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Topic: Teewars physics and/or netcode

I am not too sure about what to blame exactely but as Teewars is a fast-paced game, I have to say your $unknown code sucks big time.

First of all it seems like every projectile is spawned inside (middle of) the Tees or even behind them. This is stupid because when I fire a gun I expect it to come from the gun, not my belly.

Either your netcode sucks or something else. Whenever I go fast and launch a rocket it basically never comes in front of me. It spawns behind me and stays there. Have you ever heard basic physics lessons? If I travel with velocity x and shoot a projectile with velocity y they SHOULD add up.

Yes, I suck at doing prediction shots with the grenade launcher but don't tell me I'm stupid. I've played other 2D games where I could do awesome prediction shots with projectile weapons and I even played War§ow midair game mode with its only goal to kill the enemy midair using a rocket launcher. I know how to predict. The physics in this game annoyed me ever since I started playing.

When I'm falling down and fire the shotgun, the projectiles spawn ABOVE me and travel as if I fired them being at rest.

So please, fix the netcode and/or game physics. I guess you'll now say I'm an idiot and you are the developers of this game so I have to adapt to how the game behaves but this is not an acceptable attitude.
Thing is, this game doesn't feel natural and it is a bad practice to offer players altered physics as intuition from everyday's life cannot be applied anymore.

I tried to prove my thesis by reading the code as I'm a programmer myself but I had a hard time to grasp the overall code layout and therefore skipped searching for the code.

Thank you for your attention.

I don't care.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Don't forget, gameversion is 0.3.3, means not everything works perfectly. Be patient until everything you don't like is fixed, or just don't play it.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

This has been discussed a few times before. Look in those topics for answers.

Used to be very active waay back

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

I've pasted this from an other thread where we discussed why we have chosen not to have inherited velocity.

matricks wrote:

The projectile should come from the gun tip yes. This is something we just haven't fixed yet.

Regarding velocity, yes and no. Inherited velocity is a design decision that depends on what type of game play you have or want to have. This is my own observations that I've made.

In a fast-paced game, quake 3 for an example, your velocity changes quickly and a lot. You tend to prefer not to have inherited velocity because it becomes more predictable and easier to aim. I know that they experimented with this in quake 3 because if you look though the game source code you can find the line that adds the players velocity to the projectile out commented.

In a more low-paced game, tribes 2 for an example, your velocity can be great, but it doesn't change that quick that often. You generally make small adjustments and spend most of your time in the air, or moving straight to a target. In this kind of action you want to have inherited velocity because it helps aiming when two entities are moving in generally the same direction at almost equal speed and you just have to compensate for the speed difference.

Teewars qualifies as the first category and I think that it would not benefit from inherited velocity.

The issue with the bullets spawning behind you have to do with prediction and isn't something that just can be fixed. It's more obvious in 2D then in 3D. Prediction is basically "lying" to the player on whats going on and hope that you get away with it. Teewars right now only predicts local player movement, because it's hard to move around with lag. The projectiles aren't predicted because it would cause a lot of lying about bullets positions; you would see a lot of bullets going though players etc. I have some improvements for the fire delay in 0.4.0 but thats about it.

5 (edited by Teetees 2008-01-27 19:42:31)

Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Would you mind pointing me towards the specific threads you're talking about? I just searched for "lag" and "physics" and "netcode" not finding anything related to what I said or they were talking about like 0.3.0!

Edit: This post was a reply to FireArrow, now I can search that specific thread, thanks!
Edit3: I think this thread doesn't exist anymore, right?

Edit2:

I guess then for me it is simply the not-gun-tip(!) + netcode issue because I could've sworn Q3 does indeed inherit velocity. Now that I talk about it, you must be right, I did Q3 trickjumping where you extensivly use rockets to do multi-rocket jumps and they all flew the same speed I recall.
So the only difference has to be the very slow speed of the grenade launcher because in Q3 you have to be very very fast to pass by your own rockets. And still, the Q3 rocket launcher is slow.
I don't quite get it. Q3 though never gave me the feeling of randomness when fighting with high speed. Teewars does. Soldat didn't. You're doing something wrong.

I don't care.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

This thread talks about the inheirited velocity:
http://www.teewars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

A high-speed internet connection and a nearby server also helps. wink

8 (edited by Teetees 2008-01-27 21:55:01)

Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Let me elaborate my view:

Comparing Q3 and Teewars is completely out of place. You say Q3 is a fast game. But that is wrong. Q3 CAN be a fast game but Q3 is sluggish as hell and it takes quite some effort for it to become fast. You might want to show me "quick velocity changes" in Q3 sir.
Did you know air rockets are easiest done in Q3? Air rockets in UT are a real mastery. Why? Q3 has the "worst" air control ever which means once you're in air you basically can't move really so your path of movement is quite predictable. In Teewars the air control is probably better than on the floor thanks to the hook so there's a big big difference.

