Thrax talks vehicles and Heavy Loadouts (3 weapons for Heavies???)

Over at the VU forums Thrax answered some questions concerning vehicles and possible changes to loadouts per armor:

Vehicles:

Quote:
Three of the four vehicles are multi-person (2 or more). The fighter is the only single person vehicle.

Link



Heavy Loadouts:
Quote:

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Right now all armors have 3 weapons. I thought I would hate that actually, but it seems fine to me when I'm playing. I also wouldn't mind seeing 2, 3, and 4; although 4 seems like too many now that I've played for a while with 3.

When I think back to T1 or T2, the only thing I ever changed on my heavy loadouts was my pack. 5 weapons meant I could have disk, chain, plasma, grenade, and mortar in T1, and sub the missile launcher for the plasma in T2. It's really a ridiculous number of weapons in that light. Only having three makes you decide what you're going to do in Heavy, and it also limits the damage a heavy can do at the enemy base because they are more likely to run out of ammo.

So at the moment our thought is three weapons for everybody. It's not set in stone, but I think it's likely.

Link






Discuss.

Post edited by biscuit at 3/8/2004 8:57:28 AM

My first emotion over limiting heavy to 3 weapons is disappointment.

I play heavy. I use the 5 weapons in my loadout. I use disk for jumping, fending off swarms of lights and it's invaluable in transit for a heavy. I use chain for those high flying lights after me with their mine disks. I use mortar to lay right in front of myself, then ski over it for an enemy I hear following me, and to clear flags, take out enemy assets. I use missile launcher on enemy assets while skiing to check the status of enemy turrets and to take them out. I use plasma indoors for taking out lights and finishing off enemy assets.

I rely on fast weapon switches throughout the myriad of situations I'm confronted with in transit (including terrain) and at the enemy base. If my ski is fast, I'm in good shape, but if a light knocks me off my path making me use extra jet to stay alive or steer, I need the variety of weapons to survive and I need the additional ammo that carrying the two extra weapons provides in those cases. Would suck to get to the enemy base and be out of ammo due to a rough trip over.

Now this is based on Tribes and Tribes2. I haven't experienced Tribes: Vengeance's latest build nor am I intimately familiar with map size, the threat enemy assets pose, the skiing experience for heavy armor.

Hmmm... well, I guess it all depends on the gameplay. Just from first thought however(from T1b/T2c), I doubt only a heavy could survive long with only three weapons. Maybe four would be a better number?

(¯`·.¸.:| Aur|ora - 7-Man / 8-Man / 10-Man - #Aurora |:.¸.·´¯)

the TW thread is here:

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279630

there are few posts from KP that are worth reading along with a lot of freaking out from people.

How do you feel about it, jsut?

Agreeing with val o_O -- I cant see 3 at all, I can see 4 though, but 3 scares me

Call me greedy. I want FIVE!

Originally posted by: Validuz
Hmmm... well, I guess it all depends on the gameplay.

Exactly. I dont think we know enough about T:V gameplay yet to be able to say if 3 weapons for all classes is a good or bad thing.

If the gameplay is similar to t1/t2, its definitely gonna suck to only have 3 weapons.

sounds like an interesting thought. would make doing ho more team orientated with the need of escourts if things get rough.

I would agree with 4 for a heavy,

disc,nade,cg,morter

nowu havr the all purpose Disc, the nades for spamming indoors, the CG for chewing up LD, and the Morter for mass destruction.


I don't think 3 is enough, u will be at a disadvantage.

definetly 4, i only really use 4 anyways (disc, cg nade, mortar) if it was 3 id have a huge problem deciding what to use.

Maybe this should be stated again, this isn't t1 nor is it t2. You don't need five weapons to be able to do everything. It would be easier in some respects, but doesn't make it impossible. Just means you'll have to know what you want to do before you leave the base.

thats silly i think that 3 would be to little, however i agree that sumtimes 5 weaps can ge a little cluttered so why not make it 4?

