18 replies to this topic

[ponpat]

Hallo,
here a list of ideas and improvements to the balance me and my friends has discussed in the last month of weekly ow-playing. We know, the list is too long and has some realy hard points, so we do not believe all of them has any chance to get into overwatch but: we ALL think, that they all are somehow necessary for the balance, the fun and the flow of the gameplay. So I hope you will read and discuss all this ideas, too.

Let's start with some of the propebly codebased hardest changes, but for the gameplay in our opinion necessary changes.
1. as an defender you usually watch in one direction and protect the others. You do not see what happens around you, so sometimes, becaus some people have a leck of communication, you stand somewhere alone and think people are behind you. But the are already moving to another place. It is very frustrating if you "die for the team" and your team already is somewhere else. So it would be nice if you get somehow a kind of indicator if someone is near by you (a circle around your crosshair or something like this)
2. if you play as a medic it is very hard to have an eye on anybody... sometimes you heal someone because you didn't see there is someone with lower health, you can not know how the situation is bout your teammates around a corner etc. It is not funny if you heal 3 guys and outside someone dies because you had no chance to know about his situation and then you are the "bad medic". An systim like for the medic in TF2 would be really nice for all medics out there.
3. Some people run to get every weapon as the first, so there are sometimes: medics with crossbow and rpg and they do not now how to play with just one of this jobs, so I think it would be nice if rpg and crossbow also get rols like defender and medic for rounds with enough players (for small rounds still it is better if singel person can do more jobs)
4. with the smg you can "sniper" combines at any distanc with running and holding m1 (w+m1 like pyro in tf2 xD). Some "recoil" that pushs the crosshair slowly upwards while firing would be a small and good solution for this.

Now some balance-changes for the overwatch gameplay.
After a month my friend is undefeatable as overwatch and bored by playing the overwatch. After he told me the tactics he used, I was also undefeated and bored:
1. He is spamming the combines with the manhacks and safes them at an spot they can not get shot and just spawns manhacks. Again around 30 manhacks the rebels are without a chance.
2. Also while we have to do an objective wich takes time (like hacking) he give us this time and saves all his troups for a singel wave wich is undefeatable, even with some grenades.
This tactics are boring for both sides (nothing happens and then comes an end with no special things to avoid it). They also stress the server very much (especially a such great number of manhacks) so that the "feel" of playing is getting destroyed because of small lags and so on.
Best ideas we had for this problem: Limit the number of units for the overwatch to the sice of about 3 waves and also reduce the amount of manhacks that can be alive at the same time to bout 2,60 per living rebel (including the right up and down rounding of the numer, so 1 rebel=3, 2 rebels=5 up to 7 rebels = 18, after some playtests we think this is the ideal amount of manhacks to maximise their effectivness without makeing them total overpowered. Also we thought about an "enginear"-class with a gravi-gun which helps do destroy manhacks or mines. That would be the best for balance at canals, but we don't know if you want to avoid the gravi-gun, because it should be "freeman only" or propebly it will change the balance and the way to play through a level too much). Also a good, but from the code side propebly harder, way would be to increase the spawn times for all units if there are more units alive at the moment, but this would also be much work of testing for the "right timing changes", but if this will make it in also a nice change would be to change the speed of reviving rebels if the most of them are dead. This will increase the action and feeling in an "last man standing" if he just need 5 sec to revive another player. But this also may cause some bugs like "what is if 2 people revive other players and one of them get revived which will usually increase the time needed to revive other players".

Now at the end, thanks for reading my long text with the bad english and I hope some of this global balance and gameplay improvements will make it into ow, because they are (in the eyes of me and 4 friends) really needed to make ow survive a longer time and to make the game more variant in the ow and rebel gamestyle and anything.

Best wishes,
ponpat

edit: made some smaler cleanups for the "Overwatch- changes" part.

[Ranma]

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1. as an defender you usually watch in one direction and protect the others. You do not see what happens around you, so sometimes, becaus some people have a leck of communication, you stand somewhere alone and think people are behind you. But the are already moving to another place. It is very frustrating if you "die for the team" and your team already is somewhere else. So it would be nice if you get somehow a kind of indicator if someone is near by you (a circle around your crosshair or something like this)

The statement of a true Defender. This is the exact reason why I strongly trust you with the shield. Yea, I've seen plenty of Defenders blocking spawns in Breach and Citadel only to get left behind or abandoned. Since I never play Defender, I can only imagine how frustrating this might get. I'd like to see maybe some kind of indicator also, if just for the improvement of the performances of those using the shield.

