Clueless Newbie wrote:If this project gets started (which won't happen until coders and modelers join up), we should decide on what visual style to use, for instance utilitarian army, alien weirdness, sports arena, My Little Pony (as if), or something else — and stick to that style. The problem I have with the current Nex player models is the lack of coherence. Every model looks as if it comes from a different universe.

I am planning a set of a dozen models with class-based mutator(s) in mind (though they are also fully intended for use in core Nexuiz), each of which is intended to be paired with a particular one of Nexuiz' weapons when used as a character class, and each meant to have its own armor/health and movement physics stats, as well as special Nexuiz equipment (grappling hook, jetpack, portolaunch).

These dozen character models will be split into two distinct factions, and balanced against each other so that they could be used as such a way as we have seen in the battlefield, battlefront or quake wars series', as well as one faction being used by more than one team, or both factions combined so that the player can choose any character class he wants, depending on the Mutator.

The first faction (Terran Faction) is your "Utilitarian Army", comprised of Human(s), their Unmanned Combat Vehicles (robot warriors) and one or two other assorted helpers, like a Troodon Dinosaurs soldier for kicks.

The second faction (Nexuiz Faction) is your "Alien Weirdness", comprised of redesigned "Nexuiz's Soldiers" (I plan for them to be upright quadrupeds with a thick skin of some sort), a similarly built heavy walker robot, a UFO, maybe that wheel bot of Morphed's and various very strange Alien Auxilliaries (one most likely a cyborg, perhaps another brought over unaltered from Vega Strike) a la Star Control, Halo and Universe at War.

Some of these ideas are more solidified for me than others, so some of this is subject to change.

And as a heads up, try not to be shocked if you don't see a single humanoid character amoung these who isn't actually human. I seriously hate anthropomorphism.

Flying Steel wrote:And as a heads up, try not to be shocked if you don't see a single humanoid character amoung these who isn't actually human. I seriously hate anthropomorphism.

Just remember that the bounding box is the same and it mustn't change as that would give advantages/disadvantages to using that model.

Flying Steel wrote:

Clueless Newbie wrote:If this project gets started (which won't happen until coders and modelers join up), we should decide on what visual style to use, for instance utilitarian army, alien weirdness, sports arena, My Little Pony (as if), or something else — and stick to that style. The problem I have with the current Nex player models is the lack of coherence. Every model looks as if it comes from a different universe.

I am planning a set of a dozen models with class-based mutator(s) in mind (though they are also fully intended for use in core Nexuiz), each of which is intended to be paired with a particular one of Nexuiz' weapons when used as a character class, and each meant to have its own armor/health and movement physics stats, as well as special Nexuiz equipment (grappling hook, jetpack, portolaunch).

These dozen character models will be split into two distinct factions, and balanced against each other so that they could be used as such a way as we have seen in the battlefield, battlefront or quake wars series', as well as one faction being used by more than one team, or both factions combined so that the player can choose any character class he wants, depending on the Mutator.

The first faction (Terran Faction) is your "Utilitarian Army", comprised of Human(s), their Unmanned Combat Vehicles (robot warriors) and one or two other assorted helpers, like a Troodon Dinosaurs soldier for kicks.

The second faction (Nexuiz Faction) is your "Alien Weirdness", comprised of redesigned "Nexuiz's Soldiers" (I plan for them to be upright quadrupeds with a thick skin of some sort), a similarly built heavy walker robot, a UFO, maybe that wheel bot of Morphed's and various very strange Alien Auxilliaries (one most likely a cyborg, perhaps another brought over unaltered from Vega Strike) a la Star Control, Halo and Universe at War.

Sounds good to me. Sounds like a lot of work, too. How about starting off by making a basic male human soldier (or something), and then use variants of the basic model for the different classes by varying the size and proportions - and the gear, of course. That way, we could have the models for a basic NTF relatively soon. Other styles and settings (like what you're suggesting) could be added as they are made.

Either way, does this mean we have a modeler on board? (please? )

Some of these ideas are more solidified for me than others, so some of this is subject to change.

And as a heads up, try not to be shocked if you don't see a single humanoid character amoung these who isn't actually human. I seriously hate anthropomorphism.

I'm with you on that one. Another thing I hate are the "chainmail bikini" models. If you make woman models, please make them realistic. Konoko, not Lisa Lipps.

I think the only thing that would actually shock me are goatse / tubgirl-themed player models..

ai wrote:

Flying Steel wrote:And as a heads up, try not to be shocked if you don't see a single humanoid character amoung these who isn't actually human. I seriously hate anthropomorphism.

Just remember that the bounding box is the same and it mustn't change as that would give advantages/disadvantages to using that model.

This touches on something I've often thought about when playing online games; how about taking the player mass into consideration? Every now and then, players bump into each other. The result is that both are blocked. But in this class-based game, if, say, a runner bumps into a heavy weapons guy, the runner should bounce off while the HWG wouldn't notice a thing. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with different bounding boxes being an advantage / disadvantage to a given class. If you're a HWG, you're an easier target.

There could be other advantages to having player mass, such as doors that can be smashed by HWGs and bridges that can only carry the lighter players.

Hmm.. (thinks out loud) maybe engies should be able to build light structures like bridges, barricades, and so on. First construction only stops / carries light classes and are easily smashed by HWGs and explosives, while reinforcements make the stuff increasingly durable... Might hurt the fps if a lot of stuff is built in large, open areas though..

