So its his job to translate dev speak notes to 'Gamer' friendly notes? And he won't post the dev written patch notes because we won't understand it? Oh dear.
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Star Wars Battlefront |OT| Here's Where The Fun Begins
- Thread starter JDHarbs
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So its his job to translate dev speak notes to 'Gamer' friendly notes? And he won't post the dev written patch notes because we won't understand it? Oh dear.
MADGAME
Member
Even the patch notes are casual
Old Gimlet Eyes
Member
Lol. Can't say I've seen translated patch notes before haha.
What system?
Anton Sugar
Member
Well, not really. Devs aren't tech writers--they aren't always the best to go to when determining what is important for customers to know vs what isn't. They can tell you how the feature/software works, but in terms of customer value, that's usually more a product/tech writing evaluation.
I sympathize with the guy--translating user stories/"dev speak" into release notes is something tech writers have to work with regularly. Still is beyond hilarious to me that they only have one qualified technical writer/communicator, though.
lol
I laughed a lot here.
PS4, generally having trouble finding full games at certain times of day as well. Population isn't great.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
Really? There are 75k people playing on PS4 right now, and it's the middle of a work day in North America. Where do you live?
England, managed to find a full game on a another game mode, couldn't find a single game on Droid Run.
And Bobba Fett just went 33 to 0 on the other team in supremacy, the lack of balance is really grinding my gears now. I enjoy it as a fun throw away game but any semblance of game balance is just non existent.
backflip10019
Member
Damn.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Never have had trouble getting into a match in PS4, although the game sometimes glitches out and puts me in empty games, but since the game doesn't immediately put me in the game, I can easily back out.
Are you trying to play with the Jakku map enabled? If so, that's the problem.
TheSpoiler
Member
The last point for the Imperials is garbage. Spawns are fucked, Rebels still have air superiority, and AT STs do nothing if at least two members are mindful of having a good loadout, those things go down fast. It's a battle of brute force for one side and not necessarily strategy.
The other two points MIGHT be okay, but since there's already a huge imbalance between the weapons, loadouts, and everything else in the game, it contributes. Not Jakku's fault, sadly. If they cleaned up this mode and the numerous balance issues, Turning Point would be a great example of the game at its best. But I honestly doubt DICE will do so, considering it's pretty late in the game.
Because not many people have that map rotation enabled/have Jakku downloaded.
Try getting into a game with only the normal maps enabled. The problem is that not everyone has Jakku, only people that pre ordered. So it's limiting your games to other people that have it enabled.
I disabled it and get back into other modes instantly.
Darth Smurf X
Member
I just have to say that Turning Point is one of my new favorite game types. I had an absolute blast with it last night after I swapped out my DL-44 for a long range rifle. I just read the exact opposite of what I'm about to type a few posts up, but for me it seems that the Rebels are seriously outmatched currently, but we were able to secure 1 win last night. On several attempts we couldn't capture the final checkpoint due to an infinite amount of AT-STs spawning directly behind it.
I just hope they can add in the other 4 large maps into the playlist somehow.
I just hope they can add in the other 4 large maps into the playlist somehow.
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
i dont know ive had it the other way were we shut the rebels out and they never could advance past the first capture points
Oh yeh that worked thanks, was actually thinking no one was playing today!
Gotta say though, really hate this paying for charges system, why can't I just use my ability without paying for more charges? I'm spending all my credits after a game just to restock my ability card, it's an endless cycle of wasting credits.
The dev's don't know how to write 'casual'? How do they speak to their wives, children and friends?! It's kind of insulting to them and to us lol.
They can write technical dev speak, but only takes what, 10 seconds to write the 'casual' version of a note after it? I'm sure they are capable of doing that. But guess we need someone to fill in the role of qualified technical writer/communicator for patches!
Even then, someone from the Battlefront community would happily translate that out for us that wouldn't be able to understand it if they only released the dev notes.
And then there is also the chance details or things might be missing or mistranslated through trying to make it too casual, we won't know about it.
Up to the point that the only thing we are left with is:
"Stability has been improved".
I would like to hear an example of a dev note that would be really hard to translate to something customers would be able to understand.
I guess I'm used to how patch notes were released for games for PC years ago, guess it doesn't apply anymore for PC games these days.
Anton Sugar
Member
lol
Technical writers/communicators would be out of a job if it were that easy to communicate or write up release notes for software
Recently, our company had a "bug bash", where teams work as much as they want for 48 hours to squash as many bugs. It's kind of a competition for our Engineering dept. We always let the devs or product owners write up notes for this, but honestly? We (Technical Writing) usually end up rewriting ALL of them. Remember, even for release notes, language is language--syntax, grammar, etc. are not inherent things that everyone knows how to use. Simply moving one word, or omitting a word, can change the entire meaning of a note.
