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JackGriffin
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Back to MHBasic

Post by JackGriffin »

I've started working on this for the week and see where it goes. I started with MH2 and took a machete to it, ripping out all the unnecessary crap. This will be a simple mod designed to let the mapper's work decide the course of the game.

My question to you guys concerns direction. I'm going to code for default weapons, default health for players and monsters, etc. I can absolutely force this without it being able to be altered but I'm not sure if that's the best idea. There's already enough MH modding for anyone that wants to play from mild to wild so it could be a good thing to let players know that if you are playing an MHBasic game then you have the same experience with the same map regardless of the server. I'm just not a big fan of making admins do anything, I try to keep as much configuration as possible but that's kinda what started this mess in the first place.

Aside from that is there any suggestions you might have? Here's what I'm thinking:
-Normal UT weapons and only UT weapons. All others are destroyed at map startup. Weapons are checked for default settings.
-Default health for players and monsters, also checked
-No outright scoring, instead it will be:
-Fasted completion of the map will be that map "record" on the server.
-Configure for either "must kill all monsters" or "just get to the end" to actually win
-One life. You die, you start over. Long map? Better be careful.
-No ammo reload, no health drip, no awards, no extras

I know it sounds harsh but think for a minute how easy it would be to map for. No special actors except for the end. You won't have factories with hundreds of monsters and seizure-level explosions going off every four seconds. You can actually have map music and sound effects that players will hear for once. Maps with 50 monsters will seem extreme because you can't carry that much ammo. You have to play with caution otherwise you have to restart.

Nog, I sent you an invite to my Discord. I'm very interested in your concerns about the server aspect. I'm all ears to hear what you have to say.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
nogardilaref
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by nogardilaref »

Sure. :)

My main concerns stem just from the actual evolution of the project over time, as in, doing something which can actually be improved over time with no implications towards the maps themselves, such as having to replace actors and stuff like that later on in case more improvements ought to be made.

In other words, anyone could create the worst possible mod in the world in terms of code, but if things are at least structured in such a way that what the mapper has to put in the map is completely isolated from the actual code running through them, the code can simply be fixed, and even completely refactored if needed without a problem, and without package mismatches and the like.
It would mean that anyone could just build their own separate MH versions later on, and then players and admins alike would just use the one which fits their needs the most, while using the exact same maps with no modifications needed.

Sektor for instance modifies the packages, although server-side only, directly, calling them "conformed packages", because he doesn't have much of a choice.
But provided that this one has at least the right foundations and separation of concerns, there won't ever be a need for "conformed packages" at all, at least for MH, and then maybe even for other things in the future.
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by JackGriffin »

I understand and agree 100%. Last night I started a list of the things I know that are wrong or issues with MH and most of them stem from issues of replacement as their base cause. By removing the need to do any replacing at all I think I can mitigate most of it before it even starts.

Please feel free to criticize the following:
The only unique actor in an MHB map would be the monsterend (or whatever I'll call it). Since I do not care if any normal MH maps work with this I will be including my own monsterhunt and everything into a single package. The monsterend will be it's own package, independent of any future MHB packages, and will be a trigger subclass. The new MHB will look for that at map start and use it as the proper map end. This will allow the maps to never need altering by the gametype/mod and will keep them separated. This will also allow servers to create their own unique versions of MHB if there are things they want to personalize.

My first chief concern is forcing weapons/pickups. In order for mappers to be able to bust out MHB maps they absolutely need to know that "X" weapon will be the same regardless of where the map is used. I'm debating how to ensure that. I could easily destroy any non-standard weapons but then it would limit mappers from doing certain things in their maps (especially the coop themed ones). I'm thinking of things like Alucard's map where you had to use the chainsaw to hack open the door to proceed. I don't want to stifle innovation but I do want to ensure this doesn't go the way of MH2 and any upward scaling of weapons/damage is clamped before it even starts.

