Hotfixes all the time now

The QA has gotten downhill. Hm. Wonder if they gutted their QA team!

The end is nigh! 4 hour maintenance will destroy the game! The quality of the game is following Lahabread into abyssos! Everything is futile we all should play candy crush now!

Really funny how a doomsday preacher troll comes out of their hole everytime there is some maintenance, are you mad you can't run your hundreds of bots for 4 hours?

Hey Hunky Beaver, haven't seen you in a while.

https://i.gifer.com/OH5.gif

troll thread, but usually anytime there's a major patch update there's bound to be some things that still need fixing afterwards that QA cannot all catch at the start. to be expected.

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Originally Posted by Reaver1236

The QA has gotten downhill. Hm. Wonder if they gutted their QA team!

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Yeah they need to hotfix this thread. Try harder.

OP should try playing an MMO that doesn't hotfix bugs in a timely fasion. (SWTOR)
It isn't fun.

I just assume someone's fishing again

Emergency maintenance is usually to quickly plug an exploit that has been discovered (such as the infamous gil steal exploit back in 2013), or else fix some other serious bug that can have dangerous repercussions (like the bugs that cause the server to crash, or player character data to be corrupted). It's annoying, but be thankful they get on the ball quickly to fix those problems.

Never mind, just realized it was another troll thread... Move along, nothing more to see here.

As long as the hotfixes do not take hours to install, i do not care about them. FF14 is even more painless because you do not have addons and addon interface versions. In games like WoW you have to update the addons very often after some patches.


Cheers

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Originally Posted by Reaver1236

The QA has gotten downhill. Hm. Wonder if they gutted their QA team!

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Oh no FFXIV fixes broken things, how dare they? the game is dead!!

Didn't they just have a maitenance for hot fixes the other day. Now they need another to fixes their mistakes that they fixed in last one. Team must been gutted and put on other games.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

Didn't they just have a maitenance for hot fixes the other day. Now they need another to fixes their mistakes that they fixed in last one. Team must been gutted and put on other games.

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exactly lmao, there has not been a single major patch since 6.0 without server-crashing congestion, game-breaking bugs, and countless hotfixes.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I just assume someone's fishing again

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Yeah sorry about that

...and that's why Emet-Selch eating hamburgers is--

oh wait wrong thread.

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Originally Posted by Reaver1236

The QA has gotten downhill. Hm. Wonder if they gutted their QA team!

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Why don't you give Elder Scrolls Online a spin? They skip their weekly maintenance pretty frequently. Though you have to live with quite a few game breaking bugs that have not been fixed in Years!

Honestly, I have to agree.

The constant notifications after every patch for hot fixes is just to a point where it really annoys people.

I'd love to make a suggestion to the devs that if a certain instance, or area is needing the fix. Just close that area?! They have done it before, so it's possible!

No need to fully shut down the game for 4 hours...

One other point I would make, Their time for maintenance is seriously poor... For us in the OCE region, The game is down from 4pm-8pm... That's PRIME TIME for us! Even in Japan! Their only 1 hour behind...

Go try EQ2. They've been patching every Tuesday morning for the past 18 years.

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■The following issue has been addressed:
・There are cases where the Cross-world Linkshell, PvP team, or fellowship will be disbanded if the owner (Cross-world Linkshell/fellowship: Master, PvP team: Team leader) has no more subscription days on their account and their character is withdrawn.

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Yeahh... that's a pretty damn serious bug that needed to be addressed immediately.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Yeahh... that's a pretty damn serious bug that needed to be addressed immediately.

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yes, thank god they pulled the game for 4 hours during statics prog on the new raids

/s

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

yes, thank god they pulled the game for 4 hours during statics prog on the new raids

/s

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It's also a new PvP season, which, with more limited time rewards, kinda trumps raids in terms of impact significance.

Raiders lost 4 hours of potential progression.

In theory, PvP teams affected just had more than a week of effort deleted.

Am I the only one who irks at the term "Hotfix", when the service is shut down for hours when the fix is being applied?

