rl is really good as is. wether its slower or faster, i couldnt give a fuck, i like it.

But I'm not even giving an opinion on it, I'm curious as to how it could be coded to be X speed, and feel substantially slower.

he said the values are the same, but maybe the engine works different?

Different scales in the engine perhaps make it LOOK slower when it still is the same? I dunno :)

blame 60 fps i guess :o

you lucky bastard

rockets fly off from the center of the screen, where as in q3 they were slightly offset, this results in the perception off rockets being slower. you can observe a similar occurence in warsow. there the rockets are actually as fast as in cpma, but cause of the different graphical representation they seem slower than in vq3.

copy past of post on cached.net

93 - ia delete 10/25/05
scale differences between Q3 and Q4
There's a post on esr by Swelt pointing out that virtually all the projectile speeds, weapon damages, and splash radii in Q4 are identical to their values in Q3. However, it's apparent through playing that Q3 and Q4 apparently have lots of differences in rl projectile speed, length of lg beam, and so on.

I think the reason for this discrepencancy is that in Q3 the size of 'units' is essentially larger. In Q3 the player models are a certian number of units tall and wide, and the levels and weapon properties are disigned to reflect this. In Q4 the player models are a larger number of units tall and wide, and Q4's levels are correspondingly designed to accomidate this.

However, in what was probably an effort to port Q3's gameplay to Q4, Raven kept identical numerical values for all the weapon damages, projectile speeds, splash radii, etc. The result of this is that while rail and rockets still do 100 damage, and lg does 8 damage/cell, rockets move slower relative to the size of the player, lg doesn't reach as far, and rockets and grenades have smaller effective splash radii, to name a few differences.

This shouldn't be interpreted as making a judgement of or suggesting that Raven rescale Q4's weapons to make them more similar to Q3, it is just an observation I felt like pointing out. While I'm dissapointed at some of Q4's weakened weapons (only rl and lg tbh), I think it would be a bad idea to exactly recreate Q3.

The sheer level of incompetence that this suggests is kinda scary. These people 'designed' the settings for the game this community will be playing for 3 or more years and the best they could do was plonk in Q3 settings to get a Q3-feel but didn't understand/realise/notice/care that the scale made it totally different? These values aren't even arbitrary, they're comical.

Couldn't agree more here. If Raven doesn't realize that these values aren't the same, this is truly terrifying.

On the other hand, this gives me some hope that they could, in principle, try to amend this discrepancy. No, they don't have to copy/paste q3, but in all honesty, it looks like they WERE trying to do so - so if that WAS their intent, at least do it right ffs.

P.S. As dumb as this sounds, could somebody with some clout email Raven and point this out? Based on that Thresh interview with Carmack years back regarding q2 rockets, it seems to me that developers are often oblivious as to gameplay issues their online community face.

link to said interview?

No idear, read this a long while ago.

Assuming my memory serves me, it was something Thresh wrote in which he detailed the q2 rl lag to Carmack, who went 'ohh, maybe you mean this,' and took it out almost immediately. Just that they had never noticed something that crucial, assuming again that I'm recalling this correctly, kind of blew my mind when I read this (which would have been years ago as it was during q3 development).

I think you're misrelating that. Thresh was talking about the 50ms prestep of the Q1 RL that the Q2 one didn't have. Prestep as in the rocket starts with 50ms of travel from your player's shooting origin point. Thresh was smug to have noticed it and Carmack was pleased to be able to work out what he meant or something like that.

My "point" with that was that the developers seemed oblivious to something that, to them, seemed minor, but to players HUGELY impacted (imho) the division between q1 and q2 (the nerfed rockets).

well, word I got from a q4 dev was that nearly(if not all) of the q4 devs had no experience in quake 3, not until said raven dev got people playing ra3 on their lunch breaks. Bout as far as their experience in q3 goes. Most likely some could notice the differences in the weapons, but didn't change it and wanted to keep it mathematically the same as q3 to not dissapoint the hardcore q3 players. But, it's off for whatever reason and bitches are dissapointed.

Well, here's the thing. I'll try to simplify this:

* One one hand, doing a copy/paste of q3 isn't the smartest idea, in that it implies no evolution beyond q3. Arguments go either way for this, but I think everyone would be in favor of keeping what, fundamentally, WORKED for competition in past quakes.

* On the other hand, despite the values being "different" as they are, if it actually turns out that Raven MEANT them to be like q3, but they are now something fundamentally arbitrary since scaling is very different, everything about the current values are basically meaningless. They're not "designed," they'd LITERALLY be an accident of copy/pasting legacy values from q3 but having different d3 background shit they didn't account for (change in unit sizes or whatever).