Next year, we're just going to tell them to not bother writing up notes--we'll write them ourselves. Saves us time.
Someone who specializes in a specific field/subject will be more effective 99% of the time compared to when a jack-of-all-trades is tossed into a situation.
EDIT: As for an example, I have no idea which dev method they use, how their user stories are written, etc. But with Agile, the entire methodology is to be as efficient, fast, and fluid as possible. No design specs are written--the user story states the user's need, the acceptance criteria just says "it needs to do X and Y" and then the devs figure out how they want to tackle it. This can be frustrating even for Tech Writers, because we looooove having specs and design details to go off, but they're not always available. So instead, you stay closely integrated with the team as they work and glean info that way.
If an outsider is coming into that situation, where a user story may not specifically state how a feature is to be implemented--yeah, it can take longer than 10 seconds.
MastAndo
Member
Trying to keep my interest in this game going by expanding my horizons into playing bigger game modes more often, but I'm just getting smacked around. Whenever I try to help with objectives, if I manage to engage someone in a gunfight and win, I'm getting smacked in the back of the head right after by someone off in the distance. Seems I'm dying for every kill I get, and having trouble staying alive long enough to do anything worthwhile. It feels like a complete cluster****, with death coming from everywhere.
I had been riding a high playing Blast and playing well, but this feels a bit overwhelming. Admittedly, I was abusing the explosive shot infinite charge card glitch for a couple of days and dominating some matches, so maybe this is just reality kicking in.
I had been riding a high playing Blast and playing well, but this feels a bit overwhelming. Admittedly, I was abusing the explosive shot infinite charge card glitch for a couple of days and dominating some matches, so maybe this is just reality kicking in.
SimpleCRIPPLE
Member
Agreed, The middle card should just be on a longer cooldown, with the random pickup immediately refreshing the charge.
lol
Technical writers/communicators would be out of a job if it were that easy to communicate or write up release notes for software
Recently, our company had a "bug bash", where teams work as much as they want for 48 hours to squash as many bugs. It's kind of a competition for our Engineering dept. We always let the devs or product owners write up notes for this, but honestly? We (Technical Writing) usually end up rewriting ALL of them. Remember, even for release notes, language is language--syntax, grammar, etc. are not inherent things that everyone knows how to use. Simply moving one word, or omitting a word, can change the entire meaning of a note.
Next year, we're just going to tell them to not bother writing up notes--we'll write them ourselves. Saves us time.
Someone who specializes in a specific field/subject will be more effective 99% of the time compared to when a jack-of-all-trades is tossed into a situation.
EDIT: As for an example, I have no idea which dev method they use, how their user stories are written, etc. But with Agile, the entire methodology is to be as efficient, fast, and fluid as possible. No design specs are written--the user story states the user's need, the acceptance criteria just says "it needs to do X and Y" and then the devs figure out how they want to tackle it. This can be frustrating even for Tech Writers, because we looooove having specs and design details to go off, but they're not always available. So instead, you stay closely integrated with the team as they work and glean info that way.
If an outsider is coming into that situation, where a user story may not specifically state how a feature is to be implemented--yeah, it can take longer than 10 seconds.
I'm guessing you're a technical writer, thanks for the insight! But man, it's all so convoluted! I understand having someone who specializes in a certain area to be more efficient then someone that can do more then one job. But I think the whole process of writing patch notes could be simplified somewhat.
I'm guessing a user story is like a bug discovered or feature request that is created by a non dev (or a dev) and passed onto the dev with the ability to change or create it? Something like "Reduce weapon X damage by 10%" as a "X needs to do Y"?
That's the part that needs translating or rewritten? For the dev? Or its what the dev does to make those changes, and the notes he make of how he did those changes are what gets rewritten? Isn't the user story enough information as a patch note?
samueljustice00
Member
No it's more like "I changed the mul value on the hitbox collision system whereby if a player is hit by a ray generated by the explosive system it now does a check to see if the player health var is == or != an amount and if above said amount the mul value increases" that's the kinda stuff they need to convert to human speak
No it's more like "I changed the mul value on the hitbox collision system whereby if a player is hit by a ray generated by the explosive system it now does a check to see if the player health var is == or != an amount and if above said amount the mul value increases" that's the kinda stuff they need to convert to human speak
Hah alright, but then I ask;
The person or group that requested this change, must of asked the dev in plain english to make the request in the first place, and that is what can be used as patch note or so as to what was changed? It's like translating english to programmer speak to english!
