That is not a problem with the weapon's damage; the power core/nodes have hardcoded damage percentages.

Its not so much about the damage. Or the speed and style of gaming. Its about the advantages and disadvantages each weapon has over the other.

Good balance leaves each weapon most useful for at least one particual situation.

If you feel one particular weapon "does it all" and you dont need to use the rest then theres a problem.

The options you can play with in the settings menu does not change this since the changes are universal and keep the balance the same among all weapons.

At least the railgun takes time to kill a node. The minigun can tear one apart in under two seconds, from across the map too, if it's deployed and on low speed...

ok.. offensive comments aside..

we sure did try and tweak all this stuff to make em all balanced, and i think they pretty much are.. Its a case of skill, and how well you know your weapons, that makes the diffirence.. when we play a LAN, someone who uses the weapon they have become adept at, will kill someone who has ANY other weapons.. thats all there is too it.

grenades!!?? why in hells name cant people use them, and why do they seem underpowered.. other greandes, in every game i've ever seen, cannot vary both time and distance.. if you can get that right, you'll be very well off...

A42.. hmm.. perhaps this may be somewhat off balanced.. when dualed however, it can be nasty.. i generally have about as much trouble killing with this than G5 and HVC.. it all comes down to how well you do with diffirent weapons.. someone who is skilled, will be regared as "spammy" coz they can kick your ass with anything

Yeah I'm much better with grenades once I started fiddling with them, but I still think the throwing charge-up time is a little long.

Dual A42s are pretty tough, especially without the need to reload (maybe add an overheating feature like the HVC?). But with the slow-moving projectiles, it's not particularly effective at range an can be pretty easily evaded, even if you bump into each other at close range. The HVC is a different story, since it's very easy to be "adept" at the weapon. It's got so many advantages. It incurs no movement penalty to the player, no accuracy penalty while running or dodging or sprinting, tracks people, blinds them, and flings them through the air to prevent them from shooting back.

And with the G5, I don't see it as very realistic that a rocket can see a laser dot that's behind it, especially when the laser dot is behind a wall. Perhaps you could add a feature where the rocket could lose sight of its laser dot. I might be able to forgive its huge blast radius and insane maneuverability

Oh, and why doesn't the FP7 do any damage online? All it does is block vision, which is annoying, but won't get you many kills

Someone regarded as "spammy" will generally only use one certain weapon.

And regarding the AM67, it just seems too powerful to be balanced against its counterparts. It fires a tad faster than the M806, seems to do more damage, has a larger clip, feels more stable, doesn't seem to have as much recoil, and a much more useful alt-fire. If its clip size was reduced to something like 8 then it might be better, especially as the flash makes you much safer from the enemy and allows you to get a clearer shot on the guy.

And for the XK2, it's just a really weird gun to fire on the move, with its bizarre recoil pattern. Works well when stationary, but doesn't compare to the Fifty-9 and the XRS-10 for run-and-gun.

This is the sole reason I don't usually play ONS maps with the BW weapons, it just becomes a "Powernode under constru-... Powenode destroyed" game.

Im pretty sure a rocket (yes, a modern one) is capable of detecting a laser pinpoint from all angles around it. It doesnt exactly use "sight" to detect the signal. An RPG from the future wouldnt be any different.

But it would be plausible to suggest that if the laser moves too rapidly the rocket may lose control attempting to maneuver towards the laser.

UT rockets already do this. Ever tried using the rocket launchers lock-on ability? If the locked on target dodge jumps then the rocket oversteers and veers in the wrong direction.

Would the G5's nasty damage also be forgiveable if the laser needed to move slowly for perfect accuracy?

Especialy if recoil and chaos was set to high, then the rocket guider will need to hold still and make himself vulnerable.

At least this would make me happy as I could still curve rockets around walls. But you could'nt follow a targets every movement.

And remember there need not be any major change to the G5 as you can always shoot those rockets down.

As for pistols I think this is true, the AM67 is the best pistol of them all. Best accuracy, fire rate and damage-per-second. My responce would be to trade off these abilities to the other pistols. Best accuracy can go to the 10mm pistol instead, best fire rate can go to the M808 and so on.

Not significant nerfing just a statistic swap-around.

more ideas?

