It's a simple mistake Bjossi.

Wow, just wow.

I seriously don't get where you came up with all this sh*t Kaboodles. all of what you've said about the weapons being too strong and or needing total improvement is just because you've from the sound of it, gotten your ass handed to you too many times by bots (which is funny if its true) or by other players online.



I agree that it does seem a bit silly that you can toss them redicously fast, that is one thing that should be changed. Giving it a throw meter would actually be pretty good, except for damage, speed would be best, but say under half charge its half powerful and after half its normal damage.



This gun i'm totally against with you and your improvements. The gun is totally balanced. You have to know how to fire to use this gun perfectly (which i know how to do), you don't go wildely pressing prim fire. Its perfect.



If you do that, you know what will happen, in 2 hours after the patch or fix comes out, everyone will scream "why you do it RS... WHY! We want our old, explode in mid air laser bomb that we fell in love with"

Giving it a deploy time is dumb, it has one in laser mode, it doesn't need one in the other mode.



WTF? 1 mine per pick up, no way. I can tell your a Battlefield 2 player K. Ballistic Weapons is a semi-realistic mod, and having the mines powerful and plenty is on the semi-realistic side of it.

The only possible thing that should be fixed with them is giving the player a max ammount of deployed mines, say 10 after that you can't plant anymore until one explodes or is picked up. This would best be optional, as in a checkbox.




No ♥♥♥♥♥ way. The G5 is one of the best and perfectly balanced weapons RS has made, its was horrible at time and now its amazing.

Compare the G5 and the Half Life 2 RPG, now that (HL2 RPG) is a ♥♥♥♥♥ spam cannon, no chaos upon firing and it flys perfectly. Unlike the G5, the G5 with alt fire on, doesn't fly straight, upon exiting the barrel, it is wild for about a half a second then goes into control mode.

The only reason someone should complain on this gun is that they have been blown up because they either just can't aim to save there own life or they've had the rocket explode just after launch by a 1337 player raining lead at the rocket.



Have you actually played with it more than a hour? it doesn't need a heat gauge since after holding prim down long enough renders it almost impossible to kill anyone... not saying that you can't kill people, since you can, but its more luck.

Bullets don't explode. When will people get that into there heads. The blast powder or whatever its called is contained inside the chasing, so it only explodes when being fired. So, to this improvment... no.



Now this is definatly tells me you haven't played with the weapons enough. The Railgun is what it is a railgun, if it didn't kill someone in 1 hit, WTF would be the point of having it as a railgun... none. You move slow when carrying it, which balances put the power along wth fire times, reloads and recoil.


This is one idea that is a consideration, though a mini-Chernobyl seems overkill for it. A cool explosion however would be great. And by cool, i mean different from the Flamethrower and that it gibs the person upon exploding.




The gun isn't to be taken seriously or even competitively in the game. Its a superweapon, and like superweapons, its powerful and spammy. There.




I do agree that the reloads needs to be a bit faster, maybe add a better official crosshair since current one kind of stinks , be nicer if it was like the M50 crosshair but a bit different.

I for one can never tell the difference between 1 shot and 2 shots being fired with it (prim and alt fire), not even much of a sound difference.

It does seem silly that it succumbs to chaos and recoil badly. Your barely ever able to hit people with it, and you have to spend to much effort trying to kill people with it

And yes, the reload does lack that RS flare. But knowing them, they already knew it and are already planning to someday fix it.



Well this might be one smart improvement you've mentioned. I do agree with it fully.



Trust me, this gun was way less powerful in 1.72. Its a god-send to us pre 2.0 players that its more powerful.

I like you do find that the lasers on some of the RS guns are useless, but who cares, its a free mod, enjoy it.

Hallow-point bullets? Seems like the makings of a simple weapon to me.

Grenades are fine as they are.


The only that it seems that could possibley keep your mouth shut for a while is if RS gave every gun and weapons its own recoil/ damage/ choas bar. and 31 of those seems absurd.

How is a weapon with max 3 ammo a spam cannon?

Well well in terms of what Kardoodle thinks is a spam cannon. From what i think that eh would consider is that the HL2 RPG is spammy for the laser sight is dead on (which he doesn't like from his post... though i love it) and no chaos or crazy spin upon launch like the G5.

A laser sight is SUPPOSED to be dead on, it's a LASER sight for god sake.

True, very true. But i guess Mr. K just doesn't want to live with it.

Great, here we go again. Flames inbound at 0600

Well if anyone is interested before this thread faces possible lockage: I completed my examination on the lightning gun. I uncovered a few flaws with my first test and had to do it again.

