Possible Sound Reticule for Spies? New heartbeat suggestions?

[Xris]

I have gadgets at F1-F4. And putting my finger from F4 to F5 sucks.

on the topic of F5 can we please not make it the chat key, or make it changeable at least.
i like hitting enter to bring up allies chat and shift + enter for all chat

[Spekkio]

You don't need to have any gadgets (see: Double Agent). If you want to expand the depth of the game, you should add another gadget choice.

I also don't see how more gadgets would add more chaos. If triple nades + 2 more gadgets becomes imba, then you can nerf triple nading.

And none of that can happen if you don't add new gadgets.  So anyone that supports the 5th gadget slot but not new ideas is out of their mind. 

And spekkio, what if there are new grenades added?  A 4th slot would lead to quadruple nading.  That's bad mmkay? lol But I guess it depends on the type of grenade.

Wtf are you talking about?

Let's back up: why do you HAVE to add a new gadget to expand the number of slots available? Ubi already added gadgets from PT --> CT without expanding slots at all (which I argue makes little sense).

Secondly, what difference does it make whether you have 4 or 5 slots when it comes to "quad nading?"

Thirdly, I think I put together a pretty logical and thoughtful post on the previous page, which is certainly more than you and Westfall have produced to counter. So I don't appreciate you telling me that I'm out of my mind.

A minor consideration: If the mod would ever become available for PS3, a fifth slot would be more need a new interface. (Selecting gadgets is done with R2 and then pressing the triangle, square, circle or cross. Adding a fifth slot to one of the shoulder buttons after pressing R2 wouldn't be very elegant IMHO.)

The mod is being made for the PC though. If it ever comes to being made for a console, then adapt the controls accordingly. There is no reason to stop something from happening in a PC mod because it might not work on a console controller 5 years down the line.

Adding another slot is something to do after extensive playtesting.

I would say that you should do this before you get too deep into development, or else you'll have to go back and build the game from the ground up. Like I said, if you have in mind that you're going to give each team 5 slots, you can tweak the equipment and maps accordingly. It's much harder to go back and redo those same equipment items and maps after they were already extensively tweaked and done for a 4-slot system.

[Farley4Fan]

Sorry, I didn't make my post very clear.  A misunderstanding is all that was.

1) Like you said, there is a percentage of gadgets you take.  Example, in CT you take only 4 of the amount of gadgets.  That means you can take 50% of the possible gadgets.  If you add another slot you can take more than half.  5/8.  To keep that 1/2 ratio of possible gadgets by adding a fifth slot you need to add 2 more gadgets.  5/10.  Letting spies take more than half of the gadgets imo is kind of stupid.  You have to pick your gadgets wisely.  Letting spies even take half of the possible gadgets is pretty generous imo.  By adding a slot and keeping the same amount of gadgets you drastically increase how it easy it is to select gadgets and you remove a lot of strategy from it.  That's a downside to picking gadgets, you HAVE to choose wisely.  With 5 it would make it so you don't have to be so wise while selecting them if no new gadgets are added.

2) I'm willing to bet you that with four slots, no one is going to take ALL grenades if a new grenade is added.  You sacrifice a lot by doing that.  You give up a recon gadget.  With four slots quad nading would be a lot less frequent.  With 5 slots they still have room for a recon gadget and 4 nades.  That would make it pretty common wouldn't it?  Of course, if no grenade is added to the spies arsenal then this wouldn't even matter.  I was just throwing this into the conversation.

I didn't explain it well enough.  And yes, you made some good points.  But that is just your opinion, and can be countered by ours.

[Westfall]

Thirdly, I think I put together a pretty logical and thoughtful post on the previous page, which is certainly more than you and Westfall have produced to counter.

Logical and quite obvious. Your argument is everything everyone already knew. The point of a fifth slot...well, there isn't one because it's not necessary. There is no counter argument to your "GLORIOUS" post. Its idiotic to add another slot. No need to give the merc and spy ONE MORE GADGET for them to work with. Merc was overpowered already. Awesome if he gets gasmask (as your set slot) Backpack, camnet, nades, mines (imagine how many people will think you hack now....more than double). Thats all you would need to stop any spy team. It would actually get boring. As for spies....if they get their camo slot, then add 2 nades, hb sensor, and cams. I'll put money on it the merc kicks your ass around the map.

If anything, DA had a good idea in cutting back the gadgets we can use. 1 gadget was retarded. 2/3 would be just fine in terms of balance. 4 seems to be a standard. 5 should be unlockable for a DM server or some shit because it would be stupid AND boring. Absolutely no need for a 5th slot, unless you want to make the game easier for mercs.

