onslaught
14-08-2003, 04:07 PM
FORWARD:
This document contains a list of suggestions as well as problems with the current version of Day of Defeat (v1.0). I have included reasoning and presented arguments in a manner that I hope will provoke thought on some of these issues. Thank you for reading, and I hope this is shared by anyone interested on the Day of Defeat Development Team. We decided not to post this publicly, since it would most likely be buried under a massive flame war, and it contains many categories – too many to be debated in a single thread on any forum. We hope you can find this informative, interesting, and possibly consider some of our suggestions for the next release(s) of Day of Defeat.
Matt B – I’ve added some comments. I’m not going to get into why we made every decision we did, and as such some sections are blank. A lot of the things you mention are bugs that have already been fixed for 1.1 so that is noted also.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. OPENING - OR WHY LISTEN TO US?
2. MAPS
3. JUMP-SHOOTING
4. BLEEDING
5. SCORING SYSTEM
6. MG AND SNIPER
7. BAR AND OTHERS
8. THE CROSSHAIR
9. THE DOG
10. DEATH CAMERA
11. AUTORELOADING
12. DEMOS
13. LIST OF BUGS/PROBLEMS
14. CONCLUSION
1. OPENING - OR WHY LISTEN TO US?
Many, if not most competitive DoD players have been involved in the game as competitive or casual gamers since beta 1.3 or before. As a result, we have seen, and we remember, the many stages that Day of Defeat has gone through on its journey from a small mod, to a stand-alone retail game. As a result of this experience, we have seen what worked, and what did not, from previous versions of the game. We also have considerable experience with not only the current version, but other versions as well, giving us a much more educated perspective on current gameplay dynamics, and what problems in previous versions have tweaked or solved in to produce the current version: 1.0.
We also have perspectives of the two ways to play DoD: Competitively, and publicly. Clan matches and public play (“pubbing”) are entirely different styles of play. Public play DoD is basically random or semi-random players in a server, playing a single side, and rounds lasting a typical half hour to forty-five minutes. Most servers have a player limit of 20+ people, making teams 10 on 10.
Clan matches, however, are usually 6 on 6 or 7 on 7 matches in which rounds are typically twenty minutes, each clan playing a round as allies, and a round as axis. Clan members are usually prepared for the matches, having practiced and scrimmaged the map, formed a pre-match strategy, and assigned a plan, including who is playing what class within the strict class limits. Both sides are usually of roughly equal skill, and the gameplay is very fast and intense. There is little room for error, and victory requires everyone to follow the plan.
Clan matches are “closed system” – meaning that class limits, the people playing the game, the map, etc. are all constant. While an open public server may be described as chaos, with people coming and leaving, maps changing, and people moving from team to team and barking orders that may or may not be heeded to their teammates, a clan match may be described as sterile, with extra rules and a special configuration and format to be followed.
While pubbing is very important, since not everyone can, or wants, to play competitively, in a clan match, it is much easier to check the way the game and the map play, the weapons balance, etc, due to the more constant conditions of a clan matches than a public game. There are les variables in this type of environment.
So with experience in DoD for many versions, and the unique perspective offered by observing the game in closed system matches, we offer you this list of suggestions. We hope that you can take the time to look this over, and at least consider our plea as you design the next version of DoD.
As a final note: I do not claim to speak for the entire clan community. This document was written by me: Lonewolf, and expresses my views only. At the end of this document is a list of those that support this document, and agree with what it says. I do not speak for those that did not sign this document.
2. MAPS
Some of the old favorites such as Zafod, Koln, and Cherbourg should be brought back; they were fun, high-quality maps, and they’d be a big hit with clanners and non-clanners alike. All these maps were relatively bug-free, nice and wide-open, and in addition, the darker maps such as Thunder and Zafod gave them a more distinct atmosphere. (Koln = Lonewolf’s favorite map ;) )
All the current maps tend to blur together, and do not offer particularly distinct atmospheres. They also feel very cramped and linear, or circular. Even “outdoor” maps like forest feel very, very tight and cramped – not at all like the outdoor, skies above heads scenery they are trying to create.
Maps like Kalt and Jagd feel very closed in: as thought the barriers to the map are not the natural limits of a battlefield, but rather, doors chained shut to quarantine the fighting to a restricted set of streets.
For some excellent examples of great level design, check out some of the 3.1 custom maps. Clervaux, Railroad, Cr44, Meanstreets, and others come it mind. If you need them, contact me, and I can send them to you. They are all wide open, big, and more importantly, play very nicely.
I’ve checked out a number of maps from the public, and I gotta say, a lot of them just plain suck. Tons of places to get stuck, horrible visual quality, horribly high rspeeds, huge spawn camping problems, etc. I understand that they have good gameplay, which is what counts, but until they solve some of the other issues, they won’t be really up for consideration - Tim
The two maps that came with retail, but not with the downloadable version: Merderet and Vicenza really threw servers for a loop, as most of those playing the DL version did not have the maps, and the casual player is too lazy to find them. Although it gives an incentive to buy the retail version; most serious players would find the maps quickly, and most casual, uncaring players would simply find a new server, than hunt down the missing maps or shell out money to play them.
