May 6th, 2021 - Development Update

[abrams_tank 7,393]

3 minutes ago, tweekz said:

I think it's a better idea to have some sort of selection on the beta users. Otherwise this will just be total madness again. Everyone wanting something different and in the end, nothing gets done properly.

To be honest, they could have a forum to report beta testing bugs.  And then assign a vote counter to it, just like they do with the bugs now where you can vote on it.  The top most voted beta testing bugs are the ones that they need to immediately look at.  Of course they can't resolve all bugs before a patch but at least with a voting system like that, they know what the most pressing beta testing bug issues are.

[tweekz 2,165]

11 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

To be honest, they could have a forum to report beta testing bugs.  And then assign a vote counter to it, just like they do with the bugs now where you can vote on it.  The top most voted beta testing bugs are the ones that they need to immediately look at.  Of course they can't resolve all bugs before a patch but at least with a voting system like that, they know what the most pressing beta testing bug issues are.

You're right, but think about it. The most voted topics are often weird ones. And things like aerodynamics, what most people actually criticize about MSFS is nowhere to be found. So I don't find it too bad to have experienced simmers and people with expertise on the beta team.

[abrams_tank 7,393]

39 minutes ago, tweekz said:

You're right, but think about it. The most voted topics are often weird ones. And things like aerodynamics, what most people actually criticize about MSFS is nowhere to be found. So I don't find it too bad to have experienced simmers and people with expertise on the beta team.

No, I think the most voted topics will be the bugs that affect the upcoming patch.  My guess is, bugs like the livery multiplayer bug would have been upvoted to the top from the last patch.  Bugs like the weird terrain spikes from one of the patches several months ago would have also been upvoted to the top.  Because those are the bugs that would impact the players the most if the patch is released.

Stuff like aerodynamics is not as urgent and it's not a show stopping bug so most beta testers would be intelligent enough to not vote bugs that aren't show stoppers.  The bugs that would get voted to the top would be show stopping bugs.

[MarcG 2,928]

Personally I think any voting system to prioritise bugs is just open to abuse, even within a "private" beta testing group. The developers should ultimately have the final say on which bugs should get prioritised as they know what they're directly working on at the time and in the future. By all means use Votes as a means to gather information on the number of people affected by the bug (or a Like to a post for example).

As has been said a better opt-in beta branch - which is common knowledge in the gaming industry - would be far better than what they're currently implementing.

Edited May 7, 2021 by MarcG

[Amon1973 1,421]

19 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Personally I think any voting system to prioritise bugs is just open to abuse, even within a "private" beta testing group. The developers should ultimately have the final say on which bugs should get prioritised as they know what they're directly working on at the time and in the future. By all means use Votes as a means to gather information on the number of people affected by the bug (or a Like to a post for example).

As has been said a better opt-in beta branch - which is common knowledge in the gaming industry - would be far better than what they're currently implementing.

Asobo will always ultimately decide what's bugs they're able to tackle, similar to the way laminar research do with their beta's.

[abrams_tank 7,393]

31 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Personally I think any voting system to prioritise bugs is just open to abuse, even within a "private" beta testing group. The developers should ultimately have the final say on which bugs should get prioritised as they know what they're directly working on at the time and in the future. By all means use Votes as a means to gather information on the number of people affected by the bug (or a Like to a post for example).

As has been said a better opt-in beta branch - which is common knowledge in the gaming industry - would be far better than what they're currently implementing.

Even without an upvote system, it won't be too hard for Asobo to figure out which bugs are show stoppers and are causing the most problems.  The most discussed forum topics are usually a sign of something that is bothering the player base.  Just a quick look through the forum by Asobo and they can instantly figure out what are the most outstanding issues during the beta test.

I think it will be very easy for Asobo to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Almost every other major game that is played online has a beta test of some sort and they are all able to figure out what needs to be fixed during the beta.  I'm not sure why tweekz thinks it can't be done but it's not rocket science when every other game company out there is able to have successful beta tests - it should be the same for Asobo.

