Personally, I think it's not that you tend to run into more bugs than most people, but that you actually notice bugs. Then you'll go and test it without any prompting.
If you're not working in QA somewhere, they're missing out.
Well, it has to be somewhere but here. QA doesn't exist in Cryptic. We can even joke that Tribble, the Test Server, serves no purpose. Holodeck *IS* the Test Server.
Well, it has to be somewhere but here. QA doesn't exist in Cryptic. We can even joke that Tribble, the Test Server, serves no purpose. Holodeck *IS* the Test Server.
Not to make excuses for them, because I've got no clue how many actual folks they have nor what system they're using for tracking; but it comes off looking as if they're understaffed for the size of the project and perhaps not using the best system for tracking.
I couldn't even begin to guess at the scoring mechanics that would come into play for trying to prioritize the investigation of bugs for a MMO and what that would mean with their production schedule...there are some old bugs out there that some of us might think should have been resolved, but if they keep getting bumped in the system for others - well, yeah - just points to a potential understaffing/system thing, imho.
Even after QA does their investigation, which could be quick or take days, and verifies things - that's still got to be sent to the specific department to fix the issue. Which gets into potential understaffing in other departments, as they have to keep up with the production schedule while also attempting to address issues. Some issues may require the interaction between several departments, all fighting their own schedules.
Heh, I used to joke that Cryptic tended to be quiet on Monday because they were probably all tied up in countless meetings trying to sort everything out for the week.
There are Environmental Artists, Character Artists, Ship Artists, you've got Animators, Riggers, you've got UI Artists, there are System Designers, Content Designers, you've got Writers, there will be the Audio folks, you've got Programmers - all kinds of different Programmers, what about their Database people, and well it kind of just goes on and on.
The game has been around for a bit as well - has seen several changes in various positions where folks may have done things differently than other folks - the documentation they left for what they did might not be the best. Some folks feel they have more job security the less it appears they would be easily replaced because they have documented so well. Some places will just fire folks for not documenting well. No idea how Cryptic handles that. Documentation can be time consuming. It's another factor that's going to fit into the whole process of trying to get things resolved.
(Lol, two asides here from personal experience:
I once took over a database gig from a guy that with each change to the database for the software, he simply continued to drop and add tables, stored procedures, and the rest. So depending on the size of the customer's database, something that should have taken half an hour to a few hours could end up being a weekend job. His update script was over 40k lines when it shouldn't have even been over 10k.
I once took over a web programming gig from a guy that all of his comments in his code consisted of two things: Bible verses and complaints about the folks he worked with. It took a wee while to figure out just why he'd been doing some of the things the way he was and in many cases it was more efficient just to rewrite the whole thing.)
So who knows what kind of goodies Cryptic's got going on there, yeah? Those things where something comes along and works fine in most cases but is brutally broken in another. With the sheer amount of items in their database, all the various components - they'd have to do some hardcore automated testing even to get a glimpse of what's going on there. It's probably more likely that they're doing some random sample testing with a few batches and everything comes up good...so it's good to go. Then you've got those odds and ends, eh?
One thing they definitely improved on, imho, is patching forks...though uh, some things are starting to pop up again. But remember when almost every patch reintroduced stuff that had been fixed because it was from another fork that hadn't been patched? I forget how forks Geko says they have running right now; but yeah - they've got their short term, middle term, long term, and all sorts of things going on there. So the testing that might show something as working as intended in several might end up fubar in the actual code push.
To me, that would still get into some understaffing stuff. Not that the staff they have are incompetent, but rather they likely just don't have the staff to handle the size of the project. I could be completely wrong though, I don't have any MMO experience...nothing at that level of complexity.
But yeah, I can see where it would be a brutal task for them...and I try to thank Frost when he comments on things, I try to thank devs when they talk to us...but heh, I'll still have my "ohffs moments" with things. Heh, I'm a customer here, not an employee...I'm going to have my entitled moments demanding unreasonable stuff!
Disclaimer: This reference of DOPE and Doping is referring to the tactic of using Embassy Consoles and Beam Damage Consoles to increase DPS and is in no way promoting the use of illegal substances. Unless it's legal in your state, then go nuts!
...could have grabbed any of them to go goof about. I grab the Apex and run into that shield thing. /facepalm
Yeah, an ISA where I took 933.7k damage with 622.9k of it being shield. Cause the shields were taking 2-3 or more hits instead of the one, and the higher the resist - the faster they went. Shield Frequency Modulation...wheee.
