Fast physics

One very singular feature when launching Xonotic for the first time is how easy you can get high speeds.
Regardless of other FPS, I still feel that velocities we can reach have somewhat absurd. It's simply too much.
It reminds me those console basket-ball games where you can jump 10 meters high and dunking after jumping above 3 opponents.
Just to be clear: the problem is not the speed itself. The problem is how easy to get to those speeds.

Gameplay-wise, I see several drawbacks to these fast physics:
- when crossing an opponent in a corridor, you don't have enough time to react. Most of the time, players cross, then stop, then fight.
- players are "everywhere". Specially on Nexuiz maps designed for slower physics. So the balance of many maps are simply broken due to this ubiquity aspect. As a symptom, the item timing task is much less interesting and strategic because, even if you forgot that the mega is up in 5 seconds, you still have enough time to make a couple of shots and still get there in time. An other side effect is that the time horizon within you can predict the path of your opponent is smaller. Because in few sec, the opponent can reach any spot in the map.
- even when possible, it's much harder to exploit the path prediction of opponents. For me, it's a clue that something is not satisfying with these physics. Concrete example: on warfare, your opponent takes the mega. You then know that he has the lower and the upper path to escape. Even when you anticipate that he gonna take the upper escape, it's barely possible to shoot at him through the aperture because of the speed.

Also, I would like to raise a warning flag: high speed problems could be mostly compensate by making larger maps. Of course, everything is up to a scaling factor. But it would be just a repair patch and we would sacrifice a lot of "small" good maps for nothing.

iirc, these fast physics had been made so as to compensate the laser push mitigation in ctf games. So i guess that some faster physics than in nexuiz is somehow necessary. Still, there is some room to tradeoff it more wisely between Nexuiz speed and current Xonotic speed.
If there is other known reasons for these fast physics, please indicate/recall them to make them clear to everybody.

Also, if there are other people who think like me, make yourself known.

Xonotic is not a game, it's a balancer's play toy.

Ok, so when are we going to stop complaining about every god damn issue in this game, now were going onto the physics? Terrific.

There no faster then some other game type's I've played, player's can't be that hard to hit as people are still bitching about the nexgun being so good, learn to spam more with the splash weapons and predicting.

Secondly, there's enough quality Xonotic maps even just at the moment this early on, that shitty nexuiz maps (and I mean the bad ones that everyone loves to play but also complains about, but never realises there just poor maps for decent gameplay like greatwall - go away Lee). If you want a specific nexuiz map, ASK someone to remake it for xonotic.

Can we just leave ONE thing in this game alone just once, I mean is it too much trouble to ask for?

To be honest all this stuff about speed is getting on my tits, purely because in nexuiz you could rocket fly and laser away ridiculously quicker then you can with xonotic's physics, because after 800 unit's of speed the speed you gain after takes a lot longer to achieve unlike in nexuiz, so people who are saying 'so hard to hit people' I sigh. Yes moving around is quicker due to being able to turn corners much more easily and keep your speed up around a certain mark, but actually crazy insane speed is much harder to achieve in xonotic.

I think i'm going to just start playing CTS/nexrun in the future, much less hassle!

kojn: i gonna make it quick and polite.

- the post you did has a name: lobbying.
- Tbh, I don't care that these questions piss you off. The current physics piss me off too.
- Contrary to what you're thinking, I do NOT request to revert back to nexuiz system. The exact same current physics with smaller max speed could be ok.
- If all my concerns are as stupid as you say, explain.

Compromise is the name of the game gentlemen. No one, I repeat, NO ONE is going to get everything they want. Find a somewhat working compromise and stick with it, or the game will end up being a flop.

No one, I repeat, NO ONE is going to get everything they want.

I am, by moving the UFB server over Xonotic when it's out (keeping the gameplay of course) and not playing anywhere else :)

On the subject: What's wrong with moving insanely fast? I just don't get it. I love fast movement, I even enjoy it alot more than just fragging (which is why I am a CTF attacker). I don't know how true is the "hard to hit" point, since in minsta and UFB I can both move fast and get my ass kicked by good defenders at the same time, but according to kojn, the same at least partially applies to the "normal" gameplay.

Will UFB server move att 1.0? That would be worth a party!

Well, I don't know much about weapon physics, I just think they're OK. (Stop complaining about them!!!!!!)

