Tremulous Forum
General => Announcements => Topic started by: Lakitu7 on August 08, 2011, 11:46:34 pm
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Hi everyone! Today I am pushing out to the official servers a new set of VMS with, among other smaller non-gameplay fixes, makes the following changes. We are not starting an official new phase, as these are not expected to be significant enough to warrant one, but we will be making the balance data separable on our end in case they are more significant than expected. Tremstats is not being reset.
* (bug 5001) Fix repeater BP queueing, build them with full BP available (/dev/humancontroller)
- Set the queue time short to encourage builders to wait for the queue rather than replace the repeater (Norfenstein)
* (bug 4999) Marauder+ zap bugfixes (/dev/humancontroller)
- Use spherical distance checks instead of cubic
- Fix buildables' ability to be zapped by two marauder+'s at once
- Chain to targets visible to each other, rather than visible to the zapper (e.g. chains can go around corners)
- Fix zap effect disappearing too early when target dies
* (bug 5087) Improve widetrace (alien swipe) hit detection (/dev/humancontroller)
Specifically, this improves ability to swipe/bite humans that are pressed against a wall.
* (bug 5020) Allow dragoon pounces to do damage if released before the end of a previously-fired weapon's delay. Previously it would fire, but not do any damage. Thanks Dracone for reporting.
* (bug 5039) Fix buildables to initialize with the correct normal vector, which should improve falsely self-destructing eggs (/dev/humancontroller)
* (bug 5092) Improve ckit repair targeting direction (/dev/humancontroller/)
* Add ready-related text to cg_tutorial during intermission
Thanks DevHC for submitting so many of these.
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Okay, this is now up on both official servers.
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Great bugfixes everyone!
Maybe this will also restore some faith in the devs for Dracone as he had experienced little feedback for his submitted bugs.
Progress is progressing at a progressive progression!
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Zapping bases was already strong, I'm worried now for competitive matches whenever aliens get s2 they will just zap rush and end it.
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Zapping bases was already strong, I'm worried now for competitive matches whenever aliens get s2 they will just zap rush and end it.
If it turns out zap is too strong then it would have to be rebalanced. It's important things work intuitively.
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Nice job to all dev, it's the way to go
+1
WarLock
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Zap now connects +1 to +2 buildings compared to before. The change is obviously good, zap is more intuitive, but needs some nerfing.
- Fix buildables' ability to be zapped by two marauder+'s at once
What does this mean specifically? Two marauders couldn't damage with zap at the exact same time - or while the other's animation was still playing?
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If it turns out zap is too strong then it would have to be rebalanced. It's important things work intuitively.
Right
What does this mean specifically? Two marauders couldn't damage with zap at the exact same time - or while the other's animation was still playing?
Honestly I'm not certain. I didn't verify that part of the bug because it was all one patch. I just made sure it worked afterward. Ask DevHC if you really care.
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Granger+ is still invincible to fall damage while wallwalk is on. *cough*
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Humans need a guide for building properly.
I see so many poor builds, then people say "Crap those buffed up marauders are zapping us to pieces!".
However if they build properly marauders aren't as powerful as they are cracked up to be.
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Zap now connects +1 to +2 buildings compared to before. The change is obviously good, zap is more intuitive, but needs some nerfing.
- Fix buildables' ability to be zapped by two marauder+'s at once
What does this mean specifically? Two marauders couldn't damage with zap at the exact same time - or while the other's animation was still playing?
"at the same time" doesn't make much sense. yes, while the other's animations is being played. however that applies only to chained zaps (not primary zaps).
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Granger+ is still invincible to fall damage while wallwalk is on. *cough*
you act like you want friend granger to go splat when he slips D:
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good changes.
i had thought something odd about swipe range, and i can remember a few times a pounce seemed to do nothing at all.
but no flamer change?
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Humans need a guide for building properly.
I see so many poor builds, then people say "Crap those buffed up marauders are zapping us to pieces!".
However if they build properly marauders aren't as powerful as they are cracked up to be.
Problem solved. (http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=14350.msg207093#msg207093)
Granger+ is still invincible to fall damage while wallwalk is on. *cough*
Actually, granger uses his acrobatic skills while using wallwalk.
