Lately I've been feeling quite concerned with everyone talking about their own opinions about the change in Weapon Balancing. I'm taking my point in this discussion in a polite and professional manner, so please keep down the flaming.

I've been reading through a few forums for the past few months. Whenever I come across new ideas about how weapons should be or how they should fire, or how they should work, etc. I think about the idea and concept of the idea that person suggested and realized that his idea will inevitably come out negative in the end. I understand that it's nearly an impossible task to make everyone happy. But I believe this whole discussion on how to change everything for the better is something that won't ever happen.

Let me elaborate. When someone has an idea of changing a weapon, something to consider is that changing that weapon also affects all the other weapons in comparison. When they implamented the charge-up time on the Barret, they thought about how that weapon is going to be used in game. They beta-tested the weapon against other weapons and decided it was a good way to keep the way the charge-up time worked. But when someone comes quickly up against someone with a barret, that barret user has a short .1-.3 second response time to charge up their shot and then make sure they are on target. With the barret user getting hit with the shots from that opponent, he is nearly gaurenteed to die.

Now with less players using the barret, more players are going to put up on a different 1 shot weapon, or semi-auto weapon (Desert Eagles for example). So then the community is then pushed upon that the fact the m79 is overused, overpowered, or something that makes it look like it's significant to all other weapons. Now that person can go up and play and if someone is rushing at them and they have that .1-.3 second response time they can just fire right away and get the kill before their opponent has a chance to damage the m79 user. Occasionally people still use the barret, but not as often as it was used in the past.

Now remember, these weapons I used as an example are not to be pushed at specifically when someone types their response. I've also been looking at how other weapons are going to be used. So I've also been thinking about how people don't like the lag when using their weapons. I shoot him with a full clip with my HK yet he doesn't die, and he can go up against me and shoot me with 10 shots with his AK and I die (exagguration used).

My recent post I've ready is about how the Grenade should be weakened. Now I don't see the common sense of people's idea that the grenade should be weakened. It's powerful enough to kill someone with 1 hit, but not so powerful that it can kill 2 full health players next to eachother with 1 grenade. And it's also not to weak that if you hit someone with a grenade that they get damage but don't die. So if the grenade was weakened, then it'd be like it was just another knife type weapon in the game.

My whole point I'm trying to make is that everyone has and wants their own changes. Even changing 1 thing about the weapons affects the entire game and gameplay for everyone. I'm curious of others think what I've thought about. And when the next version is released that maybe you won't do weapon modifications. And if you do, do some weapon modifications change them so it makes the gameplay more fun to fit the changes to the new version.

Another thing that is bothering me is that for the last 2 version there has been major weapon modifications. Well I believe these changes are what have hit the activeness in the Soldat Community, the playing side of Soldat. I think that if Soldat has another huge change in weapons that the community is going to be hitting a Great Depression stage where the community is just hit hard by what others thought would be best to do. I'm more worried about the community then anything else that has to do with the Game Soldat. So maybe from now on people who make decisions and judgments about the game consider how it will affect everything, instead of just one small individual area.

I really hope my thoughts have something to give towards the community.

Well, my grenades never kill in one hit so I guess it would be no different then it is for me now. I also suggested that a delay be put inbetween each throw to stop nade spam, that got shot down too since people who cant aim with grenades just require 4 to hit one person. Im not here to hijack, just thought id further some ideas on toning down grenades.

And on the subject of m79, I do agree, it is overused, still has been overused, and hasnt phased m79ers with the changes whatsoever. It really needs something to make it harder to use. Not less powerful, just harder. A delay in theory doesnt make a weapon weaker, just that it then requires more skill. To be honest, m79 is not that hard to use, and to those of you who tell me to use it myself, I have. Infact, ive 1v1ed with m79 and I RARELY use it. I absolutely raped this guy, I wont mention who, but I even amazed myself with how I accurate I was with the damn thing, and in my opinion I was making some of the hardest shots to make with it, and the player wasnt a newbie by the least bit.

Bottom Line: Weaker grenades, Harder to use m79, less over-used explosives. :D

Well said, and quite wise in many respects, though some of it is pure fallacy. Your final part in particular. Theres more clans, leagues, players and support for Soldat than there ever was before, and has never decreased.

 Quote:Originally posted by Chakra`Well said, and quite wise in many respects, though some of it is pure fallacy. Your final part in particular. Theres more clans, leagues, players and support for Soldat than there ever was before, and has never decreased.


Chakra, you are correct. The Soldat Community has not decreased in size. Since I mostly only know the American side of Soldat, that is what I am basing my opinions off of. I do believe that even as some players leave, more come into the game that are just unrecongized because they haven't found their way to become part of the community. I've been seeing a lot of American vets leave over the past couple versions. Most of my best online friends are the ones who have left, which is why I said that it looks like the community is decreasing.

I've been occasionally finding time to play in the Public Community when I have time. Some players are respectable, fun to play with, and are fairly new to the game. I promote their being part of the community and starting to get into the whole Soldat Scene. I get discouraged at times because of the players that are new to the game don't believe that getting into the community is worth it and just playing how they do is all they should have to become a part of. Understanding that there are always going to be players like this, but it's players like these that push the 'newbie' players away from a community where they see public players, whine, complain, and don't play respectfully.