Yes, bounding boxed can be different but as you said. Then different advantages and disadvantages has to be taking into account in gameplay. Like the HWG is slow and tough with lots of HP, thus bigger hit area. While a spy or engineer has smaller box but they are much faster and stuff like that.

I just didn't know how you guys would plan it, so I just threw it out there for now. So until some plan is formed on what classes what they should do, how much hp, how slow/fast they are and so on, the bounding box has to stay pretty much the same for now. Having this info would of course greatly help the modeler.

Clueless Newbie wrote:

Flying Steel wrote:

Clueless Newbie wrote:If this project gets started (which won't happen until coders and modelers join up), we should decide on what visual style to use, for instance utilitarian army, alien weirdness, sports arena, My Little Pony (as if), or something else — and stick to that style. The problem I have with the current Nex player models is the lack of coherence. Every model looks as if it comes from a different universe.

I am planning a set of a dozen models with class-based mutator(s) in mind (though they are also fully intended for use in core Nexuiz), each of which is intended to be paired with a particular one of Nexuiz' weapons when used as a character class, and each meant to have its own armor/health and movement physics stats, as well as special Nexuiz equipment (grappling hook, jetpack, portolaunch).

These dozen character models will be split into two distinct factions, and balanced against each other so that they could be used as such a way as we have seen in the battlefield, battlefront or quake wars series', as well as one faction being used by more than one team, or both factions combined so that the player can choose any character class he wants, depending on the Mutator.

The first faction (Terran Faction) is your "Utilitarian Army", comprised of Human(s), their Unmanned Combat Vehicles (robot warriors) and one or two other assorted helpers, like a Troodon Dinosaurs soldier for kicks.

The second faction (Nexuiz Faction) is your "Alien Weirdness", comprised of redesigned "Nexuiz's Soldiers" (I plan for them to be upright quadrupeds with a thick skin of some sort), a similarly built heavy walker robot, a UFO, maybe that wheel bot of Morphed's and various very strange Alien Auxilliaries (one most likely a cyborg, perhaps another brought over unaltered from Vega Strike) a la Star Control, Halo and Universe at War.

Sounds good to me. Sounds like a lot of work, too. How about starting off by making a basic male human soldier (or something), and then use variants of the basic model for the different classes by varying the size and proportions - and the gear, of course. That way, we could have the models for a basic NTF relatively soon. Other styles and settings (like what you're suggesting) could be added as they are made.

Actually, I think we will find the real work is going to come in getting any character models exported and working from Blender to Nexuiz, especially when using their own original skeletons and animations from what I understand (the current set of animations that all of the current Nexuiz player models use are not really that great imo).

The current Nexuiz models could work as stand-ins though, until we can get a solid content pipeline worked out.

Either way, does this mean we have a modeler on board? (please? )

Yes, I have been wanting and planning a class based Nexuiz mutator since I started playing in 2.3, and when I saw Psychcf was working on one, I finally stopped lurking and joined this forum to help push it along and make it happen on the content side- character models.

So to summarize, it looks there is a team made up of you as a mapmaker, Psychcf as a coder and me as a modeler (with texturing and animating coming as part of that, to be specific).

I'm with you on that one. Another thing I hate are the "chainmail bikini" models. If you make woman models, please make them realistic. Konoko, not Lisa Lipps.

I think the only thing that would actually shock me are goatse / tubgirl-themed player models..

Of course, this is Nexuiz, not Open Arena.

ai wrote:

Flying Steel wrote:And as a heads up, try not to be shocked if you don't see a single humanoid character amoung these who isn't actually human. I seriously hate anthropomorphism.

Just remember that the bounding box is the same and it mustn't change as that would give advantages/disadvantages to using that model.

ai wrote:Yes, bounding boxed can be different but as you said. Then different advantages and disadvantages has to be taking into account in gameplay. Like the HWG is slow and tough with lots of HP, thus bigger hit area. While a spy or engineer has smaller box but they are much faster and stuff like that.

I just didn't know how you guys would plan it, so I just threw it out there for now. So until some plan is formed on what classes what they should do, how much hp, how slow/fast they are and so on, the bounding box has to stay pretty much the same for now. Having this info would of course greatly help the modeler.

Correct, I know and agree, all of my designs are meant to fit their main visual bulk into the standing bounding box and be able to crouch into the crouching bounding box. (This way they can also replace the aging current Nexuiz models in the unmutated game.)

Later on, we could experiment with maybe a cube shaped bounding box with the same volume, that'd be useful for character classes with less tall proportions. Or even bounding boxes of different total volumes. But this might make sense in a separate class based mutator from the one that uses standard characters/boundboxes.

Clueless Newbie wrote:

ai wrote:

Flying Steel wrote:And as a heads up, try not to be shocked if you don't see a single humanoid character amoung these who isn't actually human. I seriously hate anthropomorphism.

Just remember that the bounding box is the same and it mustn't change as that would give advantages/disadvantages to using that model.

This touches on something I've often thought about when playing online games; how about taking the player mass into consideration? Every now and then, players bump into each other. The result is that both are blocked. But in this class-based game, if, say, a runner bumps into a heavy weapons guy, the runner should bounce off while the HWG wouldn't notice a thing. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with different bounding boxes being an advantage / disadvantage to a given class. If you're a HWG, you're an easier target.

