Bug PS3 Version 2.0.3 Bugs & Feedback

[ScotchYeti]

Having played BK a bit longer I must say that despite its flaws it's better than the PHOF version. It's more challenging with tough SDTM drains and you need some skills to score big points. I like it!

Btw, an idea about the poor quality of the graphics: when I downloaded the DLC, the VITA and the PS3 version had almost the same size (or was it even the same?!) Can someone check this? Usually the PS3 version is much bigger and it's easy to figure out which package to download but not this time. Maybe the downscaled textures from the VITA version are used for the PS3 as well?

 

[ScotchYeti]

@yeti This was the only video I found of BK and it looks like it has the same issues. I think it was even released by them. I can only guess they bought a faded scorched table, then scanned it and decided it was good enough...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3VuDGxOnv8
The black blotches look a little lighter maybe but they are still there. The whole table seems faded and washed out too.

I would love to support them, I have instantly bought every pack so far. Sadly this left me feeling quite sour about their efforts. Hoping we get good news.
If you can find any videos of it looking better I am curious to see them.

You know what? I watched the video right now with a monitor plugged in to my laptop. Everything looks way too dark...I tried again watching it on the screen of the laptop and here it's much brighter. Obviously the developers have a different brightness / contrast setting that is way too high compared to what most people have at home.

A simple slider to adjust the gamma value would do wonders and can't be too hard to implement. It's not even a question if it should be there - many people have reported that the playfields look too dark, which is a shame considering how beautiful they are.

 

[Fuseball]

Having played BK a bit longer I must say that despite its flaws it's better than the PHOF version. It's more challenging with tough SDTM drains and you need some skills to score big points. I like it!

More challenging, sure... but only by artificially restricting the player's view of balls on the upper playfield and forcing us to endure 2-stage flippers. The rules/simulation/scripting/sounds are much closer to how they should be on PHOF. All TPA gives us is reflective balls and better physics.

 

[Jim O'Brien]

Had the two balls in the plunger game ending bug today on Black Knight, you would think after all this time they would have hard coded something in the software that eliminates that problem all together. I've yet to go real serious on this specific table until the bugs are worked out. Is it just me or are we (console users) just getting a carbon copy of these games as they were released first on mobile devices ? I'm going to do some research...

 

[Ruz-El]

Enough days have passed with enough complaints logged that we really should of heard something from the developers by now...

Or are we to settle with the fact to never expect this game to work right on the PS3? It wouldn't be the first game to be like this.

 

[spoonman]

I am getting some really "interesting" bugs on Black Knight after putting a few hours into it.
I hate to say it, but I think they neglected to bug test this table.

One of my favorite bugs is shooting the ball into the lower ball catch and having it somehow go through a wall and end up on the top playingfield... WTF was that? Hehe

The ball goes through the top flippers like they are made of Swiss cheese.

Most of the balls shoot right down the center when multiball starts.

I was angry at first but now I'm just laughing at all of the bugs.
Perhaps his is the first sign of madness setting in?!

 

[Tabe]

I am getting some really "interesting" bugs on Black Knight after putting a few hours into it.
I hate to say it, but I think they neglected to bug test this table.

I do software QA for a living and you're hardly the only one to say a similar comment but I just gotta say:

Sometimes it's really NOT the QA/test group's fault. Sometimes QA reports a bug and management just simply says "screw it, we'll release anyway". Been there many, many times myself. Yeah, it's possible - maybe even likely - that they didn't test it enough (at all) but it's also possible that the bug reports found by QA were simply ignored.

Tabe

 

[smbhax]

A company their size (or what seems to be their size) probably can't afford to have their own in-house dedicated QA team. So it's most likely the developers--the programmers, artists, president, etc--just having to test it as best they can on top of everything else they do. When you're dealing with monthly updates that's a significant challenge for anyone; trying to do it on six platforms simultaneously is sheer madness. They should probably slow down to bi-monthly releases, but maybe they can't afford that under their current pricing scheme--ie releasing only half the packs per year, they'd have to double the price of the packs in order to stay afloat.

