Debriefing > Impressions & Feedback

Hit Registration & Weapon Balancing

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Swimm:
I want to start by congratulating you on the release of Beta 3.  Developing a mod from early sketches to (close to) final product is not an easy undertaking, and you deserve great praise for what you've done!  :)

Recently, the TF2 community I belong to decided to host a GE:S server after I posted about the mod on our forums.  However, reception to the mod was very mixed.  While we all appreciated the nostalgic feel of the mod, many of us quickly became fed up with the game's poor hit registration.

While simple lag is an unfortunate staple of online gaming, what we experienced went beyond what this could account for.  In general, it feels like the hitboxes for the players are simply too small.  The feeling that weapons aren't having enough effect is further aggravated by the false blood splatters that others on your forums have already reported.  In addition, the unusual clipping that goes on when two players touch each other makes meleeing extremely difficult, which is highly unpleasant when you are forced to spawn with only slappers or a knife.  Having played on a variety of servers with low pings, it is certainly not lag that is causing this inconsistent feel.

The other major complaint many had was that some weapons are very unbalanced.  The majority felt that the AR-33 and especially the Phantom felt too powerful, while the Klobb and melee weapons feel almost useless.  Our feeling was that while it is important to retain the feel of the source material, it is okay to change things that don't work so well.  My suggestion, to satisfy both camps in this debate, is to have two sets of weapon damage values, one based exactly on the original and one new, and let server owners choose which to use.

Some had a few other minor complaints.  One was that some of the more fun weapons (rocket launcher, etc.) and dual weapons were missing, but this is understandable since the game is in beta.  Another was that some maps do not play well with many players, but this is simply due to the expanded nature of the now-online game.  A complaint of my own was that the onscreen text, which once exactly resembled the original's text, was replaced by a generic font.  It's not the most important thing, but it takes away from the feel of the game.

While some were disappointed by the other night's offering, many of us feel that this mod has great potential.  As many of us know from the TF2 map creation that goes on in our community, feedback is absolutely essential to creating a great product.  That's why I'm sharing the issues we felt were problems with you, in the hope that an even better product will emerge.

I wish you the best of luck in developing this very promising mod!  :)

Konrad Beerbaum:
Thanks for the feedback.  We'll keep tweaking the mod until we've got the best possible result. 

One thing about weapons though, they aren't supposed to be balanced.  The weapons are divided up into weapon sets, and the weapons are varied in power throughout the set.  The mapper than places weapon spawns with different power levels throughout the map in order to add a strategic element.  For example, the klobb is supposed to be useless, it is one of the biggest jokes in GE64.  A guy with a klobb should never really have a chance against an AR33 with good health, and so the mapper will take this into account and place the AR33 in harder to reach places. 

Some of this strategic element is lot because so many servers are using massive numbers of people and random weapons, but once things settle down and people figure out how the game works I think we'll see a big improvement. 

That said, we are always going to be tweaking it. 

VC:
Did you leave it on Random or did you select a weapon loadout?  The loadouts are meant to be either balanced (Automatics) or part of a theme (Silenced Weapons).  Random was intended first to showcase all the weapons at release and second for servers that want to keep people guessing about which weapons they will compete with; we didn't expect so many servers would leave it on random.

The worst pistol, DD44, can do 50% damage with each shot, I don't see how that's anything to scoff at.  You can kill two fully-armored players with one magazine.

killermonkey:
I have to comment on your hit boxes comment:

I loaded up a TF2 player the other week and realized how ridiculously HUGE the hitboxes are for them! The head hitbox is twice the size of the body hitbox!!!

I can understand how you get the *feeling* that hit reg is an issue. However, it is simply that we are not letting our mod become TOO EASY. You have to respect the skill factor involved in actually playing this game well. Whereas in TF2, much less individual skill is required, but the emphasis is more on teamplay.

Thanks for the comments, tell your guys to KEEP playing, I promise you 100% their attitudes will shift after a week of play.

Jonathan [Spider]:
Swimm: thanks for your well thought out criticism this should be the standard by which criticism of the game should be measured haha.

the false blood splatter thing is something the team is thinking of a few fixes for by next big release we should have a solid solution.

the weapon balancing thing is something the team will still be tweaking quite a bit. but a gun like the Klobb is REALLY supposed to suck its basically long range slappers. when we get duals in the klobbs then arent quite so bad.

thanks again for the good feedback mate +1 for that

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