Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been playing this game since the BWE’s and have tracked the game’s progress. I have never stuck with an MMORPG for more then 3 months and GW2 looks to be the first one to keep my attention for quite a bit longer. However I am concerned with the pace the bugs are being fixed. In it’s current state many of the dungeons and high level areas have progress blocking parts. Many of the classes have unplayable builds (Ranger, Necro…ahem). I have tried to keep most of my complaints on reserve, but in all honestly, how long is a reasonable time to wait before things become unreasonable? 3 months? 6 months? 1 year? For those of you that played WoW, SW:TOR, GW1, Age of Conan, EVE, RIFT, etc; how long did it take before the game was balanced/ had most MAJOR bugs worked out? How long before the complaints on the forums went from an exponential rise to a steady decay? Please provide specific anecdotes if you can.

An honest question for someone who has never played an MMO long term.

I would have stuck with SWTOR longer and never got GW2 if the foundation of SWTOR had been better. But luckily for me SWTOR flopped massively (IMO) and I picked up GW2 and am blown away at is core foundations, I love the class mechanics, I love the flavour of the worlds (puzzles, mini dungeons everything). I enjoy the challenge of the dungeons and I love popping enemies in WvW. They could take decades to fix the bugs (intentional exaggeration) and I would be okay with that.

I am never bothered by bugs I tend to just move on to something else and come back periodically to see if the bug has been fixed.

2 years. At the very least.

Actually my personal policy is to never buy MMOs or other online games until 3 months after release. Sadly I was suckered into both Diablo 3 and GW2 on release due to friends buying them and peer pressuring me.

But luckily I am a mature person who goes into games (and life) without excessive expectations, so in both cases the games have been enjoyable. Although I’m never going back to D3 so I’ll miss all of the big changes that are apparently coming.

The worse part of both games have been the forums. Really, I should break my unhealthy addiction to reading forums. They really just ruin the game for me. Along with rotting my soul and destroying any remaining faith I have in humanity.

WoW: Some classes were just unplayable unless slotted into its pigeonhole until 2.0. And I was a paladin.

Given BC is released a bit more than 2 years after the vanilla game I would take it as the measuring stick.

Rieselle.5079:

Actually my personal policy is to never buy MMOs or other online games until 3 months after release. Sadly I was suckered into both Diablo 3 and GW2 on release due to friends buying them and peer pressuring me.

But luckily I am a mature person who goes into games (and life) without excessive expectations, so in both cases the games have been enjoyable. Although I’m never going back to D3 so I’ll miss all of the big changes that are apparently coming.

The worse part of both games have been the forums. Really, I should break my unhealthy addiction to reading forums. They really just ruin the game for me. Along with rotting my soul and destroying any remaining faith I have in humanity.

Aha! Got a laugh out of your last paragraph. I will admit that there is a lot of exaggerated QQing on the Forums. You go to any class forum and you will see that apparently they have it the worse. But some of these concerns are justified: personally I have had to restart the same dungeon 3 times in the last 2 weeks due to a progress blocking bug. Due to a job and school I can only play on weekends so wasting 2 hours on a bugged dungeon takes a big chunk out of my fun time.

Well the thing is, it’s different for every company. For example Rift had almost no bugs at release and even those few bugs were fixed in a little more than a month. Even their beta was almost bug free, I was pretty amazed.
WoW was kinda worse at launch, there were alot of bugs and I don’t really know how long it took them to fix all of them but when I started playing 2-3 months after launch I don’t remember running into any important bugs, most of them were just a little annoying hardly worth mentioning.
Aion was pretty bad at launch, it had many bugs and it took them months to fix them. Many of them were major bugs. It was one of the reasons I stopped playing after 2 months, although it was the least important reason.
I would say in general 3 months for all the major bugs to be fixed. Not all bugs, just the major ones

My boyfriends main character is a necro. He is very fond of his beloved necro, loves playing it and is oblivious of the “life siphon healing mobs” bug and other issues. I’m not going to tell him. He stays away from the forum, thus noticing bugs less and enjoying the game more.

