Wirehead Studios

I know Phoenix doesn't like it when I refer to how CPMA does things, but I like how they balanced out the BFG. To make it more even with the rest of the guns (but still keep it as the strongest gun in the game), they've drastically slowed down the firing rate of the gun by about -250%

I think altering the Arena BFG's firing rate would be fair for the other classes without hindering the real performance of it. It'd turn it into a powerful tactical weapon instead of an overpowered spam cannon. Also, the ammo for the BFG would last longer instead of being depleted in 10 seconds  ;)

Lemme know what you think...
 - Tekhead

Wow, you're able to keep ammo in your BFG for ten seconds? With how small those ammo boxes are, I have a hard time conserving. Of course, I always go straight for the railgun when I'm an Arena Gladiator (which is rare)

I think lee's already talked about this, but in keeping with the idea of gen, I think the spamcannon stays.

well considering if you're GOOD with the bfg, you wont need more then 1 or 2 shots..

and thats about how many i fire at a time... i never spamcannon it... It wastes ammo. A BFG is worth 10+ kills if used properly.. on newly spawned meat that is ;P

Ugh. The Q3BFG blows. I seriously wish we'd do SOMETHING with it. We were considering giving it the Hunt BFG at one point...I really wish we would. All of the other BFGs have their downsides, but not the arena BFG.

It's not just lame, it's lame-tastic.

As the latest & greatest BFG in iD games, I think it should be the strongest all-around weapon. However with its current rate of fire, it's impossible to defend against at any range in any situation. Reducing the firing rate would make it so that more skill would be required to use it effectively - rather than spamming it all over the place almost-garunteeing at least one kill, tweak it so that it fires once every 1.5 seconds or something like that. It'll still be the deadliest weapon in the game in the hands of skilled players, but it'll be more respectable due to the lack of spam it normally generates...

and

The q3BFG plasmaball doesn't do all that much damage. It's major strength, and the only thing that qualifies it as a BFG is the rapid refire. Take that away, and it's just a big gun, similar in power to the q2 rail or sniper rifle, but with splash damage.

If we're gonna change it, I think we should CHANGE it.

The Hunt BFG worked something like this:
Instant fire, no chargeup
Ball traveled at a speed somewhere between that of the BFG9000 and the Strogg BFG10k.
Ball did massive damgae
When the ball exploded, it did damage based on the size of the room. The smaller the room, the more concentrated the damage. Still does massive splash in the open, but it's deadly as hell when enclosed.
BFG had a chargeDOWN, meaning that if anyone survived the blast you're a sitting duck for a second till you can switch.

This BFG is far deadlier in a small room or hallway than the others, due to its instant firing. The DOOM and Q2 BFGs have that chargeup, plenty of time for people to run like hell, or hide from the blast. Personally, I rarely get hit by a 9k, and usually only nicked by the 10k's tracers, even in a small room.

In addition, this would kinda round out the BFG lineup.
BFG9000: Best for flat, open areas
BFG10k: Excellent for Mid-sized rooms
Proposed q3BFG: Made for smaller areas.

As the current q3 BFG stands, there's really no escape from it other than extreme range and a crack railshot. By time you know someone has it, you're usually dead, or will be shortly.

With the proposed Hunt BFG, you still wouldn't have much chance to hide, but at least if you survive the blast, you'd have a chance to retaliate.

This would cover the 1.5 second refire, still awesome in the hands of a skilled player, insanely powerful weapon that you described above, while still being a BFG.

Not really... then people would use it like an overpowered shotgun. Instant-kills all over the server.

What do you call a Doom SSG? A strogg rail to the unarmored? An earth sniper bullet up the butt? A slippy rocket in the face? Most of these result in an instant kill, and ammo is plentiful. BFG ammo is hard to come by in most maps. And if your opponents let you stockpile...then that's their fault. They could always pick you off at a distance :)

P.S. Moving these to the Gen Forum, where they belong.

yes, instant kills, but non-aimed, skilless annoying kills that seem like their only purpose is to piss of players. Blindly firing into a room or close to a target is called spam, and to reward that kind of playing with frags is wrong. Doom takes his chances when getting up close to get that SSG shot off, and Strogg lines up his shot carefully to make the railgun work its magic. Arena may as well be drinking beer, watching pr0n and playing Gen. It wouldn't phase him a bit with the level of skill required to use his BFG.

