Neocron Reloaded

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Originally Posted by CMaster

Nope. Neocron can't handle more than about 80 people in a single zone at the moment. Meanwhile games like Planetside and ARMA2 have shown there's no difficult with having hitscan/projectiles all over the place. As far as I can tell, the reason for the original system was A: it's relatively straightforward to develop and B: it saved the servers a lot of expensive raycasting and collision detection calculations. It did also keep down data traffic, but that was more to do with NC being designed to be playable over dialup. None of those things should be an issue any more.

Of course, if you like the existing system (and I realise a lot of players still hanging around will) there's no argument to be made against that. Just remember that next time you rage about "clipping" that a: a lot of the reason you can't hurt them is nothing to do with clipping errors, just the current targeting system and B: if NC used proper FPS combat, there would be several ways to effectively counter abuse of clipping errors.

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i wasn't talking about the current neocron, sorry, I just meant the system in general, and the 100v100 was just "a lot" vs "a lot".

as to the clipping, I agree with r2d22k, that clipping is caused by the interpolation, and while I agree that true fps with raycasting per bullet will allow u to get in that one more bullet before he goes around the corner, I think the advantages of the system outweigh the disadvantages.

Please make NC reloaded hitscan.

Please do not wipe characters. I have spent years developing my characters. If they died literally I would feel like a part of me died too. I have never cared about or been actually attached to any characters I have played in pc games but with the ones I have played in nc over the years I feel like an actor playing roles. I dont want to retire them.

While we were working neocron:source, we had lengthy and in depth discussions about implementing the skill system and the different weapon types in a hitscan game engine such as the udk or source.

Some of those conclusions are:
- hitscan weapons make about 90% of the weapons exactly the same. A cs, ak, dissy, pistol, rifle, h-c weapon will all fire relatively the same, just minutely different in the look of the projectile, and slight changes in recoil (new), and fire rate.
- the weaponlore/aiming skill in general will have almost no influence over actually hitting your target, seeing as there is only so much spread you can have, if you also vary spread over different weapons.
- It will completely change the way fights are fought, since dodging, movement and speed will have almost no effect on how much you are hit, making fights have to be fought over much larger areas with taking cover as the main mechanic.

And this is just a few of the observations from a game-play perspective, the game would have to be completely rebalanced and every zone would have to be changed. This is completely opposite of the goal of being able to use the old assets and mechanics, in essence having make an almost completely different game, game-play wise.

While it might be cool for neocron 3, it opposes almost every goal neocron reloaded seems to have.

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

slot enhancers also would be a good one. guarenteed to work on rares would be worth paying for even if its very small amounts. otherwise im gonna say cosmetic items would be pretty cool so long as they looked the part.

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I disagree with selling Slot enhancers as cash shop items. Cash shop items should be purely aesthetic, they should not in any way effect performance in combat. If you want slot enhancers that work on rares available from the cash shop you may as well just add 5 slot rares themselves because it's essentially the same thing. Part of the allure of high level constructing was the chance for good slots and high stats, if you can simply buy this, then it will become mandatory for any rare build. I don't like the idea of a pay to win cash shop in any form. Cash shop should have things like appy's and dye kits for weapons and armour, purely aesthetic.

I do however think that the constructing numbers should be adjusted to better reflect construct skill when factoring the outcome of slots and stats though. I also like the idea of a slotty working on a rare build, but it would have to be an extremely rare and difficult item to get/find.

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Originally Posted by Biglines

While we were working neocron:source, we had lengthy and in depth discussions about implementing the skill system and the different weapon types in a hitscan game engine such as the udk or source.

Some of those conclusions are:
- hitscan weapons make about 90% of the weapons exactly the same. A cs, ak, dissy, pistol, rifle, h-c weapon will all fire relatively the same, just minutely different in the look of the projectile, and slight changes in recoil (new), and fire rate.
- the weaponlore/aiming skill in general will have almost no influence over actually hitting your target, seeing as there is only so much spread you can have, if you also vary spread over different weapons.
- It will completely change the way fights are fought, since dodging, movement and speed will have almost no effect on how much you are hit, making fights have to be fought over much larger areas with taking cover as the main mechanic.

And this is just a few of the observations from a game-play perspective, the game would have to be completely rebalanced and every zone would have to be changed. This is completely opposite of the goal of being able to use the old assets and mechanics, in essence having make an almost completely different game, game-play wise.

