almost 2 years ago - Coffee Stain Studios - Direct link

Transcript (by Youtube)


0s hey everyone it's Uncle Jace today the
2s community manager at coffee stain
3s studios in Crowder on crowd around the
5s campfire we have some stuff to talk
6s about okay we have some serious things
8s to talk about
9s bugs we have to talk about bugs okay
11s bugs baby yeah
16s as a community manager for this game I
19s have come across some folks online who
21s are understandably frustrated about the
23s fact that there are there are bugs in
25s the game and also their bugs that
27s they've reported literally years ago
30s on our QA site still has not been
33s resolved or even bugs that like they
35s haven't reported but it's just been
36s there it's just been there for years and
38s so today I would like to talk to you
39s about how we prioritize and plan bug
40s fixes as well as feature editions and
43s how you know this kind of thing where
45s like bugs go unsolved uh for years can
48s occur now in case you didn't know what
49s the uh the QA site is it's our bug
52s reporting and feedback website uh which
54s we created specifically for satisfactory
57s and it can be found at
59s questions.satisfactorygame.com and it is
61s the best way to let us know about any
63s bugs that you're running into as well as
65s any feedback or suggestions you have for
66s satisfactory as well that goes directly
69s to the team we have a bunch of people
70s who uh comb through that every single
72s day to make sure that they can see what
74s you guys are talking about and then we
76s use that to plan what kind of bugs we
78s want to solve now there is something
79s just before we get into this there is
80s something that I want to dismantle real
82s quick okay I just want to get this out
84s there now I often attach to the comments
86s that are made out of frustration
87s understandably is the idea that because
90s because a specific bug hasn't been fixed
92s or their specific bug hasn't been fixed
94s for like years three years we hear
96s sometimes
97s that therefore we haven't done anything
100s in three years
102s now again I want to acknowledge the
103s frustration that and how frustrating
105s this can feel because it does happen
107s Okay but I do want to weigh in here and
110s also say that like it's just not true
112s even though those things haven't been
114s fixed we've done a lot in the past three
116s years which is since update three we've
118s released 170 patches six of those are
122s major patches
124s um and that's including the 3.5 update
126s that that is a major patch and so you
128s know we've actually been really busy I
129s just want to I just want to put that on
130s the record before we move forward okay
132s it's not true we've been working hard so
135s an incredibly part of game development
137s in general under any circumstances at
139s all but especially when your game is
141s available to the public in An Early
143s Access setting is bug prioritization and
146s this is something that is really hard to
148s get right and it's maybe something you
150s can never really get right but it's you
151s know it's something that we always need
152s to improve upon because we believe as
154s developers of a game that is in Early
156s Access that we have a responsibility
159s for our game and for our community to
162s one keep it in a playable State for the
164s overwhelming majority of people and two
166s to finish the game's development which
169s is another goal that we must adhere to
171s in our opinion However unfortunately
173s perpetually maintaining our game in a
175s state of perfect stability is not
178s feasible and is actually quite
179s detrimental to the development of the
181s game and so you might be wondering like
183s in what ways is having a stable game
185s detrimental to the development of the
187s game well first of all it kind of
189s depends on what your definition of
190s stability is or stable is okay so there
193s are some people I have seen online who
194s say there should be no bugs in a game
196s right it's unacceptable for the there to
198s be bugs but regardless of whether you're
200s not in Early Access uh having a game
202s that is perfectly uh bug free at least
205s the game is complex as our one you know
207s in our particular case where we have
209s three million plus people playing on
211s varying Hardware with you know varying
213s Windows versions and Driver versions
215s they may or may not be up to date they
217s might be mods involved 100 stability on
219s all all machines is simply not something
221s that is actually viable and so we need
223s to find an acceptable level of stability
225s and so that's the first thing that can
226s be detrimental to development you know
228s chasing that that perfect stability in a
231s game is just it's just going to lead us
233s astray and it's not really something
234s that's attainable right so we can't do
236s that not only that but maintaining a
238s high level of stability during active
240s development is also incredibly
242s inefficient okay this is because it
244s would mean uh consistently undoing and
246s redoing work that we've done before in
249s order to stabilize the game when the
