Fussing about bugs...

[GoSlash27]

All,

 Can we please move beyond yelling at Squad for all the bugs in 1.1? Yeah, we're peeved. Yeah, they are aware of it. None of this complaining is helping to fix the bugs.

If we want to fix the problems and get back to blowing things up, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Bug reports need to go in the bug report thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/69-technical-support-unmodded-installs/

It should be formatted correctly so that they can get to work on it.

• KSP version including Windows, Mac, or Linux, 32 or 64-bit, and if it's Steam
• A detailed explanation of what happened and what you were trying to accomplish
• A screenshot of your craft or any relevant screens
• A .craft file or save files if relevant
• The ouput_log.txt or player.log file KSP creates when it launches and, if applicable, the crash log KSP has generated when the program crashed
• A detailed list of system specifications
• Are you running a clean installation, or have you updated and some of your persistence or craft files might be older versions, if so which version(s)

In the meantime, we need to help each other out with workarounds/ temporary fixes. If you see someone reporting a bug that you have a fix for, please let them know.

 

Let's just get through this!

Best,
-Slashy

 

 

[Glaran K'erman]

The problem is that the amount of time between updates caused hype to outweigh reasonable expectation. The other problem is that reasonable expectation includes not having some of the problems people are experiencing.
Definitely support and highly encourage everything you said above, it must be done if you're going to complain about a particular bug to any length. But if you have a problem with something you paid for, I have no problem letting you complain about it. Squad brought it on themselves this time, and that pains the hell out of me to say.
Again, totally support the effort to fix things but don't tell the person who can't get his game to start that he is "fussing".

-I have avoided complaining (minus this and my original few lines in the Grand Discussion thread) until devnotes
-I understand the scope of the update and how it's far more complicated than people like to believe 
-I also 100% believe Squad will get everything in order sooner than later

[ZooNamedGames]

One of the biggest issues I've seen is that the community is changing (and I was just discussing this with @sal_vager yesterday).

When KSP first got started, those who came to the game where those who were willing to put up with the issues, and had the ability to solve problems independently. Slowly the game and the community matured. Currently however, the community has changed with new life. You will notice yourself, a lot of new users on the forums (joined anytime after Jan. 2016), and the majority of these complaints come from them. These users are coming to play the game based on nothing more than 1 or 2 youtube videos and are immediately diving into the game head first with no preparation or explanation.

So when they encounter an issue, they immediately reach out and complain, sometimes blaming Squad directly. Often, they're problems are one of 3 causes. 1, it's a problem with their design which with minor fixing would be solved. 2, It's a known bug, and they simply refuse to read up about it and work around it. So the simply complain and rage quit. And 3, it's simply the game not working to their expectations or desires. These players don't want to fail a few times to get to the moon, the "fun in failure" aspect of KSP, does not exist to them. Rather than taking note of their problem, they complain.

Now in 1.1, theres a built in player's manual to help explain things to new players, and this is nice to the portion of the community who uses it, however the ones complaining (especially the ones who post under KSP general discussion rather than Tech Support) don't want a manual. They think "I don't need a manual, I know everything" so they sadly won't use it. This new community is sadly just not very cooperative.

Not EVERY new member will be sour. However, it seems the majority of new members, are. I hope this is just a phase of the community and they will come and go. But only time will tell.

[ExtremeSquared]

People don't realize this is still a de facto Early Access game. There will be bugs and they will be fixed. It's being run just fine for an Early Access project.

[sal_vager]

Bug reports actually go here @GoSlash27

The Official Kerbal Space Program Issue Tracker

Bugs reported to the tech support forums just get in the way of providing tech support to people in need, also completely breaks the workflow when dealing with issues, bugs reported on the forum are not copied to the tracker.

It's also important to understand that not everything is a bug, for example heat shield ablator will be reduced if heat shields are exposed to heat, whether from a Moho orbit or being too close to ISRU components, and KSP relies on your CoM relative to the pivot of control surfaces to know which way they should move, that's how the game works.

It's worth looking around and asking in Gameplay questions in case something is a game mechanic, not a bug.

