Wow, I'm actually quite surprised by a lot of your responses. I wasn't trying to demonstrate game breaking bugs to you, though I have those that have expired too and may or may not still be present in the game. You might also notice if you'd looked at them that the first one was raised 2 years ago when they didn't have their hands full.
Who says they didn't have more important issue two years ago? The visual appearance of a star has no impact on the game play - even those who notice it aren't losing in-game assets or failing missions as a result. It's an issue that can easily be ignored by the relatively small group of players that are able to notice it in the first place - that's not to say that it doesn't matter at all, just that even relatively minor bugs that actually affect gameplay will take priority every time.
The point of reporting bugs isn't that other people say "oh yes I understand what this means, I also can confirm this happens", it's about highlighting them to the developer.
Actually, the point of the bug tracker absolutely is to give other users a chance to say, "Yes, this happens to me, too" - the developers only have so much time in a day with which to work on things; there are simply way too many bug reports for them to just treat any and all reports as equal. So they focus on the most problematic bugs first, at all times. After the really obvious bugs, the next step is to see which issues on the tracker get the most confirmations, because those are the bugs that illicit the most reactions from the players - fixing those bugs will improve the experience for far more players per bug than if they spent a day working on a bug that only one player has reported. It's all about time management.
Sorry, it makes more sense to use the plot route icon rather than the target icon that already exists? You use the System Map to target objects when you're in the system. Do you use the Navigation Panel to select each of the planets until you find the Earth-Like World you're looking for? Or how do you find the planet with the Argon atmosphere you scanned in the FSS earlier. You use the System Map, target the object and then fly there.
Plus of course you're neglecting to take into account that when you look at a different system to the one you're currently in the label says 'Plot Route' and displays the Plot Route icon. When you are in the System itself the label says 'Set Target' but still displays the Plot Route icon. It's a bug.
Let's start small - say you're attempting to plot a route to a body in the same system you're already in... what's your next FSD jump?
There is none. So for the route plotter, which deals with system-to-system jumps, there is no route to plot. Therefore, only one icon is needed in-system. However, if you're attempting to target a specific body in a system you're not in yet, then you technically need to plot a jump, THEN target the body - they have simply made it so that you don't actually have to do each step individually; instead, you "plot" to the body, which actually equates to plotting to the system, then targeting the body.
Plotting system to system and targeting within a system are two separate, closely related processes - they aren't one and the same. While it is possible to target OR plot a system that you're not currently in, it is only actually possible to target a body within your current system - having two icons to achieve that same result would be more confusing than the current system.
But, again, this isn't game-breaking - it's like complaining that the color is slightly off...
So bugs that affect a few players are always going to be lower priority than bugs that affect considerably more players - let's consider a worst-case scenario: two bugs, but they can only fix one, and they will lose the players affected by the one they don't address first. Is it wiser to retain a few players at the loss of many, or the other way around? Again, it's triage.
You didn't actually look at the issues did you? Though even I, as a software tester, have a limit to the amount of times I can be bothered to spend the time to rewrite a bug report.
I looked at it - my advice was meant to be more general, not specific to your case, but I did word it poorly. Sorry about that - I actually meant to acknowledge that you already did link the expired reports, but I probably deleted more than intended during a hasty edit.
Who said it wouldn't? Surely as part of the triage methods you would have person(s) assigned to checking through at least weekly and sorting through issues that might be duplicates and closing them as such, or marking invalid, or by design? But that doesn't happen.
The point of an automated issue tracking system is to perform some triage
without requiring man-hours that can be spent elsewhere. Otherwise, it becomes just another forum thread to be manually panned through, but with more steps. The developer interaction comes after that triage, when there is more certainty that their time is well spent rather than wasted.
But as demonstrated in the post and thread I linked, the expiration mechanic is a manual dump of issues just after an update.
