[SUGGESTION] Obligatory weapon balance thread!!111!!1!oneone!

Since there is much talk about balance in stermy's thread, I'm making one specifically just for that.

Weapons, which were confirmed to be subject to change:

Mg primary - into chaingun. Also, arc cannon may replace its functionality, but it remains to be seen.
Nex/rifle- confirmed by devs to be unified, details are hazy, but current model is supposed to stay.
Crylink secondary - I'm not sure, who said it, but there was saying, that it isn't done yet. And I hope so, as it's pretty crap now.

Extra ideas:
1)Make melee available for every weapon.
For:
-it's more logical (why should sg be the only weapon you can swing?)
-you no longer have to switch to sg to butt somebody
-you can vary dmg for each weapon (eg. bulky RL will do more dmg on hit than small laser).
-it would free secondary on sg for some new idea (faster refire + more spread? Charging to fire a burst? Incendiary rounds? Anything goes).
Against:
-it requires separate button to execute
-not clear, how to count accuracy/efficiency - either make separate "slot" on stats screen for all fish attacks or include every attack for respective weapon it is executed with.

2)Increase strength for AERIAL electro combos (as in detonating ball while it's still in the air). Detonating balls on the ground is easy and fine the way it is, but aerial combos are much harder and should be more rewarding. IIRC, it did 80 dmg max in Nexuiz, and if it didn't change, it's pretty low. IMO either radius and dmg should be upped, or combo (aerial only) could emit some particles randomly for extra dmg.

I don't think there's much too discuss, a lot of it is fine and we now have a very solid base too work off too improve it up till 1.0, and can't discuss stuff like the chaingun and arc cannon until it's implemented.

No too melee on all weapons, it's what make's it unique on shotgun and it means you have too switch too that weapon too use it. A retractable blade that comes out when it swings or something would make sense on it, not sure if this is possible too animate/add with possibly a new model?

I mean, if it got added too all weapons I probably wouldn't actually care that much, but is there a need too do so is what I'm asking myself.

Electro, I heard a few people say they think it's too weak, I personally don't think it's too bad, but again not too bothered if it gets increased.

Crylink Secondary isn't too horrific, I use it, but it's too weak I've found out, even when I hit quite a few with it, no one ever dies so damage is really too low with it.

I don't think there's any more then the points you raised that need too be addressed, otherwise it's just tinkering for no reason.

You CANT remove a weapon because it will kill older maps that include such weapon.

i also disagree on mele secondary for everything ... let shotgun have its glory
I would love to see crylink secondary to be some sort of hold down charge hitscan beam...

And balance talk is NOT over for the HLAC ... the HLAC is only redundant because of its current balance ... go into the settings yourself and mess around with them for a while... Youl be surprised what you can come up with.... We could make the hlac a unique and coveted weapon.

As for melee on each weapon: in my opinion the disadvantage of one extra key used weighs quite heavily. Also I agree with hutty that currently the slap makes the shotgun very special. On the other hand we could have different species of fish for each weapon's melee attack, which I would personally find rather amusing (gold fish for the laser, a pike for the nex, a koi carp for the rocket launcher...). But still, imho adding a key to the must-have of binds is a rather bad idea.

Regarding the areal electro combo I think rafallus' idea is quite interesting indeed. I tried to detonate electro secondary by direct hit in mid-air recently which is REALLY hard (at least for me), and rewarding such a thing with a higher blast radius or extra damage would make areal electro combos worth doing. Maybe in that case we should have zero spread for the first electro ball coming out of electro secondary, to make such a combo more reliable?

I believe crylink secondary WILL get modified some way in 0.6, currently it indeed is useful only as an opponent detector by hitsound.

I don't think there's much too discuss, a lot of it is fine and we now have a very solid base too work off too improve it up till 1.0, and can't discuss stuff like the chaingun and arc cannon until it's implemented.

