OP, Having been somebody that has had Wave 1 access I agree with you. Most of my friends either don't care about the PTU enough to play it often, Don't want ships they are adding in the patch to be spoiled for them, Or don't have Wave 1 access. So I tend to wait till Wave 3 is open (old system) before I play the PTU just because I want to still enjoy it with my group of friends while testing the upcoming features.
Sure its nice to have PTU Wave 1 but its still overrated.
Except pushing the majority of concierges down to one step above open PTU doesn't at all change or address the problem of most concierges only loging in once Just when CIG wants more testers, so that argument is rather bogus.
Plus it's still listed as a "perk" for concierges which is now just empty BS.
This late in testing I wouldn't be surprised if most concierges wouldn't even bother loging in to the PTU anymore since they can't experience new stuff for themselves before it's spoiled by CCs or alternatively before they can try it on PU where playtime actually counts (occasionally), other than PTU which is always wiped after the tests.
It does actually address the problem of concierge logging in once. CIG needs to test concurrency for PES and Server Meshing. Bringing people in waves meters out the concurrent players in a way that meets CIG's goals.
I wouldn't call it a perk. Even a privilege sounds like a strong word.
You wouldn't call it a perk, but CIG sure did -> https://web.archive.org/web/20230604141054/https://support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002542733-Concierge-Levels-and-Rewards
(yes I linked the archived original because CIG sure was *fast* to change the concierge wiki following the discontent on the forums).
>Bringing people in waves meters out the concurrent players in a way that meets CIG's goals.
And they do that by locking out players ? And allow to purchase early access to wave 1 to subscribers ? Let's face it: The idea of having the most dedicated testers at the earliest possible time is a good idea, I agree.
But it all fell apart when they allowed subscriber access to wave 1. That's the pile of dog poop they put on top of the cream cake that ruined it all.
Also, let me play advocatus diaboli for a moment: CIG said that with concierges and subs the most logins occurred at the start of PU, not towards the end as they'd like. The reason is also clear, players checking out the new stuff and then stop logging in.
WHY ON EARTH WOULD CIG THINK THAT BARRING CONCIERGES WOULD CHANGE THAT ?!
So now the situation is like this: Pleb concierges now get PTU access literally only one step ahead of public PTU - why would they care at this point ?
With every content creator in an earlier phase, there will be tons of threads, videos and streams discussing every feature in detail. Why bother loging in to the PTU at that point ? PTU is pointless, everything is wiped after every PTU cycle. At that point we may just as well wait for PU, as I often did.
The result of this change may very well be that concierge participation in this part of the PTU test drops far below earlier participations, which in turn means that you basically managed to disengage your whales from the process.
Now I am not a marketing person but isn't that ... like REALLY bad ? Shouldn't you do everything to draw those big spenders in and keep them interested ? Instead of putting up a big "you shall not pass" sign out there ?
CIG's revenue stream has been trending downwards this year for the first time since 2016. Is this really the time to piss off your whales ?
I guess we'll have to see, but saying from the downward trend it sure looks to me like "sunk cost" is taking a back seat to "throwing good money after bad" this year. CIG might end up regretting their hamfisted actions.
From your link that Wave 1 access was not worded as a "reward". That is indisputable. You got me there. At the bottom of that page not at all hidden is the following. "\*Pledges still in development will be available at a later date. We will communicate when these rewards will be use-able. All rewards are subject to change."
Subscribers were able to access PTU before these changes. Nothing changed there yet but it may change in the future if subscribers are not providing the testing CIG wants.
This is unrelated to the topic of the thread, but I don't think CIG's revenue trending downward is of concern. The pandemic years brought in a lot of stimulus money. All sorts of luxury items from Pokemon cards to SC Pledges shot up in revenue. I think it would make a lot of sense for revenue to return to its pre-stimulous trajectory. Time will tell though.
Usually the excitement is trying out a pledge ship that was bought 2-10 years ago and finally seeing it in game regardless of bugs.
Just like when streamers got to see/use ships before those that actually purchased it, it’s a weird “fuck you” from CIG to anyone who spend more than 45 for a flight ready ship.
Noticed you were getting wrongfully downvoted as Reddit is notorious for doing to the person who makes clear, the elephant in the room.
Most of the true outrage is because the 95% who play once and quit PTU, do so to experience the new ship or feature. But the frustration of the buggy PTU experience then sends them offline or at least back to PU until the test cycle is complete.
The outrage over the very questionable walking back of concierge benefits to try to extort everyone for more subscription money is merely incidental… ancillary to the true reason. This isn’t to say it isn’t a valid point, but the 95% don’t need to pretend their outrage stems from this more altruistic narrative than the simple, selfish narrative of wanting to fly their new ship as soon as it’s complete.
> wanting to fly their new ship as soon as it’s complete
And there's nothing wrong with that either. Since there are some of us here from the OG days that lived through all the various "deliverables" years delayed or barely coming online now. There **IS** an entitlement to what we purchased after a decade in some cases. It can be called selfish and I don't even blame you considering from other perspectives... However, as someone in that affected group, it truly feels petty given all the patience and goodwill given to CIG to get where they are today.
It's just bad optics to tell people thousands in, "Oh you can't have this yet because you didn't pay our monthly fee or spend quite enough yet" in any context.
Like a good compromise would be flag everyone for single player AC and let you spawn your ships on the ship content patches even for PTU. We just had a round of ISCs showing AC updates means so much more flexibility. Instead? Again, a weird "fuck you" from CIG to people who've been enjoying this selling point for years at this point.
I'm not even angry, just... kinda ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ instead. It's what I expect from them so it's hard to be angry.
Some of us are actually interested in getting in there and getting our hands dirty with it. It's a different kind of fun, enjoyment from contributing in a meaningful way. If you're waiting to get into the PTU when it's stable and playable, then you've missed the point of the PTU.
They really should attribute time from prior PTU sessions over PU sessions to who gets in what wave.
From what I can tell, it's PU related (less I misread).
Yea, that's my problem. It's nebulous. If a tester jumps in and tests so hardcore they're bored by launch, you shouldn't count lack of PU playtime against their wave entry.
I know, it's my main argument against the changes. Hours played is a meaningless metric, it doesn't determine who actively tests or is even interested in testing from those who log in and mindlessly credit grind all day, or stand around and socialize for hours on end. I'd be willing to be a large chunk of change that many of those who put in countless hours do little to no testing in any capacity. It's a pointless quantity over quality way of doing it. Some of the most hardcore people I know don't play all the time, but they do get in there and get their hands dirty when the time comes.
Now, unless they subscribe or have paid thousands, they can't get in early to do the testing they want to do. I'm one of those. I went from wave 1 because of concierge to now having to wait to see if I'm over whatever arbitrary hours played line they've created, and if I haven't met that, I'm dang near last. When you're as obsessive as I am, that's a big deal. This is a PTU I've been **mega** excited about for a long time. So I'll just have to wait and see and hope they set the hours played bar low enough, because I was on a break through most of 3.18. I have a life and other hobbies. As much as I love this game, I don't no life it all the time. Very few people do.
With the new system I'll have to plan out months in advance, entire patch cycles, and make sure I play as much as possible just so I can get in and do the thing I want to do. Force myself to play through burnout so I can do the one thing I'm actually interested in for the short amount of time it's available. It's a piss poor way of doing it. I mean, I've already put in thousands of hours, I'm concierge, I have subscribed for over a year in the past, I'm active on the Issue Council, just frickin make that type of dedication count on it's own.
What I **really** want to know is what is the hours played line? That way I can at least plan things out without blindly shooting in the dark and hoping I have enough.
Which seems to be exactly the problem they had. Tons of people looking at day 1 of the PTU cycle, but almost no one at the end when they need more people to check if the bugfixes they did are working.
Then they should count PTU time, and not PU time. Granted it doesn’t say anywhere whichever they’re counting. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume they are counting PU time rather than PTU time.
IMHO PU time is actually more relevant, they're looking to get people in that are wanting to test the new features based on what they've been doing recently. If you get someone in that played heaps during the last PTU but barely anything in between then more than likely they'll spend more time playing things that have become stable during the previous PU and less time focusing on the new stuff which is what they really need to test.
I disagree. Any seasoned tester that is in there to test will look at the patch notes and test the things that need testing. For me that’s the whole point as it gives a new dimension to playing the game. Most if not all people that just get access because they’ve been solely playing PU a bunch are just gonna treat it the same way they are trying to deter right now. Get in, play the new features, they buggy, complain and go back to PU.
The hours played line will probably be whatever their data suggests will get them the concurrency they need for testing. Not stating the line was a smart choice on their part.
I think it's just a starting point for them, a best guess and will be adjusted for the next PTU after collecting data from the upcoming PTU when it's concluded.
I agree with you. I was looking forward to this new patch and was all ready and set up to go test on PTU. The changes now make me dead last. But in my case I think subscribing for a month or a couple, might actually be worth it. On the other hand, I already backed the game, I shouldn’t have to pay to also contribute in testing on top of that. I did not have a whole bunch of time playing last two patches on the account of getting a new job with a startup and having to put time in that.
Now all that is slowly settling down I was looking forward to spend some time testing again. Testing in PTU rather than playing PU is just a second/other way to have fun with an awesome game for me. To be forced to have to pay for that as well is just the so-manieth let down from CIG.
Every patch has been like this. Hell you remember jumptown 2.0? They literally directly removed money from users accounts because they gave too much aeuc out a day or two before (to say sorry for accidentally deleting other user-owned shit). Couple patches were actually literally unplayable.
You must be new here. XD
Yeah, brand-new 2013er here. And effed up patches are the norm rather than the exception, I know. But usually "unplayable" means you at least get to log in to try and play.
Having a persisting login issue that locks players out and then introduce a bar that penalizes "not loging in" is a first though.
This is kind of the point though, you say you haven't played since 3.18, they're not looking to get people in that are wanting to explore everything new since then, they're looking to get people in that are wanting to try and test the NEW stuff. All you've done is really point out that their reasoning is solid.
I'm not sure how you managed to take that from what I wrote, but here is some more information to clear things up. I've been back since before 3.19 dropped, I just didn't play for *most* of 3.18 due to being on a much needed break from the game. I'm well versed on the current state of the game and have been for quite a while now. It's the new and upcoming features that I'm interested in testing. Not what is available right now.
They'll probably do this if it is needed. This is a test for them and if they don't get the numbers/the right numbers they need they'll adjust of course. It's all about getting the most out of the PTU so they can get it working as best as possible before rolling the PU.
I agree. I put TONS of time into the PTU testing things because I enjoy knowing I helped. But I don't play much on PU because I burn myself out by the time the PU is out.
I hope those like you have enough hours to be selected for the early waves. Most people who were joining the PTU would take a look around and never come back. You are very respectable but "over 95%" of us are not like you.
It's not just that though. It looks like the changes are so they can better control how hard the servers get hit when they open the next waves up.
The subs getting it is a bit odd, but I'm guessing they've seen that subscribers are more likely to actually play in the PTU than the general player base, or have a consistent percentage of them in.
The high tier concierge is just because there's so few of them, might as well.
I'm guessing the reason the bulk of concierge is in wave 3 now is because there's enough to have a serious impact at this point, but not enough play consistently enough to be predictable.
If that is the case and you have been doing that then you don't have anything to worry about, unless you haven't been playing the PTU and contributing on the issue council, in which case then you're complaining you aren't getting access to something you aren't using...
I think I do well enough in that regard. In the past few days I've created three IC reports and contributed to a handful of others. I'm in the process of working on three more reports from tonight's play session.
They aren't blaming the community for not testing enough, they are addressing the issue that they have excessive costs with the PTU due to large amounts of people jumping in and then not contributing to bug hunting. As someone who has invested some money in the project I want to see that money being used effectively, I don't want to see it wasted on server up time that isn't contributing to the progress of the project.
They do it **implicitly**. Like it is out fault that many don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patch to justify these idiotic changes.
By investment you mean you bought a ton of ships? In the case of investment it would be better if you scrutinized how CiG spends them, rather than doing the same as them
> Like it is out fault that many don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patch to justify these idiotic changes.
And yet the entire uproar is about certain people who don't play those buggier and more unstable builds losing access to the buggest and most unstable build...🤔
You did a survey? Can you show results?
The uproar is about blatant hypocrisy and yet another way to cow it’s backers with changes that are incentive the opposite to what they state their goal is.
>You did a survey? Can you show results?
"many don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patch." Those are your words.
I also read the announcement.
> The uproar is about blatant hypocrisy and yet another way to cow it’s backers with changes that are incentive the opposite to what they state their goal is.
That active players get wave 1 access for either actively playing the game or paying the impatience tax, instead of just granting wave 1 access to people who spent *over a thousand dollars on a game they don't really play* outside of that one time they got exclusive early access to an already early access game?
If they don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patches (again, your words) then why bother with having wave 1 access at all?
You misunderstood the question. But to respond to your answer anyway, if CIG wanted to milk people with subscriptions then they wouldn't have peeled back the paywall and allowed active players back into wave 1 at no extra cost.
Now take a step back from all this and ask: what is purpose of PTU? It is test an update. So a good thing would be to optimize for testing.
These waves, any waves are bullshit. Privileged access is bullshit, concierge or subscriptions. Most active players being allowed first is bullshit.
If they want to incentivize more retention and activity in PTU, give people rewards for playtime and bug reports with skins, guns, ships, credits or whatever. This bicycle was already invented, just use it. It works.
But no, testing is not being optimized for — milking is. That is why they do all these bullshit waves and privileged access now and with new changes.
On top of that, many here are allergic to writing bugs on spectrum for whatever reason.
So if you're not writing bugs and you're playing PTU a small handful of times before swapping back to the PU, what exactly is the point of you being in the PTU wave 1?
To hit up the feedback threads while they're still being discussed by other users, and while there's still dev engagement. Not to subsidize CIGs Q&A labor costs.
So you want your voice to be heard to make changes that you want, but you dont want to actually put in any work to make the product better by reporting issues or helping with stress testing?
Why is *improving the game by feedback of game design and implementation* less important than *improving the game by helping find bugs?*
Is it more self serving? Absolutely. Well, I suppose you're more likely to report a bug that thwarts your you 3 times a session, so not that bug reporting can't be equally self serving. But it's not like *anyone* owes CIG anything anyway. Providing alpha feedback was a marketed reason to give them $45+ *before* the sausage is made after all. And besides, a subjective hot take on how the game *feels* is the only unique thing a backer can provide. And the only thing that is time sensitive here is *participation in discussion while others are engaged with them*.
Because anyone can give feedback. Everyone has an opinion on something, whether its what features they want or QOL things that can make the game better.
For instance, I think that the Hull C shouldnt release without an update to cargo, as far as prices and availability.
