New Sauerbraten release - features and changes suggestions

by Honzik1 on 02/12/2015 17:01, 20 messages, last message: 12/28/2015 21:39, 8842 views, last view: 04/23/2024 15:34

Hey there,
I have been playing Cube and Cube2 for almost 10 years. Collect Edition is actually the best edition ever released but I think it can be more perfect.
Here is a list of what I think it could be changed/added/removed in the next release:

1) Autospawn feature when 5s countdown

Problem:
Actually, players keeps pressing quickly spacebar when 5s countdown in CTF modes is going to expire, because you cannot never spawn just in 5 seconds so people try to spawn as soon as possible in important games.

Idea of solution:
I suggest to press spacebar just once during 5s countdown to activate autospawn. Countdown number will change color as status that autospawn is activated....also it could be deactivated back when you press the spacebar again. This tweak would make spawning much more comfortable!


2)Kick/ban name of who did it

Problem:
When I am kicked/banned on the server with a shared master privileges between many players, then I do not see who really kicked me.

Idea of solution:
Just can just print “You were kicked by ***** for X hours for reason ****”


3) Lack of many informations in scoreboard

Problem:
For the CTF modes you do not see yours and your enemy actual individual results like flag scores, frags, accurancy, etc. In spectator mode you cannot see player ping/pj which is many times used for knowing if player connection is finally stable and player can be unspecated.

Idea of solution:
Add into the options menu some checkboxes to choose what will be shown in scoreboard and what will be not. There could be also more informations displayed like flag returns, deaths, accurancy, teammate health status (which is useful for droping and picking flags, not need to spam teamchat about our health status). These additional informations in scoreboard are popular at many Sauer-mods, so why to not make them officially available?


4) Aligned commands in the master menu

Problem:
Actually when you are using mastermenu, it is quite uncomfortable to work with it. You can easy kick someone instead of make him a spectator.
http://i.imgur.com/mUV4Fdc.jpg

Idea of solution:
Align all commands to the right side, so same commands are under each other in 1 column


5) Server browser filter

Problem:
It is very uncomfortable to connect to the empty server called "XYZ" via server browser because you cannot order servers by name. So you have to search server one by one.

Idea of solution:
Just add some checkboxes filter to order servers by name instead of ping and number of players. I am often asked to connect to server called "XXXX" and it is horible to search it in server browser when you know just the name.


6) Map autoupdate feature

Problem:
When I connect to the server with unknown map I have no other solution than exit a game and search for a map on the internet. OR I will beg a players on the server to stop actual game and switch to the Edit mode and beg them to send me the map. Even if the will do this, I cannot get new textures and I have to use milion commands before we can finally play the new map. This situation will repeat with every newcomer who wants play this new map.

Idea of solution:
Make somehow, If I connect to a server with unknown map, it will autodownload everything and in few seconds I will be ready to play the map without any problem. This feature is used in many other games too, so why not in Sauerbraten? New maps should be added to the menu maplist by default too.


7) Setmaster 1 does not work in spectator mode

Problem:
When I am spectating game and then everybody leave and I would like to play duel there, is there any better way to take master than taking it with my Auth or reconnecting to the server?

Idea of solution:
Just allow taking master for spectators.


8) Demo forward and backward and export feature

Problem:
If I wanna share specific moment, I have to send whole demo a tell in which time they can find it. When I am playing demo, I cannot move backward, I cannot move forward faster than gamespeed 1000 goes.

Idea of solution:
Would be nice to make command to export demo like "/exportdemo 300 360 demosource demodestination" to export demo between 5th and 6th minute of the game. And it would be nice to move backwards with command something like /gamespeed -100


9) Rocket or grenade with quad:

Problem:
When I have quad and I shot projectile to the enemy, but I die before the enemy is hit by this rocket or grenade, the quad power disappear.

Idea of solution:
It would be more logical that everything which comes from me during the quad time, that is really boosted to 4x damage independent on if I am dead or still alive. It would be much more logical.


