just a few word from me

hej,

as a new version of warsow is going to be realeased "soon" there are few things according to gameplay i'd like to write few words about. the stuff i am gonna write about are results and conclusions from my experience and observations from the duel-games during last few months

first thing i want to speak about is the gunblade weapon and its annoying usage many,many players could propably experience, i am talking about situations like when ur 100/75 with a rocket launcher, and a guy you've just killed runs into you with his gunblade, bounces at the wall, cuts you with 45damage cutter and when you fire a rocket, your stack is basically destroyed due to high rocket selfdamage and your opponent is still alive ready to fire the gunblade shot or cut you again, which i think should not happen, a guy SHOULD NOT be able just to get to your ass so quickly and ruin your stack just with the start weapon, also according to such situations lets take such situation again when you have a riotgun and both of you are 100/0, the guy is able to deal you easy 45damage with the cutter that does not even require pressing fire button, and when you hit full-damage shot, he is still alive with his gunblade, so what i am leading too is about nerfing gunblade, both cutter, shot, and its knockback(bouncing thing), in my opinion it shall deal maximally 15damage. i truely belive many, many of you have experienced such situations and for me, its just not ok

about the movment i'd like to say it is just too easy to get the high speed, bounce at the walls and run around the map with highspeed with being so hard to stop because the weapons that lack any serious stun time, for example if somebody runs with 600-750ups speed that we all know is not hard to get even on duel maps it is just almost impossible to stop that guy with no matter what weapon due to wall-bouncing and lack of stun like i've mentioned, and the lack of stun touches all the weapons

in addiction i'd like to say something about autohop and newmovement, for me autohop just makes the movement even easier than it is, whats the problem with jsut having a button pressed all the time and not pressing it when you do not want to jump, same with the doublestairjumps being just so easy to do because of it, also the newmovement that makes you gain the speed easy without strafe-jumping

so basically what i am leading to is about to nerfing gunblade, and i do not mean the lsat change that was -5dmg but the change that will finally bring something new, adjusting stun to weapons to elemiante so stupid rushing fresh after spawn and playing like a headless chicken style that current promod favoruises, and making the movement harder somehow, by for example removing autohop

i can imagine devs might be tired of all the gameplay changes and testing again but I think if .7 comes with such things like stats/newui/matchmaking/etc, as a player i'd like it to see it working properly gameplay wise

sorry for eventual english-gramma failures etcetc
(updated 2012-01-06 18:28:24)

I can agree with you on the movement-subject. In my opinion mastering the movement of a game is something crucial, especially in 1on1, and should take some time. You can't call a game "skillfull" if someone can maintain speeds of 600-700 ups steadily after playing it for several days/weeks only. Even themovement in Quake Live, a game that is way more limited in it's movement capabilities, it takes longer to learn strafe-jump properly and learing to move perfectly on a duel map can take up moths. I also think that the biggest factor that makes it so easy to move extremely fast in Warsow is the autojump, if there wouldn't be the autojump feature people would have to learn to time their jumps, especially on stairs, and thus have a bigger challenge than with the current system.

I also agree that stopping an opponent who is rushing at you with high speed is incredibly difficult (I would even say only managable with a direct rocket or grenade hit) because of the overall bouncyness of the game and the lack of real stun on the weapons.

About gunblade I can't tell much because I'm horrible at using it and thus can't really juge if it hurts that much.

About Gunblade nerfing;
- things like this is what have made Warsow slowly "die" in the first place. Nerf, nerf, nerf. Soon we will probably see rockets doing only 40dmg etc...

I mean, do you want a player to be completely useless on spawn? Huh? Try play something like deathmatch a little and see what you think then..
Oh wait, there's barely any populated DM servers out there cause its dead now unlike in the fun times long ago...


I'm wondering;
Is there any statistics out there on how popular Warsow has been over the years and for each version (with both good and negative stuff)? I would really like to see numbers for v0.2 & v0.3 compared to v0.4 and newer (as an example).. ;)

EDIT;
Hello, me poppin' in again =)
(updated 2012-01-06 19:08:11)

i have not seen you playing once a duel for the few months i have been palying warsow duel (promod) almost everyday so not sure if you get what do i mean , and no i do not want to make him totally useless but i just want to make him do soemthing different than rushing freshly after spawn like a headless chicken and having a high chances to ruin somebodys stack or even kill him with the start-weapon

also i think balancing the game with basing on deathmatch servers where the players are usually total newbies/bots/instaplayers/whatever propably will not lead to anything making sense(prove me if im wrong)
(updated 2012-01-06 19:34:28)

speed rushing is mainly caused by small maps like wdm2 which are more arena map.

Gunblade problem is that when you spawn the weapon is already full charged, so you can easily rush without any fear. plus add a longer time to have a full charged GB.

