I have nothing against the spawn system , but maybe there should be spawns forced in the begin of maps so both players dont spawn close to each other, like ztn 1 at SG 1 GL , dm6 1 sharts 1 below ya, also t7 & dm13 there are several spawns close to each other, those spawns are really annoying, just make it that both players get 1 item and not that 1 player gets a bad spawn:)

+1

In Duel you can make spawn points as intial spawns. When you do this it will only select between those intial spawn points. We do this in some maps, like in DM6 there are a lot of spawn points that come into play during the match that you CANNOT spawn from at the beginning of the game, that is because they are not marked initial.

We in theory can only mark two spots, so that those two are always used.. but its hard for them to be balanced. Even if we agree on spots, over time people will probably tend to favor one spot, and then they always feel like they've just lost because they got the worst spawn -- so we've avoided going that route.

Well, it might be better having spawns that are not only inital, but dedicated to the first spawn alltogether. That way, the mapper could pick two fair spawn points without having to worry about the impact those spawns would have further down the road.

If, over time, one spawn would be discovered as the clear favorite, you could adjust it accordingly. Total content control makes stuff like that easy.

And besides, even if one spawn would be slightly advantagous, it cannot possibly be worse than going full random with the chance of spawns being totally lopsided.

/edit

You could also make dedicated first spawn pairs, so you'd have say 6 initals first spawns, but they would only work in balanced pairs.

if you take DM6 as an example, there's a balanced initial spawn:

1 gets to spawn bridge stairs, and the other spawns LG or lower YA (near the pad)

this gives 1 of the guys RA, SG or PG, and then quickly an RL (or RG) while the other guy only gets a YA, MH, LG and needs to get to a higher ground in order to win a battle.

IMO, this is the most fair situation of all, HOWEVER, there are too many times when you actually spawn very awkwardly, for example, 1 spawns lower YA (pad) and the other at SHARDS, which either scares the shit out of u, or you rape your opponent (quick MG shooting will slow him down if he's jumping) and you will get MH, a FRAG and then an RA. which is extremely unfair.

there's also another set of spawns that is crappy - one of the guys spawns on the bridge closer to the RL, which lets him run up to the RL, pick it up and shoot a rocket to the MH, which may destroy the whole MH that the lower guy can take.



anyway, that's just describing the crappy spawns, many other maps have similarly crappy initial spawns.

now lets talk about the other spawns... the non-initial ones.

here's the deal, in order to have a fair game of duelling you need to make the spawns non-OPPONENT dependant, OR simply reduce the time it takes for you to CLICK IN and respawn at the point you are going to.

why not enable respawning instantly? there's always more people spectating the game than playing (duel) so why not leave the 'flash of advertisement' to the spectators, or the duellers who like to press TAB (like me).

if you don't want to decrease the time (ideally you would make it instant respawn available, or prolonged, this way there will be no agressive stupid pushes against dying players which end in them dying more than 1 time because of 1 mistake).


the problem with the present system is due to its lack of consistency, hey, if i could spawnrape my opponent an equal amount of times as he just did to me, i would have no problem playing, but this never happens, instead, one of the guys gets lucky in a few spawns, racks up a lead of 3-4 frags, and on some maps that's just insurmountable against a defensive player (and defensive players are the strongest in QL because of no agressive weapons - the LG is dead.) especially with the 10 minute timelimit (which def needs to be 15 if you want more meaningful duels).

lastly, before i finish this post, i will write my idea of much better spawn system, one which doesn't have to involve the shortening of the respawn time to 0s (from 2):

First, remove all spawn sounds (the respawn aura thingie is fine, but as long as it has no sound with it , also, the spawns should be on the ground, so you don't DROP when you respawn).
Then, once we have removed this sound, make the spawnsystem COMPLETELY random.

THIS will eliminate spawnkilling to the biggest extent, and give chances to the person that died a sneack attack with an MG (if their opponent is very very low, otherwise, they may choose to be silent and walk away to a safer spot).

Making it completely random will also take aaway any kind of biased feelings that players may have after a duel, niether dueller will feel betrayed by the game he enjoys, and will not put off his loss to a bad spawn system.

Problem Solved.

so there's a few ways to solve this, i am sorry i couldn't make it more eligible, but i'm sure you can understand the different ways you can fix the issue.

thats if you really want to read my post, because since the last LG thread i made you haven'treally been reading my posts unless i talk shit about ID software, my way of getting your attention.

thx for the ban btw.

"if you take DM6 as an example, there's a balanced initial spawn:

1 gets to spawn bridge stairs, and the other spawns LG or lower YA (near the pad)"

How many people would be opposed to having only these two spawn points on initial spawn?

My initial reaction is that I would be opposed. I don't necessarily think dumbing down initial spawns is the way to approach it. Like dahang said, we still need to be kept on our toes, if we get down to robotic spawn points, the start to every game will literally be the same.

it will come to the point where there is literally a correct thing to do for the first 40 seconds, it will be robotic, i don't think thats quake either.

Aka counter-strike? I admit, my experience there is limited in comparison to you.. but I always lol when watching a CS match and they repeat the exact same actions from spawn to first point of contact... run to this corner, toss a grenade at the invisible enemy that in theory should always be rounding that corner, hop a few times, fire through a crate at an invisible enemy that should be passing a walkway 100 meters on the other side of the box, hop hop flashback.

While I can appreciate knowing a set of steps, I'd prefer we avoid it. I'd much rather look at Quake as being like chess.. where yes you may have some standard moves, but there are quick alterations to the strategies that create an entire library of what you could possibly do, both at game start, mid game and end game. You may learn someones pattern and develop counter strategies, but for them to successfully work you always have to stay ahead of your opponent in the mind game while simultaneously being aware of when you need to alter or break your current patterns to remain ahead.

Quake is nothing like chess and never will be. Chess is a solvable puzzle, which has set things to do.

It's far more like tennis (and similar sports) in every way.

"Chess is a solvable puzzle"

O.o

There are finite moves/situations.

same as in quake, after all computer are digital.

and a number like 10^123 is usually considered quite uncalculable.

The games aren't even remotely comparable in this respect.

Eventually a computer will never be able to lose a game of chess and it will not be able to be considered cheating. That will never be possible with a game such as quake.

Thus it is a puzzle that you can solve, albeit one with a ridiculous amount of possibilities.

why would it be possible with quake?

only because are dumb as rocks at the moment doesn't mean they couldn't find the perfect solution for every position they are in, if someone put the effort in.
Yes, I am ignoring the movement and aim and such, but for the "thinking" part of the game it is very solvable. I say this even though I am aware that in Quake you can have hidden ambushes etc. But for such thing a game theory approach could be applied.

How about we say, Quake is more like poker?

Quake is like tennis, the same thing you just said about quake could be said about tennis or any other sport for that matter.

Chess in this respect is very different and the computer cannot technically cheat since it can only do the same things a human could albeit with superior memory and computing skills.

Chess is a multiplayer puzzle just like connect 4, it's just a highly sophisticated one. I'm not insulting or belittling Chess, I'm just describing how the two aren't similar.

And no, quake isn't like poker.

Quake is like tennis, the same thing you just said about quake could be said about tennis or any other sport for that matter.

Just like you said for chess, I can say Quake is nothing like tennis and never will be,
Tennis is a sport where you do everything in the open and you can turn the game around with the very last ball. You also see everything your opponent does
In quake you can hide, fool and ambush and don't always know what your opponent is doing.

And that description sounds a little more like playing poker, doesn't it? ;)

the point you both are missing is that quake in one way is very much like chess, positioning/adapting/"counter-moves" and in another way very much like tennis e.g. aiming/movement/movement predictions when you are firing rockets and so forth.

I don't think i missed that, becaue i was arguing that it was indeed somewhat like chess. Obviously noone is gonna say it's exactly like it.

