[Request] Add a public bug tracker
Atunatunak
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The current bug report section is a mess with so many duplicated, outdated threads or issues that don't have an updated tag. It works in its own way, so I'm not asking for it to be replaced.
My suggestion is to add a public bug tracker similar to this one, so players can see at one glance (at least on pc) the current issues acknowledged by the Ingress team (or the most spread or important ones), what is being worked on, what is recently fixed, what the new fixes will be and so on.
What I also like is that they also include workarounds to help players until they fix the issue, something that here is done by comments from other agents in long bug threads. Many people don't have access to the workarounds info because of lack of time to read all the forum or language barriers to do so, while translating a few lines will be easier for them (although we have good info channels in Telegram that usually inform the rest of the agents, but I think this should be something done by Niantic themselves).
You could also add links to redirect people to the forum threads where the bugs are being taken care of or where people should go to state that they are having the same issue, so that all kinetic capsules that are not working can be easily found by @NianticBrian and the team fixing issues, for example.
Note that in Read First they also state that sections are subject to be moved around, so it would also be a good way to just inform us visually what fixes could we expect to be done Soon (TM), what was being worked on but now has been dropped for a later time if a new bug has appeared and is more important than the current reported ones, etc.
Of course, it will also need to be updated frequently or we'll be in the same situation where people has to tag Niantic employees so that they update the current threads' status in the bug report section.
Something similar could also be used to show us what new features are being worked on and how they are moving up and down (or left to right) in the queue of things to come, if at some point someone decides we should have access to a roadmap but doesn't want to give exact dates or promise us that we will have X thing before having D thing. Also, it would give dedicated players like @1valdis or @Perringaiden food for thought before the new features are actually implemented and the players could give some insight about potential misuse, etc.
Comments
Niantic opened the bug report section in the forum and mentioned that confirmed reports will be moved to a seperate "Known Issues" subcategory, which never happened. I think this change alone would help a lot in keeping the bug reports organized.
I'd rather they simply paid more attention to the current Report a Bug. No need for a bug tracker if nobody from Niantic is going to give a **** about it and all bug reports will be in a "new issue" or similarly named column.
Actively cleaning up and merging duplicates does happen, thanks to @NianticKK, but even a bug tracking tool won't help people who don't search (and the current search feature is painful).
If we were seeing a bug tracking tool, I'd want Niantic to be the only ones who could add to it, by connecting threads we create like we do normally. Otherwise it'd be like any big GitHub bug list that's unmaintained. Thousands of duplicates.
BTW a Trello board doesn't scale well for that sort of thing. If they implemented it, I'd prefer to see either a commercial offering used, or some other open source tool for tracking bugs.
Do you know when someone asks for too much in order to be given the minimum expected (or promised) from the beginning? 🙄😬
But ... Trello?? 🤣
Trello is amazing though! I use it to help separate my work queue into lists. I think I've seen other games use Trello as a bug tracker - or at least use it to track posts from one medium to another. (For instance, referencing Discord posts about a bug)
I was hoping for a similar system that was on the subreddit. Duplicates seemed to be easily referenced to other topics. You easily had new bugs tagged for reference. I'm also thinking of how github does the tracking as well but that's more if the source was open.
Trello caps out general usability when you can't see it all on screen. I'd hate to attempt to minimise the number of bugs that can be tracked because it'd get too big in one column.
Duplicates seemed to be easily referenced to other topics. You easily had new bugs tagged for reference.
This was a Google Spreadsheet and a lot of diligence from the Reddit moderators for that forum. We could do something similar as just players keeping track here, but it would take multiple people's efforts.
All the tooling in the world won't make a difference if there isn't actually a commitment to addressing the underlying problem.
More than a few bugs [1, 2, 3, to pick just a few] reek of sloppiness and laziness, and simply shouldn't have made it into a public release to begin with, or be an issue for more than one public release. A game should aspire to sparking joy, not merely avoiding crashing and burning.
More than a few issues [1, 2, to pick a couple] simply need someone to come along once each standard business day*, acknowledge that folks have been heard, redirect individuals to more appropriate places to get support, and so on. (*Some issues deserve a quicker response.)