47 replies to this topic

[Chemie]

bug fixes? They introduced a bunch of NEW bugs. Forget about the ones we know and love. There are so many news ones here the game is unplayabe for me.

[Haniwa]

They released the worst patch since closed beta, but they also sold more heromechs than before.

You guys really think, theyre going to fix anything?

This game has become a cash cow, thats it.

People are stupid.

[DragonsFire]

Haniwa, on 03 April 2013 - 06:51 AM, said:

They released the worst patch since closed beta, but they also sold more heromechs than before.

You guys really think, theyre going to fix anything?

This game has become a cash cow, thats it.

People are stupid.

Yes, because them not implementing fixes is a sustainable model that is bound to generate more income, amirite?

Come on man, it's software development 101, new releases can and will generate new defects. There is absolutely no avoiding it. The best programmers in the world can't avoid this. The biggest software development houses in the world can't avoid this.

So try and set your expectations a little more realistically, document the issues that you're having specifically, as well as your hardware and software setup, and see if you can't reproduce the issue as well. All of these things are INCREDIBLY useful and important in the resolution of these defects, but most people just come on the forums and say "OMG bugs, you guys suck" or with a little more detail "I got the black screen again, why haven't you guys fixed this yet?"

Just saying, oh hey, I hit a defect doesn't give them a ton of background on the how and why of the defect you experienced. They need context for said defect, so do your best to provide anything and everything you can on what's going on. And if you are getting fed up with the defects because it's interrupting your ability to play a game that is in the midst of development, step away and take a break.

[ShadowSpirit]

DragonsFire, on 03 April 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

So try and set your expectations a little more realistically, document the issues that you're having specifically, as well as your hardware and software setup, and see if you can't reproduce the issue as well. All of these things are INCREDIBLY useful and important in the resolution of these defects, but most people just come on the forums and say "OMG bugs, you guys suck" or with a little more detail "I got the black screen again, why haven't you guys fixed this yet?"

... it's not unrealistic to expect bugs that have been around since closed beta to be fixed. The screen and radar glitches have been an issue for a very long time.

Frankly, it (not they) does suck. They keep implementing "pay features" without fixing bugs. They are either starved for cash or they are milking it for what it is worth before it collapses on its own weight.

Either way it doesn't bode well when long standing issues are not addressed.

Edited by ShadowSpirit, 03 April 2013 - 08:48 AM.

[DragonsFire]

ShadowSpirit, on 03 April 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

... it's not unrealistic to expect bugs that have been around since closed beta to be fixed. The screen and radar glitches have been an issue for a very long time.

Frankly, it (not they) does suck. They keep implementing "pay features" without fixing bugs. They are either starved for cash or they are milking it for what it is worth before it collapses on its own weight.

Either way it doesn't bode well when long standing issues are not addressed.

Many of the 'pay features' they implement are cosmetic items that don't require much in the way of development cycles and generally would not fall under the purview of the groups responsible for fixing some of the long standing bugs anyways. As has been noted before, you would not want Art and Modeling developers (no offense Alex) handling Network development work would you? And these cosmetic items by nature generally do not cause issues with the game itself due to their limited interaction with the game itself outside of rendering cost.

As far as the long standing bugs, it's the nature of the beast. Some defects are readily apparent and easily fixable. Other defects can be EXTREMELY hard to track down as they aren't easily reproducible and they don't have enough information on the triggers for said defect to be able to lock down the offending portions of code. But it's something that they will get addressed either way. I know it's not easy to understand or see that given that there's no visible progress to us, but that doesn't mean it isn't being actively worked on.

Edited by DragonsFire, 03 April 2013 - 09:26 AM.

[ShadowSpirit]

DragonsFire, on 03 April 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

As far as the long standing bugs, it's the nature of the beast. Some defects are readily apparent and easily fixable. Other defects can be EXTREMELY hard to track down as they aren't easily reproducible and they don't have enough information on the triggers for said defect to be able to lock down the offending portions of code. But it's something that they will get addressed either way. I know it's not easy to understand or see that given that there's no visible progress to us, but that doesn't mean it isn't being actively worked on.

