Weapon Balance Thread

[GotBeer?]

Thought I would add what almost everyone else already has:

Ranger: Swap pistol accuracy with Tech's AR
Increase grenade blast radius (don't think I've EVER taken damage
from one of those)
Tech: AR needs more accuracy (see above)
I've learned to live with gas, leave it alone
Decrease shotgun primary range
Decrease shotgun alt-fire damage
Gunner: Improve rocket's alt-fire lockon, and speed of alt-fire rockets
Napalm needs increased damage, and to stay until activated
Giving hitscan to a gunner would affect balance

Shields also need to be improved to actually block SOME weapon fire.

To bring up the topic of one-shot kills: anyone else here ever been killed by a flamethrower to the head? I remember one game where someone (Zak maybe?) kept killing me as soon as I respawned as gunner. And I'm talking I spawned, took maybe a half-second flamethrower blast, and died.

 

[Emmet Otter]

actually after reading the preceeding thoughts... I take back all my suggestions, as it appears to be well balanced as it is. When nobody can agree on anything then balance has been obtained .

I knew this thread was going to turn out this way. which is why i said, leave it as is

*edit* When it comes to weapon balancing, no one ever agrees on the same thing.

 

[Zaknafein]

Funny, I see a majority agreement on many issues ... on both this and the other board.

 

[Mantik]

..as it stands the pistol is the only weapon with a completely useless alt fire.

I love the Alt fire for the pistol. What other sort of alt fire could there be for such a simplistic weapon? It's great for stationary targets, one alt fire can be followed in rapid succession with a primary fire pounding your entire clip into someone in less than one second. Hackers are annihilated by it, as are stationary wanna-be snipers. I just don't see a viable option to making a different alt fire but then again maybe me imagination is horrible.

Rangers: I think the shock lance needs to effect vehicles the same way, but players less. Shields I believe should be brought down just as much but it shouldn't be able to kill another ranger in 2-3 shots after having the shields brought down, and it needs to bounce less. In close quarters all people do is spam it inside a corridor and it bounces all over the place and scores hits when it really shouldn't. Grenades might want to have a slightly increased radius.

Techs: As everyone else said, WAY LESS range on the shotgun and reduced alt fire damage. Turret limits would be nice.. and I'm not talking team limits, individual limits. You put a turret down it adds to your individual count, hypothetical reasons let's say 5. You can only lay down 5 at once, deaths don't clear your count.. only if they are destroyed or taken down. That'd be nifty and kill the whole "one tech can spam an entire node when he has a resupply station nearby" crap. Headshots for gas grenades need to be eliminated, it doesn't explode shrapnel into your skull it emits gas. The fact that it hits your body somewhere shouldn't effect the dmg it's dealt at all, the only thing that should effect the dmg is how long you stay within it's cloud.

Note: This is not something I want changed, just a side note.. an after-thought.. but an EMP nade shouldn't effect a player character one bit since we're not effected by magnetic fields, right? Or does it have something to do with our armor we're wearing?

Gunners: Individual mine limit like techs, increased rocket splash damage slightly.. maybe make them survive 2 snipe shots unless one is a headshot. They take pretty much the same dmg as a tech does from snipes, but have significantly more shields. It only makes sense..

 

[Silver Sequence]

I have to strongly disagree with the suggestion of lowering the pistol accuracy. The whole point of having a pistol and sniper rifle is to require rangers to be highly accurate. If you start taking that away from them then the ranger starts to lose the thing that makes it an interesting class to play. I'm honestly pretty happy with the pistol as it is now, but if you want to nerf it try lowering the number of rounds per clip, that would seriously mess up most rangers.

 

[fireball]

@Mantik's tech grenade comments -
There's always impact damage from anything. I could pick up a rock and hurl it at your head. No, it doesn't create gas, but it sure as hell hurts.
I do want to see EMP do FAR less damage to health and only remove shields though. Maybe have a limited conc-effect too since the body works via electrical impulses.

 

[W0RF]

Maybe like a semi-blinding electrical zappy effect?

And actually, the comments we've seen are exactly why I DID think this thread would be a good idea. It gives the devs a good idea of what issues keep popping up again and again (shotty range, rocket lock-on), and allows them to discount the ones that cancel each other out (pistol r00lz, pistol sux), and just sort of make the necessary tweaks that will result in weapons per class that are effective put not overpowered. And maybe that will end up being exactly what 7710 gave us. Either way, I think the end result is good for everybody.

 

[Apathy]

Funny, I see a majority agreement on many issues ... on both this and the other board.

I remember there was a "majority agreement" in regards to weapon balance in ut2k3 over in the atari forums, 2 months after the game came out though it was nothing more than a steaming pile because epic actually took the "community" serious and directly destroyed the weapon balance as well as overall physics of the game by way of patches.