Do you mind explaining that shield bug a bit more? A few times while testing setups I couldn’t understand what’s happing in game where either my ship or another person ship was being killed far faster than expected. A few times I built a regen ship focused purely on tanking and max shield regen and it could withstand 3 players shooting it none stop in PvP or I could sit AFK for 30min against NPC's. Then after a few item refits going back to the regen setup and it could barely stand up to one weak NPC or 1 player yet alone go AFK.
I have long suspected shield regen and resistance is broken but could never prove it.
Another thing that happens far to often is a bug gets fixed on tribble, marked as fixed, broken on the next tribble patch then never fixed again and never makes it to live. Then there are the items which are just plain clearly broken from day one and you wonder what the QA and designing team are playing at. It took all of 5 seconds to see the mines in the delta rep are broken. Those types of bugs should never make it to live yet alone not be fixed months later. Then there is the fact I reached level 20 crafting yet still cannot craft and upgrade my own projectile consoles almost 1 year later (or how ever long its been now). I understand bugs, no one expects a game to be perfect but something's clearly not working in the bug reporting system or there is some sort of flaw in the bug tracking system or other problems.
Do you mind explaining that shield bug a bit more? A few times while testing setups I couldnt understand whats happing in game where either my ship or another person ship was being killed far faster than expected. A few times I built a regen ship focused purely on tanking and shield regen and it could withstand 3 players shooting it none stop in PvP. Then after a few item refits going back to the regen setup and it could barely stand up to one weak NPC.
I have long suspected shield regen and resistance is broken but could never prove it.
Another thing that happens far to often is a bug gets fixed on tribble, marked as fixed, broken on the next tribble patch then never fixed again and never makes it to live. Then there are the items which are just plain clearly broken from day one and you wonder what the QA and designing team are playing at. It took all of 5 seconds to see the mines in the delta rep are broken. Those types of bugs should never make it to live yet alone not be fixed months later.
Here are the lines from a Plasma Torp hit that applied a Plasma DoT in ISA while in the Apex...
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Shield,,-1777.21,-8220.36
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Shield,,-1070.08,-571.469
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Kinetic,,0,16462.7
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Shield,,-365.604,-195.163
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Plasma,,0,365.604
Here's an example of another hit (while in a Benthan instead of the Apex) to demonstrate how it should have looked...
15:01:18:07:51:41.8::Kazon Cruiser,C[674783 Space_Kazon_Cruiser],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Phaser Array,Pn.Ddlvnl,Shield,,-155.236,-142.581
15:01:18:07:51:41.8::Kazon Cruiser,C[674783 Space_Kazon_Cruiser],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Phaser Array,Pn.Ddlvnl,Phaser,,9.91202,264.195
First, looking at the Benthan lines - the normal lines.
While Shields are up, capacity on the facing being attacked, there will be two lines. There will be the Shield line and the Hull line. The last two numbers on each line are what folks will often look at when looking at the raw log. Those numbers are...
Shield Line: Damage to Shields, Hull Damage Prevented by Shields
Hull Line: Damage to Hull, Base Damage of Attack
That Hull Damage Prevented by Shields is an odd one in of itself because it can be higher than the Base Damage of Attack because of debuff stacking and how it affects the Damage to Hull. But that's another issue.
But basically, a 264.195 Phaser hit did 155.236 damage to shields and 9.91202 damage to hull. The math behind calculating resistances and reductions for that stuff is way beyond what I can do...I can just do the simple stuff against standard NPCs where we know damage resistance (0%) and shield damage reduction (14%). It would be nifty if somebody had a decent explanation and formula for calculating that or could point to one. But that's an aside...anyway.
So then moving on to the Apex and that Torp hit...
Basically a 16462.7 Torp hit did...did...did...
Yeah, it did no hull damage. There's a second Shield line.
The Plasma DoT, which shouldn't touch shields instead did it's full damage to Shields...telling us that it ignored the Hull Damage Resistance it would have faced actually hitting Hull and even ignored the Shield Damage Reduction it should have faced since it hit Shields instead.
Jumped down to the DoT because it helps explain that second Shield line.
So that 16462.7 Torp hit, threw some damage at the Shield...should have thrown some damage at the Hull. It should have been 5% to the Hull. What we see with that Second line though is equivalent to what would have been 6.5% unresisted damage to the Hull being done to the Shields...without facing any Shield Damage Reduction.
Here's another set of lines from later in the log...
15:01:18:05:37:27.0::Sphere,C[171 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Array,Pn.4g1l7r,Shield,,-262.116,-431.546
15:01:18:05:37:27.0::Sphere,C[171 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Array,Pn.4g1l7r,Shield,,-136.406,-53.3372
15:01:18:05:37:27.0::Sphere,C[171 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Array,Pn.4g1l7r,Plasma,,0,1240.05
1240.05 Base Damage, did 262.116 to Shields, and the 136.406 it should have done to Hull it did unresisted/unreduced to Shields as well.
