Goodbye to UsAaR33

UsAaR33 · Post by **UsAaR33** » 03-02-2005 07:29

Orbitul wrote: Well sorry to see you go... seems you're one of the few that have been on the team since the beginning.

Your last post brought up a question though... The pass code is definitely one of the best things about the game but in one of the last few versions it got tweaked in a weird way. The tweak i'm talking about was supposed to avoid the 3rd jump volley whores but what it also did is make it so a certain % of passes just miss the person. It happens when someone is jumping and is passed to and instead of the ball meeting them in the air it just dribbles out along the ground and most of the time will just go completely under the intended receiver.

This has been brought up before and davidm had made some vague comment about it but nothing has been mentioned in a long time and i'm starting to think now that it will never be fixed, especially with you leaving.

This 'feature' in my mind is a bug... the pass code should not allow a ball to completely miss the intended receiver, assuming the receiver stayed on his path.

So UsAaR33, even though it's probably too late, do you know anything about it? Did you do the tweaks to the code and did you know about the unintended result it caused?

I am not aware of it ever completely missing the player. What map is this in?

But one thing that should be noted is that if the player jumps again (e.g. double, triple, etc.) after the ball is passed, it is NOT guarenteed to reach him.

CorDawg- · Post by **CorDawg-** » 03-02-2005 08:07

i think the completely missing the person is actually he means, when someone is boosted, and passed to at the same time the ball will fly into nothingness

Messy · Post by **Messy** » 03-02-2005 14:41

Nah

sometimes when people want to do the 'pass on third jump'-trick (dubbed by some as 'the Catalyst'), it just dribbled under them, even though it was locked

You will even see the 'Catch the ball!'-message.

My guess is that this happens because, in Deathball..you don't have to perfectly time your jumps to do them while you're moving up, but you can jump up while falling down again.

So if someone falls down just before doing another jump, and the pass is given at this very small moment where the player is falling down before doing his 2nd or 3rd jump, due to the increased sensitivity of the pass-code relating to Z-axis movement, it will go down so much that it turns into a digger: a ball that 'rolls' at floor level and stops.

I guess this will be more evident with the karma ball .o/

Strangely enough, I haven't seen it happening much anymore, even though nothing of the code has been changed (same release).
But that might be because the move's popularity has hugely gone down :>

Orbitul · Post by **Orbitul** » 03-02-2005 21:01

yah sry i didn't explain it well.. messy is right on, cor is not.

And yah i don't see it as much anymore as i used to but i think it's because ppl usually primary fire pass it into the pbox a lot more now. That was probably the intention of davidm so his plan worked.

BUT it still is a problem that can fuck up a good scoring chance in a close game. For example, imagine i just receive the ball and i notice on my radar someone streaking toward the goal, i quickly turn and pass it to him not noticing if he is jumping or not. Well turns out he was jumping and my pass just goes completely under him even tho it was locked on. This is different than if the guy was on the ground and then jumped right after i hit pass. This is a situation where a guy is already jumping and the ball creates a very funny lock on and just dribbles on the ground under him. It never used to do this.. it would generally meet him in the air no matter what part of the jump he was on... assuming he timed his jumps correctly.

The reason i think this is a bug is because you notice it's just OFF when it passes.. soemthing is very odd about the lock-on.

I guess it's not an urgent fix but i think the annoying part is that when you have a nice quick play worked out that totally gets screwed by this weird pass. It doesnt happen all the much but like i said in a close game it can make a difference and it's not really something we can control.

Wibble · Post by **Wibble** » 04-02-2005 09:38

I've seen what Cor is describing too. The occasional pass will shoot off at a million miles an hour, usually in a steep vertical direction

UsAaR33 · Post by **UsAaR33** » 04-02-2005 11:13

Ah yes, but here is the problem.

We have 2 choices: we can assume either that the player will jump again or will not.

Currently, we assume that he will not jump again after say the 2nd jump. Therefore, if he makes a 3rd jump, the pass will likely miss him.

But if we started assuming the 3rd jump, we have more problems. We 1) don't know when exactly the player makes the jump and 2) don't even know if the player will jump again.
Thus, I make the former assumption in code.

I should also note that the ball "should" actually hit the ground directly underneath the player (well, slightly adjusted by the player's x and y axis movement) If it isn't (that is it hits the ground way beforehand), that is likely a bug (or an out-of-range issue for the passing).

Orbitul · Post by **Orbitul** » 04-02-2005 20:25

Well it seems like it hits the floor early but maybe it's actually right under the player when it hits. Will look for this next time i see it.

I can understand your problems but somehow it used to work better. I think you can safely assume that if someone is on his 2nd or even 3rd jump they are going to jump again the majority of times. When they will jump exactly is a problem but like i said it used to predict it pretty well.

Well would really be a nice fix but i suppose not critical

Messy · Post by **Messy** » 04-02-2005 20:41

It would seem hard to make a proper algorithm for that imo ¬_¬

UsAaR33 · Post by **UsAaR33** » 10-02-2005 06:42

Orbitul wrote: Well it seems like it hits the floor early but maybe it's actually right under the player when it hits. Will look for this next time i see it.

I can understand your problems but somehow it used to work better. I think you can safely assume that if someone is on his 2nd or even 3rd jump they are going to jump again the majority of times. When they will jump exactly is a problem but like i said it used to predict it pretty well.

Well would really be a nice fix but i suppose not critical

The algorithm only worked before by luck - it simply ignored their Z velocity and acceleration entirely. But before that noob volley thing was also possible.

And it really is impossible to predict exactly when the player will jump again. I suppose the mean could be taken so the ball will reach him a majority of times - but imo, that would not be the most reliable algorithm... (and could be quite confusing initially)

Post by **DavidM** » 10-02-2005 12:43

usaar, that noob volley thing got worse with your last change. it took 3 jumps to perform it, now it takes only 2 x_X

Sixty · Post by **Sixty** » 10-02-2005 13:20

That's ehh....a subtle way to bring it.

Orbitul · Post by **Orbitul** » 10-02-2005 20:03

all i know is the pass code SEEMED to work better before. Maybe im just focusing on these damn passes that go under players too much but i really think it seemed to work better before.

Post by **The_One** » 10-02-2005 20:10

We need to bring sediment back to give it a real test.

Twigstir · Post by **Twigstir** » 11-02-2005 02:18

DavidM wrote: usaar, that noob volley thing got worse with your last change. it took 3 jumps to perform it, now it takes only 2 x_X

The noob volley thing never changed. The only thing that changed was passing. The effort to get rid of noob volley thing only resulted in worm burning passing at times.

The "3rd" jump thing was only a myth. The NA had gone through the "3rd jump" phase and been long done with it by the time I started reading about it on these forums. The 3rd jump thing was more about unskilled players than anything else. Some players thought this was the best time to pass but in reality it was only a comfort zone. Player skill levels required that they know when to expect the pass. As time passed and skills improved, players were ready to volley off any pass.

The noob volley thing could always be done off any jump and it still can.

The introduction of the worm burning passing has had an effect. Passing to jumping players now has a luck factor to it. Players are now learning not to jump to avoid the unlucky worm burner that wastes a good scoring opportunity. Deathball has less z action and some buggy passing.

Anyway you cut it, those worm burning passes scream out "bug".

Sixty · Post by **Sixty** » 11-02-2005 15:13

In EU it was mostly whored (sup strafe?

) in 2v2 and 3v3, and I can tell you it was really annoying. I could understand why they tried to get rid of it, but unfortunately it didn't work out. Life's a bitch.