Bugs, testing, and raiding QOL

lassitershawn · February 2019

Endgame PvE players/raiders are having some serious issues with how ZOS is approaching bugs and it really seems like there is absolutely no effort put into testing or bug fixes. Summation of this patch below:

vHoF - Tried to fix a minor centurion bug on boss 2, somehow create a far worse gamebreaking bug on boss 1 (spheres stay alive and keep respawning after raptor death) that prevents progress past it. This is also essentially proof that the fix wasn't tested at all because you'd actually have to be able to get to the 2nd boss to test it.

vAS - Tried to fix a cone bug that is absurdly unfair (can be killed even when not standing in red, especially ridiculous if cone is coming from behind) and has been present and complained abut for OVER A YEAR. Failed apparently, I was killed by a cone I wasn't visibly standing in today and I've heard others say the same. Somehow broke Llothis bolts in the process, they now target only one person (technically makes the trial easier but way besides the point). I haven't experienced it but others have mentioned a new bug in Olms positioning where he always goes to exit after jumps. Minis still turning invisible and hitboxes still ***.

vCR - Shade bug still exists since vCR launch, can easily cause a wipe that would otherwise be completely recoverable.

Craglorns, vMoL, probably vHoF if you could get far enough to find a chest - Zone items dropping in trials??? Pretty serious impact on gear farming...

Also worth noting that largely unpopular changes with baneful in Z'Maja's shade phase (is it just random now??) and changes to jumps in vAS (leaving virtually no time to stack felms) were pushed through even though basic and gamebreaking bugs still haven't been fixed. Literally the general feeling within my raid teams is just "[snip] ZOS" right now with regards to the state of trials and ZOS's attitude towards the community. Buggy *** mess, there are a whole lot of other bugs that I haven't even addressed as well.

Can we PLEASE get some in-house testing of trials (literally a single run of HoF would have identified a gamebreaking bug that is now *** with many groups pushing HoF). Can we PLEASE get some more effort dedicated to fixing bugs. I would give up a dungeon DLC in a heartbeat just to have a patch dedicated to fixing raids.
[edited for profanity bypass]

code65536 · February 2019

To add to all that, it is very disappointing to see the number of substantial changes that don't make it to the patch notes.

For example:

The change to the targeting of the baneful mark in Cloudrest happened in Update 21 but was not mentioned in the patch notes.
The reduction of the Felms teleport cooldown from 20000ms to 14000ms in Update 21 was not mentioned in the patch notes. (Update: ZOS says this is not an intended change)
At some point in time, the hard mode of the final boss of March of Sacrifices received substantial difficulty adjustments (e.g., it is now possible to break free from the stranglers), but such a change was never noted in any of the patch notes.

And these are just the three most recent examples that I can think of off the top of my head. This is something that's happened a number of times before too.

In all of these cases, changes were made that substantially changed the feel and difficulty of the fight, and players had to discover them the hard way. What is the point of patch notes when you use them to detail minor changes of little consequence (e.g., you noted that you fixed the visual/cosmetic bug of the centurions not collapsing after being defeated) while leaving out the important things that players actually care about?

I don't know whether this is a problem on @ZOS_Finn's side of things or on @ZOS_GinaBruno's side of things, but it's particularly frustrating to be blindsided by major changes that "missed the notes".

T3hasiangod · February 2019

The Halls bug in particular is pretty grating. I already know of at least three guilds that were planning on progressing through Halls or going for achievements in Halls that can't go this week because it's broken.

There's a common joke in a few Discords whenever a patch drops. Which trial is going to be closed first? I still remember when they managed to break Asylum in a patch where they didn't change anything about the trial at all.

Please ZOS, do some internal testing for your fixes. It's becoming a meme to expect at least half the trials in the game to be broken by the release of a new patch. In this case, you outdid yourselves by screwing up pretty much all the trials in the game in some way.

lassitershawn · February 2019

T3hasiangod wrote: »

The Halls bug in particular is pretty grating. I already know of at least three guilds that were planning on progressing through Halls or going for achievements in Halls that can't go this week because it's broken.