Someone might notice that circle over their crosshair and might be filled with the need to protect the nearby person from danger. I'd love to see that kind of motivation in people. *Especially* in a co-op game such as this.

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2. if you play as a medic it is very hard to have an eye on anybody... sometimes you heal someone because you didn't see there is someone with lower health, you can not know how the situation is bout your teammates around a corner etc. It is not funny if you heal 3 guys and outside someone dies because you had no chance to know about his situation and then you are the "bad medic". An systim like for the medic in TF2 would be really nice for all medics out there.

I have suggested that the arrow above the head of the rebels changes color as the health lowers. colors dropping from green to yellow to orange to red, or something of that sort. With that you'll be able to see who in injured through the walls and a solution for the issues that you mentioned. I find the idea more convenient than the TF2 "call medic" system because plenty of uninjured people call for medics when playing TF2, that kind of distraction can cost the rebels the game if the team is relying on the medic, such as at the end of Citadel. Which, like you mentioned, it would be hard to see who is injured in a chaotic moment like that because medics must aim at teammates to see who is injured. I also hope something is done to improve this issue.

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3. Some people run to get every weapon as the first, so there are sometimes: medics with crossbow and rpg and they do not now how to play with just one of this jobs, so I think it would be nice if rpg and crossbow also get rols like defender and medic for rounds with enough players (for small rounds still it is better if singel person can do more jobs)

I've heard rumors that this is already already going to happen. And to quote WAXT (talking about Canals) "By the end of the map most everyone should have a role item."

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4. with the smg you can "sniper" combines at any distanc with running and holding m1 (w+m1 like pyro in tf2 xD). Some "recoil" that pushs the crosshair slowly upwards while firing would be a small and good solution for this.

Personally, I don't see that as an issue. If people couldn't accuratly shoot down combine at a distance with the SMG, combine spams on the high ground, such as those on Canals, would totally tear up the entire team faster than WAXT's manhack army. But that's just my view.

[ponpat]

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The statement of a true Defender. This is the exact reason why I strongly trust you with the shield.

If you believe it or not, but this words really give me a great feeling. Do not know how to write this in english words, so "great" is the best I can say to it *-*

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I have suggested that the arrow above the head of the rebels changes color as the health lowers. colors dropping from green to yellow to orange to red, or something of that sort

That was what I had in mind. A system with the signs like the crosses in tf2 which are over the heads after a player calls a medic. I didn't mean the call for a medic it selfs. But the Idea with the colors is much moe simple and understandable... Would also be nice for non-medic players like defenders to know wich player has to fall back and needs some security.

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I've heard rumors that this is already already going to happen. And to quote WAXT (talking about Canals) "By the end of the map most everyone should have a role item."

That realy would be great. Hate it if a medic (who do not heal people D: ) takes the crossbow and do not shoot with it and also takes one rpg and do not shoot the combine-groups with it :/ Sadly this happens time by time with guys who are new to Overwatch. (But usually they learn fast enough to play "right")

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Personally, I don't see that as an issue. If people couldn't accuratly shoot down combine at a distance with the SMG, combine spams on the high ground, such as those on Canals, would totally tear up the entire team faster than WAXT's manhack army. But that's just my view.

Damn, canals was the only map we did't had in mind while thinking bout recoile :/ In canals it would be really bad :/ But in the other maps it really will (imo) improve the way the maps have to be played and the chances for combines at some distance. Usually they do not hit you and get "snipered" by smg at so many points of the map.

Thank you for reading and responding to my post. But the "main balance issues" are in the "Changes for the Overwatch"-Part (I cleaned it up a little bit to make it more easy to read and Quote, hope you or somebody other will discuss a bit bout this suggestions). Perhapes you know the "undefeated" JPT580. He just started having fun as the Overwatch yesterday, because he starts to use his troops "normal" so he also lost sometimes. But if he WANTS to win (and not to have fun) he uses "Manhackspamming" and "Troop saving" wich always lead to a win for the overwatch. I also did yesterday at canals a round where I nearly killed all rebels just with manhack spamming at any station (and then before they lose I just took the manhacks away, because I wanted to have fun, not an easy and boring win).

