However, either way, such system that give a tag to a player based on his position is really not useful. That's what the minimaps are for, no need to clutter the view more with unnecessary stuff which might not even hold true as mentioned by Francotirador.
It will essentially be the same as minimap and minimaps aren't even used that much. People actually complained that the minimap took too much of their view or was 'in the way'.
Maybe it's a thing you have to get used to, I don't know but that's how they felt.

Speaking of mini-maps cluttering the view, why is it when you hit "M" it puts the mini-map in the middle of the screen, instead of in a corner like it used to? Because the way it is now it blocks both your aim and ironically your navigation.

I have noticed some balance changes on the test server, some better and some worse IMO.

Better:

1) Machinegun reverted to default stats more or less.
2) Hagar reverted to default stats more or less.
3) Fireball debuffed to be better balanced.

Worse:

1) Shotgun very underpowered again. (havoc shotgun stood up better before it felt like)
2) HLAC underpowered do to slow refire.


And then there are the usual havoc weapon balance weak areas that still persist:

1) Rocketlauncher speed too fast. Too powerful and bland- both remote features now useless.
2) Crylink underpowered and bland. Should really be reverted close to default settings.
3) Hagar still useless. Speed too slow to hit remotely accurately.
4) HLAC bland. No real refire now and still no spread growth- the whole idea behind this weapon.
5) Laser damage too low for new health system. Needs a buff.

Basic concept of Havoc mode: If you are not holding down a mouse button, you are missing out.

Problems:

->Shotgun primary & Crylink primary are ridiculously powerful, which makes secondary useless.

->Notice how Shotgun & Crylink share the same problem? It's because they're identical!

->Uzi is spray, spray, spray. Just need to move the reticule over the target occasionally.

->Electro combo is now impossible, secondary electro-balls now explode before there are enough to make the combo worthwhile.

->Electro-ball spam works great, however, because there is no need to trigger with the primary.

->Mortar, Electro, Hagar, & RL projectiles all move at 2000, deal around the same damage, and have the same splash... so incredibly bland.

->RL detonation is useless, ever since splash radius decreased, and arming distance increased.

->RL guidance is useless, ever since speed doubled, and turning acceleration became as touchy as hell.

->Nex & Camping Rifle have the exact same primary, except CR has a secondary that puts other hitscan weapon to shame.

->HLAC is reduced to a version of the Laser that consumes ammo.

No one ever played Pro (Havoc) mode for a very good reason

Let's say Samual is making a MUCH better balance... but it won't become default.

Samual's currently has only the problem of Hagar and HLAC being too similar, it's otherwise great.

divVerent wrote:Let's say Samual is making a MUCH better balance... but it won't become default.

Samual's currently has only the problem of Hagar and HLAC being too similar, it's otherwise great.

Yes, and that is now fixed in my latest commit to the config file....

For those who want to try it: Get the latest SVN checkout, then go to the console and run "exec balanceSamual.cfg."

Edit: Or go to my server, mainframe.mcintec.net

Well currently it seems like Havoc/2.6 balancing improves on 2.5.2's balance in only its health system and four weapons:

Laser
Shotgun
Machinegun
Nex

Those four weapons are each more interesting (laser and shotgun) and/or more balanced (shotgun, machinegun and nex).

The problem is that in 2.6 all the rest of the weapons are less balanced and alot more bland and damn painful to try to use:

Grenade Launcher: Crappy version of the rocket launcher. It has better radius damage and falloff for splash spamming, but it just isn't enough versus the RL, to make up for the half damage, longer refire, drooping trajectory, no speed advantage and lack of remote controls (albeit rarely useful now with the RL's speed). Secondary doesn't seem to have much point.

Electro: Crappy version of the rocket launcher. Versus RL- less damage, painfully long refire, same speed, no remote controls. Secondary kind of weird and pointless now.

Crylink: Another shotgun with slightly better range/damage but no hitscan. It should never have had its refire halved.

Hagar: A joke. A no accuracy spam weapon that'll be sure to get you killed in any serious fight. Huge spread (10 times what it was!) and slow ass shots the same speed as half the other weapons (bland).

HLAC: Bland as hell; lost everything that made it special and now fights losing battles against hitscan weapons in ranged fights.

