1. The existence of such a bug is quite worrisome. Anyone at Cryptic want to shed some light on what caused it?
2. If I understand correctly, Friday's patch did not restore the missing boffs; it only fixed the bug that was causing boffs to be lost. Are you going to compare the current game state against your backups and automatically restore the missing boffs? Or will we have to check all our characters one by one to see if any of them have lost boffs, and contact support individually to have them restored?
3. Tarran61 thinks that he also lost admiralty ships. Has anyone else observed this?
hmm, I think my main and alts have their crews but I feel I lost some admiralty ship cards on a few alts. (really do) guess I best start keeping screenshots and spreadsheets with enough info . Wish there was a way to export this stuff.
Haven't gone and checked my toons yet, but I will say one thing... If I lose Tovan Khev as a bridge officer, I will be neither weeping, nor reporting it. I don't care if I lose some of the rarest items in the game to go along with it. That sacrifice will be worth it to rid myself of that idiot once and for all.
You are so gonna hate some of the Tales Of Vesperia cast. Now back on topic, thanks for the speedy patch!
wonder if they will actually give the lost boffs back, or if they will issue random ones to replace those non-special boffs that were lost
There are 3 options:
1. Give random Boffs instaed.
2. Give a new instance of the BOFF - as originally handed out - if they are hardcoded toons (like Elisa Florez and other toutorial ones).
3. Give back exactly the BOFF you had (including Description, specialisation, unlocked abilities).
Ideally a 3. If they had the time to make a backup of the BOFF state every. Single. Downtime. (See below on that).
I asume they will do at least a 2.
1. The existence of such a bug is quite worrisome. Anyone at Cryptic want to shed some light on what caused it?
2. If I understand correctly, Friday's patch did not restore the missing boffs; it only fixed the bug that was causing boffs to be lost. Are you going to compare the current game state against your backups and automatically restore the missing boffs? Or will we have to check all our characters one by one to see if any of them have lost boffs, and contact support individually to have them restored?
3. Tarran61 thinks that he also lost admiralty ships. Has anyone else observed this?
hmm, I think my main and alts have their crews but I feel I lost some admiralty ship cards on a few alts. (really do) guess I best start keeping screenshots and spreadsheets with enough info . Wish there was a way to export this stuff.
Not part of Cryptic, but enough of a Programmer to get it:
1. Human error when writing the DB cleanup code. Or the DB translation code.
The film Elysium might be the best example of "disrupting a database" I have ever seen. A programm that has to be delivered deep into the DMZ and has a single line of payload that has massive impact. DB programmers always handle those "single lines of doom" as their daily bread and butter.
Most often it is a inproper Condition that messes up your whole database. I consdier Update and Delete to be the most dangerous orders - in that Order! With delete you at least have the size of the DB to indicate something went wrong afterwards....
2. There is the hope they have the time to make a backup of the BOFF tables every downtime. But let us be honest, players hate downtimes existing and even more if they are often or long. We optimise the Process against such reliabilty everytime we complain about a downtime or the duration of a downtime.
3. I did not observe it and I would not consider it to be the same bug. He should make a seperate thread for that. The Admirality Systems looks closer related to the DOFF then the BOFF System to me.
When will we get an official response on the return of the BOFF?
I just got one on the ticket i submited a coule of days ago, apparently "fix for affected players has yet to be determined" so probabbly a couple days more, but im kinda betting we are getting random boffos
I don't know if it's permitted to mention correspondence here (zap me if it's not!) but I received an email offering a choice of compensation options, one of which included rollback of the affected character. So it appears they are taking the problem seriously.
I don't know if it's permitted to mention correspondence here (zap me if it's not!) but I received an email offering a choice of compensation options, one of which included rollback of the affected character. So it appears they are taking the problem seriously.
Got the same one. We definitely should not mention the exact compensations. People might try to pull a fast one by claiming they were affected when cryptic already know who was and was not. That could really swamp the support
Options are: Option 1: Character Rollback and Compensation Complete Rollback of the affected Charcter back to pre 13.5 State (back to 18th July). Nothing less seems possible. There is some compensation in turn. Option 2: Bridge Officer Care Package
Optoin A is good for those that "choose not to play the toons".
Personaly I will go with B. Had a bunch of reputation and gear progress.
