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Author Topic: [Idea] Possession gametype  (Read 75366 times)
Gig
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« Reply #50 on: August 03, 2016, 12:56:14 AM »

Uhm... I thought "notfree" and "notteam" were deprecated nowadays (because they may theoretically have prevented the map from being played in hypotetical future gametypes, similarily to "gametype" key... and that using "!gametype" key was preferred instead.
"notfree" and "notteam" works fine because they are compatible with future gametypes. They are greatly preferred to the "gametype" flag.

You should only place them on classic entities (entities that also existed in Q3A/TA) because OA handles its entities automatically.

Does this cause a problem with the white flag and Possession? Yes, it does. That is why I am considering adding a new entity called "info_central_entity" or something that does not need a flag.

Do you mean that the flag spawning procedure will search for
1) This new entity, if any (for new maps)
2) 1fctf neutral flag, if any (for existing ctf-based maps)
3) Dom point, if any
4) Player spawn point, last resort?
Maybe, before player spawn points, one may also try redflag/blueflag, if any (which in teory, unlike player spawn point which may be in odd places, should be reachable... on the other hand, they would not be "central" as you try the flag to be...)... however it may be also just this way.


PS: what about this?
For the rest, I like the "survive for" counter... but isn't it possible to have the distance meter shown also when nobody has the flag?
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« Reply #51 on: August 03, 2016, 12:36:30 PM »

Unrelated to the above statement, what would be the keyword for the .arena file? Also "pos"?
Also "pos"

Uhm... I thought "notfree" and "notteam" were deprecated nowadays (because they may theoretically have prevented the map from being played in hypotetical future gametypes, similarily to "gametype" key... and that using "!gametype" key was preferred instead.
"notfree" and "notteam" works fine because they are compatible with future gametypes. They are greatly preferred to the "gametype" flag.

You should only place them on classic entities (entities that also existed in Q3A/TA) because OA handles its entities automatically.

Does this cause a problem with the white flag and Possession? Yes, it does. That is why I am considering adding a new entity called "info_central_entity" or something that does not need a flag.

Do you mean that the flag spawning procedure will search for
1) This new entity, if any (for new maps)
2) 1fctf neutral flag, if any (for existing ctf-based maps)
3) Dom point, if any
4) Player spawn point, last resort?
Maybe, before player spawn points, one may also try redflag/blueflag, if any (which in teory, unlike player spawn point which may be in odd places, should be reachable... on the other hand, they would not be "central" as you try the flag to be...)... however it may be also just this way.
Switch 1 and 2. If the map auther has already placed a neutral flag then the flag spawning procedure will not run. This is to prevent the problem with two white flags. The problem can be solved by having possession use a yellow flag or you can set the !gametype on the white flag.

PS: what about this?
For the rest, I like the "survive for" counter... but isn't it possible to have the distance meter shown also when nobody has the flag?
Very likely. I can calculate the distance to anything and I believe the variables that tell what I have to calculate the distance to are already there.
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Gig
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« Reply #52 on: August 03, 2016, 03:37:25 PM »

I don't know the exact way the spawn procedure works, and I got a little lost (again, sorry)... I don't understand the need of yellow flag... Why should two white flags appear? Can't you just exit the procedure at the first adapt spawn point you find?

However, I don't want to annoy you too much by explaining me the whole flowchart of flag spawning procedure (although that may be an interesting reading)...
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« Reply #53 on: August 15, 2016, 03:02:54 PM »

I don't know the exact way the spawn procedure works, and I got a little lost (again, sorry)...
Because I cheat. For instance in Double Domination I cannot prevent the red and blue flag from spawning. I just mark them as "hidden" and spawn the A and B in there place. I cannot do that with the white flag because I would hide all the flags, plus a hidden flag can still be touched.

I looked into calculating the distance to the dropped flag. It might be possible but not that simple. The draw code only contains the basic information. I might need to find the flag by looking for the matching model and it feels like a hack.

