So why are we waitng months for fixs?

old_mufasa · July 2017

This a quote from a recent article with a developer.

Once fixed, issuing updates today is easy, even on console, where the process is now largely automated. A common misconception is that the certification process that console makers impose on all releases on their platforms is about catching bugs. Not at all: it's for ensuring they comply with the platform's rules. Loot Rascals was certified from a build that had various crash bugs. Issuing a patch on PS4, for example, generally takes just a couple of days, and is free.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-19-a-devs-eye-view-of-bugs

We should not be waiting months for patch's on any system... using the certification process on consoles has been a long running excuses. They claim that they have 11 million accounts for ESO.. well I'm sorry but that means there should be plenty of money to hire people to fix the net code, crash's such as the UI memory leak on the consoles, waiting months for the bg-lfg fixs... we as paying consumers should not have to be waiting months for these fix's.

Dread_Guy · July 2017

Let's also put this "PC players are beta testers" BS to rest too, please. Whatever bugs PC finds in the time between the console Patch are still there in the console patch.

Trashkan · July 2017

old_mufasa wrote: »

This a quote from a recent article with a developer.

Once fixed, issuing updates today is easy, even on console, where the process is now largely automated. A common misconception is that the certification process that console makers impose on all releases on their platforms is about catching bugs. Not at all: it's for ensuring they comply with the platform's rules. Loot Rascals was certified from a build that had various crash bugs. Issuing a patch on PS4, for example, generally takes just a couple of days, and is free.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-19-a-devs-eye-view-of-bugs

We should not be waiting months for patch's on any system... using the certification process on consoles has been a long running excuses. They claim that they have 11 million accounts for ESO.. well I'm sorry but that means there should be plenty of money to hire people to fix the net code, crash's such as the UI memory leak on the consoles, waiting months for the bg-lfg fixs... we as paying consumers should not have to be waiting months for these fix's.

This is bogus i know they can patch sooner. When I played gta5 on xbox they would patch glitches on Monday weekly. Not too sure what it all takes bit the game was 3 years old and they were still fixing weekly.

josiahva · July 2017

The problem is this: Whenever they fix one thing, it breaks something else. So they tend to save up their fixes for one big patch, so what breaks is less than what is fixed. This is the nature of writing a computer program: When you first write it and work out the bugs, it works flawlessly, but the more you go back and edit it after the fact, the more bugs it causes, especially as the size of the program grows because its all tied together...a little change here makes a big change there. What makes this problem even worse is when you have MULTIPLE people editing the same code...people who may not have written the original code and so aren't aware of exactly how some little sub-routine works. So a game like ESO...the code constantly gets larger...and the number of people working on it is constantly growing, and NONE of them are familiar with every little bit of code...just their own little corner. You can see the disasters waiting to happen, THIS is why it takes months to fix something...because when they take a few days, fix something and test it, they find it breaks something completely unrelated over here...then they have to go back and re-write the fix to get around that issue...but it causes another bug over here instead...etc etc. People act like writing code is an easy task...its not, ask anyone who has ever written any code.

Biro123 · July 2017

Simple answer is that it takes months to fix them..

There's an old saying in IT support (and by that I mean fixing bugs which are live as opposed to taking helpdesk calls) - 'It takes as long as it takes'

Which simply means that no matter how urgent it is, no mater how much you bug me to get it done, to give estimates etc... it won't suddenly get done quicker. If you want the job doing properly, with all possible impacts of the change analysed and tested, with the change itself tested and documented, with the change bundled up with whatever other changes are going on and the whole final release version tested with everything incorporated - and documented, then signed off and approved by management, plans written for how to deploy the change, along with backout/recovery processes and plans in case it goes badly - never mind sometimes new code to be written specifically to check if the newly implemented code is working correctly.

Yeah, it takes as long as it takes. you may not like how long that is - but tough.

old_mufasa · July 2017

Biro123 wrote: »

Simple answer is that it takes months to fix them..

There's an old saying in IT support (and by that I mean fixing bugs which are live as opposed to taking helpdesk calls) - 'It takes as long as it takes'

Which simply means that no matter how urgent it is, no mater how much you bug me to get it done, to give estimates etc... it won't suddenly get done quicker. If you want the job doing properly, with all possible impacts of the change analysed and tested, with the change itself tested and documented, with the change bundled up with whatever other changes are going on and the whole final release version tested with everything incorporated - and documented, then signed off and approved by management, plans written for how to deploy the change, along with backout/recovery processes and plans in case it goes badly - never mind sometimes new code to be written specifically to check if the newly implemented code is working correctly.

Yeah, it takes as long as it takes. you may not like how long that is - but tough.

Oh come on.. LFG has been buggy for years.. so its they don't care.. or incompetence.. as LFG system should be been working correctly before the game ever went live...

DMuehlhausen · July 2017

I work for a Terminal Server company and we have some break fix issues for a server that can take a couple months to fix sometimes depending on what is going on. That is with only a couple hundred clients and a few thousand users.

