It’s not broken, it’s just not 100%, and who says it should be? Sometimes limpets crash and that’s not 100% either. I think they should have gone along with it, research limpets still retrieve plenty of samples and the failure rate still affects everybody so it’s fair.
It's broken because FD says it's broken, and
cancelled an identical CG for exactly the same reasons five years ago.
The closure has come about due to a bug with the research limpets spotted over the weekend, stopping the goal being completed to a high level.
... where the aforementioned bug was research limpets failing to return tissue samples 100% of the time. It's also noteworthy that:
- Before that bug five years ago, Research limpets did return Thargoid tissue samples 100% of the time; and
- Using research limpets against non-Thargoid targets works 100% of the time, even today
The fact history forgot it was confirmed as a bug five years ago, and FD failed to do anything about it between then and now doesn't change that.
The dude on the forums said it had to be 100% Take it up with them, they got it cancelled
OK, let's bury the hatchet.
I did not cancel the CG myself,
nor did I ask to get this cancelled, nor did I imply the CG should be cancelled because of this bug before that occurred. If you can prove otherwise, I'll happily say "Yeah, I probably shouldn't have pushed that line".
I posted a bug report because, with people already collecting tissue samples people were already asking "what the trick was" or "how to guarantee getting samples" and other such things and thought it would be helpful for people to see that. I did highlight that this same issue got exactly the same sort of CG cancelled five years ago. I did highlight the risk that posed to the proposal recent tissue sampling. I did highlight FD failed to resolve this issue five years ago. I got people to add their reports to the bug. I am totally unsurprised that they cancelled the CG because of this bug, and I may even be happy and supportive of their decision because it acknowledges a years-old issue.
But I never asked for the CG to be cancelled, because I literally do not have that sort of authority over FD's agency, . Which is the critical thing here.
FD chose to cancel the CG. If they got together in a room and said "Well damn, some guy who we don't even consider an influencer in this space said there's still an outstanding bug with tissue sampling...
LETS CANCEL THE WHOLE CG AND IMPACT OUR WHOLE PLAYERBASE" ... that's a god awful decision that speaks volumes of FD's design and decision processes, of which there's a litany of examples of bad decisions through the game's history.
As you previously, and
@Brrokk here, point out, FD could have done other things. Maybe they could have reduced volumes, maybe they could've extended the CG... who knows. If they'd done that, I wouldn't have been going "Wow this is so dumb, CG should just be cancelled"... I'd just have been doing what I usually do if I think the gameplay sucks because of design or bug; simply not do it.
But then if, despite the previous assertion from FD this was a bug, and they're now considering this working as intended... closing off the bug as "fixed" is opaque and unsatisfactory. They need to come out and clarify what the intended mechanics are, because the only hard facts come from five years ago, where FD confirmed this was a bug.
But no, FD chose to cancel it, and that's
entirely on them, and there's two ways this could've come about.
- They reviewed the bug, realised it had such significant ramifications, whether purely on the CG or at a more technical level, and felt their only option was to cancel it; or
- They just went "Oh, a single bugreport which has 11 confirmations and minimal votes, not even making our "top bugs" list... well let's just torpedo our own narrative on such a sliver of information".
Regardless of which one it was, I have absolutely no control over that, and again, nor did I ever pitch cancelling the CG as an option; that would be ridiculous.
The bottom line is this: The cancelling of a tissue sampling CG due to this bug is not without precedent, for reasons only FD will know. I and multiple others bugreported it then, and I and multiple others bugreported it now. If FD's response is to panic and hit the "cancel" button on a narrative event for what is, compared to some bugreports, an anecdotal note at best... that just hammers home how fearful FD is of their own product.
But to suggest I personally made this happen? That's insane.