Tactical play and POI's

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Scoob, May 14, 2023.

  1. akimzav

    akimzav Lieutenant

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    Yep.

    Maybe that's my personal preference. But nonetheless, you and I agree that all there is needed for a basic attenuation is right there -- reach your arm and grab it. Yet they don't, for some reason.

    I didn't know that. That's both sad and hilarious at the same time.
    It truly is. Which is also grievous and funny.

    Unity only seems to be an easy solution for beginners at it's surface, while inside, it is a Godric of a game engine. It still puzzles me why it was chosen for the development, given that the game is Windows-only, thus not utilizing the key selling point of Unity (develop one project and ship it to multiple systems), while still receiving all the detriments of it.
    spatialBlend seems useful for 3d games with mostly top-down view, where player's sound perception should be close to what he sees -- that is, for instance, when something flies above the player's character, yet visually close to them.
    AudioImporter seems to be aimed at audio import -- that is, at the time when the resource is loaded. I think its purpose is to preemptively render the sound with some effects, so the runtime calculation is not necessary. For example, if the whole game level is in sewers, the enemies' sound would all be reverbed, so why not load these sounds in RAM as reverbed already. In a more open level, the same sounds for the same enemies should be loaded with a distant echo, perhaps. At least, that's what the AudioImporter's description sounds like.
     
    #101
  2. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    Nobody wrote anything like that.

    To sum this up : they are not incompetent : they are enthusiasts that are "understaffed with programmers specializing in high-performance applications". They are "competent" but the problem lies in "coding". Ok. Haha.


    Taken from your next post :

    Do you think it's efficient to ask a game engine to apply filters to sounds while the game is running and store all this in RAM ? "Preemptively render the sound" is done by whom at what time ? WTF are you talking about here ?

    For best performance, sound clips should be fetched uncompressed, with effects already applied before they are "bundled", to put it simply. "AudioImporter" inherits from "AssetImporter" and this class has nothing to do with audio editing.

    If you have a level with "sewers" then just point the importer to the proper bundle with "reverbed sounds" and don't throw unnecessary work at the CPU like editing audio files while the game is running.

    Now I can't wait for your next post.
     
    #102
  3. Inappropriate

    Inappropriate Captain

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    I think the damage indicator is displaying where on the player character you are being hit, NOT the attack vector. It looks to me like if you take a hit on the front-left side, that's where the indicator will show, even if the shot came from the front-right. With AI attack spread the damage indicator is even more useless then it would have been with the pinpoint accurate aim-bot AI.

    I would say that this is bug report worthy but more testing would hurt.

    Weirdly enough the damage indicator DOES track the attack vector once you move your character...Very strange.
     
    #103
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2023
  4. akimzav

    akimzav Lieutenant

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    I don't know why are you so eagerly explained the mistakes in my guesswork, which I explicitly marked as such with verbal structures like "I think" and "what the description sounds like". I guess you really like the sound of your voice.

    Yes, nobody did. That was me explaining my previous post, which flew over your head. Twice, as it seems.

    And this is top tier chicanery here. You point to an explanation on AudioImporter, as if it was a proof of some sort to why the algorithm proposed by me is not efficient. How is that relevant? Let me break it down for you, as apparently, you really require the most simple terms to understand something (and even then not get it, but whatever, this is fun):
    1. I propose algorithm A and explain how it would work, and why it isn't resource-demanding
    2. You say it is resource-demanding
    3. I ask you, please elaborate, how exactly it is
    4. (meanwhile, another member provides real-life examples of implementation of algorithm A that are efficient)
    5. You provide a description of a completely algorithmically unrelated sound import system B, and claim that this description is a proof of algorithm A's inefficiency
    6. ???
    7. profit, apparently
    Are you even reading what I post? Are you even reading what you post? Or are you just waiting for me to post something quoting me, disregarding both the content and context, expressing unrelated ideas? That would explain the
    phrase.