This. The weapon balance is still a subject of change, with the HLAC removed and mg redesigned and Arc cannon added in the future. Ideas are welcomed, but I don't think there's a real sense in debating over the current balance, as it'll be changed anyway.

NB4 WW

Discussion of this kind would be way more sensible if you put specific pro/against use case for every wepon change. Otherwise its mostly rant along "increase this because it should be icreased" lines.
As for me, I would leave nex primary/secondary as it is now (its a hallmark weapon of these games). Electro secondary (not combo) may well be strenghtened but only in ctf - this would be "stop chasing me" weapon for the flag carrier. A good use case. In dm any high-damage area weapon serves mainly to messy the game play, especially when there are newbies around.
And on more controversial topics. For CTF game play you may try and strenghten the laser. An in particular, seek a way to bring laser pad-jumps in and to increase the forward push, so that laser is not about wall jumps only/mainly. This opens the doors to sensible porting of several very heavily played maps from Nexuiz to Xonotic (mental, mentalrespaced, evil, gasoline, facing_worlds, ...). In Nexuiz, CTF was heavily about laser and I say It was nicely thought out and unique game play. As I said this goes for CTF, in DM laser is/was not as essential.
My 2cents

For CTF game play you may try and strenghten the laser. An in particular, seek a way to bring laser pad-jumps in and to increase the forward push, so that laser is not about wall jumps only/mainly. This opens the doors to sensible porting of several very heavily played maps from Nexuiz to Xonotic (mental, mentalrespaced, evil, gasoline, facing_worlds, ...). In Nexuiz, CTF was heavily about laser and I say It was nicely thought out and unique game play. As I said this goes for CTF, in DM laser is/was not as essential.

while i agree about nexuiz/ctf/laser thing you mention, i don't think making a different balance sets for every gamemode is that good idea.

Discussion of this kind would be way more sensible if you put specific pro/against use case for every wepon change. Otherwise its mostly rant along "increase this because it should be icreased" lines.

Actually, all three changes I listed were confirmed by at least one dev (and except Crylink secondary, which was only mentioned in passing, there was usually major ongoing discussion about it), which is why I don't elaborate on either three. But I happen to agree with all of them, and I expect end result to improve balance.

As for electro, IMO it's not too weak and well-balanced in 3 of 4 ways to use it I have in my mind:

1)Spam primary
2)Spam secondary
3)Spam secondary, then set off with primary.

Aerial combo is only thing that IMO could be pumped up as I don't find that much incentive in attempting to do that with current damage - you can't spam balls too much, which in itself is good, but as a side effect you cannot attempt aerial combos very frequently.

while i agree about nexuiz/ctf/laser thing you mention, i don't think making a different balance sets for every gamemode is that good idea.

Radically different "balance" set would be a hassle both for devs and for players. But why not tweak (tweak, not change radically) existing sets to match a gamemode? Consider the electro example I gave. In dm this kind of area damage is a poor idea in general. It reduces the game play to weapon "spray" as I like to call it, especially in crowded serves or when newbies play. So I would not consider increasing electro secondary in a dm. Now CTF is a radically different mode. You dont achive much by just fragging opponents. You need to frag FC. And in these settings FC may use strong electro secondary to run away from those chasing him. That is what you may actually want in CTF - put a high bar on fragging a skilled FC.
Same goes with laser. On dm you wont find that much use for laser, and even less so on crowded server. Also, how many open-space maps are there truly played in dm? But in CTF there are entire maps made for, say, laser pad-jamps. If maps are tailored to gamemode why not tweaking weapons too?

@rafallus
My intention was that ppl start thinking out actual in-game use for the tweaks they propose. Most discussion thus far goes along this (poor ) lines: "I see three use for this weapon: primary/secondary/combo" - so what? - "make this more damage because its difficult to do it" - ok, but when exactly would you try to do it and why? - and main (pseudo-)argument "this weapon is well balanced" - ok but what does it mean its "well balanced"? Does it mean its equall to each one other weapon in each one combat situation? I dont think that is what you want in a game... In other words lets not hide behind "balance" non-starters, lets came up with specific in-game use cases. Then you can argue if some idea enriches or, quite opposite, trivializes the game experience.

