I think we are getting a little too fired up here... Yes, STO is full of bugs some major some not.
Bashing Cryptic/The Devs/The EP won't affect any change at all, with the possible exception of getting this thread locked.
Therefore I'd like to ask the STO community to instead of bashing, to post a couple of the most annoying bugs that you've encountered and perhaps this will give Cryptic an idea as to what issues should be a priority to fix.
For me, I'd say the most annoying bugs/issues I've encountered have been:
1. Lag/disconnects
2. BFAW - rarely misses (mulches fighters and targetable torpedoes/mines too easily), superior dps to overload, and crits those embassy consoles to absurd levels
3. Embassy consoles - Plasma ones deal crazy damage (especially under BFAW), cooldowns/magnitude on shield/hull heal heal consoles make them ineffective.
4. Enemies in Adv STFs (specifically Borg) are damage sponges, making Adv Missions less enjoyable and most time consuming for anyone doing less than 12k dps.
There are other things that bother me in STO but these would have to be the top 3, and if they were fixed/addressed I'd enjoy STO much more than I currently do now.
Edit: forgot to mention 5. The alt-unfriendliness of the spec system, will take me literally years to max out the specializations of my characters.
Many of the comments in this thread are valid. Where you spend nothing or like in my case thousands, the expectation of a functional game remains the same.
The team running the game are of the same opinion, and efforts have been and are still being made to combat issues identified. But lets be honest - How broke is it?
(I hate typing this)
In my professional career I have run into that line a few times. How many of our customer base is affected by problem #177, on a list of 1376 issues? Is it a priority to fix?
We already know they cannot turn ship designers, story writers and executive producers into developers to fix issues. So the common idea of 'I'd wish they'd skip a season and fix everything' isn't possible let alone practical.
We also know that not everyone is affected by every issue. What percentage of the user base does a problem make the game unplayable? Is it tied to something outside the games control? Is it only affecting a small, but vocal community?
Is it a questions of everyone can enter the room to complete the mission?
or;
Is it a question of one group can't squeeze another 0.02% damage out of an expected behavior? (Sorry, this wasn't intended as a slag against the DPS guys - only an example to illustrate my point. I was going to use costume issues, but that has less value. Oh, and that wasn't a slag against the space barbie contingent. Oh heck, I give up...)
Lastly - we sto'ers typically have older equipment. Should that be an issue as well?
---
I suspect game performance may be worthy of at least an update from salami Inferno.
The team running the game are of the same opinion, and efforts have been and are still being made to combat issues identified. But lets be honest - How broke is it?
The team running the game are of the same opinion, and efforts have been and are still being made to combat issues identified. But lets be honest - How broke is it?
What efforts?? are you new too? lol.
4 years. You're the one out of touch. But i keep forgetting trolls only read one line before commenting. And don't consider my post count as accurate. It was over 2500 on the last system.
How are you not aware of whats been happening? Spending all your time in this forum isn't a reliable source of information. Reddit, Twitter, Blog posts, pod casts - many sources of first hand information.
Bug lists with images and progress updates on Twitter - commented on by Borticus and salami Inferno.
Forum posts outlining the changes and impacts - pretty much by every dev involved
Reddit has become the frontline in this discussion since the change in the forums and the dropping of the dev twitter feed (soon to return).
Podcasts - P1 has a few with gecko where they details where the problems are and that it's being handled.
Update notes weekly
4 years. You're the one out of touch. But i keep forgetting trolls only read one line before commenting. And don't consider my post count as accurate. It was over 2500 on the last system.
How are you not aware of whats been happening? Spending all your time in this forum isn't a reliable source of information. Reddit, Twitter, Blog posts, pod casts - many sources of first hand information.
Bug lists with images and progress updates on Twitter - commented on by Borticus and salami Inferno.
Forum posts outlining the changes and impacts - pretty much by every dev involved
Reddit has become the frontline in this discussion since the change in the forums and the dropping of the dev twitter feed (soon to return).
Podcasts - P1 has a few with gecko where they details where the problems are and that it's being handled.
Update notes weekly
Clearly you don't know what you're talking about.
Sorry but i dont buy it. If you saying that the devs are doing "efforts" to fix bugs since years ago.. dude, stop smoking what you are smoking. Seriously. And i am a troll for saying the truth?? ow.. incredible. Maybe you are just a cryptic white knight after all??.
And are you another one of those who trust what you see in twitter and reddit and other places??? ow, i guess you are one of those who jumps happily when a dev say "we are working on it". xD. Of course, they show you a video about "how are we working on something" and suddenly the devs are amazing and they are doing everything they can to fix things, when wha they are doing is just to pace the population from chaos. But you seem too naive to understand that.
Well, assuming that you are right, then you are telling me that the devs have absolutely zero skills on programming. That is what you saying. So, they should hire people with minimum skills to fix things. Of course they never did that. Oh wait now you will tell me that in any other mmorpg things are exactly the same, of course.
Showing people some videos and stuff doesnt mean anything. But you should know it by now, i dont have a clue why are you acting like a cryptic white knight. They can do millions of videos and feedback of their "fixing things" progress but that doesnt mean they are actually fixing something. Sure, they are doing a lot of "efforts" linking some videos and stuff xD, but they are not doing efforts actually fixing things. If you cant understand this, specially after seeing for years the facts, then you are obviously a big cryptic white knight, meaning im finished here.
