This mod's weapons are some of my favourite weapons in any game, ever. They're loud, visceral, powerful, and oh-so-satisfying, especially with Bloody Hell. What these weapons are not, however are balanced. Not even close. While weapon balance may not be the top priority for you guys, it's still rather important, and I think it really hurts the game. Some weapons are simply way too powerful to really fight against, while others are laughably weak. Here's a list of what I consider to be overpowered weapons.

[size=14px]
Too strong:[/size]

X3 Combat Knife: Minor nitpick, but you should not be able to hurl 11 knives at someone in under 2 seconds. I would advocate giving the knife-throw a small charge-up time for throwing speed and damage, similar to the grenades (although, with a much shorter charge time, similar to the UT AR's grenade launcher or the Scorpion's web thingy). A fully-charged throw would do as much damage as the alt-fire.


AM-67 Assault Pistol: This weapon much more effective than other pistols. It's got a relatively high ammo capacity (more than the M806), high damage, great stability, low recoil, and that annoying (and effective) flash unit. Its bullets also seem to have a thing for brains, as every other kill grants me an enthusiastic HEADSHOT! from announcer guy.

Suggestions for improvement: While I don't like marking down a very effective side-arm and starting weapon, it's just too much for the other handguns to compete against, even the D49. I would say, if one were to nerf this gun, it would have to be either upping the recoil, lowering damage, or lowering ammo capacity to 8. Or, you could simply improve the function of the other handguns and call it a day.


FP9A5 Explosive Device: I love this thing. It's great for setting up traps, and aren't simply "fire and forget" like mines since you can toast yourself if you forget where you put them. However, its primary and alt-fire in tandem are simply too easy to abuse. With a good supply of these things, one can easily dominate by simply tossing them at people and detonating. There is often no time to react against things with their huge blast radius. Even when surprised or ambushed, a Crazy Ivan (Red Alert 2) can simply drop a bomb, dodge away, and click the detonator. It's also much more effective as a grenade than a Pineapple, as you don't have to worry about timing the fuse.

Suggestions for improvement: Give the bomb a 1.5-2 second timer before it can be detonated. What would also be neat (and increase its versatility) is a "Bomb-cam" function that lets you see a selected bomb's surroundings, like the Assault rifle's camera (Only it wouldn' be able to move, just look in a single direction, perhaps with wide-angle lens for a better view of things. You could bind it to the Special Weapon Function 2 that I've never seen used.


BX5-SM Land Mine: I hear a lot of complaints about these things. They're too damn easy to use, spam-friendly,difficult to see when placed under pickups, and just about kill anything they touch. And you can't trigger your own mines by walking on them, so they're safer to use than FP9s.

Suggestions for improvement: Decrease the size of ammo packs to 1 perhaps (although that would make the pickups impossible to distinguish from planted ones, so maybe not), decrease max carrying capacity to 6 or something, and perhaps make them less sensitive. They shouldn't be triggered by people simply walking near them. They should actually have to step on the mine or its spring thing to trigger it.


M353 Machine Gun: Nothing major, but I think the recoil should be increased a tad. That's about it for this gun.


G5 RPG: It was a fairly weak weapon pre-2.0, but with the addition of laser-guidance the weapon seems a little too powerful. The laser takes away a lot of skill by removing any need to lead the target, and you with its large blast radius, you won't even have to hit him directly.

Suggestions for improvement: Those things can turn on a dime. If the rockets' maneuverability were cut in half and its speed slightly increased, I think it would be more balanced. (Also, the rocket cam is fairly useless. Perhaps if you could allow players to guide it while viewing from its camera, it would be much more interesting.)

RX22A Flamethrower: This thing is a real monster to fight against. The flames make it difficult to see and place accurate shots on target, and even if you can place the shot and manage to take the enemy down, you often just die anyway as you succumb to the flames, which take freakin forever to die down. And the fact that you can simply toss the weapon makes a tank puncture more of a minor annoyance than a real danger (unless you don't have a weapon toss key bound).

