Re: [Help-liquidwar6] Some Liquid War 6 news

[Christian Mauduit]

Hi,

> 2011/8/12 Christian Mauduit <address@hidden>:
> An .xml file to define how the level will behave in single player
> campaign might be a good idea. It could also overrule the values in
> rules.xml, most importantly the team settings.
> You mentioned earlier a single file called episode.xml ... I can't say
> which values should go there, and which should go in the levels
> bots.xml
My position: bots.xml defines bots only. rules.xml defines bots only.
scenario.xml defines the level chosen, color of the player and in some rare
cases could override some of the "defaults" in bots-hints-style-rules.xml, the
idea being in some rare cases one might think that in the scenario context,
there's an adjustment to make on the map (could typically happen if two
scenarios share a same map).

> Should an user who is playing singleplayer be able to play different
> colors, or should he play red only? If he can play any color, we would
> need to design 10 different single player missions for each map. (so,
> we should have bots-red.xml, bots-blue.xml ... )
>
> Should single player be "one life (last wins)" or "Respawn (deathmatch)"?
To both questions, I'd answer the same: the singleplayer mode is more of
something to discover the game mechanics before going multiplayer, which is
the true nature of the game. Therefore, I think we should by default have a
tutorial/tour approach so let the player play the color we've chosen. Of
course you'll still be able to force it and play whatever color you like (even
if we don't offer it, editing scenario.xml and replaying will do the trick...)
but by default it's good not to expose too much choice. Additionnally, I tend
to dislike the 10x10 scheme, we'd have to design 10 profiles for 10 different
cases. Sort of a waste of time.

Now there's one thing that comes to my mind reading you: with bots.xml
arround, we need to treat the problem of "I'm red and there's a red bot". The
game currently has rudimentary handling of that problem but it's a problem
which will become very important with network games. If red's already playing,
you can't play red, right? There are several choices, the second red could be
a new red cursor sharing the same team, the second red could be another color
but with red properties (I hate this one), the second red could become another
color, each color having its "default fallback", or we could expose only (or
at least with some priority) network games with red being unused to players
expressing their wish to play red.

> This sounds really fun! Too bad I'm having trouble getting the
> snapshots up and running. Don't worry, LW6 still has plenty of corners
> for me to explore.
Some day you should recycle an old desktop and set up a GNU/Linux box ;)

> I think the adjustment should be extreme enough to be visible to the
> naked eye. So we should avoid adjustment that are too discrete to make
> the game truly asymmetrical.
Probably. Now the expert eye sees things novice won't. And truely asymmetrical
settings are a pain to tune for fair play.

> We should proberly be careful about setting "fast" too high. My guess
> is that high speed will cost a lot more to calculate.
Your guess is 100% right, in the current state when TURBO is activated, then
the game almost freezes, slows down, then catches up. It's ironic the "TURBO"
makes everything go slower.

> The first 4 colors should be able to fight each other without anyone
> feeling handicapped, so we should test all 12 color combinations.
> Despite this, some colors might be handicapped when played at certain
> levels. If that's the case, the levels rules.xml could have some
> slightly changed team settings, to make things fair.
>
> Possible ways to adjust teams:
>  - One strong point, weak in the other areas
>  - One strong point, one weak point
>  - One weak point, strong in other areas
I started a LibreOffice spreadsheet where I listed all the teams, with their
corresponding settings, with a few math and formulas it should prove usefull
to equilibrate stuff. We could add special weapons to that and ponderate them
too. I'll keep you informed.

As for the 4 colors, I'm currently working on a system that would unlock
maps/colors. With a vanilla LW6 "out-of-the-box" you would play, say 4 colors,
then by "winning" levels you'd get access to other levels and also other
colors. It happens by brainstorming a bit I quickly raised the number of
"special actions" from 10 to 20 (at least I have 20 plausible ideas for them)
so that's a bunch of things to "unlock". You could start 4 colors, 12 levels
available, 8 special actions, and end-up with 10 colors, 30 levels, 20 special
actions.

> Low priority idea: a cheat code to enable God mode! (aggressive:1000,
> fast:1000, mobile:0, vulnerable:10)
I love cheat modes & easter eggs. But obviously with a program that shows its
code like LW6, it's hard to really hide it. Still, there's room for
non-documented stuff, and I do have ideas to at least make it a quest in
itself to find out what the code is ;) But as you said, low priority.

>  -- MOBILE --
>
> I have tried changing the value of mobile, using otherwise symmetrical teams:
>
> The score with mobile at 0 for all teams was:
> Red: +234 frags
> Green: -447 frags
> Blue: +213 frags
>
> The score with red: -1 green: 0 blue: 1
> Red: -269 frags
> Green: 97 frags
> Blue: 172 frags
>
> The score with red: -2 green: 0 blue: 2
> Red: -1349 frags
> Green: +1186 frags
> Blue: +163 frags
>
> The score with red: -3 green: 0 blue: 3
> Red:    -1826 frags
> Green: +1932 frags
> Blue:    -106 frags
>
> (For serious statistic I should probably had used more teams and a
> longer playtime than 3 minutes)
>
> It looks like mobile is good for making teams less effective.
Very interesting test, I think I'll try and find a way to make this
"batchable", that is be able to try out some settings on an invisible map, let
the computer play full-speed for 1 minute and give the result.

> I noticed a few errors: The game freezes at times - I think it is the
> team settings for some reason. Sprites becomes white in windowed play.
> Animation-speed in config.xml has no effect
OK, I note those.

> I have created a 3 quick levels:
> http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B4B0BGI8
Couldn't load them from here, will try tonight.

Have a nice day,

Christian.

-- 
Christian Mauduit <address@hidden> - http://www.ufoot.org  ___ __/\__
Liquid War 6 - http://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6      / _")\~ \~/
"Les amis de la vérité sont ceux qui la cherchent et non _/ /   /_ o_\
ceux qui se vantent de l'avoir trouvée" - Condorcet     (__/      \/