A discussion on the role of q2w's railgun

July 24, 2009 - 17:59pm

So I make a comment in the quake2world irc channel about how much the Lightning gun owns, being that the Lightning gun is a non-q2 weapon, in an essentially Quake 2 game, albeit much improved one...and Smeggy(aka Mr Smeghammer) brings up the issue of the railgun, and how it fulfills its role in Quake 2 World.

His point was, "boy, doesn't anyone else think that the railgun is too powerful in the right[or wrong, depending on which side you are:O)] hands?" As a player who has played The progenitor of sniper-esque hitscan gaming weapons--THE Quake 2--on a hardcore/competitive level since 1998/99, yes, EVEN against LPBs who would initially own me due to their 150 ms ping advantage: I can see EXACTLY where he is coming from.

I agree with Smeggy to a certain extent. But I think it is important to note that I am also *huge* fan of increasing one's defensive talents and abilities too, as opposed to having a game designer make every weapon in the same "league" of potency and power. For instance, in the original q2 back in 1997, the Railgun was still brand new and fresh, one of the big reasons being that it was a tightly-focused hitscan weapon that gave you *massive* powers if you learned to aim it properly. 12 years later, and everyone *has* learned to aim it properly, even to bot-like levels. Add to that fact that q2w has a remarkable mouse-tracking response and overall "light-footed" engine response, and this is where the problem lies, the problem that has made Smeggy, and others, come to question the power of q2w's Railgun.

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When the game Quake 4 came out, one of the big complaints against it was the same as discussed here: how fuckin overpowered the railgun seemed to be. And--yup--id and their team went right ahead and addressed the problem adequately, by dropping the initial railgun slug count to 7 as opposed to 10 in Death Match, and fixing the hitboxes encapsulating one's player model to a smaller size, ensuring that your enemy railer had to exert aiming effort to land a rail on ya.

Now, I think that at this point, with the same q4 gameplay balances transferred to q2w(FYI albeit q2w's netcode seems to greatly fix the hitbox problem), it is time for the **player**--not the developer--to invest some effort into building strategic and tactical skills in his gaming style--like knowing when to run for cover and lay low when you're short on armor(hence, being easily fraggable by the railgun); or knowing when and how to lay down suppressive fire with the grenade launcher or a few spam rockets at well-known choke points; OR Even knowing how to use the quite powerful MG as an anti-hitscan weapon, which, because of its high accuracy and moderate power, can easily eat away at the enemy rail gunner if you know how to move well enough to thwart his aiming. Players can get even more creative than these tactics are, and create a flexible defensive style as the game calls for it.

This employment of strong defense, along with excellent map layouts that "fit" the game's weapon characteristics like a glove, is the true, and more importantly, long-term solution to The Quake Universe's railgun problem. I mean like, we've also seen this same "Balance of weapons" problem in the wildly popular game Battlefield 2, also! In the game Battlefield 2, there came a point where very talented jet-hores--immune to anti-air defenses catapulted by the enemy(most of them being 20-24 players who made up a 32 player team)--would rape and rape the 24 seemingly helpless people with fly-by bombing runs and drive-bys. People eventually got so fed up that when the new Battlefield 2142 came out, BF 2's developer, Dice, nerfed the battlefield air craft so bad that the game was deeply deprived of the fun, from seeing a jet "roar" past your head at a billion miles per hour, dropping bombs that weighed twice that.

But don't you see? At WHAT expense do we have to nerf the phatness out of a game? Isn't a 25 million dollar f-18 jet damn near invisible against ground troops the first Place? Exactly!!! ***Have we*** lost sight of the leetness and ultimate manifestation of power that ***WAS*** the railgun, in the original 1997 Quake 2? I think, ladies and gentlemen, that we have. But at what expense? Not wanting to learn how to fly a jet ourselves to take the rapij flyboy down? Or not learning how to maneuver against the l33t aim of a railer?
or...

