I've Had It With Farsight Studios

[L'Eugene Goldsmiff]

I love pinball and video pinball which is why it's so disappointing that Farsight makes such a mess of these tables and does so little to fix it. I own a lot of tables on Vita and I try out new tables on my iPhone. The Vita has so many issues it'd take a day to list them all. After waiting forever for the promised big "fix" patch the first table I went to after installing it was Black Knight. Sure enough, the dot matrix display still constantly shows each players scores, and since there's just one row for scores that means it mostly just reads 8's since everything's superimposed over everything else. Great fix.
Yesterday, I decided to see if Farsight had gotten it's act together on newer tables and tried the free trial of Lights Camera Action. I locked my second ball. Each consecutive ball proceeded to just come to a rest on the locked one. Call attendant. Try again. Same thing. I started a new game blocked a ball. Same thing.
What really sucks is that a game containing all these great tables should be fantastic. Unfortunately, Farsight stretches themselves so thin and is more concerned with releasing new tables on as many platforms as possible, broken or not, than taking the time to fix what they've already released. I guess they figure there's no money in that. Hopefully enough people will get fed up about buying broken tables that it'll come to a point where there's no money for releasing new broken tables either.

 

[DanBradford]

So what you're saying is that you hope they go out of business?

If so then boo hiss to you

 

[dtown8532]

It's been said many times that TPA is on too many devices. I'm not going to take a stance on that because I know why they do it...more table packs to sell, obviously. The bottom line is TPA is quite enjoyable on some devices yet a bear on others. The key is to choose devices which have the least amount of issues.

 

[mmmagnetic]

There are problems, but I find it surprising how easily some people assume that it´s just Farsight being greedy.

I mean, I tend to just forgive whatever hiccups occur here and there because I´m just incredibly thankful that they brought pinball into my life. Here in Germany it´s almost dead, so without TPA I would have never even really discovered this amazing genre.

 

[shogun00]

There are problems, but I find it surprising how easily some people assume that it´s just Farsight being greedy.

I mean, I tend to just forgive whatever hiccups occur here and there because I´m just incredibly thankful that they brought pinball into my life.

Same here! I tend to be a little more forgiving with the small game companies, because a lot of things are out of their control.

The biggest problem with digital distribution is that each platform is different and sometimes it can be hard to launch a patch quick enough. You are dealing with a corporate entity with "set in stone" policies. Policies that may not work in Farsight's favor, such as Sony's PSN which doesn't offer the option to update DLC. Sony had to go the extra mile to be able help Farsight patch the DLC. Apple seems to be giving them a hard time recently too with a policy change on season passes. And I don't even need to go into detail on the troubles they are having with Mircosoft's XBLA platform.

That's what happens when you are the little man. You are getting crapped on by the corporate companies and you are getting the bulk of the customer complaints as well.

 

[Baron Rubik]

I don't want to see them finished, but I do wish they would give the licenses to a company that would do them justice, not just constantly churn out broken tables monthly on as many platforms as possible without ever following up on a promise.

All Farsight have actually achieved is to ensure that these tables can't ever be done properly now, legally by anyone else.

Oh well - I tried to play legit.
Now is not the age for digital Pinball it seems. At least not legally.

 

[Timelord]

I don't want to see them finished, but I do wish they would give the licenses to a company that would do them justice, not just constantly churn out broken tables monthly on as many platforms as possible without ever following up on a promise.

All Farsight have actually achieved is to ensure that these tables can't ever be done properly now, legally by anyone else.

Oh well - I tried to play legit.


Now is not the age for digital Pinball it seems. At least not legally.

Well spoken, sir.

Timelord ...

 

[soundwave106]

I don't want to see them finished, but I do wish they would give the licenses to a company that would do them justice, not just constantly churn out broken tables monthly on as many platforms as possible without ever following up on a promise.

Bugfixes unfortunately don't pay the bills. And it is actually possible to spend so much time fixing things and adding things and making the 100% perfectly engineered product, that you go bankrupt in the process. (There are several examples but the Duke Nukem Forever story is probably the most infamous of this.)

