Am I the only one disappointed that this "big" patch barely fixed any bugs?

bumpyglint

Warlord
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Aug 19, 2016
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I don’t want to fall into the usual complaints like “the game is unplayable” or “we’re just beta testers,” but it’s clear that the game, in its current state, is far from complete. There are major bugs, and when I saw the term “refinement” in the announcement of this patch, I expected to see many of them addressed—especially since some are incredibly obvious. We’re talking about core mechanics, like Civilization powers that simply do not work as intended. I have no idea how these issues made it past UAT for a AAA game.

Yes, after 1 months they fixed the issue that made Siam literally unplayable (without starting in the Modern Age, you couldn’t even access it despite unlocking it...), but so many major problems remain. For example:
  • Songhai receives a +5 combat bonus everywhere after unlocking the Hi-Koi civic, instead of only on navigable rivers. This should be a simple fix in the code—how was this missed, and why hasn’t it been patched yet? This bug alone makes Songhai unplayable, and if the AI gets it, it becomes a massive balancing issue.
  • Naval combat previews are also completely unreliable, often displaying incorrect values and failing to account for the fact that damage is received in combat since it's not ranged.
  • The Initiative promotion for commanders frequently fails to work (still not clear why)
  • AI armies still get stuck when attacking an independent city that later becomes a city-state. Shoutout to notque's Artificially Intelligent mod for catching this—but the devs should have noticed it, too.
What’s even more frustrating is that the modding community is fixing these issues while official patches ignore them. Huge thanks to the creators of the Community BugFix Mod 0.7.0, where unpaid fans have already addressed many of these problems—often with nothing more than a simple parameter change in the code. Below the list of the fixes in this mod (I'm pretty sure these bugs are still present in 1.1)
  • Onsen wonder granting growth to every city after a celebration.
  • CasaConsistorial adjacency granting sciene instead of culture (@beezany)
  • Description for Meiji's Joishinn ability to reflect the actual bonus of 30% science from overbuilding instead of 50% (@Jeppetto)
  • Narrative story reward for part 2 of "The Invisible World" (refer @JNR13 comment on reddit post)
  • Renaisance Policy Card applying culture bonus even after being removed and even allowing stacking each time you remove/reapply (2K Issue)
  • Labor Shortage Crisis card showing the incorrect description. (2K Issue)
  • Shell Tempered Pottery Tradition no longer only applies in Antiquity age (Bug Report)
  • Army's Quest narrative should now recognise units that replace man at arms (Bug Report)
  • Evangelism Policy should now apply to civilians including settlers, migrants etc (Bug Report)
  • The Emporium Independant unique improvement no longer stacks gold yield each time it is constructed. (Post)
  • The Monastery Independant unique improvement no longer stacks happiness yield each time it is constructed. (Post)

Instead of addressing existing issues (and also instead of introducing the possibility to download mods in the steam workshop!!!), this patch has introduced new bugs—like Carthage’s naval civic bonus incorrectly applying to all units, not just naval ones (I saw this bug reported and I am afraid it is something that does not depend on a specific situation but happens all the time). Again, how does something like this pass UAT when it should be the first thing to test while implementing a new Civs and it’s probably just a one-line fix?

Even looking ahead, the next major patch is coming in three weeks—over two months after launch—and there’s still no mention of bug fixes. At this rate, I’m genuinely worried that these problems will never be addressed, or if they are, it will take far too long.

I'm a huge Civ fan, but I can't accept a game that already has a €30 DLC while major bugs like the ones above are still completely ignored by the Devs!!!
 
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This isn't new to Firaxis. Civ 6 had the "science bug", where the AI would focus an insane amount on science at the expense of everything else. It was caused by a single numerical typo in the script. It was discovered immediately after Civ 6's "final patch". Firaxis had no plans to ever release another update, so it was to be broken forever. Luckily for us, someone at 2K decided they needed to milk Civ 6 a bit more, so a few years later, Firaxis was allowed to push the fix along with the leader pass.

I was thinking about this today. The Dogo Onsen fix is literally a single line of text. Some of the UI bugs are due to basic coding errors that a college programmer would know to avoid. I don't get it. Maybe it's due to trying to code for consoles? I suspect the game would be in a much better shape if it was PC only.

I still really enjoy the game and think it is overall the most fun I have had with a Civ game. I have finished four full games so far and immediately started a fifth. Meanwhile, my Civ 4/5/6 save folders are littered with incomplete games.
 
I built Dogo Onsen today and didn’t notice the bugged behavior. But then again, it was no scientific test and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
 
I don't think the patch notes is a complete list. Out of 680 javascript files they touched nearly 200 of them. That's just one subset of the gaming files. It was a 5GB download and that's not any DLC since I didn't buy any. I would think a lot of politics goes into what actually makes it onto the list rather than just getting done.
 
This should be a simple fix in the code
How do you know?

Modders can move quickly as they don't have to worry about cross testing, UAT, quality control etc etc so very easy for them to move fast. One mod broke the AI's ability to declare war, can you imagine the fuss if Firaxis did that?? I love the modding community but it's totally different to being the devs responsible for a game.
 
Civ V took like six months to even run in Steam. Much more in multiplayer. Its nothing yet.. but it doesnt look promising either for a premium priced game.
 
I don't think the patch notes is a complete list. Out of 680 javascript files they touched nearly 200 of them. That's just one subset of the gaming files. It was a 5GB download and that's not any DLC since I didn't buy any. I would think a lot of politics goes into what actually makes it onto the list rather than just getting done.
Mine was 5.5 GB with the DLC under macOS.
 
