I appreciate the sentiment and perspective but this post was a swing and miss IMO. If anything, they gave the people that have said to “skip a month’s release” more ammunition.
To be honest, they can have a full nuclear Arsenal but there is one undeniable truth: they will never not take a month off from releasing new characters & content because not only do they have their bosses at Netmarble to answer to, but they also have Marvel Comics to answer to, which means they have two major bosses saying to release content and which characters.
I 100% agree with your statement, it’s something that will NEVER HAPPEN. My point was that Dave’s post only talked about how tight their timelines are and tried to justify why there are bugs every month and why some bugs take multiple months to fix.
I don’t want to say they’re making excuses as there’s a difference between excuses and explanations (I believe this is closer to explanation) but the post felt half complete; the last paragraph in Dave’s post said as much. (Paraphrasing) We know this is frustrating we want to provide visibility to the ‘why’ we operate the way we do but trust us things are in the works to get better.
I believe the post would have landed significantly better if they provided more details about what they are changing. I understand they may not be in a spot to share that but in that case I would have held off on the post that was shared because it feels very “woe is us” / “cut us some slack”.
They took months to replicate Galan not placing the right ammount of incinerates lol
Maybe it was just not priority? Like everybody who used Galan might've still been using him in the same frequency and not affected his gameplay at all, so they just kept it down the line. And I don't think it was a case of just changing 7 to a 9. The issue was that harvest was ending too early so they had to change that.
You are completely right, it wasn't a priority back then, like a lot of things, and the result is a bunch of non priority things backed up one after another and a bunch of nonsense changes that should not be a priority. How is a UI change a priority over awful looking VFX that sometimes don't even show SP projectiles. We heard the praise to the art department with their awesome work. The art deparment doesn't miss!!! Well what is the point of them not missing when the end result is champs that look like they were colored with crayons? Why are they messing around with champ sizes in different game modes when they know the hitbox issue was a thing? It took how many raids to realize "hey maybe they should be normal sized..." Priorities I guess...
The way agile method(which is what I assume they use) works is, get things moving, you don't stop developing stuff to fix the bugs and then do the rest of the stuff. It's a "let's circle back to it" or "push the things we can. We fix the rest when we can".
(Hoping I don't get destroyed by someone who actually knows this stuff)
I'm not saying there shouldn't have been more testing or whatnot but yeha
They took months to replicate Galan not placing the right ammount of incinerates lol
Maybe it was just not priority? Like everybody who used Galan might've still been using him in the same frequency and not affected his gameplay at all, so they just kept it down the line. And I don't think it was a case of just changing 7 to a 9. The issue was that harvest was ending too early so they had to change that.
You are completely right, it wasn't a priority back then, like a lot of things, and the result is a bunch of non priority things backed up one after another and a bunch of nonsense changes that should not be a priority. How is a UI change a priority over awful looking VFX that sometimes don't even show SP projectiles. We heard the praise to the art department with their awesome work. The art deparment doesn't miss!!! Well what is the point of them not missing when the end result is champs that look like they were colored with crayons? Why are they messing around with champ sizes in different game modes when they know the hitbox issue was a thing? It took how many raids to realize "hey maybe they should be normal sized..." Priorities I guess...
The way agile method(which is what I assume they use) works is, get things moving, you don't stop developing stuff to fix the bugs and then do the rest of the stuff. It's a "let's circle back to it" or "push the things we can. We fix the rest when we can".
(Hoping I don't get destroyed by someone who actually knows this stuff)
I'm not saying there shouldn't have been more testing or whatnot but yeha
Let's circle back to it is my favorite. You need 7 meetings after that just to get the damn task on the board in your queue
The more I read it… the more it feels like empty words disguised as answers. Too many bugs survive far too long… far longer than this example schedule.
The schedule is an example. Remember, this only applies to issues they can replicate and devise a fix for.
Yep I acknowledged it’s an example. But again that’s an obscure metric and timeline on what they consider replication and when they attempt to do it. The approach has never been balanced, and this post offered 0 insights as to why.
Describe balanced in the sense you're referring to. There are some things that have undoubtedly gone unresolved for a long time. Other things that have taken a long time to be resolved, and others still that are resolved much faster. Part of this is explaining the process. By your skepticism, it seems like there's nothing they could have said that would have been satisfactory. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that. It either sounds like you're asking for them to have their tail between their legs, or a complete list of every issue reported, where they're at in the process, and why things are going wrong. This is the problem when transparency meets expectations. They're rarely in tandem.
Unbalanced, as in there is no discernible rhyme or reason as to what “bug” gets fixed or when. It feels completely reactionary, and anyone who’s played long enough knows that the level of testing is just as unpredictable, as it’s not uncommon to have to deal with unexpected consequences. At this point it’s a meme, the community expects failure and bugs with every release or “fix”.
This is not a “Kabam only fixes pro-player” bugs rant but it’s an observation that as a consumer it’s like a constant spectre that floats over every kit in the game and at the will of a mercurial king will things be addressed. Okoye’s big went from unknown as a bug to fixed from what seems to be a forum comment. Galan’s bug has an 18month old thread begging for acknowledgment, showing proof for it be ignored. There’s little evidence of any prioritization when it comes to character bugs…
And then there’s the Juggernaut debacle where he wasn’t bugged and they decided to “bug fix” him into being bugged… and that took far far longer than it should for one of the most used characters in the game. One they actively sold at a premium price point.
