Gutting Targeted Mode

[Fox McCloud]

 

Right, since this was marked as "controversial", I'm just going to throw up a poll here on it: https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/1514

 

In essence, targeting mode allow you to click a button on your HUD then for you to click on a person to "target" them. This puts an overlay on them and turns your gun firing into an aimbot from that point forward; if the target moves then the gun will automatically fire at them based upon pre-set calculations.

 

 

In any event, this feature has showed quite large support for removal--would like to gather more data on it in a more generalized poll here.

 

 

My Two Cents

 

Kill the feature. It's a crutch for not being able to aim and lessens what little skill there is in SS13. An player should be rewarded for being able to properly lead the target place their cursor and estimate their trajectory--not because they managed to get a single click in on their target ONCE. Player agency is very important in any game and SS13 is no exception; removing player agency and placing it on the game engine to handle for you, completely, is akin to cehating or the player relying on a crutch---in essence "easy mode". Someone can have the absolute worst reaction time in the world or be completely unattentive to what the person in question, being arrested, is doing and still get a shot off purely because they managed to get a single click on you.

 

It takes up extra HUD space--HUD space comes at a premium; the more of it you have, the more you can see of your game; this icon shows up whether you're carrying a gun or not and takes up space whether you use it or not.

 

I strongly question the so called RP benefits that it has, as well. While it's a great attention getter-it's not going to encourage nor discourage RP; those who just want to run are going to run anyway (only they're at more of a disadvantage because of of the aimbot); those who want to play the hostage/hands up/let's talk about this type will do so anyway. In a heavy RP environment where the rules dictate that you must behave a certain way when a gun is aimed at you? Yes, I can see that working, but Paradise is absolutely not heavy RP.

 

[necaladun]

 

As for the dissent:

 

Aim mode is intended to simulate when your character levels and aims it at someone. Without it, there is no way to do so. This means your only option is to shoot them.

 

Being able to aim and click will on 32*32 sprites is not what the game is about, nor what it should be about. The combat in SS13 is pretty damn terrible. The skill involved in leading based on your lag is not fair across the player base.

 

If you have clicked on them to aim, you could have shot them. I don't see how having the engine handle the leading for you is cheating at all when it is available to everyone. It's not at all akin to cheating. It's not "easy mode" when it's available to everyone. Reaction time is not just an OOC skill, but is also highly dependent on lag.

 

Extra HUD space I agree with - it takes up way too much room for how little it is used, and could either be made much smaller, or replaced by a verb that could be quickly typed (aim-mode, or just type aim then hit space to toggle).

 

The "so called RP benefits" are that you can hold someone at gunpoint rather than just shooting them without a word. It allows for mexican stand offs, etc. If it is removed, the people who want to do a hostage situation/hands up/etc will lose out to the people who run away, because you cannot talk and shoot at the same time, unlike reality. Those who wish to communicate and roleplay will be punished and beaten by those who prefer to wordlessly robust.

 

I don't think it's "heavy RP" at all to say that having a gun levelled at you would change the way you act. It'd be better this is established via mechanics rather than OOC to avoid a super-heavy environment that the admins have to enforce. But I'm all for having the mechanics of having a gun levelled at you match up to the reality of how that works.

 

If nerfing it is needed, there are plenty of ways to do this without straight out removing it. A few suggestions:

* Making it only fire once before ending aim mode

* Adding a delay between movement and fire

* Making it take a second or so before it engages properly

* Making it fire in one of the 9 squares the player is in/around.

 

[Fox McCloud]

As for the dissent:

 

Aim mode is intended to simulate when your character levels and aims it at someone. Without it, there is no way to do so. This means your only option is to shoot them.

 

Being able to aim and click will on 32*32 sprites is not what the game is about, nor what it should be about. The combat in SS13 is pretty damn terrible. The skill involved in leading based on your lag is not fair across the player base.

