Does the Link Beam belong in UT outside ONS?

Gnam · Jun 29, 2013

I'd like to hear opinions from long time Unreal players. Nostalgia aside, is there any point to bringing back the Link Beam in future UT games, except to use as a repair tool in objective games?

IMO, given the complex and unique skill-based nature of all the other attack types in the Unreal series, the Link Beam just doesn't measure up. I have never cared much for Quake's Lightning Gun either. Why are we taking a full-auto hitscan weapon, and granting it ridiculous damage, no spread, no warmup or cooldown, plus lockdown and a margin of error where the beam curves to hit enemies when you miss? Yes, the range spontaneously drops off after a short distance, but is that really an interesting way to balance a weapon?

I think the Stinger primary is salvageable; take the damage down to 9-10, and with the warmup and cooldown, combined with the spread, it's balanced and does what its supposed to. But I really feel like for TDM and Duel the Link Beam is just a waste of space, there are plenty of other interesting things which could be put in that slot. After the horror which was UT2kx's lame over-emphasis of hitscan, we really don't need extra no-skill OP'ed hitscan attacks in the game.

Arnox · Jun 29, 2013

The Pulse Gun was alright in UT but it did need a buff. Same as the Link Gun except the Link Gun needs it more. When I play UT2004 with any of the default weapons now, they're all buffed, some more, some less, to be completely balanced with each other now. Each weapon can now be used equally effectively.

For example, the AVRiL didn't do nearly enough damage to justify its horrible fire rate and the speed and blast radius of the projectile. I kept everything but now instead of the piddly 90 damage or something that it would do, I buffed it to 1,000, effectively making it an instant kill. This makes it the go-to weapon for vehicle issues now more than ever. However, you'll still be hard pressed to get a kill with it if you tried to use it on the more unpredictable on-foot players.

Gnam · Jun 30, 2013

Well, the main area the Pulse/Link Gun has always needed a buff is in the projectile speed of the primary fire. Any projectile attack in a deathmatch FPS, if it's not going to have splash damage, needs to be about twice the speed of a rocket...otherwise you can't actually hit the enemy enough times to kill. This is why the Plasma Gun in Q3 has always felt pretty effective, whereas the Pulse/Link primary fire has always been more of a last ditch resort.

The Link plasma bolt does eventually accelerate to the right speed, but by the time it does, it's too late. It'd be better off with a flat speed that's already much faster than a rocket from the get-go.

That being said, the Stinger alt fire could accomplish everything the Link Gun primary fire already does. I'd rather the Stinger alt-fire just become the go-to rapid fire projectile, with ~180 damage per second and double rocket speed. Then replace the Link Gun in DM/TDM with a rebalanced version of the Ripper. Since both fire modes of the Ripper have an impact effect which increases the likelyhood of a hit, they stand a much better chance of staying useful with a low velocity.

Wail of Suicide · Jun 30, 2013

Arnox said:
The Pulse Gun was alright in UT but it did need a buff. Same as the Link Gun except the Link Gun needs it more. When I play UT2004 with any of the default weapons now, they're all buffed, some more, some less, to be completely balanced with each other now. Each weapon can now be used equally effectively.

For example, the AVRiL didn't do nearly enough damage to justify its horrible fire rate and the speed and blast radius of the projectile. I kept everything but now instead of the piddly 90 damage or something that it would do, I buffed it to 1,000, effectively making it an instant kill. This makes it the go-to weapon for vehicle issues now more than ever. However, you'll still be hard pressed to get a kill with it if you tried to use it on the more unpredictable on-foot players.

1000 damage AVRiL sounds like an awful idea considering how easy it is to use the AVRiL, especially if you prefire it then lock on. At that point you may as well remove all the vehicles other than the Manta because they will instantly die anyway.

Gnam said:
I'd like to hear opinions from long time Unreal players. Nostalgia aside, is there any point to bringing back the Link Beam in future UT games, except to use as a repair tool in objective games?

IMO, given the complex and unique skill-based nature of all the other attack types in the Unreal series, the Link Beam just doesn't measure up. I have never cared much for Quake's Lightning Gun either. Why are we taking a full-auto hitscan weapon, and granting it ridiculous damage, no spread, no warmup or cooldown, plus lockdown and a margin of error where the beam curves to hit enemies when you miss? Yes, the range spontaneously drops off after a short distance, but is that really an interesting way to balance a weapon?

