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Beta Release [Mutator] No Teleport

TheMutant

Grizzled Veteran
May 31, 2012
556
3
Germany
Yesterday I had a match where I was last man standing against Hans. I decided to close a door and weld it to have some time to recover, but all of a sudden Hans opened up the door before I finished switching to welder and killed me.
Therefore I decided to remove this feature to see how much it has an impact on gameplay.
From what I have read KF2 already gives a speed boost to monsters that are out of sight and has a separate teleport system for monsters that are stuck. So the only reason for another teleport mechanic is to make kiting to make kiting harder, but I think this is the wrong attempt as it leads to illogical situations as you have read above.
Furthermore, it has also an adverse effect on camping gameplay as a room that has been cleared out should stay clean for a ceratin amount of time for potential fallback strategies.

I think a good attempt to make kiting not as easy is to change the monsters' pathfinding so they not always choose the shortest way to the players but rather spread throughout the map, taking different routes. This combined with the speed boost could create some interesting gameplay.

TL;DR:
This mutator removes the teleportation ability from every monster.


Steam Hub Discussion
http://steamcommunity.com/app/232090...3633852840743/


How to start
Server:
Ajust the server start command:
Code:
start .\Binaries\win64\kfserver KF-Outpost?Mutator=KF2NoTeleport_005.KF2NoTeleportMut?adminpassword=XXXX
Solo/Offline:
Open console and start a match via URL by entering:
Code:
open KF-Outpost?Mutator=KF2NoTeleport_007.KF2NoTeleportMut

Changelog
V1:
  • First public release
  • Removed monters' ability to teleport around
V002:
  • Improved stuck handling (kicks and if that does not help teleport to a nearby location instead of random teleports through the whole map)
  • Experimental pathfinding extension that forces monster to take alternate routes.
  • Added a configurable that allows you to determine how much monsters are forced to take another route (cost value with range [100,5000])
V003:
  • Added debug config to enable/disable debugging messages
  • Fixed a teleport bug which avoided it from functioning correctly
  • Improved performance a bit
  • Changed ini name to KFNoTeleport.ini
V004:
  • Fixed code to make it compatible with game again
V005:
  • Introduced bAdvancedPathFinding config which allows users to disable/enable monsters trying to find alternative paths towards players
  • Mutator now properly extends KFMutator
V006:
  • Adds support for new monster classes:Clot Alpha King, Crawler King, Fleshpound King, Fleshpound Mini, Dualbladed Gorefast
V007:
  • No teleportation for any custom monster
  • Advanced navigation for custom monsters that use default AI classes

V008:
  • Adds support for new monster classes: Bloat King and its Subspawn, DAR (EMP, Laser, Rocket)
  • Fixed a bug that caused some monsters to become braindead

Download (V008)
1. Mega
2. Steam Workshop
 
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It can probably be tuned in some way instead of completely disabled, in a lot of solo games I had I found it worked great, maybe not completely logical but hey, maybe the scrake knows the map better than me ? The smart guy just knew where I was going and found a shortcut :cool:

What about a teleport desirability based on path complexity in the vicinity, so that if its a very huge map and he teleports its still "plausible" he could have found a shortcut.

Or maybe the zeds just all need to have an identical device on themselves, an auto-teleporter :IS2:
 
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Imo teleporting is a huge engagement into gameplay. One shouldn't simply move a monster around when players expect it to be where it used to be. Surely, the mechanic can be optimized to fake the feeling of shortcuts but still it undermines some skill related aspects.
As I have written in the steam hub I am going to experiment around a bit with creating proper constraints to the teleporting to make it less annoying, but I think the best solution is to adjust the AI to tackle the "sheep mode". Maybe I am also going to investiagte into that appreach when I have some time spare.

Btw, I think it is a good idea to link the steam hub discussion with this thread as there are some interesting ideas inside: http://steamcommunity.com/app/232090/discussions/0/620713633852840743/
 
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Update!

Update!

Finally I found some time to give this an update.

New features:

  • Improved stuck handling (kicks and if that does not help teleport to a nearby location instead of random teleports through the whole map). I have to admit that I have never seen a monster using the unstuck mechanics so far, so maybe the stuck detection needs to be updated as well.
  • Experimental pathfinding extension that forces monster to take alternate routes.
I added a configurable this time that allows you to determine how much monsters are forced to take another route (cost value with range [100,5000]). I really need feedback on that, so please play around with the value and let me know about your results.

Download is in the OP.
 
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I'll test it more when I actually have my server up and running.

For the limited time I used it, on maps that have poor path finding and zombies naturally don't know where to go and get stuck. The Broadcast messages flood the game. Can't type a message through because of this.

Perhaps flood protection or removing the broadcasts?
 
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I'll test it more when I actually have my server up and running.

For the limited time I used it, on maps that have poor path finding and zombies naturally don't know where to go and get stuck. The Broadcast messages flood the game. Can't type a message through because of this.

Perhaps flood protection or removing the broadcasts?
I see, I added them for debug purposes to see when this kicks in as on default maps I have never seen it happen.
I will add a config variable to enable/disable those messages.
 
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Small Update

Small Update

I decided to release this small update because it will take some time until the next update and this way people can deactivate all debug messages right now.

Update V003:

  • Added debug config to enable/disable debugging messages
  • Fixed a teleport bug which avoided it from functioning correctly
  • Improved performance a bit
  • Changed ini name to KFNoTeleport.ini
 
Upvote 0