War swords and the zoom out mod

SparkleCake · 2019-06-18 13:04:06

Players interested in attacking with war swords also tend to be using 3rd-party zoom out, or "extended cam" mods.

1 or 2 players using this weapon/mod combination can reliably lay waste to an entire family, while meeting little to no resistance. They get the element of surprise repeatedly: their victims are blindsided, unable to see the attacker coming in from off-screen until it's too late.

Example:

Alice Blue is alone in the berry orchard. She can see the bushes around her.
Alice cannot see the nearby forge, as it is out of her view.
Jim Modderman is in the forge. He can see the nearby berry orchard, where Alice is standing.
Jim charges Alice with a war sword, and stabs her immediately.
Jim zooms out again to monitor for Blue family members who might have been alerted by the noise.

This was previously a smaller issue with knives, but has been made more severe — and common — with access to war swords. These players now have not only the intent to kill, and the mod-enhanced advantage to ensure it... but the means to efficiently carry it out, too.

The general sentiment on the Discord seems to be "if you can't beat them, join them," which doesn't sit right with me. I don't think anyone should feel compelled to alter their game client.

pein · 2019-06-18 13:46:27

the zoom mod is long ago needed, i played 400 ish hours vanilla and i can do most of stuff without a mod
it's just tedious and bad looking without it

you get less lag without zoom, so there is that

the magic aim is bad tho, no way to dodge an attack can be quite bad as they kill the only person who could fight they certainly are in advantage
ive been putting up a fight against triplet griefers killing 2 of them and dodging one arrow from third

since the magic aim, once i killed off a family of 6 and was quite fast, i took down the horseman girl, then i stood in fire near the nurse and 2 kids
i killed the old guy with a sword, but then old lady gave me a bit of trouble, i shoot her
then i took out the other girl and the kids with sword

i don't need a magic aim to do this, but certainly made it faster
there is still a bit of skill involved and with the murder cooldown you got a fair bit of time to react
now that you don't have decent enough players in defense, like the attackers do, well that's a skill issue
they still get the element of surprise but you generalyl have more people

i don't think is easy to set up a good defense
fences are more annoying than helpful, pads go quick and used on everyone instead of people who would make a difference, and bowshots are rarely healed

it's possible to make fences, one gate, and 3 springy doors one way out, so the player flow is controlled
without zoom is worse on decent size buildings or making such fortress

wel lif you love the vanilal shit zoom, why don't just make a fence and sit inside it?

Joseph Stalin · 2019-06-18 14:09:51

I got awbz and keep it at 1.5 most time unless on horse or looking for something and I dont know if I would go back to vanilla if I wanted lol it makes living in a big town so much easier

SparkleCake · 2019-06-18 16:02:01

pein wrote:

there is still a bit of skill involved and with the murder cooldown you got a fair bit of time to react
now that you don't have decent enough players in defense, like the attackers do, well that's a skill issue
they still get the element of surprise but you generalyl have more people

As of Update #60, The Last Dance, it's been made clear that skill isn't intended to be an obstacle when it comes to violent interactions:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6670

While that particular combat exploit has been resolved, others, such as this one, remain.

I'll use the example from my original post. The realistic defense that Alice can employ against Jim's weapon/mod combo is to be a more skilled FPS-style gamer. Among Alice's considerations are: anticipating Jim, waiting for him with a bow & arrow, standing at a fortunate distance to see him coming, and accurately shooting him in the split-second that he enters and crosses her screen.

All of this without knowing when he'll attack; if he'll attack; or if he even exists in the first place. She can't see him. And if Alice fails, it's no sweat off Jim's back. Several seconds for the war sword cooldown, and he's onto the next vision-shielded kill.

That element of surprise is a massive advantage. Malicious players, alone, or in a team of 2, can exploit their advantage to murder entire (armed) villages in under 3 minutes. Personally, the players that I have encountered attacking villages have all been users of an extended cam. Without war swords and zoom out mods, it's dangerous — and rightfully so.

Edited for clarity.

