I'm not really sure how much attention is paid to this forum by members of Runestorm or what their inclination towards doing anything else on BW is at the moment, but I thought I'd just try to offer a review of the mod along with a few other suggestions for some other people - relevant not only to BW, I hope, but other future projects.
First up - what's good about Ballistic Weapons. The modelling, texturing and sound are all, needless to say, of incredible quality - even the worst of the weapons still hit far above the quality shown by most other mods. All of the features at least work - and compared to the vanilla game there are many of them. A significant number of the weapons are innovative and of unique design, and each of these unique weapons has an excellent design and a lot of appeal when used. The spread of the weapons covers every tactical usage now. The amount of work done on the mod considering the time taken is phenomenal, and the dedication to the mod shows.
For the most part, Ballistic deserves the praise it gets - most definitely from the standpoint of anyone who can code, anyone who can model, anyone who can texture, etc. However, from a gamer's point of view, a few of the concepts in Ballistic fall flat. I'm going to try to list them here. Be mindful when you're reading this that I'm not here to try to cause damage, argument or flaming. I'm just stating what I feel doesn't really work properly, and things that, if fixed, would make the mod pretty much the only mod I've ever played for any game that I would actually go to the store and pay money for.
First up, aiming.
- Hipfire, also known as Unaimed Fire.
The first time I played Ballistic Weapons, I had never actually played a realistic aiming FPS before, and thus had no idea that fire, when not coming from weapon sights, is inaccurate depending on such factors as stance, movement and recent damage taken. I didn't like the mod much at that point, and had no idea what iron sights were (noob, lol) so I stopped playing. After leaving UT for a while and playing some realistic FPSes (such as CS and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare) I found out about the concept of iron sights and hipfire actually being somewhat useful. Armed with this new knowledge, I came back to play some Ballistic (quite recently), but was still rather disappointed. Compared to other games, the implementation of hipfire in Ballistic is extremely bad by default - I remembered not being able to hit anything with hipfire in Ballistic, and this was still the case when I returned to it. Recoil seems to affect hipfire in a strange way (instead of the view moving with the recoil and the fire being coned around the centre, the view stays the same and the centre of fire moves ABOVE the actual crosshairs...) and the amount weapons sway is greatly exaggerated. Without the ability to adjust the hipfire setting serverside, hipfire would be unusable for any real sort of range on any weapon except shotguns. Thankfully, the server that I play on has hipfire adjusted to 0.3, which is somewhat close to CoD4 submachinegun levels.
Additionally, the hipfire indicator really sucks. I mean, really. I'd rather use a dot like in UT2004 than rely on the hipfire indicator to give me any idea of where my bullets are actually going to hit.
Weapons do not recoil as badly as you think they do. Weapons do not sway as badly as you think they do. Remember this!
- Iron Sights
As aforementioned, the first time I played Ballistic Weapons, I had no idea what ironsights were and how they were the staple of realism shooters as the method by which to fire weapons accurately. Iron sights in Ballistic are neglected, mostly because (and this is my opinion) the community was too busy telling RuneStorm all the things they were doing RIGHT with their mod (which is almost everything) and not enough time giving criticisms to improve it. Iron sights are extremely slow to raise for all weapons, no matter WHAT the weapon is, whether it's got a scope or how heavy it actually is. They don't automatically force you to move at the correct speed to maintain them, requiring either a mutator or a Walking bind on the Sights key to maintain proper movement speed. You can't fire while you're changing from sights to hip, or vice versa. They require you to stop for a short time before you can raise them if you're running, and, most importantly, the speed at which you can move in iron sights is NOT dependent (much like the speed at which you move to your sights and the amount of sway you get on a weapon when you're moving) on the actual weapon you have out. Raising a pistol and moving with it is just as slow as raising a machinegun into sights and moving with it, as far as I'm aware - even if the standard running movement penalty applies to iron sights, it's still wrong to force a player to walk when they're carrying a pistol, submachine gun or carbine, since these weapons are LIGHT, designed to be used for close quarters combat, and thus should be not only more accurate from the hip than heavier weapons, but should move at good speed when sighted instead of walking. As far as I'm aware there's some kind of range modifier in place in Ballistic, or so the default properties say, so I don't see why this isn't compensated for.
Second, movement. Double jumps and dodging shouldn't really be in a realistic mod. I can't really think of anything else to say but that, but if you need any more justification, I'll elaborate more in the section on damage. Additionally, run speed is, at its maximum, at UT levels, which is rather fast for a realistic mod, and along with the damage issues (elaboration comes later) diminishes the value of iron sights even more.
