JKG Feedback Thread

[eezstreet]

This totally wasn't @@Caelum's idea or anything, but I think JKG has gotten off on the wrong foot with a lot of people, and this is my chance to try and change people's opinions about things. I would like to apologize for the rushed release of the initial game, and sorry about the misinformation that was generally given out about the state of the mod, and the useless hype around the release. Going forward, I want to get some opinions from the community about how to improve the game and make things better, accessibility of the mod, gameplay, whatever. I think we have a lot of things to make up for, and I've taken a lot of the flak (and believe me, I took it quite personally) from various different communities such as MB2, JKH, on our own turf at TerranGaming, Moddb, Facebook, all of those different places.

 

I think we released a very buggy and incomplete product. A bit of a shame really. We rushed to get the game out by the release date, and I think that we ought to have delayed the release personally. But unfortunately shortcomings are quite common in the world, and a lot of them befell the release. I've personally spent a lot of time trying to rectify our mistakes. Lots of bugs and changes were done, as our patch notes may indicate:

http://jkg-update.terrangaming.com/packages/public/patchnotes.html

 

And the next patch will fix things even further:

 

New Features

- New map: Mos Eisley! Comes in Day and Night versions.

- New Map: Jawa Fortress.

- Added names above the heads of important NPCs throughout the world, and displays their title.

- Several (hidden) features added, geared toward Phase 2.

- Added XBOX 360 controller support. Use /in_joy 2 in the console to turn on support for it.

- New JKG_Binds.cfg to match recent changes.

 

Bug Fixes

- Corrected several crashes

- Several corrections to Arena

- Fixed the common 'scumbag doors' bug in all maps.

- Corrected several sprinting animations not having correct footstep sound effects.

 

 

Balance

- Added new Bounty system. Killing multiple enemies in one life results in a bounty over your head!

- Added new firing mode system, replacing alternate fire. It uses the same key as saber style select, so be sure to bind that if it is unbound! (it is updated in JKG_Binds, also)

- Default credit count cut in half.

- Starting weapon now sells back for 1 credit.

- Starting life (and max life) reduced by default. Starting life and shields are adjustable through a new cvar named "jkg_startingStats".

- Bespin Shafts no longer contains any shield or health pickups.

- Blowing up enemy trip mines results in a small credit gain.

 

 

Visual

- Added in visual holster system (WIP, and currently is only for your own character)

- Added several sprinting animations for each weapon class.

- Reverted several animations back to base (walking and jumping included),

- Added reloading animations, again for each weapon class.

- Bespin Shafts now has a new set of teams: Bespin Cops vs. Ugnaught Worker's Union, and a new levelshot; others to come when those maps are updated.

 

 

 

What I want people to do is give us some kind of feedback in general with JKG. Constructive criticism, a description of whatever bad experience you might have had, a description of whatever good experience you might have had, an idea as to where we should take things, all things will be considered. I'll watch over this thread very carefully and try to respond to each answer thoroughly. For any JKG devs that are watching, I ask that they do not respond to this thread, I will handle things myself the best I can. If for whatever reason this thread dies out, I ask that someone mention me.

[eezstreet]

I know a lot of you are liking the OP, but I am interested mostly in whatever feedback that people have to offer.

[Doby]

Same here, I played the mod a couple of times and couldn't find any server with people to play with. However a couple of things comes to mind;

 

- get a seperate jkg website again, the 'official' site being a sub-section under terrangaming just doesn't look good.

- more frequent updates. One update per 3-4 months spawns too much speculation about the mod being dead.

 

On another note, I like the re-release idea. Looking forward for it.

 

I'd also suggest that, with a 'playable' state of the mod, you could start making events, so that we can actually play with other people and make constructive criticism about it.

[minilogoguy18]

Badly needs an official server that the entire JA community knows about that is set to FFA.

[Pande]

Badly needs an official server that the entire JA community knows about that is set to FFA.

No offense meant, honestly, I like ya, but I think you are still not understanding something. Go read that thread you made on 'where are people talking about JKG', I explain numerous times that 'ffa' simply doesn't exist in JKG phase 1, and neither in phase 2 and beyond since that phase is an open world as opposed to a match-based setup.