There could be other advantages to having player mass, such as doors that can be smashed by HWGs and bridges that can only carry the lighter players.

I think you will want to follow this then:

http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.php?t=4156

And maybe the soccer version of Nexball where you 'bounce' the ball off of your own player bounding box to 'kick' it.

ai wrote:Yes, bounding boxed can be different but as you said. Then different advantages and disadvantages has to be taking into account in gameplay. Like the HWG is slow and tough with lots of HP, thus bigger hit area. While a spy or engineer has smaller box but they are much faster and stuff like that.

I just didn't know how you guys would plan it, so I just threw it out there for now. So until some plan is formed on what classes what they should do, how much hp, how slow/fast they are and so on, the bounding box has to stay pretty much the same for now. Having this info would of course greatly help the modeler.

Hmm.. ok.. how's this:

Assume we stick with a human team for now, the average model would be the size of an average human. However, most of these guys would be carrying around a lot of gear and armor, and would be a bit wider than an average human. The Heavy Weapons Guy is huge, and would be maybe 5& taller than an average human and 10% wider (bulk + gear). The runner, assassin, hacker, and sniper are lightly equipped and would be completely average WRT hight and width. I don't know what kind of units one uses for speeds and so on.

Also, I made some more tweaks on the classes (including armor and hp):

---

ASSASSIN
Primary weapon: Knife
Secondary Weapon: Hook + grav bomb
Health: 75
Armor: 50
Speed: High
Special ability: Can kill with a single stab in the back. Can disguise self as enemy.

ENGINEER
Primary weapon: Machine gun
Secondary weapon: None.
Health: 100
Armor: 100
Speed: Average
Special ability: Build turrets that fire bullets or rockets. 1st stage bullet turret = machinegun. 2nd stage = heavy machinegun. 1st stage rocket turret = hagar. 2nd stage = rocket launcher. 3rd stage = tag seeker. Can disarm explosives.
Can build structures such as walls, barricades, and bridges. 1st stage can be smashed by large players (HWG, fex). Explosive engy needed to remove 3rd stage objects.

EXPLOSIVES ENGINEER
Primary weapon: Grenade launcher
Secondary weapon: Land mine (limited number pr player)
Health: 100
Armor: 200
Speed: Average
Special ability: Can plant large explosive that clears the room — alternately destroys structures on map (if supported), and 3rd stage structures built by engy.

HACKER
Primary weapon: Crylink
Secondary weapon: Hacker hook
Health: 100
Armor: 50
Speed: Average
Special ability: Shoots hook at target. Stays connected to target with ray of some sort (maybe stream of dots). Connection broken if hacker is injured. Range is limited. Hacking takes 30(?) secs. Can be used on turrets (making them belong to hacker), door locks (to open door for team or lock it for enemy team), and enemy players. When used on enemy, entire team can read enemy communication. Hacker can encrypt team comm (undoing hack) by standing still for 30 secs without injury. Hacker can determine whether team comm has been hacked or not.

HEAVY WEAPONS GUY
Primary weapon: Heavy machine gun or rocket launcher, chosen between spawns
Secondary weapon: Primary weapon (as a club)
Health: 200
Armor: 200
Speed: Slow
Special ability: None.

PLASMA ENGINEER
Primary weapon: Electro
Secondary weapon: Emp gun.
Health: 100
Armor: 100
Speed: Average
Special ability: Can build turrets using plasma-based weapons. 1st stage = electro. 2nd stage = nex. Emp gun sets off mines and unused ammo (blows up all ammo carried by a player - also effects turrets), but PE spawns with only 3(?) rounds. Emp gun has limited range.

RUNNER
Primary weapon: Light machine gun
Secondary weapon: None
Health: 75
Armor: 0
Speed: Max
Special ability: Runs very fast. Hands out ammo and materials to other players.

SUICIDE BOMBER
Primary weapon: Light machine gun
Secondary weapon: Suicide vest
Health: 75
Armor: 100
Speed: Fast
Special ability: Suicide vest. 3 sec countdown when trigger is pulled. Massive, room-clearing blast. Can be set off by PE's Emp gun. Can disguise self like any other class at spawn (but keeps team colors).

SNIPER
Primary weapon: Sniper rifle
Secondary weapon: Jetpack
Health: 75
Armor: 50
Speed: Fast
Special ability: None.

---

If we do this, I suggest doing the classes by priority. The first group should be (IMO):

Engineer, Heavy Weapons Guy, and Runner.

Second group:

Explosives engineer, Hacker, and Sniper.

Third group:

Assassin, Plasma Engineer, and Suicide Bomber.

Flying Steel wrote:

Clueless Newbie wrote:Either way, does this mean we have a modeler on board? (please? )

Yes, I have been wanting and planning a class based Nexuiz mutator since I started playing in 2.3, and when I saw Psychcf was working on one, I finally stopped lurking and joined this forum to help push it along and make it happen on the content side- character models.

So to summarize, it looks there is a team made up of you as a mapmaker, Psychcf as a coder and me as a modeler (with texturing and animating coming as part of that, to be specific).

Sounds like we've got a project then.

(all I need to do now is figure out how to compile maps with NetRadiant)

Flying Steel wrote:I think you will want to follow this then:

http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.php?t=4156

And maybe the soccer version of Nexball where you 'bounce' the ball off of your own player bounding box to 'kick' it.