But minsta+hook just need 2be fast! Really fast!

Will UFB server move att 1.0? That would be worth a party!

Perhaps, we're still in doubt. We have to see what 1.0 is actually going to be, first. But I am already porting rocketminsta to Xonotic, and the gameplay on my dev. server (akari.servebeer.com) is currently the same as of UFB (note: the server sucks, lagwise).

Rage_ATWM I totally agree with both posts by you. There isnt something to say else.
Someone had to say it, finally I'm happy someone did.

I have started playing at 0.8 percent game speed when I play bots. you can still go super fast, and it doesn't make my eyes bleed trying to follow them.

of course, then you get a map with no waypoints, and the bots just stand there.

Will UFB server move att 1.0? That would be worth a party!

Perhaps, we're still in doubt. We have to see what 1.0 is actually going to be, first. But I am already porting rocketminsta to Xonotic, and the gameplay on my dev. server (akari.servebeer.com) is currently the same as of UFB (note: the server sucks, lagwise).

Also, good, sounds much better than the last time I talked with you

Rocketminsta 4 life!

I have to agree with the first post, there's a ton of enjoyable "shittty maps" (Go, Greatwall, hell even Frozen Colors is going to break) that aren't going to be playable with the new system and at the same time the maps released specifically for Xonotic actually play well with a more sane physics system. I don't know why Kojn and Fruitiex are so intent on breaking maps. In addition to that, the current movement has deterred ALMOST THE ENTIRE NORTH AMERICAN NEXUIZ COMMUNITY due to simply being FUBAR.

@ Kojn
Already taking shots at me before I even enter the topic...

no, no, Lee_Stricklin: the topic is not "how to save nexuiz maps?".
Nexuiz belongs to History. If we can save some good maps, it's a bonus. If not, we will make new ones.
The global question is rather: are these current physics ok, independently of Nexuiz.

I think we all know my view on the physics lol THEY SUCK ASS! Fortunately Samual seems to know what he's doing and that's supposedly similar to what the physics will be in the next release.

The point is, everytime something is going relatively smoothly someone pop's up who has been playing and posts these kinds of threads -why not do it after a short while, not a month or months after you've been playing? This is the frustration and this is why it goes backwards not forwards and causes so much wasted time, as soon as someone complains we have to go back to square one, it's exactly the same as the nexgun threads. Things get tinkered with and people start a riot. I start a riot because I get fed up.

And you say I lobby? I don't complain about this kind of stuff or make these threads, I just wish people would make up there minds.

"@ Kojn
Already taking shots at me before I even enter the topic..."

Because you post a lot of stuff like this below.

"I think we all know my view on the physics lol THEY SUCK ASS! Fortunately Samual seems to know what he's doing and that's supposedly similar to what the physics will be in the next release."

Make changes to the physics if need be, I won't complain unless it's horrendously bad as I don't do, but if your going to post concerns and threads like this then atleast do it quicker.

The physics are that way because the strafe accel that was in nexuiz was removed in xonotic (because of cheating possibilities), so there's no "hard way" to pickup speed. It's either you can gain speed easily like now, or you can't gain speed at all. What do you prefer?

Not that I know the exact history of how the new physics came to be, but I think they are this way to accommodate both the newbies and the experienced players. Any slower and experienced players will complain that they can't go as fast as they could in nexuiz no matter how skilled or practice they put in. And newbies can now go faster too, the hard part is more about being able to control yourself during turns rather than being skilled at accelerating. To me this IS the compromise. The current physics speed is close to what a fast nexuiz player can move at.

Nexuiz belongs to History.

I know this is not the point, but please don't say such things while nexuiz is active and played everyday, and xonotic is just full of balance/physics bitching and is nearly not played at all.

@nifrek: more on the strafe accel removal please. Can it be put back in with a cvar, or was it completely removed from the game? (Because in the second case I need to port the old behavior for my mod)

@nifrek: more on the strafe accel removal please. Can it be put back in with a cvar, or was it completely removed from the game? (Because in the second case I need to port the old behavior for my mod)

hmm it's probably more complicated than just one cvar, you'll probably have to play with many cvars. I don't think you could simply take the physics cfg from Nexuiz and put it directly in Xonotic because there are a lot more physics related cvars now, it would probably be broken. But you should check if there is a physicsNexuizXX.cfg in Xonotic git (or even in preview since I don't think physics changed since then), if there is, chances are that the new cvars were added to it and use the right values to match nexuiz physics. Note that I have not tested that cfg and I don't know if it was maintained, so I couldn't say if they in fact do match Nexuiz.

