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The future of bugs (not a bug report)
dewolf13
Member Posts: 67 Arc User
Does anyone know what the plan is surrounding the ubiquitous gameplay and visual bugs?
There was a time when I would report every glitch, but when that became too tedious (as I was filling out a bug report multiple times per mission on occasion), I started keeping a list of them in a 'personal log' in game, and then when the list became a short novel (after only a week or so), I just gave up on it. I don't even remember the last time I played a story mission without at least a visual bug like an animation in a cutscene not playing at all, or correctly, or not ending, etc. (the TFOs seem to be ok most of the time besides briefings sometimes not playing during the pre-mission briefing period, or sometimes a TFO gets stuck and won't progress). I kind of just got used to always seeing NPCs standing on tables during cutscenes instead of sitting in their chairs, etc., but then the other day I thought 'wait, this is not normal; while not game-breaking, these bugs detract from the gameplay experience and technically should be fixed'.
But there's just such a mountain of them at this point that I wonder: is there some kind of long-term strategy to tackle them, and perhaps safe-guard the programming in the future to be less bug-prone after changes? Or is there actual lack of awareness of all these bugs? If it's the latter, I'm happy to report the occasional bug, which I do, but to report them every time they are encountered, I think you'd spend equal time playing the game as taking breaks to fill out the bug reports.
There were some long-persisting (years), oft-reported bugs that I was genuinely surprised when they were finally fixed as I had all but given up hope (e.g. the Voyager-style compression rifle finally calling in the correct energy type for its orbital strike mode), but then there are others that still persist. And that kind of thing contributes to the sense of futility in reporting EVERY single bug I encounter, thinking 'this probably won't even get addressed for years, if ever'.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad game-breaking bugs are addressed, but I feel like even visual bugs like broken or stuck animations are kind of important in the overall experience of enjoying the game (all of its content, because of course, just playing TFOs I think you're less likely to encounter them), but at this point...it's a bit discouraging.
And does anyone know if there something unique about this game engine, or some other technical thing or event I'm not aware of, because I've never played another game with this level of glitches (aside from games explicitly 'still in development').
There was a time when I would report every glitch, but when that became too tedious (as I was filling out a bug report multiple times per mission on occasion), I started keeping a list of them in a 'personal log' in game, and then when the list became a short novel (after only a week or so), I just gave up on it. I don't even remember the last time I played a story mission without at least a visual bug like an animation in a cutscene not playing at all, or correctly, or not ending, etc. (the TFOs seem to be ok most of the time besides briefings sometimes not playing during the pre-mission briefing period, or sometimes a TFO gets stuck and won't progress). I kind of just got used to always seeing NPCs standing on tables during cutscenes instead of sitting in their chairs, etc., but then the other day I thought 'wait, this is not normal; while not game-breaking, these bugs detract from the gameplay experience and technically should be fixed'.
But there's just such a mountain of them at this point that I wonder: is there some kind of long-term strategy to tackle them, and perhaps safe-guard the programming in the future to be less bug-prone after changes? Or is there actual lack of awareness of all these bugs? If it's the latter, I'm happy to report the occasional bug, which I do, but to report them every time they are encountered, I think you'd spend equal time playing the game as taking breaks to fill out the bug reports.
There were some long-persisting (years), oft-reported bugs that I was genuinely surprised when they were finally fixed as I had all but given up hope (e.g. the Voyager-style compression rifle finally calling in the correct energy type for its orbital strike mode), but then there are others that still persist. And that kind of thing contributes to the sense of futility in reporting EVERY single bug I encounter, thinking 'this probably won't even get addressed for years, if ever'.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad game-breaking bugs are addressed, but I feel like even visual bugs like broken or stuck animations are kind of important in the overall experience of enjoying the game (all of its content, because of course, just playing TFOs I think you're less likely to encounter them), but at this point...it's a bit discouraging.
