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Gussak

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    Unibiotica: http://goo.gl/p5HFv (it is about alternative health, is in portuguese, translate it with google)

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  1. Gussak

    Undead

    I think mumies and skellys should be simple fire; but most missions I played have no fire arrow; but also, holy water should just allow us to craft "holy water arrow" that should be one-shot kill to a single undead (after they dance in holy-fire (considering it exists of course)). And, just for the fun of it, if shot at a torch or candle, even movable, it could create a circle of protection against undead for like 20s. the skelleton swords-deadman is hard to fight (I find it hard). what I usually do is find a spot they cannot reach, jump there (like in the middle of a table) and hit them until they fall. I am not sure it could be considered as cheating, considering they are mindless, I am just exploiting their lack of mind .
  2. Obs.: Just to make it sure, I am thinking now strictly about a possible fix (like the double check for available climbable spot), be it my suggestion or another more clueful one. Sorry but what you are saying is that you got used to a playability problem. You are a veteran on TDM because you know a lot about it (yes, including all its problems), but not because you get used to the problems. Problems will always be problems, just consider that newcomers will surely be affected, and when you (that got used to it) are under pressure (3 skeletons and one mumie cornering you) and for any reason don't look well your surroundings, that problem may get you again, because problems are always problems (don't generalize too much tho, better call this specific matter as a limitation, something that should not happen and may be complex to fix). Tho, I do agree that anything new, should (if possible) be implemented as optional. I think what they may consider here is how important is this problem and what priority it should have to be fixed considering other problems. But I disagree this is not a problem. Now I got interested because I see almost no other problems that call attention, and I have played several missions already (I almost feel veteran ), is there a link to them? I miss some features like roll forward and "stamina bar" (hard breathing sounds and complaints will do better hehe) to make use of all that eatable food (it would be fun to hear they say "hey who ate my apple?" and begin a distracting fight making it easier pass thru them). But I cant see other problems that are troubling enough to call my attention frequently as the game plays really smooth most of the time (it seems to only crash if I try to download more than 2 missions a time, what is actually just an annoyance).
  3. hey, see below.. hey, please consider this post (a possible technical workaround), may be the visual indication (even with showing arms) may not be required (even if it is cool). The main idea is to find a way to deal with the problem, to improve the playability, that's the main concern.
  4. The immersive alternative I proposed could even be better in terms of animation: Initially show just one 3d arm+hand just at the moment the player command to climb over the edge, that hand will hit the spot the player asked; Almost together but after, the other hand+arm will show up and finally perform the climbing, all takes less than 0.5s. I think it will have to be considered as an equipped weapon that switch back to real weapon after climbing. This exclusively, is purely aesthetics. Anyway, I think the available spot double check may do the trick over the problem tho.
  5. So it means, if the same space the player body occupy is available above (and a bit forward) the edge spot, then the edge becomes climbable right? What about, on failure, retry to position that space checker to the left or to the right (could be randomly and must be within certain limits) of the desired spot? so, the player when edge climbing would be actually positioned on that side spot lowering the failure events.
  6. [EDIT: please, consider first this post, it speaks about a technical possible workaround that may require no visual indication (like showing arms) at all. Every idea evolves, and so did this one.] Problem: From time to time I have a hard time to properly aim one or another edge to mantle without jumping. When that happens I usually aim every possible edge limits until the action happens, but sometimes I am forced to move a bit for it to work, and other times I need to try other sides of the furniture or rock boulder etc. It is only really a problem when you need timing or under combat, but is only annoying out of combat. Suggestions Indicator: I thought some indicator could be shown at the nearest climbable edge spot relative to the spot we are aiming. If it is out of reach the indicator would make that clear. The indicator could be a simple spot that glows red if out of reach (or show an X). For more immersion the indicator could be 3d hand meshes, only one or both hands shown at the nearest climbable edge spot. Or even more, we could see full arm(s) and hand(s) reaching to the climbable spot when you seem to be wanting to climb it (by looking at it for like 0.5s). Option to Toggle: It could be a hard option to enable/disable this feature. Or player would be required to press mantle key to something be shown, or even another new key. If continuously calculating the spot, it could happen once each 0.5s or even 1s.
