Must be polish!

god dam that's one good article

got a point.

I was going to write an exactly same article. too bad the muppets here won't get any of it.

yeeeeaaahhhhh, right.

last night i was about to force k1llsen into overtime on hub3. sadly i forgot to record a demo? :((


;)

what you don't think I can write a good article? after all the priceless contributions I've made on this site?

I'm sure hoping its a troll and if its not, you're a fucking idiot.

your arguments are strong

Because I didn't even feel like arguing, it's obvious. Unlike real sports, video games are way simplier and easier, thus there has to be something to make them not shallow. Player A, that does not time, is inferior to player B that times and player B is inferior to player C, that times even better. You see, saying that there should be timers in the games is similar to saying that there should be an aimbot in all shooters. Games need to be hard in ways, that's the difference between casual and competitive games.

that's if you presume that tactics = timing. I think however that there's more to q3 tactics than just timing items to a milisecond. there's positioning and movement, and you could still delay items etc. if anything I think it would put more focus on tactics and positioning rather than take it away.

Yes but having more of these elements enables players to choose, thus removing one would remove a lot of play styles. They might be boring, but I think they're important for the sake of the health of the game. Also, players sometimes can choose between timing certain weapons\secondary items, that's a strategical choice, too.

If timing is pointless, and timing=no skill=winning, then winning is pointless because no skill?
-----------------------------------------
"before you idiots scream BUT TIEMING IS TEH SKILL LULZ, yes it is, so is reciting the alphabet backwards, paying taxes and collecting stamps"
"A guy who can time will beat a guy who can't in 90% of the cases, because hey, he took time to learn a tedious boring skill"
Answer: you admit that guys who time items win. Being pro player requires timing, aiming, movement, positioning, etc etc.
Comparing timing skill to paying taxes and then saying "he took time to learn a tedious boring skill" is pure contradiction. You should really decide what you wanna attack, the skill concept of timing, or the idea that timing skill is lame. The way you wanna put things two in one, not gonna work. You can't compare quake to other sports, like you can't compare sports. These are the rules, this is the game, and timing is part of it.
Removing timing would put an extra no-brain factor into equation, and make stupid look smart, where stupid=omg, look at me how great I am, I am only aim and strafe, the rest I can't make the difference between my head and my ass, yet I still win.

Imo your frustration is for real, the rest stays how it is, like your way of exaggerating things.

Fair enough, but the concept of map/item control is very important in Quake and won't work as well without the timing - one example, how many times has cooller deceived his opponent by waiting 5 seconds before taking RA on dm6? The alternative of having an autocoach will eliminate this tactic. Unless of course you only get a notification if you were the last one to acquire the item, or saw the item being picked up.

"Why not have an automatic countdown for items presuming you've seen/heard them being taken?"

meaning if you're not there to see or hear an item spawn/being picked up, you won't get the countdown timer. so dellaying tactics still work. all I'm saying is having to calculate times manually makes no sense.

good point

the deathmatch formula is old and stale, needs to be reinvented to extend the appeal

finally someone who gets it. I'm not attacking the deathmatch fundamentals here, it's just eliminating the needless hindrances that prevent most people from enjoying the game.

after all these years i reached the conclusion that deathmatch games are unreasonably hard for mostly wrong reasons

It depends on the context. Doing footbal with your friends is very easy. Becoming proffessional football player - is very hard. In both cases there is the same game - but different context in which this game played. And these contexts differ dramatically.

And unlike footbal, in Quake there is no way to determine to which league each particular player belongs. QL just started doing it, but now it is done very simplistically (5 meaningless tiers).

But anyway, this is the real area where changes should be done. And removing essential features from the game is not the way to make it really appealing.

if basketball associations were run by quake players the basket would still have a bottom.

Why not add skills instead of removing ones and adding others? I don't think the timer placed on map is a bad idea (may be and may as well be not depending on the placement), but adding them to the UI would be bullshit.

probably why all games and sport will die, winning is nothing more than a system.

finding out what that system is, is the challenge, not implementing it.

but offo, finding out what those systems are is also a game, so in fact we're all doomed. mind warp!

you're right of course, and on the same note: football? whats up with that?
only touching the ball with your foot hinders the game.
the game could be much faster and more dynamic if the player could pick up the ball and run, allowing them to move faster.

it's about making the game more accessible (while staying true to the fundamentals).. you're only complicating football in your example, not to mention ruining its core gameplay and transforming it to something else (rugby)

manual temporal markers are pretty much disposable for a better focus on the game itself.

here's an idea: have powerup counters in the area where they spawn.

"here's an idea: have powerup counters in the area where they spawn. "

that's a neat idea!

you could also position the timers in a manner a player would have to get to a less favorable position in order to see them. say, underneath the bridge on dm6.

that way the hardcore players who time manually would still be at an advantage but the other players wouldn't be totally lost.

nah, just make counters like locations.. when you enter RA zone, you get the counter.. simple as that, timing shouldn't be the skill factor, that was the whole idea of removing the manual timing..

or even better:

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1689164#pid1689164

taking away timing is taking away one of the essentials in duel gameplay...
its the first thing you focus on when you want to play duel. aim and movement somehow go by themselves, but you really have to focus activeley on timing the items right.

for me item timing and tactics are more important and fundamental then the other things

and some people here are saying weapons should spawn more often.

yesterday i tried playing ql-tdm, its just so annoying because everyone has a weapon.

not to mention ruining its core gameplay and transforming it to something else (rugby)

Transforming football into rugby is not ruining it, that's fixing it.

America :D

?

"Transforming Football into Rugby"

Isn't that what America did? We just made a few more changes and still called it football.

wat

afaik football and rugby evolved in england/uk, and then the americans took it, renamed it and turned it into a boring shitfest. :D

Wait, wait. What football are you talking about? Real football or american football?

Either, but I assumed "real" football

See Doom3's "delta labs" DM map.
You trigger the megahealth spawn manually after some amount of time since the previous pickup. I think the GUI on the megahealth console has a progress bar and you hear a sound accross the whole map when it spawns (kinda like that quad spawn sound), or maybe it's when you pick it up, can't quite remember.
That was pretty cool.

Delta Labs had invis, not MH. But yeah, you could hear either power up spawn or get picked up from anywhere on the map.

No, DM3 and DM5 (frag chamber and Lights out) had the Invis as a controlled power up.

DM2 (Delta Labs) had the Health as controlled power up.

See I told you, pot makes you forget stuff :). I hope I'm right as I have not played since 2006, but I have not been wrong 1989 either so I have faith!

lol oh, I was thinking of lights out.

I personally am for timing just because it goes against regular sports. Regular sports are boring.

this man is right;
apples and oranges;
whats next, playing scrabble with dictionary? (busted, nekon, you impossibly high scoring cunt)

ITT: "I get raped in VQ3 duel, timing is pointless".

"I spent 10 years learning a boring skill so I could beat people in a videogame"

"I raged like a pole playing 1.31"

you forgot the pope

Timing on real deathmatch 1v1 games will not go away because your failure to master it.

If you imply you need 10 years to master it, well, just quit.

do you think a bunch of noobs with timing aids would be a threat to pros such as yourself?

have at you! - clink..

reduce gun spawning to 1 sec = action, im all for that.
but armour and quad is ok as it is, the timer idea sounds kinda fun though :>.

uhh, I'm not proposing any changes to item based gameplay at all. it's a fantastic concept and it's what drives dm games. items dictate offense and defense, only problem is unless you time manually you won't know when to do what. it's like a basketball game without a 24 second timer, only 3 times worse.

wahahahhaa :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

*farting sound*

Aqua, tourist and xerp make a nice three-man [+] circle jerk in this thread though, nice teamwork boys!

Do you mean adding numbers or just sorta knowing when items spawn? 'cause in CPM you don't have seconds on the timer.

what do you mean by adding numbers?

i think he means timing with an actual timer, as opposed to timing without one.

cpm timer removal always seemed pointless to me, just use a stopwatch.

and...

that's what it's about, automation of strategies, there is no reason why strategies can't be automated if there are no physical limitations. isn't that what it all boils down to? that in the end, the game is nothing more than mechanics? all game play can be done by a bot/computer and better.

You actually use a stopwatch in cpm? That's über lame, just time by gut feeling, it's not rocket science.

no i don't. didn't qw players used to do that though?

tell that to pro coaches.

Waah waah :'-((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

It's not just 'more than mechanics' . It's a goal of a 'good' game is to pose a challenge that can only be solved through creativity depth of perception of the human mind.

Ok, let's break this down a little shall we. First of all I think we can all agree that videogames /= real sports. Secondly I think we can all agree that since videogames /= real sports that the skillset is going to be different. Most real sports that require timing are team sports. This is to keep all the members on the same team on the same page. The only "sport" I can think of that is 1v1 that requires timing is chess, but they use the timers to keep track of how long each player took to make their respective moves.

