Bodies forever

[thegrandmaster]

I still really don't like the idea of seeing your own body. Or other players seeing their own body. Seeing other's bodies for a bit longer is fine, but your own?

I support increasing the time that the bodies stay but that for me is an issue that would make it a bit wierd.

[Monsteri]

Well, you can see your own body in COD4 too, not so disturbing there, so why it would be here? It's 'a whole new guy' who sees his 'own' body. If you get me.

[darDar]

COD4

Soldat, COD4 ? eh where´s the relationship..

[L[0ne]R]

With all the chaos happening on the battlefield I don't think you'll even be able to tell if it's your body or not. But I can understand why it can be a bit distracting on less populated servers and in slower-paced games. Perhaps there could be an option to just hide your own body after respawn.

COD4

Soldat, COD4 ? eh where´s the relationship..

They're both multiplayer shooters.

[Horve]

Body disappearance indicates that the corpse owner has respawned, which is vital for the killer's defence and survival.
Why? Because the dead can see where you go, where you hide and what you do after you have killed someone. If you don't know when they will respawn, you can't predict when to change your hiding spot or pathway, giving the respawned an UNFAIR advantage of a surprise attack or a lame camp kill.

(a)
You kill the victim.
The victim sees where you are going and where you are hiding.
You know that he knows where you are because his corpse is still there.
His corpse disappears, you know that he will think that you are still hiding or going in a specific direction.
You change your hiding spot, change your movement direction, create a diversion or ambush him.

(b)
You kill the victim.
The victim sees where you are going and where you are hiding.
You know that he knows where you are because his corpse is still there.
His corpse does not disappear, you know that he will think that you are still hiding or going in a specific direction.
You don't know when to change your hiding spot or movement direction, because he might already be camping or preparing an ambush on you -> he has an advantage, you have nothing.

[L[0ne]R]

Predicting player's respawn is a matter of skill, timing and common sense, these are much more vital. What makes you think that respawned player gets an UNFAIR advantage? The same could be said about the surviving player - he gets an "unfair" advantage too and can camp kill just as much especially when he reaches the enemy base.

[chutem]

(a)
You kill the victim.
The victim sees where you are going and where you are hiding.
He knows that you know that he knows where you are because his corpse is still there.
His corpse disappears, he knows that you know that he will think that you are still hiding or going in a specific direction.
You change your hiding spot, change your movement direction, create a diversion or ambush him.
He ambushes your ambush.

We could go on forever...

[Horve]

You may proceed with going on forever alone.

You are able to successfully pull out when he can no longer see your position. You can be sure of his inability to spy on you once his body disappears and he does not spawn near you.
You can't be sure of that if he respawns without his body disappearing.

[chutem]

The point I was making was whether it matters if he knows.

Once he has respawned, he can't be sure that the enemy hasn't changed his path.

[Horve]

Think about it until you understand that it matters when someone knows another's position, movement direction, equipped weapon, health and velocity and the one who is being spied on has no way of knowing that the spying has ended without an indication of the enemy's respawn.

[KYnetiK]

Horves completely correct imo.

Each player is hard-linked to a single body within a map, which is why they disappear when you respawn. By knowing what abilities an opponent has, players have learned to be instinctively aware of how to survive using a thing called strategy. The ability to spy, and the ability to know when spying was impossible, are fundamental components of a strategy's core if you ask me. I believe suddenly removing something when it has been quietly fundamental in evolving many aspects of your play-style will yield weird and unpredictable results.

[L[0ne]R]

1) Respawn usually takes several seconds. It wouldn't be smart to just stand there for those several seconds and wait for enemy body to disappear. You'll have to keep moving and switch routes whether the enemy can spy on you or not.

2) Even if the player did see how and where you move - how he uses that knowledge depends on his skill. Like Chutem said - you could end up ambushing each other's ambushes.

3) Like I said, it's not that hard to predict when the enemy respawns without looking at his body. Just get a rough idea about spawn times and count in your head.

4) You're saying that spying is an unfair advantage, but then why not just remove that advantage instead of trying to "balance" it with disappearing bodies (which aren't even all that helpful)? Camera is really the one to blame.

Here's an idea:
In team games freecam should be disabled by default. Instead - only allow switching camera between yourself and your teammates. Additionally when looking at your dead body you shouldn't be able to look (aim) around. In other words - camera should stay still even if you move your mouse. This way freecam spying will be impossible, and spying a single screen around your body for a few seconds won't give you much of an advantage.