 

It's fair when your lag is consistent, day in and day out--lag compensation is not a "thing" in SS13, nor do this mode do so; it's just a hair-twitch aimbot that triggers whenever you want it to. It's akin to suggesting that aimbots be allowed on "X" game server because some portion of the community is more distant than others.

 

 

There's considerable difference between clicking *on* a sprite once (and having all your shots aimbotted after that) and clicking near a sprite and tracking them manually. It is easy mode, no matter how you slice it; just because it's available to everyone doesn't make it not unfair/cheating. You're bypassing as system that normally requires you make calculations yourself and offloading it onto the server processor to do the interaction for you. It would be the same as having an "auto-punch" feature that, when toggled on, would automatically harm intent with whatever you had in your hand to anyone nearby---all in the name of making things "fair" for high lag individuals and it wouldn't be cheating, because everyone could do it, of course.

 

If any game had a feture where aim is pre-calculated for you, even if available to all players, it still wouldn't change the fact that you're offloading skill and utilizing an aimbot for shooting.

 

The "so called RP benefits" are that you can hold someone at gunpoint rather than just shooting them without a word. It allows for mexican stand offs, etc. If it is removed, the people who want to do a hostage situation/hands up/etc will lose out to the people who run away, because you cannot talk and shoot at the same time, unlike reality. Those who wish to communicate and roleplay will be punished and beaten by those who prefer to wordlessly robust.

 

You can't force someone to RP. Those who have no interesting in participating in such an action are going to run/charge/do whatever they want to do anyway, while those that do not are already going to shoot first and ask questions later. The only thing this does is give an artificial advantage to those who choose to use the feature.

 

I don't think it's "heavy RP" at all to say that having a gun levelled at you would change the way you act. It'd be better this is established via mechanics rather than OOC to avoid a super-heavy environment that the admins have to enforce. But I'm all for having the mechanics of having a gun levelled at you match up to the reality of how that works.

 

Last I checked pointing a gun at someone didn't change the fact an officer (or what have you) still had to correct for an adjust his aim.

 

If nerfing it is needed, there are plenty of ways to do this without straight out removing it. A few suggestions:

* Making it only fire once before ending aim mode

* Adding a delay between movement and fire

* Making it take a second or so before it engages properly

* Making it fire in one of the 9 squares the player is in/around.

 

and with the exception of the last one, not a single one of these changes the fact that it's literally an aimbot.

[necaladun]

 

It's fair when your lag is consistent, day in and day out--lag compensation is not a "thing" in SS13, nor do this mode do so; it's just a hair-twitch aimbot that triggers whenever you want it to. It's akin to suggesting that aimbots be allowed on "X" game server because some portion of the community is more distant than others.

 

 

That would make for a terrible FPS, I agree. This is not an FPS.

 

There's considerable difference between clicking *on* a sprite once (and having all your shots aimbotted after that) and clicking near a sprite and tracking them manually.

 

With any instant stun weapon, clicking on them once is all that's needed.

 

It is easy mode, no matter how you slice it; just because it's available to everyone doesn't make it not unfair/cheating.

 

 

If it was only available to admins with special commands or people who hacked the game, I'd call using it cheating.

If it was only available to people who made donations, it'd be unfair.

 

 

You're bypassing as system that normally requires you make calculations yourself and offloading it onto the server processor to do the interaction for you. It would be the same as having an "auto-punch" feature that, when toggled on, would automatically harm intent with whatever you had in your hand to anyone nearby---all in the name of making things "fair" for high lag individuals and it wouldn't be cheating, because everyone could do it, of course.

 

If any game had a feture where aim is pre-calculated for you, even if available to all players, it still wouldn't change the fact that you're offloading skill and utilizing an aimbot for shooting.

 

 

The thing here is that the skill and interaction is one made OOC. The player is designating what they would like their character to do in the IC world - in this case, aim at a guy and shoot at him if he moves.

 

It would not be cheating. I don't know where you're getting this definition of cheating from?

 

But as for lag, I will lose to Mel in melee combat 9/10 times, because he can move towards me and hit me before I can have a chance to click on him, because of my lag.

