Remove mom_restart_stage

Ark_

Clickbait title, but the essence of the idea nonetheless. I came to the realization that stage restart has been badly considered in momentum's recent increased scope, and should be rethought and probably reworked massively.

Stage restart was originally added more or less just for surf, and it ma es very little sense in other modes, as thk point of having a stage restart really is to make going for WRCP more pleasant, and therefore only makes sense in modes that even have stage records.

My proposed implementation is mom_restart_zone, which rather than resetting you to the last zone you traveled through, instead resets you (timer included!) to the last zone you manually reset to, via /s or /cp or /b, and defaulting to doing nothing when a teleport zone is not set.

This would of course change the current implementation for surf, but on the whole I hate surf losing stage teleport much less than I hate having a command that is entirely pointless for many of the modes, is now much more useful in practice, and removes the debate for newer game modes of if they are "stage modes" or "checkpoint modes" by simplifying the options significantly.

fingerprince

The problem is that there are differing standards between the gamemode communities. In surf, it's standard practice, in RJ/SJ, bhop I guess, it's not. So Ark, when you write

Ark_ Stage restart was originally added more or less just for surf, and it ma es very little sense in other modes

this seems off. I'd personally like to be able to restart stages on jump maps, in the case of jump maps with completely separate stages with no possibility of transferring speed between them. It's less a question of it "making sense" but what people are used to. In surf, stage restarts are already very well established, and I don't think any of the reasons for removing them hold weight.

hex its fairly easy to make 1 way teleports . . .

Maybe so, but existing maps don't do this. Even if you convinced all surf mappers to change their practice, in the reality the majority of maps we add are going to be existing maps.

Ark_ I think really that surf maps have in general just been designed with the knowledge that reset binds exist

Same issue as above

Ark_ but on the whole I hate surf losing stage teleport much less than I hate having a command that is entirely pointless for many of the modes

This makes no sense. Why be more concerned over internal cleanliness than player experience? It's a bad way of thinking.

hex im against the idea of any sort of teleporting while the timer is on in the first place anyways because it just makes world record runs, subjectively, ugly.

If you're watching a run for the aesthetics, it's likely a WR/top 10/etc and unlikely to have resets.

And Enjoy is right - removing it would just piss people off.

I'm not even sure the case for it being disallowed in all other modes even stacks up - none of the general complaints over reset binds really hold weight imo, at least to the extent of outweighing the argument that stage resets are a nice little convenience that saves you time.

hex

if the point of the stage reset is really to practice wrcps (something you could do anyways with a saved start location that won't be used in a run) then they should be removed entirely, we already have (will have) the ability to do that without mom_restart_stage. a command that helps you practice ILs or go for WRCP and so on (like mom_restart_zone) would be a great idea, just nothing that happens while your timer is still running.

im against the idea of any sort of teleporting while the timer is on in the first place anyways because it just makes world record runs, subjectively, ugly. i've heard people say that they're necessary for quick resets but surely that's just poor map design? it shouldn't take more than at most 2ish seconds to fail in basically any map where the mapper has put in effort to make fails faster. that's also something we can iron out during the map submission process like "hey mapper it takes over 5 seconds of falling if you fail here please add a tele thanks."

Ark_

Yeah quick resets are totally unnecessary, I think just removing the ability to push a button to teleport anywhere in a run should just be removed and the whole thing retooled into a button that resets your timer and it exclusively for partial map runs like WRCP and bonuses.

dmaya

Not being able to restart stage in run would be pretty awful for surf. Nobody wants to wait to fall to a tp trigger in run and I don't think you can just excuse that with poor map design especially in surf. Example: you could have a teleport trigger right under a ramp that requires you to make a huge maxvel flick upwards that you fail and then you have to wait to fall all the way back down to that ramp. The only place you could put that tp trigger is right under the ramp.
To most people playing surf it is much more of a QoL feature than it is a tool for grinding WRCPs.

I'm not as familiar with other modes but if it doesn't make sense then couldn't you just disable it in those modes?

hex

dmaya its fairly easy to make 1 way teleports (you dont hit them going up but do if you fall back down) which would solve that specific type of level. its possible to just enable it for surf and not the other modes but generally its better to avoid having a whitelist for every command for each mode because that gets very messy very fast as more commands need that treatment.

i know surf is different because you can't really control how fast you fall (where in rocket jumping you can shoot yourself downwards to fail faster for example) but watching a run and seeing someone randomly teleport would be a shame in my mind.

... or even if the map geometry is big and too complicated for that mappers can individually enable it on their maps by having a giant tele trigger on each stage that +use or so will activate and reset the player to the start. the vast majority of maps should, with a fraction of the effort it takes to actually make a fun and enjoyable map, be able to spend an hour thinking about how long it takes to fail and adding QoL teles in a few places.

