little but of blurb on these (Stability, RNG, monetization, crossplay etc.). One or two Paragraphs (some individual CM posts have Fatsharkâs response well summarised in a few lines even now!)
- List of other acknowledge requests
- list of requests that arenât planned
- Know issues log
- Links (e.g. to post history of CMs and Devs, Blogs, a roadmap when available etc.)
Note the date of the latest edit and highlight changes in another colour. (or two colours for the last two updates).
For major requests / features having a single thread for all feedback on each could be useful as well and linked within the section summary response to each. One RNG thread, one Shop thread etc. (and one source for CMs to then get feedback on priority issues for the devs rather than looking at 20+ smaller threads on the same thing). Also tidies the forums and gives people the feeling they can be heard as they have an official channel on that one issue that they know is being seem (rather than everyone waiting a CM response on their thread to know that!).
Maybe also a tag for threads noting they have been collated in the master list, similar to the acknowledged flair on bug reports. Also,. as above, lets people know they have been reviewed / are heard.
Daily updates in my view are not needed, nor is turning this into a full project tracking tool, thatâs overkill and pointless admin and not needed for the goals. However collating a list like the above is worth in in terms of CBA (on time) for the CMs in my view. A lot of the posts and responses I have seen directly from Fatshark flaired accounts are encouraging and balanced but only when I actually get to see them! A lot of the rest I see from the community had me believing Fatshark and the CMs were on another planet. Itâs disheartening to see all that hard work lost in effect as people donât see it! For the price of a few extra hours per week and changing nothing else done you could have a large shift in perceived communication and of how community raised issues are being addressed / listed to. Same work, more impact.
Having a single url with summary info in my view covers the above goals and added benefit that it;s easy to link to external sites and. (e.g. Steam, reddit).
In addition to this what I have seen before is community led threads as well collating responses to specific issues, i.e. all the CM / dev responses. Putting in all the quotess out of context and out of time though would clutter such a main summary thread and not be from the horses mouth so to speak as things can change. I still think it would be useful to do if there community mods who would take up the role in a second thread. I.e. can link to the specific know issues threads on bugs, link to the major discussion threads on features, have Dev quotes under the feature requests lists that are just bullet points in the streamlined thread.
One thing to note is (if being cynical about it) actual response, actions or level of effort donât need to change, it delivery / accessibility. A lot of this is changing perception and tone of the community but thatâs important for Fatshark. (i.e. the general accepted norms - âfasthark badâ, âdonât listenâ, âpoor commsâ, some of these donât seem fully true to me when I see detailed responses, itâs just not reaching people). You can have a perfect system and project fail simply by missing this buy-in of end users. I.e. even if nothing else changes perception can sink something.
Anyway, thatâs my 0.02c, whatever format it would be great if there was just on place I could drop in and take a read of things. A lot of the more casual folk arenât going to trawl the forums and every thread / monitor dev and CM accounts.
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Even read access to their dev or bug card/ticket system would be much appreciated, but I understand that that could have info they donât want exposed.
While Iâm very dissatisfied with the state of the game I donât think that the community snooping around will do the game any good.
@semn007 seeing what is proactively being worked on is not snooping, it gives the community an understanding of what issues are priority and can somewhat give us an idea on if the issue they are facing will be fixed sooner or later
the benefit to the dev team is that the forum might not be flooded with bug reports if people see the issue exists and is being worked on
I disagree, we want to know your not just leaving things in the shocking state you released that game in. We paid money, up front in good faith in some cases, and got a broken unfinished game with some terrible problems. You and your team absolutely should be telling us what your doing to put that right.
Every day.
I suppose you want some time off for Christmas though so I guess Iâll allow it lol.
1 Like
@Rieven I still havenât been able to get into the game since launch, so even a triage document would be helpful to see whats actively being worked on