Rocket Launcher: Speed and refire so insane its just a better version of mortar and electro. Remote control and detonation nearly useless do to speed.

Rifle: Secondary has no advantage over primary. Worse damage, worse accuracy, worse ammo consumption.

Fireball: Useless primary. Secondary entirely underpowered.


Suggestions:

Grenade Launcher: Decrease refire- at least make it shoot faster than RL. Make secondary hand grenades with slow refire and no contact-detonation but great damage and radius.

Electro: Increase damage to RL level, increase refire to RL level, give burn radius like fireball has so it delivers some damage just by flying close to you even without impact. Reinvent secondary so that shots stick to whatever they hit (walls, players, etc), have no downward influence from gravity, and slower speed.

Crylink: Give it back its refire.

Hagar: Double speed, halve spread. Decrease damage/refire accordingly.

HLAC: Add a heat-build-up and cool down period so that it only works in bursts. Massively decrease refire and increase spread, remove spread growth. Make it the kind of weapon it was always meant to be.

Rocket Launcher: Decrease speed to 1200-1600, increase refire to 1, adjust damage/radius/edgedamage accordingly.

Rifle: Give secondary somekind of damage benefit over primary at least.

Fireball: Maybe reinvent primary as a flamethrower. Make secondary alot better in at least one or two ways (damage, refire, prefire time, radius, ammo consumption, etc.)

Flying Steel's changes sound good to me.

All of the complaints of Flying Steel were design goals by LordHavoc. I totally hate that many guns are so similar.

The only weapon change i like in 'future' nexuiz is the exploring gl secondary. but it dont belong on the gl, its strong enough already. As a hagar sec perhaps.

Seriously tough, what the heck are these settings supposed to do? (refrain to justify this comment until i see the explanation)

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...

FraNcoTirAdoR wrote: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.

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.

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!

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!

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?

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

+10000, take the head of the nex spammers!

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.

FraNcoTirAdoR wrote:

C.Brutail wrote: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.

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.

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

====================
// 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.
====================
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)

====================
// 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)

====================
// Mortar: I was going for a mortar that is quite a bit more fun to use.
====================
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.

====================
// 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)

====================
// 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)

====================
// 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

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

====================
// 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)

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

====================
// Hook: I just lowered the amount of fuel required for both firing and usage... Other than that, no changes.
====================

====================
// 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.
====================

====================
// 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)

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

====================
// 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.
====================



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.

Okay, these are my first impressions of your balance, Samual. I should say though that I haven't played much Nexuiz while waiting for 2.5.3 and so my skills have atrophied; I might have to change some of my suggestions after I've tried it when I'm back in the zone.

Overall: I see that you have brought all the weapons' firepower down by like a third or so, just like in 2.6 balance. I'm curious what the intention behind this is, because I thought it was only for 2.6's new health/armor system. I think that with 2.5 or 2.6 health/armor, either way is about the same, so you should only lower the weapon effectiveness if your intention is to make individual fights last longer, dodging be more effective and important and escapes by losing combatants or flag carriers easier.

Laser: Love the faster laser shot, but prefer a 30 damage shot to make 4-hit kills something you could better count on.

SG: Moar pellets. They can do less damage to compensate, but it just looks better to have more pellets in the air. And only 6 pellets coming out of a shotgun in also unrealistic. I would also make it do 65 damage, whereas yours does 60 and the 2.5.2 does 72 or so. And make it run out of ammo (give it less starting ammo and ammo per ammo pickup)!

MG: I like the higher ammo consumption but it looks like you've also made it significantly less powerful versus the 2.5.3 MG for some reason. Do you think the 2.5.3 MG is overpowered still?

GL: This seems like a step back, both because the GL is so good as it currently and because this seems to make it less effective versus the Electro. Secondary spam isn't really a problem with this weapon either, most folks prefer the Electro secondary when they want to flood a room with splash spam. The only GL secondary that could really improve on the current is a BFG (Big Fucking Grenade) that is coded to not blow up on contact with a player, only when its timer goes off or once it has lost alot of hitpoints. Something to toss around corners like you do with grenades in alot of games, which would be a very, very cool secondary for the GL.

