Refactoring Code Base

[Ariesxs 0]

So guys,i'm questioning this thing ''Recode lots of parts of the code base of the game. Such as replacing the Legacy Quest system, Trade system, Personal Shop system, Damage system and a lot more!''.

So lets think, they will probably ''REMAKE'' the damage system and a lot of other stuff, if they will ''REMAKE'' this the formulas as we know it will change i think....

So 130 STR will not be anymore 100% damage increase of STR based weapons, maybe it will increase or maybe it will decrease, another thing that bothers me is the Skill Damage System,they will change it together with the Damage System (which i believe its the game formulas) ? And with that change, its fair skill balancement even neither of us knowing how the damage will be ?

What do u guys think ?

Sorry for bad english.

[dietzoid 0]

It's about time they made some changes to the skill damage system, look at mage for example, the stone pike skill (AOE) does more damage to a single mob than death ray does (Single mob skill). makes no sense at all.

 

They probably spent a lot of time thinking what the possitive outcome of the changes will be. I think it probably took them months to figure it out so i'm pretty confident it will be for the better.

[DarkLink64 921]

You're getting this wrong.

 

 

What Wartale means by Refactoring, it means he is re-writing blocks of code from the game.

 

What is the benefit from doing this? Simple - The game is pretty old, and most of the code is just spaghetti code. When you change something, it is expected to also change other things, causing many bugs and making the process of creating new stuff a lot harder.

 

 

By refactoring these code blocks, it will allow him to structure the game code to be much better to work with, allowing a more precise debugging and turning possible to add many new things without affecting other parts of the game.

 

For example, when he mentions the Damage System, he is refactoring the code that is responsible of calculating the damage from skills, buffs, and when it is applied to enemy targets. With a refactored damage code, perhaps the bugs from skills not working as intended will be completely solved, also, making the new upcoming Damage Display system a lot easier to be made and more accurate.

 

 

Nothing will change for us at first, but it will make new things to be a lot easier to be implemented and old stuff to be changed/fixed. Dont worry.

[Electron 0]

Pretty much like darklink said. Its alot of work, but in the long run its worth it.

[Fusco 0]

Pretty much like darklink said. Its alot of work, but in the long run its worth it.

That sounds very visionary and professional, good job on the mind set and good luck on that road!!

[chronoz13 0]

refactoring is one of the most hated words for coders, me myself as a software developer, i really really really really HATE legacy(old codes) and refactoring to accommodate changes and upgrades, and this is a game type of software, this is much worse than typical commercial softwares,  (i hate to code games to be honest), i hate those freaking x and ys. This is a very old game as you can see, imagine that the thing(code) behind what we enjoy is a house of cards, make 1 mistake on bottom and everything will fall down,

[Fusco 0]

refactoring is one of the most hated words for coders, me myself as a software developer, i really really really really HATE legacy(old codes) and refactoring to accommodate changes and upgrades, and this is a game type of software, this is much worse than typical commercial softwares,  (i hate to code games to be honest), i hate those freaking x and ys. This is a very old game as you can see, imagine that the thing(code) behind what we enjoy is a house of cards, make 1 mistake on bottom and everything will fall down,

But if u make a lot of changes and one of them ruins everything, are you able to restore the old coding just before the change that ruined it all or u need to get back from zero?

[DarkLink64 921]

Of course you can restore it, but, you have to make the thing work with the new expected change. If it ruins everything, you'll stop and ask yourself:

 

"What the heck went wrong here"

 

 

And it is a time consuming process to find what exacly is causing this issue, so you can proceed and finally add the new class/module/code block/subsystem, etc.

 

Thanks to the advance of tecnology, nowadays software companies uses new Software Engineering processes, so everything of a game/system is already documented, and pretty much all you have to do is to read carefully all use case/class diagrams, the already planned database structure, and what exactly will need to be made. So you go there, and code it following these lots of documents.

 

 

I didn't had the chance to learn/code for games specifically, but, I don't think it is THAT hard as chronoz13 said. What is expected to require lots of work (i mean, lots of it) is the low level code that will make stuff appear on the screen, the code that comunicates your software with the hardware. Happily it isn't a issue for game coders, since there are plenty of engines and apis to work with. All you have to is just build the graphics, sounds and game logic and honestly, i think it is not that bad to do it, if you have good logic/math skills. Physics, collision, 3d effects would be a lot easier if you are good with logic/math.

 

 

Sadly i'm not one of these, I suck at math, I need to study it as soon as possible, haha

[chronoz13 0]

well youre absolutely right, I agree , Priston Tale(the game itself) was created way way way back, it was a different story out there for developers, (i think mobile technology wasnt even born yet that time), yet we still feel the same pain when refactoring, i myself exactly right now is refactoring some things i didnt write , thinking that (If I'm the one who wrote this code, this wont happen) hahahahaha, and disciplines, conventions and  principles in software 'game' engineering is entirely different territory

 

Sadly i'm not one of these, I suck at math, I need to study it as soon as possible, haha

 

same here, thats why I never ventured in to game development hopefully someday,

 

 

But if u make a lot of changes and one of them ruins everything, are you able to restore the old coding just before the change that ruined it all or u need to get back from zero?

- this is a very very good question, and in a software team needs to consider inside the team itself, ill answer it based on experience, IT DEPENDS, there are vast types of developers out there, and coding is much more like the character of the person who writes it.

 

'You saw a garbage, are you going to add a pile of more?, are you going to clean it? are you going to salvage things that can still be used?, it all depends, that why there are disciplines, conventions and principles that needs to be followed to refactor/update an exisiting or write new code.  Software development is never been easy man, they think we are just a bunch of people pressing and f**ck**g keyboard and make everything pop out of the blue. To make the answer for your question short, you can if you carefully do it

[chronoz13 0]

by the way, what is Priston Tale made of? will they tell ? :D ,

[chronoz13 0]

Its alot of work, but in the long run its worth it

 

This is how my boss EXACTLY thinks and how he manages us(my organization), it sucks when he says "you have to do this, trust me it will help you in the long run"  but YES it does!

[DarkLink64 921]

Official ones like KPT code base is so messy, that after many headaches you can see some C++.

 

 

I feel bad for you Chronoz, must be a sore pain to work on software systems without documentation

 

The worst thing is computing in Tacit knowledge that isn't transferred to explicit ones - once the original programmer quits / leave the company, i bet that even God will not know what the heck happens on that system