This game has a disgusting number of bugs and an unethical attitude to fixing them

[Sage047]

I picked up this game recently, and I both love it (for the hunting sim) and hate it (for...almost everything else). I've been playing with a friend, and attached here are a list of the things we've experienced. You might notice, a lot of these bugs are old, not just from the most recent update, but from as far back as launch. And yet the devs keep pumping out DLC's and seem to have never heard of the concept of a hotfix.

With Microsoft and Sony taking a hard stand against excessively buggy games, these sorts of things shouldn't be a thing, and honestly, steam ought to take a stand, as this game is one of the most buggy I've ever played, and the devs show an extremely flippant attitude to actually fixing it.

Some of these may be acknowledged, but many more have not, and even then, there is no ETA for fixes, and considering past behaviour, no guarantee of any fixes.

Anyway, without trying to turn this into something resembling a cooking blog (far too much backstory, not enough instructions), here's what I've noticed so far:

Game-breaking Bugs:

• Gpu usage fall offs causing huge fps drops
  
• Broken animal AI (freezing, running in circles, etc)
  
• Random crashing which causes crashing on each restart, so you have to do a total reboot of your pc
  
• Tabbing out makes crashes more common
  
• Audio occasionally cuts out for long periods of time on some maps

Gun Bugs:

• Drilling rifle ammo swap issue on multiplayer, this bug is over two years old
  
• Occasional inability to swap weapon sights and ammo without completely unequipping the weapon first
  
• Red dot sensitivity is extremely slow also two years old

ATV Bugs:

• Floating guns on your back
  
• getting off causes you to spin 90 degrees (or more)
  
• Animals damage you when you hit them, and have the same impact physics as a brick wall
  
• I should also add, the above even extends to RABBITS
  
• Slippier than an eel
  
• Handles like a cruise ship
  
• Has a part time job as a man-cannon
  
• Ear crushingly loud
  
• Just all round a real bad time guys, what were you thinking releasing this as a PAID Dlc.

Structure Bugs:

• "Too many occupants" bug
  
• Visible to guests but inaccessible
  
• Visible to guests.....but so is it's unbuilt form (blue tarp and wood clipping into built structure)
  
• Most hunting structures are actually prisons now
  
• Some structures cause you to fall through the map on savannah
  
• Propel you anywhere from 5 meters to 5 miles if you stand in the wrong spot when someone else enters

Miscellaneous Bugs:

• "ghost" animals that are static, have no clipping, are invincible/unspottable and invisible to other players in multiplayer
  
• trails can cause bodies to be impossible to pick up until they are gone
  
• downscaling resolution creates distortion
  
• Movement speed tied to framerate Who decided it was a good idea to make a hunting game on the 1997 goldeneye engine guys???
  
• some animals can be vision spooked through hills
  
• lack of fine movement control on pc (you're either normal, or NYOOM)
  
• Inconsistent double clicks on map
  
• Falling through map when teleporting to casita de martitia (parque fernando) and that one outpost near the really weird mission involving cougar genocide on the railway in silver ridge

Anyway, there's the list of things I've noticed. which is a grand total of...30 something bugs? With many of these being 1-2 years old. Many of the more serious ones were introduced with the recent update yes, but it's been weeks, and there's no eta on a fix, not even one for the smaller bugs such as the broken hunting structures.

If you trawl through the forums, you'll see there is a consistent trend with the devs for this game just...not fixing things. And quite honestly, this game is a deeply unpleasant experience at times, especially as these bugs have built up over the years, and for many people playing this game, it's trending towards unplayable.

For me personally, all of the bugs on this list are easily reproducible, your mileage may vay, and indeed I expect many of you also experience tons of bugs not on this list, or maybe you don't experience many at all. But please bear in mind, everyones experience is different depending on their hardware, and it is not their fault, nor should it be up to them to fix things themselves beyond a certain degree .

Anyway, I'm not really sure what im trying to achieve here, this isn't exactly the biggest game on steam, and I doubt my post will make them take a stronger stance against devs/games like this, but in an ideal world, there would be some kind of blowback against devs that allow these kinds of bug lists to go completely unchecked and ignored, for years, all the while releasing DLC, and slowly building the list of bugs even more.

Hopefully my formatting is fine, this is my first post on the steam forums.

Cheers for reading.

[Hazy_Memories]

Simple fix.......sorry to say this but maybe you should play something else for a while, I'm not bashing you please don't take this wrong, I understand what you are saying we have all paid for this game and all the DLC so we are all in this together. I hope one day we have a fixed COTW game, funny thing even with all the bugs I still see a lot of promise in this game and still enjoy it with all its short falls. I'm sorry to see someone so turned off by the flaws, patience may bring satisfaction in the long haul.......take care

[Cptn_Miller]

cheers, a very detailed list.. really need that hot fix, till then stick to the working maps or rather the maps with least amount of bugs lol.

[Sage047]

I mean, I absolutely can, and infact, I am playing other things. There *is* a lot of promise in this game, it's just a shame it's blighted by the bugs.
When you buy a game, you should buy it in the expectation it won't slowly be broken and eroded over time, which is unfortunately what's going on here however, and that's why you should care now.

[Poltergeist]

My problem isn't with the bugs it's with the unethical attitude towards fixing them. They allow high impact bugs to be in the game for an absurd amount of time. The disappearing corpse bug, which has still not been fixed despite the claim it was, has been in the game for 117 days - at least. The sound, tree stand, and fast travel bugs (maps Africa and Medved unplayable) have been in the game for 26 days.