This opens the doors to sensible porting of several very heavily played maps from Nexuiz to Xonotic (mental, mentalrespaced, evil, gasoline, facing_worlds, ...).

Pleaseeeee no.
The popularity of those maps has nothing (except the Nex -> huge damage/push force in Nexuiz) to do with weapon balance.
They are just very open, space, easy to camp -> Easy to get kills.

There are some nice CTF maps out here, but there is just not a good/popular public server yet!
We can talk again about this when DCC's completly moved.

NB4 WW

I don't think it gonna happen but I wish.

There is no reason those maps couldn't work now. In fact gasoline is included in official pack as space-elevator, evilspacectf is played on minsta + hook server, and vehicing_worlds on vehicle server (but I'd love to see it sans vehicles too).

This opens the doors to sensible porting of several very heavily played maps from Nexuiz to Xonotic (mental, mentalrespaced, evil, gasoline, facing_worlds, ...).

Pleaseeeee no.
The popularity of those maps has nothing (except the Nex -> huge damage/push force in Nexuiz) to do with weapon balance.
They are just very open, space, easy to camp -> Easy to get kills.

Actually these maps are now more about laser than nex (unless 1vs1) - come and see for yourself But I see no problem in removing nex from em for Xonotic (a good idea at least in mental(respaced)/gasoline, evil possibly too, but it does have enough cover from nex) One exception could be facing_worlds. This one is indeed about traversing huge space under massive nex fire from above. Very unusuall game play, something you dont typically find in other maps. You seldom see 10 score in there. Yet it has suprisingly solid fun base in DCC.

@rafallus
"There is no reason those maps couldn't work now."

"Could work" is a long shot from "played to its fullest".

Sorry, but I've been playing this for more than 5 years now and these maps are only about camping/nexing in publics and even worse in serious games, cause those people got an insane aim.

Give 1 player with good aim a Nex at Mentalspace and he can piss of an entire team by 'defending'. This is kinda not possible with current Nex and maps.

I'm done.

I totally agree with Mirio. Nexuiz CTF got way out of control on certain maps. Vote calling on map changes caused a few specific maps to be always on. The players in them split into those who wanted to camp, those who wanted to flag capture at the speed of sound and then 'noobs' never standing a chance of learning the game properly and quite possibly never playing again. It was pretty rubbish to be on one of those maps over and over.

facing_worlds

Case in point.

It's almost 7 years since Nexuiz 1.0 was released and I can think of a number of times when the balance was just wrong. I still remember that in Nexuiz 1.0 crouching didn't reduce your movement speed. After a week, everyone was constantly crouching and 1.1 had to reduce the movement speed when crouching!

So I think we're at a point where things are a pretty stable level of balance finally. There is of course nothing stopping a server admin from changing the weapon balance settings on their server to target those who want to play some certain style of game. Call it a mod if you want.

Please don't change things again. The Stermy video I think should really be used as a case in point of how a new player might react, even if they are very experienced in other games. They may find things all a bit wierd at first but that first impression can lead on to a revelation. Look again at how Stermy picked up the movement finally.

Basing any argument on gameplay / balance on what works or not on mentalspace of facing_worlds is.. not a good idea. Dont get me wrong, the maps have a 'right to be', but craping up weapons because those maps have their inherit issues is not the way to go. I think the current "nex system" is the lesser evil, as if fixes the old issues w/o being horribly blocking or castrated.

My take on current balance is that its many a bit too "balanced" (as in everything is effective), and perhaps this is one reason why overkill has gained a steady following. If someone can laser me to death while im stacked 200/200 and whiling a monstrous rocket launcher, wheres the initiative for me to even grab that RL? Don't take this as harsh critic of the current balance, imo its better then nexuiz ever was, but rather as food for tough.

