I think that making everyone post bug reports on forums is a really bad idea. This creates a problem where some players post nearly step-by-step tutorials on how to reproduce a bug/exploit while other players are literally scrolling through the bug section of the forums to find everything they can abuse to gain an advantage over others. I understand that eventually those bug abusers will get punished but by the time that happens the damage to the game will be already done. Moreover, I doubt that anyone will get hardware banned so those exploiters can do their dirty stuff on a throwaway account and get advantage on their main account.
Instead I would suggest just a simple [Report a bug] button which would lead to some kind of form that players would fill in and send directly to developers. This way, bug reports wouldn’t be publicly available to everyone and we would less bug/exploit abusers ruining the game for everyone around them.
The only part of the bug section that could stay is “Known Issues”, which shouldn’t include anything specific. For example, it could just say something like “We are aware that certain perks of Hatchet are working differently than intended”.
No because what happens is that you remove transparency. Removing that is basically like removing body cams from the police. Lets say a bug is known but not a LOT of people know about it. those people report it anonymously. Well the thing is that due to only a few people reporting it or making a deal about it, they company can say “Well not many people know of said issue so we can keep it under the rug and get to it later”.
By putting this on the forum it lets everyone know “hey here is a problem” which is now brought out into the open and sometimes devs need to know how to replicate said bug so they know exactly how to fix it. Just saying “there is a leak” is a bit rougher considering the whole house than saying “hey I have a leak from the pipe connected to the kitchen sink”.
the company can say “Well not many people know of said issue so we can keep it under the rug and get to it later”.
I would much rather have 10 people abuse a game-breaking bug/exploit for 2-3 weeks than 200-300 people abuse the same bug/exploit for a week. Moreover, fair players can report others, for example, “Hey, I saw this guy, in-game name ZZZZZ and he was doing 4k damage on players with heavy armor, can you investigate him, he might be abusing some kind of bug.”
Just saying “there is a leak” is a bit rougher considering the whole house than saying “hey I have a leak from the pipe connected to the kitchen sink”.
Players could explain a bug/exploit in a form the same way they do it in forums now.
or just do not mention steps to replicate of an exploit, no videos, just send it to dec upon request
The thing is, a lot of people post various bug reports and you can’t control how they put it, some might explain everything step-by-step, other might be less specific. Additionally, AGS provides a template on how to report a bug and it includes “Add screenshot/video” if possible.
There have been several reports where I (and I’m undoubtedly not alone) was able to add information to someone else’s report that may have changed how those reviewing it investigate or attempt to duplicate. If I couldn’t see what they’d missed or gotten wrong, I couldn’t do that.
There are also a lot of duplicate posts, because people don’t search before posting. If the search option was removed, these would increase massively: just think about how many threads have hundreds of replies and imagine each being an individual ticket! It is easier if like-reports can be combined rather than individually reviewed.
However…
Threads aren’t moderated as much as they should be. Manpower requirements are obviously massive, so that’s understandable, but the amount of trash posts in that forum is ridiculous. Certain groups seem to think that every member of their company/faction/server copy-pasting the original “X is happening, fix naow!” a thousand times will magically make code happen, and impatient players add unhelpful replies demanding an update or ETA or complaining about the lack of response, thus burying the actual useful posts in the thread and making it a slower process to review. Even genuine valid discussions in these threads are problematic. There should be a hard line ‘anti spam’ stance on that forum: if you want to complain or issue an empty ultimatum or give opinions or whatever, the discussion forum is available, but the bug report forum is exclusively for reporting bugs and anything not fitting that criteria gets removed.
There is also a difference between bugs and exploits, but obviously an overlap exists, too. There should be a more subtle option that is for reporting just exploits and cheating and whatnot, and that can be a PM style report or a “post only” forum that players cannot read. Then, the public posts remain for non-exploit bugs, and for grey area stuff where it is a bug but open to exploit the bug can be posted as normal but with the repro being a ticket number or other reference to the ‘hidden’ report.
Honestly, biggest issue is the lack of in game functionality for this. The Feedback option with its star rating is too much like a review, so of course people aren’t going to trust it as a genuine means of reporting anything. There needs to be a proper in-game ticketting/bug report system. If that was fixed, then the whole point would be moot, as anything sensitive can go through that.
You are completely wrong. All exploits must be made as public as possible. I make sure to notify everyone on my server of current exploits (some are not even posted in these forums).
More publicity means both that the devs will notice and fix bugs faster, and transparency helps people notice if someone might be using exploits against them (like hatchet dmg buff, heal crouching, resilience being broken etc) and act accordingly. I think it only makes it more fair if more people know about this stuff.
More publicity means both that the devs will notice and fix bugs faster
Sorry but I have to disagree with this. If we had to fill a form to report a bug, it would be more structurized, since reports would be sorted by a category, meanwhile, currently the forums are messy and doesnt really have any structure at all.
I think it only makes it more fair if more people know about this stuff.
“Fair” as in allowing normal players to abuse bugs to fight against people who initially started doing it. Yes, you can call it “fair” but it only creates more mess than solves anything.
Imagine 2 situations in Outpost Rush:
There are 30 bug abusers, the other 10 player who try to play fair get absolutely obliterated, the march is completely decided by which side has more exploiters and knows more ways to exploit.
There are only 5 bug abusers, other 35 play fair because they don’t even know about the bug/exploit. The march is somewhat balanced, expect for those few assholes (of course it can still be bad if all 5 end up on same team).
EDIT: plus in #2 those 5 players might know about only 1 bug, for example, hatchet damage one while in #1 those people might be exploiting literally everything: gems, foods, perks and so on.