When is the Issue Tracker going to be looked at?

[Ozric]

So this is a question that I and others have raised quite a few times. In December of last year in the second AMA I asked:

Can I ask when the Issue Tracker will be addressed? There are many bugs within the tracker itself and also there is no way to get reliable feedback on what is going on. This issue I linked last week was raised in January 2020 and it is still just 'confirmed'. I have had bugs that have "expired" just because 10 Cmdrs didn't confirm the bug, but it is still present in the game. Some issues expire after 30 days, others persist for over a year without being confirmed. The confirmation/voting system is heavily weighted to those who can amass enough people to push their own agenda, which we were told it would not be used for when it was introduced, but were later told that's how it's intended to be used.

Also in April of last year 1,016 issues were wiped off the tracker in one day. If you assume a conservative 5 minutes per issue created, then that's around 85 hours of player time spent creating issues, just gone.

Unfortunately this doesn't create an environment where people feel as though they should raise bugs on the issue tracker, a lot of people do see it as a waste of time. This is a big problem now, but when we get to Odyssey it will become a huge problem. I really think we need some good strong feedback on the tracker itself and that changes need to be made by the time Odyssey is released in order to make it a success.


Arthur did reply to me

Hey Ozric,
I agree this needs work - it is a big job but it is on my list, for full transparancy I plan at diving into this in the New Year as currently there are a lot of wheels in motion.
-Arf

I had planned on asking a couple of weeks ago in another AMA, but the AMAs were stopped so I left it a few more. We're now in February and the release of Odyssey has been pushed back, which gives more time to sort out the issue tracker and either replace it or overhaul the way it is worked. So I was wondering @Arthur Tolmie if you had made any progress into this?

The issue tracker in it's current state is not fit for purpose. Currently there are 3,411 Confirming, 125 Confirmed, and 122 Acknowledged! Those figures alone show that there's a problem. When was the last time we had an update that put multiple fixes into the game? September?

There used to be a user who kept an eye on the changes in totals for the issue tracker, but after a year doing it and having grown demoralised they stopped. Looking at the last image they produced you can see why

Issues build up and then are just wiped off of the tracker in swathes. There is no communication, no feedback as to why your issues have been removed or expired. This issue I made in July 2020 that's 7 months ago, and it's still not expired even though it doesn't have 10 confirmations and has gone past the 30 day limit.

It is still an issue.

This is an issue expired because it didn't get 10 confirmations

It is still an issue. Also note how the Expired message doesn't suggest I create another issue if I am still experiencing the problem. I am only to contact CS if the issue is "heavily impacting" my account/game. And just to end on a lighter note, there's the problems with the issue tracker itself.

Edit The number of votes displaying has been fixed, but I have no idea which ones I have currently voted on as the list only shows 12.

12 seems to be a recurring theme because if I look at the issues I have contributed to, I have apparently also contributed to 12... even though it only shows 4... and even though those are all issues I created, not contributed to.

I've worked in QA for 9 years, and I am sorry to say I've never seen a system as bad as this. We've had it for almost 2 years now and if we're going to make a decent attempt of reporting bugs and trying to work to get them fixed throughout the Alpha and Beta of Odyssey, then something needs to be done!

 

[Danieros]

I think the main issue is much more fundamental - any kind of bug tracker or issue tracker assumes that there will be the fixing part at some intervals. Anything that reaches the full 5 "pips" should be end up getting fixed in the next patch aimed at bugs, or at least some explanation on why it wasn't possible to do it.

We do not get bug fixing patches if it isn't the most critical type: breaking the game access. So only critical stuff like EGS users not being able to play, PS4 users losing Horizons access get fixed or broken PWA.

This shows that Frontier, despite having over 100+ developers working on the game, does not give us an impression that even a single one of them is dedicated exclusively to bug fixing. Because of it, any bug tracking will be mostly useless like a placebo, but even worse - the issue tracker has been shown to auto-expire issues and have vote limits. Stuff like megaship looting (which also cause some of the megaship attack scenarios to be impossible to lose) have been broken for years, critical Powerplay exploitable bugs reported 6 months ago are getting abused to destroy territory that took years to form.

It doesn't need to be weekly bug fixes, it doesn't need to be monthly. Quarterly seems reasonable. But it definitely should not be at the mercy of content patches or expansions - those can get delayed.

