jmastroi Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I expect a database change would fix something like that. ...Which is even riskier then a code change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syylara Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 As someone pointed out early on, this is an issue with many of the item modifications. Despite the assurances that this is just a minor little thing not to be worried about, this is itemization. Itemization impacts balance and difficulty tuning. They are making tweaks and changes to the latter without having the basic foundation sorted out properly. If there are mods and enhancements with identical stats, that means a particular combo is probably missing. That missing combo, when introduced, can change the resulting gameplay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgecase Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 As someone pointed out early on, this is an issue with many of the item modifications. Despite the assurances that this is just a minor little thing not to be worried about, this is itemization. Itemization impacts balance and difficulty tuning. They are making tweaks and changes to the latter without having the basic foundation sorted out properly. If there are mods and enhancements with identical stats, that means a particular combo is probably missing. That missing combo, when introduced, can change the resulting gameplay. While these things are true, it's also important to remember that this is only an issue with leveling gear at this time. I'm not saying that balance and variety during leveling aren't important. Rather, I'm saying that crafted items are still suitable substitutes in this level range, that sidegrades are available from various sources, and that the length of time players will use the items in question before replacing them is relatively short. None of these is a proper solution. However, they collectively mitigate the severity of the issue by a great deal, making it a very low priority to fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fargham Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I highly doubt they are using skilled software developers to modify item attributes through their game tool. There is no doubt there is some sort of tool that allows them to modify items, npcs, abilities, and so on through a GUI. There is no doubt that there are 'designers' that are skilled in the use of this gui, who are separate from the developers who are tasked with fixing code bugs. Therefore, fixing itemization shouldn't impact fixing bugs, unless there is some sort of giant QA process for itemization changes as well. So the real question is, what else are these designers working on that they can't go back and fix itemization? Perhaps an expansion/patch that requires them to create a glut of new content (and thus new npcs, items, ect). I guess I'd rather them fix the existing problems before bringing new content out, but then again, I am sure people who are doing Nightmare mode Ops and have max pvp gear are much closer to quitting, than people who are upset about +Accuracy on all of the Operative gear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I highly doubt they are using skilled software developers to modify item attributes through their game tool. There is no doubt there is some sort of tool that allows them to modify items, npcs, abilities, and so on through a GUI. There is no doubt that there are 'designers' that are skilled in the use of this gui, who are separate from the developers who are tasked with fixing code bugs. More like "junior assistant X", basically being one rung above getting the coffee. IT's essentially basic data entry. Calling them "designers" wouldn't be helping anyone. Of course, there are those pseudo-GD programs out there which actually have basically no correlation to game design... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fargham Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 (edited) More like "junior assistant X", basically being one rung above getting the coffee. IT's essentially basic data entry. Calling them "designers" wouldn't be helping anyone. Of course, there are those pseudo-GD programs out there which actually have basically no correlation to game design... Calling them designers would in fact, help their own ego, alas, you've ruined that. There is one probably right now, crying in their bosses' coffee. Way to go Edited February 10, 2012 by Fargham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhila Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Yup, I fully agree. On top of that there are much bigger fish to fry. ^This. I'm sure correcting mouseovers on items, or the items themselves should CERTAINLY come before fixing the UI that keeps people from playing. Or the patcher issues people are having. Or the sluggish combat system. Or the lack of true end-game currently. Or the overall graphical issues a lot of people keep having. I hope you get the point. That bug is so minor it's inane to scream for them to fix it ASAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 (edited) Calling them designers would in fact, help their own ego, alas, you've ruined that. There is one probably right now, crying in their bosses' coffee. Way to go And completely screw with their career. Giving people the wrong job title causes them to apply for the wrong jobs - even internally. They'll stagnate, get frustrated, and so on. Not good for anyone. Maybe you still want to have the guy 5 years on - but you don't want to still have him doing the exact same job. Gotta help people grow. Edited February 10, 2012 by Inarai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snibb Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Could be a database issue (wrong values in database.) Could be a loading issue (ever get things off