Why does it take so long to fix game issues?

[Audaxxx]

It's not supposed to list every bug, it's not even supposed to list every "known issue" - it simply lists the issues where FD have enough information to work on the problem and/or are fully aware of the cause, even if that means adding it to the bottom of a to-do list for an update in the future (i.e. in the case of the ultra-wide issue which has been there since the game launched).

Sorry I may have worded that slightly wrong. What I meant was, are there a lot of commonly reported issues that are missing from this post?

For example;

• The Alliance ship interdiction reticule bug

• The power plant usage bar displaying incorrect values meaning you are unable to set power priorities correctly
• Audio glitching out during ship boost
• SRV scanner audio volume too low to hear and volume control not working
• Wing man nav lock repeatedly drops you hundreds of kilometres away from wingman
• Instancing fails immediately after interdiction dropping you into empty instance

These all had multiple page bug report threads. It is nice to see the NPC power plant bug listed there though.

 

[Stigbob]

Don't know why the answer to most of our questions are top secret. As if someone could take advantage of the information that FDev is fixing bugs, very risky to talk about it indeed.

I don't know why people expect a gamedev company to drop everything and answer the questions of a random customer that could spoil the expensive plan of the marketing department. They'll announce things when they are ready, no point trying to force them.

Sure there is, plans can change.

They'll tell us that, we don't need to continually ask just in case.

 

[Riverside]

I don't know why people expect a gamedev company to drop everything and answer the questions of a random customer that could spoil the expensive plan of the marketing department. They'll announce things when they are ready, no point trying to force them.



They'll tell us that, we don't need to continually ask just in case.

I'm sure you realise the act of chasing up an outstanding item can change the priority order, not chasing it up definitely won't. So there is potentially a downside to letting it all wash over you, whereas there is no real downside to checking on progress on a regular basis.

 

[zarking]

This is an interesting thread that raises good points.
I think, bugs are normal, some are easy to fix, some are a nightmare.

The problem is being amplified by the general feeling that nothing much is happening. Story arcs left unfinished, game design that feels incomplete, new features that aren't fleshed out, add to that a feeling that bugs aren't being looked at after months of reporting then it's easy to see why people are frustrated.

The answer is probably communication. For some games, there's probably no need to hear from the dev team or be kept up to date with what's happening, but elite is a special niche case.
We still have the Kickstarter hangover, with no idea if or when features may be added. We don't have constant incremental patches and updates in game, instead we have quarterly scheduled updates that are generally a mystery and starting to rely too heavily on "yay new ships" as a main feature. As for the long term future, we know nothing (and only one major patch this year that people seem to care about).
It would help to have a lot of communication from the team, even if it's just to say "that bug is a problem, we can fix it but it won't be till next quarter, in the meantime, here's a way to avoid it". I mean, what happened to all the cool live streams and feedback forums that have been mentioned? Like most things in elite, they started promisingly then disappeared into the void

 

[Stigbob]

I'm sure you realise the act of chasing up an outstanding item can change the priority order, not chasing it up definitely won't. So there is potentially a downside to letting it all wash over you, whereas there is no real downside to checking on progress on a regular basis.

There is no outstanding item though, and we already know the release plan is.

Repeatedly checking is fine, as long as you are OK with being ignored or pointed at the last answer you were given.

 

[verminstar]

I'm sure you realise the act of chasing up an outstanding item can change the priority order, not chasing it up definitely won't. So there is potentially a downside to letting it all wash over you, whereas there is no real downside to checking on progress on a regular basis.

Ye mean like the game breaking console srv bug? Oh they archived that one seemingly because they can’t fix it after a year of knowing about it.

Makes this old console gamer feel like a second class player in frontiers eyes...apparently when this bug affected pc players it was fixed fairly quickly...

Food fer thought ^

 

[Riverside]

There is no outstanding item though, and we already know the release plan is.

Repeatedly checking is fine, as long as you are OK with being ignored or pointed at the last answer you were given.

This thread is about bugs, the progress of which is of varying interest to various sections of the community, depending of course on who is most affected by it.

That you don't consider something a priority does not mean it is not important, only that it is not important to you


An example of something some consider a priority is CLogging - it's bad (m'kay), it doesn't affect me, but I can see that it is important. With that example there actually are plausible reasons why some argue it should be left as-is, in the case of a bug report there are not. There is no reason I can see to dismiss the validity of someone chasing up a bug report other than to give what you consider a more important fix higher priority. I don't believe this is the case for you.

 

[Stigbob]

Ye mean like the game breaking console srv bug? Oh they archived that one seemingly because they can’t fix it after a year of knowing about it.

Makes this old console gamer feel like a second class player in frontiers eyes...apparently when this bug affected pc players it was fixed fairly quickly...

Food fer thought ^

It's more effective to pop in a support ticket than moan in random threads QA won't see.

