Over the past few days, across all forums, all I've seen are endless posts by (understandably) annoyed users who keep thinking their input is the right way to handle development.

For one, you keep throwing the word optimization like you know what it means. In a very simple and basic high-level explanation, optimization is removing enough code from a system to the point where it still works but it also runs faster. Now, this is no where near the best explanation but it should begin to provide you with the idea that optimizing things is neither easy nor is it safe. So, please, stop telling the devs to just optimize the game like they have some giant lever that does it for them.

Secondly, take this into consideration: We all hate mean bosses who shout at us, right? Now imagine having thousands of them shouting at you non-stop all at once. Think about how that would feel. Yes, there are issues and yes I do agree that it'd be nice to have the actual devs tell us they're working on a certain issue. But the issue remains that shouting and screaming is not the way to do it, I get it, you paid for a product and you expect it to work, I do too. However, you just have to accept that the best solution is working with the developers and helping them fix bugs by providing them with good information.

The main problem is that the product DOES work as is evidenced by millions of people playing it with few or no problems as well as professional reviewers playing it for dozens of hours with little or no problems. People never want to consider that the problem is on THEIR end with THEIR specific system (e.g., drivers, OS, third party software also installed on system, etc.). By "drivers and/or OS" I mean either unusual third party drivers or drivers and OS software that are out of date.

Developers test products and standard systems with up to date software. They are not responsible for making a product work on out of date systems, out of date software, and/or odd third party tools that may interfere with standard software setups.

I'm not even including software that people don't realize is running on their system such as malware and viruses.

While I understand your point. The problem most people are having is that it is becoming more common for developers to release buggy/broken games (Just look at Batman:Arkham Knight). I have updated drivers(from amd's website) I have an i72600k. I have 16gb ram. I'm also running win10 64bit.I have 6950s crossfired. This game has had its slew of problems on my system. Most of which I was able to fix by googling and messing with the ini file or settings.

Surprisingly I've had very few problems. Nothing game-breaking, mainly the common fps issues others face. Which leads me to thoughts on Shadowboost by Alexander Blade. Being on an aging system this helps tremendously. But also leads me to ponder why something of this sort was not implemented in the first place. Not just for shadows but other fps intensive effects. Hypothetically this could have been done and packaged under a setting in the options called "Dynamic Performance" which users could tick on or off at their behest.

Not that I'm complaining, rather pointing out that it's proven it can be done and more-so should be done.

We complain because we waited so long, we paid so much and when the moment to play finally came we found we'd been saddled with a low quality console port with pretty severe performance issues.

It's a case of ignorance to the intricacies of PC software and hardware interaction. Granted most people don't need to know about protocols and software routines, but I've seen enough posts by people with dodgey Intel graphics and clueless outlooks to PC gaming to know that a large portion of the issues are on the user side.

Clear away all the muck and Bethesda will get a clearer picture of the causes to issues they are responsible for.

This is nowhere near as bad as that was. Besides there is a reason why these games are buggy:

Think about what it is trying to do: You have an open world, that alone is pretty expensive. Not only that you can pick up almost everything. Think about it for a second, it needs a collision model, that puts a strain on the CPU to run that simulation in real time, not only that, it has persistence. Its exact location data is stored and handled for the ENTIRE game. No other game does that, this is why it can't look like the best game ever and this is also why it has bugs and performance issues. I haven't even discussed the constantly running AI; see, when you have so many dynamic systems running at once you cannot possibly test every single bug no matter the size of QA department. It's a recipe for disaster and yet when you think about it in a larger scale, it's not that bad.

So, while it is a possible solution it has issues in the way that for the average player who moves fairly fast you need it to work fast, granted, the hook can work with the same speed as the player. However, it causes a lot of shadow flickering as it quickly switches with no transition. If you set it so that the flicker is reduced, you will still get a wonky framerate as it's unable to change at the correct pace.

This is valid, however, I do not think it is a terrible pc port. Yes, the ui isn't the best it could be, but still we have a fair amount of graphical settings and the ability to mod ANYTHING. Well, we don't have the CK yet but we will soon. There are performance issues, but for this type of game, and I know this sounds like the worst excuse, that is to be expected. At the current level of technical evolution combined with this being the first next-gen title for BGS this is the reality of the situation.

yeah i just wanna play this game without fps drops plz

The onus isn't on the consumer to consider the plight of the business. It doesn't matter if the developer has to go through 7 burning hell's to fix a product, the consumer is in no way obliged to sympathize. That's not the role the consumer has in the relationship. I know that sounds perhaps a little cold and unreasonable, but its just the truth.

