It's alwas time to fix existing bugs and imbalance AND release more content.
They will always have to find a middle ground, balancing content vs fixes.
Keep in mind that a lot in content creation is not a programming task, why a lot of bug fixes require programming. A ship artist can fix visual errors on models, but he won't help fixing the Bridge Officer bug. They can't fire him for 3 months so that htey can hire an addiitonal programmer (especially since it would take a new programmer probably a few weeks before he actually becomes a productive member of the team), and if he is send to fix errors in models, that means he is costing them but generating less potential revenue than if he is creating new content. They have to ensure that the errors he takes care of are significant enough that they affect the overall success of the game as much as he could contribute in creating new content.
How much benefit is there really, for you as a player, if a bug gets fixed instead of something new being added?
Sure, losing your BOFFs every 3 map changes is annoying - but imagine you wouldn't have a new mission for half a year? Why even bother with those BOFFs if you do the same thing the entire time? How many players do you think check out the game if that bug was squashed, compared to when Cryptic releases a new mission?
Some bugs are certainly so bad that Cryptic needs to take care of them immediately, regardless of the difficulty. If the game won't function for many players, a new mission would be meaningless, since they couldn't play it. But if there is just a nagging inconvenience, but you can still do pretty much everything the game has to offer... Maybe it's not that important?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
This is entirely a matter of opinion... The overal quality of STO has remained roughly the same since I started playing a couple years ago...
Fine, it's a matter of opinion. In my opinion, there were far too many bugs then, and there are far too many bugs now. I don't think I'm the only one, since I constantly see complaints about bugs both on the forums and in game.
Funnily enough, I don't recall bug fixes to be the highest item on that list of 5 (IIRC) choices... In fact, I believe it was last and well behind the reintroduction of Exploration Missions and new Episodes, which were a clear first and second respectively...
I was talking about the posts asking for bug fixes in that thread. "Bug fixes" wasn't actually one of the choices in the poll.
And when was the last time someone took to the forums ranting about a typo or that a particular art element needed immediate attention?
...
Then I'm guessing bugs related to the game engine, and general game mechanics are the major concern, meaning graphics artists and story writers aren't going to be able to contribute much to bug fixing...
Art errors and typos are still bugs that need to be fixed. My point is that these minor bugs add up to make the product look shoddy. The fact that they aren't addressed shows a lack of concern for quality.
A game breaking bug is a bug that, by it's very nature, makes it impossible to play a game or to progress beyond a certain point...
A bug that stops you progressing through the episodes could be considered 'game breaking' in a linear story-driven game...
Since no such bugs exist in STO, there are no 'game breaking bugs'... The statement is entirely valid...
Are there bugs? Yes, but nothing that makes the game unplayable...
Given that definition, I agree that there are no game-breaking bugs at the moment. But that should be a minimal requirement, not the highest standard of quality that Cryptic should strive for.
Most are, at worst, extremely frustrating and will negatively impact your enjoyment but none of the existing bugs will prevent you from playing any existing element of STO...
And why is it not a concern that players aren't enjoying the game?
Some bugs may not be easily reproduced in a controlled environment and a lot can happen unexpectedly when patches go live...
I'm not disputing this, but I do think it's the exception rather than the rule. I spend a lot of time writing bug reports and reading bug reports on these forums. From what I can tell, most bugs are not specific to the live server environment or the user's client environment. Players report bugs on Tribble. Some of these bugs are indeed specific to the user's client environment. Most are reproducible by every user. QA has access to Tribble, yet the bugs still make it live to Holodeck. Maybe, QA actually verified the bug reports and passed them on to be fixed. But someone made a conscious decision to let the bugs go live.
Also trying to pinpoint bugs, even those which may be affecting 10% of the playerbase, as you used in your example, may not be easily reproduced as 9 out of 10 people are not experiencing it - how many within that 10% will actually provide useful feedback to try and pinpoint the bug if it cannot be reproduced by the QA team?
I suppose I was unclear. I'm not talking about bugs that affect only 10% of the playerbase, which I agree can be hard to reproduce without knowing the specific details of those affected. I'm talking about bugs that affect every player, or nearly every player, but can only be reproduced 1 in 10 times on average. There are many reasons why such a bug could occur.
race condition: The bug depends on the particular order in which two or more events occur, and they don't always occur in the same order. The order is usually not determined by the user's actions, but by a scheduler in the OS. The order in which the scheduler runs two threads, while not random, is not reliably predictable.
memory addressing error: There is an arithmetic error in the computation of a memory address. As a result, the program writes to or frees the wrong region of memory. The reason why the bug doesn't show up every time is that it depends on the particular region of memory that the system allocated when the program requested it.
load balancing: Some bugs occur when the user is transferred from one server to another for load balancing reasons. The user's state is not correctly transferred, or some data is not reloaded from the database when the transfer occurs.
Because of the unpredictable nature of such bugs, the exact cause is difficult to isolate. But these bugs are not unreproducible; they just aren't reproducible every single time. I understand that these bugs are not quite easy to fix, but I still think Cryptic leaves them unfixed for far too long. I doubt that their programmers are incapable of fixing the bugs. Rather, I think management has assigned them to work on something else. But leaving such low-level bugs unfixed usually causes more problems in the future. You write new code on top of the broken code, and suddenly other symptoms of the same root cause start appearing.
I'm gonna be blunt, you don't seem to have a firm grasp of the fact QA is not always as easy as people believe... Identifying and fixing bugs in potentially hundreds, or even thousands of lines of code, is not a simple task when that bug could be a single character that's out of place and so forth...