[Szico VII]

Here were my main gripes when I played last. (I'm sure there's some forgotten)

 

1) Weapons underpowered. Seriously, we did a test and it took like 2-3 sniper shots to the head (with the most powerful sniper) to kill a person. I like using one shot rifles as they require more skill and are satisfying. But if the person with a spammy mega-rate laser doesn't die or come very close in one hit whats the point? There didnt appear to be any damage variation either.

2) Pressing use to pick up items on the floor. Either make the bounding box for them MUCH bigger so we can click on them easily or just remove it.

3) Bespin CTF. Just ugh.

4) The installer (and still is) sort of annoying for 2 reasons. 1) It never completes the entire installation in one go, it failed THREE times when i reinstalled yesterday. And then it confuses people by saying 'you can simply continue the installation' but when you try and restart it it RE-ASKS you everything again and then warns you that you are overwriting an existing installation. (Which, presumably, it isnt if its just continuing). Also it keeps RE-ADDING a shortcut to my start menu every time it gets updated. ANNOYING. It did seem remarkably faster download speed than previously however.

5) Screen fades to black when dead making i unable to type. Considering this is the only time id want to type during a firefight this is incredibly frustrating.

6) CANNOT MINIMISE THE GAME. ARGHHHHH.

7) Leaves 2x jamp.exe files open when I exit, meaning if i restart the game it claims that error and wont let me join as there's still an inactive jamp.exe in the background.

8) HP markers come out of destructable objects :|

9) No buttons bound by default or any documentation to explain all the functions so you can manually bind them.

10) AC weapon selection. MAKE THE GAME REMEMBER MY CHOICES. I hate having to RE-add all my weapon ac selections every time i start a new game.

11) Various bugs with weapons not showing up in inventory, credits spent but not getting the item e.t.c.

12) PS3 controller support?

[eezstreet]

Badly needs an official server that the entire JA community knows about that is set to FFA.

We have an official server, but it doesn't show up in the main JKA server listing (though it could if we wanted it to, I suppose). We separated it from the main server listing for a number of reasons:

1. prevents people from connecting to the server when they don't have the mod installed, and giving them an instant crash as soon as they join a server

2. prevents ridiculous drive-by DDOSes and other crap that people like to pull on random servers in the server list

3. prevents our servers from cluttering up the server list, which always was a pain to me when dealing with Siege, and having to sort between an actual Siege server and MB2 (this can be corrected really easily too, I might add).

I'm assuming that that's what you meant with 'the entire JA community knows about'. Course, we could put a server up with some realistic looking bots that shows up in the main server list, just to draw people into the mod. But that won't really do us a whole lot of good to be honest, with the mod being so beta-y.

 

Secondly, I'm not a big fan of FFA myself and it really wouldn't work with the whole shop system. TFFA is better in this regard because then you don't have to worry about people killing other people at the shops. We noticed this being a big problem whenever we tried doing a setup with FFA. It just doesn't work.

 

 

 

- get a seperate jkg website again, the 'official' site being a sub-section under terrangaming just doesn't look good.

 

idd, however, TerranGaming has spoken with us and they're going to make our microsite look more independent from the main site, so it looks a lot more professional.

 

- more frequent updates. One update per 3-4 months spawns too much speculation about the mod being dead.

 

I guess I would be partially to blame for that. We want to get the next patch really polished, and the plan was to release a news post along with the patch to help re-invigorate the community. There is a launcher package out (but not selectable atm) called PTR, which whenever it's ready, will allow players to play the next patch and submit bug reports on our site, which should help to prevent such failures as the ones that the mod experienced at launch.

 

I'd also suggest that, with a 'playable' state of the mod, you could start making events, so that we can actually play with other people and make constructive criticism about it.

Not a bad suggestion. We will look into it, and work on it more whenever we have less of a workload to deal with.

 

Here were my main gripes when I played last. (I'm sure there's some forgotten)

 

1) Weapons underpowered. Seriously, we did a test and it took like 2-3 sniper shots to the head (with the most powerful sniper) to kill a person. I like using one shot rifles as they require more skill and are satisfying. But if the person with a spammy mega-rate laser doesn't die or come very close in one hit whats the point? There didnt appear to be any damage variation either.