About poker, well then the trick is not be one kind of a player, but fool people into thinking you are, isn't it?
Poker is also very much about second guessing what you opponent is doing, the same as quake.
So no, I don't think the comparison is utterly ridiculous. And I for one am not very surprised that several of the old quake legends do well at poker.

you will always have a certain style because of your frequencies and patterns, the best thing you can do is to balance these patterns but you can almost never ambush or hide from a "good" player because he will notice that situations like these will come up very infrequent and your range is very likely way too unbalanced or polarized.
my point isn't that these plays won't work at all but they wouldn't work in a competitive environment where you'd seek a strong player for the challenge.
maybe I just see too many of the different nuances because I play and think a lot of poker :)

you will always have a certain style because of your frequencies and patterns, the best thing you can do is to balance these patterns but you can almost never ambush or hide from a "good" player because he will notice that situations like these will come up very infrequent and your range is very likely way too unbalanced or polarized.
my point isn't that these plays won't work at all but they wouldn't work in a competitive environment where you'd seek a strong player for the challenge.

is that about poker or about quake? ;)

:)

i think it will be a lot easier to catch a good player off guard in quake rather than poker though ;)

btw your point about poker is completely ridicoulus. there isn't nearly as much deception in poker as people think. for example if you're a tight player you will be given to much credit to make money when you are slowplaying and if you are a loose player you will pass up on way too much value by slowplaying because you will be given way less credit and thus action if you're playing your hand fast. in theory it only works when you cooler your opponent or if your opponent is completely retarded but we want to quake to be a skillful game not a game of luck.

I am not completly against that idea, but I don't think it should be limited to one set of spawns. If there could be atleast two sets of initial spawns that played out well on each of the duel maps, then I think it would be a good feature.

Concerning the death scoreboard (2 second spawn delay), quite frankly the death ad is the only consistent source of ad hits we receive. There is hands down nothing better and it is just simply something that we wouldn't be able to sacrifice. Concerning spectators, there's never a guarantee that you'll have specs, but more importantly the behavior should be consistent across all gametypes, and in team games you rarely have specs but you generate tons of death scoreboard hits. A full two seconds are required for the ad hit -- any less isn't considered an 'impression'.

So I'm glad you've also given your opinion of what to do if we can't shorten the time.

I've often wondered about the global spawn sound. I'll always want the spawn sound in teamgames, so that teammates aren't suddenly just appearing behind my back, but in Duel it's always felt odd that the down (or just killed player) then also has to potentially give away their new location with the global sound.

Spawns are often raised above the ground to avoid issues where the model gets stuck into something at spawn time, but it should be fairly safe to drop them to the ground (although it would also force us to re-push nearly all the maps to players again).

I like a spawn system that is more random, has more spawn options, but I'm still not a fan of 100% random, cause that has been tried and players DID feel ripped off by the spawn system. If its a close match and it gets decided by a spawn that is directly in front of their enemy they feel like they only lost the match because of a poor spawn system.

I think players need to be unaware of where their enemy spawned, except that they shouldn't spawn immediately around the killer.

Thanks for the good feedback.

that's why i have 2 rules goin together, the full random + no spawn sound, if you have only full random and keep spawn sounds you will still get into mindless spawnfesting...

again, maybe you can simplify the full random to random to all the areas the opponent isnt in AT the time of the respawn, not when the person kills you (due to the 2s waiting time).

in any case, having no spawn sound will give the downed player a chance to act quickly and with smarts - if he decides to pursue, he risks getting taken down again, but if the oppponent is low, then you get a frag returned.


the problem with 2 second waiting time + opponent controlled spawns is that you're giiving 2 seconds to your opponent after every frag for them to create a maneuver to spawn you where they would like, and if you see any pros playing you will see that all they do is control the spawns and spam them all the time. i have seen griffin and dkt get excellents on many maps just by doing simple backtracks + spam towards some area. (iN duel)


tdm:

i think the best spawning system would be near your teammates, the teammates now have an option to throw a weapon to you, which means you'd always have a weapon if you spawn next to them. i think this adds more strategy than having yourself spawn in enemy territory over and over again (which is sipmly givng free frags to your opponents until you get a better spawn where you can hide).

i get the fact that if u look simply at the amount of time the ad is up on the screen, then the death ads are possibly on top, but are they really effective? i mean how many people actually pay attention to the ads in the middle of a game? i would guess none.

honestly i can think of much more effective advertising methods for the game than ads on the death screen.

I like a spawn system that is more random, has more spawn options, but I'm still not a fan of 100% random, cause that has been tried and players DID feel ripped off by the spawn system. If its a close match and it gets decided by a spawn that is directly in front of their enemy they feel like they only lost the match because of a poor spawn system.

No matter what kind of spawn system, it will always be possible to have one unlucky spawn decide a game.

With the current spawn system all you have to do is find the right angles to shoot from on each of the maps, and there will ALWAYS be a decent chance that they will spawn there. On T9 for example its a 50% chance. On dm6 the chances are not quite that high, but on two different occations I have spawn fragged someone three times in a row on dm6 from the mega health spot.

If the spawn system was random, when you spammed a spawn on dm6, there would only be a 1/14 chance that they would spawn there.

-Avoid closest
-Rest random
-No sound

= Your opponent can never calculate or make spawn runs. Higher chance for player who dies to get away safely. Spawn frags will still occur, but that is not possible to get away from.

Is there an explanation why I've never seen a single ad on the website or ingame? I'm from Sweden and play mostly on the FR/DE/NL servers. I really like the idea of having no-picmip ads around the maps which also generate alot of impressions when played in broadcasted tournaments. More of that!

I've always been a fan of the totally random spawns. I think we currently have 'avoid closest, but rest is random' in Q2 for instance. Makes it more fair over a period of time. At least you don't get the spawnfragging runs that often..

i've never played quake before quake live, and these idieas are just a few i have thought of, the most viable and fair one has been the complete random + no sound, i never thought about adding -not the same area as opponent UNTIL this thread haha.

but that's about it, this spawn system would be superior to any other that is controlled by many other variables.

Tell that to upper stair main hall in Edge. ;) 5 spawn frags in a row if you have rail :P

Perhaps just add additional logic that disallows certain combination's of initial spawns.

i.e.

First player has his initial spawn chosen
Then the second player has his initial spawn chosen from a list of viable initial spawns (given the first players spawn)

But I would suggest this would only be done for extreme cases, so the feeling of randomness is preserved.

QL spawns remembers me of Q4 where we were able to "force" players to spawn at the spot we want to. Please fix this issue.

Why not the Q4 spawn system ?

1 chance to get the furthest spawn & 1 chance to get a random spawn ?

Edit: Talking about duel

The current system doesn't just spawn you at the furthest spots, it does random between several that are far away. The Q4 spawn system isn't much different, it doesn't allow the chance of a completely random spot, it spawns you randomly between the the half of the spawn points furthest away from the killer. Q4 spawns on the half furthest away, we spawn on the 40% furthest away.

When you say closest spawn, you say in an euclidean sense? Could you use the bots AI graph and compute distances in terms of length of the navigable paths instead?

I find you can force spawns in QL, but definitely not as much as Q3. The system is good right now, but I can't think of a way to improve it.

The only idea I have (which I don't think would work out) would be to take armours into effect. If you get killed and have two possibilites to spawn, both are near an armour, but only one armour is up, then you should spawn neer that one. The problem with that is it's probably unfair, and you would have a better idea where your opponents spawns based on by what's on the map.

Also, if you have someone with really good timing, spawn frags would be that much easier.

shouldn't it be:

The current Team spawn system spawns you evenly throughout the map away from your teammates (disregards enemy locations entirely) to ensure that you get properly spawnraped?

i agree... i guess its ok for CTF, but its really annoying for TDM where
- u just kill someone with 5hp left, and he gets the spawn on you
OR
- u rack up free spawnfrags like u just said

for TDM i would be more keen on the spawn closest to your teammates

i hate the intial GL spawn on ztn, never sure what your supposed to do without knowing what spawn your oppenent has.

I might be stating the obvious but we need to make sure we all understand that spawn frags are supposed to be a part of 1v1. If we're trying to come up with an anti-spawn frag system, then I think we need to reevaluate how we're approaching this.

With that said, we definitely shouldn't be able to stand in one spot and make someone spawn by Grenade Launcher platform 6 times in a row.

There needs to be a limit put in on where a person can spawn and how many times in a row. Maybe if a player spawns at Spawn A once, the % changes lower to if they spawn in that same spot again.

For example,

If I kill someone at shotgun on ztn, and they spawn below staircase and I kill them, the % chance that they spawn in that exact spot again should cut in half, but still be possible.

