Concerns on engineer balance

Title of Thread: "Concerns on engineer balance"
I was merely pointing out that you and I were neck and neck until wave 6 on Liandri today. From wave 6 on I was able to out score you---which I should being that I am a very high level WM ( 238 ) and you were a level 38 engineer. And you are correct, you were lvl 38, not lvl 32---my bad.

Hopefully Szlat's recent adjustments will balance things out.

I have only played the engineer for several hours over the span of a couple of weekends (not much time to play during the week) and I did notice the high scores as well... but I also noticed that I had access to all the long-range weapons in the game and it struck me as odd because it seemed to me that an engineer should not be able to use them.

One infinite weapon is very powerful and the link turrets have a long reach anyway (primary fire is slow) so is there really a need for the engineers to be able to pick up other weapons? Turrets force you to be stationary and I found that my highest scores came when I was mobile (or in small maps where monsters would be easy to reach from the turret). Limiting the engineer's access to other weapons may help - just my $0.02

true true and yeah from wat i read szlat is goin to def limit enginneers and wiht my upcoming vlv 41 ..yo will ocne again dominate vio (seeing we enginneers can nevr...ever by regen bac..

.)

also i can most def point out and say that my score is completly due t the help fo others boosting me up..while you can for the most part get your score on ur lonesome (not saying ur nto team player..im just saying your far more self sufficent..whiel 2 engineers are usually selfsuficent )..
so yeah/...

ont he ntoe of not being abel to pick up weps...huh?!?..thats as rational of nto givien medics weps...they have monsters they can summon ...and if wep THAT also heals themselves...which engineers cant and so yeah (its just that engineers have the 3rd income of kills which is turrents..)

I agree with some of what you have said here Jason, but not that long ago I started an AM character. I researched and looked online at the forum, I researched the WIKI for class skills. I went through the UT stats to look at what skills and ability's others were using successfully. I came up with a plan because it is accepted that the play of an AM character is difficult. I played for 2 months before I broke level 40 and it was a difficult trip.

In a week and with no plan I am about to break the same with the Engineer. I have not spent skill points in 4 levels because I don't know what I need next, but it is not hurting my play any, twice in the last week I have come within 200 points of the high score that I set with my level 78 weapon master. At level 22 I broke 1200 on wave 12 and was providing some stiff competition in kills to people that normally score better than me and are 4+ times my levels.

Here are the issues: Poorly placed Sentinels just don't do anything. Well placed Sentinels dominate the area too well. I have a bit of experience with these from a fortress mod for quake. same type of thing was prevalent there. The way that the other game took care of this issue was to have a "orientation" time. It was explained that it ensured positive friend/foe identification. Another balancing factor was the identification range was much smaller than the tracking or the weapon range, So if something came in range, and left again the Sentinel would continue to be able to blast away at it.

That seems like a lot, but I truly think the balance is with the "force multipliers" not with the turrets. or vehicles.

I dug this one from the past, since I did not want to flood the highscore post.

But first I want to say, that the engineer is balanced reasonably OK up to level 70 or 72. The second sentinel makes too big of a difference, because in adition to the obvious more killing it takes some load off the engineer too (monsters are now divided attacking 2 sents and an engineer).

I was able to score very well from level 70 up on smaller maps. If the map is right, I often outscore higher skilled (in my opinion) WMs twice the level. I got more than 2000 score with decent high level players on several occasions. My shield blast is currnetly not working and I am sure I could score even better with it.

That is one part of the story.

I score pathetically in huge maps like Grassyknoll (eeem, 700ish?).

I see engineers same or higher level than me that score quite a bit less. I'd really like to know how other mid level engineers score, but I have not seen one score above 2000 yet. I saw zneer close once and I'd bet grizzled (and the like) would do it the moment he turns 70.