* So, as it is, while people might be hesitant to make these values what they may have INTENDED to be (q3 copy/paste), that SEEMS to be what Raven wanted. IF that's the case, Raven needs to make SOME change imho because of point #2 - that the present values are totally fucking arbitrary and not even as intended. There are obvious problems with this happening, but if q4 default weapon/game physics wind up being screwed because the dev team didn't understand what would happen when copy/pasting this shit, that is totally mind-blowing.

However, it's also possible that these values ARE intended as is. Though I can't imagine why that would be, given that the values are literally copy/pasted from q3. What other possible purpose would there be to do that then emulate the already successful q3 weapon stats?

Yet by doing so you have a q3 feeling balance with weapons and stuff ... not all bad imho

Cookie for ia. :)

Yes, Raven owned themselves with bad mathskillz. The numbers are the same, but the scale is different, so what was supposed to be e.g. a Q3-style 900ups rocket is actually a 650ups one, in Q3 terms.

Let's say, for argument's sake, that Raven did screw this up, and intended the values to be the same.

As Raven, do you fix it now or leave it to avoid changing the fundamental online experience?

My hope is that they change this - imho, I don't think there's any particularly compelling argument to make the RL dumbed down, particularly if it's an accident. Same for LG etc.

You fix it now (as in patch 0.0.0.1) BECAUSE it's a mistake; OR you admit that it was a mistake but you prefer it this way because you explicitly want the game to be even more hitscan-focused than Q3.

wrt to your #20, there's really no way you can argue that it WAS intentional. You don't come up with numbers like 768 out of a hat, even if it IS a multiple of 256. :P

Well, based on posting this on shacknews (high shackers), the most common response seems to be "who cares, I hated q3 anyways, let's just adapt to this."

No real response to that other than my thought that Q4 online is going to be Painkiller v.2. A handful of top nerds trying to win prize money, a few more who have the vague ambition of doing so, and then people simply playing other games because more than a few weeks of mg cess fests isn't going to be very fun for anyone.

arQ is there anyway you can check the rockets width? seems to have some where q3 didnt

had the same theory...
for me, this is a bug !

Q3 Rocketluncher speed=q4 Rocketlauncher speed?

The projectile speed value is the same as q3, but different scale/units in d3 = slower for quake 4 than quake 3.

The question is now: did Raven intend this, or did they literally just fuck up the math? If it's the latter...lol

i think he meant the firing speed

The rocket is to slow, thats my oppinion... feals more like the q2 rocket then the q3.. $$$$ u jump into the projectile al the time..

The quake4 rocket should be 900ups in q3 terms... (after the math) ....
maybe it wiil come a change, or else a mod will do! :)

For reference, the seeming consensus at shacknews can be summarized in this post:

"They are just looking for shit to peck at. Seriously, Raven (nor id, who helped out in Q4s creation) are that stupid, and I'm positive Q4 had lots of playtesting multiplayer wise. What they gave us is what they intended. Citing that they are "stupid" for just copying and pasting values from Q3 without adjusting them for the new map\player sizes is just...silly."

Personally, I find this pretty unlikely. From a development standpoint, it would then imply that Raven/id started off with a template of q3 weaponstats, and tweaked these stats by altering unit/player sizes. Given the potential repurcussions of that in the gameworld, that is exactly backwards - you establish that shit THEN put in particular weapon values. That those values are literally identical to q3 strongly implies, to me, that Raven intended them to be the same.

However, I think I put in one too many flames as I'm now no longer able to post in that thread :P

shacknews is actually not a site for people who would understand the concept of game scale related to game mechanics.

it's a site for casual gamers. most of them may as well be playing pong.

True. The whole nerd-in-denial thing annoys me, though.

I consider it "significant" in terms of its impact on quake 4, but people acted astonished that anyone would possibly care about such trivialities. The whole "just deal with it" attitude.

The 'just deal with it' attitude is extremely unhelpful here if no tweaking was done with the Q4 settings. It sounds all manly for those insecure teens but the reality of just deal with it will be a dead scene. If someone wants to defend the current settings a valid answer would be along the lines of 'look weapon X and Y balance out this effect and create these interesting situations'. If people can't come up with valid reasons why the current settings work then the community needs to look at tweaking.

It's been a VERY long time since the ShackES days. You might as well ask some Random Guy buying The Sims in EB what his opinion is, and you'd get the same mindless answer.

Truth be told, it doesn't MATTER that they messed up. All that really counts is whether the game is better or worse for it, and that's very subjective. To a Generic FFA Newb, it makes no difference: people whose sum knowledge of movement is "I press W" are going to walk into rockets anyway. A Generic RA3'er might well argue that it IMPROVES the game because "people won't spam rockets so much now cos they're useless" and rewards the camp-with-rail "strategy" that most of them favor.

