Is the core combat system going to get broken every patch from now on?

React · March 2023

In Update 38, zenimax is releasing the arcanist into the game, and they're supposed to be releasing the first part of their "code rewrite", which should drastically alter the core code for the game in order to solve the lifelong performance issues and bugs that we've suffered. With their recent track record in regards to "fixing bugs" and how that impacts the core combat system, I am very nervous that we're approaching a version of ESO where the combat is irredeemably broken.

Last patch in update 36, blocking was broken for two months after the patch dropped. This was a result of zenimax trying to bugfix the "perma-heavy attack" and "bashes clearing inputs" bugs, both of which are still present in the game today since zenimax rolled back their bugfixes two months after failing to solve the issues they caused.

In update 37, zenimax has broken break free. It does not activate consistently, and the input often has to be pressed multiple times in order to actually break free of stuns. In fast paced PVE and PVP encounters, this is extremely punishing and often results in death. They also broke the break free animation; every single time you break free (at least in PVP), the following 1-2 abilities you use have no animation whatsoever. Neither you nor your opponent can see the animations. This is presumably due to the change to make block persist through barswapping, as nothing else that was listed in the notes should have impacted it like this.

In update 37, zenimax also broke numerous core combat functions for controller users because of another "BUGFIX". The patch note for this fix reads "Fixed an issue where you could light attack and bash simultaneously on a controller". It is confusing to me why'd they would attempt to patch an obscure bug that nobody had heard of or been impacted by, rather than spending that time on one of the numerous prominent combat bugs that have been plaguing the game for a long time now. Their attempt at bugfixing this broke jumping, breaking free, using ultimates, interrupting, and more on controller.

You now cannot cast an ability that is assigned to a bumper (LB/RB/L1/R1) and jump simultaneously.
You cannot break free instantly on a controller anymore, and this is supposedly a separate issue from the global break free issues people are having right now. On a controller where before you could press LT+RT the instant you got stunned and break free, you now must hold LT and then press RT, or hold both. This causes every single break free to be delayed on a controller if you are not already holding the inputs before you get stunned.
Every ability or function that utilizes a button combination involving bumpers or jumping is broken and not firing properly.

There are likely more bugs that I haven't listed here related to the recent changes to block and the bugfix for controller. Every single PVP player that I know and talk to is complaining that the game feels off, and not just due to your typical lag. The core combat system has been severely impacted this patch.

How is this acceptable? Where is the QA? These issues were present week one on the PTS, and absolutely should have been caught by a competent QA team. Are we expected to continue to suffer a non functional game each patch because "bugs happen"? This late into the game's life cycle, we should not have to deal with the core combat system being broken by untested "bugfixes".

Here is a couple videos of two of the new issues for anyone interested.

https://youtu.be/N40J8NT7kDM

https://youtu.be/r7LYcjzYRa4

CameraBeardThePirate · March 2023

I stopped playing when the block bug was introduced, partly because of balance, partly because of the bug itself.

It's good to know that nothing's changed and that I'm not really missing out on much.

Blackbird_V · March 2023

Let's not forget how they re-wrote the group finder tool and it's again broken beyond belief.

colossalvoids · March 2023

The consistency of such cases is indeed worrying, especially in a light of partial code rewrite ahead.

MachineGod · March 2023

Don't forget the fact that desyncs thanks to the new break free are at an all time high now. Almost every other knockback will cause your char to become stunlocked.

KlauthWarthog · March 2023

Don't worry, Druid Olivya is on the case, she will fix the combat bugs for good.

... anyway, it would be nice if they would step ahead and give the players a clear picture of what the actual issue is, and how it is getting tackled. Because, right now, I am not really expecting things to improve at all. The bugs are a symptom, I would like to know what the actual illness is, and how it is getting treated.

twev · March 2023

They nullified some of the code enhancement introduced with the 'Year of Performance' when they added Stadia code into the game.
That's another knot that is either being untangled, is still tangling code and bug fixes and will never be addressed, or has yet to touched.

But I'm sure I just don't understand.

N00BxV1 · March 2023

Yeah it's pretty dang frustrating to be honest.

There has been core combat related bugs with the gamepad for years and It doesn't appear to be getting any better. It seems like everything that they've tried has only resulted in more bugs.