While it might be cool for neocron 3, it opposes almost every goal neocron reloaded seems to have.

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agreed with all of the above points but dont see how these points are bad however.

range is obviously a factor. weapon range is going to be changed but lets be fair, if you trawl through all of the posts about combat down the years in this game the overriding factor for most people was the fact that combat is A) over too quick and B) always fought close in.

Ranged classes should have advantages over pistols, pistols should be better for short range and speed etc etc.

Ok you might have to find a new use for weapon lore, sure agree with that totally but if you want to appeal to the masses as a real mmo-fps then you need to embrace the fairness of FPS.

Hitscan weaponry would encourage pvp at lower levels. People would want to get into it at level 20 cos they fancied they could aim at other level 20s and beat them.

This is not a bad thing for nc. I cant see any problems with this idea at all.

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Originally Posted by Faid

I disagree with selling Slot enhancers as cash shop items. Cash shop items should be purely aesthetic, they should not in any way effect performance in combat. If you want slot enhancers that work on rares available from the cash shop you may as well just add 5 slot rares themselves because it's essentially the same thing. Part of the allure of high level constructing was the chance for good slots and high stats, if you can simply buy this, then it will become mandatory for any rare build. I don't like the idea of a pay to win cash shop in any form. Cash shop should have things like appy's and dye kits for weapons and armour, purely aesthetic.

I do however think that the constructing numbers should be adjusted to better reflect construct skill when factoring the outcome of slots and stats though. I also like the idea of a slotty working on a rare build, but it would have to be an extremely rare and difficult item to get/find.

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ALL OF THIS SHOULD BE GOSPEL.


I wrote it in caps because yes, it is that fucking important.

Brainport is now 100s of pages long and much of it is old. However I think the idea of Brainport stands to reason and is very much needed.

I would like to ask what other method of communicating our thoughts/ideas/random scribblings we might have to contribute to the development of NC reloaded please?

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Originally Posted by William Antrim

agreed with all of the above points but dont see how these points are bad however.

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I never said they were necessarily bad in and of themselves, but I think the game wouldn't feel like neocron anymore, and like I said, it would mean the game would have to be completely remade, making the development at least twice as long, since both programming, balance and art assets would have to be completely remade.

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Originally Posted by William Antrim

Brainport is now 100s of pages long and much of it is old. However I think the idea of Brainport stands to reason and is very much needed.

I would like to ask what other method of communicating our thoughts/ideas/random scribblings we might have to contribute to the development of NC reloaded please?

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I've proposed to brammers to use the tech haven wiki with a special balance namespace to gather and collate all the balance issues, as the good thing of a wiki is that per topic, it can have a main page which is moderated by an owner, and a discussion page on which the actual content of the page is discussed. If set up right, this could make the 100+ pages of text (80% of which is repeated posts anyway) condensed down into a readible and properly discussable overview. This was before neocron reloaded though, so we didn't really follow up on it.

The problem is to find enough people as owners who are both eloquent enough to strongly word their summaries of the prevalent proposals, but are also unbiased enough to actually list opposing points of view. I know how hard it was to try to be unbiased in the summary of the questions, and that was just questions, not opinions/proposals.

Of course we'd also need at least some way of knowing if those discussions would actually be used by KK (reakktor or nukklear, KK can be both so meh), because I for one wudn't want to invest a lot of time if that just gets completely ignored anyway.

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Originally Posted by Faid

I disagree with selling Slot enhancers as cash shop items. Cash shop items should be purely aesthetic, they should not in any way effect performance in combat. If you want slot enhancers that work on rares available from the cash shop you may as well just add 5 slot rares themselves because it's essentially the same thing. Part of the allure of high level constructing was the chance for good slots and high stats, if you can simply buy this, then it will become mandatory for any rare build. I don't like the idea of a pay to win cash shop in any form. Cash shop should have things like appy's and dye kits for weapons and armour, purely aesthetic.

I do however think that the constructing numbers should be adjusted to better reflect construct skill when factoring the outcome of slots and stats though. I also like the idea of a slotty working on a rare build, but it would have to be an extremely rare and difficult item to get/find.

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Slot enhancers as a shop item seems a good idea. I don't see it as a pay to win item, considering rares usually come out pretty close to 120% in all stats anyway.

