Am I the only one who understands why PDX released 2.2 like this?

[Kami-sama]

First, make no mistake, just because I understand doesn't mean I like the current state of the game more than anyone else does. People have been used with new versions needing a patch or two to fix issues but now it was worse than usual.

That being said, let's put ourselves in PDX's shoes. For 4 months they worked on the rework and associated DLC. This part cannot be rushed since you can't just tell a game studio "Make new content faster". It takes as long as it takes, and it took until holidays were near. Paradox could have waited until the holidays were over, but wanted us to have the game during holidays when most of us would be free. They released it two weeks before holidays so they would have time to patch as many bugs, performance issues and unbalances as possible. They knew it won't be enough, and I do not like the practice of rushing something before Christmas, but it was that or leave us with nothing until the holidays are over. Sometimes you have to make do with the current situation

 

[Beric]

Paradox could have waited until the holidays were over, but wanted us to have the game during holidays when most of us would be free.

One could just as easily say they released it before the holidays to meet 2018 revenue goals.

 

[maxp779]

First, make no mistake, just because I understand doesn't mean I like the current state of the game more than anyone else does. People have been used with new versions needing a patch or two to fix issues but now it was worse than usual.

That being said, let's put ourselves in PDX's shoes. For 4 months they worked on the rework and associated DLC. This part cannot be rushed since you can't just tell a game studio "Make new content faster". It takes as long as it takes, and it took until holidays were near. Paradox could have waited until the holidays were over, but wanted us to have the game during holidays when most of us would be free. They released it two weeks before holidays so they would have time to patch as many bugs, performance issues and unbalances as possible. They knew it won't be enough, and I do not like the practice of rushing something before Christmas, but it was that or leave us with nothing until the holidays are over. Sometimes you have to make do with the current situation

Do you work for Paradox?
No?
Then you don't really know do you.

 

[nome]

Personally I wouldn't have been happier if they had kept us hanging all through the break without the new code drop. Forgetting the implications associated with naming it a "release", would you? What if it had been called an open beta instead but contained the same code?

I do feel like the scheduling has been too aggressive of late - despite promises of taking some time after apocalypse for bugfixing, it didn't last long enough before the team jumped into megacorp, and the megacorp hype train left the station too early, leaving no better option than to release what they had. Radio silence for so long isn't ideal, but I have a fair amount of faith that the worst offenders are being worked on, and at the end of the day that's all the team can offer us at this juncture, right?

If this round of bugfixing lasts long enough to make real headway (fewer broken things than when it began) I'll be very content with the current development direction as other than the bugs I think Stellaris is on a great path. I could even be convinced that we should wait on fixes that are less severe and touch the diplomacy system, given a diplomacy rework likely being in the works. But I will say that if the style of scheduling from apocalypse were to continue then I believe that path leads to a slow decline of more and more buggy content each release that breaks larger and larger percentages of your games and leaves the overall experience eventually not worth playing. Gotta pay off that tech debt eventually.

 

[ragehavoc]

Except when we look at stellaris' releases and see that they have never done this before and ask, why now... any sane person would rather wait for a polished release than have a month or 2 of an unplayable mess, especially if we are going to have to wait a couple months for a playable version regardless.
This was clearly for a good Q4 report.

 

[PirateJack]

I don't think this is going to change for the next patch. It's going to overhaul diplomacy (and likely internal politics) in a big way, which means another huge revision of the code. I reckon we're in for one more patch where it's buggy as hell at release, but then I think they can start taking their time and dealing with backlog of issues that have built up. Any attempts to do that before the next major patch are likely to be pointless because so much is going to change that it's going to bring a ton of new problems to the fore.

Fortunately a politics/diplomacy patch necessarily means focusing on the AI a lot, which means we may see some improvements in that regard. I still expect it to be buggy as hell, though.

 

[AytaL]

By reading your post i understand that it's ok to deliver bad quality product, the important is to catch the deadline, am i right?

Next time you buy a graphic card for example i believe it will be ok that instead of having 8Go ram you will have have only 4Go because it was too long to weld this additionnal ram on the card. You don't have the expected product but you have it on time and it's still working, not working as intended but still running.

Most Gamers are now too much used to play broken released games that it almost feels normal now for them.

 

[Major Chaos]

Am I the only one who understands why PDX released 2.2 like this?

Probably.

