balanceFruit.cfg

@ Everyone:

I did a usual ./all update last night and now oddly enough I can see all the missing weapon animations. So you folks might want to try that too.

@ Beefeater:

Thanks!

I had checked out those two directories like you told me, but I must of forgotten I needed to be in the map directory first and run a special update after. Now I have the map files in said directory, and once I've patched some more holes in my checkout I should be able to compile them and play offline too.

@ kojn^ and FruitieX:

It's Sunday so what time (GMT) is the big playtest?

Thanks out to everyone who tested today and provided feedback!

To anyone who thinks the shotgun secondary is useless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeUyd_Wz9E0

Honestly, that looked so sweet!!

Would be amazing in a movie Can imagine being a few shotgun melee runs

Here's the balance stats so far:

Thanks again for letting me be a part of the testing process. Here's my items/thoughts:

After a while of testing on the new physics, I like them - it is easier to cut corners while maintaining some semblance of speed, unlike the hot/cold spots that are in Nexuiz.

The crylink primary and secondary seem flipped - the secondary is quick, small bursts while the primary is slow and more spread out. Maybe this is part of why people tend to choose other weapons (it is very low in your picture).

The mortar feels pretty good now. It isn't as dominant as in the past but you can get some frags with it if you place your shots accurately (more accuracy is needed than in the past).

I think we can call the shotgun complete - I don't think it needs any further tweaking. Melee is a bonus, although I still don't think many will use it often (funny video, though).

The electro primary is damn powerful. Nothing with its range or spread needs to be changed, but maybe its damage could be reduced slightly.

Keep up the good work!

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.

First of all, I am amazed about how this balance is evolving. I also have thought about adding a melee attack mode for every weapon, but then I thought that would make the shotgun much less special. Personally I think it's good to have a reason to switch to a gun if you have other guns, too. And the melee attack of the shotgun is something worth switching to in close combat.

I have to disagree about the mortar with Flying Steel, both firemodes are extremely useful (for me). You may have noticed by now that I like to interfere with the opponent's movement by pushing them around so I place a sticky grenade in one place and use the primary fire to push the opponent onto the sticky one. Doesn't work always, since it really needs some practice, but is very effective if you succeed. Or, what's also cool, is to place a sticky grenade at a place where you know the opponent will be in a sec (for example near the armor below megahealth on agressor if the opponent just went throught the teleport below RL), and then shoot a primary grenade at that place. That way you can deal reasonable damage even through the wall (shooting from down below). Another usage for secondary is to leave something behind for someone that is chasing you. I found it most amusing to escape through an elevator in Red Planet and then leave a sticky grenade in the elevator for my pursuer :o)

tons of ideas for the mortar secondary...

hagar felt useless. the spread is too high, its even too high for close range.

crylink: primary is weird. if you fight against one enemy, only 2 projectiles can hit. in imogen i once stood above 3 enemies, and 6 projectiles hit, but nobody cared. i liked the old 4-projectile-shot, every projectile had a chance to hit.

electro primary is overpowered, and results in a hit-sound or damage-blur spam.


nex did not feel overpowered as it is hard to hit with 100ping imo

Hagar definitely needs completely reworking, fullstop.

Also I would take the TABLE with a pinch of salt at times, a lot of the time people are going to use the weapon they prefer, like the crylink being quite low-down so is the mg, but both are powerful if you can aim with them and know how to use them, however this balance still needs to be tested in duel/TDM/FFA DM and not just in CTF properly also.

As for the crylink, I used it enough before to know that to use primary you need to take your time a bit, but it can do a lot of damage when used properly.

Other then that it seems everything is going the right way.

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.

+1 for this. MG's numbers are not accurately reflected in the table. I used it very effectively on the CTF level (the castle-like one, I'm not sure the name) w/ both primary and secondary.

Yeah as kojn said the table is to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially now that's it isn't even stable yet. Maybe the nex is that high because it's used more often as a finisher gun now? (so it more often ends up in the hands of the attacker for the last shot, thus affecting the table)

Electro will probably need another slight nerf, crylink primary I could imagine having slightly less spread to make it more useful (not much, just a bit)

Maybe the nex is that high because it's used more often as a finisher gun now? (so it more often ends up in the hands of the attacker for the last shot, thus affecting the table)

No it's that high because it was chronically overpowered to start with, and hasn't been debuffed asymmetrically from the rest of the weapons.

Plus, a finisher weapon doesn't disqualify it's usefulness. Most of the time you are "finishing" somebody that someone else started. That's like where most of DM kills come from. And its only a finisher weapon when used in close, at range it is still singularly dominant.

And last but not least, if it is indeed being used as a finisher weapon, that is proof that it is being heavily combo-ed in spite of the switch delay. The switch delay is not working then, it only makes Nex over-usage more obvious in the stats.

The Nex must at least have brutal range falloff. This is makes sense for a particle beam anyway.