Cool as that would be, I think it would be a lot easier to do something like "stage 1 barricade is destroyed by two running jumps from HWG, six from avg classes, or one rocket/nade," etc.

Clueless Newbie wrote:Hmm.. ok.. how's this:

Assume we stick with a human team for now, the average model would be the size of an average human. However, most of these guys would be carrying around a lot of gear and armor, and would be a bit wider than an average human. The Heavy Weapons Guy is huge, and would be maybe 5& taller than an average human and 10% wider (bulk + gear).

The current Nexuiz player models already have that kind of size variation, even though their collision boxes are all the same dimensions. So if you want an immediate stand in for a beefier class, you could just use Nexus, Xolar or Mulder.

The runner, assassin, hacker, and sniper are lightly equipped and would be completely average WRT hight and width. I don't know what kind of units one uses for speeds and so on

Also, I made some more tweaks on the classes (including armor and hp): . . .

I have a fairly hefty design alteration / modular implementation plan for character classes that I feel could make this project easier to implement, fill more gameplay types and also in my opinion keep more with Nexuiz' "flavor". I think we should break design work of the character classes into two modules:


The first module (and be prepared for another shock because this will seem very contrarian) is to make and balance all character classes against each other in pure player versus player singular combat without using things that don't or won't exist anywhere else in Nexuiz. Each character class would get one of Nexuiz' existing weapons, get a change to its stable armor and health levels and diverse mobility through altering movement physics stats and giving some classes the mutator jetpack or offhand grapple hook (and possibly altering their fuel stats as well).

--- (I have alot of ideas about how this much of the character classes would function that I'd like to go with.) ---


The second module is deployables, abilities that alter the map, or things that benefit a team but not the individual character who uses it. These abilities would be added to the individually balanced and very diverse character classes mentioned above, to create a version of team fortess that mixes and finds a balance with the "flavor" of Nexuiz that emphasizes mobility, firepower and (as a result of those two things) individual skill over team work (versus many other games). Some of these things, being new to Nexuiz and therefor needing to be done from scratch, could be the most work on the code side and thus take the most time to implement, so balancing work could benefit from dealing with these separately and not having to wait for all of these features to be implemented beforehand.

--- (And these features are the part that you might want to design and decide which of the character classes should get which of these specials, in part because they'll probably need to take into consideration map features like assault, onslaught, spawn and choke points, for any extisting maps that you feel this mutator is best for, as well as whatever maps you plan on creating with this mutator in mind.) ---

Flying Steel wrote:The current Nexuiz player models already have that kind of size variation, even though their collision boxes are all the same dimensions. So if you want an immediate stand in for a beefier class, you could just use Nexus, Xolar or Mulder.

Bookmark models? Sure.

I have a fairly hefty design alteration / modular implementation plan for character classes that I feel could make this project easier to implement, fill more gameplay types and also in my opinion keep more with Nexuiz' "flavor". I think we should break design work of the character classes into two modules:


The first module (and be prepared for another shock because this will seem very contrarian) is to make and balance all character classes against each other in pure player versus player singular combat without using things that don't or won't exist anywhere else in Nexuiz. Each character class would get one of Nexuiz' existing weapons, get a change to its stable armor and health levels and diverse mobility through altering movement physics stats and giving some classes the mutator jetpack or offhand grapple hook (and possibly altering their fuel stats as well).

Hmm.. I'm not sure it's necessary (or even desirable) to have classes that are equal in 1 vs 1 matches. IMO a paper-scissor-rock setup might be better. The important thing (IMHO) is that all the classes have their uses and are capable of being useful to their own team and/or cause harm to the other team.

--- (I have alot of ideas about how this much of the character classes would function that I'd like to go with.) ---


The second module is deployables, abilities that alter the map, or things that benefit a team but not the individual character who uses it. These abilities would be added to the individually balanced and very diverse character classes mentioned above, to create a version of team fortess that mixes and finds a balance with the "flavor" of Nexuiz that emphasizes mobility, firepower and (as a result of those two things) individual skill over team work (versus many other games). Some of these things, being new to Nexuiz and therefor needing to be done from scratch, could be the most work on the code side and thus take the most time to implement, so balancing work could benefit from dealing with these separately and not having to wait for all of these features to be implemented beforehand.

I dunno. IMO it would be better to just make the classes and play some rounds, then tweak the classes that come out as being too weak or too strong — which doesn't necessarily apply to a combat situation. The assassin, sniper, and hacker classes, for instance, would come out as weak in a direct 1-vs-1 using ordinary nex weapons and no special abilities, but let them use their special skills and weapons and they can all be lethal in their own way.

Maybe it should have radars that are needed for team chat

runner must have laser as weapon
sniper hp/armor is too low

what's heavy machine gun ?

alpha wrote:what's heavy machine gun ?

Something like this, but suited for handholding:


The machine gun is the one we got in game.

The Light machinegun should be a submachine gun. The perfect weapon for silenced sound.

Clueless Newbie wrote:Hmm.. I'm not sure it's necessary (or even desirable) to have classes that are equal in 1 vs 1 matches. IMO a paper-scissor-rock setup might be better. The important thing (IMHO) is that all the classes have their uses and are capable of being useful to their own team and/or cause harm to the other team.