I have added a video for people that do not know what we are talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOZIvagt0ww
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« Reply #54 on: August 16, 2016, 09:53:12 AM »

Still on the seaside, with poor connection. I will watch the video in about 15 days...
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« Reply #55 on: September 07, 2016, 03:29:37 AM »

Hello Sago, any news about this stuff? Where did we left?
I try to sum up things previously mentioned, adding some thoughts in the meanwhile.

1) You encountered some problem finding out where the white flag is, to allow the distance meter to be of use also when nobody has it. If I understood correctly, the problem is something like that in that case clients do not know where the "item" is, but only where the "model" is, right?
In case they always know that, even if it's far and even behind an areaportal, I suppose it may be okay even to locate the model (although maps containing more white flags, e.g. for decorations, would theoretically mess up the radar... do you think there are such maps out there? But in case of "decorations", I thought the model was baked into the bsp... would it still be a problem?).
Alternatively, I suppose the server should know where the "item" is at any moment, isn't it? Couldn't the server read this info and spread it to all clients as a new variable, at the price of a little more bandwidth use?

2) Not sure about what to suggest you about the yellow flag thing. I think I more or less understood the problem now (if a map contains both your "new" entity and the "neutral flag" entity without gametype limitation, and both use the same model -white flag-, you cannot hide only one of the two), but I'm unsure what's the best thing to do.
One may think that, if there is a Possession-specific entity, that would be used for first, while you have to use it as second choice instead, to avoid the risk of double flags in case there is already a neutral flag, right?
The reason for foreseeing a possession-specific entity was in case mappers wanted to set "notfree" or "gametype/oneflag" for neutral flag, right? Unlike red and blue flags which are "manually driven" (by default, shown also in gamemodes where they are useless.... except for Possession and a few other modes such as Elimination where you automatically hide them), the white flag is only shown in modes which support it (other modes do hide it automatically, without the need to use "gametype" or "not*" keys). Do you think that mappers may however set "notfree" or "gametype/oneflag" to neutral flag anyway, "to be sure", even if that's not really necessary? They may be unaware of that...

3) To add some more headache, one should also think about what to do about team_neutralobelisk (as optional "basement" for white flag) in Possession. The worst scenario would be the case of it spawning in a different place than the white flag, something we should try to avoid. Currently, it does simply not spawn at all in Possession mode: surely it's the simpler and more headache-free solution, although it may have been nice to have the flag base shown, to know where the flag will re-appear (a possible way to achieve that may be to hide its standard model and automatically spawn -like A and B DD points- an alternate copy of it -something like the yellow flag idea you mentioned above-, which may be dropped to the ground just like the flag is -unlike flags, obelisks are NOT dropped to the ground-. Although this would mean making the entity work in a very different way in Possession than in other gamemodes, theoretically giving some further perplexity to mappers. Also, there is still the -remote?- possibility that mappers placed something different than the neutralobelisk where the oneflag white flag is, to act as basement.).

4) We will need the necessary to callvote for the new mode, from both console and GUI (including updating default "g_votegametypes" value).

5) After you die, the score board requires you to push TAB key to be updated (e.g. to show you lost the flag).
Making a few more tests, it looks like that the score table not auto-updating is a more general "issue" which affects other gametypes, too... even when you are alive and hold TAB button to show scores, you have to release and push it again to see scores updated (I don't know if this last mentioned behavior is intended... are scores only sent to a client when it asks for them? In other words, does updating the score table consume more bandwidth?). I don't know the reason why, when you die in CTF or Oneflag mode, in the score table the fact you lost the flag is updated after less than a second, while players' scores are not updated unless you press TAB. Maybe not auto-updating is a choice "by design" to save bandwidth, but maybe Possession may work like CTF mode and automatically update flag holder info only...

6) Making bots somewhow more objective-aware (care for the flag a bit more than for opponents)?

7) Trying some other improvement to the radar (e.g. using different colors is you are going in the right direction, in the wrong one or you are at the same distance from the flag)?