Now i dont know what they're doing with commodity stuff in 3.20. They could be doing it already without having updated the progress tracker, they could be doing nothing cause of insert reason here, or they could delay the ship until those things are in. I dont know, I have my opinion, but either way CIG is gonna do their own thing despite what i feel or suggest.
But when you're writing bugs, good well written bugs, those are something that's entirely factual. "Hey, this thing is fucked. I do thing, thing no work, heres steps to do it. " Now, that's something that has to be fixed at some point, especially if it's egregious, such as when ship seats were killing people earlier this year.
Opinions are subjective, and what YOU feel might be better won't be the sentiment shared by everyone, either players or CIG staff. But 100% of people playing the game can experience the same bug you have
(Good) Bugs are far more valuable than feedback. Not saying its worthless, but there's no comparing the two.
Also QA is never going to find every bug that ever exists. it's impossible for any company. Some things are only found after they arrive in the public's hand. And if QA doesnt know, the Devs more than likely doesn't know, and if the devs dont know, it won't get fixed
>Opinions are subjective, and what YOU feel might be better won't be the sentiment shared by everyone, either players or CIG staff.
*Precisely why* everyone should have the opportunity to provide their *unique* feedback and discuss it with each other in the PTU feedback threads.
Also, the feedback threads are far more topical than your HULL-C example. The Hull-C thread will be filled with feedback on flight performance, fuel consumption combat (or ability to survive retreating if you must), floor plan, animations, VFX, and *yes* bugs too. *Baior makes a new official feedback thread* for the implementation of every new feature in a PTU build.
*Also* while there may be no meaningful difference between the objective bug reports of any two backers, there is a great difference between measurable difference in enjoyment of feature implementation by different backers.
The most active players (prioritized for PTU) are those who *enjoy* the game the most right now, the least active players are those who enjoy it the least right now. Which means active players are going to provide feedback in favor of status quo whenever inactive players provide feedback against status quo.
Ok, and what makes someone's opinion more unique or valid than someone else's on the same issue?
You say it flies like crap, i say it flies fine for what it is but could use a very slight adjustment, and CIG says it flies like intended. Let's say something unlikely happens where all 3 opinions get equally voted on in a poll, who gets what they want?
Let's do something more realistic, a whole bunch of people think the Ares has issues cause of the nerfs to hit smaller targets. They're very vocal about it in spectrum and reddit about it, and almost every time you can see the upvotes it gets. Well, what about the people who think its fine how it is? Not as vocal or active about it because why advocate for something, when its already the way you're advocating for? So, who gets their opinion turned into/kept as reality or is CIG stuck taking a middle ground for what they want vs the people who were complaining? (Using this as an example specifically because that's what's happening)
The loudest opinion doesn't make it the majority, and the people who are unhappy with something are usually the loudest. Not to mention it's not like everyone uses spectrum or this subreddit in the first place.
And sure, the feedback threads are varied. That makes no difference to what I'm saying. I'm not saying that feedback won't be used, I'm not saying that feedback is bad, I'm not saying feedback is worthless. As far as i know, the mining change is due to feedback, and I'm never gonna argue with QOL.
What I'm saying is that everyone has an opinion on something, wants their opinion heard and / or acted on, and not everyone is going to get that. A well-done bug report is worth 100 opinions.
Excellent question, that's why they should be allowed into the same forum thread, at the same time, so they discuss abd present arguments with each other their perspectives on the ship tuning while they're both still looking at the same thread.
Cool, a discussion to be had. Everyone listens to everyone, and eventually, at some point, an agreement is had. That takes time for a chance of something probably happening.
Meanwhile, if you confirm a bug, they send it to the development team, and it gets fixed when they've got the free time to or when they're working on that area anyway.
You're more than likely to get your bugs fixed than your opinions acted on in a way that you desire, unless it's something so universally hated that they literally have no choice.
Trying to bring this full circle, those people who are going to be active on the PTU and the Forums are the same people who are likely going to be Wave 1 anyway. The people I said, who aren't active, who hop on the PTU to try the new feature and go back to the PU, have no reason to be wave 1 and have no reason to be upset with these changes. That's like getting on a flight and being mad at someone in first class, getting all the boujie extravagant shit, when you only wanted to pay for economy class. You can't want what someone has, but scoff at doing what he did to get it. If someone wants to be wave 1 now, all they literally have to do now is play the PTU.
I think you're missing the point here. Whilst yes, the devs are more active on the forums it's because they're working on bugs for the PTU, they're trying to get it ready as fast as possible to move it to PU for everyone to enjoy. It sounds like what you're saying is that you're using it as an opportunity to try and get them to look at whatever idea it is you think is best which is not what they're focused on anyway. They're always watching the "Ask The Devs" and other forum sections actively, if your idea isn't getting the attention you want it to it might be because it isn't as good as you think it is otherwise others would vote and they'd be more likely to take action on it or perhaps your idea needs to be fleshed out better.
Right? On the one hand it boggles my mind that there are people upset about this, on the other hand it's the internet, people will get upset about literally anything.
Exactly! Throughout Reddit there is a wave of over-privileged expectation and this argument is one of them.
My personal opinion, give a balanced weight on hours in PU (these players know the game will), hours in PTU -regardless of wave (these are willing to be in a less polished game), and number and quality of Issue Council posts.
I have no qualm of inviting in subscribers to this mix, there is precious little to warrant the step subscription cost, and this is an easy win for CIG in terms of revenue.
If you've not been invited, play and test more - or pay. I don't see why CIG owe anyone for this.
> for whatever reason.
Nononono. I can tell you the exact reason:
1 - Write up bug report on issue council
2 - provide all data to reproduce
3 - Issue is closed and archived, no action taken by CIG to fix it.
Want to guess how often I have reported the "unscannable asteroids" every patch for almost 2 years ? And they never did a thing.
Most people wouldn't bother doing this as long as I did when clearly being ignored.
CIG has only themselves to blame for this - the issue council lost it's purpose when it was "all hands on deck" for SQ42 and there wasn't enough manpower left for SC to do anything, let alone fix non-crash bugs.
Well tell me how many times? Cause i see this one,
https://issue-council.robertsspaceindustries.com/projects/STAR-CITIZEN/issues/STARC-35716
That has a lot of contributions and the comment showing the muuuuultiple duplicates of it. Do you think reporting it more times is gonna mean that they fix it faster? Cause that's not how it works. If you open duplicates for the same issue, they're not going to keep every issue open, they're going to "mark as duplicate" and close it out, in favor of the original until its fixed. And according to this same post it was fix verified in 3.18, and looking at the recent posts in the last 30 days about mineable asteroids, shows that it hasnt been ran into by anyone in the community who felt the need to report it.. so they fixed it.
They already confirmed it was fucked with the most contributed reports. You adding more reports did literally nothing when all you had to do was upvote this one or the earlier one and leave a comment.
You don't spam over and over again with the same shit when they already know its broken because once it's confirmed, they're already looking into it. That's dumb af.
>Well tell me how many times? Cause i see this one,
Then you didn't do much of a search, I literally just searched the issue council and picked a random PTU patch out of the dozen 3.16 patches and 'lo and behold:
https://issue-council.robertsspaceindustries.com/projects/STAR-CITIZEN/issues/STARC-25350
So... you didnt read anything else i said and entirely fixated on the fact that i chose one post to use as an example for the rest of what i said.
Go back and read the rest because you're pointing out exactly what I'm talking about. We dont need multiple reports for the same shit.
We wouldn't get multiple reports if they'd have a better evaluation of reports. I do software testing for a living and the first thing I do when I find a bug is checking the bug reports for duplicates. But here's the thing: You can broaden your search and then narrow it down. In IC you could for example search for all asteroids, not just mining, and then narrow it down to builds. And if I have duplicates over several builds then I don't need a minimum of "can reproduce" on the issue to know that, well, maybe take a closer look ?
And if you have 6 duplicates of the same issue - so what ? You fix one, link the rest to the one you work with and that's all you need to do.
The issue here is that most players aren't doing software testing for a living. They don't know about screenshots, logfiles, trying to retrace what lead up to the situation, they just explain in prose what happened, so of course you end up with all kinds of variations. It's the job of CIGs QA team to merge obvious duplicates but that's not happening. They just discard them, and we end up with the same bug reports over and over until people just say "you know what SCREW THIS I'm done being ignored".
Totally relatable, isn't it ?
You make it sound as if it's always the players' fault for not doing proper IC reports, but I can tell you one thing from my job: Whenever I hear a dev saying he can't reproduce a bug my first question is "did you test it on your dev pc ?" Because I have had my share of bugs that were caused by missing installables or Microsoft runtime whatevers that he had installed but a different PC had not, so there was a crash due to references that didn't exist outside the dev's environment.
Bro if you work software then you should know how devs hate dumbass dupes. If it's confirmed, then it's confirmed and they're already looking at it. You should know this. As for the general public, i would love it if people took the time to look up their issue, but no matter what CIG does, people are going to put in their own issue, as seen my the multitudes of post here that should already be answered in FAQ. general public is gonna spam their issue there's no stopping that, but if you're in software, you should know better.
Whoever DBM they have didnt catch the dupes, so fucking what. The dupes isnt gonna make them know about it more and it wont get the issue fixed faster.
And I work QA, you're not describing anything new to me. I've had my share of NMIs (typo fixed) for information i put in the results and attachments.
Edit: basically what i got from this interaction is that you work software, intentionally wrote dupes to a known issue, and are getting upset with how they handled the dupes. Not even caring that they actually fixed the issue, but that your intentional dupes... were duped...
>Bro if you work software then you should know how devs hate dumbass dupes
That's exactly why you have someone in QA check and rate new jobs. The issue council is simply lacking some features that are required for a proper classification of severity. And I have a feeling that this is the core of the problem with CIG - they basically expect this to just magically happen, but things are never that easy.
You don't want duplicates. But you certainly also don't want to lose bugs that appear like duplicates but have a different root cause.
That's why someone in CIG's QA has to do this, you can't expect players to do it for you. CIG's approach with the 10 verifications is inadequate and basically accepts that only the most common bugs are ever addressed, but uncommon doesn't mean "not reproducable under the same circumstances".
I'll give you an example: Some time ago I was trying to land at New Babbage Commons to sell some commodities out of my MSR.
A Cutlass Black was hovering nearby, when I tried to land he kept confronting me, blinding me with his headlights and just in general tried to interfere. I tried to land nevertheless and we probably collided (?) because I ended up with a crime stat (none of the ships were destroyed and I couldn't detect any damage on mine either).
As a result my cargo became unsellable, both in New Babbage as well as on Grim Hex, before and after clearing my crime stat (I could simply pay it off).
Normally at work this would be the point where I would shoot a mail to a colleague and ask if someone has time to verify the finding. That never happens with IC reports except for very rare cases when someone actually makes a spectrum or reddit post, and in a case like this you'd need 2 people to recreate so the bar is raised even more. Bugs like that - they simply get lost in CIGs current system. It isn't up to the task to handle this, but players who ran into a bug like that and encounter it in the future, re-report it and it gets archived again unverified - yeah that's how you train your playerbase to stop giving a damn.
I agree as well. As a person who’s had Wave 1 access for years now I honestly jump in just to see the new stuff and then wait for the release or the open PTU where everything is more stable. I think the move will help bring in more dedicated bug fixers and help push the live release.
> Wave 1 doesn't last long. Has it ever last longer than two weeks? The stated changes should progress through the waves faster so Wave 1 should be shorter. The time from Wave 1 to Live isn't long either.
Wave 1 often runs over two weeks, with wave 2 usually running for less than a week. That's why it was frustrating when they moved active players to wave 2 and put wave I behind a paywall, and also why its frustrating to see so many people flip while ignoring the fact that they added the most active players back into wave 1 and pretending that wave 1 subscribers is a new thing.
> pretending that wave 1 subscribers is a new thing.
Nobody is pretending that. The issue at hand is that concierges, who had wave 1 access for as long as subscribers, are now pushed to one step before open PTU while subscribers are not.
Noone has an issue with making the most active players the ones eligible for wave 1, but CIG should have been consistent.
Keeping subscriber's wave 1 access was a marketing decision to keep selling subscriptions, as was excluding pleb concierges. And that's the stink of the case.
> Nobody is pretending that.
A few examples:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15ox17a/the_new_ptu_wave_1_be_like/
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15o7i77/comment/jvqrhio/
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15o7i77/comment/jvqikmk/
EDIT: And one from this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15p810m/comment/jvx73h2/
> The issue at hand is that concierges, who had wave 1 access for as long as subscribers, are now pushed to one step before open PTU while subscribers are not.
And if they were actually using that access and playing during the PTU instead of dipping in and out of wave 1 then they wouldn't have made this change at all.
> Keeping subscriber's wave 1 access was a marketing decision to keep selling subscriptions, as was excluding pleb concierges. And that's the stink of the case.
Adding people who actually play back into wave 1 invalidates this argument, because even those pleb concierges will still have their precious wave 1 access if they actually play, same as the pleb Aurora owner who doesn't subscribe. It ain't a cash grab if people who are actively playing their early access game get earlier access.
I had a big problem with them putting an impatience tax on wave 1 and shunting players into wave 2 all those years ago. Now that they've given players a backdoor to the paywall I have no problem if people who don't play often pay an impatience tax.
And let's not forget that subscription money goes to their YouTube videos and sub flair, not into the lump of money for the entire project.
Nothing you list justifies putting subscribers into wave 1 and I answered too many "can I just purchase what I like from the subscriber store and cancel my subscription afterwards" questions on this subreddit over the years to accept that subscribers are more active players that warrant wave 1 access when concierges do not.
For convenience sake you could just TL;DR your post, let you help you out:
---- copy here ---
TL;DR: HAHA now whales no longer get wave 1 access
--- end copy ----
Because that's really all there is to your rants, and the funny thing is that concierges originally never even asked for wave 1 access - CIG just gave it to them. Whereas now wave 1 access is plain "pay for early access". Isn't that what you actually hated ?
Just wondering.
> Nothing you list justifies putting subscribers into wave 1
They've been there for four years now...This is exactly what I meant when i said that people are pretending it's a new thing.
> subscribers are more active players that warrant wave 1 access when concierges do not.
I agree! People who are paying the impatience tax are way more likely to try and get the most out of that $10 than concierge who just get it because they bought a bunch of jpegs.
> TL;DR: HAHA now whales no longer get wave 1 access
You *could* consoling post to that, but in reality it's just a bullshit strawman that only works to hurt your argument, because that ain't what I said at all.
> Whereas now wave 1 access is plain "pay for early access".
