Official Overkill balance

I never mislead new players. After all if there's one thing we can both agree on then it's that we want more players to enjoy Overkill.

I didn't mean to sound like you mislead them. I was only trying to illustrate your attitude to my hints. Maybe it was too harsh but I just couldn't let it go.

Hint says to try using G for nades (the key most players use) and they start telling me how I discriminate people who prefer E.

You basically want players to play the same way you do, while my stance is to just tell people what is possible and some pros and cons and let them figure out the rest themselves. There is no only way to play. I think our tutorial is a good means to do so.

I have a habit of spectating new people. It seems most of them either come from insta or have really fat fingers and always discover E first (guessing by how they drop it instantly, sometimes asking, or how they hold it until it explodes when i tell them about G) and they never bother to try G on their own. I got annoyed and wrote hints promoting G. You wanna give people choice and all that and that's nice but sane defaults are important as well. G suits more people so there's a higher chance newbies will be better with it too.

Now people only have to become interested in Overkill. And at the risk of repeating myself: I don't think the right way to keep new players is to change settings on a weekly basis. Overkill suffered a player loss not because of bad settings but because of outright bugs. Huge nades were one of them. But do you remember glowing nade trails even when not released? Or the time you could only shoot horizontally no matter what you aimed at? Now that drives people nuts, not some minor weapon imbalance you're trying to fix.

See it this way: back then every time you came back and the server was updated, something got fixed but another thing was broken. Notice the similarity people might feel today if they join a server where the only constant is its name?

The bugs happened in autumn. Overkill started losing players way before that. Compare all games (top) with only Overkill (bottom):





(don't have a newer db snapshot)

Although we *noticed* it after the bugs and they might have helped speed it up, it started long before that.

Yes, now you claim large nades were one of them but why not broken solidpenetration? Why not the excessive MG spread? To me they feel like bugs too.

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I understand your resistance to the changes as an experienced player but honestly, how many of the changes would a new player (even a couple weeks old) notice? Nade offset is the big one but apart from that it's minor things that influence the game in the long run but you would never notice them consciously unless looking for them.

I am making them because Overkill feels boring. Only pointing and shooting and not enough tricks like the occasional shot though a glass window or blowing up the opponents nade or usable superweapons. I am not even than keen on the falldamage or scoring.

Only thing I am asking now is the nade offset and I wanna do it so it fixes the current issues with minimal differences to nexing them. I am OK with you having your server with your configs where you're happy. To me it feels like insta so I try to bring other weapons (mainly MG) back and promote using pickups and shards but I am tired of arguing with you too. Overkill can have many variants and hopefully will eventually have enough people for them all.

Short conversation from the wtwrp server yesterday:

23:33 <regionalbahn→vga← > ich kann gut mit dem MG umgehen (translation: I can handle mg well)
23:33 <nvidia210 > mg is op
23:34 <martin-t> MG is not OP, if you want overkill to be nex only, maybe you prefer LX' version
23:34 <martin-t> MG in fact used to be ~5x more accurate
23:34 <martin-t> it only feels OP because me and regio can use it well
23:34 <martin-t> unfortunately others don'T have the patience with it
23:35 <nvidia210 > id rather play lx but not many players there
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> nvidia210 and is it just because of the MG or other differences?
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> because you haven't said anything on the forums
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> and you also said this overkill (on LX') is an abomination
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> so you apparently notice differences
23:36 <regionalbahn→vga← > i like the mg of distance
23:36 <nvidia210 > i said enough here. movement is too fast, mg and shitgun op, no i find it here worse than lx, much more
23:37 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> than say it on the forums
23:37 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> i am for 2 versions
23:37 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> but then i have to wonder why you find old overkill to be the best
23:38 <nvidia210 > anyway i am glad there is only 1 server with this settings
23:41 #6 nvidia210 left
23:41 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> these people are alway so constructive and to the point :/

The good thing is: you ask for people's opinions most of the time. The bad thing is: you only accept answers validating your own point of view. Starting with the goal of creating THE default Overkill config and now that not everyone agrees with your propositions preferring two different versions kind of confirms that notion.

I won't make any more changes to my server, neither to uzi spread (which I also think overpowers the weapon), nor to nade offsets. For as long as people won't play on it anyway because it has irregular lag issues this shouldn't be a problem.