Like I said in my previous post, make the 5th slot an alternate for rooms (host can adjust) as opposed to a set part of the game. NO ONE PLAYING THIS GAME IS GOING TO NEED ANOTHER SLOT. You should know this most of all Spek. I mean really. Do you need another slot? Using teamwork practically grants a 5th slot. (i.e. mercs: 1 has bp 1 has camnet ; spies: 1 has bullets 1 has sound device) The use of teamwork makes the idea of a 5th slot obsolete.

[B1nArY_001]

Westfall your arguments against a 5th slot are based off of the less than stealthy nature of PT and CT. personally I'm undecided on the viability of a 5th slot but taking into account camo that works, maps that are more stealth friendly, MT that doesn't work as NV and many other differences that will surface, I can't say I agree with your reasoning.

[Spekkio]

Westfall your arguments against a 5th slot are based off of the less than stealthy nature of PT and CT. personally I'm undecided on the viability of a 5th slot but taking into account camo that works, maps that are more stealth friendly, MT that doesn't work as NV and many other differences that will surface, I can't say I agree with your reasoning.

Exactly.

The point of a fifth slot...well, there isn't one because it's not necessary. There is no counter argument to your "GLORIOUS" post.

Something doesn't need to be necessary to have a point. The point is to expand gameplay options to the player as the current selection of gadgets become more balanced and viable.

Again, the 4/8 slot system only works and doesn't feel cramped because two gadgets per team are essentially useless.

I never said that my post was glorious. You still haven't provided anything to back yourself up other than the reasoning that "this is the way it is in CT, so it shouldn't change."

Do you need another slot? Using teamwork practically grants a 5th slot. (i.e. mercs: 1 has bp 1 has camnet ; spies: 1 has bullets 1 has sound device) The use of teamwork makes the idea of a 5th slot obsolete.

Okay, that's CT. Now let's move onto PS where the tazer is actually viable and flares are made useful or replaced by something that is. What do you give up for it?

As far as spies, taking a loadout that requires your teammate to be complete pretty much mandates that you A) have a set teammate and B) stick together with him. There are some people who don't have that. Making the game more friendly to people who just want to "pick up and play" so that we have more than 10 players online at 8pm EST is as close to a "necessary" reason for expanding the slots as you're going to get.

1) Like you said, there is a percentage of gadgets you take.  Example, in CT you take only 4 of the amount of gadgets.  That means you can take 50% of the possible gadgets.  If you add another slot you can take more than half.  5/8.  To keep that 1/2 ratio of possible gadgets by adding a fifth slot you need to add 2 more gadgets.  5/10.  Letting spies take more than half of the gadgets imo is kind of stupid.  You have to pick your gadgets wisely.  Letting spies even take half of the possible gadgets is pretty generous imo.  By adding a slot and keeping the same amount of gadgets you drastically increase how it easy it is to select gadgets and you remove a lot of strategy from it.  That's a downside to picking gadgets, you HAVE to choose wisely.  With 5 it would make it so you don't have to be so wise while selecting them if no new gadgets are added.

You just glazed over (or ignored) one very important detail: PT allowed you to take 66% of the amount of gadgets. CT only lets you take 50%. If you were to expand the slot by 1, you would still not be able to take the same % of gadgets as you could in PT.

And you most certainly would have to still choose wisely. It just offers the player a wider variety of how they would choose to approach the game.

2) I'm willing to bet you that with four slots, no one is going to take ALL grenades if a new grenade is added.

You'd be wrong because someone is going to take all grenades just to try it out. Whether it remains viable or not is another story.

Still, like I said before, the fix to that, if it's even imbalanced, is easy: remove the insta-reload mechanic when you switch to shoot different grenades, which essentially removes triple (or quad) grenading from the game. The PS developers might need to do that with triple nading anyway, even if only 4 slots are available. You and I just don't know how the game is going to play out in that regard, but making such a tweak is relatively simple in comparison to a game design change.

But that is just your opinion, and can be countered by ours.

No, you don't counter an opinion with another opinion. That's retardation incarnate, and it goes nowhere. You counter the foundation of one's opinion with your own facts and reasoning.

[Xris]

Well in coding perspectives if the gadgets are an array or hashtable of some sort it would be very easy to add a 5th slot.

also i would like to hear at least 1 comment on this:

I have gadgets at F1-F4. And putting my finger from F4 to F5 sucks.

on the topic of F5 can we please not make it the chat key, or make it changeable at least.
i like hitting enter to bring up allies chat and shift + enter for all chat

[Spekkio]

I thought it was established that pretty much every key in the game will be able to be re-mapped to your liking.