...Not building our offensive AND defensive skills, to counter the quintessential offensive weapon of the WHOLE gaming universe?

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These are my thoughts, ladies and gents, and I would certainly love to hear yours. So post on!!!

Peace=]

spirit

August 12, 2009 - 06:49am

The RG is a very powerfull weapon in both q2 and q2w, that's for sure. I wouldn't call that a problem, but Henneck and me thought about suggesting to reduce its power a bit more than once.

Imo the only situations where it really is *too* powerfull are very large and open areas where you can instantly kill your opponent from insane distances without giving him any chance of fighting back if he doesn't have the RG. Therefore I'd say that *if* we want to reduce the RGs power, we could reduce the damage gradually after a certain distance. Messing with hitboxes is no good idea as it affects many other things.

wakeup

September 25, 2009 - 08:22am

I wouldnt decrease dmg at range since it is a sniping weapon and what would sniping be without long range? I would rather try to introduce hitboxes. Reward aim, weaken "tags". head:100 torso:75 arms/legs: 50.

spirit

September 25, 2009 - 10:32am

We're talking about *very* long range here, like flag-to-flag distance in q3ctf4.

PkzRelaxiN

September 05, 2009 - 10:27am

Even though in my OP, I *may* have come off as a player who doesn't want to see much changes done to the RG, I feel that the solution to the RG's dominance, that You and Henneck thought up, is EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!

Imo=D!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only is you guy's RG solution quite effective(without actually having seen it in game, but I imagine that your plan is as good on paper as it might be in-game), but I truly believe that having the railgun do less harm to people from the said long-distances, will add a pleasant degree of depth of q2w's gameplay. And while I still prefer Quake-style games over games like UT or Battlefield, for its relatively simplistic, smooth, and straight-to-the-point action, it would still be interesting to see gameplay factors introduced to Quake, to perhaps make the game a little bit more distinct, challenging, and memorable(as opposed to "carbon copies" of fps shooters that do not introduce anything fresh to the gaming table!!!)=D

PkzRelaxiN

September 07, 2009 - 17:53pm

Hi Everyone^_^
While it is little debatable that the Railgun can be an overpowered weapon in Quake games, it is often overlooked that the Lightning Gun, in each Quake game that it appears in, can be just as overpowered a gun in the right hands.

However, this seems to be an opinion only held by the hardest core and loyal Quake *2* fans, where the Lightning Gun is replaced by the Chaingun. As you may know, the Chaingun serves almost the same role as does the Lightning gun - - - that is, the CG is a highly offensive, short-to-midrange weapon, that its Users can usually only get a limited amount of ammo to sustain His or Her attack on their opponents.

What makes these two special Quake weapons so...special...is that they tend to drain the health of Your Enemies in a rather fast manner; so when the LG or CG is used on The Enemy, The Enemy sees Their health numbers dwindling quickly, and They instantly think "oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I'm DYINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG." Yesh, the CG and the LG gets Our blood pumping=D

The MAIN difference between Quake 2's Chaingun, and Quake 1(3, 4, and Q2W)'s Lightning Gun, is that while both of these guns are highly offensive and powerful in nature, ONLY the Chaingun...is the Weapon that has a "power check" implemented in its design. How So, Women and Fellaz????=D Well, while the Lightning Gun works at maximum power at any distance, from the time you start shooting it, right up to the time you end using it; the CHAINGUN, needs a "Warm up" time, during which initially, the Chaingun's bullets are spat out of the gun's chambers at a relatively slow rate, and at a VERY inaccurate spread. As the gun's chambers are rotated more quickly, more bullets are shot out in a proportional amount of time to the increasing rate of the Chaingun's RPM(Rotations Per Minute), and at an accuracy that just tears down your opponents out of his corpse.