I can totally agree with you and attest to this. While some weapons were underpowered, a lot of them (Stouker Concussion Rifle comes to mind) were overpowered and spammy. A specific list of what people think would be great in sorta helping us out with this.

 

2) Pressing use to pick up items on the floor. Either make the bounding box for them MUCH bigger so we can click on them easily or just remove it.

Probably going to get removed. The next version of CTF Bespin doesn't have pickups.

 

4) The installer (and still is) sort of annoying for 2 reasons. 1) It never completes the entire installation in one go, it failed THREE times when i reinstalled yesterday. And then it confuses people by saying 'you can simply continue the installation' but when you try and restart it it RE-ASKS you everything again and then warns you that you are overwriting an existing installation. (Which, presumably, it isnt if its just continuing). Also it keeps RE-ADDING a shortcut to my start menu every time it gets updated. ANNOYING. It did seem remarkably faster download speed than previously however.

 

Speaking of this -- we have a packed version of the launcher in the works which has the game more or less in a .zip that the launcher extracts to the location. Updates would still be done through the site however.

 

5) Screen fades to black when dead making i unable to type. Considering this is the only time id want to type during a firefight this is incredibly frustrating.

 

Agreed, but would be a temporary fix in the long run.

 

6) CANNOT MINIMISE THE GAME. ARGHHHHH.

 

Yeah, I can see why this would be irritating. BobaFett's Ultra Utility seems to be your best bet. I believe this was done to prevent hacks with outside tools or something similar.

 

7) Leaves 2x jamp.exe files open when I exit, meaning if i restart the game it claims that error and wont let me join as there's still an inactive jamp.exe in the background.

 

Fixed a while ago.

 

8) HP markers come out of destructable objects :|

 

Hm, good point. This will need changing.

 

9) No buttons bound by default or any documentation to explain all the functions so you can manually bind them.

 

Yep. Our UI person is dealing with some RL stuff so unfortunately we're kinda stuck. But, there is a .cfg file that people can mess with as a temporary solution.

 

10) AC weapon selection. MAKE THE GAME REMEMBER MY CHOICES. I hate having to RE-add all my weapon ac selections every time i start a new game.

 

?

Not sure I follow.

 

11) Various bugs with weapons not showing up in inventory, credits spent but not getting the item e.t.c.

 

Yeah. I've been sorta prototyping a fix for this but nothing substantial yet.

 

12) PS3 controller support?

 

People use controllers? XD

But seriously though, we did a pretty large hook on the input, and I can assure you that PS3 controller support is planned.

[Szico VII]

?

Not sure I follow.

When you buy a weapon/armour e.t.c you have to assign it to an 'AC1' (whatever that stands for) slot so you can quickswap to it using your number keys. EVERY GAME it resets your previous selections. So every time I have to rebuy weapons, then re-add them to my quick select numbers. It really needs to remember which numbers I'd assigned to which guns permanently.

 

Also, I think people run around far far too quickly, they can actually dodge lasers, because many laser projectiles seem to move slow and the people seem to move too fast.

 

Id also like to add that its good that you're replying to these crits - but also kinda seems like there's a lot of 'we know about it but its not fixed yet/cant fix it at the moment' or the even worse - you go out of your way to get a different program (READ: Ultra utility) just to use a basic function responses above... which is worrying

 

Once the main things are sorted Id love to come and try it again though, but probably wont be playing it again until they are.

[Doby]

By the way, one thing I forgot to ask, can we hope for a mac version in the future?

 

I can imagine you have tons of other stuff on your to-do list before an OS X version, but it would be awesome for us Mac users if you did.

[Stoiss]

Lol i have never seeing that upside down thing before and that is all the servers ? i see you pretty low in fps, try turn off the jkg postprocessing

[eezstreet]

When you buy a weapon/armour e.t.c you have to assign it to an 'AC1' (whatever that stands for) slot so you can quickswap to it using your number keys. EVERY GAME it resets your previous selections. So every time I have to rebuy weapons, then re-add them to my quick select numbers. It really needs to remember which numbers I'd assigned to which guns permanently.

