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Replacing spawn weapons

#1
So well, as some of you may know- I have quite a lot planned for the balance in order to streamline and define the gameplay design more. I have decided the next project I want to work on is finishing up the core weapons idea, which essentially is bringing the default game down to only 8 weapons.

In the end, that idea will be like this:

  1. Spawn Weapon
  2. Nexgun
  3. Lightning Gun
  4. Rocketlauncher
  5. Crylink
  6. Grenadelauncher
  7. Electro
  8. Hagar
... and the rest of the weapons will become part of a mutator, and only accessible when the mutator is active. This means: Rifle, HLAC, Minelayer (will become vehicle only), Seeker (will become vehicle only), Machine Gun (functionality made redundant by Lightning Gun, possibly remade into chain gun), and Shotgun (made redundant by spawn weapon, possibly will be re-made into a powerful shotgun) will never be available in normal gameplay anymore. Right now though, I only want to concentrate on the spawn weapons though. Please do not take the thread off of that topic, I simply want to bring background to the changes planned and help get that information out a little... when the time comes, those will be discussed too, but it needs to be one step at a time.. and this is the first step. There are also various other reasons why I want to do this change in the first place, especially regarding ammo ideas and simply reducing complexity and confusion of the weapons.. I just don't have time to explain the entire plan quite yet. Please do try to understand though, there has been a lot of thought put into these concepts. With that said, lets continue with the concept of the new spawn weapon idea itself.


Essentially the idea is to transform the laser (renamed into a new weapon) into a sort of energy shockwave type of weapon... Primary shoots a mid-to-long range attack of energy, replacing the functionality of the shotgun primary in current balance.. Secondary shoots a close range burst of energy, which acts as both a jumping mechanism and a close high damage attack. (it would have very low self damage, but similar damage to shotgun melee...) -- Secondary would basically replace the functionality of the melee (very similar tracing method as well), and it would also have exactly the same force and pushing capabilities as the laser... There will be no functional difference to the player between laser primary and shockwave secondary, the movement will behave exactly the same as before....

The goal here is to cover the functionality of both of these weapons in a logical way without adding too much complexity... I believe a shockwave type weapon fits that description. There is however one snag: The shockwave secondary refire time might have to be quite high in order for its melee functionality to have high enough damage... OR, we need to make some kind of charging mechanism, i.e.: If you press secondary quickly, it does high force and low damage (good for jumping)... but if you hold it in, it does high damage (good for melee).

Really, that's just what we need to figure out here... how precisely should this work? I want to keep the jumping intact without harming the defensive aspect of the weapon.





Let me know your feedback and ideas.... really i'm not expecting the response to be very good from competitive players, but... *crosses fingers.*


inb4 shitstorm
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#2
Will the spawn weapon still be able to juggle around players? Because you might remember I love doing that :o)
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#3
my idea:
1. laser
2. shotgun
3. mg
4. mortar
5. electro
6. crylink
7. nex
8. hagar
9. rocketlauncher
<Samual> I am the most unprofessional developer ever
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#4
For what I can say now, I like it Smile

The only thing I'm a bit worried about is comboing with the laser. Now I can do nex-laser, or sg-laser, and that will be gone, basically.

But well, I'll just see, for now it sounds really solid, keep up the good work!
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#5
Quote:OR, we need to make some kind of charging mechanism, i.e.: If you press secondary quickly, it does high force and low damage (good for jumping)... but if you hold it in, it does high damage (good for melee).

That was actually an idea I meant to propose for laser secondary, before I realized it already has one. To make it different than Nex, charging action would be manual - as in you'd have to actively hold it, and not just wait till weapon charges itself. Otherwise this could also be seen as ripoff from Warsow's GB which charges automatically.
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#6
(05-19-2012, 03:30 PM)Cortez666 Wrote: my idea:
1. laser
2. shotgun
3. mg
4. mortar
5. electro
6. crylink
7. nex
8. hagar
9. rocketlauncher
No lightning gun? FYI, we ALREADY have it exactly like this.... all the other weapons are trimmed out by default now and aren't in normal gameplay.... but this isn't good enough, it has no progress and still has design issues.

Halogene Wrote:Will the spawn weapon still be able to juggle around players? Because you might remember I love doing that :o)
By default, no -- not at long range like with laser now. We can have a mutator for it (so laser sumo and such are still there, I love that too), but in default gameplay most people don't do that anyway (there are better weapons you can use for that)... and it's kind of redundant with the mortar, that's considered the "juggling" weapon anyway.
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#7
(05-19-2012, 03:32 PM)Mepper Wrote: For what I can say now, I like it Smile

The only thing I'm a bit worried about is comboing with the laser. Now I can do nex-laser, or sg-laser, and that will be gone, basically.

