Is it time to improve console updating methods yet?

Conan Exiles General Discussion
#1

FC tests PC patches on Test Live. That data is ported to console and no testing is done. Every time a patch is released console gets hit hard with major bugs. Some bugs prevent players from even logging to refresh. We lose player numbers as the bugs lead to quitting or dropping to logging in to refresh only activity.

We cant even get FC to focus solely on the bugs, any fixes are buried in content patches that are untested and lead to more bugs with its addition . Add bugs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…months later hotfix corrects bugs 1, 3, 4, 5, and adds bugs 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The next hotfix for 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 fixes all but 8, 9, and adds bugs 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and causes bug 3 to reappear…this is the pattern we accept and allow by complacency.

I think it is time for FC to address this practice and make positive changes to the way they approach the console patches, and how FC effects its own community.

How do you feel about it?

Why do tested patches behave so unpredictably?
#2

If all this prologue was to ask test live for Playstation, then I am positive, even if I had to pay it as dlc every time, I wouldn’t mind. I am a great fanatic of the game and I would love to volunteer to something like that.

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#3

The game is tested by certain people on console but the thing I like to remember is 10 testers won’t find or notice all the bugs where 2 million console players will find everything and the overall issues on their side be less as they may not experience the crash or game failure as the 2 million would due to numbers. But yes it’s tested but they may not have seen or notice bugs or even experienced the crashes we might so it’s more of a number issues rather than they don’t but I would like to help out with that on Xbox as it would be nice

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#4

When a patch goes live and you cannot log in, that means it wasnt tested. If bug #1 from a patch is one that prevents you from log in, then it would have been the first bug noticed during testing. And it would stop FC from being capable of testing any further. Testers cant test if they cant log in bro

I dont think console testing is even a thing in regards to CE.

#5

I know it’s frustrating when things go wrong but they absolutely do test the console versions or they wouldn’t work at all, and fixing them wouldn’t be possible without them testing. They are separate branches of code, which is why bugs can effect one console and not the other, or effect PC but not console.

Porting a game from one system to another is not just simply copying code, some software companies make the bulk of their money in making ports for other companies games

They very well may not have large enough test groups for the consoles, or those groups might not have as much time as they need to throughly test the code, but they do exist none the less

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#6

Also getting a test version thru cert with Sony may be harder than you think. Testlive is more than 10 people too.

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#7

Here’s one of my suggestions from a previous thread.

The console community needs to be part of the testing process, to resolve the issues specially when adding “features” that seem to only break consoles.

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#8

This. I would be fine with threads like this, but it always starts and devolves into “FC doesn’t test anything.” No point in adding anything else, as we can point this falsehood out, but affected and/or frustrated console players just yell at us instead.

When players who feel this way stop taking out their frustrations out on people in the community, I’ll happily engage in constructive dialogue that players feel like can help.

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#9

I am a console player too :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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#10

Have you personaly seen console testing performed by FC? Have you seen some post from a FC employee stating they do perform console testing? Is there a description of the process used for testing available for me to view?

  1. Update Console
  2. Start CE
  3. Log in
  4. Cant log in (bug located)
  5. Perform tests while not capable of log in
  6. How high are you?

Thats why i feel 0 testing is done. How can you think any differently when you look at the scope of bugs released with console patches. Servers missing, decay timers misbehaving and have to be disabled. Halloween events that cannot be disabled 6 months after implementation. Summer holiday timers that cannot be disabled and carry into November. The inability to even get past log screen. Thralls going subterranean. Animals walking and attacking the opposite direction of travel or enemy direction. I could literally go on for a month listing the sand reaper queen sized bugs console gets every time an update or patch or hotfix is added.

Can you see my point now?

#11

Yes, along with them talking about it on several dev streams.

I can do that too. Have you personally seen them state they never test consoles? Have you been to their offices and seen proof they never test?

I already know where this is going though. It doesn’t matter what I say, you all won’t believe it anyways. Which is exactly why these threads are 100% pointless.

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#12

Sony and MS do not test the content of patches for game bugs. Certification is done to protect console hardware. The manufactures do not want a game company to release content that causes performance issues to arise from your console hardware. Say a bad patch is released and it causes your console to overheat due to unintended cpu strain, as an example.

Console manufacturers do not care about content. Its up to the game company to ensure their product works.

#13

Not pointless, we are having a discussion, thats something.

Never been to norway. Havent seen FC offices 1st hand. Noticed you completely dismissed my reasons for assuming 0 testing is performed. Those are all actual bugs console gets, seems like huge bugs to be missed. So you can see why i would make this assumption? Can you agree that it is a reasonable assumption, given my points? Im not asking if im right or wrong, im asking if my points are reasonable enough for you to accept my assumption as a logical one.

And maybe this rhread will serve to highlight the fact that if console testing is performed, its not processed adequately. Or is performed in an environment that is too dissimilar to a live environment and renders testing moot.

There is obviously a problem, lets identify it and improve it to benifet everyone. Lets improve CE.

#14

I can understand why you feel like they don’t test on console. However if they didn’t test console builds the game simply wouldn’t run on console. There isn’t some magic button that turns PC code into PS or XB code, they are essentially different versions of the game, which is why they can have bugs in one version and not another.