[Farley4Fan]

1) Like you said, there is a percentage of gadgets you take.  Example, in CT you take only 4 of the amount of gadgets.  That means you can take 50% of the possible gadgets.  If you add another slot you can take more than half.  5/8.  To keep that 1/2 ratio of possible gadgets by adding a fifth slot you need to add 2 more gadgets.  5/10.  Letting spies take more than half of the gadgets imo is kind of stupid.  You have to pick your gadgets wisely.  Letting spies even take half of the possible gadgets is pretty generous imo.  By adding a slot and keeping the same amount of gadgets you drastically increase how it easy it is to select gadgets and you remove a lot of strategy from it.  That's a downside to picking gadgets, you HAVE to choose wisely.  With 5 it would make it so you don't have to be so wise while selecting them if no new gadgets are added.

You just glazed over (or ignored) one very important detail: PT allowed you to take 66% of the amount of gadgets. CT only lets you take 50%. If you were to expand the slot by 1, you would still not be able to take the same % of gadgets as you could in PT.
I ignored PT because the gadget choosing was flawed imo.  If the game lets you take most of the gadgets you hardly have to think about what gadgets you take.  That is my logical opinion.  Just like your logical opinion on the page before this.  Just because it is logical it doesn't make it fact, it's still YOUR opinion.  Same with me.

And you most certainly would have to still choose wisely. It just offers the player a wider variety of how they would choose to approach the game.
No it doesn't.  It gives them too much.  Think of a merc with gasmask, frags, mines, backpack, and a camnet or highly boosted tazer!  Way op.  Giving more gadgets to choose from would give the player a bigger variety of how he approaches the game.  Giving the player more slots would just overpower mercs and GREATLY decrease the amount of thinking you have to do to come up with your loadout.   Here is a scenario: 

Spy is choosing between taking 2 nades and 2 recon gadgets or 3 nades and 1 recon gadgets.  Sometimes, that can be a tough choice depending on map and the opposing team's playstyle.  With 5 gadgets the spy can just go: "hey awesome!  I can take almost everything!"  So, he takes smoke, chaff, flash, stickies, and hearbeat sensor.  This would not be good for gameplay.  The point of gadget choosing is make to CHOICES.  Choices will be freakin easy as hell with 5 slots.  Instead of thinking of whether or not you should sacrifice a slot to get something in place of something else, you can take both.  Why not?  No sacrifice before, like CT and sort of PT had.  DA just went overboard with limiting the gadget choices, they tried to bring more strategy into it but they really buried a lot of it.  4 slots is just right, 5 is pushing it.

2) I'm willing to bet you that with four slots, no one is going to take ALL grenades if a new grenade is added.

You'd be wrong because someone is going to take all grenades just to try it out. Whether it remains viable or not is another story.
Of course they would try it out.  If it's viable or not is NOT another story, it IS the story.  No one would keep it because they would sacrifice too much by doing that.

Still, like I said before, the fix to that, if it's even imbalanced, is easy: remove the insta-reload mechanic when you switch to shoot different grenades, which essentially removes triple (or quad) grenading from the game. The PS developers might need to do that with triple nading anyway, even if only 4 slots are available. You and I just don't know how the game is going to play out in that regard, but making such a tweak is relatively simple in comparison to a game design change.
This doesn't have much to do with what we are talking about.

But that is just your opinion, and can be countered by ours.

No, you don't counter an opinion with another opinion. That's retardation incarnate, and it goes nowhere. You counter the foundation of one's opinion with your own facts and reasoning.

That is absolutely true.  I meant to say something like that and left out key words  :D

[Westfall]

Westfall your arguments against a 5th slot are based off of the less than stealthy nature of PT and CT. personally I'm undecided on the viability of a 5th slot but taking into account camo that works, maps that are more stealth friendly, MT that doesn't work as NV and many other differences that will surface, I can't say I agree with your reasoning.

Exactly.

The point of a fifth slot...well, there isn't one because it's not necessary. There is no counter argument to your "GLORIOUS" post.

Something doesn't need to be necessary to have a point. The point is to expand gameplay options to the player as the current selection of gadgets become more balanced and viable.

Again, the 4/8 slot system only works and doesn't feel cramped because two gadgets per team are essentially useless.

I never said that my post was glorious. You still haven't provided anything to back yourself up other than the reasoning that "this is the way it is in CT, so it shouldn't change." Is not the case at all in terms of my attitude about it. You just keep saying it trying to justify that that's my view...when I am more than for change with PS.