For me, I’m thankful that I still have the ability to shrug whenever I encounter a bug or bot. I have played AoC when it was first released, and even though I loved the game, the bugs eventually made me quit, and that was WITHOUT reading any forums whatsoever. GW2 could improve, certainly. But it’s not "critical’ yet – unless you dwell on the forums too much.

What it comes down to is – are you having an enjoyable time or not? I doubt any MMO will ever be perfect, they all have their flaws.

I used to play a druid in WoW, as class which was pidgeonholed into only one feasible role (healer) until the first expansion came out after two years, and due to previous game experiences I was not very fond of being a healer. The game overall still was fascinating enough for me to stay, plus I did not restrict myself to just playing that one class. The devs there got many things right, and improved many things over time. Sadly they also got some things dead wrong (from my point of view), so I left in the end, after being a hardcore player for a long time.

In my opinion the devs of GW2 are making a good effort to fix bugs, so I can’t say I am unhappy on that front. What bothers me most probably are the bot-hordes where I think Arenanet needs to change their approach at least initially and have GMs hunt them down, until they can come up with a working automated system.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

My boyfriends main character is a necro. He is very fond of his beloved necro, loves playing it and is oblivious of the “life siphon healing mobs” bug and other issues. I’m not going to tell him. He stays away from the forum, thus noticing bugs less and enjoying the game more.

For me, I’m thankful that I still have the ability to shrug whenever I encounter a bug or bot. I have played AoC when it was first released, and even though I loved the game, the bugs eventually made me quit, and that was WITHOUT reading any forums whatsoever. GW2 could improve, certainly. But it’s not "critical’ yet – unless you dwell on the forums too much.

Personally, I only surf the forums if there is an issue I observe, to guage if my concern is a big issue or just a personal misunderstanding. For example reading the patch notes and not seeing anything for the ranger, irked me a bit. Pet responsiveness is something you can see just from playing the game. Also in optimizing my character it is of some use to surf the forums and see the studies peoples have done, like the SB-QZ bug so that I can optimize my character for dungeons.

Bezayne.6459:

What it comes down to is – are you having an enjoyable time or not? I doubt any MMO will ever be perfect, they all have their flaws.

I used to play a druid in WoW, as class which was pidgeonholed into only one feasible role (healer) until the first expansion came out after two years, and due to previous game experiences I was not very fond of being a healer. The game overall still was fascinating enough for me to stay, plus I did not restrict myself to just playing that one class. The devs there got many things right, and improved many things over time. Sadly they also got some things dead wrong (from my point of view), so I left in the end, after being a hardcore player for a long time.

In my opinion the devs of GW2 are making a good effort to fix bugs, so I can’t say I am unhappy on that front. What bothers me most probably are the bot-hordes where I think Arenanet needs to change their approach at least initially and have GMs hunt them down, until they can come up with a working automated system.

To answer your first question, that is why I made this post. For now I can deal with the majority of the bugs and am having a lot of fun. In addition it is also because I haven’t reached max lvl yet so have yet to experience some of the heavier bugs in the game. So for now YES…I am having a blast with the game!

However, 6 months down the line if I am still having to repeat 1/5 dungeon runs because of a bug that prevents me from finishing…then NO my fun levels will have greatly worn down. In essence I am trying to gauge my expectations for the future for what is “reasonable” to expect.

You cannot possibly have a reasonable time to evaluate the game development of a game that doesn’t stop development. MMOs endlessly develop just like your life and you can’t judge your whole life 20 years into it since anything can happen after that, same as MMOs.

I expect what is “reasonable” will depend per person based on:
- How patient they are
- What class/mode/build they play, and how many bugs affect them
- How much they enjoy the existing gameplay.

For example, there were many players who were expecting a power progression like a traditional MMO. They derived a lot of enjoyment from increasing their abilities and items.
This kind of gameplay is not really catered for in GW2, so they came and whined on the boards for ANet to change it.

