Messages posted by "Dracos"

Re:Considerations for Better Balance and GamePlay

Dracos — GMT

Double post, oops delete.

Re:Considerations for Better Balance and GamePlay

Dracos — GMT

Szlat wrote:

and for comparison, what it is changing to. Items in red are different. (Img goes here)

You lowering max rod damage to 70 also. It wont change much since the only mob it will affect besides the titan are queens now since they have 800 life and used to have 80 damage done to them and make titans (which rod shouldn't be used on in the first place) take longer as well. Frankly I think the max could be lowered all the way down to 40 as there are not many monsters above that value when you do 10% to them. Warlords, Giant Gasbags, Queens, Titans would not be the huge drain on it anymore and actually might have "a little" use for since the most it could do is 40 damage and drain 10 adrenaline every other second. Every other monster isn't affected by changing it from 100 to 40 since its capped at 10% of their max life and only those 5 species have more then 400 and the rod really shouldn't be used against them in the first place. (BTW you haven't documented that yet in the changes :P)

Re:SubClass Balance Issues in release 225

Dracos — GMT

If you think that's what the rod needs then ok. I just feel that the rod in its base form right now will go from semi-useful to more useless based on napkin math due to how much adrenaline it will drain. Won't know more until the release but I think bolt would be even more useful the the rod (and thats saying a lot) since you don't cut off the adrenal drip ability with bolt and the bolt can actually kill a monster better then rod due to its set damage and non percentile. Is it possible to have adrenal drip continue to work thru having the rod turned on then. At least that would offset the increased cost of it by a little since it costs 1 adrenaline per sec and prevents the 1 adrenaline per sec from Drip so a total cost of 2 adrenaline per sec while its on. Also, for the multiple monsters on attack, remember that the AM's are the most fragile and having multiple monsters attacking you due to the rod hitting them and taking 5+ seconds to kill leads the AM to possible take damage which AM's have a hard time replenishing compared to other classes. More of a glass cannon scenario.

Re:SubClass Balance Issues in release 225

Dracos — GMT

I just kinda of feel that the 40% nerf to the rod (uses 40% more adrenaline with the change) is just a bit overboard. I'm with Elite saying that Rod + Triple was overpowered and needed a fix but increasing the actual adrenaline cost by 40% is a bit much. The damage on the rod isn't changing but it will burn the limited adrenaline quickly. The big difference between the beam and the rod is that the beam actually does more damage and you have more control over the adrenaline usage. Sure 7 for the beam and 6.66 adrenaline for the rod isnt much difference between the two but the rod has capped damage at 10% of a monsters life or 100 damage, whichever is smaller. A beam can kill several monsters in just one or 2 hits, rod will always have to tick 10 times (about 4-5 seconds or so) to kill the same monster giving plenty of other time for someone else to "steal" the kill which the AM loses the surge bonus. Rod when you take out the triple, can't be used in any of the later waves since its more cost effective to triple the weapon you have and kill or use the beam with its higher damage value to have more of a chance to grant the kill, the spree bonus if available, and the surge bonus for the actual kill. Normal Rod usage hasn't been racking up hundreds of kills, its as elite said the combo of rod+triple where you can basically clear a room of 10 monsters with the combo, get a large spree, and keep a decent amount of adrenaline. You couldn't do that with just the current rod alone as it would have to tick 10 times which by then you would have been well out of adrenaline. Remember that triple doesnt facter into the rods current adrenaline cost (as least I havent noticed it). With Triple the rod does 3x damage at the cost of 15% of the base damage. If it was doing 60 damage ticks to a gasbag sucking 9 adrenaline per tick, triple would cause 180 damage ticks still sucking 9 adrenaline per tick (as least thats how it seems to be working now, correct me if im wrong.) Also with triple running, it would only take 4 ticks instead of 10 to kill a monster thus keeping a spree alive much easier thus keeping adrenaline higher with the adrenal bonus on top of the surge bonus. Also the difference between 4 ticks with triple and 10 ticks normally is that anyone can easily steal your low hp monster denying you of the spree bonus and surge bonus that rod is so reliant on having. If anything needed to be changed besides the trip+rod combo it could have been the damage value on the rod instead of the adrenaline cost. Having a slightly lower damage value on it (8% instead of 10%) would not affect the costs and rod would have to run longer to do the same amount of damage (12-13 ticks to kill a mosnter) but the rod would not consume any more adrenaline then it does now. It wouldnt affect the cost/use ratio since less damage would consume less adrenaline but the factor of time would increase. The other problem with the base rod usage is that it nullifies the adrenal drip ability costing the AM more adrenaline in the form of lost regen. Without the triple to kill the monsters quickly, it already is costing more then it does when you run it since you lose that ability in which beam doesnt have to worry about. Its got to be stronger the then bolt in terms of having a lower adrenaline cost for the sole reason, the rod cannot kill things fast at all due to the sole limit that its 10% based for most monsters and requiring it to zap 10 times before it kills. But a 40% increase to the adrenaline cost would prob just kill off any use the rod would have.