Now look at bugs here where you have millions of users, millions of different system setup. OSs running different patches, different driver versions. I mean it isn't just as easy as oh look Bug, few lines of code fixed!

old_mufasa · July 2017

Also if its free and takes just a couple of days.. we should be having small patch's to fix smaller bugs weekly or at least every server maintenance.

They had a PC BG-LFG fix in over a month before consoles got the same buggy update.. so in that whole month.. the consoles didn't even get a more updated fix.. it got the same broken fix..

Sorry but you can only fan boy the issue so much before you have to sit back and take a look at how bad they are being when it comes to addressing fix's and the time table they are doing it..

Hell other MMO's that are also multi-platform do minor balance tweaks on a monthly bases.. things we wait months to get released.

Balance fix's are not time related.. there is no need to find the bug to adjust a balance issue on a class.. the fact it this waiting months and months for the smallest fix's needs to stop and there should be a steady steam of smaller fix's that most mmo game company's do.

The excuse of using the console certification as the reason just doesn't hold water anymore...

br0steen · July 2017

It's a company.

To release fixes sooner on console they might need to hire someone else. The cost to benefit ratio just isn't there. ZOS has not seen a correlation between broken things in the game, poor customer service, and drop in revenue. The vast majority of subscribers will not cancel their subscription because they have invested a lot into this game and really want to keep playing it. Certain bugs like group finder are put on the back burner because they aren't likely to lose revenue because of it. Battlegrounds was attempted to be fixed at a relatively fast pace on PC because of the negative feedback from PvP streamers, who are essentially free advertising for the game.

Meanwhile their main source of revenue at this point, the crown store, will continue to get updated on a more regular basis. I would wager that more funds are allocated towards the crown store and marketing than community management and bug fixes.

There are not a whole lot of mmo's available on console at the moment, it will be interesting to see what happens once destiny 2 is out and when black desert online is available for xbox one. Right now customer service is more focused on PC because there is obviously more competition on that platform (or market if you will), but because there aren't competitive pressures for console platforms they don't have to spend time/money/resources on differentiating themselves on service.

Biro123 · July 2017

old_mufasa wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

Simple answer is that it takes months to fix them..

There's an old saying in IT support (and by that I mean fixing bugs which are live as opposed to taking helpdesk calls) - 'It takes as long as it takes'

Which simply means that no matter how urgent it is, no mater how much you bug me to get it done, to give estimates etc... it won't suddenly get done quicker. If you want the job doing properly, with all possible impacts of the change analysed and tested, with the change itself tested and documented, with the change bundled up with whatever other changes are going on and the whole final release version tested with everything incorporated - and documented, then signed off and approved by management, plans written for how to deploy the change, along with backout/recovery processes and plans in case it goes badly - never mind sometimes new code to be written specifically to check if the newly implemented code is working correctly.

Yeah, it takes as long as it takes. you may not like how long that is - but tough.

Oh come on.. LFG has been buggy for years.. so its they don't care.. or incompetence.. as LFG system should be been working correctly before the game ever went live...

Its been broken, fixed, broken again, fixed again etc. etc... Seems to me there's some kind of nasty spaghetti code there where touching one innocuous-looking strand makes a meatball fall off.

What's a company to do? Should they add more testing to catch these things before they go live? That would be the sensible thing to do - but gonna add more time. Throwing more people at it doesn't always make stuff quicker (you can't test what hasn't been built yet - not to mention it takes years for IT staff to become knowledgeable about the systems they're working on).

Or should they just skip the testing and rush it out - thinking that the faster they rush stuff out, the faster they can rush the fixes out.... Well, that's just gonna mean more bugs making it to the end-user... They may get fixed faster - but those faster fixes also means newer bugs added faster...

Make your choice. What would you rather have?

old_mufasa · July 2017

there are plenty of streamers on console.. not sure why you think there is not.. and If it wasn't for console.. ESO would be a in very bad place.. as it was the console market that brought a very large influx of revenue...

Also why do people act as if some how consoles use some foreign, voodoo programing code.. the coding for PC vs console is almost identical.. main differences is UI and controller support.. not the core programing. This is pretty easy to see with the way patchs are done.. same bugs carry over from pc to console.. with no fixs for the console patch that happened month or more after the pc patchs.

As far as competitive pressure.. they already lost the PC wars.. Right now they have the ability to be the WoW of console as there is very little direct competition.. right now there about 25 mmos on console. With X-Box One X, PS4 Pro and soon the PS5 the gap gets closer every generation with consoles.. and its a market that's getting bigger with MMO's not smaller..

There will be a point that another company is going to come in and make a direct challenge to ESO.. I know if GW2 came out for console I would have to take a hard look at what my main spending mmo would be on the console.

I think there whole patch policy is bad.. not just for console.. be it for game balance or bug fixs or QOL changes.. I also wonder how much testing is really done prior to a major patch.. as it sure seemed with morrowind.. many of the issues were posted on during the beta and were not even acknowledged.