[SUGGESTION] Cut down on the number of weapons

Another quick poll:

I personally think there are a few weapons in Xonotic which are rarely used and offer limited additional gameplay value.
Especially the vets will not use them anyways and for the n00bs it is confusing to have so much choice.
Besides that, updating them to nicer looking meshes takes time and effort better spend on other features. Also with less weapons balancing them is easier.

I guess the regular sniper and the fast multi rocket launcher (Hagar) and maybe the blue energy/grenade combo weapon (electro) and the machine gun could be removed, but the latter two are used from time to time.

What do you think about it?

edit: changes for clarity

Edit2: Link to wiki for list of weapons:
http://dev.xonotic.org/projects/xonotic/wiki/Weapons

Sorry but which weapons are you talking about?
axe?
fast multi rocket launcher? You mean the Hagar?
blue energy/grenade combo weapon? Electro?

Except the Sniper Rifle and maybe the HLAC all weapons are used regularly.

I love the variety of weapons

The more weapons the more fun. And this lot of weapons also means you need A LOT of skills to master them all, which is just fun

Sorry but which weapons are you talking about?
axe?
fast multi rocket launcher? You mean the Hagar?
blue energy/grenade combo weapon? Electro?

Except the Sniper Rifle and maybe the HLAC all weapons are used regularly.

Sorry for not remembering the names, I am bad with names
I guess yes the hagar and electro if it isn't the one that shoots these star shaped array of shots (this one seems to be used more often). If at all the electro is used it seems to be for spamming wallways, thus it not really all that desirable to have.

But after watching all those replays from the tourney and from my own experience I would say those weapons are used rarely and most of the time by new players who are still testing out weapons.

Edit: "to axe something" is a way to say to remove or cut down on things isn't it?

Electro I use/used a lot in other game-modes, it is very handy, also very handy for duel I found out a while ago when I used it more again

What? Hagar? Don't touch my hagar. Charged hagar is awesome is someone's faic.
HLAC and camping rifle are pretty much useless though.

it's maybe still too soon to remove certain weapons.
But when 1.0 will be out, it would be a good idea to get rid of all useless weapons, for consistency sake with regards to new players.
HLAC and camping rifle are also on the top of my list of them. Just after, hagar comes.

some say hagar might be usefull against vechicles, or maybe am i wrong...
Anyway i personally don't see any big problem here, when you look at maps we have, you can see that the chance to find rifle or hlac is rather low.

ok, all-weapons gamemodes are a different story

Ahh yes forgot about the HLAC, that can be cut too.

And do we really need a different nex for instagib (MinstaNex)?

Never seen the Mine Layer that exists according to the Wiki btw is it really included?

Anyways, seems like the consensus is that the electro should stay... which I don't really object to (as already remarked in the original post).

Otherwise... I guess the laser could be removed too if it was added as a 3rd shoot mode to every weapon like in instagib or overkill, which I kind of like as a general idea for Xonotic.

The HLAC will probably be removed, or moved to a super/special weapon status against vehicles or something like that.
Sniper rifle WILL remain, as there's one official map that highly depends on it, Newtonian Nightmare. You can't substitute the rifle there, because the nex shares the same ammo with crylink and electro, and both of them are present on the map.

HLAC needs to get lost for sure. Although slightly redundant, I do like the camping rifle as it's the more rewarding of the two ranged weapons and has surface penetration as well. On another note there really needs to be another weapon that uses shotgun shells, maybe a super shotgun could be introduced later or something, I just find it dumb that one of the weapons has an ammo type specifically for that isn't shared with others.

Well, @{kuniu, C.Brutail}: i'm not too sure to be agree with you two: a sane criterion to propose a certain weapon would be that it provides a kind of usefulness and a kind of unicity.
It seems that HLAC doesn't fullfill the first part. And Sniper Rifle the second.

Of course, useless weaps could be kept, as mappers won't probably propose them. But then give me a good reason to not also propose a super useless laser toothbrush/saber? (kuniu, don't answer that).
On the other hand, keep the sniper rifle because it is already proposed somewhere doesn't sound sane neither. As we are before the 1.0, it's the right time to try to remove inconsistencies, so as to not have to handle them during years.

Quite many of the weapons aren't REALLY meant for core gameplay.

My focus for the weapons revolves primarily around: Nexgun, Rocketlauncher, Grenadelauncher, Crylink, Electro, Hagar, and Machine Gun... these are "CORE" weapons, as I shall refer to them from now on. Shotgun and Laser of course are the spawn weapons, and the others are either going to be phased out or re-purposed (like seeker and minelayer to become vehicle weapons, and minstanex and fireball to be superweapons).