The thing is - different people work on different areas - gameplay improvements, UI improvements, technical bugs, game data bugs, etc. Different types of issue also require different types of testing and this different length. For example, testing technical fixes could be automated, while UI almost always requires manual testing on various resolutions, with various other conditions, etc. The amount of testing done by (and expected from) large company is a way bigger than testing of mods, that's why modders are faster, but large company could keep the steady rate of bugs being fixed.
 
I don't disagree with your general point, but I suppose it depends what you were expecting. I was hoping for more in terms of the UI, but I can't say I'm too surprised with what we got. Just have to be patient, I guess - I know this is not a view shared by everyone, but I knew what I was signing up for when I decided to buy the game at launch.

As for the point about DLC - it was on the roadmap, and they've got a lot of people who bought Founders or Deluxe. I don't think they can realistically hold it back whilst they do other things.
 
I don't think the patch notes is a complete list. Out of 680 javascript files they touched nearly 200 of them. That's just one subset of the gaming files. It was a 5GB download and that's not any DLC since I didn't buy any. I would think a lot of politics goes into what actually makes it onto the list rather than just getting done.
I was hoping for the same, but I tested the Songhai problem, and it's still there—which is unbelievable. It's not just a rare bug that occurs under specific conditions; it's a fundamental issue in the entire code, which clearly was never tested (it happens 100% of the time, literally one single test would have avoided it!!). From what I read on the forum, several other issues on the list also seem unresolved, so it really feels like they barely fixed anything except Siam.


How do you know?

Modders can move quickly as they don't have to worry about cross testing, UAT, quality control etc etc so very easy for them to move fast. One mod broke the AI's ability to declare war, can you imagine the fuss if Firaxis did that?? I love the modding community but it's totally different to being the devs responsible for a game.

I know it's just a single line of code because the people who fixed it confirmed as much. Obviously, modders don’t face the same constraints as developers—they don’t have to go through UAT, approval processes, or other red tape (and if they break the game, you can just disable the mod). So I get that devs take longer to push fixes. But for something this simple, "longer" should mean a week or two—not three or four months.

And the Songhai issue makes it clear that many features weren’t even tested; otherwise, these problems would’ve been caught earlier. If they’re skipping proper testing, then fixes should take even less time. It’s absurd that after more than two months, a full paid development team hasn’t addressed a bug that unpaid modders fixed in a matter of days in their free time.


The thing is - different people work on different areas - gameplay improvements, UI improvements, technical bugs, game data bugs, etc. Different types of issue also require different types of testing and this different length. For example, testing technical fixes could be automated, while UI almost always requires manual testing on various resolutions, with various other conditions, etc. The amount of testing done by (and expected from) large company is a way bigger than testing of mods, that's why modders are faster, but large company could keep the steady rate of bugs being fixed.
I agree with you, but also here I would add the points I reported answering the previous message.


I don't disagree with your general point, but I suppose it depends what you were expecting. I was hoping for more in terms of the UI, but I can't say I'm too surprised with what we got. Just have to be patient, I guess - I know this is not a view shared by everyone, but I knew what I was signing up for when I decided to buy the game at launch.

As for the point about DLC - it was on the roadmap, and they've got a lot of people who bought Founders or Deluxe. I don't think they can realistically hold it back whilst they do other things.

The main point is that probably it shouldn't even been there in the roadmap (and stuff like Great Britain not even having a UU aesthetic proves this point...!)
 
They announced what would be in this patch several weeks ago, so while it's still disappointing it's certainly not surprising.
When they said "Additional UI adjustments, polish, and addressing of reported issues" I considered basically sure that some bug would have been fixed, they never explained in details what this sentence meant but it was legit to think that some major bugs existing since day 1 would have been addressed.
 
I don't think the patch notes is a complete list. Out of 680 javascript files they touched nearly 200 of them. That's just one subset of the gaming files. It was a 5GB download and that's not any DLC since I didn't buy any. I would think a lot of politics goes into what actually makes it onto the list rather than just getting done.
Absolutely agree, I've noticed several things that have been fixed that they didn't mention, e.g. shawnee unlock appearing correctly, leader banners not getting mixed up on first meet
 
The amount of enabling and deflecting I am reading is mind blowing. They did not fix issues that modders fixed in a couple days. And those modders state multiple times that it is just a line of code or two. Not even game mechanic code in most cases. Even things they say they fixed in the notes are not fixed (Tech guide lines look even worse and more confusing now). It still does not even state what cities are connected to?
 
The amount of enabling and deflecting I am reading is mind blowing. They did not fix issues that modders fixed in a couple days. And those modders state multiple times that it is just a line of code or two. Not even game mechanic code in most cases. Even things they say they fixed in the notes are not fixed (Tech guide lines look even worse and more confusing now). It still does not even state what cities are connected to?
There is a mod i use that lists all the connections a town has and whether they are towns or cities.
 
I don't disagree on any of the issues, but the game has only been out for a month, and it still will be less than two months by the end of March.
Fixed the messagge, but I really feel like nothing changes with this
The amount of enabling and deflecting I am reading is mind blowing. They did not fix issues that modders fixed in a couple days. And those modders state multiple times that it is just a line of code or two. Not even game mechanic code in most cases. Even things they say they fixed in uthe notes are not fixed (Tech guide lines look even worse and more confusing now). It still does not even state what cities are connected to?
I feel the same, the message above asking "how do I know it's a simple fix in the code" is receiving tons of likes, while literally the modders itself said many of these fixes are a single line and/ or a change in a single parameter. We all understand modding is easier than an official patch, but we'll keep having no fixes if people will keep to accept situation like this (where. I repeat, many of this bugs would have been avoided with ONE SINGLE test, because they don't happen "sometimes", they are literally broken mechanics always not working)
IIRC from when I was perusing the changed files, they did indeed fix Dogo in this patch.
It's definetely not in the notes they published in their site, where did you find it?
 
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