My intention was that ppl start thinking out actual in-game use for the tweaks they propose. Most discussion thus far goes along this (poor Smile ) lines: "I see three use for this weapon: primary/secondary/combo" - so what? - "make this more damage because its difficult to do it" - ok, but when exactly would you try to do it and why? - and main (pseudo-)argument "this weapon is well balanced" - ok but what does it mean its "well balanced"? Does it mean its equall to each one other weapon in each one combat situation? I dont think that is what you want in a game... In other words lets not hide behind "balance" non-starters, lets came up with specific in-game use cases. Then you can argue if some idea enriches or, quite opposite, trivializes the game experience.

Wait, are you putting up a straw man? Of course no weapon can be equally effective in every single combat situation - otherwise you'd have a death ray.

If you think electro is NOT balanced overall, I do think it's you who should come up with an example, why. Other than weak aerial combo (and I believe I explained adequately, why I think so), I don't see weakness (OR overpower) in any other way of using this weapon, therefore I don't believe it's necessary of me to elaborate on those.

"There is no reason those maps couldn't work now."

"Could work" is a long shot from "played to its fullest".

Again, what exactly in your opinion is wrong with, say, space-elevator, on normal weapons, and prevents the map from being "played to the fullest", as you claim?

The only thing I can really think of that might be a little less balanced than everything else (save maybe the electro which I've had way too much good luck with) is certain combos due to me not really paying much attention to how much hell I can throw in somebody's direction from them (in spite me frequently using them). However I've been very successful with even some of the more obscure ones, in fact I have better luck with rocket/crylink and charged nex/crylink combos than I do charged nex/mortar ones. Other ones I find very effective, but don't do so frequently are loaded hagar secondary/machinegun burst and electro blast/shotgun fire. I'm pretty certain the game is balanced even on the combo side of things, though like I said I don't pay that much attention to combos so I don't know what EVERY POSSIBLE COMBINATION is capable of.

_SubZero_

In regards too laser push, this has been sorted out AGES ago. One of the main reasons it was decreased was because the movement in Xonotic is already very fast. Also, getting around CTF maps would be even easier/quicker then in nexuiz with Xonotic's movement. One of the main issues was in nexuiz CTF nearly all the time it was nex and machine gun only too take down a flag carrier in the air, and they can move so quickly. Now that it's less in Xonotic, it enables more teamplay for starters, you can't just laser away and cap in 7 seconds on a lot of maps, it means that there is more use of the other weapons, and it stops CTF being nearly completely aerial like in nexuiz. It's actually nice too see (on overkill server), a lot of players covering the flag carrier and following them back..mainly on the ground, rather then the flag carrier just flying through the air doing ridiculous speed caps..also note above weapons being used more. Secondly, actually doing laser jumps in DM maps, fit's the maps a lot better then in nexuiz, atleast the official maps, not so much overjumping platforms. I don't think we really need too go down this route again. Maybe fair point in regards too laser padding, but increasing laser force is just going too undo a lot of hard work already done and tested before hand for no good reason imo.

Secondly

"I would say kojn's missed (or rather omitted) one of my points and you missed/omitted another Smile
1) Nex/mortar, Nex/rl are strong in medium-to-large distance. If you close the distance and put some effort to unpredictable movements, you wont get much (if any) nex damage. In Nexuiz, nex combos are not frequent in face-to-face combat, even though nex is way stronger, does not have recharge and is easier to aim. So it is in fact a case of each weapon combination having its own use - one for close combat and other or distace fighting.
2) Combos are way more difficult than single weapon fighting. Why would you think they should not be more effective in certain situations than other weapons? Why should any weapon you happen to pick up be as good as any other weapon, or combo for that matter, under any combat situation there can be? Why the poor guy, fighting all these opponents for precious combo ingredients (say rl/nex) should be left with no benefits of finally managing to get them Rolleyes ? Why should poor bastard spending hours on mastering fast and precise weapon switches be left with noting Rolleyes? Or, on a serious note, why would you eliminate combos (that is what will happen if they are slow) and let the game become trivial amo spary?"