  7. Interestingly enough, I still use a CRT monitor, and when the game is completely dark and I am at the light of a candle, when the lightgem is completely lit, I am forced to put my hand on the screen over the bright lightgem to block the light it creates on most of the monitor preventing me from seeing what is on the dark screen clearly! Tho, I dont think it is completely immersion breaking to have the lightgem, I actually think it is quite really important to have it. Just consider irl we have total notion of our surroundings. We have extremely high screen resolution ( ), 3D vision, we can see (without moving the head) for about 235 degrees around us (some few womans seems able to even see more colors than others). We can feel the wind, and all smells it brings, from an awful foe, a candle smoke, to the recently rained garden. We have full 3D hearing (we can hear with our bones). You know if a sound comes from in-front of you or behind even if your ears are equally aligned tangentially. We even have spatial notion, so when you move around in you home or on the streets, you can feel where you were and go back. And on a PC what we get basically? a tiny screen, 2 ear phones that (I think) doesnt handle the full sound spectrum... a freaking keyboard&mouse that causes carpal tunnel.. non ergonomical position on chair and so on.. and finally the ultimate power of loading a game (better NPCs never know about it), that can break any possible navigation notion you were creating. In short, we need lightgem and other indicators to compensate all sensorials we are missing, without having to freak out on our limited controls to provide better perception. I still miss a 3D mini-map (if it is ever possible) with fogged undiscovered areas to prevent me from guessing where I was to not go there again.. For a very simple reason, because the game realism approach (where it has it, and I see a lot of it, in textures, light shadows, environment sfx, NPC AI etc) will become more credible, more natural. By being more natural, you can expect NPCs reacting like you actually would irl, you would be less puzzled on their "blindness", and so, your tactics will be more natural too. The PGS based silhouette trick can even be used against NPCs if you play it properly. Damn... I get frustrated when I go play a game and there is little challenge . Thats why I luv doom3+evo , and TheDarkMod (yes I think it is challenging, I just want more ) I usually never play vanilla games (only after modded), they are usually made to you complete them fast and promptly buy another and another. This is how society works in this whole freaking world. They make us believe and actually need money to survive, and so ppl exploit each other to make money. Relationships based on money is something freaking awful... This dont need be like that, we can evolve, but we all (as humanity) must discover how will it be together, we must imagine it, create it, try it to fix this whole mess that human society still is. Why we need to stay in the past? to stick to old ideas? to imitate? we are creative, we can perceive what others havent perceived yet (so, they can too!). Why your mission is what is specified in the objectives list? my mission is to make the coolest moves, to fight thru the best fights (reload and try other tactics), to try out the NPC AI to its most extents, to do what the AI still cannot (on probably all available games to the present): be creative. To do things in ways most ppl would pass thru ignoring, to find paths other ppl cant even imagine, or dont want to try to imagine, and be surprised when someone else found something I was unable too. Not to compare with others and feel good about it, that is pointless, comparison is pointless, comparison only breeds hatred and jealousy (unless it is faced by both sides as ways to improve each other). Everyone is very creative and perceptive, we just need to want be like that .
  8. Is there such information (reduced sight, blind and drunk) as game data that could be applied to decrease the silhouette PGS perception chance? it would work very well! Only the head, is just to make the coding easier, and keep low the cpu use; my initial thought was: head, each shoulder, middle of torso, groin, hands, elbows, knees and feet. But I giveup promptly. We are actually focusing on the player silhouette, in this situation there is no player shadow in game (the player is already positioned in a non illuminated area, so the lightgem is completely darkened). Just think like the player is preventing the light behind it reaching NPC's eyes, the reflected light on the wall that lights the wall, then suddenly NPC sees a silhouette, that's it. It is not a perceiveable shadow, it is more like blocking the light (irl would have an almost unperceiveable shadow tho). Well, even if the player does not project a shadow in game, it does irl, and we think that way, tho I believe it is disabled to not encumber cpu and not make player think the shadow may affect NPC detection. For low end machines (mine is an almost 10 year old 4core with old gfx 512mb card, but still runs the game smoothly), I suggested to not calculate the NPC perception data on each frame, it could skip some frames, calculate each NPC PGS data on a different frame, or even make a background process with a queue if possible, so the user machine would make the calculations as much as it can. Yes, I put all game options on the hardest mode. And each map/level/mission I usually always opt for the hardest difficulty. Sometimes I dont have patience and just fast sneak and fight thru the mission (the mumies/zombies requires too many strikes, but it is fun ). But I usually like to go sneaking all the time , and I miss being able to collect spider poison to poison arrows . I am not saying it is not challenging, I just want even more challenge in this specific matter: NPC detection AI. Massive effects on gameplay is good if it will bring more fun on, if it will prevent ppl think like @bedhead said "Sometimes im standing in a shadow thats in the middle of a bright hallway thinking this can't be right."