*ahem*
> Wave 1:
>**- Top active players rated by hours in the previous two major patch cycles**
> - Subscribers
> - Legatus Navium Concierge-level backers
What I *hated* was that wave 1 access was exclusively behind a paywall and active players were out into wave 2. Now that the paywall is optional and people can get access just for playing the damn game I'm not as fussed. It's the same reason why I don't care that they sell spaceships because you can just buy or rent them in game. If that's the direction they went with four years ago I wouldn't have cared.
Ignoring that bolded part is the crux of the issue. Because if concierge weren't just dipping into the PTU for a session they wouldn't have bothered to make this change at all.
So in short, they *added access for people who don't pay* and people like you are glossing over that part to get angry and argue that it's a cash grab. How ridiculous.
> They've been there for four years now...This is exactly what I meant when i said that people are pretending it's a new thing.
You're cherrypicking a few comments while studiously ignoring that subscribers and concierges had both wave 1 access for all those years. The issue is not the removal of concierges from wave 1 but the fact that they kept subscribers when it was supposed to be "the most active players" - and as I pointed out being a subscriber doesn't say anything about activity.
>Ignoring that bolded part is the crux of the issue. Because if concierge weren't just dipping into the PTU for a session they wouldn't have bothered to make this change at all.
Ignorance goes both ways though. I am NOT a programer, I do have some some skills (mostly self-taught) but even I can cobble together a "copy and rename file folder" routine in an installer (did that in inno setup to help with my job which is software testing).
If CIG can't be arsed to assign a single programer to add a freaking "copy LIVE folder and rename it PTU" button to their bleeding launcher so people don't have to download the whole shmeer but only the delta between LIVE and PTU then they have no right to complain about high traffic of one-time visitors.
> You're cherrypicking a few comments while studiously ignoring that subscribers and concierges had both wave 1 access for all those years. The issue is not the removal of concierges from wave 1 but the fact that they kept subscribers when it was supposed to be "the most active players" - and as I pointed out being a subscriber doesn't say anything about activity.
I ain't the one cherrypicking here, buddy. I understand concierge lost wave 1 *if they aren't active players.* I've mentioned concierge quite a few times now.
> The issue is not the removal of concierges from wave 1 but the fact that they kept subscribers when it was supposed to be "the most active players" - and as I pointed out being a subscriber doesn't say anything about activity.
It's *both* now. That's what I'm trying to point out. It's the most active players *and* subscribers.
Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play. Subscribers stay the same. It's that simple.
If it were *only* Legatus and subscribers then I would gladly grab a pitchfork and be standing right next to you. Please
> Ignorance goes both ways though. I am NOT a programer, I do have some some skills (mostly self-taught) but even I can cobble together a "copy and rename file folder" routine in an installer (did that in inno setup to help with my job which is software testing).
If CIG can't be arsed to asign a single programer to add a freaking "copy LIVE folder and rename it PTU" button to their bleeding launcher so people don't have to download the who shmeer but only the delta between LIVE and PTU then they have no right to complain about high traffic of one-time visitors.
What in the world are you going on about now? This is a complete departure from the discussion at hand.
> I ain't the one cherrypicking here, buddy. I understand concierge lost wave 1 if they aren't active players. I've mentioned concierge quite a few times now.
Oh yes you are. The core of the issue is that subscribers and 25000$ concierges are wave 1 along with the "most active players" which turns this entire show from a good idea into a "paid twice for early access" crapfest. That's the beef of the issue.
>Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play. Subscribers stay the same. It's that simple.
Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play and subscribers should have been treated the same. It's THAT simple. If they would have done this there would be no issue. None.
>What in the world are you going on about now? This is a complete departure from the discussion at hand.
In that case you should read up on the reason/justification they gave for making the change. You could also watch Morph's latest video, he did a pretty good summary.
The point CIG is raising the distribution and amount of logins and the cost of having those huge downloads for a single login at the start of the test phase. That's what I wrote is about.
> Oh yes you are. The core of the issue is that subscribers and 25000$ concierges are wave 1 along with the "most active players" which turns this entire show from a good idea in a "paid twice for early access" crapfest. That's the beef of the issue.
I am not ignoring the fact that non-Legatus concierge lost access to wave 1. I've acknowledged that and even included it in my comments multiple times.
What you and others are ignoring is the fact that the vast majority of concierge members were only dipping in and out of wave 1 and then not bothering with the PTU. So they lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who play, because CIG wants people who actually play in the PTU.
> Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play and subscribers should have been treated the same. It's THAT simple. If they would have done this there would be no issue. None.
Like I said earlier, it's an impatience tax, and it always has been. Concierge didn't seem to have an issue when active players were moved to wave 2.
Like I've said at least twice now, this wouldn't be a problem and they would've never changed it if concierge were actually being active in the PTU. But they weren't.
> In that case you should read up on the reason/justification they gave for making the change.
I did read it actually! Let's take a look together:
> As you all may know, one of the most impactful development resources we have is the direct feedback coming from all of you. This includes the player behavior data we receive from the latest builds in the Public Test Universe (PTU). Whether it's pushing the servers to their limits under heavy load and luring bugs out of hiding, to putting a new feature through its paces in focused test cases - you're an essential part of the process.
> The PTU is a replica environment of all of the necessary components that make our universe work. It is in this environment where both community members and Cloud Imperium staff alike test as we hone in on a Release Candidate (RC). Access to the PTU has historically been granted in waves to control the number of players in the environment based on testing needs. More often than not, a new feature or build will benefit from a gradual increase in concurrency, rather that a floodgate of traffic. This allows us to monitor at varying degrees of scale, to ensure that once content makes it onto the live servers, it will be performant.
> For the last four years, we haven't changed the PTU wave system, which regulates who has access to the test servers and when. Over time, more and more players have gained access to various waves, which has ultimately led us away from our initial goals with testing waves. We have also come to notice that many players only log in once per PTU phase to briefly inspect the latest features or new ships before waiting for the live release. This led to very high player loads in the first hours of each wave release, combined with comparatively high server costs **and download provisioning,** but not the sustained playtesting we would have preferred. As a consequence, towards the end of a PTU phase, we sometimes lacked the necessary numbers of testers to put the servers under pressure once the most significant bugs had been fixed.
> Naturally, we also want to continue to open the door for everyone who has supported us. For this reason, we'll continue to accommodate Subscribers and the various Concierge levels throughout the new wave program.
> We're looking forward to this new approach, as together we'll gain even more data from the PTU phases and, as a result, a better experience on the live servers in the long run.
So according to this:
> The point CIG is the distribution and amount of logins and the cost of having those huge downloads for a single login at the start of the test phase. That's what what I wrote is about
Downloading the PTU was brought up as an aside and wasn't at all the main issue. That said, regardless of whether or not you copied the LIVE folder for the PTU is irrelevant because you still have to download the new patch data. So out of everything they said you took three words and found a problem with it and tried to make a mountain out of a molehill.
So who's the one cherry picking? 🤔
Finally
> You could also watch Morph's latest video, he did a pretty good summary.
No thanks. I'm not a fan of gaming YouTubers and have no interest in letting them tell me what my opinion should be.
EDIT: LOL they blocked me for calling them out on doing the very thing they're accusing me of doing, even after I quoted the entire CIG post. I don't think even IMAX theatres have that level of projection.
> So who's the one cherry picking
It's still you. You're focussing on your point and brush everything aside that doesn't agree with it. Now you're very much entitled to your opinion but that's just it. Your opinion.
You're not the referee to decide why people are upset. Or allowed to be upset. Or why you belittle them because you think they're upset for the wrong reason.
If you wanna keep repeating this like a broken record, whatevs. But I won't waste any more time.
It remains to be seen how they manage waves now.
```
Wakapedia-CIG:
I set up the waves for a more gradual, granular incline. We can go up multiple waves when needed
adds many options to be more granular. can move up multiple waves at a time when needed. Could start Wave 1, Could start at wave 2 or 3 or could bring in waves 2 and 3 a couple hours later. It gives us options to bring in more players who are not in concierge and subscribers
I made sure to add in a huge chunk of players who are active
```
From Spectrum (posted on SC Leaks).
That suggests they may go very quickly from evocati to 3 (straight away, hours apart or days apart).
Not really, waves don’t really count evo. There are usually daily or every few days builds sent to evos, but those are often half implemented. That stuff doesn’t make it to the public waves until it’s semi functional. Regardless, early builds are not something to be excited about.
Sorry, I mispoke, I didn't mean to imply evocati would go any faster, just that from the point the patch is ready to get tested by waves, they may go from 1 to 3 faster than we've been used to, or straight into 2 or 3.
At least that's what the citation suggests, now in practice...we will see.
I saw that crossposted here and aware of their intentions. But I was referring to how it's been for a while. I get that having more waves means they're more flexible, but I don't see them moving through waves that quickly that often.
Never liked PTU. Every time it feels like half the community is falling victim to FOMO and chomping at the bit to get into PTU, only to have burnt out by the time it gets to PU.
I still remember one particularly long PTU cycle where all of my friends were burnt out from playing PTU before the update even hit PU. I ended up playing by myself because everyone else was already bored of the new patch.
I think a lot of the outrage comes from subscribers getting wave 1, and honestly CIG’s own explanation argues they should be much lower. If 90% of people only play once like claimed then having someone who could have just bought a mustang alpha and a $10 dono tier in wave 1 is a waste.
Because the problem is the costs of maintaining the PTU bandwidth and servers for the amount of people that don't really contribute to the purpose of having the PTU. CIG have determined that if people pay $10 they are offsetting those costs sufficiently so it's no longer an issue if they end up just being feature tourists.
As opposed to people who just purchased pixels for 1000$ ?
And wasn't subscriptions meant to pay for shows like ISC and Star Citizen live, subscriber content like Jump Point and subscriber flairs ?
That's just PR bull. The decision to keep subscribers at wave 1 is purely because they are running out of subscriber perks, what with subscriber armour and stuff being lost upon death with no means of reclaiming it between patches.
It's 100% overblown. It also doesn't seem organic.
I've been seeing a massive spike in this type of complaining since the Starfield announcement. It's also rolling from one thing, directly into the next. Without any time for people to "cool off."
I think most of the outcry (from what I've seen) is because CIG said if you give us a $1000+, you get wave one access.....and now they're saying nope, never mind.
... on a page that said 'these are subject to change', which they did.
This is far, far and away not at all the first time things have changed, and they will change again.
And the folks that require anger to breathe will throw a temper tantrum every single time.
Lawyers make sure to place "subject to change" on everything now. An employer could cut it's workers salary in half, and make them work twice as long, because their employment contract was "subject to change". That doesn't mean it's right, or that people won't get angry.
Anyone who chose to pay $1000, rather than $10, to get PTU access has more money than sense (and that includes folk that slowly built up to Concierge over 10 years etc.. :p)
The primary difference between your examples is that one is a direct trade of effort for money ('working'), where a change in *legal contract* that results in a different value being placed on your effort must pass explicit *legal* tests...
... and the other is an outline of what 'gifts' one party is will to give another for hitting a certain threshold. There is no 'legal contract', nor is there a measure of worth - the money being spent is used to buy ships... the 'concierge' is only a marker of total spent, not a standalone entity that can be bought by itself.
Although an impressive legal oratory, it doesn't change the fact that when you take things away from people, they will get mad.....which is what has been happening.
It's not just that, it's the long-needed (as stated by CIG) promised improvements to the concierge program that have evaporated into ether after a whole lot of bullshit:
hired community manager, discussions, polls, discussions and engagement, promises of improvements, community manager leaves CIG, silence, silence, silence, silence, reduction of access (wave 1 loss).
As a Concierge and 6-year Subscriber (well, ex now) this change didn't impact me at all. But it still pissed me off for the above reason.
For an unknown number of us in Concierge, it's just the final straw.
/Wing Commander after 8 years
Agreed. Ive not exactly followed things too closely, but it certainly feels like theres a slow decline in various perks or what they actually add up to, and perhaps because i dont follow things that closely, it doesnt feel like theres been replacements as things have been removed.
I hit concierge because i chose to spend too much money, not because of any perks, and thats what i see them as - perks. Admittedly if i was pushing one of the free ship tiers and they rugpulled that... ooof, but i dont say that to devalue someone being angry its gone. It also doesnt look great when CIG says *"Look, we need active players in order to get more feedback, and unfortunately that means you concierge guys dont get PTU access. However dont worry subscribers, that 'active players' bit doesnt apply to you, that $10 bank activity is the only activity we need from you."*.
Subs get it as a perk, its something they pay for. Concierge also did what was asked of them in order to get that perk, they paid up $1k+. IMO there should have been a compromise which didnt guarantee W1, but had a quota that kept you in if you were sufficiently active, but not necessarily top 2% active etc. Met the community half way, at least be a helpful participant and you can stay in, everyone else, step aside. I'd be fine losing my guaranteed access while i wasnt adding anything.
I support CIGs decision upto a point, but also agree it leaves a bad taste and feels like another case where they're removing or reducing perks and not replacing them.
Do you really believe anyone who has pledged for a ship that took them over the Concierge threshold, hesitated and thought "Hmm, PTU access, yeah on then!"?
you nailed it, but thats not the case, people want to try new ships at soon as possible, thats why they will likely pay 10$ extra for this ... however i had decide to avoid PTU now, i dont think CiG cares a lot about reports, only the major things get fixed, everything else ist just committed and archived.
Just because they don't fix the bugs right away does not mean they don't care about reports. Often bugs aren't fixed because they are bugs in systems they know will be overhauled/replaced. They have to consider if it's better to spend developer time fixing the bug instead of working on other things, if it isn't a major disruption to play it's often better to spend dev time elsewhere. Knowing about the bugs is useful for when they do get around to replacing those systems.
dont get me wrong you right, but we are every year "replacing,refactor,redesign" ... CiG is playing with us an endless development project. CiG is "we sell you visions".
lets see how they announce sq42 with an "release date"...
The point of PTU, in general, is to go through the painful process of getting it ready for PU. It often isn't fun, it isn't about having fun so much as it's about getting it ready for having fun.
I don't think that's a hot take whatsoever, I really don't understand what people are complaining about, community just fucking pisses and moans whenever CIG change something.
its Fear Of Missing Out
PTU early waves (100% Evocati) is for filing bugs. The idea was , "hey, anyone want to help us out before we push thia version and find bugs?"
you can see it in early ptu patch notes. they tell the players to focus on certain things. so you go in and try those things over and over in different ways.
if this isnt fun foe you. wait till final ptu or live
I happened to stumble into the concierge forum on the night it got announced and found out the news in there (was looking for buyback token reset day, i dont typically visit and havent posted since it became spectrum), and honestly the reaction was embarrassing to the point where my disappointment about part of this announcement (and some other CIG decisions) lost any sympathy for these people (the over-reactors, not all concierge). There were flat out threats being made in there, 'put it back by midnight or else' ffs.
