Post-Reset Gun Suggestions
 

Bear in mind that that I am just suggesting these ideas, and not speaking as a Guns Admin, as I have not held the position for some 3-4 months. Assuming a reset comes, this is my suggested "plan of attack" to promote a balanced server.
Focus on the ideas and reply accordingly. Enjoy.

These high-speed, high-damage guns have become out of control.
In order to promote healthy competition, we need to keep it fair.
Guns shouldn't allow the "hold D" walling technique, nor should they be capable of shooting as fast as many of them do.
To keep the guns reasonably balanced, let's start from square one.
After the reset, release only the basic guns: Uzi, Handgun, Shotgun, Ak47, maybe Taurus.
Allow these guns to establish a "base" for how fast, how much dmg, etc. a gun can do. From there, release the other guns, keeping sure not to stray too terribly far from these base stats. Ensure that no gun is overly powerful by comparison to these base guns.
End-Result: A server with balanced guns.

PKing will shift from a dependency on blindly spraying your opponent to tactical dodging of bullets and precise timing with gun freezes taken into account.
There shouldn't be such a huge gap between basic guns and exclusive/expensive guns. The focus should be on honing in on PK ability instead of being able to shell out the money for a gun that allows for an absence of such skills. Yes, more exclusive guns deserve to be better than the basic guns, but not to the point where the "spirit" of fair game is at stake.

I am aware that many, if not most, of the players here do not know of an Era prior to fast(walling) guns and high damage. I have taken this into account and have come up with a proposition so you new(er) players can "have your cake and eat it -- with a small fork."

To somewhat satisfy the "fast gun" generation while still
keeping the guns "not lame", consider this:
Introduce a "gun jam" system to where if a gun is fired really fast(if a gun shoots so many bullets within a second), there is a chance that the gun will jam. If people want to shoot guns that fast, there needs to be a consequence. The tommygun and MP5, for example, are capable of shooting about 5-6 bullets per second. If someone chooses to actually shoot that fast, he exchanges that speed for a chance that the gun will jam.

By jamming, that means the character is prompted with 2-3 randomized characters that they have to stop and type to emulate "unjamming" the gun. Until then, the gun cannot be fired. They can, however, still walk around while the gun is jammed.
This is mainly designed to combat walling. It allows for it, however discourages it to some extent.
Of course, this does not apply to the Gatling Gun or Osiris Minigun.

-Masa

This is great!

If every gun is the same there is no economy, sure the guns are lame but the people that have them worked for them and every other player has the same chance to work and get them. I see no problem with it, fix the other stuff first.

The jamming idea is solid but I think its unnecessary, simply do not allow guns that capability and the problem is solved. The guns do not have to be lame to be unique or worth their price.
For instance, the Bow is extremely fast, 25 damage and shoots over walls.

The Bow is the only over-the-wall weapon thet can be used in close-combat, it does not need 25 damage, or its speed. That alone makes it a one of a kind item.

The Flak Cannon is the only weapon that is able to shoot over walls with a wide-spread shot, it does not need to be extremely fast to maintain its unique ability.

The list of individual perks can forever go on, the point is that this era seems to believe they need to intensify the characteristics of the weapons to make them "visible".

So this change will definitely make Era much more competitive, and improve Era overall.

Gun jamming is a terrible idea, serves only to be a burden on gameplay, and doesn't actually balance guns at all, that's why you don't see it in any popular FPS.

If I was playing CoD or CSS and got a Gun Jammed message, press C J 5 to unjam it, I would press ALT+F4 (F10 in CSS' case) instead.

If they don't want people spam firing, make the accuracy drop while they have the trigger down (I'd imagine they already have this kind of functionality), or lower the rate of fire on the weapon.

@Supaman771:
My specialty is in regards to guns, and I am not suggesting anything in terms of priority, but vouching for guns in general. It is post-reset, and hopefully the "other stuff" has been developed in order to make the reset possible.

Distracting, non-sensible comments aside:
I'm talking about post-reset, where no guns have been "worked for" and your limited definition of an economy doesn't apply.

In response to "everybody having the same chance to acquire the items", copy+paste:
"Yes, more exclusive guns deserve to be better than the basic guns, but not to the point where the 'spirit' of fair game is at stake."

@Venom_Fish: Uniqueness is probably the one thing I looked for most when considering a "new gun", so I strongly encourage unique guns in determining a gun's value as opposed to its ability to be "lame". Too often are guns just sped up and damage increased in order to assert their position in the economy. We're on the same page here ;)

@Venom_Fish & fowlplay4: The simple(and preferable) solution would be to just reduce the firerate and make such speeds not possible, but in my experience I don't think that will be well-received. These new players actually want the ability to do that, and the gun jamming is just a harsh consequence if fast guns HAVE to exist.

Gun jamming will not be implemented, it will just annoy players. I'd much rather implement a cool-down or, as Jerret suggested, decrease accuracy (though sometimes less accuracy can be good).

Less accuracy on Era translates to "more spread", which is often a sought after stat in guns. It just means they don't have to aim as much. The only thing worse than a waller is a waller who's bullets can go everywhere.

A cool-down being the same concept as a "jam" in that the gun cannot fire for a certain period of time?
Hey, as long as there's something to combat the problem :)

Agreed, 100%.

