First impressions

[Brinkman]

[QUOTE=Djiesse;458355]Please no. I don’t mind FF servers, but I can’t stand artificial punishments like shared or reflected damage. Nothing worse than having some idiot walk into your line of fire and you get killed for it while he probably didn’t even noticed what happened :mad:

A vote kick option is all you should need to keep TKers in check.[/QUOTE]
FF is needed for this type of game and although it’s horrible when someone walks into your line of fire, it’s just the way of the game. Not having Friendly Fire is a game breaker for objective based games.

[NeoRussia]

Overall Impression
I feel like DB needs more love towards the true FPS shooter experience. I really hate those who say “well those days are gone and we will just have to deal with this and that mechanic because of the CoD generation of gamers” BS. This is about players that respect shooters as they should be. TRUE gamers. So I’m talking from my standpoint as to what would make it a better title, ignoring popularity restrictions and the inexperienced younger generations. DB feels like a solid shooter with good mechanics, I was most surprised by how good it feels because it runs on Unreal Engine 3, and most of my concern goes to how the game will be handled after the beta phase.

The Good
Movement feels really solid. No mouse acceleration problems with the mouse or clipping issues other than those that are map-specific. This really surprised me as all other UE3 games are really clunky, have terrible mouse acceleration built in, and has trouble rendering high frame-rates, although the frame display does go past 90 which is what most UE3 games go to I’m not really sure if it renders past it on the screen, as its hard to tell because I cannot get a smooth 120 with my current hardware on the lowest on settings, which is a i7 3770k @ 4.2ghz and a GTX460. The guns feel okay to fire, they could be better but then the movement also could be also even though it feels proper. The classes are laid out well and the art design is gorgeous and perfectly simple. I cannot wait to see what other gear and customizations are added.

The Bad
I can never tell how effective some weapons are over others and this mostly has to do with me never being able to tell how much damage I do or take. I’m not sure if this is a engine related thing but I seem to always die fast and never realize what location I’m being shot from or how fast my health is dropping until I am dead.This also has to do with the UI but more on that later. I’ve tried nearly every weapon and the MGs rifles and SMGs all feel really similar when using them for the first time. Either this is a problem with the amount of weapons in the game making them have to be very similar to each other because they all fit the same role or they require a lot of play with to realize the differences, unlike in a game like counter strike where it is immediately apparent the difference between an AK and an M4 or even a UMP and a MP5. In CS all weapons feel unique the first time you use them with very few exceptions. class models are difficult to tell apart because they lack colour variation and unique profiles. I feel like this is really important since you need to realize which classes are the ones that are needed for the other team to complete the objective. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of acceleration in the movement mostly due to the reliance on the sprint mechanic which I’ve grown to dislike as it takes away skill from movement and any sort of trick jumping or style that a player can call his own. Call me out on it if you want but this goes back to my hurr durr CoD generation arguement, and in my opinion any FPS veteran should know the difference between this movement and the superiority of any of the types of quake engine movement. Its not in any way subtle.

The Ugly
The HUD. I really hate this HUD, in fact I don’t think much would change if I would be able to turn it off and play without it. I know the developers are working on it but since its one of the major parts of the first impression I thought that I should talk about it, and there’s nothing else to write about in this section (yay!). The little health bar thing is next to useless as all it does is serve as a nice aesthetic because it is small and requires a lot of attention to tell how much even approximate health you have. The minimap is just like there idk what goes on in it at all. I pretty much don’t even bother looking at it and remember how much grenades and health I have by memory. HUD Examples:
http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/4602/mflash2vv3.jpg - good
easy to make out everything, you are able to get a lot of feedback whenever something changes, knowing exactly how much damage is done every time something hits you, flashing so you know that the numbers diminish or gain.
http://i.imgur.com/mH9GfoQ.png - bad
How much damage have you taken? A decent amount. How does damage does x take off from your health bar. idk about a sliver or so. What is that ammo bar? who knows, but it kinda looks cool I guess?
The current HUD in DB is very minimalist but not in a good way, the best thing is probably the ammo indicator which is rather small but at least its a number and not some fancy graphic that isn’t very functional.

[GENETX]

I completely agree on the HUD. I don’t find it that bad, looks nice, but lacks the HP left displayed as a number. There is another way the HUF fails for me: Clearity about my deployables. For now it i’m deploying turrents most of the time, but this could also be true for mines, third-eye cams, health resuply box thingy etc. With the turret I know when I am not able to deploy one. But there is only an update given when it gets destroyed by a quick flash. It is not even clear, but the “1 | 1” makes me think I have one available again, so the deployed one is gone, THis is not clear and I might miss that status update. Right now I have to check manually by walking towards the turret to see if it is still there. So in my opnion, there should be a constant and clear indication of the current status of my turret(s).