There's a common joke in a few Discords whenever a patch drops. Which trial is going to be closed first? I still remember when they managed to break Asylum in a patch where they didn't change anything about the trial at all.

Please ZOS, do some internal testing for your fixes. It's becoming a meme to expect at least half the trials in the game to be broken by the release of a new patch. In this case, you outdid yourselves by screwing up pretty much all the trials in the game in some way.

Yea my group got *** on our TTT prog for at least this week. 12+ hours of last time and we had just gotten a high vit run last week now we will lose a lot of progress waiting and testing stuff from the patch will be delayed.

EDIT: Regarding testing some players have suggested that there be some kind of reward for testing and finding bugs (crowns?). The amount of raid groups with the time, ability, and desire to test these things is limited especially considering you actually get a reward for doing them on live (anything from plunder to potential scores/titles or an item worth 3m gold) and not PTS. I know a lot of groups would put in testing on PTS though if there was a reward for finding bugs especially considering that finding them is a near-certainty.

forumsmurf · February 2019

It is just mind-boggling that for some reason, content that is completely unrelated to changes made in the patch can somehow get broken. Some serious spaghetti code right here. Please stop releasing new content until the bugs get fixed.

lassitershawn · February 2019

forumsmurf wrote: »

It is just mind-boggling that for some reason, content that is completely unrelated to changes made in the patch can somehow get broken. Some serious spaghetti code right here. Please stop releasing new content until the bugs get fixed.

To add to this, please stop messing with trial mechanics in trials that have UNFIXED BUGS. Fixing the vCR shade bug should be a priority over changing working baneful mechanics. At least they tried to fix the year-old llothis cone bug.

Elwendryll · February 2019

Our trial guild canceled the originally planned vHoF progression runs for vMoL progression runs. And it looks like it will be fun if we drop zone gears...

code65536 · February 2019

lassitershawn wrote: »

Regarding testing some players have suggested that there be some kind of reward for testing and finding bugs (crowns?). The amount of raid groups with the time, ability, and desire to test these things is limited especially considering you actually get a reward for doing them on live (anything from plunder to potential scores/titles or an item worth 3m gold) and not PTS. I know a lot of groups would put in testing on PTS though if there was a reward for finding bugs especially considering that finding them is a near-certainty.

There are plenty of people who are eager to test new content. The PTS is a kind of early access for new content, so there is a sense of excitement, and there's a lot at stake with respect to the balance of the new content. Plus, if you're going to spend hours learning new content, it's better to do it on the PTS where the potions are free.

The problem is with older content. None of the incentives that exist for new content is there for older content. And, frankly, the testing of older content should be the job of the QA department. You know, the people whose paid job is to test things to make sure that whatever fixes and adjustments that are made don't have unintended side effects. If ZOS is going to ask players to do the work of paid employees, then it's not unreasonable to expect that players be compensated or otherwise incentivized.

Remember, this is a game to us. There's fun--and thus incentive--in testing and learning new content, but checking old content for bugs feels more like work than fun.

lassitershawn · February 2019

code65536 wrote: »

lassitershawn wrote: »

Regarding testing some players have suggested that there be some kind of reward for testing and finding bugs (crowns?). The amount of raid groups with the time, ability, and desire to test these things is limited especially considering you actually get a reward for doing them on live (anything from plunder to potential scores/titles or an item worth 3m gold) and not PTS. I know a lot of groups would put in testing on PTS though if there was a reward for finding bugs especially considering that finding them is a near-certainty.

There are plenty of people who are eager to test new content. The PTS is a kinda of early access for new content, so there is a sense of excitement, and there's a lot at stake with respect to the balance of the new content. Plus, if you're going to spend hours learning new content, it's better to do it on the PTS where the potions are free.