As for the communication, Miike and Jax have effectively communicated things like this before. Many times even, without sounding as dodgy as this one did. So this fell flat. I sincerely appreciate the huge steps forwards and efforts in general by the communication team… I think this is a misfire though. It’s not one that largely detracts from the huge improvement we’ve seen the last month or two, but still a miss.
Balanced in terms of what you're describing depends on a few factors. First of all, you can't fix what you can't isolate. Which is why I mentioned recreating the issue. Secondly, there is undoubtedly a priority to these things. Bug fixes take resources, as they indicated in the Post. Which means you need to triage in a sense, and prioritize the overall effects of those bugs. You used pro-player as an example, and there have been many things left for a long time, simply because they weren't causing harm to the game. There's a kind of a universal priority system for games. Things that cause game-breaking leaks, which some would call pro-player, need to be resolved immediately. Not because people are benefitting from them, but because they break the game more and more as time goes on. Anything exploitable or anything that causes a flood of Resources or devalues the content needs to be worked on quite immediately. Which means they end up coming up with something quite on the spot and less than ideal, out of necessity. Some things aren't as large of a problem and so they're benign. There aren't a great deal of chain reactions caused by them. Some things aren't a big problem until they become a larger problem. Anything that can wait, will wait until they have the time and resources to deal with it. Again, you have so much time and so much resources to allocate, and you still have to identify these bugs and work on them. Sometimes things take time. Sometimes that means years. It's not ideal, and it's not what anyone wants. It is what it is. This is really common sense, and the bottom line is you either trust they're doing the best they can, or you don't. Nothing I break down will change that.
"No matter which option we pick, it pulls time and resources away from other priorities (e.g. 50.1 bug fixes) that we’d be working on during that time period."
Doesn't this contradict game team's previous sentiment that different teams work on different items? Now I'm confused.
Their post is fine, could be considered a peek behind the curtain and possibly informative if someone has never worked in / alongside development teams.
But it’s the equivalent of saying, “when someone comes into the ER after a car crash, here’s how we treat their injuries.” What I would like to hear about, and what I doubt they will ever share, is why the huge spike in car crashes? What have they changed (willingly or unwillingly) that leads to poorly tested new content, basic mistakes like wrong champs in a crystal, etc. And are they doing anything to try and address the root causes?
"No matter which option we pick, it pulls time and resources away from other priorities (e.g. 50.1 bug fixes) that we’d be working on during that time period."
Doesn't this contradict game team's previous sentiment that different teams work on different items? Now I'm confused.
I'm assuming it's, fixing one bug can time from fixing another bug.
The more I read it… the more it feels like empty words disguised as answers. Too many bugs survive far too long… far longer than this example schedule.
The schedule is an example. Remember, this only applies to issues they can replicate and devise a fix for.
Yep I acknowledged it’s an example. But again that’s an obscure metric and timeline on what they consider replication and when they attempt to do it. The approach has never been balanced, and this post offered 0 insights as to why.
Describe balanced in the sense you're referring to. There are some things that have undoubtedly gone unresolved for a long time. Other things that have taken a long time to be resolved, and others still that are resolved much faster. Part of this is explaining the process. By your skepticism, it seems like there's nothing they could have said that would have been satisfactory. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that. It either sounds like you're asking for them to have their tail between their legs, or a complete list of every issue reported, where they're at in the process, and why things are going wrong. This is the problem when transparency meets expectations. They're rarely in tandem.
Unbalanced, as in there is no discernible rhyme or reason as to what “bug” gets fixed or when. It feels completely reactionary, and anyone who’s played long enough knows that the level of testing is just as unpredictable, as it’s not uncommon to have to deal with unexpected consequences. At this point it’s a meme, the community expects failure and bugs with every release or “fix”.
This is not a “Kabam only fixes pro-player” bugs rant but it’s an observation that as a consumer it’s like a constant spectre that floats over every kit in the game and at the will of a mercurial king will things be addressed. Okoye’s big went from unknown as a bug to fixed from what seems to be a forum comment. Galan’s bug has an 18month old thread begging for acknowledgment, showing proof for it be ignored. There’s little evidence of any prioritization when it comes to character bugs…
And then there’s the Juggernaut debacle where he wasn’t bugged and they decided to “bug fix” him into being bugged… and that took far far longer than it should for one of the most used characters in the game. One they actively sold at a premium price point.
As for the communication, Miike and Jax have effectively communicated things like this before. Many times even, without sounding as dodgy as this one did. So this fell flat. I sincerely appreciate the huge steps forwards and efforts in general by the communication team… I think this is a misfire though. It’s not one that largely detracts from the huge improvement we’ve seen the last month or two, but still a miss.
Balanced in terms of what you're describing depends on a few factors. First of all, you can't fix what you can't isolate. Which is why I mentioned recreating the issue. Secondly, there is undoubtedly a priority to these things. Bug fixes take resources, as they indicated in the Post. Which means you need to triage in a sense, and prioritize the overall effects of those bugs. You used pro-player as an example, and there have been many things left for a long time, simply because they weren't causing harm to the game. There's a kind of a universal priority system for games. Things that cause game-breaking leaks, which some would call pro-player, need to be resolved immediately. Not because people are benefitting from them, but because they break the game more and more as time goes on. Anything exploitable or anything that causes a flood of Resources or devalues the content needs to be worked on quite immediately. Which means they end up coming up with something quite on the spot and less than ideal, out of necessity. Some things aren't as large of a problem and so they're benign. There aren't a great deal of chain reactions caused by them. Some things aren't a big problem until they become a larger problem. Anything that can wait, will wait until they have the time and resources to deal with it. Again, you have so much time and so much resources to allocate, and you still have to identify these bugs and work on them. Sometimes things take time. Sometimes that means years. It's not ideal, and it's not what anyone wants. It is what it is. This is really common sense, and the bottom line is you either trust they're doing the best they can, or you don't. Nothing I break down will change that.