10) Putting some geek options directly to the Option menu

Problem:
Newcomers in the Sauerbraten has not any chance to be better than old players because they do not know many secret commands and enhancements like: disable explosions, disable playermodel animation, zooming on right click by default, changing color of playermodel skins or making playermodel colors different, texreduce command, etc

Idea of solution:
I would put these options to the Option menu. If you compare newcomer and player with all these enhacements, it is almost cheating in my opinion....


11) Death status is not spectator mode

Problem:
When you just died, you should be not able to look around since it give your advantage. Death should not act like a hybrid-spectator mode. It can actually give you an advantage in duels too, you can be just spawning a little slower to see where enemy actually is and then spawn.

Idea of solution:
Freelook in death state should be disabled same as in pausegame 1 state.



SOME GAMEPLAY RELATED IDEAS
In my opinion, new Sauerbraten release should bring mainly autodownload content (maps) feature and changes in gameplay of unpopular modes. There is some reason why they are unpopular. Here are some gameplay related proposions which are actually in my head. Nyamms is testing many of these ideas on his modded server and I hope he will publish them here after he finish his research.

a) Permanent health boost is disabalancing game, because if enemy take it, you will pay for that rest of the game. Your chances gets lower everytime when enemy take it again and again. If enemy take HB 5x in row, the rest of the game is just about massacre which is not funny. I would change HB to unpermanent health bonus which add 50 or 100HP. Because now, player should not be in disadvantage just because enemy took HB many minutes ago. You should have same chances to take map control back even if FFA game is 300 minutes long. Now if there would be 300 minutes ffa game, then game would break into the disbalanced masacre play after about 5-20 minutes, it depends on how big skill differeces are between these two players......no permanent powerups please. Nyamms will test it in real duels soon too.

b) Capture needs more than 5 seconds spawn limit. 5s is too less. In 5 seconds you can mayby just untake the base to neutral state, but freshly spawned enemy will kill you until you can even fully take this base.

c) Capturing bases should be more logical. When I am taking base and I leave it before it is fully taken, progress status is slowly decreasing, it is okay. But when enemy come to my almost taken base, why base status gets instantly reseted to the neutral state?....it should be just decreasing a little faster towards the neutral status...

d) Capturing bases should respect the math law which means, 5 players are capturing 5x faster than just 1 player. 4 players against 2 players = base is taken as fast as 2 players vs 0 players. If there is 1 enemy and 1 teammate at the same base then capturing status should be frozen in current state. Btw, who dont know Capture mode well, actually, you cannot stop enemy taking the base if he was there faster than you, which is senseless. Using math law should be more fair for Capturing bases. Nyamms will test this too.

e) I suggest make a smaller progress steps in capturing status, it will be more fair for capturing teams.

e) Regen Capture - when I have 100 health and 25 blue armor after spawn and I have just taken the base, then I get greenarmor 10, so I have 100 health and 10 armor which is worse than before I had 100 health and 25 blue armor.

f) FFA (25), CTF (50), Capture (25), Regen (25) mode should use same blue armor by default. The gamemode rules should be same across all similar modes. I suggest to put 50 blue armor everywhere. Anyway, I would test it with Nyams, and we will see.

g) By taking yellow or green armor I suggest to add the armor +50 or +100. This would be more fair and balanced than instantly getting(not adding) huge 200 armor like now. A lot of time enemy take HB or YA just because you just killed him and he just spawned directly before this HB or YA. These power ups should be really lowered in my opinion. Nyamms will test it also.