Electro will probably need another slight nerf,

Remember, electro primary could use a nerf. Secondary is USELESS.

crylink primary I could imagine having slightly less spread to make it more useful (not much, just a bit)

I wouldn't exactly say slight. And the same applies to the hagar.

crylink primary I could imagine having slightly less spread to make it more useful (not much, just a bit)

I wouldn't exactly say slight. And the same applies to the hagar.

I don't agree on the nex with you. The stickyness is really annoying and I only found myself doing my favorite laser nex combo a lot of times despite the delay because I am so darn used to it and keep forgetting that stickyness all the time. Same happens with laser secondary :o) I'd say in the longrun the stickyness will lead to the nex being always the last weapon of a combo, which reduces the combo possibilities quite a lot. And I happen to like the nex as a very effective weapon if you can handle it (which I can't very well, but that's another story).

I also don't agree that the crylink primary needs a lot less spread. I found it most useful at close to medium range, also as a sort of finisher weapon if you have hit your target reasonably well and only a few hitpoints are left. You are almost guaranteed to hit your opponent with that weapon some way.

I agree though that the electro secondary needs to be stronger, especially the sec-primary combo. Detonating a ball deals ridiculously low damage given how difficult it is in combat.

Secondary Electro noted, asking FrutieX about this.

Secondary electro could be made more useful if sticky ;P

Personally I still like the old electro (including its combo) better than the current Xonotic one. But as I explained somewhere up in this thread that's mainly because I don't like those "aim and keep fire button pressed until frag" weapons at all. But maybe that's just me and after all there are only two weapons of this kind present so I can most probably live with it :o)

I think the firing rate should be increased just a little for the electro secondary.

I also have an idea for the tag seeker. make it fire 8 missiles, and reduce the damage of each missile, increase the speed, and lower the turning speed. this makes it so it is slightly easier to avoid, and give more chances to avoid.

I don't agree on the nex with you. The stickyness is really annoying and I only found myself doing my favorite laser nex combo a lot of times despite the delay because I am so darn used to it and keep forgetting that stickyness all the time. Same happens with laser secondary :o)

That you have muscle memory has nothing to do with the weapon balance, unless you mean it impaired you judgment of it.

I'd say in the longrun the stickyness will lead to the nex being always the last weapon of a combo, which reduces the combo possibilities quite a lot. And I happen to like the nex as a very effective weapon if you can handle it (which I can't very well, but that's another story).

Removing the last 90 hitpoints of an enemies health as long as he is in the open is a very strong combo.

And there's nothing to handle, the Nex is super easy to kill with- hitscan, no spread, high burst damage. The weaknesses and complexities built into the other weapons are absent from it.

I also don't agree that the crylink primary needs a lot less spread.
. . .
You are almost guaranteed to hit your opponent with that weapon some way.

That's a big part of the problem, the weapon is spray and pray. Same for hagar.

This wouldn't be such a problem if the secondary had the same bounce effect as the primary, and then the two swapped places.

The nex can't have a brutal falloff at distance because it then will become useless to stop and kill people who are trying to get away from your base. It is the only weapon that can do that, it should be a bit stronger than the cr without headshots at any distance, so that there are at least two weapons that can prevent a runaway fc. It has a max of 90 damage now, you can't call that overpowered. Also nex only kills are not happening, it's used only to end combos now in nexuiz it was mostly used to start a combo which is a good thing imo, you can miss with it. If you pick up 100 armor you will need at least 3 nex shots to get a kill at close range, 4 at far range and you can't combo it with anything at this range. How weaker can it be? Also it's far harder to use it at close ranges. The fact that you can't avoid it is just because of your lag, random movement and general unpredictability AND firing at the bastard helps.

I've used the crylink a lot, primary is only useful at close range or in closed quarters, tight stuff, how it should be, there it's the weapon of choice. It's not supposed to be used on imogen which is mostly a open map and takes a lot of skill and accuracy to get off good hits, but they do happen. Secondary is a good addition to the gun, negative push force, fast speed allows you to stop people that are in front of you in their tracks.

Electro secondary imo is useful, it does a lot of damage tough it does feel a bit weird atm. Perhaps having bigger balls would help, combo damage could be tweaked too. Firing 3 bursts of balls for combos would probably do the trick, you would detonate all 3 at the same time, should be tested tough. Primary felt ok after the nerf, I have suggested to fruitiex about doing different damages at different ranges so it's far more usefull at close range, lets say less than 300 units and fades off to a weaker beam at the max 800. It would make the weapon feel less powerful from ranges you are more likely to not be able to counter and encourage it's use from more dangerous positions. The fade shouldn't be that big, let's say from 100 to 75 or 80 dps.

Hagar is again a close range weapon, it can be devastating in closed quarters but it would be totally useless on a map like imogen for example where you have a lot of space to miss. Using the HLAC on maps like those will work. Hagar owns in tomb corridors for example, it could use a bit more damage i think.

The nex can't have a brutal falloff at distance because it then will become useless to stop and kill people who are trying to get away from your base. It is the only weapon that can do that, it should be a bit stronger than the cr without headshots at any distance, so that there are at least two weapons that can prevent a runaway fc. It has a max of 90 damage now, you can't call that overpowered.

