Balancing changes, Guided missiles, Weapon balance tests

[FraNcoTirAdoR]

Some ideas are good mentioned by Flying Steel, I would also like to add my ideas and experience about the current weapons:

[Report is based on the October 04 state]

Physics: No idea what is changed about it, but i like it so far...

HP/Armor System: well, now it really is against stacking, the basic idea is good, to allow relatively low health and armor stack not rotting, but the problem that in games where powerup control is imoprtant (for example TDM, 1on1 or even DM), players will "have to damage themselves" to be able to pick up the next powerup if they werent damaged on-route to it, and this is pretty strange. I think the solution could be a VERY slow rot, like -1 from armor and hp every 2nd second until 100, this way the whole point of the new system wouldnt change too much, but it would also allow the powerup control on the map.
Ohh yeah: people will be really silent if they cant pick up anything when they are stacked, maybe some proper footsteps should be considered

Laser: I dont see the point of adding an inbuilt-laserjump feature, especially since most of the time angle wont be good enough to prefer it over the manual one. I still think that a close range (gauntlet-like) cut would give more flavour to the game, using Yoda's model.

Shotgun: secondary is weak comparing to primary.

Machinegun: Nice changes, good balance, I like that finally it consumes more ammo.

Camping rifle: I like it, but its too much similar to nex, except the headshot, and of course the "stealth" feature, that people cant see the shot origin. The problem is that now there are 2 almost same weapons: nex and CR. A solution could be to turn camping rifle into a "real" sniper weapon with refire of 2,5 seconds and damage of ~90, so camping rifle and nex would change place. With the huge refire, rifle would be only possible to use on long range for sniping, and its damage wouldnt kill anyone for the first hit. (with armor neither for the second). Secondary is still not unique enough, but at least its heating Just a quick side note: since the weapons placement has been changed, the camping rifle model looks really strange, pretty flat.

Mortar: primary isnt too bad, but still reminds of a mini-rocketlauncher. The mortar shots should be much slower, allowing the trajectory to be shorter but higher, something that reminds of electro secondary a little bit more. The mortar secondary right now is useless, I agree, the recommendation is good, keep the original feature with bigger blast radius so it would be more effective on "blind shots" around the corner.

Hlac: its like laser with faster refire, it has newer been too unique, neither it is now.

Electro: Underpowered. I dont agree with Flying Steel, electro is a COMBO weapon, not a rocketlauncher, in earlier versions (iirc 2.3) it was something like he mentioned, it was pretty bad. Technically the point of electro is the secondary, but this one has way too small lifetime. In this case i would say the original electro shouldnt really be touched, its really nice the way it is in 2.5 currently. I think its not electro secondary should stick to the wall, but rather hagar secondary as proxy-mine.

Crylink: it lost its main feature with the lower refire rate. The primary could remain the same, but it should bounce 3-4 times (loosing a little damage after each bounce), and the secondary is something like in balanceSamual.cfg.

Hagar: pfff, I couldnt understand the point of secondary, I'm still for the idea of proxy mines

Rocketlauncher: Pretty strong (as it always should have been ) but I agree with Flying Steel, the rocket is still a little bit too fast, and this way its almost impossible to guide, especially on stock maps. On long-range maps rocket would almost be a "sniping weapon" with this speed and control, really. I also noticed a bug, you can test it on bluesky: if you shoot the jumppad with rocket, it will bounce off, but then fall back in the sky, like it was a player, so the rocket keeps on bouncing up and down, really funny

Nex: well okey, if Lord Havoc wants a shock rifle...... I really like the lowered push, maybe the best change within the new weapons I hope it still consumes 5 ammo (if it doesnt get separate ammo type ofc) then it would be pretty balanced. Nex combos will be broken thanks to the refire rate btw.

Fireball: Really underpowered (especially for a superweapon). Primary refire should be much higher, and the secondary technically worth nothing since people can always dodge it thanks to its superslow speed. Its radius should be much bigger i think, with more edgedamage.


If I look at all weapons alltogether, I think they are really underpowered now, the lower refire rate is against spamming as I see, but the damage doesnt correspond it at all. It takes like half minute to make a kill...

[Flying Steel]

Laser: . . . I still think that a close range (gauntlet-like) cut would give more flavour to the game, using Yoda's model.

It seems that this has turned out to be a very popular concept around the forums. And it seems like this 2.6 balance shake-up would be a great time to implement and start testing such a melee type secondary attack for the laser.