h) Everybody know how real shotgun works. In Sauer it is blind weapon which causes 180-200 damage in direct contact and 10-40 damage in middle range contact. BUT there is almost nothing between! Shotgun in Sauerbraten should respect physical laws. There should be higher probability that shotgun will cause bigger damage in area around the crosshair and lower damage far away from the crosshair. This should reward the people with better aim. The shotgun bullets should also make a circle shape spray effect. Actually it makes some horizontal hybrid shape and it is more wider shaped than higher which is very strange to me.
http://i.imgur.com/RkKUCib.jpg

i) Hold mode - flag should be instantly reseted when flag drops down to unreachable positions of the maps like on the Reissen, etc. Now if flag is dropped to this play then players are just waiting 10s a do nothing because there is no flag. Also game should end in 10 minutes or a little over 10 minutes in this mode if someone still holds the flag. Now if you drop flag 19 seconds before game ends, then you wait 19 seconds for nothing. I suggest to end game after 10 minutes only when nobody holds the flag.

j) Hold mode - I suggested this some years ago, but multiple teams in Hold mode should be very good improvement. We agreed on this with Nyamms too. Also playing Hold mode without teams just like individual player, it could be also fun mode for 4-8 people on the server, depends on map size. We will test this with Nyamms too.

k) Tactic modes are actually only real dead modes in Sauerbraten. This mode could never ever work in past because weapons are just not same balanced...

I think all these gameplay changes should be firstly tested in real games, real duels, real clanwars before the official release. We will try to do that with Nyamms since we like FFA, Capture and other actually unpopular modes.


CONCLUSION:
I think the main problem of the Sauerbraten is that there are always same maps played again and again like Forge, Reissen, Dust2 or Redemption. I think autodownload map feature could solve this problem with lack of good quality maps. Map editors would have better motivation because their maps could be immediately available for everyone who is just able to run Sauerbraten game. Balancing and improving of some actually unpopular gamemodes will bring variety gamemodes over the servers.

Please if anyone like some of these little/bigger suggestions, please +1 to one you like and lets hope Eihrul will see it :-)

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#1: nice

by Obi on 02/12/2015 19:05

+1

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#2: ..

by Frostyy on 02/12/2015 19:20

For the most part some nice ideas, though can already be found in modified clients :-).

Anyways I think that removing a large number of maps from the game would actually be more beneficial that a map-download system. There are about 200 maps and I'd say about 100 are never used and just bloat the file size.

Since mappers see that there are 200 maps in the game and about 100 that arent played, why would they be motivated to make more? There are plenty already and most will not be played.

So by removing a bunch of unplayed or older maps not only will the filesize be smaller, but more people might realize that new maps are needed. As I understand it, the dev (eihrul?) is waiting for more new maps to put into the game, this could really help a lot, not to mention there are some already that have been overlooked.

Also because there are tons of maps, some good maps are overlooked because the number of maps in the list is overwhelming so people defer back to their favorites. As I said before if people actually played more maps then the map creators might be more motivated to make something for a release...

Less is more :P

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#3: ..

by Papriko on 02/12/2015 19:40

There is a topic like that right here
http://cubeengine.com/forum.php?action=display_thread&thread_id=2509
Not sure if anyone important (i.e. those who can actually decide to add or not add such features) care about them. Some wishes are just fine, but others are just too hard to make for too little pay-off.

1. Many modded clients have that, by I heard that for whatever reasons many server providers don't like it.

2. I personally would like that too sometimes, but I can understand the argumentation why it isn't shown yet (though it easily could be done if servers and clients get changed simultaneously).
There is enough fucktard kids who can't deal with a kickban even when it was legitimate. If they had the name of their kicker now, they could go on a verge and impersonate them n shit.
Additionally you should not give master to too many people at once, especially not to people you don't trust.

3. That accuracy thing actually could be interesting. And again, client mods offer this already, as using the extinfo the server/client protocol already offers the base for this.
Btw, are you one of those morons who spec/kick people for a mediocre ping? Pffft.

4. True dat. I think it can be fixed with just a very few extra lines in the menus.cfg. Don't ask me which, though.
When you are already at it, a clearbans button would be just plain awesome. Pleeeaaase? So you do not need to explain how to /clearbans to noobmaster every time.