I admire your optimism and I do hope the game is successful but we have reached a point in this game where talk isn't good enough. Numbers are actually decreasing and it is obvious when I look at the TeamSpeak server and look at the names in the drops.

You can't take seriously talk about grandiose community warfare plans (and even let it slip you plan to set up a pay to play scheme) when the developer can't even fix a radar bug that has existed for months. The game simply isn't getting better -- it has regressed over the last few patches.

Like I said ... I hope they prove me wrong and I am not sure if I said it in this thread or another ... I will stick it out until UI 2.0 but if it doesn't impress it's time to move on.

[DragonsFire]

ShadowSpirit, on 03 April 2013 - 09:43 AM, said:

I admire your optimism and I do hope the game is successful but we have reached a point in this game where talk isn't good enough. Numbers are actually decreasing and it is obvious when I look at the TeamSpeak server and look at the names in the drops.

You can't take seriously talk about grandiose community warfare plans (and even let it slip you plan to set up a pay to play scheme) when the developer can't even fix a radar bug that has existed for months. The game simply isn't getting better -- it has regressed over the last few patches.

Like I said ... I hope they prove me wrong and I am not sure if I said it in this thread or another ... I will stick it out until UI 2.0 but if it doesn't impress it's time to move on.

My optimism is borne from being a developer myself and having set my expectations accordingly from the outset of the game. As far as numbers decreasing, Teamspeak isn't a good bar to measure against as there are multiple TS servers, and a number of units, including my own, now maintain their own voice servers.

Either way, while I'm glad to hear that you are willing to stick it out, perhaps a step away might be in order? If you're at a point where you feel that you're 'sticking something out' then you're either already burnt out or on the precipice of doing so. Stepping away and taking a break for a month of two would give you the benefit of looking at a much more complete product and not have to potentially deal with frustrating defects. Progress in software development is always easier to see over the course of 6 months chunks vs 2 week segments. Taking a break would allow you to see more of this and might give you a renewed interest in the game as opposed to just 'sticking it out'.

[Josef Koba]

I so badly want this game to succeed, which is why I've been willing to spend money on a beta. I have sent the company an email with my error, as directed. As I've said previously, I understand that bugs will happen. I can even deal with eating the 250 MC I spent right before the game became unplayable...IF this was a rare thing and if PGI would say, "Hey guys, we're busting our butts on getting this fixed." I mean, I'd like that MC back. But I knew the risks. It's just that I feel a little taken advantage of when the company is obviously willing to let me spend money on their product, but I come away with the perception that the game is regressing rather than progressing. Patches sometimes come with bugs, while fixing old bugs. It happens. This patch, however, seems to have included bugs that had previously been rectified (based on all I've read in the forums) and, if that wasn't bad enough, broke the game's back for a not-insignificant percentage of users. I've no doubt that some people have a game that continues to work flawlessly. I'm not one of them.

I just wanna smash some mech faces, folks. If I can't do that, I just want the company to tell me, "Stop spending money and come back in a couple of months." Heck, I'll gladly give you money when it's ready to go, just as I've been giving you money (and telling my friends to give you money) since I started playing. Pushing a patch with a $30 mech but with also a string of game-breaking issues just rubs me the wrong way. Again, it's beta. I got it. But I'd not expect a patch to literally regress the game to alpha status.

Been playing Battletech and MW since the early 90s. Super-stoked about the potential this game brings, and I've become something of a proficient mech driver. Rooting like heck for the team. Just more than a little disappointed.

I remember the days when you could opt to play single player and not have to even patch a game unless you wanted to. I've avoided patches until it became clear from the community that things were all right. Such is life in the MMORPG world.

[Krinkov]

Don't expect to see many bug fixes for a while. They are preparing to roll out DX11. I highly doubt they are going to squash bugs that may not even exist with the DX11 version.

[Josef Koba]

Krinkov, on 03 April 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

Don't expect to see many bug fixes for a while. They are preparing to roll out DX11. I highly doubt they are going to squash bugs that may not even exist with the DX11 version.