It also doesn't help to have duplicate reports, please look to see if your issue has already been reported, it may already have a workaround.

Unfortunately 100% bug-free software isn't possible, the size and complexity of modern software means that bugs in some form will always exist, whether it's in a computer game, an operating system or even the Space shuttle, and a game like KSP allows players so much freedom there will always be things that go wrong for somebody.

So please report issues to the correct place, after having a look in case it's already reported, or in case it's something that's meant to happen.

Thank you.

[RocketBlam]

The problem is, I didn't buy KSP to be a bug tester. 

Also, these problems were widely known to exist before they released 1.1, in most cases. The landing gear issues are particularly frustrating because Squad knew about them, and they make aircraft nearly unusable. The same goes for landing struts.

[samstarman5]

That's a good reminder. There are wags who will declare something is a bug merely because it doesn't work the way they want it to. You really have to look into what they are talking about before hopping on their torch and pitchfork brigade.  I've seen this with AAA patches and back when Minecraft was still in early development.

[Glaran K'erman]

51 minutes ago, ExtremeSquared said:

People don't realize this is still a de facto Early Access game. There will be bugs and they will be fixed. It's being run just fine for an Early Access project.

I'll go as far to say that maybe a month or two after release a game can be in a quasi state of prerelease. But in the end it either is or it isn't...and KSP has been been out of Early Access since May 2015.
 

And slated to be released on the major consoles later this year I might add.

 

Edited April 24, 2016 by Glaran K'erman

[Alshain]

1 hour ago, sal_vager said:

Bug reports actually go here @GoSlash27

The Official Kerbal Space Program Issue Tracker

Bugs reported to the tech support forums just get in the way of providing tech support to people in need, also completely breaks the workflow when dealing with issues, bugs reported on the forum are not copied to the tracker.

It's also important to understand that not everything is a bug, for example heat shield ablator will be reduced if heat shields are exposed to heat, whether from a Moho orbit or being too close to ISRU components, and KSP relies on your CoM relative to the pivot of control surfaces to know which way they should move, that's how the game works.

It's worth looking around and asking in Gameplay questions in case something is a game mechanic, not a bug.

It also doesn't help to have duplicate reports, please look to see if your issue has already been reported, it may already have a workaround.

Unfortunately 100% bug-free software isn't possible, the size and complexity of modern software means that bugs in some form will always exist, whether it's in a computer game, an operating system or even the Space shuttle, and a game like KSP allows players so much freedom there will always be things that go wrong for somebody.

So please report issues to the correct place, after having a look in case it's already reported, or in case it's something that's meant to happen.

Thank you.

Not everyone knows how or wants to know how to use a bug tracker.  If Squad knows anything about customer support, they know that already.   If they don't know that, then that is why bugs go missed.

I've worked the last 10 years in customer support.  My job exists to take bugs from customers, interpret them into programmer-ese, and put them in bug trackers.  Requiring the customer to do that themselves is a sign of a very foolish company.

Personally, I could certainly do it, but I get paid to do that stuff, so unless Squad wants to hire me, well I won't.  This is the same reason I didn't sign up to be a tester, or even install the pre-release... because I get paid to do software testing.  Apparently I've been drafted anyway, because 1.1 is obviously still in testing.  Bugs happen, yes, nothing is bug free.  1.1 however is so grotesquely buggy that it won't even stay running.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Alshain

[Renegrade]

2 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

Can we please move beyond yelling at Squad for all the bugs in 1.1? Yeah, we're peeved. Yeah, they are aware of it. None of this complaining is helping to fix the bugs.

If we want to fix the problems and get back to blowing things up, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Bug reports need to go in the bug report thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/69-technical-support-unmodded-installs/

Uh, most of the bugs have already been reported in the pre-release.  At least, any that I complain about.

1 hour ago, sal_vager said:

 

It also doesn't help to have duplicate reports, please look to see if your issue has already been reported, it may already have a workaround.

Question: if it's already reported in the 1.1 Pre-Release section, does it have to be re-reported in the main section?   My ladder bug and symmetry bugs are still outstanding, but in the 1.1PR section.

