The QA Team Got Fired ...

Gabriel_H · July 13

... I'm honestly shocked you had one! That may seem callous, and it probably is a little, but I am paying for something and I expect it to work. I can accept some bugs escaping QA, but persistent long standing bugs in the same area over and over, release after release, is getting beyond a joke.

I've finished the Thieves Guild quest line, I'm missing 2 (possibly 3) lorebooks related to that quest line. As a lorebook hunter I do all the usual things to make sure they are found - scanning every room, checking inventory at each stage, checking post-quest hubs. One of those missing books I'm pretty sure I read in my inventory but it didn't register and others have noted the same. The other 1 (or 2) are nowhere to be found. They are not with all the other books in the post-quest location. Maybe they are with the nowhere-to-be-found keys?!

I have spent the last year curating a bugged book list, and after finally seeing movement by ZOS to address the problem, you then go and release even more bugged books. Are they the most important bug? Not to most, but they shouldn't be making it into game because players have told you for years about them. It should be on your radar to check as part of QA and process. A bugged book is as annoying to some of us as a bugged quest. It feels like it stifles out progress.

It's the little things like this that sap the most goodwill players have for devs, because this stuff is so low hanging fruit it shouldn't exist.

Side Note: This isn't just about lorebooks, albeit they were the straw that broke the camels back. A new story quest ruined by queuing - QUEUING - to get into it, followed by a great stealth storyline ruined by bugs that broke stealth without breaking stealth. What faith is the player base supposed to have that you can fix more problematic bugs if you keep letting these easy to fix ones into the Live game?!

amiiegee · July 13

Whole ship is sinking buddy, we are so on maintenance mode - what happened today on ps5 just proves they don’t really have controll anymore.

Tiny update automaticly got installed and people had to reinstall a 130gb game and re-do all add ons and all settings.

But the crown store is running

Gabriel_H · July 13

amiiegee wrote: »

Whole ship is sinking buddy, we are so on maintenance mode - what happened today on ps5 just proves they don’t really have controll anymore.

Tiny update automaticly got installed and people had to reinstall a 130gb game and re-do all add ons and all settings.

But the crown store is running

You still don't know what maintenance mode means it seems.

amiiegee · July 13

Gabriel_H wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Whole ship is sinking buddy, we are so on maintenance mode - what happened today on ps5 just proves they don’t really have controll anymore.

Tiny update automaticly got installed and people had to reinstall a 130gb game and re-do all add ons and all settings.

But the crown store is running

You still don't know what maintenance mode means it seems.

Mattymoo92 · July 13

amiiegee wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

Whole ship is sinking buddy, we are so on maintenance mode - what happened today on ps5 just proves they don’t really have controll anymore.

Tiny update automaticly got installed and people had to reinstall a 130gb game and re-do all add ons and all settings.

But the crown store is running

You still don't know what maintenance mode means it seems.

Things are bad but please research what it means

Also
@Zos_Kevin there is so many bugs and problems this season it IS kinda concerning ngl

beer781993 · July 13

I mean you cant even craft a set without the whole menu jumping back up. Then you can constantly scroll down to craft on consoles.

The great crash after leaving the championpoint menu is also still there.

Navigating inside your other menus causes microfreezes here and there.

If sb changes their role after joining the groupfinder you can't change the group roles anymore and suddenly have 9 DDs or 3 Tanks..

Bar swapping not working anymore until relog ...

Fps drops, lags, dcs.

Just a few examples with what I am dealing daily on Ps5.

Addon errors here and there because we got only 100 MB of space.....

Bosses in dungeons bug out if you deal too much damage and become immortal like in scriveners hall in the second endboss phase.

That today was just the icing on the cake again. I am really pissed. 140 GB redownload ....

Usureki · July 13

If I had the assumption that DEVs did not played their own game I have no idea what to say about a supposed QA team lol.

Just a reminder, that Season One was developed with the team intact. We have the result that we got.

I pray ZOS find their way.

carly · July 13

Agile methodology is quite different from the old Waterfall model that companies used to use. Back in the day, you'd have anywhere from 3 to 6 months of QA and UAT testing for a product. Under Agile, you're lucky if you get one week for QA, and most companies don't even bother hiring QA's anymore, they make the developers and the analysts do their own QA.

With Agile, you generally have 2 week sprints and usually a 3 month release cycle so everything is done during that time frame and then released. So smaller quarterly releases as opposed to one big release annually. Just to be clear, I'm referring to the companies I worked for over the past 30 years (retired now) but I suspect it's not too different here .

As for bugs, under Agile - only game breaking or product breaking bugs get fixed ASAP. The rest go on a list, by priority, and are taken up when a Scrum team has some velocity during whatever future release they are working on.

I see the developers and testers get criticized a lot sometimes, not just here but on other game forms and I don't think it's fair - they do what they're told to do. Deadlines are tight and hours are long as more work gets pushed on them. At my old company, Scrum teams often worked two projects simultaneously and things get missed when you're stretched thin. Can only imagine what it will be like with AI coming in, sure AI might do the tedious tasks but you can bet that just means more work will get piled on to teams.

