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Is the DC server getting too easy?  XML
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Szlat

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Joined: 05/18/2005 18:32:41
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Over time, things have changed on the DC server. There have been lots of postings from people like 320 giving tips for better play. AMs have come along with max modifiers and permanent access to globes and triples. And medics are here, keeping everyone alive longer. And over time, more people will be around of higher levels.

Just before the server crashed, I forgot to change my player name before connecting, and so spawned a new player. I was actually suprised at how well a level 5 character could get on - the medics in particular have helped on that side. Lots of people will have created new characters recently, and I know things are thrown out a bit by the double xp, but what are your experiences? Did you find it more difficult than you expected or easier?

And more maps seem to be getting completed with more people alive at the end of wave 16 than I first remember. Is this just me, or does everyone feel the same?

Now, the current trend seems to be to tone down the weapons to compensate for this. I remember the days of DruidsRPG170, where a vampire+7 flak did +70% damage and healed for 35% of the damage. Good fun days. Now, the +5 flak doing 50% is going.

Now I am not wishing to annoy or upset anyone. Druid is trying his hardest to keep the game balanced and fun, for which we are all grateful. But it seems to me that reducing the power of weapons hurts low level players more than high level players. By reducing the effectiveness of the weapons, you are placing a higher emphasis on the abilities players have purchased, so the higher level players have more of an advantage. For example, it's not what weapon you have, but how long you can run a triple for.

I think because people are living longer and are higher level, they need more of a challenge. I say increase the difficulty of the monsters. This doesn't have to be bigger more powerful monsters. In some respects, the titan waves are easier because you can run a globe or triple longer. Don't increase the adrenaline or points you get from killing the monsters, just make them tougher.
Lots of options here.
I think at the moment DC is set to make the monsters 0.25 the level of the lowest player. Increase it - gives the monsters more damage bonus and reduction.
Or change from Average to experienced or skilled and try it for a while.
Or add different types of monsters with different attacks, but not necessarily more xp or adrenaline reward.

So, in summary, I am suggesting increasing the current weapons back to the 170 days, and increasing the monster difficulty, rather than nerfing the weapons. Just my suggestion. What's the feeling with everyone else?
kyraeu

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Personally, I've always had the opinion, deep down, that DC has been way too easy. I wouldn't consider myself a "reg" by any standard, but I hop on once every few weeks at the very worst. (I'm kyraeu/Excuses, FYI.)

I would agree with increasing the difficulty. I've played on other servers, with something around experienced or skilled, and it's a lot more challenging. Titans? Yeah, they actually predict where you'll be and throw the rock there, instead of throwing it at your current location as they do on average. Titans are mostly a joke right now on DC, it's basically free points, at very low risk if you know how to move around alright and don't get bounced at the wrong moment.

Yeah, I remember the old days. Used to be, 1 person survived the last wave - if they were lucky. They'd run around as best they could, and try to kill the last monsters, and sometime succeed. Now we have half the team finishing the last wave.

Now, I can't really speak for the server from before Artifacts characters were introduced, since that was the entire reason I started playing on DC. (The medic character is the reason I'm back now.) But I can say, that I remember playing my artifact character back then, when they were first introduced, and it was pretty tough, and I died a bunch, and I lost my weapons a bunch. Now I'm level 35, same as when I left before, and it's very easy with medics around. I almost have a permanent 250 health. Vamp weapons? No longer the great thing they used to be, in fact almost worthless since you'll almost never need one with medics around. Running the triple was, when I wanted to run it, very easy with surge 2. In fact, with a flak 5 passed out by Ooo, everything was pretty much dead. I would take a little damage here and there, but the medics would fix that up. I mean, hey, I didn't even have resupply, and I came in second, scorewise. I tripled my flak 5 and kept running over flak ammo, and it was, literally, the easiest game I've ever played on DC.