I think what he's saying is that your comprehension of how computer programming works is sorely lacking. I agree. Fixing bugs is time consuming. You on the other hand seem to think it is done with a magic wand and fairy dust....
And for the record, I know they fix bugs because I've paid attention to whether bugs I've reported got fixed.
I'm loathe to admit it, but I have to agree with @MarkHawkman. The Devs do fix bugs, though usually only the massivly obvioulsy game-breaking ones get priority. When it comes to something that is an annoyance but not game-breaking, it won't get to the front of the line very quickly.
I will agree that Cryptic could be a bit more... timely with their fixes, but debugging code isn't like fixing a leaky pipe. First the problem has to be tracked down in the code (and in an MMO that could mean sifting through thousands of lines of text that all looks the same from the casual observer), then they have to figure out how to rewrite the defunct code so it works as it should without stopping up something else...
Suffice it to say, this is a time consuming process. It would be great if Cryptic would assign some more coders to fix bugs, perhaps with a few more guys stomping bugs we could see longer patch notes, maybe.
Oh, and calling people 'white knights' just because they don't bash Cryptic like you do doesn't help your case, it just makes you look
I think what he's saying is that your comprehension of how computer programming works is sorely lacking. I agree. Fixing bugs is time consuming. You on the other hand seem to think it is done with a magic wand and fairy dust....
And for the record, I know they fix bugs because I've paid attention to whether bugs I've reported got fixed.
So it is clear that the Devs actually ARE trying to fix bugs, and that your angry rambling is due to your impatience and not inaction on their part.
Sure because fixing 3 important bugs could take MONTHS thats the usual time-frame. Sure, bugs are not so easy to fix. Seriously how many cryptic white knigts we can endure? bets? xD.
I am a programmer. So i know perfectly well what takes to fix lines of code. You guys are the ones who think that, because cryptic can just ignore fixing things, or do it so slowly that it would take months, thats the way it is. Wake up, seriously.
Of course you know they fix bugs. One or two in months. That everybody knows. Sigh im sooo tired of the cryptic knight squad. lol. I played dozens of mmorpgs and the companies behind em fix things in a question of days. But nah, they are wrong, they should use months or years in some cases like cryptic to fix things. And again, you post 2 examples of bugs that are amazingly easy to fix. Bravo.. and bugs that are not important. Do you know that things like the loadout system are still bugged?? never fully fixed?? do you know that we suffer resetting our boff skills since months ago, never fixed?? what about the UI lag that is present since months ago tha tmakes the game almost unplayable in some situations?? what about the lag that is present since months ago and now is getting to a boiling point?? THOSE are important issues. But, why i even bother.. cryptic knights will always defend cryptic no matter what.
I'm loathe to admit it, but I have to agree with @MarkHawkman. The Devs do fix bugs, though usually only the massivly obvioulsy game-breaking ones get priority. When it comes to something that is an annoyance but not game-breaking, it won't get to the front of the line very quickly.
I will agree that Cryptic could be a bit more... timely with their fixes, but debugging code isn't like fixing a leaky pipe. First the problem has to be tracked down in the code (and in an MMO that could mean sifting through thousands of lines of text that all looks the same from the casual observer), then they have to figure out how to rewrite the defunct code so it works as it should without stopping up something else...
Suffice it to say, this is a time consuming process. It would be great if Cryptic would assign some more coders to fix bugs, perhaps with a few more guys stomping bugs we could see longer patch notes, maybe.
Oh, and calling people 'white knights' just because they don't bash Cryptic like you do doesn't help your case, it just makes you look
Nevermind, not going to finish that sentence.
Mindlessly defending the establishment in question as innocent even with all evidence to the contrary.
Being self-appointed representatives, moderators, negotiators, spokemen, etc. for the establishment in question and taking it upon themselves to engage and even attack anyone speaking out against said establishment.
Insisting, because they themselves "don't have that issue", that the issue must not exist and it must be the other person's fault.
Specifically inflaming and aggravating the situation so as to justify the moderation and censorship of the argument in question, regardless of validity of the original claims.
These are traits of what are colloquially referred to in this community as "white knights" and, in other communities as well, can also be referred to as "sheeple", "lemmings", "yes-men", "zombies", "ostriches", etc.
It isn't about "not bashing Cryptic". It's about being able and willing to think for yourself and actually being open to the arguments from the other side of the table, no matter how you may disagree with them, accepting that they might actually have merit though you personally may not experience those issues yourself.
Example: A white person bashing a black person for the black person's claims of experiences that the black person has experienced but the white person has not, they would be classed in this category. However, a white person who does not bash the same black person for said experiences, rather accepting that the issues may well exist even though they haven't personally witnessed or been subjected to them, they would not be classed in this category.
Those that get into threads like this one, ignore all rationale and evidence, and simply go off on anyone speaking anything other than "Cryptic/PWE-friendly rhetoric" are just asking to be considered the same as someone yelling "you said WHAT about my mama?!" Hence the label (that they so easily pin on themselves) of "Cryptic/PWE White Knight". But what are they really?