The bottom line is you are all consumers. Its not your job to care WHY its not working, only that it ISN'T working.

Your post is a little false and generalised. If a persons computer is at fault, that's just tough/too bad.

Your description could be interpreted such that if a consumer tried to play the game on a 10 year old laptop and it doesn't work that it is somehow Beth's fault.

The customer is not always right.

Your point is 100% valid, however, this is as described in the thread title: a beta. By opting-in you are agreeing that you understand the risks involved with beta software, betas exist for the dev team to figure out what's wrong on a much larger scale then what a QA team could handle. Believe me, having talked to some of these devs in the past, they are amazing and nice people and they want nothing more then for the game to be fixed. I'm not saying don't complain, that right exists no matter what, I'm saying that we should understand that we don't have the full grasp on the situation therefore demanding things such as optimization achieve nothing, and our feedback shouldn't consists of "x happened why are bgs so lazy", more "i did x and y and z happened, is this known?"

I am talking about people who are experiencing faults with a faulty product. I am not talking about people who are contributing to the fault.

The problem with games is that none exist without bugs, the more systems running at once the more likely things are to go wrong. The best solution is to accept that and report what issues you find so that it gets fixed.

A lot of people, myself included, have gone to great lengths at detailing the issues we have with the game. I'll tell you what we got in return - a partial fix for the keybinding issue that doesn't even work anyway. I understand there's a lot of 'white noise' on forums but when the people who put in the effort to highlight the issues are being ignored, what can you do? How many hoops must people jump through in order to be heard?

The funny thing is, Bethesda knows all about this problem anyway, because it keeps coming up in all their games. So we're kinda telling them how to svck eggs at this point. They know whats wrong, they know how to fix it, but they just aren't doing it.

My issue is the keybinding. I appreciate the fact that its not a gamebreaking bug and other things might have priority. I am able to get by by using an external program. But as I've said in my post above, they know all about the issue, its been around for years, and its not a hard one to fix. Just allow us to properly rebind the keys, we're not asking for the keys to the kingdom. That's what makes it so frustrating.

I get that, but with the amount of reports of "bugs" it's difficult to quantify an actual issue in the code from some sort of underlying issue on the PC. For example a partciluar version of VC, audio driver, MB driver, other routines, and then other hardware issue that may be a cause.

I think Bethesda are showing they are working within their area of responsibility by having this beta, and at this point any "consumer" who feels angry or frustrated might as well get a refund and get on with their lives. It won't speed up the debugging, and it certainly won't make the users life any easier.

There are vastly more important things going on in the world right now than getting stressed over games.

Alright, firstly, in regards to the fix not working: It's a beta patch, things will be extra-broken.

Secondly, they do probably know the problem and the solution. However, implementation may be a different story, it's most likely something relating to the core of the engine, with any engine core changing it usually asks for a whole heap of trouble. Not saying Bethesda never do but obviously there are many other elements that are higher in priority. And yes, the engine is not perfect, they know that too, but it has some very strong strengths that keep it in use.

As a rule of thumb, when commenting on a codebase you've neither touched nor seen, you can't say "it'd be really easy to do that" because you don't know the reality of the situation.

Come on now, don't use that. Of course there are more impactful and important things going on in the world than a problem in a video game. But there is ALWAYS someone worse off no matter what you're talking about. That's not really helpful.

I believe flicker to be a misnomer. I can see the shadows contract faster but notice no perceivable flicker.

It's how I deal with stress regarding things like this, and was just offering it as a tip. Something that helps me, and might help others. A bit of mindfulness and such and such.

Well, my boss doesn't constantly yell at me. Probably because I get my job done, and do it for a reasonable amount of money.

Maybe, if at all, employees over at Bethesda do not do their jobs quite as well as they should, and that's the reason why they constantly get shout at? Just saying.

Bethesda could have it so easy. They could just release the game, hand over the source code and let the community do all the fixes. It would be a win/win situation for anyone. They get the money, we have a bug free and fun experience...everyone's happy and feels like the sun is shining out of where the sun doesn't shine. But no, Game developers/publishers prefer to be unreasonable.

I wouldn't demand a single penny, and yet happily fix everything you throw at me, because I love your company so much, for bringing me so much joy in the past Bethesda...think about it, multiply it by millions, and then you get why everyone is pissed this time.