Again, I think my skepticism comes from a valid perception of disorganized chaos in the approach to these things. Because we have seen things prioritized that are far from game breaking while things that are harming the game are allowed to persist.
Personally, I’d prefer a much higher priority on persistent issues than I’ve seen.
Their post is fine, could be considered a peek behind the curtain and possibly informative if someone has never worked in / alongside development teams.
But it’s the equivalent of saying, “when someone comes into the ER after a car crash, here’s how we treat their injuries.” What I would like to hear about, and what I doubt they will ever share, is why the huge spike in car crashes? What have they changed (willingly or unwillingly) that leads to poorly tested new content, basic mistakes like wrong champs in a crystal, etc. And are they doing anything to try and address the root causes?
That’s a terrible analogy because the doctors in the ER have no control of the events that lead to the car crash. A more relevant analogy (this is taking it to the extreme and I don’t think it’s equivalent to a video game bug process) , if a hospital has seen an increase in the number of patients that have died while in their care after a car crash and instead of talking about what they’re doing to improve the quality of care they talk they instead reference, well it takes 2 hours to get a mri, we have a limited number of surgeons who can operate on a patient so the average turnaround time is X hours, etc.
As I said I do not think this isn’t appropriate because it’s a game compared to people dying, just was using the car crash/er framework
The more I read it… the more it feels like empty words disguised as answers. Too many bugs survive far too long… far longer than this example schedule.
The schedule is an example. Remember, this only applies to issues they can replicate and devise a fix for.
Yep I acknowledged it’s an example. But again that’s an obscure metric and timeline on what they consider replication and when they attempt to do it. The approach has never been balanced, and this post offered 0 insights as to why.
Describe balanced in the sense you're referring to. There are some things that have undoubtedly gone unresolved for a long time. Other things that have taken a long time to be resolved, and others still that are resolved much faster. Part of this is explaining the process. By your skepticism, it seems like there's nothing they could have said that would have been satisfactory. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that. It either sounds like you're asking for them to have their tail between their legs, or a complete list of every issue reported, where they're at in the process, and why things are going wrong. This is the problem when transparency meets expectations. They're rarely in tandem.
Unbalanced, as in there is no discernible rhyme or reason as to what “bug” gets fixed or when. It feels completely reactionary, and anyone who’s played long enough knows that the level of testing is just as unpredictable, as it’s not uncommon to have to deal with unexpected consequences. At this point it’s a meme, the community expects failure and bugs with every release or “fix”.
This is not a “Kabam only fixes pro-player” bugs rant but it’s an observation that as a consumer it’s like a constant spectre that floats over every kit in the game and at the will of a mercurial king will things be addressed. Okoye’s big went from unknown as a bug to fixed from what seems to be a forum comment. Galan’s bug has an 18month old thread begging for acknowledgment, showing proof for it be ignored. There’s little evidence of any prioritization when it comes to character bugs…
And then there’s the Juggernaut debacle where he wasn’t bugged and they decided to “bug fix” him into being bugged… and that took far far longer than it should for one of the most used characters in the game. One they actively sold at a premium price point.
As for the communication, Miike and Jax have effectively communicated things like this before. Many times even, without sounding as dodgy as this one did. So this fell flat. I sincerely appreciate the huge steps forwards and efforts in general by the communication team… I think this is a misfire though. It’s not one that largely detracts from the huge improvement we’ve seen the last month or two, but still a miss.
Balanced in terms of what you're describing depends on a few factors. First of all, you can't fix what you can't isolate. Which is why I mentioned recreating the issue. Secondly, there is undoubtedly a priority to these things. Bug fixes take resources, as they indicated in the Post. Which means you need to triage in a sense, and prioritize the overall effects of those bugs. You used pro-player as an example, and there have been many things left for a long time, simply because they weren't causing harm to the game. There's a kind of a universal priority system for games. Things that cause game-breaking leaks, which some would call pro-player, need to be resolved immediately. Not because people are benefitting from them, but because they break the game more and more as time goes on. Anything exploitable or anything that causes a flood of Resources or devalues the content needs to be worked on quite immediately. Which means they end up coming up with something quite on the spot and less than ideal, out of necessity. Some things aren't as large of a problem and so they're benign. There aren't a great deal of chain reactions caused by them. Some things aren't a big problem until they become a larger problem. Anything that can wait, will wait until they have the time and resources to deal with it. Again, you have so much time and so much resources to allocate, and you still have to identify these bugs and work on them. Sometimes things take time. Sometimes that means years. It's not ideal, and it's not what anyone wants. It is what it is. This is really common sense, and the bottom line is you either trust they're doing the best they can, or you don't. Nothing I break down will change that.
Again, I think my skepticism comes from a valid perception of disorganized chaos in the approach to these things. Because we have seen things prioritized that are far from game breaking while things that are harming the game are allowed to persist.
Personally, I’d prefer a much higher priority on persistent issues than I’ve seen.
You're free to your own opinion. The point I'm making is they're not prioritizing when it comes to things that they can't fix yet. For whatever reason.
