development

[quartz kindle]

ye

@symbol.iterator

for...of basically calls the object's hidden symbol iterator function

which executes the iterator pattern

so its basically a wrapper for a bunch of functions

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Iteration_protocols

[frosty gale]

surprised the engine cant optimize that out if it sees you dont use any of said iterator functions in your code other than accessing the value

[quartz kindle]

because anyone can create a custom iterator

so its "unsafe" code

lmao

[frosty gale]

actually ill do a quick benchmark on it

because i forgot how much it affects perf

[quartz kindle]

here's an example of a custom iterator that i made

add those to a class, and you can do for(const a of myclass)

you can also use generator functions instead, which are even slower :^)

[past field]

so there’s no way i can use this with v13?

[quartz kindle]

it doesnt matter what djs you use

sqlite is a universal independent database

[frosty gale]

50% slower 💀

[quartz kindle]

huehuehuehue

[frosty gale]

thats interesting never knew js supported those

[quartz kindle]

i made a bunch of weird shit like that in this old lib i made

basically an array-set-like class that stores data in a single delimited string

lmao

so i implemented every single array method and some more

to make it indistinguishable from arrays

so you can do for..of myclass, as well as [...myclass]

[past field]

😭

[quartz kindle]

did you actually try anything with it? like did you try coding something with it?

[frosty gale]

of course you did

about strings do you know how js compares them under the hood?

like does it keep a hash of them

[quartz kindle]

it has a gazilion different structures for different types of strings lmao

[past field]

no i’m scared ima fuck something up 😭😭😭

[frosty gale]

funnily enough comparing strings by hashes turns strings from one of the slowest data types to being on par with comparing numbers, i hash strings in my database and compare the query string with the strings hash in the record and if it matches it will do a 1:1 compare to make sure its actually the string and not a collision

[quartz kindle]

it starts off as a single string, which can be one of like 3 types depending on which chars it holds, then once you start editing it, its pretty much broken down into linked lists and what not

[frosty gale]

tf

javascript is scary

now i need to be worried that my string is a linked list

[quartz kindle]

lmao

like

when you concatenate a string

it wont actually concat it under the hood

just join the pointers or something, but its kept as two separate strings

[quartz kindle]

there is nothing to fuck up if you dont have anything stored yet

this is pretty much all you need

[past field]

i mean like

when i install the node module

idk i’ll just need to try it

[quartz kindle]

the worst it can happen is the install fails lol

it wont delete your pc

[quartz kindle]

v8 source code lmao

[frosty gale]

smart

does that string ever end up becoming a whole string instead of a linked list

[quartz kindle]

yes, once you read it

[frosty gale]

what if the concats are like single character length so you append many 1-2 length strings

[quartz kindle]

theres even an npm package for thsat

[frosty gale]

does it follow the same process

[quartz kindle]

https://www.npmjs.com/package/flatstr

[radiant kraken]

impl Iterator for ... {}

[quartz kindle]

lmao

[frosty gale]

mans hacking the v8 engine

[quartz kindle]

yup, its that dumb

btw i tested it and it doesnt really improve performance in any of my test cases

just made it worse

[radiant kraken]

reminds me of lodash functions

[frosty gale]

last commit was 5 years ago

so the method prob doesnt apply anymore

[quartz kindle]

actually, the delimited string storage class i showd you before, is where i tested this

[frosty gale]

at this rate it would be easier to just not use it

[quartz kindle]

pretty much

[frosty gale]

if you could insert bytes in between two memory locations computers would be OP

[quartz kindle]

lmao

[frosty gale]

no need for these concat algorithms

but it causes so many problems

im surprised no one figured out a solution to this

[quartz kindle]

indeed

[frosty gale]

idk maybe ram that magically shifts itself in light speed

[quartz kindle]

its the whole basis of the entire memory fragmentation dilema with all those memory allocators

[frosty gale]

just reminded me my kernels memory allocator is awful

basically an entire linked list

if you need a new block of memory you append to the end of the list with the beginning being some metadata

for allocs you first iterate through all blocks to see if one with a good enough size exists

would be a good idea to split the block sizes into categories for faster allocations in the future though

[quartz kindle]

you can learn a lot of checking out what big name allocators are doing

like jemalloc and mimalloc

also, array.shift and array.unshift are fucking terrible for some reason

[array] unshifted 99999 strings of 10 chars in 10326.8212ms
[ftset] unshifted 99999 strings of 10 chars in 35.20800000000054ms
[array] shifted 99999 items in 17758.464099999997ms
[ftset] shifted 99999 items in 7.6833000000005995ms

[frosty gale]

arent js arrays just linked lists?

i would imagine them to be

although what about indexes

linked lists have one weakness of being awful with index lookups

[quartz kindle]

pretty sure they are hash tables

somehow

lmao

[frosty gale]

yep ive had it with this language

not using arrays anymore

[quartz kindle]

lmao

[frosty gale]

how do you make performant queues then

if unshift and shift are slow

[quartz kindle]

pop and push are fast

[frosty gale]

oh right

[quartz kindle]

so its possible they are actually stacks

[frosty gale]

forgot about those for some reason

actually

but then that wont work for everything

if you want a fifo queue

[quartz kindle]

its probably a composite structure

[frosty gale]

you need unshift eventually

[quartz kindle]

something like a hash table with sorting order stored elsewhere

or idk

[frosty gale]

make a custom array in native c++ with node-gyp

[quartz kindle]

lmao

[frosty gale]

although performance penalty of calling native methods will probably outweigh gains in small queues

[quartz kindle]

yup

[frosty gale]

in big queues it will probably make a big difference considering 99999 strings takes 10 fucking seconds

prob a library for that though

[quartz kindle]

you can make a rope with objects

with a reference to first item and last item

[frosty gale]

hold on this is a gap in the js ecosystem then

i dont really see anything with simple queues on npm

[quartz kindle]

there are many data structures that js doesnt have natively but thaty you can easily do with objects lol

[frosty gale]

if only voltrex was here to chime in

explain himself as to why js arrays dont make fast queues

[quartz kindle]

https://www.npmjs.com/package/datastructures-js

[frosty gale]

oh interesting

this is its implementation of a queue https://github.com/datastructures-js/queue/blob/master/src/queue.js

yeah i see what its doing

i think its using offsets to dequeue elements

so if you dequeue first element it will add offset of 1 so first entry in array will be second index

[quartz kindle]

    if (this._offset * 2 < this._elements.length) return first;

    // only remove dequeued elements when reaching half size
    // to decrease latency of shifting elements.
    this._elements = this._elements.slice(this._offset);

[frosty gale]

and it removes them when reaching half size

this doesnt look like a very good implementation honestly

sounds very messy

[quartz kindle]

heres a challenge then

[frosty gale]

can you do a benchmark?