That 136.406 is 11% bleed.
6.5%...11%? Yeah, Pattern Recognition provides a +1.5% Shield Hardness per stack up to a 4stack. But in this case, it was increasing bleedthrough. So the longer I was in combat, the worse it got...heh. Basically that +1.5% reduces Hull damage but increases Shield damage...so...whammo!
But yeah, just a fun thing to run into while heading off to try to chill...wheeee-boom.
edit: Shouldn't have said wheeee-boom, didn't die...but it was damn dicey, lol.
edit2: I actually updated the bug report thread...it appears to be tied to Attack Pattern Expertise and not to any particular ship.
I recall reading something from the Champions Online forum that could explain why Cryptic has such trouble with bugs.
Keeping in mind my experience with coding ends at first year university classes, from what I understand there's a shared core code that STO and CO (and others?) runs on, which then has game-specific code bolted to it to make it serve the respective games. When they upgrade/update that engine, it tends to break the code they've bolted on in some fashion.
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I recall reading something from the Champions Online forum that could explain why Cryptic has such trouble with bugs.
Keeping in mind my experience with coding ends at first year university classes, from what I understand there's a shared core code that STO and CO (and others?) runs on, which then has game-specific code bolted to it to make it serve the respective games. When they upgrade/update that engine, it tends to break the code they've bolted on in some fashion.
One of the champions devs has said that the code for lairs is so old and undockumented they don't know for sure if they could fix it if it broke. Trailturtle described it as being held together with bubblegum and prayers.
Timing of a lot of powers makes a huge difference. Look at the latest priority one podcast and the damage improvements in second and later runs. Same build but with practice and skill timing changes damage went way up.
I remember one post where someone mentioned learning to use the romulan rep active power to survive attacking the spheres and cube after the right side in is a instead of using it to get from left to right past the gate making a huge jump in his numbers because he spent less time dead and more time hitting the big pack.
Gear helps, but gear is additive, skill is a multiplyer. And that's why each gear change benifits the top players more than the masses. Their skill let's them use it more effectively.
Boss Gavin, this is actually something I need help with. I know that you're not supposed to jam on the space but instead let the weapon complete it's firing sequence, but there's a delay so when I press the space when the sequence is over, it doesn't reinitialize and fire as fast as I like. I fly a beam boat, I want my phasers to be firing as close to constantly as possible. So I feel like I'm cutting off my firing sequence.
Sometimes I hit a sweet spot and I MDK what's in front of me, but I feel I should be able to do it consistently. What am I missing? What do I need to know about basic firing and doing it well? I've got two DBBs and a BA up front and an Omni and KCB in the back.
One of the champions devs has said that the code for lairs is so old and undockumented they don't know for sure if they could fix it if it broke. Trailturtle described it as being held together with bubblegum and prayers.
I wish the guys that did the original code for STO would come back, just for six months to help work through it so the guys still there can get it stable again.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Yes, they'll buff that, the phased biomatter proc - basically any secondary proc that does damage on a weapon.
A favor if you don't mind...could you translate the readout in your sig? I can't really decipher it.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Boss Gavin, this is actually something I need help with. I know that you're not supposed to jam on the space but instead let the weapon complete it's firing sequence, but there's a delay so when I press the space when the sequence is over, it doesn't reinitialize and fire as fast as I like. I fly a beam boat, I want my phasers to be firing as close to constantly as possible. So I feel like I'm cutting off my firing sequence.
And some people still argue that skill>gear in this game.
Because doing 15k+ dps with a single console is being skilled
I guess I'm terribly incompetent, then.
I went and grabbed six [CrtD]x3 Vaadwaur emitter arrays on my Fed Eng's T5-U JHDC because of the shiny new animations. Three went UR and added [Dam] (:(), one went Epic and added [Acc].
Two UR Embassy consoles with 4 UR +Beam Locators only gave me 5k plasma burn, parsing 35k and 40k the two times I tried it before getting sick and tired of lag.
OK, I picked up a +Plasma console, just to test. My fleet's embassy is only tier 1, but it's fine I can upgrade it. But preliminary reports....I suppose that the results would be considered apocrypha, around here as people throw around DPS numbers....what I was able to tell....things died faster. With just one console. I am pleased.
It is a matter of it actually proccing, but when it Procs, even at MKX, MAN!
Thanks for the tips ladies and gents.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
OK, I picked up a +Plasma console, just to test. My fleet's embassy is only tier 1, but it's fine I can upgrade it. But preliminary reports....I suppose that the results would be considered apocrypha, around here as people throw around DPS numbers....what I was able to tell....things died faster. With just one console. I am pleased.
