[SUGGESTION] Nex charge and weapon swap

Hi developers, admins and contributors!

1st of all, thank you for all the work you are doing.

I see a problem about nex charging. If nex charging it's secondary fire, it brings problems to me. If I'm using RL and launch a rocket and I swap to nex and charge (then obviously I press secondary fire), then the rocket explodes before getting its target (effect of secondary fire). It's a very minimal issue but I usually swap these weapons in this order and I noticed it.

My possible workarounds are:

- Automatically charging.
- Reload instead secondary fire.

Thank you in advance.

I see a problem about nex charging. If nex charging it's secondary fire, it brings problems to me. If I'm using RL and launch a rocket and I swap to nex and charge (then obviously I press secondary fire), then the rocket explodes before getting its target (effect of secondary fire). It's a very minimal issue but I usually swap these weapons in this order and I noticed it.

You are able to detonate the rocket when already switched to another weapon? o.O I didn't know that! Really? Need to test that.

I see a problem about nex charging. If nex charging it's secondary fire, it brings problems to me. If I'm using RL and launch a rocket and I swap to nex and charge (then obviously I press secondary fire), then the rocket explodes before getting its target (effect of secondary fire). It's a very minimal issue but I usually swap these weapons in this order and I noticed it.

You are able to detonate the rocket when already switched to another weapon? o.O I didn't know that! Really? Need to test that.

Maybe it's me and I press secondary fire too early, but it has happened many times. I'll test a little more...

I think you press secondary fire too early, because otherwise it needs to be fixed. I don't think you should be able to explode rockets with another secondary.

- Automatically charging.

Yes, yes and yes. Nex secondary is useless. It bring nothing to the gameplay. It's just annoying.

Oh yea. Grunt: same problem here.
Fisume mentioned somewhen to put the zoom again on secondary, I think.

Oh yea. Grunt: same problem here.
Fisume mentioned somewhen to put the zoom again on secondary, I think.

And I still think that zoom should be secondary again. Charging should have its own customizable key (or as Grunt said, the reload one).

How about adding a playersetup option to charge nex automatically when its in hand? Im playing xonotic for months but i still find it more of an annoyence, than a balancing feature. Or make nex beam purple when its shooting on full charge, so at least there is a visual feedback.

We actually took a vote on this a bit ago, in the future we're planning on reverting a lot of things in FruitieX's balance.. and one main thing is the Nex secondary charge -

What we're most likely going to go with is simple auto charge of the weapon (and zoom secondary btw) -- I also want velocity charge (where you charge faster if you move fast) but this isn't as important as the main concept of auto-charge. The nex ALREADY feels like you need to just hold in secondary charge ANYWAY, so why not just make it automatic and polish it around that whilst also keeping everyones favorite secondary for a sniping weapon (zoom.)

Basically, don't worry, secondary charge sucks and we know it :3

P.S.: You're pressing it too soon, it is not a bug. But regardless still sucks

We actually took a vote on this a bit ago, in the future we're planning on reverting a lot of things in FruitieX's balance..

Why and which things exactly? Actually the balance worked quite fine in pickups.

Hmmm, yeah, I'm also curious whats will be changed with the balance. Right now for me on mg secondary, hagar secondary and mortal feel only a bit too weak, but apart from these FrutieX balance is very cool.

@Samual: i think speed based damage would be weird, and would give too big disadvantage for newer players (that they cant reduce fast enough since learning movement takes a bit). Also the logic might feel somehow strange, like why would a weapon damage more when you move with it? (well, put wind-generator on top haha)

Idea: If nex would auto-charge, then maybe there should be a "charging buzzle" sound, for multiple reasons:
- First it would indicate when the charge is on max
- The circle could be also removed, since you can tell from the sound when its on full
- Other players could hear the charged nex if someone tries to camp (a bit similar to the logic of quake live LG and rail). But in general it would reduce the number of players running around on a map with a sniper rifle in hand...
Its would be important to use a sound thats not too loud and neither too annoying of course.

Just like to add, that the primary MG is still really crap, I can not hit anything with that weapon with it's current spread, I much preferred tZork's mg the really rapid fire chaingun style one for primary.

When I was a total newb, the MG was my favorite, because I could get the most dmg/sec with it. Now, with my fine-tuned aiming skills and experince, I can get much better with almost any other weapon (excluding EXTREMELY close range fights, where MG is still effective).

In Nexuiz 2.5.2, it looked pretty bad when all these newbs would run into combat right away without stacking or getting a new weapon. The spam could get extremely annoying, especially because you could see it easier back then. The MG was about the only other weapon (OK, maybe Crylink too) that newbs could use effectively.