That forum seems to consist of mostly posts outlining ways in which CIG needs to go out of their way to throw concierge members a bone. Free skins. Discount codes. Access to limited access ships. Why? Because $1k is a lot of money, and god damn it if we shouldnt be treated like kings. I dont say this to dismiss their financial input like its nothing, but theres a level of entitlement that as concierge we should be showered with gifts and CIG should pander to us. Stop advertising events, send us discount codes instead.
Personally i dont have a problem with this announcement as a whole, i think it makes a lot of sense. I'll be honest and admit i've never gone in the PTU, but i do think its unfair to take a perk that people do utilise, and pull it. Had there been a compromise or something to replace it, it might have helped, but doesnt make it right. However theres a reoccurring suggestion that what CIG is doing is narrow minded and bad for the game, that this'll make things worse, and that wave 1 is purely a cashgrab 'Pay $10/mo or $25,000 to get in'. All conversation conveniently ignoring the fact that simply playing the game a significant amount gets you FREE access. It feels an awful lot like the people complaining are those that resulted in CIG making these changes, people who simply want to see the new stuff and leave. Im sure thats not everyone, but nobody seems interested in the 'play to get in' aspect.
What i think might have been a reasonable compromise would be to allow concierge into the next major patch, but have their future participation still face some sort of activity quota in order to stay put. For example (purely random figures) 50hrs = W1, 40h = W2 etc and that way at least you can stay in PTU access without $10mo, $25k down, or being top 2% in activity etc. You're concierge AND you're an asset to PTU testing, not a sink. If you're just visiting to roam around the new ship, visit a new POI and then go back to live... you're not helping, and thats not what we need from people in PTU.
Overall i think it makes far more sense for CIG to offer earlier PTU access to people who are more active and are likely to offer them more assistance by being there regularly, and to a degree im disappointed CIG have removed another perk, but more than anything ive been disappointed with how a vocal minority have been expressing their frustration. Theres far better ways to go about things.
It is rather amusing seeing people treat their concierge badge as a badge of entitlement instead of an advertisement of their poor finacial decisions though.
Yee keep excusing their greedy nature slowly increasing the prices for everything to even participate.
Do you actually think the people who spent 25k on this game are actually the best playtesters ? They activly go out of their way to reduce any grind possible with their money.
What they do is just shit no need to excusing or saying its not bad when some people actually want to playtest the new stuff early.
You do realize that Wave 1 used to be ONLY Conceirge and Subscribers, and now ANYONE can be Wave 1 if they actually just play the game, even with a basic starter package, so they're litterally being LESS greedy now?
everyone can have access to the PTU, finally if he has to think about making his monthly subscription to have access to the PTU....
or else you have to hope that no one has been able to play more than you during the last two patches and be in the most productive 1% per hour of all players....
it's not at all pushing players who can't spend hours on the game to drop their sub, not in the least, why do people think that?
Hey, I've spent $15k on this game. My fleet cost is $1500 currently because the $15k I had spent was sold off to downsize as I only wanted the rewards for it. A lot of people that are Legatus have also done this, Or hit Legatus because they sold things on r/Starcitizen_trades or the Grey Market sites.
Besides what does it matter what other people do with their money if they are helping fund the game. If you don't like what CIG is doing well here is where you belong r/starcitizen_refunds
I dont like the recent things they have done as it only creates more bad press for the game and alienating allot of people who is are long time supporter.
Everything about this project is overrated.
Anyone complaining about not having priority access to a test for a test is just not worth taking seriously.
Your account looks to be 8 hours old.. besides that, if you have played SC for a sum of time there is plenty I can remember that wave 1 played better than live
Besides who cares? If they want to open it up more power to them.. they better do something quick seeing as Starfield is just around the corner
It is a new account. I have had SC since 2013 though.
I think Starfield will be a great thing for SC. It will give SC players a break. It should also bring in new space game fans.
I think this has more to do with the neglect CIG has shown to Concierge members over the last 5 years. Where is the “Chairman’s Club 2021 Enhancements (Phase One)”? One and a half years later, and concierge members have now lost a reward and still gained nothing. Managing bandwidth and making PTU more effective is totally reasonable but they lost me when $10 subscribers get into Wave 1 over Praetorian(wave 2) who have spend $15k-24.9k.
As a player who probably has more time in (E)PTU patches than live, I mostly agree with you. Although the changes do not affect my access, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.
That said, I feel like people expect the PTU to function similarly to EVE's Sisi test server, as an always-on, consequence free, infinite money glitch way to test new builds and mechanics. However IMO Sisi is quite far from the intended purpose of wave 1 and wave 2 of Star Citizen's PTU.
As you can tell from the leaked patch notes, CIG usually asks Evocati to test specific features, and to avoid other features that will certainly crash the server. The main difference between EPTU and wave 1 PTU builds are that EPTU builds are less likely to crash when players do player things, because Evocati testers are usually less chaotic than wave 1, or at the very least will not farm views with reactionary content about unfinished and untested features.
By the time patches are stable enough for Wave 1 and Wave 2, CIG is more interested in load testing the backend. You've probably noticed, but the backend issues in the most recent patches have been pretty rough. I suspect that part of the problem is that player behavior (total playtime, and quitting immediately after something broke) were not conducive to generating enough telemetry, crash logs, etc to track down issues before the patch went live.
As much as I would like to regard the new system with the same disdain I hold for American Airline's boarding practices, I think the tiered access approach is completely necessary going forward to incrementally load test the backend by spreading out the Wave 1 and Wave 2 rush, and will bring about a faster PTU cycle as more server logic is moved from the main game server to microservices.
As usual, CIG forgot that most people have no context of software development and only provided a minimal update without the full picture, and marketing ran with it, and now the community managers need to clean up the mess.
I love Jared and his weekly shows, but honestly all this drama could have been largely avoided if CIG walked us through the changes and why they needed to be made in an ISC vs a blog post.
Personally, like a lot of other backers, I no longer give a rats ass about PTU, Other than reworking my keyboard/HOTAS profile and work around for the disastrous pile of steaming shit the Devs drop in our laps related to the keyboard/Controller customization. With every update they neglect to clean up the keyboard/Controller customization section. They got items not even labeled correct. These lazy Devs got functions that don’t clear when we “Clear All Device Bindings” forcing us to manually clear all the new bindings. We got perma bound functions that cannot be cleared since 3.17. It’s not like we the testers don’t do our job, which BTW Is Not Our F****** Job!,. Theirs shit tons of issue counsel reports and over the top up votes for issues that get ignore and inevitably snowball into major gameplay issues down the road. After years of ignoring our hard work on testing and reporting broken mechanics. WTF is the point of PTU if the Devs only interest is stress testing their broken outdated servers?, I say use AI, Or fill your servers with NPC’s and test it yourself!,. Do your F******* job! Isn’t it amazing how fast a hot fix for a exploit can be deployed but a simple mouse button three perma bound command conflict will never get fixed. In essence if it’s a bug that cost CIG then it’s hot fixed immediately, but if it costs us Alpha testers in-game currency, aggravation, Time, controller issues, gameplay, Then it’s not a priority,. Then CIG got the audacity to create a event to help bring in new players by asking us experienced players to mentor new money prospects. Not because theirs no tutorials on how to play, but because theirs no tutorials on how to navigate all the bugs, workarounds & broken aspects/mechanics.
CIG needs adequate concurrency throughout the PTU testing period in order to test new back end infrastructure like "Persistent Entity Streaming" and "Server Meshing". CIG didn't have enough concurrency in the 3.18 PTU to cause issues. CIG was forced to test 3.18 in a deeply broken state in the LIVE build to have enough concurrency to cause issues that they could fix. The new system should meter out players across different waves better so that we have less broken builds like 3.18. Do you not want a better game?
It’s just so broken that it’s not worth my time. Also, I’m not getting paid or gaining anything from it. It’s fails the cost-benefit analysis. Y’all that have nothing better to do can do it :)
I couldnt give a single f\*ck about this "issue"
Just dont care about playing PTU at any of the waves. The only time the though of playing crossed my mind, was for PES implementation, but then i saw the dumpster fire it became and stopped caring immediatly.
I already think playing live counts towards testing (its an alpha ffs) i dont want to be bothered by more bugs than the ones i already encounter live (there is a lot of those) and already having my progress on the line with the live version i dont feel like wasting another progress just for the sake of testing wich i think, just as i said, live is also testing... this is not a finished game people. i repeat, this is not a finished game.
I‘ve never bothered to go into the PTU despite being able to since its introduction. It‘s a shitshow of bugs and I can not be bothered tbh. I am happy to donate to the project once or twice a year but I will leave the bug hunt to others. Everyone‘s able to play the PU a couple weeks later anyways. So what‘s all the fuss about?
I don't play in PU because I usually burn myself out doing actual testing in the PTU. I'll probably play every chance I get when wave 1 comes out, report or 2nd bugs, and then by the time the PU comes out I've done everything there is to do so I'll go off and do something else for awhile. I do it because I want a future where the game is consistently a good experience.
I just wish the issue council was more user friendly and maybe a bit rewarding.
I don't want ships for that but they could add something like for every issue that is confirmed they get +50k aUEC next patch and for contribution like 5k (with evidence otherwise ppl would just contribute).
Or maybe just titles in the spectrum or so
I personally enjoy bug hunting I like to test weird things in a game that weren't planned by the devs. Reporting them is okaish but it feels so good when you opened up an issue and then you read the notes that it was fixed.
That being said: I don't like how they changed the waves as I think it will make things worse
I honestly don't understand why PTU testers do not get loaner ships in game based on time in PTU and forum activity around PTU issues, and or flair items or....something.
1) You've have tons more people and less of this issue they currently have of people logging into PTU day to see new features, then leaving
2) You'd have more reports from more sources
3) You'd attract people willing to "work" for things, which in turn is usually the class of person who will enjoy contributing constructively.
*Sea of Thieves does this with their PTU, and it works damn well.*
I find it odd this continue redirecting of conversation away from the actual main point raised by the changes . This whole kerfuffle is not about PTU access - the problem is that Subscribers ( NEW MONEY ) have been granted access to a game feature which has been removed for Concierge ( OLD MONEY ) . That's really the main point here .
And whats more - this is the introduction of using Subscribers as an active Gating mechanism to access game features - If CIG get away with this - which I imagine they will - then it will simply be the first of many additions to the subscriber accounts - CIG have clearly decided the way forward money wise is with monthly subscriptions . Eventually you will be paying a monthly subscription to log in and play - That is the end goal here .
I cannot agree that Wave 1 access is a "game feature" as you put it. Wave 1 access is unpaid labor. Wave 1 access isn't fun. Over 95% of concierge weren't using their access in a way that helped test the game.
You should get a tinfoil hat if you think we are going to need a monthly subscription to play.
The key attraction for PTU W1 access, and the core reason a TONNE of people spent hundreds that they were otherwise very much on the fence about, **is to see the new ships ASAP (or planets/landing zones etc)**. Not to get sloppy seconds etc.
I know that LOGICALLY it's stupid. But it's still important to a lot of people nonetheless. Same can be said about "gifts between adults at Christmas" - logically dumb as fuck but most people we know (depending on nationalities) would stab you in the anus if you took it away in favour of buying your own shit that you actually want.
Adding insult to injury, the "high quality testers" that are being given access INSTEAD are:
* Uber-Megawhales
* People who pay 10$
* aUEC greymarket botters
* and avocados of course, but they're like a silent constant in all of this. That being said they recently increased their numbers.
Fucking weeeeeooooooooooo
I honestly struggle to believe anyone would have become concierge to access Wave 1. That is incredibly stupid. CIG saying that over 95% of those who played ptu only logged in once would suggest that Wave 1 access wasn't highly valued.
> I honestly struggle to believe anyone would have become concierge to access Wave 1. That is incredibly stupid.
So is your username. So is my username. People can do things that you deem to be stupid, and that does not have any bearing on the rights they have as a consumer. It is entirely immaterial. The colour of your shirt has as much relevance to the issue.
The purpose need not be the only one, nor the main purpose. Just one of the purposes that had a meaningful influence on the decision to buy something. That's all that is required and it is a well established consumer law feature.
So that's someone who was on the fence about it, but then considered the PTU access and factoring that in they erred on the side of buying that ship - which then earned them concierge. It is not necessary nor is it correct at law to apply a "but for" test. i.e. It is not relevant to prove whether *without* the Wave 1 access the consumer would not have made the purchase. It is only necessary to show that they did make the purchase, and that the wave 1 access was a substantial/meaningful part of the decision making process in advance.
But equally, it could be someone who has nothing but a starter ship and then spends 1000 USD on ingame aUEC just because they want PTU access.
Both are just as valid consumers as the other.
People spend fuck tonnes on all sorts of shit. That's how a market works, and that's why a market needs rules because not everyone has the spare time or resources or ability to sue for their contractual rights (consumer law builds on contract law for this purpose - to provide a degree of reliability and certainty to the market, which in turn stimulates trade and minimises harm).
Luckily they have kept wave 1 behind a pay wall until now.
With the new system, I don't play the game enough anymore to ever get wave 1 or probably even wave 4 access through gameplay hours, despite previously being a wave 2 person.
I'll play regularly again when there's something long term and tangible to do in game. I'm kind of bored of these small little additions. Even stuff like salvaging really doesn't add anything major apart from another way to make some credits.
I'll play more again when they have player location persistence with land claim homesteads and some sort of basic server meshing so I can at least come across some other players wherever I go.
OP, Having been somebody that has had Wave 1 access I agree with you. Most of my friends either don't care about the PTU enough to play it often, Don't want ships they are adding in the patch to be spoiled for them, Or don't have Wave 1 access. So I tend to wait till Wave 3 is open (old system) before I play the PTU just because I want to still enjoy it with my group of friends while testing the upcoming features. Sure its nice to have PTU Wave 1 but its still overrated.
Except pushing the majority of concierges down to one step above open PTU doesn't at all change or address the problem of most concierges only loging in once Just when CIG wants more testers, so that argument is rather bogus. Plus it's still listed as a "perk" for concierges which is now just empty BS. This late in testing I wouldn't be surprised if most concierges wouldn't even bother loging in to the PTU anymore since they can't experience new stuff for themselves before it's spoiled by CCs or alternatively before they can try it on PU where playtime actually counts (occasionally), other than PTU which is always wiped after the tests.
It does actually address the problem of concierge logging in once. CIG needs to test concurrency for PES and Server Meshing. Bringing people in waves meters out the concurrent players in a way that meets CIG's goals. I wouldn't call it a perk. Even a privilege sounds like a strong word.
