Is patching a good thing?

[Tom852]

Hello

Many of us have played the Black Ops 1 map Moon. We know about several glitches in there, that never got fixed. Let's have a look at a short selection:

[*:bo40hk98]Round-Skipping glitch by teleporting to earth shortly before a round starts.
[*:bo40hk98]Invisible excavator
[*:bo40hk98]Getting 4 hackers for your team
[*:bo40hk98]Moonwalking astro (I SAY THIS IS A GLITCH! )
[*:bo40hk98]"Not moving at all" - Astro
[*:bo40hk98]Zombies not pathing to you or attacking you when standing next to the rock at PHD

Although these bugs and glitches are present, I'm still having a ton of fun playing Moon.

In Green Run we experienced several glitches, too. Those got fixed, or at least some of them. Again a short selection:

[*:bo40hk98]Zombies not pathing to you / reaching you / attacking you in several spots.
[*:bo40hk98]Unbreakable shield

So far, no question. Stuff like that belongs patched. Of course, we also wanna see major bugs getting patched, like game crashes or such. But what about the following ones?

[*:bo40hk98]Unbreakable, eternally working turbine - Common, that thing was handy for pap.
[*:bo40hk98]Jet Gun not heating up when charging it while switching to it.
[*:bo40hk98]Only, and only the full healthed zombies will respawn when teleporting, which makes it more difficult to keep one last zombie (e.g. if he runs over lava he dies already in my games)

OK, the turbine thing is obviously something that I'd call glitch-abusing when you did it. But as long as you used it only for PaP, it made the game just a bit more convenient.

The Jet Gun thing, everybody did it, and suddenly this option is taken away. For me it seems like they removed one tactic and replaced it with nothing else. The normal usage of the Jet Gun was available before the patch too. Therefore, it's like the game has less strategies, and less strategies is never a good thing.

The last zombie thing feels quite annoying. I wanna leave one last to activate and build the power switch, but BANG, next round starts and I'm in the narrow reactor room, no Jug, I die. Uncool.

Going back to Moon: If you could wish:

should it stay as it is (advantages like 4 hackers, an Astro that is not hunting you, but also disadvantages like an end of the game cause you ran in the invisible excavator),

or should it all get patched, so you had neither glitches that are for your advantage, nor for your disadvantage?

And really, think of it. Isn't it a good thing quickly staying at this PHD rock simply to go to the toilet for 1 minute in coop?

[TheBSZombie]

I believe patches are usefull, if applied correctly. An example would be the galva knuckles strategy on die rise, why patch it but make it where leaderboards are still the way it is. The hacker thing in moon I am honestly glad to say was never patched. But after months of playing mw3 to come back to moon (my fav map) I found people glitching more by getting to round 99 doing supper round skips and playing without masks in airless places.

But yes I do like glitches being fixed, because I don't use them my self besides the galva and hacker glitch. I hate going through a 10 min round on tranzit knowing i could have done it in 5 mins doing the jet gun glitch. but they failed that patch because they introduced where you have to keep a zombie alive for the round not to start up. Since this patch i haven't played tranzit unless to get perma jug and one time to help a friend with the easter egg( which you can get in die rise but much faster on tranzit) I wouldn't say this is purely because of the patch but mostly because of die rise coming out.

[Edward Richtofen]

Nice post Tom,

I think that patching is an important and useful tool when used in the correct situations, but it's something that devs can easily go overboard on.

The Jet Gun patch is really disappointing to be honest. That was a fun strategy that allowed you to proceed as far as you liked within a reasonable timeframe. It was not anywhere as easy as something like the knuckles spawn zone and should not have been patched. They took away the only reason to still play TranZit solo in my opinion.

Patching should be used when something is breaking the game or severely taking away from the gaming experience. I feel too often a patch is introduced which takes away a fun aspect of the game (sliquifier/jet gun) and doesn't give anything back. If a patch makes the game less fun, how is that a good alteration to the game? We play these games for fun, sometimes untended game mechanic exploits can make the game more fun. They (the devs) need to walk the line and decide if something is hurting the gaming experience more than it adds to it. Considering their recent decisions, I'd say they are not looking at it in this way, and are rather trying to stop anything which is unintended from happening.

A prime example of this is the 4 sliquifier glitch which was hot-fixed within hours of Die Rise's release. Yet, barrier glitches were found and released within the same timeframe which were left and only now have begun to be fixed.

A barrier glitch takes away from the game, especially in co-op (go down and see the reason you were not revived is someone sitting in a glitch without ammo and you'll quickly see why). Four sliquifiers do not take away from the game, instead they open up more possibilities. This shows the ideology that Treyarch is using when fixing exploits and problems in the game.

They are more likely to take away good clean fun and "gray-area" glitches then stop blatant and game breaking glitches.

[MysteryMachineX]

Tom, all you are pointing out is justification for using glitches. I don't think Treyarch should even care about that. The only thing that they should care about is whether or not it should be defined as a glitch. They've fixed a few things in BOII that weren't even glitches. THAT is a problem.

[Tom852]

I guess we talk about the definition of a glitch one more time I totally agree with you Murder.

The Jet Gun usage was actually my motivation to open this thread. The Devs neither meant 4 players to have a hacker, nor a non-heating Jet Gun. Therefore, those ARE glitches. They are just minor glitches, glitches for those I'm not asking for justification, glitches that are already justificated by the community.

Of course, we all want the obvious bugs to get patched - the invisible excavator, the unbreakable shield. But if you get this done with a patch, also the minor thingies get patched that some of us don't even consider glitches, like the Jet Gun usage.

Therefore I came up with this question. Of course the best solution is to get the major bugs and glitches fixed, but not this minor stuff that is already legalized by the community. But this is not what you get. Obviously, you get everything patched or nothing. So, what you like more? Would you rather do your R100 with the Jet Gun and face 100 Shield Glitchers in Publics, or do you favour to be aware of never ever reaching R100, never reaching a top score in the leaderboards? That is what I'm asking.