SubClass Balance Issues in release 226

(Freddo)
MM/ENG
I have done some tests on this specific subclass and I would be happy to suggest possible improvements.
As Acydeer has spoken about before, it is one of the weakest hybrids.
1) There should be a few more levels of healing exp, perhaps level 5 instead of level 2. You barely scrape 10 exp through healing with defence sentinels.
Again with sentinels, the lightning is the best form of experience. Don't put 2 in but simply give it a bit more damage reduction or health. At the moment it dies too fast.

2) The vehicles work perfectly. You might want to try a paladin although that might be a bit too strong for a hybrid. Therefore, vehicles should remain how they are. But one thing to correct is out of bounds in driver positions of vehicles.

3) The monsters don't offer you much experience at all.
Firstly the best monster you can get is 1 mercenary. This monster can't survive long enough to rack up any experience at all. I believe you should offer up to level 4 health bonus. Either this or offer better monsters. Perhaps you should give one brute or one skaarj.
This way you can target all areas, not just the engineer side.
The monsters intelligence is way off. You should give it at least level 5. At level 2, it doesn't respond until it has been damaged significantly, by that time it is most likely dead.

So szlat, to round up this long winded post...

*More Healing experience
*Better pets or More health/ Damage reduction for the current pets.
*Maybe a new vehicle. A paladin with less health?
*Lightning Sentinels, OK for the moment but maybe More health.
*Defense sentinels- Good, more healing exp, quicker healing?
*Vehicles- Get rid of out of bounds rule in driver position- (generally caused when there are no monsters).

OK Szlat here is a option!

he he Go back to before Engineers or even medics where on and play that for a week or 2 and then let people figure out what co-operative play means!

Maybe after that point they will get off the kick of being a self sustaining player and do the team thing again like it used to be and make comments to such.

now I have not played any of the new types yet ..(just kinda GALLS me to have to cash in my char!) but as I under stand I'll have the points to buy up the new type. Just leary cuz I reset my AM at lvl 65 to buy denial 3 faster than I could at that point, I got really sick of chase'n weapons after dieing!

But as a bystander reading the forums I see the older players that where here before engineer and medic make some decent fed back (because they have past experience without these types of char's) I see alot of the newer players making suggestions for a self efficient loner type of player when the medic was made to help others live through the maps and the eng the same with a bit of base for the lower lvl players.
I maybe a bit of a smart ass at times and a hang back player depending on what map and class I'm playing but I also do what I can to help out other players with weapons/health/shields where I can. Other times I get wild and go Gung Ho on the beasties and die fast or live becasue I have reached a lvl of strength with my different char's.

Now thats what I'm seeing to a point, it maybe my old fart ways of thinking and point of view and it maybe just that I'm going senile and have no clue of what the hell I'm talking about!

But I Do remember when there was alot of other players that would help noobs and made this the best server I had ever found! I have been on 3 others that wound up being ghost town servers! before finding DC and I've played a few others just to see and I have stayed here because of the ppl on here!

(That does not include you road!)

Oh GAWD bout fell outa my chair on that!

Dead_Freddo wrote:

MM/ENG
.......so szlat, to round up this long winded post...

*More Healing experience
*Better pets or More health/ Damage reduction for the current pets.
*Maybe a new vehicle. A paladin with less health?
*Lightning Sentinels, OK for the moment but maybe More health.
*Defense sentinels- Good, more healing exp, quicker healing?
*Vehicles- Get rid of out of bounds rule in driver position- (generally caused when there are no monsters).

Thanks for the feedback.
I have already suggested upping the Experienced Healing max level from 2 to 4.
I am thinking of this player more in a support role than an offensive role, so would prefer the class to use def sents rather than offensive.
And I am not convinced about a new vehicle just for this subclass.

A question I asked earlier - should this subclass try to take some of both the medic and monster master parts of the M/MM, or should it just take the medic part and replace the monster master part with the half-engineer?