It's ACI, which is Active Combat Inventory

The reason that people need to rebuy weapons is because the gameplay is simply designed like that at the moment. Sorta similar to how in Counter Strike you're supposed to buy new weapons for each map, but this is more stretched out and you can purchase weapons within your base. Won't be a problem obviously with the RPG element, since all that stuff will be saved on the database.

 

As far as remembering the numbers, that's something that I would be interested to look into, but at the same time, it's another one of those things that would probably get trashed later on.

 

Also, I think people run around far far too quickly, they can actually dodge lasers, because many laser projectiles seem to move slow and the people seem to move too fast.

 

Id also like to add that its good that you're replying to these crits -

but also kinda seems like there's a lot of 'we know about it but its not

fixed yet/cant fix it at the moment' or the even worse - you go out of

your way to get a different program (READ: Ultra utility) just to use a

basic function responses above... which is worrying

 

I'd like to apologize a bit about that. One thing though that I forgot to mention (I was in a bit of a rush this morning): I've been talking a bit with BobaFett about putting a minimize feature directly into the game (as a chat command), and while we don't have anything solid, we have a theory that a ingame minimize command would be pretty feasible, using a lot of the same tricks that Ultra Utility uses, with a few added hooks here and there. I think you and I both know that using a third party program at all to minimize is a bit ridiculous Never been a big fan of KTs either, since they just annoy other people from my experience with them. Sucks if you just want a minimizer though.

 

By the way, one thing I forgot to ask, can we hope for a mac version in the future?

 

I can imagine you have tons of other stuff on your to-do list before an OS X version, but it would be awesome for us Mac users if you did.

I'd have to ask @@redsaurus about that, as I don't think any coders have experience with Mac compiling. Would be a bit of a huge undertaking with all the hooks that would need to be done. However... our launcher is written with cross-compatibility in mind (it uses Qt, which works on Mac, Linux, and PC), so that won't be a problem. It's mostly the hooks and game engine hacks that are the problem. But yes, I've definitely considered Mac stuff in the past, and a Linux serverside is highly desired. If anyone has some experience with Mac-specific reverse engineering, they're welcome to step up to the plate.

 

 

This only seems to happen when I run JKG. It's not a HUGE deal, just a minor annoyance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

^ Those indicators get stretched over the server names.

 

Is this just because I play in Windowed or something?

Noted. Menus are in need of a massive overhaul anyway. Stay tuned for my awesome/groundbreaking/HOLY GOD THAT'S AWESOME reverse engineering feature which addresses UI and minigames specifically when it comes to rendering.

 

 

Also..... what? Is it upside down day in the JKG world or something? Every sever I go to looks like this:

 

 

 

Post processing sounds like the cause of these issues. Check and see if turning off post processing fixes the issues.

[Szico VII]

It's ACI, which is Active Combat Inventory

 

The reason that people need to rebuy weapons is because the gameplay is simply designed like that at the moment. Sorta similar to how in Counter Strike you're supposed to buy new weapons for each map, but this is more stretched out and you can purchase weapons within your base. Won't be a problem obviously with the RPG element, since all that stuff will be saved on the database.

 

As far as remembering the numbers, that's something that I would be interested to look into, but at the same time, it's another one of those things that would probably get trashed later on.

I dont understand your argument against this at all. Number = weapon choice as it does in every game. Why make it different in JKG? I just want to have it remember which weapon Ive assigned to which number, regardless of whether its currently purchased or not.

 

And speaking of counter strike, Im pretty sure that had a 'favourite class' option which remembered what you liked as a favourite loadout, provided you had the cash,

[eezstreet]

I dont understand your argument against this at all. Number = weapon choice as it does in every game. Why make it different in JKG? I just want to have it remember which weapon Ive assigned to which number, regardless of whether its currently purchased or not.

 

And speaking of counter strike, Im pretty sure that had a 'favourite class' option which remembered what you liked as a favourite loadout, provided you had the cash,

 

Since shops are randomized at the moment, one does not simply have a "favorite class" which is able to be purchased from the shop. And again, a bit of a wasted effort if we implemented it since that wouldn't make any sense in an RPG environment.

[eezstreet]

A couple things I noticed however, when using the pistol, is that the

effects some times seem to be out of sync with the sounds. Also, the

shot seemed to some times come from my characters forhead area whilst

running instead of the gun.

