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[variablenonsense]

I guess two facts that:
- Feature releases, while rare, are very big and takes many months if not years. They also introduce tons of new bugs.
- Bugfix releases, while numerous, take only small fraction of size and time. They are just short bursts after feature releases and thats it.
does not matter for you. Quantity in itself do not make any argument whatsoever.

As I said, some players are simply in denial. *shrug*

As someone on a game development team, your second guess is absolutely off base. While yes you will get some bugfixes for 'small' bugs immediately after releasing new features, major bugs often times take far longer than the feature itself. Furthermore, adding new content may make even MORE bugs - so a lot of the time you don't even want to do bugfixes until as late as possible unless they're fully game breaking, because they might just pop up later, or your fix might break something in the next version, etc.

I mean for an in the open testable game I know that bugfixes are going to be expected, but that's generally why traditionally there's an alpha -> beta phase. Alpha isn't feature complete and focuses on adding features. Beta is feature complete and ironing out weird bugs.

[reality.auditor]

Bugfix releases, while numerous, take only small fraction of size and time. They are just short bursts after feature releases and thats it.

As someone on a game development team, your second guess is absolutely off base.

You seem to misunderstand. I was not saying how it should be, only what Toady does and what his attitude to bugfixing is.

so a lot of the time you don't even want to do bugfixes until as late as possible unless they're fully game breaking,

Tell me name of your game to know what bugridden, broken horror I should avoid. "Bugfixes until as late as possible" is insane programming philosophy.

or your fix might break something in the next version, etc.

You have it totally backward. This is pretty good reason to fix as much bugs as possible bugs BEFORE making next version.

I mean for an in the open testable game I know that bugfixes are going to be expected, but that's generally why traditionally there's an alpha -> beta phase. Alpha isn't feature complete and focuses on adding features. Beta is feature complete and ironing out weird bugs.

DF is perpetual alpha - yet another reason to fix bugs on the way. There is no bugfixing at end, because there will be no end.

[variablenonsense]

words

Just came back to say that it was a misunderstanding in verbage because of a long day.

I mean things that are potentially tied to everything you're doing, it isn't exactly viable to fix them immediately if you know you're already working on something that is going to affect the same thing. Does that make sense? Also features may have bug fixes but then appear to have the same bugs later, so it isn't always possible to 'iron them out' until late in the game. Guh. No you shouldn't put off all bugfixes until late as possible and I sounded like a twit. It's more that some of them may genuinely -not be fixable- until the end.

I thought you were referring to game development in general on that assumption though; with Toady I just throw my hands up in the air in general. I do agree with the philosophy of features over full bugfixes first (as major systems are going to need to all be in place to fix certain things, aka why make a hotfix / placeholder for a system instead of getting the system out so you can make it work RIGHT) but I also am not working on anything that's visible to the public until final release, so. Y'know, difference there. lol.

[Chief10]

As someone on a game development team, your second guess is absolutely off base.

Tell me name of your game to know what bugridden, broken horror I should avoid.

Is it necessary to be so aggressive? What is happening to this forum

[Linkxsc]

As someone on a game development team, your second guess is absolutely off base.

Tell me name of your game to know what bugridden, broken horror I should avoid.

Is it necessary to be so aggressive? What is happening to this forum

No the aggressiveness isn't necessary. And in support of Game dev kid. Put it this way, Spent 2 weeks throwing together an arduino drone control program for the lulz a couple years ago. Then spend 6 months tracking down a bug in the software (which turned out to not be a software problem, but a problem inherent to the Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller. Gotta read the ultrafineprint in the documentation.)


As far as my views on DF. As far as bugs, lots of them pop up from time to time. But at least currently, there are no major gamebreaking ones that happen in any of my games. Recently, I've been running into 1 where if I try to build a floor tile, through the branches of a tree, that causes a crash (reported by others) and bins still being iffy...
So i chop down the tree, and I don't use bins because I've got a quantum stockpile anyways. Perhaps I might have the luxury of being grumpy over the bugs the game has... but well there isn't any other game that lets me do what DF does out there, that is as optimized (yes, optimized) as DF, or in depth as DF.
Love Rimworld. But it grinds to a halt with 15 colonists, and 1 Z level.
While DF happily chugs along at 100FPS with over 200 dwarves, and 1500 assorted birds, pigs, sheep and other livestock. A fortress 50Z levels deep, and having literally  50k tiles of fortress, not including the 6x6 embark (another 80k tiles of surface). Engravings, Statues, Masterwork silver hammers by the hundreds. Not to mention all the background stuff thats happening with temps, flowing fluids, my mist generators, and plant growth.

