Spawn Weapon Concept: "Blaster"

Ok, I hope you read this, Samual (I read your posts, too, when I said I didn't it was because I just came out of the Nations' Cup match and you told me on IRC to check out that new concept and I was just too tired to read it all at that time but too curious not to test it right away). I'll try to make some valid points here now.

Reason

I always expressed that I am totally clueless why such a change would be necessary in the first place. The main issues with the current weapons that you identified are the following:

Shotgun Shell ammo being too specific and useless in the grand scheme of ammo design, inconsistency with the melee attack being only on shotgun with no logical clarification as to why you can't use it on any weapon, and Laser only having one real fire mode whereas all other weapons have two.

I agree with the shotgun shell ammo, it indeed is awkward to have a special ammo for the spawn weapon only. Several options come to mind: make shotgun consume no ammo at all, make shotgun consume other ammo, or make other weapons consume shotgun ammo. You can spice these options up by making it reload or modifying damage/spread/refire time and whatnot or any combination of these options or even more ideas that people might have.

As for the melee attack being only on shotgun: how is this issue being addressed by your concept? It still is on one weapon only, just justified by some blades swinging out of the laser weapon when swung. Instead of having those blades swing out of the laser, it's equally easy to have them swing out of the shotgun. I'm really puzzled how this "issue" is being used for justifying the changes you propose.

Now the last issue that you identified is the laser having only one firemode which is inconsistent to the other weapons. Now let me see, which secondary fire modes does the Nex have? Even the rocket launcher has a function rather than a fire mode on secondary, as has the mine layer. Ok, but even if we say laser needs a secondary fire mode, wouldn't it be more reasonable to ADD a fire mode to laser then, rather than throwing the entire existing spawn concept over board?

So from my point of view the laser/shotgun merge isn't really justified or its "necessity" even remotely explained, as it does not really address the issues you identified or looks like a rather far-fetched solution in relation to the problems you want to solve.


Impact

Now let's have a look at the impact the concept will have.

1. No Long Range Attack

If the laser primary fire is being replaced, you will loose all options to influence players on longe range with spawn weapons. Not that you should be able to kill them, but you can't actually do ANYTHING at all, not even irritate or force them to move if you don't get a gun. Also, this game is not all about competitive gameplay, it's also about fun (it's a game, remember). And using the laser instead of any other high damage weapon to push someone off a place far away is really quite rewarding, because you choose not to do damage but to fiddle with their movement/position.

Let's take Newtonian Nightmare for example. If someone sits on the rifle platform and is camping the crap out of the game, laser can prove quite valuable from the opposing flag platform since at these ranges the rifle is (depending on your zoom factor of course) also quite challenging to use, too, so you might have some time to actually fire some laser shots.

The fun aspect must not be disregarded, it's vital for ffa and where should we recrute new players from if it wasn't ffa games? Surely we can't (continue to) feed on dying competitive player bases.

2. Juggling will get too powerful or too random

If we keep the juggling effect as it is, it will be too powerful by far. It's way too easy to hit someone and to push, which will end in either the push force getting reduced or the aiming to be made harder as you described. If you make it more relying on aim, then it will be very powerful for people with a very good aim, and totally random for everyone else - which means the gap between pro players and beginners widens. No, I'm not saying we need to make every weapon equally effective in every player's hands, regardless of skill. It's just that increasing this gap on the SPAWN WEAPONS leaves the weaker player (who will work with spawn weapons more often than the stronger player by definition) in an even weaker position than before.

3. Nothing wrong with current laser primary

Actually I have not yet seen a valid argument that the current laser primary fire requires change AT ALL. What's wrong with it? To many players, the laser is one of the weapons that sets Xonotic apart from other games and part of Xonotic's identity.

4. No comboing with spawn weapons any more

As Bacon has pointed out, the comboing of laser and shotgun will be gone. I am not the only person that used this combo a lot and quite efficiently to a reasonable extent. As weapon comboing is a core element of Xonotic gameplay, it would make perfect sense to me to have this part of gameplay available from spawn on. Having weapon combos be an "upgrade" you need to pick something up for before you can do it feels just wrong for me.

