Or you can just remove them and save yourself the trouble.
Glancing bites dont add anything but frustration to aliens, leaving you guessing how much damage you have done and how much HP the target has left. Counting bites and effectively knowing armor levels and also judging threat levels from marines in a room was something that took skill and practice, and its all been muddied by a kneejerk addition in the form of glancing bites. Even if the feedback was fixed it would still never 'feel' good simply due to interp and other issues, there's limitations that cannot reasonably be overcome currently. All that leads to frustration at a high level when playing aliens.
I still have not seen a valid benefit to the mechanic, some people say it makes skulking easier but all things considered it doesnt, just gives you the illusion of it by allowing you to hit bites that have no business counting as valid hits. It probably creates more problems long term as I have seen quite a few newer players complain how killing a marine takes 10 bites, which makes it quite clear they were hitting almost all glancing hits.
Ideally you want mechanics which are easy to learn, which would give the same kind of performance increase that glancing bites offers. Having that mechanic as a skill floor does nothing to reinforce the player through their time learning the game. Such a mechanic that rewards a small amount of time spent with a noteable performance increase is what reinforces players, and helps encourage them to learn and master the game.
Or you can just remove them and save yourself the trouble.
Glancing bites dont add anything but frustration to aliens, leaving you guessing how much damage you have done and how much HP the target has left.
What........? Turn on the option to show damage numbers so you know how much damage you're doing. I have no problems whatsoever knowing how much damage I've done even when hitting glancing + full bites on multiple targets and knowing what Armor levels they are at as well.
I suppose if you can't easily keep track of numbers in your head... then you might have trouble.
Yea im sure you can bite multiple marines and know exactly how much you did to all of them and quickly communicate that to your teammates so that they know if the marines are a 2 or 3 swipe and if they can clear the room or would die... Damage numbers are delayed since they are server side and also tally up meaning that landing multiple hits on different marines makes the total damage not discernable.
Theres no need to add completexity just for complexities sake.
I think being able to tell whether or not that attack you just landed was a direct hit or not would add an element of skill to the game, and it would also include having the necessary knowledge of how many bites does it take to kill a marine for example.
So instead of diminishing that element of gameplay it could be seen as enhancing it.
I'm not really a fan of glancing bites, as I don't think they're necessary; but, I don't think that is a proper argument against them.
From what I understand the main reason for adding them was to essentially give newer players or players not so good at skulk a chance to get in some shots... I think a really bad skulk player who misses fairly often will find that they are 'hitting' the marine but it takes so many more hits for them. So instead of enhancing gameplay for them it actually detracts from it.
Adding in some audio that allows us to make the distinction between them would be very helpful, draw damage is not a sufficient solution, imo, this is not an action rpg.
From what I understand the main reason for adding them was to essentially give newer players or players not so good at skulk a chance to get in some shots... I think a really bad skulk player who misses fairly often will find that they are 'hitting' the marine but it takes so many more hits for them. So instead of enhancing gameplay for them it actually detracts from it.
Though to be fair, they added glancing bites AFTER they needlessly nerfed the sole 75 dmg skulk cone. Perhaps the old bite was a little too much, but the massive nerf they hit it with was way overkill. Only then did they add glancing bites to somewhat compensate but I think the game would just be better off if they got rid of glancing bites and just gave skulks a 75 dmg cone the size of the current 75 + 50 dmg cone.
Aiming bites should not be a primary factor in being able to play a skulk, getting close for the kill and manoeuvring in close combat should be. (Which is where skill based movement mechanics come in)
Counting bites and effectively knowing armor levels and also judging threat levels from marines in a room was something that took skill and practice, and its all been muddied by a kneejerk addition in the form of glancing bites. Even if the feedback was fixed it would still never 'feel' good simply due to interp and other issues, there's limitations that cannot reasonably be overcome currently.
I can clearly count the bites/dmg and keep up with armor levels still.. and you're way better than me, so how can you not?
You do not know which external limitations, like interp, can or cannot be overcome, sorry, you just don't.
Having that mechanic as a skill floor does nothing to reinforce the player through their time learning the game. Such a mechanic that rewards a small amount of time spent with a noteable performance increase is what reinforces players, and helps encourage them to learn and master the game.