Ya know, now that I think about it. DF is pretty damn efficient on processor time when you compare it to other games in the same genre.

[Dyret]

DF has worse issues than bugs right now, like balancing.

[Chief10]

DF has worse issues than bugs right now, like balancing.

This.

I cannot for the life of me understand why Toady tweaked training rates. Legendary military dwarves in 2 years? That's laughabale

[reality.auditor]

it isn't exactly viable to fix them immediately if you know you're already working on something that is going to affect the same thing. Does that make sense?

Yes, that makes way more sense (I assume bug is sufficiently annoying to fix). I would still avoid it as much as possible, though.

[variablenonsense]

I just wanted to say with my original post I wasn't really trying to be aggressive. I had just had a bad day (with trying to help fix bugs while simultaneously working on art, hahaha). So I am sorry about that. 

I'm still in support of getting features done before bugtesting, but balance? Balance should definitely be an as-you-go thing. If you're building systems around broken balance, it's such a major pain in the backside to go back and rebalance -everything-. The rate at which we get legendary militia right now is, definitely, ridiculous, especially combined with the weakness and infrequent nature of invasions. I used to worry about turtling ASAP and relied on traps quite a bit in early years - now it's ... pretty damn unnecessary. I've embarked with gobs, angry humans, and a tower all nearby and frankly I never see anything.

Except like, one lone necromancer fisherdwarf skittering across my map doing absolutely nothing.

Unless you have an extremely hostile biome there's really no military risk and your training may as well be instant, really. It's kinda silly.

[reality.auditor]

Is it necessary to be so aggressive? What is happening to this forum

He said something that I read as blasphemy. I am programmer (nothing fancy, your everyday boring Java drone coding boring business applications) and notion that you fix bugs dead last goes squarely against everything that I hold sacred. Thus overreaction.

Balance should definitely be an as-you-go thing. If you're building systems around broken balance, it's such a major pain in the backside to go back and rebalance -everything-.

Exactly same argument can be made about bugs. You do not want to leave bugs as is, because later they will be interwined with code, masked and generally being pain in ass. I mean, even more than they usually are.

Very simplified example: you have some bug in function a() that always returns incorect number - lower by one. Instead of fixing that function (WHY ARMOK WHY you would do that??) you just add one to result of a() in fuction that call it.

Now later you finally fix that buggy a(). BAM, every place that calls a() is now bugged, as it will have number too big by one. YAY!

Yes, it is simplified and this particular example never would happen in real life, but it shows pretty well why it is terrible idea.

[Dyret]

I cannot for the life of me understand why Toady tweaked training rates. Legendary military dwarves in 2 years? That's laughabale

I don't think he did, that's the problem. He just fixed whatever made Dwarves not train regularly and left it. There's also other issues, like natural attacks being split down the middle between massively overpowered (webs) and borderline useless (fire breath).

[synyster31]

I cannot for the life of me understand why Toady tweaked training rates. Legendary military dwarves in 2 years? That's laughabale

I don't think he did, that's the problem. He just fixed whatever made Dwarves not train regularly and left it. There's also other issues, like natural attacks being split down the middle between massively overpowered (webs) and borderline useless (fire breath).

And massively overpriced food barrels when trading!

I'd like to see tweaks to stockpiles to give a bit more control. 'Empty' bags for example! And an option for allowing bags like the bins/boxes options.

[Uronym]

The whole military situation (training, combat, little/no invasions) is definitely unfortunate. However, if we can produce more documentation about these problems and communicate to Toady how important they are, it is quite possible that he might get to them within the next bugfix cycle. After all, we have received some major bugfixes, quality-of-life improvements and updates unrelated to their corresponding major releases during the bugfixing period before.

On balance, I would guess he is waiting until more of the game is actually put together. Balancing it when most of the major systems are in place might make more sense than wasting time balancing the placeholder systems we have right now. Being an open alpha, there are arguments for going either way: balancing now to improve quality-of-life for players, or balancing later to save time.

I believe that Toady actually tries to maintain a balance: eliminate major bugs that severely damage the game's value, but avoid spending too much time fixing systems that will probably just be thrown out altogether later.

That said, I hope invasions fit into the "major bugs that severely damage the game's value" category... More like "Dwarf Inn" than "Dwarf Fortress" without invasions... Oh wait.

[Abraxis]

What toady needs to do is get me a sandwich, doesn't he know I'm hungry? 

What a jerk.

[Salmeuk]

What toady needs to do is get me a sandwich, doesn't he know I'm hungry? 

What a jerk.

I know, I live less than a hundred miles from him and he still hasn't visited after all these years. You would think he's super busy all the time or something silly like that. pffftt