Sir_Brizz: Yeah, for add stacking or in relation to the concept above of having “mini shield belts”, for example.
Lets call this slow stacking.
TLDR; It takes longer/is time consuming to build/maintain stack and makes out of control stacking to reduce stack differential via pickups rather than just damage an option. It restricts the in control players time, movement and opportunity to pressure the out of control player while giving them a way to stack to challenge the in control player.
It depends how the armor system is setup. To simplify pretend we transplant the ql stacking armor (only armor) with the current ut values, everything 30s spawn, max 200, belt becomes 60% (or whatever , no shards, no mega, nothing else. Obtain two pads and have 100 armor. Obtain 2 jackets and have 200 armor. Obtain a jacket and pads and have 150 armor. Obtain 4 pads for 200. Etc.
Slow stacking/non-binary duel is about time management. Control and stack comes at the cost of having time to push the out of control player and out of control costs more time to build a stack that can be used for a direct confrontation.
Player stacks and actions are controlled by time – in order to service a large stack and heavy denial a player should have little opportunity to pressure their opponent. At the same time the out of control player has freedom of movement at the expense of stack. This also ties to their aggression as a failed attack, even without dying costs them the next X period of restacking time.
In my opinion control should not mean one player has all resources and the other has none, which is typically how ut armor/duel works. Control should mean that a player has a resource advantage, at the expense of time and predictability. This resource advantage should not be permanent (provided items are collected) and by giving the out of control player a method of stacking that allows the resource difference (stack differential) to be equalised they have a method of contesting control that does not rely on execution – with ut damage this would always be an option anyway. The in control player must use the advantage in the window it takes out of control to stack to an amount in order to challenge them – the in control player must take the out of control players potential stack into account.
There are other repercussions – +forward is slightly more favorable before critical mass is reached as players take longer to stack. There are more opportunities to control players stack when contesting pickups. This means if three items are run by the in control player, the out of control player can apply some damage at each pickup, negating the pickup the player is currently taking. It has a potential to introduce a “balanced” state where players trade damage and pickups for longer periods than with the current setup, even after one dies.
To highlight the difference using the current ut4 duel – if a player has control (jacket + belt) they can ignore the pads. They are a one time boost to the out of control player that is small compared to belt, they can still be one shot with current damage values. If pads stacked the in control player has to make a choice – spend more time denying the pads or deal with the other player having 100+ armor at some point in the future 30-60 seconds. This is actually why this change alone would not fix duel – in control player would just move pads higher up their priority list and take three items instead. Some claim that this is required currently, some not, however allowing stacking would make it a serious consideration.
The easiest way to balance duel is by looking at it as time management which can be spent on different aspects. This change is more about providing options to out of control.
Watch the first map in the video below. See how Dahang ends up with heavy control yet cannot push onto Cyhper, in large part because doing so would allow items to spawn which he could potentially miss. Notice that while Cypher is under pressure it is not the same as +forward pressure you might expect and he has a decent amount of freedom to move around.
nvz: YOU SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GET FULL STACK IN DUEL WHILE PICKING UP SHIELD BELT. NEVER. NEVER EVER EVER IN AN ARENA SHOOTER.
Why not. Seems fine if the whole system is designed that way. See CPMA and Quakeworld, they work fine. Problem with ut is the player with belt gets full stack, control of it and probably control of jacket, especially if they have recently killed the other player. If they other player has died or taken damage they get.. pads? Or they get to contest jacket/belt with no stack. If they want more stack they have to get the helmet. In essence they have to do more work for much less and spend more time. It is ass about. In addition allowing the out of control player to get the pads (currently) is generally ok because they are a small, one time only boost – you can still oneshot or almost one shot the player wearing them.
nvz: With that being said, I can still gain an armor stack by collecting 2 thighpads and a helmet, accumulating to 80 armor points.
UT3 stacking worked that way? Maybe just your wording makes it sound that way.
Anyway – I like the stacking idea but dislike the values, or dislike the values in traditional ut “only include one pickup of an armor per map”. For several reasons.
