Calling someone an armchair developer

Yes op, it's plain stupid to take a stance like that.

I started a new mission last month and they gave me a seemingly simple task. I ended up having to reinvent the wheel for it to work. But I have been smart enough to generalise the solution, and now it's monetized. When talking about what I was doing people was looking at me like I was a retard not understanding what was asked. (I think I almost got removed from the team before coming up with solution)

I think that everything making sense is doable but sometimes it needs some craft and architecture.

Armchair developers just an excuse to ignore an opinion, but like all opinions they aren't all equal and some are, as others are saying, much harder than they seem.

For example you see combat log requested fairly often here on PoE forums but from what i understand of the methodology data is sent in chunks to the client, so they would have to either rewrite the entire damage formula for easier logging or write a utility that dismantles the cluster to provide the data to the client. Both of these are considerably more involved than people think they are and would bring negative consequences as well as using resources potentially better uses elsewhere.

On the flipside developers frequently state that some things are impossible, or aren't as simple as XYZ when they frequently are, they aren't trying to be dishonest I just think they don't like telling their customer base I don't think thats a good idea (or maybe its too involved to explain). I know there has been a GGG post in the past that said buffing things isn't as simple as increasing a number in a file but in some cases it really is, they could set static strike to have a base radius of 30 it would take the build guy very little time to adjust, possibly seconds if he knows exactly where it is. Whether that is a good idea or not is actually where the delay is and where I think most armchair developers come in, as frequently numerical changes could be made to an ability to make them play better without fundamentally becoming overpowered.

Static strike could have a radius of 100 and it would still clear slower than lightpoacher/EK/InsertMemeclearspeedbuildhere and still vastly underperform compared to stat stick bladeflurry or molten strike on single target. These are the areas that players get frustrated at because the changes are easy but they still aren't made.

I personally think GGG has a pretty good record but thats also because i think they deliberately balance things badly, there have been too many consistent imbalances in the game for them to be so bad at skill parity unless it was deliberate. for example fixing double dipping was a major undertaking so we had it for quite a few patches, but i absolutely think it was a deliberate intention to gut ignite so that nobody played it just to force some players to rotate and look at things with fresh eyes. Same with poison and the general ascendancy rebalances we get at the moment.

Basically the players are like water, they take the easiest route from A to B, GGG deliberately changes things so that the easiest route changes, not because they can't balance. If that isn't true (which it could not be) they should really try harder lol :P sorry went off on a tangent there.

I disagree that it's only use is to ignore an opinion. It can be used correctly to label an opinion as being worthy of being ignored.

That being said... I wouldn't use the term. It attacks the person rather than the opinion.

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kto9 wrote:

He then took what he had from that armchair and turned into the game you now play.

Chris wilson indeed learned from armchairs.

Most of the ideas on the forums are trash garbage from armchair developers.

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The_Scourge wrote:

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Sarno wrote:

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The_Scourge wrote:

Many a name I've been called

Well to be fair, if you didn't have (and rename) multiple accounts... :P

TWO. Two accounts. And one I use just to hide from you and your do-goodery.

And you know I'll always be called The C Word here. Like, always.

Charity Case Charon?

on-topic :

Nothing wrong with presenting "out of the box" idea's, as long as you can take critique from all directions, which is usually a pre-requisite for idea's to develop fully.
Your either able to defend from those "attacks" and solidify your stance or it crumbles and shows cracks.
Which basically means, back to the drawing board and go from start again.

Peace,

-Boem-

@ChrisWilson Hi, i would like to buy your company for my 1 chaos orb in real life. (Country: New Zealand "~price 1 chaos"; position: South East)

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Shagsbeard wrote:

I disagree that it's only use is to ignore an opinion. It can be used correctly to label an opinion as being worthy of being ignored.

That being said... I wouldn't use the term. It attacks the person rather than the opinion.

Well that is good at least, and was mainly my point; that it should not be used to stop discussion by labeling another person and dumping them into a category. When you have to resort to labeling a person or attacking them, there is probably a flaw in your argument or position somewhere (since you can't explain it in a way that is decent and respectable).

Everyone also has to remember that it may not be obvious to the armchair developer that the code is more complicated than it looks. So in the end everyone just needs to cut each other some slack.

However, I will say that there will be a person who, does believe it can be done better, and more efficiently, then goes out and does it when other people tell him it isn't possible.

I know the above are rare, but they exist, and if you dump everyone into this category you can also dump these people in there too.

I've used the term on a few occasions, and generally try to limit my usage of it unless speaking in a very broad, general sense (it's a stereotype of a subset of personality traits - applying it to individuals is obviously not going to work on some level and it's a waste of my time arguing and defending the usage in those cases).

Generally, I try to limit it to people that are so obsessed with their own 'expertise' in something that they forget that the people they're talking to have an entire team of people devoted to design that may have actually had the same thought they did (shocking, I know). And that this design team has a very high chance of having actually done the work on ruling something out as a possibility at the present time, or have actually put the thing in question into practice in a controlled environment and found out that on paper it seems okay, but in a live environment it's garbage and feels bad.

So, basically, self-absorbed arseholes. The developer equivalent to an armchair general, who doesn't take into account that the people making military strategic decisions don't have the benefit of sitting with their thumbs up their bums for hours, days, or weeks and have to make most of their in-the-moment choices on bad information, worse timing, and pure instinct and experience.

Don't have much patience for the phenomena in either case, frankly, and when I catch myself doing it, I'm generally very cross with myself. Though I tend to be more of an armchair psychologist/sociologist then anything else. S'easy to see other problem individuals when one is at a more even level with them, after all.

There is far too much slack these days. "Cutting the slack" is no longer meaningful if everyone's ideas are treated as being equally valid by default.

I'll also point out there's as much if not more "well... that's just your opinion" from the other side of this coin.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

There is far too much slack these days. "Cutting the slack" is no longer meaningful if everyone's ideas are treated as being equally valid by default.

I'll also point out there's as much if not more "well... that's just your opinion" from the other side of this coin.

well... that's just your opinion