[SUGGESTION] Limited weapon slots & customizable spawn weapons

I recently discovered a new FPS in the open-source world called Red Eclipse. It's of great quality like Xonotic, and has a lot of fun and diverse features. Obviously I don't seek to blindly copy things from one project to another... but RE has something I really enjoy and consider adding to Xonotic: Limited weapon slots and a per-player list of spawn weapons.

The idea in Red Eclipse is that each player can choose two weapons to spawn with, rather than spawning with one start weapon and picking the rest up from the map. This allows players to either permanently use their two favorite guns, select two guns of their choice to use per map / match, or have a random weapon per respawn. This might later allow creating optional player classes, where each player must choose a specific set of weapons tied to a player model.

Obviously I'm going to code this as a mutator, and don't believe such a thing should ever become default in Xonotic. Player classes (similar to those in TF2) are something I considered adding a few years ago however, and this would be even better in my opinion.

But before I even consider coding such a thing, I wish to know if other developers agree to it, so I don't work for nothing (once again). I wish to know what you think of the idea, and if you agree with my approach or instead suggest something different. Should I code this, should I not, or how should I code it?

Idea: My change would be composed of two parts: A new menu (like the one for the Sandbox mutator) and a new server mutator which hopes to rely on existing mutator hooks. The menu will allow players to configure up to 10 or so weapon slots, although the mutator will only allow 2 weapons by default. If weapon pickups are enabled together with this mutator, players will have to press the use key to pick up a weapon instead of automatically getting it when walking over it, and picking up that weapon will cause them to drop the weapon they're currently holding (replaces it).

Alternative (to the menu): Instead of creating a new menu, I could use the existing weapon priority list. For example, if the mutator is configured to allow up to 3 weapons, each player spawns with the first 3 weapons in the gun priority list. Would this be better?

Note 1: Unlike RE, weapon slots and keybinds are not dynamic. So the Laser remains #1, the Shotgun will still be #2, and so on. Still, you can only hold up to X weapons at once, and can define a set of weapons to spawn with... which is the part I'm interested in and good enough for me.

Note 2: Yes... I'm aware that, with the default balance, everyone would use this to get the most powerful weapons only... like the Rocket Launcher and Hagar. This is meant to be used with a special balance, where all weapons are (nearly) as powerful. In other words, the Shotgun does as much damage as the Rocket Launcher, so each of the two is an option and becomes a thing of preference. Of course, changing the balance accordingly is done separately and the server admin's responsibility.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Loadout weapons might be a decent mutator for two players who are new to dueling. However, you already start with two weapons which are already powerful considering what they are. Switching quickly between the two can be powerful and can land easy spawn kills if the player is lucky.

Laser: A fast projectile weapon that has unlimited ammo and can disrupt movement. Its damage is also somewhat decent and allows you to make quick movements around the map.
Shotgun: An easy to hit weapon that does good damage at close range with a powerful secondary melee attack.

Limited weapons doesn't sound like a very good idea at all IMO. Red Eclipse is its own game so I can't comment on how it works in that FPS. But I feel it has no place in Xonotic at all in terms of practicality or even overall enjoyment of the game. How would it work say I have an Electro, Nex and Crylink and I wanted to deny a Rocket Launcher or Grenade Launcher? Would I just pick up the ammo for that weapon or would I have to drop one? It also limits the situations in which you can be effective because you don't have all the appropriate weapons at your disposal.

Overall, just being mutators themselves I don't see a big problem with them being created. I just don't think they would work very well in the game. Limiting weapons or having loadouts won't improve the enjoyment of the game or help newer players get better.

I understand. The idea seemed appealing, as well as more challenging in a good sense. If players could only hold two weapons at once, this would constrain them to think more wisely what guns they pick up from the map and in which areas they keep them. If you aren't familiar with Red Eclipse, Halo (at least the first one way back) did this too... I personally found it fun.

Once more, it would also set a framework for player classes, where each player could specialize in different things. For example, choosing the "Demolition" class would mean you spawn with the Mortar and Rocket Launcher, while choosing the "Assault" class gives you the Nex (sniper) and UZI. Obviously such classes would be configurable via cvars, and a more distant plan... but I feel Xonotic could use a mutator of this sort and it would make for some fun games.

Seeing there might be several pros and cons to this, I might consider coding such a mutator only if it's very easy (since I'm not sure it would get accepted). That way people can try it, and if most find the gameplay annoying we can drop the idea. Being a mutator, people can easily paste the file in their mutators directory and recompile to get it, so even if it's not accepted it can act as a plugin.