This one was pretty major; there is a issue that is causing CW Linkshells/Fellowships to auto-disband if the master runs out of subscription days and is withdrawn(?). (I.E: becomes unsubbed) - although the whole withdrawn part has me confused.

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Originally Posted by Xerkrosis

Am I the only one who irks at the term "Hotfix", when the service is shut down for hours when the fix is being applied?

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Heh, you're not the only one. The way we've done it, it's not a hotfix unless the system being patched is kept running. Hence the "Hot" part of the word. It's applied to a "Hot" live and running production system.

Otherwise it's just an emergency patch.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Heh, you're not the only one. The way we've done it, it's not a hotfix unless the system being patched is kept running. Hence the "Hot" part of the word. It's applied to a "Hot" live and running production system.

Otherwise it's just an emergency patch.

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Indeed, "Hotfix" has basically absorbed the meaning of Emergency Patch probably because it rolls off the tongue easier. And it didn't start with FFXIV either.

At the end of the day I don't mind it; language is a tool to communicate, and it seems like people decided that Hotfix's common definition is different now.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Heh, you're not the only one. The way we've done it, it's not a hotfix unless the system being patched is kept running. Hence the "Hot" part of the word. It's applied to a "Hot" live and running production system.

Otherwise it's just an emergency patch.

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There is no exact definition what "hotfix" means. But usually it means, that there is a bug in a software, which has to be fixed as soon as possible.


Cheers

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I just assume someone's fishing again

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Someone fished out the Catgirls from limsa

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

This one was pretty major; there is a issue that is causing CW Linkshells/Fellowships to auto-disband if the master runs out of subscription days and is withdrawn(?). (I.E: becomes unsubbed) - although the whole withdrawn part has me confused.

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Maybe I had to little coffee today but I didn't understand why they didnt get the game back up early

Well, they haven't exactly been sticking to small-time features and QoL implementations. So I think it's a granted that there would be issues.

Besides, issues aside I'm pretty sure this is just a testament to ensuring that the game operates as smoothly in the end. There are a lot of developers, teams, and studios that just simply don't care whether they put out a product that is even remotely functional, and similarly do not bother ironing out the issues whatsoever, even if they glaringly linger for years.

system needs to be maintained crying about does not help.

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Originally Posted by Xerkrosis

Am I the only one who irks at the term "Hotfix", when the service is shut down for hours when the fix is being applied?

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I don't even bother anymore. Speaking of which, are you telling me that none of the devs thought, "Hmm, what would happen if the leader of any crossworld anything were to delete their account or their account were to deactivate?" OP is right, QA is dead. WE are the QA, lmao.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

I don't even bother anymore. Speaking of which, are you telling me that none of the devs thought, "Hmm, what would happen if the leader of any crossworld anything were to delete their account or their account were to deactivate?" OP is right, QA is dead. WE are the QA, lmao.

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QA isn't dead. People are just living in a fantasy world when it comes to expectations. There's only so much that can be achieved in a bubble. The patch note is a perfect example of that. Past incidents are further proof. They don't know what the infrastructure can really handle until things like DC travel, IS and the housing lottery are properly unleashed on everyone. This stuff used to bother me, then I realized it's just the nature of MMOs. No amount of crying or complaining will ever bring about that perfect experience.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

QA isn't dead. People are just living in a fantasy world when it comes to expectations. There's only so much that can be achieved in a bubble. The patch note is a perfect example of that. Past incidents are further proof. They don't know what the infrastructure can really handle until things like DC travel, IS and the housing lottery are properly unleashed on everyone. This stuff used to bother me, then I realized it's just the nature of MMOs. No amount of crying or complaining will ever bring about that perfect experience.

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I mean, I would agree with you if the situation was a really weird trigger like "Oh, if you capture a chocobo in your IS and log off while standing in it, there is a chance your character's data becomes corrupted" but this is a real baseline thing that their QA should have tested. It is like them not testing what happens if you log off while loading into a PvP match and it auto-forfeits their team. For such a large company this sort of issue seems like they rushed it out the door without proper testing. That may or may not be the case but it sure feels that way, lol.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

I don't even bother anymore. Speaking of which, are you telling me that none of the devs thought, "Hmm, what would happen if the leader of any crossworld anything were to delete their account or their account were to deactivate?" OP is right, QA is dead. WE are the QA, lmao.

