why we need to make our own client (among other things)

[LeCom]

Firstly, players are really bored of 0.75, nobody will play 0.70 . Secondly, there's this problem with headshot spammers now, which didn't exist at that level when 0.60-0.70 were released.

LeCom I'm not sure of how long you've been playing but AoS always had disproportional headshots to other games for the simple reason that the head is 1/3rd of the body and is what everyone is aiming for. It's profoundly easier to kill someone by shooting them in the head. 0.70 was the exact same, probably 'worse' because the rifle had pinpoint accuracy.

In 0.60, the drunken cam and the too high mouse accuracy were removed, which imho started all this shit. Before, it was harder to headshot somebody, which removed the emphasis from killing, and made people build and cap the intel and care more about tactics/strategy and engineering than weapons and how to kill someone :P (at least people were like that on the 4chan /v/ servers). This is the actual classic AoS that some veterans/people are referring to. You can install 0.54 and try to connect to the /v/ server(s) if they're still alive or have been revived.

And, if you don't want the game to be developed, there would be much more hacks than if the game code was changing all the time.

That's sort of a misnomer. Hacks are just exploits (and the major ones we deal with are the result of AoS's code being pretty poorly thought out on Ben's part). What you're talking about isn't so much 'development' as patching existing problems. Adding new features doesn't magically make old exploits go away.

It's harder to hack a game if updates change specific code and data. It's dependent on the update itself, but slightest changes make existing hacks definitely not compatible; structural changes would make it harder to "update" a hack. Maybe related, maybe not, but AFAIK there's no actual hack for 0.76 (the reason may just be the low popularity tho')
It's also a bit of motivation to write a hack/to use hacks if the game always stays the same. You start getting bored of the same stuff, so you want to play it "a different way".
Btw, it's pretty easy to hack a game, so you should forget about coding the client in a way that is hard to hack or such.

You still haven't removed PySpades/PySnip from the vote.

[Stiivais]

 
Does anyone here know any Pascal? Could use your help: http://buildandshoot.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=12298
 
Finished the tools, released a stable version of each.
feelsgood.jpg

[Lincent]

Game doesn't need updating, it needs regression back to the superior iteration of 0.70. Whether we abandon sprinting is up for a separate discussion (although I think sprinting was a brilliant change due to it's reintroducing the importance of roads). A traditional 'rifle only' gameplay mode would likely also be appreciated and keep some of the older players around (though that was before my time so I can't really comment.).

I disagree, removing features will only make people leave, which is what happened to 1.x.
We don't need another version to have rifle only gameplay, we can make a script.

Every new client that has been released or announced for development has suffered the projected biases of older players and the developer. The weapon balance was absolutely perfect in 0.70. Rifle was severely nerfed in 0.75 and that made the SMG disproportionately powerful. Adding unnecessary or poorly conceived features is another problem. A game that constantly updates (Think Minecraft) will eventually become too bloated for certain users. The fact is, we attract a huge portion of our playerbase by being a low-resource game.

Community is dying to mismanagement because there are no standards for servers and the votekick limit has been set far too high on most all of them. The influx of Brazilians and South Americans has only made that problem worse, because hardly any of them speak English and as a result even if they want to read the instructions they can't.

We need better documentation if a new client is released. I would be willing to work on that but it's going to be somewhat useless if it's not translated. The reality of the situation is a huge portion of our player base is now foreign (IE outside of the US/UK/Canada). Polish, German, Brazilian-Portugese, and Spanish would all be important languages to have present.

Agreed,

There certainly are cheaters but they are easy enough to deal with; reinstate the GBL, lower votekick limits on servers, have a few mods (easier said than done), and hand out longer (but not permanent) bans. Since AoS became BaS, the problem far more often than not has been with false accusations of cheating than actual cheats. I've seen players get banned from servers with ratios of less than 1. This happened in AoS, too, but it was far less likely, and there were far more servers so it didn't really matter if you got banned from one for a few minutes.

Entire servers were kicked in 1.x, and still are.

We've always had a culture of extremely shitty players accusing the extremely skilled players of cheating, but just as well, we've always had a culture of skiddies cheating. I want to say the solution to this is something like a few whitelisted servers, but we all know that we don't have the community to support something like that anymore.

I think this should be implemented, but I think we should also add the ability to hide servers.

[Tai]

Finished the tools, released a stable version of each.
feelsgood.jpg

Stiivais, this is some really fascinating stuff. Would you mind keeping me up to date?

