The week of UT3 blather continues. You should know that I have abandoned any concept of self-restraint. I see that almost nobody is reading these posts, which is fine. They’re huge rambling things full of speculation and ruminations on a niche game that isn’t even out yet. I am under no illusions about the usefulness of these articles. I write this stuff because I must, not because I expect you to read them.
Weapon balance is a tricky thing. Everyone has their own ideas about what having “balanced weapons” means and what a balanced set of weapons looks like. Forum threads have been hammering away at this issue for over a decade, and we’re not going to untangle any of the debates here. This issue is important to players, and it can make or break the game for lots of people. The best a developer can hope for is to piss off as small a group as possible.
To that end, each weapon in the game should feel unique, and have a purpose. Some for long distance. Some for short. Some for fighting in the open and some for tight spaces. No one weapon should dominate the game. There should never be a weapon that can be useful in all situations. There should be a couple of tiers of weapons. There certainly shouldn’t be any useless weapons. Each weapon should look and sound distinct.
After sinking some time into the demo, here are my thoughts – in excruciating detail – on each of the weapons:
I’ve always been of the opinion that if you could get close enough to someone to score a melee hit while carrying a very noisy weapon then by gosh, you deserved a quick kill, which is why I love this weapon. We have tremendous fun with this at our UT99 LAN games. We have an unspoken agreement that certain maps are “jousting” maps, and when one of them appears in the rotation everyone ignores the conventional weapons and begins trying to splatter one another with the hammer. It’s absurd, hilarious fun.
Which is one of the reasons why UT2003 was such a let-down. They removed the impact hammer and replaced it with the shield gun. The SG sounded flatulent, it was hard to make contact, and if you did manage to score a hit you’d do a little bit of damage and knock your foe away, forcing you to chase them down yet again.
For UT3 the original impact hammer is restored to its former glory as a viable weapon in the hands of a nimble player. It sounds great, and looks vicious.
For UT2003 they replaced the Enforcer Pistol with the Assault Rifle. The AR was appallingly underpowered. The damage it did was little more than a mild scratching, of the sort you may apply to a persistent itch. They should have called it the Assuage Rifle. I always thought of the weapon as The Massager.
For UT3 they have brought back the Enforcer. It does decent damage and is enough to let you defend yourself until you get something better.
It shoots blobs of glowing green toxic radioactive goo. The projectiles are heavy (the trajectory is about that of a softball pitch) and they stick to surfaces. The alt-fire has always been a little too powerful for my liking, with a direct hit being enough to kill anyone regardless of armor or health. The way the globs cling to things has great strategic value, because you can splatter a doorway with the stuff to ward off pursuers. This is an ingenious weapon with many devious uses.
The most noticeable change in UT3 is that it no longer delivers its massive damage in an instant, but instead burns away the hapless victim over several seconds. This is a really interesting twist, since getting hit with a fully charged alt-fire blob still means you’re as good as dead, but you have a couple of seconds in which to act. A skilled player might get their revenge before they snuff it. In any case, they are likely to be exceptionally aggressive for those last few seconds, which should lead to many amusing situations. This is far more interesting than the “poof you’re dead” thing the weapon had going in UT99.
Since the original Unreal, they have always had a gun that shoots a narrow beam (primary) and a slow-moving orb of energy (alternate fire.) If you shoot the orb with the beam you make a “combo” attack by detonating the orb in a strong but very localized explosion. They have never stopped messing with the gun. They keep changing the speed of the orb, the precision required to pull off the combo, changing the size of the explosion, altering damage output, lowering the re-fire rate, modifying ammo use, giving it a new appearance, adding aspartame, etc.
The experimentation continues here. I like the current version, with the exception of ammo usage / supply. It uses too dang much, or you can’t carry enough of it. I’ve been trying to practice combo attacks, but after two shots I have to hunt around the map for more ammo. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I miss the wider beam it had in UT99. Since then the gun has featured a slender, needle-like beam that to me has never matched the original for the “wow that looks like it would hurt” thrill.
