Posted by Slasher @ 07:12 CDT, 15 March 2017 - iMsg
More gameplay of Quake Champions at PAX East featuring ESReality user phaZon playing Galena, Clutch, Sorlag, Nyx, on map Blood Covenant (Campgrounds-DM6).
Note: Sound has been muted as you're not able to hear game sounds in these videos anyway.
The more I look at the game the more it feels like quake no matter the abilities.
I hope the hud will be modable, It should be more to the borders and corners (my preference) to take as least viewing space as necessary.
Weapon bar placement choice....hope I can move that in the middle of the screeen. And abilities, powerups to the right....ect.
As for gun on higher fov as seen here is just too much forward and takes too much space IMO, at least that transparency would solve the issue.
The thing that is bothering me the most is that all armors are green...I'm already listening to 5v5 tdm podcast, blue team is attacking tier 1 green armor, tier 3 green armor, ...instead of plain and simple is at Green, RA, YA, Mega....horrible just horrible
That sunglare was like looking at the sun itself, bloom off?
It is highly disadvantageous to even attack that bridge armor if you are coming from below if this is going to be team based e-sport but it can also be good....new strategies and thinking...some kind of evolution maybe...where positioning takes even greater deal...
It is nice to see that game evolved in good direction, I'm just buffled that weapons did not, which would be the next logical step.
In any war, aside from the soldiers, strategies and art of killing the thing that always evolved for better execution of missions and killing are the weapons.
Strangely quake wepons are as old as 1995, imagine we still have colts and no automatic pistols or such....this is the only thing that disappointed me, everything else I already mentioned is pure cosmetics so that does not matter that much but weapons should evolve.
I can't imagine how having all armors green could be a good thing.
The thing about weapons in a game as opposed to weapons in war is that weapons in war evolve to be more effective at achieving their goals while weapons in games are about fun and skillful competition. I'm not sure how much skill it takes to be dropping MOABs and daisy cutters.
There are really only a handful of simple, skill-based aiming modes in an FPS: hitscan vs projectile, and then hitscan categorized by rate of fire, spread, damage, etc, and projectile categorized by speed, rate of fire, damage, splash, trajectory, etc.
The first three quake games did a good job covering most of these while keeping the chosen set of modes balanced.
In the end, as far as gameplay is concerned, it doesn't really matter what you call the gun or what is looks like; it will conform to one of these aiming modes.
I'm sure people can dream up more elaborate aiming modes, but the difficulty then becomes about ensuring that aiming is still more about skill than about luck.
Edited by CaptainTaichou at 08:27 CDT, 15 March 2017
You are not thinking outside the box here, all principles stay the same, the weapon evolution doesn't mean it will lose it's main purpose of being hit or projectile base.
You mentioned yourself it's about fun and skill, as much as the rocket and plasma/nailgu are projectile weapons, they were not intended to be used for rocket jumps and wall climbing....which in its essence is a skill of using your weapon for something else rather than killing in this case repositioning, movement, tricks.
Weapons can evolve and they would require also some "extra" skill and add additional fun factor.
You want example of fun and skill factor:
Let's go outside quake for a second. UT had that weapon where you shoot a sawblade.
The thing itself can be used for:
- spamming corners
- its a projectile base weapon for close combat requires you to aim and predict
- also there is fun factor when you accidently shoot enemies head off
- but at the same time, you can be skillfull enough practice and get really efficent at fun factor being used as a skill and not just a random hit
Sniper is also a weapon which depending on the person holding the mouse and shooting can snipe heads efficently (skilled player - gets frustrated when misses) or someone who can't do it easily instead shoots in the body doing some dmg but ocassionaly stil gets to hit someone in the head (fun factor - starts to lol).
Edited by White_Insane at 09:42 CDT, 15 March 2017
It is one thing to say we should think "outside the box". It is quite another thing to actually come up with new ideas.
I'm saying that most of the skillful aiming modes have already been thought of, and fragging is by far the most common use of a gun in an FPS---a gun being something you aim and shoot as opposed to other types of weapons, like say trip mines.
For most guns, the only variables are where you are looking and when you click. Some guns require you to do things after the shot or perform actions over time, like holding a laser on the right location to guide a rocket, but that slows down the game as the player cannot move freely.
Try to come up with a new aiming mode that does not introduce too much randomness, i.e. the opposite of skill. Complex behaviour of projectiles leads to randomness and spam. If it is simple, it has likely been done.
Sawblade and sniper are hardly novel types of guns or aiming modes. Fun and skill sometimes conflict. Headshots might be fun, but they are something most quake players are averse to because of the randomness they introduce in a fast-paced game.
And you said it yourself that those things you do with weapons other than kill weren't really intended by the designers, so whatever they come up with next will probably have unintended uses. However, you cannot expect someone to design for an unintended use. It would be like expecting them create bugs that can be exploited, like strafe jumping, a happy accident. It's always the players who eventually figure out how to exploit the game.
Guns will be designed for their usefulness in their primary purpose: killing the enemy. If you did design some new gun whose primary purpose was something other than killing, it wouldn't really be a gun anymore but a different game mechanic entirely.