Also I've noticed over the years that the best rares I've made are usually the 2-3 slot all artifact weapons, and 4-5 slotters tend to have worse stats, meaning you are going to a mod or 2 just to bring it up to 120% in all stats.

Of course there will be someone out there who decides they want to use a 5 slot enhancer on a paw of bear out there! :D

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Originally Posted by Biglines

Of course we'd also need at least some way of knowing if those discussions would actually be used by KK (reakktor or nukklear, KK can be both so meh), because I for one wudn't want to invest a lot of time if that just gets completely ignored anyway.

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I think many of us are in this boat. There is a internal discussion on the THN about what direction to take it, but it became pretty clear that we can't really go anywhere until we know what direction KK are going with NC:R. And with some of the idea's kicking around on this thread, probably half the wiki content need to be thrown out or re-written! :lol:

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Originally Posted by Brammers

I think many of us are in this boat. There is a internal discussion on the THN about what direction to take it, but it became pretty clear that we can't really go anywhere until we know what direction KK are going with NC:R. And with some of the idea's kicking around on this thread, probably half the wiki content need to be thrown out or re-written! :lol:

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But hopefully there will be a lot more players which are able to contribute until then...

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Originally Posted by Brammers

In a way, it will have to happen. There are a few clans and characters out there who have quite a fair amount of resources available.

At least with a wipe, everyone starts on the same level.

Also please, no instances. I would miss the "Let's go levelling in that cave, only to find Tangent and has a mass fight instead!"

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Sorry to dig this up! Not atall! You could have new players choose between two servers. Clearly stating which one would be populated by older characters. Don't forget, F2P will attract a fairly large audience initially. There's also the possibility of merging the two servers at a later date.

Not to mention that there's a possibility of putting off a few hardcore fans who would otherwise be helping to populate the servers. Don't wipe!!

At the very least strip our characters but keep exp. Giving a REASONABLE amount of credits to each old char to get started, set figures depending on level. GMs could hand this out on request.

Or wipe apartments only, allowing us to prepare our select few favorate items before the migration. This could rule out the heavy farmers..

A wipe similar to the one from NC1 to NC2 might be an option.

As to whether a wipe (partial or not) is needed I'm not sure. I have invested a considerable amount of time in NC and have accumulated a lot of items and cash as a result, as have many others. Loosing some of those items could induce frothing anger.
It could drive off a lot of people.

Of course we have to consider the impact of the sandwich makers on the amount of items and cash on the servers at current.

If one is needed, then perhaps a wipe of all but the starter apts? This gives you the inventories of your chars, plus what you can fit into one apartment.

How about if we get to keep the character with stats and levels, but the items go?

Leveling isn't really that bad in NC, but doing it all over again in all 4 characters might be too much, especially if you have WoC levels....

NC reloaded wont have your toons LMFAO, Kirk said it will have the best of nc1 and nc2 it will be a different game, IE not the same toons,items you had before... Sounds good my 4 accounts of woc'd toons is boring now anyways, need something new.

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Originally Posted by r2d22k

Clipping... this is basically not a problem caused by the current aiming system, it is caused by a faulty interpolation algorithm. Interpolating linearly between two points without checking for collisions is simply wrong and that's what KK is currently doing. This results in players warping through walls, ceilings, floors, everything and then you can't hit/aim at them. Clipping will not be fixed by using a "true fps like" aiming/combat system, because players will still be clipping through walls, floors and such and therefore even hitscans/traces will not hit these players. There is only one thing needed to be done to fix a hell lot of problems with the current aiming system: a proper implementation of interpolation. To fix a hell lot of problems with cheating the server has to become authoritive in every single decision. But I bet, KK already knows about that :)

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No, you misunderstand me (as people always do about this). The clipping errors are just that, clipping errors. However, there are two issues with this - one is that clipping errors are made much more problematic as a result of the aimbox system, in ways that would be drastically alleviated with a hitscan system. Second, there are issues that are blamed on clipping which are in fact nothing to do with clipping.