Sure it does, it encourages more accurate biting, in concept.
Easy to learn, hard to master. They can learn how to time their bite anywhere on their screen.. but to master it requires more accurate biting.
All that needs to be done now is to more clearly communicate it through audio and other means, to ensure new players actually distinguish the difference, should they miss the dmg numbers.
How exactly does this impact "high level when playing aliens" ??
If glancing bites weren't there you would have missed completely. You would have done no damage. Now you at least do some.
There's zero loss of timing or negative aspect to this change, unless you cannot clearly tell how much damage you have dealt.
In which case... its still an issue of communication like i said, and not the concept.*
Draw damage isn't really reliable, it's too hard to see in the middle of combat a lot of times. Not to mention this is not on by default, and even if it was, I really doubt a new player would be able to glean anything about there being different damage cones from it. It's a good tool, sure, but it's pretty worthless in terms of being indicative of damage cones.
It is just not the same as having clear audio queues and additional hit indicators on the crosshair, etc.
I know 1 player swore to me their was htiboxes (chest and legs) and they did different damage numbers. With no audible feedback you are landing any type of lower damage bite you are left with hoping you spot a 25/50/75 in the middle of combat and as a new player figuring out why they vary can be confusing.
Did you not read my second part about why draw damage is worthless when engaging multiple marines? Do you even understand WHY relying on draw damage can mean your death? Have you ever tried bullet counting skulks using the damage numbers as your counter? That would be a quick way to die if you did, as they are way too delayed. The ENTIRE point of something like bullet counting is so that you do not need to wait for the server to acknowledge a kill, the same thing happens when you rely on skulk bites that do not translate correctly.
As for client side indicators, the accuracy of those will be quite terrible for various reasons, we went down this road before do we really need to repeat mistakes from beta again?
I would also challenge you on the fact that I do not know what limitations can and cannot be overcome, considering I have probably more experience with those adjustments then almost anyone else here. Collision and interpolation absolutely impact skulking in NS2, and mechanics like glancing bites only serve to make it even less enjoyable.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
@xdragon : You only replied to the points regarding lacking communication, again, not the concept. I have already agreed enough that communication implementation is the issue.. ?
Your point regarding dmg number delay is a valid one for high level play, i can definitely see that point.
As far as knowing the engine limitations, ofc interp et al impacts skulking.. it impacts every inch of the game, no one is debating that.
And I know that you know plenty on the subject, but that doesn't put you in a position of knowing what UWE has planned for the future or is working on, or even what is possible in this engine etc. This doesn't mean i am presuming a delay free game or a magical, revolutionary netcode as being a reality, but rather that no one but Max really can say what can or cannot be done with his own engine.
But you still do have the final say on what you determine to "feel good", regardless of what could be changed, as that's an opinion.
But really now.. onto the subject that matters instead, the concept of bite cones.
Could you reply to the last part of my previous post, and answer that question of how it impacts high level play, as i honestly do not know.
Well, I bought the game shortly after release, so can't comment on how it worked before glancing blows (and my memory of NS1 is patchy at best, though i don't recall them existing there), but I actually like it in it's current form (that's not to say it can't be improved). I feel it helps newer players who haven't perfected the movement or tactics of skulks to still feel like they're contributing with those glancing blows and can see their improvement over time as the bites go from 25-50-75. Sure, initially it may seem confusing that bites do seemingly random damage, but i can talk from experience when I say you figure it out quickly. IMO it's better than missing bites you feel you should be connecting with...That'd be far more off-putting to rookies than scoring a 25dmg hit.
Much more frustrating to bite a marine 4 times and wonder why he isn't dead, than to miss a bite 4 times and learn where to bite.
I would be much more pro glancing if the drawdamage had green/yellow/red numbers or there was some kind of feedback from max/half/fraction damage dealt.
While I understand why they added glancing bites, I don't like it all that much. I prefer to keep things simple in this regard. You hit, you hit. You miss, you miss. No half measures. So I'd rather have a slightly larger 75dmg cone, and no glancing bites.
Yea im sure you can bite multiple marines and know exactly how much you did to all of them and quickly communicate that to your teammates so that they know if the marines are a 2 or 3 swipe and if they can clear the room or would die... Damage numbers are delayed since they are server side and also tally up meaning that landing multiple hits on different marines makes the total damage not discernable.
