No triple with Piercing Weapons

Theres the following combinations that will be submitted later in a couple of days....

Iron: Sturdy + Protection
Propulsion: Knockback + Force
Rejuv: Vampirism + Energy
Mosquito: Vampirism + Quickfoot
Stone: Null + something else...dunno what.
Venom: stronger poison

Coming soon:

Flaming: victim looses health and is on fire

some other stuff.....alot more. Their already done, but am really busy right now...

The idea of weapons with multiple powerups has been discussed for quite a while. For example, see this post for a discussion on v0rTeXs combinations - which look very similar to the ones posted above.

I also knocked up a mod for random multi-powers, where only WMs could get multiple powerups - see this thread, and of course there is the Weapons of Power mod.

However, I believe Druid's position is that weapons are probably too powerful already, and need restraining, rather than making more powerful. So it is very unlikely there will be multiple power weapons on DC.

The topic of balancing weapons and artifacts is a very thorny one, and one people feel very emotive about. My feelings are:

I do not know why the +6 piercing does +30% extra damage. It makes it one of the most powerful damage weapons even without its piercing ability. So I think this weapon ought to be nerfed to be balanced with the others

I think the vorpal when doing normal damage does too much damage at +100%.

On numerous occassions I have stated that I think the triple is too powerful. Stopping certain weapons working with the triple is just patching the problem

I think also to me, it is the different weapon powerups that add to the fun of the game. I would prefer for those powerups to be more powerful, even at the expense of raw damage done. So let the vampire give back more health, but lose its +21% damage bonus

There are a lot of weapons that have been nerfed because they are too powerful with a triple.

Personally, I would like:

the triple converted to a double, and probably eat adrenaline slightly slower

the piercing and vorpal nerfed slightly to balance them with other weapons

all weapons (including piercing and vorpal) increased in power by 20% to 40% (either in damage or preferably their individual power-ups).
Then, the lower level players without the triple+maxed adrenaline will have a better chance.

The triple was fine until people worked out they could switch it off. At that point it should have been nerfed. Currently it dominates the scores too much.

Just my thoughts.

I agree that the piercing weps should have been reduced when the regular weapons were reduced(when they were reduced to +4 for +6)...and I often thought it was to help during the later waves.....

Szlat wrote:

the triple converted to a double, and probably eat adrenaline slightly slower

the piercing and vorpal nerfed slightly to balance them with other weapons

all weapons (including piercing and vorpal) increased in power by 20% to 40% (either in damage or preferably their individual power-ups).

Sry Szlat I cant help it

but....

Wouldnt a piercing wep thats increased by 20-40% plus a double do close to as much damage as a triple and the current piercing???

Or would this double in place of the triple(I really like this idea) still be taboo for piercing weapons. I dont think that the vorpal or rage should ever be doubled/tripled, then again I was not playing on this server when it was possible so I never experienced it.

ooops

Micron(Micron) wrote:

Wouldnt a piercing wep thats increased by 20-40% plus a double do close to as much damage as a triple and the current piercing???

Piercing+6 currently does 1.3 times damage.
Nerf it so only say +3% per plus so now 1.18 times
Increase all weapons by +20 to +40%, gives say 1.4 times damage.
Double 1.4 to 2.8 times damage.

Currently 1.3 tripled gives 3.9 times damage

I think if the +20% to +40% is on damage, it would need to be around +20%. If the increase was on the powerup (e.g. vampire, energy, null entropy), it could be higher - individual powerups would have to be assessed on a one-by-one basis.

Micron(Micron) wrote:

I agree that the piercing weps should have been reduced when the regular weapons were reduced(when they were reduced to +4 for +6)...and I often thought it was to help during the later waves.....

Szlat wrote:

the triple converted to a double, and probably eat adrenaline slightly slower

the piercing and vorpal nerfed slightly to balance them with other weapons

all weapons (including piercing and vorpal) increased in power by 20% to 40% (either in damage or preferably their individual power-ups).

Sry Szlat I cant help it

but....

Wouldnt a piercing wep thats increased by 20-40% plus a double do close to as much damage as a triple and the current piercing???