I would say that you should include the medic features with more of engineer abilities. Don't include monsters as they don't blend well with the supporting role you intend for mm/engineers. "You would have to go outside the base to make a monster just so it doesn't get stuck"! I think you should make the subclass more engineer and medic focused. The monsters aren't worth having on that specific subclass.

By the way, I noticed troopers boasting earlier about his 2k hi scores of general on level 80.
I decided to quickly test it out.
I was level 16 at the beginning of this map. I finished the map on level 21.

I still think skill/attacking intent has more to do with scores than you think

I think generals should be nerfed.

dom60 wrote:

But as a bystander reading the forums I see the older players that where here before engineer and medic make some decent fed back (because they have past experience without these types of char's) I see alot of the newer players making suggestions for a self efficient loner type of player when the medic was made to help others live through the maps and the eng the same with a bit of base for the lower lvl players.

Lol Ive tried this server since 2005 when only AM and WM were available and I always acted as a loner, I dont like to depend from people couse in my opinion they make me weaker which means If they are not online while im playing I will be dead.

The new subclasses add more variety to the game just like any MMORPG has classes that can solo, other depends from healers, supporters, damage dealers. So for me the subclasses are really good right now so is up to you to choose which class to pick, you wanna be a loner Good, you wanna be a medic supporting players Good, you want to make bases to support a team Good, I mean play the game as you want without using exploits or cheats. All the classes dont have to be supporting teammates, is more like a personal choice.

So the game looks promising as it is going now.

Well Dead Fredd has a good point.

The Eng/MD is underpowered they cant heal or do good damage, Their role should be the support, how about making them the healing/repairing class.
They can get lvl 10 of healing. You will say " oh wow wait thats a lot buddy!!" but wait, here is the deal.

Lets take a look at the MM/MD master, they get exp from healing, from killing with medic flak which does good damage and from pets which they do a lot of exp when they have all the bonuses like health, intelligence, damage bonus, damage reduction, quickfoot and stuff. So how about split the class?? Take away the monsters and Damage Deal sides of the the medic and only use the medic side and mix it with the engineer healing shield ability.

So my idea is to merge all medic abilities maxed with the shield healing abilities maxed.

They can heal health up to 150+ and shield up to 200+ ( to make them more special than other classes )
They can use health/shield blasts and how about giving them extra levels of exp from shield healing??
Their role would be make a base, spawn a healing sent inside, healing shields from players when needed, and going out of base healing players.

They cant spawn hellbender or turrets, any offensive gear but they can heal health and shield I recommend to nerf their damage from link gun couse its not their job to hurt monsters just like the Sent specialist link gun, the general class heals shield 150+ and health 100+ in my opinion they shouldnt do that good.

The ENG/MD focus in getting exp from supporting teammates only not from killing.
It will not be that overpowered couse just imagine they heal players but if there is a MM/MD on or a Xtreme Medic on they will have to compete with that, When they are healing shields and If there are engineers on?? well they will not get that extreme exp from their healing abilities they will compete with other classes.

Ryu has a good point we have certain classes and sub-classes to make things interesting and to make it a "TEAM" concept when alot of ppl are on but there is few ppl or classes that are only that! Cribbage and a few others are about killing critters but heal you when they see you and u need it! Hell he even goes to bases and heals from out side the base to keep the map going!

It sounds like a medic/engineer mix may be what this subclass should be then.
However, I think it should not be a better medic than a M/MM, nor should it be better at healing shields than the straight engineer.
And I think we need to leave room for the Extreme Medic - this subclass cannot be as good at healing as the Extreme Medic.

Ryuxen wrote:

They can heal health up to 150+ and shield up to 200+ ( to make them more special than other classes )
They can use health/shield blasts and how about giving them extra levels of exp from shield healing??
Their role would be make a base, spawn a healing sent inside, healing shields from players when needed, and going out of base healing players.

They cant spawn hellbender or turrets, any offensive gear but they can heal health and shield I recommend to nerf their damage from link gun couse its not their job to hurt monsters just like the Sent specialist link gun, the general class heals shield 150+ and health 100+ in my opinion they shouldnt do that good.