It is a matter of it actually proccing, but when it Procs, even at MKX, MAN!
Thanks for the tips ladies and gents.
You're welcome.
Remember, more Science Consoles means more burn procs!
Here's, to my knowledge, the exact sum of the dev statements on it
Basically, they know about it, and it'll be a while before they do something, if anything.
"a while" is misleading.... its being actively discussed. it doesnt give you 7k dil but it makes you kill things faster than they want since it wasnt planned to work this way. if it gave ya 7k dil, they'd bring down the servers for an emergency patch
keep in mind, anything that benefits the players gets fixed.
they may limit it to one proc regardless of number of consoles... if possible, or with a cool down timer before it can proc again. right now if you have 4 consoles and if 1 procs... they all proc which should not happen.
^This, blasting this on the forums is going to lead to a nerf, and by the time casual players can afford to refit their ships to take advantage Cryptic will apply the nerf bat.
On the other hand, if you're using something that you know would be nerfed if the secret got out, maybe thats an indicator you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
"a while" is misleading.... its being actively discussed. it doesnt give you 7k dil but it makes you kill things faster than they want since it wasnt planned to work this way. if it gave ya 7k dil, they'd bring down the servers for an emergency patch
keep in mind, anything that benefits the players gets fixed.
they may limit it to one proc regardless of number of consoles... if possible, or with a cool down timer before it can proc again. right now if you have 4 consoles and if 1 procs... they all proc which should not happen.
MK XIV weapons got buffed, they don't only nerf.
And the proc'ing is actually just simplified coding, and not what you're describing.
What you describe is it adding a new roll for each console and adding the dots of all of hte consoles if one console proc'd, which would be a problem.
What is occurring is that there's just one 2.5% chance, regardless of how many consoles you have, and it procs all the consoles on that single roll. It works out so that if you have 1 console, you get x attacks per second, if you have 2 consoles, you get 2x attacks per second, and if you have 3 consoles, you get 3x consoles per second, etc. That's working as intended.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
What is occurring is that there's just one 2.5% chance, regardless of how many consoles you have, and it procs all the consoles on that single roll. It works out so that if you have 1 console, you get x attacks per second, if you have 2 consoles, you get 2x attacks per second, and if you have 3 consoles, you get 3x consoles per second, etc. That's working as intended.
Have they said that's working as intended? Cryptic likes to do different things here and there, to make them "swingy" or more probable.
There are the more equals increased effect/duration.
There are the more equals increased probability.
But with regard to the single 2.5% roll being done regardless of the number of consoles, I'm just not buying that. Much like I don't buy the single roll for the dual procs. Sure, observation could be totally skewed - but my observation with dual proc weapons is they have an increased number of procs compared to single proc weapons. That it's not a 2.5% roll for both but that it's a 4.9% roll for both. Which would translate to what I see when I go from one [Pla] console to two or three. Not only am I getting the increased burn from multiple consoles but I'm seeing the burn more frequently. 2.5% -> 4.9% -> 7.3%...
But I really haven't bothered with the dual proc discussion since mid 2013 when they were going back and forth on the Disruptor stuff...
And well, it's been difficult to care since basically being told not to care and just have fun with whatever.
LOL it got buffed cause not enough folks were buying into upgrading to Mk 14 from Fleet UR Mk 12s. The upgrade from 12 to 14 was not all that great. let alone the random try as many times as needed to get to Epic.
Have they said that's working as intended? Cryptic likes to do different things here and there, to make them "swingy" or more probable.
There are the more equals increased effect/duration.
There are the more equals increased probability.
But with regard to the single 2.5% roll being done regardless of the number of consoles, I'm just not buying that. Much like I don't buy the single roll for the dual procs. Sure, observation could be totally skewed - but my observation with dual proc weapons is they have an increased number of procs compared to single proc weapons. That it's not a 2.5% roll for both but that it's a 4.9% roll for both. Which would translate to what I see when I go from one [Pla] console to two or three. Not only am I getting the increased burn from multiple consoles but I'm seeing the burn more frequently. 2.5% -> 4.9% -> 7.3%...
But I really haven't bothered with the dual proc discussion since mid 2013 when they were going back and forth on the Disruptor stuff...
And well, it's been difficult to care since basically being told not to care and just have fun with whatever.