Visuals aside, the link gun is mostly unchanged. I really like the sound it makes when hitting someone with the alternate fire, which solves the problem of earlier versions where you couldn’t tell if the beam was making contact or if the target was just out of range. I’ve liked the Link Gun in all its many forms, although this one might be my favorite for purely cosmetic reasons. They have retained the repair / boost functionality that the weapon gained in 2003.
Not much to say, except that I don’t see the point of the alternate fire. Primary fire is still your standard minigun: Spew out an incredible volume of ammunition, wave the sucker around, and you’re sure to hit something. Alt-fire releases a burst that the game claims “can pin foes to walls”. I haven’t seen this happen yet.
I’ve tried this alt fire, and I didn’t find it to be useful. I think the big problem is that nobody has used it on me yet. You don’t really understand a weapon mode until someone hurts you with it. I don’t know if I’ve been lucky, or if the alt-fire is useless, or if people just haven’t gotten the hang of it yet.
It’s not in the demo, and most likely not in UT3, alas. It was a unique weapon with many uses. The way the discs bounced around meant you could shoot around corners or fill a tight space with flying blades when dealing with an entrenched foe. The alt fire didn’t do much damage, but it had a ton of kinetic force, letting you toss foes around. It was the ideal weapon when fighting someone on a high ledge, because a good shot could send them into the abyss.
Primary fire still emits the familiar shards of glowing hot metal with a really wide spread pattern and high damage potential. The alternate still fires a single arcing projectile good for prenominal damage. I haven’t been able to get the hang of the alt-fire on this one. The projectile is too fast, too light, and my shots keep going over everyone’s heads. With the UT99 flak gun I could lob one and hit someone in the forehead at fifty meters, while running. With less arcing and more speed the new one is more “accurate”, but I can’t get used to it.
The weapon feels weaker than before, and is particularly useless at long distances. This makes sense and is probably a good change, although it feels all wrong after so many years of the UT99 flak gun.
In UT99, the rocket launcher could cue up six rockets to be fired in a single volley of ridiculous overkill. I built my game around abusing this weapon, and while I was sorry to see the six-rocket capacity removed, I do admit the smaller capacity made the game more balanced. They have played around with the weapon in various iterations of the game, and I must say that I think this incarnation of the rocket launcher is by far the best.
As Unreal Tournament has evolved, they have messed around with this weapon a great deal, and it’s seen a lot of different functionality over the years:
- Instant fire: Good old Quake-style rockets that are released the moment you depress the trigger.
- Spread fire: Queue up several rockets, then fire them all at once so that they fan out. In a hallway you’re pretty much guaranteed a hit, although not a kill. Most likely you’ll only hit your foe with one of the rockets.
- Spiral fire: The rockets stay together. It’s all or nothing. If you hit it’s probably a guaranteed kill, but if you miss you miss completely.
- Grenades: Instead of “launching” the rockets it tosses them out so that they bounce and tumble in unpredictable (and thus very difficult to evade) patterns. Perfect for dealing with people in entrenched positions.
In UT3, they have created a single version of the rocket launcher that incorporates all of the above functionality. The gun can do pretty much anything from any of the previous iterations of UT, at the cost of being the most complex weapon in the game.
I still think it has too much kinetic force. I’ve been clocked with a rocket and sailed off in odd directions that didn’t seem to have a lot to do with the angle of the projectile or the point of impact.
The original UT99 sniper rifle was apparently too strong. (Although this was never the case when the weapon was in my employ. My aim was never good enough to coax the demonic powers out of this thing the way some players could.) In the hands of someone with exceptional aim it was purportedly possible for them to kill with impunity, as no other weapon could counter it for range and potency, as well as allowing the sniper to remain hidden. This is actually pretty realistic, but in a high speed combat game it just sucks when you get killed in a single hit for no discernable reason. The game stops being about frantic combat and starts being about hunting down and digging out the sniper. In an outdoor team game snipers just serve as an annoying distraction. If you’re playing the game you don’t have time to hunt them down, which means you just have to put up with the “sniper tax”, which is that you have to bounce around open areas like an idiot and accept that 1 in 5 trips over the open area will end in death.