Or would this double in place of the triple(I really like this idea) still be taboo for piercing weapons. I dont think that the vorpal or rage should ever be doubled/tripled, then again I was not playing on this server when it was possible so I never experienced it.

OK, Micron how was this different then my suggestions (or at least very similar)?

Szlat wrote:

Micron(Micron) wrote:

Wouldnt a piercing wep thats increased by 20-40% plus a double do close to as much damage as a triple and the current piercing???
Piercing+6 currently does 1.3 times damage.
Nerf it so only say +3% per plus so now 1.18 times
Increase all weapons by +20 to +40%, gives say 1.4 times damage.
Double 1.4 to 2.8 times damage.

Currently 1.3 tripled gives 3.9 times damage

I think if the +20% to +40% is on damage, it would need to be around +20%. If the increase was on the powerup (e.g. vampire, energy, null entropy), it could be higher - individual powerups would have to be assessed on a one-by-one basis.

Thanks for the clarification I understand you now master jedi

@ Ratar

ratarkiller wrote:

2 cents added here..... With rage vorpal and piercing no longer being tripled might I suggest loweing the drain time on the triple artifact. And possably changing the loaded artifacts to a double instead of the triple for artifact players who need and extra boost

Sry Ratar maybe I misunderstood this post but I thought you were suggesting these changes for LA players only

Hmmmmm.....

Played today for the first time since the change. Was surprised to see the triple not working with piercing weaps.

Quite honestly, I don't go out of my way to make a piercing weapon unless I'm the only high level player on (so I stand a chance if I'm the only one left), or if it's all or mostly high level players on so we don't get our butts handed to us.

Other than that, I would much rather have an energy weapon. Null and freeze are useful as well.

As for balance issues, I guess I don't see a need to have nerfed the piercing/triple combo. But I also don't care all that much if we leave the change in.

Perhaps a slight tweak in the amount of adren used when running the triple?....I dunno.

I need to play a few more matches to see how the change affects overall gameplay.

*takes receipt for $.02*

Here is my 2 cents on the "balance" "nerf" issue. It has not always been a problem, but lately what I have seen has been.

1. A higher level player finds a loophole or a combination of things that does awesomely well against the monsters.

2. She/He uses it until others notice and do it too, or complain that he/she is breaking all the records, rules, whatever. (look at the records table!)

3. A change is made to balance the play.

The thing is, everyone takes a hit on the effectiveness of their characters when a change is made to balance play. When only a number of people were using a particular combination in a way that was perceived as too good.

Before the change to the drain on the triple damage, my lower level adrenal master did ok occasionally. I spent points on the character so that my adrenaline was life, putting it before health, before damage modifier, before ammo and everything else. Now I cant run rod or the triple long enough to even do as well as my engineer does with an inf weapon. That is slowly changing as I make up the unbalance by making levels but the point I am trying to make is: changes to the way things work do not take all the experience away from the person that was using the loophole, but they do make it harder for those that come after the change to make experience.

I'm still stewing over the nerfing of the +5 weapons ( I miss that Flak) Dont nerf my Piercing now too. I dont have stockpiles of adren. I dont even have an effective keybind for my 'use' key yet (been lazy). We can work out balancing weapons and classes 8 way till sunday, and everyone will not agree. I only play my WM, I dont have any other characters. I guess I just feel comfortable where I am and dont wanna start over.

If the powers that be deem that piercing + tripple is too much, then so be it. But I dont see a need to go over all the wepons again to "balance". That is why each type of magical weapon has a %age of probability, depending on it's ability. The more powerful the weapon, the less probable that you get one. We dont get the goods that often, so let us enjoy it when we do get lucky.

I am already fully aware of V0rtex's RPG, because me and my friends played it all the time on his server (before we had our own).

The Mosquito and Stone weapons and such, yeah, those combinations are from V0rtex. There is one combination, though, that we saw several times in special occasions, but I never got a chance to get the script...

Called Demon, which even I believe it was too powerful, but he managed to do something interesting to it...