Anyway, these fixes have done good, to this moment.
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a few times a pounce seemed to do nothing at all.
A few times? Perhaps your ping helps.
Pounce as it is almost never worked right for me (except 1.1, don't remember if it was like that in early phases of GPP).
The interesting thing is, though, that if during the pounce I hold the jump key as if I would to continue a pounce by a jump (the jump also carries the pounce's 'lightsaber') that seems to make me hit at a much more acceptable rate.
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I still think giving the mara a gradient damage zap would be best, maybe increasing its max targets to compensate- simply because it doesn't make sense for it to do the same amount of damage for every single target.
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a few times a pounce seemed to do nothing at all.
A few times? Perhaps your ping helps.
Pounce as it is almost never worked right for me (except 1.1, don't remember if it was like that in early phases of GPP).
The interesting thing is, though, that if during the pounce I hold the jump key as if I would to continue a pounce by a jump (the jump also carries the pounce's 'lightsaber') that seems to make me hit at a much more acceptable rate.
saying "few times" because in the heat of battle, it's sometimes hard to tell.
and it wasent just unlagged's weirdness. stuff like a full pounce to the face doing nothing. didnt happen often or reliably enough for me to justify reporting it.
also, having played a bit with the updates, i will say mara's swipe seems a lot more intuitive. goon chomp as well.
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Zap now connects +1 to +2 buildings compared to before. The change is obviously good, zap is more intuitive, but needs some nerfing.
- Fix buildables' ability to be zapped by two marauder+'s at once
What does this mean specifically? Two marauders couldn't damage with zap at the exact same time - or while the other's animation was still playing?
"at the same time" doesn't make much sense. yes, while the other's animations is being played. however that applies only to chained zaps (not primary zaps).
So if I now understand this correctly - the other marauder's zap damage to the same structures was completely nullified if the first's zap animation was still playing (except the "primary" structure)? Just trying to get a sense in how big of a change the bugfix is here.
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So if I now understand this correctly - the other marauder's zap damage to the same structures was completely nullified if the first's zap animation was still playing (except the "primary" structure)?
yes (to be clear: the exception is the "other" marauder's primary target).
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So if I now understand this correctly - the other marauder's zap damage to the same structures was completely nullified if the first's zap animation was still playing (except the "primary" structure)?
yes (to be clear: the exception is the "other" marauder's primary target).
OK. Seems like overall the zap has undergone quite a big gameplay change then - it probably needs some nerfing.
(I'd probably reduce number of targets to 3 or 4 and decrease the sphere's range, or maybe even lessen the damage to 50)
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Dev HC's action on the alien attacks being fucked up is incredibly major in a good way. Aliens probably won't get fucked over by shitty no-hits anymore. Playing aliens was starting to feel like playing UrT.
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Thanks for the updates devs, I look forward to trying these out when I get home :)
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Holy crap the new zap is broken. We just had aliens win 16 games in a row, largely because of zap rushes.
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IIRC the zap chain range is now spherical with a radius of 200qu, while with the box shape it was ~115qu from center to side of the box, and ~200qu to the corner of the box. Which means it is far more likely to chain to max amount of targets now.
Tho I'd also have preferred to have chain damage fall off with distance, like splash damage.
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Tho I'd also have preferred to have chain damage fall off with distance, like splash damage.
Agreed.
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Or you could share the damage between all parts of the chain for realism...
...if you want realism...
...which, of course, you don't.
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Or you could share the damage between all parts of the chain for realism...
...if you want realism...
...which, of course, you don't.
Do you mean if you target one building/human it's 100% damage to that target and then split 50% if it's two, and so on and so forth? Because if so, that's a damned good idea.
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Or you could share the damage between all parts of the chain for realism...
So to survive being struck by lighting, all I have to do is surround myself with enough friends to absorb all the electricity?
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Do you mean if you target one building/human it's 100% damage to that target and then split 50% if it's two, and so on and so forth? Because if so, that's a damned good idea.
That's how it used to work, and it defeated the purpose of the zap. Aliens need something for dealing with a mass of defensive structures, something that gives humans a reason not to make their entire defense a single wall of rifle-camped turrets. The zap is their grenade.