I thought they were going to do the same to ut2k4 but thank gawd epic learned their lesson with ut2k3 and so-called "community" suggestions.
Ut2k4 today reminds me a lot of 2k3 before all the patches, well from a physics and weapon balance perspective, a very good game.

XMP is fine the way it is.

 

[Zaknafein]

That's nice Apathy ... glad you have such a high regard for that opinion, but I can name just as many games that benefited from community input on balance that you can the other way around. I don't share your opinion that the XMP community is a bunch of retards. It’s a small close-knit community of hardcore players that have stuck with a dieing game that has no corporate support. When the majority of these players say "Hey, this needs to be toned down" I would think that would be pretty damn close to what the game actually needs. Especially since it is that goddamn community that is keeping this game alive.

And now for something completely different...

Since the rumor is that conc jumps have been removed from the game ... I do have a new gunner request.

See those big engines on the gunners back ...
yeah the ones with the wings ...

I would like to see jump jets with 3 fuel rounds that do what conc jumps used too.

 

[Apathy]

Maybe like a semi-blinding electrical zappy effect?

And actually, the comments we've seen are exactly why I DID think this thread would be a good idea. It gives the devs a good idea of what issues keep popping up again and again (shotty range, rocket lock-on), and allows them to discount the ones that cancel each other out (pistol r00lz, pistol sux), and just sort of make the necessary tweaks that will result in weapons per class that are effective put not overpowered. And maybe that will end up being exactly what 7710 gave us. Either way, I think the end result is good for everybody.

I can't understand why anyone complains about rocket lock, I have never had any trouble whatsoever getting rockets to lock onto someone no matter what class they are using or how fast they are moving.
If I can't get at least 3 out of 4 to lock on then it's my own fault, not the games fault.

 

[W0RF]

Then improving the lock-on would not affect your gameplay at all. So this is a problem for you... how?

This is exactly what I didn't want the thread to degenerate into.

 

[Bishop F Gantry]

Remove the grenades from the Techs and Rangers and give the Gunner the Unreal2 Hydra grenade launcher...

 

[Apathy]

Then improving the lock-on would not affect your gameplay at all. So this is a problem for you... how?

This is exactly what I didn't want the thread to degenerate into.

Fixing something that isn't broke, whatever was i thinking...

 

[W0RF]

Just make a laundry list of what you think is unbalanced in the game. If you like the balance, just say "I like it the way it is" and leave it at that. Please don't turn this into a flamewar.

Whatever you WERE thinking, it wasn't that. There's a thread over in the XMP board for you to gripe about how much more l33t you are than all the other gunners.

 

[FurociousFa]

Good the way it is.

btw zak : the only reason so many people agree is because many people, smarter than myself stayed away from these petty fights, and just hope the dev team does the best they can

 

[Uziel]

Leave it the way it is.

I think it's a mistake to go around trying to "fix" weapon balances. Seems like it could be a never ending process that the orig dev's already put a lot of thought & hours into.

 

[Naib]

Leave it the way it is.

I think it's a mistake to go around trying to "fix" weapon balances. Seems like it could be a never ending process that the orig dev's already put a lot of thought & hours into.

From the U2XMP forum:

The 7710 patch was primarily tested for server load and the turret off bug( which effected every build between 6496-7 and 7710(you never saw those.) That was really all that we got proper time to test. Then Legend closed.

Once again I state:

WE ARE NOT PLAYING THE GAME BALANCE that was TESTED FOR THE GAME..

 

[Keasis]

Leave it the way it is.

Untill now, only a few hardcore 'nerfers' have posted. I'd like to see more input from other players.

 

[PRG]

Leave it the way it is.

I think it's a mistake to go around trying to "fix" weapon balances. Seems like it could be a never ending process that the orig dev's already put a lot of thought & hours into.

Well considering the weapons need to be remade from scratch, balance is going to need to be fixed/tweaked by default. Also, fixing balance should be a never ending process to some extent as people find new ways to play. Also see Naib's post above with quotes from me.

And onwards with a very long post.

As far as balance goes, XMP should be to a certain extent rock, paper, scissors. Given equal skill a gunner should win close in, Tech at medium range, ranger at long range. However, each class should have a counter that's at least good enough to force movement at any range. In general, build 6496-7 is probably the best balance for reasons I've explained 10 million times. First I'll break it down by class

Ranger:
With the speed and the amazing pistol and 'nade work I see at close rnage these days, except for the one thing I've noted, Ranger seems about dead on.
Sniper rifle: keep that very close to current.
Pistol: range needs to be knocked down from 7710 to 6497 levels. I should not be able to spam people to death at rifle ranges
Grenades: Seems about right with the frag grenade and smoke is well smoke.
Shock Lance: seems about right currently
Basically expect for the pistol range changes that came with 7710 ranger is fine.

