Wirehead Studios

I've found out that the Arena class' powerups are identical to older games' powerups (4x quad dmg instead of 3x and invulnerability instead of a battle suit). I don't think this should be, because Arena has the strongest average in his arsenal out of all the Gen characters and can move as fast (or faster) than Doom with proper strafe-jumping. Arena has plenty of advantages over the other classes - why does he need another w/ powerups? Plus, altering his powerups so that they're stronger takes the Arena class out of character from Quake 3.

Opinions?
 - Tekhead

true , give them back the old battle suit .
this way they are gonna have to check there ass a bit more .

Arena weapons are pretty much right down the middle of the board in terms of power.

Doom has a superior shotgun and plasmagun, inferior long-range

Slippy a FAR superior rocket and grenades, weak as hell unless he has those

Strogg has a superior railgun and shotgun. Overall is more versatile, but is slower.

Earth's weapons don't really fit the mold, but I'd put the mortar on par with the q3 RL. Harder to use, but you can do some nifty stuff with it. Same with the sniper rifle. And the single gat owns the SG.  Earth is one of the strongest classes. His only weakness is his speed. And yes, the gladiator can move circles around Earth. But it's not safe to run through napalm....

Arena's weapons are pretty much right down the middle in terms of damage and rate of fire. So the 4x quad isn't any deadlier in the hands of an Arena Gladiator than a strogg trooper, and in my opinion, much INFERIOR to a quadded doomguy, earth, or slippy.  Few survive a quadded Doom SSG, Earth Dualgats, or Slippy rocket, unless the player misses.  

And as for the battlesuit...if everyone else in invulnerable, let the gladiator be as well. The gladiator fits in the game perfectly where he is. Right in the middle of the road. He doesn't need to be nerfed, other than that annoying BFG.

I think Arena's battlesuit does plenty for him - no splash dmg taken at all, so only hitscan/direct hits will affect him. Also, all of his weapons can get near-instant kills is used properly! You can't say that about all of the other classes' weapons, can you? Arena, at the moment, imo, is still the strongest Gen class of all. He needs to be properly balanced out, and keeping his nerfed powerups is a step in the right direction that we can play with.

Just about any weapon can get a near instant kill if used properly.

At 4x damage, every shot from an earth gat does 40 damage. Dual gats shoot 4 rounds at the same time. Thats 4x40 for 160 damage per click

Then there's 4x rails, 4x shotguns (doom and strogg), 4x doom plasma is just nasty.  That's exactly what a quad is supposed to do.

I have a list somewhere of the damage that every weapon does in the game. I'll post it if you like.

I'm for keeping the powerups the same across all 5 classes.  Sure, they have different glows, and the invis is unique for each class, but Quad damage should be just that - QUAD - not this 3X stuff.  A quad hit from just about any weapon in the game, short of a blaster, knife, or fist, is going to kill you if it's a solid hit.  Even the humble single shotty from the Slipgate class turns into an instant death machine for a freshly spawned player.

As for the battle suit, cutting damage down to 1/2 for a direct hit and eliminating splash  won't do much to save you from something like a BFG9000 or BFG10K since their "special" effect does not classify as splash damage.  He would also unfairly suffer burning damage if on fire, whereas the other classes, whilst can catch fire while invulnerable, do not take damage from it.  Seems more fair to me to keep it the same for everyone.