I think this is a pretty dumb idea. If guns are overpowered, players have to work to earn them.. which makes players PLAY Era.

we have a serious problem if Handguns are the best, or something.

Lol! Players work to earn overpowered guns.. Really? Since when?? :noob:

Era is a joke now-a-days. This is why I no longer play it or waste time trying to advance. All these guns they brought out are a joke. The old Era was much better.

The overpowered guns basically came on a first come, first servebasis. Leaving new players the "****" end of the stick. Honestly, just balance guns on a scale-requiring scale. If they want an extremely fast gun, make them suffer with freezetime (As it was in old era). There's no need for fancy cooldowns, thats extra tbh.

Is there anything you can do to increase the accuracy of the current number of bullets in a clip without reverting it back to clientside?
I can get way more than 32 bullets out of a single uzi clip if I hold d, at least 3 times as many with normal ping, even more when I'm lagging terribly.
I think if that number were more accurate (i.e. you only get 32 shots out of a 32 bullet clip) then all it would take is a slight increase in the reload times and people would have less incentive to bullet spam, because they're just going to be left vulnerable every time they reload.

With the planned sidearm hotkey you could easily extend the reload times without it being a major pain in the ass. Even less so if you do something similar to the shotgun reload, where you can move around (slowly) while reloading.

I'm for disabling the ability to hold down d for most guns, but it'd be cool to leave it in for guns that use uzi ammo, so they they have their own little perk that separates them from the other guns a little more and gives people a reason to use them.

This game was more fun when there were three guns and the newest thing out there was dual hanguns/uzis.

Focus on keeping it simple and add variety so people don't get bored.

All shooting is clientside. Taking ammo is the only part that is serverside, so essentially you can shoot more than 32 bullets (if it has a 32 bullet clip) if you are lagging (much like happens if the server lags out—you have infinite ammo). On dev, ammo handling is also clientside.

Let the man have his opinion.

This. Reloading should take as long as the reload animation so that if you run out of ammo, it might be quicker to switch to your sidearm. People will have to actually conserve bullets instead of spraying-n-praying all the time, too.

I lol'd because it's true. :D

Consistant with Demisis' idea, I think each kind of ammo should have its behind-the-scenes pro / con, to add some sort of purpose to the different types other than price.

Ex.
Handgun Ammo ((All weapons using this ammo are dualable (Semi-Auto)
Uzi Ammo (All weapons using this ammo are automatic (20 Damage or Less)
AK Ammo (All weapons using this ammo are 20 Damage or More. (High-Freeze)

And have mini ezceptions like DR. Which complies with some but not all guidelines.

This ^, I remember when you only had those 3 basic weapons (shotgun, uzi, handgun) That was A LOT more fun than how it is now.

For the first couple of weeks. Then people got bored of it and asked for more guns to be released, and asked for businesses to be released. So staff released better guns. And when people got bored of those again staff released more, and so on, until we get to where we are now, where all the guns are released and gun stats couldn't possibly go any higher than they already are.

We'll reset and people will be happy with the three basic guns again, for a few weeks, and then the whole cycle will start over.

You do this to yourselves.

Well then repeat the cycle again when that happens, lol. LETS GOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

The problem with only putting in those basic guns you mentioned is the fact that many of era's current players are active because they are the ones that have those overpowered guns.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea because if anything it's a great idea, but this could change the player count for better or for worse. Personally I'd be playing era a lot more if the gun balance was fixed, but there is going to be a lot of QQ coming from the players so use to the control over the economy

e: TL;DR - Let there only be 3-4 guns like you said. It could drastically change the player count for better or worse but either way Era is dying and if things continue like they are now it's bound to go downhill anyway

Having a quite large variety of weapons to choose from is not a bad idea (through my eyes) but there shouldn't exist weapons that are overly powerful than any other is. If they HAVE to be better then I think they should just be slightly better but also have a slightly worse stat like earlier mentioned.

I'd like a large variety to choose from, but there shouldn't be ones that are sold for a redic... amount of money and have stat that are above normal.

Basically, a gun should only be as good as the user makes it. Thats going to be a difficult adjustment for these new players, but I think its one quite necessary for the sake of "fair game" as Masa stated. I think competition would improve greatly as well.

Agreed, a gun should NOT make the player who he is. If anything it should be the other way around. The player should make the gun what it is.


Also, I think that balancing them on a certain scale is a good idea. I know that this has been tried before, and people *****ed to get guns buffed back, but it needs to be done.

One more thing: I really like the idea of each kind of gun/ammo having its own perk. Lets make that happen.

I was talking with Godzilla about your idea there, Demisis :)

Where reload times are more realistic and last the length of the actual reload gani(from 2-5 seconds depending on the gun), but the character could walk at a reduced speed whilst reloading instead of just stopping.
Talk about a whole new edge to PK Strategy.
Each bullet taken into account, reload time considered.
Perhaps even "stagger" strategies at a gang-raid level.

I like the sound of it, very much so, actually.
That's some adjustment, though, and I don't know if everybody would be as gung-ho for such an idea :(.
I think it's awesome, personally.

you'd have to make a whole new set of ganis for the player to be able to walk while reloading (without it looking totally stupid)