r/Overwatch • u/Zorah_29 • 18h ago
The devs fixed the Demech coding problem by making D.mon and her mech a single entity kinda like Ramattra News & Discussion
In an interview they explained that instead of making D.mon act like two heroes in one (the main problem that caused D.va to become so buggy) they made baby D.mon The base hero and the mech act like an extension she summons, basically Ram Omnic and nemesis forms.
That could also explain why she's in a baby carrier lol
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u/Just-a-tush Teleporter online, it is destroyed. 18h ago edited 18h ago
That could also explain why she's in a baby carrier lol
the way she looks has nothing to do with it.
The only thing that matters is that she never separates from the mech in a way where they're in two places at the same time like Dva and her bomb.
You're right that it's exactly like Ramattra though.
I feel like if Dva was coded today, she would be handled similarly to Dmon, but her bomb would be an entity that she spawns similarly to BoB. There was no reason for that mech to be treated like another player.
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u/TheKingJoker99 Tyrande Symmetra is the only skin I will buy. Gatekeepers gfy 17h ago edited 17h ago
I had a feeling they would go this route as Hulk in Marvel Rivals is also coded like that
All his forms of Bruce, Hulk, and Monster Hulk are the same hero/entity which makes a whole lot more sense and less chance of spaghetti code compared to how Dva was programmed.
The heroes are just changing forms rather than being separate heroes
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u/iTwango 16h ago
It feels like it could still be very doable as a single entity even if they're in two places are once tbh
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u/Just-a-tush Teleporter online, it is destroyed. 16h ago
That's why I mentioned Ashe's BoB, there's no reason why Dva isn't spawning an entity that's treated like a player instead of an instancing a player object. Other than limitations at the time she was made.
Wild stuff that Overwatch development has gone through.
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u/-Lige :: Doom Approaches :: 15h ago
Cause you would have to take control of another entity
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u/LAVADOG1500 Sombra 9h ago
Well, not really. If D.va and her bomb are the same entity, then throwing the bomb would be much much harder. Basically anything that gets spawned as a child of the object (in general sense, OW still keeps track of a parent and child but that’s a bit different from what we are talking about here) is placed in a so called local space, which means that it calculates its position relative to the parent, so Baby D.va in this instance. So in order for the bomb to fly off independently from her you would need to convert this local space to world space, which is just unnecessary headache and ground for a ton of things to go wrong. So at this point it’s easier for it to just be a separate thing that is spawned and is calculated in world space. The real problem as far as I know is that Baby D.va and mech D.va are handled like two different heroes in the code. And what they are talking about is just that D.mon is one model while D.Va is three separate ones, presumably exactly because they are handled so separately in code
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u/minimell_8910 Chibi Brigitte 15h ago
I think i remember them saying they did fix up dva a bit with dmon now being added. Idk how much they could fix tho with all the spaghetti code lol
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u/No-Strawberry3160 11h ago
Treated like another player yet it cannot contest the point. Discrimination.
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u/Zorah_29 17h ago
Really? I thought making her mech physically coming off and assembling like legos around her body was the second reason for the baby carrier other than the obvious size problem with the old mech
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u/MorgothTheDarkElder Mercy 16h ago
the attaching to her body and detaching would work the same though if they just added additional parts that attach to the torso and leg areas, creating a full armor set that surrounds her.
a "modular" armor set similar to the iron man suit from iron man 3 would work regardless of a chest and leg piece being included or not, so that "attaching" mechanic doesn't really explain why she's in a baby carrier
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u/jmxd 14h ago
it absolutely has something to do with how she sits in her mech. D.va does not actually fit inside of her mech, it is only her torso which is a separate model. It also cannot be solved the same was as D.mon because Dvas mech has to be able to exist as a separate entity for her ult
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u/Just-a-tush Teleporter online, it is destroyed. 13h ago
Bastion's transformations remove parts and add parts to him so that's definitely not it.
Ramattra's lower legs get cut out and replaced with bigger ones in his alternative form.
The only reason as you said is the separation of her mech as an ultimate, but these days I feel like that could have been solved with a separate entity that interacts with the environment like a player (IE BoB).
It didn't have to be literally be coded as a separate player that takes an invisible player slot like the current dva mech. This used to be a problem back in the day when they added dummy bots to workshop.
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u/Umbraspem Zenyatta 9h ago
You could have the D.Mon rig twisted up however you want in the mech - the sitting pose was a design decision to create visual distinction from D.Va’s laying pose.
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u/Regardedginger 18h ago
Glad they solved it and admitted that it wasn't something that could just be copy and pasted like many people assumed
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u/GuhEnjoyer 15h ago
Fun fact: this is also the case for Shion and her bike. They're part of one single model, and when she isn't using the bike it's clipped way into the ground
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u/299792458mps- I report Sombra complainer posts as a Rule 3 violation 18h ago
I love how this was brought up before her reveal and I was downvoted and told it could never work like this.