I did a bit of trickjumping in Q3 and once you gain speed you hardly can do curves let alone turning around with the same speed. Q3's physics are made to be sluggish. If you ever compared the UT series to Q3, Q3 feels like playing underwater, being retarded. UT's movement isn't as beatiful as Quake's though but that's another discussion.
If you did trickjumping you would know it's not that easy to become faster than your rocket. You have to be a quite good strafe jumper to actually become faster than your rocket, in Teewars ANY movement other than walking makes you faster than the completely ridiculously slow grenades. I smell imbalance. And everything I said is true for the shotgun as well.

To sum it up: In ANY other game it is rather hard to get behind your projectile may it be a rocket, a flak shell, a bio rifle blob, whatever. In Teewars any movement other than plain walking makes you get behind your projectiles. Add some unbelievable fast movement to the game and it basically sucks. You have the fastest movement (alongside War§ow) I know along with the slowest projectiles. This just doesn't mix. I could stfu and adapt but it just doesn't make sense to me and I somehow feel attracted to little buggers with guns.

I like the game, the idea, the graphics, I just hate the gameplay as it is right now. Please don't feel offended.

Edit: Too dumb to write proper sentences.

I don't care.

9 (edited by KRD 2008-01-27 22:51:56)

Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Doesn't Teewars being even faster than Q3A further reinforce the reasoning behind Matricks' self quotation up there?

Feels that way to me at a quick glance. hmm

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

It's easier not to get offended if you stick to the constructive feedback rather than tossing words like "retarded," "sucks" and "hate the gameplay" around, but that's beside the point. I personally don't take offense since I'm well aware no game can please anyone, especially not one that's far from finished.

Anyway, it might just be that we haven't reached a comfortable balance of speeds yet. I should mention, though, that you're preaching to the choir a bit. As we've often stated in and outside of these forums, Teewars isn't Q3, Warsow, Soldat or Worms. It's inspired by some of those games (and others) but we don't take our design cues from them beyond what is prudent in each particular aspect.

I would happily experiment with the parameters of the Teewars player / weapon physics, we just haven't seen much reason to do anything drastic this early on in the life cycle of the game -- especially where speed and maneuverability are concerned, due to the symbiotic nature of gameplay and map design. Until we've reached a more mature level of comfort with map design, we're reluctant to toss out what a majority of players seem to feel comfortable with.

Having said all that, your input is appreciated, and we'll gladly take it into account if and when we re-visit the player / weapon physics.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Agreed :>

aka oop²

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

KRD wrote:

Doesn't Teewars being even faster than Q3A further reinforce the reasoning behind Matricks' self quotation up there?

I have to admit I don't know what different it would feel if velocity would add up as I assumed Q3 and co. have this feature. So yes, this might be a reason for NOT making velocities add up. Apart from that, no.

You just can't compare Teewars and Q3 because of the worlds between the movement and worlds between projectile velocities. Once again: In Q3 it is HARD to become faster than a rocket. In Q3 you have a WAY slower average movement. In Q3 it is hard to change direction once you're fast.
Teewars movement is so much different and faster. And the projectiles are slower.
Moving forward swiftly basically disables properly using the grenade launcher as it most likely will hit yourself.

teetow wrote:

It's easier not to get offended if you stick to the constructive feedback rather than tossing words like "retarded," "sucks" and "hate the gameplay" around, but that's beside the point.

I do hate the gameplay and it sucks as well. I might want to express myself a little less aroused, I'll take that into account. Read the sentence with 'retarded' again as it wasn't used to insult anything at all.

teetow wrote:

Teewars isn't Q3, Warsow, Soldat or Worms. It's inspired by some of those games (and others) but we don't take our design cues from them beyond what is prudent in each particular aspect.

Sure it isn't but don't try to enforce difference with declaring this absolutely wrong correlation of velocities as Teewars' own style. It is just rubbish. There must be a reason Q3, War§ow, Soldat and Worms were successful. You have the unique graphics. The style bonus. Don't ruin it with weird physics just so you can say "we're different!".

I don't care.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

I´m sort of with Teetees on this one in the sense that I think the fact that you predict movement but not projectiles does more harm than good. I didn´t find it hard too move around before, but I do find it harder too aim now since the bullets seem too appear where I was a moment ago rather from where I am now.

I don´t really understand how this stuff works though, and my memory isn´t perfect. Maybe turning off prediction isn´t the answer (but I heard it´s possible so I think I´ll try it out). Just pointing out that Teetees isn´t the only one not fully comfortable with how it is at the moment.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

You can try and turn off the prediction by setting cl_predict=0 .. It's really really horrible smile

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Feels... weird but I like how I actually know where I'm shooting at wink

I don't care.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Teetees wrote:
teetow wrote:

Teewars isn't Q3, Warsow, Soldat or Worms. It's inspired by some of those games (and others) but we don't take our design cues from them beyond what is prudent in each particular aspect.

Sure it isn't but don't try to enforce difference with declaring this absolutely wrong correlation of velocities as Teewars' own style. It is just rubbish. There must be a reason Q3, War§ow, Soldat and Worms were successful. You have the unique graphics. The style bonus. Don't ruin it with weird physics just so you can say "we're different!".

