Major UT3 Update Details

[Miker]

First post on BU, been following this site ever since I picked up UT99 GOTY over half a decade ago. Though I was impressed with UT3's beta demo, I passed because I didn't think I wanted to pay $50 for it at the time, and then as the months went on it was clear that the game had too many issues. When I heard about the patch a week back I ordered UT3 for $15 and now I can't wait for it to get here so I can activate it on Steam and start fragging like the good ol' days. I just hope that I'm just one of many new players that will play UT3 after the release of this patch and the coming expansion. Epic definitely needs to get on re-releasing UT3 and stirring up some hype for it.

 

[Lethargy]

So I guess it's not an exploit after all, eh?

Yeah, that's quite interesting. Wonder how this will be explained away.

It appears that they are in fact drastically changing the way weapon pickups work, and in an interestingly innovative way. It seems that Weaponstay On will now represent a kind of hybrid experience, where each individual will receive their own respawn time for each weapon, as with the weapon lockers. What this means is that if you pick up the shock rifle, even though others will still see it and be able to pick it up, you won't until its respawn time (27.5 sec) is up, but now you can pick up a second one at that time for more ammo. On top of being an interesting design decision which allows the personal benefit (ammo abundance) of map control without denial to opponents/teammates, this solves the issue of weapon tossing being possibly considered an exploit because you can't just keep picking the same weapon up and throwing it to refill from the same spawn. This is, if I'm understanding it correctly, one of the changes with which I am most impressed.

 

[Kharnellius]

It appears that they are in fact drastically changing the way weapon pickups work, and in an interestingly innovative way. It seems that Weaponstay On will now represent a kind of hybrid experience, where each individual will receive their own respawn time for each weapon, as with the weapon lockers. What this means is that if you pick up the shock rifle, even though others will still see it and be able to pick it up, you won't until its respawn time (27.5 sec) is up, but now you can pick up a second one at that time for more ammo. On top of being an interesting design decision which allows the personal benefit (ammo abundance) of map control without denial to opponents/teammates, this solves the issue of weapon tossing being possibly considered an exploit because you can't just keep picking the same weapon up and throwing it to refill from the same spawn. This is, if I'm understanding it correctly, one of the changes with which I am most impressed.

Exactly what I had said (but probably not worded as well). I completely agree and think it is an excellent idea!

 

[Lethargy]

Long thread >.<

 

[Deapblade]

HOLY****

HELL FROZE OVER!!!

WHY???

 

[Dark Pulse]

It appears that they are in fact drastically changing the way weapon pickups work, and in an interestingly innovative way. It seems that Weaponstay On will now represent a kind of hybrid experience, where each individual will receive their own respawn time for each weapon, as with the weapon lockers. What this means is that if you pick up the shock rifle, even though others will still see it and be able to pick it up, you won't until its respawn time (27.5 sec) is up, but now you can pick up a second one at that time for more ammo. On top of being an interesting design decision which allows the personal benefit (ammo abundance) of map control without denial to opponents/teammates, this solves the issue of weapon tossing being possibly considered an exploit because you can't just keep picking the same weapon up and throwing it to refill from the same spawn. This is, if I'm understanding it correctly, one of the changes with which I am most impressed.

Actually, if memory serves correctly, in 2k4 if you picked up a weapon, tossed it, then got a new one from the spawn, you couldn't pick up the one you tossed.

Still... interesting idea, nonetheless.

 

[Lethargy]

Actually, if memory serves correctly, in 2k4 if you picked up a weapon, tossed it, then got a new one from the spawn, you couldn't pick up the one you tossed.

Still... interesting idea, nonetheless.

You couldn't pick up the one you tossed, but you most definitely could still pick up the spawning one. IE - stay at shock rifle for a coupe seconds and pick it up, spam off 3 combos, toss it before you run out of ammo, pick up a new one with a full 20 ammo, and continue. You could also toss out your near empty weapon whenever you passed its spawn for a nice shiny new one, this was more legitimate as it merely allowed you to pick up a weapon when you passed its spawn after circling the map etc. In the new model, you'll pick up the shock rifle and then the one that spawns will just be gone for you, as with WS off. It prevents the former situation while allowing the latter, as well as tossing to teammates.