Electro: Bravo! Secondary with that fast three shot burst makes this weapon make sense with the fast paced-ness of Nexuiz finally.

Crylink: Maybe give it a little more spread, like 0.02, but this is good. I really like the secondary, that's alot of fun because the shots fire so fast but travel so slowly. Something like this would also make an excellent flamer-thrower style primary attack for the Fireball, in place of its current crappy primary.

Nex: Cool, maybe it is finally balanced with these settings.

Hagar: I'm not real fond of what you did with this, because the Hagar suffers a lot from its slow shot speed combined with really high ammo consumption. Lower its damage and increase its spread, but increase its speed to 4000 or at the very least don't reduce its speed at all past 3000. I definitely recommend balancing its other stats around a 4000 shot speed though, otherwise it turns into an underpowered-ly brief burst of spam-fest. Also don't reduce its edge damage to zero- this makes it too much like a Cell weapon which 'burns' you with splash damage a little instead of kicking your ass to the ceiling like all the explosive weapons currently do (basically they all have splash with edge damage, all ion weapons have splash with no edge damage, kind of an unspoken rule).

RL: It shouldn't do any less damage than the Nex. And instead of reducing its blast radius, it would make it less spammy and make it make more sense as a rocket launcher if you focused on increasing its refire time. I think you might have found a real sweet spot on the speed though and the rocket acceleration is a great improvement for this weapon!

HLAC: I think this weapon deserves more credit than it gets. The spread growth balances its power with more versatility than some weapons. Because you can use short burst for distances and full auto for close in fighting.

Rifle: I would recommend not abandoning the headshot advantage feature, because it adds some skill factor to sniping, whereas the Nex was just easy point and vaporize. Maybe make headshots do 75 damage.


Physics: This is slightly OT, but your server has like no friction; I was having Battlezone 2 flashbacks. This is probably a lot of fun on open terrain maps but on cramped or space maps it can take the attention off of the weapons a bit. Of course being inebriated doesn't help me either, maybe I'll give it another shot (heh) tomorrow if I'm more sober.

Overall: I see that you have brought all the weapons' firepower down by like a third or so, just like in 2.6 balance. I'm curious what the intention behind this is, because I thought it was only for 2.6's new health/armor system. I think that with 2.5 or 2.6 health/armor, either way is about the same, so you should only lower the weapon effectiveness if your intention is to make individual fights last longer, dodging be more effective and important and escapes by losing combatants or flag carriers easier.

Umm, no? I didn't lower the damage by a third -- it's just very very different (Although I did lower it slightly, but this is explained later). I can still kill just as quickly (faster in fact) as with 2.5.3 balance. But well, yes, 2.6 balance lowers it a lot aswell. --- By the way, I should take this time to point out that my players have less health, as in I have lowered maximum health/armor and changed regen and etc.

Laser: Love the faster laser shot, but prefer a 30 damage shot to make 4-hit kills something you could better count on.

No, my point was to make it more useful as a laser with low damage so you can use it more often, and even so: You can still use it in a shotgun/laser combo.

SG: Moar pellets. They can do less damage to compensate, but it just looks better to have more pellets in the air. And only 6 pellets coming out of a shotgun in also unrealistic. I would also make it do 65 damage, whereas yours does 60 and the 2.5.2 does 72 or so. And make it run out of ammo (give it less starting ammo and ammo per ammo pickup)!

About the spread: I know, I want it to spread more while maintaining good damage.. I'm waiting for div0s changes to spread so I can make this work properly.

MG: I like the higher ammo consumption but it looks like you've also made it significantly less powerful versus the 2.5.3 MG for some reason. Do you think the 2.5.3 MG is overpowered still?

It's not higher ammo consumption, I made pickups for it give much more ammo.. And it's less powerful because it's more balanced this way with a higher refire rate. I think it's fine because it's still a very affective weapon, but i'll try raising the damage a little on my server to see how it is.

GL: This seems like a step back, both because the GL is so good as it currently and because this seems to make it less effective versus the Electro. Secondary spam isn't really a problem with this weapon either, most folks prefer the Electro secondary when they want to flood a room with splash spam. The only GL secondary that could really improve on the current is a BFG (Big Fucking Grenade) that is coded to not blow up on contact with a player, only when its timer goes off or once it has lost alot of hitpoints. Something to toss around corners like you do with grenades in alot of games, which would be a very, very cool secondary for the GL.

