Forums » Suggestions
New Weapons
The variety of weapons we currently have in 3.2 is excellent. I don't want this to sound like an anti-dev post. The devs are doing great, the game is great, etc. BUT...
I see a small problem with the currennt weapons. Mostly in that they are all just modification of the same idea. There is very little difference between most weapons other than rate of fire, damage, speed, annd ennergy cost. They all look more or less the same, and they all fire more or less the same.
The exceptions are: the turret and the charged cannon. The nuke is somewhat of an exception because it fills such a unique role.
To add morevariety to weapons, I would suggest adding a few other balancing stats other than rate/speed/damage/energy. Specifically, I would add a Minimum/maximum range, and the ability to adjust damage based upon range. Also, special *visual* side-effects of using a weapon could be implemented along with the "aim-assist" that we have now.
Consider the much-begged-for sniper rifle: If it were a real sniper rifle right now, it would also bbe a KICK-A** weapon at short ranges. This is because a sniper rifle needs to (by default) hit VERY hard and VERY fast (fast meaning shot velocity, not fire rate).
If the rifle was given a minimum range of 400m, but had a high-enough velocity to hit something at say 1000m, then it woudl be froced into its role.
Also, when a sniper rifle was active (selected), it could force a zoom on the screen (like most other games do with a sniper rifle).
For some good dog-fighhting weapons, they might have a 0m minimum range, but a maximum rannge of 300-400m.
Mid-range weapons could have a max range of 1000m, but do less damage after traveling more than a few hundred.
Trek Weapons (that's what I personally call weapons that involve "unstable temporal nexus" or similar techno-puke. I think of the BFG in Quake II as a trek weapon) could start off with nearly no hitting power at short range, but grow in power over distannce sot hat if anyone got hit at 1000m, they'd be toast.
Basically, by adding some more variety in a few key areas we could have a more diverse group of weapons without sacrificing balance.
I see a small problem with the currennt weapons. Mostly in that they are all just modification of the same idea. There is very little difference between most weapons other than rate of fire, damage, speed, annd ennergy cost. They all look more or less the same, and they all fire more or less the same.
The exceptions are: the turret and the charged cannon. The nuke is somewhat of an exception because it fills such a unique role.
To add morevariety to weapons, I would suggest adding a few other balancing stats other than rate/speed/damage/energy. Specifically, I would add a Minimum/maximum range, and the ability to adjust damage based upon range. Also, special *visual* side-effects of using a weapon could be implemented along with the "aim-assist" that we have now.
Consider the much-begged-for sniper rifle: If it were a real sniper rifle right now, it would also bbe a KICK-A** weapon at short ranges. This is because a sniper rifle needs to (by default) hit VERY hard and VERY fast (fast meaning shot velocity, not fire rate).
If the rifle was given a minimum range of 400m, but had a high-enough velocity to hit something at say 1000m, then it woudl be froced into its role.
Also, when a sniper rifle was active (selected), it could force a zoom on the screen (like most other games do with a sniper rifle).
For some good dog-fighhting weapons, they might have a 0m minimum range, but a maximum rannge of 300-400m.
Mid-range weapons could have a max range of 1000m, but do less damage after traveling more than a few hundred.
Trek Weapons (that's what I personally call weapons that involve "unstable temporal nexus" or similar techno-puke. I think of the BFG in Quake II as a trek weapon) could start off with nearly no hitting power at short range, but grow in power over distannce sot hat if anyone got hit at 1000m, they'd be toast.
Basically, by adding some more variety in a few key areas we could have a more diverse group of weapons without sacrificing balance.
I thought we already had a sniper rifle: The railgun. Its usefulness at short range is already limited by its slow rate of fire and lack of autotargetting. An unrealistic "minimum range" would be unnecessary.
Consider this thread here:
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=1195
Whatever ideas you might have I'd be happy to see.
To a certain extent, all ranged weapons are variations on a theme. In the whole history of first person shooters, only a very small number of weapons have been created which have stood the test of time. By and large, every first person shooter has had the same sort of weapons load out as Doom. Modern variations basically give you two firemodes per weapon, or slightly better graphical weapons effects, but are basically similar concepts to the pistol, rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, etc.
Attempts to create novel and quirky weapons usually fail, in part because the weapons seem comical and arcadish. We could for instance introduce Heretic's 'chicken cannon' to Vendetta, and turn the targets briefly into space parrots or flying cows, but I think that defeats the design goals of the game. To a certain extent you need to create weapons with intuitively believable properties (even if their is no real science behind them). In space we have even more limited things we can try because space has so few forces acting on the ships and weapons (unlike say on the ground where we have walls, gravity, air resistance etc. to draw on.)