But does rock-paper-scissors balancing apply to the Nexuiz weapons? Because those are, imo, quite balanced and a major part of what makes Nexuiz, Nexuiz, so I think they are using the best model to build character classes off of.

To be more specific, my impression of the Nexuiz weapons is that they each become stronger and weaker in different areas of a map and in the hands of different players with different play styles. For these reasons you can gain great advantage by switching weapons as you move into different areas of the map (cover, tunnels, open, highground, lowground, etc.) or by filling a role in you team (sniping with Nex, Rifle and Machinegun or 'closing the gates' behind your flag carrier with rockets grenades and electros to thwart his pursuers.)

This same balancing technique worked effectively in many tactical shooters as well, and the differences between them and Nexuiz are not all that different; all we have to change are a few things:

1) A player cannot switch weapons as he goes, he must stick with the weapon of the character class he has chosen. (Thus as you move into an area of the map where your weapon is less effective, you will want your teamates with better suited weapons for support).

2) Different Health and Mobility stats, likewise tied to the character class chosen. (Which will combine with the built in weapons to create further strengths and weaknesses in different areas of the map and for different player's skills).

3) A variety of special equipment, again tied to the chosen character class, that fall under the category of deployable and/or team support. (Each character class would get no more and no less than one of these.)


I feel sticking to these three changes has the advantages of:

1) Being less work and time to develope.

2) Keeping the Nexuiz flavor (alot of which comes from sticking with its weapons as one example).

3) Creating a Mutator that can work with any gametype (including DM).

4) Spreading the support role 'burden' equally amoung all players so that teams don't lose because too few made the 'sacrifice' of taking a support class that does all the 'boring' non-combat stuff. (A big problem for alot of older tactical games, with more modern ones compensating by having fewer support classes and making them basically as deadly as the classical combat classes.)

alpha wrote:runner must have laser as weapon
sniper hp/armor is too low

The runner is going to be the fastest class as is. A laser would let a runner bounce from one end of the map to the other. The last thing the runner needs is a laser.

Snipers shouldn't really need much in the way of HP and armor, since they're not supposed to be involved in direct combat. We'll find out when we start testing the classes.

what's heavy machine gun ?

A giant gun that saws everything in half..

Flying Steel wrote:

Clueless Newbie wrote:Hmm.. I'm not sure it's necessary (or even desirable) to have classes that are equal in 1 vs 1 matches. IMO a paper-scissor-rock setup might be better. The important thing (IMHO) is that all the classes have their uses and are capable of being useful to their own team and/or cause harm to the other team.

But does rock-paper-scissors balancing apply to the Nexuiz weapons?

Probably not, but that's besides the point. Let's say you have a one on one with with sniper and HWG. If they're close or mid-range, the HWG would shred the sniper. At long range, the sniper should be able to take out the HWG with 2-3 shots. This makes one vs one balancing pointless, IMHO. We have to look at how the classes work within the team.

This same balancing technique worked effectively in many tactical shooters as well, and the differences between them and Nexuiz are not all that different; all we have to change are a few things:

1) A player cannot switch weapons as he goes, he must stick with the weapon of the character class he has chosen. (Thus as you move into an area of the map where your weapon is less effective, you will want your teamates with better suited weapons for support).

2) Different Health and Mobility stats, likewise tied to the character class chosen. (Which will combine with the built in weapons to create further strengths and weaknesses in different areas of the map and for different player's skills).

3) A variety of special equipment, again tied to the chosen character class, that fall under the category of deployable and/or team support. (Each character class would get no more and no less than one of these.)

I agree with all of this. It's just the 1 vs 1 testing I'm against.

4) Spreading the support role 'burden' equally amoung all players so that teams don't lose because too few made the 'sacrifice' of taking a support class that does all the 'boring' non-combat stuff. (A big problem for alot of older tactical games, with more modern ones compensating by having fewer support classes and making them basically as deadly as the classical combat classes.)

This is an important point. As the classes are set up now, I can see three potentially "weak" classes; the runner, the hacker, and the assassin. I think the runner and the assassin will work out fine, because the runner is great for capping the flag and making hit-and-run attacks (no shortage of runners in the original QTF), and an assassin that kills from behind is always popular. The hacker is the class that might turn out to be the "useful but boring" one.

But this is something that shows up during gameplay with full teams, not one on one matches.

Clueless Newbie wrote:

Flying Steel wrote:

Clueless Newbie wrote:Hmm.. I'm not sure it's necessary (or even desirable) to have classes that are equal in 1 vs 1 matches. IMO a paper-scissor-rock setup might be better. The important thing (IMHO) is that all the classes have their uses and are capable of being useful to their own team and/or cause harm to the other team.

But does rock-paper-scissors balancing apply to the Nexuiz weapons?

Probably not, but that's besides the point. Let's say you have a one on one with with sniper and HWG. If they're close or mid-range, the HWG would shred the sniper. At long range, the sniper should be able to take out the HWG with 2-3 shots. This makes one vs one balancing pointless, IMHO.

I would agree that the the sniper and heavy would each have effective ranges where one had the advantage over the other. But the dynamics come from one trying to maneuver or find the other in a disadvantageous scenario, as well as the general evasion and marksmanship skills of the players.

This same balancing technique worked effectively in many tactical shooters as well, and the differences between them and Nexuiz are not all that different; all we have to change are a few things:

1) A player cannot switch weapons as he goes, he must stick with the weapon of the character class he has chosen. (Thus as you move into an area of the map where your weapon is less effective, you will want your teamates with better suited weapons for support).

