Funcom: The stupid typos in the PurgeConfigTable are still not fixed, 6 months after I told you exactly how to fix them

Conan Exiles PC Discussion
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Game mode: Online official | Single-player
Type of issue: Bug
Server type: ALL
Region: Hell

Maybe 6 months back I contacted you privately to ask if you wanted to know what was wrong with the PurgeConfigTable, I was disappointed but not exactly surprised when you declined.

Latterly, when I eventually released information on the fix anyway, you ignored me and now 6 months later, it is still not fixed. (it doesn’t appear to fixed on testlive either. I am unstonished).

So, to reiterate, many of the artisan names in the PurgeConfigTable contain typos.

Eg:

Purge_Votariess_Artisan should be Purge_Votaries_Artisan
Purge_LostTribes_Artisan should be Purge_LostTribe_Artisan
Purge_Lemurians_Artisan should be Purge_Lemurian_Artisan
Purge_BlackHandPiratess_Artisan should be Purge_BlackHandPirates_Artisan
Purge_HeirsToTheNorths_Artisan should be Purge_HeirsToTheNorth_Artisan

If memory serves, there were no Votariessssssss artisan thrallssssss in the tables anyway since you didn’t bother the finish them, but the others would work if fixed.

This could have been fixed half a year ago (again, in minutes) but for some reason, you tacitly refused to do this.

Because of this bug, in many areas and on those few occasions when purges work at all, they do not feature the Crafter (Artisan) thrallsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss that everyone wants.

Of course that compounds the existing problem that by your design, some regions don’t seem to have purge waves that feature humans at all, given the official difficulty setting of 6 (and so no purge crafters there), but even that could be remedied quickly by changing the purge level on official servers to something like 4 instead of 6. And even them, purge waves are simple text descriptors and new waves could be created by almost anyone in minutes, if you cared.

Similarly, no engineer would design a system that selects purge targets from all players/clans on a server even if they have not played in months (or are even online), unless that was the point of the exercise.
Another trivial fix you have deigned not to implement.

I’ve pretty much concluded that you really don’t want official servers to work properly now, (you wouldn’t need to bait and switch if the bait was a viable after all) but I thought I’d remind you just incase, y’know, someone “forgot” to take 5 minutes out of their day to correct typos in a text file and thus go some way towards giving your customers the game you sold them.

If I were to speculate as to the reasoning here, I might conclude that if players were to get access to the purge thralls and all that they provide (like black/white dye schematics, legendary kits etc), that they might feel they have “completed” the game and leave. And leaving before the DLC rollout out is complete is perhaps not what you want.

Am I getting warm?

Either way, there can be no legitimate excuse for not fixing acutely trivial bugs in core gameplay when explicitly informed of how to do so.

Over to you. (again).

Please provide a step-by-step process of how the bug can be reproduced. The more details you provide us with the easier it will be for us to find and fix the bug:

  1. Buy a game from Funcom
  2. Realise you’ve been had.
  3. Complain on the forums.
  4. Get buried under a shill zerg.
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How can you be certain it’s not working under testlive?

I’ve never had a Funcom dev decline a bug report from me in the months of doing so. Not sure why they would actively choose to decline a bug report, but okay…

And ah, the conspiracy theory. Right. That’s always the reason why a small bug slips through the cracks.

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I didn’t say I was certain. Where did you get that from?
Right out of the gate you are wheeling out the straw men.

Are you implying it didn’t happen?

I explicitly told Funcom exactly what was wrong.

And yet you say “small bugs slip through the cracks”

Misrepresenting the facts does you no favours, Multigun.

How long would it take you, a seasoned modder (I’m not, fwiw) to fix typos in the PurgeConfigTable Multigun?

Is it really really really hard?

Is it even hardlierness now that I’ve told you exactly how to do it?

I’d like answers those questions (we live in hope), but regardless, its Funcom I want to hear from.

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Small bugs do slip through the cracks, even when reported. It happens, it doesn’t mean that a vast conspiracy to sell DLC’s is in place. Just human error. I’m hardly “misrepresenting” the facts here. Unless you legitimately think that facts are

"if players were to get access to the purge thralls and all that they provide (like black/white dye schematics, legendary kits etc), that they might feel they have “completed” the game and leave. And leaving before the DLC rollout out is complete is perhaps not what you want "

No, there is no factual statement in there. The stability of the game as a whole was discussed during two separate financial live streams to Funcom’s investors in which they stated the importance of Conan Exiles being more stable in order to retain and interest new players. Further, after the pet’s patch in October, it was repeatedly stated that core improvements and stability were the focus going forward, which the last two patches since, so far have been. I don’t see how purposely dodging the Purge data tables, while addressing many other complaints, would be accurate to their investors or players.