The newbie players are the ones that will take these weapon modifications and game changes the easiest. Since they haven't had 'x' amount of months, years with soldat they can adapt a lot easier. I love to see growth and prosper in the Soldat Community but it just seems that if more vets leave, it may leave a gap between some vets to help out the newbies of Soldat. I'm unaware of how the European side of the Community is growing or how it acts.

I love to see a world-wide community where everyone acts together. I'm just discouraged that more vets from the Minority part of the Soldat community will move away from the activeness and won't be there to teach newbies the basics, and advances, of how Soldat is great and one of the best 2D games out on the internet (minority is being used as an example of how the lesser side of the community might be affected the most by changes and might discourage growth in these regions of the smaller side of the community).
But now I just sound like an objectivist, which I don't think is quite a good thing.

I've been trying to make the first part clear to the weapon balance discussions. Well , my opinions aren't exactly as yours but the basics are.

Anyway, you definitely look at some things diffrently than I do.
The main reason people are leaving now , in my opinion, is because of the fact that Soldat stays the same. That's exactly the counter-part of your opinion here. Soldat didn't change too much since 1.2 , well not really drastic. There ARE people that leave when a new version comes out but eventually they get back (look in the Bash Pit and Lounge , most people that said they'd stop playing Soldat right after the new version are still hre). Most people leave , and stay away, during the Soldat 'era' , not at the new versions. I think this shows that they got border of Soldat , it's pretty much always the same routine. I realized that and now , one month later , I feel that exact same thing myself. I got bored of Soldat and I don't play it nymore , I just hang around here.
In short , I think we should try to change Soldat drastically. I've explained my ideas in the weapon balance discussion , not going to type them here or no-one will read my long post. Those suggestions are very extreme but (Now I'll be trying to translate some Dutch expression into English) If we don't look ABOVE the horizon then we won't get anywhere.

But basicly , the part that's teling that the weapon balance is about ALL the weapons and not ONE weapon is very correct. Otherwise it wouldn't be called "Balance".
If I may critisize freely then I'd critisize the way the second weapons ini was based on. If I can recall the situation 100%, Demonic based most of his decisions on a experienced friend who loves to play with weapon X , that friend said he thinks weapon X is overpowered so that weapon gets weakened in the next beta weapons.ini update. Same for the reason why the Weapon Balance discussion was started for this time, someone played Soldat , had a bad game with alot of M79 violence and decided to open the beta-testing. Those are facts , and not opinions so if you want to flame me , the only thing you can flame about is that I'm publishing those facts. To me , those happenings aren't acceptable. 100 'noobs' are way more valuable than the best and most experienced player in Soldat , always , even if those new players just played for a week. Those 200 eyes see way more than those two eyes can. And basicly we're not changing the weapon balance for the experienced users , we're changing it for the new players (aka 'noobs'). Otherwise the noobs will stop increasing and eventually the 'vets' will get tired of Soldat anyway and then we have no players left. I can give tons of arguments and facts for this statement so if you'd wish to discuss this then be my guest.

Now , more about how I think the weapon balance should be handled.
Beta-testers should be some sort of politicians , not people that try to push trough their ideas. Those beta-testers should be defending the idea of what they think the most people in Soldat agree on , even if that idea is something that beta-tester disagrees with for 100%. We could even start some public elections where people can elect some beta-testers but that's another extreme idea , could be nice though.

I could critisize and state more but my scrollbar on the right is getting so tinythat I think actually few people will even read my post. Please stay on the topic about the weapon-balance in general and not about some particular weapon setup or configuration , if you do so then I'm afraid you misunderstood the point of what everyone is talking about here.


Grtz , DePhille

Ask anyone what was his favourite version. I guarantee, most will say the first version they played. Atleast everyone I know from my Soldat 'generation' does that.

Newbies come and go: out of every 500 public players 10 make it to the 'big Soldat scene', and join the community - both IRC and the Forums. The Soldat scene is being run by - surprise - the oldies. Those who have been 'Leading' two years ago are still here now. Thus, the Weapon Balance is clan war oriented, because newbies advocate for their immediate enjoyment, while oldies have a broad view of how things work.

Remember the last testing? We tried the politician thing. MisterX and me tried hard to explain why should the one shotters get toned down by applying delay. Remember the community's response? The masses thought that a delayed barret would be unusable ( their suggestion: making it prone shot only, or two shot kill... ), the same went for the knife ( they thought it was fine, even though it was the most used secondary ) and the biggest uproar was when we tried to add delay to M79. Even though we warned you that M79 will be overused and slightly unbalanced without delay in the new version, even though the beta balance which had delayed M79 was welcomed by many oldie users who could get used to it fast, it was not implemented, because we got tired, and whining prevailed. Now, the biggest balance problem after spraying is the M79.

That is why there's been a shift in how the balance gets developed: after discussing with various people ( like SCYA, top yank-spazee ) I apply certain changes to weapons. If I screw something up, people warn me, and I try to fix it. At the moment, 1.1b seems like the best balance so far, even though it has various changes that were unwelcomed previously. If there are no problems for a while, it's going to stay.

In short: this time around the public has to prove their views with valid points and discussions, they are the ones that should test the balance in clanwars and gathers. I take no blame: it's your turn to hit the ball. I'm satisfied.