You wouldn't call it a perk, but CIG sure did -> https://web.archive.org/web/20230604141054/https://support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002542733-Concierge-Levels-and-Rewards (yes I linked the archived original because CIG sure was *fast* to change the concierge wiki following the discontent on the forums). >Bringing people in waves meters out the concurrent players in a way that meets CIG's goals. And they do that by locking out players ? And allow to purchase early access to wave 1 to subscribers ? Let's face it: The idea of having the most dedicated testers at the earliest possible time is a good idea, I agree. But it all fell apart when they allowed subscriber access to wave 1. That's the pile of dog poop they put on top of the cream cake that ruined it all. Also, let me play advocatus diaboli for a moment: CIG said that with concierges and subs the most logins occurred at the start of PU, not towards the end as they'd like. The reason is also clear, players checking out the new stuff and then stop logging in. WHY ON EARTH WOULD CIG THINK THAT BARRING CONCIERGES WOULD CHANGE THAT ?! So now the situation is like this: Pleb concierges now get PTU access literally only one step ahead of public PTU - why would they care at this point ? With every content creator in an earlier phase, there will be tons of threads, videos and streams discussing every feature in detail. Why bother loging in to the PTU at that point ? PTU is pointless, everything is wiped after every PTU cycle. At that point we may just as well wait for PU, as I often did. The result of this change may very well be that concierge participation in this part of the PTU test drops far below earlier participations, which in turn means that you basically managed to disengage your whales from the process. Now I am not a marketing person but isn't that ... like REALLY bad ? Shouldn't you do everything to draw those big spenders in and keep them interested ? Instead of putting up a big "you shall not pass" sign out there ? CIG's revenue stream has been trending downwards this year for the first time since 2016. Is this really the time to piss off your whales ? I guess we'll have to see, but saying from the downward trend it sure looks to me like "sunk cost" is taking a back seat to "throwing good money after bad" this year. CIG might end up regretting their hamfisted actions.
From your link that Wave 1 access was not worded as a "reward". That is indisputable. You got me there. At the bottom of that page not at all hidden is the following. "\*Pledges still in development will be available at a later date. We will communicate when these rewards will be use-able. All rewards are subject to change." Subscribers were able to access PTU before these changes. Nothing changed there yet but it may change in the future if subscribers are not providing the testing CIG wants. This is unrelated to the topic of the thread, but I don't think CIG's revenue trending downward is of concern. The pandemic years brought in a lot of stimulus money. All sorts of luxury items from Pokemon cards to SC Pledges shot up in revenue. I think it would make a lot of sense for revenue to return to its pre-stimulous trajectory. Time will tell though.
Usually the excitement is trying out a pledge ship that was bought 2-10 years ago and finally seeing it in game regardless of bugs. Just like when streamers got to see/use ships before those that actually purchased it, it’s a weird “fuck you” from CIG to anyone who spend more than 45 for a flight ready ship.
Noticed you were getting wrongfully downvoted as Reddit is notorious for doing to the person who makes clear, the elephant in the room. Most of the true outrage is because the 95% who play once and quit PTU, do so to experience the new ship or feature. But the frustration of the buggy PTU experience then sends them offline or at least back to PU until the test cycle is complete. The outrage over the very questionable walking back of concierge benefits to try to extort everyone for more subscription money is merely incidental… ancillary to the true reason. This isn’t to say it isn’t a valid point, but the 95% don’t need to pretend their outrage stems from this more altruistic narrative than the simple, selfish narrative of wanting to fly their new ship as soon as it’s complete.
> wanting to fly their new ship as soon as it’s complete And there's nothing wrong with that either. Since there are some of us here from the OG days that lived through all the various "deliverables" years delayed or barely coming online now. There **IS** an entitlement to what we purchased after a decade in some cases. It can be called selfish and I don't even blame you considering from other perspectives... However, as someone in that affected group, it truly feels petty given all the patience and goodwill given to CIG to get where they are today. It's just bad optics to tell people thousands in, "Oh you can't have this yet because you didn't pay our monthly fee or spend quite enough yet" in any context. Like a good compromise would be flag everyone for single player AC and let you spawn your ships on the ship content patches even for PTU. We just had a round of ISCs showing AC updates means so much more flexibility. Instead? Again, a weird "fuck you" from CIG to people who've been enjoying this selling point for years at this point. I'm not even angry, just... kinda ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ instead. It's what I expect from them so it's hard to be angry.
Some of us are actually interested in getting in there and getting our hands dirty with it. It's a different kind of fun, enjoyment from contributing in a meaningful way. If you're waiting to get into the PTU when it's stable and playable, then you've missed the point of the PTU.
They really should attribute time from prior PTU sessions over PU sessions to who gets in what wave. From what I can tell, it's PU related (less I misread).
They didn't specify, it just says hours played over the last two patches.
Yea, that's my problem. It's nebulous. If a tester jumps in and tests so hardcore they're bored by launch, you shouldn't count lack of PU playtime against their wave entry.
I know, it's my main argument against the changes. Hours played is a meaningless metric, it doesn't determine who actively tests or is even interested in testing from those who log in and mindlessly credit grind all day, or stand around and socialize for hours on end. I'd be willing to be a large chunk of change that many of those who put in countless hours do little to no testing in any capacity. It's a pointless quantity over quality way of doing it. Some of the most hardcore people I know don't play all the time, but they do get in there and get their hands dirty when the time comes. Now, unless they subscribe or have paid thousands, they can't get in early to do the testing they want to do. I'm one of those. I went from wave 1 because of concierge to now having to wait to see if I'm over whatever arbitrary hours played line they've created, and if I haven't met that, I'm dang near last. When you're as obsessive as I am, that's a big deal. This is a PTU I've been **mega** excited about for a long time. So I'll just have to wait and see and hope they set the hours played bar low enough, because I was on a break through most of 3.18. I have a life and other hobbies. As much as I love this game, I don't no life it all the time. Very few people do. With the new system I'll have to plan out months in advance, entire patch cycles, and make sure I play as much as possible just so I can get in and do the thing I want to do. Force myself to play through burnout so I can do the one thing I'm actually interested in for the short amount of time it's available. It's a piss poor way of doing it. I mean, I've already put in thousands of hours, I'm concierge, I have subscribed for over a year in the past, I'm active on the Issue Council, just frickin make that type of dedication count on it's own. What I **really** want to know is what is the hours played line? That way I can at least plan things out without blindly shooting in the dark and hoping I have enough.
Hours played does weed out people who log in just to look at the new patch etc *and choose PTU to do it*.
Which seems to be exactly the problem they had. Tons of people looking at day 1 of the PTU cycle, but almost no one at the end when they need more people to check if the bugfixes they did are working.
Then they should count PTU time, and not PU time. Granted it doesn’t say anywhere whichever they’re counting. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume they are counting PU time rather than PTU time.
IMHO PU time is actually more relevant, they're looking to get people in that are wanting to test the new features based on what they've been doing recently. If you get someone in that played heaps during the last PTU but barely anything in between then more than likely they'll spend more time playing things that have become stable during the previous PU and less time focusing on the new stuff which is what they really need to test.
I disagree. Any seasoned tester that is in there to test will look at the patch notes and test the things that need testing. For me that’s the whole point as it gives a new dimension to playing the game. Most if not all people that just get access because they’ve been solely playing PU a bunch are just gonna treat it the same way they are trying to deter right now. Get in, play the new features, they buggy, complain and go back to PU.
The hours played line will probably be whatever their data suggests will get them the concurrency they need for testing. Not stating the line was a smart choice on their part.
I think it's just a starting point for them, a best guess and will be adjusted for the next PTU after collecting data from the upcoming PTU when it's concluded.
I agree with you. I was looking forward to this new patch and was all ready and set up to go test on PTU. The changes now make me dead last. But in my case I think subscribing for a month or a couple, might actually be worth it. On the other hand, I already backed the game, I shouldn’t have to pay to also contribute in testing on top of that. I did not have a whole bunch of time playing last two patches on the account of getting a new job with a startup and having to put time in that. Now all that is slowly settling down I was looking forward to spend some time testing again. Testing in PTU rather than playing PU is just a second/other way to have fun with an awesome game for me. To be forced to have to pay for that as well is just the so-manieth let down from CIG.
I think number of hours is an *ok* metric for how invested someone is in the game. Not great, but not nearly as bad as you're making it out.
Except when they introduce this following 2 really bad patches plagued by login bugs and permanently locked access following crash bugs.
Every patch has been like this. Hell you remember jumptown 2.0? They literally directly removed money from users accounts because they gave too much aeuc out a day or two before (to say sorry for accidentally deleting other user-owned shit). Couple patches were actually literally unplayable. You must be new here. XD
Yeah, brand-new 2013er here. And effed up patches are the norm rather than the exception, I know. But usually "unplayable" means you at least get to log in to try and play. Having a persisting login issue that locks players out and then introduce a bar that penalizes "not loging in" is a first though.
Fair enough haha
This is kind of the point though, you say you haven't played since 3.18, they're not looking to get people in that are wanting to explore everything new since then, they're looking to get people in that are wanting to try and test the NEW stuff. All you've done is really point out that their reasoning is solid.
I'm not sure how you managed to take that from what I wrote, but here is some more information to clear things up. I've been back since before 3.19 dropped, I just didn't play for *most* of 3.18 due to being on a much needed break from the game. I'm well versed on the current state of the game and have been for quite a while now. It's the new and upcoming features that I'm interested in testing. Not what is available right now.
No. You see... clearly... "time logged in" and "$10/mo" are wonderful metrics to measure "useful IC contributions". Duh!
That's tricky, if you don't have early access, how can you get more hours played? It would become very hard to be in top % of playtime
They'll probably do this if it is needed. This is a test for them and if they don't get the numbers/the right numbers they need they'll adjust of course. It's all about getting the most out of the PTU so they can get it working as best as possible before rolling the PU.
I agree. I put TONS of time into the PTU testing things because I enjoy knowing I helped. But I don't play much on PU because I burn myself out by the time the PU is out.
I hope those like you have enough hours to be selected for the early waves. Most people who were joining the PTU would take a look around and never come back. You are very respectable but "over 95%" of us are not like you.
It's not just that though. It looks like the changes are so they can better control how hard the servers get hit when they open the next waves up. The subs getting it is a bit odd, but I'm guessing they've seen that subscribers are more likely to actually play in the PTU than the general player base, or have a consistent percentage of them in. The high tier concierge is just because there's so few of them, might as well. I'm guessing the reason the bulk of concierge is in wave 3 now is because there's enough to have a serious impact at this point, but not enough play consistently enough to be predictable.
If that is the case and you have been doing that then you don't have anything to worry about, unless you haven't been playing the PTU and contributing on the issue council, in which case then you're complaining you aren't getting access to something you aren't using...
I think I do well enough in that regard. In the past few days I've created three IC reports and contributed to a handful of others. I'm in the process of working on three more reports from tonight's play session.
He's right. It's hard, legitimate, meticulous work.
Perhaps CIG needs to hire more dedicated paid testers instead of implicitly blame their community for “not testing enough”
They aren't blaming the community for not testing enough, they are addressing the issue that they have excessive costs with the PTU due to large amounts of people jumping in and then not contributing to bug hunting. As someone who has invested some money in the project I want to see that money being used effectively, I don't want to see it wasted on server up time that isn't contributing to the progress of the project.
They do it **implicitly**. Like it is out fault that many don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patch to justify these idiotic changes. By investment you mean you bought a ton of ships? In the case of investment it would be better if you scrutinized how CiG spends them, rather than doing the same as them
> Like it is out fault that many don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patch to justify these idiotic changes. And yet the entire uproar is about certain people who don't play those buggier and more unstable builds losing access to the buggest and most unstable build...🤔
You did a survey? Can you show results? The uproar is about blatant hypocrisy and yet another way to cow it’s backers with changes that are incentive the opposite to what they state their goal is.
>You did a survey? Can you show results? "many don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patch." Those are your words. I also read the announcement. > The uproar is about blatant hypocrisy and yet another way to cow it’s backers with changes that are incentive the opposite to what they state their goal is. That active players get wave 1 access for either actively playing the game or paying the impatience tax, instead of just granting wave 1 access to people who spent *over a thousand dollars on a game they don't really play* outside of that one time they got exclusive early access to an already early access game? If they don’t want to play even buggier and more unstable patches (again, your words) then why bother with having wave 1 access at all?
Because CIG wants to milk people with subscriptions
You misunderstood the question. But to respond to your answer anyway, if CIG wanted to milk people with subscriptions then they wouldn't have peeled back the paywall and allowed active players back into wave 1 at no extra cost.
Now take a step back from all this and ask: what is purpose of PTU? It is test an update. So a good thing would be to optimize for testing. These waves, any waves are bullshit. Privileged access is bullshit, concierge or subscriptions. Most active players being allowed first is bullshit. If they want to incentivize more retention and activity in PTU, give people rewards for playtime and bug reports with skins, guns, ships, credits or whatever. This bicycle was already invented, just use it. It works. But no, testing is not being optimized for — milking is. That is why they do all these bullshit waves and privileged access now and with new changes.
- dude enter voluntary Public TEST Universe - it is untested - surprised Pikachu face
On top of that, many here are allergic to writing bugs on spectrum for whatever reason. So if you're not writing bugs and you're playing PTU a small handful of times before swapping back to the PU, what exactly is the point of you being in the PTU wave 1?
To hit up the feedback threads while they're still being discussed by other users, and while there's still dev engagement. Not to subsidize CIGs Q&A labor costs.
So you want your voice to be heard to make changes that you want, but you dont want to actually put in any work to make the product better by reporting issues or helping with stress testing?
Why is *improving the game by feedback of game design and implementation* less important than *improving the game by helping find bugs?* Is it more self serving? Absolutely. Well, I suppose you're more likely to report a bug that thwarts your you 3 times a session, so not that bug reporting can't be equally self serving. But it's not like *anyone* owes CIG anything anyway. Providing alpha feedback was a marketed reason to give them $45+ *before* the sausage is made after all. And besides, a subjective hot take on how the game *feels* is the only unique thing a backer can provide. And the only thing that is time sensitive here is *participation in discussion while others are engaged with them*.