FYI this was a business decision between Valve and Activision and outside of our scope of making decisions – Tim
As for current maps, maps such as Chemille, and Caen are littered with strange invisible walls, usually near piles of rubble where the rubble pile meets the street. This blocks movement and is quite annoying. It has been likened to an obstacle course, at times. If there is some way to fix the little snares and bugs, that would greatly enchance the quality of the map.
This is an engine bug/weakness and not a mappers flaw. These kinds of map problems are almost impossible to fix beyond going to much simpler and “flat” maps. Basically when the engine runs a map, for some reason it makes some spots have problems, and other spots which look virtually identical not have problems. And in truth I wouldn’t use the word “littered”. I’ve played literally thousands of hours of DoD online in pubs, and only occasionally get stuck on areas – and quickly learn to just avoid the areas I do get stuck in. Or give a little jump as I come to them – Tim
Many of the placeable objects, such as the tank on Caen, are surrounded with invisible walls and impassible bugs that make navigation around them difficult. It would be prudent to have all placeable map objects looked over to fix any of these bugs. Also, the tank in the center of the map Donner is surrounded by an invisible wall that makes it impossible to shoot around: ie, if an enemy is crouched next to the tank, and you need to shoot over the tank to hit him, your shot will hit an invisible wall and not hit the enemy.
3. GENERAL GAMEPLAY: JUMP SHOOTING
Jump shooting was useful for classes with automatic weapons, who could spray at riflemen while jumping, making themselves harder to hit. The kar/rifle user depends on the one shot kill potential of his weapon to hit a target with his first shot, so he can then reload his weapon and engage new targets. Since the rate of fire of his weapon is so low compared to autos, if he misses a first shot, his odds of survival drop drastically, and he is a defenseless target until he can fire again. A jump shoot to make him miss greatly aids his destruction. This tactic was used by automatics that could afford to take decrease in accuracy while jumping, and through a higher rate of fire, be able to land a few shots and possible kill his enemy.
It is a feature that helped balance rifles and automatics ,and what people have started complaining about on the official DoD forums, and what we are seeing now as the dominant tactic for rifles (strafing in and out) is basically what people did in 3.1, but this time, there is not real way to avoid getting shot if you are o the receiving end of a riflemen’s gun. Jump-shooting was used by auto’s to kill MGers, campers, and rifles. The rifle has become more powerful, and the automatics much weaker with jump-shooting absent.
No plans to re-add jump shooting.
4. GENERAL GAMEPLAY: BLEEDING
Response to bleeding is somewhat mixed. Personally, I liked bleeding, since it was something unique to the game, and also made firefights a touch more frantic; if you were bleeding, should you run away or finish the attackers off – it was a split second decision thing. It also helped make automatic weapons more powerful: since rifles are a one shot kill, bleeding was additional damage done mainly by automatics. It would be great if it could be brought back in, with 3.1 levels of damage and occurrence.
No plans to re-add bleeding.
5. GENERAL GAMEPLAY: SCORING SYSTEM
The current default scoring system (without points being given from holding flags over time) is very awkward in deciding winners and rewarding teams for doing well. A team can pin the enemy by their first flag, and hold them there for twenty minutes on a map such as, say, Caen. The score would then be a mere two points, or two flag caps, away from a tie.
Unless a team caps the entire map, the winner of the map will be determined by who holds the most flags at the final second of the game. Hardly is this scoring system representative of how the teams played the round. A team that dominates the map ought to be rewarded for doing so.
In addition, if a team caps all the flags once, they have a 50-point lead. So they no longer have an incentive to play offensively, unless the other team caps the map. They can be comfortable playing an easy defensive game.
The scoring system was very much improved by Waldo, who made a new scoring system that reincorporated the time based scoring system (to reward the dominating team) with high-point full capture rewards (to encourage capping all flags instead of holding 4/5 of them) This works wonderfully, and should be implemented as default on all maps.
As far as the total cap score goes, it could stand to actually be decreased to a more moderate 30-40 points, so two caps would not equal a horrific loss of a match – but rather, a very major setback. 3.1 Anzio is a good example of this – capping was worth a lot, but two or three caps of the map did not mean the other side had no chance at all. On the contrary, it was quite possible for a team to bounce back with several caps of their own.
I’ve added a new time based scoring system for clan play. Leagues can set the individual point values of each flag/point on each map and the delay between point gives. - Matt
6. CLASS ISSUES: MG AND SNIPER
The MG class also suffers in 1.0 due to the removal of wall penetration. Wall penetration was used by skilled MGers to mow down infantry hiding behind some debris (such as the little shack by the bridge on Anzio) and to limit the effectiveness of defensive terrain (buildings, etc.) Wall Penetration, if it is put back in, will help make the MG something to be feared. The MG42 should be brought back to 3.1 accuracy as well. As it stands, it overheats too quickly, and is too inaccurate to be effective at distance. It should be brought back to the two for one shot system of 3.1 – a system that make the MG42 a very deadly piece of equipment.