I worked for a while designing web pages, I learnt by hard coding pages in notepad... All it took for the entire page to not display was forgetting a bracket or comma, or a single key stroke out of place... Given I know first hand just how difficult correcting a web page can be, I can understand bug fixing when it comes to MMO coding is no small task...
I'll admit that I've never worked in QA. I have worked as a programmer. I've received plenty of bug reports from QA, and fixed plenty of bugs too. I've also submitted many detailed bug reports to Cryptic and seen many of the bugs go unfixed. In my opinion, Cryptic has a poor standard of software quality. I know another programmer in-game and he concurs. And I've seen similar comments on these forums from other professionals who work in the tech industry. While these opinions are subjective, they are not the result of ignorance. Plenty of people who know something about software think that Cryptic does a poor job.
I am yet to see anything that would suggest the full stoppage of new development to fix bugs is in anyway justified, especially since doing so would cause far more harm in the long term, due to lack of new content, than a few nagging bugs being in the game....
I'm not saying that they should stop all new development. I'm saying that they could shift some resources toward bug fixing. I disagree that there are a "few nagging bugs"; I would say that there are many nagging bugs. At the very least, they could fix the bugs that people complain about week after week. And then, take a look at some of the old bugs that have been around for months, if not years.
Let's look at bugs the other way around: It hasn't been always the players affected negativly by bugs.
Foundry exploit anyone? How long remained that unfixed? How much financial harm done to Cryptic?
And what if tribble duping was real and not just a joke, Cryptic? Ever thought about that, Cryptic? What if the joke turns out not to be a joke. Wouldn't that be an awesome joke....
This is happening already. People who prefer certain specific content already do have to wait for fixes. Sometimes even for years.
Whoever is responsible for proper allocation of human resources and distribution of funding in general, is doing a bad job.
They want to sell us their product, they want our money? Then I expect them to do their job. Not more not less. Even if maintaining an MMO may be more difficult compared to maintaining a single player tetris game. Doesn't change that fixing bugs is an integral part of their jobs. If they don't have enough qualified people, they need to hire some.
They already lost customers over this.
To follow your analogy: What would happen if a starships chief engineer wasn't fixing bugs in the warp drive for months, even for years sometimes, despite his captain asking to do so? Even worse, the chief engineer going full 'ignore mode' on his captain? A warp drive may be complicated, but the engineer still has to do his job.
But if the ship is flying at Warp, and he managed to install the new Quantum Torpedo launchers, and repaired all the shuttles that the Captain's command crew likes to crash all over the galaxy, and realigned the sensor phalanx for science lab's 3 long range stellar cartography project, maybe he is actually just doing his job, prioritizing or triaging as needed.
Cryptic is fixing bugs all the time. But it's not fixing all the bugs. It may not be fixing the particular bugs you care about. But just because some bugs remain unfixed (and be it for years) doesn't mean no bug fixes happen, and the release notes for the past years should tell you that bugs are being fixed.
Creating the narrative that Cryptic isn't fixing bugs means willfully ignoring facts, possibly for the sake of giving your argument more weight, but with no chance of actual success.
Instead, think what you can really hope to achieve, and that is - point out the bugs that are serious to you, that bother you, and describe reproduction steps. There is no guarantee that your bug gets fixed soon, but not providing information is definitely not improve your chances.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I'll admit that I've never worked in QA. I have worked as a programmer. I've received plenty of bug reports from QA, and fixed plenty of bugs too. I've also submitted many detailed bug reports to Cryptic and seen many of the bugs go unfixed. In my opinion, Cryptic has a poor standard of software quality. I know another programmer in-game and he concurs. And I've seen similar comments on these forums from other professionals who work in the tech industry. While these opinions are subjective, they are not the result of ignorance. Plenty of people who know something about software think that Cryptic does a poor job.
The PvP community once was home for a quite fair number of experienced programmers and related areas. Their assessments match with yours. In unison, literally.
But like I said, I give it 2 years and hope some other developer can bring new life to trek again (Anybody but JJ!) LOL
that's a safety prediction if ever I see one, under 2 years you can say "see I told you just come a little earlier then I expected", exactly 2 years you can say "see I called it spot on exactly 2 years" and after 2 years who is likely to remember. lol
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Nodody denies that any bugfixing took place. Sure, one bug gets fixed, but then one new bug gets introduced in return, another old bug reappears, leaving us with an impression that we just got trolled by the devs.
It may not be fixing the particular bugs you care about.
My perspective is heavily biased by my affinity for the PvP side of this game, so I naturally care more about bugs that affect PvP negatively. Bugs that affect PvP are usually in closer proximity to core game mechanics than other certain types of bugs.
If this game was a car and Cryptic a motorcar mechanic with limited time budget, I would appreciate if Cryptic took a look at the engine first, and not at the paint job.
At the end though, it'd be nice when both the engine AND the paint job get fixed.
Instead, think what you can really hope to achieve, and that is - point out the bugs that are serious to you, that bother you, and describe reproduction steps. There is no guarantee that your bug gets fixed soon, but not providing information is definitely not improve your chances.
The PvP community has been there, done that. Their voices were loud and clear. It's not like there was a lack of info regarding bugs.
EDIT:
The bug discussion is just one aspect of a bigger arc that also includes balancing issues, and sometimes the boundaries aren't always sharp, overlaps occuring now and then. Limiting our view just on bugs may result in losing perspective on the bigger picture. Anyways gotta go now, easter bunny hunt!