I have more but let's hold on this for now.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by sektor2111 »

A point here
In XCMH I was simply subclassing MH into a child and using original triggers - IT works - recall problems in moving end - in XC_MH there is not such problem. Main ruin in MH for server is ScoreKill and Killed that can be full rewritten without "Super" starting with GameInfo and messages tweaked properly - good points from Higor here. Also by having a new game controller you have the freedom of using two base mutators if not even more mutators configurable for high speed and high priority to gain extra tweaks and then polish things with "BaseMutator". Also you can make a bit of tweaking at those bStatic craps which were used at a moment in multiple version of them same bad Level.
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by EvilGrins »

JackGriffin wrote:-Normal UT weapons and only UT weapons. All others are destroyed at map startup. Weapons are checked for default settings.
This would be a separate gametype, yes? Not a replacement of the existing MH??
JackGriffin wrote:-One life. You die, you start over. Long map? Better be careful.
Kinda like Single Player.
JackGriffin wrote:-No ammo reload, no health drip, no awards, no extras
Where's your gift giving embrace of the holiday season?
JackGriffin wrote:No special actors except for the end.
So... only normal Unreal1 monsters? Not the more advanced versions or customized newer monsters??
http://unreal-games.livejournal.com/
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OjitroC
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by OjitroC »

EvilGrins wrote:
JackGriffin wrote:-One life. You die, you start over. Long map? Better be careful.
Kinda like Single Player.
This is where it might get frustrating - spend half an hour carefully playing MH-CMC-PartyCrashers only to get killed and have to start again - worse still, get almost to the end and get killed by the Cat and have to start again!! At least in SP, one can save one's progress.
JackGriffin wrote:...Since I do not care if any normal MH maps work with this I will be including my own monsterhunt and everything into a single package....
So it wouldn't work with existing maps but would require new maps made specifically for it?
Terraniux
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by Terraniux »

-Normal UT weapons and only UT weapons. All others are destroyed at map startup. Weapons are checked for default settings.
-Default health for players and monsters, also checked
-No outright scoring, instead it will be:
-Fasted completion of the map will be that map "record" on the server.
-Configure for either "must kill all monsters" or "just get to the end" to actually win
-One life. You die, you start over. Long map? Better be careful.
-No ammo reload, no health drip, no awards, no extras
I object all of these. I do not object if there are rewarding buffs, or meantime 'savings' in the meantime.
Also Rushing and subwoofing maps, takes a lot of fun out of most maps.

The mod you are trying to create would be better with BT + monsters :loool: :loool: :loool:

But it would be interesting tho. hahaha

As I get your points Jack, as a main MH mapper I object. :thudown: :pfff:

MonsterHunt should be buffed, fat, and rewarding, not a skinny jeans on fire.

More of this from me later.
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nogardilaref
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by nogardilaref »

Now that I take a better look at what exactly you're proposing (sorry, I think I skipped that part in the morning), I personally do not agree much with that kind of approach, of forcing everything down the players throats like that.
That will leave a very bad taste to everyone whom tries this on.

I think MH code should, first and foremost, start by restricting itself to do only what it should do at first, and nothing more than that.
It only should:
1 - Be a gametype, where players actively hunt for monsters and complete a map coop-style;
2 - Provide the mappers the necessary tools to, not only make it work, but to provide a solid MH experience overall;
3 - Fix underlying open issues Unreal code has left behind (might be solved in U227, but this is UT99 after all, we don't have the same luxury here), but not issues from other mods, that generally falls outside of the scope of any mod as a matter of fact.

It may be extended to do some more things, but when it comes to the "basics", this is it.
In light of this, I actually have a lot of stuff to say and ideas to give (for ammo, health, lives, map completion) which I think would greatly improve the MH experience from the base, without going the "god mode" way we have nowadays, but I will follow your lead and tackle each thing at a time, therefore: the weapons.



The replacement of weapons belongs to the responsibility of weapon mutators, even because some of them simply won't let you do what you want iirc (like a certain one which is used in some populated MH servers nowadays).
If you don't want custom weapons, do not add them, simple. This goes for both mappers, and admins as well.