I've seen only a handfull of players that know the www (which/when/where) of sentinels. What I am trying to say is that while scoring high with engineer may be easier than with WM, it is still skill dependent. If you think that you can plant two sentinels, hide in a fort and score near 2000 you could not be more wrong. It still takes a lot of work, jumping, transing, dodging, linking, picking health, regenerating shields, boosting shields, building and yes, shooting too.

I recently tried to play a game where I would only use sentinels and link other players. So, no shooting at the monsters. I scored something above 800 (OK, I admit, I had 17 link kills that I could not resist).

I also tried to play a game where I would not use my sentinels. I scored above 1400. I used defense sentinels though.

And finally, here are some F3s from a few decent scores of mine.

Score 2408 in metalhell:

Score 2741 in roughinery:

Score 2658 in compressed. This is not an usual number of sentinel kills. It only shows what is possible with more engineers. ZOG decided to try if I can get above 200 kills with sentinels. So we both linked them like crazy (in normal game the sent would die in higher waves if I linked it myself). I got more than 300 sent kills combined.

Thanks for posting the stats Wonko.
My concern is trying to get the Engineer class balanced with the others. If someone questions the balance, then I have to look into it.

We all knew that the second sentinel was going to give a significant bonus to the engineers. Upto level 70, I think Engineers are doing alright, and in general probably not as good as medics, but better than AMs.

However, it is always difficult to compare figures - it depends on who else is on, luck and the right weapons, and who is supporting you.

However, the most total kills record is currently set to 467. For a level 81 player, no matter how good, to get that close (435) does not look good. Around 300 were from sentinels, which were being healed by yourself and Zog - but why didn't you and Zog get taken out? Because the sentinels killed them first. You didn't die once all game.

And your current high score 2741 has 404 kills, with 230+ from sentinels. Micron posted the same high score as a lvl 209 WM.

I do not doubt that your skill in utilising the Engineer class by far exceeds my own. But any exceptional player would find it difficult to achieve a score of 2741 as a level 88 as one of the other classes.

Having said that, ECHO++ scored 1986 as a lvl 51ish AM, and 2157 at level 79. And ECHO.MD scored 1653 as a lvl 61 medic, which is around what Fro got with his lvl 61 classless player.

So, a long post, but I think since the Engineer is supposed to be a support class, getting more than 400 kills is a bit much. At lvl 300, perhaps, but not below 100.

What to do - perhaps we need to limit the sentinels so only one can be offensive?

Szlat wrote:

However, the most total kills record is currently set to 467. For a level 81 player, no matter how good, to get that close (435) does not look good. Around 300 were from sentinels, which were being healed by yourself and Zog - but why didn't you and Zog get taken out? Because the sentinels killed them first. You didn't die once all game.

That game really is not something to draw conclusion on. In addition to zog, there was also roadwork who helped a lot and blade_MD who sacrificed himself to doing nothing else but healing us. Blade scored around 60 that game and we all know what he'd score if he was really playing. Basically I had 3 players just to support me and my sentinels, to see what can be done.

Szlat wrote:

I do not doubt that your skill in utilising the Engineer class by far exceeds my own. But any exceptional player would find it difficult to achieve a score of 2741 as a level 88 as one of the other classes.

I wrote what I did just because of some engineer based remarks I heard in-game which I found inapropriate. I am not trying to say we are not overpowered. I think I was actually the first engineer who admited it in the forums and I said so to everyone who asked in-game for my opinion. Some players are scared of my score because if I score that at lvl80, they think I'd score 3500 at lvl150. It is just not so with engineers. Going above lvl70 gives you a huge leap forwards (too huge) but I am not getting any stronger after that. Other classes evolve more gradually while engineer does so in big steps.

In short, I think we should score similar to medics. On average I'd say I am getting scores 500 points too high.

Szlat wrote:

So, a long post, but I think since the Engineer is supposed to be a support class, getting more than 400 kills is a bit much. At lvl 300, perhaps, but not below 100.

