Forget Features - Did you FIX THE BUGS?

[Jared Kreft]

You spoke about all the cool new features for the empire, and that's great and all, but have you gone and fixed all the old bugs yet? PLEASE tell me you have.

Here's a quick list from my own personal set of reports:

Forming Colony doesn't inherit truces (they reconquest immediately). Reported over a year ago.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/eu-iv-forming-colony-doesnt-inherit-truces.1304685/

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/eu-iv-colonial-nations-dont-inherit-truces-when-formed.1121452/

Automated Transport Breaks on Capes (and other outjuttings of land)

Automated Transport Breaks on Capes

Problem: The transport ships keep dropping my troops halfway to the destination if they pass a large jutting piece of land, such as Cape of Good Hope, Sofala area, or sometimes Cape Horn. STR: I have the entire eastern African Coast, except for...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Circumnavigation of the Globe doesn't repair at ports along the way, doesn't use most direct route, doesn't plot a route from port to port if needed

Circumnavigate AI Should be Smarter/Repair

So, when you're circumnavigating, two things seem out of whack: 1) Your ships never stop in friendly ports to repair along the way. Even if you have easy hops that they can make from port to port, the AI won't stop and repair. It tries to do it...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Trying to retreat before you can brings up transport screen

Bug: Retreating attempts to use Transports inappropriately

STR: Have a fight in the middle of a bunch of land, no sea anywhere near. Say, middle of the alps.. Have a transport fleet somewhere. Early in the fight, before you can retreat, select the army and attempt to retreat to a nearby province. Actual...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Merchant Republic Event penalty stays if you swap to Monarchy

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/eu-iv-venice-changing-to-monarchy-doesnt-remove-restrained-council-of-ten-modifier.1152716/

I mean, these are just the bugs I have personally reported in the last year or so. I've basically taken a hiatus from the game until the first two are fixed because they make playing a colony game or naval empire annoying. But overall, I'm just frustrated with how every expansion comes and goes with new whizbang game mechanics that I may or may not care about or enjoy, but the features I've actually paid for for the game (I bought Mare Nostrum *specifically* for the automated troop transport) don't actually work yet.

I know that no one wants to play polish when they can build new stuff. But it's part and parcel of the process.

PS: If you don't have someone whose sole job is to polish your existing stuff instead of trying to design new stuff, have your recruiters contact me. I'm a fixer and have been fixing other people's grand ideas for a long long time. The little stuff *matters*.

 

[Borgratz]

I think what you are looking for is the patch notes dev diary.

 

[grotaclas]

The circumnavigation and the truces with new colonial nations don't sound like bugs to me. Or do you have any confirmation from the developers that these are bugs and are not working as intended?

 

[Jared Kreft]

The truces with colonial nations was finally acknowledged on the second report. It's blatantly a bug if the country you just ate 5 provinces from can immediately take them back and you can't intervene without a 5 stab hit.

The circumnavigation is an obvious bug if they're not taking the shortest explored route. The failure to go from port to port along that route is just a design flaw (still a bug, just a different kind).

Why the hell is it that anytime I point out a flaw, some fanboy who has no experience in QA or development has to jump up and claim that everything is working as intended?

 

[Jared Kreft]

I think what you are looking for is the patch notes dev diary.

No, what I'm looking for is for them to acknowledge that while new features are great, fixing old features we've already paid for should always be a priority.

 

[KaiserWilhelmI]

No, what I'm looking for is for them to acknowledge that while new features are great, fixing old features we've already paid for should always be a priority.

Fixes are generally always announced only when the patch notes are released.

Hold your horses.

 

[grotaclas]

The truces with colonial nations was finally acknowledged on the second report. It's blatantly a bug if the country you just ate 5 provinces from can immediately take them back and you can't intervene without a 5 stab hit.

The report only has a "Thank you for your report." from the new QA person. I wouldn't call that an acknowledgement. And as I said in the report, you can avoid that problem without the stab hit by making sure that no country with which you have a truce has a CB on your new CN. And that there is not automatic truce is a very useful feature to survive as a native american country.

The circumnavigation is an obvious bug if they're not taking the shortest explored route. The failure to go from port to port along that route is just a design flaw (still a bug, just a different kind).

Maybe we have a different definition of bug, but for me a bad design is not a bug. That's why I think it is better to do this as a suggestion. I agree that it is not realistic that the circumnavigation takes a fixed route and doesn't repair if needed, but changing that would make a circumnavigation much easier and might require a new balancing (e.g. a lower reward).

