Why I think lights with 2 weapon slots are more interesting than lights with 3!

In T1:

Lights have 3 weapon slots. They form several distinct and necessary roless, namely sniping, chasing, and shield packing.

Mediums aren't used except to turret farm.

Heavies have five weapons, and only really differentiate between roles based on pack selection.

Note that this isn't the limit of used inventories. It is merely the most commong fighting (non-deploying - non-repair) inventories.

In T2:

Lights have another pair of setups (light with SJ pack and light with shocklance + any other pair of weapons), but they are still generally restricted to the same T1 roles.

Mediums are rapers and repairers and indoor defense. They are basically mortarless heavy roles.

Heavy are rapers, repairers, defense, offense and everything they were also in T1.

The thing is:

Both of these games are predictable. The light has enough slots to reduce a shitload of possible variations down to only a small handful of popular inventories. The medium roles are either unused or just toned down versions of heavy roles (sans mortar). The heavy has so many weapon slots that it simply doesn't need to worry about variety. It always has the room to carry what it needs, and so there aren't that many useful combinations.

In T:V:

If a light only had 2 weapon slots, it would have two effects, the first unimportant and the second very important. Firstly, it would reflect the superlight status of the T:V light.

Secondly, it diversifies roles amongst the powerful weapons. With only 2 weapons, I can't carry disc/gl/sniper rifle. Instead, I'll be forced to choose between actual benefits instead of becoming a jack of all trades. Do I want to snipe? If I do, will I be better served with a disc launcher or a grenade launcher or if I'm chasing, a chaingun? If I'm sniping, do I need to chase? The grenade launcher might serve me better in that case. Etc.

If the medium has 3 slots, now it has the versatility of old Tribes lights. The medium, like the old Tribes light, now has the relative "jack of all trades" capability it deserves. This reflects its newfound light-like status.

If the heavy has 4 slots, then heavy players will actually have to make decisions on which weapons to carry. It'll add a little more variety to a very homogenous grouping of roles.

That all seems beneficial to me.

Of course, that's just like, my opinion man!

hmm, not sure i like the idea of only 2. it would leave alot of LD with disc+chain/nade, i like having all three :(

I know, but the T:V light is super-light and the medium is light-like. To me, that implies that you'd be giving the light too much power if you gave it that sort of weapons versatility.

Zooloman's sig indicates that T:V heavies will have public phones on their back.

I like the idea. :bigthumb:

Zooloman's sig indicates that T:V heavies will have public phones on their back.
:lol:

I think i asked this before (about the 2 weapons) and i don't remember if i got an answer. i probably did not tho

That, or have something like STANDARD weapons and SPECIALTY weapons. Lights can only have 1 specialty, Med's 2 and Heavies 3.

Specialty would be like Sniper, Shocklance, Elf, Rocketpod, Mortar
Standard would be like Disc, Chain, Nade Launcher..

This would allow a Light to carry Disc, Chain and a specialty.. like snipe or lance.

Med could do a Sniper and RocketPod, in addition to 2 standard.

Heavy could do Rocketbod, Mortar and Efl in addition to 2 of the standard.

You could make slots SPECIALTY only per armor, or you could just say, NO MORE than x amount of specialty, you could choose to NOT use specialty. Not sure which would be best. :)

I like the idea of lights having 2, and I fully support it.

But think heavies are good with 5. I remeber as a heavy I still felt like I didn't have enough weapons with 5 b/c I'd always be debating over what to put in that 5th slot. Talking Tribes2, as a HoF I would use Chain, Disc, Mortar, Elf, Shocklance, but then I wanted a grenade, and I thought a missle might be useful too. As a HO I'd want chain, disc, mortar, missle, plasma, but I wanted grendes AGAIN, and a shocklance would have been nice. So I still like 5.

As for the mediums. I think they'd be more fun (the game overall) with 3, but then I can understand giving them 4 as well. Why pick a medium over a light? Are they still farmers? They might need to be more veritle so they can play O and D at once. So that one's up in the air for me. I'll say 3 and a half weapons for mediums.

That's not cool Killer. What if I want to carry a sniper rifle and a rocketpod or whatever?

This isn't about restriction of variations. It's about encouraging variation by lowering the intrinsic versatility. If you can't do as much with one role, then there will be more role types. That said, the Medium now inherits the old Light versatility, making it even more worthwhile to choose.

No insult intended, but what you're implying sounds to me to be simply limiting. :[

(There is no shocklance.)

I think there was a thread on this before, but I do like and dislike the idea. I dislike it because I don't really see a problem with lights being the jack of all trades. But, that is coming from a T1 standpoint where mediums were useless. However, who then becomes the chaser? Or will there be a disc/chain type chaser, and a disc/nade chaser? Mediums would able to do the typical disc/chain/nade, but they're going to be slower than the capper.

Then, everybody's bane, the sniper can only either fight air combat (chain) or ground combat (disc) when they enter a duel with someone.

It seems to me this will only promote more use of the chaingun. :shrug: It's hard to say without testing. Where's my beta?!

I think the weakened super-light health might discourage light capping (thanks to sniping). If that's true, then it isn't as much a problem as a mere translation of old light roles onto a medium armor while adding a new "extra-light" outer role, mostly useful for sniping and low-damage high speed scenarios.

I'm sure some maps will have such superbly awesome routes or undefendable flags that light capping will be very popular though.

