Look, publically asking why handwraps aren't fixed EXCEPT Viscous?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Did ya really Expect him to say...

"well, VIscious bug was a significant benefit to players so that bug obviously had to be fixed much more rapidly than any bug that hurts players."

Nice tinfoil hat you have there Impaqt

[Hendrik]

Did ya really Expect him to say...

"well, VIscious bug was a significant benefit to players so that bug obviously had to be fixed much more rapidly than any bug that hurts players."

I didn't expect an answer from them as it is. But the answer Eladrin did give is exactly what I, and several others, posted the reason as to why it was fixed and others were not - it was easier to fix.

He was honest and is still getting reamed.

[Glorious]

Speaking from a pure Marketing perspective I am surprised that they aren't fixed yet and thus the problem must be significantly complicated. The way of the Monk launch had more marketing dollars poured into it than others things have in the past and the press information and attention was higher than normal. To have the main weapon for this new, heavily touted class not working is, I am sure a top priority - if they understand how to market to their consumer base both new and old.

It would only make sense that they are working on it and fast.

Just my $0.02 - but I do have 10 years of Marketing RL work experience... :-)

[debo]

Did ya really Expect him to say...

"well, VIscious bug was a significant benefit to players so that bug obviously had to be fixed much more rapidly than any bug that hurts players."

haha my thoughts exactly. What did you guys expect him to say?

[debo]

I didn't expect an answer from them as it is. But the answer Eladrin did give is exactly what I, and several others, posted the reason as to why it was fixed and others were not - it was easier to fix.

He was honest and is still getting reamed.

He could be honest or completely lying through his teeth. We don't know. You can't ream him OR praise him for being honest. Bottom line is they still aren't fixed and Turbine has destroyed whatever goodwill they had with most players with the way they have dealt with bugs in the past. They don't get the benefit of the doubt and that is their fault. Many players still remember the way the Abbot was "patched" including me

[Zaodon]

So, you're putting the Devs in a no-win situation. They can say what is going on from their perspective and readers can scoff at it as lies, or they can just stay silent.

And you wonder why they so often opt to just stay silent.

Seriously, what motivation do they have here to either screw the players or screw the players and then lie about it? Does their pay get lowered if there are unfixed bugs that help players, but raised if there are unfixed bugs that hurt them? Do they get extra vacation time as a Lying and Obfuscation Bonus? What other motivation would you ascribe to them that could lead to this alleged result? Sadism? Sociopathy?

Just because so many players take the game so seriously doesn't mean the Devs do. From what they have demonstrated in the past, there is little evidence that they make moral qualitative judgments about bugs. To them, Bug 1408d is no different than Bug 1742c. If one is easier to fix than another with fewer risks, that one will get put in the queue first. You would do the same with problems to be resolved in your job. Why would you think they'd be different?

_

I started an entire thread on this, which was ignored by Turbine. I won't repeat the entire thing here, but suffice it to say, Vicious was not fixed because it was easy and the other changes were harder. It was fixed because a manager at Turbine prioritized it higher on the list than fixing the bugs with handwraps that help players. If fixing Ghost Touch, for example, was prioritized as a higher importance to be fixed than fixing vicious, Ghost Touch would have been fixed. Being a more complex fix doesn't preclude it from being included in a patch. Management decisions determine that.

[Aspenor]

What are viscous handwraps??

Are they liquid? Do they flow easily? How high is their viscosity?

[Milolyen]

Seriously guys they have known about alot of these issues for awhile now (sources say some where known about before mod 7 hit risia) and if they where easy fixes I am sure the bugs would have never made it to live.

Also the praise was to Eladrin for comeing in and GIVING an answer not really the answer itself. This thread is a prime example of why we DON'T see a lot of communication from them when it comes to these types of topics. All those that post "Devs please reply" where they don't come in and answer ... yah.

Milolyen

[llevenbaxx]

Ive pretty much shelved my "unarmed" monk until they get their **** together and fix the wraps. Its not that I dont think I can get by without them in most cases, or get a kama/staff to bypass DRs, I just dont think I should have to. Thankfully I dont really play much during the summer and feel they will have these semi-functioning weapons fixed by the fall.

[arminius]

I started an entire thread on this, which was ignored by Turbine. I won't repeat the entire thing here, but suffice it to say, Vicious was not fixed because it was easy and the other changes were harder. It was fixed because a manager at Turbine prioritized it higher on the list than fixing the bugs with handwraps that help players. If fixing Ghost Touch, for example, was prioritized as a higher importance to be fixed than fixing vicious, Ghost Touch would have been fixed. Being a more complex fix doesn't preclude it from being included in a patch. Management decisions determine that.

I'm just telling you from my 10+ years of application management experience that that is not the way programmers generally work.

Bugs for them are most often value neutral. They are either just lines in an excel spreadsheet in a small shop or (as is more likely the case for Turbine) entries in software change control databases like PVCS or Subverision.

It is very often the case developers don't know or even care what the actual result of the bug is. They only know that Variable X is getting an invalid type error and it needs to reevaluated and given a valid type. WE see that as "ZOMG vicious is broken!!1!" but they don't see that end result at all. To them it's just another work item to get checked off to move on to the next one.

_

[Milolyen]

It is very often the case developers don't know or even care what the actual result of the bug is. They only know that Variable X is getting an invalid type error and it needs to reevaluated and given a valid type. WE see that as "ZOMG vicious is broken!!1!" but they don't see that end result at all. To them it's just another work item to get checked off to move on to the next one.

_

yup most likely the case is. Manager hands the programmers a list of bugs that needs fixing. Programmers take list and dig in to see what is broken and where. I am a programmer and when I am working on pushing something live and have a list of fixes needing to be done I look to do the easiest first while figuring out the best way to do the harder ones and would be suprised if they didn't do it like that as well.