1) If stacking same items was allowed the pads instantly become more important to the out of control player, meaning the in control player can shift them into a pickup cycle easily. This means the out of control player has.. helmet. Not reasonable. Even average QL players will run mega + 2 armors easily. In control players will be able to run belt/jacket/pads. The outcome is possibly worse than the current setup – out of control has a helmet to stack on. 40 armor per ~minute from two helmet pickups? Even keeping the current values in ut4 duel and enabling stacking has the same problem – in control adds pads as an important item to deny, denies it and out of control is left with virtually nothing at all.
Adding a +health pickup outside of vials would possibly alleviate this to a degree as it would probably be more “important” than pads.
2) Because of ut strong weapon damage the small armor values suggested alone (20/30) offer marginal protection. This means that two pickups are required to be “combat ready” compared to current (single pad pickup) if you do not want to play “get weapon +attack” style of game. Where as the belt or jacket offer plenty enough to survive one shotting. A further nerf to out of control play.
3) Ties into 2. 80 armor for two spawns (30+20, 30) is paltry for the amount of time spent.
The values themselves are relatively unimportant to the armor system. The better way to look at is how long both players take to stack, how survivable players are, how the armors can be controlled and what each player can do at different points in time.
Simply enabling stacking will help to a degree.
Dr.ToxicVenom: The better player will get the shield belt 9 times out of 10 anyway, so why not worry more about balance and leveling the playing field for the losing player?
Does anyone have a better solution to the issue with the shield belt being broken/overpowered?
Add meaningful out of control stacking allowing the out of control player to reduce stack differential without damage allowing them to then challenge for larger items. This has the added benefit of forcing the in control player to take the out of control players stack into consideration more rather than just playing belt+jacket. This spreads importance across more items, adds more options for both players and overall creates a more dynamic game – it allows a player to have as a similar amount of effective health without taking the belt, the cost being time spent doing it.
Alternatively disallow pickups of lower value armor items when stronger armors are equipped. This means a player cannot deny jacket while wearing full belt, they need to take damage or self damage to deny. This helps lower stack differential as the non-belt player either has access to the jacket or the belt player takes the jacket after damaging themselves. Belt spawn could also be lowered at the same time, forcing the belt player to revisit it more often. Sound strange? CPMA and Quakeworld use a similar system. The obvious reply to this is that it removes strategy/skill as the belted player cannot deny the jacket. I would argue that it creates a potentially deeper item game by virtue of having to play around the jacket, being aware of your opponents location and yours in relation to the jacket.
Those are just two ways you could give out of control players an easier time, which seems to be what you are after. All the traditional +damage methods that ut has always had still apply as well! 🙂
TheWhiteDragon: But for hand holding I’d point to the shock. It’s not immediately apparent that the mechanic is there, but the mechanic itself is intuitive. The first time it gets used on you, you know how to use it.
100% disagree that it is intuitive.It does not need fixing or explanation but it doesn’t work the way you think it does. Something that is less complicated and intuitive is pickups – you need them to perform better and they respawn after a certain time period. Yet pie charts are being added to pickups? How is the shock more intuitive than pickups?!
Being in favor of pickup times BUT saying the shock is intuitive is ass about. Both or neither.
To get a better view we just need to look at unreal and by extension ut99.
I played unreal once at a LAN shortly after it was released. I followed its development for a while prior to release and recalled a mention of the combo functionality. We played unreal quite a bit that weekend but I was the only one using combos in any way. Obviously this is much too small of a sample for any sort of meaningful analysis..
Fast forward to ut99. In the au/nz scene there was a small sub-group of players who played unreal online. These players were aware of combos and utilised them heavily because they rocked. csm and suicidal and two names that stand out from early days.
Few players shock whored at the start – even being aware of it I stuck to flak and rockets initially before building proficiency and worked shock into my hpb repertoire. I proceeded to stomp FFAs for months with it. Very few picked it up. Or very few compared to how many I, and the other shock users killed with it.
Even getting towards late 2001 players did not heavily use it. There were some, and it was more than at the beginning for sure, but if its “intuitive when its used against you” there should have been large numbers of players using it. From the beginning.
It is not intuitive. It is cool but its not something you can just go “oh that guy is doing X, I will too”.