And does anyone know if there something unique about this game engine, or some other technical thing or event I'm not aware of, because I've never played another game with this level of glitches (aside from games explicitly 'still in development').
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Also, some players aren't always helpful in reporting bugs. Some bugs reports are nothing more than, "This is broken. Fix it." That's not a lot to go on. The Bug Reports Subforum has a stickied thread near the top with the requested format and needed information for bug reports. Not everyone uses it. Some players report their bugs to Customer Service, who cannot do anything about bugs and send players here to the forum to make their bug reports, because this is where the devs look for those things. CS doesn't have access to the forum. This frustrates many players, who either don't bother reporting or again begrudgingly make a halfhearted report. So, reporting and giving as much information as possible is key in reporting bugs.
And yes, they're not aware of every bug. We interact with many more aspects of the game than they do. There are players at many different levels and stages of progression through the game. We're constantly being exposed to all aspects of the game all the time. Updates can break things. Something that was once fixed could break again. So, it is up to us to let them know, because they can't be everywhere in-game at once. There's far fewer of them than there are us.
As for something unique about the game/engine, STO's engine is based on Cryptic's proprietary engine. I believe it's the same one they developed for Champions Online. Long time players can tell you the history of STO's development, but long story short, they picked up the license from another company in the eleventh hour and had a relatively short suspense to get the game out, because the launch date could not be delayed. So, STO launched without everything as advertised. Is the rush to market to blame for some of the issues that plague the game today? Who can truly say? But today's devs are doing everything they can to bring you the best Star Trek experience they can.
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For that matter, before I gave up on it due to the ludicrous levels of microtransactions there (I had to give them cash money before my character was allowed to run, or use the mail system!), SWTOR had some really amusing graphical glitches. My favorite was when I'd use the speeder transit system to get from one area to another - and the car would disappear, leaving my toon sitting on nothing and scooting through the air propelled by the glow from his butt.
The other day in leveling up a new character, I was playing through episode missions, and a few examples of things that were happening in literally every mission I played: the insect repellent 'gun' and spray was invisible (broken animation?), doors and other objects in different levels were not making sounds, multiple audio tracks from character dialogue (old and new recordings?) were playing over each other, audio tracks starting at random times during cutscene dialogue so that sentences were cut off, other audio tracks seemed not to play at all just subtitles showing, characters in cutscenes were spawning in random positions, or not at all, and on and on... As I said, I don't think I've ever played a single mission where literally nothing went 'wrong' -- there seems to be always at least some minor glitch. Yes, other games have glitches, but I tend to run into them 'here and there', not invariably on accessing any content.
And to what BMR said above: of course I understand the mechanics and logistics of how bugs arise and dealing with them. But as I was alluding to with what I said in my original comment, I am sure the same factors are at play regarding e.g. Lord of the Rings Online (which is why I was asking if there was something unique about this particular engine, or how it was implemented, or some 'event' like shifts of personnel, etc.), another MMORPG that has been up for years and years, with patch laid over patch, new content coming out all the time, and players not always giving optimal bug reports, etc. But I am always amazed whenever I play that game how smoothly everything works despite all that. Yes, there are bugs, most certainly. But they are not ubiquitous, and that was kind of my entire point. Bugs are inevitable in any game, but it's shocking sometimes how genuinely ubiquitous they are in STO, yet apparently not in other old MMORPGs like LOTRO. I can play through a dozen 'missions' in LOTRO with all character animations playing correctly, all assets loading correctly, etc., before I encounter such a bug. This, on the other hand, is mission after mission after mission.
And of course I know they are working hard to try to fix bugs, I didn't say or suggest otherwise. However, working hard is not always sufficient in solving a problem, hence the questions I asked regarding any kind of plans for improving the situation.
