Vanquish PC Bug Makes Higher Framerates Equal Higher Damage Taken

[Marik2]

If everyone could put the pointless gaming platform fued aside (because they literally go nowhere, have no meaning, and make no difference), I'd like to address the actual matter at hand, which is this:

Game programmers, you are being tremendously lazy by doing this. The point of a multi-system port is that they match in levels of functionality. If they don't, you goofed. Please do the jobs you're paid to do.

They know that the players will fix it in a day or two.

 

[bjj hero]

If everyone could put the pointless gaming platform fued aside (because they literally go nowhere, have no meaning, and make no difference), I'd like to address the actual matter at hand, which is this:

Game programmers, you are being tremendously lazy by doing this. The point of a multi-system port is that they match in levels of functionality. If they don't, you goofed. Please do the jobs you're paid to do.

My guess is in their original brief it was to be console only with a set frame rate. So it was not lazy programming, it was using the tools available to get the job done. Time saved in one area makes more time to work Elsewhere.

There is however an argument that maybe this should have been picked up in testing for the port.

 

[FalloutJack]

They know that the players will fix it in a day or two.

Doesn't relying on a bunch of guys who fix it in post with less resources than you have make you look dumb, though?

My guess is in their original brief it was to be console only with a set frame rate. So it was not lazy programming, it was using the tools available to get the job done. Time saved in one area makes more time to work Elsewhere.

There is however an argument that maybe this should have been picked up in testing for the port.

That argument is most certainly relevent. In fact, there's no way it could've been missed. If the damage index is ramped up suddenly, it's like the difference between playing a Final Fantasy game and a Persona game. The latter clearly does not pull punches, except maybe in reference to the even-more-unforgiving Shin Megami Tensei games. The point is that this is a dead giveaway.

That said, so blatant a programming goof-up is still rather lazy, regardless of what order the ports were made in. Hanging damage codes on your framerates doesn't even make sense. Why even do it? The two are not associated functions. I mean, one's the run speed and graphics, the other's calculating how hard you get hit. Whatever the plan was, it wasn't right in the head.

 

[bjj hero]

That argument is most certainly relevent. In fact, there's no way it could've been missed. If the damage index is ramped up suddenly, it's like the difference between playing a Final Fantasy game and a Persona game. The latter clearly does noaway.

That said, so bt a programming goof-up is still rather lazy, regardless of what order the ports were made in. Hanging damage codes on your framerates doesn't even make sense. it wasn't right in the head.

Im no code monkey but wonder if ther constant FPS was used as some sort of timer or metronome.

 

[FalloutJack]

That argument is most certainly relevent. In fact, there's no way it could've been missed. If the damage index is ramped up suddenly, it's like the difference between playing a Final Fantasy game and a Persona game. The latter clearly does noaway.

That said, so bt a programming goof-up is still rather lazy, regardless of what order the ports were made in. Hanging damage codes on your framerates doesn't even make sense. it wasn't right in the head.

Im no code monkey but wonder if ther constant FPS was used as some sort of timer or metronome.

I'm no code monkey either, per se. Had just enough exposure to know that DPS is not a function of FPS. Oh, you could technically do it, but a college professor wouldn't give you a high grade. They basically didn't feel like coding a separate DPS calculator and here we are.

 

[Petromir]

They know that the players will fix it in a day or two.

Doesn't relying on a bunch of guys who fix it in post with less resources than you have make you look dumb, though?

My guess is in their original brief it was to be console only with a set frame rate. So it was not lazy programming, it was using the tools available to get the job done. Time saved in one area makes more time to work Elsewhere.

There is however an argument that maybe this should have been picked up in testing for the port.

That argument is most certainly relevent. In fact, there's no way it could've been missed. If the damage index is ramped up suddenly, it's like the difference between playing a Final Fantasy game and a Persona game. The latter clearly does not pull punches, except maybe in reference to the even-more-unforgiving Shin Megami Tensei games. The point is that this is a dead giveaway.

That said, so blatant a programming goof-up is still rather lazy, regardless of what order the ports were made in. Hanging damage codes on your framerates doesn't even make sense. Why even do it? The two are not associated functions. I mean, one's the run speed and graphics, the other's calculating how hard you get hit. Whatever the plan was, it wasn't right in the head.