8) Lowering default Possession fraglimit in GUI, 300 being too high? We are sure about using fraglimit instead of capturelimit, right?

9) Some tweak to console (e.g. writing who has grabbed the flag), at the end of work?

10) Something more I forgot?


PS (really OT, but comes in mind while looking into entities keys stuff): when we will make updated Radiant entity definitions, we should make an apposite thread and review them extensively first. For example, at least in the version I have, it is not mentioned that flags entities do support "notfree,notteam,notsigle" keys.... and also for other kinds of itmes, "!gametype" existence is not mentioned, "notfree" refers to "free for all" and "tournament" only... description of team_neutralobelisk says "harvester only", while it can also be used as optional basement in oneflag mode... "light" entity mentions "color" key while I fear it's "_color" instead... etc.

PPS: Seeing how much complicated and fragile is the item spawn procedure thing... I removed from "DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Wishlist]Wishlist" wiki page my request to make the game automatically choose DD and Dom locations to play such modes in maps not thought for them. I fear the risk of making the items spawn in unreachable points (even in Possession, we use player spawn points for white flag really as last resort... I would even try using a red or blue flag place before going that far) may make it not worth. I did not move the wish to the "DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Wishlist/Rejected]Wishlist/Rejected" page, because you didn't actually reject it and theoretically may decide to do it anyway, or someone may ask for that in the future... Simply, right now I'm not asking you that anymore.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2016, 04:28:31 AM by Gig » Logged

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sago007
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« Reply #56 on: September 07, 2016, 03:11:05 PM »

Currently my next goal is to ensure that all the event in possession are logged.

I looked into finding the model for the white flag. It does not seem like a problem one wants to tackle directly.

I think it is possible to vote for the game mode just not through the UI.

Generally the tasks seem to have really bad cost/benefit ratio.
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Gig
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« Reply #57 on: September 08, 2016, 01:42:46 AM »

It does not seem like a problem one wants to tackle directly.
I'm sorry, I haven't understood the meaning of this phrase.

Quote
I think it is possible to vote for the game mode just not through the UI.
I manually added gametype 13 to my "g_votegametypes", and it actually works.
By the way, isn't there a way for clients to know which gametypes are available by using the console, like with custom votes?

Quote
Generally the tasks seem to have really bad cost/benefit ratio.
Searching for simpler ways, maybe about neutralobelisk one may rely on mappers' good will, like it happens in other gametypes.
So, one may simply do not automatically hide the item in Possession mode, and let the mapper manage it.
If mapper did not apply gametype restriction or notfree to the white flag (and in this case, you said the white flag spawns there also in Possession, and the possession-specific entity [I don't know its name] would be ignored anyway), he probably did not apply them to the neutralobelisk, too, and thus everything should work correctly. If he applied "notfree/1" or "gametype/oneflag" to the flag, he probably applied the same also to the neutral obelisk, and thus it should be no problem, although we cannot be sure he did. Then, the main problem could be something like a mapper, for some reason, applied the gametype limit to the whiteflag and not to the neutralobelisk... or in case he placed both standard neutralflag (with gametype limit) and the possession-specific flag in different places, with two different neutralobelisk entities, without correctly applying gametype key to them. In that case, there may be the risk of having two flag bases appear in 1flag and pos modes, and to have two skull generators in Harvester mode (what whould the game do then? Maybe it may be cool!).
However, they would be errors of the mappers. If one wants to try to avoid risks due to such errors anyway, another alternative may be to hide team_ctf_neutralobelisk in Pos and make a new apposite entity (possession-specific obelisk) to show flag base in Possession mode. Also in that case, mappers could still make errors, by placing it under the possession-specific flag[1] while also having a team_ctf_neutralflag available, which would be used by the flag. We cannot prevent all kinds of errors, mappers should do some testing of their maps...

Of course, just hiding flag bases at all and who cares is still an option.  Smiley However, having the radar working also for finding the flag also when in its base would be nice.

