It s surprising me to read all of these. On one hand; the programmers are so eager to bring new quests/features into the game (which shows their level of activity), but on the other hand, more I am digging into the forums, more I am realising that some major bugs are around since the dawn of time.
Today something odd happened to me. Somehow 316 Zen of mine stucked at Dilithium Exchange.
As any player would do; I sent a ticket and started to wait. In the mainwhile I decided to check the forums if there are similar posts related with the same issue. I cant describe my first feelings when I saw that the bug is nearly as old as the game itself. But, kore than this, I really have difficulties to believe that some people who had the same issues have waited up to 8 months to have a reaction from GMs.
This is not a minor issue. It s directly related with the only main "interface" between the real life money and the game currencies. So one may expect a better approach for duch an issue. But it seems one may be disappointed as well.
I am a very new player. I ve joined only a month ago. And as a freep (for now) I am giving an extreme value to my well deserved, hard way earned Zen. And, for instance, I am not sure if I should invest my cash here, mainly while such major issues are seemingly more "veteran" than many players.
This is my first post on STO forums. I just wanted to describe my feelings. Thnx for your understanding.
I'd characterize it as "It'll get fixed when we find a workable solution."
For the majority of bugs that is not true at all.
Cryptic's attitude to the majority of bugs: We'll just ignore them and not even acknowledge they exist since they're not game-breaking and there is not rioting in the forums about them.
Cryptic's attitude to a small minority of bugs: We'll get to them when we have some free time, which may be in a few months, years or even never for that matter, but at least we'll acknowledge that they exist so people will shut up about it. We may or may not try to fix these bugs, but either way we're not going to try hard.
Cryptic's attitude towards bugs/gameplay that may earn people more dilithium than they deem people should be earning: Red Alert! All hands on deck! Drop whatever you're doing this instant and fix this NOW! No matter what it takes! Take systems offline! Make sections of the game unplayable! Take down the servers! And blame the players, those dirty exploiters!
I know exactly what they're saying, it's the same damned thing said over and over and over and over again.
See, I think that's an assumption. No doubt there are the doom hyperbole folks out there, but it looks like you've been exposed too much to those folks that you can no longer differentiate between somebody just making a complaint about something or just stating simple facts of what folks are doing...no doom hyperbole involved. Hank and a crapload of guys are gone...wallets closed...off they went. There's no the game's going down in flames doom going on there. They left...wallets closed...that's it. Simple. Only see them from time to time cause they were all LTS folks that can get on pidgin. Some popped back on the forums recently cause of the Redshirt Rebirth cruelty...just to get in there and enjoy it for a bit and to campaign for it.
Sometimes folks are only saying what they're saying...we start adding stuff to what they're saying ourselves...that doesn't mean it's something they've said.
Today something odd happened to me. Somehow 316 Zen of mine stucked at Dilithium Exchange.
What do you mean by stuck? Is it just not selling, or can you not take down your order? Did you buy the Zen through Arc or the website www.arcgames.com, or did you buy it through a third party like Steam?
What do you mean by stuck? Is it just not selling, or can you not take down your order? Did you buy the Zen through Arc or the website www.arcgames.com, or did you buy it through a third party like Steam?
As I said before, I am a Freep (free to play). So I didnt buy any Zen from Arc. I farmed Dilithium from STO quests and then started to use Dilithium Exchange to buy Zen with it. In a slow process ofc (8000 dilithium => more or less 40 Zen per day) And as most players are also doing, I used the Exchange to buy and sell this Zen to atleast increase it a lil bit.
Yesterday I put on sale all my dilithium on sale (approx 350.000) Afaik, all sold buy not all Zen I bought returned back to me. 316 Zen are still in "Outstanding Offers" though they re sold. Now when I click to cancel it, it gives Error. When I do new transactions, it works well, but only that 316 Zen are stuck.
In forums, the threads related with the same bug are going back to beginning 2013. And some people are telling that they ve waited months until they receive an acceptable answer (not the automated system message). It s not really giving hope. Nor it s moptivating to invest cash in this game.
And I repeat, this bug is not a "I am getting stucked at the doors of my ready room, please help" or "These boffs are getting deleted" issue. It s related with Zen. The main currency of the game. One would expect that it atleast should trigger a faster reaction than "a couple months".
they dont really do much about the zen exchange unless you bought your zen with irl cash. if it is zen gained with dilithium chances are you will never get a reply. money talks and since you didnt spend any you have no voice. plain and simple with these types of games.
but You See Cryptic Doesn't Care About Existing Players And Their Experience. All They Are Trying To Do Now Is Replace The Playerbase With New Delta Recruits - I Mean New Wallets.
