DescentBB

Okay, now for what I WANTED to say. And considering what happened in the other thread, this should probably be closed too (do polls still work when a thread is closed? prolly not... but meh). I was a few minutes short of posting when it was closed, and I feel this needs to be said, so here it is... Significantly modified now that I've taken more time to think about it of course. Mods, do what you want, although I'd really like this to be seen. Just a warning, some of it is a little incoherent and not completely thought out... And most definitely don't take offense to anything said in here.

Hexetic:

People have said they need tri-chording to evade missiles. I can see that in Descent, but I don't see it in our mod. I picture a deep mining shaft brimming with equipment, steel girders, pipes and conduits, all of them close at hand to serve as things behind which to dodge homing missiles. I see players zooming nimbly through masses of pipes with only inches to spare on all sides, darting up and down like in the Death Star scene in Return of the Jedi. I see pursuits in open tunnels, with the pursued player rounding a corner, firing a missile the same way he was heading before blasting up to the ceiling, while the player in pursuit rounds the corner and mistakenly follows after the smoke trail of the missile just long enough for the roles to be reversed. I see a dogfight in an open room and stray shots hitting a stockpile of explosive barrels that rocket off into space, turning the area into a dead zone as debris, smoke, and flame fills the room. I see a hesitant player poke the nose of their Pyro out of a dark tunnel and half-into the light of a room where a weapon or powerup waits, and them deciding to risk it all by flooring the afterburner straight for it, heedless of any other watchers in the darkness...

I don't think it's possible to remove the need for trichording without drastically changing the way the game is played. There's hardly such a thing as a dogfight without an open space, and there's no FPS in the world that is comprised *entirely* of cramped spaces. And you can't use run-and-hide tactics all the time, nor always trying to do the switching of roles in a tunnel fight. Those are things newbies would enjoy, and they wouldn't be very good at it. Tactics like that will just get boring, it's just the same old thing over and over, and you can hardly ever actually shoot at the guy you're trying to kill. Unless you pick up a railgun equivalent, in which case people who don't have one become angry when they get hit while trying to duck behind something (it's much easier to hit people in tunnels than open spaces). I do like the idea of being able to do those things though, it would make multiplayer much more interesting to be able to suddenly go from a big dogfight to a tactical run down some complex tunnels, trying to figure out which way he went. So, if anything, leave the gameplay wholly map-dependant, and make the weapons and ships suited to any environment. Mappers will include whatever weapons they feel are appropriate to their particular level. I assume this is all very obvious to you guys, but I don't think it's been given enough mention. Which is another reason why it's bad to talk about trichording now. Just make sure that it is toggleable as soon as it gets implemented.


Aiming while trichording is far from difficult. It's basically a more complicated circle strafe. In an open area, it's quite easy to score hits while trichording to keep yourself more difficult to hit (bichording is also useful; there are times when you don't want to go forward, since moving on a forward axis would throw off your aim on a player who is across a room and in front of you, and you get nearly the same angular speed in their view by bichording the sliding directions only as any other non-suicidal manuever). A skillful trichorder can keep track of their targets, shoot at their targets, and change directions as needed at a moment's notice in a completely controlled manner. When you can do all of this, a 1.7x speed increase is no joke. And instead of having to change your viewing direction to be able to afterburn away from a homing weapon, you can just trichord to get nearly the same speed boost while keeping your reticle fairly close to your target. Yes, I know you can change the weapons to be dodgeable without trichording, but then they become less effective, since in that case anyone can dodge them with relative ease... Which is all fine and well, but the thing about is that requiring less skill translates into more perpetual n00bness. Evolution really works, for the same reasons capitalism does. If the weak lived more often, nobody would be strong. Of course, people will strive to become good in other ways than just trichording; who knows how it will end up. And obviously trichording isn't the only thing that makes a pilot strong, but it is a significant component in the Descent series. Please carefully consider what you're doing to change Descent's gameplay in this mod. I personally agree that it would not be a Descent-like mod without trichording.

