Arma 3 – A look inside the feedback tracker

[kamaradski 10]

Hi all,

I had a quick look to see what is currently in the feedback tracker, and added some opinions\conclusion towards the end of the article:

http://kamaradski.com/2691/arma-3-feedbacktracker

Enjoy the read, and hopefully this will change some opinions or give some ideas to the dev's.

[Fireball 16]

Hi all,

I had a quick look to see what is currently in the feedback tracker, and added some opinions\conclusion towards the end of the article:

You must know that Iceman is now full-time busy with the FT, but probably can only (if even) catch up with what was reported recently, which in turn shows that FT was left dwelling alone for too long, as Astaroth (back in time) was only doing it aside his main job in QA and was also only appointed, when the FT was already bursting with ticket.

Then, what you missed within those xx% new tickets is probably that 80% of them are defacto unusuable due to reporter XYZ seen an issue and thus had a bad day and went on the FT to rant what should be improved in his opinion, instead of delivering a proper bug report. Also within those new tickets are probably many untreated dupes (if you see some, let me know).

I've also seen that crash tickets are assigned (probably internally passed on to devs) and hardly ever closed, since noone can really confirm that that particular crash is resolved, as for end users one crash might look another. So we can also assume that many assigned crash tickets were already resolved without us/you knowing.

Also, the cartoon in the beginning totally neglects that multi-core CPU support is in the game for a long time. Only because your cores don't all max out while you're playing, you can't say that there's no SMP support, but there's only so much you can divide among the cores without risking the game going fubar, so only expect small steps, but (hopefully) safe ones.

[kamaradski 10]

Hi Fireball, yes indeed you are right i have been following Iceman's progress over the last few weeks, and he is truly doing a lot of work here ! (thank god for that)

I also go not agree with the cartoon, and that is exactly why i took it as a good example of what the public has been shouting about for the last time, and i hope my article reflects that BIS is actually not doing bad at all in listening to the community.

However as the cartoon shows, people are still unhappy, and i also hope my article is showing a couple of the points as to why this is happening. See for example the most voted tickets (all feature requests).

As for the crash tickets, some of them are so old and probably totally unrelated to the current versions that i think solved or not, those tickets should be closed (or hidden). In general the FT needs some cleaning. Preferably as I mention with a bug-fix marathon. I mean look at version 1.31, it consist mostly of bug fixes however small or big, this is a big improvement and will probably result in many closed tickets. I am loving it :) And I still think this is something that should be done after the next DLC: to for example take 1 month time and focus only on the open tickets... This will do so much good to the public opinion !

Duplicate and Defacto tickets is always a good part of any public FT, and i am sure Iceman or whoever else is working on these, will identify and close or merge those tickets. This i know takes a lot of time. I am dealing with a couple of FTs in the office myself.

Overall my personal opinion is that we are doing good, but there is still improvement to be made, if only in the communication. Those top-10 most voted tickets, could long been closed with a note on "Yes we will" or "no, we wont" This would silent a lot of discussions imo.

[Tyl3r99 41]

thats some good research man! hopefully BI will take it into account

[chortles 263]

Oddly enough the biggest category ‘gameplay issues’ do not even show in the top-10 anymore… Another trend is ‘Game-crash’, ‘Visual’ and ‘Scripting’ make ~50% of this top-10.

I'm actually not surprised at how highly 'game crash' is placed, because (having followed development from 2012) I remember at least one dev hinting that the team would specifically prioritize crashes-to-desktop (CTD) over other game issues.

Combined these make ~20% (1391) of the open issues. BIS has reviewed these and made a decision on what to do in the near future, or at least acknowledged that the reported problem is real and existing.

Beyond what I said above, I imagine that a lot of the "top ten open" tickets are probably "BI still hasn't decided what to do in the near future"... although I distinctly remember that before the September 2013 declaration-of-launch, the creative director specifically said that the team did not plan to implement melee, and the year before another dev specifically ruled out fast roping. (Those are two examples of the "top ten open" that the devs went out of their way to say "not happening" unlike the other tickets, and should not be taken as indicative of BI's stance towards the other "top ten open" tickets.)

EDIT:

With the complexity of the game and the many open reported issues. I have the opinion that it would be a good idea to have an extended feature freeze after the new helicopter DLC, and before actively building on any new content to have a bug-fest, where all available resources are combined in closing as much as possible open tickets. It is better to do this now, than to wait and build on top of all open issues, and possibly expanding the impact of the current bugs.

Probably not happening, if only because both the Marksmen DLC and the expansion are already in the works -- BI is probably already testing and deciding which features can be 'feasibly' implemented by the end of 2015 before announcing any Marksmen DLC features. Edited October 19, 2014 by Chortles

[Rydygier 1317]

Well, nearly each time I have opportunity and mood to report something it's enough to see, what is going on there to lose that mood at once and change my mind instantly. :) As we can see, they obviously work on solving many issues, but somehow even the biggest patch appears like a drop in the infinite ocean. I would suggest same rule and agree completely with last, bolded sentence: clean feedback tracker before anything new added to the game/next game iteration.

[chortles 263]

Unfortunately the Arma 3 DLC/Expansion roadmap was unveiled despite what you describe...

[DancZer 65]

Thank you for your effort kamaradski. It is very interesting. I agree with your recommendation. The game need more bug fixing. Fixing bugs is important, because it shows that they take care of the current customers. I hope that they will focus more to fixing bugs and existing features in the upcoming Marksman DLC and Expansion pack.

It would be so awesome if i could play this game without continuous common bugs. I can't even describe that feeling. :)

[kamaradski 10]

It would be so awesome if i could play this game without continuous common bugs. I can't even describe that feeling. :)

Due to it's complexity the reality will be that there is always stuff broken/missing, And i think the current software is very much on a good track and in a stable state. (better than a lot of other software i use)

It is however all about customer care :D

[DancZer 65]

I agree that they are on the right track. I think the new DLC strategy, steam and the feedback tracker help them a lot in booth the stability increasing and reducing the bugs compared to Arma 2. However i think that they should focus even more effort to fixing things. At least the most common issues. I think we deserve it. :)

p.s: i'm still wondering what they are planing in Marksmand DLC, because nothing concrete published.

Edited October 21, 2014 by danczer

[chortles 263]

p.s: i'm still wondering what they are planing in Marksmand DLC, because nothing concrete published.

They're going to a shooting range today, so that's probably for sounds-recording purposes for the new firearms. Personally though, I'm guessing that unofficially they're still feasibility-testing what features to even attempt, much less announce. (I say attempt because presumably dev leadership doesn't want to spend time and money on any developmental dead-ends... you know, except for Real Virtuality itself.)