This "Warm up" time makes the Chaingun more adrenaline pumping, as the Chaingun's warm-up time requires its Users to have an ability to "foresee" WHEN the most effective time for using the Chaingun against His or Her Opponents will be, since the CG User will usually be putting His or Herself into grave danger while waiting for the Chaingun to be at maximum strength, while The Enemy is shooting guns back that are quite a bit more powerful than His/Her CG in the outset of Their battle. As the Chaingun's barrels are rotated at an increasing RPM, the CG's User will most likely need to move as closely as possible to their Victim, as, while more bullets are fired more accurately, the Chaingun is almost out of ammo - - - Hence, requiring a Smart Player to get "every last ounce" of damage done to Their Enemy, by not risking missing a bullet.

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As you may see^_^ The Chaingun is quite more of a balanced weapon than the Lightning Gun has ever been. Especially when...people like myself(who hasn't played Quake 3 on a "serious" level since 2002), jumps into a Quake live(a free game, no doubt=D) Clan Arena server, for a fun game or two, spawns into a map he little knows, spawns right in the middle of 3-4 People from the Enemy team, and Lo and Behold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My Enemies *****DAMN WELL KNOW***** that I am a "Newb," all pull out the Lightning Gunz and surround me? And? I think you know the rest looooooooooooooooooooooooool.(oh, and "tiered" servers for people of "certain ranks"? Eh...didn't quite work out well enough for me^_^)

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With experiences like that in every Quake Game that has the Lightning gun(except for Quake 2 World, of course, since Quake 2 World's weapons are almost immaculately balanced and counter-balanced with ALL of each other...and, as far as my experiences go, Quake 4[The lightning gun just seems to be *less* abused there, as well. But it can and has been abused...]), I would like to propose an idea...

Would you guys embrace a modification of Quake 2 World's Lightning Gun abilities?

What I would like to propose is, instead of having Q2W's Lightning Gun be as powerful as it is currently, at any distance it can currently present its threat, would it be a feasible and desirable idea to have the Lightning gun do about 60% percent of its current Damage at its maximum range, a range that will be at its greatest when the LG User has the maximum amount of Lightning Gun ammo; and as the Quake 2 World Lightning Gun's User ammo gets depleted, the Lightning Gun's power is increased proportionately to the rate of which the ammo is fired and is spent, with the Lightning Gun's range of firepower decreasing to about 60-40%?

This Lightning Gun modification will perhaps, make this Quake 2 World weapon a Much more balanced gun in the Q2W weapon Roster, one that will be less apt to be abused by abusers, and will, imo, make the Quake Universe Lightning Gun a much more challenging and interesting weapon, one that will require skill from its users, in the form of the use of premeditation(to ensure that one gathers enough Lightning Gun ammo in A Battlefield to Make sure one can use the LG at its best...and of course, having to scout for ammo in a live battlefield will present dangers to the Lightning Gun user that were never seen in Previous Quake games, since The LG user will NOT be able to fend off or engage into attacks so easily any more...);

and Elite Maneuverability and nimbleness that the Lightning Gun Handler WILL have to have in his feet, since when the Lightning Gun on-hand ammo is decreased, its Range of Firepower will be noticeably decreased too, with the added incentive for the LG user to move in for da kill, because as the LG's range is decreased, its potency is Strengthened; And...the poor Victim of the User's Lightning Gun will already have some of His or Her health shaved off, which will make them more prone to be electrocuted and fried by the LG!!!

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Thank you all, for your consideration of this idea to modify Quake 2 World's Lightning Gun.

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Oh, and, I found it elite that you guys made the Shotgun and the Super Shotgun's bullet spread seemingly infinitely random and varied, between every shot that is bucked from each respective gun.

Past Quake 4 critics will definitely enjoy that, as have I^_^

Thorn

July 25, 2009 - 11:06am

You're away with it mate...

Jester

July 24, 2009 - 21:33pm

/me rails PkzRelaxiN

PkzRelaxiN

July 24, 2009 - 23:16pm

hahaah. I'll be the first to say, "Good One":D lol hahahahaha

Quetoo BETA Pwning nubz one rail slug at a time.

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A discussion on the role of q2w's railgun