Designer1234

What is so funny? Except a few shapes, standard pen, standard node tool, standard fill and gradient, one transform tool (contour) and recently added knife and shape builder (nice, I admit) it has nothing. No perspective, no extrusion, no free shadows, no vector brush, no mesh gradients, no envelope, no eraser, no distortion, roughen, smudge, blend tools... FX effects? Cool, so helpful when you design something... Of course you can draw everything using only a pen, but...

Biggest issues? I hoped that with AD v2 I'll get true competitor for Corel Draw 9, but... no, still 70% of its tools are missing, not mentioning Corel DRAW X3 (the latest version I known as a child)  I don't understand who use AD and consider it as a competitor for AI

As an amateur user I'd prefer to get a special upgrade price rather than special launch offer addressed to everyone and time-limited. As I clarified i my topic about the upgrade I don't consider currently provided new tools or functions essential. I'd prefer to wait what happens in the future and then buy an upgrade for guaranteed lowered price, because I have no incomes from using AP.
BUT I UNDERSTAND Serif motivation, I understand that forcing people to buy upgrade outside the AppStore would be extremely risky and stupid.
I also understand that my personal perspective is specific. Other companies require regular payments each year and it seems that people have much less problem with this.
As for the price - some comments are really ridiculous. I'm from one of the Central European countries. Sure, we are not as poor as many other nations, but still definitely not as wealthy as people in Germany, Switzerland or Netherlands. Still single Affinity app in launch offer costs less than single computer game, less than one pair of well known brand jeans (actually, depending on the brand, 30-70% less!) or less than my recent ophthalmologist visit which lasted ten minutes ;)...
Sure, as a hobbyist I understand that we're less willing to pay for something which isn't necessary, but when professional users, some of them still paying for Adobe, claim that Affinity price is too high for their budget... that must be trolling.
So, let's stay serious and If we do criticize, let it be constructive criticism.

The exe installer seems to work perfectly on my system on a first look 😀 And I can now get it to work with other programs as I wish! SO MUCH BETTER 😁
And I almost feel confident enough to uninstall v1 - I'll give it a few days.

I feel you. We moved our studio back to Adobe. Illustrator and Photoshop are not perfect, but better than Affinity Designer, Photos and Publisher. 

Or, without imposing your will to the others, you could simply limit your visits to the Bugs subforums. Assuming you don't find it too complicate.
 

If others here need VECTOR mesh gradients for professional reasons or document-technical needs, and are looking for an affordable vector tool, Vectorstyler supports mesh gradients and many, many other vector features not available in Affinity today and probably not in 5 or even 10 years. It is a program for working with vector graphics on a serious and comprehensive level, and the algorithms are of very high quality. There is not much raster junk involved.
How others in here feel about this program or Illustrator or other etc. is irrelevant and ends up in endless weirdly unfocused discussions that shroud the few amounts of knowledge in the forum in a useless cloud of smoke.
Try the program for the trial period and see for yourself if it is a tool for your own hobby or business needs and personal preferences. And when it is examined and clarified, it doesn't matter at all what others think.

Bump up the topic! Seems to be an old request dated back to V1.
I hope we get the mesh gradient tool in V2 at some point (sooner, I prefer). This one of the top three tools I miss in Designer.
I've just started with Affinity. The way I work with photorealistic illustrations the mesh gradient/fill tool would be a killer feature. Now getting realistic reflections and shading on smooth surfaces is unnecessary complex using dozens of shapes, fills, layers & layer effects. Gradient fill would help a lot.
 
 

Please please add an option to display the names of brushes in the brush panel, on the Desktop versions of Photo and Designer.
I have hundreds of brush packs, I need to see the names of them without hovering over each.

I have not seen that. In fact, here is a quote from Serif's Managing Director (with my emphasis) 
 

Affinity Designer V2's measuring and scaling tools are a major breakthrough and speed up my workflow of large-format ad design and vehicle wrapping. Up until now I have been calculating the scale of projects myself and the new tools do this for me in an intuitive and simple way. Thank you!

V1 was such a promise when released. It got better over the time. But it still has issues (not regrarding missing features but issues with, in my optinion, the base). All those issues got tested and reported by user in detail. It was explained what is wrong and why it matters. There was hope that Serif fixes those issues with V2.
Now on V2 trial the hardware acceleration got optimized. But that's it. All the other base issues are all still there in V2 - and there is no roadmap. No way to know if Serif has interest in fixing something or not.
I fear, Serif is now in "feature hell" - more, more, more features because maybe their managers think they need features, features, features on the launch page. So, new features are there - great. But on top of the old issues now there are new bugs and some new features are only half baked.
I think, a lot of users who send those detailed issue reports, did not do that because it's their hobby to complain in forums, but because they use the software for some reason and are happy to acts as "free of charge beta testers and suggestion makers". I think they are interested in Affinity becoming a "real new standard" (which, in my opinion V2 is not).
I personally am already laughing when a moderator writes "we logged it with the developers". Without a roadmap this means nothing. I read it as "yes, it's a bug, yes it's a limitation, yes, it's a hindering the workflow ..., maybe we solve it, maybe not." V2 seems to be an indication that "we solve it not" is the more often used solution.
I use V1 and like it. But investing more time in testing and bug reporting for V2 is not what I want to do, after learning that Serif likes to consume this free service of mine but does not give any feedback in form of a roadmap.
I thought the affinity solutions would become the suite to replace my Lego box of softwares (open source and commercial ones). But for me V2 indicates this is not likely to happen.
Maybe Serif is in a "jack of all trades but master of none" dilemma. And maybe they sell to cheap to fund the ressources to become the "real new standard".
 

