This seems like the best place to share some suggestions with Epic, isn't it? I have some ideas that (I feel) would give creators more freedom to make more interesting maps. Feel free to let me know what you think. I know these would defiantly help me.

#1 Weapon stat alteration device.

All of the items in the game are balanced for Battle Royale.. but when you think Creative? Trying to tango with that balancing might not always be exactly what you want. Me personally? I create Class-biased Arena shooters. So the balance of each weapon is very critical.

How would we make this work?
Think the "Prop-o-matic" manager, married to a class designer. I'd see this as a small device that you feed an item. The device would accept the item (Probably load it in after a moment- its likely gotta fetch its data after all) Then give you access to some of its stats to tweak it. All of this is an attempt to let us re-balance how weapons function to create new experiences and make things stronger or weaker as we need. This would also allow players to basically "Make" their own weapons to some degree.

Some of the changeable stats should be:
---Damage (Per bullet) to Players
*For non-damaging weapons, like the Bandage bazooka, then it should effect its healing instead

---Damage (per bullet) to Structures
*This, (in tandem with above) will allow creators to give access to more preferred weapon types without gimping other playstyles. As an example, some of my players like Grenades, but they 1-shot builds, and I already have enough building counters. I would like to be able to let them use this, without making it completely pointless for players to build.

---Fire Rate
*Self explanatory. How quick ya gun shootz

---Bullet Spread
*Accuracy modifier. Allows players to adjust the "cone of fire" or a weapon. This mostly applies to sustained fire; but can also effect first-shot accuracy. most "cone of fire" is a degree of bullet deviation from 0 (the center of the crosshair). So if the tool sets this value to what the weapons actual deviation is; we can push it higher, or lower as needed, and in turn make weapons more or less accurate.

((NOTE: This could lead into a potential "Deviation increase per shot" to make the crosshair bloom out more and make a weapon more or less accurate for sustained fire[Handsome Jack approved?]))
((as well as a "accuracy reset time"-- a sort of "cooldown" for accuracy to return to default.))
((And finally a "Movement accuracy penalty"))

---Headshot Multiplier
*Exactly what it says on the tin. What should we multiply the damage by to reward headshots? I'm sure most of you have noticed that different weapons have different headshot multipliers. Most seem to be x2. Then you have the minigun's x1.5, and the Storm Scout Sniper's 2.5. There is a lot of reason to tweak these for balance.

---Reload Speed
*how long you have to wait for the weapon to be ready to use again. Recharge weapons (Baggage bazooka, recon scanner) and Overheat weapons (Minigun) should have their recharge time effected by this. Faster reloads should mean faster recharge, or slower overheat. animations can be sped up or slowed down to match the timings (Likely a percentage increase or decrees).

---Clip Size
*How many shots per clip- Rather self explanatory.

---Max Ammo
* I'm sure its exactly what you expect. a maximum reserve ammo limitation. (Should also apply to build materials) Further explained below

---Effected by ammo Pick-up
*a simple Y/N feature that would let an ammo pick up utility effect it or not. Detailed more below

---Effected class
*This pairs the weapon to a class identifier. This is so you could have 2 or more versions of the same weapon that work differently. Maybe you want 2 gray SMG's on different classes. but you want one class's to be significantly weaker because its his secondary.

Some Examples:
One of my classes is meant to be a mobile skirmisher. He had a Flint Knock for Jumping, and a lot of players enjoyed it. However, things turned sour when players started to use them offensively, and the flint knock was 1-shotting players, ruining the fun for everyone. Personally? I loved the jumps with it. if I could either remove its damage, or turn its headshot multiplier to 1 (removing bonus headshot damage) Then it would be useable again. But until then? we cant use it, and its got a lotta people bummed out.

The Hand Cannon is so cool. its a Deagle with a good respectable fire rate, and great damage--- but it can 1-shot 90% of my classes. Their already balanced rather decently- and I like everything else about the Deagle, but 1-tapping on headshot? that's the snipers job. This pushes boundary's, and again, ruins a lot of fun for players.

Dulies. Double-headshot (one click) insta-kills too many classes. Damage control-ability is very important for these (In my case, at least).

Players hated the Inaccuracy of the LMG and Heavy AR Everything else about them is very good, its just the spread of the weapons.

There's more- but you get the idea. I'm able to list weapons that I want to use very badly, but just 1-2 stats break it and make it overpowered, or underpowered.

#2 Class Ammo Restrictions and restores.

I know what you'll say. "why cry about ammo if you can turn infinite ammo on". and to that I ask- "If grenades or land mines are fun, how's infinite sound?" you always have to look out for ways players can abuse what you add into a game. and Like I said in the "Damage to buildable" if I just put one grenade in- its not too bad... if I put one in that's infinite? OOF. No thank you.

On the flip side you can say "Then put deployables that grant ammo!" which I'd normally agree to. However, what's stopping a player from camping them to get a crazy amount of rockets, or something that you want limited. what's stopping them from doing that and spamming it? what if you want a player to get mines, but only want them to be available to that one class- how do you stop other players from getting it? If part of a classes balance is their low ammo pool, how do you keep them from getting so much ammo in something that they become a menace, while still accommodating other classes??

THE AWNSER!! Ammo Limits, and % Restores.

