Enemyskins!

2008-11-16 20:13 by Itsinen

Since it has come up to us that some clans are using enemyforceskins 3 while others didn't know it we decided to have a discussion about it...

... and we came to the conclusion that it is forbidden. You may NOT have different skins on your opponents, all must have the same skin. Your teammates may have what ever skins they have but not enemies. Since using the enemyforceskins 3 makes it possible for teams to all know who to shoot on, and it would disable the possibility to sneak around the map with a weapon etc.

How to check this?

Well it's easy, write: f_skins -> the line will most probably include the text of: "is using 100% fullbrightskins" <- that is ok, but if it shows after the text that a player: Enemy skins forcing -> make him change it.

Shortly: enemyforceskins 3 is considered a cheat from now on!

Views: 2252

---

Comments

Pages: 1 | Previous Next | Total of 46 comments | First Last comment first

---

#1 2008-11-16 20:19 by djevulsk (85.24.188.XXX)

when, and how the hell, did this get implemented and released? ofc this is cheating and should be banned in all leagues

#2 2008-11-16 20:21 by ok98 (213.112.99.XXX)

lol, becaus some of the players dont read the changelog when a new ezquake is released the others get punnished.

#3 2008-11-16 20:25 by djevulsk (85.24.188.XXX)

ffs ok98, the problem is that the ezquake developers just throw all the shit they can think of into the client because it's possible.

changes like this needs to be discussed in a wider forum than a shitty changelog ok98 since it's clearly a major change in gameplay

#4 2008-11-16 20:38 by 1tsinen (130.232.122.XXX)

Well earlier it has been about using it thrue the qizmos and the general rule of that was that it is not legal. So using this by Ezquake would be more "ok"? This was something most people knew about, just didn't realize that it wouldn't show up with f_modified or something like that in the normal checks or rulesets etc (which I personally believed blocked those). So now there is one more rule and one more check to do, not nice.

#5 2008-11-16 20:38 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

This should definately be allowed, because the same thing can be achieved manually just by scouting the skin naming format of your opponent team and placing a matching set of skins to your skins directory.

We used this years ago, though haven't bothered lately.

Only thing this command does is that it takes a little less work to do it.

#6 2008-11-16 20:43 by zapp (217.211.56.XXX)

Just because something is possible doesn't mean it should be allowed. I would prefer if it was possible to somehow force server side one skin for enemy team.

#7 2008-11-16 20:45 by djevulsk (85.24.188.XXX)

while that's true blaze, only way too serious and ambitious clans would go through the trouble of exploiting that "cheat". the majority (div 2-6) probably wouldn't which makes that issue somewhat smaller than this is/could be.

#8 2008-11-16 21:04 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

Personally I can not possibly view this as a "cheat", individual skin support has been in the qwcl client from the get go. Just because some people are too lazy to use the features that the client offers doesn't mean using them is cheating! Some players don't bother with weapons scripts...

#9 2008-11-16 21:18 by djevulsk (85.24.188.XXX)

before this "feature": a team facing you could easily 1. all use the same skin, 2. rename their skins 1 minute before the game to avoid this.

now, with this "feature": an individual skin can be FORCED upon an opposing player, even if the opposing team all uses the same skin (or no skin).

also, if you wanted individual enemy skins before this, using your old method, you would have to 1.hope that the opposing team uses individual skins 2. scout out all those skin names and hope they wouldn't change them. 3. make sure all your teammates kept up-to-date skin libraries.

I'd say this feature is a tad bit more than"only thing this command does is that it takes a little less work to do it."

#10 2008-11-16 21:21 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

"Just because something is possible doesn't mean it should be allowed. I would prefer if it was possible to somehow force server side one skin for enemy team."

Sure, but the same is true for "just because something is supported doesn't mean it should be banned".

All in all many of these bans seem to have very little logic behind them.

I would prefer more allowing conventions, things shouldn't be banned without sound reasoning and general agreement.

#11 2008-11-16 21:29 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

"I'd say this feature is a tad bit more than"only thing this command does is that it takes a little less work to do it.""

Not really, because in practice the issues you mention actually never came up, not once. So it's pretty much theoretical. Also renaming a set of four skins would not take long, even just before the game.

