Yeah, I love rockets, and most things considered "noob", but that is even a little too noob friendly for me...
The absence of rocket splash damage
- Thread starter JimBodkins
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I don't think that's correct.
Rockets in UT2004 don't do 90 damage to you even if you're crouching and shoot straight down at the ground, even though presumably there is 0 distance between the ground your character is standing on and your character. So even though you'd expect to take full damage, you don't (max I've been able to achieve is 86).
There's also an issue with small splash damage radii in UT2004, and it's probably in UT3 as well. Below a certain threshhold, say DamageRadius=96, splash damage just doesn't seem to work at all. I believe I remember Wormbo mentioning that this is just a side effect of the way splash damage is done, and seeing some code he posted that was more accurate for low radius splash damage.
Since splash damage in general is less in UT3, whether that's due to a smaller splash radius or a nonlinear damage falloff, you're going to take even less damage (as a percentage of the total possible damage).
Rockets in UT2004 don't do 90 damage to you even if you're crouching and shoot straight down at the ground, even though presumably there is 0 distance between the ground your character is standing on and your character. So even though you'd expect to take full damage, you don't (max I've been able to achieve is 86).
There's also an issue with small splash damage radii in UT2004, and it's probably in UT3 as well. Below a certain threshhold, say DamageRadius=96, splash damage just doesn't seem to work at all. I believe I remember Wormbo mentioning that this is just a side effect of the way splash damage is done, and seeing some code he posted that was more accurate for low radius splash damage.
Since splash damage in general is less in UT3, whether that's due to a smaller splash radius or a nonlinear damage falloff, you're going to take even less damage (as a percentage of the total possible damage).
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You can easily get 88 or maybe 89 damage in UT2004 per rocket. And not just in self-damage but to your opponent too. The reason it was never a full 90 is the game checks to see how close the rocket is to you upon exploding but does so from a central point within your collision cylinder. Since rockets blow up on the perimeter of this cylinder no projectile will ever do 100% damage even with a direct hit.
I haven't played UT3 in months so I don't remember the exact values, but I think rockets only do something like 70 self-damage at max. Whereas UT2004 would do 88 to both parties, UT3's would do 100 in one situation and 70ish in another -- therefore it has dampened self-damage.
I haven't played UT3 in months so I don't remember the exact values, but I think rockets only do something like 70 self-damage at max. Whereas UT2004 would do 88 to both parties, UT3's would do 100 in one situation and 70ish in another -- therefore it has dampened self-damage.
Nah, when UT does the collision check, it does subtract the collision cylinder's radius.
It's possible that the radius of the rocket affects the maximum damage available though, in the same way the shock core's radius affects the maximum possible damage from a combo. IIRC from the last time I looked at the UT3 rocket class, the rockets have a radius of 20, which is pretty huge. And I don't recall seeing anything to specifically reduce self-damage there. I'm pretty confident that self damage wasn't intentionally reduced, it's just the way things work out.
Oh, well it may very well be the collision on the rockets.
Problem is, however, is that in UT2004 that radius is so small that I don't think it'd mean a whole 2 less damage for any direct hit. The reason (well, one of them) air rockets are so difficult in UT2004 is due to the rockets' small collision radius. I made a mod that increased this and got air rockets left and right (which is what should happen in a game like this, IMO). D:
Now that you got me thinking about this, I do recall that you can get MORE self-damage with UT2004's rockets than you can on any direct hit on your opponent. I think it's 89 vs. 88 but the difference is there.
Problem is, however, is that in UT2004 that radius is so small that I don't think it'd mean a whole 2 less damage for any direct hit. The reason (well, one of them) air rockets are so difficult in UT2004 is due to the rockets' small collision radius. I made a mod that increased this and got air rockets left and right (which is what should happen in a game like this, IMO). D:
Now that you got me thinking about this, I do recall that you can get MORE self-damage with UT2004's rockets than you can on any direct hit on your opponent. I think it's 89 vs. 88 but the difference is there.
I really don't agree with this. The original UT was really splashy, in addition to rewarding precision. That might not make sense, so let me rephrase it.
The sniper, shock prim, link sec, mini, etc. rewarded hitscan precision aiming, while the RL with EIGHT shots, flak sec, ripper (too bad it's gone) and shock combo rewarded prudent (or not so much
use of large explodiness. It was loads of fun!
I made a modification to the Fraghouse Ripper that peforms the same* as the original Ripper, and it does just fine on most maps. The maps that are too cluttered for it to work well generally don't get played anyways.
* Secondary has added shards as the Flak secondary, that's the only real difference, aside from possible speed/map scale issues.
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Would make it alittle more skillful then instead of people screamin noob, you just hit the center view button
No, it'd make it even more random since you can't judge which of the billions of polys around the level the discs would bounce off of after shot. And if blocking volumes blocked the discs before they reached the polys you could also not predict which areas and meshes had blocking volumes covering them.
Zomg randomness n0oooooo! Yups because there is billions more polys you have to pick your shots more carefully hey, oh well. I thought the ripjack worked pretty well in UC2, its not exactly UT3 though but hey its all in the normal maps and this per pixel collision people scream about is a myth
I played a ripper mod in 2kx. It wasn't fun. Most of them bounced off to the sky, or roof, and it was pretty damned useless, barring the secondary shot, which you could charge for an exploding razor.
