An extra button for shooting RF

[Grytolle]

Supposing it were to be created, how would you regard it?

An extra button for shooting RFs would of course improve your movement a lot, since you don't need to move your hand to the number keys before you rf climb

[Anubis]

Evil cheat, escaping by RF climbing shouldn't be that easy.

[[GpW]Urbs]

Trust me ivo, if you'd see guys like kenny play, you'd know they hardly move without rf's. This game is basically quake now. I can do rf jumps pretty neatly, but I still fail at them a lot and I am hard pressed to use them on maps with bad flow. Whereas some people have no such problems and what's more, they've incorporated the rf jumps into their playing style so deeply, that it has become almost a quintessetial element in their game. Especially as far as fast movement from one part pf the map to another is concerned. it's also useful if you want to shock the opponent by a very fast escape/attack.
I say go for it gry.

And also, maybe give a bigger resolution in jj2 ladder games a try? We can see if the people like it and then just get rid of it if they don't.

It doesn't do anything to the framerate, right gry? Mine is pretty low on one pc as it is...

[Stijn]

Rocketjumping and trickjumping are what turned me off Quake 3 and, eventually, Enemy Territory, so I'm not too enthusiastic about increasing the role of gimmicky jumping tricks in JJ2. Even though it'd be easier to do them with a dedicated button, it'd probably mean skilled players will rely on them even more, and since control over your movement is still a large part of RF jumping skill, that would thus only <em>increase</em> the learning curve, potentially turning off newer players.

But I'm not exactly one who plays JJ2 competitively a lot, of course.

[Lithium]

Stijn is right. Adding new movement options would be the same as in some shooter games - easy for pro's to learn and pwn,hard for newbies. I had problems in UT 2004 because of that,couldn't do walljumping while the better players used to spin around every wall and pwn me with increased accuracy.

With this,the last thing we need is an aiming system and gaming hardware required to play JJ2.

(btw what's Lithium's option)

[Nerd]

Why would adding an extra button increase the learning curve? Newbies can simply use 5 + fire if the RF button confuses them. If this is still a concern, an option for disabling the button could be coded in (the button could be disabled by default, but it should be clearly stated in the readme that such a facility exists). When one has mastered the basics of gameplay, learning a new button should not take very long (I'm not an expert here, but that's what I think). In my opinion RF climbing/jumping is a useful trick/tactical element that should be practiced and incorporated into the gameplay more. People can already change weapons pretty fast (at least I can do it in a fraction of a second; the default key configuration helps here), so I don't think a new feature like this would be a big problem.

[Lithium]

Apparently you never played UT 2004 online. I was just trying to avoid their attacks while they were bouncing off from every damn wall in every possible direction...I think that would be the same in JJ2. I still have problems with some RF climb moves,and imagine I duel a guy who has mastered RF climb. He'd move around with such ease and speed while I would just stand around trying to avoid the rain of death. So if your uberl33t evil emperor and a chemical element can't overcome RF climb,what about the newbies starting to train CTF?

[[GpW]Urbs]

Here's food for thought though.
Gry's a great guy, but he is a Loki. And this community has more than just one Loki. Now I can be pretty sure he doesn't use big jazz to his advantage in competitive games, due to server restrictions, yet, from what I understand, there is no way to make sure gry doesn't use this, whereas the rest of us still have to switch ammo, correct?

In which case I can only say this:"Legalize it, Mr. President!"

Because if the possibility exists, that someone is using it, then we can't take the risk of not using it. Since prevention in jj2 is very hard, if just one party/clan/group of players use this, it could potentially give them a considerable advantage over the rest of us.
Me personally, I'm not sure an RF button would help me that much for movement, but it would be a nice addition when you're trying to kill enemy with flag if you've previously already hit him/her with seekers. You don't need to swap to 5 (i often hit 4 instead of 5 and vice versa) and you can kill of the flagger whilst telling your flag to do a rush. I actually wouldn't mind a gun 9 button as well:)

EDIT: Gry, don't take this personally. I mean you have all the right to, but still, think yourself more in the terms of a general example:) (if you can) If not, the count is sorry:(

@Stijn: Rocket jumping turned you off Quake3?? Even I can do it, and my aim stands at 15%, my movement is far from spectacular etc... And besides rocket jumping attackers in CTF games are exactly what a good snipers in QL live for: whilst in the air they are very easy to kill. While saying I can do jumps, I have to admit I've seen the pro's do some incredible jumps that I still don't think I could do in a serious game. Hell I probably couldn't do them in an empty server either:)

[Lithium]

Good point Urbs.

