NewDM: A new look at Quake Deathmatch

[Canadian*Sniper]

3 people have reasoned with me that there's no point in getting 150 GA if 100 health lasts 50 GA. So for the next update I'm giving the GA 50, YA 100, RA 150 and pent 200. This will make the pent powerup even more powerful. This reduction in armour will not make a huge difference.

I'm fixing the exit code so that e1m4's nextmap is e1m8, e2m3's nextmap is e2m7, and dm1-dm6 see some action through the END teleport in startmap.

It's interesting how episode 3 and 4 include their secret levels in the deathmatch rotation. Same goes for runes where they appear in deathmatch except for the episode 1 rune.

[Stung]

How about that super mario brothers music?

[scar3crow]

Hey CDN, since you are going to reduce rocket ammo even further, I vote for making rockets 1.5x more powerful.

In most scenarios rockets are still king, the ssg and sng are just more useful than they used to. Going into a standard mid-distance battle, the guy with rockets generally stands a better chance of winning over the SNG or SSG wielder, even with low rocket count. In tight spaces, its more quickness of the draw... Think of the rocket launcher as more of a closer, less of every weapon.

There's no reward for killing someone. How rewarding is it to kill someone who has RL, and you've got SSG or SNG;

Well, you killed them with the SSG or SNG, which should tell you in many situations, it can be the better gun.

What's funny, is the longer you go without dieing, the more ammo starved you are. We just played e4m5, the Palace of Hate, and I did not have any rockets the entire game, I just used shaft. Shaft was already more powerful than the RL, and now it's even more so, it's not even funny.

This one is valid I think, as I have encountered it on some maps as well. And that partially has to do with the fact that the mapper wanted less rocket oriented battle... The entity count for those ammo types are the same on a stock or NewDM server, it just gives different counts.

I like the not dropping of packs in a way, it feels more tooth and claw style battle.

However there is the aspect of ammo seemingly evaporating in certain levels. A few ideas:

• You can only pickup ammo for a weapon you have
• Q3A weapon style, if you are under the minimum ammo, it refills you to that weapons minimum on touch
• Individual weapon drop with the ammo intact which you can pick up - even if you already have the gun.

Just different ideas, I like the lack of packs, partially cause it prevents hoarding - but rather than hoarding we sometimes have a famine.

Maybe there should just be a list of maps that seem to suffer from this drought, and provide an entity definition to add a few more rocket packs in different spots. Or even out the lightning damage... I guess it makes sense to want the most frags - but I'll be damned if a close range ssg kill isn't just as satisfying as a win sometimes (ask Peg, I played pong with him last night using my ssg and Baker's rocket on e1m1).

[=peg=]

but I'll be damned if a close range ssg kill isn't just as satisfying as a win sometimes (ask Peg, I played pong with him last night using my ssg and Baker's rocket on e1m1).

very true.. or blasting ppl on a nade that u put there the shot befor

[PapaSmurf]

I like the idea of refilling your ammo to minimum on touch--one thing to look out for is people simply standing on the weapon and continuously firing. Although, this could promote people simply standing on the weapon.

Why are people so adverse to backpacks, it's a staple of Q1, and it's great. I'm not sure what you're trying to prevent here. Campers? I've never really minded campers, and it's fun to try and root them out of their nest.

Now, i'm confused on the armor again. Is Green armor 30% or 33%? I just did some tests and it looks like it's 33%, but I thought the code had it at 30%. Anyway let's look at some results of armor/health combos and the required damage before death (assuming no health pickups)

100 GA + 100 H = 150 damage
150 YA + 100 H = 250 damage
200 RA + 100 H = 300 damage

You want to reduce the effectiveness of armor...without being to pervasive, I say change GA to 50 GA, YA to 100 YA, and RA to 150 RA, now you have the following:

50 GA + 100 H = 150 damage (no change)
100 YA + 100 H = 200 damage
150 RA + 100 H = 250 damage

so the current RA would be the same (damage wise) as the old YA, but now you run out of your armor at around 38 health, rather than 0. I would then buff pentagram to give you more than 200 armor, i mean it's a 5 minute powerup, and all you get is 200 armor, that's kind of lame.

[Phenom]

Add a degenerating hook rune (just an idea) Hook can only be shot 3-5 times before it breaks

Make exiting the level not kill you but only set you on fire. That just seems cooler
*Player tried to leave so Shub light player's hair on fire* etc..

add 4 runes, speed, defense, rapidfire, super jump (just an idea)

[foq]

oh god no runes

[LordHavoc]

Idea: make a dying player drop a megahealth instead of a backpack.

