Project Stealth

I'm bored, so here's my take on what needs fixing from SvM to your mod:

Bugs/stupid port stuff to fix:
-Sound in general needs to be fixed up
-Optimization of net code to reduce lag, warping, packet loss, and sound loss
-100 ms lag compensation should be added
-Fix the fact that host radar works for an infinitely long range
-Fix the fact that only the host can hear poison mines (not sure if you're supposed to hear them or not though. I'm of the opinion that you should not be able to hear them go off, because then they are functioning like makeshift spytraps).
-Fix bug where Presence Detectors/Alarms appear active on radar after they stopped
-Hitboxes on the spy need to be fixed.
-Fix the "animation glitch" where spies are unaffected by charges if they are performing certain actions
-Hit detection for client spies trying to jump on a merc is too unforgiving
-Hit detection for host spies jumping mercs is too generous. Fix the fact that a host spy can sometimes jump a merc who is berserking (could this be because jumping a merc is host-side and needs to be client-side?)
-Fix insta-frags
-Fix the spy vision glitch for landing
-Fix client-side shock detection
-Fix proxy mine bug where you can place it hanging off a corner and it will blow up when the spy is behind it (and kill him).
-Fix the fact that spy trap/mine lasers aren't straight for clients.
-Fix the hold breath bug that makes the merc spin like crazy in sniper mode.
-Remove 32 FPS framerate cap
-Fix the fact that mouse sensitivity is dependent on refresh rate
-Fix the way the mouse sensitivity works so it's in line with other games.
-Fix the fact that you can still hear/see the sound reticle while using the merc laser.

Now for the controversial part: balance/gameplay tweaks

Spies:
-Snares should make the noise they do in PT when fired, not the loud clumsy noise they make in CT. Keep the 5x snares with 1:15 timer though.
-Fix the fact that spy bullets sometimes fail to detect the mercs when used as proxy radar
-If you can't fix the EAX stuff, have snares occassionally make camo activation noises.
-Enable a "slow climb" to avoid MT and proxies
-Fix the fact that walking/crawling on a slant goes faster than going straight
-Get rid of the last cam "feature" when firing a new cam. Having a key for it is enough.
-Add the ability to shoot down multiple cams and set up a spy "camnet." The spy can only gas from the last cam shot, though.
-Fix the fact that the auto-aim for the sticky shocker doesn't work properly for clients in lag
-Chaff and smoke should not work through walls
-Make elbow and grab two separate buttons
-Adjust grab hitbox so it's directly behind merc's line-of-sight 45 degrees to each side instead of to his left.
-Flashbang blinding effect is no longer negated by a merc re-entering snipe mode.
-Jumps, grab KOs, and cams consistently KO the merc for the same amount of time (currently sometimes a jump or grab KO will result in a 2 second KO).
-Fix the fact that hanging off a ledge (but still) with the disk shows up on merc radar.
-Fix the fact that moving slowly along incline/decline surfaces sometimes show up on merc radar.
-Return to PT-style climbing, ie The hitbox for grabbing ledges in windows is way too small and it gets people killed.
-Remove auto-roll. It doesn't take a genious to press C while in the air if they want to roll upon landing.
-Add the ability to flip over a rail into a railgrab position by holding use while you press jump.

Mercs:

-MT: rework so that it only detects motion without hindering the merc's ability to navigate the map
  -Tweak the sensitivity so spies crouch-moving slowly on a slant don't get detected on a gray box.
-Rifle
  -Up the magazine capacity to 30 rounds/150 max, keep CT rate of fire (would take about 7.5 seconds to empty magazine).
  -Re-enable the ability to use scope + Flashlight at the same time
  -Make the auto-hack always on, rather than giving an obvious indicator that you have moved over a spy.
  -Burst fire increases strength/accuracy of shots (needs in-game testing to get the balance right).
   Increase time between being able to burst fire so that you can't achieve the same ROF with both
   modes like you can now.
  -Remove random sway in sniper scope. If the sway has to stay, make it into a set pattern so a scoped
   merc doesn't end up looking somewhere else entirely after 10 seconds.
-Uzi
  -Fix all the lag bs that comes from using it
  -Ammo cap reduced from 360 to 300 to be in line with the other weapons that have 5 magazines total.
  -Make reload time the same as the rifle 

**Alternate suggestion, albeit less popular apparently:
  -Give the Rifle the PT ROF (empties 30 round magazine in 6 seconds), remove uzi from the game.

-Slightly increase flashlight radius
-Proxy Mines: slightly lower trip radius (this seems like a nerf to proxies, but it's actually a buff as they often go off when the spy is very far away from them resulting in a non-hit, let alone a kill).
  -Make it so that stand-walking (not running) spies won't set off proxies (this will, theoretically, fix "LoChang mines.")
-Poison mines: lower kill time to 10 seconds instead of 15; remove noise
-Laser mines: Explode the instant the laser is tripped rather than 2 seconds later.
-Spy traps:
  -Mercs get 5, refillable to 2
  -Spy trap duration is only 1 min instead of 1:40
  -Spy traps cannot be removed by partner
  -Spy traps can be placed vertically
  -Shorten spy trap laser slightly
-Tazer: SLIGHTLY increase its range
-Camnet: Remove the ability to use vision modes and laser on camnet.
-Flares:
-Replace with incendiary grenades
-Incendiary grenades have a flourescent poisonous cloud. The cloud sticks to spies, marking them on EMF for the next 30 seconds. While in the cloud, the spy will lose health at a rate that would kill them in 5 seconds.
-Frag grenades: mercs get 5 to start, 2 replacements in backpack.
-Charge:
  -Disable the ability to jump after a charge until the cooldown for the next charge has completed if a merc hits a wall
  -Merc elbow hit should not reset charge cooldown
  -Remove auto-aim from charge. 

Annnnnd discuss.

*Last edit: added the fix to remove auto-aim from charge
*Last edit: added the suggestion to have laser mines explode the instant the spy trips the laser
*Last edit: changed rifle/uzi fix suggestions to reflect debate in this thread.
*Last edit 4/24: Added suggetion to enable flashlight while sniping and slightly widen flashlight radius.
*Last edit 4/26: Added stuff about KO time, disks, autoroll and auto-grab.
*Last edit 10/20: Added line about merc laser, tweaked suggestion about spy traps, added incendiary grenades, added suggestion about slow climb to avoid impassible proxies (Club House steam room, anyone?), removed map fixes since they no longer apply.

Thanx for the effort Spekkio, and for the effect of being concise...feel free to update the list with other peoples suggestions.

Special notes.

Porting UBI made maps:  doing so literally under the Project Stealth label has a high risk of getting undesirable attention from UBI

solution:  have an independent mod group port the maps and release it as an update.  This is very likely, but based on the success of PS

Current  CT bugs will not make their way into our project, because it is our code, and an entirely different game engine.  What WILL happen, is we will have an entirely different can of worms to fix.  Dont forget, we are not modding CT or DA....we are modding Unreal Tournement 2007, so any bugs that game has will probably creep into our game.

best list i ever saw  ;D
imo we shouldn't clone scct versus one-to-one, but mix some features of pt in, e.g. phosphorous grenades, random security etc..
remove uzi from the game??  :o maybe this would be possible if we got a pandora-like sniper (which i personally prefer much to the 3-weapon system), but i can't see why as sniper > uzi atm :P

I was thinking about splitting up the mines.
So 1 gadget is proxy, other is laser, and other is poison. Maybe even add a 'spytrap' feature on the poison. Some RFID chip in the dart :p

This will affect gameplay because all mines have a use in each level. So you need to think it over, which slot you'll give up.

The mine cap is like in CT, but it's possible to get 2 or 3 types of mines, so let's say the mine cap is 3.

Assume you have proxies, then you can have 3 proxies at a time.
If you have both proxies and laser, you can have any combination (3-0, 2-1, 1-2, 0-3,  2-0, 1-0, 0-1, 0-2)

So the choice of the mine is heavily map and own style and spy's playing style based. This creates diversity and an extra layer of tactics:
The visible and audible proxy, which can be bypassed by sneaking.
The non-beeping mine with a laser visible in EMF
The non-beeping mine which doesnt have insta-kill but also spytraps you until you heal yourself (RFID chip is then destroyed for some reason).

Chaff/smoke should not work through walls, ok. But chaff should work in a larger radius, too. Then it would be consequential  and balanced 8)
RFID hahaha ;D  What about a trap that only shows when the spy is near you and when not?
Regarding changing warehouse to extraction mode: extraction mode is very hard to balance as the spies can run very far while the merc is shocked...

Btw, just played bank and the more I play it the more I like it XD

Quote from: Gawain on April 21, 2007, 12:53:53 PM
What about a trap that only shows when the spy is near you and when not?

I see no sense on a trap that shows when a spy is near you...I'd take them and keep walking on the map until it starts beeping so I know where a spy is. Isn't this like the Proxy Detector in DA?

And if you actually meant that it'd show when a spy gets near the trap, not the merc, it's almost the same thing as the Pres. Detector in CT.

Quote
-Hitboxes on the spy need to be fixed

Do games use hitboxes anymore? I know that lasers perfectly detect the spy (a laser between the legs won't trip) so it would make sense that guns also work this way.

Quote
-Tazer: SLIGHTLY increase its range

I bring the tazer to every game, I think it's pretty fine the way it is (but after playing me, people say it's overpowered and often take the tazer to my spy round to prove it).

Addon:

Quote
-Remove auto-hack from sniper mode

No way! Swearing after the first surprise shot is the best!

Quote from: Spekkio on April 21, 2007, 04:57:21 AM
-If you can't fix the EAX stuff, make camo activation silent

Why not just get rid of EAX entirely? I mean... we dont' even need that crap.

Quote
-Rifle
  -Up the magazine capacity to 30 rounds, give it the PT rate-of-fire
  -Remove auto-hack from sniper mode
  -Burst fire increases strength of shots. Increase time between being able to burst fire so that   
    you can't achieve the same ROF with both modes.

Why are you creating a super weapon?

Rifle is already powerful enough in the PC version. If this were the xbox version then sure, I might agree with you, but we don't need more incentive to take the rifle, it's already the awesome as pretty much all good mercs take rifles. If anything, the other guns need improvements. 

If there's a fundamental principle of balance its that you want to buff up things nobody takes, not the thing everybody takes.

Seriously, Spekkio, you should know better than this with all the time you've played this game.

If anything, I'd make the rifle weaker at close range, since it's supposed to be the weapon that's beaten by aggro. 

Quote
-Uzi
  -Remove it from the game

Well I suppose you might as well after you have an uber rifle, but by then you might as well remove the shotgun too, since there's no reason not to take the uber-rifle.

Quote
-Poison mines: lower kill time to 10 seconds instead of 15.

I don't think this is even necessary. Poison mines are already really good at stopping spies from entering various corridors. If you force them to make a quick break for a medkit, they've done their job, because they can't be hacking anything while they're running. It also encourages more strategy in mine placement since you've got to take into account medkit placements.

Quote
-Tazer: SLIGHTLY increase its range

Tazer needs a big buff. It should definitely be what it was in PT, otherwise nobody will take it. In CT, it was the biggest joke item ever... well okay, maybe flares were worse, but that's only because MT was so uber.

Quote
-Reintroduce phosphorous grenades (more of a novelty item).

Why waste the time coding them?

Quote
-Frag grenades: mercs get 5 to start, 2 replacements in backpack.

Give mercs more of the most popular merc item chosen? Uhhh... Might I ask why? People already take frags as a stock item. Mercs really don't need more reason to do so. We should be buffing up items that people rarely take, like the taser and flares. Giving people more incentive to take items they'd take anyway seems antithetical to the whole premise of balance.


About MT: personally I'd prefer if we just removed the shadow inversion (like the MT fix maps) and made it so it doesn't work as night vision anymore at all. That'd fix most of the problem. Also it'd be kind of nice if chaff had an effect on MT similar to a flashbang on normal vision, since MT makes you immune to flash.

Really I think the motion whore should mostly just go away. I even wouldn't be opposed to just using DA style MT.

Quote from: Gui Brazil on April 21, 2007, 01:15:20 PM

Quote from: Gawain on April 21, 2007, 12:53:53 PM
What about a trap that only shows when the spy is near you and when not?

I see no sense on a trap that shows when a spy is near you...I'd take them and keep walking on the map until it starts beeping so I know where a spy is. Isn't this like the Proxy Detector in DA?
And if you actually meant that it'd show when a spy gets near the trap, not the merc, it's almost the same thing as the Pres. Detector in CT.

You didn't get me. You had the idea that poison mines could work like a laser trap, so the spy is on radar + you said something about RFID on the poison projectile. But RFID chips have a very low range (about 0.5 meters afaik)

Concerning phosphorous grenades, they were really huge fun against weaker opponents (u never know if there's a frag or a phos flying at you) and basically it's the same with flares, the ct-tazer, the camosuit etc.: the idea is great, but it must get boosted. ;)

Quote
Do games use hitboxes anymore? I know that lasers perfectly detect the spy (a laser between the legs won't trip) so it would make sense that guns also work this way.

The biggest way to notice the flawed hitboxes is to aim at the spy's head, especially when he's going for an objective. I have gotten rewarded for a headshot many times when I know I didn't hit the spy's head, and I've missed many times when I know the cursor is on the spy's head. I'm not sure exactly what's wrong with them, but they are off. I thought it might be just me, but others have said that they find a similar thing happening.

Remember that SvM is based upon the PT version that came out over 3 years ago, and back then they were using old tech as it was. The fact that I can get a constant 70 fps most of the time on 1024x728 with everything maxed out on a 9800 pro and athlon 3000+ xp is a tribute to that.

QuoteWhy are you creating a super weapon?

Actually, those changes are the way the rifle was in PT. It really makes no sense for the rifle to have 25 rounds when the uzi has 60, and the rifle is not 2x as powerful in full-auto. The burst fire change is an attempt to give a use to the feature. You sacrifice overall ROF for some extra brute power.

Seriously, we're talking about 5 extra rounds and a 25-33% increase in ROF. It's not as severe as you think. If you don't have PT, then feel free to download the Vs. demo and shoot the rifle around. Plenty of spies were able to escape the PT mercs as long as they didn't get into the range of the huge tazer of doom.

The uzi shoots too fast and results in overloading laggy players with a ton of shots all at once. That's why I suggested to remove it. With no uzi around, the rifle needs to be more of a general weapon.

Oh, and the rifle doesn't need to be beaten by aggro. I find it funny that you are against aggro in the first place, but then are against buffing the rifle which would reduce aggro.

QuoteWell I suppose you might as well after you have an uber rifle, but by then you might as well remove the shotgun too, since there's no reason not to take the uber-rifle.

The shotgun would still pack a nice punch in close quarters. In maps like Aqua where the action is usually up-close and personal, the shotgun would still be a good choice. Read above about you over-estimating the effects of making the rifle closer to PT behavior.

QuoteChaff/smoke should not work through walls, ok. But chaff should work in a larger radius, too. Then it would be consequential  and balanced

The radius is fine. It had a larger radius in PT and was absolutely ridiculous.

QuoteNo way! Swearing after the first surprise shot is the best!

I love that part, too. The problem is that the auto-hack gives away the spy when a merc doesn't necessarily see him. That lends to EMF whoring and just sweeping dark areas with the sniper mode because it auto-detects spies.

The only other fix is to always have a "listen" option on the sniper mode and you just hear blank noise if you press it while not focused on a spy. You'd only be able to catch a spy being sneaky if he was talking at the time.

QuoteI don't think this is even necessary. Poison mines are already really good at stopping spies from entering various corridors. If you force them to make a quick break for a medkit, they've done their job, because they can't be hacking anything while they're running. It also encourages more strategy in mine placement since you've got to take into account medkit placements.

There are very, very few poison mines that you can place where a spy can't reach the healthbox in time if he's at full health. This makes the mine much less useful than it ought to be. With a reduction to 10 seconds, the spies will still have a chance to reach healthboxes often, but poison mines will increase in effectiveness.

You also won't run into the fact that a poisoned spy can knock off an entire objective in most cases.

QuoteGive mercs more of the most popular merc item chosen? Uhhh... Might I ask why? People already take frags as a stock item. Mercs really don't need more reason to do so. We should be buffing up items that people rarely take, like the taser and flares. Giving people more incentive to take items they'd take anyway seems antithetical to the whole premise of balance.

It's obvious you never played PT. The mercs had 5 frags in that game as well. It's beyond me why that number was reduced to 4.

QuoteI was thinking about splitting up the mines.

Bad idea unless you rework the equipment system. Since you're not doing that in the first installment, there's no point. I made this list with your 'clone' in mind, not the future adjustments/changes you guys are going to make.

Poisons should not spy trap the spy. That's what spy traps are for. Poison mines are for killing.

QuotePorting UBI made maps:  doing so literally under the Project Stealth label has a high risk of getting undesirable attention from UBI

Call it something different, change the color scheme, and no more copyright worry. Besides, other than Club and Squat, you'd be making changes to the layout anyway. You said yourself that you can't copyright an "idea."

QuoteTazer needs a big buff. It should definitely be what it was in PT,

No, it doesn't need to be what it was in PT. That was too much, and without SS+Jump the mercs will be untouchable. Somewhere inbetween, leaning closer to the CT side, would lead to a balanced tazer.

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About MT: personally I'd prefer if we just removed the shadow inversion (like the MT fix maps) and made it so it doesn't work as night vision anymore at all. That'd fix most of the problem. Also it'd be kind of nice if chaff had an effect on MT similar to a flashbang on normal vision, since MT makes you immune to flash.

On the surface this seems like a good idea. The thing you're not considering is that if you do this to MT, you make aggro easier. I think MT is balanced, it's just that some maps make it a pain in the ass. That is a product of idiotic map design, not a product of the vision mode.

By giving it a max range and forcing normal post-render, you help spies who are staying away from the mercs. But the fact that it detects in a 360 radius (albeit a delay from behind) and can still see in shadows helps the mercs when the spies are close. Isn't this the way it should be?

Besides, the mercs have the laser, flashlight, EMF, and a whole shitload of other stuff that can see you in shadows. Hiding in a dark corner is usually not a very good spot in general.

QuoteWhy waste the time coding [phosphorous grenades]?

They can still be useful, and definitely more useful than flares.

For example, let's say we're playing club house. You can shoot a phosphorous grenade up into the main hall ceiling so that any spy who drops down runs into the gas. Furthermore, a PG and FG are indistinguishable to the spy when they are fired, so it tricks them into thinking they're going to die when they aren't.

They're also very useful on maps like warehouse where spy traps and camnet don't do a damn thing.

back there on the uzi umm all weapons are good lol.. i was thinking of adding 2 more instead of just having dumb rifle.. i mean i get hs like a beast but uzi is good for some maps and shotty is too..

The idea of putting a _temporary_ 'spy trap'in the poison mines is:
1: you get to see the spy running
2: if it disappears near a med-box, you know his last position: aka a set-back in time and a risk of detection
3: if it disappears not near a med-box, you know there were 2 spies there.
4: if it kills the Spy... well, then the Spy is dead.