I will give you just few examples of weapon evolution which doesnt give you that much of a change but still adds to evolving the weapon and game itself.
And I'll even add level design evolution for teamplay.
Lets say game lasts for 20minutes.
We already have powerups which I hope they make few new ones (but with abilities old ones are maybe just enough), all powerups have there pre-random spawn time spawning from 40seconds to 2min mark for example quad. After that each additional quad is 2min from last pickup.
Let's take new dm6, on 8minute mark new teleporter appears in the lower shotgun area teleporting you to staris bridge area (since at this time going from lower SG to a "light green" you have sunglare) and the person near the armor has advantage but on 8th minute mark that same person needs to know that advantage is gone since the enemy can teleport up (still needing to climb bridge stairs giving you exact same time to reach the desired location) and have advantage on you by being now above you without that sunglare.
On 14minute mark something else happens for example mid quad area doesnt have columns reducing camping and hiding around them, aswell as the pillars area, making it more clean and more dangerous to play.
Now the map itself is faster and more dangerous to play, and leading team will take more fire and skilfull team will still manage to defend or losing team can make a comeback. Which gives that "omph" excitement to the very end.
Now the weapons.
Lets say for example railgun if you hit 3in a row (above impressive) the gun itself has overload function.
Railgun cooldown is 1500 for default, but if you wait for extra 500 of cooldown gun makes an overload which last for only 2seconds.
Overload gives RG additional 45dmg but using two slugs instead....if you have only one slug the overload gets denied instantly. But it is still 125dmg 2slug overload against 2slugs normal 160dmg.
Now in the heat of battle after a while you get used to it and your decision making gets also instant so for example maybe there is no enemy and overload just disappears. Maybe there are few enemies and you are taking too much dmg you don't want to wait for that overload and you fire normal shot which if you hit is stacking the overload from the begining again, or you gamble and overload the weapon for that 125dmg but losing 2 slugs and maybe you even miss.
The weapon itself still does what was intended but adds that "let's think outside the box evolution".
Lg for example, depending on the enviroment, if the map has water, enemy in the water recieves extra 1-2dmg per hit due to being in water, this also makes lg the most dangerous weapon on that map for example.
But adding to that hitscan behaviour to the weapon if you hit "amount of dmg" weapon itself (flashes, shakes, surgers or whatever) giving you a signal to release the fire button for a moment and start firing again in 200-800ms window. Next cell gives double dmg, and every other is normal. If you miss the weapons signal nothing happens for you but dmg counter restarts, or you even decide that it's not worth it to use it in that instant, also you maybe miss that first double dmg cell.
This still does not impede weapons original purpose of hitscan weapon but gives you an option to use it smarter if you get/are skilled enough with that weapon.
And lets see at the moment we have nailgun, stupid suggestion maybe but lets think outside the box.
Standard max ammo is 150.
Normal pickup gives you 100ammo, if you go past 130 reaching 150, do to its "heaviness" the gun behaves a bit different.
Shoots a bit slower but not that it impedes the purpose of the gun it can be from 10% more or less. This should be noticable enough still giving the enemy the feel that your weapon is full stacked and you are dangerous but also giving you "mini disadvantage of weapon being slower for few seconds".
From 130 - 30 its normal rate of fire behaving as designed.
Dropping below 40or 30 weapon starts shotting 2nails at the same time and 10%faster again alerting the enemy you have low ammo, but still making you more dangerous if your aim is good.
This still adds just a little bit but yet enough to make weapons evolved not ruining the experience or essence of the game.
It still keeps the core of fast paced arena shooter which quake is to its roots not making drastic changes but adding extra learning factors and mechanics to the game giving long-term mastery, fun factor ect.
And for each other weapon there is still room to evolve too, I have many ideas these are just examples and subject to change.
Okay, your railgun example is a change, but is it an "evolution"?
You are basically increasing damage as a reward for accuracy.
Why reward someone with increased damage for landing three consecutive shots with the railgun when they have already been rewarded with 240 points of damage?
I know quake isn't supposed to be realistic, but this kind of gun is also quite unintuitive. Who would build a gun that is capable of doing more damage but doesn't do it until you've hit three consecutive shots? This sort of unintuitiveness should only be added if it adds something to the gameplay.
People aren't failing to come up with such ideas because they have straightjacketed thinking, as you keep implying, but because there are problems with those ideas.
With your modified LG idea, you are again increasing damage, a reward, due to a factor that doesn't merit that reward.
When you're under water and already moving as slow as a snail, do you want to be hit with a 180dps LG? All your enemy had to do was grab an LG and go fishing.
At least in q1, the LG killed you as well as all the others in the water, which made sense since electricity and water don't mix well.
And then you say you would like to DOUBLE LG damage, but only for a SINGLE cell (1/20th of a second's worth), if the player stops shooting for only a tiny fraction of a second after their LG shakes due to having inflicted a certain amount of damage. That's some pretty weird behaviour, dude. I guess you could call that one 14 damage cell a "reward" too, but I think most people would rather have just kept shooting since they would almost certainly land more damage that way in total.