At this point, the only weapon i'm REALLY going to almost definitely remove is the HLAC, and that's because it's being replaced by another new weapon, the lightning gun (arc cannon is its new name).

Really, it is the map makers usage of the weapons which is relevant. Casual players don't need to learn every weapon, they're pretty easy to pick up and use... main thing is the map maker should place the weapons intelligently and sparingly to avoid flooding the map with too many different varieties. -- Different weapons fit different maps better, and because of this: I will not remove any of the core weapons I mentioned above.


Edit: Rifle is up in the air right now... it never really found a useful purpose, and i'm not sure even divVerent still wants it+++. Maybe it'll just become a very special weapon later.

Hmm... obviously it is up to the actual developers to decide this, but I think a community debate might change their perception a bit

About the new lightning-gun... hmm if it is anything like the one in Quake3 I don't really see a difference to the machnine-gun (except visually)... and I still don't really see the purpose of the Hagar as it is sort of a mix between the other weapons and is also rarely used (edit: purely gameplay wise the primary of the hagar is kind of like the machine gun, while the secondary mimics the rocketlauncher).

And technically the grenadelauncher (in Xonotic) is very similar to the rocketlauncher... but as both weapons play quite differently and are used a lot; So I guess they should stay

However that it is just up to the mappers to decide which weapons to use is something I don't agree with... it is much better to have a good, small and well balanced set of weapons (what you call core weapons I guess) and cut away the rest that really serves no purpose except to confuse newbies and cause extra development work.

Code:

xonotic        quakes
----------------------
nex                rail
mortar            grenade launcher (more like quake 1's, less like quake 3's)
rocket            rocket
hagar             plasmagun
machine gun    machine gun
electro           ? (unique to nexuiz/xonotic, imo)
shotgun          shotgun (not the double barrelled shotgun)
crylink            ? (lasergun?)
fireball            bfg or some other power weapon

I'm no expert but i think this is how they line up. Apart from the epic switching and secondary fire, use the weapons as analogs to the quake ones, although mortar is more of your friend instead of just a spam tool as most people use it in quake 3

mg isn't continuous like the lg, the lg is 100 times more powerful than the mg, just sayin ^_^

anyhow, these weapons aren't too much, other games have about just as many, in fact I think quake has more (like the nailgun, the chaingun, others you don't really see a lot of but they have them...). I haven't really played cod-likes extensively but they have even more so it isn't too complicated IMHO.

cod-likes allow you to carry no more than 3-4 weapons. Quake-likes allow for carrying of shitloads of equipment with common sense put aside.
That's where real difference in complexity lies. One game may have ten weapons, second may have hundred, but if former lets you use carry and use (and even encourages to do so) them all simultaneously, it inevitably will feel more complex and tricky.

Thanks for the heads up. still, our number isn't too bad imho, or may be it doesn't bother me. More importantly, noobs (other than me) that I've run into don't complain about the weapons being too complicated.

Thing is, the weapons intentionally are able to be used just by picking them up -- you really don't NEED to know all their tricks to be able to kill someone, but if you do it makes them that much more useful and powerful. Basically the idea is a balancing act: Don't make skill an absolute requirement to even play the game, but still reward it enough to have depth for those who want it. Quake for example FAILS at this balance, it has too much of a learning curve, and you can see in e.g. QuakeLive: There ARE no casual/middle ground players, there are new players (who don't last long, or dedicate themselves to become competitive players) and competitive players, but no one who plays just for fun. Unreal Tournament on the other hand does a good job with this balance, and I think we're a mixture between the two.

With that said, I'd really rather not limit the depth of the gameplay (I.E. limiting the player to holding only ~4 weapons at a time), but rather increase the ways people can learn about it and use it. I've already had planned a tip system of sorts, and it would be great if we could do a singleplayer tutorial for the weapons like in Nexuiz... I think THOSE ways are the better approach to this, rather than potentially hurting the gameplay overall in order for it to be more acceptable to the usual mainstream 12 year old gamer.

About the new lightning-gun... hmm if it is anything like the one in Quake3 I don't really see a difference to the machnine-gun (except visually)

Maybe they're aiming to make it more closely resemble Hard Reset's lightning gun? If that's not the case, then replacing the machine gun secondary that fires a constant beam of burning thermite or something would probably be a better option.

I agree this problem could kinda "fix" itself if mappers put more thought into it, it's actually very bad to have too many weapns depending on how much armor and health there is on the map.