DeMonic,

I've read your reply a few times to understand and interpret the response you have to my issue. There are many things that seem to have flaws in what aspect your taking at Weapons Modifications. I haven't taken a strong look at the discussions in your 1.1b setup. I'm hoping you are aware of how just changing 1 thing in a weapon can affect all 9 of the other primary weapons. Adding a delay to a weapon seems to be the best way to tone down the usage of the M79. I can't argue against that fact because I don't have a reasonable answer to help tone down it's usage. The M79 users will decrease rapidly.

Most newbie players to any game usually pick up on what the other players in the server do. So if I joined a server and I was fairly new, and I kept getting killed by the same guy with a Spas, then I'm going to pick up his weapon and try to be strong and kill people like he did. I want to see some sort of change in the game, and it's great that you are doing it at such an early step and getting the devolopment of the Weapons Modifications correct before future versions are released. If you can find the correct balance in all weapons before the next version is released it can only secure that much more of a happy response from the rest of the Community. But you can't predict what the rest of the community is giong to do, or how they are going to react. So all you can do is make large suggestions, test things that seem to work, and just hope the most positive outcome from the community.

What my thread is trying do is make it more understanding to everyone how things can or could be. I messaged DePhille because I want to talk about this more in a private matter. Understanding everything from all points-of-view is only going to help out what we can do for the rest of the community for the future.

Also, when you've talked about how 10 out of approximately 500 advance into the Soldat Scene and start to become part of the community. Well, someone just can't jump straight into learning everything for themselves. The Soldat Community usually affects all of the younger age of plaeyrs, 12-16 (used as an example on average). So during those ages, most people aren't as well experienced with online game-play and how different communities work. I'd like to be able to see more of the vets (oldies in your example) push to help younger, and newer, generation of players. I understand that I could be contridicting myself based on the fact that I'd not like to see so much change in the Weapons Modifications, but I still want the community to grow. It almost seems like an endless cycle of debating, complaints, aggevation, and repetance.

You also made a good point about how vets understand a broad view of how everything works. But in considering this you must understand that ClanWars are not the main focus for Soldat currently. It's the public who plays and challenge each other the most. Make a balanced new Weapons layout it can make it better for clans to have more respectable clan wars which then in return can at times make public use as enjoyable as Clan Wars. It makes sense, but I'm also thinking about how all the weapons can't all be so balanced that no weapon has an advantage over another. Say I use the Minimi (9 as your chose from the list) and I go up against someone with the M79. The M79 user has a charge-up time and he misses. In that amount of time it took him to charge I could have shot 15-20 shots at him, and firing just another dozen shots at him killing him. He doesn't have quite enough time to react and try to counter my attack. So then maybe take in consideration that M79 user uses the USSocom as his secondary. You fire 15 of your Minimi shots, say half to a third hit him damaging that player and getting rid of most of his health. The M79 user pulls out his USSocom putting 6 shots into you killing you before you can even get a counter attack.

Now I used the M79 + USSocom combo as probably one of the most used combo weapons out in Public servers right now. I'm guessing you've modified the USSocom to do less damage, or modify the weapon so it doesn't kill as quickly. Well the reason the USSocom is so powerful now is that the other Primary weapons don't kill as quickly as in the past. Adding in lag, with how that player plays, and the map the USSocom can be one of the most powerful weapons in the game right now. So say that MM brings out the next version of Soldat without any weapon modifications. He fixes a few bugs and makes some minor modifications to maybe make the game a little less laggy/buggy. That instance right there changes whatever modifications you did to the weapons.

Currently I'm not making any proper point, I'm just stating what other thoughts might need to be looked at if they haven't yet. I'm sure the beta-testers are respectable and intellegent enough to take almost everything possible into consideration. If anyone wants to continue this discussion/debate further, I'd like to continue on with my thoughts and know what else people have thought about, might think about.

1.1b is the third beta balance as of lately: this means that it's not just M79 that was weakened, but so have been automatics ( longer reload ) and semi autos ( longer fire intervalls, movement inacurracy ). If Michal fixes stuff, we'll fix the balance accordingly. What else can we do? We can't wait with balance improving until everything's fixed. That would be nonsense.

Ofcourse a perfect balance, where each gun is as strong as the other can't be achieved. That's not the goal. Our goal is to have a balance where each gun can gain the upper edge over other guns in different situations, but no gun should come out victorious of the majority of battles.

No matter how much we discuss situations: it will be still theory. Factors such as lag, as you mentioned, play an important role: that is why the public should be testing the balance, otherwise this might be the biggest failiure of balancing ever. The problem is, I'm not seeing that people are testing the balance.. it seems they do not care.

As far as not testing the balance goes I have a little something to say. While I'm not sure how many other people feel this way, I'm sure someone out there can agree with me.

I've looked at the balance and have seen what's been changed, and I didn't care. Not "I didn't care for it", but "I didn't care." I know that one way or the other, the balance is going to be changed somehow. It happens in almost every version (I'd like to say every version, but I have a few doubts about the ones I wasn't around to see). When I think about that, it makes me feel as if my opinion is a little less valuable than before.

Then I think about how some of the opinions of the beta-testers(I won't name names because I can't. It's just a general feeling I've gotten from them) have opinions that are set in stone, or at the very least very hard dirt. They are very headset in their beliefs, which, while usually completely understandable, doesn't always agree with mine. I get the feeling that my complaints won't be taken seriously or will be quickly shot down by veteran logic. That makes my opinion feel even smaller.

