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[Game Mode] Cache [Version 5.1]

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Whimsical:
(Just has a quick note, I had to break up writing this reply over 3 days, so I'm not sure if everything here is put together as well as I would like in terms of grammar and how well things flow)

Thank you for both replies, and the gameplay footage. Sorry, I wasn't able to reply right away, I've been a bit busy with classes. Still, I've had time to make a few improvements to the game mode (but have a couple more I want to add before releasing the next version). Before I get into my replies, I'll just give a quick note about myself, it might not seem relevant, but hopefully, it gives some context into my thought processes. I like playing Trading Card Games and have experimented with casual game design in regards to them (just between friends), and this mode adds some elements I like from those games to this game.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 14, 2018, 07:54:00 pm ---We got to play 2 matches of Cache last night, and while I personally found the mode fun it seemed rather polarizing among the other players.  People seemed to be split 50/50 on if they enjoyed it or not, but no-one really gave me a clear reason as to why so I can only collect the comments I heard and try to extrapolate from there.
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Polarizing isn't bad, if people have a strong response about the game mode it means there is at least something there. Now it's just a matter of refining it.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 14, 2018, 07:54:00 pm --- Anyway, some of the comments I heard were:

- Switching takes too long
- Not enough ammo
- It's not clear you start with 3 guns
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1. Switching taking too long I can see, you mention switching again later so I'll put my thoughts there.
2. That's a little more tricky, managing limited ammo is supposed to be a part of being able to play this mode well, and ammo counts are supposed to act as a balancer for some weapons. That being said, I need to strike a balance. Is this a concern for all weapons overall, or just specific ones (and if so, which ones)?
3. Probably the best way to fix that is to print them on-screen somewhere when the player spawns. I'll see if I can't add it to the next version.



--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 14, 2018, 07:54:00 pm ---It's easy to address these comments at face value but my interpretation is that most of the dissenters don't like how the switching mechanic is implemented.  I personally avoided switching at all without the bonus, as it was generally better to just go huge with your good weapons, and if you died before running out of ammo just eat the respawn time versus waiting out the normal switch duration.  A lot of people probably feel the current setup is unfair and random as you have to take a pretty big penalty if you spawn with a bad selection of guns.

Because of this, I'm kind of wondering if maybe the switching could happen incrementally instead of all at once.  Something like:
Press G -> lose all current weapons except for slappers.
1/3 of switch time passes -> Get first weapon
2/3 of switch time passes -> Get second weapon
full switch time passes -> Get final weapon

With the option of rerolling again during the switch time to restart it if you don't like the guns you're getting. 

Would make it clear you're getting 3 guns, give you a usable weapon much faster, and give more chances to roll for guns you like.  Even 2-3 seconds is a long time to go without a gun in an open firefight, so this would still be something people would have to use strategically if they wanted to use it to the best effect.

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To be fair, I kind of expected issues with the switching mechanic. I added it originally to deal with the fact you don't have Slappers, and thus it at least is in theory possible for all players to use up all the ammo on all their guns on a stage where you can't die from fall damage (thus, while very unlikely, leaving open the possibility of the game just halting). Later I expended the rules so it was more than just that, but getting it to work well is probably going to be more a case of trial and error. I do like your suggestion and want to at least implement it as an option. The other alternative is just adjusting the delay to be more reasonable. If you end up playing any more games between now and then, I would suggest setting "cs_switchdelay" to 5, if that still doesn't work then maybe set it to 3 and set "cs_knifeswitchdelay" to 1. The only problem with setting the delays lower is that I don't want people to constantly be rerolling until they get a strong set, since playing with (or around) less than ideal sets is supposed to be an aspect of the game mode.



--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 14, 2018, 07:54:00 pm ---Anyway, to me it's a pretty straightforward deathmatch variant, and while it probably needs a fair bit of tweaking the core concept seems pretty fun.  I'll try adjusting some of the console variables and see if I can play a few more matches tonight.  2 matches is kind of a small sample size so I want to try it a few more times before trying to draw the final consensus.  Investment Losses was pretty polarizing on its first few iterations too, but after adjusting some implementation details a lot of the players who hated it now say it's their favorite mode.  It's just part of the gamemode development cycle, really.  It's hard to get something with so many moving parts perfect on the first attempt.
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Thank you, I agree with you on all points here.