Tho I'd also have preferred to have chain damage fall off with distance, like splash damage.
The zap IS intended to function like a splash weapon, so this is something worth seriously considering. It might be more fun for the range to be bigger than it was but for structures farther away to still be in less danger. The biggest benefit would probably be humans not having to build quite so precisely to protect themselves from marauders.
I'm worried now for competitive matches whenever aliens get s2 they will just zap rush and end it.
What I could really use is for people that play competitive matches to test the repeater buildpoint queuing. You'll now have to wait a few seconds after a repeater-powered structure is destroyed before having the points to rebuild it. This is something that only ever affects gameplay when humans build and actually try to maintain forward bases, and I've seen it be an issue exactly once in public games. That one time was when I used two overlapping repeaters to seal off the door to the box room in Tremor with turrets (the human base was in this room); even though aliens attacked repeatedly with goons, they couldn't respawn and return to our base quite fast enough to bring down the forward defense. This is something I'm going to have to balance almost entirely based on feedback (and demos!) from organized play.
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We can provide demos from the GPP Tournament semifinals that will happen tomorrow, if you are interested.
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you could share the damage between all parts of the chain for realism
realism
realism
this calls for the creation of a new troll physics image!
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From what I saw playing recently it looks like marauders only break games when they make coordinated attacks on the human base -- one lone marauder doesn't seem to be much more devastating than before. This has me concerned that it's not just the range increase that is a problem, but also that more than one zap can hit a structure at a time now. That's a harder problem to fix since there's not a whole that lot that I'm willing to change that will specifically weaken a group of marauders without disproportionately weakening single marauders.
Things I don't want to change:
- The range of the initial zap. This has been fine tuned, I like where it is, and I don't see any reason to change it.
- The base damage of the zap. The viability of the zap versus a single human has been playtested extensively and I don't think it should change.
- Anything other than the zap. Everything was more less fine before we fixed the zap so I think it would create more problems to try to fix this new problem by changing turrets or the marauder itself or much of anything else. Teslas could maybe still use a boost of some kind but that wouldn't help humans at stage 2.
I'd like to fix the zap with one or more of the following:
- Changing range of the zap chains.
- Making the damage of the chains attenuate over distance.
- Changing the maximum number of chain targets.
- Reducing the damage of the chains (but not the initial zap)
I like the idea of the chain damage decreasing with distance because it makes placing human structures less of a fail/succeed proposition -- you no longer have to know exactly how far apart to place things so that a zap can't get them all; it's enough to remember that farther apart = less zap damage -- but I don't think it's doable without changing too many things for the worse. The problem is that this would be a major damage nerf, and though I'd be okay with chain damage coming down a little, I think halving it (on average) would be far too much. We could compensate for this, however, by leaving the chain range high (maybe even increasing it further) and/or also increasing the maximum number of targets, but I don't think I or anyone else would like what this would turn the zap into: basically you'd only have to hit one target to automatically damage every possible target. I think that'd be annoying and tactically shallow.
The most obvious solution is to simply reduce the range of the chain zaps to approximate their previous range. Then you have the question of whether to calculate this by volume or area -- I suspect that vertical placement rarely matters, so a radius of 130 would approximate the area of base of the old 230x230 box (whereas a radius of 143 would approximate its volume). Right now I'm leaning towards just changing this range because it's the simplest solution and least likely to break new things, but I'm not sure if it will make group attacks bearable enough.
If it turns out the zap just needs to be weakened overall I would be willing to reduce the damage of the chains. This would make indiscriminate zapping less effective than focusing on a single target, which I think is slightly more common with marauders bouncing around the human base as a group than with a lone marauder picking away at a weak point in the perimeter defenses.
Summary: I'm leaning towards changing only the range of the chain zaps for now. Maybe after that the damage of the chains should also come down. I don't think making chain damage attenuate with distance is workable.
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The problem is that this would be a major damage nerf, and though I'd be okay with chain damage coming down a little, I think halving it (on average) would be far too much.
You seem to be assuming a particular attenuation function, when you could really use whatever one you want?