Cryptic is fixing bugs all the time. But it's not fixing all the bugs. It may not be fixing the particular bugs you care about. But just because some bugs remain unfixed (and be it for years) doesn't mean no bug fixes happen, and the release notes for the past years should tell you that bugs are being fixed.
Creating the narrative that Cryptic isn't fixing bugs means willfully ignoring facts, possibly for the sake of giving your argument more weight, but with no chance of actual success.
Whenever people complain about bugs, Cryptic's response is the usually same as yours: "We fix bugs all time. Submit a detailed bug report, and we'll get to it." The problem is not that Cryptic fixes no bugs: It's a general disregard for software quality. It shows in the number of bugs that go live every release; the number of old bugs that remain unfixed; the length of time that Cryptic allows bugs which people complain about week after week to go unfixed. Their entire software development cycle is broken. They rush every release. Consequently, they have no time to fix the bugs reported by players on Tribble or even their own QA staff. I've even seen them hurrying to finish features after the release date. They release unfinished work onto Holodeck, and that's acceptable to them. They seem to place great importance on keeping to schedule, but while they may release on schedule, they never actually finish on schedule.
Instead, think what you can really hope to achieve, and that is - point out the bugs that are serious to you, that bother you, and describe reproduction steps. There is no guarantee that your bug gets fixed soon, but not providing information is definitely not improve your chances.
I do this all the time. I'm sure QA is sick of hearing from me. I report bugs big and small, not so much because I care about all of them, but because either QA has missed them or they haven't spent the time digging into the details that I have. Some days, I spend more time on bug reports than I do playing the game. It's not just writing bug reports that takes time: I also take screenshots; figure out how to reproduce bugs; read saved game files to get more information. Short of running the game through a debugger without the source code, I don't see how I can give them more information. I've seen other players submit detailed bug reports as well---virusdancer, mightybobcnc, monkeybone13, to name a few. In many cases, the problem is not that QA lacks information. I've seen crypticfrost post to threads saying that he's verified a bug and sent it on to be fixed. The fundamental problem is that Cryptic creates more bugs each release than they have time to fix. In the end, it matters little whether QA or a player reports a bug if the report is just going to sit in someone's queue for over a year.
Alas, bug fixing does not create them money, generate new content or generally bring in players. So it'll always be a low level priority that will be addressed here and there on the fly.
I am not a programmer but from what I understand fixing bugs isn't as easy as people seem to make it out to be. No game is perfect. They all have bugs.
The biggest problem is not all bugs affect everyone. I've never had the tray clearing bug happen to me.if a bug doesn't happen to everyone then it maybe harder for Cryptic to replicate to find out what's wrong.
Also new bugs pop up all the time. The trade station bug that just popped up was not there before Delta Recruit. I test leveled a toon from 1-20 and never ran into it.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
I am not a programmer but from what I understand fixing bugs isn't as easy as people seem to make it out to be. No game is perfect. They all have bugs.
Well, I am a programmer, and judging by the bugs I see in this game, I would say that software quality is a low priority for Cryptic.
The biggest problem is not all bugs affect everyone. I've never had the tray clearing bug happen to me.if a bug doesn't happen to everyone then it maybe harder for Cryptic to replicate to find out what's wrong.
Are people simply repeating this because they've heard it from others? Yes, some bugs only show up on the live servers. Yes, some bugs depend on the client's particular hardware or software environment. Most of the bugs I see reported fall into neither category. There are plenty of easily reproducible bugs that Cryptic has yet to fix. Here are a few examples.
Have any of you "Fix the bugs NAO!" people ever stopped to consider that all these different aspects of code are so intertwined that fixing one may also require completely overhauling something else? Either that or taking the bugged aspect back to the drawing board and completely reworking it because something at its core was not taken into account properly when it was originally designed and nobody thought about it?
The root cause of some of these long-term bugs may fall into one of those categories. They may know about them, even have a clear idea of how to fix them, but the workload they have for the time being simply does not afford them the time it would take to overhaul a system or redesign it from scratch.
I don't know about NOW, but some time before the next release would be nice. How about some time within the next year? Is that too much to ask? In any case, not all bugs require rewriting an entire system. I doubt most bugs fall into this category. Take the Nanoprobe Infestation bug above, for example. I would guess that the fix is a one-line change. I think the reason it isn't fixed yet is simply that no one has gotten around to it.
The BOFF loadout thing is ridiculous, though. Essentially, it is just like equipping any other gear. How come our space and ground gear doesn't unequip itself? Maybe they need to duplicate the code class for regular gear, adapt it to BOFFs and go from there. After all, the existing equipment system works. Why lay out an entirely new mechanic to do something that an existing mechanic already does? Everything we equip grants some sort of stat adjustment or ability, etc, just like BOff loadouts do. So freaking use what works and get it fixed.
The BOff loadout problem interferes with a lot of things, and has been the cause of people getting AFK-banned from content. So it isn't just a problem unto itself. It has wide-spread ramifications. Frankly, I would rather they take the system out of the game until it is fixed, than for it to be left in as-is and hurting other aspects of gameplay.
I agree that they should have fixed the boff station bug by now, but I'm not sure that one is so easy to fix. It might be the result of brittle code that was poorly written and poorly designed. It certainly smells that way to me. Boff stations interact with too many features that have little to do with each other. They affect
the boff abilities usable on your ship;
the boffs who talk to you in the dialogue window;
the boffs who show up on your ship bridge and shuttle bridge.
Why are all these features tied together? They serve different functions and should be independent from each other. Yes, that would require more tabs in the UI, but it's better than creating unnecessary dependencies in the code. Of course, the bug may be entirely unrelated to these dependencies. In any case, I think the real reason the bug isn't fixed yet is that management has assigned the programmers qualified to fix it to other projects.