I see Lothar's point about dividing the community... I think he exaggerated it quite a bit, but it is an inevitable situation. Such divisions will always exist (this level, that technique, or some weapon), but because trichording is at such a low level of the game (when it's there, it is always there, regardless of map, weapon, or tactic), the split it *could* create would be wide and unbridgeable, and worst of all is that it would be right between the newbies and the long-time experts. Seperating the two is a horrible idea. It all depends on how server admins handle it, and how new and returning players respond to it. I don't think it will be very bad, but that response is pretty unpredictable at this point. As it has been said, though, no one whined about it before; by exposing it as an option, elite tards might complain (*hopefully* there aren't any such people in the Descent/Doom communities...), and newbies will prefer servers with motion vectors capped, since the better oldskool players won't. By leaving it always on, it is comparatively very subtle, less seperation in the community will occur, and there will be one less thing for people to argue about. It would just be a matter of mastering the technique. (haha, the phrase "seperate but equal" in the context of segregation just came to mind...) Basically, though, having it as an option wouldn't have any negative impact *as long as it doesn't become the dominant mode of play*. Which is why it should most definitely be on by default. It'd give new players a midpoint bewteen Subway Dancer and Abend-like levels and Descent leetness, since it could be used to somewhat "noobify" any map. It'd be a good way to reduce the number of experts playing on those servers and let people learn a map and how to fight in it before moving on to servers with trichording. OR the difference could also be very small, not significantly affecting gameplay, but having just enough differences to be a nuisance to players who get used to the faster way.

hmm, short note: if by disabling trichording you mean to change the focus of the gameplay, remember that movement is everything, and in a game where you can die in an instant, even the milliseconds count.

Please know that these are just my views... I'm definitely open to new ideas (it very well may be that the mod you guys concoct makes any speed gained in trichording unnecessary), I just don't want to see this mod turn into something I won't enjoy as much as I enjoy Descent. I'm interested to know what you guys will be doing with all of it. Best of luck! And hopefully this all helps... The reverb on the topic of trichording has been really bad, and maybe this will give you a better perspective on it. And besides, it took me a really long time to type

Well, let's be absolutely clear about this.

What you can do is not going to change. The only difference is how fast it'll make you go.

So, at the end of the day the debate comes down to: is a 70% speed boost in some directions that you will only occasionally use that big a deal?

If the ship moves too slowly, they can always uniformly increase its speed, so it travels full tri-chording speed in all directions. At least that way you don't get better results just from doing weird things.

Curiously enough, from my observations tri-chording only helped the speed of the ship in Descent 2 when not afterburning; I ran a few tests comparing single-axis flying with the burner with three-axis flying, and found no difference.

There ... IS the possibility that there actually was a small difference, but too small to measure without a more accurate system. Considering you're talking root 6 over 2 as opposed to root 3 over 1, though, this isn't too unlikely I guess.

Descent 3, on the other hand... pretty sure trichording with the burner works there as well.

Finally, and this is to other people... bitching out mod developers will not get you your way.

I would like to do a little "Yes, yes, to obi-Sirius you listen, mmmmmmmmmmmmm?" thing here, mainly given the time of year.

That having been said, I really don't see how you can claim that tri-chording represents "mad skillz" while dodging behind scenery isn't. You can bet with the complexity of the scenery we're talking about - including some ideas for moving machinery, of course - sliding all around it while still managing to face your opponent will not be easy.

I did use the strafe-run exploit in Doom, and it is disorienting at first - all the more so when you first accidentally sidestep right into the arms of a Baron of Hell - but it's not really something special. People here are on the one hand saying that it separates the cannon fodder from the cannon masters, and on the other hand saying it should be a required skill. But I say, I want everyone in my game to be a threat to me. As usually the #1 player for FPS and similar games at my own LAN parties, I want to have my advantage reduced so that my buddies who just know how to aim and shoot will still be a credible threats. I can still 'pwn them because I'll be aiming better and navigating better and making better use of the guns, but I really don't want to be winning because I've learned a Neat Trick for moving around in general (unless they're all keyboarding).

To me, it's like winning a Quake 2 match because you're using a swap-models-every-second or model-does-the-gesture-animations-every-second hack script; obviously not on quite the same level as what we're talking about here, since installing a script takes all of 0 skill and 0 knowledge, but it's still a general-purpose trick that Works Everywhere, whereas I'd rather see maps that have specific little tricks you can do here and there, and the challenge is learning the maps well enough to do them, so that when someone sees you do a crazy run through a tangled mass of conduits without so much as scratching your paint, their only reply will be, "amg awesome!".

