Guns Of Icarus Online

Info => Feedback and Suggestions => Topic started by: Helmic on April 16, 2013, 02:26:36 pm

Title: Match replays
Post by: Helmic on April 16, 2013, 02:26:36 pm
As carefully controlled as the game is, would it be possible to include an option to save a replay at the end of a match?  Aside from allowing for some sweet videos of matches like tournaments, it'd allow for people to look back and see what they did wrong a la Starcraft or allow for people to include replays when reporting players.  Done correctly the replays themselves shouldn't use much space on the user's hard drive at all, the hard part would just be implementation and making a replay viewer.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: RaptorSystems on April 27, 2013, 10:08:04 pm
If you think about it there already is a replay viewer of sorts, spectator mode.

However, I'm not going to be so bold as to assume what would be the hardest part to develop.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Helmic on April 28, 2013, 10:33:00 am
If you think about it there already is a replay viewer of sorts, spectator mode.

However, I'm not going to be so bold as to assume what would be the hardest part to develop.

...what are you talking about?
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Phoebe on April 28, 2013, 10:34:41 am
If you think about it there already is a replay viewer of sorts, spectator mode.

However, I'm not going to be so bold as to assume what would be the hardest part to develop.

I find it quite difficult to spectate a match I'm playing myself...
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Helmic on April 28, 2013, 10:43:03 am
If you think about it there already is a replay viewer of sorts, spectator mode.

However, I'm not going to be so bold as to assume what would be the hardest part to develop.

I find it quite difficult to spectate a match I'm playing myself...

Or one that you weren't a part of, unless you really like not having camera control.

The idea is that you can actually go through a match and see where you or someone else messe up, figure out why your ship wasn't dealing any damage or how the hell your enemy managed to sneak up behind you or how Cogs engineers jump around their ships in different situations.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: dragonmere on April 28, 2013, 11:56:58 am
A replay option would be sublime, but I'd settle for a log of the top left windowpane, the 'damage report'. Maybe with time-stamps. That, theoretically, would require very little work for the coding team.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Helmic on April 28, 2013, 05:13:31 pm
A replay option would be sublime, but I'd settle for a log of the top left windowpane, the 'damage report'. Maybe with time-stamps. That, theoretically, would require very little work for the coding team.

I don't know whether attack logs would prove all that useful to players, though, given how easy they are to misread.  Seriously, just try playing on any game that bans people for attacking others unprovoked or without certain conditions (like Space Station 13).  You will be banned within the week.  An admin will inevitably look at the attack logs, see that you attacked someone without getting hit back, and ban you without realizing the only reason you weren't hit was because the guy you killed was trying to force open an airlock separating you from deadly neurotoxins.

The information is just too incomplete to make any real use of it.  So much of GoI is positioning and where two ships are relative to each other can make a "Random Asshole destroyed Hull Armor" either virtually meaningless or a real gamechanger.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: N-Sunderland on April 28, 2013, 05:20:15 pm
I've also noticed that the damage logs can be inaccurate. Sometimes I snipe an engine out on an enemy ship while none of my teammates are firing, and it'll say "Teammate X destroyed Chung's Choice Standard" or whatever.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Moo on April 28, 2013, 05:27:20 pm
Could that possibly be that your team mate had previously started a fire in that component, which finished it off after your snipe? Just a guess really.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: N-Sunderland on April 28, 2013, 05:51:42 pm
Nope. This happens a lot, and it's definitely occured when  they weren't any fires.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Urz on April 28, 2013, 06:28:08 pm
This is the number one feature I want to see in Guns of Icarus.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Veta on August 20, 2013, 02:27:37 pm
This is definitely a feature I want in the game too.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Keon on August 20, 2013, 03:16:34 pm
Games pretty much need to be designed with this in mind if they want to save replays. You can't just say you are going to store the state of the game for every single frame. For example, in starcraft, a replay would say "These 10 marines are ordered to move here at this time."

That's just my memory.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Kharthynogus on August 20, 2013, 05:49:17 pm
Yeah, game replays are usually just a log of the actions taken and the events that occur. It makes for an extremely small file.

As a result, the game engine itself has to be used in order to view it.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Calico Jack on August 20, 2013, 09:40:33 pm
Streaming software that records to disk is freely available - it's fairly painless to set up.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Urz on August 20, 2013, 11:13:29 pm
Streaming software that records to disk is freely available - it's fairly painless to set up.
A non-dynamic video only shows what was on the recorder's screen. You get a single shot of the scene, and generally very little information about what is actually happening on the ships. True replays would allow one to see an engagement from every angle, give one access to what each player in the game is doing at any point in the match, as well as any action the cameraman might have missed.

It's not comparable.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Calico Jack on August 21, 2013, 12:20:38 am
I sense you're looking at TF2 when you write that. You're right it's not comparable. It also doesn't exist for GoI. Better a bird in the hand than 2 in the bush kind of thing.

Have your buddy spectate your match if you want more camera angles and run the two stream side by side.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Keon on August 21, 2013, 12:25:42 am
I sense you're looking at TF2 when you write that. You're right it's not comparable. It also doesn't exist for GoI. Better a bird in the hand than 2 in the bush kind of thing.

Have your buddy spectate your match if you want more camera angles and run the two stream side by side.


Actually I was looking at starcraft. TF2 has replays?
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Calico Jack on August 21, 2013, 12:33:56 am
On selected servers you can record your match yes.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Urz on August 21, 2013, 12:36:43 am
It also doesn't exist for GoI.
Thus why we're asking it be considered as a feature at some point.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Calico Jack on August 21, 2013, 01:03:36 am
Thing is it may not be possible to retro fit. Look for the discussion on the map scales, or the sights on the heavy flak models for examples of what I mean.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Mr.Bando on June 02, 2014, 08:15:47 am
Old bump but yes. If you are able to save all crew and ship actions into a file where it can be rebuilt into a match replay, it would give the competitive scene a much needed boon. Commentators can analyse and choose better angles of the action. Players can store and share some of their best moments with others. Also a good learning tool for new captains, gunners and engineers alike
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Mr.Bando on June 03, 2014, 04:59:26 am
The server and client exchange info during the course of the game. Is it possible to collect and save all this data into a file and then use all the data to reconstruct the game? Being able to have this kind of replay to allow you to watch from any ship or players perspective and watch it many times.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Imagine on June 03, 2014, 11:22:07 am
This had been talked about before and from what I understand the technical aspects of doing something like this was the restricting factor. The only way to do replays would be if you had Unity to run it with or something like that.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Watchmaker on June 05, 2014, 10:26:21 am
This is a thing that would be cool, but as some people have suggested requires a bunch of effort to work well.

Mr.Bando is on the right track for how I'd do this.  Recording that data isn't hard (and is useful enough for debugging that I already have a version of it), but replaying it in a coherent fashion within the game client is a bit trickier.

Though, due to the way we handle visibility, this would mean that replays of the same match will be different for different players (you receive less frequent updates about e.g. player positions on distant other ships, and may not receive information at all if said ship is far enough away or inside cloud cover...)

In short, yes, this is a thing I think about doing.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Omniraptor on June 05, 2014, 05:09:51 pm
It would be nice to have a recording tool, even if we don't have a playback tool yet. That way we could save matches now and then brag about our awesome games later when you get around to adding playback support.
Title: Re: Match replays
Post by: Milevan Faent on June 06, 2014, 12:57:18 am
It would be nice to have a recording tool, even if we don't have a playback tool yet. That way we could save matches now and then brag about our awesome games later when you get around to adding playback support.

Assuming they ever do.