pls show seconds

And milliseconds for the last minute. Q3 Style.

MONEY TIME!

considering most players nowadays can have a second monitor with a timer open, I don't see why they wouldn't just include it

Calm the fuck down Bill Gates.

imo there needs to be some middle ground. I like the idea of having an icon above it like UT2014 has done, but I don't think showing seconds is the solution. There should be some kind of advantage to the player who picked up the item.

I think there should be colors, or 5-10 second intervals. So if something respawns in 30 seconds, red means it has 20+ seconds for resspawn, yellow is 10+ seconds, and green is under 10 seconds. that way the player who picked it up can time it and have the advantage, and the other player will have some assistance in knowing when it respawns, but not the luxury of knowing when it exactly respawns.

And when u manage to control everything its like this

http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m600vlxw1I1qb2cp4o1_500.gif

No thx.

Wtf? The player picking it up already has advantages. He gets boost in armor or HP and he does not need to figure out what exact second the item was taken, as its printed on their screen. That is enough advantages, so why would you add weird new advantages? Showing seconds is intuitive.

Timer showing seconds.
Hopefully they decide to implement it and not stick with the CPM XX timer

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say it'll be like the CPM timer.

Seconds count up, minutes count down. Only fair solution.

Minutes count up, Seconds count down. My last offer.

Minutes alternate at random between counting up and counting down. Seconds count up in base 14. Where is your clock-loving god now, vq3ers?!?

analog clock pls

As dumb as it Sounds, if this was propperly implemented I think it could be neat. It is also easier to incorporate into the Hud Design.

this. Makes timing much more intuitive than the maths/learning numbers it currently is. Ideally you would also give us a red watch hand that's ahead 25 seconds. For obvious reasons.

i actually want to try this.

lol this might actually be kind of good idea, no?

No timer. Use the force. GG.

in a game like cpm.... there's no need for slit second timing.

Well actually in a game like cpm split second timing is more useful than in vq3 because you can do a magical swoop and steal an item. Because the game is faster one second becomes a bigger frame of time so to speak. In vq3 you steal items less because you know the split second timing and much more because you know the enemy is out of position.

That is precisely why you can still steal items in CPM with no seconds at all. You drive the enemy out of the position and then take it.

Well yeah, but same goes for vq3.

I think vq3'ers need to realize timing to the second without the clock is far from impossible, especially in CPM where you can practically hear every pickup. There are plenty of old school demos where you see people do it all the time. Having said that, I think they should just try out both, see which fits the reflex gameplay better.

The stereotype of CPM'ers being close minded zealots is dated. It's not 2004 anymore, it wouldn't surprise me if most wouldn't even care one way or another. I know I won't.

"The stereotype of CPM'ers being close minded zealots is dated. "

You guys are really not making a case for yourselves

you know just as well as me it's because the 1% crazy zealots drown out the rest

I do, the crazy ones are the most vocal.
it's no better in vq3 either.

ye, that's why cpmers developing reflex dont want to incorporate it:D

lol. Will believe when I see it.

that's untrue

I'm cpm player and love the VQ3 timer in duel (admittedly I prefer counting down) as I think it adds another dimension to the game.

The timer should only go one way, up or down. There shouldn't be a timer direction choice

wtf why

In cpm the theory is that people can't handle communicating item timing if their timers count in different directions but reflex doesn't seem like that kind of game.

that's a terrible excuse. teams could either play with the same clock settings and communicate the exact seconds, not worry about about the clock and use binds that say "red taken" etc, or in vent/mumble w/e they could say "red in 3 seconds". also, why would terrible planning in team formats need to cause gameplay changes that affect non-team formats?

I like the minute-only timer, and I like the countdown-only timer.

I really don't give a shit tho.

1. ql style
2. analogue
3. seconds only. in a 10 minute game the clock counts to 600.

adding 20 is much easier than 25. make everything 20 seconds like QW and then tweak weapon damage / armor absorption / or movement speed so gameplay is unaffected.