I haven't noticed the first thing. I'll look into it for sure.

As for the second thing, yeah, I've been meaning to look into that. It's a bit annoying. Basically a while ago we opted for guns to have their bullets come directly from the muzzle of the gun in ghoul2, in order to speed up the production of guns and make the bullets come out more realistically. Since speed is no longer an issue, I'll see what I can do about giving the blaster shots a muzzle position table similar to how the base game does it.

 

 

I think I'm gonna have to agree with Szico on this one. It would go a way towards stream lining the gameplay if it remembered your choices. Maybe give the option of saving templates sort of like for force powers.

 

A template isn't a bad idea. Though since the guns are bought from shops, there's always the issue of things not lining up properly. I've given it a bit of thought, and I have a bit of an idea for this that shouldn't result in wasted code time really all that much.

Basically, what players could do is put items on a "special order" from the gun merchant. Basically, the idea is that the special order cannot exceed X credits (I guess dependant on the server settings for starting credits), but you could get your special order back at any time. You can have 1 special order done per map. In the RPG environment, special orders would be done whenever, cost more, and have a slight delay in when you can get the item. Saves time in comparison to an Auction House, if we added that.

 

 

As for your concerns with the maps, I'll be sure to let Pande know!

[Futuza]

@@MoonDog, go hang out on our IRC and try to get people to play JKG with you on a server so you can experience it and give us some feedback.  I might be around the next few hours if you want to do 1 on 1, but I'm also busy with school so in that regard I'm kind of flaky. 

 

Trust me this feedback is important enough to us, that I want you to play so you can give us honest feedback. 

[Szico VII]

Just to reiterate, as @@eezstreet doesn't quite seem to see what I'm getting at...

 

I don't mind if i cant actually own the guns or buy a specific set....because they're randomised... what I do mind is having to assign ANY gun to a specific number key EVERY match.

 

Every time I buy say....a stormtrooper assault rifle, I have to buy it, then assign it to number key 1. And then the same for every weapon I buy. And repeat this every game!

Now, why cant it just remember that if I own this gun, i want it mapped to number 1? In the next game its not there then i can go for a different main weapon, but I can just assign that to 2. As long as it remembers it

[Futuza]

Just to reiterate, as @@eezstreet doesn't quite seem to see what I'm getting at...

 

I don't mind if i cant actually own the guns or buy a specific set....because they're randomised... what I do mind is having to assign ANY gun to a specific number key EVERY match.

 

Every time I buy say....a stormtrooper assault rifle, I have to buy it, then assign it to number key 1. And then the same for every weapon I buy. And repeat this every game!

Now, why cant it just remember that if I own this gun, i want it mapped to number 1? In the next game its not there then i can go for a different main weapon, but I can just assign that to 2. As long as it remembers it

The issue I think that you'd have is, if we set it up like this, what should the program do if you already had a different weapon assigned to that slot?  Overwrite and immediately unequip the first weapon?  I'm just not sure how implementing your idea would work out without introducing a whole host of other problems. 

 

Eg situation:

Suppose there are 40 different weapons.  You have numbers 1 - 0 assigned to a specific weapons.  So far that covers only 9 of the 40 possible things you could equip.  There will still be 31 other possible weapons you could equip.  So the question is if I want to equip a weapon that isn't a "default favorite weapon", what should ACI do?  Delete the aci slot for your "default favorite weapon", so there's room to equip the non-favorite weapon?  Or refuse to allow you to equip it until you manually change your default favorite list?    There's also the case of what happens if I have a bunch of weapons equipped that aren't my 'default favorites', and then I buy a 'default favorite', should it immediately remove the current weapon (which isn't a 'default favorite'), or just ignore the fact that you have a default favorite until you manuall unequip the current weapon?

 

Do I make sense?  Or am I completely off the wall and not getting what you're saying?  :unsure:

 

I understand the frustration of having to go to the ACI every time to equip something though, I'll try and see if I can think of something else that'd alleviate the problem without too many drawbacks.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Darth Futuza

[Carbon]

Why not just make an option that when you buy a gun while buying it it asks what key you want to bind the gun to if any..... That or the template idea.

[Szico VII]

Delete the aci slot for your "default favorite weapon", so there's room to equip the non-favorite weapon?