What you can do on this regard however, is to include a way to manually configure which weapons are replaced by which, so that instead of said servers using the mutator that comes with the mod, they use yours, a bit like a StuffSwapper of sorts, but specifically tailored for MH. Beware however that the original way of replacing things in UT sucks and has some annoying problems and limitations, but I am sure you already know the sort of things I am talking about. :)

And this would be for the MH "engine" itself, the part that can be continuously updated over time and doesn't go to the maps themselves.

However, as for the MH "interface" (the package the maps actually need to use, containing things like MHEnd as you so well pointed out), it could actually have a whole new set of actors and tools to more easily and safely set up things like the map you mentioned.

For example: let's say that you have an objective which can only be activated through the usage of a specific weapon.
This objective could be "added" to the map by the mapper him/herself using a new actor (a trigger or something) belonging to the MH interface package, and this objective could be set in its properties to be activated with a specific weapon.

From here, in case such a weapon was replaced (namely by yourself), you could then update the objective actor weapon class to be that one rather than the one originally intended.
More than that, if some other mod replaces the weapon instead, and it proves to be hard or even impossible to detect that kind of switch, all you have to do is to check in the overall map if the weapon set in that objective exists at all, and if not, then the objective could be simply triggered with any weapon at all, or have some other kind of behavior depending on the configuration, or even on the MH engine package used. :mrgreen:

There's even a lot more things you could do this way, but I will tackle those later on if you wish.
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by Higor »

Basically hardcore mode while having the least adulterated MH around.
It's pretty much what I've been doing lol.

My MH build allows you to disable all replacements and even use all Unreal 1 classes, no network problems whatsoever, and doesn't order monsters around.
It does have VERY heavy AI code to make bots understand map objectives and how to complete them.

I had on the roadmap to make this MH run on coop maps without losing features, have you noticed you can see translator messages? That's what I was aiming at.
I may end up scrapping the non-XC_Engine code from it at some point, don't see a reason to run UT anymore without it... ever.

EDIT:
Warning, the heaviest AI code you've ever seen in UT is mixed into this https://github.com/CacoFFF/MonsterHunt-Rebuild
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by Aldebaran »

Higor wrote:I had on the roadmap to make this MH run on coop maps without losing features
One coop mod that works fine with all the coop/singleplayer maps available for UT99 would be fine, inclusive weapons exchange and perhaps an adapted mapvote. But perhaps such a mod will not be fully functional without a map patcher.
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by JackGriffin »

Wow. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting such a negative reaction. I'd like to hash out a bit more if you guys are game for it.

Terra, you first. I get what you are saying but let's use your contest map as an example of what I'd like to offer an alternative to. Your map is great and I have played it multiple times but let's be very honest and say that it's not doable with stock weapons and not dying. It's designed to punish from the start. Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing but it might be nice to have an alternative to "run in, shoot as much as you can, die, repeat". There's no gamesmanship in your map, no technique required, no skill really. It's just built for maximum fun and it does that so very well. It depends on fighting through a tidal wave of monsters and cannot be done without dying. That pretty much means that the guy who started playing last year and the guy who has been in UT since the drop can reasonably expect the same outcome. I want to offer an alternative.

Ojit..Don't get confused. Most existing maps will need to be heavily reworked following the monster health/ammo formula. Even maps like PartyCrasher would work, they just will need to be scaled back to realistic levels. One thing that will have to be changed is the spawnraping that occurs all over MH maps. You'll have to give the player time to get gear to be effective, but again that can be mixed into the strategy.

Evilgrins, I'm not even going to talk to you :P This is never going to appeal to you in any way, shape, or form. You like the tsunami of enemies too much to use patience while playing. I get that 100%. It just won't be for you.