Changes include:
-Ballistic swap is now used instead of WORM
-Bots are actualy set to godlike
-Adrenaline disabled
-All bots are now Brock and his clones.

In addition im using 3 maps. CTF-testcloserange was the original. There is also CTF-testmediumrange which is 1024 UU's longer in the main room. and CTF-testclosequater which is a small maze of sharp corners and well...close quarters.

The new results are as follows

remember that blue team uses the M764 shotgun (yes I meant that when I said M740) and red team uses the lightning gun

CTF-Testcloserange
Winning team: BLUE 2-3
Time: 1:17

red
- Oligarch (brock5) HCV kills: 14 - HVC deaths: 1 - SG kills: 0 - SG deaths: 13

- Chief (brock3) HCV kills: 9 - HVC deaths: 0 - SG kills: 0 - SG deaths: 15

- Slash (brock4) HCV kills: 12 - HVC deaths: 0 - SG kills: 0 - SG deaths: 13

blue
- Chisel (brock2) HCV kills: 1 - HVC deaths: 11 - SG kills: 18 - SG deaths: 0

- Prime (brock1) HCV kills: 0 - HVC deaths: 12 - SG kills: 16 - SG deaths: 0

- Brock HCV kills: 0 - HVC deaths: 12 - SG kills: 12 - SG deaths: 0

HCV ownage factor: 35

shotgun ownage factor: 41

Results very different, The lightning gun has alot more trouble pushing back fast dodging enemies, as such blue team broke through their defence surprisingly easily. Red killed even less than before but they could still push blue back enough to grab the flag before shotgun pellets greeted them with prefect accuracy.

It was the lightning guns overheating that spelled certain doom for red. They also wasted ammo zapping teammates and dead corpses. The lightning gun may have autoaim but it does not always target what you want.

CTF-Testmediumrange
Winning team: BLUE 0-3
Time: 2:05

red
- Thor (brock5) HCV kills: 4 - HVC deaths: 0 - SG kills: 3 - SG deaths: 9

- Loki (brock3) HCV kills: 8 - HVC deaths: 0 - SG kills: 0 - SG deaths: 12

- Reaper (brock4) HCV kills: 6 - HVC deaths: 2 - SG kills: 0 - SG deaths: 12

blue
- Cuchalain (brock2) HCV kills: 0 - HVC deaths: 6 - SG kills: 11 - SG deaths: 1

- Samurai (brock1) HCV kills: 0 - HVC deaths: 6 - SG kills: 11 - SG deaths: 2

- Brock HCV kills: 2 - HVC deaths: 6 - SG kills: 11 - SG deaths: 0

HCV ownage factor: 18

shotgun ownage factor: 33

Yep a longer map did make a huge difference, but not in the lightning guns favor. Sorry no mercy for those who claim its overbalance. The shotgun definetly has a range advantage. Blue team could smote red from across the map. Fortunately for red, they could use the HCV alternate fire much better. Otherwise the game would have lasted shorter.

The HVC's range incapability is ever more apparent.

CTF-Testclosequarter
Winning team: RED 3-0
Time: 8:15

red
- Shiva (brock5) HCV kills: 50 - HVC deaths: 1 - SG kills: 5 - SG deaths: 39

- Loki (brock3) HCV kills: 45 - HVC deaths: 3 - SG kills: 7 - SG deaths: 42

- Reaper (brock4) HCV kills: 58 - HVC deaths: 1 - SG kills: 2 - SG deaths: 42

blue
- Ares (brock2) HCV kills: 1 - HVC deaths: 48 - SG kills: 42 - SG deaths: 5

- Samurai (brock1) HCV kills: 1 - HVC deaths: 55 - SG kills: 41 - SG deaths: 2

- Brock HCV kills: 2 - HVC deaths: 12 - SG kills: 40 - SG deaths: 7

HCV ownage factor: 163

shotgun ownage factor: 121

The lightning gun dominated! Blue had alot of trouble in the center of the maze, bumping into a lightning gun while coming around a corner was not their cup of tea. Blue's only hope was the edges of the maze where there was more distance. They got a few kills there. Clearly the lightning guns optimal environment is tight spaced corridoors.

Out of curiosity I also did test 3 (CTF-testclosequarter) with the flamer, the lightning guns known counter. Blue team had the flamer while red team had the lightning gun.