As a final note, I am sure many gameplay bugs are hard to replicate, but the bugs I am talking about mostly (visual bugs with animations and cutscenes) are bugs everyone knows about, and they aren't tough to replicate. You play the cutscene, you'll see the bug. You do the 'action' to get the animation, you'll see the bug. It's like the broken-for-years animation related to dilithium mining (the laser gun starting up then immediately disappearing). I reported that years ago, I believe, and others had also reported it for a long time (i.e. it was easily replicated). As far as I know, it's still there. Ditto for the finally-fixed compression rifle bug I referred to in the original comment. Everyone could easily replicate it -- every time you used the rifle -- but the bug still persisted for years. Yes, I'm sure if there's a bug where if you move here, and then do that, and then activate this, all in a particular way, it causes some bug for some people, and those might be hard to replicate. But the bugs I'm talking about stare you right in the face whenever you play the game.
Being a gamer of over 40 years now, I can tell you that the number of bugs STO is par-for-the-course for an MMO that is being patched nearly every week, and believe you-me, there are games from companies many, many times the size of Cryptic that have bug report numbers greater than STO. For the size of the company, Cryptic does at times punch well above it's weight; in saying that, that lack of latitude folk give, considering this is a FREE game, is sometimes eye-watering small and consumers are a hundred, maybe even a thousand times more likely to complain, than to compliment (it used to be 10 times back in the 90's, then the internet happened
As Badmoon points out, it's either they can't replicate the bug, or the bug report consists of 'fix this, when?'. What you should also know is that everything is tested on their own server before it hits holodeck, which means it worked for them. However, I'll point out to you that their internal server cannot replicate the holodeck and it's traffic. They used to drop stuff on to Tribble for players to catch bugs, but Tribble got abused as some folk were playing and exploiting Tribble as their main server, getting some stuff for free, and not even playing on Holodeck, so now updates are sparse there.
As someone who mainly now reports Xbox bugs which often are on PC too, I generally get a timely response for a fix. Console players tend not to readily report them like PC players do. Making a list and keeping it to yourself does not help matters. Bugs get fixed on a priority basis, (when a relevant Dev is available) such as it's breaking the game having priority over a uniform clipping. If anyone see something, just report it.
I remember back when we made the switch to the Rep system that many players were locked out of their Accolade MACO armor visuals. That one took them a year to track down.
And we have to consider we're talking speggetti code with over a decade of layers now. Some things won't be so easy to track down.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Granted, I only play two MMOs regularly, this and LOTRO as I mentioned, but indeed as I said a few times now, LOTRO is not like this at all. I can't speak for ALL MMOs, but the fact that a similar MMO (in that it has been running for years and seen many updates with a number of bugs) is not still plagued with such ubiquitous bugs says something. Is LOTRO simply the most well-oiled MMO the world has ever seen, while STO is simply more 'par for the course', as you say? Perhaps. But despite how unlikely that is, even if it is true, it would be sad to set one's standards to 'let's not be good, let's just be average'.
I mean, I already talked above about some of the visual bugs, but I just played again a few minutes ago, the mission where you infiltrate a Vaadwaur base, and my character got stuck with the zipline in their hand after using it (has been like that for a couple of years, I think), they would use a phantom tricorder (i.e. the animation would play, but no actual tricorder would load), and there was a phantom Eldex in the cutscene where he is supposed to be trapped behind a forcefield (i.e. his model didn't load). Literally every mission I have played over the past few weeks (at least, those that have ground content) has weird visual bugs like that. Not all MMOs are like that. Bugs, yes. Not being able to load any cutscenes properly or render basic character animations properly...no, that's not normal.
Yes, now we're onto something. I think we've been talking past each other will all this 'they have trouble replicating these bugs', etc., since the bugs I'm talking about are clear as day for every single user. But yes, it seems old code being broken by new code and not finding an easy fix is the heart of the problem, which is what I suspected all along. Most of the newer animations and cutscenes tend to load mostly without issue. But virtually 100% of the older content is just absolutely riddled with bugs. But that older stuff is still part of the product, so it's still relevant.