[quartz kindle]

look at each of those datastructures

and come up with a more performant one

:^)

[frosty gale]

for the queue problem id prob make a linked list out of it

wonder how that would differ performance wise

actually i might give it a shot

doesnt even have to be in c++ can be in js

[quartz kindle]

they have a benchmark in the repo

[frosty gale]

its definitely better thats for sure

although actual gains will differ given they clear the dequeues once you reach half the array

depends on use really

what is their linked list implementation

[quartz kindle]

here

https://github.com/datastructures-js/linked-list/blob/master/src/linkedList.js

[frosty gale]

not bothered to look through entire code but willing to bet its just chained objects with a last and first entry that points to each other

how i wouldve done it

wonder if doing this in native would speed things up

but then doing that you limit portability of the code

and idk how bad performance penalties are with js to native translation

[quartz kindle]

pretty bad, at least in sintetic benchmarks

[frosty gale]

i reckon it could be much better if the translation of native types to js types and vice versa would be more efficient

because thats realistically the only overhead here i believe

but im not a maintainer so i dont know the challenges of it

if they can find a way to eliminate a lot of the overhead from calling native libraries javascript could easily become much faster than it already is

[quartz kindle]

its been a point of conflict between a few peeps

like the maintainer of uwebsocket for instance

keeps complaining about the node perf team, about how bad it is

node had a huge performance regression since node 10

which never quite recovered

Absolutely. That's what I've been saying for years. The only limit uWS.js has is node::MakeCallback and they manage to tamper with that every release, to our disadvantage.

I wrote a benchmark that just does node::MakeCallback a million times in different Node.js versions.

Node.js 8.0.0 does it in 161ms.
Node.js 10.0.0 does it in 193ms.
Node.js 13.8.0 does it in 273ms.
Node.js 13.9.0 does it in 622ms.
Node.js 14.5.0 does it in about 600ms, but sometimes 800ms (huge variations).

[past field]

sigh

tim pls

[quartz kindle]

?

did you try anything yet?

im waiting for you to install it and try it lol

[past field]

i’m scared lmao

ok i’m about to go to my pc and try

npm install better-sqlite3 right?

[quartz kindle]

yes

[past field]

is there a difference between npm i and npm install ?

[quartz kindle]

nope

its an alias

[frosty gale]

your computer wont blow up i promise

unless someone injected malware into better-sqlite3

which i highly doubt at the moment

[frosty gale]

thats weird

what are they doing

this is all voltrex's fault

[quartz kindle]

xD

[past field]

ok i’m gonna do it, only because you promised

[quartz kindle]

cmon lol

i've never seen anyone scared of using npm install before

people usually install too much shit instead

[frosty gale]

bro i hate html when disabling quirks mode you literally cant make a div be 100% of the pages height without a scrollbar appearing

what is this shit

i see no one complaining about this so this just must be a skill issue somehow

[quartz kindle]

remove body margins

it has like 5px default margin and padding or something

its stupid

[frosty gale]

that actually worked bruh

i hate web dev

thank you

[quartz kindle]

lmao

[lament rock]

have

[frosty gale]

ive been coding my app in quirks mode the entire time bc i literally couldnt center the page without the stupid scroll bar

now im trying to move out of it so i actually comply with modern css

[quartz kindle]

you can also use a css normalizer

a lot less relevant today than it used to be, but still useful with normalizing certain behaviors between firefox and chromium

[frosty gale]

looks helpful

[past field]

igh i’m finna do it

my heart beating fast

[quartz kindle]

????

[frosty gale]

i wish my only problems were a single npm install

[quartz kindle]

same

i need to code this big ass function but im kinda stuck with where to begin

[frosty gale]

what is said big ass function

you already narrowed it down into a function so thats a good start

[past field]

ok i did it

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-squarepants-nickelodeon-sigh-phew-gif-5752975

[quartz kindle]

i still dont know how to split it into smaller, so i'll start with a big ass one

[past field]

idk why that was so stressful to me

[quartz kindle]

i need to find the dates when X planets have Y event

planets being anything from the millions of things i support
and event being stuff like "planet" reaches X position, or crosses Y difference with another planet
from a list of many possible search patterns which i still didnt finish

[past field]

i’m guessing i add this to my index.js?

[quartz kindle]

const Database = require('better-sqlite3');

this loads the library (which is obvious)

const db = new Database('foobar.db');

this creates a new database with the file name you specify

if the file exists, the existing database is loaded, if not a new will be created

[past field]

but i add it to my index.js

anywhere specific i need to add it?

[quartz kindle]

const statement = db.prepare('SELECT name, age FROM cats');

this creates a statement, which is an SQL command, written in SQL language

then you can use one of

statement.run() // run the command
statement.get() // run the command and get the result
statement.all() // run the command and get all results

[past field]

all of this goes into the index.js file?

[quartz kindle]

it goes wherever you want to use it

const db = new Database('foobar.db');

this is like the discord client

you probably only want one of these

[harsh nova]

(Based better-sqlite3 user)

[quartz kindle]

and then access that one from other files and places

[past field]

shit im lost now lol

sorry this is new to me

it's gonna take me a min to understand this

[quartz kindle]

sigh..

you know the discord client right?

the one you create with client = new Discord.Client()

[past field]

right

[quartz kindle]

so you know that you only have 1 client

in the entire program

no matter how many files you have

[past field]

yes

[quartz kindle]

its pretty much the same thing

unless you actually need multiple databases, you will likely have only 1 database in the entire program

the database is this const db = new Database('foobar.db');

so you likely wanna have that in your index

then that db variable is what you use to work with the database

ie, write and read stuff

[past field]

ok so

ok here are the first 54 lines of my index

const dotenv = require('dotenv');
dotenv.config();
const fs = require('node:fs');
const { REST } = require('@discordjs/rest');
const { Routes } = require('discord-api-types/v9');

// Require the necessary discord.js classes and variables
const { Client, Intents, Collection } = require('discord.js');
const token = process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN;
const config = require('./config.json');

// Create a new client instance
const client = new Client({ intents: [Intents.FLAGS.GUILDS, Intents.FLAGS.GUILD_MESSAGES, Intents.FLAGS.GUILD_MESSAGE_REACTIONS, Intents.FLAGS.GUILD_MEMBERS] });

// Load our commands
client.commands = new Collection();
const commandFiles = fs.readdirSync('./commands').filter(file => file.endsWith('.js'));

const commands = [];
for (const file of commandFiles) {
    const command = require(`./commands/${file}`);
    client.commands.set(command.data.name, command);
    commands.push(command.data)
}

// Register slash commands
const rest = new REST({ version: '9' }).setToken(token);
console.log('Started refreshing slash commands...');
rest.put(
    Routes.applicationCommands(config.clientId), { body: commands },
);
console.log(`Successfully reloaded ${commands.length} slash commands!`);

// When the client is ready, run this code (only once)
client.once('ready', () => {
    console.log('Ready!');
});

// Our slash command handler
client.on('interactionCreate', async interaction => {
    if (!interaction.isCommand()) return;

    const command = client.commands.get(interaction.commandName);

    if (!command) return;

    try {
        await command.execute(interaction);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
        await interaction.reply({ content: 'There was an error while executing this command!', ephemeral: true });
    }
});```

so I can add const Database = require('better-sqlite3'); here after the new client instance?