#12 2008-11-16 21:29 by 1tsinen (130.232.122.XXX)

I guess 3 days of spamwhine in priv doesn't count as ppl beeing worried about it? Most players doesn't even know about it. Some issues if a team uses this would be like: All in the team automatically know who to shoot on, compared to the enemyteam with same skin -> they can sneak out the low hp rl guy and if somebody got killed they can't be 100% certain it was him. Also if this low hp rl guy escapes and doesn't die, everybody know right away if he has a weapon or not if you even have a little tp in your team.
So in other words you don't really have to do anything tp-wise except tell your friends which skin the enemy rl has. Then you can skip all the rest of the binds and you "tp is fixed" -> this is what qw should be?
Also the possibility to mix players so the enemy doesn't know who has the weapon would be impossible.
All these together makes the keeping of control much harder to break, so imo the only solution to twist 4on4 into something afaik in most cases haven't been is to ban it.

#13 2008-11-16 21:47 by djevulsk (85.24.188.XXX)

blaze, doesn't change the fact that this shit can be applied to a player not using any skin at all, which is a huge difference.

also, itsinen, is there anything stopping a clan from enabling this after countdown? this needs to be disabled server side if not (or removed from code, but we all know that's never gonna happen)

#14 2008-11-16 21:49 by Eta-bETa (78.69.61.XXX)

This removes an aspect of qw that makes qw more exciting.


I don't want qw less exciting. It's crystal clear to me. Ban it ffs... ban it... or even better: Remove the feature...

#15 2008-11-16 22:05 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

1tsinen: As said individual skins can be applied to enemy players without this command. This has been possible and probably used by top teams forever.

djevulsk: Typically teams want individual skins for teammates, so they will have individual skins set. Sure, in theory you can have same skins or no skins but I don't see it happening much.

Eta-bETa: "This removes an aspect of qw that makes qw more exciting. I don't want qw less exciting."

Having low health and rl and knowing that four enemies are furiously looking for you is not exciting to you? :)

Well, whatever, I haven't even used it, I'm just slightly annoyed by this general "for the love of god, BAN EVERYTHING!" -attitude...

#16 2008-11-16 22:20 by zapp (217.211.56.XXX)

The attitude isn't to bad everything, alot of things are improvements such as client side min ping. However additions that remove skill from qw is something that should be banned. To be good at qw should really mean that you are good in all aspects and not reduced to aim only like q3 has almost been.

#17 2008-11-16 22:51 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

Well, with this feature it is actually possible to try and hunt down an enemy rl as a team. Without it it's much more random. Now you can report the movements of the enemy rl to your team and work together to bring him down. The issue is more of a hunting skill vs hiding skill than simply "removing" skill. Of course without this an enemy rl can try to hide amongst his teammates and your team just have to pick their targets randomly instead of focusing your fire as a result of good teamplay.

#18 2008-11-16 23:15 by 1tsinen (130.232.122.XXX)

Djevulsk: Well the client reports if it is changed thrue ezquake.

blAze: you just mentioned almost all those things that makes it bad. And just for your info we aren't against new things, only if it is "secretly" possible for some people and most people don't even know it -> quite big advantage for those who have the skins "on" compared to those who haven't got them. Otherwise as I understood already earlier there was a gentlemens rule about nobody would use this, but doesn't seem like it so I guess it has to be said out loud. Imo this is comparable to ghosting since most didn't know about it.

#19 2008-11-16 23:41 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

Well if introducing more teamplay opportunities into teamplay is bad, then I suppose it is bad. :)

By banning this obvious command that anyone can read up in the manual, you make it back into a "secret". As a command it is no more secret than any other new command in the client.

I still think that simply banning this command while allowing the old way is ridiculous. Out of sight, out of mind?

#20 2008-11-16 23:53 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

The reason I brought this up is that this is simply another addition to the long list of inconsistencies. Changing skins on players? Ok. Changing skins on rockets? Ok. Changing skins on backpacks? Nope.

Allowing cl_fakeshaft, but not r_shaftalpha? Banning cl_rollalpha?

#21 2008-11-17 00:54 by 1tsinen (130.232.122.XXX)

#19:

Well mistakes makes qw what it is, so you want to remove mistakes to make it even more about control than what it already is? And if people have played qw for ~12 years, do think they want a change in tp if they've liked it for those years? This does also remove the "surprise factor" that the enemy may do, so why not make the weapons show anyways if you want to use these things? Would be the same to put "rocketlauncher" in the crouch of the enemy when he has sg in the hand wouldn't it?

#22 2008-11-17 01:25 by zapp (217.211.56.XXX)

The scary thing for me if this would be allowed is not so much this addition in itself but rather the path qw as a community is taking then. What is the next step after this then? For me its having skins that change color depending on opponents amount of health and that blinks depending on what weapon he has.

However a point is, that if people want this to be allowed it will be allowed just like fullbrights was. I just dont like the path qw would take with having this allowed and then allowing teamoverlay.

#23 2008-11-17 10:29 by blAze (83.102.10.XXX)

What do you mean about mistakes and control, do not follow...