More stun, sometime i have the feeling that stun exist :D

homart wrote:
Gunblade problem is that when you spawn the weapon is already full charged, so you can easily rush without any fear.

yep, agree. It will be nice if gunblade isn't full charged right after spawn.

P.s. I remember there was similar topic by gorey a year ago. Why top duelers always get bored by duel?

thats the idea that propably will not bring any significant change if you ask me, the thing is about just making the damage just simply way lower to avoid such stupid situations that happen almsot in every duel i play, for example recharging time is still fast enoguh to allow the guy come quickly to you and cut you, or during he gets to you to make the gunblade recharge already
(updated 2012-01-06 20:40:25)

Gunblade:
I personally think that the gunblade is fine as it is. I admit I've gotten myself fragged by a freshly spawned gunblade fellow, but I can only blame myself for that. I should've played more carefully and put more thought into my positioning and weapon usage, as well as thought about the possibility of a gunblade rush. I consider it a valid weapon just the way it is.

Nerfing the gunblade would also bring even less chance for a player to recover from the so called "spawn rape". I'm not a bad duel player, but even still you (daxio) sometimes manage to frag me around five to ten times in a row fresh off spawn. If my gunblade was made considerably worse, I'd have pretty much nothing to fight back with (as I usually don't get a chance to grab a weapon when I'm "spawn raped").


Movement:
I would not touch the movement either, as I see absolutely no reason for it. Even the best players in the world are still making mistakes, after years of practice, so the system clearly is not something that wouldn't require skill.

What the autohop (holding down jump key allows you to bunnyhop and strafejump without depressing the key at any point) brings to the table is a less steep learning curve, which results in a less beginner-friendly start. However, since we can probably all agree how new players take a relatively long time to become proficient with movement, this less steep learning curve clearly does not mean that it's an overly noobified solution.


Stun:
This is something I might agree on to some level, but that might be highly influenced by the fact that I've become numb when it comes to the low level of stun. HOWEVER, everyone should realize that there used to be a lot more stun before, and people raised hell over this decision. The stun was then nerfed to what it is now during a continuous refining process, during which the developers had to endure constant nagging and hatespeech regarding how "stun was ruining the game".

DAXIO, yep, you ARE right, but only from one point of view. You look at this situation from eyes of a player who has a control. But how about a player out of control? What should he do? Fear and hide? Camp with EB?

NO, thanks. imho, Warsow is more about of fun and arcade.
(updated 2012-01-06 20:11:12)

I just want to point out that duel is not the only gametype in wsw.
About gunblade: the real problem i ve got with it is that GB-jumps are to strong, in fact so strong that there is no point of using rocketjumps in CTF for example. Im not sure if nerfing dmg to 15? is good idea, i cant really think of any usage of gb with 15 dmg. Solution might be longer cooldown between slices ?

Personally i like autojump. Why? Cause it decreases usage of my mouse :) and in wsw ctf you jump A LOT. I was playing ctf with autojump and without it didnt see much difference and to be honest it is better to avoid stairs :) even with autojump. There is nothing more frustrating than stucking on stairs with flag and enemy chasing you :P

IMO it is always better to leave people a choice if they wanna use features like autojump or/and newmovements, cause forcing settings always lead to drama and unnececary flame which only damages scene etc etc. What is more i think that warsow is too hardcore for most of players "out there" so forcing settings to make it even more difficult is just unnececary.

@randzor
well i think many ctf players could experience the gunblade problem too, perhaps even more as there are more players being killed, who are spawning all the time around you so it also could be annoying to have a stack ruined due to facing the guy on your way with gunblade or being a rushed and/or bounced by the guy with gunblade while caping the flag

@milkflow
spawn-system is another problem that should be fixed, for example I had a situation at the bridge, on wdm5, against tongue when he has spawned FIVE times in the same place afront of me, this is a different cause that should be fixed too and gunblade should let you just simply ruin your stack just like that, as if it even requires any skills to bounce on the wall or get a speed with this autohop and wall-bouncing.

also i think making the movment harder and adding stun should also reduce the spawn-rape thing a little as the leading guy could not move around the map that quickly, there also could be less frags during the game(less spawnfrags), perhaps people would actually start to focus on the basics of duel liek timing and positioning instead of just trying to see how to get to your opponent quickly with the rocket/gunblade with some lowstacks

You serious with auto hop? :D
Someday §§ will be like wow, like hitting one button owl the time

yes i am serious about the autohop for being the stair jumps etc so easy to do, just have a look on 0.42, try to move around the empty server for several minutes and you will see the difference

I completely agree with Daxio. GB dmg is way too high so it creates a possibility of rushing right off the spawn which is repetitive in every duel. The thing i also don't like about GB is GB jump which makes you able to gain speed or change your position way too sudden without paying any price for it cos selfdmg is almost nonexistent. Personally i would even remove this weapon and replace it by some meele weapon + hitscan which deals damage over time than some lucky 45dmg shot.