You just said it'd make it more skillful. Random != skillful. Hypocrite.
Sheesh.
Actually no its not, Skill and Randomness are not mutally exclusive, being able to know where to hit an object to get a nice bounce would be the skill. Randomness would be what happens if you just hammer away on the fire button an hope one bounces the way you want it to.
I never said random is skillful thank you, thats why you didnt quote me! There are somethings out of peoples control though, knowing how to adapt to those types of situations is a skill.
Again picking your shots more carefully should be regarded as a skill! Some people just get lucky though, go figure, the unlucky ones bluff right?
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The very nature of randomness is that it creates a situation where adaptation and interpretation of variables will not yield results because action and reaction do not have a consistent link. So they really are mutually exclusive as far as binaries go, because randomness means that skill will not be consistently rewarded. Then, of course you can have a little bit of randomness and still have skill be somewhat rewarded, but it will be detracting to some extent from the potential capacity for skill in the situation.
We arnt really talkin binaries though are we, randomness doesnt remove skill is my point and can infact add to other skills.
A bad ball bounce in soccer whats a player do? bitch about the bounce being random and call for a penalty? no they adapt! That adaptation and prediction skill can set a good player apart from a decent player.
We arnt talking about taking things out of the players hands here so the capactity for skill in any situation remains unchanged, while also raising the number of skills required for play.
A bad ball bounce in soccer whats a player do? bitch about the bounce being random and call for a penalty? no they adapt! That adaptation and prediction skill can set a good player apart from a decent player.
We arnt talking about taking things out of the players hands here so the capactity for skill in any situation remains unchanged, while also raising the number of skills required for play.
The comparitive size of a ball verus the size of things on the ground that could produce a bad bounce makes this a poor analogy, though. Imagine if the ball's trajectory was determined by a point within the ball, infinitely small, and its reflection vector off whatever it hit - i.e. a single blade of grass. It could bounce anywhere; there'd be no way to predict it.
Really though...while I certainly agree that UT is and should be a skill-focused game (there are already tons of spam-centric games out there) and that completely random bounces of deadly projectiles might not be a good idea ... this *is* a game though, and games should be fun, not rocket science. Competitive is fine, but when you make the game such that the outcome of a match is already determined before it has started, that is when you're taking it too far.
While we're on the topic, what is one to think of flak secondary? A ball that has a predictable trajectory, which bursts into a dozen shards that randomly fly off into all directions, including where the player that fired it stands. How is that skillful? It's not area damage like rockets or combos...it's a factor of luck, and how many shards hit the enemy. Should we also remove that?
How about the inaccuracy of the enforcers and stinger? Surely having them perfectly accurate like the sniper rifle would reward skill way more than the way it is right now?
Rockets should only do damage when fired directly into the enemy player, no splash damage, since splash damage rewards a player for missing his target. The flak cannon no longer should have spread in primary fire, since it compensates for people whose aim is off.
We could also make the hitboxes so that only a perfectly centered headshot would do any damage at all. That way, only the most precise gamers would be able to kill enemies.
The sniper rifle should have bullet drop, and players would have to watch any flags, trees or other light objects for wind direction and compensate for that, so that only truly skilled snipers could use the weapon effectively.
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You see where I'm going? For any given situation you could argue that it favors noobism and that it could be more pr0 or harder, and that these changes would make the game better.
However, whether those changes will actually make the game unplayable and/or not fun anymore is only to be determined by testing the changes.
Something like a flak cannon might not work in theory (it uses the same normal meshes to bounce, and that is not a problem?) but it sure works in practice.
I'd say if one is interested in the ripper as a weapon, learn some unrealscript or get someone else that already has, and make a test version. See how it works. That's the only way to determine if something works or not, theory does not suffice since it doesn't take the player's actions/reactions into account.
While we're on the topic, what is one to think of flak secondary? A ball that has a predictable trajectory, which bursts into a dozen shards that randomly fly off into all directions, including where the player that fired it stands. How is that skillful? It's not area damage like rockets or combos...it's a factor of luck, and how many shards hit the enemy. Should we also remove that?
How about the inaccuracy of the enforcers and stinger? Surely having them perfectly accurate like the sniper rifle would reward skill way more than the way it is right now?
Rockets should only do damage when fired directly into the enemy player, no splash damage, since splash damage rewards a player for missing his target. The flak cannon no longer should have spread in primary fire, since it compensates for people whose aim is off.
We could also make the hitboxes so that only a perfectly centered headshot would do any damage at all. That way, only the most precise gamers would be able to kill enemies.
The sniper rifle should have bullet drop, and players would have to watch any flags, trees or other light objects for wind direction and compensate for that, so that only truly skilled snipers could use the weapon effectively.
--
You see where I'm going? For any given situation you could argue that it favors noobism and that it could be more pr0 or harder, and that these changes would make the game better.
However, whether those changes will actually make the game unplayable and/or not fun anymore is only to be determined by testing the changes.
Something like a flak cannon might not work in theory (it uses the same normal meshes to bounce, and that is not a problem?) but it sure works in practice.
I'd say if one is interested in the ripper as a weapon, learn some unrealscript or get someone else that already has, and make a test version. See how it works. That's the only way to determine if something works or not, theory does not suffice since it doesn't take the player's actions/reactions into account.
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