I also think about how easy it is to adapt to a new version. I joined in 1.2, and even when I had only been playing a few months I knew how to change my playing style. This helps to make my opinions feel as if they aren't important because I know subconciously that I can handle the changes, whatever they may be.

As DeMonic said, the balance is directed towards clan wars, with good reason. But I very rarely ever participate in clan wars, mainly because I am very rarely ever in a clan. I can't relate to what's being said about the balance in this sense. Once again another reason for me to remain indifferent to the balance.

And finally, on a more personal note, almost everything I type in these forums goes without a response. It's just annoying to me sometimes, so I don't bother posting most of the time. But I have a feeling that this post will a response to it, which is nice.

Oh, in response to what DeMonic said a couple of posts ago, I'm not one of those people who's favorite version is their first. I came in at 1.2, but 1.2.1 is my favorite. The only reason I'm stating that is to share it.

Edit:A quick question for the beta-testers out there. Is there a public server available for trying 1.1b? It's almost ironic that I ask this after what I've just posted, but curiosity has gotten the better of me yet again.

I've read some very good statements there.

But what I do not really agree on is what you call the "Soldat Scene". To me the "Soldat Scene" is the game itself , not the community. The community is a group of die-hard fans , usually more experienced than the average Soldateer. If those 490 people (500publics-10'vets') say "OMG Increase the M79's damage even more :D" then that should not be translated blindly , basicly that sentence indicates that they want Soldat to be more quick and bloody than it is now. THat sentence does not mean necessarily that the M79 should be ruling all weapons.

Personally I like version 1.2.1 the most , started playing right after Secondary weapons were invented. (1 week or so before that change got applied , state me the version). 1.2.x was also the most bloody , but that's just my opinion. And who am I between thousands of people? Who is MM between thousands of people? Experienced or not experienced those thousands of eyes see way more than I or you or MM will ever see.

I'm not really blaming you for that change based upon one person I'm just using it as an example, because you cannot really take all the blame for that fact. The fact is , like you mentioned , the public doesn't care anymore. Now that could be because ofthe fact that in the past the weapon-balance wasn't really a big succes if you're looking at the community, many people got flamed for their 'noobish' responses or even , in few cases , even for their join date or postcount , that also being an example and not the complete set of reasons.

A very good point from XenocidE is the fact that , -> for example <- , the M79 is not overpowered , the other weapons just got too weak so the M79 is overpowered compared to the other weapons. That's another indicator that shows that people want more bloodyness and changes into Soldat.

newbies indeed come and go but you don't have to be staying for years before people should actually say "Now that's a person we should adapt the weapon balance to". Even a one-night stand Soldateer is a person to adapt the weapon balance to , because one day that guy could be the new FliesLikeABrick , Chakra , Amblin , Styx , ... or whoever. The Soldat Scene (the game) is indeed being run by the oldies , after all there has to be some sort of "high council" that has the last decision. It's just the fact that those oldies should be the filters that filter out the bad comments of the public , and they should consider their opinion better than a new player's opinion. I've seen many opinions from people that can be easily beaten by some random guys at a public server. Indeed , the barret-idea wasn't really liked by the masses (We didn't try out their suggestions for the public so comparing with their suggestions is useless) though it went better than most of the people expected , but the other weapons didn't realy get into the discussion afterwards , people only see the big changes. But I really hate the fact thatin the weapon balancing , where the intelligent people should be ruling , there are still some labels active such as being an oldie or a newbie. The only thing that should be considered is beta-tester or public.

Anyway , I'm ending my posth here , I'll pick up again after some few comments.




//This part is typed after Swazo's response :)


Well Swazo I have to agree with you 100% on that post.
I've been a clanleader of a clan that started in October 2004 and that stopped around 1 week ago. I didn't care about the weapon balance at all during those clan matches, atleast not more as I did whilst in public servers. Clanwars really are just a very small minority of what Soldat is. Same for the community , it's also a very small part of the actual "Soldat Scene".

You're the perfect illustration of what I described in my above post, the only diffrence is that your formulation is way better than mine. Some people's opinions are carved in very hard dirt , I needed a few lines to explain that :).


Grtz , DePhille

Personally, I say leave the workings of the weapon up to the games author. If he is skilled enough to make this entire game I am sure he can find a way to balance the weapons. (Not that this will stop me from making suggestions. :P )

About Demonic's changes; I thought it was a useless and annoying attempt to change the whole game yet again. It also rendered self bink useless with the pathetic firing rates of the auto's.

Essentially, in my eyes, making weapons worse is the worst way to go. Only a few small tweaks should be made, if at all, to a small selection of weapons. I'd rather live with the current weapons than adapt to another idiot's idea of what's best.

I'm also another of those freaks that, although I started in 1.1.5, think that 1.2(/.1) is the best version.

Time for a little history lesson.


During 1.1.3 to 1.1.5, most weapons took twice as many hits to make a kill as they do now. This evidently lead to m79 and primarily barret dominance, as it was simply the most efficient way to kill.

1.2 saw interesting debates between the beta team. One side pro-barret, the other anti-barret. The barret got nerfed in a way that it could only effectively be used while standing or sitting still. This caused alot of arguements, so Michal had to make a compromise. He returned barret to it's original status, and increased the damage of all the other weapons.