Just a thought about the MG, IDK what's best, will go try tZork's now.
...

tZork switched the functions of HLAC and MG, that's all. Now the HLAC is the high-spread high-frequency, and the MG is the low-spread high-frequency (opposite default).

We actually took a vote on this a bit ago, in the future we're planning on reverting a lot of things in FruitieX's balance..

Why and which things exactly? Actually the balance worked quite fine in pickups.

FruitieX can't maintain his balance anymore as he has too much work/school going on... So basically we need to find someone else to maintain the balance, and the only people capable and willing to do it really dislike many of the changes in FruitieX's balance. So for now, the candidates for taking over are tZork and me... In this case we will probably merge mine and tZork's balance together to create something most ideal.

There's also some huge hints that FruitieX's balance REALLY was doing terribly, it barely pleased even HALF of the community (THIS IS A MAJOR NO-NO FOR BALANCING) and had the most things which people didn't like (e.g. removing zoom on nex secondary as a quick example).

^that information will be made more apparent to you when the survey results are made public.

Hmmm, yeah, I'm also curious whats will be changed with the balance. Right now for me on mg secondary, hagar secondary and mortal feel only a bit too weak, but apart from these FrutieX balance is very cool.

@Samual: i think speed based damage would be weird, and would give too big disadvantage for newer players (that they cant reduce fast enough since learning movement takes a bit). Also the logic might feel somehow strange, like why would a weapon damage more when you move with it? (well, put wind-generator on top haha)

Idea: If nex would auto-charge, then maybe there should be a "charging buzzle" sound, for multiple reasons:
- First it would indicate when the charge is on max
- The circle could be also removed, since you can tell from the sound when its on full
- Other players could hear the charged nex if someone tries to camp (a bit similar to the logic of quake live LG and rail). But in general it would reduce the number of players running around on a map with a sniper rifle in hand...
Its would be important to use a sound thats not too loud and neither too annoying of course.

#1: Most of the new things from the balance probably won't change -- we're mostly going to keep the new behavior of weapons (Crylink, MG, sniper rifle maybe, etc) but a lot of other stuff may change too... For example, tZork and I hate the lightning weapon function being on the electro - So we plan to bring back the old electro primary, but implement the lightning function on another (potentially new/dedicated to lightning) gun. But all the damaging will be re-done most likely, as we're probably just going to completely rebase to a different balance...

#2: You aren't the only one who thinks this way, and that's why it's yet to be determined if we'll do that at all. Most likely it'll just be auto charge. BTW I rationalize it by this: The gun charges based on your surroundings, so the faster you move the more energy you take in at once.. hence faster charging rate ^_^

#3: I tried making a sound (actually multiple) for this in the past, but FruitieX rejected it because it was "too weird." -- Maybe i'll try working on it again at some point.

And finally kojn: YES, FRUITIEX IS A MORON WITH THIS... WHY IS THE SPREAD 0.2?!?!?!?!?!!?!??!?!!?!.... That is fixed in my balance.



Once tZork and I come up with a rather polished release of a balance together, Team Xonotic will most likely create another survey -- but this time with more specific questions about the balance we created. This way we can get better information about the balance, and with more specific questions instead of "HURR DURR WHICH BALANCE IS BETTTTERRRRR".... Like i've said before, we need to focus per-issue.. one issue at a time.

I'm not being funny..but how accurate do you think the survey's are seriously going to be?

So we've gone in a good direction, and then a lot of this is now going to be scrapped(?) and were (SORRY, you and tZork) are going to work on something new, which is going to need a whole new amount of testing and will now become the default etc etc etc. Please tell me i've got the wrong the end of the stick here.

Whatever you decide to do I will try it out atleast long enough to form an opinion, but what's to stop me going 'this is shit' and all those comment's we see after people NOT playing long enough, which is what I expect a lot of the people who filled out that survey have done, most likely not played long enough, this is why I'm quite surprised your putting so much faith into the questionnaire (survey). They generally are not that accurate.

I'm not being funny..but how accurate do you think the survey's are seriously going to be?

So we've gone in a good direction, and then a lot of this is now going to be scrapped(?) and were (SORRY, you and tZork) are going to work on something new, which is going to need a whole new amount of testing and will now become the default etc etc etc. Please tell me i've got the wrong the end of the stick here.

Whatever you decide to do I will try it out atleast long enough to form an opinion, but what's to stop me going 'this is shit' and all those comment's we see after people NOT playing long enough, which is what I expect a lot of the people who filled out that survey have done, most likely not played long enough, this is why I'm quite surprised your putting so much faith into the questionnaire (survey). They generally are not that accurate.

You've got it wrong I'm not saying that the survey is concrete results for determining behavior like that... But...

