<!--QuoteBegin--SoBe.Dragon+Feb 18 2003, 09:39 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SoBe.Dragon @ Feb 18 2003, 09:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <i>If that's what the devs say, then I wish they would consider the fact that some people value gameplay more than costly eye-candy.</i> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
your right.
I had a long talk with Flayra and we desided that NS was going to go through a make over - he let me sneak a screen shot to you guys.
ShockehIf a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it...Join Date: 2002-11-19Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
** Engage prepare for beatdown mode **
I have to admit, since it's been mentioned, I do find the Muzzle flash a tad annoying. It's just that <b>bit</b> too big IMO. But hey, that's just my <b>opinion</b>.
Skulk teeth are fine. But some implementation to keep track of the crackhoe bouncey marines would be nice. I don't think it makes sense that skulks die not because the marines shot them down, but because they couldn't keep track of where he was.
(Pictures Hicks with his Pulse Rifle being a Matador in front of Drone - Get the wrongness?)
Its as simple as this: Whether or not the bite model and gun sprites should be changed, the game is <b>currently</b> balanced so that those are taken into factor, and by removing them you are getting an unfair advantage over other players, and are therefore <b>exploiting.</b>
The argument that your computer cannot handle the extra "eye-candy" is invalid. The speed of your computer is <b>your problem</b> and others shouldn't have to suffer. Thats like saying you should start off with extra points in a game because your computer is slower. In fact, most people pay extra money just so they don't encounter these problems. Sure, you should be able to lower your FPS by taking out a couple things, but the bite model is <b>purposely</b> meant to block your view.
Oh, and anyone who says that taking out the bite model doesn't affect your score has obviously never played NS. It doesn't matter how good you are, you cannot predict where the marine is going to go and things can totally change for the time you're munching down.
And SoBe.Dragon, you never mentioned any framerate problems before. This is obviously not your problem or the reason you are turning the model off, why suddenly start using that as your excuse? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Teh b1t3 model (and the muzsie flash) lkie extra skillz in da game!
Like B-Hopping! I can't belive they take it out man!
Its l1k3 th3y'r3 t0tally dumbing down <b>OUR</b> game.
...
Jesus, stop bitching. You're just losing advantages you were never ment to have in the first place, we all knew these changes were coming and anyone who didn't stop exploiting in preperation to learn the new skills required to deal with them is an idiot.
<!--QuoteBegin--heathenSlayer+Feb 17 2003, 05:36 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (heathenSlayer @ Feb 17 2003, 05:36 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Talesin+Feb 17 2003, 08:47 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Talesin @ Feb 17 2003, 08:47 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Thankfully you won't be 'torn' with that decision when 1.1 comes out, and the draviewmodels <b>exploit</b> is locked. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Again, bolding certain words in your sentences does not make your argument any more valid.
That useless piece of eye-candy costs me 15-20 fps, why should I have to look at it and let it slow my comp down? Valve put the command in for a reason, it's their game first, the NS team's mod second. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> same thing here, increases fps a lot ... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ok I just got back from a game where I did some testing. It seems that I got a score of 50:0 with an aim bot installed and 0:50 without it. Therefore aimbots are good and really help. I think they should be left in NS.
<!--QuoteBegin--Someone Who Cares+Feb 19 2003, 04:24 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Someone Who Cares @ Feb 19 2003, 04:24 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The argument that your computer cannot handle the extra "eye-candy" is invalid. The speed of your computer is <b>your problem</b> and others shouldn't have to suffer. Thats like saying you should start off with extra points in a game because your computer is slower. In fact, most people pay extra money just so they don't encounter these problems. Sure, you should be able to lower your FPS by taking out a couple things, but the bite model is <b>purposely</b> meant to block your view. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> so without the weapon model his FPS will drop down to 10 in battle, and with it will be 5?
i wouldnt worry about someone with 10 FPS hitting me whatsoever, et alone what <b>exploit</b> he uses.
dont tell people they have to get better computers. this is a mod, we are not obligated to play it, but i am positive the devs want their game to be popular, so lets try to make everyone love NS, instead of telling those who complain to **** off.