--- Quote ---I look forward to the next version of the mode!
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I look forward to it as well. I'll cover my planned changes at the end of this post and a bit during my reply to your other post.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 16, 2018, 02:38:43 am ---Gameplay footage, as promised.  I didn't play quite as well as I would have liked, but eh, probably better for capturing a typical gameplay experience.  Please suffer through my twitchy aim as best you can.
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Thanks. Gameplay-wise, much better than I can do. I'm not really the best FPS player. Seeing the gameplay in action though was really nice.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 16, 2018, 02:38:43 am ---Sadly I didn't tweak the console variables like I was hoping to, but this is decent footage of the mode I feel.  One thing I noticed while recording this is that it's pretty common to have loadouts like D5K, D5K(s), and DD44 where you don't have much hope of getting much done.  These weapons are decent on their own, but the prevalence of the AR-33 and Auto Shotgun in other player's loadouts, which are both powerful and easy-to-use weapons, makes them very difficult to get more than 1 or 2 kills with.
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Those kinds of loadouts shouldn't be exactly common, though maybe the prevalence of ARs and Auto Shotguns should be looked at?


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 16, 2018, 02:38:43 am ---Conversely, it's also possible to get loadouts like Golden Gun, Rocket Launcher, and Silenced PP7, which on paper seem really good...but the AR-33 and Auto Shotgun can still kill you very fast without armor and so losing these loadouts before really getting to use them is actually quite easy.  Having 2 or 3 high powered weapons isn't all that much better than just having 1, but it certainly feels like you're losing a lot more when you die.
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I have added (what I hope is) a fix to this issue, or what should be a nice feature regardless. If you use the switch command ("!voodoo" or the others) after you die, so long as certain criteria are met, you can carry your loadout when you respawn (i.e. you keep the same guns after you die). The following must be met for weapons to be carried over.

* The option only exists for a set time after getting the weapons (either after a respawn or a switch), by default the window is 15 seconds but can be adjusted with a cvar.
* You must not have scored any kills with your current weapon set.I'm not sure if criterion 2 is enough without the delay, it might be. Anyway, that should mitigate the sting of losing a strong set before you can use it.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 16, 2018, 02:38:43 am --- The solution to both of these problems, I feel, is guarantee a certain weapon strength distribution for each loadout granted.  They shouldn't all be equal, as I feel the randomness is part of the mode, but they should all follow something similar to the following structure:

1 Good Weapon (AR33/Auto Shotgun to Golden Gun, better being rarer)
1 Average Weapon (ZMG-CMAG/Shotgun, not much bias in the random selection)
1 Weak Weapon (Klobb - DD44, weaker being rarer)

It would be fine to have overlap between the different classifications but something more structured like this would at least guarantee every player has a chance against any other player.  The other player might have the Gold PP7 and they only have the AR-33, but they can overcome that with better deathmatching skills or strategy.

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That is supposed to be what breaking them into categories does. As noted, the randomness is a part of it, and I do want players to have to manage sub-par weapon sets. At the moment the fixes I want to try are weapon carrying (deals with losing good sets), making switching more viable (deals with mitigating very weak sets), and adjusting the weights on weapons and categories (as I feel that should be the first step before any major overhauls in the distribution method). Still, I won't rule this out as a possibility if weapon distribution keeps being a problem.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 16, 2018, 02:38:43 am ---This mode has potential, I feel like all it really needs is the right tweaks and people will love it.
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I agree, now I just need to make those tweaks and get gameplay data.

Now, as promised, here is my list of things that I want to add to the next version.

* Weapon carry over, as detailed above (and is already scripted).
* Your "rolling switch" idea (as I've come to think of it as).
* Displaying weapon names on spawn (also worth asking if there is a way for players to set some local cvar equivalent so I can give them the option to disable this)
* Lowering the rate of handgun appearance (possibly).
The last point leads to this last section. Since I haven't played with others, and not as knowledgeable about this game, I do have some question I want to ask that I can't really get answers to on my own.

* How are the weights on the weapons and categories? Are there some weapons that appear more or less often than they should for their power?
* Do the special effects applied to certain weapons feel impactful?
* Do you feel properly incentivized to use all of the weapons in your given set?
* In regards to your weapon distribution idea, I am giving thought to how I would go about it, and for that, I do need to know if I'm correct about the following. Would this be the correct ordering from best to worst sets:

* Good - Good - Good
* Good - Good - Average
* Good - Good - Bad
* Good - Average - Average
* Good - Average - Bad
* Average - Average - Average
* Good - Bad - Bad
* Average - Average - Bad
* Average - Bad - Bad
* Bad - Bad - BadI especially want to know if I'm correct in saying 3 Average weapons is better than a Good weapon and 2 Bad ones.

