Literally ANYTHING to stop ranged henchmen from brawling

[DR_Mechano]

1 hour ago, TheAdjustor said:

This is kind of basic in software development and is the difference between a solution and a kluge.

I will point out that CoH isn't very structured in its coding, like, at all. From explanations from former devs the original team that coded CoH did so in a very odd way that seems to hint more at it being treated like a homebrew project with each person coding things individually with very little talk between them until they had to bring it all together and bodge everything into existence. Many former devs have mentioned how awful trying to work with the coding was.

 

That doesn't mean what Castle did wasn't a kluge and probably with a bit more time could have worked out a different solution but it is understandable WHY it was such a kluge.

[Jeuraud]

7 hours ago, Black Zot said:

If Castle were as good at his job as Steampunkette is shilling him, he wouldn't have broken ranged pets to begin with.

 

You don't break something to fix something else.  Period.

I spent 10 Years in Navy Aviation, and every squadron I had contact with had a Rob Bird. A Bird that we would pull parts from (Break), so that the other Birds could make the mission (Fix). This removes your "period" statement.

 

As for MM Pets you had one set that was not making mission, and the other was, and it was required that both make the mission.

Sometimes shit happens, and sometimes shit has to happen.

I'm not saying that Castle did not screw up, I'm just saying that you cant sit in your chair, and say that something should not happen... unless of course you know the CoHV MM Pet code. If so then maybe you should be fixing the code instead of telling us what a shit-bird Castle was.

[William Valence]

Lich, Assaultbot, Battle Drones, Ghosts, Oni, Soldiers, Commando, Thugs, Bruiser, and Demonlings all have the same Configuration.

 

Phantasm has default configuration so it has no range preference.

 

 

[MetaVileTerror]

Thank you for giving good, solid answers like that, Valence!  It's with those efforts to share such information to the community that I think we can really start to solve the old problems.  Problems which were tougher to tackle when the code was hidden away due to legal reasons.

[DR_Mechano]

4 minutes ago, William Valence said:

Lich, Assaultbot, Battle Drones, Ghosts, Oni, Soldiers, Commando, Thugs, Bruiser, and Demonlings all have the same Configuration.

 

Phantasm has default configuration so it has no range preference.

 

 

Ok so then just what in all the seven hells is causing Phantasm to run into melee and the fact that removing melee powers breaks things like the assault bot but somehow the lich works fine...Sweet Jesus H christ who coded this game?

[MetaVileTerror]

'Who,' you ask, DR_Mechano?
"Many people, who didn't necessarily ever speak to one another," is the answer.

[TheAdjustor]

15 minutes ago, Jeuraud said:

I spent 10 Years in Navy Aviation, and every squadron I had contact with had a Rob Bird. A Bird that we would pull parts from (Break), so that the other Birds could make the mission (Fix). This removes your "period" statement.

 

As for MM Pets you had one set that was not making mission, and the other was, and it was required that both make the mission.

Sometimes shit happens, and sometimes shit has to happen.

I'm not saying that Castle did not screw up, I'm just saying that you cant sit in your chair, and say that something should not happen... unless of course you know the CoHV MM Pet code. If so then maybe you should be fixing the code instead of telling us what a shit-bird Castle was.

Dude he broke a lot of things for no discernible reason. And thank you for your  service, but the situations aren't comparable.  Too focus it, imagine how badly it might go if for some reason the DoD decided to take a bunch of planes that were all really good at their job and replace them with one that would do it all and according to the contractors be cheaper for everyone. That's the kind of thing we are talking about.

Edited September 21, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[DR_Mechano]

Yeah I mentioned that at the top of the thread, spaghetti code really is the case, it seems to be that this really was coded by many different people who never once spoke to each other. As Steampunkette mentioned the guy who coded Mastermind pets left fairly soon after and I get the feeling it was coded in such a way that HE understood it and thus never documented anything about it so when it came time for someone else to deal with it they're just left staring at a mess like giving a toddler spaghetti...

[TheAdjustor]

Just now, DR_Mechano said:

Yeah I mentioned that at the top of the thread, spaghetti code really is the case, it seems to be that this really was coded by many different people who never once spoke to each other. As Steampunkette mentioned the guy who coded Mastermind pets left fairly soon after and I get the feeling it was coded in such a way that HE understood it and thus never documented anything about it so when it came time for someone else to deal with it they're just left staring at a mess like giving a toddler spaghetti...

