Weapon balance

[bananaface]

This was a long time coming thread for me and I've thought about it for a long while but here it is.

This game is well known for multiple things, one of the major things it's known for is for its really good weapon balance.
Now due to several things the balance is rather off on this server so I'd like to point out the problems and give possible fixes.


I'll start of with a simple and easy fix that would massively increase the balance of a few weapons.
Remove reflecting monsters.
Shock rifle and link gun are already weaker then other weapons even against non reflecting monsters, so reflecting monsters is just another slap in the face for those that use this weapon or prefer to use it.


The biggest problem with weapon balance is Vorpal.
So the question is, will monsters stay balanced around having vorpal or will be vorpal be a small bonus to a weapon?
Balanced around having it as in, monsters with really high health that take ages to kill so that you in practise NEED vorpal.
Small bonus as in, monsters not having absurd healthpools or those that do can't be vorp'd so that the more squishier mobs have a chance to be vorp'd giving you a chance to get a slightly faster kill on them.
Not balancing monsters around vorpal would fix a lot of balance issues and would be a quick and easy fix.
But if you'd still like to have monsters balanced around vorpal here are a few things.

Everybody knows that weapons with a high vorp chance are the mini, flak, link (alt fire), mp5 and shotty.
So you'll have to either bring other weapons up to par with these weapons or nerf these weapons to the level of the other weapons.

You can give a different proc chance for each weapon/firemode if that is possible. Minigun has a low proc rate because of its fast fire rate and a shock rifle mainfire has a high proc chance because of its slow singletarget fire.

If that is not possible or another option, reduce the amount of projectiles from certain weapons or reduce their default fire rate or make them unaffected by weapon speed.

Another option is to introduce powerups for the weapons that lack vorp chance that would enhance their chance to proc vorpal.
Some examples in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4261


Another point of discussion is summonable/special weapons.
I think summonable weapons should feel special and usefull but not overpowered either.
If you get a grenade launcher or avril or another useless weapon from a summon it's such a waste.
Remove these crappy weapons from the summon table and you'll make a lot of people happy.

I haven't had much chance to test a lot of the new weapons so I'll do that later but, all these weapons should be roughly equilly as powerfull and an equill chance to be summoned.
Right now on 179 with a summon there is about a 50% chance you get a shotty for some reason, wich is also the most powerfull weapon in the game by miles after a wand.
Shotty on it's own should be rebalanced and not have such a high proc chance and so many projectiles that heals you for so much.

Wand and SSR removed from crate and summon.
Wand should be a superspecial weapon only obtainable with the 4 letters, SSR is just to similair to the wand and both can not be balanced to be of roughly equill power to the other summonable/crate weapons.

[Mobster]

I agree with limiting the routes to get Magic Wands, and SSR.

As you know by now the current plan is to get v180 out as soon as possible.
Then part of the new plan is to start balancing weapons in v181+.

Also the initial (not completely thought out) plan was to make all the starting weapons have the same stat line, so no basic weapon is better than another.
Then to balance all of the weapon projectile modifier power ups (Yes the least used ones too), and special weapons (The weapons you get in weapons crates and summons.) Not to include Super Weapons (Nukes, Wands, Instas)
So that way it really is dependent on how you build your weapon after that, no matter the weapon.

I remember Paintball saying something along the lines of this would be the easier and faster route to do it. Rather than spending so many months (hopefully not years) in code on weapon balancing.

All information said above is subject to change though.

[bananaface]

I agree with limiting the routes to get Magic Wands, and SSR.

As you know by now the current plan is to get v180 out as soon as possible.
Then part of the new plan is to start balancing weapons in v181+.

Also the initial (not completely thought out) plan was to make all the starting weapons have the same stat line, so no basic weapon is better than another.
Then to balance all of the weapon projectile modifier power ups (Yes the least used ones too), and special weapons (The weapons you get in weapons crates and summons.) Not to include Super Weapons (Nukes, Wands, Instas)
So that way it really is dependent on how you build your weapon after that, no matter the weapon.

I remember Paintball saying something along the lines of this would be the easier and faster route to do it. Rather than spending so many months (hopefully not years) in code on weapon balancing.

All information said above is subject to change though.

Yeah this post was intended for 181

Starting weapons having the same stat lines is only part of the problem, like said in the post vorpal is a big influence on what kind of weapon people chose because of how important it is to have it at this moment.