250s game's design is constantly changing and
252s new features are being added not only
254s that but adding new features risks
255s instability anyway as it is whether or
258s not we're redoing and undoing work so
260s this is just something that we we can't
263s escape either and long term this makes
265s no sense because it would mean that
266s it'll take us like I don't know twice as
267s long to finish the game when we could
270s just do it in half the amount of the
271s time if we were to accept some level of
274s growing pains right so bear in mind that
276s we've been working on satisfactory for
277s like six or seven years now and if we
280s were chasing all these bugs to clean
281s them all up at every possible step of
284s the way we wouldn't be nearly as far in
287s development as we are now financially
289s this is awful and then maybe even
291s interest wise you guys wouldn't be
292s getting any new stuff and it would get
293s very boring you know the game just might
295s become irrelevant you know and so the
296s goal of keeping the game like completely
298s bug free throughout Early Access and
301s maybe ever really is something that we
303s necessarily we something that we can't
305s necessarily look to pursue now but that
307s doesn't mean we can just dump a hot pile
310s of steaming trash on your lap and be
312s like hey we're Early Access deal with it
314s you know we can't do that either that's
316s not fair
317s um so no like a balance needs to be
319s found and we go to Great Lengths to find
320s in that balance we keep the game in a
322s good playable State for the overwhelming
324s majority of people while also pushing
326s the project towards its 1.0 launch and
329s one other thing to note is that like as
331s we get closer to 1.0 we will have less
333s and less features to add the game's
335s design will start to solidify we know
337s exactly what the game is supposed to be
338s we don't necessarily have any more
340s features to add and then overall
341s stability becomes a higher and higher
343s priority as you know there's less
345s features to add and less question about
347s the game's future and design at that
349s point so a higher level of stability
350s will be a focus moving closer towards
353s 1.0 and so that means that some of the
354s bugs haven't been fixed aren't being
357s fixed and we may not even be able to
358s commit at the moment to fix all the bugs
360s right now and so someone at the office
363s or whatever needs to decide well what
365s does get fixed what doesn't get fixed
367s and also what features do get added and
369s don't get at it because there are a lot
370s of features we would like to add to the
372s game but we can't add them all so what
374s affects the priority of a bug or feature
375s mostly focusing on bugs frequency and
378s severity so here you can see a QA post
380s by emus posted three years ago about the
383s Blade Runners being in the wrong
385s orientation in hypertubes and I believe
388s that's still an issue to this day and uh
390s yeah that's been that's just been there
392s for three years and it hasn't been fixed
393s yet now the reason this is not a severe
396s issue it doesn't break the game it is a
398s little janky but and we do intend on
399s fixing it but right now there's more
401s important things for us to focus on and
403s that's just kind of what we do so if a
405s bug is deemed less severe than other
406s bugs or features then it may just be
408s push lower and lower on priority and it
411s just takes a while before we get around
412s to it instead we just focus on more
413s severe and game breaking bugs another
415s thing that affects the priority of bugs
416s is whether or not the bug is part of a
419s feature that we intend to overhaul or
420s address later on so we've got a couple
422s examples and there's one here this is
424s posted by godspeed two years ago MK3
426s miners with two outputs because when you
429s overclock an MK3 Miner to its maxibility
431s there are no belts quick enough to
434s Output the what the miner can extract
437s from a resource node right so this is
439s this is obviously a problem
441s um and so this is a post from two years
442s ago and this hasn't been this hasn't
444s been fixed yet or addressed yet but we
446s have talked about this before and it
448s will be addressed just so you know
449s another example is if you just search
451s for like the truck on the QA site uh
454s yeah I mean trucks and tractors getting
457s stuck on foundations their physics are
459s kind of wonky they fly out into space
461s you know like there are issues around
463s the vehicles and there are so many posts
464s here that I can see I'm looking at them
466s right now three years ago two years ago
468s right a year ago three years ago like
470s there's so many but like the vehicle
471s thing this will be addressed at some
473s point but like right now it doesn't make
474s sense to to run around plugging random
477s holes all over the game at this stage
480s during Early Access when the state of
481s the game has a decent amount of
483s volatility so why are we going to spend
484s time fixing something with the vehicles
486s now potentially risk introducing new