I think the Stinger primary is salvageable; take the damage down to 9-10, and with the warmup and cooldown, combined with the spread, it's balanced and does what its supposed to. But I really feel like for TDM and Duel the Link Beam is just a waste of space, there are plenty of other interesting things which could be put in that slot. After the horror which was UT2kx's lame over-emphasis of hitscan, we really don't need extra no-skill OP'ed hitscan attacks in the game.

To answer the initial question here, sure, I don't see why it doesn't belong in UT. The Linking functionality is mostly useful in Onslaught/VCTF, but it's pretty unique overall. In Assault it allows players to attack certain objectives with a strategy other than, "Everyone bumrush the OBJ." And even though it isn't a 'core' gamemode, linking allows for actual teamplay in Invasion, so it's valuable there as well.

Some of the behaviors may not be typically ideal for what you'd want in UT, then then what are you planning to replace them with?

Arnox · Jun 30, 2013

Wail of Suicide said:
1000 damage AVRiL sounds like an awful idea considering how easy it is to use the AVRiL, especially if you prefire it then lock on. At that point you may as well remove all the vehicles other than the Manta because they will instantly die anyway.

Well, the original reason for why I massively buffed the damage on the AVRiL is so it would now be at least a half-way viable weapon to use against on-foot personnel. I succeeded but that buff came with a price. As you say, it is now REALLY OP'd against vehicles. It's like the Spartan Laser. You wouldn't want to use it normally in a gunfight but if you are and you're lucky/skilled enough to hit a player with the beam, I believe your efforts should be rewarded.

What I could do is decrease the damage greatly and increase any of the other attributes to make up for the lost effectiveness the nerf would have against on-foot but I didn't want to just make another Rocket Launcher in doing so. I wanted it to be the RL's older brother, so to speak and it can't be that if acts more or less the same.

Also, vehicles still definitely have a use and one of them is quick transportation which, obviously, in a fast-paced game of ONS is still greatly needed. Simply hop in a vehicle, go to your destination, hop out quickly. Also, with flying vehicles like the Raptor, you can still use them to get a good vantage point for sniping. The SPMA is also still effective at raining down destruction from a safe location. But of course, that's assuming that that location is safe. :\ Yeah, I will agree that some vehicles are now out of the question like the Goliath but this way, no longer are on-foot players almost helpless against one or two vehicles and I'd rather have that than the slew of vehicles rampaging around the map, unchecked and unchallenged.

Wail of Suicide · Jul 1, 2013

Arnox said:
Well, the original reason for why I massively buffed the damage on the AVRiL is so it would now be at least a half-way viable weapon to use against on-foot personnel. I succeeded but that buff came with a price. As you say, it is now REALLY OP'd against vehicles. It's like the Spartan Laser. You wouldn't want to use it normally in a gunfight but if you are and you're lucky/skilled enough to hit a player with the beam, I believe your efforts should be rewarded.

The Avril is pretty powerful against players just by default -- And it's very easy to increase the damage against foot players without making it ridiculous against vehicles...

Gnam · Jul 1, 2013

Wail of Suicide said:
Some of the behaviors may not be typically ideal for what you'd want in UT, then then what are you planning to replace them with?

I really think the best solution would be to transfer the role of the current Link primary fire to the Stinger alt fire, and then replace the Linkgun with a new Ripper on all DM maps, as well as maybe CTF.

Basically, there's just been a ton of redundancy with the way these weapons have been implemented. The Stinger was basically the best possible replacement for both the Link Gun and Minigun, because we never needed 3 hitscan full-auto modes. Keeping the Linkgun in UT3, as both weapons were implemented, was also pretty redundant because the Link primary and Stinger alt are so similar...whats the point in having two rapid fire projectiles if they're going to travel at very similar speeds and neither is going to have any special property on impact like splash, ricochet, headshot, etc?

I made a mutator which speeds up the Link primary fire to exactly twice the speed of a rocket, so it's very much like the Q3 plasmagun and pretty useful. Then the stinger alt fire travels the same speed as a Rocket, with the same damage rate (~125dps) with a decent amount of splash damage. Thus you have 2 very different speeds, but both are useful and effective in their own way.