Oh, but I wasn't. I'm merely saying that since we're essentially trying to merge sidescrollers with FPS games, it's not a given which aspect of the game should be dictated by any given game or style. We're taking it slow because it's tricky business, not that we're touting the "weird is good" card, which I personally detest.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Just a friendly reminder, they are grenades, not rockets. Rockets are self-propelled. They are just named wrong in the code.

Okey, so almost all agree that somethings in the teewars physics must change. The question isn't if we should change something, the question is what we should change. I will give you some figures.

ups = units per second, 32 units is one tile.

You run at 350 ups.
The hook can accelerate you up to 750 ups.
The gravity has no limits on how fast it can propell you. Used correctly with the hook you can travel up towards ~1100 ups, ~1200 if you are REALLY REALLY fast.
The gun projectile travels at 1500 ups.
The shotgun projetiles travels at 1400-1500 ups.
A grenade travels at 750 ups.
(Ninja cut is a whoopping 2500 ups)

I suggest that we increase the running speed to about 450-500ish. Call the hook fine. Introduce a terminal velocity for tees at 1000 ups to remove insane velocities. Increase the grenade to ~850 ups. Increase gun and shotgun with 100 ups.

How does that sound?

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

matricks wrote:

I suggest that we increase the running speed to about 450-500ish. Call the hook fine. Introduce a terminal velocity for tees at 1000 ups to remove insane velocities. Increase the grenade to ~850 ups. Increase gun and shotgun with 100 ups.

How does that sound?

Would be great.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

It sounds like a lot of testing. Good thing we like doing it. big_smile

If this was post version 1.0, I would of course be raising the don't-do-what-Soldat-did alarm. Changing all the values with each version made a lot of people leave the game because they/we simply couldn't or refused to keep up. Sure it was done in the name of balancing the weapons and gameplay, but somehow half the people playing the game always liked the previous version better, resulting in a neverending cycle. Rant over.

On a positive note, I can't wait to see the faster bullets in action. It could well help with the chasing problem as well, swatting two community requests at once. Will the speed increase affect the curve of the nade* and its reach as well? I hope I won't be completely off with them again, heh...

*I told people it was a nade launcher on my first day online and they wouldn't listen! Those bastards.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

KRD wrote:

It sounds like a lot of testing. Good thing we like doing it. big_smile

If this was post version 1.0, I would of course be raising the don't-do-what-Soldat-did alarm. Changing all the values with each version made a lot of people leave the game because they/we simply couldn't or refused to keep up. Sure it was done in the name of balancing the weapons and gameplay, but somehow half the people playing the game always liked the previous version better, resulting in a neverending cycle. Rant over.

On a positive note, I can't wait to see the faster bullets in action. It could well help with the chasing problem as well, swatting two community requests at once. Will the speed increase affect the curve of the nade* and its reach as well? I hope I won't be completely off with them again, heh...

*I told people it was a nade launcher on my first day online and they wouldn't listen! Those bastards.

I'm well aware of the ever-changing-physics-ruins-the-game problem.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

matricks wrote:

I suggest that we increase the running speed to about 450-500ish. Call the hook fine. Introduce a terminal velocity for tees at 1000 ups to remove insane velocities. Increase the grenade to ~850 ups. Increase gun and shotgun with 100 ups.

How does that sound?

Why increas the running speed? And why should we cap the tee velocity ?! That's boring!

Tee. Code. Offbeat.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

I agree that setting maximum achievable speed isn't a good idea. Things shouldn't be done that way - high speeds should be hard to achieve, but achievable. How about (for example) halving all the speed above 1000 ? So if you should have 1250 ups, you would have only 1125 ups in real.
And - when we are at the speed subject, how about implementing (optional) speedometer on screen (like in Warsow)? Would be nice, especially for races smile

Take a look at my posts with ideas:
Hammer+charge * Headshots smile * Yet Another Energy Gun * Map scrolling

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Running in Teewars today is very slow with the rest of the movement. I like the idea of a speed curve. Not perhaps just half it above 1000 but make it harder and harder the faster you go.

You can see your speed in teewars right now by turning on debug (debug=1 in the console). The middle value on the screen is the speed in units per 2 ticks. Take that number * 25 to find out the speed in ups. A better speedometer will come in 0.4.0 when we do the race stuff.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

Logaritmic speed increase (evenly getting harder and harder but no real limit)?

I agree with matricks that making running faster is a good idea.

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Re: Teewars physics and/or netcode

matricks wrote:

You can try and turn off the prediction by setting cl_predict=0 .. It's really really horrible smile

I tried it now and I see what you mean. With prediction is better in pretty much every way except for aiming.

It seems too me it´s just a matter of calibration though. When playing with prediction the projectiles consistantly come from where you were a moment ago rather than where you are now. Can´t the prediction just take the delay into account in it´s calculations?

If there is a delay between a buttonclick on your computer and it happening on the server, shouldn´t the client try too mimic the server as closely as possible rather than giving you a fast response? Or maybe better yet, add the delay of the message coming back too so that it gets truly syncronized with how you show the projectiles. That way I think you´d get the smooth movement of prediction without the hard to aim drawback.