It s surprising me to read all of these. On one hand; the programmers are so eager to bring new quests/features into the game (which shows their level of activity), but on the other hand, more I am digging into the forums, more I am realising that some major bugs are around since the dawn of time.
Today something odd happened to me. Somehow 316 Zen of mine stucked at Dilithium Exchange.
As any player would do; I sent a ticket and started to wait. In the mainwhile I decided to check the forums if there are similar posts related with the same issue. I cant describe my first feelings when I saw that the bug is nearly as old as the game itself. But, kore than this, I really have difficulties to believe that some people who had the same issues have waited up to 8 months to have a reaction from GMs.
This is not a minor issue. It s directly related with the only main "interface" between the real life money and the game currencies. So one may expect a better approach for duch an issue. But it seems one may be disappointed as well.
I am a very new player. I ve joined only a month ago. And as a freep (for now) I am giving an extreme value to my well deserved, hard way earned Zen. And, for instance, I am not sure if I should invest my cash here, mainly while such major issues are seemingly more "veteran" than many players.
This is my first post on STO forums. I just wanted to describe my feelings. Thnx for your understanding.
A.
I take it it's not a billing issue? Because Cryptic usually resolves such issues in an acceptable time frame. If you stumbled upon a bug, don't get your hopes too high.
Since you are new, I deeply sympathize with you. On the same note it really pains me to say though: If bugfixing is important to you, then I'm afraid you may experience some frustrations with this game in the future.
For the "pro bug" crowd however, this game is paradise. Some people will even go so far as to defend Cryptic when it comes to such topics. Read this thread. Read the forum. You'll understand.
And many more are still playing the game, and still spending money on it. Just because some people left doesn't mean that others didn't join, and just because some left doesn't mean they were significant.
We as players have no access to the real player numbers. The best we can do is work with the clues available to us. All we got from Cryptic are some charts with numbers void any significance, and some meaningless "Everything's great!" PR. The STO Steam statistic is problematic for various reasons, but if we decide to grant these numbers some validity, then the playerbase seems to just barely maintain a status quo, it's not growing, let alone thriving. Add in dissapointing financial results released by PWE + layoffs and all that jazz. But yeah, ultimately we are all just speculating.
And it is undeniable that PvP took a bit hit. Further, we players can watch channel membership figures. OrganizedPvP numbers reached an unprecedented low point with not even one hundred logged members post-DR, it has recoverd a bit due to Delta Recruit shenanigans. But it's still frightening stuff. STOGerman (the biggest german community hub) lost a considerable amount of people.
Of course a single person or a single fleet isn't significant in the great scheme of money making. I highly doubt though that Cryptic is too happy about any paying customer leaving for good.
All this "who cares about bugs" attitude... I seriously have hard troubles following such path of reasoning. If the players don't care about quality any longer, I suppose the devs don't need to care either. German "RTL2 UnterschichtenTV" also has a lot of viewers, so I suppose there is even a market for that.
If computer games were tv shows, then STO is slowly but surely is changing from the Dr. Phil show to a Jerry Springer show knock-off...
We as players have no access to the real player numbers. The best we can do is work with the clues available to us. All we got from Cryptic are some charts with numbers void any significance, and some meaningless "Everything's great!" PR. The STO Steam statistic is problematic for various reasons, but if we decide to grant these numbers some validity, then the playerbase seems to just barely maintain a status quo, it's not growing, let alone thriving. Add in dissapointing financial results released by PWE + layoffs and all that jazz. But yeah, ultimately we are all just speculating.
Cryptic has the numbers, we don't. The numbers they release are meaningless from a business point of view, but might be good for a Star Trek Online themed Trivial Pursuit Game.
The stuff we see from the outside is mostly the surface. We don't know why those lay-offs happened, for example. Is it because STO is doing badly? Or is it Neverwinter Online? Or some other property? Is it just a tax thingy? Is it to prepare for being rebought by the former owner? We can only speculate.
What we see however is that Cryptic has been busy released new content for STO, be it payable content in the form of ships, or new missions. They have fixed bugs along side, but they haven't decided to focus on bug fixing in a way that would slow the content release down. That tells us that their numbers still tell them this is the right way. We also see that they haven't done anything for PvP, but they have done things for all sorts of PVE related stuff. Delta Recruit is purely PvE focused, there is not a single reward related to PvP. Not a single one! That tell us that they still conclude that focusing on PVE content is the best way to go for STO.