Entropy-Soldier:
I think handguns are usually pretty good, so no need to eliminate them from play.  The true issue is just that the AR-33 and Autoshotgun are very easy to use and very powerful, so most guns just don't have a chance against someone who has one of those weapons + armor.  Each loadout has roughly a 40% chance of getting one of those two guns so they end up being really common.  The most common guns should at most probably be in the CMAG/Shotgun/Phantom range as these are all good weapons but generally limited in one way or another.  Pistols and other guns still have a chance against them, even up close.

As for ammo, I think the Rocket Launcher perhaps gets 1 rocket too much and the shotgun deserves maybe 1 extra clip, but otherwise ammo hasn't been too bad.  I think this is one of those situations where people complain about one thing but really the issue is somewhere else.  In this case I feel it's just that switching was too costly so they felt constrained to their current weapons, so once they ran out of ammo for the good gun they weren't happy.  The only real issue with ammo I feel is that sometimes you can get 2 weapons that share the same ammo type, and thus get a bunch of extra shots for the sniper rifle if you happened to get the KF7 as well.  Didn't seem too game breaking when I played but it's worth noting.

Your other changes sound good and I'm excited to check them out!  I'm a little skeptical on the weapon carry over as it feels kind of niche and I'm worried a lot of players won't pick up on it, but since it's already scripted it's worth giving it a few playtests at the very least.

As for your questions:

- As I said above, AR-33 and Autoshotgun make most of the other guns too difficult to use as nearly half the people you fight are going to have one of these weapons.  It's honestly hard to judge the rest of the weapon balance because of how dominant those two weapons were.  They should probably be a lot less common, maybe around 12% for the Autoshotgun and 10% for the AR-33.

- The special effects are actually pretty powerful but generally just serve to make the rest of the loadout better.  Getting  the Silenced PP7 or Klobb was usually a pretty good deal because the passive bonus they provide can be used with the other 2 weapons to great effect.  Laser + Silenced PP7 + Klobb/Knife would probably be the best long-term loadout you can get in this mode.  This is probably why the powerups were rather controversial, everyone loves getting the powerups but it really sucks when someone surprises you with an increased-damage Autoshotgun without ever being on the radar.

- Generally with everyone having the AR-33 or some other powerful weapon it was too costly to try and use your weaker guns with the exception of finishing someone off.  The bonus for killing with all 3 guns was pretty powerful but unless I armor camped I struggled to use it since one of those weapons was usually the D5K or similar which wouldn't stand up to the AR-33 very well.

- Honestly I feel like Good-Good-Bad or even Good-Bad-Bad, depending on the ammo situation, are the best loadouts you can get, as usually the bad weapon has some bonus like extra damage or radar invisibility and you just don't have to use it.  People complained about the low ammo but if you're conservative you can make 2 good weapons last a long time, especially if they share ammo with the bad weapon.  Without taking the powerups into consideration, a loadout's strength mostly comes down to how many situations you have Good weapons for, how good those weapons actually are (Golden Gun > AR-33), and how much ammo you have for them.  If you have the AR-33 or Laser your other loadout slots don't matter too much, if you have the Autoshotgun generally you also want a reasonable long-range weapon like the PP7 to compensate for the low shotgun ammo and limited effective range.  The third loadout slot rarely comes into play unless it gives you a powerup or is something unique, like an explosive.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying out the new version of the mode once it's ready!

Whimsical:
Ok, again sorry for not getting back sooner, classes haven't given me much time to put everything I need together. I've had the changes done since about last week and just finished making the changes to update the main topic.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---I think handguns are usually pretty good, so no need to eliminate them from play.  The true issue is just that the AR-33 and Autoshotgun are very easy to use and very powerful, so most guns just don't have a chance against someone who has one of those weapons + armor.  Each loadout has roughly a 40% chance of getting one of those two guns so they end up being really common.  The most common guns should at most probably be in the CMAG/Shotgun/Phantom range as these are all good weapons but generally limited in one way or another.  Pistols and other guns still have a chance against them, even up close.
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Ok, I've made some changes to the weapons table, bringing down the AR and Auto Shotgun and (very slightly) the Phantom, and giving a minor increase to the D5K, and a larger one to the Sniper Rifle, and a much larger one to the Shotgun (mostly a consequence of decreasing the Auto Shotgun) which actually makes it the most common weapon to get now (even more than the KF-7, since even while Rifles are the most common category, there are only 2 Shotgun options and one of those 2 is far more common than the other).