Not part of Cryptic, but enough of a Programmer to get it:
1. Human error when writing the DB cleanup code. Or the DB translation code.
The film Elysium might be the best example of "disrupting a database" I have ever seen. A programm that has to be delivered deep into the DMZ and has a single line of payload that has massive impact. DB programmers always handle those "single lines of doom" as their daily bread and butter.
Most often it is a inproper Condition that messes up your whole database. I consdier Update and Delete to be the most dangerous orders - in that Order! With delete you at least have the size of the DB to indicate something went wrong afterwards....
Amusing. Although it's not quite my area of expertise, I think I know enough about how databases work to not need instruction from a Hollywood movie. I agree that botched database code could have caused the problem, but I don't believe Cryptic is in the habit of making large database changes. They usually only do it if it's necessary to implement a new feature. There's also this line in the patch notes:
Resolved an issue which was causing some players to lose Bridge Officers upon logging in.
Maybe, I'm reading too much into it, but that makes it sound like it was a run-time bug on the client or server. If the lost boffs were caused by a database update during maintenance, players would have lost the boffs whether they logged in or not.
2. There is the hope they have the time to make a backup of the BOFF tables every downtime. But let us be honest, players hate downtimes existing and even more if they are often or long. We optimise the Process against such reliabilty everytime we complain about a downtime or the duration of a downtime.
If my business depended on it, I would make a backup every week during maintenance; if that's not possible, then at least once a month; and certainly, before each new release. Season 13.5 was just released. If they didn't make a backup before patching the servers with Season 13.5, then that's just asking for trouble.
3. I did not observe it and I would not consider it to be the same bug. He should make a seperate thread for that. The Admirality Systems looks closer related to the DOFF then the BOFF System to me.
I agree that lost admiralty cards would probably be a separate bug. But if it is happening, we better confirm now. That's why I asked if anyone else has seen it. (And judging by some of the bug reports I've seen, the admiralty and doff systems are probably more closely related than any of us would like.)
EDIT: Some text to get past the post-eating spam filter
I think this is a fair and acceptable solution for the affected players, and it's nice to have the option of the bridge officers restored (by character rollback), for those who lost a lot of them, or had expensive items vanishing alongside with them (rep / lobi gear). So, I personally feel satisfied with this, and happy that it got addressed and fixed. Kudos to the Support working hard on making this right!
I too lost bridge crew on one character but because I didn't think they'd take it seriously I deleted said character which made me ineligible for 2nd option and only good for first option. Mad about it now but unfortunately nothing I can do. I want the perks of the 2nd option over the first option. More or less was told to take the 1st option and restore my character.
I'm still waiting for them to send me an email about compensation for the lost Bridge Officer. Are they still sending them out, or should I go back to the original ticket I opened and ask about it? I haven't seen any email in-game, or received anything in my personal mailbox.
I finally logged back in yesterday, and across 9 alts, I only lost one boff: Elisa Flores! (as in the Originally assigned Ellie, not a reclaimed/transfer requested one)
I'm headcanoning that Orion slavers kidnapped her off the ship, and after a period of recuperation at Starfleet Medical, she was ready to return to duty
I did consider assigning a new first officer (even bought them and had them tailor-tweaked), but I couldn't do it, I needed Ellie back. My Ellie. So a trip to the academy and the exchange to re-equip her later...
The Ballad of Elisa Flores:
This is my Ellie. There are many like her, but this one is mine.
Ellie is my best friend. She is my life. I must master her as I must master my life.
Without me, Ellie is useless. Without Ellie, I am useless. I must assign Ellie in truth. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots Ellie. I will…
Ellie and I know that what counts in war is not the beams we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit…
Ellie is human, and even though I am Ferengi, she is my best friend. Thus, I will learn from her as a sister. I will learn her weaknesses, her strengths, her eccentricities, her eyes, and her smile. I will keep Ellie healthy and ready, even as I am healthy and ready. We are part of each other. We are…
Before Profit, I swear this creed. Ellie and I are the defenders of the Federation. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of our lives.
So be it, until victory is the Federation's and there is no enemy, but peace!
There was, however, a loss of most Kelvin Timeline Tribbles on one alt's away team! Nothing a trip to the exchange couldn't cure, though Overall, a less painful experience than this could have been... Now, to find those slavers who kidnapped Ellie and unleash some payback...
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
The Ballad of Elisa Flores:
This is my Ellie. There are many like her, but this one is mine.
Ellie is my best friend. She is my life. I must master her as I must master my life.