Yes please, tweak everything to fit around the armor timing, that makes perfect sense !

i didn't say do all of them, i said you could do any of them to rebalance it.. its just a 5 second difference.

if armor spawns 20% faster then you could decrease absorption rates by 20% of their current values.

You never actually played cpm or qw, right ?

i've played both, explain how i'm wrong without trying to insult me

RA is now made of yellow paper.
YA has a weird green tint to it. Puke green.

Want them to be armors again ? Nerf the guns.
Want the guns to deal damage again ? Nerf the movements.
Want to play quake3 in disguise ? Go away.

what are you talking about?

if armor is 20% weaker and you're picking it up again 20% faster, there is no change.

you realize QW has 20 second armors right? why would it devolve into Q3? if anything it would make it faster.

if armor is 20% weaker and you're picking it up again 20% faster, there is no change.

Shooting people, much ?

Wouldn't matter, you could always have an external timer (physical clock) to just sit to the left or right of your monitor.

that's beyond retarded.

this, quite obviously. it does not make any kind of difference, those who care will have a clock next to the monitor anyway.

Really tempted to nope my way out of this thread but I'll give an honest answer that won't satisfy anyone: I haven't decided yet.

No seconds makes armor timing more instinctual and increases the amount of time players spend in a risky position. The less accurate their timing is, the more time they'll spend as a sitting duck (or the more chance it will be stolen by someone who timed it better). Despite some claims, this doesn't make it "random" -- it's absolutely possible to time armor to within a second (with the added bonus of then being able to time microwaves to within a second). Yes, some players will just stick a clock next to their screen but those players are cheating. Unfortunately, that's a difficult position to enforce outside of LAN.

With seconds allows for more precise timing. It reduces the amount of time you're in a risky position to almost 0 but also allows the enemy to swoop an item with less chance of failure. I personally find clock maths somewhat tedious but I'm aware that a lot of players don't.

What I would like above all else is for the system to be consistent between modes. There's some (non-gameplay) things that I would like to play with at some point to see if that can be achieved. If not, it will probably be seconds shown on all clocks for all modes.

Threads like this won't really change my mind unless someone comes up with a brilliant argument for one system that I've never heard before. I know that there are probably more people who want seconds shown but we won't be making gameplay decisions based on what's the most popular, we'll be making them based on what we think is best for gameplay. Otherwise, we may as well start adding AK47s and ADS because the entire development scene has been telling us those are both more popular than any kind of item timing.

Also, thanks for not making this too much of a circle jerk. I'm not sure if my post will change things but I was expecting much, much worse when I first clicked this thread.

2:2x

Useless in duel, useful in tdm.

1) Not having seconds to know when shit spawns just makes people be around the RA and MH areas just even more because the are not sure when they will spawn. If you are good at timing, you dont need to camp around the area because you can just literally fly by and pick it up as it spawns.

2) You kill the more "brainy" oriented players and it will be all about shooting and moving only.

3) You are again copying something from CPM and not adding any changes.

I'm quite indifferent on this, but I as you said, make sure your decision really is based on game design point of view and not "oh you can time microwaves" / "it's tedious" / "in cpm it was like this".
I think timing items brings depth to a duel game. Timing is a double edged sword for a player, be it in or out of control. It helps the player in and out of control to predict enemy movement AND the opportunity to make unexpected moves at the same time. But then again, good players will end up doing it to the second even without timer. Having said that, I like having a clock. :D
Can't stress enough that in the end it doesn't really matter, it just has to fit the gameplay you envision.

I thought it was really strange that the topic of the timer hadn't come up in Reflex discussions before, even though people have made a huge deal of it in the past, so I went ahead and made the thread.

I'm glad you at least agree it's stupid to hide the timer in duel and show it in other gametypes.

I personally don't think you should hide the timer, hurting the more item based players, just to force there to be more action. When people see 9:xx, they can see you've blatantly hidden the seconds of the timer for a reason. Just make sure it's a good reason, I guess.

How in god's name do you time an armor to the second reliably without a clock? Reliably meaning you don't stand around the item pickup thinking "it should spawn in the next 2 to 3 seconds or so? I think? maybe?", but are able to move onto the item and bam, it spawns. Do people actually count to 25 every time they pick up an armor or what?