Also, this sort of thing adds randomness. An analogy: If you make a target smaller, it increases the skill to hit it, up to a point. If you continue to reduce the size, eventually hitting the target is not repeatable to any reliable degree, so whether you hit it or not is pure luck.
If it requires inhuman precision to get that reward, then getting it is just a matter of luck.
You seem to like varying damage depending on strange factors, in ways that imo don't improve gameplay.
Your nailgun idea is the same. Cripple their gun if they have too much ammo, and supercharge it if they are low on ammo.
Honestly, I'd rather have a lower max ammo cap than have to make decisions about whether to increase my ammo over 130 every time I see nailgun ammo.
This seems like more of an annoyance than anything that contributes to better gameplay, fun-wise or skill-wise.
Supercharging the gun on low ammo is also a reward for nothing. You got low ammo because you shot it all in the normal course of the game, which does not merit a reward.
In general, I think temporarily increasing the damage output of a weapon would have to be done as a reward for doing something difficult that you would not be doing anyway (e.g. picking up a quad), and the reward should be delivered in a way that is not completely unpredictable for your opponent (as a rogue supercharged rail shot would be).
I have no idea why you'd want to cripple a weapon temporarily unless that was done as a reward to your opponent.
You are missing the main point.
Like I said these are ideas just to show that there are ways to change a weapons behaviour.
For RG it was an example of overloading happening only when you hit 3 times in a row, but condition to trigger the event can be anything else from taking too much dmg or after every 4th-5th shot still giving you with one railgun pickup only 1 or 2 times to use it. You are rewarded with additional dmg but with cost of one extra slug and your reward lasts only for small window of opportunity, you can miss it or don't use it at all it goes to your preference/playstyle.
For lg I was thinking more about someone standing in the water than swimming, but if you are in the water, dmg goes to you aswell.
That split second for you to shot and manage to deliver that double cell dmg is a skill to use due to small window of oportunity either you will do it or you want. As for condition it can be anything also from reciving some amount of dmg, it can be triggered every 4th second byitself, it doesnt need to be a reward for your output dmg at all...thats why they are called ideas.
As for nailgun ammo conditions you should think how many times during the regular play you will go over 130 cells? 2-5times and maybe during teamplay you will get to use the gun for only 3times, and those extra cell due to faster fire rate will last you for shorter burst time of few seconds, as for being below ammo the same rule applies.
Like I said and will repeat again, all of these are examples just to show the weapons can be evolved with small kinks which would add to weapons but not hinder the or change the core game.
The game is there, playtasting such stuff is not that hard to do, it's regular if/else conditiong of the weapon and such stuff can be added and tested anytime.
For example new UT is doing the same thing with changing weapons behaviour on the weekly basis and listening to communities responses. There were tons of good ideas, but in some point of development they started to inovate too much, very good ideas thrown away and really bad ones implemented and kept.
That's why for example before you implement something new in the game like in OW or any other title there are PTR servers for game designer to innovate and for community to try and give feedback if something is good or bad before deciding to force the new law without play testing it. IMO days of playtesting only in-house without larger audience is a miss.
Edited by White_Insane at 03:31 CDT, 16 March 2017
Well, I get what you are saying.
I was fixated on aiming modes and the difficulty of finding new ones while you were focused on changing the values that define weapon behaviour from constants (as they usually are, and for good reason) to variables that change depending on seemingly arbitrary factors.
If you want to fluctuate the variables of a gun (like rate of fire, damage, spread, splash, trajectory, etc), it needs to be based on some factor that makes sense and that actually contributes to gameplay in a way that does not create serious conflicts between fun and skill.
Your examples revolved around modulating damage. The way I see it, any increase in damage is a reward, and any decrease is a punishment (reward to enemy), and so either of these (reward or punishment) must be justified and not purely random.
When I said it is hard to come up with new ideas, I should have said it is easy to come up with new ideas but hard to come with new ideas that actually work well.
Hey look, I can come up with a new idea. Let's change the spread of the shotgun depending on the brightness of the room. Wouldn't that make lots of sense?
If my railgun gave me a more powerful shot every 4th or 5th shot, as you suggest, I again would be getting unearned reward. It makes things random.
Predictability is an important concept in a skill-based game. If your opponent has no way to narrow down the extent of likely outcomes, he is not playing against you; he is playing against the game. For instance, if every time he engages you in an LG battle, your LG does different dps, his difficulty in choosing engagements with you no longer derives from who he is playing against but from the game itself.
Now with your railgun, your opponent could, at least some of the time, count your shots modulo 5, to predict when he has to be more careful not to get hit and change his decision making process, but in reality, no one is going to do that (people struggle enough with mental item timing let alone counting enemy shots), so whether he gets hit by a more powerful shot is random for all intents and purposes. This takes away from the skill level of the game.
You said, "That split second for you to shot and manage to deliver that double cell dmg is a skill to use due to small window of oportunity either you will do it or you want."
In my view, any advantage you get in the game is ideally derived from some brilliance on your part or a failure of your opponent. Getting double LG damage output (an advantage) for neither of these things is not desirable.