The problem is with older content. None of the incentives that exist for new content is there for older content. And, frankly, the testing of older content should be the job of the QA department. You know, the people whose paid job is to test things to make sure that whatever fixes and adjustments that are made don't have unintended side effects. If ZOS is going to ask players to do the work of paid employees, then it's not unreasonable to expect that players be compensated or otherwise incentivized. After all, it's a game to us, not a job.

Fully agree.

Princess_Ciri · February 2019

I've already posted about the bugs I've come across in vAS in another thread https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5858844#Comment_5858844

But I completely agree that it's really demoralising that every new update (Dungeon DLC, trial DLC, whatever) trials get broken, or stuff gets changed and we don't even get told about it.

Do we not get told because nobody at ZOS knows that these changes happened (in which case, big yikes) or because nobody can be bothered to tell us (again, big yikes).

I appreciate it ZOS when you try to fix bugs, but when each bug fix leads to more problems and unexplained changes in trials it leaves me wondering why I bother doing end game content. It's not fun to discover new bugs on the first or second day of patch release and then have to struggle through raids not knowing what is a bug and what is intended. It's frustrating, impedes on group progress and just in general makes people feel like they'd rather go play other games.

lassitershawn · February 2019

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

Do we not get told because nobody at ZOS knows that these changes happened (in which case, big yikes) or because nobody can be bothered to tell us (again, big yikes).

Inclined to think both are true with baneful changes being confirmed intentional but CLEARLY they didn't know about the bugs that totally breaks HoF and affect vAS, which is kind of scary.

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

It's not fun to discover new bugs on the first or second day of patch release and then have to struggle through raids not knowing what is a bug and what is intended. It's frustrating, impedes on group progress and just in general makes people feel like they'd rather go play other games.

Pretty much this ^.

NupidStoob · February 2019

I agree with most of what has been said. We were too in the middle of vHoF progression and now swapped to vCR.

I wonder how many people actually work on these fixes. Seems like they are understaffed.

lassitershawn wrote: »

This is also essentially proof that the fix wasn't tested at all because you'd actually have to be able to get to the 2nd boss to test it.

This isn't necessarily true. Devs might just have options to simply skip the first boss encounter. Running an entire trial just to see if something you fixed that happens later during it sounds like a waste of resources so I doubt ZoS would do it.

@code65536 Can you elaborate how exactly they changed targeting for baneful mark? I haven't really run that trial since Summerset.

lassitershawn · February 2019

NupidStoob wrote: »

I agree with most of what has been said. We were too in the middle of vHoF progression and now swapped to vCR.

I wonder how many people actually work on these fixes. Seems like they are understaffed.

lassitershawn wrote: »

This is also essentially proof that the fix wasn't tested at all because you'd actually have to be able to get to the 2nd boss to test it.

This isn't necessarily true. Devs might just have options to simply skip the first boss encounter. Running an entire trial just to see if something you fixed that happens later during it sounds like a waste of resources so I doubt ZoS would do it.

@code65536 Can you elaborate how exactly they changed targeting for baneful mark? I haven't really run that trial since Summerset.

I mean you're right but considering their history with blowing up everything in a trial for one bug fix it seems reasonable that they could do an hour or so run of the raid to make sure everything is going ok. Better than what they are gonna have to do now to fix it I'm sure.

Panelinha · February 2019

vAS used to be my favorite trial y.y
now it's just a frustrating *** show

raiding in 2019 :pepehands:

code65536 · February 2019

NupidStoob wrote: »

Can you elaborate how exactly they changed targeting for baneful mark? I haven't really run that trial since Summerset.

@NupidStoob During the execute phase of the Z'Maja fight, the Baneful Mark will always affect the tank that has taunt on Z'Maja, and it is no longer possible for the tank to avoid the Mark.

forumsmurf · February 2019

NupidStoob wrote: »

I agree with most of what has been said. We were too in the middle of vHoF progression and now swapped to vCR.

I wonder how many people actually work on these fixes. Seems like they are understaffed.

lassitershawn wrote: »

This is also essentially proof that the fix wasn't tested at all because you'd actually have to be able to get to the 2nd boss to test it.