We have % hp restores what function like most games (and I love them. seriously; Expertly done, Epic) all you do is edit the pick up itself. now we need that for ammo. TF2 is a fine example of this set up. Their ammo packs are % of max ammo biased. have a 200 bullet max? then a medium (50%) ammo box will give you 100 bullets.

How do we set these up?
option A: Using a weapon stat editor (Mentioned above) put in the weapons maximum ammo and assigned class.
Option B: Whatever ammo is placed in a class selector becomes its "Maximum"

Ammo Gained from an ammo pick up, should replenish its % of ammo to all carried items.

For simplicity's sake- if the player is carrying:
a minigun with 500 max
a shotgun with 40 max
an RPG with 2 max

then a pick up set to 50% should grant: 250 light, 20 shells, 1 rpg.

that same pick up should of course respond differently to different classes... like, a person with a 210 light ammo max, and 25 heavy ammo max would get very different ammo from the same pick up.

#3 Buildables Manager

Another tool like the class designer that lets you interface with buildables. it would list each buildable, and you could tweak its stats. (Or you feed it a buildable object, like wood, and will see all wood buildables)

Changeable stats should include:

Time to build

Buildable Health

Buildable Damage resistance (should be allowed to be positive or negative)

Buildable Explosive Resistance (should be allowed to be positive or negative)

#4 Custom Variable Input

Your control point can either have a radius of 1 or 2. So a diameter of 2 tiles or 4. you want 3? well.. ya might be out of luck, here. What about Your damage amplifier power-up? it has 25% multiples. wait, 25% is a bit tooo much for what your planning? Uh-oh.

I run into this a little more often then I'd like- where i'll have a number I need to use, but the game wont allow it. Can there be another option that gives u s a type-field to input our own variables?

Just to give a simple example. One of my maps is a king of the hill map. a capture radius of 1, is way to small. one guy with a build, or explosive can deny the capture point on his own. but 2, is way to large. people can capture the hill without even standing on it. Why can't I set the radius to 1.5?

#5 Pre-applied buffs

Hey you. Yeah you. Do you have a cool class that has a health regeneration mechanic? Cool- the health picks ups can already do that. And you can bind it to the selector to auto apply- so its all good, right? no? What do you mean the buff is immediately lost if the class dies, as well as any damage multiplier buffs? Hang on a second! Buffs are supposed to be like diamonds! And we all know that diamonds are forever!

yeah- okay-- Currently, the only way to apply any buff or effect to a class is to make the selector call a channel, that applies the buff on class selection. But what about respawns? if the buff is lost on respawn, subsequent spawns are weaker (and we cant trust players to just re-set their class) So what do?

Simple. Add in a "on respawn transmit on" section in the class designer. This allows the class itself to control things that happens when it specifically respawns. That way it can re-call the channel your buffs are hanging out on, and slap those things back on where they belong

((Note, some will say "use the 'when player spawned transmit' option" and this doesn't work to well in its current state. There may be a very convoluted set up that uses almost 100 channels to check for each class, to find the right one and apply it, but in its current state, calling 1 channel, cannot cover all the classes, nor does setting some items like damage multiplier power ups work when set to recognize a class on spawn or pick up [[at least it doesn't when I was testing it w/ class 16]- may just be a wired bug on my end, but.. still. We do need to conserve channels, 150 sounds like a lot but its easy to fill them up.))

#6 More Dynamic Color control

This applies mostly to team colors, and more importantly, the holographic fields that capture points create. If I got a dollar for every time people complained about not being able to see through the capture zone's hologram? WHOO- man. Some of those colors are VERY harsh and obtrusive, and almost impossible to see through. while Others can barely be told apart. I honestly cant tell a difference between the white, silver, and beige team colors. Why not give us more color options? or (more preferably) an RGB Selector? with a Transparency slider? OR enable transparency settings on hologram items like Capture zones so I'm not blinding players.

It'd be nice if these were at LEAST in team setting tiles. Bonus points if they can be added to class selectors and capture points as well.

#7 Trap Placement and destruction.

Do you like traps? their cool and give you more area denial. very fitting of attack/defend game modes. But what if you give players traps, and they put them on non-destroyable tiles? you right out of luck! That trap is stuck and you cant do anything about it!

90% of my maps don't allow players to destroy the environment. The walls act as balancing tools to deny sightlines, and corral players accordingly. However Player walls are still destroyable. I don't necessarily want traps to be "Limited" to player walls (but that might not be a bad option) But I would like to be able to destroy a player-placed trap- that's on a non-destroyable wall. Say-- give the trap the HP of the wall its attached too; but it absorbs damage instead of the wall, so it can be "Defused".

#8 Class Melee Damage

Guess how many times I was asked to make a melee class. People want it and I'm all for it, but there's 2 problems with it. #1, The power-up problems I mentioned before (its the only way to influence melee damage) #2 if he has x4 damage from the powerup to amp up his melee he still will deal more damage with things like turrets or vehicle weapons. Which defeats the purpose of trying to make him melee.

Please consider adding a "Melee damage" section in class designers. the flat values can be something like multiples of 10. Also please add in a "melee damage to builds" with the same effect.

I'm done now, Promise.

I could easily list more; but this is probably enough for now. I hope I explained things properly.
I was trying to be somewhat brief with it.- but feel free to talk about it with me. Sorry if any of this is weird or hard to read; I don't do stuff like this too often, and I'm a little passionate about this. I really love the idea of game creation, and I want to see this thrive.

---(I may come back and add more later- they will be put below here if I do.)---

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