CTF-Testclosequarter
Winning team: RED 3-2
Time: 6:08

red
-Duce (brock5) HCV kills: 22 - HVC deaths: 0 - FF kills: 3 - FF deaths: 8

- Oligarch (brock3) HCV kills: 12 - HVC deaths: 0 - FF kills: 0 - FF deaths: 18

- Chief (brock4) HCV kills: 13 - HVC deaths: 0 - FF kills: 3 - FF deaths: 16

blue
- Brock HCV kills: 0 - HVC deaths: 17 - SG kills: 22 - SG deaths: 5

- Caliph (brock1) HCV kills: 0 - HVC deaths: 16 - SG kills: 11 - SG deaths: 5

- Prime (brock2) HCV kills: 0 - HVC deaths: 19 - SG kills: 17 - SG deaths: 3

HCV ownage factor: 42

flamer ownage factor: 50

Red still won with their in-your-face lightning surprises, but only closely. The flamer does less damage than the lightning gun but covers alot more ground. Setting entire hallways on fire earned the flamer more kills. I still think the two weapons are fairly matched.

Thats the end of my HCV investigation. My conclusion is that if the lightning gun "always wins" then perhaps you should distance yourself. But there really is no saving you if you come against a HCV user face-to-face. I never saw anyone on blue team evade the lightning, they had to kill red first to win.

But its power comes into question when a perfectly balanced shotgun can stop an HCV user in his tracks, long before that HCV user gets close enough to use primary fire.

Unbalanced? Or fine? There are reasons for both these claims. Perhaps that is just up to taste.

Your comments please.

Very deep and smart examination Y.

Wo that was a great peice of work MR Y. Thanks for the effort.

The one place the Lg rocks is in tight maps. Also it is hell on all in space type floaters. Just snatch em and toss em off the sides of the platform. Love to see my shotty ideas proven out. Even player to player I still seem to escape by a shot blast right as the LG grabs me. However if I get picked up high I'm LG toast save for the lucky random shot.

I really don't like responding to outright flames and trolling, but I don't think I can restrain myself in this case.



I am offended by your accusations, sir. Let it be known that on our server I tend to dominate games against most players (with a few notable exceptions), all the while handicapping myself by using the weaker weapons or those more difficult to use. Just now I I seem to remember handily defeating you several times on our server, but this is not a thread smack-talking or e-peen contests, so I will get straight to the content of your post.



You did not seem to read what I wrote. I know how to use the AM-67. I was not complaining that it needs to be stronger. In fact, I was saying the exact opposite. The weapon is too strong for its counterparts and I feel that should be addressed.



The reason I'm complaining about these is that it's far too easy to simply run up to someone, drop, dodge, and detonate before he has a chance to react, much less actually do any damage to you. But I have already explained all of that.




I have never played Battlefield 2, Mr. Ugly Pants. I have played Battlefield: Vietnam. I didn't like it very much. Don't presume to know such things based on so little data.

One beef I have with this weapon is that it's much easier to detonate with your feet than with a gun. It's sensitive enough that if I run within 2 feet of one, or hell, try to jump over it, it explodes. It should follow then, that bullets would detonate it just as easily, correct? But unfortunately, that is not the case, as only a direct hit will detonate it, so even blasting at one with a shotgun might not do the job, as the pellets might simply go around the mine.




Again, you assume too much about me. I know how to use this thing, although admittedly not as well as some others I know. I agree that the G5 had no teeth pre-2.0, but I feel its bite is a little too strong with the laser-sight improvement. I actually find the HL2 rocket less annoying, as it's harder to control due to its speed and has a smaller blast radius.




You don't seem to understand. I know exactly how to use this weapon and know that holding down primary is definitely not an effective use of this bullet hose. That said, with careful management, this thing really and truly dominates. You can easily get a quick Rampage! without ever having to reload. Of course, looking at it now, that really isn't such a bad thing, as you still have to know how to use the weapon anyway.

So you don't feel it is at all possible that a bullet that finds its way to the backpack can possibly strike the percussion cap on the casing of one or more of these bullets, thus igniting the charge within and having it go off and potentially injure the minigun wielder? Because that's what I meant by ammo explosion.




Eh, I'll concede to your point with its damage, but I still don't like how it's done. Perhaps if it were like the Skrith Sidearm's alt-fire or the Hellbender's laser thing, where you charge it by holding LMB and fire by releasing.




I won't comment until I try the Captain's thing, although looking at it now, I can accept it with no stats changes other than the blinding, especially with blood spatters (which are too cool to take off, though really adds to the visibility problem where the LG is concerned.)



Just because they're stronger now doesn't mean they're strong enough



Eh, mostly, but I would like the throw charge time to be lower.



What on earth are you talking about? And really dude, you seem to get the impression that I hate this mod or something and am just here to be a bitch about it. But I don't, and I'm not. This is a great mod, and I can see that the devs put a lot of B, S, and T into this, but I think it could be better and I want to help them towards that goal. It's not like I can join the team or anything, having no content-creation skills that might be useful. Just trying to help however I can.