[FraNcoTirAdoR]

Also it would be good to test weapons in real gaming situations where players are bouncing up and down, the testservers could really contain laser as starting weapon aside the random weapon given, because this way all players are damn static, the fight situations dont reflect those that will be in the real game. Example: more bouncy-bouncy --> harder hit with mortar.

[Bundy]

I have some questions about the 2.6 balancing. I guess these are the changes I see on the "nexuiz future not 2.5.2" servers. If I am plain wrong, I am sorry to spread wrong issues.

In fact, the weapon settings and armor/health system (fixed at 150/150) seem to be more balanced overall. But is it really the best solution to make such drastical changes to the hole game? I dont want to disrespect the huge work you put in there, but i feel that a lot of the uniques in nexuiz like health/armor system, unique counterweapon system i.e. mortar vs rocketlauncher and spammy weapons all over the place will get lost. On this server a lot of weapons feel like in any other game, too. I just want to warn you. Do everything you need for a balanced game, which has to be one of the main goals. But dont lose the unique nexuiz style, because that would be sad!

[k0jak]

Is laser going to be changed?

Like less crazy force, more more more self-damage, like 30-45hp minimum!

Why not make crylink actually like the UT's flak cannon..isn't that what it was meant to be like?

Guess this new shotgun will be more like that though.

Lightning gun forever!

[C.Brutail]

I know my words means nothing but I absolutely HATE these proposals for 2.6:

Laser secondary: WTF?!
RL speed: insane
Electro: I agree with Francotirador
Nex: NO SHOCK RIFLE! NO!
Crylink: I like it the way it is in current.
Mortar secondary: WTF?!

Now, speaking of balancing: why is it SO hard to add another ammo type for Nex?

[FraNcoTirAdoR]

Now, speaking of balancing: why is it SO hard to add another ammo type for Nex?

+10000, take the head of the nex spammers!

[Flying Steel]

If you are really looking for that kind of control, then the idea of having generic ammo packs around that feed more than one weapon with no common balance characteristics is inherently flawed, so there should just be no ammo packs- to get more ammo for a gun you should have to pick up more of that gun and that ammo will work for only that gun.

BTW, is the test server still being updated with balance changes? It says it is still running old 2.5.1 and the bullet weapons don't feel like they are hitscan (unless antilag is turned off or something). It also seems like there haven't been any major changes since the fireball and hlac were neutered something like a few weeks ago.

[ai]

Now, speaking of balancing: why is it SO hard to add another ammo type for Nex?

+10000, take the head of the nex spammers!

+20000
That's the best solution of crippeling the Nex. Without nerfing it to a pathetic shock rifle.

[Samual]

NOTE: Before you criticize my work, please note that I'M THE ONLY PERSON TO ACTUALLY TAKE THE TIME TO FORMULATE A BALANCE LIKE THIS... The only other option is havoc balance, which is imo not a good balance for normal Nexuiz... So these are my changes for what I think needs done. And yes, balance changes do need done.

This is my explanation of my balance compared to the 2.5.(2|3) balance. Note: I will only explain the relevant changes in my balance, others aren't needed to be explained.

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// Laser: Not many changes here, I just changed the speed and damage to compensate with each other.
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Primary:
- Damage: 25 (35 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed: 12,000 (9,000 in 2.5.3 balance)
(No secondary)

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// Shotgun: I'm really going for a slightly stronger shotgun here which requires more aim, but not as strong as 2.5.2 of course.
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Primary:
- Damage: 10 (9 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 0 (60 in 2.5.3 balance) Force from shotguns is unrealistic Proved by Mythbusters.
- Spread: 0.06 (0.07 in 2.5.3 balance)
Secondary:
- Damage: 10 (9 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 0 (60 in 2.5.3 balance)

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// Uzi/Machinegun: I was looking to make this more fun and more useful. Note: The cvars/behavior of this shit is messed up, it should just simply be primary/secondary... Meh.
====================
First: (aka secondary, really)
- Damage: 12 (30 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 0 (50 in 2.5.3 balance) Force from MG is also unrealistic
- Refire: 0.15 (0.2 in 2.5.3 balance)
Sustained: (aka primary, really)
- Damage: 7 (15 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 0 (27 in 2.5.3 balance, wtf 27)
- Refire: 0.075 (0.1 in 2.5.3 balance)

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// Mortar: I was going for a mortar that is quite a bit more fun to use.
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Primary:
- Damage: 50 (70 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed: 2,200 (2,000 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed_Up: 220 (200 in 2.5.3 balance)
Secondary:
- Damage: 60 (70 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed_Up: 150 (200 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Lifetime: 1 (2.5 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Health: 70 (10 in 2.5.3 balance) This allows rockets to destroy it, but not fellow grenades -- To stop combos from grenade spam.