    If we use your implied restrictive definition, that game development consists in coding only, then yes. However, I never said that, it was you again fighting a strawman. Since even the simplest ideas need to be explained thoroughly to you, I will do exactly that. Otherwise, you ignore the meaning and cite the words out of context, making your own assumptions and declaring them the true meaning. Again.
    1. Game development consists of several big tasks. To name a few: game mechanics design, level design, conceptual graphic design and artwork, story writing, 3d asset design, sound design, and programming.
    2. The one aspect that was lacking, from the start, it seems, is programming. Specifically, the optimization, other things, like procedural generation, creative mode, and everything related to modding and scripting is ranging from fine to good in my opinion.
    3. That wasn't a major detriment until not so long ago, as the development was fueled by the devs' enthusiasm.
    4. It did become a detriment at a point when the problems accumulated in the programming aspect, and the inability to overcome long-lasting programming problems lead to an overall slowdown of development.
    5. A slowdown in development diminished both the devs' and the community's enthusiasm for the game, which leads to further decrease in the development speed.
    Where exactly do you see me call the Eleon incompetents? Do you think that good coding == good game? If so, why are you attributing me with your assumptions? If not, why were you saying what you did? Do you really like to talk that much?
     
    #104
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  5. Scoob

    Scoob Rear Admiral

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    I think you're likely correct, however, when in a vessel, it's technically not possible to be hit on the right if the shot is coming from the left, unless the shot somehow passes through the vessel. That said, I still get sniped out of a cockpit occasionally, yet shields are UP and cockpit is undamaged, so, being hit from the wrong side isn't a huge leap.

    Now, @ravien_ff, some time back you asked for some feedback on the Infected mission chain. I just headed back to Sienna to test this - took me a while. Of course, I'd usually do this with weak gear having started on Sienna (I like snow) but this time I'm better equipped - and also running the game on "Easy" as suggested due to the difficulty bug. I made some notes on my experience as I went, note that some of the comments are directly about the POI, but just sharing my experience (vanilla bugs and all):

    Lost Colony experience:

    Entered POI, finding way down to sub-level.

    Dr. Peter Chan - spawner triggered late. I'd entered the room and the Nightmare spawned right on top of me, not in front as the inner door opened like with the others.

    Some Nightmares fail to take damage when shot at close range with the T2 shotgun. When they DO take damage, one hit is enough. I don't think the Shotgun could possibly be missing at this close a range.

    In lower levels, after series of booms makes them accessible, First Spider spawns just behind the player as they walk over the textured tile. I'm in heavy armour, so fairly slow. Classic late-spawn or cheesy surprise? :)

    Second Spider spawns ahead of the player from a crack in the wall (good).

    Third Spider spawns stuck inside Specimen Table (opposite grow plots)

    Forth Spider spawns on textured block, but only after the player has passed.

    Fifth Spider spawns at almost the same time, ahead of the player (round the corner to the left).

    Sixth Spider spawns ahead of the player, but after a delay. I'd stopped to loot the cargo boxes, so wasn't moving when the spider spawned in and rushed me. Seems deliberate, I quite like it :)

    Seventh Spider spawns behind the player, not on a textured block.

    I broke through the vents rather than going through decontamination. I flipped the switch, then retreated to where I entered. Abominations emerged and I shot at them with a T2 Shotgun. I either did zero damage or one-shotted them. They phased through blocks to attack me, so I took damage, and got space herpes due to this bug. Note: while one did climb to validly attack me, all the others clipped through blocks to do so.

    Overseer spawned and also clipped through blocks to attack me. Overseer of course behaves like it's a small critter, but it's not.

    When I pass through the central Shutter door that opens, Spiders spawn ahead of me nicely. Fairly easy to kill, but lots of them. Love the "spawners" used here and the dripping effect.

    Infiltrator spawns in stuck behind a blue loot crate, easy to kill.

    Can't destroy the Core - thanks for the warning. If I'd approached this early-game, as intended, I'd likely be a bit miffed that I cannot salvage this POI. As I'm at a later game-stage, having returned here from several systems away, I'm not bothered.

    Note: I had hoped the Infected Mission chain would trigger just by my presence here, it did not. It looks like I need to contact the UCH first. Will my doing things out of order have broken the missions? In the past, I've done the Infected stuff FIRST, before I even left the planet (starting on Sienna of course).

    Anyway, POI generally played out quite well. A couple of seemingly late spawns where a spider appeared just behind the (slow-moving) player. Another where ex Dr. Chan spawns on top of the player. Some bad clipping issues with Abominations (vanilla bug) and an Overseer that can go where an Overseer doesn't fit (vanilla bug again).