Actually I can and have done just that lots of times. I can certainly discern how much damage I've done across multiple targets. Also, damage numbers do not add up together on different targets. Also, even if they did , it would still be easy to discern how much damage i've done. Doing math in split seconds in your head is hardzzzz... not really....
How exactly does this impact "high level when playing aliens" ??
If glancing bites weren't there you would have missed completely. You would have done no damage. Now you at least do some.
There's zero loss of timing or negative aspect to this change, unless you cannot clearly tell how much damage you have dealt.
In which case... its still an issue of communication like i said, and not the concept.*
You are correct the issue is the communication.
If there wasn't glancing blows, the communication is very clear. Hit or No Hit.
Right now the problem is if you hit, you don't know if it was a good hit or a glancing hit. Hence the backlash against glancing blows.
I think the damage numbers on Kharra should be per hit. So as a skulk you would only see 25, 50, or 75. (red, yellow, green would help also)
The TSF should stay as is.
Now you have clear communication with the glancing blows.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Angled bite-cones like in the OP pictures was tried for a patch in beta, but in practice it made it very hard to hit marines that were close to you, which did not make sense or feel good - it was almost impossible to hit marines that were close to you.
The current code uses parallel boxes. Fixing the lawnmover-skulk was made by making the bitebox slightly narrower, IIRC.
The actual specification of the attack is ... slightly complex. NS2Utility.lua, CheckMeleeCapsule does the primary work of taking a sized melee attack, splits it into nine parallel smaller world-axis aligned boxes and traces them out to the given range, selecting the best target hit from the 9 traces - the reason for this split it to avoid a melee attack on a player being blocked by nearby walls/floors or structures.
It also has the advantage of cutting the diagonal attack width-bonus for using a world-axis aligned box from 41% to 12'ish%, small enough to be ignored.
PerformGradualMelee attack takes the size of the attack and divides it into thirds, calling CheckMeleeCapsule for 1/3rd of the size, 2/rds and finally the full size if the prior attacks hasn't hit anything, scaling down damage as it goes.
The NS1 size of the bite cube was 0.4x0.4m, while in NS2 the full-damage bite cube is a third of 1.1 x 1.0m, so it is slightly smaller than in NS1.
Removing glancing hits ... they do make the stiff skill cliff you need to climb as a new alien slightly easier to climb, which is good, IMO.
OTOH, it does remove a lot of the effect of the marine armor upgrades - A0->A1 in NS1 meant that you needed 3 full bites, not a parasite + 2. In NS2, the difference is a lot less, as it is so easy to get that last bite in, so armor levels don't matter as much - 3 sloppy bites will kill A0, A1 marines pretty much equally.
For high level play the impacts are as I stated - it muddies the reliance on intuition based on what you have connected with - simply because even if a sound queue is added, IMO it will never be reliable enough to depend on, as it would need to be client side to be quick enough to use. In NS1 you could para 2 bite a marine and without even a hesitation after landing the second bite, you knew you hit and he was dead, your already positioning to bite any other targets. In NS2, you could quite easily land a glancing hit that is unexpected, which means you either accept the ~2-300ms as lost time while you wait for confirmation of the kill, or take a huge risk by leaving the marine and assuming that you hit. I have lost count how many times I have 2 bite a marine (with bites that would have been perfect hits in NS1) and moved on, only to see the damage numbers and realize hes not dead.
You really should be arguing for glancing hits to stay for low level play, not high level. It makes lawnmower skulk ridiculously easy, and removes a larger portion of the precision that was required to skulk in NS1 (there are other reasons why its needed atm however, poor skulk movement and instant marine accel).
Show me an implementation that's accurate with instant feedback, and then maybe I wont think the mechanic is complete crap.
I just wish they changed the alien's damage numbers to be more TF2-like for better readability. Adding variable pitch ding-a-lings would also be a welcome addition imo. The bite cone itself is fine by me.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited April 2013
@xdragon : But that bite you ended up glancing with in your example would have made you otherwise miss without it and given the current delays of 2-300 ms you would still have to wait for that serverside confirmation of your miss regardless, using the crosshair hit indicator?? (since blood is clientside) The whole world operates on this delayed premise, awaiting the server, as you know.