[Green Baron]

Complaining is futile :-), the only thing we can do is wait until it's done. I played two hours and decided that it's yet too frustrating, the errors i've encountered are either already known or very basic things like memory corruption, so if squad didn't write any addons to the engine these things come from unity.

I might come back when it's 1.1.5 (am extrapolating from 1.0 :-)).

Cheers

[sal_vager]

21 minutes ago, Renegrade said:

Uh, most of the bugs have already been reported in the pre-release.  At least, any that I complain about.

Question: if it's already reported in the 1.1 Pre-Release section, does it have to be re-reported in the main section?   My ladder bug and symmetry bugs are still outstanding, but in the 1.1PR section.

Not really as the developers are still working at fixing the pre-release tracker issues, that tracker is just closed to new issues as we're out of pre-release.

[ExtremeSquared]

4 hours ago, Glaran K'erman said:

I'll go as far to say that maybe a month or two after release a game can be in a quasi state of prerelease. But in the end it either is or it isn't...and KSP has been been out of Early Access since May 2015.
 

And slated to be released on the major consoles later this year I might add.

 

It was a "release" in name only. I feel bad for people who didn't realize that, but the timing of the "release" was regarded as sort of a joke in the community, and a little bit of searching would have revealed this to new potential purchasers. It's still a de facto Early access, and I trust them not to abandon it.

Edited April 24, 2016 by ExtremeSquared

[shibdib]

5 hours ago, ExtremeSquared said:

People don't realize this is still a de facto Early Access game. There will be bugs and they will be fixed. It's being run just fine for an Early Access project.

 

This is wrong.. they advertised it as no longer being early access, they used that fact as a selling point to make money. So they now have to treat it as an officially released game. To let squad off the hook with a "it's still basically early access" junk is unacceptable. 

Edited April 24, 2016 by shibdib

[Majorjim!]

17 minutes ago, shibdib said:

 

This is wrong.. they advertised it as no longer being early access, they used that fact as a selling point to make money. So they now have to treat it as an officially released game. To let squad off the hook with a "it's still basically early access" junk is unacceptable. 

I keep forgetting that Sqaud are not game developers. Bearing that in mind it is more acceptable to have these issues. 

 They know a broken game is not right and I am sure they are working to fix it as soon a humanly possible. 

[ExtremeSquared]

20 minutes ago, shibdib said:

 

This is wrong.. they advertised it as no longer being early access, they used that fact as a selling point to make money. So they now have to treat it as an officially released game. To let squad off the hook with a "it's still basically early access" junk is unacceptable. 

It was a mistake to release 1.0. Most of us on here at the time predicted that, but we were already on board with dealing with a messy alpha product until completion. This leaves the post-1.0-release buyers though. An informed post-1.0 buyer should hopefully be able to see reviews, and this forum, and realize that this game is not finished.

[HebaruSan]

Personally, I don't fuss about bugs. Bugs are inevitable, and they take time and investigation and sometimes experimentation to fix. All you can do is try to time your dev cycle so you have your new features done with enough time left to get things in working order.

What shocked me was the decision to go to full 1.1 release given the known bugs. I know there were many complaints about 1.0, but 1.1 literally will not start at all with no error message in several common cases on Linux which did not trip up 1.0.5. Yes I know that's hard to investigate or fix. Perfect software does not exist, and in some cases third party software is involved. But that's not a reason to say "OK, it's a full release now" anyway when customers on one of your supported platforms will be receiving a product that doesn't even start (in many cases as an auto-update to a product that did start). It's a reason to rally everyone together to find a solution, get on the horn to your third party vendor, and publicly announce that you're going to take extra time to fix bugs A, B, and C.

Again, bugs? Completely understandable, no point complaining. Shipping a release with known showstopper bugs? I hesitate to use the word "unforgivable," but I probably would in other contexts.

[kmMango]

6 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

One of the biggest issues I've seen is that the community is changing (and I was just discussing this with @sal_vager yesterday).

When KSP first got started, those who came to the game where those who were willing to put up with the issues, and had the ability to solve problems independently. Slowly the game and the community matured. Currently however, the community has changed with new life. You will notice yourself, a lot of new users on the forums (joined anytime after Jan. 2016), and the majority of these complaints come from them. These users are coming to play the game based on nothing more than 1 or 2 youtube videos and are immediately diving into the game head first with no preparation or explanation.