Actually, I'm the source on the single 2.5% roll regardless of the number of consoles. I parsed it out in, and compared attacks per second, plasma fire dps, and plasma fire dps relative to weapon dps, and came to that conclusion. Since it's obvious that it applies all the dots at one time (equip 3 consoles, and fly in a solo patrol - dots will go 3->6->9 on a target, with 2 consoles they go 2->4->6, and with 1 they go 1->2->3), and yet the attacks per second (from plasma fire), dps, and dps relative to weapon dps scaled directly with the number of consoles. So, the end result I was seeing was that going from one console to two consoles doubled the plasma fire's damage (and fire attacks per second), and going from one to three consoles tripled the damage (and fire attacks per second).
I mean, if you don't believe it, feel free to check. As to actual weapon procs, I have no idea.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Actually, I'm the source on the single 2.5% roll regardless of the number of consoles. I parsed it out in, and compared attacks per second, plasma fire dps, and plasma fire dps relative to weapon dps, and came to that conclusion. Since it's obvious that it applies all the dots at one time (equip 3 consoles, and fly in a solo patrol - dots will go 3->6->9 on a target, with 2 consoles they go 2->4->6, and with 1 they go 1->2->3), and yet the attacks per second (from plasma fire), dps, and dps relative to weapon dps scaled directly with the number of consoles. So, the end result I was seeing was that going from one console to two consoles doubled the plasma fire's damage (and fire attacks per second), and going from one to three consoles tripled the damage (and fire attacks per second).
I mean, if you don't believe it, feel free to check. As to actual weapon procs, I have no idea.
so then it's just like the embassy shield and hull heal consoles too. They all proc at the same time. That doesn't actually mean it's just 2.5% though. They could still be stacking procs but then all proc if one procs.
Actually, I'm the source on the single 2.5% roll regardless of the number of consoles. I parsed it out in, and compared attacks per second, plasma fire dps, and plasma fire dps relative to weapon dps, and came to that conclusion. Since it's obvious that it applies all the dots at one time (equip 3 consoles, and fly in a solo patrol - dots will go 3->6->9 on a target, with 2 consoles they go 2->4->6, and with 1 they go 1->2->3), and yet the attacks per second (from plasma fire), dps, and dps relative to weapon dps scaled directly with the number of consoles. So, the end result I was seeing was that going from one console to two consoles doubled the plasma fire's damage (and fire attacks per second), and going from one to three consoles tripled the damage (and fire attacks per second).
I mean, if you don't believe it, feel free to check. As to actual weapon procs, I have no idea.
It's a question of whether the consoles proc at the same time, it's a question of the probability of the proc coming into play from multiple consoles.
The 2.5% to land 2, 3, 4, 5 DoTs...vs. 4.9% to land 2, 7.3% to land 3, 9.6% to land 4, and 11.9% to land 5.
There's no doubt that it's doing the multiples at the same time, whether that's intended or not would require a dev comment - not just that it is a case that it works that way. Everything works a certain way until it is changed.
Back when I asked about the dual procs, I never got the answer from Cryptic on whether it was 2.5% to land both procs or 4.9% to land both procs; because with dual procs both land at the same time.
That a single 2.5% roll could land multiple DoTs from the console would be an example of swingy...a potentially large effect from a roll from stacking them. If it's both increased probability and increased effect though...that's a mess.
Comments
Well, it has to be somewhere but here. QA doesn't exist in Cryptic. We can even joke that Tribble, the Test Server, serves no purpose. Holodeck *IS* the Test Server.
Not to make excuses for them, because I've got no clue how many actual folks they have nor what system they're using for tracking; but it comes off looking as if they're understaffed for the size of the project and perhaps not using the best system for tracking.
I couldn't even begin to guess at the scoring mechanics that would come into play for trying to prioritize the investigation of bugs for a MMO and what that would mean with their production schedule...there are some old bugs out there that some of us might think should have been resolved, but if they keep getting bumped in the system for others - well, yeah - just points to a potential understaffing/system thing, imho.
Even after QA does their investigation, which could be quick or take days, and verifies things - that's still got to be sent to the specific department to fix the issue. Which gets into potential understaffing in other departments, as they have to keep up with the production schedule while also attempting to address issues. Some issues may require the interaction between several departments, all fighting their own schedules.
Heh, I used to joke that Cryptic tended to be quiet on Monday because they were probably all tied up in countless meetings trying to sort everything out for the week.
There are Environmental Artists, Character Artists, Ship Artists, you've got Animators, Riggers, you've got UI Artists, there are System Designers, Content Designers, you've got Writers, there will be the Audio folks, you've got Programmers - all kinds of different Programmers, what about their Database people, and well it kind of just goes on and on.
The game has been around for a bit as well - has seen several changes in various positions where folks may have done things differently than other folks - the documentation they left for what they did might not be the best. Some folks feel they have more job security the less it appears they would be easily replaced because they have documented so well. Some places will just fire folks for not documenting well. No idea how Cryptic handles that. Documentation can be time consuming. It's another factor that's going to fit into the whole process of trying to get things resolved.
