Rescue Jason and Kenneth, impossible to complete
By
Aneko,
Posted on: 2012-04-01 24:54 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
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Literally? Is it? | It is literally falling apart |
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
The mission "Rescue Jason and Kenneth", from Jessica Flores in Imperial City, is impossible to complete
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Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
I am forced to burn my mission completion option on this mission.
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'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.
Also, IIRC, Preems/Freems can still use the /bug option (just not /petition). Hopefully you also /bug-ged it in game, to add it to their bug tracking system.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Seriously, how buggy and broken does a game have to be before you fix it all or just say "to hell with it"?
Or, have they already said "to hell with it" and still want us to pay for it?
I really want to know how these obvious and annoying bugs, which ALWAYS seem to lead to much much worse bugs, are completely ignored and not fixed when the fix seems so simple that a monkey could code it?
I know the developers' jobs are busy and difficult, but they need to take the tiem to fix these bugs. Some of them, like the above one, were created by them when they should have known that making NPCs hostile would make them possibly "permanently hostile" and thus impossible to rescue to progress a mission.
They already know hwo to fix it if they would just FIX IT!
Stop trying to make more store fluff to suck our wallets dry for just a piddly month and solve the problems with the core of the game.
If you don't fix things, I guarantee that this game will not be playable at all by this time next year, but probably by the end of this year instead.
You're letting the game die, with no way to revive it or replace it as we have heard nothing of a sequel either.
I'm sorry. I'm just sick of the bugs that I could likely fix if you gave me a day.
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I did, but that hasn't made them fix anything blatantly obvious and simple before, let alone ever add it to the known issues list.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Also, IIRC, Preems/Freems can still use the /bug option (just not /petition). Hopefully you also /bug-ged it in game, to add it to their bug tracking system.
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You know that Sister Solaris known issue? It's still "only sister Solaris" after they updated it even after we bugged other occurrences in game(before it was a known issue) and told them on the forums that "it's not just her".
They either intentionally ignore us or they're inept or both. I'm inclined to believe "both".
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If they had me as a tester for this game they would have a hell of a lot longer known issue list, but that list would be empty really fast as the solutions to most issues are so obvious.
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That's why they gave you one to use every three days... not for your convenience when you don't feel like completing the mission, so that showstopping bugs don't stop the show.|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
I am forced to burn my mission auto-completion option on this mission.
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Are you running into showstoppers at a frequency more rapid than once every three days?
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The "known issues" list is not an exhaustive list of all issues they know about (they're not going to dump their bug DB into the GMOTD). You assume they're "obvious", but, as a software developer, I can tell you flat out that when a bug's solution seems obvious... it often is anything but. Without seeing the code (or being told by someone that has), you certainly can't make that claim with any level of confidence (hell, even when you know the code, you can't make the claim with much confidence until you've actually solved it!).
Personally, I've not ran into any bugs in a while (not counting the "Regretfully, Cyrus Died" one I started a thread about... which was merely humorous). After playing this game for many years, this is definitely one of the better periods wrt bugs and instability.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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1) I run into NPCs in need of rescue/kidnap/escort every few missions. That is a lot more often than "once every 3 days".|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
That's why they gave you one to use every three days... not for your convenience when you don't feel like completing the mission, so that showstopping bugs don't stop the show.
Are you running into showstoppers at a frequency more rapid than once every three days? |
2) This code that makes NPCs enemies until their captors are defeated is....REALLY COMMON. So, I expect this bug to occur somewhat often.
I don't think that's a crazy assumption, even if I haven't proven it yet by runnign another mission with such an NPC.
I just happened to report this and post to the forums immediately, since I knew it would happen again. I'm going to go back to playing through the missions I want to, and we'll see if I am right.
I hope this was a "one in a trillion" event, but it would be insane to think that likely.
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Are you claiming it's a bug with all rescue missions? Because that's certainly not been my experience... From the description on PWiki (can't recall at all if I ran it before), the encounter sounds quite similar to many I've done in the last couple days alone (without any issues).|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
1) I run into NPCs in need of rescue/kidnap/escort every few missions. That is a lot more often than "once every 3 days".
