We call that confidence 
3 Likes
Thanks. Saw the 3.3 info but didnāt see the GW troops bit.
While Iām not thrilled about that, either - I really am not - the devs said before that they are on a schedule and sometimes pressed for time. After the UI horror, I really had hoped that these things wouldnāt happen again, but I guess it cannot be helped sometimes when third parties are involved and putting up deadlines.
1 Like
I wish the 2 options were: Repeat & Quit - with repeat being on the left for us console players so that it would be selected by default saving us 1 more action after every battle. At least as it is now it reduces the actions from 5 down to 2. But why not go all the way and reduce it to 1 action?
2 Likes
I am sorry you miswrote āoverconfidenceā .
Their schedule should include a beta test. Itās all a question of organisation. It doesnāt seem that difficult to keep a beta version running at the same time than a release one (at least on Steam).
But apparently, they are not interested.
5 Likes
Welcome to āGames as a Serviceā.
@Turintuor, itās not that simple, unfortunately. We are very pressed for time and have a strict turnaround for updates. We will be doing as much QA as possible before release, but organising an open beta is a lot of extra work, time and resources.
3 Likes
I am not sure about that: Branches (Betas) (Steamworks Documentation) (of course thatās only for Steam)
No, this is not how things work. When you implement something new, it sometimes needs to be implemented in one go. You canāt implement half a raid mode or half a troop. And if the raid mode - as example - has to be done until date X and you already can see that you canāt get the whole thing done until a few days before that (hopefully), then doing a beta test is not doable. Itās like when I do translations - they need to be done until date X and if I can only manage to get them done a day before deadline, then I canāt have a friend look over them again before submitting them and can only hope that I didnāt goof somewhere in my hurry (which does happen. A lot. Thatās what being pressed for time does to people).
Itās not just the opening of the beta that is work. Itās also organising players, having somewhere for them to talk, addressing their feedback. It needs someoneās full attention to run an open beta effectively. Also, whenever we run an open beta, we want to make sure that players feel like they are being heard, which unto itself takes time as someone has to go between the players and the devs (holla that is usually me).
And this is only possible to even consider doing if we are finished early.
5 Likes
I donāt want to fan the flames, but dang.
If you donāt have time for QA, itās going to be a mess.
If players arenāt setting the schedule, and player satisfaction isnāt the metric for defining features, who is drawing the roadmap? The last major update was a disaster because it shocked the players. So weāre going to do it again?
As another software dev Iām starting to get the feeling there are lots of frowns in the office. I really hope the smells Iām picking up are my imagination.
3 Likes
Unfortunately, our players arenāt the ones that dictate the schedule. As hardcore as many of you are, you are also great at understanding when we need more time to release things. (I may or may not be talking about Bright Forest and Shocktopusā¦)
You are correct in that I canāt say much more, but we are doing our best! Also, we do have an internal QA team, so the update will be rigorously tested. We just donāt have time for a public beta. When we do have the time I love running them, but it wonāt be possible for 3.3.
5 Likes
+1 for this. #makeithappen
5 Likes
On a slightly related note, you have the patience of a saint.
7 Likes
I am playing a game called Dead Cells. They have 3 branches (i.e. versions) alpha, beta and release/official and any players can jump to any versions. They use Steam forum to get their feedbacks.
And I think itās great and this could be used by GoW.
I hope in the future you will consider this kind of approach 
.
1 Like
Dead Cells is an early access title. Itās a paid beta test (one of my most hated of current gaming trends) so not the same thing as an ever evolving F2P title.
Itās also worth mentioning that beta testing generally isnāt to test new features, itās about nutting out any potential bugs that QA didnāt catch. I canāt think of a single developer that has implemented a beta and then gone, well people didnāt like this so letās scrap a huge chunk of the work weāve just done and focus on something else. Doesnāt happen, they will tweak balancing issues, and again, sort out any bugs that are caught, but entire game modes arenāt decided by beta testers.
Just as another note, if I was a beta tester I would 100% be asking for more Ray Martin in your game, just saying.
10 Likes
You nailed it @Sin_Ogaris.
My point was more about how they manage their different versions.
Itās just a matter of ādo the game is working on new features or notā (like āevolving F2P titleā or early acces games).
Yeah of course and I never said that beta testers would choose if devs should keep Raid Boss mode or notā¦ Maybe the way of respawn is too cumbersome and when doing X battles you get it.
GW should have been released without bracket and with only one defense team for all days. Itās thanks to the feedbacks on this forum that devs thought about it.
2 Likes
I get what you mean, but I unfortunately still canāt agree based on your own information, given that the developers listen to the players (for the most part) and make adjustments based on their grievances it means a beta test isnāt really necessary as adjustments are made throughout the course of the development.
3 Likes
The thing also is that I feel that ācatching issuesā is an undefined thing.
Beta testing is incredibly good for not just catching bugs, but also fight tunnel vision you get when developing stuff. Iām pretty sure that with a beta test, the UI numbers wouldnāt have been too small at the beginning or the banner texts not readable at first. If you develop stuff slowly, you get used to it because you have slow change. We players get hit by it all of sudden and so, the devs are surprised when we have readability issues or migraine from particles.
But at the same time, we still have the semi-transparent board, unreadable text on card borders and whoever decided to scratch an extremely player-friendly feature of making players pick their TH backgrounds in favor of putting the worst background of the game behind it is still at large. Obviously, as these things are still in despite heavy player feedback, they are intended to be that way and no beta test would have changed that.
Because of that, beta-tests are a weird thing to me. If there will ever be an opening for new beta testers, I dunno if I would apply - on one hand, I love giving feedback and want to help, on the other hand I feel it would frustrate me a lot if something that makes the game much worse for me is going to be implemented and all feedback falls on deaf ears.
Also we must not forget the last update, where beta testers gave a lot of feedback for things like the position of keys in the chest menu (gold keys to the leftā¦) and there was an uproar when it wasnāt implemented despite being promised because the devs had sudden bugs to wrangle and then had no more time to change the stuff they originally wanted to change based on feedback. Thatās frustrating for the players and surely also frustrating for the devs (because they know they will get backlash despite wanting to do it right).
6 Likes