Default balance

I will tolerate most of the changes made to weapons, (excluding weapon switch delays, i think its a good feature of xono to include fast weapon switch comboing and not slowing it down imo) but the movement, i would not change at all. Have to say, i absolutely and seriously hate the underwatery movement with less aircontrol (that was on git or smth like it whatever its called) I think ya should focus on weapon things more =)

I remember seeing about making weapons stronger (other weapons).

Seems once again it's going down the garden-path of making things weaker...sigh.

Just about what asyyy said with nexgun and lack of hitscan, why not just remove the machinegun reload and put the max ammo to like 120-160?

Surely that would at least give another hitscan weapon more functional long-term use, instead of wanting to use nex as much, or would someone like Draelor use it too much so people will complain?

Put electro back to how it was (stronger)

Put crylink secondary from 0.7 in as people want.

Job done?

Surely?

Why start changing the hagar value and thing's like that (Really, why the need to change it?). Always seems like progress get's made then only to go backwards.

Armour seemed like a genuinely good idea.

Full-circle again and everything needs to get tinkered with.

Sorry to sound like the messenger of doom or putting a downer on the thread, 6months to a year later and the balance debate (Surely debate's like this don't last 4+ years?) will go full-circle again.

'2 pac - changes' should be Xonotic's official song with a few lyrical extra's

"Xonotic weapons balance, that's just the way it is....
Things will never be the same...."

The game is still in beta, so we have the perfect opportunity to make the balance great before finalizing it (1.0).

Most of the suggestions here are really good, and would not have come out if we weren't improving the balance at all.
Until 1.0, minor (and with 0.8, major) changes should be expected, as we are constantly improving the game in as many ways as we can before it is considered a final product.


Thanks to everyone for your opinions and suggestions, we are working on bringing them all into a single balance, which will be available soon in the Mario/weapons branch on Git.

Comments on Mirio's balance

Good stuff

Armour and rot feels very balanced now, had a very close game vs dodger on sk.

Bad stuff

Nex, please no, faster recharge is not needed, please have old recharge and 80 dmg, it will still be quite very very strong but it's at least a advance from 0.6.

electro/hagar nerf, dude, why?? Look at these quotes:

"I like movement and rocket turning change in reversion
but I don't like nex buff and electro nerf." - woky

"I disagreed about Electro nerf, machine can confirm, was not an issue before in my opinion, weapon was fine." - kojn

"Hagar/crylink at the moment, completely fine." - kojn

"Put electro back to how it was (stronger)" -kojn

"-nerfed electro It is simply too weak now, hard to deal any damage at all due to the reduced radius." - asyyy

"I think it MIGHT be a good idea to make weapon projectile faster. It will make them easier and will counter insane speeds. Would be allied to crylink, *electro*, mortar, Hagar, probably not RL." - aa

"Nerfing nex, buffing electro would certainly help this situations to make hub more enjoyable imo." - myself

Yet you decide to nerf just electro (and hagar, which I didn't even find much opinions on from balance thread, which I interpret as it's simply fine).

Now lets do this
"This cup is for testing a balance based on reversion and the balance thread!" - Mirio
for real, look here at comments on crylink:

"Overall Crylink seems to deal too much damage in 0.7, I'd vote for let it deal less damage but to keep the negative push force of 0.7." - halogene

"Therefore, I am against changes which offer too easy exploitation [..] *especially* super high negative force on the vanilla Crylink secondary [..]" - debugger

"The crylink should be more of a tool to mess up the enemy movement. The 0.7 secondary is a lot better than the 0.6 one. So make the crylink damage a bit lower." - Strife

"0.7 Crylink secondary (maybe with less damage)" - Spike

Yet no change. FWIW I think personally 0.7 Crylink is fine as is, so this isn't something I advocate. But if it's something annoy most people then again why not make it fit the majority foremost (as long as it fit the balance as a whole, which I don't see it doesn't in this case, but that's what testing is for!).

Also, I understand this is your balance Mirio, and you are of course free to do anything you wish with it. I'm glad you started that initiative, I just hope you finish it with the same premise as you started it, because I feel some changes are quite random, no one really complained about hagar and electro, still you insist to nerf them even in the second testing. And they are too weak, they really are. And with the new armor system (which is a *really* good idea!) they don't just become weak but useless, hagar and electro ain't used in combos (except electro combo, but I mean combo as in switching several weapons in a purposeful way) so they *should* be very strong as individual weapons in contrast to nex/mortar/crylink/rl wich are used mostly in combos.

If you look at the Crylink comments, they are suggestions which are so much different from each other (like 0.6 or 0.7 secondary). It's not easy to find the "perfect" way, therefore it needs much testing.
It's extremly difficult to please everyone.

Electro is a difficult weapon with a lot of cvars, it's hard to judge how some values influence the overall weapon.
It is very very strong in Clan Arena (cause no self/team damage, infinite spam) and I wanted to see if there is a way to improvethat. Therefore I needed this testing to see how it goes. The first one was way too weak of course.

I will just write up my thoughts and changes (compared to Rev) in latest balance (used in cup #67) about each weapon:

Laser

• Radius 70 (Rev: 60 / Default 70)
  

I think it is fine like this.