Agreed. I often would like to be more supportive but I can't help to think something is missing (OK, besides the blast issue for me). I (obviously) have a few suggestions:
1. what if we could link-boost other player damage no matter what weapon they hold? I'd often like to help a WM or medic link him, but if he does not have inf link (or does not like) I end up linking - guess who - another engineer. It should work similar to turrets though.
2. Perhaps other means of shield boosting, like that sphere the medics have?
3. What if we could build double damage spawning thingie (1 only) with a little twist: an engineer can't pick it up.

Szlat wrote:

What to do - perhaps we need to limit the sentinels so only one can be offensive?

I thought you'd never ask. I have several suggestions (figures):

1. You can adjust costs of the sentinels and also get rid of the sentinel number limitation (the cost takes care of all):
defense: 5
light: 7
normal: 9
So, at LE15 you can still make 3 sents, if all are defensive. If you want 2 offensive, it can only be 2 light. And you can make a normal + defense or lighting + defense. In addition, you could give us another sentinel at LE15 which costs 15, has twice the armor of normal, same shooting speed, 1.3 the range of normal and 1.5 the damage of normal. It would still be less than 2 normals combined. This proposal changes things for lower levels too, so you have to consider that.

2. You remove the second sent completely. At lvl70 one is able to buy advanced sentinel damage bonus and advanced sentinel range. You could buy next level every 10 levels or so, this would make engineer progress more gradually. You should not be able to increase damage more than 50% and range more than 30%, so it never gets as powerfull as 2 normal sentinels. The thing I don't like about this idea is that you loose 2 defense sentinels (although with increased range one would be significantly better than now, so a minor thing).

3. You remove the second sent completely and make up for it with something else at lvl70 (e.g. stun grenade launcher) that we can work on.

4. Reduce the damage of sentinels. I am not very fond of this idea.

5. You move second sentinel to level 150.

6. You adjust the sentinel shooting speed according to their armor condition. Therefore, a sent with half life shoots with 50% of the speed a fully healed does. Bad thing is this supports camping around the sent.

OK, a few ideas if any looks promising... Basically as I understand the offensive capability of sentinels has to be downgraded and we need to be more supportive to others.

Some nice ideas there Wonko.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

2. Perhaps other means of shield boosting, like that sphere the medics have?

Possible, although medics tend to use the blast instead as it is more cost effective. And the shield blast is already cheaper than the medic blast.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

1. You can adjust costs of the sentinels and also get rid of the sentinel number limitation (the cost takes care of all):
defense: 5
light: 7
normal: 9
So, at LE15 you can still make 3 sents, if all are defensive. If you want 2 offensive, it can only be 2 light. And you can make a normal + defense or lighting + defense. In addition, you could give us another sentinel at LE15 which costs 15, has twice the armor of normal, same shooting speed, 1.3 the range of normal and 1.5 the damage of normal. It would still be less than 2 normals combined. This proposal changes things for lower levels too, so you have to consider that.
2. You remove the second sent completely. At lvl70 one is able to buy advanced sentinel damage bonus and advanced sentinel range

I was thinking along these lines, except 5,8,10 instead of 5,7,9 - so you can only get one offensive sentinel - unless we reduce the offensive power of the lightning sentinel. I don't want to include a more powerful sentinel at LE15 - that gets us back where we started. Likewise the advanced sentinel damage, although a skill to increase the range would be possible.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

4. Reduce the damage of sentinels. I am not very fond of this idea.

Me neither.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

5. You move second sentinel to level 150.

Possible, but it just defers the problem.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

6. You adjust the sentinel shooting speed according to their armor condition. Therefore, a sent with half life shoots with 50% of the speed a fully healed does. Bad thing is this supports camping around the sent.

Not keen on encouraging engineers just to sit and link to their sentinels.

So, some nice thoughts there, and I am sure we can work something out.