"And if people have played qw for ~12 years, do think they want a change in tp if they've liked it for those years?"

This feature has been available and in use for those 12 years, the only change here is trying to remove it...

"so why not make the weapons show anyways if you want to use these things? Would be the same to put "rocketlauncher" in the crouch of the enemy when he has sg in the hand wouldn't it?"

That wouldn't require any kind of teamplay to mark the enemies now would it? Same goes for zapp's comparisons.

#24 2008-11-17 14:57 by JohnNy_cz (78.128.193.XXX)

It'd be great if more people tried to discuss this feature by itself like Blaze, than talking about non-senses like "the path of qw" and other *cough* stuff.
Most of you should go and read something about Qizmo color forcing.

#25 2008-11-17 15:01 by JohnNy_cz (78.128.193.XXX)

And from the client side: All you can request is how this feature should be controlled. Requests to remove some feature from our code won't be accepted.

#26 2008-11-17 15:13 by Hooraytio (89.160.23.XXX)

plz remove ezquake so everyone can use qwcl+qizmo again! :D

#27 2008-11-17 17:48 by Gamer (193.166.235.XXX)

wtf@adding features like this without asking anyone. We used to have our skinnames "e3590uegalkjgdsl.pcx" style in koff just to prevent this crap(yeah doesn't help at all if they really want to use individual enemyskins).

tVS is the only team I know of that used individual skins for enemies. I played in SR for a long time and we never used this "feature", so I think blaze was exaggerating when he said its been used for 12 years. Maybe tVS has, don't know about others...

This feature removes the skill of knowing which enemy is the weak rl guy. ban plz

#28 2008-11-17 18:12 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

"This feature removes the skill of knowing which enemy is the weak rl guy. ban plz"

As if there was a "skill" that you can use to magically identify an rl enemy out of identical skins. Sounds like stuff from "Heroes". :P Get real people.

I guess I should make us individual skins again just because banning this command is so silly and has no effect.

#29 2008-11-17 18:15 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

Perhaps we should test this "skill". Lets get 4 guys on a server and one of them picks rl. Then they go stand in line. Then we tell the "skilled" player to join to the server and point out the guy with rl. :D

#30 2008-11-17 18:28 by djevulsk (85.24.188.XXX)

wow, that last comment was pure class.

i guess we need to bring back rulesets if the ezquake developers continue like this. in the end there will simply be too many "features" to turn off before starting a game (/teamoverlay and now having to check f_skins and who knows what else will pop up in the near future).

and johnny_cz, we know you get a hard on from bloating your client code with crap so i really don't think anyone even tries to convince you to remove stuff.. anymore at least. i still detest you ezquake devs for seriously ruining fuhquake with that incompatible and frankly unnecessary colored teamsay/name "feature".

#31 2008-11-17 19:23 by 1tsinen (130.232.122.XXX)

"This feature has been available and in use for those 12 years, the only change here is trying to remove it..."

Most people do actually think that it has not, many don't even know about it existing. I didn't know some clans used this since afaik there is a "gentlemens rule" about not using it.
Also: why ban ghosting? This does the same thing, just tell once who has rl and you don't even have any help of the ghoster since you know who has a weapon! :)

As said, if you put 4 guys in a row nobody would stand a 100% chance of picking right, so yes, that's why skinforcing sucks since your opponent can't confuse you even if they like to... and afaik that is also a skill to "group and confuse" to save the rl.

& more to blAze: Go and read about rerouting on quakeworld.nu, since no more qizmos will be needed so we could actually make Renzo really happy and ban qizmos too :P. Then what would you do?

Johnny_cz: We don't want you to remove it, just needs something that tells in f_modified or something like that if player using it.

#32 2008-11-17 19:59 by JohnNy_cz (78.128.193.XXX)

Itsinen: This a request that you (your league) should have brought up in the rulesets mailing list ezQuake is running for you.

On Oct 12 I've sent email to you all saying "Another feature I'm asking for your last vote is the new skins forcing, documented here:" + following 24 lines of my email pointing to the documentation, explaining how it now works, how it is protected, etc. I've even asked two members from the list if they've received my message. Why did I do all that? Because I knew exactly this situation can happen!

But it didn't help. You all on the list decided to take the attitude of acting like everything is alright and you resolve the issue only when it really starts smelling badly.

Now it all falls on your heads, ezQuake offered you all the options, you ignored it.

Deciding on the rules is up to league admins in the list, not up to ezQuake devs. I think this is the way all of you prefer, isn't it?

