The fix list

[Gawain]

I think its bad in a stealth game that u can see if you have hurt or killed a spy...
But on the other hand, it's good for improving your aiming/timing with nades.

Chaff/smoke should not work through walls, ok. But chaff should work in a larger radius, too. Then it would be consequential  and balanced

The radius is fine. It had a larger radius in PT and was absolutely ridiculous.

I don't get your point. We all want more passive defenses and less mt-whoring, furthermore you need more time to disable mines as you had to shoot the chaffs (assuming they don't work through walls). Where's your problem with a larger radius?

[goodkebab]

smokes going through walls is unavoidable in CT...it has to do with the sprites not detecting the walls.

It really is a tech problems.  Solution is using particles instead of sprites....but that is more expensive on the graphics card....especially if you need it to be dense and opaque smoke.


Chaff, I honestly think it was intended to go through walls after lots of play testing by Ubi.  Maps like Clubhouse and Missile Strike would be impossible otherwise.  I personally would like to see it really be more effective against the merc visions like in PT.

[InvisibleMan999]

There are very, very few poison mines that you can place where a spy can't reach the healthbox in time if he's at full health. This makes the mine much less useful than it ought to be. With a reduction to 10 seconds, the spies will still have a chance to reach healthboxes often, but poison mines will increase in effectiveness.

So what? If he's running for a medkit, he's not hacking (and probably setting off the sound detector like mad). He may run headlong into a merc. Of course there's always the time honored tactic of putting a proxy by the medkit too.

It's obvious you never played PT. The mercs had 5 frags in that game as well. It's beyond me why that number was reduced to 4.

Really? How is it obvious I've never played PT? I even talk later in the post about making the taser like it was in PT, so stop making arrogant sounding accusations. Yeah, the merc had 5 nades in PT, he also had 5 spytraps, no gasmask and couldn't berserk. Just because they did it in PT doesn't mean that it was the right way. They reduced the nades to 4 and everyone stills takes frags. If anything that means we should keep them the same or reduce them as they are right now (at 4 frags) a must take item.

No, it doesn't need to be what it was in PT. That was too much, and without SS+Jump the mercs will be untouchable. Somewhere inbetween, leaning closer to the CT side, would lead to a balanced tazer.

The CT tazer was awful. Remember that you're not just comparing an item versus it's actual value, but also its relative value. You don't get a taser for free. You've got to not take frags, backpack, spytraps, mines or a gas mask and take the taser instead. If you're giving that stuff up, you better get something useful in return. There is no way the CT taser is anywhere as useful as any of those aforementioned items. The PT taser on the other hand may lead someone to ask, "Would I rather have mines or this taser?"

It's one thing if you're going to hand out the taser for free, but if you've got to pay an equipment slot for it, it better be damn good. The taser's purpose is an anti-aggro weapon, I think the PT version did that very well. It'd be nice to be able to burn some of my equipment slots for a reliable anti-aggro weapon against some teams.

By giving it a max range and forcing normal post-render, you help spies who are staying away from the mercs. But the fact that it detects in a 360 radius (albeit a delay from behind) and can still see in shadows helps the mercs when the spies are close. Isn't this the way it should be?

Besides, the mercs have the laser, flashlight, EMF, and a whole shitload of other stuff that can see you in shadows. Hiding in a dark corner is usually not a very good spot in general.

Actually take away MT and you'd be surprised. It takes a while to laser sweep a big room, and the flashlight's range is rather weak. EMF naturally requires the spy to switch on his visions. People think hiding in the shadows sucks because they're too used to high-res night vision MT that picks people off in the shadows. How often do you get spotted hiding in the dark with a flashlight anyway?  I can't even recall the last time I remember someone using the laser on me. 

They can still be useful, and definitely more useful than flares.

For example, let's say we're playing club house. You can shoot a phosphorous grenade up into the main hall ceiling so that any spy who drops down runs into the gas. Furthermore, a PG and FG are indistinguishable to the spy when they are fired, so it tricks them into thinking they're going to die when they aren't.