Szlat wrote:

I do not doubt that your skill in utilising the Engineer class by far exceeds my own. But any exceptional player would find it difficult to achieve a score of 2741 as a level 88 as one of the other classes.

True...

Wonko The Sane wrote:

Going above lvl70 gives you a huge leap forwards (too huge) but I am not getting any stronger after that. Other classes evolve more gradually while engineer does so in big steps.

So the steps need more precision placing then?

Szlat wrote:

So, a long post, but I think since the Engineer is supposed to be a support class, getting more than 400 kills is a bit much. At lvl 300, perhaps, but not below 100.

Szlat wrote:

Wonko The Sane wrote:

5. You move second sentinel to level 150.
Possible, but it just defers the problem.

True ..It defers the problem..but Wonko is in theory scoring as much as someone 2x his lvl....150 is around that same lvl..so though its deferred to a later point...its to the point where he should be scoring that much...thus engis are sorta balanced down to the correct point?

Szlat wrote:

What to do - perhaps we need to limit the sentinels so only one can be offensive?

How about as wonko said only 2 lightning if anything at the point where 2 sent can be summoned...with onyl one sent at this point ...and if the 3 sent gets put back in (its out right?)...have it so only 2 normal sents can be summoned and a 3 def sent if anything

In numbers-->
<70(currently change to 150?) = 1 sent of any kind

>70>{whatever lvl 3 may be inserted if at all} = 2 L.Sents/ONE normal sent with (possible L.Sent?) def sent/ L.sent def sent combo or double def...

>{whatever lvl 3 may be inserted if at all}= 2. offensive sents of any kind with def sent or all def sent...including the N.sent L.sent D.sent combo

(Did I make any sense..?.)

Wonko The Sane wrote:

4. Reduce the damage of sentinels. I am not very fond of this idea.

How about rather than damage....range...and increased range can be added on as said....to be more effective..(not to larger than what it is now though...thatd be craaazy)

Wonko The Sane wrote:

2. Perhaps other means of shield boosting, like that sphere the medics have?
3. What if we could build double damage spawning thingie (1 only) with a little twist: an engineer can't pick it up.

As medic used sphere onyl a few times as low lvl...not too effective...and otherwise I only used it when leaving the game...however now i just toss adren...I dont think it would help much..

DD construct?

.....Nice idea...(youd have to give it a diff look so u wont get engis complaining about how they cant pick it up..)

Wonko The Sane wrote:

3. You remove the second sent completely and make up for it with something else at lvl70 (e.g. stun grenade launcher) that we can work on.

To many class specific weapons make ppl weary...remove sent artifact...replace with stunning construct perhpas..I disagree with another inf wep....

But yeah as Szlat has said very good ideas..

.....

I agree with most of the sentiment above, the thing to keep in mind is that these scores are mostly being made through superior teamwork to anything that has regularly happened before. partly that is because it is pretty difficult to go it alone now and the engineer class lends itself to teamwork. I am positive that if a few high level players worked together in the same way (rather than competing for kills) then they would do even better than what Wanko or any of the rest of us have managed so far. I know that using my medic I have come close to getting on the high score table using the link as my medic weapon, unfortunately I have found that typically I do just as well exp wise healing others rather than killing monsters all of the time. The only thing about that is that when a lot of engineers are playing, medics don't get as much exp because of all the shield healing that goes on, and new damage comes off the shield first.

Another thing as Wanko mentioned, is that other non-support classes are still gaining offensive power up through level 100. The engineer is nearing their offensive potential much earlier than that. As is the medic.

Yeah teamwork is necessary for scoring good..though on some map engis may be able to wing it alone..you gneerally need a team to save you form utter demise..XD

Actually On Toystory today (with an apparently terrible connection..i had lagg spikes ALL the time ..o.0..) I scored a meager 900 score...BUT this score was accomplished with this bad connection..half the time not seeing projectiles...and some of the monsters..(providing i ran out to noisy areas and shot healing redeemer straight down a few times...alt fire help keep me alive and kill soem monsters too..