[Amy Infless]

180, 181, 180, 181...

weapon balance or not. i will say it the hard way like it is still for some players at 180dev atm:
a handfull new players and still some who are now "higher leveld" than me (doesnt mean higher experienced..) take it for
guaranteed that official 180 release will give them same "powerfull" weapons, same overflooding pu-droppings and same fast level-ups and same easy monster killing ability.

so, some players found a way what weps used to be best even in official 180 release. you will see them raising up
again to become lvl 300 in no time. depending on how long you need to "balance" weapons so its ok for everyone having
nearly same powerfull weapons, no matter what weapon it is, it turns useless when you need a year or longer for that
cause the same will happen what we have now on 179: only players who play with phised flaks 10 ext. and noone wants
to try out "new" weapons after a year playing with "the best weapon" (phished flak 10 ext...)...

if you say you need 1 month to balance, fine, the faster the better. if it really would "only" need one month, scratch 180, i would like to wait this month and release 181 !

btw, if you plan to make every basic weapon (bio, shock, link, mini...) same powerfull.. i think its not really good idea.
i would make weapons have different features then, like if you fight against reflecting monsters, you need to use a "bullet" wweapon, if you fight against strong monsters you need to use "beamweapons" to hurt them, even when its "Only" a shockrifle, but that way you would come closer to joeys idea, needing more different weapons instead of only one weapon
to be able to kill ALL monsters....
i mean, that blue flying monster for example, looking a bit ghostlike and you can see through (sort of a gasbag?) from its design it makes no sense using a bullet on it...

dragons as well, knowing they have "bulletproof" skin, only sharpend special swords from some magic smiths can cut it...
ok we have no "cutting" weps (yet) except for the cutter rifle, but thats only in crate or summonable. maybe the classic ut99 reaper. oh wait, we have chainsaw, yeah, give chainsaw flying ability so we can fly and have fights in the air with dragons


ats

[Mobster]

Reason people are leveling like crazy is cause we turned the Invasion Spree mutator back on. It is still configured for the v179 server so that is why when you get a ton of holy shit kills you gain levels to fast.

We are toning the invasion spree craziness down, and we are still going to go thru and making the monsters harder in the code and through other means. Don't forget the levels will be reset on release too.

__________________

With the way Joey works it wouldn't just be 1 month extra. We all want to get this patch out sooner rather than later.
Once that happens we get a fresh slate to start work on 181+, which is how Joey and even Paintball want to move forward with this.

Also you may be wondering what the + indicates. Well the plan (last I knew) after 180 is to start doing a series of small patches, they would have a set amount of goals to get done in each one that would be released like any other games patches that are released monthly or quarterly. This was Joeyz idea, so he isn't bogged down with huge patches to complete. And it was supported by Paint and I.

[bananaface]

Part of weapon balance aswell is to look at the weapon specific PU's, wich are overpowered and wich are underpowered.
But setting the base stats on the same line by itself would come a long way aswell since each weapon by default acts very differently and is better then another depending on the situation.
Like a regular flak/link/rl/bio are horrible for long range while other weapons like lg/sniper/shock are really great for long range. Just for an example.
Biggest issue with flak atm is the blast cannon PU, yes I love it but it pretty much totally removes the regular flaks disadvantage when combined with f5 or superforce, making it a great close and long range weapon.
But those weapon specific pu's is something you should look at after you put the regular fire modes in line with each other.

The close range weapons have a huge advantage now due to naturally having more projectiles in most cases or splash damage but have their disadvantages nullified mainly due to force5 and superforce or weapon specific PU's, while the long range weapons haven't gained anything to improve their close range capabilities and their long range attacks have fallen behind the improved close ranged weapons.

To comment on Mobster.
I agree going with smaller patches/hotfixes would make life a lot easier for both the developers and the players and is a good way to go and leave the major features for big patches.

[bananaface]

Just to give an example how grossly underpowered some weapons are.
Medic gun does about 5x more damage compared to a fully decked out p10 shock rifle (5xD1 D5 2xProp Turbo) and thats not even against a reflecting monster.
Not even exegurating, timed it on the same monsters with a stopwatch and a 100% hit ratio.

[Amy Infless]

179 or 180? what "medic wep"?

[bananaface]

179 or 180? what "medic wep"?

180 from the medic class, xm-8 or w/e it's called (the gun wich aim is off for some reason, have to aim higher ).