[SUGGESTION] My opinions on how to improve Xonotic

Hi, I've thought of some ways to improve Xonotic and how we can make new people trying it out not
to quite right away. These suggestions are only my opinion and I really love how Xonotic
already is and I'm just trying to make my voice heard in the development of this amazing game.

1. Mods
I have shown many of my friends Xonotic and lots of them liked it. But after a while they by mistake joining one of these mod servers and they doesnt understand that it's third-party made content. Some of these mods are really polished some not. My suggestion is to not allow servers to distribute mods and third party maps without showing it to the player. For example if I join Overkill there's a "warning" sign that I am going to download third-party content. It would be cool to have the same for unofficial maps too. I think this will make new players not to miss understanding what's the "real" game and what's not.

2. XPM as standard
I'd really like to see XPM as a standard. I believe this will make public matches way more balanced and fun. In my opinion XPM is more balanced than the standard config and the warm-up will allow the players to vote for maps which didnt appaer at the map voting screen. The warm-up can also be a place to make the teams fair etc.

3. Weapon spam (I know there's a thread for that, so this question can be discussed there)
Xonotic in my opinion is way too spammy. An easy way to solve that is to remove the option to quickly switch to the previously used weapon and not allowing instant weapon switching exactly after shooting. I think this will make the game harder and more fun to play.

4. Trailer & the websites front page
The website is awesome but some things can be changed. On the front page we could have the trailer auto play, i dont know if Xonotic have an official trailer and if not.. we really need one. Also a big yellow button with a text like "Download now for free" would really make good.

Please post feedback and thoughts!

Also sorry for my bad english!

// ŋj.k

I believe I read somewhere that there will be a website re-design for the 1.0 release to match the Luminos theme.

XPM is intended for higher skill players (which might explain the name Xonotic Pro Mode), the easy to grasp physics that are currently default help to reduce frustration in new players. First impressions are important. Using easier physics by default ensures that new players can have fun even when matched against high-skill players, as the current physics are very forgiving of user error.

I think the two physicses approach has to go away, it really isn't nessicary if we can find a golden mean between ease and responsiveness to skill, but that's another topic.

I believe I read somewhere that there will be a website re-design for the 1.0 release to match the Luminos theme.

XPM is intended for higher skill players (which might explain the name Xonotic Pro Mode), the easy to grasp physics that are currently default help to reduce frustration in new players. First impressions are important. Using easier physics by default ensures that new players can have fun even when matched against high-skill players, as the current physics are very forgiving of user error.

I think the two physicses approach has to go away, it really isn't nessicary if we can find a golden mean between ease and responsiveness to skill, but that's another topic.

Well, XPM only do VERY small tweaks to the physics, it mostly do more balanced damage and not allowing players with 100 hp/armor or more to pickup 25 or/and 50's. The main reason I want it to standard is the warmup but the balance will make gameplay funnier for both new and good players IMO.

balanceXPM.cfg is not related to XPM physics. It is confusing yes and there were suggestions to rename XPM to XCM (Xonotic Competitive Mode) which would describe it much better. But for some weird reason this wont be changed, so gotta keep telling people that promode in Xonotic isn't the same as promode in Quake. Which is a pain in the ass but ok, not my choice.

@K__
2) yes
3) yes, but rather tweak the weapons themselves instead of touching the switch delay again imo
4) in the works

I'm only going to comment about the XPM thing. Adding an official 1v1 game mode, not the existing 1v1 dm with tweaks, would take care of any confusion. I don't know exactly what XPM alters, but I can only see that it changes the max health/armor that can be attained by picking up the 50h/50a. This is a small concept to grasp, and a concept that I'm sure will not be the deciding factor for anyone still choosing whether or not they like 1v1.

However, most new players don't jump head first into a duel(unless by accident), so it might be far more frustrating and confusing for them to not be able to pickup the health/armors in a CTF or DM. And stacking the 50s in CTF and DM works fine since there are many more players to battle at a time and there are only a few megas on the maps.

Basically, what works for one game mode doesn't work for another. The real issue is that we have 1v1 servers that are listed under DM. A new 1v1 game mode would avoid having to mention XPM anywhere in the server.

About XPM, pretty much what asy7um said, current servers that show "XPM" in hostname do not have any changes to physics, it's only small tweaks like the health/armor limits that K__ mentionned, there are fact no changes to the weapon balance.

Just wanted to point out also, both warmup and map voting can be enabled on servers no matter the balance/physics/mod, it is the choice of server admin.

I think the reason warmup is not enabled on more servers (it's mostly used on duel and some tdm servers) is because the way it works is not obvious enough, new players don't notice the "currently in warmup" message at top right and unless they're told to press F4, they will just play without realizing it. It is fine on duel servers where there are only 2 players on at the same time, it's easy to explain to one player that the game doesn't start until he/she presses F4 to "ready up". For it to work on servers with many players on, the message telling players that the game is in warmup would need to be made more obvious. I remember I bugged devs a lot back in nexuiz days about warmup and other "competitive" features, I don't think they liked me very much hehe, but they improved it a lot (believe it or not, pressing F4 used to literally RESTART the map instead of just reseting and respawning items/players, you had to quickly rejoin/pick your team to start playing). But I don't think the feature changed at all since then, might be worth creating a feature request again.

