38 replies to this topic

[Lafiele]

It always feels like they never ever test their updates themselves. It's like they add random skills onto a mob and think about it theortically and go "yup, feels balanced, I think the new skill on grenth which teleports you up in the air and drops you into 1 hit KO AoEs sounds perfectly balanced on paper, lets do this!".

Seriously, they should really make a video of a bunch of anet staff completing whatever new patch they just included to show that they've tried it, they've done it and it's doable as a majority.

[Reason on Cooldown]

I'm sure they have internal testers.  But any programmer will tell you that things don't always go like they do in a test environment.  And if they're too close to the design of the engagement, they might have insider knowledge of how it is supposed to work, and start off with better strategies, or better know what to look out for, than outsider people (i.e. us) playing it for the first time.

[Lycrus]

If you are working...and you are etsting things at work...guess you should know how testing works.

Honestly? I allready learned ins chool that testing something at home doesnt equal 100% functionality in school. Sometimes...people..*sighs*

[HawkofStorms]

It's an MMO for crying out loud.  Patches having unintended consequences should not be surprising to any veteran of the genre.

[Bloggi]

HawkofStorms, on 30 January 2013 - 01:35 AM, said:

It's an MMO for crying out loud.  Patches having unintended consequences should not be surprising to any veteran of the genre.

Yes I agree that the issues are complex, amongst other little issues like the 7 disconnects within two hours that I experienced following the update, which also reset daily achievements to some degree.

[Trei]

You know how sometimes if you didn't PDF your word file and you open it in another PC, the format gets totally fubar?

Yeah.

[Gerroh]

OP has a valid point in at least one case I can think of. I haven't seen this Grenth event, but what about the giver weapon +10% condition duration never working until just today? It definitely didn't work at launch, seems like a pretty straight-forward thing to me. It's either working or it's not, independent of someone's experience with it.
There have been other cases of wonky patches, some I understand, and some I feel like I really have to stretch to give it the "things don't always turn out as expected" excuse, but the giver weapons seem pretty inexcusable.

(Although I get the feeling I'm the only one that cares about that particular weapon prefix)

Edited by Gerroh, 30 January 2013 - 02:52 AM.

[Lucas Ashrock]

They test it on lan, 3-4 pc connected. No, not a replica of the entire world, alive. Just a slice of the content where they are working on, a sandbox. "Works, the game doesn't crash? K fine, put it online. If was overbugged junk well, we will know it soon when live and customers will complain going mad"

Edited by unraveled, 30 January 2013 - 08:29 AM.
Stamped out the flame-bait.

[Fernling306]

That's the biggest issue with Anet, they need a PTR to ensure things are better tested before releasing to the public to beta test for them. Maybe it's budget issues, I don't know, but seems pretty inexcusable otherwise.

[Gruunz]

There is usually quite a big difference in internal testers and players of the game.

The testers would usually do some routine check of whatever it is, whereas the players would more than likely try to do some obscure thing.

e.g.
Internal Tester: Craft [???] item 3 times, make sure it crafts.
Player: Crafts item x20, finds that it can be salvaged, sold for more when salvaged or forged into something much much better, or finding some way to exploit it.

[Fenice_86]

Maybe they test them on another game... idk

/sarcasm mode: ON

OP you pretend too much from monkeys!

/sarcasm mode: OFF.

[Coren2]

Like they always do tests, they do iterations. Try one method, tweak it, improve it then keep it as it is until an issue comes up when they added something else.

When I design, lets say, a milling bench test for R&D, I do what I've been tasked to do depending on the parameters set from the start of the project, and when it's complete you let it run. It's only after my bench test has been running for a while that it hits me that maybe I could've added, for example, a chair in front of the display for the operator.

[Gileas898]

I haven't experienced any bugs with Arena Net's patches actually.

For something to be bugged it would have to work under normal circumstances, but most of their patches are simply broken to the core, i.e. not working at all.

I'm actually dumbfounded how the average GW2 patch can contain more broken shit than a year's worth of updates in any other major MMO. Adding to that, it just keeps piling up, because as soon as they fix one thing they tend to break another in the process.

[raspberry jam]

Lycrus, on 30 January 2013 - 01:32 AM, said:

I allready learned ins chool that testing something at home doesnt equal 100% functionality in school.

You forgot to learn a couple of other things in school, though.