Some are manually expired, yes, after an update - the changes that have been made may have negated the underlying cause, so the developers might end up wasting valuable time chasing bugs that no longer exist. It is sometimes more efficient, therefore, to expire the reports from old versions of the software, and let the players re-report (and link the expired issue).
But manually expired issues and time-expired issues are not mutually exclusive, so the existence of one does nothing to demonstrate that the other never happens.
I guess things like illegal goods being incorrectly marked down by 25%, meaning that Smuggling goods makes a loss. One of the selling points and professions advertised on the website being broken since December 2018 isn't important. Cause that bug was raised on the forum before we moved to the issue tracker. We then had to recreate the report when the issue tracker launched. It then expired, twice, and finally on the third time it managed to get confirmed. Where it's sat for 20 months!
Confirming that they
dont' manually expire all issues arbitrarily - while they don't tell
you there reasoning for every move they make, clearly there is
some criteria being used to determine what steps to take.
Also, that's another example of a bug that seems low priority. Not meaningless or unimportant, but not the kind of bug that will ruin the game for the majority of players either. The number of players who incorporate that particular form of smuggling as a core component of their gameplay are likely vastly outnumbered by those who don't. Fixing it would please a handful of players, sure, but a much larger percentage of the player base would see it on the change log and say, "I never noticed that" and proceed to look for the issues that
have been bothering them. Again, triage.
And now you hit the nub of the problem. When the Issue Tracker was first introduced we were categorically told it would not be used as a way of determining which issues were a priority. Then earlier this year the stance changed and we were told that was exactly how they had now decided to use it.
You misunderstood - the only reason to devote any time to developing an issue tracker is to use it as a tool for more effective issue tracking; claiming that it would not be used for its only purpose would be odd, especially right after they spent the time to build it in the first place.
At most, FDev would have included a disclaimer that filing an issue report does not constitute any promise that they will change anything, or that any changes will be dictated by the players' suggestions. It is a feedback tool, not a place to make demands, and there are always some players who forget that the center of the Elite universe isn't on them, so such a disclaimer is typical. That doesn't mean FDev threw development time at an elaborate website for us to scream into a void - they still use the feedback.
So that means whoever can drum up the most support for an issue can artificially inflate it's "ranking" to make sure that it gets looked at ahead of issues that may actually be far worse.
No, that means that issues that affect more players will naturally rise to the top of the priority list, as it should be. That is literally the purpose of the tool, to assist the developers in prioritizing their time.
Sure, it's possible for the influencers within the community to use that influence to sway things - this is true in all things. But if they hyper-focus on minor issues that aren't actually a big deal to the rest of the community, they'll waste their influence and possibly lose it in the long run. I've seen some of the issues that some streamers have raised awareness about - they're not bribing anyone, they're not "cheating" the system. Not every issue they highlight gets attention right away - no significant number of players is blindly taking orders about which issues to confirm.
And besides, confirmation does require some proof - people aren't faking log files and screen shots to "win" some perceived popularity contest.
You can see this played out with the top 20 issues threads for example where 3 of the top 20 issues aren't actually bugs, but issues that people have artificially inflated because they had the backing.
Bug reporting systems should not be left up to the players to decide which ones need fixing. It's like listening to suggestions on how the game should be made from the forums
So if you have to fight fire with fire you do. Please vote on this issue, with all of your alt accounts too (because that's allowed) and let's keep it in the top 20 where I have managed to get it.
https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/12357
Sounds like you're complaining that you thought you found a way to cheat, and it isn't working, so you assume others had the same idea and did it better than you...
However, the players absolutely should be allowed to give feedback - they're the ones using the product. It does appear that your opinions aren't representative of any majority among the playerbase, but eliminating player feedback includes yours, so I'm not sure how that would help you. The only way to get smaller issues to the front of the queue is for the higher priority issues to be dealt with, not ignored.
Admitting, on FDev's own forums, to using alt accounts on their issue tracker for the express purpose of intentionally and artificially inflating your own wants over those of the rest of the player base is, however, a bold move, I guess