In 0.60, the drunken cam and the too high mouse accuracy were removed, which imho started all this shit. Before, it was harder to headshot somebody, which removed the emphasis from killing, and made people build and cap the intel and care more about tactics/strategy and engineering than weapons and how to kill someone :P

I agree with the need for being tactical but I don't think the idea should be to reduce kills to a matter of luck (though I certainly see your argument; a gamemode with weird accuracy could be a lot of fun to play as you describe it). Instead, we need kills to either be more of a punishment (not recommended, wave spawning is terrible) or have terrain be more durable (which would be my recommendation). Being able to dig through terrain is great but when your bunker can be destroyed by a couple of SMG sprayers it just doesn't serve much a purpose.

It's harder to hack a game if updates change specific code and data. It's dependent on the update itself, but slightest changes make existing hacks definitely not compatible; structural changes would make it harder to "update" a hack.

Certain structural changes would eliminate many kinds of hacks but I'm not sure to what extent. Updating the vulnerability should ideally eliminate the vulnerability. Just changing code for the sake of making hacks harder is pointless. Security through obscurity is a myth.

Maybe related, maybe not, but AFAIK there's no actual hack for 0.76 (the reason may just be the low popularity tho')

Yeah that would be it (though I don't know how much 0.76 differs from 0.75, so it's possible that it involves certain structural changes).

It's also a bit of motivation to write a hack/to use hacks if the game always stays the same. You start getting bored of the same stuff, so you want to play it "a different way".

I don't know if I believe that. Most skiddies I see cheating are just doing it to either peeve people off or to look good at a game that they are terrible at. I don't think anyone who takes the game seriously would get a kick out of cheating. There's not even a high-score board or anything.

Btw, it's pretty easy to hack a game, so you should forget about coding the client in a way that is hard to hack or such.

Yes, I agree. Security by obscurity is a myth.

[Tai]

I disagree, removing features will only make people leave, which is what happened to 1.x.
We don't need another version to have rifle only gameplay, we can make a script.

I didn't really mean another version, I just meant to build the game in such a way that it was easy to manipulate certain things. Basically the core game is 3 guns, grenades, a spade, and blocky graphics. Everything else can be modified.

Entire servers were kicked in 1.x, and still are.

I should clarify when I say AoS I mean old AoS, not 1.0. Sorry for the confusion.

I think this should be implemented, but I think we should also add the ability to hide servers.

On an individual level that would be great. I know I'm probably sounding like a broken record beating a dead horse here, but it really does come down to the issue of scale; you'll get 1 good server host for X amount of players, and right now we basically relegated to having 2 or 3 good, reliable servers, and nearly everything else being crap. If we increase the number of players, we increase the number of potential hosts (Hang in there, West Coast bros, I'll be coming for you as soon as I can!)

[LeCom]

In 0.60, the drunken cam and the too high mouse accuracy were removed, which imho started all this shit. Before, it was harder to headshot somebody, which removed the emphasis from killing, and made people build and cap the intel and care more about tactics/strategy and engineering than weapons and how to kill someone :P

I agree with the need for being tactical but I don't think the idea should be to reduce kills to a matter of luck (though I certainly see your argument; a gamemode with weird accuracy could be a lot of fun to play as you describe it). Instead, we need kills to either be more of a punishment (not recommended, wave spawning is terrible) or have terrain be more durable (which would be my recommendation). Being able to dig through terrain is great but when your bunker can be destroyed by a couple of SMG sprayers it just doesn't serve much a purpose.

The point is that if you're entrenched or properly fortificated in old versions, it's very hard for somebody to kill you, especially from a long range. This makes engineering really important, unlike the modern versions, where no building ever can make you actually safe (except for slits, but they're shit). That's why players usually just build 2x2 walls or simple things (also because building got really hard if you can get headshot from anywhere anytime you show your head).
Though, killing wasn't so hard that you could go out. If you walked around freely, you still got torn into pieces. The difference is that building has more sense if it actually protects you.
The SMG is so good at breaking stuff because it doesn't have any actual recoil. If Ben had removed the low recoil when crouching, nobody would probably have been asked about balancing it.

It's harder to hack a game if updates change specific code and data. It's dependent on the update itself, but slightest changes make existing hacks definitely not compatible; structural changes would make it harder to "update" a hack.

Certain structural changes would eliminate many kinds of hacks but I'm not sure to what extent. Updating the vulnerability should ideally eliminate the vulnerability. Just changing code for the sake of making hacks harder is pointless. Security through obscurity is a myth.

What I am referring to is that changes would make existing hacks incompatible, so idiots would have to make new ones after each update.

It's also a bit of motivation to write a hack/to use hacks if the game always stays the same. You start getting bored of the same stuff, so you want to play it "a different way".