The reduced laser force should make getaways more difficult, so that there is not a need for some kind of uber-blaster like the Nex.

But if lone flag carriers are still too strong, then that is a separate issue. Taking out an escaping enemy should be about skill, teamwork and using whichever weapon or weapons makes sense for that situation, not needing to use the cheat rifle supreme to handle the situation for you. That's just bad balance.

But if you are talking about killing a flag carrier at long range, well then whatever weapons are used for that should be good at long range and certain situations, not every range and every situation. That would mean reverse falloff for the Nex or using the Rifle and TAG Seeker instead for example.

That you have muscle memory has nothing to do with the weapon balance, unless you mean it impaired you judgment of it.

I meant that this might be a reason also for other people why it is still used in combos, despite the stickyness which is really un-handy in combos. I think the stickyness really disqualifies the nex as a close combat weapon.

The reduced laser force should make getaways more difficult, so that there is not a need for some kind of uber-blaster like the Nex.

With the new physics it is really, REALLY easy to reach insane speeds even with one or two laser jumps. The laser doesn't catapult you so much into the air, but the acceleration is remarkable. If you want to, I can make a short video how fast you can get with a single laser shot with those new physics. And I am NOT some nexrun pro (I didn't manage to even make a complete run on most of the nexrun maps).

The reduced laser force should make getaways more difficult, so that there is not a need for some kind of uber-blaster like the Nex.

It's still very fast, you can reach 1200 qu/s in two laser boosts.

But if lone flag carriers are still too strong, then that is a separate issue. Taking out an escaping enemy should be about skill, teamwork and using whichever weapon or weapons makes sense for that situation, not needing to use the cheat rifle supreme to handle the situation for you. That's just bad balance.

But if you are talking about killing a flag carrier at long range, well then whatever weapons are used for that should be good at long range and certain situations, not every range and every situation. That would mean reverse falloff for the Nex or using the Rifle and TAG Seeker instead for example.

I am saying this is the minimum damage because of experience with ctf, even with teamplay there are times when you just need some long range weapon to deal some good damage, 67 is quite less to be honest, any health or armor can get up to 3 nex hits, that's 4 seconds to kill somebody, quite very low and requires to hit 3 consecutive shots. You shouldn't talk about this balance because your ping is highly inappropriate to play. Nex is fine as it is.

I think the firing rate should be increased just a little for the electro secondary.

I think so too, taking a look at that tomorrow.

I also have an idea for the tag seeker. make it fire 8 missiles, and reduce the damage of each missile, increase the speed, and lower the turning speed. this makes it so it is slightly easier to avoid, and give more chances to avoid.

Seems like a good idea to me.

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p.s. Just imagine the old laser force with these physics, you can already (again?) make pretty insane ctf caps, at least on the more enclosed maps. On open maps I'd figure it's slightly harder to get up to speed unless you find a wall to laser you off of. Just goes to prove we can't increase the laser force to what it was, because then we'd have 1 second caps on some maps :/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL1lfSzgcAw

Re: Physics. If the physics are too fast now then just slow them down a bit or increase laser primary damage. Don't throw the whole arsenal out of balance by relying on one uber hitscan weapon to patch the problem.

Or at least, make that balancing force only balance CTF. For example, if the Nex delivered negative force, a bit like the crylink, it could strongly counter carriers without being the hand of Zeus in normal combat.

I am saying this is the minimum damage because of experience with ctf, even with teamplay there are times when you just need some long range weapon to deal some good damage, 67 is quite less to be honest, any health or armor can get up to 3 nex hits, that's 4 seconds to kill somebody, quite very low and requires to hit 3 consecutive shots.

If you haven't heard, fruitiex's intention is to make the Nex a short-medium ranged weapon. That's why the Nex has some weak normal falloff, as opposed to reverse falloff which would make it most powerful at sniping ranges.

So you'll probably need to look for a new long range weapon, anyway. The Rifle will probably be one of your better options. Get good at head shots.

You shouldn't talk about this balance because your ping is highly inappropriate to play.

It was actually the low framerate that was really hindering me (I fixed that later on), but either way I should have some more experience with this balance soon enough.

However, since the records show a definite advantage for the Nex and its stats haven't been changed greatly from where it was in 2.5, whereas the other weapons have been mostly nerfed (except the electro), there's plenty of reason to see the Nex is still plenty overpowered.

Nex has the one of the lowest dps of the game, also reverse falloff is just plain weird, the weapon should be natural. It is balanced and I won't have to look for another long range weapon, the falloff is just great it does approximately 60 damage at far range. How much weaker do you want it? At close range it's really hard to hit with it, skill takes over, it should be awarded and you have plenty of ways to counter at all ranges, be it mg/cr at far range and push weapons at close range. You can also hide and just pop out rockets at your attacker in tight quarters. There is nothing wrong with it's damage, it's actually quite weak at far range just a bit better than the cr without headshot as it should be. It has to be a way to counter fast people and award skill at close ranges, simple and balanced.