Visibility

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:44 am

Alien51 wrote:QUOTE (Alien51 @ Mar 9 2009, 11:52 PM) I really wish people would read everything before posting. They keep saying it would eliminate the need for the sensors because the eyesight factor would be to advantageous. Which is not true, and is nothing near what I proposed.

Ok Alien, please take a moment to read and think about what I now write.

a) People can change the textures of the ships.

b) People are free to set the level of background eye-candy. Some fly with the background nebula's on, some have them turned off. Same goes with debris (those little bits you fly through which help you get a feel for the motion of the ship).

c) People have various qualities of monitor and eyesight.

d) Allegiance is a Sci-Fi space simulator, not WW-II fighter sim.

***

The result of this change would be white skinned ships and all extra graphics turned off. That way the ships would always be visible, no matter how far and how stealthy.

***

Oh, and Allegiance doesn't take place under water. Water is like air, and you can bank against it. In Allegiance you have to accelerate like a rocket, you can't bank against the aether (think of airplanes or Star Wars style "space" craft).

Alien51 · Post by **Alien51** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:31 pm

Hadn't thought of point B before. But it is still in the same zone of "balance problems" that deal with the first idea. And as I said, in the first post...

QUOTE "I propose we discuss changing this..."[/quote]
Which means I am asking the community to look at the idea, tell me how they think it would change the gameplay, and how that changed gameplay would need to be balanced. Is that so hard? Stop thinking the first post is unvarying.

I've already acknowledged problems with the idea in the very first post...
QUOTE "This brings up many balance issues and new gameplay possibilities."[/quote]
Also I posted this 6 posts before your latest post...
QUOTE About the Custom Skins thing. I originally thought of adding the bulleted point, "What about Hackers?". Referring to those who would make custom skins for the sake of contrast and easier visibility. But I just kinda figured that if the idea was implemented that would be one of the first issues to be resolved. It's a huge problem in the FPS world.[/quote]
So, please read before you post.

Edmond wrote:QUOTE (Edmond @ Mar 9 2009, 11:22 PM) Games where it is easy to spot others visually are terribly boring combat-wise. I've found games with low visibility but other alternate ways to detect players are more interesting - just making everyone visible would severely detract from gameplay.

Your 2nd sentence is basically the gist of the whole idea.
__________________________________________________________
Just to conclude the responses... Basically everyone said that they didn't like the idea because it would have problems. Duh. I know. I said that. But if the problems could be fixed in a favorable way, would you still not like the idea? Would you like to create a 2nd detection system?

Alien51

HSharp · Post by **HSharp** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:30 pm

An answer to a problem can't be, thats one of the first things we will think about.

So the point still stands about people re-texturing ships so they are easily visible, and if it becomes a protected file then it means everyone will have to use the basic textures (as not everyone can use hi-res) and all the hard work the Artwork crew have done will be for nothing.

It's a problem in the FPS world, but one that hasn't been solved outside of protecting texture files.

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Not everyone has said they don't like the idea because there will be problems, I don't like the idea because I am very comfortable with the status quo, barring a few bug fixes and AI tweaks there is not much that needs to be done to Allegiance to make it a better game unless you overhaul the whole engine (and have destroyable parts of ships etc...), with Alliances coming in R5 I am happy with the allegiance experience as it is, I don't think your idea will improve gameplay at all.

And mainly like Arson_Fire said, if your going to limit it to 1000m visibility it sort of defeats the point, the only difference it will make is people can see ints if the int tries to sneak up on you (sneaking from infront but sneaking nonetheless) and those tp2 scouts will be easy to find in an int once they are 1000m range. That you say is debatable then about the 1000m, then it becomes even more unusable unless you give almost everyship cloaks, which is just stupid then.

So once again

Me no likey

Dogbones · Post by **Dogbones** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:56 am

Alien51 wrote:QUOTE (Alien51 @ Mar 9 2009, 05:52 PM) I really wish people would read everything before posting. They keep saying it would eliminate the need for the sensors because the eyesight factor would be to advantageous. Which is not true, and is nothing near what I proposed.

If you propose to be able to see ships that your sensors cannot what is your rationale?