488s bugs in the process only to undo it all
491s when we intend to rework the vehicles in
494s the future anyway there are actually
496s Arguments for this though and it sort of
498s depends on severity I mean obviously
499s having better functioning vehicles in
501s the meantime might be good but we also
504s don't know if that's easy to achieve
506s right now
507s um because you know there are certain
509s issues that we can run into that could
510s have just Band-Aid fixes which are
512s simple especially if the issues are
515s really severe you know we can we can do
517s that even if it means redoing work later
519s yeah it sort of just depends on the
520s severity and it depends on the
522s difficulty of the fix the next thing we
524s need to consider when prioritizing bugs
526s is the impact on planning so with game
529s development time is a resource and we
531s are limited in what we can achieve we
532s can't do everything we want with the
534s game so every bug we fix or or feature
536s that we add comes at a cost and that
538s cost is other bugs and other features
541s that we could fix or add so anything we
543s choose to do will impact the planning of
545s the project and without careful
547s consideration for our plans the project
550s will spiral out of control and will
551s never get it done now that doesn't mean
553s that our plans are final and they're
555s just rigid and we're just going to roll
556s with them forever it's not as if we
558s don't consider the current circumstances
559s of what's going on we frequently change
561s our plans which is one reason why we
563s don't publicly State our plans because
565s they change all the time but it is
567s important that we have something
569s concrete to strive for because that
570s provides us Direction and without
572s Direction
573s we run into issues and so when
575s prioritizing bugs and features uh with
578s respect to planning we try and get the
580s best bang for our buck possible so
582s sometimes multiple bugs or suggestions
584s on the QA side for example can be
586s addressed with a single carefully
588s designed feature and those kind of
590s features or additions that's a gold mine
593s where we can get a lot of wins just for
595s one one feature and that's what we need
598s to be really really mindful of and what
599s we need to strive to look for so that we
601s can get as much done in as little time
603s as possible another Factor when it comes
605s to bug priority is is the fix safe quick
608s and easy so if a feature or a solution
610s to a bug is safe quick or easy then
613s there's a very good chance that we might
615s as well just knock it out and move on
616s however we need to be super super
618s careful about this because oftentimes
620s something can look safe and look easy
622s only for us to find that it's an entire
624s can of worms that once we open it we're
627s in on a downward spiral and we can't
629s find our way back out like you know it
630s just gets out of control really quickly
632s so we have to be really careful about
633s that
634s um fellow programmers or game developers
636s might have you know experienced this
638s phenomenon before where it's like the
640s easy bug to fix takes like a month to
642s fix but the hard bug to fix takes like
644s one day this is a common thing that
646s happens and our ability to you know
648s accurately assess what's easy and what's
651s not with uh you know an incredibly High
653s degree of certainty is just something
655s that's really hard to do uh we can't do
657s it to a certain degree but it's just
659s kind of hard and it bites a lot of game
660s developers in the butt the next thing is
662s do we know how to fix it so if we don't
664s know how to actually solve a particular
666s bug right away it might be hard for us
668s to prioritize it when if we have no real
670s direction or leads on how we want to
672s solve it so one example can be a common
675s issue that people have run into that's
677s been in the game for many many years is
679s a new character appearing when loading
681s the save this is one that was posted a
683s year ago but this issue has been there
684s for three years almost since the the
687s games Inception or from when the game
689s was launched even and this is a tough
691s thing because we don't really know how
692s to solve it yet we know that that there
694s are solutions for it this is not an
695s impossible solve we think that there's a
697s lot of features that need to be built
698s around just to fix this one issue and so
701s we've actually been sort of like
702s postponing it a bit because we're not
703s really exactly sure how we want to
705s tackle it just yet but actually maybe
707s this isn't the best idea of of like uh
709s of something that we know or don't know
711s how to fix probably a better example
713s would be the object limit in the game so
715s right now there's only so many objects
717s that can be placed in the game until the
719s game like crashes and this is not
720s something we know how to fix it's a it's
722s a limitation of the engine we don't know
725s what we can do about it at all and so
727s we're not doing anything about it so
728s this is just a bug that stays there and