Less affective? Not really, it's probably the most powerful weapon in my balance (Statistics say that at least, closely followed by other weapons though). But well, I changed the arc in correlation with disabling the affects of newton projectiles.. I think this arc is better anyway, it allows for longer range shots and more accurate shots all in all.

Electro: Bravo! Secondary with that fast three shot burst makes this weapon make sense with the fast paced-ness of Nexuiz finally.

That's... what EVERYONE says , so.. Yay.

Crylink: Maybe give it a little more spread, like 0.02, but this is good. I really like the secondary, that's alot of fun because the shots fire so fast but travel so slowly. Something like this would also make an excellent flamer-thrower style primary attack for the Fireball, in place of its current crappy primary.

No, the point of lowering the spread and edgedamage was to make it more of a weapon that requires aim and less of a spammy weapon. But well, I actually made my own fireball code which I haven't committed yet which performs much better imo, i'll probably post a diff and explanation later.

Nex: Cool, maybe it is finally balanced with these settings.

Statistics say yes

Hagar: I'm not real fond of what you did with this, because the Hagar suffers a lot from its slow shot speed combined with really high ammo consumption. Lower its damage and increase its spread, but increase its speed to 4000 or at the very least don't reduce its speed at all past 3000. I definitely recommend balancing its other stats around a 4000 shot speed though, otherwise it turns into an underpowered-ly brief burst of spam-fest. Also don't reduce its edge damage to zero- this makes it too much like a Cell weapon which 'burns' you with splash damage a little instead of kicking your ass to the ceiling like all the explosive weapons currently do (basically they all have splash with edge damage, all ion weapons have splash with no edge damage, kind of an unspoken rule).

It's a medium to short range weapon, the spread correlating with higher damage is on purpose. And the shot speed must remain the same, else it's too similar to the Crylink. But, yes the edge damage was an accident -- I forgot to increase that, will do today.

RL: It shouldn't do any less damage than the Nex. And instead of reducing its blast radius, it would make it less spammy and make it make more sense as a rocket launcher if you focused on increasing its refire time. I think you might have found a real sweet spot on the speed though and the rocket acceleration is a great improvement for this weapon!

I think it SHOULD do less damage than a condensed plasma beam... But well, this was also to balance its speed and guiderate. And, it DOES make more sense as a rocket launcher as I really worked on making it what it should be to be realistic. (Higher refire time, etc etc) -- The radius is reduced to stop it from being overpowered and to stop it from being too similar to the mortar.. btw, the mortar has a bigger radius than rl.

HLAC: I think this weapon deserves more credit than it gets. The spread growth balances its power with more versatility than some weapons. Because you can use short burst for distances and full auto for close in fighting.

I just don't like this weapon with my balance, it either: doesn't fit (Too odd) or: fits too well (It mimics other weapons).. So for now, it's disabled.. I was thinking about doing entirely new functionality on it though, so we'll see what I can code later.

Rifle: I would recommend not abandoning the headshot advantage feature, because it adds some skill factor to sniping, whereas the Nex was just easy point and vaporize. Maybe make headshots do 75 damage.

It's too easy to get headshots imo, they should have no advantage because Nexuiz has armor.. But well, i'll try them with an advantage of 20 later and test it.

Physics: This is slightly OT, but your server has like no friction; I was having Battlezone 2 flashbacks. This is probably a lot of fun on open terrain maps but on cramped or space maps it can take the attention off of the weapons a bit. Of course being inebriated doesn't help me either, maybe I'll give it another shot (heh) tomorrow if I'm more sober.

Physics are separate from my balance.. just as my balance is separate from my physics. Basically, there was no point in commenting there But well, yes I was going for faster movement in a way that isn't extremely fast.. Best option was a nanl-ish type config, I based it off of 2.3 physics and went from there.


Anyway, thanks for giving your opinion on this and pointing out some things I missed.. I should have time to do them tonight, so.