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---As for ammo, I think the Rocket Launcher perhaps gets 1 rocket too much and the shotgun deserves maybe 1 extra clip, but otherwise ammo hasn't been too bad.  I think this is one of those situations where people complain about one thing but really the issue is somewhere else.  In this case I feel it's just that switching was too costly so they felt constrained to their current weapons, so once they ran out of ammo for the good gun they weren't happy.  The only real issue with ammo I feel is that sometimes you can get 2 weapons that share the same ammo type, and thus get a bunch of extra shots for the sniper rifle if you happened to get the KF7 as well.  Didn't seem too game breaking when I played but it's worth noting.
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I removed the extra rocket the Rocket Launcher can get (don't know if that's all that's needed, but probably best to test with that first), and gave the Shotgun the extra 5 Shells (again, mostly deferring to your expertise here). I implemented your suggestion for switching, and while I was originally just going to make it an alternative, when testing it I really liked it so it's enabled by default. On the topic of it though, I would like to point out that I had to rewrite the function that distributes weapons because it was not in any way able to handle giving them out one at a time (but I do feel that the functions are better designed because of it). In regards to weapons sharing the same ammo type, it was something I considered and decided to leave in. I think the only thing to watch out for is the D5K (Silenced) and the Klobb which have 200+ extra bullets (which I did give them so the player could make use of the extra ammo with other weapons).


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---Your other changes sound good and I'm excited to check them out!  I'm a little skeptical on the weapon carry over as it feels kind of niche and I'm worried a lot of players won't pick up on it, but since it's already scripted it's worth giving it a few playtests at the very least.
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I've found the carry option to be useful if I die after an award switch. Your concerns about players not noticing it is a good point, so I decided to add a hud message that appears when the player dies (and the requirements to carry are met) that notifies them of the option.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---As for your questions:

- As I said above, AR-33 and Autoshotgun make most of the other guns too difficult to use as nearly half the people you fight are going to have one of these weapons.  It's honestly hard to judge the rest of the weapon balance because of how dominant those two weapons were.  They should probably be a lot less common, maybe around 12% for the Autoshotgun and 10% for the AR-33.
--- End quote ---
I implemented those changes and made a couple other adjustments after seeing how the affected the probabilities. I'm kind of surprised that the Auto Shotgun is that good in comparison to the Shotgun, going by the GoldenEye Source wiki the numbers don't seem to be that different (aside from headshots), but I can see from actually using both that my initial assessments were off.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---- The special effects are actually pretty powerful but generally just serve to make the rest of the loadout better.  Getting  the Silenced PP7 or Klobb was usually a pretty good deal because the passive bonus they provide can be used with the other 2 weapons to great effect.
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That is mostly by design since I didn't want to make those weapons as rare as Ubers, but I also didn't want to give the players weapons that were (at least in my opinion) that subpar.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---Laser + Silenced PP7 + Klobb/Knife would probably be the best long-term loadout you can get in this mode.  This is probably why the powerups were rather controversial, everyone loves getting the powerups but it really sucks when someone surprises you with an increased-damage Autoshotgun without ever being on the radar.
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That shouldn't actually happen since all of the weapons that confer passive bonuses are in the same category and thus you should only be able to get 1 of them in any given loadout. Getting multiples of these would be a bug.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---- Generally with everyone having the AR-33 or some other powerful weapon it was too costly to try and use your weaker guns with the exception of finishing someone off.  The bonus for killing with all 3 guns was pretty powerful but unless I armour camped I struggled to use it since one of those weapons was usually the D5K or similar which wouldn't stand up to the AR-33 very well.
--- End quote ---
This should hopefully be a little easier to do now that the weapon odds favour the AR less. If you playtest this more, can you tell me if this is the case?


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---- Honestly I feel like Good-Good-Bad or even Good-Bad-Bad, depending on the ammo situation, are the best loadouts you can get, as usually the bad weapon has some bonus like extra damage or radar invisibility and you just don't have to use it.
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That is what I was hoping for, to reduce the odds of particularly bad loadouts (ideally, while what you have isn't always going to be ideal, you should have at least something that you can make use of). Anyway, I was considering a different way to distribute weapons, but I didn't really like the samples that I got from it.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm --- People complained about the low ammo but if you're conservative you can make 2 good weapons last a long time, especially if they share ammo with the bad weapon.
--- End quote ---
I agree with you on being conservative with your ammo, it is supposed to be a key point of the mode (even if it might be a bit understated in my description), so while there might be some complaint, that is one thing I'm probably going to keep even so.


