Set hints/labels on the map

[Lachu]

I will suggest of possibility to add hints on the map. Only the same team can see it. Hint will be symbol, which date of creation and author. Which kind of symbols we can use: Dangerous, Enemy, Enemy Eggs, Enemy Base, Remove this building, We need medical here, take left side, take right side, look at the top, look at left, etc.

It was create if we can split players into a team.

[Plague Bringer]

Basically, for those of you who have played Nexuiz and have used waypoints, stuff like that.

[Lachu]

I think rather about somethink in some strategy games, like Wesnoth.  We can type label on the map.

[Knowitall66]

You could just use team chat...

[Baconizer]

I think flags would be a good idea.

[gimhael]

You can use your pulse rifle to draw a Graffiti on the wall. 

[Plague Bringer]

You can use your pulse rifle to draw a Graffiti on the wall. 

That reminds me: Human sprays. Perhaps it can be a tertiary weapon with multiple firing modes, each one would spray something different. Left, right, up, down, vent, alien base that way, move here, run, hide, watch out..

[Lachu]

You can use your pulse rifle to draw a Graffiti on the wall. 

That reminds me: Human sprays. Perhaps it can be a tertiary weapon with multiple firing modes, each one would spray something different. Left, right, up, down, vent, alien base that way, move here, run, hide, watch out..

This is what I try to tell you(sorry for my poor English).
Look at the first post!

Other think can be: alpha team vent left, beta team vent right. We can also split maps onto a sections. If player remember where is some section, we can just tell him: guard on section  too or reinforcement on section/point 8.

Some think can be also funny, like there I was - "Player" .

When some player goes slowly, we can leave him tip, like left side is clear, right not.

I hope that aliens have the same possibility.

[rotacak]

Sprays looks fun There will be attackers, builders, campers and new - sprayers

[gimhael]

And wipers, who wipe out the marks of the other team...
Or maybe placing some fake marks to confuse their opponents. 

[Urcscumug]

Actually, I think all these (hints, sprays, voip) are manifestations of a deeper issue: the need for better communication/intelligence.

Currently the main type of communication is team chat, upon which individual players build by using binds or HUD aids to say stuff and issue taunts, and volunteering crucial information (base under attack etc.) This is arguably not very effective.

VoIP may supplement written chat to some extent. I say supplement rather than replace, because there's no voip substitute for split-second announcements via binds.

As things stand now, team coordination is purely a matter of luck and individual skill. People run around frantically with only minimal intelligence and some of them are in the right place at the right time with the right skills in order to make something happen. And sometimes they're not.

Pro clans, as I understand it, train a lot together and have standard formations and tactics which can be ordered at a moment's notice. That's better than just running around aimlessly, of course, but still not quite there.

And it's as far as things can go as long as Trem doesn't feature full game intelligence. By "full" I mean something like a 3d map representation of all the players, which a designated commander could see and guide his team accordingly. Trem features only limited radar, which is only available to individual players, which may choose to announce what they know or not.

If you want to get into this, for the sake of argument, I could propose the advancement of a new type of structure: the sensor. Zero (or very low) BP, no need for power/creep, and large area coverage.

And then there would be the question of how the sensor intel would be presented to the team. Would they all get a rendition of a mini-map on the screen? Or would the intel only be available to one player, the designated commander, who in turn would guide the team?

[Urcscumug]

Sprays looks fun There will be attackers, builders, campers and new - sprayers

You joke, but you've given me an idea: introducing the spray can as a weapon. Meaning you go out with only blaster and spray can, to your own peril. To what end? Marking hints for your team, and for psychological warfare: putting the human mark in the middle of the alien base.

[Lachu]

I think about a radar and a intelligence.

What it should works? Commanders should assemble in brainstorm near special computer/radio system. The intelligence conception isn't quite good in my mind.

[Lachu]

Sprays looks fun There will be attackers, builders, campers and new - sprayers

You joke, but you've given me an idea: introducing the spray can as a weapon. Meaning you go out with only blaster and spray can, to your own peril. To what end? Marking hints for your team, and for psychological warfare: putting the human mark in the middle of the alien base.