 

[Wail of Suicide]

You couldn't pick up the one you tossed, but you most definitely could still pick up the spawning one. IE - stay at shock rifle for a coupe seconds and pick it up, spam off 3 combos, toss it before you run out of ammo, pick up a new one with a full 20 ammo, and continue. You could also toss out your near empty weapon whenever you passed its spawn for a nice shiny new one, this was more legitimate as it merely allowed you to pick up a weapon when you passed its spawn after circling the map etc. In the new model, you'll pick up the shock rifle and then the one that spawns will just be gone for you, as with WS off. It prevents the former situation while allowing the latter, as well as tossing to teammates.

Thing is - The behavior of allowing a person to toss a nearly empty weapon in order to gain up to the base amount of ammo for the weapon was not problematic in the vast majority of circumstances. The rationale we were given for why the WeaponThrow/WeaponStay combination was disallowed before was that this encouraged camping - The reality [IMO] was that this behavior only encourages camping in a 1% fringe case scenario (e.g. Avril placement in VCTF-Suspense), and in the vast majority of cases it merely allows players to have the minimum base ammo and move on (that is, it discourages camping in objective-based, rather than frag-based, gametypes).

As I said before, I think the new paradigm is a definite improvement over what we've got now with UT3. But I think we should also have the old behavior (WeaponThrow/WeaponStay). WeaponThrow/WeaponStay has been in Unreal for ten years, I don't see any legitimate reason why that option should not continue to exist for people who want to play with those settings.

Aside: Should ammo pickups be given the new WeaponLocker like illusory weapon functionality? I can't see any reason why they shouldn't aside from the fact that the current maps weren't designed with that in mind (but they weren't designed with the new weapon functionality in mind either...).

 

[Lethargy]

Aside: Should ammo pickups be given the new WeaponLocker like illusory weapon functionality? I can't see any reason why they shouldn't aside from the fact that the current maps weren't designed with that in mind (but they weren't designed with the new weapon functionality in mind either...).

Probably not, there's never been an "Ammostay" mode. Honestly, I like the new system, it doesn't feel like a step back and it seems like something different which is nice once in a while. Also, you're right. Tossing your weapon mostly wasn't an exploit, but it was in some cases exploitable. Not to the extent that it was gamebreaking in any way mind you, but it could be exploited. In the worst case scenario, barring the "camping" description which really isn't feasible in UT (I don't play vehakls) what would happen was it would shift the balance in DM/CTF by allowing an individual to have a virtually limitless supply of ammo while in sufficiently close proximity to the weapon spawn. In practice this would yield situations like the following: You run to the rocket spawn, and it up, no ammo pickups are available so you only get the base ammo. Suddenly, 3 opponents descend on you while you're still near the spawn. You manage to kill all 3 without losing much ground as they aren't particularly skilled, but it costs you 8 shots. You are now nearly empty on rockets. Now, under ideal (read: intended) conditions you would go off and find more rocket ammo, or get another weapon and use that, etc. Your choice to stay and fight the three opponents without retreating would have gained you three kills but lost you some ammo and a bit of health. However, with the previous weaponstay+tossing system, you simply toss away the rocket launcher for a brand new and fully stocked one before moving on. Scenarios of this nature happened a tremendous amount in 2k4, and allowed people who were quick on the draw and able to toss and pick up quickly to not have to worry too much about ammo in general, giving them a leg up on people who did not practice this technique and allowing them to rage WS on FFA pubs even more easily than they otherwise might. Honestly I think that's fine, it's no different than dodging (previously dodge jumping), strafe aiming, awareness, or map control. It's a key skill that takes time to learn and ultimately leads to personal gain and betterment, but the problem is that the devs simply do not want this particular element to be present in the game, and that's their decision. I have no quarrel with the new instancing like system, except maybe that it will be harder to gauge an opponent's direction and motivation because you won't know what weapons are available to them.

 

[Wail of Suicide]

