Pressing F doesn't "stick"


(SebaSOFT) #1

It’s been said by @Djean

  • When standing in front of “F-able objects” you really have to wait for “F” to show before pressing it. Otherwise you’ll have to release and press <F> again. Sometimes I need to move a little to make the “F” show up. This doesn’t feel very smooth.

I’d like to add that if you are thumbled or incapacitated, and you see the “F” circle and keep press F to inmediately start F-ing, it doesn’t happen and the Gun “equipping animation” starts, which takes some time.

I know it’s difficult to know when to not render the equip animation, but, can you do something about most other cases?

Regards

PD: Just a “noted” reply would suffice to know you may do something about it


(Torninator) #2

Yeah agreed, it seems like there’s a fair amount of lag between when my crosshairs are above something I can interact with, and actually being able to interact with it.

If I hold down F straight away, it doesn’t automatically work when it becomes interactable: I have to let go and then press F again. Wastes time, makes playing medic etc. very fiddly. :frowning:


(SebaSOFT) #3

It’s the same way with deployables, mines and returning items.


(kilL_888) #4

its basicly with everything that can be interacted with and its very annoying.

in generel “hold down” actions are more preferable for either mouse buttons or gamepads. holding a button (e, q, f or whatever) down limits your movement. basicly you have to stand still to use a function. all you can do is either move forward or strafe to only one direction, depending on what button your holding down.

im wondering why that design decision has been made. it would be 1000 times easier if, for instance, you press the button for your engineer turret. the turret shape appears and you place it at a deployable spot. you only press the interact button (e or f most of the time) and the turret builds itself in X seconds. WHY do i have to hold a button down to build that thing? it plays very bad. i feel like i brake my finger.

this can be applied to all usable apilities and buffs.

btw. the autofocus, autorunning is just as annoying.


(keefy) #5

This thread is obscene far too many F’s and Effing going on.:tongue:


(Kurnuttaja) #6

I think F should trigger by a single button push and not auto-follow, I hate the auto-following thing that leads me to a wrong teammate standing next to the guy with no ammo, who I was going to throw some ammo. This happens even if I have a guy already highlighted and then when pressing F my char wanders who knows where.


(Torninator) #7

Yeah I’ve had the autofollow throw me off ledges, past the person I was highlighting and then it tries to take me back up the stairs, just to throw me off a ledge again. The pathfinding isn’t perfect, but I guess it’s there for the console players.


(Djean) #8

@SebaSOFT
Thanks for quoting me.

@All
I never had that much trouble keeping a button pressed, but now you guys mention it, I can imagine this to be rather annoying.
After reading your thoughts on it I think there should maybe be an option to use a toggle button that keeps you interacting until the job is finished unless you release yourself by pressing it again.

And I also still think:

[ul]
[li]"F"s should appear better (because sometimes they just don’t until you move a bit) and quicker[/li][li]and that if you press <F> just before the “F” showing up, the game should realize you probably didn’t press <F> a few milliseconds ago just for fun.[/li][/ul]


(kilL_888) #9

no, please dont. that sounds like an even worse way as it currently is.


(Djean) #10

Alright. I only said “option to”, not “force everyone to do it this way”. But it seems I misunderstood the problem by thinking people didn’t like to hold down a button.
If that was the problem however, I don’t see another way without drastically changing the gameplay (which I suppose won’t happen).


(4est) #11

This drives me nuts as an engy… and nades do this too. If I’m running and gunning, pressing the nade button usually requires that I let go the SMART button or stop firing… GAH!


(Djean) #12

Shouldn’t you rebind your keys (or get a controller) if that’s such a problem for you?
You’re talking about having to move your hand, right? Not about the keys not working.


(Deadwalking) #13

As far as I can tell the time it takes for F action to appear has to do with latency to the server and how many people are on it. It might be happening to servers that have been running longer without a restart than others as well.

On an empty server with 3 bots on my team and 4 bots on the other team. The F action is nearly instant to appear. Now I leave and come back several hours later and have 15 other real people playing, and it can have a small hesitation in the F action appearing. Now I leave and come back the next day with no server restart 15 real people and it can take about a second before the F action will appear. If I restart the server and reconnect with 15 real people the F action is nearly instant again.

I am not sure that is how it is working, but after seeing it happen it feels that way. Now you factor in the fact that some of the players are running a 50 ping to the server and others might have a 100 ping to the server, there is going to be some moments that require a small amount more time to get the F action to appear.

If it can be tweaked to work right then great, but I like being able to hold the button down and if I decide to buff/heal/build something else all I have to do is let go recenter my crosshair and hold F again. If they can tweak it so that it is settable in the options on how you would like to use F that would be great to, a toggle F key or something. I hope they dont rebuild the mechanics of it as it works extremely well.

