Less Dismissive/more informative responses/attitude towards bug reports

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Ivel, Jul 20, 2021.

  1. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    https://empyriononline.com/threads/...rk-when-vertically-aligned.98388/#post-439855

    This isn't a bug & has been like this for a long time. - Pantera

    I have questions regarding the response in two ways,
    1st, "This isn't a bug". My question for this is, why does it allow you to place them without sprouts if it is not intended to be used with sprouts? That does not make logical sense.
    2nd, "has been like this for a long time" Reading the question for #1, because something has been a way for an extended period of time does not mean its not a bug, intended, logical or should remain the way it is.
     
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  2. Alhira_K

    Alhira_K Captain

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    Logical sense would have told you that plants do not grow sideways. Stuff might be unusable if you do not use it the right way around.

    [​IMG]
     
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  3. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    Side ways in space? That is ignoring Gravity Generators, what is upside down or rightside up? thats relative. And completely bypassing and ignoring what the title of the post is about.

    Also, was not my bug report, I found the dismissive response to be pretty lame from a customer standpoint. If someone is having issue with something you address it.
     
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    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
  4. Alhira_K

    Alhira_K Captain

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    Well that's Eleon for ya. There are several bugs that are getting marked as not a bug simply because technically the game engine behaves correct, just the outcome isn't what you would expect. Yeah that's not how it usually works but :Eleon:. You also don't call an Alpha state game "released" but :Eleon:.

    The most recent that comes to my mind is the one where you lose all your stuff from the connected toolbar if you disconnect. Always marked as not a bug. Suddenly a few days ago one of the threads got updated with "fixed in next update". :rolleyes:

    And what you call dismissive is simply enough information for other people. I look at that sentence and realise that's all I need to know and that there just is no need to write a whole essay as to why, where, when, how and with whom.
     
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  5. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    Using the grow plots as a specific example, you can place I think every other block any direction you want, nothing comes to mind that says it wont function. 02 stations, armor lockers, repair stations. Given its a space game, with artificial gravity, the direction the item is facing shouldnt matter. The what why and where* is not what is important, not is an essay, or long winded answer.
    In your own response, the communication with bugs by the dev team could use some work, yet "no need to write a whole essay as to why, where, when, how and with whom." but "The most recent that comes to my mind is the one where you lose all your stuff from the connected toolbar if you disconnect. Always marked as not a bug. Suddenly a few days ago one of the threads got updated with "fixed in next update". :rolleyes:". You are saying they need to communicate better about bugs yet also you are saying they dont and and that should be accepted?
     
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  6. Alhira_K

    Alhira_K Captain

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    Grow plots are filled with soil. And that stuff just falls out if you place it sideways. So it not working if not placed correctly is perfectly fine, artificialy gravity changes nothing as gravity still gets generated below/at the bottom of the ship.

    Repair bays can only be placed upwards, imo they should do the same thing with the grow plots.

    No, I'm giving you an example on what kind of communication you can expect around here. I'm used to it and you better get used to it too as you won't get more.
     
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  7. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    Gravity orientation is changed based on how you place the Gravity Generator, it is not a set place at the bottom of a ship.

    "Repair bays can only be placed upwards, imo they should do the same thing with the grow plots." This is a valid suggestion

    "No, I'm giving you an example on what kind of communication you can expect around here. I'm used to it and you better get used to it too as you won't get more."

    Why are you negatively dogging a post that is requesting better communication, which you yourself acknowledge should happen. It's a suggestion. What you are saying is not helpful, constructive, or related even, as its your opinion of the devs reactions to things, and not related to this post.
    You have chosen to focus on minor parts, dismissed the Title of the post and focused on a minor example, meanwhile simultaneously agreeing that the devs need to better communicate while saying my post is pointless. If you dont have anything constructive to add, please refrain from the useless comment.
     
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  8. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    FURTHERMORE

    The request for better communication from the devs about intended behavior or bugs is incredibly confusing at times for new players. If you play this game on SP only, are not part of discord and do not frequent the forums, how would a player get any sort of info on what is OBVIOUSLY something that has confused more then one person, when there is more then one post about it. You would need to create a forum profile or a discord to ask why you can place something but are not allowed to use it?(which NO other blocks are like in the game)

    I reiterate the original point of the Post.

    Less Dismissive/more informative responses/attitude towards bug reports

    Which apparently includes unlooked for opinions and responses from players with nothing positive to add, as well as devs being more receptive to the above issues.

    https://empyriononline.com/threads/grow-plots-rotate-sprouts-dont.95168/
     
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  9. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    I would also like to make the point that I have read some of the bug reports on the forums, and they are incredibly uninformative. In some situations people are copy and pasting a bug report repeatedly, but not including other elements of information in the previous post, making it impossible to even know what the person was asking, or what their post was about. Was it a bug report, a suggested addition to the game or something the player wanted rebalanced? There is a significant group that player this game that do not speak English as a first language, or sometimes at all, it seems.