But the questions I was asking were specifically about, given this likely cause of the ubiquitous bugs, what is the solution? Because despite what people are implying here, the status quo has not been working. To borrow leemwatson's phrasing, heart disease is also 'par for the course' in a lot of societies, but that's not an acceptable state of public health. A bad thing that becomes normal should still be fixed.
Again, LOTRO is presumably filled with spaghetti code as its been running since 2007, and their old code still seems to work relatively flawlessly. Why? What's different? More continuity in the actual human beings responsible for maintaining it? Fewer updates? This is what I'm asking about, essentially. The problem is not replicating these kinds of bugs, etc. It's obviously a question of either resources, workflows, etc. Because if the folks maintaining LOTRO can keep their spaghetti code churning, these folks can too, in theory. Maybe they need more hands? Fewer hands? The point is, it's possible, as at least one other developer of a similar game is doing it, so how do we get there?
Probably more hands and better documentation of older code from those who had worked on that code back in the day.
However the fact that we are getting bug fixes of one sort or another every week means that they are working on it all the time. People who keep trying to demand a total dead stop to all development for a massive bug squish "season" don't understand that that puts 90% of the staff or so out of a job. Ship artists and Environmental Artists are not coders. So what would they be doing? What would the Writers be doing? What would Character Artists be doing?
On top of that, even if by some miracle they managed to squash every bug in the game, what happens the next time they update the game normally? We're gonna get a bug somewhere.
MMOs are never bug free. Every time they touch the code, there's gonna be a bug. The severity of said bug will vary. As of right now... all we can do is document what we encounter as much as possible so that the Bug Team we have now have as much information as they can get to track down this bug, see how to replicate it, and then squish it.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I've yet to find any major issues but for Cardassisan BOFFS being mislabeled on the Exchange as KDF but actually being FED
Support fixed it in a week and I got my EC back and resold them both on the Exchange, it might not have been my preferred solution but works
Every application of significant size has bugs, and many of them persist for years. I have tickets at work for a dozen bugs from 2-4 years ago that are still open because we can't replicate them on demand. If I don't have a recipe to produce the bug, I can try to guess at the cause but often that isn't very helpful. I could spend days making changes that might or might not help with that bug, or I can work on other bugs and new features where I can actually test the results and know they are fixed or working.
Also, even with recipes to reproduce, every bug and new feature goes on a task list that is sorted by priority not by age. A new feature that's needed in January, or a bug fix to a core function is going to come before a minor glitch that affects 10 people out of 2 million, even if that glitch bug is 5 years old. Age is not how you sort task list, and some bugs will probably never make it to the top.
(I'm a Windows C++ application developer at another company, not Cryptic.)
<ResourceSinkGroup>Thrust</ResourceSinkGroup>
<ForceMagnitude>9360000</ForceMagnitude>
<MaxPowerConsumption>40.3</MaxPowerConsumption>
<MinPowerConsumption>0.000002</MinPowerConsumption>
<SlowdownFactor>1</SlowdownFactor>
<MinPlanetaryInfluence>0</MinPlanetaryInfluence>
<MaxPlanetaryInfluence>1</MaxPlanetaryInfluence>
<EffectivenessAtMinInfluence>1</EffectivenessAtMinInfluence>
<EffectivenessAtMaxInfluence>0.92</EffectivenessAtMaxInfluence>
Now the lines of code I gave above tells the game a few things.
1: what type of resource the block is considered
2: how much thrust to apply in newtons
3: how much power the thruster consumes in megawatts idling and at full power
4: influence range a planet can have on the thruster's effectiveness if any and what level to reduce the effectiveness to.
5: whether or not the thruster can use it's full force right away when trying to slow an object or not.
If someone tells me "the thruster is broke, fix it" that tells me nothing. If someone comes in and says "the thruster isn't providing enough thrust", that tells me a few places to look at to determine if the mod is at fault or not.
-1: Are his landing gears unlocked? If his landing gears are still locked, then it's like trying to make the Enterprise go to warp with the parking break on (looking at you Sulu).