(Shortly before they start trying it out themselves and smacking into all the pipes all the while getting hosed down by the other, better, players).

I'll wait for core decision.

I was quoted semi out of context in the previous, closed thread. There's a name for a Descent-type game without Trichording - They call it "Forsaken". Forsaken was a nice looking game, but the game play was bland and insipid, and multi wasn't really all that fun either.

You know, I set my subconcious the task of figuring out WHY trichording is so important and I came up with a doozy:

One of the things that makes 'chording such a core gameplay concept is that it boosts your speed, but it's difficult to do stealthily (ie: without bumping into walls). Therefore, it adds a LOT of tension and skill to the cat and mouse aspect of the game (especially in a 1 on 1).

Removing trichording makes it so that any schlep can travel as quickly through a level as a skilled player, and if he uses a modicum of care, he can do it stealthily.

Furthermore, the removal of the chord mecanics means that it's relatively easy to keep your reticle targeted in "high threat" areas, removing yet another skill aspect.

Anyhow, Like I DID say, given that simultaneous axes of movement won't be restricted, and that tri-chording will be an option, I reserve judgement.

HeXetic wrote:I really don't see how you can claim that tri-chording represents "mad skillz"

well, no offense but... i don't see how you could claim that it doesn't represent "mad skillz" i mean, you've obviously not played enough to justify that... right?

Slowguy, you're taking my quote out of context. I didn't say tri-chording wasn't skill, I asked how people can say tri-chording is a skill and dodging scenery isn't. Just as you point out I haven't tri-chorded, I'm pointing out that no-one here has dodged the kind of scenery we plan to implent.

therefore dodging it while trichording would = MAD skillz.

"I really don't see how you can claim that tri-chording represents "mad skillz" while dodging behind scenery isn't. You can bet with the complexity of the scenery we're talking about - including some ideas for moving machinery, of course - sliding all around it while still managing to face your opponent will not be easy."

Dense and interactive scenery is different. But that doesn't mean just anyone can do it, newbies will still have a hell of a time. And yes, trichording does take "mad skillz" that ducking does not; anyone can turn and go forward to get behind something, and without a doubt that's what many newbies do. Someone who can trichord effectively will have far less difficulty navigating the environment, being significantly better skilled. There's no such thing as a good Descent pilot who can't at least bichord.


"People here are on the one hand saying that it separates the cannon fodder from the cannon masters"

That's because it does. There's a definite difference in the level of playing ability between those who can chord and those who can't. Those who can are more "into" the game and can think better within its environment, and those who can't trichord don't. And the people who disagree tend to be unable to trichord. And it's not just because trichording gives a boost so much as giving you a way to move more effectively while maintaining your view. The boost is a nice thing to have when you need it though, and anyone who can trichord well will miss it if it's taken out. Even if you change the game so that you don't need it. There will always be situations where the additional speed helps.


"and on the other hand saying it should be a required skill."

Because turning it off doesn't make newbies better, it makes experts worse. It brings the top closer to the bottom by taking something away. Adding interactive complex scenery to navigate brings the top "closer" to the bottom by raising the bar, by making the game more difficult to play. And that's encouraged as it gives more room for player improvement.


"But I say, I want everyone in my game to be a threat to me."

If you want to make newbies a threat to you, give them big guns that have a huge blast and suck you in or something. There's really no way to do it and still keep a game fun and balanced... If you're better than all the people you play, play better people, or use a shield handicap (I know D1/D2 have this capability, you can set it to spawn you with as little as 10 shields. don't remember for sure if D3 has this, but I think it does [edit]D1X has it, but not D1. and there's no mention of it in the D3 readmes[/edit]), or choose weapons which are harder for you to kill with. Or any combination of those. I don't think you should make it central to the game that it be easier for new players to score kills just because you never lose to them. Playing exclusively with people who are significantly less skilled than you are isn't a particularly "normal" situation, so for this there should be some kind of non-permanent fix, rather than being at the expense of the entire game for all its players.

Descent would have died long ago if it weren't harder to play than a groundpounder.


hmm, what have other games done to solve the issue of player balance? I'm only very familiar with Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, CS, UT2004, and the Descent games, and every one of those just throws the newbies into the heat of the battle.