In this example, they are expecting ANet to change the entire point of the game to suit them, and they are unsatisfied with the current gameplay.
So the gap between patience (zero) and time for their desires to be fulfilled (never) was basically infinite.

As long as your expectations are more realistic, then hopefully the gap to happiness will be a bit shorter, as long as ANet keeps their end of the bargain.

Voidspawn.1934:

Well the thing is, it’s different for every company. For example Rift had almost no bugs at release and even those few bugs were fixed in a little more than a month. Even their beta was almost bug free, I was pretty amazed.
WoW was kinda worse at launch, there were alot of bugs and I don’t really know how long it took them to fix all of them but when I started playing 2-3 months after launch I don’t remember running into any important bugs, most of them were just a little annoying hardly worth mentioning.
Aion was pretty bad at launch, it had many bugs and it took them months to fix them. Many of them were major bugs. It was one of the reasons I stopped playing after 2 months, although it was the least important reason.
I would say in general 3 months for all the major bugs to be fixed. Not all bugs, just the major ones

I sure wish I would have played that Rift game instead of the one I played…lots of bugs, bots, and hacked accounts (that was PROVEN to be the fault of Trion)and the class balance in that game was god awful and to this day is pretty bad

evilcherry.1327:

WoW: Some classes were just unplayable unless slotted into its pigeonhole until 2.0. And I was a paladin.

Given BC is released a bit more than 2 years after the vanilla game I would take it as the measuring stick.

That only works if your not learning from the past. in 2012 the development roll over is only 2 months for big changes. Rifts does a fix for bugs as many as 4 times a week. Not that Trion is the best team but they put out the feel of trying to be fast and mobile. Anet just feels like a fat slug.

It’s hard though to say that there’s a specific amount of time that you should wait. There are issues that change my own willingness to wait, based on the content of updates, the bugs or issues present both in number and severity, the quality of communication between the company and and it’s costumers on issues they are working on.

One thing I wouldn’t do though is use WoW as a measuring stick like others here are suggesting. They were incredibly slow at updating their games. I’d say the norm for a game that has just recently been released is to bring out updates at least once a week until they stomp out most of the immediate bugs and issues that come with new releases, and then slowing to once or twice a month when things are under control. On this front Anet is on top of things. The problem is, you have to look at the content of those updates. On that front, Anet seems to be fixing less important issues and letting the bigger problems persist longer.

At the end of the day, however, I wouldn’t ask myself what is a reasonable time to wait, I would ask how long you are willing to wait. If you are having fun, then there’s no problem. If you find you aren’t having fun, then perhaps it’s time to say “I’ve had enough.”

None of the classes are so bugged as to be un-playable. I have play one of each and all have disadvantages and advantages compared to each other. I don’t expect parity in all the classes.

The challenge is to learn to play each class in spite of its disadvantages. Its not up to the game to make us all equal. At some point, some of that repsonsibility lies with us.

The real question is…are you having fun or have you turned your game into a job?

2 weeks per bug is reasonable amount of time to track down a bug, implement a fix, test and deliver.

Anything less in my mind means they are under staffed or are taking their time with it. In which case they should notify the community.

Its an issue of Developer Transparency, which is something I find this game lacking.

Raf.1078:

None of the classes are so bugged as to be un-playable. I have play one of each and all have disadvantages and advantages compared to each other. I don’t expect parity in all the classes.

The challenge is to learn to play each class in spite of its disadvantages. Its not up to the game to make us all equal. At some point, some of that repsonsibility lies with us.

The real question is…are you having fun or have you turned your game into a job?

… you do realize the bugs people are upset with are traits and skill not preforming as the state they should. While there is a bit of debate on the reltive balance of classes, the vast majority of complaints stem from Anet failing to live up to modern MMO standards of technical quality.

szar.9054:

Raf.1078:

None of the classes are so bugged as to be un-playable. I have play one of each and all have disadvantages and advantages compared to each other. I don’t expect parity in all the classes.

