Vision Cones [Feedback]

[Daemon]

well, its a good concept, but IMO it really doesn't work well with a game like SS13, there are alot of top down perspective games that use vision cones (((darkwood))) - but in SS13 it just doesn't feel fitting at all and difficult to work with.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Daemon

[BoryaTheSlayer]

7 hours ago, Daemon said:

well, its a good concept, but IMO it really doesn't work well with a game like SS13, there are alot of top down perspective games that use vision cones (((darkwood))) - but in SS13 it just doesn't feel fitting at all and difficult to work with.

Could you elaborate why you think it's not fitting and difficult to work with?

[Peppermint]

Was on the fence for a bit, but personally not a fan at the moment.

 

Combat with the cones is utter CBT for both sides. It turns everyone into a ninja where they blink in and out of invisibility. It also makes chairRP harder as you can't see who's present to even talk to and the like. 

[Daemon]

1 hour ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

Could you elaborate why you think it's not fitting and difficult to work with?

I guess I was just not used to the new vision cones, when I came around to it - it was okay, it took some time to get used to, but in the end I still didn't like it, but that's just personal preference though. 

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Combat with the cones is utter CBT for both sides. It turns everyone into a ninja where they blink in and out of invisibility. It also makes chairRP harder as you can't see who's present to even talk to and the like. 

and also this, a lot of people explained already and I just wanted to bump up and agree with what they said in a way. 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Daemon

[BoryaTheSlayer]

That's fair. I like the idea of the vision cone though I also agree that the current implementation is rather lacking, but reading through the thread and seeing how miyazaki plans to improve it I'm very positive about the project.

[Myazaki]

Okay, with recent feedback I'm considering doing the following:

- Add a 'Creep' movement intent, you will move slower in creep intent.

- Add a timer to people disappearing when they move into your no-vision-arc. Probably looking something like this.

- Make people disappear slower when they go behind, if they are in walk/run intent than creep intent.

 

Idea is to make the vision cone less of an annoyance during "normal bar RP" or whatever. You won't lose track of people unless they are being actively stealthy, OR you are turned away from them for a long period of time (idk how long "long" is right now, we'll play with the numbers)

Whether this is possible / how long it will take to do is another matter. It isn't trivial. I'll give it a go this evening.

 

Thanks all for your feedback! @Lemei @Daemon @BoryaTheSlayer and others

[Itanimulli]

On 07/08/2020 at 16:55, Scheveningen said:

It being a problem long before today doesn't make it not a problem.

It is a problem. Ninjas who focus more on the roleplay than the action aspect are incredibly rare, because every aspect of the ninja kit promotes screwing with and fighting people.

"But ninjas have this limitation too" is not necessarily true, due to the strength of Ctrl Arrow Keys and having the ability to turn thermal goggles on to see people through walls.

What I mentioned is not bannable. It does not violate the rules to do that, otherwise ninjas would not have true invisibility. Maybe your take is the bad one.

Show me a ninja who wouldn't be punished for a blatant gank.

[Itanimulli]

48 minutes ago, Myazaki said:

Okay, with recent feedback I'm considering doing the following:

- Add a 'Creep' movement intent, you will move slower in creep intent.

- Add a timer to people disappearing when they move into your no-vision-arc. Probably looking something like this.

- Make people disappear slower when they go behind, if they are in walk/run intent than creep intent.

 

Idea is to make the vision cone less of an annoyance during "normal bar RP" or whatever. You won't lose track of people unless they are being actively stealthy, OR you are turned away from them for a long period of time (idk how long "long" is right now, we'll play with the numbers)

Whether this is possible / how long it will take to do is another matter. It isn't trivial. I'll give it a go this evening.

 

Thanks all for your feedback! @Lemei @Daemon @BoryaTheSlayer and others

I like this. I already like the vision cone, but this has something I feel was missing. In interbay style servers methinks there is like a little notification for players who are running behind them, like a sound ripple.

 

Also, how would this work for borgs? Do they have to have a vision cone? Etc etc.

 

I will also add that these kind of systems tend to work better w/ a less simplistic combat system, but, that's for another time completely. 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Itanimulli
Extra stuff.

[Zundy]

2 hours ago, Myazaki said:

- Make people disappear slower when they go behind, if they are in walk/run intent than creep intent.

Won't that make it next to impossible to sneak away from someone if you've distracted them? If you don't creep they'll see you move away and if you do creep they'll see you vanish and immediately whip around.

Imo if you want to chair RP with people don't turn away from them whilst having a conversation? It's actually a rude thing to do and you can't see them anymore so can't see what they're doing. That's why we don't turn away from people mid convo to dick around and why we crowd into a circle when talking, and not just spread ourselves out about a room, talking to the wall.

[Myazaki]

8 minutes ago, Zundy said:

Won't that make it next to impossible to sneak away from someone if you've distracted them? If you don't creep they'll see you move away and if you do creep they'll see you vanish and immediately whip around.