...
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Cryptic knight is the one who, even with all the proofs we have about a lousy dev team, a totaly lacking of quality department and other things, keeps defending cryptic no matter what. It is completely absurd.
I am a programmer. So i know perfectly well what takes to fix lines of code.
This statement requires proof. Provide it or be dismissed as a troll.
@Overkyl I CAN think for myself, which is why I choose to disagree with you.
I dont need to. Everybody that sticked around in the old forums, already know that you are a cryptic knight. You also demonstrated it in your previous post. You cant see why cryptic is not fixing bugs or why cryptic keep releasing broken code and lousy releases all the time?? well, thats your problem, i dont need to proof anything to you. Those are facts, maybe you need some big glasses.
Of course, we should explain to you cryptic knights that nowadays, its is so "hard" to fix things because they never did it. And because they kept releasing broken and bad-written code. If you do that over the years, and not only that you dont fix things, well of course it will take ages to fix anything, that is what is happening now. But that doesnt mean that regular fixing takes so much time, you guys just dont have any idea , i mean who is going to say at this point that cryptic is surely fixing things?? are you kidding me???? sigh.
I'm not defending nor am I sticking up for any party I'm staying impartial with my statement.
While I agree there are bugs in this game and some that drive me nuts. . . I have yet to find one that is majorly game breaking to the point I have stopped playing.
That said I agree to a certain point that some posts in this thread have major merit and seem to come from people who are very worried about the game and what is left of its life span. However some posts here seen very much ones of entitlement and like it has been said bashing the cryptic team will not get you anything bar potential sanctions here on the forums and no serious thought and interactions from the dev team about your worries and how they plan to fix the points listed.
I don't believe anyone on either side of the fence has the right to call out each other with terms like troll or white knight mainly down to the fact we are all here in this thread to try to point out what can be done to bring the game back.
The passion of the players is what has made this game live as long as it has.
so let's just all remain civil towards one another and towards the very people who have the power to fix what makes us mad and worried in the first place.
Jam's right: I AM very worried about the state of the game. However, there are certain lines I don't cross, and one of them is lodging personal attacks. I am annoyed with who I perceive to be the biggest source of the problems, which is upper management and a few others, but does it mean I think they're horrible "demons" that I somehow get a right to attack and threaten? No. I am also not ready to paint everyone with the same brush as those people. I think there are some who DO want to do right, and that it may even include the EP, but they are getting hamstrung by an obstinate refusal from above to give them the resources and the power that they need to do the job right.
In fact, you know what? I'm not just concerned for us as players. I'm concerned about any deserving dev--and I think there are some--who risks getting screwed out of a job by the fall of this game whenever it happens, and having their portfolio tainted in the eyes of future employees through guilt by association over things they didn't have enough power to change on their own without the right kind of support and resources from management.
It is possible to criticize without demonizing. And it is possible to treat the devs as human and approach them with an assumption that they're not horrible people even when being perfectly willing to call out bad business decisions for what they are.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
--- Start Rant ---
Ok, I have to admit, I only skimmed the past few comments. Once someone quoted me and started to define 'white knight' I lost interest, I don't care who 'mindlessly defends' Cryptic, what bothers me is when people dismiss obvious evidence of Cryptic actually doing something right and continues to bash them just because the few bugs on their 'high priority' list haven't yet been fixed...
I won't defend Cryptic without cause, I have my own 'list of annoyances' but I choose to present them in a concise and constructive mannor (as best as I can) to facilitate the most positive results from Cryptic.
What I'm trying to say is, if we actually describe our problems in detail without resulting to namecalling, griping, or irrelavant complaining we might actually improve the relationship between the Devs and Players and possibly affect some positive change.
If all you have is gripes and complaints I suggest you yell them at your screen instead of typing them in, you might feel better and could save everyone else some time.
--- End Rant ---
Ok, can we please return to constructively discussing the bugs/issues we'd like Cryptic to address now?
Jam's right: I AM very worried about the state of the game. However, there are certain lines I don't cross, and one of them . . . . snip
your statement about the Cryptic team being human is bang on.
to play devils advocate here. .
you go to work every day work one something you love but at the end of the day your work is belittled and ridiculed every day by the very people you put your efforts into pleasing.
it's no wonder that the cryptic team have little no interaction with us players. . even I who has the biggest threshold with my temper would blow facing that every day.
If we want change we the players ALL of us have to lead by example.
If we treat the team with nothing but hate what incentives do they have to get our feedback knowing 80% of it would be filled with venom and personal attacks.
Jam's right: I AM very worried about the state of the game. However, there are certain lines I don't cross, and one of them . . . . snip
your statement about the Cryptic team being human is bang on.
to play devils advocate here. .
you go to work every day work one something you love but at the end of the day your work is belittled and ridiculed every day by the very people you put your efforts into pleasing.
it's no wonder that the cryptic team have little no interaction with us players. . even I who has the biggest threshold with my temper would blow facing that every day.
If we want change we the players ALL of us have to lead by example.
If we treat the team with nothing but hate what incentives do they have to get our feedback knowing 80% of it would be filled with venom and personal attacks.
just saying. . .
