How do I know if a bug is high priority?

Assess its impact (how many players) and severity (how bad), plus its location. A bug is high priority if: it affects many players (the impact dimension, the more players affected, the more total harm, so high affected-player count signals high priority); it's severe, a crash, game-breaker (progression blocker, soft-lock), or causes lost progress (the severity dimension, high-severity bugs hurt each affected player badly); it's on a critical path (save, progression, core loop, where bugs are game-breaking and hit everyone who reaches them) or in the early experience (where bugs cost the most players, hitting them before they're invested); and it's driving reviews or churn (a sign it's doing real damage). To assess these, capture crashes with affected-player counts (grouped by signature, for impact), note the severity (crash, game-breaker, lost progress), and see the location (via breadcrumbs, critical path or early experience). A bug high in both impact and severity, especially on a critical path or in the early experience, is high priority, your top priority. The principle is that priority combines impact (how many players) and severity (how bad), so the highest-priority bugs are those affecting the most players and doing the most harm per player (a crash or game-breaker affecting many players), especially on critical paths or early in the experience (where they do the most damage). Capturing crashes from the field with affected-player counts and grouping by signature is what makes impact-based prioritization possible, it shows you which bugs affect the most players, which (combined with severity and location) is what determines high priority. So you know a bug is high priority from its impact (many players, via affected-player counts), severity (crash, game-breaker, lost progress), and location (critical path, early experience), the bugs scoring high on these are the ones to fix first, since they do the most total harm to your game and players.

How do I prioritize bugs by impact?

Rank bugs by how many players each affects, using affected-player counts from field crash capture with grouping. To prioritize by impact, you need to know how many players each bug affects, which requires capturing bugs from the field (so you see the bugs players actually hit, including the majority who don't report) and grouping duplicates by signature (so a bug hit by many players shows as one issue with a high affected-player count, rather than many separate reports or a hidden scatter). Capturing crashes from the field with affected-player counts gives you the impact directly, each grouped issue has a count of how many players it's affecting. Then rank by that count: the bugs at the top (affecting the most players) are your high-impact priorities. This matters because bug impact is concentrated, a handful of bugs usually affect the most players (most of the crashes, most of the harm), so fixing those few high-impact bugs delivers the biggest improvement for the least effort, far more than spreading effort across the long tail of low-impact bugs. Combine impact with severity for full prioritization: a high-impact bug that's also severe (a crash or game-breaker affecting many players) is top priority, while you weigh high-impact-but-minor against lower-impact-but-severe (a widespread cosmetic issue versus a severe bug affecting fewer). So you prioritize bugs by impact by ranking them by affected-player count (from field crash capture with signature grouping), then working the top of the list (the high-impact bugs), weighted by severity. The affected-player count is the impact measure, and capturing crashes from the field with grouping is what provides it, turning 'which bugs to fix' from guesswork into a clear ranking by how many players each affects. This impact-based prioritization (concentrating on the bugs affecting the most players) is what makes your limited fixing time deliver the most improvement, since impact is concentrated, fixing the few high-impact bugs addresses most of the harm. Without field capture and grouping, you can't see true impact (reports understate it, duplicates scatter or inflate it), so capturing crashes from the field with affected-player counts is the foundation of prioritizing by impact, and combining impact with severity (and location) gives you the full priority ranking that determines what to fix first.

Should I fix bugs in order of severity or impact?

Neither alone, you combine them, since priority depends on both severity (how bad) and impact (how many players), and using either in isolation mis-prioritizes. If you prioritize by severity alone, you might over-prioritize a severe bug that affects almost no one (a game-breaker only one player on an obscure configuration can hit) over a moderate bug affecting a large share of players, even though the latter does more total harm. If you prioritize by impact alone, you might over-prioritize a widespread cosmetic issue over a severe but somewhat-less-common game-breaker, even though the game-breaker hurts the affected players far more. The right approach combines them: a bug's priority reflects both how bad it is for a player who hits it (severity) and how many players hit it (impact), often thought of as severity times impact, so the highest-priority bugs are severe and widespread (a crash or game-breaker affecting many players), and you weigh severe-but-narrow against moderate-but-widespread by considering total harm. The reason both matter is that what you're really trying to minimize with your limited fixing time is total harm to your players, which is severity (harm per affected player) times impact (number of affected players), so you can't ignore either dimension. So for prioritizing bugs, combine severity and impact rather than treating either as more important: use severity to capture how bad each bug is and impact to capture how widespread it is, and prioritize by their combination (total impact/harm), which correctly puts the bugs doing the most total harm (severe and widespread) at the top. Location also factors in (bugs on critical paths or in the early experience are higher priority, since critical-path bugs are game-breaking and hit everyone reaching them, and early-experience bugs cost the most players). Capturing crashes from the field with affected-player counts provides the impact dimension, and assessing the bug's nature (crash, game-breaker, cosmetic) provides the severity, so combining them gives you the priority that determines what to fix first. The practical rule: fix the bugs that are both severe and high-impact first (the top priority, doing the most total harm), then weigh severe-but-narrow against moderate-but-widespread by total harm, and defer the low-severity, low-impact tail. So you fix bugs in order of combined severity-and-impact (total harm), not severity or impact alone, which ensures your limited fixing time goes to the bugs doing the most total damage to your game and players, the high-severity, high-impact ones, especially on critical paths and early in the experience.

Signs a Bug Is High Priority

Quick answer: Watch for a bug affecting many players, being severe (crash, game-breaker, lost progress), being on a critical path or early experience, and driving reviews or churn. Priority combines impact and severity.

Knowing which bugs are high priority is what makes your limited fixing time count. Here are the signs a bug is high priority.

It Affects Many Players

The core sign of high priority is impact: the bug affects many players. A bug hitting a large share of your players is high-priority because it does the most total harm, so the affected-player count is the primary signal of priority, the more players affected, the higher the priority (for a given severity).

Bugnet groups crashes by signature and ranks by affected players, so high-impact bugs surface. A bug affecting many players is the core sign of high priority, and capturing crashes with affected-player counts (grouped by signature) is how you see it, the affected-player count is the impact dimension of priority, so the bugs at the top of the affected-player ranking are your high-priority candidates.

It's Severe: a Crash, Game-Breaker, or Lost Progress

A sign is severity: the bug is a crash, game-breaker (progression blocker, soft-lock), or causes lost progress, the high-severity bugs that do the most harm per affected player. A severe bug is high-priority because each affected player is hurt badly, so severity (combined with impact) raises priority.

Bugnet ranks by impact and surfaces severe issues like crashes, so high-severity bugs are clear. A severe bug (crash, game-breaker, lost progress) is a sign of high priority, since severity is the other dimension of priority (alongside impact), a bug that's both high-impact and high-severity (a crash affecting many players) is your top priority, doing the most total harm.

It's on a Critical Path or in the Early Experience

A sign is location: the bug is on a critical path (save, progression, core loop) or in the early experience. Bugs on critical paths are high-priority because they're game-breaking and hit everyone who reaches them; bugs in the early experience are high-priority because they cost the most players (hitting them before they're invested).

Bugnet captures crashes with breadcrumbs, so bugs on critical paths and in the early experience are identifiable. A bug on a critical path or in the early experience is a sign of high priority, since critical-path bugs are game-breaking (and hit everyone reaching them) and early-experience bugs cost the most players (hitting them when least invested), so location raises priority, capturing crashes with breadcrumbs (showing where bugs occur) helps you identify these.

Watch for a bug affecting many players, being severe (crash, game-breaker, lost progress), being on a critical path or early experience, and driving reviews or churn. Priority combines impact and severity.