non official place to talk about in game play

BotFodder wrote:

It's been my assertion for some time that the Beam is over powered. I'm not so sure Surge needs to be taken out of the equation for adren usage, but I'd say any Leech adren should be.

BotFodder wrote:

I understand Szlat will be implementing a 10 adren penalty for missed Beams - that will help a bit I'd guess, but not totally ...

On a different thread I proposed

Remove leech from the beam and bolt. Make the beam cost 10 adrenaline for a miss

and PM'd Dru, but haven't had a response yet. Only if Dru (or Shantara of course) thinks that it's the way to go will I make the change. He might prefer a different solution.

I guess the real situation is if Shan or Dru see this as a problem.

Personally, even with the way things are now I cant get though a warlord wave by myself, But I can survive when other higher players are on.

We'll see.

I tried to do a match without the beam today ... it was kinda hard. I must say the damage a Lava Skaarj does on the higher waves needs to be evaluated - the double glob of lava can take people down quick. 450 to death in two shots, and they're deadly accurate. When I beam one of these guys, I make *no* apologies. I find the lava on 15 and 16 a bigger threat than any rock - and only surpassed by a Green Queen.

BotFodder wrote:

When I beam one of these guys, I make *no* apologies. I find the lava on 15 and 16 a bigger threat than any rock - and only surpassed by a Green Queen.

I feel the same way. Whenever I spot one I immediately AVRiL it. Better to quickly kill a lava skaarj one way or another than let it prance around and wipe the floor with other players (not excluding myself of course, those things are dangerous).

I am far more threatened by the lava skarrj than any other monster. They may not always be the monster that kills me, but they're almost always the monster that knocks my health down below 100. The other monster usually finish me off, typically nali's. I feel that the null queens and red flies have nothing on these guys.

ECHO wrote:

BotFodder wrote:

When I beam one of these guys, I make *no* apologies. I find the lava on 15 and 16 a bigger threat than any rock - and only surpassed by a Green Queen.

I feel the same way. Whenever I spot one I immediately AVRiL it. Better to quickly kill a lava skaarj one way or another than let it prance around and wipe the floor with other players (not excluding myself of course, those things are dangerous).

If it's red, it dies asap, period and regardless who they are attacking. I feel that when the red gnats and lava skarrj are on, they become the first priority to kill just due to the level of damage both can deal real quick. Those )(^)*&^_)(& queens are another matter. If I can, I try to stay on their back side and shoot away. Nothing else seems to work for me.

yeah, the new monsters are downright deadly. the new queens are kind of overkill, i feel that i would rather have 1 deemer nali on wave 16 than the green queens.

as an example a bunch of us were playing curse4 the other night. everyone playing was a medic. (4 of us) we were working well as a team and eventualy managed to finish the map. At one point a poison queen transported in, webbed one of the characters and then proceeded to go to town with the evisceration thingie. As soon as she threw her web, I turned on the globe of healing and hit the character caught with every bit of healing that I could from my flack, another player was rocketing the queen, which was splash healing the caught character who was healing himself, some one dropped a healing blast into the mix and the caught character still died.

I have only once or twice seen a high level character get out of their clutches. I have been caught by them and transported myself high in the air to get out of reach and had her transport onto my head!

there is nothing like a queen doing a victory dance on your head all the way to the ground! (after her web wore off.)

all this from the queen, but the deadly ones are the lava skarri. as near as I can tell, if they have not thrown their lava in a bit, they save it up bio style. because they throw from both hands its a double dose. Thats a base of 300 damage if they hit with both. that is much more than anything but a rock, and unlike titans, they are quick, agile and like to sneak up on you. almost as bad as the shield nalis.

ways that I deal with these things? Kill red things right away. I tend to use deemers on red flies, they can kill anything if their numbers grow and I believe there is a bug where if they feed off of some one who is being healed they multiply faster than otherwise. skarii I use combinations of fast and slow area effect weapons. like fire the shock secondary a couple of times then a rocket or 2 and then follow up with the flack primary. I will also plant a bio bomb where they tend to walk into it around a sharp corner. the queens I try to keep my distance and hope they pick on some one else!

