Recent PC Games are buggy ... this has to stop

HAL_404

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
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Folks don't want to play buggy, incomplete or not made right games. For example, here's a screen shot from Metro Exodus / Sam's Story. Would be no problem except it's far from being the only such occurrence (with respect to graphics mishaps) and other such things like how a stalker will suddenly appear from out of a water puddle and then be hitting you even though you were 40 ft away when he emerged. Just plain ole bad programming if you ask me but maybe I'm wrong here - comments definitely welcome.

I call the following screen shot The Invisible Sam Man. Did a hard reboot and nothing I try can change it. It used to work but Epic made a change (the load screen, when you press E ... it used to have a smooth transition into the game but now the screen freezes and then snap jumps you into the game ... something changed somewhere

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That wouldn't bother me one bit part of the problem with Epic games there is no feedback forum like Steam so stuff might take longer to fix.
 
Old days: Get game, install. Doesn't work, needs new DX patch and video drivers, 30 minute DL. Install. PC starts crashing, need to update chipset drivers. Ok, crashes gone, game wont launch, DX/Video Driver/whatever errors. Realize there is a day one patch almost as big as the game, (200-500mb)... DL that over your Dialup/DSL... 2-6 hours. Install patch, game runs, but now other games are busted. *head>desk* Spend next 2 days grabbing all the latest drivers and patches and reinstall windows. Now everything is awesome...

New days: Steam DLs patch as soon as you buy, drivers are kept updated through Windows/Nvidia/AMD/Intel tools all over my 500mb line. Haven't reinstalled windows in 3 years, still runs great.
 
Games have ALWAYS been buggy. Back in the day if you didn't have access too the internet you'd have to either hope a friend did or you'd have to go and purchase magazines that came with CDs or floppies with demos and patches on them. Games have gotten orders of magnitude more complex in that time with more stress put on developers and more demand to "get it done, no matter what" so it leads to more weird little bugs showing up. Plus, it seems like it's worse these days because of the internet being more widespread so we're able to get a bigger picture of how a game performs on different hardware.
 
as games get more pixels, polygons and advanced tech then the chances of bugs increase as well...it's inevitable
 
This has been a trend since around 2000ish when the internets started making game patches easier to get out...
 
I haven't played a game recently that had any major bugs, and I'm struggling to think of even any minor ones. Pretty much everything I play just starts up and plays. Haven't had any graphical issues, controller issues, audio issues, engine issues, or anything else that I would consider game breaking, or even annoying. (short of maybe some design-decisions that I don't always agree with, but that's different) Maybe I just don't buy crappy games. :D

I actually can't think of the last game that had a bug that seriously impacted my experience. I'm sure I may be forgetting a couple/few, but not much comes to mind.
 
The biggest scam today is early access crap. I've been burned once and learned my lesson.

I haven't even had any early access games that have caused me any trouble, but then I'm really picky about which ones that I'll jump on.
 
PubG has entered the chat. Developers now use forever betas to test their games. Not surprising with how easy patching is with downloads these days.
 
I uninstalled / re-installed the game, did a copy/paste for the Metro saved game folder and the problem was still there. So I deleted that saved game folder and ran the game then started a new Sam'e Story and the body came back. That means the failure is saved to the game's save folder. Some time during the Sam's Story game the body disappears and that bug gets saved to the games Save folder.
 
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HAL, I completely agree with you. For years now, games have released and they are incomplete in a lot of ways, not just graphically. However, the problem isn't the game developers - it's the consumers. People keep buying game as soon as they release and the developers know this. They'll release an unfinished game and still make tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in the first hour because consumers are dumb. Gamers pay to be beta testers now.

PubG has entered the chat. Developers now use forever betas to test their games. Not surprising with how easy patching is with downloads these days.

Forever betas have been going on since Battlefield 4 if not since 3.
 
I haven't played a game recently that had any major bugs, and I'm struggling to think of even any minor ones. Pretty much everything I play just starts up and plays. Haven't had any graphical issues, controller issues, audio issues, engine issues, or anything else that I would consider game breaking, or even annoying. (short of maybe some design-decisions that I don't always agree with, but that's different) Maybe I just don't buy crappy games. :D

I actually can't think of the last game that had a bug that seriously impacted my experience. I'm sure I may be forgetting a couple/few, but not much comes to mind.

Middle Earth Shadow of War I fell through the ground and died no less than 4 times.

One of my friends was playing Anthem and said you can get stuck and have to respawn if youre not careful.

They are there...you either are VERY lucky or just dont play that much ;p
 
HAL, I completely agree with you. For years now, games have released and they are incomplete in a lot of ways, not just graphically. However, the problem isn't the game developers - it's the consumers. People keep buying game as soon as they release and the developers know this. They'll release an unfinished game and still make tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in the first hour because consumers are dumb. Gamers pay to be beta testers now.