Wall penetration doubled for mg’ers. Rof back to 3.1 levels. On a side note, the wall penetration system has been redone so you can fire through multiple objects of varying material and thickness now, depending on the power of the bullet. - Matt
The Sniper class has undergone a huge change from 3.1 to 1.0 – in 3.1, a sniper could use his rifle moving from perch to perch, because it was still fairly accurate unscoped (as it should be, a scope does not make a weapon more accurate, but rather, makes the shooter more accurate in placing shots at a distance). A 3.1 sniper was also unable to strafe in and out of cover while scoped.
Instead, as you no doubt remember, a 3.1 sniper would unzoom if he moved around too much. This should be brought back. The 3.1 sniper was balanced, and was only effective in the hands of a skilled user. The current sniper requires almost no skill or practice: since the sniper can now strafe in and out of cover, just as a normal rifleman would. His rifle is also no longer useful as an unscoped weapon; no doubt altered to prevent ‘dot-sniping’ or similar tactics. This is neutral; it could go either way without much fuss. Personally, I liked getting the occasionally reflex unscoped kill. Now, it is fairly impossible without luck and random chance. No plans to change the snipers. – Matt
Snipers will lose zoom when jumping, falling, or going to/from prone in 1.1 - Tim
7. CLASS ISSUES: BAR AND OTHERS:
The BAR bipod needs to be made faster deploying or undeploying – As of right now, the accuracy of a bipod is hardly worth the downside of being a stationary target. Since the BAR has a very small magazine, it does not make sense for a BAR to deploy, and be a sitting target while reloading frequently. The bipod should be made faster to deploy and undeploy. The BAR’s recoil is also very high – it could stand to be lessened a little, or the use of the bipod made very rapid so undeployed firing is rare. We should fix this. Makes no sense for the BAR bipod to take longer than an mg.
Some weapons seem to have strange bugs that limit their effectiveness. One of the worst offenders is the Colt 1911 pistol. It seems to pause, delay, or jam after two or three rounds, making it a very unreliable sidearm, and an ineffective last-ditch weapon. I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, though the 9mm Luger and Webley revolver do not suffer from the same problem – they work fine. FIXED
The M1 carbine – this weapon needs a damage boost in order to be effective. As it stands, it takes about 4-5 shots to bring an enemy down. I know that in real-life, the weapon used pistol rounds, making them very low penetration. I’m sure that a little bit of a damage boost would not be out of line for a seriously underused and underpowered weapon in DoD. A good idea, will discuss with the team.
The M1 Garand also suffers in 1.0. With a weird combination of unregistered shots, hitbox problems, and decreased accuracy, the “rifle that won the war” is only really useful to hit people on the back of the head with. It needs to be brought back to 3.1 levels to compete with other weapons in the game and get a fair chance at victory. I used the Garand almost exclusively in 3.1, and it is now virtually unusable. Hitbox problem resolved, you will find the garand back to 3.1 levels now.
The bazookas are done very nicely – they don’t need to be altered at all. Thanks!
8. THE CROSSHAIR
The 1.0 crosshair is not terrible unique or original. By contrast, the 3.1 crosshair was great! It had a combination of a unique look and style, as well as the swaying motion giving the player a sense of where his shots will go.
The 1.0 crosshair looks like the HUD of any other game. The 3.1 crosshair should be brought back – it gave the game a more distinct look at a first glance – and many of us liked it better than the current generic crosshair.
Also suggested was a choice of several crosshairs – it should not be too hard to implement, and would satisfy virtually everyone but giving a choice of crosshair styles. I’ve added the ability to use custom crosshairs. Will see about adding 3.1 style, but not hopeful.
9. THE DOG
The autohelp dog is a useful tool for people new to the game. However, he can be quite irritating for veteran players, blocking a substantial amount of view, and cropping up at the worst times. Even when I turned him off; he still comes back if my MG overheats, I kill or injure a teammate. He should be able to be completely and totally disabled. FIXED
10. DEATH CAMERA
The current default death-camera is a feature that seriously detracts from the fun and suspense of playing DoD. Part of the fun is not always knowing exactly where the bullets are coming from. Death cam renders snipers and MGs ineffective at holding any sort of defensive or aggressive attacking position without displacing every 12 seconds to avoid being hunted down. An easy suggestion would be to remove the “death-cam” and replace it with an over the shoulder/first person chase camera following living teammates around. This would give little, if anything, away, and would in interesting to do while waiting 10 seconds to respawn. The main alternative to death cam right now, black screen, is very boring. Death cam has been changed significantly.