They're also very useful on maps like warehouse where spy traps and camnet don't do a damn thing.

Warehouse shouldn't even exist. That's exactly the kind of map we ought to bury and not even look back on. They're just pure aggro fests where you can't hack anything without a nade being fired a half second later because everything is in the same room.

[InvisibleMan999]

The uzi is overpowered, even if it didn't cause lag and a general inability to grab the mercs. It's not omgwtfimba overpowered, but it's still overpowered nonetheless. It's more accurate than the rifle when firing full-auto with a negligible bullet spread, has more than 2x the ROF, more than 2x the magazine capacity, more than 2x the ammo capacity, and the cost is that you do roughly 25% less damage while firing full auto and the damage dropoff kicks in at slightly closer distances. This is fair?

Yeah, you conveniently ignore the fact that you can't snipe with the uzi. Sniping is incredibly powerful and damn worth it. You can kill a spy in one shot and spies have to stand perfectly still to neutralize terminals. You do the math. 

When I played CT on PC, the majority of good mercs used rifles, not uzis. It was very rare not to see a good merc sniping you, the snipe function was just that useful. Regardless of the uber uzi, it tended to be a weapon for less experienced players. For all it's apparent "brokenness", most pros didn't even use it. Most of the people who took the uzi were people who weren't so great at sniping.

Even on xbox, the rifle is a popular choice (and believe me when I say sniping is much weaker on the box).

Personally I found the around-the-corner host headshot while I was hacking to be much more annoying than host uzi, but I'm not crying out for us to ban the rifle. At least the merc has to get reasonably close to you to hit you with the uzi.

It did cause some lag issues for some people, but that's more of a matter of optimizing netcode than the uzi. The uzi doesn't even fire much faster than the rifle did in PT. It's just that CT's netcode was pretty bad so it felt like the uzi was this lag weapon of death. In fact, when you weren't the host I tended to think the uzi was a fairly weak weapon. Host uzi was nasty, for sure, but then, host anything is nasty.

[Gawain]

affirmative ;)
giving headshots is too easy imo

[Spekkio]

Chaff, I honestly think it was intended to go through walls after lots of play testing by Ubi.  Maps like Clubhouse and Missile Strike would be impossible otherwise.  I personally would like to see it really be more effective against the merc visions like in PT.

Club house impossible if chaff didn't go through walls? What about the fact that I don't even take the damn things on that map? We're having the argument on the necessity of taking chaff in the first place in another thread, no reason to bring it here. Club house has like 9,000 entrances (I'm exaggerating, but there are more entrances than places to trap); there's no need for chaff to go through walls. As a matter of fact, if you fix the crooked lasers on spy traps and poison mines, I can't think of a single place in the whole map that you couldn't shoot the chaff around the wall to take out the laser.

Missile Strike needs rebalancing in general. If you achieve that, you don't need to have chaffs go through walls.

Perhaps the change was intended, as we can only speculate about that, but it was a bad change nonetheless. The only way this change would hinder you is if you liked to play a run-around-the map style where you spam chaff at corners to take out lasers, traps, and proxies. To put it another way: the running around strategy that Sithduke even made a video of would not work in Museum if chaff didn't go through walls. Trying to stop such a strategy in any sort of lag is impossible.

Where's your problem with a larger radius?

My problem is that it was ridiculous in PT. You could literally throw 1 chaff down in Museum inner cafe and take out every laser in the room. Not to mention that a merc anywhere near there can't use visions, can't enter sniper mode, and can't reload. The radius doesn't need to be increased.

I honestly don't understand what this has to do with MT whores, but ok.

I think its bad in a stealth game that u can see if you have hurt or killed a spy...
But on the other hand, it's good for improving your aiming/timing with nades.

In PT, the sniping at a spy gave no indication on whether or not you hit him. This was terribly annoying, as you could never calibrate your aim to accomodate for lag.