This works nicely, but the Link beam is still pretty redundant, and the Ripper would allow for even more variety in rapid fire projectile functions. The Stinger alt fire could take on the role of my current Link primary, the Ripper alt would take on the role of my current Stinger alt, and we'd have one mode left over that gives you ricochets with headshots and accuracy beyond that offered by the flak primary.

IMO, this is what UT's all about - interesting (and balanced) scifi projectile attacks. Hitscan has its place, but we already have the Enforcer, Shock primary, Stinger primary, and Sniper Rifle...there's basically nothing left you can do with hitscans in UT that hasn't already been done, and we saw more than enough hitscan dominance in UT2kX. The Link Gun would be fine as a "tool" for ONS and Assault similar to CTF's translocator, especially if the projectile speed was bumped up to around 3-4x rocket speed with 83-125 dps, giving you a little more range for those large maps than offered by the Stinger or Ripper. But for all other modes, the Link Gun is just redundant.

UBerserker · Jul 1, 2013

Pulse Gun was one of my favourite weapons in UT1 (in MP), it's really fun killing people with an Amped Beam.
If anything they need to get the Ripper back but with the features of the Razorjack instead of the dumbed-down version (will probably never work but at least it's not another explosive-based firemode).

TWD · Jul 1, 2013

Link gun parties in Geothermal were the best

N1ghtmare · Jul 1, 2013

It was pretty balanced in UT3. At close ranges landing the primary was always ideal, only 4-5 hits to kill a player. Took much longer even with perfect accuracy to kill with secondary.

hal · Jul 1, 2013

I've seen it used to great effect so, yes, it does belong in other game modes.

Also, I have fond memories of the old "vandalizing tour": Infinite Decals mod and Link Gun alt.

Gnam · Jul 2, 2013

hal said:
I've seen it used to great effect so, yes, it does belong in other game modes.

Well that's part of my point; why should a hitscan full-auto weapon be that effective? Since it hits ~22 times per second and requires no lead, it's the easiest weapon in the game to use, so why should it also deal some of the highest damage?

N1ghtmare said:
It was pretty balanced in UT3. At close ranges landing the primary was always ideal, only 4-5 hits to kill a player. Took much longer even with perfect accuracy to kill with secondary.

I would agree that this is how the two modes should be balanced, but in practice, I feel that the link primary's close range preferability is debatable. Against predictable opponents at favorable pings, the link primary consistently kills faster. Against more unpredictable opponents and at more varied pings, suddenly hitting successfully with the slow-moving bolts, even at close range, is iffy enough that eliminating the chance to miss is far preferable, and the only time the primary fire is worth using is when the beam won't reach far enough.

Now a lot of this is down to relatively minor tweaks. IMO the primary fire should be a bit faster and he secondary should do a bit less damage, but regardless, whether the link secondary comes out a bit more powerful or a bit less powerful, what are we left with in the end? It's basically just the minigun primary with a range cutoff instead of spread. Is that really a wortwhile enough difference to justify inclusion?

Arnox · Jul 2, 2013

Wail of Suicide said:
The Avril is pretty powerful against players just by default

Are you kidding me? Even if you somehow managed to smack someone with the splash damage, and may I remind you that players don't exactly like to stand still for you, it still wouldn't be nearly enough to kill him in one shot and with that massively long reload time, you'll be completely open. You might as well just whip anything else out and shoot him FFS.

ambershee · Jul 2, 2013

That's kind of the point.

Nevertheless, a direct hit is usually a kill.

Gnam · Jul 2, 2013

IMO the Avril could be a little more like the Halo rocket launcher - with a much larger blast radius than UT's ordinary RL and capable of taking out a group of people at once - but, due to the limited ammo, it's discouraged from using it for anything other than anti-vehicular purposes unless the situation really warrants it.

In fact, you could probably combine the Redeemer and Avril into one weapon with a Halo-sized blast radius. This would make the Redeemer not such a joke for serious DM/TDM matches, entail a little more continuity between DM and ONS, and allow you to choose between automatically homing in on the aerial vehicles, or piloting them in by hand - introducing some nice potential mind games against the pilot. It could also probably be used against ground vehicles without relying so much on the homing, which would make things less mindless and more interesting compared to the original Avril.