-2: how heavy is the object he's trying to move? if the object is over a certain weight, the thruster will lose effectiveness and eventually be unable to move the object at a certain weight.
-3: is the thruster under the influence of something limiting its thrust? examples being a planet reducing the effectiveness of the thruster. another being a manually set speed for the thruster that's capping it out.
-4: is it getting enough power? if a thruster can't get enough power then it can't provide full thrust capability.
If it's option 1, he needs to unlock the landing gears which is user error. If it's option 2 he needs to reduce the weight of the object or add more thrust capacity which is user error.
If it's option 3 and he's set a manual speed limit that's below the capacity of the thruster, that's user error. If all user influences have been eliminated as a possibility then it could be environmental such as a planet influencing it or something wrong with the code. If it's option 4 then we must first determine if his object has enough functional power generation capability. If it doesn't, then it's user error. If it does, then I know to check how much power the code is allowing it to pull.
In all of those cases I have to be able to reproduce the bug in order to fix it, otherwise I won't know what to fix. I used the power draw example as one scenario here because that actually happened when I first put the mod out there. The smaller thruster variants were draining 10 times the power they were supposed to because I fat fingered the code and put a decimal in the wrong place for the max power consumption.
Now in applying this to STO, that same process goes true for every bug in STO. if the bug can't be reproduced it can't be fixed as you don't know what's broke. Knowing what's broke is also only half the battle. Depending on what's broke and how badly it's broke, you may need to rewrite entire swaths of code or add additional swaths of code to fix the issue. Putting a decimal in the wrong place is alot easier of a fix than some of the outfit issues as one example. With as many options as we have for outfit options in game and character options, what clips for one may not clip for another. Even if you know what's broke, the fix can be just as time consuming as having created the item in the first place. When CrypticSpartan aka Jette was with the team, Jette worked on the issues with Kemocite years ago when it was horribly bugged and overpowered as a result. Jette told people straight out that it was bugged and going to be fixed, but because the fix didn't come when they thought it should, people threw a hissy fit when the fix finally came down 12 weeks later saying "it's working as intended since you didn't fix it right away and you can't do this because we spent money".
I would like to see more bug fixes, and for that matter so would the team. At the same time you can only do what your resources, manpower, and time allow you to do. Severity of bug will also be taken into account with the most severe bugs being fixed first. Just how it is. Also depending on the company, if it's a super niche bug that's not hurting anyone, it may not even be fixed at all since it would take too much time, resources, and manpower to do so, especially in the cases of it being limited by older tech. This team does fix bugs and things. Maybe not as many as folks may like or as many as the team would like, but they do fix them.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Seems to me like you're asking for some insider knowledge about Cryptic's plans and processes. You're just not gonna get that. And if you're looking to "brainstorm" some "solution," that's going to do little good if it's not something the devs can do. Chances are there's little we can do to change the way they operate. 🤷♀️
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Better documentation from former staff sounds reasonable. I've no experience with programming something like a game, but I do some data science in biology, and I know firsthand how impossible it can be when I'm too rushed or whatever to properly annotate my code, or when I have a Frankenstein code of thousands of lines developed over years, and then when I try to use it and modify it three years later, it's like reading Greek even though I'm the one who wrote it. Also, ya I can imagine trying to put more resources toward one particular department comes with its own challenges, e.g. as you said, people in other departments who don't do that kind of thing at all. However, there must be some solution, like perhaps temporarily hiring more people for that one department? That kind of thing does happen in companies and government departments regularly.
But again, I'll stress that I'm not talking about squashing 'every bug in the game'. I feel like I've been quite thorough and explicit in describing my take on the problem as the -quantity- of basic bugs (like basic character animations that play on every mission) compared to something like LOTRO. So of course there will be more bugs in the future, and I'm perfectly accepting of that. But I would hope to play at least the majority of missions and have the character animations and assets load correctly. I think that's kind of a bare minimum for a game (well, maybe level-2, because avoiding game-breaking bugs like CTDs would be the bare minimum, which thankfully STO doesn't have).