 

[Ozric]

It doesn't need to be weekly bug fixes, it doesn't need to be monthly. Quarterly seems reasonable. But it definitely should not be at the mercy of content patches or expansions - those can get delayed.

For that brief period of time during Beyond, this worked rather well indeed. We had 3 great patches that year, that did a lot to stabilise the game. Unfortunately the Exploration patch at the end of the year really didn't help, and since then there's been a handful of sporadic patches and we are unfortunately still feeling the repercussions of the Fleet Carriers update.

But I accepted early on last year that realistically FC was going to be the only thing happening before Odyssey, as they'd said that virtually everyone was working on Odyssey. So we'll have to see what happens after it's release, I hope we go back to regular bug fixing patches. But the issue tracker is something that can be sorted out before then, so that we can move forward from the Odyssey release in the right way.

 

[Mrc_NorthEast]

The Issue Tracker Issue(s) and all the other 'bugs' that I believe Fdev will say are 'features' or 'working as designed' are why I will not be paying more $$$ for Odyssey, no matter when it comes out. Do not reward bad behavior on FDev's part is my motto. What is yours?

 

[Ozric]

What is yours?

Treat other people as you would want to be treated yourself.

 

[Old Duck]

While on the subject, Frontier would you PLEASE remove the captcha gatekeeper from hell? This a bug-reporting sight, not my bank or MI6. I already need to enter my username and password, which no bot should have access to. If you need a captcha, have it on the account CREATION page, not on something so trivial as a bug tracking sight. I refuse to bother with this broken bug tracker because there are so many ridiculous barriers to entry (shame, because when I used to report bugs, I did a good job at providing details, screenshots, videos, and other evidence).

BTW, neither my bank nor Amazon nor just about anything else forces me to prove that I am human in order to use access it..

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

So this is a question that I and others have raised quite a few times. In December of last year in the second AMA I asked:

Can I ask when the Issue Tracker will be addressed? There are many bugs within the tracker itself and also there is no way to get reliable feedback on what is going on. This issue I linked last week was raised in January 2020 and it is still just 'confirmed'. I have had bugs that have "expired" just because 10 Cmdrs didn't confirm the bug, but it is still present in the game. Some issues expire after 30 days, others persist for over a year without being confirmed. The confirmation/voting system is heavily weighted to those who can amass enough people to push their own agenda, which we were told it would not be used for when it was introduced, but were later told that's how it's intended to be used.

Also in April of this year 1,016 issues were wiped off the tracker in one day. If you assume a conservative 5 minutes per issue created, then that's around 85 hours of player time spent creating issues, just gone.

Unfortunately this doesn't create an environment where people feel as though they should raise bugs on the issue tracker, a lot of people do see it as a waste of time. This is a big problem now, but when we get to Odyssey it will become a huge problem. I really think we need some good strong feedback on the tracker itself and that changes need to be made by the time Odyssey is released in order to make it a success.


Arthur did reply to me


I had planned on asking a couple of weeks ago in another AMA, but the AMAs were stopped so I left it a few more. We're now in February and the release of Odyssey has been pushed back, which gives more time to sort out the issue tracker and either replace it or overhaul the way it is worked. So I was wondering @Arthur Tolmie if you had made any progress into this?

The issue tracker in it's current state is not fit for purpose. Currently there are 3,411 Confirming, 125 Confirmed, and 122 Acknowledged! Those figures alone show that there's a problem. When was the last time we had an update that put multiple fixes into the game? September?

There used to be a user who kept an eye on the changes in totals for the issue tracker, but after a year doing it and having grown demoralised they stopped. Looking at the last image they produced you can see why
View attachment 206809

Issues build up and then are just wiped off of the tracker in swathes. There is no communication, no feedback as to why your issues have been removed or expired. This issue I made in July 2020 that's 7 months ago, and it's still not expired even though it doesn't have 10 confirmations and has gone past the 30 day limit.

It is still an issue.

This is an issue expired because it didn't get 10 confirmations

It is still an issue. Also note how the Expired message doesn't suggest I create another issue if I am still experiencing the problem. I am only to contact CS if the issue is "heavily impacting" my account/game. And just to end on a lighter note, there's the problems with the issue tracker itself.

I seem to have -8 votes left... So not only do I not know how many of my precious votes I have left, I have no idea which ones I have currently voted on as the list only shows 12.

