SubClass Balance Issues in release 226

Trooper wrote:

with healing def sents I can see this getting more xp than it should. I think exp healing shouldnt be that high, nor adv reduction, those being the medic exclusive abilities at the same level as medic

Well that would let the MM/Eng as it is now without anything new.

Healing sents have a limit of healing not as good as the medic weapon and they start healing when they are not attacked by monsters fire, they are ok.

Exp healing maxed and Adv damage reduction is good couse they are the whole medic side of the M/MM, they dont have Offense bonuses or skills and their damage is really nerfed, they need defense to survive and to make them stay alive when teammates are attacked to keep them healed.

Without Offense skills will encourage this class to heal and support teammates when needed ( just what this server needs ) and get exp for it.

That MM/Eng new build is really ok for me, they are fully support.
Mixing the healing skills of the Engineer and Medic will be so OK!!

Talking about M/MM
Its a nice idea the Medic class get the offense hybrid side, the WM/MM is the good candidate, Let them get all the monsters abilities at maxed without the medic weapon but let the monsters be invulnerable to caster`s weapon fire if not the monsters will die a lot when they are near to their master.

Keep up the good work Szlat!!

Szlat wrote:

Elite wrote:

WM/ENG: I think the spider mines deployed should be able to grow naturally (if possible) without having to link them to make them grow. Currently they explode before they have a chance to grow fully, and when they do grow fully they have such a high chance of damaging the user.
Yeh, the spider mines sounded good, but in practice don't help that much.

With the spider steroids, you currently spawn the spider mine, then boost it with the link gun.

The WM/Eng subclass that had the steroids ability also has the Resupply addon for the Defense sentinel. We could let that addon boost spiders within range of the def sent? So the WM/Eng spawns the spider, the def sent boosts it, then the WM/Eng sends it out of the base - means you don't have to keep swapping from minelayer to ELink to minelayer.

We could also make it so the def sent boosts any spider mine (same side), not just those spawned by the WM/Eng. So normal WMs could be spawning spiders, waiting for them to grow, then sending them out. (In this case, some of the additional xp for the additional damage would need to go to the WM/Eng, which may be a tricky calculation. One option would be instead of adding 200% to the existing explosion, add 100% to the existing spider explosion, but then kick off a secondary explosion owned by the def sent owner for 100% damage. If the first blast kills it, the spider owner gets everything. If the second blast kills it, the def sent owner gets everything. In practice, will probably work out 4 kills to spider owner to each kill from def sent owner, but it is still win-win as they both get something for nothing.)

I like the new changes except the extreme monster changes but i'm not going to win that battle... theres too many against it.

One thing I would like to point out is although your making it more of a supportive role, we still need to find a way to reduce camping. My suggestion is no blocks are allowed to be made up until wave 6. This means for the early waves people won't just sit in a base. I like the idea of balancing the sentinels so that people don't camp as much with a lightning sentinel.

The changes of MM/Eng sound great to me. Just be careful not to overpower it too much. One other thing is that MM/ Adrenaline sucks really bad. You get nothing for it. I propose you add one more level of loaded artifacts as at the moment, it is not much fun to play at all...

Btw Elite i love the idea of poison. We just have to find a way to incorporate it into the Medic without overpowering the class.

Szlat wrote:

The WM/Eng subclass that had the steroids ability also has the Resupply addon for the Defense sentinel. We could let that addon boost spiders within range of the def sent? So the WM/Eng spawns the spider, the def sent boosts it, then the WM/Eng sends it out of the base - means you don't have to keep swapping from minelayer to ELink to minelayer.

This could work, I like the idea

Szlat wrote:

We could also make it so the def sent boosts any spider mine (same side), not just those spawned by the WM/Eng. So normal WMs could be spawning spiders, waiting for them to grow, then sending them out. (In this case, some of the additional xp for the additional damage would need to go to the WM/Eng, which may be a tricky calculation. One option would be instead of adding 200% to the existing explosion, add 100% to the existing spider explosion, but then kick off a secondary explosion owned by the def sent owner for 100% damage. If the first blast kills it, the spider owner gets everything. If the second blast kills it, the def sent owner gets everything. In practice, will probably work out 4 kills to spider owner to each kill from def sent owner, but it is still win-win as they both get something for nothing.)

