Legacy:Mod Ideas/MutatorShuffler

Mod ideas for UT 2003 – A Mutator to shuffle mutators

Description

This mod is based on an idea by Twigstir from the official UT2003 discussion forum.

Essentially the mutator shuffler will change the mutators applied to a game on a map by map basis. The mutator shuffler will (just before the start of the game) remove all current mutators, and then add new ones based upon some strange and otherworldy criteria dreamed up by a half-dunk monk separated from society for a few years.

Some ideas for mutator selection are:

Map based selection. 

Mutators are set based upon the name of the map. So, low grav and jump match could be assigned to Face, and Instagib to Niven. The actual interface required to set this up might be beyond the capabilities of the new user interface system though.

Completely random selection 

A random number of mutators (randomly selected) are added. This has the problem observed by Mychaeel below - not all mutators work well in combination.

List based selection. 

Mutators are group into lists (e.g. Arena mutators, Size mutators, Inventory mutators) and one mutator is selected from each list. It would then be up to the person setting the mutators in each of the lists to ensure that there were no conflicts. "no mutator from the list" is also a possibility in this case.

Out of the three options specified above the last one – List based selection – is probably the easiest to implement. The new User Interface should be adequate to the task of setting up the lists since you must be able to set map rotations and select mutators somehow.

I would like to propose support for 5 lists. One list should contain zero or more mutators that are always applied to the game, and the other 4 lists should contain groups of mutators that can be randomly selected.

Interested Scripters

If you are interested in developing this mod for UT2003 then add your name to the list. Once you start development you should indicate that below (and hopefully include a link to a journal page). Before you start development you should also check this section to see if anyone else has started.

Discussion

Wormbo: Nice idea. Here's what I think: You can move mutators to an "optional mutators" list and specify how many mutators from that list can be added to the game. A minimum and maximum number would be good.

Mychaeel: Unfortunately not all mutators are cross-compatible, and even if they are technically they frequently don't work well together. What about configuring a number of lists and the shuffler takes one mutator of every list? (Like, a random relic, plus FatBoy or BigBoy, plus Strangelove or Matrix Moves or Low Grav.)

EntropicLqd: Lol - I haven't even filled in the description and already I have comments.

Mychaeel: The second and third option ("completely random," "list based") could be easily combined into a single one.

EntropicLqd: Only by reducing the number of mutators added, or, building in a certain amount of logic within the shuffler so that it at least has a chance of determining whether a mutator combination is going to conflict or not. Or can you see an easier way?

Mychaeel: I mean conceptually. The "completely random" option is just a case of the "list based" one with a single list. What I mean to express is that none of those options are mutually exclusive. (The first one, "map based," is just a modifier to the "list based" one too.)

The Twiggman Ah problems with cross compatablity can be resolved by including some program the will quickly test all possible mutator mix and matches and then sort into lists. (IM AN IDIOT BUT NOT A BAD IDEA)

EntropicLqd: Mychaeel – yes I see what you were getting at now. I guess the only difference I would enforce for a completely random mutator combination based on the lists is that you'd only ever have 1 applied at a time to prevent conflicts. Ultimately map based mutator configuration simply relies on the ability to handle a variable number of lists (persisting that could be a pain). The Twiggman – If you could figure out a way of doing it then it would be a nice idea. I can think of a few ways of making it work under a small set of circumstances but all of the methods are flawed.

To be fair the reason I'm suggesting that only the list based selection one is supported is because it is possible to have a truly random mutator configuration applied to each map, simply by making the "mandatory list" empty, and populating one or more of the rest of the lists. While I agree that map based selection is merely list based (with named lists instead of anonymous ones as it were) its the complexity of the user interface and persistence that I'd like to avoid. That and the fact that I'm not sure people would use the functionality - gamers are a lazy bunch in my experience and very rarely play with all of the options available.

Mychaeel: The trick is to make a bunch of complex options easy to grasp. That's the goal of successful user interface design.

EntropicLqd: Really? That doesn't seem to be an industry standard point of view :)

Mychaeel: Doesn't mean we don't have to do that either...  :-)