Forever betas have been going on since Battlefield 4 if not since 3.

at the end of the day testing costs money and no ones better at breaking a game then the people that are actually going to buy it.. so there's a trade off.. pay a shit ton of money to test a game before launch and not find anything and release only for people to find issues with the game? or release the game and wait for people to break the game so you can fix it?

i spent a lot of years doing closed alpha testing for games wasting months or sometimes years testing a game and thinking we found all the bugs. game goes to closed beta only for pages after pages of bug reports to start showing up because there was either 1 hardware configuration or driver that absolutely borked a game, or some one jumped on an object no one though to jump on only for them to fall off a map or clip through a wall, all kinds of stupid crap happens. you can't fix everything before release no matter how much you think you can.

also derangel pretty much nailed it on the head with the last sentence in his post..

p.s. i hate you schizrade, why must you bring back those god awful nightmares.. :(
 
Middle Earth Shadow of War I fell through the ground and died no less than 4 times.

One of my friends was playing Anthem and said you can get stuck and have to respawn if youre not careful.

They are there...you either are VERY lucky or just dont play that much ;p

Well, I haven't played either of those two. They aren't on my list of games that I'd want to play though.

I do seem to have better luck than many though. However, I think it's down to the fact that I play games on a PC with a pristine OS install, and don't really put anything on it aside from Steam, and the games I want to play. I have other machines to do other tasks. I also stopped OCing ages ago, so everything hardware-wise is as stable as it gets. I wonder what percentage of peoples' bugs are the result of messy configs.

I mean, I realize that software bugs happen. A lot. I've experienced my share throughout my history as far back as the C64. However, lately it seems at least what I play is solid. I used to work in software and game QA, so I have an eye for this sort of thing. I've just been pleasantly surprised lately with how few problems I have compared to the "good old" days. ;)

I also believe people when they say they're having problems. I'm sure they are. I've watched videos of people falling through floors, or getting rocketed up into the air, or missing textures/geometry, or whatever. It is usually in a game that I don't play though for whatever reason.

I will admit that I play a lot of indie games, and classics, but I also have my share of modern games as well. Even games that I would expect to have some issues don't really exhibit them for me, or at least not the sort of bug that would piss me off like losing game data, dying for no reason, or horribly broken visuals or the like.
 
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Folks don't want to play buggy, incomplete or not made right games. For example, here's a screen shot from Metro Exodus / Sam's Story. Would be no problem except it's far from being the only such occurrence (with respect to graphics mishaps) and other such things like how a stalker will suddenly appear from out of a water puddle and then be hitting you even though you were 40 ft away when he emerged. Just plain ole bad programming if you ask me but maybe I'm wrong here - comments definitely welcome.

I call the following screen shot The Invisible Sam Man. Did a hard reboot and nothing I try can change it. It used to work but Epic made a change (the load screen, when you press E ... it used to have a smooth transition into the game but now the screen freezes and then snap jumps you into the game ... something changed somewhere
You sound like a good friend of mine by the name of Vegeta.
 
Generally I don't much care about minor bugs - sometimes they can even be funny like the ragdoll physics in BF1. The only time I get riled up is when there are game breaking bugs that stop progress (e.g. GTA4 boat ramp glitch insta-failing story mission) or a combination of bugs that makes the game frustrating to play. What really bugs of as of late is selling what -could- be a great game but the post-launch support is almost non-existant (e.g. Anthem).
I am all for continuing improvement but the mentality of "ship now, patch later" has evolved to the point where each launch and major patch update is like the studio getting the first down while the attrition of time / declining sales is running down the clock (ugh, can't believe I used a football comparison). Most games don't get a touchdown.
 
What I hate are the additional content DLC and updates for minor annoying bugs, not game breaking bugs. I also hate how long games are in early development, some games on steam have been in early access status for years. I mean really, how long is the development from alpha, beta to gold.
 
What I hate are the additional content DLC and updates for minor annoying bugs, not game breaking bugs. I also hate how long games are in early development, some games on steam have been in early access status for years. I mean really, how long is the development from alpha, beta to gold.

It depends entirely on the type of game, scope of the game, development team size, published or indie, and a million other factors. There is no standard development time for a game.

If you have a couple hundred people on your team, a full QA department, but are under the thumb of a major publisher, you're going to be pushed to use those resources to get a game out as quickly as possible. If you're an indie team of two guys in a garage, who have to balance their dev time with day-jobs, and then do all their own testing, it could take years to make a small 2D game.

It also matters on the level of quality that is aimed for, and whether the team adheres to set time goals, or approach the game from a "when it's done and polished" style of development.

I've seen games from huge studios flop because a publisher rushed them to "complete" it by a certain date. (anyone remember Ultima Ascension?) I've seen a one man "team" release a flawless, expansive and amazing game all on his own too, but it took nearly 5 years. (Axiom Verge)

Developing a game is not an easy task. There isn't a general formula that works for every studio. I prefer to get a game when it's ready, even if it means waiting years. (Cyberpunk)
 
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