Nex animtime feels like ages

[Mr. Bougo]

One second.
That's how long you have to wait after a nex shot before you can switch. Compare that with the old value: 0.3 second.
You can try ingame how it feels, even without a svn nexuiz. Just type this in the console
g_balance_nex_animtime 1
and start a local game...

This new animtime breaks weapon combos: usually, when you shoot with the nex, it's a good strategy to switch to something else right after the shot instead of being idle for 1.5 seconds. Now you're forced to wait, and I'm not sure that's the point of a fast-paced game.


The problem comes from the new nex anim, which is 1 second long. To be played correctly, it needs the animtime to match that length, and that cvar is also used for switching prevention. It's not possible to switch while the firing anim is playing. That's too late to change now, Nexuiz is in feature freeze.
What's needed is a new anim.

[divVerent]

Agreed. 0.5 to 0.7 seconds seems like a good interval for it to be in. It is good for weapon balance to weaken nex combos - but maybe not by as much as 1 second waiting time.

The current anim looks somewhat okay-ish (but not really good, as it still is cut off then) at an animtime of 0.65. If no new anims are made, that could be tried.

[esteel]

First of all if that were to change, the weapon anim itself needs to be tuned.. so if you do not like this talk to morphed to change the animation.
And then i think the increasing the nex animtime in general is good and will reduce its usage as all around gun as its combo-value is reduced. 1s might be too much though. I have not test played the change enough to be sure.
Take a look at the crifle.. its hard (almost impossible) to use it as second weapon in a combo because of the automatic reload when switched to. NOONE ever complained about it. Guess noone even thought about it yet? But now as something CHANGED a bit people complain.

[Mr. Bougo]

The problem is it didn't change "a bit".

When changing such things, one should think about the users' habits. Messing with them is not so wise IMHO, and that's what happens here: tripling the delay is quite radical, I'm not sure it will be globally accepted.

There's no problem with the camping rifle delay because it's always been like this. People are not used to put it in a combo.

[divVerent]

Anyone who wants can make an anim that lasts 0.5 seconds... the thing is, the source of the latest anim is not available, so that would have to be made based on the old anims.

[FraNcoTirAdoR]

Im totally against this 1 second long animtime, the original 0.3 was okey, 0.5 doesnt seem to be bad for balancing, but what nex really needs is a slightly increased refire time, and not lowering its role in the weapon combinations.

[divVerent]

Even more increased refire time? No, that'll switch the focus to nex combos even more, and will require also a damage reduction.

[GreEn`mArine]

I actually wanted to start this thread, but well, MrBougo was faster this time

Summary of my post: I do not agree to this change and would prefer to have the the old reload animation time and/or switch time back to 0.3 sec as it used to be.

When I quit playing an old tactical shooter several years ago I wanted to start playing FPS games like quake or UnrealTournament. Games, that allow you to pickup items, to respawn, and all that. I was having a close look at both UT99, Quake3 and disliked several aspects of both games.

Then I stumbled across Nexuiz. The game felt so awesome, because it has (had?) so many little elements that add an arcade factor to the game. It removed realism or limitations or depth/difficulty from game elements of other games. This includes:
- no health and armor restriction
- no ammo restriction / shared ammo
- no need to wait for the weapon to reload before you can switch

And I really like that this is the way Nexuiz works because it adds a certain feeling to the game.

Now, all of a sudden, a weapon modeler, together with divverent, decides to change that fact again, shortly before the new release, and with no announcement whatsoever (*sidenote). I am wondering what drives you game developers to such a decision. I'd like to hear proper arguments why this change was made by either Morphed or divverent. I'd like to hear the advantages this change introduces, advantages that outweight the fact that this changes a key-component of the game, being arcade and having fast gameplay.

I can imagine one of the pro arguments for changing the anim/switch time to a longer amount:
It would add difficulty to the game, because you'd have to consider much more carefully when to use the nexgun, probably only in situations where you can back off and watch for cover until your reload time is over. This is also certainly one of the reasons why games like Quake3 are working that way - and to the ones who are experienced (>3 years) 1vs1 players and also played and watched Q3 matches, you'll see that such a gameplay element slows the game down (which is intended for Q3 gameplay) and makes it much more tactical.

However, as I said at the beginning, Nexuiz is an arcade game for me and also many others. It should not need to add such artificial reloadtimes, and especially not just for one weapon. If at all, then for all weapon, or for none of them (in our case, the latter, of course). The ones who want to weaken the Nexgun: the damage of the nexgun has already been weakened from 140 to 130. Apart from that, using nexgun in the infight is already hard enough anyway, since you are pushed around a lot by mortar or rocket launcher already. Also, keep in mind that many players became skilled in using combos that include the nexgun in the combo chain, and why would you want to ruin that practice (and please don't come with an argument that you can simply use nexgun as last weapon, that "wouldn't work").

Take a look at the crifle..

Well, the camping rifle is a very strong weapon, since it is antilagged again at least. When having a good aim, you can be much more effective with it when doing headshots, as it has a higher refire rate. Just to provide the maths: with one magazine you can do 8(mag size)x160(headshotdmg) = 1280 damage in 8x0.7(refire) = 5,6 seconds. With nexgun, in 5,6 seconds you can do only three shots, each shot does 130 damage, so even if you interpolated the damage (130 / 1.5 * 5.6) you'd do 485.3 damage in 5.6 seconds. Therefore, adding penalty such as auto reload to the CR is perfectly fine, because it is basically the BFG in Nexuiz now anyway...

*Sidenote:
But, actually, I do now even think that it isn't that bad that new, game changing features just get in without annoucement, as long as the players have the change to complain about it, just like we did for the change of removing antilag for projectile-bullets, which turned out to be reverted again, thank god.

[divVerent]

Now, all of a sudden, a weapon modeler, together with divverent, decides to change that fact again, shortly before the new release, and with no announcement whatsoever (*sidenote). I am wondering what drives you game developers to such a decision. I'd like to hear proper arguments why this change was made by either Morphed or divverent. I'd like to hear the advantages this change introduces, advantages that outweight the fact that this changes a key-component of the game, being arcade and having fast gameplay.

Fact is: it was not my decision. Morphed wanted a longer animtime, and I told him "try something between 0.5 and 1.0, but note that it'll weaken combos". Weakning combos a bit probably is a good idea, as the Nex is the one strongest weapon of all. But did he have to go the full way to 1.0?

Also, the damage change from 140 to 130 didn't do anything at all to the weapon balance.

[MaKR]

OK now I'm confused as to the use of the nex...... someone want to explain to me its purpose? Because I know it is not one of the two following:

1.) The nex is NOT a weapon to be used in combos, hence the weapon switch time will be reduced.
2.) The nex is NOT a sniper rifle, even though it has a scope with zoom, because "camping is bad" and we're already trying to prevent it.

So when am I supposed to use the nex?