Moving flaming weapons to a mod

Have you come to a conclusion? If not-- what happens to the mod?

Not an argument with me, but you seemed to take the thing personally to the point of “yes, no, yes, no”.

I see no reason to change anything here, you got two groups of people, the one that don’t want the weapons to go away and the one that doesn’t care if they go away or not, but aren’t pushing for them to be taken away. And then there is you, that wants them off the game. Then just make a blacklist. I for myself like them and use them for fun, and i’d wish new players would see them rathen for them being tucked away in a mod.

Yes, conclusions:

[ul][li]Additional items could be added (7-10 split)[/li]
[li]Mod description could be improved (not critical as easy to update later)[/li]
[li]No further technical argument (mod is backwards compatible and solves the maintenance problem)[/li]
[li]Crafting bloat was raised as new issue, no firm opinion at this time[/li]
[li]Rework has been suggested to improve the items and add unique spawns (could take place in mod)[/li][/ul]

Another developer is required to merge it (two-man rule) and although I know there to be support for that it sits out of my hands for now

OK, I guess. Seems like arguments that I feel were perfectly valid have been ignored, but I don’t have any power, so it sits out of my hands, too.

You’re ignoring the issue with that, the one I’ve already raised. Those dependancy mods can contain things the player doesn’t want but needs to include anyway to use the first mod. For example, if someone makes a blazemod vehicle “turret” that’s basically a flaming spear on a mount that automatically attacks zombies, now Blazemod is dependent on the Improbable Weapons Mod, and if someone wants to use blazemod without having chainsaw lajatangs in their game they’re out of luck. Avoiding those kind of situations does require effort, just like avoiding blacklist mod conflicts requires effort.[/quote]

Isnt the answer to this is that mainlined mods should be expected to be self-contained. if blazemod uses a fire weapon then ideally it would copy the rows from the sword and then change the id to “fireweapon_blazemod” the worse that will happen then is that a user who enables both mods will get duplicate recipes.

There’s no real need to add complex ways to check compatibility/dependencies for changes as small as this.

[quote=“John Candlebury, post:65, topic:12545”]Isnt the answer to this is that mainlined mods should be expected to be self-contained. if blazemod uses a fire weapon then ideally it would copy the rows from the sword and then change the id to “fireweapon_blazemod” the worse that will happen then is that a user who enables both mods will get duplicate recipes.[/quote] Exactly. Developer effort is required to avoid these mod issues, just like developer effort is required to avoid blacklist mod issues. Not a ton, but some.

Self-contained mods allow division of labor and require only infrequent updates when the JSON parser changes (which automated checks often catch). Blacklist mods are far more intrusive - their list of dependent items goes stale rapidly and maintenance is enforced on a very limited number of developers doing maintenance programming and isn’t at all amenable to automation.

The argument about thematic fit is subjective but the technical one is entirely objective. The JSON loading code is complex so posters who have neither written nor in some cases even read the code cannot possibly be informed, so replies of the nature ‘It’s easy, why don’t you just go and do that for me now because I’m right…’ are non-nonsensical. Why would someone go and apply a lot of effort at a problem that they don’t agree needs solving in the first place given there’s a perfectly rational alternative?

It’s fine to put subjective/opinion decisions to vote. For technical decisions we can (and have) reached decisions by consensus amongst the developers. The problem here is your putting a technical argument (that blacklists are a maintenance problem) to a general vote despite knowing that there are no developers wanting to work on the implementation of one side of the argument.

This is being represented as a decision between removal of content versus the status quo. Instead it’s moving content to a mod versus struggling to keep on top of the bugs with the blacklisting system.

I guess I’ll restate my final point here-- it shouldn’t be in a blacklist or a mod. It takes nothing away from the game except slightly contributing to the lag in the crafting menu, which is a problem separate from flaming weapons.

I guess I’ll restate my final point here-- it shouldn’t be in a blacklist or a mod. It takes nothing away from the game except slightly contributing to the lag in the crafting menu, which is a problem separate from flaming weapons.[/quote]

Don’t care either way between those options (mod vs mainline) from a technical POV. However the mod option has an implementation and the mainline approach doesn’t. Also moving to a mod doesn’t stop the 30% of users who use the item from continuing to do so whereas mainlining forces the content on those who don’t want it.

If you disagree with me you are bikeshedding.

I do not think it was so much as disagreeing but the fact that so many people feel compel to voice their opinion on a very trivial issue ( I am too admittedly with his post) while things like this that actually change the game don’t as much.

As for the mod proposal I don’t care one way or another the way it is presented.

