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Widgets vs Cheating

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quote:
Now, GBC is technically in a fresh install but is disabled (anyone can use it, they just need to enable it).
Similarly, by default phantoms fire at radar dots, but if you go into unit states you can make it so by default they don't, substantially improving their usefulness (they basically never hit radar dots). (I think AUrankAdminGoogleFrog is the only person I've seen who places this sort of thing in a different category to GBC)

GBrankdyth68 I wasn't aware that you still don't see the differences. Here are how I see the levels of customisation.

Level 0


Everything you can do without exploring the UI that much or reading any tooltips. This excludes everything found at the top left of the screen, most commands that cannot be issued with a right click, and state toggles. The game should be fun, playable and look bug-free at this level. Phantoms fire at radar dots by default because having a unit fail to fire, even if explicitly told to, looks like a bug at Level 0.

Level 1


Everything you can do with a basic unmodified UI. This excludes everything in the Settings or Hotkeys Menu (F10), the widget list (Alft+F11) and tweak mode (Ctrl+F11). At this level you can change states such as a Phantom's Fire At Radar state. You can also place retreat zones and set retreat levels. Various tooltips may be read to learn about the game, such as the tooltips for terraform placement

Level 2


Everything you can do with Simple Settings ticked in the Menu. This includes toggling particularly common or useful options such as camera scroll speeds, the size and left/right position of the minimap, unit outlines and whether the cursor is locked to the window.

A lot of configuration is available at this level because the entirety of the Hotkeys and Settings/Unit Behaviour menus are available. Players can modify just about any hotkey here and set units to default any behaviour that can be set via state toggles. I expect most people to play Zero-K somewhere between Levels 1 and 2.

Level 3


Everything available when Simple Settings is unticked. This is the first level at which a player might void their warranty, but the options here should be designed to make that difficult. Tweak mode exists at this level, allowing players to reposition the UI panels. Many overlays, such as healthbars and command visibility, are able to be toggled and adjusted. The advanced graphics options are here, with the simple ones being in the non-game menu.

Level 4


Everything available when Show Advanced Settings is toggled in Settings/Misc. There are very few advanced settings, and most are debug options, so the big change at this level is access to the widget list. At this point the player has definitely void their warranty as the widget list offers many ways to break your game.

Widgets can be moved between Levels 3 and 4 with the addition or removal of a settings menu button that toggles the widget. Some widgets, such as GBC, were relegated from Level 3 to Level 4 for being too buggy or failing to teach the user how to use them to such an extent that they look buggy. Many could probably be moved to Level 3 if anyone wants to put the work in. A few of the widgets here are holdovers that have not yet revealed themselves to be too broken to exist.

Level 5


You are at customisation Level 5 if you know how to find and install publicly available widgets. There is no central widget repository so it is hard to know what is at this level, and "publicly available" exists on a wide spectrum. Popular or useful Level 5 widgets can be included and moved anywhere from Level 0 to Level 4.

Particularly useful widgets that languish at Level 5 tend to do so due to bugs, idiosyncrasies or jank. If someone writes a widget for themselves then it is not necessarily going to be usable by others. In recent times this tends to be because targeting widgets include a level of jank (force-overriding unit states and player orders) that the creator knows about and is happy to work around during play, but which would look buggy and frustrating to most others. They also have troubling performance implications that are unsolvable without starting over and implementing the same behaviour with different tools.

Other widgets languish at Level 5 simply because they would make the game worse. The LLT Disco widget would be terrible if widely used, and not just for the performance implications. No good solution has been devised. I don't want to start making 'arbitrary' rules about what can and cannot force fire at the ground, but I will if action is required and no better solution is found.

Level 6


At Level 6 you are writing and tweaking your own widgets. Keeping useful widgets to yourself is frowned upon.

Level 7


At Level 7 you are hacking around restrictions placed on widgets or compiling your own version of the Spring engine for some benefit. This level is not allowed.

quote:
Do you get my confusion about what you mean by "mod"? Could you elaborate on where the boundary lies?

The boundary is at Level 5. Anything below Level 5 is not a mod.

To answer the question. Don't Fire at Radar is discoverable at Level 1 and can be permanently configured at Level 2. GBC is Level 4. Artemis overkill AI is Level 5. I have not seen the Artemis AI widget but, judging from the other targeting AI widgets I have seen, my guess is that it works as follows:
  • Sets Artemis to Hold Fire, essentially overriding that state for the end user without explaining how it works.
  • Either periodically asks Spring to get all enemy units in a cylinder around the Artemis (a very slow operation) and check their unitDefID against a target filter, or keep track of every enemy unit that has entered radar or LOS and periodically filter them based on unitDefID and whether they are in range (a relatively slow operation).
  • Issues Attack commands, potentially overriding attack commands given by the user.
It could be written to not override attack commands and to require the user to set it to hold fire in order to function. This would still be bad default UI as the firestate would have hidden meaning, invisible to the user, and the whole behaviour would be undiscoverable. Furthermore the effectiveness of the widget would depend on latency.

"Just make and advertise a public widget repository" is not a solution!
+13 / -0


4 years ago
@GoogeFrog:
While that was an interesting and informative post (that should probably be bookmarked and/or put on the wiki) when I talked about "a different category to GBC" I was thinking more in terms of what should/shouldn't be allowed (as for some reason I thought you didn't like the level 4 stuff, probably a brainfart by me).

