Minor suggestions
-when a player is do not drop, instead they are kept until the server changes the map. This allows people to build up their characters further, but still maintains risk. Because even the cheapest implant costs 4 points one could still loose a maximum of 3 points were they to die.
-the minigun should do more damage, but also should have a small ramp up time. Right now the trigger is very responsive, instead the gun may need time to start spinning before firing. Once it is at high rotation the centrifugal force could slow down the player.


significant changes
-In the halflife mod Desert Crisis players have both a stamina bar and a temperature bar. When a player leaps, jumps or dashes they use up their stamina, which then slowly replenishes. It enabled players to do many amazing feats and accrobatics, but because of the stamina bar they are not able to bounce around like bunnies. The heat bar is for their guns, using a gun for too long causes the barrel to overheat. It helps prevent people from spamming guns that would otherwise be too powerful, and adds additional strategy to the game. For example the minigun may be able to fire for only 30 some seconds before it was too hot, then the player would have to wait for the gun to cool before he could fire it again. In DC once the heat bar has cooled down to 50% the gun is able to function again. Also if the idea of new ammo is used, perhaps a powerful type of ammo also causes the gun to overheat quicker. Both of these bars add more strategy to the game and allow certain things to be balanced better, and may be a good thing for PE to have.
-armor may possibly be changed from its current setup to being damage absorption. The greater the armor the higher% of damage gets absorbed, with the armor itself only slowly becoming degraded. As it is now, armor seems to be extra health for certain parts of the body. By having armor work more realisticly, guns may also now have a piercing attribute which determines just how well they are able to ignore the armor. As it is right now, the auto pistol seems to be almost equally effective as the colt or ak47. Also each armor may have two types of absorption %, one for piercing and one for concussion. This would help greatly in balancing gameplay if more explosive weapons are introduced.
-leaping, jumping, and general arobatic moves have been very well implemented in the game desert crisis. Players even flip while doing large jumps, and luckly their sdk is available for anyone to tweak with. I think the PE development team could learn how to do the arobatics without too much difficulty by giving the DC sdk a look.
-body modification can be done without taking too much memory. The team behind DC has found out how to allow people to highly customize their avatars, learning how they did it would allow models to show cybernetic modifiction.

Dramatic Suggestions
-Right now PE is a neat cyberpunk mod that shares many features with CS. However I think the character development could be revamped to allow greater flexiblity then a purchase system similar to CS. Each player has 6 traits, perhaps strength, power, armoring, accuracy, speed, and stealth. Each attribute is a bar with 5 or so settings. All 6 bars are arranged in circle formation with each bar meeting each other at the center. The numbers on the bar increase the from the center out. Now any playe can adjust these bars to create their character, but the cost of the character is calculated by the shape created by the bar settings. A line frome each bar to the adjacent is drawn, and the area enclosed by all 6 lines is then calculated for its area. Its this area that determines the "cost" of the character. Having all 6 traits at level 5 setting would create a large hexagon, all traits at level 1 would create a small hexagon. But other shapes, triangles, etc, could also be created. This allows players to make both diverse templates and well rounded ones, and prevents players from combining the best of everything. The more you try to put into a leg or a torso, the more everything costs because you get overcrowding. Also how the traits are lined up can have great consequence, having "anti" traits be on opposite sides from another helps prevent players from making a super quick and super strong character without huge cost.

Going clockwise at 12 oclock strength, 2:00 armoring, 4:00 power, 6:00 quickness, 8:00 accuracy, 10:00 stealth.
antis would be
Quickness-Strength
Armoring-Accuracy
Power-Stealth

Now each trait would do more then just increase raw stats, but also grant new abilities

Quickness
-Powers:grants dashing, jumping, walljump
-Abilities: faster reloading, melee attack, run speed, dash speed, energy efficiency for acrobatics

Strength
-Powers:
-Abilities:better recoil compensation, higher carry capacity, lower encumberment penalties for doing arobatics, higher melee damage, further grenade throwing distance

Armoring
-Powers: regen of health, slow regen of armor
-Abilities: more armor hitpoints, greater damage absorption by armor, speed of armor regen, speed of health regen

Accuracy
-Powers: recoil comp gyros(gyros when activated energy when gun is fired and reduces its recoil), target illumination(draws circle around all players/npcs even through walls), infrared
-Abilities: better radar, better friendly or foe identification, larger melee target area, flash compensation, better accuracy