I don't believe work should stop on new content completely. With that said, I do believe the existing tray and BOFF ability bugs need to become a priority.
It probably already is, but waving the "Make this a Priority" wand doesn't mean that it becomes easier to fix. That is just not how software development works.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
If the engineer prioritizes drawing new fashion designs over wap drive maintenance, then his priorities are screwed up.
Nodody denies that any bugfixing took place. Sure, one bug gets fixed, but then one new bug gets introduced in return, another old bug reappears, leaving us with an impression that we just got trolled by the devs.
My perspective is heavily biased by my affinity for the PvP side of this game, so I naturally care more about bugs that affect PvP negatively. Bugs that affect PvP are usually in closer proximity to core game mechanics than other certain types of bugs.
If this game was a car and Cryptic a motorcar mechanic with limited time budget, I would appreciate if Cryptic took a look at the engine first, and not at the paint job.
At the end though, it'd be nice when both the engine AND the paint job get fixed.
The PvP community has been there, done that. Their voices were loud and clear. It's not like there was a lack of info regarding bugs.
EDIT:
The bug discussion is just one aspect of a bigger arc that also includes balancing issues, and sometimes the boundaries aren't always sharp, overlaps occuring now and then. Limiting our view just on bugs may result in losing perspective on the bigger picture. Anyways gotta go now, easter bunny hunt!
The problem of analogy then is - PvP isn't the engine of STO.
I used to PvP a lot, and I gave up on it because of all the imbalances (not really the bugs, they never seemed that serious, unless they were related to balance) and actually gave up on the game for 2 years.
From Cryptic's point of view, from their entire business model, the analogy would be more correct to imagine this a scenario where the engineer is simply not assigning a maintenance officer to fix your replicator while the ship has just limped back from a battle with a Jem'Hadar squadron. Maybe he'll get to you, but if there is another Jem'Hadar ship going after you, he'll likely fix the problems that attack will cause first. You might be better off contacting the quartermaster for an alternate room.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It probably already is, but waving the "Make this a Priority" wand doesn't mean that it becomes easier to fix. That is just not how software development works.
Is it a priority though? As far as I know, the last person to work on the bug was flyingtarg, and the last I heard, he was assigned to the the item update project, which looks like a huge endeavor in itself.
The problem with 'Stop making content and fixing bugs' means the game is in what's called 'Maintenance Mode' - meaning it's only running until the licensing runs out, and they're pulling the plug. If Cryptic doesn't release content to sell - they don't make money. Cryptic doesn't make money, we don't have a Star Trek game.
It's pretty simple.
We don't want that. Are there bugs that need fixed? Sure. But every game has them. They get fixed as they have time.
As for imbalances - the PVP community in this game is so small, that tailoring content for them is a waste of everyone else's time and resources. I'm sorry to say this, but it's true.
After some initial experimentation it seems like I may have exceeded some legal limit to amount of shielding on my ship.
Removing the Aegis Shield Array Mk XIV (C/R) and the 3 Field Generator Consoles and switching to a different shield it works!
Using the Aegis alone (with no consoles) works
It looks like if I get my shield above 16,000 I get bugged out. So I am guessing there is some hidden limit probably specific to either the class or ship itself (Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit) that is causing the issue.
So that means, I am now looking for advice on science consoles that are cool and do not increase shield amount.
I'm still a little miffed that customer service told me to go F-myself instead of "you have exceeded the amount of shielding you are allowed to have on that ship".
The problem with 'Stop making content and fixing bugs' means the game is in what's called 'Maintenance Mode' - meaning it's only running until the licensing runs out, and they're pulling the plug. If Cryptic doesn't release content to sell - they don't make money. Cryptic doesn't make money, we don't have a Star Trek game.
It's pretty simple.
We don't want that. Are there bugs that need fixed? Sure. But every game has them. They get fixed as they have time.
As for imbalances - the PVP community in this game is so small, that tailoring content for them is a waste of everyone else's time and resources. I'm sorry to say this, but it's true.
i disagree , while maintenance mode just keeps the servers going, no changes or bugs are fixed in a game in that state . ive seen other games that will rotate bug fixes with content with updates . we really havent seen a true dedicated Fix towards issues in the game , there have been nerfs and small fixes here and there , but its a drop in a bucket to whats out there . most games the quality of life improvement updates tend to include such fixes , for STO its NEW ICONS . while nerfing rewards to increase rewards to areas of the game the devs want metrics for .
the whole development of the game so far this yr is for there Metrics or the padding there of. IMO
Making something a priority where I work generally gets things done/fixed sooner rather than later, including programming. Yes, this is a complicated piece of software and yes it's not easy to fix bugs sometimes. This one in particular impacts gameplay in a detrimental way and the supposed workaround does not work with any consistency.
Well, as you probably know, the "make this a priority" wand has the side effect of delaying other things.
I used to PvP a lot, and I gave up on it because of all the imbalances (not really the bugs, they never seemed that serious, unless they were related to balance) and actually gave up on the game for 2 years.
I was aware that you gave up at a certain point. Maybe for you personally bugs weren't a significant reason, but understand that bugs and balancing issues are merely symptons of a common root cause. Actually, I personally do not prefer to look at them as seperate issues, partly because both these issues impede ones PvP experience in same ways and both issues would haunt this game less if Cryptic took more efforts into quality control.
What's undeniable is that people deserted PvP. Like you, like me, most people gave up. Don't you find that sad? I do.