730s that's been there since day one and yeah
732s however this object limit for the most
733s part we do deem this as a not super
735s severe issue I mean it is severe the
738s game crashes but it isn't frequent and
740s it affects very very very few people
742s it's not cool that it's there and we do
744s do things to alleviate it by minimizing
746s the amount of objects that um are placed
748s in the world because certain like if you
750s build like one Constructor that's made
751s up of multiple objects so we've
752s optimized things so that when you build
754s one Constructor it contains less objects
756s that kind of thing so we can do things
759s to alleviate it but we can't get rid of
760s this we just don't know how but luckily
762s those kind of bugs aren't super
764s prominent sometimes I hate to say it but
766s sometimes a bug just isn't fixed because
768s it slips through the cracks so this
770s could absolutely happen this is a
771s failing I guess on our part for the most
773s part but there's a lot of reports too so
776s we have to give ourselves a little bit
777s of slack but you know sometimes bugs
779s just slip through the cracks and we just
780s kind of forget about it or I don't know
782s whatever in which case you know keep up
785s voting bugs will see it again or post
787s post them again or come to uh live
790s streams bug snootenai DM us about it you
792s know you can just do things to get it
795s back on our Consciousness again if you
796s wish that's perfectly fine uh but yeah
799s this can happen as well and sometimes
800s that's just why bugs aren't fixed for
802s years
803s yeah another reason the bug might not
806s get fixed is because the reported bug is
807s not even our fault so this is a pretty
809s common thing where some people will say
811s hey there's like my game is crashing and
813s when we check the the crash logs or the
816s stack Trace we can see it's got to do
817s with rendering stuff and we say have you
819s updated your drivers they say no they
821s update it and then it's and then it's
822s working again so this is something that
824s happens fairly often where yeah people
826s could have out-of-day drivers uh
828s incompatible Hardware like that their
830s Hardware doesn't meet the minimum
831s specifications for the game uh
833s conflicting software is another thing
835s that we've come across when it comes to
836s multiplayer issues there are obviously
838s certain things that we have done in the
839s past to help fix multiplayer issues but
841s there are also some things that are like
843s local network related where it could be
845s settings on your router or even like
846s your local area network of like your
849s dorm or apartment building that you're
850s on or your ISP even like some of those
852s things they're just simply out of our
853s control so we can give like General
856s troubleshooting tips but we these are
858s not things that we can fix so we can't
859s fix those things in the game and so
861s sometimes the suggested feature does not
862s fit without game idea and so this is
864s another thing where things suggestions
866s can be years old but they're not being
868s added and that's because maybe it
870s doesn't fit with what we think
872s the game should have in it and so I've
874s made an entire video about this already
875s so I'll put it up in the cards up here
877s and in the description below and you can
879s check that video out where I talk more
880s about features that are not going to
882s come to satisfactory so this brings us
884s to the next point which is could we do
885s anything better to address this feeling
887s of
888s if we're not if people feel as though
890s we're not listening or they're not
892s getting heard or that you know their
893s bugs aren't getting fixed is there
894s anything that we can do about that maybe
897s so the first thing that immediately
898s comes to mind which I don't think will
900s work is increasing resources so for
902s example could we just like hire more
904s programmers to fix more bugs more people
906s we can do more right isn't it just that
908s simple well first of all I just want to
909s say the team is doing a phenomenal job
911s taking care of all the bugs that they
912s can and whilst also adding features I
914s think is great and also reducing crunch
916s this is something that we uh Focus
919s pretty hard on we don't want our our
921s team to Crunch we don't think that's a
922s healthy thing for developers to be to be
924s doing within the industry so we don't
926s want to go down that road right uh so
928s we're just doing what we can do of
930s course we can hire more people and then
931s we'll have more help more hands on decks
933s and so theoretically we should be able
935s to solve more issues right however that
937s doesn't necessarily work out in practice
939s hiring more people does not necessarily
941s solve this problem because as the team
943s size grows each additional person that
945s we add comes with a bunch of overhead
947s there's a popular saying amongst
949s programmers what one programmer can do
951s in one month two programmers can do in
953s two months or three months who knows and
957s the point of that saying is that the
