Gameplay Bugfixes Update 2011-08-08

[Pazuzu]

he can easily just play the previous revision.

He can? Do tell.

[Meisseli]

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.

[kharnov]

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.

[Conzul]

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  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).

[Meisseli]

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.

[Norfenstein]

As I said in my last 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.

[CorSair]

• 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.

[ziplocpeople]

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?

[Plague Bringer]

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.

[|GBA|QweefZilLa]

So to survive being struck by lighting, all I have to do is surround myself with enough friends to absorb all the electricity?

lmfao