CBU3's latest blunder shows the importance of Quality Control Checks

Latest version of the Relic questline has a massive bottleneck.

It involves you going to kill a mob and get a quest item. Sounds standard right?

No.

It's an overworld mob, not the kind that spawn when you enter a darkened area. An overworld mob, that hundreds of people are fighting over to get credit for.

The worst part? IT'S NOT EVEN 100% DROP CHANCE

https://media.tenor.com/t6V-MIkkT8kA...-teach-you.gif

I'm not sure what kind of "quality check" would discover that error. They could test the whole questline from start to finish and have no problem fulfilling the objectives.

Anyway, if this is anything like the crowd of people around an MSQ questgiver on patch launch day, the very simple solution is to come back tomorrow and find it dead quiet.

At least it's not just another 1500 Tomestones

It's still shitty compared to SB and ShB relic grinds.

I'm kind of convinced this was a last minute change because of the backlash from the 2nd step being another tome grind and they couldn't think of anything else.

I haven't logged in yet. Does partying work to mitigate this issue? Might be a better temporary solution than just coming back tomorrow, especially if ... everyone else decides to come back tomorrow. xd

There are three instances I just went to instance 3 and was alone killing the mark. Maybe try another instance OP.

Sounds like a good time to play other games until the issue resolves itself :).

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I'm not sure what kind of "quality check" would discover that error. They could test the whole questline from start to finish and have no problem fulfilling the objectives.

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Part of QA is knowing more real life data than what coders can think of.

This isn't the first time a massive bottleneck has hindered the game.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Part of QA is knowing more real life data than what coders can think of.

This isn't the first time a massive bottleneck has hindered the game.

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Precisely. This is such a common issue in MMOs that even in the design phase they should have changed how the quest worked.

It's embarrassing that FF14 even implemented the quest this way.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I'm not sure what kind of "quality check" would discover that error. They could test the whole questline from start to finish and have no problem fulfilling the objectives.

Anyway, if this is anything like the crowd of people around an MSQ questgiver on patch launch day, the very simple solution is to come back tomorrow and find it dead quiet.

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If your MMO QA team can't even test in anticipation of a large amount of people, what it is even there for?

You know, not everything needs to get instanced? And that "problem" is only for the first 24 hours anyway.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

You know, not everything needs to get instanced? And that "problem" is only for the first 24 hours anyway.

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You don't need to make it instanced...? You can just put... a lot of mobs there.

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Originally Posted by TheNight

You don't need to make it instanced...? You can just put... a lot of mobs there.

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My point of contention was asking for instances the second something is inconvenient. The game less less instances and general MMO features, not less. And it's a non issue in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

My point of contention was asking for instances the second something is inconvenient. The game less less instances and general MMO features, not less. And it's a non issue in the first place.

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But OP didn't ask for instances?? Someone just gives advice to jump into other instances to see if there's fewer people.

Wait, I thought people wanted open world stuff?





This is exactly why I have been saying that's bad lmao. Nice to be proven right.

People do want open world stuff but if open world stuff is still badly implemented then of course it is going to be bad, it proved you nothing.

Only thing it proved is their lack of competence.

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Originally Posted by OM3GA-Z3RO

People do want open world stuff but if open world stuff is still badly implemented then of course it is going to be bad, it proved you nothing.

Only thing it proved is their lack of competence.

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But this is true, non instanced, non party limited open world. The kind from the days of yore.



And it's why open world doesn't work in a game like XIV.



Maps are open world too but I see people disregard them as open world content.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Wait, I thought people wanted open world stuff?





This is exactly why I have been saying that's bad lmao. Nice to be proven right.

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This also extended into the fate spamming too like the first 2 or so days good luck doing fates unless you could nuke a rotation in the seconds the fates were around for...it was like doing a hunt train basically. Not saying they couldn't of been better prepared but doing this probably first thing in the morning or late night will be better for the first few days till it cools off.

I had no idea the mob was rare, I went in and smacked it in seconds but at the same time I was probably among the first to be over with this questline since I hate hildibrand.

Being in NA, I just hop to Dynamis DC, got my item on first kill, then hop back to Aether lmfao.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Being in NA, I just hop to Dynamis DC, got my item on first kill, then hop back to Aether lmfao.

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I got my malboro kill on crystal with no problem. Materia with only one instance was a bit harder but didn't take too long. Take awhile for people to probably realize there are 3 instances and the initial rush will be over pretty quickly.

I seriously dont see the problem
every mmo ever has had this before lol

Is this really a "massive" bottleneck?

I mean...you got instances, world transfer, Data center transfer

In my world I just walked up and bopped the monster without a soul in sight.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

But this is true, non instanced, non party limited open world. The kind from the days of yore.



And it's why open world doesn't work in a game like XIV.



Maps are open world too but I see people disregard them as open world content.

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It mostly doesn't work in any MMO.

Low spawn rate
Low acquisition rate (non 100%)
Lots of players attempting to do something that doesn't have shared mob taps.

Kind of a recipe for failure.

Especially when they literally have a mechanic to prevent this (mobs appearing on a darkened quest circle)

This is 100% an unforced error. It literally didn't need to happen.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I'm not sure what kind of "quality check" would discover that error. They could test the whole questline from start to finish and have no problem fulfilling the objectives.

Anyway, if this is anything like the crowd of people around an MSQ questgiver on patch launch day, the very simple solution is to come back tomorrow and find it dead quiet.