The only portion of the mechanics I would like to see changed is how the autofocus can spin you around when buffing or reviving someone in a corner or against a wall, I would like to see it just not turn my player around so I can do the adjusting for myself as to which direction I want to come out of the buff/revive at. If it cant be fixed then I would be just as happy as I have grown used to it and can usually get my bearings pretty quickly.


(kilL_888) #14

strafe right and move forward while holding F.


(Awbee) #15

I agree something has to be done about the way the “f” key works. As a medic I’m sick and tired of trying to survive someone but end up healing random guy XY who stands close to the guy on the ground.

SD give us the option to have more than one button for different abilties. Like we had in ET/QW. (yes it was 1 button there but you had to equip the right tool.)


(jotun) #16

It would be awesome if you could start holding the key before the interaction prompt actually shows up.


(Djean) #17

@Awbee
Wouldn’t having multiple keys for that be kind of a work around that doesn’t solve the actual problem?
While I agree with you that the option should be there, I also think they should do their best on making this work, for example by checking what you’re looking at while pressing <F>.

@jotun
Yes. Yes, it would. Or at least if it’s within a limited time before the “F”-circle showing up.


(Awbee) #18

Djean,

true it wouldn’t be a fix. And I understand why SD tried to handle it the way they did. (A gamepad has just so many buttons) It bothers me that I have to wait for the game to know what I want to do while I could have done it myself in 1/5 of the time. I mean if they can fix the current 1 button solution to act precisely yay to them. But I really want to be able to choose the actions myself so I really hope they add an option to equip your tools like you had to do in ET or QW.


(Djean) #19

@Awbee
I get your point. One way or the other, I think it would indeed be nice if this got fixed/worked around.

Just a thought:
Currently you already need to select some special powers obtained by abilities. If they’d build on that bit, I think what you’re talking about could fit right in.


(Ark_peasant) #20

The " F " autofocus is a serious problem for Medics. Especially the Medics.

  • As a Soldier, your teamate can move away from the pack to get his ammo. He can wait a few seconds.

  • As an Engineer, your teamate can live without the buff. He can wait a few seconds.

However, as a Medic, each seconds are precious :

  • your incap teamate can NOT move.

  • your teamate can be finished by incoming bullets/grenades.

  • your teamate can decide he waited enough and respawn instead.

. . .

I just played several (something like 5) hours, mainly as a Medic :

  • more than 10 times I couldn’t revive a downed pal because other teamates were there, trying to gain some ground. I waited for an opportunity… then gave up or died without reviving these poor teamates.

  • 4 times I buffed a teamate instead of reviving a critically-important teamate.

  • We lost 1 time due to this : one of our 2 operatives finally reached the point, but was incap at 93% of the hack. I buffed the wrong guy because of the autofocus. When I could finally get my supply point and revive the Operative, enemy swarmed in and cleared the zone.
    The morale shock and the lack of time prevented us from reaching the zone again.

. . .

And it gets worse : the " F " lag for revive-syringes makes reviving much more difficult (but the wrong kind of difficulty). You need to run to the guy, wait 0.5 / 1 second for the F lag, then press F, THEN you can run away.

Since you never know if the " F " is still lagging or not, you need to SEE it.

average human reaction time : 200-250 ms

  • network latency : 50 to 100 ms
  • average frames per second : 50 fps (+ 20 ms to meet the next frame)
  • monitor lag : + 2-5 ms
    = 270-370 ms

In the end, the time between you standing near the patient and you running away, there’s at least 1 to 2 seconds. It’s more than enough to take more than 100 HP damages.

On one hand, the pace of the game is kinda fast, the Light body is a rocket on shoes, we can climb on everything (or almost everything, as heavier body types), we can slide and shoot at the same time, there’s explosions and bullets flying.

On the other end, the Medic has to run, stop, stand still, wait for the interface lag, throw his syringes, then run away. It doesn’t fit with Brink pace at all.

If we could “prepare” or “predict” when the " F " for the revive appears (like when you have a syringe slot), we could run to our patient, predict the lag+fps+monitor lag, and click the syringe at the right moment.

. . .

Possible solutions (imho) :

  • deactivable autofocus (in the option, as a key in “Misc Controls”, as a console command)

  • give priority to Revives over Buffs (make it a togglable setting ?)

  • bigger revive range (= bigger syringe throwing distance)

  • bigger F range (= you can get the “Revive” F stuff from further away, when you press it sprint you to the position)

  • take the F lag into account when calculating the revive range (predict player position and allow syringe throw before the player reports being in the range)

. . .

If Brink didn’t had all these problems (crashes, ATI performance issue, no sound bug, invisible players, chokepoints map design), it would be the GOTY for me. I hope things will get better :slight_smile: