Skill Level, Game Too Difficult

by Kio Loi Net on 03/03/2006 22:01, 30 messages, last message: 03/27/2006 08:15, 9519 views, last view: 05/18/2024 23:35

I recently discovered Cube and tried to play some single player maps. Unfortunately, even if I select skill level 1, the maps I tested are too difficult. (I even testes skill level 10, because I thought perhaps 1 is the hardest ...)

The enemies are too fast and strong, there is not enough ammunition for me.

I am not a regular gamer. I played the first dozen levels of Doom and Doom 2 on easiest setting when they were new without problems.

I recommend you make the game easier for casual players on skill level 1.

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#1: nuh uh

by Passa on 03/03/2006 23:40

the difficulty is decided by the mapper primarily as they choose how much ammo to put and how many monsters. skill level in sp maps does almost nothing. (i think it just decreases/increases the monsters shooting delay)

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#2: easier sp maps

by MitaMAN in the cave on 03/04/2006 00:46

hello there!

yea, some singleplayer maps are much harder then others even on the same skill level. it all depends upon how the mapper made the map (how much health/ammo compared to number of monsters).

try mpsp1, mpsp2, or mpsp3. i think they are some of the easier sp maps in cube. i designed them with the "newb player" in mind.

you can find them on the single player "more maps" listing screen.

let us know how you made out. good luck.

MitaMAN

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#3: Re: easier sp maps

by spentron on 03/04/2006 06:53, refers to #2

Yes and also pigcam episode is fairly easy (especially the first few maps but I think the order gets mixed up a couple maps in). Of my maps, Cube101 shows you some things but you may have to come back a lot later to finish it. Read the .txt on Camera for easy mode.

You mentioned ammo, the fist is one of the fastest and most powerful weapons but tricky to use. Realize the shotgun is the most powerful per shot at closer range and is a staple. Chaingun is all about saving your ass and rifle, in SP, is good at distance and weaker monsters at any range. But also ammo can max out so spread around the usage especially in maps you can't go back. Other tips regard monster behavior and strafing. And savegame. Set up the controls comfortable until your fingers naturally fall into place every time you sit down at your computer ;) . Weapon commands can be made to select weapons according to situation: best gun, least gun, best nonexplosive, shotty/fist.

Incidently the game is substantially easier now than when some of these levels were made, especially when the rhinos get thick.

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#4: endless hallways

by stinky taco on 03/11/2006 04:35

Another thing that kills gameplay is the AI and how lots of non-cube development team people make maps.

there is only so much you can do with this type of AI. (Xantrix, and ID pretty much did it all with quake 2 and the expansion packs I think, Sin had some neat implementations... but it all is pretty much the same gameplay if you ask me)

Lots of things I see are Quake1 like hallway maps with absolutly NO cover what-so-ever for the player except the corner she/he went around to set off the monsters attack sequence. (although the hallways are Exquisitly decorated and lit, just nothing for the game player to hide behind.[lack of game play])
They way they make it "HARD" is to just place a bunch of monster in there. no stratagy , no planning, just a lack of ammo, and 100 monsters occupying a hallway you must pass through.

so here is the game play, duck quickly back behind the obtrusion that kept the AI from seeing you, and pop back and fourth in to attack without getting hit. If the monster advances on you, just back track to the area that you already conquered , find another corner in the hallway and re-pete.

If you don't understand that simple little trick of defeating the AI in quake, cube,and sauerbraten, "it" will always overcome you.

This is one of the reasons John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970, god bless his parents for their actions 9 months before!!), implemented the grenade launcher in quake 1, to help overcome this monotony that he recognised in the DOOM, DOOM 2 game development. (which lead other game developers to find other ways to smash enemies, like the Razor-jack in unreal!) . none of which I see in recent games really, i think this is going to lead to a downfall in the sales of comercial titles from vetrain 3d shooter gamers .

well, anyways, to make a long story short.

This AI needs special mapping techniques to make it either hard or easy.(interesting/monotinous)

It is all possible, it has been done thousands of times before! the reason why is because the Quake 2 source code is available , and rather than game programmers (in non sauerbraten and Cube projects ) implementing their own AI work they decide to take the "FREE LUNCH" that John D. Carmack II has provided for them with his open source, and implement it into their own work.

(they add their own little bits of code, Rename it and call it their own. and even in some cases threatening others with psudo-legal actions that try to add to it ,modify it, and/or distribute the GPL material )

Sauerbraten is a very young game engine. It is very impressive in even at it's early stages.
I have a feeling we will see some diffrent AI in the future.
Aardappel gives lectures at the Guild hall about video game development. I have a feeling it is a "Lack of time" issue rather than a "lack of knowlage" or a "lack of talent" issue.
(Ben Marty is also one of my friends at guild hall.)

This is all speculation though.
I am very excited to see what Sauerbraten will become. I want to donate as much time as possible to this project as I possibly can!

well, sorry for the novel...

have a nice day fellow sauerbraten fan!

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#5: Re: endless hallways

by Aardappel_ on 03/11/2006 09:17, refers to #4

yup. sauerbraten is just one of my many projects next to a full time job and a social life. I don't think there's any feature of a modern game engine that I don't know how to implement, but that doesn't mean that I will. Time is limited, and I'd rather make something that works instead of aiming for something amazing that takes 5 years. Unlike commercial game development I also don't have a team of paid artists. So sauerbraten is meant to be simple, and aimed at easy to create content.

Gameplay similarly so. When it comes to AI, I believe the most interesting AI behaviour is made up of groups of NPCs, where single NPCs can be very simple. I do not see a need for more complex AI at this point, though making AI that would cleverly hunt you down is rather simple.

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#6: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by stinky taco on 03/11/2006 10:55

Yea,

I agree .

I much rather the gameplay in a Serious sam game rather than a FEAR type of game.

simple reason... more shooting!

Even with the advance AI I have seen in FEAR , it is all pretty much "run and gun type of gameplay"

sure soemtimes you miss one of the FEAR bots , and he sneaks around you...

lots of that advanced AI they are talking about is scripted anyways... not like they can just drop a "pawn" in the map and have them all think for themselves.

Most of the intense scenes in FEAR are not anything to do with the AI... they are carefuly scripted events that took quite a bit of time to tweak and perfect.

guess all I am trying to say is, the AI is OK by me if it is not tweaked in the future.

Cube is a classic game already, I am sure sauerbraten will be too!

both games represent something that no one has ever seen before in video game content editing.

@Aardappel ,
one of the greatest things I respect about you is the TODO list included with each sauerbreaten release..

You have the most expectations.

I hope someday you get the art team you desire, I bet you will lead them to glory

you are a true visionary... rathern than follow, you are leading!!

there is nothing like sauerbraten or cube anywhere I know of...
and you share it with us for free.
Thank you :)

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#7: way points

by MitaMAN in the cave on 03/12/2006 15:35

adding way points to Sauer SP could make the AI seem less stupid. perhaps add them as "newent waypoint", and make it so a monster goes to the nearest visable way point when the player is not in view. it would stop monsters from walking into walls at corners or walking off "bridges" into the abyss below.

mitaman

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#8: pathnodes

by stinky taco on 03/13/2006 02:44

Yea path-nodes are cool!

I have seen one bot system that was called foxbot I think.

Rather than pathnodes it followed the lights in the map. It gave the lights a radius, and only followed the closest one to the bot.

the cool thing about that was that the mappers did not have to do anything to make the bots work. all the old maps made before foxbot worked too...

it was for halflife and half life mods... I might have the name wrong... it was a long time ago that I saw this.

I bet Aardappel even has a better way of doing it. He is a smart guy :)

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#9: Re: pathnodes

by Passa on 03/13/2006 05:36, refers to #8

Foxbot was a botmod for several valve games.. half-life, team fortress classic, counter-strike and some other mod..

just thought you might want to know.

