VaultBot
I'm Vintage's pet bot, I can't reply to PMs/posts.
Howdy! First of all, I hope you're enjoying past week's update. It was the product of many hours of work by talented devs that want to share their work for free, as it has been during the whole life of Fistful of Frags. I just would like to remark here my appreciation for RedYager and Tigg.
We're always looking for improvement though, so please let us know what you like/don't when additions or changes happen. I only beg you to stay away from the don't nerf circlejerk. Speaking of which, the changes introduced to bow may have resulted a bit more controversial than I did expect. I take the blame for not testing them enough, I'd like to explain you my motivations and offer some solutions to get a better balance.
Bow balance.
First of all, bow is quite a world on its own regarding handling and how arrow hits translate in final damage. There are several aspects that determine this: initial force (if arrow reload sequence fully completes before releasing), how far target is from attacker (damage increases linearly, reaching +25% bonus when arrow gets past 1000 units/inches) and finally what body part is hit by arrow.
However, arrows can also hit something called player hull, which is an imaginary rectangular parallelepiped encompassing the whole player body. For example, if your arrow goes near a head side, that's a hull hit even if it doesn't really touch head or upper body hitbox. This is done for balancing reasons, as some tests in the past proved that projectile like attacks are much harder to execute when arrow collisions are only tested against hitboxes. This aspect produces some inconsistencies regarding how damage is dealt though. Hitting the player hull gives no actual damage bonus, while a headshot doubles base damage. This is why you see quite some noticeable differences when hitting similar body areas at same distance.
In essence, I think that bow isn't the 'pro' weapon some players think it is. It killed in 1 body shot when the victim wasn't really that far away, its rate of fire is quite high and just the fact that someone can compensate for arrow drop doesn't justify the high notoriety. The damage inconsistency also should be fixed somehow. So here are a few changes that will be tested in next version:
+ a headshot will always kill, at any distance
+ there won't be added arrow inaccuracy as is now when standing still
+ distance to kill in 2 body shots will be slightly smaller than is now, and it won't matter what body part is hit since any other body part than head hit will be considered hull hit, just for damage consistency purposes.
- 3 body hits will be needed to kill a full HP enemy at close range (bow isn't intended for close range)
- distance required to kill in 1 body hit a full HP enemy at long range will be much larger (up to 2x)
New feature: hat-shot.
As you know, hats fall now when hitting head, so it's completely related to damage. This feature will continue the same, but an additional way to drop hats will be added.
A hat-shot will be feasible by just shooting at enemy's hat, without causing any damage. It just requires a new hitbox that covers the hat area.
And what do you gain by dropping other people hats, may you wonder? Just the pleasure of seeing some poor hat-less bastard? No, it will grant some extra notoriety, so to speak, it allows some extra depth as players may wanna drop enemies hat before giving them a ticket to hell. Please watch this video if you wanna check a movie version of it.
Additionally, a new achievement will be added that consist into dropping a few other player's hats without causing any damage, during same life.
New deathmath-like game mode: Break Bad
I'm have been thinking about alternative deathmatch scenarios for quite some time now, some proposals also were received. Using current shootout maps along different gameplay ideas sounds exciting and it could work if done properly. However I wanted to offer a new experience, something that could stand on its own. So here's it.
The basic idea in 'Break Bad' is players don't need to be cold serial murderers right after spawning. Player only become a target (meant to be killed) after acquiring a weapon (either purchasing or taking it from the ground) or staying for too long without a weapon.
How do you tell unarmed players? Players spawn without fists weapon, that means an unarmed player won't be in fist fighting pose ever. So it will be really easy to spot them.
What happens when unarmed players get killed? The killer pays a fine, the fine will increase as long their innocent kill count goes up. When players have no cash to pay such fines they go to 'jail' for some time. This is a metaphorical jail though, it's just some forced respawn wait time.
Purchasing weapons involves cash and the loadout system used in Teamplay mode. Players get additional cash after spawning (amount relative to last survival time to prevent just spawning for cash) and kills also get you some extra cash.
There also will be side missions to gain extra notoriety or more guns. The main side mission will be 'loot transport'. Individual players will receive a loot's position and its deliver point. Other players only will know about carrier position by spotting them directly. If they manage to kill a carrier and pick its loot then deliver position will be revealed to them. Important: only armed players can be selected for loot delivering missions. Game 'director' will try to be fair when assigning loot transport missions.
The second mission will be unarmed player murder. Closer enemies to unarmed players will receive this objective. They only get its initial position when murder alert is started, after that moment, target only can be noticed by getting direct visual contact.
And finally, the third and last mission type will consist in picking up high tier guns from random locations. Game director will choose which players know about those guns. Unarmed players that are being hunted will be priority, so it's some sort of risk/reward scenario where a player that decides to stay without gun for some time gets the option to get a high tier one for free.
