Line damage grenade

[Mason]

When I see a grenade, I mentally draw the radius of its destruction, so why I can't do it for my convenience? Same thing with the textures or weapons modifications. I don't think it will be very helpful to you and you will be better for it to play.

[SyavX]

When I see a grenade, I mentally draw the radius of its destruction, so why I can't do it for my convenience? Same thing with the textures or weapons modifications. I don't think it will be very helpful to you and you will be better for it to play.

Why don't you mentally draw something like this? (for your convenience)

[smiluu]

Ofc. it is cheating. You needn´t make an external tool to call it a "cheat".

Yes it's cheating if you put some self-imposed rules on it, but if it's possible without external tools then it's just a trick. If it's considered cheating then it should be denied with a patch, simple. You can't just have it laying around and expect nobody using it. We can have rules like no spawn killing and no nades through walls too, but really who bothers giving the courtesy and who bothers appreciating the courtesy if you clearly have a situation in your favor there.

Haha, I didn't know 1vs1 was played actively by any other than some public barrett heros. I really didn't even know there was an actual scene for dueling.

For a genuine 1vs1 mode, progressive weapon balance and weapon/item pickups with dynamic location and time are essential. To give players something to fight for, to give players something to deny his opponents from gaining. Yes, this is indeed not how Soldat works as well as the reason why it's so uninteresting and insufficient. I don't think the duel scene or activity has ever been so strong in Soldat, I heard there was a duel cup/league of some sort back in the days, but that's about it. In Teeworlds 1vs1:ing works, because there's weapons that are stronger than the ones you spawn with, there's armor shards which after picked up makes you less vulnerable to damage. The player with better control over items and opponent's route will have it easier through the match. This is essential only of course if you don't want something simple like Instagib or Barrets only.

As for the "biggest tournaments" I mainly meant the SCTFL and the scene around it. If you're claiming that the age old rules of the tournament in question has had a harmful effect on the playerbase, you should probably find out yourself. (spoiler: without 3v3 CTF clan scene the game would be a lot more dead than it is now.)

Putting restrictions on the configurations is just simply not the way to do it. If Soldat competitive scene wants to remain eye candy/defaultish then you should start disabling the customization features, this is the only way you're going to get people to truly stop playing with the settings they prefer and play best with.

Edit:

Reading the SCTFL 22 rules..

* Taking advantage of map bugs is not allowed in SCTFL. Examples of map bugs include flying beneath the floor on ctf_Voland or throwing grenades through the roof of the houses on ctf_Ash. If you are unsure if an action is considered map abuse, consult the administrators.

This is the bullshit I was talking about, fix the map bugs, fix the nade bugs, how do you tell apart intentional and accidental nade bug situations? This is a fucking mess, this is bullshit. Don't let these 'features' lay around too tempting to abuse, it's not the player's fault for playing the game.

* Soldat modifications (mods) are generally permissible, but there are some exceptions. A mod which provides an advantage to its user is allowed only as long as the same mod does not directly inhibit an opponent. For example, altering the color of grenades/bullets or changing the textures of maps is legal, but altering the size of weapons/gosteks, deleting scenery or making scenery invisible, or adding healthbars above gosteks is disallowed because those mods would directly inhibit an enemy by preventing that player from hiding. If you are unsure if a mod is legal, it is your responsibility to consult the administrators before using it.

So you can't modificate graphics to ensure people can hide, has hiding always been so important factor of the SCTFL gameplay? What's so important about hiding compared to neat tricks like map abuse and nades through walls? How do they moderate against this anyway? It's easy to simply act that you don't see that health bar above the player tactically hiding in the bush.

[Bistoufly]

Ofc. it is cheating. You needn´t make an external tool to call it a "cheat".

Yes it's cheating if you put some self-imposed rules on it, but if it's possible without external tools then it's just a trick. If it's considered cheating then it should be denied with a patch, simple. You can't just have it laying around and expect nobody using it.

There is some truth in what you say. But I find your opinion too radical.
Because:
1) Developers realistically don't have the time and will to address every single situation that can be abused. The number of modifications and artificial limits the developers would need to code would be huge.
2) You seem to imply that players can't restrict themselves to abuse bugs or use illicit modifications. That's a rather cynical and pessimistic point of view that I don't share with you.
3) Soldat leagues edict rules to forbid players from using unfair bugs or modifications. They do enforce these rules by monitoring the league with their admin staff. And they do give punishments when needed.

For a genuine 1vs1 mode, progressive weapon balance and weapon/item pickups with dynamic location and time are essential. To give players something to fight for, to give players something to deny his opponents from gaining. Yes, this is indeed not how Soldat works as well as the reason why it's so uninteresting and insufficient.