Suggestions for improvement: Water is hard to come by in most maps, so a more common fire-extinguishing method is needed. Perhaps have it so that grabbing health pickups decreases burn time? I would also tone down the "on fire" effects to not obscure your view as much, as it's very very difficult to get anything done when your screen is 75% bright yellow and flashing red every second.


XMV-850 Minigun: While extreme susceptibility to recoil makes it less effective if you just hold the trigger constantly, the Minigun is still capable of incredible damage and nigh unstoppable in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing. A semi-long burst can take down anyone without extensive body armor and lots of health very quickly before the recoil really starts to kick in. And this thing is just plain unstoppable when mounted in the right place.

Suggestions for improvement: Remove the "Use Sights" feature for this gun, as it's a fairly ridiculous feature for a gun such as this. There needs to be another means of limiting this weapon's longevity than simply recoil. Perhaps give it heat gauge like the Lightning Gun. An ammo explosion from a heavy hit to the backpack would also be interesting.


M75-TIC Railgun: TOO MUCH DAMAGE!

Suggestions for improvement: A fully charged shot from this thing is simply too powerful. I would scale the damage down by something like 35% while decreasing the charge-up time and perhaps have it start out fully-charged. An interesting backpack-related injury might be in order here, like having it slowly kill the user if if hit from the apparently radioactive materials inside (or even a catastrophic meltdown. A mini-Chernobyl strapped to someone's back would be awesome to behold.


HVC Mk9 Lightning Gun: I've saved the worst for last here on the overpowered list. I don't even know where to start with this gun. It's a confluence of the most evil things a weapon can do, a "coming together" of horrible things out to rape your mother, kill your father, kick your dog, and poop on your face. It is a ginormous, rusty, spike-studded penis, and your anus is the hole it seeks!

I mean, sweet chocolate Christ on whole wheat this thing is overpowered! The truly excessive (though pretty, I must admit) electrical arc effects, combined with the white and red flashing from the damage make it near impossible to see the user clearly enough to shoot him (unless you use another cheezy weapon like the G5, FP9A5, Flamethrower, or another lightning gun). Getting tossed around like a ragdoll and getting continuously injured make it even more difficult to defend yourself. With the electricity arcing towards targets for you, it takes literally no skill to kill with it. You merely point in the general direction of the enemy and hold the fire button until he dies. The fact that it can attack multiple enemies at a time adds even more icing to the cake. The evil, devious, shitty cake. The water thing is a nice effect, but ultimatly ineffectual since there really aren't that many maps where water plays a significant role in design. Without the aforemention weapons, one can only hope that either he runs out of ammo or overheats, someone comes up behind him and kills him (who will probably kill you too), or you can hit the suicide button to rob the cheap bastard of a cheap kill. About the only weaknesses this thing has is that its damage rate isn't incredibly high so you might run out of ammo or overheat after 2 or 3 kills. Still, that's 3 completely free kills with little chance of significant resistance. It's also rather short-ranged, but most of the time you'll be fighting close quarters anyway, so it's not enough to keep it balanced.

Suggestions for improvement: Pretty much everything has to be toned down here. I would like the electrical arcs effects to be more coherent so as not to blind every goddamn thing in sight. The white flashing shit should go away too. I'm okay with getting tossed around as it's a cool effect (but not from teammates. Then it's annoying and can be abused by jackasses). It should defintely require more aim to use effectively (like perhaps it does less damage the farther the target is from the reticle, and completely loses the target if he moves outside a circle around the reticle of radius 1/5 the width of the screen. Another interesting backpack related injury would be cool here, like maybe shocking the user severely every time the pack is hit (with accompanying tazer blinding effect)?


On the other side of the fence, the weak weapons.