 

Those who have no interesting in participating in such an action are going to run/charge/do whatever they want to do anyway,

 

 

And get shot for there trouble. I don't see the problem with people with no interest in RP getting shot.

 

Last I checked pointing a gun at someone didn't change the fact an officer (or what have you) still had to correct for an adjust his aim.

 

 

Hence my suggestions of adding a miss chance or the like.

 

and with the exception of the last one, not a single one of these changes the fact that it's literally an aimbot.

 

 

I honestly don't see the problem with an aimbot in an RPG. Plenty of MMOs - such as WoW - has your character auto-aim at and fire at the target you've selected.

 

The agency here is in choosing a target to fire at and telling your character to do so. There's even more player interaction needed here because you have to click on the target to aim at them, and you have to use the (terrible) UI to switch off aim mode to begin shooting at them if they don't move.

 

I especially don't see the problem with it firing once the person moves if you've already aimed at them. There is no need to adjust your aim if you've already aimed at them, all you need to do is pull the trigger. Unless you're fighting Neo, of course.

 

Adding a delay would allow people more time to get to cover, and when not fighting against someone with instant stuns, give them more time to run away.

 

Additionally, if the firing delay is high enough, the person manually clicking for each shot against someone using aim mode will win, due to the fact they're firing faster.

 

 

All in all, this seems to be about wanting a more action-clickfest oriented game over one focused on RP.

 

[Spacemanspark]

Can my idea of an overlay come to mind again.

[necaladun]

 

Can my idea of an overlay come to mind again.

 

If it was kept like that I'd say 100% to remove it from the UI

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

The point is that it, through a few ways, gives both sides a bit of what they want.

It's purely RP based, while not being 'Ayyy lmao instawin button'.

While I'm here, I'm also going to throw in that intended purpose and what actually occurs are two different things.

It's not used for RP, as you state that is what it's there for.

At all.

I only ever see it being used to gun down crewmembers with horrible ease.

 

You want RP? The damn overlay has RP only values to it.

None of this aimbot shit that makes me feel like I'm playing with five year olds in Halo.

 

[necaladun]

 

while not being 'Ayyy lmao instawin button'.

 

I'm kinda getting sick of these terms being thrown around - especially when there are numerous examples being given as to why they don't cause the people using them to always win. Throwing memes around like that isn't really at all useful to the discussion.

 

 

As for the overlay - if it had no mechanical effect except the overlay, it'd be a good way to get someones attention, but there'd need to be a different way of using it to avoid having your gun on "aim" mode, because that'd stop you shooting, so would actually put you at a severe disadvantage.

 

[davidchan]

 

My 2 Cents:

 

Aim mode isn't a problem. It's useful to 'get the message' across, show someone you mean business, can and will fire upon them if they don't cooperate with you, be it the clown to stop drawing on the floor or slipping people, or an NT crew to lay on the floor so the big scary man in the blood red hardsuit won't pull the trigger. Aim mode in my opinion hasn't been infallible when it comes to landing shots, as you can always find cover.

 

The problem with Aim mode has always been the force walk/slow down. I've seen this exploited in the past, no where near as much as it's done today, but you could aim a laser tag gun at a borg and force walk them to slow them to a crawl for the remainder of the shift unless someone popped their Positron/MMI out. Not only this, it was entirely possible for mr 'Unknown' to telepathically state his intent for you to walk or be allowed to run without ever saying a word, and thus keeping his disguise even without a voice changer. That, an nearby microphones sent to transmit wouldn't pick up this apparent lack of screaming either.

 

TL;DR, remove the Icon from the HUD if you must, at least while weapons aren't in hand that can be aimed, but the ability to point a weapon at someone definitely has use in Roleplay and standard gameplay. The autofire/autoaim feature can go if the majority of the community wants it to, I don't honestly care. Just please, for the love of god don't let the clown force people to walk at a crawl because he had a toy gun in his hand. Especially not without it saying a damn word.