Again, I think we're talking past each other here. The bugs I'm talking about are easily reproduced. Go to a dilithium vein and mine it, the mining laser will come out and then disappear immediately. Watch the cutscene with Eldex in the forcefield, he will not load. These are not problems of reproducibility.
But yes, your next thought is obviously the problem, which I know firsthand from spending weeks trying to fix code that I broke with simple changes. And, I will say it again, that was the entire point of my original post and questions. To take the same example of my own code that I work with, when I have noticed problems with my code breaking in the past, I took steps to reduce that likelihood in the future -- making it more modular, annotating it better, etc. Having to 'rewrite swaths of code' to fix some issues is self-evident for anyone who has ever coded. But, and this is important, not all code is created equal, which is also self-evident to anyone who has ever coded. Sloppy code breaks more, and is harder to fix. To be clear, I'm not alleging the problem here is sloppiness, I'm simply saying that it is possible to improve the way any code is written to make it 1) less likely to break with future changes, and 2) easier to fix if it does.
It's just a question of resources as you said in your last paragraph. But if basic things in a game like character animations are plagued by bugs, but you do well to stay on top of 'severe' bugs, I wouldn't call that a top-quality product, which is the subtext to my point. There are lots of 'bargain bin' games out there that have really crappy or broken animations due to the low budget the studio (or single person) had to make them, but are perfectly stable, i.e. they don't have any 'severe' bugs. I don't think that's much to write home about.
That doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all. It's quite a regular occurrence in modern society, when a company has any kind of issues, for customers to ask what's going on, and sometimes they give some insight into why it happened, etc. Companies routinely disclose their plans and processes to reassure their customer base. Indeed, STO developers do it in other contexts as well. Just the other day I was reading some news release where there was some miscommunication about an update, and some Communications officer released a statement describing how their internal process works for one team doing the development work, informing this person then that person, etc., and in this case X is what went wrong, so next time we're going to do it like Y. I don't think that's unreasonable at all, nor do they apparently otherwise they wouldn't have done it in that case.
I don't want to know their medical history. I just want to know if I'm ever going to be able to play the episode arcs -- which are a central part of the game, the product -- and see proper animations, proper cutscenes, proper audio, etc., the way they were when they all worked years ago. That's a fairly basic ask from a customer to the company.
I have played every mission, repeatedly, and rarely ever do I find any issue bar when characters sometime aren't seated during a briefing. But I don't quibble over tiny details. If it's blaringly obvious and/or breaking it gets reported. But what you are coming across here as is 'the game is quite unplayable', which, as you can see from this forum, is not the fact.
As mentioned, bugs are treated on a priority basis, and if they don't have the staff, they don't have the staff. They can not bring in extra staff to bug-squash because it would take them months to train them in an engine code that isn't used anywhere else. If it was 'Unreal 5', yeah, fine, that would work, but it's a proprietary engine...technically 'unique'.
Cryptic knows all to well that bugs get up people's noses, but they are human, they will take their time, and they should not be treated with the vitriol that some folk fire at them. Just post your detailed bugs in the Support forum, it WILL be seen.
Yes, those are the issues I have been -explicitly- talking about. Nowhere here have I said the game is 'unplayable', indeed I have said the very opposite numerous times. And I have also said, numerous times, that just because bugs aren't game-breaking doesn't make them ok. And no, the animation problems are not quite so restricted to characters not being seated during briefings (though yes, that is ubiquitous and still not ok). I've given very specific examples numerous times above, so I won't repeat them again.
Also, if you think any of this has been 'vitriolic' (because I'm certainly not responsible for what others say about bugs), I don't know what to tell you. Critical, certainly. But adults need to be open to criticism, particularly in the private sector from paying customers.
