Hit the Deck! Dropping to the ground to avoid shots.

[itseasytosee]

About The Pull Request

This PR acts as an alternative I proposed for tactical resting.

In short: If you drop to the ground and don't move, bullets fired that were not aimed directly at your sprite directly will fly overhead. If you move while prone you lose this effect until you stay still for 6 seconds, or of course, you could just stand up and lay back down later.

For a longer explanation with more context on the goals of this change, see the following design document: https://hackmd.io/7t8n7f8HSkmIg7o7aLRk1A

This PR as-is is pretty bare-boned. I would like your opinion on the following changes I hesitated to make.

1. Most importantly, should this do away with the current system of not hitting shots on prone targets while not in combat mode? It seems a bit redundant and could add to confusion amongst players by making systems too complex. I'll probably remove it unless some good reasons I'm missing are e brought to my attention.
2. Tweaking. Are six seconds to regain this benefit too long? too short? I've only messed around with it solo and it feels alright as is. But I'm not fully confident the same is true in an actual game.
3. Chat Feedback. Currently, the only chat feedback I thought was necessary was a notification that you were back into a prone position after not moving for six seconds after you started crawling. Although notifications that say "you have started crawling and now bullets will hit you" or "you are prone and bullets will now pass over you" are very possible, I'm unsure how useful or annoying these would be.
4. Potentially out of scope, but there was talk about other debuffs given to crawling characters like an accuracy penalty or something.

If you have any strong arguments for these topics I'd love to hear them even if it is in incoherent angry babble.

Why It's Good For The Game

See the design document for full deets, but in short, this improves consistency and adds an element to ranged combat without being annoyingly abusable.

Changelog

🆑 itseasytosee
add: Tactical resting has its revenge and it's better than ever! Going prone will make bullets not aimed at you directly pass over you unless you have been crawling on the ground recently.
/:cl:

[Livrah]

What if instead the Shooter needs to rest to be able hit prone targets without direct click (and bring back direct click shots ofc)? Less confusion for the Target, allows team fights once again and and keeps the counter to tactical resting.
If not, six seconds to regain the effect is too long, should be equal the time you spend for stand up and rest again.

[itseasytosee]

Direct shots still exist. If you want to hit someone unmoving on the ground, click on them.

[Ghommie]

Personal opinion but 6 seconds is too long of a penalty. Almost all firearms have a firerate higher than 10 rounds/min, plus it takes no so-called gamer skills to move your cursor over a sitting duck in less than that time. It's so long you're basically encouraging people to either press the rest hotkey twice in a rapid succession, move out after a second has passed (the time necessary to stand up) and repeat to circumvert the penalty or just ignore the feature as a mean of dodging random enemy fire.

[optimumtact]

Personal opinion but 6 seconds is too long of a penalty. Almost all firearms have a firerate higher than 10 rounds/min, plus it takes no so-called gamer skills to move your cursor over a sitting duck in less than that time. It's so long you're basically encouraging people to either press the rest hotkey twice in a rapid succession, move out after a second has passed (the time necessary to stand up) and repeat to circumvert the penalty or just ignore the feature as a mean of dodging random enemy fire.

It can't be the primary means of dodging enemy fire because it makes every combat situation look like a rave instead of a combat. 6 seconds makes it situational, but prevents every scenario turning into what looks like a zumba session.

[itseasytosee]

I want to clarify that the crawling debuff stays with you for 6 seconds after you stand up, it just won't get refreshed if you move while standing. This is of course to prevent the popping up and down in place.

[tralezab]

more nitpicks about balloon alerts

[Ghommie]

It can't be the primary means of dodging enemy fire because it makes every combat situation look like a rave instead of a combat. 6 seconds makes it situational, but prevents every scenario turning into what looks like a zumba session.

That's... not true? If people engage in such a bungee/zumba tactic, that's because of a difference in time between resting, standing up, moving somewhere else (roughtly 1 seconds minimum, depending on distance traveled) and the timeout from crawling around (6 s), which means it's way more convenient to do the bungees/zumba tactic. It's still pretty awful compared to making oneself scarce, perhaps unitended, but definitely better than hitting the deck itself as long as you have a decent fine motor coordination.

Perhaps the feature would be better if instead of a status effect we check for the client move_delay (plus maybe half a second and double the world.tick_lag, and a comsig for AI mobs like monkeys). That'd remain true to the "if you stay down and don't crawl you don't get hit" philosophy but without the quibbles this diatribe is about.

[itseasytosee]

The 6-second timeout still exists if you stand, it just won't get it refreshed if you walk around.
Standing up and laying back down on the spot is not advantageous. Thematically this might not make a lot of sense, but I think it's for the good of feeling and balance.

[Fikou]

cool stuff jim

[github-actions]

This PR has been inactive for long enough to be automatically marked as stale. This means it is at risk of being auto closed in ~ 7 days, please address any outstanding review items and ensure your PR is finished, if these are all true and you are auto-staled anyway, you need to actively ask maintainers if your PR will be merged. Once you have done any of the previous actions then you should request a maintainer remove the stale label on your PR, to reset the stale timer. If you feel no maintainer will respond in that time, you may wish to close this PR youself, while you seek maintainer comment, as you will then be able to reopen the PR yourself

[itseasytosee]

I'd like to know if anyone is actually interested in this Pr or its counterpart, death by staleness is the worst way to go.

[Mothblocks]

After discussion, doesn't look like we're interested in this PR. I'm +1'ing this idea from @ExcessiveUseOfCobblestone, though