openfng - opinions pro/contra adding thunderbird/when to trigger it

[fstd]

i dislike the randomness, and generally that feature is likely to have come up just because it is trivially easy to cause a ninja attack, since frozen tees are ninjas to begin with. however, if the thunderbird in fng was more than just a loookz-i-codez-teh-epicshit feature, i.e. if it had a real purpose, then please someone explain in here. we might then discuss it in order to find a more decent solution for whatever problem thunderbird was meant to solve

[DanteKG]

NO! Add the thunderbird!!!! I don't remember correctly but i think it was used for melting your teammates and/or killing nearby enemies...

[fstd]

yes that would be its effect, but what is the rationale behind it? what is its purpose, other than just being something which looks rather cool and arbitrarily affects the game? need reasons

[perogiue]

Maybe thunderbird if other team has a 10-20 point streak

[fstd]

mh, you're getting me wrong, i guess. by 'reasons' i do not mean situations which could cause the thunderbird to come up. what i mean is, something which justifies the existance of a weird and random feature like that thunderbird ninja attack. "the thunderbird makes sense because it ........." <-- what could stand there, other than "looks cool"?

[perogiue]

true. I only read the first post about it being random.

It also encouraged noob spams. So i guess its nice having it gone.

[fstd]

what about adding some special which happens when a team is entirely frozen (whatever special that then may be, even if its only extra score)

[ghost]

PRO. Thunderbird is best when confrontation about the shrine goes wild, and one side tries to keep the shrine occupied. Thunderbird perturbs such confrontations, giving the opposing team chance to switch sides.

[fstd]

hmm. so it actually did have a purpose. i wonder why it then triggered on a random basis (from what i remember i have read an introductionary post about fng where it said roughly "for every sacrification there is a little chance that the victim becomes a thunderbird") i am very reluctant to add randomness to the game so maybe we should think about conditions on which a thunderbird should become triggered, in a way fitting its purpose. any suggestions w/o randomness?

[ghost]

It must be random, it's sole purpose is to randomly perturb the confrontations against shrines, but not too often. If you are quite familiar with Linux, you may know SFQ tc scheduler does almost the same thing :) to balance flows.

[fstd]

i still do not see the point for randomness. i mean, IF its purpose is to clear out the shrine on situations when one team clearly is dominating it, then we actually have a _non_random condition we can check for. (and, if being random, it will also happen when it is not required and then only annoy ppl).

heh, and yeah we could also reinforce the team balancing algorithm to always aim for a game ending exactly in a draw, but is this really what a game is supposed to do? should the game itself stay in charge of that gameplay stays balanced? i don't think so, it would be like in CTF randomly taking away the flag or in TDM introducing random mass suicides one team is a lot stronger :S

[ghost]

Hmmm... no. It's purpose is to prevent dominating, but it allows dominating for random time periods. So one may know he may try to be dominating, but one does not know how much he can keep up.

Also, it prevents "laser camping", where one hooks to some warm place and keeps camping/shooting there.

An option must be nice here as well. Personally, I liked old style perturbs, because it forced player mass to move, and not to stay on the shrine sides.

[starman-teeworlds-cz]

maybe go thunderbird when one team sacrifices five (six, seven, ten, ...) times in a row at one shrine ...?

[perogiue]

fisted already disagreed with that idea

[fstd]

"fisted already disagreed with that idea" no, i didn't. (where?) (this doesn't mean i agree, i am just not sure about this yet)

[perogiue]

me- Maybe thunderbird if other team has a 10-20 point streak

you - mh, you're getting me wrong, i guess. by 'reasons' i do not mean situations which could cause the thunderbird to come up. what i mean is, something which justifies the existance of a weird and random feature like that thunderbird ninja attack. "the thunderbird makes sense because it ........." <-- what could stand there, other than "looks cool"?

then you changed your mind midway and then..

you later - i still do not see the point for randomness. i mean, IF its purpose is to clear out the shrine on situations when one team clearly is dominating it, then we actually have a _non_random condition we can check for. (and, if being random, it will also happen when it is not required and then only annoy ppl).

heh, and yeah we could also reinforce the team balancing algorithm to always aim for a game ending exactly in a draw, but is this really what a game is supposed to do? should the game itself stay in charge of that gameplay stays balanced? i don't think so, it would be like in CTF randomly taking away the flag or in TDM introducing random mass suicides one team is a lot stronger :S

[fstd]

at first this issue was about getting clear upon why the thunderbird existed in the first place. i did not disagree with your suggestion there, it was rather just off the actual topic. now that this has been found out, and the discussion has shifted towards thinking about conditions when to trigger the thunderbird or a thunderbirdlike feature, the formerly off topic suggestion is clearly on topic, and i have neither expressed agree- nor disagreement towards it

not sure where/how i changed my mind.

[ghost]

heh, and yeah we could also reinforce the team balancing algorithm to always aim for a game ending exactly in a draw, but is this really what a game is supposed to do?

