[Suggestion] Charge weapons auto-release

[tsukiyomaru0]

Again, one important question: It had never been an issue for MANY releases, so why change it NOW?

[Korby]

Just because one did not perceive an issue as such does not make it a nonissue.

The reality of the situation is that certain charge weapons are just too powerful in one way or another and they need to have something attached to them to stop that.
The main question is what.

[Orange juice :l]

Metagames
don't
change
over
time

[LlamaHombre]

Wrote these for the dev chat to try and explain my own personal reasoning as to why a change like this would be beneficial to the game as a whole. Haven't modified them at all, so some stuff might seem out of context, but my points stand either way.

In regards to why I feel it wouldn't damage Deathmatch balance, and would help a majority of the supported modes in the game:

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I'm personally going to be writing this out under the assumption that the subject here is not "auto-releasing" a given charge, but rather attaching a disadvantage to holding onto a charge.
While this disadvantage would likely have to vary from weapon to weapon, a simple one that could be applied as an example would be a .75x damage modifier or a larger ammo consumption upon releasing the charge beyond a given (telegraphed) time interval.
I'd like to provide reasoning as to why I think said change wouldn't damage Deathmatch balance or flow beyond punishing sitting around in an area and hitting people as they pass.
An active player may choose to use charged weapons as an initiator to any kind of conflict, be it close quarters or fishing for a lucky hit from far off. While the number of people in a given deathmatch can vary based on server popularity or time of day, I'd like to go on the general assumption that facing at least 4 other opponents is likely.
With this in regard, one may want to charge on hand because they know that by the time they encounter someone else, their charge will be ready to fire at an opponent. A fight breaks out between the player and an opponent, maybe two. The player releases his charged weapon. Regardless of whether he hits an opponent or not, the player is likely to either charge up again and try for more pure damage or AOE damage, or switch to another weapon to finish off his opponent.
The fight finishes, and regardless of the outcome, the player intends on using charger weapons because he enjoys that type of weapon.
A similar loop continues in which the player uses the weapon, and by the time he's able to charge it up, he's presented with another confrontation.
The cycle continues on and on until the game ends, and the player may either win or lose depending on his time-efficiency and ability to participate in firefights.
In deathmatch, better results tend to come out of continued engagement with other players. This continued engagement encourages a player using a charge weapon to find a victim before they waste time holding onto a charge that they could've been using to get kills with a different style of weapon.
Applying said disadvantage to an overcharge may teach a player to learn better deathmatch skills by either encouraging the continuous use of charge shots such that minimal time is wasted, or to encourage a more varied weapon selection to better capitalize on any given map's weapon selection.
Either way, my point is this. Adding a disadvantage to charge weapons may come off initially as an unnecessary nerf to something that isn't inherently flawed, but it will ultimately encourage more cutthroat, intense games of the game's title mode.
 
Base LMS tends to be similar in that one's continued interaction with other opponents can be encouraged by providing the disadvantage, and it would ultimately see a decline in foolish plans done in basic LMS.
As it's every man for themselves, games can either be really cutthroat or really campy and stally. A more interactive, offensive shift in gameplay would be seen by the implementation of said disadvantage, as matches wouldn't simply devolve to traversing around large battlefields trying to find some guy sitting in a single spot with a fully charged weapon at the go.
It rewards the player searching by removing pressure from the situation. The seeker is able to approach more freely knowing that even if he does take the hit, there's a good chance that the hider will already be under some punishment for having sat around in a room waiting for people to move through. The hider is given a slight disadvantage from normal situations, and is discouraged from his tactics in favor of a more active approach to the seeker.
One might think, "why wouldn't the hider just dump his charge each time it deteriorated, then?" in which I'd respond that more likely than not, there's a number of indirect disadvantages to doing so.
For starters, they'd lose out on a lot of ammo just by releasing fully charged shots every so often at nothing. These released shots may also incriminate them by providing some sort of noise upon fire or explosion.
Ammo is critical in LMS modes, and players would still want to take their shot even if it's at a disadvantage. So of course, they'll probably use it like they normally would and that's ok.
Where the disadvantage gives leeway to is the opposing player, who isn't as heavily suppressed by an individual's decision to plant their feet in an area and block them out of an area.
In fact, it may even promote careful usage of charge shots such that an attacker can approach a defender with a stronger shot that had better timing and purpose put into it than that of the defender.
 
