How to: Make suggestions well

[necaladun]

 

So, you may notice that with the many suggestions here, few are implemented.

This is intended to be a guide to how to make them well and increase the chance of them being implemented, as well as to explain why many aren't.

 

First of all - Coding Difficulty:

 

For anything to be implemented, it has to be coded. If possible, I'd love if some of the coders could chip in with what makes things easier/harder to implement. A few tips here:

 

* Porting something from another codebase is generally the easiest.

* Small changes, such as the text and description of an item are more easily done.

* Graphical changes are generally fairly easy, it's just replacing a file.

* The bigger the change, the harder it is.

* Anything to do with atmos is trickier than it sounds.

* It is easier to tweak something that already exists than it is to bring something entirely new in.

 

 

Scope:

It's generally best to try to keep things as limited as possible. Suggestions to overhaul or introduce huge things are likely to be put into the "too hard" basket. The bigger something is, the more work needs to be done - and not just once. As other things are changed, we have to maintain the rest of the code.

 

 

Balance:

Balance is very tricky to maintain. For a start, not everything is -meant- to be balanced. The clown isn't meant to be balanced compared to the Captain. Deathsquad are meant to be OP as hell. Ian is God, etc. If what you suggest would become the go-to weapon/item/etc of choice, there's a fair chance it's unbalanced.

 

Suggestions of nerfing also need to be considered carefully. Unless you know the code very well, and all the numbers etc within it, then try to avoid giving specifics. Nerfing can come in many forms, from reducing availability, reducing the sheer numbers involved, or adding/buffing counters to them. If something is seriously OP, then there's a fair chance we're already looking into it.

 

Finally, make sure your post doesn't read basically like this:

Rock is OP, plz nerf.

Paper is fine.

 

 

Remove X:

If something is problematic, we're much much much more likely to try to fix it rather than just straight out remove it. Posting "Remove X it sux" is unlikely to be listened to at all.

 

 

Finally, don't take this as me telling you not to post suggestions - but the bigger the change you suggest, the less likely it is to happen, so don't get your hopes up. This has been made because I've seen some fairly well thought out (and some not-so-well) posts, quite long and detailed that most likely won't happen for some of the reasons above.

 

[fludd12]

Also, note, the server has a fairly limited pool of coders. Just because something is easy doesn't mean it'll get done in any short amount of time.

[MrMagolor]

On 7/25/2015 at 1:17 PM, fludd12 said:

Also, note, the server has a fairly limited pool of coders. Just because something is easy doesn't mean it'll get done in any short amount of time.

As the saying goes: if you want something that badly, code it yourself!