I've been mostly quiet on my UT2007 Opinions after posting my last marathon post about it, but while looking at another topic here again, my mind got going. Once again, like that thread, this started out as a response, but once again outgrew the "response" portion and as such I've made it a topic in and of itself.
Without further ado once more, here we go.
Weapons
Impact Hammer: Good start already. None of this sissy "Pull up the Shield and run away ****" makes this a more offensive-charged game. The trick here is in finding a good use for the Secondary - while it's neat that this could deflect rockets and the like, it wasn't used very much.
Enforcers: Well, these are already Dual Enforcers, which is too bad really, because being able to pick up a second enforcer and go John Woo on everybody was VERY cool. I'd say limit the dual enforcers to 13 damage per gun - making it a effective damage of 26 if both bullets hit. Unless both guns fire at once, like the Ass rifles (Which sucks, by the way) in which case, make it about 20 per hit. Secondary fire, just like UT's. I've won a fair amount of fights against superior-armed opponents by going Gangsta on them, and it also gives you a sidearm that's useful and doesn't suck, though the Ass Rifle is good if you can hit people with Grenades. But that's not most people, now is it?
Shock Rifle: Change the Shock ROF to how it was in UT, about one shot every .75 seconds. Keep the damage at 45. This way, it's still a weapon, still does good damage, but you can't exactly walk around and lay waste with it. It's a suppression weapon, not a primary gun. Then the Shock Core: I'd go with UT99's again here. It was a bit smaller and faster and harder to hit. Right now in 2kx it's almost too easy to do a combo. Combos? That's tough. On one hand, you have UT, where the radius was somewhat small, but if the combo was close to you, you were pretty much done. On the 2kx side, you got a larger combo, but it does less damage and can be somewhat more fair, because they tend not to kill you unless you're weak and/or they're right next to you. This is one area I'd keep the 2kx method of doing.
Link Gun: Primary needs to keep the same ROF, but the damage needs to be reduced. Think of the 99 Pulsegun. It fired fast, it was effective suppressive fire, but it wasn't cheap. As for the Secondary, it really needs to be beefed up a bit. It's almost noneffective on humans, because good ones will dodge, and it won't lock anyone down until they're on the ground, meaning you'd have to track them through the dodge effectively to lock them down. 99's "saw" method should return, but not as long, nor as damaging, I think. Obviously, the function for healing nodes/vehicles/linking should stay.
Stinger: Ahh, the old favorite. Primary Fire, as in Unreal, should be good enough, but possibly make the shards capable of headshots, assuming that a single shard does, say, 12 damage, and a headshot is simply damage*2 (Damage*4 with UDamage), that'd make a headshot with a shard 24 and 48, respectively. (After all, if a piece of glass was fired at your head at high speed, it'd probably kill you, no?) Altfire's going to be tough. Perhaps something like the Ripper in UT99, but it only bounces off walls 2-4x (Random) and then shatters.
Flak Cannon: Either a tighter Spread, or More shards. Keep everything else from 2kx. (35 Ammo, dissipation after 2 bounces)
Rocket Launcher: Now that enforcers are back, Rockets should have the bouncy grenade altfire returned to them. Max of 3 Rockets/3 Grenades loaded at once. Up the ammo to 36 or 42, or possibly 48. Still should be able to cluster rockets/grenades. Make Rockets able to be blown up by nearby heavy fire, like a shock combo or a Goliath Tank Round, like AVRiLs are. MAKE BOTS NOT ABLE TO SPLIT ROCKETS UNLESS HUMANS CAN TOO.
Sniper Rifle: Here's a bitch. You need to make it visible, while still effective and damaging, as well as not cheap. So here's my ideas:
Cannister Gun: This is going to be tough, as we don't know what it looks like and this is all therefore merely conjecture. But here we go.Also, please think of a better name for the gun.
Redeemer: Big boom, big explosion. If you're not in the direct blast area, but are hiding behind a nearby wall or something, perhaps your character should get concussed a bit, like in UC2 from certain weapons. After all... something that big, even if you didn't die, it should mess you up for a bit.
Target Painter: I hope none of these level-specific hazards require you to stand still for two seconds and fire in a certain spot to trigger it. If it does, it'd BETTER be worth it, with some crazy, inventive death sequences for them, or it's simply not going to be used. It's a cool idea, but without cool ways to kill people with it, it's going to be a novelty that nobody will use 3 months later.
Gametypes
DM: Typical stuff. Make it nice, make it varied. Give us some of the old UT feel of run-down industrial stuff PLEASE. Less Egyptian crap.
CTF: Make some maps use Vehicles extensively, some maps use them a bit, and here's the clincher - some maps NOT AT ALL. I know some people who would be saddened if every CTF map used vehicles. I wouldn't, but I can see their position on this.
