Archive: 16 posts

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Hey guys damaz again, just getting a bit peeved lately about the issue that has plauged me through lbp2. Many of you are familiar with it, it's the deal with levels treating sackpeople as part of the thermometer. Let me explain a bit, some levels are bursting at the thermometers max and if more than 1 player enter the level, the level tends to mess up and more than likely lag out the players. I'm really confused on this issue because I never had this issue in lbp1. The only times I had lagged out of a level with players were levels that had used the thermo gltich, and that was pushing the thermo pass it's max anyways so it was understandable. Do you think that with the thermo changes in lbp2, MM may have put a limit on how much a level can handle, along with the number of sackpeople? Comments?

2011-08-05 17:23:00 Author: damaz10 Posts: 771

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If you look carefully enough, you'll see LBP2 clothing is more 'expensive' than other pieces. A good tip is to have both yourself and anyone that joins you as naked. :3

2011-08-05 17:55:00 Author: Nurolight Posts: 918

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Urg. Having Sackpeople require thermo is just downright stupid on MMs part. The slightly more lenient thermo is rendered bloody pointless if simply having a full party will screw the level over. Should've kept the thermo that 4 Sackpeople require on the meter rather than allow us to spend it elsewhere, and then pay for it at the price of lag later on.

2011-08-05 19:33:00 Author: Ostler5000 Posts: 1017

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Yea, sounds like a BIG problem people have with that...

2011-08-05 22:15:00 Author: zzmorg82 Posts: 948

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Having Sackpeople require thermo is just downright stupid on MMs part. It's not stupid, it's a design choice. I don't know exact numbers, so I'll make some up to illustrate my point. What's important is the principle behind it. Let's look at LBP1 first. To prevent problems rendering player costumes, they decide to permanently reserve 20% of the thermometer. That leaves 5% per sackboy, so they have to make sure that wearing the more complicated costume pieces plus the more complicated decorations up to the limit stays under that. Creators have 80% left to build their level, and when played by a single player, 15% or more will be left unused. Now translate this to LBP2. They want to make their costume pieces more flashy, with animations, see-through effects etc. In order to guarantee they'll have enough thermo to render them all, they'll need to increase the thermo reserved for them. Let's say up to 10% per sackboy. Now creators will only have 60% thermometer left to build their level, and 30% will be left unused when a level is played by a single player. But we want LBP2 levels to be cooler than ever, so we'll want more thermo for the levels, not less! The obvious solution is to drop the absolute guarantees that you'll have enough thermo to render everything. Now creators have absolute choice over the matter. They can build a level up to 60% thermo and it'll render fine even with four sackpeople in extremely fancy dress. They can build right up to the limit of the thermo, and accept that the level will lag for multiple players. Or they can choose something in between. And the same goes for players: they can choose to play alone or undressed, or they can accept a little lag. So you see, Media Molecule has given us the choice.

2011-08-05 23:05:00 Author: Rogar Posts: 2284

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You think I wasn't aware of the things you pointed out? Of course it's a deliberate decision, and I get the logic behind it, but I still, wholeheartedly feel it's stupid to allow groups of 4 players into a level that will definitely not support them. Now, if they'd coupled this thermo change with an option in the Tools Bag to specifically set the numbers of players who can and cannot play the level, it would've been a great decision on MMs part. But as is, it's simply not.

2011-08-05 23:55:00 Author: Ostler5000 Posts: 1017

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Now, if they'd coupled this thermo change with an option in the Tools Bag to specifically set the numbers of players who can and cannot play the level, it would've been a great decision on MMs part. But as is, it's simply not. Agreed. With a few additional changes, this game would be amazing. Did anyone ask MM about a "1 player only" option while at recent jams and such?

2011-08-06 00:03:00 Author: midnight_heist Posts: 2513

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You think I wasn't aware of the things you pointed out? Of course it's a deliberate decision, and I get the logic behind it, but I still, wholeheartedly feel it's stupid to allow groups of 4 players into a level that will definitely not support them. Now, if they'd coupled this thermo change with an option in the Tools Bag to specifically set the numbers of players who can and cannot play the level, it would've been a great decision on MMs part. But as is, it's simply not. Okay, so you think it would be better to have static thermo that severely limits the thermo available to creators, just to make sure 4 player groups can still trot around in their extravagant costumes unhindered by lag. I disagree, and probably so do many creators that have trouble with the thermo as it is. The point being that it's not an easy choice with an obviously superior option, so I took you calling it "downright stupid" for ignorance. Now I'll take it for stubbornness. Not saying that setting the number of players wouldn't improve on the current choice, mind you.

2011-08-06 00:19:00 Author: Rogar Posts: 2284

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Thank you for telling me what I think, I really needed your help there, y'know. I was just... so unsure! But now you've explained my thoughts to me, I'm grateful. I agree with the you, for the most part. The more lenient thermo is great. But without an ability to stop larger groups playing levels that won't support them, it feels... reckless. I think, if I had to choose between the two, I'd rather ensure groups of 4 players never have to play in poor conditions, than solo players had to play slightly smaller levels. It's a case of thinking about what's more important, and what can ruin the experience more. I do, indeed like the fact MM has given us more freedom with the thermo, I do not, however, believe it's been particularly well thought out.