When your controls and abilities don't function properly, it makes the game very frustrating and not fun. At that point I'd rather just go play a different game where my controls work.

Androrix · March 2023

I don't know. I feel like sometimes with games I really enjoy them and never notice bugs until I read player forums. Then I notice them. And then I can't stop noticing them. And then the game "bugs" me.

I haven't noticed these bugs yet on PC....who knows when I next log in though.

Rkindaleft · March 2023

I'm going to assume that since it's happening to controllers on PC it's going to be the same on the PS and Xbox, with no way to test it or find out until the patch drops.

Rkindaleft · March 2023

Great writeup in general. I do wonder if this has caused something like bash weaving to desync or have other issues when attempting to do it, considering nobody knew about that bug to begin with.

TechMaybeHic · March 2023

I don't know what you mean. No emergency maintenance note a patch the week after update 37 went live. Things must be working perfectly then.

That or they are operating at bare minimum staff and are no longer able to respond quickly.

Animar111 · March 2023

So are they not supposed to fix any underlying problems.

Don’t really know what this post is suggesting
Are you saying don’t fix anything…….!!!!!

The_Titan_Tim · March 2023

Animar111 wrote: »

So are they not supposed to fix any underlying problems.

Don’t really know what this post is suggesting
Are you saying don’t fix anything…….!!!!!

No, he’s being hyperbolic, adding emphasis to the problem.

What’s being suggested is a more thorough testing of potential problems before patches like these are being released to the public, and if these problems are caught and relayed to the correct people by QA, they need to be acted upon, instead of releasing a broken update, wait a week or two to fix it, then roll it out.

If reading this, you are unsure what QA is, it stands for Quality Assurance… these teams are existent in every major company, including Zenimax Online Studios…

…this department is made up of paid employees that are PAID to catch things like these before patch release. If a patch’s quality can’t be assured, the patch needs to bounce back until they can be.

If QA isn’t detecting these problems, that’s baffling. It’s not some abstract bug, it’s a core combat problem, if QA are participating in combat tests, they would catch issues such as these.

virtus753 · March 2023

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Animar111 wrote: »

So are they not supposed to fix any underlying problems.

Don’t really know what this post is suggesting
Are you saying don’t fix anything…….!!!!!

No, he’s being hyperbolic, adding emphasis to the problem.

What’s being suggested is a more thorough testing of potential problems before patches like these are being released to the public, and if these problems are caught and relayed to the correct people by QA, they need to be acted upon, instead of releasing a broken update, wait a week or two to fix it, then roll it out.

If reading this, you are unsure what QA is, it stands for Quality Assurance… these teams are existent in every major company, including Zenimax Online Studios…

…this department is made up of paid employees that are PAID to catch things like these before patch release. If a patch’s quality can’t be assured, the patch needs to bounce back until they can be.

If QA isn’t detecting these problems, that’s baffling. It’s not some abstract bug, it’s a core combat problem, if QA are participating in combat tests, they would catch issues such as these.

Keep in mind that QA catches bugs but can do nothing to actually fix them. That's someone else's job, and that seems to be where the process is breaking down.

They were aware of the initial block bug on PTS and knew that it was going to go live. They knew they would not have time to fix it before the live release. They released anyhow. QA can't fix that either.

There was an article on the QA team working on Fallout 76 in which quite a few employees pointed out that they would catch bugs (sometimes major ones) that would take ages to get fixed, if they ever got fixed at all. I'm sure that situation wasn't limited to one QA team on one game.

ETA: They also have players acting as QA on PTS. Most of those reports don't get acted on before live either. To give a sense of how much of this is likely to be on the QA team specifically.

React · March 2023

Animar111 wrote: »

So are they not supposed to fix any underlying problems.

Don’t really know what this post is suggesting
Are you saying don’t fix anything…….!!!!!

I'm saying that these fixes should be getting tested internally so they can release in a functional state, rather than being allowed to go live untested. They're repetitively treating us like their QA team. How can we expect the huge project that is the code rewrite to be anything other than a colossal failure if recent patches are the standard? Currently, a lot hinges on this already severely delayed project; no PVP content until its finished, no proper bugfixing, no performance improvements, etc. As someone who wants to see the game succeed, this is concerning to me.

The U36 bugfix that broke block last patch should have been rolled back straight away. The bug was reported on the PTS, then allowed to go live. Instead, they made us wait two months with a broken block while they tested various "fixes", that ultimately did not solve the issue. It took them two months to do what should have been done immediately - rolling back their untested bugfix.