Sure ,they could be utterly wrong, but it's much more likely that we are wrong about something than they are, because they actually have facts they can base their estimations on, we just use anecdotical evidence and personal preference.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
No, I didn't say this. If the new bug is the subject of constant complaints, then obviously it should take priority.
The problem is that focusing only on the current highest priority bugs creates a situation where you have many old bugs lying around that are collectively as annoying as one single higher priority bug. There is always something more important than each low-priority bug individually. But there is a point where the small bugs "add up" to something more important. That's why I suggested the grouping solution above. Here is how I envision it would work. Someone, perhaps the team lead, would keep track of low-priority bugs in a specific area, say the doff system or the tailor. When enough low-priority bugs have accumulated, he would create a "wrapper bug", for example, "Miscellaneous bug fixes for the doff system", and schedule someone to work on it in an upcoming release.
Sometimes it can work like that (at least in my development experience). Sometimes it can't, because just because a bug is minor in effect, fixing it can be major.
Some choices will be difficult to make. I'm not going to say always choose the feature or always choose the bug. You keep seeing this as a feature vs. bug issue: Either we get features, or we get bug fixes. My view is that the reason we have so many bugs is that they try to release so many features that they can't even take the time to make sure they work properly. Can we at least agree that players don't want broken features? So if they are going release a feature, make sure that it actually works.
Sure, but... I know business decisions are not always made like that. There is always an eye aimed at the release schedule. "If Update X / Feature Y" has been promised at the end of March, then it has to be in at the end of March, not later.
I think it'S one fo the aspects I hate most about software development. Arbitrary deadlines that don't really seem to serve a good purpose. But they exist. Apparently, someone cares about these deadlines. Maybe they actually serve a good purpose, even if I don't know personally what it is. Maybe it's a contractual obligation. And there are situations were we can relate to it a lot better - for example, the date when the contractor will start working on your new bath. Even if the task itself will take the same time whether it happens in the end of March or end of Apri or the middle of August. Still, you care about when exactly it will happen, wouldn't you?
And in the end - the process of prioritizing will always remain intransparent to us. We don't know the code. We don't know the business goals. We don't know the politics. We don't know the plans. Asking for something to be done faster is born out of ignorance about any number of facts that influence the prioritizaton. We don't know if Cryptic makes bad decisions, or they are actually making the best possible decision due to the circumstances, and if we were decision maker with the same knowledge, we might actually make the same.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I think it'S one fo the aspects I hate most about software development. Arbitrary deadlines that don't really seem to serve a good purpose. But they exist. Apparently, someone cares about these deadlines. Maybe they actually serve a good purpose, even if I don't know personally what it is. Maybe it's a contractual obligation.
Ironically, the very question you asked here, also contains the answer I think...
Two examples that I've seen happen time and again :
Parent company sets deadlines for subsidiary to release their latest project regardless of state of completion
Contractual agreement with the publisher demands title is released by X date
It all boils down to money... If content is not released, no money comes in, so we end up with rushed releases that were never ready...
It's becoming a near industry standard... Day one patching and games that are not even playable for days after release (SimCity is one of the worst examples recently) are becoming common place...
Many AAA titles are even being released incomplete and without proper optimisation (BF4 and AC : Unity)...
Again, it's all about money... Get the money now, fix the bugs later... Maybe...
Or you could be Bugthesda and just leave it up to the players to mod the bugs out of your games...
What we see however is that Cryptic has been busy released new content for STO, be it payable content in the form of ships, or new missions. They have fixed bugs along side, but they haven't decided to focus on bug fixing in a way that would slow the content release down. That tells us that their numbers still tell them this is the right way.
That doesn't tell us anything, and frankly, it doesn't tell Cryptic anything either since they have never had a dedicated bug-fix team or actually tested balance issues before releasing something new. Maybe there would be better player retention if they had better bug-fixing, balance testing and actually responded to community feedback about these issues, but nobody will ever know since they've never done this.
It's like cavemen hunting fish with spears thinking it is the most efficient way to catch fish simply because they have never tried any other way.
We also see that they haven't done anything for PvP, but they have done things for all sorts of PVE related stuff. Delta Recruit is purely PvE focused, there is not a single reward related to PvP. Not a single one! That tell us that they still conclude that focusing on PVE content is the best way to go for STO.
The trait is PvP related, and surprise surprise, it's another completely imbalanced aspect that makes PvP even less playable.
Cryptic is a business and everything that makes up STO requires resources to develop, implement, and maintain. I think its pretty obvious that since the launch of STO that PVP has not had a fair share of those resources allocated to it. This fact is the primary reason PVP is in the state that its currently in.