If that's the case, then I guess I won't be playing for a while. Maybe the bugs won't exist in the DX11 version. It sucks, frankly, but whatever makes the thing work. Since they didn't want to give me the $2 back for the 250 MC I spent for premium time yesterday, I asked for the whole $100 back I spent on MC. I'd gladly give them my money (I've spent over $300 since December), but that was just a slap in the face. I didn't break the game. They did. I gave them DxDiag and other attachments they wanted. I tried updating drivers and nothing has worked. How is that on me? They could have given me back the 250 MC and I would have been effin' ecstatic, and then went on to rave about their customer service.

[QuaxDerBruchpilot]

Can someone PLEASE point PGI to some staff qualified for game developing. THis is the worst gaming experience ever. The only thing you accomplish to deliver with a constant rate is new bugs with every patch. 28 days of pre,iu, to go and then "f*** u PGI".

[repete]

Quax1102, on 03 April 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

28 days of pre,iu, to go and then "f*** u PGI".

How helpful of you. I'm no PGI apologist, but the format of your post ads no value to the discussion. I hope it at least made you feel good.

Now since you mention premium time, there is an interesting idea. In theory a number of people haven't really been able to play for the best part of 24 hours, and some of them will have been on premium time and that premium time may effectively be counted as 'lost' or 'wasted'. Perhaps an 'Oops. Sorry' in the form of 24 hours of premium time to some/all might smooth some features. Hard thing is if 'some' then who and is targetting them for compensation difficult (Excluding the backlash from those that don't get it) and what is the cost of giving it to everyone?

[Josef Koba]

repete, on 03 April 2013 - 03:26 PM, said:

Now since you mention premium time, there is an interesting idea. In theory a number of people haven't really been able to play for the best part of 24 hours, and some of them will have been on premium time and that premium time may effectively be counted as 'lost' or 'wasted'. Perhaps an 'Oops. Sorry' in the form of 24 hours of premium time to some/all might smooth some features. Hard thing is if 'some' then who and is targetting them for compensation difficult (Excluding the backlash from those that don't get it) and what is the cost of giving it to everyone?

This was their response to me. They didn't even address the MC issue until the last email which said they considered my issue resolved. At no point previously had they mentioned a refund. And I certainly don't consider the issue to be resolved.

"Unfortunately we will not be able to proceed to a refund of your premium time.
Should we change our policy on this, an announcement will be made and a global compensation will be amde. [sic]"

My position is much like yours. Heck, I would have been probably pretty fine with a statement from PGI saying simply "Sorry for the issues you've all been having, we're working on it." At that point, I would have felt warm and fuzzy and probably not complained. Customers are pretty easy like that; give some effort and they'll forgive about anything...and be even more loyal. They just had a weekend of double XP; I really don't think that 24 hours of "free" premium time would have put them out much, if that's what they elected to do to "fix" the mistake. It would have been a good faith gesture; everyone would have been like, "Dang, PGI is pretty good to go; they messed up and really went the extra mile to fix it." In reality they would have done nothing, but the PR for it would have been very beneficial.

[Phoenix182]

coRpSE, on 02 April 2013 - 08:35 PM, said:

What, these 3?

• Artemis Line-of-sight check is now more accurate
  
• EMP will now turn off ECM in Counter Mode
  
• Mech damage glow now fades away after they die

Those to me is nothing major.


I think most of the people here could go without getting a new mech and more cockpit items if we could get a single "solid" patch that was straight up, a bug fix patch. I believe most people rather have fixed content and proper balance along with maybe a new map or two and game modes. By the new crap that comes out shows that your, (meaning the Developers), priorities are somewhere else and not in the right areas addressed.

This * eleventy-billion.

EVERY patch has brought new bugs, and NO fixes to anything that matters. It's getting utterly ridiculous and unplayable. I'm up to a 20-30% unplayable bug rate now. Whenever anyone asks how the game is I tell them it's effectively in Alpha. Hands down the WORST programming and addressing of bugs I have ever seen in 15 years of beta testing.

