Ammo for Spies?

[frvge]

Disagree... dynamic outer-hull algorithms are way more complex than moving a grey box around. Both in programming and in calculation complexity.

[Overstatement]

Actually, I would just render the model twice. Once for the outline (slightly zoomed in and white colour) then render the actual model in colour over the first one. I've done it before, works great! But I was commenting on these very long posts we seem to be having.

[Spekkio]

InvisibleMan,

You need to go out to your local flea market and pick up a copy of CT for the PC from the bargain bin. Why? Well, there was this SCCT tourney a while ago for the PC, and not one aggro team made it deep into the tourney. The best combination is a 'visible' and 'invisible' spy. The visible spy creates diversions/gets seen more often while the 'invisible' spy sneaks to get grabs or quick-cam the merc from the shadows. Unfortunately a lot of the players from the tourney have since left, but there are some who still play. I could come up with a list of about 10 names of people who win with a primarily stealthy approach to the game. Mr.Mic, who I've paired up with since my old partner LoChang left, and I have argued many times about whether to take a stealthy or aggro approach to the game (him aggro, me stealth). Oh, and FWIW, Lochang and I won the North American division of that tourney and we didn't play aggro. The team we played in the finals for that division was stealthy too -- seefoo and vantage. But I digress. That says to me that both approaches are viable, which is a good thing. It encourages diversity and creativity, instead of saying "no, you HAVE to play this way."

Also, aggroing in lag = death.

You're an Xbox player, so I understand your gripe with aggro. But trust me when I say that aiming on a PC is >>>>>> aiming on a console when you're the merc. Good mercs end up beating aggro-only spies extremely often. Also, the gasmask is quicker to put on in the PC; all I gotta do is hit 4 then right click which is a lot quicker than holding down the B? button to select the equipment before activating it.  I think that's why you have such an issue with the cams. Trust me when I say that on the PC this is pretty much a non-issue. Yes, spies who try to quick-cam in a fight are acting FPS-like. However, they are also acting very stupid because they're about to get shot in the head by the merc who activated his gasmask (although like I said before, there's the off-chance that lag kicks in and the merc gets KOed anyway).

If PS were being developed for a console, you may have some good points, but it's being developed for the PC. I suggest you play that version for a significant time and we'll see if you still have the same opinions.

As for MT,

I agree about the looking behind thing. All I was saying is that eventually, as a spy you learn to stay out of the merc's LOS period so you don't set off MT. The "MT being a crutch of a bad merc" means that you don't actually go and look for the spies, you expect MT to do everything for you. Good spies know how to circumvent that, so good luck with it. I wouldn't be opposed to making the MT only detect in the merc's FOV, but there's one dilemma if you do that: it strengthens aggro, which you detest in the first place.

Maybe put an indicator on the merc's back so the spy can see what vision he's in? Also, as a compromise, is it possible to have a longer delay if the spy moves out of the merc's FOV (like, spy must be in constant motion for 1.5 seconds before box goes off), but if he moves in the merc's FOV the grey box goes off instantly? Would be a nice compromise to the current system, but again I worry about how that will strengthen aggro.

I don't like the DA version of MT. It's annoying and useless. If the spy is moving in front of my face like that, I can already see him. Plus the guard against flashbangs balances the game.You'd be better off just giving the mercs night vision than that type of MT.

ADDED: If you're so inclined, this is a link to Seefoo's videos. He and vantage are one of the, if not the stealthiest team in CT. Most of those clips come against teams who know what they're doing, they were just able to trick the mercs that badly. He's even got some clips of playing against me and Lochang in some of the vids. Ah fun times....why did vantage and lo quit damnit?

Anyway, here's the link. Enjoy:
http://hosted.filefront.com/AppleJacksCk

[InvisibleMan999]

Yeah, it's admittedly been awhile since I've played the PC version. Mostly I got sick of it and switched to the Xbox due to the fact that stealth was so screwed over. I'd say the high resolution MT and EAX omnihearing was far more of an issue for me switching than just plain aggro.

The only time aggro really became a true pain was when it was the host doing it (and lets face it, pure aggro teams pretty much always host). Besides that it was probably more of a gut reaction because I saw aggro way more on the PC than playing the xbox version. Virtually like half the teams I played on PC at one point were solid aggroers. Though this was also likely caused by the fact that stealth just plain sucked against certain people.

Quick cams are much more of an xbox thing I think, but triple nading is far more common on PC. And really probably if we made gas mask client side, then we might solve all the problems with cams, as most of the time the frustration did come from just not getting the mask on in time (which happened to be a half second before the cam went off, but before the server registered the mask as 'on')

I rarely remember getting triple naded in Xbox matches, so I still think they're somewhat of an issue for the PC, though possibly something we could deal with if we take out the side grab. The biggest problem with triplenading is that you can back into a corner and still get side grabbed. 