11. AUTORELOADING
I think we’ve all heard enough about autoreloading. Suffice to say, it is a great annoyance of deployed MGs and BARs, and can also be irritating to players that want to remain silent and reload at a later time. It should be removed, or at the very least, made a client side option. I’d turn mine off, personally. FIXED
12. DEMOS:
Demos seem to be very buggy in 1.0. Often, demos can be corrupted if they are not stopped before a map change, and demos cannot be taken over multiple maps. I have often been randomly crashed while taking a demo, this may be due to the use of the ‘stopsound’ command, or perhaps someone initiating a voice or text message. All have been cited as possible causes for crashes or corrupted demos.
It has been reported that if you record a demo as a British player, your arms disappear, and on the minimap, you become an allied player, and the minimap becomes a green grid as the demo records. Map fixed, will check on the brit recording.
13. LIST OF KNOWN BUGS/MINOR PROBLEMS
1. Player getting stuck on dead bodies
2. Player getting stuck on dropped guns
3. Grenades falling through map/disappearing
4. Terrible framerate problems – even with very fast computers and the latest graphics cards, fps problems are very prevalent in 1.0
5. Hitboxes – arms in front of chest, blatant misses with rifles counting as hits and kills. FIXED
6. Unregistered shots, particularly from Garand (or maybe it’s just more noticeable)
7. Sometimes, if you shoot someone point black, you will die as well as though via a suicide. Very random. Couldn’t duplicate this one, though I know what you’re talking about. If you can make it happen consistently, tell me how and I’ll gladly fix it.
8. Anti-spawn camping system gives players in many instances a safe haven to camp a flag from – it should either be lessened or removed. Personally, I had no problem with it in 3.1 or before.
9. Dog does not go away even when turned off: he tells you when you teamkill/teamwound/overheat MG FIXED
10. Spelling and grammatical errors in text files describing classes. FIXED
11. You cannot jump-shoot, yet you can fall out of a window and fire as you fall By design – you technically fall whenever you go down stairs, and it makes no sense to not allow people to shoot in that situation.
12. Rubble hang-up problems on Caen and other maps with rubble – cannot move over rubble Won’t fix. Learn to avoid spots or “hop”. The negative of much the fix would add to the patch size outweighs benefits of fix.
13. Clipping problem on Charlie neat right allied tank on beach Fixed
14. White model bug: sometimes when you click on a class that is full and then click random, you spawn as a white model w/ no gun Do you have a reproducible case for this?
15. A spectator hack/bug that is becoming very rampant with 1.0 - a person in the spectator class can spawn and slaughter those in-game, while not being a part of a team. FIXED
16. Barbed wire seems to be different on every map. On Donner, it hurts the player. On Kalt, it has invisible walls. On other maps, you can lie on top of it, or go through it.
17. Some sandbags barriers, such as the one at the entrance to the Allied building on avalanche, by the Allied second flag, do not stop grenades from killing across the sandbags: i.e. if a grenade lands on one side of the sandbags, and I go prone on the other, instead of being protected, the grenade damage will pass through the sandbag and kill me.
14. CONCLUSION
Day of Defeat is a mod that has given me, and many, many others, clanners and non-clanners alike, a great deal of joy the past few years. Many clans and groups of people have existed for years, playing together in a world relatively free of hackers, thugs, and malicious players.
Retail has been a mixed blessing for many. Retail would give DoD the popularity it needs to become a more mainstream game, and it's great to see the DoD development team get the resources of Valve on its side while making the game, as well as the financial credit they deserve. It was the hope of many that DoD would become mainstream enough to be eligible to CPL – The Cyberathlete Professional League.
However, retail has also released the game to the great, unwashed masses, raising the number of lamers, and generally nasty people in game for everyone. The people that buy this game in the store, for the most part, will not become hardcore fans. The hardcore following can be found mainly in those that have played the game for years. And sadly, that portion of the community is shrinking.
Through the release of 1.0, a number of long-time clans have died…due to lack of fun and interest playing the game. Even non-clanners comment that the game is no longer as fun as it once was – the official DoD forums have several such threads in the general section. The list of long-time DoD clans, including the |101st|, famous for playing the staff of PC Gamer magazine, and other clans around since 1.3 or before, is ever shrinking as these clans are moving on to new mods or new games entirely. Although some may disagree, something is not quite right in the atmosphere of DoD right now. The dream of seeing DoD on the world stage in the CPL is diminished with the slower gameplay and buggy hitbox and FPS problems of 1.0.
It is very heartbreaking to see this happen to such a beautiful mod. I’ve met a great number of people here, and made friends of several. Hopefully, the patches for 1.0, and eventually, we hope, DoD2.0 for HL2, will continue to be a fun and exciting game to play. I also hope some more emphasis would be placed on competitive play.
As a final note, This was written by Lonewolf, and although I only speak for myself, a number of other players wanted to add their names, as a sort of petition that they agree with some or all of my points.
Thank you for your time in reading this message, and I hope you will consider some of the suggestions made. Myself, and many others have grown to be quite fond of Day of Defeat. We have invested a great deal of time and energy into this game, and the community that has grown around it. If you need beta testers or help of any kind, you have as many volunteers as you need, right here. We do not have a selfish motivation, we just want to help you as best we can. Thank you for reading this.