Re:SubClass Balance Issues in release 225

Dracos — GMT

I gotta a question about one of the upcoming changes.

Rod damage reduced from 6 per adrenaline to 4 per adrenaline

Thats a pretty significant nerf to the rod as that is a 40% nerf to rod's damage since it currently sits at 15% of the damage done. (Damage done being either 10% or 100 hp, whichever is less). That puts the current rate at 6.666 damage per adrenaline up to a max cost of 15 adrenaline for 100 damage. A drop to 4 damage per adrenaline would change the value to 25% of the damage done. That would set it at a max 25 adrenaline for 100 damage. The loss of the triple was fine and not needed but lowering rod damage might kill it altogether save for wave 10 as ONE high hp mob would kill a maxed adrenaline pool in mere seconds (nearly twice as fast as current for 1 mob.) Just a quick table Code:

               |Rod |Curr|Upd.|
Monster--|Life|Dmg.|Cost|Cost|
---------|----|----|----|----|
Titan----|1200| 100|  15|  25|
Queen----| 800|  80|  12|  20|
Warlord--| 500|  50| 7.5|12.5|
G. Gasbag| 600|  60|   9|  15| 
L. Skaarj| 250|  25|3.75|6.25|
Skaarj---| 150|  15|2.25|3.75|

If im not mistaken rod ticks about 2 to 3 times per second so 1 titan would consume an entire 250 adrenaline pool in about 3 seconds instead of over 5 currently. Of course why would anyone use rod with titans up is beyond me outside of the old triple it and pray method. It would really hurt players that don't have increased adrenaline pools and because of the delay that you can't turn it off for a few seconds, they will find themselves with 0 adrenaline in an instant. If any form of basic nerf to it outside of the triple use was need, it prob should instead do less damage per tick. Because it works on a percent basis in all cases besides titans, it should if anything been changed to do 8% damage per tick instead of 10% with a max of 100. This would lower the killing power slightly but not make it a huge adrenaline hog for turning it on in an inoppurtune time. 8% of a mobs life would take 13 ticks of the rod to kill instead of the current 10 ticks outside of titans which would slow the kills down and perhaps decrease the spree's that feed it. I just think increasing the adrenaline cost (by that much even) is just plain overkill to an artifact that already sucks adrenaline up very quickly on it own. Players with 100 base adrenaline will find themselves out of mana in an instant since rod is so adrenaline heavy as it is.