Something has to be done, PVP cannot stay the way that it is now. We either have to try to save it, or take it out of the game completely. We have to allocate resources in order to save it and thats where I come into the picture.
Right this moment, Im the only resource PVP gets.
I take it it's not a billing issue? Because Cryptic usually resolves such issues in an acceptable time frame. If you stumbled upon a bug, don't get your hopes too high.
Since you are new, I deeply sympathize with you. On the same note it really pains me to say though: If bugfixing is important to you, then I'm afraid you may experience some frustrations with this game in the future.
For the "pro bug" crowd however, this game is paradise. Some people will even go so far as to defend Cryptic when it comes to such topics. Read this thread. Read the forum. You'll understand.
...
Well, there are two different issues here.
There is a major bug which effects ALL players (regardless if they use their credit card or not).
I have 316 Zen blocked there. For a veteran player it might easily be 5000 Zen. There can be dozens of excuses for not fixing such bugs. Though 3 years is quite a long period of time. Still, this is not only STO's issue. Many big MMOgames show an unbareable laziness when it comes to bug fixing. BUT, if I get provided GM service for such a simple thing (not the bug fixing but covering the losses of the players because of the bug itself, or, atleast showing people that the GM team are interested on the issue and they re counting us as a human being) only if my Zen has been earned via real cash, then I dont think this game will have a future. After a month of gaming here, I can say many wonderful things about the game itself (for example; the quest chains) but after all I read here and there, and two days without any reply to my ticket (yes it s a very long time for an answer), I am not that much motivated to spend my cash in STO.
...and two days without any reply to my ticket ...
2 days? Lol
In the time I was playing STO I dared to write 2 tickets in total. The first was answered after 5 weeks, the other one after 3 months! Needless to say they weren't helpful at all... :rolleyes:
First off, I realize releasing new content like starships, etc. is one of the main ways that you make money off of this game.
The problem is that you are releasing all of this new content on top of existing bugs and imbalanced mechanics, and this content contains its own bugs and imbalances and all of these problems just keep piling up on top of each other. You may make money by releasing new content, but you are losing potential customers that would pay for this content because they are fed up with the bugs and imbalances never being addressed and/or taking many months/years to be addressed.
Almost everyone on my friend's list has stopped playing STO because of these issues, and the ones that are left refuse to spend money on a company that treats its customers' concerns with such disdain.
It's time to take a break from the constant content-money-grab-spam and spend a month (or however long it takes) to fix the major bugs and imbalances in this game. If not, your playerbase will eventually reach such low levels that buying the new content will not sustain the costs of keeping the game afloat.
I urge you guys to do this before it is past the point of no return.
I've got to say I love these types of threads that complain about bugs and things that are unbalanced, yet never bother to mention a single example of them.
I've got to say I love these types of threads that complain about bugs and things that are unbalanced, yet never bother to mention a single example of them.
You really need examples of what's broken atm???
Here, I can give you one example: EVERYTHING since S9.5!
Here, I can give you one example: EVERYTHING since S9.5!
Yeah... my point exactly. The usual "Everything is completely broken!" whine fests.
Sure you might mention one or two later in the thread I haven't bothered reading when pressed on the matter. That's the difference between whining and legitimate complaints.
Someone with a legitimate grievance will give give details to what they are in their initial rant. (For example: Ship A has too much shield for it's damage potential making it unbalanced)
Someone who's just whining will allude to countless problems, but then never actually give examples of any of them.
Yeah... my point exactly. The usual "Everything is completely broken!" whine fests.
Sure you might mention one or two later in the thread I haven't bothered reading when pressed on the matter. That's the difference between whining and legitimate complaints.
Someone with a legitimate grievance will give give details to what they are in their initial rant. (For example: Ship A has too much shield for it's damage potential making it unbalanced)
Someone who's just whining will allude to countless problems, but then never actually give examples of any of them.
Ok, some of the issues:
- Turrets with Scatter Volley: Doing way more damage as intended (CSV II/III)
- Intelligence Specialization T4 Opportunistic - is affecting ALL things except of Bridge Officer Skills. Even Fireworks and Weapon-Cooldown.
- Intel Trait "Predictive Algorithms" does not remove any Debuffs!
- Having Nukara-Reputation Shields equipped on a shuttle, still give the bonus on the ship you fly.
- Intel Ship Expose Vulnerability: Weapon Systems only removes Attack Pattern Alpha instead of all tactical Skills.
- [Thrust] Only affects Turnrate - not the Flight Speed (*Tooltip is INCORRECT!!!)
