Poll: Open Beta vs Stable

[Dangerzone]

This question is about what you primarily use. (I know numerous people have 2 installs, OB and SR, so in these instances please choose what best reflects the majority of your gameplay). 

I'm curious to know why most people choose Open Beta. Whether it's preferred, or whether it's less their choice and more a requirement for their MP experience.

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

Open beta and SP only, to have the latest features since DCS is largely for me at this time, a ‘waiting’ game of perpetual EAs and updates.

[Kang]

Frankly:

As far as I see it there is 'Open Beta', the current version with a few bugs, and then there is 'Stable', a slightly older version with a chance of having slightly fewer bugs. I generally choose to use the 'More Beta' version because it at least has all the content.

[Alpenwolf]

That's a lot of choices to choose from.

I'd rather be on Stable and that's where my DCS' journey started many years ago, but most players were always on Beta, so I never bothered playing on Stable any more, never mind hosting. Nevertheless, there were a few players who approached me years ago and suggested hosting on both Stable and Beta, but I had to decline. Now that you brought up this topic once more after others had done in the past, I'm curious to know whether there are that many Stable multiplayer servers or not. A parallel universe.

[Dangerzone]

3 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

That's a lot of choices to choose from.

Yes there is, but there area  lot of options / reasons in real life, and I've tried to cover as much as I could think of.   My interest is not only what people are running (because it seems we already suspect the majority run Open Beta) but why they're running a BETA over a more stable platform. 

Also - like you - I'm curious to know how many other stable MP's there are. I see quite a number of stable release servers (not as many as open beta) when I bring up the server list, so I expect there are still quite a number of players out there. Just curious to see the results of this, and the reasons why for each choice.  Mind you - with a pool of 13 responses so far - I'm not sure it's going to be truly reflective on the whole community. 

What I've personally noticed (in my small experience) is that on Stable we seem to have less issues with nuisance players. When Stable and OB are on the same version - we see more shenanigan's. Now I can't positively say why of course, but at the same time I can't help but hypothesize that maybe people who are impatient and have to have everything 'now' may include a larger pool of players that have to take off taxiways 'now', etc due to lack of patience too. Whether patience is something that builds a certain character (generally speaking - there are always exceptions of course). That of course is also not saying that players who want features now will be impatient or nuisance players - but just that maybe nuisance players may be naturally drawn towards the latest release they can get. It could also be because there's just more servers and they're attracted to that. Whatever the reason - it seems to be a benefit to us Stable Released players / hosters. 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Dangerzone

[Dangerzone]

22 hours ago, Kang said:

Frankly:

As far as I see it there is 'Open Beta', the current version with a few bugs, and then there is 'Stable', a slightly older version with a chance of having slightly fewer bugs. I generally choose to use the 'More Beta' version because it at least has all the content.

Just FYI - Stable isn't always the slightly older version. Stable is often misunderstood . Quite often (and infact over the past 12 months - it's actually been more often than not - I think someone posted up stats and it was something like 230 days or something) Stable has been on the same version as Open Beta. It's just that Stable will be held back from being released  until the developers are satisfied that the current patch released is stable enough to be promoted to a stable title. We 'skip' some of the problem releases inbetween. So as a result - given that more often than not over the past 12 months, Stable users have all the content than not too, just that they've waited a few extra weeks to get it while Open Beta players first test it out. 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Dangerzone

[VIKBELL]

   I  and our group have been stable for years however I play multiplayer in stable but wished there were more on stable.   A small number of  hours in single player..

[Exorcet]

I'm mostly SP and use Stable. While many people just treat the OB as default, I find that ED's intended use cases make more sense. I see a lot of people complaining about bugs and such when new updates arrive, but I very rarely have this problem as I just keep my stable install on whatever patch it happens to be on until I have a reason to update. My OB install is usually updated as soon as possible so I can test new features. Not every change is positive, but since I don't use OB seriously, I'm not often impacted by major issues.

[Alpenwolf]

3 hours ago, VIKBELL said:

   I  and our group have been stable for years however I play multiplayer in stable but wished there were more on stable.   A small number of  hours in single player..

How many servers/players are there in the rush hours?

[Dangerzone]

On 11/18/2022 at 4:55 AM, Exorcet said:

I'm mostly SP and use Stable. While many people just treat the OB as default, I find that ED's intended use cases make more sense. I see a lot of people complaining about bugs and such when new updates arrive, but I very rarely have this problem as I just keep my stable install on whatever patch it happens to be on until I have a reason to update. My OB install is usually updated as soon as possible so I can test new features. Not every change is positive, but since I don't use OB seriously, I'm not often impacted by major issues.

Similar with me. The best part about so many OB users I find is there's much less time problem solving for me. In that if stable release does have a problem still - there's plenty of discussions previously available about it and workarounds provided, or solutions that others have figured out before it gets to stable release. (Just look at VAICOM - ready for 2.8 and we're not there yet with OB).  