Re:Considerations for Better Balance and GamePlay

Dracos — GMT

A big thing i see cropping up on the rod is the wave 10 issue. Perhaps as you said Szlat, its time for at least a change of the wave configurations and what monsters appear in each wave, frequency, effects and the like. Could add some new monsters yes or just use the ones we have and shuffle up the waves that every one has been used for the last what year or so now. Could perhaps use some of the monsters on the DC pack that currently arn't used like, Ghost Titan, Metal Behemoths, and the others. Hell I did that once on my old server where I took the standard weak pupae, put some gold plating on him (for reflective properities), boosted his health, damage, size and speed, and made the once poor defenseless pupae into a more serious threat. I mean, you got the harmless looking golden bug in your sights and its comes over and just eats your character to pieces. And as Spacey said, everything isn't created the same. I mean a lot of people look at elite's scores and xp for example and say, damn that class is overpowered and they really need to nerf it hardcore, I'm gonna roll me one and be overpowered too. In reality that person finds out that they are dying as often as they were before and not getting anywhere near the scores that they saw and say, damn this class sucks. The player is the one that factors more into the final score then does the class. I mean, I've watched Elite's general pull some huge scores for the level hes at. When you start nerfing the classes to the point where it affects them for your average Joe Casual, you might turn Joe Casual away from the server. Of course the same could be said for if one class is seriously overpowering and it sucks the fun out for everyone else that isn't that class and espically if the player is very skilled. You can't nerf player skill. You could take off all the RPG elements and make it regular invasion and Elite for example could prob still score well into the thousands. Since the issue about the rod is up, I'll use the AM class for an example. I've seen several 40-80 adreanline masters just not do well at all 400-800xp a map. I'm 85 on my AM and I usually pull 1000-1500ish xp and I've been getting around the 1000xp mark for several levels now I think since like 50ish. Same class but different skill levels and theres a decent swing in difference in xp value. As for Weapons, I pretty good with the flak and so terrible with the shock (I cant shock combo for the life of me). Is the shock underpowered, no cause I've seen player's do extremely well with the shock and shock combo that I basically jaw drop. Also I think its just about time to make the sample size of the subclasses triple over what it currently is at now. I mean right now, only 72 players can remotely even access the subclasses. If the current level predictions of 80 for hybrid and 120 for extreme stands, that will rise to 135 players with all subclasses (doubled), and 234 players with hybrids (tripled) and see what some of the players that don't have all the abilities unlocked have with scoring. The 200 players are going to score well since for besides skill they basically have every single useful ability unlocked and are basically at their max strength. To balance the classes, you almost have to compare the same player for each class and see how their average scores compare between the classes for the same player. If I were to use my scores for example, i score around 600-1000ish on my 40 MM, around 1000 on my 55 Eng, and 1200+ish on my 85 AM.

Considerations for Better Balance and GamePlay

Dracos — GMT

synchronyze wrote:

A nerf to rod/sentinels is very relevant. It's a slap in the face when you're working your butt off for kills (especially as a low level player) and someone waltzes in running a rod and everything you've been killing gets wasted. Or someone places a sent in the middle of the grounds you've been hunting on the whole map; suddenly you're getting half the xp you were previously. Not only do these means take considerably less effort, they also cut into other players' scores/xp.

Like Hatter said, I sometimes prefer areas where sents are located. I dont think it really cuts too much in your XP but its a boost to your survivability since it will lower the monsters HP by some, kill off a few weak ones that your not firing at, and draw fire. Nothing better then flaking a monster in the back when hes targeting the sent. Plus I really dont pay attention to actual scores anymore. Since the XP value was added, I go by that more since it shows more of a contribution to the group as a whole and doesn't award those that go for last hit kills. If a medic has 250 points you'd think hes not doing well to contribute but if hes got 1250 xp so far then hes been healing the group and contributing to the group effort of getting past all the waves. Its too bad we cant really see how much each sent is drawing in terms of XP. Kill counts could be slightly inflated due to the sent finishing off a low mob that someone was working on. The person that did the most damage got most of the XP but the eng got the score points and a very small amount of xp. And I also have to agree with it does take some skill to use the rod effectively. Knowing when to turn it on and off (keybinds really help here) means a large difference between getting a good score from the rod and a bad one from using the rod. Turn the rod on on lower hp monsters where it supplements your damage to the monsters around you (plus a better idea when something is around you). If a high HP monster appears nearby turn the rod off and it wont be a huge drain on your adrenaline. Wave 10 is basically where the rod shines the most since nothing in that wave has a lot of hps and puts a strain on adrenaline. But there is some skill involved. Granted the occasional bonzai move where you got a bunch of warlords outside the base and you turn triple and rod on to clear the entire room out at the cost of most of your adrenaline pool is a bit OP but its those moves that sometimes means the difference between hiding in the base till the monster spawn times run out and they die or the entire group dies and the map ends. Its also good for those "Oh crud" moments where theres a lot of monsters surrounding you and you either should turn on globe and run (or if your alone) trip/rod and use all your adrenaline up to clean the room. Of course if your getting into situations like that, you have other problems then. But I still agree that triple really shouldn't be used with any of the artifacts but double is fine. A good deal of my rod kills coming from running it with no damage boost and providing a pseudo damage aura around me.

