Adrenaline in UT2007, Yay or Nay?

I think pickups are worse then adrenaline personally. Both are blatent positive feedback loops. I do like the lack of predictability of adren though. If you wanted to lean more towards pickups for it, I'd rather just see big pills on the bases, so that when you got enough adren for a "power up" you got to choose which one you wanted, or choose not to burn it at all. Only being able to use one at a time would as well help the huge stacking that can happen.

Only problem would be how maps are authored sometimes around items, and what items are where make a huge difference.

It might aslo make it more interesting if adren was given as much or more, for damage recieved, as opposed to given. Or even making it more damage based, then kill based would help. In situations where you are out armored, and can do more damage then you can recieve, then you should get more adrenaline. Thus mildly countering armor's effects.

Adrenaline, never liked it. One of the main reasons I stopped playing UT2003.

What's not a postitive feedback loop? LoL fight for a pickup that deducts health from you. :/

100 and 50 work real well, actually. The 100 area in most maps makes the 100 retrieving player very vulnerable to almost any weapon attack from the other player. The person going for the 100 automatically has a disadvantage, because of his/her positioning. If the other player can't exploit the other person's vulnerability when getting the 100, then that person can't compete with other player anywhere else on the map, usually. When the one player gets the 100 the other player if not ready to face off can take the 50 and surrounding vials, usually. Pickups make people have to play the entire map and move around. A game without area specific benefits that can be consumed and replenish predictably, doesn't force players to move around. Pickups cause flow and it's just not a game of who can stay on upper-ground and shoot the other person the most.

Weapon pickups can be more attributed to a positive feedback loop rather than shield. ut2004 is a game where every hitpoint counts. If players are on the same level in the beginning of a 1v1 and both players duke it out for the 100. Whoever tears through the other the fastest gets the frag. But if the player that got fragged didn't do any damage then he not only got fragged, but owned, aswell. And inorder to regain control, he has to own the other person. But in most cases the person that got fragged didn't get owned and did a significant amount of damage to the other person. So the hp comparison would be like fragger 30 health 100 shield --- fragee 100 health. Once the fragger gets a nick in his armor, his effective armor with 30 health, lessens even more than the damage done. And the freshly spawned fragee probably has a spawn around the 50 so he can grab the 50 and whatever weapon is around the 50 and if he is fast enough he can ambush the fragger going for health, unless it's a map where health packs aren't very spread out like in roughinery there are 3 areas with 50 pts worth of healthpacks. ut2004 is very territorial.

It's not about unleashing your frag powers and being super aggressive, except maybe ctf and ONS. But when playing at an experienced level with other experienced players, you can't be an unyielding force in ut2004, not because pickups, but because of the movement system, maps, and projectile weapons.

Relics owned in UT99. Nonetheless I'd like to see Epic use regular pickups again. Look at quake 3: off the top of my head I can name seven powerups, excluding regular health/shield (haste, invis, quad damage, medkit, regeneration, personal teleporter, battle suit). I much prefer the powerups in quake 3 than in UT2004. There are plenty of powerups to keep it balanced without being overkill. Ideally I'd like to see Epic use UT99's powerup system as a base, then convert the relics to pickups. That would be my ideal powerup system.

Captain Off Topic.

A lot of Q3's health and armor powerups were also balanced by a much smaller total HP limit and tick down. With that as well, I'd totally agree with you, Raffi. I think I've just conceded to the fact that Epic probably isn't going to adopt that concept (tick down of over health and armor) for the sake of not taking the idea directly from another game.

Not a positive feed back loop would be not having pickups at all, and weapon stay on, or simply spawning with all the weapons. EG, I designed to have minimal, positive feedback loops, yet posses no negative feedback loops. The game doesn't have to have a negative feedback loop (like TAM), nor to do I expect Epic to run head first in that direction. That isn't really what this thread is about though, I was just using that as a basis for my opinion. Actually, I think that concept will remain a "mutator" for a long time.

I'd just like to see a gradual move towards less positive feedback in TDM. The way adreneline is currently handled is yet another one. I also don't feel anything should have to "force" anyone to do anything in this game, but that is another subject.

HA.....I just thought of an interesting "MUTATOR" for UT2007. Every character selects one powerup at the beginning of the round, no 2 players can have the same powerup, this means that there needs to be 32 fair powerups. Under this mutator's effect there are no pickups except for guns, all status changing pickups are chosen at the beginning of the game and stay with every character. Kind of like a more lenient super amplified species statistics.

^ Sounds retarded.

Back on topic, adrenaline sucks. The only gametype it could have been most useful and not overpowering in (ONS) had it disabled. Good job, DE.

Why not have adrenaline building up for everyone at the same rate and not as a reward?
(e.g. 100/2mins).

If it is like that I say yes, otherwise I say yes but do it like I say

Having the possibility of going invisible using a simple combo is just plain lame in DM, and especially in iDM. I wouldn't use it.

I just hope that, if anything gets implemented, it will be a mutator only. Like the relics.

// Azura :
if it's lame and it works ... it aint that lame
// ---

I like Adrenaline as a concept. It gave players the choice to pick the kind of extra power they could use, instead of being stuck with picking 'invisibility' at location X.

It needs at least three things :
- no more key-combo's ...
They limit the maximum amount of powers available, they make it difficult to add a 3rd-party mutator) and the learning curve is too steep for the reward they offer.
UC2's menu-like system is probably the way to go.

- a way to turn it into a weapon for everyone instead of a feature for 'the best'
Perhaps inverting it's rewards (ie : give adrenaline to those at the lower section of the scoreboard) could help close the gap.

- a way to limit adrenaline-powers by map & gametype
The speed-power is the most obvious example. In small maps speed is too much an advantage, while in large maps it is (almost) useless.

Nay!

Adrenaline is like the Species Statistics mutator, it imbalances the game. I bet if Species Statistics mutator was on by default with the retail game then atleast half the servers would turn it off, especially every competitive server.

UT and UC are 2 different things lets keep it that way!

Invisible people breaking through walls, with dust flying everywhere, drawing their impact hammers, and *fussjjjhhhh* *SPLAAAT* *fussssjjhhh* *bloood*? Yay!

No adren. I'll explain tomorrow when I'm less tired and have more free time.

JaFO said:

// Azura :
if it's lame and it works ... it aint that lame
// ---

Click to expand...

Well, if an average player can get a wicked sick in idm in this way, I'd have to say that it gives way more advantage then the other combos.

I voted no. I don't see a point in it and would much prefer pick-ups.
Certainly wouldn't want to see adrenaline pills in ONS or CON although I think pick-ups would work nicely. Not that many ONS maps use the amp, yet the ones that do have well placed amps (Crossfire, Torlan, RedPlanet) can have a real effect, especially against vehicles.

I vote to bring back a new set of relics. Just think while playing conquest you could explore an alien ruin and discover and alien relic of power. That would be sweet esp with UT2007's graphics. I just hope we get an ammo regeneration relic .

Neophoenix's idea sounds intereresting, making the relics map/enviroment specific


As for adrenaline only bring it back if they can integrate it better into the gameplay