Power
-Powers:energy sheild, stun fists
-Abilities:larger power reserve, faster power regen

Stealth
-Powers:decreased radar visability, able to jam Friendly or Foe ident system(circle may stay purple longer instead of becoming red), ECM that reduces near by enemies accuracy by minor amount, MAYBE cloaking
-Abilities: quiter footsteps, faster hacking,


Many abilities mentioned have been done in other mods, Natural Selection has the see-through-wall sonar ability and cloaking, and Desert Crisis has the leaping, jumping, and energy shield.

Once players have determined their character they then enter the game and buy weapons/equipment through the existing system. The character generation pool of money would be seperate from the pool of money to buy weapons and equipment.

Going through all the hard work of this more complex system would allow players to make both characters that are well rounded or specialized in certain areas, giving PE more diverse gameplay.

Finally..a few weapon ideas
Laser bazooka-aka Akira. Drains from energy pool, overheats rather quickly.
Katana-larger attack area then knife, slower then knife, significant stam drain when used, really good damage.
Standard Issue Big Gun-aka Ghost in a shell-armor piercing, damn heavy, huge recoil, slows movement of player, very slow reload of 4 shells.

that model stuff is called submodels, meaning that the model have more then one part that can be turned on and of. now the problem with this is that the model grows in memory usage very fast when doing this...

one couldallso go with more then one skin, not sure how many is the max...

hmm, katana. nah, that blade have been overused. go with a vibroblade (basicly a sword or similar that vibrates at a very high rate, making it work allmost like a saw) or a monoblade (a blade that have a edge about one molecule or so thick). neither should look anything like a katana!

hmm, that dramatic sugjestion of your sounds good but i would love to see a fieldtest on it before saying anything more. but, if they are going for tru cyberpunk then the cyberware is a integrated part so...

im getting tired of stamina bars and acrobatics, and i think many other is to. and i think the PE team is looking for a fast paced mod and a stamina bar kills that idea...

as for the 2 new guns, no comment...

if you think the stamina bar slows down desert crisis, you have no idea. That game is really damn fast, I just think having stam bars is the only way to allow cool jumping, and dashing without either of them being abused. Without the stam bar people bunny hop like theres no tomorrow, also right now the archilies heel is seriously lacking. 5 points for a short dash that I can only use once per round? The stam bar would only be drained when one is dashing, jumping, or melee attack. It would also help prevent people from just holding down the knife button over and over.

I'd like to see a field test of the idea as well, not quite sure how quickly it could be coded...

bunny hopping is a problem yes, but it have existed as far back as qauke 1. learn to cope or die...

os for sombody holding down the attack button with a knife, run backwards while filling him full of lead

I would very much like to see a stamina bar for jumping since I loathe bunnyhopping. It doesn't ruin much for gameplay but it's a certain way to ruin a mood in a game that is supposed to simulate semi-realism.
I don't think that a temperature bar is needed though, as reload times should be enough to prevent players from extreme use of weapons but perhaps it could be a good feature for some of the more powerful weapons.

Acrobatics is something that I think only should exist in movies and games that doesn't aim for much realism.

Cybernetic modifications that shows would be jolly good, there's at least one submodel for the player models now already (modem/hacking tool thingy) so it would hopefully not be too much to add a few more.

why not do it a bit like CS, have the jumphight drop of if you jump more then one in a given period of time? that way if you bunnyhop you will in the end be a sitting duck...

no need for a actual stamina bar on the hud but kina like it in the code as you have to wait a bit to regain full jumping height, and people will pick up on this quite fast i think...

hmm, the more i think about hte dramatic sughestion up there the more i get the fell that it does not match the cyberpunk theme as cyberpunk for me is avarage people that gets implnats and mods to get very specific benefits. this is why i was hammering on about hte exiting cyberware to be broken down into smaller units in some other thread and this is allso why i now get the feel that while the above idea is good its to sweeping in its effects and allso a bit to rpg with its upgrade one to downgrade the other aspect...

maybe if you need specific stats to select diffrent "powers" rather then getting them all granted directly to you at ones. like say you either use the points to up stats and then more points to buy cyber or you use the same points on weapons and gear. you dont get all the powers at ones but rather get the ability to select one or more of them. and with that mod your getting damn close to how it is allready, just split up the existing cyber some...

