cg_noexplosions

[fau]

So what's up with this cvar? I admit I post inspired by this post about Mus1n's client.
I understand it was requested and it is to make hitting rails easier against rocket spam, but is there a reason to make the game easier and rail specifically out of all weapons?

The way I see it, aiming q3 is already kind of "too easy" in 2023. We've got great mice, monitors, stable fps, almost lan-like pings - all this wasn't available in early q3 days when game was developed. Newer arena fps games try to make aiming a little harder than in q3 because of it.

I haven't tried it but I imagine with this cvar you can just stay back and rail weaker "rocket main" players on public server from behind to no end even easier than before, as if they weren't already at a disadvantage...

[adminless]

yes that was requested by newbzi.tar (at the time number two player in the community only standing behind miro) back in the day after extensive test of the mod as it messed up picmip display and the game overall to his standards. anyways, that's really nothing radically different from what you can achieve by picmip or other settings and/or custom packs with modified textures and similar stuff that people around here uses (as can be seen) without getting into hacking so it's not such a big deal simply more convenient than doing any of that and more importantly accessible to everyone without the need of doing anything else beyond typing \exec hardcore or having any special/fancy knowledge. matter of fact, the provided packages with the provided hardcore settings (i.e. \exec hardcore) for other than the enemy mark that is a cheat in Quake 3 Arena and the hit plane (because that wasn't even a hitbox that was a hit plane) that is a cheat in every game I'm aware of and the fancy custom effects that are irrelevant for the case being looks exactly the same as in the Mus1n video. the mod hardcore settings are pretty much what tar used to play here and overall about how the game of the people around here looked (and most likely still looks) like.

[adminless]

but anyways that being said if you wonder or have second thoughts about the events I believe most people/tops play fair/normally without even going any of those extremes.

that was top immortal player olc, nothing remarkable there beside a gg I think (haven't watched the whole thing though). and from previous seasons I remember last league mvp ixsy used to stream as well and he wasn't even using a mod in fact.

[fau]

I play with default settings too mostly because I want settings that look the same here and in ql. I bet it's the same for everest.

I still think that cg_noexplosions and custom pk3 paks, sounds, effects etc. is too much in a competitive setting. It seems to me they give objective advantage and I don't want necessarily my game to look like an aim trainer, but if something gives an advantage and is allowed, it's hard to pass on when you sign up to a tournament. If you allow any custom pk3 in a competitive setting, there is a lot of things that can be done that most people would consider cheating.
There is a reason for sv_pure cvar - just give everyone even playing field, that sounds fair to me.

Anyway I'm not onto making a big drama out of this. I know the rules for custom pk3s, scripts etc. are more relaxed in modern q3 and it is how it is. Just don't like the direction it's going and cg_noexplosions is a bit over the top in my opinion. Makes railgun even more op weapon in any situation.

[adminless]

I get what you mean but unfortunately that's just the way it works. I collected over 400 plus known clean client pk3's that I keep in a clean database for verification and even despite that number I can tell you that around 50% (approx) of the people in the public servers have unclean installations. at the beginning the unclean warning was meant to be a kick/block instead but obviously given that number it soon became clear that was not option. keep in mind that number is comparing the client against those 400+ known pk3's, if you were to restrict this only to the provided packages that number would be even much lower. this has already been discussed long enough around the site and it's just the way it's, people signed up for this and join these servers because they can play with their current/own installation (as can be seen in the olc video for example, that's not a UnFreeZe installation, that's his own, legit btw, installation) and if you were to force and limit everyone to use the very same installation the server uses (which is what the pure server does) they just wouldn't. that being said the fact that they are using custom unknown files doesn't necessarily make them cheaters either. it's just like the bal3dm3 fix you posted, with the setup you're talking about that wouldn't be allowed (unless forced down the clients by the server which is not gonna happen) despite that was clearly no cheat. to make matters worse, as I hinted, real serious hacks (not just some different visuals or others) doesn't even come from the client pk3 files as there's plenty of closed source games not that easily customized (some not even customizable at all) that have a abundance of hacks so in really that setup would only give you a false sense of security at the expense of breaking a very large number of perfectly legit installations and uses as I'm telling you.

anyways, yes I know I remember the screen videos you already posted looked stock, prime Miroslav as well recorded himself back in the day here laying good waste of UnFreeZe and it was vanilla osp 1.0 not even updated to 1.03a so with this I'm just trying to tell you that in my opinion you're overestimating such "objective" advantages the same way people always blamed those duel loses only to those 5-10 msecs of difference. you can take me as a good frame of reference for example as I'm not really used to some specific settings, I tested the packages with both tier of settings, the default standard settings and the hardcore settings, and I can tell you that I did not score a hell lot more points with the hardcore settings than I did with the standard ones. if anything the hardcore settings are a lot more disorienting (for example unless you already know you can't even really tell lava/slime, the color of the bases in ctf, some maps are literally broken, harder to navigate/tell where you are etc etc) and uncomfortable to play with than the standard ones at a negligible tangible advantage at best. as for the cg_noexplosions as I'm telling you even without getting into customizations picmip with is a allowed thing already messes up the explosions and gives visuals advantages that setting makes up for people not using picmip specially when you combine it with 10 noobs spamming rockets as it's usually the case at the pubs.

in any case, I think that what I can do for you if you want is to post here the list of the installation status of the guys that played at the events (i.e. clean or not) in case you wanna review that further (which just to make it clear in case it wasn't already I repeat a unclean client doesn't mean the guy is cheating it only means the guy is using a custom installation which could even be broken). I can probably look and post that later on here.