- 2-Piece Borg-Set Triggers the Crafting-Level-15-Trait "Give You All" (Dodge-Dodge-Dodge - in Space!)
- Eject Cryoplasma (4-piece-Breen-Set) is affected by Aux2Bat (It's a Set-Bonus!!!)
- Viral Torpedo can not be cleared right now. Even "Command Officer" - "Boost Morale" does not clear it!
- Command Officer - "Achilles' Heel" does not have a 30 second Cooldown. It's always up.
And that's only some issues with stuff that is not working as intended. If we'd start listing all unbalanced stuff...oh well
I've got to say I love these types of threads that complain about bugs and things that are unbalanced, yet never bother to mention a single example of them.
Here are a few bugs that I am aware of. Other people can probably give you more.
The "Omega engine" bug and the "Salvage Dispute" bug date from Legacy of Romulus (almost two years ago). Adjudicatorhawk made a comment in the "Salvage Dispute" thread saying he would forward it to QA; he no longer works for Cryptic. The camera zoom bug dates back to Season 6 (almost three years ago), though I recently re-reported it because of the zoom problems currently on Tribble. That should give you an idea of how old some of these bugs are.
If you want to include typos, art errors, and UI errors, I have many more. But I'm not going to spend my time looking up every bug report I've filed over the years. If you want more examples, then search for posts by me in the forums "Gameplay Bug Reports" and "Tribble - Bug Reports".
Yesterday I put on sale all my dilithium on sale (approx 350.000) Afaik, all sold buy not all Zen I bought returned back to me. 316 Zen are still in "Outstanding Offers" though they re sold. Now when I click to cancel it, it gives Error. When I do new transactions, it works well, but only that 316 Zen are stuck.
You could try sending a PM to pwlaughingtrendy and see if she will escalate the issue for you. I know pwebranflakes used to help people with problems like this, but I'm not sure if Trendy does it.
BUT, if I get provided GM service for such a simple thing (not the bug fixing but covering the losses of the players because of the bug itself, or, atleast showing people that the GM team are interested on the issue and they re counting us as a human being) only if my Zen has been earned via real cash, then I dont think this game will have a future.
I don't think there are GMs in this game in the sense of someone you can chat with in-game to help resolve your issue. As far as I can tell, reports to GMs that you file in-game go to same people that handle customer service tickets filed through the website www.arcgames.com. They usually respond with a message asking you to file an in-game bug report and to also report the bug on the forums, even if you've explicitly stated that you've already done those things. I think everyone gets the same message, so it's either automated or a template that the customer service representatives are told to use.
If you want to include typos, art errors, and UI errors, I have many more. But I'm not going to spend my time looking up every bug report I've filed over the years. If you want more examples, then search for posts by me in the forums "Gameplay Bug Reports" and "Tribble - Bug Reports".
You can also search through the patch notes to find the other side to the problem. Bugs are continuously fixed in STO, there's no doubt about that. Not all are but thats the constraints of development. You'd wish the situation were ideal but that's not what the universe is about, when you get right down to it.
Presently the only severe bug that demands fixing ATM seems to be the boff skill resets. A fix has been listed twice, I think, with no joy to fixing the problem (especially for ground.) That directly affects major gameplay mechanics (since you're either left to settle for the default or continuously re-apply your boff loadouts, undermining the entire swath of boff driven gameplay and the new boff specialization systems). On the other hand minor calculation bugs aren't worth extrapolating into a broken syndrome of gameplay development (for a game where you can apply that, see. Destiny.) They're just there to remind us of entropy. :P
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Comments
Today something odd happened to me. Somehow 316 Zen of mine stucked at Dilithium Exchange.
As any player would do; I sent a ticket and started to wait. In the mainwhile I decided to check the forums if there are similar posts related with the same issue. I cant describe my first feelings when I saw that the bug is nearly as old as the game itself. But, kore than this, I really have difficulties to believe that some people who had the same issues have waited up to 8 months to have a reaction from GMs.
This is not a minor issue. It s directly related with the only main "interface" between the real life money and the game currencies. So one may expect a better approach for duch an issue. But it seems one may be disappointed as well.
I am a very new player. I ve joined only a month ago. And as a freep (for now) I am giving an extreme value to my well deserved, hard way earned Zen. And, for instance, I am not sure if I should invest my cash here, mainly while such major issues are seemingly more "veteran" than many players.
This is my first post on STO forums. I just wanted to describe my feelings. Thnx for your understanding.
A.
