Agile development needs frequent releases, not frequent PUBLIC releases.  Frequent internal builds or builds to a tightly controlled group are ideal because you can control the feedback process and incorporate what you learn more quickly into successive builds. 

You're assuming putting out a public beta is a costless endeavor.  How many man-hours go into readying a beta for public consumption?  Whatever that number is, it's probably not overly difficult for the team to figure out milestone patches that are worth that level of added effort.  Anything that doesn't reach that qualifier isn't worth public beta and gets tested internally.  For example, if .78 contains mostly bug fixes, why not wait until .79 or .80 which contains those bug fixes as well as gameplay changes?  Especially if the amount of effort to ready a public beta is high?  

Agreed there's too much over reaction to the minor details that can be fix/balanced out later. The main things to look out for are the crashes and the overall design and flow of the game. Obviously how powerful statwise or things like pacing can be easily tweaked but if entire systems are broken/not fun then that's what they want to hear about.

(Major issues/complaints since .77 for example are overpowered heroes which can't just be fixed with simple stat tweaks; overall usefulness of a city, units, and the tech tree in general; both strategic and tactical AI; boring magic; unbalanced mana system; etc)

If all these can be addressed as a whole in one big patch I'd rather wait for that then get it piece meal. That way you'll have a better idea of the direction the game is going towards. Otherwise you'd just complain about something that doesn't work too well becuase they also intedned to make changes to items 3 to 6 or whatever it may be.

I would rather get .81 next week than get .80 this week and have to wait until .86 to get the AI updates Frogboy has been working on. 

Is there any reason the game updates couldn't be separated to changes in the .xml files? Since the .xml changes are mostly balance/typo fixes, that should be an easy thing to change without having to roll out a whole new build. I don't want to downplay this and say it's a trivial change, but compared to packaging, deploying, and listing all of the various other changes, I'd think just changing these files would address some low-hanging issues while allowing the community to see the impact of the feedback that's been provided in the .xml arena.

"Playing with a couple of new spells" - I like that as the magic spell list in the beta is too short. In DND most players never had access to all the spells. In WOM you I was able to easily unlock all spells, and in FE you get most new spells at each level up. I would like to see more researchable or discoverable spells/spell books so that each game is different and your magic options in tactical combat are expanded and the AI casting is less predictable.

Ideas for how to acquire new spells; in addition to the the standard spells.

1) Complete a quest to gain a spell. A Level 4 quest might offer not magical equipment or treasure, but access to a new spell book or spell.
2) research water magic to pick a new spell for a list of randomly selected water spells (like trait selection but you see a choice of randomly selected spells) when research is completed.
3) Build a School of Dark Magic to open up dark magic spell research branches (note: Only one magic school can be built per (Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Dark, or Life) race.
4) A few rare level-up traits give access to new spells or spell books

Imagine they change the function of a single tag ( the damage tag)... instead of a given value, they now wish to add range damage (i.e. 6-16). All XML gets updated and then pushed out.

And your game crashes, because your engine isnt updated to use the adjusted damage output yet.

I'm responsible for patches where I work. If someone wants a partial patch, I will give it to them, and will also say its their risk, and their problem, if its not compatible with their version. Sure, 90% of the time it works nicely... but if it doesnt, dont come complaining.

Sure, I can see XML changes causing problems if they:

*Leverage functions that don't exist in the current game

*Expose an existing bug and make things worse.

It would almost be interesting if they would release a "major" patch that includes gameplay changes, etc. and then plan a follow-up .xml-only patch that would address small things. Kinda like the tick-tock cylce Intel is using for their new processor releases.

One of the major limitations of this game's beta phase is manpower. There aren't enough devs to realistically work fast enough for weekly changes and fixes. That is why I was so surprised with the .75-.77 patches. Those were quick ones and they made the game better, but they didn't hit the major problems with the game. It seems like the devs realized this and made a good change to the process. 

Hopefully they allocate a little time after each patch for at least one quick turn-around patch like .76 (or maybe .77). I was pretty shocked by .77's quick release, too, which was awesome but probably took a pretty big effort from the devs. Just speculating here, but I imagine that was the case. Then again, if this a labor of love for the guys, it might not be such a big burden.