There are certainly a few show-stopper type bugs that I wish Farsight would fix, but Farsight is *far* from the only game out there with their fair share of bugs. It's just the reality of today's game development cycle. I don't know about Farsight per se, but overall IMHO actually tend to be hyper-compressed (QA is often the first development department to get the short end of the stick) and over-reliant on crunch-time modes. (Several large gaming companies including EA and Rockstar have gotten negative "spouse" type blogs or news articles over the years, which detail poor work life balances at many of these companies.)

Your alternative these days is the Visual Pinball type approach, which is hobbyist run. This can produce good work, but it's often a lot slower and messier to deal with since you are dealing with coders etc. putting in hours on their own time.

Even hardware like the original pinball machines had their bugs and quirks, but they often had less of them. And small wonder because they often had a lot longer development life cycles (and also a much higher machine cost that could support that life cycle). Mobile business models are different, they are low cost, push-the-product-as-quick-as-possible type deals. Not as good for QC, all around. (To be honest in today's new world TPA's business model doesn't fit very well. "Free to play" type models are sneakily deceptive, and TPA's model provokes whines about how $5 for two tables is too expensive.)

 

[wolfson]

I had xbox 360 and xbox 1 got rid of them. ps vita hardly use.when I`m out I use my Samsung note.at home I have my pc,ps3 and ps4 hooked up to my 55 inch tv.because of the pc it doesn`t bother me about ps3 and ps4 being behind,plus I`m a pretty patient mongrel most of the time.this weekend I`ve been playing LCA on my pc. I might look at things differently to other people. 1.i don`t give 2 hoots about graphics 2.bugs don`t bother me because you have the tables forever,so if anything stuffs up I start again. as far as FARSIGHT are concerned people, be a little patient with them ,they are only a little company. I started buying TPA tables in September 2012 so in less than 2 years I have 48 tables on my pc and Samsung note,41 on my ps3 and 22 on my ps4.in my eyes I`m over the moon !!! I feel like I`m a little kid in a lolly shop !!!

 

[Heretic]

wolfson no idea who you are but great post

any long user of the game or firum are aware of these issues

a wee vent some randomer, lateky my pompoms have been down themselves

i had a point i firgit it

 

[Mayuh]

If it would be working, it wouldn't be pinball.
Both real and digital
Go buy a real machine, repair that 25 year old buddy, tune it until it plays real good, try to maintain that state for 6 months. Now count your time and money spent. Either you continue without a second thought, or you start to cry

Ps. Just think of what can go wrong... 120 bulbs, 50 contacts, 800m (1/2 mile) of wires, 1000+ solder points, old electronics, wear on mechanical parts, ramps/ball guards that send the ball around completely wrong, due to some half millimeter incorrectly adjusted curve, contacts that wouldn't work when the machine gets warmer... Yeah, and my personal favorite: corroded pins on molex connectors!

 

[Heretic]

well said mayuh

 

[Pinetwig]

I just moved on to PS3 after playing on Android almost since the beginning of TPA, and seeing bugs like the after litz camera issue on TZ and just now the endgame tilt bug on Firepower makes me wonder that this "super patch" actually fixed. :thumbdown:

 

[Baron Rubik]

If it would be working, it wouldn't be pinball.
Both real and digital
Go buy a real machine, repair that 25 year old buddy, tune it until it plays real good, try to maintain that state for 6 months. Now count your time and money spent. Either you continue without a second thought, or you start to cry

Ps. Just think of what can go wrong... 120 bulbs, 50 contacts, 800m (1/2 mile) of wires, 1000+ solder points, old electronics, wear on mechanical parts, ramps/ball guards that send the ball around completely wrong, due to some half millimeter incorrectly adjusted curve, contacts that wouldn't work when the machine gets warmer... Yeah, and my personal favorite: corroded pins on molex connectors!

The issues with Farsight aren't issues that would occur in a real pin, they tend to be cameras getting stuck, scripting errors, questionable physics, crashes, options promised and never delivered, inconsistent camera setups, etc...
Poor execution and simulation.

Very few companies could expect to produce a product of this quality, and still stay in business. But I guess they have the market sewn up licence wise so don't have to try.