Team DM and Team LMS add the same problems to their base game modes, and it's a simpler problem than you may think.
There's less people to shoot at.
Holding a charge is even more heavily promoted out of moments where there'll be nothing to shoot at. It's also promoted by sheer numbers of any given squad, in which any given group of individuals is unlikely to be able to stand a chance against powerful (often heavy AoE) tools of destruction.
Disadvantage provides similar effects as it had in past examples: Promotes better time-management, promotes more opportunistic play, reduces overwhelming pressure provided by purely defensive play.
Other weapons are provided a chance to shine out as initiators or power sources, and even smarter usage of charge weapons is promoted.
 
My problems with charge weapons in duel are the exact problems I find with them in LMS.
 
As an aside, I find it slightly weird that defensive play through charge weapons is so heavily punishable in Deathmatch while it's such an overbearing force in just about every other supported mode this game has.
I feel the overcharge disadvantage is a great start to bring weapon balance closer to each other between modes. Reread above for my reasoning as to why.

In response to being questioned as to what makes weapons like Atomic Fire worthy of change to begin with:

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I'd say there's a number of reasons why a weapon like atomic fire is a problem.
Let's just list off characteristics of the weapon type real quick.
High charge damage, average-to-high ammo consumption, medium-to-slow charge time (in relation to I guess Super Arm), AoE coverage, charge noise of some fashion.
Let's talk about each of these one by one.
 
High damage values allow for easier kills than tends to be required with a number of other weapons in the core. Lobbing a charge shot at an opponent will more likely than not either kill them outright or force them to retreat in fear of a follow-up attack from any weapon (because if they don't, chances are they're going to die from a health disadvantage). In the case of Atomic Fire, Homing Sniper, MM8 upgrades, etc., these weapons are extremely potent because they don't give the opponent a lot of room to escape after being hit on the sole factor that more often than not they OHKO the opponent or leave the opponent mostly dead with minimal effort needed to secure the remaining kill. A player with a charge provokes the opponent to either switch to a charge weapon to have a standing chance against the firepower of the player, or be forced to approach the player with weapons that may not inherently do enough damage from far enough of a range to secure their safety against high (sometimes AoE) burst damage. Their damaging potential is by far their biggest strength, both because they just do a lot of damage, and provide pressure on the opponent. It's extremely difficult to handle direct confrontation with a person using a charge weapon without a charge of your own. Note that while there are a few weapons that I would consider to be outliers to this dilemma (Hard Knuckle provides clean quick burst with little consequence, Magnet Missile allows for heavy spacing with notable projectile speed and punishes camping with a charge, etc). I would find that a vast majority of weapons in the core are ill-equipped to handle charge weapons in a given neutral game.
 
Ammo consumption is a drawback, sure. In LMS modes, you get a couple of good hits with the higher up charge weapons, and a few more with the weapons lower in the hierarchy. Fact of the matter is, every kill in LMS means that a player has been removed from play. As this number dwindles, the effectiveness and efficiency of charge weapons increase, and pressure is intensified on an attacker trying to approach an opponent with a charge. For the sake of not repeating myself, please go read my pastebin for an examination of a typical LMS endgame with charge weapons in play. In smaller deathmatches, however, ammo is abundant and designed around the distribution of typically 8-12 weapons and numerous other players. The lack of players needing to take in ammo allows for a person who wants to use say Atomic Fire to be able to just refill after having taken a shot. He only needs a third of the bar, and a small weapon energy refills about a fourth if memory serves me right. Add this in conjunction to how close smaller weapon capsules tend to be with each other, and there's rarely a case in which Atomic Fire should ever be empty in these situations.
 
A person charging a shot has weaknesses while he is charging. He cannot fire back at an opponent without risking losing his charge and having to start anew. However, this timeframe means nothing once the charge is complete, as the user reaps the full benefits of having the charge at minimal cost for having charged to begin with. In fact, if a player isn't discovered while they're charging, then there is no downside. They take no damage, and next time they're seen by an opponent, they have a weapon of destruction at the ready. Homing Sniper is a living sin in this regard. Regardless of whether a player using that weapon is discovered during their charge time, it's so inhumanely quick that no combination of weapons in the core is able to kill them in the time it takes to charge (sans one shots or ripper shenanigans). They may be down some life, sure, but they're also carrying a charge that will tear through nearly all of your health bar. It's not worth pursuing a player with a charge at that point because if you miss and they hit, you're as good as dead despite having found them charging. You'll be missing enough health that a basic attack is enough to finish you off. Then they just charge again. This problem persists throughout Atomic Fire, too. While the charge time is more easily punishable, they still have instant death at the go once that charge completes. If you fail to kill them, and they hit you, you die and they're able to charge up again such that it'll be done by the time you have the weapons to fight said individual again.
 
