jot29
32
If the testlive servers would behave like normal servers (daily reboot), then people would find more bugs. Relic hunters were reduced to 100hp AFTER reboot… testlive servers dont reboot normaly (only Funcom knows why)…
Testlive needs to run longer, before the patch comes out. Its mostly 1-2 week at testlive and suddenly its released… And as you said, consoles needs time to certificate. So probably 1 week testlive -> release.
And thats a big problem… It will be released… Even with tons of bugs. WHY?? Dont release patches with new or old bugs. Whats so hard about that?
2 Likes
Barnes
34
Pick a god, say, Set. What you’re actually doing is performing a ritual called Set’s Protection. The dome is the residue left over after the ceremony. It is a 360-degree bubble made up of two overlapping spheres: the largest/first of which – the outer one – will damage an attacking avatar. The smaller inner one will kill an avatar on contact. As I test it right now, the distinction between the two layers has apparently been removed, so I’m not sure this is accurate now.
The outer sphere prevents all ranged attacks from outside. It does not protect against splash damage from treb boulders, or cleverly-rolled ones. As long as the enemy is outside the big dome, he can fire at your temple’s direction all day, and every shot will be nullified. If you can get physically inside the sphere, your ranged weapons will simply misfire. Light arrows are interesting in effect from with the bubble. Throwing an orb causes it to be repelled and bounce unpredictably within the bubble.
This is how it has been. I’ve been living peacefully lo these 3 months on the PC, and on the PS4 I haven’t heard a shot fired in anger in weeks. I can’t find a single arrow that isn’t repelled on my test server though.
6 Likes
Barnes
35
If yours is the post that prompted my last reply, please forgive my intrusion into your conversation. I’m sorry about what happened to your friends’ base. Lollipops are tough to master, and using a bubble can be quite tricky. Splash damage can definitely be a factor, and if the base has feet of clay it can be easily burned. I hope they fight on.
2 Likes
Caco
36
No need to apologize, Iagree, there are always other factors, I wouldnt discard them for sure. Maybe broken with the recent update, and yet, I suspect it could be something else too, due to the history of these servers having “unfair” players.
1 Like
I’ve QA for Microsoft and xbox games are required to go through their QA process which is suppose to be for testing stability on the xbox platform but what was rumored that companies will say that this is an official QA process or “their QA team”, we hardly would get to play any games since we are trying to just make the game crash on xbox so a lot of switching between apps, force shut off etc. All that would take up most of our day and if we had time left then we would do achievement hunting which would be really the only time we could play the game.
2 Likes
Does it make you feel tough to insult strangers on the internet? Just curious.
Ignasi
41
2 Likes
Its very hard for people to remain civil when the game is constantly getting updates and hotfixes that cause the game to stop functioning as it should, with each fix comes a new problem and often brings old ones back. If these so called hotfixes were tested properly before being forced onto every platform you wouldn’t have to spend your days clipping the community guidelines onto every thread. I cant wait to see what the mounts do to the game considering you cant run past a large base without it crashing.
We, the players, can’t affect the quality of the updates. What we can affect is our reaction to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We don’t have to accept any kind of crap, but we can choose to face it with patience, dignity, politeness and an analytical mind.
6 Likes
jot29
44
Dont release a patch which contains bugs. Its SO EASY (or really bad bugs like Relic hunters).
Delay such a patch until things are fixed, but this would also delay the DLCs and thats the reason for releasing broken patches.
And get a tester (or 2) with a checklist to check most things in the game. Spawn in every thrall and every weapon/item (yeah, I know that there are many - but its their job). Teleport to recipes to see if you can learn it.
Dont wait until player stumble on such things, because if you use “an analytical mind”, such things cannot be overseen if someone ACTUALLY tested it.
1 Like
The thing with any QA testing is that catching every error is time-consuming. I’m talking from a proofreader’s perspective, but the process is pretty similar.