This all is (in my idea) a reason to find a way past the poison mine so encouraging stealth, while not really messing with the killing principle of the mine. Maybe make the 'trap' only bleep every 2 seconds...

So what you're really arguing is that all mercs should hear the gas noise if the spy trips it, rather than the mine being silent when tripped. That's fine if you feel that way, and of course I disagree, but putting a makeshift spy trap on the device isn't a good idea.

For a long time, I thought that the cursor would blink red everytime the spy trips a poison. It turns out that was false (I could have sworn it does it everytime), should we put that in? Would that be a good compromise between you two?

It does that when the spy dies from your own poison mine. Wouldn't be a bad idea, and if you have multiple poisons about the map then you can't pinpoint the spy's exact location.

Quotei mean i get hs like a beast but uzi is good for some maps and shotty is too..

The uzi is overpowered, even if it didn't cause lag and a general inability to grab the mercs. It's not omgwtfimba overpowered, but it's still overpowered nonetheless. It's more accurate than the rifle when firing full-auto with a negligible bullet spread, has more than 2x the ROF, more than 2x the magazine capacity, more than 2x the ammo capacity, and the cost is that you do roughly 25% less damage while firing full auto and the damage dropoff kicks in at slightly closer distances. This is fair?

If you could avoid the lag created by 60 shots firing off in 10 seconds, then the uzi still needs a lot of reworking.

I think its bad in a stealth game that u can see if you have hurt or killed a spy...
But on the other hand, it's good for improving your aiming/timing with nades.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 21, 2007, 04:03:16 PM

QuoteChaff/smoke should not work through walls, ok. But chaff should work in a larger radius, too. Then it would be consequential  and balanced

The radius is fine. It had a larger radius in PT and was absolutely ridiculous.

I don't get your point. We all want more passive defenses and less mt-whoring, furthermore you need more time to disable mines as you had to shoot the chaffs (assuming they don't work through walls). Where's your problem with a larger radius?

smokes going through walls is unavoidable in CT...it has to do with the sprites not detecting the walls.

It really is a tech problems.  Solution is using particles instead of sprites....but that is more expensive on the graphics card....especially if you need it to be dense and opaque smoke.


Chaff, I honestly think it was intended to go through walls after lots of play testing by Ubi.  Maps like Clubhouse and Missile Strike would be impossible otherwise.  I personally would like to see it really be more effective against the merc visions like in PT.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 21, 2007, 04:03:16 PM
There are very, very few poison mines that you can place where a spy can't reach the healthbox in time if he's at full health. This makes the mine much less useful than it ought to be. With a reduction to 10 seconds, the spies will still have a chance to reach healthboxes often, but poison mines will increase in effectiveness.

So what? If he's running for a medkit, he's not hacking (and probably setting off the sound detector like mad). He may run headlong into a merc. Of course there's always the time honored tactic of putting a proxy by the medkit too.

Quote
It's obvious you never played PT. The mercs had 5 frags in that game as well. It's beyond me why that number was reduced to 4.

Really? How is it obvious I've never played PT? I even talk later in the post about making the taser like it was in PT, so stop making arrogant sounding accusations. Yeah, the merc had 5 nades in PT, he also had 5 spytraps, no gasmask and couldn't berserk. Just because they did it in PT doesn't mean that it was the right way. They reduced the nades to 4 and everyone stills takes frags. If anything that means we should keep them the same or reduce them as they are right now (at 4 frags) a must take item.

QuoteNo, it doesn't need to be what it was in PT. That was too much, and without SS+Jump the mercs will be untouchable. Somewhere inbetween, leaning closer to the CT side, would lead to a balanced tazer.

The CT tazer was awful. Remember that you're not just comparing an item versus it's actual value, but also its relative value. You don't get a taser for free. You've got to not take frags, backpack, spytraps, mines or a gas mask and take the taser instead. If you're giving that stuff up, you better get something useful in return. There is no way the CT taser is anywhere as useful as any of those aforementioned items. The PT taser on the other hand may lead someone to ask, "Would I rather have mines or this taser?"

It's one thing if you're going to hand out the taser for free, but if you've got to pay an equipment slot for it, it better be damn good. The taser's purpose is an anti-aggro weapon, I think the PT version did that very well. It'd be nice to be able to burn some of my equipment slots for a reliable anti-aggro weapon against some teams.

Quote
By giving it a max range and forcing normal post-render, you help spies who are staying away from the mercs. But the fact that it detects in a 360 radius (albeit a delay from behind) and can still see in shadows helps the mercs when the spies are close. Isn't this the way it should be?

Besides, the mercs have the laser, flashlight, EMF, and a whole shitload of other stuff that can see you in shadows. Hiding in a dark corner is usually not a very good spot in general.

Actually take away MT and you'd be surprised. It takes a while to laser sweep a big room, and the flashlight's range is rather weak. EMF naturally requires the spy to switch on his visions. People think hiding in the shadows sucks because they're too used to high-res night vision MT that picks people off in the shadows. How often do you get spotted hiding in the dark with a flashlight anyway?  I can't even recall the last time I remember someone using the laser on me. 

QuoteThey can still be useful, and definitely more useful than flares.

For example, let's say we're playing club house. You can shoot a phosphorous grenade up into the main hall ceiling so that any spy who drops down runs into the gas. Furthermore, a PG and FG are indistinguishable to the spy when they are fired, so it tricks them into thinking they're going to die when they aren't.

They're also very useful on maps like warehouse where spy traps and camnet don't do a damn thing.

Warehouse shouldn't even exist. That's exactly the kind of map we ought to bury and not even look back on. They're just pure aggro fests where you can't hack anything without a nade being fired a half second later because everything is in the same room.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 21, 2007, 05:29:29 PM
The uzi is overpowered, even if it didn't cause lag and a general inability to grab the mercs. It's not omgwtfimba overpowered, but it's still overpowered nonetheless. It's more accurate than the rifle when firing full-auto with a negligible bullet spread, has more than 2x the ROF, more than 2x the magazine capacity, more than 2x the ammo capacity, and the cost is that you do roughly 25% less damage while firing full auto and the damage dropoff kicks in at slightly closer distances. This is fair?

Yeah, you conveniently ignore the fact that you can't snipe with the uzi. Sniping is incredibly powerful and damn worth it. You can kill a spy in one shot and spies have to stand perfectly still to neutralize terminals. You do the math. 

When I played CT on PC, the majority of good mercs used rifles, not uzis. It was very rare not to see a good merc sniping you, the snipe function was just that useful. Regardless of the uber uzi, it tended to be a weapon for less experienced players. For all it's apparent "brokenness", most pros didn't even use it. Most of the people who took the uzi were people who weren't so great at sniping.

Even on xbox, the rifle is a popular choice (and believe me when I say sniping is much weaker on the box).

Personally I found the around-the-corner host headshot while I was hacking to be much more annoying than host uzi, but I'm not crying out for us to ban the rifle. At least the merc has to get reasonably close to you to hit you with the uzi.

It did cause some lag issues for some people, but that's more of a matter of optimizing netcode than the uzi. The uzi doesn't even fire much faster than the rifle did in PT. It's just that CT's netcode was pretty bad so it felt like the uzi was this lag weapon of death. In fact, when you weren't the host I tended to think the uzi was a fairly weak weapon. Host uzi was nasty, for sure, but then, host anything is nasty.

affirmative ;)
giving headshots is too easy imo

QuoteChaff, I honestly think it was intended to go through walls after lots of play testing by Ubi.  Maps like Clubhouse and Missile Strike would be impossible otherwise.  I personally would like to see it really be more effective against the merc visions like in PT.

Club house impossible if chaff didn't go through walls? What about the fact that I don't even take the damn things on that map? We're having the argument on the necessity of taking chaff in the first place in another thread, no reason to bring it here. Club house has like 9,000 entrances (I'm exaggerating, but there are more entrances than places to trap); there's no need for chaff to go through walls. As a matter of fact, if you fix the crooked lasers on spy traps and poison mines, I can't think of a single place in the whole map that you couldn't shoot the chaff around the wall to take out the laser.

Missile Strike needs rebalancing in general. If you achieve that, you don't need to have chaffs go through walls.

Perhaps the change was intended, as we can only speculate about that, but it was a bad change nonetheless. The only way this change would hinder you is if you liked to play a run-around-the map style where you spam chaff at corners to take out lasers, traps, and proxies. To put it another way: the running around strategy that Sithduke even made a video of would not work in Museum if chaff didn't go through walls. Trying to stop such a strategy in any sort of lag is impossible.

QuoteWhere's your problem with a larger radius?

My problem is that it was ridiculous in PT. You could literally throw 1 chaff down in Museum inner cafe and take out every laser in the room. Not to mention that a merc anywhere near there can't use visions, can't enter sniper mode, and can't reload. The radius doesn't need to be increased.

I honestly don't understand what this has to do with MT whores, but ok.

QuoteI think its bad in a stealth game that u can see if you have hurt or killed a spy...
But on the other hand, it's good for improving your aiming/timing with nades.

In PT, the sniping at a spy gave no indication on whether or not you hit him. This was terribly annoying, as you could never calibrate your aim to accomodate for lag.

Quote
Warehouse shouldn't even exist. That's exactly the kind of map we ought to bury and not even look back on. They're just pure aggro fests where you can't hack anything without a nade being fired a half second later because everything is in the same room.

Some people like the map (if it was extraction, you could count me in that group). Some people like phosphorous grenades. From what I understand, more people liked PGs than flares, so bring them back.

QuoteActually take away MT and you'd be surprised. It takes a while to laser sweep a big room, and the flashlight's range is rather weak. EMF naturally requires the spy to switch on his visions. People think hiding in the shadows sucks because they're too used to high-res night vision MT that picks people off in the shadows. How often do you get spotted hiding in the dark with a flashlight anyway?

The best players in the game don't MT whore; they cycle through all their visions. It's much quicker and easier than you think to sweep rooms with flashlight and laser. Play any of the UMP maps with the MT "fix" on it and you'll see what I mean. The non-inverted shadows don't make much of a difference.

How often do I get spotted in the corner with the flashlight? Not often because I know that the mercs have a ton of tools to find me in a dark corner, so I don't make a habit of sitting out in the open.

QuoteThe CT tazer was awful. Remember that you're not just comparing an item versus it's actual value, but also its relative value. You don't get a taser for free. You've got to not take frags, backpack, spytraps, mines or a gas mask and take the taser instead. If you're giving that stuff up, you better get something useful in return. There is no way the CT taser is anywhere as useful as any of those aforementioned items. The PT taser on the other hand may lead someone to ask, "Would I rather have mines or this taser?"

It's one thing if you're going to hand out the taser for free, but if you've got to pay an equipment slot for it, it better be damn good. The taser's purpose is an anti-aggro weapon, I think the PT version did that very well. It'd be nice to be able to burn some of my equipment slots for a reliable anti-aggro weapon against some teams.

The PT tazer was an anti-everything weapon, not just anti-aggro. I agree that it needs a range buff, but it should not be as long as it was in PT. That's just absurd.

QuoteSo what? If he's running for a medkit, he's not hacking (and probably setting off the sound detector like mad). He may run headlong into a merc. Of course there's always the time honored tactic of putting a proxy by the medkit too.

That's poor logic and it ignores the main function of mines: to kill your opponents.

QuoteYeah, you conveniently ignore the fact that you can't snipe with the uzi. Sniping is incredibly powerful and damn worth it. You can kill a spy in one shot and spies have to stand perfectly still to neutralize terminals. You do the math.

When I played CT on PC, the majority of good mercs used rifles, not uzis. It was very rare not to see a good merc sniping you, the snipe function was just that useful. Regardless of the uber uzi, it tended to be a weapon for less experienced players. For all it's apparent "brokenness", most pros didn't even use it. Most of the people who took the uzi were people who weren't so great at sniping.

You see a lot of "pros" avoid the uzi because it's become a faux pas to use it, especially while hosting or if the teams are on different continents because of the added lag host uzi causes. Personally, I avoid the uzi most of the time because it's not worth the aggrevation of getting kicked/harassed about it. But I'll let you in on a little secret: when we played the solidus and snakebit, the winners of the tournament, they took double-uzi (and mercs were hosting), even on Steel Squat. Why? Because it's more powerful than the rifle.

Yes, the rifle can snipe and get a kill. However, the uzi with its pinpoint accuracy can take a spy off the objective just the same. It's not like you have grenades or anything to chuck in that direction anyway.

QuotePersonally I found the around-the-corner host headshot while I was hacking to be much more annoying than host uzi, but I'm not crying out for us to ban the rifle. At least the merc has to get reasonably close to you to hit you with the uzi.

Yea, that's poor netcode, and hopefully will be fixed. You're still missing the point though: I don't think that the uzi can be fixed and not lag people because the data from 6 shots/second being fired overloads most people's computers. In the event that it can be fixed, it still needs an accuracy and possibly power rework.

Quote from: goodkebab on April 21, 2007, 08:18:43 PM
smokes going through walls is unavoidable in CT...it has to do with the sprites not detecting the walls.

It really is a tech problems.  Solution is using particles instead of sprites....but that is more expensive on the graphics card....especially if you need it to be dense and opaque smoke.


Chaff, I honestly think it was intended to go through walls after lots of play testing by Ubi.  Maps like Clubhouse and Missile Strike would be impossible otherwise.  I personally would like to see it really be more effective against the merc visions like in PT.

Hi,

I'm here to debunk this misconception by telling you exactly how to do it.

First, we know two things that have already been created that they use for other purposes so we won't be creating them and slow down the game. First is a bounding box for each smoke cloud (they use it to check if a merc is within the cloud so they could apply the effects of smoke). Second, a BSP tree for quick collisions detection (if you shoot a flare at a boundary, it will only light up the leaf it's in). So take the bounding box and check it against the level (it does this normally every frame for every moving object as proof that it's not expensive), if it intersects any walls, clip the box so that it doesn't. So now you have a cage and any sprites that touch it will be clipped and a better box which won't affect the merc through walls. How do we clip them?

The most obvious answer is on the CPU. You could check every sprite and if they wander outside the box, clip them so they don't.
If you really want to do it on the graphics card, you could use the stencil buffer. Basically, you can tell it "only draw these sprites in the visible part of this bounding box (per pixel)". You won't see the box because it's being written to the stencil buffer, not the colour buffer but the card will see it and use it.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 22, 2007, 01:16:22 AM
The PT tazer was an anti-everything weapon, not just anti-aggro. I agree that it needs a range buff, but it should not be as long as it was in PT. That's just absurd.

How do you figure? The best way to avoid the PT taser was simply not to get in close proximity to the merc. The CT taser isn't even as good as the merc charge, which is just stupid. If I'm paying an item slot for an item designed to improve my close combat abilities, it better do something worthwhile. Mercs already get berserk and charge for free, and both will take down a spy. The taser needs to improve on those, otherwise there's no point in taking it.

QuoteThat's poor logic and it ignores the main function of mines: to kill your opponents.

Maybe to kill newbies. Against good players, the purpose of mines is more to slow down spies as opposed to actually kill them. Yes you can take out a careless spy, but the counter to mines is moving slowly and surveying your surroundings.

Poison mines are better than laser mines in the sense that they cover a much wider area. The drawback of poison is that you can remove it. But really, so what? So you trip a poison mine and start having to make a break for a medkit, totally ignoring your plans to actually hack anything and alerting the merc to your presence as you set off his sound detector. I don't see what your problem is with that.

QuoteYou see a lot of "pros" avoid the uzi because it's become a faux pas to use it, especially while hosting or if the teams are on different continents because of the added lag host uzi causes. Personally, I avoid the uzi most of the time because it's not worth the aggrevation of getting kicked/harassed about it. But I'll let you in on a little secret: when we played the solidus and snakebit, the winners of the tournament, they took double-uzi (and mercs were hosting), even on Steel Squat. Why? Because it's more powerful than the rifle.

I seriously doubt the whole faux pas thing with the uzi. Maybe some pros avoid it like that, but given that I pretty much used the uzi exclusively (mostly because I wasn't that great at sniping), I told everyone they could use the uzi if they wanted. I never saw the big deal about people whining about the uzi. People used it against me, and really it was probably the least annoying weapon to go against. Like I said, I found the rifle much more powerful in experienced hands. Some people were just nasty snipers, especially as host.  At the very least I could kind of avoid someone going host uzi.

QuotePersonally I found the around-the-corner host headshot while I was hacking to be much more annoying than host uzi, but I'm not crying out for us to ban the rifle. At least the merc has to get reasonably close to you to hit you with the uzi.

Yea, that's poor netcode, and hopefully will be fixed. You're still missing the point though: I don't think that the uzi can be fixed and not lag people because the data from 6 shots/second being fired overloads most people's computers. In the event that it can be fixed, it still needs an accuracy and possibly power rework.
[/quote]

The uzi doesn't fire much faster than the old PT rifle did. I mean if we wanted to we could slow it down a bit and up the damage, so that it stays equally powerful but has less lag. But really I think most of the problem comes from the fact that we're used to CT's terrible netcode.

QuoteHow do you figure? The best way to avoid the PT taser was simply not to get in close proximity to the merc. The CT taser isn't even as good as the merc charge, which is just stupid. If I'm paying an item slot for an item designed to improve my close combat abilities, it better do something worthwhile. Mercs already get berserk and charge for free, and both will take down a spy. The taser needs to improve on those, otherwise there's no point in taking it.

Because sometimes you have to get into close proximity of the merc, and because some maps force close encounters. It doesn't matter how you're playing the game.

QuoteMaybe to kill newbies. Against good players, the purpose of mines is more to slow down spies as opposed to actually kill them. Yes you can take out a careless spy, but the counter to mines is moving slowly and surveying your surroundings.

When I place a mine, I want it to kill the spy, not slow him down. If it doesn't kill the spy, hopefully it'll at least slow him down. Good players still die by mines, even if it's tougher to get them.

Now, as for the rifle vs. uzi thing, it's time to prove you wrong with numbers:

The uzi and rifle both empty their magazines in 6 seconds (incidentally, so does the PT rifle). That means that the uzi is exactly double the ROF of the PT rifle, and more than double the ROF of the CT rifle.

ROF in rounds per second for each weapon:
CT rifle: 4.166667
Uzi: 10
PT Rifle: 5

So I'm talking about increasing the CT's rifle ROF by a whopping 24% (rounded). Also, notice that the Uzi does not have a "slightly" higher ROF than the PT rifle; it is fully double.

Now, we'll give the spy a max health of 100 hp to make the math easy (since the game works by percentages, you can try any number you want for max health and the following ratios will still work out). We'll also use a full-auto headshot from each weapon at their optimal range, which is within 10 m. After that you get damage decrease. You can use any body part you like as the weapons are scaled on a constant %, but the damage is most easily compared between headshots.

