Why are we still dealing with years old bugs?

[FLEUR.7458]

I've been doing personal story for base game and HoT on my alts and I have run into so many instance breaking bugs. So far I've already had game breaking bugs during the Norn personal story (Invincible Seige Devourerer), Roots of Terror (Braham doesnt initiate after the chak battle), and now during The Way In (Taimi doesnt do anything before we enter the laboratory) (video link:

). Why are these bugs, which are huge time wasters and require us to redo complete instances still around 2 or even 6 years after the games release? Why can't I get through a single complete storyline on any character without a bug that halts my progress and causes me to re-do missions that are long and tedious. I know its been talked to death but where are all of these bug reports going?

-frustrated player who constantly shells out money to you in hopes you can afford staffing to fix bugs

[BeardedVagabond.8136]

The main question is, does fixing them make Anet money? The answer is no. Why fix old stuff when they can create new stuff with bugs and sell it? they more likely will never be fixed.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You might be interested in watching some of the Guild Chats were the Devs talk about bugs and how some can not be fixed, or others that could be fixed but would break more of the game than they would fix.

I think there are some recent posts in the old forums about it, as well. (See Dev Tracker.)

Good luck.

[FLEUR.7458]

Saying "Some bugs can't be fixed without breaking more of the game" is NEVER an excuse (that should be taken care of before release) and even less so when its to deal with general gameplay. Story progression is the core of this game. Nothing should be a surprise bug about these things - if anything is bugged it shouldn't be the base storytelling that they sell with these expansions or even with their base game. Whether its laziness during development or afterwords, if ANet says these bugs cant be fixed, or just won't fix them, its them selling me a defunct and poor quality product. (over and over and over...)

[Helbjorne.9368]

@Nick Lentz.6982 said:The main question is, does fixing them make Anet money? The answer is no. Why fix old stuff when they can create new stuff with bugs and sell it? they more likely will never be fixed.

This is the sad reality.

[Baltham.8796]

It's just the nature of MMO's. Every single MMO I've ever played has had long-standing bugs. GW2 is no different in that regard.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

There's all sorts of reasons why some bugs won't ever get addressed or take ages to get addressed.

• Is it urgent? Or can it wait?
• Is it a blocking issue? Is there a workaround?
• Is it important? How important?
• Do we know the root cause already (or probably know)? If not, do we know about how long it might take to figure out the issue?
• Do we know about a planned initiative that is going to supersede the above? e.g. no need to fix a text error in a description of an item that is about to be removed from the game.
• How many people are affected by the issue? How much does it affect them? How often are they affected?

The best way you can help an issue get resolved is by making it easy for ANet to see the issue, identify the cause, and understand how it affects players.

• Be clear about what happens, when, where, under what circumstances.
• Include details about what you've tried to work around it and/or generally confirm that it's a bug (and not "user error").
• Explain why it's important (or why it's not).
• If relevant, link it to other, similar issues.
• Avoid hyperbole, stick to the facts, and save the whining about QA, support, or other issues for another time. At best, those things will distract the reader from the issue you want to raise. At worst, it will lead folks down the wrong path (e.g. by dismissing concerns as imagined and overblown, leading to not reading between the lines to see what's really going on).

---

tl;dr stop worrying about why stuff doesn't get fixed -- focus on what you want fixed and make it easy for ANet to do so.

[Ashantara.8731]

@FLEUR.7458 said:Saying "Some bugs can't be fixed without breaking more of the game" is NEVER an excuse

It is, if the engine was build that way (i.e., not well thought through and structured in programming). When, for some reason, seemingly unconnected code modules do interfere with each other, fumbling around in the code could lead to more severe problems than it's worth.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

It's not like they want to have bugs. It's more like the time and resources it may take to fix them is too much, and there may be workarounds, so they are pushed down in the list of priorities. Why spending time fixing a bug that does not prevent completion when there's other more pressing issues and new content to be done? When you have to manage resources some things fall off the sides of the table.

And If not enough players report a bug it may not get more priority. Take Devouring the Brand. Bugged since release, nobody uses /bug to report it, it never gets fixed.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so when people get the event and do not stop to think it may be bugged and instead shrug and leave without giving it a second though, nothing gets fixed. You can tell players in-game to use the /bug command, but few will listen, others won't understand the confusing bug panel, and others can't be bothered at all with the process.

[FLEUR.7458]

Sorry but none of your counter-arguments are legitimate. These are not special cases, these are base content for the game and its expansion. Since I myself have experienced these bugs on 3/4 characters I've take through the story line, I assume many people encounter them. Bad programming is not an excuse. And if you do a simple search you'll find many forum posts about these bugs so I doubt they aren't being reported.