Thing is that it's hardly a convincing arguement to say that because older comps get slowed down by the bite model that it should be removed. That IS your personal problem, not the NS team's. Yes, they want their mod to be popular, but if they start changing things purely because some people have trouble running the game then we're going to see a lot of changes come in that arn't warrented. Like you said, people don't have to play NS, it's a free mod.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->That useless piece of eye-candy costs me 15-20 fps, why should I have to look at it and let it slow my comp down? Valve put the command in for a reason, it's their game first, the NS team's mod second. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Useless peice of eye candy...Marine muzzle flares and the skulk bite are both there for a reason: balance. Letting skulks see everything clearly when they're attacking would be and IS unfair (I'm looking at the people who turn the bite model off, yes YOU). You're dealing with an attack that does 75 damage and will kill an unupgraded marine in 2 hits. It's a powerful weapon, and if people could see everything when they used it they would get a lot more kills than the high numbers it currently provides. THe muzzle flare is the same, it stops very effective sniping at range but because the lmg is weaker than the skulk bite the flare is quite small, thus balancing the rifle for range. Now yes, the HL team out that command in the game, but they made HL primarily for single play; multiplay was tacked on without much thought. As such being able to remove your weapon models ment basically nothing; Valve wasn't concerned. In a mod like NS though, the developers are taking the HL engine and using it to build what they want. They're not Valve, they're not making a single player game, and when they purposly make an attack animation that takes up the screen they are doing it for reasons of gameplay and balance. You get a reduction in FPS? Upgrade your rig. Just because older computers get slowed down by this is no justification to remove it. You think ID is going to dumb down Doom 3 because anything less than a Geforce 4 will not be able to run it? No.
It's pretty obvious were past answering MonsE's questuion here and this has turned into another 'skulk bite' thread. Which by MonsE's guidelines in his post means it should get locked pretty soon <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Re: fps, i'll suggest an analogy.
Smoke grenades in CS are (or where) notorious for making fps take a nosedive (i'm sure most people know this). Lower end GFX cards just couldn't handle them.
Therefore you could set the complexity of the sprite with cvars. The lowest setting was ugly and actually more difficult to see through but wasn't such a hit on your GFX card. The highest setting was pretty, you could partially see through it sometimes and hit the GFX card the worst.
Notice how theres no option to turn them off ? I mean, then you'd be doing soemthing the devs specfically didn't won't you to be able to do, see through smoke grenades. Which would be, gosh, cheating.
The only difference is theres no way to scale the skulk bite at present. FPS is no argument for cheating.
<!--QuoteBegin--Ryo-Ohki+Feb 19 2003, 02:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ryo-Ohki @ Feb 19 2003, 02:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Yes, they want their mod to be popular, but if they start changing things purely because some people have trouble running the game then we're going to see a lot of changes come in that arn't warrented. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> A lot of people keep saying that the skulk's fisheye view was removed because computers in software mode couldn't use higher fov than 90.
I skipped reading every post after the first one. I think there is no arguement. the current model IS the best way to represent the bite IF you want to keep it as a first person only in melee combat. I personally would favor 3rd person for MELEE attacks (there's a reason every studio produced game based on melee attacks has 3rd person option). <span style='color:blue'> BUT</span> for the first person model, how the hell else are you gonna represent a byte? You either have nothing on the screen (which isn't fair) or you got a set of teeth. Just claws wouldn't cut it.
Everyone is screaming about "eyes-in-the-head". It's just a representation folks, not supposed to look 100% real. Do you think you can accurately fire an automatic weapon from the hip too??? Deal with it. It's not supposed to be 100% real.
Here is an idea *IF* it wasn't already mentioned is this discussion. Ever think about making the teeth model semi-transparent?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Useless peice of eye candy...Marine muzzle flares and the skulk bite are both there for a reason: balance. Letting skulks see everything clearly when they're attacking would be and IS unfair (I'm looking at the people who turn the bite model off, yes YOU). You're dealing with an attack that does 75 damage and will kill an unupgraded marine in 2 hits. It's a powerful weapon, and if people could see everything when they used it they would get a lot more kills than the high numbers it currently provides.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes it's a powerful weapon but it is a close range weapon. Against a group of marines who are covering each other chances are all one bite is what you'll get in anyway. Against a lone marine (especially in an ambush scenario) the skulk should win most of the time anyway. I guess what I'm saying here is that I still haven't seen a convincing argument in terms of gameplay mechanics as to why the bite model makes a _huge_ difference in terms of _kills in the greater scheme of things_. The reason why it shouldn't: the range of the attack is limited and many more factors besides the bite model come into play in order to be a successful skulk. It does however makes a significant difference in terms of atmosphere to me.
