How to play on MM server w/ ghost, denial2, and retention pu

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ZombieSlayer
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How to play on MM server w/ ghost, denial2, and retention pu

Post by ZombieSlayer » Mon Apr 09, 2007 4:19 pm

Ok this is how ghost works.

When you suffer enough damage to "kill" you, ghost activates.

Ghost deletes your entire inventory, makes you ethereal, gives you 9999 health, and slowly moves you to a random spawn point.

Monsters can still see you and continue to try to shoot you.

When you reach the random spawn point this is what happens.

Ethereal is turned off, you get your gun back, then ghost recalls player defaults (which makes no sense), then your inventory, then your stats. This takes a second or two to fully load in.

If you get killed before all of that happens, when you respawn it's just like coming in fresh. You have no weapons or pus in your inventory. This happens alot on maps that have long straight passageways where the wand monster (or sometimes a traveling rock) has an easy shot at you. This is why folks lose their weapons after ghosting.

This is such a messy and in-efficient way of handling ghost. Joey and the others on the code team know this and have been trying to re-code ghost or at least fix it.

Joey came up with a solution that IS NOT IN PLACE YET that should solve this bug. He is going to add 5 seconds of invulnerability to ghost which should give your computer enough time to load your weapon, inventory, and stats.

Superspeed and ghost

As I mentioned a little earlier, after ghosting it recalls player defaults from within the games engine code. It ignores (and with some powerups like superspeed *and maybe others we don't know of yet*) the rpg stats.

This is why you have to reactivate superspeed. Ghost has reset your speed to "default". The speed combo does this as well.

The superspeed and ghost bug may not be fixed in the next patch.

The speed combo and superspeed may be fixed in the next patch though :)

Ghost and retention PU with denial 2

If you put a retention on your weapon and you ghost, the retention is taken away. If you don't put another retention on your weapon before dying (AND you DON'T have denial 2 skill and if you are NOT holding the weapon) you will lose your weapon. If you have denial 2 and are holding the weapon (and get fully loaded in from being ghosted) then die, you will get your weapon back.

This isn't a bug, this is how retention works. Joey is working on making retention last the entire game. This would mean you could put 1 retention on your weapon and even if you ghost, then die, you should get your weapon back :)

You may have to switch weapons and then switch back to get the weapon you ghosted with to work. This is due to ghost recalling and loaded "user defaults" which isn't the same as your rpg stats.


Ok I refunded all of my stats a couple of days ago to buy ghost and do some client side testing. This is what I found.

With max level ghost, denial level 2 (max) and a retention pu on any wop I want to keep.

ASSUMING YOU DIDN'T GHOST AND THEN DIE BEFORE THE STEPS I EXPLAINED ABOVE TAKE PLACE.....

When you ghost for whatever reason all other weapons in your inventory don't show up anymore. Sometimes powerups don't, but more often they do. I have a couple of ideas as to why, but won't explain them here (take too long).

But the weapon you were holding does show up with the pus that were on it. You may have to switch weapons and then switch back to get the weapon you ghosted with to work. This is due to ghost recalling and loaded "user defaults" which isn't the same as your rpg stats.

Now after you "die" you will get back any wop that had a retention on it along with any pus that were on it.

I did all sorts of things to activate ghost (from suiciding to trying to run into enemy wand fire) over the period of 2 days and at least a dozen maps.

Now just to clarify something before I go.

IF you are playing a map that is wide open and a wand shoots you and you ghost, the monster can still track and fire at you. Typically when you stop ghosting you are hit by the wand monster again and die. YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING because ghost dind't have enough time to reload all the crap it unloads. As I mentioned earlier in my post, Joey is working on adding a 5 second period of invulnerability to the ghost to prevent this from happening.

The following is strictly a theory of mine so don't take it as fact.

IF you are playing any map and are hit by a BIG titan rock and ghost, you will almost always immediately die as well. I think this is due to the rock not breaking up when if first hits you. By not breaking up I think the rock forces ghost to stop early and in the path of the rock thereby killing you dead.

Here's the twist to the titan rock death, sometimes those that don't use ghost or ressurection lose their weapons after getting hit by a big rock.

One last point. After you ghost you get the weapon you were holding at the time you ghosted. You may have to switch weapons and then switch back to get the weapon you ghosted with to work. This is due to ghost recalling and loaded "user defaults" which isn't the same as your rpg stats.