Warehouse shouldn't even exist. That's exactly the kind of map we ought to bury and not even look back on. They're just pure aggro fests where you can't hack anything without a nade being fired a half second later because everything is in the same room.

Some people like the map (if it was extraction, you could count me in that group). Some people like phosphorous grenades. From what I understand, more people liked PGs than flares, so bring them back.

Actually take away MT and you'd be surprised. It takes a while to laser sweep a big room, and the flashlight's range is rather weak. EMF naturally requires the spy to switch on his visions. People think hiding in the shadows sucks because they're too used to high-res night vision MT that picks people off in the shadows. How often do you get spotted hiding in the dark with a flashlight anyway?

The best players in the game don't MT whore; they cycle through all their visions. It's much quicker and easier than you think to sweep rooms with flashlight and laser. Play any of the UMP maps with the MT "fix" on it and you'll see what I mean. The non-inverted shadows don't make much of a difference.

How often do I get spotted in the corner with the flashlight? Not often because I know that the mercs have a ton of tools to find me in a dark corner, so I don't make a habit of sitting out in the open.

The CT tazer was awful. Remember that you're not just comparing an item versus it's actual value, but also its relative value. You don't get a taser for free. You've got to not take frags, backpack, spytraps, mines or a gas mask and take the taser instead. If you're giving that stuff up, you better get something useful in return. There is no way the CT taser is anywhere as useful as any of those aforementioned items. The PT taser on the other hand may lead someone to ask, "Would I rather have mines or this taser?"

It's one thing if you're going to hand out the taser for free, but if you've got to pay an equipment slot for it, it better be damn good. The taser's purpose is an anti-aggro weapon, I think the PT version did that very well. It'd be nice to be able to burn some of my equipment slots for a reliable anti-aggro weapon against some teams.

The PT tazer was an anti-everything weapon, not just anti-aggro. I agree that it needs a range buff, but it should not be as long as it was in PT. That's just absurd.

So what? If he's running for a medkit, he's not hacking (and probably setting off the sound detector like mad). He may run headlong into a merc. Of course there's always the time honored tactic of putting a proxy by the medkit too.

That's poor logic and it ignores the main function of mines: to kill your opponents.

Yeah, you conveniently ignore the fact that you can't snipe with the uzi. Sniping is incredibly powerful and damn worth it. You can kill a spy in one shot and spies have to stand perfectly still to neutralize terminals. You do the math.

When I played CT on PC, the majority of good mercs used rifles, not uzis. It was very rare not to see a good merc sniping you, the snipe function was just that useful. Regardless of the uber uzi, it tended to be a weapon for less experienced players. For all it's apparent "brokenness", most pros didn't even use it. Most of the people who took the uzi were people who weren't so great at sniping.

You see a lot of "pros" avoid the uzi because it's become a faux pas to use it, especially while hosting or if the teams are on different continents because of the added lag host uzi causes. Personally, I avoid the uzi most of the time because it's not worth the aggrevation of getting kicked/harassed about it. But I'll let you in on a little secret: when we played the solidus and snakebit, the winners of the tournament, they took double-uzi (and mercs were hosting), even on Steel Squat. Why? Because it's more powerful than the rifle.

Yes, the rifle can snipe and get a kill. However, the uzi with its pinpoint accuracy can take a spy off the objective just the same. It's not like you have grenades or anything to chuck in that direction anyway.

Personally I found the around-the-corner host headshot while I was hacking to be much more annoying than host uzi, but I'm not crying out for us to ban the rifle. At least the merc has to get reasonably close to you to hit you with the uzi.

Yea, that's poor netcode, and hopefully will be fixed. You're still missing the point though: I don't think that the uzi can be fixed and not lag people because the data from 6 shots/second being fired overloads most people's computers. In the event that it can be fixed, it still needs an accuracy and possibly power rework.

[Overstatement]

smokes going through walls is unavoidable in CT...it has to do with the sprites not detecting the walls.

