#Friend recognition

142 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

candid relic
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The absence of cosmetics has made playing with friends a bit cumbersome, in the sense that unless you deliberately step aside to seek them out, you’ll have a great amount of trouble playing along side them. I play with my friends all the time but having everyone blend together means it feels like i really only see them on the kill feed, whenever they run across my crosshair, or the server list.

I’d love to see some subtle thing that actively sets your friends apart from the crowd if you’re on the same team, either an active playertag that doesn’t go away, having them be highlighted in some sort of way, or maybe some small badge for their playermodel that only you can view. Really anything unobtrusive that makes it easier for recognition.

dusky moth
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i do think a disguised or invisible spy should be the exception here

placid isle
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As far as I recall, that in live, there is a "friend denotion" icon in the scoreboard attached to the avatar. Kinda weird that Classified doesn't have that.

candid relic
candid relic
placid isle
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I haven't seen any icons that denote my friends, so... doubt.

candid relic
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Well, regardless if thats a thing or not im more so craving something that actively highlights friends playermodels demoman_this

hoary sundial
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Maybe in the thing that shows up when you look at them, but having them be highlgihted all the time is a bit much.

drowsy smelt
candid relic
hoary sundial
placid isle
candid relic
hoary sundial
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It’d indirectly fuck over Spy by allowing you to see if your friend has been backstabbed or killed anywhere, and allow you to immediately tell if someone is a Spy or not due to the lack of that distinctive glow. The latter is certainly something hats and cosmetics did in Live.

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Spawning wallhacks are a great example of this being an issue in Live

candid relic
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I don't see how that cant be worked around though?

hoary sundial
covert nexus
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well for certain you know whos who when they are talking in voicechat so maybe have like party like voicechat system? like voicechat limited to few people in a party. same way textchat for party is in live

candid relic
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Like i said, it doesnt have to be outlines.

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It can be something as simple as the playertag being visible above their head, or like a small badge on the playermodel.

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Alternatively players have to shortly opt out of the fights to find each other. It achieves the same effect but on the behalf of the fact that people who do this wont be participating in whatever is happening, and even then good luck at keeping track at where people end up going.

candid relic
hoary sundial
candid relic
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Thats not what i meant. Im thinking something like minecraft where its always there.

hoary sundial
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Yeah, that poses the same problem as highlighting them

candid relic
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Only if you can see it trough walls like in live tf2 which i agree yea thats stupid

hoary sundial
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No, even out in the open

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Its going to be pretty obvious someone is a spy if there’s two floating playertags, or if someone who should have one doesn’t

candid relic
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i mean, just have it be so that spies wont have this. The playermodels already all look the same. Youd have to be staring someone down directly, which is already a situation spy shouldnt really be in unless he is preparing to gun you down

hoary sundial
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It will cause spies to get caught out when looked at in situations where they otherwise wouldn’t have. It is a detriment to the spy that he cannot predict or counter.

candid relic
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But, thats the catch with the disguise kit though, at its core.

hoary sundial
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Not really? The whole point of disguises is that you don’t get fucked over at a glance because you blend in

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So adding something that fucks spy over at a glance while he’s disguised in a way he cannot react to or predict causes issues

candid relic
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You will get fucked over if you'er running up to someone and they turn around and look at you. yes.

hoary sundial
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You’d be surprised, but this isn’t that specific scenario. This is “hey if this one person looks at you ever you are fucked no matter what you are doing”

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Being able to immediately tell someone is a disguised spy at a quick glance from any distance is an inherent issue with this sort of a system.

candid relic
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Ok but thats assuming that everyone will figure that out immidiately which i just don't think is true or really a valuable that holds that much water other than in a scenario like that, which we know is unrealistic.

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Even so just make it so your friends wont appear on disguised spies. It wouldn't matter regardless.

hoary sundial
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Thats not how disguises work mechanically, and I think it'll be pretty easy for people to figure out that their friend who has a nametag over their head is very different from their friend who doesn't

candid relic
hoary sundial
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Especially when you have a lot of friends on your team

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Keep in mind this is a similar problem that Live already has, where its easy to tell at a glance that of two people with the same cosmetics, one has to be a spy/

mossy marlin
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it is very clearly impossible to make this work without fucking over spy. there is nothing you could suggest that would solve that

drowsy smelt
candid relic
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oops didnt meant to tag

mossy marlin
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i do think the thicker profile picture border isn't enough. it could be more obvious on the scoreboard, as it was in legacy/is in live

candid relic
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Personaly i just feel a significant disconnect when playing with friends

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Theres a lot of fun that gets lost unless you're constantly staring down your friends

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Even if you want to coordinate you have to deliberatly opt out of fighting to regroup

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neither of which i really think are great time sinks when in an active match

mossy marlin
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this just doesn't match my experience at all

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i recommend playing on opposite teams

drowsy smelt
candid relic
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Im gonna get called out for advocating for cosmetics lol. I just miss the way it made people instantly recongnizeable. Even for people on the opposite team.

