"Game Doesn't Feel Right"

(Hundopercent) #1

I have heard this phrase a lot, both on the forums and in-game. I personally am coming to agree with this quote and here is why.

Shooting:

Probably the most important part of a shooter because that’s why people play the genre. To shoot people. The more and more I play XT the more I feel the shooting is just…off. It is weird.

[ul]

Input Delay - Though minor, it is enough to cause this floaty crosshair feeling. It’s almost like I can never “lock on” someone even though I can do this much easier in other games. I don’t know if it’s input delay or something else but that’s the only thing I can think of that would cause this effect. (Slap yourself in the face for even thinking my V-Sync is on. :P)[/ul]

[ul]
Damage Delay - This occurs for me on both EU and NA servers. Even if I have 40 ping and my opponent has 20 it’s weird. I will die far behind walls, I will kill players far behind walls, I will hear 5 - 6 headshot beeps and then my opponent dies. It’s feels like everything is lagged. Not by a massive margin but definitely noticeable. Enough for it to completely turn me off and not want to play. Here are some examples of what I mean.[/ul]

Stood behind the pillar and was half way through my reload.

Behind Pillar.jpg1152×648 251 KB

I was crouched reloading. Not only did he shoot me but he managed to shoot me through the wall, literally.

Crouched Through Wall.jpg1152×648 277 KB

Killed someone, saw him strafe out, turned and ran for literally 1.5 - 2 seconds and then apparently died on top of the stairs instantly.

Stairs.jpg1152×648 259 KB

  • Strafing - I have noticed that when I strafe and fire, that is when the hit delay/registration is at it’s complete worst and thoroughly random. I have had different results in different scenarios. I’ve aimed in front, behind, and directly on players and all have registered hits even though I knew my aim was dragging or leading. I’ve been playing for near a year and I still can not grasp the shooting/strafing of this game to produce consistent results. When the term skill ceiling is used, I don’t believe this is what people had in mind. I generally master a game in a few months but the more I play XT the more I am left perplexed.

Something not related to shooting but affects it is visuals. I’m not sure if I’m the only person who has this problem but any player who is farther than 30 yards or so turns into a camouflaged stick figure. My crosshair is about the size of their head and I use medium. If I used large it would cover the whole head. I run 1080p on a 24" monitor. I could see people easier on my old 19in CRT back in 2001. Anyway, some more examples.

Can't See shit 2.jpg1152×648 312 KB

Yes, there is actually 2 people there.

Can't See shit.jpg1152×648 337 KB

I made this post because I would like specific questions answered, some related to this, some not. These questions are geared towards SD but everyone is welcome to provide feedback.

SD, please answer each individual question because generally when I ask these questions you will pick one of the easy ones and then leave the others unanswered.

Is removing damage delay a realistic goal that can be achieved? (Basically, will I stop dying behind walls, killing players behind walls, hear 5 - 6 headshots then a player dies, and strafing + shooting inconsistency removed.)

Will models stand out from the environment, in general appear larger at longer distances (I’ve done 100, 110, and 120 FoV?)

Off Topic:

Is the spawn system going to be altered to improve teamwork, reduce chaotic/meat grinder feel on objectives? Right now, most just hold W die, respawn 3 seconds later to do it again. No value to a players life at all.

If the spawn system is going to be modified. Why are we still making changes to maps? You can not correctly balance a map without a set in stone spawn system because changing the spawns changes the flow of the map.

If the spawn system is not going to be modified. What plans are you currently working on to remove the TDM, Meat Grinder, chaotic feel to the game right now?

RtCW was organized chaos. No strat ever turned out the same because of revives etc. It worked. XT feels like pure chaos. You get shot from 10 different directions, can almost never reload. To me this is not fun, it’s actually the exact opposite. It’s frustrating, infuriating, and I look forward to playing another game after Alt + F4’ing. I don’t believe that’s a feeling your players should be having.

(shaftz0r) #2

most of the links are broken btw

i agree 100%. i feel like almost every game is a different challenge of finding hitboxes. sometimes the head is exactly where it should be, and sometimes its nowhere to be found, even in the same scenarios it feels different almost every time. i continue enjoying playing the actual game, but i get pretty tired of readjusting constantly

(Raviolay) #3

[QUOTE=strychzilla;473885]
Input Delay - Though minor, it is enough to cause this floaty crosshair feeling. It’s almost like I can never “lock on” someone even though I can do this much easier in other games. I don’t know if it’s input delay or something else but that’s the only thing I can think of that would cause this effect. (Slap yourself in the face for even thinking my V-Sync is on. :P)[/QUOTE]

Gets worse with the variable frame rate.

Yep same for me.

(Protekt1) #4

I agree about the input delay. I agree about damage delay x1000.

The input delay makes me feel like I am playing on my 42inch HD tv and that gets much more input delay than my monitor.

As for position delay updates I am noticing the same thing sorta. At least definitely on EU servers where I only have 120-150 ping I know I am getting shotting around walls. And I know on US servers when I am fighting against 120-200 ping I can be shot around walls. Sometimes I don’t even know where I am supposed to be shooting tbh. Sometimes it seems the hitbox is dead on and sometimes it seems like the hitbox is slightly behind the character. Just put me down as confuzz’d.

My biggest issue with the game is the input delay though for certain. If you play a game like super meat boy the controls are silky smooth because it is just super fast response time. I hold that up as pretty much the highest standard.

