|
Gnam
|
For the Doom class, the chaingun is too rare. In Doom, the chaingun was practically a standard weapon, but in Gen the plasma rifle is more common just because outwardly is makes the most sense to replace the Q3 plasma gun with the Doom plasma rifle. In Doom, the plasma rifle was a rare treat, not the standard rapid fire weapon. There are a couple ways to fix this, though there's no way to make it perfect.
1) switch the grenade launcher with the chaingun, instead of another RL, since the rocket launcher was supposed to be hard to get in Doom, thought it seems odd since the
2) make the Doom plasmagun replace the lightning gun and the Doom chaingun replace the Q3 plasma gun. This would apropriately reflect the rarity that the weapons are supposed to have, though it would be odd in a map like Q3DM1 having one big room with a RL and one big room with a chaingun. You can't have the whole "match of the plasma weapons" fight anymore.
I actually think both should be done. Both the Rocket Launcher and Plasma Rifle are too easy to get for the Doom class. It would deteiorate consistency between the classes in weapon equivalents, but I think getting the weapon distrobution close to the balance in the original game is more important.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Lilazzkicker
|
Lol, I end up with the chaingun more often then I do either a plasma gun or rocket launcher, though I dont see it being a rarity getting the chaingun, its more common then the plasma gun most times
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ConfusedUs
|
We did our conversions in two ways.
What felt natural and what balanced the best.
A plasmagun for a plasmagun is natural
A chaingun for a lightning gun balances, as they have similar damage ratios, and are usefull in similar situations.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
..::WHAT!?
Ogre
Posts: 47
|
Well if this mod was for a single player game based around missions then I would say... "yes we do need a system for the weapons that is more accurate to DooM's" BUT this is a Death Matching game so I say... "I wan't as many big guns as I can find! and I wan't to find them quickly!" - so leave the system the way it is I don't really see the problem.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Lilazzkicker
|
Dooms weapons are already quiet accurate to their originals, just holler at Pho, he will tell you. though a weapon system is nice when it comes to gameplay balancing WHAT, big guns are fun, but to many of them will kill gameplay
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
KamiKaze
|
I get both the Plasma rifle and Chaingun pretty much the same amount, however, being a fan of fast flying lead, I would like to see more ammo for the chaingun. I mean it only has two ammunition sources, bullets and lightning and lightning doesn't show up too often  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
dev/null
|
lightning doesn't show up too often Yes, but the railgun does, so it makes up for it  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Phoenix
|
Swapping the guns around like that will break weapon consistancy to pieces. Not only do you have to worry about what weapon you pick up on the map, but you also have to consider what you'll leave behind when you die, and what you'll get when you kill someone else. The way Gen's weapon slots work is you have a root weapon slot, and alternate pickups. The root weapon slot is what the gamecode uses when you pick up something that looks like a plasmagun, rocket launcher, etc. Let's take the rocket launcher and grenade launcher. For doom, WP_ROCKET_LAUNCHER is the root weapons slot. WP_GRENADE_LAUNCHER is an alternate pickup. When a player runs over a WP_GRENADE_LAUNCHER the code intercepts this and gives the player a WP_ROCKET_LAUNCHER instead. When a player dies they will ALWAYS drop the root weapon slot, NEVER an alternate.
Why is this important? Well let's think about it. If we change the grenade launcher to give Doom a chaingun, make the plasmagun slot pickup a chaingun, and change the lightning gun to give the plasma rifle that means Doom will end up dropping a WP_PLASMAGUN whenever he's killed when toting the chaingun around, and drop a WP_LIGHTNING when killed while toting the plasma rifle around. This is counter-intuitive. If I'm strogg and I kill a chaingunning Doomer I pick up a HYPERBLASTER? And if I'm Earth, and I kill Doom toting a chaingun I pick up a TORCH? WTF? That kind of break in weapon consistency is unacceptible for gameplay. When we decided what weapon should go into what root slot we took this into consideration from the beginning so that not only do map-based weapon spawns convert well to your class but the weapons dropped for other players, and by other players, convert over well also. Re-arranging weapon slots is something we don't do just haphazardly because it can kill gameplay. Not only that, it requires a lot of recoding, and models have to be re-pathed and moved.
