STiFU

I would say, just have the max height configurable via cvar, so we can fine-tune it later. And maybe add a shouldered mantling animation time multiplier cvar that linearily slows down mantling while shouldering to simulate encumbrance.

I think we should leave shouldering while climbing as is to avoid breaking anything, but we should probably fix what @peter_spy just discovered. Maybe disallow dropping bodies while attached to climbable. Anyway, I guess we are all on the same page regarding shouldered mantling: Waist-high only. @stgatilov noted on the bugtracker that the current implementation doesn't tie in well with the existing mantling conditions. So, my suggestion would be, once 2.11 is out the door, we'll fix that and whip out a dev release. Sounds good?

Oh my, this is embarassing for me. I was sure this was not possible, sorry. I guess sometimes your mind plays tricks on you. Maybe I just never tried because I implicitly assumed this was too unrealistic to work. Your point that it is too late to change this, is absolutely valid then.

Good catch. If that's true, we have to fix that! That's not intended design, as far as I know.

@datiswous, @Daft Mugi, @wesp5, there are some valid points and questions raised in this thread, which I am happy to address in a lengthy post soon, but at the moment, I am really sick with a nasty cold, so I feel I can't do them justice. Maybe another team member will answer them in my stead, otherwise, you will just have to wait until I feel better. In any case, @Mods, could you please move this discussion to a separate thread like "About our release and decision making processes"? This has nothing to do with beta anymore. FYI: To check which team members are still active, you can just visit their profile and check their "last visited" timestamp. Edit: I now saw that @Dragoferalready gave a good answer to most questions, thanks.

Of course, all your contributions are welcome. The thing about this specific feature you are implementing is that there was no universal agreement about it within the team to begin with. Just because something is listed on the bugtracker, doesn't mean it is an accepted featurerequest. Anyone can write anything to the backtracker. Furthermore, your patch changes core mechanics in a significant way that have to be thorougly tested not only for 12 hours by you, but by a whole testing community for a week at least, and @JackFarmer already described two maps that would soft-break by this feature. Lastly, you want it to be included now, i.e., at the end of beta phase. Our current beta build is a release candidate, which means that, if no further issues are found, it will be released as is. I am afraid, it is simply too late. You can of course just offer a modded 2.11 with your change included.

Well, I wouldn't put it that harshly, but changing core-mechanics is definitely not for the beta-phase.

Ok, let me start by saying that TDM was never supposed to be a simple copy Thief 1/2 mechanics in a newer engine. It was always catered towards the more hardcore players, seeking a challenge. Do we really need to restrict mantling while shouldering at all? > Yes, because all the 100+ existing FMs were designed with the current ruleset. Changing the ruleset afterwards could alter or even break the vision an FM author had for their mission and that is something we explicitly want to protect because these authors sometimes put years of work into their missions. If we restrict the player while shouldering, what should the rules be? > It was argued that lifting a body over small ledges is already possible, by dropping the body and moving it around without shouldering. This is very cumbersome, however, so being able to mantle small ledges while shouldering would be a nice quality of life improvement. While shouldering, what's the tallest object that can be mantled? > Waist high. Height could be controlled by a cheat-cvar. While shouldering, should there be different object height requirements between crouched and standing? > Yes, crouched should be lower. It would create some additional tension to have to stand up to perform the mantling. While shouldering, can the player mantle during a fall or jump across to another ledge? > Player cannot jump while shouldering. Conversely, he should not be able to mantle while shouldering and falling. While shouldering, what mantle types are allowed out of: push, pushNonCrouch, pull, pullFast, hang? > Definitely not hang and anything pull. That is only triggered for big heights. While shouldering, it should probably play the usual viewport animation, but a bit slower.

I mean, yes, obviously there is an internal forum where decisions are made regarding how to move forward with the game. That's how things work. And not just in our team, everywhere. Or do you see Apple discuss their business plans and new "innovations" in public? That being said, the team values all well though out ideas, feedback and suggestions, but even if everyone agrees that a certain feature would be nice to have, it doesn't automatically mean that it's going to happen, because there has to be a dev willing to do the work. You have to remember that we are all doing this for free on our free time. Every dev picks the task they are interested in the most. And that's precisely the reason why these excruciatingly long beta phases are so annoying: they prevent you from doing the stuff you really want to do. TDM is open-source and you can do with it whatever you like, but for something to be integrated officially into the game, the team has to agree on that. If you want to see a feature happen, implement it yourself and send in the patch, like Daft Mugi does. But be warned: Not everything listed in the bug tracker is a feature that has been fully agreed upon. It is always a safe bet to ask first, before doing the work. If you patch is not integrated into the core mod, you are of course free to offer it as a mod for TDM. Regarding the internal decision making process. It is rarely about personal preference, but more about: Is it in line with the existing vision / look & feel of TDM? Could it break anything? Number 2 especially applies to breaking FMs, which is a no-go because of the enormeous work mappers have put into their FMs.

Yes, sorry about that. We could be clearer with our communication in this regard. However, please understand, that it is really not that common for external contributors to be working so much on bug fixes and new features, so this is kind of new to us as well. And of course the team has to agree upon all contributions, regardless of external or internal origin. The beta was announced Dec, 2nd, and that was also the moment for 2.11 feature-freeze.

Just saw the discussion on the bug tracker. Please don't feel discouraged, @Daft Mugi. A lot of your stuff has already been integrated during beta phase, which we usually never do, so that's actually something you can be proud of. Once we start beta, we have a feature block even for long standing devs. Only bugfixes go into trunk at that point. New features are only commited to feature branches and will be integrated in the next version. But I get it. I've been in your shoes a few times myself.

There has been a long internal discussion about mantlling while shouldering, and it has been pretty much inversally agreed upon that v1 and v2 are a no-go. v3 was the best compromise we came up with: A nice quality of live improvement while staying true to the original gameplay rules that mappers have designed there missions around. However, not everyone was 100% onboard. If you have an implementation for v3 already, that's cool. Are there any open questions about this or why are you saying that there was no agreement about how this should work? Generally speaking, 'though, I am very surprised @stgatilov is letting bigger changes like this in so late in this beta phase. We are usually very restrictive about new features as soon as beta starts because it usually just prolongs the beta phase.

I don't have strong feelings about this. I simply don't use the toggle-feature of "holster" right now, as I only every press the button once. However, I don't understand why one would double tap holster in the first place, @Daft Mugi?

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