HeXetic -- I get the impression you guys want to dump down the mod to a skill level appealing to groundpounders. In the short run it may make it interesting for a broader audience but I'm convinced it'll be short lived that way.

What I found intriguing about the Descent ship is the fact it simulates thrust on each axis, adding the movement vectors -- this is physically correct. Clipping the resulting vector makes only sense if you have only one drive to fuel your movement. Like legs or a motor in a car. Any space vessel will basically behave like a Pyro w/ regard to adding the vectors. Of course a real ship has a momentum (retaining the speed until you add reverse thrust) and would increase speed indefinately while applying thrust. There's in fact a game that does exactly that out there for free (mentioned elsewhere on this board).

Slightly off topic, another suggestion -- if you clipp the resulting vector, could you change the afterburner behavior so it'll add to the resulting movement vector instead only to the forward movement ? I think that would compensate nicely and make for interesting gameplay.

We don't want to "dump the mod down to a skill level appealing to groundpounders". The simple fact of the matter is, as I've stated again and again, that none of us on the mod team (at least, the team as it was yesterday when this started) even remember tri-chord boosting and neither do my buddies who played Descent casually back when it came out (thank you, shareware distribution rules...).

As for tri-chord boosting itself, it only makes sense if there's at least three thrusters on the ship, they all point in one of the cardinal directions, they all have the same thrusting power and, even more, that they can't angle their thrust 90 degrees to point in one of the other cardinal directions - because then otherwise you could have them all help you move in any one cardinal direction. The Pyro model doesn't have those things, so it becomes a little more difficult for the casual observer to grasp.

However I actually was thinking about the afterburner last night before going to bed. I was almost thinking along the lines of the Wing Commander (V, I think it was) "slide" function, where you lock direction of movement and are free to rotate and tilt the craft as you please. But basically I was thinking along the lines of what you've just proposed: that you can afterburn in any direction (except possibly for reverse). i.e., start sliding sideways and up, hit afterburner, and you slide sideways and up really really fast. Maybe get the pixel shader system to do a similar motion-blur effect as in Freespace 2 or (more recently) Need For Speed: Underground

Yes, that's what I thought -- except I'd apply it to any resulting vector of movement (incl. reverse) to make it consistent.

Also, IMHO updating the models to include thrusters would be really cool. But then one can always assume the ships have some anti-grav devices..

As for motion blur, D3 has it for robots (on a Pentium system) and it's a pain in the neck in terms of visibility -- fortunately it can be turned off

Tri-cording is more fundamental to Decent then Fusion.

A few thoughts:

1) it's easy to make the game so you don't need trichording (by which I specifically mean, increased speed from adding 3 vectors; it's not "chording" if the vector gets renormalized.) Just make the ship faster uniformly, or conversely, make the weapons slower or make them home differently. You lose some tactical depth, but it's not impossible to make a good game like that.

2) if your vision for the game is lots of tight areas and obstacles, that makes it pretty limited as a Descent mod. You *could* make a game where most of your dodging is using obstacles in the environment, but that's basically like making Descent but only including levels like Fusion Rats Paradise. If there's no dogfighting, it's a lesser game.

3) Chording (speed-boost) does have some tactical considerations that having uniform speed doesn't. WarAdvocat pointed out the stealth aspects (not bumping walls). Another is the aim aspect, which comes in especially in game modes like CTF. If you're chording, you're not facing straight ahead (or straight behind) -- so if you're running away with the flag, you can't shoot the guys chasing you if you're also trichording, and if you're chasing the guy with the flag, you can't shoot him if you're trichording. That makes it tactically interesting -- you have to choose between the speed and the aim. (You can, of course, switch between them fairly quickly -- swing your nose around, nail the guy, and go back to chording in one swift move.)

One thing you could do if you think the speed boost is too much is make it smaller -- treat it like the ship has limited side thrusters, for example. This preserves the tactical decision of speed vs. aim/stealth, but limits the benefits of the speed so that the "elite" advantage you seem intent on destroying isn't such a big deal.

4) You say you want everyone to be a threat. At the D3 LAN in Kansas City back in '99 or so, which was in a hotel conference room, a couple little kids who couldn't have been older than 8 or 9 came in the room to see what was going on. They'd never seen the game before. I let them play D3 for a while, and even though they didn't know how to slide to dodge, they managed to get the occasional kill (in skybox, usually with frags or megas.)