[size=14px]Not strong enough:[/size]

D49 Revolver: Reload is just slow. Powerful slow. I know it's a revolver and should be slow to reload, but damn is it really dumb to have to wait 4 seconds before you can shoot again, especially with only 6 shots between reloads and general instability that means you'll be missing if you're moving too much. I could forgive the slowness if the reload animation was really cool, but it just isn't. The other weapons' reload anims have an air of professional efficiency. This one looks like he's just takin his sweet time, ya know? Chillin', relaxin', easy like Sunday morning. Napping on a hammock in the backyard on a lazy saturday afternoon, easy listenin' tunes wafting gently from the radio, waking just as the sun begins to dip low on the horizon, generally at peace with the world. Then he gets shot in the head by some jerk with an AM-67, with over twice the ammo capacity and less than half the reload time. Bleh.

Suggestions for improvement: Make the reload animation faster, or cooler. In fact, if you could give us a reload animation as cool as Resident Evil 4's Broken Butterfly (Imagine he's loading 6 rounds, not 3), I would love you guys forever. Just watching him slide that bullet into the chamber is just sexy. It's like gun porn or something. [size=7px]I'd buy it at a high price.[/size]

Although, the recoil for the double-shot seems a bit weak to me. The thing should not only recoil the gun, but your view as well. Especially when dual wielded, since that thing becomes a magnum shotgun at that point.


XK2 Sub-Machinegun: Despite being a two-handed weapon, it seems to be even less stable and recoil-susceptible than the Fifty-9 and the XRS-10. It's got a weird recoil-pattern so it's much harder to sustain fire with this thing, more-so than the other SMGs and even the M353 Machine gun. An SMG should not have bigger recoil and less stability than a full machine gun. And to add even more insult to injury, it's deals pretty poor damage compared to its counterparts.

Suggestions for improvement: More stable and less susceptible to recoil. That's about it.


RS8 pistol: Minor, but I think it could use one more round in its magazine, just to even out the burst-fire mode. Could also use a little less recoil. Since it appears to be less powerful than its counterparts, it could use a boost in another area.


M806 pistol: This thing is balls compared to the AM-67. Smaller magazine and less damage it seems. It can't pound away at enemies and drop 'em quick like the AM-67 can, and the flash is much more useful than the silly laser sight.

Suggestions for improvement: Really not sure how to improve on this. More damage perhaps? Or give it hollow-point bullets to make it much deadler against flesh, but less effective against armor.


A42 Skrith Sidearm: Its primary fire is a little on the weak side. Increase the size of its projectiles so it can hit things more easily. Maybe make them faster.


SRS900 Battle Rifle: Decrease its "drunken walk" when zoomed.


R78A1 Sniper Rifle: Same as above.


Grenades (all of them) They're a little too difficult to use. The charge-up to throw or roll is way too long. Slash it by half and it's golden. 4 seconds is also a little long for a fuse. That should go down to 3.

Suggestions for the NRP58 Pineapple: It's a fragmentation grenade, right? Give it some high-velocity shrapnel then! Make it dangerous to about 15 meters!

Suggestions for the FP7 Incendiary Grenade: All that fire should generate a lot of smoke. And why doesn't it do any damage online? Something even hotter than white phosphorous should do some serious hurt on a few baddies.

Suggestions for the T-10 Toxin Grenade: The gas should spread about 50% farther than it does right now, and adverse effects should not be limited to "I am damaged while touching the gas". Perhaps give it that neurotoxin effect that was discussed in that gas grenade thread in the weapons forum, where it foogles your controls and vision?


Silencers/Suppressors for RS8, SRS800, XK2, and XRS-10: Why does a silenced/supressed weapon do less damage than an unsilenced one? For a silencer to be really effective, one would have to use subsonic ammunition to avoid a sonic boom from the bullet, which would mean that the gun would do less damage anyway, silencer or not. If not, the muzzle velocity would have to be decreased by the silencer with rubber wipes contacting the bullet to slow it down (which I don't think is the case with these guns, as such silencer don't last very long). A silencer really shouldn't cause a gun to do less damage. If anything, it should decrease the recoil by slowing the speed of the gas escaping from the barrel and adding weight to the end of the barrel. You could counteract this by increasing the "long gun" effect and making it less stable from added weight. Info on silencers here



I think I got them all. I really hope you implement some of these (ESPECIALLY LIGHTNING GUN! ARGH).

