A proposal for Bug Hunter

Hi,

The concept of a "discretionary" badge has always been troublesome, so I would like to propose some very concrete criteria and suggest that the much loved/hated bug hunter badge requirements be altered accordingly.

Bug Hunter should be just that - awarded to people who find bugs. That being said, bugs have different severity levels and different priority levels. Clearly it's the intention of the current badge criteria (find an unreported exploit) to reward people for finding only the most severe bugs. Two problems with this. First, the completely arbitrary and ill defined concept of "Exploit". Second, the notion that you have to be the first one to find and/or report it.

Bugs which can actively upset the "normal" flow of the game NEED to be reported. For instance, they might allow people to level too quickly (original CoPain exploit, level 41 exploit, spiderling exploit, etc) or otherwise achieve in-game rewards which are designed to be "spread out" or "paced"; being earned over time or at a governed rate. Worse, some exploits could potentially compromise the game itself or player accounts or information. Clearly those should remain a focus. Let's call these "Severity One" bugs.

There are only going to be so many of these and the vast majority are going to be found on the test server. That means that a great many people won't ever have a chance to earn this badge - statistically speaking.

Most people will never be impacted by these yet there are glitches which affect daily play which go unreported and unfixed.

What about things like holes in maps? Misspelled words in missions? Commands which don't do what they're supposed to do? Glitches which cause doors to be unreachable? Nuances which allow giant monsters to be pulled into Atlas Park to crush level 1s coming out of the tutorial?

I propose that any and all of these should be made known to the Dev staff and that the bug hunter badge should be the vehicle to do so. However, credit for less severe bugs should also be given on a point scale.

If you find an exploit - something upsetting to the balance and playability of the game or which compromises security or personal info, then you get the badge immediately. Period. 25 of 25 points toward the badge.

If you find a significant bug - something which is annoying and should be fixed (let's call these Severity Two bugs) like a hole in a map, a situation where a power won't fire or won't work as its supposed to work, etc, then you get a lower number of points. Let's say 10. The person looking to earn the badge MUST fill out a proper bug report form complete with steps to reproduce the error.

If you find a cosmetic bug, misspelled mission info, for instance, you get one point. Again, proper bug reporting is required complete with steps to reproduce it.

This benefits the game. This benefits the staff, particularly the test staff who suddenly have a lot more eyes looking for issues. And it benefits the player population who get a higher quality game as a result.

It also makes this badge achievable if people are honestly willing to put in the time and effort to find and report blemishes as well as exploits. There are plenty of them out there to report!

Now, I don't want to unduly burden the game staff with tracking all of this, so the final requirement for getting the badge would be for those interested in obtaining the badge to track their own submissions via the bug reporting process. The game would give confirmation numbers when bugs were reported and since the test staff would simply have to verify steps to reproduce, they could get back to those reporting the bugs with a point count based on the assigned severity of the issue reported. Those points would be awarded to the account and would immediately adjust the progress bar for the badge. Get to 25 and you get the badge.

Again, the goal would be to enlist the player population to help QA the game - but also to make this one capricious badge have some concrete requirements so it CAN BE EARNED by all.

@CatAtomic
Jane Reaction / Pinnacle

It's not supposed to be earned by all. I don't think they ever will change that. And I don't think they should.

I just don't see a problem in there being a badge out there that can't generally be earned. Just ignore it. When I find a bug, I report it because I want the game to be better, not because I think it'll get me the Bug Hunter badge. Incentivizing finding bugs could lead to some weird results of people hoarding bugs until they're sure they have enough. Also, I think a point system would be unwieldy and take attention away from people who should be keeping the game running.

Don't hold your breath on this one... They give it out with no rhyme or reason and it changes from situation to situation. I know your goal with this, is to get them to change the way it's given out but I don't see it happening sad to say... it's like the passport badge, the only people transferring from the EU server to the NA get this.. not even sure if you can still do that and if it's still given out...

/unsigned

Placing criteria on a specific badge will not encourage players to "QA the game" it will encourage people to flood the development team that receives the /bug reports to sift through a great deal of flotsam as people log issues regardless as to whether they are bugs or not.

Those of us who to log bugs during our normal gameplay do so regardless as to whether we receive a much coveted badge or not. If (general) you do find bugs and don't report them because "It's not my job" or "It won't get me anything." then you don't deserve anything.

I report bugs because I want to see an improvement to the game, that's it.

It was also the other way around--only players who transferred from the North American servers to the European servers got Passport.

And on the topic of the thread... as much as I'd love there to be a guaranteed way to get Bug Hunter (it's pretty much the only thing I'm missing now, and several years of submitting various bugs still haven't seen fit to put it in my hands), there's really no way to do so without a sweeping change to how the badge is awarded, i.e. making it no longer require a developer granting it manually. But that would ruin the intent of the badge to begin with.

I think the absolute best thing they could do with both Bug Hunter and Passport would be to simply make them not count towards badge totals. They should still be there, available for all to see and for you to show off if you see fit, but they shouldn't count towards one's total badge collection.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

*reads OP* Then I'd have the Bug Hunter badge a few times over. It doesn't work that way, and I think you'll find your life a lot easier if you quit worrying about the "one that got away."

Well, it's hardly "the one" that got away. On Jane's account, I'll never get the 1st or 2nd year anniversary and unless they change the 5th column gladiator requirements, that's not in the cards either.

But these are for events gone by, not for performing tasks - and I have no problem with not having been around when those events occurred. Passport falls into this category too. It happened, I wasn't here, no big deal.

Bug hunter is just -- arbitrary. Completely and totally arbitrary. It's like winning one of those ridiculous costume contests in AP. Totally subjective and awarded at the whim of whoever happened to be in a good mood at the time. And that strikes me as wrong.

The proposal was intended to make the badge requirements clear and allow players to work on the badge while also benefiting the game. I think that's doable - maybe not with the specifics of my proposal, but with a similar approach. And I don't think enough folks care about badges (maybe I'm wrong) to "flood the test staff" with bogus submissions. Maybe I'm wrong there, too.

It may not be quantifiable but I don't think it CAN be quantified by the nature of the badge without a huge amount of effort which I'd rather see directed elsewhere.

I do badge but unless you are a very very small minority there will always be badges which are extremely difficult if not impossible.

For example, I'm a 27 month vet. That's a lot of badges (vet/anniversary) which I cannot obtain. Does it bug me that I can never get 100%? A little yes but not enough to ask for them to removed from the count because they're impossible. And impossible is a whole lot worse than very difficult and hard to quantify.

They should just let us buy it from the NCSoft Store.

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."