The current situation is no different. These bugs were present on the PTS, but allowed to go live. Their response has been that they're "testing fixes", but we have no eta on how long we're once again going to have a broken core combat system. They should immediately be rolling these things back, not making the customer deal with the result of their perceived carelessness.

The_Titan_Tim · March 2023

virtus753 wrote: »

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Animar111 wrote: »

So are they not supposed to fix any underlying problems.

Don’t really know what this post is suggesting
Are you saying don’t fix anything…….!!!!!

No, he’s being hyperbolic, adding emphasis to the problem.

What’s being suggested is a more thorough testing of potential problems before patches like these are being released to the public, and if these problems are caught and relayed to the correct people by QA, they need to be acted upon, instead of releasing a broken update, wait a week or two to fix it, then roll it out.

If reading this, you are unsure what QA is, it stands for Quality Assurance… these teams are existent in every major company, including Zenimax Online Studios…

…this department is made up of paid employees that are PAID to catch things like these before patch release. If a patch’s quality can’t be assured, the patch needs to bounce back until they can be.

If QA isn’t detecting these problems, that’s baffling. It’s not some abstract bug, it’s a core combat problem, if QA are participating in combat tests, they would catch issues such as these.

Keep in mind that QA catches bugs but can do nothing to actually fix them. That's someone else's job, and that seems to be where the process is breaking down.

They were aware of the initial block bug on PTS and knew that it was going to go live. They knew they would not have time to fix it before the live release. They released anyhow. QA can't fix that either.

There was an article on the QA team working on Fallout 76 in which quite a few employees pointed out that they would catch bugs (sometimes major ones) that would take ages to get fixed, if they ever got fixed at all. I'm sure that situation wasn't limited to one QA team on one game.

ETA: They also have players acting as QA on PTS. Most of those reports don't get acted on before live either. To give a sense of how much of this is likely to be on the QA team specifically.

Refer to my first paragraph.

If QA is catching these problems, then it is Management’s job to ensure these patches don’t roll out in a broken state.

virtus753 · March 2023

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Animar111 wrote: »

So are they not supposed to fix any underlying problems.

Don’t really know what this post is suggesting
Are you saying don’t fix anything…….!!!!!

No, he’s being hyperbolic, adding emphasis to the problem.

What’s being suggested is a more thorough testing of potential problems before patches like these are being released to the public, and if these problems are caught and relayed to the correct people by QA, they need to be acted upon, instead of releasing a broken update, wait a week or two to fix it, then roll it out.

If reading this, you are unsure what QA is, it stands for Quality Assurance… these teams are existent in every major company, including Zenimax Online Studios…

…this department is made up of paid employees that are PAID to catch things like these before patch release. If a patch’s quality can’t be assured, the patch needs to bounce back until they can be.

If QA isn’t detecting these problems, that’s baffling. It’s not some abstract bug, it’s a core combat problem, if QA are participating in combat tests, they would catch issues such as these.

Keep in mind that QA catches bugs but can do nothing to actually fix them. That's someone else's job, and that seems to be where the process is breaking down.

They were aware of the initial block bug on PTS and knew that it was going to go live. They knew they would not have time to fix it before the live release. They released anyhow. QA can't fix that either.

There was an article on the QA team working on Fallout 76 in which quite a few employees pointed out that they would catch bugs (sometimes major ones) that would take ages to get fixed, if they ever got fixed at all. I'm sure that situation wasn't limited to one QA team on one game.

ETA: They also have players acting as QA on PTS. Most of those reports don't get acted on before live either. To give a sense of how much of this is likely to be on the QA team specifically.

Refer to my first paragraph.

If QA is catching these problems, then it is Management’s job to ensure these patches don’t roll out in a broken state.

Second paragraph? I'm referring to the call for more thorough testing there.

More thorough testing won't fix the problem when the problem is that they don't consider the issues broken enough to hold the release.

I am saying that it is down to the management part, not the QA part. They could hire 300 more QA people on top of the 300+ they already have and still produce the same quality of releases.

AvalonRanger · March 2023

Not only combat system, but also ZOS spawns new "dangerous exploit possibility" each time they release
new DLC patch. I thought those were too much careless.