Now there are a few areas that might seem kind of inconsistant to someone. Slipgate's supernailgun drops a plasmagun slot weapon, for example, so if you kill Skippy you get a Napalm Launcher, Plasma Rifle, Hyperblaster, or Plasmagun. While it might seem that dropping a chaingun-slot weapon makes more sense since the super nailer has rotating barrels the chainguns were put in the WP_LIGHTNING slot, and the SNG is a pulsed projectile weapon a lot like a hyperblaster (which also has a spinning barrel). Skippy drops a lightning gun when you kill him when he's using a (surprise) lightning gun. The reason chainguns were put in the lightning slot is the nature of the weapons. WP_PLASMAGUN was already reserved for pulsed energy projectile weapons, like plasmaguns and hyperblasters, etc. The torch just fell into that category since Earth's lineup is different from everyone else's. Lightning seemed perfect for chainguns and other rapid-fire bullet guns since they behave in all essence like lightning guns but without the fancy streamers. Earth gets a gat for a lightning gun slot, but someone might ask "Why's he drop a shotgun when I kill him when he's got a gat. Why don't I get a chaingun?" Simple answer. Earth + gats = very common. Gats are also positioned in WP_SHOTGUN's slot. It's Earth's all-around gun, so this made sense. Shotguns are very common in Q3, and having Slipgate get a shaft every time you down an Earther is a bad idea, especially since downing an Earther using dualgats gives the nice bonus of dropping a BFG. That's your prize if you can nail him since a dualgatting Earther is very hard to kill. Slipgate gets a shaft for a BFG slot weapon, so you can see why a single gat dropping a WP_LIGHTNING would be bad as well. Doom and Strogg benefit the most from a dropped BFG from Earth since their guns both use the same cells as their plasmagun slot weapon. Arena gets a BFG too, but try finding ammo for it. Considering the nature of the Q3 BFG I'm glad it doesn't share ammo.
I hope this clears up the weapon slot assignments a bit, and why they're set up this way. Doom's rocket launcher availability isn't a problem to most people, considering how common rocket launchers are in Quake 3 and the nature of the game. Besides, who DOESN'T like to blow stuff up? I also have no trouble getting a chaingun as Doom since it's available in two flavors - lightning gun, and railgun. Ammo is there for both in the form of 50 bullet boxes, and machinegun ammo as always yields a 10 bullet pistol clip, or will be when I get the models parsing anyway. Just ask the regulars how often I snipe them with that Heavy Chaingun. I get more kills with that than I do with the Plasma Rifle. Remember there are other classes in Gen besides Doom that we have to think about as well. 
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
  I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
|
|
|
|
Gnam
|
Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I had some more questions/comments on weapons&ammo and figured it might as well be brought up here.
Machinegun boxes will be changed to 10-round mags? It's hard enough to find machinegun ammo as it is. Q3's maps were pretty neglectfull of the machinegun, even if they usually drop 2 boxes together, there's usually only 2 boxes in the whole map and they're out of the way.. I don't wanna have to go through all that trouble just for 10 or 20 rounds. BTW it might be more even if arena class dropped their machinegun ammo.
Next subject... Entryway... in the main room, Doom gets a chaingun, which is good. Strogg gets chaingun, which in tight situations is often used as machingun ammo since chaingun takes long to wind up, good. Earth gets gattling gun, good. Slipgate gets thunderbolt, I don't know. To me the thunderbolt seems like an overpowered weapon for that spot.
First off, that spot is a common spawn area. It doesn't seem right for Slipgate to grab their BFG class weapon right on spawning. Not to mention, there's a BFG/other thunderbolt right outside. Considering the role of the that weapon slot in other classes, it seems slipgate should get a nailgun, the its standard rapid-fire weapon. This would ease the weapon consistency between classes, the class balance, and it would make more sense from a mapping perspective, in that there's no point in having 2 of the same weapon right next to eachother.
Now, bear in mind, I'm not saying a change in weapon slots should necessarily take place, I just want to point this out and see if anyone else sees a problem here.
Anyway, having a super nailgun at that location might also seem redundant, since there's one in the plasma room also, so it seems to make the most sense that this be a pick up for the regular nailer (lets just pretend slippgate doesn't spawn with an empty one). Arguments could be made either way about which nailer should go where, but I think it makes more sense to have a nailer of some kind rather than the thunderbolt.
