On Orcs and Barricades
Edit: Actually one of the easiest ways to notice this is when you're stunning the front line of your killbox. Occasionally you'll notice damage happening to your barricades. These are orcs that have become lost, take a single swing at your barricade then find their pathing again to continue their merry way. You've just got to be more careful with stuns and unfortunately how you place barricades.
I don't mind orcs attacking my barricades. I prefer that they don't, and I build my mazes and stuff mindful of how their AI is supposed to work. But, you know, the AI does a lot worse than destroying a barricade sometimes when orcs are stuck and I think that having too many enemies clogging up a chokepoint is probably what causes it. So, my question is why do the orcs turn around if the orc in front of them is frozen or stunned? Haven't orcs ever shopped at WalMart on Black Friday? Couldn't they just, I dunno, push the orc in front of them if that orc isn't moving fast enough?
I have never seen my kill box barricades get attacked because Enemies in the way were stunned or frozen. In fact orcs in my kill boxes always walk through stunned or frozen enemies like they aren't there. Hopefully you will see this in the video I post (eventually, been sick all week), but if it is working for you that way, I'd like to see that too, so we can compare notes as to when it works one way and when it doesn't. This is exactly what I'm talking about with the congestion code not working the way you'd think.
Oh, boy, here we go.
OMD1 is in ze past, my friend. OMD2 is an entirely different game, both in the case of physics, tactics, and new traps. Adapt or have natural selection take ye. Comparing OMD1 and OMD2 purely on trap mechanics (something I've been looking into btw) is kinda stupid considering the devs have REBALANCED a ton of the old content and you don't have your Steel Weaver ubercharging everything anymore. :/
Oh, boy, here we go.
OMD1 is in ze past, my friend. OMD2 is an entirely different game, both in the case of physics, tactics, and new traps. Adapt or have natural selection take ye. Comparing OMD1 and OMD2 purely on trap mechanics (something I've been looking into btw) is kinda stupid considering the devs have REBALANCED a ton of the old content and you don't have your Steel Weaver ubercharging everything anymore. :/
FYI, I think you might have posted this in the wrong thread. The "Comparing OMD1 to OMD2" thread is over there -->
Edit: Actually one of the easiest ways to notice this is when you're stunning the front line of your killbox. Occasionally you'll notice damage happening to your barricades. These are orcs that have become lost, take a single swing at your barricade then find their pathing again to continue their merry way. You've just got to be more careful with stuns and unfortunately how you place barricades.
I don't mind orcs attacking my barricades. I prefer that they don't, and I build my mazes and stuff mindful of how their AI is supposed to work. But, you know, the AI does a lot worse than destroying a barricade sometimes when orcs are stuck and I think that having too many enemies clogging up a chokepoint is probably what causes it. So, my question is why do the orcs turn around if the orc in front of them is frozen or stunned? Haven't orcs ever shopped at WalMart on Black Friday? Couldn't they just, I dunno, push the orc in front of them if that orc isn't moving fast enough?
I have never seen my kill box barricades get attacked because Enemies in the way were stunned or frozen. In fact orcs in my kill boxes always walk through stunned or frozen enemies like they aren't there. Hopefully you will see this in the video I post (eventually, been sick all week), but if it is working for you that way, I'd like to see that too, so we can compare notes as to when it works one way and when it doesn't. This is exactly what I'm talking about with the congestion code not working the way you'd think.
I've also seen orcs push through stunned/frozen orcs, but I think there's a certain critical mass that needs to be reached before they decide they can't pass through them anymore and then turn around. Seems to happen more with larger enemies-- heavy orcs, for instance, and especially elementals. Elementals are so large that freezing one is almost always disastrous.
I haven't taken a video of anything I've noticed-- it's easily reproducable in a map like Twisted Halls and I think you're absolutely right that it's the congestion code or the pathing code or whatever bugging out. I'm unlikely to produce a video, either-- I'll be honest, the bugginess is disheartening, I don't see that the devs are really paying attention to this issue or intend to address it, and, well, I have a backlog, so OMD2 is gonna be shelved for a while.
Still, this has been a good discussion (apart from the grammar wars and white knighting I mean) and I hope Robot is able to use it to fix their product.
Oh, boy, here we go.
OMD1 is in ze past, my friend. OMD2 is an entirely different game, both in the case of physics, tactics, and new traps. Adapt or have natural selection take ye. Comparing OMD1 and OMD2 purely on trap mechanics (something I've been looking into btw) is kinda stupid considering the devs have REBALANCED a ton of the old content and you don't have your Steel Weaver ubercharging everything anymore. :/
FYI, I think you might have posted this in the wrong thread. The "Comparing OMD1 to OMD2" thread is over there -->
I forgot the quote I was quoting to, derp x,x; It was directed to a quote on page two complaining that for some reason the barricade's weren't working like they were 'perfectly' in OMD1. My apologies for confusion, but it's a bit of a berserk button for me.
Oh, boy, here we go.
OMD1 is in ze past, my friend. OMD2 is an entirely different game, both in the case of physics, tactics, and new traps. Adapt or have natural selection take ye. Comparing OMD1 and OMD2 purely on trap mechanics (something I've been looking into btw) is kinda stupid considering the devs have REBALANCED a ton of the old content and you don't have your Steel Weaver ubercharging everything anymore. :/
FYI, I think you might have posted this in the wrong thread. The "Comparing OMD1 to OMD2" thread is over there -->
I forgot the quote I was quoting to, derp x,x; It was directed to a quote on page two complaining that for some reason the barricade's weren't working like they were 'perfectly' in OMD1. My apologies for confusion, but it's a bit of a berserk button for me.