But well, I'll just see, for now it sounds really solid, keep up the good work!
Well if you mean combo with jumping.. that'll still work. Additionally, you could do combos with the shockwave primary instead now... it'll be like shotgun primary previously, but.... the juggling aspect of laser will be gone, it's true.
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#8
Do we really need this, or is this just change for the sake of change? It seems like the kind of thing you'd have to discuss extensively with the team before even presenting it to the playerbase...

Also, what about ammo and health consumption of weapon-based movement currently provided by the laser? Currently it seems alright, with infinite ammo and relatively low damage. Does your replacement provide that?
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#9
I like the idea, but switching from laser primary to laser secondary for jumping will suck. Also, I'm ok with losing the laser juggle that everyone thinks is so fun on space maps, but some people are gonna complain if it's removed.

My idea would be to remove the shotgun, keep the laser primary as is, and make the secondary a high damage melee-ish attack. The only issue with that, and your idea Samual, is that the shotgun is an awesome finisher weapon as it is now. If you remove it, the only other finisher will be the LG(or MG if it stays), which is gonna urk some people that are used to finishing with the shotty.
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#10
I don't like the idea. Or rather, parts of it.

1.: Xonotic already has a good weapon system. Or at least, that's what I've heard of months ago, when we released 0.6. Totally changing almost all the weapons right now seems pretty stupid for me, we're too much further into development now. Also, you'll TOTALLY BREAK EXISTING OFFICIAL AND 3RD PARTY MAPS.

2.: Transformed laser = Pulse gun?
For the primary, it somehow makes sence. However, moving the melee to secondary is imho a bad idea mainly for the reasons:

-Laserjumping will become now a lot less used because of the higher refire time or charge or whatever you call it. However this is a key element of Xonotic movement, and one distinctive heritage from Nexuiz.

-For a fast paced game like Xonotic, a charging up gun sounds stupid, it'll make the game become slower. Remember the Nex? It got the charge for this very reason, to slow it down! Also, a melee attack just HAS to be fast, because that's why it's so damn powerful: if you add charge to a melee, you'll be easily predicted.

-You'll remove the fast weaponswitch to the last used gun. There was a short time, when Nexuiz had this too (secondary was autolaserjump), but people got so much used to the weaponswitch ability, that it had to be reverted. True story.

- As you didn't mention, I assume that slapping with the shotgun aka. "trouting" will be removed from the game. I'd totally miss that, it added so much fun to the game! I like Xonotic to be funny too! OR, you'll like to integrate slapping to all guns, but that'd mean another bind. Not everybody has a mouse made for WoW with 32+ buttons on it.

-You say you want to simplify things. Read this out loud:

Quote:OR, we need to make some kind of charging mechanism, i.e.: If you press secondary quickly, it does high force and low damage (good for jumping)... but if you hold it in, it does high damage (good for melee)

So, charging + multiple ways of clicks? How is this simple? People were raging all around before the automatic charging up of the Nex, because it was C O N F U S I N G... (yeah, wtf on that, but still).

-An energy balster type of this weapon would make the new, awesome laser model totally useless, as it really doesn't fit this role.

TBH. I don't think this is the way you should try to further tweak the weapon balance. I think the main problem doesn't lie in the spawn weapons, but rather in the numerous (and yes, sometimes useless and redundant) pickup weapons. I'd present my ideas about that, but as this is purely about the spawn weapons, I'll present those when the time has come for them.

In short: DON'T EFFIN TOUCH THE SHOTGUN AND THE LASER YOU BASTERD! Tongue
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"One should strive to achieve; not sit in bitter regret."
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#11
(05-19-2012, 04:09 PM)C.Brutail Wrote: 1.: Xonotic already has a good weapon system. Or at least, that's what I've heard of months ago, when we released 0.6. Totally changing almost all the weapons right now seems pretty stupid for me, we're too much further into development now. Also, you'll TOTALLY BREAK EXISTING OFFICIAL AND 3RD PARTY MAPS.

this is a very important point
<Samual> I am the most unprofessional developer ever
<bluez> halogene, you make awesome music, but you have no clue about ctf.
<Halogene> I didn't know mappers include some mysterious waypoints so members of the BOT clan can navigate a map?
<divVerent> if you don't pay for a premium account, your movement speed is limited to 100qu/s
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#12
FYI, I will need time to reply to all of these... when I said "inb4 shitstorm", I had no idea...