Apart from the ingame implications of not having precise timing for an item, I think removing seconds from clock without some form of replacement like an analog clock
1. means there will always be people that will be naturally better at timing than others (how good you can get at it varies greatly between individuals)
2. makes it very hard to actually improve at timing, worsening the effect of point 1 (practising a skill based on feeling is a pain in the ass)
3. removes probably the last certainty/reliability and makes timing another thing you just can't rely upon in games, like aim.

It's very hard to explain, if you focus on it, you just know "oh it's gonna be up now." I guess you unconsciously tell time relative to things that happen in the game. Like for instance, "I'm at point A, if I want to get red, I need to 3 jumps and I'll be there exactly when it spawns." And like newborn said, when I really focused on timing in CPM, my sense of time was also a lot more precise IRL, so I guess you use your internal clock.

Ever wake up on a day off exactly when your alarm normally goes off for work?

I honestly feel like the version without seconds is more rewarding to players who play a lot more and more punishing to players who play less/are inexperienced. And personally, I've never been a fan of gameplay elements that feel random besides spawns in deathmatch, spawns you can deal with. Missing items or poor positioning around them can lose you a game.

And I disagree, I feel like it is impossible to reliably time something within a second when you have nothing to go on besides a pattern or an "internal clock" that gives you a "feeling" as to when something will spawn. I've played shitloads of cpm duel, qw duel and, even in osp/vq3 duel I've experienced the "turn up without timing and, woah, it spawns as I stand on it!" many many times. But this is not consistent and it's largely a result of grinding the crap out of a game, and the fact that it's not consistent lowers the skill ceiling imo. I would like you to present an argument that changes my opinion though- can you elaborate on how you think it's possible to time an item within a second, consistently, without being able to calculate it?

On top of the fact that it removes some depth of gameplay (imo) due to the fact that, whether one likes it or not, items are very significant in deathmatch games and they will forever have the one downside that item timing is a necessary evil for good gameplay. The fact is there area more options when timing is involved, if a player is out of control item timing is one of his best methods to understand how to be safe or how to get back into a game, and obviously this works the other way as well. It depends what kind of game you're making, if you even care to pander towards the most hardcore of crowds or whether you want the game to feel more random so it's more accessible and the skill gaps are lessened.

If you're worried about the nature of the movement creating an overpowering advantage with a seconds clock, then you could choose to try mitigating that another way. QW used stairs as a movement breaker to strengthen positional advantages and also make it harder to sweep items in many situations. CPM didn't have this ofcourse, but it really depends what kind of effect you're going for. Or mitigate it another way by changing the nature of the armour system or strengthen the weapons and make ammo more valuable-- there are many ways to make item timing less significant but still have it too.

This isn't to say that you can't create new gameplay elements that add skill in another way to make up for a lack of precise timing, so you don't have to sacrifice a CPM-like pace which I assume you're going for.

ps. No ability to time items feels like a bit of a regression as well, this didn't used to be in games because it just.. wasn't in there. It was added because so many people WOULD (and.. ofcourse right?) cheat with a timer next to the monitor, and then people realised it improved the quality of gameplay across all gametypes to just have a game timer in game.. (I'm referring strictly to QuakeWorld here btw).

Just add seconds. You know, you dont need to make a 1:1 copy of CPM so an element from VQ3 would be nice for a change.

Seconds please.
As others said, it's easy to use a timer even if it isnt ingame. And worst of all it's a cheat that's impossible to prove that someone is using it.

yellows 20 s red 30 s mh 40 s ?

Good point and i'll explain why (assuming Reflex will adopt the cpm armor system): The red armor in CPM 'absorbs' more damage than yellows and greens (tiered armors). A player who keeps control over red and then heads off to pick a fight over yellow (cycling the armors from red to yellow and back to red after 25 seconds) always has the upper hand, even if they both have the same stack (in ql, same stack = same stack). The other guy needs atleast yellow + mega and better weaponry to challenge the player with red. Imo 30 seconds would balance the odds between the in-control player and the out of control player more, because it gives the out of control player a bit more time to breath, and to mess up the other guy's cycle/control.