The BFG shot does pack a punch. Less damage than a rocket, but it makes up for that greatly with splash damage and KNOCKBACK! You can knock players around like Slippy can with his RL using the Q3BFG.

more on this later...

I play quite a bit q3a FFA when I have some time to kill - and not ONE server I've been on had the BFG enabled.. with good reason obviously. In Gen it's not as easy- I wouldn't want to miss the good old 9k & 10k for the world, let alone earth's dualgats ;]
On another note, quad damage / invul are worse then any bfg ever was, imo.

- parses data -

Conclusion: the bfg's never ruined any of my games really - I wouldn't use it often myself, but I wouldn't mind others using it. :]

*snicker* survive the hunt bfg? *choke* *cough* SURVIVE THE HUNT BFG?!
Heh, anyhoo, as for firing blindly being "spam" with doom's rl, the only effective firing you can DO has to be half-blind because the things are so BLOODY FREAKIN SLOW..

And frankly, if anyone isn't allowed to complain about spam, it's a slippy player..

Amen to that ;)

Is my name Twilight?  :blink:
Last I checked - NEIN!!!
(<3 to him tho!)

At any rate, there's got to be a way to level out Arena's BFG so that it's still fair. Right now, for him it may as well be a Quad Damage whenever he gets one. Any other ideas on what could be done to it, aside from the ones already posted? Like the ideas already submitted? Let's get this topic going!

We've done a lot of talk about this in the past. A lot. We've had all sorts of thoughts about  what we could change the q3BFG to. Vortexs, electrical storms, you name it.

In the end we decided to leave all the weapons as is. To leave q3 as he was, and just change the powerups (see the other thread) so that the other classes didn't have a huge  advantage in that area.

I personally think, however, that leaving the Q3BFG as is was the single dumbest idea we had. If we're on a map with a BFG (vesperas, entryway, eternal arenas), at least 3/4ths of the time someone will go arena, pick up this spam cannon, and go to town. Look at dicions forum game -- I rocked thread. On entryway he wasn't doing so hot UNTIL he picked up the q3bfg. Then no one stood a chance in hell.

Let's not forget the fact that acquiring a BFG is that much easier when there's an earth player trodding about :]

At least one that doesn't know NOT to use duals when he's about to bite it. ;)

heh, yes, this is true :P

Anyhoo, the q3 bfh MAY change in the future, but we'll have to talk with pho and everyone involved in order to reach some sort of agreement on that..

I'm still against making changes to the Q3 weapons lineup.  I know people complain about the Q3 BFG, but let me bring up a few points here.

First, how common is the BFG?  How many maps actually have one floating around?
Second, how many shots do you get if you kill an Earth guy who's using dual gats on a map that doesn't have one?
Third, what kind of ammo does the Q3 BFG use?

The BFG is not a very common weapon.  While it does tend to kill people quite easily, it has one key disadvantage to the other two BFG's.  It does not have the area effect that tends to guarantee a kill.  It takes a more precise hit to do the trick.  The BFG10K uses a hell of a lot more power, but can vaporize 4 or 5 people in close proximity with one shot, if the shot is good.  The BFG9000 can clear a small room without trouble.  Getting hit with the ball by either is instant death.  The Arena BFG does kick out shots a lot faster, but you only have 10 shots unless you can get more ammo.  That spam can dry up pretty quick.  Let's take a map like Gen-q2dm1.  Give Lilazzkicker dualgats, and then I run along and kill him.  Someone grabs the BFG class weapon he just dropped.  For a Doomer, that BFG9000 is a godsend.  There's plenty of plasma ammo floating around, and Doom has no trouble running it.  For a Strogg Trooper, that BFG10K is also a godsend.  He can grab cells just the same as the Doomer, and each cell pack is an extra shot.  Each of those classes can keep building up cells and unleash hell with their BFG as long as they stay alive, and balance it out with the other non-energy weapons until more ammo is acquired.  The Arena guy, on the other hand, has 10 shots and has to make them count.  On a map without a BFG spawn, he's the one who has the disadvantage in that department.