Also, 'just post your detailed bugs in the Support forum' completely misses the central point I was making. If it takes me 20 minutes to play a mission, to report EVERY bug would take me an additional 10 minutes, so numerous are they (hence why I started keeping a weekly list, as I mentioned, which quickly grew to an absurd length, which is why I abandoned it -- which you I think interpreted as 'keeping a list to yourself doesn't help anybody', so I think you missed that point too). If Cryptic wants to hire me as a full-time play-tester, I'm perfectly willing to take the time to report EVERY bug I see. However, spending 33% of my play time not actually playing is not reasonable at all, hence my original post in the first place.
You purport to be a coder. How nice would you be to an end user who just waved vaguely at your software and said, "It's not working right - fix it!!"?
I'm seriously lucky if I come across 1 new bug in a month, and I play everyday!!!
Expecting Cryptic to pay you the curtiousy of fixing a bug you don't have the curtiousy of reporting is pure folly. If no-one takes their time to report something, it will never be fixed, unless a Dev spots it whilst playing themselves (which, yes, they do play their own game). That's like shouting at the mechanic for not fixing your car, when you've not rang them about it, on top of you not telling them what's wrong with it.
It takes me all of a minute to report one, and I don't begrudge doing it, and on occasion, I do even get a response from a Dev. If it has been a while, i.e. more than a couple of weeks for a bug, such as when Legendary ships with Hangars weren't getting the Aux power cooldown effect, then I will go back to the thread, but stuff that has no effect on game-play, i.e. it doesn't stop progression or affect performance, then I don't mind if it takes a bit longer, and that's because I understand Cryptic's resources are limited not only by their size, but by their own legacy engine code.
Folk have to be, no, must be pragmatic about bug-fixing. It gets done when it gets done. STO will always have bugs crop up, end of; unless they release a finalised version of the game that was not going to receive any new content, but that's not going to happen because being a game like this, they can add to their heart's content thanks to new shows coming out. There's little Cryptic can do about stopping bugs cropping up in a constantly changing code, especially in the current climate, unless someone drops them a few million to hire permanent staff.
People in the floor. 2 years going, same bug.
And yet, for all your 2 posts since 2013, you've never reported it. Interesting.
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Then please tell us exactly where is the code wrong there, surely you must know this to make statements like the one you just did.
I and others have repeatably stated that problem isn't always in the most obvious place and thus hard to fix, STO isn't some early 1980s program with 1000 lines of code max so going thru the code line by line trying to look for what might be wrong is gonna take a very long time, especially if those pieces of code work just fine in isolation but when combined fail.
Literally none of that is my responsibility. Even reporting them is not my responsibility as seems to be the implication around here as well.
Besides that, I don't buy the argument that when a permanent visual bug shows up in a high traffic area immediately after a patch that somehow they don't have a clue how to fix it.
Game developers have always relied on their playerbase to assist them in identifying bugs in their games through reporting. This is not something unique to Cryptic and/or Star Trek Online. Not every bug's solution is immediately evident, and therefore, takes some investigation to track down its cause. Whether you "buy the argument" or not is irrelevant, but it happens to be true. And respectfully, if you're unwilling to report a bug, then stop your complaining, because at this point it just comes off as whinging and arguing for argument's sake.
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I certainly support people's willingness to report bugs. However, the bug I'm referring to is so painfully obvious that it falls under the category of Cryptic's awareness of their own product. The obligatory "do they even play this game?" applies here. There have been multiple threads about this one on reddit and if by some miracle none of those people reported it, again, where is their quality control? When I see "known issues" listed on patch notes and nothing is there I think they have issues that go well beyond our willingness to report bugs.
The "known issues" section of patch notes is not a dump of their issues database, it's a spot to list some high-priority bug that affects a large number of players. Something like the daily events not giving event progress.
Yes, I am aware. My point is it should be.
It's spelled whining by the way and I never said I wasn't. Frankly I think some whining is in order.
Neigh. No whinnying allowed here.