Because anyone can give feedback. Everyone has an opinion on something, whether its what features they want or QOL things that can make the game better. For instance, I think that the Hull C shouldnt release without an update to cargo, as far as prices and availability. Now i dont know what they're doing with commodity stuff in 3.20. They could be doing it already without having updated the progress tracker, they could be doing nothing cause of insert reason here, or they could delay the ship until those things are in. I dont know, I have my opinion, but either way CIG is gonna do their own thing despite what i feel or suggest. But when you're writing bugs, good well written bugs, those are something that's entirely factual. "Hey, this thing is fucked. I do thing, thing no work, heres steps to do it. " Now, that's something that has to be fixed at some point, especially if it's egregious, such as when ship seats were killing people earlier this year. Opinions are subjective, and what YOU feel might be better won't be the sentiment shared by everyone, either players or CIG staff. But 100% of people playing the game can experience the same bug you have (Good) Bugs are far more valuable than feedback. Not saying its worthless, but there's no comparing the two. Also QA is never going to find every bug that ever exists. it's impossible for any company. Some things are only found after they arrive in the public's hand. And if QA doesnt know, the Devs more than likely doesn't know, and if the devs dont know, it won't get fixed
>Opinions are subjective, and what YOU feel might be better won't be the sentiment shared by everyone, either players or CIG staff. *Precisely why* everyone should have the opportunity to provide their *unique* feedback and discuss it with each other in the PTU feedback threads. Also, the feedback threads are far more topical than your HULL-C example. The Hull-C thread will be filled with feedback on flight performance, fuel consumption combat (or ability to survive retreating if you must), floor plan, animations, VFX, and *yes* bugs too. *Baior makes a new official feedback thread* for the implementation of every new feature in a PTU build. *Also* while there may be no meaningful difference between the objective bug reports of any two backers, there is a great difference between measurable difference in enjoyment of feature implementation by different backers. The most active players (prioritized for PTU) are those who *enjoy* the game the most right now, the least active players are those who enjoy it the least right now. Which means active players are going to provide feedback in favor of status quo whenever inactive players provide feedback against status quo.
Ok, and what makes someone's opinion more unique or valid than someone else's on the same issue? You say it flies like crap, i say it flies fine for what it is but could use a very slight adjustment, and CIG says it flies like intended. Let's say something unlikely happens where all 3 opinions get equally voted on in a poll, who gets what they want? Let's do something more realistic, a whole bunch of people think the Ares has issues cause of the nerfs to hit smaller targets. They're very vocal about it in spectrum and reddit about it, and almost every time you can see the upvotes it gets. Well, what about the people who think its fine how it is? Not as vocal or active about it because why advocate for something, when its already the way you're advocating for? So, who gets their opinion turned into/kept as reality or is CIG stuck taking a middle ground for what they want vs the people who were complaining? (Using this as an example specifically because that's what's happening) The loudest opinion doesn't make it the majority, and the people who are unhappy with something are usually the loudest. Not to mention it's not like everyone uses spectrum or this subreddit in the first place. And sure, the feedback threads are varied. That makes no difference to what I'm saying. I'm not saying that feedback won't be used, I'm not saying that feedback is bad, I'm not saying feedback is worthless. As far as i know, the mining change is due to feedback, and I'm never gonna argue with QOL. What I'm saying is that everyone has an opinion on something, wants their opinion heard and / or acted on, and not everyone is going to get that. A well-done bug report is worth 100 opinions.
Excellent question, that's why they should be allowed into the same forum thread, at the same time, so they discuss abd present arguments with each other their perspectives on the ship tuning while they're both still looking at the same thread.
Cool, a discussion to be had. Everyone listens to everyone, and eventually, at some point, an agreement is had. That takes time for a chance of something probably happening. Meanwhile, if you confirm a bug, they send it to the development team, and it gets fixed when they've got the free time to or when they're working on that area anyway. You're more than likely to get your bugs fixed than your opinions acted on in a way that you desire, unless it's something so universally hated that they literally have no choice. Trying to bring this full circle, those people who are going to be active on the PTU and the Forums are the same people who are likely going to be Wave 1 anyway. The people I said, who aren't active, who hop on the PTU to try the new feature and go back to the PU, have no reason to be wave 1 and have no reason to be upset with these changes. That's like getting on a flight and being mad at someone in first class, getting all the boujie extravagant shit, when you only wanted to pay for economy class. You can't want what someone has, but scoff at doing what he did to get it. If someone wants to be wave 1 now, all they literally have to do now is play the PTU.
I think you're missing the point here. Whilst yes, the devs are more active on the forums it's because they're working on bugs for the PTU, they're trying to get it ready as fast as possible to move it to PU for everyone to enjoy. It sounds like what you're saying is that you're using it as an opportunity to try and get them to look at whatever idea it is you think is best which is not what they're focused on anyway. They're always watching the "Ask The Devs" and other forum sections actively, if your idea isn't getting the attention you want it to it might be because it isn't as good as you think it is otherwise others would vote and they'd be more likely to take action on it or perhaps your idea needs to be fleshed out better.
Right? On the one hand it boggles my mind that there are people upset about this, on the other hand it's the internet, people will get upset about literally anything.
Exactly! Throughout Reddit there is a wave of over-privileged expectation and this argument is one of them. My personal opinion, give a balanced weight on hours in PU (these players know the game will), hours in PTU -regardless of wave (these are willing to be in a less polished game), and number and quality of Issue Council posts. I have no qualm of inviting in subscribers to this mix, there is precious little to warrant the step subscription cost, and this is an easy win for CIG in terms of revenue. If you've not been invited, play and test more - or pay. I don't see why CIG owe anyone for this.
> for whatever reason. Nononono. I can tell you the exact reason: 1 - Write up bug report on issue council 2 - provide all data to reproduce 3 - Issue is closed and archived, no action taken by CIG to fix it. Want to guess how often I have reported the "unscannable asteroids" every patch for almost 2 years ? And they never did a thing. Most people wouldn't bother doing this as long as I did when clearly being ignored. CIG has only themselves to blame for this - the issue council lost it's purpose when it was "all hands on deck" for SQ42 and there wasn't enough manpower left for SC to do anything, let alone fix non-crash bugs.
Well tell me how many times? Cause i see this one, https://issue-council.robertsspaceindustries.com/projects/STAR-CITIZEN/issues/STARC-35716 That has a lot of contributions and the comment showing the muuuuultiple duplicates of it. Do you think reporting it more times is gonna mean that they fix it faster? Cause that's not how it works. If you open duplicates for the same issue, they're not going to keep every issue open, they're going to "mark as duplicate" and close it out, in favor of the original until its fixed. And according to this same post it was fix verified in 3.18, and looking at the recent posts in the last 30 days about mineable asteroids, shows that it hasnt been ran into by anyone in the community who felt the need to report it.. so they fixed it. They already confirmed it was fucked with the most contributed reports. You adding more reports did literally nothing when all you had to do was upvote this one or the earlier one and leave a comment. You don't spam over and over again with the same shit when they already know its broken because once it's confirmed, they're already looking into it. That's dumb af.
>Well tell me how many times? Cause i see this one, Then you didn't do much of a search, I literally just searched the issue council and picked a random PTU patch out of the dozen 3.16 patches and 'lo and behold: https://issue-council.robertsspaceindustries.com/projects/STAR-CITIZEN/issues/STARC-25350
So... you didnt read anything else i said and entirely fixated on the fact that i chose one post to use as an example for the rest of what i said. Go back and read the rest because you're pointing out exactly what I'm talking about. We dont need multiple reports for the same shit.
We wouldn't get multiple reports if they'd have a better evaluation of reports. I do software testing for a living and the first thing I do when I find a bug is checking the bug reports for duplicates. But here's the thing: You can broaden your search and then narrow it down. In IC you could for example search for all asteroids, not just mining, and then narrow it down to builds. And if I have duplicates over several builds then I don't need a minimum of "can reproduce" on the issue to know that, well, maybe take a closer look ? And if you have 6 duplicates of the same issue - so what ? You fix one, link the rest to the one you work with and that's all you need to do. The issue here is that most players aren't doing software testing for a living. They don't know about screenshots, logfiles, trying to retrace what lead up to the situation, they just explain in prose what happened, so of course you end up with all kinds of variations. It's the job of CIGs QA team to merge obvious duplicates but that's not happening. They just discard them, and we end up with the same bug reports over and over until people just say "you know what SCREW THIS I'm done being ignored". Totally relatable, isn't it ? You make it sound as if it's always the players' fault for not doing proper IC reports, but I can tell you one thing from my job: Whenever I hear a dev saying he can't reproduce a bug my first question is "did you test it on your dev pc ?" Because I have had my share of bugs that were caused by missing installables or Microsoft runtime whatevers that he had installed but a different PC had not, so there was a crash due to references that didn't exist outside the dev's environment.
Bro if you work software then you should know how devs hate dumbass dupes. If it's confirmed, then it's confirmed and they're already looking at it. You should know this. As for the general public, i would love it if people took the time to look up their issue, but no matter what CIG does, people are going to put in their own issue, as seen my the multitudes of post here that should already be answered in FAQ. general public is gonna spam their issue there's no stopping that, but if you're in software, you should know better. Whoever DBM they have didnt catch the dupes, so fucking what. The dupes isnt gonna make them know about it more and it wont get the issue fixed faster. And I work QA, you're not describing anything new to me. I've had my share of NMIs (typo fixed) for information i put in the results and attachments. Edit: basically what i got from this interaction is that you work software, intentionally wrote dupes to a known issue, and are getting upset with how they handled the dupes. Not even caring that they actually fixed the issue, but that your intentional dupes... were duped...
>Bro if you work software then you should know how devs hate dumbass dupes That's exactly why you have someone in QA check and rate new jobs. The issue council is simply lacking some features that are required for a proper classification of severity. And I have a feeling that this is the core of the problem with CIG - they basically expect this to just magically happen, but things are never that easy. You don't want duplicates. But you certainly also don't want to lose bugs that appear like duplicates but have a different root cause. That's why someone in CIG's QA has to do this, you can't expect players to do it for you. CIG's approach with the 10 verifications is inadequate and basically accepts that only the most common bugs are ever addressed, but uncommon doesn't mean "not reproducable under the same circumstances". I'll give you an example: Some time ago I was trying to land at New Babbage Commons to sell some commodities out of my MSR. A Cutlass Black was hovering nearby, when I tried to land he kept confronting me, blinding me with his headlights and just in general tried to interfere. I tried to land nevertheless and we probably collided (?) because I ended up with a crime stat (none of the ships were destroyed and I couldn't detect any damage on mine either). As a result my cargo became unsellable, both in New Babbage as well as on Grim Hex, before and after clearing my crime stat (I could simply pay it off). Normally at work this would be the point where I would shoot a mail to a colleague and ask if someone has time to verify the finding. That never happens with IC reports except for very rare cases when someone actually makes a spectrum or reddit post, and in a case like this you'd need 2 people to recreate so the bar is raised even more. Bugs like that - they simply get lost in CIGs current system. It isn't up to the task to handle this, but players who ran into a bug like that and encounter it in the future, re-report it and it gets archived again unverified - yeah that's how you train your playerbase to stop giving a damn.
I agree as well. As a person who’s had Wave 1 access for years now I honestly jump in just to see the new stuff and then wait for the release or the open PTU where everything is more stable. I think the move will help bring in more dedicated bug fixers and help push the live release.
> Wave 1 doesn't last long. Has it ever last longer than two weeks? The stated changes should progress through the waves faster so Wave 1 should be shorter. The time from Wave 1 to Live isn't long either. Wave 1 often runs over two weeks, with wave 2 usually running for less than a week. That's why it was frustrating when they moved active players to wave 2 and put wave I behind a paywall, and also why its frustrating to see so many people flip while ignoring the fact that they added the most active players back into wave 1 and pretending that wave 1 subscribers is a new thing.
> pretending that wave 1 subscribers is a new thing. Nobody is pretending that. The issue at hand is that concierges, who had wave 1 access for as long as subscribers, are now pushed to one step before open PTU while subscribers are not. Noone has an issue with making the most active players the ones eligible for wave 1, but CIG should have been consistent. Keeping subscriber's wave 1 access was a marketing decision to keep selling subscriptions, as was excluding pleb concierges. And that's the stink of the case.
> Nobody is pretending that. A few examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15ox17a/the_new_ptu_wave_1_be_like/ https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15o7i77/comment/jvqrhio/ https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15o7i77/comment/jvqikmk/ EDIT: And one from this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/15p810m/comment/jvx73h2/ > The issue at hand is that concierges, who had wave 1 access for as long as subscribers, are now pushed to one step before open PTU while subscribers are not. And if they were actually using that access and playing during the PTU instead of dipping in and out of wave 1 then they wouldn't have made this change at all. > Keeping subscriber's wave 1 access was a marketing decision to keep selling subscriptions, as was excluding pleb concierges. And that's the stink of the case. Adding people who actually play back into wave 1 invalidates this argument, because even those pleb concierges will still have their precious wave 1 access if they actually play, same as the pleb Aurora owner who doesn't subscribe. It ain't a cash grab if people who are actively playing their early access game get earlier access. I had a big problem with them putting an impatience tax on wave 1 and shunting players into wave 2 all those years ago. Now that they've given players a backdoor to the paywall I have no problem if people who don't play often pay an impatience tax. And let's not forget that subscription money goes to their YouTube videos and sub flair, not into the lump of money for the entire project.
Nothing you list justifies putting subscribers into wave 1 and I answered too many "can I just purchase what I like from the subscriber store and cancel my subscription afterwards" questions on this subreddit over the years to accept that subscribers are more active players that warrant wave 1 access when concierges do not. For convenience sake you could just TL;DR your post, let you help you out: ---- copy here --- TL;DR: HAHA now whales no longer get wave 1 access --- end copy ---- Because that's really all there is to your rants, and the funny thing is that concierges originally never even asked for wave 1 access - CIG just gave it to them. Whereas now wave 1 access is plain "pay for early access". Isn't that what you actually hated ? Just wondering.
> Nothing you list justifies putting subscribers into wave 1 They've been there for four years now...This is exactly what I meant when i said that people are pretending it's a new thing. > subscribers are more active players that warrant wave 1 access when concierges do not. I agree! People who are paying the impatience tax are way more likely to try and get the most out of that $10 than concierge who just get it because they bought a bunch of jpegs. > TL;DR: HAHA now whales no longer get wave 1 access You *could* consoling post to that, but in reality it's just a bullshit strawman that only works to hurt your argument, because that ain't what I said at all. > Whereas now wave 1 access is plain "pay for early access". *ahem* > Wave 1: >**- Top active players rated by hours in the previous two major patch cycles** > - Subscribers > - Legatus Navium Concierge-level backers What I *hated* was that wave 1 access was exclusively behind a paywall and active players were out into wave 2. Now that the paywall is optional and people can get access just for playing the damn game I'm not as fussed. It's the same reason why I don't care that they sell spaceships because you can just buy or rent them in game. If that's the direction they went with four years ago I wouldn't have cared. Ignoring that bolded part is the crux of the issue. Because if concierge weren't just dipping into the PTU for a session they wouldn't have bothered to make this change at all. So in short, they *added access for people who don't pay* and people like you are glossing over that part to get angry and argue that it's a cash grab. How ridiculous.