Probably not, there's never been an "Ammostay" mode. Honestly, I like the new system, it doesn't feel like a step back and it seems like something different which is nice once in a while. Also, you're right. Tossing your weapon mostly wasn't an exploit, but it was in some cases exploitable. Not to the extent that it was gamebreaking in any way mind you, but it could be exploited. In the worst case scenario, barring the "camping" description which really isn't feasible in UT (I don't play vehakls) what would happen was it would shift the balance in DM/CTF by allowing an individual to have a virtually limitless supply of ammo while in sufficiently close proximity to the weapon spawn. In practice this would yield situations like the following: You run to the rocket spawn, and it up, no ammo pickups are available so you only get the base ammo. Suddenly, 3 opponents descend on you while you're still near the spawn. You manage to kill all 3 without losing much ground as they aren't particularly skilled, but it costs you 8 shots. You are now nearly empty on rockets. Now, under ideal (read: intended) conditions you would go off and find more rocket ammo, or get another weapon and use that, etc. Your choice to stay and fight the three opponents without retreating would have gained you three kills but lost you some ammo and a bit of health. However, with the previous weaponstay+tossing system, you simply toss away the rocket launcher for a brand new and fully stocked one before moving on. Scenarios of this nature happened a tremendous amount in 2k4, and allowed people who were quick on the draw and able to toss and pick up quickly to not have to worry too much about ammo in general, giving them a leg up on people who did not practice this technique and allowing them to rage WS on FFA pubs even more easily than they otherwise might. Honestly I think that's fine, it's no different than dodging (previously dodge jumping), strafe aiming, awareness, or map control. It's a key skill that takes time to learn and ultimately leads to personal gain and betterment, but the problem is that the devs simply do not want this particular element to be present in the game, and that's their decision. I have no quarrel with the new instancing like system, except maybe that it will be harder to gauge an opponent's direction and motivation because you won't know what weapons are available to them.

IMO - You could get rid of the whole "toss the weapon" bit and just make weapon pickups restore your ammo to the base amount by running over them. This removes the "only skilled players know how to do it" part.

In fact, the two CTF levels I made/converted for UT3 all used a custom weapon locker actor that I created instead of the default weapon factory actor. This allowed me to get the "WeaponThrow/WeaponStay" functionality back into the game without the hassle of a mutator. My weapon locker actually did enforce a minimum time before you could pick up the weapon again (IIRC I set it to 5 seconds, although it could be configured to any value), but this was implemented more as a way to prevent message spam (Shock Rifle x15!) than anything else.

Adding a player configurable option for "respawn" (maybe it should be called "decloaking" now?) time might be the ideal solution. Weapon factories with the default time set could be adjusted - On a pickup-by-pickup basis mappers could adjust the time so it is not default (e.g. Suspense Avril, enforce a minimum 30s "cloak" time).

 

[Dark Pulse]

Well, one thing this will do is make maps with the AVRiL more viable automatically. Even if there's no ammo in the map, you can be pretty safely assured that you can pick it up again in 30 seconds or so.

 

[Wail of Suicide]

Well, one thing this will do is make maps with the AVRiL more viable automatically. Even if there's no ammo in the map, you can be pretty safely assured that you can pick it up again in 30 seconds or so.

Indeed, and about time.
One of the better arguments for the classic WeaponThrow/WeaponStay behavior (and, for the most part, the WeaponLocker-Factory behavior as far as I understand it) is that it helps map to scale better to higher-than-expected playerloads without necessarily turning the game into the spamfest it can become if you load down the map with tons of ammo pickups.
[Aside: It's actually kind of interesting thinking about the dynamic between the WeaponThrow/WeaponStay and Ammo Pickups, and I'd be interested in seeing some metrics breaking down total ammo handed out, total ammo used from each source, time spent seeking ammo, etc.]
Given that all/most of the UT3 stock maps, even the Warfare maps, seem designed for maximum 16p, and that servers will run 32p or 64p on those maps... Anything that can help is needed.

 

[a1ex]

Kinda late unfortunately, but its great they didnt drop their support for UT and keep it alive.

Oh well now that the UI is fixed maybe they start thingking about a release of the Linux client....

 

[Bersy]

keep dreaming!

 

[MonsOlympus]

Well, one thing this will do is make maps with the AVRiL more viable automatically. Even if there's no ammo in the map, you can be pretty safely assured that you can pick it up again in 30 seconds or so.

Ammo Chargers!

 

[shoptroll]

I know there's nothing in this announcement, but I'm really hoping that part of their "massive updates" that are coming include Winx64, Mac and Linux binaries for the game. This would be an opportune time to push those out finally (assuming they're close to completion).

 

[Bersy]

This may just be my fuzzy memory speaking but I think they're not planning any 64 bit version for Win.

 

[Raynor.Z]

They did release x64 binaries for UT2004, I hope they'll do the same thing for UT3 at some point.

 

[Ma3a*]

I can has Xan?
I can has new characters as well? I mean, cheezburgerz would be fine but-
Xan-cakes would be nice too...

Originally Posted by SirTahngarth

Think of this as epic's way of saying "sorry we screwed up guys, here's a little gift. No hard feelings, okay?"

Originally Posted by elmuerte

No it's not.

Lmao

 

[rajput_warrior]

i haven't posted in a long time, but this patch may be a reason i start playing this game again. Played it for two days after the day i bought it, waste of 60 bucks (collectors edition).