Random spawn times is essentially what it sounds like, the minimum time until you can respawn is totally randomized.
The random spawn times is something that has been in QW since the release which seemingly noone has thought about until jawn made his jawnmode modification. Basically what it does is to roll an imaginary 5-sided die each time you get killed, and determines the minimum time you have to wait until you can respawn from death like this:
1-3: 900 ms
4: 1100 ms
5: 1500 ms

As you can see, you'll have a 3/5 chance to get 900 ms and 1/5 to get 1100 or 1500 ms respectively.
If you're gibbed, the respawn time is always 0 ms which can be bothersome when you were meant to shoot the opponent with that mouseclick but it lagged onto your death animation and caused you to respawn clumsily.

My question is: Has this any meaning at all more than "it's been in the code all this time"?
I can't see any reason myself why it should remain so I propose to make all death scenes a standard minimum respawn delay of 900 ms, same as jawnmode and the delay with the highest probability.

It might be only me who is puzzled about this, but I have to check and see if people are really enjoying this old "feature" or if they just haven't thought about it yet.

Heh, i allways wondered why some spawns takes so long "jump, jump, shoot wtf"
Not sure what to say about it, guess it adds some frustration and randomness wich may not be only bad. Still, its the guy who got shot who has to pay the price, making his comeback harder.
Hmm, i vote yes, change this to 900ms as a standard :>

Leave everything as it is today.

so it can be either 0,900,1100 or 1500?

i vote always 500


but seriously it would be confusing, as all servers wouldnt get updated right away

Why not base it on the severity of the death. Gibbed deaths take longer than a fallen death etc ?

What he said. Other than that it seems weird with different values, especially as they are random.

If you're wondering why the spawn times are random, here's why (I hope I remember all this correctly):
When your character dies, it has to play a death animation during which time you're not able to respawn. There are 5 animations for dying with the gun and 1 for dying with the axe. The gun animations are randomized equally, but 3 of them takes 900 ms to play, 1 takes 1100 ms and 1 takes 1500 ms. The axe animation also takes 900 ms, so if you die with the axe you won't suffer any randomness (assuming you're not gibbed of course). Since the dying body is actually your own model, if you had respawned before the animation fully played, your body would lay on the ground in the middle of a dying animation which wouldn't look very good, so you're stopped from respawning until the animation has fully played.
So basically, the reasons are pretty much technical I guess, ID probably didn't think about any gameplay impact this would have.

^Based on what you've said there, surely it means that it is best to use an axe script compared to a sg script, because this increases the chances of you holding the axe when you die and thus a guaranteed "fast spawn" opportunity of under 1s? Whereas sgscript users play lotto as to whether they get 0.9s, 1.1s or 1.5s.

With gibbing granting the fastest spawns of all, it could also present strategic opportunities in duels. Basically if you are facing a newly spawned player, you splash him with a rocket so he is very weak. If you use another rocket, you risk gibbing him thus allowing a very speedy spawn before you get in position. Whereas polishing him off with say sg or lg could potentially mean a min 1.5s delay on his spawn.

I reckon it would be best to fix this so all spawns have the same time. Remove the lotto aspect from the game, apart from anything else it is really frustrating and I'm sure I broke mouse1 on my old Mouseman wheel from mashing the button to spawn all those years ago!

Exactly HangTime, you'll have a strategic advantage if you use axe-scripts since you'll then get a non-random spawn delay (0.9 s).

an disadvantage might be that the opponents will know who are who, if only one in the team uses the axe-script.

Also the opponent will be more sure if the pack after killed opponnent contains RL or axe

The respawn-ability isnt available until AFTER the animation sequence, last anim frame calls playerdead()



which is used to set self.deadflag = DEAD_DEAD

which is then caught in PlayerPreThink

and then, finally, waits for a button button to be pressed in PlayerDeathThink, phew!

It's true, some animation sequences take longer than others, yet the average delay is ~1033ms.

Just force the respawn delay to ONE standard value for ALL players...


and use this instead...