The challenge is to learn to play each class in spite of its disadvantages. Its not up to the game to make us all equal. At some point, some of that repsonsibility lies with us.

The real question is…are you having fun or have you turned your game into a job?

… you do realize the bugs people are upset with are traits and skill not preforming as the state they should. While there is a bit of debate on the reltive balance of classes, the vast majority of complaints stem from Anet failing to live up to modern MMO standards of technical quality.

I disagree with most of the complaining and stand by my statement that none of the classes are unplayable. In fact, all of them are still a lot of fun. And I can solo any of them to 80 in spite of the bugs.

I figure ANet will get around to fixing things eventually. In the meantime, I refuse to let this minor bs get in the way of my fun.

Its probably easier to lay blame on a class bug than it is to admit that you really don’t play the class all that well.

Wait, Life Siphon heals enemies? …

That explains a few things for my main character.

While I’d like a game to be bug free from day one, that’s unreasonable with a game of this size. I have no problems allowing 6 months or so to make tweaks and balance where needed. By 6 months out I’d hope all ‘major’ bugs are fixed. Class tweaks can go on longer and really they never stop.

Raf.1078:

Its probably easier to lay blame on a class bug than it is to admit that you really don’t play the class all that well.

I’d suggest that you have that the wrong way round, if you are really bad you might not notice the bugs, I’d also suggest it depends what part of the game you are talking about, if I am pottering about, just levelling up, then no it doesn’t matter hugely, if my flesh golem sometimes just stands doign nothing, but if I am playing PvP, then yes it is a huge problem.

I think it is also the sheer number of bugs and the lack of speed at which they are being fixed, the last gaem I played was Rift, we used to have multiple updates a week sometimes, GW2 simply does not compare.

The game was clearly released before it was ready, which given their motto is pretty ironic.

Raf.1078:

I disagree with most of the complaining and stand by my statement that none of the classes are unplayable. In fact, all of them are still a lot of fun. And I can solo any of them to 80 in spite of the bugs.

I figure ANet will get around to fixing things eventually. In the meantime, I refuse to let this minor bs get in the way of my fun.

Its probably easier to lay blame on a class bug than it is to admit that you really don’t play the class all that well.

I dont play baddly because kits, and all other class mechanic bundles, dont scale properly outside sPvp. I do fine but it is horribly frustrating to be kittened because Anet didn’t think.

6 months is the tipping point I’d say for evaluating the life of an MMO. EVE online being the exception, since they operate according to a completely different design structure. It takes about that long to see the community mature, all the options tried, and for the developers to gather data and get into the nuts and bolts of tweaking things. Altogether, the first major balance and mechanics tweaks should start about 6 months in. MMO’s are absolutely massive projects, and it’s unreasonable to expect major changes to be concepted, studied, developed, and implemented all in less time then that. How on the ball the developer is at this point, and how well they comunicate with their community, is a good indicator of how well the game will age.

With that said, things like Bug fixes and content (not counting major releases, but tweaks to keep things engaging) should be going on constantly. IMO Anet is doing a decent job on the first (they should communicate more, and be more aggressive about hunting down the bugs that have major gameplay impacts- otherwise they are making steady if slow progress), and a great job on the second. I really see that Anet love’s their game and are caring for it like an artist and his paintings rather then a corporation and it’s products. I’m looking forward to the big balance update cause I think it will clarify and polish what’s already a great game.

Brazensage.1328:

For those of you that played WoW, SW:TOR, GW1, Age of Conan, EVE, RIFT, etc; how long did it take before the game was balanced/ had most MAJOR bugs worked out? How long before the complaints on the forums went from an exponential rise to a steady decay?

I think that’s the wrong question. Forums do not represent the general playerbase. MMO companies are constantly balancing what they hear from the highly vocal few against the internal statistics from the quantitatively much larger, but most silent, player masses.

For the most part, MMOs do not remarkably change over their lifetime (UO:Renaissance and SWG:NGE are extreme outliers). So it’s safe to determine whether the game is “for you” within the first month even, if there’s a monthly fee you want to avoid, or the first three, if you like it enough to see if the team is successful enough to fix the launch period issues.

