Post Ideas for appearance of vision modes.

[Spekkio]

This thread has become a real disapointment.  Instead of people posting creative ideas it has devolved to a skill of debate.  Instead of new ideas,  we get criticisms.  Instead of posting visual examples from other games for a new look,  more often people are saying what they dont like of the only 2 suggestions we have.

Basically,  in typical forum fashion,  it has become an of example of bitching about somebodies idea not matching what you want instead introducing a new idea or solution.

Frankly,  this is why a most game developers dont bother listening to the needs of the gamers.  In a democratic decision process,  it is to be expected that decisions cannot be made because of so many contrasting opinions.

You can save that process for the next presidential election.  I am going to keep future decisions to the dev forums.   

Kebab, it sounds like this thread is a complete disappointment because no one likes your idea of MT. I'm sorry, but the few people who are able to make full-screen graphics shots of what we envision MT to look like are actually on the dev team. The only thing the rest of us can offer is comments and criticisms. It's up to you, Mr.Mic, and whoever else can do renders to take those comments and criticisms as you see fit and edit your rendition of MT until we have something that is satisfactory.

Personally, I said years ago on the Ubi.com forum (go try to search for it if you like) that if MT worked similar to EMF, it would help balance the game out a ton. Therefore, I believe Mr.Mic is on the right track with his idea. I can't really offer my own idea because his and my idea for MT overlap. Sure it can be drastically improved to look better than Virtual Boy game, but he said that his idea was just a rough sketch. I don't think Binary has a valid concern -- he is worried that a merc might walk by a spy in the middle of the room when the two spies are working together. Shouldn't teamwork be rewarded? Isn't that part of the point of the game? The fact that you can bait a merc by your partner in MT in more places than you can in CT isn't a bad thing. Furthermore, like Daybreak said a simple use of the laser would make the spy pop up anyway.

Kebab, I'm sorry but you're way too hung up on the "cool" factor without thinking of practicality. Your rendition of MT is exactly what we have if the MT "fix" is enabled. You speak of making it darker when you can barely see the map's geometry as it is in that picture. While it helps a little, in the long run it still has most of the problems that MT has now, so you might as well just slap CT's MT on the game and call it a day.

As for the other visions:
-EMF: Get rid of the ghost. It's counter-intuitive. Most of the times when I'm called a "cheater" is by shooting people through walls with this vision and they're not using any equipment
-NV: I like the gray overtones rather than CT's green overtones. The blurriness is optional; I don't think it makes much of a difference. With regards to the ambient noise: if you're going to add ambient noise to NV, you need to add it to Thermal for consistency. Else just leave them out.
-Thermal: This is the only other vision that's affected by post-render quality, and I think this should be foreced to "normal" quality as well.

Even if you made no other changes to the other visions, the game would be fine. It's just that the incentive to use MT is too great compared to all the rest.

[goodkebab]

There are quite a few other games out there that you guys have played that use cool visions.  Why not post those?  And to great graphics,  all you need is an ingame screen shot of CT and photoediting software.  There are a few guys on this forum that have those skills.

I am not at all taking this personal,  the only reason I posted my idea was because I thought the direction this was taking needed more sophistication.  My disappointment is the flaming going on gets people no where.

The depth map approach is exactly how  the Spy Thermal Vision is achieved,  giving the MT vision the same effect with Red lacks visual contrast with that of the spys vision.  It will just look the same but a different color.  As a player,  you lose the strong contrast between the 2 characters.  Merc and Spy are designed as polar opposites,  and conceptually and visually we have to keep that.

If the argument is really about balance, and the majority really want the spy to be 100% invisible thats fine,  they can argue that for the sake of balance.  I am not contrasting that opinion at all.  If it works in playtesting and everyone is happy with it thats great.

The percentage of how invisible the spy is can be tweaked with playtesting, and is really a simple matter of changing a few numbers.

My argument is that we can achieve what you guys want,  use the depth map approuch suggested by Mic,  and include a light/shadow effect that I am suggesting.

What I am trying to say is,  my suggestion is to keep a high standard of quality,  which does not actually compromise balance.  They are pretty much 2 seperate topics.  1. How visible is the spy in MT (balance)  2. What does Mt look like. (artistic)

[Spekkio]

My argument is that we can achieve what you guys want,  use the depth map approuch suggested by Mic,  and include a light/shadow effect that I am suggesting.