I personally think that the variaty of weapons in 3.2 is horrible. 60% of the weapons in the game are basically so suboptimal as to be unusable. Suggestions to fix this problem have met with very little interest by the community while at the same time suggestions to nerf weapons (the railgun being a case in point) have met with loud and boistrous choruses, and alot of threats of 'leaving the game' (as if that was a threat) if things aren't nerfed right away. The result has been that the number of effective weapons load outs have been decreasing over time, not increasing. Pretty soon at this rate everyone will be mounting the exact same weapons, which was I thought exactly the opposite goal of changing the railgun.
As far as I know there is already a maximum range. Minimum range would be silly in a situation in which there are no balistic effects, but there are a couple of ideas you can use along the same ideas. For instance, you could introduce a light warhead 'streak' rocket that accelerated as it travelled, so that it was moving faster at 500m from you than it was when it was first fired. I believe it was a1k0n who first mentioned the idea that the beam cannon might be balanced by doing less damage the further it was from its target.
The pre-nerf railgun fit the role of sniper weapon very well. Almost eveeryone hated it and the game was filled with players cursing and whining, and as a result we don't have a sniper weapon any more. I made suggestions to try to keep it in the game, but basically everyone told me I was an idiot, so to be frank I'm a little bit sore when it comes to people requesting sniper's rifles right now because I honestly don't think that alot of people requesting things have thought all that hard about how the suggestion will effect gameplay.
As a side note, I wish people would stop calling the advanced gatling 'the turret'. It isn't a turret. It cannot shoot above you, beside you, behind you, or over any large range. It's just a gun with better autotargeting than most. If it is a turret it has an extremely limited range of motion - only about 30 degrees. When guns start tracking 180-360 degree arcs, then we can apply 'turret' to them.
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=1195
Whatever ideas you might have I'd be happy to see.
To a certain extent, all ranged weapons are variations on a theme. In the whole history of first person shooters, only a very small number of weapons have been created which have stood the test of time. By and large, every first person shooter has had the same sort of weapons load out as Doom. Modern variations basically give you two firemodes per weapon, or slightly better graphical weapons effects, but are basically similar concepts to the pistol, rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, etc.
Attempts to create novel and quirky weapons usually fail, in part because the weapons seem comical and arcadish. We could for instance introduce Heretic's 'chicken cannon' to Vendetta, and turn the targets briefly into space parrots or flying cows, but I think that defeats the design goals of the game. To a certain extent you need to create weapons with intuitively believable properties (even if their is no real science behind them). In space we have even more limited things we can try because space has so few forces acting on the ships and weapons (unlike say on the ground where we have walls, gravity, air resistance etc. to draw on.)
I personally think that the variaty of weapons in 3.2 is horrible. 60% of the weapons in the game are basically so suboptimal as to be unusable. Suggestions to fix this problem have met with very little interest by the community while at the same time suggestions to nerf weapons (the railgun being a case in point) have met with loud and boistrous choruses, and alot of threats of 'leaving the game' (as if that was a threat) if things aren't nerfed right away. The result has been that the number of effective weapons load outs have been decreasing over time, not increasing. Pretty soon at this rate everyone will be mounting the exact same weapons, which was I thought exactly the opposite goal of changing the railgun.
As far as I know there is already a maximum range. Minimum range would be silly in a situation in which there are no balistic effects, but there are a couple of ideas you can use along the same ideas. For instance, you could introduce a light warhead 'streak' rocket that accelerated as it travelled, so that it was moving faster at 500m from you than it was when it was first fired. I believe it was a1k0n who first mentioned the idea that the beam cannon might be balanced by doing less damage the further it was from its target.
The pre-nerf railgun fit the role of sniper weapon very well. Almost eveeryone hated it and the game was filled with players cursing and whining, and as a result we don't have a sniper weapon any more. I made suggestions to try to keep it in the game, but basically everyone told me I was an idiot, so to be frank I'm a little bit sore when it comes to people requesting sniper's rifles right now because I honestly don't think that alot of people requesting things have thought all that hard about how the suggestion will effect gameplay.
As a side note, I wish people would stop calling the advanced gatling 'the turret'. It isn't a turret. It cannot shoot above you, beside you, behind you, or over any large range. It's just a gun with better autotargeting than most. If it is a turret it has an extremely limited range of motion - only about 30 degrees. When guns start tracking 180-360 degree arcs, then we can apply 'turret' to them.
I think that the railgun was a bad idea from the start. Its only purpose is to destroy other players before they have the chance to counterattack, which is fine in a FPS where everyone's a combatant, but which gets _really_ annoying in a game like Vendetta where a large number of people are simply trying to run their trade routes. In a game like Vendetta, there must be a defence for every offensive tactic, and nerfing the railgun enough so that a defender can survive a single shot pretty much makes it useless, since you're not likely to get a second shot.
The weapon I'd like to see is a ammo-based projectile weapon.
Perhaps something like the adv. gatling or gatling, but with a limited amount of ammo (100 rounds? 200?) and far less energy consumption, making it viable to run and fire (with low precision) at the same time.
Perhaps something like the adv. gatling or gatling, but with a limited amount of ammo (100 rounds? 200?) and far less energy consumption, making it viable to run and fire (with low precision) at the same time.