[SgtMaster]

i like the way they took my 35$ for a mech I cannot use now due to the FPS drop, and then being told that it is my fault that i broke the game.

When everything was running fine up until the patch.

pfft

And BTW, i am an instructor in my guild helping new players enjoy this game. And we have now over 400 members... i am busy at best, this just creates a backlog until its fixed. And being able to drop as a team on the training grounds would also make my job so much easier...

Edited by SgtMaster, 03 April 2013 - 09:33 PM.

[Archon Adam Steiner]

My word people, this is the Beta phase of a game being developed by a very small company; this is not the flagship franchise of some massive developer, i.e. Microsoft/HALO (in the old days). I don't mean to be an apologist (cue people instantly stating that I am one), but just because they release a Hero 'mech does not mean that they are ignoring bugs. I am willing to bet serious money that the people who fix bugs are not the same individuals who design new 'mechs, therefore designing new 'mechs impacts bug fixes in almost no way whatsoever.

Continue to list bugs, continue to provide positive feedback.

[Ralgas]

They may not be the fastest or most open about it, but at least they are working on it. Heck did anyone even complain about artemis los?

oh and http://mwomercs.com/...-issues-update/

[Commodore]

DragonsFire, on 03 April 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

Just saying, oh hey, I hit a defect doesn't give them a ton of background on the how and why of the defect you experienced. They need context for said defect, so do your best to provide anything and everything you can on what's going on. And if you are getting fed up with the defects because it's interrupting your ability to play a game that is in the midst of development, step away and take a break.

In my experience, PGI has been incredibly bad about following up on bug reports, to the point where I wonder if they even pay attention to them at all. This happens regardless of the quality of the bug report thread, no matter how involved or bare the information provided.

I don't think it's unreasonable to wonder aloud why serious bugs that have been around for a long time have not been fixed, in lieu of presenting a new, rather expensive, piece of premium content. PGI needs to work on its transparency (we need better patch notes), its community relations and followup (acknowledge legitimate bug reports, ask for information, provide updates on bug status. An actual list of accepted "known issues" would also be nice) and most of all, a demonstrated commitment to the game, its maintenance, and the community. If bugs don't get fixed right away, that's fine. I understand some issues take time to resolve. I would like to know that they're being worked on, though.

I also think it's unreasonable to say that this game is still "in the midst of development." I know the logo still has the word "Beta" and that PGI calls this "open beta," but the fact remains that you can give them money right now in exchange for in-game currency. To me that means, like it or not, this game is released (albeit incomplete). It is not acceptable to pass defects off as OK because "it's beta," because I paid money for this product.


To sum it up, I'm not asking for miracles, I'm asking for two-way understanding. I can only reasonably be understanding to the limits of my available information. Ergo, the more information I have, the more understanding I can be. That means, when I post a bug report, I need to know it's been seen. If I haven't provided enough information for PGI to pinpoint the problem, I need a followup from PGI letting me know what information to provide. If PGI can reproduce the issue and confirm the bug, I need to know that. This is standard procedure for bug tracking in public projects. Go look at Debian's issue tracker, or the VirtualBox bug tracker, or Firefox's BugZilla, for examples. I'm not even asking for this level of detail necessarily. Just something to see that a bug report has been seen, acknowledged, or requires more information.

As it stands, I can only guess on the status of the majority of bug reports on this forum that I have read, and that means I have very little information to be understanding with. I can guess that PGI has seen it and is working on it, or I can guess that they have ignored or missed it. From my perspective, either option is as likely as the other, and that's a bad image.

Arrachtas, on 03 April 2013 - 11:13 PM, said:

just because they release a Hero 'mech does not mean that they are ignoring bugs. I am willing to bet serious money that the people who fix bugs are not the same individuals who design new 'mechs, therefore designing new 'mechs impacts bug fixes in almost no way whatsoever.

I fully realize that these are not the same people. The problem is that the patch notes do not paint that picture.

Let's look at them together:
http://mwomercs.com/game/patch-notes
First there's the little note at the top. It tells us about new content: new hero mech, air strike, artillery, new thermal and night vision modes, and a new camo. All content, no bug fixes noted here.