Now lets look at quake. Quake is a videogame in which you're using physical dexterity and precision in tandem with tactics and other skills. Timing is not done automatically for you in 1v1 because that would tell you exactly when someone picked up which item when, something you should probably already know if you've been playing long enough. It would then tell you almost exactly how stacked or not so stacked that other person is, something you also should already know if you've been playing long enough. If you already know these things, then you should be able to adapt and form a counterattack based on this. If you didn't already know this, then you've probably already lost the game and didn't deserve to win. Timing is every bit apart of the game just like aiming and strategizing and moving. A video game is a mind game, you're not physically exerting yourself. So if you take part of the mind game away, then you're making the game less skilled and thus detracting from it.

Basically timing is a good thing and definitely not THAT hard to do. Obviously many people are pretty good at it. If you're having issues timing, then maybe you need to spend some time getting better at it. If you're just being a whiny bitch about it saying that you just don't like it, then go play some CA and stfu.

"Timing is not done automatically for you in 1v1 because that would tell you exactly when someone picked up which item when"

wrong, it would tell you only if you were there to see/hear the item being taken, just as you would know anyway.

the only thing it would do is to free you of a tiresome task of adding and remembering numbers while you have other tactical/aiming things at hand.

btw, the best suggestion imo was given here:
http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1688224#pid1688224

"something you should probably already know if you've been playing long enough."

they will not play long enough to know, and even those few who've played long enough to time by feeling will get owned by pros who time it to a second.

"If you're having issues timing, then maybe you need to spend some time getting better at it."

I won't spend more time getting better at it because it bores me to death to add and remember numbers in midst of action. (if a simple timer can do it)

If the timer that you want would tell you if/when you were actually around for the damn item, then you need to stop being a lazy bastard and just time the fucking item. If it bores you, then don't time and stop whining about people who do.

It just sounds to me like you want something done for you what other people have successfully been doing without fail for some time now. Either adapt or deal with it.

I'm afraid quake will have to adapt or deal with chronic lack of players if it keeps sabotaging its gameplay.

If the game dies because people are too lazy to do some simple mental math, then so be it. I honestly don't want to listen to those whining little bitches complain about how it's bullshit that I'm beating them because they're too lazy to try and count. There are plenty of other games out there that I can waste my time on. I've been playing Q3 competitively for 5-6 years now and it will always remain as my favorite game of all time, but if the game dies, then it dies and just like every other gamer of a dead game I'll move on. I'll go play some single player games or find another competitive game that I can sink my teeth into (Street Fighter 4) or even play some bullshit psuedo-competitive games with my friends.

But whatever, you go and complain about how a game is broken cause it doesn't time stuff for you. I on the other hand will go adapt and learn and get better at the game as opposed to sitting on ESR bitching about it.

you need not sacrifice game complexity for a smoother learning curve. they can coexist ;)

"tiresome task of adding and remembering numbers"

I find that task extremely rewarding. In fact, its one of the first things i tell to people that asks me "Wazzup with that game you play and enjoy so much".

You make it sound like people who time items (read: everyone with some kind of clue) fucking count the seconds in their head for every item on the map.

Also, pole.

..and people bitch about Quake dying.

much deserved for such an unnatural stubborn community. it all boils down to a basic law of nature: adapt or die.

if you really think timing items is a skill that should matter so much, you're delusional.

whatever, stick to your pointless CPMA VQ3 vs CQ3 vs OSP vs QL bullshit

shame really, it's such a promising concept, but because it's players are dull nerds ( I guess more interesting people cba to do tedious crap like remembering spawn times) it will always be a niche game. something like those people who compete in memorizing pi up to 100000th digit.

Minus timing, what would VQ3 have left? You'd need a radical redesign.

that is the real question. guess we'd have to find out. if anything it would show the real depth of the game.

Applying the same approach to MMA: "Yeah, let's tie both hands of the champion behind his back, and see is he really that strong fighting solely with his legs".

did you even read his post?

Hm, looks like I was waaaaay too abstract. :)

Anyway, claiming that removing major feature from gameplay will reveal it's depth is totally BS.

Edit: It will reveal depth of remaining parts, but not of original gameplay. Logical?

no. a correct analogy with item timing in MMA would be making fighters solve math equations while they fight and the guy who solves first gets a free punch on the opponent.

Analogy with any real sports simply won't work here, because real sports are bound by laws of physics, and Quake is not.

But I can imagine how real sports will evolve in the future when teleportation will become part of everyday life...

physical model has nothing to do with the analogy sorry. you don't think they could remove the clock alltogether and players would time those intervals themselves? but for some reason, they don't.

Nope and sorry I have to admit tourist is right here.

sure, right after you find a sport where you grab a regeneration rune that ups your health while you rocket jump yourself to enemy base, but oh no you fell into the void and died.

dumb thread.

picking runes = movement
falling into voids = positioning and tactics

everything you can find in any sport. try again.

LOL? I don't think you know what runes are.

please show me the mysterious sport were people pick up stuff that appears out of thin air after a precise amount of time.
Until then you should go and remove that stupid attempt at an analogy.

chess. the button on the clock pops up after a certain amount of time.

may I kindly remind you that we do have that kind of timer in quake?

The 15 minutes.

Why you don't want to remove seconds from timer and rise timing to the next level of skill ? It's already done in Promode - you won't find easy to timing items by simple adding numbers.

And if you want add semi-auto-timing then lets add semi-auto-aim also ? And semi-auto-movement ? Let's make Quake a pathetic console game, where you pres one button and game make 3 actions for you ? You are bored of so simple timing in Quake and you want to remove half of it ? No way !

why not make spawntimes natural derivatives of prime numbers? now that would take it to another level.

Yes ! I don't mind ! It will be harder so it make game better :-]

Seriously how does this comment get plussed? It makes literally no sense what-so-ever. Are you all retarded? Oh, never mind.

stick to whale hunting.

I've already caught your mom. I'm outta that game now.

ripping off other people's harpoon material are we? amateur

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1686932#pid1686932

Holy shit have you memorized esr? Sorry I don't read it that much. I posted here because I was linked to it by someone else. I posted in the sc thread because I'm interested in that tournament. Other than that I don't read ESR.

With respect to your comments, they were just retarded. I'm not sorry if that offends you.

nah, he is just secretly in love with me.

well, not so secret really, he is just in denial.

lol. I'm not sure how he thought that you had the market cornered on harpooning stories when he leads with whale hunting. Fucking tool tbh.

lol and I was glad to see someone with some IQ on ESR who is not wasted on trolling only :( … don’t go

makes some sense. number derivation. Maybe some sort of expansion on the Prime number theorem? I don't really know, I haven't taken naught but a single course in number theory.

Link's dead. Enlighten me, what's a "natural derivative?"

So I'll bite. Does he mean a derivative? In which case he's taking the derivative of what exactly? The time? A random prime number?

If either of those two, then the result is 0 and the first frag wins, because the derivative of a constant is 0.

Does it mean a natural logarithm of a prime number?

In that case we see that in the time alloted there are only a finite number of spawn times, which makes this an even more stupid argument than we originally have.

Combining the two we have the same problem as in the derivative case, because there's no fucking expression here.

In the end this is a nonsensical statement which failed at being funny. As a matter of fact I would be willing to bet that he took random words that he's heard about math and put them together to sound smart. This is actually one of the few instances where he'd have been better off taking the Bible's advice.

CZM'ed or QED'ed, im still debating with myself.

Good ol "owned" just doesn't cut it here !

I missed the natural. I have no fucking clue what he meant now.

The paper is titled "Number Decomposition, Algebraic Equations and Number Derivatives". If you still care.

I just [+]ed him, thanks to you.

too smart to be polish lol

BTW, somebody on LO3 mentioned that that has been done for halo in some tournament, with coaches timing. And overall, it looks like Halo would suit your needs better, give it a try.

Play more promode - and you frustration with VQ3 will release you...

the "rocketjump script is not a cheat cause everyone can do it anyway" thingy was kinda arguable.

but only a few can time well, so this is just plain stupid.

hehe ! I love to destroy this pathetic explanation telling "If everyone can do it, why it was SCRIPTED and by who ?" xDDD

exactly

the sports analogy doesn't work.

in sports, the only thing to keep time of is the time LIMIT. that's what their game clocks do.

in quake, there is also a game clock that lets you strategize around the time limit.

additionally, there are a million item-specific clocks. every item has to have a respawn time unless you take it once and it never appears again, so the players that have an innate knowledge of timekeeping will always have a huge advantage in DM.

even if you show respawn clocks for each item, ammo, etc you won't be solving the core problem that casual gamers have with DM: they feel controlling items is lame and consider it camping/requiring no skill (though we all know it requires tremendous skill). i see this complaint on all of the mainstream forums/sites i read.

timing isn't the problem. deathmatch is the problem that keeps new blood away from this community.

i cant believe the people who came here with:

"ok i'm not really good at quake, and i can't time items. so i always lose to guys that can. so why don't we all apply some item-timers which make me, the stupid guy, closer to the level of the guys who learned to time?"

and to pull a comparison with the basketball timer? hilarious.

yes, that's why quake is always going to be played by such shining intellects as yourself. :)

hope so.

for those that don't have any brain to use, there's always instagib.

