For the Love of Palpy the Undying and His Dark Side Pantaloons...

[Nothing_Shines]

...can we please just have one or two months after Season One is complete when all you do is work on and push out major bugfix patches? Pause on new content and fix the content we already have. There are so many things that only sometimes work or are outright broken. I'm not even talking about all the issues that have been "Known" since launch. Some of the new issues are just as, if not more, irritating. I'll name a few that are relatively speaking recent (but still throw in a few oldie-but-goodies, because I can't resist):

 

-Courting gifts don't work for the vast majority of romanced companions. I think, what? Doc likes them and Nico for some reason?

 

-Romance flags for old and new companions aren't triggered properly for many players, causing issues in KOTFE with the new romance popups and convos in general, and possibly related to the courting gifts not working.

 

-Dozens of Companion, Side, Heroic and Bonus quests are either not chained properly so they are difficult or impossible to complete without prior knowledge and/or give no experience (or even credits) for completion. It's not supposed to be possible for quests to "gray out" now with level sync, and yet...

 

-Some Agents logging in or transferring instances stand around with their arms out holding nothing, while their rifles are strapped to their back.

 

-Bolster is broken. Sometimes? All of the times? Only if you put on decent gear? Who knows?

 

-HK-55's Achievements are gone, as in 0/0.

 

-A crapton of other achievements are broken.

 

-Some companions speak with other companion's voices during combat.

 

-Legendary status does not trigger properly for all players. Patch to patch you can even lose Legendary status.

 

-FPs are not dropping decorations anymore. Or the chance has been changed to astronomical for "reasons".

 

-Star Fortress runs do not drop the legacy bracers at all. Not a slim chance - zero chance. This is directly linked to loot drops being scaled to player level and those bracers being level 10 items.

 

-Some of the armor chest pieces with "skirts" that are loose from the waist down can still clip through mounts and drag the ground.

 

-Treek & HK-51 no longer gain influence through their personal story convos, nor do they when running FPs.

 

-The ship tab on the character sheet is invisible unless you have a companion out and click on their tab, at which point the ship tab suddenly appears. (Wait, who plays space PVE still? JK )

 

-Mods randomly can't be extracted unless you change instances. Sometimes it's every mod, sometimes it's half, sometimes there's no issue.

 

The list goes on and on and on and on and every new content patch, you're introducing more than you fix. Everyone knows video games have bugs and it takes time to fix them - so actually take the time to do that. Let's not even get into the steep drop in QA over the last year or so allowing bugs to go live that should never have gone live and just take a breather on new stuff so you can fix the old stuff.

 

I'd be willing to buy a $20.00 expansion that was called SWTOR: Bug Hunt, where all it was was you guys eradicating the top 20 most reported issues from the last 6 months (starting with all those related to companion relationship flags).

 

I'll even fix one for you, for free.

 

Take the legacy bracers that no longer drop from SF and put them as guaranteed "choose one of the following" rewards for completing a SF Story Mode run.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[llayles]

If the game's not putting out new content it's not generating revenue.

[DieAlteHexe]

Usually (and likely in a studio of this size), there are separate teams working on content, bugs, etc.

[Nothing_Shines]

Of course it is. Did you just join this game? Monthly content updates are new.

 

-----

 

And if there are completely separate teams that only fix bugs...then why aren't they actually doing that? The bug list is HUGE and yet two, maybe three gets whack-a-moled with each patch.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[DieAlteHexe]

Of course it is. Did you just join this game? Monthly content updates are new.

 

-----

 

And if there are completely separate teams that only fix bugs...then why aren't they actually doing that? The bug list is HUGE and yet two, maybe three gets whack-a-moled with each patch.

 

No, in fact, I wager I'm more informed about the process than you are, having owned a dev house.

 

Coding, testing etc. takes a lot of time. Sometimes finding bugs is night unto impossible or by fixing Bug A, you will induce Bug B. It's not usually an easy process. They are fixing bugs. What you are complaining about is that they aren't fixing them fast enough. Well, I think most folks who are dealing with bugs in game would agree, even I do. But I also understand the "why" of it. It's not anything to do with "not wanting to" or "not giving a damn", it's everything to do with resources, patience and testing.

[KyaniteD]

I'm all for a break for bug fixes, but which legacy bracers do you mean? I have all 4 Exarch bracers.

[squirrelballz]

I agree I'd like for the patches after chapter 16 to be nothing but bug fixes for a couple months.