Max health healed at +150 is possible - it still leaves a bit of space for the extreme medic to go to +200.
However, I think the shield should stop at +150.
Probably yes to blasts.
Perhaps have some extra xp for shield healing.
Perhaps have def sent addons for restoring health, shields and armor.

The subclass will need some sort of offensive ability, just in case it is the last one left. So we could still let it spawn turrets, but just reduce its weapon/turret/vehicle damage - so it would be better for someone else to use the turret.

Szlat wrote:

Thanks for the feedback.
I have already suggested upping the Experienced Healing max level from 2 to 4.
I am thinking of this player more in a support role than an offensive role, so would prefer the class to use def sents rather than offensive.
And I am not convinced about a new vehicle just for this subclass.

A question I asked earlier - should this subclass try to take some of both the medic and monster master parts of the M/MM, or should it just take the medic part and replace the monster master part with the half-engineer?

I'd say Medic only. Round file the MM part.

I've switched to this and have been testing some. Make the xp healing change and offer drip 2 with whatever to get heal sphere and/or blast. This is almost the support role type thing I had posted about previously. Having fun with it, just end up xp shy. =)
Also, is there a way to make it so defense sent is the only option? What about removing bender?

Acyd wrote:

Also, is there a way to make it so defense sent is the only option? What about removing bender?

It is possible. However, I would say

up to 2 def sents

up to 15 blocks

up to one minigun turret

no vehicles

No barrels

And reduce adrenaline/weapon/vehicle/turret damage down to 0.5 - so possible in an emergency, but not easy.
And disable rod pickup.

Szlat wrote:

I got used to seeing engineers hiding in a base spending all map linked to a sentinel outside the base - so the sentinel did the killing and the engineer just sat there all map. And I didn't want to encourage this. Everyone should have to work for their xp. So I am less positive towards the subclasses where you can initiate something and it will earn you lots of xp without you doing much. So I nerfed the rod, nerfed the sentinels slightly, nerfed AMs getting huge xp from the spheres, nerfed linking turrets etc. I haven't yet nerfed the pets, except to limit red skaarj to one, but I may need to.

Food for thought....

nerfing the sentinals health is only encourages folks to sit there linking them to keep them healed.

Szlat wrote:

It sounds like a medic/engineer mix may be what this subclass should be then.
However, I think it should not be a better medic than a M/MM, nor should it be better at healing shields than the straight engineer.

Mmmmm not better, I mean The class MM/MD is like a mix of 2 classes: the healer and the other part a good Damage dealer with pets. So cutting this class in half will not be better than the original but different.

My idea of MD/Eng subclass is like taking away all the offense abilities from the M/MM including pets and medic weapon damage and adding the shield healing ability side of the Engineer, same is with the engineer, they can spawn a sentinel, turrets and hellbender and a link gun that does good damage and they can heal shields with blasts they get exp from all of that.

So just giving the MD/Eng class low levels from the original classes of healing shield/health and adding a little % of offense ability will make them weak compared to the real engineers and M/MM.

My idea is to create an unique class, this will not be better than the originals but different, Example:

Eng/MD

Loaded Healing lv3
Experienced Healing lv9
AbilityMedicAwareness lv2
Adrenal Drip lv3
Advance Damage Reduction lv5
Shield Healing lv3
Experienced shield healing lv5 (currently the engineer shield heal doesnt give that good exp like medic skills so how about adding this skill? )
Engineer Awareness lv1
Loaded Engineer lv 15 ( taking away all offense gear ) so they can make 15 blocks and spawn 2 defense sentinels.
Shield regen lv7

This class has only 1 mission heal, heal, heal and support

They will not be healing health/shield better than the M/MM and Eng but the same. Their medic/engineer guns are nerfed in damage same with Am artifacts.

And how about giving the class lvl restrictions in buying skills, to make it more interesting like they can buy Exp healing lvl 5 at lvl 90, Exp shield healing lv 3 at lv 120 and so on. We dont want another general class issue, are we?