Okay, last time I checked (few days ago, so early results) this is the issue:
Default balance scored a little higher in percentage of people who like it than mine. (Something like my balance had 5% less votes than his) -- My balance is very different from default, and since the default has the advantage of more people trying it than mine -- The general conclusion we can make is that "People don't like the default balance very much"

[16:43:52pm] <divVerent> "almost as many votes as default" is good
[16:44:05pm] <divVerent> just shows how bad FruitieX's is received
[16:44:06pm] <divVerent> is what I say

It is very obvious that default balance isn't like very much -- it seems that most of the NA community has grown to like my balance much more and a small portion of the EU community also has, and this is a clear indicator as to why default balance is BAD right now. So sincerely just wait until the results are made public.

BTW this can be contrasted with physics results... An overwhelming 80% prefers and enjoys the default physics, while only ~50% prefers the default balance. Think about that for a second.

As to scrapping the old work: That's not really true, it's not as if we're scrapping all of the inprovements to the weapons we got from FruitieX or even all the feedback we got. But we will probably rebase the balance to something else, this is because it's impossible to change too many weapon behaviors (to something better/more liked) without doing that. One example is the rocket launcher -- in default, the guiding is a useless gimmick... In my balance, I made it actually useful and justified the use of faster rockets. We can't change this without rebalancing the damage ANYWAY, so why not go from a new base?

So we have 3 choices:
Go with default balance and change a shitload of things about it, effectively making it almost a new balance which needs more playtesting TOTALLY again..
Go with my balance which already has adapted most of the changes we want to make, and has the most playtesting with those changes (It's not as if my balance is untested... It's widely used in NA servers and several other servers have used it for a while. I've also been working on it for months, and I know what i'm doing when it comes to maintaining a balance.)
Go with tZork's balance which is very similar to mine in some ways, but has little playtesting and hasn't been updated in a while

Most likely we'll go from my balance and base our improvements off of that, as it is already the most liked in some cases and already is the most finished in respect to the future of the default balance.

So yes: Surveys are useless for deciding upon/determining certain things about balance, but they ARE useful for seeing what percentage of players actually likes those things. Those are different, don't confuse this

Okay, last time I checked (few days ago, so early results) this is the issue:
Default balance scored a little higher in percentage of people who like it than mine. (Something like my balance had 5% less votes than his) -- My balance is very different from default, and since the default has the advantage of more people trying it than mine -- The general conclusion we can make is that "People don't like the default balance very much"

IIRC, the poll asked people to try out all the physics before voting. How many people do you think did that?

Assuming people are honest enough, then if they hadn't tried them out they wouldn't have voted, and of the people that did try them out, it's probably because they weren't happy with the default, and so voted likewise. Thus people who were happy with the default wouldn't have any say because they didn't see a need to try out anything else.

IMHO, FruitieX's/default physics are good, weapons just need some adjustment (tZork's Sniper Rifle should be made default I think).

I am getting SO tired of the eternal Electro argument, most people are trying to convince the other side that old is better than new, or vise versa. If people want the Shaft and the Bolt, then give them both! Let's try getting rid of plasma lumps on secondary and put the Bolt there! It's radical maybe, but so far it seams to answer to the people.

Monad's Law proven yet again.

IIRC, the poll asked people to try out all the physics before voting. How many people do you think did that?

I think maybe a good majority of them actually did try them at one point in time, but i'm sure VERY few people tried them immediately at the time of prompting them in this survey.

Assuming people are honest enough, then if they hadn't tried them out they wouldn't have voted, and of the people that did try them out, it's probably because they weren't happy with the default, and so voted likewise. Thus people who were happy with the default wouldn't have any say because they didn't see a need to try out anything else.

Er, but that's arguing that: More people DON'T like default balance than the polls lead us to believe since it's basically just behind my balance. It's an illusion where they were too lazy to try other things, and so they just went with default... But it's very possible they actually might've liked the others better.

Basically, if the vote is almost equal with another option... And the default option is picked more because it's lazier, then it's safe to say that "People who actually tried all options like the non-default option better"

IMHO, FruitieX's/default physics are good, weapons just need some adjustment (tZork's Sniper Rifle should be made default I think).

I am getting SO tired of the eternal Electro argument, most people are trying to convince the other side that old is better than new, or vise versa. If people want the Shaft and the Bolt, then give them both! Let's try getting rid of plasma lumps on secondary and put the Bolt there! It's radical maybe, but so far it seams to answer to the people.

Monad's Law proven yet again.

Yes the physics are perfect imo
No the weapons need more than just that I think
No the electro will not remove the games most unique weapon function, instead we'll make a new gun dedicated to lightning.
Yes of course, this is Xonotic right?