Or footbal.

You don't need to have sex to be sexy. Simply because you play or enjoy watching VQ3 and it happens to be played at pro tourneys doesn't mean that it's the coolest thing around. You obviously have no clue about an entire 'brainless' CTF rail community.

then what woud it hurt to have timer for armor and mh?

you said it yourself, people who can time intuitively would still be at a huge advantage and beginners would get it much faster. because you'd have to get close to the item anyway to see the respawn time.

so what's the real issue here? the way I see it is just resistance from brainfarted nerds who spent too much time practicing timing.

the real issue is that people will not play the game, clocks or no, if they have to run around and pick up weapons. counter-strike changed things and an entire generation of gamers is now used to being handed all the weapons up front in an organized (competitive) environment. they feel it's more fair.

certainly halo did something to the contrary with its slayer mode, but all of its fans are stuck on the gimpsticks. meanwhile most of the pc shooter fans have moved on to CS/CoD/insert military shooter here.

you're right to an extent of course, but the unexpected number of players signing up for QL suggests there are still people interested in deathmatch.

from personal experience of introducing new players to the game I can tell you most of them like the game dynamics, the different weapon kinds as opposed to only hitscan in other games, spectacular movement and pace.

however they almost never understand the concept of map control. they know you're supposed to pick stuff up, but are not aware that it actually dictates the game completely. "you know where all the armors are" is a common complaint. of course they know where armorst are too, only problem is, they're never there.

it's infuriating for a new player to hit his opponent 3 times and get killed with one shot or not being able to pick up a single powerup the whole game.

once you explain to them the concept of timing and calculating spawns they get bored and quit. and I really can't blame them, because even tho I've played quake and quakebased mods forever, timing items bores me to death.

like i said earlier..

if "powerup counters are displayed near their spawnpoints":
- would the worse player win? no.
- would the need of mental timing be removed at really high level? no.
- would the game be more enjoyable? yes.
- would newbs understand more about the importance of powerups and their spawning times without having the feeling it's something arcane/hidden, since they're not documented anywhere? yes.

but noo.. let's throw hurdles at our own enjoyment cause we're hardcore like that \m/

why would any of the guys who *can* time agree with something like that exactly?

because they would still be at an advantage ( read the post about timer placement) not to mention superior all-around game. or are you really that thick?

please, oh guy who can time, can we both have like, seperate timers for different items so we both know when armors spawn so i don't get raped like i do now?

i must be the one whose thick.

lmao.

i must be the one whose thick.

well well, are we moving forward now?

can that really be considered a reply, even if you know the mental state of the guy who wrote it?

I don't know son, you're haven't been able to present any sort of argument in any discussion on this forum so far, so I see this as a sign of improvement.

son

so besides everything, you have an inferiority complex. damn.

you're haven't been able to present any sort of argument in any discussion on this forum so far

dementia is serious stuff. hallucinations also. check it out, you might have some serious going on in there.

as I said, you are obviously unable to go beyond simpleton flames, no substance whatsoever. every post I reply to you I have to move down a level in hope you'll get it. right now we're about 6yr kindergarten level. carry on.

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1664942

Comment #8. That's the way your brain works, so skip the intelligence insults, you're inferior. Anyway.

One of the trademarks of a simpleton is to pronounce others' posts "no substance" ones, due to the fact that they don't agree with what the simpleton says.

so now you can go back a few posts and try to read what i wrote again. when you understand the simple logic behind it, maybe there will be some hope for you.

or do i need to write again about timing being an important and hard-to-master part of a duel play in an even simpler way for you to get it?

surely you mean this post old chap?
but hey, you've only been here 7 years...

yeah i don't really find forum linking that important to check it out. but it seems like both yours and mine way point to the same disaster.

Edit:

lethe, posts: 3699 registered: 28 Oct 2002

tourist, posts: 3610 registered: 22 Sep 2005

...
kinda related

the key is to give poor players something to cling to..
even if in itself doesn't make them play better, but at least they could improve or feel it's not a pointless battle

but anyway.. you people are too elitist in the lamest kind of way "oh look at me im teh best, i can add 25's!".

too bad nobody gives a shit about the skill involved in Quake and this genre will soon collapse under its own weight, rather than doing small concessions to revive itself.

what's the point of having one of the most skillful eSport game when nobody is there to appreciate/enjoy it? there is none, you might as well get a life since all seems to be a waste of time.

the key is to give poor players something to cling to..

the TIER SYSTEM is there to make it fun for new players.

we don't need any ridiculous stunts as the ALL ARMORS AND MH TIMERS.

sorry, didn't even notice the life card. when you try to pull that off to someone you don't even know, it means you're seriously troubled.

Like bragging about IQ test scores? Yeah man, I hate that as well http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1681474#pid1681474

aaaaaaaaaaaannnnd boom goes the dynamite.

Raped.

ain't we a little philosopher

oh snap

brag? that was mentioned when the "argument" went to more...empty and insulting waters. wasn't really close to first thing to say.

and i'll be more than happy to point that out to any loser trying to look cool with offending me.

terribly sorry if it makes you feel bad.



Edit: i don't even have to read the replies below cause i already know what low-self-esteem losers would come out.

pathetic, but still amusing

pathetic, but still amusing

At least you got that right

you're smart!

and very modest

geniuses are known for getting their asses kicked by random nobodies on the internet.

yes, and sick people are known for their hallucinations xD


i lol'd.

wait, if i was a nobody would that, in theory, make you a genius?

funny how you're the one saying that when 10 people tell you to shut up in just another thread

Funny how none of them put me on ignore.

jesus christ, we're approaching gillz levels here.

2 things to note here.

1st , There already is a major concession called Quake Live going on at the moment.
They changed weapon damage ratio that had been going on for almost 10 years running.
This has to be the most noob friendly Quake iteration to date.

2nd, if you think simply adding ingame help with timing will save Quake's fate, you are quite simply.....daydreaming.

Quake will remain a niche because its inherently hard to perform at an acceptable level and the masses prefer easy and comfortable settings like Quake or Call of Duty.
Dumbing down the game even further is probably the last thing any true fan would want, EVEN if it was gonna revive the genre...

Nice idea, maybe worth trying, but don't pretend it will not have its downsides, just a few top of my head ..
- the tactic of purposely delaying spawns would be rendered almost completely pointless
- the need for mental timing may not be removed completely but the advantage would be greatly diminished, a guy may run past the RA spawn purely by chance and see it is about to spawn so his opponents superior map awareness would no longer be rewarded
- it would render the really interesting Q2/CPM MH respawn system pointless

Maybe the advantages you list out-weight these loses, but its not as black and white as you argue.

I think CPM's system of removing seconds from clock is the best competitive solution, the argument that people can just use external timers anyways is irrelevant for serious competition matches (lan) anyways.

Better than having times directly would be:

- No seconds on the clock (In duel)
- No coaches
- Every item has a "simple items" logo underneath where it spawns
- Upon pickup it turns white/black
- Every second it changes between the simple items colour and white/black increasing in speed the closer to the spawn time

You would have to be in the line of sight of the item and you would have to focus on the flashing speed (It should be subtle) taking focus away from defending your position, aim, dodging et cetera

This should remove the "problems" of manual timing while allowing the superior player/team to still have the advantage on a macro scale (And even a micro scale still).

I like that, though I think seconds on the clock are essential in team games to communicate

Yeah, should have made that clear :P

very good. this is the best implementation of the idea so far. [+]


but why remove seconds for people who want to time items manually? it's a skill, if people want to learn it, let them. it's not as if they can't use a simple timer anyway.

btw, I think you should post this idea on ql forums.

I think the whole concept/idea of removing manual timing should be discussed a bit more first, so that a detailed and clear post could be made (Or not made).

I don't think these topics are necessarily related.

while adding limited timing help for beginners doesn't really change the vq3 gameplay in any way( not on a higher level anyway) removing the timer would mean stripping the more experienced players of a very significant tool that they are used to.

and you know what happens when you change something vq3rs are used to. :)

Why not have seconds on the duel clock?

It's great that your posting your ideas but some arguments would be nice:)

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1689480#pid1689480

DDKs point about using times to plan when and where to attack is still true without the seoncds on the clock.

I believe that intuitive timing is harder and thus requires more "skill" to go with all that Vo0 said.

Interesting idea - I've had the same thought before myself. Haven't quite made my mind up on it though.

