Messages posted by: Wildfire

lol. I guess that makes me special. . In fact I can shoot through queens and still hit monsters on the other side just the same as a regular shot. Hmmmm. Well I guess that's that

Yep. I get the same thing. Once you get used to the idea of shooting through the monsters, you hardly think about it. Also, to the best of my knowledge, all weapons pass through the bodies, even if the projectile (rocket, flakball) animation doesn't show it. The game still reads it as though the body was never there.

Fro's right. If you continue shooting at the corpse, the shot will still go like it normally does, even if the animations say otherwise. You should notice that if the Flak ball explodes right in your face when it hits a corpse, you don't take any damage.

I tend to think it has become a bit unbalanced in favor of the LA players, but that may just be the LW in me playing. My logic is as follows:

The LW players are supposed to be the frontline Warriors. Yes, they get all weapons right at the beginning. Yes, they have Vampirism. The problem is, LA players are capable of dealing more damage/killing more mosnters faster due to two things: Every one of them gets a Triple Damage, and every one of them can make a more powerful weapon than the LW players. I'll explain the slash in damage/killing later, but I'd like to address the other two things first.

I know the idea behind the LA players is to have them be the mages of the server, but giving them every artifact available, plus some specialized ones, seems a bit unfair. At full skill, they can create the most powerful, unsharable weapons in very little time. Not only that, they can now add an additional point to that weapon to make it even more powerful, which doesn't even take into account the Double Magic Modifier, which I actually like for the LA players. So a LW dream combo is instantly available to LA players, whereas LW players get random luck upon their weapon sets, and have to hope that they get a MWM in order to try for something different, which may or may not be a better weapon, a fact the LA players don't have to fear, since they can just max the + on whatever weapon they desire. The Mages/LA players can actually do more damage overall, and can get the weapons to do so much easier than the Warriors/LW players.

Now on to the much debated Triple Damage. The fact that the mages get this from the start seems a bit unfair to me, but again, I'm stuck fighting every other player that isn't LA to get one, of which there are a limited number. So many of the Warrior class that can't get ahold of a TD are stuck relying on whatever weapons they happen to spawn with, or they made if they managed to get hold of a MWM which, as stated above, is no guarantee of a better weapon than what they have. The fact that the LA players can keep the TD going for much longer due to the Energy Drain/Leech abilities makes the TD even more powerful in their favor.

Now, all this is taking into account that you are talking about damage output, and not simply talking about who has an easier time getting a higher score. Since I'm looking at damage over score, I'm leaving the Vorpal weapons out of the argument. Yes, they can be high damage, but if you run around with a +11 Vorpal Shock, you're more likely to get the one hit kill, which reduces your experience compared to someone killing the monster the old fashioned way.

Now, some suggestions on how to fix these particular issues. Granted, these are my opinions, and I am woefully inept when it comes to programming languages, and ease of implementation. Please take them as such when formulating opinions about them.

The Triple Damage: I propose removing it from the artifacts that the LA players spawn with, and replacing it with a 1.5 or Double damage that drains adrenaline at the same rate as it does with the recent upgrade. Then create a new ability for the LW players were they spawn with the TD and the Globe of Invincibility (or a damge reducing item), both of which would drain slower for the LW players. Since the LW players are meant to be the Warriors, they would be more adept at using damage or defensive increasing items (the reason for the slower drain), and would be able to use a higher level of each (the reason for the TD, instead of a Double).

The Weapons: Perhaps giving LW players access the the Max Magic Modifier or Weapon +1 modifier would help, or even giving them the ability to get/create the (now reduced) vanilla weapons at their old values, or even a higher one. You could set it up so that the minimum for the weapons the LW spawn with is higher than what the actual minimum of the weapon is (example: LW can't spawn with anything less than a Vamp +5, instead of a possible +4, which I believe is the minimum). Maybe even setting it up so that the LW players get weapons that other classes can't access, even with a MWM.

This isn't something I expect, or even consider fair, but having the LW players spawning with a Vorpal Sheild of some kind would make close to the Warrior types their supposed to be, since they would then be much stronger than the other classes when it comes to melee fighting.

You would, of course, have balance issues and such to take into consideration with all of these. I don't know how the numbers would work out when it comes to overall damage output and such, but setting up the classes so that they are closer to the roles they were meant to represent seems like it would help players choose how they want to play. I'll admit right now that I prefer full-frontal brute force, which is why I stick primarily with LW. I'm sure that these opinions are biased, but I'd like to think that I thought this through objectively enough to come up with some decent ideas with my limited knowledge of what can be done. As always though, constructive criticism is always welcome.

I do appologize to the medic players, though, for not including them in these arguments. I tend to think that the way they are set up is very, very well thought out for their intended role. Perhaps a thread by a more experienced Medic player about some of the issues you've run into?

I like the Stealth Rock one, as well as the Stupicide.

This comes from a different game, but could be used here as well. If you here the distinct sound of a Vorpal weapon being used, feel free to shout "Stop using Vorpal-Vorpal Stupid!"

The main problem I keep running into is getting the Triple. For some reason they avoid me like I have the Plague. I usually get them too late in the game to catch up with what I need. That, or during the Titan waves they simply dissapear from around me when I need them. Not fun.

Also, I find having a Sturdy Shock helps a LOT, since you can just hold still while you Combo everything.

This game had me almost crying. This is about as close as I've come to a bingo on my own. I'll probably actually have to ask for help, as someone suggested perviously, if I want to get this before level 100.

I seriously just got done with a preliminary wallpaper for the four forms no more than five minutes before I looked at this. Weird.

Not my score, but Ooo asked if someone would take the shot. New high score, 2602.

I dunno what he was doing, but that Vorp seemed to pop just about every other shot. It was insane.

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/3669/shot000782sf.jpg

For what it's worth, 1944.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y12/wildfirexk1/High.jpg

In about 50 more levels, you 200+ guys are gonna be in big trouble. I'm gunning for all of ya.

*Edited because I don't know how to count, and the Pic size was tiny"

This Bingo Award is going to drive me nuts. Both cplmac and I came within one Combo level of getting it tonight. ARG!

Something we were talking about last night regarding the new Rage weapons. It just seems that loosing as much life as you do isn't worth the increased damage. Something we came up with included having the weapon drain your life down to about 100 or 150, then stop. This would allow newer players to use it much more effectively, because their life drain would be almost nill for a time. Also, it makes higher levels wonder if running around with lower life would be worth the damage increase. Just a thought.

Hmmm... this probably should have gone under suggestions.

I'm pretty sure it was a joke, guys.

Don't even talk like that. I'd like to be able to actually win the match, not get slaughtered like cattle.

I think that should just be a regular mode that we could pick from now on. It'd be AWESOME.

http://ut2004.levels4you.com/downloads.l4y?cat=178&review=12987

I played around with the map a little bit, and though it would be a relatively fun map for us. Enclosed but lots of space to move. You can also go outside if you want.