This isn't necessarily true. Devs might just have options to simply skip the first boss encounter. Running an entire trial just to see if something you fixed that happens later during it sounds like a waste of resources so I doubt ZoS would do it.

@code65536 Can you elaborate how exactly they changed targeting for baneful mark? I haven't really run that trial since Summerset.

Baneful Mark normally targets the 6 closest players from Z'Maja. Usually the main tank taunting Z'Maja is tanking from afar due to this. However, they have been getting the debuff as of this patch.

kojou · February 2019

I'm probably going to cancel my guilds raid this weekend... I guess we can pvp, but then there is the siege bug.

Propagate · February 2019

100% agree. The vCR baneful change was super annoying not necessarily because of the change but that we have to find out the hard wiping in execute.

I am not opposed to having to think up new strategies but a little heads up in the future so our team can plan BEFORE would be nice. ZoS keep dropping the ball every new update. They seem to break a trial every time.

Panelinha · February 2019

ZoS devs be like

lassitershawn · February 2019

Propagate wrote: »

They seem to break a trial every time.

Tasear · February 2019

Nods head in support 😢

NupidStoob · February 2019

code65536 wrote: »

NupidStoob wrote: »

Can you elaborate how exactly they changed targeting for baneful mark? I haven't really run that trial since Summerset.

@NupidStoob During the execute phase of the Z'Maja fight, the Baneful Mark will always affect the tank that has taunt on Z'Maja, and it is no longer possible for the tank to avoid the Mark.

Thank you!

Danksta · February 2019

I'd really like to come back and play but this kind of stuff is the reason I got burnt out in the first place. Somehow they screw up the game more with every patch.

Tannus15 · February 2019

I really don't think it would be too much to ask for ZoS to spend 1 day of test just doing all the trials once in the final week of testing before launch.

Just to make sure they work end to end in the most general case.

nud3_voxel · February 2019

Don't worry. They will sell race change tokens to make up for it.

As for the bane in vCR. It goes to MT and the 5 closest. To go past it either heal MT to full or have the second MT step back when she does the animation and taunt swap.

RANKK7 · February 2019

code65536 wrote: »

To add to all that, it is very disappointing to see the number of substantial changes that don't make it to the patch notes.

For example:
The change to the targeting of the baneful mark in Cloudrest happened in Update 21 but was not mentioned in the patch notes.

The reduction of the Felms teleport cooldown from 20000ms to 14000ms in Update 21 was not mentioned in the patch notes. (Update: ZOS says this is not an intended change)

At some point in time, the hard mode of the final boss of March of Sacrifices received substantial difficulty adjustments (e.g., it is now possible to break free from the stranglers), but such a change was never noted in any of the patch notes.

And these are just the three most recent examples that I can think of off the top of my head. This is something that's happened a number of times before too.

In all of these cases, changes were made that substantially changed the feel and difficulty of the fight, and players had to discover them the hard way. What is the point of patch notes when you use them to detail minor changes of little consequence (e.g., you noted that you fixed the visual/cosmetic bug of the centurions not collapsing after being defeated) while leaving out the important things that players actually care about?

I don't know whether this is a problem on @ZOS_Finn's side of things or on @ZOS_GinaBruno's side of things, but it's particularly frustrating to be blindsided by major changes that "missed the notes".

@ZOS just give up, you can't get away with this user, he's a freaking encyclopedia, knows the inside and out, just hire him and make him design dungeons and trials. PVE would be a better place.

btw you are very knowledgeable and able to explain and analyze things very clearly, I don't always agree with your opinions though there is much to learn and can't count the times your posts have been not only interesting as a read, they have been actually very useful as a guide.

lassitershawn · March 2019

As a side note, Llothis cones somehow got WORSE post-patch. Died being a solid 5-6+ meters to the right of one of the sides of the cone. The cone wasn't moved at all and I moved out of it long before it pulsed for damage. Same thing happened to a teammate the day before. Everyone in the group agreed it was total [snip]. So not only was the original bug not fixed it somehow got WORSE.
[edited for profanity bypass]