Samual wrote:But well, yes, 2.6 balance lowers it a lot aswell. --- By the way, I should take this time to point out that my players have less health, as in I have lowered maximum health/armor and changed regen and etc.

The issue though is that player starting health hasn't changed any, so when there are more players playing there is not enough to go around for folks to stack anyway, so max health doesn't really matter. On larger maps or low health maps it also doesn't matter very much, because there was always rot that unstacked you unless you were constantly picking up supplies. In these situations (which are really common at least in CTF) the weapons in 2.6 and your balance really are less powerful and it takes longer to kill folks.

No, my point was to make it more useful as a laser with low damage so you can use it more often, and even so: You can still use it in a shotgun/laser combo.

That's probably fine, but if it did 30 or 35 damage, it'd be more fun to use overall and probably wouldn't be imbalancing, IMO. Plus making it more useful for jumps like this might imbalance CTF games more, because the FC just has to laser out of there, while the defenders have to laser after him AND shoot at him, which might be a delicate balance.

It's not higher ammo consumption, I made pickups for it give much more ammo.. And it's less powerful because it's more balanced this way with a higher refire rate. I think it's fine because it's still a very affective weapon, but i'll try raising the damage a little on my server to see how it is.

Well I think myself and others wouldn't really mind a more ammo consuming MG just to balance its ammo usage with the other weapons more.

But if you think 2.5.3's MG is balanced, just try to keep the same DPS with it when you modify the refire and damage is all I meant. Because it looked like you lowered its damage more than you increased its refire, which would mean lower DPS.

Less affective? Not really, it's probably the most powerful weapon in my balance (Statistics say that at least, closely followed by other weapons though). But well, I changed the arc in correlation with disabling the affects of newton projectiles.. I think this arc is better anyway, it allows for longer range shots and more accurate shots all in all.

Well yours and the 2.6 balance seems to decrease the damage of direct GL hits while preserving or relatively increasing edge damage so that the weapon becomes less effective as a skill weapon and rewards spamming more. Basically the current GL rewards someone who has the skill to compensate for its lowish speed, lowish refire and arc that makes you take into account range, by offering more damage for direct hits, versus your GL or the 2.6 GL.

But well, I actually made my own fireball code which I haven't committed yet which performs much better imo, i'll probably post a diff and explanation later.

If you changed the primary attack on the fireball, then I can't wait.

It's a medium to short range weapon, the spread correlating with higher damage is on purpose. And the shot speed must remain the same, else it's too similar to the Crylink. But, yes the edge damage was an accident -- I forgot to increase that, will do today.

The thing though is that the hagar doesn't work real well in close because the shots are so slow that you have to lead a lot to hit someone even at close range, which feels really weird for CQC and doesn't mesh well with its extreme ammo consumption.

I think it SHOULD do less damage than a condensed plasma beam... But well, this was also to balance its speed and guiderate. And, it DOES make more sense as a rocket launcher as I really worked on making it what it should be to be realistic. (Higher refire time, etc etc) -- The radius is reduced to stop it from being overpowered and to stop it from being too similar to the mortar.. btw, the mortar has a bigger radius than rl.

It seems like maybe the most intuitive and sensible places to draw the line between the RL and GL could be in refire versus damage and guidance versus speed. The GL shoots faster traveling shots faster and the RL shoots fewer and slower but more damaging guided shots. I haven't studied the real world modern versions of these weapons, but that's how I would imagine them to be.

I think the GL having more blast radius than the RL would be more realistic though, so I agree on that one.

It's too easy to get headshots imo, they should have no advantage because Nexuiz has armor.. But well, i'll try them with an advantage of 20 later and test it.

Well its your call, it would certainly be easier for us content creators in the future to not have to worry about having heads in the right place for headshots.

But the idea is headshots are still harder to make than anywhere shots, so for hitscan weapons with no spread, balancing the damage in favor of headshots being more of a necessity adds some skill factor to weapons that otherwise might be too easy for someone with average to better coordination, reflexes and experience.

Physics are separate from my balance.. just as my balance is separate from my physics. Basically, there was no point in commenting there But well, yes I was going for faster movement in a way that isn't extremely fast.. Best option was a nanl-ish type config, I based it off of 2.3 physics and went from there.

