And then there's the game-stopping bug that stops certain skills from progressing at all. On both the XBOX and PC version.Pale Horse said:
Small info on Beth I noticed today...
- Thread starter Sytxferryman
- Start date
Briosafreak
Lived Through the Heat Death
I had 7 CTDs , and many slowdowns after one hour play. A record for me, really, until i installed the 84.30 family of NVidia drivers and everything went into place, really smooth and stable. Still it doesn't like my 256 megs card to process large textures, wich is weird, every other game i have doesn't have a problem with that, including Quake4 and the FEAR demo.
But all in all everything is quite stable and performs well.
But all in all everything is quite stable and performs well.
You mean the one where you get a skill increase reward and then the skill becomes seemingly "locked"?Sander said:
As far as I know, it's not a gamestopping bug. The skill becomes "unlocked" as soon as you accumulate skill progress equal to the awarded amount. What really happens is that the skill doesn't actually get boosted internally because the function responsible for such skill boosts is broken. For instance, if you have 20 in your Mercantile skill and get +5 as a quest reward, the skill actually remains at 20 even though 25 is displayed in the statistics screen. Since Mercantile skill normally progresses rather slowly, many people had the impression that the skill was permanently frozen when it wasn't.
*blinks*Ratty said:
I'm not entirely sure which one of the two bugs would be more idiotic.
I mean, come on, how hard can a simple *assignment* be. Skill := skill + x. Hell, why is there a difference between the shown skill level and the real skill level at all? Idiots.
TheWesDude
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
sander:
for every skill there are 2 variables.
one is the displayed and the value of the skill.
the other is the training points in that skill.
the training value is what determines the " red progress bar ".
the problem is the engine doesnt change the training value every time the skill value changes.
for every skill there are 2 variables.
one is the displayed and the value of the skill.
the other is the training points in that skill.
the training value is what determines the " red progress bar ".
the problem is the engine doesnt change the training value every time the skill value changes.
Sander said:
Yes, Bethesda are a bunch of idiots for not finding that through playtesting, or even finding it in programming. Or for programming it wrong in the first place. Something makes me think MrSmileyFaceDude had something to do with this.
It isn't that hard to keep a modifier variable specifically for the times you are given a skill reward, and keep that modifier pure from the other stats, so $total_skill = $cur_skill_level + $skill_bonus. Hmmm...now if you figure out which variable is the right one to add to for the skill bonuses, you can be a better programmer than Bethesda's flock of gulls.
Again: what a bunch of morons. As I said, they can't even do a simple assignment. See, they have two variables, one for what they show, one for the total progression of the skill.TheWesDude said:
Now, what they apparently did, was say 'shown value := shown value + x', but not update the actual internal value of the skill.
What this is is incredibly poor software design, it should not be possible to do that.
Generally, one could easily say that the shown value of the skill is either a derived attribute, derived from the progression variable, or it is a seperate variable (where the progression is monitored seperately, and reset after each level). If they did it in any other way, they're utter morons when it comes to software design. This is extremely basic.
Now, if it is a derived variable, one does not need to store it seperately at all. However, you can do that to preserve processor time (the argument against it would be saving memory space, but I think processor time would be more important in this case). If they did store it seperately because of it, no-one should ever have to touch that stored variable directly to alter it. You only need two functions, one to increase the progression, and one to *read* the shown skill. You never need to write to it, ever. Hence, any decent programmer would only create those two functions. In an object-oriented environment, it's always a good idea to work with functions for attributes of an object, and it's easy.
Furthermore, the programmer who did this apparently did not know the architecture properly either, otherwise he wouldn't have made this mistake.
So, if it is a derived variable, they fucked up in terms of software design and implementation.
If it was not a derived variable, but a seperate variable where the progression variable is maintained within the boundaries of each level, I can't even imagine how they could've created this bug.
EDIT: Rosh, yes, but the problem with such an implementation would be in terms of both redundancy (I'm assuming these rewards are permanent), and possibly in level progression, as I think the farther you get, the harder it becomes to increase a skill. It's still a viable option, though, and obviously a better one than what Bethesda did here.