I've actually worked retail in this situation and been cursed at, threatened, had racism aimed at myself and my team members (different races, but there's a jerk out there to go after ANY person), been screwed over by things my management did yet at the same time had to defend some of it to my team and to my customers. I took over in a VERY antagonistic situation between the team and the customers, and aimed to change the culture with no support from management and sometimes not from the other supervisors at my level.
I certainly agree players should conduct themselves better than they do in terms of airing our concerns. That's part of why I've been suggesting a "Master Bug List"--yes, it's a sign of irritation, but at least it's productive!
However, I will mention something that I found true in my job: even without management support, more power lay with me than did with the customers in terms of toning down the invective. I had the thing that the customers wanted, and the power to make their transaction go smoothly and in a quality manner, or to half-@ss it. This power lay both in my words, and in my actions, through which I demonstrated solid evidence of my concern for the customer. I could not do all that I wanted, but it at least got things to improve somewhat on my shift.
So I really think we have to meet each other halfway here.
That said, I wonder if the devs will be able to do so if the lack of management support continues to be as severe as what I suspect it is. I ultimately quit that job because there was only so long I could deal with it, getting garbage from BOTH sides of the counter (that and a really sweet opportunity came up that I couldn't ignore). There are times when I look at people like Trendy or even Mr. Ricossa, and wonder if their situation might not be equivalent to what I went through. If it is, it doesn't bode well. Genuine talent ultimately will not accept a situation like that, and will reach a breaking point--though I will say this about that breaking point: it's way easier to take things the customers fling at you when you have complete support and resources from management (and I mean giving people the tools to do their jobs right, not just telling off or throwing out rude people). Without...well, patience wears VERY thin for the employees just as it does with the customers.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Here's some food for thought.... Going beyond how long a certain fix should take, let's take a step back. There would be no issues with fixing bugs if there weren't so many to begin with. What I mean is if Cryptic stopped pumping out .5 mule quality patches and updates, a LARGE part of their bug back-logs wouldn't even exist. The player-base has been saying this for years. That being said Cryptic has dug this hole themselves and I don't believe it's sensible to stand back and patiently watch them try to fill the hole. Especially since they are still not wholeheartedly taking into account what we feel or say. At least not anything that will come to fruition which has been par-for-the-course. In short, debating how long all fixes can/should take is frivolous since Cryptic made them in droves to begin with. Now am I saying they should be perfect? No. What I'm saying is they are sub-par by MMO standards and don't even try to debate that because that, too, would be frivolous.
I agree with the OP, I also find it ironic I am reading the forums because I have a 1 hour ban for leaving a ridiculously lag riddled Infected run.....Cheers?
I certainly agree players should conduct themselves better than they do in terms of airing our concerns. That's part of why I've been suggesting a "Master Bug List"--yes, it's a sign of irritation, but at least it's productive!
And this is why I made those pictures I linked earlier.
I didn't just rant about how something was broken. I showed them exactly what it was.
I think a master bug list would be a great idea. But it would need to be well documented, and not just a list.
Master Bug Lists are not going to matter. It is just a dream.
There are two threads conserning missing Armada Bonus Skill points on missions and DOFFing. One in "General Discussions" and one in "Bug Reporting" on this matter.
Both are pretty main line forum locations....not "hidden away" within KDF. No responses. A forumite had to point Laughing Trendy toward it today ?? Or maybe last night?? Nothing will come of it until Monday? At least? Even though no one seems to be recieving the bonus skill points from Armadas....except on kills, which is being calculated incorrectly (though I have no idea how anyone could figure that out, are the numbers posted somewhere?).
They have faults in all the "things" in this game: consoles, costumes, traits, tray, graphics and Boff skills (old and new that may be causing lag). The latest of which Armada Skill Point Bonuses not applying to missions and DOFFing.
****Edit: I forgot to add: Doffing on the Border.... having to position your ship in the exact perfect spot on the map so you can find the full list of DOFF assignments.*****
Just yesterday, I got word from my Fleet leader to stop "donations" to other fleets in the Armada because the interface is not updating correctly. I may be adding items to projects that are already started and/or the requirements have been filled!!
I have no idea how to test for that...someone with an Armada with very strong communications with their fellow fleets will have to check that and make a bug ticket. I am not doing any more Armada anything for now.
so, it's gotta be the corporate culture at Cryptic, placing arbitrary public deadlines on releases, then working to those deadlines...which is fine-if the deadlines are reasonable and the work is largely competent.
The issue/problem/difficulty is that those deadlines aren't reasonable, and there's no QA in place. (well, not 'no' QA, but damned insufficiently staffed and resourced.)
Shoddy workmanship IS the corporate culture at Cryptic- "Get it out today, we'll fix it to-morrow" and maybe to-morrow comes, but most often it does not.
This has been my observation as well.
Here's something that people who dismiss many of the bugs in this game as minor issues don't understand. Companies that produce good-quality software not only seldom have major bugs; they have very few minor bugs as well. That's because they make bug-fixing a priority; it's part of their corporate culture. They fix their "broken windows".
Things like typos and UI bugs may not seem very important. Individually, each of them is but a minor annoyance. But the sheer number of them is evidence of a corporate culture that finds shoddy workmanship acceptable. These bugs are low-hanging fruit. At a company where quality is part of the corporate culture, exterminating minor bugs would be routine.
