118082-drop-4-in-december

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Absolutely appalling launch of Drop 3 considering; the length of time we waited, the content removed to ease the release, the reasons given for the delays, and the fact we paid 3 times more for this content than we were told before buying into the original product.
 
Carbine is obviously incapable of a smooth content release so they might as well just launch the next drop in December. There is no point waiting until February/March (longer?) for another bug-filled patch. If they didn't do any QA during the year, they definitely won't be doing any QA over the holiday period.
 
If the next drop is nowhere near ready for launch, then we have been lied to even more than has been revealed thus far.	
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			With drop 3's less than stellar implementation, if they were to release drop 4 that soon the game servers would likely catch on fire.	
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			I am sitting here, drinking my coffee and just crying at how bad drop 3 is. The changes to runes were awesome but other than that its just a new blighthaven zone and MORE bugs.	
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Please remember we already have threads for drop 3 feedback. We have the general one here, and the bug report one here. If you want to talk about drop 4 that's great, but drop 3 information, comments, and feedback should be kept to the already active threads so we can keep the discussions all in one place. :) 
 
Thank you.
- Team WildStar 	
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I think the topic here is more along the lines "trading an extra 60 days between drops to be bug-free" DIDN'T WORK.
 
It's not about Drop 3 or 4. It's that the new schedule is not producing its proposed benefit.	
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			I'm amused at the assumption that because this drop had some bugs, the process didn't work. Like you know how many problems it would have had under the old system, or like issues on Patch day aren't inevitable.	
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I think people need to take a deep breath and see how many of these bugs are still around in a week. Every patch will have bugs. They aren't a problem unless they aren't stamped out quickly.
 
This point was made by several people on these forums repeatedly when Carbine said "There will be no bugs in new releases"--that this simply was not a standard that they could meet. Acting surprised now that they can't live up to something that they obviously couldn't live up to the minute they said it is pretty silly in my opinion. 
 
Did they fix the bugs they said they'd fix? Yes. 
Did they introduce some new ones? Yes. 
Will they fix those? Yes.
 
The fact is, we don't know how much content is in a three-month-interval drop yet because there hasn't been one yet that hasn't been focused on trying to clean up the bugs and design flaws that were introduced before the new schedule was implemented.
 
Drop 4 won't be that either, because much of that is going to be "fixing itemization". Drop 5 is the first time we'll really have a chance to assess how much we're getting in a three-month interval.	
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The process may have "worked", but it was still not a win-or even close to it.  We got the drop, it has bugs, they'll fix them.  Some quick, some in a week?  That is fair and I agree.   
What isn't fair though, is that many of the "bugs" were reported weeks ago or more on the test server forums.   The QA process really breaks down at this point.   The bugs either weren't fixed, weren't acknowledged, or...both.
 
Going forward to the next drop, if the QA process remains as it was leading into this drop, it will still be less than it should be.
 
To me, that makes the OPs point understandable.  
 
I hope more incentive goes into testing moving forward, either in fixing what we tell you doesn't work, or at least communicating better the things that are known to be not working as intended.	
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I think the topic here is more along the lines "trading an extra 60 days between drops to be bug-free" DIDN'T WORK.
 
It's not about Drop 3 or 4. It's that the new schedule is not producing its proposed benefit.
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I'm amused at the assumption that because this drop had some bugs, the process didn't work. Like you know how many problems it would have had under the old system, or like issues on Patch day aren't inevitable.
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Eh, honestly I think the reality is no more of a "yay! Everything's great!" than it is a "zomg total fail."
 
It could have been a smoother drop of content. There are a lot of bugs. And I would hope that their top managers will spend some time looking at how those bugs made it to live and how to reduce the number of bugs that make it into live in subsequent drops without turning it into a blame game--because they need the problem fixed a lot more than they need someone to pin it on.
 
But what's there is a bunch of new stuff for Endgame For The Rest Of Us, and this content was desperately needed. And the bugs that they HAVE fixed will hopefully make many of the things that people have complained about in the past a non-issue.
 
