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GrayScare0
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Posts: 404
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« on: December 26, 2010, 08:46:39 PM » |
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These two traitor tests are simply far too reliable. Any person can go up to a corpse and see the weapon that the corpse was killed by and demand that another player pull out his/her primary, and anyone can demand that another player drop his/her weapon so the ammo can be checked.
Both failure to respond to these checks and testing positive (same weapon used as the player was killed by or missing ammo) generally means KOS. The only exceptions are when there are many players on for the weapon check, as then it is more likely that two players have the same weapon; and using ammo to kill a confirmed traitor and therefore being confirmed innocent. Generally, if ammo is used for shooting props or windows, the ammo checker does not know this and the player is killed. Certainly one could argue that the player should have had witnesses t the shootings, but this requires much attention and complicates matters. Really, using ammo for any reason other than killing a player is baiting if an "ammo checker" is on the server.
So imagine the frustration of the players that are killed as a result of this check! Personally, I think that about half of my traitor kills are attributed to ammo checks. This sucks for both the traitors and the innocents that used ammo for legitimate purposes other than killing.
Players can remedy this by shooting off rounds (and, to be even more secure, then grabbing ammo), but this attracts significant attention (appearing as baiting) AND draws players to the location of the shooter.
Ditching weapons is another way of avoiding weapon checks, but then you have to consider continuity (were you seen with the gun earlier?), witnesses, and DNA scans. Hiding your weapon works fine too, but as soon as the ammo/weapon check is called, you are most likely either dead or a known traitor. Also, innocents have no reason to not hold out their primaries besides being framed.
Even when bodies are burned, the most often the gun is heard. The most solid defenses against the weapon check is probably framing (radio is great for this), but this rarely occurs in my experience--if the framed person is killed, generally the traitor is next on the list.
This problem often makes games far too short--either the traitor is called out earlier than he should have been and proceeded to openly massacre, or the traitor is killed earlier than he should have been. In my opinion, the pacing of the game could use a little slowing down. That way traitors aren't too rushed and the "detective" game is more for detectives (rather than any innocent) and requires more analytical thought and more evidence.
The solution? Simpler than you might think. I propose two CVARs: one for ammo being tied to the gun, and another for weapon killed by being displayed on corpse checks.
When the former CVAR is set to "0" (which I personally think should be the default), the ammo is not tied to the weapon. Instead, it is tied to the player. A new HUD section would show the ammo counts--completely separate from the gun--and the magazine's ammo count would be displayed as it always was.
Reloading subtracts from the reserve ammo count. Ammo is dropped on death and can also be dropped separately from the gun via a new command that drops an ammo package. The ammo package would contain the standard ammo amount in a package (such as 20 for 9mm) unless the reserve ammo count is lower than this amount, at which point the remainder would be dropped (example: an ammo box with, say, 15 9mm bullets when 15 reserve bullets are left and the ammo drop function is issued).
This last part may be difficult to script (not to mention deceiving--imagine picking up an ammo package with less ammo than expected); I really have no idea, but it seems to me to be much like the already implemented feature of picking up (and consuming) an ammo package to fill a shot-off portion of your magazine (example: having 28 reserve Deagle ammo and picking up an ammo pack--the ammo package is not all used; it fills your ammo to the maximum count and the remainder essentially is removed from play).
Obviously only two ammo types could be held. This is a limitation when you have a primary or secondary equipment that uses an ammo type other than your two other ammo types (UMP and silenced pistol), but I don't believe it would be balanced to let detectives and traitors have access to a third pool (even if the purchases mentioned are required)--instead, these would be loaded with a magazine and could use one of the two ammo pools if available.
Perhaps ammo pools could be bought with credits as possible passive equipment. That would certainly help traitors to stash ammo without having to drop too much and risk being DNA scanned.
Perhaps these ammo packages could be DNA scanned like a weapon so dropped stashes could be scanned for the user that dropped them.