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---Without taking the powerups into consideration, a loadout's strength mostly comes down to how many situations you have Good weapons for, how good those weapons actually are (Golden Gun > AR-33), and how much ammo you have for them.  If you have the AR-33 or Laser your other loadout slots don't matter too much, if you have the Autoshotgun generally you also want a reasonable long-range weapon like the PP7 to compensate for the low shotgun ammo and limited effective range.  The third loadout slot rarely comes into play unless it gives you a powerup or is something unique, like an explosive.
--- End quote ---
I'm guessing Laser because of the infinite ammo (I also take it that means it is worthy of its spot in the ubers list). For the AR, if it is still a problem after more playtesting maybe either move it to ubers or give it no spare ammo? The third slot should hopefully be there to help balance out your weapon selection (and to make sure that if you roll 1 really bad weapon, you still have a chance to have 2 decent weapons).


--- Quote from: Entropy-Soldier on October 20, 2018, 04:11:55 pm ---Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying out the new version of the mode once it's ready!

--- End quote ---
Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to provide feedback and answer my questions. It might have taken a while but the new version is now ready.

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you provide another recording? I actually did like seeing the game in action, and not just my game mode, seeing how people actually play GoldenEye Source was quite useful, for instance, I realized that I was probably depending more on crosshair aiming than I should be, and am now making an effort to score kills without pausing to aim.

Entropy-Soldier:
I would say the laser is almost in a class of its own.  It's about as good as the AR-33 unless you have amazing hitscan tracking, and actually much worse if your hitscan aim is bad, but the infinite ammo means it gives you an indefinite mid-tier loadout.  If you get the guaranteed uber weapon switch it's usually worth it to switch though since all the other uber weapons are better than the laser and you probably won't live forever so it's best to chain upgrades if possible.

That being said, if you manage to snag a powerup like increased damage or radar invisibility along with the laser it's almost always worth keeping as it's now quite powerful and you'll never have to adapt your playstyle or deal with the chance of getting a sub-par loadout.  I don't think this is really a bad thing but it makes the laser a rather unique weapon...not incredibly powerful on its own but very useful due to its consistency and ability to keep a power-up indefinitely.

Also shoot, I didn't realize you couldn't get two powerup weapons in one loadout, but it makes sense.  I don't think this ever actually happened when I played, I just thought it was possible so I was giving it as an extreme example of how good the powerups could be.  Makes sense that it's not!


Anyway, I'll try to get you another recording tomorrow night as it's dev night, but it does take some effort to set up so I might have to do it some time during the week instead.  Either way, I'm really looking forward to checking this out!  I'll be sure to give you a writeup on how it goes at the very least.

Entropy-Soldier:
I managed to get the demo recording working properly this time so it was a lot easier to get footage:




I feel like this version played pretty well and I didn't hear any complaining, so I feel that things are certainly on the right track now.  The new weapon switch design is much more satisfying and useful, the reduced prevalence of the AR33 and auto shotgun had a huge impact on the viability of most loadouts, and the messages that tell you what weapons you have really help bring things together.  It still didn't win an encore vote though, by a very small margin, which makes me feel it could use a few more tweaks.

The knife speed boost is perhaps a bit too good.  The knife is actually already a really good situational weapon, and speed increases tend to be one of the more tactically useful abilities you can have.  Moving faster lets you pick your fights, avoid enemy attacks, and reposition yourself quicker to get more opportunistic kills.  It also stacks with strafe running so a 25% speed boost lets you run 75% faster than the base move speed instead of the standard 40%.  It would probably be worth reducing the speed boost to 10% or 15% as it would still be very useful but not overwhelmingly so. 

It might also be worth telling the player just how much of a damage/speed boost they're getting as it's useful information to have.


I'd also be interested in experimenting with giving the player a small amount of armor for switching weapons, as an extra incentive for doing so.  Even with the new system that doesn't interrupt the momentum of the combat, I still found myself not using the switch function as much as I could have been.  Maybe it could tie into your unique weapon kills, gaining 2 bars for each weapon you got a kill with.  Would make switching without the full gamut not feel like you're throwing away progress on your current loadout.


Either way, I feel like the mode is polished enough to put it in rotation on my server.  It's got a unique flow to it that most players might need some time to pick up on, but I'm confident they'll enjoy the mode once they figure it out.  Thanks for all your work on it so far!  It's coming along great.

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