One guy complaining without giving any constructive criticism is hardly useful. Good balance comes from the advice and suggestions of many players.

There is no goal here anymore, nobody is willing to co-operate or compromise. Best we can hope for is that the settings aren't *too* different between the servers, so there isn't too much of a split in the overkill community.
As for the official overkill config - well, it's not used anywhere anyway. Any new servers that take up the mod can look to the existing overkill server admins for guidance.

@"One guy complaining": The problem to me is that there is no Overkill community to begin with. There are only the already mentioned about 10 regular players that could state a qualified opinion by comparing the two servers. I guess about two thirds of those don't care enough to participate in this debate and the rest who did already participate in-game is now avoiding the topic for it hasn't lead anywhere so far. Both martin-t and me tried to get people to state their points of view here but to no avail.

As for constructive criticism: I get the feeling it's only considered constructive (at least by martin-t) if it's saying "try another value" rather than "why change the default at all". For the few months this config debate is lead now I have neither seen new players coming and staying in Overkill nor more games taking place. What I have seen is regular players complaining about changes. So I think to say "keep it as it was" is a valid opinion.

I do think that server admins should not change to many settings on their server. Otherwise players will hate changing servers because of the differences. I think that having good default settings will lead to more games because ppl will not avoid certain servers because "their settings suck".
This does not mean that you can't tweak some settings, but these tweaks should not change the game completely.

Sensible defaults also means that server admins can create servers for mods that they don't play regularly. EAC Votable and Duel have overkill votes with mostly default settings. I could just use one of your configs, but that would only make a fraction of the overkill community like them.

Also, don't think about if these new defaults will attract new players, they probably won't notice the differences between your servers. Rather see it as an opportunity where YOU (the overkill community) can decide on sensible defaults, not some random developer who rarely/never plays overkill (I think this was the reason why settings changed with the merge, wasn't it?).

@LX and @martin-t:
You could change one of the important cvars on your server to reflect the settings of the other server for a day and don't tell anyone about it. If ppl complain about it, you know that this cvar really is important for many players, otherwise you know that a compromise wouldn't hurt too much.

The default overkill balance was actually copied from the old overkill.cfg pre-merge, but it was never verified to be accurate. As for other things like nade offset; the old implementation was so bad that it had to be replaced completely, and no extensive testing was done to make it behave the exact same.

As for this topic not going anywhere - you're *still* attacking each other... But let's be fair; none of the instagib servers agree on settings, and *none* of them use the stock instagib settings.
This isn't really an issue, the real problem is that neither of your servers are attracting an audience any more, by the sounds of it. To fix that, you can either work together (a seemingly impossible task), or each find your own ways to gain popularity.

This thread should remain open for discussing the official overkill balance, regardless of what the custom servers use.

A different possibility is that no matter what settings you would have used, the servers would have lost popularity anyway. Isn't this what always seems to happen to just about any mod Nexuiz/Xonotic mod? I remember when we all used to still play Domination, Rune Match, Freeze Tag, Key Hunt, Race... the list goes on. Just about everything except (M)insta and vanilla pretty much dies at some point no matter how popular it is when it starts. Mainly because the playerbase has never been so big that it could support multiple mods so when one got popular it owuld eat from the others.

Also, I am a regular on the defrag server and in the last couple of years the player numbers there have decreased a lot. Not because of some frequent or weird settings changes, but because the regulars of the beginning have mostly found new things to occupy themselves with. And since Xonotic is taking so long to reach a state where it can or will be advertised at large, this means that there are only a few players coming back in. Some other game modes seem to be suffering from that too. I don't see how overkill would be an exception.

So I suggest you try to stop and shift the blame of this onto each other and just accept that it happened for whatever reason. You can not go back in time, so how will you fix it in the here and now? You're probably going to need reunification of some sort, preferrably with sane overkill defaults, to try and grow the overkill playerbase back up again. But of course, that is very much imo and I mean to help you both, as I have spent fun times with both of you on servers and all this pointless debate is leading you nowhere.

Maybe now someone can post a picture of a road that leads to nowhere?

I would like to suggest what I hope is a sensible and positive compromise.

I propose the LX' config be adopted in the short term as the new official default.

It already includes some of the changes recently requested from the wtrp one and is an improvement over the currently available official default. It doesn't differ too much from the config used when it was the Mon server, it doesn't contain any 'disputed' settings, it's stable and would make a good starting point for a new server admin to work from.

