Hitboxes
wlibaers
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8685Members
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8685Members
<div class="IPBDescription">in vents</div> From the front page for NS 1.1: "- Collision improvements (no "jittering" when crouching on structures, structure hitboxes much more accurate, etc.)"
I really hope that includes the hitbox issues for marines in vents. I recently was marine in a game on Nancy, and going through the tiny vent near the marine base just as skulks were rushing for the same place. Well, the alien team complained about me being a "vent exploiter". They couldn't kill me. I was in the vent, skulks on both sides, and they just couldn't damage me while my LMG obviously did work on them. Just for fun, I switched to knife and started knifing the skulks. Or, at least, tried to. My knife did no damage to them, their bite did no damage to me. (very odd, you often hear about the skulk bite problem but the knife always seemed more reliable)
Now, I know there are things you can do to improve the odds (aiming down, using crouch), but does that really matter? Such situations shouldn't happen, and knowledge of special tricks shouldn't be required to hit someone when you're touching him. I'd consider fixing these hitboxes (not just in vents, but some corners too, and ladders) very important, perhaps more important than any other change in 1.1. Some people have suggested making skulks bite faster or do more damage, but that really isn't going to help much in cases where even 20 bites don't hit.
Also, about the marine shape when walking crouched, this isn't very realistic. I know it's an engine limitation you can't go prone (because the bounding box doesn't rotate), but I recently had to walk like that in a crawlspace under a building (about as high as an NS vent but much dirtier), and it is extremely uncomfortable. This makes the marine advantage in vents even more ridiculous.
I really hope that includes the hitbox issues for marines in vents. I recently was marine in a game on Nancy, and going through the tiny vent near the marine base just as skulks were rushing for the same place. Well, the alien team complained about me being a "vent exploiter". They couldn't kill me. I was in the vent, skulks on both sides, and they just couldn't damage me while my LMG obviously did work on them. Just for fun, I switched to knife and started knifing the skulks. Or, at least, tried to. My knife did no damage to them, their bite did no damage to me. (very odd, you often hear about the skulk bite problem but the knife always seemed more reliable)
Now, I know there are things you can do to improve the odds (aiming down, using crouch), but does that really matter? Such situations shouldn't happen, and knowledge of special tricks shouldn't be required to hit someone when you're touching him. I'd consider fixing these hitboxes (not just in vents, but some corners too, and ladders) very important, perhaps more important than any other change in 1.1. Some people have suggested making skulks bite faster or do more damage, but that really isn't going to help much in cases where even 20 bites don't hit.
Also, about the marine shape when walking crouched, this isn't very realistic. I know it's an engine limitation you can't go prone (because the bounding box doesn't rotate), but I recently had to walk like that in a crawlspace under a building (about as high as an NS vent but much dirtier), and it is extremely uncomfortable. This makes the marine advantage in vents even more ridiculous.
Comments
Hehehe this part was pretty funny when u do think about it...
Anyhow yah I believe they're going to fix the hitbox bug.
It's not that they <b>couldn't</b> put it in, it's that they didn't <i>want</i> it in.
However, I fully agree. The Marine hitboxes desperately need to be fixed. They already stomp much face in vents, they really don't need a hitbox bug to make them even bigger vent-kings.
Twilight
i think that is right anyway <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
If you had EVEN BOTHERED TO READ IT FIRST:
You'd have found this quote from coil:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->performing (2) while crouched, resulting in a very difficult-to-hit marine. This is because the crouched hitboxes are buggy; they will be fixed in 1.1, invalidating this tactic.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
good stuff haha.
If you had EVEN BOTHERED TO READ IT FIRST:
You'd have found this quote from coil:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->performing (2) while crouched, resulting in a very difficult-to-hit marine. This is because the crouched hitboxes are buggy; they will be fixed in 1.1, invalidating this tactic.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah yes, that referred to the problem of crouch-jumping though, but I guess the fix could apply to the vent problem as well. Or maybe not, as a different thread indicated that part of the problem is related to the location of the skulk's bite volume. (see <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=22421&hl=skulk,and,bite,and,crouch,and,vent' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...crouch,and,vent</a> )
The really odd thing is that there appears to be a different hitbox effect with crouch-jumping and vent crouching for marines, as in vents the marine hitbox appears to be too low, which would not give crouch-jumpers an advantage against a skulk on the floor (you'd want a higher hitbox for that). Simplest explanation might be that the hitbox is bugged in both directions, and is something like a thin disc for crouching marines, but that seems strange.
Related to the going prone, of course you could make models that are prone, but they would get clipping problems, for example their legs or head sticking through walls, as already happens with skulks, and their length-width difference is smaller than that of a hypothetical crouching marine.
Proning could be added, but I'm not fully sure if the third hull size is in use already or not.. FireArms uses it quite well, but they only have to deal with standing, crouching, and prone. Jumping I believe is a translation applied to the given hull.
The reason Skulks stick through walls is not because of a limitation on the configuration of hitboxes, but rather that they use a hull which does not fit the size/shape of their body as precisely as it could.
IIRC, there was talk about increasing the number of hulls in the next HL patch, which would actually increase the file-size of given maps... but would more effectively represent the correct sizes of the various aliens, given that the hulls were modified. Which would be a godsend for Skulks who think they're hiding well out of sight, but peek out around/through corners.
Yes, that's not due to the hitboxes, but due to the bounding box used for collision detection against the world. And an extra hull wouldn't help the skulk, as the hulls are generated before the map is played, and have a fixed orientation. The bounding box doesn't rotate with the player, which makes it a bad idea to use hulls that aren't square in top-down view. And a good fit on a skulk would require a rectangle. So with an extra hull you could make it work perfectly for a skulk looking in one direction, but if that skulk turns it will give wrong results.
1) When a marine crouches, his hitboxes get small and go lower than you'd think they go.
2) when a skulk is "wallwalking" their chomper goes HIGHER than you'd think it should be.
Add those together and toss in the fact that skulks in the vents are almost always wall-walking (can't help it, they're always touching a wall), then you get a skulk who's biting too high to hit the marine's hitbox.
The solution for skulks is to hit your "crouch" key. The crouch key deactivates wallwalking for skulks. Try tapping it the next time you're hanging on a ceiling above a marine. By not wallwalking, your chomper drops down to where it should be, and you can then chomp the marine just fine.
Allow me to point out that this usually surprizes the living heck outta any marine who is deliberately using the hitbox thing. They usually shout pretty loud when you munch em. heheheheheh
Crouching as a skulk does generally negate the hitbox bug in vents but the nancy vent near marine start is an exception. Best as I can tell marines in that vent are invunerable to all meele attacks; I've pasted marines in there with ranged but all meele fails. It would appear, and others have also found the same problem, that this particular occurance of the hitbox bug may be an actual map bug in nancy. However as the actual source for nancy was lost in a hdd crash, or so I heard, it seems unlikely that this particular bug will be fixed.
Erm, did you ever realize that maybe he posted that post while I was writing mine? Or, maybe I just read every other post, because, you know, I'm quirky like that... <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Twilight
If the marine isn't holding duck, you can bite him but it seems you need to be looking below the horizontal.
If the marine IS holding duck, it's extremely hard to bite him nomatter what direction you're looking, unless you hold duck then you can bite below the horizontal.
In short, hitbox bugs suck and I can't wait for 1.1 <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->