I am also pretty sure they knew about the ghost touch not working long before the vicious not working properly.

Milolyen

[Eladrin]

The Vicious handwrap mutation, essentially, was trying to damage the person wielding the monk instead of the monk itself. That's a pretty safe and easy fix, solved by changing some minor targeting information.

Handwraps operate very differently from normal weapons - instead of hitting a creature with the handwraps themselves (like a normal weapon), the handwraps instead add effects to your unarmed attacks. This is pretty clear when you inspect a monk wearing handwraps. Normal vicious weapons damage the thing they hit and their wielder on-hit. Monk handwraps have to give the monk an ability that damages the thing they hit and themselves on-hit.

The fix that Tharagrim's made for handwraps bypassing DR is a significantly more complicated change than the change necessary to make Vicious operate as expected, and even without much investigation I can think of a few things that it could possibly break - the natural Ki Strikes (Magic, Lawful, Adamantine) of a monk for one. That fix required more time in QA to verify.

Contrary to popular belief, we prefer to have patches fix more problems than they cause, and don't order things to do by "do they hurt the player". (Tempest constant +2 AC bonus, Monk metamagic, and Marilith misbehavior are three bugs I can think of off the top of my head that help the players but haven't made it to live either.) This was just a bug fix.

Being a more complex fix doesn't preclude it from being included in a patch. Management decisions determine that.

Risk rates very highly in those management decisions. One of the very first things asked is "how confident do you feel about this fix?"

If it makes people feel better to think that I'm out to get them, uh... Good for them, I guess.

[Aspenor]

If it makes people feel better to think that I'm out to get them, uh... Good for them, I guess.

It definitely makes me feel better, although I wish you wouldn't always follow me home from work, El.

[tihocan]

Oh my, I can't believe this. People demand an answer. We get one. And all you can say is "you're lying to us"?! I'm astonished Eladrin bothered to even reply again in this thread, if I were him I'd just think "looks like I'm developing a game for ******** players, let's just ignore them".

[arminius]

I am also pretty sure they knew about the ghost touch not working long before the vicious not working properly.

Milolyen

I would guess that that guess is accurate. If I were to guess at what was going on behind the scenes, I'd say that the complications with Ghost Touch are grounded in the way that the whole incorpreal thing was done from the ground up as a massive fudge. Picking around in the fudge without unintended consequences is just harder than segregating out the big block of untyped damage that vicious represents.

BTW, all of this doesn't get them off the hook for all the lack of proper prior planning when it comes to handwraps and monks. Not having "pure good" or banes or some of the other types (including potency, etc), and having that be monks' primary weapon (one out of only four allowed), and knowing that monks are so important to DDO's relaunch and future path, all that is inexcusable. Especially when they were already in the middle of the paladin controversy (and coming off the ranger controversy/fix) wherein whole classes are written off for lack of minimum power to complete endgame quests.

_

[Aspenor]

Oh my, I can't believe this. People demand an answer. We get one. And all you can say is "you're lying to us"?! I'm astonished Eladrin bothered to even reply again in this thread, if I were him I'd just think "looks like I'm developing a game for ******** players, let's just ignore them".

Personally, I see it this way....

[Milolyen]

Oh my, I can't believe this. People demand an answer. We get one. And all you can say is "you're lying to us"?! I'm astonished Eladrin bothered to even reply again in this thread, if I were him I'd just think "looks like I'm developing a game for ******** players, let's just ignore them".

LOL ya I was thinking the exact same thing. I also think Zaodon and the others must have struck a nerve there.

Oh and thanks for a more detailed explination there Eladrin.

Milolyen

P.S. Now mabye some of them tin foil hats will start to come off ... oh wait no they wont because they are lies I tell ya .... ALL LIES MUHAHAHAH *runs into corner after laugh and acts scared*

[arminius]

It definitely makes me feel better, although I wish you wouldn't always follow me home from work, El.

O that was me, sry. Srlsy, will try not to in future. Kthxbai.

_

[Zaodon]

Risk rates very highly in those management decisions. One of the very first things asked is "how confident do you feel about this fix?"
If it makes people feel better to think that I'm out to get them, uh... Good for them, I guess.

I don't think you're "out to get us" or any such nonsense. However, you've confirmed what I said in my other thread, which is that prioritization of fixes is not done from a "what benefits the players most" point of view, but instead from a "what is the easiest, least risky thing we can do" point of view. By making this decision to rate player satisfaction as a inferior criteria to, as you say, a "very high" consideration for stability, the end result is things that adversely affect players can be left in the game longer while fixes that annoy us make it in.

That doesn't mean I think you hate us, it just means I disagree with the way you prioritize issues.

[Angelus_dead]

Handwraps operate very differently from normal weapons - instead of hitting a creature with the handwraps themselves (like a normal weapon), the handwraps instead add effects to your unarmed attacks. This is pretty clear when you inspect a monk wearing handwraps.

Yes, that's clear. That was a really bad design choice by your programmers.

There's no reason that handwraps should've functioned differently from regular magic weapons in this regard. They should simply be a weapon with a different animation which happens to have zero polygons in its 3d model.

You'd still need some special code to add the attack benefits of being a higher-level monk, like increased base damage dice and magic/law/adamantine qualities. But that is a bounded effort, because there are only four effects there, and there will never be more. Instead it was implemented in the reverse way, which means it apparently takes a bunch of custom effort to make all the different possible magic properties work on handwraps. And it also means that in the future when you add a new weapon property, it'll take further special care to make it work on handwraps.