Last edited by SparkleCake (2019-06-18 17:39:45)

Bob 101 · 2019-06-18 16:26:21

I think a possible solution is fog of war mechanic. This way zoomout is no longer useable.

Last edited by Bob 101 (2019-06-18 16:32:12)

RodneyC86 · 2019-06-18 16:41:17

Bob 101 wrote:

I think a possible solution is fog of war mechanic. This way zoomout is no longer useable.

My two cents is.....Jason should implement by default zoom ... he might as well not let the 'normal' players fall behind just because most seasoned veterans mod up at this point.

An idea is having a decent zoom at 1.5X current vanilla zoom (dunno about you guys but 2x - things are way too small to click reliably) and a larger zoom that allows to see trees , structures and biomes only , it is not intangible we can identify a single tree a few hundred feet away - and can tell what biome is ahead. No small objects can be seen in large zoom
- to keep in the spirit of not being actually able to see whats inside a little bowl 30 meters away

Edit: double negatives suck , I need to stop them

Last edited by RodneyC86 (2019-06-18 16:41:51)

Sukallinen · 2019-06-18 16:46:03

SparkleCake wrote:

Personally, I have never encountered a player attacking a village without the use of an extended cam.

Orly, nice mod you have there.

But I digress (fog of war being unavailable) for the problem stated to be solved it seems only option would be another magic-gimmick, say color screen side closest to non-relative red, distance shown by bit thicker/thinner line. Again, Jason doesn't like this kind of stuff, nor zooming in/out. Breaking immersion too.

Hawthorn (property-fence next to road) rather not ez to get past: http://prntscr.com/o3hjeh

Last edited by Sukallinen (2019-06-18 16:47:29)

pein · 2019-06-18 17:28:52

SparkleCake wrote:

pein wrote:
there is still a bit of skill involved and with the murder cooldown you got a fair bit of time to react
now that you don't have decent enough players in defense, like the attackers do, well that's a skill issue
they still get the element of surprise but you generalyl have more people
As of Update #60, The Last Dance, it's been made clear that skill isn't intended to be an obstacle when it comes to violent interactions:
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6670
While that particular combat exploit has been resolved, others, such as this one, remain.
I'll use the example from my original post. The realistic defense that Alice can employ against Jim's weapon/mod combo is to be a more skilled FPS-style gamer. Among Alice's considerations are: anticipating Jim, waiting for him with a bow & arrow, standing at a fortunate distance to see him coming, and accurately shooting him in the split-second that he enters and crosses her screen.
All of this without knowing when he'll attack; if he'll attack; or if he even exists in the first place. She can't see him. And if Alice fails, it's no sweat off Jim's back. Several seconds for the war sword cooldown, and he's onto the next vision-shielded kill.
That element of surprise is a massive advantage. Malicious players, alone, or in a team of 2, can exploit their advantage to murder entire (armed) villages in under 3 minutes. Personally, I have never encountered a player attacking a village without the use of an extended cam. Without war swords and zoom out mods, it's dangerous — and rightfully so.

i don't see how is this an issue of zoom
in combat you gotta go close and zoom back
running away can be better on zoom but that has no point now to killing, you can even hold your weapon in aggro mode forever once you aimed on a player
i don't think is fun or anything but it's possible
if we talk about equal numbers or some advantage on defender side, the same number of decent people can defend against

if attacker A1 kills defender D1, then D2 kills A1
A2 kills D2, D3 kills A2, A3 kills D3, D4 kills A3
don't have 4 people to defend against 3 attackers? well they can tell you that "hey we come to kill you" the result will be the same

lot of people are useless in war, that's rng issue not zoom issue
if you got a town of berry munchers who don't react when people start stabbing then you kinda deserve it

same way you cant convince berry munchers to grab a sword, go to 2000 distance and kill others
you got to bring decent people
that doesn't necessarily mean people with zoom, people who know the deal, can use sword, can explore, or at least follow

you call defenders ability to dodge an exploit? then what you call giving a perfect aim to people who cant water 3 bushes under a minute?
cause right now any noob can kill the best duelers out there and once in range, no way you run away
i met a noob and started running with 2 tile advantage and i took a sharp turn out of pen and i was dead