I am a programmer. So i know perfectly well what takes to fix lines of code.
This statement requires proof. Provide it or be dismissed as a troll.
How exactly do you expect him to prove that? By providing enough personal information to identify himself? Anyone can claim to be anything on these forums. Sometimes, I can identify other programmers by the statements they make; sometimes not. But even if he were to make such statements, they would largely be incomprehensible to non-programmers.
It would be...interesting to see what would happen if we all put our heads together and compiled the TRUE Known Issues list, and put it all in one place.
I really think it would make a stronger point to make a master list, though at least it does seem like the costume issues thread sometimes results in a few things fixed, since I know callevista looks at it. So I'd say keep his thread active, but a master list of ALL known issues would probably drive the point home with the devs of just how severe the problems and the poor testing REALLY are. If action is not taken, such a list could also stand a chance of impacting player behavior, by providing the ability to see the overall picture and JUST how severely the real bug list outweighs the "Known Issues." I'd suspect the ratio is even worse than 500:1, real to "actually acknowledged."
If you include all known bugs---client crashes, graphics glitches, bugs in the game mechanics, costume issues, UI bugs, typos, and so on---then the list will likely run in the thousands.
Here's every thread I ever started in "Gameplay Bug Reports":
Some of those bugs have been fixed, and some of the bug reports are duplicates, because I've reported some bugs more than once. If I had to guess, I would say that there are probably around a hundred extant bugs reported by me alone.
I've been thinking about this and it feels like the one thing you guys want most, out of anything, is confirmation. Confirmation that X is being worked or Y isn't being worked on or Z can just go to hell. The problem with that boils down to a problem I've seen a lot of devs say about speaking out: you guys hold this to be gospel.
X is being worked on? Doesn't matter - they just said Y and Z isn't, so that means that Cryptic doesn't care about Y and Z, so X being worked on means bumpkis.
Ultimately, a lot of the problems Cryptic has boils down to the player base.
Yes, I've said it. I blame all of us. Myself included. "How dare I blame Forum Poster X?! I never requested these things! I was happy with how things were!" You're right - you, the singular, might not have requested harder PVE missions or more grind or anything else. But we, as a player base, wanted more. Tell me: before Delta Rising, how many posts were there complaining of nothing to do, that the leveling pace was too easy, that there were no missions to do at the end, that they were tired of running ISE all the time? How many of those posts agreed?
Congratulations! You got all of that and more. You want more missions to run? We've had at least a mission a month since January, virtually non-stop. Leveling up too easy? Level 50+ fixed that little red wagon. ISE too easy? Try ISA now!
"But, what about the bugs?", you ask. "There's so many of them I can't enjoy the game!" Cryptic can't get to all of them because they want to please their player base. The same player base who wants to berate and attack Cryptic for the choices they made because they wanted to please the player base.
Be careful of what you wish for. You just might get it.
Comments
Bashing Cryptic/The Devs/The EP won't affect any change at all, with the possible exception of getting this thread locked.
Therefore I'd like to ask the STO community to instead of bashing, to post a couple of the most annoying bugs that you've encountered and perhaps this will give Cryptic an idea as to what issues should be a priority to fix.
For me, I'd say the most annoying bugs/issues I've encountered have been:
1. Lag/disconnects
2. BFAW - rarely misses (mulches fighters and targetable torpedoes/mines too easily), superior dps to overload, and crits those embassy consoles to absurd levels
3. Embassy consoles - Plasma ones deal crazy damage (especially under BFAW), cooldowns/magnitude on shield/hull heal heal consoles make them ineffective.
4. Enemies in Adv STFs (specifically Borg) are damage sponges, making Adv Missions less enjoyable and most time consuming for anyone doing less than 12k dps.
There are other things that bother me in STO but these would have to be the top 3, and if they were fixed/addressed I'd enjoy STO much more than I currently do now.
Edit: forgot to mention 5. The alt-unfriendliness of the spec system, will take me literally years to max out the specializations of my characters.
The team running the game are of the same opinion, and efforts have been and are still being made to combat issues identified. But lets be honest - How broke is it?
(I hate typing this)
In my professional career I have run into that line a few times. How many of our customer base is affected by problem #177, on a list of 1376 issues? Is it a priority to fix?
We already know they cannot turn ship designers, story writers and executive producers into developers to fix issues. So the common idea of 'I'd wish they'd skip a season and fix everything' isn't possible let alone practical.
We also know that not everyone is affected by every issue. What percentage of the user base does a problem make the game unplayable? Is it tied to something outside the games control? Is it only affecting a small, but vocal community?
Is it a questions of everyone can enter the room to complete the mission?
or;
Is it a question of one group can't squeeze another 0.02% damage out of an expected behavior? (Sorry, this wasn't intended as a slag against the DPS guys - only an example to illustrate my point. I was going to use costume issues, but that has less value. Oh, and that wasn't a slag against the space barbie contingent. Oh heck, I give up...)
Lastly - we sto'ers typically have older equipment. Should that be an issue as well?
---
I suspect game performance may be worthy of at least an update from salami Inferno.