Meaning.. there's no difference. You're awaiting confirmation from the server regardless.
Without glancing bites, you'd await the server for the red crosshair indicator (dmg numbers take even longer iirc)
With glancing bites, you'd await the server for proper feedback (sound, crosshairs, etc)
AFAIK There's no improving this delay without improving server performance first, which would allow you to increase the servers update rate and/or tickrate, which then would allow you to lower interp values.
Also important to note that judging these sorts of things in an intuitive method, like bullet counting, won't work as well if aliens scale - you'll have to fire until the server tells you they're dead because you don't know their HP/armor levels anymore :-P
TLDR: the feedback can be as instant as you experience already without glancing bites.
@xdragon : But that bite you ended up glancing with in your example would have made you otherwise miss without it and given the current delays of 2-300 ms you would still have to wait for that serverside confirmation of your miss regardless, using the crosshair hit indicator?? (since blood is clientside) The whole world operates on this delayed premise, awaiting the server, as you know.
Meaning.. there's no difference. You're awaiting confirmation from the server regardless.
Without glancing bites, you'd await the server for the red crosshair indicator (dmg numbers take even longer iirc)
With glancing bites, you'd await the server for proper feedback (sound, crosshairs, etc)
AFAIK There's no improving this delay without improving server performance first, which would allow you to increase the servers update rate and/or tickrate, which then would allow you to lower interp values.
Also important to note that judging these sorts of things in an intuitive method, like bullet counting, won't work as well if aliens scale - you'll have to fire until the server tells you they're dead because you don't know their HP/armor levels anymore :-P
TLDR: the feedback can be as instant as you experience already without glancing bites.
If you know you are hitting a killing blow, you start moving away before you can tell hes dead, and the numbers have not yet been displayed but you registered the sound in your head already and you know hes dead. But if you missed (aka glancing), there would be no sound and you would react much more naturally to continue the attack.
Whatever indicator or feedback you are using as a player to determine that its in fact a hit - be it clientside sound or blood or even serverside xhair indicators - you were still relying on said feedback to determine that, and i cannot think of how glancing bites cannot incorporate this exact method?
For instance, if you primarily use the clientside (instant) sound of chomping a marine to determine your hit, the server could end up disagreeing with you still and count it as a miss.
And vice versa.
If you relied on serverside hit indicators (delayed) you have confirmed a hit, but probably lost time to it.
Either implementation could be installed for glancing bite?
I think distinguishing audio cues would be a first step, and could be clientside (instant) as well, and perform with the same success rate that you currently use for determining.
I hate glancing bite, its by far one of the most frustrating parts of the game. I'm a little disappointed Sewlek hasn't included its removal on the BT mod. After bhop, it was the 2nd feature I was looking for...
I won't bother explaining my reasons, as everything xDragon explained I agree with 100%.
fyi: I would rather miss the bite than get a glancing hit. The feedback is delayed, when i'm attacking multiple marines I'm not looking out for the tiny writing to add up manually in my head my damage levels + factoring in armour levels & and its useless when attacking multiple marines.
Get it out of the game. I don't know a single high level player that wants it there & its even more confusing for new players when you have to explain a 3 tiered damage system based on bite accuracy. It was easy in NS1 to explain that in NS1 it was 3 bites for armour 1, 4 for armour 2 and 5 for armour 3. Try explaining how many bites it is now to a new player... fucking stupid
I dont think you understand very well.. Considering ranges and learning the bite cone you can learn what will hit and what would miss regardless of client side effects - my point being about glancing hits is that displaying those client side would most likely be inaccurate, at least to the point of not being reliable. How long did we have client side damage numbers that were so horribly incorrect they were useless? Reliance on the blood effect currently probably isnt horribly inaccurate as in higher tier play your generally hitting center or close too, so the client side prediction has more leeway with predicting atleast something connecting.
I dont think anyone could learn the tiered bite cones with such precision that they could predict what tier they would be hitting, there's just too many factors involved.
We actually no longer use "cones" but cylinders.
The bite areas as wide at the mouth as it is 0.5 metres from the skulks mouth.
