SSG's constant failures are a trend

[Nite_Prowler]

Can someone please explain why SSG keeps pushing out content to the live servers riddled with bugs?

Isn't there a test server to work these things out prior to them being released to the live servers?

I mean this latest bank schism is a perfect example.

People get excited about a new feature only to learn that it doesn't work, and you very well may lose some items if you try to use the feature.

Then people get upset over this.

Is the problem poor management or simple greed?

It sounds like poor management to me.

It could be simple greed, but this kind of greed will, in the long run, end up with people (like myself) not renewing their subscriptions.

So, I'm leaning towards poor management instead of outright greed.

If it weren't a constant trend, people wouldn't get angry about this management failure.

If this only happened every now and again, people would be far more forgiving.
However, this isn't a one-off event, it happens ALL THE TIME, like 2-3 times per year.
Almost every update is riddled with more bugs, something this game DOES NOT NEED

There are enough bugs in the game already, constantly adding to this list is ... in my opinion ... a failure of management.

Constantly releasing content that this so broken that you have to literally delete several hours of advancement to fix a problem that could have been addressed prior to its release ... is uncalled for ... and a failure of management.

Maybe it is just greed, but having such poor customer service will result in less revenue, so I'm still leaning towards poor management.

Can someone please explain this to me and prove that this is NOT a management failure on the part of Standing Stone Games?

[Memnir]

Isn't there a test server to work these things out prior to them being released to the live servers?

It's not a test server, SSG refers to Llama as a "preview" server. We are there to preview the content - not test it. I think the distinction is placed there by SSG so that feedback can be marginalized, or outright ignored.


The buggy releases are indeed demoralizing. Even more so when it's something that was called out with specificity by players in the Llamania forum, and it wasn't fixed. But honestly, I don't ever expect any update to ever go well at this point. It's just a matter of placing my mental bets on what aspect of an update is going to go pear-shaped. I think SSG's corporate mentality is to get the updates out on time, no matter what, and everything else is secondary. And, again, that's pretty demoralizing. The only reliable thing about a DDO launch is that they will be unreliable.

[Eantarus]

It's not a test server, SSG refers to Llama as a "preview" server. We are there to preview the content - not test it. I think the distinction is placed there by SSG so that feedback can be marginalized, or outright ignored.

This is extremely disappointing.

[ZER0DIVISION]

Lamannia is indeed a preview server. Even if it's not for testing, there doesn't seem to be much interest in gathering feedback when it only opens for 2-3 days in the middle of the work week. Honestly I wish Lamannia was available all the time.

This might be a remnant of the Turbine days, but wasn't there actually a test server called the Mournlands? Back in the day I would constantly hear rumors about it; supposedly it was invite-only.

[Memnir]

but wasn't there actually a test server called the Mournlands? Back in the day I would constantly hear rumors about it; supposedly it was invite-only.

Yes Mournlands was a private, invite-only, test server that has since gone the way of the dodo.

[Clemeit]

It's not a test server, SSG refers to Llama as a "preview" server. We are there to preview the content - not test it. I think the distinction is placed there by SSG so that feedback can be marginalized, or outright ignored.

This.

Also, the closest thing that SSG has to a QA department is the unofficial DDO Discord server.

[Nite_Prowler]

Lamannia is indeed a preview server. Even if it's not for testing, there doesn't seem to be much interest in gathering feedback when it only opens for 2-3 days in the middle of the work week. Honestly I wish Lamannia was available all the time.

This might be a remnant of the Turbine days, but wasn't there actually a test server called the Mournlands? Back in the day I would constantly hear rumors about it; supposedly it was invite-only.

Yes, there was. I don't remember the actual name of said server, but I had access to it back in the day. I assume I was invited because I would actively put in bug reports and, believe it or not, Turbine actually tried to fix issues that were reported.

Putting in a bug report with SSG is an effort in futility.
They clearly don't want any feedback in regard to problems with their game.

[WallStreetDragon]

They do not want us to test anything and more importantly, do not like to hear something is wrong with their game. Go run your archetype lives peasant.

[Annex]

Update 56: Archetypes and Archvillians.
1) Temple of Elemental Evil Update: Seems to have gone well. A small number of people complained in the forums.
2) Dark Apostate, Sacred Fist, Stormsinger: Mixed reception. Some people say they are fine. Some complaints. Many people seem to like the idea of sub-classes.
3) Bank update: Many problems. Rollback required. Much hand wringing.
4) Crystal Cove: Definite problems. Seems playable.
5) Favored Soul and Sonic Blast: Players never take a power decrease well. Some players will never accept class churn.