That said, I feel I've really done this subject a disservice. I apologize for all the trouble I've caused and will put a little more thought into my post before, well, posting it. I think I've found a way to have a more structured, and hopefully more productive, debate on the subject. This Lightning Gun hullabaloo has really sullied this discussion and eclipsed other areas where we could probably find some common ground (like the pistols). Should I start a new thread with new ideas in mind or just continue it on this one and edit the OP accordingly?

I need to reply to this, but my other post was already rather HUEG, so I chose the double-post route.

I appreciate all the time you put into this, but I don't think you can draw conclusions with just one trial for each variation. You ought to test it multiple times (or send me the maps you used if you don't feel like it), and perhaps have control groups where everyone has pistols or M50s or something.

I say this because I have run multiple long TDM, ONS, CTF, and BR botfights on my laptop before (I was stress-testing it as my laptop is a crappy overheating bastard). I can't remember the specifics of the matches, but I do remember some strange trends I spotted. Mostly, Red always won TDM matches, while Blue always seemded to dominate objective-oriented gametypes. I do remember that the bots were random for both sides, but it's something to look into.

After re-reading the whole of this I have to say that probably the best way to put an end to the holy war is to join and ask RS to make the damage, fire rate and what not manually adjustable in the next version of the mod.

BW allows to tweak the inaccuracy and chaos factors, the global damage scale and a lot of other parameters that can make such a big difference that two differently tuned BW servers can be like two different games. So making damage, fire rate and the amount of ammo pickup adjustable won't ever make it worse And the 'Set to Default' button will always be helpful to switch back to the usual values. For example, the G5, which simply has to be that powerful (it's an RPG after all), could easily be balanced by reducing its ammo pickup to a value that wouldn't allow spamming.

Introducing such an option is also likely to make any arguments over balance unnecessary. Everyone will be able to balance the game themselves with no need to bother RS. And it's the server admin who'll decide on balance tweaks to please the players, not the poor devs exposed to numerous, diametrically opposed claims here.



Mr. Kaboodles, I share your indignation regarding the outrageous behaviour of MrUglyPants. His words are mostly based on his obscure metaphysical observations while yours are very well-argumented. It's a pity you haven't heard me rolling on the floor laughing at his claim about A67 being too powerful in your hands because you didn't know how to use it. He's trying to say that anything other than his own suggestions is sh*t. I wouldn't have said anything against such an attitude though, if he tried to keep an eye on his own posts and refrain from talking sh*t. If I wanted to, I'd be able to type ten pages of bitter criticism directed against your claims, Kaboodles, but all of it would be worthless unless I bring up at least some facts to support each of my points.

I don't think that the things are so bad as you've put it in the first post, but it looks quite clear that something should be done about the balance. Adjustable damage and firerate will please everybody, IMO. And a couple of trolling schoolboys with their l33t claims about the weapons being perfect as they are don't really look like a reason to drop this sore point. This sort of people only care for themselves, and not for the fair play. They often get a false idea that anyone criticising BW hates it. Often criticism means that someone loves something and wants to make it better. I guess that's the case of you and me.

It's official...

This thread is the best Drama Sit-com Reality Show I've ever watched!!!

Golden Globe awards for everybody!!! You get my votes!!!

I had never thought you would be the one to make the most stupid post in the history of the RS forums.

Anyways, I second the motion of making a config menu to adjust the weapons' attributes.

I'm a /b/-tard, whad'ya expect...?

Besides, all this flaming and bickering is starting to get senseless, from Kaboods and Baklaj's extremely long posts to the other members' fight to keep the original weapon settings intact.

I already clammed-up the first few pages if you noticed... These sporadic posts are just to keep a sense of humor in this flaming thread.

Have to admit the ability to config each weapon profile would put this thing to bed. Now that I have master the map mixer mut I am gonna have to have a few all nasty wepons maps in the next lan.

blockquote]

I have never played Battlefield 2, Mr. Ugly Pants. I have played Battlefield: Vietnam. I didn't like it very much. Don't presume to know such things based on so little data.

One beef I have with this weapon is that it's much easier to detonate with your feet than with a gun. It's sensitive enough that if I run within 2 feet of one, or hell, try to jump over it, it explodes. It should follow then, that bullets would detonate it just as easily, correct? But unfortunately, that is not the case, as only a direct hit will detonate it, so even blasting at one with a shotgun might not do the job, as the pellets might simply go around the mine.[/blockquote]

Guess thats a fair agreement. Well maybe the bullet hitting the ground 2 feet away doesn't create enough disturbance to activate the mine.

