Bug Reporting - F.A.Q

Q. Nothing ever gets fixed! Why should I make a bug report?

A. Bugs are actually worked on and fixed on a daily basis. You can see from the Changelog section just how frequently we have minor bugfix and improvement updates in the changelog section, ranging from vehicle corrections, to stability and performance improvements and more severe crashes and niche issues that can be deployed several times a week or in slightly bulkier updates all at once. Quite a lot of issues can actually be very specific to either a handful of players or a sectioned group, thus quite a few fixes may be missed or simply ignored because they don't apply to certain players, so their value is not appreciated. Not only this, but Major updates also come with a plethora of fixes of all sizes. Not a single major update goes by where there are not many corrections, fixes and improvements to all areas of the game, some of which you may not even notice unless you really have an investigative eye!

Q. I made a thread on Reddit, posted on War Thunder Live or Social media, why didn't you fix my issue?

A. Posting a topic, short clip or video of an issue may well be sufficient for making other people aware of a matter and how best to avoid it / not experience it, but it's never a good way of trying to get a matter actually fixed. Videos and clips often don't show the whole story, can be easily manipulated/taken out of context and also don't actually show or describe what exactly caused the issue or its source. It does not help anyone actually identify the root cause of the problem or how to solve it. For that, in most cases the Clog file and Replay are invaluable resources that are absolute musts for getting an issue resolved as they contain all of the necessary information (in most cases) needed to fix the matter. Clog and Replay files are extremely fast and easy to obtain within the games folders and more often than not, in the time it takes to make a post discussing an issue, that same time could have gone into a valid bug report that can actually get the matter fixed. Beyond this, some issues simply do not reproduce and may be limited to a group of players/conditions/circumstances, so just showing/discussing the issue often is no use at all. If a matter has not been correctly reported via a bug report, it's very unlikely it will be resolved.

Q. I need help/assistance creating my bug report, what can I do?

A. In addition to our tutorial videos, you can contact any Technical Moderator on the War Thunder forum who will be able to provide assistance and support through the process and any questions you may have. We also have full text guides in every section and will very soon have comprehensive and full guides on the War Thunder Wikipedia!

Q. Why does my specific issue take so long to get fixed?

A. That would largely depend on the specific case or bug that's been reported, however there are a few important things to note. What can often seem like a “minor” bug that seems quick to fix, may be a more complicated code matter that is not at all visible to the average player. It's also not uncommon for matters to be interconnected with another line of code or when one thing is fixed, it may have an unforeseen impact on another element that needs even more time to review and correct. Some matters can simply be far more deep and problematic than they may ever appear to be on the surface. Regarding more complicated historical matters, with over 1500+ vehicles in game now, each modeled to extremely high levels of detail and sophistication, War Thunder has a scenario completely unique to any other game available. Every vehicle has a range of source material, archive documentation, real examples (in some cases where there are surviving examples) as well as publications, videos and a whole host of other mediums that can all conflict and contradict each other. As such, when a historical matter is raised, often that is then followed behind the scenes with more research, validation, museum trips and other methods of ensuring the correct and most reliable information is used. This can of course take some time given the complexities of such matters. Every report is however given the same level of attention.

Q. This bug happens to me a lot, why did nobody notice this?

A. It's not uncommon for new issues that did not even occur in testing to appear on dev server / production versions of the game. Certain conditions, player numbers, unknown occurrences and also the fact of each player in some cases having a completely different hardware, network, platform, location and whole host of other different variables to another player mean some matters simply cannot or will not reproduce during testing and are never occured in the first place during testing. Some matters don't exist in some versions of the game and do in others, different servers and every change has an effect on every single element of the game, thus there are so many variables that could occur that it's impossible to ever account or even experience everything before someone else may. That is why correct bug reporting is so vital.

Q. Why was this issue stated as fixed, but still happens?

A. More often than not, when something has been fixed, it's very unlikely the exact same version of the bug occurs or will come back. Due to the very nature of the game and its complexities, it is inevitable that some issues can occur as a result of other changes. Other times, it may appear similar, but be a different matter altogether.

Q. I don't quite like “this” part of the bug reporting system, can you improve it by doing “this”?

A. The bug report system has evolved over time not only with the game, but also based on feedback and years of flowing reports. We always seek to improve the system and make it as user friendly and easy to use as possible, whilst also keeping the bare minimum steps required that we need to make a report valid (such as Client Logs, Steps to reproduce, Version number - all very important things). Please feel free to leave your feedback, ideas and suggestions in the comments or in the “Forums/Website” area of the Suggestions section.