I wouldn't normally recommend any aspect of Halo being brought to UT, but for anti-vehicular purposes, that bast radius is a good size.

Arnox · Jul 2, 2013

ambershee said:
a direct hit is usually a kill.

Projectile moves too slow for any decent chance of that.

Gnam said:
IMO the Avril could be a little more like the Halo rocket launcher - with a much larger blast radius than UT's ordinary RL and capable of taking out a group of people at once - but, due to the limited ammo, it's discouraged from using it for anything other than anti-vehicular purposes unless the situation really warrants it.

What you're proposing is a good idea with the set weapons on a map but this, personally, wouldn't work for me as I like to run Ballistic Loadout to choose any UT2004 weapon except obviously the Ion Painter, Target Painter, and Redeemer. Then run Advanced Regeneration for infinite ammo.

Loadout Group 1 (Utility Guns):
AVRiL
Link Gun
Shield Gun

Loadout Group 2 (Anti-Personnel Guns):
Assault Rifle
Bio Rifle
Shock Rifle
Mingun
Flak Cannon
Rocket Launcher
Lightning Gun
Sniper Rifle
Grenade Launcher
Mine Layer

As you can see in Loadout Group 1, if this were an ONS match, players would choose between the Link Gun for faster node taking, the AVRiL for obvious offensive purposes, or the Shield Gun to block almost every gun in Loadout Group 2. (Also, please remember that I buffed and rebalanced every weapon and thus, every weapon is now a good and viable choice.)

ambershee · Jul 3, 2013

Arnox said:
Projectile moves too slow for any decent chance of that.

It's no more difficult to use than the Shield Gun or Impact Hammer in that respect.

Arnox · Jul 3, 2013

ambershee said:
It's no more difficult to use than the Shield Gun or Impact Hammer in that respect.

If you're getting that close to someone to get a direct hit, one should just pull out their Shield Gun anyway. It'd be faster.

Veggie_D · Jul 3, 2013

The ideal Link Beam:

Actually links to teammates, as in UT2004
Heals teammates, slowly, ~10hp/s, who are not firing a weapon
Amps/berserks teammate weapons other than Link Gun, albeit to lesser effect (~1.25x)
- includes Impact Hammer and Translocator
Conveys effects of linker's powerups to linkee:
- Replicates udamage, berserk, invis, invuln, etc.
- Extends shield belt of linker to linkee
- Boosts das boots
- If the linker dies while in the act of poweruplinking a teammate, the teammate keeps the powerups, and no pickups are dropped
Disables enemies' dodging, as it always has
Inflicts less damage, ~10hp/s, on enemy players
Locks onto enemy players, albeit with less margin-of-error than for teammates/vehicles/objectives
Exerts attractor force on locked enemy player
Lock is broken when linker takes >0hp damage
Locks onto both enemy and friendly vehicles
Exerts attractor force on the linker when locked onto any vehicle (i.e. grapple/tow) or teammate
- For vehicle-linker who is PHYS_Falling and in close proximity to world geometry, adds small acceleration force in direction of the surface normal (i.e. induced hover, and "air cushion" to protect against reckless taxi drivers)
- Conveys these effects to back-linking teammates chained behind the vehicle-linker
Reduces ammo consumption rate inversely to the number of participating linkers
- e.g. in a four-player "Y" formation, containing a head, primary central linker, and two secondary back-linkers — there are 3 networked linkers, who each consume link ammo at 1/3 the normal rate

With a teammate, exploit 5,6,7,8 to tag-team an enemy ("Hold still!")
Exploit 9,10,11 to emulate hoverboard-towing, sans hoverboard, with optional chaining and crack-the-whip super-flings
Bonus: Have Link plasma projectiles "stick" to world geometry for a few seconds before disappearing, and allow these to act as grapple targets for Link beam, allowing players to wage a comic hero war on gravity

So yes, imaginary Epic people who are certainly listening and working on this future game that definitely totally exists, keep the Link beams, in all game-types, but go to town with the thing — it's sitting on a buttload of untapped potential.

Does the Link Beam belong in UT outside ONS?

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