AC Weapons Revisited

[MerCyKiL]

Ok so: the thread titled "AC Weapons" was calling for more weapons to be added to the game but ~sh00t{b} didn't even give any ideas as to what he would like to see added.

Here are two ideas that I had been thinking of before I stopped playing. I wrote them down a while back and, looking through my old computer, decided I'd just put them out there for the fuck of it (so feel free to add your input however positive or negative it is).

1.) in match mode only, each player gets one mine to start the game. this mine can be placed anywhere on the map as long as it is 15 units away from the flag and there is 5 units of space to walk on all sides of this hypothetical idea. only the allied team and spectators/refs can see these mines. the mine would take 10 seconds to set up (adding a little risk to placing it) and if the player setting it up moves or is killed in the middle of placing it, they lose their mine. each player gets only one mine per game.

why add this? it gives a little bit of risk/reward to both teams and makes running with a flag slightly more risky.

2.) a heavy machine gun. holds 45 bullets in one clip and has a slower firing rate than the AR. it would ignore all armor and would have the old AR's damage figures (100/76/52/28/4). it would also have 1.5 times the amount of kickback that the current AR has and a higher spread. you would not be able to reload this gun or get more ammo and would have to switch to pistol/nades/akimbo when you run out of ammo. ammo would only be replenished upon death. (if the cube engine can't ignore ammoboxes with this weapon, then perhaps stepping on an ammobox would give 1 bullet only)

why add this? this weapon would have a large power upside since it kills an enemy from 100 HP in five shots regardless of armor. however, the fact that you are only given 45 bullets until death, that you have an incredibly high kickback, that your fire rate is slow, and that your spread is high, this weapon would have high rewards but higher risks. i think it would be really interesting to see a team composition that tries to incorporate a heavy machine gun user.

[PhaNtom]

The heavy machine gun actually sounds epic.

[Vanquish]

1.) in match mode only, each player gets one mine to start the game.

stopped reading after this

[TheNihilanth]

Heavy machinegun sounds good. Option 1) would work, but don't be able to see where a mine is placed is no good since everyone would cry "xiter!"

[ExodusS]

mines, heavy machineguns, where are the tanks?

[Cemer]

mercy what the hell are they teaching you in o

[MerCyKiL]

mines, heavy machineguns, where are the tanks?

well, i suppose i should clarify something. out of the two ideas, i think having mines is a shittier idea. it seemed good when i wrote it down a while back but when i was writing it today, i knew almost immediately that it wouldn't have a lot of fans

in all seriousness though, i thought the restrictions i gave on the heavy machine gun were pretty fair. my conclusion is that i think the game needs an "all-in" weapon. you either have great success and carry your team or you fail miserably and end up costing your side the game (i.e. you kill three opponents with the power the gun has or you run out of ammo and have to survive with a pistol or suicide). with this "all-in" method, i feel matches would be put more on edge and more exciting and unexpected things would happen. a different more dangerous/risky play style would emerge.

so, im not suggesting that we add RPGs and nuclear warheads. i was just looking at the "AC Weapons" thread and thought I'd give my ideas a whack and see how people feel

EDIT: I added a poll about the heavy machine gun because I just want to see what people think about it...

---

mercy what the hell are they teaching you in o

how to spell and do addition. not gonna lie it's pretty challenging

[Orynge]

(if the cube engine can't ignore ammoboxes with this weapon, then perhaps stepping on an ammobox would give 1 bullet only)

I'd say that doing this would be a bad idea. It would just be using ammo boxes that could be useful to other players.

EDIT: Well that's for pubs at least. I think this in general would be pretty terrible on pubs.

[Robtics]

have you bumped your head?

[Nightmare]

1.) in match mode only, each player gets one mine to start the game.

stopped reading after this

I walk into your mine, you walk into mine(pun intended). Now we both have 0 mines, and the game is exactly the same as mine-less AC except we wasted 20 seconds blowing each other up.

---

I wouldn't mind the Light Machine Gun as an Akimbo replacement.

[MerCyKiL]

I walk into your mine, you walk into mine(pun intended). Now we both have 0 mines, and the game is exactly the same as mine-less AC except we wasted 20 seconds blowing each other up.

I wouldn't mind the Light Machine Gun as an Akimbo replacement.

both valid points

---

I think this in general would be pretty terrible on pubs.

yea i was thinking of it for more of a weapon for matches

---

have you bumped your head?

yea i guess: http://forum.cubers.net/thread-7807.html

[killerjoe]

Ok so: the thread titled "AC Weapons" was calling for more weapons to be added to the game but ~sh00t{b} didn't even give any ideas as to what he would like to see added.