 

[Rumiluntti]

Ranged instastuns combined with inbuilt aimbot is just unnecessarily idiotproofed shooting. The second that aimbot overlay sticks on your character, you can kiss your ass goodbye.

[Svej]

I would prefer if we just let the overlay stay, but you must manually fire.

[Coldflame]

I'm pretty neutral on this, but I'd just like to add that SS13 doesn't feature 'aim', so I don't really see how you can have an aimbot (not to mention that BYOND doesn't actually require you to click on your intended target's actual location to hit them). As I understand it, if you have aim mode placed on somebody you've already had the opportunity to have shot them?

[Spacemanspark]

 

I'm pretty neutral on this, but I'd just like to add that SS13 doesn't feature 'aim', so I don't really see how you can have an aimbot (not to mention that BYOND doesn't actually require you to click on your intended target's actual location to hit them). As I understand it, if you have aim mode placed on somebody you've already had the opportunity to have shot them?

It works for more than just taser shots.

Laser and ballistic guns too.

 

[Fox McCloud]

 

I have an idea for retaining the overlays for guns that wouldn't be tied to the HUD or anything else. Will post a PR soon.

 

Aimbot will be deader than a doornail though.

 

[veganzombeh]

 

Aim mode is intended to simulate when your character levels and aims it at someone. Without it, there is no way to do so. This means your only option is to shoot them.

 

And your shot is guaranteed to be accurate, regardless of your characters RP ability to shoot a gun. A clown can aim at someone and be guaranteed to make several accurate shots. RPing a character who has no experience with firearms? Better not aim a gun at anyone, because your character is then instantly a firearms expert.

 

Being able to aim and click will on 32*32 sprites is not what the game is about, nor what it should be about. The combat in SS13 is pretty damn terrible. The skill involved in leading based on your lag is not fair across the player base.

 

This is exaggeration. You don't have to click the sprite. As long as you fire in the right direction, the target will be hit. Lag affects all parties, not just the firer. It's unfair to give one side of the firefight this advantage. Should people being aimed at get a button that makes them automatically dodge projectiles as soon as they're fired? No.

 

If you have clicked on them to aim, you could have shot them. I don't see how having the engine handle the leading for you is cheating at all when it is available to everyone. It's not at all akin to cheating. It's not "easy mode" when it's available to everyone. Reaction time is not just an OOC skill, but is also highly dependent on lag.

 

One accurate click should not result in multiple perfectly timed shots. I don't personally consider lag a valid argument, since the person being aimed at could be experiencing just as much lag, and they aren't given features to counteract it.

 

Extra HUD space I agree with - it takes up way too much room for how little it is used, and could either be made much smaller, or replaced by a verb that could be quickly typed (aim-mode, or just type aim then hit space to toggle).

 

Obfuscating a feature behind a verb isn't a great thing to do, IMO, but a smaller button would definitely be preferable.

 

I personally don't see any benefits to having targeted mode, but I don't think it's essential that it's removed.

 

[Allfd]

 

It's not used for RP, as you state that is what it's there for.

 

I have used it for RP, which I know is a single data point. It is a very handy visual aid and does a much better job of getting a point across then typing out a me" or shouting.

 

RPing a character who has no experience with firearms? Better not aim a gun at anyone, because your character is then instantly a firearms expert.

 

Also it would actually shoot them if they moved which is rarely a decision I would have any of my characters make. Where it could come in useful is preventing someone from attacking you when the speech bubble appears while typing. It could be used to give those wanting to try to initiate RP time to do so without the risk that is usually inherent in going that route. I can't say that this is how it is used in practice, but I think it is its intent.

 

Ranged instastuns combined with inbuilt aimbot is just unnecessarily idiotproofed shooting. The second that aimbot overlay sticks on your character, you can kiss your ass goodbye.

 

The server has drifted towards valid hunting, execution, and permabriging. It also takes time to type things. Both of those combined with some of the combat mechanics surrounding some of the ranged weapons puts players in a position where shooting first can guarantee victory, and defeat probably means being taken out of the round. This does not leave a tremendous amount of room for any sort of communication and I honestly have no idea what way removing aiming pushes that equation.