Re:Considerations for Better Balance and GamePlay

Dracos — GMT

Elite wrote:

Thank you Hatter for posting that picture, as you can see the rod is the highest scoring artifact/weapon on his scoreboard. And I assume he had a vorpal shock to rack up those shock kills, so in other words he only used the double damage and did not activate the triple since the vorpal cannot be used with the triple. This tactic which is totally fair game explains why the rod kill are not as high as they can be. Also even on maps like these say there was an extreme AM, meaning they rely more on artifacts instead of weapons, he would have stronger artifacts meaning a stronger rod. If an AM can easily get the rod to the top on the scoreboard how can you hesitate to think that an EAM won't. The disabling of the triple from the rod would be a slight nerf for the AM as they could still use the Double Damage but it would be a critical hit for the EAM, forcing them to use different artifacts which was the real intention in the first place. As Hatter's picture demonstrates he most likely had a vorpal with constant takings of the double damage, and his score near 3k i would say is balanced. See, so without even the use of the triple, imagine how much more powerful if the triple was used. Main problem: triple/rod not DD/rod

If the spree's can't be altered, then this might be the route to take. Take Triple off affecting any of the artifacts and allow DD to work with any of them (bolt, beam, blasts, fireball, CL) and as you posted above Szlat, have triple mainly affect weapon damage. Granted this would basically make Triple just about useless to Extreme AM since their damage with weapons is already cut. Since DD isn't technically useable on command (Damage Sphere comes to mind or have someone remote damage you), the DD/Rod combo should be fine.

Re:Considerations for Better Balance and GamePlay

Dracos — GMT

Thè-Hättêr wrote:

ya but how about this. i made it yesterday. -See above for images- as you can see ist is 1/3 of my kills. mako was a special case. its so small that you can hit everything in that map. its like tutorial, that map can be deadly with rod too.. that its a fluctuation

Smaller maps is where the rod is really useful at but I've seen plenty of other classes get right around that area of XP depending on the player. I think the last time I played on Mako, Elite had around 6k XP on his WM. (Meh Elite can do 4k on any map with any class, who am I kidding.) Also maps that are open without many hallways are decent rod spots like Flat final and hanger2k3. Still gotta remember that AM's are a bit fragile too where you need a medic/eng, roll a vamp weapon, or look for pickups.

Re:Considerations for Better Balance and GamePlay

Dracos — GMT

Heres my thoughts from mostly an AM point of view. (Granted I haven't tested any Subclasses yet since I'm not high enough but these are my observations). Rod I'm one of these that rely a little heavily on the rod for xp gains. I'm pretty skilled on what times its best for rod use and do get quite a few kills with it. Watching others though (besides elite obviously), I don't really see very high scores for AM's with it in general use. Rod on its own doesn't really do much and is very costly to use outside a few of the waves. If its loses its ability with the triple/double, rod might need a damage boost or a cost reduction as its a bit of a adrenaline hog on its own and takes forever to kill something. The biggest problem I see with the dd/trip + rod combo is the sprees and not the rod combo itself since the sprees are pretty much needed to keep going. If there was no adrenaline bonus for sprees, i think the combo would be fine as it would be about a normal adrenaline drain. If any nerfing needs to be done, perhaps the damage can be changed from 10% to something like 8% of a monsters life and a adrenaline reduction from 15% to 12%. Maps also play a huge role in rod usage as big maps tend to be a nerf to the rod compared to a more smaller map like spacenoxx. Bolt I don't think I've seen anyone use this anymore since the major nerf it received. Having it be affected by double might get a little use back to it but on its own its too adrenaline inefficient to use right now. Weapons

