How to improve 1.3

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FTM1K
Scrap
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 1:05 am

How to improve 1.3

Post by FTM1K »

Suggestions for 1.3 patch development.

This focuses mainly on all the flaws of 1.3 compared to earlier patches (1.0/1.1/1.2) and in general, and making the game as much an enjoyable experience for everyone as possible.

All of these are easier said than done. That's why I'm offering to help and test where I can.

1. Fix high shadows so that they resemble the vehicle and its motions with smooth edges, and do the same to buildings. Remove shadows from props, bridges, tunnels, navs/drops (?) and pools (???) at low setting like in earlier patches. They should only have shadows at a higher setting and make them like described earlier.

2. Shadows overlap effects and animations which looks ugly.

3. Terrain render should really be fixed. Back to how it was before BZ2 became a DirectX9 game. I get that it's not an intentional issue and that this is just a temporary state of the game but it's really bad when an ancient patch looks better than one from 2016. It's a singular issue but it really does make a lot of difference in visual appeal. It's a very distracting thing for me on the otherwise beautiful high graphic setting. A temporary solution would be to have the fogrange changed to 10m before the visibilityrange. So if it was 400m that would be setting fogrange to 390 -> 400. However, this almost completely eliminates fog and only really makes the transition look smoother so it's not a perfect solution. You can though, set it further away so it's less noticeable. If you can't make it like before at least make fog range customizable online so that if the visibility range is 275 you can make it 265 -> 275. I wouldn't say it really affects gameplay in MP. The other alternative is setting this value for every map in the game which can be a mundane job unless someone knows a workaround.

4. Lightflare.tga needs to customizably colored again. Before the DX9 shift, the lights from scion plasma impacts were red, mortar explosions had orange lights, thrusters had blue lights and so on. Now lights are always plain white no matter what FX they belong to. It needs to revert to colored lights.

5. Minor issue. Lancer thruster must be fixed. Right now it's just an orange outline. It's been like that since the beginning but begs to be fixed.

6. Lighting issues with simulated terrain were fixed, but are back to being broken again. The "unstable terrain" on pluto is one example. Certain pool outlines on certain maps is another. Speaking of which, illumination of terrain and objects from headlights need to be as smooth as in earlier patches.

7. Some explosions and animations in the early patches were pretty fast, when you had your target window enabled. This might have been a glitch but it was a really cool glitch and gave the game some intensity. Speeding them up 1.5x or even 2x would make them more realistic and stay more true to the fast paced action feel of the game. This does require a lot of work though.

8. Damaged ship flame needs to not get overlapped by the smoke effect. Make it render the flame first always or have a single effect that combines both.

9. 3rd person laser needs to be much more visible, again, like in earlier patches.

10. More responsive controls, strafing from side to side really quickly is not nearly as fast as before. Was this intentional?

12. Everything in the "Some things are better in older patches" video not mentioned here.

13. 3D audio back is cool. But in its current state it floods all sound channels after shooting your minigun at the ground a few times, after that it gets weird and switches back and forth between 2D and 3D. But when you move away from where you were shooting, the channels go back to normal until you shoot again. Fix. I've noticed that non-player firing sounds are not added to the sound queue. Also, when you set the sound channel value to 64 it reverts back to 32 by itself. Some sounds need to have better audibility from far away. Pretty much like it was before the 3D audio shift but with it enabled.

14. BRING BACK FLYING. jk jk

Other than that, the 1.3 patch is great! 1.2 might have had a better more nostalgic atmosphere to it but it doesn't play multiplayer nearly as smoothly as 1.3! All the ghosting, lagging, warping and glitching is gone, which makes me very pleased.
Commando
Flying Mauler
Posts: 2176
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:41 pm

Re: How to improve 1.3

Post by Commando »

I wouldn't object to an ODF flag that prevents the thrusters from shutting off when someone attempts to fly.

I wouldn't support making it a stock setting, but wouldn't have any objection to it being added to a vet recycler variant.

Unfortunately that has been shot down more times than I can count.
FTM1K
Scrap
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2016 1:05 am

Re: How to improve 1.3

Post by FTM1K »

Commando wrote:I wouldn't support making it a stock setting, but wouldn't have any objection to it being added to a vet recycler variant.
Better yet, make it an option in lobby.

Also:

http://bz2maps.us/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4761
Commando
Flying Mauler
Posts: 2176
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:41 pm

Re: How to improve 1.3

Post by Commando »

Recycler variants can be selected in the lobby.
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