Another thing is movement which obviously is some kind of friggin joke. I can't understand why getting so much speed in so small amount of time is so EASY. Don't tell me it requires some decent amount of skill cos it doesn't. With autohop, getting full initial speed by dash + wj every noob can get in every place on the map in matter of few seconds, what's worse i don't feel something like stun even exist in this game. And please don't tell me such bullshit that people should have some kind of option if they want to abuse their mouse button, maybe devs should also add cg_autoaim for people who are not willing to aim manually cos it's just pain in the ass.

Cremator wrote:
...

remember 0.3? No stun, no autohop, randomly unuseful GB? And that f''king pro movement? Ohh, times..

adem wrote:

Cremator wrote:
...

remember 0.3? No stun, no autohop, randomly unuseful GB? And that f''king pro movement? Ohh, times..

Because race shows movement in duel/ctf/ica etc.

Warsow needs new players to stay alive.
New players who have to invest ~100 hours only to learn the movement to even START learning about tactics, weaps, advanced movement, timings etc. will not do so.
They will deinstall the game instantly.
Most of them do it even now because of the high average skill level of warsow.
I also started playing warsow around version 0.3 or so and i know what you mean. Still it doesnt make sense to risk letting it die only because its unfair that we spent a lot of time learning the movement and new players dont have to invest that much time !
Why are there improved graphics every version ? For dueling 0.2 looked fine.
Its because new players get attracted by graphics.
Same with "easy to learn, hard to master" thing. Noone wants "hard to learn, hard to master".
Thats why sc1 was dead quite soon in Europe, sc2 isnt. Sc1 players complain about all those auto mechanisms in sc2,making it "too easy", still nobody but them wanted to play sc1 and now sc2 is a sucess !
In my opinion it is quite challening enough fighting average good players in ca, duel or be as fast as race players for new people.
Dont make it harder.

Most of them do it even now because of the high average skill level of warsow.

what are you talking about

Why are there improved graphics every version ? For dueling 0.2 looked fine.
Its because new players get attracted by graphics.

as far as i know there was more players in 0.3 (correct me if im wrong) also since when warsow is supposed to hit some huge group of casual players? as far as i know, from some conversations with crizis, the group of people he wishes to bring into warsow with 0.7 are generally cpm/ql players due to quakelive's "death"

also what is up with you guys about making quake-game EASY? what is up with this weird tendency about bringing movement to just having a one button pressed all the time or simplification everything that is possible?
(updated 2012-01-06 22:37:04)

milkflow wrote:
Gunblade:
--... made considerably worse, I'd have pretty much nothing to fight back with (as I usually don't get a chance to grab a weapon when I'm "spawn raped").

Agreed with this :)

Stun:
This is something I might agree on to some level, but that might be highly influenced by the fact that I've become numb when it comes to the low level of stun. HOWEVER, everyone should realize that there used to be a lot more stun before, and people raised hell over this decision. The stun was then nerfed to what it is now during a continuous refining process, during which the developers had to endure constant nagging and hatespeech regarding how "stun was ruining the game".

yeah, however I'd like to see less bouncing. I think weak weapons should have short stun times but the real stun should come from STRONG ammo. That would be pretty neat.
(updated 2012-01-06 22:58:18)

i dont want casual players to play warsow, i want good players to give warsow a chance.
The more people warsow TRY the higher the chance that there are some who stick to it.
Casual players wont play warsow anyways.
The point of brining new players is to make the game more popular ---> more skilled players even know about it.
But even skilled players coming from quake might not want to invest a lot of time learing the movement because theyve spent a lot of time doing so in quake.
Again i compare to sc1. I only play sc2 because i dont have to learn a complete new game as hard as sc1. I can transfer most of the skills to the new one. If i would have had to learn a whole new basic game, no chance...

and popularity isnt only to have a lot of full servers (still even ica is good for warsow imo). Spectators who know the game but never wanted to play, let say duel, still follow cups.
More spectators -> more popularity -> more cups -> more interesting cups -> more skilled players etc.

Oh "average skill level"... the average active warsow player (take ca) is way ahead of the average new player (because only few play it, and those who do mostly did for quite some time).
Thats what makes it hard to get into the game compared to other games where you have a lot of newbies - a lot of mid - a lot of pro. You need to get very good first to have fun. Making it harder would only result in less players.

Seriously, more players are always good for a game in a lot of ways. Why do you think its warsows chance to benefit from qlives "deat" ? Lack of players...

sry for long text :O