You're right. Testing is necessary. The reason I consider the two+ instead of three+ weapon model is because of the changed armor model in T:V. It also has a secondary benefit of encouraging more actual role types.

yea, KP has a huge post about the complications or the math combinations or something that he obviously spent a lot of time thinking about.

Haven't we already covered this?

Wasn't it more or less agreed that this would be "mutator material"?

:huh:

Old thread for reference to this new thread:

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252097

Important posts:

anyone ever thought of this yet? (everything from here on out is in a light standpoint, heavy has enough weapons to not be effected by the change to a degree worth mentioning)

it would seriously increase the roles that players can play, and speed things up quite a bit. It'd make weapon choices a fully concienscious decision, unlike the basic shocklance - gernade - chain with disc setup that plagues the current games, and it would give a huge advantage in certain ways.

i can only see two issues with this complete gameplay change.. one being the lowered ability (but not nulled) to switch positions, and the advantage of items over skill.

switching positions is a small matter, while the advantage of items over skill is a feature that many games (the main deciding factor of counterstrike/Call of Duty/etc) base as "skill". But there again, there are split choices; the dumbing down of skill (very bad), and the addition of "friendly" styles of play to the main majority of online FPSs.

in the sense of those ideas, dumbing down skill refers to the added power of certain weapons over certain other weapons. For instance, to max out the grenade's effectiveness, an enemy must be at a distance (vertical or horizontal) to the player, on the run, or simply unable to make full movements (stuck on the ground). Of course that all takes skill to accomplish, but the second the enemy hits the air, the chaingun becomes the most effective weapon. But say the enemy has instead an elf and a disc; they would then have the highest chance of winning a fight thats mid-close range, but at a high chance of loss at medium-long range.

Although past games technically has this style of win/loss chance, it would be multiplied a million times moreso by the loss of one weapon slot. No longer would each enemy have more or less every weapon in common as every player carries disc, either chain or gernade, and then sniper/shocklance/chain/grenade as last slot.

as mentioned before.. this will also heavily outline roles in the game, along with playing styles. Players all have their best setups, but with only 2 weapon slots, this would be so much more defined. The whores get their chain and grenade, duelers the disc and grenade, snipers have chain/disc and rifle, chasers chain and gernade, light vs heavy setup with some version of the shocklance worked in (if one exists in T:V)... the possibilities go on and on. In a 3 weapon standpoint, most of those 'classes' combine into one common set, with the addition of the specialty weapons here and there, with only 2 weapons, each player would have his own setups, and you would only have weapon superiority in nearly a quarter of the situations compared to 3 weapons.

Cliff notes:
- 3 weapon slots to 2 weapon slots
- skill style changes
- location advantages appear more often
- players become more unique
- positions become more defined
- weapon whoring is lowered

Regarding variety vs. specialization, here's the combinatorial math. Let's say you have 8 weapons to choose from. Here are the number of possible combinations (i.e. unique weapon loadouts) you can have if you're given 1 slot, 2 slots, etc.

1: 8c1 = 8
2: 8c2 = 28
3: 8c3 = 56
4: 8c4 = 70
5: 8c5 = 56
6: 8c6 = 28
7: 8c7 = 8
8: 8c8 = 1

As you can see, it's not a matter of giving more or less slots. It's a matter of finding a sweet spot depending on how many weapons are available.

But that sweet spot depends on what kind of game you want. In the above example, if you want a very class-based game with clearly defined, extremely distinct roles, give players 1 weapon slot. That results in 8 very unique loadouts. If you want a game that gives players the maximum number of choices but results in very fuzzily defined, wishy-washy roles, give players 4 weapon slots. That results in 70 different possible loadouts with lots of overlap.

Which end of the spectrum do you see Tribes at? I see it in the middle somewhere, personally...fairly distinct roles with ample player choice,
KP

Haven't we already covered this?

Wasn't it more or less agreed that this would be "mutator material"?

:huh:
From scanning over the thread, it wasn't decided on at all. It was just argued about for a while, KP posted a few things, and the thread petered out.

Thrax really capped it off by implying that it was an undecided issue and would be a developer decision:

Once we've given you info on all of the weapons Ed, KP, and the rest of the guys at Irrational have come up with, I think you'll see that weapon choice is going to be much more difficult than it was before. Regardless of number of choices.

My personal preference is for 2 weapons for the light, but that's not something that I'm going to make the decision on. I'll leave that entirely up to the design team.

good idea zoo.. 100% support from me.

I'm not a big fan of this at all.

I'm not a big fan of this at all.
That's fine. It's not like my opinions or decisions make a lick of difference in the final decision, since the designers have probably already discussed this possibility and all its implications and permutations.

I'm not a big fan of this at all.I'm a huge fan of it because two of the yet to be announced weapons will make the decision of what equipment a light should take wicked hard.

I think more than ever before in Tribes we'll see people who specialize in particular weapons and become known as a good "X"er, much like Charlotte, NC was known as a good chain gunner before anybody else used the CG. Two weapon slots for a light forces you to suit up for a specific purpose, and pushes generalists into Medium. I see no drawback other than it may force some people to think.

In T1/2 you just picked Disk/Chain/GL/EPack and you were good for anything. You could cap, defend, trash, chase, etc... The only real decisions you needed to make were sniper/no sniper, shield/no shield. The rest of your equipment fell out from there.

2 more new weapons? like woah