[SUGGESTION] New ammo type for hitscan weapons

With the implementation of the lightning gun the concept of sharing ammo between nex, lg, electro, and crylink becomes rediculous. The lg would either be extremley overpowered because of low ammo consumption or become useless because of its cost to the shared ammo pool. Sharing ammo between LG/nex and electro/crylink would also strongly discourage use of the latter weapons.

I belive there should be a new type of ammo added to xonotic for the two hitscan weapons. In addition to preventing the addition of the LG from breaking the game, it would allow new tactical options for duels in controling weapons.

I already planned this, Arc (Lightning Gun) and Nex should NEVER share ammo, so I intend on splitting the cell ammo into two types.

Don't worry about it mate, I got'ch'yalls covered.

I already planned this, Arc (Lightning Gun) and Nex should NEVER share ammo

How's that?

Samual, do you know when we will get an update/detailed post on your weapons balance ideas?

Offtopic:
Don't you think it's a bit creepy to act as if tZork died?

Offtopic:
Don't you think it's a bit creepy to act as if tZork died?

FTFY

i just coppied chooksta, but then again copying him is generally a bad idea.

Offtopic:
Don't you think it's a bit creepy to act as if tZork died?

FTFY

i just coppied chooksta, but then again copying him is generally a bad idea.

lol

Thanks. And to get ontopic, I think each hitscan weapon (lg/nex) sharing ammo with a spam weapon (electro/crylink) would be best to keep balance, e.g. purple cell ammo for lg/crylink and blue cell ammo for nex/electro.

On the other hand I think such an ammo system is rather outdated for a modern fps. Keep it simple: two ammo types, energy and explosives, and represent them on the HUD with each one bar (let numbers be an option for the advanced players). The current system is over-complicated and really really horrible from the viewpoint of human interface design and furthermore doesn't add anything to gameplay imo. I wonder how many people keep an eye on their ammo while playing (and also keep calculating shots/ammo!), especially the newbies and casual players.

(inb4 people claiming they always calculate ammo, time every single item on the map and also hit 70% lg)

I don't think such simplification is really needed. Think of UT for example - it nearly had a unique ammo type for each weapon and nobody complained that it's too many.

Well if you look at gameplay, only cells and explosive ammo have an impact atm anyway. So why try to make things more complicated than they really are? You also got to realize that introducing a new ammo system will break "ammo balance" on all maps at first.
And btw it's 2012, UT is dead, times have changed, people got plenty of alternatives regarding fps's.

tl;dr ammo isn't a tactical element aside of cells/explosives - it can be simplified to de-clutter the HUD, be less confusing to new players and easier to use for mappers.

There would still be a net reduction in 0.7, three types of ammo isn't much, even by the standards of casual players.

There's really not a challange for HUD design either.

Why can't we have tactics ;_;

To introduce a new ammo system as a tactical element you would need massive cooperation of the mappers and lots of feedback/playtesting. Sure, you can convert ammo placement on current maps using some kind of a script but it would be rather random and far from being balanced. I agree though that 3 types of ammo could be presented on the HUD in a smart way as long as there is a connection to the weapons (e.g. blue ammo is for weapons that fire blue energy).

Why can't we have tactics ;_;

Please don't act as if I'd try to remove tactics from Xonotic gameplay. Compared to the current system nothing would change regarding that, while the gains are obvious.

Please don't act as if I'd try to remove tactics from Xonotic gameplay.

I didn't mean to suggest that, I specificly meant tactics around ammuntion in the game. It's one of the things that makes high-level quake so brain-heavy.

True, but adding a 3rd ammo type to the game is only the very first step. If you want to make it a tactical element you'll have to carefully balance it at least on all competitive maps. And I just don't see people motivated to make that happen (especially keeping in mind that the weapon balance probably will keep changing up to 1.0). Instead it's likely that we will end up with a half assed solution on most maps - converting existing ammo with a script.
And on the other hand I for one don't really see the need to add a 3rd ammo type as tactical element to Xonotic. The game is good as it is, just needs refinement. That kind of huge changes remind me a bit of what the warsow team did ("lets revolutionize ammo system" -> everyone hates it lol). We shouldn't try to copy Quake that much either btw, sure Quake Live is currently the most balanced fast fps out there but the sad truth is that despite its almost perfect gameplay mechanisms it's slowly dying..