In UT2003 they came up with two competing solutions, which sort of indicated to me that they weren’t sure what to do about the problem. They made some annoying changes to the sniper rifle that made it less useful in the hands in regular players without really affecting the ace snipers. They also introduced the lightning gun, which replaced the SR on some maps. I never enjoyed the lightning gun, but the beam it gave off got rid of the “sniper tax” effect, where one guy could sit in a dark corner and rack up kills all day because nobody wanted to play hide-and-seek with him. The beam leads right back to the culprit. If you want him, go get him.
Now the lightning gun is gone and instead the sniper rifle gives off a faint but distinctive tracer line when used. I’m not an expert on the weapon, but this seems like a good compromise to me. Prolific snipers will need to keep moving if they want to stay in business, which is a pretty good system. In a CTF game I was able to rid myself of a couple of annoying snipers without needing leave my post and hunt for them. I just had to out-snipe them.
It’s not in the demo. Considering how much I hated the 2003 TL, I was really hoping to see how this one worked. It’s bound to the same key as the new “hoverboard”, so I assume this is an either / or deal based on the game settings. Speaking of the hoverboard….
I’m not crazy about it so far, but I haven’t really had time to give it a chance. I hate how it goes slow on water. It seems like a nod to Back to the Future II, but it also neuters the device in the one place I think it could actually be useful.
I’m not sure if this device is a good idea or not. I think it depends on the map. You can’t use weapons when using the HB, which is good, because then everyone would ride it all the time. But what bugs me is that in CTF the flag carrier can nab the flag and surf away with the thing. You can chase him on your own hoverboard, but you can’t attack him while doing so. If you use weapons, he’ll quickly outpace you. This seems to really shift the balance of power and eliminate the need for the running fight flag carriers had to do in order to earn their reward. Maybe the hoverboard is only available in maps with vehicles. I can’t really tell what their intention is with this thing, because they only have the one map in the demo.
That’s my take on the game mechanics and weapons so far. Despite my vigorous blather on the game, I’m probably going to wait a while before picking it up. This game is huge and complex, and I don’t think you can make an honest assesment of its appeal based on a demo with three maps. I enjoyed the UT99 demo, but I never would have guessed I’d still be playing the thing eight years later. I enjoyed the UT2003 demo, and I wouldn’t have guessed I would be done with the game eight weeks later. (Otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it.)
After Christmas the first round of patches will be out and the game will probably be $10 cheaper. That will be a good time to see what people are saying and see if I’m still interested.
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FP3!
(“First Post 3”, because it makes about as much sense as UT3 to me!)
Glad to know the Hammer is restored to greatness. Peter Gabriel should write a song about it…
Translocator is in the demo. Use the loaded cheat.
Impact Hammer: Glad to see someone else enjoys jousting! It is the most honorable of combats. I think the Hammer is a tad on the weak side though (only 140 damage? C’mon. It should be 150-200).
Flak Cannon: Agreed, the weapon is quirky. I can’t get used to the trajectory. I think it’ll get improved though, the Rocket Launcher is just plain better than it right now.
The hoverboard is only going to be in Vehicle CTF. The water thing might be a bit extreme, but if you’ve got someone on foot chasing (and shooting) at a flag carrier, it makes sense that they can’t just hoverboard gleefully over the water. The guy on foot will slow down when he hits the water, the hoverboard should slow down as well. I think that’s pretty crucial, actually.
Just an FYI, you can test the translocator in the demo. Load up the DM map DM-shangrala. open the console (default key is ` OR ~) and type ‘allweapons’. it has 7 charges now and reloads much faster than it did in 2004.
You can only do it on that one map because the others have vehicles and give you the hoverboard instead.
I love your UT3 posts, but I’m kinda a UT freak myself.
edit: Don’t use the loaded cheat as Cineris suggested. it gives unlimited ammo, which means you won’t get a feel for the limits with the charges.