the issue is killing is too easy and no war message, this is an ambush so the element of surprise is just as bad with or without zoom

i could dodge 10 noobs and take them out one by one
if they had zoom or not, if i had zoom or not, just by not standing near anyone with a loaded weapon

it's not "griefers dance" cause it could be used against griefers as well
and im pretty sure there are more idiots who start a fight with no reason than the ones who got one, even pathetic ones
i always see 8 year old kids who bump to weapons since birth and first thing they do is attack a clothed person
the new system only helps them
the whole "oh it was an accident" was a bullshit
and if anyone happy about it that no more accidents, well, i still don't see how cant you make multiple accidents, it's easy to put a knife in a basket, or swap for an item, or learn it that it kills when someone occupies the tile

the fact that more hours of play, more people using zoom is correct
but you take warriors when you go to a war and you take farmers when go to farm

zoom haters are the dumbest ever, if you support jasons view, and want the vanilla experience, then lock yourself up with pads and needles, that's what jason wants you to do.

stop complaining and use it
i would get iron on vanilla and i would get horses, and i would play almost the same, maybe make more horse fences and waste more time on stuff we don't really need
zoom or no zoom, i killed people regardless, even better timing without zoom, they can only run away better with zoom
any decent room or setup needs like 7x7 place and without zoom you cant even see it
even without zoom i wouldn't make a 5x5 forge inside a room so i don't see how is that replacing common sense

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-18 17:38:10

Yes, this is a huge problem

Fog of war is not easy to implement. The whole reason the zoom out mod exists is because the map is sent to you in chunks for reasons of efficiency. The chunk is bigger that your screen to deal with latency before we have to send you another chunk. Sending chunks to players is the biggest load on the server.

So, given that you have the info client side, we can't fog it and hide it from you, not in a way that wouldn't be unfoggable by a mod.

If we shrank the map chunk around the screen, there'd be much more chance of some clients seeing the edge a lot more when they walk off the edge of their current screen.

And a modded client could "remember" the parts of the map already seen, so they'd always have more info than an unmodded client.

Furthermore, separate from the map, we are sending info about players and their movements. So a modded client would still be able to see where you are and track you, even if they didn't have the map (and they would, because they'd remember it).

I could shrink the radius that is used to filter player updates, but this would likely have some other negative consequences too.

I could reduce the radius that someone could click on you to enter the angry-KILL state. I'll have to look into that.

I saw the thread about war cries, but haven't read it yet. That makes a lot of sense. When someone gets angry and is coming at you, you should be able to hear them, even off screen, maybe even as they approach.

A heads-up beacon on the side of the screen for angry people approaching isn't a bad idea either.

SparkleCake · 2019-06-18 17:39:13

Sukallinen wrote:

SparkleCake wrote:
Personally, I have never encountered a player attacking a village without the use of an extended cam.
Orly, nice mod you have there.

I could have worded that sentence better, and I will edit for clarity. What I meant was that the players whom I have encountered attacking villages have all been users of an extended cam mod.

----- Edit -----

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, this is a huge problem

Thank you for your reply, Jason. I hope the community can find a happy solution without too much compromise.

Last edited by SparkleCake (2019-06-18 17:51:01)

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-18 17:50:16

Obviously, the use of a town fence can completely prevent such an attack. If you sense someone trying to come in with bad intentions, send a few bowmen to the gate and then open the gate.

Fences have impracticalities associated with them, of course, but I don't think that's the main issue.

With the murder rate at 3%, I think it's just so unlikely to be attacked in this way that most people don't think the fence is worth it. They don't bother.

Just like people don't bother using seatbelts on a train or a bus. (But when the train derails or the bus crashes, they all wish they were wearing seatbelts as they fly through the air).

So, again, we're back to this fundamental question: How big is this problem, really? It's currently pretty small (3%, which includes intra-family violence too, not just war). And if it ever grew in size (like, many more people started using the zoom out mod for this purpose), people would build fences and arm themselves with bows, so it would be self-correcting.