This document contains a list of suggestions as well as problems with the current version of Day of Defeat (v1.0). I have included reasoning and presented arguments in a manner that I hope will provoke thought on some of these issues. Thank you for reading, and I hope this is shared by anyone interested on the Day of Defeat Development Team. We decided not to post this publicly, since it would most likely be buried under a massive flame war, and it contains many categories – too many to be debated in a single thread on any forum. We hope you can find this informative, interesting, and possibly consider some of our suggestions for the next release(s) of Day of Defeat.
Matt B – I’ve added some comments. I’m not going to get into why we made every decision we did, and as such some sections are blank. A lot of the things you mention are bugs that have already been fixed for 1.1 so that is noted also.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. OPENING - OR WHY LISTEN TO US?
2. MAPS
3. JUMP-SHOOTING
4. BLEEDING
5. SCORING SYSTEM
6. MG AND SNIPER
7. BAR AND OTHERS
8. THE CROSSHAIR
9. THE DOG
10. DEATH CAMERA
11. AUTORELOADING
12. DEMOS
13. LIST OF BUGS/PROBLEMS
14. CONCLUSION
1. OPENING - OR WHY LISTEN TO US?
Many, if not most competitive DoD players have been involved in the game as competitive or casual gamers since beta 1.3 or before. As a result, we have seen, and we remember, the many stages that Day of Defeat has gone through on its journey from a small mod, to a stand-alone retail game. As a result of this experience, we have seen what worked, and what did not, from previous versions of the game. We also have considerable experience with not only the current version, but other versions as well, giving us a much more educated perspective on current gameplay dynamics, and what problems in previous versions have tweaked or solved in to produce the current version: 1.0.
We also have perspectives of the two ways to play DoD: Competitively, and publicly. Clan matches and public play (“pubbing”) are entirely different styles of play. Public play DoD is basically random or semi-random players in a server, playing a single side, and rounds lasting a typical half hour to forty-five minutes. Most servers have a player limit of 20+ people, making teams 10 on 10.
Clan matches, however, are usually 6 on 6 or 7 on 7 matches in which rounds are typically twenty minutes, each clan playing a round as allies, and a round as axis. Clan members are usually prepared for the matches, having practiced and scrimmaged the map, formed a pre-match strategy, and assigned a plan, including who is playing what class within the strict class limits. Both sides are usually of roughly equal skill, and the gameplay is very fast and intense. There is little room for error, and victory requires everyone to follow the plan.
Clan matches are “closed system” – meaning that class limits, the people playing the game, the map, etc. are all constant. While an open public server may be described as chaos, with people coming and leaving, maps changing, and people moving from team to team and barking orders that may or may not be heeded to their teammates, a clan match may be described as sterile, with extra rules and a special configuration and format to be followed.
While pubbing is very important, since not everyone can, or wants, to play competitively, in a clan match, it is much easier to check the way the game and the map play, the weapons balance, etc, due to the more constant conditions of a clan matches than a public game. There are les variables in this type of environment.
So with experience in DoD for many versions, and the unique perspective offered by observing the game in closed system matches, we offer you this list of suggestions. We hope that you can take the time to look this over, and at least consider our plea as you design the next version of DoD.
As a final note: I do not claim to speak for the entire clan community. This document was written by me: Lonewolf, and expresses my views only. At the end of this document is a list of those that support this document, and agree with what it says. I do not speak for those that did not sign this document.
2. MAPS
Some of the old favorites such as Zafod, Koln, and Cherbourg should be brought back; they were fun, high-quality maps, and they’d be a big hit with clanners and non-clanners alike. All these maps were relatively bug-free, nice and wide-open, and in addition, the darker maps such as Thunder and Zafod gave them a more distinct atmosphere. (Koln = Lonewolf’s favorite map ;) )
All the current maps tend to blur together, and do not offer particularly distinct atmospheres. They also feel very cramped and linear, or circular. Even “outdoor” maps like forest feel very, very tight and cramped – not at all like the outdoor, skies above heads scenery they are trying to create.
Maps like Kalt and Jagd feel very closed in: as thought the barriers to the map are not the natural limits of a battlefield, but rather, doors chained shut to quarantine the fighting to a restricted set of streets.
For some excellent examples of great level design, check out some of the 3.1 custom maps. Clervaux, Railroad, Cr44, Meanstreets, and others come it mind. If you need them, contact me, and I can send them to you. They are all wide open, big, and more importantly, play very nicely.
I’ve checked out a number of maps from the public, and I gotta say, a lot of them just plain suck. Tons of places to get stuck, horrible visual quality, horribly high rspeeds, huge spawn camping problems, etc. I understand that they have good gameplay, which is what counts, but until they solve some of the other issues, they won’t be really up for consideration - Tim
The two maps that came with retail, but not with the downloadable version: Merderet and Vicenza really threw servers for a loop, as most of those playing the DL version did not have the maps, and the casual player is too lazy to find them. Although it gives an incentive to buy the retail version; most serious players would find the maps quickly, and most casual, uncaring players would simply find a new server, than hunt down the missing maps or shell out money to play them.
