Well, it was tons of fun, like I said in the demo thread (if someone wants demos of the earlier US games, I have those too). It's especially enjoyable because hardly anyone plays with Slippy during normal forum games, and it IS delightful to be able to walk around the place without getting rails in left and right (that does help when one is connecting from a different continent ).

GGS folks.

BTW, I give you little chance mecha, the Slipgate side in a class based game (because that's where we'll eventually go!) will need all the best players to kick Doom's arse. And the best players are nearly all pro-Doom ;]

Who would have believed it? I totally agree.

Balance review? Indeed :]

First off, the changes made to the mortar, sniper and railgun work. Nothing is 'nerfed' and playing with the Earth class does not result in cheap mortar and sniper kills any longer. Duels between the Earther and other classes are tense and often long-lasting, which is brilliant.
So far I'm liking the Strogg railgun changes too: it just isn't too lop-sided playing the class now (it was supposed to be a very diverse-strategy class, which works all the better in 99f).
The Slipgate class appeared to be slightly underpowered in previous versions, but since recent additions, I think it balances out near perfectly with both Strogg and Earth. Personally, I don't miss the QW-type shotty spread, During the Slipgate DM night games, it became apparant that nails and pellets were dangerous, and reasonable one-weapon-wonder complaints belong to the past.
Arena, as always, is hard to judge, because the people kicking ass with it usually don't even realise there are any other classes. I still say it holds the middle ground fairly well, and is mainly dangerous due to the powerful melee & spawn gear.

With none of the above mentioned classes I get that annoying feeling that 'again, you get the shitty class' in random class mode, which I think is a very good sign. It tended to creep up when you were in a 'winning' mood, but kept ending up with Slipgate in Q3DM16 (the bouncy map), so to speak.

Sadly, I have to agree with Mecha (and ConfusedUs) on the Doomer. Now, before one goes and states 'just because you have no defense against something doesn't make it overpowered', I can own with it easily too. Racking up kills has always been a bit easy (especially if it's crowded and you're in a spamming mood), but with the balancing of the other classes the effect has worsened noticeably.

The combination of:
- enormous speeds
- super powerful ssg
- super powerful, precise chaingun
- strong, huge and rapid fire rockets
- strong and spamfriendly plasma

more often than not results in a tanked killing machine.

'You can rail him from afar!' was a very nice theory, but doesn't hold in play. Some maps don't have railguns, distances are generally short (especially when the Doomer knows how to get there, he gets there quick) and the chaingun vs railgun duels are a fair fight  to say the least.
Doomers have no difficulty getting around on the map, can jump great distances and are hard to track even with hitscan weapons. A player that knows the item spawns can get out of fights with ease, to heal, tank up and deny that armor to slower classes. When pursueing an injured opponent, he leaves no chance of escape, but escapes easily from the average fight (in a typical map).
Perhaps because of this, perhaps not; the Doomer does not feel like it combines advantage with disadvantage, like the (typical) tradeoff speed-vs-strength that is often seen in other class based mods. Even with his low armor cut rates, he can take quite a beating.

When Doom does get up close, he rips the shit out of anything. Dodging is possible even at point blank because of his speed and missing isn't much of a problem when the next plasma bolt or rocket can be fired even before the opponent gets time to reload.

Again, in theory it sounds like balance should hold, but in practice it does not. This goes for every game I've witnessed on both Euro and Central servers. I fear discussion of this will meet with great resistance, and might not be taken seriously - which would be a shame, since 99f is so much closer to acceptable balance than the mod has ever been.

I've just taken this opportunity to make a balance review of Generations .99f, because it would be unfair to just bitch at Doom and ignore the huge strides of progress we've made.

generally the faster guy should be weaker, but it's simply not the case with Doom. Doom is both the fastest and has the most powerful arsenal (IMO, though some can argue Strogg may be better) ... it also has the best melee weapon by afar. I'm not talking about castrating Doom, but I think the chaingun should be weakened a bit, after all I didn't think it was THAT powerful in the Doom games anyway, but I don't code the game, Phoenix does, and IMO nobody knows Doom better than him. and well... whatever.

Phoenix and I have had discussions pertaining to Slipgate's botched physics. even his physics are incorrect. bunny-hopping was possible in Q1. as was Q2. it wasn't done away with until Q3 came along and Carmack got rid of it to put a damper on the so-called "cheapasses" that would turbo-run or bunny-hop like crazy. Q3 was the multiplayer-driven game, so this balance was logical. you can bunny-hop with Doom and Strogg, I know this for sure. my playing style in RA2 was based on this turbo-running, and Strogg handles to near-perfection compared to his Q2 counterpart. Slipgate however, slows down when you jump. it has the bunny-hop blocked, just like Arena. although Slipgate is relatively quick, he has shoddy armor and by comparison to Doom or an experienced Strogg player, he's put at yet another disadvantage. and to dispell any mysteries behind the psychotic air-control behavior on jump pads, that's just a bug -- Slipgate wasn't coded that way specifically. this novelty feature reaps strange benefits on the space maps, but alas, the physics are still screwed up.