PoveusRonin · July 13

I like how people think the majority of gamers know the specific ins and out of the development cycle and how it works.

So who are we supposed to be blaming for the errors and mistakes in game???

Warhawke_80 · July 13

PoveusRonin wrote: »

I like how people think the majority of gamers know the specific ins and out of the development cycle and how it works.

So who are we supposed to be blaming for the errors and mistakes in game???

The reality is that some people are going to doomcast no matter what. If a bug slips through, it's "the developers are incompetent." If content takes longer because they're fixing bugs, it's "the game is dying." If they release content on time, it's "they rushed it." There's no winning with that mindset.

Most players don't know the day-to-day realities of game development, and honestly, they don't need to. But it's also worth recognizing that not every issue has a simple person to blame. Modern game development involves designers, engineers, artists, QA, producers, management, publishers, budgets, deadlines, and countless moving parts. Sometimes mistakes happen because of individual decisions, sometimes because of management priorities, and sometimes because software is just incredibly complex.

Constructive criticism is healthy. Constantly assuming the worst and treating every setback as proof the sky is falling isn't...

spartaxoxo · July 14

I don't know a single large game that doesn't have bugs, even longstanding ones. You're not going to get a game this size and not have bugs. They gotta prioritize what to fix and things that don't serious impacts on gameplay and effect relatively few users enjoyment of a game are obviously going to be lower on the list.

PoveusRonin · July 14

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

PoveusRonin wrote: »

I like how people think the majority of gamers know the specific ins and out of the development cycle and how it works.

So who are we supposed to be blaming for the errors and mistakes in game???

The reality is that some people are going to doomcast no matter what. If a bug slips through, it's "the developers are incompetent." If content takes longer because they're fixing bugs, it's "the game is dying." If they release content on time, it's "they rushed it." There's no winning with that mindset.

Most players don't know the day-to-day realities of game development, and honestly, they don't need to. But it's also worth recognizing that not every issue has a simple person to blame. Modern game development involves designers, engineers, artists, QA, producers, management, publishers, budgets, deadlines, and countless moving parts. Sometimes mistakes happen because of individual decisions, sometimes because of management priorities, and sometimes because software is just incredibly complex.

Constructive criticism is healthy. Constantly assuming the worst and treating every setback as proof the sky is falling isn't...

Yes and some will come out and defend the developers no matter the level of bugs that new content comes out with. When I personally think of developers, it's a catch all term for the people making the game. It doesn't matter to me if it is the art person or the engineer, if they help develop the game they are developers.

Yes the game is a very complex thing that has many moving parts and various code that needs to be added and checked. But, when you start putting out more and more errors, that signifies you are rushing the content and not giving it the quality assurance it needs. These last two or three patches have had very obvious bugs that should have been noticed if they spent time in game checking it out before release.

To tell people that they should not complain on the developers is insane as we do need to make sure they are held to the standard they gave in the past or it will be the death of this game if everyone leaves due to too many bugs to complete content.

DenverRalphy · July 14

Yes all games will have bugs. But that does not mean development should not still strive for perfection. As a player, I won't grumble over imperfection. But then too, I don't wish to start each gaming session thinking "Let's see what's broken today shall we?" either.

Quite frankly, ESO surpassed the "All games have bugs" deflection some time back. Though I will concede Season Zero was noticeably better than the not so distant past, Seasons of the Worm Cult. That was a veritable bug-ridden nightmare.

spartaxoxo · July 14

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Yes all games will have bugs. But that does not mean development should not still strive for perfection. As a player, I won't grumble over imperfection. But then too, I don't wish to start each gaming session thinking "Let's see what's broken today shall we?" either.

Quite frankly, ESO surpassed the "All games have bugs" deflection some time back. Though I will concede Season Zero was noticeably better than the not so distant past, Seasons of the Worm Cult. That was a veritable bug-ridden nightmare.

When it comes to stuff like lorebooks being missing, yes, they absolutely did have bigger fish to fry. If this was all about Cyrodiil or Trials, I'd agree. But lorebooks are exactly the kind of niche thing that all games have to deal with and we can want the game to perform better but also be realistic. They have more lorebooks to fix and they should fix them. When they have the time imo

DenverRalphy · July 14

spartaxoxo wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Yes all games will have bugs. But that does not mean development should not still strive for perfection. As a player, I won't grumble over imperfection. But then too, I don't wish to start each gaming session thinking "Let's see what's broken today shall we?" either.

Quite frankly, ESO surpassed the "All games have bugs" deflection some time back. Though I will concede Season Zero was noticeably better than the not so distant past, Seasons of the Worm Cult. That was a veritable bug-ridden nightmare.