Tackling bugs and balance issues improves quality, unfortunately Cryptics attitude towards quality can only be described as phlegmatic. That needs to stop.
Well, as you probably know, the "make this a priority" wand has the side effect of delaying other things.
Absolutely.
STO is really a steam train and needs to keep rolling. The more they do, the more new content they'll make that will generate money to keep the train on the track. You know a lot people would be ranting if content slowed, which it would if they knuckled down on bug fixing (assuming it would even work - see the never ending loadout tray saga).
I was aware that you gave up at a certain point. Maybe for you personally bugs weren't a significant reason, but understand that bugs and balancing issues are merely symptons of a common root cause. Actually, I personally do not prefer to look at them as seperate issues, partly because both these issues impede ones PvP experience in same ways and both issues would haunt this game less if Cryptic took more efforts into quality control.
What's undeniable is that people deserted PvP. Like you, like me, most people gave up. Don't you find that sad? I do.
Sure I do.
Tackling bugs and balance issues improves quality, unfortunately Cryptics attitude towards quality can only be described as phlegmatic. That needs to stop.
It doesn't matter how you describe it. What matters is Cryptic's bottom line, and focusing on bugs and balancing at the expense of content is not gonna improve it. So it won't happen.
If we want PvP to have a hope of resurfacing again as a major aspect in STO, then we have to hope that Cryptic finds a good way to monetize it and not hurt their sales elsewhere.
Balance is directly in the way of selling new ships with new universal consoles and traits. Even if they try hard not to create overpowered stuff (which I feel they don't - they may try to not get it done too badly, but I can't shake the feeling that they sometimes err on the OP side for sale's sake. But even if they didn't, they certainly don't get it right). But it means they need to create new powers with a new niche and noteworth yeffects, and figuring out how this works in the grand context of PvP is difficult, especially since there is already so much imbalanced stuff out there.
If people suggest ideas like a "PvP doll" system, they have to think of reasons why PvP players still need to grind (even if it's only with PvP activities), still need to buy new ships. And that gets harder if you make gear irrelevant! It was one of the key "selling" points of PvP in the "good old days", but not in the literal sense of making money, just in the sense of making entry into PvP easier.
Making something a priority where I work generally gets things done/fixed sooner rather than later, including programming. Yes, this is a complicated piece of software and yes it's not easy to fix bugs sometimes. This one in particular impacts gameplay in a detrimental way and the supposed workaround does not work with any consistency.
In the end, you and I have no idea how long it "should" take, and if someone is incompetent, stalling, stuff isn'T being done, or if they just work at the fastest pace possible and it's really a very involved bug with a really involved bugfix. We only know when it gets fixed, or when it isn'T fixed yet.
But hey, maybe we're lucky and they got it done this time?
It doesn't matter how you describe it. What matters is Cryptic's bottom line, and focusing on bugs and balancing at the expense of content is not gonna improve it. So it won't happen.
Of course, Cryptic should look after their bottom line, but customers have to look after their own interests too. Frankly, I find this kind of response odd coming from other customers. Imagine every time a customer complains about a problem with a product, someone else immediately says, "Cut them some slack. It costs them money to fix it, so it's not in their interest." Of course, it costs them money. But it's in our interest as customers that what we pay for actually works. Are we supposed to just accept broken products for the sake of a company's profits? Obviously, they can't focus exclusively on bug fixing, but why is it too much to ask that they devote more resources to improving the quality of the product?
"The loadout Bug is the worst Bug in the game and should be fixed asap
The content problem is cryptic has decided 1 play episodes is end game content which is the same as buying a book
most people read it once and there done with it ......A huge investment for a one time use
What cryptic should do is end game content where the players make the content themselves
Exploration
meeting new races then interacting with them
colonization
base building / defense
city building / defense
territory control / defense
Faction expansion
resourse gathering
player economy
This should be done on a single player level which should combine flawlessly with fleets
This kind of content would be replayable on a daily basis and be end game content"
Of course, Cryptic should look after their bottom line, but customers have to look after their own interests too. Frankly, I find this kind of response odd coming from other customers. Imagine every time a customer complains about a problem with a product, someone else immediately says, "Cut them some slack. It costs them money to fix it, so it's not in their interest." Of course, it costs them money. But it's in our interest as customers that what we pay for actually works. Are we supposed to just accept broken products for the sake of a company's profits? Obviously, they can't focus exclusively on bug fixing, but why is it too much to ask that they devote more resources to improving the quality of the product?
I hope the fix works too.
Content is for the customer's sake, bug fixes are for the customer's sake, balance changes are for the customer's sake.
The customers of STO decide which of these is what they are most interested in. There isn't a public election for it, however. It's a vote with the wallet. If the bugs are so terrible that the content doesn't sell, it's time to focus on those bugs, but if new content is still selling well, then more of that kind is the right approach. Not simply because of greed, but because that is what the customer wants, as evidenced by him spending money.
If you think the game is too buggy, stop giving Cryptic money. If enough people agree and do the same, Cryptic has to adjust its priorities. But if you remain a minority, then tough luck - bugs will not get a higher priority. Most customers aren't bothered by them enough.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Comments
They will always have to find a middle ground, balancing content vs fixes.
Keep in mind that a lot in content creation is not a programming task, why a lot of bug fixes require programming. A ship artist can fix visual errors on models, but he won't help fixing the Bridge Officer bug. They can't fire him for 3 months so that htey can hire an addiitonal programmer (especially since it would take a new programmer probably a few weeks before he actually becomes a productive member of the team), and if he is send to fix errors in models, that means he is costing them but generating less potential revenue than if he is creating new content. They have to ensure that the errors he takes care of are significant enough that they affect the overall success of the game as much as he could contribute in creating new content.