2) Different Health and Mobility stats, likewise tied to the character class chosen. (Which will combine with the built in weapons to create further strengths and weaknesses in different areas of the map and for different player's skills).

3) A variety of special equipment, again tied to the chosen character class, that fall under the category of deployable and/or team support. (Each character class would get no more and no less than one of these.)

I agree with all of this. It's just the 1 vs 1 testing I'm against.

Well maybe perfectly playable one on one balancing shouldn't be a requirement (though it'd be a nice thing to try and achieve), but what I mean is, if you set any two individual classes against each other on a balanced map, one won't be able to run the other over; if there isn't enough overlap between the scenarios they each have an advantage in, then at worst they'd each end up camping wherever each was strongest (a stalemate- unplayable but balanced).

4) Spreading the support role 'burden' equally amoung all players so that teams don't lose because too few made the 'sacrifice' of taking a support class that does all the 'boring' non-combat stuff. (A big problem for alot of older tactical games, with more modern ones compensating by having fewer support classes and making them basically as deadly as the classical combat classes.)

This is an important point. As the classes are set up now, I can see three potentially "weak" classes; the runner, the hacker, and the assassin. I think the runner and the assassin will work out fine, because the runner is great for capping the flag and making hit-and-run attacks (no shortage of runners in the original QTF), and an assassin that kills from behind is always popular. The hacker is the class that might turn out to be the "useful but boring" one.

Skirmishing and guerrilla warfare are perfectly fun combat roles that can be balanced to be equally effective with the others.

What I am talking about are classes named and seemingly based after non-combat, primarily teamwork oriented roles, like the Engineers, the Hacker and perhaps the Suicide Bomber. I want to get rid of classes like these and spread the special abilities over each class, so that each class contributes something actively or passively that can have a special benefit for his wider team.

Like a sensory package for a scout class that allows its entire team to see icons of where all enemies are that are in line-of-sight of the scout, armor drops for an assault class or deployable cover for a heavy class.

Flying Steel wrote:I would agree that the the sniper and heavy would each have effective ranges where one had the advantage over the other. But the dynamics come from one trying to maneuver or find the other in a disadvantageous scenario, as well as the general evasion and marksmanship skills of the players.

Yep. But that's best sorted out in full team games, not one on ones. (Again; IMO)

Mind you, there's no reason why you can't do some 1 on 1 testing anyway, just to see what happens. Could be interesting. I just don't think that's a good way to balance the classes.

What I am talking about are classes named and seemingly based after non-combat, primarily teamwork oriented roles, like the Engineers, the Hacker and perhaps the Suicide Bomber. I want to get rid of classes like these

(slams on brakes)

Woah, wait a minute! The QTF engie was my favorite class (scout being the second). Even though the engineer — as I've outlined it — has a number of support functions, you're forgetting that they build turrets and the turrets do the fighting for them. That's the main attraction of the engineer class. The most satisfying thing about the engineer is finding a clever location for your turret and then watch as it racks up the kills. Building bridges and stuff like that is something the engy can do while his turrets blows away the enemy. TF without the engineer isn't TF, IMO.

The suicide bomber is nothing but a combat class. No support at all. Spawn, jump into room full of hostiles, *BOOM!*, spawn. Of course, clearing a room of enemies could be considered a support function..

As for the hacker, yes, it is probably a weak class the way it is now. The hacker's ability to take over enemy turrets might compensate for this — especially if the hacker can pwn an unlimited number of turrets (full game testing to find out). Don't remove the support-oriented classes. Instead, find ways to make them fun.

and spread the special abilities over each class, so that each class contributes something actively or passively that can have a special benefit for his wider team.

Uhh.. You mean like letting HWGs build turrets?

Like a sensory package for a scout class that allows its entire team to see icons of where all enemies are that are in line-of-sight of the scout

Sure. The runner or assassin class could do that. The runner is pretty close to the QTF scout class anyway (my second-favorite QTF class ).

armor drops for an assault class

The runner class could do that. They drop ammo and materials, might as well drop armor.

or deployable cover for a heavy class.

What the engineer can do while his turret accumulates kills.. The HWG's "support function" is in many ways to be a movable turret. It's an obstacle that kills the enemy.

I don't think we should remove any classes until we've tested them in a full game. Then we can see what classes are fun and what classes are weak and / or boring, and maybe also get a fair idea on how to improve those classes. If they really are unfixable, then we get rid of them.

Clueless Newbie wrote:

Flying Steel wrote:I would agree that the the sniper and heavy would each have effective ranges where one had the advantage over the other. But the dynamics come from one trying to maneuver or find the other in a disadvantageous scenario, as well as the general evasion and marksmanship skills of the players.

Yep. But that's best sorted out in full team games, not one on ones. (Again; IMO)

Mind you, there's no reason why you can't do some 1 on 1 testing anyway, just to see what happens. Could be interesting. I just don't think that's a good way to balance the classes.

Not the only way they should be tested I mean, but I think it is a hurdle they should be able to pass, to not get run over by another class in all situations, in a 1 vs 1 scenario.

