Beta testing Bugs vs Live update Bugs.

[Daish]

BETA testing

Since release of the game we were introduced to beta testing on many levels, This was a good way both test fly new ships and test the core mechanics of the game, With this we could generate solid bug reports for frontier to look into and deal with before live update release.?

According to the forum archives Since beta testing has stopped effectively Bug reports have gone through the roof for example:

Beta testing phase 2.2 6k+ threads
Beta testing phase 2.3 5k+ threads
Beta testing phase 2.4 1k+ threads
Beta testing phase 3.0 3k+ threads


Live Update 2.1 23k+ threads
Live Update 2.2 45k+ threads
Live Update 2.31 26K+ threads
Live Update 3.0 18k+ threads
Live Update 3.1 6k+ things start to change here and though not each thread is a bug but the volume of threads has clearly increased without beta testing.

It seems clear that during beta testing phases less bugs where reported than actual live updates in some cases by passing the beta testing stage.

My Question for frontier that although you have a team somewhere is there a dedicated team working on both long term major bug fixes as well as more local smaller bugs, and how is core gameplay mechanics sorted for fixed.? not just yes we have people on it???

Sadly frontier are very slow on the ground to provide the community and in depth information on results of fixed game issues, aside from the update patch notes that in many ways seem to fix bugs that are not that important compared with major long term bugs still around in the game today. It would be good to have a fixed forum page so we can search for bug fixes that have been sorted not just known issues page.

With a team of what many people are saying is 100 strong, mix of developers sound artist, core game play, producers and more, it would be nice to know that are our bug reports having the attention they need, or are they all back of the bus?

3.2 bug reports page is building in the hundreds as of today, but I cant help still believe if frontier stopped all work on content, and put all there resources into fixing every issue from long term bugs to minor fixes and game mechanics, then they can start with new content and can handle the shear volume of new bugs and fixes this way they can stay on top of it instead of having thousands of bugs in the pipeline and little to no chance of being looked into.

 

[krautbernd]

I've brought this up multiple times while reporting bugs. Playtesting a new patch before pushing it to live should be a no-brainer. This could probably be streamlined by not featuring a full universe for bug testing, but a test universe compromising two or three solar systems with engineers, surface sites and stations that have all ships and modules available. Simply push the patch to that first and wipe it periodically between patches.

 

[Daish]

Glad i'm not alone, Now was it me or have I seen frontier responding Yes you heard me right responding to tweets today???? they never do that, so perhaps some of the negative is finally leaking through. About time.!

 

[sedilbur]

Not defending them but I told this months before.

They just don't have the team atm to handle a beta period.
Probably all devs has been moved to Q4 new features and new era season (and months before, to jurassic world release).

You can see in previous release, when a big bug was discovered they just disabled the feature rather than fix it directly.

Same with feedback forums beyond. You think it's a good idea at the beginning then you see the among of problem players has been raised up to your attention.

Then you think Oh she* maybe the work is too big for the current team and deadline.

Then you drop it for later release.

For the beta, here is the picture. What is worst ?

- Don't do beta and release live. If problem comes up, uou try to fix or disable it for later review.

- You do a beta testing. Players raise a lot of bugs / problems. But you don't have resource to fix them. So you release live. Players will still be angry or even more because you released a product knowing has lot of bugs unfixed.

- Third you don't want to spoil some part of the story. So you release with the risk of bugs and no intensive beta testing internally.

And talking about feedback forum, it could be good for Frontier so summarize what idea they will try to implement or which things they changed their mind after feedback forum.

And this season, they should clearly fix a mission blackboard once and for all because they can't continue with a system like that. Wing and solo missions for example should be clearly apart. ( I afraid the time they will implement passager wing mission Haha)

 

[Lestat]

I think they are waiting for a larger update or we might have one on 3.4?

 

[Daish]

Not defending them but I told this months before.

They just don't have the team atm to handle a beta period.
Probably all devs has been moved to Q4 new features and new era season (and months before, to jurassic world release).

You can see in previous release, when a big bug was discovered they just disabled the feature rather than fix it directly.

Same with feedback forums beyond. You think it's a good idea at the beginning then you see the among of problem players has been raised up to your attention.

Then you think Oh she* maybe the work is too big for the current team and deadline.

Then you drop it for later release.

For the beta, here is the picture. What is worst ?

- Don't do beta and release live. If problem comes up, uou try to fix or disable it for later review.

- You do a beta testing. Players raise a lot of bugs / problems. But you don't have resource to fix them. So you release live. Players will still be angry or even more because you released a product knowing has lot of bugs unfixed.

- Third you don't want to spoil some part of the story. So you release with the risk of bugs and no intensive beta testing internally.

And talking about feedback forum, it could be good for Frontier so summarize what idea they will try to implement or which things they changed their mind after feedback forum.

And this season, they should clearly fix a mission blackboard once and for all because they can't continue with a system like that. Wing and solo missions for example should be clearly apart. ( I afraid the time they will implement passager wing mission Haha)

It's not the way to develop a big game that only gets bigger, I'm surprised they don't see the simple logic of the more new content they bring out the more it adds it to the bug list, and rinse repeat it gets bigger and bigger until the smaller but major bugs get forgotten about.