[Quenquent]

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

1. as an defender you usually watch in one direction and protect the others. You do not see what happens around you, so sometimes, becaus some people have a leck of communication, you stand somewhere alone and think people are behind you. But the are already moving to another place. It is very frustrating if you "die for the team" and your team already is somewhere else. So it would be nice if you get somehow a kind of indicator if someone is near by you (a circle around your crosshair or something like this)

You got an arrow over every players and a minimap, you need more ?

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2. if you play as a medic it is very hard to have an eye on anybody... sometimes you heal someone because you didn't see there is someone with lower health, you can not know how the situation is bout your teammates around a corner etc. It is not funny if you heal 3 guys and outside someone dies because you had no chance to know about his situation and then you are the "bad medic". An systim like for the medic in TF2 would be really nice for all medics out there.

Someone suggested to change the color of the arrow over the players depending of their HP. I don't remember who.

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3. Some people run to get every weapon as the first, so there are sometimes: medics with crossbow and rpg and they do not now how to play with just one of this jobs, so I think it would be nice if rpg and crossbow also get rols like defender and medic for rounds with enough players (for small rounds still it is better if singel person can do more jobs)

The devs work on it.

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4. with the smg you can "sniper" combines at any distanc with running and holding m1 (w+m1 like pyro in tf2 xD). Some "recoil" that pushs the crosshair slowly upwards while firing would be a small and good solution for this.

You don't see the crosshair moving but your bullet don't go directly to the target. It's like the minigun in TF2.

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After a month my friend is undefeatable as overwatch and bored by playing the overwatch. After he told me the tactics he used, I was also undefeated and bored:
1. He is spamming the combines with the manhacks and safes them at an spot they can not get shot and just spawns manhacks. Again around 30 manhacks the rebels are without a chance.
2. Also while we have to do an objective wich takes time (like hacking) he give us this time and saves all his troups for a singel wave wich is undefeatable, even with some grenades.

This is called "spam", a good rebel team can very easely defeat it. They have no glory with this tactic. The best way to win as Overwatch it's to use your brain :
-Attack alone rebels.
-Don't use only one flank, use everyone of them.
-Spawn shotgun for close fight and smg if not.
-When you spawn a unit, send him to fight.

This work, you can ask it to every rebels I defeated

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Best ideas we had for this problem: Limit the number of units for the overwatch to the sice of about 3 waves and also reduce the amount of manhacks that can be alive at the same time to bout 2,60 per living rebel (including the right up and down rounding of the numer, so 1 rebel=3, 2 rebels=5 up to 7 rebels = 18, after some playtests we think this is the ideal amount of manhacks to maximise their effectivness without makeing them total overpowered.

Already suggested, it's called "population system".

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Also we thought about an "enginear"-class with a gravi-gun which helps do destroy manhacks or mines. That would be the best for balance at canals, but we don't know if you want to avoid the gravi-gun, because it should be "freeman only" or propebly it will change the balance and the way to play through a level too much).

Already suggested an refused by most of the players.

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Also a good, but from the code side propebly harder, way would be to increase the spawn times for all units if there are more units alive at the moment, but this would also be much work of testing for the "right timing changes", but if this will make it in also a nice change would be to change the speed of reviving rebels if the most of them are dead. This will increase the action and feeling in an "last man standing" if he just need 5 sec to revive another player. But this also may cause some bugs like "what is if 2 people revive other players and one of them get revived which will usually increase the time needed to revive other players".

Wo wo wo, what is that ? Sorry for my reaction but I think the actual respawn an spawn system is very good and balanced.

[ponpat]

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You got an arrow over every players and a minimap, you need more ?

Yeah, arrows behind you are a very good help for you.
Also: The minimap is not always good to "read" in a really fighting situation, and also, do not know if my scrren is just to big, if I focus on the map I can not really see anything other... especially through the shield.

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Someone suggested to change the color of the arrow over the players depending of their HP. I don't remember who.

plz read the posts after my first one.

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You don't see the crosshair moving but your bullet don't go directly to the target. It's like the minigun in TF2.

yeah, it is nearly impossible to hit the combine-group you aim at the other side of canal part 1 when you rund and jump and aim at them... just about 75% of the bullets will hit them...