I agree that it is wonderful to see the Impact Hammer again. It brings back fond memories. My friend Mike would dominate so much in Last Man Standing in UT99, that he’d eventually give up using all weapons but the Impact Hammer. And he’d still win. Nothing meant death was coming more than hearing the Hammer warmed up and ready to strike.
One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is develop a team-based weapon system for UT.
One player would have a modified version of the laser painter. The other weapon would be either a stationary or a mobile mortar launcher. The laser painter would cause two aimpoints (direct and indirect fire) to appear on the HUD of anyone equiping the mortar.
The part I couldn’t figure out is how to adapt the pipper from the fighters in the Assualt gametype to give me an aimpoint in the HUD.
I read these posts…
aww… no razerjack?
It was such a blast to fill the air with the spinning blades that bounced everywhere hitting friend and foe alike – especially when multiple players were doing it. It was perfect for adding extreme chaos into the battlefield.
*sniff*
Damnit, I think I have to dig up my copy of UT99. I was always awful at it, but your raw enthusiasm is making me have artificial fond memories…
That does it: Now I’m definitely going to get UT99 working again. I miss that damned razorjack.
(I read these posts, too.)
A note on the hoverboard: From my experience with the beta it appeared to be almost useless. It’s only (and probably intended) use is as a way to move a little faster to the current fight. You could also use a grappling hook thing to latch onto vehicles while on the HB if you get close enough to the handles. Since you fall off it if you take any dmg, it’s kinda useless for flag running unless no one is around.
I’ve seen bullet trails in real life, they definitely exist.
Abject apologies, but:
“It sounds great, and looks viscous.”
I think you meant vicious here. Viscous means something a bit different. And I read them too, see? ;-)
Thanks Rich. Fixed.
Post away! I hadn’t thought about UT99 in years until you started posting on UT3 the other day. Quality Nostalgia!
“You don't really understand a weapon mode until someone hurts you with it.”
That’s how I found out about the Shock Rifle Combo usefulness in UT2003…. I really liked UT2003 btw, but I never played earlier versions to compare it to…
:)
I still read your musings daily, I just never seem to have anything to add after the usual posts of the more verbose of your minions…
And I hate to be an annoying “Me Too!”
I am certain there are others that still lurk in the shadows that just don’t have anything useful to say at the moment…
Personally, I’m rather enjoying the UT3 articles, primarily because Unreal Tournament was near and dear to my heart back in the day, whereas 2003 was a horrible betrayal to the Q3A side.
I am also very, very glad to hear of the return of the Enforcer. I absolutely loved the Enforcer, as it was a pistol weapon and yet not a horrible piece of crap one. I especially liked picking up another one during gameplay and going deliciously John Woo on people, which was excellent, adrenaline rush fun.
Add my vote to the Razorjack chorus. I got pretty good at bouncing those things in a few of the maps (the monastery in particular). With the right “spread”, you were almost guaranteed a hit in the right places.
And yeah, you can see tracer rounds from the front.
I’m with IronCastKnight on the Enforcer thing, definitely!
Actually I have had a lot of use with the HB when running with the flag (admittedly only against bots though).
Cineris: someone on a HB moves faster than the flagcarrier does on his HB. Thus you can run past him, jump of the HB and kill the FC.
Actually I think that being adept at hoping of the HB at the right moment will give an advantage, since you’re not knocked down if you’re not on it.
hee, we used to call the Assault Rifle from Halo: Combat Evolved the “Massage Rifle”, because in MP, you could empty a mag into an opponent and they’d just shiver a bit and then melee you with their Pistol. Yeah, that gun sux0red.
Huh, this seems somehow familiar to me…
Another reader who's liking the UT posts.
About the hoverboard… I find it to be incredibly useful, and very well balanced. It was implemented in VCTF (and Warfare, I believe) only (translocator replaces the hoverboard in regular CTF) as a means of getting to the action faster. UT is all about “zero time to spectacle.”
In a game mode with vehicles, it takes far too long to get to places on foot. The hoverboard allows you to get to the action faster ““ at the expense of rendering yourself extremely vulnerable. I mainly use it to get around my base to load up on pickups.
