development or "What the hell is going on?" (Page 4 of 5)

Teeworlds is very often described with; It is a 2D mix, out 'Worms' and 'CSS', and in my opinions it is similar like Worms. Just more dynamic and much faster.
So it would be great, and the mines fits well to Teeworlds!

Oh, please stick to topic. There are even parts of our first post which are not discussed yet. E.g. we suggested to schedule 2 releases every year or to have a game play developer.

I definitely support the idea of having a regular release cycle.
We also need to build up a team of more core developers. Right now there is only Oy. Of course, he is the code maintainer, but there are a lot of other people who sent in so many patches, that they deserve the title "developer" in my opinion.

Also we should have some people who keep the community up to date about what is happening in development. This could either be done using the news on the main page, or in the forum. I know there has already been an attempt to do so and in my opinion we should continue with that. However, this should not only be done by the community, but it should be official.

The main problem in my opinion is, that there is no developer at all (leaving out Landil) who is actually active in the forum and keeping contact to the community. And this in my opinion is the problem to the missing connection between community and development. We need "developers" who also are active here on the forum. For example: There are hundreds of suggestions for the new version in this thread, but most of them are marked in grey, which means there has not been an official statement if it will be implemented or not.

Why is this the case?

I think it is because nobody of the developers even cares to read through them. This is just not acceptable. We need to make a active communication between development and community possible. In my opinion either the developers should be more active in this forum here and keep (or better start) the contact to the community, or we should have some new people do that.

In my opinion the second option would be better. I think it's good to bring in some new and energetic blood into the team. Who this person should be is discussable, maybe we should have even 2 or 3 new members in the team.

First of all I would like to know your opinions about how we could solve those issues. Do you support my point of view, or do you have a completely different opinion?

2 releases every year is a great idea. but having a active teeworlds development community would be great to. we need to keep a blog or something so the playing community can know what is going on.

Regarding vanilla, in my opinion it is almost perfect right now. Gameplay is very simple yet there is strategy and tactics. This is a great feat that is not achieved by many games: being simple yet deep. Like the game of Go. Players who are looking for novelty don't like it, sure, but it is not a reason to break the game for those who like it either. I'm not saying nothing can be added, but it should be done with extreme care.

Grenade launcher may appear to be a bit too strong. It deals the most damage AND blocks path AND is strong even at long range (sometimes) AND allows you to gain momentum AND allows you to control space. However it is also difficult to master, its power depends a lot on the situation, it requires a lot of anticipation, and it is also the most evadable of the weapons. Also, its 10 ammos are depleted quickly if you use it for all its roles at the same time (gaining momentum AND prevent people from following AND doing damage), so it is very interesting strategy-wise because you have to CHOOSE what is the best way to use the weapon RIGHT NOW.

Moreover, it is not bad to have a weapon which is stronger than the others, simply because it makes it more important to control. If all weapons have the same strength, then it does not matter which one you take. If, however, you have a choice between a better weapon guarded by the enemy and a lesser weapon which is safe to take, then this is an interesting decision to make and brings depth to the game.

If you really want to "balance" grenade launcher, here is what I would propose:
- consider its position in maps very carefully, maybe put a little less of them;
- lower its direct damage to 5 instead of 6.
The damage reduction I think is acceptable because right now, when you spam rockets to prevent players from reaching you, you also happen to kill them easily almost for free. So in this situation grenades give you both things you want: control of your opponent's movement AND damage. Control of movement is very interesting and deep and tactical and should be kept at all cost. Lowering damage would be interesting to consider, to give the player a choice between grenades to control enemy's movement, OR other weapons (laser?) to kill him with no movement impeding. This brings MORE CHOICE and is thus good game design. Finally, I propose lowering by ONLY 1 because when balancing stuff, you should always be very careful and do very slight modifications, one at a time. Look at Blizzard and how they balance Starcraft 2. They are very, very careful. If, after weeks of testing, this damage reduction appears to be a good thing and it appears that it could be even reduced to 4, then, and only then it should be tried. Note that I'm talking about the direct damage here, the splash damage and the self damage are totally different stories.

About maps, now, I'm just wondering: what about ctf5? Why is it not played as much as ctf2? I think ctf5 is a great, great map with lots of interesting tactics and strategies. In my opinion, adding new maps won't really change anything, because this ctf5 status shows what those players really want: one map to master, and only one. Personally, I'm the opposite: I only play ctf5, and I don't like ctf2. Maybe if I started to play before ctf5 existed I would prefer ctf2.

About armor now, I like the idea of a powerup which would make your weapon ignore armor. Right now, the only difference between armor and health is that... they are not the same. This is already quite a lot actually, because it means that you have to choose your path depending on your health and armor status; and if at 1 health and 10 armor, you will still die in one hit from some weapons; and maps can balance armor and health differently for some interesting effects. That being said, this powerup would still bring more depth, I think. It could be tested.