Update 55: Isle of Dread
1) Isle of Dread: Mostly positive reviews.
2) Level Cap Increase to 32: Seems to have gone well. Mechanic for keeping 30-32 well received. Some complains about Level 30 cut off for legendary experience.
3) Skeletons in the Closet: Players seem to like it. Not seeing any complaints about it.

Update 54: Isle of Dread
1) Tabaxi Race: Most players seem to like them. Some animation issues, now mostly cleaned up.
2) Tabaxi Trailblazer: Not a lot of complaints. Seems okay.

Update 53: Hunt or be Hunted
1) Hunt of be Hunted: Cannot recall any serious complaints about this quest pack.
2) Raid: Cannot recall any serious complaints about the raid.
3) 16th Anniversary: Cannot recall any serious complaints about the anniversary.

Update 52: Potent of Dread
1) New quest: Most people seemed okay with it. Some people excited.
2) New Festivult Course: Mixed reviews. Too tough for many people.
3) New Augments and Reaper Crafting: Well received. Some complaints about crafting costs (addressed in a subsequent update).

Update 51: A New Destiny
1) Destiny Overhaul: Very mixed reception. Considering the massive changes, actually worked pretty good right out the gate. Bugs addressed in many subsequent updates. Some bugs still outstanding. Players seem to have accepted and adapted to the new system.
2) Epic Crafting Overhaul: More items added. Spectacularly well received.

Update 50: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
1) Saltmarsh: Kinda mixed reviews but apparently sold very well.
2) Horizon Walker: Contentious changes to archery feats. Some players panned new tree. Tree eventually proves very powerful and popular.
3) Epic Crafting Overhaul: Spectacularly well received.

Update 49: Peril of the Planar Eyes
1) Peril of the Planar Eyes: Generally well received. Players seem to like the caster stuff.

Update 48: Fables of the Feywild
1) Feywild: Fairly well received.
2) Feywild Raid: People seem to like it. Easy. Accessible. Fun.
3) Shifter Race: I recall kinda mixed reception but seems to work okay.
4) Snowpeaks: New event. Some people like it. Some don't. Super easy and accessible.
5) 15th Anniversary: Free item well received. Some complaints about the loot list. Many complaints only one per account.

Update 47: The Promise of Fire
1) Quest: Generally well received.
2) 3 New Raids: Very well received. Some initial problems.
3) Razorclaw Shifter: Players seemed okay with it. Not super happy but not super upset.
4) Feydark Illusionist: Tree well received. Lots of new possibilities.

.....

That's two years of updates.

There were lots of bugs in those updates but most were squashed with subsequent patches. On three occasions, changes resulted in significant character upheaval. Those kinds of things always kick up a lot of dust.

I only see one roll back, not some horrible trend. The roll back and one day outage certainly sucked but in the greater scheme of things, I'd rate it a 1 out of 10 for life importance.

Kinda impressed a small company can keep up that pace.

We will never know exactly why Update 56 was released in such a rough state. Management. Rogue developer. Mice. Space Aliens. I don't care. I just want it fixed.

A serious problem occurred. Decisive measures were taken to prevent a disaster. Doing so resulted in some inconvenience. Complaints were rightfully lodged. They were obviously received. Repairs are underway. Now we wait.

.....

It seems obvious the budget for DDO testing was cut. Since we will never see the books, we can only conjecture why that occurred. Such conjecture will not change anything. Players are now on the front line of testing.

I can live with the current release paradigm but I have a higher tolerance for bugs than many of you. Maybe it is a woman thing. I am accustomed to messes happening and cleaning them up. If you, the gentle reader, cannot live with bugs, if they make you crazy, if they challenge your understanding of how the universe should work, you will continue to be unhappy and complain.

Some of you should really take up a second hobby. You are fixating on DDO too much. It is not healthy.

[Seph1roth5]

I think you're being way too lenient on the ED update. It had so many bugs and errors day 1. There was so much stuff not working, all the s/s/s quests were closed for a week or 3, etc. It's almost a year later and we're still getting surprise bugfixes that we (I at least) didn't even realize was broken. An update or 2 ago had one of the cores properly adding in DCs.

Honestly can't think of anything else that has this horrifying level of checking. Not double checking, just CHECKING once. Sometimes they put out a lam update and it's not even the right one, sometimes (oftentimes) release notes go out and then after people start playing we quickly find out that some of it just never got added to the update.

[Xgya]

*snip*
That's two years of updates.
*re-snip*
It seems obvious the budget for DDO testing was cut. Since we will never see the books, we can only conjecture why that occurred. Such conjecture will not change anything. Players are now on the front line of testing.