It really is a tech problems.  Solution is using particles instead of sprites....but that is more expensive on the graphics card....especially if you need it to be dense and opaque smoke.


Chaff, I honestly think it was intended to go through walls after lots of play testing by Ubi.  Maps like Clubhouse and Missile Strike would be impossible otherwise.  I personally would like to see it really be more effective against the merc visions like in PT.

Hi,

I'm here to debunk this misconception by telling you exactly how to do it.

First, we know two things that have already been created that they use for other purposes so we won't be creating them and slow down the game. First is a bounding box for each smoke cloud (they use it to check if a merc is within the cloud so they could apply the effects of smoke). Second, a BSP tree for quick collisions detection (if you shoot a flare at a boundary, it will only light up the leaf it's in). So take the bounding box and check it against the level (it does this normally every frame for every moving object as proof that it's not expensive), if it intersects any walls, clip the box so that it doesn't. So now you have a cage and any sprites that touch it will be clipped and a better box which won't affect the merc through walls. How do we clip them?

The most obvious answer is on the CPU. You could check every sprite and if they wander outside the box, clip them so they don't.
If you really want to do it on the graphics card, you could use the stencil buffer. Basically, you can tell it "only draw these sprites in the visible part of this bounding box (per pixel)". You won't see the box because it's being written to the stencil buffer, not the colour buffer but the card will see it and use it.

[InvisibleMan999]

The PT tazer was an anti-everything weapon, not just anti-aggro. I agree that it needs a range buff, but it should not be as long as it was in PT. That's just absurd.

How do you figure? The best way to avoid the PT taser was simply not to get in close proximity to the merc. The CT taser isn't even as good as the merc charge, which is just stupid. If I'm paying an item slot for an item designed to improve my close combat abilities, it better do something worthwhile. Mercs already get berserk and charge for free, and both will take down a spy. The taser needs to improve on those, otherwise there's no point in taking it.

That's poor logic and it ignores the main function of mines: to kill your opponents.

Maybe to kill newbies. Against good players, the purpose of mines is more to slow down spies as opposed to actually kill them. Yes you can take out a careless spy, but the counter to mines is moving slowly and surveying your surroundings.

Poison mines are better than laser mines in the sense that they cover a much wider area. The drawback of poison is that you can remove it. But really, so what? So you trip a poison mine and start having to make a break for a medkit, totally ignoring your plans to actually hack anything and alerting the merc to your presence as you set off his sound detector. I don't see what your problem is with that.

You see a lot of "pros" avoid the uzi because it's become a faux pas to use it, especially while hosting or if the teams are on different continents because of the added lag host uzi causes. Personally, I avoid the uzi most of the time because it's not worth the aggrevation of getting kicked/harassed about it. But I'll let you in on a little secret: when we played the solidus and snakebit, the winners of the tournament, they took double-uzi (and mercs were hosting), even on Steel Squat. Why? Because it's more powerful than the rifle.

I seriously doubt the whole faux pas thing with the uzi. Maybe some pros avoid it like that, but given that I pretty much used the uzi exclusively (mostly because I wasn't that great at sniping), I told everyone they could use the uzi if they wanted. I never saw the big deal about people whining about the uzi. People used it against me, and really it was probably the least annoying weapon to go against. Like I said, I found the rifle much more powerful in experienced hands. Some people were just nasty snipers, especially as host.  At the very least I could kind of avoid someone going host uzi.

Personally I found the around-the-corner host headshot while I was hacking to be much more annoying than host uzi, but I'm not crying out for us to ban the rifle. At least the merc has to get reasonably close to you to hit you with the uzi.

Yea, that's poor netcode, and hopefully will be fixed. You're still missing the point though: I don't think that the uzi can be fixed and not lag people because the data from 6 shots/second being fired overloads most people's computers. In the event that it can be fixed, it still needs an accuracy and possibly power rework.
[/quote]

The uzi doesn't fire much faster than the old PT rifle did. I mean if we wanted to we could slow it down a bit and up the damage, so that it stays equally powerful but has less lag. But really I think most of the problem comes from the fact that we're used to CT's terrible netcode.