I'm all for mixing item times up to make timing harder than just simple item rotation, but if you make it so that both players can have the same stack with different items it renders "control" meaningless.

I totally agree and i think you misunderstood me there, i'm all for tiered armors. I said adding 5 seconds to the RA spawn (25 atm, would be 30, and yellows and greens on 20) would bring more balance between the in/out of control players (the in-control player either has to step down a tier and negate the yellows and greens or he should try to prevent the enemy from grabbing them, knowing the RA spawns 5 seconds later so he can't afford to lose the fight too early, missing out on RA).

"Balance the odds between the in control player and out of control player." Then what's the point of control.

Control should not be about giving one player overwhelming odds but instead, control should be a tight and meaningful advantage. That's not just a matter of resources but also positioning, especially for the next rotation of items. An out of control player needs to have resources availble to him to be able to compete for the next item, beyond a hail mary swoop-for-the-red sort of play. The disadvantage is created by segrating such a stack across the map so the out-of-control player has to work for it.

True, I'm not suggesting that being in control should give you 100% probability that you will win. If you are in full control though, you should have overwhelming odds that you'll win, unless of course the "hail mary" play (swooping for RA, or just plain outaim) comes in, but that is FPS.

However, given how I interpreted the example (map split, [Player A has full control of RA and some idea of when YA is, so he can deal damage]. [While Player B cannot contest RA and has to defend YA]) I think punishing control is dumbing the game down. Especially if the armor's are not tiered.

I wouldn't mind switching to showing seconds but it feels like we all tried playing showing seconds but not many have tried playing without them.


It's up to the dev team ultimately.

The problem with no seconds timer is that people could just use an external clock, or one built in like on ASUS monitors. I'd like to see a seconds timer for this reason alone.

Might just be because I'm lazy but if you can be bothered to get something like that going, you're most likely already using scripts to time items.

I'm not sure it's the same, i mean, all i have to do is press two or three buttons on my phone and up pops a clock and/or timer.

Eh, same thing with scripts really.

I'd imagine having seconds on the clock would result in very little if any negative feedback, whereas having no seconds would create a shit storm.

your imagination seems like a relatively good predictor of reality.

I'd wager to-the-second instincts are more difficult then timing/cycling. You'd have to play a lot more games to get decent instincts then to time well/cycle well. That's why I'd prefer seconds on the clock.

I'm not a cpm player though.

What about making armors spawn randomly in a 20s + 5s window?
But then again, this is not a QL 2.0 thread.

it doesn't fucking matter

PPL USED TO USE TIMERS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF CPM(NO CLUE ABOUT THE LATER STAGES)
AND PEOPLE WILL USE TIMERS IN REFLEX
QUIT FUCKING OVER LEGIT PLAYERS AND GIVE US A CLOCK

Only CPM players seem to think that guessing if 35 seconds has elapsed is more skillful than doing the arithmetic and keeping that in your mind while going through the motions of the other required actions to win a duel...

That and what Shin-obi said, if you disable timers, it'll potentially give cheaters another angle to exploit the game for an additional advantage over legit players.

it's not about being more or less skillful in this matter, it is about what fits better to the gameplay

There isn't anything in CPM that respawns in 35 seconds.

PPL USED TO USE AUTOAIM IN THE EARLY DAYS OF CPM(NO CLUE ABOUT THE LATER STAGES)
AND PEOPLE WILL USE AUTOAIM IN REFLEX
QUIT FUCKING OVER LEGIT PLAYERS AND GIVE US AIM ASSIST

That's still not an argument for not having a clock ;)

Oh how I've missed you bud, mooooooh

Moooh!

[img1]

I dare to say it won't matter that much btw (a visible timer), an example on the map cpm3a: a smart player picks up the red armor when the enemy is on the other side of the map, so he can't hear the pickup. Even with a clock on his screen he won't exactly know when the enemy picked up the red armor, so it's an estimate. And speaking of that timing on feeling, it naturally grows as you play without a timer. People who walk barefoot don't need shoes, they simply adapt. Only when the enemy picks up the red infront of you, or you hear the pickup sound, a timer would be meaningful. Personally i don't care if there's a clock or x9.xx on my screen.

as someone in the comments said, an option for an analog timer would be super neat.