So then post a picture of it?

I have played other games, and CT's visions are quite unique compared to other stuff. If I see something to compare it to, I will let you guys know. A "Predator" like MT wouldn't work because when the Predator uses his visions, he can barely see his environment.

[frvge]

Adding to Spekkio's grey NV: what about using some form of depth-of-field or whatever to blur things further away?

[goodkebab]

Single player sees a lot of these kind of effects...

You know,  from what i know of hard core gamers is that they are less interested in graphics then performance.  They dont want effects distracting them.

I personally like having these subtle effects because I think it feels immersive. 

Things like the outline of the visor being visible for the mercs,  and the hud should look like its projected onto the glass of the visor would really be a cool effect.

[Gawain]

thank god goodkebap settled the confusion.

i agree with spekkio on almost all points, there's nothing more to add (luckily some1 that has a clue isn't too lazy to write long arguments everyone can follow).
i also prefer a grey nv.
what i don't agree with is normal post render for the spy visions. what the heck is it good for? spies are meant to be better at  information gathering than mercs, and it makes better contrast in the way it feels to play as a spy or merc.
i'm really unsure about emf ghosting. probably kronf is right, seeing ghost through the ceiling shoudl be abolished. though i think it should be possible in zoom mode ???

[Spekkio]

Thermal is the spy's MT vision. There isn't much incentive to turn it off, with the exception of being on ceilings and hiding from EMF. Then again, you get seen there anyway. No one complains about it, though, because mercs win more games than spies.

[InvisibleMan999]

Thermal is the spy's MT vision. There isn't much incentive to turn it off, with the exception of being on ceilings and hiding from EMF. Then again, you get seen there anyway. No one complains about it, though, because mercs win more games than spies.

Well, the EMF thing is really enough to balance thermal IMO.

Unlike the merc, the spy really can have a god vision and we're okay with it, because spies are supposed to have better recon than mercs. The fact that it makes you more visible (if the merc is using EMF), is really enough of a balancing factor. Sacrifice stealth for recon.

Unlike mercs, spies have four tasks they need to accomplish:
-Remain off EMF
-See mercs well
-Detect mines and spytraps
-See in the dark

Sometimes I do wonder if it'd be okay to allow regular spy NV to work without triggering EMF, just to make NV somewhat more useful.

We could always make another vision instead of spy NV to spot mines/lasers instead of thermal, but I think that's overkill. Spy visions just don't have to be nearly as balanced as the merc ones. There's certainly a penalty for running around in Thermal all day long, and there's a penalty for not using thermal at all. As far as spy NV, we could probably just take it out of the game and nobody would care. I rarely see people ever use it.

[Gawain]

maybe if only thermal gets normal post render quality nv would be used more, but i think that there's no need to change anything with the spy visions (except cooler look with gray nv).

[Farley4Fan]

BTW, never say something is "gay" on the ubi forum.  They will IP ban you.  ::)

[frvge]

This is not Ubi. Doesn't mean there aren't unwritten rules. Just use common sense.

[goodkebab]

I suggested this a long time ago,  but I would like the Nightvision to be able to see the field of view of the cameras because the cameras also use Nightvision.


This is a serious balance issue,  but what about camo making spies invisible to cameras?

[Gawain]

I suggested this a long time ago,  but I would like the Nightvision to be able to see the field of view of the cameras because the cameras also use Nightvision.

This is a serious balance issue,  but what about camo making spies invisible to cameras?

seing the exact detection cone of camers in nv would be a good thing.
i also advocate camoed spies invisible to cams. sure, it takes less skill (timing etc) to get by cams, but with camo getting this boost (+faster movement against mt), stealth get's a little bit faster.
what i'm really unsure about is the silent crouch-roll-crouch though...

[InvisibleMan999]

This is a serious balance issue,  but what about camo making spies invisible to cameras?

I always thought that made sense, and I don't feel like it would be a huge balance problem either. Cameras are fairly unreliable anyway, and it'd make more people take camo.

[Bionic-Blob]

what makes more sense, is just giving cameras a shoddy picture, making it harder to see camo