Hunter mode idea

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The Purple Panzer
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Hunter mode idea

Post by The Purple Panzer »

There are some times when I'm playing on a map and, due to play events, I really just focus on killing one player. It could be his comments, behavior, or just the fact that he matches my skill level (such as it is) and is a good adversary.

The problem is that there is no way to say "I just want to play against him" and not get killed by other people. This would be possible, indeed technically it's probably not very hard.

I'm not sure what the command would be, but when you identify your lone opponent (who would not be informed of this directly), your tank might appear in a different color (say, black maybe) to everyone else, and while they'd see you on radar and visually, they couldn't shoot you and you couldn't shoot them. Your opponent would see you, might even see you as white, thereby knowing that you'd declared that you were just hunting him.

In a game with multiple players, there might be many such declarations, but the game play would not be changed very much at all - it's almost as if the individual hunters all had PZ and just didn't interact with anyone else except their victims.

Subtleties arise when two or more people are hunting an individual, but they then could either simply just not know this (that is, each would still think it's a one-to-one hunt), or they could appear to each other in a sort of rabbit hunt mode, so that they could shoot each other accidentally. That might be more fun, so that if people ganged up on someone, they could interfere with each other.

Another way to think of this is almost as team play, where teams are defined by who they declare that they are hunting. Each such subgame proceeds independently of the ongoing FFA or other board game being played; the victim of the hunt would only know about the individual focus by seeing hunters (say, white tanks), implying focused subgames.

Similarly, another complexity arises if tank A is hunting tank B, and at the same time tank B is hunting tank C. C and A should be able to cooperate against B and see each other, so in this situation A and C should appear black (neutral but damagable) to each other, while A should be white (the hunter color) to B and B should be white to C. This sounds more complicated than it is, as I'm just feverishly typing. The rule is simple: hunters are black to everyone but the hunted, to whom they are white; blacks can only interfere with other hunters/huntees of the same target.

Some discussion might work out a simpler protocol, but boy have I wanted to do this on a variety of occasions. It would add a nice level of interest to games with lots of players. I'd suggest starting with something simple, and proceeding based on feedback of players.
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Post by trepan »

I am against this idea, as I feel it would
provoke more animosity between players. I
do not like the idea of one player picking on
another.

I've been kinda toying with my own game in
the background that is to have a flexible
allegiance mode, where you can switch teams
on the fly. I call it Survivor mode.

Here are a few points to consider if this were
ever to be implemented in BZFlag:

1. Bigger teams have to be disadvantaged.
In the case of BZFlag, I'd probably limit the
number of super flags that a team could
posess. You could also adjust max tank
speeds, or any other parameter that would
put that team at a disadvantage.

2. A player has to be disadvantaged while
switching between teams, and it cannot
happen instantly. In BZFlag, I would probably
disable the player's movement for 2 seconds,
or something along those lines.

3. Typing hurts too much, no more
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Post by JeffM »

a better method would be to allow servers to have multiple "rooms", basicly instances of the maps that players can swap thru. Then when you challange the guy you 2 jump to your own private room, duke it out, and then come back to main public room wheny your done. Making othe people watch you 2 have your pissing match is 1) pointless, and 2) confusing as people are used to shooting tanks they see. This would also provide a place for sanctioned leauge matches, that could be on popular servers, but not be interfered with by non team players, they coudl only join the room as observer say. Once you have that, you make rooms be spawned dyanmicly at run time and you got a solution to all of it, sans confusion, and sans wacky coloring schemes.

The only reason for wanting to have others see it and not do anything about it is to show-off/gloat about it, but that's not what the game is about.
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Post by The Purple Panzer »

Consider the idea withdrawn - I hadn't intended it with quite the nastiness that it admittedly might evolve into.
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Post by trepan »

with mine for the same reason (w.r.t. BZ at least) :)
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Post by Workaphobia »

Nastiness aside, it could easily be abused, especially if the server enforced invulnerability from neutrals. Would you trust the players to uphold the honor of the white flag of "Don't hurt me, I'm harmless to you!"?

I really like Patlabor's idea, however it may be superfluous until the servers are a bit more flooded with players.
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new idea

Post by sid6.7 »

um...no way...
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Post by JeffM »

sid6.7, please don't post non sensical responces, posts are to add to the thread, or they will be removed
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non sensical

Post by sid6.7 »

i was responding to someones suggestions that they be allowed
a hunting status to the game..i put it plain and simple so that
anyone could understand it....sometimes "at least in america"
simple is better...which is fairly sensical

you haven't deleted others 1 liners why are you choosing mine?

your editing selection seems a bit slanted to me i think, are we still having problems over when i trashed xtra?

does this comment meet your qualifications?

getting annoyed with you...
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hmm...