And hopefully this will be the time that this beast is slain for good instead of it rising from the dead like it has done before.
For the majority of bugs that is not true at all.
Cryptic's attitude to the majority of bugs:
We'll just ignore them and not even acknowledge they exist since they're not game-breaking and there is not rioting in the forums about them.
Cryptic's attitude to a small minority of bugs:
We'll get to them when we have some free time, which may be in a few months, years or even never for that matter, but at least we'll acknowledge that they exist so people will shut up about it. We may or may not try to fix these bugs, but either way we're not going to try hard.
Cryptic's attitude towards bugs/gameplay that may earn people more dilithium than they deem people should be earning:
Red Alert! All hands on deck! Drop whatever you're doing this instant and fix this NOW! No matter what it takes! Take systems offline! Make sections of the game unplayable! Take down the servers! And blame the players, those dirty exploiters!
@DevolvedOne
See, I think that's an assumption. No doubt there are the doom hyperbole folks out there, but it looks like you've been exposed too much to those folks that you can no longer differentiate between somebody just making a complaint about something or just stating simple facts of what folks are doing...no doom hyperbole involved. Hank and a crapload of guys are gone...wallets closed...off they went. There's no the game's going down in flames doom going on there. They left...wallets closed...that's it. Simple. Only see them from time to time cause they were all LTS folks that can get on pidgin. Some popped back on the forums recently cause of the Redshirt Rebirth cruelty...just to get in there and enjoy it for a bit and to campaign for it.
Sometimes folks are only saying what they're saying...we start adding stuff to what they're saying ourselves...that doesn't mean it's something they've said.
What do you mean by stuck? Is it just not selling, or can you not take down your order? Did you buy the Zen through Arc or the website www.arcgames.com, or did you buy it through a third party like Steam?
In space, my boffs regularly abandon their stations. You'd think they were unionized.
On ground, my boffs routinely restore back to a mishmash of post-boff-generation trained skills and base skills they rolled during boff-generation.
As I said before, I am a Freep (free to play). So I didnt buy any Zen from Arc. I farmed Dilithium from STO quests and then started to use Dilithium Exchange to buy Zen with it. In a slow process ofc (8000 dilithium => more or less 40 Zen per day) And as most players are also doing, I used the Exchange to buy and sell this Zen to atleast increase it a lil bit.
Yesterday I put on sale all my dilithium on sale (approx 350.000) Afaik, all sold buy not all Zen I bought returned back to me. 316 Zen are still in "Outstanding Offers" though they re sold. Now when I click to cancel it, it gives Error. When I do new transactions, it works well, but only that 316 Zen are stuck.
In forums, the threads related with the same bug are going back to beginning 2013. And some people are telling that they ve waited months until they receive an acceptable answer (not the automated system message). It s not really giving hope. Nor it s moptivating to invest cash in this game.
And I repeat, this bug is not a "I am getting stucked at the doors of my ready room, please help" or "These boffs are getting deleted" issue. It s related with Zen. The main currency of the game. One would expect that it atleast should trigger a faster reaction than "a couple months".
Testify!
Preach Brother Preach!
I take it it's not a billing issue? Because Cryptic usually resolves such issues in an acceptable time frame. If you stumbled upon a bug, don't get your hopes too high.
Since you are new, I deeply sympathize with you. On the same note it really pains me to say though: If bugfixing is important to you, then I'm afraid you may experience some frustrations with this game in the future.
For the "pro bug" crowd however, this game is paradise. Some people will even go so far as to defend Cryptic when it comes to such topics. Read this thread. Read the forum. You'll understand.
We as players have no access to the real player numbers. The best we can do is work with the clues available to us. All we got from Cryptic are some charts with numbers void any significance, and some meaningless "Everything's great!" PR. The STO Steam statistic is problematic for various reasons, but if we decide to grant these numbers some validity, then the playerbase seems to just barely maintain a status quo, it's not growing, let alone thriving. Add in dissapointing financial results released by PWE + layoffs and all that jazz. But yeah, ultimately we are all just speculating.
And it is undeniable that PvP took a bit hit. Further, we players can watch channel membership figures. OrganizedPvP numbers reached an unprecedented low point with not even one hundred logged members post-DR, it has recoverd a bit due to Delta Recruit shenanigans. But it's still frightening stuff. STOGerman (the biggest german community hub) lost a considerable amount of people.
Of course a single person or a single fleet isn't significant in the great scheme of money making. I highly doubt though that Cryptic is too happy about any paying customer leaving for good.