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This is called "spam", a good rebel team can very easely defeat it.

So you want to tell me that fighting 24 combines + 20 manhacks is easy for a good team? And you also want to tell me that I played since the last 3 weeks in all community playtimes with a bad team when JPT wins? I must say, the "list of how to play" you made is the right way to play and if you are good the chances are great to win, but the "spamming" of manhacks and saving troops for later, reaaly will cause so much damage that fast with so many enemys, that you really can not do anythink.
Currently there are 2 ways to win: play good and smart (that works usually but is no garant to win)... and this spamming and troup-saving wich means: overwatch is not really playing for about 3-4 minutes and then rushs you and nobody (overwatch and rebels) have really fun in this time, but leads the overwatch to win without beeing smart.

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Already suggested an refused by most of the players.

Like I said only an ideo to fight the manhacks but it propebly would destroy the game because it is a to deep change to the most levels...

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Wo wo wo, what is that ? Sorry for my reaction but I think the actual respawn an spawn system is very good and balanced.

Like I said it is a deep change of code and balance testing to get the right balance... The current system is good balanced, it works, But in my eyes it is not good for the future of humankind if you always staqy at "why change it if it works" and "why make a better think when the current one is already good enough"... I mean, what do you think why we do not have Quake 1 grafiks and gameplay... Just because people saw something good and thought bout how to improve it. And like I said: I do not know if THIS Change is worth the work (because it is really much work) but propebly it really would be a big improvement.

[ScrooLewse]

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

Hallo,
here a list of ideas and improvements to the balance me and my friends has discussed in the last month of weekly ow-playing. We know, the list is too long and has some realy hard points, so we do not believe all of them has any chance to get into overwatch but: we ALL think, that they all are somehow necessary for the balance, the fun and the flow of the gameplay. So I hope you will read and discuss all this ideas, too.

Let's start with some of the propebly codebased hardest changes, but for the gameplay in our opinion necessary changes.
1. as an defender you usually watch in one direction and protect the others. You do not see what happens around you, so sometimes, becaus some people have a leck of communication, you stand somewhere alone and think people are behind you. But the are already moving to another place. It is very frustrating if you "die for the team" and your team already is somewhere else. So it would be nice if you get somehow a kind of indicator if someone is near by you (a circle around your crosshair or something like this)

Alright, this is where wariness comes into play. A good defender isn't a walking shield, he is a guy with a shield. He acts like a normal Rebel, just slightly more clingy towards the group. When the Overwatch makes a major move, he whips-out that shield only until the combine are gone. THEN he returns to the Rebels group. I'm sure there are other ways to play Defender, but that's how I do it and I never get abandoned.

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

2. if you play as a medic it is very hard to have an eye on anybody... sometimes you heal someone because you didn't see there is someone with lower health, you can not know how the situation is bout your teammates around a corner etc. It is not funny if you heal 3 guys and outside someone dies because you had no chance to know about his situation and then you are the "bad medic". An systim like for the medic in TF2 would be really nice for all medics out there.

We've been talking about this, and you're right. I mean, there are people who can pull it-off, but not enough of them. I personally think that we need a bigger area of effect for the medkit so they can heal people while on the move.

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

3. Some people run to get every weapon as the first, so there are sometimes: medics with crossbow and rpg and they do not now how to play with just one of this jobs, so I think it would be nice if rpg and crossbow also get rols like defender and medic for rounds with enough players (for small rounds still it is better if singel person can do more jobs)

Meh. That can be fixed by the mapper. You don't need to re-code the game; just re-balance the map.

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

4. with the smg you can "sniper" combines at any distanc with running and holding m1 (w+m1 like pyro in tf2 xD). Some "recoil" that pushs the crosshair slowly upwards while firing would be a small and good solution for this.

Possibly. There's also the chance it simply makes fighting the hardest game of HL2 you will ever play more frustrating. You need to be able to focus on what you are doing and what the OW is doing. Not be pre-occupied with making the goddamn SMG aim where you want it to go.

