Why isn't the bug I reported fixed yet?

I often receive messages from players expressing their frustration about well-known bugs not being fixed, or sharing their opinion that an increasing number of unresolved bugs is a sign that Ankama has lost its passion. 

After having this conversation with different players across multiple platforms, and catching up on the forums after my absence,  I thought that perhaps it would be better to centralize my answers here. 

Before I go any further, I would like to thank those players who:

• come forward and share their feedback with me.
• take the time to write each bug report and are always willing to provide details and feedback constructively and efficiently. I know it isn't always easy and things can at times result in frustration, but your help never goes unnoticed. <3

Manaia 
As a generalisation, if multiple issues need to be addressed, prioritisation comes into play. 

In the example of the issues impacting a small subset of the community (for example, some players not being able to select the Dutch language to play) the number of players impacted does become relevant, as much as we don’t like the idea that these players are not having an optimum gaming experience.

Bugs usually are categorised by severity and repeatability – high-impact bugs that happen every time a particular action is performed will be considered a priority to fix, but this doesn’t subsequently mean that a bug deemed to be of low impact will be ignored.
A solution not being yet implemented could be the result of different reasons, and I can assure that none of those is lack of passion for the game. The same devs that work on fixing reported bugs also brainstorm on creating and implementing new content. For the amount of work that goes into it, devs want nothing more than to provide our players with a fun, engaging, and enjoyable gaming experience.

Back to examples of different reasons as to why a solution to a particular bug might have yet been implemented:

• There are more significant issues they need to focus on first.
• The devs do not have enough information to replicate the problem, so more research and more information is required (one of the main reasons why it is so important to be thorough when reporting a bug).
• They are still working on it.
• It has been fixed on the local server, but such a patch would need to be implemented via an upcoming update and not during a regular weekly maintenance.

To address the overall message that there are more and more bugs coming up and that Dofus is buggier than ever. The notion is true, for two reasons:

• DOFUS, a soon-to-be-15-years-old game, becomes vastly more complex with each released update. We are talking about millions of lines of code that are worked on daily.
• Our players, over the years, have learned to identify bugs and are continuously getting better at spotting them (which is an asset to us during BETA testing).

Alas, a blatant glitch in-game doesn’t translate into an obvious problem in the code. A bug can be incredibly difficult to identify, even by the most experienced developers with tons of resources available to them. Bugs buried deep in legacy code take additional time to refactor out in a way that the system can better execute the request.
They can frequently be tied to fundamental parts of the game, meaning that it is often impossible to address the root cause without running the risk of introducing numerous other bugs. There is also the other possibility where the problem reported is the consequence of a bug, and not necessarily the bug itself. For every reported issue the development team needs to dig through the code and find out what is causing the problem, which can take a really long time.
And while these bugs need to be investigated, there is new content that also needs to be developed.


If somebody can understand players’ frustrations regarding bugs, it really is the dev team.