At the same time, this also makes it more predictable they will spawn behind the pillar in the corner. So it almost becomes a catch-22

Pretty much agree with everything said here, including the last line.

well, for the last line I guess you could add one other spawn option if you get fragged twice within say 25 seconds of your spawn. That would make it more random again, and it's obvious that the "furthest away" approach is not working in the specific situation.

Dunno if what I mean is understable and also not if it's possible to implement.

Understandable and a good idea, it might make the spawn code kinda messy with lots of conditions, but I still like the concept. I'll think about it a bit more and try to look for any flaws.

Ask arQ he's been through all of this

I think it's not always bad spawn near the killer, you can left him low health and if you spawn far of the enemy he can recover health and still keep weapon supperiority.

If you are death you have the advantage to see the zone you died wait to not spawn immediately, waiting your enemy left the zone. The killer can wait your spawn at the risk you spawn in another place and took armor o whatever.

yes, all that is true, but it still is a "bad" spawn, only this time for the killer ;)

I for one see this discussion not as much to protect the player who was fragged, but more in a way to remove some luck and make the game more reliable. e.g. now on dm6 you shouldn't frag a guy at ya when ra is up. but at least you know that!

But i don't like you can force situations like you said: not frag a guy in ya on dm6 when ra is up.

I think it's good not avoid posible situations, like when a player spawns near the killer. It could be "lucky" for the killer player or for the killed player, but i like players have to take strategies in each posible situations, like delay spawn, o whatever they do.

Now it's posible to be "lucky" and spawn far the enemy but in sight with him, and they can kill each other anyway.

I also think spawn kills are part of the game, and with this spwan system the game becomes more predictable...

Now it's posible to be "lucky" and spawn far the enemy but in sight with him, and they can kill each other anyway.

I also think spawn kills are part of the game, and with this spwan system the game becomes more predictable...

hey, noone is saying it's perfect, after all that's why this thread exists.
But I do believe that it is beter that this is less luck based than an all random system.

"There needs to be a limit put in on where a person can spawn and how many times in a row. Maybe if a player spawns at Spawn A once, the % changes lower to if they spawn in that same spot again."

really like that idea, would definitely sort the problem on ztn i think.

I mostly play CA, and here the spawn system doesn't always work that well. On Dm6 I've tried more than once, to spawn at the stairs going on to bridge, with the entire enemy team on the bridge and below. It would help if we had warm up fire though, at least you could rocket jump away then. Generally speaking, I really miss it in CA, since it happens a lot that you spawn next to three enemies, without any means of escaping in the first few seconds.

for starters: remove initial spawn flag for the GL spawns on ztn

;/

We left Blood Run up to ztn, it is still his map.

Out of curiosity, I looked into the ztn entities... none of the info_player_deathmatch spawns are marked initial.

I loaded up a Duel match on ztntourney1 five times, here were my intial spawns:

GL column spawn
Lower YA spawn
Upper YA spawn
Left of RG spawn
Right of RG spawn

So right now, you can spawn randomly at any given spawn point at the start of a Duel on ztn. So to exclude either or both of the GL spawns, we'd have to tag all of the desirable spawns as initial, but again I don't think we have any desire to touch ztn's work.

you should tho, ztn can have to worst spawns out of all maps right now imho :S

Like noctis said, you really should consider changing the initial spawns on ztn. In my opinion the rest of the system is as great as it gets, but the initial spawn on ztn is screwed. It happens alot that one player spawns SG and the other spawns GL, thus the SG spawnee taking RA, MH and YA. And the GL spawnee either dies or takes just a YA.

That it's ztn's map doesn't make it perfect and not up for minor changes.

It is his map, but that doesn't justify him being a 'god' of spawn decisions. QL is different, and I think ID should take the effort to change it for the better. If it makes the map better, I think you should take the responsibility of doing it. We have ZTN, we're happy, but some think it could be better in regards to spawns.

I do find that I get that shitty GL spawn way too many times in a game. It really hurts you, because you're at an equal shitty distance away from everything. (In regards to other spawns, but it still sucks as an initial spawn)

YES but IT IS HIS MAP. =p

We have rights to distribute it, but it's not our map to alter.

Ah, should of said that earlier! If it's legality/copyright thing, then I can't say anymore =D

How were the advertisements added then :-?

He added them. We reviewed it to ensure that it worked. If we wished any changes, they were then submitted to ztn for his approval and he'd send us the finalized files back. Rinse and repeat until it was declared ready for launch.

I'm sure that when he designed the map he could not mark initial spawns and I'm also sure that he's intelligent enough to understand the significance of them, why not just ask him if you could mark spawn x y and z as initial?

Can you please contact him and get his permission or something? like noctis said, ztn really does have the worst initial start spawns in the game

Speaking from experience with the CPM maps- you should in future ask mappers for permission to make spawn and ammo or even small item changes as a condition of inclusion in QL. These are things that inevitably need tweaking.

TDM spawnsystem is a disaster, it is not unusual that you spawn near the killer several times in a row.

I am not sure how exactly the Q3 spawn system worked in TDM (I guess same system as in duel), but it was working way better.

Duel:
Even though I was pushing for the current spawn system before it was changed, I think that it didn't work out like I hoped it would and it is basically equally bad then the Q3 system.
I have no idea how to improve it though, maybe the cq3 approach would be worth trying (spawns that are further away from the corpse have higher probability, nearest spawn to killer and nearest spawn to corpse are ignored)

maybe the initial spawn issue in duel mode could be solved by following ideas:

1. players start with an specific amount of armour (50/75/100)
2. armor and mh spawn the first time with delay (on match start)

I personally think that delaying armor and mh spawns in Duel would be the best route to deal with initial starts, but I'm not sure how welcomed the change would be.

I like the idea of delayed armours and mh, works well in warsow imo.

yeah..that worked very well in ut2k4 imho..but who knows how it would affect quake(rs) ;p

i disagree with that. when all items and weapons spawns at the same time theoretically you have more options what to grab in the first place - strong weapon or strong item and therefore when mapmaking you have more posibly good places for balanced initial spawns. and of cource that's correct only if map has correctly placed weapons and items

"Spawning the armors late means that "strong armor + weak weapon" spawns are worthless compared to a "weak (or even NO) armor + strong weapon" spawn. The auto-loser is either killed or has to flee, leaving the auto-winner with both the strong weapon AND then the strong armor 5 seconds later, leaving him in absolute control: in short, the worst-case end result of the current system, but now made automatic every time."

Yes, you know who i quote.

He's wrong though. Delaying item spawns means you have time to fetch a strong weapon regardless of where you spawn and approach the item you want from any position. those concerns are only valid if the spawn delay of items is too short or the spawns are exceptionally shit.

Or you play on maps the size of hub3aeroq3

I liked it in 2k4 a lot, spawns weren't as big of an issue when you had 100+ and 50+ not spawn when the game starts.

The problem is that Quake has been the same way with item spawns since Q1 (Right?)

I think it would be a massive change to the game, but I don't know if it would be accepted by most. I like the idea though, I really do.

It doesn't resolve any issues it just creates new off-spawn issues. For example, you can delay Mega on DM6, but then if you get a spawn that disables you from getting RL/LG, the other player can get both those weapons and camp mega still it spawns meanwhile most likely having RA. Same problem, different way to get to it.

It just creates a new issue. Plus it has never been this way ever in Quake. UT had power belts and weapons like Goo Gun that could literally kill a stacked player with 1 gob. Not to mention shock rifle adds a completely new dimension. Imagine having the ability to explode your rockets mid air whenever you want and it has a larger radius than the current rocket explosion. That is the shock rifle.

Just because it worked in a game like UT where the weapons are extremely high powered, unbalanced and defensive,then you factor in jump boots, doesn't mean it will work in a game like Quake.

Man I love Quake.

<3

I hope your wife doesent read esr :)

her http://www.esreality.com/?a=users&user_id=26219 ?

xD

I don't think she'll ever come back to this site again. =P

Before discussing the specifics of the mechanism itself, it's best to think about what you want the spawn system to achieve.

As destrukt said above, the objective isnt to artificially eliminate spawn frags altogether - that's a part of the game to a certain extent. What i think is important is to eliminate lucky spawnfrags, whereby the killer essentially gets 'two frags for the price of one', without having to invest any extra effort, skill, or resources.