Without me, Ellie is useless. Without Ellie, I am useless. I must assign Ellie in truth. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots Ellie. I will…
Ellie and I know that what counts in war is not the beams we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit…
Ellie is human, and even though I am Ferengi, she is my best friend. Thus, I will learn from her as a sister. I will learn her weaknesses, her strengths, her eccentricities, her eyes, and her smile. I will keep Ellie healthy and ready, even as I am healthy and ready. We are part of each other. We are…
Before Profit, I swear this creed. Ellie and I are the defenders of the Federation. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of our lives.
So be it, until victory is the Federation's and there is no enemy, but peace!
In retort:
The Ballad of Tovan Khev:
This is my Tovan. There are many like him, but this one is mine.
Tovan is a pain in the neck. He is my stalker. I must keep him around as I have no choice otherwise.
Without me, Tovan is useless. Without Tovan, I would be free. I must keep Tovan on board. I will keep him unarmed and unarmored. I can't shoot him because he is Tovan. I will try…
Tovan and I know that what counts in war is not the beams we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. He will remain alive. For now…
Tovan is Romulan, and because I am Reman, he the Token Romulan on board. Thus, I will oppress him as his kind oppressed mine. I will learn his weaknesses, so that I may use them against him, his strengths, so that I may turn them into weaknesses, his eccentricities, his eyes, and his face. I will keep Tovan healthy and whole, even as I am healthy and whole, so that I may kill him myself one day.
Before The Elements, I swear this creed. Tovan and I are the defenders of the Republic. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life (because his doesn't matter).
So be it, until victory is the Republic's and there is no enemy, but peace, and I may make his life the last to be taken in the war!
Space Barbie Extraordinaire. Got a question about Space Barbie? Just ask.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Update them in case but they should take care of it. I got my retribution earlier.
I let them know. The response I got was that I wasn't "on their list" and therefore was nothing they could do. I pointed out that I had logged the ticket on 7/21 indicating that I had lost my Bridge Officer, but that didn't seem to be enough to have them check into why I wasn't on the list.
As a "good faith gesture" they gave me a Cadet Elisa Flores in my inventory, but it's the exact one I retrieved from the kiosk at Starfleet Academy; a new character without equipment or training.
I replied back, but I have a feeling that nothing else will be done simply because I'm "not on their list" and they don't appear to have any desire to look into the issue further, despite having reported the problem before they had decided on what the recourse would be.
Comments
sorry im such a noob
Go here dharcmage
https://support.arcgames.com/app/home
Then contact support.
I also think this is an issue that should be fixed without contacting support / should have been fixed with the last update.
1. The existence of such a bug is quite worrisome. Anyone at Cryptic want to shed some light on what caused it?
2. If I understand correctly, Friday's patch did not restore the missing boffs; it only fixed the bug that was causing boffs to be lost. Are you going to compare the current game state against your backups and automatically restore the missing boffs? Or will we have to check all our characters one by one to see if any of them have lost boffs, and contact support individually to have them restored?
3. Tarran61 thinks that he also lost admiralty ships. Has anyone else observed this?
1. Give random Boffs instaed.
2. Give a new instance of the BOFF - as originally handed out - if they are hardcoded toons (like Elisa Florez and other toutorial ones).
3. Give back exactly the BOFF you had (including Description, specialisation, unlocked abilities).
Ideally a 3. If they had the time to make a backup of the BOFF state every. Single. Downtime. (See below on that).
I asume they will do at least a 2.
Not part of Cryptic, but enough of a Programmer to get it:
1. Human error when writing the DB cleanup code. Or the DB translation code.
The film Elysium might be the best example of "disrupting a database" I have ever seen. A programm that has to be delivered deep into the DMZ and has a single line of payload that has massive impact. DB programmers always handle those "single lines of doom" as their daily bread and butter.
Most often it is a inproper Condition that messes up your whole database. I consdier Update and Delete to be the most dangerous orders - in that Order! With delete you at least have the size of the DB to indicate something went wrong afterwards....
2. There is the hope they have the time to make a backup of the BOFF tables every downtime. But let us be honest, players hate downtimes existing and even more if they are often or long. We optimise the Process against such reliabilty everytime we complain about a downtime or the duration of a downtime.
3. I did not observe it and I would not consider it to be the same bug. He should make a seperate thread for that. The Admirality Systems looks closer related to the DOFF then the BOFF System to me.