Using the Uzi, a headshot to a spy will do 50% damage, or 50 hp worth of damage using 100 hp as max health. The rifle will do 75 hp (I'm not positive if the PT rifle did the same damage but I'm pretty sure it did. If it didn't, it's moot because I'm not talking about reverting the rifle to PT damage anyway). We can now multiply these numbers by the rounds per second to see the potential damage per second that each weapon can do:

CT Rifle: 312.5
CT rifle zoomed: 100
Uzi: 500
PT Rifle: 375
PT Rifle zoomed: 100

% increase of rifle damage per second if changed to PT rate of fire: +16 2/3%
% difference between CT rifle and Uzi full-auto: 60% damage increase

Now let's multiply this over the course of a magazine and see how much damage potential each weapon has:

CT rifle: 1875
CT rifle scoped: 2500 (takes 25 seconds)
Uzi: 3000
PT Rifle: 2250
PT Rifle scoped: 3000 (takes 30 seconds)

Once again, these numbers assume reasonably close quarters (for example, if you caught a spy in Steam room in Club House, you would be inflicting these values if you landed a headshot). Damage values decrease over distance when using full-auto for all weapons.

If these weapons were balanced, the Uzi and the Rifle would have damage per second values closer to each other, with the uzi winning slightly in full auto. I argue that a 60% increase, that only gets larger as you take the accuracy discrepency into account, is too high. In a real-game circumstance, I'd guesstimate that the uzi is doing between 85-110% more damage than the rifle per second in full-auto in real-game situations, depending on the player.

Of course there is a drawback, and that drawback is that you can't snipe long distances. However, there are easy workarounds in the game design -- for example, using frags to deter your opponent until you move your fat ass over to where he's at. Furthermore, the vast majority of conflicts occur in close to medium quarters. Sniping is most useful for shooting at a fleeing spy; with the uzi, the spy rarely even gets the chance to flee because of the significantly higher killing power of the uzi once we take accuracy into account.

So back to my point:

The changes I suggest to the rifle will buff its damage output by a whopping 16.67% (doesn't matter what accuracy you have as the damage increase will still be 16%). I mean, ask yourself honestly: do you fear a merc shooting the rifle in full-auto? Given how some people on these boards were complaining that aggro was too easy, I don't think this would make the rifle OP. The uzi, if it even remains in the game, needs a rework as it is too powerful in close and medium quarters, which happens to be where most battles are fought.

"the running around strategy that Sithduke even made a video of" - link plz  ;D

Imo a pt-like radius for the chaffs is good for the gameplay, it worked quite well in pt...

Imo the uzi needs no big "rework". The weapong is much fairer as the spys usually have time enough to tazer the merc and to run away without being sniped  ;)
but what really gets annoying is sieving the ceiling with uzi ^^
I'm kinda surprised that solidus and snakebit use dual uzi on steel, this is a sniper paradise as you can hide behind many windows and hardly can be tazered, and most objectives can be covered if the mercs are on opposite sites...

Quote from: Spekkio on April 22, 2007, 08:13:27 AM
If these weapons were balanced, the Uzi and the Rifle would have damage per second values closer to each other, with the uzi winning slightly in full auto. I argue that a 60% increase, that only gets larger as you take the accuracy discrepency into account, is too high. In a real-game circumstance, I'd guesstimate that the uzi is doing between 85-110% more damage than the rifle per second in full-auto in real-game situations, depending on the player.

As the Uzi should be. You're giving up the ability to get 1 shot kill sniper attacks for better general purpose spy killing. I don't really see a problem with it.

Quote
Of course there is a drawback, and that drawback is that you can't snipe long distances. However, there are easy workarounds in the game design -- for example, using frags to deter your opponent until you move your fat ass over to where he's at. Furthermore, the vast majority of conflicts occur in close to medium quarters. Sniping is most useful for shooting at a fleeing spy; with the uzi, the spy rarely even gets the chance to flee because of the significantly higher killing power of the uzi once we take accuracy into account.

Sniping isn't just about firing across long distances. Good snipers are great at picking up head shots anytime a spy is hacking something. Yes, you can stop the hack with an uzi too, but a rifle is going to kill the spy outright.

Again, any hacking objective in the game requires that the spy stand still at a predetermined spot, just begging for a head shot.

QuoteI mean, ask yourself honestly: do you fear a merc shooting the rifle in full-auto? Given how some people on these boards were complaining that aggro was too easy, I don't think this would make the rifle OP. The uzi, if it even remains in the game, needs a rework as it is too powerful in close and medium quarters, which happens to be where most battles are fought.

Honestly, no. I don't fear a merc shooting a rifle in full-auto, but then I shouldn't. The fear of the rifle is in its sniping capability (and I certainly DO fear that) and ability to instantly kill you while hacking an objective. In many cases, the rifle is (and should be) the easiest gun to aggro against.

The balance of the CT weapons is good. The rifle is a long range sniper weapon. The uzi is the well rounded full-auto gun and the shotgun is the anti-aggro close quarters weapon. I've heard every single one of these weapons accused of being "broken" or "cheap" at one time or another.

Every one of the weapons is feared at one point or another, and that tells me that they're pretty well balanced. The shotgun is about the only weapon that I'd say is somewhat weaker than the rest, only because it has the big weakness of having no long range potential at all.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on April 22, 2007, 03:44:05 PM
The balance of the CT weapons is good.

right.

Link to Sith's video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmMkQDgK3UI

Seefoo using stealth on orphanage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfureJNFj1M

Seefoo using stealth on Club:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4epHOoBiPVU

Seefoo using stealth on Hospital. Last half is against me and lochang:
http://files.filefront.com/goodbye2v2wmv/;5093803;/fileinfo.html

QuoteAs the Uzi should be. You're giving up the ability to get 1 shot kill sniper attacks for better general purpose spy killing. I don't really see a problem with it.

First of all, I'm not arguing that the uzi shouldn't be more powerful full-auto at close range. I'm arguing that the 85-110% discrepency in real-game situations is too high. It either needs a power tone down or the bullet spread needs to be increased, possibly both.

The problem with it is that the uzi has pinpoint accuracy. Even though you can't kill a spy from long range like with the rifle, you can take him off the objective. The other problem is that it doesn't matter that you can't kill the spy in 1 shot because you can still kill him in under 1 second from close or medium range if you hit all your shots either in the head or in the body. This happens frequently if a person with good aim is using it. Another problem is map design: your theory is great if every map were like Factory or River Mall where the merc's have a large room with long LOS on the spies. However, most maps are not like that. Most maps frequently put the spies and mercs in the optimal kill zone for full-auto uzi fire. Another problem is that you're not taking the time it takes to go into scope into account. I turn a corner and see a spy at relatively close range. I have the uzi ----> spy is immediately dead. I have the rifle ---> I shoot fullauto at him, he shocks me and runs away, or I try to snipe him from that range ---> spy shocks me and runs away. Sure, you can say to charge but a lot of spies can avoid that, so it's stupid. Also, if you do charge often, not only am I sacrificing killing power, I'm making myself more vulnerable to necks because I'm over-using the charge. Another problem is that spy equipment is more effective against the rifle than the other two weapons (but at least the shotgun actually sacrifices something). Flashbangs will take you out of sniper mode no matter what. Yes you can immediately go back into it, but that still takes time and it's usually enough for a spy to get to cover. Chaff disables sniper mode once you come out of it. Tell me, do grenades affect the uzi in this manner? NO. You chaff an uzi user, he keeps shooting at the same ROF. You flash an uzi user, same thing. The uzi is not a "well-rounded full-auto weapon." It's an absolute ownage weapon from the range you fight spies most of the time, and it's still effective at deterring spies at long range.

You're pretty much arguing that just because the rifle has a scope on it, and there are select few players who are really good at getting headshots, that it should have almost no full-auto capacity at all. While that works in other more "realistic" games, in SvM's arcade nature it does not. It especially doesn't work considering that the spies have multiple pieces of equipment that can disable sniping outright.

Regardless, somehow the discussion of the two weapons got interweaved when they are really two separate issues. Even if the majority of people believe that the uzi isn't overpowered and kebab makes it stay the way it is, that doesn't mean that the rifle has to stay the way it is, too. They are two separate weapons and need to be balanced as such. You can't take both weapons on one merc or switch mid-game, so the fact that one weapon has drawbacks that another excelts at, while sound in theory, doesn't work in the context of this game. Like I said, the rifle's sniper has direct counters from the spies in the form of chaff and flash that inhibit the weapon from functioning. It needs a viable full-auto function for this reason. I honestly believe that the PT merc with an all-purpose weapon was better suited for the gameplay than the CT merc with "specialist" weapons (even though the uzi and shotgun overlap in roles, but that's neither here nor there).

QuoteSniping isn't just about firing across long distances. Good snipers are great at picking up head shots anytime a spy is hacking something. Yes, you can stop the hack with an uzi too, but a rifle is going to kill the spy outright.

There's only one problem: when you hear that loud clicking noise of a merc bringing his gun up, you move and drop a flashbang (oh wait, you never use those). If you're dying to a lot of headshots like this, you're probably getting greedy and staying on the objective too long.

I agree that a good sniper is a bitch to deal with, but these people can also make your life miserable with the uzi. The only problem is that lesser skilled people can be just as effective with it, too.

QuoteI'm kinda surprised that solidus and snakebit use dual uzi on steel, this is a sniper paradise as you can hide behind many windows and hardly can be tazered, and most objectives can be covered if the mercs are on opposite sites...

Not really. Sacrifice merc building, double mercs with double uzi guarding the spy building and disk hack. Not to mention the 6 mines and camnet. Can't aggro because they're using uzi and there's lag. Fun times.

Like I said, the uzi is hands down the stronger weapon of the two. That doesn't = balance. That = one weapon is better than the other.

Quote
The balance of the CT weapons is good. The rifle is a long range sniper weapon. The uzi is the well rounded full-auto gun and the shotgun is the anti-aggro close quarters weapon. I've heard every single one of these weapons accused of being "broken" or "cheap" at one time or another.

Yea, if you go by noobs who enjoy playing tag with no anything. They'll whine no matter what you kill them with.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 22, 2007, 05:33:09 PM
The problem with it is that the uzi has pinpoint accuracy. Even though you can't kill a spy from long range like with the rifle, you can take him off the objective.

Fair enough, but that's certainly a drawback compared to an instant kill. So I think as far as disrupting hacking spies, the rifle is by far the best weapon.

Quote
The other problem is that it doesn't matter that you can't kill the spy in 1 shot because you can still kill him in under 1 second from close or medium range if you hit all your shots either in the head or in the body.

That's rather difficult to do unless you're the host or the spy is stationary.

Quote
This happens frequently if a person with good aim is using it. Another problem is map design: your theory is great if every map were like Factory or River Mall where the merc's have a large room with long LOS on the spies. However, most maps are not like that. Most maps frequently put the spies and mercs in the optimal kill zone for full-auto uzi fire. Another problem is that you're not taking the time it takes to go into scope into account.

Actually I've found in most maps there's a point where sniping allows you to do things you couldn't otherwise. Even in Aquarius, you can snipe pirates from the walkway at the top of tech. You can also score instakill snipes from the bridge from greek too, which is always reasonably helpful.

Quote
You chaff an uzi user, he keeps shooting at the same ROF. You flash an uzi user, same thing.

Well I think I'd be fine with removing the thing that takes you out of sniper mode with chaff and flash.

Quote
You're pretty much arguing that just because the rifle has a scope on it, and there are select few players who are really good at getting headshots, that it should have almost no full-auto capacity at all. While that works in other more "realistic" games, in SvM's arcade nature it does not. It especially doesn't work considering that the spies have multiple pieces of equipment that can disable sniping outright.

I'm not saying no full-auto capacity. I'm just saying to keep it how it is. People have got along fine with the rifle as is. If it had "no full-auto capacity" as you say, then people wouldn't be using it.

Quote
Regardless, somehow the discussion of the two weapons got interweaved when they are really two separate issues. Even if the majority of people believe that the uzi isn't overpowered and kebab makes it stay the way it is, that doesn't mean that the rifle has to stay the way it is, too. They are two separate weapons and need to be balanced as such.

No, you're constantly balancing the weapons against each other because they're both choices. If there's no reason to pick the uzi or the rifle, then people won't take that weapon. The idea of a balanced game is that all choices are valid, though they may alter your play style. 

QuoteThere's only one problem: when you hear that loud clicking noise of a merc bringing his gun up, you move and drop a flashbang (oh wait, you never use those). If you're dying to a lot of headshots like this, you're probably getting greedy and staying on the objective too long.

Only problem is that if it's a host sniper, you don't even get the chance. He rounds a corner (already in sniper mode) and fires a shot at you hacking and you just die. You don't get any particular warning.

Quote
I agree that a good sniper is a bitch to deal with, but these people can also make your life miserable with the uzi. The only problem is that lesser skilled people can be just as effective with it, too.

Honestly, I've never found myself bitching at an uzi user.

QuoteNot really. Sacrifice merc building, double mercs with double uzi guarding the spy building and disk hack. Not to mention the 6 mines and camnet. Can't aggro because they're using uzi and there's lag. Fun times.

This isn't a problem with the uzi, it's more a problem with aggro versus stealth. Namely, it's the age old problem of mercs using a strategy that utterly denies stealth and forces spies to aggro them, by giving up certain objectives and creating an easily defendable spot.

You shouldn't ever be forced to aggro.

thx for the links :)
i already knew most of them, but they are fun watching again.

imo all weapons will get too strong with fluid aiming and no lagg...
the biggest problem about scct is its console origin, where the aiming is poor and no toal freaks play the game 24/7  :P

QuoteThat's rather difficult to do unless you're the host or the spy is stationary.

So is a headshot with zoom. Your point?

QuoteWell I think I'd be fine with removing the thing that takes you out of sniper mode with chaff and flash.

I wouldn't.

QuoteOnly problem is that if it's a host sniper, you don't even get the chance. He rounds a corner (already in sniper mode) and fires a shot at you hacking and you just die. You don't get any particular warning.

This has little to do with the weapons. Host uzi/host sniper, same difference. I'm not talking about that.

QuotePeople have got along fine with the rifle as is. If it had "no full-auto capacity" as you say, then people wouldn't be using it.

People have gotten along fine with a ton of shit in this game, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Even if the rifle were left with its current ROF, which you can make a good argument for if the uzi were left in the game, it should have a 30-round magazine with 150 max. I don't see any reason why they reduced it to 25.

QuoteYou shouldn't ever be forced to aggro.

I disagree. Stealth is just as important as action, hence the title of the genre. Still, a double-uzi loadout all but disables the ability to aggro in the first place, even if it was optional.

Actually, now that I think about it, fixing the lag BS that goes along with the uzi would probably inherently nerf it sufficiently. It also should only have 300 max rounds, though, to be in line with the rifle and shotgun which have the ability to fully reload 4 additional times vs. the uzi's 5.

Anyway, we're going to have to agree to disagree here. I'd like to get some other people's take on it.

EDIT: I edited the OP to reflect this argument and the subsequent results of the poll on SClamers.

Quoteimo all weapons will get too strong with fluid aiming and no lagg...
the biggest problem about scct is its console origin, where the aiming is poor and no toal freaks play the game 24/7  Tongue

Well, thankfully these guys will tweak the game as needed. If it turns out that 30 rounds in the rifle and 60 in the uzi is too much, they can be toned down to 25/50 or whatever it needs to be to be balanced given adept play. Also keep in mind the spy shocker will aim much more fluidly.

a lot of these discussions will be sorted out once we have a beta for people to test.  Again, CT is the goal we want to achieve...and that is a very high quality of standard when you know just what kind of work is involved.

Things like ROF and Clips will be tweaked once we know how the engine performs.  Again,  I want to be strict on not losing sight of our goal which is to clone CT game play.  That alone, bugs and all, is  a significant achievement for us.

Of course we need to bring something more to the table otherwise people will just continue with CT, which is why I appreciate these threads.  Keep in mind, and it should be obvious by now....that a democratic approach to game design doesnt really work.   Otherwise the project loses focus in the attempt to please everyone.

Of course...but things like ROF and magazine capacity don't change the gameplay, they just balance the sides one way or the other.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 22, 2007, 08:05:38 PM

QuoteThat's rather difficult to do unless you're the host or the spy is stationary.

So is a headshot with zoom. Your point?

Well not nearly so. It's much harder to keep a constant targetting lock on a moving spy than it is to fire one single snap shot off at the head. It's one reason the shotgun happens to be a better close combat weapon than the uzi. The uzi actually could likely do more damage over a sustained period, but the shotgun can do its damage in one shot.

QuotePeople have gotten along fine with a ton of shit in this game, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved.

If the rifle wasn't a popular gun, then I'd damn well believe what you're saying. The problem is that lots of people take the rifle, pros especially, so I'm very skeptical when you make claims to improve it. I'll think about improving the rifle when everyone is running around with the shotgun and uzi.

Quote
Even if the rifle were left with its current ROF, which you can make a good argument for if the uzi were left in the game, it should have a 30-round magazine with 150 max. I don't see any reason why they reduced it to 25.

I don't really see a problem with increasing the magazine size.

QuoteI disagree. Stealth is just as important as action, hence the title of the genre. Still, a double-uzi loadout all but disables the ability to aggro in the first place, even if it was optional.

I'm not saying aggro shouldn't be an option, but aggro shouldn't be mandatory. That's where I think the game runs into trouble, where the game allows the possibility for mercs to give up objectives and force pure aggro situations.

It might be a good thing that we can't reuse the old maps from CT, because it lets us design new maps that hopefully can prevent those sort of problems.

If we don't need to aggro, we probably dont' need to worry as much about anti-aggro guns, though I still think the uzi should allow minimal aggro. Shotgun should be the only true aggro negator.

Quote
Actually, now that I think about it, fixing the lag BS that goes along with the uzi would probably inherently nerf it sufficiently. It also should only have 300 max rounds, though, to be in line with the rifle and shotgun which have the ability to fully reload 4 additional times vs. the uzi's 5.

Honestly, I wouldn't see any problem with just having infinite reloads like in DA. You had to reload at the ammo crate so rarely in CT that I'm not even sure we should bother wasting time coding in the ammo crate, not unless we're going to have it perform some deeper function (like reloading flares or something). About the only times I've ever ran out of bullets were on heavily lagged games anyway.

Quote
Anyway, we're going to have to agree to disagree here. I'd like to get some other people's take on it.

Ok fair enough.

QuoteI'm not saying aggro shouldn't be an option, but aggro shouldn't be mandatory. That's where I think the game runs into trouble, where the game allows the possibility for mercs to give up objectives and force pure aggro situations.

It might be a good thing that we can't reuse the old maps from CT, because it lets us design new maps that hopefully can prevent those sort of problems.

You act like everyone hates aggro. There are people who actually like Warehouse, Bank, Deftech and the like. I'm not talking about newbies, either. If you don't like that playstyle, that's fine -- you can play different maps. There are 11 to choose from.

Whether the maps are new or old, I like the fact that we have a mix and the PS team should strive to keep that.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 22, 2007, 10:11:17 PM
You act like everyone hates aggro. There are people who actually like Warehouse, Bank, Deftech and the like. I'm not talking about newbies, either. If you don't like that playstyle, that's fine -- you can play different maps. There are 11 to choose from.