Well something I do know his fix, didn't just break some MM pets but affected every pet in the game.

[DR_Mechano]

I kind of wish we had access to pre-fix code and see how that worked and just what it was exactly that Castle changed.

 

Steampunkette I know you mentioned you were friends with him and I imagine he's a busy guy working in another part of the industry but you still got any contact with him? I mean I doubt he's going to remember exactly what he changed but some inkling would go a long way to guiding us in the right direction, I mean it's not like he's a dev anymore and thus has to 'protect us' or keep this sort of stuff hidden.

 

I'm tempted to go onto the Ourodev discord and ask around in there since, unlike HC which has to be all hush hush due to trying to be 'official' they tend to be vastly more out in the open with regards fixing/changing stuff.

[MetaVileTerror]

Actually, those NDAs tend to be PRETTY restrictive and everlasting, even if you're no longer working for the company in question.  And the punitive elements . . . DAMN.  I have to resort to suggesting that some of my past work experience was for "no one in particular," since certain companies are ready to sue when you whistleblow their bullcrap.

 

All that's to say that Castle, or any other Live Dev, may have to tread VERY carefully even /with/ the source code floating around out there.  Hell, probably have to tread /even more/ carefully now.

[DR_Mechano]

1 minute ago, MetaVileTerror said:

Actually, those NDAs tend to be PRETTY restrictive and everlasting, even if you're no longer working for the company in question.  And the punitive elements . . . DAMN.  I have to resort to suggesting that some of my past work experience was for "no one in particular," since certain companies are ready to sue when you whistleblow their bullcrap.

 

All that's to say that Castle, or any other Live Dev, may have to tread VERY carefully even /with/ the source code floating around out there.  Hell, probably have to tread /even more/ carefully now.

Eh fair enough was just a thought.

[MetaVileTerror]

But, I mean . . . if, say, some random nobody posted something (that more than one person conceivably had access to) somewhere, from an IP associated with the wifi in some cafe that isn't immediately next to their current home address . . . 

 

*just sorts of floats away*

[William Valence]

I have a few things that I plan on dicking with this weekend. None of what I posted was really unexpected though.

 

And when I say phantasm has no range preference, for perspective, all the ones I named right before it have a ranged preference, and so does Grav/ singularity. So one of the things to find out is if you give it a ranged preference, does it start behaving.

[Jeuraud]

1 hour ago, TheAdjustor said:

Too focus it, imagine how badly it might go if for some reason the DoD decided to take a bunch of planes that were all really good at their job and replace them with one that would do it all and according to the contractors be cheaper for everyone. That's the kind of thing we are talking about.

I don't have to imagine it, the US Navy did just this with the introduction of the FA18 in 1984.

It was supposed to replace the A7, A6 and the F14. The A7 was a dying bird and went out in 1991. The FA18 could not carry the payload of the A6 from a carrier launch, which kinds of defeats the point of a naval bird, so the A6 did not retire until 1997, when it was essentially forced out of service. The FA18 did not become "good enough" to fill the F14 slot until the FA18E/F came out, allowing the F14 to be retired in 2006... 22 years after the introduction of the FA18.

 

Now this being said I do not get your analogy.

Castle did not replace something, he tweaked some code in one place that tweaked some code in other places, and had to settle with "good enough".

Now I'm not a coder, but I've done some PLC code, and have had to troubleshoot equipment PLCs of fricken design engineers who had never heard of the KISS principle. With one piece of equipment that was a nightmare to troubleshoot I decided it was easier to scrap the old PLC code and write a whole new code, then to tweak the existing code. I had this option, Castle did not.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Jeuraud

[PaxArcana]

1 hour ago, William Valence said:

Lich, [...] Battle Drones, [...] all have the same Configuration.

... and Battle Drones absolutely DO run up to melee enemies.  So it's not just the Configuration that causes the problem. 😞

[DR_Mechano]

3 minutes ago, Jeuraud said:

I don't have to imagine it, the US Navy did just this with the introduction of the FA18 in 1984.

It was supposed to replace the A7, A6 and the F14. The A7 was a dying bird and went out in 1991. The FA18 could not carry the payload of the A6 from a carrier launch, which kinds of defeats the point of a naval bird, so the A6 did not retire until 1997, when it was essentially forced out of service. The FA18 did not become "good enough" to fill the F14 slot until the FA18E/F came out, allowing the F14 to be retired in 2006... 22 years after the introduction of the FA18.