Another desirable property is for the spawn point to be unpredictable. if spawns are precisely predictable, they are open to abuse (hi vq3).

The third thing is to minimise the extent to which the spawn point can be manipulated by the killer.

1) So to start with, it makes sense to exclude spawn points that are nearby the killer. They dont deserve a free frag, nor do they deserve to get ambushed by the respawning player.

2) In some situations, there are spawn points that are not nearby the killer which are also undesirable spawns (e.g. long range line-of-sight + rail). Some have suggested excluding spawns within line-of-sight, however i have to disagree here. Doing so puts more power in the hand of the killer to manipulate the spawns. My opinion is that line-of-sight spawns are absolutely fine, as long as the killer isnt able to force the spawnee into that point with any consistency.

I think one of the issues with the current system is that once the several nearby spawns have been excluded, there are so few spawns left that it's not so unlikely for a spawnee to spawn in the same distant line-of-sight point again and again - and so by excluding a fixed percentage of the spawns, there are too few left to be sufficiently random.

To solve this, i would propose only excluding nearby spawns if they are within a fixed radius of the killer (e.g. 800 units). This means the killer can only have influence over the few spawn points in their immediate area (by excluding them). as only a few spawn points are excluded, there are more available for random selection - making the outcome less predictable.

3) In order to satisfy the unpredictability condition, the remaining spawns should be chosen from at random without bias. As soon as you introduce a bias, you make the system more predictable, so bias should be avoided.


For team games, I dont like the sound of the current system. I would like all game modes to use the same system.

Good post. I agree with 1 & 2.

Concerning #2, I think its a good idea in principal, and while I thought 800 units might be slightly too small ( would have guessed 1024), opening up a few duel maps and looking at it, something between 768 and 1024 seems just about right.

I still disagree with 3. The dramatic difference in both gameplay and maps between Duel and CTF are enough reason to have inconsistent spawn systems. In CTF if you kill a defender in base, it shouldn't guarantee you that they cannot spawn back into base. I'd rather them keep teammates spread out between base, perimeter and mid. TDM has its own dynamic and we've always been willing to use a different system for TDM, but we felt that the current system was working adequately for both CTF and TDM.

the 800u radius shouldnt be large enough to exclude the entire base, so a defender can still spawn in their base, just not under the feet of their killer.

to me the current system in TDM feels like it's the opposite of what it should be. Teams tend to stick together, and so by trying to spread a team out, you're likely to hand the spawnee to the enemy on a silver platter.

For CTF, i can see the motivation behind trying to spread a team out, although it does mean you can spawn right next to your killer if you are far from your mates (which has happened to me multiple times in a row).

tbh i'm not opposed to the idea of per-gametype spawn systems in principle, although i do think tdm is closer to duel than it will ever be to ctf, which should be reflected in the spawn systems.

For CTF, i can see the motivation behind trying to spread a team out, although it does mean you can spawn right next to your killer if you are far from your mates (which has happened to me multiple times in a row).

...which we often want. We don't mind spawning players near their enemies in CTF, giving them a chance at killing an escaping carrier for example. We just don't want everyone always spawning forward ahead of the escaping carrier so that its an endless wave of killing the same player 3 or 4 times on the way back to capture -- but we certainly don't mind you spawning near enemies. And we don't want them always spawning near their team (such that it repeatedly sticks the base defense in middle when middle is already being covered).

Most of the spiel I wrote was from when I thought 800u's might be too small. But again now that I'm more comfortable with that value it would work decent even in CTF, but I'd still prefer the existing system for the above reasons.

yeah i wouldnt say that spawning next to your killer is a *good* thing, but it is a compromise which makes the flag carrier issue less likely to happen, and so overall is worth it. i dont really have any major problems with the ctf system as it stands.

just add the /kill command instead of thinking how to change ctf spawn system :)

I have zero desire to alter the CTF spawn system. I think the only place we see issues currently are in Duel and TDM.

My opinion from this 1on1 conversation:
1. Duel should be random minus radius for injx's reasons (well put)
1.a Why are we measuring distance in binary scale? (1024) :) Just select what looks right with regards to visibility and go with it.

2. I like CTF current spawn idea entirely. I think it's the best to spread the team to increase coverage and to provide better resource availability for the peon. However, it may need to exclude spawn points in X radius from flag carrier - debate.

3. TDM should be completely random. We all agreed that spawn rape is a part of the game, and TDM enemy positioning is unpredictable in reality, as opposed to a case of strategical, desired positioning.
What TDM cannot do is to deliberately spawn the peon away from the team, that would most likely put him in circle of enemy concentration.

I don’t fully agree with 1). Why respawned player don’t deserve to ambush his killer? If his killer has big amount of health after fight caused death of one player than ambushing him is not worth it. If he has small amount of health than he probably survived by chance and respawned player deserved ambushing him or at least he deserved to spawn in more strategically important place. This leads to make spawns depending not only on killer place but and his health and armor and mb even on items placement. So if spawn system will depend on much factors (death place, killer place and health, items places and its remaining spawntimes) which is time and situation depending it will make spawns less predictable and not repeating.
About 2) I agree that “excluding spawns within line-of-sight” is bad solution of problem. IMO the good one is to significantly reduce delay before respawning. I think watching the full death animation is bad excuse for long delay. Besides that mb another good thing is to give just respawned players more accel (e.g. 15) for 1 sec for better ability to avoid killers line-of-sight.
Another thing – I think spawns must be chosen among half of all spawns (by factors I described above) with EQUAL probability. Making spawns with different probabilities makes some situations rare. If this situations are good for game than give it equal probability if not – just remove it at all.

I think the system is pretty good now, if it's changed then there will be pros and cons to the change.

I wish like maybe 10-20% of the time the spawn would be purely random, just to mix things up sometimes and keep people on their heals. I don't like the casual routine/predictability aspect.

New duel maps also please =].

I agree with DaHang here, we will never get it perfect. Delaying armors would bring whine about weapons nearby the initial spawns.
Going back to timelimit 15 would be more compensating for initial non optimal spawns then anything else:)

Yes. Pro Duel with Timelimit 15.

I think the randomness you're looking for can be added by an additional rule to the current spawn system:

Spawn location nearest to dead body disabled.
OR
Last spawn location disabled.
*In both cases if the spawn being disabled is among the furthest possible spawns, one more spawn will be added, the furthest of the previously disabled spawns based on distance.

Both of these add a level of unpredictability to the spawns. In both cases they do not always effect the next spawn. If the last spawn location of the dead was close to the killer at time of respawn or the killer was still close to the dead body, the next spawn would not change. However, at a distance they can have a profound effect.

An additional spawn would be added to the predictable mix opening new possibilities. For the spawnee, an opportunity to ambush or a free armor/weapon. For the killer, a possible safe route if he travels towards the last spawn location or towards the dead body.

sounds like a pretty decent idea, it is also a simple rule to add i would assume.

the only thing i DONT like, is the stupid spawnrape @ ztn, when the guy keeps on spawning behind the SG, running forward towards sg, getting fragged, and then again spawning 5 meters behind, running forward etc etc. the new spawns added to the map don't help, it happens really often. on the other hand, sometimes, but less often, same thing happens at the close GL spawn.

then again, you can delay the spawns, but that's a different story.

imho, you shouldn't be able to spawn MORE THAN ONCE at a spawnpoint which is visible by your enemy in the moment after he fragged you.

in fact, if it happens once, after that you shouldn't be able to spawn anywhere in his sight. (cause he'd be moving across the map after the kill so it's possible that while you click to spawn, you're again visible to your enemy)

and even if all of this comes true, it still won't necessarily bring any balance, cause sometimes a spawn near a weapon even if your opponent is close is better than to spawn in the middle of nowhere with nothing to pick up.

i dislike the CA spawn system because what happens at the start of a round is, well, random. for someone like me with a lot of experience playing aq2 (round-based teamplay, one team spawns in one spot) ca feels kinda like a bad version of it, with sci-fi laser pewp ew guns.

on public servers there's most of the time no hope of getting teammates to work together. even when a team is somewhat organized it basically boils down to "go bridge" "go grinder" "nmy low"

however, if you were to spawn a team in one spot and the other in another, you would basically get teams to defend their own area, and attack their opponents' side of the map.

another, offtopic thing about ca: would be nice if there was some kind of a limitation on the weapons you can use in a round, or maybe just way less ammo. the way it is now, you can get away with using whatever you feel like and have no worries of running out of ammo ever. unless you try to use nothing but lg, pg or mg every round |p

No

why

CA spawn system? What's that?