[quartz kindle]

sure

it doesnt matter where you put it

what matters is that it has to be before const db = new Database('foobar.db');

and btw you can name them whatever you want

for example you can do this if you want to

const XD = require('better-sqlite3');
const mydb = new XD('randomfile.abc');

[past field]

// This is for my database
const Database = require('better-sqlite3');
const db = new Database('foobar.db');```

how do I show the colors

[past field]

ahh ok thank you

i'll just leave the name as foobar lol

[quartz kindle]

sure

[past field]

ok so now I create the statement

[past field]

with this

[quartz kindle]

now you're gonna be working with the SQL language

everything inside the prepare() function is written in SQL

not in JS

[past field]

ok so I need to learn the SQL language

[quartz kindle]

yes

at the beginning, your database is empty

the first thing you must do, is create a table

SQL works with tables, which is like an excel file

you have rows and columns

[past field]

ok wait

sorry tim pls don't hate me man

[quartz kindle]

to create a table, the SQL command is CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS table name here (columns here);

now before you create a table

you NEED TO KNOW how the table looks like

which means, what columns it will have

imagine you are creating an excel file

[past field]

// This is for my database
const Database = require('better-sqlite3');
const db = new Database('foobar.db');
const statement = db.prepare('SELECT name, age FROM cats');```

[past field]

do I do this in a separate program? or still within visual code studio?

[quartz kindle]

to work with sql you really need to think about what you're doing, so think

[quartz kindle]

all SQL commands go inside the prepare() function

for example db.prepare('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS table name here (columns here)');

[past field]

ok i got you now

I get that part now

[quartz kindle]

but first

think

what do you want the table to look like?

[past field]

um

[quartz kindle]

what kind of data are you saving?

[past field]

so my end goal here is to have my bot be able to save data for certain games and commands that I'm going to do. for example, like people who use /birthday with my bot to input their birthday and I'll have another command like /listbirthdays that will list all of the birthdays that were input into the /birthday command

if that makes sense

[quartz kindle]

ok

so imagine an excel file for birthdays

what columns does it have?

[past field]

Column 1:username

column 2: birthday(mm/dd)

[quartz kindle]

very good

[past field]

column 3:age

nah nvm

[quartz kindle]

now

[past field]

think i got a 70 yr old in my server ion wanna out her ass like that

[quartz kindle]

in discord, you probably wanna use IDs instead of usernames, because usernames can be changed, IDs cant

[past field]

good point

[quartz kindle]

and maybe instead of age, you wanna put birth year

but anyways

so you now know how the table needs to look like

so you need to create it

like this

[past field]

so that statement line shouldn't be thereyet

[quartz kindle]

const statement = db.prepare('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS birthdays (id INT PRIMARY KEY, birthday TEXT, birthyear INT)');
statement.run();

[past field]

prepare = columns

// This is for my database
const Database = require('better-sqlite3');
const db = new Database('foobar.db');
const statement = db.prepare('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS birthdays (id INT PRIMARY KEY, birthday TEXT, birthyear INT)');
statement.run();```

[quartz kindle]

yes, very good

change the STRING to TEXT, i wrote it wrong

[past field]

and I'd have to create a new table for every different thing I want to have data for?

[quartz kindle]

yes

if those things are very different and it makes sense to have separate tables then yes

[faint prism]

It's been a while! I've mostly been hanging around the C# discord server

[quartz kindle]

otherwise you can think if it makes sense to merge some

[past field]

ok i got you

[quartz kindle]

for example, you dont need to have separate users and birthdays table, if you put the birthdays in the users already

[past field]

ok i see what you're saying now

[quartz kindle]

now, to make it easier to use, create a new file, like database.js

and put this in it:

// This is for my database
const Database = require('better-sqlite3');
const db = new Database('foobar.db');
const statement = db.prepare('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS birthdays (id INT PRIMARY KEY, birthday TEXT, birthyear INT)');
statement.run();

module.exports = db;

and you can remove it from index

[past field]

ok i got you

so another question

[quartz kindle]

this way you can easily access the same db from any file

by doing const db = require("./database.js")

[lament mist]

hello guys how are you? I know I shouldn't ask this but how long did it take to confirm your Masomenos bot? Does your bot have premium options?

[quartz kindle]

wrong discord

this is the discord for the website top.gg, not the discord for masomenos bot

[past field]

for ```js
const db = new Database('foobar.db');

will I have to create a new database for each table?

is this 1 db file that will hold all of the tables that i create in it

[quartz kindle]

no, one file can have multiple tables

[past field]

ok i got you

[quartz kindle]

just like an excel file can have multiple pages

[past field]

ok I'm going to create a new file and put it in there instead of in the index

[past field]

shouldn't this be database.db ?

if i decide to call the file database

[quartz kindle]

its a js file that will have this code ^

[past field]

ok i got you

so take it out of my index

create database.js file

and put ```js
// This is for my database
const Database = require('better-sqlite3');
const db = new Database('foobar.db');
const statement = db.prepare('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS birthdays (id INT PRIMARY KEY, birthday TEXT, birthyear INT)');
statement.run();

module.exports = db;

in it

[quartz kindle]

yes

and anytime you need new tables, add a new statement to create a new table there

you can also make it a oneliner, ie db.prepare().run()

[past field]

so where do i put const db = require("./database.js")

[quartz kindle]

in any of your command files that needs to access the db

[past field]

ok i got you

i see now

[quartz kindle]

now the next step is storing data

the SQL command to store data is INSERT

[past field]

ok so all i did just now i create the table

[quartz kindle]

it works like this, for example:

const statement = db.prepare('INSERT INTO birthdays (id, birthday, birthyear) VALUES (?, ?, ?)');
statement.run(member.id, "MM/DD", 1995);

[past field]

ahhh ok

[quartz kindle]

the member id, the day and the year you should get from the discord command interaction

[past field]

and this goes in the database.js file?