Their post is fine, could be considered a peek behind the curtain and possibly informative if someone has never worked in / alongside development teams.
But it’s the equivalent of saying, “when someone comes into the ER after a car crash, here’s how we treat their injuries.” What I would like to hear about, and what I doubt they will ever share, is why the huge spike in car crashes? What have they changed (willingly or unwillingly) that leads to poorly tested new content, basic mistakes like wrong champs in a crystal, etc. And are they doing anything to try and address the root causes?
That’s a terrible analogy because the doctors in the ER have no control of the events that lead to the car crash. A more relevant analogy (this is taking it to the extreme and I don’t think it’s equivalent to a video game bug process) , if a hospital has seen an increase in the number of patients that have died while in their care after a car crash and instead of talking about what they’re doing to improve the quality of care they talk they instead reference, well it takes 2 hours to get a mri, we have a limited number of surgeons who can operate on a patient so the average turnaround time is X hours, etc.
As I said I do not think this isn’t appropriate because it’s a game compared to people dying, just was using the car crash/er framework
Actually, I think my analogy is right on the money. You’re right, the ER docs aren’t responsible for the car crashes and the people at Kabam wrestling with bug fixes, release issues, etc aren’t responsible either. The problem is much higher up in the food chain, would be my guess. Unreasonable expectations, not enough resources devoted to staffing, etc. If the devs are the ER docs, the Kabam execs are the department of transportation who says, “we don’t care about your issues treating patients, we want a huge amount of traffic on the roads — even if the roads are too small, full of potholes and the speed limit creates dangerous situations.
This feels like the orchestra warming up for the eventual announcement of the game closing. They are letting us know how hard and messy it is behind the scenes and there is no way it’s going to get better. As they add more content and characters, it’s going to get even muddier. Constant bugs is the new normal. This post was so sobering and solidified my decision to not spend a penny on this game going further.
The more I read it… the more it feels like empty words disguised as answers. Too many bugs survive far too long… far longer than this example schedule.
The schedule is an example. Remember, this only applies to issues they can replicate and devise a fix for.
Yep I acknowledged it’s an example. But again that’s an obscure metric and timeline on what they consider replication and when they attempt to do it. The approach has never been balanced, and this post offered 0 insights as to why.
Describe balanced in the sense you're referring to. There are some things that have undoubtedly gone unresolved for a long time. Other things that have taken a long time to be resolved, and others still that are resolved much faster. Part of this is explaining the process. By your skepticism, it seems like there's nothing they could have said that would have been satisfactory. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that. It either sounds like you're asking for them to have their tail between their legs, or a complete list of every issue reported, where they're at in the process, and why things are going wrong. This is the problem when transparency meets expectations. They're rarely in tandem.
Unbalanced, as in there is no discernible rhyme or reason as to what “bug” gets fixed or when. It feels completely reactionary, and anyone who’s played long enough knows that the level of testing is just as unpredictable, as it’s not uncommon to have to deal with unexpected consequences. At this point it’s a meme, the community expects failure and bugs with every release or “fix”.
This is not a “Kabam only fixes pro-player” bugs rant but it’s an observation that as a consumer it’s like a constant spectre that floats over every kit in the game and at the will of a mercurial king will things be addressed. Okoye’s big went from unknown as a bug to fixed from what seems to be a forum comment. Galan’s bug has an 18month old thread begging for acknowledgment, showing proof for it be ignored. There’s little evidence of any prioritization when it comes to character bugs…
And then there’s the Juggernaut debacle where he wasn’t bugged and they decided to “bug fix” him into being bugged… and that took far far longer than it should for one of the most used characters in the game. One they actively sold at a premium price point.
As for the communication, Miike and Jax have effectively communicated things like this before. Many times even, without sounding as dodgy as this one did. So this fell flat. I sincerely appreciate the huge steps forwards and efforts in general by the communication team… I think this is a misfire though. It’s not one that largely detracts from the huge improvement we’ve seen the last month or two, but still a miss.
Balanced in terms of what you're describing depends on a few factors. First of all, you can't fix what you can't isolate. Which is why I mentioned recreating the issue. Secondly, there is undoubtedly a priority to these things. Bug fixes take resources, as they indicated in the Post. Which means you need to triage in a sense, and prioritize the overall effects of those bugs. You used pro-player as an example, and there have been many things left for a long time, simply because they weren't causing harm to the game. There's a kind of a universal priority system for games. Things that cause game-breaking leaks, which some would call pro-player, need to be resolved immediately. Not because people are benefitting from them, but because they break the game more and more as time goes on. Anything exploitable or anything that causes a flood of Resources or devalues the content needs to be worked on quite immediately. Which means they end up coming up with something quite on the spot and less than ideal, out of necessity. Some things aren't as large of a problem and so they're benign. There aren't a great deal of chain reactions caused by them. Some things aren't a big problem until they become a larger problem. Anything that can wait, will wait until they have the time and resources to deal with it. Again, you have so much time and so much resources to allocate, and you still have to identify these bugs and work on them. Sometimes things take time. Sometimes that means years. It's not ideal, and it's not what anyone wants. It is what it is. This is really common sense, and the bottom line is you either trust they're doing the best they can, or you don't. Nothing I break down will change that.
Again, I think my skepticism comes from a valid perception of disorganized chaos in the approach to these things. Because we have seen things prioritized that are far from game breaking while things that are harming the game are allowed to persist.
Personally, I’d prefer a much higher priority on persistent issues than I’ve seen.
