New Development Ideas: Gibs/Nametags

[{ACE}Ender]

Hello. Firstly let me introduce myself. I am Ender, a recent member of the brilliant {ACE} clan, and an avid fan of AssaultCube, though relatively new to this game.

Secondly, let me extend to all of you my sincere thanks. It struck me just last night how brilliant this community is, and that we have real people to thank for bringing us such a great game. All the developers, testers, mappers, modders, players, all of you on the forum, my sincere thanks. Credit where credit is due.

Now, to my ideas. I understand many of us are bemoaning the loss of 1.0.4; however, firstly, from what I hear around the forums, the succesive releases will try to recapture the gameplay we all loved; but secondly, seriously, let's look to the future. We all love this game, and personally, I somewhat enjoy new details in new releases, tweaking my tactics for each 'new game' that we do recieve. In that spirit, here are my thoughts on the future of AssaultCube

One thing I wanted to make clear is that I do very much look at this game as 'real life cube', "taking place in realistic environments, with fast, arcade gameplay…addictive and fun!", and in that spirit, my suggestions do try and draw influence from real life, ha, as such: bullets knives and grenades vs. lasers, plasma and shit like that.


Gibs

I suggest possible gibs for all weapons (perhaps excepting pistol)—personally, i find that these days i hardly ever play with anything but the shotgun and sniper, for the extra points, which is a little disappointing. I saw on the forums a while ago, sebacious mentioning gibs with the new carbine we have, and it got me to thinking.

My ideas revolve around the idea of headshots, which I find myself aiming for these days with any weapon anyway. Here are my suggestions:

Assault Rifle / Sub–Machine Gun
I suggest for these two a gib be rewarded if 90% of the bullets are headshots. Relating to 'real life' for the AR, four or five out of five bullets in the head would result in a far more gruesome death than just hitting arms, legs or the torso. Accounting for the recoil of these weapons, I believe this may work quite nicely. My only concern being that this may be too effective: possibly 100% headshots for a gib would be better. I don't know.

Sniper / Shotgun
I like the sniper rifle and the shotgun as they are, but in changing the others, they may have to be tweaked too. Perhaps more effectiveness at rifle jumps/sprinting using these two would be good. Also, gibs with the shotgun could also restricted to headshots, with something like 99 damage otherwise.

Carbine
For the Carbine, I suggest a mirror to the shotgun, where at a certain distance (I would imagine, rather large), a headshot would result in a gib. It's tricky thinking about the Carbine, with it's close relation to the sniper, but this may be a way to reward accuracy.

Pistol / Knife / Grenade
I love these three, I wouldn't really change them. However, in the spirit of ideas, we could think about detonating grenades with a bullet. I dunno, probably not. Cooking is better.

I know this will be seen as rather controversial, however, personally, i love shooting at body targets (head), and believe these rewards might possibly even the weapons (at least regarding score), for as it stands, shotgun and sniper rule.

Otherwise, maybe just gibs for the knife and grenades, with osok with the sniper and shotgun being reward enough, without the extra score.


Name Tags

My other concern is the name tags—there are times when I want to see/track/know who is who, and the tiny words in the bottom left don't quite do it. Plus, the sensitivity is instant—aim on person, look down, lost aim, aim at person…it can be rather tedious. Possibly there could be some sort of a floating name with a fade time of a second or so. It would make my multiplayer life much more enjoyable.

Thanks for hearing me out, see you on the servers!

Ender out.

[JMM]

Not a big fan of headshot (namely because can't hit anything if I don't aim right at the middle of the body), but I like the idea of name tags.

[DrMental]

Nametags would be good, even if it was just a mod. :)

[Shorty]

I find looking at the names whilest aiming rather easy, i don't know why.

[Orynge]

Yeah, the name tags is a pretty good idea. And I am the complete opposite of Shorty, I find it hard to look at the names while aiming :)

The reason (IMO) that the sniper and shotgun get the extra points is because it is hard to headshot at short range, and it's impossible to splatter at long range.

[Boomhauer]

Custom skins/Clan skins are good enough for me....





There you go...at least you can pick ME out of the crowd now :D
Also, I agree the gibs should be available to all weapons...accuracy should be rewarded for any great shot. Even pistol should have a chance. Albeit a small chance, but a chance, along with a hefty point reward, and a practically microscopic hit box trigger.
IMO the point value/ hitbox ratio (specifically for a proposed "all weapons can gib" idea) should be in this order (easiest to hardest);

7.SMG
6.AR
5.Carbine
4.Shotgun
3.Pistol
2.Sniper
1.Knife

[Brahma]

Nice feedback.
I remember from the old forum that there was plan (future long plans) to increase the complexity of the game adiabatically (in this, we included to differentiate damage in the head, but I might be wrong).

It is difficult to walk in this direction without disrupt the gameplay too much. The armor change was not big, but it produced a big effect. The same about the weapon balance... people still complain about really small changes.

It is impossible to make gib with sequential hits in the head. The AR and SMG have spread, and the head hitbox is small... it is unlike to have 2 sequential hits in the heads in a burst. Also, it is easy to cheat it.

One possible advance in this direction is to divide the body hitbox in 2 (legs and breast). This is already done in the code (thanks to kirin) but it is not used. We could increase in 1 point of damage in the head, and decrease in 1 point in the legs (just to start). If it does not disrupt too much, we could increase it and test greater values.

Again... these are complicate issues. And we need to check and recheck before do any change.

[JMM]

Language nitpick: Brahma, use "chest" or "torso" instead of "breast". We do know what you mean, but "breast" means quite specifically the front part of your chest (i.e. your tits ^^).

Now real stuff: I've explained this before, but I think reduced damage for legs and arms is pretty silly. I can understand 1 point difference or so, but anything more: realistically, if you get shot in your leg or arm, it's more or less the same as getting hit somewhere in the middle of your body - sure, you stand a better change of making it alive, but you're still out of business and unable to fight, and in context of this game, you are essentially dead.

[Gibstick]

No, no extra hitboxes for different damage. Sure, I'd like to know which part of the body I hit (and maybe something special for a nutshot), but all else is too different. I'd accept if it were possible for bullets to go between the legs of players.

[SuperSniper]

they have that in Combat Arms
they should put it in AC :P

[KN!F3]

Also I noticed some parts of the body are invulnerable to damage at certain angles such as a leg from the back

[V-Man]

I like some of these ideas.
Is there a reason this is a new thread rather than a post under the "ideas" thread?