..

So while my 900 isnt terrible high..its pretty good for that..my medic would have scrapped a 600..(then again he does have only 36 damage bonus..>_>.....)
Point is that my score also got attributed indirectly by medics...who healed my immoblie lagged self ...and with the sent out as well taking some o th heat off me..(and toher players) i scored decently...

OK, I tried to quote someone that quoted someone that quoted someone but got a bit confused, so I'll just go by myself.

As for the shield sphere: I figured it is less cost effective, but I think there are times where it would be more handy (and for boosting shields it does not need to stay up that long if it has the same heal/sec if it does not have the same heal/sec than I gues it should drain adrenaline more slowly). As far as I noticed medics' (or AMs') spheres go thru walls, blast does not. I still think the majority of time people would use blast or link, but a sphere might come in handy here and there.

As for the costs of sentinels: It could be 5, 8, 10 either (how does that impact lower level players? it moves sentinels forward quite a bit...), there is not much difference in that for me. I'd rather have one normal (+ defense) than two lighting sentinels in most cases anyway. But I don't think 2 lightings could do the amount of damage that could cause problems... The problem now is that we are able to build two normals at level 72 (esp. in small maps).

And this felt awkward to me before: why wouldn't the cooldown time be reflected in costs? If something costs twice as much it would be reasonable it takes twice as long to cooldown. So if prices are (5, 8, 10) cooldowns could be (50, 80, 100) or (25, 40, 50).

OK, if you do that, than its one offensive sentinel at time only. OK, fair enough. But please give us something to work on from level 70 up. Even if it is tinny, like advanced sentinel damage with 6 levels, 1 level per 10 player levels, each level increases damage by 5%, starts at player level 70. You would have something to work on from levels 70 to 120 in this case. It would still mean 65% the damage my sentinels make now, 50% the coverage my sentinels have now and 50% the armor my sentinels have now. I bet that would cut the number of sentinel kills I make now down for 40% at least, wouldn't that be reasonable if I was level 120 (compared to what we have at 70 now)? To have 180 sentinel kills if 3 players worked for me? Still too much for level 120 even?

I believe that we are well balanced up to level 70 (perhaps slightly overpowered for lower waves and wave 6 and 14). As Grizzled said, we peak early. If there is nothing from there on... What am I getting from where I am now on? In short: ghost, ultima, 100 health, 150 adrenaline. Would that make any significant boost to my scores? I don't know. My highest score pre lvl70 was 1700ish.

As for teamwork, I am fairly confident that as it is now, I could score the highest if I was playing with bots only. I think in blackjackall with a rod and bots only, 3000 is really possible now
(you won't believe this: I had 2500ish at the start of wave 14, was in neat spot with defense sents nicely placed and had to suicide because I had to go! I can get more than 200 score in titan wave alone! And bots just died 3 seconds in wave and left all titans for me!).

Ok, I guess you could score over 4000 if there was you + 3 engineers + medic and medic just heals you, the other engineers build defense sentinels only and link you all the time. You all stay close to the defense gizmos and you have 2 offensive sentinels up. Noone else shoots nothing. Perhaps we should try his? :]

Grizzled_Imposter wrote:

.... the thing to keep in mind is that these scores are mostly being made through superior teamwork to anything that has regularly happened before. ....

Before medics came, it was pretty much everyone for themselves. People would hand out good weapons, and max weapons, but that was about it.

I think the introduction of medics was the first big jump in teamwork - so much so we had to increase the difficulty. But the medics mainly helped the other classes keep alive. A level 60 medic can get a reasonable score, but will always be outscored by the level 200 WM or AM. Who ends up with the most xp is a different question.

Engineers again can help others survive longer - with shield healing, walls and defense sentinels. They also encourage large link chains (on the whole medics have prefered splash weapons as their medic weapon), and any class can be at the head of that chain - they just have to be prepared to stay in the base. And sentinels definitely help against gnats.