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this calls for the creation of a new troll physics image!
Pff :P I didn't mean shared down the chain, which admittedly is closer to what I said. The electricity branches out and at those points the same current that went into the previous target would be portioned between however many branches there are, each time it branches.
EDIT: Anyhow if we're truly getting into realism, the damage IS the resistance and if we're assuming all affected are similarly earthed then you would get a diminishing effect to further branches as is being suggested.
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OK First of all i want i to say i am in no way shape or form the best trem player.
I used to be really good but know i suck comparing myself to then.
But if there is one thing i don't suck at is base building, and I will flamed for this.
I may be one of the best builders for both teams on nearly any map around.
I think most of the issue comes not from the mara zap, but how bases are built.
In 1.1 bases where compact and small so they could deal large amounts of damage to tyrants.
In 1.2 bases are made REALLY spread out only so they can not be raped by a mara zap, usually this doesn't work as planned becuase of lack of space or people filling the gaps.
Repeaters have become much more valuable and encourage making forwards for aggressive play, or to help make bases more spread apart.
The problem with a really spread out base is that avd goons with a long range attack deal with them quickly, or a tyrant with its high hp wont die fast enough. Forwards put pressure on aliens but tends to make the main base more open as everyone goes on the offensive. Mara zap makes any type of compact base out of the question, but even bases that are spread apart far enough to not get chained while still dealing enough damage to keep rants away get chained anyway becuase people fill the gaps.
Not that tyrants are really used for base attacking anyway.
In short Human base building is way to fucking hard.
You cant have a compact base because maras will rape it, you cant have spread out bases as this makes it loose its efficiency towards everything even maras it was meant to defeat becuase players fill in the gaps.
Maps also affect bases, and becuase 1.1 had such a "defined" style of building bases that human base building is made even more of a nightmare as now they also have to fight against the maps old methodology. also becuase of how the mara moves most weapons loose most of their efficiency towards it, and that encourages the mara to always be moving and the zap fits perfectly in line with this. And as turrets have a hard time locking on things close range even more so when they move about really fast, encourages it even moar.
The Mara is in a tricky spot, their is nothing you can change on it without breaking it at this point. So i believe that it would be most wise to do something to human base building.
I Recommend:
Make the Tesla a Lighting rod, any zap that manages to chain to it does no damage at all.
This encourages more compact bases but also makes the tesla more then just that defensive structure that usually goes against the human building code of honor. Turrets have a hard time dealing with anything at close range, and tesla are the exacts opposite they should go hand in hand when building a base.
the Defense computer making turret wind up times Zero on everything or only the mara.
Simple, tho it doesn't quite make base building easier it just makes it more forgiving.
"A Expensive turret of some kind that is really good at killing maras by having zero windup time and or a very long range."
I could come up with more radical ideas to fix it like my DC repairs the base based on the damage of it on a whole...
On ending note. When a Bug has to be or turns out it had to be abused/used whether actively or passively to make something balanced means there is a definite issue with that something as a whole.
I really think the Tesla acting like a lightning rod is the most balanced idea so far.
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fix hive before buffing tesla, please.
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fix hive before buffing tesla, please.
"Fix"?
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fix hive before buffing tesla, please.
"Fix"?
http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=16123.0
it's a bit silly.
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Hive is a Support defense. Great for preventing jetters and is really good for killing rushers when you make them walk on creep or get trapped. If your only using hives then your doing it wrong.
The hive does a fuck tone of damage, i mean sure it could use a slight range buff but for the most part if fine.
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Hive is a Support defense. Great for preventing jetters and is really good for killing rushers when you make them walk on creep or get trapped. If your only using hives then your doing it wrong.
The hive does a fuck tone of damage, i mean sure it could use a slight range buff but for the most part if fine.
i wish i could totally negate the tesla by moving in loose circles.
oh yea, on topic, i'm not too sure pounce is "fixed". i've managed to hit both players and structures (stopping my movement) without causing damage.
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Make the Tesla a Lighting rod, any zap that manages to chain to it does no damage at all.
I really think the Tesla acting like a lightning rod is the most balanced idea so far.