Tech:
Tech has many problems in 7710. Weapon balance is signifcantly off from 6497. This had led to a myriad of really cheap tactics. Especial considering the tech has a whole range of spam weapons, they shouldn't be incredibly damaging.
Assault Rifle: needs better range, damage is about right, another change in 7710 from 6497.
Shotgun: Range is way off(too high) since 7710, and alt-fire damage is crazy since 7710. alt-fire damage should be around 82 not over 100. Also it should be impossible to do damage at ranges you'd prefer to zoom in as a ranger. Let's face it the few other situations where you can one shot someone, take either alot of skill or blind luck. This is also generally in keeping with build 6497 balance.
Grenades: EMP seems right on, Gas is a bit ridiculous on gunners seeing that they can't run/avoid it really. Gas damage should be effected by shields.

Gunner:
This class has probably suffered most from the game evolving and 7710 hasn't been kind to the fat kid either. The tech had a one shot weapon added making the tech better 1v1 at close range. The ranger now has over what 50 bullets at long range to use on the gunner in a pocket around the gunner where the ranger is still brutally effective but the gunner is a total sitting duck. The real question is what can you do to help the gunner without making the gunner an overpowering lumbering juggernaut. More on this in the next section.
Rocket Launcher: My solution would be to leave it as is. If you made the lock on rockets better it would just be obnoxious. And the regular rocket definitely don't need any type of boost.
Flamer: What a useless weapon, first off it blinds you(then again the early UTXMP screenie of the flamer doesn't bear this out.) Definitely something I use sparingly. Ans the secondary AKA flaming piss of doom is nigh upon useless, even defensively it doesn't really hurt the enemy more than a few points. FranKly, I think it should be swapped out for a minigun/chaingun with a weak primary and withering secondary that's only accurate out to flamer range. This switch was actually first proposed during the U2XMP beta. Also the lack of a hit scan weapon really hurts the gunner.
Grenades: about right currently

All this brings to my next thing about counters. Mind you this is all rather general NOT %100 specific and assumes people facing off with a relatively similar skill.

Short range/confined spaces:
Short range should be the gunners world, currently it's the tech's world. The rocket launcher and flamer/minigun combo should be dominant. Also the gunner grenades are geared towards this. A tech would use the shotgun alt-fire but it shouldn't be one hit kills and ranger should be using a combo of pistol/frag grenade.

Mid range: The tech's rather spammy weapons should excel at this with a potent mix of gas grenades, primary shotgun and assault rifle. Any of the gunner or rangers weapons should be useful here with the gunner trying to get in close for the kill. Currently this doesn't work real well. The ranger would tend to engage at long range if given 1/2 the choice(this should be as designed) and the gunner can't move in real well through some serious gas/turret spam nor run away and use lockons effectively. And once they do get in on the tech, they get blasted by the shotgun damaged or not. The ranger can counter by moving to long range or using the extremely accurate weapons and fast movement at his/her disposal. A gunner is just a sitting duck for gas currently.

Long range:
The ranger is the undisputed king of death at long ranges. Problem is there's very little to counter it currently in 7710. The gunner and tech should have a weapon that probably won't kill a ranger but will him honest by forcing him to move around. This is why the range on the assault rifle needs to be moved back up to 6497 range. The big problem here is the gunner. Crafty rangers have realized the best way to deal with a skilled gunner is to move from short/mid range to long range and stand there and snipe them. Lockon rockets are a bit tough to lock on and it wouldn't really be in the best interest of XMP to make them easier to lock on or smarter. Hence I propose the chaingun/minigun swap so it could serve the purpose of the assault rifle a tech has.

A few things to sum up real quick. Most of things I am saying are a switch back to the 6497 balance. The 6497 balance required more skill to be effective espeically in the tech class. Then again some of the best Techs from 6497 are still the best techs in 7710. That leaves 2 other changes. Gas damage being effected by shields. Rangers and techs can for the most part avoid gas spam, a gunner cannot effectively and you don't need professional gamer level skills to effectively use the gas grenade. The last one is the axe of the flamer for the chaingun. Whether this one gets considered and put in or not, I'm definitely making a mutator for that one. The game has evolved to a place where people actively exploit a hole in the game balance. I personally fear gunner may become a mostly unplayed class eventually if things continue as they are now.

 

[Darkus]

WOW! Great Info there, Im gonna agree with him there, I did find the gunner underpowered and a sitting duck...