by 1 address location or have an array off by 1 and you end up loading something unintended?) Could be some other issue that we have no clue about. We just don't know how things are structured. Point is it might not be just a simple fix, but hopefully they still care enough to look into it. With all the bugs out there, the amount of bugs being fixed per week seems low to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bewl Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Could be a database issue (wrong values in database.) Could be a loading issue (ever get things off by 1 address location or have an array off by 1 and you end up loading something unintended?) Could be some other issue that we have no clue about. We just don't know how things are structured. Point is it might not be just a simple fix, but hopefully they still care enough to look into it. With all the bugs out there, the amount of bugs being fixed per week seems low to me. This guy gets it. The problem seems to me like a reference mistake, which means they are both referencing the same item data attributes in the database. This can happen in a relational database structure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Could be a database issue (wrong values in database.) Could be a loading issue (ever get things off by 1 address location or have an array off by 1 and you end up loading something unintended?) Could be some other issue that we have no clue about. We just don't know how things are structured. Point is it might not be just a simple fix, but hopefully they still care enough to look into it. With all the bugs out there, the amount of bugs being fixed per week seems low to me. Low priority is the main thing. Basically, they might get around to it, but while their bug fixing guys are tied up on higher priority ones it's not really impacting all that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptwonline Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Anyone who has leveled up Artificing has probably noticed that there are multiple Enhancements with different names but identical stats. This is what the OP is seeing. I suspect there were a lot more stats at one time but they were rationalized, and some taken out or merged with others. However, the now-redundant Enhancements were NOT taken out, and so if you had two stats merged into one, you still have the two differently-named Enhancements. I assume Bioware will clean that up at some point, but it's likely low-priority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busukaba Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I assume Bioware will clean that up at some point, but it's likely low-priority. And that's the key right there. It's likely low priority. If I was the product manager this certainly would be low priority regardless of how difficult a fix it is. Yes, it "affects" a lot of people since the same issues can be seen from Balmorra and Taris on, but you can likely get something crafted from a guildie which is more what you're looking for anyway, so there is a work around. It's not hampering anyone's play (even if you don't have a guild you can hit up the GTN, unless your server sucks) and they certainly aren't anywhere near gamebreaking. Sure it's probably on the lsit of things to fix, buy it probably won't happen for months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 And that's the key right there. It's likely low priority. If I was the product manager this certainly would be low priority regardless of how difficult a fix it is. Yes, it "affects" a lot of people since the same issues can be seen from Balmorra and Taris on, but you can likely get something crafted from a guildie which is more what you're looking for anyway, so there is a work around. It's not hampering anyone's play (even if you don't have a guild you can hit up the GTN, unless your server sucks) and they certainly aren't anywhere near gamebreaking. Sure it's probably on the lsit of things to fix, buy it probably won't happen for months. Plus it's a nice little market perk for Artificers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rasticles Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 (edited) The guy who said they were variables were correct..... anyone who has even worked on mySQL/PHP programming knows this....this is mid-ranged to high level web programming....and granted not everyone knows this, but today us web programmers are a dime a dozen.... Have a look: http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/try.php It's a link to a demo DB interface, with nice neat pictures. This game is 100% DB driven, and you can bet their DB has an interface VERY similar to this......point, click, submit. Changed. Next. The Hero engine toolkit also has a graphical interface.... But I agree, not a big priority..... Edited February 10, 2012 by Rasticles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 The guy who said they were variables were correct..... anyone who has even worked on mySQL/PHP programming knows this....this is mid-ranged to high level web programming....and granted not everyone knows this, but today us web programmers are a dime a dozen.... This isn't web programming - there's a couple of other possibilities at play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigitalDreamz Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I think the devs screwed up. Understatement of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SabreMonkey Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 I am a developer. They're called variables. Not to hard to correct (if indeed it is a mistake). I like that this fellow's portrait is shadowed out like he's a witness protection candidate giving a confession on 20/20. "I'm a dev..." GASP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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