Drawn in first perspective, it's a cone. Drawn in overhead, it's a cylinder. Neither is correct out of context. The perspective is also closer to the middle of the skulk, which is why you think bite is in front of the mouth.
---
Side Note: Because of how the game screws up prediction, it's quite easy to miss perfect bites because it's showing the models too far ahead or behind the simulation. As a marine (50 ping), I often jump and see the enemy bite (50-70 ping) where I was 1/3rd of a second or more ago and get a bite. It also explains why I can single-shot kill a skulk 6 feet from me and get bit at the same time.
Since the POV angle of skulk is so high, things that look close enough to center are actually further away. It doesn't help that the mouth model is unintuitive to begin with and misleading. The lerk model is better, since the teeth are actually closer to center than the side of the screen. Fun fact, the scaled bite damage also applies to structures. If the game decides you're hitting on the side even though center is dead over the target, it will apply reduced damage. The source engine had similar quirks.
.. i smell an official bite cone crosshair by rantology when this is all done.. dooo itttt...
The crosshair dimensions are too small for this (64 pixels). In NS1, I did have a huge bite x-hair that showed how close you'd have to be to get a hit and the horizontal angle you could be off.
NS2 also uses a single file for all x-hairs. The default "blank" x-hair is used by both aliens and marines for both melee and exos. It's a mess.
i think that they could do away with the 25 hit cone dont think it will be that missed and give a miss insted
off-topic: why not just change the alien vision to show the different areas in a slightly lighter or darker color pattern. until crosshairs come up to a bigger size. as it is normally used by alot of aliens
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Side Note: Because of how the game screws up prediction, it's quite easy to miss perfect bites because it's showing the models too far ahead or behind the simulation.
Eh... no. Bites are lag-compensated, so what you see on your screen is what the server will use to see if you manage to hit it or not. Bite it client side and it will take damage server side - IF you are still alive when the bite comes in.
As a marine (50 ping), I often jump and see the enemy bite (50-70 ping) where I was 1/3rd of a second or more ago and get a bite. It also explains why I can single-shot kill a skulk 6 feet from me and get bit at the same time.
Lag compensation means that your world and the attackers world are not synchronized. Both you and the attacker is seeing a time-delayed version of the world. This means that what is attacking you is actually closer to you than you think (by about 1/4 sec) which at skulk attack speeds is about 2-3m (and vice-versa; that marine has always fired off 5 more bullets than you think).
Reconciliation for lag compensation (ie when two players incompatible worlds are forced together) is done on the server. One of the common complaints about hitreg may well have its source in reconciliation, as the last five bullets you fired when dying to a skulk is actually not fired at all, as the server has already determined that you are dead, and you are not allowed to fire while dead.
Same thing for a skulk delivering a perfect killing blow and then dying; you were already dead when your perfect bite arrived at the server.
Fun fact, the scaled bite damage also applies to structures. If the game decides you're hitting on the side even though center is dead over the target, it will apply reduced damage. The source engine had similar quirks.
If you could manage to show that in a video, please report it - that bug was fixed a couple of months ago. The code only applies the damage multiplier if the target hit is a player:
function PerformGradualMeleeAttack(weapon, player, damage, range, optionalCoords, altMode, filter)
local didHit, target, endPoint, direction, surface
local didHitNow
local damageMult = 1
local stepSize = 1 / kNumMeleeZones
for i = 1, kNumMeleeZones do
didHitNow, target, endPoint, direction, surface = CheckMeleeCapsule(weapon, player, damage, range, optionalCoords, true, i * stepSize, nil, filter)
didHit = didHit or didHitNow
if target and didHitNow then
if target:isa("Player") then // <-- ONLY APPLY DAMAGE MULTIPLIER TO PLAYERS
damageMult = 1 - (i - 1) * stepSize
end
break
end
end
I really like the glancing bite function. It rewards those who are skilled but doesn't punish the less skilled so severly. I also like the unpredictability it brings. In fact, I think having some "randomness" is good for the game, even though the elite will always frown upon it. It helps newbies, and making the game fun and playable for newbies is much more important than satisfying the elite.