While I'm well aware that games such as Q3 and Warsaw have superior duel gameplay mechanics than Soldat. I find your judgement on Soldat a bit harsh.
After all, in a 1vs1 Soldat duel. You will often see a player trying to move from base to base to take a medikit or a nadekit. And the opponent blocking the path to these items. Think for example of the map ctf_Ash where it's a pretty common thing. These mind games also happen when a player who threw a knife can try to retake it. Or even fool his opponent into trying to steal it to make him lose his cover. Not to mention the possibility for a player to grab a primary weap to replace his secondary one.

* Taking advantage of map bugs is not allowed in SCTFL. Examples of map bugs include flying beneath the floor on ctf_Voland or throwing grenades through the roof of the houses on ctf_Ash. If you are unsure if an action is considered map abuse, consult the administrators.

This is the bullshit I was talking about, fix the map bugs, fix the nade bugs, how do you tell apart intentional and accidental nade bug situations? This is a fucking mess, this is bullshit. Don't let these 'features' lay around too tempting to abuse, it's not the player's fault for playing the game.

-Nade through wall issue has been fixed by Fryer for the upcoming soldat version. (1.6.4)
-As for flying beneath the floor on ctf_Voland. I will bring this to the attention of As de Espada and see what solution we/he can come up with.

* Soldat modifications (mods) are generally permissible, but there are some exceptions. A mod which provides an advantage to its user is allowed only as long as the same mod does not directly inhibit an opponent. For example, altering the color of grenades/bullets or changing the textures of maps is legal, but altering the size of weapons/gosteks, deleting scenery or making scenery invisible, or adding healthbars above gosteks is disallowed because those mods would directly inhibit an enemy by preventing that player from hiding. If you are unsure if a mod is legal, it is your responsibility to consult the administrators before using it.

So you can't modificate graphics to ensure people can hide, has hiding always been so important factor of the SCTFL gameplay? What's so important about hiding compared to neat tricks like map abuse and nades through walls?

Hiding behind a scenery or a medkit/nadekit is a common tactic to take an enemy by surprise. Especially used in order to kill an efc, capture the flag/ return the flag. It's pretty commonly used on ctf_Guardian mid route or in ctf_Equinox bases for example.

How do they moderate against this anyway? It's easy to simply act that you don't see that health bar above the player tactically hiding in the bush.

Sctfl admins can require the players participating in the league to provide their end game screenshots. Which is why players are required to check  "Automatically take screenshots of final game score" in their soldat config utility.

[smiluu]

2) You seem to imply that players can't restrict themselves to abuse bugs or use illicit modifications.

Sure they can restrict themselves when you threaten them with disqualification, but I think it's absolutely bizarre to insist players to not use certain ways to kill someone (talking about the nade bug) when it doesn't even take that much practice to do so. Everyone can learn to do it and later on learn to avoid the spots where people often pull this off from, it all comes with experience. I mean, you could as well forbid killing with ricocheting bullets, would you like having that feature around, practice it and get it embedded into your muscle memory, but then have it forbidden in league games? That's the kind of acquaintance I had with the nade bug.

Well since the nade bug got fixed it's obviously solved here. Realistically it made no sense yeah, but was it really that much nuisance gameplay wise?

After all, in a 1vs1 Soldat duel. You will often see a player trying to move from base to base to take a medikit or a nadekit. And the opponent blocking the path to these items. Think for example of the map ctf_Ash where it's a pretty common thing. These mind games also happen when a player who threw a knife can try to retake it. Or even fool his opponent into trying to steal it to make him lose his cover. Not to mention the possibility for a player to grab a primary weap to replace his secondary one.

I can of course describe my radical opinion in more detail.

Firstly, there's no risks or whatsoever in dying. When the player respawns he is immediately on equal if not in upper hand position on the opponent who killed him. You don't get any penalty for control when you die, you can always take the frag back with full HP and frag power supposedly equal to the opponent. You don't have to work your way back to the game, you're ready to charge immediately with no skill or achievement involved. Killing too does not serve any special meaning in the occurrence of the match, apart from the +1 point in score. The medkits and nadekits appear randomly at random order and time (not sure if it's like this now). And they can roll and bounce off their original locations, this makes the map layout more irrelevant and unpredictable while adding in some luck factor. You can pipe dream all kinds of tricky situations and mind work featuring dropping knifes and picking up additional primary weapons, but in the end that is just throwing water in the stew. It's 1vs1 at it's simplest form which is why I called it uninteresting. On the other hand, when I want simplicity I do enjoy Barrets only / Instagib dueling as well, Soldat 1vs1 works kinda like Instagib but with various weapons which doesn't necessarily always instantly gib you.

Sorry for going offtopic by the way.