I'll try and catch up tonight or tomorrow, hopefully by then this thread won't be its own novel.
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#13
You really want to see a shitstorm, don't you? I see no such thing for now, you brought that up in the first place Tongue
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#14
Judging from the general popularity of the "developer" subforum amoung casual players or forum members, I don't think you'll get the most response here...
[Image: 561.png]
"One should strive to achieve; not sit in bitter regret."
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#15
I don't know why you included all of that information if you just wanted to talk about the primary... Anyway...

I'm okay with removing the shotgun/laser combination as spawn primaries because it makes things simpler. I don't like moving the jumping function to secondary because it's just plain easier to jump with primary. Charging pulse melee? Nah. Why not just keep primary as it is now, reducing self damage, and letting people continue to juggle others around at short/long range, and having the shotgun melee added to the laser? People will get used to using the laser as a primary means of attack when they're on the wall. A lot of people don't realize just how powerful it can be when used correctly.

The MG has always been a source of frustration for me. It's always either been too powerful or too weak. As it stands in nex, it's so ridiculously weak that it's not even worth picking up. The shotgun trumps it entirely. In Xonotic I've seen it was both retardedly powerfuly (to the point where I jump around a corner, get sprayed, and find myself dead within seconds without even a chance to dodge) and worthless. Tossing it would only serve to strengthen the support on the other weapons and encourage mappers to spread the weapons out a little more carefully. Final Rage for example has all of the good weapons and easy access to the megas in the center, with the exception of the mortar, which can be checked on easily. Playing on the defensive in that map is very difficult. Now, I know I saw the lightning gun function back when we were doing whatever that physics/weapons test was a while back, but I haven't seen it since, so I'm not sure how I should comment on that.

Mostly in favor of the suggested changes, but I'd like to see the laser stay as it is if it's going to stay, and become the primary. Throw on a secondary for additional function if you want, but best to keep primary as it is.
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#16
(05-19-2012, 04:34 PM)Mr. Bougo Wrote: You really want to see a shitstorm, don't you? I see no such thing for now, you brought that up in the first place Tongue
I was actually refering to on IRC, but well -- just wait until the other players wake up ^_^ This is night time for most people, they aren't around... I bet in the next 12-18 hours i'll see at least 10 more posts.
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#17
Xonotic gets mature Smile
Keep up the good work, looking forward to 0.7!
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#18
(05-19-2012, 04:09 PM)C.Brutail Wrote: - As you didn't mention, I assume that slapping with the shotgun aka. "trouting" will be removed from the game. I'd totally miss that, it added so much fun to the game! I like Xonotic to be funny too! OR, you'll like to integrate slapping to all guns, but that'd mean another bind. Not everybody has a mouse made for WoW with 32+ buttons on it.

Melee on every weapon would be cool. It shouldn't be a huge problem to add that as another button, most "modern FPS" games already do this. And as far as I'm aware, all gaming mice have at least one "extra" mouse button on either side, which would be a convenient placement for a melee button. (Obviously everyone doesn't have a mouse like this, so by default we'd probably have to bind this new button to an unused key around WASD, in the default config there should be plenty available!)

If we would add this extra button and combine it with Samual's suggestions in the first post, we could maybe use this new melee button for laser jumps as well. You could then always perform laserjumps without switching weapons! I think that laserjumping has always been such a big part of Nexuiz/Xonotic gameplay that it does deserve it's own dedicated button. Just an idea and my two cents. Smile

Now as for the balancing aspect of this: yes there has to be a short delay between firing a weapon and being able to melee/laserjump, perhaps the same time for every weapon. Same thing after using melee/laserjump, there must be a short delay until you can fire your normal weapon again. (this would "emulate" the animtime/switchdelay that we had, in order to prevent for example this: ram into a player, fire the nex point blank and press your melee button at the same time for crazy damage!)
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#19
(05-19-2012, 03:50 PM)Samual Wrote: the juggling aspect of laser will be gone, it's true.

And that's unfortunate. Long-range juggling is perhaps a nuisance. But short-range juggling + nex makes for an important combo, as you can't dodge nex when in air. You often go to grab nex but simply dont have mortar yet and then laser comes handy.

There is a remedy tho. I would suggest to leave primary of Spawn Weapon to be exact laser, including juggling. Secondary might become the melee replacement. There are several advantages to that:
1) Players don't need to adapt to secondary for jumping, which will save a major hassle for many
2) There is still a fully functional laser in game, including juggling. And that is really unique aspect of this game. Its worth preserving.
3) The whole system is simpler, as Spawn Weapon doesn't have a different action against you than against other players.