And btw it's 2012, UT is dead, times have changed, people got plenty of alternatives regarding fps's.

sure Quake Live is currently the most balanced fast fps out there but the sad truth is that despite its almost perfect gameplay mechanisms it's slowly dying..

("lets revolutionize ammo system" -> everyone hates it lol)

Look at all that generalization.

I wonder how many people keep an eye on their ammo

I don't think that ammo management is essential part of shooters like Xonotic. Player has large arsenal with plenty of ammo for each gun. Plenty of ammo to survive with success till the next wave of ammo.

The current system is over-complicated and really really horrible from the viewpoint of human interface design

Jesus Christ how horrifying.

To introduce a new ammo system as a tactical element you would need massive cooperation of the mappers and lots of feedback/playtesting.

Yes, to do something new you have to work. I'm sure that mappers can handle this.

Go troll somewhere else.
Or alternatively, try to understand the posts you quote and write an insightful comment.

I don't think he's trolling, i think it's just a rebuttal.
It is a valuable post because it separates your argument into manageable clauses.


Asyyy's argument: (correct me asyyy if this is wrong)

1: Perfect tactical balance does not necessarily ensure the success of a game.

2: It would be difficult to make the ammo system easily understood by players.
- The majority of players do not care about ammunition because of the current system.

3: Additional effort would be required from mappers for a brief period

4: The current ammunition balance is acceptable and the effort of improving it would outweigh any benefit gained from a refined system.


My rebuttal:

1: A balanced ammo system does not imply a balanced game, casual maps like dance or space-elevator are loaded with shards, power-ups, and ammunition. Scarcity of ammunition is a mapper's choice.

2: Bullocks, even an ametuer interface designer could solve any problems with ammo indication in the HUD.

3: This effort will be necessary anyway since weapons like the HLAC and MG are being removed.

4: Competitive play is one of the best ways to attract skilled players to a game. If a new ammo system is comprehensively designed it won't have a large impact on casuals. The only players strained by this are high-tier duelists, and they have been mostly supportive of the idea.

All this discussion about ammo made me think more about it and I came to a new conclusion - why have ammo laying around at all? How often do you run out of ammo? Personally I mostly run out ammo in minsta, not in normal games. All weapons come with a good load of ammo to begin with, when you pick a weapon again you gain that extra ammo that was bundled with it so extra ammo packs aren't that much needed. Or even make ammo somewhat unlimited (running out but recharging after a while). Yeah, I know these options were already tried in a number of games.

Don't get me wrong - personally I prefer the typical UT/Quake type of ammo solution. But if it makes such an argument then maybe just drop it altogether and call it a day? ;-)

I split off posts that I felt did not contribute to the topic of ammo types.

In short, and to be fair:
- Harmata disagreed with a remark on his post calling it "low effort" that used to be in s1lencer's post and got removed with apologies later on.
- Harmata also strongly disagreed with asyyy calling him a troll.

Here are cuts from posts that were still relevant but had to be split:
From Harmata:

Oh one more thing, i see you now actually divide players into categories. Casuals and skilled, eh? There are even "casual maps", eh? You know why you do this? Because if the project will fail you can always say that it's because "it required too much skill from casuals" or vice versa, "casuals killed it". Ugh.

From s1lencer:

Oh one more thing, i see you now actually divide players into categories. Casuals and skilled, eh? There are even "casual maps", eh?

I appologize if i mis-worded my post. I'm talking about the difference between competitive play (almost entireley duels, some TDM) and regular gameplay.

Most games make this differentiation, for instance when QuakeWorld came out there were two versions of DM6, one for competitive duels where and a version for multi-player DM.

As an example: having armor shards everywhere in a map makes it unsuitable for 1v1 duels because controling item timing is key to gameplay, and shards make it possible to easily stack up armor without the slightest effort toward map control.

The posts have been split into a thread in the Offtopic section, where people are free to continue talking without derailing threads. Needless to say, posts that should be posted over there but are instead posted here will be moved to the same Offtopic thread.

Here's the url for the split post:
http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=3547