Edited May 7, 2021 by abrams_tank

[pmb 5,137]

However they would handle feedback, practice of X-Plane shows that open Opt-in betas are the way to go. Start from a stable version and introduce beta features and bug-fixes until the branch stabilizes again to another RC.

Kind regards, Michael

[Matchstick 1,886]

If you are going to run this kind of tiny beta test actually having some genuinely experienced and able participants is a start but I'm not sure why they think that augmenting that with the first 300 people to click a link on Monday is going to work any better this time than it did with the last patch - what are we on 2 hotfixes to that now ?

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

39 minutes ago, Matchstick said:

If you are going to run this kind of tiny beta test actually having some genuinely experienced and able participants is a start but I'm not sure why they think that augmenting that with the first 300 people to click a link on Monday is going to work any better this time than it did with the last patch - what are we on 2 hotfixes to that now ?

The World Update 4 beta test lasted only 5-6 days. The point of it was to determine whether the bugs were game-breaking enough to have the patch delayed (though they did manage to fix a couple of major ones before release). Now it will last two weeks, giving them enough time to digest the feedback and make any necessary changes.

I imagine most of the hand-picked experts and third-party developers own high-end systems, so they do need a wider range to test for performance and stability.

[ca_metal 2,015]

4 hours ago, pmb said:

However they would handle feedback, practice of X-Plane shows that open Opt-in betas are the way to go. Start from a stable version and introduce beta features and bug-fixes until the branch stabilizes again to another RC.

Kind regards, Michael

I’m afraid that’s not possible for MSFS. MSFS is a software that relies on online features, and you can’t have people using it online with different versions of it.

I think the only way to have it is putting one of the versions to work offline only. I mean, they could let you keep the older version of the sim, but the online features would be unavailable. 
 

X-plane works offline, so it’s not hard to do it.

Edited May 7, 2021 by ca_metal

[marsman2020 1,310]

No Steam users in the Beta locks out a large portion of the userbase that didn't want to deal with yet another new game store on their PC.

Starting the testing only two weeks before release means that it's too late to react to any findings and submit a new build to the Microsoft QA process which clearly takes weeks to get through.  So they either release with bugs and do a hotfix later, or delay the update entirely.  For the Beta to be most effective it needs to start earlier 

They shipped the last update with bugs that Beta testers had reported.

More of the same from MS and Asobo.

[edpatino 1,960]

4 hours ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

The World Update 4 beta test lasted only 5-6 days

Fortunately is short enough for not having again those dreaded messages about "packages being out of date" that most of us experienced apparently after Asobo released their WU4 Beta to the very few testers.

[enright 496]

9 hours ago, tweekz said:

And things like aerodynamics, what most people actually criticize about MSFS is nowhere to be found. 

You probably know this already, but aerodynamics is a major part of the next update - to the degree that they've recently done many hours of real world flight testing to tweak things like the effect of full rudder effect on yaw, and have tweaked the parameters of almost every aircraft in the game.

To your point, it's odd that such a huge undertaking is not even listed in the feature development slides.

I think their intent is to visually demonstrate "we read the forums and we listen to your feedback and we have made progress on many of the things that you found annoying upon release" - which is 100% true. That point I think has been made though - probably time to move on to a new format altogether. 

[bean_sprout 1,201]

12 hours ago, MarcG said:

Personally I think any voting system to prioritise bugs is just open to abuse, even within a "private" beta testing group. The developers should ultimately have the final say on which bugs should get prioritised as they know what they're directly working on at the time and in the future. By all means use Votes as a means to gather information on the number of people affected by the bug (or a Like to a post for example).

As has been said a better opt-in beta branch - which is common knowledge in the gaming industry - would be far better than what they're currently implementing.

Bugs ALWAYS have the priority.  All DEVs know that but there are other factors.  If not then the system is too rigid IMO.

Regards

bs ☘️

Edited May 7, 2021 by bean_sprout

[bean_sprout 1,201]

No more pauses here.

Cheers

bs 🍀

Edited May 7, 2021 by bean_sprout