You would, it's your idea and it fails to take into account that fact that teslas are a stage3 upgrade and adv mara, he of zap rushing fame, is stage2.
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fix hive before buffing tesla, please.
"Fix"?
http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=16123.0
it's a bit silly.
RAK, really? You didn't bring up any discussion in that thread. In fact, you made an effort to avoid spurring a discussion with the first post. Now you're sad about that decision & want attention so you're spamming advertisements elsewhere? ::)
Spread some creep (a barricade is great at that) and build a proper base before trying to show how crappy the hive is.
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Hive is a Support defense. Great for preventing jetters and is really good for killing rushers when you make them walk on creep or get trapped. If your only using hives then your doing it wrong.
The hive does a fuck tone of damage, i mean sure it could use a slight range buff but for the most part if fine.
i wish i could totally negate the tesla by moving in loose circles.
oh yea, on topic, i'm not too sure pounce is "fixed". i've managed to hit both players and structures (stopping my movement) without causing damage.
if the aliens build their base in a way that doesn't hinder the attackers speed then they get what they deserve, the base doesn't build itself.
also the Tesla and hive play 2 completely different roles. You can't really compare them.
Then tesla if pretty much just used for blocking choke points from lesser aliens or help defend key buildings from a mara attack.
Make the Tesla a Lighting rod, any zap that manages to chain to it does no damage at all.
I really think the Tesla acting like a lightning rod is the most balanced idea so far.
You would, it's your idea and it fails to take into account that fact that teslas are a stage3 upgrade and adv mara, he of zap rushing fame, is stage2.
You fail to realize i only stated the basic idea and i didn't say it was the best only the most balanced so far.
And to imply that the only reason i thought i was a good idea is because it was my idea is just retarded, i have yet to see someone show some support for their idea to balance the mara zap.
You could always bump the tesla down to S2.
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i seem to have a habit of sparking off topic discussions with half-serious comments.
i'll not humor it this thread. you wanna bust me out on hives or explain the fine art of basebuilding to me, do so in an appropriate thread please.
but in parting, yes i can compare them sirdude. they are both s3 defensive structures. different, but equal and all that.
back on topic, did any of the changes affect rantcharge? that also feels weird now, and i've been getting kills and hits with it that i do not think i should be.
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So how about limiting mara zaps to three persons/buildings for starters? I think cases where there are actually four zappable humans are quite rare - except in human base of course. It'd effectively limit almost only the structure destroying part of the zap.
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different, but equal
ROFL
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Hi all
my opinion for the new zap, is that i realy like it. i know that a rush of 3 or 4 adv mara can kill/zap any base setup. I think that this is what piss off everyone right now. i have a simple solution for this problem. Make the DC reduce by 2 the zap damage in the DC range. you can't build 2 or 3 DC for multiply the effect. So if you dont wanna your base zapped at s2, make a DC, it will heal your base, advise if base was attacked and finaly reduce all eletric attack by 2. Most important is that with this you can counter a zap attack rush. and ouside base adv mara zap stay cool. It's SIMPLE solution that will make anyone happy i think.
And yea im fan of the KISS mentality (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID)
Good idea ?
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Warlock gave a quite reasonable idea.
Stacking them in same area can be possible, but what the hell you do with 3 dc's, while you can build turrets, or even teslas?
At least I don't see it as a bad idea.
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teslas can drain energy from advmaras = no zap os less damage zap : )
or, more turret range with some inaccuracy(thus would not be overpowerd against small aliens like dretch or balistics, for small aliens = teslas)
or, about zap damage, reduce and increase splash(single targets = bite, is rare to see a avdmara using bite.)
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That's some idea but:
1) That will change the role of DCC from "oh, i might build it" to "WTF NO DCC NOOB BUILDER".
2) DCC is avaiable at s2, if aliens happen to get s2 faster than humans, they [humans] are totally screwed. Doesn't work the other way around (there's no weapon for humans that can own any alein base in <10secs despite aliens in it).
3) SD, DCC gets killed (it's not that hard to kill - 2 snipes), humans are screwed. Something like in 1.1 when armoury wasnt rebuildable.
