Feedback on latest development git

I'm surprised there isn't a feedback thread for it, so I posted one. After I toy around with it one more time I will post my thoughts on the version that is in development.

For anybody posting on here:
Make sure you include the date of when you last updated and compiled the git. Since it is in development, something could radically change inside just a few hours.

OK here's my breakdown of the current git as of Friday April 9th, 2010.


The good:
Runs better, looks better.

Soft shadows are pretty cool

No more choppy elevator movement

Portals improve gameplay and beat the hell out of the old teleporters.

No more nasty FPS drops on Stormkeep



The bad:

HLAC, Crylink, and Machine Gun (which is no longer hit-scan) now share basically the same mode of fire with minor differences. Machine gun is damn near useless now.

Camping Rifle has been made into a noob weapon with the reload taken off and an easily exploitable secondary that can turn it into a fully-automatic weapon capable of punching through walls.

The nex is still an easy weapon to use and will drop a freshly spawned enemy inside of two hits.

200 health cap and 100 armor cap. NOT COOL.

Physics similar to 2.5. Feels like your being dragged against the ground.



Notes:

The change in behavior on weapons SEVERELY ruins the logic (we now have three machine guns) and appeal of each one. It would be better to grab the balancing (along with the longer nex animation) from 2.4.2 and balance from there. There aren't any maps showing up in campaign, I had to copy over some maps from my Nexuiz directory.

Yeah, right now there aren't any maps in the xonotic repo. All maps that xonotic will ship with will be redone.

I agree about the health and armor caps. At least make it 200/200. OR make rot and regen faster and leave it unlimited again.. I'm working on my own balance btw I'll incorporate that. I also agree about differentiating the HLAC, MG and Crylink more. I think i'll return to the nice 2.5.2 cry secondary and try to get something like a lightning gun going for HLAC primary..

And we'll have Hand Laser which fires projectiles with kinetic blast on impact and Heavy Laser which is a real laser.

Yeah, right now there aren't any maps in the xonotic repo. All maps that xonotic will ship with will be redone.

I agree about the health and armor caps. At least make it 200/200. OR make rot and regen faster and leave it unlimited again.. I'm working on my own balance btw I'll incorporate that. I also agree about differentiating the HLAC, MG and Crylink more. I think i'll return to the nice 2.5.2 cry secondary and try to get something like a lightning gun going for HLAC primary..

In all reality. 2.5.2 WASN'T THAT MESSED UP. It was what? The machine gun, the nex, and the fireball (which is an incomplete weapon that some how made it into the release). A 2.4.2 like animation on the nex and 2.4.2 style machine gun that does less damage would pretty much fix most problems. As for the fireball, that can simply be taken out until it's done. It'll be a pretty interesting weapon when finished. I think health/armor should stay unlimited with a faster rot depending on how much you have. I personally think that a 2.4.2 style game with the camping rifle balance of 2.5 and a modified HLAC and crylink would make a flawless game.

aso, maybe faster rot, but have a longer pause before it starts? like you get 250, it waits a couple seconds, then starts rotting very quickly

I don't mind 200/200 cap, but 200/100 sounds a bit silly, make it atleast 150 for armour or 200, health seems fine since we have the megahealth so 200 is cool for that.

I prefer this then having a 'faster' rot idea's posted here.

Someone mentioned there may be armour classes, that would help a lot, 50/100/150, 50/100/200, 50/75/150?

Would like it if they soaked up different amounts of damage also or something, but yea

I'm tweakin' teh balance right now. I'm basing most of the balance off of 2.4.2 (I did a lot of copy pasta), but I'm just using that as a base since 2.4.2 wasn't perfect and modifying where I see fit. Since I always thought the guided rockets kicked ass I'm going to leave those in and I'm currently experimenting with the animation time on the nex. The only three weapons I see that are going to be a pain are the Crylink, the HLAC (mostly because the one in the GIT is overpowered and this thing didn't exist in 2.4.2) and the Nex. The rifle doesn't seem like it would be that hard to balance. When I'm done screwing around, I'm going to post the file and tell you how to put it in your game so that I can hopefully get some feedback. Also what do you speed junkies think about making the minsta shots take less time?

I think I have just un-wrecked the physics and balance in the git. Unfortunately executing the physics file in standard 2.5.2 makes the game act weird.

You mean weird besides having sucky 2.4 physics? :p

In all reality. 2.5.2 WASN'T THAT MESSED UP. It was what? The machine gun, the nex, and the fireball (which is an incomplete weapon that some how made it into the release). A 2.4.2 like animation on the nex and 2.4.2 style machine gun that does less damage would pretty much fix most problems. As for the fireball, that can simply be taken out until it's done. It'll be a pretty interesting weapon when finished. I think health/armor should stay unlimited with a faster rot depending on how much you have. I personally think that a 2.4.2 style game with the camping rifle balance of 2.5 and a modified HLAC and crylink would make a flawless game.

What is missing in the fireball? The big 2.5.2 bug was that the fireball was active in warmup and LMS modes. THAT certainly shouldn't have been, and was a bug (just like if anyone had made LMS for Quake 2, he sure wouldn't have given everyone the BFG).

Well the fireball just rapes EVERYTHING because it's not balanced. Making sure it's not enabled by default would pretty much accomplish the same thing as taking it out.

It IS not enabled by default unless a mapper places it. You can keep the g_start_weapon cvar of it at -1, as it WILL NOT appear by default unless explicitly placed (because the weapon is categorized as a superweapon).