It may be a small thing, to not have an event / quest function the way it should, but it is a clear indication of the inability or willingness to playtest the game / seasonal content drops.
One would expect a company worth 3.2 Billion Dollars would be able to plan and schedule activity testing accordingly, and not use their playersbase (who paid for the content) and contributed towards the commercial value of the company as basically free labor to "playtest" their encounters in the seasonal drops.
Bungie did not decide to launch this event 24 hours ago, it has been in the works for how long? Even though it is just a rinse and repeat of every other event with a nice comb over here and there, so why was it not playtested?
How much effort does it take to spend some time running a lost sector?
I understand that game development is complex in nature, and most of us having input on the state of the game gets shut down or overlooked because it feels like the common narrative is "You are not developers therefore your input/comments/concerns are null in void"
This minor thing, brings to question the future of the game and the if Bungie really values their players that contributed to their 3.2 Billion dollar worth.
EDIT : Part 2, To add insult to Injury.
Taking into consideration that how long Duality has been out, and how long it took them to add a "Fix" for the core Mechanic in the dungeon that makes completing the dungeon damn near impossible at times, leading to player frustration in the progress just feels like their interest and priorities are not focussed on this IP anymore.
Any game, should not be laborious or should not add to player frustration, as the point of gaming to some is to relax.
There are numerous problems that persist to happen, I play on PC and Console and these issues are inherent across all platforms.
1. Encounters in Strikes that do not spawn in enemies, forcing players to die in order to restart the encounter.
2. Loading players into activities that are about to be completed, forcing players to redo another playlist activity to complete the Artificial fun factor that is bounties.
3. Enemies including champs, regaining health back, from prompting a "finish" to almost 50% of their health.
4. Crucible as a whole is in a terrible state. Enough said about that.
5. Player Time is not respected - lost sector rewards, (exotic drops) and a great example us how normal strikes will take 10 to 15 mins - rewards 4 to 5 pages, and lake of shadows takes 5 minutes, rewards 3 pages
That being said, Destiny 2 feels like ifs slowly becoming the "Lessons Learnt" part of Bungie for their next "Big IP/Game".
In my opinion, there is a major disconnect between the developer and the gamers. I feel, from my point of view that the game is not focussed on the betterment of the player or their experiences.
I understand the commercial and contractural obligations the Developer, Bungie might have to their new business group owners, and that more senior resources as a whole might be shifted to the next business venture, this does not mean that the game, it's playerbase, and the general attitude towards the game should be neglected.
Fact is, that for the time being, your playerbase for Destiny 2, is still of somewhat importance.
Reputation goes a long way.
Something I think the developers fail to focus on.
How does their actions or the lack there of, make their players feel?
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Edited by GetSpaghett: 10/21/2022 3:43:30 AM"Why spend time and effort making the game better? That doesn't make money. That time and effort is better spent making more seasons and eververse content. The game's quality doesn't matter. As long as people are buying, we gotta pump out as much as possible."
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Edited by D-Von, Kell of Tables: 10/19/2022 9:48:20 AMThis isnt a small thing though. This is literally the whole event. Quite literally all Bungie had to do was run a lost sector and the issue is right there. This is a pretty big bug because it is so glaringly easy to spot and it renders the entire event unplayable. While they might be able to fix it remember Lightfall is a much bigger update with entire reworks to systems within Destiny. This is a tiny little halloween that has been around since D1. If they can't even get this right and spot an obvious issue like this before release I am not sure how Bungie (who like you mentioned is worth billions now), is gonna release lightfall at all. I have notice a steep decline in quality that past year with every update breaking something. And unfortunately this falls squarely in the lap of the developers. They are to blame and they need to do better quite honestly.