Each weapon needs one outstanding feature to set it apart, and when one gun has all of the above, the others never get used.

The Assault Pistol should have the best accuracy but just average damage (it looks very heavy and solid)

The black pistol (that thing needs a name) should have the best damage but lower accuracy (second to the revolver of course!)

The 10mm should have the biggest clip, good accuracy, and low damage (PLEASE make it a multiple of 3!)

I dunno man. The AM67 sounds a lot more powerful than the M806 (The black pistol), with its full BLAM BLAM against the M806's rather hollow poofy sound. I'd say the damage on the thing is spot on, but it should have the smallest magazine of the 3. Shrink the AM67 to 8 or 10 shots, and up the M806 to 14, and you're probably golden. The RS8's mostly fine as it is; it just needs a larger clip, like 15 or 18.

And G5 rockets are hard to shoot down when laser-guided. You're better off shooting at the bastard guiding it in hopes he dies before the rocket reaches you, or running like hell.

EDIT: Regardless of its ability to see the laser's energy at all directions (which I doubt), It should still not be able to see it through walls, and thus shouldn't be guidable around corners in narrow corridors.

AM67- powerful, inaccurate as hell (I mean, it should be, the barrel is pretty dang short!)
M806- powerful, slightly more accurate (deadly accurate with laser though!)
RS8- weak, super accurate, largest clip size (18 anyone?)
D49- powerful, excessively inaccurate (shortest barrel, what more?)

I am against decreasing the accuracy of the D49, as the thing is hard enough to use as is, with 6 rounds and 4 seconds to reload.

Yeah, the somewhat HL-style Revolver is perfect. It's a nice shock-rifle replacement.

The .357 in HL1 has shorter but great reload anims. DC should check it out.

Im all for giving the award for best accuracy, fire rate and clip size to other guns but this doesnt mean the assault pistol has to have terrible accuracy, fire rate and clip size. Just less.

The assault pistols damage should definetly stay too. It sounds kickass, it must be kickass.

The little 10mm pistol I agree would have the best accuracy, it has the smallest size and firepower and also not end-heavy at the barrel. In fact it strikes me as a gun James Bond would use. And his pistols are always pinpoint accurate.

For the D49, remember its recoil. Its already terribly innacurate if you try to fire it rapidly.
Half-lifes revolver was awesome. Takes notes from that thing.

so we might have:
AM67 - best damage-per-second, automatic, attached flash
BUT
low accuracy. moderate fire rate (when not set to auto), small clip

D49 - best damage in a single shot. Very accurate when fired slowly
BUT
Low fire rate, tiny clip, awful accuracy when fire rapidly

10mm - best accuracy, little recoil, largest clip
BUT
lowest damage-per-second

m808 - somewhere in the middle, in fact its probably fine as it is. Has a balance of everything

got another point for y'all..

think RL.. all all weapons equally balanced??

we have tried to make our well balanced, and they all IMO.. mostly.. its not outrageously unbalanced..

ONS.. hmm.. PN's do seem to be annihilated in a couple seconds... but.. hmm.. will have to see what we can do about that..

bottom-line.. players can become adept at the weapons they choose, and diffirent players will be more devastating at one weapon, while another player could be adept at another.. and someone who sucks at one weapons, and is destryoed by others who use it, is likely to think it "spammy"..

BTW.. the AM67 is a damn good example of how BW weapons will be futuristic..

the player is the only balance issue in a game...if you have trouble against a weapon or if you have trouble using a weapon it is your weakness, find your strength and use it.

Rayne_870 wrote: the player is the only balance issue in a game...if you have trouble against a weapon or if you have trouble using a weapon it is your weakness, find your strength and use it.

If it's not a sick joke of yours, then you are talking rubbish. Try to make and sell a game based on that principle of yours and you'll go bankrupt in no time. Moreover, you didn't put forward any arguments to support your words, so I see no reason why you ever bothered to spend another minute of your life on composing a meaningless post.

I've been restraining from commenting on most suggestions here for too long, now I feel like posting another long post. Sorry for not using the quote tags, I'm getting tired of all these block-quotes with tiny font and a lot of space around. Makes a bit hard to read and rather confusing all in all.