The only drawback is that you loose "mid-to-long range attack of energy" that's supposed to replace shotgun. That, imo, is a lesser evil. Its unlikely that this energy attack will make upfront for the uniqness/usefulness of the current laser.


Regarding mutators - is my understanding right, that these features will be guarded by cvars (and models will be left in the client), so the former balance is still in codebase? I hope so...
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#20
I'm all for streamlining the weapons, but to lose the laser's juggling functionality would be a shame, imo. While it may not be the most useful thing in most situations, it can be a great tool for denying items/areas. I think that it's a good initiative to clean up the weapons and I am happy to see that you want to do this. If I could code, I would try to help out... but since I cant, I'll stick to running my servers and doing community stuff like the duel cup. For now, I'll give you my two cents.

Considering that I am mainly a dueler, I'll give you a couple of examples from my own gameplay(with videos!):

The first kill is a nex-laser combo as kojn moved towards the mega above me. I have a shotgun, laser, and nex. Rather than use sg-nex for a damage combo, I elect to use a laser-nex combo to deny him the mega. SG-nex in this situation likely won't let me get the kill as he'll be able to stay on his course and pick up the mega between my shots.

The third kill is just pure laser juggling. We had a mutual kill and both spawned in the same room, albeit on different floors. Kojn had the RL spawn and I had the hagar spawn. I rushed my jump to mega and missed it, while kojn jumped up to top level and knocked me down with a rocket. My only hope for winning this situation was a desperation bit of lasering. I managed to hit 4 lasers in a row, popping him over and around the mega, and finishing him off in midair. I was able to gain a kill and deny the mega (again).

(SKIP TO 10:47-10:57 FOR WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT)
In this situation, nifrek had just killed me to tie the match and I spawned with 9 seconds left. I made the mistake of picking up 1 armour shard, thus giving my position away. I knew that I needed a little bit of luck to get to overtime, as in I needed nifrek to miss a couple of shots. I also used the laser to feint a jump to upper level, then used the laser to push him away as he tried to chase. I hit two shots, pushing him almost all the way to the upper RL doorway. Thanks to the juggling, I was able to create a situation in which I could survive (as long as nifrek missed a couple of shots). I pushed him into a location that was harder to hit me from, and survived long enough to force the beginning of overtime.


Moments like these make me happy that laser juggling is in this game and, imo, is part of the list of things that makes this game fun and unique among arena shooters. Keep in mind, I'm not opposed to what you want to do overall, I just would like to see it done in a manner that keeps the juggling functionality of the laser in the game in some form or another.

tldr - Don't take away juggling! It's fun and has its place.
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#21
(05-19-2012, 05:14 PM)srkdy Wrote: While it may not be the most useful thing in most situations, it can be a great tool for denying items/areas.

Its not only in duels. For the very same reason laser was often used to get the flag just before opposite FC was able to cap. Rushing to prevent a cap, you often don't have time to pick weapons and are left with laser to disturb FC run.
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#22
(05-19-2012, 04:09 PM)C.Brutail Wrote: -You'll remove the fast weaponswitch to the last used gun. There was a short time, when Nexuiz had this too (secondary was autolaserjump), but people got so much used to the weaponswitch ability, that it had to be reverted. True story.

This is something I don't understand. Xonotic is pretty much built around quick swapping weapons(or at least it's a huge part of the game), which requires key binds for each weapon and the user's ability to hit them instinctively. The laser secondary is not needed since anyone who has bound their keys and learned them can switch back to their weapon just as fast and without thought.

The laser secondary is not only a crutch, but also a very good way to discourage new players from using weapon specific key binds. This hurts them in the long run since they should be learning their binds(and encouraged to do so).

So, the current laser alt fire actually adds nothing to the game and hurts the player.
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#23
Legacy. Some of us are with this game (and Nexuiz) now since... 2005.
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#24
Not a fan of the fast weapon-switching at all purely because it's too fast and making everything too spammy, fast weapon switching is fine when not firing ofcourse. Just going to read this thread from now on.
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#25
I'll be quick and to the point:

- Keep the juggling: is an explanation really needed? It truly sets Xonotic apart.
- Keep laser on primary: it is central to the game, and many of us have years of muscle memory built on it being that way.
- Get rid of the MG, Rifle, and Minelayer: they are near useless (MG only when LG is present, ofc), and I'll choose just about any other weapon over them.
- Do not make melee on every weapon: melee should remain a conscious decision. Its a /feature/ that you currently have to switch to the shotgun to get melee.
- Simplify the ammo: yes, yes yes.
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