Guild Wars 2

I’ve been going through the forums, reading the threads, seeing the general population reporting all manner of issues from the mundane to the horrifingly game breaking with little or no response. It’s becoming evident that a large percentage of the players of your game are starting to feel abandoned.

Actions speak louder than words. Actions spoke louder than your words when you revolutionized the stale MMO formula. Actions spoke louder than words with your solid communication during the beta. Actions spoke louder than words when you swiftly banned players who excessively exploited the karma bug.

Now, sadly, your inactions are speaking louder than your words. The loading screen bug is plaguing sPvP again, an issue that is gamebreaking for many players (tournaments). Several bugs that were stated as fixed in the last patch notes were not. (cantrip cooldown trait + mistform, still can’t hit objects with melee, blast finisher on Dragon’s Tooth). Bugs that have been around since beta are still here (some skills/traits don’t work as advertised and a few traits don’t work at all, several runes are bugged, wasting gold buying runes only to find out they don’t work is INFURIATING).

You can thank us for our patience and tell us you are looking into it. I believe you, others will believe you as well. However, that’s only works for so long before that feeling of abandonment sinks in. We start to wonder when the next patch is. We remember how long ago the last patch was, and how little it seemed to address. We worry because we know there isn’t going to be too many bugfixes in the next patch. Will it have a fix for the bugs that have been plaguing me? If not, how long will I have to wait?

I understand the scope of what you’re doing, and I don’t envy you the task. But I think the community at large would benefit from seeing you doing SOMETHING. And I don’t mean, “We’re looking into it”. I mean a patching schedule that’s more deadset. Every other week, a patch that contains a few bugfixes, some skill tweaks, maybe a new recipe or a new cashshop item. Slow and steady is better than slow and staggered.

Please don’t let the player’s actions start speaking louder than their words. Start acting, and retain the population of this fantastic game.

I have to jump on board with this one. I love this game a lot but first things first here. It’s plagued by an unbelievable amount of bugs. A number so unimaginably high that I’ve never seen anything close to this in my life. There are two very infuriating things about that fact

1) a lot of bugs that existed during the beta phase of this game still exist today. These range from trait / skill bugs to broken events. The UI bugs with small / large UI still exist etc. The amount of time it’s taking to even catch up on this bug list is unreal. Let alone all of the bugs that are being created with the more recent patches. its a vicious cycle

2) there is very very little feedback regarding these bugs. the amount of rage posts about certain issues all over these forums is crazy. Nobody is officially acknowledging a majority of these issues and that’s making people very angry. A simple reply with a lot of these issues will go a long ways

I guess none of you ever played another on launch MMO? All things told, guildwars 2 launch has been relatively smooth… The serious bugs that did crop up were fixed rather quickly. Compare this to say WoW’s launch, and oh my god the bugs.

I’ve seen most of the bugs i’ve run across fixed within a week or two. The others there are workarounds that work temporarily, and a few that are probably head scratchers.

Neither of you have likely worked on bug fixing code.. it isn’t like patching a wall or sanding out a ding on your car. :\ some bugs can be so illusive as to hide for years on end, cropping up only in weird situations 7.5 days after daylight savings, but only if the day is tuesday. :P
The thing I would like them to do though, is put a lot more information in to the patch notes. Documentation is everything!

Nesetalis.5293:

I guess none of you ever played another on launch MMO? All things told, guildwars 2 launch has been relatively smooth… The serious bugs that did crop up were fixed rather quickly. Compare this to say WoW’s launch, and oh my god the bugs.

I’ve seen most of the bugs i’ve run across fixed within a week or two. The others there are workarounds that work temporarily, and a few that are probably head scratchers.

Neither of you have likely worked on bug fixing code.. it isn’t like patching a wall or sanding out a ding on your car. :\ some bugs can be so illusive as to hide for years on end, cropping up only in weird situations 7.5 days after daylight savings, but only if the day is tuesday. :P
The thing I would like them to do though, is put a lot more information in to the patch notes. Documentation is everything!

Actually, yes I have done debugging. In fact, that’s part of my current job.

I understand bugs can be ELusive (mass effect fan?) and that they can take time to fix. However, some bugs are more complex than others. And some of these bugs just have no excuse.

The cantrip cooldown trait for the ele for instance. This trait decreases the cooldown time for 3 out of the 4 skills it’s supposed to. It works fine for the other 3 skills. Changing a number isn’t terribly complex. And even if the skill has a unikittenfect that is complicating matters, they’ve had three months to fix it now! Are they so understaffed that someone can’t spare a half a day to sort through the problem and straighten this out?

To add insult to injury, they said they fixed it in the patch notes and they didn’t. That’s just sloppy. I know before I patch any piece of software I support, I go through and test the fixes listed in the patch notes to make sure they actually work.

