Unreal Tournament 4 1v1 Impact of Switch Speed

Flikswich: That point is also where you can lose an entire full stack within the time taken to switch to a viable weapon and thus have 0 chance to actually do anything to someone who hid behind a corner and jumped you 😐

Not sure if you are over simplifying with the “hid behind a corner” example or not. So here we go 😀

With the ttk/damage output and amount of stack available this has always a possibility in ut. In all previous titles some weapons damage output was enough to “loose an entire stack*” to a player who lands one shot. With the ut armor system this needs to be at least partially possible as the out of control player can easily end up in a situation where they have nothing and the in control player has belt + jacket. This is how ut duel works and why max stack is quite often the topic of “how to balance duel” rather than more in depth discussion about armor/health. Its always been that way, even if posters do not realise why they are looking at max stack^. This damage output is also why pads alone are a poor substitute for jacket/belt and are of questionable use. The player with pads is still not able to take a fight without being one shot, and if they are not one shot they are so low they can be finished very easily.

By describing this as a function of weapon switch time rather than ttk you are missing the point. Even if a player was able to swap quickly – lets take the example all the way and say the game has instant switch like quakeworld, they will be unable to answer the attack before their stack is gone simply because of how high the burst potential is. Reaction time + aiming + other factors will render your stack mostly gone when you switch. Thus switch speed is not really relevant because the front load potential is so high that the player is stackless before they can react.

This is not to say that ut4 weapon switch time should be adjusted, I think it should. I just don’t think it will help in the situations you are describing much at all while preserving some semblance of out of control play. The main reason out of control works is because of the front load potential.

*Where stack is belt or jacket.

^Taking this into the quake realm we have a game where the player not in control has an option to build stack then take a fight. 100-150 armor (2ya+shards)


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