Another fun example (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Thursday, September 24, 2015, 21:47 (3444 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

"Hey, people are making new characters to buy strange coins." Fixed that weekend(maybe even that day, I wasn't playing then).

"Xur isn't selling heavy ammo packs while everyone is complaining about losing 2-3 rockets on death." Takes month(s) to add back to his inventory.

Some things are trivial to fix. Other things aren't.

Are you saying that trivial things should be ignored until the important, difficult ones are fully finished? (Do you even think the same people are working on the two classes of bugs?)

While this example is one design bug and another code bug, his point really does strike me as valid. Destiny's exploits have been fixed very quickly (Aetheon grenade - dodging off the ledge, Crota disconnect during AoE grenade damage, others I can't immediately recall) while Destiny's more anti-player bugs (Aetheon not teleporting anyone, Crota attacking before standing up, sword disappearing during the Crota fight, etc.) lingered for very long times.

The net result is that it feels like Bungie is intentionally favoring bug fixes which aid the player, but leaving in bugs which put the player at a disadvantage. Heck, some of the "bugs" Bungie fixed were really just very novel approaches to the existing fights, but those got "fixed" anyway.

All of your examples of exploits are things players did voluntarily (after stumbling across them, or, far more likely, reading about them on the internet). All of your examples of 'anti-player bugs' are things that happen to (some) players, totally involuntarily.

That is: if something affects 5% of your userbase (well, probably way less than that - I've done a dozen Crota raids and Crota's never stood up for me, a huge percentage of Destiny players have never even TRIED Crota), that's one level of damage-vs-gain discussion, in terms of fixing.

If someone comes up with an exploit that affects double-digit percentages of your playerbase (and that number continues to increase, since it's a VOLUNTARY thing people are seeking out), it behooves you to spend a little extra time fixing it sooner.

Or, you know, buggy bosses could be harder to troubleshoot than, say, putting up a guardrail for your endboss.

Ultimately, I think you're completely right. But I do see why some players feel at least a bit puzzled by the speed at which certain "player friendly" exploits are fixed or removed compared to other problems. The Crota fight is a good example. That final hard mode boss fight was so bug-riddled that fireteams could do everything perfectly and still fail time after time due to erratic AI glitches or even laggy boss movements. The Ethernet cable pull was a move of desperation: players were sick of feeling screwed over by the game, so they resorted to whatever method they could. Bungie fixed the cable-pull exploit almost immediately, but months later Crota still glitches around all over the place.

Same with the loot cave. Players felt the game was too stingy with loot rewards so they found a way to earn more. Bungie would eventually improve loot drops, but not until months after the cave was patched.

Again, I agree with you. Some fixes are simple, while others aren't. Some take priority over others. But I see how some people might think the prioritize toon feels unfair in some cases.

Yeah, they may feel like evil Bungie is out to get them, but I'm very sympathetic to how difficult it is to maintain this ecosystem they have built, and I think these exploits have a ripple effect that disrupt the ecosystem, and have the potential to make the game less fun for everyone.

On the other hand, I doubt that kind of analysis is the deciding factor that often. The ease and impact of the fix probably weighs heavy, and as outsiders, any theories we make about that are likely rubbish.