If you take but a single point of damage while boarding, you fall off (and drop the flag). So as for your bit about people getting away with the flag on the hoverboard, I must say that I really never see this happen (until they are a safe distance away). Just minigun the flag carrier, and he will fall almost instantly. Keep minigunning while he's down, and he won't live to grab the flag again.
Also, you can pull off Tony Hawk-style tricks with a bit of practice and experimentation, which is both mildly amusing and a way to make yourself a more confusing target.
PS. The Manta is overpowered. Will you be doing a bit on the vehicles? They have something of a rock-paper-scissors to them.
@WysiWyg: I haven’t tried racing against a flag carrier in my hoverboard, but him moving a little slower by default also makes some sense.
Either way, I think the water thing might be a little weird, but it’s something you get used to and will probably appreciate with more playtime.
I find these posts fascinating, even though I’m not a big FPS player. (Played UT99 and 2k3, but I don’t really follow the genre.) In fact, I always read your posts even if I had no prior interest in the subjects, they’re just that interesting. :)
Hey Shamus, did you know your site is genius reading material???
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx
try it out and see
“Personally, I'm rather enjoying the UT3 articles, primarily because Unreal Tournament was near and dear to my heart back in the day, whereas 2003 was a horrible betrayal to the Q3A side.” -IronCastKnight
That’s pretty much exactly how I feel on all points.
Two questions for you shamus:
1)What about redeemer?
2)How do the weapons look like?Intimidating like in UT(no,I will not call it UT99,it was UT when it was released,so it will stay that way for me),or just flashy and big like in the sequels?
I’m not Shamus, but here’s my opinion anyway:
1)What about redeemer?
The redeemer missile in UT2 was turned into a fat, stout, white joke. In UT3, the shape is similar to that of UT again, but is dark in color (better camo). Instead of a gun, the missile is launched by a hand-held weapons platform, which makes sense, but imo is not pleasing to the eyes.
2)How do the weapons look like?
For the most part, intimidating. They gave a total overhaul to the Flak Cannon – at first, I was horrified by the giant, bulky thing it was transformed into – but I must say, it actually looks like a *cannon* now and not just a gun.
The enforcer is awful. It looks like a plastic toy. But I’m still happy to have it back.
The biorifle is now a beautiful work of art.
As Shamus posted, the plasma gun looks pretty sweet now, although it still has a plastic, alien look that doesn’t quite seem to fit in with the other metal, corroded, bulky weapons. It’s like playing classical guitar in a heavy metal band.
Sniper, hammer, minigun: more exquisite versions of their predecessors.
But overall, the weapons *feel* powerful again. In UT2, rockets did pathetic damage. Now, a rocket launcher once again feels as powerful as its namesake. Every weapon feels deadly.
I always love weapon rundowns for any game. Or fictional setting, for that matter.
I recall playing a demo of one of the Unreal games awhile back, and found the Razorjack to be such an original weapon that it’s stuck with me ever since.
You just can’t do better than a weapon that launches flying buzzsaws at your enemies, really.
That’s it! I cannot take it anymore
*reinstalls UT99 to get a razorjack fix*
I’m with the Rev.Doktor up there. I really enjoy reading all of your posts, I just don’t have much to say usually. I particularly have enjoyed hearing about UT3 in all the gory detail that you have given the subject. I’ll probably never play the game, I imagine. But for whatever geeky reason, my life is richer for knowing about it. Maybe I’m storing up your perspectives so that I can still talk intelligibly when I’m down at the bar and get caught up in one of those ever-present dialogues about FPS’s. ;)
“prenominal damage”? Is that getting hurt by something that hasn’t been named yet, or something?
:-)
I’ve just finished a marathon session with the demo (and I have to praise the game’s amazing scalability; this is on a laptop with an ATI Mobility 9700 with a pitiful 64 MB of shared video memory) and I can confirm that the stinger’s alt-fire can and will nail players to the wall if it lands a killing blow close enough to a hard surface. As a longtime fan of the series, I’m quite happy with the weapons, both from functional and design standpoints, with a few exceptions. The Enforcer, while a welcome return, is absolutely ridiculous to look at with its side-mounted clip, and some of the weapons look a bit too baroque and overly fussed-over (the Biorifle in particular). The Flak Cannon gets a nice look, though I miss getting to see the shell loading into the gun, and I love the rocket launcher- it’s a compromise between all the best bits of UT’s and UT2Kx’s, and actually looks like a dangerous instrument of explodey death instead of some unholy cross between a graphic calculator and a box of cigarettes like the classic UT version.