I am not sure about this idea however, it might work, but it would need to be tested, and that would only fix the steroid problem. It wouldn't fix the underpowered problem fully.

Dead_Freddo wrote:

Btw Elite i love the idea of poison. We just have to find a way to incorporate it into the Medic without overpowering the class.

Yes as I mentioned in an earlier post, taking out all the monsters from the WM/MM hybrid for an exchange of the inf poison could work. I also did realize that this hybrid only has level 3 regen, when it should have 5 since it is a WM/MM.

Elite wrote:

Szlat wrote:

The WM/Eng subclass that had the steroids ability also has the Resupply addon for the Defense sentinel. We could let that addon boost spiders within range of the def sent? So the WM/Eng spawns the spider, the def sent boosts it, then the WM/Eng sends it out of the base - means you don't have to keep swapping from minelayer to ELink to minelayer.

This could work, I like the idea

So I coded it and tried it on my test server. It works well. So there was a great temptation just to stand in a safe base, have a def sent at the boundary as they always are, and spam spider mines.

So, is this something we want to encourage? I am not convinced.

Dead_Freddo wrote:

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.

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I still think skill/attacking intent has more to do with scores than you think
I think generals should be nerfed.

Some of you may have seen (DC)*BEL* running around. I decided to start a general class several nights ago, and hey... since I am clan general, I just went with the clan tag indicating clan general...hehe

Anyways, last night I played one map (Serenity) similarly to how I do with my EAM for several ways... and my Score/XP was 110/1363 that map. Rapier had a turret and got 2634/2789, and Smurf got 569/1477, all in 32:29. Then we have two late-comers... Elite's Tank (362/742 in 3:11) and Ryuxen (6/1023 in 8:43). I have to wonder what it would have been like had all of us been in the entire map.

Now... it should be noted that both of these players are fragile. I have no health bonus on my Gen... I have focused on getting the basics of medic/shield awareness/healing (nice work on the double bars too! wondered how that would work), and a few other things like weapon speed, which I just maxed out last night (hey...with two infinite weapons... I would be stupid not to do this).
But as I adapt my play style to this character, I have to wonder what my scores will turn out to be. While my initial impression was that the Gen should be nerfed from previous observations, I have to wonder about my initial observations... at least for now. I plan on pushing my Gen more like my EAM (but without the nifty Rod/Beam/Bolt) on some maps should they present the opportunity, and we shall see. But given that I can see XP ranging from around 1500 to 3000, depending on map and player mix... we shall have to see, but for now, I would say hold off on nerfing.

Szlat wrote:

Elite wrote:

Szlat wrote:

The WM/Eng subclass that had the steroids ability also has the Resupply addon for the Defense sentinel. We could let that addon boost spiders within range of the def sent? So the WM/Eng spawns the spider, the def sent boosts it, then the WM/Eng sends it out of the base - means you don't have to keep swapping from minelayer to ELink to minelayer.

This could work, I like the idea
So I coded it and tried it on my test server. It works well. So there was a great temptation just to stand in a safe base, have a def sent at the boundary as they always are, and spam spider mines.

So, is this something we want to encourage? I am not convinced.

From the sounds of most...

Negative!

I don't know... I don't care. For those that wanna hang in a base.. super.
if you don't wanna hang in the base... super.

Isn't that the idea? different playing styles for different people?

Szlat wrote:

So I coded it and tried it on my test server. It works well. So there was a great temptation just to stand in a safe base, have a def sent at the boundary as they always are, and spam spider mines.

So, is this something we want to encourage? I am not convinced.

After playing some more yesterday with the WM/Eng. That is what I ended up doing most of the time even without that steroids change. As a WM standpoint there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to play a WM/Eng without a base, otherwise I'd just go pure WM or WM/MM, as without the base the WM/Eng is much weaker than those other ones.

It didn't seem to do to bad, had the feeling it was similar maybe to sentinel specialist where sometimes I see them build up a area around them with sentinels. For a WM/Eng a spider mine is like another form of a sentinel.

I've had fun with these hybrids. Thank you for your efforts!

Szlat, you had made a request earlier in the post for some higher lvl players to provide some data for the different types. I will try and play about 10 maps of each for my medic.