[quartz kindle]

it goes inside the command

[past field]

or the command file?

ok I got you

[quartz kindle]

and then reading from the db:

const statement = db.prepare('SELECT * FROM birthdays WHERE id = ?');
const result = statement.get(member.id);

thats how to get a single entry from the db, based on the user id

or if you want to get everything in the table:

const statement = db.prepare('SELECT * FROM birthdays');
const result = statement.all();

[past field]

ok so

const { SlashCommandBuilder } = require('@discordjs/builders');

module.exports = {
    data: new SlashCommandBuilder()
        .setName('birthdayset')
        .setDescription('Set your birthday')
        .addStringOption(option =>
            option.setName('birthday')
                .setDescription('Your birthday (MM/DD)')
                .setRequired(true))
        .addIntegerOption(option =>
            option.setName('birthyear')
                .setDescription('Your birth year')
                .setRequired(true)),
    async execute(interaction) {
        const { member, options } = interaction;
        const birthday = options.getString('birthday');
        const birthyear = options.getInteger('birthyear');
        
        
        const statement = db.prepare('INSERT INTO birthdays (id, birthday, birthyear) VALUES (?, ?, ?)');
        statement.run(member.id, birthday, birthyear);

        interaction.reply("Your birthday has been set!");
    }
}

[past field]

and my second command "/birthdaylist" would have this in it to retrieve the data from the table

[quartz kindle]

yes

[past field]

edited

[quartz kindle]

also

whenever you're not sure what your database actually has inside

you can use an sqlite viewer and load the file in it

for example

https://sqlitebrowser.org/

open your .db file with that, and it will show you the contents like this

[past field]

OH

BEAUTIFUL

thank god that exists

ok so with this database

[quartz kindle]

you can use that to confirm that your commands are working

[past field]

let's say i have the data in the tables

and I have to reset my bot

as long as the bot runs (because it will establish a connection to sqlite) the data will all still be there

cause it'll pull from the tables

[quartz kindle]

once saved, the data is never lost, unless you specifically run a DELETE command

after your bot restarts, the existing db with all the data will be loaded again

[past field]

ok i got you

i got an error

it says db is not defined

oh is it bc I didnt put it at the top

i guess it's saying I don't have a database connection established

[quartz kindle]

you guess?

well stop guessing and show the error

[past field]

lol tim you are the best man

ReferenceError: db is not defined
    at Object.execute (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\commands\birthdayset.js:21:27)
    at Client.<anonymous> (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\index.js:49:23)
    at Client.emit (node:events:518:28)
    at InteractionCreateAction.handle (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\node_modules\discord.js\src\client\actions\InteractionCreate.js:83:12)
    at module.exports [as INTERACTION_CREATE] (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\node_modules\discord.js\src\client\websocket\handlers\INTERACTION_CREATE.js:4:36)
    at WebSocketManager.handlePacket (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\node_modules\discord.js\src\client\websocket\WebSocketManager.js:346:31)
    at WebSocketShard.onPacket (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\node_modules\discord.js\src\client\websocket\WebSocketShard.js:493:22)
    at WebSocketShard.onMessage (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\node_modules\discord.js\src\client\websocket\WebSocketShard.js:327:10)
    at callListener (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\node_modules\ws\lib\event-target.js:290:14)
    at WebSocket.onMessage (C:\Users\Maurice\Desktop\Da-High-Roller-Bot-main\node_modules\ws\lib\event-target.js:209:9)

[quartz kindle]

^ ??

[past field]

so like

um

idk how to ask my question

ok in my database.js file

[past field]

i have this

i thought the ```js
module.exports = db

was supposed to make the connection

right?

[quartz kindle]

no

module.exports tells you what you're gonna get when you require() the file

if you create a file abc.js and put in it module.exports = 10, then when you do require("./abc.js") you're gonna get 10

[past field]

ok i gotcha

um

so

do i add ```js
const db = require('./database.js');

at the top of the /birthdayset command file?

[frosty gale]

yes assuming database.js stores your module.exports = db

then you can use the db from the birthday set command file

[past field]

const { SlashCommandBuilder } = require('@discordjs/builders');
const db = require('./database.js');
// Rest of the command login below

[frosty gale]

looks good

[past field]

ok i see now

[quartz kindle]

assuming the file database.js is in the same folder as the command file, that is

[past field]

it's not

[frosty gale]

oh no

[past field]

so i'll move it there

[frosty gale]

oh good

[quartz kindle]

you dont need to move it there

what if you have more than one commands folder?

are you gonna make a copy of database.js in each folder?

also if will fuck up your command loading code

it will try to load database.js as if it were a command

[past field]

right i just thought about that because it's a .js file

[quartz kindle]

what you need to do is make sure the path is correct

[past field]

idk what i was just thinking lmao

[quartz kindle]

do you know the difference between ./ and ../ and what they mean?

[past field]

yes

[quartz kindle]

so there you go

[past field]

../ indicates a path

right?

[quartz kindle]

yes, ./ is the current folder, ../ is the previous folder

so use that accordingly to require the file in the correct location

i mean

[past field]

oops sorry

[quartz kindle]

sure, you can use an absolute path

but its easier to use relative paths lol

[past field]

i’ve only done the paths when the files are in the same folder so idk how to format relative paths lol

[quartz kindle]

./file.js = same folder
../file.js = previous folder
../../file.js = 2 folders back
../../../file.js = 3 folders back
../abc/files.js = previous folder and then inside folder abc

[past field]

ohhhhhhhhh ok i got you

ok birthday command worked

now i just need to make my /birthdaylist command that will list out the data that was stored on the chart

[quartz kindle]

good luck

im off to bed

[past field]

thank you so much for your help man

[frosty gale]

turns out someone pushed a backdoor to the xz linux library which is bundled with most distros for compressing/decompressing tar files

it looks like the update was caught before most major distros added it to their repo but beware if you did any updates recently

xz version 5.6.0 and 5.6.1

[quartz kindle]

dayum

mine is v5.4.1

thank god

[frosty gale]

I don't fully understand how it works but it appears to intercept some function call in sshd for encrypted sessions and does its own thing before resuming normal code

it was only found out because sshd logins were 2x as slow from the long work the backdoor was doing

[quartz kindle]

i've been reading on it all morning

dude noticed sshd was taking a lot of cpu for apparently no reason

as well as getting valgrind errors in some db he was working on

which coincided with a system update some time earlier

now a bunch of dudes are witch-hunting a group of chinese developers who have been making PRs in a lot of places in the name of loong arch

this guy Jia Tan has apparently been secretly planning this for 2+ years

[crystal wigeon]

hey has anyone worked with google adsense?

my account got deactivated, and im not sure what to do to activate it again

[hidden idol]

#credits

[frosty gale]

not surprised its very sophisticated

even if you saw it in the makefile youd go "i dont know what that does i probably just dont know makefile"

but he still messed up in a lot of places

doesnt work on all systems either because of the manipulation of the symbol tables or whatever its doing