Yeah I like this idea as well. It's much more intuitive and you'll see a lot more of your average players timing items.

this would be awesome. instead of remembering only numbers you can opt to remembering a visual sign.

Really like this idea

yesssh I need this.

lol and you get the all the plusses for what I said?

what's mine is yours too my dear <3

plus envy

oh also, in the digital timer, milliseconds for the last minute (10/15/20, whatever it may be). those would be slick. it was cool to see in old school duels, i think it adds to the heat and the spectating, and it would be a great throwback to the glory days.

Analog clock and digital timer with milliseconds added to suggestions thread here: http://www.esreality.com/post/2641011/what-wo...to-reflex/

Analog timer actually would be awesome.

Analog timer sounds dumb. It should definitely be tested but I find the idea of timing by visual cue a bit silly. I also think that forcing the clock to count up or down is ludicrous. It's really difficult to say how a gameclock changes the game but on the whole it does feel more organic to have an instinctive idea of the time in your head rather than a digital value. I enjoy that style of play, but having played 1v1 in QL, CPM and QW (which has the option of a clock) I find myself not really caring because I don't feel it makes a tremendous difference to how the game is played. It's just an extra bit of information that, assuming you know the last pickup time, makes a marginal difference to your decision making. Remember that timing is still hugely important even without a clock.

I believe it does, in some situations, place more importance upon pre-pickup positioning. However, this a hypothetical game we're talking about, which is still in development - not CPM 1v1 or QL 1v1 with or without a gameclock. They're different games, and the inclusion of a gameclock has a different effect in the context of other gameplay systems such as armour, respawn times, movement, weapon balance etc.

I pretty much agree 100% with what you said, especially that last paragraph. Personally, I believe that any aspects of Reflex that can be traced back to cpm are just attacked purely based on the fact that it was cpm, and not from playing experience. Even though I would have aggressively pushed for a no-timer duel game a year ago due to personal belief and feelings of dread whenever something I viewed as unique to cpm was being changed, I honestly couldn't care less if Reflex included a timer or not in 1v1 these days. The few cpm duelers there were are still going to be playing the same way as before, except now with a prediction accurate to half a second. The aggressive players are still going to be aggressive, the slower players are still going to be more methodical, and noobs will still be noobs, regardless of whether or not those 3 digits will be displayed. The only difference between including the timer and not is the potential uproar from 100 players to satisfy 10. Although I admit it makes me somewhat nostalgic to see something from the mod I truly saw as unique and special gone, it's better to save the uproar and include the timer.

However, the only thing that should be retained from cpm is barring any cg_levelTimerDirection cvar. Consistency should be prioritized over customization.

"I find the idea of timing by visual cue a bit silly"

its no sillier than constantly doing +25 / + 35 arithmetic, but its much more approachable to a larger pool of people. As I see it regards to degree of difficulty / effort needed for a player.

visual cue / analog timer < digital clock < no timer / instinctive (like in cpm)

If our objective is to make a quake-like fps reach more people its a no brainer that visual cue should be an option, if you want to limit it to the most hardcore players the last one is the only option. Its a choice we need to make.

A N A L O G C L O C K
N
A
L
O
G

C
L
O
C
K

TURN THE ANALOG CLOCK INTO A CROSSHAIR!!!
calling it right now!!!!
my idea+megaman's idea ftw

[img1]

meh at best. why not turn the steering wheel on a car into the speedometer, tachometer, and oil pressure meter as well? because those are monitoring elements, not control elements.

now, you'll probably say "well, you can get health indicated by crosshair color in quake live - how do you explain that?" and i would say, "dunno :/"

what was megaman's idea?

[img1 doesn't exist]

You mean like a head-up display? those already exist and are awesome

Not what i meant. Head up display would be "why not turn the windshield into the speedometer, etc.?" And i agree that HUDs already exist and are awesome.