[Nothing_Shines]

No, in fact, I wager I'm more informed about the process than you are, having owned a dev house.

 

Coding, testing etc. takes a lot of time. Sometimes finding bugs is night unto impossible or by fixing Bug A, you will induce Bug B. It's not usually an easy process. They are fixing bugs. What you are complaining about is that they aren't fixing them fast enough. Well, I think most folks who are dealing with bugs in game would agree, even I do. But I also understand the "why" of it. It's not anything to do with "not wanting to" or "not giving a damn", it's everything to do with resources, patience and testing.

 

...which is why I suggest they devote all of their resources (non-CM resources, anyway) for a short period of time towards crushing a collection of the major bugs. Also, I didn't say they don't care about the game or don't want to do anything about bugs, just that they aren't doing much of anything at present, so you quoting such phrases only to knock them down doesn't really put me in my place.

 

Oh, and gratz on owning a dev house, I guess? Which one and who are you, then?

 

As to the bracers question: I have a cargo hold full of them, but those drops were from the first few weeks. At some point they changed how drops worked in SF to level matching and the bracers no longer drop at all. It doesn't affect me, but I highlighted it as something easily overcome using existing methods on loot distribution through mission rewards that doesn't require the devs to mess around with their level appropriate loot drop system or make the bracers level 61+ restricted to get them back into the SF loot table.

[DieAlteHexe]

...which is why I suggest they devote all of their resources (non-CM resources, anyway) for a short period of time towards crushing a collection of the major bugs. Also, I didn't say they don't care about the game or don't want to do anything about bugs, just that they aren't doing much of anything at present, so you quoting such phrases only to knock them down doesn't really put me in my place.

 

Oh, and gratz on owning a dev house, I guess? Which one and who are you, then?

 

As to the bracers question: I have a cargo hold full of them, but those drops were from the first few weeks. At some point they changed how drops worked in SF to level matching and the bracers no longer drop at all. It doesn't affect me, but I highlighted it as something easily overcome using existing methods on loot distribution through mission rewards that doesn't require the devs to mess around with their level appropriate loot drop system or make the bracers level 61+ restricted to get them back into the SF loot table.

 

Coders are not interchangeable. Those who work on bugs work just on bugs. Those who do level design, only that. I'm not trying to "knock you down", I wish people would stop being so paranoid around here . I'm trying to explain something that a lot of people get all wrong. They think there is a giant "pool" of "coders" and they can be set to do pretty much anything and this leads to frustration (on both sides actually).

 

What isn't transparent is what they are doing. We don't know. We can sit here and claim to know what they aren't doing (due to not having whatever it is we want to have) but we could very easily be wrong.

 

As for my company...I sold it and retired. And if you think I'd tell you or anyone else on here which it was (it was nothing like BW or MS or the like but selling it yielded enough to retire at 50) and who I am? Not a chance.

[TUXs]

And if there are completely separate teams that only fix bugs...then why aren't they actually doing that? The bug list is HUGE and yet two, maybe three gets whack-a-moled with each patch.

There isn't. It may be a different group of people assigned to bug fixes, but there sure as hell isn't some "bug fixing" team that only fixes bugs...just the suggestion that there is is laughable.

[JLazarillo]

"Game now sucks 36% less!"

is a lot less marketable than

"LOOK AT OUR NEW STUFF!"

 

Bugfixes and tweaking of old content just don't generate increased revenue like content does. And if it's not making money, it's not getting done.

[Warrgames]

There are no bugs, they are features of the game.

[Axcalion]

The amount of bugs in this game is considerable and some of these bugs have been around for quite some time.

Despite this it seems nothing is done to stop these bugs.

 

Luckily, I keep sending the same bug reports every week and hope they get read.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Axcalion

[TheSeventhJedi]

"Game now sucks 36% less!"

is a lot less marketable than

"LOOK AT OUR NEW STUFF!"

 

Bugfixes and tweaking of old content just don't generate increased revenue like content does. And if it's not making money, it's not getting done.

 

I dunno - if they emailed everyone who cancelled a sub with that exact line, I bet you they could get a fair few of them to resubscribe even when they haven't been lured back by content.

[LadyDarkkitten]

I would pay £20 for a "bug hunt" expac.

[Tsillah]

Bugs are being fixed every patch that comes out basically. Some bugs may not actually be bugs and others may be impossible to trace the cause and others might be very tricky to fix without causing other issues.