Where the Arena BFG is evil is on a map where you have a skilled Arena player and a LOT of BFG ammo available.  Vesperas is the worst map to go up against on this because of the amount of BFG ammo and the proximity of the BFG's teleport gateway spawn to the invulnerability room.  An Arena Gladiator can really clean house there, but I would add, so can a Doomer, and so can a Strogg Trooper.  Anyone who's played me on that map knows this.  I've been insulted for it a few times, but there's no law that says I can't use a certain gun, nor is there a law forbidding anyone else from trying to KEEP me from using that gun.  Kill or be killed, that's the law of the Frag, right?

I have a question to ask about this.  Should we begin to mod along the following lines?

Complaint:  Shotgun is too powerful.
Mod Team:  Ok, we'll nerf it.

Complaint:  Railgun is too powerful.
Mod Team:  Ok, we'll nerf it.

Complaint:  Rocket launcher is too powerful.
Mod Team:  Ok, we'll nerf it.

Complaint:  Lightning gun is too powerful.
Mod Team:  Ok, we'll nerf it.

Is this how to write a game?  I've played many games of Quake 2 where I've been railed over and over by someone with 30 ping who damn near never misses.  I'm sure Quakeworld players know how devastating the rocket launcher and Thunderbolt are compared to the other weapons on the game, yet constantly I hear "Q1 is all about Rockets and Shaft" and "Q2 is all about the rail."  Nobody bitches about those weapons now, but what about when the games were brand new?  I've played games in Q2 where someone used nothing but the BFG and was near the bottom of the scoreboard.  On the other hand, I've also used the BFG and taken out the offending l337 r41|_0|2 d00d and climbed back up a few frags.  Yet again, in RA2, I've been pulverized by people on the other team who think it's funny to use two chainguns and waste someone from the getgo.

In every situation, one person considers something cheap, the other considers it good strategy.  In the RA2 situation, I consider chaining like that to be cheap.  I cannot, however, argue with it's effectiveness at getting the job (killing the opposing team) done.  Same with the situation with the guy with the rail.  In the case of the guy I vaporized with the 10K, he might think my using the BFG to kill him was cheap, but it did the trick, it was on the map for me to use, and it was part of the game.  Even though I've bitched about the Q2 rail in the past, I've also been the l337 r41|_0|2 d00d wasting people right and left in Q2 who couldn't hit the broad side of a hangar bay.  I've been accused of cheating before with a 250 ping just because the other guy was losing and had 100 ping and I wasn't playing the way he wanted me to.  It's all a matter of perspective really.

We did some "balancing" on the weapons on 99a, and look what the result was.  It threw the feel of the game completely off.  99b improved on this a bit, but wasn't perfect either.  99c feels so much better than 99b, even though some weapons were actually made STRONGER, like the Q1 rocket launcher, that were already strong and other already weak weapons, like the Q2 rocket launcher, were made a hair weaker by bringing them back in line with the original game.  The end result is that Generations FEELS better than it did, and plays better.  The strategy used for each class is now falling in more closely to the old-school game.  THAT IS WHAT GEN IS ALL ABOUT!  Just because one player dominates one map with a weapon doesn't give a strong enough case to change it.  If someone dominates Bouncy Map with the Q2 rail should we change that as well?  Or the sniper rifle?  Do we nerf Skippy's rockets again because they're so damned evil to be on the other end of?  Or is it possible some of this could be considered whining because someone lost a game or two to the big bad BFG?  I know that remark will ruffle some feathers, but to those who might be offended I ask you to think about how many times you've dominated someone with a particular gun, then tell me if you'd like your favorite weapon nerfed because someone else thought it was too strong.