There are lots of ways to make sure everyone is a threat. Big missiles make everyone a threat. Anything that homes, ditto. Hit-scan weapons, especially mass-driver/railgun style, same deal.

There are also ways to make sure lesser skilled players are less of a threat. Putting in shield recharge centers (which are in your list) is a good way to make sure those people are less of a threat (it means the good pilots can recharge to full shields after every combat, rather than slowly being whittled down.)

5) I still think the main consideration with trichording is the risk of splitting the community if you make it an option.

6) Also, remember, if you put in an option you have twice as much difficulty getting the weapons balanced the way you want them, especially homing weapons.

I don't know what you guys are all arguing about, it's obvious as far as Descent is concerned this guy is a complete and total moron and has zero chance of success.

He needs to take a long hard look at the original Descent; there was no afterburner, only one weapon (Vulcan) was even remotely close to instant hit-scan, the ship was a tugboat without chording, but the depth of skill divides was probably the greatest in any Descent game. I think this guy is trying to make a fake Descent for newbie ground pounders who couldn't handle the real thing, it doesn't interest me one bit. I say we throw this guy out and be done with it, even if they succeed in making a playable MOD it won't be of any use to us, just wait for Core Decision.

Throw him out? What does that even mean???

Why should anyone want to completely recreate Descent anyways? It's latest installment sold like crap, and it's dying community is just a bunch of whining babies. It just doesn't make sense. We could use something new. You might even have to learn a new tactic or something.

HeXetic, by now I think you realize what the feelings of this community are. We can go back and forth for weeks. That doesn't benefit us or your design team. Dont you think you've got the information you need? Why do you continue to be argumentative? This discussion has become nauseating. Why dont you just thank everyone for their opinions and get on with your mod? You will not convince the majority of people here that trichording is not essential to a 6DoF game. If you'd like to seek the advice of our community with other aspects of the game, make a new thread.

This thread is rolling downhill already. If it continues, I will close it. I'll be watching.

Thank you.

^x2@Jeff250.

The ship wasn't slow in D1. It was in D2, without the afterburner...

One other thing: correlation does not equal causation.

Yes, players that can tri-chord tend to be more skilled, but it's not because tri-chording is what does it; it's because by the time you can do it you know how to do other things as well.

All it does is makes you go faster. And it has a cost; I don't even use it that much because in an anarchy game it more often than not is a good way of running unprepared into a guy lobbing smart missiles. I prefer situational awareness.

The one time I would actually use it is when I have good reason to believe I won't get attacked, and either I don't have an afterburner or don't want to give away my position.

Even then I'm not particularly good at tri-chording because the vector is hard to get right. But regardless... if you think that makes me suck, you're welcome to ask me for a game of D2 and find out for yourself.

Making changes doesn't wreck a game. It's only when they aren't thought out or balanced properly, like in Descent 3, that things go wrong.

Jeff250 wrote:Why should anyone want to completely recreate Descent anyways? It's latest installment sold like crap, and it's dying community is just a bunch of whining babies. It just doesn't make sense. We could use something new. You might even have to learn a new tactic or something.

Learn a new tactic? Theres a difference between learning a new tactic and destroying the core gameplay, without trichording it's not even like Descent and it is not interesting. This guy might have luck with traditional FPS people and noobs but it's not going to work for Descent players if it is that different. I lost interest after reading the first few posts in the other thread. I'll grant you, some of the ideas are good, a few are neutral, but the rest are stupid for Descent. If they make the mod, I'll give it a try for sure, but I won't stick with it for long if things dont reasonably resemble the gameplay I like.

Lack of trichording would be a total show stopper for me, I automatically trichord virtually all the time when I am moving from point to point in Descent, I'm so used to extra speed that I simply couldn't get used to flying without it. The solutions some people say "make the ship faster overall instead" wouldn't work, I'm used to having that EXTRA speed over normal flying in one direction. It's the same as being able to walk or run in a normal FPS game. "well, some people don't know how hold down the run key to run, so we are going to make everyone run by default all the time" == stupid.

My Turn!

geeze .. finally home from work

Ok, First. Incase someone doesn't know yet. All 3 axis will be present in the mod. The "extra" speed you get while cording is correctly calculated. They didn't expect it when they were building the game.