! but we move on because the game is still very cool, good looking and fun! It if proves to provide consistent and really good gameplay improvement, all missions will have their replay value increased! Make it as alpha option, players can enable or not! (I will!) Sat guards still have their heads very high, the ray from it thru player head, would still mostly hit the floor and so does not provide detectable silhouette. I played several missions and do not remember any guard watchfully lying on floor (mind pointing where I can find such?), but I saw many on beds, but they were slept (even if they were reading books, they would still be careless). I actually thought we could be prone and a guard is just climbing the stairs and see us for a moment, in this case, the lightgem would have its (newly suggested) reddish outer glow flash (player silhouette detection indicator), when we would have to move before the 3rd flash. Other than that, staying prone on an unlit place is perfect to prevent silhouette detection. About climbing on tables: the whole point is the light on the wall behind the player. If the table is in the dark and the wall behind has a torch, we will come exactly to the new challenging gameplay mode I am suggesting! the player will have its lightgem new suggested outer reddish glow flash til 3 times so he can move away! , he should just not be there! or... water out the torch! About climbing on shelves... well... particularly I think these shelves should crumble in peaces and hurt the player. But considering they are strong and stable enough, even then, it would only be a problem if the wall behind has light on it, the new gameplay way and so on, otherwise he can stay safely there. Thanks on helping me think on all the ramifications!! (even if I hadnt completely yet, just point more out)
  9. This is a good time to ask for another move to the player: the prone on floor position. This would prevent the silhouette being perceived, considering all guards are always standing! Around the lightgem there could have a glow that indicates your silhouette was perceived, if you do not prone, on the 3rd glow (one per second), the guard that was suspicious will come to investigate, otherwise he will say "nah, that was nothing..." and continue moving the way he was before. Go prone on floor (the new asked feature), or (another feature) put your body against the wall, touching it, lean on the wall (having somewhat the same effect as being prone, just less effective), and finally look around if you can crouch again to be able to move faster, or sneak slowly to a safe place, or throw something to distract them. Anyway you have 3 glows (see above) before having to prone, may be enough to go into another room and change tactics, or just move from room to room, timely. I think it could be cool in gameplay (and could be disabled too, call it ultra-hardcore or something), as long the player understands how he was detected it is ok, and he will have to learn how to play on this new mode only if he wants, because it will be much more challenging! The lightgem extra glow could be called something like "silhouette detection" even if it is not perfect detection, it would be good enough. Please do focus on what is broken!!! Just keep that idea in mind, it will make the game much more challenging! May be while you are browsing the code you find some way to put it on work easier than we are able to actually discuss about it
  10. The AI doesnt need updated data for the projected ghost diamond (PGD ) on every frame. What about create a background queue process to deal with it? (so the user machine will handle the queue as much as it can). Alternatively to the queue, the NPC could receive this updated data once each 0.5s (or even 1s), so many frames could be skipped for its calculations; and the calculations could happen interpolated too (do not calc all of them on the same frame, skip some frames between each one of them being calculated).
  11. This could use some algorithm to guess the average light level stored on texture pixels. I thought not store that metadata on textures but on geometries/meshes (even if the information is actually exclusively based on texture), or there could have a table saying what texture id has what light level. Very good point, this must be rethought... From NPC view, what matters? the contour. So the player silhouette is blocking the diffuse reflected light that comes from the wall. I dont believe the engine could provide dynamic light information based on that spot on the wall behind the player tho. But... instead of all this mess... what about creating a small "Projected light receiver Ghost Sphere" (PGS)? The PGS would work like this: Cast a ray from NPC thru player head, where it hits the wall, the small PGS would be moved there. That PGS, would be invisible to us, not rendered, but would still receive light. If the PGS is lighted enough to be seen (like the player would from low to high light levels), the NPC would get suspicious and walk towards the last place the PGS was last seen, not towards the player. So if the player moves away, the NPC will just go thru. Interestingly enough, this is a completely different idea, I am putting away the texture light data idea, thanks for pointing out the complexity of dynamic light levels! I think the algorithm that lights up the player can be almost completely reused on this. It would also require one PGS per NPC. I think the new PGS idea may be much more easy to implement I just thought, the PGS idea could work with shadow projection too in some way, think about it, it would be one PGS per light source! This PGS would be special to not receive the shadow of the player so it can be lighted from the very same light source it was created, and if NPC sees it, he will get suspicious!