Some would say the double nailer makes more sense in the plasma slot since plasma guns have always been thought of as the spam-weapon of choice, and the double nailer covers a wider radius with it's side-by-side pattern than the quad/super nailer, thus attaining a higher spam value. On the other hand, the plasmagun has always been a higher-power, harder-to-use weapon than regular machineguns, and the super nailer fits that bill with it's small nails with no spread, and high rate of fire. On the other hand still, the lightning gun is thought of as even more high-power, hard to use weapon than the plasma gun, and it seems to mimic the lightning gun in that it fires a constant steady stream of projectile that is slow to react when you swing it from side to side (because of the slow nail traveling speed). It's a rather ambigeous distinction. My opinon is for the nailer to go in lightning slot, and perforator to go in plasma slot. The chaingun\heavy chaingun\gattling gun are all easy to spray&pray weapons, good for the just-spawned, which is what the single nailer is.
Anyway, I think this set up makes sense for this particular map. Wether it makes sense for every map is debateable, however, I wanna know what people think about this set up (for this particular map). I think how well is suits every map depends on the power of the thunderbolt. Is it really that powerfull? Does it only belong in the BFG slot? Is it really that similar to the Q3 lightning gun? Sure, they have the same function, but the power of one gives it a distinctly different role and use from the other. When you finally kill a guy terorizing with the shaft, should your reward be the measly nailgun?
Anyway, my next question is, what do dead players drop when they're using a single-barrel shotgun? I'm not sure, I think it's nothing (except of course the slipgate backpack). This seems a little odd. I was thinking, if the single shotgun was a super shotgun pick-up, it could be a nice reward for winning a just-spawned shotgun vs shotgun fight. It would also function as extra ammo if you prefer the single shotgun. Also, it would allow gladiator class to get a shotgun in areas with no super shotgun. For example, I was thinking if you did a fathfull remake of Doom E1M1, there would only be a single-barrel shotgun, since Doom 1 had no double barrel. However, single-barrel only means the shotgun spot would just be an ammo box or 2, which would mean no shotgun for gladiator. This would limit them to rocket launcher and lightning/rail only (in addition to machinegun) as the only weapons in the map. This way, Arena could get a shotgun by killing a shottie user, but it would not ruin the original doom feeling of having to resort to the single barrel shotgun.
Anyway, my other question was...the other day, I forget what map I was in, but as Doom class I found a chainsaw pickup...WTF? How is this possible?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Phoenix
|
Machinegun ammo has always given Doom 10 rounds since Gen's ammo code was put in place. Keep in mind that any other weapon that uses the same ammo in the old game (chaingun) also has an ammo pickup (lightning ammo). Lightning ammo is the "big" ammo box for doom, which gives 50 bullets. Also, Doom gets the chaingun whenever he runs over a railgun, so railgun slugs give 50 bullets as well. No shortage of bullets there.
Regarding Slipgate's shaft, it is a Lightning Gun slot weapon in Generations. Granted, it's the most powerful thing you could get in Quake, but it's also VERY hard to get a lot of ammo for it. Unlike a BFG, it is not capable if dispatching multiple opponents at once on most maps. The exception is water, and it's suicide to do so, so unless there's 2 or more people in the drink, you either lose a frag if they get out, or trade a frag for a suicide. The shaft DOES do massive amounts of damage, but only at close range. From what I've seen it's rarely the deciding factor on that map anyway. Rockets, railguns, and grenades are the usual weapons I see doing the most harm on Entryway, with an occasional BFG thrown in. Map balance is never going to be 100%, nor should it be. Some maps will ALWAYS favor one class over another. It's part of the game.
As for moving the regular nailgun to the lightning gun slot, that's not a good idea, and code-wise it would cause a lot of problems. First, we HAVE to have a weapon in the "machinegun" slot. Q3 demands it. Second, it would make ammo for the shaft nearly impossible to get, as well as the shaft itself. The BFG only exists on a few maps, and short of an Earther getting killed while running around with Dualgats, Slipgate would never have the shaft hardly ever. Also it would make nails TOO abundant since the super nailer exists in both plasma and railgun slots now (99c change) so you'd have 4 weapon slots giving nail ammo - machinegun, lightning gun, plasmagun, and railgun. That just doesn't make good sense balance-wise for the class.
Last, the single-barrel shotgun is never dropped, nor is a pistol-class weapon. The reason is Quake 3 only has ammunition and weapon spawns on normal maps for the Quake 3 shotgun up to the BFG. The single shotty, hand grenades, and pistols exist in slots outside of the normal range. While it's possible to drop grenade ammo for hand grenades, the single shotty does not exist as a weapon for two of the three classes. Earth and Arena have no weapon in that slot. Dropping a Q3 shotgun (super shotgun for all other classes) for killing someone with the single shotgun is not an option. That's giving them a weapon they didn't have in the first place.