About jumppads. I'm not sure. In Quake 3 I did not really like them. Why not though, they could be tried. Anyway I don't think they will "close the gap" between newbies and veterans, as I'm sure they will allow many new tricks, especially thanks to the hook. They would also lower the movement role of the grenade launcher (grenade jumps, vertical or horizontal), which would allow you to keep your grenades for damage. It would effectively give you more grenades! See how subtle balancing is? And it would trivialize the decision between losing health and a grenade to gain momentum where those pads would be put. So, I'm not sure. The good thing about jumppads though is that they are map-dependent, thus they would not break any existing gameplay (i.e. ctf2 - or ctf5 for me ).

Edit: I just did a quick search and it appears that there are much more ctf5 players than ctf2 players online, at least on servers without password. Are ctf2 players playing in secret servers among themselves?

@DooMeeR great post, pity I can't +1 more

About ctf5 I believe it is played a lot more than ctf2, although among best players it is regarded as the inferior map. I think this is caused simply by the fact that it really is inferior in terms of skillcap. Having played both on fairly high level i must admit it is a lot harder to move fast on ctf2. Ctf5 has a lot of open spaces where you can easily accelerate just by using grenade launcher, also defending flag is easier as well, because its spot is not in open. Another bad design is that there are many places where flag carrier can simply wait and hold for long time just by spamming grenades and laser and easily relocate afterwards.

About teeworlds vanilla gameplay, in my opinion it is important to keep it simple. As DooMeeR said it is quite deep already and employs tactics. I think it does not need dozens of powerups, explosive barrels or jeeps to drive. It should be something that gives players more options, more ways of moving, that increases skillcap without being just 12th weapon to master. Of course some new weapons or powerups would benefit teeworlds and make maps play more differently(I think TDM needs badly some powerups or weapons to be interesting to play). However it is important not to overdo.

In my opinion something like slopes or maybe jumppads or accelerators could be great. These would certainly make moving around more interesting and complex, however I'm really not sure if it would fit. Well, worth a try at least imo . Aside from gameplay which should be kept complex in its simplicity, some features like better replay system(I'd love to be able to see hp and weapons of recorded players), pause function, some kind of acc system with statistics(would help to analyze areas needing improvement) would be very, very nice.

Just 2 cents from mid-high level vanilla player :>.

I think its great that development is gearing up again and the developers are coming out to inform the community but...

I do not believe additions like accelerators and jump pads will be that beneficial to the game.
For one, I like teeworlds because it is so simple yet still an amazing game with great depth (thanks to its incredibly balanced gameplay).

I find not liking accelerators and jump pads really complicated to explain in full detail (why I don't like the idea) but I have some other physical (but really shallow) points that might convey some sort of basic idea why I don't like them.
-Ping would make weird delays (from walking normally to the boost) which is a problem in teeworlds
-Grenades can also function as jump boosters and accelerators

So it seems like the developers think its a good idea to do that as it "make[s] it easier to move fast" to "accelerate players with bad hooking skills". I believe it is a way (maybe indirectly) to close the gap between new players and veterans but it could also separate the community like how laser bounce in instagib did to the instagib community (Really old example but the only thing I have). Laser bounce was seen as a way to get speed  but in doing that, the hook became less important. Since the hook required a  decent amount of skill to use and the laser bounce didn't many new players loved it and the hard core group rejected the idea quickly.

I don't know what good teeworlds players think of this idea (i.e ubu) but I don't think this would be too good of a plan as the rocket does both already (except more precisely). It just needs players to learn how to use it as opposed to mindlessly running into a booster or jumper (which is probably only workable in certain angles).

I believe if people wanted to learn, there could be just a tutorial at the start of teeworlds just to show all the mechanics of the game before pushing new players to play not knowing how to hook decently. (of course most of these are the younger players of teeworlds but it would make teeworlds a more appealing game to those who are just starting out )

To be honest when race is implemented, I would not mind these additions at all but I feel like they are going to have to feel flawless (like the rest of vanilla teeworlds) if it ever makes it into CTF DM and TDM

Also
Powerups are a very broad term as they could mean anything but they have a huge potential to wreak the game. So I hope there is ALOT of community testing before it is officially implemented (such as passwords given to forum members and giving feedback back on the forums)
Kind of like Starcraft 2 as some people already mentioned.

Anyways, thats just some of my opinions on that but I still believe in the developers giving us a great game regardless of whats coming and I hope the next version comes soon!

EDIT:(O.o Thats alot of text)

teeworlds could become a new social net. With giant world map, achievements and player status.

Like I said earlier: I'm just a gonna sit back and enjoy So what ever u do....it will be epic!!!!

If I'm not mistaken, ctf1_reworked is actually going to be the new ctf1 but since if servers used maps named as ctf1 and it wasn't ctf1, then they'd be banned, hence, the reason "reworked" is in its name.

Off topic random question... but do outdated replaced maps have their own archive so they wouldn't forever be lost? I know for a fact that dm1 was actually one out of 4 visions of maps and now the other 3 haven't seen the light of day...