DICE: Battlefield 4 Beta Testers Are "Objectively Wrong" On Faults

[the doom cannon]

You know DICE, you really should have seen this coming. The majority of the gaming community is too fucking stupid to actually know what a beta is, and people whining about how everything that kills them is super OP is standard for competitive shooters. Also nice biased click-bait headline there Escapist.

You sir have summed up my thoughts exactly. Beta is not an early access to the final game, it is there so the devs can see what breaks when their systems (hardware and software) are heavily stressed, and to get a larger pool of eyes to find that random bug or glitch that occurs under obscure circumstances.

3) ignore both your players' feedback and the data which confirms there is an imbalance and shout them down as being idiots.
DICE apparently thinks the last choice is the best one for retaining loyal customers. It's not.

what data do you have that DICE doesnt?

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

What was the point of the beta then? Stress testing the game, says Bach, "so that you don't end up in a Rockstar situation where the game doesn't actually work on day one."

Otherwise known as a 'Maxis situation'.

Or even better, a 'DICE situation' [http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/31/battlefield-3-fixes-connection-to-server-has-times-out-crashes-disconnections-and-more/].

Pot kettle glass houses etc.

You needed to put on the sunglasses for that one, Horatio.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!

 

[chikusho]

So why did they want players testing an out of date build to begin with? "Stress testing"? Give me a fucking break.

Well... Because... testing server how servers and online code function with a large amount players is a completely different thing than testing the individual software of the games mechanics?

And what fucking data are you using if you're not listening to people who actually played the game?

How about the mountains of data that DICE is constantly gathering and storing every single match about every single (actual) players loadout, behaviour and actions?
If a whiny player gets sniped a few times and then complains about everyone sniping, they can go into this data, view the percentages of people using sniper rifles and look at how many kills they generate compared to other weapons.
If they can see that these numbers prove the whiny gamer to be -objectively wrong-, why the hell would they listen to him?

 

[Sanunes]

The only problem I see with DICE is they needed to put a huge disclaimer every time someone started the game explaining what they wanted the people for so people wouldn't get upset at what they see as an imbalance really isn't and instead of calling it a beta test, label it for what it really was, using an outdated beta build to stress the servers.

As for this article itself, I think the quotes from DICE are too chopped up to give real meaning to what was really being said and just have a larger quote block from DICE and comment on the entire quote instead of a sentence here and there.

 

[GoddyofAus]

They really need to start calling these things a demo and not a beta. Running a serious beta is not telling your users their feedback is flat out wrong.

 

[Laughing Man]

, "so that you don't end up in a Rockstar situation where the game doesn't actually work on day one."

Lol no worries there, not a chance in hell that BF4 is going to sell the crazy high numbers that GTAV did. Mind you saying that didn't they do this same roll out with BF3 and guess what, day one launch problems all across the board there. So while the off hand comment about Rockstar having issues may seem funny this is coming from a company that had just as big an issue with a much less popular game, oh and Ill bet a cookie that BF4, or some element intrinsically linked to its running (Origin, Battlelog I am looking at you) will go tits up on day one, lets remember THIS is EA after all.

"I saw people saying 'oh, you haven't fixed the problems you had in 3 because there are too many snipers,' and it's like no, we can see on the data that you are objectively wrong about this thing."

Okay, lets skip over the in game stats and move on to more realistic values, have they fixed the fact that the game just like BF BC2 and BF3 is riddled with hacks, in fact have they done a thing to resolve this or are they still sticking with the frankly worthless punkbuster?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V-NwdNMEzE

Well I guess that answers that question then.

It's amazing really in their quest to take on COD, to appeal to the generic masses they have some how managed to make the game so generically boring that with each new version my time playing it has gotten less.

BF2 over 1000hours logged
BFBC2 over 300 hours logged
BF3 less than 100
BF4 not gonna even bother

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Oh come on, people, calm down a bit. The way I see it, the guy is talking about stuff like people complaining about snipers being overpowered after losing a few matches because of them. Remember, beta testers are not game designers, and I hardly believe the majority of their feedback would be totally professional, worth noting and well thought out.