I'm not so sure, depends why the two are tied together, if its something like timed invincibility periods, or indeed damage over an animation then tying the damage directly to framerate ensures the two happen in synch. Logical reasons are not hard to come up with for using framerate for timing in a locked framerate game. It means damage is synced with animations, cant happen when visuals suggest it can't etc. And if you aren't planning on porting to an unlocked framerate dominated platform then taking the simpler codes is a better use of resources and will likely mean less bugs. There is an argument that the work should have been put into the port though.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I'm playing at 144fps and above and I didn't notice until these articles starting coming out. Just using a mouse and keyboard makes the game much easier to play and I've only died a handful of times (At least on normal). I'm sure on the higher difficulties this would become pretty oppressive so I'm hoping a patch gets released for my subsequent playthroughs.

 

[Kurt91]

Kind of reminds me of Metal Gear Rising, where a lot of the game is reliant of frame-rate. For instance, if your frame-rate is off during the tutorial level, Sundowner gets stuck in the ground during the chase sequence. You can't do anything to him once you catch up, but you can keep going as usual. However, later on when you fight Metal Gear RAY, the game screws up worse. The part where you get thrown into the tower and you have to run down while it collapses doesn't work. The tower itself doesn't load, and the entire game locks up at that point.

It's weird because I can play the game perfectly on my home computer in my dorm room. If I take my desktop computer back home and hook it up to the TV to play, it doesn't work and I can't play it. Even after upgrading my PC's hardware, I still have the same issue. Apparently, the game is insanely picky that way.

 

[FalloutJack]

Call to Snip

In my mind, though, the why is wrong. To ask for it to happen would seem to me a way to reduce potential bugs in terms of numbers, but to invite bigger errors to happen when they do, larger and more-difficult-to-overcome things. True, the more complex a thing is, the more chance that some small widget has to foul up, but a flawed design breaks down and sets you back even further. Case in point, this kind of faux pas is embarassing, and if some unpaid mod-maker who fixes it on his own time does your job for you, you look extremely bad. As in..."What are we even paying you for?" bad. And also, if the order to do so came from higher up, the programmer will still get the blame in a round of denial and face-saving, or at least that is what would be attempted at the meeting regarding this. Better for all if it the problem was just hunkered down and dealt with.

 

[Neonsilver]

And this is why you don't tie your framerate to gameplay mechanics. Game design 101. C'mon,people. It's not that hard to figure out!

Japanese developers love doing this because up until very recently they developed their games exclusively for consoles and the option for framerates higher than the target simply didn't exist. This of course comes back to bite them in the ass now when they decide to release a PC port, because then they are stuck with either allowing higher framerates and getting bugs like this that may require extensive code rewrites to fix, or locking the game to the console framerate (usually 30FPS) and having the port receive bad reviews because many PC gamers consider 30FPS locks to be unacceptable in this day and age.

Here's an issue with that; You need code to tie framerate to other elements. It's literally more work to do what Vanquish and Dark Souls II did,than to keep them independent. Either it's inherent in the engine,which is possible,though I have no earthly clue as to why,or the developers explicitly put in the link themselves,though,again,I have no clue why.

If it's some kind of regular effect that is applied in regular intervals, the extra code is required anyway. The difference is, by tying it to the framerate they remove the necessity to keep track of the intervals. So you save some work and it's not a problem as long as the framerate is constant.
Might even save some resources on the system it's running on, but I doubt it would matter on current systems.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

FYI- A beta patch is live on Steam. It hasn't gone through extensive QA testing because of the holiday weekend but I downloaded it and it works.

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/vanquish-beta-patch-promises-to-correct-damage-boosting-framerate-glitch/

 

[direkiller]

Lol this happened to valkyria chronicles on the pc

Wait, really!? WHY!? Why would they do that?! It's a damn turned based strategy game!

It seems to be a common problem among games made for the PS3.
I think once people found a coding system that worked they just sorta ran with it.
Now that they are porting them to PC 5 years after the fact and the games are expected to run at double to quadruple the frame rates you run into issues.