Do you need another slot? Using teamwork practically grants a 5th slot. (i.e. mercs: 1 has bp 1 has camnet ; spies: 1 has bullets 1 has sound device) The use of teamwork makes the idea of a 5th slot obsolete.

Okay, that's CT. Now let's move onto PS where the tazer is actually viable and flares are made useful or replaced by something that is. What do you give up for it?

As far as spies, taking a loadout that requires your teammate to be complete pretty much mandates that you A) have a set teammate and B) stick together with him. There are some people who don't have that. Making the game more friendly to people who just want to "pick up and play" so that we have more than 10 players online at 8pm EST is as close to a "necessary" reason for expanding the slots as you're going to get.you're right. Because adding a 5th gadget would make me practically jump platforms to play PS. A gadget slot isn't what the game is about. You have a teammate regardless. A 5th gadget slot doesnt save the solo spy.

1) Like you said, there is a percentage of gadgets you take.  Example, in CT you take only 4 of the amount of gadgets.  That means you can take 50% of the possible gadgets.  If you add another slot you can take more than half.  5/8.  To keep that 1/2 ratio of possible gadgets by adding a fifth slot you need to add 2 more gadgets.  5/10.  Letting spies take more than half of the gadgets imo is kind of stupid.  You have to pick your gadgets wisely.  Letting spies even take half of the possible gadgets is pretty generous imo.  By adding a slot and keeping the same amount of gadgets you drastically increase how it easy it is to select gadgets and you remove a lot of strategy from it.  That's a downside to picking gadgets, you HAVE to choose wisely.  With 5 it would make it so you don't have to be so wise while selecting them if no new gadgets are added.

You just glazed over (or ignored) one very important detail: PT allowed you to take 66% of the amount of gadgets. CT only lets you take 50%. If you were to expand the slot by 1, you would still not be able to take the same % of gadgets as you could in PT.

And you most certainly would have to still choose wisely. It just offers the player a wider variety of how they would choose to approach the game.

2) I'm willing to bet you that with four slots, no one is going to take ALL grenades if a new grenade is added.

You'd be wrong because someone is going to take all grenades just to try it out. Whether it remains viable or not is another story.

Still, like I said before, the fix to that, if it's even imbalanced, is easy: remove the insta-reload mechanic when you switch to shoot different grenades, which essentially removes triple (or quad) grenading from the game. The PS developers might need to do that with triple nading anyway, even if only 4 slots are available. You and I just don't know how the game is going to play out in that regard, but making such a tweak is relatively simple in comparison to a game design change.

But that is just your opinion, and can be countered by ours.

No, you don't counter an opinion with another opinion. That's retardation incarnate, and it goes nowhere. You counter the foundation of one's opinion with your own facts and reasoning.

[MacBryce]

Adding another slot is something to do after extensive playtesting.

I would say that you should do this before you get too deep into development, or else you'll have to go back and build the game from the ground up.

I would say that all we need to do is make sure that the code is written in a way that we don't need to rebuild the game in order to change the amount of slots or the amount of gadgets for that matter. PS has the intention to improve the game (so we definitely need to make sure that our code is constructed in a way that enables us to do this), but the first priority is to make the game.

[Gawain]

for balance reasons mask and camo should be permanent gadgets. i'd really go for 1 permanent and 4 open slots. it makes perfect sense with the background of the counter gadget guessing game and the increasing amount of viable gadgets. your choice before the game even starts shouldn't limit your choices that much ingame. i also don't think that it would favor the mercs because without uba-nv-mt and eax superhearing they'll have a hard time against a stealth team with too few map control gadgets.

[LennardF1989]

You guys seem to forget that this is still UT3 in the background. I could even make devcheats to get ALL gadgets, bypassing the slot limit.

Oh, and don't worry about rewriting the whole game, we wan't to prevent that as well by makign a good structure at first.

[Xris]

Yay for good coding practices :)

[Westfall]

for balance reasons mask and camo should be permanent gadgets. i'd really go for 1 permanent and 4 open slots. it makes perfect sense with the background of the counter gadget guessing game and the increasing amount of viable gadgets. your choice before the game even starts shouldn't limit your choices that much ingame. i also don't think that it would favor the mercs because without uba-nv-mt and eax superhearing they'll have a hard time against a stealth team with too few map control gadgets.

I still feel that 5 slots is just to much for either side. Even if everything gets fixed, you're giving more to both parties when they need less if anyhing.