My suggestion is this:  For now, if someone's winning a map by using the Arena BFG, take them on at their own game.  Play dirty pool.  Do whatever it takes to win.  If that means hunting that person down and denying them the weapon then that's strategy too.  If it means spawn killing them at every turn, do it!  That's cheap, you might say?  Well, if you consider the BFG cheap, what's the difference?  Fight fire with fire.  Get your own BFG.  Switch classes if you need to.  Adjust your strategy first, and THEN complain about weapon balance.  Take a look at your ping, too.  If you're losing to someone with 20-30 ping and yours is 100+ then changing a weapon isn't going to help.  I slaughtered Lil with the Q3 BFG using 1 shot at a time, direct hits as opposed to spam, on Firestorm a while back.  It was nearly impossible to miss because of my ping being nearly non-existant, and I never use Arena or the Q3BFG in actual play unless I'm random class.  If there's a large ping difference then I'm sorry, it's not a weapon balance issue;  It's a ping issue.  Consider that as well.

I'm not completely ruling out that some change might not take place in the future to the Q3 BFG if it continues to be a problem, I don't really like the gun personally, but if we can I'd prefer to not mess with how Id intended the weapon to be.

And there's the official ruling. I'm with pho on this one, changing the arena class just isn't in keeping with the generations theme. While it might be an interesting idea, it's departing from what gen is all about.

Even though it is an uncommon weapon, the major complaint is this:

There is abseloutely no way to counter it.[/b]

Earth's dual gats have limited ammo and only excel at close range.
Doom's BFG9000 can be evaded by not being in the view of the shooter.
Q1's Lightning Gun is difficult to use, and has extremely limited ammo.
Q2's BFG10K is slow-moving, and can be evaded if you're not cornered.
Q3's BFG...?

With every game that an Earth character plays, a BFG will almost always be dropped at least once. That BFG holds 10 shots. Those 10 shots can easily equal 10 kills. If Doom or Q2 pick it up, wield it and Q3 kills them before they can get a shot off, that's about another 10 kills. In big games with fraglimits of 50, it can shorten the game length greatly. It is vasty overpowered, and that's why it needs balanced, otherwise anyone who picks to play Arena has a greater chance of winning on any map w/ a BFG.

In short, if the only way to counter this weapon is to get one yourself, that's unbalanced and the weapon should be tweaked.

I did not say the ONLY way to counter the Q3 BFG is to get another Q3 BFG, I said to get your own BFG, of whatever flavor you choose.  Would you counter a railgun with a shotgun if someone sniping at you?  No, but you could counter it with a Doom chaingun or a Sniper Rifle.


The Q3 BFG also has limited ammo, unless DMFLAGS are set for infinite.


Same with the Q3 BFG.  It's not a grenade launcher.  Also, this isn't entirely true.  I can shoot  the Doom BFG down a hall, run in a perpendicular direction, and if you're on a parallel direction with the ball on the same side of me you're toast, even though I might have my back turned to you.


It's also a lightning-gun class weapon, even though it picks up for the BFG slot.


And it's awfully hard to hide from those tracer lasers, and if you do hide Strogg has usually changed weapons or else fired another round by the time you come out.  Point?


Has a limited splash radius and no wide area effect.  Sure, you can spam a room with it, but across massive distances it's nothing more than an overpowered plasmagun.  Unless you're up close it's useless on Q3tourney6.  Vesperas, yes, it can be a problem but that is ONE MAP.  Let's see, Grim Dungeons?  Plenty of map to roam, and Quad can counter it.  Demon Keep?  Has an invuln and quad, and LSOV.  Also have to rocket jump to get it.  Eternal Arenas?  You know when someone just grabbed it, and there's a grenade launcher over the BFG spawn area.  Doesn't take much to pop a few pills down the hole, or else lie in wait with a rail or rocket launcher near the stairs or bounce pads.

I would also disagree that 10 shots from the Q3 BFG can "easily" equal 10 kills.  It does 100 damage per hit, like a railgun, 100 splash, like a q3 rocket, and has a 120 unit splash radius.  An armored player will take a lot more than one shot, assuming you don't miss too badly.  You can get 10 kills with 10 shots from the shotgun if you're good with it and only shoot freshly spawned players at point blank range.  Skippy can get 10 kills with that rocket launcher quite easily.

You want a class-by-class on how to counter the Q3 BFG?  Here's a few ideas.