958s overhead of managing and coordinating
960s additional Engineers or other developers
962s of other disciplines can often outweigh
964s the benefit of bringing them on on board
967s in the first place and so we can't just
969s add people and the problem goes away
970s that's not how it works so I don't
973s maybe we can add more people and maybe
976s it would be effective but this is not
978s really a solution that we can rush to
979s what about better bug prioritization and
981s planning so it could be that we improve
983s uh the way that we prioritize bug fixing
986s which bugs we fix and new features we
988s could maybe do better in that area so
990s that we can get more done somehow but we
992s think we're doing a pretty good job at
993s managing things right now there is some
995s give and take but we're trying to find
997s the balance like I was talking about
998s earlier however if you don't think that
1000s we're doing a good enough job or doing
1002s things right or things things could be
1003s better you can always let us know you
1005s can always give us that feedback you can
1006s do it on the QA side send us an email
1008s DMS let us know on stream up to you okay
1012s um that feedback is always valuable the
1014s reality is though is that we can't make
1016s everyone happy and that's okay that just
1019s is what it is that's how that's how the
1020s world works okay but we can do our best
1023s and we can take your feedback into
1025s consideration so that we can make more
1027s informed decisions moving forward okay
1029s so let us know let us know if you think
1030s things should be better perhaps we could
1032s improve communication now this is one
1035s area that I think can be improved quite
1036s a bit I think we do a pretty good job at
1038s communicating things in general like I
1040s think we do pretty well here on the
1042s YouTube channel and on streams and
1043s things like that but I do think that we
1046s are dropping the ball a little bit when
1047s it comes to the QA site I think there's
1049s a lack of feedback there we literally
1050s have a feature on the QA site where we
1052s can Mark certain posts as resolved fixed
1055s internally acknowledged or whatever like
1057s known issue right however there are a
1060s lot of posts that have actually been
1061s addressed or acknowledged or have
1064s planned fixes uh on the QA site but they
1066s haven't even been marked as such yet
1068s they're still left as open and the fact
1070s that we have some posts that are two
1072s years old with 1200 upvotes
1075s and marked as open not even listed as
1078s known issue or something like that I
1080s think is a little unacceptable and I
1082s think we can do better there it's
1083s entirely possible that if we were to
1085s communicate better on the QA site that
1087s people might feel more heard there
1089s they'll feel less disenfranchised and
1091s more willing to post feedback and I
1093s think that this will go a really long
1094s way when people can see that we've seen
1096s their posts because I think radio
1097s silence can be torture especially if the
1100s past experience is that your bugs
1102s haven't gotten fixed right so I'm gonna
1104s bring this up to the team I don't I have
1106s no promises I can't say what we're gonna
1107s do or anything like that but I'll bring
1109s it up with the team and um hopefully we
1111s can make some changes to address this so
1113s we can get some better communication or
1115s feedback on the QA side so that people
1116s know when when we uh when we see things
1119s it's not super it's not super easy to do
1122s because everyone's kind of busy with
1123s other things but I'll bring it up we'll
1125s talk about it I'm hopeful that we can
1127s find a solution but we'll see how it
1128s goes anyway that's all I kind of wanted
1130s to cover today it's just a lot of
1131s talking I hope you guys don't mind it I
1133s think I think this topic is interesting
1135s I find it actually interesting I don't
1137s know if I have a really boring nerdy
1138s person for that but I I think this is a
1140s really fascinating topic
1142s um and I hope that this at least gives
1143s like some insight to why some bugs don't
1146s get fixed or how things work or or at
1149s least our perspective as game developers
1150s on things even if like maybe you don't
1152s agree with it right so if you found the
1153s video interesting please give it a like
1155s and I would love to hear your
1156s perspective on things and your thoughts
1158s on everything that I shared today uh in
1159s the comments below because a lot of this
1161s is kind of like our opinion as
1162s developers on this right and that
1165s doesn't necessarily mean we're right I
1167s would love to hear your opinion on
1168s things as well and that's feedback that
1170s we can take into consideration maybe
1171s there are things that we're overlooking
1173s and we would love you guys to help us
1175s you know spot those things if we can
1176s okay so that's pretty much it for the
1178s video thank you very much for watching I
1179s hope you enjoyed it have a lovely
1180s weekend and I'll see you next time take
1182s care everybody bye-bye all right
1184s [Music]