[feature request] Change to chargebar behavior?

[BECK]

Okay, this is something that me and many of our players have noticed on silent. It could be our settings at fault, but I'm not sure. We pretty much tried a 1-to-1 conversion of ETPUB 8 to Silent as far as the related settings go. But one thing seems troubling, and it has to do with the chargebar.

 

It seems that in the past, when you died by the enemy and respawned (even immediately) your chargebar was always reset to 100%. But what I've seen happen is even when getting killed by the enemy, when you respawn (say a few seconds later) the chargebar is still refilling.

 

This can be especially frustrating if you are an engineer who attempts to fire a riflenade shortly after respawning only to be unable to because there isn't enough charge. Then you are standing there like a fool while you get face-raged by the enemy while you wonder why on a fresh life you cannot fire!

 

So, has anyone else noticed this? Is this some combination of settings at play here that I'm not aware of? I'd be glad to PM our server.cfg file to someone who knows, but I don't really want to post it here.

 

The only thing that is closely related to this is the g_slashKill - whereas you can set the chargebar to be the same level as it was when the player /kill'd (bitmask 4).

 

Presently, we have that setting at 18, which would not include that option. It almost seems like that is what is happening here, or maybe more likely the chargebar is doing its natural refill progression even though you are presently in limbo. In 95% of cases you don't ever notice this because you respawn with near full bar, but at times it can really catch you off guard.

 

Here is a really short clip that I captured to attempt to demonstrate this behavior. It is kind of hard to see and you can only see in the last few seconds what I'm talking about. Pay attention to the chargebar when I respawn as an engineer with riflenade. You might have to watch it a few times to see what I mean:

 

http://video.xfire.com/529828-4.jpg

 

I just died by the enemy and respawned shortly thereafter - notice that my chargebar is still filling up! Is this normal? Is this caused by some strange settings combination? Is this desirable (certainly not to me)?

 

Thanks in advance.

[gaoesa]

It is normal. It equals to ETPub cvar g_chargeType 2 - ETPro behaviour. Each class has its own charge bar, which fill up independently.

[BECK]

Aw, I see. I never knew such a variable existed. Strange that we didn't have it in our old server.cfg for ETPUB, wonder if the default was 0 back then, cause I can honestly say that our pub server was not that way. But! You've helped me a great deal in explaining this, at least I can fix it now, thank you very much!

 

g_chargeType [0|1|2]

Changes the way the charge bar works. Using g_slashKill will take precedence over this setting 0 Old ETPub behaviour. 1 Does not reset the charge bar at respawn. 2 ETPro behaviour. Each class has its own charge bar, which fill up independently.

Default is 2

[BECK]

Okay, I know why it seems like changed behavior. I think g_chargeType was introduced in ETPUB 9. We upgraded to silent directly from ETPUB 8, so that is why the behavior is different. Edited January 24, 2012 by BECK

[carv]

So does this mean it cannot be set? I tried checking g_chargeType but it did not give me a result so I can only guess that silent mod does not support it?

I think it wold be a good feature to have so we can set it so if soemone /kills then they will spawn with their old charge levels but if they get killed they spawn fully charged up (as they do come in as reinforcements). I have died many time as engy only to get back to the obj and still cant build it cause i run out of the littel chagre i had.

[gaoesa]

g_chargeType is ETPub cvar and not included in the silEnT mod. For the issue with the engineers, you could also change the g_engineerChargeTime cvar. The request sounds like the ETPro b_stickycharge cvar which allows getting full charge if the player was killed by the enemy. Which doesn't limit only to /kill. If the issue is limited only to engineers, maybe adjusting the engineer charge time is enough. The charge time can be adjusted also in the map configs.

[BECK]

Yeah, I was gonna post and say that it doesn't work (exactly what carv said). I was really disappointed that this g_chargeType change back to 0 actually doesn't make any difference, that makes sense given what you said about it not configurable.

 

I don't know - really sucks to respawn and not have a chargebar. Happened to me again last night, this time I was a field ops and I respawned and couldn't call artillery strike. I was level 1 FO and had been in limbo for at least 10 seconds and still didn't build up enough charge to use it after spawning. Really sucks. And I don't want to tweak individual class settings, as it doesn't just effect engineers.

 

Would it be possible to re-add this setting in the next release of silent? Or maybe implementing the b_stickyCharge thing?

Edited February 2, 2012 by BECK

[carv]

I too like the idea of the b_stickycharge cvar like BECK and gaoesa mentioned. I think it could solve the issue and it was probably for that same reason they included it in ETPub. I think it would be a great addition to Silent mod

With regard to increasing the engineer chargebar (or FLD OP or Medic) this would mean they are always charging up quick but that does not really fix the issue but rather tries to recover from it faster but it speeds up the charge bar all the time and not just after a spawn.

[gaoesa]

On the other hand, the charge bar that does not reset for each respawn works pretty well. Also enforcing players to give more thought on how they use the charge and naturally limiting certain events. With charge bar not resetting fops would not get combination of airstrike and artillery for "free" if he/she would die lyckily too close to the spawn time. Similar example with panzerfaust and there are many other cases where it makes an impact. If there is an issue only sometimes, changing the whole behaviour has a far bigger impact then what it is fixing.

[BECK]

Yes, but there are other ways of nerfing those behaviors. There are at least 3 or 4 settings specifically for field ops. For an engineer with riflenade, using your primary weapon is hardly "abuse". If you die then immediately respawn, you might not even notice you don't have enough charge to fire a shot. In the heat of the game, things like this go unnoticed until it bites you. At any rate, this *could* be a configurable setting for each server. If I want my server to allow enemy-death respawns to give me full bar (cause in theory, I'm a fresh troop being sent to the front lines, right?), then I could have the option.

 

...or, are you basically telling us to live with it cause it ain't getting fixed ?

[gaoesa]

Resetting charge bar has a buggy nature. Why should class work get fresh start after death. Stamina bar is of course different, but class work is not individual. If there are several cvars to nerf specific effects of this bug, there most likely are even more that are not even addressed. Furthermore, I don't like the idea to do lots of little settings to fix symptomps if one can fix it in the source. The rifle grenade is not a primary weapon and it consumes the engineer charge instead of overheating. Panzerfaust is primary weapon, but should it be possible to blast away without any penalties just because it is a primary weapon.

 

It's not a bug and therefore there is no fix. But this is a feature request and it is not closed. However, doing change that has so much effects to gameplay individual players don't necessarily even notice is not a small thing to do. Foremost, it effects how random players find the games when they play silEnT mod. Not the short term individual frustration when it happens but the game overall.