If you've distracted them and never appeared in their vision then it won't matter what movement mode you're in, because you're already invisible. Does that make sense? 

If you mean a scenario like.. you're in an office with someone, you want to steal their favourite pen, so you wait for them to turn their back -- You could turn on creep intent when they turn around, become invisible faster, then steal their pen. (Although it does occur to me that this is getting complicated, and might need an indicator that a guy can't see you... mmmmm)

If they do notice you, and you have to start running to escape, then it will be harder for you to become invisible again by running behind them.

 

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Imo if you want to chair RP with people don't turn away from them whilst having a conversation? It's actually a rude thing to do 

Personally I agree with this 100%, yeah. 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Myazaki

[Myazaki]

1 hour ago, Itanimulli said:

Also, how would this work for borgs? Do they have to have a vision cone? Etc etc.

For the moment I'll probably keep borgs having a vision cone. It would be a simple thing to change, or to add an upgrade that gives them 360 vision.

[Zundy]

5 minutes ago, Myazaki said:

If you've distracted them and never appeared in their vision then it won't matter what movement mode you're in, because you're already invisible. Does that make sense? 

If they do notice you, and you have to start running to escape, then it will be harder for you to become invisible again by running behind them.

For example: A sec officer has spotted me doing something I shouldn't. They look at me and question me. Suddenly my buddy comes over from their behind and attracts their attention. They look away. I creep off. The sec officer immediately turns back as they can see me either slinking off on their screen due to slow fade, or see that I've vanished thus begun creeping. Imo they should just not be able to see me at all if they look away. The same for combat. You've got to keep the enemy in your sights. If they get you all turned around and run away then kudos to them. Keep facing your opponent. Click until horizontal no longer applies, you have to keep your gaze on them.

 

[Myazaki]

27 minutes ago, Zundy said:

<snip>

 

Yeah, I guess it'd be a bit wonky like you described. Hmmm.

 

[Chada1]

One way of fixing this might be to make the fade out actually just an effect and not apply to the mob, so when you turn around, the fade out stays exactly where the person was before, instead of updating for where they go.

[Susan]

Yeah, but like... this refers back to my earlier point about people having a 'presence'. You detect other people around you with all 5 senses. Just because my back turns doesn't mean you're suddenly invisible. You make noise. You breathe. You smell. You have a presence. It's really gamey to turn away and have people vanish from reality. I have a neck. I can turn my head independent of my body...

[StationCrab]

1 hour ago, Susan said:

Yeah, but like... this refers back to my earlier point about people having a 'presence'. You detect other people around you with all 5 senses. Just because my back turns doesn't mean you're suddenly invisible. You make noise. You breathe. You smell. You have a presence. It's really gamey to turn away and have people vanish from reality. I have a neck. I can turn my head independent of my body...

I have to agree with Susan here. 

Also I am curious how this would work for borgs? Would they be able to sense people approaching behind them with sensors enabled? How would it work with the various synthetics.

[Myazaki]

3 hours ago, Susan said:

 I have a neck. I can turn my head independent of my body...

And that's why your field of vision is 270 degrees, I don't think you can look directly behind you constantly or comfortably without turning around.

1 hour ago, StationCrab said:

Also I am curious how this would work for borgs? Would they be able to sense people approaching behind them with sensors enabled? How would it work with the various synthetics.

'Borgs currently have the same FOV as humans. Might change that later, or add an upgrade for robotics to do to them that gives them 360 vision.

[StationCrab]

48 minutes ago, Myazaki said:

'Borgs currently have the same FOV as humans. Might change that later, or add an upgrade for robotics to do to them that gives them 360 vision.

I really like the idea of it being a robotics upgrade!

[Cnaym]

Really really really enjoy your quality of work on this one without enjoying the result.

The amount of small  stuff we found, like the rattling of an 8Ball being an audible emote, only popping up when not within the cone simply amazed me and many others.

That being said I don't like the cones, sounds stupid, but for me it's not working out with active characters that spin and dance through the hallway, comes down to personal preference so can be ignored.

What I saw from a mechanical side is that they are very restrictive in open areas like hallways and almost none existant in maint tunnels. Now you may not see if someone is behind you, but you still see a locker or door opening, or something dragged. People who want to meta will do so anyway, so I think we should also ignore those.

Server performance did not drop for me, but I may be sitting less than 100 miles away from it so I don't count. For me it even worked fine with the goonchat.

Feedback part done and useless, let's head to the suggestion:

NBT with smaller hallways + smaller cones. The idea being that you can not see like a line behind your character, if that makes sense, so tunnels can be spoopy and plentiful, while the bar or diner still feel somewhat full. Maybe just my idea, but the map itself often makes for more than the perspective.