Really though, like I've been saying all along, I consider the side grab to be the biggest problem in the game and the only must-fix. As far as triple nades and quick cams go, we can try stuff out with them. If we find it makes the game suck to take them out, then it's just a matter of changing a simple timer variable. Maybe it makes a better game and maybe it doesn't, but the capability of testing it is so simple, I think it's worth trying out.

Regarding MT, I think that's probably the biggest enemy to stealth. There are a number of things we could do with it.

-FIrst we could just use DA MT, that'd probably be the simplest and require the least coding.
-Another option would be to eliminate MTing things not in the mercs field of view, or having it detect limited amounts of motion depending on region. For instance, within the merc's FoV performs as MT does now, but behind the merc only detects a spy who is running (which somewhat keeps the anti-aggro part of it). Also, I'd make MT require a somewhat clear LoS to the spy, no more of this crap where it picks up an only partially visible spy who is hiding in the ceiling grating above Aquarius fish tank room for instance. It should work through smoke, but not through actual hard partial cover.
-We could keep MT as it is in CT, but add the blurriness effect similar to EMF in DA for mercs that move. That way you can very well use it to track motion, but it's poor for night vision (unless you're stationary).

Definitely though some deliberate effort should be made to keep the detail down on MT, so that we don't have the high resolution + post render problems that made the PC version really suck (at least in my opinion). Merc vision should be capped in terms of maximum detail level, so we don't get crap like people sniping in EMF across the level when the spy didn't even have a vision on, or the easy to see camo suit. Cause seriously, that made the PC version of CT really lame.

[Spekkio]

Yeah, it's admittedly been awhile since I've played the PC version. Mostly I got sick of it and switched to the Xbox due to the fact that stealth was so screwed over. I'd say the high resolution MT and EAX omnihearing was far more of an issue for me switching than just plain aggro.

I agree that this was probably a big turn-off for a lot of gamers and increased the learning curve dramatically. Not only did you have to be sneaky, you had to overcome super-hearing and super-sight, too. Still, like I said before, people have since learned to deal with it. In the end, the PC community as a whole (well, the ones who stuck around at least) became better players because of it.

Really though, like I've been saying all along, I consider the side grab to be the biggest problem in the game and the only must-fix. As far as triple nades and quick cams go, we can try stuff out with them. If we find it makes the game suck to take them out, then it's just a matter of changing a simple timer variable. Maybe it makes a better game and maybe it doesn't, but the capability of testing it is so simple, I think it's worth trying out.

As far as the cam thing goes, I know for a fact that there are at least a half-dozen people who use quick-cams stealthily. This circumvents the bs that you'd encounter when you try to go for a grab. I don't need to test it to be able to say that you'd be gimping stealth as much as you'd be gimping aggro if you adjusted the timer on the cams. Like I said before, since quick-cams around corners when the merc knows you're there rarely work anyway, you'd actually be gimping stealth more than aggro.

Yeah, the side-grab doesn't make much sense, and it probably leads to more front-grabs than it should. I would definitely like the grab box to be adjusted if at all possible.

As for the aggro teams always hosting, that's probably why no purely aggro team made it far in the tourney (each team had to host half the games). When we played our rounds, if we had the option we would actually have the mercs host because there are a lot more things you can do as spy to exploit host advantage. As merc, you just get better aim and you can hear poisons (which I don't know if you're supposed to or not). Both of which are relatively easy to adjust to.

Your idea of MT only detecting a running spy from behind but detecting the same array of motion that it does now when you're looking at someone sounds interesting. I'm not a programmer, though, so I don't know if that can actually be done, but it would be a good fix to the problem.

Also, in PT there was a static noise when MT was activated. I believe this should be returned because it will make the merc sacrifice some hearing for the increased sight awareness.

EMF ghosting is independent of resolution and post-render quality, btw. I used to think it wasn't, but Mr.Mic proved me wrong on that one. While instinctively I find it to be BS, too, I don't know how it would affect balancing the game if it were removed. EMF has a max distance, btw, unlike MT.

Yes, super-hearing EAX is bullshit for both spies and mercs (you can semi-get away with no HB sensor/bullets because of it, allowing triple nades to be that much more viable). But a very under-used equipment item is alarm snares, and among those that do take them, few have figured out how to actually deploy them effectively. They negate EAX because they make random noises that someone with EAX will hear. I'm assuming that this project will fix the sound, though.

[InvisibleMan999]

EMF ghosting is independent of resolution and post-render quality, btw. I used to think it wasn't, but Mr.Mic proved me wrong on that one. While instinctively I find it to be BS, too, I don't know how it would affect balancing the game if it were removed. EMF has a max distance, btw, unlike MT.

I don't actually think post render does much to EMF, though I could be wrong.