Now some balance-changes for the overwatch gameplay.
After a month my friend is undefeatable as overwatch and bored by playing the overwatch. After he told me the tactics he used, I was also undefeated and bored:

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

1. He is spamming the combines with the manhacks and safes them at an spot they can not get shot and just spawns manhacks. Again around 30 manhacks the rebels are without a chance.

Now that's a trick I wanna see...

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

2. Also while we have to do an objective wich takes time (like hacking) he give us this time and saves all his troups for a singel wave wich is undefeatable, even with some grenades.
This tactics are boring for both sides (nothing happens and then comes an end with no special things to avoid it). They also stress the server very much (especially a such great number of manhacks) so that the "feel" of playing is getting destroyed because of small lags and so on.

You're right. There have been minor discussions on what to do about that. The current idea is a unit cap.

ponpat, on 27 February 2011 - 08:36 AM, said:

Best ideas we had for this problem: Limit the number of units for the overwatch to the sice of about 3 waves and also reduce the amount of manhacks that can be alive at the same time to bout 2.60 per living rebel (including the right up and down rounding of the numer, so 1 rebel=3, 2 rebels=5 up to 7 rebels = 18, after some playtests we think this is the ideal amount of manhacks to maximise their effectivness without makeing them total overpowered. Though a flat-cap with spawn-time balancing on a per-map basis would also work. Also we thought about an "enginear"-class with a gravi-gun which helps do destroy manhacks or mines. A bit of a one-trick pony, don't you think? That would be the best for balance at canals, but we don't know if you want to avoid the gravi-gun, because it should be "freeman only" or propebly it will change the balance and the way to play through a level too much).Honestly, I don't see the problem with having a gravity gun, but go-on. Also a good, but from the code side propebly harder, way would be to increase the spawn times for all units if there are more units alive at the moment, but this would also be much work of testing for the "right timing changes", but if this will make it in also a nice change would be to change the speed of reviving rebels if the most of them are dead. That MIGHT work, but you need to think of the Overwatch, too. This will increase the action and feeling in an "last man standing" if he just need 5 sec to revive another player. But this also may cause some bugs like "what is if 2 people revive other players and one of them get revived which will usually increase the time needed to revive other players". Just do what they did in TF2 for upgrading teleporters, keep track of the percentage of progress in reviving and when the speed gets changed, you increase/decrease the speed accordingly from that point.

Now at the end, thanks for reading my long text with the bad english and I hope some of this global balance and gameplay improvements will make it into ow, because they are (in the eyes of me and 4 friends) really needed to make ow survive a longer time and to make the game more variant in the ow and rebel gamestyle and anything.

Best wishes,
ponpat

edit: made some smaler cleanups for the "Overwatch- changes" part.

Thank you for your input, Ponpat. It is greatly appreciated.

[Ranma]

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Alright, this is where wariness comes into play. A good defender isn't a walking shield, he is a guy with a shield. He acts like a normal Rebel, just slightly more clingy towards the group. When the Overwatch makes a major move, he whips-out that shield only until the combine are gone. THEN he returns to the Rebels group. I'm sure there are other ways to play Defender, but that's how I do it and I never get abandoned.

You don't need to give Ponpat advice on how to play Defender, he's one of the best I've seen with a shield.

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Now that's a trick I wanna see...

Come play with us at the community playtimes and you'll be able to see it.

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Already suggested an refused by most of the players.

It was not suggested in the way he mentioned. He doesn't want faster hacking or other half-assed ideas. His engineer uses a gravity gun to help against mines. I personally love the idea. Mines are such a pain in the ass. I've been trapped in one of the tubes before because the GM put a mine on the exit. I wish an engineer was around to get that mine away from my balls.

[ScrooLewse]

Ranma, on 01 March 2011 - 12:15 AM, said:

You don't need to give Ponpat advice on how to play Defender, he's one of the best I've seen with a shield.


Come play with us at the community playtimes and you'll be able to see it.


It was not suggested in the way he mentioned. He doesn't want faster hacking or other half-assed ideas. His engineer uses a gravity gun to help against mines. I personally love the idea. Mines are such a pain in the ass. I've been trapped in one of the tubes before because the GM put a mine on the exit. I wish an engineer was around to get that mine away from my balls.

Alright.

I do weekly and have yet to see it work.

Oh, so true.

[ponpat]

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We've been talking about this, and you're right. I mean, there are people who can pull it-off, but not enough of them. I personally think that we need a bigger area of effect for the medkit so they can heal people while on the move.