To be honest you physics are kind of fun, they just make testing your weapon balance on your server less scientific is all I meant.

Anyway, thanks for giving your opinion on this and pointing out some things I missed.. I should have time to do them tonight, so.

You're very welcome and thanks for listening and working to create something better than the dead end 2.6 balance.

Erm, no offense, but you show no understanding of most the concepts in my balance..... heh..

The issue though is that player starting health hasn't changed any, so when there are more players playing there is not enough to go around for folks to stack anyway, so max health doesn't really matter. On larger maps or low health maps it also doesn't matter very much, because there was always rot that unstacked you unless you were constantly picking up supplies. In these situations (which are really common at least in CTF) the weapons in 2.6 and your balance really are less powerful and it takes longer to kill folks.

Yes, the starting health ACTUALLY HAS CHANGED... -- My server was just using warm up at the moment as I was having fun, not testing anything. -- It's fine.

That's probably fine, but if it did 30 or 35 damage, it'd be more fun to use overall and probably wouldn't be imbalancing, IMO. Plus making it more useful for jumps like this might imbalance CTF games more, because the FC just has to laser out of there, while the defenders have to laser after him AND shoot at him, which might be a delicate balance.

No, with disabling sv_gameplayfix_delayprojectiles the laser force nerfed slightly. We have a delay on firing it, but the affective force is still lower than before. This is the other reason I lowered the damage (But didn't raise force, as raising force is overkill).

But if you think 2.5.3's MG is balanced, just try to keep the same DPS with it when you modify the refire and damage is all I meant. Because it looked like you lowered its damage more than you increased its refire, which would mean lower DPS.

I DON'T think the 2.5.3 uzi is balanced. And even if I did, just because it's balanced in one context doesn't mean it is in all contexts.

Well yours and the 2.6 balance seems to decrease the damage of direct GL hits while preserving or relatively increasing edge damage so that the weapon becomes less effective as a skill weapon and rewards spamming more. Basically the current GL rewards someone who has the skill to compensate for its lowish speed, lowish refire and arc that makes you take into account range, by offering more damage for direct hits, versus your GL or the 2.6 GL.

This is a total misunderstanding of the mortar :X -- Sorry, but no, my balance does not do this... And even so, I don't believe the 2.6 balance does either.

The thing though is that the hagar doesn't work real well in close because the shots are so slow that you have to lead a lot to hit someone even at close range, which feels really weird for CQC and doesn't mesh well with its extreme ammo consumption.

You're supposed to lead, it's about aim.......... All aim isn't hitscan, you know. And, how is it extreme to require 1 ammo per 1 rocket? It makes sense.. The only reason the secondary requires half is because it has a high refire rate and low damage. And the secondary is very affective at close range.

I haven't studied the real world modern versions of these weapons

There are none They're just fun weapons that are expressed as science-fiction. (Like UT weapons)

To be honest you physics are kind of fun, they just make testing your weapon balance on your server less scientific is all I meant.

As I mentioned earlier, my server was using warmup.. I wasn't doing actual testing at the moment, I was just playing. Also, how? How would my physics with my balance be less scientific? I would consider the physics as a variable which would need to be accounted for in both testing 2.5 balance and my own balance, that way it would be equal. Meh.

Samual wrote:Erm, no offense, but you show no understanding of most the concepts in my balance..... heh..

None taken, I've only got the stats changes and a little personal experience to go on. I can only guess at your designs based on these. Also, I don't know all of the SVN code changes that your changes might be compensating for.

I DON'T think the 2.5.3 uzi is balanced. And even if I did, just because it's balanced in one context doesn't mean it is in all contexts.

Well no weapon can be balanced in all contexts, for instance even your Rifle would be imbalanced in the more open maps, maybe the Nex in your balance too, and your versions of these weapons are even less relatively powerful than in the other balances I believe.

This is a total misunderstanding of the mortar :X -- Sorry, but no, my balance does not do this... And even so, I don't believe the 2.6 balance does either.