You said, "it can be triggered every 4th second byitself".
This is even worse than having it doubled in water. At least if it were doubled in water, a map designer could make certain areas of the map risky zones by putting water there, and players could predict when they were vulnerable and thus adjust their strategy. If LG damage doubles every 4th second, it is effectively unpredictable for players, so you would be getting an advantage against your opponent on a purely random basis. Random factors don't need to be eliminated entirely, but I really don't think we need more of them, especially egregious ones like this LG. We already have randomness coming from spam and spawn systems that is pretty much unavoidable without ruining the game.
"As for nailgun ammo conditions you should think how many times during the regular play you will go over 130 cells?"
It doesn't really matter how often it happens. The player is being penalized for no reason. What value does this add to the game?
If it turns out this penalty is too harsh, players will just avoid getting over 130 ammo, just another tedious mathematical job they have to do while playing the game.
"Like I said and will repeat again, all of these are examples just to show the weapons can be evolved with small kinks which would add to weapons but not hinder the or change the core game."
These examples are just arbitrary changes. I do not consider them evolution, which would entail improvement.
You noticed how difficult it was to create new aiming modes that retain a skill-based nature to the game, so now we are modulating gun variables in ways that imo do not improve the game. I say they would damage the game, due to randomness, unpredictability, unearned reward, annoyance, or tediousness. This is just my opinion, but I'm not surprised we are not seeing ideas like these, and the reason we are not seeing them has nothing to do with dev's inability to "think outside the box". I think ideas like these would be more suitable in a game that is only for fun, no skill or competitive considerations involved. Then people might be able to have a laugh when their gun randomly does 1000 hit points of damage and explodes their opponent.
I agree with you that weapon designs that logically seem like good ideas need to be extensively tested before we can really know, but we can't test everything. We need some kind of a priori basis for narrowing down possibilities.
You are overly fixated on bad side of things, if that is the way of looking to improve on the formula then there is no point in testing or even trying to do something different. Same goes with champion abilities, they are introducing something new, there is still a core mechanic but with tweaks. It's their risk, and from what I've seen so far, it's not that drastic change because we all have different styles of play which suits us and so there will be a champion which will suit our playstyle. Sometimes you will use the abilities sometimes you want, sometimes you will forget.
As I've seen in a past decade, people want just new plain and simple quake they are not interested in any "tweaks" or improvements on the game. They dont care about graphics they are all talkin about picmip 5-10-15-100 already before the game is even out. Quake4 IMO was a very good game, good maps from the community, still fast paced and still quake, it even introduced ramp jumping and crotchsliding which just "improved" on the previous mechanics and to use it there was certain degree of skill needed. From that time I recall at least 10 people who wouldnt even consider the game since it was graphically taxing and no one wanted to buy a new PC just to play the new quake while they can just bash on previous one...I'm certain there are still thousands of these people who will bash the game aside even if they did not try it themselves, and will not buy a new PC just "for a game"...and I'm not talking just hardcore players, I'm talking about hardcore and casual players which is one of the main target audience to lure them in. Im sure there is s*itload of people wanting to go through DOOM SP but they dont have the equipment yet and dont plan on buying it soon.
I will say again there are factors to change, and without PTR or BETA or MODDING you/me can not know if something works or not, that's why there are these things usually done to stress playtest something, your only example was I dont mean to be rude but was from the ass.
You can write down a decent example instead of saying how nothing works.
What would you modulate? if you change RoF, if you change Spread or Reload you are still changing dmg output....that's why LG was tweaked 29times over the years, aswell as RG was, even shotgun and so on.
Reward...punishment....my RG example was and is both at the same time for you and for enemy, you get extra 40dmg but you lose 2slugs, if you did not use the overload and fired regular 2 slugs you still get additional 40dmg ie.
4 regular slugs = 320, but 2slugs + 1overload(2slugs) = 280, depending on your decision you either gamble or not, as quake usually is.
Quake is also a sound game, so you dont need to count aynthing, sound que is enough to know what's coming. Window of opportunity is also short to use...and withouth really testing something like that we can't know if it works or people would love/hate it.
LG you are still missing the point, if you continue shooting normaly you will still do same or grater amount of dmg, maybe that 300ms is just enough for you to readjust your arm and positioning...maybe you are low on health...maybe the sun is in your eyes....there is again too much factors to just argue and say no, think if something would or would not work without playtesting it first.
Nailgun itself with 5-10% increase/decrease is such as you said arbitary, so if you have 10decrease with 30 high ammo, and 10increase in 30low ammo, you are still getting the SAME dmg output if you just fired all 150ammo at same RoF, its a small change, but it doesnt affect your overall output dmg.
I would for example like to see early concepts of rocket launcher, nailgun, railgun from original quake...you think these weapons haven't been tweak, tested, had their mechanics change 50 times or more before being them as are now? Come on...
You are seeing it as something only for a fun game, yet decision if you are going to use something or not is skill itself depending on the situation as much as the ability is. In the heat of battle your decision making, gamble, weapon choice, positioning, strafeing, strategy ect. is what matters the most, no matter what weapon you have. I for example would love to playtest some of these, but that ain't gonna happen so I don't care that much, it's just an idea, whatever they put out it will be quake and if the gameplay is good we will still play it.
