Actually, @Profanicus, when I develop software, a lot of the time I implement something - it works, so you move on. Later, it’s possible to go back, analyze what you did, and find improvements. So from my experience, performance issues can be worked out down the line.
Now for sure, a poor design can oftentimes not be improved (or rather, can only be improved by throwing the whole thing away and rewriting it, using the lessons learned in version 1). I hope that’s not what will happen here (but tell the truth, if they’re in EA for a year or more, they possibly COULD rewrite the whole stinkin’ thing).
I’ve also been involved in projects (games, actually) where a specific part was causing performance issues and they brought in an expert in that particular area (it was related to rendering stuff on the screen) who did some analysis and rewrote part of the code (to good effect).
Though I suppose only time will tell if the technical issues are ingrained or if they can be ironed out.
That’s been my experience in software development as well. We just wrapped up a pretty complicated project and that was basically how things went. Of course, our most senior engineer was keeping an eye out for architectural issues which might leave us hurting in the performance department, but for the most part the focus was on getting something sound and functional. Only when that was completed could we move on to performance optimizations for the last few months of the project. It makes little sense to spend a month getting serious optimizations in if the requirements/design changes and that code needs to get replaced!
That was my point - performance should be a design consideration, not something ignored until the end. Terrible performance is a red flag for poor architecture or quality control, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t factor into EA reviews. Note I’m not referring to a bit of general slowdown, but serious performance issues.
Only when that was completed could we move on to performance optimizations for the last few months of the project. It makes little sense to spend a month getting serious optimizations in if the requirements/design changes and that code needs to get replaced!
Yes, absolutely. I did say “you don’t want to be doing premature optimisations”. :) And of course part of beta is fixing the bug-related performance issues or sneaking in optimisations, but I’ve never been involved in a project where performance wasn’t an ongoing consideration as well.
I’ve also been involved in projects (games, actually) where a specific part was causing performance issues and they brought in an expert in that particular area (it was related to rendering stuff on the screen) who did some analysis and rewrote part of the code (to good effect).
Me too and it’s usually not a very positive or happy occasion… panic is involved. :)
You guys only seem to be considering the code side - the other side here is that artists (should) have polygon and texture budgets all blocked out beforehand relative to the target platform(s) as part of the design. Even for internal builds, if someone on the art team submitted assets that brought the game to its knees those changes would be reverted post haste, and the resulting mockery would be severe. :)
And for external milestone acceptance tests, those would never pass a build that tanked the performance. I think EA devs that don’t care about this level of quality shows disdain for the customer. The paying public should be on par with standard stakeholders in traditional development scenario! I guess the difference is, in EA most of the funds have already been released. ;)
if they’re in EA for a year or more, they possibly COULD rewrite the whole stinkin’ thing
My god, I hope you don’t find that possibility encouraging as well. ;) This already happens far too often when EA games become a victim of their own success. Since when did EA become synonymous with prototyping? :)
Astroneer definitely doesn’t feel “slapped together” to me. I play a lot of EA games (it’s practically my job!) and Astroneer instantly felt light-years ahead of most as far as spit and polish goes. Yes, there are bugs and some performance issues but those sorts of things are worked on continuously during the EA process. You can’t go into EA thinking it should be even close to fully optimized which, frankly, probably isn’t even possible since many of the systems aren’t even completely developed and/or even implemented.
Point is, I agree, and I’ve seen many “slapped together” EA games but Astroneer is definitely not one of them.
Great! I’m not accusing Astroneer of being dodgy in any way, just having a conversation about the relevance of performance in EA reviews in general. :)
Well, given how they already have a beta patch for the tether issue, I wonder how many of the people that down voted I twill go back and change it. Probably not many. That hurts the developer, potentially.
Played the new patch for a couple of hours. No crashes at all. Performance is better, though I did experience some slowdown after a while.
My base is situated near a large cave complex that is partially open to the sky. In the process of making a bridge across to a platform, I slid down a slope and fell to my death. The journey to make my way safely down to the lower levels and locate my corpse turned out to be tense, time-consuming, and a lot of fun.
While I didn’t really need the materials that had been left on it, I ended up locating another corpse (not mine) down a winding tunnel nearby that had some goodies, including dynamite, which I’ve not seen before.
I’ve played roughly 5 hours so far and really enjoyed it to this point.
I had fun for two days straight. I can no longer play due to massive slowdown bug in my save game (probably due to looping an entire planet in tethers) so I am out for a bit as I dont fancy doing it all again.
It is a nice super light exploration & crafting game. I had a chill time but I am done for now.
Great first 4-5 hours then it kind of peters out for lack of direction and content. I did run into a couple of bugs, like being unable to make any more platforms because I ran out of slots on the habitat, not knowing I could string them out so I had to restart. Also tried attaching storage to a truck but it bugged out the first time and worked the second time.
Also knocked over a tree and it fell on my base, lodged between platforms. Couldn’t move it, just had to work around it.
Stuff like that, pretty minor really. It’s already pretty polished (vehicle driving sucks) and really just needs content. While playing I was thinking if they went DLC for content I would probably buy it all.