Some cyberpunk has only a few implants, others like Ghost in a Shell has the whole bodys cybernetic. Full-body conversions realisticly are far better then only a few pieces of cybernetics, since the arms legs and torso all can put strain on each other and allow superhuman feats. If you just had a cybernetic arm, it may be strong enough to lift a car but then the arm tears out of your body. The drastic solution is saying, everybody has a full-body conversion, and these are the extra items that get included. Better strength means more namebrand cybernetics, and perhaps larger synthetic muscles, etc, etc. Price increases the more you want to do with your body, since even a full-conversion only has so much room in their body for special features. Also having the bars allows very quick character gen, instead of buying from 20 some possible implants you just set 6 different bars. Further customization can be done through the extra equipment(guns, armor, gear). And if you think acrobatics is unrealistic, their cyberborgs damnit! If you ever saw Ghost in a Shell you might remember the part where Kusinagi jumps from post sign to post sign to the top of a three story building. Its severly badass and clearly possible if you have a mechanical body with pneumatic jacks in your legs. Play Desert Crisis to see how cool acrobatics can be.

also to clarify, the "drastic" suggestion still allows one to have both max str and max quickness, or some of the other antis-you just have to pay for it. The system lets more well-rounded characters to be able to compete with more min-max types.

there are 2 big problems with acrobatics as they are done today, one is control (you soon get swamped in buttons or similar) and the other is the space of the maps (the hl engine was not buildt for big open areas) so having the ability to jump from wall to wall becomes a pain in theass to control as you have to judge where you are in refrence to the wall, then time it so that when you hit the other wall you are ready to kick of again. all this while you may be shot at and trys to shoot back...

personaly im having a hard time pulling ot the DC wall jumps on a good day, and ends up running on the floor most of the time (i must admit that i dont use any bunny jumping eihter as i find that distracting to my aim). same deal with opera, the long rolls, flips and so on may be cool to view but its a pain doing them across a doorway while aiming for the people on the other side. the only mod i know of that have any good acrobatics is the specialists and the reason for that is that they have them in a very controled manner but i still find the usefullnes of them questionable...

like i said, i would mutch rather see a system where the base implant dont have that sweeping effects that they have now and rather have a system where the upgrades are what burns the points and gives you the real effects. and belvie me, even the full body conversions of ghost in the shell is modular, if not then then upgrades and repairs is a pain in the ass!

I think I see what you mean now, I find walljumps hard to pull off in DC as well and rarely useful. For doing a huge jump you press crouch and space, I don't see why PE couldn't get away with only a dash key and a jump key. One could trigger the big jump by pressing both keys.

Now to talk about cyberware and trying to balance it all, its important to bring up the paper and pencil rpg Shadowrun. There are so many implants and things that can be done with the player that its very easy to min-max your way to near-goldyness. Now obviously PE is very different and of course a video game, but if certain implants have really cool abilities players will be able to abuse the game by using certain godly combinations. They could go the deus ex route, where you only can fit one implant or another and you have to make a choice between the two. In multiplayer this resulted with only certain combos being used because they were the best. The multi-bar approach is able to penalize those who want the best of everything, but still gives them far more choice then deus ex.

So long as we have many options for character design at the beginning, I'd say to limit the amount of improvement your character gets over the course of the map round. Its too easy for one side to be overwhelmed by the other side that has better items, the solution being either don't allow too much improvement or gimp the implants to be mediocer or lost upon death. With the 6 bar idea, during a map I'd say the average player may increase one bar by once point, the top players maybe 2 points. However only allow improvements, do not allow degrading of your character. If you do want to rearrange your setup then you forfeit any cash earned in the round. This will allow players to still improve their characters, but loosing sides will also be more likely to change their cybernetic setup to better handle their enemy. The challenge of the top players is to be able to stay on top while facing an enemy that frequently is changing....

I really think there should be the two cash funds, one for cybernetics and one for equipment. The equipment fund should be much like cs, where dying causes the lost of a weapon and the fund is increased over time no matter if your winning or loosing. Having lots of equipment and weapon types add an additional level of flexiblity to the character but also if you can kill that one guy with the super-duper laser then not only will he have to buy it again, but you or one of your teammates may be able to use it.