You are right about saw on pulse too – it is not intuitive. Likewise centerview with rifle in ut99. Likewise rightclick on the rocket launcher. I don’t think they should be changed.
These are “knowledge” things – look at items and heroes in lol or dota. Think of weapon use as items and character abilities in these games. There are many, many options in those games yet players there are not complaining. These are currently some of the most popular games today and a large part of the “skill” is item / matchup knowledge. ut is simple in comparison, 10 guns. In fact it could be said that ut should be made more complicated in a “knowledge” perspective since “knowing” something can quite often translate to more depth.. blah blah blah.
The impact secondary was addressed in the ut99 “manual”. It was still useless back then. While I am not a fan of the 2kx shield gun (in fact I hate it) a “parry” feature would be cool. However with weapon switch times the impact hammer is not really a good candidate for this.
While I agree that things should be somewhat self explanatory having things that are not instantly knowable is not a bad thing.
I think the line should be drawn like this – If a new player picks up a ut4 weapon can they kill other players with it in a manner in-line to other weapons in a given niche? If the answer is yes then it is fine.
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Flikswich: between the “oomph” that ut guns are known for and the balance that a game like quake has.
No version of quake is super balanced really. From the outside looking in they are, but when you consider that ql duel is essentially played with three weapons, its hard to say that the others are “balanced” – At least not from a damage output or even usage perspective which is generally the catch call for balancing the rocket/flak in ut. For other gametypes with weaponstay turned off (TDM) shotgun and plasma are probably more interesting but when you look at ut gametypes and weaponstay it poses the same problem as ql duel, especially when mappers lean towards including all weapons. If the ql weapons were transplanted into ut gametypes with weaponstay on and added to levels the way they generally are in ut-land rl/lg/rail would be dominant still. Maybe a starting point before going down the arduous road of creating this weapon replacement mutator is to put forth what players see different weapons doing while keeping in mind how they were used in previous iterations. The biggest issue facing ut4 weapons is double up of fire modes and trying to make them unique. See: pulse pull. homing bio weirdness.
Looking for Fortnite Double Pump help?
And even the ql community has cried blue murder over 7-7-7 lg for years, 80 dmg rail (previously 100)
quake2 has tiered setup which is interesting but hard to implement in ut as there are fans of every weapon and noone wants their fav gun relegated to the crap pile of the lower tier? Again this is not-balanced but it works well.
quakeworld has the most unbalanced weapons in the history of fps (maybe), no matter what players say about toxikk or ut4 rl, the qw rl blows it away. But this works really well. At least for TDM.
At the end of the day it comes down to what an individual player considers balanced.
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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)
-AEnubis-: Not really sure I follow. If you have double the effective hit points, and weapons are balanced, being aggressive, I should need to land double the shots. Basically, have twice the aim.
Part of the problem is the weapon potential burst vs player stack in ut.
In ql burst is very controlled compared to ut. Uninterrupted plasma from close range (20dmg 100ms refire). Direct rockets (100dmg). Full shotgun hit (110 all pellets). LG ambush (6dmg 100ms refire). Keep in mind plasma/lg can be dodged after the attack commences and less than the damage of a rocket may hit. Landing 5 plasma balls puts it on par with a single rocket. Rail is not listed as it is significantly less and you cannot ambush at close range then push the fight due to reload.
These are weapons players can use to equalise stack vs an in control player. In a 200/200 vs 100/150 secnario any of these put the down player on a much more even footing. ~170/130 vs 100/150. The absolute maximum a player can give from an ambush before their opponent realises is around 25-35% of maximum stack. 35% being plasma at close range which is not a common occurrence. In ut top end burst is high in comparison. Full flak, multiple rockets (traditionally, not currently), combos, charged bio, headshots. All these options remove 100% of a belt. Even flak alt in its current state does 100-190 damage. Not as reliable but the potential is there.
Taking this further, these weapons remove more than just the belt. A player with belt can be left with no armor and sub 50 health.
You don’t have to hit twice the shots, you need to deal twice the damage, which in ut terms can occur in a single hit.