Here are two ideas that I had been thinking of before I stopped playing. I wrote them down a while back and, looking through my old computer, decided I'd just put them out there for the fuck of it (so feel free to add your input however positive or negative it is).

1.) in match mode only, each player gets one mine to start the game. this mine can be placed anywhere on the map as long as it is 15 units away from the flag and there is 5 units of space to walk on all sides of this hypothetical idea. only the allied team and spectators/refs can see these mines. the mine would take 10 seconds to set up (adding a little risk to placing it) and if the player setting it up moves or is killed in the middle of placing it, they lose their mine. each player gets only one mine per game.

why add this? it gives a little bit of risk/reward to both teams and makes running with a flag slightly more risky.

2.) a heavy machine gun. holds 45 bullets in one clip and has a slower firing rate than the AR. it would ignore all armor and would have the old AR's damage figures (100/76/52/28/4). it would also have 1.5 times the amount of kickback that the current AR has and a higher spread. you would not be able to reload this gun or get more ammo and would have to switch to pistol/nades/akimbo when you run out of ammo. ammo would only be replenished upon death. (if the cube engine can't ignore ammoboxes with this weapon, then perhaps stepping on an ammobox would give 1 bullet only)

why add this? this weapon would have a large power upside since it kills an enemy from 100 HP in five shots regardless of armor. however, the fact that you are only given 45 bullets until death, that you have an incredibly high kickback, that your fire rate is slow, and that your spread is high, this weapon would have high rewards but higher risks. i think it would be really interesting to see a team composition that tries to incorporate a heavy machine gun user.

1.5 times the amount of kickback??!! Half the amount of kickback from the AR is still unrealistic? So every time you shoot you end up facing the sky?

[Marti]

If only you knew how to handle kickback killerjoe

[MykeGregory]

Heavy machine could be a good idea.. but only if its a mounted turret on a vehicle!

WE NEED VEHICLES!!!

Spoiler

Quad Bikes!
Space for 1 driver and 1 shooter
Driver cant shoot but can run people over
Drive speed 1 1/2 times strafing speed
Driver cant carry flag
quad has 300 HP
Quad can be blown up killing both occupants

[Flint]

Heavy machine could be a good idea.. but only if its a mounted turret on a vehicle!

WE NEED VEHICLES!!!

Spoiler

Quad Bikes!
Space for 1 driver and 1 shooter
Driver cant shoot but can run people over
Drive speed 1 1/2 times strafing speed
Driver cant carry flag
quad has 300 HP
Quad can be blown up killing both occupants

Just turn AC into Halo:Cube Engine Reloaded.

[killerjoe]

I understand the kickback but why not have it so when you stop shooting it goes back in place most people have the right strength.

[Marti]

If you shoot a gun IRL it doesnt go back to its original place either, it is you who pulls it down

[Nightmare]

Heavy machine could be a good idea.. but only if its a mounted turret on a vehicle!

WE NEED VEHICLES!!!

Spoiler

Quad Bikes!
Space for 1 driver and 1 shooter
Driver cant shoot but can run people over
Drive speed 1 1/2 times strafing speed
Driver cant carry flag
quad has 300 HP
Quad can be blown up killing both occupants

A good idea they said.
ac_arid would be great with vehicles they said.

[MerCyKiL]

If you shoot a gun IRL it doesnt go back to its original place either, it is you who pulls it down

this

[Waffles]

well actually its gravity :DDDDDDDDDDD

[Cemer]

i posted this in another thread Kappa

Spoiler

(ATTENTION: IF YOU HATE READING MY SATIRICAL WALLS OF TEXT THEN FUCK YOU, IM BEING SERIOUS THIS TIME)

sticky nades are ambiguous as a concept as well. i will discuss two options; nades that stick to players and nades that stick to surfaces. if you want a nade that sticks to both then feel free to combine my argument yourself, as the ideas should be coherent with each other