On the one hand, duel would become more interesting for many players who dont fancy doing maths while playing video games. It has always seemed strange to have math as an integral part of an action FPS.

On the other, you would lose an element of skill from the game. It's not impressive seeing someone time on dm6 - but its pretty damn cool seeing the likes of cooller time everything on dm13 or ztn.

Maybe you could keep the timer so that players could time if they have the skill to. But also make it that players get a warning sound 5s/10s before a spawn - so long as they saw or heard when the item was taken last.

I don't think giving people free items when they're clueless about what's going on in the game is a good way to improve it.

Either:

remove clock and make people time blind

or:

Keep timer as it is, and get rid of timescripts etc.

Can I turn this elitism thing on its head?
Most of us, if not all, have learned to play this game at a reasonable level, how to time (even if we don't in practice) and so forth. We had to acquire this knowledge. We are not particularly unusual people.
I put it to you that the people who continually cry "elitism!" are elitist themselves; or why else do they feel the common man is incapable of grasping Quake or challenging themselves in any way? HINT: It's the challenging part of Quake that actually makes/made it fun, you dumbfucks. I agree on giving noobs as much clear information as possible - when items spawn, how to time them, lots of strafejumping movies, etc etc; but can we PLEASE PLEASE not make the mistake that if someone whinges about something being difficult it's grounds for it being removed.
Yes the gimps on an FFA server whinge if you time something, of course they do! They're reacting out of annoyance, you shouldn't actually take them at their word and obliterate aspects of the game, that's pure fucking madness.

Dude Quake is not basketball.

"Why not have an automatic countdown for items presuming you've seen/heard them being taken?"

This totally noobifies Quake. I hate this feature in some Quake 2 clients. ezquake developers would never add such a cheaty feature.

yeah, an army of Arktiks will start aiming/move/run the items like uber pros and no one will hold a candle up to them

Do you even play any iteration of quake?

not anymore

And, would you play again if this feature was implemented? ^^

nope, i'm long done with FPS games

Just remove seconds on the clock for duel.

I think duel needs to change completely anyway, Hooney mode is the future of duel.

hm is that roundbased mod?

Yeah.

Think of it like Tennis, you play to get the frag from spawn then it starts over untill you get X rounds.

I think it promotes all the good aspects of DM duel and gets rid of all the bad aspects (spawn rape, Slippery Slope et cetera)

sounds like ra3 with items. are there any servers for this thing?

It's in CPMA so it's just a potential callvote away (Unless it's blocked)

does anyone actually play it?

I don't think so :P

The duel community always seems to get stuck into their ways and habits so I doubt just having it as a "side" gametype would attract much attention.

I genuinely feel that's the way forward, it encourages all the right things, is less discouraging since you will learn a lot faster what works at a start and what doesn't since you don't have to sit through 10-15 minutes of being spawn killed and then you gradually build up your game from there.

while it does sound interesting I don't think it will ever get to have any impact on the actual gameplay.

I mean just look how these people react to a much more benign idea that maybe it's not fun to calculate times manually in an fps action game. :)

What do you mean you say you don't think it will ever "have any impact on the actual gameplay"?

If you just mean you don't believe it will ever be used as a mode then I somewhat agree for the exact same reason you believe it.

If not, what specific aspect of the game do you believe it won't have any impact on?

As a side note, this is why "gameplay" is a useless term and only serves to bring confusion to discussion. People should be more specific about which aspect of the game they are thinking/talking about!

bad wording. I meant what you wrote in the second paragraph.

I think it would take a big league/cup or the complete replacement of the classic mode in code for it to be switched to.

hooney mode still got some problems, but great potential.

I always thought I'd be fun to take the tennis analogy a bit further.
Say you have 14 spawnpoints on a map. At the beginning of the round (=set), the players would pick matching spawn points (a-b, b-a, a-b etc) until each spawn point has been picked once. Then they play it out, with the first player to reach 4 frags (4 play rounds) to win the set. They repeat, only this time player B starts picking first.

The first to win 2 (or 3) sets wins the map.

That would get around some of the more obvious problems of hooney mode, e.g unmatched spawn points (if randomly chosen) or always the same spawn points (if lplayers were allowed to pick spawn points freely) and has some nice strategical possibilities. It would also create clutch rounds much more so than normal DM.

Lets just clear up the lingo a bit first:
- Match = X number of Maps
- Map = X number of Sets
- Set = X number of Rounds
- Round = First to score a frag/kill/suicide

This is how I see a Match working:
- BO3 Maps
- BO3 Sets
- BO3 Rounds
- The choice of Spawn Pairs alternates each round
- Spawn points are paired to be balanced
- The actual spawning of the players is random (50:50 chance of either)

I don't like the idea of getting up to four frags because this has the slippery slope flaw, the spawn fragging flaw and I think it promotes defensive play.

When you have just the one frag you become more focussed on getting the frag, rather than getting the frag and not leaving yourself vulnerable after it.

Bad wording, I ment 4 frags as in 4 rounds, 1 frag per round, the way it is now.

Balanced spawn pairs is the easy (and fast) way, but I like the strategical element in chosing all spawns beforehand. That would depend on an intuitive and fast way to chose spawns of course and might not be worth it.

/edit
Here's how I see the possible spawn systems:

- Random
- Random Balanced pairs
- Pick spawns at the start of a round, no restrictions
- Pick spawns at the start of the round, each spawn may only be used once in a set
- Pick all spawns at the beginning of the set (implies each spawn to be used only once)

Of these I like the 4th and 5th the best (with 4 being faster) while 2 is the easiest. 3 leads to always the same matchups, random is just bullshit

I like 2 and 4.

PS. I think you REALLY overestimate how hard timing is. When you get good at it, it just takes a second or so to add the time and from then on, you just have to remember it. Do you really think it you can call it taking his attention away from the action if its so minor?

You're missing the point of the argument being made, it's not that timing is really hard but that it is an unnecessary barrier for improvement.

Think of it as having to manually allocate the different resources to build a unit in an RTS instead of it automatically making that decision for you.

As simple and untaxing as the process can be it does take a certain amount of time to learn and not have to put much attention or focus on it. This is despite it being boring and only loosely related to the actual skill involved with item control (Strategy & Tactics employed and Movement & Aim used).

Actually, that stuff like having to manually allocate resources exists in starcraft (not the exact one, but there's this old UI that doesn't let you do all at once), and its one of the things that makes it so competitive. Timing is a lot easier and not as time-requiring tho. Anyways, I think that getting a feel of the game, including timing, is the main skill in the game. And I'm ok with seconds removal on the timer and timers on the map (depends on circumstances tho), but adding a timer to the UI would be bullshit.

So that "stuff" doesn't exist in starcraft but other stuff does, great argument.

Not that I support this idea.

What I mean was that there's other stuff that's there just to give the player a choice, to either spend time boosting your economy or to spend time controlling your army, which is because of the UI that's outdated. I'd call that pretty damn similar.

It's not similar though.

Except it is.

And I'm not going to argue if that's the only thing you say.

The problem with your comparison is decisions and the direct effect they have on the game.

In starcraft you need to make a decision on which is more important and your actions directly influence how the game will progress. If you were having to allocate the resources manually it's just a pointless "maths" based barrier which has a very vague relationship to the decision making process.

Warcraft 3 has an updated GUI (And so will Starcraft 2) and I've yet to be convinced that WC3 is inferior to SC due to the updated and more automated GUI and not due to other mechanics and balance issues.

Well having to reallocate resources is a bit vague, but it would still serve the same purpose. Timing is way easier tho, its not as time-requiring too.

About the UI: It's definitely a part of it. I don't have too much experience on this, but seriously, just check the whine on teamliquid.net forums. The SC2 automining WILL change the game and dumb macro down quite a bit, they could fix it with dark pylons\mules\ect. tho

I mean say, having to add up gold, wood and oil to get a value and having to input that.

Is auto-mining in WC3?

As I said, if it was the only choice, it would fit. I would highly prefer the approach starcraft tho :) As for quake, there's hardly a choice.

As for automining, I haven't played WC3 for quite a while and it works quite different there, but if you rally your workers to a gold mine from your "main building", you just have to queue them and they'll mine themselves, so, yes.

But would it add to the game in a positive factor that makes decisions more complex, interesting and exciting?

If you add it to the game now, it would be bullshit. But, if there was no macro and nobody REALLY knew another good choice, it wouldn't be that bad. But seriously, there's other ways to make macro complex.

Are you talking about auto mining there?

No automining, no MBS, and other stuff. There's no need to manually calculate resources when you have all of this.

You've utterly confused me now and I've no idea what we're talking about :D

lol :D

I was talking about manual resource allocating and saying that with there's no need for it when you could just use a outdated UI, without Multiple Building Selection,without Automining, one like starcraft's. Unlike in quake, where adding a timer to the HUD to remove the timing skill would partially ruin the game.