My Two bits
My character Tsin'xing
What efforts?? are you new too? lol.
4 years. You're the one out of touch. But i keep forgetting trolls only read one line before commenting. And don't consider my post count as accurate. It was over 2500 on the last system.
How are you not aware of whats been happening? Spending all your time in this forum isn't a reliable source of information. Reddit, Twitter, Blog posts, pod casts - many sources of first hand information.
Bug lists with images and progress updates on Twitter - commented on by Borticus and salami Inferno.
Forum posts outlining the changes and impacts - pretty much by every dev involved
Reddit has become the frontline in this discussion since the change in the forums and the dropping of the dev twitter feed (soon to return).
Podcasts - P1 has a few with gecko where they details where the problems are and that it's being handled.
Update notes weekly
Clearly you don't know what you're talking about.
Sorry but i dont buy it. If you saying that the devs are doing "efforts" to fix bugs since years ago.. dude, stop smoking what you are smoking. Seriously. And i am a troll for saying the truth?? ow.. incredible. Maybe you are just a cryptic white knight after all??.
And are you another one of those who trust what you see in twitter and reddit and other places??? ow, i guess you are one of those who jumps happily when a dev say "we are working on it". xD. Of course, they show you a video about "how are we working on something" and suddenly the devs are amazing and they are doing everything they can to fix things, when wha they are doing is just to pace the population from chaos. But you seem too naive to understand that.
Well, assuming that you are right, then you are telling me that the devs have absolutely zero skills on programming. That is what you saying. So, they should hire people with minimum skills to fix things. Of course they never did that. Oh wait now you will tell me that in any other mmorpg things are exactly the same, of course.
Showing people some videos and stuff doesnt mean anything. But you should know it by now, i dont have a clue why are you acting like a cryptic white knight. They can do millions of videos and feedback of their "fixing things" progress but that doesnt mean they are actually fixing something. Sure, they are doing a lot of "efforts" linking some videos and stuff xD, but they are not doing efforts actually fixing things. If you cant understand this, specially after seeing for years the facts, then you are obviously a big cryptic white knight, meaning im finished here.
And for the record, I know they fix bugs because I've paid attention to whether bugs I've reported got fixed.
Does Carraya look like this? NO.
Does the Khan costume still look like this? NO.
So it is clear that the Devs actually ARE trying to fix bugs, and that your angry rambling is due to your impatience and not inaction on their part.
My character Tsin'xing
I will agree that Cryptic could be a bit more... timely with their fixes, but debugging code isn't like fixing a leaky pipe. First the problem has to be tracked down in the code (and in an MMO that could mean sifting through thousands of lines of text that all looks the same from the casual observer), then they have to figure out how to rewrite the defunct code so it works as it should without stopping up something else...
Suffice it to say, this is a time consuming process. It would be great if Cryptic would assign some more coders to fix bugs, perhaps with a few more guys stomping bugs we could see longer patch notes, maybe.
Oh, and calling people 'white knights' just because they don't bash Cryptic like you do doesn't help your case, it just makes you look
Nevermind, not going to finish that sentence.
Sure because fixing 3 important bugs could take MONTHS thats the usual time-frame. Sure, bugs are not so easy to fix. Seriously how many cryptic white knigts we can endure? bets? xD.
I am a programmer. So i know perfectly well what takes to fix lines of code. You guys are the ones who think that, because cryptic can just ignore fixing things, or do it so slowly that it would take months, thats the way it is. Wake up, seriously.
Of course you know they fix bugs. One or two in months. That everybody knows. Sigh im sooo tired of the cryptic knight squad. lol. I played dozens of mmorpgs and the companies behind em fix things in a question of days. But nah, they are wrong, they should use months or years in some cases like cryptic to fix things. And again, you post 2 examples of bugs that are amazingly easy to fix. Bravo.. and bugs that are not important. Do you know that things like the loadout system are still bugged?? never fully fixed?? do you know that we suffer resetting our boff skills since months ago, never fixed?? what about the UI lag that is present since months ago tha tmakes the game almost unplayable in some situations?? what about the lag that is present since months ago and now is getting to a boiling point?? THOSE are important issues. But, why i even bother.. cryptic knights will always defend cryptic no matter what.
- Mindlessly defending the establishment in question as innocent even with all evidence to the contrary.
- Being self-appointed representatives, moderators, negotiators, spokemen, etc. for the establishment in question and taking it upon themselves to engage and even attack anyone speaking out against said establishment.
- Insisting, because they themselves "don't have that issue", that the issue must not exist and it must be the other person's fault.
- Specifically inflaming and aggravating the situation so as to justify the moderation and censorship of the argument in question, regardless of validity of the original claims.
These are traits of what are colloquially referred to in this community as "white knights" and, in other communities as well, can also be referred to as "sheeple", "lemmings", "yes-men", "zombies", "ostriches", etc.It isn't about "not bashing Cryptic". It's about being able and willing to think for yourself and actually being open to the arguments from the other side of the table, no matter how you may disagree with them, accepting that they might actually have merit though you personally may not experience those issues yourself.