Hope you like this new mode, it will be available in both free-for-all and multiple team versions. Initial playtests probably may begin at the end of this week.
Continue reading...
We're always looking for improvement though, so please let us know what you like/don't when additions or changes happen. I only beg you to stay away from the don't nerf circlejerk. Speaking of which, the changes introduced to bow may have resulted a bit more controversial than I did expect. I take the blame for not testing them enough, I'd like to explain you my motivations and offer some solutions to get a better balance.
Bow balance.
First of all, bow is quite a world on its own regarding handling and how arrow hits translate in final damage. There are several aspects that determine this: initial force (if arrow reload sequence fully completes before releasing), how far target is from attacker (damage increases linearly, reaching +25% bonus when arrow gets past 1000 units/inches) and finally what body part is hit by arrow.
However, arrows can also hit something called player hull, which is an imaginary rectangular parallelepiped encompassing the whole player body. For example, if your arrow goes near a head side, that's a hull hit even if it doesn't really touch head or upper body hitbox. This is done for balancing reasons, as some tests in the past proved that projectile like attacks are much harder to execute when arrow collisions are only tested against hitboxes. This aspect produces some inconsistencies regarding how damage is dealt though. Hitting the player hull gives no actual damage bonus, while a headshot doubles base damage. This is why you see quite some noticeable differences when hitting similar body areas at same distance.
In essence, I think that bow isn't the 'pro' weapon some players think it is. It killed in 1 body shot when the victim wasn't really that far away, its rate of fire is quite high and just the fact that someone can compensate for arrow drop doesn't justify the high notoriety. The damage inconsistency also should be fixed somehow. So here are a few changes that will be tested in next version:
+ a headshot will always kill, at any distance
+ there won't be added arrow inaccuracy as is now when standing still
+ distance to kill in 2 body shots will be slightly smaller than is now, and it won't matter what body part is hit since any other body part than head hit will be considered hull hit, just for damage consistency purposes.
- 3 body hits will be needed to kill a full HP enemy at close range (bow isn't intended for close range)
- distance required to kill in 1 body hit a full HP enemy at long range will be much larger (up to 2x)
New feature: hat-shot.
As you know, hats fall now when hitting head, so it's completely related to damage. This feature will continue the same, but an additional way to drop hats will be added.
A hat-shot will be feasible by just shooting at enemy's hat, without causing any damage. It just requires a new hitbox that covers the hat area.
And what do you gain by dropping other people hats, may you wonder? Just the pleasure of seeing some poor hat-less bastard? No, it will grant some extra notoriety, so to speak, it allows some extra depth as players may wanna drop enemies hat before giving them a ticket to hell. Please watch this video if you wanna check a movie version of it.
Additionally, a new achievement will be added that consist into dropping a few other player's hats without causing any damage, during same life.
New deathmath-like game mode: Break Bad
I'm have been thinking about alternative deathmatch scenarios for quite some time now, some proposals also were received. Using current shootout maps along different gameplay ideas sounds exciting and it could work if done properly. However I wanted to offer a new experience, something that could stand on its own. So here's it.
The basic idea in 'Break Bad' is players don't need to be cold serial murderers right after spawning. Player only become a target (meant to be killed) after acquiring a weapon (either purchasing or taking it from the ground) or staying for too long without a weapon.
How do you tell unarmed players? Players spawn without fists weapon, that means an unarmed player won't be in fist fighting pose ever. So it will be really easy to spot them.
What happens when unarmed players get killed? The killer pays a fine, the fine will increase as long their innocent kill count goes up. When players have no cash to pay such fines they go to 'jail' for some time. This is a metaphorical jail though, it's just some forced respawn wait time.
Purchasing weapons involves cash and the loadout system used in Teamplay mode. Players get additional cash after spawning (amount relative to last survival time to prevent just spawning for cash) and kills also get you some extra cash.
There also will be side missions to gain extra notoriety or more guns. The main side mission will be 'loot transport'. Individual players will receive a loot's position and its deliver point. Other players only will know about carrier position by spotting them directly. If they manage to kill a carrier and pick its loot then deliver position will be revealed to them. Important: only armed players can be selected for loot delivering missions. Game 'director' will try to be fair when assigning loot transport missions.
The second mission will be unarmed player murder. Closer enemies to unarmed players will receive this objective. They only get its initial position when murder alert is started, after that moment, target only can be noticed by getting direct visual contact.
And finally, the third and last mission type will consist in picking up high tier guns from random locations. Game director will choose which players know about those guns. Unarmed players that are being hunted will be priority, so it's some sort of risk/reward scenario where a player that decides to stay without gun for some time gets the option to get a high tier one for free.
Hope you like this new mode, it will be available in both free-for-all and multiple team versions. Initial playtests probably may begin at the end of this week.
Continue reading...