Most people still think of weapons in terms of them as it is in Quake, where they are basically balanced in "tiers". In Xonotic all weapons are quite powerful, it's hard to realize this sometimes but they truly are. Weapon usage is mostly what seperates them, which is why "veterans" still mostly stick to the weapons that are familiar to the ones in Quake, they just know how to use those much better than ie: crylink/electro/hagar. But in fact, a player that knows how to use those 3 weapons, can do as much damage as someone using mortar/rl/nex. But that's the thing, "as much damage" doesn't really make them important to me, personally I'm happy with using mortar/rl/nex as that is what I'm used to and generally good with. I couldn't care less if statistically the electro is as powerful as mortar, if I have mortar I'll use mortar.

What I mean is even if a map has ALL weapons, of course I'll still go for my main 3 preferred weapons. As a player who is somewhat comfortable with Xonotic gameplay, I don't care at all how perfectly balanced all the other 25 weapons are. I don't really need to use crylink or electro or hagar if I have mortar/rl/nex. At best, the other weapons are used for combos if I have only one of my preferred weapon or used in a defensive way while retreating until I get the weapons I want. Trying to fix balance to avoid this is a lost cause, it makes more sense to balance maps to not have so many weapons and limit the choices player have. I say that, but to be honest I'd probably hate a map without any of my 3 prefered weapons and most likely wouldn't play it :/ .. But I'd be perfectly okay with maps without one (or maybe even 2) of them. Anyway, I have no real solution, I'm just giving you my theory as to why things are currently as they are. Basically, having so many different weapons on a single map is not useful at all.

I'm however NOT saying this is easy for mappers to do it right. It's getting quite problematic to think about all this stuff when making a map, balancing armor/hp and then weapons/ammo to be just right without making the map TOO balanced to a point where either gameplay gets boring quickly or there is no strategy needed to play.

I've come across this recently when I worked on Aggressor and I don't really know how to fix it yet, as I don't want to change it too much as to how it was in Nexuiz. But have to give players something to focus on strategically, if there is too much of everything then it's a mess, it becomes all about who has the better aim and nothing else, it can ruin even the most awesome map layout.

I think currently the only map that I know of that gets this right even with having many weapons on it, is Stormkeep. I'm not sure WHY exactly, but it simply works perfectly there. I think it has to do with the layout that can give time to a respawning player to strategically move around the map to stack up a bit and get some weapons before getting into a fight again, without always being chased down by the player in control (because he's busy controlling the major items, I suppose). Why we only have one map that gets it right, I have no idea.

To be entirely honest, I think having all weapons perfectly balanced is not such a great idea to begin with, not in concept or statistically, but in practice it just complicates things way too much and takes a LOT more time and testing to get right. I often wonder if it's even possible. It would be much easier to have them in tiers, even with a large number of weapons, it would at least give a point of reference for mappers to put say, a maximum of 3 tier2 weapons, 3 tier3 weapons, and place them on the map in a balanced way (also keeping megas in mind, of course). It wouldn't even make much difference to the actual gameplay because that's how most players unconsciously think about it anyway, they always have 1 or 2 weapons in mind as their "objective" to get before they feel ready for a fight.

crylink/electro/hagar. But in fact, a player that knows how to use those 3 weapons, can do as much damage as someone using mortar/rl/nex.

Who is that mysterious player and where can I find him? :>

crylink/electro/hagar. But in fact, a player that knows how to use those 3 weapons, can do as much damage as someone using mortar/rl/nex.

Who is that mysterious player and where can I find him? :>

Samual, duh!

crylink/electro/hagar. But in fact, a player that knows how to use those 3 weapons, can do as much damage as someone using mortar/rl/nex.

Who is that mysterious player and where can I find him? :>

*massive electro blast followed by a machine gun burst*

*laughing maniacally with a twisted look on his face*

I heard you boys like spam!

*switches to hagar, massive property damage ensues*

I'd like to have crylink on a map like silvercity, wide open areas and no nex/rifle/other long range hitscan weapon/mg. That way you could really concentrate on getting the particle spread timing perfect :o)

Somehow I like all of the weapons, I even use HLAC on downer_final with limited success (mostly secondary fire in close combat). The rifle is a nice thing sometimes in CA, the opportunity to place a headshot can be worth using the camping rifle in specific situations (like when waiting for the opponent to appear around a distant corner... i.e. camping).

I would really miss the crylink, the electro and also the hagar if they were removed. Of course, it depends always on the map and the situation if weapons are useful. Hagar is rather nice to have in stormkeep for example, but I think it could use a slightly longer hold time for secondary charging. Crylink is a weapon I have already "implemented" in my standard combos for dogfighting, right next to mortar and rocket launcher. I love doing the electro combo, especially against a couple of enemies in a cramped doorway on aneurysm :o)

FYI you can dish out more damage with the secondary fireof the hagar, at least that's my experience.