I.e., I can't imagine a situation where 50% or even 25% of villages get wiped out in this way.

Tarr · 2019-06-18 17:59:26

I'd say it's less that fences aren't put up because threats of attacks vs fences are just annoying to deal with in general. Between making it difficult to move in and outside of a town and risking being trapped within a city for an hour+ they're just not really worth the hassle. Even if threats of attacks were on the rise it's pretty easy to round up a bunch of children soldiers with snowballs to quickly dispatch enemy attackers (though I'm sure that'll be patched soon enough.)

So instead of people not wearing their seat belt because they don't think bad things could happen it's an issue of the seat belt being too much of a hassle to be deemed worth wearing.

SparkleCake · 2019-06-18 18:05:57

jasonrohrer wrote:

So, again, we're back to this fundamental question: How big is this problem, really?

You're absolutely right that players impacted by this kind of gameplay are a minority. Players who recognize that they've been cheated in this way, probably even less so.

I only have my personal experiences to offer. I can't speak to the magnitude, but I can share my frustration: it isn't a one or two-time occurrence for me.

I find that it happens frequently enough that I felt some awareness of the issue needed to be raised. It's reached a point that when I see a stranger enter the town with a war sword, I've resigned to death, and I'm ready to move on. It seems the only players confident enough to show up, and attack like this — are also players who know they'll win, because they've got the advantage of an extended cam.

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-18 18:43:50

Tarr, snowballs no longer make you drop what you are holding, right? Did I miss something there?

Sparkle, have you tried a fence and a bow?

Tarr · 2019-06-18 18:47:13

jasonrohrer wrote:

Tarr, snowballs no longer make you drop what you are holding, right? Did I miss something there?
Sparkle, have you tried a fence and a bow?

You made them deadly again as of two weeks ago. Slightly surprised I was the only one that caught that one after the change to snowballs to stop items from being dropped. I tested this two weeks ago and was able to kill players with snowballs on my test server, live server seemed a little more difficult when I tried at the time.

https://onetech.info/2407-Snowball

Last edited by Tarr (2019-06-18 18:48:48)

ryanb · 2019-06-18 19:05:45

Tarr wrote:

You made them deadly again as of two weeks ago. Slightly surprised I was the only one that caught that one after the change to snowballs to stop items from being dropped. I tested this two weeks ago and was able to kill players with snowballs on my test server, live server seemed a little more difficult when I tried at the time.
https://onetech.info/2407-Snowball

I think snowball was always marked as deadly, I just hid it on onetech when certain conditions are met. It may be that the conditions changed.

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-18 19:07:21

Yeah, they are still "deadly," which is actually a catch-all for "can be used on another player."

Checking what's going on.

SparkleCake · 2019-06-18 19:10:45

jasonrohrer wrote:

Sparkle, have you tried a fence and a bow?

I've tried a fence, and I've tried a bow... but I've never tried a fence and a bow. That sounds like an angle to try next life, thank you for the suggestion!

A village-enclosing fence, though, is something of a lifelong pursuit. It can be interrupted at any time by wandering war swords, dismantled by disgruntled cousins, or fall shy due to a shortage of rope for adequate gates. Then old age is spent standing next to the gates to dole out ownership permissions onto passing family...

Still, it's some small hope for the current state.

----- Edit -----

If anyone else has experiences with war swords and the zoom out mod (whether attacking, or being attacked), please do share them! I suspect, though, that exploiters may not want to see their tactic fixed; and many victims aren't aware that they died this way.

Last edited by SparkleCake (2019-06-18 19:24:27)

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-18 19:11:48

Just tested, and I hit someone with a snowball 15x in a row, and they didn't get cold, and they didn't die. It had no effect on them, other than the face splat emote.