@nifrek: more on the strafe accel removal please. Can it be put back in with a cvar, or was it completely removed from the game? (Because in the second case I need to port the old behavior for my mod)

hmm it's probably more complicated than just one cvar, you'll probably have to play with many cvars. I don't think you could simply take the physics cfg from Nexuiz and put it directly in Xonotic because there are a lot more physics related cvars now, it would probably be broken. But you should check if there is a physicsNexuizXX.cfg in Xonotic git (or even in preview since I don't think physics changed since then), if there is, chances are that the new cvars were added to it and use the right values to match nexuiz physics. Note that I have not tested that cfg and I don't know if it was maintained, so I couldn't say if they in fact do match Nexuiz.

Well this is exactly what I am using right now, UFB config on top of Nexuiz physics and balance with Xonotic-git, and I haven't yet noticed any gameplay changes from the original server. I just needed to confirm whether the nexuiz config in git covers the strafe accel.

Always a gigantic amount of noise on the line... precisely, additive and destructive noise.
At my left, Akari (who 100% of his posts here are partially or entirely off-topic) and Lee (who talks about leebalance.cfg in 95% of his posts). At my right, kojn saying: "you'd better shut the f**k up, Forrest".
Again, I'm never precisely quoted on the concerns I brought.

Just a note:

The point is, everytime something is going relatively smoothly someone pop's up who has been playing and posts these kinds of threads -why not do it after a short while, not a month or months after you've been playing? This is the frustration and this is why it goes backwards not forwards and causes so much wasted time, as soon as someone complains we have to go back to square one, it's exactly the same as the nexgun threads. Things get tinkered with and people start a riot. I start a riot because I get fed up.

This non-optional process which irritates you a lot is called "convergence".
Without it, we would still believe that Earth is flat.
Don't get me wrong: i don't want to make a riot. I want to humbly understand why these fast physics.

I don't want to spend more time on this.


Let's focus on the interesting part:
In what you're saying Nifrek, there are two distinct points:
1. it's now easier to gain speed (by avoiding the use of strafe component).
2. the average speed of all players are insanely high. Here I talk about the magnitude of average velocities, independently of how to gain this speed.

I don't discuss on point 1. I mean I don't talk about the way of gaining speed. It's ok. Dev team wanted to make some more accessible physics. Why not. The compromise Nifrek mentionned is related to point 1 if i'm correct.

My concern is on point 2. And more precisely, i don't talk about extreme high speeds you could reach in race-like mode. I just talk about the average high speeds that anybody can reach into small areas.

The current physics speed is close to what a fast nexuiz player can move at.

But why this? Why not having tuned the current physics speed to what a fair nexuiz player can move at ?
Is there any reason I don't see? What could we lose?

To me, it seems that we could still have a fast game, even by lowering the average speeds (c.f. theShadow's post).

I gave you my reasoning's why I am fed up with threads like this, that's all i'm saying.

The current physics speed is close to what a fast nexuiz player can move at.

But why this? Why not having tuned the current physics speed to what a fair nexuiz player can move at ?
Is there any reason I don't see? What could we lose?

To me, it seems that we could still have a fast game, even by lowering the average speeds (c.f. theShadow's post).

I'm not going to argue, I see no point. Instead, I'll resume the next 10 pages to this thread:

Some players like FAST, some players like FAIR, some players like SLOW.

My personnal opinion: I like FAST. I see no reason to like FAIR or SLOW and I'm sure I probably wouldn't.

Let's just agree to disagree.

BYE.

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Rage ATWM it's possible to do maybe, but gaining speed may seem really really slow if it's changed, it's more a case of because you are able to turn corners and such easily you can go faster more often, instead of less often, so it's kind of an illusion probably that there too fast in the sense of actually gaining speed.

P.S FruitieX come onto IRC want to talk to you

Its interesting.

The result may be either balancing of different sides, a complete divergence between those too different from one another or little divergences from a median physics setting.

It's amazing its like Nexuiz isn't one game but many appearing as one...hmm...CHEESE!!!

I love how everyone assumes that when we talk about game speed, we want to "make it really really slow".

you are thinking in extremes. stop it.