I am posting the list of changes in weapon/combat area. I know that this changes are huge and i realize, that they cant be implemented in this era. But works on changes needs time, so maybe next era some of them will be implemented. Also, there are many ideas that can be implemented right now (tomorrow, next week
).
Premises:
1)
Weapon firepower (and other atributies expect price)
must be balanced first. Economy later. Economy will tip the scales.
2)
Fights have to be longer.
3) Today, there are 2 weapons group: weapons good for leveling, and weapons good for PvP. There should not exist such a barrier.
4) 3 guns groups SG/BG/EW must be balanced. I mean balance, that in 6 player group, there will naturaly be 3 SG, 1 BG and 2 EW class of players. This must be developers aim, if they want to achive point 2).
5) In every class of weapons (SG/BG/EW) there must exist theese sub-classes of weapons:
Defensive weapons /
attack weapons.
The major difference is, that devs do not need to balance guns across sub-groups, but only in each groups, because each weapon sub-group has another purpose.
DW: pistols, revolvers, shortened shotguns/shotguns, some kind of SMGs, flamer.
AW: riffles, hunting riffles, sniper riffles, some kind of SMG, combat shotguns, (laser/plasma rifles), machine guns, miniguns, rocket launchers
DW weapons will have shorter distance and will be cheaper, more reliable, cheaper to use. AW opposite to DW sub-class.
Suggestions: 1)
Enviroment effect: Every weapon should have his own enviroment effect. Simple weapon, less effect, more complicate, bigger effect. Less effect, small requirements of your others than SG/BG/EW skill, bigger effect = bigger requirements.
a)
weapon failure If you want to shoot from your weapon, but your weapon will failure, you will need to use repair skill to "remove" a failure. You will have many chances to do this, because until you will "remove" a failure, you will not be able to repair (or damage) this weapon. This will also helps to reduce pure PvP chars domination in battlefield. More complicated weapons (plasma/sniper riffle/xl/miniguns) more repair skill you will need to remove the failure.
[[Forrest has finished assembling his rifle]
Forrest Gump: DONE, DRILL SERGEANT!
Drill Sergeant: GUUUUUUMP! Why did you put that weapon together so quickly, Gump?
Forrest Gump: [confused] You told me to, Drill Sergeant?
Drill Sergeant: Jesus H. Christ!
[looks at stopwatch]
Drill Sergeant: This is a new company record! If it wouldn't be such a waste of a damn-fine enlisted man I'd recommend you for OCS! You are gonna be a general someday, Gump, now disassemble your weapon and continue!]
b)
day/night If there will someday exist day/night differencies which will affect perception, there should exist special addons to weapons, like night sight. Night sight should reduce this negative impact. But night sight will not be able for big guns class of weapons except LSW or machine gun.
c)
rain Not every weapon is fully ready to fight in water. Imagine acid, dense water raining, rain full of dust from wasteland. So more complicated weapons will have problem with reliability. Energetic weapons, best SG weapons (sniper riffle, XL,..), miniguns will have bigger chance to fail vis. a)
d)
interiors/exteriors If you are in exterior (under the clouds/sun), there will be no negative effect. But if you are in interior, there should be negative effect to all riffles (energetic/plasma, as. riffles too, except bull pop magazine riffles), machineguns, LSW, miniguns and rocket launchers. The negative impact is that you need 2 more action points to use this weapon in that conditions. So i.e. sniper will be unable to use his sniper riffle in interior, resp. he will be unable to shoot eyeshots. (And what about big interriors?? Depends on system, i agree that in assembly hall you will have conditions similar to conditions in exterior, but system/server may have problem with computing this).
So, we will have finally usage for SMGs, pistols, shotguns in PvP fights. It is like in real world. Police commando uses MP5, shotguns, pistols inside, their snipers are outside the building.
e)
blast of weapons If you use rocket launcher, you will make a back blast (1,2, and 3 hexes, totaly 6 hexes (pyramid) behind you), so you can harm and will have very big chance to cripple players (teamates behind you). Also, in interier, you (RL possesor) will automaticaly get damage from back blast.
2)
Differencies amongs weapon classes: I suggest to make one gun (attributes) in fonline refferent, and then make refferent gun in every other classes and sub-classes.
I.e.: FN FAL is refferent. FN is hase the same attribute (firepower, distance,magazine,..) like Assault riffle, but you will be able to choose ammo type in AR.