2011-08-06 00:25:00 Author: Ostler5000 Posts: 1017

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... levels treating sackpeople as part of the thermometer... Yes, unfortunately you're correct. Best practice is to keep your thermo down to two or three bars short of the max. This will leave room for the players' costumes and for emitters that may raise the thermo during gameplay. A good tip is to have both yourself and anyone that joins you as naked. :3 Sure, but as creators we should make sure our levels don't require players to take extra steps to play them. You don't need to leave enough thermo for each player to be able to wear the flashiest animated costume pieces with 50 unique decos per costume (I'm sure that would be a nasty chunk of therm) but there should be enough for them to wear reasonably detailed costumes--odds are that in any group, not all of them will be wearing thermo-expensive costumes. Urg. Having Sackpeople require thermo is just downright stupid on MMs part. Not at all. They're going to require system resources to keep all of the costume pieces and stickers in memory and to render them so they can't just "not require thermo". As Rogar said, they could just automatically reserve a chunk of system resources (I'm sure it's nowhere near 30% of the thermo--his example was just a "for instance") but not all levels will treat the players' costumes equally, so it would suck to deny us the flexibility of that extra bit of thermo. For example: levels in which the players spend the entire time in invisible controllinators will still require that their costumes be stored in RAM and the game will have to actually keep track of their position and everything but the GPU won't be required to render them, so they'll have less impact on the game than levels in which the players are visible. If the players are controlling bots that copy their costumes, it will likely require more resources. The best example, though, is movie levels where the players don't need to spawn at all. I would think that the player costumes and the number of players would have minimal effect on movies (since they don't even spawn) aside from ordinary network lagginess, which means you should theoretically be able to play closer to the thermo limit without issues in a movie level. I'm actually very happy with how the thermo works now. I would recommend that you create four semi-elaborate costumes (nothing too outlandish but with enough costume pieces and decos to be roughly equal to what a normal player might use) and plunk four bots wearing the costumes into your level when building it to reserve that chunk of thermo. Before you publish, delete the bots. I would guess that that should be enough to mitigate the problem (to be absolutely sure, some clever creator would have to do some testing to figure out exactly at what limit problems start and further experiments to see what other factors might affect it).

2011-08-06 06:26:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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^Another tip to help with that is.. to cut the level in parts so no more then 60% or so of the thermometer is used at any given time. then emit and destroy parts of the level when needed... but this idea don't fit with every level type. but best is you never take more then 80% of the thermometer in any given level. *mew

2011-08-06 09:46:00 Author: Lord-Dreamerz Posts: 4261

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I'd rather know what my thermo limit is rather than have to second guess it, so personally I think it's a bad choice. And on a more general note, if I wasn't on the forum I wouldn't even know it WAS an issue, it isn't even going to occur to most people that having 4 of the more fashionable players in it can break it. A 'Max Players' option would be great.

2011-08-06 12:09:00 Author: julesyjules Posts: 1156

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All of you have brought up some good opinions, I started this thread because the current level I'm working on screws up if there is more than 1 player, the level itself is single player orientated, through a controllable sackbot, I had the idea of invisible piggy back controlinators, but that's a definte no due to my thermo being at 80% atm. I would defintely like to have the option to limit the amount of players that can enter a level, but like Sehven said, it would really just depend on how fancy someones costume is. Great that I understand how much of an impact costumes and players deal to the thermo, yay for the power of the thread! So my level is designated --Strictly One Player-- now, if only a label existed for that....

2011-08-06 23:23:00 Author: damaz10 Posts: 771

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This happens a lot with my Zombie levels,it lags crazy and my friends get lagged out !!!!!

2011-08-07 02:17:00 Author: SackBoy98 Posts: 588

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Do sackpeople take up thermo if they are not seen? I hide them away in controllinators in all my levels, and even at 90% thermo use, the number of players doesn't seem to have an impact. Perhaps it's just how I used the thermo though, with mostly logic instead of decor/materials.

2011-08-07 06:31:00 Author: SSTAGG1 Posts: 1136

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^Another tip to help with that is.. to cut the level in parts so no more then 60% or so of the thermometer is used at any given time. then emit and destroy parts of the level when needed... but this idea don't fit with every level type. but best is you never take more then 80% of the thermometer in any given level. *mew Fumetsuozo is right here. For instance...Space Assassin's 2 would have had a full thermo on each stage, but taking into account that extra players would be unable to join I purposefully emitted and destroyed enough sections to keep the thermometer at the 3/4 mark. Anyone who's played Space Assassins 2 will know that it's a huge and highly detailed level. Following Fume's advice there's no reason why creators can't have their cake and eat it, using as much thermo as they need without having to comprimise for those sartorial 4 player parties.

2011-08-07 09:04:00 Author: Ungreth Posts: 2130

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