Conclusion: this would really be helpful,but it's a bad thing for noobs. The end.

(And still,what's Lithium's option?)

[Nerd]

Urbs, there are many programmers in the community (Gry, Artem, me...). It is very easy, I mean VERY, to create new cheats for JJ2. Basically anyone could be using any unknown cheat right now. This is why I'd like to recode JJ2 both client-side and server-side (but recoding the client would take a LOT of work).

I'm not saying I'd be against publishing the RF button, though.

[Seren]

An issue I see is the possibility to shoot other ammo together with RFs. However it's not much at the first look, it may be overpwned when a player uses EB or Bouncers while RF climbing or just runs shooting RFs and some other weapon at the same time. I'd recommend at least doing some testing in a game between users of such tool and normal players with similar skills, and if it gives too much advantage, not releasing it.

[Nerd]

If I were to recode the game, I'd add new features as well. Adding features is way faster than recoding, you see.

It is probably impossible to completely prevent cheating, but it could be made a lot harder by improving the protocol (most of the more severe cheats should be able to be blocked this way).

[[GpW]Urbs]

BTW ya i never thought of this, but Gry have u tested this thing out yet? Can you actually shoot 2 kinds of ammo at once. That is a very interesting concept which could potentially change the game quite a lot. Not sure if its for the better or not, but the game would most definitely change (u could spam rf in front of you and leave seeks behind to cover ur rear, or bouncies).

[Grytolle]

e: and let's not forget it could be an option server hosts can decide whether to enable or not.
It definitely won't be a public release before there is some way for the server to control its usage :)

Evil cheat, escaping by RF climbing shouldn't be that easy.
RF-climbing already is that easy. But it does help for speed-boosting.

And also, maybe give a bigger resolution in jj2 ladder games a try? We can see if the people like it and then just get rid of it if they don't.
That proposal already passed in the admin council, but we didn't wanna implement it during a season (so just let us win already ;))

It doesn't do anything to the framerate, right gry? Mine is pretty low on one pc as it is...
What we were talking about was 800x600, and I'm fairly certain most PCs can handle that. Take a look with bigjazz and see if it works for you :) (If it doesn't, try fullscreen)

@stijn, ron, et c:
I see what you mean, but the fact of the matter is that in levels with lots of tricks like semi we already crush the "noobs" because we can RF-climb out and into base, whereas they can't (so you just camp under blue base)

@Urbs:
no offense taken!

@Lithium:
I was counting on you having some other option up your sleeve. You disappoint me ;(

An issue I see is the possibility to shoot other ammo together with RFs. However it's not much at the first look, it may be overpwned when a player uses EB or Bouncers while RF climbing or just runs shooting RFs and some other weapon at the same time. I'd recommend at least doing some testing in a game between users of such tool and normal players with similar skills, and if it gives too much advantage, not releasing it.
BTW ya i never thought of this, but Gry have u tested this thing out yet? Can you actually shoot 2 kinds of ammo at once. That is a very interesting concept which could potentially change the game quite a lot. Not sure if its for the better or not, but the game would most definitely change (u could spam rf in front of you and leave seeks behind to cover ur rear, or bouncies).
Yeah, it's really effective for hunting... I played vs. Suprem and Walrus with it in ZA yesterday and being able to shoot seekers and RF at once was indeed uberpwn. The idea is, though, to make it available to everyone, so an "advantage" won't be an issue. The question is if it alters JJ2's gameplay too much (in a bad way). As soon as there is a controllable version (that is: only a very skilled gamehacker could bypass the server restriction) we could test it a bit. Just handing it out to a bunch of competitively active players sounds like a bad idea, for obvious reasons.