What is this bug anyway ?, genuinely gamebreaking or slightly annoying as I've never even heard of a real ED gamebreaker in the last four years.

 

[Riverside]

Ye mean like the game breaking console srv bug? Oh they archived that one seemingly because they can’t fix it after a year of knowing about it.

Makes this old console gamer feel like a second class player in frontiers eyes...apparently when this bug affected pc players it was fixed fairly quickly...

Food fer thought ^

This is another example of something that is important, but doesn't affect me (I play on PC). I would not act to dissuade anyone from chasing up this bug fix, I would (and do) just leave them to get on with it.

 

[Old Duck]

It does feel like Elite Dangerous is being developed by Mostly Harmless programmers these days. Either that or a Harmless intern programmer added these issues, left the company, and now the Competent programmers who remain can't figure out the messy spaghetti code he or she left behind...

 

[Stigbob]

This thread is about bugs, the progress of which is of varying interest to various sections of the community, depending of course on who is most affected by it.

That you don't consider something a priority does not mean it is not important, only that it is not important to you


An example of something some consider a priority is CLogging - it's bad (m'kay), it doesn't affect me, but I can see that it is important. With that example there actually are plausible reasons why some argue it should be left as-is, in the case of a bug report there are not. There is no reason I can see to dismiss the validity of someone chasing up a bug report other than to give what you consider a more important fix higher priority. I don't believe this is the case for you.

Cloggings not a fixable bug it's an unavoidable side effect of P2P games and human nature, it's also a waste of time as if it ever was fixed people would just learn how to high wake.

The time to address clogging is when you decide if the games worth buying for you or not, if it bothers you don't buy.

 

[racer1]

I'm a SW dev, a lot of complaints I see from people about "game breaking bugs" are simply not game breaking in the eyes of a dev.

Don't get me wrong, ED has more bugs than any other game I play, but all the other games are AAA/big studio titles. They also typically don't have on going development, they're just bug fixing not adding new features.

A game breaking bug means you can not play the game at all, that is not the same as can not play how you want. Any sort of work around means it's not game breaking.

Since ED has on going development, bugs are not the priority, features are. Features sell games - at least that is what marketing departments believe. Only a selection of high priority bugs will be marked as to be fixed in each release.

Fixing bugs and releasing patches piece meal creates a lot of extra overhead for the dev team.

I do believe ED has a QA problem though. So many times we've seen new things released that simply don't work.

Because it is P2P the networking problems are very difficult to debug. It often won't be possible to tell if it is a bug or just some poor networking somewhere between different peers.

 

[verminstar]

It's more effective to pop in a support ticket than moan in random threads QA won't see.

What is this bug anyway ?, genuinely gamebreaking or slightly annoying as I've never even heard of a real ED gamebreaker in the last four years.

Take a peek into the console subs and read the threads in both Xbox1 and ps4 subs...active threads in both cases.

In the case of both, it was first a complete crashing when more than one cmdr tried to deploy the srv making group play on a planet nigh on impossible.

The xb1 version of the same big ups the ante somewhat as it strikes even when playing solo...it’s worse when in open around any number of other players at all.

When the bug hits, the only thing that works is a complete restart of the console which means not only logging out, but restarting the client and emptying the cache before logging in again and hoping ye get off the planet before the bug hits yet again meaning yet another full restart.

It was first reported almost a year ago to which the standard spam excuse of being aware of it was offered. Even those copy and paste excuses stopped some time ago and the bug remains on both consoles with no word on when or even if it will be fixed.

Any bug that requires a full client and machine reboot is quite literally the very definition of a game breaking bug. But as yer a pc player, console players are easier to ignore...certainly appears to be the case in regards to frontier.

Maybe we just didn’t make enough noise about it despite it being reported in the bug sections by scores of players...our reward being they archived it which translates into they couldn’t care less.

By all means stig...fairly sure ye will have an excuse all lined up and ready to go to counter that...because it doesn’t affect you personally, ye don’t seem to realise or care that it very much does affect many others.

Bit of a recurring theme with you if I’m not mistaken...is why I normally just ignore ye unless it’s a genuine question cos as far as I’m concerned, yer one the biggest trolls on this forum bar none ^

 

[Stigbob]

Take a peek into the console subs and read the threads in both Xbox1 and ps4 subs...active threads in both cases.

In the case of both, it was first a complete crashing when more than one cmdr tried to deploy the srv making group play on a planet nigh on impossible.

The xb1 version of the same big ups the ante somewhat as it strikes even when playing solo...it’s worse when in open around any number of other players at all.

When the bug hits, the only thing that works is a complete restart of the console which means not only logging out, but restarting the client and emptying the cache before logging in again and hoping ye get off the planet before the bug hits yet again meaning yet another full restart.

