[SUGGESTION] Health Systems

So basiclly there's two (main) options that I know of, and those are

A) Something like what Xonotic is right now (December 6 2010). This being that the rot is slower, but you can't pick up 25 hp units if your health is 100 or more.

and

B) Something like what Nexuiz was. This being that the more health you have the faster the rot, but a health unit is a health unit and you can always pick it up.

Personally I think the current system is illogical, and would prefer something more like (not exactly like) the Nexuiz system. And there's always

C) A compromise, or something totally different. I would be willing to except Xonotic rot + Nexuiz pickup method, but this might be prone to stacking. Xonotic pickup method + Nexuiz rot would probably result in deficient health. Feel free to propose a new compromise/system if you think you have a better one.

+1 for Xonotic 'balance' jeez I hate this word already..Xonotic SETTINGS.

But well, it definitely helps improve teamplay in teamgames, easier to share items some idiot on public can't take every armour in front of them, and it helps with balance also..you can't run around like a 300ap tank anymore, also it forces you to go GET items when your low on health instead of being able to just pick them up on your own.

The weapon damage also works well with the current setup which is what I like the most.

kojn^_^ you made me change my mind - I'am staying with Xonotic's approach

I'm leaning more towards Nexuiz, but I think I struck a good balance between the two of them in my balance. The only problem is, it was geared toward a different weapon and speed setup, so it won't work with a lot of what Fruitiex made. So really it boils down to what balance and physics set you want. Do you want snail-speed running and weird/whacky weapons, or do you want 2.4 speed with a weapon set that is closer to that of Nexuiz?

Are you secretly trying to troll your balance in this thread..

I'm leaning more towards Nexuiz, but I think I struck a good balance between the two of them in my balance. The only problem is, it was geared toward a different weapon and speed setup, so it won't work with a lot of what Fruitiex made. So really it boils down to what balance and physics set you want. Do you want snail-speed running and weird/whacky weapons, or do you want 2.4 speed with a weapon set that is closer to that of Nexuiz?

I'd love the snail-speed running and wierd/whacky weapons kthx.

Nexuiz was a exaggerated mess, nothing else that now turned into a balanced, fun and natural feeling game.

I am missing a "I don't care as long as I can disable it" vote item.

Actually I find it kind of weird to be able to pick up some health packs and others not (if your health is already over 100), and I didn't mind the stacking that was possible in Nexuiz.

But I see that the Xonotic health system has some advantages, too. I believe those 25 health packs would in particular benefit weaker players during for example 1on1 matches - since a dominating opponent isn't able to take them away from the weaker player and by that even stacking his health up more. This might apply in other situations as well. I think the Xonotic health system might have a balancing effect on the gameplay.

I am missing a "I don't care as long as I can disable it" vote item.

Actually I find it kind of weird to be able to pick up some health packs and others not (if your health is already over 100), and I didn't mind the stacking that was possible in Nexuiz.

But I see that the Xonotic health system has some advantages, too. I believe those 25 health packs would in particular benefit weaker players during for example 1on1 matches - since a dominating opponent isn't able to take them away from the weaker player and by that even stacking his health up more. This might apply in other situations as well. I think the Xonotic health system might have a balancing effect on the gameplay.

I can't really imagine a checkbox to disable health system, but anyway...

I do see the advantage to the Xonotic health settings in bringing the newb/pro gap together, especially in 1on1 deathmatch.

However, many of the larger CTF maps require stacking (unless your really good and the enemy is a bad shot), particularly the big ones.

And a reminder--THIS IS NOT A WEAPONS/PHYSICS BALANCE THREAD, IT IS HEALTH/ARMOR RELATED THREAD

Yeah. I was playing one dueal in Nxuiz on Agressor, and guy told me that it's a bout domination - taking all health /armour will make you almost-unkillable and weaken your oponent. And it was so. I coudn't kill him, once he died in an accident I was able to pick up the domination. I think that disabling health/armour stacking will prevent this and lead to a more fair'n'balanced (in my opinion) game. I'am in it!

I really don't think many of the larger CTF maps require stacking.

In the pickup games I played in 5v5 it was fine. Perhaps in nexuiz it mattered more, but in xonotic the weapons are balanced differently and much better now, so it also fit's inline with the current health/armour system so I do not think this is the case.

However in duel for example, it actually requires an opponent when there out of control of the main item's to give themselves the possibility to get back into control through sound strategic play. Even with players of about equal skill, in nexuiz you could sometimes have a player win landslided one game then annihilate the next, also it stops the possibility of having any kind of fallback area on a map because all you needed to do in nexuiz was get a nice cycle time going and you could crush an opponent with sometimes no way back except for maybe randomly blowing there rocket up.

Found the line in the balance.cfg that I don't like:

Code:

set g_pickup_healthmedium_max 100

Code:

set g_pickup_healthmedium_max 100

Ewww, why did you have to post that here?

