At this point there are almost 1.5 times as many posts and replies for technical issues and bugs than there are for actual discussion of the game. I’m seeing posts all over Reddit and here of people feeling they’ve been deceived: money being invested into new VR headsets, HOTAS setups, etc. when prices are already inflated due to MS Flight Simulator and the Covid supply chain issue. People trusted EA and Motive to deliver on what was marketed as a niche experience with AAA* production values. However, it’s now been almost 2 weeks since launch and ranked is still utterly broken, the VR/refresh rate issue is not one bit better, and communication from EA has been what one would expect from a third-rate f2p mobile app dev, not a top-tier publisher. I think there’s merit behind the argument that EA knew this would be the case due to the lack of any kind of open beta or testing and the total lack of actual VR footage prior to launch. I’m interested to hear people’s thoughts on the matter.

That's true that no one should have expected anything else from this game but simple 5v5 arcade/simulator PvP game with short story mode. But no one (well ok exept few with previous experience with EA) were expecting game quite litterally full of bugs and not workin design choices acompanied with close to non existing support and customer service. Devs ignorant attitude towards their pruducts serious flaws is something i have not seen since scam called life is feudal. At this point we can be quite sure that this game will never be fixed. It is what it is. Never trust EA again.

@Me_mumblecake You seem to find it normal everything releases unfinished nowadays?All you sum up could have been done beforehand. It was a choice not to.

Two groups of people not to disappoint:GamersStar Wars fansWe all know the number one rule; don’t cross the streams!

@Darkangle2000now wrote:@Me_mumblecakeYou seem to find it normal everything releases unfinished nowadays?All you sum up could have been done beforehand. It was a choice not to.How do you know that it was a conscious "choice" not to. As someone who actually earns their bread and butter with software development I can tell you that it is a lot harder to test against all corner cases than you think. How do you know what the root cause of e.g. the ranking problems is. Is it an inherent problem in the code that is always visible, is it only showing itself when the servers are under a certain load, does it have to do with your latency, possibly your PC slowing down at a specific point due to background processes? How do you know what was a conscious decision and what was not? With almost all problems that pop up it is either something that seemed so obscure to the developers that they simply didn't think about it or it simply worked on their clean test machines which will have an excellent connection to the servers. With regard to pushing out a quick-fix ... that's not so easy. There is a lot of red tape. A patch will need a software development plan which will need drafting, reviewing and signing off, requirements need to be collected, reviewed and signed off, a test plan needs to be created, reviewed and signed off (a lot of that can be mostly copy-pasted but it still takes a lot of work). Only when all of this is done is the developer actually allowed to touch the code. Not adhering to the strict development process which will be in place will result in unmaintainable code so this is avoided at all cost (there are very rare exceptions where the paper work is done afterwards because a bug that disruptive has snuck in that the company simply can't afford to walk the process). Depending on the size of the team and the scale of the change it can take the better part of a week before any code can even get touched.Another very important point is that while a product is in development it doesn't generate revenue so a small team like Motive will always be against the clock not to run out of money. Now they won't cut corners that would knowingly lead to severe issues (though they are human and can simply underestimate the impact of a known issue) but the chance of those is always there. Properly following the process above will have already minimised the risk here but it is certainly not zero. The problem is not that games companies have "chosen" to deliver unfinished games. The problem is that games have become bigger and bigger over the last 20 years but the money constraints have stayed the same ... no money until release. Striving for perfection is the enemy of progress. It takes 20% of time to get 80% of the job done and 80% of time to get the last 20% of polishing done. The project managers have to walk a fine line on how far to take the polishing. Also, 20 years ago a released game could almost not get changed. Broadband was less than 1Mb/sec so patches wouldn't get widely adopted. With a pure online game like squadrons it is much easier to add some polish after release.Personally I think that you simply lack the experience and understanding of software development to accuse the developers of malicious conduct. You want to see malicious conduct? Have a look at how Blizzard messed up the remaster of WarCraft 3. They were telling lies and were even removing features which are to this day still advertised on their website.