Nog...I am in your corner and I understand everything you have as a concern. The problem though is that you can "fix" everything and you are still left with the problem of escalation (not to mention hundreds of broken maps). It's too far gone to try to reel it back in, MH needs a fresh alternative and the ability to clamp it from escalating again. Mappers need to know that the map they design will stay that way and play that way. I did WAY too much telling mappers how their maps should work via mutator code and I apologize for that. There's already ~20 MH versions that are all pretty much the gamut of mild to wild but they all suffer the same problem: maps have no uniformity. Some maps have 800 monsters (no shit, some do), some have monsters with hundreds of thousands of health, some have monsters with level 5 NW3 nukes for weapons. You can't possibly work with that. It's time to back up and redo things. There's no way to fix what's out there now. (I would like to continue the weapon discussion though, it's super helpful).

Higor:
Basically hardcore mode while having the least adulterated MH around.
Bam. I think I love you. Succinct and precise, that's what I want to do.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by nogardilaref »

Well, from what I have seen, the problem with those nukes is that it seems that the mod is just replacing every weapon, including the weapons monsters are holding.
And it seems to me that those monsters had actual redeemers assigned to them to begin with.
Although I was also caught by surprise in those kinds of maps when I got killed by such nukes the first time I played in such servers.

I totally get what you mean, but the thing is: having a mod which forces "something" to happen in a very specific way without any margin, or almost none, is for certain going to be its very death, from early on.
In that case, all you need to do to have the experience as the original MH mapper wanted is just a matter of installing good ol'MH itself, and run it as it is, and done, there you have it.

If you're doing pretty much what amounts to a new MH, I think the gameplay you seek should come as an actual natural outcome rather than being forced, by simply develop MH itself with what it actually needs, and fix what actually needs to be fixed, change the maps which need to be changed, and then start a server as you want it with just quality content which works.
Should it be just good enough, players will start to come in, it will get populated, and admins will start to copy your settings instead without telling you a thing, and that's when you know you have succeeded.

Because it just sounds to me that you actually expect admins to add some mutators, and that you will forcefully kill them, and that isn't making much sense to me at least I'm afraid, simply because what the admin will do is just to revert to the previous one, and from there your cause has been lost.

Having that said, if this is still the route you want to pursue, sure, I will still provide feedback in whichever you need help with, especially given that at least if an interface is defined, whether or not I am right, it doesn't really matter in the end since anyone could just create their own version without changing anything at all. :)
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by JackGriffin »

It could perhaps be that I'm not showing the right perspective on this. If a mapper was making a BunnyTracks map there would be no real thought to making map changes at runtime. The author designed a map the way they would like it played and servers pretty much respect that. It's my opinion that mode of thinking could apply to a new type of MH experience. Make it simple so mappers aren't afraid of MH or intimidated at trying their hand at a more coop experience. There are literally hundreds of coop maps that would directly translate to MHBasic that I'm running on my unreal coop server. I'm sure I could get permission on the majority to update them for use in a simple MH. Mostly they've been overlooked because they didn't offer significant challenge for today's usual MH players. They also have the benefit of being balanced already for a single player.

I guess ultimately I'm wasting my time in trying to convince people. Either they are open to the idea or they aren't, and I can respect either decision. I was just hoping to make up for some of the damage I caused by fanning the flames of the arms race. I guess I'll shelve this and maybe bring it back out later if people ever get tired of the way things are.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
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EvilGrins
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by EvilGrins »

JackGriffin wrote:Wow. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting such a negative reaction.
Hey, i like it (holiday hoopla gag notwithstanding).

Though as much as it's a cool idea, and as much as players always complain too many mutators and too many mega-powerful weapons are overdoing it, fact is most folks seem to love the "unreal" in... well, you know.

Think back on Real Tournament, a mod to make the game slightly more realistic while keeping it fantastic. It didn't quite catch on, though everybody loved the skins made for it.

Stick with it, keep the faith; I wanna play it!
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Terraniux
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Re: Back to MHBasic

Post by Terraniux »

Terra, you first. I get what you are saying but let's use your contest map as an example of what I'd like to offer an alternative to. Your map is great and I have played it multiple times but let's be very honest and say that it's not doable with stock weapons and not dying
I admit that. It was a bit too hard after all, im used to make large teamplayer maps, without a space limite :ironic: .

I see your points now more clear. I get that. :thuup:
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