Personally, I like the change in the weapons. Except for the halving of vamp weapon's effectiveness, that is. Even though they are less than worthless. Anyway, I like it because it makes you actually have to make a choice - "Do I want more damage, or do I want this modifier?" Now you have to choose - do you want 50% more damage, or the ability to get adrenaline? The ability to negate monster DR, or to do massive damage? Before, everything was only useful for its extra damage. Why pass around the poison flak 4? It's +4, and that's +40% damage. Why use the vamp +7 flak? It does +70% damage (and gives me health!) But then there was the question: what good do these vanilla + weapons do? What can they do that my poison flak 4 can't, that my protection 3 flak can't, that my sturdy 4, infinite 4, vampiric 7 can't? Why, nothing! So let's toss them all out the window, like we should! And then, the diversity was created, and really, you have to make the choice - the modifier, or the number attached to it?

Really, I think that the medics make the game more unbalanced than anything. As a medic I can blast through every wave except 16, as a level 42. With a triple I can probably make it through 16. I actually didn't spend any points from around level 20 to level 38, because I was actually doing so well I didn't feel I needed to. And once I dumped all those points into DR and health, I had all that extra stuff, but it didn't help out much. I was still blasting through all the monsters quickly, except now I didn't need to stop and shoot myself in the foot with my flak as often. In around 9 levels (I can't quite remember how many points I'll need) I'll have ghost, and that will probably go mostly unused since I die about once per match. A few levels later I'll have level 2 of ghost. Several levels later, I'll go boom when I ghost and when I die, however often or unoften that may happen. Why am I buying all these skills so early? Because I honestly don't have anything else worthwhile to buy. I'm staying away from loaded monsters and the like because they'll only lag the server and get me what, 50 points per match, after I dump, what, 10 levels worth of stat points into it?

I'm finding I'm having a really hard time trying to link what I just said into my point, that I agree with you, Szlat, but...

OK, I've got it.

Look, I'm buying pretty worthless stuff. Why? Because even a level ~30-40 can survive just about every wave. As loaded artifacts I died once or twice in a map. As a medic I died once or twice. Neither of these characters really cares when they die - one gets all their weapons back, one of them gets the only weapon they care about back in 10 adrenaline.

So yeah, I think that monsters need to get tougher. I liked it back when everything was pretty futile as far as trying to survive. I think, due to the rise of the medic and some highlevel LA players, things have gotten a lot easier. Everyone can get healed up quickly, everyone can get a flak 5 (which will be leaving soon, so hmm maybe this won't be so much of an issue in the future), and as such, everyone survives, and the monsters die in masses.

I wholeheartedly agree to up monster intelligence. Because it's just that easy right now.

(P.S. Take this as my personal story. I sort of rambled on about things, so... yeah.)

My Players: Junkie: Kyraeu 85 -- Medic: Excuses 68 -- Weapon: Fyruse 40
Saving for: Ghost 1, 2, 3, then adren skills -- Ghost 3 -- max DB, then some HB
Szlat

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As a separate but partly related topic, the whole point about the invasion is trying to stop the invasion occurring. But it happens too often, and people are bored with it, so they start inventing score tables and bingos as the challenge. While these are great ideas to keep people with an aim, I would prefer that people could really celebrate and log it on a table when they actually beat the invasion.

So in wave 16 give the monsters ghost, and give the nali's redeemers and set it to inhuman and make it much more difficult. And give the players each 1000 xp when they win. That should encourage team play rather than people just trying to get their own high score.

Just a thought.
320

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Szlat wrote:
Over time, things have changed on the DC server. There have been lots of postings from people like 320 giving tips for better play. AMs have come along with max modifiers and permanent access to globes and triples. And medics are here, keeping everyone alive longer. And over time, more people will be around of higher levels.

<snip>

 


Excellent post, Szlat. You said a lot of stuff that's been on my mind lately. I noticed it, too. It would be nice if it were tougher. If it were tougher, you would see more people linking up and coordinating.