If we find this aspect of it too damaging, we could simply just forbid such usage (it'd be extremely easy to spot in game or in a replay (see below))

While this is true, I don't reckon remaking the game could possibly prevent cheating. Now, if you're planning on actually expanding the game rather than just recoding it with better cheat prevention, I can wish you good luck. Otherwise, you're, in my opinion, wasting your time. I mean -- there is much room for improvement but skilful people seem to be focused on stopping cheaters, and that's some war you can't win. I see it like trying to create better anti-piracy measures. It's taken out sooner or later.
This might be true of a very large community with lots of skilled game-hackers. Most people never get past the stage of finding a static memory address and setting it to a value. Just sending data to a server reporting on the state of some memory addresses affected by common cheating tools would take us a long way already, and sending a screenshot every 60s would rid us of both illegal resolution hacking and radar accusations. A great addition would be replays (as I understand it, sending in a replay-macro is mandatory for all players in a clanwar in some other games). I truly wish someone would take a good look at jj2's macros to tell us if it'd be possible to implement them for online play (maybe they could then even be stored serverside so that the players don't have to go through the hassle of uploading manually after each serious game)

[cooba]

No other game has anything like a "instant rocket launcher" button. This is not only something of a cheat, it's a cheat for lazy asses.

[Lithium]

@Lithium:
I was counting on you having some other option up your sleeve. You disappoint me ;(


My poll option: "useful,but bad for newbies"

[Grytolle]

Well, from how you had said it, it looked as if your main motive was to eliminate cheating.

You keep saying "I" but mention there are many programmers in the community and that rewriting the came code is a hard mission for one to accomplish. So, d'you really plan on working on that on your own?

e:
Grytolle: the idea of replay-macros is great, actually.
I have been wondering if it were possible to record all the data sent by a server during a match and then, in some way, broadcast it, emulating a server where the same game is played, allowing for spectating of the whole match with all of its details.
About the screenshots, I suppose they should be sent once the game is over, since I imagine it would cause lag.
It sounds theoretically possible... Especially if the game is recorded as a spectator (since joining the fake server used to play the recording would result in exactly the same circumstances)

[HotRodGR]

An extra button to shoot RFs with... Not really an evil cheat, but not too useful either.

I mean, it's not that hard to reach up to 5 to RF climb and then switch to another weapon when you're done.

Unless you have small hands.

[Grytolle]

Ohh, so I can play the feminist card? :D

[master sven]

If you want to do different things than this game offers you, make your own game.
Leave this game alone, it is not for you to decide that this game needs a new button.
Some people will like it, some will dislike it, anyway the game wouldn't end up as the creators had meant it. Still I am in favor of updating things with JJ2+, as long as they don't alter the gameplay.

[Grytolle]

Like ruining the game's original behaviour of letting you keep flag if you die on enemy base? Or disabling the tactic of going to close to the borders of a level to spam the screen with captured the flag messages to get rid of the other team's teamchat? Or adding extremely cheatish messages that tell you when the flagcarrier dies? In the past, you'd have to keep track of that manually. You also shouldn't get to know your ping, because it can help you estimate how far ahead of the enemy you have to aim. In the good old days, you could always sneak a few power-ups during a stop, /nomovement on ruined that. Your logic also turn adding new game modes into a deed of evil. Blur should just have created a new game. Also, ammo was supposed to stop spawning after a while for all clients. Et c et c

The effect of JJ2+ on JJ2's game play is huge. (EDITED OUT)

Leave this game alone, it is not for you to decide that this game needs a new button.
That's why this thread was started. (EDITED OUT)

Some people will like it, some will dislike it, anyway the game wouldn't end up as the creators had meant it. Still I am in favor of updating things with JJ2+, as long as they don't alter the gameplay.
You might as well type creators with a capital c :p Those two sentences contradict each other completely, seeing as all bugs (or what we assumed to be bugs) were fixed a long time ago: it's all about extra functionality now

[master sven]

Funny how you call all people that don't agree with you stupid.
This means that you don't have the ability to listen to others and I will not discuss with you about what I think is altering gameplay.