.

seconded
link doesnt work btw

You have the CQ3 spawn system all wrong. The spawn nearest to the corpse is disabled, not the last spawn location. Spawns are biased or weighted towards the furthest spawn, not randomized-furthest half from killer.

You're right about it being better than quakelives system though =D. Main advantage being that you can't spawn in the same location multiple times.

CQ3 Tech Sheet - Player Spawning

Failmode.

Failexplorer

TDM spawn system is not fun. Change it back to quake 3 or something please.

umn didn't arqon and the cpm dev team already fix this problem like a few years ago?

TDM:

The current Team spawn system spawns you evenly throughout the map away from your teammates (disregards enemy locations entirely) to ensure that your team maintains coverage throughout the level.

Well, I guess that explains why I consistently spawn in the middle of the enemy over and over again.

It should either be:
- Near Team + Furthest from Enemy

I can see good and bad things about this on the one hand teams are forced to stay together a bit more (which could make it less cessy) and it introduces the idea of controlling areas based on spawn points (covering as many good ones as possible so that when you die you get a good spawn).

But on the other it could proove too harsh and almost crippling to the team that doesn't have control.

Or

- Totally Random

An even spread for starting spawns, if possible, might work fine but it doesn't seem to do that at the moment from my perspective.

Max 1 second force spawn.

I like the idea about local powerup pickup sund.

My opinion on 1v1
I know that it's kinda fun after some1 made one frag on dm6 everybody kinda knows where the other guy will spawn, including the killer, and there is the curiosity on both players next strategy, but pretty soon people will get bored with it, because this game should be by a lot of frags and alert action, not like...So what? Two frags an hour? (I think q3 bots used to say that)
All proposals here wanna give the perfect balance to the game, but what in fact this does it puts the game more and more towards absolute prediction
This game is not chess goddamnit :)
I am for 100% random spawns, or as much as possible

The quake3 duel spawnsystem was nice, not sure if it was total random or how it worked.

Spawn furthers from killer is not good for duel. Spawns are too easily forced. On tourney9 it is very easy to spawn a person at the same point many times. Now this might be fixable by giving a map more spawns, but it should not even happen in the first place. It is also easily possible on ztn (at the GL area, uNkind vs. Akiles WCG 2002 like).
I don't think it's a good thing to have, as it's too predictable. I prefer a system like what is used in CQ3/CPM. Too tired to explain atm, but these are my thoughts.

Regarding spawning...you should really remove the spawn delay where the player himself decides when to spawn. The way it is now, the opponent won't spawn if he is one or two frags ahead and he gets fragged, if there is only have a small amount of time left. Or at least alter the way it works, so that you still can decide for yourself when to spawn (as it is now), but you only have a maximum limit of eg. 5 seconds to decide when to spawn. We have sadly seen plenty of games ruined by this waiting ability :/

Most pro players here seem to reject the idea of random spawns. There seem to be map inherent "good" and "bad" spawns. Randomized spawn points will then distribute these unevenly on the players. If there is a clause in the program that says something like "Out of 20 spawns each player will have spawned the same number of times on the good and bad spawns" it may be a bit better.

It may sound absurd but how about going away from the good old spawn points and having spawn areas? Instead of having that fixed spot you would spawn somewhere within that area.

Just to weaken the ability of spawn spamming.

TDM could be improved slightly to spawn you just a little closer to your own team... it gets annoying when you spawn in the middle of the enemy team for the 3rd time in a row :) It works fine most of the time but occasionally you go on this ridiculous 10 kill streak or something because of horrible spawns and it's not very fun to be honest.

CTF is fine, don't play a lot of duels but it seems fine as well, and random CA spawns works ok, and avoids situations where each team is in one end of the map spamming nades and rockets at each other.

as some people already pointed out the spawn system for tdm right now is a disaster. it should be either away-from-enemies or near-teammates or a combination of the two but the spreading out thing it does at the moment defeats the idea of teamplay altogether.

I'd have to agree with zealot. The spawn system is flawed for TDM. It may not be so much "in your face" on maps like dm6 where you die constantly and there really isn't much control going on. But dm14? Your hole team is in control at RA, you die, and your send to the enemy? Happy spawnrape over and over again.
-nYshak

agree!

I think 100% random with the exception of telespawn protection would be the best way to go.

Then just add more spawn points to any maps that need it.

here are my thoughts about it:

duel:

ztn is messed up with the spawn system by now. the you-gl-and-enemy-sg-spawn at the beginning lets the enemy take sg, ra, mh, ya, rl or lg, ya, pg in this order. and you? if youre lucky, you get ya and rl/pg. thats it. the sg-spawner has a advantage for the first 5 minutes, and with timelimit 10 this makes in 80% the game.

on dm6, there is this first spawn at the stairs at lg, where you run up if you hit +forward immediatly. to avoid this, you have to wait for you to spawn and look where you are and then run. this makes you lose several seconds in which enemy can get rl and make you a hell to get mh. (i mean: http://i32.tinypic.com/8x80ex.jpg )

solution in my opinion is totally random spawns. thats it. it was good in q3 and if the enemy has luck, so let it be? why change a system nobody has ever complained about? (same thing for tl 15 duels btw)
putting a spawn SYSTEM in here means that you or your enemy can manipulate it or at least KNOW where you will respawn, thats the fact. knowing where your enemy is and what he is doing or what is hp are, is a great advantage in duel.
if making a spawn system, then only for the beginning spawn. i like it for t7 and it works: one will geht mh/ya, one ra/ya. but in processing game, it messes it up. someone has to fix that for ztn though as mentioned before.

tdm:

its even worse here. i got many situations in which this system leads in spawnraping: for example dm7 if you hold ra and rl or mh, in most of the time making frags is spawnraping cause the enemy keeps spawning right into your crosshair.

i dont think spawning areas are good... since predicting where youre enemy comes out was a game element of quake so far. why change it?

afaik people have always complained about unlucky spawns...

And while I would agreed that being lucky for one guy is ok in a random duel, I can also understand how it must be very annoying if unlucky spawns happen so you in the final of a big money tourney. And in that case knowing the perfect positioning and angles can also be seen as a skill, which imo would be preferable to a luck-based solution. Or course abusing that system should be maybe as difficult as possible, which is pretty much what this thread is about.

the main problem with your reasoning is that the quake3 spawn system was always fair. It didn't matter where you spawned on the map, with enough experience you could always turn it to your advantage. That is no longer the case.

lol...

I agree..I haven't played that many duels, but you still sense a system when you kill your opponent. He is going to be in the part of the map and etc.

spawn system in vq3 is far from random.

why is there no thread in the quake live forums?
however...
i'd vote for random spawns :)

deaktivate unfair spawns at the map start of each map. mostly there are only 1-3 bad spawn points rest will work fine then.
ask any dueller with over 200 matches about that. this is fuckin simple.

There are lots of complicated solutions that would work, but why not do something simple like give the player the option to teleport to a different spawn location like you can do in FFA?

Seriosuly it would require the least amount of work and with a bit of thought be very effective.

Think how many times spawn raping is a problem, I don't mean general track someone down within 5 seconds, I mean flat out in your face, easy frag that average player would kill a pro with. Those are things you want to fix. The rest just adds excitement.
Its not THAT huge of a problem IMO.

SO!!

THE POTENTIAL<<< RULES OF IT ARE...

The player must activate it within .5 of a second of spawning in.
So its a "This sucks bye"

The player loses half their health/armour upon activation and then loses the right to any distance relatated luxuries, in other works, the spawns system is 100% random so he could potnetially spawn in the exact same position he tried to escape from. Its a gamble.

They can only perform this action a set amount of times.
Perhaps a 3 strikes rule. Sounds reasonable.

The spawn teleports can be collected, so it potetnially adds a new dimension/powerup to the game.

There are lots of variables you could dump onto it, but the basic problem you need to solve is eliminating the bad luck spawns and this system would fix it and IMO still retain some order to the game.

It would still punish the escaper, but it would in many cases make a potential attacker happy because while he has not secured the kill, he knows his opponent is on the run and in need of health and from there, it would add another mind game.