I was talking to a couple of our engineers are work about this. (they have played Descent years and years ago but are not freeks about it.) They explained that 3equal tangent vector forces intesecting or driving an object, will result in a velocity aprox that of 1.7x.
Or you could/should say 2 tangent ve.. blah blah blah .. on a moving object...blah blah blah 1.7x

So the physics in this respect are correct.

A couple of other things.

1) The Pyro is a vehicle that utilizes anti-gravity. How do we know this? In both D1 and D2, you visit various planetoids that have gravity, and we aren't draggin our butts on the ground so I think anti-grav is a reasonable assumption. Also in D3, you get an "AntiGrav" failure warning (as your ship is blowing up) when you are using cockpit mode.

2) This is a game that in theory uses very high tech stuff. Case and point. .. you can hold an unlimited number of hostages ..er.. somewhere..
2a)the ship utilizes upgrade technology, that is to say it can use weapons and equipment it finds along the way. Dravis Specifically mentions this in the D1 briefing.
2b) Bots can materialize from pure energy at specified centers. (wtf is up with that anyways.. o_0)
2c) self contained jump point tech. (Compact warp core technology)
2d) something like 30 missles (more if you have an ammo pack in D2)


All this being said. This is obviously fantasy with rediculously advanced tech. So why is it hard to imagine Non-port Vector Thrust? It's not about reality. It's about being able to move in 6 ODS or whatever you guys are callig it. hehe.. Which IS in the mod.


This is your mod and you have some great Ideas. Personally, after the afterburners were added in D2 and D3, the need for trichording speed was mute. In D1 it was VERY necessary in that when you needed to get away from a missle or just get away, trichording allowed this.

I need to go read some more through the posts as to whats planned for the mod. If this is a mod with Descent like qualities then GREAT! There needs to be more games that allow this kind of movement and it sounds like you have some cool stuff in mind for "mines". I'm lookin forward to seeing what you and the team has in store.

(sorry for the long post )

Duper wrote:Personally, after the afterburners were added in D2 and D3, the need for trichording speed was mute. In D1 it was VERY necessary in that when you needed to get away from a missle or just get away, trichording allowed this.

Incorrect, trichording is just as needed in D3 with the afterburner, try flying without trichording and only relying on the afterburner, you won't last long because the afterburner is only for quick boosts. You won't get anywhere fast except the respawn point without chording afterburner or not.

The basic physics of how ships handle in Descent is absolutely essential to the gameplay. Take away trichording and make the game stupid so newbies can handle it, and that gameplay is gone. You can change a lot of things, new weapons, new mods, new missions, but if you change the way a ships physics work, it wont work as a Descent clone. The absolute core of Descent is the ship physics, without it all you have is some crappy flightsim in tunnels.

The afterburner is tricky since it's an acceleration which takes time to come into full effect, unlike trichording which directly modifies your velocity vector. It's a subtle difference that means a LOT in the hands of a skilled player, and it's an important part of the game.

Now the question is, why does everyone seem to hate HeXetic? For God's sake, let him make his mod. If you don't like it, don't play it. That's the beauty of it. He's pouring his own creativity and heart into it, you don't even have to pay to enjoy it.

For HeXetic, if he's still reading this...

The way it works in Descent is that acceleration is applied by adding three vectors, X, Y, and Z, rather than being applied as one vector with three components. Therefore, the magnitude of the velocity in each direction can reach a maximum V, but the magnitude of the vector sum of the velocities can actually get higher than V.

As a hardcore Descenter and gameplayer in general, here are my ideas and suggestions for the mod:

1. It's a doom 3 mod, therefore the graphics pwn. Also, I really like the idea of shadows and the possibility of a more gothic looking descent. Make it look like it came from hell

2. Fusion. Descent 2 sucks IMO cause the fusion is absolutely useless. D1 and D3 I love. Which fusion you try to resemble the most is up to u-- they are both sweet. It's the #5 primary weapon(btw be careful if u implement D3 or D2-style omega cannon) in all descents, so it aught to be a powerful but skillfully wielded weapon

3. Afterburner. Keep this optional so that it can be kept out of games or in games. Same with an afterburner cooler.

4. Tri-chording. This can be optional also. See how you like the game with it on and off after u develop the mod. Note that when I started D3, it took me weeks, possibly months of playing before I even REALIZED what people were doing(sliding in multiple directions and tri-chording). It does not make a huge difference in speed that the speed alone would represent a major advantage in battle.