It wasn't about adding a timer per se but removing manual timing :o

oh come on, you know what I mean, don't pretend that my english is even worse than it is :)

Well removing manual timing could be just like in CPM with the seconds on the clock removed.

What OP wrote:

And guess what? Automatic item timers already exist in Quake3. They're called coaches. That's right, if you already have some guy spamming QUAD IN 5!!, why not just have it as a standard feature? Why not have an automatic countdown for items presuming you've seen/heard them being taken?

So that's what I was thinking about. Removing seconds count on the timer would still change the game quite a bit... And TBH I'm not sure if it would work for the better or the worse. As ppl say, I should play 'play more promode' to find out heh.

"Why not have an automatic countdown for items presuming you've seen/heard them being taken?"

And how that would play out in an actual game once players learnt how to take account of this, things would get very messy and very silly.

For example if the down player/player not in control if they decided they were not in a state to contest for an item, they could use tactics like making sure they are out of LOS of the item but within hearing distance to a key item when it gets picked up, the player in control would have no idea if the down player has it auto-timed or not. Or if the player is out of position and too far from the item, they might find a los to the item all the way across a map to see when the up players takes it (this standoff may not involve any shots fired at all just two players looking at eachover waiting for the item to spawn)

It all sounds pretty ridiculous to me more akin to cs or something than quake.

Agreed.

what's a los?

line of sight

well duh, if you can see it than you can time it. but nevermind...

the best solution so far to avoid all timers but still give some idea about the item spawntime was given here:

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1688942#pid1688942

On the flip side, the TL forums are filled with a bunch of whiny stoner idiots.

Just like ESR lol.

Anyway, its at least partially true, starcraft fans deserve a great game.

It shouldn't take you more than a week to have near-flawless timing in VQ3.

Bullshit. I see pros doing timing mistakes all the time. Its a skill.

This is due to the fact that you're going up against another player who is taking items and slowing your timing. The actual act of timing itself is basic as hell, so giving someone times wouldn't change that fact.

Of cause it takes more than a week to learn. First of all not every player are able to add the required seconds to the clock in a half second, especially when an item is taken while the clock shows an uneven number close to 60 (i.e. 47). It might take a short period of time before the calculation is done. Secondly timing a single item might be easy, but multiple items can't be done after one week for an ordinary player. And finally, you are very rarely able to take an item in quiet surroundings. You are often in the middle of a fight when either you or the opponent grabs an item, which causes loss of concentration concerning the item-timing.

So that’s bullshit.

By the way, I am against the idea as well.

If any player has trouble adding a couple dozen seconds to a time, they should be in school instead of playing anyway.

It has nothing to do with being stupid or not well-taught. Some people are just having trouble with adding numbers swiftly while focusing on other things. 35 to 10 is easy enough but 35 to 37 might be a bitch while you get your ass shafted into pieces.

But okay, let’s say that any ordinary guy can add the numbers at any time. That doesn't make him able to keep track for multiple counts.

So your "It shouldn't take you more than a week to have near-flawless timing in VQ3."-opinion is still bullshit :).

And no, I am not having trouble with adding the numbers. I just know some players who are.

It's not an opinion - it's a fact. If it takes you any longer than that, the problem is you, not the concept.

It is not and we both know it. Timing multiple items near-flawwlessly cannot be learned in one week, period.

We are done.

Oh, I see, you can't do it so it's impossible, amirite?

Stay in school, kid.

Seriously. Stop being a retard. You can impossible be as stupid as you seem right now.

I said that I am not having any problems with adding the numbers, so no you are not right. But I can't time three items at the same time near-flawlessly and I am quite sure that you aren't able to do so either. Even if you are, we both know that you spent a lot more than a single week learning it. It is a skill that can't be learned in a week by any ordinary person. So just stop wanking your ePenis in threads like this.

And btw: you don't need to worry about my education. But frankly I'm a bit worried about yours.

You can impossible be as stupid as you seem right now.

+

And btw: you don't need to worry about my education. But frankly I'm a bit worried about yours.

Thank you for proving my point. You didn't read what I had written, and you have proven that even basic timing is far too difficult for you. Hopefully you can keep up with timing fries at McDonalds, because that's as far as you're going to get.

I was wrong. You really are that stupid. Wow.

Hey, next time, read what you are replying to. Either way, you "can impossible" hope to keep up with this discussion.

However, in celebration of your idiocy, here is RAP CHOP

give me strength

Ehm. I did answer your post. Let me help you a little.
All you asked was "amirite" about me not being able to time. Here is my response. Let's see if you are able to find the answer in the sentence this time. Hint: Bold.

"I said that I am not having any problems with adding the numbers, so no you are not right. But I can't time three items at the same time near-flawlessly and I am quite sure that you aren't able to do so either".

This is no discussion. Not anymore. It's just you flaming in rage :).
Better luck next time Mr. clueless

Keep practicing on those fries and you'll get to armors some day!

takes all the skill away from real cooking. please remove this video.

holy fucking shit, that vid is awesome, someone put a lot of work into this...genious

(i had to log in to say that;P)

got an idea for another duel mod :
-hud tells when the next power up will appear and in which room
-all these rooms have a bunch of different PU's respawn locations, randomly chosen each time so the players don't know for sure where it'll spawn in the room

so it still creates rendez-vous to fights for PUs, minus the timing stuff

strategically placed counters in powerup rooms would be more simple/elegant

it wouldn't negate the need for timing completely (especially at pro level), but it would make the game rely less on timing for normal play

it's a good compromise.

or better yet, to free the mappers of doing addtionaly work for the map timers for each map just create an additional item property: (easily turned on/off with a cvar)

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1689164#pid1689164

we can add radar too! noobs will know where enemy is and will run away.
or remove movement - spawn with all weapons agains each other and fire directly, who is faster - that one wins! noobs will love it!
I dont see point why CPM removed seconds? you need more skill to time and think about game. in vq3 if you dont time, you guessting then item will apear , thats you all doing in cpm, its not skill ..

And serious one:

Then one skilled player will gain control and will run around all items (will know then they will spawn) and will not make any mistakes , it will be not possible to recontrol map... who frags 1st - that one wins.. etc in dm6, most of map recontrol comes from MH and RA taking..

realy realy sorry JUST THIS TIME for realy realy bad litenglish

maybe if you actually learned to read english you'd understand the part about getting timers /progress bars *only* if you were there to see the item being taken. so item delaying and not knowing exact times still apply. it only frees you of CALCULATING item times by hand.

of course you won't understand what I just wrote so I guess that was effort well spent.

i can understand english well, just speak without mistakes are harder :P and i can do it , but i need 4x more time .. :)

ok red about "time, then u see item" , but etc in hub u cant see item, but hear it in half of map. and again for skilled player who takes control, it`s lot more easy to hold it .. it`s bad idea for vq3 duels 99% maybe for other modes or maybe for other mod.. dunno, but for duels in vq3 @ cpma , IMO it will never happen :)

"Why not have an automatic countdown for items presuming you've seen/heard them being taken?"

ix made the argument for hud timers *in team games* a few years ago, because coaches have become an overwhelming advantage/requirement.

arguably, we should simply never have added coaches in the first place, but then the advantage (for "serious" play, at least) simply shifts to teams that can LAN for matches and/or have a coach on voicecomm etc, so it doesn't actually help things so much as it just pushes the brokenness around a bit.

you'll have to wait for his comments to see if he still supports the idea (or if i'm even remembering things correctly).

on top of that tho, there are some non-trivial issues with the whole IDEA of hud timers when you have multiple RA/YA (or even multiple QUADs in CTF) - if one YA is up in 5s and one is up in 20, how do you know which is which at a glance?

if nobody on your team was anywhere *near* RA when it was taken, do you DESERVE to be told when it's going to respawn? (no, you don't. period. and the global VO on PU pickups in VQ3 is even worse bullshit, and has no place in anything that even pretends to be a skill game, ie "not FFA").

--

hud timers in *DM* are just Yet Another mindless skill-minimising step on the eternal quest to take everything that is Not Aim out of the game, which i despise. i can't imagine ix ever supporting them in that, regardless of what he decides we should do for team games.

i think the argument for it has nothing to do with it being "mindless" and everything to do with the ease in which it is to auto time(or arguably cheat).

for example i could have a friend stand over me and tell me when the items are coming up or use sound files in a separate program similar to in q2. for a removed clock like in cpm i can simply use a stopwatch. i wouldn't even need to touch q3 to do any of this, yet i think many would say this is cheating.

Totally agree.

on top of that tho, there are some non-trivial issues with the whole IDEA of hud timers when you have multiple RA/YA (or even multiple QUADs in CTF) - if one YA is up in 5s and one is up in 20, how do you know which is which at a glance?

easy. instead of hud timers have a progress bar on the spawn spot of the item. (same rules apply)


p.s. you're welcome

if i time more than one thing (using the timer), my head explodes.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/protest...ngHead.gif

'sif you can add.

