Mod Tester's Handbook tutorial - Crispy

Writing a Bug Report: Steps to Reproduce

Once you have narrowed down your repro steps you can put them into the bug report. Remember to number the steps and to begin them with the booting of the game. Never, under any circumstances, give instructions for using the debug menu in your repro steps. Firstly, once a game has entered Beta, you should never put a bug in that was found via use of a debug menu (it's extremely bad practice). Secondly, your steps should always be directed towards a player of the game, not to a developer. If you always imagine that a player will be reading your repro steps, they will always be clear and accurate. Thirdly, it is good practise that regression of the bug should be performed without the use of debug commands. This means if the bug is on the last level of a game, a full playthrough is required to reliably confirm if it is fixed or open.

Here's an example of the format I would use to write a bug:

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot [title name] [platform] [settings]
2. Load [level]
3. Move to [location]
4. [perform action]

Result:
[results]
Your first line should always be an instruction to boot the game on a certain platform. This is to avoid any important steps being missed out, such as booting in a certain language or at a certain resolution. If the bug does require a certain setting in order to be reproduced, add that information to this line. If the bug can be performed in any resolution, or in any language, add this as a note to the bug description.

Unless the bug occurs immediately after boot (e.g. on the title screen or on the Front End), your second line will usually be an instruction to load a particular level. This line should never involve debug commands. For this reason it is better to phrase this line as "Progress to mission 3" instead of "Load e1_m3", because it makes it clear you have found the bug during normal play. It is acceptable to attach a save file to the bug report that will allow a developer to recreate and observe the bug more quickly. In this case it's fine to say "Load bug1364.sav (see attachments)", just remember to try to re-name the save file using the same numerical ID as the corresponding bug entry in the database (it just makes it easier for developers to find it if they download and save it into a local folder).

Finally, it helps to add a line for the 'result' of the repro steps. This reinforces the overall reproduction process and makes it easy to copy+paste this section of the bug report if needed.

Here's a full example of some repro steps:

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot AdventureQuest PC
2. Progress to Denbrooke
3. Talk to Whipsnade to add the Caves to your map
4. Travel to the Caves via the map
5. Collect the Silver Key key from the central cavern
6. Locate the Prison gate within the caves and open it using the Silver Key
7. Quickly kill the guard menacing the civilian (lunge attack works best for this)

Result:
The civilian is not slain and remains in a 'cowering' pose, even though the guard is dead and no enemies are in sight.

As you can see from the above example, no assumptions have been made about the reader. Literally any player of the game should be able to reproduce the bug under their own steam, without needed to query any of the steps. Now, prepare to get amourous with your devs! If you are writing clear repro steps for them, they will love you for it!