About a spray as a weapon I have other idea. This is special grenade/bomb, which contains some dangerous gas. Humans will put it on the floor and draw symbol "dangerous" across it. It activates since some amount of time. It can kill humans and aliens. There was one problem. Alien was learned how read this symbol and will ran very far. It is what i called psychological warfare. ;-)

[Plague Bringer]

Tremulous is far too fast paced. Systems like these work in Natural selection because, for a large part of the time, wandering the halls towards the hive, you and your squad are alone. You have the ability to use cover well, and, if needed, one member could check a 3d map to see where he's going and where other squads are, coordinate with them, and be done in time to pick his rifle back up and help his team cover their little hole in the wall. Tremulous, however, is far too fast paced for such a system. A minimap could be useful, but anything more in-depth would be a waste of time. If a human squad goes out, half of them will be slain by the alien onslaught if they pause to check their orders.

Unfortunately, NS doesn't quite work on my computer all the time. Not to say I don't love Tremulous, but sometimes, a slower, more strategical pace is what I'm looking for, the likes of which will never be offered in Tremulous.

[UniqPhoeniX]

Never? What about domination mod on a large map?

[Plague Bringer]

That mimics Natural Selection's resource node system, and, while it does offer a slower pace, you'll never be left alone for long. Tremulous is a slow deathmatch, while Natural Selection is more of a fast game of chess. And, being the RTS guy that I am, I prefer the latter. Also, does anyone really expect Domination to be played? It certainly isn't now, and I'm afraid the Tremulous playerbase is far too small to support a few Domination servers.

[David]

Domination was the only mod I liked.

[Winnie the Pooh]

One thing I can think of offhand are symbols above the players head showing status to teammates:

[Low on health]
         
[Reloading]
       
[Dead]
   

Or we could float custom text over the player, which would have to changed by binds.

Think of it this way:

You have just spawned. Your team is s3. You see on the above team chat that someone is "Low on health. Returning to base." The downside of this is that you don't know where the person is (in case you need to move out of their way on your trip to the alien base).

If you use the system at the top, there is no need to even say that, and only the people who are near enough to see him will notice.

[Kaleo]

I always thought the score screen should have location tags for teammates.

[Urcscumug]

Not a bad idea Kaleo, but ofc it requires maps to have clearly defined sections, and players to learn them.

@Winnie, the idea is excellent, but you don't need any special symbols. Visual aids are already mostly present. When a human is reloading his weapon hangs vertically. When he's dead it's quite hard to miss.

And if the devs add visual indication of health level (to both aliens and humans) you will be able to tell how hurt someone is just by looking at how battered their "skin" is. Think about splashing some red and yellow, respectively, over the normal skins.

This would be useful (or not, depending on your point of view) because it would instantly betray who's hurt and who's not. As is it now, you have to shoot somebody and listen to the sound they make in order to determine that. Personally, I'm thorn between the two (HP visual aid or not).

Then again, it's possible you meant that HP level should be visually available only to your own team, in which case a symbol would be more appropriate. Something like the structure health bar is probably the most straightforward symbol.

[Kaleo]

Not a bad idea Kaleo, but ofc it requires maps to have clearly defined sections, and players to learn them.

Most fan-made maps have location entities. None of the stock maps do however.

It's a bit disappointing really, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in 1.2.

[Plague Bringer]

A text above a player's head would be useful to the team, especially if there was an ability to heal humans out of base.

A dynamic skin would be useful to the enemy, for targeting the weak. Really, your team doesn't care about you, anyway.

[Urcscumug]

Well they should.

All this talk of symbols and marking humans has got me thinking of something that should be extremely easy to use and useful at the same time. Bear with me, I'm making this up as I go.

How to use it: something extremely simple. Two binds with generic meaning: one for "I wanna go out and hit the aliens" and one for "I need to fall back for ammo/hp". The current human taunt could even be the first. And the other could also get a sound to go with it ("Fall back!" or something).

How would the game make use of these signals? In the simplest form, some kind of visual feedback: symbol on top of the player, for example, which fades out after 10-20 seconds unless reaffirmed.

The end result? Visual feedback for the intentions of the humans in your group, and a feeling of cooperation and solidarity. All achieved with just two binds, of which just one needs to be new.