Do they predict that the guy will go for health, or does the guy with half his health and armour zapped predict that the opponent will think that they go for health and instead doubleback some place else.

Even something as small as that would add some fun situations.

The biggest problems are really level designs using old maps means you've got insane knowledge of things that would not otherwise take a lot longer to become a problem.

While this is far from the best solution I could come up with, I think its the most effective and easy to implement.

The sytem is not great to start with so the soultions will never be perfect unless you really redefine it, and this is not going to happen.

Adding in more spawns fixes nothing, apart from rail off the spawn, it would just make it slightly more volumetric, and simply pro long your death by a few seconds.

you say this is a simple solution? in my eyes, thats not even a solution

Of course it is.

If it isn't then WHY isn't it a solution?

It requires little work from the team.

It would generally eradicate (but still punish/reward without going too far) all stupidly broken spawn kills and players might even use it to surprise an enemy by using it when they don't really need to, thus throwing up some gutsy moves and surprises.

I'm mostly thinking about duel with this.

Remember it would have limited amount of uses and would have to be used within half a second of the spawn the game chooses for you.

In most cases, people are NOT going to use it unless they happen to spawn in front of an oncoming enemy. SO it will be used for its intended purpose ot it'll prbaboly do more damage than good if you rip half their health and armour for it.
Rememeber you're giving them a chance, not a free escape.

YOu should not get rid of capitalising on spawn kills, you're just trying to get rid of the ones where the player does not have a chance due to bad code/level design.

This solution would do that as I seldom get more than 3 shitty spawns per game and on the maps that you do, you could fix those by just looking at the actual spawns.

Quakelive as it currently stands, and duel in particular is nothing short of a complete insult to anyone who has competitively played quake3. The quake3 spawn system may have been far from perfect in the developer's minds, but they are obviously not even qualified to have an opinion on these matters if they believe that the changes made to the system were in ANY way an improvement. You claim to wish to limit the "spawn frag" aspect of the game while in fact doing the complete opposite. It comes as no surprise to me that you (the developers) seem obsessed with this one aspect of duel gameplay as anyone who has played a single game with you will immediately realize you have absolutely no clue what you are doing. In an inexperienced player's hand the quake3 spawn system most definitely does appear unfair as you will be bounced around the map by a highly skilled player with little chance at any recovery. This has nothing to do with the spawn system itself but much to do with the fact that you absolutely suck at the game. One of the beautiful things about the quake3 spawn system was that in an experienced player's hand even a death could be a competitive advantage as choosing the place of your death could set your opponent up for a nasty MG spawn rape or give you full control of the map. You could never in your wildest dreams hope to get more than 3 frags in a row against a good player as each frag would earn you heavy damage from a barrage of machine gun fire. This aspect of the game has been removed in a naive attempt to limit "spawn rape" (something that was never a problem in quake3) and replaced it with a system that only gives greater ease of map control to the killer, penalizing the dead player even more greatly than before.

Not only is the net code a complete abomination, and the weapon system further unbalanced than it ever was in quake3, but to add insult to injury you are forcing changes on maps that have been painstakingly built and tested over the course of many years purely on a whim (see dm6 spawn system, ztn spawn system, dm6 weapon respawn).

You claim to want to make quakelive duel a strategy rich game much like chess but you have destroyed any deeper strategy that already existed. Why? Because you simply never understood the game to begin with. Forgive me, but I don't ever recall a demo being released to great fanfare of CZM vs Syncerror in the finals of any tournament, EVER. You have a great wealth of player knowledge at your disposal that could be used to improve the game and instead you have opted to always cater to the lowest common denominator continually taking position with players that never had any concept of the game to begin with.

Also: I am absolutely sick of people saying I'm stuck in the past on these matters when every single suggestion I have made to the development staff has been either flat out ignored or the complete opposite of whatever it is I was suggesting was implemented.

Draughts is fun too.

well, this post was very drastic, but i think your completly right.

syncerror, i mentioned it in ql forum before: communicate more with us experienced players, it will help you. or choose a few who are stating things absolutly right, you can find them in the forums.

Forgive me, but I don't ever recall a demo being released to great fanfare of CZM vs Syncerror in the finals of any tournament, EVER.

What does that have to do with anything? Do you have to be a good player to understand the game?

If anything, history has proven that the so called "pros" do not know what's best for them. In the contrary most of top players are against any kind of change to the game, including changing any maps, which eventually, amongst other things, killed Q3. Why copy a dead game? If you want QL to be like Q3, just play Q3 instead.

-Do you have be a good player to understand the game? -

Yes... That's just how these things work. If you understood any game you would understand why this statement is entirely true.

-In the contrary most of top players are against any kind of change to the game, including changing any maps, which eventually, amongst other things, killed Q3. Why copy a dead game? If you want QL to be like Q3, just play Q3 instead.-

First of all its "on the contrary" secondly, who exactly are you talking to? You obviously aren't a pro yourself and all of the pro's I've spoken tohave offered valuable insights that have for the most part been completely overlooked. And I never said I wanted QL to be exactly like Q3, I wanted it to be an improvement. Very few of the changes made have been actual improvements.

-Do you have be a good player to understand the game? -

Yes... That's just how these things work. If you understood any game you would understand why this statement is entirely true.

In my eyes this shows the flaw in your entire argument. You dismiss someones opinion because he isn't a pro at playing the game.

That's as silly as saying that football coaches do not understand the game, just because they are not good players themselves.

First of all its "on the contrary" secondly, who exactly are you talking to? You obviously aren't a pro yourself and all of the pro's I've spoken tohave offered valuable insights that have for the most part been completely overlooked.

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=400459 is a good example on how reluctant they are to change maps.

Totally agree

-Yes... That's just how these things work. If you understood any game you would understand why this statement is entirely true.

you obviously have no clue what you are talking about! there are lots of people who have a great understanding of a game's theory yet they have never been a top player. I could give you hundreds of examples but I'm not gonna do the thinking for you

well, i think you dont have to be really PRO, but at least have some basic experience in the game. total nubs just dont get the point of it.

of course you need experience, I think this is out of question but certainly don't have to be a top player or pro. saying that you have to place good in major events to understand a game is just ignorant and dumb

to some point i agree with you, but i have to point out that some pros have no idea what they are talking about. many of them praise the netcode and the spawn system.

look at dahang's post in this very thread.

What indicated that I have no idea what I'm talking about?

the fact that you praise the netcode and you think the spawn system is as good as it can get.

When did I praise the netcode? Where did I say the spawn system is as good as it gets?

sigh

To be fair, maps might not have been the thing to have killed the game. A contributing factor, sure, but we still can't say with any certainty that they need to be changed.

Well, playing the same 3 maps for ten years is bound to get most people bored. However, it may not been the ultimate factor but I am quite certain it is one of the contributing factors.

Well, for example, CS is still going with the same maps. While I think it could freshen up an already stale game, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the top players are out of line in wanting to stay with what we have.

CS is a poor example since for the first five years CS changed massively through patches. The first version plays almost nothing like the CS played today, whilst Q3 had the same basic gameplay since the start.

All CS maps also play completely differently depending on which side you play on, while which side you are has no bearing in Q3. Symmetrical CTF maps for the lose btw :(

CS still only has the one gameplay mode, so they play their maps even more than Q3 players would.

Well, one could argue that CS is a gameplay mode (or mod) in itself, in regards to HL, similar to how (threewave) CTF or RA3 is in Q3.

That would be an argument to use when you're clutching at straws and being overly pedantic.

RA3/CTF is still Quake 3, just a small ruleset change. CS is a total conversion, and currently a stand-alone game. This is really more an argument just to argue. As I pointed out, that there is no clear way to prove that maps would help Q3 in any tangible way.

I'm sure it would make it fresh again for the people who are stuck playing the same people over and over again, but the benefits would likely end at a temporary band-aid for the stagnation that is the unpopularity of Q3.

For Q3 it is too late but not for QL. I think most have come to realize by now that playing the same maps for another ten years won't work, no matter how good the gameplay is.

I think that with the current gameplay, it doesn't matter how good or new the maps are.

Apart from the netcode, which almost kills the enjoyment of the game for me, the gameplay is, in my opinion, fairly decent. Of course, no one would admit to such a thing on the whinefest that is ESR.