By the way, when you "hide" a certain item for a certain gametype in gamecode... do you hide the entity (which you said is hidden but still theoretically active), or do you hide the model? In other words, what would happen with to different kinds of entities sharing the same md3 model?

Side note: when going to update Radiant entities info, don't forget to mention in the one about the possession-specific flag entity, that it is only used if Possession does not have a team_ctf_neutralflag available. If the spawn choice sequence remains as you said, of course.

[1] Could you please tell me the exact name of that entity? So I can stop calling it in approximate way? Thank you!  Smiley

PS: Why cannot I be less verbose? Mystery! ^_^
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Gig
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« Reply #58 on: September 22, 2016, 01:41:42 AM »

Just a small note: tried nightly gamecode "2016-09-20". Now Possession in shown for voting in the GUI (thank you!), however g_votegamtypes default value has not been updated yet.
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Gig
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« Reply #59 on: January 23, 2017, 04:22:53 AM »

Just a small note: tried nightly gamecode "2016-09-20". Now Possession in shown for voting in the GUI (thank you!), however g_votegametypes default value has not been updated yet.
Update: this is fixed with nighly build 2017-01-21.  Smiley

- Lowering default Possession fraglimit in GUI, 300 being too high? We are sure about using fraglimit instead of capturelimit, right?
Update: This has been lowered to 120 (ui_pos_scorelimit CVAR default value) months ago, good.

However, the range of possible fraglimit voting values from the GUI still go up only to 50 (without counting "no limit")... I suppose it would now be useful to add something like 90 and 120 there (maybe even 150?), don't you think?

Currently my next goal is to ensure that all the event in possession are logged.

I looked into finding the model for the white flag. It does not seem like a problem one wants to tackle directly.
How did it go with these things, then?

[1] Could you please tell me the exact name of that entity? So I can stop calling it in approximate way? Thank you!  Smiley
Still waiting...  Smiley Smiley Smiley
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 04:42:06 AM by Gig » Logged

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Gig
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« Reply #60 on: October 11, 2017, 12:56:00 AM »

I was doing a small test with Possession and I noticed that, the text "Find the Flag" (or "X units to flag carrier") appears on upper right corner also for spectators. Maybe for spectators "Find the Flag!" may be changed to "Nobody has the flag"?

PS: As stated in the previous post, adding additional (higher) fraglimits voting values in the GUI may be useful.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2017, 04:47:20 AM by Gig » Logged

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Gig
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« Reply #61 on: December 28, 2017, 02:10:16 AM »

A very small thing I noticed. I accidentally found myself in Possession in Wrackdm17... I was testing another thing so I wasn't moving. A few seconds after spawning, I got the flag: I think it spawned on the same spawnpoint as me.
So, maybe you may wish to prevent players from using the same spawn point the flag chose? Uhm... maybe it's not really so important, and may risk to crash the game in badly designed maps with only one deathmatch spawn point...

Things mentioned in the posts above are probably more important...
« Last Edit: December 28, 2017, 06:39:09 AM by Gig » Logged

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Neon_Knight
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« Reply #62 on: November 28, 2018, 07:56:12 AM »

I have done some modifications to the OA code, namely the Mission Pack now accounts for Possession in the relevant checks (VERY important for UI3), and the AI is now more aggressive towards flag carriers.

While waiting for Sago's approval (the pull-request also has other code on it), here's a test Missionpack VM. The code, alongside other modifications I did, can be found here.
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Gig
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« Reply #63 on: November 29, 2018, 05:38:27 AM »

I did a small test with it, playing Pos in wrackdm17 with various bots, spectating them (/team spectator) for some minutes.
First in "standard" OAX, then in OAX_M+your test pk3 (nightly builds haven't updated oax and oax_m with your change yet, it's just a matter of time, as I think Sago already merged these changes)

And... I have the feeling that they really care more for shooting at the flag carrier than before!  Smiley

On a side note, an odd thing I noticed while doing the test, is that in OAX_M the "USE_ITEM to stop following" doesn't work, it says the command doesn't exist...  Huh
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