Feature requests: More player slots and minor player menu change

What do you want to see in Armagetron soon? Any new feature ideas? Let's ponder these ground breaking ideas...
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Mapsking
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Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:41 am

Feature requests: More player slots and minor player menu change

Post by Mapsking »

Hello,

I am not sure if it is feasible, but wanted to ask about introducing more players. We play with our family from time to time, and we have seven people in our family. Tonight, when we played, I was reminded about one of the limitations, specifically that there are only four player slots. We ended up just taking turns passing the controllers around, but it would be a lot easier if there were additional player slots, and wanted to request a feature addition, if possible. This also would allow for more customization. I know there are user settings, but we all play on one computer in a couch setting, so this situation comes up, not to mention cameras, colors, etc.

On the same note, once you go in, and change the Player Setup>Player 1 settings, and change the player name to "Dad", for example, then go back into player settings, (in-game or menu), it still shows Player 1 settings, player 2 settings, etc. It would be a nice touch to show the customized name there as well, so you don't have to ask everyone if they are player 1 or player 2, or go look at each settings page, until you find the correct one. A minor detail, but I noticed we had to ask every single time we changed any settings, and it just seems like if it has a customized name, it should be reflected in the settings menu for it.

Thanks, Mapsking
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Z-Man
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Re: Feature requests: More player slots and minor player menu change

Post by Z-Man »

Do you actually all want to play in 8-Way splitscreen together? Or just switch users more easily? The user switching would have the limitiation, I think, that you can bind each key to only one thing, so two configured players can't have the same turn keys configured even if they don't play at the same time.

At first glance, this is easy, the number of players is already a configurable thing, and to get more people into the splitscreen mode, we would just have to define more configurations. We don't have to go crazy with the configurations, probably nobody wants 5 players stacked on top of each other :) Just pick one or two sensible setups for each number.
Caution: Servers have a setting for maximum number of players per client, that would need to be upped across all branches.

We should probably completely separate the player and input settings and allow you to pick which player is displayed on which viewport and uses which keyboard/controller configuration. And also separate controller configuration and controller ID so you don't have to reconfigure everything if the controllers change order, which I think can happen... (On 0.4, that is. If you're using controllers on 0.2.9, I suppose you use some controller-to-keyboard mapper, like the one Steam offers.) That's a bunch of work attached to an innocent request :) We don't have to do it all at once.

The menu item name change is definitely feasible.

I added these to the issue tracker:
https://gitlab.com/armagetronad/armaget ... issues/100
https://gitlab.com/armagetronad/armaget ... issues/101
Mapsking
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:41 am

Re: Feature requests: More player slots and minor player menu change

Post by Mapsking »

You bring up a good point, I did not think of the splitscreen question. We use a large monitor for couch gaming, but 8 way split or something would be hard to see. In all honesty, we all have our own computers, so we are going to install it locally for each person, and then that way we can play LAN games, and everyone can use their own computer. However, we do also have 7 controllers, and often all play together, so it would be a nice addition, maybe even just allow more actual profile slots, but still only allow four players at a time? That seems like it would be easy, that way, each person can just pick their profile, and still take turns playing, but not having to adjust everything each time? That may save a lot of core changes from being needed to be made for a casual request. On a side note, we use Xpadder, or Antimicro for controller support, and use Xbox 360 wireless controllers.

Just some thoughts. :-)

I guess I didn't really think my question through. Thanks for the update though, and also for the awesome game and all the work on it!
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