5. New gunz!! I advise that you stick away as much as possible from instant hit weapons like D3's mass driver and D1's Vulcan or D2's gauss. Using one of them that is good as a finisher weapon(say your opponent is down to 10 shields, using vauss would be an easier way to kill them in a couple seconds than landing a fusion shot or laser shot) is not all bad though. I suggest a D1-like plasma. (Side note: I really like weapon reflections off of walls, like u get in D3's fusion. In a dark setting this could be pretty cool) D1's spreadfire is a bit too fast, whereas D2's spreadfire is a nice speed but too weak. Also, D1's lasers were really useful, as were D2's lasers. New guns would be cool... I'm thinking of a Doom 3 style plasma gun on a Descent ship. Which brings me to my next point.

6. Weapon balance. Each gun should be useful. In D3 I simply disable plasma, EMD, lasers, and omega. D1 achieves excellent weapon balance... D2 less so, and D3 even less.

7. Try to make the mod as flexible as possible, so that it can suit all sorts of audiences. Which brings me to my final point.

8. Whatever you do, enjoy yourself and have fun. Hopefully you will get the satisfaction of knowing u built the best mod for a game ever

If you need any more suggestions, look at the threads on Core Decision and you can see what Descenters in general like.

Descent without tricording is like quake without rocket jumping.

I wonder why people who have no intimacy with a game are the ones that are the most strongly opinioned towards things they don't understand? If he can't recognize the subtle differences trichording makes in a game, what confidence in the rest of the work would I have? After reading the closed thread, none. Obviously, none of his team have really ever played Descent. They should pick a game they understand and make a mod for it. Otherwise, they are publicly misrepresenting the game.

you know i had an idea... someone should make a video clip (of a d3 demo, using the -makemovie command line option) demonstrating how tri-chording is effective in an intense battle, or when dodging multiple homing weapons. i was thinking maybe a demo in the level D'OHme where someone would tri-chord (without/with the use of afterburner) to dodge missiles... i could make the video, but i'm all caught up in school work right now.

i think a video clip would help to clear up a lot of confusion, as well as serve as a training aid to newer players. so i dunno, it's just a thought :/

....apparently, you would be dead in two seconds without the extra speed trichording gives you?

That's not what I see. When weapons are coming toward you, you don't need to get out of the way fast, you just need to get out of the way at all. The only exceptions are strongly homing weapons or area-effect weapons, both of which are much more effectively dodged with the afterburner or a handy wall anyway. (I wouldn't want to try to escape a mega missile without a burner in a space confined in any direction. It can be done, but it's not nice as the chance is high the splash will kill you if the direct hit doesn't.)

Besides... ok, big font time. Excuse me.

YOU CAN ALWAYS INCREASE THE SHIP'S SPEED SO IT'S LIKE YOU'RE TRI-CHORDING ALL THE TIME.
And just fix the vector addition.

Problem solved.

Yeah, I came up with the aim aspect of trichording as well, I was just feeding concepts one at a time.

I am 100% in agreement with Krom...

Sirius wrote:....apparently, you would be dead in two seconds without the extra speed trichording gives you?

no, i did not say that. sure you can get out of the way without tri-chording. it's no problem when you're only dodging one or two things at a time... but when you have more then that, it becomes necessary to use bi-chording, or tri-chording to get out of the way. try turning all the turrets on in D'OHme. how long do you think you'll last without being able to tri-chord (or bi-chord, since we're talking about all types of chording here)?

in a demo, you could show mono-chording, bi-chording, and tri-chording... for mono-chording you'd turn on a few turrets and see how long you'll last. for bi-chording, you'd turn on a few more, and for tri-chording a few more.

this would help people note the differences between the three types of chording, it would help them see that tri-chording is effective, and that would be the end of this argument.

(but probably not)

He is developing the mod, not you, let him do what he wants to do with it. If you dont like it then DONT PLAY IT!

This is the most anal community when it comes to people making mods for this game. No wonder why there are no mods for D3, who the hell wants to put out stuff for an ungrateful community?