Third, damage.
- Damage modifiers.
Ballistic seems to modify damage based on three factors. Hit location, bullet damage randomness and whether the weapon has a silencer on it or not. All three of these have issues.
Hit location damage is a feature of most FPSes, but its implementation in Ballistic is not only flawed but heavily exaggerated. On average, if limb damage is considered x1, torso damage ranges from x2 to x3.5 and headshot damage is pretty much x4. Sounds okay, right, as most hits are registered at torso... except they aren't. Offline testing and online play with all weapons registers an overwhelming number of hits to limb even when the torso is the actual target. Not only is it unrealistic for shots to limb to do such little damage, but it also makes the weapons look extremely weak when you snipe someone for 44 damage or machinegun someone for 8, and also ruins the gameplay by maximising the impact of a lucky headshot, especially as certain weapons with extremely high fire rate and recoil, such as the XK2, begin to severely outclass other weapons simply because the headshot modifier is so much larger than is good for gameplay. The SRS battle rifle is a particularly jarring example of the headshot modifier problem, as its limb damage is 15-20 but it does 95-120 damage on a headshot, which is an absolute joke difference to have unless getting headshots was a feat of skill and not luck, which it certainly isn't when the movement speed is at UT2004 levels and dodge/double jump still exist in the game. Winning and losing should not be about luck, that's what bingo, the Lottery and other such bilge is for. Effort should always equal reward. Always.
Bullet damage randomness... Not really much to say about this other than "what's the point?" It doesn't enhance gameplay to have random bullet damage, it cheapens it, which is why standard Unreal weapons don't have random damage for most weapons,even though the capability for it exists in instant fire modes. All it does is add more luck-based crap to the game - leave luck-based crap to trash like MMORPGs, which make a profit out of systems based entirely on luck and not skill.
Silencers. Not really a biggie - the idea of weapon special being able to enhance the firing mode of a weapon is a great idea, and the modifier for damage on the SRS at least is 10% less damage. However, the sound made by a silenced SRS is still loud even though the muzzle flash isn't really visible.
- Extreme damage inconsistency.
The damage inconsistencies between weapons are pretty distinct, and also cause the weapon types to be neatly divisible into tiers, from absolute joke (overpowered) to absolute joke (underpowered). Reasons are given in each section. The Flamethrower, Minigun, Lightning Gun and any other superweapons are omitted for obvious reasons, but assume they're in God Tier.
God Tier: Shotguns, Explosives (esp.Mines) the AM-67 and the M75-TIC Railgun
The above are the only weapons which do anything near realistic damage under standard conditions.
Shotguns are launched into God Tier not only because of the small size of many UT2004 maps, but because of the ridiculous damage they can do, even on the move, compared to any other weapon, the high capacity of BW's shotguns with the exception of the Coach Gun, the low damage of other weapons and the enhanced movement speed of BW compared to other realistic shooters, causing any requirement of shotgunning in other games to have proper movement, positioning and sound control to go flying out of the window and cementing the place of the shotgun as the weapon of noobs everywhere. Offline, the best I got from an M290 aimed with sights at the chest was 520 damage. I laughed.
Explosives are just as bad. The Pineapple is one of the most effective weapons in the game under any ping, once again because of the movement speed, the low damage of bullet weapons and its ridiculous damage compared to bullet based weapons. The general strategy is to cook the Pineapple (pulling the pin while it's still in your hand, if you don't know the terminology), dance around with dodge and sprint to dodge most of your opponent's bullets, not as if he's going to kill you with the ridiculously low limb damage, then before the grenade explodes, just throw it at him. Because the NRP is given an actual BAR to count down the time left before it explodes (lol, tbh) this technique works extremely well as long as your opponent doesn't get a lucky headshot.
Mines do not belong in Ballistic if it continues to retain the movement speed of UT2004. They're not easy enough to spot and they do a ridiculous amount of damage, especially considering the basic UT2004 level's map design.
I hope I don't even need to mention the G5. Guided rockets, massive blast radius, massive damage, complete joke.
The AM-67 has a 20 round capacity (doesn't even look like 20 rounds fit in there), flash, extremely high damage (30-40 limb, 40-70 torso, oneshots to head), the option of full auto and the ability to be dual wielded. It singlehandedly craps all over the entire sidearm class as well as the standard sniper, half of the automatic rifles and all of the long range rifles.