I think Quake suffers from a too steep skill curve. While good for the pros, it's certainly not good for the newbies and in the end it becomes unhealty for the community as a whole (it tends to die out).

HUD based timers would lower the skill curve a bit, which I am all for.

I'm surprised how many say that timing is easy. Watch a demo of good players and you will see that their timing is far from perfect.
Personally I think that timing by calculating increases the differences between a good and a bad player more then timing by feeling. I know this sounds weird, but imo you can never time items by feeling exact enough to win a decent percentage of item fights.

Also, I never liked that coaches are accepted for team modes in tournaments/leagues, I just think that it removes skill from the game. Unfortunately, it's impossible to prevent ghost coaches, so I can understand why coaches are allowed. I still hope that they won't add coaches in QL.

agree

I hope coaches are never added to QL.

really?

yet loads of pro's such as fooki, who time pretty much by feeling alone, rape most of your so called good players who time by calculating

yet cypher, cooller, avek and czm have much more impressive track records all of whom are timing machines

certainly avek when his game is on, makes up for his shit aim

fooki was probably the best dm6 player in 2004 and his ztn was real tasty too.

No, he doesn't. All good players use the timer.

#119

BUT TIEMING IS TEH SKILL LULZ

Fucking lazy Polack trying to ruin our game.

Get a skill nub and since item timing has been inseparable part of games since day 1 and will stay that way forever, try finding something else to bitch about.

I hope my answer helped.

would be cool to see, in ql, countdown timers on the items' spawns in either:
a) spectator mode
b) demos
c) warmup
d) a "practice" gametype
e) public servers
or some combination of those.

however, this fucking thread is fucking retarded and fucking stupid and the creator is an idiot

timing is not as easy as some ppl claim here
when your new to quake you have to think about a lot more stuff than more experienced players do. sure its not hard to add 25 to a timer, but you cannot allow to be distracted (or forget any other of your timings) while doing so and that is kinda hard when you havent played quake for years and know what else to to by heart

and cymozz is also right, a lot of good/pro players dont have perfect timing. that should show you how hard it is to time everything under pressure

a lot of good/pro players dont have perfect timing. that should show you how hard it is to time everything under pressure

...and this is a bad thing because???

where did you get it that i think this is bad? cause imho it is not
i just wanted to post something in contrast to everyone who said that timing is simple and not a skill, but just barrier for new

er most do have 'perfect timing'

focusing on it while being forced to deal with 101 other things is a different matter

that's not because timing is difficult

timing in itself is very easy, it's like making a groceries list or texting on your cellphone.

try doing it while driving a rally race.

manual timing is a skill, but it's boring. boring to do, boring to watch, and apart from the 'hey i can hold numbers in my head under pressure' part it differs nothing from excessive camping, hiding, +back or other lame tactics inferior players employ to have anything on their in-battle superiors that they just can't or won't try to match. you have "fun" with that.

there are enough natural mindgames for the pretentious wannabe intellectuals with tricking, reading and timing your opponent without adding unnecessary extra things to keep track of pretending that quantity equals quality. people could use that extra concentration to spice up their game.

meanwhile, it seems like the very first things most new (and well, old as well to be brutally honest) duellers in f.e. quake live seem to have no problems learning are item timing and map control, making up for their abysmal aim that an extreme minority will ever manage to learn to be really good with, while an equally extreme majority cries about how easy it is to aim and that "everyone" hits this and that percentage (typically twice their own, as it happens) - basically making it sound like everyone who isn't shit aims like stermy or cypher, unlike the real world where out of the thousands of quake live players, you can probably count them on your fingers - and with the exception of those two, who aren't solely relying on their aims regardless of whether anyone says so or not, none of the others are having similar success. how odd. i thought all aim and no brain was supposed to be the cheap way to the top?

item timing may be one reason quake is hardcore, but at what point does the hardcore go overboard and theory ("oh so skilled and complex, ultimate game") makes for bad reality ("the 17 of us that are left are finally happy")?

You are probably that instagib guy from the ql board.

can you log in so I can plus you?

AutoTiming is lol. Why ?
Because:
1) It like autoaim, bots etc. Where is human factor ?
2) left hemisphere of the human brain: timing, (speaking in TDM)
right hemisphere of the human brain: aim, movement
Better develop both hemisphere's. Or you be a freak!
3) If you want "normally concentrate on game dynamics" play more CA or Instagib. No timing at all :D

another russian who can't read english. gj

yes so because you don't have to time anything in football we shouldn't have to time in quake either. good point

The inventors of football made a great choice not to include spawning items on the field.

gtfo from quake if u cant count and play cs instead!

this is one of the best troll sites in i-net...
/trolled \:D/

timing isn't just adding up and taking away...

if you are able to time mega, RA and YA, then you can successfully work out the pattern and make conscious decisions based upon the fact you know exactly when the items will spawn. this is an advantage of keeping/having control of a map.

to take control back against an extremely good player relies upon outsmarting him/taking oppertunity of a weak moment of his control, maybe arriving too early or too late to an item, perhaps bad positioning - something which you can exploit. if you manage to hear when the item is taken, you in an out of control position can then try to exploit this too because firstly you know exactly where he will be or perhaps his path the previous 5-10 seconds to that item spawning.

if there was no timing, it would become like cpm, aim aim movement movement. sure a general pattern can be worked out, but there is far less intricacy and the games outcome will become much more predictable unless it's an extremely chaotic map. timing isn't just adding and subtracting... timing is sucessfully retaining and incorporating knowledge into your decisions which is very hard to do.

you would just be doing what quake live is doing, dramatically lowering the skill ceiling to appeal to newbs. i knowingly stuck to the game when i realised how much skill there was to it, why does patronising players to make it easy for them suddenly improve the situation? you are sacrificing game depth and longevity for a quick buck. sad.


the way that you utilise coaches in tdm to justify your point is so clueless and just destroys the credibility of your suggestion - it elaborates how you clearly don't grasp quake deathmatch at all, i just hope others realise that.

What is this nonsense that cpm involves no timing? A big difference in vq3 and cpm is the fact that there is not a seconds clock in cpm. In vq3 it is real easy to when an item is going to spawn. vq3 becomes a game where half the time you are just looking at the clock and counting numbers so you know when items are gonna spawn and you adjust your strategy to it. You can argue it has more depth than "guessing" when an item is going to spawn like in cpm.
I disagree though. I think if neither player EXACTLY knows when an item is going to spawn it promotes more creativity in player's decisions. I don't think it's more random either. If cpm had a seconds clock the ability to keep control on certain maps would be extremely easy. In fact, this discussion makes me want to try cpm with a seconds clock just to see how ridiculous it would be.

In qw you didn't have seconds but most of the players just used an egg timer or something instead, doesn't that happen in cpm too?

hud_gameclock_show 1 in qw

yes I meant that blocked seconds was it how used to be, but so many people used external timers it was completely pointless

If people want to cheat, that's their choice. You shouldn't design the game around what someone could do to cheat.

so in cpm you actually consider manual timing cheating?

If you use an external timer then yes, what else can it be?

It's the same as using a wallhack or an aimbot/autoshoot.

it's strange since vq3rs consider it the pinnacle of their skill.

Well in VQ3 it is provided for you, so it's not cheating!

I don't understand why it's seen as such a great thing really, all it seems to do is lower the skill ceiling, since once you get good enough to time accurately and properly you can't get better.

thats not true
show me any player with perfect timing. there is none.
and you can always time more items (weapons/50 hp bubbles/..)

Oh please, it's just a crutch that everyone has got used to, intuitive timing is far harder and requires more skill and time investment.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

in serious competitions (lan) they won't be able to use those external timers anyway so no problem

who cares if some idiots want to gain a small advantage and go against the spirit of the game design by using external timers in playing for fun online games

considering the lack of serious cpm competitions that would be an unrealistic expectation.

thought you were talking about quake3/quake in general

Logitech G15 LCD clock NP

agreed with all, apart from your bullshit about cpm

thats a bit offtopic though cause a timer in the hud would not change much of it.
timing would still be in the game, ppl just wouldnt forget any numbers and wouldnt need to add/substratct anymore. still not everyone would be on the right spot at the right time and so on...

still, i think its a useless idea and i want to keep it as it is ;)

you make a valid point. it is also a fact that quake has a too steep learning curve to attract mass audiences and tournament organizers, therefore hurting the competitive scene more than slight gameplay adjustments.

it's finding a way to make game basics more understandable for beginners and at the same time not hurt the overall skill of the game that is the purpose of this article.

you also seem to have missed the part about CONDITIONAL TIMERS (activated only if you hear/see the item being taken). it can be argued that those would still detract from overall skill (you can move around the map while the counter is ticking).

there are few ideas in this thread however that reduce this advantage to an absolute minimum. if anything it would encourage new players to learn proper timing and it would be completely insignificant at higher levels of play (where everyone can time manually anyway).

have a look:
http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1688942#pid1688942

"i knowingly stuck to the game when i realised how much skill there was to it"

That's what makes a true quaker

I like your argument and you have a point, but timing adds so much more depth to the game, it simplifies the map knowledge too much, i mean even mediocre players can now land on spawn points to stupid accuracy. Leave the timers out and keep it manual I say!

you win the contest, keep it up

ummm, well, obviously you cant really take timing out of the game entirely, but i also dont really like the unnatural weighting of timing in the skill equation.

the best ideas i heard to fix this were the item timers in the item zone, but imo, this is kind of a weak solution, as it feels kind of forced. it would be far better to have something a bit more intuitive and built into the game more naturally.

