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The latest bug to loot drops in HoR is terrifying because it confirms something: loot drops are not part of Anthem's smoke or sanity testing
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For those of you unfamiliar with the QA process.

Smoke Test - a daily/per build quick test used to verify the integrity of each build. Primarily checks that the build is "testable". If anything here fails. It's a critical issue. You're looking for smoke. Coz if there's smoke, there's likely a fire.

Sanity Test - This is to check that any recent changes/merges to game systems or behaviour have not broken any other systems. A much more thorough test. Here the idea is that you're checking that the code changes make sense in the game environment. That the coder isn't insane.

These are the primary 2 test formats that a QA team will be using as they head towards a release of any build/hotfix. As anything more granular than this will likely be too time consuming and not provide sufficient risk mitigation Vs the time allocation that it requires.

But the prevalence of this bug means that in a loot driven game, checks on loot functionality do not exist to a sufficient extent. And that probably explains a lot in regard to the experiences with loot that the community has had with the game.

I'm not insane. Or raging. Someone in their QA department has likely looked at loot. But the only way a bug like this can slip through is if an assumption about the extensible nature of a test case has been made that is not true. Basically, someone has likely checked that "enemies drop loot". And not "all enemies drop loot" or "boss loot falls within defined parameters". Which is odd because bosses and apex creatures have their own defined loot behaviours and as such should have their own defined tests. This is exactly the sort of thing a sanity test exists to capture.

QA are your last line of defence against a bad review. If they are not being given the scope or time to sufficiently test features, then no-one exists to provide you feedback when your loot system is poor.

The recent bug suggests that is exactly the issue with their process. That due to insufficient time/scope/stake in the QA process to capture these issues. And if that's the case then there is a glaring hole in their QA process that can very easily contribute to a poor loot game in the final product.

( There's also another point about automated testing and a dedicated loot suite. But I've probably been as boring as I can get away with on Reddit)

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5 years ago