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i like warlock's idea more than sirdude's tesla bullshit or wolfbr's turret bullshit.
in response to asvarox's points 2 and 3, increase DC's HP, but reduce the healing slightly to compensate.
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DCC is avaiable at s2, if aliens happen to get s2 faster than humans, they [humans] are totally screwed. Doesn't work the other way around (there's no weapon for humans that can own any alein base in <10secs despite aliens in it).
Right but what do you do when human get s2 before alien ... with my experience its a instant win if played with good player in my team (get enery gun + nade). if your team feed like hell at s1 and give the entire alien team 9 evo for making 2 rush of adv mara ... you deserve the defeat . btw it like telling what can conter tyran rush vs humans s1
SD, DCC gets killed (it's not that hard to kill - 2 snipes), humans are screwed. Something like in 1.1 when armoury wasnt rebuildable.
in gpp i see ofen guys building 2 armory before sd, why not build 2 dc if you dont wanna lose the anti-zap advantage. Anyway my idea is simple and can correct the zap right now. you can critique my idea but it far the most wise idea for now.
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DCC is avaiable at s2, if aliens happen to get s2 faster than humans, they [humans] are totally screwed. Doesn't work the other way around (there's no weapon for humans that can own any alein base in <10secs despite aliens in it).
Right but what do you do when human get s2 before alien ... with my experience its a instant win if played with good player in my team (get enery gun + nade). if your team feed like hell at s1 and give the entire alien team 9 evo for making 2 rush of adv mara ... you deserve the defeat . btw it like telling what can conter tyran rush vs humans s1
Yes, aliens can get owned easily if humans get s2, but still 3 rushing pulse rifles with nades can be stopped by 3 goons so all they do is nade eggs at most. They certainly aren't capable of killing entire aliens base when there are aliens in it. On the other hand 3 adv maras can massacre humans base despite humans defending it. Even if they won't destroy it entirely, they still are most likely to leave it severely damaged. Long story short currently at s2 aliens are able to do much more damage to the base than humans.
SD, DCC gets killed (it's not that hard to kill - 2 snipes), humans are screwed. Something like in 1.1 when armoury wasnt rebuildable.
in gpp i see ofen guys building 2 armory before sd, why not build 2 dc if you dont wanna lose the anti-zap advantage. Anyway my idea is simple and can correct the zap right now. you can critique my idea but it far the most wise idea for now.
It's because we might end up having 2 arms, 2 dcc, 2 medis and no rets. My point is that giving humans another critical structure whose(?) lack of it more or less leaves humans powerless against aliens is not a good idea. They already need armoury, lack of medi can also be problematic. Aliens "need" only booster but they can get by fairly easy as well without it.
If you are going to mention - yes, I know about OM/RC and spawns too, dumbass
you can critique my idea but it far the most wise idea for now.
I'm not saying that's a bad idea (I actually thought it was interesting to think about and discuss), I'm just pointing some issues that, in my opinion, have to be taken into account.
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I dont think the problem can be simply "fixed" by decreasing chain range and/or damage or even reducing the number of chain events. As norf himself said the problem is when you have groups of maras.
If youre getting organized mara rushs, its likely that these are experienced players, and know what to do to win games. With that in mind, they are likely committing to, at the very least, 2 rushes to take down a base. This would imo necessitate a drastic decrease in chain range/dmg, something that norf just said he isnt willing to do.
Similarly, reducing the number of chain events, wont result in a change (most likely), as generally speaking coordinated rushers wont go for the same structure (smart ones anyway). Theyll spread themselves out to cover more ground (and hence structures) and you should see essentially the same pattern.
I do like the tesla or DC idea. Both of these structures imo are underutilized in most games. Adding additional functionality to them, will only help with groups of maras and potentially simplify base building.
edit: the hive does need fixing. you shouldnt be able to dodge, nor run from it IMO, but others may disagree.
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Aliens "need" only booster but they can get by fairly easy as well without it.
thats because aliens cannot rely on structures killing humans before they can even attack very often. just gazing through some of the most active players on tremstats with over 1k games, you see the turret killing more than any other structure. acid tubes and teslas are sometimes close together, and the hive is always last. alien bases kind of need a more active defense in the form of defending platers.
that said, yea, aliens can get by without a booster, but it's rough when you run out of evos.
