[Normal] Overall damage is too high?

[Geoffrey]

I did notice that for the ~25th time in a row, the new version's weapon balance does indeed not seem to achieve perfection.

Maybe that is a sign that the person that does it isn't very good at his job. Maybe it is, I don't know. Maybe he just needs more help.

Having more deaths in a game cannot really be solved by lowering the respawn time since that would mean you kill someone halfway across the map and you are guaranteed to meet them again before getting to the flag. It could get to a point where you kill them upon entering the base and have to kill them once or twice more when taking the flag and leaving. The current respawn times have worked for years and produced gameplay that has inspired some great matches and competitions.


To nail the WM you could try gathering together some top-level players (SCTFL admins/winners/top competitors, gather admins, trusted players from here who play regularly in pubs) and have them pretty much sit down over a weekend. Get control of a server or two and just play some CTF and some DM. After 5 or so rounds you all hop on IRC and suggest tweaks to the WM, those tweaks are then applied to the server and you repeat the process however many times on your Saturday. Then you all get some shut-eye and come back the next day to test the release candidates you concocted the previous day with a slightly fresher perspective and just whittle it down until you have something to propose. Perhaps invite players that are trying to start gathers to the server for an opportunity to hang with the cool cats and get some more perspectives.

Maybe you do something like this already but as far as I am aware it always more drawn out. Getting some players to dedicate themselves to an intensive session over a few days could be the trick.

[Poop]

I have 2 points to make:

Steyr is massively overused, I am noticing 4-6 steyr's every match in 3v3, probably needs a slight nerf relative to all other weapons before the next version comes out.

The higher killcount is actually making the game slower paced, not faster paced as some people seem to claim. Its very difficult now to rush and get a double kill/cap. In general getting caps has gotten much harder as you die so fucking quickly now, its impossible to actually get to the opponents flag alive (And when you do get to the flag, someone is always respawning because there are way more deaths). I don't think this is a good thing. I have agreed with increasing damage the past few versions but this version has made it overkill IMO (whether this is the weapon mod or some other change in the code), I think the WM should be adjusted to make weapons a bit weaker across the board.

Also this seems to make lag even more powerful, as the person who will have the highest chance of surviving the ridiculousness is someone who lags.

[Rakkety]

I totally agree, styer was already kind of OP and one of the most over used weapons in the previous version. Now it is killing entirely too fast, I'm pretty sure it is the superior weapon on all maps and every route, its basically more useful than spas at close range because you can kill even faster with it and you have more range. It gets ridiculous at times, playing vs 3x styer spray you die so fucking fast, and its next to impossible to be the hero now because its just way to difficult to escape with flag. The current weapon mod would give a huge advantage to DM heavy players and unless you want cast hellsik and skipzor winning sctfl again something needs to be done.

On another note, I think you nerfed spas and FN mini way to much


The spas is good at close range but at mid to long range spas really sucks, I swear to god it has reg issues because many times I have hit EPIC weak enemies with spas pellets, I see blood flying off them but they take no damage. It seems as if ever if your pellets hit at long range no damage is being accounted for

And the mini... You messed up the spread so badly. Sure you have fifty bullets, but compared to the styer which is the far superior weapon now it is pretty bad. I mean.. It spreads so much that you miss probably more shots than you did in the previous version and mini wasn't even OP. Basically you nerfed a gun that didn't need a Nerf


HK and STYER are definitely OP, something needs to be done before the next sctfl is played because it really won't be enjoyable to play vs 3x lag and Aug spray. It will destroy gameplay, put a huge emphasis on DM skills and take away a lot of the teamplay that competition soldat has been based around

[vinteek]

In my opinion, we should switch back to the 1.4.2 version because in that version all the weapons were perfectly balanced.

+1
1.4.2 was so far the best version for me if it comes to WM, it was well balanced, just bring it back and fix those eats from that period and it will be fine. I've been complaining about steyr since 1.5.1 WM... and now it's the same story.. Why do we have to be equal with "noobs" or guys who have just good aim?
Somehow in each version i've got a feeling that person in charge of WM is adjusting it to his own desires...