Well what does it do now if you have over 10 weapons? Presumably you still have to overwrite one, that's just the way things go. Who'd be using 10 guns anyway?

 

Its the players choice if they want to try new weapons and make them a favourite. But I imagine most will find weapons they prefer and use those mostly. Otherwise youre assigning 10 weapons to aci every game regardless of whether you usually use them or not.

[Raz0r]

Also..... what? Is it upside down day in the JKG world or something? Every sever I go to looks like this:

 

 

 

I might be late, but I ran into that issue in JA++ when people turned on forced anti-aliasing in their graphics drivers, mainly on ATI cards.

Post-processing + forced MSAA + ATI = upside down screens. Go figure.

[eezstreet]

Well what does it do now if you have over 10 weapons? Presumably you still have to overwrite one, that's just the way things go. Who'd be using 10 guns anyway?

 

Its the players choice if they want to try new weapons and make them a favourite. But I imagine most will find weapons they prefer and use those mostly. Otherwise youre assigning 10 weapons to aci every game regardless of whether you usually use them or not.

 

ACI doesn't just encompass weapons, there's items too, such as bactas and seekers that can be used with the ACI.

The player's choice is not always going to be allowed in a lot of circumstances. For example, in the beginning of matches, where there's only a very small amount of credits allowed. Since things are randomized at the moment, you're not always going to be allowed your favorite weapons. If you have 10 favorites already picked out, you're going to be overwriting those favorites constantly. Gotta figure, there's ~85 weapons, not all of them are going to spawn in a shop with roughly 10 items or so.

Also, I don't know about you, but I personally like to set up my weapons so that they're in a specific order. I usually put pistols (aside from the starter) at slot 1, a rifle or repeater at slot 2, a grenade at slot 3, and then more weapons as I find them. And I usually don't use the same guns every round, either because it doesn't suit my strategy for that map, or because of the order in which I find them.

I can't speak for everyone, but I also hate having gaps in my ACI. But that's just me.

 

From my personal experience with the gameplay, I would find a favorite weapon feature to be largely useless due to how the gameplay is designed. In fact it would be a little irritating to me, because I'd have to reassign the ACI slot for a weapon to remove the gaps (in my OCD mindset). But eh. That's just me though. I can't speak for everyone.

[Szico VII]

From my personal experience with the gameplay, I would find a favorite weapon feature to be largely useless due to how the gameplay is designed. In fact it would be a little irritating to me, because I'd have to reassign the ACI slot for a weapon to remove the gaps (in my OCD mindset). But eh. That's just me though. I can't speak for everyone.

Ive used the same guns every time Ive played. There's absolutely no harm in having it remember what you've already put in. If none of your guns are there then the worst that can happen is what you currently have to do anyway....reassign guns every game :|

[Pande]

"Also, odd choices like having a random brush in a hallway that is textured factory/wall10 don't look very good in my opinion. Yeah, it stands out. In a bad way. Take it or leave it. (P.S. I think one of the light shaders is missing it's image) "

 

Could you elaborate on that? Although it won't be fixed since that map will be made public and replaced with a much, much larger map.

 

"nar_streets/wall10" that it?

 

That was in the original map and I always liked it. Maybe i'll replace it with a vent decal instead.

 

edit: This it, for the door texture? http://i.imgur.com/9DdrukD.jpg

[eezstreet]

Ive used the same guns every time Ive played. There's absolutely no harm in having it remember what you've already put in. If none of your guns are there then the worst that can happen is what you currently have to do anyway....reassign guns every game :|

In the meantime, what I've done in the code is make it so that it automatically assigns weapons to the ACI when they're purchased. Takes one of the steps out of the equation, and I rather like this change atm.

 

 

btw:

11) Various bugs with weapons not showing up in inventory, credits spent but not getting the item e.t.c.

Figured out a solution, and fixed the problem here. Many celebrations were to be had on the #JKGalaxies IRC channel et al

[eezstreet]

Just an FYI - We are doing a semi-open beta test. All you have to do is look in the topic of our IRC/chat channel to get the link to a Public Test Realm (PTR) installer.

http://client00.chat.mibbit.com/#jkgalaxies@irc.arloria.net