The high burst nature of the ut weapons is fun and is partially why weapon balance and the armor system are less important than in quakelive. However it does change the above aspect of the game. If double the effective hit points meant double the shots landed I would agree. However it does not and has never meant that in ut terms.
In duel a player in control (100/belt) being ambushed by these burst weapons will be on an even footing after one hit of the higher damage weapons.
Entropy Remember that the Announcers are about relaying important game feedback, not just filling your speakers with bass, so they need to be clear, concise, and inspiring. 🙂
Out of the samples posted here there is a single important piece of game feedback. Lead taken. Possibly denied but it depends how/what that is used for. Flag cap denied? There will probably already be flag dropped announcements and possibly flag returned? Quad denied? Meh. Not disagreeing that they should be clear, concise and (probably most importantly for the majority of voice overs) inspiring – just that they are not critical to the game.
Unless players think that displaying godlike as text and audio is super important. In fact it argued that spree rewards detract from important aspects of the game, especially in team games (play the objective) and cause players to concentrate on not dying rather than the flag.
Does the game itself become less if streak announcements were removed? Not really. Does it become less if streaks themselves are removed? Not really. They are essentially cosmetic but cause players to play differently, probably at the detriment of their team in team games.
TimEh: But at the same time I feel that it should be the same movement that the game has. So the movements learned in SPEED can be applied to the game.
This is not really the case in the other games – defrag specifically comes to mind. While the movement basics are the same as you say, a player never needs them to the same level when actually playing. Learning to half beat strafe is useless when playing normally. It might give you a small benefit in a few very niche situations but over all it is not important. Plasma climbing is useful in game occasionally but it is to the tune of 2-4 plasma balls, not hundreds without self damage to accelerate the player to high speed. Two grenades + three rockets + plasma.. never, ever occurs in game but is in defrag.
There is a level that is considered “good” enough after two strage jumps. I don’t recall the exact number – ~700ups? in two jumps? Whatever the number was it is not huge and fairly easily obtainable. The measure would be bridge to rail or perhaps single jump RA on aerowalk. The one aspect is strafe pads, but these are only useful to lane 3?
The quake community recognises this – they don’t play defrag to get better at quake, in general they play defrag to play defrag. If adding movement mechanics or your suggestion of modifying the base (removal of dodge cooldown/ continuous wall dodge etc) gives a better experience for speed while keeping the theme of the game and adding more depth then it could only be a good thing.
I realise this is somewhat at a tangent to what you are saying (don’t add extra stuff to speed because it is then not the game) but the “stuff” that is in defrag is not really core to quake either. The quake stuff simply scales beyond the base gameplay requirements much better, which the ut movement does not do at all.
This is also not to say that you should add strafejumping or bunnyhopping, your examples of continuous wall dodge and removal of dodge cool downs would go a long way to spicing it up.
Its a bit of a pickle you have.
If dual enforcers are strong then two players together with enforces are strong, except it takes two players coordinating and playing together rather than just dropping the weapon*
Hijacking this thread because relevant.
Throw weapon should be disabled in TDM. Quite often cited as a way to “improve teamwork” I will argue it manages to achieve the inverse – less teamwork or team centric thinking is required. throwweapon gives players a team oriented ability, this in an of itself does not increase teamwork.
Consider the following:
With throwing enabled
1) Pickup a weapon
2) Optional : Communicate you have a weapon available
3) Dropping weapon when a weaponless teammate is nearby
With throwing disabled
1) See weapon available – decide you do not want it
2) Relay this information to the team
3) Guard/wait for team mate, ensure enemy players do not ninja it.
4) Optional : Take weapon even if not required because of enemy pressure / other items spawning needing your attention (can’t leave a weapon lying around)
5) Team mate arrives, takes weapon. yay
2 could be considered optional the same way communicating you have a weapon available for dropping in the first scenario. However this does not make a great deal of sense as the player at the weapon could be waiting a completely unknown duration.
This scenario plays out when a player already has a specific weapon and does not need more ammo. This means it would rarely occur and when it does it is not overly important.
Even at this cursory glance level there is more communication and “teamwork” involved when throwweapon is disabled.
