I think that most of us realized by now that the hit detection on e.g. the butterfly knife is *a bit* broken and results in random facestabs from time to time. I don't think, however, that many of you realized how CONSISTENTLY broken the hit detection is, making facestabs and other weird things happening during melee combat into a serious problem.

I found it out only today by randomly hitting a wall on ctf_2fort with the Axtinguisher - initially everything was fine but then, at some angle, I noticed that the bullet holes stopped appearing where my crosshair was while I was still getting hit sounds. I turned around and to my astonishment saw that I've been hitting the wall to the right, at an angle of close to 90 degrees - nowhere NEAR my cross-hair or the previous bullet-holes that were positioned correctly when I was actually AIMING at the wall...

Crovax pointed out that the axe is simply swinging from right to left and hence the hit detection is logical BUT there's a problem with this: only SOME of the animations (usually critical hits) display the sideways swing, most show a top-to-bottom swing - that's also what you're seeing from a third person perspective.

Another problem which I would have explained on Mumble if Crovax hadn't interrupted me with a useless comment as usual is that TF2 (like most mods and in fact games) treats melee weapons just like pistols with a very short range. That is - you don't really swing anything, at least not in gameplay terms, you just get a moment where having the target close to you and in your sights will result in a hit - it won't result in a hit before or after this "moment". Currently, the only MOD for the Source Engine I am aware of that traces your swing arc from start to finish is Pirates, Vikings & Knights II (since Beta2)... Go check it out, it's quite good although development progresses slowly...

Anyways, I proceeded to test the butterfly knife since that's the tool that does all the facestabs AND the punch attack of the Heavy, which, considering how you hit the wall on the right side while making a LEFT handed jab, puts any theories about logic or realistic arcs out of the question. I repeated the tests on a player and the results were the same: totally ridiculous.

I quickly recorded three demos. I might have shown more extreme angles but I think everybody gets the picture and you can easily test it yourself anyway.

You can download the three demos from the following URL:

http://www.codclan.org/ccount/click.php?id=18

(The last one needs the map achievementbox_pyro - you can download it from here. No worries, it's not a map with any goofy stat-altering modifications or anything.)

Alternatively you can watch the Youtube video although the quality leaves a lot to be desired and you probably won't see the crosshair showing how FAR off target I'm actually aiming (well, you will be able to see that the guy I'm hitting is off-screen, however ;-).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEgwyUoJ ... 26fmt%3D18[/youtube]

P.S. Yes, I will be submitting the demos to Valve.

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

nice testing, I was wondering what you were doing when we were playing. haha.

That's crazy though, I hope they do something about it because facestabbing is becoming the most common way for me to die against spies.

Probably valve's way of coping with lag and actually making melee viable. have a 3rd player record it, it might just be a case of the viewpoint of your character and your actual character not corresponding.

Also, what is your field of view set to? 70 or 90? Because I just tested it myself and not a single time I hit the wall

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Da boyz need themselves a Nob they do

I recorded three more demos. Numbers 4 and 5 are recorded with FoV 90, the last one with FoV 70.

Of course they require the achievementbox_pyro map again since it makes testing so much easier (spawns right next to each other =).

Demos: http://www.codclan.org/ccount/click.php?id=19

Map: http://www.toomuttloogie.co.uk/achievementbox_pyro.zip

Also, I don't think that this behavior is part of any plan on Valve's side since the place your hits are registering jumps from right where you're aiming at to like totally out of your sight if you do a one-pixel motion relative to your target... If they intended to fix melee then they should probably ask the devs of PVK II to lend them a hand. ;-)

Update: I recorded some more demos with Shizz (thanks bro!) on his server (not #6, another one - completely neutral) and he confirmed it. You can actually look at ALL the demos from a third-person perspective if you type in

sv_cheats 1
thirdperson

in the console before playing them.

hitbox8.dem is the best one when viewed from a third-person perspective, IMHO - Shizz is facing the OPPOSITE direction when I back-stab him. We actually managed to re-create the infamous facestab in a completely controlled environment. ^^

http://www.codclan.org/ccount/click.php?id=20 (achievementbox_pyro required as usual)

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Old news.

Which doesn't mean it shouldn't be fixed. ;-)

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

but never proven like this that I've seen!

Excellent work lim-dul.

Okay, well I should edit that a bit

I did hit the wall but I could always see where I hit. You playing in 16:10 aspect ratio as well lim-dul? Because I can't recreate the offscreen stabbing/hitting you get.

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Da boyz need themselves a Nob they do

sweet! gotta learn how to do this

Me and Lim did a little recording last night and even i tried it, crazy hit detection i stabbed him while i facing a wall

gonna have fun playing about with this today

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"Destiny finds those who listen, fate finds the rest"

Man, this has taken a BAD TWIST! hahaha. Now all the spies will learn how to properly exploid this.

Nah, Crovax, 5:4 here... But you do get the weird behavior that the bullet holes suddenly move from where you're aiming to the left or right?

If you want to test it on "players" start a local server with sv_cheats 1 and type in bot...

Update: I launched TF2 in windowed mode and a 16:9 aspect ratio. PRECISELY the same outcome... You must be doing it wrong, Crovax...

Stand next to the wall and look at it.
Start hitting it with any melee weapon and start shifting your view ever so slightly away - it doesn't matter if it's left or right.
Of course you'll see bullet holes appearing in the general vicinity of your crosshair...
At a certain angle you'll stop hitting the wall.
Now move your crosshair ever so slightly in the direction of the wall. At an angle of, I don't know, 80 degrees, you should start getting hit sounds and you will probably see some dust particles at the edge of your screen but will NOT see any bullet holes... If you shift the view towards the wall even more the hit zone will suddenly pop back into place and into your view - somewhere around the crosshair...

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

it simply won't do it, yes it hits the wall, not really near my reticule, but never outside of my view

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Da boyz need themselves a Nob they do

I thought you'd ask me to change my FoV as well since I've fallen back to 75 degrees so I prepared myself in advance and tested the absolutely most extreme case of them all - 16:9 and FoV 90... Same result... I'll post a video. ^^

Here's the video - yes, I'm aware that the sound is totally off, I don't care. Notice how the medic I'm stabbing is NOT on my screen. I show off the infamous face-stab in third person at the end. ^^

http://www.codclan.org/ccount/click.php?id=21

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Actually u hit in wrong spot because the weapon in reality is not too long to reach the destination that u are seeing in the screen , but in reality the knife , basebal bat bla bla bla hit's the target , about the facestabs , all that i can say about it is that i usually get facestabs when i quickly hit an oponent , quickly moving the camera , or when the enemy is quicly rotating behind me or in front of me .
I've encountered lots of facestabs and i can say that they are very nice , but really stupid when u get hit bu them , All characters are painted in their back with a brush , and that brush ( that color ) remains still when the server is getting laggy or u just hit very very fast , that's why , i don't think valve can do smth about this .
Also , they haven't fixed the Pyro animation Bug in The CHANGE CLASS TAB , and the goldrush bug is still active so i don't know what they can do about it .
I don't even know if it's going to get fixed , usually valve works very slow , actually extremely slow , no , they work ultra super extremely slow but good , and sometimes when they want to succeed more then they want the FAIL .

Let's just hope for that God Damn Heavy Weapons Guy update comes this week .

Cheers !

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Rumours say that it will come in september..

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B3TA's Clan Leader