[quartz kindle]

ye, waiting to see what is the actual analysis veredict

its very possible that it could be the work of some spy agency

if it turns out to be that, its funny how fast it was discovered by random open source people curiosity

lmao

[frosty gale]

since 5.4.3 interesting

his commits will probably be looked over since then too

the whole projects suspended on github, not sure what thats gonna solve actually

github just wanted to do something even if its not particularly useful

[quartz kindle]

ye, everyone complaining about that lul

they even disabled the original maintainer's account

even tho he has nothing to do with it

[frosty gale]

no wonder linux still uses mail lists instead of something like github

so the project doesnt get disabled for fun

[past field]

tim!!!

thank you again for yesterday man!!!

i got birthday set and birthday list working with the database!

the only question i’m having is in the event list, it’s only showing the users ID and not display name

[quartz kindle]

when you use mentions, its up to discord to resolve it or not, based on the cache status in each person's device

if you want to force show their usernames, you need to fetch the user data from discord, then display it

[quartz kindle]

also, the IDs are incorrect

they all end in 00s

which means they are getting rounded

[past field]

😳

[frosty gale]

some further thought, thats possible because why would he go out of his way to insert malicious code in a very highly used open source library after building up so much trust to become a maintainer of xz
a single incident like this gets your reputation tarnished basically forever and you will never be trusted to work in projects of this scale again unless you of course fake your identity

[quartz kindle]

discord IDs have a particular interaction with javascript because they are too big to be represented by normal numbers

so you need to do it like this

instead of db.prepare(...).run(member.id) you need to do db.prepare(...).run(BigInt(member.id))
doing BigInt(member.id) will ensure the user id is correctly stored in the database by converting it to the correct big number format
OR if you prefer, you can go back to the table settings, and change the ID field from INT PRIMARY KEY to TEXT PRIMARY KEY

[frosty gale]

and there wasnt a clear objective or motive on his part to doing it either, as if he just suddenly felt like adding a backdoor

[quartz kindle]

indeed, we shall see

[past field]

ok i’ll try this when i get to my pc

[past field]

ok so understanding how this database works now

i have something i’ve been wanting to do and i think the way i need to do it makes so much more sense now

so i went to create a /hex command that will allow the command user to put a hex code into the parameter, which will have the bot create a color role and assign it to the user.. and they’ll be able to change it which the bot will delete the previous color role, create the new one and assign it

so i’d have to create a table with columns like (user.id, current hex code, new hex code) ? and it’ll track who has what and when it’s changing ?

[frosty gale]

I don't think you even need a database to track that

you can simply look through the users roles, remove any existing color roles they have, and add the new one

stick to simpler solutions first

that way your database won't easily go out of sync with the users actual roles and it's much more reliable

[past field]

ahh ok i got you

i’m thinking to deep on it 💀

[frosty gale]

as a general idea for each user's custom role I'd make them start with something like "COLOR:"

then when removing any old color roles you can go over the users roles and delete any that start with COLOR:

but id be careful creating a custom role for every user im not sure discord likes that

[past field]

that’s a good idea! well it’s only for certain users.. i have server subscribers and one of their perks is being able to change their name color to whatever hex they want

[frosty gale]

that's probably fine then, discord has a total role limit of 250 total roles in each server

[past field]

i was using hexamatic for that but they’ve made their bot private

so i figured i can just code my bot to do it

[past field]

is there a way to have the put position the color roles higher up on the roles list so that it can show? (it has admin permissions)

nvm

i think i got it

nvm no i didn’t

[frosty gale]

your color roles should ideally be at the bottom because roles are a hierarchy

you dont want color roles being a higher position which have higher permissions

you can disable the roles above from showing their colors on the users profile so that the color shows

i think on each role above your color roles you should set the colors to this

as an example here if a user has the dyno and booster role, the booster color will show because dyno role has no color

[past field]

nvm i got it

[past field]

yes that’s what i ended up doing !

well

I also had it find a specific role Id on my roles list and place all color roles under that specific role ID

[dusky idol]

What usually makes my discord bot consume ram and how can I reduce the ram consumption?
Is it linked to guild count? I haven't sharded the bot yet and it's in ~1900 servers. Well ofc I'm gonna shard it regardless sooner or later but does it have anything to do with the ram issue I'm facing or is it a complete seprate problem

[frosty gale]

how much ram are you using right now?

but yes it is linked to your guild count since the more guilds, the more channels, messages and users your bot needs to have cached

depending on the library youre using they usually have lots of settings now to reduce and fine-tune caching

[past field]

i imagine the cached data with 1900 servers is the biggest factor

especially big servers

[dusky idol]

5gbs

[dusky idol]

That rings a bell now

[dusky idol]

Ah yes the on_message functions and task loops might be skyrocketing it

[past field]

i literally just learned about databases last night so don’t listen to me 💀

[dusky idol]

Fair enough

Speaking of databases I too am having a database crisis atp

[slim dirge]

Hi all, just had to share that I'm super chuffed about having just played with AutoMapper for the first time this week and successfully integrated it into my bot! Gotta love learning new tools and mechanisms!

[quartz kindle]

jesus christ

5gb at 1900?

are you using discord.js?

[frosty gale]

python

[dusky idol]

I checked it's not 5 but 1.3ish right now after reboot. It scales up overtime automatically

I'm unsure why was it at that earlier thought, I rebooted like 2 hours ago. Before that the reboot was 2 days ago

and yes py

[quartz kindle]

lmao

anyway, most ram usage comes from channel cache, message cache, member cache, presences

check with your library if you can customize limts for those

[frosty gale]

discord.py is very customizable in that regard i think

[slim dirge]

If I might offer a suggestion, as this is something I've looked into recently as well, consider the flags in your DiscordSocketConfig. It will be different in JS, as I'm using DNET in C#, but the concept should be identical. Consider flags like AlwaysDownloadUsers which caches users, and MessageCacheSize which caches messages, and any other cache-related flags you might have.

If your bot doesn't need to cache messages, for example, set it to 0. This is what DNet has, as an example.

Hope it helps!

[dusky idol]

Awesome, I'll see how I can get it to work for me

[slim dirge]

[sharp geyser]

@harsh nova think they talking about you

[slim dirge]

lmao

[frosty gale]

@quartz kindle thats another person

if it wasnt for that its very likely it wouldnt have been caught for a while

[quartz kindle]

ye thats the guy i was talking about

[past field]

update: i added up and it was indeed not any fun there.

[spark flint]

@modern sable

their only messages too

[modern sable]

ty

[rose warren]

is it just me or is discord's slash command option autocomplete slow? it takes like a second to update the autocomplete results

[past field]

how do i get the coordinates of my png?

i used canvas’ fill text to generate numbers on this photo but idk how to get the coordinates to tell it where to put the numbers

[queen needle]

I would just do the math, since the board seems equal sized

[past field]

idk how to though, wym by do the math?