    Having clear and informative posts is not a negative request. This game is great, the dev team does an awesome job and the Mod creators in the community are able to create some really amazing things and scenarios. I am not criticizing the game, saying its bad, saying the devs suck, or really even anything negative at all, besides asking for something to change, which I do not feel I've been aggressive or unrealistic, or unique even in my request, as this is a consistent issue(as you yourself have brought up in regards to the bugs being fixed).
     
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  10. This is because most people don't search the bug reports before making duplicate reports, then the devs later on merge the multiple reports together.
    This gives the impression that people are just copy and pasting into the same bug report, but it's actually multiple bug reports that got merged into one after the fact.


    As to the grow plots example, yes, the devs should have just disabled rotation on them LONG ago. That one simple change would have solved so many reports over the years.
    The game simply shouldn't allow you to rotate them since they only function in one direction. Allowing them to rotate just results in broken blueprints/builds.
    It's as easy as changing 1 single line in the config files, "Eleon Plz Fix"
     
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  11. imlarry425

    imlarry425 Captain

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    @Ivel you raise perfectly reasonable issues related to geotropism & phototropism as it relates to hydroponic gardening. In my experience no gardener uses 1M square pots filled with dirt to grow a single plant with the potential exception of trees. Vertical positioning of starts to maximize light and minimize footprint is the hallmark of contemporary hydroponics.

    But within the framework of a block oriented game trying to respect that reality is problematic. The current model of plants maintains a small number of models in various stages of growth that are designed based on a single orientation where the forces of geotropism and phototropism are opposite each other along an absolute up/down vector. Imagine changing nothing else but saying that vector is relative to the orientation of the plot and now consider what such a garden would look like, how it would behave, and the number of edge case you've open up. I get why they avoid it but as @krazzykid points out they should lock the block to avoid making it look like something you can do if they don't support it.

    It has always appeared to me that the developers care a great deal about how the game looks and make compromises or ignore what you and I would call a bug to avoid adding complexity and maintain continuity. While these restrictions seem arbitrary it is understandable; the plants are iconographic representations of a gardening task with a pretty low level of verisimilitude. The way I ride with that is to remember we're living in a doll house world and the bricks just go together in a certain way. No grief if you want to try and push that rock up a hill as your patience may be rewarded- more power to you.

    To your equally reasonable point about brusque communications it seems you recognized that the Elyon definition of a bug and a users perception of something that breaks immersion or match our shared understanding of real world physics as being a bug aren't the same thing. I'd give the devs some latitude because they push a lot of the same rocks (dup bugs/issues/"it would be better if") up the hill week after week and you can't expect them to write an essay for each one; even saying "noted" starts to sound like FU after a few dozen times so there isn't an easy way for them out of that pit.
     
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  12. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    https://empyriononline.com/threads/...l-panel-do-not-take-affect.98403/#post-439926

    While this is a suggestion, this has been somewhat of a template I've noticed for some bug reports. This specifically is what I was talking about, I should have left a link at that time.

    Not to Criticize what the OP is trying to suggest, which is to disable the ability to access the configuration window in survival.
    The issue is that it's a copy/paste of a previous bug report, pasted into suggestions, with their comment below saying that I misunderstood them because in the bug report(that was not part of the thread we were on, nor was it linked) they had previously said something else I didnt know about.

    The point was to make that I understand there numerous reports to go through, and it seems many of them are ones they simply brush aside which based on some of the bug reports, I can understand. I am not expecting them to give every bug report a full essay worth of information, reassurances, or dates on when it will be fixed/updates(which is what someone else implied I was asking for). As you say even if they say something simple 'noted' it can start to sound apathetic at times. As the person who previously commented they give an example of a bug that was reported as 'not a bug' and sometime later was listed as a fixed bug. There are things that dont make sense based on the way the game works consistently in other ways. Such as with the growplots being able to placed in a way that sprouts cannot be. This was listed as 'not a bug' and archived, eventually someone raises a similar bug report sometime later, for it to be archived again with no reasonable explanation.
    This is the type of dismissive attitude, and lack of information regarding bug reports I'm talking about. Something is allowed to be placed that will not work, which to the best of knowledge is the only block like this in Empyrion.
     
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  13. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    This is not correct. The post you refer to mentions precisely this (post #4):

    ------------------------

    (...) There are several bugs that are getting marked as not a bug simply because technically the game engine behaves correct, just the outcome isn't what you would expect. (...)

    The most recent that comes to my mind is the one where you lose all your stuff from the connected toolbar if you disconnect. Always marked as not a bug. Suddenly a few days ago one of the threads got updated with "fixed in next update"

    ------------------------

    Nowhere did the poster or Eleon write "fixed bug", here you are introducing that specific expression yourself thus changing the answer that was given to you to make it fit your point. If they wrote "fixed in next update" then we can only assume they decide to yield to some player's suggestions, it is not an admission that it was a "bug".