 

[Tirion1987]

Energy credits, dear boy.

 

[Beric]

Energy credits, dear boy.

Actually it's pretty hilarious that Paradox might have released a DLC called "Megacorp" too early for corporate reasons.

 

[Arcvalons]

I work in the Service Industry so no vacations for me, so to me it would have made no difference if they released later.

 

[Spidee]

From the activities in the forum, the prevailing sentiment is that the powers to be decided that the sale of the expansion was needed in Q4 (or Q2 not sure what their budget cycle is). Thus it had to accelerated to beginning of December, to get the "first 2 weeks of patching" in before the break. If it was any other Q, they would have had another 3 weeks to get things sorted, but December is a <synonym for female dog>.

I just hope they get it how much goodwill they lost in the community. Together with EUIV recently, F76, Diablo Immortal, it looks like we have an epidemics of bad decisions with the corporate bosses.

edit: Megacorp is nowhere near the Fiasco 76, but is has similar signs; PDX is great, they just made a mistake (my 2000+ hours with their stuff proves it).

 

[Bouchart]

Paradox needed Megacorp (and Golden Century for EU4) out in Q4 2018 for financial/tax reasons.

Still I'm generally pleased with 2.2 but the UI needs a good rework and some nagging bugs need fixing.

 

[C.N.]

Paradox needed Megacorp (and Golden Century for EU4) out in Q4 2018 for financial/tax reasons.

I'm having a hard time seeing the NEED to get them out for monetary reasons, since I count six DLCs (Megacorp, Golden Century, Holy Fury, City Skylines: Industries, Battletech: Flashpoint, Surviving Mars: Space Race) between various PDX published games. Compare this to Q3 which was surprisingly good despite only had Dharma released.

No, it can't be for money. It has to be that they wanted Wiz moved to the project where he was needed ASAP, or other causes for impatience at a managerial level. Another cause could be that Megacorp went feature complete early November and they totally underestimated the amount of time it needed to spend in QA.

 

[HandicapdHippo]

but it was that or leave us with nothing until the holidays are over.

Nothing would have been better.

 

[VerKer]

Am I the only one who understands why PDX released 2.2 like this?

YOU THINK YOU DO - BUT YOU DONT (!)
(tm) Blizzard Entertainment

 

[Dunaedine]

First, make no mistake, just because I understand doesn't mean I like the current state of the game more than anyone else does. People have been used with new versions needing a patch or two to fix issues but now it was worse than usual.

That being said, let's put ourselves in PDX's shoes. For 4 months they worked on the rework and associated DLC. This part cannot be rushed since you can't just tell a game studio "Make new content faster". It takes as long as it takes, and it took until holidays were near. Paradox could have waited until the holidays were over, but wanted us to have the game during holidays when most of us would be free. They released it two weeks before holidays so they would have time to patch as many bugs, performance issues and unbalances as possible. They knew it won't be enough, and I do not like the practice of rushing something before Christmas, but it was that or leave us with nothing until the holidays are over. Sometimes you have to make do with the current situation

Problem is, many bugs or misconception are more old than Megacorps and aren't corrected. The War in Heaven doesn't work anymore since 2.0, same for the Interceptors. This patch was presented to permit better optimisation and AI, it was the exact opposite on the two front.

 

[stavern]

I'm having a hard time seeing the NEED to get them out for monetary reasons, since I count six DLCs (Megacorp, Golden Century, Holy Fury, City Skylines: Industries, Battletech: Flashpoint, Surviving Mars: Space Race) between various PDX published games. Compare this to Q3 which was surprisingly good despite only had Dharma released.

No, it can't be for money. It has to be that they wanted Wiz moved to the project where he was needed ASAP, or other causes for impatience at a managerial level. Another cause could be that Megacorp went feature complete early November and they totally underestimated the amount of time it needed to spend in QA.

As i understand it Battletech and Surviving Mars is developed by other companies. Paradox is just the publisher. How much they have been involved in development in those games who knows.

 

[HandicapdHippo]

As i understand it Battletech and Surviving Mars is developed by other companies. Paradox is just the publisher. How much they have been involved in development in those games who knows.

Paradox bought the battletech devs, though they are still a seperate development studio from other paradox teams.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

Actually it's pretty hilarious that Paradox might have released a DLC called "Megacorp" too early for corporate reasons.

Maybe it's all a practical joke.