Here is another dumb example you have GL, if you are spamming nades, every third shot has double distance and double bounce, or every third explodes with a delay, or whatever.
Every weapon so far is a knockback weapon, hitscan, how about introducing implosion weapon, which has a "pull", shoots a bit slower than RL with radius dmg, has black/transparent (implosion) or shoots twice as fast but has half a dmg of RL. Or whatever. Wepon name should afkors be Impaler / Impale Gun.
No change? No problem. Change? No problem.
Over and out.
I'm pretty sure we were talking about something specific, i.e. gun design.
I gave you my opinion on the problems with your SPECIFIC suggestions.
To anyone who doesn't like your idea EVER, you could reply, "you are overly fixated on bad side of things".
Am I supposed to pretend I think they are good ideas?
Now you are generalizing this to champion abilities.
Sure, let's try champions. It's not our decision anyway. id software wants to do it, and it doesn't look so horrible that I won't try it.
Many quakers have a problem with champions in quake because it wouldn't be a stretch to claim that a core principle of deathmatch since the doom days has been a fair, balanced game resulting from all players being equal. Any advantage you get over your opponent derives almost exclusively from your own performance and the failures of your opponent.
Outcomes are the result of the abilities of the player behind the keyboard, not the abilities of the avatar in the game.
They don't like the idea of some other player have an built-in advantage over them in a given situation purely as a result of champion selection.
Also, games like these are never perfectly balanced. Champions will be added ad nauseam, and you can expect a new balance patch every time the players figure out how to exploit the game.
Some people like this. Others don't.
But it doesn't matter. We are trying champions in quake.
"you/me can not know if something works or not"
That is true, but we can use logic and experience to make reasonable predictions about what is likely to work and what is not.
As I said, we cannot try EVERYTHING. Let's not waste testers' time with our every flight of fancy. We need a way to narrow down what we want to test.
"your only example was I dont mean to be rude but was from the ass"
what example are you talking about?
"that's why LG was tweaked 29times over the years, aswell as RG was, even shotgun and so on"
29 times is a bit of an exaggeration.
In any case, the only one of those you could consider "modulated" was the 7-6-5 LG where damage varied depending on range.
Anyway, modulation isn't necessarily bad. I said in my previous comment, "If you want to fluctuate the variables of a gun (like rate of fire, damage, spread, splash, trajectory, etc), it needs to be based on some factor that makes sense and that actually contributes to gameplay in a way that does not create serious conflicts between fun and skill."
"Reward...punishment....my RG example was and is both at the same time for you and for enemy, you get extra 40dmg but you lose 2slugs"
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of lots of gambling in quake. Gambling means you are relying on your luck.
But you're right. It is still a part of the game. The thing about a gamble though is your opponent needs to be able to punish you hard if you fail.
I don't think losing an additional slug is much of a punishment for the opportunity to hit a 120dmg rail.
Your idea might work if you change the numbers significantly. For instance, losing all your rail ammo for the chance to make a big hit.
But if you hit it, that's really just bad luck for your opponent. He takes a huge hit that he really couldn't do anything to avoid.
"Quake is also a sound game, so you dont need to count aynthing, sound que is enough to know what's coming"
You can't hear rails coming. You'd need to count to know the next rail is the big one.
"LG you are still missing the point, if you continue shooting normaly you will still do same or grater amount of dmg, maybe that 300ms is just enough for you to readjust your arm and positioning...maybe you are low on health...maybe the sun is in your eyes....there is again too much factors to just argue and say no, think if something would or would not work without playtesting it first."
I'm not really following this very well. Are you defending having LG damage double every four seconds? I have no clue what health or sun getting in your eyes has to do with this.
But you're right. It doesn't matter how profoundly retarded an idea seems to be, we should spend time coding it up and play testing it, or else WE'LL NEVER KNOW.
As for nailgun, it doesn't really matter what the average damage output is over every nail fired. What matters is whether those nails are doing the damage you need them to do at critical moments in the game. Besides, you didn't address the reasons I gave in my previous comment about why I thought this was a bad idea.
"I would for example like to see early concepts of rocket launcher, nailgun, railgun from original quake...you think these weapons haven't been tweak, tested, had their mechanics change 50 times or more before being them as are now? Come on..."
I'm pretty sure I said this in my previous comment, "I agree with you that weapon designs that logically seem like good ideas need to be extensively tested before we can really know, but we can't test everything. We need some kind of a priori basis for narrowing down possibilities."
So I don't know where you got the idea I was against testing things. Though I'm sure that when they were coming up with ideas, they didn't test every one of them and only tested the ones they thought were the best. How do you suppose they decided which were test-worthy ideas and which weren't?
"In the heat of battle your decision making, gamble, weapon choice, positioning, strafeing, strategy ect. is what matters the most, no matter what weapon you have."
So we should put any kind of weapon in the game then since it is obviously irrelevant to skill what weapons are in the game.
Your implosion idea might be good.
"No change? No problem. Change? No problem."