[Grytolle]

You fail to notice that lots of people disagreed above. Anyway, I was a bit harsh, I guess.

[master sven]

Well, alright then. Lets assume JJ2's creators were in favor of sporting gameplay, then they would have wanted that people didn't move in a stop. Therefore nomovement is just to make sure that people stop in game while they were supposed to anyway and thefore nomovement isn't altering anything in JJ2's gameplay. I also guess that they didn't mean those bugs like CTF bug and ' die on base bug' to occur, so same story. There was nothing wrong with the buttons, they worked as they were supposed to. Adding a button for the RF ammo means people can shoot way easier while RF climbing and also makes it possbile to spam RF and Seek ammo for example at the same time, this isn't the same as fixing a bug or making someone more comfortable, it just opens extra options that weren't available before.

[Grytolle]

Nice to see you reason some! You should do it more often, it makes you a lot more sympathetic :)

We've already been changing things to steering before eventhough there was nothing wrong with the steering per se:

-you can always run without caps-lock
-mouse support (not a very good one though!)
-JJM let's you reassign the ammunition buttons

At any rate the thread is about whether it alters the game play in a (too) negative way or not. Now you've atleast bordered on the topic. You say however that it's a good thing to make the playing experience more comfortable: this makes RF-climbing a more comfortable task. It doesn't add anything you couldn't in theory do before (even shooting two types ammo would be possible if you practice: one finger on jump, one on shoot, two fingers to press 4 and 5 a lot).

As I said above, the opinion that more easily shooting two types of ammo at once is too big an alteration is a valid one, but don't try to make this program idea out to be fundamentally different than what we've seen in the past.

[Stijn]

Do you agree that a feature such as this would enlarge the role of RF jumping on online play?

[cooba]

Like ruining the game's original behaviour of letting you keep flag if you die on enemy base? Or disabling the tactic of going to close to the borders of a level to spam the screen with captured the flag messages to get rid of the other team's teamchat?Ruining? Tactic? MS has not implied anything remotely like this, at all.

You're defending this idea suspiciously adamantly, if I had to be honest.
People can already change weapons pretty fast (at least I can do it in a fraction of a second; the default key configuration helps here)Then why bother adding an extra RF key ar all?


The poll misses a "It alters the gameplay in an unnecessary and undesired way" option. Is movement in JJ2 not fast enough already? Kenny didn't need an RF button to become good.

[Vegito]

Do you agree that a feature such as this would enlarge the role of RF jumping on online play?

No, RF jumping is used far too much to make this change anything. Too late with the "gimmicky jumping tricks" point honestly. There's even more jumping tricks as it seems.

[Grytolle]

Do you agree that a feature such as this would enlarge the role of RF jumping on online play?For the average player: yes, definitely
For the skilled player: marginally

[Seren]

There's even more jumping tricks as it seems.
:| Reading the post.
:D Finding out that Veg knows.
:| Finding out that it may actually not mean anything good.

[[GpW]Urbs]

Uhm from what the biggest fan of rf jumps has told me (I'm talking about Kenny ofc), this thing would hardly make him use rf's more. In fact I dare say it could in fact actually narrow the gap between top players and new players, as rf tricks should become easier to do. Well OK technically that's not true, but you know what I mean (less ammo swapping etc).


I dont know what to think about this. I'd have to see it in action and then I could make a final verdict. Some people who have replied don't play the game a lot nowadays, so tbh nothing would dramatically change for them.


Its the higher resolution thread all over again. Some people don't want to change anything (and I agree not all change is for the better and if you listen to Gry he isn't saying we should make this button usable), yet the people who actually play don't see all changes as neccessarily bad.

Still, although I like the idea of a seperate button, I do wonder how much gameplay would get altered and whether that alteration would be desireable or not. Some betatesting could probably do the trick I reckon.

[Toni]

Grytmastern shooted a lot of RFs on me in our last ladder.

