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Which is the most important - bug fixing, or more stuff?
cbrjwrr
Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
Hypothetical premise.
Lets say that after Year of Klingon is over, Cryptic decide to either embark on a year of bug crushing, in which nothing* new to the game is added but as many bugs as can be fixed are fixed, or continue with the status quo, or decide to abandon the current bug-squashing measures and go for lots more content*. Which is your preference?
* obviously not all devs can do bug-fixing or working on content so in reality bits and pieces might still get added and stuff gets fixed, but I'm purposefully drawing the point to an extreme here.
Lets say that after Year of Klingon is over, Cryptic decide to either embark on a year of bug crushing, in which nothing* new to the game is added but as many bugs as can be fixed are fixed, or continue with the status quo, or decide to abandon the current bug-squashing measures and go for lots more content*. Which is your preference?
* obviously not all devs can do bug-fixing or working on content so in reality bits and pieces might still get added and stuff gets fixed, but I'm purposefully drawing the point to an extreme here.
Which is the most important - bug fixing, or more stuff? 39 votes
Moar Content!!!!
10%
4 votes
Bug fixing.
66%
26 votes
Status quo.
23%
9 votes
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
I realize it's not fair to compare a small game like STO to a giant like WoW, but between the snail's pace mission release schedule and complete lack of end game progression content it really does feel like there's nothing to do. Maybe if they added something similar to WoW's Mythic+ system to the TFOs that would help alleviate the lack of content, idk. The best solution imo would be a brand new, rebuilt foundry but I certainly understand why they don't want to spend the money to do that.
Well I always enjoy new content for sure, bug fixes are also important, as is preventing they are introduced.
Yet I understand those who say more new content would be nice as well. Feels like the last year we've seen a few less episodes, yet I suspect it's mostly as they redid several in the Klingon ARC to enhance them.
So what's inspiring this "omg, they have to stop and fix the bugs!" thing? What particular set of Big Bugs need to be fixed badly enough to stop producing content? (honestly curious)
They aren't stopping to produce content to fix bugs...they're stopping to produce content to save money.
But both there bug fixing and producing content have been very poor...so I guess people are arguing which one needs more attention...like it would make a difference when all they care about is money and what they want.
Especially considering the quality of the "content" as of late - which is in part dimished by, you guessed it!, various bugs.
Ci sono tre tipi di giocatori:
- quelli a cui non va mai bene niente... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che sono talmente imbesuiti da credere a qualunque cosa i dev dicano, perfino che la luna è fatta di formaggio... e vanno sul forum a trollare;
- quelli che credono a quello a cui è giusto credere, sono d'accordo con quello con cui è giusto essere d'accordo e sono critici con quello che non va;
Ai giocatori dei primi due tipi, gratis in omaggio un bello specchio lucente su cui arrampicarsi. E una mazzata in testa per la loro poca intelligenza e compassione verso gli altri giocatori che non la pensano come loro.
Agli appartenenti al terzo tipo, invece, dico grazie. Anche se non sempre si riesce a mantenere la calma, siete quelli per cui vale la pena incazzarsi.
I would love to see Cryptic actually take an interest in fixing bugs on Console. There are so many major bugs on the console versions of the game right now, but the latest console patch notes I could find had two things listed, one of which wasn't even a bug fix.
1. Ship artists can't fix powers tray bugs. Voice actors can't fix the Klingon recruit reward box issue. Writers and level designers can't fix lag.
2. New content is what gets people to play the game and spend money. Without new content people will not only complain about having nothing to do, they also won't give Cryptic the cash monies needed to create new seasons and keep the servers running.
Firing the artists and writers to hire more coders is, as you admit, not practical.
Yes, fixing bugs is important. I run into bugs that really annoy me. If your poll was something like "should cryptic try to add staff specifically to work on bugs" then I'd vote yes.
It is time to go back and ask the players or play each misison themselves and start fixing the bugs in the missions.
broken graphics / bad coloring / missing cutscene components / tailor bugs . . . . etc.
As much as lighting 2.0 helped some stuff it literally messed up other things and yet have they been fixed properly.
Bug fixing and Content go hand in hand and are handled by seperate teams. They can't shift their content creators to bug fixing when they have little to no knowledge of Cryptic's code. This has been mentioned many, many times by the Dev's. What they need is more folk who can do code. The Content creation can proceed fine as it is as that is more than just code. Bugs are just coding errors, so what use is an Envirnomental Artist, Script Writer, Asset Artist, VA Director or anybody in fixing errors in code. It's just not feasible nor economical, and that's before taking in consideration their income they need to remain operational.
