What happened here?

[Player2]

Power sets are usually in alphabetical order...

So how come Dual Blades precedes Dark Melee?

 

[Glacier Peak]

Just now, Player2 said:

Power sets are usually in alphabetical order...

So how come Dual Blades precedes Dark Melee?

 

It probably went to the beta shard when there weren't enough players testing and providing feedback to catch this small hiccup.

[Player2]

Sloppy.  Just sloppy.

[EmmySky]

There are several of those..keep looking.

[CrudeVileTerror]

*nods*

If I recall correct, there are some Armour Sets which are in the correct order for one Archetype, but incorrect in another.

[Greycat]

And don't start on costume pieces/sets...

[cranebump]

I keep waiting for "Dull Blades," the powerset that allows you to become a Rust Monster.

[White Hot Flash]

It's in order if you group the bladed weapon sets together, followed by the punchy punchy sets.

[Greycat]

6 minutes ago, White Hot Flash said:

It's in order if you group the bladed weapon sets together, followed by the punchy punchy sets.

Except it's missing Katana, then.

[Clave Dark 5]

14 hours ago, Greycat said:

And don't start on costume pieces/sets...

I think I've seen it said here that costumes files somehow depend upon the order of the options on those lists, so if you inserted something say halfway down that list, every costume option past that list would turn up wrong for older costume files.

[Player2]

1 hour ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I think I've seen it said here that costumes files somehow depend upon the order of the options on those lists, so if you inserted something say halfway down that list, every costume option past that list would turn up wrong for older costume files.

Numerically assigned list, I gather.  So if you pick a costume piece, then whenever your character is rendered the game engine goes to load piece # for location X... and adding something in the middle of the list will change the number of everything further down the list.

 

I get that.  But shouldn't there be a way to change the order of the displayed items without changing their values?

[Clave Dark 5]

14 minutes ago, Player2 said:

But shouldn't there be a way to change the order of the displayed items without changing their values?

Pff, do I even look like a programmer or something?!  😀 

 

Still, might not be a bad idea to shop this around in the Suggestions thread.  I'd love to seer those listed alphabetically.

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

I think I've seen it said here that costumes files somehow depend upon the order of the options on those lists, so if you inserted something say halfway down that list, every costume option past that list would turn up wrong for older costume files.

Given they've added pieces on live and made a ton of costumes "invalid" and needing to be "fixed" at the tailor... yeah, whoever came up with that system is not my favourite. 🙂

[Twisted Toon]

On 11/7/2020 at 6:07 AM, Player2 said:

Numerically assigned list, I gather.  So if you pick a costume piece, then whenever your character is rendered the game engine goes to load piece # for location X... and adding something in the middle of the list will change the number of everything further down the list.

 

I get that.  But shouldn't there be a way to change the order of the displayed items without changing their values?

Most likely, what they did was use the row number in the list as the part's ID number.

It makes sense for lists that don't change.

And, for a while, the costume parts list didn't change.

 

To fix it, they'd probably have to add a new column in the array specifically for the Part ID number.

Then, probably point the character's costume parts to the new column instead of the row number.

Then, after all that, put up with all the complaints about costumes being broken, if it wasn't implemented carefully enough.

 

Note: Not having seen the code, I can't say with certainty that this is how the costume set-up works. This is all conjecture and wild guessing on my part.

[EmmySky]

25 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

Most likely, what they did was use the row number in the list as the part's ID number.

It makes sense for lists that don't change.

And, for a while, the costume parts list didn't change.

 

To fix it, they'd probably have to add a new column in the array specifically for the Part ID number.

Then, probably point the character's costume parts to the new column instead of the row number.

Then, after all that, put up with all the complaints about costumes being broken, if it wasn't implemented carefully enough.

 

Note: Not having seen the code, I can't say with certainty that this is how the costume set-up works. This is all conjecture and wild guessing on my part.

Ok...just spitballing here....

 

So lets just say the game fetches costume parts by ID number....and the ID number is generated by the spreadsheet (or database if you prefer) dependent upon row and column placement within said document.  Lets add a dozen or so new costume pieces at the end of the list.  Willy-nilly cuz that's how we roll.  Now, lets have this spreadsheet automatically alphabetize itself.  This will, of course, cause all the previously assigned costume piece ID numbers to change.  

 

Lets watch Punchy McGillicutty log in to do some, what else, face punching.  All of the sudden, rather than the snazzy powered armour suit he had on when he logged off, Mr. McGillicutty is wearing spandex pants, CoT robe and a jaunty beret.

 

This takes costume contests to a whole new level.  Imagine if it worked with powersets, as well!  Lets not even consider the fashion mishaps of this system in the color picker area.  

 

...and a fun time was had by all.

 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled 'what the hell' moment.

[MrNotorion]

39 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:

Most likely, what they did was use the row number in the list as the part's ID number.

It makes sense for lists that don't change.

And, for a while, the costume parts list didn't change.

 

To fix it, they'd probably have to add a new column in the array specifically for the Part ID number.

Then, probably point the character's costume parts to the new column instead of the row number.