Or to hell with all that and just gib all players on death

Yes!

SputnikUtah:

2 seconds until respawn sounds like a long time to wait

Yes, these are precisely the reasons why I've never used an axe script until now (although also because many years ago in UK scene axe/sg scripts were seen as lame/cheating, and a sg script is easier to disguise!). The main one is that it if you get killed at long range, if opponent can see axe then he knows not to run over for your pack, he can just leave it.

Plus also like you say some players like Blaze (tVS) and Insane (HGC) used to use axe script and were easy to recognise and hunt down. However now that I know this I would ensure that my whole team uses axe script, so there would be no disadvantage.

I'd like to see as many as possible to give their vote/comment here, if enough wants the random spawntimes to be removed it's possible to see that actual change on the future servers.

For once I have to agree.

What you are basically trying to do is to change some randomness away that has been there for a decade (like with yawnmode). Wait for the player to respawn and then frag him again if you can, just don't hope 100% frag from that certain spawn if you fire towards it when you get someone fragged.



What routine? If player decides to slow spawn, how on earth is anything you've used to when seeing spawns happen going to help?

The reason I don't like the random spawn times is not because I feel that it impairs my ability to spawnfrag, but something entirely different. What bothers me (a lot!) is when you're in an ingame fight and both you as well as your enemy die, leaving a pack behind. And while you're hammering on your mouse buttons, thinking "WHY THE FUCK AM I NOT RESPAWNING?!#%$&" you hear or see enemy already having spawned and running towards the pack, getting it before you do.
I might not fully share Molgrum's "mission to abandon randomness completely", but to me these random spawn times are a luck-factor that doesn't need to exist.

yes remove the randomness!

The routine is meant from the spawners POV, not from the spawnfraggers POV. If you try /yawnmode on for example povdmm4 and feel the difference when you get fragged and want to respawn, you get a much (I have to be honest) more smooth feeling with constant minimum spawn times.

Edit: And, this will also possibly make avoiding spawntelefrags more of a skill since the 0 ms spawntime will be gone.

The simpler the rules are, the better the game is, in my opinion. That's why I don't think the "strategic opportunities" HangTime mentioned are worth this. Soma had a very strong argument here also, he forgot to mention that the weaker player in such fight - who has higher chance of getting gibbed - has a great advantage in such situation. I mean 1 second in QW is a hell lot of time.

personally

1on1 / 2on2 / 4on4 - the code should remain the same

ffa - respawn should be instantly available after death as soon as player decides to request it

Then you'll also have to remove the random spawn place, or one of the guys may have luck to respawn in a spot closer to the pack!

That is a luck-factor, that DOES need to exist, therefore your logic doesn't work here.

Mine or his?

i have to agree with soma. it's most frustrating when you're in a hurry to get to a certain spot and you can't spawn and the other gets an advantage by spawning faster

I don't care about povdmm4 or any dmm4 tbh when thinking about this.

I know I feel sometimes that I need to spawn faster while it's not going to happen. However, it's the same for everyone so it's hardly uneven/unfair. Game results are not decided by random spawn times these days, it's the skill and map knowledge what gives you victories.


No it wouldn't, unless you're not so great player who doesn't think before and after fragging. Just go watch some griffin/reppie/fifi demos and check if they get telefragged a lot. Even if I try to avoid spawns when hearing/seeing deaths or deathmessages, I still get telefragged from time to time and guess why? (hint: it has something to do with skill/awareness).


It's the little things that make QW. Go on changing things and soon there's something else than QW left.

Sorry but I just had to quote this for truth, especially the first part. Before you understand what you have said.

Agree with Renzo!

Let's stick to answering the very basic question:

if your bad at qw you wanna change everything, just learn how to play the damn game correctly and then you will realize that its perfectly balanced.

Get to KNOW the game first guys.. come up to div2-3 AT LEAST before you get this crazy ideas in your heads, so goes for airstep and other shit... gosh I thought we were over this