On me saying you played BF2, i only said it for most BF2 players are real finicky when it comes to deployable weapons.



I guess your right, i didn't fully read and or take in the whole agreement. But i find that if its power is decreased than it would end up like the current original pistol the M802 of something. Which you already ask for changes too.


K, I'm sorry if i miss took you as a new player. Should have found some backstory or something before commenting.

But you HAVE to realize that BW is just a mod, and the devs are making it with there own free time and with the occasional donation, more or less they are making it for free and just for the enjoyment of the UT2k4 mod community. I do know however, that they can't make the mod suitable for everyone, it can't be perfect, because everyone has a different play style, I myself don't play that competitively, i tend to just aim and fire and hope that the end result is a big gory mess, but thats just me.

You seem to be one of those competitive guys who just want a balanced weapons mod. Though i ask, have you read through the readme throughly? For it clearly states that if your looking forward to the mod being like Counter-Strike where all is balanced and its just skills thats matter, then BW is NOT the mod for you. It very clearly states that, ever since v1.

I know that that might be upsetting to you Kadooble, but its the truth, BW is more of a fun gore-infested fragfest built on the UT2k4 game than a CSS or BF2 game, thats for sure, i've played both games religiously (CSS more).

Some of your changes would be a nice change to BW, evening out the playing field. You probably from guessing, you play with a low kill count to reach, like 15 or 50. I usually play with my bots up to 200 to 300 kills. And that whole thing is actually a drastic change to play styles.

I guess i just flamed you right away, and i'm sorry, i shan't do it again.

For an ending note, whats your name online? For i've only ever played on UnrealShredders server.

I guess brevity isn't one of my strong suits

Anyways, I can't really accept the weapon config route, as it seems like a bit of a cop-out and could prove rather divisive. I don't want to be playing a completely different BW if I ever join another BW server.

Anyways, I don't think this thread is serviceable anymore. I will try posting another, more structured and hopefully more productive thread if nobody objects. Instead of lumping everything together in one HUEG discussion, we can chop it up into individual aspects of the mod, like the shotguns or the heavy weapons.

We can start with the pistols, since I think most people agree that work can be done in that area. Is this agreeable to everyone?

No, one thread is enough. Plus, you would just be starting many new flamewars.

A good solution came forward that will make weapon balance debates totally unnecessary, and guess what, you are the one to dislike it.
I'm starting to think your sole purpose is to start wars.

If you want default BW gameplay, then just join a server until you are happy or play IA, it's that simple.

Hmm. . .After rereading this insane thread a couple of times, I've come to a couple conclusions.

First: Balance discussions are really hilarious, especially in an FPS that is as skill-dependant as UT2k4:BW. Obsessive balance nitpicking makes a lot more sense in an RPG or RTS where the numbers play a bigger role.

Second: I don't need to waste time poking holes in loads of ideas here, because UglyPants is kind enough to do it for me. Basically everything he's said in here, I agree with, and I don't have much to add to it. Ugly, you've saved me about a half-hour of adding more fuel to this fire. Pat yourself on the back and go eat something unhealthy and delicious.

That is all.

Don't be so quick to judge. I'm not here to start flamewars. I just inaccurately gauged the strength of my arguments and the impassioned opinions of the regulars here. Although the fact that a thread like this hadn't already been done should have tipped me off...

Anyways, I would really like to put this unpleasantness behind us and see if we can't actually do some productive discussion. As I said before, although we disagree on a lot of things, there are probably a lot of other bits we can agree on. I don't think we can really do that i this thread, as it has been sullied by flames. That is why I would rather start a new thread and have this one locked.

EDIT: Oops, missed your reply Mr. UP. No worries. As of right now, I play as gen.k4b.00d.135.BLZ. I will probably change that soon as it's starting to bore me. I should add this info to my sig.

This thread is in flames because of what you wrote in the first post. Creating a new one will only make things worse.

But I'll happily lock it if you promise to not make a mess again.

Since (almost) everyone agrees about making the weapons have configurable attributes, we will pitch that to the RS guys and see what happens. Not only will that make balancing debates pointless, but it will make the mod many times more fun.

Locking it now without starting a new thread will essentially shut out all discussion on the matter, which is not what I would like. I admit that this thread went poorly, but I think I can do better with a new thread. I would very much hope that everyone's learned from this and not add that little extra bite to their statements that turns an otherwise productive thread into a flame-fest, which I think I may be guilty of myself.

Well, if you think so I guess I can give you another chance.

And to help you out I can ask few of the kids here to be more productive if they decide to state their thoughts.

But it's time to lock this one.