Vampire Gnats difficulty

What do you think of the modified vampire gnats' difficulty?

id say with the addition of the sents from enigneers the gnats get shot down quickly...(my vote is 1½ but seeing thats not a option ill just vote 2..)

I no longer fear them.

I would like to see them back at full strength but with little or no replication.

Ratar_Killer wrote:

I no longer fear them.

I would like to see them back at full strength but with little or no replication.

Ditto. I agree with Ratar, don't let them replicate so much.

perhaps a timer along with size to determine replication

.(jus a thought)

They're perfect as they as right now for beginners, but a piece of cake for regulars. I say change them back to their original configuration.

I agree..they're much to easy now..I also say change them back..or just make them as hard as you possibly can....

Hobo_Joe wrote:

I agree..they're much to easy now..I also say change them back..or just make them as hard as you possibly can....

Hobo, you won't have to worry about Echo and your box. I'll flatten it real quick.

After working out some tactics to take them on, I actually thought they were quite easy. Let them hit you, they bounce straight back, shock combo(s). Dead fly!

I say put them back.

I am of the general opinion that they were a bit too fast before, and definitely needed a limit on how much they could multiply (which was implemented). Now, I think they're way too slow.

I would hope there's some middle speed (or maybe a tad faster) that they could be set to.

I thought to put things in perspective, for those that like looking at the detail, I would document what the stats are of the gnats.

For comparison purposes, if we look at the starting gnat parameters and the max parameters just before it splits, we have

original gnat
at start: 10% of health clipped to range [5-35], airspeed 500, accelrate 1200
at max: 50% of health clipped to range [25-175], airspeed 2500, accelrate 2000
The gnat had unlimited descendants, and vampired 100% of the damage it did.

Current gnat
at start: 10% of health clipped to range [5-35], airspeed 450, accelrate 900
at max: 30% of health clipped to range [25-155], airspeed 650, accelrate 900
The gnat has a max of 4 descendants, and vampires 80% of the damage it does. It also loses 50 health on a split.

(Note that the % of health taken is before applying DB/DR stats.)

So the new gnat starts off pretty similar to the old gnat - just a bit slower.
However, once the old gnat tasted blood, it would move increasing fast, and be increasingly difficult to hit.

I suppose the other key stage is just after they had split:
Old gnat: 25% of health clipped to range [12-87], airspeed 1250, accelrate 1500
current gnat: 14% of health clipped to range [9-61], airspeed 493, accelrate 900
so once the old gnat started splitting, it took some stopping.

hmmm..maybe to increase it diffculty you could brong a back one or 2 of its origanl features...such as weaker gnats but inif decedents...(that alone is scary even if they are easier to kill..)..or just up to max of 10 decendents with one or 2 of the other old stats...

(just a thought..)..

For me it was too many splits that made the gnats a problem. I think the vamp was enough to scare the pants off me.

I would love to see a test with no replication but with original damage.

no repelication?...but that changes their whole character..

...without it they just arnt those flies we coem know and love--er...and hate?...:/..oppose ..i dunno...wat wuld be the right term..o.0.

At the moment, the poll is running at around 70% more difficult, and 30% original, with no other votes. So we are perhaps looking at moving the difficulty 70% towards the orginal.

I think the max of 4 descendants has to stay. That still leaves 5 gnats, which will not be easy. Without that limit, one self-healing medic could create a swarm, which would wipe everyone out.

The other really difficult thing was just how fast they got. Once they were big, they got incredibly difficult to hit. So I think those max speeds and accelerations can't be quite as high as the original - they became disproportionately difficult for high ping players.

However, we can knock up the damage and vampire. So, I would perhaps suggest:

at start: 10% of health clipped to range [5-35], airspeed 500, accelrate 1000
at max: 50% of health clipped to range [25-175], airspeed 1500, accelrate 1500
The gnat to have a limit of 4 descendants, vampire 100% of the damage it does, and lose 20 health on the split.

So, like the original but limited to 4 descendants, speed and acceleration half way between the two. Slight health loss on split.

However, as Jason_x says, the sentinels take them out with no problems. The gnats also do very little damage to vehicles/turrets/sentinels, so the Engineer class in particular eats them for breakfast.
(EDIT: in fact, if I am on as an Engineer, I ignore vampire gnats as I know they will not hurt me - the lightning sentinel will 100% of the time take them out faster than I could)
So perhaps I need to create a specialised controller for the gnats so they will go for unprotected humans if there are any around? And of course pets.

Another possibility would be to get them to deliberately feed on monsters from their own side, so they can quickly split? Thoughts?