DGee

You speak of a distant past. Vectorstyler left the beta phase a very, very long time ago, and has been updated and improved incredibly and significantly over many updates since. And it continues like that. The improvements have mostly been based on customer feedback, and I've seen customers get their suggestions approved and implemented in days or weeks. So instead of walking away, I recommend joining that forum. There is listening, responding, reacting and implementing. The program has been significantly improved in 2022 alone. And since the program is developed so heavily on customer feedback, no strange or sadly simple tools have been implemented like in Affinity Designer - e.g. the contour tool. You really don't know what vector design CAN do until you've tried Vectortyler, Adobe Illustrator or Coreldraw and their many awesome features.
And then we just have the fact that Vectorstyler has almost every feature imaginable (And the rest on the roadmap), at least all the ones Affinity is missing and maybe 100 more (no kidding), and that the missing features on a roadmap that is public. I would guess that there are a lot of Affinity customers who can't afford not to try Vectorstyler, unless they want to pay for Adobe, Coreldrawor spend the rest of their lives on workarounds to do simple things. I don't get the impression from the typical Affinity customer that they have a big budget for software.
It's hilarious that people in here request features for years and hardly see a single one of these requests implemented by Serif (in recent years), while the same features exist in abundance in Vectorstyler or if features are requested, they end up visibly on a public roadmap. If not, the developer tells you directly; there is no uncertainty.
So, instead of the many blathering on in here over thousands of posts that don't make a single difference, I can recommend creatives to give Vectorstyler a try, there is a long trial, and even more recommend that you make your opinion known on Vectorstyler's forum, you can have an influence, e.g. you can get bugs fixed in a week. It's impossible to explain how liberating it is to get rid of software problems so incredibly fast. The license runs for a long time, so you're spoiled with Vectorstyler too.
Vectorstyler and Designer are a great pair, suddenly you have two excellent programs that together form a gigantic and versatile toolbox. That's how I as a creative, results-oriented person look at it.
While Affinity Designer has only the simplest and very few tools for vector drawing, and we have no idea what might come, and when, there are a lot of designers like me who NEED to supplement Affinity with a competent vector program. And that's where Vectorstyler comes into its own. Affinity Designer will never catch up to Vector Styler feature-wise. Keep that in mind too.
So no fanboy here; I use both programs separately or together and I like both programs. I could not here and now do without either of them on my macOS machine.
Still, whether one likes or needs a program like Vectorstyler is one's own business, but one should try the alternatives out there, and the Vectorstyler development is worth participating in as well as monitoring:
VectorStyler Roadmap
www.vectorstyler.com

You can copy and paste your vectors from VectorStyler into AD it works great. I have been trying VS and I’m very impressed by its functionality. It’s got everything AD lacks and much more. As far the UI goes there is room for improvement but the app complements AD very well.

Have you heard of Vectorstyler ? It does everything and there is just one guy behind it. His sales are probably a 1/100000 of affinity sales.
I don’t think pricing is to blame here. 

I've given up on Affinity.  It seems clear to me they thought they'd be bought out and after four years haven't made the most desired change to the product.  I don't think they're working on it and they've basically given up.  These guys aren't in the game of writing cutting-edge software, they're playing for buyout money.  

Have fun, I'm done with the show.

People have been asking for one of the most important tools they can have and the response from Affinity has been, as far as I can tell, zero.  

Seen it a million times before.
 

Excuse me?
There's nothing false about those expectations.

It feels as if the software is no longer being developed. Vectorstyler has put out many updates over the last months with just one developer and Affinity none.

VS is mind blowing Affinity has a nice interface and overall its a smoother experience but it lacks too many features. VS has everything I need and more.

Vectorstyler does everything one would need to deliver professional work and it’s got just one developer which is crazy.  If it wasn’t for VS I would have gone back to Illustrator at this point.

I came back here just to check wether these products have been officially discontinued. Updates are rare, and they implement nothing worth updating. it's sad.

Affinity has been extra slow adding what many consider basic features. The roadmap came out many years ago and since then, only small fraction of things were added to their programs. Designer in particular seems to have gotten the  most neglect. Designer was released eight years ago and we're still waiting for standard  features. 
Blaming the pandemic and global financial jiitters and war for their glacial pace is ridiculous. Everyone else has to keep working and producing no matter the constant distractions of world events. Affinity shouldn't get a special pass on this.
 

Just started getting back into creative work and having this omission for such a basic/standard design tool in 2022 is baffling. I used to use photoshop and illustrator by torrenting them, however I was 100% intending to buy this software due to the price and amazing potential, but there are so many instances of backwards logic or missing features thorughout and the silence from the team is worrying

any update on some new non-destrictive free transform, distrot, warp tools for Designer? Even a basic perspective tool that doesn;t rasterise the object would be helpful?

Sadly not.

Thread was created in 2017 - 5 YEARS AGO.
Was this addressed? Nope... of course not. Why would it be...

This thread is the only reason I log into this site now…. because I’m a sadist apparently…. and wouldn’t you know? They spent time and presumably money updating the forum since my last login, but apparently NONE on the subject of the longest running thread (of any import) on said forum. Oh, the bitter irony.
Someone once said that Serif were just controlled opposition for Adobe… I dismissed the “conspiracy theory” at the time, but time itself makes a convincing argument.
Canva will eat both of them, and I won’t shed one tear.

It looks like Designer has been put at the bottom of the priority list ....Such a shame

I found the cause of this issue. There were effect layers on top of some text layers

@cgartists try vectorstyler for those missing features. Even if you stick with affinity for most of your work. Between the two programs, most every basic need is met

VS is mind blowing Affinity has a nice interface and overall its a smoother experience but it lacks too many features. VS has everything I need and more.

VS is mind blowing Affinity has a nice interface and overall its a smoother experience but it lacks too many features. VS has everything I need and more.

Pick up a copy of Vectorstyler and use it as an add-on feature for Affinity. It has all the features Affinity lacks and copying and pasting vectors between Affinity and Vectorstyler is easy and efficient. Oh, and it has a blend tool already
VectorStyler.com

You can copy and paste your vectors from VectorStyler into AD it works great. I have been trying VS and I’m very impressed by its functionality. It’s got everything AD lacks and much more. As far the UI goes there is room for improvement but the app complements AD very well.

You can copy and paste your vectors from VectorStyler into AD it works great. I have been trying VS and I’m very impressed by its functionality. It’s got everything AD lacks and much more. As far the UI goes there is room for improvement but the app complements AD very well.

Nice.. on the Affinity forum an entire discussion about using other non-serif programs to make up for missing (basic) features.. And still nothing from Serif. They really don't care about losing users to other parties because of lacking features in their own software.. their silence is just unbelievable.
 

I wasn't able to figure out how to link your handle D. Estabrook - but great choice finding Vectorstyler to fill the gaps. It compliments Affinity in many ways and offers almost everything missing currently from Designer. The developer for Vectorstyler is very friendly and responsive to ideas, improvements, criticisms - etc. Please share any insights on the Vectorstyler forum