    Overal a fun experience. Pretty easy as I'm here with better gear vs. dead basic stuff...and I did the difficulty tweak you recommended.
     
    #105
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  6. ravien_ff

    ravien_ff Rear Admiral

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    As long as you get the logs from the POIs you can do them before starting the mission.
     
    #106
  7. Scoob

    Scoob Rear Admiral

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    Cool. I'm just heading for the ship in orbit... I'll do that tomorrow or over the weekend.
     
    #107
  8. Scoob

    Scoob Rear Admiral

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    Just completed the Colony Ship POI. Went perfectly smoothly. Spawns seemed to trigger when expected, no particular surprises. The only issue, and it's vanilla are the hit boxes on the Abomination / Nightmare model. Several times, point-blank to the heat with a T2 Shotgun did no damage - is it something to do with spread and the Abomination / Nightmare model have a small head hit-box? Body shots often don't register either with this weapon. What does work consistently are shots to the upper torso / neck area, they always seem to register.

    From a tactical perspective, well, this POI is fairly straight-forward and clearing an area means that area is cleared - no surprises, no magic spawns behind or on top of the player. Nice.

    Edit: Random query. My game got a bit confused as I approached the UCH ship after doing the Sienna and ship infected stuff. I managed to get it to recognise I'd jumped to the ship (it was stuck there) and I've advanced things so I can now activate The Infected missions, which I've already done. I thought I'd then be able to advance the missions again bu ticking the Actions, but I cannot.

    How can I let the game know that I've done these missions already?

    Edit 2: I dragged the "Colony Logs" to my inventory, which satisfied the "Colony logs found" bit, but I have no Ship logs, despite completing things... bug? Edit 3: I went back (teleport using console) and downloaded the logs again, it seemed to take this second time.
     
    #108
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2023
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  9. michaelhartman89

    michaelhartman89 Rear Admiral

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    I hate the magically spawning enemies, but I feel like that's just going to be something that will happen when POIs are outsourced to tons of different creators.

    Another cheap thing is the impossible to shoot turrets at the top of tall elevator shafts. I've always hated the aim bots in Empyrion, bc they one shot you before you can even get your bearing on their location. I don't mind the exterior base turrets having it, bc trench warfare on foot is actually entertaining in Empyrion, however once you are inside, it's a different story when there's no possibility of surviving when you are taking a cautious and tactical approach room by room, not rushing in.
     
    #109
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  10. michaelhartman89

    michaelhartman89 Rear Admiral

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    The Zirax Drone Base has one in the bottom hallway to the core room. Plus it has the turret in the elevator shaft
     
    #110
  11. Slam Jones

    Slam Jones Rear Admiral

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    Heartily agreed. Found one of these in the Black Pyramid POI (this is in RE if that makes a difference).

    The POI was already fun and difficult up til that point, but the turret at the top of an elevator shaft that you cannot shoot from the ground was just too much cheese for me. If we could aim straight up, then fine, we can deal with it. If there were alcoves along the way that one could duck into, that would be okay. But it seemed like the only option was to proceed up the shaft directly towards the sentry, getting shot the whole way, until you can get high enough to be able to shoot it. At which point you're probably already dead anyway.

    Is there something I was missing here? Are there any weapons that can be fired directly upwards? Even a splash damage weapon would have a difficult time hitting it without going halfway up the shaft.

    So I guess the real question is: what did the POI designer envision happening there? Do they just expect the player to die repeatedly? Is it only intended to be taken by a team of players, rather than a solo player?
     
    #111
  12. michaelhartman89

    michaelhartman89 Rear Admiral

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    Glad I saw this! I'll work on getting it fixed on the bases I raided last night
     
    #112
  13. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    Just a few lines of text and you are already lost?

    Analysing simple messages on a forum is not that hard, and reading from a game engine's manual either. If you fail at that, I don't see any reason to waste more time with you.

    We have already seen enough players submitting their own little scripts to allow "walking on a moving ship" that only work on a platform in the editor. Now the same with sound. Then they all go "hey if I can make it work, why Eleon can't ? ".

    At the end it's not Eleon that looks ridiculous.
     
