Feedback Unity Open Beta Feedback/Discussion thread

That's what I've been concerned about, that they do not know what they are doing and have nobody skilled in Unity on their team.

 

Unity is worse since yesterday. My browser gives warning: A web page is slowing down your browser. A couple of days ago it worked rather well, now it is just waiting.

 

Same here. In addition, the game steals products from the bit space. Even event mills can be missed and you need products grown a couple of times plants. The forum is freezing too and has nothing to do with Unity.

 

please make the ready triangles on the decorations bigger. We had this issue on flash years ago. The small triangles get hidden behind other decorations

 

I think they do all mistakes again we once experienced in flash: triangles, mouse cursor off the right place, plot which cannot be harvested normally by hand or move or delete etc.

 

What motion are you talking about? Are your individual cloud rows moving? Or do you mean how fast the slider scrolls to the next rows on the beanstalk? What exactly do you want "cut down"?

 

the whole beanstalk, so the giants can't come down again

well, on each and every cloud we have a tiny little lovely graphic

in game settings in the section client graphics i have the animation on off , so to say


to be clear, not on on


since i have activated off, why isn't there any stop with that g.fizzle g.fuzzle and eye-mumbling

or the option to switch it off seperatly

 

So this was my first week on Unity. Experience description in one word: "horrible" The truth is, most things can be done with a lot of patience, which I don't have for this game. The only thing that seems to work without any hiccups is planting crops. The issues are so numerous that it would be a several hours project to describe them all. So I farmed a bit here, a bit there, just enough to do most activity types every day to get a feel for how bad it is. Harvest machinery would make things easier, but that feels like rewarding the game team for poor product, so not gonna use them beyond my typical usage, not to make up for their blunder. Also have to wonder what they are working on so hard, since basically nothing significantly improved for quite a long time. How long will they need to make it work? Half a year? Or two years?

Let me say this also. I have high regard for Farmerama team cause the communication and service quality (including apologies and compensations for issues) are usually on a very high level. Now seeing how poor and toothless the communication/compensation/advice has become with Unity transfer suggests to me that they literally do not have a clue what they are doing. And that is worrying.

I would include specific details of issues, but really not interested in responses like "have you tried standalone client to see if the performance is any better" and similar. Can't go back to Flash, unfortunately, so this type of advice vanished. And on top of that most of the issues have been reported numerous times with no real response from game team.

Looks like the only reasonable option I have atm. is relax the game and play even less then this first Unity week, if not to stop playing completely.

 

I do not understand at all ... Why I always get stuck 100% when I enter Unity .... it keeps turning here ... it does not go to normal ... I have to close it ... My farm does not work since you removed the flash ... Farmera employees do not understand from Unity ... if you understand You would find a remedy ...
ntuncer 4257
ID: 3727314

 

My day to day job is in support. We always try keep our users in the loop regarding the timelines of fixes and enhancements. Not so much here.

BP,
Why is it so hard to communicate this to us? Can you provide a list of issues with the timelines for each one, even approximate?

 

Ok, I agree with you that BP needs to do some expectation management and at least explain what they're doing in very general terms. I don't think detailed updates for each and every bug (e.g., "we have not been able to solve problem X due to reason Y, but we are aiming to fix it within the next 2 weeks") are realistic given the circumstances. But a general update outlining which issues they're currently working on, without explanations for why the bugs haven't been fixed yet or any timelines? I can get behind that - it's the least they could do.

Or maybe something like tlcsquared's idea of maintaining a running list of known issues, with little tags (or words in parentheses) indicating which bugs have already been fixed and which bugs are being worked on. I figure someone somewhere up the chain is already compiling a list of reported bugs (how else would the devs be keeping track of which areas still need work?) so it might not actually be that big of a stretch. And it would cut down on redundant bug reports.

I'm reluctant to demand timelines because I have little faith in the game team to deliver results on time, which may aggravate the situation instead of helping to alleviate it. And I'm afraid all it would do is put more pressure on the devs to meet deadlines, leading to sloppy work --> more bugs in the code --> more things breaking in-game.

Set deadlines, fail to meet them, explain why, set deadlines, fail to meet them, explain why, etc. etc. - after a while, it gets tiresome and starts to sound like making excuses for their failures. I'm aware timelines are standard and expected in the IT industry, or any industry really. What I don't know is what conditions Farmerama's devs are working under - perhaps management isn't giving them the resources they need to do their jobs properly and they need some additional flexibility and patience compared to a more typical migration.

I just want to find a healthy balance between holding management accountable for dropping the ball on this migration and not making things even harder for the game team...

I admit it's contradictory to go on as if the game is working fine for everyone when there are still so many bugs, but I don't know if I can support this. I would need to know a lot more about BP's finances, how much events contribute to their overall revenue (both directly and indirectly), how many players are still experiencing performance issues (on non-mobile devices) severe enough to prevent them from participating in events even though they want to, etc. before I feel comfortable demanding something like this. I worry such measures might backfire and end up hurting us all somehow (e.g., less revenue --> budget cuts --> layoffs --> less devs working on fixing bugs). Sounds great in theory, I just don't know how practical it is, especially since it doesn't seem like the game will be restored to its original state anytime soon.

Instead of dealing with a temporary loss in revenue, I'd rather have BP spend money to bring in some experts in Unity, so the devs can quickly fix the remaining bugs and put an end to this misery. Now is not the time to be cheap.

Sounds reasonable to me. I can support this one until they fix the issues with lag and hanging/crashing/freezing.

Ok but what I was looking for was at least one specific example of the kind of updates you would provide in the aforementioned hypothetical scenarios, if you were in management at BP and had to represent a team of inexperienced devs (at least when it comes to Unity) who were incapable of sticking to a timeline because they don't really know what they're doing. Or even what you would do to make it up to players after you give a timeline and the game team fails to come through not once, not twice, but many times.