High res doesn't actually create the EMF ghosts but rather allows you to see them at a much greater range than normal. While you can see them at low res, you've got to be very close or have your sniper scope zoomed in all the way (you could for instance, EMF ghost people coming out of the vent in museum by looking at the cafe ceiling at full zoom). But since the range is rather low and it requires a really keen eye, I didn't consider it that much of a problem. It only becomes a game problem when it's placed on a high resolution screen. Even still, the EMF ghost problem is nothing compared to the MT nightvision problem.

If we do one thing fixing MT, lets at least makes a fix that forces mercs to occasionally turn on their flashlights. Would it be possible to make a non-moving spy totally invisible on MT? Then we wouldnt' have to worry about post render or anything. 

Really one of the reasons I think merc resolution should be capped anyway. It's okay to let spies see at whatever res they want, since there's no profound effect on balance.

Oh, and while we're talking about annoying game bugs, lets fix silent prox mines too. Nothing more annoying than those spots you can place them that oddly give off virtually no sound at all.

Also, an improvement to netcode may well fix the host side aggro problem sufficiently. Though I have no idea if modifying the netcode will even be possible.

[Spekkio]

@ EMF ghosting

No, it doesn't.

The biggest effect on EMF ghosting, actually, is removing the framerate cap. It makes the little hexagons flash with a higher frequency, resulting in a clearer picture. The next biggest effect is monitor color quality.

@ Silent proxies:

There are none in CT. The way that the spy hears proxies (and other in-game events) is a function of the camera angle. If you are running in a direction and have the camera oriented in the wrong way, you won't hear the mine until it's too late.

Furthermore, soundcards can only play so many simultaneous sounds at once. If there are a lot of bullets being shot and grenades being thrown, you probably won't hear the mine.

Finally, there's the fire extinguisher bug in which your virtual "ears" stay at your last position, no matter where you move, until the fire extinguisher stops going off.

[InvisibleMan999]

@ Silent proxies:

There are none in CT. The way that the spy hears proxies (and other in-game events) is a function of the camera angle. If you are running in a direction and have the camera oriented in the wrong way, you won't hear the mine until it's too late.

I'm not quite sure, because I've had my camera angled in front of me (like I generally do) and sometimes have ran into mines that are either much more faint or silent. I'm not sure what exactly causes silent and quiet mines, but they do exist. I've encountered them on both the PC and xbox version. On PC, I wasn't using EAX so that may have had something to do with it.

In any case, fixing those mine hearing bugs should be another goal. I'm not really sure why camera angle should have anything to do with it anyway.

[Gawain]

The mt vision should get blurry not only when the merc is moving, but when the merc it turning his head (and for a little time afterwards). This would prevent from looking in all directions if it doesn't detect movement in the back anymore.

[goodkebab]

spekkio pointed this out a long time back i think....MT actually inverts the shadows...so light areas are dark and dark areas appear normal. -hence the night vision

UMPS  did a beautiful hack on this...it really fixed it  and I think negates mt whoring.

DA also did a pretty good job of destroying emf....to much in my opinion but the idea of limiting the range of the vision will help.


Dont forget, the more we tone down mercs....the more we encourage aggro spies....which is a very big reason for not changing gameplay until a version 2.0

[LiVe.To.Di3]

hm limiting the motions is bad lol if you are a good spy you can break a merc.. i guess lower the emf but not motion.

[InvisibleMan999]

spekkio pointed this out a long time back i think....MT actually inverts the shadows...so light areas are dark and dark areas appear normal. -hence the night vision

UMPS  did a beautiful hack on this...it really fixed it  and I think negates mt whoring.

Yeah. though I still honestly kind of like the DA MT fix a little bit better, mostly just because it fixes the uber 360 motion detection as well.

DA also did a pretty good job of destroying emf....to much in my opinion but the idea of limiting the range of the vision will help.

Yeah, DA went way too far with EMF. Aside from EMF ghosting problems, EMF isn't a vision that needs to be nerfed at all conceptually, as it's easy enough to avoid EMF. You just don't turn on any visions and don't pull out your gun. So EMF really doesn't need to be weakened aside from the unwanted side effect of sometimes being able to see the spy's ghost on EMF when he's not using any equipment.

Dont forget, the more we tone down mercs....the more we encourage aggro spies....which is a very big reason for not changing gameplay until a version 2.0

Well, not necessarily, there are certain things that we can change that won't directly affect aggro.

If anything, by making the game more stealthy, we discourage aggro because stealth works better. A great deal of people became aggroers because they couldn't sneak past mercs with all the stealth problems.

[goodkebab]

the best solution for stealthy spies are building stealthy maps.  A lot of people want to play stealth when they can.  Factory and Orph are great examples where stealth spies own.

[Overstatement]

Is it because stealthy spies own or slow mercs on big maps suck?

[Gawain]

2nd point  :D