And the article is quite biased and flamebaity. I can totally see the point in using the beta for stress testing. Remember Diablo III at launch? THAT'S the kind of situation they seem to be trying to avoid.

Edit: Now that I think about it, I actually kind of want to applaud them for daring to come out with this kind of statement. Too many devs sugarcoat everything and tell gamers they're perfect wonder children of God in order to kiss maximum amounts of ass and get the largest possible audience. We, if any people, should know that they're almost the exact opposite.

 

[Playful Pony]

They really need to start calling these things a demo and not a beta. Running a serious beta is not telling your users their feedback is flat out wrong.

Yea what happened to the term "demo" anyway, I never see it anymore. It's always an "open beta", even when (like with BF4) they don't seem particularily interested in actually testing the game...

I do get why they look at the numbers rather than follow every opinion thrown at them in the forums, because players are notoriously petty and close-minded. It's never MY fault if I die, there must be someone or some THING to blame!

 

[shirkbot]

I see some people defending DICE, and I'll join them on a singular count: Players of competitive games complain about everything that kills them, legitimate or otherwise. DICE has every right to use statistics over player complaints. That said, it still defeats the purpose of a Beta to release something of this nature and just ignore all player input.

That does not excuse their behavior in this case though. The players may be "objectively wrong" but they can't know that because all they have to go on is the beta. If you've made fixes, make it known. Keep a running list of things that have been addressed a la patch notes, and just slap it up there every time the game boots so people know what's been fixed and what hasn't. Also, just make the player statistics publicly available. If nothing else it's interesting to see how many people use what, and I don't know that it would hurt the game to do so. It might even start an interesting metagame.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Oh, Our game isn't bad. Its the players! Not only do they not know good content when it smacks them in the face, but we also gave them a old outdated version for the beta because we KNOW its amazing no matter what anyone says.

It usually is the player's fault to be honest. The average player doesn't know a damn thing about proper balance. Hell, the average player doesn't even know how to play a shooter properly (the majority of people don't even play the objective). BF3 ended up sucking because DICE actually listened too much to the community. Go to the MoH Warfighter forum and post about anything being nerfed, everyone will be screaming at you that there should be "NO NERFS!!!" because of exactly what happened to BF3. From the article, it seems DICE has learned not to listen to the community. You give the community the power to "balance" the game and the game will turn to shit; it has happened before, it will happen again.

To be fair, there were some guns in Battlefield 3 early on that did genuinely need nerfed. The USAS 12 early on was a ridiculously overpowered weapon, same with the M417 when Close Quarters first came out. But you're right, most of the time it is the players fault. When someone gets killed on the PC version you usually see them scream in chat that they lagged, or the person was hacking, or exploiting a glitch or even using an overpowered weapon. It never seems to be that they were just simply shot fairly by another player.

Honestly... I'm at a loss for words here...

There is just so much rampant idiocy in that one statement alone, that I don't know how to address it at all...


In order to test the game, you have players playing a Beta build of it, yet you claim its only really to stress the servers, and that any and all the bugs they are finding right now don't really exist... Yet by that very act, they aren't stress testing anything. Should their "miracle" client be released and played, the stress on that alone will be likely to produce a good deal of bugs. Bugs that would of been caught had they done the sensible thing and RELEASED an updated client.

The last thing you ever do is give people an, as purely an example here, alpha build and tell them that is beta. It not only creates a bunch of negative PR which will ultimately hurt you, but it's boneheaded and just plain... stupid, for a lack of a nicer term than what I wanted to use...


I guess all I can really say is... Good job Dice. You've made the average Call of Duty player appear more intelligent than you. And by "average CoD Player", I mean "Whiny brattish 12 year old who has no purpose playing the game" player.

Do people not understand what a Beta is? Of course, it's going to have bugs that were already fixed, a BETA is not a DEMO, they are 2 completely different things. And Alpha builds are like unplayable pretty much, the consumer will almost never play an Alpha build of a game.

