I design and build software for a living and have been doing it for a long time. I don’t agree with your assessment of what this new functionality takes to build or your assertion that it “has been in-game since release.”
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And I don’t agree with your assessment as someone having worked a decade in live event advertising apps and software. The game already tracks your weak spot hits as evidenced by the scoreboard mod. Which are what the event tracks. It’s already there.
Most of it is already done and this is a 1-2 man job for a few days at most. But then again I reckon FS devs never worked as freelancers in the outside world. You know, where quality and speed hold actual meaning. This is just beyond bad.
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lol my expectations were low, but daaaamn thats basically nothing. At least make some lazy reskin basic cosmetics or smthing, that amount of useless mats as prize is so stupid
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You misunderstand how the scoreboard mod works: it hooks into events created/consumed by the game (in this case, on any attack result) to log different custom events into a table it then spits out as the scoreboard.
The penance update added a lot of similar tracking for different in-game events. This new subsystem for “time-limited penances” or “major orders” or whatever you want to call it, is no doubt built off of work established there.
But there’s also backend mechanisms for managing this stuff now. And UI. And plans for using it.
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The tracking part works more or less identical to the melk contracts and was probably copypasted, considering it counts kills that aren’t your own (exactly 1:1 how the melk tracking works)
The rest is more or less frankensteinable and other than the timer running out I don’t see any actual challenges in implementing it.
What I’m personally generally confused about is this (this isn’t directly in reply to you but it made me think): let’s put aside how the system is built and how it was implemented. Wether it was work or not. What I’m confused by is, low effort or high effort, why implement such low rewards? It’s really just 3 games worth of materials and stuff. That’s a design issue and not a programming question. And considering that it takes about 30 seconds to add up the plasteel/diamantine/docket numbers and come to the conclusion “hey wait a minute, this is literally just 3 games worth” it’s quite telling how much effort went into the actual design aspect of it.
Not that I’m surprised at this point, I just don’t envy the CMs who constantly have to apologize and come up with reasons for why nobody in the design team could be arsed to think about the numbers for more than half a minute.
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It is still a job for a few days at most, which is my point.
We’re not talking about a perfeclty designed enduser backend interface here. This is for internal use and I doubt they’ve gone that far, especially given their previous quality.
The entire thing isn’t rocket science, any backend dev worth his salt has a rudimentary scaffolding of this done within a few days and a useable one by the end of a week.
Not to mention that NOTHING has been done with it. Not even a voice recording ingame, a change of color for the skybox, nothing. This is the laziest most phoned in thing they could have done.
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That’s an implementation issue, which can be resolved whenever the next event drops. Hopefully soon. That they’ve acknowledged the feedback on this point is the most I’d expect from them. The stakes are low here, and they’re calling it a “pilot.”
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I don’t agree, and that’s where we are.
I have no idea.
And all devs worth their salt know that delivering code as fast as possible is definitely the way to release software to an audience of thousands.
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I personally think it’s a broader issue and one they often engage in. Look at how certain penances are badly designed and implemented in such a way they cause very unhealthy player habits, both in mission and in a meta sense (constant alt+f4 stuff). It adds sort of a design debt if a lot of what they do is just a thoughtless pilot that needs to be fixed later.
Which is exactly how we end up with stupid things like the close range thing being mistakenly half of its intended range. This seems like a trivial fix to you and me (just change the numbers, just like with this) but to Fatshark this is apparently quite the bureaucratic process that gets bogged by other things. Now we have one more such implementation that needs a second look at, and bogs it all down further. And to remind you, the close range number change has been needed for what, the past 7 months now? Maybe longer. I wouldn’t be surprised if this little event comes back in the exact same form because they just couldn’t get around to getting the sign off on the changes or whatever it is that keeps them from just fixing little stuff like it. And if that ends up being true it’s yet another “lie” for the community managers to try to somehow rationalize, which again must suck.
I’m really just lamenting that they can’t just think about it properly in the first place. Of course mistakes happen but they didn’t even think about this one.
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It has potential to be really good. However there are lots of things in Darktide that have potential to be really good, but aren’t.
Hopefully it’s awesome and has cool rewards and impacts the narrative in a meaningful way, increases engagment and meshes with the new crafting system perfectly.
Whether or not FS can acheive it’s potential is something I’ll believe when I see it.
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The event will last what, a week? The system’s triggers and rewards can be fixed for the next one. I don’t see the “debt” connection there.
I’ve done almost all of the new penances, I’ve enjoyed playing in different ways and trying new builds, and I think mostly they’re solid. The ASS situation exacerbating an existing cowards issue is very unfortunate, and I hope they’ll address it because it sticks out like a sore thumb to me.
And you’re right about the potential “debt” in the penances (in that it’s annoying if they change them, especially if they’re attached to rewards).
Lol my hopes aren’t THAT high goldang, man.
The description wasn’t clear so I’m genuinely confused… Is this event just crafting materials? Is that really what this is about?
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Yes, headshot (?) kills = ordos, diamantine and plasteel rewards (at different tiers) on a per-player (but team kills count it seems?) basis.
So not a community event where everyone does something to unlock something else.
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I see. Well, that’s rather disappointing but not entirely surprising, more’s the pity. Thank you for the clear explanation.
I mean yeah I get that, but all in all it’s just another system like penances that just has me shrugging my shoulders and going,
“Alright, I mean I guess it’s kind of cool…”
And unfortunately I don’t have hope that it will ever be more than that.
Is really just my point. Will they actually manage to change these 9 numbers in time for the next event if they can’t change that single number from 8 to 15? If they don’t manage then I wouldn’t want to be in the CMs shoes
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I don’t see much of a connection between these two things.
It seems quite likely to me that close combat distance hasn’t been changed back to its old value because the new value is either intended or changing it has some negative interactions.
But these event rewards don’t suffer from the same complications.
The current values are also intended and changing them might also have some negative interactions, considering that material rewards are part of progression and you can’t just slap whatever you want on progression or it might cause completely new issues.
I think characterizing this as a low effort fix isn’t consistent with what I’ve been saying. You’re again suggesting they should just slap a new number on, not think about it, and ship it. If that’s not what they do, then as the close range situation suggests, it might take them a long time to get around to properly redesigning it.
Of course they might just prioritize it, but my point is that it pushes other things behind and such “debt” should be avoided in the first place.
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You are maybe misunderstanding what I am saying.
What I am saying is there is almost definitely a backend system responsible for publishing/managing events; that FS has acknowledged negative feedback about the rewards in the currently-running event; and that they can almost definitely adjust (with minimal effort or concern for knock on effects, like with the close damage reference) the rewards/conditions in this backend.
It is not terribly shocking to me to think that the system hasn’t been setup/tested out the gate to adjust ongoing events. Again, the stakes here are so low because it’s a week-long event.