Dropping ammo would also need two functions (one for ammo type A, one for ammo type B), and the ammo held would NOT necessarily reflect the weapons held (though I think you should only be able to grab ammo for the weapons being carried). For an example, I could pick up a sniper, stash sniper ammo, and then drop the sniper for a shotgun and still have the ammo (though it would take an ammo pool). Alternatively, you could simply have ammo able to be picked up in any situation (though still taking a poll), but this might be confusing and encourage players to steal ammo to deprive others.
This, if implemented, would also fix the situation in which you pick up a weapon and take lots of ammo, then drop it for another weapon--the ammo is now tied to the weapon and only that weapon (especially annoying when you have a pistol, grab lots of ammo, then ditch it for a glock and lose all that ammo unless you had an M16).
Does this sound complicated? Certainly it does in words, but imagine it in practice--dropping ammo packages, dropping weapons loaded only with what was actually loaded... Ammo checks could then be circumvented by reloading--only the loaded ammo would be shown to the ammo checker, so noticing reloads would be important. You could still ammo check much like you can currently weapon check when a player insists they don't have a weapon of a certain type--dropping ammo and seeing if the player could pick it up--but there's no telling what ammo the player actually has unless you followed him the whole game, and the player could pick up ammo to fill in the gap, but still it is unknown what ammo value he had or what he had picked up or hsot off prior to the check. Players would need to be actually watched for the checks to be effective.
This implementation would also give an ammo checking equipment much more purpose than before (though I would urge that it could only check for a certain ammo type if implemented and then have limited uses--for an example, one check could be for 9mm ammo--this would balance it considerably, as you'd have to know what you were looking for).
Another addition that would significantly improve the slot checking aspect of the game would be having to press "use" (or a new function--"grab"--though I'd think use would be fine) to pick up guns, equipmement, and ammo; this could be a CVAR and/or an F1 setting to keep matters simpler. I never found that being able to check slots by dropping a weapon of a certain slot was a legitimate test--it's far too simple, too unrealistic, and feels like a downright exploit.
The second major CVAR mentioned above (far above; I know I'm going into a lot of detail here) would have three settings: off, mixed, and on (0,1,2). When off, any person checking a corpse does not see the weapon killed by; just the ammo type (so killed by 9mm...that could be M16, glock, silenced pistol or pistol). When mixed, only detectives could see the weapon killed by; everyone else would see ammo killed by (but if a player checks the body and then a detective checks it, the tab menu would need to show the detective's results, right? I'm not sure how easy overwriting this would be) (I would suggest this be the default). When on, things would be as they are now.
People would need to pay attention to the gunshots they hear... If anyone hears... Rather than what they see on a dead body. When set to mixed, the detective would be more detective-like, though his role would still be easier (and he would be more important) than if set to off. It's a delicate balance, isn't it?
This would also fix a significant problem with custom servers: as more guns are added, it's easier to figure out who the traitor is because less people have the same guns. It would still be a bit detrimental, as players could hear the guns, but this would encourage more analysis than just "Kill the player that has weapon x because corpse y was killed by weapon x" (and this would apply to vanilla as well).
In an ideal setting, corpse checks would show the ammo and location for all bullets in the player (ex. you see a rifle shot in his torso and a 357 bullet hole in his head), and ammo would simply not be displayed (only number of reserved magazines; you'd need to count bullets) (or maybe just the reserves would be displayed) (reloading with at least a shot left would have the magazine plus the chambered shot), but these are unnecessarily realistic, too complicated, and inconsistent with the nature of the game I feel. Thus, I would encourage these to be ignored. The suggestions I have made are, in my opinion, a great compromises. They would make the game much more analytical--when an aggressive player is alive, it's like the difference between Sherlock mode being on vs. being off (if you don;t know what that is, look at the CVAR list on the website).
I know this was a long, long post. I've given the issues much thought, and I wholeheartedly believe that this would make the game more analytical while also keeping it from being too slow. Please only respond if you read the entire post,a nd if you have questions or criticism, please ask--but I urge you to consider thee, BKU, if possible.
Thank you for your time and I hope everyone had a merry Christmas.
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