Devlog update (2018-02-09) Steam release moved to when?

[ginn]

I still think that "closed groups" killed activity in this game. Especially in the last 5 years. Talking about a dying game and playing only in closed groups (DISCORD etc.) is totally pointless. THIS is something that kills the game totally. People playing in "closed groups" (Discord or Gather) are veterans of this game (adults) and they will not play forever.

This situation kills public servers and closed gropus like a Discord.

UI design is a big problem - it's true but it will never change. Too late for this type of change. That would make sense a few years earlier (2011-2012).

There are no closed groups, at least not that I know of. Discord is open for anyone to join, although I'd imagine admins would ban them if they lost a gather match because of a newbie.
I doubt anyone who plays gathers would play on publics if the options were between playing on publics and not playing the game at all. Very few who are good at the game would find enjoyment from playing on publics.
Beside, I've tried, and I got banned by an admin. Shitty players and admins will ban veteran players from public servers, and some shitty new players may even quit because they think a veteran player is hacking.

These people did not have imagination. Closed and hidden groups are not good for a dying game.

Again? What closed group?
Discord is open for everyone, and a link to the discord channel is on the front page of the forums.

It's not closed, and it's not hidden.

What keep game fresh and active IS public game. You want to tell me that you started playing Soldat without public, and just like that you start being good an play just gathers?

There is no game out there that is kept alive by just by competitive scene, even fricking CS is alive and running because there is constant rotation of players in public servers, even tournaments are not what keep game alive, but players in public servers that play and want to be good to join competitive scene.

You think from where you get players to play your gathers when current ones get bored? From air? You think that you will have those 50-70 people that are still here forever?
You think that after Steam release Soldat will be visited by holy bunch of players who skip public and join you in discord to play? In what world do you live, Jesus Christ...

I actually can't think of a single game that's kept alive by publics (Dirty bomb does use publics, but it has match making to fill the publics, so it's really not the same thing).

CS 1.6 and Source are dead, don't pretend like they're alive.
CS GO does not survive because of publics, only a tiny minority plays publics regularly (other than warm up). Majority of players uses the match making, which is essentially integrated gather/pick-ups.

Very few people today enjoy playing on publics, most will quit a game as soon as they find out a game is using server browsing. You're very delusional if you think publics would keep soldat alive. You're even more delusional if you believe gather players would play publics instead of quitting the game.

[Ygrek Starmagedon]

As for now Discord isn't known to newbies, cause I wouldn't think that you register on Soldat Forums just after downloading game, besides they wouldn't look for it. Discord got so many new members cause it had ads on some servers and ppl from publics saw it, I myself made Discord account just on the beginning of this year. (It's more cause I was lazy, well, I didn't heard of Soldat channel on Discord before You Got Served! told me about it, I wasn't active on Soldat Forums for years so didn't see announcement.)
Well, if devs gonna work on matchmaking discord won't be needed anymore. I see that you would like to play Soldat like you can play CS GO, just choose mode and wait or join friends. Nice dream, not possible before update, open source and release on Steam.

I doubt anyone who plays gathers would play on publics if the options were between playing on publics and not playing the game at all. Very few who are good at the game would find enjoyment from playing on publics.

So let them quit game, lol.

Beside, I've tried, and I got banned by an admin. Shitty players and admins will ban veteran players from public servers, and some shitty new players may even quit because they think a veteran player is hacking.

Banned by admin, where? It's really shitty admin if he bans when there is like no players at all in game. Maybe they should play more on publics to show that they own cause of skill not haxes. Besides it doesn't really matter who you are, if you will encounter cancer on servers - everyone can get kicked; no matter skill or how long do you play, even if you are known to most players some toxic shit can votekick you quite easy.

[Hubiq]

Again? What closed group?
Discord is open for everyone, and a link to the discord channel is on the front page of the forums.

It's not closed, and it's not hidden.

Are you serious? Do you think that new players know about the existence of this forum? Do you see any information about DISCORD after starting the game?

New players see that the public servers are empty and uninstall the game. They will not check any information on the internet: "why it's empty here".

I have asked many new players if they know about forums.soldat.pl and they were surprised that the forum exists.

They just want to turn on the game and play. 

[nosejj]

Again? What closed group?
Discord is open for everyone, and a link to the discord channel is on the front page of the forums.

It's not closed, and it's not hidden.

Are you serious? Do you think that new players know about the existence of this forum? Do you see any information about DISCORD after starting the game?

New players see that the public servers are empty and uninstall the game. They will not check any information on the internet: "why it's empty here".

I have asked many new players if they know about forums.soldat.pl and they were surprised that the forum exists.

They just want to turn on the game and play. 