FYI this was a business decision between Valve and Activision and outside of our scope of making decisions – Tim
As for current maps, maps such as Chemille, and Caen are littered with strange invisible walls, usually near piles of rubble where the rubble pile meets the street. This blocks movement and is quite annoying. It has been likened to an obstacle course, at times. If there is some way to fix the little snares and bugs, that would greatly enchance the quality of the map.
This is an engine bug/weakness and not a mappers flaw. These kinds of map problems are almost impossible to fix beyond going to much simpler and “flat” maps. Basically when the engine runs a map, for some reason it makes some spots have problems, and other spots which look virtually identical not have problems. And in truth I wouldn’t use the word “littered”. I’ve played literally thousands of hours of DoD online in pubs, and only occasionally get stuck on areas – and quickly learn to just avoid the areas I do get stuck in. Or give a little jump as I come to them – Tim
Many of the placeable objects, such as the tank on Caen, are surrounded with invisible walls and impassible bugs that make navigation around them difficult. It would be prudent to have all placeable map objects looked over to fix any of these bugs. Also, the tank in the center of the map Donner is surrounded by an invisible wall that makes it impossible to shoot around: ie, if an enemy is crouched next to the tank, and you need to shoot over the tank to hit him, your shot will hit an invisible wall and not hit the enemy.
3. GENERAL GAMEPLAY: JUMP SHOOTING
Jump shooting was useful for classes with automatic weapons, who could spray at riflemen while jumping, making themselves harder to hit. The kar/rifle user depends on the one shot kill potential of his weapon to hit a target with his first shot, so he can then reload his weapon and engage new targets. Since the rate of fire of his weapon is so low compared to autos, if he misses a first shot, his odds of survival drop drastically, and he is a defenseless target until he can fire again. A jump shoot to make him miss greatly aids his destruction. This tactic was used by automatics that could afford to take decrease in accuracy while jumping, and through a higher rate of fire, be able to land a few shots and possible kill his enemy.
It is a feature that helped balance rifles and automatics ,and what people have started complaining about on the official DoD forums, and what we are seeing now as the dominant tactic for rifles (strafing in and out) is basically what people did in 3.1, but this time, there is not real way to avoid getting shot if you are o the receiving end of a riflemen’s gun. Jump-shooting was used by auto’s to kill MGers, campers, and rifles. The rifle has become more powerful, and the automatics much weaker with jump-shooting absent.
No plans to re-add jump shooting.
4. GENERAL GAMEPLAY: BLEEDING
Response to bleeding is somewhat mixed. Personally, I liked bleeding, since it was something unique to the game, and also made firefights a touch more frantic; if you were bleeding, should you run away or finish the attackers off – it was a split second decision thing. It also helped make automatic weapons more powerful: since rifles are a one shot kill, bleeding was additional damage done mainly by automatics. It would be great if it could be brought back in, with 3.1 levels of damage and occurrence.
No plans to re-add bleeding.
5. GENERAL GAMEPLAY: SCORING SYSTEM
The current default scoring system (without points being given from holding flags over time) is very awkward in deciding winners and rewarding teams for doing well. A team can pin the enemy by their first flag, and hold them there for twenty minutes on a map such as, say, Caen. The score would then be a mere two points, or two flag caps, away from a tie.
Unless a team caps the entire map, the winner of the map will be determined by who holds the most flags at the final second of the game. Hardly is this scoring system representative of how the teams played the round. A team that dominates the map ought to be rewarded for doing so.
In addition, if a team caps all the flags once, they have a 50-point lead. So they no longer have an incentive to play offensively, unless the other team caps the map. They can be comfortable playing an easy defensive game.
The scoring system was very much improved by Waldo, who made a new scoring system that reincorporated the time based scoring system (to reward the dominating team) with high-point full capture rewards (to encourage capping all flags instead of holding 4/5 of them) This works wonderfully, and should be implemented as default on all maps.
As far as the total cap score goes, it could stand to actually be decreased to a more moderate 30-40 points, so two caps would not equal a horrific loss of a match – but rather, a very major setback. 3.1 Anzio is a good example of this – capping was worth a lot, but two or three caps of the map did not mean the other side had no chance at all. On the contrary, it was quite possible for a team to bounce back with several caps of their own.
I’ve added a new time based scoring system for clan play. Leagues can set the individual point values of each flag/point on each map and the delay between point gives. - Matt
6. CLASS ISSUES: MG AND SNIPER
The MG class also suffers in 1.0 due to the removal of wall penetration. Wall penetration was used by skilled MGers to mow down infantry hiding behind some debris (such as the little shack by the bridge on Anzio) and to limit the effectiveness of defensive terrain (buildings, etc.) Wall Penetration, if it is put back in, will help make the MG something to be feared. The MG42 should be brought back to 3.1 accuracy as well. As it stands, it overheats too quickly, and is too inaccurate to be effective at distance. It should be brought back to the two for one shot system of 3.1 – a system that make the MG42 a very deadly piece of equipment.