What I am talking about are classes named and seemingly based after non-combat, primarily teamwork oriented roles, like the Engineers, the Hacker and perhaps the Suicide Bomber. I want to get rid of classes like these

(slams on brakes)

Woah, wait a minute! The QTF engie was my favorite class (scout being the second). Even though the engineer — as I've outlined it — has a number of support functions, you're forgetting that they build turrets and the turrets do the fighting for them. That's the main attraction of the engineer class. The most satisfying thing about the engineer is finding a clever location for your turret and then watch as it racks up the kills. Building bridges and stuff like that is something the engy can do while his turrets blows away the enemy. TF without the engineer isn't TF, IMO.

I really don't think we should get to hung up on the nomenclature of classes and try to recreate them exactly as they were. Especially since, isn't TF somebody's intellectual property? Is this not now a commercial game series? Copying wholesale such a franchise runs at least some chance of getting Halogen'ed, methinks.

Anyway, you seem to really like that the TF Engineer can deploy turrets. So then I would put that feature into a unit (who in this case can maybe keep the name Engineer, being generic enough to probably not hold potential IP issues), give him the shotgun instead and maybe make him an octopus. The fact that he uses a close-in (albeit effective) weapon plus the fact that he is not all that fast would mean that folks should guard him when he's in the field, and that he should rely more on his turrets to do the fighting, unless in a heavy cover situation.

The suicide bomber is nothing but a combat class. No support at all. Spawn, jump into room full of hostiles, *BOOM!*, spawn. Of course, clearing a room of enemies could be considered a support function..

Kind of, but adding interesting combat features besides the self destruct would make alot of sense. A melee weapon like the 'melee laser' idea I think would be a good match, if it made it into Nexuiz.

As for the hacker, yes, it is probably a weak class the way it is now. The hacker's ability to take over enemy turrets might compensate for this — especially if the hacker can pwn an unlimited number of turrets (full game testing to find out).

I think there is an easier and more interesting way to fill this role, like a special that is basically a UT Redeemer- an extremely powerful but slow and easily shot down weapon that as a result is mostly effective against stationary targets like turrets and noobs.

Don't remove the support-oriented classes. Instead, find ways to make them fun.

I'm not really talking about removing support classes, just the opposite in fact- I want to make all classes support classes, in addition to being combat classes. And I am fairly certain this will make them fun too.

Don't get me wrong though, the differences between special equipment abilities makes some classes more 'supporty' than others. Deploying turrets and automatically revealing enemy units to your team, would be good examples of this.

and spread the special abilities over each class, so that each class contributes something actively or passively that can have a special benefit for his wider team.

Uhh.. You mean like letting HWGs build turrets?

No, the Engineer should do that if you want him to. But the Heavy might deploy a stationary shield battery, or whatever makes sense for what he does and where he'd generally be on the battlefield.

or deployable cover for a heavy class.

What the engineer can do while his turret accumulates kills.. The HWG's "support function" is in many ways to be a movable turret. It's an obstacle that kills the enemy.

I would say give the deployable turrets a slow turning speed so that they are vulnerable in close and from behind, and then the Engineer with a close range shotgun, can protect them from such vulnerabilities, giving him something to do when not deploying more turrets.

The heavy can have whatever support function, perhaps a passive one like the sensor package, just as long as it gets something like every other class would.

I don't think we should remove any classes until we've tested them in a full game. Then we can see what classes are fun and what classes are weak and / or boring, and maybe also get a fair idea on how to improve those classes. If they really are unfixable, then we get rid of them.

It isn't so much about fixing them as adapting them into something not unoriginal that fits Nexuiz and isn't so hard to implement that it never makes it past these forum posts (not to say it won't already be some serious work as a whole).

Flying Steel wrote:

Clueless Newbie wrote:Mind you, there's no reason why you can't do some 1 on 1 testing anyway, just to see what happens. Could be interesting. I just don't think that's a good way to balance the classes.

Not the only way they should be tested I mean, but I think it is a hurdle they should be able to pass, to not get run over by another class in all situations, in a 1 vs 1 scenario.

When fully equipped, that won't happen. Each class should have situations in which they rule.

Woah, wait a minute! The QTF engie was my favorite class (scout being the second). Even though the engineer — as I've outlined it — has a number of support functions, you're forgetting that they build turrets and the turrets do the fighting for them. That's the main attraction of the engineer class. The most satisfying thing about the engineer is finding a clever location for your turret and then watch as it racks up the kills. Building bridges and stuff like that is something the engy can do while his turrets blows away the enemy. TF without the engineer isn't TF, IMO.

I really don't think we should get to hung up on the nomenclature of classes and try to recreate them exactly as they were. Especially since, isn't TF somebody's intellectual property? Is this not now a commercial game series? Copying wholesale such a franchise runs at least some chance of getting Halogen'ed, methinks.[/quote]
First of all, there are so many TF versions out there now that there is very little danger of getting hit by a cease and desist. You should read the wiki article on Team Fortress.

Secondly, having an engineer class that builds turrets is hardly copying the thing wholesale. While the class list I made has features also present in the original QTF, it also has a lot of stuff that's new, and none of the QTF classes in my list are identical with the originals. You can read about the original QTF classes here. There are similarities, but I wouldn't worry about intellectual property. The similarities are so generic that it shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, you seem to really like that the TF Engineer can deploy turrets. So then I would put that feature into a unit (who in this case can maybe keep the name Engineer, being generic enough to probably not hold potential IP issues), give him the shotgun instead

Instead of the machine gun? IIRC the QTF engineer had a shotgun. Pretty sure of it, actually.

and maybe make him an octopus.

