Hunting Enhancements

Make suggestions for improving one of the best games on the net!
Post Reply
User avatar
Zehra
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 914
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2015 3:36 pm
Location: Within the BZFS API and Beyond it
Contact:

Hunting Enhancements

Post by Zehra »

This has been discussed in the past before, but currently hunting is a good feature, but has its limitations...

What if hunting could be done by lag, team, points or by flag?
What if the timing of flashes could be adjusted, or even the color?
I'm thinking this would make it a much more used and powerful feature.

Also, what if the server could set players on hunt?
(Several interesting plug-ins could be made.)
Automatically hunt geno flag for teams, set custom flags on hunt, players with Laser automatically have CL on hunt...etc
This would require a protocol break, but it would be nice to see a feature like this added. (Server setting hunt for players.)

-Zehra
Those who are critical of me, I'll likely be the same of them. ~Zehra
The decisions we make are the ones we look forward too and the ones we regret. ~Zehra
There's a difference between knowing my name and knowing me, one shows respect to my name and the other is to who I am. ~Zehra

See where I've last been active at Strayers.
Visit BZList.net for a modern HTML5 server stats site.

Click here to view the 101 Leaderboard & Score Summaries Last updated 2021-01-12 (YYYY-MM-DD)
Latest 101 thread
User avatar
Super Android 13
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2017 11:35 pm
Location: Florida Panhandle
Contact:

Re: Hunting Enhancements

Post by Super Android 13 »

Interesting idea. I've also been wondering how to do it for a while. It can be done manually, with the exception of the flash color and timing, but with certain powerup flags, you can manually hunt people that have flags which can end your killing sprees, as most people here probably know that you can hunt more than one person. Rabbit hunt also makes all hunters auto-hunt the rabbit unless manually deactivated, but this idea of Laser hunting Cloaking, Genocide hunting Master Baiter, and maybe Seer hunting Stealth, it could certainly affect gameplay in a positive way by not requiring people to manually hunt down those with specific flags. I'm open to more ideas involving this, so please feel free to reply, just try not to veer off topic.

-Buzzy.

P.S. = Specifically for Useless Mine maps like Urban Jungle and Clay hills, I'm possibly thinking about a setting involving those carrying Bomb-Defusal (BD) to hunt those holding Useless (US). Some may disagree, but feel free to oppose, it's just an idea, but there's still a ways to go if we are going to make this modification to the hunt system.
I play lots of games, though this older game is still one of my favorites. Whenever I am not busy with work, you may find me occasionally on the Apocalypse, Urban Jungle, or Quickshot servers.

Formerly Buzzy_Beetle, MORTIS, Android 16

Image
User avatar
Zehra
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 914
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2015 3:36 pm
Location: Within the BZFS API and Beyond it
Contact:

Re: Hunting Enhancements

Post by Zehra »

It also would be nice for having different hunt priorities, like different blink speeds depending on flag and distance.

So, like if someone has laser and you do not have cloaking, it would blink very rapidly.
Steamroller could blink very slowly at a distance, but when close by, it blinks rapidly.
Maybe even altering the way the hunt appears, like a circle being around the tank on radar or square. (Teammates and enemies.)
I'm not sure if this is a current feature, but having tanks blink on the HUD would be useful too.

-Zehra
Those who are critical of me, I'll likely be the same of them. ~Zehra
The decisions we make are the ones we look forward too and the ones we regret. ~Zehra
There's a difference between knowing my name and knowing me, one shows respect to my name and the other is to who I am. ~Zehra

See where I've last been active at Strayers.
Visit BZList.net for a modern HTML5 server stats site.

Click here to view the 101 Leaderboard & Score Summaries Last updated 2021-01-12 (YYYY-MM-DD)
Latest 101 thread
User avatar
macsforme
General
General
Posts: 2069
Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:43 am

Re: Hunting Enhancements

Post by macsforme »

You are welcome to alter the source code and build your own client to change the color of the hunt underline or the blink interval if you think they could be improved. You could even report back to us if you find objectively better values so that we can consider changing them in the official code.

In my opinion, the game’s current challenges are not due to a lack of configurability for subtle user interface behaviors (other than the issue of accessibility for people with color vision deficiencies, which we are already working to address). As I stated in your last topic, we are not interested in making the gameplay experience more varied/inconsistent, when there are already such significant differences from server to server.

Yes, until we handle the lag problem better, there should be some indicator of a laggy tank so you can adjust your aim, but I doubt that an auto hunt is the answer (you won’t know why the player is hunted). Something like a caution/alert symbol or a poor connection symbol drawn next to the tank in the 3D view is probably a better answer.

The game doesn’t need to alert you to every hazardous situation. There are already indicators on the scoreboard for certain powerful flags (I believe they are shown in white). There are audio cues for certain types of shots being fired or tanks getting steamrolled, and your team should be talking about opponents with powerful flags who are killing them. Part of learning to play the game is learning to pay attention to these things.

If you get around to experimenting with or prototyping your ideas in the source code, feel free to report back with your findings. Otherwise, ideas by themselves are not very useful.
Post Reply