Wall penetration doubled for mg’ers. Rof back to 3.1 levels. On a side note, the wall penetration system has been redone so you can fire through multiple objects of varying material and thickness now, depending on the power of the bullet. - Matt
The Sniper class has undergone a huge change from 3.1 to 1.0 – in 3.1, a sniper could use his rifle moving from perch to perch, because it was still fairly accurate unscoped (as it should be, a scope does not make a weapon more accurate, but rather, makes the shooter more accurate in placing shots at a distance). A 3.1 sniper was also unable to strafe in and out of cover while scoped.
Instead, as you no doubt remember, a 3.1 sniper would unzoom if he moved around too much. This should be brought back. The 3.1 sniper was balanced, and was only effective in the hands of a skilled user. The current sniper requires almost no skill or practice: since the sniper can now strafe in and out of cover, just as a normal rifleman would. His rifle is also no longer useful as an unscoped weapon; no doubt altered to prevent ‘dot-sniping’ or similar tactics. This is neutral; it could go either way without much fuss. Personally, I liked getting the occasionally reflex unscoped kill. Now, it is fairly impossible without luck and random chance. No plans to change the snipers. – Matt
Snipers will lose zoom when jumping, falling, or going to/from prone in 1.1 - Tim
7. CLASS ISSUES: BAR AND OTHERS:
The BAR bipod needs to be made faster deploying or undeploying – As of right now, the accuracy of a bipod is hardly worth the downside of being a stationary target. Since the BAR has a very small magazine, it does not make sense for a BAR to deploy, and be a sitting target while reloading frequently. The bipod should be made faster to deploy and undeploy. The BAR’s recoil is also very high – it could stand to be lessened a little, or the use of the bipod made very rapid so undeployed firing is rare. We should fix this. Makes no sense for the BAR bipod to take longer than an mg.
Some weapons seem to have strange bugs that limit their effectiveness. One of the worst offenders is the Colt 1911 pistol. It seems to pause, delay, or jam after two or three rounds, making it a very unreliable sidearm, and an ineffective last-ditch weapon. I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, though the 9mm Luger and Webley revolver do not suffer from the same problem – they work fine. FIXED
The M1 carbine – this weapon needs a damage boost in order to be effective. As it stands, it takes about 4-5 shots to bring an enemy down. I know that in real-life, the weapon used pistol rounds, making them very low penetration. I’m sure that a little bit of a damage boost would not be out of line for a seriously underused and underpowered weapon in DoD. A good idea, will discuss with the team.
The M1 Garand also suffers in 1.0. With a weird combination of unregistered shots, hitbox problems, and decreased accuracy, the “rifle that won the war” is only really useful to hit people on the back of the head with. It needs to be brought back to 3.1 levels to compete with other weapons in the game and get a fair chance at victory. I used the Garand almost exclusively in 3.1, and it is now virtually unusable. Hitbox problem resolved, you will find the garand back to 3.1 levels now.
The bazookas are done very nicely – they don’t need to be altered at all. Thanks!
8. THE CROSSHAIR
The 1.0 crosshair is not terrible unique or original. By contrast, the 3.1 crosshair was great! It had a combination of a unique look and style, as well as the swaying motion giving the player a sense of where his shots will go.
The 1.0 crosshair looks like the HUD of any other game. The 3.1 crosshair should be brought back – it gave the game a more distinct look at a first glance – and many of us liked it better than the current generic crosshair.
Also suggested was a choice of several crosshairs – it should not be too hard to implement, and would satisfy virtually everyone but giving a choice of crosshair styles. I’ve added the ability to use custom crosshairs. Will see about adding 3.1 style, but not hopeful.
9. THE DOG
The autohelp dog is a useful tool for people new to the game. However, he can be quite irritating for veteran players, blocking a substantial amount of view, and cropping up at the worst times. Even when I turned him off; he still comes back if my MG overheats, I kill or injure a teammate. He should be able to be completely and totally disabled. FIXED
10. DEATH CAMERA
The current default death-camera is a feature that seriously detracts from the fun and suspense of playing DoD. Part of the fun is not always knowing exactly where the bullets are coming from. Death cam renders snipers and MGs ineffective at holding any sort of defensive or aggressive attacking position without displacing every 12 seconds to avoid being hunted down. An easy suggestion would be to remove the “death-cam” and replace it with an over the shoulder/first person chase camera following living teammates around. This would give little, if anything, away, and would in interesting to do while waiting 10 seconds to respawn. The main alternative to death cam right now, black screen, is very boring. Death cam has been changed significantly.