Nesetalis.5293:

I guess none of you ever played another on launch MMO? All things told, guildwars 2 launch has been relatively smooth… The serious bugs that did crop up were fixed rather quickly. Compare this to say WoW’s launch, and oh my god the bugs.

I’ve seen most of the bugs i’ve run across fixed within a week or two. The others there are workarounds that work temporarily, and a few that are probably head scratchers.

Neither of you have likely worked on bug fixing code.. it isn’t like patching a wall or sanding out a ding on your car. :\ some bugs can be so illusive as to hide for years on end, cropping up only in weird situations 7.5 days after daylight savings, but only if the day is tuesday. :P
The thing I would like them to do though, is put a lot more information in to the patch notes. Documentation is everything!

I certainly have played other MMO’s at launch and i do agree with the fact that at least this game was playable unlike WoW’s launch which was catastrophic. I don’t remember so much on the bug front with that launch but the server capacity issue and their servers constantly going down was a big deal. Also their classes needed a ton of work at launch

I have done some work on code in the past and i find it hugely frustrating. I know what they are up against for sure. Coding and debugging definitely isnt for me. A lot of these bugged events im sure are a real pain in the butt to try to fix because some of the problems can be quite elusive as you say

your lucky with the bugs that youve encountered being fixed within a week or two. I can only think of one skill challenge that was fixed about 2 weeks after it was bugged for me. everything else thats frustrating me has been there since launch or prior to launch

Xriah.5743:

Nesetalis.5293:

I guess none of you ever played another on launch MMO? All things told, guildwars 2 launch has been relatively smooth… The serious bugs that did crop up were fixed rather quickly. Compare this to say WoW’s launch, and oh my god the bugs.

I’ve seen most of the bugs i’ve run across fixed within a week or two. The others there are workarounds that work temporarily, and a few that are probably head scratchers.

Neither of you have likely worked on bug fixing code.. it isn’t like patching a wall or sanding out a ding on your car. :\ some bugs can be so illusive as to hide for years on end, cropping up only in weird situations 7.5 days after daylight savings, but only if the day is tuesday. :P
The thing I would like them to do though, is put a lot more information in to the patch notes. Documentation is everything!

Actually, yes I have done debugging. In fact, that’s part of my current job.

I understand bugs can be ELusive (mass effect fan?) and that they can take time to fix. However, some bugs are more complex than others. And some of these bugs just have no excuse.

The cantrip cooldown trait for the ele for instance. This trait decreases the cooldown time for 3 out of the 4 skills it’s supposed to. It works fine for the other 3 skills. Changing a number isn’t terribly complex. And even if the skill has a unikittenfect that is complicating matters, they’ve had three months to fix it now! Are they so understaffed that someone can’t spare a half a day to sort through the problem and straighten this out?

To add insult to injury, they said they fixed it in the patch notes and they didn’t. That’s just sloppy. I know before I patch any piece of software I support, I go through and test the fixes listed in the patch notes to make sure they actually work.

This ^

I also work in computer science as a programmer and well… I usually test my bugfixes quite thoroughly before I say they’re fixed. I personally have an issue that they are worrying so much about pushing out content that it seems to be taking precedence over so many bugs, but my absolute biggest gripe are the “Guys! We fixed X” and…. they didn’t actually fix it at all. That is ludicrous.

Xriah.5743:

Nesetalis.5293:

I guess none of you ever played another on launch MMO? All things told, guildwars 2 launch has been relatively smooth… The serious bugs that did crop up were fixed rather quickly. Compare this to say WoW’s launch, and oh my god the bugs.

I’ve seen most of the bugs i’ve run across fixed within a week or two. The others there are workarounds that work temporarily, and a few that are probably head scratchers.

Neither of you have likely worked on bug fixing code.. it isn’t like patching a wall or sanding out a ding on your car. :\ some bugs can be so illusive as to hide for years on end, cropping up only in weird situations 7.5 days after daylight savings, but only if the day is tuesday. :P
The thing I would like them to do though, is put a lot more information in to the patch notes. Documentation is everything!

Actually, yes I have done debugging. In fact, that’s part of my current job.

I understand bugs can be ELusive (mass effect fan?) and that they can take time to fix. However, some bugs are more complex than others. And some of these bugs just have no excuse.

The cantrip cooldown trait for the ele for instance. This trait decreases the cooldown time for 3 out of the 4 skills it’s supposed to. It works fine for the other 3 skills. Changing a number isn’t terribly complex. And even if the skill has a unikittenfect that is complicating matters, they’ve had three months to fix it now! Are they so understaffed that someone can’t spare a half a day to sort through the problem and straighten this out?

To add insult to injury, they said they fixed it in the patch notes and they didn’t. That’s just sloppy. I know before I patch any piece of software I support, I go through and test the fixes listed in the patch notes to make sure they actually work.

