Wyzcrak

The driver for the 15-second timer mod isn't something I can explain in black and white. It's all sorts of gray. And it's the status quo, for better or for worse. I don't even know if we announced it when we changed it, and I don't recall a lot (read: "a lot") of complaining when we did.

Did I overlook the "compelling"? Also, hoping to hear more from StarClaws.

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Darkilla: In short, NS is pretty much really fast chess. With guns. Apophis: I haven't seen anyone say that SM's are better than non-SMs. Nordbomber: This is THE first server I've seen where either side can comeback from out of seemingly nowhere with the right teamwork. en4rcment: I have NEVER experienced the type of gameplay that I have found here. Nightly I am amazed at the personalities and gaming talent. Root: Welcome to TG. Feel free to punctuate your sentences correctly. Monkerz: Its gonna take all my skills to beat those boys off in the future.

td.alakad

Suicide is incredibly helpful when relocating. Pre-phasegates the comm can instantly be transported to the new relocate spot and unlock the 15 res available from recycling the chair, essentially voiding the inital cost of the relocate and making him able to actively protect the new relocation spot.

It's also helpful for reasons already posted. When fighting a lifeform, 3 seconds is usually enough for them to kill you, let alone the 5 seconds suggested. If a lifeform can't kill you in 15 seconds, they really don't deserve the kill. Denying your enemy valuable RFK is an important and very tactical strategy. Reducing the suicide timer would result (if people used it correctly) in newbie aliens having less res to waste and better players being able to support the team and teaching the newbies how to support the team without going bad fade and dying with 5 seconds. Also, forcing newbies to spend more time as skulk, and feel the pressure of having to kill a marine within 5 seconds or less (depending on the marine, of course) would increase their skill level by giving them a challenge to accomplish.

Also, let's not forget the lols! Like say, a marine, being rushed by an onos, who dies to suicide when the onos is running away and has 2 hp.

Sometimes it's just not possible to drop your gun in time. Suicide forces the not so good marines to do it automatically at the push of a button, albeit delayed.

There are already pseudo tactics for this suicide strategy such as sitting on top of a phase gate, firing at a lifeform and phasing out at the last second to avoid death, jumping in a pit or going into the hive to return to MS instantly, why not add another potential tactic for marines to use?

I see no reason why suicide can't be reduced by 1/3 to 5.0 seconds, or even 3.0 seconds. 15.0 is excessive, imo.

Kerostasis

Alright, in deference to Agamemnon, here's a preemptive breakdown of my view on the strategic uses of /kill

I can think of four general uses for the command. If I'm missing one, feel free to point it out.
(1) -- Denying RFK to the enemy in a fight where you expect to die
I consider this nothing less than abusive, as well as counter to the ability of your teammates to try and back you up in a fight -- even if you couldn't win the fight alone, your presence might have been the deciding factor in a team victory, and now you're dead. I don't think we should be promoting this with a reduced /kill timer. By contrast, if you can manage to finish yourself off with your last hand-grenade while the aliens are chewing on you, at least you went out fighting -- props to you.

(2) -- Entering the spawn queue as a fast transport back to base
I don't have a particular problem with this. It changes strategic options somewhat, but it's an open question which set of strategic options is preferable -- I could live either with or without this option.

(3) -- Removing yourself from a stuck-point when /stuck is insufficient.
Suicide is definately required here, but since your current tactical value is nil anyway, it doesn't seem terribly important exactly how long you have to wait to get out. Yeah, it sucks to wait 15 seconds to suicide, but it was gonna suck to wait 3 seconds to suicide too, since what you really wanted was to not get stuck at all. The small benefit gained here from a lower timer doesn't seem enough to outweigh losses in other categories.

(4) -- Killing yourself while near base as a way to refill your health/armor//remove parasites.
This option just seems stupid to me, and while it represents a very questionable advantage to your team, its still not something I think we should be promoting.

Therefore, overall I'm in favor of the higher /kill time. Also, I disagree with almost everything Alakad said.

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Lt.Asher

So.... before I weigh in more on this I should ask a painful question.

Are we talking about the asploding abilities that do damage and anger me to no end? Or are we talking about the command inside of the HL console that just puts a bullet to the brainpan and goes squish?

I'm all for asploding aliens (even if they enrage me) and their great gooey substance all over the place, but if we're talking about players killing themselves via a command line... well i don't support that. I'd suggest the CLI suicide be taken out all together, but I know how twitchy the HL engine can be and people can get stuck in odd places.

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Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved heaven and earth, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

zibalatz

Aga, your request for standards makes perfect sense- I was in fact assuming everyone was aware of the Primer's realism requirement. To me, the uses of /kill that I deemed "exploitative" are anything outside of the "getting out of being stuck" usage.

Here's another way of thinking of it. We don't allow people to return to the readyroom except for switching to even up teams. If someone used F4 to deny RFK and/or avoid being killed by an enemy, re-enter the spawn queue, or to heal oneself (respawn at full), all of these uses are clearly frowned upon and considered a rule violation. If the /kill counter is reduced and people start using /kill for the exact same purposes, in my opinion this is an essentially identical rule violation.

The justification or thinking behind this being illegal is that it is totally unrealistic and takes you out of the game's own reality system in order to achieve an end. Whether it's achieved by F4ing out into the readyroom or by near-instakilling oneself, I consider these to be outside of the game's logical reality scope and therefore "exploits".

This is before we even look into the "realism" of said actions. I'm just talking about the game's system. Of course if we consider the "realism" of said actions, although it may make sense to "swallow a 3-second suicide pill" when one is in combat and doomed to death, none of the other options make sense when there is no respawn in real life.

Also, one may argue that one can always jump into a pit and so on in order to achieve the same end. I would argue that this is equally exploitative but very difficult to admin so we let it pass. Considering how often it happens versus how much of a gain is achieved, I don't think it's anything worth worrying about.

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zibalatz

Oh yeah, Lt. Asher, we're talking about the timed CLI suicide, not the alien skulk ability to blow up in your face. Over. And over. And again.

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Wyzcrak

Good discussion, all.

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Darkilla: In short, NS is pretty much really fast chess. With guns. Apophis: I haven't seen anyone say that SM's are better than non-SMs. Nordbomber: This is THE first server I've seen where either side can comeback from out of seemingly nowhere with the right teamwork. en4rcment: I have NEVER experienced the type of gameplay that I have found here. Nightly I am amazed at the personalities and gaming talent. Root: Welcome to TG. Feel free to punctuate your sentences correctly. Monkerz: Its gonna take all my skills to beat those boys off in the future.