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Theres a lot that gets lost in the sauce when all the soldiers look excactly the same and theres only so many different weapons for them to carry around.

mossy marlin
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that's fair ig, but we don't want cosmetics here. i think it's more fun to learn to recognize people by their playstyles (turns out that's a thing you can do)

candid relic
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I wouldn't want hats either

mossy marlin
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some people i can tell who they are by how they walk lol

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i feel like it's also just not that big a difference. as said in valve dev commentary, tf2 is like a singleplayer multiplayer game

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and i think if you're playing on the same team as your friends, the times where you notice them, you will see their name anyway

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and i don't think sticking together with your friends rather than just trying to be a good teammate to everyone should be encouraged

dapper prairie
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Not sure if it was mentioned here, but wouldn't a green circle under friends' feet act well as a straight forward friend recognition system?

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I think I've seen a couple of games use something like that before

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I think Garry's Mod for instance had that in Zombie Survival or in some versions of it

viral python
dapper prairie
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That may work but I think a green circle works better to indicate friends tbh

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If it's a team color the issue is it can be easily obscured during certain situations

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Could be any color that is easy to see from far and stands out

eternal jacinth
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I think just seeing your friends on the leaderboard and occasionally running into them in-game is more than good enough

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If you really need to know where your friends are, voice chat is a thing, or you can follow each other from spawn
The game signposting your friends during the game would, imo, be distracting and kinda go against how the game is meant to be played anyways

lofty junco
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I know who my friends are from how they play

analog cypress
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I don't get the concern with outlines and spy gameplay: 1) The outline could just not show through walls 2) the situation about knowing a spy is around already happens in default tf2. If there are two players with identical cosmetics standing nearby you know one is the spy in a similar way you would know if the spy also had an outline. 3) If a friend gets stabbed and they have a mic, outline or no outline they will call out the spy.

eternal jacinth
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Just because it's an issue in Live TF2 doesn't mean it's okay if it becomes an issue in TF2C as well

analog cypress
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But it's not really an issue, it's fair game if the spy is caught because he was using the wrong disguise.

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And it's just bad luck that he picked a player who is in a party.

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If I disguise as an enemy player and I accidentally walk around the corner and run into the specific enemy player, that's life.

eternal jacinth
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Except there's no way to know that the disguise you picked was wrong until it's too late
It's not like you can pick a specific player to disguise as

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Why should we introduce features that will just screw over Spy through no fault of his own?

analog cypress
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Well what you are saying is less against the idea of an outline and more against the fact the spy must disguise as a random player.

eternal jacinth
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Spy feels better to play in TF2C partly because it LACKS all of the stuff that screws him over in Live

mossy marlin
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the spy already has enough bullshit to deal with

eternal jacinth
mossy marlin
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it isn't realistic to expect spies to be cognizant of things like that

analog cypress
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I contest that it is unfair. An additional thing to consider is that this system could be implemented as something optional. I.e for casual community servers.

mossy marlin
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noone else has to deal with this though, why should the hardest class in the game be punished for things he can't know about

eternal jacinth
analog cypress
mossy marlin
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okay, but prioritizing helping your friends isn't really pro-social either

eternal jacinth
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Oh I know it's only for your own team, I meant prioritizing your friends over your team

analog cypress
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Which is going to happen regardless of this system.

mossy marlin
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sure, but it shouldn't be encouraged

analog cypress
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A coordinated party member IS more important than a no mic random.

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I won't pocket a soldier over my friend if said soldier is likely to just rocket jump away at the first sign of trouble.