You're free to your own opinion. The point I'm making is they're not prioritizing when it comes to things that they can't fix yet. For whatever reason.
And my point remains that the player experience is that there is a complete lack of prioritization or the methods they use are out of touch and what led is to the current state of disarray we know today. This post did nothing to address this.
The more I read it… the more it feels like empty words disguised as answers. Too many bugs survive far too long… far longer than this example schedule.
The schedule is an example. Remember, this only applies to issues they can replicate and devise a fix for.
Yep I acknowledged it’s an example. But again that’s an obscure metric and timeline on what they consider replication and when they attempt to do it. The approach has never been balanced, and this post offered 0 insights as to why.
Describe balanced in the sense you're referring to. There are some things that have undoubtedly gone unresolved for a long time. Other things that have taken a long time to be resolved, and others still that are resolved much faster. Part of this is explaining the process. By your skepticism, it seems like there's nothing they could have said that would have been satisfactory. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that. It either sounds like you're asking for them to have their tail between their legs, or a complete list of every issue reported, where they're at in the process, and why things are going wrong. This is the problem when transparency meets expectations. They're rarely in tandem.
Unbalanced, as in there is no discernible rhyme or reason as to what “bug” gets fixed or when. It feels completely reactionary, and anyone who’s played long enough knows that the level of testing is just as unpredictable, as it’s not uncommon to have to deal with unexpected consequences. At this point it’s a meme, the community expects failure and bugs with every release or “fix”.
This is not a “Kabam only fixes pro-player” bugs rant but it’s an observation that as a consumer it’s like a constant spectre that floats over every kit in the game and at the will of a mercurial king will things be addressed. Okoye’s big went from unknown as a bug to fixed from what seems to be a forum comment. Galan’s bug has an 18month old thread begging for acknowledgment, showing proof for it be ignored. There’s little evidence of any prioritization when it comes to character bugs…
And then there’s the Juggernaut debacle where he wasn’t bugged and they decided to “bug fix” him into being bugged… and that took far far longer than it should for one of the most used characters in the game. One they actively sold at a premium price point.
As for the communication, Miike and Jax have effectively communicated things like this before. Many times even, without sounding as dodgy as this one did. So this fell flat. I sincerely appreciate the huge steps forwards and efforts in general by the communication team… I think this is a misfire though. It’s not one that largely detracts from the huge improvement we’ve seen the last month or two, but still a miss.
Balanced in terms of what you're describing depends on a few factors. First of all, you can't fix what you can't isolate. Which is why I mentioned recreating the issue. Secondly, there is undoubtedly a priority to these things. Bug fixes take resources, as they indicated in the Post. Which means you need to triage in a sense, and prioritize the overall effects of those bugs. You used pro-player as an example, and there have been many things left for a long time, simply because they weren't causing harm to the game. There's a kind of a universal priority system for games. Things that cause game-breaking leaks, which some would call pro-player, need to be resolved immediately. Not because people are benefitting from them, but because they break the game more and more as time goes on. Anything exploitable or anything that causes a flood of Resources or devalues the content needs to be worked on quite immediately. Which means they end up coming up with something quite on the spot and less than ideal, out of necessity. Some things aren't as large of a problem and so they're benign. There aren't a great deal of chain reactions caused by them. Some things aren't a big problem until they become a larger problem. Anything that can wait, will wait until they have the time and resources to deal with it. Again, you have so much time and so much resources to allocate, and you still have to identify these bugs and work on them. Sometimes things take time. Sometimes that means years. It's not ideal, and it's not what anyone wants. It is what it is. This is really common sense, and the bottom line is you either trust they're doing the best they can, or you don't. Nothing I break down will change that.
Again, I think my skepticism comes from a valid perception of disorganized chaos in the approach to these things. Because we have seen things prioritized that are far from game breaking while things that are harming the game are allowed to persist.
Personally, I’d prefer a much higher priority on persistent issues than I’ve seen.
You're free to your own opinion. The point I'm making is they're not prioritizing when it comes to things that they can't fix yet. For whatever reason.
And my point remains that the player experience is that there is a complete lack of prioritization or the methods they use are out of touch and what led is to the current state of disarray we know today. This post did nothing to address this.
That's why I said, some people won't be satisfied no matter what they say.
The more I read it… the more it feels like empty words disguised as answers. Too many bugs survive far too long… far longer than this example schedule.
The schedule is an example. Remember, this only applies to issues they can replicate and devise a fix for.
Yep I acknowledged it’s an example. But again that’s an obscure metric and timeline on what they consider replication and when they attempt to do it. The approach has never been balanced, and this post offered 0 insights as to why.
Describe balanced in the sense you're referring to. There are some things that have undoubtedly gone unresolved for a long time. Other things that have taken a long time to be resolved, and others still that are resolved much faster. Part of this is explaining the process. By your skepticism, it seems like there's nothing they could have said that would have been satisfactory. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that. It either sounds like you're asking for them to have their tail between their legs, or a complete list of every issue reported, where they're at in the process, and why things are going wrong. This is the problem when transparency meets expectations. They're rarely in tandem.
Unbalanced, as in there is no discernible rhyme or reason as to what “bug” gets fixed or when. It feels completely reactionary, and anyone who’s played long enough knows that the level of testing is just as unpredictable, as it’s not uncommon to have to deal with unexpected consequences. At this point it’s a meme, the community expects failure and bugs with every release or “fix”.