11. AUTORELOADING
I think we’ve all heard enough about autoreloading. Suffice to say, it is a great annoyance of deployed MGs and BARs, and can also be irritating to players that want to remain silent and reload at a later time. It should be removed, or at the very least, made a client side option. I’d turn mine off, personally. FIXED
12. DEMOS:
Demos seem to be very buggy in 1.0. Often, demos can be corrupted if they are not stopped before a map change, and demos cannot be taken over multiple maps. I have often been randomly crashed while taking a demo, this may be due to the use of the ‘stopsound’ command, or perhaps someone initiating a voice or text message. All have been cited as possible causes for crashes or corrupted demos.
It has been reported that if you record a demo as a British player, your arms disappear, and on the minimap, you become an allied player, and the minimap becomes a green grid as the demo records. Map fixed, will check on the brit recording.
13. LIST OF KNOWN BUGS/MINOR PROBLEMS
1. Player getting stuck on dead bodies
2. Player getting stuck on dropped guns
3. Grenades falling through map/disappearing
4. Terrible framerate problems – even with very fast computers and the latest graphics cards, fps problems are very prevalent in 1.0
5. Hitboxes – arms in front of chest, blatant misses with rifles counting as hits and kills. FIXED
6. Unregistered shots, particularly from Garand (or maybe it’s just more noticeable)
7. Sometimes, if you shoot someone point black, you will die as well as though via a suicide. Very random. Couldn’t duplicate this one, though I know what you’re talking about. If you can make it happen consistently, tell me how and I’ll gladly fix it.
8. Anti-spawn camping system gives players in many instances a safe haven to camp a flag from – it should either be lessened or removed. Personally, I had no problem with it in 3.1 or before.
9. Dog does not go away even when turned off: he tells you when you teamkill/teamwound/overheat MG FIXED
10. Spelling and grammatical errors in text files describing classes. FIXED
11. You cannot jump-shoot, yet you can fall out of a window and fire as you fall By design – you technically fall whenever you go down stairs, and it makes no sense to not allow people to shoot in that situation.
12. Rubble hang-up problems on Caen and other maps with rubble – cannot move over rubble Won’t fix. Learn to avoid spots or “hop”. The negative of much the fix would add to the patch size outweighs benefits of fix.
13. Clipping problem on Charlie neat right allied tank on beach Fixed
14. White model bug: sometimes when you click on a class that is full and then click random, you spawn as a white model w/ no gun Do you have a reproducible case for this?
15. A spectator hack/bug that is becoming very rampant with 1.0 - a person in the spectator class can spawn and slaughter those in-game, while not being a part of a team. FIXED
16. Barbed wire seems to be different on every map. On Donner, it hurts the player. On Kalt, it has invisible walls. On other maps, you can lie on top of it, or go through it.
17. Some sandbags barriers, such as the one at the entrance to the Allied building on avalanche, by the Allied second flag, do not stop grenades from killing across the sandbags: i.e. if a grenade lands on one side of the sandbags, and I go prone on the other, instead of being protected, the grenade damage will pass through the sandbag and kill me.
14. CONCLUSION
Day of Defeat is a mod that has given me, and many, many others, clanners and non-clanners alike, a great deal of joy the past few years. Many clans and groups of people have existed for years, playing together in a world relatively free of hackers, thugs, and malicious players.
Retail has been a mixed blessing for many. Retail would give DoD the popularity it needs to become a more mainstream game, and it's great to see the DoD development team get the resources of Valve on its side while making the game, as well as the financial credit they deserve. It was the hope of many that DoD would become mainstream enough to be eligible to CPL – The Cyberathlete Professional League.
However, retail has also released the game to the great, unwashed masses, raising the number of lamers, and generally nasty people in game for everyone. The people that buy this game in the store, for the most part, will not become hardcore fans. The hardcore following can be found mainly in those that have played the game for years. And sadly, that portion of the community is shrinking.
Through the release of 1.0, a number of long-time clans have died…due to lack of fun and interest playing the game. Even non-clanners comment that the game is no longer as fun as it once was – the official DoD forums have several such threads in the general section. The list of long-time DoD clans, including the |101st|, famous for playing the staff of PC Gamer magazine, and other clans around since 1.3 or before, is ever shrinking as these clans are moving on to new mods or new games entirely. Although some may disagree, something is not quite right in the atmosphere of DoD right now. The dream of seeing DoD on the world stage in the CPL is diminished with the slower gameplay and buggy hitbox and FPS problems of 1.0.
It is very heartbreaking to see this happen to such a beautiful mod. I’ve met a great number of people here, and made friends of several. Hopefully, the patches for 1.0, and eventually, we hope, DoD2.0 for HL2, will continue to be a fun and exciting game to play. I also hope some more emphasis would be placed on competitive play.
As a final note, This was written by Lonewolf, and although I only speak for myself, a number of other players wanted to add their names, as a sort of petition that they agree with some or all of my points.
Thank you for your time in reading this message, and I hope you will consider some of the suggestions made. Myself, and many others have grown to be quite fond of Day of Defeat. We have invested a great deal of time and energy into this game, and the community that has grown around it. If you need beta testers or help of any kind, you have as many volunteers as you need, right here. We do not have a selfish motivation, we just want to help you as best we can. Thank you for reading this.