STICKY NADES THAT STICK TO YOU

Spoiler

with regards to nades that stick to players, it increases the damage taken as soon as you get hit by one. its essentially a bullet that will eventually hit you, even though you can see it floating and barely moving. it may seem like an interesting concept to add to assaultcube, but it removes an important facet of gameplay: kill securing (provided you hit a player). this removed many of the fun moments one can have when they escape the enemy base because they got hit by a sticky, and then they die away from the enemy. this also gives an advantage to defenders, as you can now use the time you would have chasing an enemy elsewhere, for example killing the second attacker

with normal grenades, there is a skill ceiling introduced with the mechanic of "cooking". By being able to hold the primed grenade, you are more able to control the nade's detonation to further increase your damage output. this takes time and practice to improve on and master, as you must be able to predict the enemy's movement, hit them with the nade, and make sure the nade explodes upon/near impact for maximum damage. with nades that stick to players, you only need to predict enemy movement. for balance reasons, the sticky nade would probably need to do constant damage regardless of how close the enemy is to the center of the blast, and the constant damage would have to be low. so by trading difficulty for lower damage, you are left with a very noob friendly weapon. which is not bad by any means. but if left with similar physics and behaviours as a normal grenade, there is no reason to use sticky nades instead of normal ones. if you gain the skill to use normal grenades to their damage potential (100 - 200 damage), then there is no reason to use a sticky nade. as ac weapons are (conceptually) sidegrades of each other, there is no need to introduce a downgrade of a perfectly fine weapon

STICKIES THAT STICK TO SURFACES

Spoiler

the most familiar i am with a grenade in video games that sticks to surfaces is the sticky from TF2. i will use this idea as the basis of my argument. there are two sub-options for sticky nades in this case: ones that have manual detonation, or ones that are timed.

you may ask, why wouldn't they explode if walked over? well, in a game as fast as AC, that would be really shitty. Area denial in any game slows down the pace. AC is an inherently quick game (not as fast as quake, but faster than many shooters out there). by adding stickies that can cling to cubes, you add the fear of people not being able to go that route. AC, while having very flexible paths to the flag, still does not have enough to keep the pace. when you see a carpet of stickies, you have to decide; can i walk over them or is the player listening attentively (i say listening because there are not many good angles to watch over good "spots" to place stickies, so like AC, you would need to hear). the problem is, most likely people will be able to bypass the carpet. in a standard 3v3, you usually do not have the time or advantage to allocate a person to watch over the carpet. so nades that require manual detonation will not be a big deterrent as one would hope they would be, and may altogether be useless for defensive purposes.

i say defensive because a mechanic from tf2 may very likely carry over into this concept: air detonation. with manual detonation, you can detonate sticky nades as they are in the air. this provides much more freedom in area denial as you can now use this aggressively. it is hard to fight someone as they blast bombs in your face. like timed detonation, this mechanic would lead to many a strategy of nadespam. explosive spam is often quite annoying, and is an argument many have against the addition of a rocket launcher. of course you could limit the amount of nades to normal levels, but that also makes these nades useless as you need a lot of them to properly use them for area denial.

there is also the concept of shooting them off with bullets; this works in TF2 as the majority of the guns are semi-automatic, so it requires ample time removing a carpet instead of spraying it down

however i am not sure my argument will hold true; they work (and are very powerful) in TF2 because the guns are semi-automatic, so bullet damage comes slower (albeit harder as they usually are shotgun based). a competent AR player could probably mow down a sticky spammer before they even detonate a sticky, making the nades useless for aggression and defense.

HOPE FOR STICKIES

Spoiler

i am sure in any case that the devs and HOPEFULLY TESTERS would properly adapt such explosives to the game in a way they are balanced, useful and not detrimental to the current playstyle of AC. i also know many alternative uses for these could be found and implemented (sticky jumping anyone?)

[Ronald_Reagan]

+1 for chainsaw launcher. Only weapon remaining that we need to add.

[killerjoe]

If you shoot a gun IRL it doesnt go back to its original place either, it is you who pulls it down

this

No point in getting technical. It's gravity like waffles said. As soon as you stop shooting it should go back down to normal again the gun ain't a rocket.

---

Plus if im supposed to hold the gun down maybe I have to hold the gun properly as well otherwise it flies out of my hand?

[Marti]

if its gravity it would fall to the ground

let me rephrase myself then

its you who puts the gun back in place. (by pulling up because gravity would drag it down to the floor, and by pulling down because you still hold your gun and your hands dont go down cuz of fking gravity either)

[Waffles]

i was joking. if you intend to fire a real gun more than once quickly, you have to pull the gun back down to account for recoil to maintain accuracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOzyqiT1FFA

a good idea of what im talking about. skip ahead to see the slow motion

[Marti]

i was joking.

Mad killerjoe? :D

[*H1TM4N*]

mines, heavy machineguns, where are the tanks?

You forgot the nuke, that kills all players (including team mates) on MasterServer.