Comments on: Know Your Enemy, Especially if He or She Has a Sniper Rifle

By: Stevoisiak

Stevoisiak — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:29:40 +0000

Interesting… Reminds me a bit of the Spy-skill relationship in TF2.

When TF2 first came out, nobody knew what a spy did, making spies dominate all the unaware players. Once players began learning how to search for spies, it became one of the hardest classes to play. If you jump into TF2 today and play a spy, you will die alot. It isn’t easy to play if you don’t know what you are doing.

With other classes like the Soldier or Heavy, you can just see what a class does by observing them. Its easy to pickup from observation. Which is why Medic is such a great starter class, so you can observe more skilled players.
Just my two cents

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:40:51 +0000

Good explanation. All comments I make a speculation due to never playing.

By: checker

checker — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:59:24 +0000

The “good” result on that clip is actually the hardest to see in playtests for the Sniper, because the head doesn’t move (much), and that’s the main thing Snipers look for since the head is visible from multiple locations. It’s really hard to see the hand, if the Spy times it right with people around and is facing the right way (like at the corner bookshelf).

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:38:06 +0000

Well, the thing my mind jumped to instantly when you described the problem with the action test, I jumped to this conclusion: because the sniper already had time to adjust to the “normal” time frames on the animations, any difference was easily discernible. One possible solution could be have NPCs randomly succeed “fake” action tests. They would never fail an action test, but if they would randomly succeed, it would take away the the “punishment” for succeeding the action test.

After I thought about this, it really didn’t make as much sense as I first thought. That’s because the NPCs don’t really have tells when just performing normal actions.

So I went back and watched this clip again. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwxEqFr5h2s . The thing I noticed once I watched it about 10 times in a row and started observing it without focus was that the action test version was actually the most visible, even though it was the quickest. It might benefit from actually making it the same speed as the “normal”, just without the rub down at the end.

By: checker

checker — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:46:53 +0000

Yeah, there’s already a (crappy) practice mode that lets you get used to the controls on both sides, but eventually there will be a full single player mode, with tutorial, practice, and hopefully a campaign of sorts.

By: alfie275

alfie275 — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:28:33 +0000

I was wondering, do you have any plans for a practice mode, where you play either as sniper or spy against an AI opponent, with tweakable settings.

By: checker

checker — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 05:34:00 +0000

Yeah, there’s lots to experiment with in this area. I think if some characters have some advantages for some missions, that’s okay, because if the missions are the Spy’s choice, then you get some yomi going there. For example, if the Spy can be the waiter, it makes poisoning the drink easy, but picking up the microfilm from the bookcase hard. Etc.

By: theprettiestboyontheplanet

theprettiestboyontheplanet — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:16:58 +0000

Neat, “per-character personalities” is a much better way to describe what I was getting at. The example you mention with the Generalissimo is a bit worrying though, as it’s a personality that the Spy can only leverage to her benefit if she’s picked one of the pretty girls. My gut feeling is that the Spy should have equal influence over per-character behavior regardless of their own character choice. Otherwise you’ll inevitably end up with certain characters that are better-equipped to complete the Spy’s list of tasks than others, which would almost certainly lead to experienced Spies picking those characters far more frequently.

High-level Snipers would obviously pick up on these character tiers as well, and could adjust by weighting their attention more heavily towards high-tier characters from the outset of each match. I guess that could be an interesting dynamic in it’s own right (and it would introduce mind-games where the Spy could intentionally pick low-tier characters to try and throw the Sniper off the scent), but it seems like such a setup would detract a bit from the Sniper’s focus on pure observation.

Anyways, I’m sure you’ll figure everything out! Playing a bunch of the broken Assassin’s Creed multiplayer has only made SpyParty’s eventual release even more exciting.

By: checker

checker — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 07:56:07 +0000

It’s not implemented yet, but it’s definitely part of the plan! Those are great examples of the kinds of things I’d like to do, and I’m all ears for ideas anytime, so thanks!

By: daniel

daniel — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 22:15:14 +0000

The development process you are taking is fascinating! Thanks for sharing!
Disregard the following if it’s already implemented in the game or just sound like a bad idea…
Reading this i was thinking that as a sniper, having other characters that are acting suspicious might confuse me and so help to draw some of the attention away from the spy.
Such characters might be a guy having a secrete love affair with one the ladies in the room (and trying to hide it), or a messenger with a private message to the Ambassador… My point is that some like-spy behavior can be observed by none-spy characters, and used as a tool in the game mechanics.

Most chances thats something you already considered, and if so… no harm done :-)