5. Weaker players will be at an additional disadvantage

As already pointed out before, the weaker players will, quite obviously, work off the spawn weapons more often than the stronger ones. Now if we merge the two spawn weapons, removing any comboing option, this will leave the spawning player in an even worse position than before. Compensating (balancing) this by making the spawn weapon more powerful will lead to the more skilled player having yet another even stronger weapon in its arsenal for combos. On the other hand, if we have two spawn weapons, the stronger player would need to combo them to achieve the full benefit that the freshly spawned one can achieve. It still is better for the stronger player to combo with other weapons. But if we merge, the stonger player can make full use of everything the freshly spawned player can encounter with a single weapon.

6. Learnt laser jumps at speed will be broken

While I admit this is only a thing that affects existing players and not newcomers who would have to learn it new anyway, laser jumps and also wall lasering techniques that Xonotic players learnt will be broken with regard to doing laser jumps/wall laserings while already moving. Since the laser is hitscan in your concept, it does not travel until it hits the wall, which will require all existing players to relearn the angles at which to hit a wall or the ground when lasering at higher speeds. While having a positive effect on reliability for newcomers due to static fire angles for a certain jump height or degree, it will break movement for the existing playerbase to a certain extent, and the aiming angle for laser jumps was not an issue that required fixing up to now as far as I am informed. And I for one don't want to have to look back at 4 o'clock or 8 o'clock when racing at high speeds.


My résumé

I'm sorry to hope to give you a hard time with this post, Samual, as I respect and appreciate your work and your efforts very much. It's just that I really can't see the concept that you want to introduce will do this game any good, while at the same time not being reasonable or, in parts, even helpful for addressing the issues you want to address.

I also would advise you not to interpret the vote results of option 2 as "I'm indifferent", as some of the people that voted for option 2 said they'd suggest laser primary to be kept as is.

Thank you for reading.

I voted that I find it unacceptable. Like I said, I was against the concept of merging the Laser and Shotgun from the first moment I heard such an idea, and always will be. I'm not even going to try this out.

They are two totally different weapons. The laser cannot act as a shotgun, and it's purpose is to be a push weapon with one shot (for both short and long range). People often switch to it just to perform a jump, then back to a real weapon using its alt fire. The Shotgun has a spread shot and also a melee attack, both optimized for close range. It also uses limited ammo and can be dropped.

Also, any normal FPS has two spawn weapons. One that's very weak and uses no ammo (possibly has a special use, like the Laser is used for jumping) while the other is stronger but uses some ammo. Changing this would remove a very fun factor from the weapon setup. You'd spawn with one weapon and that's it.

I've yet to understand why anyone wants to do such a change, and why anyone would still be working on this and want to make it part of Xonotic. I proposed several alternatives... such as only changing ammo types (so we can get rid of Shells which I actually support if we don't go under 4 ammos) or helping with my idea to cvar weapons instead, so this can be made into a balance config. But no... although several people don't want the weapon system to be ruined (which is what made Xonotic fun over those years), you keep wanting to put this in. The reason I'm upset is that this would ruin Xonotic as we know it if it ever happened, and reduce the weapon system to something simple and less fun.

I hope a decision is taken soon so that important things can be worked on. In my case at least, this deviates my focus from working on other things since I don't know what to expect. I noticed that updates in GIT on all branches stalled to a point that didn't happen last year during this month, and I hope other features and bug fixes are still being worked on as much.

... I'm not even going to try this out. ...

It's one thing to dislike the idea (which is fine), but a whole other to be so ignorant as to not even try it.

I'm not even going to continue reading your post.



I'll type a formal reply to your post Halogene when I have time-- FYI to everyone else, we did discuss on IRC a bit... it seems we really just have a general difference of opinion fundamentally, and we can't really agree on eachothers arguments at all.... Still, i'll put my thoughts out there for others to see.

It's one thing to dislike the idea (which is fine), but a whole other to be so ignorant as to not even try it.

I'm not even going to continue reading your post.

I consider this idea so bad, that I don't need to try it to make sure. Others I would have tried, but this is too wrong and fundamental in my view.

Really, you did a lot of nice things too and I remember liking some of them at the time. But I don't know where this idea came from and why anyone would consider putting it in practice. Especially without trying to discuss it with everyone first, and wanting to do it although most people don't want it and expressed several valid points. Shooters have two start weapons for a reasons, and the Laser and Shotgun have been different weapons all those years for a reason too... etc. There are more gentle and ok ways to reform the weapon system.

I do not see any problem with there being only one spawn weapon - it isn't true all shooters have two, Warsow is a notable example. Besides, nobody said shotgun has to be dropped from the game altogether, it can be moved to non-core set.