The biggest downfall I see with the glancing bite is that it's kind of the inverse to crits on TF2. With crits the random damage benefits you but glancing bites the (seemingly) random damage gets you killed. I've always thought that attacking speeds should give a damage percent boost so skulks wouldn't try to just hop around after jumping marines and take 5 bites.
Comments
Glancing bites dont add anything but frustration to aliens, leaving you guessing how much damage you have done and how much HP the target has left. Counting bites and effectively knowing armor levels and also judging threat levels from marines in a room was something that took skill and practice, and its all been muddied by a kneejerk addition in the form of glancing bites. Even if the feedback was fixed it would still never 'feel' good simply due to interp and other issues, there's limitations that cannot reasonably be overcome currently. All that leads to frustration at a high level when playing aliens.
I still have not seen a valid benefit to the mechanic, some people say it makes skulking easier but all things considered it doesnt, just gives you the illusion of it by allowing you to hit bites that have no business counting as valid hits. It probably creates more problems long term as I have seen quite a few newer players complain how killing a marine takes 10 bites, which makes it quite clear they were hitting almost all glancing hits.
Ideally you want mechanics which are easy to learn, which would give the same kind of performance increase that glancing bites offers. Having that mechanic as a skill floor does nothing to reinforce the player through their time learning the game. Such a mechanic that rewards a small amount of time spent with a noteable performance increase is what reinforces players, and helps encourage them to learn and master the game.
What........? Turn on the option to show damage numbers so you know how much damage you're doing. I have no problems whatsoever knowing how much damage I've done even when hitting glancing + full bites on multiple targets and knowing what Armor levels they are at as well.
I suppose if you can't easily keep track of numbers in your head... then you might have trouble.
Theres no need to add completexity just for complexities sake.
So instead of diminishing that element of gameplay it could be seen as enhancing it.
I'm not really a fan of glancing bites, as I don't think they're necessary; but, I don't think that is a proper argument against them.
From what I understand the main reason for adding them was to essentially give newer players or players not so good at skulk a chance to get in some shots... I think a really bad skulk player who misses fairly often will find that they are 'hitting' the marine but it takes so many more hits for them. So instead of enhancing gameplay for them it actually detracts from it.
Adding in some audio that allows us to make the distinction between them would be very helpful, draw damage is not a sufficient solution, imo, this is not an action rpg.
Aiming bites should not be a primary factor in being able to play a skulk, getting close for the kill and manoeuvring in close combat should be. (Which is where skill based movement mechanics come in)
You do not know which external limitations, like interp, can or cannot be overcome, sorry, you just don't. Sure it does, it encourages more accurate biting, in concept.
Easy to learn, hard to master. They can learn how to time their bite anywhere on their screen.. but to master it requires more accurate biting.
All that needs to be done now is to more clearly communicate it through audio and other means, to ensure new players actually distinguish the difference, should they miss the dmg numbers.
How exactly does this impact "high level when playing aliens" ??
If glancing bites weren't there you would have missed completely. You would have done no damage. Now you at least do some.
There's zero loss of timing or negative aspect to this change, unless you cannot clearly tell how much damage you have dealt.
In which case... its still an issue of communication like i said, and not the concept.*
It is just not the same as having clear audio queues and additional hit indicators on the crosshair, etc.
As for client side indicators, the accuracy of those will be quite terrible for various reasons, we went down this road before do we really need to repeat mistakes from beta again?
I would also challenge you on the fact that I do not know what limitations can and cannot be overcome, considering I have probably more experience with those adjustments then almost anyone else here. Collision and interpolation absolutely impact skulking in NS2, and mechanics like glancing bites only serve to make it even less enjoyable.
Your point regarding dmg number delay is a valid one for high level play, i can definitely see that point.
As far as knowing the engine limitations, ofc interp et al impacts skulking.. it impacts every inch of the game, no one is debating that.
And I know that you know plenty on the subject, but that doesn't put you in a position of knowing what UWE has planned for the future or is working on, or even what is possible in this engine etc. This doesn't mean i am presuming a delay free game or a magical, revolutionary netcode as being a reality, but rather that no one but Max really can say what can or cannot be done with his own engine.
But you still do have the final say on what you determine to "feel good", regardless of what could be changed, as that's an opinion.
But really now.. onto the subject that matters instead, the concept of bite cones.
