balanceFruit.cfg

I like the direction of the shotgun change, okay with the changes to hagar and maybe rocket launcher, but that's about it.

My question to you is, why the hell would I ever want to use anything else but this new crylink?

Back to physics: IMHO the best solution is to offer both physics styles - XPM physics (with strafejumping, doublejumping) and Xonotic-default physics (without these intentional bugs). The balance would be supposed to work for both, which seems quite possible, as the total attainable speed of both physics sets is about the same and there is a big speed difference mainly in small obstacle courses.

IMHO default physics should make sense and be somewhat intuitive, and also as cheatproof as possible. Note that in CTF with XPM physics, strafebot helps a LOT. For running away with the flag, you know...

However, apart from these things, the physics should be as similar as possible. 320 walking speed for the default physics, nothing wrong with that. And maybe we also should go for that smaller stepheight

320 walking speed for the default physics, nothing wrong with that.

As a side benefit, that might also help make the movement look smoother, graphics wise.

I have now finally been able to test the new balance (unfortunately only with mortar, electro, rocket launcher, nex, hagar, shotgun and laser involved). Here are my thoughts:

Please please please make the laser useful again. I feel like a crippled nuclear jackrabbit and I can tell you that's not a nice thing. I don't care how it's being done, make it use more health if you need to but if the laser is not useful anymore for climbing walls or getting to places, an elementary well of fun is being closed.

I find the grenades very interesting, you really need to think ahead where you place them. But this could also lead to slowing down the game, since you tend to shoot into the direction you are currently moving. Which is, as I can tell by experience now, a bit tricky with sticky grenades. It's like placing a mine field directly in front of you while running at full speed. Time will tell if getting used to this will make the sticky grenades a very useful tool. Personally I think they will turn out good. I'd suggest to use the same flying arches for primary and secondary mortar in order to avoid confusion.

I am not so much fond of the electro primary, mainly due to two issues: a) the electro combo is almost unusable now - you can spit out only one ball within reasonable time, and you need to hit it directly with primary AND you need to be quite close to do so (at least it felt like that) and then the explosion isn't even particularly impressive and b) I personally dislike those "aim and keep the fire button pressed until you frag" weapons. That's more of a personal dislike and that's also why I didn't use the mg whenever I had an alternative in Nexuiz 2.5.2. I always find these kind of weapons are totally uninteresting/boring to use. But that's more of a personal antipathy. So the way to go for the electro would be, I guess, make the electro combo useful again. Maybe by allowing to spit out more balls faster and to let them detonate when the primary beam gets near them.

I can't say anything negative about the rocket launcher, don't know if it has been tweaked at all but it feels alright for me.

I have seen the crylink on another server, where its primary was shooting more of a large, very slow circle and the secondary was shooting fast, narrow horizontal lines of little plasma balls. While not having tested this infight, I think this could be a good move for the crylink.

The shotgun needs a secondary, but I think everybody agrees on that. What could it be? A melee attack would be cool, if someone would animate it. I wouldn't object to keeping the Nexuiz shotgun secondary either, though this weapon could use some variety. The reload time for shotgun primary is quite high, but I felt the shotgun was still satisfactorily effective. Maybe reduce the reload time only a tiny bit.

I can understand the reasons behind blocking the player after shooting the nex, but while playing this is really annoying. If the nex has to be tweaked, then reduce its damage or increase its reload but personally I can't stand if that thing is sticking to my hands and I can't even laser myself away. I'd vote for weapon combos.

I think the hagar is just nice the way it is (dunno if it has changed at all).