Chances are if you love GW2 but the bugs are annoying, you’ll power through while playing other games. The beauty of no subs is not having to look at the monthly value.

However, if you kinda sorta barely like GW2, or got bored/didn’t like some core premise like WvW or DEs, then the bugs will really annoy you so much you’ll move on. Then, if you come back in a year, you’ll still kinda sorta barely like GW2. That won’t change.

What generally happens is people play like addicts in the beginning, burn out or get bored and take a break, come back some time later to try and reignite their memories of the launch day, realize they can’t, and play for a shorter period of time, then leave. Rinse and repeat, because, you can’t go home again

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-October-22-2012/first#post510401

Personally Most issues I’ve had with the game so far have been addressed above (:

Anet is being surprisingly fast at their job.
Other MMOs had many classes still pidgeon-holed into the only viable build due to bugs etc until 6 months at least, we’re nearing a good place in GW2 after 2 months (if you read dev posts, Ranger/Necro are being fixed soon, Ranger fix alone is expected next patch).

They had a more buggy product than most MMOs I’ve played, but got the game to a stable situation pretty fast.
I expect we can lay back on bugs and viability by January at this rate.

The first month or two. If there was a subscription, I would’ve put it down already. That’s long enough for me. An open beta for a few hours is long enough for me to tell what the game is about, since I don’t play any game I’m not enjoying much longer than the instant I’m not enjoying it. When you’ve been playing them long enough, you can spot problems instantly, because you’ve seen them all before. It all comes down to how quickly those problems are fixed and if its fast enough to keep you playing. Luckily, rolling an alt is enough to keep me playing for a little while longer until endgame issues and Necro problems are addressed. Since there’s no fee, I can pop back in to see whats being fixed. In the past that was never possible due to the subscription, so I guess its a bonus.

Josher.9612:

The first month or two. If there was a subscription, I would’ve put it down already. That’s long enough for me. An open beta for a few hours is long enough for me to tell what the game is about, since I don’t play any game I’m not enjoying much longer than the instant I’m not enjoying it. When you’ve been playing them long enough, you can spot problems instantly, because you’ve seen them all before. It all comes down to how quickly those problems are fixed and if its fast enough to keep you playing. Luckily, rolling an alt is enough to keep me playing for a little while longer until endgame issues and Necro problems are addressed. Since there’s no fee, I can pop back in to see whats being fixed. In the past that was never possible due to the subscription, so I guess its a bonus.

A month or two would be unreasonable to the majority of people. To manage several thousand people over dozens of servers…the miles of code…droves of complaints…do you mean a month or two before major fixes are being implemented? I was trying to ask how long before I should expect a game without MAJOR flaws (ie bugs that break class mechanics, progress blocking bugs, etc.).

This is why so many MMORPGs fail. The developer ships the game with critical bugs, features they expected to behave a certain way break due to exploits. Acting in panic mode they make hasty profession, skill modifications or they change foundation things…. The result is always failure.

How is GW2’s player base now compared to SWTOR two months into SWTOR? If it’s dropped lower then I would say you have your answer. The problem is you’ll never know because BioWare has those numbers guarded and ArenaNet has their numbers guarded. You can’t go by server load being marked High either because ArenaNet controls that variable and can shift it by adding or removing overflow servers.

The problem is, historically speaking, any bad impression an MMO gives in its first month sticks. It is extremely hard to get back players that left with an unfavourable impression from the first month. Thats why every MMO you’ve ever played emails you constantly with free weekends, etc.

It’s also why half of MMOs go down in flames in the first few months. Because they launched an unfinished product and then couldn’t get their launch numbers back even after they finally fixed all the problems. Then its just a slow, bleeding death.

Not all bugs are created equal. Some are quick, easy fixes. Some are near-impossible to repro. Show-stopping bugs are going to get more attention than the one you hit every day that annoys you, but doesn’t really slow you down.