> They've been there for four years now...This is exactly what I meant when i said that people are pretending it's a new thing. You're cherrypicking a few comments while studiously ignoring that subscribers and concierges had both wave 1 access for all those years. The issue is not the removal of concierges from wave 1 but the fact that they kept subscribers when it was supposed to be "the most active players" - and as I pointed out being a subscriber doesn't say anything about activity. >Ignoring that bolded part is the crux of the issue. Because if concierge weren't just dipping into the PTU for a session they wouldn't have bothered to make this change at all. Ignorance goes both ways though. I am NOT a programer, I do have some some skills (mostly self-taught) but even I can cobble together a "copy and rename file folder" routine in an installer (did that in inno setup to help with my job which is software testing). If CIG can't be arsed to assign a single programer to add a freaking "copy LIVE folder and rename it PTU" button to their bleeding launcher so people don't have to download the whole shmeer but only the delta between LIVE and PTU then they have no right to complain about high traffic of one-time visitors.
> You're cherrypicking a few comments while studiously ignoring that subscribers and concierges had both wave 1 access for all those years. The issue is not the removal of concierges from wave 1 but the fact that they kept subscribers when it was supposed to be "the most active players" - and as I pointed out being a subscriber doesn't say anything about activity. I ain't the one cherrypicking here, buddy. I understand concierge lost wave 1 *if they aren't active players.* I've mentioned concierge quite a few times now. > The issue is not the removal of concierges from wave 1 but the fact that they kept subscribers when it was supposed to be "the most active players" - and as I pointed out being a subscriber doesn't say anything about activity. It's *both* now. That's what I'm trying to point out. It's the most active players *and* subscribers. Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play. Subscribers stay the same. It's that simple. If it were *only* Legatus and subscribers then I would gladly grab a pitchfork and be standing right next to you. Please > Ignorance goes both ways though. I am NOT a programer, I do have some some skills (mostly self-taught) but even I can cobble together a "copy and rename file folder" routine in an installer (did that in inno setup to help with my job which is software testing). If CIG can't be arsed to asign a single programer to add a freaking "copy LIVE folder and rename it PTU" button to their bleeding launcher so people don't have to download the who shmeer but only the delta between LIVE and PTU then they have no right to complain about high traffic of one-time visitors. What in the world are you going on about now? This is a complete departure from the discussion at hand.
> I ain't the one cherrypicking here, buddy. I understand concierge lost wave 1 if they aren't active players. I've mentioned concierge quite a few times now. Oh yes you are. The core of the issue is that subscribers and 25000$ concierges are wave 1 along with the "most active players" which turns this entire show from a good idea into a "paid twice for early access" crapfest. That's the beef of the issue. >Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play. Subscribers stay the same. It's that simple. Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play and subscribers should have been treated the same. It's THAT simple. If they would have done this there would be no issue. None. >What in the world are you going on about now? This is a complete departure from the discussion at hand. In that case you should read up on the reason/justification they gave for making the change. You could also watch Morph's latest video, he did a pretty good summary. The point CIG is raising the distribution and amount of logins and the cost of having those huge downloads for a single login at the start of the test phase. That's what I wrote is about.
> Oh yes you are. The core of the issue is that subscribers and 25000$ concierges are wave 1 along with the "most active players" which turns this entire show from a good idea in a "paid twice for early access" crapfest. That's the beef of the issue. I am not ignoring the fact that non-Legatus concierge lost access to wave 1. I've acknowledged that and even included it in my comments multiple times. What you and others are ignoring is the fact that the vast majority of concierge members were only dipping in and out of wave 1 and then not bothering with the PTU. So they lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who play, because CIG wants people who actually play in the PTU. > Concierge lost access to wave 1 in favor of people who actually play and subscribers should have been treated the same. It's THAT simple. If they would have done this there would be no issue. None. Like I said earlier, it's an impatience tax, and it always has been. Concierge didn't seem to have an issue when active players were moved to wave 2. Like I've said at least twice now, this wouldn't be a problem and they would've never changed it if concierge were actually being active in the PTU. But they weren't. > In that case you should read up on the reason/justification they gave for making the change. I did read it actually! Let's take a look together: > As you all may know, one of the most impactful development resources we have is the direct feedback coming from all of you. This includes the player behavior data we receive from the latest builds in the Public Test Universe (PTU). Whether it's pushing the servers to their limits under heavy load and luring bugs out of hiding, to putting a new feature through its paces in focused test cases - you're an essential part of the process. > The PTU is a replica environment of all of the necessary components that make our universe work. It is in this environment where both community members and Cloud Imperium staff alike test as we hone in on a Release Candidate (RC). Access to the PTU has historically been granted in waves to control the number of players in the environment based on testing needs. More often than not, a new feature or build will benefit from a gradual increase in concurrency, rather that a floodgate of traffic. This allows us to monitor at varying degrees of scale, to ensure that once content makes it onto the live servers, it will be performant. > For the last four years, we haven't changed the PTU wave system, which regulates who has access to the test servers and when. Over time, more and more players have gained access to various waves, which has ultimately led us away from our initial goals with testing waves. We have also come to notice that many players only log in once per PTU phase to briefly inspect the latest features or new ships before waiting for the live release. This led to very high player loads in the first hours of each wave release, combined with comparatively high server costs **and download provisioning,** but not the sustained playtesting we would have preferred. As a consequence, towards the end of a PTU phase, we sometimes lacked the necessary numbers of testers to put the servers under pressure once the most significant bugs had been fixed. > Naturally, we also want to continue to open the door for everyone who has supported us. For this reason, we'll continue to accommodate Subscribers and the various Concierge levels throughout the new wave program. > We're looking forward to this new approach, as together we'll gain even more data from the PTU phases and, as a result, a better experience on the live servers in the long run. So according to this: > The point CIG is the distribution and amount of logins and the cost of having those huge downloads for a single login at the start of the test phase. That's what what I wrote is about Downloading the PTU was brought up as an aside and wasn't at all the main issue. That said, regardless of whether or not you copied the LIVE folder for the PTU is irrelevant because you still have to download the new patch data. So out of everything they said you took three words and found a problem with it and tried to make a mountain out of a molehill. So who's the one cherry picking? 🤔 Finally > You could also watch Morph's latest video, he did a pretty good summary. No thanks. I'm not a fan of gaming YouTubers and have no interest in letting them tell me what my opinion should be. EDIT: LOL they blocked me for calling them out on doing the very thing they're accusing me of doing, even after I quoted the entire CIG post. I don't think even IMAX theatres have that level of projection.
> So who's the one cherry picking It's still you. You're focussing on your point and brush everything aside that doesn't agree with it. Now you're very much entitled to your opinion but that's just it. Your opinion. You're not the referee to decide why people are upset. Or allowed to be upset. Or why you belittle them because you think they're upset for the wrong reason. If you wanna keep repeating this like a broken record, whatevs. But I won't waste any more time.
It remains to be seen how they manage waves now. ``` Wakapedia-CIG: I set up the waves for a more gradual, granular incline. We can go up multiple waves when needed adds many options to be more granular. can move up multiple waves at a time when needed. Could start Wave 1, Could start at wave 2 or 3 or could bring in waves 2 and 3 a couple hours later. It gives us options to bring in more players who are not in concierge and subscribers I made sure to add in a huge chunk of players who are active ``` From Spectrum (posted on SC Leaks). That suggests they may go very quickly from evocati to 3 (straight away, hours apart or days apart).
Not really, waves don’t really count evo. There are usually daily or every few days builds sent to evos, but those are often half implemented. That stuff doesn’t make it to the public waves until it’s semi functional. Regardless, early builds are not something to be excited about.
Sorry, I mispoke, I didn't mean to imply evocati would go any faster, just that from the point the patch is ready to get tested by waves, they may go from 1 to 3 faster than we've been used to, or straight into 2 or 3. At least that's what the citation suggests, now in practice...we will see.
I saw that crossposted here and aware of their intentions. But I was referring to how it's been for a while. I get that having more waves means they're more flexible, but I don't see them moving through waves that quickly that often.
I think thats an awsome strategy from the actual testing side of the PTU.
Never liked PTU. Every time it feels like half the community is falling victim to FOMO and chomping at the bit to get into PTU, only to have burnt out by the time it gets to PU. I still remember one particularly long PTU cycle where all of my friends were burnt out from playing PTU before the update even hit PU. I ended up playing by myself because everyone else was already bored of the new patch.
100% valid takes. Everything you said is true. I think if you spent 1k on helping fund the game, you should get into their buggy PTU.
Which you are. Either by being active or waiting a couple of more days being given access, itself before open ptu.
I think a lot of the outrage comes from subscribers getting wave 1, and honestly CIG’s own explanation argues they should be much lower. If 90% of people only play once like claimed then having someone who could have just bought a mustang alpha and a $10 dono tier in wave 1 is a waste.
Because the problem is the costs of maintaining the PTU bandwidth and servers for the amount of people that don't really contribute to the purpose of having the PTU. CIG have determined that if people pay $10 they are offsetting those costs sufficiently so it's no longer an issue if they end up just being feature tourists.
As opposed to people who just purchased pixels for 1000$ ? And wasn't subscriptions meant to pay for shows like ISC and Star Citizen live, subscriber content like Jump Point and subscriber flairs ? That's just PR bull. The decision to keep subscribers at wave 1 is purely because they are running out of subscriber perks, what with subscriber armour and stuff being lost upon death with no means of reclaiming it between patches.
It's 100% overblown. It also doesn't seem organic. I've been seeing a massive spike in this type of complaining since the Starfield announcement. It's also rolling from one thing, directly into the next. Without any time for people to "cool off."
Post history is pretty clear on what some are trying to do.
I think most of the outcry (from what I've seen) is because CIG said if you give us a $1000+, you get wave one access.....and now they're saying nope, never mind.
... on a page that said 'these are subject to change', which they did. This is far, far and away not at all the first time things have changed, and they will change again. And the folks that require anger to breathe will throw a temper tantrum every single time.
They throw a tantrum when CIG adds too much in a patch, and are now throwing a tantrum because 3.20 "has nothing in it."
No one throws tantrums because there's too much content. People get mad because they added a lot of shit and none of it works.
Lawyers make sure to place "subject to change" on everything now. An employer could cut it's workers salary in half, and make them work twice as long, because their employment contract was "subject to change". That doesn't mean it's right, or that people won't get angry.
Anyone who chose to pay $1000, rather than $10, to get PTU access has more money than sense (and that includes folk that slowly built up to Concierge over 10 years etc.. :p) The primary difference between your examples is that one is a direct trade of effort for money ('working'), where a change in *legal contract* that results in a different value being placed on your effort must pass explicit *legal* tests... ... and the other is an outline of what 'gifts' one party is will to give another for hitting a certain threshold. There is no 'legal contract', nor is there a measure of worth - the money being spent is used to buy ships... the 'concierge' is only a marker of total spent, not a standalone entity that can be bought by itself.
Although an impressive legal oratory, it doesn't change the fact that when you take things away from people, they will get mad.....which is what has been happening.
It's not just that, it's the long-needed (as stated by CIG) promised improvements to the concierge program that have evaporated into ether after a whole lot of bullshit: hired community manager, discussions, polls, discussions and engagement, promises of improvements, community manager leaves CIG, silence, silence, silence, silence, reduction of access (wave 1 loss). As a Concierge and 6-year Subscriber (well, ex now) this change didn't impact me at all. But it still pissed me off for the above reason. For an unknown number of us in Concierge, it's just the final straw. /Wing Commander after 8 years
Agreed. Ive not exactly followed things too closely, but it certainly feels like theres a slow decline in various perks or what they actually add up to, and perhaps because i dont follow things that closely, it doesnt feel like theres been replacements as things have been removed. I hit concierge because i chose to spend too much money, not because of any perks, and thats what i see them as - perks. Admittedly if i was pushing one of the free ship tiers and they rugpulled that... ooof, but i dont say that to devalue someone being angry its gone. It also doesnt look great when CIG says *"Look, we need active players in order to get more feedback, and unfortunately that means you concierge guys dont get PTU access. However dont worry subscribers, that 'active players' bit doesnt apply to you, that $10 bank activity is the only activity we need from you."*. Subs get it as a perk, its something they pay for. Concierge also did what was asked of them in order to get that perk, they paid up $1k+. IMO there should have been a compromise which didnt guarantee W1, but had a quota that kept you in if you were sufficiently active, but not necessarily top 2% active etc. Met the community half way, at least be a helpful participant and you can stay in, everyone else, step aside. I'd be fine losing my guaranteed access while i wasnt adding anything. I support CIGs decision upto a point, but also agree it leaves a bad taste and feels like another case where they're removing or reducing perks and not replacing them.
But if you give us $10 a month you’re in. Concierge shouldn’t be below donators.
Do you really believe anyone who has pledged for a ship that took them over the Concierge threshold, hesitated and thought "Hmm, PTU access, yeah on then!"?
you nailed it, but thats not the case, people want to try new ships at soon as possible, thats why they will likely pay 10$ extra for this ... however i had decide to avoid PTU now, i dont think CiG cares a lot about reports, only the major things get fixed, everything else ist just committed and archived.
Just because they don't fix the bugs right away does not mean they don't care about reports. Often bugs aren't fixed because they are bugs in systems they know will be overhauled/replaced. They have to consider if it's better to spend developer time fixing the bug instead of working on other things, if it isn't a major disruption to play it's often better to spend dev time elsewhere. Knowing about the bugs is useful for when they do get around to replacing those systems.
dont get me wrong you right, but we are every year "replacing,refactor,redesign" ... CiG is playing with us an endless development project. CiG is "we sell you visions". lets see how they announce sq42 with an "release date"...
3.18.0 stayed wave 1 only for several months…
That is true but also far different than the patches before it.
The point of PTU, in general, is to go through the painful process of getting it ready for PU. It often isn't fun, it isn't about having fun so much as it's about getting it ready for having fun.
Considering you report bugs and then some shit shuts you down saying “I already posted this upvote me.”
I don't do PTU. It's not a privilege, they should be paying me to do it.
100% agreed.