me and PCLizard are playing at probably the highest possible level at the moment that is possible in Xonotic and - "If you close the distance and put some effort to unpredictable movements, you wont get much (if any) nex damage"

Firstly, just go and try close the distance vs someone who is hitting a 50+% nexgun accuracy (aka PCLizard), and combo'ing from nex-RL/mortar with the machinegun for example, oh, and did I mention I have to do this vs him when he has 140 ping, and he is hitting 50%+ nexgun accuracy a lot of the time? I have very good movement, and it is very hard too close the distance down against someone as good as him, especially when he can fire a nexshot, and then swap too mortar/RL so quickly, then back too the nex.

You are missing the point completely. We are not saying too remove combinations, we are pointing out that the problem is with the top 3 weapons as asylum has pointed out doing like 80% of the combined damage in total, why do they do so much damage and used so much, because they are used in combinations nearly all the time, and as said before, you cannot compete vs these weapons regardless situationally the Majority of the time, when you have one of the other weapons. It's a response too not the weapons balance in themselves, which I have said, is very very good at the moment, but more then when a combination of the those 3 mains weapons are used, the 'balance' of the other weapons get's significantly nullified.

Yes, it takes skill to combo, but it also requires skill and ability too use a weapon in the correct situation..with fast combo potential, that ability becomes most of the time not necessary. Why would I worry about using the nexgun in a box room, when I can fire, and insta change too a RL, fire, and insta change back too the nexgun, it doesn't require me too think 'If I get caught out here, I am going too have too either stick with this weapon, or wait for a delay in weapon changing till I can swap too the mortar'.

And too round it all up, the issue is not about the WEAPONS, it is about people saying the weapons are underpowered as they are not used a lot, which is not true. They are not used much, because as said before and this is the main point, the nex/RL/mortar potential combo is nullyfying the effectiveness of the other weapons a LOT of the time (not all the time), but more so then it probably should be doing.

All I stated was, a possible solution could be too increase the weapon delay time. POSSIBLE SOLUTION. And as said before in the other thread, this 'issue' will still be there until a solution is made up, otherwise, players can keep saying how weapon X/Y/Z is underpowered, when in reality it actually isn't.

I'm not actually that fussed whether or not it get's changed, It's just false economy though so say all the other weapons are not useful or underpowered etc because they are only accounting for like 10-20% of overall damage output. If this however is an issue for so many other players, then some kind of improvement needs too be made, which is why I said before 'are you prepared too compromise?'

I actually think the overkill mod is great, and has just the right amount of weapon switch delay and actually makes me think to myself when should I change too X weapon?, maybe tZork will be so kind too tell us in this thread what it it set too?

Overkill uses the same switch delay as standard Xonotic, but with a longer animtimes. What that means is you can switch around all you like, but once you start firing, you get a delay before you can switch to sth else.

Code:

g_balance_shotgun_primary_animtime 0.65 // default 0.2
g_balance_nex_primary_animtime 0.95 // default 0.45

@tZork
I feel that mental example I brought got derailed by nex. It was about a map that gets heavy laser use, not about craping nex. If anyone ever try to port this map to xonotic he may well leave it with rl and no nex. As I said it will get even better. And facing_words also doesn't have any issue with nex, as it is precisely about dodging nex campers - its just a different gameplay in this map.