I have one suggestion: since the mortar fires sticky grenades now there is one weapon less that was useful for pushing around people. You all know how I like to push around people (virtually, of course), and I also find it most amusing if other players do this on space maps with me. So how about introducing another weapon or a fire mode (replace mortar secondary...?) for some weapon that fires grenade like projectiles that have a splash damage and, more important, a "splash" push - just like the old mortar, or even stronger? We could make the actual damage dealt rather low or even zero for this weapon so that it doesn't become overpowered like the mortar was claimed to be. The important thing would be to have a pickup weapon that is even more useful for pushing people than the laser. I think pushing people around, placing them in a position or keeping them away from positions (mega health, armor...) is particularly funny and greatly adds to the depth of the game. I'd strongly recommend to keep this in the focus of Xonotic's gameplay.

As for the movement, I haven't got the grip of that yet. The double jump seems to catapult me at totally unexpected times into the air, and I seem to gain speed at a very high rate in some situations, while I can't seem to move fast in others. I still need to get used to those physics settings, but I do not disapprove of them.

Keep up the good work and I will do some more testing as soon as I can. I really appreciate the efforts that went already into this balance.

I actually like the nex anim time now thingy majig-bob.

People are saying you can't combo..you can still combo with other weapons, just with the nex you actually have to think before getting into a firefight like frutiex said, it also balances it against the other weapons which is the crucial factor here as balance is what were going for you have to remember that, so you can't just nex, combo, nex which is only going to make using the RL/nex/RL super powerful I happen to remember people complaining of the constant nex -> mortar -> nex combo's and that there the only 2 weapons being used..do you want this to happen again?? It would only lead to people wanting to reduce dmg of those weapons and then saying in other game-modes the nex then is too weak etc, and it'll go back to the horrible way of trying to increase and lower dmg and ROF constantly. We have to keep things in perspective, and so for that reason I am for the nex animation time/switch delay.

Shotgun secondary as stated beforerdidn't know what to do with it, I said melee, people seem to like this idea, and Dib said he could make an animation for it which would be spot on, so I guess it's likely this will be tried first and see how it works and if people like it..

Probably agree with the laser now, make it do more/high/er self damage, and keep the force, or make it 350 I think thats the common oppinion here that people would prefer to have it's useability still in force but increase the self-damage so it cannot be used as much, so I think thats the right/best thing to do FrutieX and move the balance for the laser in that direction.

As for the electo I need to try it again, got to remember though halogene, if it can fire too many balls and combo it's going to make the weapon really too strong also, I guess you will need to use the combo tactically how it is at the moment, but maybe slightly increase the ROF of the secondary balls? I will need to try this out. As for the unimpressive explosion, I guess that's something that can be fixed so it's not really a balancing issue, more graphical?

Well I know and understand the nex needs to be balanced and it sounded ok for me too, but when I am faced with it infight I feel like "ugh get this sticky thing off my hands" whenever I fired it. It's like divVerent said "the game becomes your opponent" - I find this really annoying. I'd prefer to reduce damage of the nex rather than blocking you altogether for a while.

Coming to think of it I'd probably find it more acceptable if we'd have the laser as secondary fire of the nex (like minsta nex). Then you could still laser yourself away and do nex/laser combos which are not as powerful as nex/mortar combos. Might be I'd still dislike the sudden stickyness of that weapon, but that way it would be more tolerable.

Btw, what do you think about my suggestion?

Another thought about the grenades: making them sticky sort of converts the mortar form an offensive weapon to a defensive weapon. Just a thought, dunno if that is intended or apparent for everybody.

Hmmm well ok, I just dislike reducing the damage of the nex, I would on the other hand be willing to try this if it was made like how lda17h made it, he made it similar to the UT shock rifle primary fire..if you are not familar with this youtube, UT shockrifle and watch some of the videos of the primary fire, it's basically like a more rapid fire nexgun that does lesser damage.

I still feel however, that saying you want to laser away quickly after firing is an easy cop-out, as said before it will just require some more skill to use that weapon instead of combo'ing all the time, just my thoughts.

@ Your suggestion:- Oh your nex + laser idea could be interesting you know, that would mean you would need to get a nexgun before you could have use of the laser..would be quite interesting, but Im not sure what people will think of the idea but it does sound like a good idea actually, it would mean you just start off with the shotgun but I don't think thats a bad thing..never thought about integrating the two, people's thoughts?

