@nex-stargaze said in Does Rare actually care or are they just lazy?:
To call the devs lazy or that they "don't care" is the sign of someone's burn out being so bad, they have to take it out on a group of people that don't deserve that kind of retort. That kind of attitude is one that needs time away from the game, their keyboard, and the community. Should you want better understandings about how the devs handle things, I suggest joining the Insider program and getting more acquainted with how the devs handle content updates.
I very consistently play this game maybe a handful of times a month so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about. This is coming from an outside looking in perspective of an overall look at how they handle things. Your points also aren't exactly great arguments either because there's work arounds. I'm not asking them to introduce a patch of only game fixes, but those could certainly be sprinkled in subtly with each patch.
What it seems you are suggesting is that Rare's path to success is to release half broken content, each update, in an struggle to keep up with the retention of players and worry about polishing later. The strategy of to throw something out there for the sake of it and hope it keeps them busy 'til we can come and actually deal with it. If that is the case that not only is unacceptable but it also is just inefficient.
I've mentioned previously here that a small team doesn't mean they cannot think ahead nor does it mean they cannot introduce small but fun changes. Adding a new boat for example is a relatively big change, with a small team you'll need people to model the boat, make sure it's physics work and interact well, make it balanced, etc. But I'm not asking for that. The difficulty in programming something is only as difficult and complex as the idea and how it fits into the world you've built. I find it hard to believe they can't find the time to throw a "place holder", as it were, at stephen spoils (to use this example). I don't care about lore reasons(past a few weeks of the adventure or during) because your game still needs to have functionality and not a giant middle finger to fishermen (and others who have fish to hand in at a centralized location) for well over a few months now.
I like what they've done with the adventures, it gets me to come back and do them for the reward and the time limit encourages it (though arguably the time limit could be a downside too). It builds on an interesting story and somewhat have made it interactive (I say some what because obviously it didn't matter what people did flameheart had to come back for the story to progress so there was an illusion of choice there).
The new forts, shrines, and even the legend of the veil voyage were unique and interesting. Having to shoot down strongholds with your canons and break their walls was a different concept, and that's all great as far as introducing new content. Eventually you hit a wall I understand that, but it's so very obvious that in the past they've just took something that already existed (forts) and made a longer and harder version of it (fort of the damned).
I'm not going to repeat myself about captaincy or anything else I've already said. Fact is, they can introduce small things, interactions, things to do, etc, that can keep the game fresh without taking much work to accomplish. They have casual mechanics in this game: drinking, music playing, fishing, etc. These mechanics can EASILY be expanded upon, if only slightly to lure in others to play along if they hadn't before.
For example, allowing you to set the line and not just let the fish just swim off would change how fishing works, making it quicker and a little more engaging. Expanding upon the fishing example they could introduce a quest board at sea posts that are simple quests "catch me 10 of this fish" for an increased reward, giving hunters call players more money for the quests and the fish they hand in. The quests could also allow you to have increased spawn rate of the fish species they're asking for for QoL. Something like this would NOT take multiple months to create and on the back end could just be snuck in with a bigger update.
Better yet, they could slowly implement these changes one update at a time if they're so pressed. One update they slightly alter how the fishing mechanic works, the next they add the quest board, etc. Eventually (if they actually care about the hunters call) they can release their own big fishing update. Otherwise why is it in the game for it to be left untouched?
This structure, if you will, of updating the game can be applied to all other aspects as well, I was merely using fishing as an example because stephen spoils was part of the main topic.
Rare cannot tackle every problem and appeal to everyone at once, I understand that, but the attitude that I've felt they've portrayed over updates and their direction is what is telling me this story. I'd also like to add that they clearly have time to add microtransaction updates and design those skins every season or so. How much time did they spent on designing and programming the pets to this game? A paid feature that arguably adds nothing of value to the engagement of the game.