Yeah, would be nice, but imo it should just be slightly improved, because if the rebels can rund and heal at the same time to easy, it will just make the rebel game easier and increase their speed to much. For the Overwatch it is nice, if 2 rebels stand in the cornor because of healing.

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Meh. That can be fixed by the mapper. You don't need to re-code the game; just re-balance the map.

oO so as a mapper you have to make the map save for "one player is taking all weapons and do not use it"? why not remove any other weapon and rebalance the whole map for playing it withou roles and special weapons? ;P

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Now that's a trick I wanna see...

Come this we on the community-playtime and I will allow JPT580 to use it (last weekend I said I will kick him from my mumble-server if he would use this "strategies" xD) But plz play long enough to get into the right maps (canals and... forget the name of this map, the city -or street- map where you have to hack/detonate things to push to the next area... In this to maps you can see very fast what a power the manhack spamming has.)

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You don't need to give Ponpat advice on how to play Defender, he's one of the best I've seen with a shield.

I do not think I am that good... I die to often and I can not do a "last man standing-fight" like WAXT, Gabe or you (just the names I remember, my memorie for names is sooo bad xD). So I play the defender because it is imo the best think I can do for the team (as a medic I do not have so much overview like I have to and as a "normal player" I just play "normal" and I saw many other defenders wich do not use the shield until their health goes low and they put it out to save themself and let the team protect them not they are protecting the team.)

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It was not suggested in the way he mentioned. He doesn't want faster hacking or other half-assed ideas. His engineer uses a gravity gun to help against mines. I personally love the idea. Mines are such a pain in the ass. I've been trapped in one of the tubes before because the GM put a mine on the exit. I wish an engineer was around to get that mine away from my balls.

That was what we thought to, but, do not know if I am just to afraid, wouldn't be it to op? all the objects in the finale-part, propebly underpowered hopper-mines if they are so easy to deal with them etc. So the "engineer" should have disadvanteges like "crowbar, pistol and gravitygun"-only or reduced AUX or very slow charging times for the gravity gun uses etc.

[ScrooLewse]

ponpat, on 02 March 2011 - 02:48 AM, said:

oO so as a mapper you have to make the map save for "one player is taking all weapons and do not use it"? why not remove any other weapon and rebalance the whole map for playing it withou roles and special weapons? ;P


Come this we on the community-playtime and I will allow JPT580 to use it (last weekend I said I will kick him from my mumble-server if he would use this "strategies" xD) But plz play long enough to get into the right maps (canals and... forget the name of this map, the city -or street- map where you have to hack/detonate things to push to the next area... In this to maps you can see very fast what a power the manhack spamming has.)


I do not think I am that good... I die to often and I can not do a "last man standing-fight" like WAXT, Gabe or you (just the names I remember, my memorie for names is sooo bad xD). So I play the defender because it is imo the best think I can do for the team (as a medic I do not have so much overview like I have to and as a "normal player" I just play "normal" and I saw many other defenders wich do not use the shield until their health goes low and they put it out to save themself and let the team protect them not they are protecting the team.)

Its simple, just put a second rocket launcher towards the end of the level so that someone else who sees the need of a rocket launcher will pick it up and use it. If both launchers are being squandered by that time, you have yourself a team of idiots and deserve to lose.

On OW_Canals, of course. Manhacks can be abused in every way possible and it needs balance. But then again, almost everything else on that map can be abused in order to beat the Rebels, too. On OW_Breach (the one with the streets) however, Manhack-Cops are so regulated that its easier just to use the Manhack spawns overhead. In OW_Citadel, you can kinda use Manhack-Cops in conjunction with Manhacks spawns to molest the rebels, but Manhack-Cops are only better when there are few rebels (1-3). Otherwise plain Manhack spawns get you reliable 'hacks without the chance an enemy might pistol-snipe you CPs.

(Aimed at Ponpat AND Ranma)
I know for a fact that you can handle a shield pretty well, but what makes you great at riot-shielding and what makes me decent at riot-shielding are two totally different things, I'm just sharing my bit so you don't get abandoned as much and can surpass my abilities by an even larger gap.

