Weapon switch refire time reset bug

[TVR]

@Altobe
This has to be resolved, as it is a day-to-day issue experienced by both the people in front, and behind the Nex [literally]; this problem is also beginning to fracture the Nexuiz community.

@s3cc0
Correct.

@morfar
I can direct you to an old thread '...perfect weapon balancing...' in the 'Nexuiz, Gameplay' board, it is where esteel accuses [or even frames!] DivVerent of implementing the bug, with a log of an SVN revision IIRC; please reread the 3rd sentence again out loud.

@Urmel
First of all, please make clear of what you're voting for, secondly, this poll is deciding what to do about the bug, the fate of Nex will be determined after this poll; Minstagib was much more popular before ai's successful request to increase the Nex refire time, in order to use Minstagib as 'Nex training'.

@Mr.Carlyle
The previous refire time on the Nex was 1300 milliseconds [including animation time], the current one is 1800 milliseconds; however due to DivVerent's weapon switch resetting refire time, it became possible to lower the refire time to 600 milliseconds; the difference, nonetheless, between this and laser-jumps, is that laser-jumps are an ENJOYABLE part of the game.

@tZork
If so, we'll have to redesign the concept of the Nex, currently it is an heavy antimatter/matter particle railcannon, so any changes reflect on the model, and the background behind the Nex; just as the Machine Gun fires [presumably] 12.7 mm rounds in a bullpup configuration [presumably as well], just remember the developers intention to never cut the balls off a weapon [UT style!].

@Dave
Ah, so you've fallen into the group of professional gamers who play to win, I suppose not having equal refire times would put you at a disadvantage, no?

@C.Brutail
Yes, refire time is a basic restriction that shouldn't be avoided, but your method is a bit haphazard because other weapons are affected by this exploit as well.

After replying to mostly everyone's posts, I suggest this: Giving the Nex an alternate fire-mode to satisfy both it's major uses, light at a 1000 millisecond refire, and ~100 damage, and heavy at a 200 millisecond delay, 1800 millisecond refire, and ~200 damage; possibly with an explosion on impact].

[ai]

@Urmel
First of all, please make clear of what you're voting for, secondly, this poll is deciding what to do about the bug, the fate of Nex will be determined after this poll; Minstagib was much more popular before ai's successful request to increase the Nex refire time, in order to use Minstagib as 'Nex training'.

Is that ai by any chance me? Cause if so? What the hell are you talking about? I don't recall being the major factor who turned minstagib into what it is (I'm not even sure what the minstagib is set to).

[Urmel]

Pretty confused here as well. What do the Minstagib settings have to do with this poll? Minstagib was (and still is) very popular for it's minimalistic, simple and fast gameplay. At least the minsta servers I know have had the same weapon settings they always used to, for years.

When I claimed for a faster refire rate and less damage, I had the standard DM in mind. Pushing the people around with the Nexgun is extremely funny, while being fragged with it in a 1on1 match is quite frustrating generally. May be off topic of course.

I dont use weapon switch for increasing any weapon's refirerate, on the other hand I think it's quite impressible to watch others using it.

After all, you want to know what I'd vote for? I'm undecided.

[MisterMeister]

Fix, remove weapon switching causing refire setting on the same weapon

(by making each weapon have its own refire count, so one can rapidly fire two different weapons, but doesn't gain speed by changing back to the first one)

This is exactly what I have in mind, so please add me to the poll.

However, I don't think there should be two fire modes for the nex. In fact I really liked the way you changed all the guns in 2.3, cause it makes the players combine weapons that have not been combined before. In the prior version it was very easy to do a standard nex-shotgun combo. Now that the shotgun's accuracy is lower, nex-mortar and nex-machinegun are much better - BUT you need to collect these weapons before! With nex-shotgun all you had to do was get hold of the nex, so I think this is a big improvement, making the other guns more important.

I also don't understand the "dm games need strong weapons" argument. The nex already IS a very strong weapon - but the exploit makes it absolutely unneccessary to carry any other gun around. The original refire rate makes it possible for people to get away before the next shot will frag them, as long as there is a corner somewhere around. So there are two scenarios:

1. Nex hit - opponent hides away, tension rises cause he might counteract in an original way.

2. Nex hit - opponent tries to escape - combo with another weapon if available.

This is much more exciting and fun than nex-nex-frag, nex-nex-frag, nex-nex-frag, nex-nex-frag, ...

If there is more than one weapon in a game, the goal of development has to be to ensure that all of them make sense and actually are used for winning.

[PinkRobot]

Fix, remove weapon switching causing refire resetting on the same weapon

Presumably the refire rate for a weapon is there because the weapon needs to reload or recharge. I don't think switching to another weapon and back would make it reload or recharge any faster. So, I don't care if we all call it a bug, a feature, an exploit, whatever but just make weapon design consistent again and get rid of it.

Thanks.

[divVerent]

I now implemented separate refire counters, and you can try that out on RBI. So the refire time is now a latency imposed by the WEAPON, not by the PLAYER

I found that the following moves could be especially attractive with this change:

Nex -> MG: hit your enemy well with the Nex, immediately switch to MG and add some more shots to completely kill him. This would also work with most other fast weapons, it may even make the Crylink more useful to have.

Nex -> Laser: Run to some open place, shoot someone with the Nex, switch to laser and immediately laser jump out of the crowd

RL <-> Electro: Hold fire and switch between Electro and rocket launcher repeatedly for faster damage

As for other weapons...

Laser - not really useful in a combo, I'd think.
Shotgun - maybe switch to shotgun when an enemy comes too close.
MG - only really makes sense in conjunction with Hagar or Nex (and Hagar-MG was possible before my change too)
Mortar - no other weapon obeys gravity and is slow, so switching to Mortar isn't really attractive to get a higher fire rate.
Electro - as said, makes a good pair with the RL because its primary is also a rocket-like projectile.
Hagar - maybe useful directly after rockets, but as they travel faster than rockets, you could already do this before (you have to wait so your rocket hits first and then the Hagar projectiles)

Also... it allows you to do a funny RL/Laser combo: shoot a rocket, and hit the floor near it with the laser so it changes direction that actually works, but I doubt it can be aimed well... still, a fun way to get rid of a camper by making the rocket change its direction that way

[MisterMeister]

Hey, that sounds nice

BTW, for all of you "It's a feature" and "Doubler nexer can't aim" guys, check this out:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/8/21/ ... nexing.avi

[divVerent]

Well... AFTER my change, there are surely similar ways to get faster than "allowed" refire, by changing guns... but: you can't fire the SAME gun more often than it's allowed, and it isn't useful in most combinations. Basically, it makes you gain from owning more weapons (like, the RL+Electro example). And aliases surely won't help with that, as HOW you use that new possibility is up to you - I named two examples of possible uses, and surely the main use is "Hurt someone with Nex, finish him off with something else"... but this is now intentional and not a bug any more, and it actually makes sense - the NEX needs to reload, so pack it away, let it reload while you hold something else, and fetch it when it's done reloading

[morfar]

I welcome this change

[Nil]

you can try that out on RBI.

On DCC's public servers (plain, tdm, ctf) too.