So when they encounter an issue, they immediately reach out and complain, sometimes blaming Squad directly. Often, they're problems are one of 3 causes. 1, it's a problem with their design which with minor fixing would be solved. 2, It's a known bug, and they simply refuse to read up about it and work around it. So the simply complain and rage quit. And 3, it's simply the game not working to their expectations or desires. These players don't want to fail a few times to get to the moon, the "fun in failure" aspect of KSP, does not exist to them. Rather than taking note of their problem, they complain.

Now in 1.1, theres a built in player's manual to help explain things to new players, and this is nice to the portion of the community who uses it, however the ones complaining (especially the ones who post under KSP general discussion rather than Tech Support) don't want a manual. They think "I don't need a manual, I know everything" so they sadly won't use it. This new community is sadly just not very cooperative.

Not EVERY new member will be sour. However, it seems the majority of new members, are. I hope this is just a phase of the community and they will come and go. But only time will tell.

Well said. While I am not one of the early crop of forum users, I have been here just over two years. In that time, I have seen much of what Zoo is describing. 

Look at the posts of users joining after 1.0. A lot of them are poorly spelled and difficult to read. I get that some people don't want to put in the time to capitalize and punctuate, or English may not be their first language, but the quality coupled with these posts' content send a message.

 It seems a lot of these users are posting just to complain, or get help, and then lash out when somebody tries to diagnose the issue without immediately solving it for them. 

Often it's a very simple issue, even one addressed in the OP. This is really prevalent in mod threads. Go see for yourself.

Yeah, 1.1 was a bit of a train wreck, but it was out of Squad's hands, at least in terms of the wheels. Yeah, your favorite mod is broken, but that happens after every update. Even modders have lives. 

And a lot of the moaning is from long-time users (myself included). A lot of us were mad that such a major update came out so flawed. It's always easier to blame.

I am not trying to promote discrimination or any sort of animosity towards new users. I think too many people forget that we were all noobs once. 

The issue isn't that the community is getting dumbed down. I think KSP attracts a certain kind of person. Those people are often very passionate about science and engineering, which I think is part of the reason our community does so well. Now, more people are playing KSP, which is marvelous. However, that means that more people are joining the forum who probably wouldn't have before. A lot of people just play KSP like any other game, and they expect it to be slightly different than it actually is-easier to understand, faster, and with more instant gratification. They expect games to be a certain way. That doesn't mean we're better than them, just that they're different.

Instead of deriding them for expecting it to be easy, celebrate the fact that these people are interested in space and science enough to keep trying KSP even though it is very different from any game they've likely played. I've always said that KSP's learning curve isn't a curve so much as a sheer 90 degree cliff made of diamond, with a giant ravine below littered with exploded rockets.

Be kind to the Noobs. Help them, guide them, teach them. Do not hate them for being different. There's too much of that in this world already.

Edited April 24, 2016 by kmMango

[klgraham1013]

That's weird.  I thought they were developing a game.

Edited April 24, 2016 by klgraham1013

[Majorjim!]

Just now, klgraham1013 said:

That's weird.  I thought they were developing a game.

They are, their first ever. I really think it became much bigger than any of them expected. We should really cut them some slack. 

 I too am guilty of moaning about the state of the game and will try in future to tone it down and channel my passion for the game into bug reporting and helping squad make the game perfect. 

[klgraham1013]

I suppose I just want to remind developers that there is an expectation from customers when you claim a game is no longer early access, beta, pre-release, or any of the like.

Edited April 24, 2016 by klgraham1013

[Bloody_looser]

1 hour ago, shibdib said:

 

This is wrong.. they advertised it as no longer being early access, they used that fact as a selling point to make money. So they now have to treat it as an officially released game. To let squad off the hook with a "it's still basically early access" junk is unacceptable. 

 

38 minutes ago, ExtremeSquared said:

It was a mistake to release 1.0. Most of us on here at the time predicted that, but we were already on board with dealing with a messy alpha product until completion. This leaves the post-1.0-release buyers though. An informed post-1.0 buyer should hopefully be able to see reviews, and this forum, and realize that this game is not finished.