Groterdan · March 2023

Disturbing ....

jle30303 · March 2023

Frankly, if a company releases code that does not work as advertised, they should be compelled to refund paying customers their actual money until the code works as advertised.

Animar111 · March 2023

Well they did state in the second half of the year would not be an another dlc and would work solely on bug fixes and quality of life improvements.

I would say that that’s a step in the right direction.

danno8 · March 2023

jle30303 wrote: »

Frankly, if a company releases code that does not work as advertised, they should be compelled to refund paying customers their actual money until the code works as advertised.

All software ever written would require a refund then, since they all have bugs of some sort.

React · March 2023

Animar111 wrote: »

Well they did state in the second half of the year would not be an another dlc and would work solely on bug fixes and quality of life improvements.

I would say that that’s a step in the right direction.

They also stated that 2020 was the year of performance.

They also stated the code rewrite would be done before the end of 2022.

They also stated (word for word) that the servers weren't part of the performance issues, and that if they were they would have replaced them years ago.

They also have been stating that they're addressing server related performance concerns since as far back as 2016.

I hope that Q3 is a step in the right direction. That said, their statements are meaningless. We need actual commitment, and examples of them doing better, like rolling back hugely damaging changes such as those that came with u37.

Destai · March 2023

jle30303 wrote: »

Frankly, if a company releases code that does not work as advertised, they should be compelled to refund paying customers their actual money until the code works as advertised.

Unfortunately, games don't have SLA's like other XaaS products. Would be amazing if they did.

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Animar111 wrote: »

So are they not supposed to fix any underlying problems.

Don’t really know what this post is suggesting
Are you saying don’t fix anything…….!!!!!

No, he’s being hyperbolic, adding emphasis to the problem.

What’s being suggested is a more thorough testing of potential problems before patches like these are being released to the public, and if these problems are caught and relayed to the correct people by QA, they need to be acted upon, instead of releasing a broken update, wait a week or two to fix it, then roll it out.

If reading this, you are unsure what QA is, it stands for Quality Assurance… these teams are existent in every major company, including Zenimax Online Studios…

…this department is made up of paid employees that are PAID to catch things like these before patch release. If a patch’s quality can’t be assured, the patch needs to bounce back until they can be.

If QA isn’t detecting these problems, that’s baffling. It’s not some abstract bug, it’s a core combat problem, if QA are participating in combat tests, they would catch issues such as these.

QA is only supposed to find bugs, management and their developer resources have to prioritize it.

There's a few things I see as a software development manager myself.
1. It sounds like testing scope is larger than their current staffing levels can accommodate. Every organization is unique, but fundamentally a product manager or technical lead need to size that effort before giving it to the testing
2. It sounds like the technical backlog is larger than their current staffing levels or skillsets can accommodate. The persistent issues with block and other core combat mechanics tells me it's probably the latter.
3. There's a fog around the scope of their major efforts like the code reworks and server replacements. We don't have a clear list of what will be fixed by what and by when.
4. The communication around the bigger technical topics is some combination of vague and infrequent. Even on minor bugs, getting updates is proving difficult. Either they are unable to convey their efforts or don't feel like they have to for whatever reason. Hard to say which, but it feels like the latter.

rpa · March 2023

They started a project to improve communication long ago. I'm sure they get it finished in few more years.

Dr_Con · March 2023

They need a core combat ability bug task force to be on top of fixing it tbh.

Roztlin45 · March 2023

They should run the code through an A.I. Chat bot.
I keep.asking it for the meaning of life and get the answer...42.?!?
Second thought..nevermind.

danno8 · March 2023

What they really need is a continuous use of the PTS outside of the usual 6 week PTS cycle before a major update.

This would allow more time for bugs to be found, communicated and fixes to be incorporated into the client.

Ragnarok0130 · March 2023

Dr_Con wrote: »

They need a core combat ability bug task force to be on top of fixing it tbh.

Or maybe just a combat team who doesn’t shake up the etchasketch every patch and actually uses scalpels over sledgehammers instead of saying they will and grabbing the hammer anyways. A vision for combat would be very helpful as well - a real vision and not that non-committal marketing nonsense they gave us in their Q&A substitution post.

jhall03 · March 2023

I’m on console and I feel like breaking free and my R1 buttons have been buggy the past week or two. It’s intermittent for me.