To answer your question of how long it would take me? Depends, I can’t see most of how the Purge works as it’s locked into C++ code (which isn’t visible in the Dev Kit). Sure, I can view all the connected data tables, but that’s about it. Correcting typos could just be part of it, and with how buggy the Purge has been for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more to it. Which is exactly why I haven’t personally done deep dives into the Purge Tables as I’ve been waiting for the Purge to become more reliable and stable before doing so. I couldn’t even properly test the Purge very easily as the admin commands for them stopped working some time ago.

As an example, spawns on the map aren’t as simple as a typo sometimes. You have to physically look at the spawn point on the actual map (spawn points are not in an easy to read data table), and it takes a beefy computer to load up map sections in reasonable amount of time (which, my backup computer I’m typing on now, isn’t, sigh. Stupid Corsair). Sure, you can fix the typo you see before you. You fix the typo and then nothing happens. Why? Something else is going on, and I’m talking from personal experience here.

At any rate, in this particular case, fixing the typos in the PurgeConfigTable is just one part. I have a hard time believing somebody intentionally wrote “Purge_VotariesssBoss_T1.” I can only speculate that it was some sort of automated system that did that, or it was left over from various other versions, or something else. It’s easy enough to fix the typo, me the modder, but if something else caused the typos to begin with, then it’s another matter entirely from Funcom’s end.

As I can’t see the testlive data table, I am unable to determine whether or not it’s been fixed there. I can see the live version of course, and will compile the list of typos and mistakes in addition to what you have reported here. I suspect, with the Purge being an emphasis this patch round, that it’s already been fixed, but will do so none the less.

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Would you like to amend your quote and the propositions that you constructed around it before I drop the hammer?

Edit: and the question I asked was quite specific. I realise that you might be loathe to answer it, thus wilfully making my point for me, but when you fail to do so, people can see that you didn’t. (particularly now that I’ve pointed it out, hey).

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Whoops, I missed your contextual reply, sorry.

There we go. My bad.

I’m not sure why you think native code alterations would be necessary to match a table reference with a table entry for an existing system, but they aren’t. At least not in this case. (yeah, I did actually test it before opening my mouth 6 months ago).

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I just want to throw a thought out, from a business perspective, having worked the business side of Information Technology, selling large data center solutions to most of the largest companies in the US.

Software and hardware always have bugs. A very lengthy list of bugs. Customers want their bugs fixed, but they also want the new cutting edge feature that will help them take market share from their competition. The companies I worked for have to balance the bugs vs features, vs innovation that would help keep us ahead of our own competition.

Prioritization. What MUST be fixed to retain existing customers? What MUST be added to retain existing customers? What MUST be added to win over new customers? So we build a roadmap of all the bugs, features and R&D (research and development), based on all those priorities. Then we assign different parts of the roadmap to different teams, etc, etc.

You have to do your best to create a somewhat stable product roadmap plan. Especially if you are a publicly traded company. You can’t just shoot from the hip.

When bugs like the stutter/lag happen that are really game breaking, you can break the rules and pull resources away from the roadmap, because if you don’t, your roadmap won’t mean a thing, when there are no customers.

When less impactful bugs show up, they MUST take a back seat to high priority bugs and the rest of the road map, untill there is a place to fit them in. Maybe never, even if the bug could be fixed in 30 minutes.

It isn’t just this 30 minute bug. There are 100 other 30 minute bugs. Which one is the one that is more important than all the other 30 minute bugs? Priority.

So they stick to the roadmap, which in the long run will create more happy customers and thus more success to the company. Roadmaps get updated quarterly (generally) and things get added and removed. In time, your bug will quite possibly get added in and possibly some other bug dropped from the list.

Since we are many individual small customers, we don’t have enough clout to ask for a full roadmap presentation, but in my old job, when Google asked me, they would get every last detail they cared to hear.

One thing I can assure you is that no legitimate company ignores a bug report. They may not have been able to give you any information that would make you happy, but it got put in a list immediately, to be reviewed and prioritized. Only time will tell when/if they give it priority to be resolved.

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Other than this I so much want to give your OP a like, glad to see you back and keeping up on this part of the thing. I have tried to remain as quiet as possible on the TestLive deal because there are so many elements that need time to test properly. From my purely anecdotal standpoint (which means dick) I’ve heard players talking about how the Purge has opened up opportunities against vacant placeholder bases. I’ve also heard how it still don’t work. It’s TL, so I’m not judgmental, and many things are apt to change.

I was part of that other convo, and honestly you’re calling some of my friends shills and that’s not cool. Some of us have built a strong rapport with the software and the Community, in such a way we can never repay Funcom. I believe in this game and what it can do for people, and I believe in the team that has brought this to us. As I said then, and will repeat now, if they’ve REMmed it out, it’s likely for good reason.

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We do appreciate the feedback, but delivered in a constructive, civil and respectful way.
We will send the report you added to our team. However, due to the general hostility shown either on the original post or in the following conversation we feel no need to keep this thread open.
Thanks again for the feedback.

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