Personally I strongly dislike the idea of anything like character classes to be added to Xonotic. Apart from generating yet another layer of balance complexity, the two suggestions transform the gameplay to something I wouldn't find enjoyable:

1) If the weapon slots are limited, you obviously can't pick up everything you find. This requires you to evaluate about a) which weapons you already picked up, b) how much ammo you have for them and c) whether the weapon in front of you would be of more use than one you already have in a specific situation you are anticipating - for which you obviously would have to additionally think about which situation you are likely to engage next. In case you decide to pick up the weapon you would then have to evaluate which of the weapons you would want to drop in exchange. Once you've figured out that, you'd have to switch to that one, drop it so you don't automatically pick it up again and get the replacement weapon.

You probably see what I'm getting at by now - if I were to play with limited slots I'd probably get shot three times while figuring out whether it would be wise to drop something to pick up that weapon. It would for sure add complexity to the gameplay, but I can honestly say that I wouldn't be able (and wouldn't want to) handle such complexity additionally to controlling items, anticipating where opponents are, where they go and what they do next. The gameplay that I particularly like about Xonotic is so astonishingly fast, that most decisions are required to be made instinctively, and I don't believe my instinct can handle this on top of what it already does.

2) Granting choseable starting weapons would mean that you can't control specific items. For example if I'd play duel on stormkeep against Dodger, I'd definitively try to control rocket launcher, since he's really good with that one. Players that have an incredible nex aim would probably head towards nex so I'd try to control that instead. What's the point if everybody already has the weapon he feels most proficient with?

Also, when you're fighting, you'll usually receive damage - if you survive a battle damaged and the opponent respawns with 100h + 2 good weapons you'll be dead in no time. With shotgun / laser you can at least run away from the respawned opponent since both weapons don't really deal much damage on mid to long ranges, but imagine the respawned player has nex and crylink!

Then, you'd require a selection dialog for every match - since the selection of your starting weapons would depend on the map you're playing as obviously not every map features every weapon, and giving people weapons the mapper intentionally left out will most likely ruin gameplay. I have no idea if this is doable easily - I've heard that the menu code is rather restricted in its capabilities.


With that being said, you are of course free to develop what ever mutator you desire - if it is easy to maintain and does not create conflicts with other elements of Xonotic, then I see no reason why I would be against having such a mutator as an additional option. I won't like the gameplay resulting from it, but I also don't have to play it.

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TL;DR: I think it will totally break the gameplay that I love about Xonotic - but having it as an additional option for people that like this sort of gameplay is ok, hence my vote "I don't care".

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I will also vote "I don't care" for this. It could be fun to have the option, but I wouldn't put it front-and-center in the game. It's too whacky.

I would seriously reconsider allowing two distinct sets of weapons to be chosen, though. I think you'd get much more hilarity/fun value out of allowing the players to each agree on a set of weapons that both would use during the match (laser/mortar only matches on Xoylent, anyone?).

Those seem like fine mechanics, but I really don't think that their sole existence means that we should support them. If any feature of this kind requires a complete revision of the balance in order to make it work, I don't think it deserves inclusion in an official release.

If you really want to make something out of that idea, I suggest forking the game altogether. Xonotic should never aim to be everything at once.

EDIT: I guess my point is that you can't call it a "mutator" if it gives you a completely different game in the end.

Well personally i don't think that will be fun for me as described initually but:

Alternative (to the menu): Instead of creating a new menu, I could use the existing weapon priority list. For example, if the mutator is configured to allow up to 3 weapons, each player spawns with the first 3 weapons in the gun priority list. Would this be better?

I would like to choose with which weapon to spawn, but i want to be able to pickup all without limits, i almost always would choose 5, 6, (another at random) with 3 weapons (because i suck at weapons and like area damage) but i want to be able to pickup things to change my weapon when my ammo goes to 0 because that's almost always unavoidable.

Thanks for the feedback. I certainly won't put this high on my list in this case. And will only consider coding it if it's easy enough to do that, since the effort might go down the drain entirely. If I decide to do it, players can try it out on test servers and it can be decided if it should be added by default or simply remain a plugin.

Its an interesting idea, but i dont feel its in-line with vanilla Xonotic's style. I would definitely test a mutator/mod like this though.

@Samual
If you can't be civilized just don't reply. You make the whole Xonotic team look bad with your public tantrums.

Good idea for casual servers, bad idea for duel/pugs.

I would seriously reconsider allowing two distinct sets of weapons to be chosen, though. I think you'd get much more hilarity/fun value out of allowing the players to each agree on a set of weapons that both would use during the match (laser/mortar only matches on Xoylent, anyone?).