All this "who cares about bugs" attitude... I seriously have hard troubles following such path of reasoning. If the players don't care about quality any longer, I suppose the devs don't need to care either. German "RTL2 UnterschichtenTV" also has a lot of viewers, so I suppose there is even a market for that.
If computer games were tv shows, then STO is slowly but surely is changing from the Dr. Phil show to a Jerry Springer show knock-off...
The stuff we see from the outside is mostly the surface. We don't know why those lay-offs happened, for example. Is it because STO is doing badly? Or is it Neverwinter Online? Or some other property? Is it just a tax thingy? Is it to prepare for being rebought by the former owner? We can only speculate.
What we see however is that Cryptic has been busy released new content for STO, be it payable content in the form of ships, or new missions. They have fixed bugs along side, but they haven't decided to focus on bug fixing in a way that would slow the content release down. That tells us that their numbers still tell them this is the right way. We also see that they haven't done anything for PvP, but they have done things for all sorts of PVE related stuff. Delta Recruit is purely PvE focused, there is not a single reward related to PvP. Not a single one! That tell us that they still conclude that focusing on PVE content is the best way to go for STO.
Sure ,they could be utterly wrong, but it's much more likely that we are wrong about something than they are, because they actually have facts they can base their estimations on, we just use anecdotical evidence and personal preference.
Yep, seems I spoke too soon... Had been solid all yesterday and this morning...
Get home tonight and my Sci Boff's healing abilities have all switched back their default skills twice now... /sigh
Sure, but... I know business decisions are not always made like that. There is always an eye aimed at the release schedule. "If Update X / Feature Y" has been promised at the end of March, then it has to be in at the end of March, not later.
I think it'S one fo the aspects I hate most about software development. Arbitrary deadlines that don't really seem to serve a good purpose. But they exist. Apparently, someone cares about these deadlines. Maybe they actually serve a good purpose, even if I don't know personally what it is. Maybe it's a contractual obligation. And there are situations were we can relate to it a lot better - for example, the date when the contractor will start working on your new bath. Even if the task itself will take the same time whether it happens in the end of March or end of Apri or the middle of August. Still, you care about when exactly it will happen, wouldn't you?
And in the end - the process of prioritizing will always remain intransparent to us. We don't know the code. We don't know the business goals. We don't know the politics. We don't know the plans. Asking for something to be done faster is born out of ignorance about any number of facts that influence the prioritizaton. We don't know if Cryptic makes bad decisions, or they are actually making the best possible decision due to the circumstances, and if we were decision maker with the same knowledge, we might actually make the same.
Ironically, the very question you asked here, also contains the answer I think...
Two examples that I've seen happen time and again :
It all boils down to money... If content is not released, no money comes in, so we end up with rushed releases that were never ready...
It's becoming a near industry standard... Day one patching and games that are not even playable for days after release (SimCity is one of the worst examples recently) are becoming common place...
Many AAA titles are even being released incomplete and without proper optimisation (BF4 and AC : Unity)...
Again, it's all about money... Get the money now, fix the bugs later... Maybe...
Or you could be Bugthesda and just leave it up to the players to mod the bugs out of your games...
It's like cavemen hunting fish with spears thinking it is the most efficient way to catch fish simply because they have never tried any other way.
The trait is PvP related, and surprise surprise, it's another completely imbalanced aspect that makes PvP even less playable.
@DevolvedOne
I wonder what happened to that guy :P
Well, there are two different issues here.
There is a major bug which effects ALL players (regardless if they use their credit card or not).
I have 316 Zen blocked there. For a veteran player it might easily be 5000 Zen. There can be dozens of excuses for not fixing such bugs. Though 3 years is quite a long period of time. Still, this is not only STO's issue. Many big MMOgames show an unbareable laziness when it comes to bug fixing. BUT, if I get provided GM service for such a simple thing (not the bug fixing but covering the losses of the players because of the bug itself, or, atleast showing people that the GM team are interested on the issue and they re counting us as a human being) only if my Zen has been earned via real cash, then I dont think this game will have a future. After a month of gaming here, I can say many wonderful things about the game itself (for example; the quest chains) but after all I read here and there, and two days without any reply to my ticket (yes it s a very long time for an answer), I am not that much motivated to spend my cash in STO.
2 days? Lol
In the time I was playing STO I dared to write 2 tickets in total. The first was answered after 5 weeks, the other one after 3 months! Needless to say they weren't helpful at all... :rolleyes:
I've got to say I love these types of threads that complain about bugs and things that are unbalanced, yet never bother to mention a single example of them.
Here, I can give you one example: EVERYTHING since S9.5!