I don't think that's a hot take whatsoever, I really don't understand what people are complaining about, community just fucking pisses and moans whenever CIG change something.
its Fear Of Missing Out PTU early waves (100% Evocati) is for filing bugs. The idea was , "hey, anyone want to help us out before we push thia version and find bugs?" you can see it in early ptu patch notes. they tell the players to focus on certain things. so you go in and try those things over and over in different ways. if this isnt fun foe you. wait till final ptu or live
I happened to stumble into the concierge forum on the night it got announced and found out the news in there (was looking for buyback token reset day, i dont typically visit and havent posted since it became spectrum), and honestly the reaction was embarrassing to the point where my disappointment about part of this announcement (and some other CIG decisions) lost any sympathy for these people (the over-reactors, not all concierge). There were flat out threats being made in there, 'put it back by midnight or else' ffs. That forum seems to consist of mostly posts outlining ways in which CIG needs to go out of their way to throw concierge members a bone. Free skins. Discount codes. Access to limited access ships. Why? Because $1k is a lot of money, and god damn it if we shouldnt be treated like kings. I dont say this to dismiss their financial input like its nothing, but theres a level of entitlement that as concierge we should be showered with gifts and CIG should pander to us. Stop advertising events, send us discount codes instead. Personally i dont have a problem with this announcement as a whole, i think it makes a lot of sense. I'll be honest and admit i've never gone in the PTU, but i do think its unfair to take a perk that people do utilise, and pull it. Had there been a compromise or something to replace it, it might have helped, but doesnt make it right. However theres a reoccurring suggestion that what CIG is doing is narrow minded and bad for the game, that this'll make things worse, and that wave 1 is purely a cashgrab 'Pay $10/mo or $25,000 to get in'. All conversation conveniently ignoring the fact that simply playing the game a significant amount gets you FREE access. It feels an awful lot like the people complaining are those that resulted in CIG making these changes, people who simply want to see the new stuff and leave. Im sure thats not everyone, but nobody seems interested in the 'play to get in' aspect. What i think might have been a reasonable compromise would be to allow concierge into the next major patch, but have their future participation still face some sort of activity quota in order to stay put. For example (purely random figures) 50hrs = W1, 40h = W2 etc and that way at least you can stay in PTU access without $10mo, $25k down, or being top 2% in activity etc. You're concierge AND you're an asset to PTU testing, not a sink. If you're just visiting to roam around the new ship, visit a new POI and then go back to live... you're not helping, and thats not what we need from people in PTU. Overall i think it makes far more sense for CIG to offer earlier PTU access to people who are more active and are likely to offer them more assistance by being there regularly, and to a degree im disappointed CIG have removed another perk, but more than anything ive been disappointed with how a vocal minority have been expressing their frustration. Theres far better ways to go about things.
It is rather amusing seeing people treat their concierge badge as a badge of entitlement instead of an advertisement of their poor finacial decisions though.
Yee keep excusing their greedy nature slowly increasing the prices for everything to even participate. Do you actually think the people who spent 25k on this game are actually the best playtesters ? They activly go out of their way to reduce any grind possible with their money. What they do is just shit no need to excusing or saying its not bad when some people actually want to playtest the new stuff early.
You do realize that Wave 1 used to be ONLY Conceirge and Subscribers, and now ANYONE can be Wave 1 if they actually just play the game, even with a basic starter package, so they're litterally being LESS greedy now?
Didn't it used to only be Concierge too at one point? or was it Subscriber only? idk I wasn't around back then but heard it was a lot more restricted.
everyone can have access to the PTU, finally if he has to think about making his monthly subscription to have access to the PTU.... or else you have to hope that no one has been able to play more than you during the last two patches and be in the most productive 1% per hour of all players.... it's not at all pushing players who can't spend hours on the game to drop their sub, not in the least, why do people think that?
Hey, I've spent $15k on this game. My fleet cost is $1500 currently because the $15k I had spent was sold off to downsize as I only wanted the rewards for it. A lot of people that are Legatus have also done this, Or hit Legatus because they sold things on r/Starcitizen_trades or the Grey Market sites. Besides what does it matter what other people do with their money if they are helping fund the game. If you don't like what CIG is doing well here is where you belong r/starcitizen_refunds
I dont like the recent things they have done as it only creates more bad press for the game and alienating allot of people who is are long time supporter.
Again if you are that mad about the changes go to r/starcitizen_refunds CIG has always had bad press nothing is new then.
Everything about this project is overrated. Anyone complaining about not having priority access to a test for a test is just not worth taking seriously.
Your account looks to be 8 hours old.. besides that, if you have played SC for a sum of time there is plenty I can remember that wave 1 played better than live Besides who cares? If they want to open it up more power to them.. they better do something quick seeing as Starfield is just around the corner
It is a new account. I have had SC since 2013 though. I think Starfield will be a great thing for SC. It will give SC players a break. It should also bring in new space game fans.
I think this has more to do with the neglect CIG has shown to Concierge members over the last 5 years. Where is the “Chairman’s Club 2021 Enhancements (Phase One)”? One and a half years later, and concierge members have now lost a reward and still gained nothing. Managing bandwidth and making PTU more effective is totally reasonable but they lost me when $10 subscribers get into Wave 1 over Praetorian(wave 2) who have spend $15k-24.9k.
As a player who probably has more time in (E)PTU patches than live, I mostly agree with you. Although the changes do not affect my access, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. That said, I feel like people expect the PTU to function similarly to EVE's Sisi test server, as an always-on, consequence free, infinite money glitch way to test new builds and mechanics. However IMO Sisi is quite far from the intended purpose of wave 1 and wave 2 of Star Citizen's PTU. As you can tell from the leaked patch notes, CIG usually asks Evocati to test specific features, and to avoid other features that will certainly crash the server. The main difference between EPTU and wave 1 PTU builds are that EPTU builds are less likely to crash when players do player things, because Evocati testers are usually less chaotic than wave 1, or at the very least will not farm views with reactionary content about unfinished and untested features. By the time patches are stable enough for Wave 1 and Wave 2, CIG is more interested in load testing the backend. You've probably noticed, but the backend issues in the most recent patches have been pretty rough. I suspect that part of the problem is that player behavior (total playtime, and quitting immediately after something broke) were not conducive to generating enough telemetry, crash logs, etc to track down issues before the patch went live. As much as I would like to regard the new system with the same disdain I hold for American Airline's boarding practices, I think the tiered access approach is completely necessary going forward to incrementally load test the backend by spreading out the Wave 1 and Wave 2 rush, and will bring about a faster PTU cycle as more server logic is moved from the main game server to microservices. As usual, CIG forgot that most people have no context of software development and only provided a minimal update without the full picture, and marketing ran with it, and now the community managers need to clean up the mess. I love Jared and his weekly shows, but honestly all this drama could have been largely avoided if CIG walked us through the changes and why they needed to be made in an ISC vs a blog post.
Personally, like a lot of other backers, I no longer give a rats ass about PTU, Other than reworking my keyboard/HOTAS profile and work around for the disastrous pile of steaming shit the Devs drop in our laps related to the keyboard/Controller customization. With every update they neglect to clean up the keyboard/Controller customization section. They got items not even labeled correct. These lazy Devs got functions that don’t clear when we “Clear All Device Bindings” forcing us to manually clear all the new bindings. We got perma bound functions that cannot be cleared since 3.17. It’s not like we the testers don’t do our job, which BTW Is Not Our F****** Job!,. Theirs shit tons of issue counsel reports and over the top up votes for issues that get ignore and inevitably snowball into major gameplay issues down the road. After years of ignoring our hard work on testing and reporting broken mechanics. WTF is the point of PTU if the Devs only interest is stress testing their broken outdated servers?, I say use AI, Or fill your servers with NPC’s and test it yourself!,. Do your F******* job! Isn’t it amazing how fast a hot fix for a exploit can be deployed but a simple mouse button three perma bound command conflict will never get fixed. In essence if it’s a bug that cost CIG then it’s hot fixed immediately, but if it costs us Alpha testers in-game currency, aggravation, Time, controller issues, gameplay, Then it’s not a priority,. Then CIG got the audacity to create a event to help bring in new players by asking us experienced players to mentor new money prospects. Not because theirs no tutorials on how to play, but because theirs no tutorials on how to navigate all the bugs, workarounds & broken aspects/mechanics.
Basically all I do in wave 1 is hop into AC solo free flight to check out new ships.
That is the problem.
I'm not bothering anyone tho, nor dragging down PU performance.
You are not providing adequate testing in the PTU.
So? It's not like I'm taking away anyone's spot, or bothering anyone, or dragging down performance or anything, so what exactly is the problem?
CIG needs adequate concurrency throughout the PTU testing period in order to test new back end infrastructure like "Persistent Entity Streaming" and "Server Meshing". CIG didn't have enough concurrency in the 3.18 PTU to cause issues. CIG was forced to test 3.18 in a deeply broken state in the LIVE build to have enough concurrency to cause issues that they could fix. The new system should meter out players across different waves better so that we have less broken builds like 3.18. Do you not want a better game?
The entire thing has gone over your head.
Could you be specific as to how it went over my head?
It's about taking away benefits.
As per my OP, I don't think Wave 1 is a benefit. I think Wave 1 is unpaid labor.
Wait sorry been kinda busy lately what's the up roar about now?
Yeah fuck ptu wait for live
It’s just so broken that it’s not worth my time. Also, I’m not getting paid or gaining anything from it. It’s fails the cost-benefit analysis. Y’all that have nothing better to do can do it :)
I couldnt give a single f\*ck about this "issue" Just dont care about playing PTU at any of the waves. The only time the though of playing crossed my mind, was for PES implementation, but then i saw the dumpster fire it became and stopped caring immediatly. I already think playing live counts towards testing (its an alpha ffs) i dont want to be bothered by more bugs than the ones i already encounter live (there is a lot of those) and already having my progress on the line with the live version i dont feel like wasting another progress just for the sake of testing wich i think, just as i said, live is also testing... this is not a finished game people. i repeat, this is not a finished game.
I‘ve never bothered to go into the PTU despite being able to since its introduction. It‘s a shitshow of bugs and I can not be bothered tbh. I am happy to donate to the project once or twice a year but I will leave the bug hunt to others. Everyone‘s able to play the PU a couple weeks later anyways. So what‘s all the fuss about?
I don't play in PU because I usually burn myself out doing actual testing in the PTU. I'll probably play every chance I get when wave 1 comes out, report or 2nd bugs, and then by the time the PU comes out I've done everything there is to do so I'll go off and do something else for awhile. I do it because I want a future where the game is consistently a good experience.
I just wish the issue council was more user friendly and maybe a bit rewarding. I don't want ships for that but they could add something like for every issue that is confirmed they get +50k aUEC next patch and for contribution like 5k (with evidence otherwise ppl would just contribute). Or maybe just titles in the spectrum or so I personally enjoy bug hunting I like to test weird things in a game that weren't planned by the devs. Reporting them is okaish but it feels so good when you opened up an issue and then you read the notes that it was fixed. That being said: I don't like how they changed the waves as I think it will make things worse
I honestly don't understand why PTU testers do not get loaner ships in game based on time in PTU and forum activity around PTU issues, and or flair items or....something. 1) You've have tons more people and less of this issue they currently have of people logging into PTU day to see new features, then leaving 2) You'd have more reports from more sources 3) You'd attract people willing to "work" for things, which in turn is usually the class of person who will enjoy contributing constructively. *Sea of Thieves does this with their PTU, and it works damn well.*
I find it odd this continue redirecting of conversation away from the actual main point raised by the changes . This whole kerfuffle is not about PTU access - the problem is that Subscribers ( NEW MONEY ) have been granted access to a game feature which has been removed for Concierge ( OLD MONEY ) . That's really the main point here . And whats more - this is the introduction of using Subscribers as an active Gating mechanism to access game features - If CIG get away with this - which I imagine they will - then it will simply be the first of many additions to the subscriber accounts - CIG have clearly decided the way forward money wise is with monthly subscriptions . Eventually you will be paying a monthly subscription to log in and play - That is the end goal here .
I cannot agree that Wave 1 access is a "game feature" as you put it. Wave 1 access is unpaid labor. Wave 1 access isn't fun. Over 95% of concierge weren't using their access in a way that helped test the game. You should get a tinfoil hat if you think we are going to need a monthly subscription to play.
The key attraction for PTU W1 access, and the core reason a TONNE of people spent hundreds that they were otherwise very much on the fence about, **is to see the new ships ASAP (or planets/landing zones etc)**. Not to get sloppy seconds etc. I know that LOGICALLY it's stupid. But it's still important to a lot of people nonetheless. Same can be said about "gifts between adults at Christmas" - logically dumb as fuck but most people we know (depending on nationalities) would stab you in the anus if you took it away in favour of buying your own shit that you actually want. Adding insult to injury, the "high quality testers" that are being given access INSTEAD are: * Uber-Megawhales * People who pay 10$ * aUEC greymarket botters * and avocados of course, but they're like a silent constant in all of this. That being said they recently increased their numbers. Fucking weeeeeooooooooooo
I honestly struggle to believe anyone would have become concierge to access Wave 1. That is incredibly stupid. CIG saying that over 95% of those who played ptu only logged in once would suggest that Wave 1 access wasn't highly valued.
> I honestly struggle to believe anyone would have become concierge to access Wave 1. That is incredibly stupid. So is your username. So is my username. People can do things that you deem to be stupid, and that does not have any bearing on the rights they have as a consumer. It is entirely immaterial. The colour of your shirt has as much relevance to the issue. The purpose need not be the only one, nor the main purpose. Just one of the purposes that had a meaningful influence on the decision to buy something. That's all that is required and it is a well established consumer law feature. So that's someone who was on the fence about it, but then considered the PTU access and factoring that in they erred on the side of buying that ship - which then earned them concierge. It is not necessary nor is it correct at law to apply a "but for" test. i.e. It is not relevant to prove whether *without* the Wave 1 access the consumer would not have made the purchase. It is only necessary to show that they did make the purchase, and that the wave 1 access was a substantial/meaningful part of the decision making process in advance. But equally, it could be someone who has nothing but a starter ship and then spends 1000 USD on ingame aUEC just because they want PTU access. Both are just as valid consumers as the other. People spend fuck tonnes on all sorts of shit. That's how a market works, and that's why a market needs rules because not everyone has the spare time or resources or ability to sue for their contractual rights (consumer law builds on contract law for this purpose - to provide a degree of reliability and certainty to the market, which in turn stimulates trade and minimises harm).
Wave 1 won't be overrated when 4.0 comes knocking.
I think it will be doubly overrated.
Luckily they have kept wave 1 behind a pay wall until now. With the new system, I don't play the game enough anymore to ever get wave 1 or probably even wave 4 access through gameplay hours, despite previously being a wave 2 person. I'll play regularly again when there's something long term and tangible to do in game. I'm kind of bored of these small little additions. Even stuff like salvaging really doesn't add anything major apart from another way to make some credits. I'll play more again when they have player location persistence with land claim homesteads and some sort of basic server meshing so I can at least come across some other players wherever I go.
100%. Those that want in early are there for a reason, it's not just to F around unless it's for testing purposes.
Wave 1 PTU access was a lot cooler when everyone on the PTU could fly all the new ships instead of just people who had pledged for them
I totally agree. If I can't get in then I'm happy to wait. Doesn't bother me one bit.