I don't know if I believe that. Most skiddies I see cheating are just doing it to either peeve people off or to look good at a game that they are terrible at. I don't think anyone who takes the game seriously would get a kick out of cheating. There's not even a high-score board or anything.
[/quote]
This hasn't become a problem right now, but it may do later.

PySpades/PySnip is still in the vote, btw.

[Tai]

The point is that if you're entrenched or properly fortificated in old versions, it's very hard for somebody to kill you, especially from a long range. This makes engineering really important, unlike the modern versions, where no building ever can make you actually safe (except for slits, but they're shit). That's why players usually just build 2x2 walls or simple things (also because building got really hard if you can get headshot from anywhere anytime you show your head).
Though, killing wasn't so hard that you could go out. If you walked around freely, you still got torn into pieces. The difference is that building has more sense if it actually protects you.

That's an interesting thought but I think part of what you might be ignoring is that players are just getting better at the game. I came in just before 0.70 (it was at whatever update the shotgun was way OP) and there was still a lot of building going on, but the ratio of builders to soldiers was usually 1 to 3 (1 builder for every 3 soldiers). I don't want to pine that off to community management since I know you're definitely right about weapon balance being a factor, but keep in mind that crouch spam could have been used pre-0.75, it just rarely was until players caught on to the tactic. I think the same thing might be happening here.

The SMG is so good at breaking stuff because it doesn't have any actual recoil. If Ben had removed the low recoil when crouching, nobody would probably have been asked about balancing it.

I don't know how necessary it is to remove the increased accuracy so much as to reduce the damage. If I recall 0.70 it was 4 shots to remove a block with the SMG and now it's 3 (I could be wrong here). If the damage was reduced slightly it would still make covering fire interesting. Demolition would then be made an issue of tunneling and using grenades, which I think could make things a lot more fun. This is sort of getting away from the point of the OP, but I'd be glad to talk about it more with you, either in another thread or via PM

What I am referring to is that changes would make existing hacks incompatible, so idiots would have to make new ones after each update.

What I'm trying to tell you is that just changing code doesn't all of a sudden nullify the exploits that already exist in it. If a door is unlocked in a house it doesn't matter if I lock a window, the door is still open.

[LeCom]

What I'm trying to tell you is that just changing code doesn't all of a sudden nullify the exploits that already exist in it.

I never said the opposite; just that after changing the client code a bit, douchebags would have to release new hacks (just like 0.75 hacks not working in 0.76, although both clients are very similar and aimbots/ESP/norec are still possible).

The point is that if you're entrenched or properly fortificated in old versions, it's very hard for somebody to kill you, especially from a long range. This makes engineering really important, unlike the modern versions, where no building ever can make you actually safe (except for slits, but they're shit). That's why players usually just build 2x2 walls or simple things (also because building got really hard if you can get headshot from anywhere anytime you show your head).
Though, killing wasn't so hard that you could go out. If you walked around freely, you still got torn into pieces. The difference is that building has more sense if it actually protects you.

That's an interesting thought but I think part of what you might be ignoring is that players are just getting better at the game. I came in just before 0.70 (it was at whatever update the shotgun was way OP) and there was still a lot of building going on, but the ratio of builders to soldiers was usually 1 to 3 (1 builder for every 3 soldiers). I don't want to pine that off to community management since I know you're definitely right about weapon balance being a factor, but keep in mind that crouch spam could have been used pre-0.75, it just rarely was until players caught on to the tactic. I think the same thing might be happening here.

Getting better at standart AoS = capping the intel more. In general I'd even say that people are getting worse at that since they just camp near the base instead of trying to infiltrate it.
From what I've heard from some veterans, players were still trying to play like in the classic AoS when the versions were around 0.60-0.70 (I joined 1-2 weeks before 0.75 came out). Just after 0.75 was released, it stayed like that at first and then slowly turned into what it is now. The mood in the community changed, everyone sees AoS as something similar to "CoD with voxels" and any player will try to play it like that, since the game kind of supports this way of playing. So unless you change something in it to make building and tactics useful again, it won't be played any other way.
Crouch-spamming has always been used, since it was possible any time.

[strawhatpirate]

Regard the getting better at AoS, I my self don't see capping the intel in pub matches as the goal, since it's played on hallway or pinpoint. But on maps like classicgen I still do it. The thing is that for most players, playing in the league, infiltration isn't as big as being the best killer. The League promotes good killers, since in order to cap the intel, you need to be a good killer. So I atleast use pub matches as target practice.

