AQ40 did not live up to the Kronos standard

C'thun was amazing yes, as for the rest I just do not understand why you would release if you clearly aren't ready. It wouldn't have hurt not fixing the firebloom 'bug' for another week to test if everything was working fine.

It could have been released properly by now and everyone would have been talking about Kronos being the perfectly scripted server, NOS SUCKED LALLL!, Ed was a joke!!111!(athairne suck it!), and everyone being mad out of their mind about just having done AQ again after 10 years of waiting for it. Instead of half the playerbase feeling a bit down having trash not manadrain at all, wiping because of unkillable bosses etc, this should have been a joyeous moment for all.

I'm sure the devs themselves were not happy seeing the transition between PTR and live causing countless bugs somehow, after months of all their hard work having not as succesfull release as they first would've thought. I felt for them a bit as well, especially seeing the countless updates in the hidden bugreport section being applied in this final week, working around the clock seeing the war effort being completed and having their 5 day hard deadline. but surely this could have been avoided by delaying a little bit and testing the live part of it.

Peasemold said:

Since when did constructive criticism make people assholes? The only person to post shit slinging is Rolexsweep.

Yes it's a free service and a project done voluntarily. That doesn't mean you aren't allowed to discuss things that come as a disappointment. If no one ever mentions things that are wrong, how are they supposed to improve?

My guild normally raids at the time it was released. We had to deal with numerous bugs too. We weren't racing, we just wanted to do new content. Despite bugs, lag and whatever else it was still the most enjoyable raid experience in a very long time.

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Constructive criticism? I disagree. More like a bunch of people criticizing the release, complaining about the testing, and QQ'n because what they got didn't live up to their expectations. The only person to offer any constructive criticism was Fei for pointing out specific issues they encountered with each boss.

How many AAA titles have bugs when they are releases. Hundreds. Thousands. Practically all of them. It's practically an industry standard now. But you pay for those. This is a project provided to you free of charge by volunteers. Discuss things all you want, but don't throw the dev team under the bus while you do it.

Yes, constructive criticism. We have suggested multiple ways to ensure such things don't happen in the future. We have tried that in the past as well. Just read what Voidzone said - with just a tiny bit more of care, or perhaps manpower, this could have been a perfect release. But it wasn't. So let's make sure that the next content release indeed is perfect?

Hull said:

Constructive criticism? I disagree. More like a bunch of people criticizing the release, complaining about the testing, and QQ'n because what they got didn't live up to their expectations. The only person to offer any constructive criticism was Fei for pointing out specific issues they encountered with each boss.

How many AAA titles have bugs when they are releases. Hundreds. Thousands. Practically all of them. It's practically an industry standard now. But you pay for those. This is a project provided to you free of charge by volunteers. Discuss things all you want, but don't throw the dev team under the bus while you do it.

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I think you are projecting onto what we are actually saying. If you read Erminns post for example he gives a history and constructive feedback on how the testing and developing could be improved in the future. Outside of this thread several people who have voiced concerns here have contributed to the bug tracker as well as in the thread that Bazzil linked in this thread.

We all want the best for Kronos and of course we would like properly scripted dungeons on release, that does not make us QQing crybabies.

Also since Im suspecting a dev or a GM is reading this thread. I would like to applaud the staff for sticking it out and manage to fix the lagg and downtime. I know from Bazzils post this all affected the development of AQ and I can understand that. I dont agree with the way AQ was tested or releasing it in its current state but I can definetly see your point of view.

First off, we do appreciate the constructive criticism and feedback by our community. We are ALWAYS open to constructive criticism and feedback. As I mentioned in another thread, these bugs that guilds experienced on release were not present in our internal PTR testing. These bugs appeared during the transition to "live" from the ptr. These were not able to be predicted as there is always a chance that importing code can potentially have unexpected consequences. However, as was demonstrated we quickly resolved these bugs as they came up and clearly with having 3 guilds clear the content within 6 hours or release, I would say that our team were quick and on point with resolving them as they arose. Nothing is ever perfect, but our goal is to always strive for perfection as best we can.

We will definitely take all feedback and use it to better ourselves as we move forward. Thank you again.