Could you reply to the last part of my previous post, and answer that question of how it impacts high level play, as i honestly do not know.
I would be much more pro glancing if the drawdamage had green/yellow/red numbers or there was some kind of feedback from max/half/fraction damage dealt.
I still think glancing is a good idea though.
Actually I can and have done just that lots of times. I can certainly discern how much damage I've done across multiple targets. Also, damage numbers do not add up together on different targets. Also, even if they did , it would still be easy to discern how much damage i've done. Doing math in split seconds in your head is hardzzzz... not really....
You are correct the issue is the communication.
If there wasn't glancing blows, the communication is very clear. Hit or No Hit.
Right now the problem is if you hit, you don't know if it was a good hit or a glancing hit. Hence the backlash against glancing blows.
I think the damage numbers on Kharra should be per hit. So as a skulk you would only see 25, 50, or 75. (red, yellow, green would help also)
The TSF should stay as is.
Now you have clear communication with the glancing blows.
The current code uses parallel boxes. Fixing the lawnmover-skulk was made by making the bitebox slightly narrower, IIRC.
The actual specification of the attack is ... slightly complex. NS2Utility.lua, CheckMeleeCapsule does the primary work of taking a sized melee attack, splits it into nine parallel smaller world-axis aligned boxes and traces them out to the given range, selecting the best target hit from the 9 traces - the reason for this split it to avoid a melee attack on a player being blocked by nearby walls/floors or structures.
It also has the advantage of cutting the diagonal attack width-bonus for using a world-axis aligned box from 41% to 12'ish%, small enough to be ignored.
PerformGradualMelee attack takes the size of the attack and divides it into thirds, calling CheckMeleeCapsule for 1/3rd of the size, 2/rds and finally the full size if the prior attacks hasn't hit anything, scaling down damage as it goes.
The NS1 size of the bite cube was 0.4x0.4m, while in NS2 the full-damage bite cube is a third of 1.1 x 1.0m, so it is slightly smaller than in NS1.
Removing glancing hits ... they do make the stiff skill cliff you need to climb as a new alien slightly easier to climb, which is good, IMO.
OTOH, it does remove a lot of the effect of the marine armor upgrades - A0->A1 in NS1 meant that you needed 3 full bites, not a parasite + 2. In NS2, the difference is a lot less, as it is so easy to get that last bite in, so armor levels don't matter as much - 3 sloppy bites will kill A0, A1 marines pretty much equally.
You really should be arguing for glancing hits to stay for low level play, not high level. It makes lawnmower skulk ridiculously easy, and removes a larger portion of the precision that was required to skulk in NS1 (there are other reasons why its needed atm however, poor skulk movement and instant marine accel).
Show me an implementation that's accurate with instant feedback, and then maybe I wont think the mechanic is complete crap.
Meaning.. there's no difference. You're awaiting confirmation from the server regardless.
Without glancing bites, you'd await the server for the red crosshair indicator (dmg numbers take even longer iirc)
With glancing bites, you'd await the server for proper feedback (sound, crosshairs, etc)
AFAIK There's no improving this delay without improving server performance first, which would allow you to increase the servers update rate and/or tickrate, which then would allow you to lower interp values.
Also important to note that judging these sorts of things in an intuitive method, like bullet counting, won't work as well if aliens scale - you'll have to fire until the server tells you they're dead because you don't know their HP/armor levels anymore :-P
TLDR: the feedback can be as instant as you experience already without glancing bites.
If you know you are hitting a killing blow, you start moving away before you can tell hes dead, and the numbers have not yet been displayed but you registered the sound in your head already and you know hes dead. But if you missed (aka glancing), there would be no sound and you would react much more naturally to continue the attack.
Whatever indicator or feedback you are using as a player to determine that its in fact a hit - be it clientside sound or blood or even serverside xhair indicators - you were still relying on said feedback to determine that, and i cannot think of how glancing bites cannot incorporate this exact method?
For instance, if you primarily use the clientside (instant) sound of chomping a marine to determine your hit, the server could end up disagreeing with you still and count it as a miss.
And vice versa.
If you relied on serverside hit indicators (delayed) you have confirmed a hit, but probably lost time to it.
Either implementation could be installed for glancing bite?