Earth

Long range:  Sniper.  Close range:  Run around corners and leave napalm trails, hand grenade surprises, and mortar impacts for indirect suppressing fire.  Napalm will keep hurting even if you die.

Doom

Long range:  Chaingun cha-cha.  Close range:  Run around a corner and pull the BFG9000 peekaboo flash trick.  Otherwise spam rockets at the intersection where you expect him to run out after you.

Slipgate

Long range:  Get into rocket range.  Rocket spam and bounce the guy all over the place.  Close range:  The grenade launcher isn't a spam cannon for nothing.  Use it like you mean it, and let him run into a hall full of pineapples.

Strogg

Long range:  Rail, naturally.  Close range:  Again, grenade launcher, rocket launcher suppression.  If line of sight use the BFG10K and aim at the floor between him and you to get the ball to explode faster.  Chaingun is also recommended.

A large part of this involves removing the "line of sight" mentality from your tactics.  A hell of a lot of players who've been on cable or DSL for years have the mindset of only shooting what they can see.  I was on a modem for a VERY long time.  I played a lot of RA2 against point+click 30 ping railwhores who were about as tactically apt as a kid on a pogostick in a minefield.  The grenadelauncher became my best friend.  Why?  I knew I couldn't compete with ping in a rail fest, so I took the line of sight factor out of the equation.  The Q3 BFG, without a clear line of sight, is nothing but a high-speed waste of ammo.  Since the BFG user will almost certainly be aggressive, fight a retreating battle and use the map geometry to your advantage.  Remember, chasing attackers are predictable.  You've already gone where they're going.  This is what I mean by "change your strategy".  If what you're trying isn't working than either try harder or try something else.

Like I said before, this is not a definite "we're never going to touch it" but for now it stays as is.  :daddy:  

I'm in complete and total agreement with Tek. There is no counter. As I've stated in the posts above, every other BFG has a weakness. Even lee's suggestion (in the channel) of lowering the ammo count isn't good enough. The weapon HAS NO DOWNFALL.

It's a BFG, and should be able to clear a room, but that room should at least HAVE A CHANCE. Even the 9k, which is the strongest BFG, other than the one in question, gives you a minute chance of getting the hell outta the way.  And q3BFG spamfests are just boring.

I don't complain about the other weapons you stated above simply because they all have a weakness. Rails have that refire time, slippy rockets don't work at long range, etc.  A BFG should be strong, should be powerful, should kill lots of people if used properly. But the q3BFG doesn't have that 'if used properly' qualifier. ANYONE can pick it up and waste 5+ people easily. And BFGs are pretty damn common in Gen, especially if someone is playign earth. A lot of our popular maps have BFGs. Vesperas is one of our most-played maps, as is Entryway. BOTH have BFGs in easy to reach places.

I'm not in favor of nerfing the other weapons. I have no problems with things like slippy's rockets, which are still a bit too powerful in my opinion, because it's still possible to get away or kill the person using it. It's damn near impossible to kill a q3BFG user without a BFG of your own, and that's just wrong.

In response to Pho's post.

In most cases, but time you know the q3player HAS the BFG it's too late. There's not that CHANCE to get out of the line of sight. The plasmaballs are FAST, do a lot of damage, and bounce as bad as slippy rockets. Once you get hit, you're likely to get hit again, and again, till you're dead, unless the BFG'r is completely inept.


If you're long range, sniper is ok. But what if you miss. Arena is FAST when strafejumping, you'll only get one shot, maybe two if you're lucky. And anyone can miss. As for the napalm, if you're close enough to see he has a BFG, then you'll probably die before you can get around a corner


Long range is easy to kill a BFGr, but see the above. Doom can get away, but it's not easy to cha-cha a rapidly and erratically moving player. Close range: Once again, this relies mostly on luck and spam. And requiring a BFG to counter the weapon is one of my arguements against the weapon. You can take out a 9000 user with rockets...not a chance in hell against a q3BFG unless you're lucky.