Makou and I both find the RL feeling a bit nerfed in .99e/.99f  ...  Slipgate used to have footing in .99d, but I can understand the improper splash damage calculation needing to be fixed. any Quake 1 player will probably notice that the RL doesn't seem to behave the same in Gen as it did in Q1. I remember it being an all-conquering gun in Q1 with a ridiculous splash damage ... but perhaps I need to fire up Q1 again.

the shaft behavior seems to be proper. I need to practice with this more though, I suck with the shaft (and always did, so whatever)

thanks for the input Tab. c'mon guys, I know you wanna talk about this too. heh

On Slipgate: I think the RL is spot on as it is (that is, to play Generations, not to match QW exactly). It can be dodged, but it's still the fastest explosive projectile of all. I personally don't want it to be an "all-conquering gun" -- that is exactly what I would like us to stray from. In old-school mode it can be undodgeable and insane for all I care ;]

Also, you can bunnyhop with Slippy - it requires some skill though, and I don't regularly see people do it, excepting myself and former Gen-player Tekhead. The trick is to swivel your view left and right while making the 'hop'. This will propel you forward if done right, much like you can accelerate in mid-air by turning. You can actually gather quite a bit of speed that way, providing you don't bump into anything (see my Slippy-night demos to see what I'm talking about).

I can agree with adjusting (or at least cvarring) the 'QW spread' for the shotgun, but aside from that I think effectively using Slipgate just requires that extra bit of skill. In my hands, I don't feel the class is any less dangerous than Earth or Strogg (and I guess most of my victims agree )

This has turned into a really good discussion, and I don't really have anything to add, except some whining about Doom's chaingun.

Doom is supposed to be the close- to -mid-range guy. His weapons are designed in a way that he really should own it. Okay, that's fine, but the chaingun, as it is, makes him just as effective at long range as Earth, Strogg, and Arena can be. While that may be a "good thing," it's also counter to what we tell everybody the class is capable of doing and not doing. It also effectively leaves Slipgate as the only class without a real "long range touch" weapon. One could argue that the Shaft fits that bill, but it's extremely hard to use in that manner.

That said, I think this is the first weapon that might need some changes, other than the addition of proper weapon switch timing.

Overall, I'm not a fan of random damage. I find it more frustrating than fun.

Also, setting random damage would only work if the average damage was lower than the current static values. Otherwise it still comes to the same issue across the board: Too much damage too fast from any weapon. The numbers would balance out in the end, centering towards the average value over time.

The mortar (and the q1 RL) are 100 + 20 random I believe. You're guaranteed at least 100 damage. The rest is gravy.

Doom's weapons were done differently, I think. The SSG, for example, did 100 to 300 damage in increments of five. You couldn't count on the gun killing an armored enemy, even on a direct, solid hit. Nor could you coun't on surviving a direct hit, even if well armored. Being on the bad end of either side is highly annoying to me. I don't mind limited random damage, such as the mortar. I do mind when the range is so great that my direct hit is useless.

I'd honestly like to see what the switch times and fire delays do, before going crazy with the random damage. The RL is my main gripe with the Doom class. Making it that much harder to use might tip the balance.

First off, I have no idea how randomized damage would work, but it'd be more newbie-friendly (which, I guess, is good ).

Pho: As for my list of reasons why Doom is so strong, you might have misread that for 'this ALL needs to be changed". That's certainly not what I meant; but at least some of it will have to, IMO.  Like I said balancing out the class; fast and 'weak' works. Strong and slow works. Fast, strong and durable is a serious case of ouch.

So far, I think people are grossly underestimating the advantage of being able to outrun players and things. Arena needs a few seconds to get close and place that shotgun shot, Doom can run straight up to the offender and peg him before he gets time to even think ;]
This does not mean I think Doom needs to be slowed down AND have a weaker shotgun, I'm just saying: this is what I see in battle (the last 8 games in a row, at least), and it's not balanced. In the past, you've always proven to have the best ideas for balance yourself, so I don't see any reason to make such suggestions..

Your observation is true, by the way. Usually the same people speak up. In this case however, I have also backed my own assumptions by discussion with other players. Most of them have never been on the boards, or tend to stay away from these threads for unknown reasons. For instance Alucard and several other Euro players agree wholehartedly, but are quite unlikely to speak up. Although I am less familiar with the US crowd, I am certain a lot of players either don't care enough to state their preference or agree, but don't realise they can have a hand in this. Be thankful Tekhead isn't here to make the same points in an arrogant and blunt manner ;]
In any case it would be unfair to assume that everyone that is not posting about these things thinks all is fine and dandy.

Besides, this is indeed not a knee-jerk. I'm a pretty reasonable fellow, a good, competitive player with plenty of comparative explerience. When I (among others) detected Slipgate's overpoweredness and Earth's strength, mostly this met with arguments as I gave before "it's just you.". After changes were made, everyone seems to be quite happy.

I didn't just look at how many times Doom makes a kill on a server, because that would be totally dependant on how many people would be playing the class, ofcourse. I try to see how people (including myself) fare when using it. Aside from the odd game, I've seen players vary from getting 10 frags in 15 minutes playing with Earth or Strogg to around to 30 playing Doom. I myself have played maps in which I  (randomly) played Doom for 4 out of 15 minutes, and made half the frags on the map with that class. And these are consistent observations (that's why I didn't bring it up immediately, I needed to check this in the field).

Obviously you're free to think of my intellect and perceptivity what you like, but I'd like to stress that I'm usually keen about this sort of thing, and I care about getting close to true balance.

I'm sure the frame animation will make a difference, but I fear it won't be enough --  I am very curious about how that'll work out though. Besides, there's a lot fo animating to do, so I won't have time to get sick of or be annoyed by playing Generations in the near future :]
I also hope you'll be able to let go of that personal Doom-bias and take an objective look at this one ;]

Finding GOOD, open maps is hard. They're either bland and boring looking because of the lack of architecture, or they're nothing but railfests. I don't particularly enjoy using nothing but the railgun for 15 minutes at a time.

The Edge, q2dm1, is one of our most open maps overall, as is Warehouse, q2dm8. In both cases, Doom can close those gaps in moments unless he's on the far side of said open areas, and then he can just duck out of sight.