Well you lowered damage without lowering edge damage, so that makes the weapon rely more on splash damage. There's less of a reward for direct hits because of this is what I mean. Then you compensated by giving the weapon a more level trajectory its sounds like and made its shots fly faster. So it just seems to me like this reduces the overall effectiveness of this weapon in the hands of a veteran player but makes it easier to wield for a newer player.

Admittedly it probably does make it behave more realistically though.

You're supposed to lead, it's about aim.......... All aim isn't hitscan, you know. And, how is it extreme to require 1 ammo per 1 rocket? It makes sense.. The only reason the secondary requires half is because it has a high refire rate and low damage. And the secondary is very affective at close range.

No other weapon requires leading like this, the hagar is like a damn nerf gun. The weapons with similar speed have real splash damage and no spread which are qualities the hagar lacks and that its DPS just doesn't make up for.

If its server kill stats look good then that's probably from the newbs spamming with it everywhere until they mow down the already wounded with less than 50 health. :p

There are none They're just fun weapons that are expressed as science-fiction. (Like UT weapons)

Heh, not too long ago someone was complaining about how the RL, GL, SG and MG all didn't belong in Nexuiz because they were too modern, and didn't fit a futuristic game like this.

But what I'm saying is a real life RL usually has a heavier and more damaging ordnance than any other infantry fired weapon, but can't really hold many of said ordnance or fire it very fast. Whereas the military recently developed a rapid fire grenade launcher, but you just can't kill tanks with it like you could a hand held (err well, shoulder fired) rocket launcher.

So I think people just expect something like this, only more in every way because the game is supposed to be futuristic, fast paced, science fiction, etc.

As I mentioned earlier, my server was using warmup.. I wasn't doing actual testing at the moment, I was just playing. Also, how? How would my physics with my balance be less scientific? I would consider the physics as a variable which would need to be accounted for in both testing 2.5 balance and my own balance, that way it would be equal. Meh.

Simply because people aren't used to it. I have played for so long with 2.5 physics that I'm sliding all over the place trying to get into position or stay in position and can't execute split second tricks that I've taught my muscle memory, until I have spent enough time getting used to these physics. It took folks like a week to get used to the 2.5 physics.

Also different physics could make people more or less easy to hit by affecting how fast they can accelerate and decelerate which translates into how much dodging or general unpredictability they can do. Generally speaking, faster physics should give hitscan weapons more of the edge than in slower physics like 2.5 default. Come to think of it this might be why you favor a slightly weaker MG and Rifle in your balance.

Samual wrote:====================
// Mortar: I was going for a mortar that is quite a bit more fun to use.
====================
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.

Less damage for mortar primary direct hit is a no-no. This encourages nex whoring, which is the opposite of what should be done to slow it down. I would say HIGHER mortar primary damage would be a good thing to answer nex whoring, as people won't sit around camping with nex when they have a bunch of fairly strong mortars coming at them. I would think an ideal damage could be 75 or 80 at least...50 is going in the wrong direction. I would also like to see the radius (2.5.2) drop as well..I don't know what the value is for 2.5.3, but as long as it's a little less.....

PCLizard wrote:

Samual wrote:====================
// Mortar: I was going for a mortar that is quite a bit more fun to use.
====================
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.

Less damage for mortar primary direct hit is a no-no. This encourages nex whoring, which is the opposite of what should be done to slow it down. I would say HIGHER mortar primary damage would be a good thing to answer nex whoring, as people won't sit around camping with nex when they have a bunch of fairly strong mortars coming at them. I would think an ideal damage could be 75 or 80 at least...50 is going in the wrong direction. I would also like to see the radius (2.5.2) drop as well..I don't know what the value is for 2.5.3, but as long as it's a little less.....

No, that's entirely wrong -- Note, I already DEALT with nex whoring, and also: it is then TOO POWERFUL.... I already did lots of testing on this with nifrek and other people. Also: I don't like it having a lower radius, it then makes the RL useless.

And once again, how does this encourage Nex whoring?... In any way?

