Difficulty of new monsters

ECHO wrote:

My experience with the vampire gnats was pretty outrageous today on Orcus. It got to the point where you can't go anywhere in the map without being pestered by one. The radar was full of so many dots it was more like one giant blob. Even a deemer didn't seem to phase them.

This is the first time the vampire gnats have had a decent trial. If they are growing/multiplying too fast, then it can be altered.
We could start them with less health, so they are easier to kill initially. We could make them slower, so they are easier to hit - all of the testing was done on a LAN, so ping/packet loss was not a problem. We could make them inflict less damage, or we could make them absorb less of the damage they do. Lots of options for balancing. Lets wait and get more feedback before nerfing them.

Szlat wrote:

ECHO wrote:

My experience with the vampire gnats was pretty outrageous today on Orcus. It got to the point where you can't go anywhere in the map without being pestered by one. The radar was full of so many dots it was more like one giant blob. Even a deemer didn't seem to phase them.
This is the first time the vampire gnats have had a decent trial. If they are growing/multiplying too fast, then it can be altered.
We could start them with less health, so they are easier to kill initially. We could make them slower, so they are easier to hit - all of the testing was done on a LAN, so ping/packet loss was not a problem. We could make them inflict less damage, or we could make them absorb less of the damage they do. Lots of options for balancing. Lets wait and get more feedback before nerfing them.

The lightning bolt/beam works great on them, but cant keep up with adren to take out more them 3 or so. The lightning rod doesnt seem to due much damage to those buggers or their leaching to quickly to get them down to a reasonable health for others to kill.

Flak Monkey wrote:

Oh ya, MEAN!

By wave 13 or 14, I was lagging, and this happens just because I'm at work with this junk system and so-so connection, ...

Flak, what's up with that? Employers have a responsibility to provide a better connection at work so we can play our games.
Talk to your union leader.

Szlat wrote:

This is the first time the vampire gnats have had a decent trial. If they are growing/multiplying too fast, then it can be altered.
We could start them with less health, so they are easier to kill initially. We could make them slower, so they are easier to hit - all of the testing was done on a LAN, so ping/packet loss was not a problem. We could make them inflict less damage, or we could make them absorb less of the damage they do. Lots of options for balancing. Lets wait and get more feedback before nerfing them.

Oh I'm not opposed to having the gnats stay, I still can't get over how powerful they can get. It's almost funny until one grows to full size and splits into three off of your pet in about 3 seconds

I'm sure the connection here is good, but with about 150 others on at the same time as me, kinda brings the bandwidth down a bit.

And I'm not union, just the shop is. So I gotta keep the ol' mouth shut. Aint supposed to even have this on company PC.

Flak Monkey wrote:

I'm sure the connection here is good, but with about 150 others on at the same time as me, kinda brings the bandwidth down a bit.

And I'm not union, just the shop is. So I gotta keep the ol' mouth shut. Aint supposed to even have this on company PC.

All 150 of you guys playing at the same time? How do you get any work done?

It's called "lunch time" where nothing gets done.

Some go out to eat, I kill things. Others surf on ebay and such, I kill things.
Only problem beyond the mediocre connection and PC, is the time limit. 1/2 hr a day just aint enuf.

ECHO wrote:

Szlat wrote:

.....I was possibly thinking about giving nalis the three spheres...what do you think?

All I hear when I read that is Bot exclaiming, "Szlat must die!"

...anyways, that sounds disturbing. And I like it. And do it.

Die? Die? Too nice for him!! I say we put him in a big pot of water and play "Boil the Frog"... ya know... turn the heat up slowly... wait a minute... that is too kind as well.

LOL

I dont mind most of the new monsters, but these Gnats really grind my gears. I'm only lvl 21 (trying to find my old name), but i've seen those "uber 1337 [DC]-can-take-several-titan-rocks" get totally creamed by those things. Let alone me.. When i see them i just translocate the frak out of there..

They need to be slower, they are nearly impossible to hit outside, and due to their speed and proximity they are liable to cause you to suicide when you go to town with splash inside.

NERF

I think the general consensus is that the vamp gnats need to be nerfed. Some possible options along there can be:
1. Make them slower
2. Make them do less damage
3. Make them have less health
4. Make the initial size larger
5. Make them vamp more HP before splitting
6. Similiar too 5, make them loose health when splitting (a gnat with say 200hp splits into two gnats with 50hp; I'm sure asexual reproduction must take some energy out of them

)

Those are some options that could be mixed and matched.

Hmmmmm, I've been using a vorp sniper on those gnats from a distance and a flack/shock combo in close. Only died a coupla times when I couldn't translocate from them fast.

The only time i've had a problem with them was when i was the last one alive and there were like 20 of them and I had a few queens to deal with. lvl 190 queens and gnats

...no where to run

...they just keep chasing

...can't get away

. I would say make the gnats a little slower just or make them do a little less damage just to give me a fighting chance in situations like that. Don't do too much though.

Fro13 wrote:

The only time i've had a problem with them was when i was the last one alive and there were like 20 of them and I had a few queens to deal with. lvl 190 queens and gnats

There is only Fro who would think 20 gnats and lvl 190 queens is when it starts to get tough. The rest of us struggle with 3 gnats.

Mmmmm. If there are 20 or so of them, they have seriously got out of control. (Note: this would also put significant extra loading on the server tracking that many monsters)
At the moment, whenever one gets up to ~200 health, it splits. We could impose a limit on the number of times a gnat can split. So make it so the original gnat can only spawn say 3 siblings, and the siblings cannot spawn anything. This would stop the mass hordes.

I have to make a comment about the usual ATI vs Nvblah (same as AMD vs Intel)... I just got a x1950 pro 512 (after my x800xl decided to sell me out), it run's the game perfect with all settings maxed. For those of you with an ATI card, the new driver's were just released, 7.2, and results show that ATI card's have higher fps with all the eye candy on (so turn it all on ATI users!).. mac, your card should have no problems. As to the new game updates, I love them. It reminds me of when I started playing, having to hide behind crates tossing out mines and grenades, hoping I could help the lvl 70 win it. We're all such higher lvl's now, its good to keep it interesting, and difficult. And yeah, those red bug's are crazy fast.

I dont think we have to nerf them too bad.
If we limit the splits a gnat can do and maybe make them a bit slower, that would be enuf.