Are you sure your test server respects the new "no_replace" tag in the snowball splat object?

https://onetech.info/2405-Snowball-Spla … -emot_8_10

pein · 2019-06-18 19:37:02

i mean is fair that you need to be inside a range to use the aggro mode
and also some defence side upgrade would be nice, starting off with some sort of detection of attackers, or any person who has a loaded weapon

as i suggested, a family wide gate would make more sense than a gate that has only certain inviduals
while some attacks come from inside, and blocking is still an issue
i just don't see the point of spendign half of my life giving people access when the intention is always the same: keep our kids in, keep others out
i think you answered maybe later on girthub
now as someone with higher life expentancy, i generally see 60 to 100 people to die around me, if i only spend 30 sec to give acces to all the ones who i see fit to go out, it's still not fun mechanic

the only almost fullproof solution i found is springy doors with one way out, no way in
that is less annoying to use, when people want to gather but even making one gate and 3 springy doors takes a lot of time

now i just want to show you this:

the effort was huge, Candy, Coco, Ladd, Rainbow families were here
there are 9 points of acces in the main stone walls and tons of resources spent but apparently no one bothered making a good one way exit and even removed the locks
there are 4 points of acces intentded when they made the fence walls

holds a lot of value and was maybe fun to fight for, but if no one bothers on that scale of a town, why would people care for a 2 hour camp?

if i could set up a family gate, in a short time, even if it's expensive, maybe i would do it, but then it shouldn't break each time someoen dies, that's not safe at all, and not fun to be trapped inside it

if property gates would last with the family and maybe close up like springy doors, then i would make 3 on other sides and know that there is no point of entrance
this either would be trough upgrading fences into doors or walls or by allowing sprigns on gates at least
the issue with blocking people inside of it is more common than people going in undetected and having succes on killing families
so if i want an exit on a wall, at least allow me to make an exit from inside out
we still don't have many ways on blocking up tiles to build on. Rust at least has some measures to block building around a TC, that would work. Just kinda no way the game can tell us if we secured an area or not.

this is 4 screens on zoom mod and like 40 without, so some people didn't even seen all the exits, entrances, like the first Radish attack came trough on the right side where the fences broke down behind a wall.

Léonard · 2019-06-18 19:46:00

SparkleCake wrote:

I hope the community can find a happy solution without too much compromise.

Oh boy...
Trust me, at least half of this community is glad Jason doesn't know how to fix this himself..

Tarr · 2019-06-18 19:57:50

jasonrohrer wrote:

Just tested, and I hit someone with a snowball 15x in a row, and they didn't get cold, and they didn't die. It had no effect on them, other than the face splat emote.
Are you sure your test server respects the new "no_replace" tag in the snowball splat object?
https://onetech.info/2405-Snowball-Spla … -emot_8_10

Can confirm it works on main server. Just killed my baby on s4 with snowballs. Will upload the video to youtube for proof when I get a second.

http://lineage.onehouronelife.com/serve … id=4819245

And there's the video proof of me killing a baby with snowballs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-btZjgt … e=youtu.be

Last edited by Tarr (2019-06-18 20:15:34)

Joseph Stalin · 2019-06-18 21:05:48

pein is that base on bigserver2 because ive never been before

BladeWoods · 2019-06-18 21:24:56

Tarr, did the baby really die from the snowballs or did it just starve?
I know the death screen says killed by snowball, but I don't think the death screen is reliable.

Tarr · 2019-06-18 22:22:14

BladeWoods wrote:

Tarr, did the baby really die from the snowballs or did it just starve?
I know the death screen says killed by snowball, but I don't think the death screen is reliable.

Yes, that baby is being killed by snowballs. As I've said before, snowballs are 100% lethal again being a little more finicky this time around but I can trigger the bug pretty much on command.

Why would I go through the hassle to make up something? I had to redownload the game to get footage since Jason thought it was just my test server acting funny. The only reason I hadn't reported this to github is because it was reported elsewhere + I felt the idea was a bit sensitive to be tossed out for the public. However, it doesn't seem Jason read about the issue about the snowballs in the first place so it's sort of fair game for people to abuse if they want.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-06-18 13:04:06

War swords and the zoom out mod

#2 2019-06-18 13:46:27

Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

#3 2019-06-18 14:09:51

Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

#4 2019-06-18 16:02:01

Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

#5 2019-06-18 16:26:21

Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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Re: War swords and the zoom out mod

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