I don't understand all the emotional reactions here, how is this feature worse than Qizmo color forcing? Someone elaborate, please. My word is that now it's finally controlled (via f_skins), while there was no way to control the Qizmo feature.

#33 2008-11-17 20:03 by djevulsk (85.24.188.XXX)

well i'll have to give you credits for that, johnny_cz. i sure wasn't aware that you had discussed this in such a timely manner and even followed up on it. gw.

#34 2008-11-17 20:45 by Gamer (193.166.235.XXX)

#28 Please stop trolling.

#35 2008-11-17 21:40 by ok98 (213.112.99.XXX)

I dont take any side of this discusion, BUT i read the rules before i started to use it, and yesterday 30sec before eqlgame i had to turn it off. And what hapend, my skins didnt work as they should, enemyquad got wrong skin and other things. So plz dont change things like this in the midle of a season. Tried to fix it for 10min before i had to go ready in the game :(

#36 2008-11-17 23:16 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

"why ban ghosting? This does the same thing, just tell once who has rl and you don't even have any help of the ghoster since you know who has a weapon! :)"

Personally I'd prefer that only the players on the field should participate in the game and only their individual and team skills should matter. No outside help.

"and afaik that is also a skill to "group and confuse" to save the rl."

That is very true, as I already mentioned somewhere above. Just like I said, the issue is hiding skill vs hunting skill, not no skill vs skill. With individual skins the skill is to communicate enemy movements and act on that information effectively.

"more to blAze: Go and read about rerouting on quakeworld.nu, since no more qizmos will be needed so we could actually make Renzo really happy and ban qizmos too :P. Then what would you do?"

You don't need anything special for this, no skin forcing, no qizmos. All you need is a skin image in your skins folder that is named to match your opponents skin setting. This is the most basic skins functionality that has been supported by qwcl always.

#37 2008-11-17 23:25 by blAze (83.150.112.XXX)

For example in tVS we have skin settings such as tvs-bla, tvs-ihm, tvs-mil and so on. If you want to see individual skins on us, you put tvs-bla.pcx, tvs-ihm.pcx, tvs-mil.pcx etc. skins into your skins folder. Now when you turn off any skin forcing, the client will show these skins on us.

#38 2008-11-18 11:42 by B1aze (212.5.80.XXX)

I use this feature for ages.
And few players from my teams too (NewWave, 4Honor, NoPasaran! and so on).

#39 2008-11-19 02:27 by reppie (82.73.192.XXX)

hehe never knew this was possible

if i had to guess i'd guess the majority of the clans/player never used this :)

i can understand blaze's point about it .. and what he says (more teamplay..hunting someone down as a team) is a good thing .. but the 'bad side' of it seems bigger

i dont think i'd like it much if everyone started using this, con's outweigh the pro's for me :)

#40 2008-11-19 09:19 by blAze (83.102.10.XXX)

I'm only opposing a placebo solution of banning the new shortcut command. If this feature is properly disabled in the future, I don't care. As said, we haven't bothered to even use it in a long time. Right now though, it's not possible to stop people from using it, so there shouldn't be a rule about it.

#41 2008-11-19 10:18 by 1tsinen (130.232.122.XXX)

Just read the mail ezq mail again and I don't wonder why I haven't noticed this. There are ~3 points about the same thing, first one on this issue is about changing color on the skin (yeah, this sounds normal doesn't it?). The second is a wiki (used link), so I've checked that one, since it also says blablabla skins (not really much of enemys have different skins so far) I have probably skipped the example of it since it didn't seem like something special.
OK98: who can I blame for yesterdays ~4min 220-490ms pl0-50 for?:)

#42 2008-11-19 17:11 by Hagge (85.24.185.XXX)

1tsinen, blame Canada?

#43 2008-11-19 17:12 by Hagge (85.24.185.XXX)

Or sr - it seems to have been working throughout history =)

#44 2008-11-19 18:17 by Åke Vader (88.131.55.XXX)

Only ]a one year old thread - notice Johnny_cz\'s post some way down...

I don\'t like a feature like this, but if it is to be controlled, then it also needs to be controlled in Qizmo.

#45 2008-11-19 18:18 by Åke Vader (88.131.55.XXX)

Testing again (who coded this piece of shite site anyway!? ;P)

http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=27622

#46 2008-11-22 10:06 by meshuggah (95.24.140.XXX)

B1aze, you are talking about own mates' skin difference, not enemy's team players, right? Im tellin just cos im sure - nobody of rest nopasaranies never used this second option(i personally not even divide skins for mates)

---

Showing Page 1 of 1
A total of 46 comments
Previous Next
Page: 1

Note
On this site we log the IP of all users who post comments on matches/articles.

Code from image aboveNameComment