STiFU
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Posts posted by STiFU
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1 hour ago, Amadeus said:
I'm not gonna write a whole wall of text, because the shouldering topic has been done to death, but I will remind everyone of the poll taken on this subject. Respect the poll:
Well, I hate to be that guy, but as a researcher who has done tons of subjective tests with big subject groups, I would like to jokingly comment that the used test procedure does not allow the conclusion that people prefer short press frob for shouldering.
What we can conclude from this poll is that people prefer short press frob for shouldering as well as various other actions AND long press frob for alternative actions in favor of short press frob for various actions as well as double-press frob for alternative actions including shouldering. This is the classic error of modifying too many determining factors between test cases and attributing the results to only one of the determining factors. 
However, I don't question that there is strong agreement with making shouldering the primary / short-press frob action. This has been criticism of TDM for a long time. We've had people coming to the forum asking for shouldering over and over again. So I concur to change this and set it as the new default even.
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15 hours ago, STiFU said:
Entity type
Short Press
Long Press
Junk
Toggle-Grabber
Hold-Grabber
Food
Toggle-Grabber
Eat
Loot
Pick-up
Hold-Grabber??
Bodies
Shoulder
Hold-Grabber
Lights
Toggle-Grabber
Exstinguish
Tools
Inventory
Hold-Grabber
I quickly hacked this in yesterday evening and it actually worked quite well. Having the option to both toggle-type-grab and hold-type-grab junk objects is a nice quality of life feature to me. It actually worked for most loot and inventory items in the training mission as well, so that's also pretty cool. However, what isn't so cool is that food remains, unlit candles or candleholders (that never even saw a candle) are not treated as junk objects so the hold-type-grabber ist not applied. This requires some more coding logic, but should be fairly doable. So basically, above table would have to be altered in the following way. With this adjustment, long press would always execute a special action first and would then consistently degrade to hold-type-grabber.
Entity type
Short Press
Long Press
Junk
Toggle-Grabber
Hold-Grabber
Food
Toggle-Grabber
Eat
Food remains
Toggle-Grabber
Hold-Grabber
Loot
Pick-up
Hold-Grabber
Bodies
Shoulder
Hold-Grabber
Lanterns
Toggle-Grabber
Extinguish / Light
Lit Candles
Toggle-Grabber
Extinguish
Unlit Candles
Toggle-Grabber
Hold-Grabber
Tools
Inventory
Hold-Grabber
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56 minutes ago, wesp5 said:
In my opinion this is still a complete mess, just imagine to show this table to new TDM players! If this is only about making new players recognize that bodies can be shouldered, why not add a hint to the body name once it is frobbed? Snatcher already added the name of the body being displayed then and I also included this in my patch. Like "Corpse (Use or long frob to shoulder)" and "Candle (Use or long frob to extinguish)" and "Food (Use or long frob to eat)". Loot and tools go automatically into inventory so there is nothing needed there, as well as for junk which has no alternative action anyway.
I agree that this would solve many problems TDM has for new players, especially with our new mildly inconsistent control scheme, but it goes against the design philosphy of TDM, which is, to be as immersive as possible with as little HUD as possible.
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9 minutes ago, Daft Mugi said:
Players might hold Junk while moving it and be surprised when it is suddenly dropped on frob release, because there is no way the player can know which mode they are in.
Granted, that might happen to a player once, but then the player will have learned that there are two types of grabber-interactions, the toggle-type which he/she knows from Lights and Food, and the hold-type which he/she knows from bodies.
Anyway, there is no harm in trying this, right?
Even if we just end up hiding it behind a disabled cvar for the people who like it.
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1 hour ago, Wellingtoncrab said:
Unless I am missing something the only really difference in this table vs the current implementation would be inverting the shoulder/grabber behavior for bodies (I guess it also removes the fall back on long press to do the default action on things like junk - not sure if it is actually preferable for some reason to just do nothing in these cases).
Switching the body interaction to shoulder on frob is one of the foundational elements of this change and judging by the polling information is supported by a majority of players. The reasons for this change are well articulated in this thread, but the short version is that this has been confusing new players for years who actually think there is no shouldering mechanic in the game at all.
Thats the first thing the game shows them is fine manipulation of bodies via the dragging mechanic, and they must learn to use an unfamiliar key combination to actually carry one. This is only described in a easy to miss readable in the training mission. I am myself only learned of this mechanic after playing several missions and by accident. You can read accounts of players literally giving on the game elsewhere in this thread. I imagine they would potentially support this change as well.