Post by sid6.7 »

you'll have to help me labor221 i've been looking and looking
for the word sensical...there is no such word in english
anyways...

so maybe your right...mine threads are not
defintely NOT sensical....which might eb a good thing


even more annoyed with you
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Post by JeffM »

hey I got no problems with replys, but there were multiple points put forth here, so just saying "umm.. no" dosn't really say what your saying no to.

something like
" I don't think the hunting thing is a good idea" would been more informative. And perhaps some reasons why, that would add a lot more to the discussion.

And really let the typos go, everyone makes them.

If your geting annoyed, I'm sorry, but thread readability is a big thing, we don't do tree views, so short comments like that are very hard to tell what post they are in relation to.

And honestly, I don't even recall what you are talking about when you say "still having problems over when i trashed xtra? ".
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sensical

Post by The Purple Panzer »

"Sensical" is a great word, referring to a style of theatre production. You've heard of a "musical"; well, in a "sensical" the theatre sends attractive young actors and actresses into the audience to give massages, release aromatic vapors, and generally interact with the audience in a sensory-rich vein.

:wink:
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Post by rr »

Well, I thought sid6.7's response was pretty clear. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that all posts in a board such as this are responding directly to the first post unless they specifically reference a different post posted later on. I was honestly more confused by Patlabor221's second post responding to sid6.7's post.
sid6.7, please don't post non sensical responces, posts are to add to the thread, or they will be removed
Huh? Of course they add to the thread. What else would they do? You type in some text and hit post, and it is "added" to the thread.
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Post by Workaphobia »

I'm not sure how you typically read phpBB posts, but I normally consider every post in response to the one immediately preceding it. It took me a few moments to realize sid was responding to the topic itself, but it wasn't totally non-intelligible, just a bit pointless. I mean, come on, if you're going to go through the trouble of hitting the submit button you might as well be multi-syllabic.
rr wrote:
sid6.7, please don't post non sensical responces, posts are to add to the thread, or they will be removed
Huh? Of course they add to the thread. What else would they do? You type in some text and hit post, and it is "added" to the thread.
I'll assume that wasn't sarcasm. Adding to the thread is adding a point of discussion, or a reaction to a point, or a bit of humor, or anything other than a drive-by "Me too", "I know", or "Not here".

Er, someone tell me if I’m overstepping a line.
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Post by JeffM »

lets not get any more off topic then I allready got us.
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Post by rr »

I'll assume that wasn't sarcasm. Adding to the thread is adding a point of discussion, or a reaction to a point, or a bit of humor, or anything other than a drive-by "Me too", "I know", or "Not here".
Ohhh, I see. You have to make some basic assumptions about what people are talking about during the course of a conversation and can't rely on the person to put every comment in exact perfect context. So by "add[ing] to the thread" I was to assume that Patlabor221 meant adding some bit of information which furthers the conversation and exachange of ideas rather than simply adding text to the thread. Just like when sid6.7 said "no way" Patlabor221 should have assumed that he was replying to the main post since he didn't reference any other posts in the thread.

Isn't it amazing how you have to make basic assumptions during conversations for every comment to be in proper context and make perfect sense?

Thanks for helping me illustrate a point Workaphobia.
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Post by JeffM »

my point was, I didn't know what he was refering to. there had been 3 ideas posted, and if it was in relation to the origonal post, it didn't make sense as the origonal author had allready stated how he realised how the idea coudl go bad.

now lets drop it, or I'll pull all the posts even mine to get this back on topic.
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sure

Post by sid6.7 »

go ahead..if were gonna censor 1 post we may as well
censor all of them...


have a nice day....
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Politically correct variation

Post by Valoche »

Hi,

The Purple Panzer's idea can be reworked to remove the so-called "nastiness".

Here is how I see it:
Every tank is assigned a prefered target (maybe based on who killed who algorithm, or random).
You see your target as a white tank, and other tanks as Rogues. Killing a non target is considered team-killing.
Of course, your target knows you are hunting it. It would be too easy otherwise for the hunter.

So basically, as a player, you have 1, and possibly 2 targets:
- one directly assigned to you (we call it "target")
- one whose you've been assigned to as a target (we call it "hunter"); a tank can have multiple "hunters", but only one "target". Of course, you can consider that a "hunter" is a "target", but it's playing on words :lol-old:

When your "target" dies, you are automatically assigned another (it can be the "hunter").
When your "hunter" dies (because you killed him, or his own "hunter" killed him, or he commited suicide/disconnected), well, you have no "hunter" until someone else has you assigned to him as a target.


Wow, that's complex.
Another way: switch teams randomly when you respawn, you get the same gameplay :lol-old: :lol-old: :lol-old:

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Post by JeffM »

that sounds more like a "mystery santa" type game mode. where you have asome asigned targets. Kinda like that old spy game where everyone had somone's name on a paper and you had to "kill" them, and noone knew who was out to get em.

I don't think that was the intent of the idea. It looked more like a way to resolve chalenges in a "duelist" way. The only way I see to do that is to have the people get thier own room. and duke it out.

you could even make it so that in the main room the players would be just like they paused, so they could keep score, and team and all that, go off and duke it out, then come back and rejoin the main game, having the duel not even effect main score.
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