[queen needle]

(canvas height - px of border of first square - (height of square/2))

Should be center of square

idk if that makes sense, if someone else doesn't help I can give better info when I get home

[quartz kindle]

webhook interaction or ws interaction?

they were pretty alright last time, its been a while since i tested them tho

not too slow not too fast

[past field]

it’ll take me a min to dissect this and get it

thanks !

[rose warren]

ws

It takes like a second or two to load the autocomplete suggestions

I mean I get that slash commands are faster because they're cached at the client level, but i kinda expected autocomplete options to load faster than they do lol

I'm not even doing a db query or anything to load them it's just an array of objects I'm filtering

[quartz kindle]

90% of the waiting time is network delays between your host and the discord servers

especially because you are receiving via ws and responding via http

so every time its creating a new http request, which does cost a bit of time, plus whatever latency there is between hosts

[rose warren]

Yeah. It's not painfully slow or anything. I guess it's just the way slash commands load so quickly because they're cached that make the autocompletes feel really slow

[quartz kindle]

yeah, unfortunately there is nothing we can do about that

its pretty much the equivalent of discord itself doing a db query on every character typed lol

[rose warren]

Yeah it kinda sucks that we can't post the option values to the API with the command data

[quartz kindle]

what if you have millions of options :^)

[rose warren]

Free storage

[quartz kindle]

lmao

[rose warren]

Watch me store my entire logs table

[quartz kindle]

xDDD

i need to retest my autocomplete, i did a test drive like a year ago, but never implemented it

im gonna use it for stuff like geocoding and celestial object lookup, for which the backend is now working

[rose warren]

I just built a tag command this evening which is how i ran into this

Migrating my server's mod bot over to slash commands

It's kinda nice for tags because you don't have to remember the tag. I have verbose titles now in the option field but the old slugs work too since they're the value parameters

[quartz kindle]

cool

let me try to reboot my autocomplete real quick

[past field]

nvm i found a program that tells me the coordinates

[queen needle]

What did you end up using?

[past field]

pixlr

i can use the marquee tool to get the h x w of the boxes and the coordinates of where the numbers should be posted

[eternal osprey]

hey guys

does anyone know a site where i can find free frontend images

been trying to find an image for a rocket but it seems fucking impossible

[past field]

@queen needle

[rose warren]

Photography or icons?

Photography: https://unsplash.com/
Icons: https://thenounproject.com/

[rose warren]

If you're looking for rocket photography SpaceX have a bunch of photos uploaded on Unsplash

Their official photography

[frosty gale]

yeah they did that poorly

for some reason typing is also sent via http not websocket

so if a user/bot wants to indicate theyre typing thats a http request

it would make better sense to send over a low latency already established ws connection

[quartz kindle]

it does take a second but doesnt look that bad tbh

[past field]

nvm

[past field]

so what’s the difference between i.update() and await i.reply()

[untold glacier]

I want to buy nitro like you, but I don't have it credits

[past field]

use g2g

or cashapp boost

[untold glacier]

I don't know how to use it

[past field]

oh wait nvm

[past field]

ignore this

[untold glacier]

ok

[untold glacier]

I don't know how to use it

[untold glacier]

I am new to the server

I'm new to the server and I want to show it to my friends

[shut socket]

Hi

[shut socket]

Autocomplete or listed options?

[untold glacier]

Is there someone who can help me please?

[shut socket]

What’s up?

[untold glacier]

Very bad 😭

[shut socket]

Like what do you need help with I mean

[untold glacier]

I just want nitro in my life

[shut socket]

Can’t help you with that one. 😂

[craggy pine]

Do not join the server just to beg for nitro espeically in the #development channel 🤦‍♂️

[past field]

😂

ok so I’m creating a bingo game (discord.js v13) and i’m having trouble getting 2 of my buttons to respond correctly

[untold glacier]

I don't know anyone

😭
ذ

[craggy pine]

@clear plinth ^

[past field]

interaction failed to the start button and the show board button, i thought it was because there was no acknowledgment of the button interactions, so i have it send a message to the channel for start and i had it set to send the players an ephemeral of the generated bingo boards when the “show board” button is tapped but no luck

[shut socket]

Why js 13?

[craggy pine]

Why not just use v14 where buttons are a million times easier to work with

[shut socket]

Make a separate interaction for all buttons like using a handler

Or using component interactions for djs13

[shut socket]

I have a very similar system but it’s automated

[past field]

i think v13 was the latest js at the time i started this project and idk enough about this to go through and change the language to v14

[shut socket]

Yeah do that

[past field]

can i show you a snippet of the code?

[shut socket]

Ummm sure

The collector is good but the way that whole command is setup is not great

I can convert it to djs14 in the morning if you want

[past field]

is v14 easier to work with? i just started learning all of this coding last month

feb 20 to be exact

[craggy pine]

I mean, when I went to v14 from v13 I just re-made my bot entirely using the new stuff. Helped me learn more if I'm being honest since I got to rethink how I made certain things.

[past field]

i’m scared

of that

[shut socket]

It’s better for handling purposes I’ll say

[past field]

hm

yeah i'm kinda scared

is it as simple as just doing an npm install of the latest discord.js and changing the codes to v14 language? or will this require changes within like the index.js or package.json ?

[craggy pine]

I mean it will require you to change your index.js file some but I dont by much. Its still v14 code regarless

I'm not even sure if at all actually. But I know the migration wasn't hard.

[karmic parrot]

In discord.js why is my embed title coming out like this? I'd like the server's name to be a hyperlink any help would be great.

Edit: Is it because I don't have "https://" ?

[craggy pine]

exactly why.

[karmic parrot]

Ah ok. I didn't realize that I didn't have it until after I sent the message. 😂

[past field]

Okay, I may take a look into this tomorrow. Thanks for your help!

[quartz kindle]

autocomplete

[pale vessel]

if you want to add url to the title, use setURL() for the embed

[karmic parrot]

Alrighty will do.

[shut socket]

Ah

You use database query?

[past field]

me?

[surreal sage]

I want to have an app (executable) check the status of the user's subscription and restrict access to the app based on that

I do not know how I should handle the client-side security

Preventing reverse engineering or changing a false to true in a http request with fiddler

[lament rock]

You can have the server provide the content to display

[surreal sage]

no

[lament rock]

Then the client can and likely will be hacked

If the content is there then there is no stopping it, only preventing it

Even if you implemented something like state tracking where you kick the user back to a screen if they access an illegal state, they can just ignore those commands

Thought a little more and perhaps you can have the content encrypted and the server can provide you with a key you can use to decrypt the content

Though this runs into the issue that once users have the key, they can distribute it and always use the key

You can change the decryption key every update unless you somehow find a way to make it time based but I have no clue how something like that would work

[rose warren]

Yeah mine looks exactly the same in terms of latency

Glad I didn't do anything wrong

[quartz kindle]

not exactly a db query but sort of

i have many sources for geocoding, some are remote apis, others are local text files

the one i tested with autocomplete comes from local text files, queries take about 10-20ms

[eternal osprey]

does anyone know how we can change this hamburger menu frok bootstrap v5.0 to open sideways?