I'm not sure where you got the idea that a random change from something that works will produce something that works.
If you're going to reply again, maybe restrict yourself to discussing one idea. These posts are getting very long.
I'm pretty sure there will be an option to disable all abilities if someone want's to create a server like that.
If you have a base of 1000players, you can playtest something within a day, not that hard.
Lg 29times was exaggeration I just wanted to make a point, and that's nothing works from the begining. After you start to exploit and something starts to be overpowered like RG which was 5+years with a 100dmg for example.
LG - everyt 4th second...you have a chance of doubledmg, chance lasts for 300ms, it requires you to remember releasing and firing your gun again. It's an example, not specific like you said...none example is specific since it derivas from Idea, and Ideas are ment to be worked upon until proven good as prototypes. End design of an example/idea is final product.
RG - your punishment is that you are defensless 3000ms until you can switch weapon/fire again due to 2slugs fired so double reload time. Afkors there are other ways too. From overload you take 25dmg yourself or whatever because it's a risk like doing rocket jump is a risk.
You cant hear rails, but you can hear gun buzzing, not from a fair distance unfortunately.
You missed the point:
In the heat of battle your decision making, gamble, weapon choice, positioning, strafeing, strategy ect. is what matters the most
No matter what weapon you have - how you use a weapon is a skill and it depends on all variables already mentioned, and I never implied to put ANY weapon I discused new weapon mechanics.
"No change? No problem. Change? No problem."
Means I don't really care, quake is quake and I will play it champions, new mechanics, weapons or not.
And the impaler idea yeah I would like to see something like that it gives something different but maybe in a good way due to all weapons having knockback and none "pullback".
As for GL missing from the game, I like nades, hope they bring those back in some variant.
Edited by White_Insane at 04:40 CDT, 18 March 2017
Yep, I'm expecting QC will give you the ability to create a private server with custom settings (I'm not sure how much control you'll have. I'd be surprised if it is anything like QL's level of control.), but I doubt players will be able to connect to it via matchmaking.
I don't really know how long it takes to play-test something. I'm sure it will vary a lot depending on what needs to be tested. However, I do believe balancing a game is no trivial task, and the more complicated it gets, the more likely achieving true balance will be abandoned, and they'll go down the route of patching the game every time someone figures out how to exploit it. I liked that balance patches were infrequent in quake's history.
Whatever the case, we will still need to use our brains to eliminate bad ideas so that testers are used most effectively.
I am aware that some players don't even like the concept of balance. q1 players tend to like what they call "imbalanced" weaponry. I guess this is because there are different ways of thinking about balance.
For me, a balanced game is a game that will never need another balance patch (or at least not for a very long time) because during the time that it is played, the vast majority of players will be happy with it as a skill-based competitive game. So by that definition, q1 is balanced.
"that's nothing works from the begining"
I can't really argue with that. :D
"Ideas are ment to be worked upon until proven good as prototypes"
I agree. I think we brainstorm, come up with ideas, eliminate bad ideas using logic and experience, rank ideas according to which we think are the best, implement the best ones, and test to filter out yet more bad ones; and then when we have a sufficient amount of ideas implemented in the game, those can be tweaked until a desirable balance is achieved.
The thing is people are going to disagree in the "eliminate bad ideas using logic and experience" phase. :D
I'm not a fan of some of the ideas you put forward in this thread, and I explained why, so if it were up to me, they'd be eliminated (or at least revised), sorry. :(
"You cant hear rails, but you can hear gun buzzing, not from a fair distance unfortunately."
Knowing your opponent has railgun out won't tell you whether the next rail is a standard rail of a supercharged rail. Only counting his shots would do that for the railgun your proposed---a very tedious game mechanic. You would have to make the sound of the gun change when the next shot is a supercharged one, and it would be kinda important that the player can hear it from long distance.
"You missed the point:
In the heat of battle your decision making, gamble, weapon choice, positioning, strafeing, strategy ect. is what matters the most
No matter what weapon you have - how you use a weapon is a skill and it depends on all variables already mentioned, and I never implied to put ANY weapon I discused new weapon mechanics."
I didn't miss the point. Those things matter a lot in a game; I agree, but if you put a bunch of ill-considered weapons into a game, there is a good chance that skill and the game will have nothing in common. You could easily put in one gun that makes all those things irrelevant. That was my point. Saying that doesn't justify your weapon ideas.
"Means I don't really care, quake is quake and I will play it champions, new mechanics, weapons or not."
Quake is a name, and people have different ideas about what makes a quake game a quake game. If they turned it into an RPG and called it quake, would it still be quake?
That said, I'll most likely try QC.
I think they will include nades. Overwatch has that junkrat nade guy, so how could QC not? :D
Yeah, pullback might be interesting. Chalk it up for some play testing. :P
Whole game is colorized, from UI, weapons, colors, all champions are customizable to suit colors.
Why not then just stick to RA and YA. Changing quake specific terminology 17 years later.....should not happen, did any of the guns change their names? Same should be applied here, that's my opinion at least ;)
They don't make a game only for old school players who knows the terminology. New names are more intuitive you know instantly what's the value of the item.