Walgrave said:

"be grateful for what the kronos team is doing for YOU for FREE." - epix

Yes, because investing ~12k stars into the project is just charity work.

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you donated ~320€/~400$? this is not nostalrius, donations have not been begged for.

also, donations should not be given with the expectation of anything in return except stars

:coweat:

I don't really want to derail this topic, Alena. Since you point it out, I would like to clarify that it's supporting the server. Just like you support it with your activity here and in the game. It's all support. Support keeps it alive. So no, they do not do this for free. Even if some, or most devs are not paid, the project gets money/publicity from the support - whatever form it comes in.

If the admins/devs/volunteers were all in it in a non-profit manner, you wouldn't see such an active shop/auction/trading scene. So no, they are not providing this to us for free.

To bring it back to topic: that epix guy is telling us to be thankful for any bread crumbs that we get and not to ask for more because the devs are all just humanitarian people trying to help needy Vanilla-starved beggers. No, we can and should provide constructive feedback so things are improved to a high quality level which this project is aiming for.

Peasemold said:

Since when did constructive criticism make people assholes? The only person to post shit slinging is Rolexsweep.

Yes it's a free service and a project done voluntarily. That doesn't mean you aren't allowed to discuss things that come as a disappointment. If no one ever mentions things that are wrong, how are they supposed to improve?

My guild normally raids at the time it was released. We had to deal with numerous bugs too. We weren't racing, we just wanted to do new content. Despite bugs, lag and whatever else it was still the most enjoyable raid experience in a very long time.

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Whatever, I'm an asshole, but on the back of what the staff is telling us here the OP's point (specifically with AQ PTR) is pointless anyway. I'm still on the boat that if the first 120 players experience bugs so that the remaining 2000 can play without, then it's reasonable.

It is simply a fact of life that the first into battle get slaughtered.

For example, if you buy a brand new GPU hot off the presses and it has overvolting or driver issues, you shouldn't be surprised. If you buy the best-selling GPU that is 8 months old that already has driver updates, compatibility improvements and multiple iterations of firmware you probably won't experience any issues.

Yes, testing should weed out many of these issues but anyone that has created a product knows there is no QA process that can prepare you for releasing your product for the first time to the masses.

With the resources available to them, I think the Kronos team did a fine job and we should celebrate the fact that a 1x server finally implemented both AQ raids.

Walgrave said:

I don't really want to derail this topic, Alena. Since you point it out, I would like to clarify that it's supporting the server. Just like you support it with your activity here and in the game. It's all support. Support keeps it alive. So no, they do not do this for free. Even if some, or most devs are not paid, the project gets money/publicity from the support - whatever form it comes in.

If the admins/devs/volunteers were all in it in a non-profit manner, you wouldn't see such an active shop/auction/trading scene. So no, they are not providing this to us for free.

To bring it back to topic: that epix guy is telling us to be thankful for any bread crumbs that we get and not to ask for more because the devs are all just humanitarian people trying to help needy Vanilla-starved beggers. No, we can and should provide constructive feedback so things are improved to a high quality level which this project is aiming for.

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i was just pointing out that you wasted your money since you thought you were getting anything in exchange except for stars. that and it was unnecessary since donations haven't been begged for like on nostalrius.

i don't know why you went into a rant about donating equals support.
you wasted your money by expecting more than stars and tried to hold it over the project like it means anything.

ps. like govt programs, showering money on something doesn't turn it into gold

No, I did not waste my money. I invested, that's the word I used. A concept lost on you it appears. In other words, supporting a project I agreed with and wanted to boost. It's not a complicated idea, man. Donations help Twinstar for example, to switch to different ISPs, better infrastructure, so on. It's not just stars I get in return, but a better service.

Since you bring up Nost. That was a truly "free" server, service provided for free. Since the owners/admins/devs/GMs none of them made any profit. They did not "beg" as you like to demean them, they allowed people who wanted the project to live (quite a lot of people, mind) to donate directly to their ISP to keep servers up or to donate for a expanded infrastructure, since they had no shop/auction/trade.