I do not see any problem with Halogene's 6 either, I have playtested it and do not see any discernible difference - if you use laser to laserjump, you're close enough that difference doesn't matter. Even if there was a difference, it would still be tweakable by altering push force.

What I do have a problem with however, is loss of long range pushing. Samual stated that all functionalities of a current set are to be preserved by that new weapon, so it's a big problem.

I believe two spawn weapons make the weapon set a lot more fun, and would be really sad if that ever went away. There are exceptions in some shooters, but I don't find them very fun.

One of the many points I agree on is the loss of long range pushing. A weapon can't be both short-ranged and long-ranged at once.

I'm one of the people who pressed vote 2, yet I still prefer the full functionality of laser as many have voiced their opinion in this thread or the many more I spoke to in different servers, What I see is that we're making things more complex. I actually like the idea to have one spawn weapon and after my suggestion in my last post met with support of many members I decided to present it in a visual way to clarify some things.
Since the HLAC won't be one of the main weapons in xonotic and since it has similar effects to laser I find that it could be an option for a spawn weapon, I modified HLAC so it has full laser functionality in primary and shotgun like properties in the secondary (i.e. bullet speed, spread, damage etc), the result I present to you in the following clip:



I'm not pushing HLAC to be a spawn weapon, however for the sake of simplicity and since it will be an an available weapon model in the next version, I find it to be a good option. Also to replicate the effects shown in the video, it requires no coding skills.
Furthermore the HLAC has the same size as shotgun so a melee like shotgun slap is possible (HLAC Slap). The same coding can be replicated since it already exists.

As for the melee, I suggested a semi-auto melee action in my last post, now I'll be explaining in detail what I meant and how it can be implemented:

* The semi-auto melee can be activated if the enemy is in players close proximity and can be seen in his field of view (it means it won't be activated if the enemy is in close proximity but not in FOV of the player).

* When the melee is activated, it shows in the HUD as a melee icon, a sound cue/effect is preferable like the one when cancelling a fully charged Hagar secondary

* The melee action can be performed after its been activated (doh), and by pressing the secondary key after aiming at the enemy ( so its possible to miss). The Primary will be laser at all times.

* To deactivate the melee action is by moving away from the enemy, looking away (won't be in player's FOV), pushing the player with primary laser fire or by crouching (melee action while crouching is silly IMO).

*Once deactivated, the original secondary shotgun like fire resumes once pressed.

*The melee action gets activated only when the spawn weapon is selected

I think its easy to get used to this semi-auto melee by both old or new players, and rarely someone will complain if the melee has more damage that maximum normal secondary fire (by 20 perhaps).

Pros:
+one weapon with both full functionalities of laser and shotgun combined
+Newbie friendly as you don't need to change weapon for a simple combo
+the availability of the HLAC model as a spawn weapon for the sake of simplicity (no artist or serious coding required)
+No coding required for the melee action as it can be copied from the current one

Cons
-new animation for the HLAC slap
-coding for the semi-auto melee activation and deactivation
-HUD icon and Sound effects

At the end I ask you all to think about it and if you support this suggestion or a way to improve it please voice your opinion, this is not meant to compete with samual's concept but most or all the people against his concept want the full functionality of laser in a spawn weapon which is provided in this design, so think of this as an option.
Thank you all for reading the whole post

If such a weapon were to exist, the HLAC's model would indeed be best (especially since it's large and would match the slap attack). But again, I really really hope it won't happen. That video seconds the feeling... it feels wrong for the laser to work like that (especially the spread shot).

Any automated switching of firemodes is bound to get in your way imho. Imagine you'd almost have finished a player and want to finish him off with the secondary and just before you do secondary fire a third player passes by in front of you... AIR SLAP WTF

Also you can't do predicted slaps on top of jump pads then... Coming to think of it, all my shotgun slaps are predicted ones, mostly I'm reasonably far away from my opponent and start the slap when I predict that I'll be near at slapping time.

Even though i hate the blaster i kinda feel bad for Samual. He's really the only one that wants the weapon and is defending it in this thread.

By the end of this he'll have spent more time arguing about the weapon that developing it

@Osiris
I think the weapon is poorly balanced because you can't do a hitscan/juggle combo. Halogene's right about automelee.


IMO it's important to streamline the game too, but i just can't stand to see the laser go. It's one of the coolest things in xonotic. If something's going to be dropped it should be melee, laser/shotgun have seniority .