Any comments on the list?

I pretty much agree, but these weapon are more "battle field 2" style than UT style. At first, I loved the lightnin gun and flame thrower, but with my style of gameing, it's a little bit too spammy. However, that view could be attributed to my tactics against bots. Also, can't you disable the "drunken walking" with the scope, which you mentioend about the battle rifle and sniper?

I always used to say that BW has some balance issues, but the devs seem to be a bit too self-confident (no offense is meant), so I think there'll be a lot of painful disputing over this kind of suggestions.

I'm glad you had the patience to post this piece of feedback here, Kaboodles. BW really needs more detailed, well-argumented feedback. It's the lack thereof that 'helps' the devs keep the issues unadressed.

My opinion on G-5 and Lightning Gun is that they should be balanced not by tweaking down their power, but by cutting down the amount of ammo pickup for them. This will prove especially effective for the Loadout - though you can pwn everybody with the Lightning gun, the ammo is very scarce, so you get very few chances for using it. That's a good reason to consider picking another gun and a good way to keep the Lightning gun less devastating.

The Railgun isn't overpowered, it's supposed to make holes in almost everything. If you used the advanced mode for the railgun scope, you'd see that you can easily pick off enemies shooting right through the walls. So if you think the gun is a bit of a cheat, probably it's the ammo pickup again that has to be cut down, not the power.

I didn't get much luck with Minigun - it's way too bulky and gives a lot of chances for the enemy to kill you before you get him with the deadly bullet spray. I think it's balanced enough - very devastating and very inconvenient to run around with.

Just read everything, good and all... especially about the Minigun imbalance (it really shouldn't have Iron Sights since it so easy to get more than 10 frags on one belt of ammo...)

But the Skrith Sidearm...? Man oh man... even with that upgrade of yours, nobody would still bother with it (I even throw it away when I pick up that lousy excuse for a pistol). So here's my input for upgrading the Blaster-wannabee:

NOBODY uses the Sidearm's charge shot, nobody at all. It's a hassle and the chance of missing the shot is way too high, so nobody bothers. My suggestion would be to INCREASE THE NUMBER OF CHARGED SHOTS by how long the Sidearm is charged. For example, if you charge the Sidearm for five seconds, when you release the trigger, you shoot 1 charge shot while you still have 4 bonus charge shots in-stock.

Of course, to balance this, you have to deplete all your stocked charge shots before you could charge your Sidearm again. Sorta like DMC3 Gunslinger mode, don'cha thunk?

I like the weapons as they are when it comes to powerfulness.

There is a fine line between the phrases 'imbalance' and 'different functionality'. In this case I prefer to use the latter, some weapons are powerful simply because their functionality is more effective than others. If you are good at strafing and using covers, you should have no problems avoiding them. (the Mk9 might be a toughy though...)

some how i find the skirth rifle a bit cheap since its reativle high in damage and well the bullets always tend to hit what your shooting at no matter what ,so easy a skirth child can use it , and they do

This gun is not the end of my life if used against me. It's got powerful shots, so what? Don't make yourself an easy target. Works wonders for many of these guns you claim to be overpowered.



I think I can somewhat agree with this; if you couldn't detonate it until it hit the ground I think it'd make it a bit better. Still, I am way more of a threat using pineapples anyways, regardless of what you say. It all depends on how you use it.



I'm not seeing how they serve as much of a problem. If you think they are unbalancing, you can easily just not make them available in game. (Same goes with all of these weapons)



I admit, when someone gots one of these, you generally do have a problem, but remember; They can only fire two rounds before reloading. That's when you strike.



Just gotta use different tactics. If you see them in close quarters, you got a couple options. You could simply back away and get the hell out of there and get in a position more advantageous to you, or you could run like a madman into them, guns blazing. Chances are you'll catch them on fire too if you make it close.
Note: Armor is recommended if you do this.