[Spekkio]

How do you figure? The best way to avoid the PT taser was simply not to get in close proximity to the merc. The CT taser isn't even as good as the merc charge, which is just stupid. If I'm paying an item slot for an item designed to improve my close combat abilities, it better do something worthwhile. Mercs already get berserk and charge for free, and both will take down a spy. The taser needs to improve on those, otherwise there's no point in taking it.

Because sometimes you have to get into close proximity of the merc, and because some maps force close encounters. It doesn't matter how you're playing the game.

Maybe to kill newbies. Against good players, the purpose of mines is more to slow down spies as opposed to actually kill them. Yes you can take out a careless spy, but the counter to mines is moving slowly and surveying your surroundings.

When I place a mine, I want it to kill the spy, not slow him down. If it doesn't kill the spy, hopefully it'll at least slow him down. Good players still die by mines, even if it's tougher to get them.

Now, as for the rifle vs. uzi thing, it's time to prove you wrong with numbers:

The uzi and rifle both empty their magazines in 6 seconds (incidentally, so does the PT rifle). That means that the uzi is exactly double the ROF of the PT rifle, and more than double the ROF of the CT rifle.

ROF in rounds per second for each weapon:
CT rifle: 4.166667
Uzi: 10
PT Rifle: 5

So I'm talking about increasing the CT's rifle ROF by a whopping 24% (rounded). Also, notice that the Uzi does not have a "slightly" higher ROF than the PT rifle; it is fully double.

Now, we'll give the spy a max health of 100 hp to make the math easy (since the game works by percentages, you can try any number you want for max health and the following ratios will still work out). We'll also use a full-auto headshot from each weapon at their optimal range, which is within 10 m. After that you get damage decrease. You can use any body part you like as the weapons are scaled on a constant %, but the damage is most easily compared between headshots.

Using the Uzi, a headshot to a spy will do 50% damage, or 50 hp worth of damage using 100 hp as max health. The rifle will do 75 hp (I'm not positive if the PT rifle did the same damage but I'm pretty sure it did. If it didn't, it's moot because I'm not talking about reverting the rifle to PT damage anyway). We can now multiply these numbers by the rounds per second to see the potential damage per second that each weapon can do:

CT Rifle: 312.5
CT rifle zoomed: 100
Uzi: 500
PT Rifle: 375
PT Rifle zoomed: 100

% increase of rifle damage per second if changed to PT rate of fire: +16 2/3%
% difference between CT rifle and Uzi full-auto: 60% damage increase

Now let's multiply this over the course of a magazine and see how much damage potential each weapon has:

CT rifle: 1875
CT rifle scoped: 2500 (takes 25 seconds)
Uzi: 3000
PT Rifle: 2250
PT Rifle scoped: 3000 (takes 30 seconds)

Once again, these numbers assume reasonably close quarters (for example, if you caught a spy in Steam room in Club House, you would be inflicting these values if you landed a headshot). Damage values decrease over distance when using full-auto for all weapons.

If these weapons were balanced, the Uzi and the Rifle would have damage per second values closer to each other, with the uzi winning slightly in full auto. I argue that a 60% increase, that only gets larger as you take the accuracy discrepency into account, is too high. In a real-game circumstance, I'd guesstimate that the uzi is doing between 85-110% more damage than the rifle per second in full-auto in real-game situations, depending on the player.

Of course there is a drawback, and that drawback is that you can't snipe long distances. However, there are easy workarounds in the game design -- for example, using frags to deter your opponent until you move your fat ass over to where he's at. Furthermore, the vast majority of conflicts occur in close to medium quarters. Sniping is most useful for shooting at a fleeing spy; with the uzi, the spy rarely even gets the chance to flee because of the significantly higher killing power of the uzi once we take accuracy into account.