 

Bug fixing is infinitely more complex and probably because of the poor built of the game itself it may even be more difficult. As long as they are still continually fixing bugs I think it's probably as good as it's gonna get.

[Damask_Rose]

I just wish they had a known issues sticky that contained all of the known issues, instead of just a sample of the newest ones. That way we'd actually know that they are aware of Vector & Scouge's chronic cross-dressing and that Temple still uses Kaliyo's voice despite being "fixed". Ignoring years of bug reports makes players feel ignored, makes it seem like they don't care about the quality of their game, and leaves players doubting there is a point to submitting bug reports or participating on the test server.

[Lularapio]

Let us just think for a moment...

 

- this game has hacks present since launch;

 

- sometimes it takes them several weeks to work around severe exploits affecting the game and its playerbase;

 

- there are certain bugs present for years

 

What makes you think they have the manpower and will to work around bugfixes when this game is ran by a skeleton crew and most of their efforts revolves around cartel market items?

 

Yeah, not being too optimist here, but that is reality for you.

[Nothing_Shines]

Coders are not interchangeable. Those who work on bugs work just on bugs. Those who do level design, only that. I'm not trying to "knock you down", I wish people would stop being so paranoid around here . I'm trying to explain something that a lot of people get all wrong. They think there is a giant "pool" of "coders" and they can be set to do pretty much anything and this leads to frustration (on both sides actually).

 

What isn't transparent is what they are doing. We don't know. We can sit here and claim to know what they aren't doing (due to not having whatever it is we want to have) but we could very easily be wrong.

 

As for my company...I sold it and retired. And if you think I'd tell you or anyone else on here which it was (it was nothing like BW or MS or the like but selling it yielded enough to retire at 50) and who I am? Not a chance.

 

Well, there has to be some overlap in people designing and implementing content and code slaves. At the very least, working together to find out exactly what one did to screw up something in the game must be more productive than telling people who didn't make the mistake to go in blind and figure out what some other guy did in another department.

 

And yeah, I wasn't seriously expecting you to plaster your ID on the forum whether you had the credentials to back up your claim or not. I was just needling you. You don't sound like a mouth breather, so there's really no reason to doubt you, anyway.

 

I definitely agree with the sentiment above that people who weren't drawn back by "story" could perhaps be drawn in by polishing existing content up a bit. They could advertise a massive bugfix push as "revamping", "updating" and "improving" aspects of the game in preparation for the super exciting upcoming Season 2 content.

 

Also, a comprehensive Known Issues sticky that goes beyond the most recent update would cut down on bug reports in and out of game. They must have one in-house somewhere. Post it, alongside all the bugfix successes. If you show people you're up to speed on issues and that you're knocking out solutions consistently, they're a lot more likely to cut you slack than if persistent issues keeping getting pushed down the page list on the bug forum with zero acknowledgment and only some of the fixes are buried in the various patch notes.

Edited May 17, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[Slowpokeking]

I've made a similar thread before. Not just fix all the bugs, we also need to improve a lot of content features, especially GF.

[Nothing_Shines]

I was super into GSF for like three months including the huge leg-up early access. But not having the ships be legacy based so having to sit on one toon to wait for pops, lack of interesting maps, and most newbs getting mercilessly farmed until they up and quit made the whole thing boring after a while. Well, that and it just felt so disconnected from the rest of the game and I really wanted it to have PVE applications. Eh, I could go on about the GSF missed opportunities forever. Edited May 17, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[Knorlac]

Sure, as long as they either put out new group content beforehand or reduce the sub fee for the duration.

[KyaniteD]

Sure, as long as they either put out new group content beforehand or reduce the sub fee for the duration.

 

Yeah, while content is bugged and broken to the point of not playable happily pay full sub and when they make stuff playable reduce sub fee. It makes a lot of sense.

[Knorlac]

Yeah, while content is bugged and broken to the point of not playable happily pay full sub and when they make stuff playable reduce sub fee. It makes a lot of sense.

 

As long as there are other MMOs out there which charge the same sub fee but deliver more adequate results on both fronts, I fully expect BW to do the same.

[IanArgent]

Coders are not interchangeable. Those who work on bugs work just on bugs. Those who do level design, only that. I'm not trying to "knock you down", I wish people would stop being so paranoid around here . I'm trying to explain something that a lot of people get all wrong. They think there is a giant "pool" of "coders" and they can be set to do pretty much anything and this leads to frustration (on both sides actually).

 

A copy of The Mythical Man Month should be a subscriber benefit, maybe?