(Lol, two asides here from personal experience:
I once took over a database gig from a guy that with each change to the database for the software, he simply continued to drop and add tables, stored procedures, and the rest. So depending on the size of the customer's database, something that should have taken half an hour to a few hours could end up being a weekend job. His update script was over 40k lines when it shouldn't have even been over 10k.
I once took over a web programming gig from a guy that all of his comments in his code consisted of two things: Bible verses and complaints about the folks he worked with. It took a wee while to figure out just why he'd been doing some of the things the way he was and in many cases it was more efficient just to rewrite the whole thing.)
So who knows what kind of goodies Cryptic's got going on there, yeah? Those things where something comes along and works fine in most cases but is brutally broken in another. With the sheer amount of items in their database, all the various components - they'd have to do some hardcore automated testing even to get a glimpse of what's going on there. It's probably more likely that they're doing some random sample testing with a few batches and everything comes up good...so it's good to go. Then you've got those odds and ends, eh?
One thing they definitely improved on, imho, is patching forks...though uh, some things are starting to pop up again. But remember when almost every patch reintroduced stuff that had been fixed because it was from another fork that hadn't been patched? I forget how forks Geko says they have running right now; but yeah - they've got their short term, middle term, long term, and all sorts of things going on there. So the testing that might show something as working as intended in several might end up fubar in the actual code push.
To me, that would still get into some understaffing stuff. Not that the staff they have are incompetent, but rather they likely just don't have the staff to handle the size of the project. I could be completely wrong though, I don't have any MMO experience...nothing at that level of complexity.
But yeah, I can see where it would be a brutal task for them...and I try to thank Frost when he comments on things, I try to thank devs when they talk to us...but heh, I'll still have my "ohffs moments" with things. Heh, I'm a customer here, not an employee...I'm going to have my entitled moments demanding unreasonable stuff!
DOPE
You're not? Why not? Get to grinding.
DOPE
Are you doping yet?
DOPE
Disclaimer: This reference of DOPE and Doping is referring to the tactic of using Embassy Consoles and Beam Damage Consoles to increase DPS and is in no way promoting the use of illegal substances. Unless it's legal in your state, then go nuts!
Do you mind explaining that shield bug a bit more? A few times while testing setups I couldn’t understand what’s happing in game where either my ship or another person ship was being killed far faster than expected. A few times I built a regen ship focused purely on tanking and max shield regen and it could withstand 3 players shooting it none stop in PvP or I could sit AFK for 30min against NPC's. Then after a few item refits going back to the regen setup and it could barely stand up to one weak NPC or 1 player yet alone go AFK.
I have long suspected shield regen and resistance is broken but could never prove it.
Another thing that happens far to often is a bug gets fixed on tribble, marked as fixed, broken on the next tribble patch then never fixed again and never makes it to live. Then there are the items which are just plain clearly broken from day one and you wonder what the QA and designing team are playing at. It took all of 5 seconds to see the mines in the delta rep are broken. Those types of bugs should never make it to live yet alone not be fixed months later. Then there is the fact I reached level 20 crafting yet still cannot craft and upgrade my own projectile consoles almost 1 year later (or how ever long its been now). I understand bugs, no one expects a game to be perfect but something's clearly not working in the bug reporting system or there is some sort of flaw in the bug tracking system or other problems.
Here are the lines from a Plasma Torp hit that applied a Plasma DoT in ISA while in the Apex...
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Shield,,-1777.21,-8220.36
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Shield,,-1070.08,-571.469
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Kinetic,,0,16462.7
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Shield,,-365.604,-195.163
15:01:18:05:29:07.1::Sphere,C[164 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Torpedo,Pn.Rm7fzt,Plasma,,0,365.604
Here's an example of another hit (while in a Benthan instead of the Apex) to demonstrate how it should have looked...
15:01:18:07:51:41.8::Kazon Cruiser,C[674783 Space_Kazon_Cruiser],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Phaser Array,Pn.Ddlvnl,Shield,,-155.236,-142.581
15:01:18:07:51:41.8::Kazon Cruiser,C[674783 Space_Kazon_Cruiser],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Phaser Array,Pn.Ddlvnl,Phaser,,9.91202,264.195
First, looking at the Benthan lines - the normal lines.
While Shields are up, capacity on the facing being attacked, there will be two lines. There will be the Shield line and the Hull line. The last two numbers on each line are what folks will often look at when looking at the raw log. Those numbers are...