^and then u say you invest 12k stars and it's not charity work - implying you expected something else in return.

stop acting retarded please as the gms stated and as anyone not mentally challenged would know, bugs occur on transition and gms did a good job fixing those. For those still butthurt please go outside get some fresh air and realize this service is FREE to you and even if it wasnt they did a good job.

Walgrave said:

No, I did not waste my money. I invested, that's the word I used. A concept lost on you it appears. In other words, supporting a project I agreed with and wanted to boost. It's not a complicated idea, man. Donations help Twinstar for example, to switch to different ISPs, better infrastructure, so on. It's not just stars I get in return, but a better service.

Since you bring up Nost. That was a truly "free" server, service provided for free. Since the owners/admins/devs/GMs none of them made any profit. They did not "beg" as you like to demean them, they allowed people who wanted the project to live (quite a lot of people, mind) to donate directly to their ISP to keep servers up or to donate for a expanded infrastructure, since they had no shop/auction/trade.

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Just because you donate doesn't mean you can make up a list of imaginary features that should benefit from it. It's called a donation and not an investment for a reason. When I donate to Red Cross I know that a large portion will be lost to administration and bureaucracy, which is exactly why I don't pull out the magnifier and ask why infant mortality rates haven't gone down in Mali.

It is important that all non-blizzlike flaws in script are approached in a documented and objective manner, as hard and as frustrating as this can be. I run the guild the same way, I don't let my feelings or ego stop any criticism directed towards myself, the way things are run and the strategies employed. I feel the same for the Kronos' dev team.

Regardless of which way you choose to rationalize the opening state of the AQ encounters, it is important never to sacrifice truth and objectivity in the name of any realm loyalty, subjectivity or perception bias while at the same time understanding that this realm is a passion project for the GMs and development team on their own free time. Although the expectation is high and can often not be met, I think many in this thread are psychologically projected upon by others who perceive objective criticism as "hate" or who perceive the reality of the uphill battle of the Kronos team and defending the GMs as "white knighting".

I enjoyed our first week in AQ20 and AQ40 despite many glaring flaws, and although MC and BWL are still not perfect, the response time to correcting issues in AQ40 has been high. I helped direct brand new tanks who have never seen this content before, vanilla-AQ40 virgins, and many players who have never played a private server before this (myself included) through an interesting thrill ride of unpredictable non-blizzlike madness. I think the community should spend some time documenting and correcting the issues they find properly and save the the emotional rationalizations for defeat and victory. (I know its hard, finding videos of tremor totem breaking mind control for example, even though I know with 100% confidence, is near impossible to find.)

The goal of Donate is to financially support our server

This is kind of derailed now, sadly. I wanted to avoid it. My comment of 12k stars is not charity work was in reply to Epix saying "be grateful for what the kronos team is doing for YOU for FREE". Kronos Team is not providing this for free, we pay a price. That is not just some people's money, but also having the Kronos shop/auctions/trading on this server at the cost of real money, money that is going to the project. It is essentially a free-to-play game with micro-transactions (not really "micro"). So all those F2P games out there, they are not providing a service for free. There is a price. It is the micro-transactions. Clearer I hope?

I did not ask for a list of features, as Rolex misunderstands. I clarified Epix's comment, using another project as an example to Alena as he did not understand. Lots of that going around sadly.

Anyway please do not derail this topic, if you have a problem with me/my comments, PM.

Edit: Read Onslaught's comment above this, continue from there. Ignore this!

Some top guilds' players claim that Naxx did not live up to the Kronos standard.

I didn't see more than a half of Naxx yet, but it seems to me that it's way better than

DarkStorm said:

pretty much every single boss inside AQ40 was bugged in some way except perhaps for C'thun. Thats not counting how many trash mobs that also were bugged.

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As far as I understand, the suggestion

bl4ckc0d3r said:

Conclusion is that 99.99% of these bugs would have been avoided with a different strategy when it comes to pre-release raid testing. I still strongly believe that my original suggestion from before ZG that there should be multiple testing raids supervised by GMs would be the best solution.

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was kinda fulfilled but for Sapph/KT.

