SO MANY little annoying UI bugs...should I bother reporting?

Zweiblumen · 07-14-2014, 11:27 PM

I've played OOTP for years. 10 of them, in fact. Over time I've reported a lot of UI bugs and annoyances, but year after year many of the same ones persist. I've found a few tonight while playing 2015 for the first time and I'm wondering whether it's even worth reporting them in the bug thread or ticket system.

I want to be helpful, but I also don't want to waste my time taking screenshots and writing this stuff up if no one is going to address it or even look at it. Thoughts?

Also, I know tons of people are involved in testing this game, but if I can find this many issues in the first 2 hours of gameplay then I think that there's not enough attention placed on UI/UX in the testing/beta/(or even alpha?) phases.

Are there steps I can take to get involved in QA at an earlier point than the fourth patchlevel for the game? Please advise. I'm serious.

The Wolf · 07-14-2014, 11:28 PM

Listing them, so that we all have a good idea about what you're talking about, would be a good first step.

Hockey13Playa · 07-14-2014, 11:31 PM

RchW · 07-14-2014, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zweiblumen

I've played OOTP for years. 10 of them, in fact. Over time I've reported a lot of UI bugs and annoyances, but year after year many of the same ones persist. I've found a few tonight while playing 2015 for the first time and I'm wondering whether it's even worth reporting them in the bug thread or ticket system.

I want to be helpful, but I also don't want to waste my time taking screenshots and writing this stuff up if no one is going to address it or even look at it. Thoughts?

Also, I know tons of people are involved in testing this game, but if I can find this many issues in the first 2 hours of gameplay then I think that there's not enough attention placed on UI/UX in the testing/beta/(or even alpha?) phases.

Are there steps I can take to get involved in QA at an earlier point than the fourth patchlevel for the game? Please advise. I'm serious.

You can rest assured that if you don't report them nothing will be done. I'm surprised that someone with 10 years play time and such an eye for bugs did not join the beta team a long time ago.

tejdog1 · 07-14-2014, 11:37 PM

The "click batters but get pitching stats" bug is worse then ever in OOTP15. Markus specifically told me he'd fix it. I'm not bashing Markus, FAR from it, but maybe whatever he did, he could do the exact opposite, lol.

Zweiblumen · 07-14-2014, 11:44 PM

I've done a lot of playing and have lurked here in the forums quite a bit, but as you can see from my meager post count I'm not exactly active in the community.

Here's a preliminary list:
Right now because I'm simming more than playing, a lot of these things have to do with historical stats/data.

Most of the history pages, if you click deep enough, lack any kind of header to tell you what you're actually looking at, for one.

Also, in the awards screen, the current year's awards are never populated until the year rollover, which means that in every year's almanac you are missing the most recent set of awards. Somewhere between a UI and functionality bug there.

This may be mac specific, but scrolling using the trackpad is broken right now, it just kind of twitches and runs back to the top.

When you get news involving a shortlisted player, in the text of the message that player's name is not in all caps, so it can be tricky in a message involving many players to figure out which one is the one you care about unless you recognize the names quickly.

In the draft pool screen, when using feeder leauges (and maybe if you're not, I'm not sure) the text reports that you are seeing a career stat line when in fact you are seeing the most recent season of HS or COL ball. There's no splits dropdown on that screen so you can't fix it. Also the text overlaps itself in that header area.

In the history screens for the draft, if you sort a column (sometimes you have to sort it twice) the header overlaps the first player row, so you can't easily see, for example, which draftee had the most HR as a professional. Viewing the report in an external browser doesn't help because the HTML reports are not JS enabled to sort tables (which I consider if not a bug, a poor design choice).

Relatedly, I'm only guessing that the draft history register is showing stats as a professional after being drafted because there's no header/description explaining what this report is.

I could go on, but I have to go to bed.

The question is, should I go on (in this or some other forum) at another time? The awards not populating until year rollover has been around for 2 or 3 OOTP versions and I know I've mentioned it before, so I'd like to know I'm helping and not just whining when I bring these things up.

Sorry to sound so harsh. I love OOTP but as a designer/software developer myself, little usability things like this just irk me.

Lukas Berger · 07-14-2014, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zweiblumen

Sorry to sound so harsh. I love OOTP but as a designer/software developer myself, little usability things like this just irk me.

Bringing stuff like this up is definitely helpful. I can't say I've seen much of this myself, but then I pay very little attention to the UI.