I can live with the current release paradigm but I have a higher tolerance for bugs than many of you. Maybe it is a woman thing. I am accustomed to messes happening and cleaning them up. If you, the gentle reader, cannot live with bugs, if they make you crazy, if they challenge your understanding of how the universe should work, you will continue to be unhappy and complain.

Some of you should really take up a second hobby. You are fixating on DDO too much. It is not healthy.

That's about as concise and objective as I could expect a forumite to be.
Congrats!
Most of the commentary about past patches looks pretty spot-on.

Now the obvious lack of testing DOES bug me out, if you'll pardon the easy pun, but the fact the tests were made, that some of the issues were addressed on the test servers and some feedback simply went entirely unanswered is where my trust of the company took the biggest hit, hence my signature change.

So, not DOOOOOOM, not a "constant stream of failures", but a few rather big hits to confidence in the company that can at least be understood.

I HAVE been vocal about the Sonic change, but that was mostly because it nerfs a section of the lives of casters that was already hard enough as-is. A double-range, triple-speed AoE spell with no save on its damage and that comes with crowd control attached. And it STILL wasn't enough to make a low level Sorc or Wizard life look any easier casting it than simply equipping a greatsword and going out swinging. Or, you know, hire Byron to do it for you.

[helpfulguy1234]

At this point, they are either UNWILLING or are UNABLE to release things with even a minimal amount of polish.

And it's probably not going to change. There is zero indication that it will.

I stopped spending $$$ on the game long ago, and never regretted it. If they ever get their act together, I might spend again, but again, ZERO indication that things will improve. As they only get progressively worse with each update. They simply DO NOT listen to their customers. We beg and plead for them to not release things as buggy as they are, we go on Lam and find problems, they don't fix them and release anyways. The current model of how they are doing things IS BROKEN. And I doubt they will ever acknowledge that.

And as long as you are shoveling money at them, they have no incentive to acknowledge it. The failure is at the top, not on the code monkeys.

[slarden]

Realistically bugs are going to happen and infrequent bigger bugs are going to happen.

Given the size of the game, age of the game and revenue base of the game I accept the game for what it is- including the issues. I appreciate the massive effort the SSG is putting into the product and think the are doing a great job overall.

Item loss, rollbacks, major issues with characters that don't get addressed by CS and overall apathy towards player concerns are definitely problems that can make people quit the game or stop spending.

A few observations
- SSG needs a better triage system for customer service when it relates to major player issues such as item loss and/or major character issues related to tr
- The rollback didn't seem to get treated like the major problem that it is. Time is precious to me and most people. None of the bonuses made up for the time loss - I didn't even gain 1 second back from those.
- There are just too many over-corrections when an over-tuned ability is adjusted down (or nerfed) or the wrong thing is adjusted. I do not know if it's intentional or not, but nudging people to change builds might or might not be good for revenues -I don't know, but it can be very frustrating from a player perspective - esp when you already feel squeezed on time already.

[Gordo]

Realistically bugs are going to happen and infrequent bigger bugs are going to happen.

Given the size of the game, age of the game and revenue base of the game I accept the game for what it is- including the issues. I appreciate the massive effort the SSG is putting into the product and think the are doing a great job overall.

Item loss, rollbacks, major issues with characters that don't get addressed by CS and overall apathy towards player concerns are definitely problems that can make people quit the game or stop spending.

A few observations
- SSG needs a better triage system for customer service when it relates to major player issues such as item loss and/or major character issues related to tr
- The rollback didn't seem to get treated like the major problem that it is. Time is precious to me and most people. None of the bonuses made up for the time loss - I didn't even gain 1 second back from those.
- There are just too many over-corrections when an over-tuned ability is adjusted down (or nerfed) or the wrong thing is adjusted. I do not know if it's intentional or not, but nudging people to change builds might or might not be good for revenues -I don't know, but it can be very frustrating from a player perspective - esp when you already feel squeezed on time already.

Slarden
I tried the same approach - giving massive props to SSG and telling the "whin*rs" to stop. I can only say it was massively unrewarding.
The consensus on these boards is that SSG and the community encourages and accepts endless complain*ng but will not tolerate for one second calling said "whine*s" in support of the game.

The conclusion is: disparaging the game at every angle OK. Defending the CF that is SSG, not OK. It's an upside down world for sure.

[KoobTheProud]

Realistically bugs are going to happen and infrequent bigger bugs are going to happen.

Given the size of the game, age of the game and revenue base of the game I accept the game for what it is- including the issues. I appreciate the massive effort the SSG is putting into the product and think the are doing a great job overall.