Also, I am curious about what SGrankLu5ck sees as a mod. I am unsure they'd be happy with FIrankterve886's mods just because they were moved from level 5 to level 4.
+0 / -0
GBrankdyth68
Yes, for now. If these advantages are all made available on client then it is up to the users themselves to enable or disable it, without needing to dig for them throughout god knows how big the internet is. The main thing is it is available and accessible for all users and therefore the playing field is leveled.
+4 / -1
googlefrog what have you done.. you went and said levels.. now people will see level 7 hacking as pro and defeating you as a boss fight
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Lets admit a simple reality - games are unfair. Chess has black and white. I'm not even mentioning real life. While some people would arguably be better at a game with dumb units and no widgets, others would be better at a game with automation and widgets. This is a fight not worth taking, as there is no winning strategy. The only rational way forward that I see is to forget about "Widgets vs Cheating" problem entirely, and encourage widget sharing so it does not break the game too hard for too long. A good start would be an "official" widget repo, where someone could upload stuff, and if it is useful maybe get some nice commander skin as reward and recognition from community.
+1 / -0
4 years ago
quote:
The only rational way forward that I see is to forget about "Widgets vs Cheating" problem entirely

Reality doesn't go away just because you choose to ignore it.
+1 / -1
4 years ago
unless its all a dream
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Nerf them all :D. when units don't need to get nerfed we do it on the widgets :D
+0 / -0
I've come to terms here and I think we should be creating bans on level 5 widgets on a per basis sort of deal. Autollt is a level 5 widget that creates problems for instance. The problem is automating a means to differentiate level 5 and 6 widgets. From DevShaman point of view, there's definitely a need to ban/police some problematic widgets (see: autollt) from existence. Having the ability to control widgets would benefit us as developers (as well as moderators) as we could remove problem widgets.

The bonus of publicly removing private widgets would be that bad faith actors (see crashers, laggers, etc) would be better visible, so modaction would be easier on these bad actors.

Personally, I don't care for the competitive angle as being argued here. I care for utility, enjoyment, user experience, and functionality.
+3 / -1
4 years ago
unknownrankShaman that is a great idea, you have my full endorsement in your moderator application.
+0 / -0


4 years ago
quote:
I've come to terms here and I think we should be creating bans on level 5 widgets on a per basis sort of deal.

I think selectively banning custom widgets would be too much of a headache.
+1 / -0
quote:

Personally, I don't care for the competitive angle as being argued here. I care for utility, enjoyment, user experience, and functionality.


Erm? I strongly believe that OP wouldn't have started this topic if "fairness" does not contribute to "enjoyment" and "user experience".

I think it all come down to human selfish perspectives.

"Why should my enjoyment on making mods to enhance my personal game experiences be any less important than others?"

"Why should your mods that enhance your experience while penalizing mine be more important than my enjoyment?"

This is why the ideal compromise between the two perspectives is simply make the mods available and accessible to all. Afterall, technically it is too much of a chore and work to screen player by player on what kind of mods they have and warn these specific users. I mean, Zero-K does not have client side monitoring, right?
+4 / -0
Never mind.
+0 / -3
4 years ago
quote:
Look what happened to browser cookies in the EU because of this type of fearmongering

Now this is pure nonsense, you do not need to have those huge notifications that annoy you. Corporations specifically do that to so they annoy you into submission. Don't bring this USA propaganda here.
+0 / -1
4 years ago
Most widgets are harmless. Some give marginal benefits while generating lag (ie disco lotus). Something that is sufficiently poorly written but does good things might add to lag which may make large games unfun.
+0 / -0
quote:
Most widgets are harmless. Some give marginal benefits while generating lag (ie disco lotus). Something that is sufficiently poorly written but does good things might add to lag which may make large games unfun.


AutoLLT is such a huge perf hungry beast (see NZrankesainane's posts) that it warrants a softban as well as the users knowingly generating lag with it to be punished. I'd prefer not to see games end up with 3+ second ping because one person enabled a network intensive widget that provides little personal gain at the cost of 20+ people having to deal with 3s+ ping.

I was simply thinking of a general solution to help prevent further problems, though I don't think anything worse than flat out ROrankDr0ppy exploits or autollt will happen.
+0 / -0
what about a white list?
is that easier then a blacklist?
+0 / -0
I exploited for a good reason, those exploits had been reported for a long time and needed patching :v
Anyways, that era is gone.
I do agree that performance hungry widgets should be banned, and anything that gives the user information that they simply shouldn't be able to acquire by themselves too.
Everything else should be allowed tbh.
+1 / -0
ROrankAnagram that is a very antisocial view and you were clearly taking some pleasure in ruining the game for everyone. Make pull requests instead.

Edit for clarity. I am responding to this:
quote:
I exploited for a good reason, those exploits had been reported for a long time and needed patching :v
Anyways, that era is gone.
+1 / -0
4 years ago
How is this an antisocial view? Widgets that harm performance or are straight up cheating are the ones that shouldn't be allowed, not those that help you take your mind off of some things. Not gonna deny in having taken pleasure at the time, but my views on it changed. Anyway, no derailing now.
+0 / -0
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