Barret was still the choice weapon at the time, and the increased damage from autos meant unfortunately little. 1.2.1 came along and Michal had invented 'Bink', to counter 1-shot weapons. Weapon damage was again increased, and this lead to a bloodbath of 2 hit kill DE's and automatic domination. The term 'sprayer' was thus coined, as it was fairly easy to kill someone by just aiming in their general direction, as you had more than enough ammo to compensate for aim.


1.2.1 was tested purely in deathmatch, as it was more convenient. This lead to weapons being very evenly balanced in a 1 versus 1 situation. But clans were very unhappy, as the only effective tactic was to group autos together in teams to eliminate opposition with great ease.



1.3 to 1.3.1 arrived, and Michal had invented 'self bink'. Balance was tested in a clan-war scenario, testing classes of weapons against each other. Damage was generally decreased, and the barret was given a delay to counter quick kills.


Brief round-up there of where we've been so far.


Otherwise, you're quite right Dephille about 'the higher council' of the 'soldat scene'. The amount of ass-crap ideas you see floating around in beta and balance is laughable at times, and most often from less-experienced players. Saying that, some highly experienced players also prove biased and incosiderate of balance in favour of themselves.

Which reminds me of 1.3. I said quite clearly to alot of people during balance: nerf the knife, add a delay. "no we like the knife." 1.3 gets released and 3 weeks later, they're all complaining about everyone 'knife rushing' and how it's too effective.

Yea I know that the weapons were once much weaker than they are now.
(In what version did MM add the secondary weapons? I startd playing one week or so before that update).
But we don't want to go back to that stadium now do we?

Michal (or the beta-team , I don't know) invented alot of things such as bink , selfbink , movementacc , power-up times , ... I suggest we increase the damage of all weapons again to something more or less realistic and then play with the other stuff such as bullet speed , power-up time , bink , selfink , movementacc , and so on. But that's actualy off-topic isn't it :)

Well , the beta-team isn't doing a bad job but in my opinion they aren't doing a very good job either. One of the reasons is the big contract between noob-veteran. People with time and dedication to Soldat will mostly give good comments , they don't have to be in Soldat for x years. As long as they take the time to think and test their ideas they're good comments.
The thing with the knife charge-up time couldn't be tested by the public so I can't blame people saying "The knife is good as it is" and now saying "The knife is better than it was".

Grtz , DePhille

And thus, public balance testing was born. No, no, please don't thank me. Oh go on then.


As a general rule, mind, one voice in a few hundred won't make 'the' changing point for Soldat's balance, though that shouldn't stop anyone making suggestions or comments. In fact, thats the entire idea: for people to share their thoughts, and those shared the most will have an impact on the balance.

I say this, having not voted for anything in this democratic world for my entire life. Still, theory works.

This discussion seemed to be turned into what people want and think should happen. The pure opposite of what I was trying to imply when I started this thread. The main purpose was to make everyone understand and look at all possible ways that the game could change and being a more varietied game. And so even with the general publics thoughts, people individual statements, I still feel like it's for naught.

So I think this discussion lost some of it's main purpose and shouldn't be continued with. For now, this discussion should be closed, and once I have thought more about supporting and getting ideas for the growth of the Soldat Community, and Scene. I am going to just keep my ideas and thoughts mostly closed. So hopefully soon I'm going to have a list of ideas and thoughts for Soldat and I will post them. I have a feeling that my statements have made some sense and effects. But only till I push my ideas further and get thoughts from people I know, will these ideas I may have be able to help.

Also, keeping Soldat the same (weapons, etc) will only make Soldat that much more blatent and dull the next version. DePhille has realized this the best and helped me understand this also. The great adaptability of each Soldat version helps us want to continue to play the game more and more, and to just be the best we can possibly be with each changes in each new version. If the weapons are only slightly changed in the next version, and nothing is really implamented into the game. What's going to keep people so interested into Soldat? You can only do the same thing for so long before it gets boring once again. I say, lets make some unique drastic changes, but not so extreme that Soldat doesn't have the same feel it has for the past 4 years.

That basically ends my discussion, I'll be around hopefully giving new ideas and thoughts as my own research progresses.

Closing your ideas is a bad thing.
We definitely need some more opinions that are explained in-depth like yours are.
Though it could be that you'll get flamed for ideas in the future just keep going and don't change like the most people do after they got flamed.
A very handy tool is the notepad :) open it and put your ideas in there , you can just open that program in a matter of seconds , type it , save it and close it again. Then when you find some discussion about one of your ideas you can think from where you started in the notepad.

Grtz , DePhille

I dont have a lot of Soldat experience, i play since 1.2.0, but i think that 1.1b beta balance
is near the perfect soldat weapon balance. I recently did 1 game with the old 1.2.1 version and
the bigger change i noticed is the general speed decreased a lot. 1.2.1 = quick kill, and not need a lot of skill. 1.1b need very high skill level, and its very funny to play.

sory for bad english, hope that u'll inderstand what i say

If you are good with barret you don't die alot..

Not dieing like that is tactics too, you must utilize the abilities of barret like scope to see enemies coming aim where you think they are then when they get on screen adjust your aim and fire..

--------

That being said player intelligence and ability to innovate plays a large part also in the effectiveness of a weapon, the hard part to this entire problem seems to be that it is only tested in one situation or gamemode..