Shield Line: Damage to Shields, Hull Damage Prevented by Shields
Hull Line: Damage to Hull, Base Damage of Attack
That Hull Damage Prevented by Shields is an odd one in of itself because it can be higher than the Base Damage of Attack because of debuff stacking and how it affects the Damage to Hull. But that's another issue.
But basically, a 264.195 Phaser hit did 155.236 damage to shields and 9.91202 damage to hull. The math behind calculating resistances and reductions for that stuff is way beyond what I can do...I can just do the simple stuff against standard NPCs where we know damage resistance (0%) and shield damage reduction (14%). It would be nifty if somebody had a decent explanation and formula for calculating that or could point to one. But that's an aside...anyway.
So then moving on to the Apex and that Torp hit...
Basically a 16462.7 Torp hit did...did...did...
Yeah, it did no hull damage. There's a second Shield line.
The Plasma DoT, which shouldn't touch shields instead did it's full damage to Shields...telling us that it ignored the Hull Damage Resistance it would have faced actually hitting Hull and even ignored the Shield Damage Reduction it should have faced since it hit Shields instead.
Jumped down to the DoT because it helps explain that second Shield line.
So that 16462.7 Torp hit, threw some damage at the Shield...should have thrown some damage at the Hull. It should have been 5% to the Hull. What we see with that Second line though is equivalent to what would have been 6.5% unresisted damage to the Hull being done to the Shields...without facing any Shield Damage Reduction.
Here's another set of lines from later in the log...
15:01:18:05:37:27.0::Sphere,C[171 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Array,Pn.4g1l7r,Shield,,-262.116,-431.546
15:01:18:05:37:27.0::Sphere,C[171 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Array,Pn.4g1l7r,Shield,,-136.406,-53.3372
15:01:18:05:37:27.0::Sphere,C[171 Space_Borg_Cruiser_Raidisode],,*,Willard the Rat,P[6114054@4209758 Willard the Rat@virusdancer],Plasma Array,Pn.4g1l7r,Plasma,,0,1240.05
1240.05 Base Damage, did 262.116 to Shields, and the 136.406 it should have done to Hull it did unresisted/unreduced to Shields as well.
That 136.406 is 11% bleed.
6.5%...11%? Yeah, Pattern Recognition provides a +1.5% Shield Hardness per stack up to a 4stack. But in this case, it was increasing bleedthrough. So the longer I was in combat, the worse it got...heh. Basically that +1.5% reduces Hull damage but increases Shield damage...so...whammo!
But yeah, just a fun thing to run into while heading off to try to chill...wheeee-boom.
edit: Shouldn't have said wheeee-boom, didn't die...but it was damn dicey, lol.
edit2: I actually updated the bug report thread...it appears to be tied to Attack Pattern Expertise and not to any particular ship.
Keeping in mind my experience with coding ends at first year university classes, from what I understand there's a shared core code that STO and CO (and others?) runs on, which then has game-specific code bolted to it to make it serve the respective games. When they upgrade/update that engine, it tends to break the code they've bolted on in some fashion.
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
If you believe that i have some property i would like to sell you!
One of the champions devs has said that the code for lairs is so old and undockumented they don't know for sure if they could fix it if it broke. Trailturtle described it as being held together with bubblegum and prayers.
Boss Gavin, this is actually something I need help with. I know that you're not supposed to jam on the space but instead let the weapon complete it's firing sequence, but there's a delay so when I press the space when the sequence is over, it doesn't reinitialize and fire as fast as I like. I fly a beam boat, I want my phasers to be firing as close to constantly as possible. So I feel like I'm cutting off my firing sequence.
Sometimes I hit a sweet spot and I MDK what's in front of me, but I feel I should be able to do it consistently. What am I missing? What do I need to know about basic firing and doing it well? I've got two DBBs and a BA up front and an Omni and KCB in the back.
I wish the guys that did the original code for STO would come back, just for six months to help work through it so the guys still there can get it stable again.
Yes, they'll buff that, the phased biomatter proc - basically any secondary proc that does damage on a weapon.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
A favor if you don't mind...could you translate the readout in your sig? I can't really decipher it.
How about autofire? Just dont bind that "fire all weapons" in your space bar macro.
Otherwise the big ezriryan guide series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ocZfZAHJk&list=PLMuD-YI-u3TnphAERG7O1R4oeMivCnrTB
I guess I'm terribly incompetent, then.
I went and grabbed six [CrtD]x3 Vaadwaur emitter arrays on my Fed Eng's T5-U JHDC because of the shiny new animations. Three went UR and added [Dam] (:(), one went Epic and added [Acc].