The M75-TIC is pretty much a superweapon. Its limb damage is 100-200, which aside from having a stupid range, causes it to kill any newly spawned player in one shot and have a good chance of killing a player with a few goodies in one too. If that's not enough, body damage is even higher and headshots max at 400, which will oneshot any player in Ballistic. The crappy little standard sniper, so unnotable that I can't even remember its designation, absolutely pales in comparison, so badly as to be completely useless compared to a railgun, and the SRS, while excellent at long range, will be less useful compared to the M75 if the player has basic hitscan skills.
Dubious Tier: XK-2 x2
Only really an issue with dual wield, but it has a high rate of fire, overly-high capacity and a moderate kick, which leads to a significant number of headshots for joke damage.
Good Tier: Machineguns, Carbines, Assault Rifles, Other Non Submachine Gun Automatic Hitscanning Weapons
Bread and butter of any game like this. Nothing really to say about them.
Average Tier: Single-shot long-range rifles, revolving pistols
Aside from being made to look like crap by a mere sidearm (I'm looking at you, AM67), they don't really fill a role. Long range is covered by the railgun and medium range is fine for almost anything with automatic fire. They can be useful as they give peripheral vision when sighted, but they're not automatic and as such don't have the kick to give them the chance of landing a ludicrous headshot. The SRS fills this role, has a silencer, a variable scope and is also useful at close range because of its status as an automatic. Totally outclassed compared to it. Additionally, automatic weapons like the SRS do not lose much effectiveness with ping increase, whereas the single shots require significantly more prediction for around the same rate of damage.
Crap Tier: Beretta-type Pistols, Projectile Weapons
I know what you're thinking. "It's a handgun, it's not meant to do damage." And maybe it would be a valid statement if they had any use. Not only is a weapon randomly chosen from the sidearm class (which contains submachine guns, revolvers and the dreaded AM67) to give the player when they spawn in non-Loadout gametypes, but in these gametypes, carrying capacity is not limited, so a player may as well simply switch to another primary weapon at the same speed after his current weapon's magazine runs out, instead of doing a fast switch to a light pistol as in other games. And of course, in Loadout, you can simply choose a submachine gun or any of the other, better types of pistol. There's no situation in which these weapons are desirable or useful compared to others.
Projectile weapons. The A-series Skrith-type weapons, the ViPeR rifle, the X3 blade throw special. Projectiles, obviously, don't hitscan, so you have to lead even with zero ping. However, not only are these projectiles affected extremely badly by ping to the point of being almost unhittable, they do about as much damage as a hitscan bullet, which is much easier to make contact with, making weapons that shoot projectiles completely useless at long, medium and even short range, as even though you may be able to hit them more here, projectile weapons have a lower ROF than most hitscan weapons, and hitscan weapons hit just as well. Not to mention the dreaded shotgun.
Still awake? Still alive? I'm impressed. Onward we go...
Fourth, weapons.
When one adds too many weapons to the game without thinking properly about role, statistics and class, what results is an extremely poorly balanced game with some downright baffling oddities. There's an issue like this with almost every single weapon in Ballistic - even the melee weapons.
General issues with every weapon: Recoil, hipfire radius, movement sway, ironsight speed, ironsight move speed and even DAMAGE are not logically applied. Some pistols in burstfire recoil more than the M353 Machinegun. Pistol bullets do more damage per shot than some heavier weapons do. Looking at the M806 Beretta and the M353 Machinegun, the Beretta seems to sway MORE without the effects of "chaos" being added to, as the code puts it, much to my amusement, "greatly _ruin_ the player's ability to aim accurately", and sways nearly as much as the M353 does under the effect of full "chaos." God damn, it's a game. It's still got to be playable, and the way to make a game playable is not to keep in dodges and double jumps and them penalise players for using them so badly that their hipfire becomes utterly useless. Jumping in CoD4 hardly even shakes your aim.
The icing on the cake is that these soldiers can apparently hold a PORTABLE MINIGUN AT 3600 ROUND PER MINUTE without it being blown out of their hands, yet moving and firing a pistol leaves them flailing their arms everywhere in sight...
Issues with melee: The X3 has more functionality than the other weapons.
Issues with sidearms: The AM67 outclasses all of them, the balance between pistols is extremely poor. The XK-2 should be buffed, made actually useful in the role of an SMG, have its dualling ability removed and be added to the primary weapon class. Same with the other submachine guns in the sidearm class. The MRT-6 is strong enough to be a primary weapon.
Issues with machineguns: The M925 obscures the view when fired from the sights, greatly diminishing the value of the weapon. The M353 doesn't act anything like a machinegun, in that it has low damage and extremely low recoil.
Issues with shotguns: M290 outclasses the others due to raw damage potential.