Even if bugs persist over a few years it's not a bad thing to bring them up again each year. Sometimes it just takes time for little bugs to get attention and a reminder for Markus isn't a bad thing.

I'm going to enter this into the bug tracking tool that the beta team and devs use and we'll see what comes of it. Some of it may get fixed and some may not, but at least Markus will have seen it.

Post anything else you find in this thread and I'll add it to the list.

david limbaugh · 07-15-2014, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zweiblumen

I've played OOTP for years. 10 of them, in fact. Over time I've reported a lot of UI bugs and annoyances, but year after year many of the same ones persist. I've found a few tonight while playing 2015 for the first time and I'm wondering whether it's even worth reporting them in the bug thread or ticket system.

I want to be helpful, but I also don't want to waste my time taking screenshots and writing this stuff up if no one is going to address it or even look at it. Thoughts?

Also, I know tons of people are involved in testing this game, but if I can find this many issues in the first 2 hours of gameplay then I think that there's not enough attention placed on UI/UX in the testing/beta/(or even alpha?) phases.

Are there steps I can take to get involved in QA at an earlier point than the fourth patchlevel for the game? Please advise. I'm serious.

I have sorta gotten used to them over the years.

Things I have noticed over the years is like initial scroll not set to top when looking at several players, like free agents, as when you sort on a column. You have to scroll up to see the top players. Ratings appearing different for players in roster screens before and after you click on a player and look at him. Sometimes team's scout does not stay as the scout and it goes back to OOTP scout. Sometimes you can scroll up and down and look at different games during real-time simulation and sometimes scroll bar will not work until all games are completed. These have been 'problems' for so long I have just learned to try to work around them....

Another example is how I play, commissioner mode. During the day when one or more players are injured or eligible come off the DL there is not a great way to see those. I wish the 'under the knife' report showed every player hurt and their current status, including those no longer injured but still on the DL.

The Wolf · 07-15-2014, 12:17 AM

Zwei, please keep posting them so we can get them listed and fixed. Thanks.

david limbaugh · 07-15-2014, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tejdog1

The "click batters but get pitching stats" bug is worse then ever in OOTP15. Markus specifically told me he'd fix it. I'm not bashing Markus, FAR from it, but maybe whatever he did, he could do the exact opposite, lol.

I agree totally with this one. Always been a problem... Still exists in OOTP15 after latest patch....

I also wish it could remember the column I last sorted with, for example ABs. When going from team to team I have to keep resorting.....

Questdog · 07-15-2014, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zweiblumen

Also, I know tons of people are involved in testing this game, but if I can find this many issues in the first 2 hours of gameplay then I think that there's not enough attention placed on UI/UX in the testing/beta/(or even alpha?) phases..

First off, read this sentence as a very rude comment......

Second off, there are NOT tons of people involved in testing this game. There is a very small (you don't need to take your shoes off to count 'em) group of active testers.

Many, many people claim they want to be testers, but what they really want is to be able to play the new version sooner and not put in the hours of very boring work it takes to actually test things.

Third off, there is not one issue you noted that has not been known and reported before. Some of the things cannot be fixed without a major rewrite of the code and frankly not worth the effort it would take. Especially when there are many more pressing issues that need to be tackled. Others have just been on the back burner and never gotten around to, because there is always something more important to be working on. OOTP has to be the most complicated game ever that is maintained by just a two-man crew. It is physically impossible for them to spend the time to make absolutely everything picture perfect and still find time to inject some new features. That's a fact of life we are just going to have to deal with.

The Wolf · 07-15-2014, 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

It is physically impossible for them to spend the time to make absolutely everything picture perfect and still find time to inject some new features.

I find it interesting that the software people whom I know personally say that this concept is a myth.

Questdog · 07-15-2014, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I find it interesting that the software people whom I know personally say that this concept is a myth.

I wish you were a myth.....

Lukas Berger · 07-15-2014, 12:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I find it interesting that the software people whom I know personally say that this concept is a myth.

Yeah, that's clearly shown by the abundant amounts of perfect software out there that add tons of new features each version.

Like... Like...

I'm sure I'll think of even one sometime this year.

Lukas Berger · 07-15-2014, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

First off, read this sentence as a very rude comment......

Second off, there are NOT tons of people involved in testing this game. There is a very small (you don't need to take your shoes off to count 'em) group of active testers.

