Ideas for Rarebit: exploit work arounds

Because of the Vector Olympics, it had Sputnik and I thinking about all the rules that are in place so that no one can exploit and how cumbersome it has become.

So, we were thinking that some animations that could easily be introduced could help out.

For the clothing issues: 
Create a more visible animation when a Hyper is loaded.  Then in a tournament, you can see them load that Hyper before they start a fight and before they put clothes on.  Then if you see the animation again after they have put clothes on, you will know what they are doing.

For the tactic switching:
Put color animations on fist or feet or ring on the ground for each tactic.  That way in tournaments, you will know if a person switches.

Do these sound good?  Would this cover it all or am I missing anything?

I think that most of the people who know about the clothing issue also know how to look out for the Hyper activation, so a flashier FX shouldn't really be necessary - not to mention that it's a bad idea to design game aspects around bugs. 

I don't think an FX for tactics should be necessary either as this has generally become an accepted practice.

How about a macro command that names all the clothes a person is wearing in system chat when you target them, this would let you see what someone is wearing when they start the fight, and be able to tell easily if they changed.

pyro20 wrote:

How about a macro command that names all the clothes a person is wearing in system chat when you target them, this would let you see what someone is wearing when they start the fight, and be able to tell easily if they changed.

That's not really needed. An open trench and no tool launcher makes it possible to see any clothes changes anyway. So giving away every item that someone is wearing isn't needed, because you'll see them change if you're watching anyway.

Likewise for the hypers, if you're running a tournament you'll have people watching for this, or should do, and Hyper Activations are noticeable

Brommerz77 wrote:

pyro20 wrote:

How about a macro command that names all the clothes a person is wearing in system chat when you target them, this would let you see what someone is wearing when they start the fight, and be able to tell easily if they changed.

That's not really needed. An open trench and no tool launcher makes it possible to see any clothes changes anyway. So giving away every item that someone is wearing isn't needed, because you'll see them change if you're watching anyway.

Likewise for the hypers, if you're running a tournament you'll have people watching for this, or should do, and Hyper Activations are noticeable

This would let people wear closed trenches, instead of having to wear open coats, and also changes in glasses, gloves and shoes can be missed unless you are watching closely.

Re: clothing. This would be first of all an intensely annoying effect. We've changed over the years to a toned-down style (hyperspeed de-fx) and such. Secondly, a lot of dev work for a rather pointless feature. Your idea would only even affect hypers, while styles, title buffs, upgrades, downgrades, etc. could all be stacked. The more effective solution is just to simply outlaw closed trenches at tournaments.

And... you want to show what tactics your opponent is using? Pyro wants a list of the exact clothing they're using? Might as well supply the exact loadout.xml, hotbar picture, and realtime video feed into their monitor as well? How exactly would bending over the strategic aspect of predicting your opponents moves and ramrodding it with a shiny effect to placate sore losers who fall back on exploit accusations help tournaments, or combat in general?

Hydrazine wrote:

Because of the Vector Olympics, it had Sputnik and I thinking about all the rules that are in place so that no one can exploit and how cumbersome it has become.

So, we were thinking that some animations that could easily be introduced could help out.

For the clothing issues: 
Create a more visible animation when a Hyper is loaded.  Then in a tournament, you can see them load that Hyper before they start a fight and before they put clothes on.  Then if you see the animation again after they have put clothes on, you will know what they are doing.

For the tactic switching:
Put color animations on fist or feet or ring on the ground for each tactic.  That way in tournaments, you will know if a person switches.

Do these sound good?  Would this cover it all or am I missing anything?

There is a way to easily beat people who use tactic switching, whilst also tactic switching yourself. Just think about what tactic people always switch to, use the anti tactic combined with a stun/powerless/blind/confuse ability, then do what you want.

But oh no! This means you have to let someone hit you first, oh well, I think it beats the random system of grab vs grab.

Bayamos raises good points, also.

Bayamos wrote:

And... you want to show what tactics your opponent is using? Pyro wants a list of the exact clothing they're using? Might as well supply the exact loadout.xml, hotbar picture, and realtime video feed into their monitor as well? How exactly would bending over the strategic aspect of predicting your opponents moves and ramrodding it with a shiny effect to placate sore losers who fall back on exploit accusations help tournaments, or combat in general?

The macro command was more for telling if someone had changed clothes, not so you could see what they were wearing all the time. I guess a better idea then would be an animation or effect when you change a clothing item, seomething like the floor reticle chnaging blue maybe.

Oh, just get a really old computer, then Hard-drive lag causes this when people change clothes.

Just remember, CR2 > CR1 right? lulz

If the developers cant put combat based blocks on clothing switching than they need to take a night class or somethiing..

Most games I play except some single player RPGs dont allow this and its a self inflicted problem by poor oversight.

This is strictly to benefit tournaments.  pvp = ffa.

The tactics effect could be as subtle as the CT effect around the hands.

I would think that its hard to see the hyper's load if you are trying to watch two fights at once.  Or if they load a hyper in the middle of a fight where theres all kinds of other animations going on.

It's not effective to outlaw closed trenches at tournaments because that resricts way too many equivalent items for female clothes.  Dresses & motorcyle suits = male shirts.

I can't see why not when you use an hyper, the ability icon goes above your head. (like if you was using any buffs from the Upgrade Master tree). You'd be able to see more easy what hyper the player has just used. As for tactic switching, for using this "exploit" there's a downside to it. Because you'll still get the debuff from that tactic what you just switched to. If I recall, there's a thread somewhere with Rarebit commenting on the tactic switching.

The entire idea is a waste of time seeing as these are not "exploits" but rather design flaws that are at the core of the combat system.

Hyper related buffs shouldn't be disclosed to attackers, otherwise specific classes will be allocated to someone during multifight pvp in the short term. Snipers and mkt sneaks would go for those without the defense buff on, unknown defense and resist placement is the only saver when fighting multiple enemies.

I like how there is an unknown element with tactics also. Knowing the non-ability animations and adjusting stance as required is fun & organic, we don't need more icons to look at.