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2) This code that makes NPCs enemies until their captors are defeated is....REALLY COMMON. So, I expect this bug to occur somewhat often. I don't think that's a crazy assumption, even if I haven't proven it yet by runnign another mission with such an NPC. |
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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1) I already restrain myself. When I say "obvious" I mean "I just saw you put your hand in that person's pocket and steal their wallet plus I have it on video from 3 angles".|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
The "known issues" list is not an exhaustive list of all issues they know about (they're not going to dump their bug DB into the GMOTD). You assume they're "obvious", but, as a software developer, I can tell you flat out that when a bug's solution seems obvious... it often is anything but. Without seeing the code (or being told by someone that has), you certainly can't make that claim with any level of confidence (hell, even when you know the code, you can't make the claim with much confidence until you've actually solved it!).
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2) How do you think NPCs become ally or enemy?
I'm pretty sure it's a "on or off" or "ally or enemy" flag in the database they use to maek this happen. It just so happens that the code that "flips the switch" broke so that the NPC didn't become an ally when they needed to.
3) I reset the mission and tried everything 3 times. It wasn't a "one time thing". It happened every time.
I'm not an idiot. I can test things and figure them out without "absolute knowledge of the details" simply because I know a few facts:
1) how I would make something like this work
2) how it apparently worked before(not so hard to deduce from a program with visible results such as a game)
3) how things changed
4) how things finally became bugged
And, I know one thing. I've noticed at least some of the GMs do not read support requests(even before Freedom) and apparently don't play the game to even see these issues either.
The GMs often seem as knowledgeable as my mother who doesn't even play this game or any MMO.
I know more than quite a few of the GMs just because I play the game. That should be a mandatory requirement for GMs to play every week at least a few hours, just to know "how things are".
1) That would mean they could see issues and report them that players may not think of reporting, or may think is too much of a hassle to report.
2) That would mean a lot less sifting through reports, pulling out the important ones, as they would see issues and send them up the chain of command to be fixed before most players even know they were issues.
It makes sens, but I doubt they work that way because it makes "too much" sense.
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It's not a boolean.
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Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
2) How do you think NPCs become ally or enemy?
I'm pretty sure it's a "on or off" or "ally or enemy" flag in the database they use to maek this happen. It just so happens that the code that "flips the switch" broke so that the NPC didn't become an ally when they needed to. |
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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no no no no no|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Are you claiming it's a bug with all rescue missions? Because that's certainly not been my experience...
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I'm claiming the "inevitable reality" that "if something is impossible then it is probably possible, and if something is definitely possible then it is likely more common than we realize".
I noticed this once, on one of the first, maybe, 10 rescue/escort missions that I have run since issue 22 and maybe one of only 25 I have run since issue 19, because I hate escorts like everybody else because they move slow and hate stealth.
I'm saying....
I found this bug really quickly. I'm expecting to see it again as I go through stories instead of just running task forces for badges.
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It has not been unknown for a friendly to remain hostile. For that matter, it has not been known for hostiles to attack each other.|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
I'm saying....
I found this bug really quickly. I'm expecting to see it again as I go through stories instead of just running task forces for badges. |
It is not known for either to be widespread, but rather, confined to a particular NPC or faction. If it were widespread, there'd be a lot more reports of such a thing. I wouldn't worry.
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1) I witnessed a bug after issue 18 where Syndicate attacked each other(NOT IN THE CIVIL WAR STORIES). These were clearly, according to the story, all allied Syndicate.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
It has not been unknown for a friendly to remain hostile. For that matter, it has not been known for hostiles to attack each other.
It is not known for either to be widespread, but rather, confined to a particular NPC or faction. If it were widespread, there'd be a lot more reports of such a thing. I wouldn't worry. |
They still attacked each other.
2) I saw that "civil war bug" spread to other enemy groups, most notably the Legacy Chain.
It definitely "became more widespread".