So back to my point:

The changes I suggest to the rifle will buff its damage output by a whopping 16.67% (doesn't matter what accuracy you have as the damage increase will still be 16%). I mean, ask yourself honestly: do you fear a merc shooting the rifle in full-auto? Given how some people on these boards were complaining that aggro was too easy, I don't think this would make the rifle OP. The uzi, if it even remains in the game, needs a rework as it is too powerful in close and medium quarters, which happens to be where most battles are fought.

[Gawain]

"the running around strategy that Sithduke even made a video of" - link plz  ;D

Imo a pt-like radius for the chaffs is good for the gameplay, it worked quite well in pt...

Imo the uzi needs no big "rework". The weapong is much fairer as the spys usually have time enough to tazer the merc and to run away without being sniped  ;)
but what really gets annoying is sieving the ceiling with uzi ^^
I'm kinda surprised that solidus and snakebit use dual uzi on steel, this is a sniper paradise as you can hide behind many windows and hardly can be tazered, and most objectives can be covered if the mercs are on opposite sites...

[InvisibleMan999]

If these weapons were balanced, the Uzi and the Rifle would have damage per second values closer to each other, with the uzi winning slightly in full auto. I argue that a 60% increase, that only gets larger as you take the accuracy discrepency into account, is too high. In a real-game circumstance, I'd guesstimate that the uzi is doing between 85-110% more damage than the rifle per second in full-auto in real-game situations, depending on the player.

As the Uzi should be. You're giving up the ability to get 1 shot kill sniper attacks for better general purpose spy killing. I don't really see a problem with it.

Of course there is a drawback, and that drawback is that you can't snipe long distances. However, there are easy workarounds in the game design -- for example, using frags to deter your opponent until you move your fat ass over to where he's at. Furthermore, the vast majority of conflicts occur in close to medium quarters. Sniping is most useful for shooting at a fleeing spy; with the uzi, the spy rarely even gets the chance to flee because of the significantly higher killing power of the uzi once we take accuracy into account.

Sniping isn't just about firing across long distances. Good snipers are great at picking up head shots anytime a spy is hacking something. Yes, you can stop the hack with an uzi too, but a rifle is going to kill the spy outright.

Again, any hacking objective in the game requires that the spy stand still at a predetermined spot, just begging for a head shot.

I mean, ask yourself honestly: do you fear a merc shooting the rifle in full-auto? Given how some people on these boards were complaining that aggro was too easy, I don't think this would make the rifle OP. The uzi, if it even remains in the game, needs a rework as it is too powerful in close and medium quarters, which happens to be where most battles are fought.

Honestly, no. I don't fear a merc shooting a rifle in full-auto, but then I shouldn't. The fear of the rifle is in its sniping capability (and I certainly DO fear that) and ability to instantly kill you while hacking an objective. In many cases, the rifle is (and should be) the easiest gun to aggro against.

The balance of the CT weapons is good. The rifle is a long range sniper weapon. The uzi is the well rounded full-auto gun and the shotgun is the anti-aggro close quarters weapon. I've heard every single one of these weapons accused of being "broken" or "cheap" at one time or another.

Every one of the weapons is feared at one point or another, and that tells me that they're pretty well balanced. The shotgun is about the only weapon that I'd say is somewhat weaker than the rest, only because it has the big weakness of having no long range potential at all.

[Gawain]

The balance of the CT weapons is good.

right.

[Spekkio]

Link to Sith's video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmMkQDgK3UI

Seefoo using stealth on orphanage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfureJNFj1M

Seefoo using stealth on Club:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4epHOoBiPVU

Seefoo using stealth on Hospital. Last half is against me and lochang:
http://files.filefront.com/goodbye2v2wmv/;5093803;/fileinfo.html

As the Uzi should be. You're giving up the ability to get 1 shot kill sniper attacks for better general purpose spy killing. I don't really see a problem with it.