Perhaps allow the +1 spawned artifact (not the AM one) to allow weapons to go higher than it currently does. Perhaps up to 5 over the normal maximum for the weapon. And perhaps rather than having them all +1, have a random amount +0, +1, +2 even the odd +3

This one troubles me. Sure a +1 to a current weapon up to its max level is ok but expanding it beyond the max is kinda steping on the AM's feet then. AM's +1 can only happen once and its kinda there thing to run around with a weapon that is +1 over the max. If everyone gets the ability to, then the AM one will have to change to where it can happen more then once as well but then you run into other issues. One example is an Energy Flak which AM's love. Energy +4 is 8% on top of the 5% they get from the ability. If you start taking that higher, there will be other issues steming from near infinite adrenaline especially when you start factoring in the DMM for AM's. So +1 up to max drops are ok but I think having +'s beyond the normal max would create major issues unless the whole weapon effects from +'s were changed. Piercing Piercing needs a nerf somewhere and I think reducing the bonus damage is what is needed. Its already got a damage bonus by not being affected by DR which is all it really needs. Dunno if this is possible but you could make it more dynamic where a higher + bypasses a greater % of DR instead of always bypassing it with any +. But the 30% isnt really needed on it and 30% is one of the higher damage values on a weapon in the first place. It prob should be changed to like 1% per plus since the main bonus is from the DR bypass. It should still not be usable by the triple though. Vorpal I think Vorpal could use a little nerf but not too huge. For one, its limited to certain weapons, is a bit rare, and the instagib bonus on it isnt fully relyable and a bit confusing on the % due to the way the + spread is. Its part of a few weapons that dont start at +1 (starts at +6). A +10 Vorpal is 5% instagib with 100% damage if im not mistaken and a +22 Vorpal is 17% instagib with 220% damage with DMM on a +11 Vorpal. If it needs to be changed, I say it could use with a + value change to be in line with the other magic effects and become +1 to +5 and keep the damage per plus at 10% (damage range becomes 10% to 50% and keep the instagib to 1% per plus. This way a DMM only takes it to a max of +12 (120% damage, 12% instagib instead of 220% damage and 17% instagib) and maybe make it usable with the triple (Might need to go down to +4 instead of +5 then). Magic Type Artifacts This idea really isn't to bad. It would certainly help out non-AM classes and it will still be like the MWM where it would be a bit random (since you have to get the one type you want to actually drop). The forseeable problems I see with this though is you will have to increase the max artifact drops because with more artifacts dropping, you'll hit the limit where no more drop (I believe this is how it works) when they are not being used. Plus its hard to pick up additional artifacts in the first place due to the limit one person can carry and having it just auto change your magic type by running over it will create issues where you don't want to change your magic type. Increased Min Damage Maybe a slight increase to help out the higher level players but 80% might be a bit too high. 50% might be around the magic number. Unused Weapon Types Some weapon types really either need a boost or removed altogether. Penetrating is a useless effect since it doesn't work on monsters, if it did it might be useful with a damage boost. Couple of the other unused ones like Sturdy really just need a damage boost. If you really wanted to work the weapon coding, you could make a few of the types actually appear as a bonus to other types. Like on a chance spawn you get a Sturdy Energy Flak +4. The sturdy wouldn't provide any damage bonus but would provide the effects of sturdy to the energy flak and would be a rare chance bonus. Couple of other effects that could appear as bonuses would could be some of the more unused effects like Knockback, Force, Protection but again would be rare and not common to show up, would not provide any damage boost and just the effect. If its possible you could add a few other bonus chance effects. Couple of examples. Regenerating Lucky Link Gun + 3 (Uses the lucky +3 effect but also generates 1 health per sec) Resupplying Poison Minigun +4 (Uses the Poison +4 effects but also generates a resupply 1 value to minigun ammo which I think it 4 bullets per 3 seconds. Does not affect other weapons. Sturdy Sniper Rifle +3 (Uses the Damage +3 effects but also uses the sturdy effect. Again they would be rare chance spawns but could give use to some of those effects that otherwise are discarded. If it's not really possible or too complex, they either just need to be removed (to increase the chances of other types) or their damage bonus adjusted upwards. Sturdy would prob be better if it was increased from 4% per Plus (16%) to 7 or 8% per plus (28-32%). It would be helpful to newer players if it was possible to include the current damage bonus in a parenthesis next to the name kinda like how the battle mod does it with UT3. Like Vorpal Sniper Rifle +10 (+100% damage) for example.