Example: A white person bashing a black person for the black person's claims of experiences that the black person has experienced but the white person has not, they would be classed in this category. However, a white person who does not bash the same black person for said experiences, rather accepting that the issues may well exist even though they haven't personally witnessed or been subjected to them, they would not be classed in this category.
Those that get into threads like this one, ignore all rationale and evidence, and simply go off on anyone speaking anything other than "Cryptic/PWE-friendly rhetoric" are just asking to be considered the same as someone yelling "you said WHAT about my mama?!" Hence the label (that they so easily pin on themselves) of "Cryptic/PWE White Knight". But what are they really?
...
@Overkyl I CAN think for myself, which is why I choose to disagree with you.
My character Tsin'xing
I dont need to. Everybody that sticked around in the old forums, already know that you are a cryptic knight. You also demonstrated it in your previous post. You cant see why cryptic is not fixing bugs or why cryptic keep releasing broken code and lousy releases all the time?? well, thats your problem, i dont need to proof anything to you. Those are facts, maybe you need some big glasses.
Of course, we should explain to you cryptic knights that nowadays, its is so "hard" to fix things because they never did it. And because they kept releasing broken and bad-written code. If you do that over the years, and not only that you dont fix things, well of course it will take ages to fix anything, that is what is happening now. But that doesnt mean that regular fixing takes so much time, you guys just dont have any idea , i mean who is going to say at this point that cryptic is surely fixing things?? are you kidding me???? sigh.
While I agree there are bugs in this game and some that drive me nuts. . . I have yet to find one that is majorly game breaking to the point I have stopped playing.
That said I agree to a certain point that some posts in this thread have major merit and seem to come from people who are very worried about the game and what is left of its life span. However some posts here seen very much ones of entitlement and like it has been said bashing the cryptic team will not get you anything bar potential sanctions here on the forums and no serious thought and interactions from the dev team about your worries and how they plan to fix the points listed.
I don't believe anyone on either side of the fence has the right to call out each other with terms like troll or white knight mainly down to the fact we are all here in this thread to try to point out what can be done to bring the game back.
The passion of the players is what has made this game live as long as it has.
so let's just all remain civil towards one another and towards the very people who have the power to fix what makes us mad and worried in the first place.
In fact, you know what? I'm not just concerned for us as players. I'm concerned about any deserving dev--and I think there are some--who risks getting screwed out of a job by the fall of this game whenever it happens, and having their portfolio tainted in the eyes of future employees through guilt by association over things they didn't have enough power to change on their own without the right kind of support and resources from management.
It is possible to criticize without demonizing. And it is possible to treat the devs as human and approach them with an assumption that they're not horrible people even when being perfectly willing to call out bad business decisions for what they are.
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Ok, I have to admit, I only skimmed the past few comments. Once someone quoted me and started to define 'white knight' I lost interest, I don't care who 'mindlessly defends' Cryptic, what bothers me is when people dismiss obvious evidence of Cryptic actually doing something right and continues to bash them just because the few bugs on their 'high priority' list haven't yet been fixed...
I won't defend Cryptic without cause, I have my own 'list of annoyances' but I choose to present them in a concise and constructive mannor (as best as I can) to facilitate the most positive results from Cryptic.
What I'm trying to say is, if we actually describe our problems in detail without resulting to namecalling, griping, or irrelavant complaining we might actually improve the relationship between the Devs and Players and possibly affect some positive change.
If all you have is gripes and complaints I suggest you yell them at your screen instead of typing them in, you might feel better and could save everyone else some time.
--- End Rant ---
Ok, can we please return to constructively discussing the bugs/issues we'd like Cryptic to address now?
your statement about the Cryptic team being human is bang on.
to play devils advocate here. .
you go to work every day work one something you love but at the end of the day your work is belittled and ridiculed every day by the very people you put your efforts into pleasing.
it's no wonder that the cryptic team have little no interaction with us players. . even I who has the biggest threshold with my temper would blow facing that every day.
If we want change we the players ALL of us have to lead by example.
If we treat the team with nothing but hate what incentives do they have to get our feedback knowing 80% of it would be filled with venom and personal attacks.
just saying. . .
I've actually worked retail in this situation and been cursed at, threatened, had racism aimed at myself and my team members (different races, but there's a jerk out there to go after ANY person), been screwed over by things my management did yet at the same time had to defend some of it to my team and to my customers. I took over in a VERY antagonistic situation between the team and the customers, and aimed to change the culture with no support from management and sometimes not from the other supervisors at my level.
I certainly agree players should conduct themselves better than they do in terms of airing our concerns. That's part of why I've been suggesting a "Master Bug List"--yes, it's a sign of irritation, but at least it's productive!
However, I will mention something that I found true in my job: even without management support, more power lay with me than did with the customers in terms of toning down the invective. I had the thing that the customers wanted, and the power to make their transaction go smoothly and in a quality manner, or to half-@ss it. This power lay both in my words, and in my actions, through which I demonstrated solid evidence of my concern for the customer. I could not do all that I wanted, but it at least got things to improve somewhat on my shift.
So I really think we have to meet each other halfway here.
