I Think the Devs Screwed Up.

There's almost definitely an item generator along the lines of makeNewItemFamily(pristat=str, secstat=crit, terstat=pow, suffix="of Battle").

But with the items already generated, you'd have to modify their database entries rather than create new ones so the existing ones update appropriately. Doing this for every individual bugged item is really time-consuming. Doing it with a mass search-and-replace is risky (could affect other items by mistake). Ignoring it doesn't fix the problem, but consumes no resources and incurs no additional risk. Pick your poison.

Yup, I fully agree. On top of that there are much bigger fish to fry.

Right, because there's never been a bug that's caused a variable to be pointed at the wrong thing...

And given the way allocation typically works in engines, well... It can get kind of complicated sometimes.

I am quite sure they STILL got few more baby names to add to credits before they can be bothered to fix the damn game...

I expect a database change would fix something like that.

...Which is even riskier then a code change.

As someone pointed out early on, this is an issue with many of the item modifications.

Despite the assurances that this is just a minor little thing not to be worried about, this is itemization. Itemization impacts balance and difficulty tuning. They are making tweaks and changes to the latter without having the basic foundation sorted out properly. If there are mods and enhancements with identical stats, that means a particular combo is probably missing. That missing combo, when introduced, can change the resulting gameplay.

While these things are true, it's also important to remember that this is only an issue with leveling gear at this time. I'm not saying that balance and variety during leveling aren't important. Rather, I'm saying that crafted items are still suitable substitutes in this level range, that sidegrades are available from various sources, and that the length of time players will use the items in question before replacing them is relatively short.

None of these is a proper solution. However, they collectively mitigate the severity of the issue by a great deal, making it a very low priority to fix.

I highly doubt they are using skilled software developers to modify item attributes through their game tool. There is no doubt there is some sort of tool that allows them to modify items, npcs, abilities, and so on through a GUI. There is no doubt that there are 'designers' that are skilled in the use of this gui, who are separate from the developers who are tasked with fixing code bugs.

Therefore, fixing itemization shouldn't impact fixing bugs, unless there is some sort of giant QA process for itemization changes as well.

So the real question is, what else are these designers working on that they can't go back and fix itemization? Perhaps an expansion/patch that requires them to create a glut of new content (and thus new npcs, items, ect).

I guess I'd rather them fix the existing problems before bringing new content out, but then again, I am sure people who are doing Nightmare mode Ops and have max pvp gear are much closer to quitting, than people who are upset about +Accuracy on all of the Operative gear

More like "junior assistant X", basically being one rung above getting the coffee. IT's essentially basic data entry. Calling them "designers" wouldn't be helping anyone.

Of course, there are those pseudo-GD programs out there which actually have basically no correlation to game design...