This could arguably be extended to other intentions, such as "I'm defending the base" or "I'm building", although hopping on a turret or grabbing a ckit pretty much achieve the same effect. And I'd like to keep it simple.

Opinions?

[Lachu]

Well they should.

All this talk of symbols and marking humans has got me thinking of something that should be extremely easy to use and useful at the same time. Bear with me, I'm making this up as I go.

How to use it: something extremely simple. Two binds with generic meaning: one for "I wanna go out and hit the aliens" and one for "I need to fall back for ammo/hp". The current human taunt could even be the first. And the other could also get a sound to go with it ("Fall back!" or something).

How would the game make use of these signals? In the simplest form, some kind of visual feedback: symbol on top of the player, for example, which fades out after 10-20 seconds unless reaffirmed.

The end result? Visual feedback for the intentions of the humans in your group, and a feeling of cooperation and solidarity. All achieved with just two binds, of which just one needs to be new.

This could arguably be extended to other intentions, such as "I'm defending the base" or "I'm building", although hopping on a turret or grabbing a ckit pretty much achieve the same effect. And I'd like to keep it simple.

Opinions?

The Taunts are great idea. We should connect it with map section. Some taunts are very pragmatic, like: "I'm in section 2", "Go to section 0", "Retreat!", "Retreat to base!", "Ready", "Look", "Watch on me", "Watch on group", "Run", "Watch yourselves", "Clear", "Enemy!", "Behind!", "Don't panic".

Some taunts will be send to entire team, but automatically location will be described. People on the same location will see text in special color.

[Urcscumug]

Announcing location as told by the map itself is a great idea. I would love a bind that would take the map section and broadcast it on team chat, exactly like that: "I'm in the window room." Quickly follow up with "I'm building." and you've said a lot.

But, like I mentioned above, I wouldn't attempt to completely replace team chat with taunts. That's because DTMF systems featured in HUD's like Volt's already do a wonderful job of it; exactly like you described, only with team chat, and with split-second access to them. Plus, they can be customized by editing the hud text files, as opposed to taunts which would be pretty much nailed down.

Secondly, I feel the taunt is just secondary to my idea. I proposed hooking into the existing human taunt just in order to reduce the amount of new binds. The main point is the visual feedback, which is in keeping with the topic, and I hoped would promote humans working in groups.

[Lachu]

Yes player can simple told(select taunt) "I'm in" and game would send to whole team "I'm in kitchen". This same think can occur, when we said "I built". Game will send : "I built machine gun turret [kitchen on north]".
Message always should be displayed on any team member's HUD, but it should contain location and it should be bolded on the same room.

Another possibility is to translate this message. I was wondering why tremulous isn't translated into my language?

[UniqPhoeniX]

It's called target_location, in maps that have locations set, it will be added to every team message: (Name) (location): message.

[mooseberry]

Texts are hard coded, it's not at all easy to translate into other languages.

[Winnie the Pooh]

Announcing location as told by the map itself is a great idea. I would love a bind that would take the map section and broadcast it on team chat, exactly like that: "I'm in the window room." Quickly follow up with "I'm building." and you've said a lot.

But, like I mentioned above, I wouldn't attempt to completely replace team chat with taunts. That's because DTMF systems featured in HUD's like Volt's already do a wonderful job of it; exactly like you described, only with team chat, and with split-second access to them. Plus, they can be customized by editing the hud text files, as opposed to taunts which would be pretty much nailed down.

Secondly, I feel the taunt is just secondary to my idea. I proposed hooking into the existing human taunt just in order to reduce the amount of new binds. The main point is the visual feedback, which is in keeping with the topic, and I hoped would promote humans working in groups.

Played Warsow?

Warsow has a feature (in CA I think) that lists your teammates health and where they are.

We could use that as concept start for what you seem to be describing.

Eg. (using the target_location)

[4/100]Winnie The Pooh{Hallway}(Firing)
[95/100]Urcusmurg{Base}(Reloading)
[47/100]Khalsa{Central Platform}(Taunting)
[0/100]Mooseberry(Respawning)

Something like that.