I give you analogy. Let's say there's a game Sex Arena where you make a pleasure to women with dildos. There is Pink and Cyan dildo pick ups. One is much better because it has vibration engine, which one it is based on the names I gave you? Do you go for Pink or Cyan?
We are all visual beings, and from the kindergarden you are teached to know that:
red means danger, heavy, stop (traffic light), ect.
yellow means caution, somewhat dangerous and ready (as in quake one ya makes you oke but not that durable as with ra making you tanky)
green means safe, go, light and not dangerous
You are right about the colors meaning but it doesn't apply here because it's kind of reversed. This is more applicable to health and armor bars where red may mean danger if you're low on health/armor and green if you are really stacked meaning you're safe to push your enemies.
it's like plates for olympic weightlifting
green 10kg
yellow 15
blue 20
red 25
Red usually means heavy like you put something on the scale you will get a red light if it goes over the limit
If you put something just "righ" you will get green light
if you get caution you will get yellow
Edited by White_Insane at 05:09 CDT, 17 March 2017
Whatever visual representation of armors they use, people will have to learn it---unless they literally write "heavy armor" and "light armor" on it. You can only assist in that learning by attempting to make it more intuitive. For instance, the heavy armor could appear more bulky or more badass, or something. :D
Personally, I don't think the red-yellow-green system failed in that regard because colours are really easy to remember and those colours do have associations for most people.
I agree, i've been so waiting new weapon concepts too.
I don't know why we have two kinds of MG and SG each, while we could have some entirely new weapons instead.
First that comes to mind are hit-scans weapons that change their DPS and speed of fire after some time passes since you pressed your +attack button (like chaingun in q2, but with more solid change).
Some acoustic weapons that alter the movement of the target somehow.
Some weapons with the effect on the environment, like the flamethrower or the slime gun from the UT.
Harpoon that works in pair with the melee weapon to drag your enemy and open him upside down (Mortal Combat Scorpion-style).
Just shit-storming, but i refuse to believe that all possible arena fps weapons have been designed already till the end of the times.
I explained some of the variants which could be done to "evolve/improve" or just redesign the weapon but still have the same old point click and shoot mechanic if you scrool a bit more up.
With gauntlet I had similar idea, but after using it for few seconds you can trigger the switch which detaches the blade for 2feet in front of you, if you get a hit the cooldown to use it again is doubled, othewise the trigger starts the normal countdown. It should be something small like this but not something that will change base intent and mechanic of the weapon.
As for your chaingun suggestion, regular machine gun new behaviour: if you are firing it for lets say 3500ms since the gun is already warm it gets "overheated" and for next 1500ms shoots with the rate of heavy machine gun making the heavy machine gun obsolete and not needed. Instead of heavy machine gun bring us back grenade launcher or some new variaty of proximity mines or whatever.
One shotgun and that is double barrel, there isn't something you can innovate much with, except variaty of reload/spread, it can even have 2 behaviours randomly but that would give random factor which wouldn't work too good. Let say every third shot you get double reload speed / 30less spread / double knockback or whatever
Flamethrower is unnecesarry since there is already rocket and the explosion itself can let behind itself scorched area for 1000ms doing 1-2dmg (not stackable) or something like that.
Harpoon sounds nice (but like the gauntlet I described not glory/gory kills as in Doom that is changing core mechanics too much)
Acoustic, this sounds good to me, but how would you display the projectiles since it's sound, and sound in general has no visibility, maybe something like wide spread linear bursts of sound which starts from 20percent of the players radius and ends with 60percent of the players radius as the "wave" moves forward". With wave either having the end range with same dmg from the point of the gun to the end range before it disappears, or lower-increased dmg the closer/further from the blast you are with a decent knockback mabye ?
There hasn't been everything discovered yet afkors...and shitstorming, brainstorming is the only way to come with something new or improved old concepts.
When it comes to weapons in general (i.e. anything that inflicts damage on your opponent), I'm sure there are lots of ideas to be had. But if you're talking about the subset of weapons called guns, i.e. something you aim and shoot that causes damage with a projectile (even if simulated with hitscan), I think you'll be hard pressed to come up with something truly novel that doesn't have a drawback (the reason no one has bothered with it yet).
Modulating gun variables seems to be the way to do this, but it doesn't seem attractive to me. Heretical though it may be, I'm not a fan of the q2 chaingun. It's slow. The enemy is gone by the time it has spooled up. :D
The original wolf3d chaingun, and then the doom chaingun, didn't have this problem.
The alternative would be to give the gun some secondary effect on the enemy. Knockback is an example. Your acoustic weapons or scorpion harpoon would do this. I guess the danger here is in making the gun too powerful. If we get too elaborate, we're turning quake into final fantasy.
Weapons that affect the environment sound like traps. I'm not a fan of traps because they require players to be cautious, which slows the game down too much for my liking. I don't want quake to become a game about sneaking.
Personally, I like guns for quake because the time between action and damage is very short, which keeps the game fluid and fast-paced. If you do something and then a long time later it causes damage, how could it be anything other than a trap?