[adminless]

in case you wonder a quick raw lookup in the ranked servers returns the follow combined list:

• Clean (35.8%)

  Code: Select all

  4p3
  Ambivalence
  -=ASS=-CLIFF
  -=ASS=-Ric0_
  -=ASS=-Toxic
  -=ASS=-WALNUT
  *DT*Aboba
  *DT*Ca+hode
  *DT*Edversion
  DT.Edversion
  *DT*OfC*maczus
  *DT*Rozp!erdol
  *DT*Tubylec
  *ED*Edversio
  Edversion
  fau
  flodder
  >!<FraG_MasiN?
  [ILM]Ambivalence
  [ILM]Blaze
  [ILM]ironmonkey
  [ILM]MAKAVELI
  [ILM]Mike_uk
  [ILM]vrtx
  infi
  joga bonito
  kaesehobel
  lee
  MyWifeHatesQ3
  -OfC-maczus
  oKo*cacahuete
  oKo*WhoAmI?!
  PORSZE69
  PUFF
  PurpleDiscoMachine
  r0yk
  referee
  S10ned /e/z/
  Smoke
  snek
  UnknownPlayer
  UnnamedPlayer
  vergara
  .WTF!SHADOW?!

• Unclean (64.2%)

  Code: Select all

  1N-S4N3
  2minbrb
  7HE<>REDRUM
  Agi
  aimer
  -=ASS=-ang3lfish
  -=ASS=-AUDAZ
  -=ASS=-Infin!ty
  -=ASS=-oab
  -=ASS=-RICKY!
  -=ASS=-RICKY!!!
  crm*
  >!<CRM*
  cTh
  *DT*$oze
  *DT*Fran
  *DT*Franni
  *DT*NoobsHunter
  *DT REDRUM
  *DT*REDRUM
  DT REDRUM
  Dupa69
  dupsko
  eMg!kf
  fish
  Green Leaf
  Heero-2b
  >!<HEERO-2B
  HolySquid
  hug.KF
  .iC!Shantu
  [ILM]Fashion
  [ILM]Fus1on
  [ILM]ORGI69
  [ILM]TAKTLO$$
  Immortal.kf
  Immortal.Shantu
  ixsy
  Jelen
  Karen<3
  >!<KF
  Ktulovsky
  Magister
  MRTL*KF
  newcfg
  noSound
  oKo*Bl!nd
  oKoBlya
  oKo*cTh
  oKo*Magister
  oKo*Mango
  oko*SHADOW?!
  oKo*Venum
  oKo*yUb
  >!<olc
  olc
  pks
  q3
  quake3Player
  redSmoke
  ribx
  Rimuru
  Semisek48
  >!<Shantu
  Shantu
  >!<SHANTU
  snd
  >!<SQUID
  strogg
  sub
  Sub-Zero
  *TD*anfsh
  Unn
  Unnamed
  U_U
  viper++
  >!<Viper++
  .WTF!Berkut?!
  .WTF!POWER?!

[fau]

Well I'm not on any kind of witch hunt, I don't think it would be fair to criticize people for something that's not prohibited retrospectively, that wasn't my intention. Also I'm totally fine that there is no sv_pure on public server, I understand that it would make it difficult for many people to connect or figure out what's wrong.

I just hope that people realize themselves that going too far with customization and pk3s can be a bit shady (as even mus1n eventually did). I'm sure, knowing people there, that 99% just want to have a good, clean game and will take it into consideration

It's good to get the stats from you that confirm what I've been always feeling myself, that you don't need all these customizations or soft cheats to be a good player. I think it's a positive information for everyone who feels a little suspicious at times.
And you are right that it's easy to have "unpure" client by accident. Even I had this message until recently cleaned up my q3 installation and moved unfreeze client to a separate directory.

PS cg_noexplosions still bad in my mind

[Lisa_Ann]

Hello!

Fau in short: a good player is a good player regardless of settings. :>

I really believed in all scripts (rocketjump, for example) and graphic modifications (reshade), but especially the latter does more harm than good. you can't see there is water or lava. There were times when I saw a wall, while others just shot me down.

I got into hardcore cfg based on tar's description so that I could run my quake3 stably on a weak machine.

Another experience is hardware: in a competition (see form 1), hardware can be just as important, but I, for example, invested money in vain and got a 280 Hz monitor, a new mouse and keyboard, but overall I didn't improve much. Maybe so much happened that I also went to the railgun page, which is strange to me after quake 1 and I like it because there is no rail there.
In fact, with the new iron, I'm quite lame with the rocket, but I'll be much better with everything else.

I have the picmic as it is because my eyes are used to it, I use some old official ioquake.exe, because even the rounded figures bother me.

Regardless of this, I also believe that pure competition is given under equal conditions, but you can also make the car stand in the Formula _:) The question is where the limit is.