Chaosforge Forum

DoomRL => Requests For Features => Topic started by: Cirrus on March 20, 2011, 18:48

Title: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Cirrus on March 20, 2011, 18:48
I love using the weapon hotkeys, but they could work a little better.  The hotkey only seems to bring up one particular weapon, which really hampers using juggler with them.  The hotkeys could be a lot better if pressing the hotkey cycled through all weapons of the same type.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Nameless on March 20, 2011, 20:44
I am not the dev team, but I'm fairly sure this is deliberate game balance - otherwise, Juggler would allow shotgun users to cycle through a dozen different weapons and never have to worry about reloading in the middle of battle. This would make the shottyman trait redundant, and take away one of the key differences between shotgun and rapid fire builds. Juggler is designed for more jack-of-all-trade builds or complicated maneuvers like eg. shotgunning an enemy out of splash range, rocketing them before they can step back in, and then finishing them off with a chaingun that you have spare ammo for.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: grommile on March 21, 2011, 02:12
As I understand it, the hotkeys specifically always give you your emptiest weapon of that type - as Nameless notes, without this balance measure Juggler would be ridiculously awesome instead of merely very good.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Cirrus on March 21, 2011, 08:32
Interesting, I would have never thought that juggler was designed that way for balance.

How would the balance change if that was allowed?  I'm curious, since you trade inventory space for them, instead of carrying other things.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Thexare on March 21, 2011, 11:25
Quote from: Cirrus on March 21, 2011, 08:32
How would the balance change if that was allowed?  I'm curious, since you trade inventory space for them, instead of carrying other things.
Immediately obvious: BFG. It holds more cells than a stack, and not much will survive six BFG shots (single bulk mod on each is easy to do)

Less obvious: Rapid-fire weapons on a non-ammochain game (MCe, for example). Setting aside the Assault Cannon and Minigun (they fall under the first one), there's also the matter of reload speeds - it could very easily be worth carrying a second Chaingun or Plasma Rifle to avoid having to reload mid-fight. Especially the Plasma Rifle - it's rather unlikely for any typical mob to survive two full Plasma Rifles' worth of damage.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Game Hunter on March 21, 2011, 14:09
Quote from: Thexare on March 21, 2011, 11:25
Quote from: Cirrus on March 21, 2011, 08:32
How would the balance change if that was allowed?  I'm curious, since you trade inventory space for them, instead of carrying other things.
Immediately obvious: BFG. It holds more cells than a stack, and not much will survive six BFG shots (single bulk mod on each is easy to do)

Less obvious: Rapid-fire weapons on a non-ammochain game (MCe, for example). Setting aside the Assault Cannon and Minigun (they fall under the first one), there's also the matter of reload speeds - it could very easily be worth carrying a second Chaingun or Plasma Rifle to avoid having to reload mid-fight. Especially the Plasma Rifle - it's rather unlikely for any typical mob to survive two full Plasma Rifles' worth of damage.
All of those possibilities are already possible with the current Juggler setup. Equip BFGs (or chainguns, or plasma rifles) to the equipped slot and the prepared slot. When you run out of ammo in one, swap to the other (instantly).

Really, the biggest exploit I can think of has also been mentioned: multiple, instant shotguns. It would basically allow you to use assault shotgun at level two. I don't mind the current setup, although if we could set WHICH weapon to be the one that quickkeys, that would be more useful (obviously it would incur some time).
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: DeathDealer on March 23, 2011, 12:26
Could all unique, exotic, and assembled weapons at least be keyed to the standard hotkeys? I know the double chainsaw is linked to the chainsaw key, and the chainsword to the knife... but why can't the nuclear plasma be linked to the plasma rifle key too? It doesn't seem like much of a stretch.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Game Hunter on March 23, 2011, 12:38
Quote from: DeathDealer on March 23, 2011, 12:26
Could all unique, exotic, and assembled weapons at least be keyed to the standard hotkeys? I know the double chainsaw is linked to the chainsaw key, and the chainsword to the knife... but why can't the nuclear plasma be linked to the plasma rifle key too? It doesn't seem like much of a stretch.
Assembled weapons are assigned to the same hotkey as the weapon it came from because of the way that assemblies are coded, IIRC.  The game is only modifying the stats of whatever you're assembling as if it were just a modded piece of equipment.  Exotics and uniques, on the other hand, have no such modifier in the first place.  What key do you suggest we use for the Railgun, or the BFG10K?  What of the weapons would be picked when we switch out? If we can't cycle through each possibility, these arbitrary placements mess up with priority weapons unnecessarily.