This is not a “Kabam only fixes pro-player” bugs rant but it’s an observation that as a consumer it’s like a constant spectre that floats over every kit in the game and at the will of a mercurial king will things be addressed. Okoye’s big went from unknown as a bug to fixed from what seems to be a forum comment. Galan’s bug has an 18month old thread begging for acknowledgment, showing proof for it be ignored. There’s little evidence of any prioritization when it comes to character bugs…
And then there’s the Juggernaut debacle where he wasn’t bugged and they decided to “bug fix” him into being bugged… and that took far far longer than it should for one of the most used characters in the game. One they actively sold at a premium price point.
As for the communication, Miike and Jax have effectively communicated things like this before. Many times even, without sounding as dodgy as this one did. So this fell flat. I sincerely appreciate the huge steps forwards and efforts in general by the communication team… I think this is a misfire though. It’s not one that largely detracts from the huge improvement we’ve seen the last month or two, but still a miss.
Balanced in terms of what you're describing depends on a few factors. First of all, you can't fix what you can't isolate. Which is why I mentioned recreating the issue. Secondly, there is undoubtedly a priority to these things. Bug fixes take resources, as they indicated in the Post. Which means you need to triage in a sense, and prioritize the overall effects of those bugs. You used pro-player as an example, and there have been many things left for a long time, simply because they weren't causing harm to the game. There's a kind of a universal priority system for games. Things that cause game-breaking leaks, which some would call pro-player, need to be resolved immediately. Not because people are benefitting from them, but because they break the game more and more as time goes on. Anything exploitable or anything that causes a flood of Resources or devalues the content needs to be worked on quite immediately. Which means they end up coming up with something quite on the spot and less than ideal, out of necessity. Some things aren't as large of a problem and so they're benign. There aren't a great deal of chain reactions caused by them. Some things aren't a big problem until they become a larger problem. Anything that can wait, will wait until they have the time and resources to deal with it. Again, you have so much time and so much resources to allocate, and you still have to identify these bugs and work on them. Sometimes things take time. Sometimes that means years. It's not ideal, and it's not what anyone wants. It is what it is. This is really common sense, and the bottom line is you either trust they're doing the best they can, or you don't. Nothing I break down will change that.
Again, I think my skepticism comes from a valid perception of disorganized chaos in the approach to these things. Because we have seen things prioritized that are far from game breaking while things that are harming the game are allowed to persist.
Personally, I’d prefer a much higher priority on persistent issues than I’ve seen.
You're free to your own opinion. The point I'm making is they're not prioritizing when it comes to things that they can't fix yet. For whatever reason.
And my point remains that the player experience is that there is a complete lack of prioritization or the methods they use are out of touch and what led is to the current state of disarray we know today. This post did nothing to address this.
That's why I said, some people won't be satisfied no matter what they say.
I think it’s probably say it fair that “some people” camp has grown pretty large.
Not gonna lie, this is not the transparency we asked for... Cool we know the process now, which bugs are getting fixed or being worked?
I think they are trying to address the questions about why things aren't fixed sooner and quicker, and how anything could possibly take as long as some of these issues take.
Which, to be honest, I'm not sure that development pipeline overview fundamentally addresses. However, I suspect where the whole thing really goes into the weeds is with the merge. Or rather, The Merge. Having not directly seen the brass tacks of their pipelines I can only speculate, but for the MMOs I was more familiar with, The Merge was where things often went kablooey.
But if you haven't seen it, it isn't easy to appreciate.
All I got from this is the process of fixing something client based or server based. And the timelines required. Which is perfectly fine and transparent. I am not even going to get to the conspiracy **** of some pro player bugs get fixed instantly and other don't. Not even gonna mention the AI one cause I understand is more complex. For example the VFX one has been awful for months, what is the excuse on that?
Consider the problem of even having a server and a client. We know the clients have to be roughly in sync with the servers; when the servers are updated in a way the clients don't expect the clients often malfunction in various ways. So when you're working on the server, even in a dev branch (and let's set aside the question of what a dev branch even means in this kind of environment) you're making changes you can't see or test, because obviously you can't be running a client that is necessary to see them. And vice versa, the guys making the new version of the client to work with that new server iteration can't see what they are doing either. Only when both sides are sufficiently developed can they be tested together.
Now, in a normal software development environment, you just go slow. Very very very very slow. You update the clients, say, in a backward compatible manner, then you update the servers in a way the clients will be able to switch to on the fly, and then you flip a big red switch down the road. This can be done relatively safely, but it can take forever to do anything. With some enterprise systems, I've seen this process take a year or more to get right. Games as a service don't have that kind of time.
If it was just server and client, that would be one thing, but there's a third leg to this stool: content. You have the servers changing in ways the game clients need to be in sync with and vice versa, but within this shifting environment you also have the content embedded in the game that must be in sync with that environment. When you change the server side or the client side or both, the content often needs to be aware of that. So the people writing content must often be targeting not the live systems, but the system iteration currently under development. Systems still being worked on themselves and may not be in their final form as you write to them. Compressed into a monthly release cycle are changing servers and changing clients with content that must work with what they will look like when they release.
I say "content" to mean all the data in the game. So not just event quest maps, but crystals, objectives, even whole champions are just content. When you release a new champion, the models, animations, and VFX must be in the game client, the text descriptions and call outs have to be in the game, the servers must have all the requisite data, any new game mechanics must already be implemented properly.