Software dev the world around is the same.

Typically?

3 Months.

Why? Well first let me point out some things. GW 2 being predominately FtP, theres no real reason to “cancel”. That being said the first month is typically free and most major issues should come to light during this time. The second month is your first time paying a sub, its you giving the development team the benefit of the doubt. By the third month its game over.

End of the day this is not based on BuG’s however. Its based on bugs that YOU actually care about. I’ve played a lot of MMO’s and there are always bugs, heck DAOC didn’t even have dungeon loot for the first few months, not that I cared cause I was having a ball with PvP.

But if its a bug that is threatening your enjoyment of the game…give them till the 3rd month.

I had totally forgotten about DAoC’s unitemized dungeons. I want those years of my life back, now.

I’ve seen video game apologetics going on for a few years now…

“Give them more time or pay them now, they will entertain you later I promise.”

I didn’t have to give warhammer online more than 24 hours to know I didn’t like the game. Age of conan took about two weeks to figure it out. STO took about 2 weeks to come to terms with how bad it was. SWToR took me 24 hours to understand that in more ways than not they copied WoW circa early TBC, about a month to not like it.

Its like saying “no no, just listen to this William Hung album twenty more times and I swear it will grow on you.” Come on guys, the title of this thread is a redundant question. It not only varies via the person, it varies via the game when coming down to how long you need to evaluate whether its for you or not or how long it takes to say to yourself “what am I doing?”

Then you always have someone who will bring up shortcomings such as class imbalances and or bugs in vanilla WoW as though those shortcomings represent some kind of gold standard in mmos. Nevermind how deep or satisfying whatever the game was to play at the time despite it’s imperfections. In otherwords, do bugs and class imbalances in X game justify how shallow or fundamentally flawed in whoever’s opinion Y game is? I think not.

These are some of the reasons why I look at most video game or more specifically mmo apologetics as being more of an argument about why this or that methadone is good enough rather than how entertaining it is on it’s own merits, effectively dooming the genre to permanent one size fits all mediocracy.

Vlaxitov.5693:

I’ve seen video game apologetics going on for a few years now…

“Give them more time or pay them now, they will entertain you later I promise.”

I didn’t have to give warhammer online more than 24 hours to know I didn’t like the game. Age of conan took about two weeks to figure it out. STO took about 2 weeks to come to terms with how bad it was. SWToR took me 24 hours to understand that in more ways than not they copied WoW circa early TBC, about a month to not like it.

Its like saying “no no, just listen to this William Hung album twenty more times and I swear it will grow on you.” Come on guys, the title of this thread is a redundant question. It not only varies via the person, it varies via the game when coming down to how long you need to evaluate whether its for you or not or how long it takes to say to yourself “what am I doing?”

Then you always have someone who will bring up shortcomings such as class imbalances and or bugs in vanilla WoW as though those shortcomings represent some kind of gold standard in mmos. Nevermind how deep or satisfying whatever the game was to play at the time despite it’s imperfections. In otherwords, do bugs and class imbalances in X game justify how shallow or fundamentally flawed in whoever’s opinion Y game is? I think not.

These are some of the reasons why I look at most video game or more specifically mmo apologetics as being more of an argument about why this or that methadone is good enough rather than how entertaining it is on it’s own merits, effectively dooming the genre to permanent one size fits all mediocracy.

That’s your prerogative, but bugs don’t get fixed by magic.

ciannait.1945:

That’s your prerogative, but bugs don’t get fixed by magic.

No, its my perspective and standards being the same as it would be with anyother form of entertainment because I’m not an addict unless its fun enough to be addicting. Bugs not being fixed by magic is beside the point. You’re perfectly demonstrating someone who argues that bugs in X game justifies Y game’s right to not be fun despite bugs or imbalances.

Brazensage.1328:

For those of you that played WoW, SW:TOR, GW1, Age of Conan, EVE, RIFT, etc; how long did it take before the game was balanced/ had most MAJOR bugs worked out? How long before the complaints on the forums went from an exponential rise to a steady decay? Please provide specific anecdotes if you can.