This might be cool for duel if there was some way for the players to select the weapon for the next map/match. I guess you could use the Nix mutator and set the time to be say 5 Min if the game time is 10 so the weapons would change twice in the game and if there's over time it would change for the third time.

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You saw something in a different game (RE of all things) and decided you wanted to copy/paste? gj. Look how that turned out for QL - and it'll be even worse here, with weapons balanced situationally so that they are best used as a whole. You'd have to completely butcher the weapon values to make it work and by that time you might as well make a whole overkill-style mod. It would be miles apart from vanilla by that time anyway. waste of time for just a mutator, ridiculously complicated. I don't support this

Look how that turned out for QL - and it'll be even worse here, with weapons balanced situationally so that they are best used as a whole.

QL 2.0 isn't out yet so we don't know how it will turn out?

It may also add more depth to the game because you have to make sure you are only in the situations where your weapons are powerful, which mean you have to think a lot more about positioning and especially moving through the maps. Class-based modes is != no timing, you can still have health items, quad etc.

Not saying it's a good idea, but "situational" weapons is not a good counter-argument imo. Hence TF2 is being super popular and it's class based, NTF mode too in cpm etc. Not to mention all mainstream modern warfare FPSes, though lacking the same amount of situational weapons that arena-shooters has.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

You saw something in a different game (RE of all things) and decided you wanted to copy/paste? gj. Look how that turned out for QL - and it'll be even worse here, with weapons balanced situationally so that they are best used as a whole. You'd have to completely butcher the weapon values to make it work and by that time you might as well make a whole overkill-style mod. It would be miles apart from vanilla by that time anyway. waste of time for just a mutator, ridiculously complicated. I don't support this

Hey, that's what I said!

@machine: I think the argument is that while it works in those games, it doesn't mean that we have to replicate it and reconsider every single balancing aspect of the game in doing so.

What you are saying here is that it works in similar games doesn't mean it will work here. Why is Overkill so popular then? Personally I think Overkill just scratches the surface of what can become very interesting gameplay, I'm not implying we should becuase I rather not fragment the community even more thank you.

Lets just wait till QL 2.0 will arrive and then we can clearly see if it's a good idea or not. (Because it will be easier to messure than the populariy of red eclipse and overkill/ntf)

Public vanilla gameplay is dead. It cannot become any worse than that. On the other hand, simplified gamemodes like overkill or instagib are quite popular. Therefore it is fair to assume that a simplified vanilla mode could be successful too. If loadouts are the best solution for that is a different question, but it should be obvious that the vanilla gameplay in its current state is not suited for today's generation of casual gamers (no one wants to read a 5 pages text tutorial to understand how to play a shooter etc, don't get me started on this). Moreover, loadouts would be a lite version of vanilla while overkill for example is basically a different game. So when it comes to fragmentation of the community, it's not a bad approach.

The main question for me however is, who would actually implement/code it?

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

You saw something in a different game (RE of all things) and decided you wanted to copy/paste? gj. Look how that turned out for QL - and it'll be even worse here, with weapons balanced situationally so that they are best used as a whole. You'd have to completely butcher the weapon values to make it work and by that time you might as well make a whole overkill-style mod. It would be miles apart from vanilla by that time anyway. waste of time for just a mutator, ridiculously complicated. I don't support this

No... I don't want to copy-paste something from a different game for the sake of it. I indeed saw the idea in RE, and the mechanics seemed nice so I considered doing something similar (not identical) in Xonotic as a mutator. This wasn't my only source of inspiration either... I since long had an idea to implement classes similar to Team Fortress 2 for example, which is a common feature in several projects. We could easily say someone copy-pasted the idea of an Onslaught gametype directly from Unreal Tournament, if one seeks to view things from this angle.

It wouldn't be too complicated otherwise. I don't intend to change weapon keybinds / numbers, which are hard-coded and indeed a nightmare to rewrite. My idea was simply to add a weapon carrying limit, and a customizable list of spawn weapons for classes. Customizable start weapons should be very easy to do with mutator hooks, while a hook to replace or ignore a pickup weapon once you already carry more than X guns should also be fairly simple.

Public vanilla gameplay is dead. It cannot become any worse than that.