The problem is that these days most people treat Betas like a demo and only sign up for the early access. They couldn't care less about finding bugs and glitches and helping improve the finished product. They just want to play.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

To be fair, there were some guns in Battlefield 3 early on that did genuinely need nerfed. The USAS 12 early on was a ridiculously overpowered weapon, same with the M417 when Close Quarters first came out. But you're right, most of the time it is the players fault. When someone gets killed on the PC version you usually see them scream in chat that they lagged, or the person was hacking, or exploiting a glitch or even using an overpowered weapon. It never seems to be that they were just simply shot fairly by another player.

Yeah, I know from my MOHW friends that played BF3. They said just a couple guns needed nerfs but like everything got nerfed and they all stopped playing. Most even bought the premium pass thing or whatever and sold their games even though they bought DLC that wasn't even out yet. The average player is so stupid. My teams get constantly accused of using aimbots (which aren't even possible on PS3, at least on 360 it is possible but very very unlikely) or modded controllers, it's ridiculous.

 

[james.sponge]

Why would you release an outdated version of the game (while your team is working on the current build not available to the public) if you wanted to improve your FINAL release?! oh right marketing.... -.-

 

[Master Kuja]

I was pretty certain the build was from June/July anyway, then DICE go out of their way to say that it's the most recent, up to date build they've put out so far in one of their blog posts, then this?

Jesus christ guys, if you're gonna bullshit, at least agree on one story and run with it.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Demo is DEMO. they always say it may not reflect the final product. I just wish they would call it a Demo instead of a "BETA Test"

 

[IndomitableSam]

This thread needs a weird glitch-dancing Colonial Marines Alien. Seriously. And then DICE needs to be made to play the game.

Someone, help me out.

 

[tdylan]

Demo is DEMO. they always say it may not reflect the final product. I just wish they would call it a Demo instead of a "BETA Test"

BETA: "Demo that we can eventually take offline so that the fanbase is more likely to purchase the full game, rather than continue to play the demo for free, indefinitely."

For example, I download the Madden NFL demo every year, but have never purchased the full game. I'm more suited to play 2-3 rounds of the demo and be on my way. The full release doesn't entice me enough to buy it. There are people still happily playing the Battlefield 2 demo, and will never give EA a penny for the full game. EA knows this. So they call it a "beta" with a limited shelf life, rather than a demo, and they get to pull it down when the beta testing period is over.

I'll humor them and say this is a stress test. I work in IT and we have service outages due to maintenance. Here's the funny part: before updating the config files on our routers, managed switches etc from version 5.1 to 5.2, we test the config file. Would anyone like to venture a guess on the config file that we test in order to help us best understand how things will hold up? I'll give you a hint...it is NOT by using an outdated, version 4, config file. Does anyone know why? Because using an outdated configuration will not give you an accurate idea of how things will work on the new configuration.

This is not an accurate method of stress testing. An older version is not a good measuring stick of how things will run on the newer version because gasp! Things have changed between versions. This is same thing they said with Bad Company 2's beta - that they were stress testing, and everything people were complaining about had already been addressed. Cuz what company's gonna say "we know our game will launch with issues."

 

[fix-the-spade]

Remember when Beta meant Beta, rather than 'buggy, unbalanced demo?

Those were good days.

I've done a lot of Beta tests and a few Alpha tests and... no, actually I don't. Every closed Beta I've been in has been complete chaos, open Betas tend to be bug ridden messes where the balance of the game is nowhere near finished.

I think open betas in general are a mistake, if it's too polished you get accused of running a PR demo, too messy and people assume it's representative of the game. This kind of thing shouldn't really be run in such a public manner, or if it is should be expanded in stages and run for a few months with successive builds.

As for DICE, they just need to be quiet right now. Answering back like this gets a negative response even if it's factually true, there are always players screaming for XYZ to be nerfed even when the stats say it's fine (Famas!), never tell these people they're wrong.

Besides, DICE have been releasing Battlefield games, then finishing them for over a decade. The end result is generally fantastic (BF2 and BF3 are fantastic now, even though I still like 2 more) but dear Goddot do they make a mess on the way.

 

[tdylan]

"Objectively wrong," eh?

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/forum/threadview/2955065217944685108/