Even though i hate the blaster i kinda feel bad for Samual. He's really the only one that wants the weapon and is defending it in this thread.
By the end of this he'll have spent more time arguing about the weapon that developing it
IMO it's important to streamline the game too, but i just can't stand to see the laser go. It's one of the coolest things in xonotic. If something's going to be dropped it should be melee, laser/shotgun have seniority .

democracy.... The best thing about open source projects... and the biggest flaw.

@Halogene
As I mentioned a crouch button could act as a melee override, this scenario u mentioned could happen and could be counteracted but isn't it a small compromise when u can have the full functionality of both laser projectile and shotgun hitscan in one weapon? There is no such thing as a perfect weapon.

As for the prediction slapping from far away (which only happens when you are traveling at high speeds i imagine), an optional dedicated "melee" button can be added to [settings - inputs] where u can bind a key to (similar to the "best" in inputs), since we're gonna have one spawn weapon, the vacated shotgun bind could be used. the melee button only works if u have the spawn weapon selected.

@S1lencer
If we're gonna have one spawn weapon, the only combo u can do is the primary (laser projectile) to juggle the enemy and the secondary (laser pellets hitscan). I'm not sure what u mean by poorly balanced as i just brought the full laser functionality and damage to the primary and all the shotgun properties from bullet speed to spread and maximum damage to the secondary. Maybe u can clarify what u mean more.

Even though i hate the blaster i kinda feel bad for Samual. He's really the only one that wants the weapon and is defending it in this thread.

By the end of this he'll have spent more time arguing about the weapon that developing it

I know that feeling... especially when you spend a lot of time working hard on something. But if you choose to do a bad feature which no one wants (and people express that to you before you even begin working on it), it's something to expect. This idea popped up suddenly, and started being worked on suddenly... barely any of us were heard.

so ... may ... logical ... arguments ...

hurts ... my ... brain ...

ooh ... a HLAC

...

I'm actually against changing the HLAC ...

and I find halogen's post very well thought out

@mirecakitsune ... do try it before pushing your argument further ... or else it will have no legitimacy ...

... But if you choose to do a bad feature which no one wants (and people express that to you before you even begin working on it), it's something to expect. This idea popped up suddenly, and started being worked on suddenly... barely any of us were heard.

...... how is this sudden? Plus, the whole time I was developing it with people on IRC.....


Your statements are stunningly ignorant, Taoki.

question:
Is the balancing chat on quakenet or freenode?
I'd like to eavesdrop in the future.

...... how is this sudden? Plus, the whole time I was developing it with people on IRC.....


Your statements are stunningly ignorant, Taoki.

I remember it was just mentioned on IRC, then many people (not just me) tried to explain it's a bad idea and shouldn't happen, and were quite upset. You continued either way and said you want this in master. There were indeed some devs who looked into it, then I stopped seeing updates about this on IRC.

I'm sorry if people find this ignorant. I really just don't want the weapon system to get ruined and turn Xonotic into something it's not and IMO shouldn't be. Playing would never feel the same if basic weapons got removed and crushed together like this.

P.S. Another reason why I'm against those changes is that later on, you plan to remove all bullet weapons. This would remove the Shotgun, then the UZI will be replaced with the Lightning Gun (which I like but IMO should be a separate weapon... and yes, it can be very different from the UZI). What' a shooter without some gun that uses bullets?

Wouldn't introduction of LG mean that MG would still exist, but not in a core set, and probably get reworked? Samual mentioned sth about chaingun-like weapon a few times, and fitting model exists too.

Having messed around with the new weapon and thinking about it some more:

I like the weapon and the concept, but I don't think it should outright replace the shotgun/laser combo entirely. However I think that there might be instances (such as individual maps, or maybe entire game modes) where it could do that. Regardless of what happens, the REAL issues I've noticed with the current weapon mechanics mostly revolve around ammo distribution and I'm think that a proper lightning gun would be more interesting from a gameplay point of view than the machinegun since there are already other automatics floating around in the game. Get the ammo distribution redone and experiment with replacing the machinegun with a lightning gun-style weapon (doesn't have to visually be a lightning gun either, why not have something such as a shrapnel burning weapon weapon so that it could share ammo with the shotgun?) and then we'd have something really solid.

Ok after having had a chat with Samual he confirmed me that wall lasering is 100% the same. I re-tested it on cupoloaarena_xon, first on srv02, and then locally.

No, it's not.

It REALLY isn't. My impact #6 remains valid.