Here are the most true words I've ever read on this forum:

Kaboodles wrote: I understand this, but balance is far more important than realism in an online game. The lightning gun is incredibly hard to avoid or escape from in most DM maps, making it very overpowered. That might be more "realistic" to you, as if that word could be applied to a fictional weapon, but it makes for bad game design (no offense to the devs, of course).

I don't want to pose myself as a boaster here, but as a former game dev responsible for concept development and keeping an eye on the balance for a Q3-like shooter (Firestarter namely) I can say for sure that balance should be the #1 concern a dev should worry about, and coolness & fun only come after. What we have in the case of LG is plainly bad game design, because the thing is unfair. Overpowered or not, I'm not going to argue over that. Just unfair. Moving it to the Superweapon class along with the minigun is a no go because that doesn't solve the problem when you play Loadout. Should it occupy two weapon slots in loadout, that'll do. Anybody with a lightning gun will only be limited to it and the sidearm, also having one main weapon instead of two means that your total ammo capacity is also reduced. Having a shotgun and an assault rifle would be a fair match to having a LG...

But my personal suggestion on LG, considering everything suggested before, is:

1. Primary fire should overheat the gun twice as quick as of now. This doesn't reduce neither the power of the gun nor ammo capacity, but effectively resolves the spamminess issue.

2. Primary fire shouldn't paralyse the victim completely. It should just slow the victim down and give the attacker an ability to toss the victim around a bit, but the victim should have a certain chance of escaping the trap. For example, by performing a strafe jump by pressing one of the strafe keys twice in a rapid succession. The attacker should be forced to aim the gun more accurately for the electric arc to track and catch the enemy.

3. There should be a certain catch radius for the tracking arc. If the victim is outside of it, the arc doesn't track and catch them. If they're in the radius, the arc gets the victim and slows them down greatly, giving the attacker a chance to toss them around the place. I mean, if there's a limited catch radius, LG will require a bit more skill at aiming, which is a good balance fix.

I hope these three features, if implemented in BW, will make unnecessary any damage/ammo capacity/fire rate cutdowns.

M75-TIC Railgun: I think the only fix which might be used here is changing the interdependance between the charge meter and the actual damage from an arythmetical progression to a geometrical progression. In other words, so far a railgun that shows it's 50% charged deals 50% of maximal damage. Probably this should be changed to a railgun dealing 20% of max damage at 40% charge, 60% of max damage at 80% charge and 100% damage at 100% charge. Just make the charge/damage interdependance follow a cuspidal function, so firing a railgun charged below 70-80% will deal very little damage, and firing it at 100% charge will deal much more damage than firing it at 85% charge. So the railgun will be uber-deadly only if fired at full charge, which makes quite a while between shots.

Also making the backpack a weak point seems a fine idea. Every time it gets damaged, the gun gets out of order for some seconds, which is nearly equal to death until you are quick enough to get another gun.

XMV-850 Minigun: This one has only slight balance issues. I don't like the idea of tuning it down in means of power. But look. Mounting the minigun doesn't mean that the recoil is gone. It's just absorbed by the tripod. I guess aiming the thing around is still hard as hell, so the speed at which you can move the gun around while mounted could be limited considerably. A mounted minigun firing at 3600 RPM is like a mounted rocket. I doubt you could sway around a tripod-mounted, ignited rocket paying no attention to its impulse just because it doesn't move.

Limiting the aiming speed in mounted mode means that anyone moving fast enough can outwit the gunner because the latter won't be able to move the barrels quick enough and follow every enemy manouevre with the crosshair. But if you're clumsy, you're cooked in no time.

RX22A Flamethrower:

1. An overheat limit of ten seconds.
2. Every second of firing requires a second of cooling down.
3. No changes to damage or ammo capacity or anything of the kind.

This means you have to fire the flamethrower in short bursts, so spamming is gone. But you still can fire a burst long enough to reduce your enemy to ashes... but if you fail to, you either have to grab another gun or wait ten seconds being completely helpless, that'll be enough for your enemy to kill you ten times. Also, secondary fire becomes more useful, since it doesn't overheat the gun. You still can set a large area ablaze, but everyone has a fair chance for escape before you ignite the spilled fuel.