Originally posted by: Nevearion
Maybe this should be stated again, this isn't t1 nor is it t2. You don't need five weapons to be able to do everything. It would be easier in some respects, but doesn't make it impossible. Just means you'll have to know what you want to do before you leave the base.

ya but its a heavy which is like 4 times the size of a light carrying the same amount of weapons as the light, it doesnt make sense imo

petition for disk chain grenade and mortar.

I couldnt live as a heavy in t2 without all of those weapons. I hate the missile launcher but that wont be a prob in t3 . I hardly use the plasma (only for specific situations). I'm not sure if it will be the same in T:V, but I really would like to be able to use the best weapon for the job and not be gimped out.

3 seems like too few to me. Especially when people are almost always going to take disk and mortar in heavy. That leaves one weapon to switch around, and isn't really going to allow enough customization of loadouts i don't think. I guess in certain situations you might not take a mortar, or not take a disk, but realistically, you are probably going to want those in all your heavy loadouts.

I have a feeling that if the stick with 3/3/3, a lot of weapons are going to get ignored. People will stick with disk, chain, GL for about 75% of their loadouts, across all three armors.

If there are weapons that are worth carrying, it's going to be a bitch trying to decide what to keep and what to drop.

Sounds good, it makes heavies not as versatile / powerful as they were. Obviously this decision deals alot with T:V's gameplay but right now, he has a good point. Lowering weapons raises the possibilities. Now you can't carry a mortar/nades for indoors and disc/CG for outdoors, you will need to make special loadouts for what you expect to deal with. but again, alot will deall with what they are planning as far as speed and forms of eliminating enemys or knocking them off route.

I'd rather not play a puzzle. This sounds almost like the rock/paper/scissors new brand of gameplay.

Screw that. Give the heavier armors more options, and make the game about what people do with the weapons, not how they picked them.

I dunno. Thrax has always had a good feel for the game.

Dimi and Macabre both had good points though, especially on the teamwork scale.

I kinda like the idea myself. It's makes a heavy alot more role specific than in T2 which means more of a challenge overall in the essence of teamwork. I could see where this would not be accepted by many who have grown accustomed to the mass loadout of a heavy and are used to being a one-person demolition team.....3 weapons means the "one-person" part would have to be dropped and "team" would actually mean more players to accomplish the task. That means the team would have weigh which objective was more important at the moment. I like it

Good call on the Dev's part imo.

Originally posted by: {Total}
I dunno. Thrax has always had a good feel for the game.

Dimi and Macabre both had good points though, especially on the teamwork scale.

I kinda like the idea myself. It's makes a heavy alot more role specific than in T2 which means more of a challenge overall in the essence of teamwork. I could see where this would not be accepted by many who have grown accustomed to the mass loadout of a heavy and are used to being a one-person demolition team.....3 weapons means the "one-person" part would have to be dropped and "team" would actually mean more players to accomplish the task. That means the team would have weigh which objective was more important at the moment. I like it

Good call on the Dev's part imo.

The heavy, upon reaching the enemy base, is performing one role for the team. Demolition of enemy defense. One role on the enemy's side of the map, an enemy rich zone with automated defense and defense players. Getting to the area the task must be performed takes a lot more time and involves defending oneself en route. Even when a heavy carries 5 weapons, a good midfielder or two can take out a heavy with relative ease if timed at a critical part of the route, meaning escort is still very useful to HO. Heavy isn't usually able to take the enemy flag and defend his own flag and base simultaneously while performing the demolition function at the enemy base.

Heavy needs a shot at surviving long enough to reach the area of true task.

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279630&page=4

Reformatting and recopying the posts here isn't worth the time. Page 4 on includes KPs post and my discussion with him.

I conclude (read the HUGE post at the bottom of page 4 and later a reply on page 6 that I give to KP) that 3-3-4 is the best.

Originally posted by: half the sky

Originally posted by: {Total}
I dunno. Thrax has always had a good feel for the game.

Dimi and Macabre both had good points though, especially on the teamwork scale.