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Yes, I think I'm aware that teams actually differ and that aliens are less dependent on their base. I don't know what it has to do with adv mara? My point was that humans already have kinda 2 (1,5?) critical structures. Destroying one can make humans much weaker (vulnerable to poison, assuming aliens have booster ;) ) or just make them powerless. Now fixing the adv. mara zap just by buffing up DCC is not going to fix the issue entirely.
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This may sound a little crazy, but how about just rolling back the bugfix?
There's no reason you couldn't say it was supposed to work like it did.
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There's no reason you couldn't say it was supposed to work like it did.
i can't say that it was (or is) supposed to work like it did, exactly because the old workings are stupid.
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How about remove sudden death? Maybe there would be an increase in humans wins I don't know but always a good test am I right?!
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Similarly, reducing the number of chain events, wont result in a change (most likely), as generally speaking coordinated rushers wont go for the same structure (smart ones anyway). Theyll spread themselves out to cover more ground (and hence structures) and you should see essentially the same pattern.
Would you care to explain how reducing the chain targets wouldn't make any difference? Based on these words, if zap could connect only to one target, there would be no difference since you can coordinate a rush, right? Meddling with the amount of the chain targets does relate to the damage output.
Maybe it ultimately needs to be a mixture of a few things, like adding the damage decrease to 50, but the chain target could be a relatively easy (and a lot better way than a lot of other things, like adding another critical structure to the human team) way to start testing balance.
This may sound a little crazy, but how about just rolling back the bugfix?
There's no reason you couldn't say it was supposed to work like it did.
No, that would be retarded. There's a very easy and a lot better way - balance the new zap.
The outcry about this is simply hilarious, shows truly the worst of the community. If someone finds himself to be so butthurt about it, he can easily just play the previous revision.
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he can easily just play the previous revision.
He can? Do tell.
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he can easily just play the previous revision.
He can? Do tell.
There are servers that haven't updated to the newest version, and server owners (clans for example) can very well use an earlier revision if they feel like.
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Personally, I'm surprised that with all the complaining, clans haven't made their own balance tweaks for their servers. It's not that hard. Modify shit in the game data, compile your mod, stick it on the server. Play matches on it with other clans, and when you come to a consensus, submit the balance data to Norfenstein along with some demos and a clearly thought-out explanation of things instead of writing entire pages of "the devs suck and are killing tremulous omg" for the 20th time.
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How about remove sudden death? Maybe there would be an increase in humans wins I don't know but always a good test am I right?!
I like this idea (it won't happen, but I like it). The thing though is that human bases tend to go in one fell swoop, while alien bases are killed bit by bit. More or less.
I do believe that, since fixed, it seems that :advmarauder: zapchains jump too far between structures, and do too much damage. We should dare to consider the 1.1 solution of having a fixed amount of damage to mete out between hit targets.
As for Hive, my demo didn't really take creep slowing into account (my bad). Since then, and on #tremulous, I have admitted that my complaint was too broad. The Hive itself is fine, but the projectile, once fired, should be able to hit a human even if he isn't on creep. Otherwise, why would it's range be so good and swarms be able to go around corners? (they can).
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How about remove sudden death? Maybe there would be an increase in humans wins I don't know but always a good test am I right?!
As for Hive, my demo didn't really take creep slowing into account (my bad). Since then, and on #tremulous, I have admitted that my complaint was too broad. The Hive itself is fine, but the projectile, once fired, should be able to hit a human even if he isn't on creep. Otherwise, why would it's range be so good and swarms be able to go around corners? (they can).
It's a buildable that damages you quite a lot if you enter the alien base for a rush or hang around too much in one spot, let's say the alien base entrances or perhaps near the overmind, and should be built accordingly. There's plenty of fuss in the alien base for a human to get cornered/trapped someplace.
Swarms change target to the nearest human, the range is to make a retreating human essentially hurt his own alien base entrance camping comrades.
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As I said in my last (http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=16107.msg228502#msg228502) post, I'm not ready to start changing things that aren't directly related to the zap. We changed the zap; people are unhappy; so it's the zap that should be changed again.