Beyond being 3 separate builds each of those builds has to be flexible enough to run on various versions of the platform. Here’s a quote from PCGamer that explains it better than I probably can

“When you port your game, you’re essentially creating a unique version of it. This means every platform a developer decides to launch on effectively multiplies their present and future workload. When you launch on multiple platforms, your ability to react to suggestions or complaints slows. You have to test updates and patches on every platform you support before release. You’re constantly ensuring something you did to improve one version doesn’t break another. And, after all that, you still need to go through the arcane series of checks and balances console manufacturers require.”

Sometimes things go wrong when a patch is applied to a live version of a game, this can cause bugs that couldn’t be found in testing because they didn’t exist there.

I agree that FC dropped the ball and bugs go live too often. I wish they did better testing on all platforms quite frankly

It’s not as if the PC versions are bugs free

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#15

Thanks for thw insight. But i still feel FC does not follow the described process above. Console patches behave as though they are just PC patches with a changed file extention

This sentence says it all. The improvements tested for PC DO INFACT break both consoles. And the constant ensuring comes AFTER patchs in the form of hotfixes created from player reports. Thats more like constantly fixing what has already been broken. And yeah, super consistent, patch it, break it, hotfix it, patch it, break it, hotfix it, etc.

Yup change the file ext. and send it out to see what breaks. We are the testers…

#16

They still have to get it thru cert, which slows the whole process down. Currently they also incorporate testlive findings into the console patches to limit the amount of times they have to do it. They test what is reasonable and sometimes it goes awry because it is in fact console hardware instead of a pc.

They fact is, they support consoles with test and continued content. They could go the oc only route but they choose not to. Thats a wim for console players.

#17

Certification is a step in the process, everytime. The timeframe shold be considered a standard element in releasing any patch for any game submitted by any game company.

It does not serve as a testing environment for patch content. Certification serves to protect the consoles themselves, ie hardware components, performance issues, etc. A failed submission is a failure by the submitter.

Console has received a parity patch recently. This makes porting the file with a changed ext. easier. Hence my opinion remains unchanged.

FC initially ported to console to create revenue. It wasnt done to provide some benifet to its players, solely. They continue to support with patches as a means to sell content as it is available to add. And hotfixes for the things they destroy by adding purchasable content.

3 years spent roaring for stability on console. The amount of, ’ Im not buying any new content untill FC fixes the old content’ posts prior to IoS prompted the stability patch to finally be finished after 9 months from initialization. Just in time for IoS release. Stability, Parity, Memory Shave, IoS update all within a few months. Game breaking bugs released with each patch, then a 60 day wait for vacations. 2.5 testlive version goes live on all platforms simultaneously. IoS servers cannot be connected to. Very little to no improvement.

Yeah…its a win!

#18

Several of the bugs you highlight exist on PC as well (live branch) - in fact, bugs like this are pretty much par for the course on PC, as PC gets used to test things so the biggest bugs can be theoretically removed before going to the more time-consuming console patches - better to find the bugs on the platform that can easily receive multiple hotfixes, rather than on the platform where every hotfix still has to be certified before it can be released.

The problem is that there are many console players who do not like this, who make many many complaints that ‘console is ignored’ and ‘Funcom only cares about PC’, and fill threads with sarcastic comments about how many months it will take for Funcom to get round to them. When 2.4 came out on console, it took less than 24 hours for threads to start popping up complaining that they didn’t already have 2.5 and what a long wait they were going to have. What was it in the end? 9 days? And then 2.5 released to console - and was immediately followed by complaints that the bugs were untested and Funcom won’t bother fixing them for months. It makes me wonder how fast Funcom is expected to work to get these patches out?

The result of this is that there is a trade-off - Funcom can either release patches fast to console and keep the complaints of being ignored to a minimum, or Funcom can take their time and test more thoroughly to try to minimise the number of bugs that make it through (and part of that is by using PC as a ‘test zone’ - to get rid of as many general bugs as possible).

The ideal would, of course, be if there is some way to operate a console version of testlive - this would at least be able to catch the biggest problems before they go live on console. But setting up something like that is likely to be considerably more complicated on console than on PC, not least because of the certification issue. And even then, at least some of the players complaining that consoles don’t get patches fast enough, would just shift to complaining that Funcom is supporting testlive over live.

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#19

None of that changes the fact that cert is a drag amd delays patches to consoles routinely.

#20

Because they are simply that. Assumptions. Nothing more and nothing less.

I see you ignored where Multigun pointed out that your “claim” was clearly false and with very little effort you could have easily found that out for yourself. Instead you chose to make no effort because then you would have to prove your own assumptions false and you would have no reason to make your baseless accusations any longer. That’s called ignoring reality to push a narrative.

The fact is you are the one making a positive claim. You are claiming that funcom never tests their updates patches for consoles. The burden of proof is on YOU to actually prove that. Not just “I feel that way” but actually prove it. If you can’t, then you have no legitimate reason to make such a baseless claim in the first place. Either accept reality, that they DO test things and cannot account for everything. Or you can continue to live in fantasy land. Hell, remember that game Cyberpunk 2077 being pulled from Consoles because it flat out was broken beyond belief even though it worked on PC (though was still riddled with bugs). Guess it’s not just a Funcom issues is it?

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