And just look at the only document where they acknowledge these problems: https://support.thehunter.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403079961874-theHunter-Call-of-the-Wild-Known-Issues-Rancho-Del-Arroyo-

They think it's funny :

"Can't fast travel to certain outposts and in general. It's the journey that counts, right? Right?"

"Game audio gradually cutting out and causing performance issues (We require additional pylons!)"

I can't speak for others but their levity doesn't go over well with me. They are charging people for DLC and breaking the game in the process. I find it unprofessional to make jokes about it, to take holidays after breaking the game, and to leave these bugs in the game for so long.

They should stop building DLC and focus on the problems and bugs until most of them are resolved. The trouble is, they have no incentive. People keep buying the DLCs, they keep positively reviewing the game, and customer complaints can be ignored without consequence.

[briansaxton]

I wonder if there is a way we could all appeal to Steam. Maybe Steam could refuse to allow them to sell anything on the platform anymore until the major bugs are fixed or something like that.
I understand the "just play something else for a while" idea, but it really tans my hide that I paid to be able to play on maps that are currently so broken as to make them un-enjoyable, I paid to be able to complete missions that I can't currently complete, etc. I didn't pay to let them sit, unused, on my drive while I wait for the devs to pull their collective heads out of whatever orifice up which they currently have them stuffed.
Also, I agree with Poltergeist that their attitude toward their incompetence is worse than the incompetence itself.
I do love the idea and look of this game, and I loved playing it prior to the $#*!show that started with the Bloodhound DLC release. Since then, though, the thing has gone seriously off the rails, and now I feel cheated -- robbed in fact -- since they've taken my money and then broken what I paid for.
There should be some consequence.

[MAGE]

They should have a steam workshop. This would open the door to enhance the game as well as someone on the outside who might fix some of the issues. elder scrolls for example, has thrived doing this. Not talking about cheats. but fixes and enhancements. Somethings could be single player only.

[MAGE]

Another note.
I continue to play. I stay away from bugged items, areas and maps. Love the game. I play daily. When real hunting season starts I will be doing that to. In regards to the developers, is it that they cant figure it all out or are they lazy and dont give a crap. Easy to judge another when not in their shoes.
People keep buying the game and all the dlcs, so they keep pumping them out.
One of the problems is that technology has outpaced humans understanding and ability to make things work the way we all think they should. its been that way since the first personal computer s and gaming systems became available to the public.
this game is very complex as well as beautiful in the graphics. Hopefully someone will find some major fixes soon. It is best hunting game out there right now and hopefully it will evolve in the right direction.

[Nite69]

The random FPS drop and sound cut only happens on the savannah and taiga map that issue came from the June 29th update when rancho del arroyo released

[LordOfWar]

Good list man. I agree 100%. Excellent game is being ruined. The fact people (myself included) still play it despite the bug idiocy proves it's a great game. Pitty the bugs are not being fixed. If anything new ones are being added. Makes me wonder how much care is there among the developers.

[Hazy_Memories]

well not knowing how to do coding for a game I am just another waiting player, but I have coded HTML many years ago, when we would have a problem we would have to go through all the coding to find the "bug"....hundreds of lines of code!!..now as far as gaming goes I assume that there will be thousands of lines, I really have no idea how they make games so this is assumption only, I have mapped for COD2 many times, but that was a different time.
So I cut them some slack and hope....whining and bashing gets nothing, it is what it is. Lets all be patient and see. have a great day!

[LordOfWar]

I wouldn't call it wining or bashing. I didn't mean to do neither. But we did pay good money for the product. I recon it's reasonable to expect the bug lits to get shorter not longer.

[Poltergeist]

"Whining and bashing" serves a purpose beyond complaining. People who have not yet bought the game will be more informed about what they're getting into. I tend to check forums first and I'm sure others do.

[Sage047]

Honestly, "whining and bashing" and complaining about bugs present for years are two entirely different things in my mind, and I'd suggest reading the post again. The issue here is that there have been bugs that have never been fixed, and what looks like a steady increase in the number of bugs over time.

I can 100% cut slack for bugs that occured for recent updates, this isn't even debateable, it happens, and you can't big test for every scenario pre release. But releasing DLC before even fixing bugs that have an extreme impact isn't a good luck. Neither is their extremely flippant attitude towards bugs (see Poltergeists comment above).

The lack of hotfixes for general, easily reproduceable bugs is also concerning, bugs that are more difficult to diagnose I can also understand, but for example, getting trapped in hunting structures isn't rare, or hardware specific, it's just broken regardless.

I'm not a game dev either, but that doesn't mean you don't have a right to tell them they should be doing a better job when releasing paid content.

[will wabbit hunter]

there not a big company and there still stuck working from home. even the big companys are having delays on games getting finished EA PLAY showed no new star wars games this year. and star wars battlefront 2017 stoped adding extra content last year. and even games from big companys get bugs

[Sage047]

Except the kicker is will, this company which isn't big, and is stuck working from home, is still pushing out DLC. Not only that, many of these bugs have existed since welllllll before we were all stuck working from home. To add on to that, yeah other companies are having games delayed, but how on earth is that remotely relevant to a company who has released Four DLC's since the start of 2020 and yet hasn't fixed something as simple as the drilling rifle multiplayer bug in the three years since it was reported? There is no excuse.