 

Ultimately it could come down to intent. If the person uses aiming views it as a tool to buy time to start speaking as they want to RP I would view it as beneficial. If they need to ensure that no vampires get any green text I would view that as problematic. I also know some players who could see that in reverse depending on what they were looking for. I don't do a good job hiding my affinity for some high RP style features in the code base. However I recognize that Paradise is a different server then the ones that originated some of those features and what works for them may not work for Paradise with its unique player base and play style.

 

[davidchan]

 

I'm curious how many people have actually seen this abused. Since, every time I see someone try to aim, their target runs around a corner or disarm/attacks them down before they can usually get shots off. Maybe when I'm not online we have people making heavy use of this, but I've never had someone use this on me and succeed under circumstances where just clicking near/past me wouldn't work either, especially since aiming delays your shot begin.

 

But, that's just the devils advocate, I don't care if the autoaim feature stays or goes, about the only time I use aim mode is when I'm trying to get a point across and don't really want to shoot my target but am putting it flat on the table that I will if they don't cooperate.

 

[Tinfoiltophat]

As a clown who gets aimed at a lot, it's really easy to just abuse aim mode by doing jerky movements and making them spend a whole clip without hitting you once. That's all.

[Matt-Hawk]

My opinion is that it could be changed a little, but should definitely not be entirely removed. I personally have never seen this be abused, but I know that it is unbalanced. I was thinking possible balances could go along the lines of having it take a few seconds to aim at a target, and you would have to stand still to do this, and possibly have it be so you can only aim at a stationary target while standing still. I personally think being able to aim at a target is a decent idea, but not like how it is currently implemented, I think it should NOT be a viable option in normal combat or chasing someone down.

[Earthdivine]

Doesn't this not even work if the target is moving in the first two seconds of activating? I could have sworn it does, as that was what made it unabusable in the first place, as said person needed to sit there and let you activate it.

[Spacemanspark]

 

Doesn't this not even work if the target is moving in the first two seconds of activating? I could have sworn it does, as that was what made it unabusable in the first place, as said person needed to sit there and let you activate it.

No, it just doesn't fire in those two seconds. You automatically target them, however.

 

[Earthdivine]

 

Doesn't this not even work if the target is moving in the first two seconds of activating? I could have sworn it does, as that was what made it unabusable in the first place, as said person needed to sit there and let you activate it.

No, it just doesn't fire in those two seconds. You automatically target them, however.

Then wouldn't it just be far easier to switch to deactivating within that time frame then? It removes the a usability of easy mode targeting, as if your target is sitting still for 2 seconds to even LET you do this they deserve their fate, while retaining the role play use of it? From what I gather from this whole removal is solely because there's no want for a button that aim bots for you. Giving it the deactivation method means it can't be used for combat situations at all, and rather for hostage or prisoner situations.

 

[Spacemanspark]

 

Doesn't this not even work if the target is moving in the first two seconds of activating? I could have sworn it does, as that was what made it unabusable in the first place, as said person needed to sit there and let you activate it.

No, it just doesn't fire in those two seconds. You automatically target them, however.

Then wouldn't it just be far easier to switch to deactivating within that time frame then? It removes the a usability of easy mode targeting, as if your target is sitting still for 2 seconds to even LET you do this they deserve their fate, while retaining the role play use of it? From what I gather from this whole removal is solely because there's no want for a button that aim bots for you. Giving it the deactivation method means it can't be used for combat situations at all, and rather for hostage or prisoner situations.

Perhaps, but I'd up the time to three seconds.

 

[Earthdivine]

Considering it's use for role play at that point, three second should be enough time for a person to decide if they wish to partake in it, plus with foxes stun rework I don't think there's anything that has that long of a stun time now.

[necaladun]

Having the overlay without firing at all would put the person using it at a severe disadvantage. I think the best route is letting them fire once. The sound of shooting would let then know to stop targetting, and they could click again to reaquire the target.