Fjaru's core gameplay feedback video 2015-07-10

[Fjaru]

Thanks for all the comments guys, I felt very hesitant to make a video like this at first but seeing the response I am glad I did.


Watching my own video I think I realized I put a little bit to much emphasis on the impact the high lethality guns have on the "metagame", I should have put some emphasis on how it affects the player experience in terms of having fun, because it is very possible to play aggressive and have good results, but if you go against a player who can shut down your attacks, you are going to have many frustrating moments where it feels like you manage do accomplish nothing at all. This is what I think happens in the duel playing in the background of the video, I manage to shut down Zoh's pushes in very extreme ways, and it just snowballs so much.


@Cunni There is a lot more I wanted to talk about, including the impact hammer shield but I wanted to keep the video under 10 minutes, maybe another time. I think it is something that Epic receives a lot of feedback on during their community playtests though (hopefully).


@PacketLoss A lot of it is duel specific, but like I said in the video I think the difference in usefulness of "damage over time" weapons in duel compared to other gamemodes is multiplied by the super high lethality gameplay.


@Zoh Thanks man, I feel kind off bad using this footage but I think its for the greater good I think every competitive player including me just have had enough sometimes, and you are very right about that often the outcome of the fights could have been reversed, which is what I refer to "walking on the razors edge" in the video.


@RZE I am glad you like this type of feedback, I will probably make more in the future, but I will probably wait a few builds first to see where things are going.

[Zaccubus]

Really good video and well articulated! I really love to see a sniper rifle that can shoot though counters etc and other players that would be amazing fun,

[bass3]

I watched the video. When you said you have no experience in other games I was thinkimg ok... he has no idea what unreal is BUT then you actually mentioned some of very good pointsbthat include weapon switch and weapon variety and link + minigun! Its funny how you noticed minigun and link are used to finish off players which is true at this point of game. I hope epic will take this review seriously, cause atm the weapon balance is really not the best... And they must understand weapon switch time is one of reasons why weapon balance is not that good.

[dylan -]

great video Fjaru, really nice ideas (love the sniper one) and constructive feedback.

[Chrisau]

Excellent video Fjaru, you articulate your thoughts well and present them clearly. Good job

[Bosch]

Hey Fjaru, nice video! Agree with most of what you're saying. You didn't cover armor values, that IMO also lead to the dominance of flak/combo/rl.

Overpowered weapons are not new to discuss, but I may add that situation is even worse in gametypes with weaponstay on. If in a duel or ws off TDM I have to use what is available, in other gametypes I just rush to the nearest shock/flak/rl spawn.

I played a lot of CTF lately, so here is feedback on weapon balance from CTF point of view.
- I pretty much don't use any weapons besides flak and shock and can say the same about any player who takes top places. Why would I track someone with the link beam or dance around with the bio rifle like a clown, if I don't even need a precise shot to do more damage with flak or shock combo? On any map my first move is to grab these two weapons (ok, sometimes it's RL too) and I'm good to go. If you remove other 8 (or how many there are) weapons from any given map my game plan won't change a slightest bit. It's flak/shock combo/armor/health packs.
- in previous build slide felt really good to evade these overpowered weapons and move around, hope it will be brought back.
- players won't care about special trap weapons (like bio could be) or trick weapons (like mini secondary could be) until it'll be something as easy to use as oneshot weapon. It hurts to see how new players spend half a minute setting up a bio trap that costs me a single button press to destroy or jump over.
- I like the idea of piercing shot for sniper rifle, it indeed looks like it could improve feasibility of the sniper rifle in CTF. At least I'll think a second time about using it instead of throwing another combo in the face of team chasing me.
- agree on further decrease of weapon switch time. It could help to bring variety in weapon usage.

I look forward to seeing others thoughts on this video and I'll be sending it around the team.
GJ Fjaru!

Stolid made a good point a few posts above. In a last month alone we had a few big threads on weapon and movement balance. This one, for instance. I think each of these threads has comments worth sharing around the team, especially considering all of them keep recycling same thoughts over and over.
Some of us are playing every day and we have tested the game inside out. It seems reasonable to include more weapon changes into each build, because there is no point discussing weapon balance particularities when we can do an easy oneshot kill with some of them and most of community agrees that it's not fun as it could be.

[onderov]

Great video Fjaru, i agree with almost everything except knockback. I personally think that knockbacks create some nice diversity on combats and i think it's fun to have it.

[LeMNaDe xD]

Great video Fjaro! You really hit the nail on the head with the lethality of the weapons. I can see why someone might favor this type of gameplay, but the counter-arguments you raise are pretty convincing. If Epic is indeed pushing weapon design in this direction, I hope they take them into consideration, particularly your point regarding the link and minigun. I feel it's going to be very hard to have high lethality and have both weapons be useful and balanced tools within the arsenal. The current minigun, for example, is used very little in duel, but can be outright abused in DM or CTF.