Why the hell is it that anytime I point out a flaw, some fanboy who has no experience in QA or development has to jump up and claim that everything is working as intended?

Let me reply with a different question: Why the hell do people claim that things they don't like are bugs?

As a person that likes to fix bugs, I agree that eu4 has way too many of them and that fixing them should have a higher priority. And I'd really like to do something like that as a part time job.
I also think that the system is too opaque and reporters never get any useful feedback from pdx. The most that you get is something like the "Thank you for your report." that you got. But there doesn't seem to be a meaning associated with that. I read most of the bug reports since the 1.29 patch and it seems to be more or less random who gets a reply and who doesn't. I think it would be much better if there would be a bugtracking system in which a report could get a status like "more info needed", "reproduced internally", "fixed internally", "fix released", "not a bug" or "duplicate of bug #".

 

[Jared Kreft]

And as I said in the report, you can avoid that problem without the stab hit by making sure that no country with which you have a truce has a CB on your new CN. And that there is not automatic truce is a very useful feature to survive as a native american country.

Then you didn't read very carefully. I take 5 provinces from Nation A. I can't take all of nation A because of warscore limitations. Those provinces put me over the 10 province limit. My colonial nation instantly forms. Nation A instantly declares war on my new colonial nation.

Maybe we have a different definition of bug, but for me a bad design is not a bug. That's why I think it is better to do this as a suggestion. I agree that it is not realistic that the circumnavigation takes a fixed route

It doesn't even take the SHORTEST route. Again, READ before you comment.

If you really think that's intended behavior, well, let's just say I have no respect for your game design skills.

Let me reply with a different question: Why the hell do people claim that things they don't like are bugs?

There are lots of things that I don't like. These are things that *as a professional*, I know are bugs. They're clearly broken behavior. They're clearly not working as intended. And every attempt to defend things like "pathfinding doesn't bother to find shortest route" as "working as intended" just makes me dismiss everything you have to say, because it makes it clear you're not a professional.

 

[Jared Kreft]

Fixes are generally always announced only when the patch notes are released.

Hold your horses.

I've waited through over a year of patch notes with no sign yet that they even know that this is a problem with a *paid feature* (the troop transport issues, specifically).

 

[grotaclas]

Then you didn't read very carefully. I take 5 provinces from Nation A. I can't take all of nation A because of warscore limitations. Those provinces put me over the 10 province limit. My colonial nation instantly forms. Nation A instantly declares war on my new colonial nation.

I think you misunderstand me. If you know how the mechanics work, you can avoid the situation by either not taking any provinces from A before your CN forms or by taking all provinces from A if that is possible(which it often is with the small countries in America). Of course with that in mind, you probably don't attack A in the first place and chose a better target. Or you wait till you cored the 5 provinces that you already have so that your CN forms before the peace deal(There isn't any 10 province mechanic. A CN forms if you have 5 cored provinces in the same colonial region.) Another way to avoid the problem is sitting on the OE so that the CN doesn't form till your truce runs out. Or you can just risk it, because it is rare for the AI to attack a CN(maybe they still factor in the overlord in their power calculations).

It doesn't even take the SHORTEST route. Again, READ before you comment.

Please also read what I wrote. The game is not designed to take the shortest route for the circumnavigation. It is designed to take a fixed route(I think it follows the historical first circumnavigation).

If you really think that's intended behavior, well, let's just say I have no respect for your game design skills.

What do my game design skills have to do with the ability to see if it was designed in some way or not? My game design skills are terrible. That's why I don't suggest any new features and don't judge feature requests or suggestions by others.

There are lots of things that I don't like. These are things that *as a professional*, I know are bugs. They're clearly broken behavior. They're clearly not working as intended. And every attempt to defend things like "pathfinding doesn't bother to find shortest route" as "working as intended" just makes me dismiss everything you have to say, because it makes it clear you're not a professional.

A bug in the pathfinding is not the problem with circumnavigation as it is not involved in that case.
And pathfinding is not always about the shortest route. Circumnavigation could also be designed to find the route which causes the least attrition. In that case the pathfinding is tasked with finding a route which is not the shortest.
The Cape behavior on the other hand is a bug in the pathfinding.
There are other problems with pathfinding in the game. For example it seems to avoid uncolonized provinces which sometimes results in a huge detour. And it seems to try to reduce attrition which sometimes results in a slightly longer path and that occasionally causes more attrition because of extra month ticks in enemy territory or provinces where the supply limit is too low.

 

[Insigna]

We should know Tuesday what issues have been addressed when they release the patch notes. They have mentioned some other bug fixes in Dev Diaries so there’s some hope.