Shotgun

• Damage 3.5 (Rev: 4 / Default: 4)
  
• Spread 0.11 (Rev: 0.12 / Default: 0.12)
  
• Secondary damage: 70 (Rev: 80 / Default: 80)
  

Why? The Laser/Shotgun combo is so strong at the moment (4*14 bullets =56, so it's slighty reduced damage (so max. 49 now). Less spread to even it out in very close ranges.
And why the hell should a melee from spawn have one of the strongest damage outputs in the game.

To me it seemed fine in the cup now (in previous one it was different and too weak then) and in 4v4 TDM test game.

Also no one noticed it and made comments about this, so likely no huge impact.

Machine Gun

Did not touch it at all, because it gets replaced by Arc Cannon anyway.

Mortar

Did not change that either, compared to Rev and I don't think it needs any changes.

Electro

• Secondary damage 30 (Rev: 40 / Default: 40)
  

That's the only change now compared to Rev, to see how it goes (see CA comment on top of the post).
In first test, I had the radius reduced at it was failure.
I could not see today how it affects the combo though.

Crylink

• Git secondary (the one you name 0.7)
  

It's using the default primary with no changes (Rev has -60 force, Default -50). There is no need to increase the force, it destroys all kind of velocity already.
I used that secondary, cause I never saw much complaints about it before, the 0.6 one is 100% useless.
It's a nice, new and unique movement tool.
The force could be adjusted and reduced a bit, as long it does not break the movement feature (it needs that kind of force).

Apart from the secondary force, I would not touch it anymore.

Nex

• Damage 80 (Rev: 90 / Default: 80)
  
• Charge rate 0.6 (Rev: 0.4 / Default: 0.4)
  

In my opinion 90 maxium damage is too high. There was a reason why it was set to 80 and the switchdelay appeared.
I reduced it to 80 again but increased the charge rate to even it out in combos (and avoid such things like delay).

If you would hit 2 Nex shots (the fastest possible) vs 100/100 stack the follwing remain:
90/0.4 - 36/4
80/0.6 - 37/6

It's a pity that the very good Nex users could not participate today, so I would like to test this setting a bit more. To me it felt quite good today.

Hagar

• Secondary damage 30 (Rev: 40 / Default: 40)
  

4 rockets, so 30*4 = 120 max. (before 160)
I (ab)use this part of the Hagar a lot, especially in TDM and always thought it does ridiculous damage (160!). Also I recall the complaints about this strength (pre Reversion) so I reduced it slighty. 120 is still a lot if you hit it in the opponents face, it's still a potential instant kill.

Rocket Launcher

Did not touch this one either. It's just fine.


Conclusion (tl;dr):

- Rot is good now (stronger armor as well)
- Shotgun being OP improved
- Electro most likely to be reverted
- Crylink git secondary, maybe reduce force
- Nex is a compromise atm and needs more testing
- Hagar still strong as hell, would like to test it in TDM more (more comments by others please)

So,to what i think about it now,i think that all is fine now.It is ok how it was at quick cup 67.But i kinda noticed that many overused the crylink and said it was still OP.
But i did not rly touch the crylink.As i said i think it was fine like that.

I'd like to see the old flexible rockets from 0.6 back in 0.8

They were lots of fun

EDIT: I think hagar and crylink felt powerful in the autobuilds from a while back because of the watery movement, there was little to no control once you were caught by either weapon. Hagar should remain annoying to some extent, but with the fixed movement it shouldn't be an issue. Crylink damage output could be reduced a little bit, it's more of an utility weapon now with all those features so a super high damage output doesn't fit it very well, it's really good at messing players up anyway. Secondary fire of crylink seemed alright to me (the new one from 0.7).

Electro "overpowerd-ness" was purely because of map design and large blast radius, in ca it was notable that the electro mainly dominated in specific parts of the map (mortar room at stormkeep for instance).

Nex damage in 0.7 was spot on imo, not too powerful and not too weak.

Exploding projectiles should be disabled by default, it's the single most retarded feature I've seen in any game, and it made weapons like the crylink even more powerful than they were initially.

Nex

Damage 80 (Rev: 90 / Default: 80)
Charge rate 0.6 (Rev: 0.4 / Default: 0.4)


In my opinion 90 maxium damage is too high. There was a reason why it was set to 80 and the switchdelay appeared.
I reduced it to 80 again but increased the charge rate to even it out in combos (and avoid such things like delay).

If you would hit 2 Nex shots (the fastest possible) vs 100/100 stack the follwing remain:
90/0.4 - 36/4
80/0.6 - 37/6

It's a pity that the very good Nex users could not participate today, so I would like to test this setting a bit more. To me it felt quite good today.

I honestly don't get it. With a lower damage + a faster charge, the nex will become stronger in combos, but weaker in long distance battles. Imo, especially with the slower rot and stronger armor, a strong max damage is required so you can break control by hitting 3-4 shots in a row from a distance. Why nerf the max damage then? And why make it stronger in combos?

