What is wrong with FFA DM and why it will change (but not today)

[scar3crow]

Players can't vote-map.

But you can have this simple change and still have the server play maps friendly to ffa and not be so 1v1 or team oriented necessarily (though I'd love some TDM that isnt damn CA).

You can get telefragged by a new spawn -- very uncool.

Another easy change that you can add without imposing other modifications.

Quad respawns too quickly; every 60 seconds is way too fast and ruins the flow of the map.

Depends on the map, but this is still such a small change.

No decent observer system.

Another quakec addition - we see it on other servers without needing to download any extras, it can just as easily be on a FFA server.

These contentions regarding FFA DM ignores the scenario of mods.

The players can be a concern, but all you need for a FFA is 5, and actually, once you get 3 people going in a server, others tend to join. I got Lardarse, Sajt and Monster to go to shmack02 - then we used the mod to make it like FFA dm, disabling all the crap, and changed it to e1m3, and guess what? Players saw activity in whatever monitoring tools they used, and joined. I quit after a single match (leave on a high note I say, cause I'm insecure), but I was told others continued to join.

People aren't being given the option of FFA but apparently they do still enjoy it. FFA DM is wonderful chaos, not bad chaos (which RuneQuake can easily be due to the inanity of certain things). It is the chaos of several different people, looking out only for #1, and the rampage of respawning weapons and powerups. I would kill to see more FFA. And kill, and kill, and kill, and die, and respawn, and kill some more.

If you build it, they will come.

[Perochi]

Mirc would help to find servers a qchat with voice would aswell.

[Canadian*Sniper]

Phenom and I had a chat about what would get the new crowd into Quake. As Phenom said, Vanilla DM was great but now it is showing its age. I proposed some new ideas on changing the physics of quake DM.

all standard vanilla rules PLUS..

• weapon stay (can only pick them up once)
• backpacks aren't dropped on death
• red armour only respawns every 5 minutes
• players start out with the axe, sg, and ng
• all ng spawn points on the map are replaced with ga
• ssg mimics the doom ssg on reload time (slow) and pellet count (20)
• sng fire twice as fast and increase the ammo limit to 400 nails
• gl reload time is a second longer
• rl rocket velocity is slower and the ammo limit is decreased to 50 rockets, but the damage is increased
• lg damage reduced but updated more frequently (similar to quake3)

The purpose of this is to make a deathmatch stand for what it is called. A match full of deaths. Like most DM games, you start out with a crappy melee and ranged weapon. But any weapon you grab after spawning could effectively down someone. This style would make it harder for skilled players to dominate the map since it's a lot easier to die.

It would be neat to have a server running with the above physics and these rules:

• Team Deathmatch RvB
• Automatic team placement on connect
• Friendly Fire enabled
• Killing 3 teammates results in an instant death and 1 minute until respawn penalty
• 15 minute time limit [team with the highest accumulative frag count wins the match]
• map rotation after every match [dm1-dm6, e1m1, e1m2, e1m5, e1m6, e2m1, e3m1, e3m2, and start]
• teams are randomized each map change

*made some edits*
*removed some text*

[PapaSmurf]

Ack, don't change physics. Physics is what makes quake so fun. maybe change the ssg or ng/sng, but please don't change the RL/GL/LG

[Canadian*Sniper]

The purpose of my post was to make the SSG, SNG, GL, RL, and LG deadly, instead of people constantly using RL and LG.

Besides, it's not like I have a button which would change the quake physics on every server or do I? >.>

[Baker]

I've never seen more than 1 degree of change in any mod or any game work successfully, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done. Usually something working involves an incremental change (CTF = Quake with flags, CA = Quake with full spawn, RQ = evolving the 4 basic CTF runes slowly).

You should try your idea on Whitehot.

[Canadian*Sniper]

I tested out a beta change with ORL (and dyne but he left really fast ). It's something I'll consider as an option in whitehot but my posted ideas above are really just first thoughts.

ORL had a neat idea where the ssg fires twice before reloading. It would be interesting to see 2 4-80 damage blasts then a slow reload.

The changes I made in the test were simple:

• 20 pellet ssg
• x2 nailgun and sng speed (I didn't want to spend time making it just sng)
• RL direct hits do 120-160 damage and 0-140 splash damage but move at 3/5 the original velocity
• x2 lg update

My thoughts:
I like ORL's double shot idea. The ng shouldn't fire twice as fast if it were going to be a crap start weapon but it was great to have the sng fire that fast. I think it would be nicer to have a weaker, more accurate lg. And the slow but powerful RL would be a nice twist to get more people to use the SSG at close range.

[PapaSmurf]

My thoughts:
I like ORL's double shot idea. The ng shouldn't fire twice as fast if it were going to be a crap start weapon but it was great to have the sng fire that fast. I think it would be nicer to have a weaker, more accurate lg. And the slow but powerful RL would be a nice twist to get more people to use the SSG at close range.

That sounds a lot like Q2, and that bothers me. Slower rockets is not cool. Beef up the other weapons if you like, but don't change the defining weapon of Q1.

[Canadian*Sniper]

That sounds a lot like Q2, and that bothers me. Slower rockets is not cool. Beef up the other weapons if you like, but don't change the defining weapon of Q1.

My goal is to make every weapon just as deadly as the RL and to not have everyone constantly using the RL. I'd like to hear your input on how the weaker weapons can match up with the Q1 RL. The rockets aren't that much slower really. The original rocket velocity is 1000ish but it's still fairly fast with 600. Great for close and medium range but not as effective as the original Q1 RL for long range.

I don't want to be the only one giving technical input about this idea. Please anyone addon to it.

[PapaSmurf]

I just don't want to play a Q1 mod that messes with the existing mechanic. And I enjoy having tiered weapons, if you want to play a game where every weapon is powerful, play Q3.

[Alc]

I'm kind of with PapaSmurf, although I'd say that if you want to make a couple of other weapons be as desireable as the LG/RG, then that could be interesting. Change the currently worthless weapons, though, not the existing decent ones. Slow rockets = no.

[PapaSmurf]

I would say increas the nail damage to 10, so NG does 10 and SNG does 20, this puts SNG on par with plasma gun from Q3. Increasing the number of pellets from the SSG might not be bad either, but not 22, I would say 18. I'd like to see small tweaks rather than drastic changes. If you start changing the feel of the game, no one who currently plays will want to play.

[Canadian*Sniper]

Ok but work with me here. A rocket usually does around 70-110 splash damage which takes no effort to aim. With only 18 pellets, the SSG at best can only do 72 damage and you have to put more effort into aiming.

[PapaSmurf]

Right, the SSG shouldn't be as powerful as the rocket launcher. The SSG fires faster than the rocket launcher and it is also hitscan. At 18 pellets you're doing roughly around 100 DPS (max), that was the DPS (max) on the Q2 SSG (had a much slower firing rate).

Quake 1 weapon tiers:

Weak weapons:
Shotgun/Nailgun

Medium Weapons:
Super Shotgun/Super Nailgun

Strong Weapons:
Grenade Launcher/Rocket Launcher/Lightning Gun

Other:
Axe

[scar3crow]

I've never seen more than 1 degree of change in any mod or any game work successfully,

You really need to play some TF.