Here to argue your opinion is a duck on a speaker:

thats just cruelty to animals. nothing funny about it

Watch it to the end.

Do some more ever-popular bashing of QL and I'm sure you can squeeze another [+] out.

I made it popular.

That's not funny

Ug, that's pretty bad man... i know you didn't do it,,.. just saying.... whoever the assfuck (prob some 12 year old kid) is who made that video and put the duck on those speakers needs to get put in jail for life. That's usually the #1 predetermined trait a serial killer has.

I think you have been the most clueless person in this thread.

Define gameplay please.

reply to: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1747609#pid1747407

excellent points made by bLt. i hope both QL optimists and detractors can read this and see what he's saying makes total sense. YES, you have to be a good player to understand the game or at the very least have some experience with the game in general as players like BLT and I have had for the past several years in Q3. Imagine if you were playing a game for years and all of a sudden a slew of new players who have no clue how to play it come and say "nah, that's wrong, I think you should change this and that and this and that" and then turns out with all the changes, all it serves to do is make the game easier for those who didn't really know how to play it in the first place, and harder for those who have been playing it for years. I agree with bLT that we don't need a Q3 copy, but force spawns? so you mean i can stand in one place and decide where my enemy will spawn when i frag him so i'll already know where to go to spawn rape him? doesn't sound like a good spawn system.

and I know this isn't really the thread for it but I think it definitely ties in, being part of the overall gameplay...what with the weapons? 80 rail is far too weak. this should definitely be 90. how many times do I have to hit someone before they run away, stack up, hit them some more, run away, stack up, hit them a few more times and finally they come at me with RL and just rape me. not a perfect example but this has happened way too many times vs total newbs in duels. in q3 you controlled rail, rl and lg because those were the most powerful weapons in the game, you had to fight for those weapons, and mg wasn't totally useless with 7 damage (vs 5 now). in QL, all you have to is control RL and you can pretty much win all the time, as long as you force spawns, because all the other weapons are weaker, except for lg perhaps. with dead-on lg and truelightning 1, the nerfed damage doesn't seem to due to the trick. lg can be even more powerful now especially if you get someone in air, because aiming lg used to actually require some skill. if there was more of a noodle effect like there was in cpma, this wouldn't be a problem, and you could have damages like 7-7-7 or something like that. i mean all these are changes to try and reduce damage due to the delagged netcode, but the fact of the matter is, balancing the damages based around a flawed netcode is totally the wrong approach. it takes away the skill aspect of the game completely, for one: good players aren't consistently hitting more rail shots than they were before, because most of us who played with ping for years did fine... bad players, however, are hitting shots they couldnt possibly hit in q3, because that's what the netcode allows for. so, the lower damages for these weapons only serve to make the netcode "acceptable" for worse players since they can't get raped as easily, but in reality it gives them something they shouldn't have by being able to take control easier because: a) they can hit shots they normally wouldnt be able to hit for their life, and b) they have a better chance to run away and stack up so they can fight back. so you could see how this unbalances the rocket launcher, which is now easily the most powerful weapon in the game (which still has an annoying and sometimes impossible lag delay especially on higher pings i might add). pg is useless with any ping > 30. come on man, how can anyone not realize this? i see newbies winning games just by spamming rockets. now sg is even more nerfed, lg has to be locked dead-on, railing is suicide for close range. it's pretty ridiculous, imo. the balance is just way off. and it is further ruined by the flawed spawn system. i'm sorry to sound so cynical but this is the only way i can see it... and it appears most anyone who has had experience with quake3 for years agrees with me vs those who have barely played it at all.

REPLY TO: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1748112#pid1748112

i completely agree that the LG is arguably more powerful and dominant than it was in q3. retaining the noodle effect AND lowering the damage would have achieved ID's desired effect.

i also agree with ur thoughts on rail. because the rail feels way less consistent now my accuracy is roughly the same as q3, and this is after 6 months of re-learning QL's netcode. however it helps newbies because it requires good aimers to re-learn and fight their old habbits. remember this is what ID wants though, to level the playing field.

here's my theory!

QL netcode benefits newbies because it benefits reaction time aiming and hinders anticipation aiming. it does this because it's trying to artificially anticipate for u and u have no control over how much. great for newbies, bad for good players. why? because newbies have little experience in the quake world and haven't learned to anticipate quake players. so they simply point and click. this sounds great but because of reaction time and latency they typically end up firing behind the visual target, which syncs their rail to the hitbox.

this doesn't work so well for the experienced. we're used to trusting the visual target's position on the screen as their actual hitbox position. through experience, anticipating the enemy ourselves to where we truly aim right on the visual target, despite reaction time and latency.

the ultimate fix for this, if possible....

cg_predictenemy "0" "1" or "2" (default: 2) - 0, no client side enemy prediction. 1, half the standard client side prediction. 2, standard client side enemy prediction.
or better yet, have this a value in terms of ms like timenudge was.

The developers do know they aren't as qualified as the hardcore players... thats why syncerror has been actively asking for input from the community. QL is still technically a beta and is designed to bring more players into our tiny corner of the gaming world. Does this cheapen the purity of the game? Sure, but it is at least an attempt to create a larger community. I for one have always wished there were more people who enjoyed quake. Its a shame how small our community is compared to the hordes of xbox nub nubs who play halo with control sticks. If you want a refined game then play cpm.

The FFA spawn system is aweful, spawn nearest happens far FAR too frequently.

It's fine for noobs to find each other, keep it that way for tiers 1 + 2 if you like.

But for higher games it's just ridiculous spawning next to the quad holder 4-5 times in a row.

make the spawnsystem like vq3, not randomized holy shit, that would be so stupid, anything randomized = luck. powerups randomized = luck on which getting regen/quad/haste fitting to your purposes, random spawns like f.e in cpm 1v1, you can spawn at the same time like 4times in a row? at least I've counted it up to that when playing and just spawnraping

gimme back the osp spawn.system and stop making ql soooo gay
thx

thx for this helpful comment, syncerror will consider your well though out arguments instantly

I Agree completely with wh3nom. It seems that original OSP spawn system was way much better than this new one. Speaking of spawns in quakelive... I've never experienced such weird situations in TDM in OSP.

I am not saying that QL sucks. I like it... All I want now is a better netcode with disabled XERP and OSP spawns. pls arqon, be useful and make it happen.

"better netcode with disabled XERP" - you can't have better netcode without cg_laghax + xc(sc from id) 1

I figure the following system, although I'm not sure where it might lead. This is a probabilistic model, but allow me to present it metaphorically, to have a better visualization.

To each spawn points a value is assigned. Let's pretend such value represent the temperature of that spawn point. Such value will decay in time with a certain speed.

Whenever a player (which is alive) is close enough to a spawn point he will transfer heat to the spawn point

When a kill occur, a set of cold spawn points is selected, and one of them is picked (either purely randomly or using the temperature as a probability), then the player spawns there and the temperature of that spawn point goes back to the initial value.

The parameters of this system are:
- initial temperature
- temperature decay rate
- player heating radius*
- player heating rate

*I'm against using euclidean radii: they are cheap to compute, right, but they do not take the map geometry into account and therefore express the wrong concept of "distance".

Picking parameters is not easy, yet important as the behavior you obtain can change drastically.

The range of possible behavior of this system is rich: it goes from picking the most far away (aggressive player radius), to picking the least recently used (aggressive player rate), passing through picking spawn points in region of the map that are not often used (high starting temperature), all depending on the parameter chemistry.

Parameters could be tuned to get the desired behavior, or even changed during the game (in a controlled way) to avoid the system to being too predictable.

I understand it's a bit of leap into the void, but maybe its a path worth exploring.

Interesting concept.

You could have it work in team modes too based on a Team-Heat...

Interesting suggestion.

Question though. Wouldn't this make the spawn system extremely predictable?

I don't know honestly :)

I think that sounds like a really neat idea, as even if you could force the spawns to a select few, it would presumably take more skill as you would have to remember your enemies previous routes through the map (for however long) as well as your own.

Also, it would seem most likely that the least used parts of the map are furthest away from the killers current location, as the area would be warm if this was not the case.

