Hi,
I’d like to share a situation that highlights what I believe is a structural issue in how certain bugs are prioritized, especially for maps that depend on specific core features.
I am the creator of a social map where proximity chat is a fundamental part of the experience. Without it, the map essentially does not function as intended.
For a period of around 5–6 months, proximity chat was not working correctly on my island. During that time:
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Player count gradually dropped to 0
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The map lost all its momentum and visibility
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Returning players stopped engaging due to the broken core feature
Once the issue was fixed, player numbers started to recover, but the map never fully returned to its previous state. During that downtime, similar maps that did not have this issue were able to capture and retain a large portion of the player base.
The key point I want to highlight is this:
Even if a bug affects a relatively small number of creators, it can have a critical impact if it breaks a core mechanic that a map fully depends on.
Recently, there have been discussions suggesting that some bugs may be deprioritized if they are not considered widely impactful. This case shows that the impact of a bug should not only be measured by how many people it affects, but also by how essential the affected feature is to the experience.
Suggestion:
It may be worth considering a system where creators can indicate whether a feature is “critical” to their map, so that bugs affecting those systems can be prioritized differently.
This is not just about a single case, but about improving how feature-dependent experiences are supported within the ecosystem.
Thanks for your time.