VSH issues and suggestions megathread

Making this megathread to keep track of map/server issues which possibly occur and need a fix.
If posting a issue, make sure to mention the issue type and describe the issue itself.

Planned:

• Weapon stat reworks (buff and nerfs)

Maps:

Spoiler

• vsh_dust_showdown (bugged spot)
• vsh_remains_of_king (bugged spot, unable to get out and hard to reach in)

Plugins/Gameplay:

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• Weightdown activation available sooner than 5.0 seconds.
• Sandman max stun-duration well over 7.0 seconds. (TF2 related, check tf_cond_dazzled)
• The anchor ability still not working againts sentries. (SDK hooks?, possibly fixed, need more info)
• HHHJ capable to hit players well above him by wall-climbing. (Core plugin, TF2 hitreg?)
• HHHJ's headtaker not swinging if holding alt-fire at the same time. (Core plugin, need more investigation)

Changelog:

Spoiler

• Removed arena_watchtower due to an issue related to Snipers getting out of reach for bosses
• Removed random crits on bosses due to large demand for it
• Added lerptracker plugin (changed output to console)
• Removed koth_nucleus due to reported issues affecting gameplay
• Fixed healthbar to properly display health rather than overheal on Hale
• Some small weapon fixes (Medigun properly ubers now and some weapons are reverted to their earlier state, new sniper skins are supported)
• All Hales now take -40% damage force (Previously -40% on only Saxton Hale and Easterbunny)
• Bonk enabled again

Weapon changes:

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Scout:

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• None

Soldier:

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• All rocket launchers now have slight knockback on direct hit on Hales

Pyro:

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• Airblast more delayed

Demoman:

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• None

Heavy:

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• None so far

Engineer:

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• Widowmaker slightly buffed (stats need to be updated here)

Medic:

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• None

Sniper:

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• Classic now deals +33% damage on headshot and has a -33% damage penalty on bodyshot
• Cozy Camper has now -10% movement speed penalty
• Razorback blocks now 1 hit, just like Demoman shields

Spy:

Spoiler

• Spy-cicle now "freezes" Hale on backstab (colors blue, slows Hale for a small time)

 

Gameplay bugs

-Timers broken/time intervals varying:
*Weightdown activation available sooner than 5.0 seconds.
*Sandman max stun-duration well over 7.0 seconds.

-plugin issues:
*The anchor ability still not working againts sentries.
*HHHJ capable to hit players well above him by wall-climbing.
*HHHJ's headtaker not swinging if holding alt-fire at the same time.

 

Added to list.
Care to explain sandman?

 

Sandman: If a player manages to stun the boss from longer distance (it is actually possible to immobilize the boss at close range for a half of second, bug?), the boss should be immobilized for next 7.0 seconds. However, it might take well over 10 seconds for the boss to recover in real gameplay which unfortunately turns him into spy's stab-training dummy.

Balance: I don't know why anyone hasn't mentioned this before but since the gunmenttle update(?) the loose cannon has become ridiculous in terms of knockback; a successful hit on the boss' feet will send this fying high no matter which boss, even ones with knockback-resistance. Head/upper-body shots on the other hand will immobilize the boss for a fraction of second which is extremely hard for HHHJ (no superjump) to counter. Not to mention faster cannon balls, it's very easy to land close range shots on the boss with clipsize of four!

 

I'll try to look into it and test it myself, can't promise if I can fix it.

 

On VSH Dust Showdown, to the left of rocky spawn point, there's a building that can be jumped on. The top of that building has an issue regarding getting temporarily stuck, at least as Sniper class. Jumping/Crouching gets the player unstuck, so it might be an object collision issue with the building.

 

@moshy Can you provide screenshot of that spot? @cryprotree About the sandman, realized it's something within TF2 itself. As about the HHHJ alt-fire + primary could be some bug, I'll possibly have to dig into the source code to fix that. As about the wall climbing, blaming hitreg for now unless I can find a bug in the code. Anchor is likely bugged too so I'll have to investigate that too in the source code.

 

Hello @Bluekr, I have some real issues not yet addressed and maybe have solutions for them. First off we have noticed with many players (Enrimeus also) that hale's "long" arms are not hitreg related but it comes with general high latency + high interpolation value. https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Multiplayer_Networking
As my turn came (as hale) I had already used command cl_interp 0.5 to increase lerp further to 500ms (huge!!) to get extremely delayed hitboxes of other players. As melee system is bound to client-side lag compensation that adjust for different lerps. Not a single hit failed to register (here we go, not the hit reg) and other players were killed in their perspective from ridiculous distances since hale (in this case, me) moves fast paced already. At the speed of scout (400hu), the "range" in server perspective is increased by roughly 4 meters (decluding ping). This makes hale even more unpredictable and gives him upperhand to kill most of classes with combination of superjumping due massive desync it creates.
Solution: The server limits the interpolation value. TF2 default value is 0.100 which equals to 100ms lerp (that most players are using obviously) and is way too high since it was designed for 2004's hardware and slow connections. Good value is 0.033 for hitscans and 0.015 for projectiles (to minimize shooting delay). Also cl_updaterate and cl_cmdrate cvars could be raised to at least 40 (default 20!!, maximum 66) to improve general hit registeration on unstable connections (wi-fi, mobile internet).