[Crimson Goth]

To nail the WM you could try gathering together some top-level players (SCTFL admins/winners/top competitors, gather admins, trusted players from here who play regularly in pubs) and have them pretty much sit down over a weekend. Get control of a server or two and just play some CTF and some DM. After 5 or so rounds you all hop on IRC and suggest tweaks to the WM, those tweaks are then applied to the server and you repeat the process however many times on your Saturday. Then you all get some shut-eye and come back the next day to test the release candidates you concocted the previous day with a slightly fresher perspective and just whittle it down until you have something to propose. Perhaps invite players that are trying to start gathers to the server for an opportunity to hang with the cool cats and get some more perspectives.

This pretty much sums up my opinion on the matter and would be a much more organized method of doing things.

[ginn]

The spas is good at close range but at mid to long range spas really sucks

As it should, spas was OP in the previous version.

[squiddy]

Cheese and ginn have made excellent points, which I share.

Faster deaths means you can't use DEM CLIMB SKILLZ, which makes it hard for players who are better with motion and speed and worse with killing (and general Deathmatch skills) to cap and be actually useful for the team.

Not going to linger this anymore, I believe this thread has made its opinion.

[iAmBullet]

After having played climb and hide n' seek for 3 years - almost perfecting my entire arsenal of movement and polybug knowledge - it'd be nice if those 3 arduous years of dedication had more than a 3 seconds of glory trade-off in CTF.

When people take time out of their lives to work hard, refine, revamp, and improve their skills in any game, they expect to see results. In my honest opinion, the new WM has no problem in terms of one weapon being inferior/superior to another, but the problem lies within the increased damage output (apparently due to higher hit registry) and killing speed. As a speedrunner myself, I can relate to what ginn says about flagcappers having almost no chance of survival when trying to make heroic plays in the new version of Soldat.

Don't mistake me, I'm not criticizing the work of the devs at all, I think that the amount of effort they put into improving the netcode and "playability" of Soldat greatly paid off; however, all good changes always brings a detrimental one along with it; the new WM is said detriment.

Here are my observations after a week of playing public servers in 1.6.4:
Cons:
-Getting triple/double kills with barrett is a commonplace event now (especially when camp-spawning maps like Division, Cobra, Equinox etc..)
-In contrast to the fast-paced rushing atmosphere of public CTF servers last version (1.6.3), 1.6.4 seems to be more camp oriented
-Due to high hit registry, getting to opposing team's flag is difficult, and escaping their base is nearly impossible .
-In the rare occurrences you do escape from their base, a sprayed stray bullet has the potential to kill you from across half the map.

Pros:
-The increased versatility of the saw has seemingly made it a more enticing secondary weapon choice; consequently, spawning is a lot easier with the increased saw range
-Decreased damage taken from self-boosts using m79 or nades
-Spas and minimi nerfed
-Nades in general

*In the previous version, a player would have a higher chance of eating bullets the faster s/he is going. Although this is not the case anymore, I think it can be balanced if the damage of a bullet would be decreased if travelling against gravity (vertically) or decreased over time. This would get rid of the majority of many bs rage-quit spray kills from half a map away.

I'll leave this post by saying that I think the main gameplay of Soldat should be 50% aim/weapon manipulation and 50% movement. Right now the former is around 70% while the latter being 30% (all rough estimates based off my opinion). It's just shameful and demotivational to all the players who have put in loads of work refining their movement to have it easily get shot to pieces (literally) by a noob who has decent aim.

[Adam]

I'll leave this post by saying that I think the main gameplay of Soldat should be 50% aim/weapon manipulation and 50% movement.

Uhhh, No.

[ginn]

I'll leave this post by saying that I think the main gameplay of Soldat should be 50% aim/weapon manipulation and 50% movement.

Uhhh, No.

Yes, it should. Team work, movements, smart play, map knowledge, should play a bigger role than 30%, aiming alone should not account for 70% of the game play.

Pros:
-Nades in general

Really I don't know, I think there are issues with the nades. I think there should be a timer of how soon a nade can explode, so that you can't just tap nade to kill off somebody close to you. The timer would start once you start holding the nade key, then after it reaches a certain time the nade can collide and explode on people.

[Adam]

I'll leave this post by saying that I think the main gameplay of Soldat should be 50% aim/weapon manipulation and 50% movement.

Uhhh, No.

Yes, it should. Team work, movements, smart play, map knowledge, should play a bigger role than 30%, aiming alone should not account for 70% of the game play.

Pros:
-Nades in general

Really I don't know, I think there are issues with the nades. I think there should be a timer of how soon a nade can explode, so that you can't just tap nade to kill off somebody close to you. The timer would start once you start holding the nade key, then after it reaches a certain time the nade can collide and explode on people.