A couple of points:
- Reverting the bug fixes to the zap would not be desirable because they were good fixes (thank you, by the way, DevHC). The zap should chain in a sphere, not a box. It should use line-of-sight from the chaining target, not the marauder. It shouldn't interefere with teammates zapping the same structure.
- We can, however, use this as an opportunity to change something that is less than ideal about the zap: with a hard limit on the chains' range and all targets getting equal damage, it takes an unreasonable amount of precision to space human structures so that they're close enough to be effective but outside of zap range. This makes building human bases a more difficult than necessary. Attenuating the damage of chains over distance would alleviate this, and as multiple people pointed out to me this attenuation wouldn't have to be linear to serve its purpose (you don't have to do the math in your head; it's enough to keep in mind that more distance = less zap damage).
- The zap probably does too much damage. From the playtesting I did, the problem appears to be more when about marauders working together than the zap being unbalanced alone. So I doubt the cause of this is the range increase alone.
So we're going to try a damage nerf in the form of making the chain damage fall-off with distance. The initial zap (that you aim) won't change, and will still have a range of 200 and do 60 damage. For the chains, I chose a max range of 150. The formula for calculating damage is non-linear, and with a base damage of 60 it does about 40-20 damage at range 130-143 (which was the max range of the old zap, depending on how you calculate it). It does the full damage up until a distance of 90 (and 1 damage at the max distance of 150).
Some more points:
- I don't expect this to be balanced in one try. We're doing something slightly new with the zap so it's going to take more playtesting and revisions. Please be patient. My prediction is that this latest change will make it too weak, but we'll see.
- I also expect that, since there now isn't a limit on how many zaps can hit a structure simultaneously, that when we're done balancing this a single marauder is going to be weaker versus bases than before, and groups of marauders will be stronger.
The change is up on the official servers. I hope everyone that's discussed this will try it out with me.
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- I don't expect this to be balanced in one try. We're doing something slightly new with the zap so it's going to take more playtesting and revisions. Please be patient. My prediction is that this latest change will make it too weak, but we'll see.
- I also expect that, since there now isn't a limit on how many zaps can hit a structure simultaneously, that when we're done balancing this a single marauder is going to be weaker versus bases than before, and groups of marauders will be stronger.
Pfff, I am sure someone comes yelling "OMG MARA+ IS SO UNDERPOWERED." After all, win is decided by teamplay, not by single alien or human...
And none comes shouts that there are exceptions. There is Always exceptions.
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Off-Topic: OMG MARA+ IS SO UNDERPOWERED. On a slightly less serious note, thanks for the update Nerf. You might need to Norf the Mara+ a bit more.
Errr, wait, did I spell everything correctly?
Post reply
Pfff, I am sure someone comes yelling "OMG MARA+ IS SO UNDERPOWERED." After all, win is decided by teamplay, not by single alien or human...
And none comes shouts that there are exceptions. There is Always exceptions.
On-Topic: What? Also, the new thunder cats episode is pretty cool imo.
Off-Topic: OMG MARA+ IS SO UNDERPOWERED. On a slightly less serious note, thanks for the update Nerf. You might need to Norf the Mara+ a bit more.
Errr, wait, did I spell everything correctly?
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Off-Topic: OMG MARA+ IS SO UNDERPOWERED. On a slightly less serious note, thanks for the update Nerf. You might need to Norf the Mara+ a bit more.
Errr, wait, did I spell everything correctly?
Post reply
Pfff, I am sure someone comes yelling "OMG MARA+ IS SO UNDERPOWERED." After all, win is decided by teamplay, not by single alien or human...
And none comes shouts that there are exceptions. There is Always exceptions.
On-Topic: What? Also, the new thunder cats episode is pretty cool imo.
Off-Topic: OMG MARA+ IS SO UNDERPOWERED. On a slightly less serious note, thanks for the update Nerf. You might need to Norf the Mara+ a bit more.
Errr, wait, did I spell everything correctly?
This reply is so broken.
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So to survive being struck by lighting, all I have to do is surround myself with enough friends to absorb all the electricity?
lmfao