[Resolved] Allow mantling while carrying a body

[Daft Mugi]

15 minutes ago, wesp5 said:

Why not change that to mantling with a body is fine as long as you don't need to jump which you can't anyway? This would be more easy to learn.

In TDM 2.10, you can jump while carrying a body, but the jump height is reduced.

Originally, I tried to restrict the mantle to happen only if the player's feet were on the ground, but that only worked for the dedicated mantle key. If the player pressed the jump key to do a mantle instead, the player's feet would leave the ground ever so slightly before the mantle would initiate. That meant the player wasn't grounded and the mantle wouldn't happen. In other words, restricting the player to have both feet on the ground meant that only the dedicated mantle key would work.

[peter_spy]

6 minutes ago, Daft Mugi said:

The player will learn through trial and error.

Assuming that is a design failure, whether in map, systems or other

That's why it is generally better to have fewer and simpler rules.

Speaking of disabling jumping while carrying a body, I hope you are aware that it will effectively prevent players from climbing a rope with a body.

[datiswous]

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

That's the thing I've been thinking about the other day; how do you teach players what is waist-high exactly, and what margin of error is okay?

Extra info in training mission?

Edited February 5, 2023 by datiswous

[peter_spy]

How would you design such training, on which assets, and how would you make mappers always remember to include that rule in their maps?

[Daft Mugi]

33 minutes ago, peter_spy said:

That's why it is generally better to have fewer and simpler rules.

I think it's simple. Mantle while carrying a body is allowed for low objects and the player cannot be falling.

What's not simple about that?

Edited February 5, 2023 by Daft Mugi

[peter_spy]

It's not simple, because "low" is a subjective category, and whether you plan to include some margin of error on that (I'm not even asking about how you plan on calculating that, or explaining that to players), you'll receive tons of complaints by players and mappers alike, who'd either think this range should be higher or lower

[Daft Mugi]

39 minutes ago, peter_spy said:

Speaking of disabling jumping while carrying a body, I hope you are aware that it will effectively prevent players from climbing a rope with a body.

If you are talking to me here, I never implemented a disabled jump while carrying a body. I also do not support restricting the player in that way.

[Daft Mugi]

1 minute ago, peter_spy said:

It's not simple, because "low" is a subjective category, and whether you plan to include some margin of error on that (I'm not even asking about how you plan on calculating that, or explaining that to players), you'll receive tons of complaints by players and mappers alike, who'd either think this range should be higher or lower

Well, the good thing is that they can adjust the height using a cvar.

[peter_spy]

I'm sure it will be great, if from now on mappers will have to ask players to set a cvar to a certain value whenever they release a mission, so it doesn't break gameplay in their map.

[wesp5]

Maybe this limit should be removed altogether? We can already climb a rope with a body which would be much harder.

Edited February 6, 2023 by wesp5

[peter_spy]

If anything, yes – just climb surfaces with a body, period. No weird "climb this but not that" situations.

Although it will force mappers to build high enough walls to prevent players from moving bodies from a location, if that's something a mapper would want.

Edited February 6, 2023 by peter_spy

[ChronA]

56 minutes ago, peter_spy said:

If anything, yes – just climb surfaces with a body, period. No weird "climb this but not that" situations.

Yeah. After reading through this whole saga that's the conclusion I'm arriving at. Certainly, if we take the question of breaking old missions off the table, unrestricted mantling while encumbered is how things ought to work (in order to harmonize with the player avatar's super-human climbing strength). 

However, old missions are on the table, so I guess caution is the best approach. Slow as it is the way you guys are handling this so far is working: propose a rule change and ask the community if it would cause problems. If yes, then revise. If no, then ask if another ruleset would produce a better player experience, and if yes then continue to iterate.  

[Frost_Salamander]

On 2/5/2023 at 2:56 PM, stgatilov said:

1. Fall damage: I think it is very hard to balance this, since it depends much on physics, and that is today also frame-dependent. In case of unconscious body it depends on ragdoll physics, which is very hard to control. How high player can fall without damange/dying should be more or less fixed, but as for body... I'm eager only to fix major issues, like "falling from any height does not induce damage".

 

 

What's the conclusion here regarding fall damage for unconscious body?  I just tried it as well, and basically can't get a body to die, or even take damage after tossing one from 600 units up.  Is it safe to say one shouldn't rely on this mechanic (say for a mission objective)?

[peter_spy]

It seems like it is impossible to kill an AI by dropping it. What I got initially was like some kind of physics glitch. It might be worth checking with more complex surfaces though, like rocks or some sharp spikes. With flat surfaces, the AI will pretty much land unconscious, even if dropped from an Angelwatch.

[AluminumHaste]

There's a bug report opened.

https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6254

Keep in mind, this isn't new. This appears to have been broken since 2.05. Maybe it started working again some time between, but it got fixed in 2.03, still worked in 2.04, then stopped working in 2.05. I stopped testing at that point.

[stgatilov]

12 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

What's the conclusion here regarding fall damage for unconscious body?  I just tried it as well, and basically can't get a body to die, or even take damage after tossing one from 600 units up.  Is it safe to say one shouldn't rely on this mechanic (say for a mission objective)?

It is not safe to rely on.
I'll also have hard time convincing player that it is OK to throw a valuable body from high height

[snatcher]

Is there a final decision on this matter?

[Daft Mugi]

4 hours ago, snatcher said:

Is there a final decision on this matter?

I've updated the first post with "resolved" info, and I've included the same info here.

Mantling at waist height is included in 2.12 dev builds, starting with dev16778-10275, which is open to feedback during the dev release cycle.

pm_mantle_while_shouldering cvar.

pm_mantle_while_shouldering, default: 1
Which restriction for mantle while shouldering?
  0 --- no mantling while shouldering a body (TDM original)
  1 --- restricted mantling while shouldering a body
  2 --- unrestricted mantling while shouldering a body (Cheat Mode)

pm_mantle_maxShoulderingObstacleHeight cvar.

pm_mantle_maxShoulderingObstacleHeight, default: 41
The maximum height of obstacles allowed for a shouldering body mantle
Note that mantling above eye level is disabled regardless of this value

[snatcher]

Many thanks for the details, @Daft Mugi

[snatcher]

I've tested it in the latest dev build and it works very well. Good job!

Can the use of rope arrows be restricted while carrying a body?

[snatcher]

Forget it. We can still go up/down ladders (which is good), vines (which is necessary for backwards compatibility) and pipes (which is crazy but whatever). The feature is doomed to remain inconsistent unless you give players full freedom.

[Daft Mugi]

4 minutes ago, snatcher said:

The feature is doomed to remain inconsistent unless you give players full freedom.

What do you mean by "full freedom"?

[snatcher]

2 minutes ago, Daft Mugi said:

What do you mean by "full freedom"?

All considered, players get to keep the mantel rules intact carrying a body or not = consistency.

The restrictions are the speed and jump height.

[snatcher]

Allow mantling while carrying my lucky dice? No?

[snatcher]

?