This can make bugs tricky to address for two different reasons. First, it is just plain harder. It has happened in the past that a bug fix didn't work because the fix didn't have the effect intended in the version of the game it released in, because meanwhile the things the fix targeted themselves changed. And second, because bug fixes are harder, a lot of them don't get worked on as fast as you might expect, because there are other higher priority bugs being worked on, or because the bug in question might have weird internal issues that make working on it much more difficult than it seems, so other bugs that are lower hanging fruit get worked on instead. In fact, a lot of bugs are probably taking up the developers time that we don't even see, because a bug in the development pipeline is one we cannot see, but if it is not fixed before release they can't just hold the release indefinitely until they get around to it.
The development cycle for the game doesn't change the nature of bugs or the precise way they are fixed. It is more that it is like doing things in space. Space doesn't change the work, it just makes everything slower, harder, and more dangerous. What seems simple on the ground takes ten times longer and has ten times more failure modes. Screws are stills screws, hammers are still hammers, but on the ground you don't have to worry about whether the screw will rotate when you turn the screwdriver or you will, and you don't have to worry about your tools floating away with the nearest Home Depot six hundred miles away.
Ironically, the people who say "well, just slow down" have the right idea. If Kabam only released three champs a year or if they only used game mechanics that had a whole cycle to be implemented and then another whole cycle to be deployed and then another whole cycle to be tested then almost nothing would go wrong. The problem is the release cycle for the game would change from monthly to quarterly or semi-annually, and this game would not survive under that release cycle. We're going to get the best that's possible under the required release cycle. We're not going to get the release cycle that generates the best possible game. Because the best possible game in terms of quality is a dead one.
Not gonna lie, this is not the transparency we asked for... Cool we know the process now, which bugs are getting fixed or being worked?
I think they are trying to address the questions about why things aren't fixed sooner and quicker, and how anything could possibly take as long as some of these issues take.
Which, to be honest, I'm not sure that development pipeline overview fundamentally addresses. However, I suspect where the whole thing really goes into the weeds is with the merge. Or rather, The Merge. Having not directly seen the brass tacks of their pipelines I can only speculate, but for the MMOs I was more familiar with, The Merge was where things often went kablooey.
But if you haven't seen it, it isn't easy to appreciate.
All I got from this is the process of fixing something client based or server based. And the timelines required. Which is perfectly fine and transparent. I am not even going to get to the conspiracy **** of some pro player bugs get fixed instantly and other don't. Not even gonna mention the AI one cause I understand is more complex. For example the VFX one has been awful for months, what is the excuse on that?
Consider the problem of even having a server and a client. We know the clients have to be roughly in sync with the servers; when the servers are updated in a way the clients don't expect the clients often malfunction in various ways. So when you're working on the server, even in a dev branch (and let's set aside the question of what a dev branch even means in this kind of environment) you're making changes you can't see or test, because obviously you can't be running a client that is necessary to see them. And vice versa, the guys making the new version of the client to work with that new server iteration can't see what they are doing either. Only when both sides are sufficiently developed can they be tested together.
Now, in a normal software development environment, you just go slow. Very very very very slow. You update the clients, say, in a backward compatible manner, then you update the servers in a way the clients will be able to switch to on the fly, and then you flip a big red switch down the road. This can be done relatively safely, but it can take forever to do anything. With some enterprise systems, I've seen this process take a year or more to get right. Games as a service don't have that kind of time.
If it was just server and client, that would be one thing, but there's a third leg to this stool: content. You have the servers changing in ways the game clients need to be in sync with and vice versa, but within this shifting environment you also have the content embedded in the game that must be in sync with that environment. When you change the server side or the client side or both, the content often needs to be aware of that. So the people writing content must often be targeting not the live systems, but the system iteration currently under development. Systems still being worked on themselves and may not be in their final form as you write to them. Compressed into a monthly release cycle are changing servers and changing clients with content that must work with what they will look like when they release.
I say "content" to mean all the data in the game. So not just event quest maps, but crystals, objectives, even whole champions are just content. When you release a new champion, the models, animations, and VFX must be in the game client, the text descriptions and call outs have to be in the game, the servers must have all the requisite data, any new game mechanics must already be implemented properly.
This can make bugs tricky to address for two different reasons. First, it is just plain harder. It has happened in the past that a bug fix didn't work because the fix didn't have the effect intended in the version of the game it released in, because meanwhile the things the fix targeted themselves changed. And second, because bug fixes are harder, a lot of them don't get worked on as fast as you might expect, because there are other higher priority bugs being worked on, or because the bug in question might have weird internal issues that make working on it much more difficult than it seems, so other bugs that are lower hanging fruit get worked on instead. In fact, a lot of bugs are probably taking up the developers time that we don't even see, because a bug in the development pipeline is one we cannot see, but if it is not fixed before release they can't just hold the release indefinitely until they get around to it.
The development cycle for the game doesn't change the nature of bugs or the precise way they are fixed. It is more that it is like doing things in space. Space doesn't change the work, it just makes everything slower, harder, and more dangerous. What seems simple on the ground takes ten times longer and has ten times more failure modes. Screws are stills screws, hammers are still hammers, but on the ground you don't have to worry about whether the screw will rotate when you turn the screwdriver or you will, and you don't have to worry about your tools floating away with the nearest Home Depot six hundred miles away.