The patch they pulled--the one that was supposed to fix the slowdown after the previous update, but ended up making all DLC tables inaccessible--got me wondering a bit about their build process. In an ideal development world, you'd say okay we're making a patch for this one specific problem, so we take just the code change (or whatever) we need for that, add it to the resources of the previous version, and then we've only got one change in it--the slowdown fix--so there probably isn't much else this could break--makes testing a lot easier. But the fact that it managed to break all DLC tables, which you would think is some other part of the game code entirely, makes me think that they don't have a process that organized, and kind of just whatever changes anyone had been making with an eye toward the next scheduled update went into the interim patch--which is bad because it's easy to end up with incomplete stuff, and it's harder to have an idea of what really needs heavy testing. So I suspect their development and build process could use a good deal of refinement, particularly in terms of source control--that's just a guess, of course.

 

[ScotchYeti]

As we haven't heard anything from Farsight it's safe to say that they intentionally shipped BK the way it is.

 

[Jim O'Brien]

The QA team should have picked up on these most of these bugs (Black Knight), unless they really suck at video game pinball and I'm sure that's not the case. Has anyone locked two balls in the lower playfield lock yet ? You get that weird ball collision sound you hear on other tables x 100, it is very annoying and all you can do is restart the game.

 

[spoonman]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned before...

The cabinet art is backwards on 2.0.3 on at least

Theatre of Magic

And
Tales of the Arabian Nights

Creature from the Black Lagoon as some awfully low resolution textures as well.

Pictures taken with an iPhone, but it's obvious they are no where as clear as the other textures and are not suitable for HD display.

A few more...
CFTBL Sticker is low res

Black Knight (Yeah, we all know this needs some work, but here is a bit more proof)
The picture behind the logo is U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi!

Another title screen image.. Brings me back to the days of 256 color GIFs!

The targets look really jaggy too.

I applaud Farsight for continuing to improve these tables and I only bring these up to help them with the goal of that. I am very happy with most of the tables and enjoy it immensely.

 

[grashopper]

Not a big deal on this one because the game still functioned properly but I got a ball doing odd things in Rudy's mouth.
Was after the clock hit 12 and he went to sleep. Came out fine, just a odd graphic bug.
Hope the picture doesn't come out too big. Posting from my phone

Tasty

 

[spoonman]

Not a big deal on this one because the game still functioned properly but I got a ball doing odd things in Rudy's mouth.
Was after the clock hit 12 and he went to sleep. Came out fine, just a odd graphic bug.
Hope the picture doesn't come out too big. Posting from my phone

Tasty

I had some strange issues with Funhouse in 2.0.3 as well. The most common bug for me is having the ball go through Rudy's mouth and end up in the Hideout. It's
not a bad bug and earns more points this way, but it's very strange when it happens.

To me it seems very similar how the back in Black Knight can go from the lower ball lock, through the wall, and end up on the upper playfield.

 

[SKILL_SHOT]

Is this a PINBALL ARCADE or FEAR FACTOR!

 

[EGRyan]

Not a big deal on this one because the game still functioned properly but I got a ball doing odd things in Rudy's mouth.
Was after the clock hit 12 and he went to sleep. Came out fine, just a odd graphic bug.
Hope the picture doesn't come out too big. Posting from my phone

Tasty

I've had this graphic bug happen several times, too. It doesn't seem to affect game play at all.

 

[EGRyan]

I had some strange issues with Funhouse in 2.0.3 as well. The most common bug for me is having the ball go through Rudy's mouth and end up in the Hideout. It's
not a bad bug and earns more points this way, but it's very strange when it happens.

I've also had the ball go through Rudy's mouth and head into the Hideout. It occurred when the ball got hit pretty hard directly into Rudy's mouth.

 

[Ruz-El]

Still no reply from Farside? WTF?

 

[brakel]

Still no reply from Farside? WTF?

Farside?

 

[Tabe]

Not sure if this occurred in prior versions but:

Offline scoring is not syncing with the online leaderboards. I played several games while offline, beating my high score on at least 3 games. The next day I came back, was online, played a bunch of games - and my high scores on the leaderboards reflect whatever my highest "online" score for that game was. Couldn't sworn I read somewhere that offline scores are supposed to sync up?

Tabe

 

[Rayman1103]

Not sure if this occurred in prior versions but:

Offline scoring is not syncing with the online leaderboards. I played several games while offline, beating my high score on at least 3 games. The next day I came back, was online, played a bunch of games - and my high scores on the leaderboards reflect whatever my highest "online" score for that game was. Couldn't sworn I read somewhere that offline scores are supposed to sync up?

Tabe

The ability to post offline scores to the Leaderboards hasn't been added yet.

Posting Offline High Scores To The Online Leaderboards : FarSight is looking to add the ability to post offline high scores to the online leaderboards the next time you go online in the near future.