You're agreeing that movement alone should be worth 50% of the game play, yet you also stated Team work, smart play, and map knowledge should account for more then 30%?

[iAmBullet]

I'll leave this post by saying that I think the main gameplay of Soldat should be 50% aim/weapon manipulation and 50% movement.

Uhhh, No.

When I said Soldat should be consisted of 50% movement and the other 50% accounts of every other aspect of Soldat, where did you find fault in that Adam?

There's a certain characteristic about the nature of Soldat and how it's made that sets it unique from any other 2d sidescrolling fps game -- the versatility of the movement is highly flexible and the amount of manipulation you have over your gostek is more than any game I've ever played. I can tell you from personal experience that having a decent aim with any weapon does not even compare to the work, practice, and repitition needed to become a decent runner on all the CTF maps.

I suggest to build upon the unique characteristics of Soldat -- movement and running -- as a way to make Soldat seem more enticing and to set Soldat apart as something "new", or unique, rather than it be any regular fps game where you just aim and shoot and movement doesn't really matter at all.

Nobody likes constantly being killed by campers and people who just hover-spray, but with the new WM, this is becoming quite the preference for most players. I'm only arguing that movement should not be over-looked as the devs make changes, as even the minor tweaks to weapons can affect the whole playing field for professional flagcappers.

[Adam]

I'll leave this post by saying that I think the main gameplay of Soldat should be 50% aim/weapon manipulation and 50% movement.

Uhhh, No.

When I said Soldat should be consisted of 50% movement and the other 50% accounts of every other aspect of Soldat, where did you find fault in that Adam?

There's a certain characteristic about the nature of Soldat and how it's made that sets it unique from any other 2d sidescrolling fps game -- the versatility of the movement is highly flexible and the amount of manipulation you have over your gostek is more than any game I've ever played. I can tell you from personal experience that having a decent aim with any weapon does not even compare to the work, practice, and repitition needed to become a decent runner on all the CTF maps.

I suggest to build upon the unique characteristics of Soldat -- movement and running -- as a way to make Soldat seem more enticing and to set Soldat apart as something "new", or unique, rather than it be any regular fps game where you just aim and shoot and movement doesn't really matter at all.

Nobody likes constantly being killed by campers and people who just hover-spray, but with the new WM, this is becoming quite the preference for most players. I'm only arguing that movement should not be over-looked as the devs make changes, as even the minor tweaks to weapons can affect the whole playing field for professional flagcappers.

First of all your original claim was that soldat should consist of 50% movement and 50% aim/weapon manipulation, not implying every other aspect of soldat... Also you're entitled to your own opinions on what is harder to learn in soldat and it's uniqueness whether it be movement or aim, just like I disagree on movement being harder or more unique then aiming.

[Ymies]

how do you define crap like 50% movement and 30% aim and the kind? soldat will always be a shooting game, it doesn't matter how many years you spend on honing your precious running skills, there will always be people who manage to do the same with the shooting side and most of the time running won't save you, because these individuals can, most of the time, move well enough too. why should shooting be worth any less?

but which is more versatile, focusing more on movement and less on aiming or the other way around? i don't think it matters because despite what you focus on your team still needs to be competitive balanced between shooting, movement and the use of brain for you to be able to cope

[Adam]

how do you define crap like 50% movement and 30% aim and the kind? soldat will always be a shooting game, it doesn't matter how many years you spend on honing your precious running skills, there will always be people who manage to do the same with the shooting side and most of the time running won't save you, because these individuals can, most of the time, move well enough too. why should shooting be worth any less?

but which is more versatile, focusing more on movement and less on aiming or the other way around? i don't think it matters because despite what you focus on your team still needs to be competitive balanced between shooting, movement and the use of brain for you to be able to cope

I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message

[paintZoom]

running skills definitely has less room on this version.. weapons kill so fast that u cant really do anything cool with the five seconds u are alive xd
so the overall damage is way too high.. devs could put the damage values down OR they could invent something new like
give the soldiers more "life" and add something to balance the new power of the guns like add higher speeds to the movements.. i think that would do the "trick" because this way a "N00b" can still kill "PR0s" if they dont know how to move.. so this will likely force people to move more to die less.. wich could result in more fast paced feel for the game
I play mostly on public ctf servers (almost entirely) and the game has lost some appealing to me.. due to the fact that now only DM skills matters and is just spray N Kill..
i really appreciate all the work the devs are putting in to fixing things but they should put something really "New" to game even if is something small like a movement feature or something..
(add fastfall like in super smash bros 64 xd)