Now to the last part, it *IS* possible to create spawns for everything from the Gauntlet up to the pistols, shotguns, etc. The chainsaw spawning on that particular map is the map author creating a WP_MACHINEGUN spawn. Gen's weapon pickup code doesn't treat WP_MACHINEGUN as anything noteworthy. You get no ammo, and no weapon from running over it. Basically this is a mistake on the map.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
|
|
|
games keeper
Elite
Posts: 1375
|
maybe I see a way to get over this 1 way gnam . but 1) pho has to be able to do it . 2)he has to work of the rest of gen first  3)its just an option . if we could make it up for the mapper to lay the weapon in its map and with extra command on it (bulllets given , spawn time between ) like Pickup_weapon_earth_ flamethrower pickup_weapon_doom_chaingun and so on the mappers could maybe do it like that the doomguy gets a chaingun on that place and earth a flamethrower . (just an idea dont flame me for it . ) |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Gnam
|
Yeah, gameskeeper, I see what you mean. I think the least complicated way to do it would be for each map to have it's own weapon conversion list set by the mapper. That way, if the conversion made sense for one particular map, it could do so without interfering with other maps, and at the same time, mappers wouldn't have to go through the trouble of setting the weapon for each class each time they added a pickup. That way, even though Q3 has a limit to how many weapons you can pick up, you can discard weapons on a map you don't need and provide pickups for weapons you do need.
OK Pho, one more question. If there has to be a weapon in machinegun slot, why isn't the classes/ actual starting weapon in the machinegun slot? IE the shotgun in the MG slot for slipgate, pistol in MG slot for Doom, etc.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Phoenix
|
There are starting weapons in the machinegun slot. here's the list.
Earth - MP40
Doom - Chainsaw (yes, it's in the machinegun slot)
Slipgate - Nailgun (no ammo)
Strogg - Machinegun
Arena - Machinegun
So you see, there are starting weapons in those slots. Now as for adding a whole list of entities as suggested that will vastly over-complicate the mapping process, and to me seems like a waste of code. It also destroys map consistancy. Let's say a mapper decides to toss a flamethrower in one spot, a Q3 shotgun in another, a Doom chaingun in another, etc? The layout of the map then changes per-class. Also, how would other classes deal with these class-specific spawns? Would they be invisible to the other classes? If so, then say Earth sees Doom run over an empty space, Doom whips out a BFG9000 and offs the earth guy, Earth says "You're cheating" and quits. Real winning scenario there. It's also impossible to communicate these spawns to the client, so the alternative option would be to have weapons, that while visible, could not be picked up by a specific class. Yup, having a bunch of guns floating around that you can't grab would really increase our playerbase there. Of course, you might mean to have a weapon give a DIFFERENT pickup, so that the item gives Doom a chaingun, Earth a napalm launcher, and Slipgate a double shotty, etc. Problem there is again the client does not know that the pickup has been altered, and it cannot know this due to network constraints in the Q3 code on what data the client receives about entities from the server. Even if it were technically possible to do, it breaks consistancy. On every existing map so far if you run over an item as Arena class you know what it will convert to for an alternate class every time. Experienced players with good map knowledge who are accustomed to the weapon conversions will adapt quite easily that way, and for inexperienced players that consistancy means you only have to learn that a Q3 lightning gun = Earth gat = Doom chaingun = Slipgate shaft = Strogg Chaingun ONE TIME.
Lastly, right now all a mapper has to do to add a weapon to a map is drop in a WP_Whatever and the code handles it automatically. If they're making a themed map sure, there's considerations on what a gun converts to, but that's where the mapper has to give us a little slack and work around it. It also means that gameplay for one class will have different consequences where other classes are concerned. That's what Gen strives to do - create more variety over standard play, and the bonus is that unexpected gameplay situations result within the constraints of an otherwise solid design framework. What you're suggesting makes the process more complex, not simpler, and a good rule of thumb is not to make it harder on the players than absolutely necessary. A lot of games have flat out failed because while the rest of the game was kick-ass, they made it too hard on the player to get their game on, which in the end is all we really want to do.
I understand your intentions here, but I'm afraid we'll have to say no on this one.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
|
|
|
|