Regarding weapon-switch time and knockback, I don't disagree with your points, but I'm not totally in agreement either. I would like to think we can reach a nice middle ground without going from one extreme to the other. MoxNix brings a nice counter-argument to weapon-switch time that I don't think should be ignored. At the same time, I don't think people should be punished too much for having the wrong weapon out at the wrong time. We'll find that sweet spot I'm sure

Anyways, really nice to get the perspective of someone newer to the series. Looking forward to seeing more!

[Flikswich]

The problem with the argument about slow weapon switch speed encouraging tactical play is that there is a point at which it stops doing so. That point is where people only use a certain selection of weapons because it isn't worth switching to other ones because it's a waste of time. That point is also where you can lose an entire full stack within the time taken to switch to a viable weapon and thus have 0 chance to actually do anything to someone who hid behind a corner and jumped you :| This all ties nicely into weapon lethality which is probably a bigger problem overall.

There's a comfortable middle ground where you get the best of both worlds and don't risk the encountering the issues associated with too fast weapon switch or too slow weapon switch that I think ut4 should strive for.

Great video with some very sound points.

[onderov]

It is true that slow weapon switch times encourages tactical play but in duels you can't really have all weapons when you are out of game control. So player out of control should always stay low and hope for a successful sneak attack since it's too risky to engage a fight directly because of few attack options. I don't know if i am wrong but i think faster weapon switch times can solve this. And besides, it would be very fun to see various weapon combos like link+sniper, rocket+shock etc with right damage outputs.

[Boon-qiv-]

very nice play and video.

and good feedback.

[Cunni]

It is true that slow weapon switch times encourages tactical play but in duels you can't really have all weapons when you are out of game control. So player out of control should always stay low and hope for a successful sneak attack since it's too risky to engage a fight directly because of few attack options. I don't know if i am wrong but i think faster weapon switch times can solve this. And besides, it would be very fun to see various weapon combos like link+sniper, rocket+shock etc with right damage outputs.

yeah, weaponswitch would need to be a bit faster to enable these combinations (I do like : rocket (projection in the air) + snipe ^^)
i think the capacity to execute this combinations is a good criteria to define the most appropriate speed.

nevertheless, imo, the priority should be to reduce
- significantly the flak primary power
- a bit rocket and combo

[Grommie]

Very nice video and very good coments.

The reaction time of good players makes one also more vulnerable while the weaker player is trying to survive the 1st, 2nd or last hit.

imo, weaker players should have more health than strong players.
That will be more game-changing but also be more frustarating for the better player.

Strong players will have equal matches and also weaker players against each other.
Weaker players and strong player wil also have equal matches.

But i fear the "noob-protection" comments already, XP

[Stolid]

Weapon switch time and time to kill are quite related and have a significant influence on each other.

The short TTK means that there is less time to react and weapon switch times will feel slower than they really are.
Up the TTK and you make the weapon switch time feel shorter as you effectively make it more viable to switch, you have more time to react.
The opposite is also true.
Make the weapon switch time faster to the point where its viable to switch weapons and you effectively reduce the TTK even lower than it is now, you've upped your average DPS as you can now switch to a more appropriate (finisher) weapon.

If you want to make the weapon switch time faster for other reasons, like weapon combinations or just 'feel', you have to be aware that you need to reduce weapon lethality even further than what is required to reduce the TTK to reasonable levels with the current switch times. Upping just the weapon switch time alone would make some of the less desirable aspects in the current game even worse.

[joellll]

That point is also where you can lose an entire full stack within the time taken to switch to a viable weapon and thus have 0 chance to actually do anything to someone who hid behind a corner and jumped you :| T

Not sure if you are over simplifying with the "hid behind a corner" example or not. So here we go

With the ttk/damage output and amount of stack available this has always a possibility in ut. In all previous titles some weapons damage output was enough to "loose an entire stack*" to a player who lands one shot. With the ut armor system this needs to be at least partially possible as the out of control player can easily end up in a situation where they have nothing and the in control player has belt + jacket. This is how ut duel works and why max stack is quite often the topic of "how to balance duel" rather than more in depth discussion about armor/health. Its always been that way, even if posters do not realise why they are looking at max stack^. This damage output is also why pads alone are a poor substitute for jacket/belt and are of questionable use. The player with pads is still not able to take a fight without being one shot, and if they are not one shot they are so low they can be finished very easily. My previous post mentions buffing armor but I am not sure if it does for the pads much - numbers thrown around on irc would still be almost 1-shotting a pad player anyway.

By describing this as a function of weapon switch time rather than ttk you are missing the point. Even if a player was able to swap quickly - lets take the example all the way and say the game has instant switch like quakeworld, they will be unable to answer the attack before their stack is gone simply because of how high the burst potential is. Reaction time + aiming + other factors will render your stack mostly gone when you switch. Thus switch speed is not really relevant because the front load potential is so high that the player is stackless before they can react.

This is not to say that switch time should be adjusted, I think it should and the argument that it pushes players to use specific weapons is spot on. I just don't think lower switch time, even to the point of instant, will help in the situations you are describing much at all. This is a factor of ttk/burst rather than switch speed. Realistically in this situation even if you have the correct weapon out you will have no stack left by the time you react anyway!

*Where stack is belt or jacket.