07-25-2010, 11:58 PM
After turning down all my graphics settings, I was able to get a good ~30 fps up from a framerate of ~5 fps on top of the usual 200 ping. And from then on I was able to get a fairly good impression of the balance.
Overall, I feel like this is starting to clean up the chronic loose ends of Nexuiz, and thereby allow Xonotic the solid start it needs and deserves. There's still a lot of specific tweaking to continue for this to reach a state of balance though, so I'll give my first impressions of each item.
Physics. Default physics felt solid, with 320-360 walk speed seeming best, given how much easier it is now to maintain speed and build it up, with much tighter effective hop cornering and more powerful and forgiving ramp jumping.
Health/Armor. With the linear health regeneration this is perfect. No more waiting for slow ass nonlinear health regen to tick more and more slowly to 75 before you grab a pack and no more stacked monsters storming the place (the two quads are enough damnit!) As a third benefit, the games focus more on actual fighting than constant health munching, almost like we're playing an actual now shooter instead of HealthPacMan.
Laser. Sane force levels now means that you are rewarded, instead of punished for moving in ways other than constant laser jumping. Also, CTF and projectile weapons do seem to get a boost from this, which is equally nice. Laser secondary "Taser" attack is very cool and can come in handy at 200 dps, but is still far from overpowered. Could maybe use a 50% range boost.
Shotgun. Primary seems effective but certainly not overpowered. I'm not a big fan of a starting shotgun to begin with but this seems to do a pretty good job. Melee secondary is cool, certainly not overpowered though it is damaging, but will have to test some more to tell if it could use more of a boost.
However the melee attack would work better and make more sense as an "offhand" attack that would work with any gun, not just the shotgun. A generic melee attack that turns anything you are holding into a club, in other words. Could be binded to the Tab or Q key for example.
Machinegun. Seems to work well, I'm surprised it did so poorly on the kill chart. I was able to do some ranged fighting with it's secondary. I guess if it is too weak more testing can expose why.
Crylink. Primary spread is way too high, making it rather useless. Secondary seemed okay.
Grenade Launcher. Primary could use more blast radius, given slow speed, drooping trajectory and low damage. And it is a grenade launcher after all. Secondary is totally USELESS I'm afraid. Would need way more damage and radius to make sense.
Hagar. Kind of bad. Primary not very useful, though slightly more powerful than in 2.5 relatively speaking. However, slow speed, high spread and massive ammo consumption make it more of noob artillery gun still, imo. Secondary is super useless with high spread. Needs new secondary, maybe tag seeker primary would work.
Rocket Launcher. I need more getting used to it, but I'd like to see a slight radius increase to boost remote detonation secondary, but radius should be less than mortar primary since RL has more advantages in general.
Electro. Primary is uber. A little too strong but I like the idea. Secondary however is USELESS.
Nex. Overpowered. Must have MUCH harsher falloff. Look at your chart, once the Electro primary is debuffed a bit the Nex will go back to being top noobgun. It must have stronger weaknesses. Also, it needs a secondary for variety (it has the least features of any gun); a shock-rifle secondary attack would be good perhaps.
Rifle, HLAC, TAGS and Fireball. Nowhere to be seen! They need to be added soon lest they throw a delicate balance out of control when they are added later on. Must be integrated and so testing and tweaking may begin.
Overall, I feel like this is starting to clean up the chronic loose ends of Nexuiz, and thereby allow Xonotic the solid start it needs and deserves. There's still a lot of specific tweaking to continue for this to reach a state of balance though, so I'll give my first impressions of each item.
Physics. Default physics felt solid, with 320-360 walk speed seeming best, given how much easier it is now to maintain speed and build it up, with much tighter effective hop cornering and more powerful and forgiving ramp jumping.
Health/Armor. With the linear health regeneration this is perfect. No more waiting for slow ass nonlinear health regen to tick more and more slowly to 75 before you grab a pack and no more stacked monsters storming the place (the two quads are enough damnit!) As a third benefit, the games focus more on actual fighting than constant health munching, almost like we're playing an actual now shooter instead of HealthPacMan.
Laser. Sane force levels now means that you are rewarded, instead of punished for moving in ways other than constant laser jumping. Also, CTF and projectile weapons do seem to get a boost from this, which is equally nice. Laser secondary "Taser" attack is very cool and can come in handy at 200 dps, but is still far from overpowered. Could maybe use a 50% range boost.
Shotgun. Primary seems effective but certainly not overpowered. I'm not a big fan of a starting shotgun to begin with but this seems to do a pretty good job. Melee secondary is cool, certainly not overpowered though it is damaging, but will have to test some more to tell if it could use more of a boost.
However the melee attack would work better and make more sense as an "offhand" attack that would work with any gun, not just the shotgun. A generic melee attack that turns anything you are holding into a club, in other words. Could be binded to the Tab or Q key for example.
Machinegun. Seems to work well, I'm surprised it did so poorly on the kill chart. I was able to do some ranged fighting with it's secondary. I guess if it is too weak more testing can expose why.
Crylink. Primary spread is way too high, making it rather useless. Secondary seemed okay.
Grenade Launcher. Primary could use more blast radius, given slow speed, drooping trajectory and low damage. And it is a grenade launcher after all. Secondary is totally USELESS I'm afraid. Would need way more damage and radius to make sense.
Hagar. Kind of bad. Primary not very useful, though slightly more powerful than in 2.5 relatively speaking. However, slow speed, high spread and massive ammo consumption make it more of noob artillery gun still, imo. Secondary is super useless with high spread. Needs new secondary, maybe tag seeker primary would work.
Rocket Launcher. I need more getting used to it, but I'd like to see a slight radius increase to boost remote detonation secondary, but radius should be less than mortar primary since RL has more advantages in general.
Electro. Primary is uber. A little too strong but I like the idea. Secondary however is USELESS.
Nex. Overpowered. Must have MUCH harsher falloff. Look at your chart, once the Electro primary is debuffed a bit the Nex will go back to being top noobgun. It must have stronger weaknesses. Also, it needs a secondary for variety (it has the least features of any gun); a shock-rifle secondary attack would be good perhaps.
Rifle, HLAC, TAGS and Fireball. Nowhere to be seen! They need to be added soon lest they throw a delicate balance out of control when they are added later on. Must be integrated and so testing and tweaking may begin.