    #113
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2023
  14. Inappropriate

    Inappropriate Captain

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    Yes. But to be fair, this POI has an insane amount of loot.
    I would recommend just blowing out the core with an SV or CV.
    Don't open unless you want to cheese the POI.
    Shoot out the windows (or the blocks below them) near the top.
    The core is near the center below the lower floor of the 'control room'. Just start shooting out the floor and you will find it eventually.
     
    #114
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  15. builder680

    builder680 Lieutenant

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    One option here might be those little damage shields you get as loot sometimes. I think I get them from ultra rare containers. They remind me of paladin bubbles in wow. Although they aren't complete invulnerability, they can be helpful in a spot like that.
     
    #115
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  16. Scoob

    Scoob Rear Admiral

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    I wonder if some POI's are designed with the "you cannot actually really die" mechanic in mind? I mean, imagine the terror the Zirax troops must feel when the guy they just "killed" is back moments later? lol. When I consider that the only real consequence of dying is having to fetch my backpack (or not, it's an option to drop nothing on death), certain situations become conceptually easier to deal with. I.e. I cannot die, I can whittle away at the enemy until I win...infinite spawners being an exception of course.

    However, that's not how I play as I don't find that "grind" approach particularly satisfying. I play as if death has a real consequence. I.e. Low on food? Just die and respawn! Infected with something? Just die and respawn! Rads a bit too high? Just die and respawn! NOPE! I do everything I can not to die. I do this because I want to play like there are more consequences - part of the reason I like Tactical Play to be an option - and because, well, as long as I've been playing, Eleon have spoken about the current system being just a place-holder, a systems with more consequences being the ultimate goal... I wonder if they still think that way.

    When taking damage is inevitable, having some extra options to resist that damage would be good. RE has introduced the personal shield thing as mentioned above. I'd go a step further with powered armour with an active shield that needs power to run. High-end gear for the later game stages.

    Oh, last time I played I was about to investigate the Infected Space Station. Just poked my head inside and read a certain thing... I like how you've countered the "obvious" tactic a player would adopt here. I did sorta manage to cheese it (well the part I've experienced thus far) but went back to do it "properly". Will provide feedback @ravien_ff once I get the chance to play again.
     
    #116
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  17. Slam Jones

    Slam Jones Rear Admiral

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    Yeah that was my original idea, but I decided to try the on foot attempt first. Might core it in the future, or might try on foot again.



    Smart thinking! That now seems like the obvious answer. I have two in storage in my current survival game, never knew what to use them on, guess I know what to do with them now! Will have to try this later: depending how long the shield lasts, it should work quite well I think.
     
    #117
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  18. akimzav

    akimzav Lieutenant

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    I really am. I'm lost in thought about how can one misread an invitation to actually cite what I said, or admit that I said no such thing.

    Exactly man, exactly. You should try that sometime.

    How is that relevant to any of my original texts? Did I claim to be an expert on Unity? Ah, I forgot: you don't read what I write. Okay then, moving on.

    And? So it can be done? Then what's the point in defending that it can not? Are you expecting them to hack the game and patch in their code? I'm sure that if they did, you would whine about how it's not possible/efficient even then.

    That I can verify. In the end, it's neither Eleon, nor those guys (who did what the Eleon couldn't) look ridiculous.

    Why did you even reply then? lol
     
    #118
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  19. Inappropriate

    Inappropriate Captain

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    Or that. Its a valid tactic if you want to put yourself through the pain of doing it 'The Right Way™'. You'll need a few of them tough... I remember at least two tall elevator shafts with sentries positioned at the top in a way that you can't hit them from the bottom.

    I would argue that forcing the player to rely on an invincibility powerup that is only rarely available through RNG, or brute forcing their way trough by dying over and over, is just plain bad level design.

    I also take issue with the idea that 'The Right Way™' is to follow the single, liner, extremely dangerous and tedious path set by a POI designer who thinks 'Challenging' == 'I'm'a kil u ovr & ovr'.
    Blowing trough walls/locked doors or even just destroying/completely disabling the POI with a tank or ship should be considered valid tactics! You worked hard for your war machines, so why is using them for their intended purpose consider cheesing POIs?
     
    #119
  20. Escarli

    Escarli Rear Admiral

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    You can still use them for their intended design without resorting to cheesing techniques
     
    #120

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