 Quote:Originally posted by DeMonIc1.1b is the third beta balance as of lately: this means that it's not just M79 that was weakened, but so have been automatics ( longer reload ) and semi autos ( longer fire intervalls, movement inacurracy ). If Michal fixes stuff, we'll fix the balance accordingly. What else can we do? We can't wait with balance improving until everything's fixed. That would be nonsense.

This, in my opinion, is one of the problems with the newer versions of Soldat. Weapons have been weakened if they are overpowered, then other weapons are weakened to balance it out, etc etc. Soldat is meant to be a fast-paced game, but with all these changes of late I doubt that aspect will stay in the game if the next few versions continue as the last few have.

Take your longer reload for automatics and longer interval/movement accuracy for semis. I already see this all the time: players rush each other, players stop in mid-air to get better accuracy, players fire until one dies. That, in my opinion, is boring and takes away some of the fun of the game. I didn't play a lot in the early versions, but I miss the feeling anyway. Maybe it would be better if, instead of making all the weapons take forever to kill, the weaker ones could be beefed up a bit. Personally I think everything is just fine as it is now, but if changes are to be made I don't see why it isn't worth making weapons stronger so we can try and preserve the spirit of this game.

Lithium did you read Chakra's post? In 1.1.5, which was my first version, all the weapons took around 2X as many hits as they do currently. Then in 1.2.1 I believe, which IMO was the [CENSORED]tiest version balance wise, you had ak which took 5 hits, minime took 6 hits, steyr 9 hits, deagles 2 hits, ruger 2 hits people running around with knife and law as primary.... Since then we are slowly weakening weapons, but they are still not even close to the weapons in 1.1.5 I would have to say... from my memory. So we arent taking away the fast paced aspect of soldat, it became a bit too fast paced in the 1.2-1.2.1 versions, and thats is slowly being reduced.

I don't really see why weakening the weapons (damage-wise) would require more skill.
Personally I think it's harder to keep alive if you only need 3 shots to get killed instead of more than 10. Back in the 1.2 days taking cover was one of the most essential parts of Soldat. Today that has changed , now you can reload in mid air while under fire , no problem , if you get hit by a bullet you still need to get hit 9 times more. Ofcourse there's also another argument; you need to aim better or you won't kill the enemy with one mag and thus causing you to reload. But believe me , the first one is really the major argument while the second one is a minor. I do agree 1.2 had overpowered weapons but in my opinion the game in total wasn't too overpowered (it was overpowered but just a little). If you do want the weapons to require skill then I think you should have a very high damage but very extreme bulletspeeds , binks , selfbinks , since 'alot of damage' or 'few damage' doesn't need as much skill as factors such as bulletspeed and bink do.

Time for some facts :)
When someone sais that the weapons require more skills then there are two diffrent things this could be based on.
-It could be that the weapons are more difficult to aim with.
-Or it could be that weapons are more difficult to KILL with , in this case the skill of the other player also matters. So this could actually mean that Soldat requires LESS skill so that new players kill more easily and that it looks like you need more skill to handle the weapon while you actually need more skill to make any visible diffrence with the new player. I hope I explained the second thing well , because this is mostly what I am noticing. New players in 1.2 were killed with ease while new players in 1.3.1 aren't as easy as they used to be. i found this out since I reffered several friends to Soldat , and the farther the Soldat evolution goes in version numbers , the more difficult new players get.

One of the spirits of Soldat besides it's 2D-play is the fast action. Browse around some game review sites and you'll notice the word "Fast" in almost every review. Weakening the weapons slows the game down and makes it more boring and too unrealistic (Taking more than 10 bullets from a minimi before dieing for example). I also played the weak version , if 1.2 wouldn't have such strong weapons I'd probably get bored of Soldat before I reached this community.

Grtz , DePhille

Dephille, do I need to remind you that most of those reviews were written while soldat was in its older versions such as 1.1.5/1.1.3 1.05b. Are you saying soldat was faster paced in those versions than the version we are in right now? Ill be the first to disagree with you.

Dephille, the "require skill to dodge" argument is moot. It applies just as much now as it applied then. You can still dodge bullets now and stay alive, and generally the people who just run into thier enemies will die very quickly, I think your exxagarating a bit about the staying in air and reload. Ive never seen that in my games. (Alot of people dance on the floor when ak shooting at them).

Dodging is just as much effective now as it was then, however the need for accuracy increases as you weaken weapons. The tradeoff is making the game slower.. however I dont think the weapons are at the point where weakening them would make the game "slow". Slow being a adjective. Especially if I compare to the old versions.

Weakening the weapons by too much won't make the game slow, in that case your right, but it might make the game less fun. As you said Poop, weaker weapons require more accuracy, and that's something most new players don't have. The more effort they have to put into getting their kills, the more likely they will drift towards easier weapons. Then they'll come to the realization that the infamous "1-hit killers" aren't any easier(due to the barret[and soon to be M79]delays). It could drive people away, especially coupled with the everpresent lag, which makes guns even weaker.

It's a little exaggerated and I can't take a personal stand on it seeing as how I don't care if newbies are driven away or not. It's just an aspect of the situation that I would like to see considered.

Edit:I just saw this part of your post Poop "Especially if I compare to the old versions." I'll have to disagree with you there. The older versions, if by that you mean like 1.05b, are much slower than the current. By slower I mean in general player movement and some bullet speeds. And, subsequently, I found them to be much less fun.