I have seen several people comment that the bite model is deliberately designed to blind the skulk. If someone could point me to a link perhaps where this has been discussed ...or if a developer would be kind enough to confirm this I'd greatly appreciate it. I just have a hard time believing that that was the true intent behind the model (as opposed to atmosphere).
At any rate, I think the discussion has been useful. Thanks to all who contributed.
I love the way it is. It's true as Fam or someone stated at the beggining. I downloaded NS like... the very second it came out and was running around Bast as a light marine, just exploring on my own server. My friends who heard me ranting about this game for months came by, were impressed that that was the half life engine and all. But they weren't, you know, dancing in their socks in astonishment.
Then I joined as an alien.
'DUDE! What the hell is that?!' 'It's the teeth!' 'Sweet! That's just so friggin' cool!'
I've never heard my clanmate's complain about it, (or the muzzle flash). They're both there for such a short time it's really pointless, it's not like you can travel halfway across the room blind or anything, it's a milisecond at best.
Snouts would suck, HL in 3rd person? HAHAHAHAHAHA! C'mon people, we don't want 'claw' or something pansy. Bite is great and the model rocks.
<!--QuoteBegin--Ryo-Ohki+Feb 19 2003, 09:45 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ryo-Ohki @ Feb 19 2003, 09:45 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Now yes, the HL team out that command in the game, but they made HL primarily for single play; multiplay was tacked on without much thought. As such being able to remove your weapon models ment basically nothing; Valve wasn't concerned. In a mod like NS though, the developers are taking the HL engine and using it to build what they want. They're not Valve, they're not making a single player game, and when they purposly make an attack animation that takes up the screen they are doing it for reasons of gameplay and balance. You get a reduction in FPS? Upgrade your rig. Just because older computers get slowed down by this is no justification to remove it. You think ID is going to dumb down Doom 3 because anything less than a Geforce 4 will not be able to run it? No. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually, multiplayer games are a very good reason for allowing customisability, and designing the game so that the essential features are resistant to cheating. For example, the 90% cloak is, for cheating-prevention, a bad thing, because it is vulnerable to skin-customizations. Locking a server variable will not prevent that, as the model change happens on the client. It is possible to make a proxy that tells the server the game uses original models while it actually uses changed models. Sure, few people can do that, but it only takes one to do it and then share it with others. A better solution may be to opt for 100% transparency, and if cloaked, just don't send any indication of the presence of that cloaked alien to the marines. Only let the server send that info when they're so close to it they're tripping over it. Of course, that requires changes to the engine, and HL might not make that possible.
Putting in the skulk bite animation as an essential balancing element is bad in a similar way, except that it's even worse considering disabling it is a standard engine feature. It's on the same level as setting the default keybindings to Alt+F10 = forward, Control+Shift+numpad 7 is back,... and telling everyone they're not allowed to change it because that would be cheating. Unnecessary pointless crippling tricks (though the models aren't as bad as my proposed keymaps).
Skulk bite model really doesn't bother me. I have a shockingly weak PC, and yes, removing it may give me a few more fps, but not nearly as much of a boost as other less "cheaty" tweaks or a properly set up, regularly defragged PC..
The main reason I leave it on is because it looks cool.
I do however really like the idea of the fisheye lens view, that would be very nice indeed and would definitely help you to locate the bouncing marines at close range.
I'm hearing the teeth called "atmosphere" a lot. If this was the original intent on the game then I do not see why I cannot decide I wish to not have that atmosphere.
If the intent was to blind the aliens during their attack- why? As pointed out above a skulks only hope to survive a fight is to be right on his heels. If I bite once and he jump-strafes while I'm blind (happens often enough) and I have to take a moment to find him to get in the second bite kill- that's enough time for him to shatter me with any weapon. Skulks are supposed to be melee dominators right?
I'm starting to lean towards the teeth being optional, or at the very least partly transparent- say 75% cloaking or something.
To this day I have not tried ridding myself of the teeth. Next time I play I will try to remember to do that and see how much difference I get while playing. So that's my vote: Optional or 75% transparent.
