Does ZOS even have enough time to fix the plethora of bugs we have here before Homestead goes live?

React · January 2017

I'm looking for some opinions or input from testers who have been apart of the feedback community for a while. It seems to me there is a huge amount of bugs with this PTS, some of which are gamebreaking. My question is, comparatively, how does the amount of bugs they've got to deal with compare to previous PTS's? Do you think that in the two weeks before launch, they'll be able to fix them?

Erasure · January 2017

I haven't heard of anything granting 20k spell damage, so I think we're on track to be better than some previous live pushes.

Seriously, though, you're being really vague. What are you worried will make it live? From past experience, if it's still on PTS in the x.x.3 or 4 version, it's unlikely to be changed for live.

React · January 2017

Erasure wrote: »

I haven't heard of anything granting 20k spell damage, so I think we're on track to be better than some previous live pushes.

Seriously, though, you're being really vague. What are you worried will make it live? From past experience, if it's still on PTS in the x.x.3 or 4 version, it's unlikely to be changed for live.

I felt there was no need to go into specifics, you could just scroll down the PTS page for a minute and see for yourself. The purifying bug, numerous CC's not working whatsoever but granting CC immunity to the target, player's house saves being wiped, willows path (this one has been a LONG time coming), etc.

Anhedonie · January 2017

I think there might be more new exciting bugs when update goes live. Always happens. Stuff like oneshotting trial bosses or downscaling vet dungeons.

Danikat · January 2017

I suspect that like most updates to most games they'll do their best to fix the most urgent bugs before it goes live, or at least put a work-around in place (because the fact that it's urgent doesn't mean it's easy to fix) but less urgent ones will have to wait in order to allow them to fix the urgent ones.

And then of course some bugs will appear which we know for a fact were not on the PTS, because computers do that.

(My personal favourite was when we got a new database at work. It was tested by all the end users on the machines they'd be using when it went live and we all confirmed it was working ok. All we did after that was change which folder on the server it was saved to. Somehow that caused a bug where if you clicked on the empty space beside a button, which should do absolutely nothing, it would ask if you wanted to save and if you clicked yes it would crash the program. We never did manage to fix that.)

So I'd expect at least 1 bug-fixing patch after the main update, and probably fixes included in future updates too.

Rohamad_Ali · January 2017

Have we ever had a major patch without a major bug launch ?

silky_soft · January 2017

They fixed desert rose. Now I am just waiting for them to decrease the block cost gdc and a gcd for damage procs.

silky_soft · January 2017

Oh WW animations are still more broken then templar topling charge.

agegarton · January 2017

By "bugs", I assume you mean "features" and "opportunities" ??

RoyJade · January 2017

As alway, the game breaking one (purifying light mostly) will be patched or nerfed to the ground, and the other one will wait… again.

ADarklore · January 2017

There are always bug fixes being implemented, but many times things slip through to Live because they have a release schedule and will not alter it even for bugs. Then we'll see week after week of patches to fix them, which will undoubtedly also break previous things they fixed; I don't know how many times they fixed problems in quests, only to break them again a few months later with another patch.

CubanRay · January 2017

Isn't 3 years enough time?

Thrasher91604 · January 2017

It is almost guaranteed to have some major bugs on release. Any ESO patch with this many changes always does. And the worst will probably be a bug not seen on the PTS.... Brace for it.

HereKittehKitteh · January 2017

Bugs in ESO? you must be crazy. Really loving the new amazing features on PTS, especially the one that causes my game to freeze and lock out characters when i spend more than five skill points on them <.<

Alpheu5 · January 2017

Liam12548 wrote: »

My question is, comparatively, how does the amount of bugs they've got to deal with compare to previous PTS's?

This is the first PTS quarter where I've been unable to actually test the game because they never managed to fix the Mac client problems. If it doesn't get remedied this Monday, Mac users will probably end up finding even more problems on live because nobody got the opportunity to do anything of any substance during the testing phase.

Katahdin · January 2017

One word: nope

willlienellson · January 2017

Have time? Probably.

Care enough? Not a chance.

Turelus · January 2017

I doubt it. They generally seem to have fixed launch schedules which don't seem to allow for time needed to fix bugs found on PTS.

Still, if they can keep up weekly patching after launch hopefully we'll see some of it fixed fast.

MLGProPlayer · January 2017

It seems that each new PTS update actually increases the number of bugs... The PTS is a mess right now and I'm genuinely worried they won't be able to fix everything before patch day.

Danikat · January 2017

Turelus wrote: »

I doubt it. They generally seem to have fixed launch schedules which don't seem to allow for time needed to fix bugs found on PTS.

Still, if they can keep up weekly patching after launch hopefully we'll see some of it fixed fast.

This is surprisingly common in game development. Short version is it's not up to the people fixing the bugs to decide when the update/DLC/new game/whatever comes out and the people who do make the decisions have to balance a lot of other factors which may be considered more important than fixing all the bugs.

If you want to know the details there's lots of articles online about how it works.

End result is that the people fixing the bugs are told what their deadline is and to prioritise the most important things. If speaking to an NPC crashes the map - yes that can happen - they need to fix that. If a chair you place sometimes jumps a foot to the left after you put it down they can leave it until later. If there's a grammatical error in some dialogue they may not even have noticed yet.

The other problem is that the developers priorities are not going to match the players priorities, certainly not all the players. So they have to contend with the people who are wondering why they care about some random NPC who isn't even part of a quest, so surely no one would speak to them anyway, when the editor is completely broken and impossible to use and should have been fixed weeks ago and whoever wrote this appalling dialogue should be fired!

Mix · January 2017

The only BUG they have to fix before live is the disappearing furnishings one:P

I am sure we will still see some bugs at update launch and new ones too. I notice there are usually population-related bugs that pop up on live that aren't even noticed on PTS because the population there is so low.