What they mean is that, Discord is not a "closed" or "hidden" group. Every player can reach it through the gather's webpage without any password.
There is no information in the game about Discord but still, doesn't make it hidden or closed. It is a tool for community outside of Soldat.

Having not so many public players present might also be a factor to decrease the attractiveness of the game, yet I think you're barking at the wrong tree.
That being said, I have to agree with what's been written above this, the future of Soldat is probably not public servers, but rather matchmaking (which you could also call: "turn on the game and play").

I'll add one more thing, if you think that Discord is a harmful thing to Soldat, you're wrong. The levels gap between gathers to public servers is rather big and it gives room for those veterans who wanna play quality 3v3. So, just as having IRC in the past didn't "kill the game", it is just an alternative for those old dogs who don't enjoy public servers anymore. And one way or another, it is terrific that there is something that keeps them playing.

[miketh2005]

I agree, new version of Soldat needs to have a news section for leagues and tournament info. Matchmaking is also a must for newbies. Ranked and unranked. It would be fun to play ranked and ladder up. Perhaps have seasons.

Would also be good if I can queue up for a zombie match and wait for a match to fill up while I do some work or watch a YouTube video.

Also, as a causal player, I like a variety of maps. Really frustrating to play Soldat 5 years later and still play the same 10 maps over and over and over again. I used to run a server with the top rated maps on some map site long defunct. Sometimes it would be popular but it died I believe because people got tired of having to re-join in order to download the new map. We are not on dial up connections anymore. Maps should be able to download in the background. Enesce was supposed to code this since 1.7. This is essential so players don't get bored imo. This is one reason why the map making scene quit. Custom maps can't get any love.

As for hackers from open source...this game is really easy to hack as far as I know. Open sourcing can't make it any worse than it is now. I don't think any game has a way to prevent aimbots, as it just reads what the player has access to and gives the player perfect aim from that information, like solving a puzzle. The best we can do as an open source community is come together and code an anti-cheat so that the best a cheater can do is imitate a actual pro, with the usual human error, as opposed to God-like aiming skills. We can require top ranked players record themselves playing perhaps.

I believe we'd also be able to ban any public anti-cheat by looking for its signature running on the computer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems doable, unless the cheat sandboxes the game perhaps? But that's next-level.

[soldat-game]

I agree, new version of Soldat needs to have a news section for leagues and tournament info. Matchmaking is also a must for newbies. Ranked and unranked. It would be fun to play ranked and ladder up. Perhaps have seasons.

Would also be good if I can queue up for a zombie match and wait for a match to fill up while I do some work or watch a YouTube video.

Also, as a causal player, I like a variety of maps. Really frustrating to play Soldat 5 years later and still play the same 10 maps over and over and over again. I used to run a server with the top rated maps on some map site long defunct. Sometimes it would be popular but it died I believe because people got tired of having to re-join in order to download the new map. We are not on dial up connections anymore. Maps should be able to download in the background. Enesce was supposed to code this since 1.7. This is essential so players don't get bored imo. This is one reason why the map making scene quit. Custom maps can't get any love.

As for hackers from open source...this game is really easy to hack as far as I know. Open sourcing can't make it any worse than it is now. I don't think any game has a way to prevent aimbots, as it just reads what the player has access to and gives the player perfect aim from that information, like solving a puzzle. The best we can do as an open source community is come together and code an anti-cheat so that the best a cheater can do is imitate a actual pro, with the usual human error, as opposed to God-like aiming skills. We can require top ranked players record themselves playing perhaps.

I believe we'd also be able to ban any public anti-cheat by looking for its signature running on the computer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems doable, unless the cheat sandboxes the game perhaps? But that's next-level.

Hahahahaha, They do not know how to do simple things. What what such complicated mechanisms   First of all, they can not design a project - plan. They will start defending themselves again, with an attack that I do not know English and then I will start to cry with laughter.

[Akinaro]

Really frustrating to play Soldat 5 years later and still play the same 10 maps over and over and over again.

Its mostly because of old players that vote for the same maps over and over again,  because they memorized them and play them using bugs/tricks that they found there.
This is proof that most of "pro-players", are not actually good, put them in new or modified map and they will cry and start losing like anybody else.

We are not on dial up connections anymore.

In Soldat world we are. When we had "HD update" some of users here still complain that maps that weight 6MB are too big. Not to mention that soldat file handling is a bit crappy, there is no simple compressed package support for maps(so all map files would be in one zip-like file, no huge pile of small sceneries files that can take even 1GB), there is no multi texture support and most important even back when people where here and make maps, they still used that damn BMP file format that should be baned from game long time ago.