This will be, if thunderbird mode won't be random. It may not and should not be utilized on purpose, that's why it's random. It can't be made "conditional".

it would be like in CTF randomly taking away the flag or in TDM introducing random mass suicides

No. FNG has one thing to consider: positional balance. With (almost) equal teams, the team that keeps the shrine area first gets severe positional advantage, shooting at the running opposing team from invisible range. The shrine then may be kept for long time enough to win, and this is quite annoying in the new FNG gamestyle. If the opposing team gets chance to switch sides, then the first team gets the situation, but with equal teams, it's hard to do.

Proof? See old-style (unpublished) fng servers and the (great) OpenFNG ones. In old-style fng players randomly melee over the map (preferably in the shrine location, but still not always). In openfng variant, all fights go in the shrine(s) vicinity (almost on the same "visible screen"), because this does not require long and dangerous carrying frozen bodies to the shrine, and there is nothing to prevent it.

Also, about the thunderbird mode: it kills alive (not frozen!) foe players only in slightly more-than-half-of-a-visible-screen-size distance from the tee affected. It does not melt frozen mates, they stay frozen for the time they must.

[fstd]

well, makes sense, although i do not know whether the situation you describe is really that much of a common problem, especially now that the regular shrine gives quite less score than teamshrines (which was introduced not only in an attempt to shift the game a bit away from the middle)

however, will have an eye on it for the next days, thanks for the detailed post.

[ghost]

Yes, teamshrines may do some work here, but they do not solve the problem of staying near shrines kept :) So they don't affect power perturbing issue, they only shift it a bit.

// Don't take this too seriously: personally, I don't like teamshrines (I do like the idea as itself, but now they seem to be almost unusable in the gameplay, as it goes, most prefer avoiding opponent's shrines, so even more concentrating at the main shrine). Some cool maps without main shrines will surely change this in the future.

[perogiue]

agree with alexat

right now the team shrines serve no strategic purpose (except to reinforce bases )and until they do, are basically useless.

I can picture fng being a tug of war between which shrine is more important but it is hard to define and ideas may be complete garbage/ not suitable for good gameplay.

[Dizern]

I am much like you in the logic department, but talking with a lot of old fng'ers, they feel the fun has been sucked out of the game in openFNG. It's true something illogical for reasons unknown might seem "fun," and now we might sound like Spock from Star Trek. They seemed to love the clicking countdown, the pop-up unfreeze, the random thunderbirds, the autohammer, the simplified point system. I like both mods and really appreciate any port, but just trying to explain some fng'ers perspectives.

I disagree with Franchan about the colored shrines, I think they add something. I've had nice comebacks by focusing on them when behind. Although noobs in general simply ignore them, they have potential to add another dynamic to the strategy.

Again, I tend to be logical also. I disliked any random element that might hinder skill. I can see a little logic behind the thunderbird, some of which has been pointed out. I noticed a lot of 0.5 maps actually have camping spots deep in the shrine, and this would clear them out, as well as freeing any stranglehold on the shrine locations by one team. Plus, there's just something satisfying about your defeated tee going all Rambo suddenly, just like booting a frozen tee off a cliff may not give team points, but sure feels good. The way I see these "illogical," but perhaps fun, ideas is, they might be nice to have as an option (but not default).

About needing new maps, this is a big part of the flow of gameplay. Being new to Teeworlds, I cut my teeth on openFNG and later tried the original. One thing that immediately jumped out at me was how expansive and creative the 0.5 maps were as opposed to the new ones, where strategy tended to devolve in a tiny cramped map into mobs of mass laser spamming, instead of highly maneuverable and spacious terrain, where one could swing in the breezes, so to speak, and the whole feel was very different. Thus I and a friend started creating new maps for openFNG, which bring back some of that kind of gameplay hopefully. (But don't get me wrong I've played the open maps a ton and had a ton of fun).

Anyway, this is probably way to much analysis for a simple mod. :)

[fstd]

i'm fully with you in (most of what you said but especially in) that the current maps suck. i'm not talented in mapping in any way. kind of forgot some time ago someone had posted a few maps here, guess this is my keyword to finally try them ;) looking forward to seeing your maps too, ofc

cannot write a similarly long response right now as i'm kind of busy, sorry thanks for the feedback tho

[theanomaly18]

First off, I'm sorry if I repeat anything anyone says. I started reading the comments and just saw too many so I skipped down to write my response.

Thunderbird was a nice feature in the old fng mod. It was pretty random, so its purpose isn't very clear. The general idea behind thunderbird was, when it happened, anybody from the other team that was around when it happened would die and have to respawn. What I began noticing was that when a person was on a streak (freezing other tees) and finally there were frozen and sacrificed, that was when thunderbird happened. If you would like, I can talk to the original modder (MVXA) about his thunderbird mode implementation and why it happens.

My opinion is there should be some implementation in the openfng mod. The 'why' will it happen can be settled through general discussion, but I feel the basis of doing thunderbird is based on a streak of freezing tees.

Also, if you would like some help implementing this or anything else in the mod, I am willing to help. I LOVE FNG, I'm very glad it was reborn for the newer versions of teeworlds. Thank you so much fisted.

[fstd]

My opinion is there should be some implementation in the openfng mod. The 'why' will it happen can be settled through general discussion

Yeah, that's right. I'm probably going to implement the mechanism for thunderbird, (in part also to prepare for #44). Whether or not and on whom it is triggered is a separate matter.