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I like to use the example of recalls, and software updates, not to justify Bungie's inadequacies when it comes to bugs and glitches, but because it happens in almost all of our facets of life. You buy the new (insert phone brand here), and guaranteed, within the first few months, a software update is released due to fix bug reports. Same with PC's, gaming consoles, other games, and hundreds of other electronics. We can stress ourselves out blaming Bungie, but with what a Google employee once told me amounts to hundreds of thousands of lines of coding, one thing can be like a pebble in your shoe and it happens all the time. I think we should all take a step back, take a breath, and realize it's like having pests - you can do everything you can to get rid of them, but they will always come back...
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3 RepliesSame company that expects you to send videos of all their bugs instead of them play testing. As I’m writing this it’s taking 5 mins to fly to the tower. This games a joke
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2 RepliesThe "we're working from home" excuse only goes so far when you're talking about a recycled event. I mean, how hard is it to spawn a final boss in and not make me wait a minute and a half doing nothing but picking up candy that will go to the postmaster anyway? Then do it 35 times for a Triumph? That's almost a whole -blam! hour of doing nothing, and it was an issue as well last year? Ultimately it's Bungie's fault, but it's also our fault for buying and playing the game. We got Forsaken because the playerbase dropped to near nothing. I doubt we'll see that kind of urgency from Bungie to make us happy ever again.
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"quality" has left with Activision in late 2019 my guy.
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Upvoted!
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This event was a complete cosmetic money grab. Just to fund other projects. Bare minimum was done to fix the mechanics of the event. It's just shameful at this point. This event has been around since like 2015. It's 2022 and completely unacceptable. I respect my time better than to grind it out for nothing. Weapons dropping without the specific traits for event, the MAIN QUEST was bugged...(smh), weekly bounties were only giving 100 bd...etc...list goes on. How do you launch an event and the main quest is bugged?? They couldn't have play tested it?????
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Edited by THA_3rd_GUY: 10/19/2022 4:26:08 PMIt really is aggravating just how often bugs come up that would have been obvious if Bungie took ten minutes to test their game. Like the sound glitch from Golgoroth. So you guys never thought to see what would happen if the Tablet of Ruin filled up? The mechanic that wipes your team if you fail. Or how about that door for "The Lie"? You guys never once tried to interact with the door and see where it put you? This is the problem with Bungie drip feeding us content. They probably have no time to test what they are about to put out, because they're so preoccupied with fixing the stuff they just put out that doesn't work.
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Destiny is my main game because despite its problems, it is still one of the best games out there (to me, maybe not to you) for a number of reasons. The recent rise in technical problems and poor decision-making indicate that this is the beginning of the end for the game. It seems like people at Bungie are checking out or phoning it in, or that some workers were replaced by people who lack the same level of knowledge. Right now I give it about two years. Lightfall is "The Beginning of the End" so they could easily wrap it up with one more release after that. Maybe things will turn around. And you know... if Destiny is only around for two more years, that's fine. It's been a good run, mostly. Maybe the story we've been playing since 2014 and our goofy outdated haircuts should go the way of Cayde-6 by 2024.
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They also don't read the forums unless it's 4-5 pages of the exact same thing. So yeah, good luck!
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1 ReplyBungie does not test their game, this has been a known thing for a very loooooooooooonnnnnnnngggggg time. I mean beyond "does the game turn on?". Not sarcasm sadly, the players are the testers. Hence the use of player analytics to make changes as its far cheaper and they get to claim ignorance with problems and say "O it was a bug". They ran out of good will from their player base long ago and now they are just trying to deceive the newest players for as long as they can.
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2 RepliesI agree completely. Well stated. As a 30+ year Software - Hardware Developer, it's pretty clear they are investing minimal time in the game anymore. It's on life support and they do the absolute minimal amount of work to keep it alive. The only thing it does is fund other projects, which is where all their talented and creative people have been shipped off too work on.
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19 RepliesProblems that persist long after they ship, with them being known issues, there's not really a good defense for those. However, something that a lot of people need to understand is that, especially with how destiny's netcode works, there are some things that will never show up in playtesting. Things based on netcode, or just pure random chance. Things affected by the live servers that wouldn't be able to be seen in playtesting. Beyond that, consider how many players there are. There's, even at destiny's lowest points, hundreds of thousands. We unearth glitches quickly because there's so many of us all doing all the things all the time. No reasonable amount of playtesters could ever compare to the amount of things the actual playerbase could unearth.