[Monsteri]

Edited poll. Forever is too much. Atleast few minutes. Go to vote again, please-

[Horve]

If you don't know when the enemy respawns (bodies do not disappear), you won't know whether he is still dead, in his base or someplace else. Since player respawn time fluctuates between minrespawntime and maxrespawntime (the first can be 1 and the other 6); good luck predicting with knowing just that data.
If the respawn time is short enough, knowing your position and direction alone is sufficient to have a significant advantage, since maps aren't 99 screens large and do not have 99 routes to choose from.
The probability of the killer's ambush success is greatly decreased without any information on the whereabouts of the opponent.
Spying is an unfair advantage: the dead can see a whole screen into any direction from the corpse. The advantage would be even more noticeable if bodies didn't disappear (read above).

[SoldatFire]

Yeah could be at least 30 seconds or so not minutes!!!!

[Dusty]

Bodies often stop crucial bullets and hiding behind a pile of bodies would be too easy.

A typical killcount in a basic 3on3 CTF is around 180 per round, which makes a total of 18 corpses lying around the map all the time if the disappearing time was set to one minute. 18 bodies on the bridge of Guardian would make a nice meatshield for the flagger escaping below.

[demoniac93]

Bodies often stop crucial bullets and hiding behind a pile of bodies would be too easy.

A typical killcount in a basic 3on3 CTF is around 180 per round, which makes a total of 18 corpses lying around the map all the time if the disappearing time was set to one minute. 18 bodies on the bridge of Guardian would make a nice meatshield for the flagger escaping below.

Or imagine those 18 bodies clogging up the front entrance to the black flag on Inf_Warehouse...
F11 all the way.

[L[0ne]R]

If you don't know when the enemy respawns (bodies do not disappear), you won't know whether he is still dead, in his base or someplace else. Since player respawn time fluctuates between minrespawntime and maxrespawntime (the first can be 1 and the other 6); good luck predicting with knowing just that data.
If the respawn time is short enough, knowing your position and direction alone is sufficient to have a significant advantage, since maps aren't 99 screens large and do not have 99 routes to choose from.
The probability of the killer's ambush success is greatly decreased without any information on the whereabouts of the opponent.
Spying is an unfair advantage: the dead can see a whole screen into any direction from the corpse. The advantage would be even more noticeable if bodies didn't disappear (read above).

Don't forget that there are other players out there. So let's assume you saw when enemy respawns and think "aha, now he respawned and would probably camp somewhere around here". And then you get assploded by his teammate who has respawned much earlier than him. So again - disappearing bodies don't provide enough info to be an effective counter-balance. In the end you have to rely on something else.

Having camera fixed on your own body (so that your body is always in the very center of the screen) without the ability to look around is good enough of a measure against spying. A single 640x480 screen won't provide the enemy with enough info. All you need to do is go a little further away from the body (just 320 pixels away is enough) and then you can change speed and direction however you want without the risk of being spied on.

Bodies often stop crucial bullets and hiding behind a pile of bodies would be too easy.

A typical killcount in a basic 3on3 CTF is around 180 per round, which makes a total of 18 corpses lying around the map all the time if the disappearing time was set to one minute. 18 bodies on the bridge of Guardian would make a nice meatshield for the flagger escaping below.

How about making bodies not affect projectiles after a few seconds or when a body comes to a stop? When they're already on the ground - using them as cover never really was effective except for very VERY rare occasions when you survive a barrett shot because for some weird reason you were hiding behind a corpse instead of finding a better cover or just trying to dodge, and got lucky enough to have that corpse absorb some of the damage.

Alternatively, like someone said, bodies could be converted into temporary scenery files and placed in the map's background.

Also, one minute limit may be a bit too much anyway. 30 seconds should be enough, which would reduce number of bodies from 18 to only 6 in your example.

[STM1993]

Well, now that it is not "forever" but increased time it stays lying around (not by minutes, probably about 10 seconds after the actual respawn would be enough).

My only last issue I have with a corpse lying around is the fact that in Soldat, corpses can be shot AND they block off bullets. Imagine having a pile of bodies lying around a spot, and they block every single bullet you shoot at them. It can be kinda irritating when it occurs even though you can argue that it prevents camping in a small way.

[Monsteri]

My idea was, that when the owner has respawned, the bodies keep lying there, and they go as background (like an extra scenery) behind gostexs and not blocking the fire.