Issue 6 - "Automated Accounts Influencing BGS and Powerplay": Omission from the Top 20 Issues Report

Jmanis

Jmanis
metatheurgist said:
Yep, I don't bother reporting bugs anymore. I don't have a group of players to push my agenda.

It's kinda weird that the push to favor groups in early dev even got as far as the issue tracker. 😂
Click to expand...
Yeah same... it's pretty frustrating to put the time and effort into composing a detailed report of a bug with screenshots, logs, expected behaviour, actual behaviour and a pathway to fixing it, only to have that aged-off in favour of something crazy open-ended like "Travelling in a APEX shuttle is boring, fix plox".

I do search to ensure issues are reported, but now just put in at most a few sentences, because taking the time and effort out of actually playing the game to replicate an issue (which can be at least half an hour of effort or more of playing the game, depending on the nature of the bug) when other reports with less effort put in get the airtime is just a waste.
 
Last edited:

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Jmanis said:
Yeah same... it's pretty frustrating to put the time and effort into composing a detailed report of a bug with screenshots, logs, expected behaviour, actual behaviour and a pathway to fixing it, only to have that aged-off in favour of something crazy open-ended like "Travelling in a APEX shuttle is boring, fix plox".

I do search to ensure issues are reported, but now just put in at most a few sentences, because taking the time and effort out of actually playing the game to replicate an issue (which can be at least half an hour of effort or more of playing the game, depending on the nature of the bug) when other reports with less effort put in get the airtime is just a waste.
Click to expand...
I only fill in bug reports during betas and after updates now. Trouble is, playing fringe features in ED means the bugs I find just won;t get fixed, or take ages so its quite dispiriting.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
ivys0re said:
oh gosh i had no idea it was that bad. campaigning to get issues noticed really does seem like the only way to highlight issues and make sure they have staying power, with this knowledge in mind.
Click to expand...
metatheurgist said:
Yep, I don't bother reporting bugs anymore. I don't have a group of players to push my agenda.
Click to expand...

This is one of the particularly silly things - you have to campaign at least a little bit to get all but the most obvious bugs to Confirmed, so most of the bugs which do get to Confirmed have a whole bunch of confirmations with paraphrases of "As in original report" on them, which adds no value to anyone.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
The other annoyance is that bugs which really mess things up but not voted on get ignored or left as well.

In a previous beta I reported a bug where you could not submit combat bonds in Powerplay, a bug that essentially cripples a combat power. Took two weeks (i.e. two cycles) to be looked at. Five minutes after I posted it, it was on page two at the bottom buried under 'FSS sucks' reports.

Combat powers also had a bug which spawned CZ ships with no weapons, so powers wound up expanding uncontrollably and wrecking (in some cases years worth) of work keeping a power solvent. This took nearly three weeks (if I recall right) to fix, and totaled a lot of players.
 

Mrjupp

Mrjupp
OK botting can be a good thing (and I am against game botting). Set up a ton of gmail accounts, register on the Forum under those accounts and support a particular issue like the Smuggling issue, the BGS issues etc and post support via the Bugs reporting etc. Manipulate the bug reports.

If you need a game account to report bugs, the basic game is dirt cheap or even free at times. Assign a Gmail acount to each then bug report away and upvote.

I want to see alien Unicorns in game fighting the Thargoids. So create 2,000 accounts and upvote demanding alien Unicorns. :p

If bug reporting is going to be by popular demand, Frontier is only perpetuating botting.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
Ian Doncaster said:
This is one of the particularly silly things - you have to campaign at least a little bit to get all but the most obvious bugs to Confirmed, so most of the bugs which do get to Confirmed have a whole bunch of confirmations with paraphrases of "As in original report" on them, which adds no value to anyone.
Click to expand...
or worse, multiple active reports for which a bunch get locked as duplicate, another bunch don't get deduplicated because they're the same issue reported in slightly different ways e.g "unable to find outbreak massacre targets" vs "outbreak massacre doesn't spawn targets" vs "can't find infected ships", so you have more than enough reports collectively, but they all fly under the radar and eventually just expire.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
Mrjupp said:
If you need a game account to report bugs, the basic game is dirt cheap or even free at times. Assign a Gmail acount to each then bug report away and upvote.
Click to expand...
I'm definitely guilty of adding contributions to the same issue from multiple accounts... on one occasion saving an issue from being expired to being confirmed. That's how dumb the whole setup is.
 

