Chaotic Dreams

LoQtUS wrote:UTIMER,
Thank you for the kind words. I do believe that this is a first. The first U4E Team member to post on our forums. Welcome, and please feel free to hang out and chat with us.

your welcome,
and no, im not the first.... FrozenCow is

Everyone knows I love ChaosUt, and am a huge fan of other weapon mods as well. But, honestly, every weapon mod has a flamethrower. And as cool as they are asthetically, they always make for pretty bad gameplay. This is true of every incarnation I've ever seen. They're always neat, but it seems that the ability to sweep out a room and light everyone on fire is just too overpowering. How can the abilities of the MUG flamethrower be balanced, so it's effective, yet not overpowered? I've yet to see anyone get it right, frankly.

Flamethrowers are great in SP games, because enemies don't care that you're just hosing down entire rooms. But in MP, flamethrowers are the ultimate weapon, usually. Even at slightly longer ranges, the obscuring effect of the wall of flame makes stopping the user from closing nearly impossible, as they can't be seen to be hit.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the MUG supposed to be the new default weapon? I hope I'm wrong on this, as a default flamethrower, while righteously cool, would make the "skill weapons" like the crossbow pretty useless.

Flamethrowers have been around for almost 100 years now. The original users -the Germans of WW1- slogs over the no-man's land between the trenches to dump burning fuel into the enemy trenches. They were terrifying, and yet not overwhelming, or everyone would be armed with flamethrowers today. They were heavy, making the wearer slow, and had a tendancy to explode when the wearer was shot at.

We don't want UT players slowing down, of course, but maybe have an in-use MUG vulnerable to being shot for a second or two (I support a 2-second vulnerabilty, myself) after any use of the flamethrower feature? After this time, the self-clearing mechanisms have re-sealed and cleaned the volitiles from the weapon, but for a moment the MUG is vulnerable. An exploding MUG should at least light the holder on fire, and do some blast damage to boot. But not an instant-kill sort of thing.

Also, a half-second delay in firing would help as well, keeping jump-dodging flame monkeys from dancing past you and lighting you on fire at their merest whim. This would make the weapon more difficult to use in close quarters, but not overwhelmingly so.

-MUG is not the primary weapon.
-MUG already has firing delay.
-MUG is not over powered.
-We've got it done right.

Yeah I definately have to agree with Furry (though I'm obviously biased).

But I really think we got it right! The icer kinda makes it good too, cuz, if you're on fire but you have ice ammo, you can instantly cool youself off with a quick blast at your feet.

Ideally, the Flamer is good for catching someone on fire, this should last for a while but not do loads of damage. It would be great for knocking off someone who's already hurt, and would be competitive with the other chaos weapons in maps that lack water, but there's always that icer solution. Just chill yourself out to fix that nasty flaming arse. Of course, once we make it so you can't aim or shoot while frozen, there won't be a quick solution for getting frozen. However, the icer should do less damage than the flamer, making it only really useful for freezing people.

Currently, it takes a good, prolonged spray to freeze someone, and they don't stay frozen for long. We've still got alot of work to do on the balance of the weapon and such, as right now its a little underpowered, but it is a satisfying way to make a kill.

If anyone can get the balance right, it's Chaotic Dreams. Don't worry, we've had a good track record with this kind of stuff so I don't think you'll be dissapointed.

I'm not accusing of stealing idea's (like UTimer already said). I love weapon mods and especially ChaosUT, U4E and WoE because of the large amount of original weapons.
I wanted to know what other functions the MUG has (other than flaming, freezing and airblast), because I know ChaosUT always makes very original weapons.

Hedge wrote:Everyone knows I love ChaosUt, and am a huge fan of other weapon mods as well. But, honestly, every weapon mod has a flamethrower. And as cool as they are asthetically, they always make for pretty bad gameplay. This is true of every incarnation I've ever seen. They're always neat, but it seems that the ability to sweep out a room and light everyone on fire is just too overpowering. How can the abilities of the MUG flamethrower be balanced, so it's effective, yet not overpowered? I've yet to see anyone get it right, frankly.

Actually Hedge, our UT version did not shoot that way, it shot fireballs instead. So there was none of the 'sweeping' like that.

FrozenCow wrote:I wanted to know what other functions the MUG has (other than flaming, freezing and airblast), because that is already done and I know ChaosUT always makes very original weapons.

If there are to be other functions, we've not settled on them yet. Yes, the MUG was fire/ice/air in CUT as well, and it was the AirGun in Q2Chaos, but just as Epic has done, we've pretty much stuck with our basic set of weapons since Chaos was first released. There are changes in looks, and function, and whatnot, but just as the flak cannon is still teh flak cannon, our crossbow is still our crossbow, and our Proxies are still cute.

The trick we believe is to not abandon what makes Chaos, Chaos. But rather to evolve, so we have familiarity, but a nice new car smell as well. Sorta like while she may look and feel all cozy and warm like the same girl you knew last week, you just can't help but smile big at the new implants. (hmmm...., wait...was that a good analogy, or a bad one? )

But anyway as far as how we're going to balance this one, well, we're in the midst of that right now. I agree with Furry and Shadow though, and I do think that we'll eventually come up with something that works.

What I would mention at this point though, is that if you took a few minutes, you could go to Atari forums and others, and find at least one thread for each and every stock weapon in the game, declaring for posterity, that it is either a) underpowered, or b) overpowered, or c) 'ghey'. Each poster convinced that his new and wise enlightenment which he has bestowed upon us, is carved in stone and can't be wrong, ready to be passed down thru the generations like Moses done said it or something.

I figure if everyone is saying something different, than it must be at least playable. But if we get pretty much everyone saying a weapon is weak, or too much, than we might be on to something.

In our current IR, I think the MUG is a bit weak. But it's the 1st IR, and even the effects aren't final. We'll work it out. And of course we have a habit of paying attention when folks offer feedback as well, so even after it's public, we can hear what folks say and either act on it or not.

Thanks btw to the U4E guys for the kind words, and good luck with your mod as well.

R.Flagg wrote:
The trick we believe is to not abandon what makes Chaos, Chaos. But rather to evolve, so we have familiarity, but a nice new car smell as well. Sorta like while she may look and feel all cozy and warm like the same girl you knew last week, you just can't help but smile big at the new implants. (hmmm...., wait...was that a good analogy, or a bad one? )

A better analogy cannot be found in all the lands . . .

Yup

The Flagg wrote:...we've pretty much stuck with our basic set of weapons since Chaos was first released. There are changes in looks, and function, and whatnot, but just as the flak cannon is still teh flak cannon, our crossbow is still our crossbow, and our Proxies are still cute.

Yup you gotta love those 'lil buggers as much as you hate them no matter how much they sweet talk you, and as Flagg said *not a quote* "Why change what made Chaos Chaos? All you have to do is sit back and stare at the pretty "implants" after every make-over... Some times CUT2 will come back bigger with implants *Adding new game types* and other times you don't really see a change *killing a few bugs that were missed* until you test drive them *updates*

|GoD|Plaguelord|LDR| wrote:Screw the ERDW... I think I just found myself a new toy!

Its just like a few days 'til X-mas as a child, you see the toy but you can't play with it yet

same here mine used to be the flame grenades