Freon - balance, bio-camping, classic maps - others (discuss)

[holyspam]

Biothawing bad.

[Piglet]

Four legs good.

[nyrde]

Even thou it was my idea, I think that bio thawing is bad idea. After playing with it... I don't think it fits too well. And I think that being able to use bio to thawers is essential for freon. I agree with dawk that not everything needs to be balanced like it is competitive esporst or smth. Part of the fun of freon are the quarks like bio camping. And I just have learned the habit of checking corners before thaw and it's fine. I think that bio works well to balance thawing... it makes it kinda strategic... its not always wise to thaw if you suspect bio camping and so.

Removing the challenger mode I like.

About the health... I don't know... 145 health and 200 health after thaw are both fine for me. TBH I haven't noticed that big of a difference in anything on that regard.

Just to point out that the score is not everything. Sometimes you loose 5-10 and the match is still can be good if the rounds are even and the other team doesn't get stomped.

[Piglet]

The new necro code seems to be working fine. The use of arrays in that section of the code is probably not required...but it works.

[Piglet]

Even thou it was my idea, I think that bio thawing is bad idea. After playing with it... I don't think it fits too well.

Let's try it with a bit lower percentage. People hated RFF, but it stopped too much spamming into groups. This is similar.

[Miauz55555]

Make it 4% -> would be  ~8,4% thaw with a full load That would be acceptable.

[Piglet]

It was 50%. Moved to 30%, and now at 15%. You shouldn't fling your goop at frozen players in the same way as you shouldn't do it on teammates...

[nyrde]

Ok. The smaller % is a good idea. IMO If we have the the bio thaw, it should be so that it doesn't discourage the use of bio to thawers, but nerfs the bio camping aka spamming bio to same corpses over and over again.

[Miauz55555]

I will try to not use bio on thawers, but simply headshot them. You can HS someone with a shield. Just need to increase my aim a bit, or let's say where to hit .. the hs seems a litle bit random sometimes.

[zeus]

Some food for thought

Elements affecting the gaming experience can be broadly separated into the following
1. 3SPN codebase running server side
2. Settings in the server (read: player count, tickrate, various network settings, server OS)
3. Internet routing & its quality
4. Client side computer & its settings (read: how new is the player's computer, whether the network is over wifi, etc)
5. 3SPN codebase running client side

At any point in time the gaming experience for the player is a player specific combination of all these elements.

Unfortunately the recent gaming experience ( > 1 week ) has been horrible for many players!
The server becomes a random lagfest when more than 2 players are actively playing on it. "Random lagfest" here implicating 2 main characteristics
 * movement is lagged / shooting is delayed / feeling of "delayness" in gameplay
 * hitting is inconsistent (= same shot does not hit the same way in the span of seconds) and receiving damage feels total random (= one does get hit before the client can draw the projectiles that caused the hit)

Good example - at the moment of writing it is 22 CET in Europe and there are 3 players trying to have fun. Server was full (18 players) 1h ago and most people did not go to sleep, they just _CHOSE_ not to play in a random lagfest! This random lagfest has resulted in games where 7.x PPR is on top with 18 players in server and players having 10+ thaw units. This has also resulted in Pig ragequitting because he doesn't get any thaws!

So far holy has said the element #3 (internet routing & its quality) is at fault mostly, but if we look into broader picture it could be also any of #1, #2, #5 at fault OR any subset of those. The only thing more or less constant in this whole array of elements is #4 as players do not switch / upgrade computers on daily basis

So my question is - WHY DO YOU KEEP ON CHANGING SO MANY VARIABLES 24/7 AND EXPECT A DIFFERENT RESULT EACH TIME? This is like the perfect counter example of a scientific experiment -> one changes so many input variables at the same time that is almost impossible to narrow down the exact cause of negative results. One has basically 0 control over how it will influence the player experience. So what if you STOP upgrading / updating all the settings / codebase at once (again randomly choosing the sub-elements to change, like BIO based thawing) or at all (PIG3SPN & server settings from 2 years ago were quite OK) and stick to running the best Freon experience instead?

And then perhaps Pig shall also get his thaws in maps other than trast & Goose

[Piglet]

Nice diatribe, however I suspect you're missing the root cause entirely.

All the code is in the package. You'll have various copies of the package in your cache directory. You can extract (ucc batchexport) and compare them.

What you'll see is that none of the recent changes are anywhere that could have any effect on "movement is lagged", "shooting is delayed", or "hitting is inconsistent".

Please have a look.

[dk uk]

It was 50%. Moved to 30%, and now at 15%. You shouldn't fling your goop at frozen players in the same way as you shouldn't do it on teammates...

I realise pro's don't like bio but you've managed to render any bio tactics or use out of the game - effectively I see no one using it now - or only at least by accident? If the whole purpose of UT was only to use Shock and LG then you can call it some other game (C.O.D?) What makes UT is the variety and weps such as flak and bio even it up a bit for those that are crap like me.

[Piglet]

I'm not sure I agree. What was the skill in insta-killing players with bio as they thawed with no adverse consequences? Where was the fun in having it done to you? Where was the gameplay advantage of leaving this like it was?

The only change is that you have to be a bit careful otherwise other players grouped with the one you insta-kill might thaw a bit faster (15% of the damage is converted to health). If you don't want it, don't group them. You can always move them apart. There are benefits in that....

People said the same sort of thing about RFF (reverse friendly fire) where if you spam into teammates you get some damage. It's effectively the same thing.

[holyspam]

updated the first post

[Piglet]

Biocamping lame.

I fixed it for you.