3) Enemies started attacking "blue"(allies to us players) NPCs that they were meant to be "guarding".
This prompted bug reports like "I can't rescue this NPC because they die before I can reach them".
4) The developers want to fix the bug where NPC hostages get killed by their captors.
One of them gets the "bright" idea to make them enemies, thus allied with the enemies, until the captors are killed.
5) I witnessed, as well as others witnessed, commonly the results of that "fix" where hostages would no longer die to enemy hands, but they would now sometimes die to our player attacks because they are no longer allied with us and still flagged as "vulnerable to attack".
6) After that bug became way to common, a new bug how now emerged where the hostage formerly set to enemy to fix a bug will now STAY enemy, at least in a few cases, even after they are supposed to switch to ally.
So, the problem is not that "this is uncommon".
The problem is THIS HAPPENS AT ALL AND IS A RESULT OF A RATHER WIDESPREAD PROBLEM of hostages being classified as enemies.
Sure, it "worked" for the game to play as intended most of the time, but it doesn't fit the story for allies to ever be classified as enemies and certainly didn't "stay working as intended" as this bug and the number of NPC hostages that we can damage is proof of.
So, don't tell me "this isn't a widespread problem" when my point is "it will be if they don't stop it now" because it "never would have been a problem" if they had properly fixed the previous bug instead of the "hey, let's make them enemies until rescued" "quick fix".
I'm well within my rights to be angry about this progression of bug creating bug and getting worse and making more bugs.
They would also be completely stupid to ignore the issue when it is guaranteed to result in loss of revenue as things get worse, let alone revenue stagnation if things simply "stay the same" without improvement.
As a company out for profit, they don't seem to know how to make money. You don't make money by going backwards over time. You make money through progress.
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I fully expect to see this bug again sometime, even if it is "very uncommon".
My problem is not "a very uncommon bug that I won't see again". My problem is "a bug I never want to see again but will likely see again and will see the bug that caused it every time there is a hostage/escort in a mission".
Essentially, this bug is just one domino tipping with quite a few before it that already fell and a LOT after that will fall if they are not stopped now.
I want all the dominoes back up. I don't want the original bug, but certainly would at least be happy with the current worst bug fixed, until the next bug gets in my way of enjoying the game.
It's "the straw that broke the camel's back" after they loaded it up with 5 bails of straw.
This bug "bugs" me, but what bugs me more is the fact that it was caused by other bugs piling up, some as a result of a supposed "fix".
I don't want to see the "straw that broke the camel's back" become much more common, but that is the way this game is headed with all the supposed "little bugs" that we can "tolerate" and "work around" going unfixed until they are impossible to ignore(like the mission I encountered that stopped that arc and the 2 following arcs because they require it as prerequisite).
Remember, we didn't always have the "mission auto-completion" feature. It was put in because situations where missions were impossible to complete became "too common".
It was "easier than fixing the cause".
That is what worries me. They are "taking the easy way out" far too often, resulting in much more difficult problems that are even harder to solve than the problems they "avoided".
I can't wait to see them try to get the game back up and running after it finally just stops working due to the bugs piling up. If they are even able to get it working, it likely will cost them a LOT of time and money, and things will never be as good again as they are now even at that point.
AARRRRGGHH!!!
Mods....
Delete this if it is against the rules, but I am well within my right to complain about completely horrible support.
I deserve better than the intentionally aggravating response of this GM even if my original ticket was not happy.
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I cut out the other GM's name, but GM Redacted needs to be fired.| self-deleted |
Every time he answers a support ticket he responds with some insane "answer to a question that was never asked and will never be asked".
/MystifiedByHisInsanity
The hyperbole is strong in this one.
By the way, you might have considered reading the rules first, and saving yourself the trouble of posting that private correspondence.
'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.
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The anger is getting stronger.|
Originally Posted by Aneko
The hyperbole is strong in this one.
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But calmly, what other results can there be in response to a bad bug like this one?
There are only 2 options:
1) They can fix it and fix the original cause of it so that it doesn't happen again.