Th weapons in 3.2.X were built off of our existing weapon base, with a few extra features added where it wouldn't take too long to implement. If we had all the time in the world... well, we have a huge list of weapons we'd love to make, but they're just impractical to add right now, considering how much other work we have to get done.
The current set of weapons is still unbalanced. Our priority so far has been to take care of the few weapons that have been overly powerful (the railgun and the avalon torpedoes.) Many of the other weapons are still too weak (or use too much energy) to be practical in combat. Each one has a niche it's supposed to fill, but it's going to be a while before all the weapons work like they're supposed to. We'll be going over each weapon one by one, making sure it fills its role correctly, and making sure it doesn't become an uberweapon. With any luck, we'll have a wide array of weapons that are useful for different tasks, and of which every player has their own favorite.
The current set of weapons is still unbalanced. Our priority so far has been to take care of the few weapons that have been overly powerful (the railgun and the avalon torpedoes.) Many of the other weapons are still too weak (or use too much energy) to be practical in combat. Each one has a niche it's supposed to fill, but it's going to be a while before all the weapons work like they're supposed to. We'll be going over each weapon one by one, making sure it fills its role correctly, and making sure it doesn't become an uberweapon. With any luck, we'll have a wide array of weapons that are useful for different tasks, and of which every player has their own favorite.
I have thought this through quite a bit. While I fully understand the need to balance current weapons first, we and the devs both need to keep an eye on the future, and on *creativity*. Creativity sparks interest. Interest attracts new players and builds a community. Community = successful MMORPG.
That said, I'll get back to the topic of the sniper weapon: I personally don't consider the railgun to be a sniper weapon (not even before it was nerfed). A sniper rifle is to me is only effective at VERY long distances. i.e., you need to zoom in to use them with any degree of success. The railgun is useless at a "safe" distance. That is, if you're close enough to use the railgun, you are close enough that a dog-fighter can get still closer and waste you at very close range. There is a real military reason for sniping, and there is a real reason why it is often done in stealth and at great distances.
And along those lines, I don't think a minimum range is unrealistic: especially (as Celebrim pointed out) for some sort of streak rocket. But creativity, when applied to science, will allow for almost anything. Consider the "Trek Weapon": You catalyze the formation of some sort of unstable nexus, and lob it slowly away from you. As time passes, it builds in both size and destructive power until finally it overwhelms itself and it fizzles out. It would have a minimum range (not enough power yet to do real harm).
These are, of course, just examples. No sheep canons or cream-pie catapults, but creative ways to join trajectory, energy, and velocity for the common goal of good old-fashioned pain and destruction.
Another idea: A dispersion of plasma that acts as a space-aged "oil slick"... you dump energy from a real port and create a hostile environment for those chasing you (ties in nicely with an old idea someone had about clouds and nebulas)
That said, I'll get back to the topic of the sniper weapon: I personally don't consider the railgun to be a sniper weapon (not even before it was nerfed). A sniper rifle is to me is only effective at VERY long distances. i.e., you need to zoom in to use them with any degree of success. The railgun is useless at a "safe" distance. That is, if you're close enough to use the railgun, you are close enough that a dog-fighter can get still closer and waste you at very close range. There is a real military reason for sniping, and there is a real reason why it is often done in stealth and at great distances.
And along those lines, I don't think a minimum range is unrealistic: especially (as Celebrim pointed out) for some sort of streak rocket. But creativity, when applied to science, will allow for almost anything. Consider the "Trek Weapon": You catalyze the formation of some sort of unstable nexus, and lob it slowly away from you. As time passes, it builds in both size and destructive power until finally it overwhelms itself and it fizzles out. It would have a minimum range (not enough power yet to do real harm).
These are, of course, just examples. No sheep canons or cream-pie catapults, but creative ways to join trajectory, energy, and velocity for the common goal of good old-fashioned pain and destruction.
Another idea: A dispersion of plasma that acts as a space-aged "oil slick"... you dump energy from a real port and create a hostile environment for those chasing you (ties in nicely with an old idea someone had about clouds and nebulas)
About the oil slick idea, I was thinking about maybe having a non-lethal weapon that would stop chasing enemies at their tracks. It would be an EMP mine that, when within proximity, would blow out your enemy's battery completely, making him not able to boost or fire any more for a certain period of time. They can still cruise away and will still have full hull, but its purpose is to stop 'em dead in their tracks or make them a temporary sitting target.
hmmm......a small weap mabye? Even 5 secs of immobilization would be good enough to speed away :)
Anyone a Farscape fan? Think "flax"... you capture an enemy in an EMP net that stops them dead in their tracks. It drains your energy to keep them there, though. Not much use 1-on-1, but as part of a planned assault, it could be fun.
Ummm just want to point this out. The EMP mine/rocket would be a much better pirate weapon then trader's defence. I'm not against it but don't think you're giving trader's a helpful hand.