It would be cool to at least get to try it out somewhere/somehow; suppose everything is speculation until its tried :(

This seem like a very intresting concept, would love to see it tried out.

or you could just spawn outside the map and make your way in through the ventilation shaft :o

An other concept could be to add manually rating to spawn points. Let me make a d tour to explain this.

Set your mind to a global scope. What we are doing now (with vq3, ql etc) is basically giving a rate to the spawn points in order to do an educated random choice for the next spawning.

Notice that what has been tested in the past merely included the distance to the enemy into account. Let's then step back from what we know and reconsider the whole thing.

The rating of a spawn point can be defined as how happy a player would be to spawn there. Think of the tournaments casting, and all the discussion about "that was a lucky/unlucky spawn". Now, that "lucky" notion is a very simple label for a very complex concept.

If I had to try and define it, I would start distinguishing two categories of factors that play a role in it.

- static factors: such as being close to certain item, or being on and elevated position, or in an area allowing for many escape routes, etc.
- dynamic factors: things like the item which is close is going to spawn soon (or is already there), the full stacked enemy is far away, the weaken enemy is close by (mg raping), etc.

Let's pretend for a second that we have a way to give a very consistent rating of the spawn points, a rating that is based on both static and dynamic factors. A strategy could then be the following:

At the first kill, only very low-rate spawn points are excluded from the pool. If a second frag occurs in a short period of time, the next spawn will be decided only on a better set of spawn points. And so on, until only optimal spawns are granted.

Assuming a good tuning, you would make sure that the conversion (the process of converting advantage into frags) lead to 2 or 3 spawn rapes at most, which seems to be what people want.

Now one big problem here is how to measure those "factors" and build up the rating function. Dynamic factors are especially nasty (we also enter in computationally expensive area), so let's skip them for a moment.

Static factors could be precomputed, therefore are super cheap. To some extent tje "initial spawn points" that ql uses goes exactly on this direction. I figure that all the spawn point could receive a grade based on their location in the map with respect to the items and the map geometry. Who and how should give a grade, that's a different story. Bottom line is, we have an oracle saying that a spawn has a certain static rating.

For the dynamic part, different things could come into play. Distance to the enemy? Yes, but maybe mixed with the knowledge of how stacked he is. Then the knowledge about item timing, and so on. You are all smart quakers, suggest what could fall into this.

Good design is tricky, and human factors do not help. I'd like to hear the opinion of pro's on something along these lines.

Apart from the starting spawns, does duel really need fixed spawns? Can't you just spawn at a random place far away from the opponent? With random I mean really random, anywhere where there is ground.

It's a nice idea. A bit too involved in terms of changing the game? Maybe keeping the current spawn points but adding a certain random displacement would already help.

Descent had totally random spawns like you described.

In the topic of vs spawn system, i don't like it very much.

I think now spawns can be easily forced and predicted.
Sometimes it's good to spawn near the killer he can be low health.
If don't want spawn and die inmediately, you can always wait a bit to respawn, and confuse the killer.

I think cpma respawns are ok, sometimes killer will be lucky and sometimes killed will be lucky. At least it's less predictable and forcable the spawns.

It's almost all right about the spawn system currently in use, but what i really dislike is the "click respawn versus forced respawn". Let me explain.

You know, said somewhere above - the spawn delay is 2 seconds, BUT you must be clicking the mouse like mad to happen so, result is that you'll never spawn after 2 seconds, but like 2.1 - 2.5 for real (AND WITH the mad clicking). To avoid the clicking, you can wait, but the game forced respawn is 5 seconds long, wich is completely wrong thing!

The best would be respawn after 2 or 3 seconds from death, instantly, without clicking the mouse (and sometimes firing a machinegun, wich is in some cases worse than respawn sound - at long range your killer maybe doesnt hear the respawn sound, but the bullets flying nearby him and impacting wall, well - definatelly yes).

P.S. I don't mind any respawns at the match start, BUT only the shotgun versus grenade launcher on ztntourney1 is, well, let's say not nice. :E

I'd prefer for the initial spawn to freeze frame the game with a black/white overlay on the map (not items), 3-5 seconds later let you go - i suppose abit like call of duty / css "strat time"

gives players time to discuss on mumble (team game such as ctf and who will go and get what first dependant on their spawn) or just decide/work out what they want to do (applying to 1on1) rather than play solely on experience or randomness, imo this should be votable in warmup mode (/callvote strattime 0/1/2/3/4/5) and then reset to 0 at the end of the game... this way the pro tournaments can have it disabled if they wish.

"So you've spawned at GL on ZTN... hmm, well this time i think i'll try going to upper yellow or down to rocket instead of dropping for rail" - such decisions wouldn't have to be rushed and will possibly stop some of the silly mistakes people do in the first 2/3 seconds.

From a shoutcaster perspective it would allow the caster to better cover the start of each game.

Maybe that's a tad too far though (:

Not for 1vs1 but maybe for TDM/CTF/CA.

Why not for 1v1s?

What if every gametype worked somewhat like CA, except that you didn't get to move during the round countdown:

Warmup (Not Readied)
Warmup (All Readied)
Match will begin in (Countdown)
Spawn in Initial Spawn Location (Can't Move/Can't Fire)
Fight in (Countdown)
Gameplay begins (Regain movement at end of countdown)

For me the interesting and skilled aspect of 1vs1 is fast decision making, since when players are equal in aiming, moving and timing ability this is the ultimate deciding factor. Once the round starts this is what it comes down to anyway so allowing for a brief period to think through the initial spawn just seems to lower the skill ceiling slightly.

For Team modes however it works differently since the key aspect is teamwork and execution of strategy and tactics. The frozen initial spawns allows teams to plan their first movements and powerup/item setups and increases the skill ceiling that teams can achieve.

At the end of the day, I guess it would be OK for 1vs1 I just believe it isn't required and that adding it so people don't make "silly mistakes" is stupid since that's what we want to happen so that the difference between a top player and a godlike player is visible.

I tend to agree with the above, I would just prefer consistency between all of the gametypes. The Clan Arena start feels odd enough already, both being different and having two match starts, but there is something to be said to understanding where you're standing at the start of a match. I was already looking at some possible changes for warmup so I just wanted to entertain the idea.

CA starts frustrate the hell out of me as you get spawns sometimes where you are surrounded by four people and by the time you get a chance to get away the round starts and you take a shit tonne of damage.

If you'd only add it if it is to all modes then I'd just go with that since I think the benefit to team games is quite big.

How about team biased spawns for CA? It's aggravating when you spawn around 3-4 enemies with only seconds to run and find your team. You feel like a black guy walking in on a KKK convention.

At least for pubs.

Please. :(

l2strafe :@

Spawn Points after a death in 1v1, should be decided by the player :

For example a mini map is displayed and you just need to click with the mouse, the spawn point u want.

no

why ?

that would be some strange deathmatch - hoonymode mashup..

would be too different from the current way the game works to even try out

still the best spawn system for team modes?

i thought this was a new thread :(

nah someone just decided to comment on a 2 year old thread (to give the appearance id gives a flying f about the spawn system perhaps). T1e which dev are you?

hilarious

I'll answer just for you then, nobody else cares about this info:
I played loads of pickups and everyone seems to whine about the spawns now and then. A month ago i spawned 4 times in a row on osp5 down under quad jumpad just in front of a MH-stacked player (i think it was uijio :). Also people seem to not know about the system - we are always getting comments as: how does this spawnsystem even work...

the system works as follows: you spawn away from your team to "possibly have ressources available"

I played loads of pickups and everyone seems to whine about the spawns now and then

like i said, id doesn't care about the spawn system, if they did it would be fixed (i wasn't attacking you, just emphasizing the fact that you're wasting your time if you think syncerror and co care to fix it, they prob dont' even know how to fix it, but more likely they like it the way it is). You should know that though based on the last post syncerror made (almost 2 years ago)...

it's not "broken" per se, and I don't know how it works out in PCW, maybe it even rewards good teamwork

The majority of the complaints seem centered around pre-starting-round spawn locations in clan arena games, especially those with more than 10 people playing in it. That was a bug that was introduced when they added the max 16 player ca servers. A lot of people cried about those spawnpoints, which overlapped and caused people to get telefragged before the game even started. That problem still persists today. In CTF, the spawn system seems to work fairly well, i can at least attest to that.

So it's certainly broken in large Clan Arena.