Thoughts on marine weapon pop out/delay
Xao
Join Date: 2012-12-12 Member: 174840Members
Join Date: 2012-12-12 Member: 174840Members
Straight up we all know no one reads and UWE never responds to the ideas and suggestion forum so that's a waste of time and it's why I added the word thoughts to the title to indicate discussion.
On to the topic, the delay on swapping marine weapons because of the pop out each model has, even the the axe and mine have pop out effects that seem incredibly forced (the mine even has a HUD what the fuck am I reading).
This problem occurred to me real early in picking up the game, in NS 1 (I know I know) every good marine lead with the pistol and mopped up with the rifle, the pistol does more dmg per round and when para was actually worth it instead of being situational like it was now you'd normally see skulks pop their heads out of vents corners before attacking, 2 shots of an lmg did 20 dmg, 2 shots of a pistol did 30. I wondered for a long while why NS 2 was the complete opposite, why do people try and take down skulks from miles away with LMG and try to mop up with a semi automatic at close range, it's extremely counter intuitive from an NS 1 perspective or even a common sense perspective.
At first I wanted to blame rego but then after trying to put it into practice it's because of this ridiculous weapon pop out animation every weapon has, it adds some artificial delay between swapping weapons for god knows why. It wasn't until I was playing through MW2 SP last night night and went through the tutorial at the start that I realised not even CoD fucks this up, every CoD game specifically points out to you it is faster to weapon swap your secondary out then it is to reload your primary, now noting that NS2 has taken so many 'IMMERSION' aspects from this series why the fuck didn't follow the basics of FPS of allowing people to weapon swap instantly.
Whether it be rocket arena, source, CoD or even NS2's own predecessor not a single FPS era has been stupid enough to punish the player for swapping out weapons by adding some artificial delay weapon pop out animations, it's the year 2013 and right now I could pull a pistol out of a holster and not wait for some arbitrary animation before firing, there has been no lore aspect between NS 1 or NS 2 that explains why some fabled popout™ technology was added to all weapons (although they probably built the new power system, sentry factories and obs passive scan), why is this in the game and why is it so counter intuitive to everything FPS?
edit: words.
On to the topic, the delay on swapping marine weapons because of the pop out each model has, even the the axe and mine have pop out effects that seem incredibly forced (the mine even has a HUD what the fuck am I reading).
This problem occurred to me real early in picking up the game, in NS 1 (I know I know) every good marine lead with the pistol and mopped up with the rifle, the pistol does more dmg per round and when para was actually worth it instead of being situational like it was now you'd normally see skulks pop their heads out of vents corners before attacking, 2 shots of an lmg did 20 dmg, 2 shots of a pistol did 30. I wondered for a long while why NS 2 was the complete opposite, why do people try and take down skulks from miles away with LMG and try to mop up with a semi automatic at close range, it's extremely counter intuitive from an NS 1 perspective or even a common sense perspective.
At first I wanted to blame rego but then after trying to put it into practice it's because of this ridiculous weapon pop out animation every weapon has, it adds some artificial delay between swapping weapons for god knows why. It wasn't until I was playing through MW2 SP last night night and went through the tutorial at the start that I realised not even CoD fucks this up, every CoD game specifically points out to you it is faster to weapon swap your secondary out then it is to reload your primary, now noting that NS2 has taken so many 'IMMERSION' aspects from this series why the fuck didn't follow the basics of FPS of allowing people to weapon swap instantly.
Whether it be rocket arena, source, CoD or even NS2's own predecessor not a single FPS era has been stupid enough to punish the player for swapping out weapons by adding some artificial delay weapon pop out animations, it's the year 2013 and right now I could pull a pistol out of a holster and not wait for some arbitrary animation before firing, there has been no lore aspect between NS 1 or NS 2 that explains why some fabled popout™ technology was added to all weapons (although they probably built the new power system, sentry factories and obs passive scan), why is this in the game and why is it so counter intuitive to everything FPS?
edit: words.
Comments
I've notice the delay. It doesn't bother me that much. It's still faster to switch to an alternate weapon than reload the LMG.
I would like the delay to be shorten if you drop you initial weapon, bringing up the alternate, rather than switching weapons.
Concerning sniping skulks with an LMG, it's pretty easy since there is no recoil and the cone is very small.
additionally, NS2 players usually lead with the rifle because the pistol does "Light" damage which reduces damage based on armor. I also disagree with this because it's pretty much an isolated case and only makes it confusing and the combat text even more ambiguous.
You might want to check in game again, but switching to pistol IS faster than reloading the LMG in ns2......
Most people switch to pistol after LMG clip runs out, unless they feel they have plenty of time to reload the LMG.
Yup, damage types shift the way weapons are used. Dunno if ns1 had these.
Basically, the pistol is designed to be effective after the rifle. It has higher damage per shot (25L) than the rifle (10N). But since it is light damage, armor cripples its effectiveness.
Base skulk vs pistol:
70/10 = 110 effective HP -> 5 hits
Base skulk vs rifle:
70/10 = 90 effective HP -> 9 hits
Well... That math seems counter intuitive... Someone check my numbers. With carapace, it becomes decidedly more favorable to lead witj the rifle.
Effective pistol HP = 190 -> 8 hits, 2x
Effective rifle HP = 130 -> 13 hits, about 1.5x
Anyway, where the pistol is supposed to excel is in finishing a lifeform that has lost its armor. It's quicker than reloading and more accurate at range to help you kill lerks/fades that are trying to escape.
If you swap your weapons really fast (scroll like mad), you will get huge fps drop (goes from 60 when I am facing a wall to like 40).
Have you actually checked the time it takes to switch between weapons? Because the animation has nothing to do with that. There was a delay in NS1, just like in NS2, but there was no explicit animation, just a time when the marine was lifting the gun and not yet being able to shoot. The animation is only for show, and it's actually pretty fast in my opinion to switch between weapons. I have no idea if it was faster or slower back in NS1, but every single game has some kind of a delay between weapons.
Two major reasons: the spread of the LMG in NS1 was far greater, and thus killing skulks miles off was pretty hard with it. The pistol had a pin-point accuracy and thus was the equivalent of a sniper rifle, especially with its high damage output (which was 20 per shot, not 15 like you implied). The current NS2 LMG has a such a small spread and cone that it's just as well to shoot the targets afar with it instead of the pistol. And the second reason is that it deals light damage, so an undamaged lifeform will easily shrug all your pistol shots with armor counting as 4 against it.
The most unintuitive thing ever is to prefer shooting targets afar with a handgun instead of an automatic rifle. Have you ever held a gun?
The 'artificial delay' is already there, it's not induced the by the animation, the animation is only there to make us see that the gun isn't ready to fire yet. Just like in every other game. I have no idea about MW2 whether it's somehow special or not, but I haven't played a single FPS where there wasn't some sort of a delay before you could fire a weapon you just switched to.
You sound like your biggest problem is with the animation, which is like saying that marines deal too much damage because you can see so much blood spattering when the aliens are hit. It's only for the looks and has nothing to do with the mechanics. The delay is there for a reason, it's in every other game too.
Patch notes:
Fixed the low fps from rapidly changing weapons: Told the players not to do that.
Dont like playing the realism card but could you swap from a lmg to a pistol in 0.001 ms and be ready to fire with a pack of angry alien dogs biting your knees?
Ummmm....... Switch>reload in NS2....
Was not aware of the light damage on pistol thing...that leaves more questions than it solves tho but that's for another day.
This is what I feel like switching to pistol should feel like or vice versa from pistol to LMG:
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cv352t6tf50#t=182s
edit:
Thanks for clarifying that m8, 2 people can quote shit out of context and it will get us an equal distance nowhere, no other game has an extended club remix of weapon switching like NS 2 does and you know it, if there was a delay in NS 1 you would have to count it with something that counts nano seconds and not normal person seconds as it was indistinguishable, the animation was for purely for show.
Forgot to add 1 armor equates to:
4 HP vs light.
2 HP vs normal.
1 HP vs heavy.
As for how various dmg types get added and computed, I am lost.
If you really want to get technical, why can't I load 9 shotgun shells in my shotgun? Put one shell in, pump the slide, load 8 shells. Hell, why can't I load 51 bullets in my LMG? Put the magazine in (don't say 'clip'), chamber a round, remove the magazine and manually add one bullet into it. That ONE bullet could be the difference between life and death.
I say do away with realism altogether. Who needs models for the weapons? Just give us a targeting reticle with an indicator that tells you whether you're using weapon A or B along with a ammo count. Sound effects? Get rid of them. Just make pew-pew-pew noises when you press the mouse button. While we're at it, give us the Duke Nukem boot kick animation...with both feet, so we can shoot while kicking with both feet at the same time.
You reaaaally shouldn't go down the road of weapon authenticity, since even the darling of all first person shooters, counter-strike, is very "game-y" in this regard. Not to mention the dozens of other games, of course.
I can't tell if this is serious or satire.....
tongue-in-cheek
3rd paragraph
I payed more attention to this delay last night. I still can't figure out why the OP os complaining about it. It is a very small delay that doesn't hut you in battle. It sounds more like an excuse for bad play.
I quoted almost your entire post, how is that "out of context"? Could you clarify, or did I just make too much sense for you to bear?
I admit (after checking) that in NS1 the delay is much smaller. But I still wouldn't venture to say that it's too long in NS2. For example CS:S seems to have pretty similar deploying times depending on the weapon, with both the NS2 LMG and CS:S AK47 having a little less than a second of deployment time.
You're well entitled to your opinion about the weapon switching delays being too long, but don't expect everyone to agree. But your problem with it seems to be the animations and that the animations supposedly induce the delay. But as Hugh himself here stated, it's the other way around. You first set the delay, then you make the according animation, which is only for show.
I actually read an interesting article about game-testing in a Finnish gaming magazine that briefly addressed how weapon reload animations affect how players perceive the amount of time spent reloading the weapon. The more stuff happened on screen, the faster it seemed to happen for the players. They were talking about Borderlands 2, and when they playtesters complained that a specific weapon was too slow to reload, the devs added more details and faster movement to the animation, without reducing the reload time at all. And behold, the playtesters praised the quick fix.
UWE could try this out. Make the marine juggle some balls during reload and deployment animations.