Yeah. I was playing one dueal in Nxuiz on Agressor, and guy told me that it's a bout domination - taking all health /armour will make you almost-unkillable and weaken your oponent. And it was so. I coudn't kill him, once he died in an accident I was able to pick up the domination. I think that disabling health/armour stacking will prevent this and lead to a more fairbalanced (in my opinion) game. I'am in it!

Yeah, it's basically this, and preventing teammates from hogging everything as kojn said that are the biggest reasons behind the new health system idea.

It feels odd at first, but you for sure WILL get used to it.

It feels odd at first, but you for sure WILL get used to it.

Still haven't gotten used to it with all the balances and tweaks out there though, I'm pretty sure we'll eventually find something that will fix problems and not piss off players.

What problems?

As for all these 'balances', I rarely see any reasoning behind the changes which frustrates me the most. Some people may not like something for let's give it sometime to get used too because it's different, making changes is all fine..but can we have some reasoning behind it instead of just doing it for the sake of it which was one of the biggest problems nexuiz suffered from imo.

Also wouldn't it be easier just commenting on the current default setting's, or in that thread and going from there rather then making up thread after thread after thread...

Although this one started off as a good idea, it's once again been

Given that most of the target audience is coming from Nexuiz and the balance plays almost nothing like Nexuiz combined with me hearing about people getting disappointed when they compile their games. It's pretty safe to say there are some problems. btw the problems I was initially referring to were the ones mentioned by Fruitiex, such as how it was possible to dominate an arena with the older balances. An extra balance or two or a gazillion isn't the worst idea, as it gives us more settings to screw around with. Who knows, one of these other balance files may end up kicking the crap out mine and Fruitiex's balances.

The main thing I dislike about the current health system is that I subconsciously try to pick up health packs all the time when I can't.
Other thing I wonder about is whether the system prevents you from denying health to your enemy. I sort of think you ought to be able to swoop and and take it before the enemy player can grab it. But I haven't had an in-game issue with it other than the health packs making me compulsively chase them even when i can't get health.

But well, it definitely helps improve teamplay in teamgames, easier to share items some idiot on public can't take every armour in front of them, and it helps with balance also..you can't run around like a 300ap tank anymore, also it forces you to go GET items when your low on health instead of being able to just pick them up on your own.

If only this were actually true -- I used to accept the health pickup limitation when I found out ^this reason, but in gameplay it REALLY ISN'T TRUE. It mostly only frustrates players than actually helps teamplay. I've played at least 30 CTF matches in Xonotic and must say that this really does not work. Hence why in my opinion we should allow all health to be picked up at any time, but still have restrictive limits. (Maybe even slightly faster rot)

This doesn't even work for 1v1 matches as getting health is limited to BOTH players now.. It also means that you're exclusively FORCED to get the mega health/mega armor powerups else you stand no chance of just stacking with smaller health items. (There are never enough small health packets to get all the way up to 200)

One other thing is that this health system is basically a rip off of Quake except with slightly different cap values... Seems like that happens a lot with Xonotic balance, doesn't it?

Anyway, I personally propose that all items are allowed to be picked up at any time -- just, 250 health limit with decent rot down to 100 stable and 200 armor with no rot but a lower block percentage. This is the system i'll be reimplementing in my balance here some time today.

In the event that there aren't any megas or they're not easy to get to, camping then becomes an effective strategy since the players have less incentive go and collect health that's going to rot quickly. Bunch of players found that out when I was plinking shots with the rifle after laying down some mines in Red Planet. Some items (mega and small health/armor) should be able to be picked up regardless, while it's probably smarter to cap others (ammo). It should seriously be noted that grabbing an enemy's resources has always been a good strategy and that improperly capping the health/armor system can actually backfire and CAUSE camping like what I pointed out with that example of what I did in Red Planet.

What problems?

As for all these 'balances', I rarely see any reasoning behind the changes which frustrates me the most. Some people may not like something for let's give it sometime to get used too because it's different, making changes is all fine..but can we have some reasoning behind it instead of just doing it for the sake of it which was one of the biggest problems nexuiz suffered from imo.

Also wouldn't it be easier just commenting on the current default setting's, or in that thread and going from there rather then making up thread after thread after thread...

Although this one started off as a good idea, it's once again been

That makes me wonder if you've read one of the many walls-of-text I've posted detailing what made me change something, why I decided it should be changed, and how I got to said change. If you REALLY want me to, I can go into detail on just about every aspect of my balance file if you ask.

Anyway, I personally propose that all items are allowed to be picked up at any time -- just, 250 health limit with decent rot down to 100 stable and 200 armor with no rot but a lower block percentage. This is the system i'll be reimplementing in my balance here some time today.

Another balance under development. This is gonna be interesting. Hopefully it's not like the 2.6 one lol

Lee_Stricklin: Mine is one of the oldest balances actually Mine was created in response to LordHavoc's balance, which then later took over Nexuiz SVN to become default balance for 2.6 (But it was broken in Nexuiz SVN at the time )

I just wasn't around in the first part of development for Xonotic, so mine didn't get a chance to make it into Xonotic as default. Whereas FruitieX started his almost immediately.