And they now have another three months before a new drop is released, which means that they have enough time that they can afford to make fixing the bugs that just went live a top priority without having people scream "but the next one's only a month away! We need all hands working on new content right now!".
 
So all in all, it's a much healthier place for this game to be at than the place it was at when Drop 2 had just been released and they were still trying to meet a monthly schedule.	
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OP actually tries to theorycraft and play the game in a #hardcore manner as well. He just gets very frustrated that the game is not developed with a #hardcore attention to detail. The OP is still here playing and he may be a minority but that's only because he is the last remaining Wildstar player from the 30 raiders he initially attuned with...
 
OP is the 3.33%. He didn't create that retention rate, he did everything he could to keep those friends playing.
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The same bugs on the PTR are now on Live. Was the process just a copy and paste job? What's the point of waiting another 90 days for that. Just copy and paste whatever they've got each month and let's roll. Us suckers have kept pushing through all the bugs thus far, we'll cop it fine.
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			I didn't pay anything for this content drop :huh:	
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I bet it will be filled with bugs even if it comes in june.
But with a difference, that it should be also playable.
 
As many already said, big patch without bugs does not exist.
Of course its frustrating, but it still happens.
 
I hope they would get it at least on time. Not 2 months later than first premeditated.
 
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You do know hashtags are for twitter? And this is a forum?
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I don't agree that the drop is best described as 'appalling' but I'm unsure it was worth a 3 month QA hold.
 
That being said what the hell do I know I'm not a developer but this patch absolutely had noticeable issues (my gadget taking a vacation for one).
 
If we're doomed to noticeable problems you might as well do a short QA for really major computer on fire problems which should be evident, 2-3 weeks of PTR to narrow down to the smaller computer smoking suspiciously problems, and then release it to live to have your larger community find all the rest in the natural course of play like we always inevitably do.  Doesn't seem like spacing it out to quarterly made the product that much better.
 
I'd be curious to know what kind of metrics they judge success by for this new quarterly QA process though.  I mean if it's simplistically linear like... 1 month of bugs and fixes vs. 3 months of bugs and fixes, the 3 months being clearly larger... but I don't know if it works that way.  And for the amount of bugs they found and fixed over those 3 months was the product in that much better shape that it merited annoying your community (who was going to shit on you for bugs anyhow) by delaying?
 
Questions for the ages... guess we're stuck with quarterly for the time being though.	
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			Please stop going for the "perfect" drops, and instead just get enough QA to make it work and start releasing content sooner...	
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Please stop going for the "perfect" drops, and instead just get enough QA to make it work and start releasing content sooner...
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Kind of makes you wish they could put up polls for these kinds of things.  Just to have Carbine put up a poll that says:
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Vic, you just made me squee. Thanks for that, it's been too long.  :lol:
 
Seek feedback?
In some standardized format?
Maybe even do something really insane like add a link at the entry window for the game client, to bring in the larger community instead of just the forum regulars?
 
Crazy talk! Crazy, I tell you! Do you not know that the whole point of attunement and PvP rating is to separate those whose opinions matter from those whose opinions don't matter?  :P
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On Drops...
An aggressive drop schedule was something we had planned from the beginning. Our goal was to get new content out there and into your hands as fast as possible. However, we soon learned a pretty painful lesson: the quicker we tried to get content out the door, the buggier it ended up.
 
The community has been both very forgiving, but very clear about their opinion on the matter:
Stop releasing buggy content. Period.
 
After Drop 2, we sat down and had a hard talk about the process so far. The result of this discussion: no more drops before their time. While we would still like to get content to our players as quickly as possible, we’re going to focus on quality. In the end, this will provide true value.
 
We feel we can accomplish this on a quarterly basis, with one caveat. If it's not ready, we'll hold it until it is. This doesn’t mean we won’t have other activities available to experience on a more regular basis, we’re just taking the necessary time to get the major drops right.
 