5. Sounds neat. A few client mods, such as FanEd already got it. Would be useful as hell.

6. With maps it actually *might* work, but then again, it would be too vulnerable due to map configs. Config files for maps are essentially just raw cubescripts.
Someone could make his own "custom map" with "config file" and make your client execute whatever the fuck he wants.
A verification system for legitimate maps or a filter system for map configs would lead way too far and be too clunky to be smoothly integrated.

7. When the last master drops his permissions, the server toggles back to open mode (with EXTREMELY FEW exceptions for semi-private servers). After that happens, the toggle spectator button in your main menu work again. Toggle spec, claim master, toggle back again.

8. I never use demos myself, so no opinion on that.

9. Quad campers are enough of a problem again and rockets are OP anyways, so a nice little quirk like that actually is rather welcome.

10. If that was done, you'd need like 3 option menus to fit everything.
Also, in fact it actually might SCARE new players, like "holy fuck, what does all this shit dooooo? o_o"

11. Nothing wrong with the death cam. I think that's actually partially the point of it. Imagine a duel with some cowardly camping idiot. Just take a second, see where he is and whoop his bottom. That is an advantage, yes, but it is not overly dominant or anything.
Also, everyone has the same "unfair advantage", and when everyone has it, it's essentially fair again.

a) Nah, HB work fine like that. The advantage is just marginal and only affects gameplay more when you swallow a whole pile of those things.
And the generous spawn delay should make it easier to pick it yourself every once in a while.
On the other hand, you could argue that way about almost any pickup or just deem ffa useless altogether. Even without HB orgy, the enemy has little chance when you manage to get enough ammo of enough weaps and maybe a decent armor.
In that case it is for the one who just died a question of grabbing at least 1 ammo pack and land 1-2 desperate hits before dying again and again and again and again and again. Freshly spawned you can be dominated just so fucking easily. And in between the kills, he grabs all the health items, as YOU can't take them, as you just toggle between full HP and death.
It is just the way ffa works, not the HB. IMO, the quad promotes this behavior much more.

b) Used to be at 10 seconds I believe and got reduced to 5, together with the playtime reduction from 15 to 10 mins.
Not really an opinion on that.

c) Had to try that ingame again.

d) That's true.

e) Probably works better in combination with d.

f) Is it really different? Never noticed that.

g) http://youtu.be/s2N8tDkel8A?t=10m49s
God, no! As I stated before, the defensive power ups are fine. The quad is way worse. With the YA or a buncha HB (as I said, 1 HB won't do much) you at least have a chance to RUN before being fucked all over again. That way you have a bit of a chance to get in kind of a fighting condition again and strike back properly.
With the quad on the other hand you just need a lucky ammo pack or something to get a pile of kills you don't even deserve.

h) Absolutely agree on the shotgun thing.

i) The overtime thingy might be doable, but I am not sure how to determine unreachable positions. Maybe you could recycle the checks to see if a player in that position would instantly die.

j) Multiple teams, yay! No teams had to be implemented as yet another rarely played mode, though.

k) Guess so.

Not that anyone will care about this topic, but those are my two pennies.

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#4: ..

by Dem1se on 02/12/2015 21:39

+1

I agree with a lot here, but I think an auto-download for maps is too large of a feature to be included in such a simple game as Sauer. Of course it would be great, but I do not see eihrul including such a thing. Or at least not the texture part of it, maybe a sendmap/getmap feature for gamemodes other than coop-edit.

I really like a lot of your gameplay points, it seems they are all pretty simple things that wouldn't make sense not to change. The one I always noticed, and what makes me hate the mode, is the stupid spawns in hold mode, the enemy always spawns right next to you.

I also thing a huge improvement would be what Frosty said, removing a good amount of the maps which nobody plays. I'm sure there is some statistic to find how many times a map is played a month, and if not it can just be common sense. Surely no one plays Island, at least intentionally.

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#5: Re: ..

by Papriko on 02/12/2015 22:05, refers to #4

I guess you could ping servers every 12 minutes, weed out those who run coop edit, then weed out those which are empty and those with non-default maps.

Then, at the remaining servers, you count the maps which are present and add a score of 1 to the according map.