Meanwhile, wtwrp can continue to experiment to find a better combination of settings that maybe others will want to adopt if they are found to work.

This will allow us to have made some progress, and to move on with discussion regarding other settings and how to market Overkill to enlarge the playerbase.

In short, it will improve the currently available default config, it already includes some of the desired changes, and it will allow us to move on having reached an interim agreement that can be built on.

That's the kind of compromise I was hoping for. I've copied some of LX's balance options into the default overkill balance.
A lot of the other changes are not specific to balance, but may be included in a defaultOverkill.cfg file when one is created.

Let's be real. Xonotic (whatever mod) becoming unpopular can't be all due to internal reasons. Some games provide/do some things better whether it's just being shoved to peoples face better. Yes there are other games than Xonotic that caters to the same playerbase. Reason why Quake was originally so popular was because there was less (almost none) competition in the industry as a whole. There were simply less alternatives for first person shooter fans back then. I would argue the same would apply to Nexuiz and early Xonotic as there were less good alternatives for arena shooters. Today is different, now there's a new arena shooter popping out from left and right. Here's a short list of our competition today and in close future:

• Quake Live
  
• Unreal Tournament 4
  
• Doom 4
  
• Diabotical
  
• Reflex
  
• Toxikk
  
• Insight
  
• Warsow
  
• Sauerbraten
  
• Quakeworld
  
• Q3 CPMA
  
• UT2k4
  
• Red Eclipse
  
• Alien Arena
  
• Open Arena
  
• Rekt
  
• Doombringer
  
• Shootmania
  

Let's be real. Xonotic (whatever mod) becoming unpopular can't be all due to internal reasons. Some games provide/do some things better whether it's just being shoved to peoples face better. Yes there are other games than Xonotic that caters to the same playerbase. Reason why Quake was originally so popular was because there was less (almost none) competition in the industry as a whole. There were simply less alternatives for first person shooter fans back then. I would argue the same would apply to Nexuiz and early Xonotic as there were less good alternatives for arena shooters. Today is different, now there's a new arena shooter popping out from left and right. Here's a short list of our competition today and in close future:

• Quake Live
  
• Unreal Tournament 4
  
• Doom 4
  
• Diabotical
  
• Reflex
  
• Toxikk
  
• Insight
  
• Warsow
  
• Sauerbraten
  
• Quakeworld
  
• Q3 CPMA
  
• UT2k4
  
• Alien Arena
  
• Red Eclipse
  
• Open Arena
  
• Rekt
  
• Doombringer
  
• Shootmania
  

Short conversation from the wtwrp server yesterday:

23:33 <regionalbahn→vga← > ich kann gut mit dem MG umgehen (translation: I can handle mg well)
23:33 <nvidia210 > mg is op
23:34 <martin-t> MG is not OP, if you want overkill to be nex only, maybe you prefer LX' version
23:34 <martin-t> MG in fact used to be ~5x more accurate
23:34 <martin-t> it only feels OP because me and regio can use it well
23:34 <martin-t> unfortunately others don'T have the patience with it
23:35 <nvidia210 > id rather play lx but not many players there
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> nvidia210 and is it just because of the MG or other differences?
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> because you haven't said anything on the forums
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> and you also said this overkill (on LX') is an abomination
23:36 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> so you apparently notice differences
23:36 <regionalbahn→vga← > i like the mg of distance
23:36 <nvidia210 > i said enough here. movement is too fast, mg and shitgun op, no i find it here worse than lx, much more
23:37 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> than say it on the forums
23:37 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> i am for 2 versions
23:37 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> but then i have to wonder why you find old overkill to be the best
23:38 <nvidia210 > anyway i am glad there is only 1 server with this settings
23:41 #6 nvidia210 left
23:41 <wtwrp.martin-t afk> these people are alway so constructive and to the point :/

The good thing is: you ask for people's opinions most of the time. The bad thing is: you only accept answers validating your own point of view. Starting with the goal of creating THE default Overkill config and now that not everyone agrees with your propositions preferring two different versions kind of confirms that notion.

I accept opinions that make sense. If shotgun is OP then why is my server so terrible while yours is so great? Shotgun is identical. MG does the same damage, has the same rate of fire and the first shot has 0 spread so if I wanted to get RSI, I would use it on yours as well.