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This is a really wild conclusion. PvP teams, CWLS and Fellowships have all been around for quite a while. It'd be far more sensible to assume this situation has come up in the past to no serious effect. Nothing involved here is a new feature that just hasn't been tested. These are features that have been out for years, and should thus be generally assumed to be sufficiently tested and robust.

Leading to the conclusion that something done in the latest patch had an unexpected consequence. Shit like that just happens in code sometimes. It's the sort of thing that's just impossible to catch until it happens. And it's better for everyone that it happened now and not near the end of the PvP season, which would've turned into a huge mess.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

I haven't been paying attention to the frequency hotfixes but...
1 - if there's been an increase in the amount of hotfixes, then it doesn't matter that there's been hotfixes in the past, an increase in frequency means something's up
2 - if there hasn't been, then it's really just paranoia from OP.

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I dunno. For something that may happen once every two months it seems like not that big a deal. Nothing truly catastrophic has even happened.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I dunno. For something that may happen once every two months it seems like not that big a deal. Nothing truly catastrophic has even happened.

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From hotfixes, no... but. I mean, it's not catastrophic as that time summoning Bahamut in the Aetheryte Plaza crashed the servers. But housing in 6.1 for sure was a connundrum. For quite a long while. That required a bunch of maintenance work, though idk if those qualify as hotfixes.

I think Hotfixes are those bug fixes that they do all in one go. Which, as you said, regularly happens, I don't really think they've been going up in intensity. At least not that I've noticed.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

From hotfixes, no... but. I mean, it's not catastrophic as that time summoning Bahamut in the Aetheryte Plaza crashed the servers. But housing in 6.1 for sure was a connundrum. For quite a long while. That required a bunch of maintenance work, though idk if those qualify as hotfixes.

I think Hotfixes are those bug fixes that they do all in one go. Which, as you said, regularly happens, I don't really think they've been going up in intensity. At least not that I've noticed.

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Housing was a conundrum indeed. It just required time before they felt ready to push the fix. I think they even piggy backed some other fixes on it, which is something they normally do. There's a lot that gets fixed that we really don't (need to) hear about.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Oh it's the standard" [statistcal QA and letting end users do final QA], yes, so is crunching, I wonder how game devs are enjoying that one. Our society accepts far too much crap, it doesn't make it right.

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If industry didn't use this "standard," most people on this forum probably couldn't afford the hardware needed to run FFXIV. Go compare milspec component prices to equivalent COTS component prices and you'll see. And a lot of the extra cost is the 100% testing.

Besides, QA doesn't make software perfect. It finds some bugs, which the developers try to fix, hoping that new bugs aren't introduced by the changes.

You have to be delusional to think that any amount of QA could result in software as complex as FFXIV, that has to run in such a complex environment (the Internet) on such a wide variety of hardware, can ever be bug-free.

But complain all you want about the occasional bug: show us all what a fool you are.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

I don't even bother anymore. Speaking of which, are you telling me that none of the devs thought, "Hmm, what would happen if the leader of any crossworld anything were to delete their account or their account were to deactivate?" OP is right, QA is dead. WE are the QA, lmao.

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And why would anyone think that considering it's been working just fine for years? In an MMO, there are literally millions of things you can try and still not find all the bugs. That isn't "bad QA" that's just life. Every program will have that issue.

Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerH...ks_into_a_bar/

Read the post and the top comment. That's actually a good example of how shit can happen.

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

There is no exact definition what "hotfix" means. But usually it means, that there is a bug in a software, which has to be fixed as soon as possible.


Cheers

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Here something I can anecdotally support.
I support a software product at my work, and our hotfixes do require system downtime.
They're functionally the same as regular patches, except being for urgent fixes, they typically bypass a lot of the standard change release process, such as being put into Testing environments first.
This has been the case for several years now, so I wouldn't say it's a recent change in definition.