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Well, right now, they're getting the things they need to fix from the people who are leaving and the people who are screaming.  Volume of voice, rather than volume of players, determines what Carbine's been doing.  At least if they did a poll, Carbine could point to the poll and say, "Look, I know you wanted it another way, but look at this poll!  This is what people thought was important for this drop."
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Psssst. I may be agreeing with you for once. Don't tell anyone.  :ph34r:
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Sorry, was the point of your quote to remind us how unrealistic and silly it was when they said it? Or something else?
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With 1 drop Donatelli made everything he said and promised a big waste of time. Kind of amusing. They only had forever to fix drop 3. They could have released it bit by bit and let the actual content (Defile + OMNIcore-1) come with "Drop 3".
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With 1 drop Donatelli made everything he said and promised a big waste of time. Kind of amusing. They only had forever to fix drop 3. They could have released it bit by bit and let the actual content (Defile + OMNIcore-1) come with "Drop 3".
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 <_< I think "buggy" is a fair assessment. They're working on those bugs, so I'm not going to rage about it, but I'm not going to pretend it was a drop with a smooth-as-silk take-off.
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Is it?  Every single WoW content drop I was around for had worse than random cosmetic issues.  I hardly thought WoW was buggy, and their content patches didn't come close to the changes they made in this drop.
 
I just don't think I could call it buggy when we're complaining about the gadget slot not looking as though it has something in it.  That would have been barely notable if it had been an issue in Sabotage.
 
Maybe I'm just calloused from well over a decade of MMORPG launches, but this drop wasn't buggy by any objective definition unless "buggy" means "contains bugs".  And everything contains bugs.
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The problem with Drop 3 isn't the quantity of bugs, it's that the bugs are extremely visible and obvious.
 
There's no excuse for things like the gadget bug going live, more so when the entire point of Drop3 was for it not to be a buggy mess.
 
It wasn't ready, and Carbine should have held it, but they didn't, so now they have to deal with the fallout.
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Maybe even do something really insane like add a link at the entry window for the game client, to bring in the larger community instead of just the forum regulars?
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I totally agree with the OP I un-subbed a few days ago incase I felt this way about drop 3, Its nothing like they made it out to be I really cant see why it took them 3 mths to get out I cant even be assed to play the new zone because of the bugs I had yesterday. I have enough plat for 2 mths play but in all honesty I cant see me playing much longer drop 3 was a make or break point for me after such a long wait.
 
Don't get me wrong I didnt expect it to be bug free but simple bugs like LAS gadget not working/showing, disconnects,housing related gardens not working, chat going dull and then not coming back are all things that should have been tested and fixed before launch of drop 3. NOT PTR thats a in house testing.
W* in my mind has become a joke like many other mmo's it was pushed out way to early with out considering the negative affects it has on its parent company's NCSOFT I wont get a mmo for you again carbine ill have nothing to do with you at all.  	
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Is it?  Every single WoW content drop I was around for had worse than random cosmetic issues.  I hardly thought WoW was buggy, and their content patches didn't come close to the changes they made in this drop.
 
I just don't think I could call it buggy when we're complaining about the gadget slot not looking as though it has something in it.  That would have been barely notable if it had been an issue in Sabotage.
 
Maybe I'm just calloused from well over a decade of MMORPG launches, but this drop wasn't buggy by any objective definition unless "buggy" means "contains bugs".  And everything contains bugs.
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I think the QoL improvements given to each class from this patch were 100% needed. I believe people are freaking out over most class changes because they are resistant to change. Are there probably a few issues with balance? Sure, but the overall benefit was huge. In the monolith of patch notes, were many beautiful QoL improvements.
 
Do I wish Wildstar's performance was better? Yes. Do I think my opinion is being ignored? No. This drop was a huge step in the right direction and Drop 4 will be the same. A patch this large comes with bugs, but very few were totally gamebreaking. A majority of the players I've spoken to haven't experienced any bugs since Drop 3. However, the perception of bugginess and actual bugs are not the same.
 
A postal service can go bankrupt improving their next day mail percentage from 92% to 95%, but if the public perception is that next day mail arrives next day 50% of the time then what's the point?	
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A patch this large comes with bugs, but very few were totally gamebreaking. A majority of the players I've spoken to haven't experienced any bugs since Drop 3. However, the perception of bugginess and actual bugs are not the same.
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I think the QoL improvements given to each class from this patch were 100% needed. I believe people are freaking out over most class changes because they are resistant to change. Are there probably a few issues with balance? Sure, but the overall benefit was huge. In the monolith of patch notes, were many beautiful QoL improvements.
 
Do I wish Wildstar's performance was better? Yes. Do I think my opinion is being ignored? No. This drop was a huge step in the right direction and Drop 4 will be the same. A patch this large comes with bugs, but very few were totally gamebreaking. A majority of the players I've spoken to haven't experienced any bugs since Drop 3. However, the perception of bugginess and actual bugs are not the same.
 
A postal service can go bankrupt improving their next day mail percentage from 92% to 95%, but if the public perception is that next day mail arrives next day 50% of the time then what's the point?
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"Random cosmetic issues"? *sigh* This is where the whiteknighting goes from useful to destructive, where the defense becomes so overzealous that anybody who prefers reality feels obliged to start pointing out flaws just to keep things from becoming completely dissociated from reality.
 
Do you really want to sit down with the list of known and reported issues and start quibbling about whether the list of about 3 dozen known issues--not to mention the ones that haven't made their way onto that list, at least a few of which are major PITAs for anyone who uses chat or the auction house--are "cosmetic" or not?
 
Some of these issues have already been fixed and some have workarounds. I have every confidence that the devs are working hard to fix them, and that a few weeks from now most--if not all--will be gone.
 
But that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of bugs, spread pervasively throughout the game, that weren't there last week. It doesn't change that some of them are VERY easy to spot and clearly went live without any appreciable QA at all.
 
That doesn't mean that they didn't fix a lot of bugs, nor does it mean that they should do another one of those completely moronic "Stop the game development! There's bugs!" sort of realignments. They absolutely should not even consider such a thing. Ever again.
 
But that's not the same as saying there have been no substantive problems. You're not the only person here who has played MMORPGs for a long time. I've seen lots of games have smoother updates than this--even at comparable points in their post-release lifetime, and even from similarly sized development studios.
 
The game does not have to completely break the subpopulation of gamers it was intending to help with a drop in order to call the drop "buggy". That kind of drop is more appropriately called "the mother of all clustercupcakes". To earn the title "buggy", all a drop has to do is have so many bugs that you couldn't miss them unless you had blinders on. Because that's when the reaction to the drop goes from "Whoa, cool!" to "Wow, this may be cool, but it still needs a fair amount of work, doesn't it."
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			Disappointed, the one year sub was worth it if we have monthly drops instead we have drops every 3 months due to game breaking bugs which we still have in drop 3. Very crappy and it does look like they already paid for the project from pre orders sales and now they just want to squeeze as much money as possible. 	
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I'm amused at the assumption that because this drop had some bugs, the process didn't work. Like you know how many problems it would have had under the old system, or like issues on Patch day aren't inevitable.
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The topic is probably far more in the lines of complaining just to complain. Wildstar didn't turn out the way the OP hoped, so he/she is going to sit here complain until the game is eventually dead in over a decade. It's sad, as it could give Carbine the wrong impression. The truth is the game is doing quite well, and most people I meet in the game are very happy to be there. The complainers are a minority, but they refuse to admit it. Thus we end up with threads like this, there the OP think they actually matter in the big picture. But hey, let's stink up the forum rather than the game, ok? :)
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Quite the opposite you think it's some magical coincidence the playerbase is on a constant decline and hasn't stabilized? You can make all the lovey dove threads you want it doesn't change the fact the state of the game is horrible
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It depends who you are though doesn't it?
 
The state of the game is just dandy for me. But then I'm also perfectly willing to accept that for some people it just isn't.	
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I'm amused at the assumption that because this drop had some bugs, the process didn't work. Like you know how many problems it would have had under the old system, or like issues on Patch day aren't inevitable.
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The process didn't work.
 
 
Point blank, period.
 
 
You remember how they were delaying releases, so they could test their product, and identify bugs to reduce the number being released?
 
 
They've had multiple patches this week to address these bugs, which is great and all.  But you can't argue with the fact that they are once again taking them down on Friday to address even more issues.
 
Also, one must really question their Q&A team.  I have every reason to beleive that this team was the majority of the 40 people let go during recent reductions?
 
The reasoning?
 
Gadgets / LAS switches.
 
All it took, upon log in, was about 10 seconds to realize my gadget was missing.  About 10 seconds later, I had switched LASs, and right away it was apparent that the LAS was locked, abilities could not switch, and gadgets were bugged.
 
Not bad Q&A.  Not bad.  Maybe next time we'll make the 15 second mark?
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Quite the opposite you think it's some magical coincidence the playerbase is on a constant decline and hasn't stabilized? You can make all the lovey dove threads you want it doesn't change the fact the state of the game is horrible
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			You literally just explained how the community via addons has produced fixes for problems faster than Carbine itself. Are you seriously going to try and defend their process now?	
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You literally just explained how the community via addons has produced fixes for problems faster than Carbine itself. Are you seriously going to try and defend their process now?
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... Really? Really?
 
Have it your way, then. Whiteknights vs. Whiners, commence the battle. *gives up*
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In it Cougar explains Carbine's triage process.  Its been mentioned in at least one place that the gadget issue was triaged to low severity since it was only a display problem, and that this was probably a mistake because a lot of players take issue with display problems.
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Now we're looking at mass bans and/or rollbacks.
 
Nope. No serious bugs here.	
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I get it. There is literally NOTHING short of the game shutting down that'll get you to accept there are serious problems with this Drop.
 
Look, I don't feel the need to beat them up over this one. Frankly this is the sort of thing people find, then don't report. Should they catch it on their own? Yes. But its essentially working without safety gear because the people that should be your last chance for catching it deliberately let it through.	
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Now we're looking at mass bans and/or rollbacks.
 
Nope. No serious bugs here.
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I get it. There is literally NOTHING short of the game shutting down that'll get you to accept there are serious problems with this Drop.
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The only gamebreaking bug, as in it literally was breaking the game and crashing the servers, was because of bad character data and could not have been caught on the PTR or by QA.  Yes, there are new bugs that are annoying in various aspects, but to label anything else as gamebreaking is pointless hyperbole.
 
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I heard rumors there was a bug that effected the economy that sounds fairly game breaking.
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Servers are down now because of it lols.
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Back up.  The maintenance down-time was to change gardening to just disable it for the time being.
 
I"ll admit its just a band-aid but at least something has been done and carbine seems to be improving.
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I heard rumors there was a bug that effected the economy that sounds fairly game breaking.
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I don't see how you could describe CREDD tripling in price overnight and driving players out of the game as anything other than literally game-breaking. And that's hardly the limit of the damage done to the game's economic progression path.
 
And I agree, tracing this thing across other mediums, it looks like the exploit was identified and even reported to Carbine nearly a month ago... and then the great bug fixing drop just let it sail on unopposed. Now we're watching their usual panic fire hot fixing which -- unsurprisingly -- looks like it reverted a number of optimization fixes because someone at Carbine is evidently incapable of proper version control to ensure the hot fix is in fact built on the current build instead of some outdated crumb of cupcake floating around on some department's local memory.
 
This drop was their chance to prove that they'd mended their ways regarding awful QA delivery. That an extra two months between releases was justified and a whole bevvy of "new processes" were in place to address root issues like version control.
 
I'm sure they've built all new levels of confidence at NCsoft.
 
A suggestion for Carbine - hire some "hostile testers". You need some in-house weasels whose only job is to have a build put in-front of them, a list of known bugs in a neat stack by their keyboard to use a pry bars, and a mission statement of "wreck this game." You need someone paid to exploit your game catching things like this instead of unpaid testers spotting issues and tucking them away for their own advantage later on. You clearly have testers checking "does it work?" You need testers checking "how can I break this?" It's a different mindset and frankly a different skill set.	
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