An honest question for someone who has never played an MMO long term.

Pretty much never. I haven’t played WoW in a year, and I could probably rattle off at least five bugs that are probably still in and have gone unaddressed since 2005.

What isn’t fun for you may be great for someone else. My point is, you are not the arbiter of fun.

The average lifecycle of a bug is this:
1) QA runs test cases (or, bugs are reported from the field)
2) QA repros the bugs to make sure they have something to take to a dev. Bugs that do not solidly repro are a waste of time for developers.
3) QA files the bug, with a priority. Show-stoppers (bugs that prevent a game or patch from shipping) are P0. P3 bugs are minor – cosmetic bugs (such as gear clipping). This does not mean that P3s are “easy fixes”, just that they don’t actually interfere with functionality.
4) Devs take the bug reports, and go through them. They repro the bug, and start looking in the code for where the bug occurs.
5) Devs edit the code, for the bug. They pray to the god of silicon that they don’t create any NEW bugs while fixing the old one.
6) Dev creates a test build, and verifies quickly that the problem seems to be fixed.
7) Dev hands the test build off to QA, who runs through their test case or repro scenario to verify the bug is fixed.
8) Code changes get migrated to the main code branch.
9) Changed code branch is packaged with other bug fixes and changes into a distributable package for customers.

I may be even missing or forgetting some steps, but that’s the basics of a bug lifecycle. A change which may appear as though it ought to be simple is often subject to the law of unintended consequences, or it’s buried in dependency hell, or it’s simply difficult to suss out.

So the next time you see a patch note that addresses one bug but not your pet peeve, remember that it’s a longer cycle than it appears at first glance.

Red Falcon.8257:

(if you read dev posts, Ranger/Necro are being fixed soon, Ranger fix alone is expected next patch).

Source on Necro being fixed there champ?

Because we haven’t gotten ANY response, at all, from a dev, aside from the wonderful “DS is OP, L2P nub” comment a while back.

All we have had is infractions and deleted threads

Fixing bugs is a VERY complex task. If you don’t do it for a living, let me assure you, you have no idea how difficult it can be.

Software systems, especially those as complex as an online game, can involve millions of lines of code. They can involve systems developed by different companies, and the developers have to try to get them to all play nicely together, even if those systems don’t WANT to play nicely together.

Typically, when a bug is reported, the developers don’t have a lot of details to go on. And details are CRITICAL to fixing a bug quickly.

Before they can fix it, they first have to be able to reproduce it, so that they can figure out what’s actually causing it. Then they have to figure out how to correctly implement a fix for it. Then they have to code the fix for it, and test the fix internally. And while all of this is going on, other development work is happening, and they have to make sure that any fix that they introduce doesn’t break something else in that enormously complex code base that is trying to integrate many different systems that don’t want to play well together.

There is no such thing as a bug that is easy to fix. Nine times out of ten, your first guess as to a cause is the wrong answer. You have to keep digging until you find the real cause, and not the symptom. Otherwise, you’ll end up just putting in a band-aid, and your system will end up looking like the tail end of a Jenga game.

Be patient. If the bugs are taking a long time to fix, there’s a reason for it. It’s because rushing to fix bugs is more harmful than taking your time and doing it right.

I have seen a few bugged DEs and other minor issues, but nothing I would consider “game breaking”. Actually I haven’t found a gameplay bug that would rate above minor nuisance. Anyway, I would prefer to see Anet allocating their programming resources to finishing an automated detection/banning mechanism for the bots.

If you’re considering class imbalances a bug, then the answer is never. No game is ever completely balanced.

For actual bugs, my hope would be a few months max, once the game is established. We’re still in the first year and have a while to go. From what I’ve seen, MMOs don’t usually “mature” until their one year mark. By that time, the really glaring flaws, bugs, and mechanics should have been addressed and the newer technical issues should be much smaller in scale.