There is a way to follow generic approach to create new weapons, however most of them have been already present. Each weapon has a set of properties, here's example:
Damage per projectile:
1 [--------------] 100
Range:
close [--------------] infinite
Spread:
None [--------------] High
Projectile speed:
instant [--------------] slow
Cooldown Time:
instant [--------------] 1.5s
Number of projectiles per shot:
1 [--------------] 100
Physics/mechanics:
- projectile reacts to gravity
- impact or explosion condition (enemy hitbox, surface, time)
+ many more
Now if you design new weapon you have to balance them distributing even amounts of point on each property scale. Each of them is more or less important and you can pair them.
In QL you have:
Rocket Launcher
Damage per projectile: 1 [-------------X] 100
Range: close [-------------X] infinite
Spread: None [X-------------] High
Projectile speed: instant [----------X---] slow
Cooldown Time: instant [-------X------] 1.5s
Number of projectiles per shot: 1 [X-------------] 100
Splash damage: None [------X-------] 100
Splash damage radius: None [------X-------] Big
Hit knockback: None [------X-------] High
Railgun
Damage per projectile: 1 [----------X--] 100
Range: close [-------------X] infinite
Spread: None [X-------------] High
Projectile speed: instant [----------X---] slow
Cooldown Time: instant [------------X] 1.5s
Number of projectiles per shot: 1 [X-------------] 100
Splash damage: None [X-------------] 100
Splash damage radius: None [X------------] Big
Hit knockback: None [---X----------] High
LG
Damage per projectile: 1 [-X----------] 100
Range: close [----X---------] infinite
Spread: None [X-------------] High
Projectile speed: instant [X-------------] slow
Cooldown Time: instant [X------------] 1.5s
Number of projectiles per shot: 1 [X-------------] 100
Splash damage: None [X-------------] 100
Splash damage radius: None [X------------] Big
Hit knockback: None [---X----------] High
etc...
BFG was overpowered because having 100 damage and high projectile speed they didn't decrease cooldown. This weapon would be playable in each mode if the cooldown was 1.5s. If you keep cooldown and lower the damage it's plasma gun. If you increase speed and lower rate of fire it's closer to railgun. CPMA CQ3 mode had BFG with lowered rate of fire and this weapon was strong but balanced in a way that you would prefer other weapons in many situations anyway.
Mentioned flamethrower would be close range - large spread, low damage - instant rate weapon. It's alternative to shotgun which is similar but high damage - low rate. So I guess there is a niche for that kind of weapon too. It doesn't mean we need it because of gameplay reasons. Visually it can be really messy and introduce too much chaos and lack of visibility on the battle field. If done smart maybe it can be okay in team/ffa, who knows.
HMG is the same weapon as MG with HMG just having I little more damage output.
Nailgun is similar to plasma. Other appearance but mechanically the same role in the gameplay.
So these two are not needed in QC.
where I made a post, not so carefully crafted as yours, talking about the aiming modes and the properties that defined them and how most of these that are any good have been covered in existing games.
But we quickly moved on to the idea of modulating those properties, so they are not actually fixed, creating new guns whose properties change depending on certain factors, like the mythical shotgun whose spread changes depending on room brightness. :D
This creates more possible guns, but a lot of those ideas detract from gameplay imo.
The other way of increasing the variety of guns was to add more secondary effects to a gun. For instance, instead of just knockback, you could have the player's weapon malfunction when he is hit, or have his speed reduced, etc.
Again, this increases the scope of possible guns, but also makes finding good ideas much harder.
In terms of completely new guns I would consider healing gun for teamplay games. It contains 5 healing darts on pickup. Each gives +25 health to your allies but doesn't exceed base health pool so it can't be applied to your team mate as mega health. It's up to decision or testing if shooting your enemies heal them too, deal damage or do nothing. TDM from previous Quake-s is too FFA-ish. It needs to evolve to give players more room for interactions and team play. Healing gun can do one step in this direction.
Normally, I'd consider a gun as a type of weapon (something which inflicts damage on the enemy).
If you aim it, shoot it, and it causes damage with a projectile, then it is a gun (traditional gun).
If you aim it, shoot it, and its effects do not include damage , I guess it could be a gun too.
But I was really thinking about inventing new kinds of traditional guns, which I think is quite difficult.
When broadening gun effects beyond damage, the sky's the limit. You could for instance have a tractor beam gun or a force push-pull type gun or a gun that enables invert mouse on your opponent when you're tracking them. :D
I edited LG bar. I missed updating it after copy/paste.
Yep they made that BFG intentionally and that's why it only appeared in FFA mode on very few maps. It's more like gun+powerup combo. Q2 BFG was much more OP and dumb gun. This kind of gun should not exist. Even ultimate abilities in OW are not that good.
Slasher - thanks for the videos from PAX East and all your Columbo'ing around finding stuff out.
I had looked for your thoughts on this new game since it was announced last year - but until now hadn't seen you comment.
You were the first guy I heard talking about/explaining Quake as an esport back in the day - before that I'd only really managed Insta Unlagged :o)
I look forward to any report/summary you type up.