How much benefit is there really, for you as a player, if a bug gets fixed instead of something new being added?
Sure, losing your BOFFs every 3 map changes is annoying - but imagine you wouldn't have a new mission for half a year? Why even bother with those BOFFs if you do the same thing the entire time? How many players do you think check out the game if that bug was squashed, compared to when Cryptic releases a new mission?
Some bugs are certainly so bad that Cryptic needs to take care of them immediately, regardless of the difficulty. If the game won't function for many players, a new mission would be meaningless, since they couldn't play it. But if there is just a nagging inconvenience, but you can still do pretty much everything the game has to offer... Maybe it's not that important?
Fine, it's a matter of opinion. In my opinion, there were far too many bugs then, and there are far too many bugs now. I don't think I'm the only one, since I constantly see complaints about bugs both on the forums and in game.
I agree that there will always be some bugs, but there are far too many for my taste.
I was talking about the posts asking for bug fixes in that thread. "Bug fixes" wasn't actually one of the choices in the poll.
Art errors and typos are still bugs that need to be fixed. My point is that these minor bugs add up to make the product look shoddy. The fact that they aren't addressed shows a lack of concern for quality.
Given that definition, I agree that there are no game-breaking bugs at the moment. But that should be a minimal requirement, not the highest standard of quality that Cryptic should strive for.
And why is it not a concern that players aren't enjoying the game?
I'm not disputing this, but I do think it's the exception rather than the rule. I spend a lot of time writing bug reports and reading bug reports on these forums. From what I can tell, most bugs are not specific to the live server environment or the user's client environment. Players report bugs on Tribble. Some of these bugs are indeed specific to the user's client environment. Most are reproducible by every user. QA has access to Tribble, yet the bugs still make it live to Holodeck. Maybe, QA actually verified the bug reports and passed them on to be fixed. But someone made a conscious decision to let the bugs go live.
I suppose I was unclear. I'm not talking about bugs that affect only 10% of the playerbase, which I agree can be hard to reproduce without knowing the specific details of those affected. I'm talking about bugs that affect every player, or nearly every player, but can only be reproduced 1 in 10 times on average. There are many reasons why such a bug could occur.
race condition: The bug depends on the particular order in which two or more events occur, and they don't always occur in the same order. The order is usually not determined by the user's actions, but by a scheduler in the OS. The order in which the scheduler runs two threads, while not random, is not reliably predictable.
memory addressing error: There is an arithmetic error in the computation of a memory address. As a result, the program writes to or frees the wrong region of memory. The reason why the bug doesn't show up every time is that it depends on the particular region of memory that the system allocated when the program requested it.
load balancing: Some bugs occur when the user is transferred from one server to another for load balancing reasons. The user's state is not correctly transferred, or some data is not reloaded from the database when the transfer occurs.
Because of the unpredictable nature of such bugs, the exact cause is difficult to isolate. But these bugs are not unreproducible; they just aren't reproducible every single time. I understand that these bugs are not quite easy to fix, but I still think Cryptic leaves them unfixed for far too long. I doubt that their programmers are incapable of fixing the bugs. Rather, I think management has assigned them to work on something else. But leaving such low-level bugs unfixed usually causes more problems in the future. You write new code on top of the broken code, and suddenly other symptoms of the same root cause start appearing.
I'll admit that I've never worked in QA. I have worked as a programmer. I've received plenty of bug reports from QA, and fixed plenty of bugs too. I've also submitted many detailed bug reports to Cryptic and seen many of the bugs go unfixed. In my opinion, Cryptic has a poor standard of software quality. I know another programmer in-game and he concurs. And I've seen similar comments on these forums from other professionals who work in the tech industry. While these opinions are subjective, they are not the result of ignorance. Plenty of people who know something about software think that Cryptic does a poor job.
I'm not saying that they should stop all new development. I'm saying that they could shift some resources toward bug fixing. I disagree that there are a "few nagging bugs"; I would say that there are many nagging bugs. At the very least, they could fix the bugs that people complain about week after week. And then, take a look at some of the old bugs that have been around for months, if not years.
Foundry exploit anyone? How long remained that unfixed? How much financial harm done to Cryptic?
And what if tribble duping was real and not just a joke, Cryptic? Ever thought about that, Cryptic? What if the joke turns out not to be a joke. Wouldn't that be an awesome joke....
Cryptic is fixing bugs all the time. But it's not fixing all the bugs. It may not be fixing the particular bugs you care about. But just because some bugs remain unfixed (and be it for years) doesn't mean no bug fixes happen, and the release notes for the past years should tell you that bugs are being fixed.
Creating the narrative that Cryptic isn't fixing bugs means willfully ignoring facts, possibly for the sake of giving your argument more weight, but with no chance of actual success.
Instead, think what you can really hope to achieve, and that is - point out the bugs that are serious to you, that bother you, and describe reproduction steps. There is no guarantee that your bug gets fixed soon, but not providing information is definitely not improve your chances.
The PvP community once was home for a quite fair number of experienced programmers and related areas. Their assessments match with yours. In unison, literally.
that's a safety prediction if ever I see one, under 2 years you can say "see I told you just come a little earlier then I expected", exactly 2 years you can say "see I called it spot on exactly 2 years" and after 2 years who is likely to remember. lol
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Nodody denies that any bugfixing took place. Sure, one bug gets fixed, but then one new bug gets introduced in return, another old bug reappears, leaving us with an impression that we just got trolled by the devs.