2) They can leave it alone or break it even more with future patches.
Either the game gets better or it stays the same and very likely gets worse.
Those are the only options when it comes to programming.
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How else am I supposed to voice my complaints about that GM after he repeatedly gives me completely unrelated "copy/paste" answers and still is allowed to respond to my petitions despite my repeated comments against him in many surveys they sent me?|
Originally Posted by Aneko
By the way, you might have considered reading the rules first, and saving yourself the trouble of posting that private correspondence.
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He needs to be removed from his job, as you can see from the correspondence.
He is senior to the other GM and was supposed to actually read and help with the problem, but he instead chose to paste an answer to a problem I certainly have not had.
He's a moron or intentionally not doing his job. He deserves nothing less than to be fired immediately.
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I can't even read private messages if they send me a warning about it being deleted because I can't access my private message box or send any apparently as a non-VIP.
It's really funny how they completely insult even their "possibly paying" customers.
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Originally Posted by Aneko
The hyperbole is strong in this one.
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Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
He's a moron or intentionally not doing his job. He deserves nothing less than to be fired immediately.
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'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.
Believe whatever you want to believe, but I know that if you received that response to a support request(and others exactly as wrong) then you would also be very angry with a few choice words for him.
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And what did I have for lunch today?
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Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
Believe whatever you want to believe, but I know that if you received that response to a support request(and others exactly as wrong) then you would also be very angry with a few choice words for him.
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'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.
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Well, you apparently don't know me very well.|
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
Believe whatever you want to believe, but I know that if you received that response to a support request(and others exactly as wrong) then you would also be very angry with a few choice words for him.
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I've received responses that were totally inappropriate to the reported problem without getting "very angry" or having "a few choice words".
I've just calmly updated the report ticket, staying polite, and explaining that they did not read the ticket correctly and their response had nothing to do with the reported problem. I then calmly asked that if it was an issue that they did not fully understand and could respond to appropriately that they escalate it to a senior GM.
If they continued to respond with inappropriate responses I calmly asked that they escalate the ticket to a senior GM.
I've not had occasion to get "very angry" with any of the CS people.
Anyone that has met me (and there are quite a few in game) can likely tell you that I do have anger management issues. Nothing in CS has caused those issues to be displayed.
I've not encountered any of the problems with NPC captive such as you described in your initial post since I22 launched. I've had several missions with NPC captives that I needed to rescue that either become an Ally, that I lead to an exit, or that simply run off on their own.
Is it possible that there is a small subset of NPC captives that this happens to? Yes. Is it as wide-ranging a problem as you are making it out to be? It doesn't seem so.
EDIT: The senior GM had nothing really to respond to since there was not an actual problem that CS could resolve according to your ticket that you posted. When you file a petition, it goes to CS. When you report a bug, it goes to QA. CS has nothing to do with fixing bugs or even reading the bug reports. That is all QA. You tried filing a bug report as if it were a petition and instead of merely reporting a problem you insisted on insulting the developers. Your "petition" was nothing but a rant.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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Calm down
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Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
AARRRRGGHH!!!
Mods.... Delete this if it is against the rules, but I am well within my right to complain about completely horrible support. I deserve better than the intentionally aggravating response of this GM even if my original ticket was not happy. |
The mission "Rescue Jason and Kenneth", from Jessica Flores in Imperial City, is impossible to complete because Jason Maxwell starts hostile(because some idiot made rescue NPCs hostile to stop captors from attacking captives, rather than solving the actual problem that caused that situation, just to use the quickest and literally dirtiest solution) and now stays hostile even after his captors are defeated.
I am forced to burn my mission auto-completion option on this mission. I won't have it for the next time this happens within 3 days, which is highly likely give that really long timescale as far as amount of missions that can be started and completed in that time and the fact that this bug exists.
I won't even get in game help to complete the next mission that is impossible to complete because I am not VIP.
FIX YOUR CRUMBLING GAME! It is literally falling apart, especially the last few months since issue 19.