I just got one on the ticket i submited a coule of days ago, apparently "fix for affected players has yet to be determined" so probabbly a couple days more, but im kinda betting we are getting random boffos
Options are:
Option 1: Character Rollback and Compensation Complete Rollback of the affected Charcter back to pre 13.5 State (back to 18th July). Nothing less seems possible. There is some compensation in turn.
Option 2: Bridge Officer Care Package
Optoin A is good for those that "choose not to play the toons".
Personaly I will go with B. Had a bunch of reputation and gear progress.
Amusing. Although it's not quite my area of expertise, I think I know enough about how databases work to not need instruction from a Hollywood movie. I agree that botched database code could have caused the problem, but I don't believe Cryptic is in the habit of making large database changes. They usually only do it if it's necessary to implement a new feature. There's also this line in the patch notes:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10579064-pc-patch-notes-for-7/21/17
Maybe, I'm reading too much into it, but that makes it sound like it was a run-time bug on the client or server. If the lost boffs were caused by a database update during maintenance, players would have lost the boffs whether they logged in or not.
If my business depended on it, I would make a backup every week during maintenance; if that's not possible, then at least once a month; and certainly, before each new release. Season 13.5 was just released. If they didn't make a backup before patching the servers with Season 13.5, then that's just asking for trouble.
I agree that lost admiralty cards would probably be a separate bug. But if it is happening, we better confirm now. That's why I asked if anyone else has seen it. (And judging by some of the bug reports I've seen, the admiralty and doff systems are probably more closely related than any of us would like.)
EDIT: Some text to get past the post-eating spam filter
Just really want one bo back that I lost...
I'm headcanoning that Orion slavers kidnapped her off the ship, and after a period of recuperation at Starfleet Medical, she was ready to return to duty
I did consider assigning a new first officer (even bought them and had them tailor-tweaked), but I couldn't do it, I needed Ellie back. My Ellie. So a trip to the academy and the exchange to re-equip her later...
The Ballad of Elisa Flores:
This is my Ellie. There are many like her, but this one is mine.
Ellie is my best friend. She is my life. I must master her as I must master my life.
Without me, Ellie is useless. Without Ellie, I am useless. I must assign Ellie in truth. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots Ellie. I will…
Ellie and I know that what counts in war is not the beams we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit…
Ellie is human, and even though I am Ferengi, she is my best friend. Thus, I will learn from her as a sister. I will learn her weaknesses, her strengths, her eccentricities, her eyes, and her smile. I will keep Ellie healthy and ready, even as I am healthy and ready. We are part of each other. We are…
Before Profit, I swear this creed. Ellie and I are the defenders of the Federation. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of our lives.
So be it, until victory is the Federation's and there is no enemy, but peace!
There was, however, a loss of most Kelvin Timeline Tribbles on one alt's away team! Nothing a trip to the exchange couldn't cure, though
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
BTW, your Ballad is amazing
In retort:
The Ballad of Tovan Khev:
This is my Tovan. There are many like him, but this one is mine.
Tovan is a pain in the neck. He is my stalker. I must keep him around as I have no choice otherwise.
Without me, Tovan is useless. Without Tovan, I would be free. I must keep Tovan on board. I will keep him unarmed and unarmored. I can't shoot him because he is Tovan. I will try…
Tovan and I know that what counts in war is not the beams we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. He will remain alive. For now…
Tovan is Romulan, and because I am Reman, he the Token Romulan on board. Thus, I will oppress him as his kind oppressed mine. I will learn his weaknesses, so that I may use them against him, his strengths, so that I may turn them into weaknesses, his eccentricities, his eyes, and his face. I will keep Tovan healthy and whole, even as I am healthy and whole, so that I may kill him myself one day.
Before The Elements, I swear this creed. Tovan and I are the defenders of the Republic. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life (because his doesn't matter).
So be it, until victory is the Republic's and there is no enemy, but peace, and I may make his life the last to be taken in the war!
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
I let them know. The response I got was that I wasn't "on their list" and therefore was nothing they could do. I pointed out that I had logged the ticket on 7/21 indicating that I had lost my Bridge Officer, but that didn't seem to be enough to have them check into why I wasn't on the list.
As a "good faith gesture" they gave me a Cadet Elisa Flores in my inventory, but it's the exact one I retrieved from the kiosk at Starfleet Academy; a new character without equipment or training.
I replied back, but I have a feeling that nothing else will be done simply because I'm "not on their list" and they don't appear to have any desire to look into the issue further, despite having reported the problem before they had decided on what the recourse would be.