Which is the more common action a player must undertake in the game - shouldering a body or manipulating limps and slowly dragging it around?
So if that is the only element of the implementation which is “inconsistent” (again I don’t think this is actually important - shouldering is the primary interaction with bodies in almost every other similar game and this confuses no one) then I think it’s a pretty small tradeoff for a pretty big pay off.
Thanks for summarizing the most relevant arguments. Saved me from reading this monster of a thread in its whole.
It is obvious that a lot of thought from a lot of smart people has already gone into this. Still, it kind of rubs me the wrong way that the grabber-interaction with bodies is so fundamentally different than the rest and it frequently annoys me that I can't hold-type-grab junk objects as well. So maybe, to catch two flies with one stone, the hold-type-grabber-interaction just needs to be added to a few more entity types. In other words, stick to the frobbing-rules you guys developed in this thread, but additionally add hold-type-grabber-interaction to Junk and Tools, and if possible, Loot as well.
Entity type
Short Press
Long Press
Junk
Toggle-Grabber
Hold-Grabber
Food
Toggle-Grabber
Eat
Loot
Pick-up
Hold-Grabber??
Bodies
Shoulder
Hold-Grabber
Lights
Toggle-Grabber
Exstinguish
Tools
Inventory
Hold-Grabber
(Highlighted interactions in the table differ from the new control scheme)
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Thanks for searching those quotes. Maybe @Daft Mugi can clarify, but it seems to me that he was arguing from the standpoint to keep the hold-type-grabber as an option in the code, whereas I propose to either drop it entirely or to embrace it fully for all entity types. Both options should be fairly straight-forward to implement, because there is no mixture of different grabber-control styles anymore, contrary to the current situation.
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9 minutes ago, datiswous said:
I read it's not actually that easy to implement in code. But you're a dev so maybe you disagree.
I think some things might have gotten mixed up there in the discussion and some implementation specific things have also changed since DM started with this project. It should be fairly easy to implement now. Especially, because it'd be consistent with the original control scheme.
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4 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:
I will say It seemed like it was quite difficult to get this change as it is into the game, so while I think anything can be improved I am not sure anyone wants to go through another 10 pages, polls, etc. So I hope I don’t sound short or dismissive, it’s really not my intention, it’s just been a very long thread.
I get that and full disclosure: I did not read the full thread, it's just too much!
I was absent in recent months, so I missed all of this.
4 hours ago, Wellingtoncrab said:I will say if an object is frob highlighted, ie subject to an interaction prompt, if frobbing it then does not do anything or provide any feedback the game immediately feels very strange and broken. I do not think it is good a idea to have objects which can only be interacted with via long press.
That makes a lot of sense. Although, to solve this, one could communicate via audio cue ("uh uh") that no use-type-interaction is available for that entity.
Anyway, there is an incredibly easy way to solve the inconsistency while staying true to the original control scheme and that is to simply swap shouldering and grabber.
Entity type Short Press Long Press ...Release Button Junk Grabber Nothing Nothing Food Grabber Eat Nothing Loot Pick-up Nothing Nothing Bodies Grabber Shoulder Nothing Lights Grabber Exstinguish Nothing Tools Inventory Nothing Nothing This way, every interaction that was originally "frob + use" (shouldering, eat, exstinguish) will the become long-press-frob. So, the long-press simply becomes a shorthand for special action, nice and clean. While I do love the hold-type-grabber to death, I'd be willing to sacrifice it for a consistent control-scheme. (@stgatilov @Daft Mugi)
Right now, we have this weird mixture of hold-type- and toggle-type-grabber that I guarantee you, will confuse new players (and streamers). I say, either fully embrace the lovely new hold-type-grabber (which I am still all for) or drop it completely.
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Hi everyone, I know I am pretty late to the party, but I have been doing some playtesting of this feature and I am honestly loving the way bodies are handled now: hold mouse to move it around, release mouse to drop it again (hold-type-grabber). It just feels very natural and somewhat authentic this way. I love it so much that I would like to see it optionally extended to all grabber-interactions. I also think that the new control scheme is a bit inconsistent because, depending on entity type, different kinds of inputs are required to achieve the same game functionality (the grabber).
Here is a table showing how different entity types are currently controlled:
Entity type Short Press Hold Button… ...Release Button Junk Grabber Nothing Nothing Food Grabber Eat Nothing Loot Pick-up Nothing Nothing Bodies Shoulder Grabber Release from Grabber Lights Grabber Exstinguish Nothing Tools Inventory Nothing Nothing And here is a suggestion of how I would change it to make it consistent and to have more objects use the fun hold-type-grabber from bodies (of course the release from grabber by button release could be made optional such that a second click would release from grabber) .