The only problem is getting the offensive side of the Engineers balanced. I am against the idea of engineers hiding, charging sentinels which do the killing for them. Every class has some offensive benefit. An engineer can plant a sentinel and get 50-100 kills from it over 16 waves (respawning as necessary), which is a big help. But 250+ kills from sentinels swings the balance a bit too much.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

And this felt awkward to me before: why wouldn't the cooldown time be reflected in costs? If something costs twice as much it would be reasonable it takes twice as long to cooldown. So if prices are (5, 8, 10) cooldowns could be (50, 80, 100) or (25, 40, 50).

The costs of each item and the cooldown times are configured in the UT2004RPG.ini file, so can be easily adjusted.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

But please give us something to work on from level 70 up.

Remember you have to wait until lvl 90 to max LE. More adrenaline will help you beserk longer and get more titan kills. More health will help you survive longer, as will ghost. And more construction health bonus will keep sentinels/walls alive longer. So still some things to get. But all the classes run out of useful stuff to buy at some point. If you are a medic and do not want monsters, I think you peak even earlier.

Wonko The Sane wrote:

Ok, I guess you could score over 4000 if there was you + 3 engineers + medic and medic just heals you, the other engineers build defense sentinels only and link you all the time. You all stay close to the defense gizmos and you have 2 offensive sentinels up. Noone else shoots nothing. Perhaps we should try his? :]

But this could be anybody at the head of a link chain. If no one else is killing, then all the score will go to the one person - provided that person has enough killing power. A level 80 WM with maxed adv damage and a +4 link has significantly more killing power than an eng link + 2 sentinels, when there are 3 others linking. (4*1.4*1.1*1.5*165=1524/sec, 4*1.5*165 + 2*80 = 1150/sec). Its just that you never get 3 people linking to a WM.

I don't need more than 100 adr for titan waves, I actually need more titans, the link berserk with someone linking you goes through them so quick that my main problem is having enough titans to continue my kill sprees it takes an insanely short period of time to take down a titan when you have one or 2 people linking you and you are running berserk. If I manage to get a double at the start of a titan wave and am running berserk, its even better.

If i can get an appropriate sent up in the right place, I don't have to worry so much about health many waves, 12 is the worst, but i have found that many times it wouldn't matter how much health I had if there were not a healer there to replenish it, the monsters go through it so fast that is the only way.

I have also found that the lightning sent in an enclosed place owns warlord groups, its not as good at single warlords, but if 5 or more warlords show up, the lightning sent kills them quick, have no idea why, but it only takes 3 or 4 lightning strikes and they are all dead.

I have also occasionally seen players of higher level do what wanko and I do, look at the flow of monsters through the map and place your self (our sents) where they can fire at the largest number of monsters, the most targets over a wave, we have the advantage because we then go Rambo, only coming back to check your sent a couple times a wave in the early waves and more often on later waves and finely changing to the sent and place that makes most sense on a wave. The thing is, I have seen some of the higher level players "own" a high traffic area, they usually score awesome too. Engineers have an advantage because they can do the same thing in 2 places on a map. 320 and Fro13 do the same thing with the minelayer and grenades, when I started using their technique of dropping a couple mines with my weapon master between just about every monster, my score went up by 50% on average.

I think that I missed my point, here is my point. If anyone with a particular skill or thing can score what Wanko is now, and what I have come close to, then the engineer is overpowered. If not, then it is the use of that skill, so it is not inherent in the class but to the player. If a player is good do you adjust the class he is playing to his skill level?

edit:

Im not disagreeing that 2 offensive sents is probably too much, I just think that 1 is not enough as they stand now.

Edit, Edit::

Just played my medic and using link, medic is much more durable...was able to score nearly as well as my eng, 20 some thing levels difference. I think the over balance is link and teamwork.