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I’ve got a funny feeling that the majority of badass devs at Bungie are focused on the next big thing/expansion etc. and the remainder (who are still talented) are maintaining/adding/tweaking the smaller scale iterations for the company. Everyone there has talent, just some not *as* talented as others. That, to me, would explain the laundry list of irritating bugs that seem to grow weekly and take substantially longer to fix than before. At the end of the day, who knows? Lightfall looks really good to me and Final Shape will hopefully be absolutely epic. They have a lot of competition in 2023 (for me) with big AAA titles like FFXVI, FF Remake among others set to drop. Let’s hope they step up their game and sort out some of the obvious grievances.
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Bungo's philosophy of testing. - Does Downtime take the game down - Check (only it often comes back up weasled!) - Can you load into the game - Check, It may not take you to the Tower on the same day and if you make it to any destination you and everyone else may be invisible but check anyways - Can you spend money in Eververse - Check Boom Done ship it!!!
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This isn't new, either. Remember the Felwinter quest? Stuff that should be impossible to miss keeps slipping through
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7 RepliesThe real game within the game for this event is find the bugs. So far the community is doing some fine QAC work here.
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3 RepliesIf this 21 day event is this bad, imagine how Lightfall will be.
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11 RepliesAs A Quality Assurance Engineer, I Agree. No Product or Software should be released to the public without the product being tested and shown for it to be reliable and working. Poor Execution from Bungie.
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Considering that this is FAR from an isolated case, yeah. It's starting to get upsetting.
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Spot on! If you are going to have a shameless cash grab, it should at least function properly. Is that too much to ask, Bungie? There is no quality control. The play testers are the Destiny community.
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1 ReplyIt's a free event, you'll get over it in time.
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2 RepliesI completely agree with you on your topic, however, the End User License Agreement that we all rushed to accept states somewhere in the legal jargon that Bungie can release an unfinished product to us and be protected from consequence. Seriously. The best you can do is refuse to accept and therefore no longer be able use any of the content in game. That part I remember reading, but there is also a section that said something along the lines that if you accept the agreement you cannot slander the game, devs, executives or third parties (partners or otherwise) on any platform. Very big brotherish, no? So the only option or recourse for us is to try to convince Bungie to resolve the problem (we've seen how well that goes), file a grievance under the conditions of binding arbitration (only after you have made every effort to try to resolve the problem with Bungie first, because the arbiter will likely side with Bungie if they can prove you did not give them notice or reasonable time to fix the problem), or uninstall the content and formally refuse to comply with the EULA. I will also note that the binding arbitration clause waives your legal right to a trial by a jury of your peers, and is the same loophole that most companies include in their user agreements to keep their dirty laundry out of public courts. Binding arbitration also heavily favors large entities like Bungie. Don't take my word for it though, you can research the topic and see how customers and employees fair in binding arbitration hearings. So why am I telling you all this if I agree with you? Why do I play the game if I believe all the above is true? Well I don't claim to be a better than anyone else here, but I also want to bring one undeniable fact front and center. The reason why Bungie doesn't deliver a quality product is because we ENABLE AND EMPOWER THEM TO ACT AS SUCH. As soon as you accept the EULA you have agreed that you are OK with receiving a unfinished product, no matter how much you have paid for that product. That's my opinion, but hey I'm just a gamer who thinks too much and plays video games to have fun. What do I know?
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Look… the intern cut and pasted the wrong file for this year’s FotL. I overheard them talking: Bungie: Hi Ned. You have one job here at Bungie. When we give you the signal cut and paste last year’s FotL file to the current system (points the cursor at FotLBugsFixed.xxx). Ned: ok Bungie: Do NOT cut and paste this one (hovers mouse over FotLBugsFkU.xxx Ned: ok Ned failed us. F Ned