Competitive Weapon Balance

[Prescovio]

Competitive Weapon Balance Mutator

I am not sure where to properly post mutators, so I will just try it here, if it's the wrong place I apologize, please move it to the correct place then.

Reading this always have in mind that all those things are based on competitive CTF.

After having read the last epic commits on GitHub, I decided to make my own weapons to finally have some fun in this game. Currently, there are two gamebreaking things for me: netcode, and weaponbalance.

Already in advance, I started UT with UT2004 and loved this game, so I am mainly playing Shock Rifle and Sniper Rifle, which are in my opinion pretty well balanced, but the rest is not. I am trying to keep all weapons strong and usefull in certain situations and I am not gonna make just my favourite weapons strong.

I've been pugging with the guys from UnrealPUGs since the beginning of this year and in the most pugs, there are always the same things annoying me (and others, whose opinions also are the base of this mutator), for example:

- Slow Weapon Switch
- One hit rockets
- Flak one hits on distance
- Low Shock Ammo

and many more (tiny) things which are most probably based on a personal taste. I was a fan of the WailWeapons, but sadly most people in my community didn't want to play it. There are some other good weapon mutators out there, for example Parkourgrips Weapon Balance Mutator (also thanks for helping me with the mutator, Parkour), but I think they all share the same problem: they change many deeper things in the weapon which makes it feel differently to use from the epic ones. If you got your aim used to those weapons and then switch back to stock weapons, your aim is totally gone and you need to get used to stock weapons again.

In my opinion, the epic mechanics are nice, it's just the damage and some others things that highly annoy me, not the weapons itself.

This mutator is made for competitive CTF, it works with other modes, too but I don't have much clue about other gamemodes.

Sadly custom crosshairs don't work.

You can try the mutator out on our UnrealPugs.eu France#1 Hub and on UTzone since they were so kind and added it, if you wanna try it out in a competitive match, pretty much every pug happening right now is using those weapons https://discord.gg/dpJ7Pbg (UnrealPUGs Discord).

I highly appreciate any kind of constructive feedback and hope this weapon balance can add some more fun to the game again =)


Since I'm pretty much satiesfied with the current balance, I feel like it can be published:

Changes from Epic weapons to Competitive Weapons (v5)


**Translocator:**
- Bring Up Time 0.28 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.2 -> 0.225
- Disk gravity: 1.0 -> 0.8




**Impact Hammer:**
- Bring Up Time 0.32 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.2 -> 0.225


- Full Charge Time: 2.5 -> 2


- Secondary Fire Interval 1.3 -> 1.4




**Enforcer:**
- Bring Up Time 0.28 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.2 -> 0.225
- Dual Bring Up Time 0.36 -> 0.225
- Dual Put Down Time 0.3 -> 0.225


- Primary Base Damage 21 -> 19
- Primary Fire Interval 0.33 -> 0.4


- Secondary Base Damage 21 -> 19
- Secondary Spread Increase: 0.06 -> 0.85




**Bio Rifle:**
- Bring Up Time 0.37 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.3 -> 0.225


- Primary Base Damage 21 -> 25
- Primary Spread 0.1 -> 0.05
- Primary Fire Interval 0.4 -> 0.35


- Secondary Base Damage 21 -> 20




**Shock Rifle:**
- Bring Up Time 0.54 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.3 -> 0.225
- Ammo 16 -> 20
- Max Ammo 32 -> 40
- Ammo Pack 8 -> 10


- Primary Fire Interval 0.7 -> 0.725
- Primary Base Damage 40 -> 45


- Secondary Fire Interval 0.622 -> 0.525
- Secondary Initial Speed 2300 -> 2500
- Secondary Max Speed 2300 -> 2500


- Combo Base Damage 200 -> 195
- Combo Minimum Damage 30 -> 25
- Combo Damage Falloff 1 -> 1.2




**Link Gun:**
- Bring Up Time 0.37 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.3 -> 0.225


- Primary Base Damage 22 -> 19


- Secondary Base Damage 28 -> 8
- Secondary Fire Interval 0.25 -> 0.15


- Pull Damage 32 -> 50




**Stinger:**
- Bring Up Time 0.6 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.3 -> 0.225


- Primary Base Damage 14 -> 12
- Primary Fire Interval 0.091 -> 0.075
- Primary Spread 0.07524 -> 0.08




**Flak Cannon:**
- Bring Up Time 0.41 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.3 -> 0.225


- Primary Fire Interval 1.0 -> 1
- Primary Multi Shot Angle Yaw 3.5 -> 3.0


- Main Shard
- Damage Attenuation 15.0 -> 40
- Damage Attenuation Delay 0.5 > 0.0
- Self Damage Attenuation 25.0 -> 40
- Self Damage Attenuation Delay 0.11 -> 0.0
- Base Damage 17 -> 20


- Shard
- Damage Attenuation 15.0 -> 50
- Damage Attenuation Delay 0.5 > 0.0
- Self Damage Attenuation 25.0 -> 50
- Self Damage Attenuation Delay 0.11 -> 0.0
- Base Damage 17 -> 17.5




**Rocket Launcher:**
- Bring Up Time 0.41 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.3 -> 0.225


- Barrel Radius: 9 -> 0
- Burst Inverval: 0.06 -> 0.175


- Primary Fire Interval 1.0 -> 0.8
- Primary Base Damage 100 -> 92.5
- Primary Minimum Damage 20 -> 15
- Primary Outer Radius 340 -> 375
- Initial Speed 2750 -> 2500
- Maximum Speed 2750 -> 2500


- Secondary Fire Interval 1.0 -> 0.8
- Secondary Base Damage 100 -> 92.5
- Secondary Minimum Damage 20 -> 15
- Secondary Outer Radius 340 -> 375