@ Electro, the beam still has to hit the balls, if it had to be just near them it would be too easy to use, again making it too powerful, the LG already seemed a favourite among the people I saw testing it though, needs a thicker shaft like someone mentioned here and a much much better sound something meaty and thundery. As I said before though halogene I can try it when I get back in and see how powerful/useful the secondary is and how strong a combo is, if the combo is strong might be why frutiex set the secondary to fire balls slowly, will need to ask him on that one as I only tried it briefly when it was first implemented..

@ divVerent, having two physics sets is a good idea then, I would prefer this not too happen but if it has to happen atleast the weapons will be the same, so it will simply be a task of playing with a different set if you want too but still having all of the main game mechanics the same. Also, I guess you or frutiex will work on the current xonotic physics in the meanwhile to set the maxspeed to 320 and then increase the acceleration when moving forward so it doesnt take ages to accelerate upto a certain speed then it goes slower.

@kojn: no no no not make the laser a pickup no that wasn't what I meant. I thought about having the nex secondary act as an ADDITIONAL laser. You all, don't always try to remove the startup laser! I love that weapon. Leave it alone!

* Halogene barks

As for the nex gun, yes, I know the UT shock rifle. Have played a little UT 2 and UT 3 too. I think it is too weak there to be really of use, but maybe we can settle for something in between.

LEAVE OUR START UP LASER! ...or is it called pulse-gun in Xonotic? Pulse-Gun means that there's a Pulse! not such a useless thing!

Yes, leave the laser as a default weapon!

Uhm, I didn't intend to unleash a rage here :o) but anyhow, how do you like my suggestion about a mortar-like push weapon with more push than the laser but without as much damage? Obviously you shouldn't be able to use it for moving yourself... or then it should deal considerably more damage to yourself than to others.

There should be a weapon w/ push similar to that of the laser but with more damage. Pushing people around (whilst in the process of fragging them) is just too damn fun to let go! It doesn't have to be a totally different weapon altogether, though.

Definitely make the Nex a shock rifle.

Why? Because the Rifle is MUCH better suited to be the sniper weapon. It relies on headshots, which takes actual skill at distances, not body shots which are super easy. Also it can shoot through walls, which can help shoot campers out of their tents.

The Nex on the other hand is a featureless cheat rifle, with no spread and instantaneous delivery that vaporizes an unarmored enemy wherever you hit him. It's a less skillful competitor to the Rifle basically.

If people just like the aesthetics of the Nex, make the Rifle use its graphics and SFX instead, and use the rifle appearance for the shock rifle inspired battle rifle weapon (and give it a secondary attack too).


Also, add a melee secondary attack to the Laser as well. That's a perfect kind of secondary attack for a non-ammo weapon.

UPDATE:

Laser changed to hopefully be useful again. It does deal a little more damage, and thus also has a lower speed so it's not way more useful as a weapon. Force bumped up a bit, refire lowered to make laserclimbing possible again. It still isn't possible to do huge vertical jumps (like, up to the mega on aggressor) without laserclimbing, but this helps instead with horizontal movement. It's easier to use the laser as an aid to accelerate you on the horizontal plane in a CONTROLLED manner at this force (not bumping into the next wall immediately).

Shotgun secondary works as a melee fire mode: http://www.hrfdesign.com/crap/videos/sg_melee.avi

Electro blobs still have to be tweaked so they are easier to set off....

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but anyhow, how do you like my suggestion about a mortar-like push weapon with more push than the laser but without as much damage? Obviously you shouldn't be able to use it for moving yourself... or then it should deal considerably more damage to yourself than to others.

Love this idea.

Good work Fruitie! That melee looks awesome. Do you have anything demonstrating the laser changes?

LEAVE OUR START UP LASER! ...or is it called pulse-gun in Xonotic? Pulse-Gun means that there's a Pulse! not such a useless thing!