Oh, heh. Yeah, those complaints really distract from the real problems with barricades in OMD2.
I've also seen orcs push through stunned/frozen orcs, but I think there's a certain critical mass that needs to be reached before they decide they can't pass through them anymore and then turn around. Seems to happen more with larger enemies-- heavy orcs, for instance, and especially elementals. Elementals are so large that freezing one is almost always disastrous.
I haven't taken a video of anything I've noticed-- it's easily reproducable in a map like Twisted Halls and I think you're absolutely right that it's the congestion code or the pathing code or whatever bugging out. I'm unlikely to produce a video, either-- I'll be honest, the bugginess is disheartening, I don't see that the devs are really paying attention to this issue or intend to address it, and, well, I have a backlog, so OMD2 is gonna be shelved for a while.
Still, this has been a good discussion (apart from the grammar wars and white knighting I mean) and I hope Robot is able to use it to fix their product.
I've seen 6 Earthlords occupying the same tile and moving forward on endless. Extremely funny when they all get frozen at the same time. This is where I start complaining though that I can't shoot them in the head, as 6 in one tile usually means their heads are not visible.
I'm glad to hear that you guys want to fix the attack barricades for no reason whatsoever bug. I'm annoyed by them attacking barricades when their is a traffic jam, but it is reasonable that they would do that. BUT they should only do it at the point of the traffic jam, not far away from it.
That is one thing that has always driven me nuts about OMD, the orcs are seemingly omniscient. If the path is blocked right next to the rift even if they have no visual path to it they break down the first barricade they see. They should try every available path to them before they realize that there is no way through and start breaking down barricades. If you want to handle barricades that are completely blocking this way, I can live with that (as I did in OMD1). It is however ridiculous that a crowd of orcs temporarily blocking the way through can cause an orc that is far away and who should have no knowledge of the temporary blockage to bust down a barricade.
Agreed.
That article is talking about rewriting an entire program from scratch, not replacing troublesome sub-systems. A rewrite does not necessarily mean completely replacing the existing code, but it could be severely refactored.
Mozilla is constantly rewriting Firefox's JavaScript engine to make it better and quicker. It started out as a plain interpreter, then it moved to using just-in-time compilation using several different techniques. Safari and Chrome have gone through similar changes.
I have great respect for Joel Spolsky but this is one of the things that I disagree with him on. Yes there are plenty of examples of projects that were complete rewrites and ended in disaster, but that is not always the case. There are many projects that are complete rewrites that come in on budget and on time. I recently rewrote a feed reader from scratch. Because of the lessons I had learned writing the first version, I wrote the new one faster than the first one (and much faster than updating the old one would have been). The new one is faster, much easier to use, easier to maintain and more future-proof. It all comes down to how a project is run, any project whether new code, a complete rewrite or just incrementally updating old code can turn into a disaster or a success.
I don't really want to stir this can of worms again but I got a video clip which might be useful. I had a random Barricade attack in Yeti Den and while I may be wrong I think the path was blocked by a Missile Launcher explosion. The choke point is 2 tiles wide and I fired 4 Missiles to clear the killbox. The minimap red dots show the Orc went after the barricade at about the point where I fired the 4th Missile so the choke point was quite clear of Orcs by that stage.
Short clip of the event.
At the start of the clip I fire the volley of 4 Missiles. My deduction is mainly from watching the red dots while listening to the Missile blasts.
Missile 1: Orc #1 flung near pit.
Missile 2: Orc #2 flung near Orc #1.
Missile 3: Orc #1 gets up just after the blast and continues through the killbox as normal.
Missile 4: Orc #2 hesitates then attacks the nearest Barricade. My speculation is that maybe the Orc is getting up and searching for a path just as the blast from the Missile blocks the choke point.
I've not done any testing but it could mean other explosives that fling Orcs may be the hidden cause behind some random Barricade attacks.
If you throw an orc around two or three times, and it doesn't get any closer to the exit, it'll start smashing barricades. My guess is an orc got ragdolled a couple of times without dying from the missile launcher. Same thing happens with windbelt.
I got a few images relating to Fire and Water's final map with a complex cade maze that caused me issues. Linking below beings someone bumped this :S
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104753828
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104753920
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104753988
The empty area in the center didn't used to be blocked off, but I did it in order to try and stop cade attacks allready. Naturally as the images showed, it made it even worse.
Just recently discovered this "feature" over 3 hours into an endless match of Wind Up, and it happened 3 consecutive rounds in a row until I couldn't repair things fast enough. All 3 times the wave was down to just 2 or 3 armored ogres so I wouldn't consider that some mass traffic jam, and barricades gave them a perfectly straight shot to the rift. On top of that, I hadn't changed or added a single barricade since wave 25, yet starting at 58 or so, the last few armored ogres of each wave consistently attacked them. My only thought is that they were getting chain stunned by ballistas and shock zappers, so perhaps they interpret that as being stuck. Of course that doesn't explain why the setup was trouble free until wave 58. Anyway, very frustrating, found this thread while seeing if this was a known problem, and had to vent (apologies).
Unfortunate that there seems to be no way to predict or prevent this from happening.
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Or just be patient heh.
I still don't get why the orcs are not able to differentiate between orcs and barricades. I mean, I know they are stupid, but seriously, that stupid?!
Barricades blocking orcs? Bash in the barricades.
Orcs blocking orcs? Bash in the orcs! Or, push them (slowly). Or, wait for the orcs in front to move on, probably while grumbling. Maybe they could huddle and take less damage while they are waiting for the orcs in front. Seriously many more options than, Bash in the barricades, again.