I'm not sure if this post will accomplish much, but I'll try anyways.
Sometimes people see the ai do something unpredictable like leveling a building, rolling around while prone, firing rockets at infantry, one shoting you, etc. A lot of the time when this happens people tend to assume a Zeus is controlling the character that did the action. I feel like this is a bad mentality.
On non Zeus missions these happen sometimes and people say "is that Zeus" when there isn't even a Zeus in the game.
This sort of mentality hurts the Zeus. It hurts their reputation as a Zeus, distrups the immersion of a mission, and is sometimes used as an excuse to ignore your own mistakes.
I would just like to see less people jumping to "oh was that Zeus!" whenever something surprising happens.
I've seen AI drop roll and dodge bullets to just spray my face with LAMBS AI itself no Zeus so be aware of that, LAMBS AI will pull that on you and act human like (which I enjoy).
I would also say, Zeus slots should be reserve to members only unless you are the mission maker of that current mission. There might be some logistics involve in the mission that only an experience zeus can pull the strings on without ruining a player's experience or alternating how the mission should've been played too much. The mission maker would probably know what's best overall.
Also, I don't think Zeus should kill players without reason either since it'd be unenjoyable for the player to sit out a game if they die unfairly. If the mission was legit a lost cause and end it, then sure, but if a team member or someone were to get lost and isolated somewhere but they still have their head in the game and trying to navigate through to find their fireteam or whatnot, I wouldn't bother it.
Let me make one thing clear. Zeus should never ever deliberately kill players.
It’s not the role of any other player, Zeus role or not, to judge whether another player is reckless enough to justify killing him. For that we have the AI, and if the AI is not doing a good job at punishing players then we should tweak it to make it so.
Deliberate player killing goes against the very core of CiA and will not be tolerated under no circumstances.
I think we're mixing up two things here. Dalken's original post was about players, not about Zeus.
Dalken, I agree that people shouldn't always assume anything interesting happening in terms of enemies is done by Zeus, but it's hardly something you can really control. If at all, it just shows that Zeus made it's presence known, which is usually something Zeus should avoid.
Which brings us to the other point, i.e. who should be able to Zeus, and what the rules are.
I agree that under no circumstances should Zeus kill players. Accidents happen, but deliberately killing a player is bad style and must be avoided. Especially considering that AI has become pretty good with Lambs, and as Variable said, if there's not enough challenge, we can further tweak it.
I also agree that we should restrict Zeus access, basically members only, plus the mission maker should be allowed to Zeus their own mission.
A few other guidelines we should also add:
- Zeus is a presence, not a force. Don't make your presence obvious
- Use what the mission has to offer before spawning in other stuff. If you spawn other stuff, know what you are doing, and don't overdo it
- Your job as Zeus is to enhance the experience, not spoil or destroy it
Mostly common sense, but should be written down somewhere
Quote:If at all, it just shows that Zeus made it's presence known, which is usually something Zeus should avoid.
Well, I don't think that this can be avoided if there is a Zeus, and it would be hard to draw a line. Does a group of AI flanking your position constitute a "making your presence known"? Does taking control of a chopper to make a rocket run on something (even if it isn't the players)? Some things will always be obviously Zeus'ed, which is what Zeus is really there for.
Quote:I agree that under no circumstances should Zeus kill players.
The only exception to the Player killing rule I can see is to end the mission. It's better, in my opinion, to "gracefully" kill the survivors when the mission is essentially lost than to just quit it, more so since that can cause problems with ACRE.
TMO, first of all, as Variable said, there is no excuse of Zeus killing players.
It has the advantage in the battlefield to know players location so it's no less then a shitty action.
That said - I don't have a problem with people thinks some actions of AI are made with Zeus, knowing later that it was not Zeus, will make them stop talking about it and be better.
BUT, I do care about other players taking over Zeus in my mission and starting to change too many things,
I don't have a problem that a member will do it, as they have enough experience to know if something needs to be changed or tweaked a bit but even so, just minor things.
I don't know if we can prevent non members take Zeus slot but if we notice something we don't like, we talk about it right after the mission.
Alwarren Wrote:Well, I don't think that this can be avoided if there is a Zeus, and it would be hard to draw a line. Does a group of AI flanking your position constitute a "making your presence known"? Does taking control of a chopper to make a rocket run on something (even if it isn't the players)? Some things will always be obviously Zeus'ed, which is what Zeus is really there for.
What I mean with "not making your presence known" is that Zeus should always act believable. That means, no lightning strike on one of your targets, or an A-10 that suddenly pops up in a guerilla mission. Or a constant barrage of rockets flying everywhere but where the action is.
What I mean is that ideally, players would wonder if what happens was Zeus or not.
Benchmark Wrote:BUT, I do care about other players taking over Zeus in my mission and starting to change too many things,
I don't have a problem that a member will do it, as they have enough experience to know if something needs to be changed or tweaked a bit but even so, just minor things.
I know what you mean. One mission I made had LDF fight against some looters. Livonia is close to Kaliningrad, so I had two Spetsnaz teams in the mission, too.
Someone zeused the mission and when the players were about to encounter the Spetsnaz, he deleted them. I was pissed because these guys were in there for a purpose, which the Zeus didn't know. He said he thought they were in there by accident.
This was not a member that did that, but I would have been equally pissed if it were a member.
Changes to a mission should never involve guessing. If in this situation the Zeus player found that the Spetsnaz were glitching through a wall and delete them because that is basically a broken situation, it's ok, but just deleting them for no good reason ? Not ok
It should be a mission requirement to make the objective clear to via objectives being visible or communicating it to zeus, and zeus not to fiddle with the objectives if they aren't the mission maker