[LeCom]

The League promotes good killers, since in order to cap the intel, you need to be a good killer,

Here you see. In modern AoS, you just headshot your way to the intel. Imagine how interesting it would be if you couldn't, or at least had to miss a few shots before hitting someone (probably the reason why Ben made the 0.75 rifle so inaccurate).

[epicfacethe3rd]

I would like someone to make this:

This is the game I wanted and the direction it was going.

AoS 1.0

to further lecom, It would have been great if jagex had kept everything balanced. instead, they opted for a game with a faster pace and mor COD feel, versus a wwii/wwi feel. it's too bad nobody plays on classicgen anymore, though.

[epicfacethe3rd]

we are playing a game that has not been updated for two years,has a dying community, has few servers with people, has a high percentage of hackers, and is generally f*cked..

Game doesn't need updating, it needs regression back to the superior iteration of 0.70. Whether we abandon sprinting is up for a separate discussion (although I think sprinting was a brilliant change due to it's reintroducing the importance of roads). A traditional 'rifle only' gameplay mode would likely also be appreciated and keep some of the older players around (though that was before my time so I can't really comment.).

Every new client that has been released or announced for development has suffered the projected biases of older players and the developer. The weapon balance was absolutely perfect in 0.70. Rifle was severely nerfed in 0.75 and that made the SMG disproportionately powerful. Adding unnecessary or poorly conceived features is another problem. A game that constantly updates (Think Minecraft) will eventually become too bloated for certain users. The fact is, we attract a huge portion of our playerbase by being a low-resource game.

Community is dying to mismanagement because there are no standards for servers and the votekick limit has been set far too high on most all of them. The influx of Brazilians and South Americans has only made that problem worse, because hardly any of them speak English and as a result even if they want to read the instructions they can't.

We need better documentation if a new client is released. I would be willing to work on that but it's going to be somewhat useless if it's not translated. The reality of the situation is a huge portion of our player base is now foreign (IE outside of the US/UK/Canada). Polish, German, Brazilian-Portugese, and Spanish would all be important languages to have present.

There certainly are cheaters but they are easy enough to deal with; reinstate the GBL, lower votekick limits on servers, have a few mods (easier said than done), and hand out longer (but not permanent) bans. Since AoS became BaS, the problem far more often than not has been with false accusations of cheating than actual cheats. I've seen players get banned from servers with ratios of less than 1. This happened in AoS, too, but it was far less likely, and there were far more servers so it didn't really matter if you got banned from one for a few minutes.

We've always had a culture of extremely shitty players accusing the extremely skilled players of cheating, but just as well, we've always had a culture of skiddies cheating. I want to say the solution to this is something like a few whitelisted servers, but we all know that we don't have the community to support something like that anymore.


Let's fix build and shoot
http://buildandshoot.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12279

thank you for clearing up what i was trying to say. the OP smg is nerfed at long range in .76, making it akin to the shotgun. what should happen is the rifle have obscene damage at close quaters, and still 1hk at long, provided you get a headshot.

[epicfacethe3rd]

Firstly, players are really bored of 0.75, nobody will play 0.70 . Secondly, there's this problem with headshot spammers now, which didn't exist at that level when 0.60-0.70 were released.

If spaniards or brazilians don't understand a word in English, there's no place for them here. It's them who mainly use hacks, they aren't really fun to play with and are often under 14 years old. Polaks and germans at least go to school, where they learn basic English.

Concerning hacks, servers just need admins. Nobody except aloha has been hosting really neatly organized servers for a while. I still remember the best server ever, hosted by StormWind. When it was still an alive and big clan, more than half of its members had an admin account. Hackers didn't have the slightest chance, because there was often somebody around. We also do have pretty good hack detection scripts, which partly automatically ban hacks of specific types. The problem is just that nobody is using them, because nobody gives a fuck.
And, if you don't want the game to be developed, there would be much more hacks than if the game code was changing all the time.

what puzzles me is how the Spanish and Brazilians have found a game where the forums are in English, the server names are in English, the server MOTDs are in English, the text is in English, but the two are still the most predominate of them all.
now that's determination. if only our government was that compelled to fight corruption.

[Zekamalikyd]

you know there are brazilian people and spanish people that speak english and then tell friends about the game and they download it and choose a random server

also it's Portuguese not portugese

[epicfacethe3rd]

You still haven't removed PySpades/PySnip from the vote.

both are open source, so they can both plausably be used to make a new game, but that would be hell on earth. both are made by different people, and though they may both be open source, both of the source codes are in different languages, and are completely fucked up. don't worry though, if it goes to that, we're more fucked than i thought.