Anything new brought into the game is going to have bugs, for sure. But there needs to be at least some development time set aside to deal with (at least) some of the issues and stop putting band-aids over bullet holes in this game. Cryptic won't hire additional staff to deal with these issues because it cuts into profits... I get it! But something has to be done.
Since there is no QA to speak of, and since we are beta-testing the game on holodeck anyways, Cryptic could save money by shutting down both Tribble and Redshirt.
Join Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
STO needs to get these game stoppers fixed. I can live with the people standing on seats or custcenes being messed up and the such, they are annoyances but it doesn't stop the game.
Thankfully its not likely there's 1 guy doing both tasks, just hope the bug fixer (can't imagine theres more than 1) can resolve the games biggest bugs quickly
> they actually hired two more QA people since the pandemic started. Team is like 6 or so?
I don't know about game development specifically, but this seems like a very small number for a product as complex as STO.
Actually, from a financial point of view, it is prudent to just have a couple that will be employed for a long time, rather than employing a dozen and having to get rid of them a year later. Productivity will be far better with just the two over the dozen.
Irrespective of the fact that bugs will ALWAYS happen, bug fixing is not as easy as some people think, especially with over 150k files and millions of lines of code.
Absolutely.
I absolutely agree. They 100% should create a list of KNOWN bugs on THIS forum (not Reddit or Twitter), that have being acknowledged. Then it won't get 'lost'.
PvP will require a completely new system. As it is, it's wildly unbalanced as our equipment is geared for HP sponges. It's the equipment that is the problem, not the skills.
As for asking what players want, I'm 100% against. Players 'running' things or even raising player's expectations is dangerous (Just look at Star Citizen). Asking players for feedback for what they would like should be extremely rare, and/or as a last resort. "Too many cooks spoil the broth".
> Actually, from a financial point of view, it is prudent to just have a couple that will be employed for a long time, rather than employing a dozen and having to get rid of them a year later. Productivity will be far better with just the two over the dozen.
>
> Irrespective of the fact that bugs will ALWAYS happen, bug fixing is not as easy as some people think, especially with over 150k files and millions of lines of code.
I wouldn't suggest employing QAs on a temporary basis. I'mnot sure why you think I did.
I'm also not sure why you think I suggested bugfixing was easy. I definitely did not.
Define "Help". Because some people's definition is a complete dead stop to ANY content for a whole "season" of bug fixes. Problem with that is it would not only hurt the game due to lack of new content, it would also mean losing most of the staff who can't bug fix. Not only that, the second you start adding things again, hell the second you fix one thing, new bugs will crop up. It is literally IMPOSSIBLE not to have bugs in an MMO. It is a constantly evolving, living entity. Every change will affect one thing or another. New code won't play well with old code somewhere, and we got a bug.
The only recurring bug I am aware of is the one where you don't always warp out of a system. Not game breaking, but it exists. And it can be made funny because you can actually have a bit of control over what happens based on your impulse speed before the dialog box to warp out. If you're moving forward before the dialog box, you'd cruise out. If you're at a dead stop, you don't move. If you're moving in reverse... you back out of the screen.
So realistically... the only answer here... is status quo. Because the only way it could actually improve, is if they were as big as Square Enix or any of the other major companies and could afford to have a MUCH bigger bug team. For a company their size, they seem to be doing alright, considering they're running 3 MMOs, with three separate teams, and are actively working on a fourth as far as I am aware. Not the best, but serviceable.
Also be aware that, like the warp out bug, the answer is not always obvious. You're having to disect speggetti code to try and figure out what's not playing well with what. Its not as simple as flipping a switch. This is deep level code work that requires laser scalple precision. Not a sledgehammer. So much as a 0 out of place will cause a bug. In a sea of 1s and 0s.
Bugs go into a list and are sorted by priority.
C-Store shopping bug? Fixed with an emergency patch.
Blinky mailbox after you've already read new mail? Pushed down to the bottom of the list and left there for 6+ years.
A bug doesn't often become a higher priority just because it is years old. How does the blinky mailbox affect playing the game? It's a trivial annoyance that affects nothing else. Priority will be near-zero forever.
Even when a bug is near the top of the list, it might not get fixed because QA can't find a recipe to reproduce it reliably on demand, on the test servers. If it only happens intermittently or only at high loads on live servers then a developer needs to guess at the cause, guess at a fix, and try adding the fix with no certainty that it will help.