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Thread: TheDonkified - Developer Application (Coder)

  1. #1
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    TheDonkified - Developer Application (Coder)

    Developer Application
    Byond ID?
    TheDonkified

    Age?
    19

    Gender?
    Male

    How would you define yourself? (Coder, Mapper, Spriter):
    Coder

    If Coder, what languages?
    Java, Python, little bit of C

    Any previous experience developing with SS13?
    nope

    Proof of any previous or current work:
    I have a Github with a few projects I did for school / freetime. They�re not exceptional but if you would like a link I will PM.

    How well do you know Git?
    I�ve used it to perform basic commits and pushes for my personal projects, but never in a group context.

    Your primary job is server development, not policing the server. You may be given Moderator-level of access but you should *not* be invoking any administrative actions unless there are no moderators or Admins online. Do you understand?
    Yes

    Anything else you'd like to add?
    Although I don�t want to do mod stuff, I�m still interested in performing mentor duties. Since mentoring isn�t part of policing the server, I want to know if answering mentor ahelps would be acceptable as a dev. Obviously dev work takes precedence, but I like to help baldies every once and a while.

  2. #2
    Whitelisted Predator MattAtlas's Avatar
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    Why do you want to be a developer?

    Are you more interested in making new features or refactors?

    What are the biggest issues with current balance in your opinion?
    Resident ex-punished Junior Developer and Coder, and ex three-time member of the Yautja Council, two-time member of the Synth Council.

    See with your eyes, my army of flies, when no one's alive...

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by MattAtlas View Post
    Why do you want to be a developer?
    I want to contribute to CM, like when I was a mentor, while also touching up on my programming skills. Also, I like how the CM dev team is organized as a team. Things seem to be more organized and focused.

    Quote Originally Posted by MattAtlas View Post
    Are you more interested in making new features or refactors?
    I'm more interested in refactors, but I'm open to coding in new features, particularly QoL changes.

    Quote Originally Posted by MattAtlas View Post
    What are the biggest issues with current balance in your opinion?
    Game is not as bad as mutator era, but I think removing wield delay after you are knocked down was an unneeded buff to marines and the crusher is too tanky, especially since reaching elder is not as time consuming as it was in the past. Ancient runners instantly dying to a PB from a shotgun without BC is ridiculous, more so when the marine just spammed E while his mouse was on the runner. I do not mind removing wield delay if you have not been knocked down recently, but getting the drop on a marine should not mean they have the opportunity to instantly kill you or put you near crit. Crushers just soak a significant amount of damage, and most marines do not have loadouts or the game sense to effectively kill crushers.

    From what I can tell, xenos also do not seem to be capturing and are reliant on burrowed larva in most rounds I've played as xeno. Nest guarding is not fun, so that makes sense, but I do think that capturing should be incentivized since most xenos fail to see the long term benefits of captures and instead like the short term satisfaction of killing.

    Z-levels are still cheese-y for combat, since both sides like to camp Z-levels knowing that there are barely any crowd control or game mechanics to counter ladder or elevator camping. Allowing boilers to fire up ladders would be nice, and giving marines a way to traverse ladders more quickly or in larger groups would also be neat.

    Marine FOBs are also not fun for both sides in my experience. It's a grind to push a heavily fortified FOB for xenos, and for marines they are usually too afraid to push out by the time the xenos have actually started sieging an FOB. Now, I don't want FOBs to be useless but at the same time more the castes should have ways to effectively contribute to FOB sieges. Marines have a lot of tools to push out of FOB now, so they just need to grow some balls.

    Defender could also use a buff or minor rework to give them more combat ability, but that is not a significant issue. As it stands though, defender is more of a stepping stone for warrior and above rather than being a caste you would actively want to play.

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    Hey, TheDonkified thank you for your application.

    We will discuss your app within the team.
    I could not find a specific answer in our new developer protocols about if you can still take mentorhelps.
    That is something I would refer you to Dean for.

    What do you think is the best feature the current dev team made and why?
    What is the worst feature and why?
    How would you voice your disagreement with the team's opinion?

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    Sounds good.