If you're in rocket range, you're in trouble, cuz you're gonna be bouncin just as much as he is, and the BFG files much much faster and the projectiles fly faster. And once again, relying on a) seeing him first, and B) spamming and hoping the BFG'r is dumb enough to run into a minefield isn't much of a tactic


Long range isn't the issue here. It isn't with any of the BFGs. And again, your close range tactics require a) you see him first in time to get around a corner you hope is near by, and B) the BFG'r is dumb enough to run into a minefield. Chaingun doesn't stand a CHANCE, as you'll be bouncin like mad. And requiring a BFG to counter the weapon....see above.


Like tek and I are saying, the q3bfg is BY FAR the most powerful gun in the game.  It's virtually unstoppable unless you're far enough to rail the BFG user while doding those insanely fast plasmaballs. And once you get hit...you're bouncin around like a slippy rocket hit you, and you're easy meat.


Moral of the post: any tactic that relies on luck, spam, and hoping the other player is dumb enough to run into a minefield just isn't much of a tactic.

Again, the word I keep reading here is "see".  In ever situation you're mentioning, you're assuming the following:

1)  You're line of sight with the guy
2)  He's already in range
3)  You're the intended target
4)  You're deaf as a post

Unless it's a 1 vs 1 situation, there's a good chance someone else has met the guy first.  In that situation, you'll either see a nice obit at the top of your screen that's a dead giveaway (no pun), or else hear the gun being shot.  In a 4 player DM that's a 1 in 3 chance you have of meeting the offending player.  If he's not pointed right at you when you see him then you do have options to get to a better position or else shoot him in the back and run like hell to reposition.  Just because the gun is strong doesn't make it unstoppable, and I have yet to be convinced it is completely unstoppable.

As I said before, if it CONTINUES to be a serious problem, and not just 1 or 2 people complaining about it once every 8 months, and we can get a good, viable change that isn't going to do more harm than good or completely change the feel of the weapon for the Q3 class, then a change may be in order.  Maybe even something as simple as cutting the splash damage back might be an option?

Hmm, with as often as i have encountered the q3bfg, which is a rarity, it can be countered, and most players that pick it up spam 3-4 shots using it, to get one kill.  I dont have problems with it.  If i have any problems to mention it would be slippys ammo count, that is more of a problem them the q3bfg atm.  It still seems over balanced somewhere.

1) Most firefights begin with line of sight. Not all, but a large precentage.

2) The q3BFG's range is longer than a slippy rocket, so on most maps, anywhere you encounter a gladiator with a BFG, you'll already BE in range.

3) It usually only takes one or two shots to kill a person with this weapon, and it refires FAST. Even if you're NOT the target, you're not gonna have much of an opening unless it's a large firefight.

4) Deaf as a post. It's easy to hear footsteps, but telling the footsteps apart? I'm not sure on this, but I've only noticed three or four different types of footsteps. Cyborgs go CLANK. Weird things (klesk, orbb) go CLICK. People go THUNK.  It's much easier if the gladiator's jumping, as you can hear 'em easier and every model has its own sounds.  But telling classes by footsteps is hard.

And yes, you'll probably see the obit first, but that doesn't tell you WHERE the gladiator is. You could turn a corner right into him.

And once again, relying on LUCK to save your ass isn't right. So you get lucky and he doesn't see you or hear you. You shouldn't HAVE to rely on luck!

And it is a serious problem. It only crops up every few months because it's usually shot down so hard that our regulars (who are 90% of our audience) don't bother doing it again.

Half the game of deathmatch IS luck.  It's opportunity.  You can "luck" into someone shooting a BFG9000.  You can luck into respawning into a well armed player 10 times straight.  I remember someone complaining about "always spawning near that damned bird" a few times. :evil:    For a modem player damn near half their shots are luck with the rail.  You can "luck" into respawning in front of someone's rocket to give them the gamewinning  frag.  I remember this happening to me on Vesperas when I was still on dialup.  It was your rocket I spawned into.  :blink:  

Off topic: Can we PLEASE have a 5-second spawn protection DMflag?

Yes, luck is a large part of the game.

But it shouldn't be ESSENTIAL to ANY part of the game. A skilled player won't die often enough to worry about many spawn frags. But that skilled player would have to worry about being lucky enough to get the drop on a q3BFG user.