My perspective is heavily biased by my affinity for the PvP side of this game, so I naturally care more about bugs that affect PvP negatively. Bugs that affect PvP are usually in closer proximity to core game mechanics than other certain types of bugs.
If this game was a car and Cryptic a motorcar mechanic with limited time budget, I would appreciate if Cryptic took a look at the engine first, and not at the paint job.
At the end though, it'd be nice when both the engine AND the paint job get fixed.
The PvP community has been there, done that. Their voices were loud and clear. It's not like there was a lack of info regarding bugs.
EDIT:
The bug discussion is just one aspect of a bigger arc that also includes balancing issues, and sometimes the boundaries aren't always sharp, overlaps occuring now and then. Limiting our view just on bugs may result in losing perspective on the bigger picture. Anyways gotta go now, easter bunny hunt!
Whenever people complain about bugs, Cryptic's response is the usually same as yours: "We fix bugs all time. Submit a detailed bug report, and we'll get to it." The problem is not that Cryptic fixes no bugs: It's a general disregard for software quality. It shows in the number of bugs that go live every release; the number of old bugs that remain unfixed; the length of time that Cryptic allows bugs which people complain about week after week to go unfixed. Their entire software development cycle is broken. They rush every release. Consequently, they have no time to fix the bugs reported by players on Tribble or even their own QA staff. I've even seen them hurrying to finish features after the release date. They release unfinished work onto Holodeck, and that's acceptable to them. They seem to place great importance on keeping to schedule, but while they may release on schedule, they never actually finish on schedule.
I do this all the time. I'm sure QA is sick of hearing from me. I report bugs big and small, not so much because I care about all of them, but because either QA has missed them or they haven't spent the time digging into the details that I have. Some days, I spend more time on bug reports than I do playing the game. It's not just writing bug reports that takes time: I also take screenshots; figure out how to reproduce bugs; read saved game files to get more information. Short of running the game through a debugger without the source code, I don't see how I can give them more information. I've seen other players submit detailed bug reports as well---virusdancer, mightybobcnc, monkeybone13, to name a few. In many cases, the problem is not that QA lacks information. I've seen crypticfrost post to threads saying that he's verified a bug and sent it on to be fixed. The fundamental problem is that Cryptic creates more bugs each release than they have time to fix. In the end, it matters little whether QA or a player reports a bug if the report is just going to sit in someone's queue for over a year.
Which is why we've had this same conversation at almost every other game I've played.
The biggest problem is not all bugs affect everyone. I've never had the tray clearing bug happen to me.if a bug doesn't happen to everyone then it maybe harder for Cryptic to replicate to find out what's wrong.
Also new bugs pop up all the time. The trade station bug that just popped up was not there before Delta Recruit. I test leveled a toon from 1-20 and never ran into it.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Well, I am a programmer, and judging by the bugs I see in this game, I would say that software quality is a low priority for Cryptic.
Are people simply repeating this because they've heard it from others? Yes, some bugs only show up on the live servers. Yes, some bugs depend on the client's particular hardware or software environment. Most of the bugs I see reported fall into neither category. There are plenty of easily reproducible bugs that Cryptic has yet to fix. Here are a few examples.
Holodeck ticket #3,331,293: Tray overlay malfunctioning in shooter mode
Holodeck ticket #2,853,424: Expose chance of Nanoprobe Infestation halved from 10% to 5%
Holodeck ticket #1,722,948: Slipstream reduction for Omega engines calculated incorrectly
Salvage Dispute removed from the game?
I don't know about NOW, but some time before the next release would be nice. How about some time within the next year? Is that too much to ask? In any case, not all bugs require rewriting an entire system. I doubt most bugs fall into this category. Take the Nanoprobe Infestation bug above, for example. I would guess that the fix is a one-line change. I think the reason it isn't fixed yet is simply that no one has gotten around to it.
I agree that they should have fixed the boff station bug by now, but I'm not sure that one is so easy to fix. It might be the result of brittle code that was poorly written and poorly designed. It certainly smells that way to me. Boff stations interact with too many features that have little to do with each other. They affect
the boff abilities usable on your ship;
the boffs who talk to you in the dialogue window;
the boffs who show up on your ship bridge and shuttle bridge.
Why are all these features tied together? They serve different functions and should be independent from each other. Yes, that would require more tabs in the UI, but it's better than creating unnecessary dependencies in the code. Of course, the bug may be entirely unrelated to these dependencies. In any case, I think the real reason the bug isn't fixed yet is that management has assigned the programmers qualified to fix it to other projects.
It probably already is, but waving the "Make this a Priority" wand doesn't mean that it becomes easier to fix. That is just not how software development works.
The problem of analogy then is - PvP isn't the engine of STO.
I used to PvP a lot, and I gave up on it because of all the imbalances (not really the bugs, they never seemed that serious, unless they were related to balance) and actually gave up on the game for 2 years.
From Cryptic's point of view, from their entire business model, the analogy would be more correct to imagine this a scenario where the engineer is simply not assigning a maintenance officer to fix your replicator while the ship has just limped back from a battle with a Jem'Hadar squadron. Maybe he'll get to you, but if there is another Jem'Hadar ship going after you, he'll likely fix the problems that attack will cause first. You might be better off contacting the quartermaster for an alternate room.
Is it a priority though? As far as I know, the last person to work on the bug was flyingtarg, and the last I heard, he was assigned to the the item update project, which looks like a huge endeavor in itself.