They announced that bug fix here.

I believe the game team is busy working on a separate solution for MAC users, in addition to improving game performance in general.

I noticed a major improvement in performance in the WebGL client a few days ago (at least when it came to harvesting which was the main thing that was giving me trouble) and the game is working well enough for me to do events manually. Doesn't take me much longer to harvest and replant/water/fertilize my crops, feed/clean my stables and workshops, rebuild, etc. than it did in Flash despite using an old computer. But this is only in Firefox; other browsers on the exact same system can barely even load the game. I also have no idea if this will last.

That said, there are others who didn't notice any improvement at all or are reporting that what used to work doesn't any longer. Some people never had performance issues and still don't. Some people had major performance issues but they went away after cleaning out their computers.

 

No improvement here. Same old stuff especially when "sequence-clicking" stables. Gives all kinds of issues, like performs one action, but not the second or third or fourth, meaning you click to harvest, then click to clean without moving, nothing happens, or it opens and empty circle without any function etc. etc. There are times when I fly through 4-click action without any hiccups on specific stall, and the next one there is half a dozen extra clicks and moving cursor around to have it done. Totally unacceptable for me - too much hassle.

EDIT: Just thought I will try something - just wait a bit longer without moving cursor to see if the game catches up. And it does, after a long wait, to continue with next action, apart from instances where it displays empty action circle, then I do have to move cursor and come back again, no amount of waiting fixes that. Seems like serious multiple problem with active clicking area designation coupled with faulty function graphic load.

I'd load pictures of these issues, which might help clarify what I am talking about, but don't think I can upload directly from my comp, and too lazy to get me one of these upload servers account.

 

I didn't notice that problem because I only perform one action at a time on all stables (i.e., harvest all, clean all, feed all, water all). But I think I know what you mean. I get that empty circle sometimes if I click too fast trying to do all 4 actions in a row - I just need to wait a second for it to catch up.

 

What they announced is the availability again of the PF5 functional key, not that using it would clean up the dead frozen corpses of the annoying flying things that obstruct everything and sometimes even prevent clicking on the items that they decide to lay dead over. And that is the bug I was referring to. That using PF5 solved it is something I discovered because I thought it probably could and it did (again, it's not a fix: it's only a way out that works well in Client, so so in a browser -Chrome at least-, that I guess is an option if you have both a good computer and Internet connection; it may not if you don't and the reloading PF5 enacts takes forever).

 

the game is still so slow and freezing.I'm getting a warning that a website is slowing down the browser. and my computer is freezing ı cant do anything . I cannot click twice while harvesting, I have to wait.

 

I have been using the Client more lately because it's faster than Unity when it works. But it's still quite unstable, it either completely stops responding at random times or just appears to load. Sometimes I've been harvesting and planting blindly, it shows that it's loading but never does, but the harvester may still work. Sometimes this doesn't register though.

Today I had to close the program and restart three times before I managed to harvest every field, and when I went back to the fields I had harvested before the crash I found out that what I did before the crash hadn't registered.
My log in streak broke this way, I know i had collected the prize but apparently the system didn't manage to save the information before crashing.

The most annoying part is that when Farmerama crashes something else may also crash along with it.

I have attempted to use Unity on the phone but it's too slow to be useful.

To be honest I am finding this game more stressful than relaxing now.

 

I think the most annoying thing is the freezing then having to reload. I have to use Unity as internet too slow for download version. I really hope they sort the freezing issue out as soon as possible. It could be a game changer for me. I used to have 5 farms and buy harvester for all. Now I have two, but may have to give up one as soon I have used current harvester subscription. That means Bigpoint will have lost a fifth of what I used to spend.
I can cope with the long wait to open the farm but not to have to wait during farming go reload as well.

Once that is sorted then my second peeve is the shortcut 'enter' button.

 

I couldn't get in at all last night from about 8:00pm AEST, and the problem was still around 3 hours later. Either loaded to 100% and did nothing, or loaded to only 26% and got stuck, or on one occasion the farm actually opened up but froze. I had 3 full fields of 1x1 papyrus, watered, ready for harvest and another crop to be planted overnight. Had to leave my fully grown papyrus just sitting there, water wasted, time wasted.

 

I wanted to share a way to do the crates that is not too painful, to avoid the menu going back to the beginning. Type "crates" in the search bar and only the crates show up. Works like a charm!

 

They probably didn't feel a special announcement was necessary because we already had this.

The first and foremost thing to try is easy: Change to another land (for example, go to the City) and come back. Is it cured?

If this doesn't work: Refresh your internet page (F5 key), this should show you what data has been 'stored'. However, always wait 10 seconds before refreshing your page. The system sends updates to the servers every nine seconds or so. When a player refreshes (F5) it resets the farm to the state it was at the last time the data was transmitted/received. Any action taken by the player in the intervening few seconds will, therefore, be removed as the system has restored their farm to its state at the last transmit/receive.​

You also could've asked a mod if there's anything you can do about the annoying flying animations freezing and obstructing items while waiting for the bug to be fixed. I'm sure they would've been happy to guide you through some basic troubleshooting steps like they do with everyone else (e.g., reload the game, clear browser cache, etc.).

Before, you had to close and reopen the standalone client to reload the game if you wanted to get rid of display glitches. Now that the F5 function has been restored, reloading the game in the standalone client is much easier but the effect is the same as closing and reopening. Not sure why you feel this particular display glitch deserves its own announcement. Yes, I realize the flying animations not going away on their own is a bug unique to Unity and needs to be fixed, but the end result that is frustrating you is still a display glitch that goes away after reloading the game.