TalesinOur own little well of hateJoin Date: 2002-11-08Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
<!--QuoteBegin--heathenSlayer+Feb 19 2003, 07:33 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (heathenSlayer @ Feb 19 2003, 07:33 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Ryo-Ohki+Feb 19 2003, 02:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ryo-Ohki @ Feb 19 2003, 02:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Yes, they want their mod to be popular, but if they start changing things purely because some people have trouble running the game then we're going to see a lot of changes come in that arn't warrented. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> A lot of people keep saying that the skulk's fisheye view was removed because computers in software mode couldn't use higher fov than 90. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> That was because the game was originally being designed to be compatible with software-mode HL. They couldn't do the fisheye in software, so it was removed. Not catering to a slower system, catering to the limitations of the HL engine. It was only later discovered that NS won't work properly under software mode anyway. It also may be re-implemented in v1.1, if you take a look at some of the PT comments that hint toward that.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad they'll be locked to 'on', so those of us who choose to play the game as it was intended don't have to worry about whether the Skulk that just bit us down, or the Marine that just sniped us away is using a dev-listed, Flayra-confirmed <b>exploit</b>, like turning off r_drawviewmodels. You want better FPS? Find another way.. like upgrading from that Voodoo1-based video card to something that <i>isn't</i> steam or hamster-powered.
<!--QuoteBegin--SoBe.Dragon+Feb 19 2003, 08:03 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SoBe.Dragon @ Feb 19 2003, 08:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> let me put it this way...play a game with the models on, then play with them off....then try to go back, heh. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Or how about this:
Play a game with a wallhack off, then play with it on.... then try to go back, heh.
Keep the bite the way it is. As much as it bugs me that it's inconsistent with the third person model:
*I really can't think of anything that wouldn't look stupid.
*It's a game balance thing. Right now, it adds that little bit more skill requirement to the game by making you either time your bites or develop better combat awareness. It DOES equate to the marine muzzle flash, which is ALSO a balance thing which requires skill to adapt to. Skulk wasn't meant to be easy. The little buggers are dangerous enough as they are (I should know, I am one most of the time); they don't need any help.
Everyone knows that the skulks eyes on top of its head are only decoys, the REAL eyes are in the mouth <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Allow me to "put up," if I may. The reason why r_drawviewmodel is there is to get rid of distractions, and raise your FPS if your hardware is pretty taxed. Most of us have agreed that the distraction is part of the game, but enabling the viewmodel for everyone doesn't help people who can't afford a top-of-the-line system. As someone stated earlier, the model can knock your FPS down by 10-20, and can take longer to animate at slow speeds. For those systems, I think there should be an option to dynamically control the detail level depending on your FPS. IF AND ONLY IF your FPS is low enough, the weapon model would fade away and be switched off. And there's still a bit of screen-shaking to give the player some feedback when they bite. Furthermore, purposefully lowering your FPS to get rid of the model is pointless - you're at a disadvantage again.
This discussion is really quite interesting. I see a number of vastly different viewpoints expressed with equal enthusiasm.
One concept I do find especially significant. I shall hereby dub it "The unknown killer angst".
Basically TUKA (The unknown killer angst) boils down to this: You can never be truly sure that you were outplayed honestly by your killer, and not the victim of some cheat or "exploit" unless the said cheat/exploit _dramatically_ alters game play such as the marine skin-hack.
If it were possible to alter NS to include a mini game of PAC-MAN in the bottom right hand corner of my screen, to play while I was waiting to respawn for example, and this was never shared with anyone else nobody would be any the wiser. Clearly this has no game-impact for anyone else, and yet anyone I killed would be the victim of an "exploiter".
Now Imagine that instead of PAC-MAN I enable something on my client that adds to the atmosphere of the game for me and perhaps boosts my fps somewhat. I'm now somewhat more of an efficient killer but nothing dramatically changes i.e. maybe my team works well together and we win as a result, or maybe we all suck and end up losing.
My point here is that certain "exploits" are like PAC-MAN, they have very little impact on the fun aspect of the game for the opposition.
My question to you all is, would you object to PAC-MAN-like "exploits" solely based on the reasoning that it is an _exploit_ and its the _principle_ of the thing and not so much game-play aspects ?
If the answer is "no" then I submit to you that making something like the bite-model optional is indeed very close to PAC-MAN especially given the nature of NS being so tightly geared around teamwork.