Issues with automatics: The M50 grenade has a low range, exaggerated blast effect and slow speed for a grenade launcher. The M50's primary fire mode has a low rate of fire, low capacity, significant recoil and low damage while having bad sights and retaining the poverty of hipfire that all Ballistic weapons have. The S-AR 12 in most situations outclasses the other automatics, due to good hipfire, improbably low recoil and high damage despite the short barrel (defying all known laws of physics while it's at it), with the exception of the SRS provided hipfire is set to reasonable values and the player has a good ping.
The Skrith rifle is the Link Gun of Ballistic.
Issues with grenades and mines: Real grenades don't give you a little bar that shows, conveniently, exactly when to throw to avoid being pulverised. Mines just shouldn't exist unless they're going to be tripped by anyone's proximity and not just enemies.
Issues with single-shot weapons: No role. R9 outclasses the Redwood.
Issues with snipers: The M75 and SRS both outclass the standard sniper heavily. The scopes do not sway when the player is not moving, which renders people trying to ironsight instead of just running around with a shotgun easy prey for getting railgun oneshotted.
Fifth, default settings.
Ballistic is very customisable, and this is one of its advantages. However, most servers running Ballistic use the default settings, which are bad.
- Hipfire's default setting is almost unusable.
- Dodging is on.
- Stable weapons when jumping etc is off.
- Keep Super Weapons has absolutely no effect. Standard Ballistic incorporates superweaponry like the mines, railgun, flamethrower, lightning gun, G5 RPG and minigun into standard play, including Loadout menus. Because of this, most servers running Ballistic don't even bother with all the time you spent writing the hipfire code and just use guided G5s, auto-aiming HvCs and spray-and-send-the-other-guy's-aim-to-Hell-flamethrowers. While that may be fun to noobs, most people will get sick of it very, very fast. There's a reason you don't see loads of UT2004 servers running a mutator to replace a weapon with the Redeemer or another superweapon - because it isn't fun.
Customisability is all well and good, but most servers will not take advantage of it, so the best way is to have the standard settings give the richest possible gameplay, even if that means dumping a few dubious weapons or concepts.
That's pretty much all the criticism I can level at the mod. If ironsights worked properly and logically, hipfire wasn't so stupid, the superweapons were actually classed as superweapons, locational damage was dramatically toned down and all weapons were given a real role in the game and some proper attention to what they should actually be like and how they should work, Ballistic would be pretty much a perfect mod. I'd be happy with just the second, third and fourth though, as I think the low damage as a result of the limb modifier being the one that's used most often combined with crappy hipfire is responsible for most of the issues with Ballistic.
One final thing. I keep noticing weapon packs being made for Ballistic. While the custom work inside the packs is always great, there's one simple fact, and that fact is that a game does not need a shitload of weapons that are almost clones of each other, with the only minor separation being a throwaway feature such as a laser on a pistol. Nor does it need even more superweapons, like the second Minigun or the artillery cannon. I respect the abilities of those who like Ballistic to make custom content for it and by no means am I trying to tell anyone what the hell to do with their time - if people want to keep making weapons, keep doing it, it makes most people happy and if nothing else it's at least something nice to look at. However, I don't really think that adding even more weapons to Ballistic has any real purpose, and the role overlap between the standard weapons (in 2.1) and the weapons released in the various packs is extremely high. I'd personally find a lot more use in trying to fix the gameplay and balance of Ballistic instead of worsening it by adding even more variables to the mix.
There seem to be quite a lot of people in the ideas sections playing Mary-Sue as well, by suggesting ideas for weapons which aren't remotely balanced. It might seem cool to you for such a weapon to be made a reality and put into the game, but it's not cool for other people who just want to play a fun, balanced game which isn't reduced to 3 or 4 overpowered weapons, making anything that ISN'T related to those weapons a complete waste of the coders', modellers' and texturers' valuable time. If it's not at least remotely balanced, it's not going to be implemented unless you take time out from suggesting ideas to people and learn to actually model yourself.
That's all. Comment, flame, agree, although I'm expecting a lot of the second and none of the third. Surprise me.
) but it's present (presumably by default) along with the other superweapons on a European loadout server that I found. Even though I ping 152 on the East Coast server and 44 on the European server, I'd much rather play on the East Coast server simply because everyone who joins on the European one loads out the AM-67 as a sidearm, mines in the grenade slot, and any combination of the HvC, G5, RX22, M75 or XMV for the primary and secondaries.
I have a feeling it's RoF is way too low as well, recoil too.