One thing, though: does the UT3 rocket launcher really fire grenades? If so, I haven’t the faintest idea how; I’ve only been able to manage the various combinations of rockets.
Accidentally hit submit early, d’oh. Continued:
Hopefully they’ll “fix” some of the weapon models if the player base complains enough, either in a future installment of the franchise or an ECE-style expansion pack- in between 2k3 and 2k4, no less than three weapons got completely new models to replace the widely derided 2k3 versions (the assault rifle, ASMD, and link gun) and the sniper rifle was reintroduced as a result of players complaining about the lightning gun. Most of UT3’s weapons I either like or don’t really mind, but really, if they can release a model for the Enforcer that doesn’t look like it came out of a box of Crackerjacks I’ll be a happy man.
And no version of the shock rifle has been either as satisfying to use or as nice to look at as the original Unreal’s ASMD.
It seems like UT3 is going to be mostly a combination of stuff from UT99 and UT2004 with better graphics and AI. Is there anything in the game which is actually an innovation? The only thing I can think of is maybe the hoverboard…
@Alden: There’s plenty of small scale innovation. I’m not sure what you’re looking for, though, a new gametype? RPG elements? While I can think of a lot of non-gameplay related things where they could innovate, the gameplay seems pretty fully fleshed out for a shooter.
You’ve mostly convinced me to try this demo, although I’m not usually an FPS player. But I do have a question: does the demo have any sort of copy protection? Because that’s a deal-breaker. Also, what’s with this flash ad: “Free online RPG!” Only, it doesn’t actually do anything if I click on it. This would seem to kind of defeat the purpose of having an ad in the first place–there isn’t any way of discovering exactly what the ad is for.
@Nathaniel: Why, it’s a campaign to raise awareness for the unjustly imprisoned Tibetan independence activist, Online RPG.
Seriously though, there’s no copy protection or other irritants included in the demo that I’m aware of.
You can do some undocumented fun stuff in the demo, by the way: at the console (~), type in the following command:
summon utgamecontent.utvehicle_[vehiclename]_content
, replacing [vehiclename] with the vehicle you’d like to try out, in lower case (I don’t know if it’s case-sensitive, but just in case). I’ve gotten the Cicada (heavy air-to-ground human vehicle from the UT2k4 ECE pack) and Fury (Necris fighter, maneuvers like a Raptor and has tentacles, the Darkwalker’s beam weapon, and an alt-fire that gives it a quick boost when coupled with a direction key) to work. Allegedly the Paladin (human, also from the 2k4 ECE, and as I recall completely useless) and Nemesis (tanklike Necris vehicle) are also summonable but I haven’t gotten any results. You won’t get sounds for any of them, as that content isn’t in the demo, and there are obvious rough spots- I’m fairly sure the Fury’s beam attack shouldn’t be tracking as fast as it does, especially in comparison to the Darkwalker’s- but it’s fun to mess around with.
You can also summon the slowy-downy-gelatinous-cube-thing, which for lack of a better name I will be referring to as Magic Time Jello, with:
summon utslowvolume_content
Again, there are some inconsistencies; some projectiles won’t properly enter the cube and will explode harmlessly on the outside, as will hitscan weapons (I’m pretty sure previews have mentioned hitscan weapons spawning “bullet” projectiles to travel in slow motion upon hitting the cube).
Also, for anyone else having the same trouble I had with rocket launcher grenades: double-tap the secondary fire when loading rockets; it’s another firing mode along with spread and spiral.
Good infos. This is good stuff that fills me with wisdom and hope.
Ahh the stinger is back!
flak cannon is my favorite weapon!