Anton Sugar
Member
Hmmm, in that case, the user story *could* be written like:
However, it's completely likely that it could be written like so:
The actual value of the change may not be initially defined until further testing, and even after it IS decided, the user story itself may not be updated--instead, it could be passed verbally to the devs, emailed to them, etc. So the Tech Writer has to track that info down.
Even more common: criteria is changed without updating the story. So:
Is all well and good, but this is why it's important for Tech Writers to be pulled into the development process: let's say they reduced it by 25%, but found via testing that it was too much. Tech Writing would LOVE if the original story is updated, but like I said, micro-managing goes against certain dev methodologies. So, instead, there may be a string of *comments* attached to the user story that say:
So if the Tech Writer doesn't know that the user story is out of date, they may even provide *inaccurate* info if they're just reading the story.
(P.S. These are all examples of fairly common issues that my team deals with
)That's just an example. Like I said, I don't know which dev methodology they're using.
EDIT: lol, and this
No it's more like "I changed the mul value on the hitbox collision system whereby if a player is hit by a ray generated by the explosive system it now does a check to see if the player health var is == or != an amount and if above said amount the mul value increases" that's the kinda stuff they need to convert to human speak
Sometimes I just go to the Product Owner and say, "Okay, I read the story but please explain this to me"
Then the user story being vague and/or not updated is what could be improved to help reduce the convoluted way of managing a finished patch note, hah! I think the user story or requested change can still be read as a patch note regardless of what the dev has done.
Those are examples I came up with for vague as I could write user stories.
Getting the final result of a change shouldn't be difficult to get hold of, the process of patch making needs refinement and simplification in my eyes if it does!
- Reduce DL-44 damage.
- Speed up loading times back to pre-patch speed.
- Tweak spawn points closer to the action but far away enough from the action as not to spawn in the middle of crossfire.
- Increase A-Wing hitbox.
- Fix 2nd Hand card from resetting to empty cards.
Those are examples I came up with for vague as I could write user stories.
Getting the final result of a change shouldn't be difficult to get hold of, the process of patch making needs refinement and simplification in my eyes if it does!
Any news on patches yet?
- Get stuck in some models
- Audio gets distorted/noise after 20/30 min
- graphical bugs on interface. Can't see gun stats
At some points the game is enjoyable, but oh boy is it a cluster fuck. Spawn killing happens so much I often just quit the game and find a new game.
Was hoping for better level design, but I feel DICE still haven't improved much. Still too easy to kill someone half way across the map. Or even all across it.
Will try to play with a few friends later, maybe it will be more enjoyable.
- Get stuck in some models
- Audio gets distorted/noise after 20/30 min
- graphical bugs on interface. Can't see gun stats
At some points the game is enjoyable, but oh boy is it a cluster fuck. Spawn killing happens so much I often just quit the game and find a new game.
Was hoping for better level design, but I feel DICE still haven't improved much. Still too easy to kill someone half way across the map. Or even all across it.
Will try to play with a few friends later, maybe it will be more enjoyable.
Wait, they're doing that? Why?
Yup. #PaternityLeave. It's a joke. Seriously unimpressed with this Dice team and EA.
MADGAME
Member
Random thought: What's up with the collectibles being diamond shaped? Seems so bland and unrelated to Star Wars. They could have made them so many different things such as Jedi Holocrons, mini ships, sabers, or even level-specific items/statues.
I realize the collectibles are an irrelevant part of the game, just seems like it would have been pretty simple to make them Star Wars-y in nature.
I realize the collectibles are an irrelevant part of the game, just seems like it would have been pretty simple to make them Star Wars-y in nature.
Really? That's messed up if true.
I was thinking the same thing when I was collecting them all.
They should've made it like the relics in Uncharted, but Star Wars related.
robot
Member
Sometimes I feel like Blast is the best game mode because most players just try and camp/kill instead of doing objectives. Maybe I just had a bad batch of players but jeez - people just running right past capture points and shit.
I do think Turning Point is a lot of fun when played correctly.
I do think Turning Point is a lot of fun when played correctly.
What is the best way to take down a airspeeder that does the cable-stuff? My aim with the Ion Torpedo is too slow If I'm close to it
I think it's a common bug with the new patch
f@luS
More than a member.
Wow ok thanks
moai
Member
Atst torpedo or just the blasters blows the pretty quickly. The problem is hoping someone that is using it cares about taking down the speeders. Also i just change to ion shot and shoot them.
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