I think distinguishing audio cues would be a first step, and could be clientside (instant) as well, and perform with the same success rate that you currently use for determining.
I won't bother explaining my reasons, as everything xDragon explained I agree with 100%.
fyi: I would rather miss the bite than get a glancing hit. The feedback is delayed, when i'm attacking multiple marines I'm not looking out for the tiny writing to add up manually in my head my damage levels + factoring in armour levels & and its useless when attacking multiple marines.
Get it out of the game. I don't know a single high level player that wants it there & its even more confusing for new players when you have to explain a 3 tiered damage system based on bite accuracy. It was easy in NS1 to explain that in NS1 it was 3 bites for armour 1, 4 for armour 2 and 5 for armour 3. Try explaining how many bites it is now to a new player... fucking stupid
I dont think anyone could learn the tiered bite cones with such precision that they could predict what tier they would be hitting, there's just too many factors involved.
Drawn in first perspective, it's a cone. Drawn in overhead, it's a cylinder. Neither is correct out of context. The perspective is also closer to the middle of the skulk, which is why you think bite is in front of the mouth.
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Side Note: Because of how the game screws up prediction, it's quite easy to miss perfect bites because it's showing the models too far ahead or behind the simulation. As a marine (50 ping), I often jump and see the enemy bite (50-70 ping) where I was 1/3rd of a second or more ago and get a bite. It also explains why I can single-shot kill a skulk 6 feet from me and get bit at the same time.
Since the POV angle of skulk is so high, things that look close enough to center are actually further away. It doesn't help that the mouth model is unintuitive to begin with and misleading. The lerk model is better, since the teeth are actually closer to center than the side of the screen. Fun fact, the scaled bite damage also applies to structures. If the game decides you're hitting on the side even though center is dead over the target, it will apply reduced damage. The source engine had similar quirks.
The crosshair dimensions are too small for this (64 pixels). In NS1, I did have a huge bite x-hair that showed how close you'd have to be to get a hit and the horizontal angle you could be off.
NS2 also uses a single file for all x-hairs. The default "blank" x-hair is used by both aliens and marines for both melee and exos. It's a mess.
We dont use cones...haven't for a good 2 dozen patches I think it is now.
off-topic: why not just change the alien vision to show the different areas in a slightly lighter or darker color pattern. until crosshairs come up to a bigger size. as it is normally used by alot of aliens
Eh... no. Bites are lag-compensated, so what you see on your screen is what the server will use to see if you manage to hit it or not. Bite it client side and it will take damage server side - IF you are still alive when the bite comes in.
Lag compensation means that your world and the attackers world are not synchronized. Both you and the attacker is seeing a time-delayed version of the world. This means that what is attacking you is actually closer to you than you think (by about 1/4 sec) which at skulk attack speeds is about 2-3m (and vice-versa; that marine has always fired off 5 more bullets than you think).
Reconciliation for lag compensation (ie when two players incompatible worlds are forced together) is done on the server. One of the common complaints about hitreg may well have its source in reconciliation, as the last five bullets you fired when dying to a skulk is actually not fired at all, as the server has already determined that you are dead, and you are not allowed to fire while dead.
Same thing for a skulk delivering a perfect killing blow and then dying; you were already dead when your perfect bite arrived at the server.
If you could manage to show that in a video, please report it - that bug was fixed a couple of months ago. The code only applies the damage multiplier if the target hit is a player:
function PerformGradualMeleeAttack(weapon, player, damage, range, optionalCoords, altMode, filter) local didHit, target, endPoint, direction, surface local didHitNow local damageMult = 1 local stepSize = 1 / kNumMeleeZones for i = 1, kNumMeleeZones do didHitNow, target, endPoint, direction, surface = CheckMeleeCapsule(weapon, player, damage, range, optionalCoords, true, i * stepSize, nil, filter) didHit = didHit or didHitNow if target and didHitNow then if target:isa("Player") then // <-- ONLY APPLY DAMAGE MULTIPLIER TO PLAYERS damageMult = 1 - (i - 1) * stepSize end break end endThe marine would only be alive if the commander dropped 1 499 995 medpacks if you got 3 000 000 bites in on him.
I doubt it. Jetpack speed is 8, I think leap is faster than that even without celerity.