[Swoopeh]

Lucas Ashrock, on 30 January 2013 - 07:53 AM, said:

They test it on lan, 3-4 pc connected. No, not a replica of the entire world, alive. Just a slice of the content where they are working on, a sandbox. "Works, the game doesn't crash? K fine, put it online. If was overbugged junk well, we will know it soon when live and customers will complain going mad"

I do sometimes wonder why you even play the game if you hate it and Anet so much But your sandbox comment is correct, they can't fully simulate the live servers which is where most problems come from.

As a software dev I know how difficult it can be to get something working 100%. You need absolute clear communication between all departments, extensive testing at all points in the chain and everyone needs to feel committed to doing everything they can to deliver a top notch product. If there's even a single person in the chain who does a half-assed job (which could even be an exception for personal reasons) there's a chance that one or more issues filter through.

So the problem with Anet is that they do all their testing in-house with their QA team and can never simulate the game running live, with tens/hundredes of thousands of people doing all sorts of stuff at the same time. Also according to Glassdoor (http://www.glassdoor...ews-E255820.htm) a lot of QA staff are part-timers and things tend to get chaotic. They really do need PTRs to help them cover areas they can't test. Look at Blizzard, even with PTRs and probably the largest QA team of any MMO in existence their patches still contain bugs, albeit a lot less.

They are getting better though, personally I didn't experience any bugs the last two days other than getting disconnected while logging in once and that was probably just the login server being stressed. All things considered it's been really quite good tbh.

[raspberry jam]

Swoopeh, on 30 January 2013 - 12:42 PM, said:

So the problem with Anet is that they do all their testing in-house with their QA team and can never simulate the game running live, with tens/hundredes of thousands of people doing all sorts of stuff at the same time. Also according to Glassdoor (http://www.glassdoor...ews-E255820.htm) a lot of QA staff are part-timers and things tend to get chaotic. They really do need PTRs to help them cover areas they can't test. Look at Blizzard, even with PTRs and probably the largest QA team of any MMO in existence their patches still contain bugs, albeit a lot less.

Look at the amount of bugs in GW1. Yes bugs happened but never as frequently as in GW2, not even in the beginning.

[XPhiler]

Just to remind everyone that events scale in gw2, most likely this attack becomes insta kill only when there are a lot of players resulting in excessive damage scaling.  Still an oversight and still needs fixing but its easy to miss in testing if like I suspect  it probably doesnt happen in normal (10 ppl) groups.

[Craywulf]

Yeah, game developers aren't allowed make mistakes because testing is the be-all-end-all cure of having no bugs.

[malevolence]

As an UAT (User Acceptance testing, and no I don't work with Anet), engaging developers and management to implement new models into tools etc etc etc. I know this can happen, and I have experienced 1000 of times that when testing in a test environment went everything perfect, then in live, errors produced by developers have unintended consequences and different results. So I can say, we are all humans, and errors happens, nothing can be perfect. Only solution is to resolve the issue by patching.

Edited by malevolence, 30 January 2013 - 02:28 PM.

[raspberry jam]

XPhiler, on 30 January 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

Nothing just look at the game itself, you'll see plenty of people playing around happily as simple as that.

Yesterday nothing special was going, the first stage of prelude of flame and frost consided in nothing more then aquiring 1 achievement by fixing up signs, helping out refuges, collecting momentos from falling refuges, starting camp fires and stopping elementals coming out of the new gysers yet wayfarer hills was jam packed with players everywhere. I dont know about you, but to me that seems to show like people enjoy what arenanet release and even when they start small tons of people rush to play what there is available.

People follow the shinies.

[Calypso589]

A PTR is needed. It's simply common sense. 3 mill copies sold and a booming gem store? They can afford to let at least a few thousand random players in to mess with things.

That said, I equate Arenanet to a 4 year old trying desperately to impress their father (us). But because they're 4 years old, every attempt to impress is littered with failure but its cute that he's trying.

I appreciate Anet for trying to do what they're doing but they seem to be reaching for the stars without first having their feet planted on Earth.

A PTR would be a great way to make sure liftoff goes smoothly.

[mazut]

This attack probably can be dodge, we just dont know the animation yet.

[I'm Squirrel]

They don't. GW2's release was the worst release ever.

-mail system doesn't work
-trading post doesn't work
-overflow system doesn't work
-cant join party member's overflow
-guild tab doesn't work
-guild leader's cant see their own guild
-dungeons don't work
-frame rates of 5-20 max
-some people lost their accounts because you needed TWO cd keys (one for BWE and one for release)

brb beta weekend events ran much smoother + much more enjoyable than actual game. wtf?????