And, while I imagine this is doable, I'm starting to think that Juggler a LITTLE more powerful than it needs to be. Having it apply to quickkeys is already a stretch: because of it, I typically don't even look at the numbers and just haphazardly select between all my weapons until I get the one I need. Zero swap time between equipped and prepared slots is supposed to be THE feature of the trait, which is already pretty damn good. (If you don't think it is, you haven't experienced situations where death would happen otherwise.)  If I understand correctly, the quickkey addition was there for blind mode...maybe you could just leave it in blind mode?
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Deathwind on March 24, 2011, 02:22
can we at least get some of the obvious ones bound? Things like the nuke plasma rifle and the laser rifle bound to '8', the nuke BFG and the BFG 10K to '9' (gotta add at least one that will kill players).
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: ZZ on March 24, 2011, 04:06
Here's the full list of what should be bound to which key:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: DeathDealer on March 24, 2011, 18:50
It is a powerful trait already. I often take it first if I'm not going for a build with SoG for it's excellent utility. It's just that with the advent of exotic/unique weapons in the later parts of the game replacing the standards you feel cheated a little... it's value decreases somewhat. I can live without changes, but I'd like the other weapons better. Besides once you've got more than two exotics/uniques to switch between you're fighting the toughest monsters in the game and have been gifted by the RNG, so why should his gifts have more strings attached than his already fickle favor?
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Sambojin on March 24, 2011, 19:32
Probably because as has been said, it would be far too powerful. Juggler is a truly amazing trait as it is, on par with the other advanced traits (or better) yet is also available one experience level earlier. It also has the advantage of being in the WK chain, which is great with all the new assemblies. Nothing fixes poor tactics, weapon choice or reloading like Juggler. Even just the instant shotgun availability is awesome for double/sing/combat decisions and the loaded gun in each hand thing.

If you do have two exotics/uniques then just put them in the equipped and prepared slots. It's not as though you can't immediately switch out to two different "normal" weapons you'd rather use. The BFG9k is an exotic that even has its own quickkey(as is the chainsaw?). I'm a fan of twin combat shottys early on or assault shotty/missile launcher for later myself. Switch in bigger single target guns as needed.

I actually think Juggler could afford to be toned down a little. Maybe make it 0.3 seconds for weapon swaps, or a two level trait with first level giving 0.4 secs and level 2 giving 0.2 secs weapon slots. Fast, but not free. The way it is, it's probably a bit too good. It's probably the only part of DoomRL that allows you to accidentally press the wrong key with no disadvantages, and can keep mashing those keys until your heart's content. It's also a wonderful tactics checker, where you can slowly decide just what you want to blast the baddies with. Every other non-juggler build, you have to know before hand, or pay the consequences of poor weapon choice and reloading tactics.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Thexare on March 24, 2011, 19:42
Quote from: ZZ on March 24, 2011, 04:06
Here's the full list of what should be bound to which key:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Super should be on the Double Shotgun key, whichever that is. I'd also move the Jackhammer to the Combat Shotgun key.

I'd also put the Blaster on the Pistol key, since it is in most ways just a recharging pistol.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Deathwind on March 25, 2011, 01:02
Maybe just bind the exotics?
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: DeathDealer on March 25, 2011, 07:45
I'd be happy with Juggler not affecting the switch speed at all for exotic/unique weapons, or as has been suggested being toned down to some small increment for every switch, but I'd still like the ability to use standard hotkeys to switch to any weapon in the game.
Title: Re: Weapon hotkey & multiple weapons
Post by: Shoop da Whoop on March 25, 2011, 08:23
I'd like to see cycling with increasing time.
Sort of: you get your first gun fast (0 sec), the second then needs some time (0.1 sec), third - more time (0.2), et cetera.