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If I have time, sure, but otherwise I'm picking my friend 100% of the time.

mossy marlin
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it's fine to prioritize your friends a little bit, but i think it shouldn't be encouraged. be a good teammate please

analog cypress
hoary sundial
analog cypress
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The idea might be dead in the water still, but for me it's because informing the spy that they are a highlighted player is a problem which may have clunky solutions.

mossy marlin
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honestly i think prioritizing killing your friends is completely fine. competition is fun. but i think if you're ignoring the rest of your team to only work together with the people you joined up with, that can be kind of a dick move in some situations. which is fine, you can do what you want, but i think it's not ideal for the general game environment

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the spy thing is a way bigger deal for me though. he suffers enough

analog cypress
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Fair enough. I think the two other problems is that this idea is alot more useful on over 32 player servers, and secondly the issue at hand are generally indiscernable player models. Maybe another solution would be an "info mode" button which would show everyone's pfp over their heads only when pressed. This info mode however would not show party members as different from other players. You could see who everyone was in a crowd but, and identify friends based on pfp, but not because they were a party member.

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This could in turn let the spy check a group of people, and not disguise as one of them. Meaning that the system is now symmetrical.

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Also maybe something useful for admins, even if not available to players.

mossy marlin
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no. no, this is stupid, the spy should not have to think about that. and besides, i like that players are indistinguishable for other reasons. it's generally nice to be judged only for your gameplay. i can tell that players treat me differently here because they can't profile me, and i think that's how it should stay

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like, is it that hard to just. pay attention to your friends?

analog cypress
# mossy marlin no. no, this is stupid, the spy should not have to think about that. and besides...

The spy does have an obligation to choose appropriate disguises, that aren't likely to be where there are going. And I'm not against making that easier to do, by say having an option to pick a player name that doesn't appear on either team. But as long as the spy can inadvertently have the same disguise name as a player on the other team then, the difference between pfp checking and name checking is minimal. I am sympathetic to your second point though which is the more fundamental question of if not being able to differentiate players is a feature or a bug. I could see dropping everything if that was your more fundamental belief.

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Right now though I would need to think about those two alternative versions of tf2c, one where identification was easy and one where it was hard. I'm not sure what would be better right now. So any ways congrats, I'm now not entirely supportive of the suggestion because it raises a more basic undecided question about the games fundamental features and I also can't support the suggestion if the spy can't be sure he isn't disguised as a highlighted player.

hoary sundial
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Spy disguises are effectively random

analog cypress
hoary sundial
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There is nothing a Spy can do to predict who he will disguise as rather than by constantly monitering what this one player is doing and not disguising as that class,, and it would be nigh impossible for him to determine who is and who is not on people friend lists.

analog cypress
hoary sundial
analog cypress
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You would fix that by giving the spy more control, or by making it even harder to tell who's who.

analog cypress
hoary sundial
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Spy does not need to and should not need to choose the exact player he is disguising as in order to avoid disguising as people who have friends on their team.

hoary sundial
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A spy running into a player they are disguised as is one thing. Another player seeing that the player that should be their friend doesn't have whatever obvious marker indicates a friend is a very different thing.

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You are suggesting giving Spy a lot more work to do in order to pick a disguise in order to avoid being fucked over by a mechanic that would provide very little to the actual game while also being incredibly prevalent.

analog cypress
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I'm gonna hop in the game and just check something because the other thing is just basic nametag visibility.

hoary sundial
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Like, the whole thing with it being incredibly obvious is that its incredibly obvious

analog cypress
lofty junco
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Can we please stop making spy more complicated and holy shit just ask your friend "what class are you playing" you will find them there's only so many options

analog cypress
analog cypress
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and spy highlight is on.

lofty junco
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You can hover over someone and see their name. If you need to know who is what at all times just call them on steam or discord

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This isn't Left 4 Dead

late cosmos
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didnt even think about spy

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yeah this would fuck him over for sure

lofty junco
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spawn wallhacks in live still make spy a pain in the ass

late cosmos
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and reimu is right, why cant you guys just use vc to find eachother

analog cypress
# hoary sundial Can't, then it becomes much more obvious if the disguised spy is near the person...

Eh I thought through a few situations, I suppose you are right when compared to TF2C vs cosmetics in TF2 live. Though, I do think its not quite as cut and dry as you make it to be, as larger parties with players not all together may still be pretty easy to infiltrate with spy, but on certain maps with fewer players I can see now how it would be more of an issue when compared to nametag checking. I think its basically just as easy to infiltrate a larger party on larger maps, with or without highlights for the disguised spy. But that is still probably too much of an asymmetry to be tolerated, as there are plenty of standard size matches still.

drowsy smelt
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Okay, clearly we need to add dueling to tf2c

surreal canopy