When it comes to stuff like lorebooks being missing, yes, they absolutely did have bigger fish to fry. If this was all about Cyrodiil or Trials, I'd agree. But lorebooks are exactly the kind of niche thing that all games have to deal with and we can want the game to perform better but also be realistic. They have more lorebooks to fix and they should fix them. When they have the time imo

Oh absolutely. I agree. Fixing them after the fact is a low priority IMO.

But at the same time, the underlying cause behind more and more lore books being introduced to the game with the same problem is an issue that should probably be addressed somewhat sooner than later. Because you don't want a mole hill growing to a mountain.

[edit] typos

Gabriel_H · July 14

spartaxoxo wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Yes all games will have bugs. But that does not mean development should not still strive for perfection. As a player, I won't grumble over imperfection. But then too, I don't wish to start each gaming session thinking "Let's see what's broken today shall we?" either.

Quite frankly, ESO surpassed the "All games have bugs" deflection some time back. Though I will concede Season Zero was noticeably better than the not so distant past, Seasons of the Worm Cult. That was a veritable bug-ridden nightmare.

When it comes to stuff like lorebooks being missing, yes, they absolutely did have bigger fish to fry. If this was all about Cyrodiil or Trials, I'd agree. But lorebooks are exactly the kind of niche thing that all games have to deal with and we can want the game to perform better but also be realistic. They have more lorebooks to fix and they should fix them. When they have the time imo

They shouldn't find time to fix things like lorebooks - because they shouldn't need fixing in the first place! This is a years long persistent problem that many have been shouting about for all those years, and yet these kind of bugs keep making into Live. That isn't a niche thing, it's a fundamental flaw in the development process.

And as I said, that is merely the straw that broke the camels back.

Usureki · July 14

carly wrote: »

Agile methodology is quite different from the old Waterfall model that companies used to use. Back in the day, you'd have anywhere from 3 to 6 months of QA and UAT testing for a product. Under Agile, you're lucky if you get one week for QA, and most companies don't even bother hiring QA's anymore, they make the developers and the analysts do their own QA.

With Agile, you generally have 2 week sprints and usually a 3 month release cycle so everything is done during that time frame and then released. So smaller quarterly releases as opposed to one big release annually. Just to be clear, I'm referring to the companies I worked for over the past 30 years (retired now) but I suspect it's not too different here .

As for bugs, under Agile - only game breaking or product breaking bugs get fixed ASAP. The rest go on a list, by priority, and are taken up when a Scrum team has some velocity during whatever future release they are working on.

I see the developers and testers get criticized a lot sometimes, not just here but on other game forms and I don't think it's fair - they do what they're told to do. Deadlines are tight and hours are long as more work gets pushed on them. At my old company, Scrum teams often worked two projects simultaneously and things get missed when you're stretched thin. Can only imagine what it will be like with AI coming in, sure AI might do the tedious tasks but you can bet that just means more work will get piled on to teams.

O boi. Agility is not at all an excuse for bad product. It is a method that allows more flexibility for business requirement changes, but if done well, it should not result in bad quality. They are clearly doing ot wrong.

.. but also, many of the bugs reported on the game are eyewatering in a sense, that if somebody actually plays the game, they are so trivial to find. They are not playing their own game. Sad.

BretonMage · July 14

My biggest concern is what the QA will look like now that half their team is gone. Do we resign ourselves to nothing but the most gamebreaking bugs being fixed? That would make me sad.

Warhawke_80 · July 14

PoveusRonin wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

PoveusRonin wrote: »

I like how people think the majority of gamers know the specific ins and out of the development cycle and how it works.

So who are we supposed to be blaming for the errors and mistakes in game???

The reality is that some people are going to doomcast no matter what. If a bug slips through, it's "the developers are incompetent." If content takes longer because they're fixing bugs, it's "the game is dying." If they release content on time, it's "they rushed it." There's no winning with that mindset.

Most players don't know the day-to-day realities of game development, and honestly, they don't need to. But it's also worth recognizing that not every issue has a simple person to blame. Modern game development involves designers, engineers, artists, QA, producers, management, publishers, budgets, deadlines, and countless moving parts. Sometimes mistakes happen because of individual decisions, sometimes because of management priorities, and sometimes because software is just incredibly complex.

Constructive criticism is healthy. Constantly assuming the worst and treating every setback as proof the sky is falling isn't...

Yes and some will come out and defend the developers no matter the level of bugs that new content comes out with. When I personally think of developers, it's a catch all term for the people making the game. It doesn't matter to me if it is the art person or the engineer, if they help develop the game they are developers.

Yes the game is a very complex thing that has many moving parts and various code that needs to be added and checked. But, when you start putting out more and more errors, that signifies you are rushing the content and not giving it the quality assurance it needs. These last two or three patches have had very obvious bugs that should have been noticed if they spent time in game checking it out before release.

To tell people that they should not complain on the developers is insane as we do need to make sure they are held to the standard they gave in the past or it will be the death of this game if everyone leaves due to too many bugs to complete content.

/sigh

Where in my post did I tell people to not complain? [snip]
[edited for trolling]