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New Focus on Quality by Cryptic - Is the B'Rel Retrofit a step back?

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
dStahl and others from Cryptic said that indirectly or opently they felt they had neglected quality in the past to ensure a fast delivery on content and code, which is now basically "biting them back" and so they want to set more focus on quality then ever before.

I applaud this new direction and I think it's really necessary. Cryptic's reputation is "suboptimal" in that regard and one of the most disappointing things I recently encountered where in regards to the announcement of their Neverwinter "OMG". People are highly skeptical (to see it diplomatically) that it will be any good.

But I think they did a fairly good job with the new Featured Episodes - they even worked without the "safety net" of Tribble. (Not flawless, but better then some long-term missions. ) They seem less bugged and overall more enjoyable and interesting. I would say the same for the Season 02 episodes.

But I am disappointed by the release of the B'Rel Retrofit. The current version is highly disappointing. The cloak basically works worse then the cloak of any other ship, being disabled by allied heals and under several situations a normal cloak wouldn't drop!
Maybe it is just one minor bug that has this big effect on the ship, but it could have been avoided rather easily by just adding another iteration for the ship on Tribble (or maybe just a little more thorough test on one of the internal test servers)
Or maybe it'S not a bug and it's working as intended - but then, I would just question a different quality, not their "bug-freeness" but the ability to design well-balanced ships.

It is definitely good that Cryptic listend to feedback and worries here. This is excellent. But there should have been another iteration of testing and feedback gathering. Now this is still happening, effectively, but on Holodeck. That feels unecessary.

I feel this is a step back by Cryptic because it seems to me they have sacrificed quality - again - in favor of their delivery time. There have been a ton of delays for the new KDF ships. This created a lot of pressure due to angry fans that remember early optimstic estimates it could have been out August or October.
Making decisions on this isn'T easy. But if you want to focus on quality, err on the side of caution. Better to week one extra week for good content then to have a week with badly bugged content.
You're not Blizzard that can say "it's done when it's done", but you can certainly get closer to that. But having delays and then still giving us something that seems either buggy or not well-thought out seems like the worst combination of "delays" and "low quality".

All that said - I don't want to overrate this. Mistakes happen all the time. You're in the middle of preparing Season 3 for shipment, and I am looking forward to all that. But things can only improve if we get feedback, and this was mine. (And I am sure this thread will be full of feedback of others, too. Or not.)
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2010
    I of course agree....the B'rel was in action with the klingon Empire for over 100 years in cannon and was chosen for retrofit because it was effective. The "enhanced" cloak leaves you Wondering why they would even bother to retro it. Its a "fragil ship"...which is ok. But the "enhanced cloak leaves you too exposed.

    I hate to go back to cannon again, but I beleive there was a two to three second exposure (where you are hanging in the wind) before cloak started to engage or disengage, but by the end of another five seconds you were either fully cloaked or fully out of cloak with sheilds. total elaped time at max 8 seconds.....not 13 like I'm seeing.

    13 seconds is forever for such a fragile ship at tier five. Just look at the armor difference between the B'rel retro and the bop heavy raider. Also if I'm not mistaken the armor on the B'rel retrofit had been upgraded considerably for surviveability as part of the retrofit.... so should monotanium stats be incorperated into standard hull stats instead of add ons leaving the ship slots available for additonal armor?

    Personally give me just the option of using the standard cloak as an option and I think I can make it effective for most things. PVP will still be tough.
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