Uhh.. could we stick with humans to begin with? I'm all for a non-human team (aliens, robots, zombies, whatever — maybe even have entirely new sets of classes), but I'd like to start with plain ol' human TF.

The suicide bomber is nothing but a combat class. No support at all. Spawn, jump into room full of hostiles, *BOOM!*, spawn. Of course, clearing a room of enemies could be considered a support function..

Kind of, but adding interesting combat features besides the self destruct would make alot of sense. A melee weapon like the 'melee laser' idea I think would be a good match, if it made it into Nexuiz.

Sure.

As for the hacker, yes, it is probably a weak class the way it is now. The hacker's ability to take over enemy turrets might compensate for this — especially if the hacker can pwn an unlimited number of turrets (full game testing to find out).

I think there is an easier and more interesting way to fill this role, like a special that is basically a UT Redeemer- an extremely powerful but slow and easily shot down weapon that as a result is mostly effective against stationary targets like turrets and noobs.

I like the UT redeemer. Wouldn't mind working it into NTF.

I'm not really talking about removing support classes, just the opposite in fact- I want to make all classes support classes, in addition to being combat classes. And I am fairly certain this will make them fun too.

To some degree, but the support functions should be related to the classes.

I would say give the deployable turrets a slow turning speed so that they are vulnerable in close and from behind, and then the Engineer with a close range shotgun, can protect them from such vulnerabilities, giving him something to do when not deploying more turrets.

The original QTF turrets turned quickly, but they were still vulnerable. Of course, the QTF classes had grenades that could be bounced around corners. But again, this is something we can figure out when we start testing the classes.

It isn't so much about fixing them as adapting them into something not unoriginal that fits Nexuiz and isn't so hard to implement that it never makes it past these forum posts (not to say it won't already be some serious work as a whole).

About that, how much work is it to code this stuff? The HWG is fairly basic, but how much work is that? I'd like the engineer to be able to plonk down bridges, ladders, and ramps, but I imagine that could be a lot of work to get right.

Who was going to do the coding, btw? You mentioned Psychcf, but he wrote:

If only I had the time to work on that thing, I've been swamped with IB exams and homework for the past few months, sorry guys

Doesn't sound like he'll be coding any of this.

Say... anybody have any sample TF code? I kinda wonder what it looks like. How about turret code?

My god, each post just get longer and longer.

Flying Steel wrote:Copying wholesale such a franchise runs at least some chance of getting Halogen'ed, methinks.

Wait - what?

You guys redefine tl;dr

Well, it sounds like our ideas for class-based mutators overlap in places, but might still be too different when it comes to the classes themselves.

You seem to be planning a more or less faithful QTF mod/mutator for Nexuiz, I have been making (well, the content for anyway) a mutator that takes the balanced diversity Nexuiz provides with its arsenal and expands it into the damage system and movement physics of the game through diverse (and eventually balanced) character classes.

While the overlap comes from the fact that we both seem to like CTF/ONS type games and consequently like the idea of some team-oriented specials and deployables like turrets.

So I think later I'll clean up and post my design notes for the classes I'm making and you can decide what you think.

Clueless Newbie wrote:About that, how much work is it to code this stuff? The HWG is fairly basic, but how much work is that? I'd like the engineer to be able to plonk down bridges, ladders, and ramps, but I imagine that could be a lot of work to get right.

I'm not sure, but my assumption is that whenever you reuse something already in the game, you have saved yourself alot of time, on the coding, as well as the content and balancing fronts.

So a heavy class is more work if he has a custom weapon instead of a rocket launcher and a custom hitbox instead of the standard.

An engineer putting down bridges and ramps seems like even more work, unless the Assault game mode already supports this.

Who was going to do the coding, btw? You mentioned Psychcf, but he wrote:

If only I had the time to work on that thing, I've been swamped with IB exams and homework for the past few months, sorry guys

Doesn't sound like he'll be coding any of this.

Later he said this:

Now that my IB Exams are over, I'm hoping that I'll find some time to do so (since regents exams are a joke compared to IB).

But when people are working on a project on their free time, you can expect alot of stop-and-go, as well as curve balls. Just the nature of the beast, IME.

ai wrote:My god, each post just get longer and longer.

alpha wrote:You guys redefine tl;dr

You know, this kind of commentary is not helping us FPS players overcome the stereotypes that have been painted on us by the more elitist genres.

halogene wrote:

Flying Steel wrote:Copying wholesale such a franchise runs at least some chance of getting Halogen'ed, methinks.

Wait - what?

No, lol, I didn't mean you, I meant THIS

I'm just saying, too long posts will make people give up on reading them. I gave up a couple of posts ago. Also, there is no need to quote each post all the time, especially is it's obvious you were talking to the guy before you.
Just answer any questions and add other responses that's needed and keep it concise, in a 'point by point' manner. Meaning, answer/comment on things as they come, no need to quote them. Make numbers (1., 2., 3. etc.) if needed.

I know, I was only joking, you're right of course.

Though when you get into the gory details, the quote boxes in particular can help you to backread and see how you got there and what was already said on just that sub-topic. Otherwise points and responses can get mixed up and become even more confusing.

alpha wrote:You guys redefine tl;dr

I don't think you've missed much.