If you people want balance AND you want powerful ass weapons, why don't I just scale up the damage on all weapons by 25%..... Seriously, lowering the damage from 60 to 50 on the mortar (And not touching edgedamage) is NOT A PROBLEM, because if you look here:

Code: Select all

//   {{{ mortar
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_damage 50
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_edgedamage 38
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_force 400
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_radius 140
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_speed 2200
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_speed_up 220
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_spread 0
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_lifetime 30
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_refire 0.8
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_animtime 0.3
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_primary_ammo 2
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_damage 60
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_edgedamage 38
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_force 400
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_radius 140
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_speed 1400
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_speed_up 150
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_spread 0
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_lifetime 1
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_refire 0.7
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_animtime 0.3
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_ammo 2
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_health 70
set g_balance_grenadelauncher_secondary_damageforcescale 4
//   }}}


The edge damage is 38, while the damage itself is 50 ----- That's still a high ratio of direct damage to edge damage! (Direct hit does 131% damage compared to edge damage)

I guess my feeling is I'm not sure if it is an improvement to have 131% instead of 184% relative damage between epicenter and edge.

I mean yes, it does help distinguish the GL from the electro and RL by making it more splash focused.

But the downside is that the splashy GL and sloppy hagar in your balance and 2.6 to a greater extent, is they make these weapons kind of spamy.

You have to be careful with this when it comes to the explosive weapons because they already come close to the spamy side of the force with their high edge damage and large blast radius.

And you have to be careful of spam because it can artificially hold up spam weapons in balance statistics because newbes gravitate towards those weapons and have a harder time getting kills with anything else. But then when you have skilled players fighting, they don't use spam weapons because they are not as well balanced for delivering precise concentrated energy on a single target.

Instead the sweet spot is to keep the spamy guns easy for noobs to use, but have a DPS advantage in the hands of a vet who can deliver repeated concentrated fire, which is actually a lot harder than just landing a hitscan Nex blast on someone every second and a half and it also doesn't allow you to duck for cover while your burst weapon reloads or to account for the enemy ducking for cover while his burst weapon reloads. So you need to reward that enough if you want those weapons to be used in skilled games.

The 2.5.2/3 crylink and mortar are good examples of this principle, noobs can spam with them, but vets can also use their skill to bring out the higher DPS of these guns in serious games.

Think about it, it takes a lot more skill to make two direct hits with a mortar on someone than two direct hits with a nex, and yet your balance makes two direct mortar hits only marginally better than one nex hit. But default current balance gives a significant and practical advantage to the skilled mortar hits in this matchup.

A similar thing applies to the crylink in current balance. You can spam with it, but to really survive using it against a vet, you have to use greater skill by making many well placed hits quickly and only where cover is not readily available if against an opponent with a burst weapon (unless you can ricochet the shots around a corner onto him, which you can sometimes do).

I have played around with the new 2.6 balance (balanceSamual) downloaded from SVN and so I have revised my feedback. I think this upcoming balance will be a solid improvement over 2.5 (let alone havoc) series as is. It makes uber weapons much more balanced and more of the lamer weapons useful. I think starting weapons could be more potent but besides that I only have a handful of remaining suggestions:

Mortar: Secondary still doesn't seem that useful or used. What we really need here is a much slower refire and greater ammo consumption, much greater damage and radius "hand grenade" that does not go off on contact, but only explodes when its 3 second or so fuse runs out. Something to toss around corners or places you don't want the enemy to go for a little while. Please code the secondary to not go off on contact with an enemy so that this weapon is possible and balance testing can begin on it.

Electro: Maybe slightly buff primary refire or damage. Combo could be a bit stronger too because of the difficulty and time it takes to deliver a combo storm.

Nex: Decrease damage another 10, down to 80. Because despite the range-damage falloff on both ends, and the less storage space for cell ammo in your mod, the nex is still too strong. Most likely because it is hitscan, no spread and the most powerful per shot weapon (important because you can shoot and scoot behind cover, greatly improving your DPS against a player with a rapid fire low damage weapon).

Rifle: Either add a headshot advantage for primary or remove it for secondary; it is too misleading otherwise, especially when the announcer exclaims "headshot!" for a hit from the primary, even though there's no point/advantage.

Another idea for the Electro primary. Give it the burn effect the fireball has when it flies by you. Then electro bolt would damage players just by passing near them, even without touching or detonating on them, like the fireball BFG shots currently do.

I mean, if you aren't using the fireball gun in your balance anyway, why not reuse its most unique feature.