    Quote Originally Posted by awan View Post
    What do you think is the best feature the current dev team made and why?
    Feature-wise, I would say Nightmare in conjunction with the LZ-choice feature is probably the best feature the current dev team has created. Although it could be worked on more to allow for some more variations in the maps, there is a lot of potential for making every round different. A fundamental issue for a game with only a handful of maps and relatively similar gameplay every round is that it gets dull. Map variation changes things up, forces COs and queens to think outside their comfort zones and devise strategies that complement a specific map iteration, and can lead to interesting situations that were not otherwise possible when maps were static and LZs were static.

    As a side note: although there obviously is not code openly available since the July leak, I think the new master controller is pretty awesome. It seems to have mitigated one of the main issues of the Sseth tide: lag. I'm curious what other modifications have been made to improve performance for the server among other things.

    Quote Originally Posted by awan View Post
    What is the worst feature and why?
    I'm not sure if you mean currently implemented features or features that have been scrapped/reworked, so I'm going to have two answers.

    I think objectives are probably the worst thing the current dev team has created that is current implemented. I will admit that the rewards for trying to perform DEFCON are very nice, especially late game, but they have not solved the issue that I believe they were designed for: giving marines a way to come back. If we look at DEFCON as a means to an end, the marines will probably get the nuke if they decided to all rush objectives and look at killing xenos as the secondary objective. However, in terms of giving marines a buffer if xenos are getting some momentum, I think it fails. Main reason is because marines do not seem to want to perform objectives because they are not that fun. This is more of an issue with players wanting to receive direct personal benefits (such as the satisfaction of killing a xeno) rather than acknowledging long term benefits of performing a task. It's inherent with our ~2 hour round lengths, and this also extends to the xeno side, as evidenced in the usual lack of captures. Objectives need to be more than a scavenger hunt, and then I think it will be able to be both fun and a decent tool. This is more complicated, since there is also the DEFCON rewards and winrate to consider.

    Mutators, which have been reworked out of their old form, were the worst feature that the dev team implemented. I could understand the argument to test out how balance shifts over time, since players learn to adapt new strategies to counter new features/changes, but mutators, in my opinion, failed to achieve its goals of giving xenos a means of playing a certain caste the way they want to play it and allowing people to jump into action relatively quickly after latejoining as a larva. Mutators were mostly straight stat buffs, serving to load all xeno power at elder+ while leaving young xenos relatively the same. Stacking personal and hive mutators, xenos became ridiculously strong by late game, so games were usually short since marines had to rush xenos before mutator snowball or xenos would just stomp marines with mutator snowball. The straight stat buffs were also obvious choices over the other mutators, especially if you wanted to get into the game as quickly as possible. When hive flaws were implemented, making every flaw available to every xeno helped with the mutator snowball, since some flaws either barely acted as flaws (tackle) or were obvious choices since some stats were irrelevant to specific castes. The adjusted power curve and maturation timers have definitely achieved the goal of making latejoining as xeno less of a grind. Strains have also given xenos some in-caste customization, but I think we need more strains before I can really say that the goal of playstyle-caste adaptation has been achieved.

    Quote Originally Posted by awan View Post
    How would you voice your disagreement with the team's opinion?
    Since CM is run by a dev team, I would discuss the disagreement I have about a specific feature with the team. I'd probably pose a question about said feature first and then go from there. I'm not going to berate a person for designing the feature or the whole team for allowing it to be implemented, but frustratingly accepting something leads to tension and problems in the future. Having an understanding of the team's mind set for why feature X was implemented a certain way or why feature Y was ever implemented is important, because it allows me to anticipate what direction the team is going and also what their vision is for the game. My mind may or not change, but given that this is a team volunteer project, I do not have much to complain about, and compromising is definitely a good skill to develop when planning to work with teams in the future.

    This is my first time working with this big of a codebase in a team environment, so I'm not going to pretend like this is the best way to act. If you or anyone else has advice for voicing my disagreements, input would be appreciated.

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    You have been send the coder test. If you manage to complete it before coming Friday I expect that we can discuss your app before the next dev meeting.
    Do take note that if you have questions you can ask them and that it is not problem to take longer just keep us in the loop.
    Last edited by awan; 04-08-2019 at 11:08 AM.

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    alright I sent my answers to the coder test

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    We have recieved your reply and I put your app on the dev meeting agenda.
    Expect a full reply after.

  9. #9
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    Upon some internal discussion, the Team has found your test responses satisfactory. As such i have elected to accept this application.

    Please PM me on Discord with a link to your Gitlab profile and an email address you don't mind sharing with the Team at large.

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