  12. The "silhouette" (the whole body) blocks all the sparse light of the moon or distant candle reflected on the wall, so the wall behind cannot be seen; a shadow on the wall would be much more soft, transparent and shapeless (btw, the player is not under the effect of a light source in this case, so he is not projecting a shadow [at least not an easily visible shadow]). The amazing shadows we see on doom3 engine arent real (despite I like it very much) if you see how shadows really are, they are smooth and shapeless "the more far they go" (the light go actually). So the silhouette is a much better clue than a shadow that can be from an animal, from another guard, from a window opening, from a tree on wind, from a curtain, anything; mostly undistinguishable if such shadow moves fast; UNLESS... the guards are already aware of the enemy presence, then a shadow would have more value! Also the guard doesnt know the player doesnt want to be seen! In the point of view of a guard, that shadow can be from anyone, even another guard; it is not shapeless, but it does not provide detailed information to make the guard sure it is a foe shadow.
  13. Both light and dark on a texture, could provide 50% chance of NPC getting suspicious, it could be marked HalfLIghtTexture (no need to be precise). Only the head being checked is just to not encumber the CPU (checking body on 3 points plus hands and feet could be encumbersome, but I am not sure tho, at distance, only one single point on middle of body could be checked). Even if the head could be ignored, having a white wall behind, his body would still cause contrast tho, so NPC will get suspicious. I think this is the main problem. We got used to play walking in the middle of the corridor, room or yard. Lets think about ninjas: you will see they jump from shadow to shadow and prone on floor, they move close to walls, they "dress on grass" to disguise in the garden or hide in bushes and small trees, tall grass, and so on; it is all about being a chameleon and unseen. So, with such feature implemented, how we would play with limited field of view? we look where we need to go, and check the walls, where we need to stay to not be perceived by NPCs; with that route in mind we do the timed moves! Even with several AI, you are glued to the proper wall, so they wont get suspicious. I mean, we would have to re-learn how to play . Despite I currently try to do all this just for fun hehe. Interesting you pointed about the player shadow (or even multiple shadows from diff lights), such shadow can be from anyone even another NPC, so an NPC would only get suspicious if he thinks he should be alone in the area, so no one else should be there, what would make he check from whom is the shadow. Doesnt seem very good to implement it, as it will happen not often and really seems very troublesome as "a shadow can reach very far" (actually the light reaches but..)
  14. The silhouette seems complicated. But my suggestion about the ray from NPC head thru Player head til it hits a geometry/mesh marked with LightTexture seems complicated too? (it could be run once a second to not even encumber the CPU) I thought (but forgot to write) that this could be an option called something like "Realistic AI detection", it could be toggled while the game is running. Just thought: we could be allowed to prone on ground, we would move slower, we could even move thru smaller holes on the wall , and our silhouette would be less perceivable! this would be an easy and convincing alternative.
  15. 1 - TEXTURES [EDIT: this idea changed because of excessive complexity, look for PGS idea at this post] On complete darkness, only on the light of the moon, the player is a big dark mass moving around. How a chameleon works? it colors itself like the place it is standing into, so looking at it you see nothing special. The player should not have such power of course, but... the AI, looking at the player, could notice that behind the player there is light textures (textures with light wood color, or a light white/cyan floor) that contrast with that big dark mass. (such special textures/geometries could be marked as HaveLightTexture or something like that) I think its implementation could be a ray cast from NPC head thru Player head and hitting a geometry/texture behind the player head; if such texture is light colored, even in the darkness (without light source), the NPC AI would get suspicious and move towards the player. 2 - MOVEMENT PERCEPTION Even if you make no sound, or no distinguishable sound, if you move, even if you look to the sides (if too much your head have to move), they AI could get suspicious; that is how our perception works, we stare and wait something move to care; so I wonder if nearby AI could react promptly to any movement? To play with it, we would be required to stay and wait the NPC go away (I actually do it sometimes, until I remember I need not ). PS.: Btw, I also noticed that the AI guard stays calmly in complete dark where before was a campfire, it could try to re-lit it as fast as it can, they could have top priority on keeping some light source always on. Also, excellent game and excellent music on main menu!
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