Swazo that is what I meant, what im saying is that alot of people keep saying 1.3.1 and 1.3 are making the game slower than it used to be etc etc, I think the game has become much faster than 1.1.5/1.0.5b, and yes I have played 1.0.5b alot.

What im saying is that how can you say the game is becoming "slow" when the game was much much slower than currently in those old versions.

Well the only way I can say that is because I started in 1.2, where everything was "over-powered." So things are getting a little slower, to me that is.

Sorry for the previous response, I misinterpreted what you said.

If ya want fast, why not real mode? Gotta be quick or be dead in there man.

 Quote:Originally posted by DePhilleClosing your ideas is a bad thing.
We definitely need some more opinions that are explained in-depth like yours are.
Though it could be that you'll get flamed for ideas in the future just keep going and don't change like the most people do after they got flamed.
A very handy tool is the notepad :) open it and put your ideas in there , you can just open that program in a matter of seconds , type it , save it and close it again. Then when you find some discussion about one of your ideas you can think from where you started in the notepad.

Grtz , DePhille


I'm only closing my ideas to the public. I've been flamed, insulted, and done right hurt from some of the things people say and do. That was the main reason why I stopped going to these forums 3 years ago. I only played the game because that's where I saw the most respect and activity in the players I saw. I came back to the Forums with the name EndertheXenocide, and asking how I can gain respect and honor from people in the entire community. Out of pure irony, Chakra was the one who showed me the proper path and growth to trying to help the community with my ideas. You don't want a lesson on my life, but when I see some vets come out of this Community I don't see respect from them and I don't see a proper way that they want to help the community's growth. Some people are forums [CENSORED]s, Swazo for example (sorry to use you Swazo, you seemed like the best example). There are some who come to just post their thoughts and ideas, there are some who come to give feedback to new players' ideas, there are players that give ideas and feedback, and there are players that are just here to help the growth and give respectable critism and thoughts to new players coming into the community.

I keep seeing people say that weaking is not a good thought, some say weaking is the best answer, some say to keep weapons how they are, and some just want to play the damn game. So taking in everyone's considerations, and thoughts, there should be no reason to push 1 individuals thoughts and ideas away. Take everyones' critism and push it into new ideas and things to implament, and change. Since I feel that some of my thoughts should be mentioned I'm going to give a few thoughts I've had for a while. Actually these ideas just came up to me recently, but anyways:


I'd like to see some new default maps, new varieties in the maps that Soldat comes with on Default (my thoughts currently are only on CTF games). Laos is the most played map in the game. Because both sides are basically equal in team play and it's fairly small and easy to manuever. I'd like to see 1 or 2 more maps that have this basic concept made as part of the default. Make another map like Run. The map is huge, fairly easy to get from 1 side to the other and it makes games that are 5vs5 (or more) the best to play on this map. B2B used to be the Default map startup for all CW and on every server list. The concept was simple and it was easy to get across the map. Now I see it as nobody likes to the play map because it feels like a spray fest at times. Voland is probably 1 map I recommend being considered taken from the map list. I haven't taken a survey or anything, but Voland seems to be the map almost everyone doesn't like to play on. The map is so compact in areas, it's easy to grenade spam the spawn area, and the map just comes to spray and spam at the end. These are just a few thoughts on something to give the game more of an edge. I understand that it's the server's decision on what maps to put in it's MapList, but if the players who play in the server don't like playing certain maps usually the Server Host will edit it's MapList to plase the community so they see more players in their server.

Another idea about just the game of Soldat. Maybe something new that gives Soldat a new edge. 1.3 had quite a new interesting changes from 1.2.1 (don't remember all the changes, startup time was probably the most significant change). 1.3.1 came out and we now had a backflip which totally added something new to the game. Now I see a lot of people doing backflips, worming in the air (tapping between prone and standing position), and spraying. Partially what started this was that weapons became a lot hard to kill with and if you were able to exploit a bug legitly then you could get away with it. For an example in why exploiting a bug isn't considering cheating is like in Halo2. There are so many bugs people can exploit to gain an upper hand on the opponents. There is super bouncing, jumping in certain areas to gain a hieght advantage, and the list goes on. Since the bugs are a part of the game, there is no specific reason to say they are cheating. They are taking a bug in the game and using it to their advantage. I understand Polyglitches in 1.3.0, and before, were the worst bugs. Shooting your barret through a wall, throwing a grenade a specific polygons to make then blow up somewhere else, etc. But these were all a part of the game and when people did it, it made the game less fun but there isn't really anything anyone could do about it. *(for this last comment it is going to bring in a debate. I recommend discussing this in another thread since this isn't the point I'm getting at)*

With my ideas on the Weapons Modifications. 1.2.1 was the fastest killing version, and everyone says that 1.1.5 was one of teh slowest. Alright so now I'm seeing it now as when we come into 1.3.2 (for example) we are going to see more significant weapon changes. But I say that we actually slightly increase weapons, and power. The biggest issue I'm going to be seeing in the next version is that killing isn't going to be decreased by a huge amount and HP stealing is going to happen way to often. Currently it is hard to kill someone who is in your base, worming, backflippoing, and moving aroudn to kill them if they keep taking health packs. So with the next decrease this is going to happen more often and CTF games are going to end in who can get the Cap Limit before the other team. In Deathmatch games, the timelimit is going to run out before someone can reach the max kill limit, and in Inf. games the defending team is going to have a much harder time keeping the other team from stealing the flag. This is going to affect game variants a lot also, and Soldat is going to feel like we are playing a turn based style game (example used to imply it's going to be slower, more boring, and more pointless of a game).