Honestly though, you can aggro in *any* map. I've seen plenty of people play aggro in orphanage or factory.

You can't design a non-aggro map. You can however, design an anti-stealth map... and given the name of this thing is "project stealth", that seems a bit counterintuitive.

If people want to aggro, that's fine. I'm just asking that stealth be an option too.

I don't like it when maps dictate a certain playstyle, especially when that style is aggro-only.

The only problem is there is always going to be a "best" strategy to do to increase your chances to win, and the mercs are always going to prepare for that. Someone might design a map to encourage stealth and then the spies turn around and just aggro the hell out of it (Orphanage comes to mind).

The thing is that aggro is always an option, regardless of the map. In fact, aggro is probably more effective on factory than it is in warehouse, simply because the mercs are more separated.

Ever since they got rid of shock + jump, warehouse hasn't been a true pro-aggro map. The only reason it's seen as an aggro map is because it kicks stealth right in the balls. You can't use stealth on warehouse. at all.

It's why I don't like maps like that. They do what DA tried to do, only in the opposite direction. Instead of saying "you can't use aggro", they're saying "you can't use stealth."

It no longer becomes the players option of whether to aggro or stealth. The map simply won't let you sneak past the mercs. 

QuoteYou can't use stealth on warehouse. at all.

You most certainly can in sector 2, and if it was extraction you'd be able to use stealth on all 3 sectors.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on April 22, 2007, 10:49:59 PM
The thing is that aggro is always an option, regardless of the map. In fact, aggro is probably more effective on factory than it is in warehouse, simply because the mercs are more separated.

Aggro as an option is important.  And I for one, totally disagree about aggro on factory being more effective.  I have played against a spy team, that was able to get all objectives without any deaths using pure stealth. The reason they were never killed, was because we never found them.

Fact is, stealth is very hard to do well against good mercs because it requires the player to actually trick his opponent.  Decieving your opponent without making it look obvious,  being able to navigate the map without disabling security or making a sound...and still not be seen...are all very difficult skills that do not depend on gadgets, gun,  reaction time, etc etc.  But there are people that can do it so good (seefoo, onizuka+krisp rolls, and others)...that it becomes more humiliating to be defeated by a stealth player that you never see, instead of an aggro team with host advantage.

Quote from: goodkebab on April 23, 2007, 11:06:05 AM
Aggro as an option is important.  And I for one, totally disagree about aggro on factory being more effective.  I have played against a spy team, that was able to get all objectives without any deaths using pure stealth. The reason they were never killed, was because we never found them.

Ok well note that when I say "more effective" I actually don't mean instead of stealth, I mean compared to other maps. Because the mercs are more separated, it's easier to aggro on factory than it is to aggro on warehouse for instance. Now, it might be easier to stealth than it is to aggro on factory, but I'm just making the point that aggro is always viable.

Allowing aggro as an option is fine, but I think stealth also needs to be an option. The difference is that stealth is very map dependent, while aggro is less so. One cannot go ahead and design a map that allows stealth but doesn't allow aggro. It's just not possible to do that.

Quote
You most certainly can in sector 2, and if it was extraction you'd be able to use stealth on all 3 sectors.

How the hell are you ever supposed to win an extraction using stealth? It's the aggro player's paradise. It's all about having your partner run aggro interference while the other guy runs full speed towards the extraction point.

Extraction has never been a stealth mode. It's the most aggro thing in the entire game. Grab the disc and then go run and gun, shocking the merc and trying to survive long enough to get back to your start point while running full speed. But I mean, I can't really blame people for going full speed with the disc, you appear on radar anytime you move (beyond the snail's pace slowest speed), so there's just not much potential for sneaking past anyone.

Seriously, I'd love to see you try to sneak past me with a disk on warehouse without being noticed. I don't think it can be done. Hell, that'd be tough even against a total newbie.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on April 23, 2007, 01:42:49 PM
...aggro is always viable. ...
The difference is that stealth is very map dependent, while aggro is less so. One cannot go ahead and design a map that allows stealth but doesn't allow aggro. It's just not possible to do that.

sometimes i think invisibleman99 is the only one in the forum who feels the same ^^
i have absolutely no problem with aggro (except hostgrabs), but stealth should be a viable option on all maps. mind that im not thinking of playing 100% this way or that way, but on maps like club, 80%aggro and 20%stealth is the most effective approach. both take skill, both are fun, but atm aggro is so much easier as it works on all maps and is basically the same procedure every game.

QuoteI'm kinda surprised that solidus and snakebit use dual uzi on steel[...]

Well they had a good tactic. Brain eats firepower in this game ;).

Good list spekkio,

Now is a good time to talk about way's in which the initial clone can be cleaned up and refined, before the game is actually expanded and improved upon.

Although some of the bug's there such as host advantage with detection boxes while jumping enemies/ hearing poison mines/ and warping seem to be tied more to the poor netcode created by ubisoft for thier online Splinter-Cell titles, and doesn't sound like anything that the PS team would even consider replicating even in thier early clones :)

As with all of the Unreal Tournament's, they are designed primarily as online multiplayer games so the netcode has always been pretty solid for each release in my experience.
As I understand it, When a developer licences the Unreal engine the netcode is either a seperate fee, or it is not included at all. Requiring the developer to write thier own as it seemed Ubisoft did resulted in a sometimes poor online experience with oddities such as warping and poor hit detection.
If Ubisoft had used Epic's official netcode for both SCPT and SCCT, then I believe these problems would have been few and far between.

If UT3's netcode is as stable as its predecessors, then I think PS will be quite free of the annoyances of warping and host advantage related bugs, which is one of the reasons why it is best off as a mod for an existing and well reputed game, than a game built from scratch on an open source engine ;)

- Snares cant be really shot in ct by mercs. Snare hitboxes should be inproved

QuoteSeriously, I'd love to see you try to sneak past me with a disk on warehouse without being noticed. I don't think it can be done. Hell, that'd be tough even against a total newbie.

So you mean sneaking TO the objective, having my partner pull you out of position, grabbing the disk and bolting to spawn before you can catch me is aggro huh? Interesting...

hell....someone never played extraction on PT.  It was bloody hard to stop spies in the first sector of wherehouse.  It takes all of 15-30 seconds to return the green jar of goo.

Quote from: scope2005 on April 23, 2007, 04:59:17 PM
As with all of the Unreal Tournament's, they are designed primarily as online multiplayer games so the netcode has always been pretty solid for each release in my experience.
As I understand it, When a developer licences the Unreal engine the netcode is either a seperate fee, or it is not included at all. Requiring the developer to write thier own as it seemed Ubisoft did resulted in a sometimes poor online experience with oddities such as warping and poor hit detection.
If Ubisoft had used Epic's official netcode for both SCPT and SCCT, then I believe these problems would have been few and far between.

If UT3's netcode is as stable as its predecessors, then I think PS will be quite free of the annoyances of warping and host advantage related bugs, which is one of the reasons why it is best off as a mod for an existing and well reputed game, than a game built from scratch on an open source engine ;)

The problem is, like any part of performance mined software, there could be many places that are potential bottlenecks. Could be the game sending too much information, inefficient choice of protocol, or bad prediction code. I don't know how it's done but it didn't make sense to break up the engine and sell it seperately. And it sure doesn't make sense to make your own code when you're already buying the Unreal engine.

Open source doesn't automatically mean it's crap. There is no bug killer stronger, in the programming world, than peer-review (pending Frvge finishing his formal verification classes). To give it a metaphor, which would produce a better game, a bunch of qualified professionals trapped in an office building or this project, filled with (hopefully) equally qualified people (if not, let's say the creators of OGRE and Irrlicht are experinced programmers) constantly listening to the community?

I did some Program Verification and I had to write down 0.5 pages to prove 2 iterations of a simple while... I'd be completely messed up if you'd have to do that for more advanced stuff. There are automatic checkers tho. I'd say Peer Review is a more feasible solution in this case :(. Refactoring and XP. yay.

Quote
slightly widen flashlight radius

Huh?

Quote from: Spekkio on April 23, 2007, 08:40:39 PM

QuoteSeriously, I'd love to see you try to sneak past me with a disk on warehouse without being noticed. I don't think it can be done. Hell, that'd be tough even against a total newbie.

So you mean sneaking TO the objective, having my partner pull you out of position, grabbing the disk and bolting to spawn before you can catch me is aggro huh? Interesting...

Well yeah, most of the time getting the disk is the easy part. And yeah you could stealth that. But once you've got the disk, returning it is most often the tough part.

And returning a disk tends to be all about run and gun or simply run. There's very little stealth to getting out with a disk. It's not much different from running back to your base in any capture the flag style FPS game. When you've got a disk, not getting noticed is impossible. Hell, the merc has you on radar whenever you move. Your best bet is just bolting full speed, and yes, that is aggro.

Aggro isn't just about attacking the merc. It's anytime you make no effort to conceal your presence.

Now, it's pretty damn unavoidable with a disk, but that's one of the reasons I hate extraction in general. It's just an aggro game. There's no stealth mind-games or misdirections, you just grab the disk and run like hell, because it's the only option you've got.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on April 25, 2007, 01:11:34 AM
Your best bet is just bolting full speed, and yes, that is aggro.

Aggro isn't just about attacking the merc. It's anytime you make no effort to conceal your presence.

Well if aggro isn't about attacking a merc and stealth isn't about attacking a merc, then what's what?
Don't tell me that a stealthy spy is the one who always creeps slowly and stays in the dark, doesn't go for necks etc etc. That's not a stealthy spy, that's a losing spy.
If it were possible to BORE the mercs to death then this tactic would be a fave.

Honestly Invisible,  this is getting pointless.  DA is an example of the developers trying to force the players into a specific gamestyle,  which is why it failed.

Your classifications and the unspoken suggestions of how the game SHOULD be played are what turn people off in the first place because they may simply not want to play the game the way you enjoy it.  And to be honest, if we wanted to sell out and appeal to the masses, we would have to make the game a simple aggro fest.  So we have to go half way,  and make the game exciting enough with confrontations,  but with the depth of stealth.

Stealth is rewarding because it is so hard to do against human opponents.  The way project stealth is going to encourage this is by the quality of the map design.  But you realize of course that if we make an open map that favors stealth, it will not stop aggressive game play and nor do we want to do so.

"If it were possible to BORE the mercs to death then this tactic would be a fave."

I do that to Spekkio all the time. Man it's funny. I don't always do it on purpose, however, it's hilarious when I do. Mercs that are bored do weird things to entertain themselves. Look at walls, play with sniper modes. Spin.
Some stop moving at all. And that's scary cause you think they are away and tehn boom they come to life.

Quote from: goodkebab on April 25, 2007, 10:49:08 AM
DA is an example of the developers trying to force the players into a specific gamestyle,  which is why it failed.

Which is exactly why I hate maps like warehouse and don't believe they should exist at all. They force people to play an aggro style.

If your goal is to let people play their game, then you can't have maps that totally nullify stealth.

Quote from: Valserp on April 25, 2007, 01:29:34 AM
Well if aggro isn't about attacking a merc and stealth isn't about attacking a merc, then what's what?
Don't tell me that a stealthy spy is the one who always creeps slowly and stays in the dark, doesn't go for necks etc etc. That's not a stealthy spy, that's a losing spy.

Aggro is letting the merc know where you are.

Stealth is quite simply, not letting the merc know where you are.

Now what you do when you're stealthy or aggro is up to you. You can have an aggro killer or a stealth killer. You can have someone who takes objectives via aggro or those who take objectives via stealth. It's not about what you do, so much as the method you do it.

Is there any surprise or misdirection involved? Or are you simply running around trying to beat the merc with FPS skills?

That's what aggro versus stealth is all about, and it's why I say extraction is an aggro objective style, at least how it's done in CT. In DA, it allows for both styles. CT/PT style extraction simply forces you to run. You might as well be playing Unreal CTF at that point because it's just about dodging bullets and frags, not about sneaking past your opponent.

Even bombing objectives have far more stealth involved. At least in most bombing objectives, there are multiple bombable spots and you can set up a stealth ambush or misidrect the merc as to where the bomb might be. Granted aggro probably does the job best, but at least you have a few stealth options.

Extraction you pretty much can't do anything. That stupid radar thing basically negates any chance you have of being stealthy at all.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on April 25, 2007, 06:01:23 PM

Quote from: Valserp on April 25, 2007, 01:29:34 AM
Well if aggro isn't about attacking a merc and stealth isn't about attacking a merc, then what's what?
Don't tell me that a stealthy spy is the one who always creeps slowly and stays in the dark, doesn't go for necks etc etc. That's not a stealthy spy, that's a losing spy.

Aggro is letting the merc know where you are.

Stealth is quite simply, not letting the merc know where you are.

Now what you do when you're stealthy or aggro is up to you. You can have an aggro killer or a stealth killer. You can have someone who takes objectives via aggro or those who take objectives via stealth. It's not about what you do, so much as the method you do it.

Is there any surprise or misdirection involved?

Well if I let myself be seen and bait the merc to my position and away from my teammate, am I applying a stealth tactic via misdirection?
If so, did I just aggro because I let the merc see me intentionally?

As far as extraction being more agroo, I agree to a certain degree. But I always prefer to get myself slowly in a good position before I try to make a run for the drop-off. So it's a mixture.

being on radar can be a misdirection as well....

I have yet to do this successfuly, but a spy on spy trap and another spy with disk  ...and the mercs will think the spy trapped will be the one with the disk.

Quote from: Valserp on April 25, 2007, 06:17:51 PM
Well if I let myself be seen and bait the merc to my position and away from my teammate, am I applying a stealth tactic via misdirection?
If so, did I just aggro because I let the merc see me intentionally?

Well it depends. If your idea was to inhibit the merc with smoke grenades and shock while your partner ran by, then it was an aggro tactic. If you deliberately revealed yourself so that your partner could sneak past undetected while you got the merc chasing you, then I'd call it cooperative stealth. 

Quote
As far as extraction being more agroo, I agree to a certain degree. But I always prefer to get myself slowly in a good position before I try to make a run for the drop-off. So it's a mixture.

Well, the problem is that with the radar, you really can't afford to slowly creep anywhere, because your chances of getting seen are far too great. I'd personally like to see the disks changed so that you only show up on radar when you do a full run. It'd make extraction a lot easier, but I figure maybe we could make it so actually placing the disk in its case takes a certain amount of time or something.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on April 25, 2007, 06:49:18 PM
Well, the problem is that with the radar, you really can't afford to slowly creep anywhere, because your chances of getting seen are far too great.

You creep to the edge of the merc's patrol route then you bolt to the extraction. The point is to get to a spot where they wouldn't expect you to come out from.
If the mercs are covering a wider area, sure they can spot you creeping about. However, this will give you to chance to just shock them and run right past. They'd never get you since they wandered far from the briefcases. If they allow you this oppurtunity, what's wrong with taking it?

Incidentally, in the SC tourney Lo and I beat seefoo and vantage on UMP Cinema when Lo completely stealthed the disk to extraction. Hell, I didn't even know he was doing it myself. I saw the message and was like 'omfg you got the disk???!" and he was like "yea of course."

Granted, repeating such a feat often is very difficult, but it's not impossible.

^^i have seen it done a couple times as well...

Spies should get some indication that they are going too fast and are being detected by radar.

For the disk or for normal? For normal circumstances, you get a pinging noise.

For when they have the disk. Pinging noise?

For normal - you get a ping when you(or sometimes your partner) make a noise that is detected on the merc's reticle. The ping is the very same ping that the merc hears when his reticle detects the noise.

Having an indication for being detected by the merc's radar with the disc on could be a good implementation for newbies in PS.

i wanted to light up the tubes on the spy when he pings the reticle of the merc...could be coded for radar-disk as well.  That will help even the experienced players at knowing when they make noise.

Would be good if it's toggle-able from the options, though.

Added stuff about the disk, KOs, autoroll and autograb to the OP.

QuoteYour classifications and the unspoken suggestions of how the game SHOULD be played are what turn people off in the first place because they may simply not want to play the game the way you enjoy it.  And to be honest, if we wanted to sell out and appeal to the masses, we would have to make the game a simple aggro fest.  So we have to go half way,  and make the game exciting enough with confrontations,  but with the depth of stealth.

Well-put, Kebab. I think CT did this already, it just has way too many bugs/inconsistencies (as you can see by my long list in the OP).

Quote from: Overstatement on April 24, 2007, 10:52:43 PM

Quoteslightly widen flashlight radius

Huh?

You want to reduce MT whoring, correct? Well, with the nerfs to MT, the mercs need to get something to help see in the dark (yea, I know there's flares but come on, no one is going to take them). The flashlight is barely bigger than the reticle as-is. A 25-33% increase should suffice.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 26, 2007, 05:30:27 PM
You want to reduce MT whoring, correct? Well, with the nerfs to MT, the mercs need to get something to help see in the dark (yea, I know there's flares but come on, no one is going to take them). The flashlight is barely bigger than the reticle as-is. A 25-33% increase should suffice.

Yeah but when you nerf an overpowered thing, the game should become balanced. Then you attempt to "balance" out the nerf with a buff, the game becomes unbalanced again. I never use MT nightvision(F1 is too far) and I like the flashlight. Which means I'll get something good but lose nothing. Anyways, they should be adjusted to suit a role, MT should spot moving spies and flashlight should be to spot still spies.

Regardeing your map changes...

(not even sure if map changes are that important for PS, but whatever, I'm kinda bored)

Quote from: Spekkio on April 21, 2007, 04:57:21 AM
Aqua:
-Add doors onto the catwalk overlooking Pirate. Allow the spies to grab the ledge there to ledge-grab mercs.
-Remove the rain from the map to fix the sound

I'd add in:
-Create a pipe to climb up to tech from spawn, or remove the box under the tech ledge to eliminate the 'tech jump' glitch.

Aqua also seriously needs another objective to make it less of a merc map. I'm thinking maybe a bombing objective with a long timer in a newly created side room inside the office, that requires a separate panel that must be hacked (with no coop shortcut). At the very least that forces mercs to guard the office somewhat if greek gets hacked first, and also gives spies a way to draw mercs away from camping greek. 

Quote
Missile (is this even fixable???):
-Disable the ability to shoot through the catwalks in sector 1.
-There is a merc-only-shootable vent between the disk room where you can only enter through the front door. Remove that vent to allow the spies to hit all 4 disks from multiple routes.
-Add some cover to the dropoff near the entrance to sector 3. This would obviously need lots of testing to get it right.

The main problem with missile is the disks, I'd say just remove that objective entirely. Instead of having disks just have 4 neutralization objectives, 2 up where the disks used to be, and 2 down in the disk dropoff room. Completing any two neutralizations opens up part 3.

Quote
Museum:
-Make it PT-style neutralization. You need to get 2 of 3 obj, but once you get one in a room the other shuts off.

Yeah, this would totally fix museum. I always wondered why they screwed that up so badly. 

Quote
River Mall:
-Remove camnet in the hologram room

I've always wondered how the map would play if you removed the hologram entirely.