Yes, leave the laser as a default weapon!

The laser (or pulse-gun? cool name) will stay as a start weapon. No worries. With or without changes we'll see what people want I at least would request everyone to try these current (new) ones and keep in mind that the old force allowed you to reach quite ridiculous heights a bit too easily...

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Also, add a melee secondary attack to the Laser as well. That's a perfect kind of secondary attack for a non-ammo weapon.

Gauntlet?
The code is already (at least almost) in place.

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Definitely make the Nex a shock rifle.

Don't have anything against this. Will consider.

I'm a bit confused.

Why would you want the start-up laser and then ANOTHER lase on the nex, that's just pointless and over enpowering the gun then. I don't believe you HAVE to have secondary fire modes for everything, especially if it's just going to be rubbish.

Anyway, I see what you meant now..no I do not like the idea of having 2 laser's one at startup and secondary of nex thats just redundant and pointless

As for your push thingy i'm also confused!!

flying_steel, I wouldn't mind a camping rilfe that acted as a sniper instead of the nex, I even changed some settings before for it to do that, so it's not quite instananeous, I think the re-fire I had it set at 0.6s or 0.7, and it did like 60 dmg for a body and 110 for a headshot, is that what you mean, use camping rifle basically re-done to be used as a rifle instead of the nex?? I would be interested in trying that out otherwise, but not sure because you say yes make it like a shock-rifle the nex, but then you go into the camping rifle and headshots. In UT there was sniper and shock rifle anyway, can you just confirm to me you meant a shock-rifle, or to make the nex like a sniper rifle?

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Edit, I would love to see camping rifle put in as a sniper instead of the nex gun..and then have no delay with weapon switching with that weapon..

Frutiex, can we work on this tonight we can use settings tZork set for it originally and have a play around with the camping rifle to make it a nice sniper weapon I found 0.6 or 0.7 re-fire worked well before, it's also not as easy to hit with the nex I think.

when i thought of a melee attack with the shotgun i thought of a quick push of the shoulder stock against the enemies head, i doubt you can use a heavy weapon like this but... who cares about realism here?

Also, add a melee secondary attack to the Laser as well. That's a perfect kind of secondary attack for a non-ammo weapon.

Gauntlet?
The code is already (at least almost) in place.

Yes, make the laser secondary work like the gauntlet attack!

You know you want to.

I would love to see camping rifle put in as a sniper instead of the nex gun..and then have no delay with weapon switching with that weapon..

Yes, do this, that's what I meant.

The other stuff I was talking about was purely aesthetic- using the visual and sound effects of the Nex for the Rifle. That would basically make Rifle not just act like, but look like the railgun in the movie Eraser.

Definitely make the Nex a shock rifle.

Why? Because the Rifle is MUCH better suited to be the sniper weapon. It relies on headshots, which takes actual skill at distances, not body shots which are super easy. Also it can shoot through walls, which can help shoot campers out of their tents.

The Nex on the other hand is a featureless cheat rifle, with no spread and instantaneous delivery that vaporizes an unarmored enemy wherever you hit him. It's a less skillful competitor to the Rifle basically.

First, your last paragraph can work if you switch "nex" and "rifle" around.
Merge the nex and rifle. A nex that is a shock rifle will be like ANOTHER GODDAM MACHINE GUN. <_<

And as I said, why completely modify the mortar primary? It's a whole lot less useful in a lot of cases now. Why not make secondary sticky, if we are going to go that way (though as I said, sticky electro is better)?

And as I said, why completely modify the mortar primary? It's a whole lot less useful in a lot of cases now. Why not make secondary sticky, if we are going to go that way (though as I said, sticky electro is better)?

You should try this kojn^ and FruitieX in combination with the Rifle in place of Nex as sniper weapon.

Because a (or maybe even 'the') big reason the mortar was used so much is it is combo-ed with the Nex. If the Nex is dethroned, you might see that the old mortar primary is no longer overused automatically.