There IS no right and wrong in gameplay except that it be "right" for whatever your TARGET audience is. As a simple example, CPMA's "weak" spawns and "strong" armors are right *for CPMA* because our players want more depth to their game than just aim. They're NOT right for a playerbase of FFA-only newbs playing their first FPS though: Q3's 125H+CG spawns and tissue armor are much more suitable for that case, because everyone gets to feel like they're acheiving something.

if it's true that Raven's only exposure to Q3 came from RA3, maybe the devs think it's good. who knows?

with an SDK and some dedicated mappers/modders, Q4 could be the best thing since sliced bread.

p.s and for FUCK'S SAKE take out that mg sound.

You said yourself, though, that if it is a mistake, you either admit it or say "this is fine."

If you were Raven, and considering that they want to maximize net fun for your average consumer, what would you do? Imho, newbies aren't going to be playing this game indefinitely online anyways, and considering the legacy of quake, I'd think they'd make some concessions over MULTIPLAYER for people who actually plan on playing it for more than a couple of weeks.

However, I could certainly be wrong.

Edit: oh yah, and in terms of shacknews...

I guess I just remember the good old days of logging onto...what was it, www.shugashack.com/msgboard/quake3.html or whatever during the q3test days. Back then, people did discuss gameplay mechanics and whatnot and seemed interested in the outcome.

Site was much better back when it was sCary's Quakeholio :)

You got the capital 'C' and everything, oldschool!

right on again.

i hope you spend this much time coding as you do posting here if/when the SDK is released ;)

the target audience here are quakers so there is right and wrong. cpma for q3 was too fast fast, movement wise and weapons switch wise. go 50/50 and your mod for q4 is the winner.

if you say that there is no right or wrong in a game.. then please don't add as an example that cpma has depth and vq3 is like the paralympics with all winners...
ofcourse you're biased.. but that was just the worst example you could pick.

if the game becomes hitscan or not depends on the players..
even i can play a game of fragging yard 1on1 without rail kills..

I kinda doubt most of that, if they tested so much why are there no map locs for example?

This argument might be valid, except the scale is not uniformly different. Players are taller, but not wider.

The size of the DM17 remake is exactly the same as Q3DM17, so the scale argument is just plain wrong (at least for that map).

If you're talking about perceived scale, that's different. Rockets seem slower, but it's just an illusion.

No, the rockets really are relatively slower in q4 (in respect to the gameworld). There's no way you're chalking this up to misperception. I kept testing them back and forth - this is like saying q2 rockets are really as fast as q1 rockets, imho.

horseshit.

thats not right. Ive read many comments about dm17, I didnt test it myself, where they said the platform on dm17 is smaller than it was in q3. that seems to be just one peace of the puzzle we now know the whole thing about.

another thing: did anyone look at the remakes of old q3 maps? I mean the ones that was only transformed from q3. what came to my mind when I first saw lets say ztn was: omg the doorway from the teleporter-outcoming looks so compressed.

to me all of this makes full sense now when you read this thread.

I agree with arqon when he says its subjective. you may call it a bug. quake was always full of bugs. bugs made quake as fun and great as it is. but to me THIS BUG is just a big mistake. a bug has its authorization when it adds sth real cool or important or even some totally new features to a game making the game richer. i cant find any positiv aspects in this one at all. the only thing it does is making the rail even more dominant than it was in q3. Im sure noone of us wants a dominant rail. thats not what the core of quake is and should be: every weapon having its advantage in some situations.

well if i had q4 i now would make a vid in dm17 on both versions put them side by side shoothing a rocket to a comon point to see wich one gets there first or at the same time :p illusion or reality? xD

Well, my very unscientific version of that puts the q3 rocket 1 one second faster going from rail to the jump pad in the air on dm17.

very nice input of blownpanis, and arQon,... whoever says or thinks "they intended it to be different" lol ,.... must have an IQ rated below something of 53? OMG Really, 20 numbers are the same ?! ;) by coincidence maybe
!?!
oh yes - the gods of coding and programming do nothing wrong!
well as you say haha,... but even I could've coded the ingame structure better in quake4. there are that many bugs for little changes. the movement is skrewed (maybe reasoned by fps) oh and why are fps skrewed, look up arqons posts about realtime shaders eating your shorts - err no about 190% of your fps :P
and last but not least things like headbob, the locket maxfps and yes- who wasn't able to feel it? the changed weapon-feelings. well of course the damage of the weapons is the same (excluding rocket-splashdamage and lightninggun) but even i noticed subjectively the rocketspeed alternated.

and a slower rocketlauncher is the worst that could happen to us.

Fastest was quakeworld - cannot remember quake2 speed, but quake3 was like the right speed to be able to avoid being hit by rockets on distance and the right to have a little air control as well -- ,... and a faster rocket than this one can ONLY be better in my eyes.

I really hope they change it - but it hope even more the shaders, diffuse lights the fpslimit and whatever is going to be removed first :)

greetz
aNc'satan

faster rockets would be bad for hackers though