Entity type Short Press Hold Button… ...Release Button (or optionally press again) Junk Nothing Grabber Release from Grabber Food Eat Grabber Release from Grabber Loot Pick-up Grabber? Release from Grabber? Bodies Shoulder Grabber Release from Grabber Lights Exstinguish Grabber Release from Grabber Tools Inventory Grabber? Release from Grabber? All use-type interactions would be on short-press, whereas all grabber-interactions would be hold-type or on long press / press again. In addition to being more consistent, this control scheme also has the advantage that the grabber is always intentional, i.e., you never accidentally pick up a junk object. The only downside I can see right now is that, with the hold-type interaction, object rotation is a bit more finicky with the hold-type-grabber, because you have to press two buttons at the same time, but it's absolutely doable (I tried).
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6 hours ago, Dragofer said:
As part of the 2.10 update, a long extinct engine feature was restored by duzenko that allowed the visual changes to happen. Meanwhile, when the item is used its custom scriptobject cycles through all entities on the map that have been marked with a custom spawnarg and updates their solidity. 2.10 was a very feature-heavy update so that became a theme in the contest and using this back-then experimental feature gave bonus points. Meanwhile it's become a core feature.
@MirceaKitsuneas this FM is the first instance of the overhauled and quite complex multi-part version of this AI script, it'd probably be good to compile all known issues like yours so the script can be finetuned further. Could probably also do with a wiki page to describe how to use its features.
Ahhh, so that's what the x-rays feature is.
I read that term multiple times, but its development must've fell into one of my inactivity phases.
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Can't believe I missed this FM and played this now almost two years late.
Congrats @Wellingtoncrab, what an incredible achievement. I loved every bit of it and it is sooooooo beautiful! Those volumetric lights really go a long way!! How the hell did you pull off
Spoilerthe changed architecture when putting on the glasses? Movers I assume?
I also loved the idea that you start out with almost nothing and have to acquire your tools, which kind of introduces some metroid vania elements to your FM. And that writing... Damn!
If I had to be really nitpicky, I would say that your FM had too many tools scattered around that you don't really need. Tool scarcity is always a sure-fire way to create tension, so I think your FM would have been even better if there were less flashbombs, water arrows etc., and more loot instead.
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On 9/9/2023 at 2:05 PM, chakkman said:
I don't think it's the same guy, but, this guy's key is also not frobbable:
(898.235134_2234.25).thumb.jpg.eb9fe2f571672e97930b89dc1af9d6f5.jpg)
Haven't read the whole thread, but my theory is that this happens when you have already picked up the key the other guard (pool area) is wearing.
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On 6/5/2023 at 8:41 PM, chakkman said:
Being 60 to 70% through, I can safely say that this is the game of the year for me.
Didn't have such a fun time since, well, Prey, I guess. The game doesn't hold your hand at all, which is so refreshing after all these dumb AAA grahics demos. I can only highly recommend this, if you're remotely into this kind of setting (I guess most of here are anyway).
I fully agree. And I also love the visuals. They are just fitting and perfectly resemble what I imagined Citadel to look like when I was a kid.
Here's what I wrote about the game:
QuoteModern open-world games give you the freedom to go where you want, but they don't give you the freedom to progress on your own. And here comes System Shock Remake, a game that leaves everything up to the player and that doesn't even have a quest log: You have to manually identify your quests from voice messages etc. in order to progress. It is so refreshing to see a game developer trust in the ability of the player to use their brain. Due to the personal nature of progression in this game, it feels like you are writing your own story while playing, and it is a really good one at that, if you look past the "AI wants to kill all humans" premise. The visuals perfectly capture the vibes of the original release. One thing they should have left in the Original is probably the Cyberspace shooting, which is just really eye-straining and boring. I recommend setting Cyberspace difficulty to 1 so that you're at least quickly finished with that crap. 9/10
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I feel like these efforts should go into the ingame mission viewer rather than an external application that most people are never going to see.