[homerofgods]

you guys can stop discussing this now. we allready have 1.6.5 with lower demages

Changes from 1.6.4 -> 1.6.5
Deagles      dmg -2
HK MP5       dmg -2
Ak           dmg -1
Steyr        dmg -2
Spas         dmg -1
Barrett      moveacc +1

[Edit]
Having said I feel the wm is more balanced now, I didn't mean to interrupt the discussion. Demage is probbably still too high for a good gameplay. 1 or 2 reduction doesn't account for much really.

[nouefexe]

yeah damage its still too high.. IMO you should try to replicate 1.6.3 WM with this new game engine (??) and restart the balacing from there!

[squiddy]

It's not a new game engine, lol.

I think the current WM works pretty well, although I would still like to see the Barrett with a larger startup/fire interval time. And the Minigun still looks so nasty.

[iAmBullet]

how do you define crap like 50% movement and 30% aim and the kind? soldat will always be a shooting game

I have never defined Soldat as 30% aim so please don't accuse me of fallacies such as mentioned; however, I do agree with you that Soldat is an FPS game (a game where the main purpose focuses on shooting), but if you took any time to read my earlier post that you so condescendingly tried to refute, you would see that in no part of my post do I ever mention that Soldat is a game focused on movement.
I might as well state my point again:
In every single category of all the games in this world, Soldat would belong in the 2D Sidescrolling FPS section, so the main purpose in this game is, indeed, to shoot; HOWEVER, Soldat, in nature, is more than a game based on shooting; the potential Soldat has as an FPS game reaches far beyond a typical point-click game (i.e. COD, CS, Halo etc...) simply because of the versatility of how your gostek can be manipulated. In contrast to the simple gameplay and graphics of this game, the movement complexity Soldat has - as an FPS - IMMENSELY surpasses that of any other FPS that I know. The only few games that I know of that could begin to compare to Soldat's labyrinthine enigma of movement are S4 League and GunZ.

it doesn't matter how many years you spend on honing your precious running skills, there will always be people who manage to do the same with the shooting side and most of the time running won't save you, because these individuals can, most of the time, move well enough too. why should shooting be worth any less?

You seem to have an unhealthy tendency of making false accusations. If you're going to decry my post (that I embarrassingly spent a good 10-15 minutes on) in a patronizing tone, it would be greatly appreciated if you thoroughly understood the point I was making in my post and got your facts straight. Never did I once mention or even imply that shooting should be worth less than movement. I don't think shooting should be worth any less at all. All I'm simply saying is that, since Soldat is an FPS shooter that has a unique characteristic based on complex movement (something that makes this game stand out before all the other FPS shooters), movement should be more important and have a larger impact in all the gamemodes than it currently is.

but which is more versatile, focusing more on movement and less on aiming or the other way around? i don't think it matters because despite what you focus on your team still needs to be competitive balanced between shooting, movement and the use of brain for you to be able to cope

Ideally, you should focus on movement and aiming equally in order to become a hybrid player who can do it all: cap, kill, defend, attack, rush, basically the whole package. Imagine how much more competitive and motivating it would be to play if the competitive scene or even pubs were filled with players like this. I'm just stressing movement more because it's a shame seeing newcomers start the game off and live their whole Soldat career as campers when there is literally a whole other universe in movement to utilize that could really give the player a motivation to play more and invite his/her friends to play. In all honesty, if Soldat didn't have its unique arsenal of movements, I can guarantee you the game would be less popular than it already is. Soldat is a two-dimensional game in appearance, but the beauty of Soldat is that you progressively start to see more and more dimensions as you play. Sometimes I even play Soldat in my 4D glasses.

Look, I'm not trying to turn this thread into a "movement vs. aiming/shooting" debate. I'm trying to find an equilibrium between the two which would make this game more addictive and fun that it already is. I'm not trying to prove that movement is more important than aiming, and I hope you're not trying to do the opposite; all I'm trying to do by emphasizing movement and its impact on this game - as a SOLDAT player, not a RUNNER - is to try and offer a new perspective for people to look at, and maybe accept and build upon.

Thank you if you took the time to read this; if not, please don't reply to this post.