Let’s say a proofreader catches 97 % of errors in a single reading of a text. Let’s say the original text has 10,000 errors. The proofreader catches 9700 of these, leaving 300. On the next reading, he catches 291, leaving 9. On the third reading, he catches 8, leaving one. Each reading takes the same amount of time and costs the contractor the same amount of money. Most contractors are willing to pay for the first run, and maybe the second. Few are willing to pay for the third run, rather accepting the tiny amount of errors still remaining. Basically no-one would hire the proofreader to find the one remaining error.
All QA is a diminishing returns investment. The publisher must choose how much to invest in it, but the thing to understand here is that doubling the resources used in QA won’t double the results - it yields maybe 5 to 10 % better results.
Now, I’m not saying that Funcom couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do a better job. The number of glitches slipping through the cracks is making people unhappy, so obviously they haven’t found the sweet spot where the investment in QA results in an acceptable number of remaining errors. But demanding perfection every time is unrealistic. No company can afford that. (I wish they did - I’d love to get paid more for proofreading.)
7 Likes
jot29
46
Bingo! Time = money Funcom has to spent.
If players find bugs = zero money for Funcom…
Proof reading and checking item stats are kinda hard to compare… Because while proof-reading you cannot check against HOW it should be correct. Its a text. Also language…
But items only have correct values or NOT.
And lets not forget that IT can have automated testing environments (compared to proof reading).
And Funcom uses automation for some things, because otherwise a “false row”, wouldnt have result in a bug where items had wrong values.
The thing is: Setting up tests is tedious (I am a developer too). UI tests are to this date still a nightmare or you have to built in special things in the normal code already, which is again time consuming.
Oh dear. So many companies just use MS Word’s automatic spellchecker and think it’s fine. There are constant attempts to automatize translation and proofreading.
A professional proofreader can use context to determine what’s correct or not. Most of the time, figuring what the text should say is easy. And when it’s not, we can contact the author and ask what they meant.
The end result is the same as with programming QA testers. If a single typo is left in a text, the poor translator/proofreader will receive comments on how unprofessional and amateurish they are, and should go drown themselves in a toilet because they’re obviously worthless at their job.
jot29
48
To this date there are still so many wrong translations, but people dont even bother writing a bug report… The breath of the red mother in german was long the “breath of the red BUTTER”.
Bearer is completely wrong translated to “waiter”… But this are not bugs people are upset about. People are upset about really broken things. Not some false text…
Robyrot
49
This is a well redacted and intelligent post. I salute you, friend.
The answer to this is obvious. Yes. They have no need to pay a QA person when they can release material and have their customers do the work for free. Video game industries have got in the habit of releasing game breaking material and fixing it as they go. With your money and help of course.
1 Like
Spawn in every thrall and every weapon/item (yeah, I know that there are many - but its their job). Teleport to recipes to see if you can learn it.
Congratulations, you just missed the Relic Hunter bug because new Relic Hunters were not affected.
Now everyone is upset and users are making posts questioning whether you have anyone testing the game at all, since you miss things that are SO EASY to catch.
2 Likes
jot29
53
If testlive servers would reboot daily, people would have found it on Testlive…
Congratulations you found the reason no one discovered the bug…
Testenvironment behaves different than live.
Or just look at Funcom streams. The run around with a glowing torch which lasts more then 60minutes, but removed the feature for players to mod it (so it would be 50minutes).
Except you didn’t account for any of that in your “it’s SO EASY” explanation.
Sorry, the patch is out now, you cant take it back, and people are still mad that you didnt test anything.
jot29
55
I never said, Funcom should remove testlive then…
But before EVEN pushing it to testlive, make this checks 
Because (big surprise) people on Testlive mostly test only NEW things. No one things old things get broken or stats are wrong on items which NEVER had a change in the patch.
PS.: Another thing which would have the checklists already prevented → WRONG protections of armors.