I mean seriously people, this is like if we got to the final instance in Path of Fire but couldn't defeat Balthazar because it was bugged. Oh wait... Flashbacks to defeating Zhaitan in Victory or Death being bugged for years.

[Okami.9546]

Here in 2018 to say its still bugged </3

[sasya neko.1985]

the game engine is outdated and they never bothered to fix any of that, you really think they will ever fix an old in-game bug?

[Rhyse.8179]

Bug fixes can't be sold on the gem store.

[Blocki.4931]

If something happens 1 out of 20 times it's not worth fixing.

If something would require a lot of work (and/or still happens rarely), it's not worth fixing.

Not worth putting dev time on something that most people will never experience. Simple

[TheNecrosanct.4028]

@FLEUR.7458 said:Sorry but none of your counter-arguments are legitimate. These are not special cases, these are base content for the game and its expansion. Since I myself have experienced these bugs on 3/4 characters I've take through the story line, I assume many people encounter them. Bad programming is not an excuse. And if you do a simple search you'll find many forum posts about these bugs so I doubt they aren't being reported.

I mean seriously people, this is like if we got to the final instance in Path of Fire but couldn't defeat Balthazar because it was bugged. Oh wait... Flashbacks to defeating Zhaitan in Victory or Death being bugged for years.

They are very legitimate. You just don't accept them. There's a difference.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

According to the Devs (Points of Interest/Guild Chat), some bugs are purposely left as is because fixing them would cause 10 other things to break. Thus, the 'cure' is much worse than the 'malady'.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"MithranArkanere.8957" said:It's not like they want to have bugs. It's more like the time and resources it may take to fix them is too much, and there may be workarounds, so they are pushed down in the list of priorities. Why spending time fixing a bug that does not prevent completion when there's other more pressing issues and new content to be done? When you have to manage resources some things fall off the sides of the table.

And If not enough players report a bug it may not get more priority. Take Devouring the Brand. Bugged since release, nobody uses /bug to report it, it never gets fixed.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so when people get the event and do not stop to think it may be bugged and instead shrug and leave without giving it a second though, nothing gets fixed. You can tell players in-game to use the /bug command, but few will listen, others won't understand the confusing bug panel, and others can't be bothered at all with the process.

Stopped wasting time with /bug because it never accomplished anything.

[Majic.4801]

Too many GOTOs, not enough GOSUBs.

[Malediktus.9250]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:According to the Devs (Points of Interest/Guild Chat), some bugs are purposely left as is because fixing them would cause 10 other things to break. Thus, the 'cure' is much worse than the 'malady'.

If their spaghetti code is that bad maybe they should scrap GW2 and make a new game.

With DX12, raytracing and all the new stuff. I am getting tired of DX9 crap.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Sure. It would be easy. Of course, GW2 would be put into maintenance mode for 5 or more years while we wait for the new game.

[googel.3278]

why fix when they just want to make money? Look at the utter useless fashion skins for mounts/weapons/armor, and that abomination of a gemstore. But hey, its what the role players want in this game, look good but ignore the bugs that still exist. Speaking of gemstore, what the hell is this waypoint unlock? I know its been around for a while but really anet? running out of ideas?

[Majic.4801]

Perhaps if they offered bug fixes in the Black Lion Trading Post... :p

[Obtena.7952]

@"FLEUR.7458" said:Saying "Some bugs can't be fixed without breaking more of the game" is NEVER an excuse (that should be taken care of before release) and even less so when its to deal with general gameplay. Story progression is the core of this game. Nothing should be a surprise bug about these things - if anything is bugged it shouldn't be the base storytelling that they sell with these expansions or even with their base game. Whether its laziness during development or afterwords, if ANet says these bugs cant be fixed, or just won't fix them, its them selling me a defunct and poor quality product. (over and over and over...)

Actually, it's always the excuse, and it's not as unreasonable as you think. Call it whatever you want but it comes down to priorities and if the bugs don't break the game, they probably aren't very high on the list of bugs to fix.

[Blude.6812]

@Baltham.8796 said:It's just the nature of MMO's. Every single MMO I've ever played has had long-standing bugs. GW2 is no different in that regard.

Doesn't make it right! Programming mediocracy. If it would provide $$$$, it would be fixed immediately.

[DeanBB.4268]

And GW2 is no different than many professional applications. AutoCAD, for instance, has bugs that I know of introduced in the 2012 release that still exist, and that program gets updated every year.