And BTW, the Electro in 2.5.2 was way too defensive and underpowered. Whatever you end up doing to it, definitely make it more effective and offensively useful too, and don't make any other weapon like the mortar end up in a too defensive role either.

The game would need to be much slower paced for purely defensive weapons to be very useful. As such, I've never felt threatened by electro ball spam, I just dance around it, in any version. The few times when I did get caught in an electro storm, I'd laugh at myself for such a pathetic death.

And BTW, the Electro in 2.5.2 was way too defensive and underpowered. Whatever you end up doing to it, definitely make it more effective and offensively useful too, and don't make any other weapon like the mortar end up in a too defensive role either.

Do you mean secondary Electro here (the blobs)? If so - yes, the blobs are almost useless. I find the primary extremely useful though (with and without a nex).

As for the mortar, I've seen many, many people use it as their main weapon. Depending on the map it can better than a nex; it definitely has value outside of the nex/mortar combo. I'd really like to see the sticky grenades being used as a secondary.

Yes, the nex/mortar combos can be devastating. I think Fruitie has some settings to make combos w/ the nex more difficult (time to switch weapons is increased, or something like that).

haha, I love this line "The few times when I did get caught in an electro storm, I'd laugh at myself for such a pathetic death."

Ok, well I'm sure we will not make it too weak thats for sure, it's just that the primary with a steady aim can be very strong, but you need a really really steady aim and with all the strafing on the ground side to side is hard to do, I will have a look tonight with frutiex and others and we will see how well the combo does at the moment, obviously we can't allow it to spam too many balls at one time, maybe an idea we could also try would be to make secondary fire 3 balls at a time like the old electro, and then you can detonate them with primary may work and not be too spammy.

As for your nex/sniper I fully get you now..I also had the eraser style in mind exactly!!

Will work on these and once updated you can try it out, as for the eraser style..that would need to be worked on, but the actual ROF, dmg and ammo etc we can actually work on a balance


@plasmasheep, speak to frutiex about the mortar..I'd prefer electro secondary not be sticky balls, i'd rather have the mortar do that, primary or secondary..I guess the reasoning of having sticky primary is because the RL is fast, that if the mortar primary becomes back to how it was, then we will have essentially two nearly equal weapons doing the same thing, which is what frutiex mentioned before.

Because a (or maybe even 'the') big reason the mortar was used so much is it is combo-ed with the Nex. If the Nex is dethroned, you might see that the old mortar primary is no longer overused automatically.

Mortar is good as a weapon by itself. Haven't you seen pavlv's videos?

And BTW, the Electro in 2.5.2 was way too defensive and underpowered. Whatever you end up doing to it, definitely make it more effective and offensively useful too, and don't make any other weapon like the mortar end up in a too defensive role either.

Do you mean secondary Electro here (the blobs)? If so - yes, the blobs are almost useless. I find the primary extremely useful though (with and without a nex).

plasmasheep/plasmabalance. Execute balanceplasma.cfg and play with sticky electro balls.

The game would need to be much slower paced for purely defensive weapons to be very useful. As such, I've never felt threatened by electro ball spam, I just dance around it, in any version. The few times when I did get caught in an electro storm, I'd laugh at myself for such a pathetic death.

This is because they were not properly done. Properly used (and sticky) they can be quite effective.

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@plasmasheep, speak to frutiex about the mortar..I'd prefer electro secondary not be sticky balls, i'd rather have the mortar do that, primary or secondary..I guess the reasoning of having sticky primary is because the RL is fast, that if the mortar primary becomes back to how it was, then we will have essentially two nearly equal weapons doing the same thing, which is what frutiex mentioned before.

I would prefer electro sticky balls. Electro was clearly made to be a powerful combo weapon, much more so than mortar.

For those of you who haven't seen 'eraser' before.

This is what flying_steel meant so a sniper-rifle but with this effect -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHoIMBXKS...re=related