Also Soldat dont have auto-update. We still have to manually download game and install it. Im really crappy at programming, but still even I can write small app that would download updated files and install them in Soldat folder in the background. With auto-update, devs would not need to release big updates, they could just release updates files or new graphic/maps in the background at start of the game instead of downloading whole game again. There would be no more waiting for next release just because one small part of it is still in the work or one dev is late with something stopping rest of team

This is one reason why the map making scene quit. Custom maps can't get any love.

Again, you should thank "pro-players/gather" for that. For all those years they didnt want any changes in maps because they play on memory, change just one poligon in remaked map and they will bash you and scream so loud that even xanax cant help them. Just look at any remaked map posted on forum, even if map it self is literally the same but just with new textures and sceneries they will spend hours saying that you destroyed this map.

You can find even post where they cry about sceneries moved to front/back/middle or small changes in collider size.

As for hackers from open source...this game is really easy to hack as far as I know. Open sourcing can't make it any worse than it is now. I don't think any game has a way to prevent aimbots, as it just reads what the player has access to and gives the player perfect aim from that information, like solving a puzzle. The best we can do as an open source community is come together and code an anti-cheat so that the best a cheater can do is imitate a actual pro, with the usual human error, as opposed to God-like aiming skills. We can require top ranked players record themselves playing perhaps.

Sadly there is no simple way to fight with hax. even AAA games have that problems. But Soldat devs use it as lever to not make game open source.
Like now when its closed we have hax, there will be no difference if it would be OS. If someone gonna make hax for game it will make them. Ask main dev of Soldat about that, he have experience with that :]

As for competitive scene that is afraid of hax... just dont play OS repos of Soldat, stick to official version and moderate matches. Big games have that problems with all their moneys and anti-hacks, you think that Soldat will find golde solution for that if you keep it closed? If it will be OS you will probably find faster solution for it.

Not to mention that one of reason why Soldat have so much problems with hax is that Forum have rule to NOT TO TALK ABOUT HAX IN ANY WAY.
And because of that players cant report hackers, post demos/logs as proof. Cant post informations about hax so devs can check them and see if they can patch game up to prevent from using it. We are told to sit in silence and pretend that everything is ok.
Soldat always where crappy at using community help, and this is just another example of that.

[fatihbulut]

In fact, it would be good to re-develop the Soldat with a game engine like Unity.
If so, I can help too.

[Akinaro]

In fact, it would be good to re-develop the Soldat with a game engine like Unity.
If so, I can help too.

Its impossible. Whole power of soldat lies on its psychic, weapon behavior(no matter if you like WM or not) and gostek movement. There is no "ready-to-use" engine that is capable of imitate it.


If you really know Unity, you would know that its crappy engine. For most of time it force developers to use shortcuts and ready made solutions just because putting your own ideas to it need massive amount of work and resources, and especially when you doing free project or have just small team with limited resources you cant afford implementing original ideas and you need to literally reconstruct whole project to fit unity solutions.
I spend lots of time with Unity helping smaller teams and devs of mobile games creating assets for their projects, I was talking with even bigger game devs that use unity when we where looking for tips and help and they all say that Unity is not best solution for really delicate and precise projects, and Soldat is such delicate project. Because what make Soldat a Soldat, are those small things that we thing are something normal, like psychic and gostek movement.

What Soldat really need is not new engine, but better netcode, proper advertising system, new graphic style with few important features(paralax, multitexture), modern GUI, and some multiplayer features like global player statistics and matches. Thats it. Game is self is perfect as it is even with constant fight of WM balance and hax problem(every game have that problem).
All its need to hit the market in proper way is those features, rest is perfect, and could easily fight for players with any game on market.

[Savage]

Actually there is https://github.com/helloer/soldank

[daaw]

Right timing... while we still here at this offtopic..
 
I had this Unity project.. and im willing to giving it away ...  with no strings attached..for lol chance to see someone making  something out if it
It has +/- has core game mechanics some menus, multiplayer, weapon shooting, dropping, picking, killing enemy, flag scoring,..

It very messy state but I think it could really come in handy for someone ..

Contact: zzzb248@gmail.com




(note if you recognize these assets, they are used with permission, aka not stolen)

[jrgp]

Right timing... while we still here at this offtopic..
 
I had this Unity project.. and im willing to giving it away ...  with no strings attached..for lol chance to see someone making  something out if it
It has +/- has core game mechanics some menus, multiplayer, weapon shooting, dropping, picking, killing enemy, flag scoring,..

It very messy state but I think it could really come in handy for someone ..

That looks cool. You really should just open source it on GitHub. That way anyone/everyone can take a look and decide if they're interested.

[Akinaro]

Of course you can try making copy of Soldat. Its not even like Soldat was first 2d action game. But I can ensure you that you will never copy 100% of its gameplay.