[Rudel_chw]

On 11/8/2022 at 6:53 PM, Dangerzone said:

I'm curious to know why most people choose Open Beta

 

SP user and I prefer OB so I can fly new Modules as soon as they appear. If there is ever a game breaking bug after an OB update, I have no problem to revert back to the prior OB version until the issue is fixed.

[advancedme]

I run Open beta on the principal that beta = better? Anyone else?

 Does anyone know if there is a FPS benefit to running stable over Open beta?

 

 

[Dangerzone]

11 hours ago, advancedme said:

I run Open beta on the principal that beta = better? Anyone else?

 Does anyone know if there is a FPS benefit to running stable over Open beta?

Stable and Open Beta are currently on exactly the same build, so it doesn't matter at the moment which one you run - it's the same so you'll see the same performance.

However - for future reference BETA is not slang for better.  Alpha and Beta are terminologies for builds of the software prior to being an official release. If anything Beta stands for 'potentially more unstable', so if you want a 'better' experience - don't go BETA. 

There are more builds released in BETA - which is normally meant for the public to test the changes and give feedback before the company releases one of those builds as an official release (commonly labeled here as 'Stable'). 

The poll here indicates that most people are not using BETA this way, but rather want the latest changes as quickly as possible - regardless of whether they're ready or the extra bugs they may have to contend with or FPS issues. The preference for the majority is quicker access over stability or performance hiccups.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

To better understand how Open Beta differs to Stable - here is an illustration as an example with release builds. (OB = Open Beta releases, and SR = Stable Releases):

2.7.5.10869 - SR & OB on the same version (our starting point)

2.7.18.12852 -OB - New features added. Problems found with CTD-Crashes To Desktop  (#A), new features need further refinement (#B)

2.7.6.13133 - OB - CTD Still occurring (#A)- new features refined

2.7.6.13436 - OB - CTD Fixed - new features working well

2.7.6.13436 - SR - We're happy with this version - release to stable 

2.7.7.14727 - OB - AI new features added, but feedback shows some AI won't engage (#B) and causes problems with some campaigns (#C)

2.7.7.15038 - OB - Refined AI new features. #B and #C resolved. OB Testing shows that it's working well.

2.7.7.15038 - SR - Releasing updated features to Stable

2.7.8.16140 - OB - Adding new cloud features - CTD Problems (#D) & Performance issues (#E)

2.7.9.17830 - OB - Managed to fix CTD issues - but users still reporting performance issues with clouds at certain times (#E)

2.7.9.18080 - OB - Fixed cloud performance issues - users having a reasonable experience, although still some performance issue (#E)

2.7.9.18080 - SR - Release to Stable - performance issues considered 'acceptable' for now.

2.7.10.18996 - OB - New features added, new netcode done to reduce latency and rubber banding. Users report problems with new FM (#F).

2.7.10.19402 - OB - Tweaked new features. Applied fix for FM. Users report still having problems with FM & provided tracks to replicate.

2.7.10.19473 - OB - Further tweaked new features, and FM. User response seems to be at an acceptable level

2.7.10.19473 - SR - Release to Stable Release.

From an OB experience, you get to experience all the major problems (show stopppers) of #A, #B, #C, #D, #E and #F

From a SR experience, we get the last bit of #E only - as all the other issues were identified and resolved whilst in Open Beta and between the Stable Releases. It's a smoother experience for us this way.

So stable isn't 100% stable, but it does reduce the number of issues we need to contend with.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you're concerned about FPS - a real world example of the benefits of stable is that if a problem does come through to us (such as FPS in VR in the latest version) - we have weeks of data already available to us to find out what the issue is as those who run Open Beta have hit this first and researched prior to us updating  (aka - Shadows in this instance), and can turn them off and play - instead of not knowing where the problem was as numerous Open Beta users experienced to begin with and spent much time tracking down the issues.

Normally it would be better for ED not to promote stable to the current build until these issues are corrected - which is usually more often than not, but in this particular instance shadow issues have not been addressed in VR from my understanding, but at least we know the cause and can deal with it quickly.

I hope this helps to clarify the differences between a "BETA" release of an application and the official (stable) release.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Dangerzone

[advancedme]

So are people on Beta because it's worse for them? Or because its Better?

It was a philosophical joke....

Ask Google about Beta & better...

 They came up with Alphabet because it was better than just Alpha

 

[Dangerzone]

12 minutes ago, advancedme said:

So are people on Beta because it's worse for them? Or because its Better?

Sorry - I missed it being a joke. With your follow up question re Open Beta vs Stable for FPS - I thought your first question was legit.

When it comes to your question re FPS - well, if DCS actually make improvements then on the odd occasion Open Beta may have better FPS's - but the long term track record seems to be more performance problems with Open Beta releases first.  There's not a one size fits all approach really. At present, but OB and Stable have FPS issues with shadows now coz Stable was elevated to the current Open Beta.