Of course, Adren Masters would use as much adren as they could to make a Demon because, from what I remember, it had the properties of
-Quickfoot
-Vampirism
-Energy
-Reflection
-Null
-Infinity

I think there was 2 more, but am not sure.

Anyway, he made it so, when a certain leveled player (say 200) makes/gets a Demon weapon, it being obsurdly powerful, would be WAY weaker, and gain only 3/10 experience than what would have been given with other weapons.

Similarly, the same could be done to other possible weapon types, right?

And about the Vorpal. Yeah, its been noticed that Vorpal is VERY powerful when maxed, but you gotta remember this:

Out of the chance that you will instantly kill an enemy, you won't get as much experience from it (as mentioned earlier by someone else's reply)

I also agree with Flak Monkey. To further balance the weapons, the correct configuration of probability can put a significant balance to this.

Also, think about this. All the other classes have been modified one way or the other...

Adren Masters got MANY more artifacts..Medics will/have recieve(d) the healing blast as well as the healing sphere..And the Engineers, well, their getting new things constantly mainly because thats the class being developed...

The only class really that is left out of the loop is Weapons Masters...They got the hard time, sure they get special weapons no other class can get, but in the end, will that be enough to balance it with the others?

From what I can tell, Weapons Masters would benefit greatly should they get one of those other weapon types, like Rejuvenation.

Aside from this post, and I know its going off topic, but possibly something the Weapons Masters will become a tad more of a good choice is a system similar to the Adren Masters, but with a couple of changes...

1. Seeing as how Adren Masters use adren to power their artifacts, and they get ALOT of adren with the right weapons and abilities, the WM would use similar artifacts, but instead of using adren, they use their own Health...

Adren M- Adren Drip, Adren Surge, Energy weapon
WM- Regen, vampirism, vampiric weapon

Using their own Health instead of adren would make it seem a little more easier for them to survive...Don't get me wrong, am not saying we completely make it so WM only use their own Health, but for a couple of artifacts that only they can get..
1. Increases their speed in exchange for health
2. Makes them immovable in exchange for health
3. Stronger in exchange for health

etc. etc.

Maybe the ability would be called

"Fine Tuning" or something such as that..

Am fine with not being allowed to triple Piercing (goes through armor, so why make it stronger?), but by adding other weapon combinations, people will beable to decide which weapon types they like in their server, and either not put it in the config, or just make it really rare..

And yeah, as Grizzeled said, when someone does find a good combination, people are going to copy....

Thats how it was with the Adren Master.

With all those adren regen abilities, and if they get a energy weapon, they would practically be invincible.. Just march right into the fray and blast them to the moon.

Also, a quick question reguarding the Engineers. Is it planned that, in the final release with the Engineers, the only buildings they will beable to summon will be Blocks, or will they beable to summon other building types that are already made?

Such as in our server, the Engineers can summon Fences, Pillars, Collumns, Entrances. But the problem I was getting was, if I didn't have them extending the Block or something like that, then if couldn't kill them with the Kill All Buildings artifact...When I did extend to it, they all would fall through the floor 1/2 of the way, with only the other half showing...
That basically made the Fences useless because the monsters could just walk on the Fence's slope and go over the barrier...

Yip...and for a medic a piecing is so very helpful seeing we dont have the damage bonus to help us along with kill count...And seeing my chacter has been...and from the start..one to try and live as long as possible...alot fo time im last in...meaning I have to take the last baddies on my lonesome....no resuply so ill either have to medic them to death ..or hope i dont run out of ammo.....
thou vorps i agree are very strong...as they are meant to be..

..

Micron(Micron) wrote:

Sry deadoon I just dont understand how piercing prevents you from leveling?

Or do you mean when you do damage to youself with a piercing weapon?

oops sorry i meant to say vorpal not peircing as prevents me to level (rage hurts you vorpal keeps exp low for all but useful if alone)
fixed now

Interesting.......As a WM, I've rarely even use the triple--maybe once or twice. I'd rather save my adren and use the berserk mode with what weapons I may have at any given time. Granted that the p6 flak, in berserk mode, will give me 300-500 points on each of the major waves (6/12/16), I much rather see the triple go bye-bye than weaken the p6 flak or any other weapon.