The downside is that I'm pretty bored of the current patch. Tired of seeing the same issues over and over again and I've said my good comments and don't really care to repeat them (even if temptation says I need to out weigh the horrible suggestions in the forums).

I am in favor of doing a new patch for fresh feedback and post in a change log the things you're not happy with and still working on. Few things suck like spending a ton of time making a change and going a direction to find out the customer hates it and you have to head a different direction. I know my team at work is dealing enough with that right now.

Totally agree with Rishkith, and don't forget there are just as many non-productive posts now whinging for the new patch as there would be complaints about the new patch - so the distraction level wouldn't change.

^^^ This.

- Manii Names

Yes, but for all we know the entire Stardock Corporation might be in the internal beta test. From everything we have heard, it seems like they are moving in a good direction. Remember that the beta is about making the game good, not our personal enjoyment. 

My more practical reason for putting something out now is what if the direction you're taking things is bad?  You'd get feedback before you'd waste too many resources.

At least people are whining for the patch because they want more- it means you're going in the right direction.

It all depends on cycles, typs of bugs and what you want to adress. This is from personal experience:

In a good week, I can squash 40 bugs... but they arent system-altering things, they're usually bugs where the code is outta line a bit and I need to re-adjust. Bad week... 5 or 10 get done. Not because I'm having a bad week myself, but because I had to spend 6 hours trailing a bug that in the end needed recoding of 5 or 10 characters.

Could I bring out a patch at the end of the week? Sure, but that works because our software is spread over two layers: A "forms" server and a database server. The forms server and database server each have their own layer of software, and I can adjust either... the forms server patching is simply a matter of copying files. The database server-software can be extracted from the database and made ready to re-apply in about half a day ( ok, one hour if im pushing it, but then everything must be perfect at the first go and no additional scripting must be required, and only one test-run can be done).

Does that make me feel happy? No. I prefer to have the entire staff testing, but if I have to recall all of our consultancy guys as well as grab all the techies for four days to test the system, that means we loose four days of other projects and four days of consultancy. In effect, a) we get 4 days behind on other schedules and b) we loose lots of cash for four days. See? There's a balance.

Just be glad you're not in an Alpha test. I was in Guild Wars Alpha... it was interesting, but fun was not involved.

I think the most important thing is to start getting feedback from people who never played elemental at all... maybe some of those people still waiting on the demo... *wink*

Hey! I never said I like space marines ... (I prefer the Imperial Guard)

It's a single player game. If the player wants to cheat because he did not get the E-peen stat he wants than that is his or hers busness.

Tau plz.

I think too much randomness is a bad game design, because it encourages the player to load if the effect has a strong influence on the gameplay and 100 mana for + 1 dex if the champion has never increased dex and gets + 5 mana per turn is a strong influence in my opinion. Otherwise it would be a good idea to determine each stat of the sovereign by 3d6 and roll 3d6 again to determine the starting talents (less powerful talents 8 - 13 and more powerful talents 3 - 7 or 14 - 18) ...

I'd be happy if someone at Stardock cared that I can't even launch the game. No reply to a ticket submitted on day 1. Maybe I'm in the minority here but no response at all after almost a month?   

... and for all we know none of them are and it consists of a couple 12 year old kids kidnapped from the local elementary. The hypotheticals game is kind of worthless because you don't get anywhere real.

There are points to be made for both sides and it is up to Stardock to consider both sets and make the correct decision. I do hope they pay more attention to beta test feedback with Fallen Enchantress than they did with the abyssmal War of Magic.

I say take your time.

Don't worry about releasing public beta builds until you're ready, and definitely don't rush the game to release.  Just keep releasing screenshots and videos and keep us updated as to the changes that are going in. 

It's not like there aren't a gazillion other games out there right now to keep busy with

Other ideas:

5) Gain access to a new spell following an encounter/battle with a significant foe (i.e., learn from the enemy by observing)
6) Perform sacred/dark rituals, etc., requiring significant effort, to gain access to new spells;
7) Complete a major series of quests, the culmination of which leads to the discovery of a lost relic from an ancient age, etc... leading to a new spell or even new line of research, magic, etc. 

I have to agree take your time and get it right. Besides when I'm bored with a build I still have AOW:SM to play (which I'm doing right now) and Star Wars Online