I actually had a sort of similar idea for warsow (which i have yet to try and implement) which was that there would be an item placemarker for all the main items. On these markers there would be a light (think of Ut or Q4 item markers?) This light will slowly shift from Red to Green as the item gets closer to being available again.

Imo, this would be a nice little intuitive way of saying, the item is going to spawn soon, but without taking the timer away or stopping people from timing manually either.

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1688942#pid1688942

dont really like the flashing thing, its over complicating it a bit imo.

i prefer a color gradient cos its provides some basic info without being too detailed about it. i thought it would be more helpful for the noobs than to be a complete replacement for item timing.

a color gradient like this : http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/schani/mathm...adient.jpg

that's the whole point of his post imo. put the player using timing aides in an unfavorable position compared to the one who times items, yet still give him some idea of when the item's going to spawn.

so you couldn't just take a glance at the armor and turn to guard the entrance. you'd have to give it a better look and during that time be exposed to an attack.

isnt the whole point of doing something like this to make item timing more intuitive and more accessible? By making the item marker thingy complicated in its own right kind nixes the whole reason to implement it. Besides, the guy doing mechanical timing has the advantage of accuracy...

Can't get more intuitive than alternating colors with variable speed tbh

http://www.foopics.com/show/6b407c753a788c376421351b87ba7823

this is what id like to see.

exactly

Not saying that it's less intuitive, I just can't see a significant difference.

Flashing has the advantage of forcing the player to stop for a moment to see how fast it goes to make an accurate guess, but I don't think that would matter in actual play. The human brain is pretty good at picking stuff like that up in an instant

id rather give that inaccurate info straight away and let players get on with playing the game tbh, rather than looking at item markers etc.

Can you imagine how annoying a level full of flashing item spots would be?

I assumed just major items, but yes, that's a major drawback

That picture is epic

Then whats the point of delaying RA 5 sec just to fool your opponent if he can just come early, look at the red light and not fall for the trap?

hes still in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the fact that its a color gradient means that the light would actually be pretty green if hes off by 5 seconds so he would possibly still stick around in the hope that the item would spawn soon enough for him.

Thats why i want a color gradient, bcos as the item neared spawning, it would be hard to tell just how long was left until it did...

The initial thought I had was to have a switch between a not available colour and the colour of the item (To help with learning where the items were) and that sent me on the "flashing" train of thought.

A colour gradient is probably more efficient and effective but the red to green potentially loses the map learning side of things.

Is your idea to have a "beams of light" type effect (That's what the drawings look like)?

OR

you could have a see-trough item placeholder - like you have for player spawns in warmup - that gradually gets more opacity until it's becomes a full item

ye pretty much, dno what u mean about the map learning thing tho :/

ah, u mean that they wont be able to tell which item is which???

Yeah, just something to help along with the process of learning a map.

Nah a color gradient wouldnt work, at least it wouldnt work in any fair way, since you would know at what second it turned from red to green so if you pop in to watch it, you would know when it was 15 sec left fe. It would just give the guy not at the right place at the right time an advantage.

well, if u have to go from red->orange->green in a more or less balanced way, that is, that each pure color has more or less the same 'screen time' then theres no problem. So not a pure color gradient thing, but more a color progression. the color gradients have too small mid points your right. Its worth a shot imo (im gna try smtg like it with warsow).

possible solutions:

1. make the gradient change at say, 5 second intervals :) so he'll only know that the item will spawn within next 5 seconds even if he can guess the right gradient color.

2. have continuous gradient change but only display the indicator if you've actually seen/heard the item being taken

if only you knew, it would still be way more beneficial to time the item in your head beacuse often when you are duelling you goto jump onto the item 2-3 seconds before it spawns aiming to land on it literally as it spawns - it won't be in the line of sight... this is quite an important part of duelling because it means that your slight advantage over the guy in control or vice versa of knowing exactly when it will spawn can mean a lot as you can avoid a fight for an item (eg. mega on hub) and instead take it and the other guy has to run or whatever.

also, how sloppy would it be for top players to stand and look at the colour of the light beam? it just sounds quite ridiculous. compare it to something like starcraft, this to me is reminiscent of the AUTO-MINING argument. it doesn't sound as something that promotes fluency of play, the whole point of timing is - take an item, the time is in your head - you can now base other decisions on that knowledge you already have = more skilful/far better to watch, at no point do you have to go back to where you took the item to see when you took it - it's done in that instant.

perhaps i'm missing the point of your argument, but to me it seems that you are trying to do what quakelive is doing. you are trying to lower the skill ceiling and CHANGE QUAKE so that other newbs can get into it more easily, perhaps play it for an extra week instead of the original 2 weeks it took them to quit.

the only thing required for people to actually get into quake is competitions. that has and will always be the driving force of quake. for newbies they can watch the pros and aspire to reach their levels of skill. without competitions the pros don't play - without competition, it's all pointless - there's no end to the means of constant practice.

i just think it's folly to try to change a game. if the quake generation of players is over, then let it be over. it will sort itself out. but to change the game and destroy what we originally coveted so highly to me is a farce. osp already had the perfect balance for duel and tdm - ask ANY TOP PLAYER and they will agree with me. CPMA is a bastardisation and they changed a lot, but at least it's still quake 3.

" if only you knew, it would still be way more beneficial to time the item "

oh but I do, that's what I've been saying all along.

"perhaps i'm missing the point of your argument"

yes you are, and here's why:

you said it yourself, people who time items would still have TOTAL ADVANTAGE over nubs who watch pretty colors, so why not let them have it?how would it ruin the game if high level of play is not changed in any way by this simple benign addition?

notice that I'm not talking about removing seconds on the clock, just a little colour gradient indicator on the item spot, that's all.
the only difference is beginners and non-duelers will learn the game much faster since they'll have at least some kind of idea about item spawns.

the pros will still play the game exactly the same way since it's the right way to play it. so you see, there is no dumbing down of the game whatsoever. the right way is to still time items by clock, just the way of getting there is easier for beginners.

and that's all there is to it really.
the point is easing the learning curve for beginners while not ruining the high skill of the game.
(I' put it in bold this time in case you miss it)

"he pros will still play the game exactly the same"

no they will not, since it would remove the possibility to fuck your opponent over with delaying items. Your opponent might think it spawns soon and waits for it while in the meantime you grass the map for everything else without being disturbed and get back there in time to kill him. If your opponent would see that the item won't spawn anytime soon the item delaying would be pointless.

So YES, it does change how the game is played on a high level.

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1689980#pid1689980

You don't actually address the issue. Knowing when every item spawns to within 5 seconds makes the game much more boring and less skillful. Stop trying to "save" the game with stupid ideas.

Edit. Forgot to mention, if the gradient changes every 5 seconds, then you will know exactly when the item spawns in, at most, 5 seconds. People will also just learn (by feel and seeing the gradient) the exact time of every item. It's a dumb idea that just shifts from intelligence and thinking (being able to think quickly and remember the time for a bunch of items), and being able to pattern recognize better.

you didn't even have a look at 2., did you?

It's a dumb idea, just like everything else in this thread... Did you read what I said?

yes, hence my reply. please explain how implementing 2. would make the game boring and less skillful on higher levels.

Because half of the game is being able to think well under pressure. Making the appropriate decisions at the appropriate times. Having automatic timers removes some of this skill, and levels the playing field needlessly.

While it was never stated as such originally...

Since this isn't an idea for the competition side of the game I think it would only be right to have it turned off in competitive environments.

I think it's fair to say that the way DM games are currently setup, they require "training" crutches for beginners, so they can learn and develop their skills and intuition.

Currently if they take a YA, then leave and return hoping to pick up again a bit later they have no way of knowing if it is about to spawn, has already spawned or isn't spawning for another ten seconds or so.

Using this system over time they will naturally learn the timings of the game a lot quicker, since everytime they get it wrong, they know roughly by how much.

While that may or may not be true (there's no evidence to suggest these changes will affect whether or not people start playing Q3 AT ALL), why doesn't StarCraft suffer the same fate?