If the answer is "yes" then I would ask another question. Do you believe that having a superior system (internet connection etc) to give a player an edge is "wrong" ? I'm assuming the answer is going to be "no" here. Given this fact, don't you think it's a little selfish then to automatically deny someone the chance to be more competitive when they use a PAC-MAN like exploit and genuinely can't afford an upgrade for whatever reason. Or maybe they are a victim of being in an area where certain broad-band technologies are not possible to have.
I'm not saying theres a right or wrong answer here as such. Just that I think it's interesting that some people seemed so obssessed with TUKA that I imagine it's difficult for them to enjoy any game.
Comments
<i>If that's what the devs say, then I wish they would consider the fact that some people value gameplay more than costly eye-candy.</i>
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
your right.
I had a long talk with Flayra and we desided that NS was going to go through a make over - he let me sneak a screen shot to you guys.
<img src='http://fourty-two.net/~fox/eyecandy.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
oh, thats featuring the new skulk snout model - btw ..
"No. You wouldn't appreciate it on as many levels as I can. <b>THE COLOURS CHILDREN! THE COLOURS!</b>"
I have to admit, since it's been mentioned, I do find the Muzzle flash a tad annoying. It's just that <b>bit</b> too big IMO. But hey, that's just my <b>opinion</b>.
Skulk teeth are fine. But some implementation to keep track of the crackhoe bouncey marines would be nice. I don't think it makes sense that skulks die not because the marines shot them down, but because they couldn't keep track of where he was.
(Pictures Hicks with his Pulse Rifle being a Matador in front of Drone - Get the wrongness?)
The argument that your computer cannot handle the extra "eye-candy" is invalid. The speed of your computer is <b>your problem</b> and others shouldn't have to suffer. Thats like saying you should start off with extra points in a game because your computer is slower. In fact, most people pay extra money just so they don't encounter these problems. Sure, you should be able to lower your FPS by taking out a couple things, but the bite model is <b>purposely</b> meant to block your view.
Oh, and anyone who says that taking out the bite model doesn't affect your score has obviously never played NS. It doesn't matter how good you are, you cannot predict where the marine is going to go and things can totally change for the time you're munching down.
And SoBe.Dragon, you never mentioned any framerate problems before. This is obviously not your problem or the reason you are turning the model off, why suddenly start using that as your excuse? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Teh b1t3 model (and the muzsie flash) lkie extra skillz in da game!
Like B-Hopping! I can't belive they take it out man!
Its l1k3 th3y'r3 t0tally dumbing down <b>OUR</b> game.
...
Jesus, stop bitching. You're just losing advantages you were never ment to have in the first place, we all knew these changes were coming and anyone who didn't stop exploiting in preperation to learn the new skills required to deal with them is an idiot.
BlueGhost
I'd like to see it a 'bit' smaller, but not by much. Just enough that it doesn't cover the centre crosshair so much when firing.
Again, bolding certain words in your sentences does not make your argument any more valid.
That useless piece of eye-candy costs me 15-20 fps, why should I have to look at it and let it slow my comp down? Valve put the command in for a reason, it's their game first, the NS team's mod second. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
same thing here, increases fps a lot ... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ok I just got back from a game where I did some testing. It seems that I got a score of 50:0 with an aim bot installed and 0:50 without it. Therefore aimbots are good and really help. I think they should be left in NS.
[/sarcasam off]
so without the weapon model his FPS will drop down to 10 in battle, and with it will be 5?
i wouldnt worry about someone with 10 FPS hitting me whatsoever, et alone what <b>exploit</b> he uses.
dont tell people they have to get better computers. this is a mod, we are not obligated to play it, but i am positive the devs want their game to be popular, so lets try to make everyone love NS, instead of telling those who complain to **** off.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->That useless piece of eye-candy costs me 15-20 fps, why should I have to look at it and let it slow my comp down? Valve put the command in for a reason, it's their game first, the NS team's mod second. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Useless peice of eye candy...Marine muzzle flares and the skulk bite are both there for a reason: balance. Letting skulks see everything clearly when they're attacking would be and IS unfair (I'm looking at the people who turn the bite model off, yes YOU). You're dealing with an attack that does 75 damage and will kill an unupgraded marine in 2 hits. It's a powerful weapon, and if people could see everything when they used it they would get a lot more kills than the high numbers it currently provides. THe muzzle flare is the same, it stops very effective sniping at range but because the lmg is weaker than the skulk bite the flare is quite small, thus balancing the rifle for range.