The physics engine of the game was 'tweaked' to act more like you were under water or in an atmosphere to make it more 'fun'. However given the speed and general darkness of space vision would be basically useless for dog fighting. If I were worried about being spotted by the naked eye I'd just freaking turn off my 'running' lights

So if you are not proposing being able to see ships that your sensor cannot see why make the change? And if you are proposing to be able to see ships that your sensors cannot see, but limit the distance to something small, again why make the change? Ints would become too powerful if this range that you could see ships was of any real size.

Dog

raumvogel · Post by **raumvogel** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:18 am

If it ain't broke....don't fix it.

This is one reason I almost always fly a scout.It is SO important to the team's ability to win,and no one wants to do it.The team that probes,protects miners with nans and not just fighters,and gathers the largest nan force possible will win the game almost every time.

Alien51 · Post by **Alien51** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 2:23 am

Dogbones wrote:QUOTE (Dogbones @ Mar 10 2009, 08:56 PM) So if you are not proposing being able to see ships that your sensor cannot see why make the change? And if you are proposing to be able to see ships that your sensors cannot see, but limit the distance to something small, again why make the change? Ints would become too powerful if this range that you could see ships was of any real size.

The way people were saying it was implying that I wanted to make seeing the primary means of detection. Which is not what I had in mind.
The change would add a different kind of ability in which to find enemies. The reason for limiting the distance was to make sure it wasn't overpowering, as a compromise. Originally I had many ideas about making new differences and enhancements in the graphics and lighting to lower visibility varying on the environment.

zecro · Post by **zecro** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:08 pm

Alien, I will answer your questions.

If this idea is implemented, it will place more emphasis on dogfighting and less emphasis on scout craft, because once ints/figs were within the minimum visibility range (1km?) there would be no need for scouts. Cloaking would become less effective unless there is a visibility effect that goes along with it. If that happens, Bios gets either a huge minus (their ships become less stealthy since you can eyeball them) or a huge plus (you can't eyeball them but they still cloak, not like the other factions' ships...). HTT runs, Rixian bombers, TP drops, and stealthy scouting are among all of the gameplay elements that would need to be re-balanced.

The gameplay impact is HUGE for non-sensor visibility. The only way I can see this being balanced (short of re-balancing EVERYTHING -- the tech paths, the factions, the ships -- around this one idea) is if the non-sensor visibility was really small. 500m, maximum. But at that range, what is there short of cloaked ships that you can't see? And if cloaked ships have a visual cloaking effect, you're back where you started. At any range, camping an aleph with an int rather than a scout effectively prevents any stealths from getting in.

The overall effect is a removal/dulling of key gameplay aspects which are currently balanced and that very few people have actually complained about. I am against the idea because it removes/lessens current strategies (i.e. bringing along a scout) and does not replace them with anything else. Furthermore, it would require a code change. Someone would have to write it instead of writing something else, and I would rather have something else (like an improved graphics engine or miner AI) than this.

On the other hand, Tunabreath's suggestion is interesting. Raises some new gameplay elements. A sensor-jammer ship might be too uber because it means you REALLY need to probe. If the jammer had a really really high signature (over 9000%) it could be a cool capship or support ship. And since it was high-sig you would know there's something going on. ... Actually, it would probably only be viable as a capship. Spamming five of those and then sneaking in three bomb runs sounds like massive cheese.

HSharp · Post by **HSharp** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:47 pm

I would like to add that I feel that this idea doesn't really improve gameplay especially if you have to make other rules like all allegiance is in some cloud of gas and it only works within 1000m because then you have to ask whats the point of having it?

I can't really see how it would make gameplay more fun at all.

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:06 am

raumvogel wrote:QUOTE (raumvogel @ Mar 11 2009, 04:18 AM) This is one reason I almost always fly a scout.It is SO important to the team's ability to win,and no one wants to do it.The team that probes,protects miners with nans and not just fighters,and gathers the largest nan force possible will win the game almost every time.

Raumvogel knows what he's talking about too. I've been trying to figure out the best truly dedicated scout pilot in Allegiance, and I think it is him.