(1-800-NOTHING) #5

don’t know what OP means by camoflaged stick figures (broken attachment links), but i agree with everything else.

things like getting shot out in the open* when i’ve been crouching behind cover for at least a full second is fairly rampant.

and input lag… sigh

*according to death ghost

(Hundopercent) #6

Fixed the pictures. Now you can see how hard it is, at least for me, to distinguish players and aim at them. I find them just way too small or maybe I’m too old. Either way, I’ve never had this issue in an FPS before. =/

(BomBaKlaK) #7

RtCW was organized chaos. No strat ever turned out the same because of revives etc. It worked. XT feels like pure chaos. You get shot from 10 different directions, can almost never reload. To me this is not fun, it’s actually the exact opposite. It’s frustrating, infuriating, and I look forward to playing another game after Alt + F4’ing. I don’t believe that’s a feeling your players should be having.

Just absolutely agree with your post and this is the same feeling I have since the beginning and none of the update you provide change this feeling.
For the moment I feel a just a minor feeling improvement with the movement a bit more nervous, but there is still a big problem about the spawn and maps design. And shooting feel definitly weird … still to much spread on the hip, RoF is still really high

Yesterday I test during few hours and the feeling was not so bad (new stuff to test) but after this few hours I don’t have any real motivation to play. Pure chaos like strich said, but not even fun …

Team identification is not so well implemented

(Dragonji) #8

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to strychzilla again.

(Anti) #9

RE: seeing distant enemies, it seems your config has some stuff turned off that is making it worse strych. Raviolay, if you have the same issue could you share an image as well please.

There are things we might need to look at doing to try and fix player visibility across multiple settings ranges.

(Hundopercent) #10

[QUOTE=Anti;473909]RE: seeing distant enemies, it seems your config has some stuff turned off that is making it worse strych. Raviolay, if you have the same issue could you share an image as well please.

There are things we might need to look at doing to try and fix player visibility across multiple settings ranges.[/QUOTE]

Everything is turned off and set to low from within the menu. Nothing is changed in my config file except smooth frame rates locking it at 121.

(Anti) #11

Sorry, should have been clear, I didn’t mean you’d necessarily configed it yourself, just something was off that shouldn’t be, be it set by you or the game options.

(Hundopercent) #12

Rgr that. I’ll set high and on and test again. Need some time before answering those other questions?

(shaftz0r) #13

SkeletalMeshLODBias -2 helped for character visibility for me. check my tweak thread for a few other things

http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/37379-massive-fps-boost

(attack) #14

[QUOTE=shaftz0r;473916]SkeletalMeshLODBias -2 helped for character visibility for me. check my tweak thread for a few other things

http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/37379-massive-fps-boost[/QUOTE]
well this llok too weird . this is like minecraft then :stuck_out_tongue:
and its close for me to be a hack. :confused:

(Kordin) #15

For me not disabling the post process in the ingame options makes it a bit better. You will lose some fps but the colors dont look that bleached out and makes spotting enemys a bit better for me.

(Anti) #16

Yes, it’s 10.30pm on a weekend :tongue:

You flagged up various things that need tweaking, we are still tweaking, not much else to say really.

(BMXer) #17

The player visibility issue is a problem for sure but it pales in comparison to the other issues stry brought up. The shooting/damage delay/hit reg/input delay thing is quite noticeable for me also. It’s gotten slightly better since I first started bitching about it a few months ago. But it still feels like garbage moving around, shooting and actually engaging an enemy in Xt.

Go play Quake Live with a proper config and a proper setup and then try Xt again. Don’t let yourself get used to the strange feel of Xt! Getting used to something doesn’t mean it its correct.

(Evil-Doer) #18

Great post Strych. A lot of valid and awesome points brought up here.

(Hundopercent) #19

[QUOTE=Anti;473924]Yes, it’s 10.30pm on a weekend :tongue:

You flagged up various things that need tweaking, we are still tweaking, not much else to say really.[/QUOTE]

Do you plan on keeping the same spawn system with tweaks or moving to a newer superior system?

Sweet dreams honey face.

(INF3RN0) #20

I still don’t feel input delay myself (as long as oneframeinterval is off), but the game does feel a bit different than other games I suppose. I don’t really think it interferes with aiming, but you can’t really rely on headline strafing like other games. It may be the difference between depending too much on muscle memory vs focusing more on visual crosshair position. I’ve been playing with the sniper lately and it makes me wonder if other weapons might just have some value of X-axis recoil?? because the mouse feels spot on when using the sniper. I still think it’s just the overall slight recoil that’s futzing with most people, and the fact that some characters appear to have different move speeds. A solid frame rate also makes a huge difference in my experiences with Xt. I’d like to be able to hide the weapon model/muzzle/etc and have a dot in scope though, and I think it would help a lot of people feel more in tune with their aim.

Damage delay isn’t actually “letting people shoot through walls”, but it can cause a lot of confusion. The less of a delay the better of course, but overall I feel like the registration is better than any other game I’ve played. Even with high ping getting lower priority damage you still hit what you aim at which is great. The worst I’ve seen is a player around 400 ping warping slightly, but I’d say overall 200 ping is probably the max limit for a consistently playable experience. I had the unfortunate chance to play on a heavy traffic network last week, and I must say that packet loss is not useful at all. It causes visual skipping, delayed actions, and all sorts of poo.

Visibility changes drastically when disabling post process for me. Also 90 FOV can do wonders for vision. I also made a preset on my monitor where I maxed out the brightness/contrast/sharpness and it helped a ton. Anyone with erratic frame rates will probably experience a lot of screen tearing too, but I’d suggest messing around with the smoothframerate on and off, as well as trying a square aspect ratio. Widescreen works well enough for me, but I remember some people feeling less tearing on square aspects.