Now, a word about the pistols. I totally agree with the people who speak about a balance based on different values for accuracy, damage and reload time/clip capacity. The more of one of those means the less of the rest.

I couln't have put it better than Yokelassence did: AM67 - best damage-per-second, automatic, attached flash BUT low accuracy. moderate fire rate (when not set to auto), small clip , - I'd rather say MEDIUM clip size instead, - D49 - best damage in a single shot. Very accurate when fired slowly BUT Low fire rate, tiny clip, awful accuracy when fire rapidly, - [color=##ffff00] but still very accurate at single shots, sic![/color] - 10mm - best accuracy, little recoil, largest clip BUT lowest damage-per-second m808 - somewhere in the middle, in fact its probably fine as it is. Has a balance of everything

A67 is designed to deal a lot of damage, cutting the damage down is a bad desicion; but I see no reason why an assault pistol should have such a high accuracy. We have the devastating double-shotgun-sidearm and a lot of long-range pistols, A67 is the best candidate to fill the gap and become a powerful mid-range sidearm. You get a hard time hitting things at distance, but if someone is fool enough to get close, he just gets two or three bullets and goes to heaven. It's an assault pistol after all.

Now, some stabs at the devs. Sorry, I have to.

ShadowBlade wrote: we sure did try and tweak all this stuff to make em all balanced, and i think they pretty much are.. Its a case of skill, and how well you know your weapons, that makes the diffirence.. when we play a LAN, someone who uses the weapon they have become adept at, will kill someone who has ANY other weapons.. thats all there is too it.

I have to say that your beta testing scheme sucks. If BW was perfectly balanced, nobody would care to start long threads and put forward serious arguments to support their suggestions. It's the player who decides whether something is balanced or not, and not the developer. That's why they issue patches for every shooter. You ought to have at least twenty beta testers at your disposal to be able to judge on the balance.

A human being can master anything, even a slingshot, and pwn anybody with it if they take enough pains training. But that in no way means that a slingshot is balanced. If there are serious complaints, something should be done about.

ShadowBlade wrote: we have tried to make our well balanced, and they all IMO.. mostly.. its not outrageously unbalanced..

Sorry to say, but your IMO sucks. You've just used to what you've created. That has nothing to do with the balance. Again, it's the player (=beta tester) who judges on balance, and not the one who makes the guns. It's a sad truth, but no creator is able to judge adequately on his creations. When I made up a concept weapon system for Firestarter, it seemed perfect to me. But it got drastically changed in course of beta testing, and I trusted the testers more than myself.

A tester is someone whose brains aren't lathery with game development concepts and issues, he just tests the final result, the gun I mean, so I'd rather change my own concepts to something I personally like much less if the testers insist on.

I agree with you that a lot of effort had been put into balacing BW guns, - because everybody can feel it themselves ingame and you needn't even have mentioned it - but still some nasty little balance issues stay. If you were more open to other people's suggestions, you'll get fewer complaints and more positive reports, which means that you make what everybody enjoys, not just the few team members.

Some of the complaints about balance are rather exaggerated, but that doesn't mean that they are untrue. Usually big complaints stand for small bugs. And the smaller a bug is, the harder it's to track. Subtle balance changes are much harder to fix than big and ugly ones. Just as true as absurdly it sounds.

P.S. Of course no offense to the devs, I love you all.

Quick thought:

Baklajan wrote: You ought to have at least twenty beta testers at your disposal to be able to judge on the balance.

Quick fix: per-weapon damage scaling, similar to the WeaponStuff mutator. You could make the weapon damage scalable by a game admin, so many people could host games, give admin logins to all players, and let them play with the damage settings for tweaking purposes. If an admin likes the damage specs for the weapons on his/her server, then just keep the admin login secret. That way, if anybody has a gripe with the specs, they can simply tweak them to what they want. I haven't specifically coded weapons, but I imagine that implementing this would be a matter of changing macros or hard-coded values to variables that are set from the .ini.

This is a public forum, he has the right to post what is on his mind regarding this topic, just like you have the right to criticize it.

I agree partly with his point, because some people are trying to play BW like it is UT2. If you use a strategy that is not suitable for a situation, you'll get your ass kicked for sure.