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// Electro: I made the secondary use burst, allowing combos to be done MUCH easily -- It makes the weapon far more useful and fun imo.
====================
Primary: No changes.
Secondary:
- Lifetime: 2.5 (5 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Refire: 0.2 (0.3 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Burst Refire: 1 (Not relevant to 2.5.3 balance)
- Animtime: 0.2 (0.3 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Count: 3 (1 in 2.5.3 balance, although again -- not relevant)
Combo:
- Damage: 50 (80 in 2.5.3 balance)

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// Crylink: I was aiming to make this gun less spammy (Or rather, requiring better aim) and to be more fun. I added a plasmagun for the secondary to accomplish the fun part
====================
Primary:
- Damage: 14 (18 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Spread: 0.01 (0.03 in 2.5.3 balance)
Secondary:
- Damage: 10 (18 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: -40 (-55 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Radius: 10 (3 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed: 4,000 (7,000 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Spread: 0.01 (0.08 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Shots: 3 (7 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Refire: 0.1 (0.5 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Animtime: 0.1 (0.3 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Ammo: 1 (2 in 2.5.3 balance)

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// Nexgun: Nex whores go fuck yourselves, but well -- This is very balanced with the other weapons.
====================
Main:
- Damage: 90 (100 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 200 (600 in 2.5.3 balance)
Falloff: (Loss of force and damage over distance, 2.5.3 simply doesn't have this.)
- Mindist: 1,000
- Maxdist: 3,000
- Damage Halflife: 1,500
- Force Halflife: 1,500

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// Minstanex: No changes.
====================

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// Hagar: I was going for a much more useful weapon, and I completely redid the secondary.
====================
Primary:
- Damage: 30 (37 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Edgedamage: 0 (15 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 50 (100 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Radius: 70 (65 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Spread: 0.04 (0.01 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed: 2,400 (3,000 in 2.5.3 balance)
Secondary:
- Damage: 20 (37 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Edgedamage: 10 (15 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Radius: 90 (65 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Spread: 0.05 (0.015 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed: 2,000 (1,400 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Lifetime_Min: 0.1 (30 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Lifetime_Rand: 0.05 (0 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Refire: 0.1 (0.15 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Ammo: 0.5 (1 in 2.5.3 balance)

====================
// Rocketlauncher: It's too slow and too spammy at the moment, I tried to fix this by making it more realistic and harder to aim. It now gains speed over time by the way, starting at 1,000 ending at 1,600
====================
Main:
- Damage: 80 (105 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Radius: 100 (150 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speed: 1,600 (850 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speedaccel: 1,600 (0 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Speedstart: 1,000 (850 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Refire: 1.2 (1 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Detonatedelay: -1 (0.2 in 2.5.3 balance) This stops rocket flying, also stops you from hurting yourself by accident with detonation.
- Guiderate: 140 (90 in 2.5.3 balance)

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// Porto: Almost no changes here, just wanted to make it a bit faster.. so.. Speed is 5,000 now, it was 2,000.
====================

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// Hook: I just lowered the amount of fuel required for both firing and usage... Other than that, no changes.
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// HLAC: This weapon is disabled in my balance until further notice, I couldn't decide on a good balance for it with all the other weapons.
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// Rifle: Much more useful, and requires less bullshit (No more reload) -- In turn, redesigned secondary.
====================
Main:
- Magazinecapacity: 0 (8 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Bursttime: 0.85 (0 in 2.5.3. balance)
- Tracer: 1 (0 in 2.5.3 balance)
Primary:
- Damage: 50 (60 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Headshotdamage: 50 (100 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 0 (2 in 2.5.3 balance, wtf 2) Force ALSO is unrealistic here.
- Refire: 0.7 (0.8 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Burstcost: 0.35 (0 in 2.5.3 balance)
Secondary:
- Damage: 15 (35 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Headshotdamage: 25 (15 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Spread: 0.02 (0.008 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Force: 0 (1 in 2.5.3 balance, wtf 1)
- Refire: 0.1 (0.15 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Ammo: 4 (10 in 2.5.3 balance)
- Burstcost: 0.35 (0 in 2.5.3 balance)

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// Tuba: No changes.
====================

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// Fireball: This weapon is disabled in my balance until further notice, I couldn't decide on a good balance for it with all the other weapons.
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Anyway, you can download my balance here or join my server at mainframe.mcintec.net:26000 and test it yourself. -- Note: I've already done statistics and i've had MANY people play with my balance before, it generally has a very positive response and balances very well.