How I've been saying for quite some that when you look at changing 1 thing, think about how it affects everything else. Really look at the conciquences while looking at how it could benefit the game. I always thought that changing the weapons was pointless and could hurt the game, and imo the view the weapons modifiers are going at it's going to hurt the game instead of making it better. You also have to understand that the weapons may not be as weak as they were in 1.1.5, but remember that the Soldat Character, himself, was increased in armor.

I've played with the 1.1b weapons.ini on a LAN based game with just bots. And I don't see the M79, Spas, Barret, and other weapons being used less and the other weapons being picked up. I see more spraying, spamming, and whoring then ever. Just playing against the bots and I noticed that the Autos and Semi-Autos are basically worthless. Those weapons aren't going to help the game. Now consider in the factor about how the game is going to be like online, when you have a 116 ping and you have out your Steyr. I'd be lucky so see an entire clip kill someone, especially when I would just be new to the game.

There is a quick idea of what thoughts I'm having. I'll be doing a lot more research and thinking on my own. because I have a feeling of getting thougths and ideas from local public soldat players, it really helps someone get a better grasp and mind about what is going to happen for the future of this game.

I agree with a lot of what xeno said. I havent been posting as much as id like to in this forum because im fed up with some of the people replying in short, talking out of their ass. I mean seriously some of these people posting saying do this or do that have no clue what their talking about. Some dont even play in pubs but once a week if that let along in scrims, cw's, league play, or even gathers. I dont comment on how I think balances should be made for realistic players because I dont play yet some (not all) realistic players are even commenting on how our regular balance should be. They should not be taken seriously in that aspect if any of these comments from this forum are going to be taken seriously in the next balance. I want to see just a balanced set of weapons, ive posted my opinions in numerous topics thus far so you can read them to know mine. I really want to work towards a bug free version above all.

I also agree with what XenocidE and GAMEOVER said, though I didn't really go trough a bunch of flaming at first I do realize that the respect for new players in this community is ver ver VERY low.

Poop: I didn't say 1.x.x were fast games , in fact I think they were the slowest games ever. If 1.2 didn't came out I wouldn't be here at all , really. Friends I referred to Soldat during 1.2.x are still playing Soldat on some occasions while people I reffered to Soldat during 1.3.x are already bored after less than a month.
Try not hiding when you have to reload in this version , then hook up some friends and try it in 1.2.x . Just make sure that you're always facing one or two enemies in both versions or it isn't a fair comparison anymore. You'll see that hiding in this version is just a minor tactic while aiming is not. This does not mean that it got more difficult to aim since 1.2.x , this just means that all tactics have weakened down so that it looks like aiming has become more difficult. (That was exxarerated , but you do get my point then).

The problem is that players get bored too soon because of the relative slower gameplay (in 1.2.x) and we only have new players and not really as much experienced players as 1.2.x had. That gets fairly obvious when I look at the type of people that sign up to join a clan, they are getting worse and worse , while the best wave was somewhere around 1.2.1.


XenocidE: Then be sure to save them somewhere for later (public) use. Even though people may not agree with your ideas it is still useful to give them another point of view.

Chakra: It's not that simple , real mode has recoil , you cannot see the whole battlefield , you cannot drop at full speed , ruger is overpowered in there (.ini should be split for Realmode and normal mode BTW) and so on.

GAMEOVER: If they do not know what they're talking about then it should be very easy to change their minds. And I do agree that some people "talk out of their ass" I just ignore them or try to explain it. I do have to hold in , because I do not want to bash down their entire topic , otherwise they'd get angry and they'll stop posting ideas at all.

Grtz , DePhille

 Quote:Chakra: It's not that simple , real mode has recoil , you cannot see the whole battlefield , you cannot drop at full speed , ruger is overpowered in there (.ini should be split for Realmode and normal mode BTW) and so on.


Indeed luv, most of what you say is true. Still, the simpliest and truthful of retorts I can give ye, is.... so what?

Something wrong with recoil? You like it when the game's harder to survive, why not harder to aim for any prolonged time? it solves any spraying problems and makes even the semi-autos respectfully skillful. Whats wrong with not being able to see people behind you, or being careful before landing and learning to preserve jets, or supposedly overpowered weapons (they're all overpowered, thats the point)?

Seems to me that you like a challenge. Real mode is really just - and always has been - 1.2.1 with added realism and challenge. Give it a couple of tries guv ...you may come to like it.

 Quote:Some people are forums [CENSORED]s, Swazo for example (sorry to use you Swazo, you seemed like the best example).

Meh, there are people worse than I, but I will admit that I am a forum [CENSORED]. Once upon a time, I really wanted to contribute to the community. My Soldat folder is full of half-started maps, mods and comics. But then I just stopped caring. I couldn't see a point in what I was doing. Like many people, I got disgusted in the way I saw people in the community being treated. And rather than try to fix that, I just settled into a grumpy slump.

It's not good, but it's where I am.