Calling the player a balance issue and blaming them for all the game issues is, in my opinion, extremely silly. That has nothing to do with tactics... you can be extremely proficient with a 3' stick and kill everybody, but won't make it balanced. If a game has balance issues, no justification will help. And the player is obviously not the one to blame. You are right, it's a public forum, and you're right that I have the right to critisize stupid posts just as somebody has the right to write them. No problem here.

Then you got folks like me who could care less about a weapons spammyness. My group love BW for the sheer fun of it the nastyness of the LG, RG, FF, and Minigun is what makes the mod. That being said we exercise or own controls in the game. Be found carring any of these and your goning to be the party girl of the moment. The sheer power of the weapons are the fun. Folks may moan about a turet minigun but a rocket or well tossed nade takes care of it toot sweet. Sure you most likely will get cut to ribbons while taking it out, but if you are worried about dying why are you playing a FPS in the first place?

I do love the idea of the railer backpack being able to be damaged. Count me in for ghastly radation damage followed by a sudden explosion, or finding the pack eruping into a glowing ball of plasma. The rest of the balance, Meh.

Everytime you ever posted, I think it caused problems...

Here's a simple solution for you Bak: YOU start to make your own mod to do what YOU want. Me, I'd much prefer everyone to seriously stop getting mad over a specific gun. Also, if a LG is killing you, GO GET AN XK2! That worked for me always.

Also the flamethrower I feel is seriously underpowered. Half the time I am hit by the flames, I never get hurt at all. When I do get hurt though, it's just fine. I GO TO THE WATER. IMO, I think the LG is underpowered and needs to cool down faster and have the heat up slower. It's as simple as that. Water is the way to live in BW if you don't notice.

Try to go play BW with a G5, and you'll find that it's pretty overpowering if you know how to use it. I've learned that bots can use it well if they are on defense, but not on offense. And the Minigun is good mounted on the turn speed. Any slower, I'd not be able to turn fast enough to defend my base sometimes!

Posts like Baklajan's shouldn't cause problems because he's put up valid issues he has and provided suggestions on their solutions. Just because you personally don't feel that something's wrong doesn't mean that the issue isn't valid, it just means that you're unwilling to consider that something you love has a flaw. It's ignorance and denial. As much as I love BW, I can admit that it is not the end-all be-all of gaming.

And don't tell people to go make their own mods. The player doesn't owe the modder or their team anything at all, let alone to work at their command. The modder owes it to their audience to create the best possible work they can, and player input can only make that even better. Being closed-minded won't help anything.

The player can be a balance issue in certain situations though. For example if a great player joins a server for beginners.

But I personally like the weapons how they are so I'm gonna hope nothing will be changed, but of course the developers make that decision, not me.

....20 beta testers eh...how many testers did we have? i dont exactly remember im sure wup had quite a few too...i didnt hear of any balance issues then.

these weapons all have diff strengths and weaknesses, lightning gun lacks range...also if you blind or kill the guy before he shoots you or while getting zapped you should be just fine, i can do it so can anyone else

Ai, I was a little mad earlier. I've calmed down (don't worry, it was school) though. I find the opposite flaws in the LG actually. It's too UNDERpowered for the bots! Maybe it's because I actually don't run into their faces if I can!

I had 19 roughly, We tested for bugs, and such..Im really not too concerned with this thread because of the fact I can balance the weps How I choose or how my regulars want.

Hmm what did I say about splitting the forum community?

I see a long line right down the center of this thread. On one side are those who want it changed, on the other are those who want it unchanged.

Debating the feasiblity of the current weapon balance triggers a debate. Not a solution.

However some great suggestions have been put forward on this thread that could both make a difference to the "overpowered" party but not affect the fun for the "underpowered" party in the slightest.

These ideas have been met with "I DONT CARE" or "I DENY YOUR CLAIM".

May I remind everyone that the idea of rebalancing weapons is not to steal the fun and glory of certain weapons but rather make all weapons equally fun. Do not fear the change. If you dont dont agree with someones thought on balancing then I urge you to suggest what a proper solution to the argument would be. The least you can do is offer tips and advice about already existing balance that the complainer may not have been aware of.

Saying "NAY ITS NOT OVERPOWERD/UNDERPOWERED AT ALL" will not fix the problem for the person who is complaing.