I do not think it was so much as disagreeing but the fact that so many people feel compel to voice their opinion on a very trivial issue ( I am too admittedly with his post) while things like this that actually change the game don’t as much.

As for the mod proposal I don’t care one way or another the way it is presented.[/quote]
It’s a trivial issue that could lead very, very easily into bigger ones.

Like making a mod for all useless clothing, or a mod for all the not-super-useful vehicle parts, etc… so that those things aren’t ‘mainline’ and get overlooked often.

It’s a slippery slope, that’s what I’ve been saying this entire time.

I do not think it was so much as disagreeing but the fact that so many people feel compel to voice their opinion on a very trivial issue ( I am too admittedly with his post) while things like this that actually change the game don’t as much.

As for the mod proposal I don’t care one way or another the way it is presented.[/quote]

To be honest, that rebalance sounds quite good! And on the same cart as Kilo here.

A part of the disagreement here is my fault: I didn’t clearly say whether “rebalance” means “move to mod and rebalance” or “rebalance in mainline”.

The issue with rebalancing in mainline is that we’re still trying to stick to some simulation of realism. Kevin is still the project leader and he was, in most cases, in favor of realism, even when going against it would simplify design.
For this reason, moving the flaming weapons to a mod would be, while not 100% required, really helpful with balancing.
We could then bring out all sorts of sci-fi logic and make them actually stronger than they have the right to be. To the point where they would actually become useful.
Alternatively, we could consider dropping the realism standards a bit. And hope Kevin doesn’t say “what the fuck did you do” when he comes back to check out what happened in the meanwhile.

Because “rebalance” obviously means “buff” or “nerf” unless stated otherwise. There is no obvious “keep it at the same level but make it not bad”, meaning we have to tackle the issue of items about as plausible as gunblades (possible, but that’s about it) having a role.

So 3 options are left here:

[ul][li]Move to mod, rebalance[/li]
[li]Don’t move to mod, drop some realism, rebalance[/li]
[li]Don’t move to mod, sane weapons, don’t rebalance[/li][/ul]

Honestly the issue with realism is more philosophical here. A much bigger slippery slope than moving content to mods.

Arguing is one thing, but this is reaching “banter”. Please do not.

I’m up for dropping some realism and rebalancing for now, and waiting to see what Kevin thinks of all of this when he comes back.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:74, topic:12545”]So 3 options are left here:

[ul][li]Move to mod, rebalance[/li]
[li]Don’t move to mod, drop some realism, rebalance[/li]
[li]Don’t move to mod, sane weapons, don’t rebalance[/li][/ul][/quote]

I take it you didn’t like my suggestion

Forgot to reply.

Your suggestion is a bit too far reaching. Requiring redesign of approach, especially that part about the two modes being treated equally.
Having a giant crazy cataclysm mod having everything implausible would be nice on its own, but it’s not really a solution to problem at hand, more like a future direction for the project.
Plus, not everything is equally crazy - wolf suits are silly, dancer zombies wreck entire cities.

I do not think it was so much as disagreeing but the fact that so many people feel compel to voice their opinion on a very trivial issue ( I am too admittedly with his post) while things like this that actually change the game don’t as much.

As for the mod proposal I don’t care one way or another the way it is presented.[/quote]

To be honest, that rebalance sounds quite good! And on the same cart as Kilo here.[/quote]

If you mean the explosives thing, I agree and it is already mainlined.

[quote=“kilozombie, post:72, topic:12545”]It’s a trivial issue that could lead very, very easily into bigger ones.

Like making a mod for all useless clothing, or a mod for all the not-super-useful vehicle parts, etc… so that those things aren’t ‘mainline’ and get overlooked often.

It’s a slippery slope, that’s what I’ve been saying this entire time.[/quote]

While this may be true this it is still not valid to oppose an individual issue might be bad when done many times over. Focus on this issue and if what you describe become reality I will there with you supporting your disdain for it.

Completely agree, actually. I don’t think the flaming weapons should have a buff any larger than “chance to do +10 singed damaged” or something, seeing as plenty of people have already voiced that they use the weapons as is. They’re very thematic and I think it’s more detrimental to remove them from the game than chance it at having them continue to be a bit weak.

The weapons they come from are already endgame melee ones; perhaps flaming weapons should be made something very situational, only useful against certain enemies (fungals but not triffids, the latter has fluid sacs) but worse against others? I don’t see that being unrealistic, and it would also provide purely-melee users some more choice in their weaponry like ranged-users have.

i rarely use flaming weapons because at point where i can make and use them i can also make diamond weapons, moving flaming weapons to mod is not bad idea but we have blacklist mod right now so moving it to mods is pointless