Its similar to Stalker game series. This game is buggy as hell, it was made using potatoes and vodka, its SDK work like it was made by drunk hobo that write it using just PSX controller. But its have amazing gameplay and atmosphere and for all those years no one managed to make other game like that.

You can copy basic mechanic of Soldat, assets from it and fix all major bugs it have, but I can bet my dog that you could not get the same game experience, psychic and gostek movement. Those small things that are probably made by accident make Soldat what it is.

As I said, Soldat dont need new engine, but(in that order) better netcode, proper advertising system, new graphic style with few important features(paralax, multitexture), modern GUI, and some multiplayer features like global player statistics and matches. Nothing more. Its all what you need to squeeze to the market and get new players.
But for that you need to start treating Soldat as a product not some  weekend hobby project like for past 10 years.
Compared to any other 2D action game out there Soldat is not buggy at all, it just ugly and it lack some features and advertising. Gameplay it self even without matchmaking is fun even for new players.

Right timing... while we still here at this offtopic..
 
I had this Unity project.. and im willing to giving it away ...  with no strings attached..for lol chance to see someone making  something out if it
It has +/- has core game mechanics some menus, multiplayer, weapon shooting, dropping, picking, killing enemy, flag scoring,..

It very messy state but I think it could really come in handy for someone ..

Contact: zzzb248@gmail.com




(note if you recognize these assets, they are used with permission, aka not stolen)

I dont know why but its look like that crappy remake that I made long time ago -_-

[daaw]

@jrgp
Yes , was eventually planning to do it,  as would have to clean it and what not ...without soldat assets and without character model...  ... hopefully will do until summer.. time passed and i started to lose interest

It woul be just a 2d shooter game template nothing more.

@Akinaro

Generally speaking, Unity is also very flexible,  you dont have to use necessary the built-in physics, you can use your own physics code... you could if you wanted to make soldat hah

Its a developed approach contrast...see now 2018.. this what you can get like in month or so.. compared to building a custom game engine... where every new significant feature would constantly take way more time.   

[Hubiq]

I want to say about very frustrating 'over-power barrett' bug (giving 100% accuracy):

This is viewfinder when I'm "standing" in flight:



The viewfinder is bigger, it is harder to shoot at the target.

_________________________________________________ ______________________


When I press the "X" in flight:



The viewfinder is much smaller and I always shoot at the target (100% accuracy).

This is normal? In the real world it is impossible to lie down 'in flight'.

[paintZoom]

in the real world u cant even reach that at altitude ... wtf

[Akinaro]

This is normal? In the real world it is impossible to lie down 'in flight'.

In real world you would not fly :]


But yes, this is one of problems with barrett that people discuss on this forum for years.

In my opinion barrett should be almost impossible to use when flying, it should be accurate ONLY on the ground. And yes, Im talking about some sort of camping, because THIS IS gun for camping.

In every multiplayer game sniper rifle is used as support gun on the ground(even if barrett is not sniper rifle but anti-material rifle), I think Soldat is only game that I played where it is used so often as a charging weapon for attack. Even with its long reload speed that is actually only thing that really limit that weapon.

Best way to limit force players to use other guns more often instead of going one-shot-kill weapons is to actually make gun statistic to be useful only on the ground and for best results, when not moving. Of course it will break some people tactic and style of gameplay but its never ending story of balance: you want to players to use all types of weapons, or just accept that most of players will be choosing two-three most overpowered weapons.

[Ygrek Starmagedon]

I think it's not overpowered (in this issue), Soldat isn't realistic game at all, everyone knows that, comparing it to the real world is pointless. Maybe we should also remove rocket jumps in your opinion xd? Laying in the air is just a normal move for snipers, well you still can be binked. Btw. you probably don't know how to get back 100% accuracy after being binked.

[ginn]

Prone giving you 100% accuracy is the sole reason as to why barrett is at least a little useable in non-serious games, without it it really wouldn't see any use at all.

[MrHamsTR]

- Figure out how to keep competitive scene from getting ruined by hackers/cheaters.

Anyone who wants to hack can hack right now. Opensource won't affect the amount of hackers at all.

But they will upgrade their hacks and be even more annoying.

They can easily integrate their aimbot and cheats directly into soldat and update them with even less effort.
This is why free/open source games generally ignore the competitive scene and suggest you play with people you trust.

I mentioned this point because people have to be aware that it might happen.
There are people who play soldat competitively and they should have a chance to understand the implications this has on their way of enjoying the game.

Shoozz are you going to add the features Falcon made you mentioned in last devlog?
Because we (some admins) are waiting for you add those features and mix them with fixed soldatserver..
We cant use fixed current soldatserver because our scripts needs Falcon's build..
Add them and fix it please.