Upcoming Item Change for Season 10
Now, I'm not saying that the item update is unimportant, but I do wonder whether they have the resources to work on both at the same time.
It's pretty simple.
We don't want that. Are there bugs that need fixed? Sure. But every game has them. They get fixed as they have time.
As for imbalances - the PVP community in this game is so small, that tailoring content for them is a waste of everyone else's time and resources. I'm sorry to say this, but it's true.
You sir, are onto something.
After some initial experimentation it seems like I may have exceeded some legal limit to amount of shielding on my ship.
Removing the Aegis Shield Array Mk XIV (C/R) and the 3 Field Generator Consoles and switching to a different shield it works!
Using the Aegis alone (with no consoles) works
It looks like if I get my shield above 16,000 I get bugged out. So I am guessing there is some hidden limit probably specific to either the class or ship itself (Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit) that is causing the issue.
So that means, I am now looking for advice on science consoles that are cool and do not increase shield amount.
I'm still a little miffed that customer service told me to go F-myself instead of "you have exceeded the amount of shielding you are allowed to have on that ship".
i disagree , while maintenance mode just keeps the servers going, no changes or bugs are fixed in a game in that state . ive seen other games that will rotate bug fixes with content with updates . we really havent seen a true dedicated Fix towards issues in the game , there have been nerfs and small fixes here and there , but its a drop in a bucket to whats out there . most games the quality of life improvement updates tend to include such fixes , for STO its NEW ICONS . while nerfing rewards to increase rewards to areas of the game the devs want metrics for .
the whole development of the game so far this yr is for there Metrics or the padding there of. IMO
My character Tsin'xing
I was aware that you gave up at a certain point. Maybe for you personally bugs weren't a significant reason, but understand that bugs and balancing issues are merely symptons of a common root cause. Actually, I personally do not prefer to look at them as seperate issues, partly because both these issues impede ones PvP experience in same ways and both issues would haunt this game less if Cryptic took more efforts into quality control.
What's undeniable is that people deserted PvP. Like you, like me, most people gave up. Don't you find that sad? I do.
Tackling bugs and balance issues improves quality, unfortunately Cryptics attitude towards quality can only be described as phlegmatic. That needs to stop.
Absolutely.
STO is really a steam train and needs to keep rolling. The more they do, the more new content they'll make that will generate money to keep the train on the track. You know a lot people would be ranting if content slowed, which it would if they knuckled down on bug fixing (assuming it would even work - see the never ending loadout tray saga).
It doesn't matter how you describe it. What matters is Cryptic's bottom line, and focusing on bugs and balancing at the expense of content is not gonna improve it. So it won't happen.
If we want PvP to have a hope of resurfacing again as a major aspect in STO, then we have to hope that Cryptic finds a good way to monetize it and not hurt their sales elsewhere.
Balance is directly in the way of selling new ships with new universal consoles and traits. Even if they try hard not to create overpowered stuff (which I feel they don't - they may try to not get it done too badly, but I can't shake the feeling that they sometimes err on the OP side for sale's sake. But even if they didn't, they certainly don't get it right). But it means they need to create new powers with a new niche and noteworth yeffects, and figuring out how this works in the grand context of PvP is difficult, especially since there is already so much imbalanced stuff out there.
If people suggest ideas like a "PvP doll" system, they have to think of reasons why PvP players still need to grind (even if it's only with PvP activities), still need to buy new ships. And that gets harder if you make gear irrelevant! It was one of the key "selling" points of PvP in the "good old days", but not in the literal sense of making money, just in the sense of making entry into PvP easier.
In the end, you and I have no idea how long it "should" take, and if someone is incompetent, stalling, stuff isn'T being done, or if they just work at the fastest pace possible and it's really a very involved bug with a really involved bugfix. We only know when it gets fixed, or when it isn'T fixed yet.
But hey, maybe we're lucky and they got it done this time?
Of course, Cryptic should look after their bottom line, but customers have to look after their own interests too. Frankly, I find this kind of response odd coming from other customers. Imagine every time a customer complains about a problem with a product, someone else immediately says, "Cut them some slack. It costs them money to fix it, so it's not in their interest." Of course, it costs them money. But it's in our interest as customers that what we pay for actually works. Are we supposed to just accept broken products for the sake of a company's profits? Obviously, they can't focus exclusively on bug fixing, but why is it too much to ask that they devote more resources to improving the quality of the product?
I hope the fix works too.
The content problem is cryptic has decided 1 play episodes is end game content which is the same as buying a book
most people read it once and there done with it ......A huge investment for a one time use
What cryptic should do is end game content where the players make the content themselves
Exploration
meeting new races then interacting with them
colonization
base building / defense
city building / defense
territory control / defense
Faction expansion
resourse gathering
player economy
This should be done on a single player level which should combine flawlessly with fleets
This kind of content would be replayable on a daily basis and be end game content"
This gentleman's comment x10.
Since others seemed to of totally ignored it.
Content is for the customer's sake, bug fixes are for the customer's sake, balance changes are for the customer's sake.
The customers of STO decide which of these is what they are most interested in. There isn't a public election for it, however. It's a vote with the wallet. If the bugs are so terrible that the content doesn't sell, it's time to focus on those bugs, but if new content is still selling well, then more of that kind is the right approach. Not simply because of greed, but because that is what the customer wants, as evidenced by him spending money.
If you think the game is too buggy, stop giving Cryptic money. If enough people agree and do the same, Cryptic has to adjust its priorities. But if you remain a minority, then tough luck - bugs will not get a higher priority. Most customers aren't bothered by them enough.