Sirius wrote:YOU CAN ALWAYS INCREASE THE SHIP'S SPEED SO IT'S LIKE YOU'RE TRI-CHORDING ALL THE TIME.

Ok, lets put that through a test, the phoenix is as fast as the tank in normal flying, go fly a phoenix in dohme with out trichording. Also keep in mind, just bichording is still a considerable boost in speed, so unless you disable the slides you are still moving a lot faster then default.

A stupid idea like "not everybody knows how to run so we are going to make walking the same as running" is NOT a solution.

I wonder why people who have no intimacy with a game are the ones that are the most strongly opinioned towards things they don't understand? If he can't recognize the subtle differences trichording makes in a game, what confidence in the rest of the work would I have?

Quoted for emphasis.

x2 Lothar.

And with that.. I think the horse is dead .... jim.

To expand on it a little bit:

HeXetic, here's the thing: you came on to a Descent forum and said "we're going to make a Descent mod." Then, when hard-core Descent players who know the game inside and out gave you commentary about how Descent works, you're like "no, that's not how I want my game." Then you ridiculed and insulted people who just took you at your word when you said you wanted to make a Descent mod.

What you want is a mod that feels like Descent feels to a n00b but isn't really Descent. That's fine -- if you want to make a sort of descent-like mod, just say so. But don't be a jerk about it. Don't go talking smack to people because they dare tell you that trichording is integral to Descent, and it's in fact intentionally included in the game engine. Just say "I don't want my mod to have that behavior; it's not a Descent clone, just a mod with some attributes similar to Descent."

You tried to make it *your* game behaving the way *you* want it instead of the way Descent players say the game plays, but you also wanted our community to support you and get really enthusiastic about a new Descent mod. You can't have it both ways. If it's your game, and you're not going to try to make it faithful to Descent, say so and accept the fact that we might not get very excited about it. By not saying so, and by sort of stringing us along with the "it's a Descent mod" line when you really have no intention of making it faithful to Descent, you've managed to get a lot of people mad at you and turn a lot of people off of your game. If you'd just said at the start "I'm using Descent for some inspiration but it'll have some serious differences" I don't think anybody would've flamed you the way you've been flamed in these two threads (though you're certainly not blameless on that front.)

At this point, you've basically lost us. You say you want a Descent game, but you clearly don't understand Descent very well, and you're not willing to listen to those of us who do. That doesn't instill confidence. You might still be able to make a great game that isn't Descent -- and if you come at it from that perspective, I think we'll be a lot more willing to give input and accept your decisions, and I think you can get some of us excited about it. But as long as you keep trying to say it's a Descent game but rejecting the commentary of Descent players, you're just going to alienate people.

I haven't been sober in public for like 15 years, and even I can tell you: Tricording is like the point of the game.

"No child is bad from the beginning. They only imitate their atmosphere."

*..it's not dead yet! .....*

HeXetic originally wrote:If you have a look at the "requirements" doc, you'll see that Descent is far from the only source of inspiration. We want to bring in some of the best elements of Doom³, Aliens Vs. Predator, and Night Hunters (a Q2 mod), and what we plan to do with those sources of inspiration will represent a far more drastic change than the (optional) removal of tri-chord speedboosting.

HeXetic has stated before that this mod was never intended to completely or exclusively represent Descent. I don't know where you people see all of this ambiguity in regards to the issue. It's not supposed to completely or exclusively represent Descent, so appealing to the notion that it is is ridiculous.

Jeff250 wrote:

HeXetic originally wrote:If you have a look at the "requirements" doc, you'll see that Descent is far from the only source of inspiration. We want to bring in some of the best elements of Doom³, Aliens Vs. Predator, and Night Hunters (a Q2 mod), and what we plan to do with those sources of inspiration will represent a far more drastic change than the (optional) removal of tri-chord speedboosting.

HeXetic has stated before that this mod was never intended to completely or exclusively represent Descent. I don't know where you people see all of this ambiguity in regards to the issue. It's not supposed to completely or exclusively represent Descent, so appealing to the notion that it is is ridiculous.

Right. And if he'd just honestly say that, instead of trying to say "it's a Descent mod" (see, for example, the topic heading for the first thread) there would be no problem. But he's tried to market it as being mostly like Descent quite a few times, and then insulted people for suggesting ways in which it could be more like Descent. That's not cool.