Item loss, rollbacks, major issues with characters that don't get addressed by CS and overall apathy towards player concerns are definitely problems that can make people quit the game or stop spending.

A few observations
- SSG needs a better triage system for customer service when it relates to major player issues such as item loss and/or major character issues related to tr
- The rollback didn't seem to get treated like the major problem that it is. Time is precious to me and most people. None of the bonuses made up for the time loss - I didn't even gain 1 second back from those.
- There are just too many over-corrections when an over-tuned ability is adjusted down (or nerfed) or the wrong thing is adjusted. I do not know if it's intentional or not, but nudging people to change builds might or might not be good for revenues -I don't know, but it can be very frustrating from a player perspective - esp when you already feel squeezed on time already.

100% signed on this.

It is much better to have active content distribution with a higher bug rate than to have less new content released with less bugs as a result.

That said, it is better to have new content that does not need to be dramatically adjusted for power creep down the road. All the power creep does is to create more churn when it is inevitably adjusted downwards.

A test server is also made less valuable when a lot of new power is what is being tested. This is because in response to the power creep/nerf later cycle players are often not forthcoming about things that they see that are OP or possibly even OP bugs.

[Aelonwy]

It's not a test server, SSG refers to Llama as a "preview" server. We are there to preview the content - not test it. I think the distinction is placed there by SSG so that feedback can be marginalized, or outright ignored.

So much THIS^ and its incredibly, aggravating... not just because their updates are so buggy but also because many of their decisions are tone deaf or vast overcorrections and their design decisions are rife with missed opportunities.

[yfernbottom]

It seems obvious the budget for DDO testing was cut. Since we will never see the books, we can only conjecture why that occurred. Such conjecture will not change anything. Players are now on the front line of testing.

What I personally don't understand is why they don't leverage the feedback they get for free. A decent number of players are obviously willing to test the stuff out for them and provide feedback. Yet what I hear over and over is that feedback, even about bugs, is completely ignored.

Now using your players to test content is not a great practice. There is a reason why testing software is a paid job. However, using the feedback you get for free seems like common sense. Even if they are going to completely ignore balance concerns that come up on lamnia, it seems like they would want to act on reports of game breaking bugs. Is it just a test to see whether the new code makes the server hardware burst in to flames or not?

[Gordo]

What I personally don't understand is why they don't leverage the feedback they get for free. A decent number of players are obviously willing to test the stuff out for them and provide feedback. Yet what I hear over and over is that feedback, even about bugs, is completely ignored.

Now using your players to test content is not a great practice. There is a reason why testing software is a paid job. However, using the feedback you get for free seems like common sense. Even if they are going to completely ignore balance concerns that come up on lamnia, it seems like they would want to act on reports of game breaking bugs. Is it just a test to see whether the new code makes the server hardware burst in to flames or not?

After so many years of being a VIP, Cordovan convinced me to downgrade and I accepted!
I encourage you all to speak with your wallets. It's a language a business understands. SSG has forgotten who pays their salaries.

[helpfulguy1234]

After so many years of being a VIP, Cordovan convinced me to downgrade and I accepted!
I encourage you all to speak with your wallets. It's a language a business understands. SSG has forgotten who pays their salaries.

Same person who convinced me to downgrade. Can't imagine how much money he's cost SSG over the years.

[ahpook]

The last few releases definitely seem to require more next day hot patching than we are used to. Annex wrote up a nice list of the releases but mostly indicates how well the features were received and not how stable the releases were. There have been worse updates than this last one but not as part of a string of poorly released updates as we seem to be getting.

It sounds like poor management to me.

The producer was recently changed and the releases have gotten worse in that time. I won't call you wrong on this one.

I honestly don't see how the producer has not come to the forums with a message for the players about this release. The silence leaves a void that players will fill with their own biases and I doubt that is good for the player base. One is left to wonder if they don't care, don't see a problem or have no hope on how to improve things. None of those are good for instilling confidence or enthusiasm for the future of the game. Relationships end one missed conversation at a time.

Lamannia is indeed a preview server. Even if it's not for testing, there doesn't seem to be much interest in gathering feedback when it only opens for 2-3 days in the middle of the work week. Honestly I wish Lamannia was available all the time.

They should come up with a model to keep Lamannia up most of the time to assist with testing and feedback. No release should go from the build servers to the live servers without spending some amount of time on Lamannia. The issues with the last release should be a clear indicator that what they are doing is wrong.

One of the challenges that Lamannia has (and is echo'ed in this thread to some degree) is that it features 2 divergent needs. One is for game change feedback and one is for bug identification. I think that the noise from the first makes SSG not want to use Lamannia for the second. That is a mistake that they need to solve.