I might make some kind of mockup idea for a better HUD this evening.

Another thing that botters me with the turret is the pickup procedure. With pickup, I would expect to pick it up and relocate it, perhaps when not deployed in the right direction. But no, I still have to wait the progress bar, or at least a part of it instead of moving it around. Right now there is no real advantage in picking up the turret compared to just deploying a new one. So my suggestion would be to pickup the turret so it can be re-deployed again without waiting time.

[Djiesse]

FF is needed for this type of game and although it’s horrible when someone walks into your line of fire, it’s just the way of the game. Not having Friendly Fire is a game breaker for objective based games.

I don’t disagree with FF, in a lot of games I prefer it that way for the added realism and/or to prevent silliness like the nade-covered rushes Protekt1 mentioned. But I want it to work in the “normal” way: I shoot a teammate, he/she gets hurt, not me. I always feel terrible when I kill or injure a teammate, even if it’s their fault. But reflected or shared damage just infuriates me.

[Nail]

FF on, no reverse damage crap, won’t play if it’s there

[1-800-NOTHING]

FF as reflected or shared damage when you hit a teammate??

such a gameplay mechanism actually exists?

:eek:

[Nail]

[QUOTE=1-800-NOTHING;458592]FF as reflected or shared damage when you hit a teammate??

such a gameplay mechanism actually exists?

:eek:[/QUOTE]

yes, in some of the stupid W:ET mods. ie: shrub crap and all the other bullscat mods after that, ETPro being the only mod worth playing

[chippy]

[QUOTE=1-800-NOTHING;458592]FF as reflected or shared damage when you hit a teammate??

such a gameplay mechanism actually exists?

:eek:[/QUOTE]

Was also in Call of Duty 1 & 2. Why any developer would even think about such a “feature” is beyond me.

[ailmanki]

Was also in Call of Duty 1 & 2. Why any developer would even think about such a “feature” is beyond me.

Simple, if you play a very lot on public servers, you find this scheme:
You have a rule - which says do not Teamkill. Later when somebody does tk, you can kick him… But what happens with the longtime players, with regulars; which do accidentally tk over and over again. As you say there is also the occasional noob moving in ones fireline and dying.
And then you get those specialists shooting few bullets in your back every now and then. And the trolls doing it intentionally.
Now the problem is, there is not always an admin around. So its very tempting to get an automatic system to punish them.
And voila you get that reflect system.
Which in the end becomes a nuisance itself. You get again the same trolls standing in other fire lines. Basically giving them a second option to troll.
The only thing which also only works to about 80%, is to calculate a percentage of how many bullets went into teammates, and if that exceeds some number -> autokick for to many bleeding. I think on the server I play its curently at 300%. And works fine for all the trolls. But also occasionally kicks a “normal” player which happens to be unlucky in the first 5 mins of playing with an airstrike.

[ailmanki]

yes, in some of the stupid W:ET mods. ie: shrub crap and all the other bullscat mods after that, ETPro being the only mod worth playing

dont pull shrub on that level …lol. shrub was so nice. And as far as I recall had certainly no ff reflect. But it had nadewar. Nadewar!
g_nadeWar (0) can be used to enable nade wars when set to 1. In this mode, players receive only a knife and 100 grenades. They can fly by double-tapping their jump key and holding it down to ascend and releasing it to descend. Players can double-tap jump while in mid-air or “land” on a surface to stop flying.
Lately it looks like some mods could get on the quality level of etpro - after 10 years

Was also in Call of Duty 1 & 2. Why any developer would even think about such a “feature” is beyond me.

Simple, if you play a very lot on public servers, you find this scheme:
You have a rule - which says do not Teamkill. Later when somebody does tk, you can kick him… But what happens with the longtime players, with regulars; which do accidentally tk over and over again. As you say there is also the occasional noob moving in ones fireline and dying.
And then you get those specialists shooting few bullets in your back every now and then. And the trolls doing it intentionally.
Now the problem is, there is not always an admin around. So its very tempting to get an automatic system to punish them.
And voila you get that reflect system.
Which in the end becomes a nuisance itself. You get again the same trolls standing in other fire lines. Basically giving them a second option to troll.
The only thing which also only works to about 80%, is to calculate a percentage of how many bullets went into teammates, and if that exceeds some number -> autokick for to many bleeding. I think on the server I play its curently at 300%. And works fine for all the trolls. But also occasionally kicks a “normal” player which happens to be unlucky in the first 5 mins of playing with an airstrike.

[Nail]

shrub introduced xp save, the thing that ruined W:ET

[Dragonji]

That’s weird, if XP save ruined W:ET, why is ETPro the fastest dying mod?