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#10: Re: pathnodes

by tentus on 03/13/2006 06:06, refers to #8

hm. that's an interesting idea. I personally would like a simple entity which would attract/repel monsters within a certain radius (probably with a strength value too, with 7 being absolute and 0 being almost unnoticable). It'd just be a way for expirienced mappers to keep monsters from getting stuck in sophisticated geometry.

I personally very much liked Rick's waypoint system. It wasn't very pretty while editing, but it was moderately intuitive and fun to work with. Such a system good be a long term benefit for Sauer, particulary if the RPG gets ambitious.

Ooh, I wonder... if monsters could be assigned to teams, then the AI could get massively more interesting with minimal code and mapping addition. Moreover, if they could be assigned to the player's team, it'd be a great way to get the player a buddy to watch his back. But for that to work you'ld need a way to attach an "attract" value to the player, which would be rather excessive... darn.

But having monsters on different teams in an SP maps could be very fun, by getting them to chase after you and then letting them take each other out. A player who is not such a good marksman, but a good dodger would really enjoy that option.

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#11: Re: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by Aardappel_ on 03/13/2006 06:36, refers to #6

stinky, thanks for the kind words :)

mitaman... it is all by design. It takes 30 lines of code or so to implement an algorithm like A* and make each monster find its way perfectly.. but that is not what I want.

What I want is the maximum ratio between a monster SEEMING threatening, yet being really quite dumb and exploitable. The better that ratio, the more of them at once you can conquer, and the better you will feel afterwards.

as to falling of cliffs, this is again by design. The smaller monsters are the biggest retards, and will fall of, whereas the bigger ones will only do so when seriously hurt. Dropping off is a useful mechanic for placement.

If you don't want them to drop off a cliff, pick on of these:
- use only larger monsters in the cliff area
- build suitable fences
- don't have a cliff and a monster attack next to eachother.

tentus: monsters on the players side... I have always wanted to do that, but somehow forgot. I will put that on the todo for sauer, thanks.

I think they will come in the form of "monster ammo", that you can make spawn whereever you want.

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#12: Re: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by tentus on 03/13/2006 06:47, refers to #11

ooh, i like that idea. tell me if you want a cage model or something for that, i'd be glad to do it.

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#13: Re: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by Aardappel_ on 03/13/2006 06:49, refers to #12

how about an egg... with a nice crack in it, a monster ready to spawn :)

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#14: Re: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by tentus on 03/13/2006 06:54, refers to #13

not a problem, I've actually already made a decent egg, so all I'll have to do is reskin it. anything special you want on the egg (spots, little horns, a black outline to make it more visible, etc)?

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#15: Re: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by Aardappel_ on 03/13/2006 07:02, refers to #14

spots, making it look more like a "wild" egg would be good.. like http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/photos/cape_cod_II/images/piping%20plover%20egg%202.jpg but less contrasted. That, and then a good clear crack, is all that is needed... horns would go too far I think?

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#16: Re: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by Passa on 03/13/2006 08:47, refers to #15

could you make it also that you can place monsters that are not in eggs? or make it allies are only activated when you see them, like enemies. this means a mapper could make a massive battle scene so when you enter its like the war has already started... it would be very atmospheric..

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#17: in the crack...

by Sparr on 03/13/2006 09:03

how about two red/green eyes looking out from the darkness inside the crack?

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#18: Re: FEAR and my uncles "big whilly"

by Aardappel_ on 03/13/2006 10:16, refers to #16

I think being able to place where to spawn the monster is more fun, that way you can strategically set up your own battles.

sparr: good idea.

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#19: Ceiling cocoon.

by Pxtl on 03/14/2006 21:26

In Abuse (a game I keep coming back to for singleplayer gaming) I found the ceiling coccoon to be the ideal unspawned-monster symbol. You'd wander halfway into a room, hit a trigger and then the bugs would burst out of their coccoons and attack.

Sam's gameplay was fundamentally the same, but used teleporters instead - and somehow teleporters don't have the same effect as a nice coccoon.

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#20: N00b

by KaOz on 03/18/2006 11:56

u r a n00b

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