Unreal Warfare/Conquest: Honestly, I think Conquest is the better name, but you're the boss. Please don't make Conquest just "Onslaught X2." At the same time, don't make it "Assault X2" either. It needs to be a blend of objective taking (AS) with strategic camp placement (ONS) and a little bit of RTS goodness thrown in. If you haven't looked at it yet, take a look at the Siege Mod for some potential ideas. Just don't make it MASSIVELY RTS-based - remember, this is UT; Fast Action, Fast Vehicles, and Badass Weapons that make lots of noise and explosions are the name of the game. Also, make sure that if a team is behind, it's not impossible for them to come back. Which brings me to my next point...
Onslaught: Most of the 2k4 Maps for Onslaught, in terms of being able to come back, SUCK. I play Onslaught competitively, and nearly all of the maps that get played are ones where there's multiple links and the like, or multiple paths to take. A map like ArcticStronghold is just plain ruined if the Redeemer is on, plus once you get all three center nodes, unless you **** up, you've basically won. A map like Dawn, on the other hand, is probably one of the best competitive maps: It takes a lot of work to shut down BOTH of the opposing Team's Primary Nodes, and even then they got a good chance of being able to slap you silly and rebuild. Maps like Dria also work well: It's huge, and even though there's that twin-link to the single node problem, the distance makes up for most of it. (Just don't give them potentially 2 tanks to use against it; that generally sucks and is how Dria tends to turn once a primary goes down.)
On the other hand, however, you've said you can make maps about 3x the size of Dria, which would make that sort of tactic extremely uneffective, as it'd take about 5-8 minutes in and of itself just to get across the map that way - a lot of work for very little payoff. In short, keep the smaller maps more like Dawn, where a team is usually never completely out of the running, and make the larger maps more like Dria, with lots of links and extremely large sizes.
Other Modes: MAKE JAILBREAK A STOCK GAMETYPE. It deserves it. Seriously.
And that draws this post to a close. Like before, your ideas, opinions, and feedback are appreciated.
Without further ado once more, here we go.
Weapons
Impact Hammer: Good start already. None of this sissy "Pull up the Shield and run away ****" makes this a more offensive-charged game. The trick here is in finding a good use for the Secondary - while it's neat that this could deflect rockets and the like, it wasn't used very much.
Enforcers: Well, these are already Dual Enforcers, which is too bad really, because being able to pick up a second enforcer and go John Woo on everybody was VERY cool. I'd say limit the dual enforcers to 13 damage per gun - making it a effective damage of 26 if both bullets hit. Unless both guns fire at once, like the Ass rifles (Which sucks, by the way) in which case, make it about 20 per hit. Secondary fire, just like UT's. I've won a fair amount of fights against superior-armed opponents by going Gangsta on them, and it also gives you a sidearm that's useful and doesn't suck, though the Ass Rifle is good if you can hit people with Grenades. But that's not most people, now is it?
Shock Rifle: Change the Shock ROF to how it was in UT, about one shot every .75 seconds. Keep the damage at 45. This way, it's still a weapon, still does good damage, but you can't exactly walk around and lay waste with it. It's a suppression weapon, not a primary gun. Then the Shock Core: I'd go with UT99's again here. It was a bit smaller and faster and harder to hit. Right now in 2kx it's almost too easy to do a combo. Combos? That's tough. On one hand, you have UT, where the radius was somewhat small, but if the combo was close to you, you were pretty much done. On the 2kx side, you got a larger combo, but it does less damage and can be somewhat more fair, because they tend not to kill you unless you're weak and/or they're right next to you. This is one area I'd keep the 2kx method of doing.
Link Gun: Primary needs to keep the same ROF, but the damage needs to be reduced. Think of the 99 Pulsegun. It fired fast, it was effective suppressive fire, but it wasn't cheap. As for the Secondary, it really needs to be beefed up a bit. It's almost noneffective on humans, because good ones will dodge, and it won't lock anyone down until they're on the ground, meaning you'd have to track them through the dodge effectively to lock them down. 99's "saw" method should return, but not as long, nor as damaging, I think. Obviously, the function for healing nodes/vehicles/linking should stay.
Stinger: Ahh, the old favorite. Primary Fire, as in Unreal, should be good enough, but possibly make the shards capable of headshots, assuming that a single shard does, say, 12 damage, and a headshot is simply damage*2 (Damage*4 with UDamage), that'd make a headshot with a shard 24 and 48, respectively. (After all, if a piece of glass was fired at your head at high speed, it'd probably kill you, no?) Altfire's going to be tough. Perhaps something like the Ripper in UT99, but it only bounces off walls 2-4x (Random) and then shatters.