@Bryan Rieger yes to everything you said, my friend.
I really, really wanted to like v2. REALLY.
There are so many BAD design decisions, things that are confusing, things that feel half-baked, and things that just don't work.
Normally I would post issues to the forum and wait to see what happens (spoiler: nothing ever happens), but I'm at a bit of a loss as how to proceed.
I was hoping that with the BIG launch of v2 we might see a new, more communicative Serif
There so many questionable design decisions
Serif's consistently mute communications style has really eroded my confidence in Serif.
ALL of this. 👆

I agree but you can turn them off in the layer hamburger menu. Turn off object type. 

The universal license is making them less money per product. That is my point.
Universal license 200€
Old pricing individual 231€
New pricing individual 327€
So if you bought the universal license, youre giving them less money even if there was no universal pricing and the prices stayed unchanged.

IMPORTANT UPDATE for anyone still using Affinity V1 - 
Versions 1.10.6 of the Affinity suite have been released, which resolve these .NET Windows crashes.
Please see the below link for information on how to download and install these updates:
With the Affinity updates installed, you can now un-hide any previous Windows updates you have paused and install these without concern.

Still - I don't care. It only causes a problems for the users. The only third party apps on my PC that are using either UWP form or at least new Windows Installer are - except the MS apps itself (however I still use old Office 2019 versions without stupid forced updates and UI changes) - Deezer and TwinkleTray... 
And THAT'S GREAT!  I don't know why when I've opened "portable version" I was asked once again for the license registration, but then it turned put that all my settings were loaded - recent files list, studio preset... If it worked this way all the time it would be the simplest solution for the integration, path specifying etc.  
BTW - it's really annoying how MS is destroying simple, working and useful mechanisms in their OS... 

Complete rubbish.  Most of us seem to have no problem with Affinity pricing.  Read the thread.
If you have V1 for "a few years" you have more than got your money's worth.   I had all three for 12 months and have no problem buying V2 (universal license) I am still way ahead compared to using anything else.   

If it costs me, on avverage, £/$100 every 5 years I will be more than happy. That works out at £/$ 8 per app per year.
 

But what you said was...
With all due respect, that's not paraphrasing — it's incorrect information that you used to support the statement that Serif is "dishonest." Serif provided their reasoning for not going the route of identifying customers who purchased on platforms other than the Serif Store.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, and frankly, I don't like contributing to the back-and-forth between users in these forums. But I think it's important we get our facts straight so everyone has the ability to reach their own conclusions based on facts.

It's in Apple's database but as has been mentioned dozens of times over the years not just in these forums but all over the web, Apple does not share that database with companies selling their apps through the MAS for security & privacy reasons.

That is what I expected.  As soon as the release date was solid I think Serif started pushing the teaser videos?
However given the discounted cost of Affinity and the number of years between charged versions, when companred to any other software out there,  it is still a bargin.  Some one is always going to be the last person to buy the old version before the new one comes out. 

If you purchased v1 six months ago and have therefore received (and will receive) no feature updates, I can understand being upset about that. From archive.org, I can't see their verbiage about promising updates, although they did have a great 50% off sale exactly 6 months ago. I hope you got that, at least.
It boils down to expectations and communication. If Serif had a regular 2-year release cycle, say, then you'd have known what to expect. Without knowing their release cycle or upgrade policies in advance, purchases can indeed become a bit of a gamble a year or two after a major release.
However ... your speculation about a subscription-based Affinity, and then further speculations of how Serif and its customers would react if/when that happens, are ... well ... highly speculative. True, the world is drifting toward subscription models, but that tends to occur most often in cases where you have a company that needs a steady income stream, is publicly traded or seeking to be publicly traded, and either has a highly-saturated customer base, or isn't confident about its ability to add compelling features to its products over time (e.g., Microsoft Office). It seems to me doubtful that Serif is near that point.
You say that the old timers have been properly looked after (I agree), but at the same time you complain about poor customer service. Yes, there is some validity to that latter point when it comes to recent purchasers.  But it's only been ten days since the v2 release, and Serif is still adjusting to customer feedback, and has already taken steps to at least partially satisfy some of the complaints. It would seem fair to cut them some slack in the short-term; maybe things will improve further.
But even if people like you end up feeling cheated, it would be wrong to tar and feather the whole company (or its satisfied customers) just because Serif messed up a product rollout and weren't able to help everyone feel fairly treated.

Personally i really like these dots. However perhaps that's right they could have some contour in unchecked state to locate them easier. 

Still - I don't care. It only causes a problems for the users. The only third party apps on my PC that are using either UWP form or at least new Windows Installer are - except the MS apps itself (however I still use old Office 2019 versions without stupid forced updates and UI changes) - Deezer and TwinkleTray... 
And THAT'S GREAT!  I don't know why when I've opened "portable version" I was asked once again for the license registration, but then it turned put that all my settings were loaded - recent files list, studio preset... If it worked this way all the time it would be the simplest solution for the integration, path specifying etc.  
BTW - it's really annoying how MS is destroying simple, working and useful mechanisms in their OS... 

Wow, that VS looks like AD should 😮
How it's possible that less known company from Finland can write something like that, and Sarif, who had many of these tools in their previous software, still can't do it? 😮