The last sentence (which I assume is what you're referring to) is because I was a little irritated that he didn't explain what was so great about old overkill. This is the second time he brought it up and the second time he quit without explaining.

I won't make any more changes to my server, neither to uzi spread (which I also think overpowers the weapon), nor to nade offsets. For as long as people won't play on it anyway because it has irregular lag issues this shouldn't be a problem.

Again, how can it be OP without people using it? Same with shotgun. Either people keep using nex because they're dumb or because the other weapons are too weak..

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I want 2 versions because now I understand there are 2 fundamentally different and incompatible ways to play overkill. What you want is more casual and relaxing. You want nex to be the main weapon and usually kill in one shot. You even say you hate having to hit multiple times. This way everyone would get a couple kills at least and strong people stand out less because anyone can easily kill them any time.

I want my version to be more competitive with emphasis on fast movement and item control. That means people are using pickups and shards and not just running past them. Suddenly nex is too slow to fire the second shot so you have to use other guns. It's more dynamic because as you move around you have time to regenerate.

I want to outsmart my opponent instead of just killing him in one shot. If we both have a decent stack, it's no longer about aim, it's about making sure you survive the next hit while waiting for a mistake. It's about having a better position or denying him another pickup. A 200/100 stack player is easy to kill if you hit him from the right angle and push into void. Uzi takes 4 shots to kill at a least, that's half a second with 100% accuracy. Realistically, it takes whole seconds and a good player won't let you even see him for that long, that's why it needs to be stronger.

My server uses 'sv_itemstime 2' to show when items spawn (not part of overkill but general server config). I want to encourage people to pick them up by making them clearly visible. It could have influenced how people play by encouraging them to use items.

I understand that you like your version and I don't want to take that style of gameplay from you, that's why i want 2 versions.

Any new servers that take up the mod can look to the existing overkill server admins for guidance.

It would have to be documented somewhere and they still have to decide which version they want. Currently there seem to be some servers that offer overkill at various levels of being broken. Some don't even have dodging, some have only more subtle bugs like spawning HMG immediately after being picked up, causing lag/pl if a bot gets stuck on that spot.

As for constructive criticism: I get the feeling it's only considered constructive (at least by martin-t) if it's saying "try another value" rather than "why change the default at all". For the few months this config debate is lead now I have neither seen new players coming and staying in Overkill nor more games taking place. What I have seen is regular players complaining about changes. So I think to say "keep it as it was" is a valid opinion.

My approach is this: what value would you choose if there was no default. The current defaults are taken from vanilla and often classic overkill had completely different values. Why should we use values from practically a completely different game?

@LX and @martin-t:
You could change one of the important cvars on your server to reflect the settings of the other server for a day and don't tell anyone about it. If ppl complain about it, you know that this cvar really is important for many players, otherwise you know that a compromise wouldn't hurt too much.

That won't work. Even if the new value is better, some people will complain about it just because of the change, not because of the value itself. For example the offset is currently buggy but any change will cause players to miss nades with nex (untill they learn it again) which will make them hate it.

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@everyone The reason overkill can't attract new players is because the the skill gap is huge. A lot of people don't even seem to grasp the concept of CTF and they get absolutely destroyed by players who fly past them without any chance to react. This is not an issue as in other mods and vanilla. Usually pros are limited in what they can do in terms of speed and the damage output of their weapons. The other extreme is insta where anyone can kill anyone at any time. Overkill lets pros get huge amounts of power by getting a pickup or shard while being able to 1 hit kill a player who doesn't bother with that. The 5/10 armor shards are HUGELY important but even if I tell people to pick them up they don't.

Okay, I get your point concerning two different flavours. However I wonder where your goal of attracting more players to Overkill went? What your "more strategic gameplay version" basically means, is that pros can have fun with armor/health stacking (if they're into that kind of thing) but new players will be even more lost because they usually don't care much about that.

That's what your version should be for. I would like them to be more similar (especially the MG - newbies' favorite weapon (well, those who discover switching)). And my version actually has some nice newbie-friendly features as well (10 armor shards, faster bunnyhopping). Ultimately it's about people who visit the server. Maybe all overkill needs is a newbie only DM server like akimbo. Mind you, akimbo has no pros because no sane person who knows how to move would play there In Overkill we would probably have to enforce it by kicking or some automated pro-nerfing which isn't coded yet.