I kinda like the idea myself. It's makes a heavy alot more role specific than in T2 which means more of a challenge overall in the essence of teamwork. I could see where this would not be accepted by many who have grown accustomed to the mass loadout of a heavy and are used to being a one-person demolition team.....3 weapons means the "one-person" part would have to be dropped and "team" would actually mean more players to accomplish the task. That means the team would have weigh which objective was more important at the moment. I like it

Good call on the Dev's part imo.

The heavy, upon reaching the enemy base, is performing one role for the team. Demolition of enemy defense. One role on the enemy's side of the map, an enemy rich zone with automated defense and defense players. Getting to the area the task must be performed takes a lot more time and involves defending oneself en route. Even when a heavy carries 5 weapons, a good midfielder or two can take out a heavy with relative ease if timed at a critical part of the route, meaning escort is still very useful to HO. Heavy isn't usually able to take the enemy flag and defend his own flag and base simultaneously while performing the demolition function at the enemy base.

Heavy needs a shot at surviving long enough to reach the area of true task.

A heavy wouldn't be expected to destroy and defend simultaneously imo.

For base raping - Plasma, Mortar, Mines, and Grenades. What can you NOT blow up with that? Self defense - spinfusor & grenades. Even in T2, I could use the grenade launcher and mines to kill a plasma turret in sniper outfit (Spaceman Spiff showed me that trick lol).

I think back to my heavy loadouts and the least used were the CG and Missile Launcher when I was on a base raping run. Remember, th CG will overheat in this game so the CG-whoring will be greatly reduced nad, hopefully, knock people's reliance on this weapon down a notch or two.

So, say the CG isn't as effective as before. We've all CG'ed a gen to death, but with it overheating now - how fast will the gen shields build back up before the CG cools down?

The most effective and successful heavies I saw spent their time blowing up shit - not dueling. That's what the LO & midifield was for.

So, without sounding sarcastic - if your team is doing it's job, how often would a base-raping heavy really use more than three weapons anyway given the new CG development?
Post edited by {Total} at 3/8/2004 4:04:38 PM

Would be interesting, and more complicated :O, if they made the # of weapons a player could carry inversely proportional to the amount of ammo they could carry. So if you were a heavy and wanted to spam you could choose just a mortar and chaingun or something and get 20 mortars and 200 cg rounds, but if you wanted to carry 5 weapons you'd only have like 4 mortars, 5 discs, 50 cg rounds, 5 grenades, 5 plasma shots -- or something. :x

Why is "Narrowing roles" so important to begin with?

Judging based on my tribes experience so far, I like to be fairly versatile when I play HO. I like to be able to base rape, kill LD, do everything.

The only conclusion I can think of is that they don’t want heavies to be as powerful or as versatile. I would think you would want them to be both powerful and versatile. Wouldn't that make the game more offensively based?

Or maybe I have no freaking clue because I haven't played the game. Either way, I think until real competition comes out you don’t really know how the game will actually play. People are going to find different strategies that nobody was thinking about when they initially designed the game. Hopefully the developers will be open minded in beta and get rid of this system if players don't like it, if they choose to implement it.

Disc might be built-in on the heavy, making it actually 3 chosen weapons and a stock one. YA NEVER KNOOWWW

Originally posted by: KambuL
Why is "Narrowing roles" so important to begin with?

That answer is the easiest. How about this terminology?

To further implement teamwork as the priamry aspect of the game so the success of the team accounts for more than the success of a single player's efforts.

Narrowing the versatility of a armor class, in essence, puts more emphasis on what the team needs to be doing as a whole. It forces people to work together on tasks rather than sending a supernaut out who can handle two or three taks alone based upon skill & loadout. In short it makes it more of a challenge to succeed in team competition over Tribes2.

And that's the goal isn't it? For a sequel to be more challenging than the one before?

Absolute speciality of purpose forces extreme dependence on competant teamwork which will kill pub play. New people don't just join up knowing how to work as one with their teammates. Vets will become frustrated. Servers will sit empty, which will inevitably kill competitive play.

Some versatility is a must. I have a lot of trust in KP and Thrax. They've made great choices in the past. I'm thinking their consideration to drop the number of weapons is for ease of use, not for forcing us to become helpless without competant teamwork.