[Ranma]

It's better to just make the RPG and the Crossbow and role item and spare the hassle of having people pick up the weapons and not use them, or worse... Having me accidentally pick up one of them, like I do all of the damn time. >_< I'll accidentally pick up a crossbow, and I'm too busy with shooting direct threats and healing people to worry about shooting combine at a distance. What a pain.



Manhacks are pretty much balanced.
Imagine winning ZM by using only shamblers. Unlikely, right? That's because they aren't balanced-- manhacks are. Alone they are not threatening, but in large groups they actually do become threats. In ZM, shambles aren't threats and never will be. Even sandwiched. All it takes is a few bullets to shoot a hole in the wall of shamblers and run though. As long as it's possible to win against a manhack army they are still balanced. Manhack armies are challenging at times, but still very much defeatable so everything is OK in that department.


And oh, it's impossible for me to use the shield. My computer can't show transparent graphics so the riot shield is totally black and opaque. While this is a pain for Overwatch, it REALLY helps in this game. But I'm so busy being medic I usually don't have to worry about the shield. Times always do come up though...




As for your medic suggestion earlier, I don't want to say anything. I don't have a problem healing people on the run, but that's because I'm good as medic; I'm aware it's difficult for others to do it. That makes my thoughts conflict. I've seen it all over-- medics struggling to heal players on the field. The thing is, I can do it so it *is* possible. Being too difficult or not isn't my place to say.

[Quenquent]

Ranma, on 03 March 2011 - 04:46 AM, said:

It's better to just make the RPG and the Crossbow and role item and spare the hassle of having people pick up the weapons and not use them, or worse... Having me accidentally pick up one of them, like I do all of the damn time. >_< I'll accidentally pick up a crossbow, and I'm too busy with shooting direct threats and healing people to worry about shooting combine at a distance. What a pain.

The devs are working on how to transform the crossbow and the RPG as roles, I said it before.

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Manhacks are pretty much balanced.
Imagine winning ZM by using only shamblers. Unlikely, right? That's because they aren't balanced-- manhacks are. Alone they are not threatening, but in large groups they actually do become threats. In ZM, shambles aren't threats and never will be. Even sandwiched. All it takes is a few bullets to shoot a hole in the wall of shamblers and run though. As long as it's possible to win against a manhack army they are still balanced. Manhack armies are challenging at times, but still very much defeatable so everything is OK in that department.

Agree, maybe the manhacks can makes players panic but it's temporary.

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And oh, it's impossible for me to use the shield. My computer can't show transparent graphics so the riot shield is totally black and opaque. While this is a pain for Overwatch, it REALLY helps in this game. But I'm so busy being medic I usually don't have to worry about the shield. Times always do come up though...

O_o

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As for your medic suggestion earlier, I don't want to say anything. I don't have a problem healing people on the run, but that's because I'm good as medic;

Me too, but most of the time the players stop moving when they are healed. And give a larger "healing zone" will only give an advantage to the pro, not the noob (everyone know how to aim after a few rounds, included with the medkit)
Funny story : I ask for my medic to heal me : he drop his medkit on me -_-'

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That was what we thought to, but, do not know if I am just to afraid, wouldn't be it to op?

For me, it's could be OP : you can move mines, ok, but after you can throw them on the combine. You can also do that with boxes, manhack, scanners, etc......This gonna be a pain for the Overwatch.

[Ranma]

Quenquent, on 06 March 2011 - 09:16 AM, said:

The devs are working on how to transform the crossbow and the RPG as roles, I said it before.

I said it first.
I was repeating myself in response to ScrooLoose's comment.

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For me, it's could be OP : you can move mines, ok, but after you can throw them on the combine. You can also do that with boxes, manhack, scanners, etc......This gonna be a pain for the Overwatch.

Yea, I brought it up and AndY explained it to me. I had never played Half-Life 2 before so I've never actually used the gravity gun. I had no idea you could use the gravity gun to stop manhacks. A gravity gun would also make it possible to move the junk in the sludge to where a player can jump across without being injured. Yea, a gravity gun would a total pain for the Overwatch.

We should save it for when JPT and WAXT are GM. Then it could be used at a tool for balancing the game.

[ScrooLewse]

Ranma, on 06 March 2011 - 10:01 AM, said:

I said it first.
I was repeating myself in response to ScrooLoose's comment.