Charge weapons tend to have some kind of area of effect secondary effect that makes the weapons difficult to dodge. Atomic Fire, Duo Fist, Pharaoh Shot, Noise Crush, Super Arm all have relatively large projectiles that serve to fill up hallways easily. They all do lots of damage, and tend to have relatively quick projectile speed. Homing Sniper, Wild Coil, Arrow Buster all have spread built into their design such that it's not necessary to hit every projectile to reap the benefits of having charged to begin with. Landing every hit will all but guarantee that your next attack will kill the opponent, but the chip damage is good enough and forces the opponent to flee out of fear of being chipped down again, if not killed outright. At this point, the charger is given a free cooldown like mentioned previously. They're able to charge in the lack of opposition, and are often far enough from an opponent such that if the opponent decides to shrug off the chip damage and pursue, they will be able to either backpedal (backstrafe, whatever, just move away) from the opponent and continue to apply spread damage or move closer and finish the job. The Area of Effect design around a number of these weapons make them nearly impossible to approach without either being struck by some stupid huge projectile, or succumbing to constant harass or chip damage.
 
Charge noise is every bit a weakness as it is a strength. Above all else, it notifies opponents of your position. While this is a deadly weakness if you're low on health or if there's a lot of opposition ready to deal with you, it gains more and more of a psychological edge over opponents as their numbers dwindle. The noise may be related to the growling of an animal, longing to protect his property from a fellow predator. It signals the user's position, but also signals that they may have total dominion over a part of a map. Charge weapons are already inherently strong engagement weapons, as well as "stand-your-ground" weapons, and the sheer knowledge of an opponent in an area generates pressure. If you approach and try to take map control from him, you have to deal directly with that charged shot. Fail, and you give him a frag and you allow him to keep control over that part of the map, its resources, and any weapons contained there. You can stop it, but if you don't, then it snowballs out of physical control. You can potentially poke at him from far off in hopes of pushing him out, but ultimately the lack of long range weapons will mean that at most you're doing chip damage to a player who can run around an area for health and punish you heavily for attempting to pursue.

Feel free to respond or point out any corrections/opinions you may have to any of this, though I know some of you have already.

[Promestein]

While we're at it, we need to do something about some of these other simply ridiculous weapons. Rolling Cutter, Super Arm, Thunder Beam, Hard Knuckle, Top Spin, Shadow Blade, Ring Boomerang, Gravity Hold, Knight Crusher, Slash Claw, Flame Sword, Flash Bomb, Astro Crush, Spread Drill, Wave Burner, and Lightning Bolt - all of them need to be nerfed because they're effective in certain situations.

Nah, I'm just kidding. But seriously, we need to make charge weapons more trouble than they're worth, so nobody will bother to use them.

[Russel]

Nah, I'm just kidding. But seriously, we need to make charge weapons more trouble than they're worth, so nobody will bother to use them.

This wasn't the point of the suggested change or the topic at hand. The goal of the suggested change was to provide a hopefully non-invasive way to add more strategy to using charge weapons, not make them useless. There's a very broad difference between the two concepts and I want to make it clear the goal is not to gut these weapons but instead facilitate more strategic play with such weapons.

[Promestein]

As it is, they're strong with serious drawbacks. Reducing them to 75% power if overcharged or making them consume more ammo, for instance, would just make people gravitate to other weapons that attain better results with less effort. Like some of the ones I listed off.

Why use Atomic Fire when I have to be careful not to overcharge it on top of its other drawbacks, when I could just throw a Rolling Cutter or two and take them out all the same? Granted, I barely use Atomic Fire anyways as it is, but I definitely won't use it if I can't even prep it before a battle.


I mean, if you guys can nerf charge weapons just enough to where they aren't overlooked in favor of other weapons, fine. But I just think people will disregard charge weapons altogether with such extra limitations on them.

[tsukiyomaru0]

Then again, THIS is what I propose:

The only way I can see this happening is through a SVAR, which would allow the host to set this rule on or off.

That way it won't be a forced implementation and will give people time to see whether it is worth or not the nerf. Then, from there, the version that follows should have the implementation forced.

[JaxOf7]

Just dropping in to take the side of putting more depth in our charge mechanics.
OJ and co. already said it, but yeah, "Don't see people around? Better start charging" is just too optimal with very little reason not to do so, which in turn subtracts from the depth/choice/fun of what you're doing/planning when you're looking for people or opening fights.