I just hope they'll let us Heavy fans check out the game play before they commit to the 3 weapon idea.

I'm up for a change.

http://www.duke.edu/~gz9/Rejected.wmv

considering that:

1) we haven't played the game yet

2) we'll have the chance to play the game long before it's released

3) kp has said (and this seems quite reasonable) that changing the 3 weapon setup for each armor is trivial

i'd say the only thing you have to worry about is losing time out of your day to needless speculation over something that might turn out to be fine.

But see, Mad Monk, this is how fans in anticipation of a new release pass their time until gold.

well me thinks plasma disc and mortar is gonne be the big thing, it severely limits spamage so people might do a gren disc and mortar

With the removal of the shocklance and correct me if Im wrong but I havent heard of a new weapon like it so the Heavies would have an easier time getting across the map w/o an electric stick up their butt. So 3 weapons does sound reasonable but with all that armor you'd think they could fit more weapons than the new "super lights" could. Still unsure of this 3 weapons for all idea.
Post edited by NateTheGrate at 3/8/2004 8:10:43 PM

how about we dont worry about what the game is gonna be like until beta...


http://www.duke.edu/~gz9/Rejected.wmv

3-3-4 Would be cool.

I think also that more weapons you carry = more weight put on you would be a nice idea as well. So if a capper truly wants speed, he can carry no weapons but only a pack.

What about secondary functions of weapons? Why do packs have them and weapons don't? If weapons had a secondary option, then having all 3 armors with weapon slot of 3 would be interesting.

Change can be good. So either way, it may be good.

On another note: 3 weapon slot would really specify the roles of each armor. For instance, a HD or a HoF would have a totally differnt loadout as compared to a HO. So this idea makes sense.
Post edited by Kazu- at 3/8/2004 11:44:44 PM

either 3 or 4 depending on how T:V plays

Originally posted by: SterIO
Would be interesting, and more complicated :O, if they made the # of weapons a player could carry inversely proportional to the amount of ammo they could carry. So if you were a heavy and wanted to spam you could choose just a mortar and chaingun or something and get 20 mortars and 200 cg rounds, but if you wanted to carry 5 weapons you'd only have like 4 mortars, 5 discs, 50 cg rounds, 5 grenades, 5 plasma shots -- or something. :x

Good idea, but playing would be awkward, consider the endless amount of time you would spend on your inventory the first few days

Nate has is on the head. No shocklance, and I hope to god there's no mine discing (always got on my nerves).

So, if those two are gone....how much dueling will a heavy need to do to survive? 3 weapons will keep them from being uncompetatively powerful imo, especially since they can't be chain whored down in a cuple of seconds due to the CG overheat.
Post edited by {Total} at 3/9/2004 12:49:34 PM

i think the whole idea of limiting # of weapons was to balance out the heavies now being super heavy. For those of you who played TR2, i suspect that it will be similar to a light goin up against at TR2 heavy. On that note, 3 weapons is more than enough to get a specific job done. You might use all the weapons in ur loadout, but how often do you actually use all of them in one run? From what i've seen, most heavies usually end up using mortar and spin until their dead.

Originally posted by: Mad Monk
considering that:

1) we haven't played the game yet

2) we'll have the chance to play the game long before it's released

3) kp has said (and this seems quite reasonable) that changing the 3 weapon setup for each armor is trivial

i'd say the only thing you have to worry about is losing time out of your day to needless speculation over something that might turn out to be fine.

How many things like weapon numbers have changed once a game reached beta?

They say it's easy, and might be, but that doesn't mean it'll ever happen. Especially once beta starts and all these people who never played Tribes will think that 3 weapons was how it always was to begin with.

Originally posted by: Tiberius Khan
i think the whole idea of limiting # of weapons was to balance out the heavies now being super heavy. For those of you who played TR2, i suspect that it will be similar to a light goin up against at TR2 heavy. On that note, 3 weapons is more than enough to get a specific job done. You might use all the weapons in ur loadout, but how often do you actually use all of them in one run? From what i've seen, most heavies usually end up using mortar and spin until their dead.

I'll take versatility over a small cog in a big machine any day.