Ark_

dmaya I think really that surf maps have in general just been designed with the knowledge that reset binds exist, so rather than make geometry that allows for line variation and quick fails people just make large boxes with cursory fail triggers. It's also way less annoying to have to wait 1 or 2 seconds to fail than you might think if you've never had to, in conc for example it takes 3 seconds for a conc to go off in the first place, so you have to wait at least that long after messing up to explode yourself into a fail trigger if you haven't hit one already.

Superchuck

hex watching a run and seeing someone randomly teleport would be a shame in my mind.

hex

fingerprince If you're watching a run for the aesthetics, it's likely a WR/top 10/etc and unlikely to have resets.

in surf yes in rj and sj absolutely not true. if that's the deciding factor i'm fine having it exist for just some modes and not others (specifically surf/bhop vs rj/sj but any of the other gamemodes can be decided later thats not super relevant right now).

hex its possible to just enable it for surf and not the other modes but generally its better to avoid having a whitelist for every command for each mode because that gets very messy very fast as more commands need that treatment.

e2 (i hit enter accidentally don't judge my edits plz):

fingerprince Maybe so, but existing maps don't do this. Even if you convinced all surf mappers to change their practice, in the reality the majority of maps we add are going to be existing maps.

every map being added should be ported and go through our map submission process regardless, including potential community-approved fixes for stuff like strats that are banned on servers. i can't imagine adding teles to reduce waiting would be a controversial thing to add to maps during this process

Enjoy

If you remove stage resets in surf when timer is on you will have an onslaught of pissed off players i can guarantee you.

Also Surf is so optimized i dont think there is any WR's where someone uses a reset because that would already kill the run by a mile so unless you are bothered by someone on top 100 having a tp in the replay i really dont see why you would upset so many ppl for 0 pay off.

Other modes i completely agree.

Ark_

Enjoy i wouldn't expect it to be immediately popular, but it only effect half of all maps in the first place, and a little bit of fail trigger modification would make it moot on the maps where its really an issue in the first place. That said I don't think adding similar functionality in every mode is necessarily a great idea either, or completely blocking it in some modes. Maybe just allowing mappers to decide when zoning if a zone can be reset into is enough, rather than a "stage" being a resettable zone and a "checkpoint" being a non resettable zone. Instead any zone can have the reset property added, and "stage" is a zone with a tracked WRCP, and "checkpoint" is a zone that provides splits for comparison between runs.

fingerprince This makes no sense. Why be more concerned over internal cleanliness than player experience? It's a bad way of thinking.

It's not about internal cleanliness, it's really about external consistency. Any difference in how the various functions that momentum itself provides that is different between modes and contexts is complexity that needs to be explained and internalized by the player base. There are many things developed separately between the various communities that i think could be combined into a single system that works the same everywhere. It's about game feel too, the more similar modes are the more momentum itself feels like a monolith, rather than desperate modes tacked together.

fingerprince

Ark_ In practice this feels like a very minor issue, we already have a configurable bind for it and it seems fine. With ongoing work on the settings UI we can even make it clearer what modes it's configurable for if we want to. And generally yeah, if we can reduce complexity of parts of the same and make it more accessible to new players then great, but that's not our only goal, we want to make a game that existing players want to play. I don't see why we'd want to change a well-established mechanic in surf, something that existing players are obviously going to notice, for the sake of a minor UX improvement.

Ark_

Gocnak To be clear, I don't really think removing stage teleport is a good idea, I like bringing up concepts like this and asking strange questions because I find you often find good solutions by examining and dissecting bad ones. I did end up on a reasonable suggestion in this case too, quoted here:

Ark_ Maybe just allowing mappers to decide when zoning if a zone can be reset into is enough, rather than a "stage" being a resettable zone and a "checkpoint" being a non resettable zone. Instead any zone can have the reset property added, and "stage" is a zone with a tracked WRCP, and "checkpoint" is a zone that provides splits for comparison between runs.

Gocnak And all the while, have you considered KZ? They require teleporting anywhere basically (except ladders and midair I believe), so what about them?

KZ I consider a special case, for one its using saveloc's, which are user placed in real time, not mapper placed, second its more or less integral to how the game mode is played in the first place, its a mechanic, not a QoL feature. My base argument has no legs from that perspective, an argument for conformity has no place there as its the differences in constraints that differentiates gamemodes from each other in the first place. You might try to argue that if 2 gamemodes do the same thing they should do it the same way, but i don't really think that works. One could consider different gamemodes to be a series of convar settings and weapons that change the mode from some hypothetical proto source movement game, and it's exactly those differences that make them interesting in the first place, or everyone would just play the same thing.

hex

fingerprince With ongoing work on the settings UI we can even make it clearer what modes it's configurable for if we want to

this will make per-gamemode cvar configuration stuff bearable assuming we end up with a nice implementation & people start to use that instead of the console. even then i'd still reaaally prefer to not have "command is allowed in x y but not in abc" and people are not going to like this feature of just randomly teleporting yourself during runs coming from TF2

Ark_

fingerprince I'm not going to pretend like this is actually a massive problem, because you are super right that it isn't. However I do think that its at least worth considering if the choices that we make when we only had 2 modes are things that still make sense and that we would do the same way now.