Szlat wrote:

Acyd wrote:

Also, is there a way to make it so defense sent is the only option? What about removing bender?
It is possible. However, I would say

up to 2 def sents

up to 15 blocks

up to one minigun turret

no vehicles

No barrels

And reduce adrenaline/weapon/vehicle/turret damage down to 0.5 - so possible in an emergency, but not easy.
And disable rod pickup.

This sounds good to me.

So, trying to summarise where we currently are. We want the Medic/Engineer hybrid to be a support player - a bit like an Extreme Medic, but not doing the health healing as well but doing shield healing and base set-up.

So the list of skills I currently favour are:

Loaded healing 3

Experienced healing 9

Medic Awareness 2

Advanced Damage Reduction 10

Loaded Engineer 15, but limited to no vehicles, just one minigun turret, 15 blocks, no barrels and 2 defense sents

Shield regen 15

Shield Healing 3

Construction Health Bonus 6

Engineer Awareness 1

Def Sent Upgrade Health 5

Def Sent Upgrade Shields 5

Def Sent Upgrade Armor 5

Regen 3

Drip 3

Vehicle Eject 1

Ghost, Ultima, CounterShove, Quickfoot etc as normal

No resupply, Awareness or Denial

No monster skills

No Armor Vampire, Armor Regen, Rapid Build

No rod pickup

Can pick up other weapons, but all damage (Artifact/Weapons/Vehicles) at 0.5

The first four are an exact copy of the Medic skills from the M/MM. Health healing will be to +150 and shield healing will be to +150. The def sents will only heal health and shields to +100, to always leave room for a medic to top up (as is the case now).

With lvl 10 damage reduction and shield regen 15, this should be a survivor. And it needs to be tough due to its severely nerfed attacking.

Szlat wrote:

So, trying to summarise where we currently are. We want the Medic/Engineer hybrid to be a support player - a bit like an Extreme Medic, but not doing the health healing as well but doing shield healing and base set-up.

So the list of skills I currently favour are:

Loaded healing 3

Experienced healing 9

Medic Awareness 2

Advanced Damage Reduction 10

Loaded Engineer 15, but limited to no vehicles, just one minigun turret, 15 blocks, no barrels and 2 defense sents

Shield regen 15

Shield Healing 3

Construction Health Bonus 6

Engineer Awareness 1

Def Sent Upgrade Health 5

Def Sent Upgrade Shields 5

Def Sent Upgrade Armor 5

Regen 3

Drip 3

Vehicle Eject 1

Ghost, Ultima, CounterShove, Quickfoot etc as normal

No resupply, Awareness or Denial

No monster skills

No Armor Vampire, Armor Regen, Rapid Build

No rod pickup

Can pick up other weapons, but all damage (Artifact/Weapons/Vehicles) at 0.5

The first four are an exact copy of the Medic skills from the M/MM. Health healing will be to +150 and shield healing will be to +150. The def sents will only heal health and shields to +100, to always leave room for a medic to top up (as is the case now).

With lvl 10 damage reduction and shield regen 15, this should be a survivor. And it needs to be tough due to its severely nerfed attacking.

Looks great to me.

I do hope we're not basing much on the Medic Awareness 2 thing

Medic Awareness 1 is plenty for anyone and quite honestly, right now, it's really hard to see/deal with Medic Awareness and Engineer Awareness going at the same time. Not sure a way around this, but the health bar is very little and the shield bar is huge. also, the colors are hard to orient in your mind. Maybe if they were the same size and used the same colors. This way, you just had to know which is which. Could even have a S: and H: in front of them or something? It's rough currently though =)

I tend to chase someone down and start healing like a mad person... then to find out it's just shield they needed =)

Another thing you'll laugh at... but
Just a thought here... What if you made the Engineer Link a hybrid weapon for this sub-class. I.e. The engineer link would also be the medic weapon (they don't have a choice). It could do everything.. link, heal, shield, etc.
(and because not many would be using it, shouldn't hurt the performance of the server too bad)