It's called 'continued development' and it's a thing nowadays. 90s are long gone, when release was a 'release' - basically abandonware - and users only got a hotfix patch distributed with some gaming press (and only if they were really lucky).

 

About SQUAD not being a game-dev company. Well, they are.

Look, dunno, at Paradox and their Crusader Kings 2. It's now in 2.5.whatever version. 1.0 and this one are two different games. Yeah, and saves are not compatible across versions. At all. But Paradox distribute previous major versions via Steam's beta system, and SQUAD should also consider this IMO.

 

So, stay cool, don't be butthurt and enjoy the calming poster.

Spoiler

P.S. I'm too busy playing the game to whine about bugs on the internets.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Bloody_looser

[kmMango]

28 minutes ago, Bloody_looser said:

 

It's called 'continued development' and it's a thing nowadays. 90s are long gone, when release was a 'release' - basically abandonware - and users only got a hotfix patch distributed with some gaming press (and only if they were really lucky).

 

About SQUAD not being a game-dev company. Well, they are.

Look, dunno, at Paradox and their Crusader Kings 2. It's now in 2.5.whatever version. 1.0 and this one are two different games. Yeah, and saves are not compatible across versions. At all. But Paradox distribute previous major versions via Steam's beta system, and SQUAD should also consider this IMO.

 

So, stay cool, don't be butthurt and enjoy the calming poster.

  Reveal hidden contents

P.S. I'm too busy playing the game to whine about bugs on the internets.

It's too late. My jimmies are thoroughly rustled.

I think the same is true of many of us. 

The rustling is so great that I can hear it in my house. I doubt a single jimmy on this entire forum remains unrustled.  

(I'm done now.)

Edited April 24, 2016 by kmMango

[ZooNamedGames]

30 minutes ago, kmMango said:

Well said. While I am not one of the early crop of forum users, I have been here just over two years. In that time, I have seen much of what Zoo is describing. 

Look at the posts of users joining after 1.0. A lot of them are poorly spelled and difficult to read. I get that some people don't want to put in the time to capitalize and punctuate, or English may not be their first language, but the quality coupled with these posts' content send a message.

 It seems a lot of these users are posting just to complain, or get help, and then lash out when somebody tries to diagnose the issue without immediately solving it for them. 

Often it's a very simple issue, even one addressed in the OP. This is really prevalent in mod threads. Go see for yourself.

Yeah, 1.1 was a bit of a train wreck, but it was out of Squad's hands, at least in terms of the wheels. Yeah, your favorite mod is broken, but that happens after every update. Even modders have lives. 

And a lot of the moaning is from long-time users (myself included). A lot of us were mad that such a major update came out so flawed. It's always easier to blame.

I am not trying to promote discrimination or any sort of animosity towards new users. I think too many people forget that we were all noobs once. 

The issue isn't that the community is getting dumbed down. I think KSP attracts a certain kind of person. Those people are often very passionate about science and engineering, which I think is part of the reason our community does so well. Now, more people are playing KSP, which is marvelous. However, that means that more people are joining the forum who probably wouldn't have before. A lot of people just play KSP like any other game, and they expect it to be slightly different than it actually is-easier to understand, faster, and with more instant gratification. They expect games to be a certain way. That doesn't mean we're better than them, just that they're different.

Instead of deriding them for expecting it to be easy, celebrate the fact that these people are interested in space and science enough to keep trying KSP even though it is very different from any game they've likely played. I've always said that KSP's learning curve isn't a curve so much as a sheer 90 degree cliff made of diamond, with a giant ravine below littered with exploded rockets.

Be kind to the Noobs. Help them, guide them, teach them. Do not hate them for being different. There's too much of that in this world already.

This post. You described everything else I could've said and more.

[kmMango]

6 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

This post. You described everything else I could've said and more.

For a moment I thought you were referring to my dank meme joke.

Thanks man. You had already said 90% of what I was thinking. I just felt a need to add my two cents.

Edited April 24, 2016 by kmMango