I agree that some of the fixes are indeed sloppy in that regard. The notes say its fixed and in reality it really isnt fixed. Its strange that every environment like sPvP and PvE etc can yield different results. Works here, doesnt work there. Makes me wonder where they are testing all of these fixes at?

Some of the bugs really dont have an excuse i completely agree. In the options menu they give you different UI size options for example. Choosing small or large UI yields text bugs in both results that have been there since beta. Thats one example of a head scratching bug thats still in the game. why give people options if they dont work? Get rid of them until you fix it

Another head scratcher is HoTW explorable mode. Why fix the exploit on the last boss in path 3 yet leave the bug where your group can go through the wall and kill the boss of path 2 as well? why fix something so silly and leave a more important issue out like the groups that are farming 120 tokens a run. On that note i cant think of a single dungeon that isnt bugged / exploitable in some way. the fixes are not coming quick enough at all especially when this kinda stuff is supposed to be the end game. Dungeons are mostly terrain exploits and i dont believe for a second that it would take someone more than a full work day to plug most of the holes so to speak

Kneemin.4235:

I personally have an issue that they are worrying so much about pushing out content that it seems to be taking precedence over so many bugs.

That might be my biggest issue with this game so far. When you add complexity to an already existing complex system, you are almost certainly introducing more bugs. The last thing this game needs is more bugs. I’d much rather have a a few fun activities in a stable game than a million activites I don’t want to do because they’re all a buggy mess.

When I first got the game, I thought ANet wasn’t concerned about keeping players constantly playing. Why should they be? They aren’t losing subs or anything. They were going to make the best game they could and people could play it at their leisure. People could get bored, take breaks for awhile, and come back when they wanted.

But with all these content pushes, it seems like they’re getting frantic trying to keep people playing with the latest shiny activity to distract them. The activities are nice, but I’d rather see them later on in development, when most of the bugs have been ironed out and they have a more stable foundation to build extra content upon.

Xriah.5743:

Kneemin.4235:

I personally have an issue that they are worrying so much about pushing out content that it seems to be taking precedence over so many bugs.

That might be my biggest issue with this game so far. When you add complexity to an already existing complex system, you are almost certainly introducing more bugs. The last thing this game needs is more bugs. I’d much rather have a a few fun activities in a stable game than a million activites I don’t want to do because they’re all a buggy mess.

When I first got the game, I thought ANet wasn’t concerned about keeping players constantly playing. Why should they be? They aren’t losing subs or anything. They were going to make the best game they could and people could play it at their leisure. People could get bored, take breaks for awhile, and come back when they wanted.

But with all these content pushes, it seems like they’re getting frantic trying to keep people playing with the latest shiny activity to distract them. The activities are nice, but I’d rather see them later on in development, when most of the bugs have been ironed out and they have a more stable foundation to build extra content upon.

This was a big debate in another thread as well. Push out more content or polish whats already there. It’s just my personal opinion but i would rather see more polish than new content. I have barely touched fractals right now because of all the issues with it. Zoning in can get buggy / wonky, DC’ing inside screws up the entire party, various exploitable issues in several fractals, the whole difficulty numbers making grouping exhausting and annoying etc. Even going back to the “old” dungeons I can’t think of a single one that i don’t know about some sort of bug / exploit. I would definitely rather see all the original content polished before they add anything else at this point. but thats just me of course, not everyone will share that opinion

Its not necessarily an either or situation. They have specifically said they have separate teams working on bug fixing and content.

That’s not necessairly a good thing. The more you put into a single patch, the more potential root causes you have to problems, and the more senarios you have to juggle.

Let’s say you introduce a small patch with bug fixes A, B, and C, and the fix for A doesn’t work. In this senario, either you forgot the fix, or the fix for B or C is interfeering with A.

Let’s add features D, E, and F, introduced by a seperate group. Let’s say feature D isn’t working. Perhaps feature D relied on bug A to be fixed, but bug A isn’t working because feature E made some base code changes. Perhaps feature E broke feature D, which the fix for bug A relied on. Perhaps feature F and E both made changes that would have been okay by themselves, but has caused a new bug that has the same symptoms as bug A, but has also broken feature D. You get the idea.

What if this patch introduces bug G? With the smaller patch, your questions is, is this bug caused by the fix for A, B, or C, or a combination of them?

With the larger patch, your question is: is this bug caused by bug A, B, C, or feature D, E, F, or a combination of them?

The more moving pieces you change at once, that harder a root cause is to find. Smaller patches more quickly would help minimize potential impact.

Thought I’d raise this point again after seeing the bugs caused by this most recent patch. Smaller patches more frequently means less changes, means fewer bugs caused by said patches.