[stealth6]

The only thing which also only works to about 80%, is to calculate a percentage of how many bullets went into teammates, and if that exceeds some number -> autokick for to many bleeding. I think on the server I play its curently at 300%. And works fine for all the trolls. But also occasionally kicks a “normal” player which happens to be unlucky in the first 5 mins of playing with an airstrike.

I like this idea, make it a percentage of your overal damage or so. I had one really annoying / funny thing in BF3. I think there you get kicked if you kill 5 teammates. So I was flying the jet and was on top of the scoreboard. I see a tank harassing my team so I go for a bombing run with the rocket pods. Some of my rockets missed the tank hitting the building behind it taking out the last remaining walls that were holding it up. At this point my team apparently decides to just stay in the building despite the crunching noise it makes as it crumbles to the ground. Result: 5 teamkills in 1 go - kicked.

[Protekt1]

Chivalry has a kick function but what is unique is that it lists how much % damage that person did to teammates during the voting. I think they have something there worth considering and adapting to this game. The downfall to the system is that there is no way to tell until you actually start a votekick which leads to some people starting a votekick only to see their %damage to teammates.

[TracyJackson]

I like if they implement some sort of kick function. Too many games I see trolls or ragers just starting a vote kick only to kick a better for being “too good” or stealing their supposed kill. Of course, not having a kick function can get kinda annoying as you will have to endure all the naughty folks in the game…

Getting off topic here, but I see some of yall have that Founder badge near yer name…how’d you get it (I never seen mine, lol)

[Volcano]

the voting placeholder is there it just isn’t working yet

[GENETX]

I might make some kind of mockup idea for a better HUD this evening.

EDIT: Having trouble to upload em to the forums right now…

Well didn’t do it that evening, but I just did / Though there will be an update, I made some small changes to the current HUD. Let’s take a look at the current HUD and it’s drawbacks:

On my 13.3" laptopscreen with 1366x768 as a resolution there are some remarks:

1. The number displaying the number of bullets is quite large…
2. The health indicator is not that good visible all the time
3. I have absolutely no clue what the status is of my turret as T-Rat…

Especially point 2 and 3 are drawbacks in my opnion. But it can also be a drawback for ppl with third eye cams, mines, supply stations etc. Furthermore, quick access to health info is essential.

With the small redesign I didn’t want to mess up the style. Neither did I want to make it too huge. Therefore I will be exploiting the fact that the number is quite large to get some more space

So this is what it would look like:

First I rescaled the fonts to 66% of the original size. Allowing me to add the health displayed as a number on the left side without adding too much pixels. Furthermore I gave the health bar a black background to improve the contrast and thus visibility to get a fast indication.

Furthermore I would like to have the Turret indicator give more information. First of all it should be persistant! No popup when it’s gone, because you will miss it in a fight. Knowing the status of my deployables is essential. Iin ETQW this was directly visible. In ET I regularly checked the number of mines left. Especially in ET I did this to make sure that all mines are constantly in use for defence on Oasis for example. And so far 'Ive used the turret just as well as a defence system in DB. But here, I really need to walk back to the turret to make sure it is there. Afaik I can’t tell it from the current hud…

So make those bars persistant. In this case, just as it is now, 0|1 means 0 left deployable of total of 1. That’s fine. Although the other way around might be better, 1|1 being 1 of 1 turrets deployed. Furthermore it could give more updates such as a 1s red flash when it gets disabled (see pic below) or perhaps a blue flash when it is shooting, so you know that action is going on.

So some action:

Tho ETQW style (see http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/5872/472172-etqw104.jpg) deployable indicator might also be nice

[1-800-NOTHING]

very nice mockups there, GENETX

agree with the health bar, the persistent deployable/mine/sensor/cam bar or icon, and the 1/1 as “1 currently deployed”.

not sure about the turret hit/firing indication/flash. i think i would want flashing in that area of the hud to be reserved for player health feedback.

the health and ammo amount are a bit confusing to read; feels like i have to search for the right one. or my eyes keep going back and forth between the two.
personally i don’t need to know the health number, and the “reserve ammo” kind of vanishes in the mix.

[NeoRussia]

way too small. The font has to be twice as big as it is now not smaller, so that the numbers are functionally noticeable with a health indicator being the same size as the ammo counter. Will probably have to move the minimap to being beside the objective markers for the HUD to work properly.

basically something like this where the scaling makes sense, so the most important parts of the hud are the most visible

[GENETX]

That is way too big for me . Even in my mockup it is still twice as big as it was in W:ET, which worked fine for me. Perhaps the HUD should be made scaleable? Different resolutions and screensizes play a role as well. 1-1800-NOTHING has a point that it might be hard to see which value indicates what. I guess W:ET and ETQW did it right by having health left and ammo righ.