There are nerfs for the VampireGnats and the PoisonQueens waiting to be rolled out to the DC server. I must admit that I am reluctant to nerf the Lava Skaarj as well. I think we need some challenge. But if Fro reckons they are too tough, I am prepared to be persuaded.
At least they are bright red so you know they are there

not nerfed! that means to be made ineffectual. Just toned down a little>

you have had such good ideas that have kept things new and fresh, don't take it personally if there need to be adjustments to game play to accommodate the majority.

I cant wait to see what you come up with next. when we rib you and make fun, it is mean as just that FUN!

so if you hear an occasional "Szlat must die!"

think of it as a sort of tribute to your skill.

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

.... don't take it personally if there need to be adjustments to game play to accommodate the majority...

No problem. It is very difficult under test conditions to create things that will be balanced on servers like DC.

My intention with the Lava Skaarj was to produce something slightly more difficult than the normal skaarj, which is why it gets 8 score instead of 7 for a fire skaarj. Playing in isolation during testing, I see them, I take them out straight away, and thought they were reasonably ok. They were never meant to be supermonsters.

Likewise with the VampireGnats. They were meant to be an annoyance rather than getting out of hand and dominating the game. In private play, I killed them first shot before they fed, and had no problems at all. Much easier than a Giant Razorfly. Of course a LAN ping rate also helped. And so I never experienced them feeding off players and multiplying the way they do on DC. Which is why I have nerfed them, because I hadn't expected them to get so out of control. Partly I suppose it is because people do not understand them the same yet as other monsters.

Play on a live server like DC is always different to testing, and things need to be changed to keep the balance right. So, I never have a problem with changing things due to feedback.

However, it is easy to want to nerf the things you are not used to. If I had introduced the titans, everyone would be saying way too much damage. But because people are used to them, everybody accepts them with no problems.

I think monster should stay the same but be toned down on thier dodging skills.

Ratar_Killer wrote:

I think monster should stay the same but be toned down on thier dodging skills.

Boyo you're headed for danger there ...

The dodging ability of the monsters is a function of the difficulty level. And a majority of players have voted to keep the difficulty level where it is.

Personally, I'm with you. If it were a bit more random and not simply connected to my clicking my mouse button, I'd be a little more accepting of the current difficulty level. However, the game has to effectively cheat to make the game "more difficult". That I don't like.

BotFodder wrote:

However, the game has to effectively cheat to make the game "more difficult". That I don't like.

UT3 will take care of that

Personally, I like the increased difficulty - even the lava skaarj. The super-monster types take teamwork and the higher-waves feel more like the dungeons that require a group rather than a solo character (in RPG terms).

If nothing else, finishing a map alive is much more rewarding now (maybe not in points but in sense of accomplishment).

I think my post about the bolts may have been misinterpreted. "Cheating" was a poor choice of words on my part. I did not fully explain my reasoning. I do not believe that anyone who uses the bolts is inherently a cheater. In my personal experience, I try to practice restrain when in large groups of players, because the bolts are essentially a quick insta-kill for many monsters and this does not allow time for other players to have a chance at shooting. In some cases you don't necessarily even have to be looking at the monster to kill it. I could be mashing the "use artifact" button to mow down monsters, but I don't. I do not take offense if someone does choose to use the bolts in a large group. I was mainly referring to a player who could directly follow another player around and inhibit them from scoring. Although this behavior is not prosecutable (there's no way to know for sure that's exactly what they are doing... or record that anything took place for that matter. There is no "motive" log), it's not something I would endorse either. And as it stands now, the bolts can rake in quite a bit of kills and adren, so it's my personal philosophy to be sensitive to the people playing around me.