12 seems to be a recurring theme because if I look at the issues I have contributed to, I have apparently also contributed to 12... even though it only shows 4... and even though those are all issues I created, not contributed to.

I've worked in QA for 9 years, and I am sorry to say I've never seen a system as bad as this. We've had it for almost 2 years now and if we're going to make a decent attempt of reporting bugs and trying to work to get them fixed throughout the Alpha and Beta of Odyssey, then something needs to be done!

we may get small seismic charges before they fix the issue tracker, but +1 to your cause.

 

[Alec Turner]

I just wanted to add my voice to this plea. I'm usually a very conscientious and patient person and I've spent years telling people that (like it or loathe it) it's important we report issues using the tracker because that's the only way they have a hope of getting fixed (i.e. neither A: simply waiting in the vain hope that Frontier will surely spot and fix the issue themselves, or B: complaining about it on the forum loudly enough to rally a mob, are the proper way to go about getting things noticed and fixed).

This is no longer true tho.

I think what finally broke me was the automatic EXPIRY of issues I'd spent a lot of time either reporting or contributing to, issues which were unequivocally bugs, easily repeatable by any dev' with a desire to check.

For example:

These are separate reports, both expired, on a bug which still exists in the game right now and is easy to confirm.

Frankly that EXPIRED is just a brutal slap in the face.

After the 4th or 5th such expiry I'm afraid I finally gave up.

My current attitude is that there's almost no point reporting bugs. Frontier may spot and fix the odd thing that's either very serious or affects credits (sad but true) but otherwise I've currently come to terms with the fact that I just have to live with all the many many little bugs that I spot in this game.

That seems like a pretty damn sad situation to me.

 

[sgurr]

Others have been far more patient than I have, I gave up on the issue tracker long ago when legitmate issues I'd logged didn't get enough 'votes' to confirm and so disappeared.
I guess I can understand wanting to get a sense of which issues are most important to the community but the way it works is a huge barrier to getting legitimate issues logged.
Also, the search functionality in the tracker is effectively useless, and combined with the number of confirmations needed means that 'votes' get spread across mutiple reports of the same issue and disappear.

Sorry about this CM's but every time I hear one of you asking us to log an issue as "it will get looked at" I want to throw something at my screen.

The current process will make getting Odyssey into a playable state much harder than it needs to be.

 

[CptArcher]

I completely support this thread. I love this game. We've been complaining for months and months already about lag and it is still really bad. It's a known issue, why so slow to fix? It's darn near unbearable on Xbox at times. There was an issue submitted about galnet commodity pricing that I wanted to help contribute to, we have many people confirm it, but it's still confirming. Even if it gets confirmed, it has to get voted on, then acknowledged, then who knows what happens after that? There are even little things like button bindings getting forgotten which is well known yet nothing gets done about it.

I love this game though. It's not perfect, we know that, but there are some little bugs that should have been fixed a long time ago too.

 

[MickyG1982]

Of course, if folk, rather than making up their own issue boosted up an already existing one of the same thing with a "me too" they might actually be able to get to a specific issue rather than have to wade through loads of chaff, guff and bluster. (Sorry, instilled into me by my career choice)

That said, I doubt there will be any major changes to the game as it is, given that all efforts will be going into odyssey and the updates concerned with that.

 

[Old Duck]

Frankly that EXPIRED is just a brutal slap in the face.

This is why I post my bug reports to the forum.

So about those shadows....

Hey Lloyd, I hope you're reading this :) I recently had the opportunity to test Elite Dangerous on the PS4 Pro. One of the major things that tempted me to purchase a Pro was the promise of better shadows in Elite Dangerous. And yes, shadows are pretty darn amazing in ED's quality mode on the...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Another Elephant Butt Leather Thread...

Because Fleet Carriers are still months away, but Elephant Butt Leather is NOW! And like peanut butter and jelly, EBL goes with DDS (dancing disco shadows). For your watching pleasure: Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpNjYnviL6I (feel free to visit the channel to see countless...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Frontier sees these rants, I'm sure of it. Will they ignore these unofficial bug reports? Probably! After all, they ignore the official ones. But at least this way I get to state my evidence for the record without having to jump through 100000 hoops, only to have all that work "expired" a month later.