What about those who don't think they are overpowered nor underpowered?

Well I refuse to use either 'overpowered' or 'underpowered'.

Some of the guns are just unfair. That's all. After reading this whole thread once more I came to realize that we need to find means to balance the heavy weapons other than reducing their power or fire rate.

I find the idea about destructible backpacks extremely interesting. Also, propositions about some sort of weight system make sense.

Probably everyone who picks a heavy weapon should have their speed reduced by 25% because of its great weight. Instead of the strange speed penalty system we have now. If I get out a flamethrower, I suffer a certain speed penalty. If I stuff it back into my pocket, the penalty is gone. Better make a simple weight system that takes in account the overall weight of your equipment. My personal suggestion is described above: only heavy weapons should reduce player's speed as long as he has them in their inventory.

Then, the backpacks. My suggestion is very simple:

1. All heavy weapons have backpacks: Railgun, G5, Flamethrower, LG, Minigun.

2. G5 has a backpack full of rockets (to clarify things up)

3. Backpacks stay as long as you have a heavy weapon in your inventory. I has always been wondering why they vanish in thin air when you switch weapons. I'm looking forward to a system like this to allow only for one heavy weapon in the inventory: http://runestorm.za.net/pl/forum/forum_ ... .php?34782

4. Backpacks have 50 health which regenerates very quickly. In other words, a backpack explodes if it takes a considerable amount of damage over a short period of time. Occasional bullet hits won't make it go boom. But anyway, blowing up a backpack should be much easier than killing somebody with full health and armor.

5. When a backpack explodes, that means an instant death. Even minigun ammunition should explode for the sake of balance. Different effects for different weapons: a tiny nuclear boom for the railgun backpack, a storm of lightning for the LG, some fireworks for the flamethrower, a big boom for the G5, a shower of unignited rounds mixed with fragments of bullet casings and ricocheting bullets for the minigun.

6. Backpacks are more exposed to grenade damage than the player himself. A nearby grenade explosion which is likely to inflict serious wounds to a player with full health and armor is sure to detonate the backpack. In other words, nobody can survive a grenade exploding at his feet... but when it blows up a few meters away, a player with no backpack is more likely to survive than a player who's got one.

So when you pick a heavy weapon, you have to watch your back. Your high firepower is compensated by increased vulnerability. The backpack stays even when you switch to another weapon. Every time you turn your back to the enemy, you are risking your life. You are a fine target for snipers 'cos a sniper shot in the backpack is similar to a headshot. The speed penalty makes you unable to run down other players, and gives them a chance to escape which is tactically important in battles against players with LGs and Flamethrowers.

Then running around with a LG in your inventory can become a thrilling survival challenge. High firepower comes at the price of a higher risk. Though if you don't turn your back to the enemy and don't get yourself in an ambush, you're safe.

Again, as I have put it in my previous post, a flamethrower that doesn't overheat while LG does is something that can't be justified even by semi-realism. And the minigun is too easy to aim while mounted, which also won't do. A slower aiming speed for the minigun would be fair.

A67 makes most pistols useless. It should have its accuracy reduced to be a balanced weapon. An assault pistol is meant to have a high damage, but it is not meant to be an imbalanced weapon. Anyone who is denying it is lying to himself.

P.S.
Almost every UT site on the net says that BW is probably the best mod ever. They publish laudatory reviews and sing praise to it. But these forums stay almost abandoned with just some 5 or 6 people posting here regularly. Also I don't see that BW is very popular on the net. Do you know why? I do. Every multiplayer shooter is all about balance. Simpler and less original mods like CUT2 have balance, therefore they are played. Runestorm seem to pay very little attention to the feedback here, so few people care to post here. No feedback means no changes. So Runestorm make a game for themselves, not for the players? I just feel that I must expose every flaw here so that it might get fixed some day if RS come to realize how important player feedback is. It's just some two or three people who are shouting "DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING!" here, while the rest admit that problems don't cease to exist just because they're swept under the rug.

Yokelassence wrote: Debating the feasiblity of the current weapon balance triggers a debate. Not a solution.

I've suggested a thousand possible solutions. The problem is that the ideas are mostly ignored.