Out in the open they are hardly a threat, enclosed they probably are a bigger threat to themselves. But I think I agree with the compromised backpack, being able to throw it kind of removes the risk of using a flamer. Methinks making that optional would work.



That's called knowing how to use it for the most part. And mounted miniguns are pretty easy to take out with any grenade (particularly toxin), or a G5. Hell, if you want to get more tactical just protect those "right places" with explosives.



It's a railgun.
Besides, unless it's charged quite a bit the damage is pitiful. And firing it gives away your position quite nicely.



I've heard this all along. I'm just not seeing it. If someone grabs hold of me, I open up with something with full auto or with a flamer. It's also not that hard to stay out of their reach.



You need to learn how to be patient and line up your shots. It's not all that hard. Even in as fast of paced game as UT2004. Besides, the reload animation is the coolest part. It's got a certain arrogance to it that I love. During beta testing the reloading was even slower, and you know what?
I still had no problems using it and I actually liked the reload speed.
You just need to use guns differently. You can't expect all guns to behave the same.



You need to aim for the head more often.



This gun is perfect as is. My brother has no problems taking out heavily armoured units with it.



Maybe you should try moving less with the scope out...



Read above.



Grenades are not an easy thing to use. Try practicing with them more. Once you know how to use them as effectively as any other gun, then tell me they need changing.


And to paraphrase the great and wise DC ; If you think the gun isn't powerful, it probably ain't the gun for you.

That is, if you're not a chunky pile of gibs by then...

Not too hard to avoid the rockets... there's a big green laser showing where it's going...

Dual wielded skrith blasters are devastating. You don't have to reload, and the fire rate is doubled.

Secondary fire sucks, however. Should deal 2x damage at least.

Lightning gun should really have its ammo pickup reduced... though as a weapon it has enough disadvantages to pick off its user before he gets you.

The guy who started this thread however has some reason in his words. Some of the guns he mentioned could use some minor tweaks.

Yeah... green laser...

DK: "Hey... someone's targeting me with a G5... all I have to do is side-step outta the way and..."

*gets killed by the splash damage*

It's really not that easy to avoid a laser-guided rockets y'know... even if the wielder's as accurate as a drunk.

And the mortar-launched rocket is even more menacing than the laser-guided one since it tracks you dead-on...

The only solution I got for this is to pack a Flamer or Lightning Gun to shoot down the rocket before it gets to you (since doing it with bullets isn't going to work).

I'm able to avoid a good deal of them for some odd reason. Maybe something more than a side step is called for.

Besides, I never said it's that easy, ie, a simple side step. You still need to move your legs some.

As for morter ones, those things suck. They got awesome tracking capabilities. But they also take a long time before they get to you. Gives you plenty of time to line up a shot. With a bullet based weapon.

The side-step thing was a joke, but really, even if you run like crazy, it doesn't help much, especially if you're in a wide open space...

Really... DM-Blackhawk is not a good place to be in when encountering G5-whores...

If I ever get my Skrith Tactical Bow, I'mma take those spammers to school...!

Well, when I'm a Gen Mo'ki with sepcies statistics and have the speed relic, double dodge-jyumping is plenty sufficient for me...

This was exactly the map I was thinking about when typed that out.

Nice post. I'll edit this into a real response later. College demands my attention.

Living with the trip mine is easy. Just trigger a burst at where you think the mine might be. Off goes the mine. I have folks conditioned to open fire on the flag your gonna grab, since I am playing it will be mined. Dont stand still while shooting at a suspected mine spot chances are good a sniper will be tracking you.

The Skrith pistol used to be beastly when it worked like an SMG. Seeing it in its current state makes me sad.

Overpowered
--------------
Lightning Gun: Everything said above.
Assault Pistol: WAY too accurate for its power, I'd suggest switching its shot power with the .45 Pistol
Flamethrower: The weapon itself has plenty of counters, the burn just lasts WAY too long. Currently, it's believable only if you got sprayed with the fuel first, but normal flaming should only burn for about 5-6 seconds.