/discuss

Not every boss was bugged. Most of them were fine. However, a couple of the bosses had massive bugs; and all of them (save those on Sapph/KT) were discovered during PTR testing and were reported.

The fact that they are fixed now a mere day after the release of Naxxramas shows that it was absolutely easy to do so. This raises the question why the Kronos team disgraced themselves this way by releasing the unfixed versions.

I can only conclude that nothing was learned from the AQ disaster - Naxxramas was just as bad. Frankly, I am appalled. We got a poor version of Naxxramas on Saturday not because it was difficult to fix, but because the Kronos team just didn't give a fuck about providing quality.

The fact that Ermean managed to script the bosses better on Vanguard's private testing realm speaks volumes. Hats off to him.

I didn't see more than a half of Naxx yet, but it seems to me that it's way better than [AQ]

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I had some hope Kronos would learn from their mistakes but at the moment I just feel really defeated. You are right naxx was better than AQ40 but Patchwerk was still wotlk, Anub's impale and scarabs were bugged and sometimes when a guild would wipe on Anub the server lagged to hell. All of these issues were afaik reported and still made it into the live version of Naxxramas.

Adding on to that people could not enter naxxramas on release, people got ported to SILVERPINE when they logged out of naxxramas, alts do not require attunement to enter naxx and the recipe guy in naxx is broken too.

The state of naxxramas release is a result of bad decisions which I still am trying to figure out why they were made which I can only speculate to either incompetence or a lack of passion, care and attention to detail to the project itself. You were told so many times to test Saph and KT publically and yet you chose to release them in their current state where in some parts of the room Saph's iceblocks did not block the frost blast (https://imgur.com/xDY1S4K, https://i.imgur.com/THg5Nfh.mp4), ice blocks MISS players (https://imgur.com/hGtRrVY), the blizzard hits mainly in the middle and is way off in general, ice blocks being dealt out to slow mixed with the frost blast animation and actual damage not aligning at all. Just like the glaring bugs in AQ40 something is very wrong with the development and or testing process when the bosses make it to live this way.

I have no issues with the aura damage being buffed, in fact many of us asked for increased tuning and I applaud the decision to do so however some decisions taken are so out of wack Im losing any confidence in Twinstar as a project I ever had, and I have been a big defender and praiser of twinstar and kronos in general.

You had a big opportunity here with the whole Elysium shitfest and you could have shown the prominence of twinstar with the launch of Ares and the release of naxx but you fucked them both up. Just the fact that twinstar launched both naxx and Ares at the same time shows the level of incompetence here. I cant be the only one suspecting that the reason it took forever to log back in after the first restart to fix people being able to to enter naxx is that Ares and Kronos uses the same login servers(?).

You had 1.3 years to code this, there is no excuse. You fucked up.

Just off topic - from my point of view, Ares launch was pretty good. Almost no crashes, only intended restarts to optimize the core, increase performance and fix few general bugs that appeared (these things can't be internaly tested. It can be done only with full server)

DarkStorm said:

You are right naxx was better than AQ40 but Patchwerk was still wotlk, Anub's impale and scarabs were bugged and sometimes when a guild would wipe on Anub the server lagged to hell. All of these issues were afaik reported and still made it into the live version of Naxxramas.

Adding on to that people could not enter naxxramas on release, people got ported to SILVERPINE when they logged out of naxxramas, alts do not require attunement to enter naxx and the recipe guy in naxx is broken too.

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Well, it's really not that much, in my opinion. Anub can be considered pre-nerf (they promised no custom mechanics, but c'mon, just one). Our raidleader said that Patchwerk was quite Vanilla HP-based, although he wasn't 100% sure. Sapph (correct me if I'm wrong) acted differently for VG and Synced, so it's understandable it could be missed on internal test.

That being said,

Naice said:

We got a poor version of Naxxramas on Saturday not because it was difficult to fix, but because the Kronos team just didn't give a fuck about providing quality.

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is quite a valid point sadly.

P.S. Ares release was indeed as smooth as it could be, as far as I heard.