Re:SubClass Balance Issues in release 225

Dracos — GMT

For the Invuln. Sphere, I think the rate should be fine since it currently is almost twice the adrenal cost for 50% more XP over the current damage sphere model and doesn't really increase any kill speeds. Current Invuln. Sphere: 18 (9) Adrenaline per second & 1.5 XP per sec per person 14 (28) seconds of run time granting 21 (42) XP per person for full 250 Adrenaline. Current Damage Sphere: 10 (5) Adrenaline per second & 1.0 XP per sec per person 25 (50) seconds of run time granting 25 (50) XP per person for full 250 Adrenaline. If you wanted to go ahead with changing it, it would prob be easier to just set it at a per hit basis (Like 4 XP anytime anyone in the sphere is damaged from a giant rock to a pupae hit) but how often are players hit would be the balancing factor. Could also just lower the XP value to 1 instead of 1.5 to lower it a little if everyone goes from Damage Sphere to Invuln. Sphere.

Re:SubClass Balance Issues in release 225

Dracos — GMT

Ah, so if Player X does 56 damage to a titan that had 56 health left and kills it, (1/16th of 900), player X would receive 1 XP (since it only had 1xp worth of xp left on it, and the Sphere user would receive the full 8 xp (16/2) as if player X had killed it from full health. (Actually I think X would receive 2xp as it always seems to award the points the monster is worth in XP for damage and an additional bonus point for the kill, been awhile since I actually checked this) The way it looks with the change is that the Sphere would give more XP for a smaller group (it would plateau sooner) and less if there was like 10+ people under the sphere due to lack of mobs to actually kill compared to a flat rate. Once your mob kill rate pretty much equals to the spawn rate and map size the the curve for xp gained plateaus out and any additional people in the orb wont provide really any extra XP. Even if you have 2 people other then yourself in the sphere which currently would grant 2 xp per second would grant MORE xp if you had say Elite and Desert popping off monsters like titans every second each. (Given them Zerk combo and piercing flak and say goodnight :P)

Re:SubClass Balance Issues in release 225

Dracos — GMT

I do gotta ask about the damage sphere xp though. Isnt XP on a damage basis and not a kill basis anyway. (10xp mob, every 10% of damage gives 1xp). So a person killing a half health Skaarj would only get 3 or 4 xp total since part of the xp was already given out to someone else that did damage to it. Or it it already taken in account for this and basically every 2 xp that someone earns, the AM thats running the sphere gets 1 xp.

Re:SubClass Balance Issues

Dracos — GMT

cribbage wrote:

This is an interesting situation, people commenting about how overpowered a monster master is. I totally agree that 3 of those things are way out of hand. I recently scored over 13K xp on a map with two bots and a low level eng (staying alive for me, but hiding behind blocks). I totally agree that the almost instant killing of titans (and anything else) is a balance issue. From what I understand, this will is going to be fixed; one red skaarj with less of a punch. So let me make some observations. The near-instant killing of titans has been around since before the inception of subclasses. WMs with a dd or trip and a piercing weapon (or pop gun) can clear out a room of titans just about as fast as 3 red guys. AMs with that blue bolt thing can - bang, bang, bang - clear out a room of titans just about as fast as 3 red guys. An Eng with a turret and a few linkers can clear out a room of titans just about as fast as 3 red guys. Now, I say "just about" because I grant you that the reds obliterate everything in sight faster than anything else. But for lower level players, it doesn't matter whether its reds, or bolts, or turrets doing it, they still cant catch a break. Even before the subclasses, on certain maps with a certain mix of players, it was very difficult even for high level players to get any titan kills because they would drop like flies. For example, any map that an eng can set up a turret and see 90% of the map, its a good bet that there'll be one high scorer and a bunch of mediocre ones. With certain other smaller 1-1 maps, a good AM can trans back and forth between two areas with a rod knocking everything down. I guess my point is that, yes, the red guys are too strong. But people were quitting in disgust/discouragement before they came along and they will continue to do so after there is only one weakened red guy. I worked myself up from low levels like everyone else, watching someone else come bounding up and bolting down a titan I had just whittled down. Watching an energy beam come out of a speck in the distance and finish off the warlord I had just whittled down. Hearing a POP and watching the queen fall in front of me after I had just whittled it down. Now that I am on the other end of it, does it make me feel a bit guilty to have such an advantage? Yes. I look forward to the time when I get my xp the old fashioned way: fighting for it against the odds with an underpowered class and still being competitive. I am just curious about how this will play out once the MM has been "balanced" back to underpowered. We dont spawn with a medic weapon, while the eng spawns with their inf wep, and WMs get loaded weapons. We don't have resupply so if we manage to find a decent weapon we can use it for about 10 seconds before we have to find 3 more seconds of ammo for it. We can't make an infinite link any more. Our pets are painfully stupid. They get stuck behind blocks or in water traps. They fall off edges. They cant aim. They feel the need to waste time by doing their taunt move whenever something near them dies. It takes time to build up adren while an eng can build immediately to begin with and purchase fast build as an ability. WMs don't need to build anything, so they can save it all for berserk. I have rambled on here and I hope I am not misunderstood. Maybe I have vented a little. I am simply trying to point out my perspective on the balance issue. The red skaarjs were an attempt to give the MM some teeth and it was overdone. Once they are reined in, it seems like it's back to square one for MMs and I'll go back to fighting for my third of a level per map with my "too powerful" medic weapon.

I think the more reason why its allows such an advantage is that its AI vs AI instead of AI vs Player. That and often times I see the invasion monsters just ignore the Medic Pet thats beating up on it. Its not just the titans that contribute to the points but a lot from the later waves. We all know that AI cannot act exactly like a player can but they get the advantage of knowing where to shoot to lead a target to score a hit. You see it all the time with the Lightning Skarjii hunters that they can score hits on you pretty well at times. The lava Skarjii pets are no different as while they are limited in thier ability to dodge, they gain the advantage of getting hits more often. And with the Lava Goop, its very damaging. Also it doesnt seem the invasion monster's dont try to dodge the Lava Goops if thier not tracking that Lava Skarji in the first place so the monster just "runs" into the goop and dies. Oh and the Lava Titan. Make it happen, capt'n. Whats more scary then seeing a blood red Titan throwing huge red blobs of death at you.

Re:DRPG v221 Stat Planner

Dracos — GMT

Clone-Engineer wrote:

Hopefully my cpu works with me. Ive been looking over the levels and most of my friends have been over me :-(. Well thats what i get for procrastinating :P I do worry about something. If I use the Cd code that i used for the other cpu will i get my stats back? or willi have to start all over?

As long as its the same CD key, you should still have your stats. I know they did a small wipe a few months back for everyone below 40 unless you had a mid level character. I was away from the game for about a year (due to a bad internet connection) and came back and everything was still there. I've also reinstalled Ut2004 prob a half a dozen times and still have my character. Just make sure its the same CD key you used when you made your character. One word of notice though, you might have to go thru the Agreement thing again on first loadup of your character (where you wait 30s to read the ToU. But dont fret as your character should still be there once you load in. Also as a notice for people following the spreadsheet, subclasses are being worked on. I wont release it yet since the subclasses are changing all the time to balance issues. Once they are more finalized, ill start releasing. This still covers everyone up to level 200 anyway since thats when you can start buying the subclasses currently.