Refferent guns: SG / EW / BG
(x) FN FAL burst / plasma riffle single shot / LSW burst
(y)Sniper r.eyeshot/ laser riffle eyeshot / N/A
(x):
DMG: One burst of FN FAL = one shot with plasma riffle < LSW burst
Distance: FN > plasma = lsw
AP: FN = plasma riffle < lsw burst
(y):
DMG: Sniper < laser
Critical: Sniper > laser
Distance: sniper = laser
AP: sniper > laser
Armor reduction: sniper = constant, laser = variable
a)
small guns: aa) positive attributes
* many weapon types, so you can choose exactly that type you need in every conditions (+ special perks: long range, knockback...)
* lower demand factor of maintanance (except sniper riffle and hi-tech weapons: xl ,...)
* most of them will be able to burst
* most of them is able to choose type of ammo
* bigger chance of critical hit than EW
* less action point need to use than EW
ab) negative attributes:
* only pistols, hunting riffle, sniper riffle and xl (gauss too) will be able to do eyeshots, rest. of SG class will have ability only headshot, but they will have chance to random eyeshots
* lower average damages than EW
b)
energetic weapons ba) possitive attributes:
* every EW will be able to do eyeshot
* bigger average (constant) damages than SG
bb) negative attributes:
* less weapon types than SG
* unable to burst
* lower critical damages than SG
* more AP needs to shot (+1)
* unable to choose ammo type
* bigger demand factor of maintanance (same as sniper riffle, XL, gauss LSW)
c)
big guns ca) possitive attributes:
* bigger firepower than any other weapon class
* splash damage (RLauncher)
* bigger magazines
cb) negative attributes:
* unable to run with BG weapons in active slot (except LSW = LIGHT support weapon, but Lsw will have only quite bigger damage than SG assault riffles class (in burst), but penalty of little less range and not acurate perk)
* unable to aim shots
* more ammo consumable
* biggest demand factor of maintanance (more than EW, SG.. Only LSW will have same as sniper riffle, xl, gauss lsw,...)
* very long reload speed - except LWS (it is unable to reload RL in same time like assault riffle, same example is machine gun, minigun. In real world, you need 2 men to use RL or machine gun). I suggest 8 AP reload time for all BG except LSW (lsw +1 AP in opposite of assault riffles).
3)
Crittical chance: I suggest give more propability of hand/leg cripple, than eyeshot. So it will be better to shot enemy weapon from his hand (or cripple him), than instakill him. Now it is opposite.
4) Measure against powerbuilds.
Training accademy Soldier is not only man who knows how to push trigger. He needs basic knowledge of tactics, weapons (dis)assembling because of maintanance and first aid. He
need to be quite universal. Because of that, soldier have to
finish some basic training. So i suggest to make basic training accademy (quests). You will need 5 charisma (because of abusing drugs in that case), and specific amount of skill points in SG or BG or EW skill, FA, DOC, THROWING, UNARMED, MELEE, REPAIR nad OUTDOORSMAN skill.
You will have to make special quests, where NPC will test you from this abilites. If you are unsuccesfull in one, you have to do every previous again. The test will looks that you have to use your previous described skills, some of them multiple times with specific percentage of succes you need, some you will have to do in first time attempt.
If you
succeed in this test,
you will get special perk, that will give your (
soldiers) skills
special ability in comparsion of chars, who will have same or quite better skills, but they will not succed in Training accademy test. The benefit will be, that in certain combat action, you will have bigger chance of succes, or your minimal value of HP per FA will be bigger. Any pure PvP will not be able to achive this, because they will not have enough charisma (if the charisma requirement and drugs benefit is set to correct level):
a) weapons fail => you need to use repair to shoot again => Accademy training (at least 75 percent chance to repair it)
b) basic combat doctor/fa skill: Until the f****k FA weakness changes, i would suggest that only if you have this special quest (with non drug charisma), you will be able to heal yourself with at least constant rate of 50 HP per one use of FA (so maybe more if you have enough FA, but this will be minumum). So if you dont change this, i suggest 75 percent chance of heal wounded limbs, if you finished training academy.
c) grenade throwing = at least( 50 percent) chance to hit on every distance
d) outdoorsman = + 20 to outdoorsman
e) unarmed = +..
f) melee =+..
g) maybe add little amount (20) of skill points to other than your main weapon skill (SG and BG if you are EW class cha)r, so you will be able to use this kind of guns in critical situation (your gun is broken, without ammo and you have only desert eagle to defence yourself..).
Pure PvP will still dominant in their one weapon skill (snipers, more bursts minigunners, but their power builds will fail with removing the fail (stuck?) of their weapon,, FA, nades throwing,... As i wrote, even soldiers must be universal
) .