EDIT: I forgot to mention one important thing. DO NOT PRESS ANY BUTTONS WHILE GHOSTING. You may lose your weapon and pus entirely. I tried this twice and both times when I stopped ghosting I had nothing but my mp5 and shield gun. Even after I died and respawned I only had my mp5 and shield gun.
Last edited by ZombieSlayer on Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Nard » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:21 pm

Thank you so much for putting that up. This has to atleast stop 50% of all the bitching.
=D>
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Post by Ortega » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:25 pm

Thanks for posting that. I knew you would since you were talking with Joey about it that night. I know this isn't going to help many people just beauase they don't read. I'm not a fan of Retention and its funny how people cry about something when they continue to get the same error. I can see saying something at the present time (in game, that map) but not days later or even the next map. Yeah I do say stuff when I lose my gun but the next map. Its a fresh start and I play it the same as I did before the gun lose. If I do lose it, I don't leave. I don't try to help much with killing monsters sometimes but its sort of a pissy time and I respect all who leave or don't want any PU. It does suck to start a new gun. I think I have done in 4 times in one map. as I said before it can be corrected. Don't use it!
Later all!

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Post by draegohn » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:12 am

with all the talk of losing weapons after ghost and as much as i was playing, i never once lost it after ghosting. i didn't press buttons during ghost, like you mention. after returning from ghost, i fire the gun once or twice, and then switch weapons and go back to get superspeed to work again.

i also have seen a decrease to the amount of weapon loss after post-ghost immediate deaths. in the past 3 days, it only happened once. i wonder if it might be a packet-related thing, since i live in pennsylvania and the distance from server isn't too much..so the server save for me might initiate faster than someone located further from the server. i dunno though, just a guess on my part

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Post by ZombieSlayer » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:26 am

I forgot to pre-answer a couple of questions that may come up.

Q: How come my health doesn't get set to player default (100) after I ghost?

A: Because of how the different attributes are actually called up in the game. They are called up through a couple of different files and have different priorities.

This answer is the same for the same questions about ammo count and adrenaline.

The code that these stats come from and the code that calls them are protected. This means we can't actually change it. HOWEVER, genius Joey may have found a way to get around the code so ghost would ignore player defaults and instead look at the players rpg stats.

IF that can be done, then all problems with ghosting will vanish :)

So let's give the man some time to work his magic. If you really gotta bitch and moan about something....do it to me. Then I'll take the concerns/problems to Joey (and offer whatever suggestions/thoughts I have on resolving the issue) in a non bitchy manner :)

That way he won't get frustrated at all of the complaining and won't shut the server down again :rock:

After a day or two I'm going to move this to the WOP forum and sticky it.

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Post by TMoney96 » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:09 pm

Yeah, the pressing fire while ghosting, I THINK is what causes the bug where after you ghost your weapon fires continuously, you cant toss it, switch weapons, or unload pups. Its definitly hard sometimes because you could be firing at a monster and get wanded in the back and hit buttons while your ghosting on accident! One thing I was wondering about is the ss and speed combo. I usually use speed on the early waves so I'm not a slow mofo and have a better chance of getting pups. On the later waves, depending on the map I might use the speed combo with superspeed. Usually it works fine, when the combo wears off I just switch weps from and back to the one with SS and its back to normal. Joeyz said yesterday about people still speed-hacking, I don't know if using the speed combo with SS is against the rules but I wouldnt think it would be. If it is let me know lol, but I took it as people somehow figured how to speedhack for wrenches(no clue how they are doing it :shock: ) Arg censored assholes are going to get speed taken off permanently, its very useful in early waves but if people are cheating with it they are just going to make it harder for the rest of us.

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Post by draegohn » Tue Apr 10, 2007 1:22 pm

rawr! ^o^
Last edited by draegohn on Tue Apr 10, 2007 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Ortega » Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:02 pm

drae check you pm man. I need you to do something for me!
Later all!

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Post by TMoney96 » Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:35 pm

Lol drae you shouldnt have posted that stuff now dumbass peeps will probobly try it (not me i dont need 2 cheat!!!)

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Post by ZombieSlayer » Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:41 pm

Using the speed combo while having a superspeed isn't against any rule that I know of.

It's just that when the speed combo wears off your speed gets set back to default, and as you said you need to switch weapons to get superspeed back.

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