Some stuff for interested mappers, great environments make or break some games:

Spoiler

 

Foxhole  (3rd person, view so limited it becomes a mechanic to use corners with rifles, so you can view further due to 16/9 screens lol) which works with a ton of cover, hard and soft, coupled with a high lethality, to promote tactical and slow approaches.

The other one oddly enough for me being Mirrors Edge, where you "only" get the first person camera, but the game trains you early on to have situational awarnes instead of tunnel vision if you want to survive and explore it   hard to explain, but if you played the first one almost a decade ago, redownload it and laugh at how you still know 90% of the maps by memory. The trick used there is easy to figure out paterns, coupled with a simplistic art style, you will probably know how to tackle your objectives without having to stare at them for a while, but instead just run up and tackle it.

Control is a great example for map design that makes you stop and wonder on it's own, something like that would do a ton more for expedition than view cones in dark hallways. They use classical map changing, that is highly visible and will make a semi normal office area into a hellhole and back again without hiding any of the process, it fails as a horror game, but damn is it nice to be able to "see" things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usSfgHGEGxQ -> Discussion about mapping for shooters and how it influenced school designs, fascinating watch, may want to make sure you are in a good mood, it touches some dark topics.

 

Thank you Myazaki for providing such amazing work, although I do not like it, I still appreciate great coding  I wish I could help more with suggestions, but as you may have noticed by now, I am just not a fan of small details, that we may not even be bothered by it at all ^_^

[Wigglesworth Jones]

I'm not a fan of vision cones as a whole, as they seem fairly janky to me, for lack of a better word. Even if you're able to turn off the black cone, I'd still probably prefer the standard 360 degree vision as a whole. I don't personally believe that the concept works with SS13 as a whole.

[Hepatica]

Honestly I just don't like it. Our server isn't made with it in mind, it makes combat horrid, as well as all the other reasons others have stated. It's just not worth having.

[Snakebittenn]

To be fair, we'll never be able to make our server with vision cones in mind if we don't get our foot in the door.

[Zelmana]

I don't like it. I feel as though as with many things, we're trying to solve what should be minimum roleplay expectations with a mechanical fix.

Realistically know someone is behind you because they ran full sprint in jackboots and you should be able to hear that in character? The player should be trusted with this decision.

Realistically cannot realize that someone is just walking by you 6-7 blocks away, picking up a knife to eventually stab you? The player should be trusted with this decision.

Those are just two reasons besides it being unaesthetically pleasing to me, but I feel erring on the side of player responsibility vs. taking away this responsibility to the detriment of roleplay scenarios. That's not saying that yes it would be neat and add some flare to stealth, but I feel as though those possible situations are more rare whereas the issues where the vision cones cause issues like the two above are much more frequent.

[Myazaki]

38 minutes ago, Zelmana said:

I feel as though those possible situations are more rare whereas the issues where the vision cones cause issues like the two above are much more frequent.

I feel like they'll be less rare if people can be assured that their stealth is mechanically enforced, rather than relying on whether a player will make a sensible decision about what their character can and cannot see. Which I do not trust, due to personal experiences. 

If I am right, and this is something that needs to be mechanically enforced -- Consider how useful it is, as an antagonist's round could be completely ruined by one player's decision (or non-decision) to behave appropriately based on what their character can or cannot see.

 

---

If anyone has stories of rounds as antagonists with vision cones on they'd like to share, that'd be neat. There was a heist round earlier today where the feature did well for the raiders.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Myazaki

[DrPockets]

While I think it would be cool in theory to make the game more realistic and allow for more stealth-based gameplay, I found playing with vision cones to just be fundamentally not fun to play with. SS13 as a 2-D top-down primarily visual game just doesn't lend itself to vision cones in my opinion. In real life while I obviously can't see directly behind me, it's much easier for me to know what's there. End of the day, this is a game. It's fine for it to not be as realistic as possible and allowing people to see in 360 degrees. I'd rather have that than what I feel is a clunky vision system. 

I'm not really sure how to best go about improving stealth in the game, but I would prefer buffs to existing sneaking capabilities within the normal system than adding vision cones. I was part of an antag round with cones a few days ago and it only detracted from my experience. Especially as my involvement in the round was mostly talking, it was made much more difficult to keep track of things by the fact that I could only see half the people talking at a time (I was situated between two groups). Not a whole lot of sneaking around there, so definitely not the best way to judge vision cones in a stealth situation. But it's still relevant because a majority of situations with or without vision cones enabled will not be antags sneaking around. I can see fringe benefits to adding cones, but not enough where it's worth worsening the player experience in every other facet of the game. 

As for the stuff above about trusting players with what they should and should not be able to detect, you can't 100% trust people to act realistically. While it's good to have gameplay mechanics that force realism so people don't have to pretend they didn't see/hear/know something, it's a RP server so there has to be a base level of trust regarding powergaming.