Quote
Bank:
-Nothing really to fix here. I'm not a fan of the map's style but it's more winnable than Warehouse

Bank needs a delay after the first objective is hacked so that it takes longer for the second objective to open. A lot of the time you can lose a session on bank simply because the spies can run down to the bottom so quickly and hack the back objective before you can catch them.

Quote
Deftech:
-Needs removal of security in some places, but would have to play with exactly where. Make it all neutralization like in PT. Add some coop places somewhere as well, but not sure where exactly.

I like the neutralization idea. Deftech needs all its security removed. Seriously. No motion sensors, no cameras, nothing. Maybe leave a few sensors in vents where the mercs can't see, but the basic building structures don't need any security.

Also the message telling you what building has been opened needs to be tossed as well. It's fine to have a hacking message, but it shouldn't tell you that they just opened the main door of building C.

 

Quote
Hospital:
-Put motion sensors back in rooms 102 and 205.
-Make the camnets movable in the main hallways
-Add a camnet camera to the outside courtyard
(some people may disagree but I find hospital to be way too easy for spies. A big part of that though is the fact that chaff works through walls)

I honestly don't think that hospital needs any changes. It's always felt like a well-balanced map.

Quote
Shermerhorn:
-Camera hack should be permanent, or reduce the time to 4 seconds

Nah, the camera hack is pretty easy to get to, so I certainly wouldn't make it permanent. I'd just make it like 2-3 seconds though, like the camera hack in river mall.

Quote-Create a pipe to climb up to tech from spawn, or remove the box under the tech ledge to eliminate the 'tech jump' glitch.

The box jump "glitch" would automatically be fixed via what I suggested (there are doors covering the entrances, so it doesn't matter that you can get up there because you still can't get in.

QuoteThe main problem with missile is the disks, I'd say just remove that objective entirely. Instead of having disks just have 4 neutralization objectives, 2 up where the disks used to be, and 2 down in the disk dropoff room. Completing any two neutralizations opens up part 3.

Too far apart/hard to cover.

QuoteBank needs a delay after the first objective is hacked so that it takes longer for the second objective to open. A lot of the time you can lose a session on bank simply because the spies can run down to the bottom so quickly and hack the back objective before you can catch them.

Yeah, bank is funny like that...sector 1 is totally imbalanced towards mercs, but if you manage to finish it it's often an auto-win for the spies.

QuoteI like the neutralization idea. Deftech needs all its security removed. Seriously. No motion sensors, no cameras, nothing. Maybe leave a few sensors in vents where the mercs can't see, but the basic building structures don't need any security.

No, it does need SOME security. However, the way the map is now you cannot get to any objective without shooting out no less than two motion sensors, and often the first one is shot on the first level of the buildings. This is more than enough time for the mercs to get into the buildings. In PT this was balanced because spies could cam-wall the mercs out, but in CT it's not.

QuoteI honestly don't think that hospital needs any changes. It's always felt like a well-balanced map.

It's really easy for spies, but I feel a lot of that has to do with two factors:

1. All the mine/trap spots have long been exhausted
2. Chaff works through walls. When you chaff the 3 lasers to enter a room, you automatically disable any mines near there which would ordinarilly slow you down.

Mines on Deftech  can pretty much make stealth useless as well.  The proxy above the underground vent to C and the poison once you try to get in cannot be taken out with chaff either.

It is technically possible to get into B without security  (until the detector near disk that is)  but to do so you need to take the zipline which is suicide.



What do you guys think of introducing the night vision goggles from single player into the multiplayer?  -being able to see the cone of vision of the security cameras and possibly detection radius of proxies(to overcome lag mines and sound issues).  I personally think thats a cool idea AND favors stealth players.

i dont know it, but this sounds pretty cool. i like the security system on factory, as u can pass it without shooting them out.
another shit that needs to get fixed to stop the running-in-circles strats is the medkit. you should need some seconds there and another some to get to full health. atm the only way getting rid of a good aggro spy in garden is a headshot or some luck with nades/mines.

QuoteMines on Deftech  can pretty much make stealth useless as well.  The proxy above the underground vent to C and the poison once you try to get in cannot be taken out with chaff either.

Yup. In PT, the chaff was big enough to take out that laser (it was usually a spy trap).

Anyway, your NV idea is cool. As long as you don't give it the CT single-player fishbowl look.

Quote
another shit that needs to get fixed to stop the running-in-circles strats is the medkit. you should need some seconds there and another some to get to full health. atm the only way getting rid of a good aggro spy in garden is a headshot or some luck with nades/mines.

Exhibit A of what happens when you have too little security.

maybe some security can fix that. garden is easy to access, easy to get to cover/change floors, AND has this ridiculous medkit 3 meters away from the objective. imo the distance should be more like museum...

Camnet.

camnet in clubhouse owns. as long as you've got the time, there's no single way the spies will get past it from the spawn undetected. even if they try to use camo on the pipe to reach main hall.

Quote from: goodkebab on April 27, 2007, 10:56:16 AM
What do you guys think of introducing the night vision goggles from single player into the multiplayer?  -being able to see the cone of vision of the security cameras and possibly detection radius of proxies(to overcome lag mines and sound issues).  I personally think thats a cool idea AND favors stealth players.

Won't this reveal proxy mines that would otherwise be hidden?

I'd say only cameras.

me2

lol @camnet: it doesnt help u much if the spy is already in da house :P

If he's already in, then he can't quickly change floors can he?

he gets out in 1 sec...

btw, another thing to fix: the snare should make camo-like noises, too.

Quote
-If you can't fix the EAX stuff, have snares occassionally make camo activation noises

He said that already.

it was just a suggestion about revealing proxies.   Not like you cannot see all the other gadgets on thermal....and they still get plenty of spies.

i think the idea is quite cool, and together with slightely changed mines it could balance out well. cam cones should be np. generally i'd love to see more security like in the corridors on factory ;)

Quote from: goodkebab on April 27, 2007, 10:56:16 AM

What do you guys think of introducing the night vision goggles from single player into the multiplayer?  -being able to see the cone of vision of the security cameras and possibly detection radius of proxies(to overcome lag mines and sound issues).  I personally think thats a cool idea AND favors stealth players.

Yeah, sounds like a good idea to me.

I also think we should make some way for a spy to detect if a merc is in MT vision. I mean seeing the visor color isn't enough because the merc can still detect you with his back to you. I was thinking maybe having him emit a night vision visible light or maybe just give off some kind of buzzing noise. Really anything to help clue in the spy that he's got to worry about MT.

Quote
maybe some security can fix that. garden is easy to access, easy to get to cover/change floors, AND has this ridiculous medkit 3 meters away from the objective. imo the distance should be more like museum...

Why not just give a small timer for the medkit, much like hacking a door, before it works. That way you've got to stand there for a second or two to heal yourself, so you can't aggro heal at all.

As far as deftech goes, I don't even know if that map is remotely salvageable. As people have said, it's possible to totally seal off building C's back door with a poison mine. If you ask me, probably the best thing we can do is just dump that map entirely.

Really even without any security at all, I think it would be a pro-merc map. There are just too many tight corridors and the map is small and merc-accessible. Those tight corridors actually helped in PT, because mercs didn't have gas masks, but with the addition of the gas mask, they don't work at all.

A 1-2 sec timer would be ok. Would make it 3 sec with the starting animation.

I really don't think the medkit needs a timer on it, and even if it did 3 seconds is way too long.

I'm not a fan of NV detecting the blast radius of proxies, simply because there are times where the spy hears the beep and has to slow down anyway even if the mine isn't there. This is a good thing.

Quote from: Spekkio on April 29, 2007, 04:50:09 PM

I'm not a fan of NV detecting the blast radius of proxies, simply because there are times where the spy hears the beep and has to slow down anyway even if the mine isn't there. This is a good thing.

Well I'd hope proxy sound was fixed so that it was a constant regardless of what you did. CT had a very weird sound mechanic, whereby mines could sometimes be silent due to camera or mine positioning or what not. The only factor for hearing a mine should be your distance from the mine and that's it. Hopefully the new engine fixes that problem.

As far as medkit timers, I'm not sure if we need them, though it would be kind of nice for clubhouse to prevent that sort of fast healing aggro stuff. As a side effect, it'd also improve poison mines a bit, because ti would take some time to actually heal the poison, and I know you wanted to improve poison mines anyway. 

It wouldn't be bad to add the timer and see how they go, simply because they'd probably be relatively easy to code in and easy to remove if it didn't work. You'd just take a basic door hacking animation + hacking timer and put it as a prerequisite for the healing effect. Really, anything that's simple to code is worth a try, because we don't lose anything much if it doesn't work.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on April 29, 2007, 07:11:13 PM
You'd just take a basic door hacking animation + hacking timer and put it as a prerequisite for the healing effect.

I think you were looking for the spy pushing button animation. Don't actually need a timer if you see the spy doing something.

i also do not like the idea of a timer.

Imagine if you are poisoned...

this also prevents stealth spies from getting health, and spies fleeing from pursuit as well.

What the real grip seems to be is a legitimate tactic on clubhouse.

Let's just make it so that healing is not instant, but instead starts a regeneration process that stops if any further damage has been inflicted upon the spy. So a spy with 1/3 of his health, who healed half second a go would not survive another sniper shot.

If I were to throw something new at the table, it'd be personal medkit. Why, of course I've always hated spies running around, getting shot and then healing up in an instant. That just encourages agressive behaviour. It's simply too easy. A timer on the medkit, would be, as stated, quite imbalanced, althought you could be able to cure the poison instantly, where "flesh wounds" would take some time. Yeha, that'd suck, so I vote for personal medkits.

A slot-consuming medkit, could also be kind of a answer. to the triple-nader -question.. Any agressive spy would actually be forced to take cover at some point to heal, cause he just can't run up to some medkit so easily. As for stealthy spies, how much they need healhkits anyway? Suit regeneration saves your skin well enough.

Now, the medkit would have two uses, AND it would also cure poison, but slowly. I believe I've seen someone saying that poison kills you in 15, so I'd like the idea of having an antidote, that eliminates the poison effects in 10, or less.  So if the spy is in a fight and runs into a poison, he would have like five seconds to inject the antidote. Spy's vision would be disoriented during the process. Health drain would stop on the second the antitode has been injected. Curing a poison or healing a wound would both waste one of the two uses, so poison mines should still be respected well enough. If you run into two poisons  at the same time, curing process would require the use of both kits and would double the recovery time.  Something like that, maybe.

Hm, got another idea...

probably a slower regen at the medkit would be a fair solution..similar to when you stand still

I wouldn't want a personal medkit item, at least not one that cured poison. That would make poison mines too useless if someone could just walk through them and then pop a medkit and go hack the objective.

You already have the option of your mate healing you, i see no point on adding a whole other way of healing. There's no need, in my opinion.

Quote from: goodkebab on April 30, 2007, 03:11:27 PM
probably a slower regen at the medkit would be a fair solution..similar to when you stand still

that's what im talking about :D

Quote from: Gui Brazil on April 30, 2007, 10:07:11 PM
You already have the option of your mate healing you, i see no point on adding a whole other way of healing. There's no need, in my opinion.

right.

Yeah, well, let's forget the medkit for now, I'm having a terrible hangover, meaning my intellect is disabled for now... So is my ebility to discuss reasonably. Like you haven't bneen there.. lol. Anyway, regenerative, static medkit would indeed be worth trying.

Quote from: Thy-Tormentor on May 01, 2007, 10:08:08 AM
Yeah, well, let's forget the medkit for now, I'm having a terrible hangover, meaning my intellect is disabled for now... So is my ebility to discuss reasonably. Like you haven't been there.. lol. Anyway, regenerative, static medkit would indeed be worth trying.

Oops. Seems like my editing didn't go all right... Well..

What? Two replies?? Didn't even realize.

Just keep it the way it is, except for the fact that while you only need to stop and press one button to heal, the health bar wouldn't jump to the top instantly. If anyone has tried diablo II, they know what I mean.

An interesting post I found on Ubi's forums:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2771048463/m/8841094055?r=1591059655#1591059655

Some ideas are good, others are not.

I like the idea that SS only jams the Merc's gun.

-Give spies camo that will not make them invisible, but gives them a second where they can walk through lasers without tripping them.
+ invisible to security cams  ;D

Let mercs replenish gas mask at ammo stations.
its kinda lame if a team spams smoke and cams throughout the whole game, because once you have no mask left, you have no more chance in corridors etc. but imo its quite balanced right now, maybe the capacity should be a little bit bigger.

I rarely run out of mask unless I'm using the shotgun. If I do run out of mask, there's always the option to suicide for more.

Health packs are fine. If you want to stop the run around in club, use mines/camnet. You have them for a reason. Better yet, lrn2aim and get a headshot.

Using camo to walk through lasers/pass cams would be too much, especially if the sound is normal.

EDIT: Most of the ideas in the linked thread are utter crap made by people who don't know how to play the game in the first place. I made this thread to discuss what should be fixed in the clone, not what new innovative stuff they can add after they've accomplished that as there are countless threads on those topics already.

lol i rarely run out of mine as well.. idk maybe only noobs use it every single time. i guess you just need to be a smart player to use your gm wisely instead of wasting it for little things

imo the problem is the new eq for the spies each time they respawn, because this provokes spam. but tbh spekkio is right, usually i don't run out of mask and maybe smoke spam should be an option (it's nevertheless hard to pull off right).
health packs are not fine ::) the health should regen in about 1.5s after using it so headshots are not the only option the merc has...

As it is now, it's not the only option: you can shoot him 4 times in the body, use a mine, or blow him up with a frag, use the tazer, or a ton of other shit. The problem is your skill, not the healthbox.

You can't "spam smoke" and have it do anything. There's this thing called a gun, and it shoots far, so instead of chasing the spy around the map while he "spams" his 5 smoke grenades, just find a position from which you can get a clean shot.

Quote from: frvge on May 08, 2007, 05:30:08 PM
An interesting post I found on Ubi's forums:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2771048463/m/8841094055?r=1591059655#1591059655

Some ideas are good, others are not.

I like the idea that SS only jams the Merc's gun.

Steath supporters need to play Disk Hunt more.

Quote from: Spekkio on May 09, 2007, 10:06:05 PM
As it is now, it's not the only option: you can shoot him 4 times in the body, use a mine, or blow him up with a frag, use the tazer, or a ton of other shit. The problem is your skill, not the healthbox.

You can't "spam smoke" and have it do anything. There's this thing called a gun, and it shoots far, so instead of chasing the spy around the map while he "spams" his 5 smoke grenades, just find a position from which you can get a clean shot.

You forgot to compare the time it takes to shoot the spy 4 times and the time he needs to heal himself. At lest on an average server hit 'n run/running in circle tactics work quite well on certain maps like club and muse. If we keep the damage the uzi does and reduce the lagg to a minimum, these tactics could indeed be crippled without the need of headshots.

Long range shots might work on club, polar or factory, but you will have to walk through smoke on maps like orph and muse.

QuoteYou forgot to compare the time it takes to shoot the spy 4 times and the time he needs to heal himself. At lest on an average server hit 'n run/running in circle tactics work quite well on certain maps like club and muse.

The healthboxes are nowhere near the objectives in Museum. If the spy gets to them as you are shooting at him, it's your fault. In club, yes they are near the Garden objectives but that's where mines come in. It's also out in the open so it's pretty easy to anticipate if a spy is going for health and get a headshot.

QuoteLong range shots might work on club, polar or factory, but you will have to walk through smoke on maps like orph and muse.

Yea, sometimes. Still, most people don't have a problem with running out of mask.

Quote from: Spekkio on May 10, 2007, 08:08:14 PM
It's also out in the open so it's pretty easy to anticipate if a spy is going for health and get a headshot.

i already said that headshot is the only possibility (besides anticipating the spies and already wait at garden)
well, mines kill good players only if they are buggy, or the players are unconcentrated, especially on club where every1 knows every mine spot...

i don't think club is imbalanced, it's just that i hate cheap tactics (compare museum pandora version to ct version).

Mines kill plenty of good players, especially while you're shooting at them.

Well, as long as spy is running around back and forth for the precious medikit, he's not accomplishing anything. (Thinking of museum, cafe or storage, where in the latter mines work very well) Merc can hold their own rather easily, most of the times it's the spy who end's up losing, which is good, of course. A different kind of medikit would just cut off the "most" needless running.

However, I don't think it would be fair to say, that "you just have to be good", if you want a chance, because that's also a nice way of widening the gap even more for players of different level of skill. They can't necassarily get headshots as easily, so healing system like the current could be a pain in the ass, especially in the beginning. Of course, if people learn to live with it, (yet we complain, or actually dare to present new ideas) things could be different, but that goes for the new medkit as well.  Can't forget about the lag either... Which just makes this subject of discussion useless at  this point.

Quote from: Gawain on May 08, 2007, 08:20:27 PM
-Give spies camo that will not make them invisible, but gives them a second where they can walk through lasers without tripping them.
+ invisible to security cams  ;D

Invisibility to cameras would be kind of cool, but I don't support anything that lets you walk through lasers.

Also, I think you should be able to bypass the motion sensors by walking super slow through the room.

I don't think it'd necessarily be bad to let camo hide you from cameras. It'd make the mercs job harder, but certainly not impossible, given that you've got to uncamo to actually shoot or use other gadgets.

Quote
Let mercs replenish gas mask at ammo stations.
its kinda lame if a team spams smoke and cams throughout the whole game, because once you have no mask left, you have no more chance in corridors etc. but imo its quite balanced right now, maybe the capacity should be a little bit bigger.

I've thought maybe it might be good to make the gas mask tank smaller, but allow it to be replenished at ammo boxes, though I'm not sure if that would really unbalance things. It would make the ammo box much more important for sure, but that might not be a bad thing, as of right now, the ammo box is pretty trivial.

Also, a side idea for merc weaponry, if we wanted, what if we just had a base automatic gun (with PT rifle stats perhaps) and had sniper scope and shotgun be gadgets you can take? The shotgun attachment could even conceivably replace the taser, since they're both close combat devices. So you're given a base medium range gun, and you can turn it into a short range killer or a sniper rifle, depending on what you choose.

I guess you could also throw in passive gadgets like increased clip size (to get an uzi like clip) as well. But this way, whatever you take, you're also giving something up too, since you lose a gadget. So you're constantly asking yourself is sniping capability is worth losing frags or a backpack.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on May 15, 2007, 03:16:56 PM
Invisibility to cameras would be kind of cool, but I don't support anything that lets you walk through lasers.

avoiding cams like on factory actually needs some skill (but also time), so this truly needs some testing. but atm you can roll through most lasers anyway -.-
imo we should give stealth players more useful gadgets (like the modded camo) that allow diverse tactis as stealth is usually slower than aggro. anyway, who of you use camo regurarly?

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on May 15, 2007, 03:16:56 PM
Also, I think you should be able to bypass the motion sensors by walking super slow through the room.

yeah, maybe the detection could be depend on the distance, too.