Many, many people claim they want to be testers, but what they really want is to be able to play the new version sooner and not put in the hours of very boring work it takes to actually test things.

Third off, there is not one issue you noted that has not been known and reported before. Some of the things cannot be fixed without a major rewrite of the code and frankly not worth the effort it would take. Especially when there are many more pressing issues that need to be tackled. Others have just been on the back burner and never gotten around to, because there is always something more important to be working on. OOTP has to be the most complicated game ever that is maintained by just a two-man crew. It is physically impossible for them to spend the time to make absolutely everything picture perfect and still find time to inject some new features. That's a fact of life we are just going to have to deal with.

You make some good points and I pretty much agree with everything you say, especially about the size and quality of the testing group.

Still, I didn't see the OP's comments as particularly disrespectful and personally I kind of appreciated his being willing to point some stuff out, even if it's been pointed out before. Don't we do the same thing most every year, keep bringing up stuff for Markus that we've brought up before?

I see that as a good thing, not something to be condemned. He may have been a bit frustrated, but I know you and I and everyone else on the beta team have been frustrated with stuff that hasn't gotten fixed before. That generally comes from a good place, from a passion for the game, which should really be encouraged, not denigrated.

Just my

fwiw.

Questdog · 07-15-2014, 01:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lukasberger

You make some good points and I pretty much agree with everything you say, especially about the size and quality of the testing group.

Still, I didn't see the OP's comments as particularly disrespectful and personally I kind of appreciated his being willing to point some stuff out, even if it's been pointed out before. Don't we do the same thing most every year, keep bringing up stuff for Markus that we've brought up before?

I see that as a good thing, not something to be condemned. He may have been a bit frustrated, but I know you and I and everyone else on the beta team have been frustrated with stuff that hasn't gotten fixed before. That generally comes from a good place, from a passion for the game, which should really be encouraged, not denigrated.

Just my

fwiw.

What got my goat and made me post was the comment about "if I can find these things in 2 hours, all these lame-brained testers must be sitting around scratching their backsides and picking their teeth....."

I think I am paraphrasing......

Lukas Berger · 07-15-2014, 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Questdog

What got my goat and made me post was the comment about "if I can find these things in 2 hours, all these lame-brained testers must be sitting around scratching their backsides and picking their teeth....."

I think I am paraphrasing......

Fair enough.

Though it is strange how you seem to know exactly what I was doing right before I typed this. Spooky

gbwitheyes · 07-15-2014, 04:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I find it interesting that the software people whom I know personally say that this concept is a myth.

They are correct. I know from personal experience.

In developing products there are methods to minimize bugs. In testing software, early test design along with effective use of test suites can eliminate most issues before your software reaches the hands of beta testers.

If your approach to testing is limited to betas, that is when you will find many bugs go unnoticed until they are found in the field.

eborix · 07-15-2014, 06:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I find it interesting that the software people whom I know personally say that this concept is a myth.

I have yet to find any software that was picture perfect.

Zweiblumen · 07-15-2014, 07:47 AM

I'm sorry for the tone of my original comments. I was frustrated when I wrote it. What I really wanted to indicate was not that I think the testers aren't doing their jobs, but that I think that there probably is a need for a tester or two who are specifically looking at the UI issues in addition to the team that is already in place making sure that the engine and other internals are behaving as desired.

As a developer I definitely understand that sometimes things that look like they might be easy to fix are in fact _extremely_ hard to fix. The thing with when the awards hit the awards page could easily be like that. However, bugs with sorting tables and the lack of explanatory headers on pages really should be fixable without a lot of trouble.

I'm definitely interested in helping test, and don't have much interest in it for the early adoption angle...as you might be able to tell by the fact I only now just started playing v15 months after it was out. If someone with knowledge about how to join that team can message me, please do so.

Also, it wasn't my intent to start a bug report thread here, because this is not the right forum for that. It was my intent to find out if it is worth my effort to try to catalog some of these, and I think I'm hearing people say "yes", except for maybe Questdog, whose opinion on that I can't tell for sure.

Is there an actual bug ticket system that we have access to or is the best way to point out these things just to take screenshots and put them in a post in the bug thread?