So in row format

[surreal sage]

hwid lock

im using tauri

[shut socket]

Understandable

[frosty gale]

discord needs to add caching to this

so you can mark certain autocompletions as global or something

[shut socket]

Eh wouldn’t really be effective

You are better of making the autocomplete different for each interaction user with caching the guild or user id upon using the command and using a query or local file definitions to be displayed into the autocomplete function

[quartz kindle]

persistent local caching would be good, but depending on how long the cache lasts, bot updates would take a while to apply

imagine you change your autocomplete stuff but users are still loading cached autocomplete results on their end

unless discord would add a mechanism to clear cache, ie an autocomplete versioning system

too much work for a meh feature i guess

it would lighten the load on their network tho

[eternal osprey]

what do you guys think of my design?

created in bootstrap

[frosty gale]

its good only thing is that navbar

the hyperlinks either need to be spaced out more to align with the logo and hamburger menu or the logo and hamburger closer together

[eternal osprey]

hmm i see

yeah i can space that part a bit more to align indeed

arigatoo

[radiant kraken]

needs slightly more left and right margin for the text

the spaceship should be more in the center imo

so it doesn't look so shoved-in

[eternal osprey]

definitely!

Thanks!!

[frosty gale]

margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 10px;

dont listen to me im just posting random margin offsets

[crystal wigeon]

does anyone want to partner with me?

on a game bot?

im struggling to like balancing the game

or if somebody wants to buy it off of me, sure im all for it too

[past field]

you could just give it to me for free

[green kestrel]

just seen this in scrollback.... why is the birthday field a string with two numbers seperated by /?

makes me twitch.

[quartz kindle]

keep stuff simple, can always be optimized later

(altough it did make me twitch as well)

[crystal wigeon]

I can give it to you for like maybe 10k

[crystal wigeon]

Wanna help me balance a game?

I can give you some %

[past field]

sure you can give it to me for free, you can do anything you put your mind to if you believe in it

[crystal wigeon]

Gae

[green kestrel]

what game?

[crystal wigeon]

Rpg game

With like atk, def etc

[green kestrel]

ok

i also made an RPG game 🙂

[crystal wigeon]

Nice

Any pointers on how to balance it out

[green kestrel]

balance is hard

[crystal wigeon]

Fr fr

but rn it’s out of control

Damage is reaching 60m

[green kestrel]

how?

[crystal wigeon]

atk buffs

[eternal osprey]

I never use pixels

[crystal wigeon]

So like take a look at izzi

Just topgg izzi

[eternal osprey]

Only bootstrap margins

As it automatically scales for you

[crystal wigeon]

and try it out

[green kestrel]

dont give out so many buffs then? how are they able to buff so high

[crystal wigeon]

It’s like a 3v3 jrpg

it’s cause people can create their own teams

But i wanted to cap it

When I do that ppl started crying and saying I nerfed it too much and they gonna quit

[green kestrel]

in my game if i find someone with massive armour/weapon buffs, i know they found an exploit

this single player or multi

[crystal wigeon]

No no here sadly it’s not an exploit

It’s just how the game works

but the thing is should I cap the buff

And to how much

200%?

[green kestrel]

or increase enemy def to scale with the player

[crystal wigeon]

That alr is there

hmm

but that isn’t like right imo cause enemy has some stats of its own with linear scaling

Players have made teams that scale their atk exponentially

Should I just remove the exponential buffs?

People will say i nerfed it too much

Idk man it’s taking a toll on me mentally

If you can help me solve the problem that’d be great

Like maybe take a look at my bot first

[green kestrel]

exponential sounds like a disaster

i would make them linear

you cant really scale things exponentially

[crystal wigeon]

Mmm

[crystal wigeon]

So like I have 50 abilities rn that players can use

And I made it exponential buff so some of them become useful

Since most of them were useless

[green kestrel]

every bot ive ever played that has exponential things breaks

[crystal wigeon]

Any tips on how I can buff them to make them useful?

but what if i add cap

What if I cap the buff

[green kestrel]

i was asked to beta test one once and it was just a race to get the final unlock that was exponential scaled thing, then it all broke

[crystal wigeon]

To like 200%

[humble gyro]

you can scale them totally

[lament rock]

Make your own library that does math on strings. dont need to worry about 32 or 64 bit integers

[humble gyro]

... just 3 or less times

[green kestrel]

a cap sound sane

[lament rock]

128 bit needs to get on

[humble gyro]

very

[crystal wigeon]

Is there any other suggestion to like balance out the abilities

So they become useable

I’d appreciate it if you can like join me and help me out tbh

[green kestrel]

make them non permanent, and with a cooldown

so people dont just stack a ton of them and keep it on

[crystal wigeon]

So my rpg is like turn based and the skill activates every 3rd round

[green kestrel]

this is kinda why, you plan out game logic first before you write games, a lot of game designers play out their game rules as tabletop

[crystal wigeon]

And there are 15 rounds in a battle

Mm I had 0 game dev experience haha

[green kestrel]

if you can get away with it and your players wont hate or desert you, throw it all out for a version 2

and design the version 2 on paper first

make something you can test with dice and paper

and try it, over and over looking for things that dont work right

[crystal wigeon]

No it’s more things do work right just need some good buffs to balance them

Hmm

also I mostly also need like game mode ideas

[green kestrel]

if it depends completely on buffs to make it work it sounds like the balance is just off

[crystal wigeon]

how so

[green kestrel]

should be playable and enjoyable without having to have buffs

?

[quartz kindle]

a good idea is to make buffs either scale multiplicatively with themselves or make them scale additively but give them dimnishing returns

[crystal wigeon]

it is. It’s just that people don’t use some abilities cause it deals less damage compared to atk buff abilities. Ofc they would deal less damage but they have other perks like def buff etc

It’s hard to explain id say. You should totally checkout the bot

[green kestrel]

in my game, i have some buffs i havent ported to the bot yet, they have withdrawl! so, for example you can cast a spell to get increased sneak, it works for X amount of time but afterwards your sneak is REDUCED to half... you can keep casting, but the effects are cumulitive

[crystal wigeon]

Yeah mine is like idle rpg tbh you just build a team and battle it out with round based system where a skill can activate every 2 rounds or 3 rounds and these skills give an atk/def buff

There’s more than just atk and def buff tho

Like hp regain

Etc

[green kestrel]

mine is the opposite of idle rpg

a full open world with a story

[crystal wigeon]

nice

[quartz kindle]

can you show an example of how the damage goes to 60 million?