I just finished playing the extreme monsters type for about 10 maps, so you should have some additional xp data. I was able to max everything, and the lava skarj is a beast! If you can get it to fire at something, they are very accurate with their shots and its target is dead within a few shots or less. Even titans fall with a few red lava balls. This may seem a bit too powerful, but that is probably what Desert could do with a piercing 7 (with plus 1) flak.

I am now playing the MM/AM hybrid. The first thing I noticed is that I have AM skills but no wep maker. I thought that a wep maker would be the first thing I should get. I got the rod, triple, max modifier, plus 1 modifier and double modifier. The good thing is that I can pick one up and it does not break. I have only played a couple maps so far, so I will let you know when I am done.

Thanks a lot Dr.Wayno.

I think there is a bug there. With Loaded Artifacts (Hybrid) 2 you should have the MWM. I will investigate further.

got another idea for the MM/ENG, but don't know if it'll make it... well here goes. I thought of letting the hybrid have a link gun that heals only through alt fire (so the normal fire would still be slow like it is for engi). What I suggested was since the alt fire of the link gun would heal, it would latch on to any player as if they had a link gun equipped but instead of boosting their power it heals their health. So in tight situations when monsters are overwhelming a base and you have to heal a player, and the player is all over the place then this will come in handy. But in order for it to not be overpowered perhaps it should heal a little slower, since well it latches for you. What do you think?

Regarding Extreme Medic

How about giving them a medical kit with medic weapons of all kind, minigun, shockrifle, rocket launcher and flak. This will be helpful when they cant find the weapons they need in some maps.

And add them Elites link gun idea, this will help support a team mate like a berserker when they are jumping and killing everything around and the healer job will be supporting him in his adventure with the alt fire linking laser beam. and If they are too far from each other the link will break

Or give the xtreme healer a spell that can cast on any member and It will heal 20 hp per second for 10 seconds. Like the AM buff artifact that gives triple damage or globe to any member targeted.

ralyax wrote:

Regarding Extreme Medic

How about giving them a medical kit with medic weapons of all kind, minigun, shockrifle, rocket launcher and flak. This will be helpful when they cant find the weapons they need in some maps.

I thought it would be cool if WM could use adren to clone a weapon and it gets tossed out for these cases. There should be some limits on what could be cloned though, and maybe it takes some advantages of the WM class away, but does give WM a more team oriented ability.

I think I read other people had idea of weapon racks.

Gotta say, I'm not really liking the future nerfs to monsters proposed in http://www.disastrousconsequences.com/dcforum/posts/list/4923.page.

Monsters already seem balanced considering extreme AM Superlocrian outscoring Dead Freddo most of the time we play and he plays hard, or WM- Berserker Desert Wrath outscoring Cribbage 90% of the time they play together. If the nerfs are backed by something like XP/min you might want to consider that monsters *are* unaimed so a lazy monsters will score higher than an AM/WM who may just be online to chillax and consequently lower the average XP/min. It doesn't change that AM/WM have proven they can outscore us if they try and doesn't mean that monsters are overpowered.

I'm really not liking the idea of running round trying my hardest and struggling to make 3k XP, whilst an AM/WM can play alongside me and carry on pushing 6-7k.

In response to Freddo's post...

1. I've told you repeatedly that I believe EAM is overpowered and have been discussing changes to get it back in line (see

this thread). I actually use my matches with you as a gauge for how powerful the subclass is, since I could not outscore you as normal AM. The fact that I can as EAM is a sign of class unbalance, thus I think it should also be weaker in the next build.

2. I've seen another Extreme Monster master score 2k with XP of over 3k twice now just by sitting in a base with the primary fire toggled, getting 300+ kills with skaarj and less than 100 with his flak. No other class could get away with being that lazy, not even sentinel specialists. I know you don't play that way, and you play hard to get your scores. I just don't think any subclass should be allowed to make that much by doing so little, so I agree with Szlat's changes.

3. Until I started doing my trials for EAM (in which I have to get each and every kill myself, rather than relying on AI,) you dominated every single map you played except when Desert was on. Claiming that Extreme Monsters is balanced just because you're outscored by an overpowered class and a level 950+ berserker is, IMO, a fallacy.

4. The only game I’ve made 6-7k XP while you were on the map was on Conduit when you joined late and it was just us, meaning monster DR was high and I had the advantage with beam doing piercing damage. No other time have I made that much XP while you were present, and I doubt anyone has ever made that much while an Extreme Monster master was on.