Now yes, the HL team out that command in the game, but they made HL primarily for single play; multiplay was tacked on without much thought. As such being able to remove your weapon models ment basically nothing; Valve wasn't concerned. In a mod like NS though, the developers are taking the HL engine and using it to build what they want. They're not Valve, they're not making a single player game, and when they purposly make an attack animation that takes up the screen they are doing it for reasons of gameplay and balance. You get a reduction in FPS? Upgrade your rig. Just because older computers get slowed down by this is no justification to remove it. You think ID is going to dumb down Doom 3 because anything less than a Geforce 4 will not be able to run it? No.
Re: fps, i'll suggest an analogy.
Smoke grenades in CS are (or where) notorious for making fps take a nosedive (i'm sure most people know this). Lower end GFX cards just couldn't handle them.
Therefore you could set the complexity of the sprite with cvars. The lowest setting was ugly and actually more difficult to see through but wasn't such a hit on your GFX card. The highest setting was pretty, you could partially see through it sometimes and hit the GFX card the worst.
Notice how theres no option to turn them off ? I mean, then you'd be doing soemthing the devs specfically didn't won't you to be able to do, see through smoke grenades. Which would be, gosh, cheating.
The only difference is theres no way to scale the skulk bite at present. FPS is no argument for cheating.
A lot of people keep saying that the skulk's fisheye view was removed because computers in software mode couldn't use higher fov than 90.
Everyone is screaming about "eyes-in-the-head". It's just a representation folks, not supposed to look 100% real. Do you think you can accurately fire an automatic weapon from the hip too??? Deal with it. It's not supposed to be 100% real.
Here is an idea *IF* it wasn't already mentioned is this discussion. Ever think about making the teeth model semi-transparent?
Just food for thought. :o
Yes it's a powerful weapon but it is a close range weapon. Against a group of marines who are covering each other chances are all one bite is what you'll get in anyway. Against a lone marine (especially in an ambush scenario) the skulk should win most of the time anyway. I guess what I'm saying here is that I still haven't seen a convincing argument in terms of gameplay mechanics as to why the bite model makes a _huge_ difference in terms of _kills in the greater scheme of things_. The reason why it shouldn't: the range of the attack is limited and many more factors besides the bite model come into play in order to be a successful skulk. It does however makes a significant difference in terms of atmosphere to me.
I have seen several people comment that the bite model is deliberately designed to blind the skulk. If someone could point me to a link perhaps where this has been discussed ...or if a developer would be kind enough to confirm this I'd greatly appreciate it. I just have a hard time believing that that was the true intent behind the model (as opposed to atmosphere).
At any rate, I think the discussion has been useful. Thanks to all who contributed.
Then I joined as an alien.
'DUDE! What the hell is that?!'
'It's the teeth!'
'Sweet! That's just so friggin' cool!'
I've never heard my clanmate's complain about it, (or the muzzle flash). They're both there for such a short time it's really pointless, it's not like you can travel halfway across the room blind or anything, it's a milisecond at best.
Snouts would suck, HL in 3rd person? HAHAHAHAHAHA! C'mon people, we don't want 'claw' or something pansy. Bite is great and the model rocks.
Actually, multiplayer games are a very good reason for allowing customisability, and designing the game so that the essential features are resistant to cheating. For example, the 90% cloak is, for cheating-prevention, a bad thing, because it is vulnerable to skin-customizations. Locking a server variable will not prevent that, as the model change happens on the client. It is possible to make a proxy that tells the server the game uses original models while it actually uses changed models. Sure, few people can do that, but it only takes one to do it and then share it with others.
A better solution may be to opt for 100% transparency, and if cloaked, just don't send any indication of the presence of that cloaked alien to the marines. Only let the server send that info when they're so close to it they're tripping over it. Of course, that requires changes to the engine, and HL might not make that possible.
Putting in the skulk bite animation as an essential balancing element is bad in a similar way, except that it's even worse considering disabling it is a standard engine feature. It's on the same level as setting the default keybindings to Alt+F10 = forward, Control+Shift+numpad 7 is back,... and telling everyone they're not allowed to change it because that would be cheating. Unnecessary pointless crippling tricks (though the models aren't as bad as my proposed keymaps).