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Someone needs to help them count. This isn't the first time they have had numbers and ignored them for a favoured design. Funny though your comment is close to exact same comments when the one armed man held the player base captive.

A lot of the problems with game play related issues would be mitigated by the presence of a PTR server. It'd also help by allowing lore enthusiasts to catch some of the localisation issues and strange retcons that seem to be occurring with greater frequency in recent years.

Well. Folks complained about tomes for months so I say it's par for the course.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Well. Folks complained about tomes for months so I say it's par for the course.

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The actual relic is still 1500 tomes

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Originally Posted by OM3GA-Z3RO

At least it's not just another 1500 Tomestones

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I've got bad news for you...

Design and implementation fail, not a QA fail.

I can't attest to FFXIV specifically, but I've seen this act play out many times before. QA on a project like this is very, very rarely even allowed to provide feedback on design issues. It's not 2002 anymore: QA's job is to make sure things work to spec. If the spec is bad, that's not QA's purview.

You can occasionally manufacture a problem into a form that kinda resembles a bug if your policies aren't too strict and your leads/approvers aren't paying close attention, but that only works some of the time - and they'll usually as-design or wontfix it. You can maybe weld it into the notes of another bug or ask for clarification, but you probably won't get a response.

Internal QA at a sufficient level to provide feedback won't be testing something like this in the first place, and only a rare few will actually open their doors to contract and junior testers to take their feedback and turn it into something actionable because it's extra work and often ignored anyway.

If you want this to change, support labor unionization and encourage the growth of it in tech, and apply pressure to your politicians to clamp down on outsourcing and the (ab)use of staffing agencies as disposable quasi-employees. (Yes, even - especially - in Japan.) It won't solve it entirely, because some of it is just egos and psychology at work, but loosening the ability to communicate internally without the constant omnipresent threat of violating the labor laws that the companies are brazenly hanging out on the margins of would go a long way to improving the ability to respond to obvious impending disasters like this.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

I seriously dont see the problem
every mmo ever has had this before lol

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So shouldn't SE avoid designing a quest that has the quintessential MMO problem??

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Originally Posted by Koros

So shouldn't SE avoid designing a quest that has the quintessential MMO problem??

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Obviously quest design from 2008 is the peak.

I was surprised I managed go fell the mob with nobody around. And this was when the content was a good 4 hours after it was released

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I was surprised I managed go fell the mob with nobody around. And this was when the content was a good 4 hours after it was released

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They did add 2 extra instances to Thavnair, most people probably just couldn't be bothered to switch.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Obviously quest design from 2008 is the peak.

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Give them a break. CBU3 just found out about escort quests in Endwalker, so now every quest line has to have them.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Give them a break. CBU3 just found out about escort quests in Endwalker, so now every quest line has to have them.

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Bruh, we've had escort quests since AR flipping R.

You all don't remember some of the initial levequests where you had to beckon emote on an npc to safety? Or when you had to protect that moogle when you were getting to Thornmarch.


Amazing how people easily forget. Unreliable the lot of you.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Bruh, we've had escort quests since AR flipping R.

You all don't remember some of the initial levequests where you had to beckon emote on an npc to safety? Or when you had to protect that moogle when you were getting to Thornmarch.


Amazing how people easily forget. Unreliable the lot of you.

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You're so argumentative it's not even funny lmao, CBU3 literally said the new escort quests are something new, a new feature in MMOs, they said this themselves in the live letters (plural actually). We are just going by their words. The difference is super clear, the NPC in the new escort quests follow you seamlessly while in the old ones it's code jank where they only walk in a straight line every few seconds (that's why you can't spam /beckon and have to wait) or a predetermined path. As to why this is considered a new feature don't ask us, ask CBU3, it just shows how low standards are that a minor technology update is considered huge.

As to Deceptus' point, it's incredibly clear that the new type of escort quest is an entirely new thing because it's built for "immersion". The dialogues, the ability to talk to those NPCs, etc. are all new (the Thornmarch moogle walked in a predetermined path), and their point is that they keep reusing this new "feature" ad nauseum. I personally don't have a problem with it but you really don't need to argue pedantically about how it's not new (when the devs themselves said it was new so you are just as unreliable), I promise you you are not going to get hired by SE by defending them like this.

I'm a bit puzzled, because I had read this thread and expected finding a turtle to be an ordeal, but I played this Day 1 and there were no other players around, and plenty of turtles. I killed a turtle, got the drop, and another turtle immediately spawned in its place.

It seems like if there indeed was an issue that it rapidly resolved itself.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

I killed a turtle, got the drop, and another turtle immediately spawned in its place.

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If a standard overworld monster appears to respawn immediately, I would guess that someone else came by and killed a different individual, you killed a second one and the first one just happened to reappear at that point.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

I'm a bit puzzled, because I had read this thread and expected finding a turtle to be an ordeal, but I played this Day 1 and there were no other players around, and plenty of turtles. I killed a turtle, got the drop, and another turtle immediately spawned in its place.

It seems like if there indeed was an issue that it rapidly resolved itself.

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There had been an issue. It didn't resolve itself. They added the instances 2.5 hours after the servers came up from maintenance to resolve it.

BLUs later discovering a more efficient leveling method in Tempest compared to killing mobs in Thavnair (including the quest mobs) also helped.