Until someone can point to actual factual research done which shows the benefits of this stupid idea, I fail to see why they should be taken seriously.

I didn't mean to say it would affect how many people pickup the game, only help those who do progress a bit faster.

Starcraft does give you a lot of information and has a SP campaign which teaches you the game in a relatively tame environment. I really don't think you can compare SC with Quake too much as the games are totally different.

There is single player in Q3. Saying that either is a good tutorial on how to play the game is a bit disingenuous though. My point was, however, that I'm not sure any of these "improvements" actually are. I've yet to see anything that makes these gameplay changes attractive in any sense of the word. That's not to say the CPM dev team knows a good idea when it punches them in the face, but that's a whole 'nother issue..

What would you require to see to change your mind though?

Surely something like this will remain unattractive to you until you can see it working. Until then it will only be a theoretical idea and nothing that can be said will convince you.

It may not be the best idea ever, or totally flawless but I think it's worth looking at.

The whole point of this suggestion is to get new players to play. I fail to see how this change will suddenly make all of the new players think "oh jeez, look at that, there's a gradient on the armor after I pick it up, informing me of when it's going ot spawn next. Now I REALLY want to learn how to play this game!!!!" That is my main point.

Until this can be demonstrated to make quake appeal to a wider audience, it's just mental masturbation, and/or the current newbs who cba to play correctly (but play anyway mind you) whining about how hard the game is. Neither of which is productive, although it does keep esr alive :)

Who said it was to attract new players?

It's to aid players in learning as far as I'm concerned. I don't expect it to attract anyone to play the game at all.

New players are already playing the game though. It's much more beneficial to learn how to play correctly than with training wheels. This is mainly due to the fracturing of the community it will cause (how can you fracture a 17 player community Inorite?). If this is implemented you will see people wanting tournaments with this new rule set, etc etc etc, and that's just bad for the game. Just learn how to play it right, IMO.

I disagree.

That's nice.

:D

When Starcraft came out, not only was it a huge deal, but Blizzard has tried to make all of their games perfectly compatible with last-year hardware. Quite frankly, Starcraft still is struggling to get bigger influence outside of Korea, but the success of it's current position could simply be attributed to market share. The momentum it had simply carried it into the next phase of it's life.

Comparing it to Quake just doesn't work since Quake has never been a big title. Quake 2 is the only game that seems to have even managed to break the 1 million copies sold barrier, whereas Starcraft has sold 11+ million at this point.

Also, Starcraft is a better game.

"Until someone can point to actual factual research done"

actual factual :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I don't think this idea would have a drastic affect on the delaying of items it obviously does have a negative one. Since this isn't an idea for the competition side of the game I think it would only be right to have it turned off in competitive environments.

There can be a CV for the feature which would work fine for Q3 and QL at present but I think QL should have more and a greater distinction between "unranked" and "ranked" servers anyway.

Unranked servers should be with casual settings (Shorter rounds, quicker item spawns, and things like this) and should still collect statistics and assign you to a skill tier which isn't displayed.

Ranked servers would be with competitive settings and have a seperate "proper" ranking (based on ELO) which is displayed on the profile and a seperate set of statistics (Same page but different column).

Yeah, you've kind missed the point of this idea. The idea is to assist beginners in learning aspect of Deathmatch gaming without affecting high level play to any significant amount.

That doesn't remove the need for timing, the items aren't random and there is no need at all to pay any attention to it in order to time.

There is a small negative involved if a player hasn't been to an area in a while (say YA/PG on ztn) they will have a very rough estimate of when it will spawn next if they go there, but at high level play you generally already do have an estimate of when it was taken regardless of having recently been there, so overall I would say the impact is minute.

Manual timing using the seconds on the clock is reducing the skill ceiling more so than this idea and just as much as anything else that has been introduced into QL. Intuitive timing is harder to be accurate with but you can achieve high degrees of accuracy with it (Thus more skilled, thus allowing infinite improvement and raising the skill ceiling).

If we are to keep the clock fully, why not have it display the time only in seconds (e.g. 0-600 for a 10minute duel)?
This simplifies and speeds up the timing process for everyone.

Professional competitions, as has been proven multiple times, are irrelevant in the growth of a game.

What is important is that the game is good and works in a competitive environment and you have a competitive community of casual and serious players. Only then do professional competitions make any difference to the growth of a game.

Despite there being the professional Q4 TDM Eurocup, the game was unsuitable and there was nothing going on outside the professional community. The result was that Q4 TDM didn't even take off, let alone die.

what about q3 from 2000-2004?

Professional competitions on top of community, then the game lost the community and it's all been down hill since despite managing to keep in some duel LAN tournaments.

games like starcraft, cs 1.6 etc never had the problems we're having with quake, why should we not just leave quake be? it's a sign that quake in its original form, the form that we loved from 2000-2004 (most of us at least) is no longer what people want to play perhaps? none of the other games ever had to modify themselves this much.

Starcraft took patches, an expansion , and even more patches to be competition ready.

Even still, you don't have to get others to leave Quake be - you can still play it since it never went away. The thing is, people don't.

Deathmatch does need to change how it works and how it puts itself across to the public.

DM games just aren't all that fun for casuals with their current design. There are far too many negative aspects involved which despite being loved by the community and considered to be the epitome of skill, just ruin it for everyone (Spawn Kills for example).

All of the things that give DM games depth are also hidden away behind all the negative aspects of the game making it very hard for anyone who isn't in the know to appreciate anything more than pretty explosions and steady crosshairs.

Starcraft has very steadily grown since its release and has simply gone from strength to strength in terms of popularity. While it is very complex to get into as a competitive game, the game works as a casual game too and Blizzard are always trying to fix bugs, exploits and balance issues.

CS is very trasnparent when it comes to what is going on, what aspects are important and why the other players are winning. It also has been built upon steady growth of a game that was just fun to play.

The solution is to find and weed out the things that are clearly negative to the growth of the game at the same time as teaching and making all the depth transparent to new comers.

I'll just add that QL utterly fails at both of these so far.

It's "fun" in the traditional Q3 sense, but it will have limited staying power.

It does look like id are putting emphasis on teaching how the game works though, so lets hope they get it done really well.

"It's "fun" in the traditional Q3 sense, but it will have limited staying power."

check out my new ql post. exactly that is happening.

not a big difference of course. only the time interval for reaching the conclusion about the item spawn would be a bit longer with the blinking light.

I think the colour gradient would have the same effect really.

That'd be fine too.

sage

This post expresses at perfection my old time opinion about timing. If it was my call I'd take it out completely. Just make an announcer voice to warn the players 5 seconds before the important items are going to spawn and that's it. A player would only have to keep track of what items are coming next to be well positioned for the spawning in case he chooses to attempt to pick them. And it's not about making the game more accesible, but about getting rid of aspects that are not in the essence of duelling. Let players focus on important decissions instead of waste their thinking in counting times. In fact, timing currently not only haves the effect of working unnecesarily, it also promotes players using fixed patterns which act against making decissions for each situation.

it also promotes players using fixed patterns which act against making decissions for each situation.

On the contrary. The player who runs fixed patterns might get an advantage due to timing, but he makes himselve vulnerable by being predictable. So he has to make a choice to run the pattern or deviate from it.

1on1 should be hard, its not a good mode for new players anyway. Team games like TDM, CTF, CA, FT is a much better way to attract new players to the game, I guess the realistic shooters has raped quake pretty badly when it comes to attracting new players to team games, but maybe QL can mean a new chance for the team modes to get a decent sized player base.

Also I dont get your analogy, Quake has a timer that shows when the game ends you know, and the only thing thats similar to your picture is the time cap on CA rounds which incidentally has a timer that warns when its over.

I wouldnt mind a practice mode with timer, but then you might aswell make one with radar, wh, aimbot etc.

Also, whats these things that people talk about that they would spice up their game with if they didnt have to time? Please give at least one example, I could use some spice in my own game.

just... err... No.

Another thought is you could change item times to 30s and 20s rather than 35s and 25s so that math is simplified. Also ensure tutorials explain spawn times. There are still casual q3 players out there, that have been playing for years, who don't know it's possible to time items.

Its 35 and 25 for that exact reason, that its harder to add ...

Also if items spawned 5 secs sooner, it would give you less time to do things. You would only run items ...

QW

...and vq3 are two different things.

Works for QW. Could work in VQ3 if the maps weren't so gay.

Nice trolling attempt.

Timing has been an inherent part of dueling in all popular games .
From Quakeworld to PK, including WsW and and UT.

As mentionned, delaying pickups is a great way to gain control of a map...

Taking out this "feature" would probably make dueling even less accessible.

Nice reading attempt.

God damn , even console games like HALO have timing elements.

Go play poker or something. Then again, you are probably too dumb to count cards too...

No wonder your name represents one of the dumbest features in the game anyways.

no <3 for teh xerp? T_T