Two UR Embassy consoles with 4 UR +Beam Locators only gave me 5k plasma burn, parsing 35k and 40k the two times I tried it before getting sick and tired of lag.
It is a matter of it actually proccing, but when it Procs, even at MKX, MAN!
Thanks for the tips ladies and gents.
CLRDPS [Base Damage IN](% of Table)Vel 79,453 [1,537,365](62%) - Believe in the tank.
=
CLR: Combat Log Reader
DPS: 79,453
Damage Taken: 1,537,365
% of Damage Taken (out of entire group): 62%
He did 79k DPS while taking 62% of the team's incoming damage.
Yup, thanks.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
You're welcome.
Remember, more Science Consoles means more burn procs!
Basically, they know about it, and it'll be a while before they do something, if anything.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
"a while" is misleading.... its being actively discussed. it doesnt give you 7k dil but it makes you kill things faster than they want since it wasnt planned to work this way. if it gave ya 7k dil, they'd bring down the servers for an emergency patch
keep in mind, anything that benefits the players gets fixed.
they may limit it to one proc regardless of number of consoles... if possible, or with a cool down timer before it can proc again. right now if you have 4 consoles and if 1 procs... they all proc which should not happen.
On the other hand, if you're using something that you know would be nerfed if the secret got out, maybe thats an indicator you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
MK XIV weapons got buffed, they don't only nerf.
And the proc'ing is actually just simplified coding, and not what you're describing.
What you describe is it adding a new roll for each console and adding the dots of all of hte consoles if one console proc'd, which would be a problem.
What is occurring is that there's just one 2.5% chance, regardless of how many consoles you have, and it procs all the consoles on that single roll. It works out so that if you have 1 console, you get x attacks per second, if you have 2 consoles, you get 2x attacks per second, and if you have 3 consoles, you get 3x consoles per second, etc. That's working as intended.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Have they said that's working as intended? Cryptic likes to do different things here and there, to make them "swingy" or more probable.
There are the more equals increased effect/duration.
There are the more equals increased probability.
But with regard to the single 2.5% roll being done regardless of the number of consoles, I'm just not buying that. Much like I don't buy the single roll for the dual procs. Sure, observation could be totally skewed - but my observation with dual proc weapons is they have an increased number of procs compared to single proc weapons. That it's not a 2.5% roll for both but that it's a 4.9% roll for both. Which would translate to what I see when I go from one [Pla] console to two or three. Not only am I getting the increased burn from multiple consoles but I'm seeing the burn more frequently. 2.5% -> 4.9% -> 7.3%...
But I really haven't bothered with the dual proc discussion since mid 2013 when they were going back and forth on the Disruptor stuff...
And well, it's been difficult to care since basically being told not to care and just have fun with whatever.
LOL it got buffed cause not enough folks were buying into upgrading to Mk 14 from Fleet UR Mk 12s. The upgrade from 12 to 14 was not all that great. let alone the random try as many times as needed to get to Epic.
Actually, I'm the source on the single 2.5% roll regardless of the number of consoles. I parsed it out in, and compared attacks per second, plasma fire dps, and plasma fire dps relative to weapon dps, and came to that conclusion. Since it's obvious that it applies all the dots at one time (equip 3 consoles, and fly in a solo patrol - dots will go 3->6->9 on a target, with 2 consoles they go 2->4->6, and with 1 they go 1->2->3), and yet the attacks per second (from plasma fire), dps, and dps relative to weapon dps scaled directly with the number of consoles. So, the end result I was seeing was that going from one console to two consoles doubled the plasma fire's damage (and fire attacks per second), and going from one to three consoles tripled the damage (and fire attacks per second).
I mean, if you don't believe it, feel free to check. As to actual weapon procs, I have no idea.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
so then it's just like the embassy shield and hull heal consoles too. They all proc at the same time. That doesn't actually mean it's just 2.5% though. They could still be stacking procs but then all proc if one procs.
It's a question of whether the consoles proc at the same time, it's a question of the probability of the proc coming into play from multiple consoles.
The 2.5% to land 2, 3, 4, 5 DoTs...vs. 4.9% to land 2, 7.3% to land 3, 9.6% to land 4, and 11.9% to land 5.
There's no doubt that it's doing the multiples at the same time, whether that's intended or not would require a dev comment - not just that it is a case that it works that way. Everything works a certain way until it is changed.
Back when I asked about the dual procs, I never got the answer from Cryptic on whether it was 2.5% to land both procs or 4.9% to land both procs; because with dual procs both land at the same time.
That a single 2.5% roll could land multiple DoTs from the console would be an example of swingy...a potentially large effect from a roll from stacking them. If it's both increased probability and increased effect though...that's a mess.