That said, I wonder if the devs will be able to do so if the lack of management support continues to be as severe as what I suspect it is. I ultimately quit that job because there was only so long I could deal with it, getting garbage from BOTH sides of the counter (that and a really sweet opportunity came up that I couldn't ignore). There are times when I look at people like Trendy or even Mr. Ricossa, and wonder if their situation might not be equivalent to what I went through. If it is, it doesn't bode well. Genuine talent ultimately will not accept a situation like that, and will reach a breaking point--though I will say this about that breaking point: it's way easier to take things the customers fling at you when you have complete support and resources from management (and I mean giving people the tools to do their jobs right, not just telling off or throwing out rude people). Without...well, patience wears VERY thin for the employees just as it does with the customers.
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+ rubberband/lag since ... months
ps--bravo Patrick, you hit it out of the park
I didn't just rant about how something was broken. I showed them exactly what it was.
I think a master bug list would be a great idea. But it would need to be well documented, and not just a list.
My character Tsin'xing
There are two threads conserning missing Armada Bonus Skill points on missions and DOFFing. One in "General Discussions" and one in "Bug Reporting" on this matter.
Both are pretty main line forum locations....not "hidden away" within KDF. No responses. A forumite had to point Laughing Trendy toward it today ?? Or maybe last night?? Nothing will come of it until Monday? At least? Even though no one seems to be recieving the bonus skill points from Armadas....except on kills, which is being calculated incorrectly (though I have no idea how anyone could figure that out, are the numbers posted somewhere?).
They have faults in all the "things" in this game: consoles, costumes, traits, tray, graphics and Boff skills (old and new that may be causing lag). The latest of which Armada Skill Point Bonuses not applying to missions and DOFFing.
****Edit: I forgot to add: Doffing on the Border.... having to position your ship in the exact perfect spot on the map so you can find the full list of DOFF assignments.*****
Just yesterday, I got word from my Fleet leader to stop "donations" to other fleets in the Armada because the interface is not updating correctly. I may be adding items to projects that are already started and/or the requirements have been filled!!
I have no idea how to test for that...someone with an Armada with very strong communications with their fellow fleets will have to check that and make a bug ticket. I am not doing any more Armada anything for now.
+++++
AND Devs sound like they have already moved on.
http://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/3f8adc/bort_just_found_out_a_big_system_ive_been_working/
I think it has something to do with our Traits...I did not read it all.
Good Luck, everyone!!
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
This has been my observation as well.
Here's something that people who dismiss many of the bugs in this game as minor issues don't understand. Companies that produce good-quality software not only seldom have major bugs; they have very few minor bugs as well. That's because they make bug-fixing a priority; it's part of their corporate culture. They fix their "broken windows".
https://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic-programmer/extracts/software-entropy
http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-broken-window-theory/
http://www.rtuin.nl/2012/08/software-development-and-the-broken-windows-theory/
Things like typos and UI bugs may not seem very important. Individually, each of them is but a minor annoyance. But the sheer number of them is evidence of a corporate culture that finds shoddy workmanship acceptable. These bugs are low-hanging fruit. At a company where quality is part of the corporate culture, exterminating minor bugs would be routine.
How exactly do you expect him to prove that? By providing enough personal information to identify himself? Anyone can claim to be anything on these forums. Sometimes, I can identify other programmers by the statements they make; sometimes not. But even if he were to make such statements, they would largely be incomprehensible to non-programmers.
If you include all known bugs---client crashes, graphics glitches, bugs in the game mechanics, costume issues, UI bugs, typos, and so on---then the list will likely run in the thousands.
Here's every thread I ever started in "Gameplay Bug Reports":
http://perfectworld.vanillaforums.com/search?adv=1&search=&title=&author=frtoaster&cat=889&tags=&discussion_d=1&within=1+day&date=
Current count: 174
Here's every thread I ever started in "Tribble - Bug Reports":
http://perfectworld.vanillaforums.com/search?adv=1&search=&title=&author=frtoaster&cat=957&tags=&discussion_d=1&within=1+day&date=
Current count: 90
Some of those bugs have been fixed, and some of the bug reports are duplicates, because I've reported some bugs more than once. If I had to guess, I would say that there are probably around a hundred extant bugs reported by me alone.
X is being worked on? Doesn't matter - they just said Y and Z isn't, so that means that Cryptic doesn't care about Y and Z, so X being worked on means bumpkis.
Ultimately, a lot of the problems Cryptic has boils down to the player base.
Yes, I've said it. I blame all of us. Myself included. "How dare I blame Forum Poster X?! I never requested these things! I was happy with how things were!" You're right - you, the singular, might not have requested harder PVE missions or more grind or anything else. But we, as a player base, wanted more. Tell me: before Delta Rising, how many posts were there complaining of nothing to do, that the leveling pace was too easy, that there were no missions to do at the end, that they were tired of running ISE all the time? How many of those posts agreed?
Congratulations! You got all of that and more. You want more missions to run? We've had at least a mission a month since January, virtually non-stop. Leveling up too easy? Level 50+ fixed that little red wagon. ISE too easy? Try ISA now!
"But, what about the bugs?", you ask. "There's so many of them I can't enjoy the game!" Cryptic can't get to all of them because they want to please their player base. The same player base who wants to berate and attack Cryptic for the choices they made because they wanted to please the player base.
Be careful of what you wish for. You just might get it.