I'm still having fun with the game. But it is a HUGE disappointment that EA does not seem to be taking all the bugs seriously. I really want to compete in the ranked season, but cannot due to the bugs. I still enjoy playing unranked matches. Although since the last patch, I can't even get into unranked Fleet Battles vs AI. So all I get is 5v5 Dogfights.EA is a big-name, and the consumers have a right to expect better. Not a bait-and-switch... great advertisement as the "premiere experience" then take the money and run, leaving a broken game in the consumers hands. I guess this is what a lot of people were expecting from EA anyway.If EA won't make it right, then I probably won't be buying any more EA games in the future.As a note, I spent about $1200 getting2x PS4s1x VR1x HOTAS2x copies of the gameso my son and I could play this together.JUST FOR THIS GAME! For THIS game! I don't own any other games for the Sony platform.It's disappointing not being able to get my full-money's worth out of the game.

[Thread title edit - Admin.] | EA Forums

19 Replies

BlackOpsBen
5 years ago
I'm sorry to hear so many people aren't having a good time. I might be a lucky one with the planets aligning for me to play with very little issue. (Maybe I'm desensitized to bugs in games and have accepted a new norm.) I've been playing a few matches every night since this came out, using an Oculus Rift S, and Xbox Elite controller (a HOTAS would be cool though), and I'm loving every second of it! Tonight I had my first really frustrating issue: My rank reset to 0. Ugh.
Thunderhead0002
5 years ago
I'm still having fun with the game. But it is a HUGE disappointment that EA does not seem to be taking all the bugs seriously. I really want to compete in the ranked season, but cannot due to the bugs. I still enjoy playing unranked matches. Although since the last patch, I can't even get into unranked Fleet Battles vs AI. So all I get is 5v5 Dogfights.
EA is a big-name, and the consumers have a right to expect better. Not a bait-and-switch... great advertisement as the "premiere experience" then take the money and run, leaving a broken game in the consumers hands. I guess this is what a lot of people were expecting from EA anyway.
If EA won't make it right, then I probably won't be buying any more EA games in the future.
As a note, I spent about $1200 getting
2x PS4s
1x VR
1x HOTAS
2x copies of the game
so my son and I could play this together.
JUST FOR THIS GAME! For THIS game! I don't own any other games for the Sony platform.
It's disappointing not being able to get my full-money's worth out of the game.
Delta-Gray156
5 years ago
*Laughs in star citizen*
Honestly, I'm having an excellent time with the game. It is what it is. An arena 5v5 arcade/simulator star wars game with mechanics from earlier games such as tie fighter/x wing alliance. I had no belief it was going to be anything other than what it currently is.
This is coming from someone who plays elite dangerous, star citizen, DCS, and has invested an ungodly amount of money in peripherals. I've only been playing this game in my time off and all the other aforementioned are currently on the back burner.
So, not bad for $40...
Jorpaz
5 years ago
That's true that no one should have expected anything else from this game but simple 5v5 arcade/simulator PvP game with short story mode.
But no one (well ok exept few with previous experience with EA) were expecting game quite litterally full of bugs and not workin design choices acompanied with close to non existing support and customer service. Devs ignorant attitude towards their pruducts serious flaws is something i have not seen since scam called life is feudal.
At this point we can be quite sure that this game will never be fixed. It is what it is. Never trust EA again.
Darkangle2000no
5 years ago
So, I see that the admin changed the title. All style over substance or is that the extend of what the role is (genuine quiestion, unsure at this point what these forums are for besides acting as a lighting rod....)?
MKh501
5 years ago
@Darkangle2000now I have to agree, all I see from the community managers/mods is " we'll pass in on to the team ", nothing else. I'm imagining the "team" being locked away in a bunker somewhere in a desert, living on rations and being given printed screenshots from the forum posts once a week.
SD13_CAGE
5 years ago
Two groups of people not to disappoint:
Gamers
Star Wars fans
We all know the number one rule; don’t cross the streams!
Me_mumblecake
5 years ago
@Jorpaz wrote:
But no one (well ok exept few with previous experience with EA) were expecting game quite litterally full of bugs and not workin design choices acompanied with close to non existing support and customer service. Devs ignorant attitude towards their pruducts serious flaws is something i have not seen since scam called life is feudal.
At this point we can be quite sure that this game will never be fixed. It is what it is. Never trust EA again.
The question that should be asked is whether there would have been merit to having a public beta before release? Some of those issues might have got exposed that way. Generally the benefit of public betas are doubtful though because most people participate not to help improve the game by trying to make it break and crash and report on those instances but to have a free and early play of the game so I can understand that Motive decided against that.
That said, it is a total overreaction to call the developers having an ignorant attitude. Same as with almost any launch of a new game (not to speak of launching it across three platforms with cross-play) there are a number of issues coming up once there is a proper stress test post launch. The devs will be currently playing whack-a-mole and working on the bugs first which affect most people and continue in that order. The joystick deadzone problem affected a huge portion of players: fixed. People losing their progress in campaigns will have been encountered by the majority: fixed. VR problems affecting about 15% of players: most likely being worked on with urgency right now. Ranking bug is very annoying but only 5.5% of players (on steam) have even completed their placement matches: will probably have to wait until after VR ... personally I'd like them to focus on disconnect issues and not being able to re-join first.
Also don't foget: EA is a huge publisher while Motive is a comparably small development studio.
Darkangle2000no
5 years ago
@Me_mumblecake You seem to find it normal everything releases unfinished nowadays?