I find it irritating that I get this most frequently from players that never really cared about public vanilla gameplay. I really do care, and getting "it's dead" from people that don't all the time feels like they would somehow get some sort of satisfaction out of proclaiming it dead. I am aware about the status of public vanilla gameplay, and I try to establish some continuity in vanilla CTF being played every evening CEST on DCC, with moderate success. From my experience one of the bigger problems is that people don't join empty servers. If there are people on a server, other players come and go. We need more people that would take initiative and wait for a while on an empty server, trying to populate it.

no one wants to read a 5 pages text tutorial to understand how to play a shooter etc, don't get me started on this

...I'd be interested (new thread preferrably) in what you'd have to say if you get started on this. I agree that having to read a five pages text tutorial to understand how to play this may scare off newcomers, but then again I get rather frequent positive feedback on public servers about the "Newbie Corner", which is received by those who actually read it very well - and there are, given it IS a text tutorial after all, surprisingly many who do. I'm eager to produce tutorial videos, but I'm just starting to learn that kind of stuff.


Anyway, I'd still oppose limited weapon slots. With the fast gameplay we have, you should be able to react as flexible as possiple to changing situations. Most of Xonotic weapons have specific scenarios in which they are most effective. Limiting the weapon slots means restricting the player's flexibility. I believe it's different if you have slower gameplay, then you can anticipate the situations you are going to encounter better, and "prepare" yourself more tactically. Xonotic gameplay on the other hand is rather dynamic.

I really do care, and getting "it's dead" from people that don't all the time feels like they would somehow get some sort of satisfaction out of proclaiming it dead.

Believe me, it bothers me a lot. And I do not want to argue about this anymore. To make it short, what happened after Gronkh's show alone disproves your hypothesis that "people idling on empty servers is the deciding factor when it comes to increasing Xonotic's playerbase". Regarding the usefulness of your tutorial to attract new players, you make a logical error, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

I suppose you mean those many new players trying out Xonotic once and leaving immediately? If so, yes, I agree that Xonotic does not address the demands of the average casual player. Xonotic is more of a niche product... the problem is, we are kind of stuck in a way - if we move too far away from what vanilla gameplay currently is, we'll probably loose a lot of the barely existing vanilla player base. Being part of that I obviously wouldn't want that to happen... but then again if we don't make vanilla gameplay more attractive, we won't be able to attract a significant amount of players.

However, I don't think making the gameplay significantly slower and more tactical is the way to go, but of course I am biased that way.

Oh, and I didn't mean to imply my tutorial was actually *attracting* new players, but rather allowing those that find vanilla gameplay generally likeable (!) to actually learn to master it. In this sense, it can help *keeping* players that like the apparently unattractive gameplay in the first place.

I think you can create a casual mode with Xonotic feel, I don't think more beginner friednly and still being Xonotic are mutually exclusive.

However, I don't think making the gameplay significantly slower and more tactical is the way to go, but of course I am biased that way.

I don't understand what you mean. Are you referring to loadouts?

In this sense, it can help *keeping* players that like the apparently unattractive gameplay in the first place.

My point was that you only talk to those people who keep playing the game, and not to those who quit. Hence, your personal experience is not a valid representation of reality when it comes to that.

All in all loadouts would not magically bring thousands of new players to Xonotic, but imo it would help to keep them playing. Even though it is only a lite version of Xonotic, some may step up and play the "real" game. And of course, there are many other things that can be done to make the game more accessible and enjoyable to newbies and casuals.

My point was that you only talk to those people who keep playing the game, and not to those who quit. Hence, your personal experience is not a valid representation of reality when it comes to that.

Though I feel tempted to take this general disqualification of my personal experience as an offense, I believe you're trying to make a rather neutral point here in saying that I cannot fully assess the reception of vanilla gameplay from an objective perspective since I only feed on biased information of those that keep playing. This of course is true, and I'm aware I'm biased also in that respect that I really like vanilla gameplay as it is. This however does not make me resistant to logical argumentation

With that being said, I'm not against making Xonotic more newbie friendly or generating yet another "light" version that can form as an access point to current vanilla gameplay. Just how would "loadouts" be able to fulfill that purpose? (That means limited weapon slots, right?) To me it would add yet another level of complexity to the game, actually.

No... I don't want to copy-paste something from a different game for the sake of it.

ok so what are you doing instead eh?

I indeed saw the idea in RE, and the mechanics seemed nice so I considered doing something similar (not identical) in Xonotic as a mutator. This wasn't my only source of inspiration either... I since long had an idea to implement classes similar to Team Fortress 2 for example

...oh. so you are trying to prove that you are not copy/pasting by giving me examples of how you want to copy/paste things.

It wouldn't be too complicated otherwise. I don't intend to change weapon keybinds / numbers, which are hard-coded and indeed a nightmare to rewrite. My idea was simply to add a weapon carrying limit, and a customizable list of spawn weapons for classes. Customizable start weapons should be very easy to do with mutator hooks, while a hook to replace or ignore a pickup weapon once you already carry more than X guns should also be fairly simple.

did you read at all or are aware how weapon balance in xonotic works?