[BHVR Staff] Use the gold standard of DevOps strategies to significantly improve bug reporting
Introduction
To preface this, my recommendation is coming from someone who's been in the software industry and has a background in software development. I've also been a part of this community for over 2 years, amassing nearly a thousand hours in-game and participating in many streamer communities, knowing that there at times is a disconnect in communication between developers and the users as far as bug reporting is concerned. Some bugs such as the infamous movement bug have been in the game for months without much general consensus on when the bugs will be fixed if ever. And the only means to search bug reports is to use the limited forum search which only searches text contents, not contextual groupings (tags).
My recommendation:
I would highly recommend switching to using a dedicated platform for reporting bugs that allows for proper triaging, tagging, organizing, and searching of bugs as well as attributing them to specific version of release (e.g. v4.1.1) that is exposed to the end users (players). This is the tried and true way for software developers to manage issues as well as assess and get additional information on them in partnership with users across all sub-domains of software development. The forum does some of the functions of bug reporting really well, but is often messy and is lacking in moderation.
Of course, a large game like Dead By Daylight receives new bug reports daily, to the point where it takes a lot of work to maintain the bug reports, collect additional information needed, spot duplicates, and handle invalid requests. Part of any strategy means having a good team of maintainers that can manage the repository and sift through, categorizing and triage bugs by their significance.
How can this be achieved:
First of all, a platform like GitHub's Issues platform (does not require source code, an empty repository is standard for closed-source) or Atlassian's Jira allows for proper organization and discussion of issues with the ability to ID issues, tag contents, track progress, link related issues, and triage the most important bugs for most immediate attention.
To solve the issue of under-moderation of the current bug report system, staff may also look to having a sign-up page for people in the community to maintain the bug reports and ensure information is properly labelled, ask for additional information that may be lacking, and corroborate multiple people's accounts of information in the discussion for accuracy. Many people who care about the game and the community will certainly volunteer to help in their free time, myself included.
Having a large base of community maintainers also has the added benefit of reducing the load on staff, as developers can just look at what bugs are most critical and can be fixed, updated their progress as they work on them, and close the reports when they're done. Community managers or other staff may have the task of overseeing the community maintainers and stepping in where needed, instead of having to deal with the flood of reports alone.
What's wrong currently:
- Current bug reports get lost in an ever-increasing forum of submissions
- There are many overlaps in bug reports, with many that are marked as "duplicate" not referencing the original source
- Very seldomly is there feedback on the progress of a bug report until the bug is fixed other than an acknowledgement, most reports are stuck in "Pending"
- There's no way to determine priority (as determined by developers), allowing important bugs to get lost in the shuffle
- Outstanding bugs aren't searchable by game version, as such, bug records are fragmented into different forums (Feedback -> Bug Reports, Archive -> Bug Reports, Feedback -> PTB Bug Reports, etc.)
Example tagging model:
Type [set by submitter]:
bug
- An unintended functionality in the gameenhancement
- A suggested change to game-play (of lowest importance)
Status [set by maintainers & developers]:
pending review
- Hasn't been investigated by developers (initial state)needs additional info
- Developer has requested the submitter include more infoplanned change
- Developers are aware and intend to solve the issuein progress
- Developers are currently working to fix itimplemented
- Will be released in next patch / minor version- Issue Closed - Fix is implemented in the live build (final state)
- Issue Reopened - Issue has returned for some reason
wontfix
- Won't be worked on, may be extremely difficult, extremely minor, etc.invalid
- Issue cannot be replicated under the same circumstances by othersduplicate
- Issue is similar to another open issue (similar issue's ID should be referenced in the discussion)
Priority (Triage) [set by submitter, modified by maintainers]:
- None - Needs triaging
low priorty
- Issues that are a minor inconvenience and don't disrupt game-play (i.e. visual glitches)medium priority
- Issues that cause some annoyance and detriment game-play to some extent (e.g. the movement bug)high priority
- Issues that cause serious frustration during game-play (e.g. Oni's attack bug that requires him to DC)critical priority
- Issues that make the game unplayable for many (i.e. game crashing / match DC bugs)
Platforms (add all platforms known to have issue) [set by submitter, modified by maintainers]:
steam
windows store
ps4
xbox
nintendo switch
Game Version (First appearance) [set by submitter, modified by maintainers]:
v4.1.0-ptb
v4.1.0
v4.1.1
- etc.
Topics (To help with assigning tasks) [set by submitter, modified by maintainers]:
topic: audio
topic: performance drops
topic: killer
topic: survivor
topic: localization
topic: map generation
topic: perks
topic: add-ons
topic: visuals
topic: network connectivity
topic: platform-specific
topic: other
Comments
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I hope you out this much effort into your life. You’ll go far. Good job.
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I do a lot of software development and this was just something that's been eating at me for a while, sorry if it's a lot!
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This looks like someone who knows what they're talking about, if I were from the DBD team, I'd pay attention to someone who knows what they're doing
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Have an upvote for a job well done.
As for the game and its developers, habits are really hard to change and programs are gonna be even harder to switch out. I doubt we'll see anything from this.
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@SurpriseSurprise I mean, with a community this big that's dedicated to seeing the game succeed, it wouldn't be too hard to get a good amount of committed maintainers that can service the requests. For example, Minecraft has a ticket system exposed completely to the users with volunteer helpers that are effective at spotting duplicates and gathering more info in the ticket without adding extra moderation work to the developers responsible for coding. Very rarely do big bugs make it out of snapshot releases (like our PTBs), and even more rarely are there ever one or two patches released after an official release, as bugs are properly triaged. Many games and programs are designed in this way, and critical bugs tend to get solved quickly in an environment that focuses on bug priority and clear communication with reporters.
There's not much legal dispute as it's not as if maintainers are being asked to contribute fixes directly to closed-source and there is no payment needed for people to volunteer.
I do agree with removing the "Enhancements" from the tags. That would be better served in a sub-forum as it's less about solving issues with specific game versions and circumstances and more about contributing new content ideas (which in this community would lead to a LOT of input).
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Idk what the intent was but I read that as a sincere compliment.
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It was actually a sincere statement. They put a lot of work into it. Sorry you took it wrong. Txt doesn’t really display empathy that well. Their reply to it seemed to show they understood it was sincere.
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I am sure the brick wall you are typing to is greatful.
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