A touch off topic but Isn't this also the case with the F-35 trying to replace the A-10 in the close air support role AND try to be a fighter at the same time but it isn't quite capable of tank busting and CAS as the A-10 and isn't quite as good as current other fighters?

Edited September 21, 2019 by DR_Mechano

[William Valence]

4 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

... and Battle Drones absolutely DO run up to melee enemies.  So it's not just the Configuration that causes the problem.

It just so happens that I don't think it's the config that's the primary issue. 😉

 

Obviously things like changing the Bruiser to not have a ranged preference or giving a ranged preference to a pet that has no melee attacks is a good start, but it's interesting that the set with Mary Poppins tier behavior for it's ranged pet also has lots of melee pets.

[Jeuraud]

40 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

A touch off topic but Isn't this also the case with the F-35 trying to replace the A-10 in the close air support role AND try to be a fighter at the same time but it isn't quite capable of tank busting and CAS as the A-10 and isn't quite as good as current other fighters?

Yep, a case of the Bean Counters who have no clue, having more sway then the people who knows what the fuck they are talking about, which is also something Castle had to deal with.

Sometimes (Often), the bean counters decide that it's not worth the expense. Hells, just look at Firefly and Fox.

[Shazbotacus]

Finally home, friggin' jeez.

 

So the source code for City of Heroes is notoriously unstructured. That would explain many, many things. Good logic and design was drilled into my skull going through my programming courses for my Associates in Computer Science degree. Through Logic & Design, Intro and Advanced C++, our professor absolutely forbade us from using Go To statements and insisted we comment our code thoroughly. I guess this is yet another real world example of why this is so important.

 

I haven't yet taken a look at it myself, but I guess I know what to look forward to if I get time to get my hands on it and try to figure out what's going on. I'd love to understand what Valence is telling us about better.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[Steampunkette]

6 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

I kind of wish we had access to pre-fix code and see how that worked and just what it was exactly that Castle changed.

 

Steampunkette I know you mentioned you were friends with him and I imagine he's a busy guy working in another part of the industry but you still got any contact with him? I mean I doubt he's going to remember exactly what he changed but some inkling would go a long way to guiding us in the right direction, I mean it's not like he's a dev anymore and thus has to 'protect us' or keep this sort of stuff hidden.

 

I'm tempted to go onto the Ourodev discord and ask around in there since, unlike HC which has to be all hush hush due to trying to be 'official' they tend to be vastly more out in the open with regards fixing/changing stuff.

The NDA always kept him from describing specifics. And would keep him from discussing specifics, even now.

 

He couldn't tell me what the code was, or walk me through different problems it had, but he could describe very loose ideas or share stories about working on the game from a personal standpoint rather than a professional one, if that makes sense.

 

 

[Steampunkette]

CoH Pets in a nutshell:

 

[Weylin]

It really burns me up for a restoration project to be under this kind of oppressive bullshit

I'm very much pro information freedom, and seeing things that are not personal information get suppressed so heavily makes me want to scream.

Hell, our personal information gets thrown around legally and in higher quantities than some abandoned game source. Disgusting, really.

 

I'd appreciate it if someone could point in the hypothetical direction of the hypothetical pet configurations. This code is so hypothetically scattered all over the place that even spaghetti is more structured

[DR_Mechano]

35 minutes ago, Weylin said:

It really burns me up for a restoration project to be under this kind of oppressive bullshit

I'm very much pro information freedom, and seeing things that are not personal information get suppressed so heavily makes me want to scream.

Hell, our personal information gets thrown around legally and in higher quantities than some abandoned game source. Disgusting, really.

 

I'd appreciate it if someone could point in the hypothetical direction of the hypothetical pet configurations. This code is so hypothetically scattered all over the place that even spaghetti is more structured

Head to the Ourodev wiki, it's only the Homecoming devs that are limited from talking about what they're doing. Sure they're working with Issue 23 code but the basics of it should still be the same. Though considering we haven't heard any news of them fixing pet MM either suggests it might be a tad tougher than it looks.

[Craigrx]

On the Thunderspy CoH server brawl was removed from the ranged pets attack chain and I didn't read any complaints about them doing that. Even tho I am not a dev that if one server can do it so could Homecoming. Of course I would want it to be tested on the Beta server to make sure that works properly.

 

Personally I wouldn't cry if the brawl power was removed period. I never use it unless I am bored and just want to play around with it

Edited September 21, 2019 by Craigrx