The Hours After A Major Update

FishyUberMuffin

War Paints Everywhere
Apr 26, 2015
954
186
Why do so many people get angry when the G.C. goes down and the servers are not working right after a major update drops? We all should know that the game will not work right out of the gate. It will needs to take a few days to let the severs get back up and running properly. I think the next major update comes out we should all not yell at the TF2 Team for not having the game running that great within the first 24 hours.
 

Da Spud Lord

Occasionally I make maps
aa
Mar 23, 2017
1,339
994
The main problem is just that the steam forums are cancerous.

That said, I don't think they're entirely wrong for expecting the update to at least be bug-free after the update launches. Sure, the servers being down for a couple hours can be excused since the servers also need to be updated at some point, but you would hope that they would at least be able to test the update before they launch it. Things like not being able to redeem War Paints and the respawnroom visualizers in cp_mercenarypark not blocking players are obvious bugs that should have been caught during testing. After a few rounds of buggy updates, I think the TF2 community is getting rightfully tired.

But there's two sides to every argument, and this isn't to say that the TFteam is lazy or purposely neglectful. They only have about 15 people on board, and only 5 of those are actual programmers (I think; don't quote me on this). Just think about the many, many different things that they had to do- create the SFM, create the map (including all of its new custom assets), create the new weapons, adjust existing weapons, consider how these additions and changes would impact the game in order to improve game balance, review community-created content, rework the matchmaking system (they're still working on those changes), and as the release date entered October, consider what they're gonna do for Halloween. And then there's all the work to actually program all these changes into the game. There's a ton of work to be done for only 15 people. One might think that even 15 people should be able to do a pretty adequate job of creating and testing a new update, given over a year to work on it since the last major update (holiday updates barely count). But again, there's two sides to every story, and one thing many people overlook is that until you're actually working on a team like that, you don't always know what it feels like. Then again, I don't need to be a pilot to know that airplanes don't belong in trees.

I'm kind of divided on this. On one hand, I understand the community's frustration with repeatedly buggy updates that are par at best and a total bellyflop at worst. On the other hand, the TFteam has a lot of stress on their shoulders. I think that Valve- not just the TFteam, but the actual heads of the company- need to look at expanding the TFteam to add more members so we can get better updates at a faster pace. Jungle Inferno was the perfect proof that TF2 still has lots of potential, but it needs more effort behind its development. The new Pyro weapons are super fun to use, the new Valve map looks pretty good and plays great, and the community maps added are proof that the community is still alive and thriving, and content creators aren't going to give up on this game anytime soon. But the bugs included in the update, the long wait time for the update, and the things that were glaringly missing from the update (matchmaking improvements) show that the TFteam is struggling to keep pushing regular, working updates. I hope that Valve gets the message and realizes they need to give TF2 and the TFteam some much-needed love.
 

PossessedInkieShark

L3: Member
Mar 27, 2015
113
32
respawnroom visualizers in cp_mercenarypark not blocking players are obvious bugs that should have been caught during testing

In my experience bugs exist because the devs never thought that they would exist
During play testing, why WOULD you try to enter an enemies spawn? Especially a test team that if more focused on map balance and fun.
These bugs appear so quickly after release because suddenly instead of a team of testers you have thousands of idiots trying to find ways to break the game so they can share it on youtube and get that juicy ad rev. Valve testers don't look for bugs but bored players/trolls do
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
This suggests to me that they don't have enough trained test leaders. If there is a reoccurring issue (players entering the wrong spawn room), you should have a dedicated test for it.
 

Crowbar

Spiritual preprocessor
aa
Dec 19, 2015
1,455
1,297
This suggests to me that they don't have enough trained test leaders. If there is a reoccurring issue (players entering the wrong spawn room), you should have a dedicated test for it.
Doesn't sound viable when the team is hardly a dozen of people though?
 

Muddy

Muddy
aa
Sep 5, 2014
2,574
4,592
That said, I don't think they're entirely wrong for expecting the update to at least be bug-free after the update launches. Sure, the servers being down for a couple hours can be excused since the servers also need to be updated at some point, but you would hope that they would at least be able to test the update before they launch it. Things like not being able to redeem War Paints and the respawnroom visualizers in cp_mercenarypark not blocking players are obvious bugs that should have been caught during testing. After a few rounds of buggy updates, I think the TF2 community is getting rightfully tired.
While this is true, I commend the TF Team for addressing the issues as quickly as they have. Within 4 days of the update being live, there have already been 4 updates to the game.

Honestly, some people just like being mad
 

Powerlord

L3: Member
May 8, 2010
127
60
While this is true, I commend the TF Team for addressing the issues as quickly as they have. Within 4 days of the update being live, there have already been 4 updates to the game.

Honestly, some people just like being mad
Part of the problem is that bugs that should have been caught with the slightest bit of testing made it to live.

For instance, as of the Jungle Inferno update, the Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol is supposed to fire 15% faster than the stock pistol. Instead, it fires 15% slower than the stock pistol. Any testing of this weapon what-so-ever would have caught that. Heck, when someone mentioned it to me, I looked at the item schema and confirmed that its fire speed delay multiplier is 1.15 (aka 115%) instead of 0.85 (85%) like it's supposed to be.