I really disagree, there is nothing more frustrating then someone on your team taking every item in front of you, especially on the maps were the mapper has put a 100a and 50a very close to each other, the current system is working well at the moment, whilst I don't deny it takes some time to get used too it does help towards balance of gameplay, new thing's do take time but I honestly believe 100% it's a change for the better.

Also I can only really speak from 1on1 and 2on2 in a competitive sense, but at least now some (very few due to lack of) maps if you lose control of one big item, you can stay in another area and try to control that area without your opponent picking up everything in his path, in my 1on1 commentary vs PCL, I get over atleast 330armour and maybe near 400 just from picking up everything which is quite ridiculous.

+1 for Xonotic Balance.

Nexuiz was a mess not balance. You could pick every health on the map leaving the with no health at all, same with armor. In Xonotic the system turned in something balanced.

For example:

In Nexuiz the player in control would simply run Armors/ Health and kill the other guy by +forwarding him with 250+/100+ stack while the other only had 100/0. And the momentum only could switch by chance (player in control mistimed something) or by ambushing the winning guy.

In Xonotic the player in control will think twice about rushin the other guy because he only has a maximum of 250/150 while the other guy can have something like 100/100 and then the player with the better aim and position will win the fight.

What I try to say by this is, that Xonotic health/armor system forces the players to play more "brain" than "control only".

Peace

Lee_Stricklin: Mine is one of the oldest balances actually Mine was created in response to LordHavoc's balance, which then later took over Nexuiz SVN to become default balance for 2.6 (But it was broken in Nexuiz SVN at the time )

I just wasn't around in the first part of development for Xonotic, so mine didn't get a chance to make it into Xonotic as default. Whereas FruitieX started his almost immediately.

Immediately after inactivity on mine if I'm correct... I kinda burnt out a bit and then restarted when I compiled the game and saw the mess that was balanceFruit.
http://dev.xonotic.org/issues/94

If there's one person that can figure this game out, it's probably you. I think the main problem for most people with my settings is that they hate bullet hell and being able to move a decent speed while running (don't know for sure though, cause I haven't gotten much feedback). We all know Fruitiex's problems. It feels too much like a Quake rip-off (a bad one at that) with CoD-style physics when your not bunny hopping. His weapons are especially whack, though he implemented pretty cool features to get his guns where they're at. You may want to take a look at what can be done with the new cvars.

I really disagree, there is nothing more frustrating then someone on your team taking every item in front of you, especially on the maps were the mapper has put a 100a and 50a very close to each other, the current system is working well at the moment, whilst I don't deny it takes some time to get used too it does help towards balance of gameplay, new thing's do take time but I honestly believe 100% it's a change for the better.

Sure, I agree with you on this point, but I don't think that limiting the health in an inconsistent way like this is a good idea. Precisely why I said: Cap the health, but still allow players to pick up the health at any time... but let me amend something to this now Maybe it would be a good idea to also stop people from picking things up after this max cap level simply for the sake of teamplay -- But if this is the case, we must find some way to show the player WHY they can no longer pick it up. Actually that should be done ANYWAY even if we don't adjust the cap values -- some type of notification should be put on the HUD saying why you cannot pick up the health.

BTW, to me it's not really a matter of how difficult it is to get used to...(although that's hard to prove )

Also I can only really speak from 1on1 and 2on2 in a competitive sense, but at least now some (very few due to lack of) maps if you lose control of one big item, you can stay in another area and try to control that area without your opponent picking up everything in his path, in my 1on1 commentary vs PCL, I get over atleast 330armour and maybe near 400 just from picking up everything which is quite ridiculous.

I saw the demos of this actually, you indeed did rape him (mind = blown) -- but well, again i'm proposing health and armor limits with generous rot on health and lower armor block percentage. This essentially means that picking everything up isn't possible.

But at least in this respect you win, as i'm sure you're more skilled/experienced with competitive map control.


Finally, I still say that it is harmful to the game to have very ambiguous/non-obvious/inconsistent mechanics if the benefit from them also isn't very obvious. (Which I don't think it is compared to my health system)

Some ideas about how to make health limits more obvious (because, I agree, these limits will seem to be like totally random for a new player who doesn't know quake yet):
How about dimming the color of the health/armor pickups that cannot be taken at the moment (similar to what we already had in Nex 2.5.2, items which weren't spawned yet, i.e. the ghost items)? Maybe, to distinguish items-out-of-reach and ghost-items, use different colors(?). And maybe, if the player still walks over the item he cannot pick up, make the HP/armor display flash for a moment or something (not too obtrusive though) so that the player sees the connection. Another idea to make the limits more obvious is to put hairlines at the limits for 25s and 50s (iirc these are the ones where the caps apply, the rest, 5s and 100s, are not capped, right?)

Otherwise... funny to see how everybody fights for his own balance to be the best, oldest, and should-be-default