more testing feedback..hydra and /kill

[DCB:ETOX]

some things that need to be addressed

in a game today (1v1) i went hydra and for the first few grab kills the other guy didnt do anything... but after the third one and all the ones after they used /kill when ever i grabbed them.. thus making it so i could kill them, and they could get/keep any creds. the game got sorta boring till we changed the map, but ever time i went hydra in the later games the other player did the same thing... this has got to be a way to stop this. there isnt anything wrong with hydra and grab only really works when uve got one human to fight, if they have a team it wont do you any good.
thats about it for general game play...
i also found an exploit in one of the maps (transit).. at the humans beginning base there are those water tower type things, well i tried building an egg on the top of one, it fell though the brush and "into" the tower.. i died and came back on this egg and found that i could move around the inside of the tower, and with i little work clip out of it so i could move around the level but could not get back in, or see the egg, thus any1 who builds there makes a base that cannot be destroyed.

[Stannum]

Thanks for pointing out that bug in transit.

The hydra /kill thing is lame. Last game majorpain (iirc) was killing himself too.

Would be nice to disable /kill when a hydra has grabbed you.

[DCB:ETOX]

as to the hydra and /kill, i would hope that timbo could implement that code, but it may be to complicated and time consuming to try at the moment.
as to transit, i think a brush inside of the tower right underneath the top would stop this, i also have some screens of the behavior (tga, couldnt convert them for some reason) i would have made a demo but the server doesnt have it enabled (apparently, correct me if im wrong)
pm and ill email them

[Stannum]

I'll talk to twimbobu about the kill thing.

I've clipped to tower things for the next update. That should fix it.

[Timbo]

Code: [Select]


    if( attacker == self || OnSameTeam( self, attacker ) )
    {
      AddScore( attacker, -1 );
           
      //punish team kills and suicides
      if( attacker->client->ps.stats[ STAT_PTEAM ] == PTE_ALIENS )
        attacker->client->ps.persistant[ PERS_CREDIT ]--;
      else if( attacker->client->ps.stats[ STAT_PTEAM ] == PTE_HUMANS )
        attacker->client->ps.persistant[ PERS_CREDIT ] -= ASPAWN_VALUE;

      if( attacker->client->ps.persistant[ PERS_CREDIT ] < 0 )
        attacker->client->ps.persistant[ PERS_CREDIT ] = 0;
    }


This has been in there for a while. I take it you think this is not harsh enough?

[Stannum]

Not when you grab a human and he kills himself. You don't the kill then

[Timbo]

No, but the human loses 150 credits.

[Norfenstein]

Unless he didn't have any to lose.

[DCB:ETOX]

if they dont have any creds to lose then they dont stand to lose anything by using /kill, and at the same time they cheat you out of a frag..i go hydra in the begging of games (usually) and since humans dont have alot of creds then (usually none to 200-300), they prolly will use /kill, if i risk attacking a group of humans i at least want to get the one frag i deserve, but with /kill i go in, nearly take out a human, not get the frag for it and then get killed by the other human players (thereby giving them creds).. the whole situation puts me and the other aliens at a loss... with the current code all we can do is hope that players are mature enough to play the game the "right" way (im gonna get flammed for this but w.e)..

solutions;
1)implement new code; pro: fixes problem, con: time consumming and stressfull(?) for timbo.
2)make /kill penalty cost more creds; pro: discourages players from using /kill, con: players with enough creds dont have to worry, if /kill is needed for some reason the penalty could cost humans valueablt creds in a time of need

any one else got any ideas?

[Timbo]

If the offending player has nothing to lose, he isn't likely to be affecting the game very much anyway.

[Norfenstein]

Hydras tend to be most useful in the beginnings of games when humans don't have a lot of credits anyway. Just because a human has 0 points (he could've just joined server!) doesn't mean an alien should be deprived of an earned frag. It's exceedingly lame. Not to mention having suicide be an accepted part of the gameplay is quite silly. It can also be used by builders to weasle out of their timers -- you can't say someone that spends their time building a base instead of earning credits has little effect on a game.

Unless for some reason the new HUD can't handle negative numbers, why not just comment this out:

Code: [Select]

     if( attacker->client->ps.persistant[ PERS_CREDIT ] < 0 )
        attacker->client->ps.persistant[ PERS_CREDIT ] = 0;
?

[Molog]

People could just reconnect if they got negative frags. People /killing themselves is lame and was shamefully already happening last playtest.
It isn't only a problem with the hydra. There are some lamers who will suicide in the beginning when they get low on health from your soldier.
 
My solution would be:
1. No suicides close to enemies.
2. No suicides when not at full health.

[Supa]

Molog;
Idea 1 seems best, as most people that suicide in combat do so when they're at risk of giving the other a frag.

[DCB:ETOX]

im with molog and supa unless theres a better alternative, just curious but what are your thoughts timbo?

[Whack]

Make the hydra grab only keep you from looking up, that way it would take some skill to kill a human, and make killing urself produce negative frags/numbers, and can only be done if you have at least 3/4 health. Id love to be a soldier trying to go builder, but since humans are right outside my base theres no way for me to build that crucial barricade acid tube...


So prox anti suicide is a bad idea, it was tried in gloom for about a week and immediatly took off becuase it presented the same problem for the exact same circumstances as this.


OR, make it so you can't suicide, and you can always carry the constuction kit as a human, or evolve into a builder from any other class as an alien...

Not like you can build fwd bases in this game anyway....


Aparently your pockets are empty, you have no common cents.

[Norfenstein]

Well it could be like in Gloom, automatic ban if you disconnect with a negative score, but unless anyone can think of a legitimate reason for including suicide at all I say disable it entirely. If people want to respawn as a base class they should be allowed to without penalty (since the only reason you'd want to would be to go builder to save your team, and you'd already be losing your current class/equipment) provided that you're not under any threat from the enemy. That could mean simply not being near any enemies or having to be next to one of your spawns or not moving or taking damage or attacking for certain length of time or whatever. And of course no respawning with a build timer.

[Timbo]

My solution would be to have a delay on the kill command - maybe 10 seconds or so. That way you can still use it for when it is legitimately useful (got yourself into a trench in a map for e.g), but the delay renders it useless from an abuse POV. I wouldn't want to disable it altogether.

So blah, I'll try and poke things this weekend... got a cold, been at work all week, bruises from biking last weekend... pleh.

[DCB:ETOX]

timbos idea sounds reasonable, prehaps it can be implemented for a triel period, and if it works then we can keep it

[Norfenstein]

Could you also make it so you can't kill yourself while having a build timer? Unless the /kill delay was 30 seconds, builders could still use it to save time and while it might only be a handful of seconds, if there's no reason not to then they'll still be tempted to get around the system.