The first issue - one is that losing your "lock" more than momentarily on a target means your reticle expands again. Someone diving into the floor or disappearing through a wall enables this. You cannot shoot at them while they cannot be seen, and when they reappear, it takes time to reacquire the lock again. In the event we had real firing weapons, then you could try and predict where the target was (in the event your fire hit where the server knows their hitbox is) and you would be able to resume fire as soon as they became visible to you again, rather than having the time to vanish again. Obviously, in the event that clipping errors are fixed as they should be in a whole new engine, this all becomes largely irrelevant

The second issue, we're going to need some images for. It's actually as big a part, if not bigger, of running around and around columns being good for dodging as NC's dodgy client-side clipping is. Imagine you are fighting somebody near a pillar, like in Pepper Park 1. As they run to the pillar to hide, we have a situation something like this:
http://cmaster.linxsoft.co.uk/images.../nc%20edu1.gif
The blue circle is you, the red the enemy, the pink is where YOU see the enemy as being.

In this situation, everything works out fine. Your client announces "I am firing at the Enemy with X% accuracy" the server does a check for line of sight and range and damages the enemy.

However, a second or two later, the situation has changed to something like this:
http://cmaster.linxsoft.co.uk/images.../nc%20edu2.gif

This time, the server notices that you don't have the line of sight, and your attacks do no damage. As the pair of you circle the pillar, this is how things are most of the time. You can't do much about it as the pursuer. Attempting to go ahead to where you would have genuine line of sight means that you lose the ability to target the player. Moving well ahead to ambush means you have to reacquire your lock again, by which time they are round a corner once again.

Now, something could be done about this with lag compensation, however you begin to see some of the dirty flaws in the system.

We also know that this current system lead to weird behaviours all over the place. Using a burst weapon? If you have full lock when you release the burst, then you can turn around and walk away and still have all the shots hit. Equally, lose that target for a fraction of a second at the first round, possibly not even realising it, and watch the entire burst go to waste.

Sadly, I don't think you really can make the server authoritative in such an aiming system. Well, ok you can, but you A: introduce lag into the reticle opening and closing - not a problem for those lucky enough to have <30 ping, but a big problem for anyone >100. B: The server load (if not necessarily the network load) will be much, much greater than if you just had hitscan weapons. You'll need to be doing raycasts for every player every frame, just so you can give them laggy aiming.

(By the way, there already is collision check on interpolation. It works a lot better in the indoor city areas than outdoors. It also leads to some damn weird behaviour, when a player sprints say, around a wall. Following players often see them stuck to the opposite side of the wall, because they never got the update of the player actually moving around the wall. Just goes to show these problems are never as easy as you think).

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Originally Posted by Biglines

While we were working neocron:source, we had lengthy and in depth discussions about implementing the skill system and the different weapon types in a hitscan game engine such as the udk or source.

Some of those conclusions are:
- hitscan weapons make about 90% of the weapons exactly the same. A cs, ak, dissy, pistol, rifle, h-c weapon will all fire relatively the same, just minutely different in the look of the projectile, and slight changes in recoil (new), and fire rate.
- the weaponlore/aiming skill in general will have almost no influence over actually hitting your target, seeing as there is only so much spread you can have, if you also vary spread over different weapons.
- It will completely change the way fights are fought, since dodging, movement and speed will have almost no effect on how much you are hit, making fights have to be fought over much larger areas with taking cover as the main mechanic.

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Sadly in this case, you are wrong on every point. You're half right with the final point, in that it will change the way that fights are fought - that's inarguable. However the idea that movement and speed won't matter...

The short answer to you is: Go play UT99, Quake 3/Quake Live, Warsow. Play Serious Sam even. Now try and claim that all the weapons are the same and movement doesn't matter. Not all FPS games are COD/Battlefield.

Long answer: Several of the weapons shouldn't be hitscan at all. Rockets, plasma, fusion, maybe pulselaser would all be projectiles. Gatlins would handle very differently to snipers, don't doubt that. Beamlasers can easily be made to work very differently to assault rifles too (ARs fire 3 distinct shots, with recoil. Beamlasers fire a no recoil beam, that is actually a very, very rapid fire burst of small damage shots). Shotguns are naturally a thing of their own. Weapon lore has a world of work to do. It's not just about base spread - it's about how much spread increases with movement, and how quickly it closes again. Its about how much recoil is controlled (and I'm pretty sure NC already has recoil). It could be about how "steady" the gun is, as oppose to pure random spread. There's a world of space there. And as for cover/movement etc - just take a look at my short version again. Yeah, cover will matter more, and that's good. But not every FPS is about cover-hugging. Also, I'm pretty sure that existing levels are one thing that won't be readily imported into NCR.



On the more recent point, I'd assume that there won't be so much a wipe, as a completely fresh start. The nature of the economy and a whole pile of items will I am sure be different.