Yeah... my point exactly. The usual "Everything is completely broken!" whine fests.
Sure you might mention one or two later in the thread I haven't bothered reading when pressed on the matter. That's the difference between whining and legitimate complaints.
Someone with a legitimate grievance will give give details to what they are in their initial rant. (For example: Ship A has too much shield for it's damage potential making it unbalanced)
Someone who's just whining will allude to countless problems, but then never actually give examples of any of them.
Ok, some of the issues:
- Turrets with Scatter Volley: Doing way more damage as intended (CSV II/III)
- Intelligence Specialization T4 Opportunistic - is affecting ALL things except of Bridge Officer Skills. Even Fireworks and Weapon-Cooldown.
- Intel Trait "Predictive Algorithms" does not remove any Debuffs!
- Having Nukara-Reputation Shields equipped on a shuttle, still give the bonus on the ship you fly.
- Intel Ship Expose Vulnerability: Weapon Systems only removes Attack Pattern Alpha instead of all tactical Skills.
- [Thrust] Only affects Turnrate - not the Flight Speed (*Tooltip is INCORRECT!!!)
- 2-Piece Borg-Set Triggers the Crafting-Level-15-Trait "Give You All" (Dodge-Dodge-Dodge - in Space!)
- Eject Cryoplasma (4-piece-Breen-Set) is affected by Aux2Bat (It's a Set-Bonus!!!)
- Viral Torpedo can not be cleared right now. Even "Command Officer" - "Boost Morale" does not clear it!
- Command Officer - "Achilles' Heel" does not have a 30 second Cooldown. It's always up.
And that's only some issues with stuff that is not working as intended. If we'd start listing all unbalanced stuff...oh well
Here are a few bugs that I am aware of. Other people can probably give you more.
Holodeck ticket #3,331,293: Tray overlay malfunctioning in shooter mode
Holodeck ticket #3,271,917: Camera zoom bug from Season 6
Holodeck ticket #2,853,424: Expose chance of Nanoprobe Infestation halved from 10% to 5%
Holodeck ticket #2,547,306: Damage of turret modules still too low
Holodeck ticket #1,722,948: Slipstream reduction for Omega engines calculated incorrectly
Salvage Dispute removed from the game?
The "Omega engine" bug and the "Salvage Dispute" bug date from Legacy of Romulus (almost two years ago). Adjudicatorhawk made a comment in the "Salvage Dispute" thread saying he would forward it to QA; he no longer works for Cryptic. The camera zoom bug dates back to Season 6 (almost three years ago), though I recently re-reported it because of the zoom problems currently on Tribble. That should give you an idea of how old some of these bugs are.
If you want to include typos, art errors, and UI errors, I have many more. But I'm not going to spend my time looking up every bug report I've filed over the years. If you want more examples, then search for posts by me in the forums "Gameplay Bug Reports" and "Tribble - Bug Reports".
You could try sending a PM to pwlaughingtrendy and see if she will escalate the issue for you. I know pwebranflakes used to help people with problems like this, but I'm not sure if Trendy does it.
I don't think there are GMs in this game in the sense of someone you can chat with in-game to help resolve your issue. As far as I can tell, reports to GMs that you file in-game go to same people that handle customer service tickets filed through the website www.arcgames.com. They usually respond with a message asking you to file an in-game bug report and to also report the bug on the forums, even if you've explicitly stated that you've already done those things. I think everyone gets the same message, so it's either automated or a template that the customer service representatives are told to use.
You can also search through the patch notes to find the other side to the problem. Bugs are continuously fixed in STO, there's no doubt about that. Not all are but thats the constraints of development. You'd wish the situation were ideal but that's not what the universe is about, when you get right down to it.
Presently the only severe bug that demands fixing ATM seems to be the boff skill resets. A fix has been listed twice, I think, with no joy to fixing the problem (especially for ground.) That directly affects major gameplay mechanics (since you're either left to settle for the default or continuously re-apply your boff loadouts, undermining the entire swath of boff driven gameplay and the new boff specialization systems). On the other hand minor calculation bugs aren't worth extrapolating into a broken syndrome of gameplay development (for a game where you can apply that, see. Destiny.) They're just there to remind us of entropy. :P
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
o rly?
Things getting patched:
- uniform clipping issues
- ressource exploits
- xp "exploits"
Things not getting patched:
- bugs
- unbalanced traits
- unbalanced ships
- unbalanced items
- bugs
- unbalanced doffs
- unbalanced set boni
- unbalanced skills/abilities
- bugs
- broken mechanics
- unbalanced mechanics
- pvp