The main reason I leave it on is because it looks cool.
I do however really like the idea of the fisheye lens view, that would be very nice indeed and would definitely help you to locate the bouncing marines at close range.
I'm hearing the teeth called "atmosphere" a lot. If this was the original intent on the game then I do not see why I cannot decide I wish to not have that atmosphere.
If the intent was to blind the aliens during their attack- why? As pointed out above a skulks only hope to survive a fight is to be right on his heels. If I bite once and he jump-strafes while I'm blind (happens often enough) and I have to take a moment to find him to get in the second bite kill- that's enough time for him to shatter me with any weapon. Skulks are supposed to be melee dominators right?
I'm starting to lean towards the teeth being optional, or at the very least partly transparent- say 75% cloaking or something.
To this day I have not tried ridding myself of the teeth. Next time I play I will try to remember to do that and see how much difference I get while playing. So that's my vote: Optional or 75% transparent.
A lot of people keep saying that the skulk's fisheye view was removed because computers in software mode couldn't use higher fov than 90. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was because the game was originally being designed to be compatible with software-mode HL. They couldn't do the fisheye in software, so it was removed. Not catering to a slower system, catering to the limitations of the HL engine. It was only later discovered that NS won't work properly under software mode anyway. It also may be re-implemented in v1.1, if you take a look at some of the PT comments that hint toward that.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad they'll be locked to 'on', so those of us who choose to play the game as it was intended don't have to worry about whether the Skulk that just bit us down, or the Marine that just sniped us away is using a dev-listed, Flayra-confirmed <b>exploit</b>, like turning off r_drawviewmodels.
You want better FPS? Find another way.. like upgrading from that Voodoo1-based video card to something that <i>isn't</i> steam or hamster-powered.
Or how about this:
Play a game with a wallhack off, then play with it on.... then try to go back, heh.
*I really can't think of anything that wouldn't look stupid.
*It's a game balance thing. Right now, it adds that little bit more skill requirement to the game by making you either time your bites or develop better combat awareness. It DOES equate to the marine muzzle flash, which is ALSO a balance thing which requires skill to adapt to. Skulk wasn't meant to be easy. The little buggers are dangerous enough as they are (I should know, I am one most of the time); they don't need any help.
*Prepares for the volley of tomatoes*
One concept I do find especially significant. I shall hereby dub it "The unknown killer angst".
Basically TUKA (The unknown killer angst) boils down to this: You can never be truly sure that you were outplayed honestly by your killer, and not the victim of some cheat or "exploit" unless the said cheat/exploit _dramatically_ alters game play such as the marine skin-hack.
If it were possible to alter NS to include a mini game of PAC-MAN in the bottom right hand corner of my screen, to play while I was waiting to respawn for example, and this was never shared with anyone else nobody would be any the wiser. Clearly this has no game-impact for anyone else, and yet anyone I killed would be the victim of an "exploiter".
Now Imagine that instead of PAC-MAN I enable something on my client that adds to the atmosphere of the game for me and perhaps boosts my fps somewhat. I'm now somewhat more of an efficient killer but nothing dramatically changes i.e. maybe my team works well together and we win as a result, or maybe we all suck and end up losing.
My point here is that certain "exploits" are like PAC-MAN, they have very little impact on the fun aspect of the game for the opposition.
My question to you all is, would you object to PAC-MAN-like "exploits" solely based on the reasoning that it is an _exploit_ and its the _principle_ of the thing and not so much game-play aspects ?
If the answer is "no" then I submit to you that making something like the bite-model optional is indeed very close to PAC-MAN especially given the nature of NS being so tightly geared around teamwork.
If the answer is "yes" then I would ask another question. Do you believe that having a superior system (internet connection etc) to give a player an edge is "wrong" ? I'm assuming the answer is going to be "no" here. Given this fact, don't you think it's a little selfish then to automatically deny someone the chance to be more competitive when they use a PAC-MAN like exploit and genuinely can't afford an upgrade for whatever reason. Or maybe they are a victim of being in an area where certain broad-band technologies are not possible to have.
I'm not saying theres a right or wrong answer here as such. Just that I think it's interesting that some people seemed so obssessed with TUKA that I imagine it's difficult for them to enjoy any game.