 

[Darth Ender]

i highly doubt frontier really reads this forum. How could they stop their employees from defending their work if they did ...or do they just not care that so many people crap all over whatever efforts their day to day job entails ? It's been a long time since they appear to have had actual developers / content creators on the forum.

The auto-expire system on bugs is genius. Nothing says getting your work done as a manager (of the team responsible for development) as seeing the total number of outstanding bugs drop while not having to associate any man hours to do so. That's promotion level work.

 

[Ozric]

There was an issue submitted about galnet commodity pricing that I wanted to help contribute to, we have many people confirm it, but it's still confirming.

A perfect example of an issue that has more than 10 confirmations, but is still awaiting confirmation. So that part isn't automated either.

It's been a long time since they appear to have had actual developers / content creators on the forum.

Actually one posted yesterday. But the way they get treated by some on this forum, I can understand why they wouldn't want to post.

 

[Bigmaec]

I agree and support this thread wholeheartedly.

 

[Darth Ender]

A perfect example of an issue that has more than 10 confirmations, but is still awaiting confirmation. So that part isn't automated either.

Or do we need to report this as an issue/bug ? will the universe collapse at the recursive bug ticket?

Actually one posted yesterday. But the way they get treated by some on this forum, I can understand why they wouldn't want to post.

i guess it would depend on what that person is actually posting about or responsible for. But i would not expect respect / positive communication if something i was responsible for developing directly was not working the way it should and that I'd likely not be allowed to explain really why that is and why it hasn't been corrected yet because the company i work for doesn't let me or I'd have to throw my superiors under the bus to do so and that amounts to vocational suicide.

I think the people that need to read this forum and be on it responding to certain things should be the decision makers ...who have the authority to give real answers and are directly responsible for why xyz is done like it is or takes as long as it does or why priorities are the way they are. Not the individual contributors (unless they want to).

the angst from long standing bugs comes from not understanding why they're left to expire (incompetence, lack of developer funding, corporate priorities, etc). Just tell us that there is no monetary reason to care about bugs that dont really bother new players in their first 50 hours of playing the game (or only impact like 0.001% of players) and so do not impact corporate income. Then we'll know which issues matter and which dont.

edit: basically, is this the algorithm fdev uses? if (bug.cost_of_bugfix > bug.income_lost_due_to_bug) { // ignore bug } else if(bug.confirmed_by_players > 10 && bug.confirmed_by_fdev && bug.youtube_video_posts > threshhold_gaming_publications_notice) { post_to_developer_kanban_board(bug); }

 

[Alec Turner]

Also, the search functionality in the tracker is effectively useless,

Yeah ... I ran into this just today actually. I was trying to find a bug report about the doors to Thargoid bases no longer requiring a Thargoid probe or sensor to be carried for them to open ('cos personally I reckon this is a bug). Anyway, I just couldn't find one. Then @Ozric here points me at one he'd submitted ages ago (still awaiting sufficient contributions to be confirmed) which contained all the words I'd been searching for in its description. Well hell, if we can't even find similar reports then how the hell are we supposed to avoid creating duplicates (none of which will then ever get sufficient contributions in their own right). What an absolute farce!

Sorry about this CM's but every time I hear one of you asking us to log an issue as "it will get looked at" I want to throw something at my screen.

Ditto.

 

[HAMM3R]

Reporting Issue Tracker bugs on Issue Tracker be like..

 

[Old Duck]

Actually one posted yesterday. But the way they get treated by some on this forum, I can understand why they wouldn't want to post.

FWIW, my jabs are at the organization rather than individual people. It probably doesn't always read that way, but that's the intent. I've actually interacted with specific developers regarding things I've posted on this forum (they PMed me), and the conversations were always gracious in both direction. When I say "Frontier is clueless", I mean the monolith, the collective whole, not specific individuals; though I have no doubt there may be some clueless individuals making certain decisions. In fact, I bet there are brilliant developers at Frontier who know they could easily fix some of these bugs in a day, but management won't let them for whatever reason. I've personally been there, done that...

 

[pnellesen]

Remember the bug fix priority for ANY game (not just E: D) - if it benefits the player, the TOP MEN get put on it for immediate resolution, 24x7 until it's fixed.

If the bug is detrimental to the player, it get shunted off to a summer Intern to work on in between runs for coffee, donuts, and lunch. Maybe...