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on May 15, 2007, 03:16:56 PM
Also, a side idea for merc weaponry, if we wanted, what if we just had a base automatic gun (with PT rifle stats perhaps) and had sniper scope and shotgun be gadgets you can take? The shotgun attachment could even conceivably replace the taser, since they're both close combat devices. So you're given a base medium range gun, and you can turn it into a short range killer or a sniper rifle, depending on what you choose.

I guess you could also throw in passive gadgets like increased clip size (to get an uzi like clip) as well. But this way, whatever you take, you're also giving something up too, since you lose a gadget. So you're constantly asking yourself is sniping capability is worth losing frags or a backpack.

i fell in love with this idea ;)

Quote from: Gawain on May 15, 2007, 03:47:44 PM
avoiding cams like on factory actually needs some skill (but also time), so this truly needs some testing.
but atm you can roll through most lasers anyway -.-

Well right, I figure it wouldn't be bad to allow camo to let you bypass cameras faster. As far as lasers go, rolling though them produces sound (well unless you use that weird glitch to try to negate the sound - which should probably be fixed anyway). Also it's possible to make maps where you can't roll through the lasers.

Moving super slow to bypass motion sensors would probably require a bit of testing to see if it's indeed balanced, since there's a lot of problematic areas that I suppose someone could access if you didn't disable this. A map like Vertigo plaza would be almost impossible to patrol if you could sneak past the proximity sensors without shooting them out. Of course, we could just mod those and turn them into lasers, so I guess it's just not that big of a deal.

I've always thought lasers should be the only kind of defense that you must disable to bypass.

Quoteavoiding cams like on factory actually needs some skill (but also time), so this truly needs some testing. but atm you can roll through most lasers anyway -.-

Not really. Go to visit a map and practice it like 4 times and you'll be able to do it. You can run through all 3 corridors and it takes about 5 seconds max if you get unlucky and the cameras are in the wrong position.

The toughest route is main hall through B to machine without shooting a cam.

Using camo to automatically bypass passive defenses would be imbalanced. Even though you can pass a lot of them now without tripping them, it generally takes more time than activate camo ---> walk to where you have to go for 10 seconds.

As for lasers, you can roll through most of them, but they're also very easy to trap up to prevent such a thing (like the poison everyone puts in greek room on aqua). It would be doubly so if the mercs got 5 spy traps again. The lasers on hospital can't be rolled through, nor can the ones on orphanage or any of zedblade's maps. Aqua is already a merc map, they don't need to "fix" the lasers on it, and factory has a lot of security too so that's fine. I personally don't like the triple lasers all over the place because it forces me to take chaff, but I understand that it's there for balance purposes so I'm not saying it should be removed.

QuoteHowever, I don't think it would be fair to say, that "you just have to be good", if you want a chance, because that's also a nice way of widening the gap even more for players of different level of skill. They can't necassarily get headshots as easily, so healing system like the current could be a pain in the ass, especially in the beginning. Of course, if people learn to live with it, (yet we complain, or actually dare to present new ideas) things could be different, but that goes for the new medkit as well.  Can't forget about the lag either... Which just makes this subject of discussion useless at  this point.

Well, if the spies are that much better than the mercs they deserve to win, don't they? There's no reason to change healthpacks because some people are incapable of aiming.

Lag is lag. You can't balance the game for laggy play; you have to balance it for optimal play. If it's that bad, find another server or host your own. But I'm also assuming that PS will fix the massive packet loss that occurs in this game.

@Invisible,

I personally really like your gun idea (although I don't think that the sniper or shotgun attachment should take up a gadget slot). Unfortunately, it's probably too radical for what they're trying to do on the first installment.

The thing about gameplay balancing is to make underused gadgets more attractive. I'm curios how much people would take camo if it didn't make this ridiculous loud sound, but i like it to have more than one use like some other gadgets (cam, chaff, etc). Getting invisible to cams wouldn't change anything at least with the current map design, and going through laser would be unbalanced, too. But maybe we  can change the map design so that the balancing changes. Furthermore, mercs would have to rely more on emf and less on mt whoring (if we fix the ghosting, emf will get very underused). It's better to add to the gameplay, than to take elements away...

btw i'm kinda uninformed about earlier attempts and the technical aspects, but could it be possible to get the stuff from ubi that would allow us to create a community patch in which we could test the gameplay with all the changes from spekkio's fix list? scct is pretty old, so there's no risk for ubi and they could profit from the vets fixing their baby ;D
It was the only solution to cnc generals zero hour cw.cc, and it worked out quite well...

I'm really not looking forward to playing scct in it's current state for two more years -.-

You can't just release an SDK. Just creating a package to download takes times. They also got to rewrite their code (which could be very hard if they didn't design with an SDK in mind) so that they don't expose the Unreal2 engine and violate their licence. Also, it would probably make sense if their agreement with Epic said no SDKs at all.

this sux. did anyone try to ask ubi in a decent way?

Quote from: Spekkio on May 15, 2007, 06:19:31 PM
Using camo to automatically bypass passive defenses would be imbalanced. Even though you can pass a lot of them now without tripping them, it generally takes more time than activate camo ---> walk to where you have to go for 10 seconds.

Well, that's actually the point. Taking the gadget saves you time. So somebody could take the camo suit and be able to move past cameras without worrying about being detected. Also keep in mind that you can't run with camo active, so a skilled player who can dodge the cameras might actually be able to cover the distance faster.

And besides, mercs can still reinforce an area with spytraps and mines. (Btw on a side note, I do support moving spytraps back up to 5).

Quote
@Invisible,

I personally really like your gun idea (although I don't think that the sniper or shotgun attachment should take up a gadget slot). Unfortunately, it's probably too radical for what they're trying to do on the first installment.

Well, I'm not sure it'd actually be all that hard to program in. Assuming they put in sniper and shotgun functionality, It's actually fairly easy to program in another set of conditionals contingent on having a certain gadget. So instead of pressing sniper zoom to get into sniper mode, you activate the sniper scope gadget. Alternately, you can still press the zoom key, but it only works if you happen to be carrying a scope (depending on how we wanted to implement it). It's a few extra "if" statements added to the code, besides that, the code would be exactly the same, so it would be something that's pretty easy to test out.

Really, the only hard part would be doing the graphics, but in the early installments, I think we'd be okay with just having every gun look alike regardless of what attachment gadgets you go with.

As far as what to consider gadgets and what not to, I'd think we'd need some balancing tool, since we probably want a merc to give up something to get a sniper rifle or shotgun attachment added to his base gun, since they are pretty useful, so I figured a gadget slot would probably be the most logical cost. I suppose we could go Rainbow 6 style and have attachments modify aspects of the gun, like aiming speed and recoil, but I really don't think it'd be a good idea to add a R6 style aiming reticule system to the game. It just seems too invasive to me.

It's possible we could also give people one free attachment and if they want more they can use one of their 4 gadgets. So you'd have the base choice of:

-sniper scope (rifle equivalent)
-extended clip size + possibly more ammo/less recoil/faster fire rate (uzi equivalent)
-shotgun attachment (shotgun equivalent)

Now keep in mind, I don't really want any kind of time required to switch attachments like in CT single player. If you've got a sniper attachment or a shotgun attachment, at most you're going to have to select it first (possibly not even that if each has its own separate key), but there's no prep time to turn your gun from a shotgun to a sniper rifle, nor do they have their own special ammo reserves. Everything simply uses your rifle rounds.

Note that this would make the shotgun considerably better, because it would now have a rifle sized clip and a faster reload speed, and be able to fire in standard rifle mode as well as shotgun mode. I'm not sure I really care about that, because I never saw the shotgun as overpowered in the first place. The rifle would be a bit better, because it's basic combat function would be improved. As far as the uzi-equivalent goes, it depends on how well we make the uzi attachment work. But that's something that we'd probably have to balance in game to see how it works. The toughest thing would probably be making the uzi style attachment worth something compared to the shotgun attachment.

We could remove the taser from gadgets altogether, which would probably end up saving some programming time in the long run.

It's not about programming time, but being too radically different from PT/CT, which is what they're shooting for on the first installment. I personally don't like the idea of giving up one of 4 gadget slots for a sniper scope or shotgun attachment. Since the gun is selectable in CT, you could count the gun as a 5th slot...that's the only way I'd support what you're suggesting.

And another reason I don't support the whole camo thing is it's rather mindless. Activate camo ---> walk through any defenses in the map. It's kinda dumb.

Maybe you can show up on the radar with it?

So then the defenses can be bypassed, but the mercs know where you are.

The advantage is simple: no alarms are set off, so the objectives are stiill hackable.
With teamwork, you can lure mercs. (1 spy hides, other spy activates camo and mercs try to attack him, giving the waiting spy a chance for a neck).


It would give newbies a relatively fast way of getting past defenses. Certainly faster than trying to dodge the lasers and cams, like pros would. Or even worse: tripping the alarms.

Till the point where they mastered the dodging and wont need the camo anymore.

Which is a retarded change. You might as well just leave it so the defenses detect you. You're making needless changes for the same net result if the spy shows up on radar.

Well, at least the objectives arent locked

Quote from: Spekkio on May 16, 2007, 06:48:29 PM
It's not about programming time, but being too radically different from PT/CT, which is what they're shooting for on the first installment. I personally don't like the idea of giving up one of 4 gadget slots for a sniper scope or shotgun attachment. Since the gun is selectable in CT, you could count the gun as a 5th slot...that's the only way I'd support what you're suggesting.

Well yeah, I was thinking maybe you get a free attachment that doesn't take a gadget slot, and you can take other gun attachments if you want, but only by sacrificing additional slots. So you do get a 5th slot that's sort of free that you must use on an attachment.

That way you get the basic CT dynamic from the start, only now you've got the option of having multiple weapons. So you could have a scoped rifle with a shotgun attachment for instance, if you're willing to devote a gadget slot.

We could also use the 5th gun slot to allow for various other passive "upgrade" gadgets for the merc. For instance, I'm thinking maybe we could make MT's shadow inversion ability into a gadget. By default it doesn't invert shadows, but if you've got some new gadget, then it could. The same maybe could be done with post render quality or even EAX.

That way you force mercs to pay for their superman ears and so forth. So yeah, you can get enhanced ability to detect spies, but you now only have a base non-scoped rifle or you're down a gadget. In any case, you're forcing people to make choices, and I think that's a good thing. Some people really might trade frags or a backpack for MT shadow inversion or a shotgun attachment on their rifle.

The nice thing about programming the game that way is that these gadgets can always be made automatic later,  but it allows extensive balance fine tuning, with minimal programming difficulties. Since I think we will want to make balance changes at some point in development (maybe not the first build, but somewhere down the road), it'd be kind of nice to make the program from the beginning to allow those sort of changes.

Quote
And another reason I don't support the whole camo thing is it's rather mindless. Activate camo ---> walk through any defenses in the map. It's kinda dumb.

You're absolutely right. It is mindless. But then again, so is dropping a chaff instead of shooting out lasers manually. One of the possible uses of a gadget is to save you time and I think it's rather reasonable to allow camo to save people time from sneaking past cameras. I mean, you're paying a gadget slot to be more invisible, I don't think it's crazy to allow it to make you undetectable on camera too.

I'm not suggesting camo lets you bypass lasers. I think that'd be a bit too extreme. But I don't see a problem in letting it bypass cameras. After all, all it's really doing is saving you a few seconds.

I guess I've always considered camo sort of a newb gadget anyway, and I don't mind giving newbies an easy way to dodge cameras. Hell if you want to devote a gadget slot to it and save 3 seconds, then knock yourself out.

I mean, honestly I think rolling through lasers is more abusive than this mod to camo, because you don't have to pay a gadget slot to roll through lasers. So if you think rolling through lasers is ok to save you time, then it should be plenty okay to camo up and move past a camera.

Scoped rifle with shotgun  = GODLIKE. Good at close, medium and long range. Na-uh, that is just overpowered. MAYBE when you need to sacrifise an extra slot, 2 total. I like the idea of swapping attachments at far-away ammo crates better then.

Quote from: frvge on May 16, 2007, 11:12:32 PM
Scoped rifle with shotgun  = GODLIKE. Good at close, medium and long range. Na-uh, that is just overpowered. MAYBE when you need to sacrifise an extra slot, 2 total. I like the idea of swapping attachments at far-away ammo crates better then.

Well, keep in mind you're burning a gadget slot to do it. The shotgun is pretty much the same effect as a taser, though a bit more effective.

Also under this paradigm, I'd expect we'd cut down on the shotgun's range to make it only useful at close range.

Considering you're giving up frags, mines, backpack or gasmask to get the shotgun add-on, I don't think that's too big of a deal. You can snipe, and you're dangerous at close range, though mid-range you basically still just have a normal rifle.

Yea, scoped rifle + shotgun attachment = no. You either get one or the other. Both is dumb, whether it takes up a gadget slot or not.

Chaffing gives a security failure message while what you suggest for camo does not. And if it will, then there's no point to the change.

Also, there are specific routes you have to take to bypass cameras without making a security failure. Good mercs know this and set their traps up accordingly. If camo just bypasses all that, you make it way too easy to get past everything. It would be impossible to trap up. Then all of a sudden a spy starts hacking and you're nowhere near there...not because he has uber stealth skills, but because he took camo. Not trying to be rude or anything, but it really is a terrible idea and would completely imbalance the game.

Finally, camo isn't a noob gadget. Just because you don't like to use it or can't figure out how to make it work for you doesn't mean others can't.

Honestly, I think the current SvM is a great game that is balanced on most maps, so I'd like to see the changes in gameplay kept down to a minimum. Aside from the map changes, 90% of what I posted are bugs/netcode issues. Hell, I'd be ecstatic if Ubi would release a patch that fixed funny punching, insta frags, and the jump hitbox when client spies try to jump mercs. After that, it's all gravy.

What I said was that it would show up on radar as a marker, so then you have time to get to the obj.

Chaff is faster. Maybe the activation of the camo can take 5 secs? A 'powering up'?

Quote from: Spekkio on May 16, 2007, 11:39:37 PM
Yea, scoped rifle + shotgun attachment = no. You either get one or the other. Both is dumb, whether it takes up a gadget slot or not.

I dunno, I think it could be ok. I mean, in PT we had to deal with rifle + taser, which was almost equivalent to rifle + shotgun. So really, it'd be very similar to PT. I wouldn't have a problem with toning down the shotgun's damage at non-point blank range. Really, I just figure it'd be easier to use a shotgun instead of a taser. Because if you've got shotgun as a gun-addon then you've got no need for a taser.

Now possibly we can just toss out the shotgun as a whole and only have the taser if we deem the shotgun too powerful when paired with a base rifle.

Seriously though, I think I could probably care less if someone wants to burn a gadget slot or two to have a really awesome rifle that works as shotgun, uzi and sniper. This just means they're lacking mines or frags or what not. The nice thing about using gadget slots is that the merc gadgets are so good. You're really suffering if you have to give one up.

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Chaffing gives a security failure message while what you suggest for camo does not. And if it will, then there's no point to the change.

Well that's true, but so does shooting the lasers out. The analogy is that all factors considered, chaff is a mindless way to bypass lasers instead of shooting them out. It saves you time. Now you can use time to bypass a camera (by sneaking past), or you could camo up and save time by possessing the right gadget. Both methods produce the same results (no security failure message), it's just the camo method is faster. Similar to how dropping chaff is faster than manually shooting out the lasers.

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Also, there are specific routes you have to take to bypass cameras without making a security failure. Good mercs know this and set their traps up accordingly. If camo just bypasses all that, you make it way too easy to get past everything. It would be impossible to trap up. Then all of a sudden a spy starts hacking and you're nowhere near there...not because he has uber stealth skills, but because he took camo. Not trying to be rude or anything, but it really is a terrible idea and would completely imbalance the game.

It wouldn't be impossible to trap up. While camoed, you can't jump, can't dive and can't run. So that means that a straight crouch beam spytrap behind a box (so you can't shoot it) would be enough. Not to mention that there are generally other spots to laser off. I'm not seeing it as being particularly unbalanced, though maybe you could point out some maps where you think it would severely create problems to illustrate your point. I can't really think of any offhand. I'm seeing factory maybe as a bit harder to defend, but since there are doorways with lasers anyway, you can easily put a spytrap or poison mine there to further slow the spy.

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Finally, camo isn't a noob gadget. Just because you don't like to use it or can't figure out how to make it work for you doesn't mean others can't.

Well I'm just saying that a lot of noobs tend to take it. I know there are pros who make it work for them. And that's great. Just saying it isn't particularly one of the most popular gadgets among pros and could probably use a slight boost. Among spies, it's probably the least used gadget.

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Honestly, I think the current SvM is a great game that is balanced on most maps, so I'd like to see the changes in gameplay kept down to a minimum. Aside from the map changes, 90% of what I posted are bugs/netcode issues. Hell, I'd be ecstatic if Ubi would release a patch that fixed funny punching, insta frags, and the jump hitbox when client spies try to jump mercs. After that, it's all gravy.

Well, MT has some serious issues, as well as EAX and side grab. 

As far as changing around how guns work and upgrading camo, those are just some optional add-ons.

While I don't think they're top priority, I'm actually more interested in saying we should program project stealth in such a way that it is capable of being modified later to accommodate different balance tests. I mean, we may never actually use any of these ideas, but it's kind of nice to have them there.

I mean, there's nothing we can do at this point other than give the design team ideas, so we might as well just spit some out and see what they like and what they don't. And we are making a new game so we might as well add some fixes and balance changes since we can now. While CT versus is good, I don't think it was quite perfect.

QuoteI dunno, I think it could be ok. I mean, in PT we had to deal with rifle + taser, which was almost equivalent to rifle + shotgun. So really, it'd be very similar to PT. I wouldn't have a problem with toning down the shotgun's damage at non-point blank range. Really, I just figure it'd be easier to use a shotgun instead of a taser. Because if you've got shotgun as a gun-addon then you've got no need for a taser.

The rifle + tazer was completely imbalanced and as such was removed. So your argument for putting the rifle + shotgun + scope attachment is that we used to have an overpowered tazer? Sorry, you just shot yourself in the foot with that one.

QuoteWell that's true, but so does shooting the lasers out. The analogy is that all factors considered, chaff is a mindless way to bypass lasers instead of shooting them out. It saves you time. Now you can use time to bypass a camera (by sneaking past), or you could camo up and save time by possessing the right gadget. Both methods produce the same results (no security failure message), it's just the camo method is faster. Similar to how dropping chaff is faster than manually shooting out the lasers.

You're still missing the bottom line: chaff makes noise and alerts the mercs to a security failure. This is the tradeoff for going faster. Your idea about camo would not give the mercs any sort of notice that a spy is infiltrating an area. He's literally just walking in.

The reason so many people avoid camo is that no one knows who can hear it across the map and who can't. This is all hardware dependent and obviously something that needs to be fixed in PS (hence it's on the list). If it is fixed, camo doesn't need any further boost than that.