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I honestly think without the survival aspect, you'll lose interrest even quicker. Survival games are all about overcoming harsh living conditions, whilst improving your gear, which gives you a sense of progress and accomplishment. Sure, exploration also plays a big part in Subnautica, but the exploration is hugely driven by the need for upgrades, and if the upgrades are simply not required without survival mechanics, the whole thing falls apart. I for one found the game incredibly boring, once I had unlocked all upgrades and discovered all relevant story bits. Still, the first 30 hours or so were very fun. If it just weren't riddled with bugs and had a few more quality of life features that makes everything less of a hassle....
Two of my favorite survival games, Stalker Anomaly and Green Hell, are very hard and unforgiving as well and that's exactly what makes them work so well. Once you understand their mechanics and know how to handle the different dangerous situations, incredible stories tend to unfold just by the game systems and you feel incredible for mastering these situations.
Here is a cool systems-based story I experienced in Green Hell:
SpoilerBitten by a big cat on exploration trip -> search the forest for honey and leafs to treat the wound -> too slow, wound infected -> search for maggots to treat infection -> getting very thristy -> No rain -> no clean water anywhere near -> With last remaining power, drink from a puddle -> got stomach infection -> search the forst for the right mushrooms to treat that -> finally found some and a coconut for water -> finally save!
One notable exception from this "the more hardcore the better"-rule of survival is Valheim. In that game, you are not punished for not eating or drinking properly. Instead, you get bonus stats by consuming dishes. So basically, you can just walk around in your base all day and build stuff or cut trees etc. without ever eating anything. That doesn't mean that this game is easy, 'though, as those consumables are definitely needed for the challenging combat during exploration and boss fights.
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Thanks everyone, for putting in so much work, especially our mighty @stgatilov, but also all the other devs and testers.
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- Outer Wilds and Inscryption for their genre defining nature and utterly brilliant design.
- Sekiro for redefining Sword Fighting in video games and SIFU for adapting and expanding that to fist fighting.
- Hollow Knight for setting a new benchmark in the Metroidvania genre.
- Doom Eternal for introducing more players to the flow-state due to its mechanics.
Other notable mentions:
- Amid Evil for its awesome abstract level design in an oldschool boomer-shooter setting
- DEATHLOOP for combining a nice single player experience with an immersive multiplayer part
- There is no Game - Wrong Dimension just for being so absolutely meta and funny.
- OlliOlli World because it is simply a shitton of fun and comes with a soundtrack that instantly raises your mood.
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On 2/3/2023 at 8:26 PM, stgatilov said:
I looked at it, and it is enabled.
And it seems that this is default...However, I don't think it actually can handle larger than 2 GB addresses
Usually, processes can access about 3.5 GB with LAA.
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3 hours ago, Daft Mugi said:
Good point! I just did a test, and I found when I drop Bellero, mantle, crouch, and (lean) frob Bellero, the longest frobbable distance seemed to be around 38 units. So, it's good that 41 units at least covers that scenario.
Attached screenshot in third person.
I agree. I'm for keeping climbing while shouldering a body.
It sure does! Less frustration, and more fun!
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.
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29 minutes ago, kingsal said:
@STiFUJust a heads up if we do change the rope climbing rules it will break Cauldron until I can fix it. This would require redesigning a good chunk of the mission and I don't plan on doing that any time soon.
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?
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2 minutes ago, Daft Mugi said:
In released builds (i.e. TDM 2.10), ladders, pipes, vines, and ropes are climbable while shouldering a body.
I know Volta 2 requires shouldering a body up a vine.
Probably too late to change this, because some missions depend on it and players are used to it.
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.
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13 hours ago, snatcher said:
Wesp5, if I can go up a rope carrying a body, why can't I step on a freaking bed?
Good catch. If that's true, we have to fix that!
That's not intended design, as far as I know.
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@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.
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13 hours ago, Daft Mugi said:
I'm an outside developer who saw this bug tracker and submitted a patch. I was given consent to submit more patches.
I'm collecting more information, so I can better understand the problem I'm solving.
What's "aggressive" about that?
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.
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(898.235134_2234.25).jpg.fcca2d26a5baa2fa86dfb32cc444c5af.jpg)
[Feature Proposal] Frob to Use World Item
in The Dark Mod
Posted
Kinda feels like I threw a live grenade into a dung pit by necroing this thread.
Anyway, it seems like there is some agreement with my current work on both sides of the pit, as it will make the control scheme a bit more consistent, while leaving the general new control scheme intact. I have a working prototype that implements the following table. Contrary to the previous table, hold-type-grabber for loot and tools is not possible, as the long-press frob is already tied to multiloot (pickup multiple items successively without releasing the frob button). This extension is enabled via cvar, i.e., completely optional.