Anyway lets honestly leave the survey results alone for now, these were very early results and there's still a lot of time left on the survey. This is just a very good hint to us that the default balance is NOT widely liked, which is not good at all. I want to aim for at least 75% full approval, or something similar to this... That at least stops 3/4th of your community from splitting up into different balances (Just like how almost all of the NA community and some EU community wants to use my balance now instead of the default balance...)

instead we'll make a new gun dedicated to lightning.

Yay, yet another weapon to add to Xonotic's arsenal...

Do we really need to create even more weapons? Why not work with guns that have very similar functions, like the HLAC and Hagar. (Incidentally this was the reason why Fruitiex wanted to change the electro IIRC)

instead we'll make a new gun dedicated to lightning.

Yay, yet another weapon to add to Xonotic's arsenal...

Do we really need to create even more weapons? Why not work with guns that have very similar functions, like the HLAC and Hagar. (Incidentally this was the reason why Fruitiex wanted to change the electro IIRC)

Don't jump to conclusions ^_^


I want to merge the hagar and the seeker, and replace the HLAC with this lightning gun concept. So in an overall picture, i'm really removing one gun in total.

What? No way... adding even another one weapon for lightning gun? Electro primary is not unique enough, why on earth should there be even an x+1 weapon added, if there are soooo many similar functions between the already existing weapons? Just replace a "bad" function (electro primary) and there it goes.
For me it really does feel that one of the mean goal of Xonotic should be to reduce the number of weapons (under 12-13) and make every single functions totally different from eachother.
Currently most weapon slots have at least 2 weapons on it, adding even more weapons are just nonsense. And totally newbie-unfriendly to say the least.

EDIT: ohh okey just read your post:
"I want to merge the hagar and the seeker, and replace the HLAC with this lightning gun concept. So in an overall picture, i'm really removing one gun in total."
Alright this makes mutch more sense, and the merged tag+hagar function has already been requested by quite some people since hlac and TAG came in, so it would be a very nice change.
However HLAC might look a bit different as a LG, since it has 6 pipes to shoot from. But the idea is quite cool

What? No way... adding even another one weapon for lightning gun? Electro primary is not unique enough, why on earth should there be even an x+1 weapon added, if there are soooo many similar functions between the already existing weapons? Just replace a "bad" function (electro primary) and there it goes.
For me it really does feel that one of the mean goal of Xonotic should be to reduce the number of weapons (under 12-13) and make every single functions totally different from eachother.
Currently most weapon slots have at least 2 weapons on it, adding even more weapons are just nonsense. And totally newbie-unfriendly to say the least.

Read up......

BTW I think the old electro primary is fine, it's still unlike any other projectile in my balance, it has a unique speed and a unique radius and such. But it's really not the primary fire which i'm worried about, it's the combo... And in default balance, the combo really is quite bad (due to distance limits and many other things) -- and I think this makes the gun overall bad, and the old weapon behavior is far better than this.

yeah we both posted in the same time, after reading the details, im really for it. Especially for the merged TAG+Hagar
Would HLAC secondary still be kept? Wouldnt it look weird to have a weapon with 6 barrels and still shooting 1 constant line?

What I don't get is, you say the NA community likes yours, but hardly any of the NA player's are playing or have played anyway since there are little-to-no servers up, so can there representation even be given credit for being accurate? EU scene IS active, and is using the current balance, the difference here is activity, I see none from the NA due to no server's so how can they say they like your balance better when I don't even see many NA player's playing?

(Just like how almost all of the NA community and some EU community wants to use my balance now instead of the default balance...) <-- Where is the NA activity using your balance, because I DON'T see it in the server list or have even heard of NA activity anywhere near EUs

I hope this isn't a case of the american player's having not been playing and finally going 'Oh, this isn't nexuiz' and don't like the current setup.

I'm sorry to say but FruitieX warned me this could happen, and that the 'core' team did not vote on the balance or something sometime ago, but why make us waste our time otherwise.

What the hell is going on here.
FruitieX will be away and you just trash all the work and you use your own balance instead (Hai egoists)?! You said you will merge your and tZorks balance so why the fuck did you release 0.1 with FruitieX balance if it will be gone? Why do people have to play stuff now that will be gone? This is ridiculous. Why do we (the people playing/testing it) test it for such a long time? That makes so much sense: <- Yes, no sense at all. Because YOU don't like it does not mean that your balance is better.
And the survey.. to take that SO serious is just stupid. Not even all devs knew about it and I guess people who actually play Xonotic don't know about it too, because many of them are not at this forum. (Similar to Nexuiz where people don't know about Xonotic). I guess you could fill that survey several times with different email and such? Statistics can be interpreted in many ways.
Also the EU community is much more active than NA and most of them LIKE the default balance. The FruitieX balance only needs some little tweaks..


Edit: Enough dicussion on IRC.