FOTM update:

-lol@fotm = joke dungeon, difficulty lvl requirements lol

inb4 rage

Edited by I'm Squirrel, 30 January 2013 - 05:04 PM.

[Azure Skye]

i think this thread is just flame bait to the ones that hate the game yet still "continue" to play the game with all the damn patches they have done, just leave. Nothing is prefect, just accept it >.>

[Craywulf]

I, on 30 January 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

They don't. GW2's release was the worst release ever.

It only seems that way in your head, but reality is that GW2 launch, despite the bugs...probably the best launch of any MMO in recent years. Non of the bugs were bad enough to create a mass exodus within the first two weeks.

Only in your mind was GW2 a disaster, you're just amazingly cynical about it and likely to dismiss me as "fanboy". GW2 has issues, but nowhere near the way you describe it. Every time you post rants like this you lose credibility. Take a deep breath, seek reality from a different source because you're being WAY too stark.

[XPhiler]

I, on 30 January 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

They don't. GW2's release was the worst release ever.

-mail system doesn't work
-trading post doesn't work
-overflow system doesn't work
-cant join party member's overflow
-guild tab doesn't work
-guild leader's cant see their own guild
-dungeons don't work
-frame rates of 5-20 max
-some people lost their accounts because you needed TWO cd keys (one for BWE and one for release)

brb beta weekend events ran much smoother + much more enjoyable than actual game. wtf?????

FOTM update:

-lol@fotm = joke dungeon, difficulty lvl requirements lol

inb4 rage

Gw2 is most certainly the worst MMO launch ever, if and only if thats the only MMO launch you ever witnessed. Doesnt take a lot of effort to look up hardships MMO launches experianced. You can even find handy articles like this one:
http://massively.joy...es-of-all-time/

Not saying Gw2 had the best launch ever, far from it, but at least it was playable and most of the issues where fixed in less then a month unlike some in that list. hey suffice to mention FFXIV they're still essentially fixing that launch to this day! but hey lets not let facts get in the way. Gw2 was much worst right?

[XPhiler]

You people put up too much faith in a PTR imho. It will help not saying it will not but its not going to be as effective as you think. With a PTR we will not get monthly updates as it would unfeasable in my opinion to have a PTR and not delay content a little bit and some of the bugs will get through anyway

Just compare the BWE with Launch. The BWE were like perfect compared with all the trouble launch had. Many bugs just dont occur unless there is a heavy load and there is no way to have a PTR that has the load of the live version.

[christiansoldier]

Lucas Ashrock, on 30 January 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

No flame bait. Just some truth and analysis about how this company is handling our purchased game

I would think the quality of the analysis in this thread is leagues below the quality of Areanet's testing that everyone is complaining about.

Edited by christiansoldier, 30 January 2013 - 07:04 PM.

[MazingerZ]

Calypso589, on 30 January 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

A PTR is needed. It's simply common sense. 3 mill copies sold and a booming gem store? They can afford to let at least a few thousand random players in to mess with things.

That said, I equate Arenanet to a 4 year old trying desperately to impress their father (us). But because they're 4 years old, every attempt to impress is littered with failure but its cute that he's trying.

I appreciate Anet for trying to do what they're doing but they seem to be reaching for the stars without first having their feet planted on Earth.

A PTR would be a great way to make sure liftoff goes smoothly.

Never going to happen.  People playing on a non-persistent PTR are people not spending money.

It's all overhead and no material return.

At least in a sub MMO, you need to be paying an active subscription to try out the PTR.

Edited by MazingerZ, 30 January 2013 - 07:32 PM.

[Jump_N_Move]

GW2 launch was dreadful. It was functional, but not at the same time.

For a good week there I was thinking it might be the next Tabula Rasa, but thankfully it wasn't that bad.

And those that thought the BWEs were smooth are kidding themselves. The BWEs were on par with a closed beta should be. As far as I'm concerened, GW2 is still in Open Beta, its still missing too many things to be called a complete/released game . Just like D3 without Pvp isn't a complete game, and that's why i got my money back. Also, complete doesn't mean dead like the developers want you to believe. that's just marketing getting their grubby hands on the devs release cycles. By pushing a game that should be in beta up to release, marketing gets more sales. and everyone loves sales, even at the cost of the game's reputation. Can't sacrificing profit margins for quality. Nooo. Gotta squeeze every drop out, while we run it into the ground. OH WAIT, then we can just make a new one. PROFIT!

Ill just keep praying the Devs magically start holding themselves to producing higher quality work than what they are now, because its more likely than sales dept's sacrificing profit for quality.