 

@TheBluekr Circled as shown

 

I noticed the replacement koth_nucleus starts the King of the Hill game mode instead of VSH Arena, being desiged for the former game mode. It might have to be removed from the rotation.

 

The version of koth_nucleus we use in vsh is edited to fit the vsh gamemode better, it's not the original map.

 

@moshy Thanks for reporting the issue, I don't consider it really broken enough to be removed for now. Thanks for reporting though!
As about the plugin issues, this could be fixed in n0time once I could understand the way the code has been written for VSH in sourcepawn.

 

Just noticed, that if 2 players join the player team at the start of the round and the rest join the hales team. When it autobalances all the players on blue to red the whole team gains the minicrits normally reserved for the whole team, the same I assume applies to crits if done with a single player.
It's a rare occurrence but still potentially quite exploitable.

 

Added 2 notes in the changelog, here a bit more extended one.
(1.55, FoG update)

• Mediguns now properly uber rather than stopping at 40% for Medics
• Some weapons are reverted to their previous state before "Meet your match" and "Tough break"
• Hale healthbar now just works like in FF2 (shows just like at classes current health compared to max health rather than overheal only)

 

Notifying about current situation, someone reported (creds to Hanto) that a bug occured at Hales when taking fall damage. Turns out it gave Hales ~500 fall damage while it should be <50. I've rolled the update back to a previous state and possibly have a fix for it, which will be applied later. In case some bugs occur please report it immediatly to me or post it here, VSH discord or the FoG discord.

EDIT:
VSH is updated once again with a fix for this issue, there may be some bugs in weapons due to a mistake I made using 2 versions of our VSH. I've attempted to combine them but there could be somewhere some hidden bugs within the +60 weps that exist. Please report in case this occurs to me.

EDIT AGAIN:
Bugs are resolved and some wep changes are applied again.
-Blue

 

Bugs are resolved and update is back live again.
Added list of weapon changes made so far on live server, these and other weapons could be subject to changes for balancing reasons. I and other testers which are working on this are looking for input and commentary on how balanced it's in-game (is it underpowered or overpowered? please explain why too in description).

 

@TheBluekr Since the latest update bosses got buffed by increasing their pushback resistance even more so right now sentryguns and heavies are starting to feel weaker against jumping hales not to mention instant-killing stomp no matter what the speed the boss lands with (feels very buggy). So far direct-hit impulse of rockets has turned to be very functional addition and I like it so far.
I would like to see invisibility watches' dmg resistance getting nerfed/removed since prerounds are taking forever because of the spies tanking miniguns and rockets with it. This would also encourage earlier cloaking for spies.

 

It could be tricky to do the watches but I could try to look into it. As about the Weighdown, I've been trying to fix it so far but I can't find the issue in it. I'll move it bit down my priority list since it isn't the most important mechanic for Hales. For now I'll try to focus on some bugs and balancing of things like weapons which got reworked + new weps which get reworks.

New changes made to post (some were already in the server, excuses for not mentioning this).

• 
  Buffed classic bs damage penalty to -15% instead of -33%
  Nerfed Hale damage force reduction to -40% again (still on all hales)
  HHHJ no longer clips inside players
  Jump timers doubled to 10s rather than 5s
  Bonk! Atomic Punch is enabled once again

 

Sometimes the damage from hits with the sydney sleeper are not registered although the hit does happen (players both get the point from jarate and the hale is inflicted with jarate debuff).

From my experience this seems to happen when a player is between the sniper and the hale, but it I am not sure in this one, this is a recurring and not rare bug, it might also be hard to keep track of since it would require constantly keeping track of the conditions and the damage dealth to the hale.​

I would also like to issue a request to buff the global damage of pyros to counter balance the nerf to pyros survivability, or perhaps gives increased HP to pyro's primary that usually would have airblast.

Related to maps, it would be great to see a small change on:
vsh_skyhigh_resort_b6: Allow players to hit the players on the balloon from the botton of the "basket".

In order to balance a bit, I think removing the random crits from miniguns and blocking its ability to have crits would be a decent idea, that way a rollback to the hale's knockback resistance would be viable and it would also make a fair balance when considering that heavy is a spam based class that although the spam is not as noticeable as pyro's it spams even worse with infinite ammo.

On a side note: Would it be possible to add UberUpgrades to VSH gamemode ?