All you sum up could have been done beforehand. It was a choice not to.
Me_mumblecake
5 years ago
@Darkangle2000now wrote:
@Me_mumblecakeYou seem to find it normal everything releases unfinished nowadays?

All you sum up could have been done beforehand. It was a choice not to.
How do you know that it was a conscious "choice" not to. As someone who actually earns their bread and butter with software development I can tell you that it is a lot harder to test against all corner cases than you think. How do you know what the root cause of e.g. the ranking problems is. Is it an inherent problem in the code that is always visible, is it only showing itself when the servers are under a certain load, does it have to do with your latency, possibly your PC slowing down at a specific point due to background processes? How do you know what was a conscious decision and what was not? With almost all problems that pop up it is either something that seemed so obscure to the developers that they simply didn't think about it or it simply worked on their clean test machines which will have an excellent connection to the servers. With regard to pushing out a quick-fix ... that's not so easy. There is a lot of red tape. A patch will need a software development plan which will need drafting, reviewing and signing off, requirements need to be collected, reviewed and signed off, a test plan needs to be created, reviewed and signed off (a lot of that can be mostly copy-pasted but it still takes a lot of work). Only when all of this is done is the developer actually allowed to touch the code. Not adhering to the strict development process which will be in place will result in unmaintainable code so this is avoided at all cost (there are very rare exceptions where the paper work is done afterwards because a bug that disruptive has snuck in that the company simply can't afford to walk the process). Depending on the size of the team and the scale of the change it can take the better part of a week before any code can even get touched.
Another very important point is that while a product is in development it doesn't generate revenue so a small team like Motive will always be against the clock not to run out of money. Now they won't cut corners that would knowingly lead to severe issues (though they are human and can simply underestimate the impact of a known issue) but the chance of those is always there. Properly following the process above will have already minimised the risk here but it is certainly not zero. The problem is not that games companies have "chosen" to deliver unfinished games. The problem is that games have become bigger and bigger over the last 20 years but the money constraints have stayed the same ... no money until release. Striving for perfection is the enemy of progress. It takes 20% of time to get 80% of the job done and 80% of time to get the last 20% of polishing done. The project managers have to walk a fine line on how far to take the polishing. Also, 20 years ago a released game could almost not get changed. Broadband was less than 1Mb/sec so patches wouldn't get widely adopted. With a pure online game like squadrons it is much easier to add some polish after release.
Personally I think that you simply lack the experience and understanding of software development to accuse the developers of malicious conduct. You want to see malicious conduct? Have a look at how Blizzard messed up the remaster of WarCraft 3. They were telling lies and were even removing features which are to this day still advertised on their website.