I am against it. If it exists (probably) it's a good advantage for user. It'd be like you edit numbers, so instead of changing ammo, you will shoot bouncers when press 2, seeks when press 4, RFs when press 5 etc. It would be good.

[Grytolle]

Grytmastern shooted a lot of RFs on me in our last ladder.
lol :D
Well the program draft was created well after that ladder match (I posted this thread about 2 hours later)

I am against it. If it exists (probably) it's a good advantage for user. It'd be like you edit numbers, so instead of changing ammo, you will shoot bouncers when press 2, seeks when press 4, RFs when press 5 etc. It would be good.
Could you or someone else rephrase this? If I understand it right you're saying the original idea is bad, but better would be to make the number buttons optionally shoot ammo when you press them. Correct? o_O

[shaney]

well i would like to see a program for jj2 that can make me swap my ammo faster like a scroll type of way like when i use my mouse scrtoll it scrolls my ammo

[HotRodGR]

well i would like to see a program for jj2 that can make me swap my ammo faster like a scroll type of way like when i use my mouse scrtoll it scrolls my ammo

...Assuming you use your mouse to play.

Still sounds like a good idea to have kind of a scroll button (or two) besides Enter, so that you could scroll with more ease, and maybe backwards as well (from bouncer to blaster to electro, if you get me).

[Vegito]

:| Reading the post.
:D Finding out that Veg knows.
:| Finding out that it may actually not mean anything good.

What

[Toni]

If I understand it right you're saying the original idea is bad, but better would be to make the number buttons optionally shoot ammo when you press them. Correct? o_O

Yes.

[Zerg]

Yes.

So, you could use an auto buttommer, and you could just shoot every weapon without any tiredt hands :)
I don't think this is a good idea :)

[KRSplat]

This is not a bugfix, enhancement, or minor gameplay alteration. This is a large innovation to basic gameplay providing a definite competitive advantage, which makes it cheating. While JJ2+ does make some changes to online play, there are no comparable mods available on J2O with such a drastic effect as to what you're talking about. Furthermore, I don't know why you'd limit the second weapon button to only firing RFs.

[minmay]

you guys are WIMPS

real men do rf jumps without using rf missiles AT ALL

[Jgke]

you guys are WIMPS

real men do rf jumps without using rf missiles AT ALL

omg you can only cheat

[Ragnarok!]

you guys are WIMPS

real men do rf jumps without using rf missiles AT ALL

Actually I find it easier to climb using TNTs... ;D

[Ktos.]

Actually, I haven't read all of these posts but from what I have read I think that making a special button for rfs is just supid. Maybe lets just make extra button for shooting every kind of ammo at once? Maybe thats not the point, but really, that would allow you to use any ammo + rfs at once. That means that many places in many levels would be much easier to camp for example. Overpowered.

But tbh, I'm not really used to do RF tricks, but if something like that were implemented to jj2 then I'd have to learn how to use that, because thats a big, really big advantage for someone else, so I should also start to learn how to use that. But I don't think that it's good idea to make something like that.

[Ragnarok!]

On a serious note, it took me a while to learn to get used to switching guns, I'm all for helping the less experienced but it's really not that hard to do yourself and it just seems unnecessary.

[Ktos.]

I have though about it a bit and I think that it can be nice ONLY when server can enable/disable possibility to use that key and I don't really think its possibile(maybe if it were combined with jj2+). Still, I think that its more fun to play using normal switching keys.

[technoman]

That's actually not a bad idea.

[FawFul]

Seriously, what's the point. People demanding an extra button for shooting RF are those who simply are not good enough or fast enough or skilled enough or whatever enough for the gaming controls. And switching weapons isn't hard, as long as you use numbers.
Whoever uses enter to switch weapons gets smacked.

<s>unless it's vegito</s>

[Jgke]

i use enter to switch from blaster to electro

[Ragnarok!]

Real pros dont change guns.

[Toni_]

I use enter to change from anything (4/5/6 if i have those guns) to electro

[Love & Thunder]

I think an extra RF Button/Secondary Weapon Button would break the game.

[Ragnarok!]

^ Agreed, though probably not break, just unnecessary skewing towards broken. :(