    Trying to twist wordings like that only shows developers that they are way better keeping communications at minimum because everything they write can be made into anything by players, just like you did here. In other words : you are working against your own suggestion (better communication) by using these methods.
     
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  14. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    That's some technical reason to negate the entire post. I made the point that communication on reports leaves room to be desired, never did I say that I was infallible. Getting technical Always marked as not a bug. Suddenly a few days ago one of the threads got updated with "fixed in next update." Marked as not a bug and archived implies that is in fact not a bug. Labeled as fixed in next update insinuates that it was not working as intended, which would be a bug, further enforced by that its been 'fixed'. It was a bug that was labeled as not a bug and later labeled as something fixed in next update, which would be a bug fix.
     
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  15. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    I only quoted one part, here you twist words again to imply I dismissed the whole "post".

    "Infallible" is quite a stretch, and I did not go that far. Of course nobody's perfect, but that doesn't make a wrong right nor does it fix anything.

    You assume it was not working as intended whereas the quote you used from post #4 clearly explained that because something is not working as you expect it to, does not mean it was not designed that way (so "working as intended"). " Fixed in next update" has been copy-pasted on several threads, from bugs section to general feedback threads, related to features "working as intended" but for which players asked for changes or improvements, as well as for genuine "bugs". For the precise case of stuff disappearing from the connected toolbar when disconnecting, if the developers simply made it this way then it was not "broken" and "fixing" it was just a matter of improving it, even though it was not behaving in an unexpected way.

    What you are "insinuating" here is that when the developers mentioned "not a bug" in all other instances, they were plainly lying. I think this is borderline paranoid, and I suggest you think about the implications of this. If you go that way I expect you to have solid proof to support that claim.

    Or maybe you think they're incompetent and can't tell the difference between a genuine bug and a feature that could be improved? If so, why stay here waiting for these incompetents to make some more blunders?


    If they had simply closed and archived that n'th "bug report" they would not have been able to show other players it was going to be addressed in a future update, and players would still file in "bug reports" for this "non-bug". So damn if they do, and damn if they don't.

    And that's exactly why they may not feel they should change one atom in the way they communicate with players. Whatever they do it's not OK, and they're even "insinuating" things now when they write "fixed". I'm sure they will all have a hard time going to sleep tonight after reading your analysis.

    If you think the developers are "dismissive" how do you describe players calling the developers liars, yet same players staying on the forums asking for more/ different/ less "dismissive" lies ? Do you think these players exhibit any kind of credibility ? They should be taken seriously ? lol...

    .
     
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    Last edited: Jul 22, 2021
  16. Ivel

    Ivel Ensign

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    Geez, never did I say anyone was lying. You speak of twisting words and you have made leaps and bounds.

    None of which you said really address the post, you have simply assumed and twisted what I have said to be an attack on the devs, or speaking negatively, even. Suggestions thread is here for suggestions. Why are you attacking a suggestion?

    If you don't like the suggestion, feel free to say so, or not comment. But why the personal attack?
    You want to make this post negative as if I was critizising the dev team, whereas giving feedback/offering suggestion is not.
     
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    Last edited: Jul 24, 2021
  17. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    The lack of clarifications or the missing Manual is surely a point. I support the necessity to have such things.

    You quote @Pantera for having not explained in Detail why the Thread was closed and what he meant by his sentence.
    Well, lets face it:
    Devs are Developing Stuff - amount of time available to explain things - Zero.
    Mods are Moderators and try to give Info - amount of Time to explain things - not so much.
    and then there are Staff Members like @Pantera ...

    He is a Developer AND a Moderator...he has even less time to go into lengthy explanations and keep their Comments as short as possible.
     
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  18. Inappropriate

    Inappropriate Captain

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    Seeing as I'm the one that posted that bug report I think I'm in a pretty good position to comment here.
    Yes, I was more then a little miffed about how the thread was simply locked and archived so summarily. Is it annoying? Yes. Does it surprise me? No, not really. I could go on but instead I will just leave it at this:
    2siu6l.jpg
     
    #18
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  19. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    Don't try to dump responsibility of your choices of words on me. You wrote that the devs are "insinuating" that it's a bug when they clearly wrote it's not, so there's not much to add to this : you are the one twisting words here, big time. As stated by others here, I agree communication leaves to be desired, but trying to clumsily sweeten the attempt to depict the devs as lying doesn't change anything.

    As for the "personal attack" point, I am addressing the value of something you wrote, not the value of your person or your qualities. You made a speculative comment hinting at the devs "insinuating" things and this has nothing to do with a personal attack against you. If you don't like to have your arguments picked apart then it's up to you to formulate them in an objective and fair manner.
     
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