@rafallus
Note that I argue for providing specific use cases rather than sticking to this murky "balanced", by which everyone understand something different. The use case for electro secondary was specifically for CTF and it was about denying area for opponents chasing FC. For that the secondary must in fact deny an area, rather than be ignored by the pursuit (read, needs strength). I understand that aerial combo is difficult and I can agree for it being stronger, why not - it would just be more productive disscussion if accompanied by a more or less typical use cases (in-game situation) when this proposition could in fact be used.
@"played to the fullest" - those maps we talked here (gasoline/evil/mental) were made with laser pad-jumps in mind. They wont be played to their fullest on erratic laser pad-jumps.

@kojn^
I see no reason why laser shout now be written in stone, when so many aspects of the game are discussed. As Mirio pointed out, several versions behind there were talks of leaving things as they were, and few versions from then the game is way different.
I strongly disagree with you on laser. And are pleased to see at least one supporter in this thread There are maps out there that are not aerial (some heavily played from Laid Back - medival/symdusty/lazydusty), semi aerial maps ((xo)soylent/ctftoxic/skycastle) and also aerial maps. I dont belive xonotic will benefit from striving to avoid aerial fight - its better to have maps for all these sorts of gameplay.
And the best way for newbies is to stick to begginer servers - otherwise they will get knocked, aerial or not.

Regarding combos. You bring up an example of a player that have 50% nex hit-rate at 140 ping. Why should a player of this level fighting with combos loose against one wapon fighter? If that is the case then combos are useless - why would anyone bother with combo if it has little benefit even when used by a top notch player, that manages 50% nex hit rate at large ping? You argue that "it also requires skill and ability too use a weapon in the correct situation" - I say its nowhere near the kind of "skill and ability" one needs for a high nex hit rate interleaved by guided rocket shoots. You propsed to slow combos down - I belive this amounts to removing em from game, because the whole point of combo is to increase damage rate. It would lead to an amo-spray gameplay. And all this just to "balance" wapons so that each one get roughy equal use time? I dont see a point in that. In fact I dont see anything wrong in there being few main weapons, used in various combination, and several "specialty" weapons used in specific circumstances.

Why would I worry about using the nexgun in a box room, when I can fire, and insta change too a RL, fire, and insta change back too the nexgun, it doesn't require me too think 'If I get caught out here, I am going too have too either stick with this weapon, or wait for a delay in weapon changing till I can swap too the mortar'.

While fast weapon switching is a fun part of xonotic, it takes away a huge skill component especially for competitive gaming. If you can smash buttons quick enough you wont get punished for attending a fight with the wrong weapon. This + the very simple armor + health system is what could be tweaked to get xonotic on a higher level (but obviously the needs of newer players shouldn't be forgotten about either). When the 1v1 tournament is over I might test some things myself. (I said TEST, to see how it works, I wont force anything on anyone; inb4 emo devs)

@_Subzero_
oh ok, im guilty of hasty thread reading then The issue with is likely (at least in part) the difficulty to 'laserpadle' (laserjump+jumppad in one move, if anyone wonders) in Xonotic. This was in late Nexuiz too, btw. The thing is jumppads also push projectiles now, so you need to hit the laser outside the trigger-bush, making it way harder to do and less effective in most cases. Pads pushing projectiles is a fun feature, tough im wondering if we should not make an exception for laser as paddling is also a nice thing on some maps.

@asy7um
you cant force anything anyway, so your reassurances not to no so means nothing (inb4 emo user) but yeh, some testing and suggesting of related cvars would be nice.

Well "forcing" was the wrong word maybe but I could take a discussion with the regular duel players and merge their suggestions and critics in my server config instead of having endless discussions with people officially in charge who barely play the game themselves and are in a troll mood anyway.

Ok, I'm not done yet.

And facing_words also doesn't have any issue with nex, as it is precisely about dodging nex campers - its just a different gameplay in this map.

No issue you with Nex, but you have to dodge all the Nex campers... How is that possible?!


I don't know. The only reason you can think like that is that Nexuiz players are not that good anymore.
Maybe play this map vs. uhm.. let's say kojn, fisume and/or asyyy (probably one of them would be enough already) and then we can talk again.