What should be shown on the radar map?

[Molgan]

So, according to your reasoning, using teamspeak to relay enemy positions is a massive negative to the flow and gameplay.

What's the practical difference between saying "Manta at node six" and the minimap displaying a Manta at node six anyway? It's not as if a huge icon on a small map lets you know exactly where to fire.

Seriously, you should try the A.S.S. ONS HUD mutator sometimes, so you know what it's like.

I would like to play the game myself with as little interference from automated stuff as possible and keep my eyes on the action instead of a hud. I don't want an expensive screen saver, I want a game. ^^

No seriously I could live with a A.S.S. like mutator since on public servers that thing wouldn't do much harm, but not having it as default settings. It would hurt competitive team play in so many ways.

[Jake-SF]

In what way? Explain. I see absolutely nothing wrong with it, and "competitive gamers" would say everything that would be shown anyway.

[Brutal]

If it showed flag carrier it would suck cuss u would get killed fast, its funn to go with the flag and no 1 knows where u at and u got 2 be sneaky!! !

[MatrixJCE]

Firstly, I would like everyone to know that i read through the entirity of these posts and although i am not making any suggestions as far as epic is concerned, these are my thoughts to the general conversation.
It first became clear to me that radar is something that we assume we know something about, whether or not it is because we have simply played millions of games that have initiated a radar kind of gameplay throughout or if it is because we have heard of it's advantages it has given humankind throughout the past. The first step in trying to decide what radar should do, i thought maybe we should first understand what it does do right now and try and realize how it should be "unreal" (I believe that an 'unreal' twist should be spinned on the radar system as well, however i am new to the series and don't know exactly how 'unreal' this game is going to get i am not going to go into much depth on what i think the radar should be capable of doing.

The Following is from Wikipedia:

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. A transmitter emits radio waves, which are reflected by the target and detected by a receiver, typically in the same location as the transmitter. Although the radio signal returned is usually very weak, radio signals can easily be amplified. This enables a radar to detect objects at ranges where other emissions, such as sound or visible light, would be too weak to detect. Radar is used in many contexts, including meteorological detection of precipitation, air traffic control, police detection of speeding traffic, and by the military. It was originally called RDF (Radio Direction Finder) in Britain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for Radio Detection and Ranging. The term has since entered the English language as a standard word, radar, losing the capitalization in the process.

If we base the radar system from the above definition, we could only assume that it is going to show us everything from standing objects to moving objects. I also grant that we assume the radar system will show us our terrain, for instance a solid line might indicate a wall or a building, and a door way might be a dashed line or something along those lines.

We expect our radar to tell us something about the environment, at least that is my expectation. The way i imagine radar working is more or less like a ping sort of thing that you see in under water submarines. The only exception to this is that instead of the pings being at intervals it is a more continuous ping that allows for a constant visual on the radar map. Of course a ping will only go so far and reflect so far back. So about 50-100 ft should suffice as far as this is concerned IMHO. This would support the next thought posted by Xyx.

Originally Posted By Xyx:

They should fade after a while unless they continue to make visual contact.

This would allow for a team to do reconance or spy work with either a sole person trying to invade and show others the defense on a particular node or for a complete expansion strategy spawning out trying to cover as much land as possible.

The strategic value of this is very cool. Say for instance the map shows people as dots and pings only once and a while (once every 1.5 seconds). My team of sixteen people could theoritically walk all together by the side of the map and if anyone saw me on the radar, they might only see one larger dot because of the large amount of bodies. This would in a sense destroy the use of the enemies radar because sixteen bodies walking on the side and only being one on the radar could destroy the enemy when they thought it was only one enemy flanking the left and instead it is the entire military. Enough trying to explain this idea though.

Originally posted by bazzwano:

where's the option to leave it how it is.. EPIC know what they are doing.. and Id trust them over the community's opinions any day.

In many of the other forums i have constantly seen posts like this, and from many of the people who have gotten, what should i say, uptight or concerned about this issue. We must trust in what epic is doing because it is what we have to deal with. Our ideas on this thread are more then likely not read, and even if they are the possibilities that they actually might be implemented into gameplay this far into development are very slim if none (except map names!).

As far as personal speculation without knowing what epic is doing since i have never played an unreal series, I would hope that the radar would take into consideration that most people that play this game are not going to have mics, That they are not going to be the type of players that care about ranking systems or anything along those lines. To encourage the average gamer to at least help in a team goal should be epic's interst. I consider my self a very aggressive player and do whatever i can to make myself better and that means using everything that is given to me. I have a mic and consider my self lucky, if the radar only shows terrain then my teammates and myself can call out things over the headset, but imagine if you or i didn't have a mic and played just with the game music and the visuals, wouldn't it suck to play a game where you never new where the action was? Theoritically of course.

[Mort_Q]

EPIC was experimenting with a lot of stuff to do with teamwork and commanders and the like, which led to the optional AI Commander. I'm curious as to what the tried, and what got cut, and what became a mutator.

[General.Jung]

Hello Forum,

has Unreal Tournament III a radar in CTF and i what other modes and is this fix?

[Poker]

Seriously, you should try the A.S.S. ONS HUD mutator sometimes, so you know what it's like.

Do you have a link handy?

http://forums.assgaming.com/forumdisplay.php?f=85


& thanks for the kind words Xyx


edit: For the record... I agree with above posts that extra info in the radar would negate some of the need for team communication in comp play. In practice though, it does not actually hurt the game at all, rather, it simply makes coordination easier.

For pub servers, on the other hand, it's just the thing ... IM-ever-so-HO

[Molgan]

Ok I tried the A.S.S. mut and really good work I must say.

Having team info there was really nice, and I didn't have to scale up the map to see the icons. Think we will add this to our server asap. Tried turning enemy info on too and it made camping the prime on Torlan even more convenient..

Enemy info would kill all tactical attempts in comp matches thou, even the on-sight-then-fade idea. Throw up a raptor in the sky, quick-scan the area and know exactly what your opponents are up to for a couple of seconds. There are probably tons of other ways to exploit it too. No more surprise attacks, decoy moves etc, and some of the psychology is lost. Also, if the opponents want to find out what we are up to and come up with counter measures they must have to work for it imo. The team with the best communication, tactics and team work should win.

In warfare there is already a Incoming Orb Carrier announcement and that is enough.

[Phear]

I only get to play offline and one thing that always got me about 2k4 was the bots always seemed to know where the flag carrier was so i had to check enemy orb\flag carriers.

[ProjectUT]

What should be there?

Plasyer's names, so I can freakin frag them when they **** me off.

But honestly, maybe team mates positions would be usefull, the rest is just going to clutter things up!

[Mental]

1: I would like to see the health status of all players.
2: I would like to see the location of all players.
3: I would like to see the weapon status of all players.(ex:firing,not firing,idle)
4: I would like to see....

OMG...i just had a revelation!!! I could just download any aimbot for my PC and be done with it.(sarcasim)

I know none of these things were in the poll,was just having a laugh....but seriously,i never liked radar of any form for anything....it just takes the stealth and surprise out of the game.....there's nothing like rounding a corner with team in tow and seeing a Leviathan driving straight towards you!!!!(Surprise!!!)

[Nitrous]

why we want to know the location of our enemy in the map.......
in all the unreal saga that's never appear cuz that gives to the game a higher level of difficult...... and i like that...

[Mort_Q]

This is certainly interesting.

You can change roles at any time. All the role does is change what orders you are given and what things highlight on your mini map. There are no "classes" really. The game just tries to auto-organize the team.