Gocnak

Huh, this was not the direction I was expecting this to go. I was more on board with asking the jump community what they thought about allowing mom_restart_zone to teleport them back to the start of a jump (with all explosives fizzled) after they leave the trigger for it, very akin to how restart_stage works for surf, while the timer is running.

While I think teleports in the middle of a run are jank, yeah, the teleport is to a place the player already traveled to so the watcher is well aware of where they went. Also as mentioned, optimized (WR/top10/group<3) runs are ideally not teleporting.

And all the while, have you considered KZ? They require teleporting anywhere basically (except ladders and midair I believe), so what about them?

zer0k_z

Gocnak And all the while, have you considered KZ? They require teleporting anywhere basically (except ladders and midair I believe), so what about them?

You can set a checkpoint anywhere that isn't in midair or on water (which is basically mid air). Surf ramps are also considered mid air.

You can't set a checkpoint on bhop blocks either. The next version of GOKZ will include mapper-defined triggers that disables checkpoint in specific places.

Any kind of manual teleport in KZ will make your run a TP run and not a PRO run. If you fail a surf ramp in a pro run you must wait the entire duration of the fall.

So basically teleporting to stage start option would be a checkpoint that happens to be set by the mapper instead of the player. You can use it, sure, but it will count as a TP run.

hex

Gocnak I was more on board with asking the jump community what they thought about allowing mom_restart_zone to teleport them back to the start of a jump (with all explosives fizzled) after they leave the trigger for it, very akin to how restart_stage works for surf, while the timer is running.

you can ask but this won't be popular unless im very mistaken. it's not how tempus works in TF2 so people will almost definitely prefer having this due to the previously mentioned subjective "it is ugly to see someone teleport in a run" issue.

Gocnak Also as mentioned, optimized (WR/top10/group<3) runs are ideally not teleporting.

ideally doesn't matter because 100% RJ/SJ records are going to have fails in them. they do in tf2 and that's going to be made worse by momentum mod having no existing times and much less competition for the first ₆ months or so of its public release when nobody from other gamemodes is good enough to set competitive times.

Gocnak And all the while, have you considered KZ? They require teleporting anywhere basically (except ladders and midair I believe), so what about them?

also i don't think this is relevant. like ark said those are more just limited savelocs that kz wants players to use because of the lack of fail teleports in lots of areas, not really comparable to resetting to a previously touched stage zone.

i'm personally fine with keeping mom_restart_stage in surf because there's both precedent and an actual reason for them (you can't control how fast you fail, most maps don't give you ways to reset faster) even if my preference would be to remove them completely. i would not be fine with this being in jump however for all of the reasons ive mentioned above. you can ask more people in #general-rj / -sj but so far 2/2 jumpers in this thread have said the same thing and i can't imagine the general opinion would be any different.

fingerprince

hex I think it's worth discussing a bit further at some point (probably closer to zone overhaul work) as this seems to be several minor discrepancies between the surf and bhop zones and RJ and SJ.

I also should note that I looked into stuff a bit more today, and there's also bhop and ahop maps on the map browser where stage restarts work just fine, so it's not the case that stage restarts are unique to surf.

I just don't see any merit to the idea of changing how mom_restart_stage affect gamemodes that already use it, and Ark I just can't get my head around the idea of letting mappers specify whether you can stage restart. Not only does it seem like complete overengineering, but at that point it doesn't even seem clear what problem you're trying to solve.

Ark_

fingerprince I just can't get my head around the idea of letting mappers specify whether you can stage restart. Not only does it seem like complete overengineering, but it doesn't even seem clear what problem you're even trying to solve at that point.

Well its currently exactly what it means to be a stage isn't it? Currently there are 2 differences between a stage and a checkpoint:

Stages track WRCP, and are resettable via bind
Checkpoints track splits, and are not resettable via bind

My point is that this model doesn't work well outside of surf really, as previously stated surf is the only mode where it's really necessary to have fast fails bound to a button like this. Maybe its enough to just make it so only surf can stage reset, but when you consider that some modes like RJ can use their mechanics directly to help speed up the process of hitting the fail trigger adding a button to streamline that process is really pretty minor.

Gocnak I do think that adding a QoL feature everywhere is generally better than removing it everywhere, and of course i'm always going to be down with more consistency between modes. Consitency with the previous community is also one of the weaker arguments i think, after all momentum isn't supposed to be just tf2 or just css, but a new game that has the ability to make changes and be a fresh start.

cowboyana

I really like a suggestion I heard from elandi to have a button to increase host_timescale dramatically and possibly disable input. I've tried changing timescale mid run and it already works well in replays, showing everything at standard time scale on replay. It would make long fails much less annoying without affecting times or having ugly replays. I'm not sure if part of the reason surf has reset stage ability is to intentionally make fails less punishing to runs, but if the only reason the feature is in surf is to make playing maps less frustrating this seems like a very cool idea to me.