What's the difference between reach and severity in bug triage?

Reach is how many players a bug affects (its breadth); severity is how bad it is for each player who hits it (its depth of harm). A bug hitting thousands has high reach; a crash that loses progress has high severity. Good triage weighs both, since a bug high on either dimension can deserve priority, and one high on both is urgent. Using only one leads to predictable prioritization mistakes.

Should I prioritize bugs by reach or severity?

By both, weighed together. Reach alone misses catastrophic rare bugs (a save-corruptor affecting few players); severity alone misses widespread annoyances (a frustration hitting thousands). A bug high on either dimension can justify attention, one high on both is top priority, and one low on both is a candidate to defer. Combining reach (how many) and severity (how bad) is what makes prioritization sound rather than one-dimensional.

How do I weigh reach against severity?

Consider them as two dimensions of impact and let either justify priority: a widespread bug (high reach) and a catastrophic one (high severity) both deserve attention, while a bug high on both is urgent and one low on both can wait. In practice, a high-severity issue like a crash or data loss can outrank a more widespread but minor glitch, and vice versa, so use the data on affected players (reach) alongside how bad the issue is (severity) to decide.

Reach vs Severity for Bug Triage

Quick answer: Reach is how many players a bug affects; severity is how bad it is for each. Good triage weighs both, a bug high on either can deserve priority.

In bug triage, reach and severity are the two key dimensions of impact, and weighing them against each other is the heart of good prioritization. Using only one leads to predictable mistakes. Here's how reach and severity compare and combine.

What Reach Measures

Reach is how many players a bug affects, its breadth. A bug hitting thousands has high reach; one hitting three has low reach. Reach is often the strongest single signal for prioritization, because fixing a high-reach bug helps the most people, and it's the dimension developers most often lack data on.

Bugnet counts how many players each grouped issue affects, making reach a concrete number. Reach is powerful but incomplete on its own: a high-reach cosmetic glitch might matter less than a low-reach data-loss bug, which is where severity comes in.

What Severity Measures

Severity is how bad a bug is for a player who hits it, its depth of harm. A crash that loses progress is high-severity; a minor visual glitch is low-severity. Severity captures what reach misses: that not all affected players are affected equally badly. A bug can have low reach but devastating severity.

Bugnet distinguishes crashes from minor reports, giving you a read on severity alongside reach. Severity alone is also incomplete: a high-severity bug affecting almost no one usually shouldn't outrank a moderate bug affecting thousands, which is where reach balances it.

Why You Need Both

Using reach alone misses catastrophic rare bugs (a save-corruptor hitting few); using severity alone misses widespread annoyances (a frustration hitting thousands). Good triage weighs both: a bug high on either dimension can deserve priority, and one high on both is urgent. The combination is what makes prioritization sound.

Bugnet gives you both reach (affected players) and severity (crash vs minor), so you can triage on the full picture. So don't pick one, weigh reach and severity together: high reach or high severity each justifies attention, while a bug low on both is a candidate to defer.

Reach is how many players a bug affects; severity is how bad it is for each. Weigh both, either dimension can justify priority. Reach alone misses catastrophic rare bugs; severity alone misses widespread annoyances.