Removing throwweapon also involves deeper thought/planning on a per weapon pickup basis. Do I really want to take that weapon? What do my team mates have? Could someone else utilise it better than me? Where are my team mates (will waiting for another player take us out of the game too long?) These decisions need to be made when the weapon is still on its spawn plate or from when an enemy/teamate is killed and drops a gun. Some of these decisions are the same when the player has the weapon with weapondrop on, however they are made when the player carrying the weapon sees other players – and by and large occur organically rather than the forced model of no weapondrop.
Removing throwweapon also allows weaker teams to punish teams with individually stronger players via more efficient denial. If an enemy player is a beast with weaponX in order to deny with traditional throwweapon on the weapon must be denied every single pickup otherwise the opposing team can simply give it to the better player. With throwweapon disabled players only need to deny to the specific player that wants it.
On the flip side the team with the beasty weaponX player can make it a priority for the team to make aggressive moves onto the weapon so the weaponX player can take it.
This becomes more interesting at a lower level with uneven teams where it may be a case of one player being significantly better than his three team mates. With throwweapon enabled this player can simply be fed weapons by his team mates. With it disabled they have to go around taking weapons together.
Of course the obvious work around is killing ones self to drop the weapon, however this is a “cost” and would not always be a good solution unless the player is naked with that weapon alone.
And because thinking about this would not be worth all that much without an existing example we can look at Quakeworld. The original TDM game that works with 1-2 “strong” ut4 weapons per map on longer than UT spawns. And it works perfectly without drop weapon. Of course there are differences faster quad/armor, backpacks and much slower team weapon stacking come to mind – but it still plays perfectly fine.
*Coming full circle. If two enforcers are considered strong then two fresh spawns playing together will be strong. In a team game this makes sense for players to play together. There is much more teamplay involved in playing together in this way than the weaker aimer dropping their spawn weapon for the stronger aimer.
Unreal GladiatorBy guarding a weapon you are likely hurting your team by not getting frags thus allowing the other team to get ahead, you are also abandoning your team to fight a man short, and you make yourself an easier target potentially feeding the other team and signaling to them that a weapon is available near your. If they frag you they then get 2 guns rather than one.[/QUOTE]
Time is currency in duel and to a lesser extent TDM. In duel your stack and level of control should be dictated by how much free time you have available to pressure the out of control player… which is not relevant right now. This is not really how ut4 duel currently works.
In TDM with no drop weapon you would be trading your time (and possible kills) for the present (you weapon – team mate no weapon) while guarding a weapon for the potential of increased kills in the future (you weapon – team mate weapon). Working out if you need to stay, team mates communicating when they need guns, communicating that there is a weapon available, team mate responding and so on are all important aspects here. All of these leverage aspects of team play more than the simple act of giving the other player a gun^.
More decisions and trade offs are good.
With current dynamics the team may be “down” a man but the game overall would play differently and this as a result what you say would probably not be the case.
Your downsides are aspects players need to deal with in order to get team mates weapons. They don’t sound insurmountable, or even unusual. Don’t die, don’t make a sitting duck of yourself. Situational awareness and common sense that players should apply most times during play.
dropweapon/nodropweapon isn’t better or worse, simply different. dropweapon has always been pushed as a feature that improves teamwork, but in reality I don’t feel it promotes playing as a team all that much. It does promote giving things to your team mates, but as for playing together it does nothing. My initial post exists because I doubt there will be a thread about dropweapon + TDM at any point and this looked like a good candidate for slotting it in.
^To take this point a little further. Irregardless of drop weapon or not, if two players meet and then play together team play is occurring. It does not matter if a player drops a weapon or not as you are still playing together assisting each other. This idea and decisions surrounding it is what teamplay is at its core. The simple act of dropping a gun? Not teamplay. The dropping of medpacks in other games? Not team play. The player with the enforcer should probably play near the other team mate anyway, regardless of what is dropped for them.
*this makes TDM sound very +forward and cessy as it implies that players must always be pressuring the opposing team. I don’t think that is a completely accurate representation of how any iteration of ut has played.
Of course you have this option. Two players can play together with enforcers. Double firepower? Check. Teammate interaction? Check, to a much higher degree than simply dropping it for someone else 🙂
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