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djargon
March 30 1988 (36 year old)
  
 Forum index » General Discussion » Groentjuh's Server Forum
RULE DISCUSSION - Shooting over hills
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Gridfon
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Joined: 10 Jun 2012
Posts: 238
 RULE DISCUSSION - Shooting over hills

Case 1. Do you think a summoner should be allowed to shoot human buildings in this situation?



The summoner would be pretty much positioned at/above the hill level that separates it from the buildings, so I believe this should be allowed.

***

If you have any other questions regarding shooting over hills with any weapons, post a screenshot here and we can try to decide whether the particular thing should be allowed.

Here is an old, useful guideline from internal ref forums (this does not have the power of a rule, but it attempts to explain how it should be enforced):
Skuggi wrote:
What qualifies as shooting over hills in rule 2?
This can be very tricky so here are some things to consider:
Firstly, in most cases you can apply the rule only on shooting over 'impassable terrain walls/hills'. That is, shooting over props is allowed. In rare exceptions, props serve the same purpose as 'terrain hills' and in in those cases I wouldn't allow shooting over them.
Secondly, if the projectile goes over a ridge (of a hill), it's not allowed, if it goes over a slope (that may or may not lead up to a ridge), it is allowed.
- While 'when does a slope become a ridge and vice versa' can be unclear it's possible to think of a ridge as something flat enough to stand on, but mostly it's just common sense.
- An exception to that is if the hill is so low that a tower/spire behind it is able to attack back (the arrows reach the attacker) then I'd allow it.


The particularly gray area of rule 2 is whether summoners and ballistas should be allowed to shoot over the top of mountains, when the targeted buildings can be clearly seen above the mountains. I believe this was allowed around year 2009, then refs agreed that it should not be allowed around year 2013, and nowadays we could potentially revisit our opinion about such situations. Note that my example above shows one of the most legit situations of summoners/ballistas shooting over hill, since summoner would be positioned pretty high above the ground level.

PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:18 pm
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djinghis
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Joined: 25 Sep 2014
Posts: 554
The particular reference you use should be fixed via map solutions, as I doubt the intention of the mapper was for that to happen. I draw similarities in my post (first image) which is a more complex case, in that it allows some of the above hill to be penetrable and the higher area not. This blocks off an area disadvantaged to beast yet still allows some realism in the physics of the map.

http://server.groentjuh.eu/viewtopic.php?t=613

To say realism left savage long ago or but savage has magic "which I've heard a lot from lazy developers" is a defeatist attitude, and conveniently avoids this exploit issue in savage. If anything should be realistic in a game, no matter how fantastical, it should be its physics/ gravity etc.
The whole issue of shooting over hills with units that use trajectory projectiles should never have been an enforceable rule, but a design rule for mappers.

Lets face it, siege units use trajectory - they don't shoot infinitely unaffected by gravity like flux, which looks like a white stick coming out of your gun. They are much like trebuchets, designed for shooting over hills or castle walls, as well as gain optimal trajectory for distance. Wedging a catapult to tilt it can achieve some impressive heights - almost perpendicular shots, The real technical issue here is that fact. I believe you should use siege to hit whatever you can but the fact that catapults (more specifically) can achieve a plethora of angles using terrain causes the most problems.

I've messed around with savage physics more that I care to mention, and I believe a technical solution other than mappers blocking off areas is possible.

1: alter the catapults physics interaction with the world using physics commands, both p_minslope and p_maxheight, so that catapults cannot drive up slopes that legged units can (this would require a redesign of siege units object files to incorporate non-global physics settings).
2: Provide a trajectory "gizmo" or even an arch model that encompasses the max trajectory of sum/cat/bali based off the current base terrain its sitting on- a measuring stick if you will.
3: In conjunction with #1 & #2, from a mappers perspective, design maps using that tool and think of the advantages/disadvantages of beast/human control areas.

In your example Dr GridPhone, I believe a simple mist or blocker prop would save refs straining their brains too hard (we cant have that) Smile

PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:20 am
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Telvek
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Joined: 10 Dec 2014
Posts: 185
As I already told you in ref-thread, imo it's legal but nasty.
-Summoner is easy vulnerable, hums just have to walk some meters.
-If the map maker didn't want this Opportunity for summs, he would have placed a mist wall over the usual wall. just sayin

PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 3:34 pm
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Trigardon
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Joined: 16 Jul 2009
Posts: 376
I'm sure S2Games didn't ever think someone would build a garrison with shields there.