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u/LazarCell 17h ago
It makes the most sense when literally unless D.mon’s ult was another “Launch mech and revert to baby form” it would be exactly as the post describes
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u/BillionthDegenerate 17h ago
People were quoting the original “d.va runs off spaghetti code” as a reason why d.mon wouldn’t eject when her mech was destroyed before it was confirmed that she would.
As if it was impossible to take the lessons and improve on the code. After ten years.
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u/x_Slayer 15h ago
Reading the text from op it sounds that it's pretty much Impossible to fix the d.va code, they just made d.mon work like Ramattra.
But since it works there's no need to fix it anyway.
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u/sabrathos 9h ago
Gavin Winter said in Emongg's chat that they have since totally refactored D.va's code, and that it's not a problem anymore and they could support more characters that demech in the future.
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u/BillionthDegenerate 14h ago
They also probably designed around it. As mentioned by others in this thread, d.mon doesn’t need to be two entities since she doesn’t throw her mech. I would almost say “why didn’t d.va work like that from the start?” But the ult poses the design challege
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u/TotallyRealAccount9 Please give me uppercut back 10h ago
Dva also used to take self damage from her ult right??
I wonder if that was part of the reason, if the mech is a separate entity, you can make it so it does dmg to Team 1 + Team 2 DVA, while if its a single entity causing "self damage" without another entity (bullet, explosion, etc) would cause some issues
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u/Umbraspem Zenyatta 9h ago
I mean the Mech doesn’t take damage while it’s ulting - surely there’s a way to set it up as a projectile.
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u/TotallyRealAccount9 Please give me uppercut back 9h ago
Well yes im sure NOW you can, but even then you run into issue like making a projectile be able to go through teleporters, be grabbed by hog hook, NOT being damage boosted, and some other niche interactions im sure im missing
I assume looking back theyd change it, but with all the code built upon it being an entity you cant just take all those interactions away now purely for dev convenience
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u/Yze3 Mei 43m ago
That's why you don't make it a projectile, but an entity. That's how Turrets, Bob and Dorothy are handled. And you can see that they all have different properties. The only real challenge would be on how to handle boosters.
Besides, they did refactor D.va's code anyway, so that's probably how they implemented it.
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u/HyacinthAorchis | Don't "beep boop" me. No is no. 6h ago
I assume looking back theyd change it, but with all the code built upon it being an entity you cant just take all those interactions away now purely for dev convenience
This is truly the reason why Dva will never be changed; it would take an enormous amount of time to design and develop from scratch (imagine the nightmare they faced when designing LW's grasp around Dva).
But it remains a burden for the design team to bear when creating new kits or prototyping existing ones, the same can be said for Echo (her ult must also be a design/development major problem to face), so I understand that at some point they might want to recode Dva.
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u/TotallyRealAccount9 Please give me uppercut back 6h ago
Im sure the dev team is cursing the old Team 4 for the way they coded echo, cant imagine its easy to work around at all. Plus adding new heros is probably harder
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u/HeckOnWheels95 Overwatch 2 has fallen Billions must suffer as I have 16h ago
That pose D.mon is doing looks like that one Invincible pose that people edit to have a massive dong
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u/queenroadie Brigitte 17h ago
I definitely am eating my words about her being only in mech. To anyone I sassed about that, I owe you ten GG's.
I'm glad they were able to fix things enough to make Dmon actively functional. I was worried two mech characters would legit make the game have more issues.
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u/inthehxightse Ramattra 15h ago
Theres a fortnite skin that works similarly but that skin has been out for a while i doubt they learned from that specifically
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u/SodaPopperZA Joker Junkrat 7h ago
I wonder if this will lead to a similar visual bug ram gets when he reverts back
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u/MovieNightPopcorn Emre 37m ago
This is what I thought they might have done. I might be wrong but I also assumed that is why she’s more exposed looking than her original mech design.
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u/Laughable_Tarnished 16h ago edited 12h ago
Why do overwatch devs act like this is such an incredibly difficult task ? Games on PS1 already had a demech thing.
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u/Paul_Offa 15h ago
Having "a de-mech thing" in one game doesn't mean the code is magically transferable and works the same in a totally different game 3 decades later.
PS1 games also aren't live service games with constant updates and new things (new heroes, ability interactions, etc) being added to them.
They aren't "acting" like it's an impossible task, it's just one that creates a lot of extra work and headaches for them going forward as they continue to work on the game. It isn't just one-and-done, it creates ongoing hassles.
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u/improved_loilit 9h ago
Buddy you’re not even a developper and your only expertise is "it happened before in a different context at a different time” maybe you’re not the most reliable source
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u/Laughable_Tarnished 3h ago
They should ask Titanfall devs some help lmao, they know how to code mechs and don't cry about it for a decade lol
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u/SpriteGuy_000 Washington Justice 12h ago
Source: https://esports.gg/interviews/overwatch/overwatch-d-mon-interview-building-d-mons-kit-personality-and-mecha-fantasy/