I have to give an extreme disagreement to the comment "because the Kronos team just didn't give a fuck about providing quality."
This is 100% untrue. Here's my view from where I sit both as Head GM and as a gamer. Keep in mind the following: a) I am not a developer b) I had provided no input on specific stats on bosses, I did however share the communities (much divided) opinion.

Going back to 2006, Naxx was the hardest raid. People remember that and while Naxx in itself is one of the greatest raid instances ever developed, players wanted to experience that challenge again. Fast forward to 2017, that kind of challenge using "blizzlike" numbers is in no way/shape/form possible. This needs to be completely understood. We asked the community what they wanted, and the community was split. We did buff some health to some bosses, and some damage to some bosses, not all because not all fights required it. Without this, Gothikk would have been dead in no time (as was a complaint in ptr). So while some buffing helped some bosses, it didn't help others.

The testing and research team put a ton of effort into getting all the information as accurate as could be found for vanilla. Is it possible some stuff was missed? possibly, either because there wasn't any "vanilla proof" for it or it could have been somehow overlooked (we're all human after all). I may not have been involved in the development of Naxx, but I was a part of the development channel. I saw the time and effort that the team put in. There were many long nights when the team was up very late, long past my logging off for the night. Were there bugs? sure, nothing is 100% perfect. Were there more bugs than we expected? yes. During our testing after the reported items in PTR were fixed, most did not show any signs that the bugs still occurred. Even throughout the process, bugs still can occur that either were unreported or somehow started anew.

When it comes to Saph and Kel, there were bugs that made it more challenging than it was suppose to be. But at the same time, as far as I am aware these bosses were buffed to provide some challenge to all raids. Was it too hard? apparently so. But here's where I see things. When Naxx was released in 2006, guilds tried for a long time to be able to get things cleared (pre-nerf). Yes, Blizz came out and admitted it was a bit overturned and eventually nerfed it. Raids in general are not meant to be cleared in one night. You're going into Naxx with virtually almost all AQ gear. Back in the day, that would only get you so far. Guilds were getting to the final boss in AQ gear. Had we not buffed Saph and Kel and left it as "blizzlike", probably more than 2 guilds would have cleared naxx within the first 10 hours. Is that really "blizzlike"? Maybe it's an opinion more than fact, but I do not believe it is. If it was a true "blizzlike" experience as it was in 2006, players in all AQ level gear should not be able to get through to Kel on the first day. It should require at least a couple of weeks of gear farming. But this isn't 2006, it's 2017. Players are (overall) more experienced and better at the game now and in years past. The only way to try and recoup any sort of "blizzlike" the only option was to increase a few bosses stats.

You can argue it was too much. There were cries after only 2 attempts on Kel. Were they warranted? Somewhat yes. But going back to 2006, did any of the world top guilds complain after only 2 pulls on Kel? probably not. We live in a new world, and it requires a new set of expectations. We are aware of that and we as a team have tried to do our best to provide all our players with both good content and a good experience.

Maybe Naxx did not live up to your expectation, I agree it could have been better in some areas. I would rather focus on the positives personally, but not all share my views and that's perfectly fine. But lets call a spade a spade here. If Naxx was 100% "blizzlike", instead of complaints of "custom content" or "bugged to hell" we'd be getting complaints that Naxx was still a disappointment because "it was too easy" and "this isn't the naxx experience I remember, you failed".

Damn if you do, damned if you don't. But as I said a while back. It's easier to go from overturned to nerf, than to go from undertuned to buffed. That's the way I see it, whether you agree with it or not. Everyone is definitely entitled to see and feel things as they see fit. But to question the effort that our team put in, that is where I do draw the line personally because I know just how hard everyone worked on this content. Bugged or not, they put their time and effort to give you the content and will still work hard to improve upon it.

Davros, I am not talking about stealth HP or damage buffs. I am talking about downright broken mechanics, and most of them were discovered during the PTR sessions.

There can be no excuse for that. Especially not when they were fixed a day later. Period.

Sapphiron was not overtuned, he was broken. Completely. The ice blocks did not protect players behind them in certain circumstances and could actually miss players upon casting. See the gifs on the previous page.
Those bugs absolutely ruined the progress race for us. Granted, Hagson's autism did the other 49% of that by insisting to keep the headstart Vanguard "earned" by our problems with bugs on Sapphiron.