First of all, I'm not arguing that the uzi shouldn't be more powerful full-auto at close range. I'm arguing that the 85-110% discrepency in real-game situations is too high. It either needs a power tone down or the bullet spread needs to be increased, possibly both.

The problem with it is that the uzi has pinpoint accuracy. Even though you can't kill a spy from long range like with the rifle, you can take him off the objective. The other problem is that it doesn't matter that you can't kill the spy in 1 shot because you can still kill him in under 1 second from close or medium range if you hit all your shots either in the head or in the body. This happens frequently if a person with good aim is using it. Another problem is map design: your theory is great if every map were like Factory or River Mall where the merc's have a large room with long LOS on the spies. However, most maps are not like that. Most maps frequently put the spies and mercs in the optimal kill zone for full-auto uzi fire. Another problem is that you're not taking the time it takes to go into scope into account. I turn a corner and see a spy at relatively close range. I have the uzi ----> spy is immediately dead. I have the rifle ---> I shoot fullauto at him, he shocks me and runs away, or I try to snipe him from that range ---> spy shocks me and runs away. Sure, you can say to charge but a lot of spies can avoid that, so it's stupid. Also, if you do charge often, not only am I sacrificing killing power, I'm making myself more vulnerable to necks because I'm over-using the charge. Another problem is that spy equipment is more effective against the rifle than the other two weapons (but at least the shotgun actually sacrifices something). Flashbangs will take you out of sniper mode no matter what. Yes you can immediately go back into it, but that still takes time and it's usually enough for a spy to get to cover. Chaff disables sniper mode once you come out of it. Tell me, do grenades affect the uzi in this manner? NO. You chaff an uzi user, he keeps shooting at the same ROF. You flash an uzi user, same thing. The uzi is not a "well-rounded full-auto weapon." It's an absolute ownage weapon from the range you fight spies most of the time, and it's still effective at deterring spies at long range.

You're pretty much arguing that just because the rifle has a scope on it, and there are select few players who are really good at getting headshots, that it should have almost no full-auto capacity at all. While that works in other more "realistic" games, in SvM's arcade nature it does not. It especially doesn't work considering that the spies have multiple pieces of equipment that can disable sniping outright.

Regardless, somehow the discussion of the two weapons got interweaved when they are really two separate issues. Even if the majority of people believe that the uzi isn't overpowered and kebab makes it stay the way it is, that doesn't mean that the rifle has to stay the way it is, too. They are two separate weapons and need to be balanced as such. You can't take both weapons on one merc or switch mid-game, so the fact that one weapon has drawbacks that another excelts at, while sound in theory, doesn't work in the context of this game. Like I said, the rifle's sniper has direct counters from the spies in the form of chaff and flash that inhibit the weapon from functioning. It needs a viable full-auto function for this reason. I honestly believe that the PT merc with an all-purpose weapon was better suited for the gameplay than the CT merc with "specialist" weapons (even though the uzi and shotgun overlap in roles, but that's neither here nor there).

Sniping isn't just about firing across long distances. Good snipers are great at picking up head shots anytime a spy is hacking something. Yes, you can stop the hack with an uzi too, but a rifle is going to kill the spy outright.

There's only one problem: when you hear that loud clicking noise of a merc bringing his gun up, you move and drop a flashbang (oh wait, you never use those). If you're dying to a lot of headshots like this, you're probably getting greedy and staying on the objective too long.

I agree that a good sniper is a bitch to deal with, but these people can also make your life miserable with the uzi. The only problem is that lesser skilled people can be just as effective with it, too.

I'm kinda surprised that solidus and snakebit use dual uzi on steel, this is a sniper paradise as you can hide behind many windows and hardly can be tazered, and most objectives can be covered if the mercs are on opposite sites...

Not really. Sacrifice merc building, double mercs with double uzi guarding the spy building and disk hack. Not to mention the 6 mines and camnet. Can't aggro because they're using uzi and there's lag. Fun times.

Like I said, the uzi is hands down the stronger weapon of the two. That doesn't = balance. That = one weapon is better than the other.