Then, after all that, put up with all the complaints about costumes being broken, if it wasn't implemented carefully enough.

 

Note: Not having seen the code, I can't say with certainty that this is how the costume set-up works. This is all conjecture and wild guessing on my part.

Good guess, but almost certainly wrong.  If it was all arranged in some kind of array it wouldn't be hard to simply translate parts to a new, larger array.  That's exactly the kind of thing that computers do is pull the one piece of information that is needed from whatever obscure location or separate file or library.  Even if EVERY part was moved individually to a new array one at a time with all the necessary pointers to it being added/changed (and then checked on test servers) it would not be that challenging.  There are a lot of costume parts but not THAT many.  Tedious as hell, to be sure, but not a show-stopper.

 

I remember reading back on live that there was a lot of hack-job kinds of coding going on in the background regarding costume parts and it's because of that mess that we didn't just get a continual stream of new costume bits.  Even a lot of the ones they gave us had to be "hacked" in.  Ones I'm thinking of in particular that were being discussed were, IIRC, the samurai and roman waist armor.  For whatever reasons they couldn't handle them like pants, nor could they work being handled as extensions of upper body armor so they wound up treated in the code as belts if I recall.  Wish I could remember details but I just recall it being explained that the coding for costumes was just janky as hell and it was a big deal just to do what they DID manage to create for new pieces.  It was a big reason to wish for a COH2 - just to have that code for costumes redone in a way that would allow far greater expansion.

[CrudeVileTerror]

I do rather wonder what the people who have dived deeply in to the code actually have to say on the matter.  I'm quite guilty of speculation and piecing things together from ambiguous statements and unsupported claims of expertise over the years.  I know I really should try to keep my mouth shut to prevent additional rumours and misinformation from propagating, but without someone actually giving us the truth on what things look like under the hood, I'm left to cobble together my understanding from these myriad fractured pieces of legitimate knowledge and damned filthy lies.

[Outrider_01]

To many assumptions

 

Dual = 2

 

2 Blades

Dark Melee

 

Numerical, followed by Alphabetical.  Dual just sounds better then 2, so its masked.

[Twisted Toon]

10 hours ago, MrNotorion said:

Good guess, but almost certainly wrong.  If it was all arranged in some kind of array it wouldn't be hard to simply translate parts to a new, larger array.  That's exactly the kind of thing that computers do is pull the one piece of information that is needed from whatever obscure location or separate file or library.  Even if EVERY part was moved individually to a new array one at a time with all the necessary pointers to it being added/changed (and then checked on test servers) it would not be that challenging.  There are a lot of costume parts but not THAT many.  Tedious as hell, to be sure, but not a show-stopper.

 

I remember reading back on live that there was a lot of hack-job kinds of coding going on in the background regarding costume parts and it's because of that mess that we didn't just get a continual stream of new costume bits.  Even a lot of the ones they gave us had to be "hacked" in.  Ones I'm thinking of in particular that were being discussed were, IIRC, the samurai and roman waist armor.  For whatever reasons they couldn't handle them like pants, nor could they work being handled as extensions of upper body armor so they wound up treated in the code as belts if I recall.  Wish I could remember details but I just recall it being explained that the coding for costumes was just janky as hell and it was a big deal just to do what they DID manage to create for new pieces.  It was a big reason to wish for a COH2 - just to have that code for costumes redone in a way that would allow far greater expansion.

I never said that it would be difficult to change the way the Costume files pointed to the costumes pieces.

And, as you said, it would be tedious.

The main question is, are there things more important that changing the back-end of the costume system, for a change that only switches how the list of costume pieces are viewed, when (most likely) 99.999999999% of the players couldn't care less.

In other words, what would the return of Investment be for that change?

Personally? I'd take that proposal wad it up, and toss it in the fireplace to use as tender.

The RoI for that would be practically non-existent.

 

Also, as I said before, I don't actually know how the whole costume system works.

What I described in my previous post just seemed logical to me.

However, the original programmers for this game went in some pretty illogical directions.

So, I could very well be (and most likely am) wrong.

[Clave Dark 5]

13 hours ago, MrNotorion said:

I remember reading back on live that there was a lot of hack-job kinds of coding going on in the background regarding costume parts and it's because of that mess that we didn't just get a continual stream of new costume bits.  Even a lot of the ones they gave us had to be "hacked" in.  Ones I'm thinking of in particular that were being discussed were, IIRC, the samurai and roman waist armor.  For whatever reasons they couldn't handle them like pants, nor could they work being handled as extensions of upper body armor so they wound up treated in the code as belts if I recall.  Wish I could remember details but I just recall it being explained that the coding for costumes was just janky as hell and it was a big deal just to do what they DID manage to create for new pieces.  It was a big reason to wish for a COH2 - just to have that code for costumes redone in a way that would allow far greater expansion.

But we did get a stream of new bits, they always had new costume option in each paid expansion because they knew those would sell.

 

The other thing you're mentioning there is I think how there are only so many places assigned to the basic skeletons to pin a costume bit to, and how they can't go back in and add more now.  And hey, "belts" makes sense, where else are you going to wear waist armor, on your head?