Also I think it should be allowed. The commander should always consider the possibility of summoners from everywhere

PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:50 pm
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bullet
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Joined: 09 Nov 2014
Posts: 78
I'm glad there's a discussion about rules, and i'm very pleased to see Gridfon be the one starting it. Credits to you Gridfon for that! Smile
Even better to see that 2 refs share their opinion, and you djinghis too. More talking among the people will just make better rules.

On topic, my 5 cents :
If summs can easely walk there, and shoot the shield over a obvious hill, its poor map-making. On a full server it will be pointless to try to slay every summ going there, hence, it's better to remove the map asap from the map-rotation. You cant trust people to understand that according to rules it's illegal to shoot that shield from that position, and common sense says it's poor map design to blame and not intentional exploit from the summs. So allow it, but try to get the map removed once finished playing it.

PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:48 pm
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Gridfon
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Joined: 10 Jun 2012
Posts: 238
bullet wrote:
If summs can easily walk there, and shoot the shield over a obvious hill, its poor map-making. On a full server it will be pointless to try to slay every summ going there, hence, it's better to remove the map asap from the map-rotation. You cant trust people to understand that according to rules it's illegal to shoot that shield from that position, and common sense says it's poor map design to blame and not intentional exploit from the summs. So allow it, but try to get the map removed once finished playing it.

Rather than consider it poor map making, I actually think that summoners and ballistas should always be allowed to shoot over hills. (I have always thought that way, but two years ago many refs still seemed to disagree). It is simply not realistic to fix or remove all such maps. Likewise, it is not realistic for referees to enforce such rules. In case of a ballista, it takes 2 shots (is that like 3 seconds?) to kill a spire over hill, and hardly anyone (comms, refs) will even notice and understand what happened. When I played a lot of ballista in 2009, I found numerous maps and situations where I could kill spires over mountain, and I did it. I did it very often, and no one ever complained. So it came as a surprise to me in 2013 when this discussion started and I realized that it is not supposed to be allowed.

My general opinion is that it's year 2015 now. Savage is 12 years old and not extremely populated, so no revolutions will happen. The goal is to improve everyone's gameplay, but I do not hope to find mappers that will fix a massive number of maps, and neither I believe that referees will suddenly become better. If a compromise is possible with regards to anything, I will happily settle for it.

*** (off-topic)

P.S.
Telvek wrote:
As I already told you in ref-thread

Actually, the corresponding topic has 0 replies in the ref-only sub-forum. That's the reason why I figured that public topics are more likely to be productive. Besides, anything we discuss in the internal forums most likely has no effect anyway, since the outcomes of any internal discussions do not properly propagate to the masses.

P.P.S. This quote if from a different topic that discusses behes:
Telvek wrote:
I cannot see a difference between the RC case and the other ones. Of course it is kinda nasty but I wouldnt stop it.

The actual summ discussion has 0 replies.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 2:24 am
Last edited by Gridfon on Fri Dec 04, 2015 8:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Telvek
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Joined: 10 Dec 2014
Posts: 185
Telvek wrote:
I cannot see a difference between the RC case and the other ones. Of course it is kinda nasty but I wouldnt stop it.


PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 4:25 pm
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Skuggi
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Joined: 13 Nov 2006
Posts: 514
While battlefront is a fairly popular map, I think it's not often that you see commanders build there, and certainly not towers. I think it should be allowed in this case as the summoner is basically on the same level as the hill that's in the way. I'm not sure whether an arrow tower in that location would reach the summoner back, but even so.

It is hard to come up with a rule that clearly applies on every map. This seems to me as one of few exceptions to the rule. It was originally intended to ban the use of catapults firing over hills, which was a game-breaking tactic and highly unfair. I'm not sure whether I would go as far as Gridfon suggests, and allow summoners and ballistas to fire over hills. But if necessary, the rule could be altered to only banning shooting over hills if you don't have a clear line of sight on your target.

To address djinghis' comment, both of your suggestions are a complete nightmare to properly implement. Fixing maps not only takes a lot of time but mappers also have to foresee a bunch of potential exploits and so forth. Not to mention the sheer number of maps. And while it sounds great to fix this stuff with game mechanics it tends to have many unintended consequences and complications. The ones mentioned don't necessarily sound super easy to get right.

PostPosted: Wed Dec 09, 2015 9:35 pm
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djinghis
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Joined: 25 Sep 2014
Posts: 554
I can appreciate that, although putting up a mist blocker would take me 30 seconds.

PostPosted: Thu Dec 10, 2015 2:28 am
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