As for the maps that would be fucked up from this: Factory (coop in main hall with no security out), Club (get into steam/jacuzzi with no security out), Station (go through tech rooms/apartments with no security out), River mall (able to walk about the hi-fi area with no security outs), Cinema (able to move about the entire map more quickly without security outs), Krauser (same thing as cinema), Hospital (can go into rooms without tripping motion sensor, which is relied upon for 116/205/100), Deftech (can move about the entire map with no security out, albeit this is a bad example because Deftech isn't balanced as-is)...there are probably many more instances but I hope that giving you more than half a dozen examples on maps that are balanced (except station and deftech) is enough to demonstrate my point.

MT isn't that big of a deal. It's only bad on some maps where the spies are bottlenecked into crossing open space while the mercs have superior position (read: deftech, station sector 2, etc). Other than that, it's not a big deal...there are enough cover and routes in the game to avoid MT whores. EAX is bugged, and the side grabs are faulty net code...hence they made the list.

By the way, stop saying "we" when referring to programming project stealth. Are you doing it? If not, then you should be saying "they."

It's good that you guys are throwing out ideas, it's just that this isn't a very good one.

scworld:

You have to think of using camo in a global sense, not just going past security. If you give it a 5 second "power-up," then how is a spy going to use it in other circumstances.

Again, this is why the changes should be kept to a minimum. If you make a radical change to A, then that has repurcussions on B and C...so then you change those, and it has repurcussions elsewhere...and then suddenly you have an entirely different game since you've made so many changes.

I'm kina unsure if only fixing the sound will balance the camo. i like to see some gameplay changes, and the camera thing sounds interesting. Just remember, the game will be finished to the end of 2008 (if at all), so we will have played scct for more than three years. Am I the only one who thinks it's getting boring? oO
My idea about camo comes from bf2142. In this game, the camo makes the player blurry, he still can be seen quite easily, but it's way harder to snipe him. What about the blurry thing for a quick moving spy so that he can be seen quite easily, but is way harder to snipe?
My favorite idea about the gun is the pandora sniper and the (balanced) tazer as an optional gadget.

Quote from: Spekkio on May 17, 2007, 02:01:34 AM
The rifle + tazer was completely imbalanced and as such was removed. So your argument for putting the rifle + shotgun + scope attachment is that we used to have an overpowered tazer? Sorry, you just shot yourself in the foot with that one.

I guess I just never had a problem with the pandora taser. Everyone else complained it was crazy broken, I just never saw it. Personally, I'd be totally okay with bringing back the PT taser, as the CT taser is pure garbage. The CT taser has such a small range that it's pretty much useless. I'd really like to see a gadget that you're paying a gadget slot for to be more useful. As it is now, you could give out the CT taser as default equipment and nobody would even care. It's that ineffective.

When you take a taser (or a shotgun attachment under my system), you're taking something that stops aggro. That's seriously all it does. Given the merc already has rather formidable close combat moves (charge/ berserk), the gadget needs to be above and beyond that. The PT taser actually was worth taking, the CT taser is a joke.

QuoteYou're still missing the bottom line: chaff makes noise and alerts the mercs to a security failure. This is the tradeoff for going faster. Your idea about camo would not give the mercs any sort of notice that a spy is infiltrating an area. He's literally just walking in.

Well no, you're missing the point. Remember the comparison is shooting out lasers versus chaff. Both make noise. Both produce security failure messages. The only difference is that one is faster than the other.

The other case: sneaking past camera versus camo past camera. Neither produce sound, neither produce security failure messages. Once again, the only difference here is that one happens to be faster than the other.

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As for the maps that would be fucked up from this: Factory (coop in main hall with no security out),

Coop in the main hall without security? The main hall doesn't even have cameras in it, just lasers.

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Club (get into steam/jacuzzi with no security out),

Well at best, it's going to buy you a couple seconds on clubhouse. because you can camo up past the cameras instead of shooting them. I'm not really certain if it would be totally busted. It just means spies buy a couple extra seconds of hack time by taking a gadget. 

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Station (go through tech rooms/apartments with no security out),

Those aren't even cameras... they're proximity sensors if I recall correctly. I'm not suggesting camo beat all static defenses, just cameras.

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River mall (able to walk about the hi-fi area with no security outs),

That's true. Though since river mall has the main sensor in the merc spawn, I don't see it as a problem. Using camo means you're moving somewhat slower and you've still got to shoot out lasers. Not to mention mercs should come to expect it and use EMF in the hi-fi area.

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Cinema (able to move about the entire map more quickly without security outs), Krauser (same thing as cinema), Hospital (can go into rooms without tripping motion sensor, which is relied upon for 116/205/100),

Again, camo doesn't beat motion sensors, it doesn't beat lasers. It just beats cameras, that's it. I think you're ignoring what I've been saying here. Having camo beat all static defense would be crazy. But that's not even what I'm suggesting.

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MT isn't that big of a deal. It's only bad on some maps where the spies are bottlenecked into crossing open space while the mercs have superior position (read: deftech, station sector 2, etc). Other than that, it's not a big deal...there are enough cover and routes in the game to avoid MT whores. EAX is bugged, and the side grabs are faulty net code...hence they made the list.

Well the problems with MT are much more serious I think. Let me list the advantages of MT over the flashlight.

-MT doesn't require the merc to announce his presence (no big beam of light)
-You can be seen in MT vision even if you're not moving.
-MT inverts shadows
-MT straight out announces the spy's presence with its box and sound effect. No searching required.
-MT works in 360 degrees (as opposed to just a small area of your viewscreen illuminated with the flashlight)
-When detected by MT, you may not even know it, as opposed to having a big beam of light on top of you.
-MT box follows you for some time after you've left the field of view, meaning it sometimes can give away your hiding spot after you've gone out of range.
-MT makes you immune to flash.
-Any animation triggers MT. 

And there are really no drawbacks to it.

MT is definitely at the top of the list of actual balance changes.

I think if we're going minimalist, it may actually be the only true balance change that this game needs.

Personally I'd like to see some changes though, after all, why go through the trouble of making a new game that plays exactly like the old one? I've always seen this project as creating Double Agent as we envisioned it. Not just a CT clone, but CT evolved.

I'm sorry, but if you ask around the community almost no one will want the PT tazer back, and as such wouldn't be supportive of your idea, either.

You need to play factory more. There is a camera at the main hall coop objective that must be shot out. I'm not missing your point: your point is that sneaking and using the camo is analagous to shooting out lasers or using chaff. It's not really analogous to that at all. Firstly, the difference between shooting out a laser and chaffing it is like 1 second...the difference between taking a convoluded route around cameras and just camoing through them would be like 5 seconds. Sneaking past cameras takes time and care; you are rewarded for this time and care by not alerting the mercs to your presence. Having camo let you go past cameras (or motion sensors as someone suggested) means that you don't have to put time and care into concealing your presence. It's just dumb.

Camo is meant to be a piece of equipment that allows you to traverse open areas under concealment (basically the answer to MT whoring). The problem is that activating it, even at long ranges, makes the mercs turn on EMF so they see you anyway because some people can hear it no matter what. There's also the problem of creeping slow and having the box go off because it's so sensitive, but I have that in the fix list. It's not meant to give you a free pass to get past security, and it's not meant to hide yourself to get a grab everytime a merc comes around the corner. If they can make a max distance on the activation sound a radius of about 5 meters, that's all camo needs to become more useful.

Club is the most balanced map as it is. Allow the spies into steam/jacuzzi without a security out and you make it imbalanced for spies. It's only a couple of seconds extra, but it makes a huge difference. This is a game that revolves around seconds.

If Mall were changed to not have a camnet in the hologram room, then that's all you really need to balance the map out. Most people think it's bullshit that it's there in the first place. Adding the ability to walk around in camo on top of that is just bad. Even with camnet in the hologram room, it's impossible for one merc to guard hi-fi.

Someone threw the idea of having camo let you go by motion sensors as well, which is why I mentioned the maps with motion sensors. But, I'll replace some of those with another case: Schermerhorn...you'd be able to hack the objectives in the water room without making a security out or going through the hassle of hacking the cameras off.

You're right that MT doesn't really have many drawbacks to it. I don't think it's omgwtf bad though, simply because most maps have enough places to go where it's not a big deal. Your idea of removing the sound reticle while in MT, but leaving the rest of the vision as-is, might be very interesting to test out.

Fixing the bugs on their own will produce gameplay changes. Look at the big difference between PT and CT, and only a minimal amount of things were changed. You don't need to go nuts with radical ideas to improve the gameplay by a large margin. Also, having new maps, if they're balanced, would make the game fresh.

Quote from: Spekkio on May 17, 2007, 05:37:00 PM
I'm sorry, but if you ask around the community almost no one will want the PT tazer back, and as such wouldn't be supportive of your idea, either.

Well, I'm not sure, I guess it's something for a poll to figure out though. I know for sure back from my PT days that a lot of people complained about the taser, but the same is true in CT of the shotgun, the uzi and the rifle.

The PT taser remember was back in the day before we had berserk and when the merc charge didn't even knock the spy down. It was literally the only decent close combat option the merc had. This made it seem more powerful back in the day. A merc without the taser was nearly helpless in close combat.

In CT, that's not exactly true anymore. CT mercs have quite a bit of useful close combat options as their disposal by default.

Also back in PT, the merc equipment was significantly weaker. You had frags, mines and spytraps, which were the essentials, then you had really no other choice other than the taser. By taking the taser you had to give up almost nothing because phosphorous and flares sucked, so it was almost free.

CT changed that too. By adding gas mask and backpack, we've got a couple other solid choices contending for that spot. Sacrificing a gadget slot for a taser is now a real price you're paying, instead of something trivial like in PT. 

And when you spend a gadget slot for improved close combat, which is what taking a taser is all about, I think it should be a decent increase. It should make aggro players think twice about coming near you, because it is specifically an anti-aggro gadget. That's all it does. If it can't counter aggro effectively, then it's a waste of your time. Yes, aggro players should find it a pain in the ass. It's made to screw them over.

The CT taser on the other hand is a joke, I hope we can at least agree on that. Someone takes the taser, and you don't even care. It's got about the same range of a spy's elbow attack. It's just sad... I personally don't even think it helps against aggro players. It's just a wasted gadget. I already have berserk and I don't have to pay a gadget for that. Taser needs to be as useful as frags, mines or gas mask. The PT taser in my opinion met that criteria, the CT taser falls short by a great amount. I might actually even take flares over the CT taser. It's that bad.

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If Mall were changed to not have a camnet in the hologram room, then that's all you really need to balance the map out. Most people think it's bullshit that it's there in the first place. Adding the ability to walk around in camo on top of that is just bad. Even with camnet in the hologram room, it's impossible for one merc to guard hi-fi.

With the camnet, it's very possible for one merc to guard hi-fi, at least against a single spy. Two spies, requires two mercs of course. But yeah, I guess without the camnet, it would be a bit too powerful with camo.

So okay. I suppose lets hold off on the camo versus cameras for now and just fix the activation sound.  There are after all many more important things to deal with than trying to make camo better (which is a minor point at best).

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You're right that MT doesn't really have many drawbacks to it. I don't think it's omgwtf bad though, simply because most maps have enough places to go where it's not a big deal. Your idea of removing the sound reticle while in MT, but leaving the rest of the vision as-is, might be very interesting to test out.

Yeah, it'd be nice to do something against MT. Even if you could go full speed crouch or do animations while a merc's back is to you, that'd make a big difference. Turning off the sound reticule completely (as opposed to just suppressing it, like the merc laser does), would force people to go from MT to normal vision to hear stuff and that may also be a big enough disadvantage.

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Fixing the bugs on their own will produce gameplay changes. Look at the big difference between PT and CT, and only a minimal amount of things were changed. You don't need to go nuts with radical ideas to improve the gameplay by a large margin. Also, having new maps, if they're balanced, would make the game fresh.

Fixing MT and EAX alone will likely change the game dynamic quite a bit. Really, I'll be satisfied if we can get rid of MT whoring, superman ears and sidegrabs. That would be enough to make the mod worthwhile at the very least.

Again, your argument for buffing the CT tazer back to PT style is that the mercs are stronger in CT because of CC moves and gasmask. What sense does that make if it was overpowered to begin with? While I agree it could use a slight range buff, it needs to be somewhere between the PT and CT distance. I also think that the KO time on the tazer needs to be nerfed along with the range buff...nothing was more frustrating than jumping or camming a merc, he tazes you, and he gets up first. Considering that KOing a merc is much harder than tazing a spy, the tazer should only last as long as a charge/berserk KO.

QuoteWith the camnet, it's very possible for one merc to guard hi-fi, at least against a single spy.

No, it's not. The spy can easily get 1 objective because the routes the merc has to take between lower hi-fi and office is much longer than the route for the spy to take between lower hi-fi and office. This is especially true if you manage to hack the cameras, although it's really easy for the mercs to reset them.

QuoteFixing MT and EAX alone will likely change the game dynamic quite a bit. Really, I'll be satisfied if we can get rid of MT whoring, superman ears and sidegrabs. That would be enough to make the mod worthwhile at the very least.

For me it's insta frags, lag charges, and funny punches because EAX and MT whoring is at least consistent, but everyone has their thing :).

Quote from: Spekkio on May 18, 2007, 09:11:42 AM
Again, your argument for buffing the CT tazer back to PT style is that the mercs are stronger in CT because of CC moves and gasmask. What sense does that make if it was overpowered to begin with?

Well honestly I don't think it was overpowered. I think it just seemed overpowered back in the day of PT because it was all the mercs had for close combat moves. Also PT was much more of an aggro circle grab game because of the lack of a gas mask, so smoke + grab was a big tactic back then. I've always held the opinion that if the merc sees you coming and you're in close range with a guy with anti-aggro gadgets, you should lose. So I guess I've never considered the PT taser to be unbalanced at all, even back in the days of PT.

About all it really hurt were people who tried to circle and grab. Aside from that, it doesn't help against:

-stealth grabs (especially if we take your suggestion and remove charge  + jump, which I can agree with)
-evasive or stealthy spies who stay out of sight or out of range
-having a partner sneak up behind the merc while running around in front of him.

All it stops is people who want to do a close range head-on attack on the merc. And all I can say is that if you haven't flashed him, chaffed him or SSed him, and he happens to be carrying a taser, you get what you deserve. There are so many ways to beat the taser.

QuoteI also think that the KO time on the tazer needs to be nerfed along with the range buff...nothing was more frustrating than jumping or camming a merc, he tazes you, and he gets up first. Considering that KOing a merc is much harder than tazing a spy, the tazer should only last as long as a charge/berserk KO.

I'd be okay with that. It's not really the tase time that even matters much to me. It's more the range. I'd have no problem if it just knocked him down like a merc charge. In fact, I don't even care if the taser does actual damage or not to the spy.

All I actually care about is stunning him for a little bit and actually being able to have the range to hit him.

If it doesn't have better range than a berserk, it's basically useless. Nerf the rest of it, but at least give it PT range.

QuoteNo, it's not. The spy can easily get 1 objective because the routes the merc has to take between lower hi-fi and office is much longer than the route for the spy to take between lower hi-fi and office. This is especially true if you manage to hack the cameras, although it's really easy for the mercs to reset them.

Well, not unless he's sneaky. Basically the spy is going to enter through the office. So lets say he spy bullets the entrance to office so he knows you're coming up the stairs then he jumps into the vent. This is actually his most dangerous position. Of course, it's not impossible to beat. Right now he's in hi-fi ventillation according to camnet. He has a couple options. He can drop into main hi-fi, he can drop into the back of the showroom, or he can return to the office. The office is by far the quickest of these routes. So you plant a proxy or laser mine in the office to slow his return.

So you basically stand around the base of the stairs to office. watching your camnet. If he ever goes to hi-fi first floor, you run like hell to the showroom, you should get there before he can get the lasers off and hack it, regardless of the way he comes. If he goes back to office or you hear "security failure" you head up the stairs back to office of course. His other option is to try main hi-fi and go for hi-fi second floor. This is easily remedied by a well placed frag if he starts hacking up there. You can also toggle your camnet to show hi-fi main hall to see if he comes out the vent there. Since you're standing by the office stairs you can always assume that you've got cameras active.

In any case, he shouldn't get more than a few seconds at most on any one terminal if you use that strategy.

Once he's actual in hi-fi, the strategy is just to stand at the base of the main stairs and alternating between MT, EMF and quick camnet checks. If you see hi-fi first, stay closer to the showroom, if you see hi-fi second, head upstairs. Obviously keep watch on the upper way to the office window. The only time you're really in trouble is if the fans are off and he can use the vent in lower hi-fi to the get to the stairwell to office.

QuoteFor me it's insta frags, lag charges, and funny punches because EAX and MT whoring is at least consistent, but everyone has their thing :).

Yeah I'm more worried about consistent things, because they're legitimate balance problems. If something is inconsistent, at the very least it isn't something people can factor into their strategies, so it doesn't change the game itself. It just makes you curse at the game once in a while when you happen to get insta-naded.

Also so much of the lag problems could simply be solved with better netcode, which I actually think is going to be something we get for free, since we're using UT's netcode instead of UBIs. And lets face it, UBI has the worst netcode programmers ever.

QuoteSo you basically stand around the base of the stairs to office. watching your camnet. If he ever goes to hi-fi first floor, you run like hell to the showroom, you should get there before he can get the lasers off and hack it, regardless of the way he comes. If he goes back to office or you hear "security failure" you head up the stairs back to office of course. His other option is to try main hi-fi and go for hi-fi second floor. This is easily remedied by a well placed frag if he starts hacking up there. You can also toggle your camnet to show hi-fi main hall to see if he comes out the vent there. Since you're standing by the office stairs you can always assume that you've got cameras active.

That doesn't work because while he's in the ceiling above hi-fi first floor, the camnet reads "hi-fi first floor." He can also shoot out the lasers to hi-fi first floor while on that ceiling. So you end up running down there and then the spy is just a hop away from offices. Or you stay put and the spy proceeds to actually hack it. It may take a bit, but if the spy is careful there's no way you're killing him before getting an objective without help.

QuoteWell honestly I don't think it [tazer in pt] was overpowered.

we'll have to agree to disagree there, but you're in the vast minority.

It helps in battles period, which occur frequently especially towards the end of the round. Using the tazer has no drawback like the charge does. It would also significantly extend the range a spy would have to be away from a merc to stay out of his reach because you could just charge + taze, which was all-too-common in PT. In theory you can say "oh, just stay away from the mercs", but in practice most of the game is played in areas too small for that.

Quote from: Spekkio on May 18, 2007, 10:12:59 PM
In theory you can say "oh, just stay away from the mercs", but in practice most of the game is played in areas too small for that.

QFE

Quote from: Spekkio on May 18, 2007, 10:12:59 PM
That doesn't work because while he's in the ceiling above hi-fi first floor, the camnet reads "hi-fi first floor." He can also shoot out the lasers to hi-fi first floor while on that ceiling. So you end up running down there and then the spy is just a hop away from offices. Or you stay put and the spy proceeds to actually hack it. It may take a bit, but if the spy is careful there's no way you're killing him before getting an objective without help.

Hmm, that's kind of interesting, I never knew you could shoot out the lasers from the ceiling. That would certainly make things a lot more difficult. 