 

[Firefox2000]

I just moved on to PS3 after playing on Android almost since the beginning of TPA, and seeing bugs like the after litz camera issue on TZ and just now the endgame tilt bug on Firepower makes me wonder that this "super patch" actually fixed. :thumbdown:

I just moved away from the PS3 version after 2 years, i tried the steam version last month and that was that, might still have bugs and issues but for me it seems to be the best looking and best version to play over the versions of have tried over the last few years. (360, PS3,Vita)

 

[Mayuh]

The issues with Farsight aren't issues that would occur in a real pin, they tend to be cameras getting stuck, scripting errors, questionable physics, crashes, options promised and never delivered, inconsistent camera setups, etc...
Poor execution and simulation.

Very few companies could expect to produce a product of this quality, and still stay in business. But I guess they have the market sewn up licence wise so don't have to try.

You can't imagine how few beer it takes to get your personal camera stuck in places, where there is no ball I have to admit the stuck cam issue seriously sucks...

Anyway, seriously... bottom line is, that pinball folk is much more tolerant when it comes to problems/issues... And we should keep it that way. Your mileage may vary and it's your right to react however you like to

 

[Zorgwon]

The affected tables are only few on my droid and on Steam. At least at the moment CV seems to be fixed on both platforms.

Otoh in many cases they don't really care about accuracy. I recently started with F2K and on the real table locked balls remain locked from game to game which makes it easier to play. Well, like it is now I don't have to prepare a game with locking the balls before. Big Shot's Special doesn't award a bonus and doesn't reset the drops but it's more fun like it is now. RBIONs poor lights on Android (no difference between lit and unlit) however hurt the gameplay.

Barnstorm Games would deliver better quality but it takes them years to finish one table.

 

[dtown8532]

Very few companies could expect to produce a product of this quality, and still stay in business.

Try EA with Battlefield 4. Over six months later and the game still has issues. And you know what? EA will still sell a sh1t ton of the next one this fall.

 

[Baron Rubik]

Season 3 has been an improvement, but sometimes I swear, you'd think Farsight don't even fire up the tables for themselves before shipping them out.
I understand beta is beta and you obviously would expect that to have issues, but Farsight regularly do full market release on platforms where its known to be very difficult to patch them later (consoles) with bugs and issues which were reported at beta and in mobile threads (where release is ahead of console.) That to me is negligent or greedy.

Even on mobile, I remember Victory releasing (full market release) where the flippers weren't central on the table (they were 1" to one side). Also the inserts were pretty much all corrupted or faulty in some way, and the ball doesn't appear to scale relevant to its position on the table (looks too small on the flipper).
I reported the flippers being offset, only to be told, we have re-used assets and thats just the way it is. They then checked (which is my main concern that they hadn't already) and fixed the offset issue and the corrupted inserts.
I mean this was really core level stuff, getting the flippers in the correct place, and how can that have been missed prior to release.

I'm not criticising any of the Farsight staff that post here, they obviously care otherwise they wouldn't post, but quality is driven from the top of a company downward. This is obviously an acceptable level of quality to Jay, otherwise he would rectify this. This is just the way Farsight operate unfortunately.
Poor quality - quantity output.

 

[Jeff Strong]

Season 3 has been an improvement, but sometimes I swear, you'd think Farsight don't even fire up the tables for themselves before shipping them out.
I understand beta is beta and you obviously would expect that to have issues, but Farsight regularly do full market release on platforms where its known to be very difficult to patch them later (consoles) with bugs and issues which were reported at beta and in mobile threads (where release is ahead of console.) That to me is negligent or greedy.

Even on mobile, I remember Victory releasing (full market release) where the flippers weren't central on the table (they were 1" to one side). Also the inserts were pretty much all corrupted or faulty in some way, and the ball doesn't appear to scale relevant to its position on the table (looks too small on the flipper).
I reported the flippers being offset, only to be told, we have re-used assets and thats just the way it is. They then checked (which is my main concern that they hadn't already) and fixed the offset issue and the corrupted inserts.
I mean this was really core level stuff, getting the flippers in the correct place, and how can that have been missed prior to release.

I'm not criticising any of the Farsight staff that post here, they obviously care otherwise they wouldn't post, but quality is driven from the top of a company downward. This is obviously an acceptable level of quality to Jay, otherwise he would rectify this. This is just the way Farsight operate unfortunately.
Poor quality - quantity output.

Well said.

It's a management issue, for sure...and their art department is rather shaky as well.