It was first reported almost a year ago to which the standard spam excuse of being aware of it was offered. Even those copy and paste excuses stopped some time ago and the bug remains on both consoles with no word on when or even if it will be fixed.

Any bug that requires a full client and machine reboot is quite literally the very definition of a game breaking bug. But as yer a pc player, console players are easier to ignore...certainly appears to be the case in regards to frontier.

Maybe we just didn’t make enough noise about it despite it being reported in the bug sections by scores of players...our reward being they archived it which translates into they couldn’t care less.

By all means stig...fairly sure ye will have an excuse all lined up and ready to go to counter that...because it doesn’t affect you personally, ye don’t seem to realise or care that it very much does affect many others.

Bit of a recurring theme with you if I’m not mistaken...is why I normally just ignore ye unless it’s a genuine question cos as far as I’m concerned, yer one the biggest trolls on this forum bar none ^

There's a planetary bug fix from PC that might help you there, whenever things go wrong in an SRV just restart the base game without Horizons, you'll spawn in your ship above the planet. Now switch back problem solved.

Sorry if the helpful advice for the trivial problem goes against your preconceptions.

 

[Riverside]

Cloggings not a fixable bug it's an unavoidable side effect of P2P games and human nature, it's also a waste of time as if it ever was fixed people would just learn how to high wake.

The time to address clogging is when you decide if the games worth buying for you or not, if it bothers you don't buy.

You make a point already accounted for in the post you quoted.

I'll give another example - Orrery view. This is a feature which, if added would give me no downside. However I argue against it because I believe it would be a lot of work reproducing existing features (sysmap & supercruise). I would prefer that time be devoted to many, many more important features (imo of course). I argued similarly against the planet re-colouring. It does look pretty but I thought it looked pretty before too, and could have waited for the planet surface changes mooted for Q418.

You seem to be taking the stance that nothing should be chased up, I can't agree with this. If no response is given it should be chased up until a response one way or another is received. If possible this should be done politely & with due respect, but it is down to the individual to chase up the thing they consider an issue in whatever way they think works for them.

If being polite doesn't work it's not unreasonable for some to become less patient. This is where Community Managers (should) shine, to stay on top of stuff like this.

 

[verminstar]

This is another example of something that is important, but doesn't affect me (I play on PC). I would not act to dissuade anyone from chasing up this bug fix, I would (and do) just leave them to get on with it.

As yer just another player on a different platform, there’s really not an awful lot ye could do anyway. The devs are the only ones who might have been able to help...but they seem just as uninterested as anyone else who doesn’t have to suffer it.

Tells me all I need to know about console gamers and frontier I’m afraid...is ok I’ve moved on fer now to a game where console gamers are welcome as opposed to merely tolerated ^

 

[GreyAreaUK]

There's a planetary bug fix from PC that might help you there, whenever things go wrong in an SRV just restart the base game without Horizons, you'll spawn in your ship above the planet. Now switch back problem solved.

I may be wrong, but I don't think the console versions have the non-Horizons version.

 

[verminstar]

There's a planetary bug fix from PC that might help you there, whenever things go wrong in an SRV just restart the base game without Horizons, you'll spawn in your ship above the planet. Now switch back problem solved.

Sorry if the helpful advice for the trivial problem goes against your preconceptions.

Only that doesn’t sort the issue because it’s not possible to fire up ED without horizons if it’s already installed.

Nice try but no cigar...wanna try again?

Besides...that’s just a workaround, not a fix. If the solution is the workaround then...haha ye ok cyas around ^

 

[Riverside]

Tells me all I need to know about console gamers and frontier I’m afraid...is ok I’ve moved on fer now to a game where console gamers are welcome as opposed to merely tolerated ^

So many issues are left for so long I don't think that's a reasonable conclusion based on the examples you have given. As time goes on the number of topics waiting for a response grows, regardless of platform.

 

[Stigbob]

You make a point already accounted for in the post you quoted.

I'll give another example - Orrery view. This is a feature which, if added would give me no downside. However I argue against it because I believe it would be a lot of work reproducing existing features (sysmap & supercruise). I would prefer that time be devoted to many, many more important features (imo of course). I argued similarly against the planet re-colouring. It does look pretty but I thought it looked pretty before too, and could have waited for the planet surface changes mooted for Q418.

You seem to be taking the stance that nothing should be chased up, I can't agree with this. If no response is given it should be chased up until a response one way or another is received. If possible this should be done politely & with due respect, but it is down to the individual to chase up the thing they consider an issue in whatever way they think works for them.

If being polite doesn't work it's not unreasonable for some to become less patient. This is where Community Managers (should) shine, to stay on top of stuff like this.

I don't know what an orrery is, sounds a bit like a large flightless bird.

Community managers don't do bugfixing, you can PM the QA chaps if you have a query.