Important Known Issues. I'm hoping this is listing only new known issues, because the one known issue noted is honestly pretty sparse considering how many bugs are regularly experienced, easy to reproduce, and visible on the forum here.

Content. In my browser window, this section is nearly 3 screens long, detailing the premium content: new, expensive hero mech, new cockpit items, new skin, as well as the new trial mech rotation, the new consumables, support modules, and upgrades.

Then we have the Notable Enviornment[sic] Changes, which detail a couple of relatively minor visual changes.

Gameplay. Another small section, detailing the updated vision modes.

Bug Fixes. Shows us only three bugs fixed.

The picture this illustrates is that the focus is overwhelmingly on adding new content rather than fixing bugs. Does that mean they aren't fixing bugs? I sure as **** hope not. If, as someone noted earlier in this thread, more bugs were fixed than were listed, we need to know that. There is exhaustive detail there about the new content, why not provide a similar level of detail in bugs that are fixed? Why not give us a full list of known/outstanding issues? Why should I decide that they are doing things that they aren't telling me they're doing?

--

At any rate, the takeaway here if you are reading this, PGI, is that we, the community, need better communication from you:
- We need to know when a bug report has been reviewed, and whether or not more information is required.
- We need to know when a bug has been acknowledged and becomes a "known issue" and an exhaustive list of known issues which are still outstanding, whether they are seen as big or small. This does not have to be part of the patch notes, but it should be somewhere accessible.
- We need an exhaustive list of bugs that have been fixed by each patch going forward, not just the ones deemed "high profile" so that we can see that bugs are being fixed, rather than being forced to assume that bugs are being fixed.

These are the most, uncompromisingly important things you must do, if you want to cultivate a community that is willing to stick with you and your game through thick and thin, and support your business with actual dollars. Show us that you are dedicated to us, and we will support you.

[loliza]

Josef Koba, on 03 April 2013 - 02:10 PM, said:

If that's the case, then I guess I won't be playing for a while. Maybe the bugs won't exist in the DX11 version. It sucks, frankly, but whatever makes the thing work. Since they didn't want to give me the $2 back for the 250 MC I spent for premium time yesterday, I asked for the whole $100 back I spent on MC. I'd gladly give them my money (I've spent over $300 since December), but that was just a slap in the face. I didn't break the game. They did. I gave them DxDiag and other attachments they wanted. I tried updating drivers and nothing has worked. How is that on me? They could have given me back the 250 MC and I would have been effin' ecstatic, and then went on to rave about their customer service.

$2 ROFLMAO didnt think the american economy was that much in trouble if 2$ is an amount u feel like u need to moan about

[Inertiamon]

Arrachtas, on 03 April 2013 - 11:13 PM, said:

My word people, this is the Beta phase of a game being developed by a very small company; this is not the flagship franchise of some massive developer, i.e. Microsoft/HALO (in the old days). I don't mean to be an apologist (cue people instantly stating that I am one)

Firstly your balanced tone is appreciated - this isn't a dig. But that's a fairly poor example given the size of Bungie at the time and remembering that MS didn't buy into Bungie until after a very late Halo build got covered at Macworld. There are too many examples of small indies producing mainstream titles without similar issues to mention. The reason most haven't been pilloried is because they found their own cash up front and didn't take any off the customer until the game was complete.

On the matter of size - Their staffing levels are noones problem but theirs when they're demanding payment for features. No ones. They have a string of vacancies and Garth spent some time in a GD thread saying they've interviewed heaps of people but not found the right ones. That seems a fairly one-sided appraisal. On the other side I suspect the package is crap, they've got bad (i.e. passive) recruiters and that they're not filtering well before interviews.

Still noones problem but theirs. I cannot accept their poor project management and over stretching of their initial revenue towards other titles as justification for slow progress on fixes.

IGP are treating the act of game production as an industrial process. It can successfully be that but can only become so on the shoulders of parameters and processes laid down by good development and design early in a franchise that wins a self-sustaining following.

Edited by Inertiamon, 04 April 2013 - 04:14 AM.