Quote

QuoteWell honestly I don't think it [tazer in pt] was overpowered.

we'll have to agree to disagree there, but you're in the vast minority.

It helps in battles period, which occur frequently especially towards the end of the round. Using the tazer has no drawback like the charge does. It would also significantly extend the range a spy would have to be away from a merc to stay out of his reach because you could just charge + taze, which was all-too-common in PT. In theory you can say "oh, just stay away from the mercs", but in practice most of the game is played in areas too small for that.

As far as being in the minority about the taser, I'm not sure about that. We should really run a poll as far as what taser people prefer. 

I wouldn't have a problem with preventing people from tasing after a charge, similar to how we want to stop them from jumping. Perhaps use of gadgets in general shouldn't be allowed after a charge until you've recovered.   

And yes a taser doesn't have the drawbacks of a charge. Which is actually fine because you're not paying a gadget slot for a charge. Your main problem seems to be that you want the charge and the taser to be equal. This isn't true based on cost. The taser costs you a gadget slot, the charge does not. Therefore the taser needs to be better.

As far as staying away from the mercs, it's impossible to completely stay away from them, but it's very possible to not enter taser range without first having them chaffed, shocked, flashbanged, or just taken by surprise. I mean like I said, if you go on a head-on charge toward a merc without any precautions and the merc spent the gadget slot to get the taser, then you should get fried. That's what it's for. Especially if jump + charge gets nerfed, mercs will probably want some better way to handle aggro, and a better taser is the most logical way.

Would you be happy with PT taser length with the restriction that you can't charge + taser, the taser inflicts no actual damage and the duration with which you're stunned was the same as getting knocked down by a charge?

As I recall it, I had no problems with PT tazer. But most of us weren't as familiar with the game back then as we are now. So maybe just let beta testing(whenever) determine the best range for that?

why not just have the CT tazer?

Quote from: LiVe.To.Di3 on May 21, 2007, 12:59:54 AM
why not just have the CT tazer?

maybe u should read the previous posts first...
Imo the tazer had to become at least as strong as the pandora one to rectify the slot. With much more fluid aiming, few to no lag, and no host advantage aggro spies will have a very hard time anyway. Why does no one talk about the real problems??

Quote from: Valserp on May 19, 2007, 11:58:01 PM
As I recall it, I had no problems with PT tazer. But most of us weren't as familiar with the game back then as we are now. So maybe just let beta testing(whenever) determine the best range for that?

Yeah, I'm really curious actually to poll people and see what people actually thought of the PT taser. Thus far, spekkio has been the only one who has said the PT taser was too powerful.

Or maybe we could go back and play some PT now that we know more about the game. Because really, I played a lot of PT back in the day and I never remember the taser as being too powerful. Of course, I was a very stealth oriented spy, so the taser didn't bother me at all. If the merc detected me and was close enough to taser me. Also I could just throw down a chaff too.

The tazer in PT was the only way to balance SS+ DJ. SS+DJ no longer exists...

Quote from: Spekkio on May 22, 2007, 07:16:39 PM
The tazer in PT was the only way to balance SS+ DJ. SS+DJ no longer exists...

this is a bad way of balancing ss+dj XD

Quote from: Spekkio on May 22, 2007, 07:16:39 PM
The tazer in PT was the only way to balance SS+ DJ. SS+DJ no longer exists...

Honestly I'm not even convinced of that. Because SS + DJ still worked, even with the taser. I mean, when you're shocked, you can't taser someone anyway. So it doesn't seem like much of a counter.

I probably use the tazer more than any of you and there are two things I hate about it:
1) When a spy is clearly running towards you, he almost always elbows you before you can taze him.
2) It's always disabled when you need it like after a charge or being elbowed (I think). It's never there when you're being aggroed.
3) and there's some stuff with lag but what isn't affect by lag?

Quick Poll: In those situations where a spy get's tazed while doing the elbow and you see him being tazed and running around, if we were to fix that, should the spy be tazed or should he be unaffected?

Quote from: Overstatement on May 22, 2007, 09:02:27 PM
1) When a spy is clearly running towards you, he almost always elbows you before you can taze him.

This is exactly why I think the CT taser is useless.

no good ps player will take a tazer that isn't at least as strong as the pandora one, just do simple mathematics: the ct sniper rifle needs 2 non-zoomed shoots in the head, and 5 non-zoomed ones in the torso to kill a spy with full health. so you need less than 1 second to kill a spy if you got proper aiming (the aiming in ps won't be the crappy laggy raster crap we got atm). the mercs will get even more overpowered. i'd love to see the pandora rifle and a slightely changed tazer back, but also the pandora chaff nades etc.

i've observed gasmask use and smokes/cams quite exactly during the last weeks and i found a problem: if you encounter people that spam cams well (especially cams hided behind corners, really fast quickcams etc), your gas mask will run out way too soon (especially on running-in-circles maps like museum) if you want to prevent falling asleep effectively. on the other hand, if the mask gets more capacity, smoke nades will no longer slow down the merc. atm this problem is "solved" partly via eax superhearing, but what about project stealth? seriously, the capacity should be 1.2 - 1.5 times as it is now.

Quote from: Gawain on May 27, 2007, 01:28:05 PM
i'd love to see the pandora rifle and a slightely changed tazer back, but also the pandora chaff nades etc.

Yeah, i'd love to see the phosphor nades, they own3d....

Quote from: Gawain on June 19, 2007, 04:44:31 PM
i've observed gasmask use and smokes/cams quite exactly during the last weeks and i found a problem: if you encounter people that spam cams well (especially cams hided behind corners, really fast quickcams etc), your gas mask will run out way too soon (especially on running-in-circles maps like museum) if you want to prevent falling asleep effectively. on the other hand, if the mask gets more capacity, smoke nades will no longer slow down the merc. atm this problem is "solved" partly via eax superhearing, but what about project stealth? seriously, the capacity should be 1.2 - 1.5 times as it is now.

You can fix this problem by one of two things.

Either client side gas mask or a short delay added to the time it takes a quick cam to fire its gas after attaching to the wall.

One of the main things that depletes gas mask is the fact that you've actually got to activate it in advance of the spy firing his cam. If you're not the host, you can't hear the cam then quickly throw on gas mask. The mask just doesn't activate fast enough.

Speaking of which, in the context of this mod, do we even get to decide what's server and what's client side?

Quote from: Gawain on June 19, 2007, 04:44:31 PM
i've observed gasmask use and smokes/cams quite exactly during the last weeks and i found a problem: if you encounter people that spam cams well (especially cams hided behind corners, really fast quickcams etc), your gas mask will run out way too soon (especially on running-in-circles maps like museum) if you want to prevent falling asleep effectively. on the other hand, if the mask gets more capacity, smoke nades will no longer slow down the merc. atm this problem is "solved" partly via eax superhearing, but what about project stealth? seriously, the capacity should be 1.2 - 1.5 times as it is now.

for stopping circle tactics in cafe,  you need to make clever use of your mines

-and instead of camping the outside of cafe,  camp inside of cafe

-if all else fails,  shotty kicks ass in Cafe....even getting 1 shot kills in the cielings...

This of course gives easy acess for the spies to the bombs....but then, thats what this game is all about...changing to the appropriate tactic.

no1 understands me XD

cafe is np (i usually use spytraps and mines there), and so are most quick cams (if not host cams -.-)atm with the eax superhearing. the real problem are (and will be even more with fixed audio) cams placed in advance behind corners. imo if you don't waste your mask by using it to get through smoke nades, and you know that there likely is a cam behind one of the next 5 corners, one should have enough mask to not fall asleep. but i think 1.2*capacity should be enough though, because in most games 1 merc has to be knocked towards the end.

har har....sounds like a clever spy that knows how to use cams

95% of the good players rely on cams. this is no good gadget balance tbh

I dunno, yeah i do know many players that lpay like cams only, but i know also many ppl that own without cams - by stealth. Me, for example :D

If someone placed the cam in advance and then lured you into an ambush with it, then I think they deserve to get you. I mean that's part of the tactics of using cams effectively, and you had ample time to turn on your gasmask. You just got taken in by a spy ruse.

I'm more worried about quick-cams because they're a lag issue more than anything else.

As far as everyone taking sticky cams, I'm not sure we can do too much about that. The thing is that cams are the only gadget that will really incapacitate a merc at range, and sometimes, based on the map, you have to do that. I do think quickcams can be a bit overpowered, though that can be fixed by something like client side gasmask. Sometimes when it's a fairly laggy game, you just don't have enough time to get your mask on after a guy fires a cam. You see him fire it, you hear the sound, you activate the mask, but due to lag it just doesn't stop the camera and you're too late. So you get KOed even though your gas mask was "on" at least as far as you're concerned.

the majority of problems we experience in this game are lag induced

Quote from: InvisibleMan999 on June 20, 2007, 07:17:47 PM
If someone placed the cam in advance and then lured you into an ambush with it, then I think they deserve to get you. I mean that's part of the tactics of using cams effectively, and you had ample time to turn on your gasmask. You just got taken in by a spy ruse.

omg i'm no noob. there is no way of knowing where the cam is placed and isn't it hilarious that most "pros" rely on cams completely? smoke nades are too weak with the ct mask and capacity, and cams are too powerful.

Quote from: Gawain on June 21, 2007, 02:16:42 PM
omg i'm no noob. there is no way of knowing where the cam is placed and isn't it hilarious that most "pros" rely on cams completely? smoke nades are too weak with the ct mask and capacity, and cams are too powerful.

Well part of this game is the mental aspect of expecting an ambush. If you're playing a good player and they suddenly reveal themselvs and start running, especialyl if they don't cover their tail with smoke, you should expect something.

Setting up a cam in advance can be difficult. It means that first you've got to have sneaked into the area where you want to lay the cam without the merc detecting you. Next, you have to lure the merc into your trap. The merc has several options here. his first and most obvious is not to give chase. These sort of traps only work if you know which way the merc is going to come. So if you're playing museum don't run around following the spy's trail exactly, do something unexpected, try going through the center of the cafe instead of around it and so on.

You can also turn your gasmask on as you're approaching a corner, since you can only get surprise stickied as you round a corner or enter a choke point. You can charge through doorways to make it more difficult to sticky you there. Also the good old dead stop short of a doorway or corner also works.

I don't think ambush cams are all that unbalanced, you just have to do anything except run straight into the ambush. Once you know a particular spy or team is capable of this, you've got to be wary of it.

Really I don't think smoke grenades are too weak, and while quick cams may be a bit too powerful, I think that's another lag issue and is easily solved by a client side gas mask.

What I dont like about gasmask is that your gas mask time is deducted as soon as you right click, but you're only actually protected after the lag. So in a laggy game, you use up your mask faster for less protection. If the gas mask was client side you'd be much better able to handle ambush cams and quick cams, because you can switch it on and off more rapidly.

invisible, sometimes you have to follow a spy and you have only one obvious way, for example from exhibition to monolith through storage. if quick cams are made harder and the eax stuff gets fixed, ambush cams will get pretty overused. it's sad that knocking out the merc is more effective than everything else, and on most maps (factory is an exception) you have to knock out one merc for the last objective. the bs is, if the spies spam cams and smoke during the whole game, camming the merc gets easier towards the end as he is running out of mask. all im asking for is ~1.3*mask capacity and a larger radius/duration for the smoke nades. the combination of sticky cams and smoke is just too good compared to other combinations (there are 70 different gadget combinations). probably people will stop taking always cams (+smoke for serious games) when the flash nade works reliably (+no more mt whoring) and people are more likely to use mask. spamming smoke in order to empty the mask can still be an option if it's done really well.

Quote from: Gawain on June 21, 2007, 08:12:40 PM
invisible, sometimes you have to follow a spy and you have only one obvious way, for example from exhibition to monolith through storage. if quick cams are made harder and the eax stuff gets fixed, ambush cams will get pretty overused.

They still take a while to set up and require that the merc isn't there. If you've got a merc patrolling the corridor for instance on museum, then you should hear the cam get set up, EAX or no EAX.

I mean, all I know is that I don't really have much trouble with ambush cams, and I have never used EAX.

Quote
it's sad that knocking out the merc is more effective than everything else, and on most maps (factory is an exception) you have to knock out one merc for the last objective.

This is the very reason cams are so popular.

If we allowed people to win by full stealth, then we'd find fewer people would take cams.

As it is, you must disable a merc, and cams are about the only gadget out there that does that, aside from shock + triple nade. When you must disable a merc, it's unsurprising that people tend to favor gadgets that help them disable mercs.

this simply is a question of the amount of laptops. on factory there are 8 (!) ones, and it is still a balanced map allowing both aggro and stealth. by contrast, in club it is possible to camp one floor, as one needs 4 out of 6 objectives...

Quote
I'm more worried about quick-cams because they're a lag issue more than anything else.

I'm sorry, but you can't get rid of this anymore than you can stop someone from headshotting you with the rifle because he pings lower than you. Lag is a part of internet gaming, and with such a small community we have to put up with higher pings than with most other games.

One of the reasons that Lo and I made an effort to have the mercs host in the last tourney is that I can deal with someone who is hitting their shots consistently. I can't deal with getting cammed before I even hear the noise. In general, there are a lot more things that the spies can do in this game to exploit host advantage, but presumably those will be fixed. I don't think that quick-camming needs to be removed in general, though.

I'd love if they could add 50 ms lag compensation like Q3A has, though (or does it have 100 ms lag compensation?).

Quote from: Spekkio on June 21, 2007, 09:41:07 PM
I'd love if they could add 50 ms lag compensation like Q3A has, though (or does it have 100 ms lag compensation?).

Yeah, why not - i remember a mod in Q3 that allowed 150ms lag comp., while the default is 50

i would spend at least 5 bucks/month for a good ps online experience, so if each clan leases some dedicated servers for the regular players this should be np.

It's just prediction of movements. If that goes wrong, it'll look like lag too   ;D

@Gawain, and at most? :p That's more interesting for me.

i dunno how much money i'll earn in 2 years, but 10â,¬/month for the best game ever should be ok ;D
right now im low on money because im saving for an auzen prelude and some festival tickets :(
in most established bf2/2142 clans, members have to pay a fee for the clan server, and there are much more kiddies compared to the rich vets here :P

lol, if it could determine the gamer's style and stuff, to predict more accurately, it would OWN

Quote from: Spekkio on June 21, 2007, 09:41:07 PM

Quote
I'm more worried about quick-cams because they're a lag issue more than anything else.

I'm sorry, but you can't get rid of this anymore than you can stop someone from headshotting you with the rifle because he pings lower than you. Lag is a part of internet gaming, and with such a small community we have to put up with higher pings than with most other games.

Well, client side gas mask actually goes a long way to fixing this. That way at the very least you can always hit the gas mask key fast enough to activate it.

The downside is that people could create gas mask hacks to basically always have their gas mask on when they get hit by something, but it should definitely work to nullify most of the lag issues with quick cams.

punkbuster any1?

Yeah, it should be in place ;D

I think the gas mask is clientside already. The real problem is that lag makes you hear the cam a little too late for gas mask.

Quote from: Overstatement on June 22, 2007, 12:33:27 AM
I think the gas mask is clientside already. The real problem is that lag makes you hear the cam a little too late for gas mask.

nah, if it were clientside, you'd never get KOed after you had rightclicked to activate the mask. As it is now, there's a delay before you're protected. I'm suggesting that that delay be elimianted. Thus basically when you get gased, your client determines if you get KOed or not, instead of the server.

Quote from: Kok4f4n on June 21, 2007, 10:01:40 PM

Quote from: Spekkio on June 21, 2007, 09:41:07 PM
I'd love if they could add 50 ms lag compensation like Q3A has, though (or does it have 100 ms lag compensation?).

Yeah, why not - i remember a mod in Q3 that allowed 150ms lag comp., while the default is 50

Nah, 150 is too much. Imagine lag charges, but now with shots and everything else, too. Even 100 is stretching it.

The gasmask isn't client-side, but the small delay is necessary in some situations.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the 205 Motion sensor is still there.

Quote from: Spekkio on June 21, 2007, 09:41:07 PM

QuoteI'd love if they could add 50 ms lag compensation like Q3A has, though (or does it have 100 ms lag compensation?).

Uh I think it was programmable with the command "cl_timenudge" and the number of ms you would like to compensate for(with a minus infront - like this: /cl_timenudge -150).

Quote from: Gawain on June 21, 2007, 11:21:44 PM
punkbuster any1?

hell no... in bf2142 it fucking kicked me for nothing. i got to play 10 seconds then b00m kick. then it suddenly didnt kick me for a couple of days and now it kicks me after 7 minutes YEY!!

maybe it was just the game but i dont think we need punkbuster

So the variables need to pick random adresses in the memory to prevent cheating.

How does punkbuster work anyway?

I dunno, think it checks the game variables every <some time>, but im not sure, or maybe it checks for any programs changing the variables.... whatever

UT3 should have in-built anti-cheat..right?

Like the 'Pure' Games :D

spekkio, you should keep this list up-to-date. here's one thing you missed out:
-disabling the sound reticle while using laser (at all imo; but maybe no ping works out, too.)

Quote from: Gawain on October 20, 2007, 01:06:56 PM
spekkio, you should keep this list up-to-date. here's one thing you missed out:
-disabling the sound reticle while using laser (at all imo; but maybe no ping works out, too.)

huge offtopic

Not at all. Updated list.

-cut spy "camnet"

-poison mines might be too strong @ 10 sec kill.

-incendiary nades should knock out the spies for 5-10 secs. (only if exposed for 5 sec) as alternate suggestion to causing harm. (or else discuss option as a sleeping gas nade for merc.) Don't know what you guys think about this one.

-laser mines are going to scare the hell out of everyone if they just burst. 1 sec delay maybe?

-fix getting stuck behind walls: Ever been running up the staircase in Orph then warped back down because you apparently "didn't go through the doorway"? MMMMMMMM

Yea, spy camnet is too controversial so I should cut it

Poison mines are too weak @ 15 sec. Rarely do I die by a poison mine, and when I do it's usually due to merc intervention

Laser mines are relatively useless as-are, especially cuz you can run into them and then get behind a wall right away. The elimination of the delay is to prevent that.

The wall thing is included under "fix the netcode."

Project Stealth isn't about fixing bugs, it's about not creating them in the first place.

though we will have to deal with totally other bugs, i think it's good to have a scct bug list to be well aware that with only the bugs fixed the gameplay would change significantly. with a list like that, we get a spot of what ct would play the way it was meant to be, and sometimes i'm not sure if we really want that in all cases.

there are only three big things left to discuss here till the beta hits the shelves (at least i can't find any flaws in spekkio's logic):
-motion tracking vision (mr.mic's suggestion any1?)
-weapons/weapon balance/behaviour (vote4 pt rifle as it's the most simple solution and worked out perfectly in pt)
-flares/phosphorous/incendiary nades
EDIT: 4th change to discuss:
-should dive-crouch-dive as a very fast and silent stealth "running" be allowed?
EDIT:
-5 slots?