The balance of the CT weapons is good. The rifle is a long range sniper weapon. The uzi is the well rounded full-auto gun and the shotgun is the anti-aggro close quarters weapon. I've heard every single one of these weapons accused of being "broken" or "cheap" at one time or another.

Yea, if you go by noobs who enjoy playing tag with no anything. They'll whine no matter what you kill them with.

[InvisibleMan999]

The problem with it is that the uzi has pinpoint accuracy. Even though you can't kill a spy from long range like with the rifle, you can take him off the objective.

Fair enough, but that's certainly a drawback compared to an instant kill. So I think as far as disrupting hacking spies, the rifle is by far the best weapon.

The other problem is that it doesn't matter that you can't kill the spy in 1 shot because you can still kill him in under 1 second from close or medium range if you hit all your shots either in the head or in the body.

That's rather difficult to do unless you're the host or the spy is stationary.

This happens frequently if a person with good aim is using it. Another problem is map design: your theory is great if every map were like Factory or River Mall where the merc's have a large room with long LOS on the spies. However, most maps are not like that. Most maps frequently put the spies and mercs in the optimal kill zone for full-auto uzi fire. Another problem is that you're not taking the time it takes to go into scope into account.

Actually I've found in most maps there's a point where sniping allows you to do things you couldn't otherwise. Even in Aquarius, you can snipe pirates from the walkway at the top of tech. You can also score instakill snipes from the bridge from greek too, which is always reasonably helpful.

You chaff an uzi user, he keeps shooting at the same ROF. You flash an uzi user, same thing.

Well I think I'd be fine with removing the thing that takes you out of sniper mode with chaff and flash.

You're pretty much arguing that just because the rifle has a scope on it, and there are select few players who are really good at getting headshots, that it should have almost no full-auto capacity at all. While that works in other more "realistic" games, in SvM's arcade nature it does not. It especially doesn't work considering that the spies have multiple pieces of equipment that can disable sniping outright.

I'm not saying no full-auto capacity. I'm just saying to keep it how it is. People have got along fine with the rifle as is. If it had "no full-auto capacity" as you say, then people wouldn't be using it.

Regardless, somehow the discussion of the two weapons got interweaved when they are really two separate issues. Even if the majority of people believe that the uzi isn't overpowered and kebab makes it stay the way it is, that doesn't mean that the rifle has to stay the way it is, too. They are two separate weapons and need to be balanced as such.

No, you're constantly balancing the weapons against each other because they're both choices. If there's no reason to pick the uzi or the rifle, then people won't take that weapon. The idea of a balanced game is that all choices are valid, though they may alter your play style. 

There's only one problem: when you hear that loud clicking noise of a merc bringing his gun up, you move and drop a flashbang (oh wait, you never use those). If you're dying to a lot of headshots like this, you're probably getting greedy and staying on the objective too long.

Only problem is that if it's a host sniper, you don't even get the chance. He rounds a corner (already in sniper mode) and fires a shot at you hacking and you just die. You don't get any particular warning.

I agree that a good sniper is a bitch to deal with, but these people can also make your life miserable with the uzi. The only problem is that lesser skilled people can be just as effective with it, too.

Honestly, I've never found myself bitching at an uzi user.

Not really. Sacrifice merc building, double mercs with double uzi guarding the spy building and disk hack. Not to mention the 6 mines and camnet. Can't aggro because they're using uzi and there's lag. Fun times.

This isn't a problem with the uzi, it's more a problem with aggro versus stealth. Namely, it's the age old problem of mercs using a strategy that utterly denies stealth and forces spies to aggro them, by giving up certain objectives and creating an easily defendable spot.

You shouldn't ever be forced to aggro.

[Gawain]

thx for the links :)
i already knew most of them, but they are fun watching again.

imo all weapons will get too strong with fluid aiming and no lagg...
the biggest problem about scct is its console origin, where the aiming is poor and no toal freaks play the game 24/7  :P