Yea, I brought it up and AndY explained it to me. I had never played Half-Life 2 before so I've never actually used the gravity gun. I had no idea you could use the gravity gun to stop manhacks. A gravity gun would also make it possible to move the junk in the sludge to where a player can jump across without being injured. Yea, a gravity gun would a total pain for the Overwatch.

We should save it for when JPT and WAXT are GM. Then it could be used at a tool for balancing the game.

I understand that the Crossbow and RPG are going to be roles. I just thought that if I didn't acknowledge it, it wouldn't exist. But on the other hand, just turning the RPG and Crossbow into roles actually makes sense. However, I've been thinking about it some more and I'm starting to like it.

I've thought that massively nerfing the punts and throws would fix the gravity gun problem. So that we aren't violently tossing things around, but using a slow, cone-shaped push instead of a punt and a reasonable toss instead of shooting debris. That way you could become the "anti-rollermine, anti-manhack, anti-hopper mine, and anti-city scanner" unit without being able to efficiently weaponize whatever you pick-up.

[ponpat]

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Me too, but most of the time the players stop moving when they are healed. And give a larger "healing zone" will only give an advantage to the pro, not the noob (everyone know how to aim after a few rounds, included with the medkit)
Funny story : I ask for my medic to heal me : he drop his medkit on me -_-'

You was this? Was first time my friend (JPT580) was playing Overwatch... since this day I always replay this situation in Mumble when he joins "JPT heal me, I am dieng her!" (JPT in mumble) "yeah I am searching on wich button is healing" (in overwatch) "JPT, I am dieing, just heal me" (in mumble) "perhapes it is the h key?" (in overwatch) "noooo dont drop me the healthkit, just heal me!"... I loled so hard in this situation xDDDD

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I've thought that massively nerfing the punts and throws would fix the gravity gun problem. So that we aren't violently tossing things around, but using a slow, cone-shaped push instead of a punt and a reasonable toss instead of shooting debris. That way you could become the "anti-rollermine, anti-manhack, anti-hopper mine, and anti-city scanner" unit without being able to efficiently weaponize whatever you pick-up.

That is what I think... just implement the gravity gun like it is in hl2 would be imba... and nerfing it just will be again a huge amount of work and I think, just to make the best improvement for this game without causing to much new work the gravy-gun would not be the best way, even if I feel very often like if it just is missing in this game.

[Ranma]

ScrooLewse, on 06 March 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

I've thought that massively nerfing the punts and throws would fix the gravity gun problem. So that we aren't violently tossing things around, but using a slow, cone-shaped push instead of a punt and a reasonable toss instead of shooting debris. That way you could become the "anti-rollermine, anti-manhack, anti-hopper mine, and anti-city scanner" unit without being able to efficiently weaponize whatever you pick-up.

I wish this could be implemented. Only if it could move things only on the X axis so it slides thing rather than lifts them and stuff. That way it can slide mines out of the way and also move the junk in the sludge so injured players can also make it past without dying.


But.... the gravity gun can never happen because it could be used as a trolling device. The person could move the mines in an area where it becomes a danger to the team rather than helpful. A pity, really because I would love for a way for mines to be handled other than having someone pop a mine and risk blowing up himself and others.

[Quenquent]

You got all the same idea : move the mines with a gravity gun. But why we can't make a limitation ? Like 3 mines for 1 player.

[Ranma]

That is a LOT of stuff that has to be changed in order to have this gun into the game.

I wish there was an energy gun with a 20 second cool down that can shoot mines and turrets to disable them, and maybe do damage to the helicopter equivalent to one RPG shot. I'd love something like that.

[ScrooLewse]

Ranma, on 06 March 2011 - 03:20 PM, said:

That is a LOT of stuff that has to be changed in order to have this gun into the game.

I wish there was an energy gun with a 20 second cool down that can shoot mines and turrets to disable them, and maybe do damage to the helicopter equivalent to one RPG shot. I'd love something like that.

There's a SWEP in G-mod called the Arc Beam. It shoots electricity and can short-circuit rollermines and turrets as well as the normal damage electricity does to things. It was actually well balanced and implemented as it could auto-aim to an extent like electricity normally can, had a reasonable range, like electricity does, and even though it had unlimited ammo, it had to cool-down after a while.