**Sniper:**
- Bring Up Time 0.45 -> 0.225
- Put Down Time 0.4 -> 0.225
- Ammo 10
- Max Ammo 25


- Fire Interval 1.3 -> 1.25
- Damage 65 -> 70
- Headshot Damage 125 -> 120


=======================================================


**Changes from previous to current version:**


- adopted epic's new changes

**Current Version:**

Download CompetitiveWeaponsMut-v5

I also recomment to use it together with this:

Download RemoveSpawnArmor

[HexxuSz0r]

good effort presco homing in just in time when frustration was going through the roof

[legionz]

The lack of custom crosshairs kept me away from Wail's weapons so it will probably be the same here, even if the balance you've achieved is good. I agree with your OP, though, in that Wail's were too far away from stock for me and that I would have preferred tweaks to epic weapons. Hopefully some day we can use custom crosshairs with different weapons like these and Wail's.

[Mll]

Been playing this for a while and I can honestly say I love the changes
Shock may be a little bit OP in the right hands, but comboing people seems somehow smoother

All in all, another reason to return to UT, thanks for this!

[RPGWiZ4RD]

I haven't tried this yet but on the paper it looks pretty much how I'd imagine the competitive community for the most part, agree with on weapon balance tweaks. It should also better match the quick gameplay of UT4. I always got the feeling the weapons lags behind the movement if that makes any sense.

[Wail]

The lack of custom crosshairs kept me away from Wail's weapons so it will probably be the same here, even if the balance you've achieved is good. I agree with your OP, though, in that Wail's were too far away from stock for me and that I would have preferred tweaks to epic weapons. Hopefully some day we can use custom crosshairs with different weapons like these and Wail's.

Based on the values presented here, these are much further away from stock balance than the UP weapons are at.

Lack of custom crosshairs will be an issue since any user-configurable values have been broken for something like 9-10 months now.

[legionz]

Lack of custom crosshairs will be an issue since any user-configurable values have been broken for something like 9-10 months now.

Did custom crosshairs work at any point with the wail weapons? I didn't realize something was broken, I thought it just wasn't yet feasible.

[nukkuj]

I liked:
-Less restricted combos and adjusted ammo counts felt nice
-Rocket damage was in a pretty good spot
-Weaponswitch speed felt good
-Link gun "ticks" more frequently so it feels smoother

I disliked:
-Flak primary does point blank 197dmg
-Shock primary damage and rate of fire change together is too much
-Minigun DPS increase
-Enforcer damage unchanged (TDM issue)


Overall, it's great that people are experimenting with weapon balance. I just don't particularly like ut2k4-like weapon balance.

[legionz]

I liked:
-Less restricted combos and adjusted ammo counts felt nice
-Rocket damage was in a pretty good spot
-Weaponswitch speed felt good
-Link gun "ticks" more frequently so it feels smoother

I disliked:
-Flak primary does point blank 197dmg
-Shock primary damage and rate of fire change together is too much
-Minigun DPS increase
-Enforcer damage unchanged (TDM issue)


Overall, it's great that people are experimenting with weapon balance. I just don't particularly like ut2k4-like weapon balance.

It's an issue for duel as well. Enforcer is way too strong.

[Prescovio]

I liked:
-Less restricted combos and adjusted ammo counts felt nice
-Rocket damage was in a pretty good spot
-Weaponswitch speed felt good
-Link gun "ticks" more frequently so it feels smoother

I disliked:
-Flak primary does point blank 197dmg
-Shock primary damage and rate of fire change together is too much
-Minigun DPS increase
-Enforcer damage unchanged (TDM issue)


Overall, it's great that people are experimenting with weapon balance. I just don't particularly like ut2k4-like weapon balance.

Thanks for the detailed feedback, it's very interesting for me to see those weapons from a TDM view.

For me the most annoying point at flak wasn't really the damage, but the damage on distance. I increased the damage falloff so you're not one hit across the map anymore and to prevent it from being useless I gave it more direct damage, maybe the falloff is still too low.
I only decreased the rate of fire because I did that for every weapon, so in balance with others it should be allright but I'll have an eye on this.
The hardcore stinger abusers in CTF haven't played for a while so I can't really judge if it's stronger now, I might increase the spread so it can stay deadly on short range and decrease the damage slightly.
As for enforcer I haven't really thought about it, but I'll take a loot at it.

Would be interesting to hear some more (tdm?) feedback on those changes

[Wail]

Did custom crosshairs work at any point with the wail weapons? I didn't realize something was broken, I thought it just wasn't yet feasible.

Yeah I had a working prototype last year, but this was before anyone was playing with UP. Think it was the November (?) build with the 4.11 upgrade that broke that feature and it hasn't been fixed since.

[Cunni]

No doubt these settings will become the standard for all UT lovers. Some tweaks may be necessary but globally it is already very satisfying.

[boNz]

I disagree. The standard Will be stock weapons, you cant have 2 diff sets of weapons, thats completely another game then... Thats already annoying when some servers have hitsounds and some dont. But à différent set of weapons is toi much.

But that would be Nice if epic looks at this and tries to change their weapons accordingly

[HexxuSz0r]

i am sure that is what cunni meant that epic will refine prescovio's work in their weapon balance phase

[BigFatErik]

I disagree. The standard Will be stock weapons, you cant have 2 diff sets of weapons, thats completely another game then...

I totally agree, you cant have weapons behave differently for each gametype. it's too much. However, I always thought it would be interesting if you could create a different weapon for a specific gametype. For example, Assault or even Invasion mode could have the lightning gun instead of the regular sniper rifle. It's different enough so that I think people would accept it having its own values.