Underpowered
----------------
Revolver: Honestly, I'm not sure what's wrong with this one, it just doesn't feel right. Maybe increase the strength of body-shots, because headshots with this thing are really risky
.45 Pistol: keep the inaccuracy, but give it the shot power of the Assault Pistol
Skrith Sidearm: FIRE RATE!!!
10mm Pistol: bigger clip, those bullets are small enough to fit 18-21 in there
Toxic Gas Grenades: The gas should have some lasting effect on the victims; as it is now, you can run through with minimal consequences. Slowed movement would be nice, and maybe some blindness or persistent damage.

What the hell? The lightning gun is not overpowered.

Very limited ammo, overheats pretty quickly and has limited range. Point me to the part where it is overpowered.

Probably the part where it's pretty much impossible to escape when you're immobile and blind as a mole up there. Add in the fact that it takes no skill to use well (get the enemy on your screen, hold down fire until they die, since you cannot miss unless you have a seizure in the middle of your attack).

The damage per second of the primary arc isn't that high either, the Skirth Rifle could probably kill quicker, and without all the friendly fire.

Then don't get caught, problem solved.

Don't ever use "Well, just don't get hit by it!" as an excuse for having an overly cheap, spammy weapon. It's a terrible cop-out answer from someone who doesn't feel like addressing the problem.

As much as I like the Lightning Gun, there's just no satisfaction in killing with it, because it's so broken. And it's easily the most annoying thing to be killed by, because the instant you hear that sound and see the Blue Screen of Death, you know you're dead. Almost every explosive weapon you could use to counter it is blown up in your face, and you can't aim bullet weapons worth crap for all the **** blocking your view. The only thing you can do is use another lightning gun, which it just so happens I don't carry with me at all times.

As far as solutions go, I think the best idea is to make it require at least some semblance of accuracy when using it, or anything that would restrict the movement of the wielder. That way, running too fast or swinging the victim around too much will drop them, but standing still too long will get you shot. The way it is now, you can dodge-jump away from any attack the victim might desperately fling at you through the murky white haze, and get 3-4 kills without a scratch.

The word 'problem' is an opinion here.
It sounds to me like you are just pissed off because you are always getting killed be Mk9.

It may be spammy and cheap, but is that really a bad thing? The whole point of deathmatch is to kill, am I right?
But that is only while it has ammo and isn't too hot, even if bots catch me, they often need to cool down the gun or run out of ammo before I die.

Just change your stategy according to the gun's presence. Don't rush into rooms but scan them for Mk9-wielders first, if there are, stay far away from them.

Bots are retarded, so they're going to be much less efficient with it.

I'm not just angry at it killing me (frustrating though it may be), but also because it's no fun to use anymore. As much fun as mindless spam is at first, you will hit a point where you realize "I just got a killing spree without aiming." And then it gets old, and loses all satisfaction attached to it. You're no longer thinking, just standing there and holding a button and getting points.

Every gun gets old after a while, that is just how the human brain works. Believe it or not; I got bored of BW in one piece for months last year.

Heh... the wait from 1.7 to 2.0 made me play Warcraft III all over again...

Anyhoo, about the Assault Pistol... Have you guys ever wondered why you think it's so overpowered...?

Maybe it's because you get head shots more often with it. Try aiming for the enemy's body, and see what happens... And also, try using the Assault Pistol's target cursor for other weapons and see what happens.

I just think that there's something very effective about the Assault Pistol's target cursor that makes people aim for enemies' heads... I just can't put my finger on it.

Tried it. Got headshots


Anyway, these weapons are supposed to be imbalanced, being (in universe) war weapons....

I think the AM67's recoil pattern is straight up afaik, so maybe that explains the common headshots.

You got that right. It has a reciol like a wheel gun so if you aim at center of mass and double tap in semi auto the rise will put the second shot into the head. It is the same for burst fire. Add to that if you are using the strobe effect your target tends to turn into you allowing a better head shot chance. It even works on bots give it a try.