I wouldn't want to see XPM replace default mode, but IMO game could be bundled with several cfg files handy for popular modes, and XPM could be one of them (other would be 2.5.2 settings like on Subzero's server).

I don't really like warmup in tdm and ctf. It doesn't have the same effect that you get in a duel, where both players are getting used to the map flow, it just seems to be everyone playing like normal, but with all the weapons and start armor.

In TDM it's not so bad, but in CTF it's annoying because I, and everyone else, joined to capture and defend flags. There's no point in doing either of those if the game hasn't started yet. And I'm sure it's very frustrating for a newbie that has managed to cap the flag when the server resets.

The point of warmup is, 1- to warmup, 2- organize teams, 3- start match once teams are setup and everyone is ready.

Currently I find it annoying to play ctf, I have to wait sometimes up to 2 minutes before picking a team because I prefer when teams are fair. If blue team has 3 players and red team has 4 players... logically I would simply join blue team to make it even number, but if blue team already have the 2 best players, and red team has all less skilled ones, I am obviously not going to join the blue team, that's just not fair. And I can't join red team because it's completely unbalanced by number of players. With warmup it can be discussed before the match start, and split the best players in different teams. Instead I just sit there and wait until other spectators pick a team and with some luck, me joining the team that is missing a player will make things fair.

I wish warmup was more obvious, if for example there was no points added on scoreboard, people would understand the concept better, try to organize teams quickly and not mess around for too long.

I sort of agree. But I don't think the standard CTF and TDM gametypes need warmup, you can always switch sides if you realize you joined the wrong team. Perhaps the 2v2/4v4/5v5 CTF/TDM should be considered the more competitive game modes and regular CTF/TDM the casual ones? IDK, I'm not a huge team game player, but when I do play them with warmup on it just seems to serve no real purpose. In causal games, the team balance is an ongoing issue through the entire match, since people are constantly coming and going.

I think adding a 2 minute timer to warm-up, and an obvious "warmup" watermark to the screen would be a great compromise for the casual CTF/TDM modes. I would support making something like that the standard configuration in order to maintain consistency from server to server.

... I don't know about you but putting "download for free" on the button makes it sound like malware ...

I agree with you about warmup... as for xpm mode ... I don't really care... as long as physics are not touched

I wish warmup was more obvious, if for example there was no points added on scoreboard, people would understand the concept better, try to organize teams quickly and not mess around for too long.

There will be always noobs joining/interrupting this, also there are always people who leave and join in the middle of the game. Warmup just takes time and most people will never F4 for sure (just look at pickups ).

Join the (in your example) Red team if they are weak - it's not a matter of player numbers, it's the matter of skill.
3v5 is easily doable if you fight 4 noobs and 1 good player. But that's OT.

However, most new players don't jump head first into a duel(unless by accident), so it might be far more frustrating and confusing for them to not be able to pickup the health/armors in a CTF or DM. And stacking the 50s in CTF and DM works fine since there are many more players to battle at a time and there are only a few megas on the maps.

Good point. I personally don't want to be XPM standard, especially not in CTF. It's just to difficult in most maps and what's better: Keep a working system or rework all the item placement of maps?

Good point. I personally don't want to be XPM standard, especially not in CTF. It's just to difficult in most maps and what's better: Keep a working system or rework all the item placement of maps?

Can you name a single map that had its item placement reworked because of XPM? And regarding "too difficult": if you don't want to time items, why play an item-based mode at all? One could rather teach the newbies the importance of megatimes, for example by putting a timer waypoint as that for powerups on them (on public servers only ofc).

If I would be mean I would also say this:
working system for ctf?
1 public server (where at least half of the people plays DM)
0 clanwars
0 tournaments
not much interest in pickup games either

This is not only a matter of XPM yes/no ofc but I feel to post this every time I read that someone is stating that Xonotic is doing alright and there is no reason to change anything.

I was referring to CTF, that it's too difficult because many maps are probably fail for that (at their current state [I don't want to start this discussion again anyway ]).

Duel is just fine for sure, Duelmode +1.

I think there is only 1 normal CTF server beside Minsta, Overkill and Vehicles (?). It's full non-stop at least.
The player base is just to small for clanwars/tournaments with big teams. 3v3 might work, but a pain to organize I guess.

... I don't know about you but putting "download for free" on the button makes it sound like malware ...

I agree with you about warmup... as for xpm mode ... I don't really care... as long as physics are not touched

Well didnt thought about that(im on gnu/linux ) but a big clear button with "Download" on it and maybe a little under text with the names of all platforms.

yeah ... that sounds more legit