Test it yourself, try wall lasering around the outer wall, gain speed. The difference is VERY noticeable. After the second wall lasering you can start looking at 10 o'clock and shoot the wall, you actually shoot the laser ahead of you and you gain speed. Try that with the insta hit laser and you'll loose most of your speed instantly.

I would have wondered how it ever COULD be with the laser being insta hit.

Ok after having had a chat with Samual he confirmed me that wall lasering is 100% the same. I re-tested it on cupoloaarena_xon, first on srv02, and then locally.

No, it's not.

It REALLY isn't. My impact #6 remains valid.

Test it yourself, try wall lasering around the outer wall, gain speed. The difference is VERY noticeable. After the second wall lasering you can start looking at 10 o'clock and shoot the wall, you actually shoot the laser ahead of you and you gain speed. Try that with the insta hit laser and you'll loose most of your speed instantly.

I would have wondered how it ever COULD be with the laser being insta hit.

Samual just wants the feature in as soon as possible, so I doubt the broken parts will be shared and debated a lot with us. Once again I haven't tested it, but I imagine that a weapon which shoots multiple projectiles in the same pattern as the shotgun will also cause some projectiles to land in front of the player. So a laser jump might be in the situation where a frontal projectile pushes you in front, a side projectile pushes you to the side, etc. Not sure if his code removes push from other projectiles, but it's possible. Either way I imagine this will modify laser jumping / pushing one way or another, especially in Race / CTS.

MirceaKitsune, as much as I appreciate your work for the project, it really doesn't help to argue on the basis of (false) assumptions. In this respect I share Samual's opinion that if you refuse to try it yourself your argumentation is invalid. Try the weapon before arguing in any direction, and then argue on the basis of your perception. My point has nothing to do with the spread of pellets, and there is no such thing, as the hitscan laser explosion splash radius is, afaik, calculated EXACTLY as is the still-current projectile laser.

The effect I am describing solely results in the laser being hitscan now. While the projectile version flies a bit before hitting the wall, the insta hit laser doesn't. If you yourself move very fast, your movement speed has an impact on which angle you will have to use to gain the most out of wall lasering. With insta-hit laser it's always the same angle, meaning you will always have to look backwards while shooting at the wall.

Which is as helpful as turning yourself entirely to your back seat in order to activate boost while driving at 240 km/h on the freeway.

@Samual, if required for better understanding, I can do a video for you showing the impact I am describing.

Halogene, I do prefer insta hit for some reasons and I wouldn't want to see it gone.
First of all it is natural for boost weapons to deal splash damage so to speed yourself up looking backwards seems logical.
It would be too easy to maneuver if the players wasn't forced to look back (easier to have a car accident on your freeway ) and this additional mouse movement is good.
There is only one correct angle in the 'normal' way of boosting. Projectile version would definitely confuse not only begginers but also pro players.

MirceaKitsune, as much as I appreciate your work for the project, it really doesn't help to argue on the basis of (false) assumptions. In this respect I share Samual's opinion that if you refuse to try it yourself your argumentation is invalid. Try the weapon before arguing in any direction, and then argue on the basis of your perception. My point has nothing to do with the spread of pellets, and there is no such thing, as the hitscan laser explosion splash radius is, afaik, calculated EXACTLY as is the still-current projectile laser.

The effect I am describing solely results in the laser being hitscan now. While the projectile version flies a bit before hitting the wall, the insta hit laser doesn't. If you yourself move very fast, your movement speed has an impact on which angle you will have to use to gain the most out of wall lasering. With insta-hit laser it's always the same angle, meaning you will always have to look backwards while shooting at the wall.

Which is as helpful as turning yourself entirely to your back seat in order to activate boost while driving at 240 km/h on the freeway.

@Samual, if required for better understanding, I can do a video for you showing the impact I am describing.

Ah, I see. I didn't know the laser is hitscan now, which is also something I'd be against as a concept. What happens to timing your laser shots, since its projectiles currently have some speed and I like that you need to time your hit to push someone who's moving. And especially to using the laser for pushing far away players into slime lava or space (even by hitting near them, not directly).

And ok... I said what I think about this. I'm not on a very good connection right now, but if I'll have free time I might switch to the branch just for the sake of it later. It certainly won't change what I think, but just so people don't think my point is less legit.

Another thing i noticed while playtesting:
Melee is made usless by hitscan laser, it's way to difficult to charge a player for a short-range attack.