The hagar secondary may remain strong imo, for a simple reason: you can hear the charging and thus either seek distance or spam around the corner from which the hagar player approaches you. You killed me multiple times with hagar secondary in our tdm cup match, and I raged every single time. But it was my fault, I heard you approaching with a charged hagar and did not get myself in a proper position. Please let's not emphasize idiocracy.

Crylink should have a smaller splash radius, so it is more about getting direct hits instead of shooting at the floor. That's however a personal preference of me and others, and imo the current crylink is ok too.

Overall the balance looks solid though.

Imo Crylink primary doesn't need splash damage/radius at all, along with simultaneous projectile detonation. Leave that to secondary. Half of the weapons already do splash damage.

Earlier in IRC or somewhere I proposed a straight trajectory for Hagar primary which would take the role of plasma gun from Q3/old crylink secondary sort of. It would give the weapon more control and balance, atm primary kills are 50% luck.

I'd be interested to test these kind of changes.

As for Nex, I'd rather it had low dmg than slow charge rate that slows down combos.

I was pretty content with the default balance, but was pleasantly surprised with reversion when I accidentally stumbled across it on one of the servers. I'm thinking the Reversion balance combined with tweaks discussed in this thread would be the way to go.

Imo Crylink primary doesn't need splash damage/radius at all, along with simultaneous projectile detonation. Leave that to secondary. Half of the weapons already do splash damage.

Earlier in IRC or somewhere I proposed a straight trajectory for Hagar primary which would take the role of plasma gun from Q3/old crylink secondary sort of. It would give the weapon more control and balance, atm primary kills are 50% luck.

I'd be interested to test these kind of changes.

As for Nex, I'd rather it had low dmg than slow charge rate that slows down combos.

lol only half the weapons have splash damage? Also, I like your opinion on the hagar as that used to be how it was balanced. Before it got tweaked, it was THE weapon to have if you had someone pinned against a wall or in a corner. As for nex, I'm going to have to disagree with that one as in it's current form it's pretty close to perfect.

I like the direction in which this is going. Just a thought: IF we want to make nex weaker in combos, we might combine a faster nex charge rate with lower uncharged damage.

But I'm fine with what is proposed here. Nerfing shotgun will be hard for me - lacking pickup weapons most of the time, I had to get rather good at the spawn weapon combo laser/shotgun... but I think it's ok to encourage picking up weapons a little more as long as you actually get the chance to do so and don't die 90% of the times in search of a weapon.

I still would strongly suggest to reduce crylink damage (especially primary) compared to git settings, it should imho be more of a movement impact than a full load of damage - this would emphasize the weapon's uniqueness: with a little less damage it would be less often used as a weapon to deal huge amounts of damage and more often to make use of its unique negative push force. This would even promote its usage in combos. I'm not suggesting to make it useless in fragging, but currently (git) I feel it is kinda overpowered, and I'm not saying that as a victim but as a user of crylink here. I think if we just lower crylink primary damage a tad (like, 5 percent? Not more, I'd say), then this weapon should be good to go.

I see the point of electro being over-used in CA, but maybe CA is not the game mode that should be used as a reference for changing the weapon balance unless overuse of electro also appears in other game modes. Since electro combo is rather slow to pull off and requires a lot of prediction, I'd rather not see it weaker than in git, but if you felt it was right in the duel test sessions, then fine.

*thumbsup* from me here. Overall I'm really excited about 0.8 balance and the way this is developing, the issues above are only ideas that I think might work out or fulfil a reasonable purpose. But from what I read here I'm confident I'd be alright with these settings anyway. Sadly I have very little spare time to actually test this at the moment, and this will not really change for the better anytime soon (for good reasons, but nvm).

+1 for this latest balance.

To me Crylink is fine. It's weapon of choice for close range. Something ideal between shotgun and rockets. By the way, can it destroy rockets in mid-air? But I'll be fine with nerf...

I see the point of electro being over-used in CA, but maybe CA is not the game mode that should be used as a reference for changing the weapon balance unless overuse of electro also appears in other game modes. Since electro combo is rather slow to pull off and requires a lot of prediction, I'd rather not see it weaker than in git, but if you felt it was right in the duel test sessions, then fine.

I agree. 3v3/4v4 CA on farewell is just mess :3. Powerful electro should encourage more tactical approach to the CA. I.e. if your team is not composed of +forward players (e.g. members of BOT clan ;D) don't rush to fight in small rooms but keep some distance instead. That should be possible on map that is not farewell .

The Nex is good. It's still most universal weapon for most situations that still rules.

I liked the Reversion mortar more. EDIT: Since this balance is based on Reversion I like the mortar the same. Ooops...

For Hagar I'd consider what Smilecythe suggested on IRC: Decrease or even remove the primary spread (and then maybe decrease the primary damage but keep the splash). This way it could be used to spam portal exit (for huge damage) or some place in distance (for tiny little damage). I.e. like Quake plasma. Just the idea I liked. Currently, it's just useless except for the rare situation where you're close to the enemy who is in the corner. Once you acquire "better" weapons there's almost no reason to switch to the Hagar. EDIT: He suggested it here too, cool.