Then you have another expression for skilling up, which shouldn't have anything to do with $skill_bonus. They seem to have the bonus added into the max current, without bothering to make sure the incremental variable was matching. That could be a fix, to add the skill bonus to both the max skill and the incremental skill variables. Even better yet, keep the code in logical steps and have a skill checking expression (what I wrote before, $total_skill = $cur_skill_level + $skill_bonus) and a skill-raising expression (if $skill_progress > $cur_skill_level, $cur_skill_level++ and $skill_progress = 0 (or whatever is the initial value); ), and this keeps the variables from becoming a mess.
But, good of them to fuck up a simple expression for a console.
But, good of them to fuck up a simple expression for a console.
TheWesDude
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
well no guys...
you should read up more on this
there are about 30 quests that deal with skills and giving a bonus. then about 25-27 of them have the skill gain bonus commented out.
it seems like it WAS reported and rather than fix the bug, they went through and tried removing the skill gain bonus for all quests and missed a few.
you should read up more on this
there are about 30 quests that deal with skills and giving a bonus. then about 25-27 of them have the skill gain bonus commented out.
it seems like it WAS reported and rather than fix the bug, they went through and tried removing the skill gain bonus for all quests and missed a few.
Wow, good thing no corners were cut for the game. It fills me with so much optimism for FO3...
TheWesDude
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
what?!?!?!?! with all the hype about how oblivion will pwnsaucezorzjoo you expect them to cut no corners? they did that on purpose! that bug is SUPPOSED to exsist!
i belive that after the first reporting of this problem, it took a guy less than 1 day to put out a mod that fixxes this. there isnt one that puts back in all the commented out skill gains though.
i belive that after the first reporting of this problem, it took a guy less than 1 day to put out a mod that fixxes this. there isnt one that puts back in all the commented out skill gains though.
No, we analyzed the problem quite well, thank you. The fact that they couldn't even fix the bug makes them even greater morons, and the fact that they then couldn't even remove *all* of the situations is even dumber.TheWesDude said:well no guys...
you should read up more on this
there are about 30 quests that deal with skills and giving a bonus. then about 25-27 of them have the skill gain bonus commented out.
it seems like it WAS reported and rather than fix the bug, they went through and tried removing the skill gain bonus for all quests and missed a few.
Heh, the more I read up on it, the dumber it gets. Yay.
TheWesDude said:well no guys...
you should read up more on this
there are about 30 quests that deal with skills and giving a bonus. then about 25-27 of them have the skill gain bonus commented out.
it seems like it WAS reported and rather than fix the bug, they went through and tried removing the skill gain bonus for all quests and missed a few.
So instead of fixing an equasion, they decided to destroy their design and still couldn't fully do that right.
Fucking retards.
I do not see how Fallout 3 can be anything but Oblivion with a different skin. The business model and design strategy that Bethesda has in place for The Elder Scrolls are working too well introduce anything different. The market has proven that a game light on complexity but with pretty graphics and strong PR will be a gold mine despite significant flaws and failure to meet preview expectations. With the gaming press as auxiliaries to the PR department critical reviews do not make it to the mass market. I think strong PR will always trump word of mouth, especially on the controlled environment of the console and Bethesda is first and foremost a console game developer.
Fallout 3 will be a first person real time game in the same vein as Oblivion. It might even come with a tool set. Despite large flaws the console crowd will purchase it and like the similarity it has with other Bethesda games. It will be a mint.
Fallout 3 will be a first person real time game in the same vein as Oblivion. It might even come with a tool set. Despite large flaws the console crowd will purchase it and like the similarity it has with other Bethesda games. It will be a mint.
Briosafreak
Lived Through the Heat Death
it is true. i saw it up for download on my fav torrent place with about the same comments...
didnt download it ofc, since i canned The Empty Scrolls: Oblivious a long time ago.
didnt download it ofc, since i canned The Empty Scrolls: Oblivious a long time ago.
SuAside, although we don't quite respect Bethesda's endeavours, this is still warez talk. Don't.