07-14-2014, 11:27 PM	#1
Zweiblumen Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 326	SO MANY little annoying UI bugs...should I bother reporting? I've played OOTP for years. 10 of them, in fact. Over time I've reported a lot of UI bugs and annoyances, but year after year many of the same ones persist. I've found a few tonight while playing 2015 for the first time and I'm wondering whether it's even worth reporting them in the bug thread or ticket system. I want to be helpful, but I also don't want to waste my time taking screenshots and writing this stuff up if no one is going to address it or even look at it. Thoughts? Also, I know tons of people are involved in testing this game, but if I can find this many issues in the first 2 hours of gameplay then I think that there's not enough attention placed on UI/UX in the testing/beta/(or even alpha?) phases. Are there steps I can take to get involved in QA at an earlier point than the fourth patchlevel for the game? Please advise. I'm serious.

07-14-2014, 11:37 PM	#5
tejdog1 All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Danbury, CT Posts: 1,654	The "click batters but get pitching stats" bug is worse then ever in OOTP15. Markus specifically told me he'd fix it. I'm not bashing Markus, FAR from it, but maybe whatever he did, he could do the exact opposite, lol. __________________ It's amazing How you make your face just like a wall How you take your heart and turn it off How I turn my head and lose it all And it's unnerving How just one move puts me by myself There you go just trusting someone else Now I know I put us both through hell ~Matchbox 20, "Leave" Everyone knows it's spelled "TRAID", not trade

07-14-2014, 11:44 PM	#6
Zweiblumen Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 326	I've done a lot of playing and have lurked here in the forums quite a bit, but as you can see from my meager post count I'm not exactly active in the community. Here's a preliminary list: Right now because I'm simming more than playing, a lot of these things have to do with historical stats/data. Most of the history pages, if you click deep enough, lack any kind of header to tell you what you're actually looking at, for one. Also, in the awards screen, the current year's awards are never populated until the year rollover, which means that in every year's almanac you are missing the most recent set of awards. Somewhere between a UI and functionality bug there. This may be mac specific, but scrolling using the trackpad is broken right now, it just kind of twitches and runs back to the top. When you get news involving a shortlisted player, in the text of the message that player's name is not in all caps, so it can be tricky in a message involving many players to figure out which one is the one you care about unless you recognize the names quickly. In the draft pool screen, when using feeder leauges (and maybe if you're not, I'm not sure) the text reports that you are seeing a career stat line when in fact you are seeing the most recent season of HS or COL ball. There's no splits dropdown on that screen so you can't fix it. Also the text overlaps itself in that header area. In the history screens for the draft, if you sort a column (sometimes you have to sort it twice) the header overlaps the first player row, so you can't easily see, for example, which draftee had the most HR as a professional. Viewing the report in an external browser doesn't help because the HTML reports are not JS enabled to sort tables (which I consider if not a bug, a poor design choice). Relatedly, I'm only guessing that the draft history register is showing stats as a professional after being drafted because there's no header/description explaining what this report is. I could go on, but I have to go to bed. The question is, should I go on (in this or some other forum) at another time? The awards not populating until year rollover has been around for 2 or 3 OOTP versions and I know I've mentioned it before, so I'd like to know I'm helping and not just whining when I bring these things up. Sorry to sound so harsh. I love OOTP but as a designer/software developer myself, little usability things like this just irk me. Last edited by Zweiblumen; 07-14-2014 at 11:45 PM.

07-14-2014, 11:31 PM	#3
Hockey13Playa Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 2,677

07-15-2014, 07:47 AM	#20
Zweiblumen Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 326	I'm sorry for the tone of my original comments. I was frustrated when I wrote it. What I really wanted to indicate was not that I think the testers aren't doing their jobs, but that I think that there probably is a need for a tester or two who are specifically looking at the UI issues in addition to the team that is already in place making sure that the engine and other internals are behaving as desired. As a developer I definitely understand that sometimes things that look like they might be easy to fix are in fact _extremely_ hard to fix. The thing with when the awards hit the awards page could easily be like that. However, bugs with sorting tables and the lack of explanatory headers on pages really should be fixable without a lot of trouble. I'm definitely interested in helping test, and don't have much interest in it for the early adoption angle...as you might be able to tell by the fact I only now just started playing v15 months after it was out. If someone with knowledge about how to join that team can message me, please do so. Also, it wasn't my intent to start a bug report thread here, because this is not the right forum for that. It was my intent to find out if it is worth my effort to try to catalog some of these, and I think I'm hearing people say "yes", except for maybe Questdog, whose opinion on that I can't tell for sure. Is there an actual bug ticket system that we have access to or is the best way to point out these things just to take screenshots and put them in a post in the bug thread?