I've read that in Expert CTF the backpacks give something like 50 health in addition to weapons/ammo, which helps the winner of a duel not immediately die to the next person they meet, and this really is true of all games.

Personally I like the lack of backpacks, the game looks a lot less silly without magically rotating backpacks in the aftermath of a battle, and it allows the level designer to limit the players' ammo a bit better.

[Baker]

The lack of backpacks is surprisingly the best thing about the mod.

It is remarkable the problems it solves -- camping, an elite player never running out of ammo, etc.

Someone like Scott, who is very strong in DM, still easily wins ... but there is something less frustrating about the play.

The current setup really favors map knowledge. Something that I like and was always part of old school Quake.

Before playing this, I never realized the enormous surplus of ammo and health in Quake. Ammo management is almost a non-issue in standard Quake DM and as long as you don't die, there are so many health boxes everywhere in standard DM that you will quickly be back to full health.

[Canadian*Sniper]

About the backpack situation. This is something that I hope to please everyone with. Right now, I implemented the backpack drop to drop the user's weapon instead. It will either have 25 shells, 50 nails, 2 rockets, or 12 cells, or less if the user had less of that ammo.

Some maps don't have much rocket ammo. Some maps have a crap load of rocket ammo. I'm simply trying to figure out the balance. Please bare with me and see if this weapon drop changes some opinions.

[scar3crow]

Some maps don't have much rocket ammo. Some maps have a crap load of rocket ammo.

And this is what we call, different maps =)
Obviously in some cases the mapper did not intend as much rocket oriented gameplay, for example dm1 or e1m1 where all the explosives are in dead ends or odd to reach places it seems. I take it as a nice change of pace. I really enjoyed fighting Supa in e1m6 last night, that map is very fun, different, and less rocket oriented, which is particularly great for NewDM. Its NewDM after all, not just another dm server.

[Canadian*Sniper]

Just played a 1v1 with monster with the updated newdm mod with weapon drop. I was able to get 15 rockets (when I started out with 2) easily by killing monster. I hope this is a good change

[LordHavoc]

some observations:
the shotgun sucks.
the nailgun sucks - it needs higher velocity to be useful, I can sort of make use of the super nailgun but it would be much better with higher velocity also.

weapon rank:
tier 1 - these weapons are deadly tools of destruction and have no apparent drawbacks:
rocket launcher
lightning gun
super shotgun

tier 2 - these weapons require expert skill to use and have almost no chance of defeating tier 1 but a decent chance of defeating tier 3:
super nailgun
grenade launcher

tier 3 - these weapons suck universally and hence it is your choice which frustrating tool you wish to use against fellow tier 3 equipped players:
nailgun
shotgun
axe

rocket launcher is easy and deadly, in the right hands it never runs out of ammo before getting 2-3 kills on the initial 9 rockets (there's usually a box of 4 rockets nearby).

super shotgun is easy and deadly, a fun change of pace in terms of tactics, very plentiful ammo, defeats all lower ranked weapons pretty consistently.

lightning gun is effective in the right hands but takes significant skill.

the rest of the weapons are ineffective due to the dominance of the tier 1 weapons - in other words, you don't live long enough in a tier 2 vs tier 1 fight to have any chance of winning, and tier 3 is just universal dogfood.

[PapaSmurf]

I object to the statement about the super nailgun being so inferior. The SNG is really a good weapon when used properly, and now it is even more powerful. The biggest drawback of the SNG was ammo limitation (that's pretty much gone), and velocity (also gone). Now you just have to get in your opponent's face and shred him. If you're out in the open with this weapon, it's not so great, but get the drop on your opponent, surprise him, and you can kill him very fast.

Question: what is the current status of the SNG?

Old SNG = 100 ammo (2 nails are consumed with each shot), 18 damage/nail, 10 nails/sec, results in 180 damage/sec.

C*S, didn't you up the damage and rate of fire and velocity of the SNG?

[LordHavoc]

now I'm going to offer some suggestions on explosives, I've been avoiding this matter until I formed a solid opinion on it (I.E. played enough to say something):

grenade launcher - make it impact like the rocket launcher, keep in mind it's still inferior due to the trajectory and slower shot speed, but a lot more useful than it is now, lower damage to 100 or 110.

rocket launcher - lower impact damage to 90 (no randomization) and splash to 90 or 100, restore quake ammo amounts (5 weapon, 5 small box, 10 large box).

this should end the dominance of rockets, and make the grenade launcher useful.