You don't even need eihrul to mod the masterserver for that. Anyone could mod their own clients to do so, as you can see the played map in the server list without actually connecting and hence the client could evaluate it. The client already has a list of all maps handy as well.
Also, I think 12 minutes are good, because 10 is the normal map playtime. This way you prevent double-counting due to time extensions such as intermission, loading problems or lag from pinging the servers.

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#6: ..

by suicizer03 on 02/12/2015 22:30

I agre with points not mentioned and you've got my blessings.

6) That shouldn't be done unless it there's a protocol which downloads .zip-files and execute those; not just separate files. So kind of like ID Tech 3 and 4 handles it's .pk3 and .pk4-files but then for Cube Engine 2. But even then there are some bastards which are able to mess with your client version by changing certain options so it's a tough job to get that working actually.
It's pretty easy to make someone's Sauerbraten crash by messing with just a shader-setting that can be loaded from a map's cfg (I've personally been there for myself).

7) /spectator 0; setmaster 1; spectator 1

8 & 9) I agree with; you got my blessings.

10) That should NEVER EVER be done as it would turn Sauerbraten in some "promode" at default.
Things like modifying the playerskin for the sake to play better is cheating to me. /fullbrightmodel does the job perfectly.

11) I guess you've never noticed the mod of deathcam where you were following the person who killed you after death...
As Papriko mentioned; how it currently is, is intended that way.

a) Playing a 300 minute long game sounds lame in the first place so perhaps the time is the problem, not the HB.

d) Ever heard of the option to kill that opponent? It might just work.

k) You remember the round system of tactics? It made the mode unique and relaxed to play. I think that system should be brought back even refine it so the rounds have a time limit also while the match has a round limit.

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#7: Re: ..

by suicizer03 on 02/12/2015 22:39, refers to #4

A statistic which tell what maps are most played isn't fair as server admins choose the map rotation at default, then the players.
For the example of the map "Island", it wouldn't be such a bad map for capture.

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#8: Re: ..

by Frostyy on 02/13/2015 05:57, refers to #7

yeah but there are votes the players can use anyways, and it's obvious which maps are more popular cause people leave or fill up a server

also theres a competitive side to sauer which plays a small selection of maps so i doubt it would be too hard to determine a list

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#9: Re: ..

by Papriko on 02/13/2015 12:53, refers to #8

When we let the "competetive side" of sauer let pick their "small selection" we'll end up with just turbine and ot. Can't wait for it...

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#10: ..

by raz on 02/13/2015 22:43

4) something like this? https://picasaweb.google.com/100507423399450376473/AMP#5844461570951176530 :P

5) and like this? https://www.dropbox.com/s/f142dmeuuydtk1t/2015-02-13_23.18.13.png?dl=0 :)

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#11: Re: ..

by Frostyy on 02/14/2015 00:12, refers to #9

obviously those are the most popular yes, but you should actually play a few games before you judge what the competitive community actually is before making assumptions like that and making suggestions about ffa which you really dont understand

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#12: ..

by DMI-1407 on 07/23/2015 18:46

Sorry that i ask but what is with Singleplayer Coop?

Some Editor functions are not useable in Coop-Edit...

also i miss import and export functions (e.g. terrain -> obj)

There is a lot to do, why discussing over balancing problems, payload and such things like reducing the count of maps(in my opinion it's very stupid) if the game has such big disadvantages that has do be fixed?

Greets
DMI-1407

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#13: Re: ..

by suicizer03 on 07/23/2015 23:13

Like which functions are not useable in coop-edit?
Try /nompedit 0 (default 1) with your friends and send the map frequently during your editing session.

About the terrain export function, try the next link for a tutorial (although a bit obsolete, it still works as concept);
http://quadropolis.us/node/3006
The import-aspect works just like every model in any other format does (except certain features that isn't supported by .obj on Cube Engine 2).
The engine has it's very own portable format to im- and export geometry also, named simply "brush" (in .obr-format).