Ironically, the people who say "well, just slow down" have the right idea. If Kabam only released three champs a year or if they only used game mechanics that had a whole cycle to be implemented and then another whole cycle to be deployed and then another whole cycle to be tested then almost nothing would go wrong. The problem is the release cycle for the game would change from monthly to quarterly or semi-annually, and this game would not survive under that release cycle. We're going to get the best that's possible under the required release cycle. We're not going to get the release cycle that generates the best possible game. Because the best possible game in terms of quality is a dead one.
I would personally say that the aim isn't to have the game have 1 champion per year all the time but at least slow down to where they can handle the issues and release new champions and then increase it from there, we didn't use to have more than 24 champions in a year and on the odd year 25, now they work and release more than 26, including buffs and reworks.
Comments
I don’t want to say they’re making excuses as there’s a difference between excuses and explanations (I believe this is closer to explanation) but the post felt half complete; the last paragraph in Dave’s post said as much. (Paraphrasing) We know this is frustrating we want to provide visibility to the ‘why’ we operate the way we do but trust us things are in the works to get better.
I believe the post would have landed significantly better if they provided more details about what they are changing. I understand they may not be in a spot to share that but in that case I would have held off on the post that was shared because it feels very “woe is us” / “cut us some slack”.
(Hoping I don't get destroyed by someone who actually knows this stuff)
I'm not saying there shouldn't have been more testing or whatnot but yeha
There's a kind of a universal priority system for games. Things that cause game-breaking leaks, which some would call pro-player, need to be resolved immediately. Not because people are benefitting from them, but because they break the game more and more as time goes on. Anything exploitable or anything that causes a flood of Resources or devalues the content needs to be worked on quite immediately. Which means they end up coming up with something quite on the spot and less than ideal, out of necessity. Some things aren't as large of a problem and so they're benign. There aren't a great deal of chain reactions caused by them. Some things aren't a big problem until they become a larger problem.
Anything that can wait, will wait until they have the time and resources to deal with it. Again, you have so much time and so much resources to allocate, and you still have to identify these bugs and work on them. Sometimes things take time. Sometimes that means years. It's not ideal, and it's not what anyone wants. It is what it is.
This is really common sense, and the bottom line is you either trust they're doing the best they can, or you don't. Nothing I break down will change that.
Doesn't this contradict game team's previous sentiment that different teams work on different items? Now I'm confused.
But it’s the equivalent of saying, “when someone comes into the ER after a car crash, here’s how we treat their injuries.” What I would like to hear about, and what I doubt they will ever share, is why the huge spike in car crashes? What have they changed (willingly or unwillingly) that leads to poorly tested new content, basic mistakes like wrong champs in a crystal, etc. And are they doing anything to try and address the root causes?
Personally, I’d prefer a much higher priority on persistent issues than I’ve seen.
As I said I do not think this isn’t appropriate because it’s a game compared to people dying, just was using the car crash/er framework
Now, in a normal software development environment, you just go slow. Very very very very slow. You update the clients, say, in a backward compatible manner, then you update the servers in a way the clients will be able to switch to on the fly, and then you flip a big red switch down the road. This can be done relatively safely, but it can take forever to do anything. With some enterprise systems, I've seen this process take a year or more to get right. Games as a service don't have that kind of time.
If it was just server and client, that would be one thing, but there's a third leg to this stool: content. You have the servers changing in ways the game clients need to be in sync with and vice versa, but within this shifting environment you also have the content embedded in the game that must be in sync with that environment. When you change the server side or the client side or both, the content often needs to be aware of that. So the people writing content must often be targeting not the live systems, but the system iteration currently under development. Systems still being worked on themselves and may not be in their final form as you write to them. Compressed into a monthly release cycle are changing servers and changing clients with content that must work with what they will look like when they release.
I say "content" to mean all the data in the game. So not just event quest maps, but crystals, objectives, even whole champions are just content. When you release a new champion, the models, animations, and VFX must be in the game client, the text descriptions and call outs have to be in the game, the servers must have all the requisite data, any new game mechanics must already be implemented properly.
This can make bugs tricky to address for two different reasons. First, it is just plain harder. It has happened in the past that a bug fix didn't work because the fix didn't have the effect intended in the version of the game it released in, because meanwhile the things the fix targeted themselves changed. And second, because bug fixes are harder, a lot of them don't get worked on as fast as you might expect, because there are other higher priority bugs being worked on, or because the bug in question might have weird internal issues that make working on it much more difficult than it seems, so other bugs that are lower hanging fruit get worked on instead. In fact, a lot of bugs are probably taking up the developers time that we don't even see, because a bug in the development pipeline is one we cannot see, but if it is not fixed before release they can't just hold the release indefinitely until they get around to it.
The development cycle for the game doesn't change the nature of bugs or the precise way they are fixed. It is more that it is like doing things in space. Space doesn't change the work, it just makes everything slower, harder, and more dangerous. What seems simple on the ground takes ten times longer and has ten times more failure modes. Screws are stills screws, hammers are still hammers, but on the ground you don't have to worry about whether the screw will rotate when you turn the screwdriver or you will, and you don't have to worry about your tools floating away with the nearest Home Depot six hundred miles away.
Ironically, the people who say "well, just slow down" have the right idea. If Kabam only released three champs a year or if they only used game mechanics that had a whole cycle to be implemented and then another whole cycle to be deployed and then another whole cycle to be tested then almost nothing would go wrong. The problem is the release cycle for the game would change from monthly to quarterly or semi-annually, and this game would not survive under that release cycle. We're going to get the best that's possible under the required release cycle. We're not going to get the release cycle that generates the best possible game. Because the best possible game in terms of quality is a dead one.