Phoenix_Dfire

Phoenix_Dfire
Jmanis said:
Precisely why basics things like Smuggling are yet to be fixed... it's really just a self-fulfilling prophecy the way things are set up. Unless an issue is a FOTM hot topic or backed by some issue motivated group with a generally-singular view on how things need to be, usually to the detriment of the game, it never gets fixed. The game is peppered with issues (resolved and otherwise) like this, and suffers heavily for it.

Smuggling isn't popular because it's broken. Smuggling won't get fixed because it's unpopular. Smuggling is unpopular because it's broken.

This is a bad approach. (Corollary: fixing popular bugs doesn't necessitate creating a good game experience, it's just firefighting)
Click to expand...
This is the approach they've had for years. Because the player base didn't play CQC (due to match making problems), PP or Multi-crew (due to people being mostly hacked off with the rewards*), those parts of the game never got looked at again (Mulitcrew has been updated as part of Odyssey but it did take four years).

In all three cases, issues with the gameplay stopped people from playing and because people didn't play, those issues weren't fixed. A perfect vicious circle. We on Lave Radio were jumping up and down in frustration saying that both CQC and PP needed a little bit more work before people would engage with it properly, but it was obvious that Frontier was moving on to other features by then. From a dev point of view, it's understandable to focus on what people were playing (I.e. the BGS and re-doing Engineering), especially when you have limited resources.

However it is still frustrating when you actually discover that these neglected game modes are quite fun (Trust me I was surprised how much fun Powerplay is when you join an organised group) and then come up against it's limitations that everyone else has been complaining about for ages.

* Ironically, I thought fdev got the rewards right with the Multi-crew. The upshot was that people wanted the same reward as pilots in a wing. However, that was unfair because there is no threat/ death mechanic for the crew in Multi-Crew. They're not risking anything and so it's free kills and credits, so frontier decided to limit that. Ironically, since then, all the ways to earn credits have become too easy and it doesn't really matter anymore but the limits still stay in place because of no updates.
 
Last edited:

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Phoenix_Dfire said:
This is the approach they've had for years. Because the player base didn't play CQC (due to match making problems), PP or Multi-crew (due to people being mostly hacked off with the rewards*), those parts of the game never got looked at again (Mulitcrew has been updated as part of Odyssey but it did take four years).

In all three cases, issues with the gameplay stopped people from playing and because people didn't play, those issues weren't fixed. A perfect vicious circle. We on Lave Radio were jumping up and down in frustration saying that both CQC and PP needed a little bit more work before people would engage with it properly, but it was obvious that Frontier was moving on to other features by then. From a dev point of view, it's understandable to focus on what people were playing (I.e. the BGS and re-doing Engineering), especially when you have limited resources.

However it is still frustrating when you actually discover that these neglected game modes are quite fun (Trust me I was surprised how much fun Powerplay is when you join an organised group) and then come up against it's limitations that everyone else has been complaining about for ages.
Click to expand...
I always see Tyrell and Roy Batty in situations like these.

Roy looks at his 'dad' and asks "Can the creator repair what he makes?". Tyrells like "No".
 

Northpin

Northpin
KKomrade Sylas said:
many player groups still are facing the issue of targeted botting and are disappearing from the game because of it.
Click to expand...

Any facts to back this up?
And i mean facts, not suppositions, assumptions or hearsay.


Riverside said:
No you don't. You understandably want more, you certainly don't need more.

You have found yourself in a position where you feel unable to trust the referee (Frontier Support). All you can do in that situation is play on a different pitch.

The lack of action you describe can be explained just as easily by a paranoid player base whipped up into a frenzy of witchhunting as it can by inaction on the part of FDev, and inaction can be explained just as easily by a lack of evidence rather than to apathy.
Click to expand...

Basically this ☝️
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
Bier00t said:
Most of the issues expire cause of duplicates which are not voted on consistently...
Click to expand...
Which is no fault of the players, IMO.

Your average player doesn't even use the forums, let alone coordinate with other players to ensure they all report the same issue. Reporting a bug for a game shouldn't require any coordination whatsoever. On a related note, many games I've played don't even have an "issue tracker" site or somesuch to go looking for similar problems... you just lodge a report from within the game, and you can track it's progress from there.

Besides, 1,000 bug reports of the same issue is just as valid as 1 bug report with 1,000 comments of "replicated as per OP". FD ignore the former at their own peril.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom