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The problem with 'Laundry Lists' bug reports.
ReclusiveEagle
Posts: 86 Member
So if you haven't seen the new "Top community concerns" bug report that was released yesterday here is a summery:
The fact that they have been working for the past month to fix and categories what effectively amounts to as 3 Missing Icons, 2 Broken interactions with Vampires and a Gallery display bug is shocking. And remember. Maxis chooses its top priorities. Maxis chose 2 missing icons as one of the "Top community concerns" and it still takes them over a month to fix it really should tell you the state of Maxis as a whole. TS4 is not getting any better and the things that are legitimately broken (Pets, The entire Dine out pack, infinitely looping social interactions when Free will is disabled ect) are being ignored to fix icons.
The problem with Laundry lists is not only did no one ask Maxis to tell us which bugs they have acknowledged as being issues. Its the fact that the bugs they do acknowledge are the ones that take the smallest amount of time to fix yet we still have to wait over a month just to get Icons to display correctly and none of the actually real problems ever get solved. PSA to the Sims Team. The "Most up voted" or "Most reported" bugs aren't always the ones of biggest concern nor should they always be a priority.
Like if 2 broken Icons are more of a priority to fix than major issues because the forums said they were, really you need to take a hard, hard look at your team and figure out w. t. f you are doing and why even when you do choose to fix the simplest things (You just have to fix a broken texture link in code to fix an icon. Should take 5 minutes at most), it takes you over a month.
- [DU] Social Panel always saves organisation tab
- [SE] Extreme Sports: High intensity slope not registering
- Gallery showing wrong packs used
- [CL] When Using ‘Get Leftovers’ Vegetarian Sims Get Meat Items
- [V] Sims don’t drink fish/frog pack plasma autonomously
- Unable to complete ‘grand meal’ event after eating fish dinner
- [DU] Mental Magister trait has no icon/should be hidden
- [ECO] Maker Mentor moodlet icon is missing
- [ECO] [GT] [DU] Traits not in Club menu
- Show in the Rain No Longer Works
- [PSP] [BDK] No dust in my haunted houses
The fact that they have been working for the past month to fix and categories what effectively amounts to as 3 Missing Icons, 2 Broken interactions with Vampires and a Gallery display bug is shocking. And remember. Maxis chooses its top priorities. Maxis chose 2 missing icons as one of the "Top community concerns" and it still takes them over a month to fix it really should tell you the state of Maxis as a whole. TS4 is not getting any better and the things that are legitimately broken (Pets, The entire Dine out pack, infinitely looping social interactions when Free will is disabled ect) are being ignored to fix icons.
The problem with Laundry lists is not only did no one ask Maxis to tell us which bugs they have acknowledged as being issues. Its the fact that the bugs they do acknowledge are the ones that take the smallest amount of time to fix yet we still have to wait over a month just to get Icons to display correctly and none of the actually real problems ever get solved. PSA to the Sims Team. The "Most up voted" or "Most reported" bugs aren't always the ones of biggest concern nor should they always be a priority.
Like if 2 broken Icons are more of a priority to fix than major issues because the forums said they were, really you need to take a hard, hard look at your team and figure out w. t. f you are doing and why even when you do choose to fix the simplest things (You just have to fix a broken texture link in code to fix an icon. Should take 5 minutes at most), it takes you over a month.
Eagle.
Post edited by EA_Lanna on
12
Comments
What i acknowledge with this is that we'll never have a game with relativelly few bugs because while they'll be able to fix some of the gamebreaking bugs, other gamebreaking bugs will be added through new packs...
If they were quicker in solving those big issues, then i wouldn't be worried with the new ones about to come. But they will just pile up until it'll be impossible to play, i'm afraid...
Its almost worse than TS3 at this point. When World Adventures released (1st pack) it came with excavation sites. After Late Night (3rd pack) released there was a bug where Sims could not excavate and would stand there saying they can't reach the site. When Sims 3 Pets (Pack 5) came that patch fixed them but the patch after immediately broke them again. Excavation sites remained broken for 3 more years up until after Into the Future and Patch 1.67.. The final game patch for discs (1.69 is a small origin fix and to allow disabling packs).
But do you know what Patch 1.67 broke? Ordering Omni seeds. The only way to get them now is to order and right before your Sim gets to the mailbox, cancel it and it goes through. Otherwise they will say they can't.
But moral of the story at least in TS3 they attempted to fix bugs multiple times (Even if they broke other things and it was 2-3 years in between fixes for that specific thing). In TS4 they ignore almost all non-game breaking issues. And by game breaking I mean crashing.
You need to be invested in a specific gameplay to notice, i think... for instance, people has been ranting about the gardening issues since eco lifestyle came out, but i have only noticed it when i decided to have a farmer sim this year...
When Dine out first came out customers would sit, eat no problem. Now they take 2 hours to sit, clean up your plates ect ect. Also if you own a restaurant that never worked properly. Guests wouldn't sit down. Take for ever to order. Start blocking waiters, cooks don't cook ect ect. Too many to list. And that's only if you have Dine Out only. For the longest time Vampires would be stuck attacking your Sims at a restaurant
Yeah its like this with most things. On the surface people don't notice if they barely use the feature but if you know how it should be or how it was when it came out/intended to be, bugs are glaringly obvious. Like when they fixed toddlers in a patch I was like "Toddlers were bugged and I missed it?"
Loading screen music still playing in live mode.
Simulation lag
Conversation box at top of screen show the incorrect mood for targeted sim
Action icon stuck showing a generic white icon
and my personal pet peeve - sim repeatedly cooking and not eating.
10 minutes - 5 bugs identified.
If EA is serious about keeping this game running for years to come they need to stop with all the kit nonsense for the time being and focus on fixing their game. The only things kits are doing right now is just adding more bugs.
And I apologize if I sound curt. I'm still waiting for my coffee.
I think they should expand the laundry list with more information about the bugs that they are working on that might not be fixed this month and prioritize the top reported bugs on Answer HQ.
As for the understaffed part...I dunno, work on your charisma skill and try to convince the people in charge that you need more people to help you with bug fixing and quality control. You should probably also look at the routines you have in place at your company.
Laundry lists exist to make people forget that *zero* progress has been made on the bugs the community has actually made top concerns. If the devs put as much effort into fixing bugs as they did useless marketing lists (which these ARE just marketing) they might make some progress, but in most cases they already got the $ for the broken content they just want to make more broken content for people to buy.
We know Maxis is understaffed, the question is why??? The only other game that EA has that brings in more money than Sims is FIFA.
I mean I know they don't give a s*ht about Maxis, that was evident when throughout the entire TS3 life cycle Maxis name was removed from all Credits, box art, opening video and all websites ...until Sims 3 University... The 9th expansion pack... in the final year of TS3.
Like if Sim City flopped, sell Maxis to Microsoft or give them their independence. Not down size them to the point of where its crippling the entire franchise. Like Rockstar games spent $265 Million to make GTA V. It made 1 billion back in 3 days.
EA sure as hell did not invest even 20% of that into TS4 and TS4 has made over $1.2 Billion.. in digital only sales... Only counting Origin... Why.Are.They.Understaffed????
I don't know, but it sure is frustrating. EA probably doesn't want to give them more resources when it comes to bug fixing and quality control. I wish more people could help Maxis with it, they did assign multiple studios to help DICE finish Battlefield 6 I think they should assign a studio to help Maxis right now.
The weird thing is that Maxis have opened other studios like in Austin, Texas for example but they don't work on the sims4 I think? So I have no idea what they are doing and why the sims4 team seems understaffed. They have also hired new people but I don't think they work on bug fixing so...things are going very slow over there...not great when we have so many bugs.
My suggestion to Maxis, should they ever read this, is assign a team to work on bug fixing, put them in another EA office if you have to. I feel that's what we really need right now. Maybe you could convince EA if you promise them that the team will work on something that gives them a lot of money...like mobile games or something.
Most people have been pulled away to work on a "New exciting project" (Sims 5). Even Lyndsay Pearson has been reassigned to it.
Those remaining are like GTA Online now. Just enough to produce new content but not enough to do much else
I hadn't heard Lyndsay had been reassigned. Is there a new Executive Producer/General Mgr for Sims 4? I couldn't find any info.
I get all these as well sometimes.
So I do think you need to dial it back a bit. They have never stated these bugs are the only bugs they're working on or their highest priority. They're just the small goals they can accomplish.
Last month and this month's laundry list is very disapointing just because they're two more months to add to all other months that we've been waiting for the fixing of those bigger bugs. The latest content they released (BtD) needs tuning badly (specially concerning autonomy) and there's no sign of them doing anything more besides what they did last month. The gardening bug ruins all the fun with gardening, and is around since Eco Lifestyle... just to name a couple.
The laundry list is so small compared to what needs to be done. They should be hiring more people or whatever to catch this derailed train...
And while we wait, my sims can't even climb stairs. Or eat any leftovers on their own.
But hey, we got two icons fixed this month. That's...something....yeah. That really affects people playing the game...
It was a good thing that one of the Gurus spoke about the simulation lag but many really really major bugs are not being mentioned.
LOL.