[crystal wigeon]

I need some ideas too

[quartz kindle]

like how much base damage and which buffs get you there

[crystal wigeon]

it’s mostly because somebody has 3 cards in their team that buff atk

Base damage is pretty balanced it’s about 1-2k

so if you have 100 base atk, upon skill activation it goes to maybe 125. The skill giving 25% buff

Now you have 3 atk buffing cards in team

Some of them give 10% some 15%

So now your atk has increased from 100 to somewhere about 175

that should be ok

But ig I just have to add a cap

[green kestrel]

should have got spiffing brit to play it

[quartz kindle]

i wouldnt add a cap

[crystal wigeon]

Then how would you balance it

[quartz kindle]

how do the buffs scale so hard?

do you do like

100 * 1.25 * 1.25 * 1.25?

[crystal wigeon]

Ye

That’s a recent change i made

[quartz kindle]

how about instead you do 100 * (1 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25)

[crystal wigeon]

that’s how I had it before

But players keep complaining lol

[green kestrel]

players will always complain

[crystal wigeon]

it’s more they say it doesn’t buff enough or something

[quartz kindle]

and now they complain it buffs too much?

[crystal wigeon]

Nah

Why would they company when something breaks lol

[quartz kindle]

then if they are not complaining why not leave it lol

[crystal wigeon]

lol

But it ruins the game

[quartz kindle]

how about you buff other things

like def and hp

[crystal wigeon]

yeah doing that too

There are abilities that do that

[quartz kindle]

introduce strats that are anti-buff

monsters/teams that cancel buffs

[crystal wigeon]

yeah those are there too

[quartz kindle]

and ruin the lifes of mass buff builds

[crystal wigeon]

Ye people tend to avoid such boss lol

welp

[quartz kindle]

make more bosses do that

make all bosses do that

game balancing is a perpetual cat and mouse chase

[crystal wigeon]

If I do that it won’t make the game fun cause every time you only have to build atk buff teams

Fr

[quartz kindle]

if something gets too powerful and overused, either nerf it or buff something else

and then people will figure out something else to abuse

then buff/nerf again

[crystal wigeon]

Ngl that’s why I need a game dev help

[quartz kindle]

people will always find out a new way to abuse the game

[crystal wigeon]

It does require one to go through the game to help me balance this out tbh

[quartz kindle]

if you made 40k last year, you should be able to hire some help no?

[crystal wigeon]

Didn’t make any this year

[quartz kindle]

lmao how come?

[crystal wigeon]

players left after a game mode update I made to make many of the skills useful

I nerfed “damage” in context. When the game was broken before people always did 400k damage etc that stayed normal for a long time then i modified the game damage formulae as I learnt new things to balance it out

Things finally started balancing out but damage was only like 40k which is what was expected

So people just deserted cause they can’t do 400k damage anymore lol

[quartz kindle]

it happens a lot, people get used to some op strategy then quit when it gets patched because too lazy to learn a different strat

[crystal wigeon]

ye but sad part is I also left a lot of bugs in the game which players thought are features

Then when I fixed those they quit

So like 80% gone

[quartz kindle]

rip

[crystal wigeon]

yep so now I need to think of a new game mode to save it

[quartz kindle]

does it have pvp?

[crystal wigeon]

yep

People don’t do it cause they think all abilities are useless

[quartz kindle]

thats usually where people tend to invest more, because of their competitive nature

[crystal wigeon]

yeah

But because of all the buffs and nerfs they’ve given up on PvP

that’s where balance comes in

[quartz kindle]

pvp always requires periodic rebalancing, theres no way around it

[crystal wigeon]

I’m trying to balance out the skills so they can be used in PvP

Mm

[quartz kindle]

pvp can never stay the same, there always need to be fresh things

otherwise people get bored

also, people like tournaments and stuff

[crystal wigeon]

any ideas for PvP mode?

[quartz kindle]

competitions with prizes

[crystal wigeon]

Yeah

[quartz kindle]

rankings

etc

[crystal wigeon]

They do that on their own

[quartz kindle]

do you have some sort of ladder/mmr system?

[crystal wigeon]

Nop idk how to do that

I tried match making and it sucked

[quartz kindle]

that would be a good feature to have

look into ELO ratings

[crystal wigeon]

But how does it work tho

Wins / loss?

[quartz kindle]

yeah

ELO is what they use in chess

[crystal wigeon]

You also need significant amount of players

[quartz kindle]

the points you get or lose depend on the ranks of both players

[crystal wigeon]

Cause if there’s only 1 guy who reached x elo. How would you match him?

[quartz kindle]

that cant really happen

[crystal wigeon]

With my small player base that’s what happened

I tried the mmr system before

[quartz kindle]

if the elo difference is too big, the bigger elo will earn little to no additional points

[crystal wigeon]

Based on wins and loss

[quartz kindle]

like if both players have 1000 elo

the winner can get like 25

and the loser loses like 20 idk

if one player has 2000 elo and the other 1000

then the 2000 elo player would get like 1 point if they win

and the 1000 elo player would get like 100 points if they win

[frosty gale]

i think i remember you rambling about ELO a year or 2 ago

[quartz kindle]

its a pretty self balancing system

[crystal wigeon]

But you shouldn’t really be matching 1k elo with 2k elo right

[quartz kindle]

exactly

[crystal wigeon]

That’s broken

[quartz kindle]

but if there are no players left, thats what will happen

[crystal wigeon]

hmm

[quartz kindle]

then its up to your settings, if you prefer to let those matches happen, or if you prefer to tell the player that no matches were found

[crystal wigeon]

but if that’s too frequent it won’t be much fun

Like if the same players face each other

[quartz kindle]

usually the match making will spend some time looking for similar elo players

[crystal wigeon]

And that’s what happened too

[quartz kindle]

and gradually increase the range if it starts taking too long

until a certain limit

[crystal wigeon]

yeah but imo you still need atleast more than 1k players

[quartz kindle]

nah

a few dozen players is enough for a start

[crystal wigeon]

otherwise it just keeps going in circles with same 2 people being matched

[quartz kindle]

another possibility is adding bots/ai

for when no other player was found

[crystal wigeon]

did that too yeah

most of the time players just got matched with bots

[quartz kindle]

i dont remember what i was rambling about

exdee

[quartz kindle]

also

if the game is pretty much idle/automated

the players dont necessarily need to be both online and searching for a match, for it to happen

players could "enable" their team for matches, and they would be available for matches even if the player is offline

[crystal wigeon]

Yeah I just matched people based on their mmr and showed them logs if someone attacked them

[quartz kindle]

well sounds like you already did a lot

[crystal wigeon]

yeah I did and it didn’t work much as I expected

Due to lack of playerbase some players who reached high elo always just battled bots

it didn’t workout much

Had like 300 players at the end who tried it out