Favorite Power Weapon Combinations?

Mixed

 

I say mixed, but I accidently voted for team weapon layout.

 

Pretty much what you said, I like team set Sniper spawns and am not a massive fan of neutral Snipers in general. But I prefer neutral rockets to a set for each team, Tempest works ok but that's in good part down to the very specific nature of the map and sometimes it does seem a bit overkill. A single set of Rockets for one team on an asymmetrical map can work, but obviously only when the gametype is also asymmetrical.

 

I voted neutral. I don't like team power weapons because it encourages sniper camping and keeps people from moving across a map.

 

I disagree. Me and Insane were talking about this ages ago and he made a very good point about the potential problems with a neutral Sniper. Since it's inherently a ranged weapon, any smart user is going to utilise that and focus on keeping range from targets when using it. Therefore, a neutral Sniper is likely to be grabbed by one team and then held on their side and used to suppress the enemy team, who then have no counter to it since they don't have their own Sniper spawn to rely on and even find it hard to push up and possibly grab the next neutral Sniper. Basically, Snipers are generally going to be used from range, it's the nature of the beast, and a neutral spawn will tend to give a distinct advantage to one team in a way that's hard to overcome. Power weapons should be an advantage, but not a self perpetuating one.

Rockets, on the other hand, are inherently a more aggressive pickup, and so neutral Rockets tend to work better. A good example would be Rocket spawn on The Pit: A good idea when picking them up is to work with your team around the Rocket guy to make a strong push on to the enemy side. Now, because it's The Pit, it's still a strong tactic to stick to your side and use the Rockets more defensively, but even then the best place to hold them is along green and training, which means the user is still vulnerable to an enemy push if they're not smart. This isn't true for the likely positioning of a defensive Sniper, most likely top tower and possibly on stage.

 

Whenever I consider placing a neutral Sniper, I always put either a neutral Focus Rifle or one for each team on the map as well to sort of keep things balanced to an extent. Sure the Sniper can kill the Focus Rifle user much easier but the Focus Rifle can suppress the Sniper by keeping him out of his scope. I still try as hard as I can to not put a neutral Sniper Rifle on my maps either way (or in general because I prefer the Focus Rifle way more) but it doesn't hurt to try it out in the long run.

I voted for Team but only for asymmetrical maps. There really isn't anything I enjoy more than making or playing asymmetrical games where each team gets a different power weapon each that is not only balanced, but different from the standard weapon set. I still place neutral power weapons on these maps but usually ones on a lower tier than the ones at the spawns (like the Grenade Launcher or Shotgun) and try to keep them off to the side a little bit so the flow of the map doesn't revolve directly around them.

They're a lot more team based weapons than the Rockets and Sniper and are more or less support weapons, which is what makes them great at being neutral power items for smaller, yet open maps. They're essentially the Rockets and Sniper Lite combined with the Plasma Pistol. They're probably my favorite power weapons in the game for this reason because they give you a much larger advantage when using them with a team (by way of removing enemies shields and having a friendly finish 'em off) and take a sizable amount of skill to use to get kills with in most cases.

 

Those are really good points. I guess I wrote that because I've been in too many hemorrage slayer games... I guess I should have put down "mixed." I agree with you about rockets being a good aggressive neutral weapon, and I'd even suggest shotgun as it is used well on Anchor 9. I guess sniper camping in team setups that detracts from gameplay is a map issue rather than a weapon set issue. All those maps where it is perfectly safe for a sniper to hang back and not support his team make that weapon so aggravating to have around. A good sniper on hemorrage will move up with the team, sniping high value targets (plasma launcher guy especially) and counter sniping. A good sniper can mean the difference when capturing a territory or controlling a middle teleport zone.

I guess the counter argument to your neutral sniper point could be the smart user is being rewarded for taking a high value weapon out of a dangerous area. And perhaps the map could be designed for sight lines that keep a sniper from rapidly relocating his line of sight. Say, three halls with various levels and a middle route set with cover: making it hard for a player to rapidlyview those three halls renders the sniper less of a threat. I think halo 3s citadel is a decent example of that, although it can still get pretty crazy (and there is no neutral sniper, of course). I do agree it is important to keep weapons from becoming a self propagating influence, but maybe it's also a matter of decent map design as well as smart weapon placement? I am thinking about what Asylum would look like with a neutral sniper, and it doesn't look pretty. Same with halo 3 maps like Standoff. But put a sniper on a map like boardwalk where the plasma launcher is or something like that, and I think interesting gameplay could happen.

 

I tried to think of a good explanation but I decided I'd rather jut take a couple of pictures of a map that I was working on for a while but lost interest in recently and show you what I wanted to do in terms of power weapons and balancing. Keep in mind that this map has yet to be tested but that doesn't mean I cannot show you the mentality I use when trying to balance maps like this.

This an overview of the map. From this angle, it looks like each side has a pretty even playing field...



...But on closer inspection, the map geometry is actually very weighted toward Blue side. Red base is positioned near the bottom of the canyon...



...While Blue is positioned at the top. With a symmetrical power weapon layout, Blue team will obviously have the advantage.



So how do I go about balancing this without making drastic changes to the geometry? Well, it's actually pretty easy in theory.

A closer look shows that I decided to give Red team a Grenade Launcher in their base with a Sniper Rifle just outside, relatively close to them.



The Grenade Launcher can be used to attack people at a higher elevation much easier than a Concussion Rifle and the Sniper Rifle can help give Red team an edge in preventing Blue team from having too much control over the higher ground depending on whether the Sniper is good enough.

On the other hand, I gave Blue team a Concussion Rifle and Plasma Launcher.



The Concussion Rifle is a good weapon to use when firing down at enemies but isn't as precise as the Grenade Launcher while the Plasma Launcher can be used well at range, it isn't as reliable as the Sniper Rifle as it takes a while for it to home in on its target.

Both the Concussion Rifle and Grenade Launcher have the same respawn time as well as the Plasma Launcher and Sniper.

To give each team an incentive to run out of their spawn area, I put a Rocket Launcher in the center of the map. The Rocket Launcher is a very flexible weapon and has potential to be a nuisance to either team when in capable hands.



This might not be the best display of how to utilize an asymmetric power weapon layout because I have no idea if this layout works good or bad, but the main reasoning behind this little write up was to show the mentality I have when trying to balance one. Hopefully this gave you some insight.

 

^ Looks good in principle, and I agree with your point that asymmetrical maps often warrant varying powerweapon sets for each team, even aside from with the obvious asymm gametypes. It's the same principle as High Ground, and your choice of an Attacker Sniper for a thin, uphill asymm map is well made imo, same with roughly neutral Rockets.

 

how is red team (i assume) guaranteed rockets? you can run up to skybtidge and jump down to rocket spawn if you are blue or use the infection camping spot on tbat ledge (never tried it, just came up with the idea now so dont kill me of it doesnt work)

edit: obviously talking about Boardwalk

 

I don't play a lot of Boardwalk but when you grab Rockets, there is only one way to leave the spawn point and that's through the bottom middle or into one of the teams starting spawns. Naturally, if your team isn't the one on the way out of Rockets, your going to have a tough time keeping them.

 

To be honest I don't think many people have a 'preference'. What works with the map will work, there's nothing more to it. You really shouldn't be basing the design of your map around a preference in power weapon locations, but rather the other way around. In fact, ideally the less power weapons the better.

 

Neutral weapon layout: Pile of weapons in the middle of the map. Bad.
Team weapon layout: Pile of weapons in each base. Bad.
Mixed weapon layout: Weapons spread around the map, anything that's not either of the above. Good.