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#14: Re: ..

by hypernova^ on 07/24/2015 23:18, refers to #12

Singleplayer coop has been planned since Cube 1, I think the networking complications are holding it back. Singleplayer in Sauer seems to be dying unfortunately.

Tesseract allows more editing features online without /nompedit, I agree Sauer should also.

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#15: Re: ..

by ImQ009 on 07/25/2015 11:02, refers to #14

Singleplayer is not dying. It's been dead for many many years.

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#16: Re: ..

by Papriko on 07/25/2015 14:24, refers to #14

In fact one of the singleplayer campaigns got completely broken by now. Not sure if Army of One or Private Stan Sauer (too lazy to recheck now on the fly).
Anyways, when you finish the first map in it, it instantly skips to the second map (without intermission), then gives you the belated intermission (which somehow carried over from the first map) and then instantly throws you with a shitty score into map 3.

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#17: Re: ..

by suicizer03 on 07/26/2015 16:42, refers to #15

It's not that there haven't been made enough good singleplayer maps last years...

http://quadropolis.us/events/score_list

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#18: Re: ..

by eihrul on 07/31/2015 22:53, refers to #16

That was fixed in SVN.

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#19: ..

by chasester on 12/28/2015 21:21

Most of this could be changed/has been changed by a client mod or 2 (or server mod). It would be nice if some of these features where at least options so that players could at least change them in cube scipt.

@6
This needs to be changed, cube one had this feature, and this is already implimented but its turned off.

void getmap()
{
if(!m_edit) { conoutf(CON_ERROR, ""getmap" only works in edit mode"); return; }
conoutf("getting map...");
addmsg(N_GETMAP, "r");
}
COMMAND(getmap, "");

All needs to happen is get rid of the if. The server doesnt even check the mode -.- why this feature was turned off is beyond me. (Nice if this was automatic tho).

@8
Backwards is impossiple. The demo code is a forward only system. All it does is record the N_ messages that the clients have sent and stores them. So to move backwards you would have to start from the begining and move along the line till you get to the frame before the one you are at. (EVEN VALVES SYSTEM WORKS LIKE THIS). Now you could add "break points" every so many seconds the demo records all the data on the map (basically store all of the gameents data (o, rot, lastpain, last shot, etc), and all the project tiles and particles. Then move forward from there. But as of right now demos cant work backwards, thats just really impossible.

@gamespeed
void changegamespeed(int val, clientinfo *ci = NULL)
{
val = clamp(val, 10, 1000);
if(gamespeed==val) return;
gamespeed = val;
sendf(-1, 1, "riii", N_GAMESPEED, gamespeed, ci ? ci->clientnum : -1);
}
jups change the clamp(val, 10, 1000000) or what ever number you like :)

chasester

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#20: ..

by chasester on 12/28/2015 21:39

H) the shot gun is completely random based on a spread algorethem, It would be nice to see a patern with randomness, rather then pure random. ALso would be nice to see some damage drop off on some of sauer weapons. Damage based on distance of players from eachother, many games do this, to keep players close. Or the inverse to keep players from eachother.

For example:
Shotgun.
damage boost of 50-75 damage at close range
penalty (25-50 from farther distance)

Chaingun.
damage boost of 25-50 damage at close range
penalty of 10-15 damage

Rifle.
damage boost of 25-50 damage at far range
50-25 damage penalty at close range

Pistol
damage boost of 10-20 from close range
damage penalty of 10-20 from far range

Grenades.
damage boost of 20-30 on direct hit, no bonce.
Grenades dont explode on player contact unless they have not bounced.
damage penalty if attackin player is damaged of 10-20

Rocket launcher
damage boost of 20-30 on direct hit
damage penalty of 20-30 to all splash damage
damage penalty is attacker is hit of 40-50

Fist
damage boost randomly (0.02) does 25-50 more damage. (Making this a competitive weapon).


@9
In addition it would be nice to have a slight change of effects on weapons shot with a quad charge. Say some sparks or a cool effect. Like tf2 crits :)

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