Flak Cannon: Either a tighter Spread, or More shards. Keep everything else from 2kx. (35 Ammo, dissipation after 2 bounces)
Rocket Launcher: Now that enforcers are back, Rockets should have the bouncy grenade altfire returned to them. Max of 3 Rockets/3 Grenades loaded at once. Up the ammo to 36 or 42, or possibly 48. Still should be able to cluster rockets/grenades. Make Rockets able to be blown up by nearby heavy fire, like a shock combo or a Goliath Tank Round, like AVRiLs are. MAKE BOTS NOT ABLE TO SPLIT ROCKETS UNLESS HUMANS CAN TOO.
Sniper Rifle: Here's a bitch. You need to make it visible, while still effective and damaging, as well as not cheap. So here's my ideas:
- The bullet trail needs to be considerably bright or noticeable, even from a distance. 2k4's is a little quick and hard to catch.
- The gun needs to be LOUD; think of a crack of thunder. Noise will encourage a wanna-be sniper to move, otherwise he'll get killed after sitting in one spot too long.
- Headshots need to be more effective. This "Hit the Neckbone when the model is halfway through whatever animation is playing" crap sucks; because you get a lot of shots that SHOULD be headshots not hitting. Make the whole head the target.
- Make the gun somewhat less accurate if it's not in a prone/crouched position?
Cannister Gun: This is going to be tough, as we don't know what it looks like and this is all therefore merely conjecture. But here we go.
- Primary Fire shoots the weapon; Altfire selects between Cannisters of Ammo (Like Unreal II's Grenade Launcher.)
- For Bio: Holding Fire loads the gun Chamber with Tarydium Sludge; releasing fires.
- For Spidermines: Holding fire triggers the painter that moves the mines manually. Please allow LESS mines out; 4-6 would be good and effective without being crazy.
- For Grenades: Holding fire detonates.
Redeemer: Big boom, big explosion. If you're not in the direct blast area, but are hiding behind a nearby wall or something, perhaps your character should get concussed a bit, like in UC2 from certain weapons. After all... something that big, even if you didn't die, it should mess you up for a bit.
Target Painter: I hope none of these level-specific hazards require you to stand still for two seconds and fire in a certain spot to trigger it. If it does, it'd BETTER be worth it, with some crazy, inventive death sequences for them, or it's simply not going to be used. It's a cool idea, but without cool ways to kill people with it, it's going to be a novelty that nobody will use 3 months later.
Gametypes
DM: Typical stuff. Make it nice, make it varied. Give us some of the old UT feel of run-down industrial stuff PLEASE. Less Egyptian crap.
CTF: Make some maps use Vehicles extensively, some maps use them a bit, and here's the clincher - some maps NOT AT ALL. I know some people who would be saddened if every CTF map used vehicles. I wouldn't, but I can see their position on this.
Unreal Warfare/Conquest: Honestly, I think Conquest is the better name, but you're the boss. Please don't make Conquest just "Onslaught X2." At the same time, don't make it "Assault X2" either. It needs to be a blend of objective taking (AS) with strategic camp placement (ONS) and a little bit of RTS goodness thrown in. If you haven't looked at it yet, take a look at the Siege Mod for some potential ideas. Just don't make it MASSIVELY RTS-based - remember, this is UT; Fast Action, Fast Vehicles, and Badass Weapons that make lots of noise and explosions are the name of the game. Also, make sure that if a team is behind, it's not impossible for them to come back. Which brings me to my next point...
Onslaught: Most of the 2k4 Maps for Onslaught, in terms of being able to come back, SUCK. I play Onslaught competitively, and nearly all of the maps that get played are ones where there's multiple links and the like, or multiple paths to take. A map like ArcticStronghold is just plain ruined if the Redeemer is on, plus once you get all three center nodes, unless you **** up, you've basically won. A map like Dawn, on the other hand, is probably one of the best competitive maps: It takes a lot of work to shut down BOTH of the opposing Team's Primary Nodes, and even then they got a good chance of being able to slap you silly and rebuild. Maps like Dria also work well: It's huge, and even though there's that twin-link to the single node problem, the distance makes up for most of it. (Just don't give them potentially 2 tanks to use against it; that generally sucks and is how Dria tends to turn once a primary goes down.)
On the other hand, however, you've said you can make maps about 3x the size of Dria, which would make that sort of tactic extremely uneffective, as it'd take about 5-8 minutes in and of itself just to get across the map that way - a lot of work for very little payoff. In short, keep the smaller maps more like Dawn, where a team is usually never completely out of the running, and make the larger maps more like Dria, with lots of links and extremely large sizes.
Other Modes: MAKE JAILBREAK A STOCK GAMETYPE. It deserves it. Seriously.
And that draws this post to a close. Like before, your ideas, opinions, and feedback are appreciated.