Its very tricky to make a multiplayer game both allow advancement, powerful abilities, and rewards for being a good player while at the same time not being unbalanced. The loosing side must always feel they have a chance of coming back, but not so much a chance that the dominating side never truely wins anything.

Even if they do not go the drastic route of the "bars" they should consider to do the following
-seperate cash funds for cybernetics and weapons/equipment
-make more cybernetics, make them have better abilities
-do not allow players to sell cybernetics, to sell cybernetics player defaults to starting cybernetic cash funds
-let weapons drop when character dies

i know about shaodwrun, in fact i have been following it from late second ed and onwards...

the main reason for the min-max problem in shadowrun is that you get to a point where you can have allmost limitless funds. in PE you have 30 or so points to spread across firepower, cyber and gear, no way you can get a godlike setup...

in fact its easyer to get a godlike setup now with the sweeping effects of the cyber then if you split it up in smaller units as then the effects gets smaller to...

and right now if you want to go heavy on the cyber you cant go heavy on the firearms. this brings along a kind of CS play as people allways goes for firepower first...

persoanly i see cyberware as a system to realy round of my playing style. like say i grab some rifle but want to aim a bit better with it, at pressent i can get a cyberarm and a cyberhead, both allso give me armor and so on and that is something i may not want as those points going into that could be better spent on other things in my view. and i dont see the problem of min-maxing in general in computer games like these shooters as they are not suppose to be rpgs, not by a longshot! and if they try most end up down the path of diablo 2 where the only thing people care about is getting theyre stats and gear upgraded...

basicly i want more control over what i grab, right now the cyber is to costly and have to many effects. and if you break it down into smaller units it will allso be easyer to balance by say making a item more costly and so on...

The game will not be fun if everyone has the same setup. Aiming is god, this is a fps and any significant improvement to aiming will always be taken first. Then armor, and other things. Whatever system the developers of PE go with it must not cause everybody to be the same. Also while yes in shadowrun people had millions of nuyen, IF they actually make the cyberware cool then now we have cyberware that actually does stuff. Stuff like being very powerful, and if that happens then whoever has the most cyberware will have a significant advantage over those who don't. If you make the cyberware powerful so that the game is more enjoyable, the game becomes more unbalanced because those with the most points are even more powerful.


It doesn't matter what specific piece of cyberware you can think off, in the end increasing the raw quickness, speed, and armoring of any real life cyborg will have the greatest effect. Whats the point of a cybernetic eye that helps you aim if your not even strong enough to pick up the gun? There are three aspects to aiming a gun
-initial firing cone-how well you aim
-recoil-how strong are you to keep the gun from going too far off target
-reaquisition-how fast are you to keep the gun returning to the target

No one cybernetic implant truely improves aiming, in reality accuracy is many things. Whats the point of buying a wrist mounted gyro for better aiming at 200,000 when increasing your strength for the same effect will only cost 60,000. Maybe a combination of picking and choosing cybernetic implants along with the bars controling certain traits of your character is the way to go. Would be nice if a dev would comment....

hmm, your saying something there...

so maybe one should just leave the base mods as it, drop the price and start thinking of subsystems?

hmm, i wonder why the fastjack have a effect on aiming. does it help you move your arms faster?

and your right, it would be nice to gets a devs comment on all this...

but as for that gyro vs strength comment of yours, would not the use of both give you a even better aim?

hmm, lets say you can set 3 (keep it simple, stupid ) base stats, speed (movement and reload), aiming, and strength (ammo and gear capacity, and its effect on speed and aiming. hmm strength became one very important stat). lets say the stats all start out on 1 and you get a set amount ot spread across them (5-6 or so). then you stack cyber on top of that like now with the same pool that you use for cyber goes to gear to. man this is starting to sound like your system...

now the entire stuff becomes a balancing act, i could jack strength high to carry more gear and ammo but then i have low aim and speed, but then i can say take some cyber to help in that but then i may not get the gear i want...

looks like the real reason your system didnt match my thoughts on cyberpunk was that you linked your "powers" to diffrent stats, i want them to be independent of them...

and one other thing, having say 5-6 stats makes the interface big and intimidating for the newbie, and hard to tell what effects the diffrent ones should have on a game. this is primary a shooter after all...