Either way, the state in which you released Naxxramas was a disgrace. Own it.
You say items reported on the PTR were fixed. That's obviously not true, because all of the major problems we encountered on the PTR (especially on Anub and Patchwerk) were still there absolutely unchanged on release. Those were no unreported bugs. They were well known and the most glaring bugs encountered on the PTR.

Overtuned = fine

Bugs left over that were reported = disgraceful

Davros said:

When it comes to Saph and Kel, there were bugs that made it more challenging than it was suppose to be

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And it kind of sucks.

But Sapph - as far as I got it - had a weird bug applied to Synced but not to VG, so I understand how it could've been missed on internal testing.

KT is - as far as I got it - just unkillable for noone can survive 17k damage (other sources state 12k though). But will it become killable with Naxx-geared raid? If so, don't nerf it IMO, let people farm and try and farm again.

Anyway, please don't nerf it on server reset, don't force FK racers to raid 6 AM ST... They're only humans, after all.

Davros said:

You can argue it was too much. There were cries after only 2 attempts on Kel. Were they warranted? Somewhat yes. But going back to 2006, did any of the world top guilds complain after only 2 pulls on Kel? probably not. We live in a new world, and it requires a new set of expectations.

If Naxx was 100% "blizzlike", instead of complaints of "custom content" or "bugged to hell" we'd be getting complaints that Naxx was still a disappointment because "it was too easy" and "this isn't the naxx experience I remember, you failed".

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There are 'cries after only 2 attemps on Kel'Thuzad" because it's clear to everyone right away that abos instahitting 20k in Phase 1 are not gonna make this fight doable nor intended and if it's literally on the first pull our MT dies on the first hit, it's just unbelievable this went through any testing, especially if you overbuff a later part of the fight which especially did not need overbuffing which could've been calculated hps-wise in 10seconds. Topguilds didn't complain in vanilla because you can expect a new fight to be killable, this KT was _not_ killable, which could be noticed 99% after a single try, and 100% after seeing MC threatreset was broken as well.

You keep saying ppl wanted it to be blizzlike so you buffed and people are still not happy. I don't think you get the point of people asking for buffs if you think kiting abos on KT, losing a guaranteed person every iceblast+AoE combo, Sapphiron not spawning iceblocks, patchwerk killing all melee, anubrekhan blasting the entire raid for 5k or sapphiron putting up only 2 curses is in any way related to a blizzlike experience, it's totally the other direction: even worse than releasing it default values. If people cry in 2 tries it's just proof it's so damn obvious it's bugged to hell, which is not the fault of the one crying about it, but of the person fucking up the coding. You went the right way with buffing most bosses, no boss felt too weak to me so that was great, but you can't use any argument in favour of the broken stuff.

It's the whole problem with your internal bugreports; noone can see which direction you are taking, while in the past you have been proven to be wrong instantly on PTR, only to deny it citing lack of 'vanilla proof' or a wrong wowwiki, and then caving later (Patchwerk) after everyone who ever did Patchwerk tells you it's wrong, and yet you still implement your earliest Patchwerk anyway, ignoring all the feedback.

I think it was Memento Mori unluckily going for Patchwerk first, and then Anub'rekhan. 2 of the 4 totally broken bosses in Naxx. What a night will that have been for them, wiping to all that shit. (Anubs ridiculous spike damage wouldn't even have been a problem btw, had you not been 100% WRONG about how much of an area the spike cone would hit as shown in any video on youtube ever, and keeping it broken on purpose, even though people said it was wrong before it disappeared as an internal report).

All in all, 'race' ruined for as much as it wasn't already ruined before with pre-release testing, Naice is a crybaby, Davros with your post trying to shift blame upon people asking for buffs and denying you screwing up as a whole and yet, after all of that, Naxxramas feels like an entire new fresh game which was amazing to finally redo, rest of the instance was perfect but what does that really give you at this point, after K1 being an AQ40 PTR for K2 I just hoped for once I could just do an unbroken instance.