People are higher level and playing better. So as a team we are much more effective. Then of course the medics are keeping more people alive. When I first started playing, nearly every map came down to just one or two players that had to win it. That's getting pretty rare, nowadays.

It was also the case that more people would die on tough waves, which left more opportunity for good players to shine and differentiate themselves via skill and stats. But when there are 20 flaks shooting versus 10 or 5, it can often be quite a spamathon.

Yes, it's great that we win the map, but if that is happening 90 percent of the time, the value of it diminishes greatly. And yes, that's part of why I resurrected the weapons thread and set up the high score table and bingo. After you've won wave 16 many times, you need new challenges.

Will elimination of the +flaks and +rockets restore the difficulty? I think the answer is no. The RL is not even a very popular weapon anyway.

So, yeah, I'd like to see the monster difficulty go up. Or, if there is a way, make the last three or four waves much tougher.
Continuum

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Even though I die half the time on wave 16 I'd say that the game has become a lot easier than it was (other than getting 10000 xp to level up ) I'd have to agree that upping the monster's skill level would probably be the first thing I'd do, or even switching up what monsters are on a wave. Is there really any point to having nali cows? Sure they are hard to find sometimes but Ive never seen anyone get killed by one. I know that the admins were looking to add new monsters a while back, did they find any that they would consider adding? If not maybe we could make a harder version of some of the monsters and give them a new skin. Even if say the harder metal skaarj was exactly the same as the metal skaarj as far as code you could up it's skill level without to much problems, then you slap a new skin on and youve got a new monster that fits the "specs" as far as polycount ect of the other monsters.





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Chyster

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As far as things getting easier, I think it is in your stat accrual. Let me put it this way, if you bought all stats that some believe to be crap first, I can guarantee things would be different.

Lets say that you start out a new character at level five and buy up and max out everything like iron legs, jump, speed, etc and work on the low end back toward the godlike stats, would you not think that a different strategy would be in order or that the game is extremely tough.

Everyone seems to be following the same strategy, when a noob asks "what do I buy first" there is a general consensus on whatever class they want to be.

Simply put, if everyone on the server dropped to level five and started over all at the same time, you can bet your bottom dollar that it would be as tough as ages past. It isn't the DC server that has gone soft, your characters have grown harder and are seeking challenges that currently don't exist.

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Continuum

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Yes but I have purposly kept things such as health and dmg reduction relativly low on my character compaired to most and focused maxing damage, and now am trying to max out vamp in hopes to keep my character 1 step away from death on the harder waves but still having a chance if I keep the guns blazing.




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ck

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from what i understand and not personal experiene; DC seems to be the more balanced invasion RPG server, you lose some you win some (and i have no problem with keeping this). however it is true that this has become mostly winning lately. sure we might still lose but only on maps that we would still lose if we had 40 players on (small maps, etc). Easier wins, while making things easier for the new players, decrease the "fun" or "challenge" aspect of the game, however you wanna look at it.
i think the wepon changes make sense to some degree but as some mentioned here and i mentioned it before, those changes only affect the lower level (or more average) players, the others always find a way around it. still, the difficulty issue should be balanced mostly with monsters i think. minimum damage reduction idea makes sense, the numbers or the type of monsters could also be altered. if the server can't take too much than remove the useless monsters at higher levels, replace them with higher bigger monsters. i'm not going to go into details with which monsters are actually easy or hard here, but everybody has a general idea on this one i believe.

on the other hand, it's true that when the average player level on the server is constantly rising and people are becoming more eeprienced, it is hard on the server's side to keep the game difficulty at the same level all the time. however, the introductions of medics i think is a big enough change to adjust a few things. if this is decided, i'm sur emany people, including me, would lke to throw around ideas on what to do with the monsters etc.
320

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Since I started a LA char about two months ago, I can honestly say the difference in diffuclty when there are no medics on (rare these days) is quite noticeable. Everyone gets 150 health boost and continuous healing. The moment there are no medics, my health as an artifact char goes down effectively by 150 (50% of base health or 33% of amplified health, depending on how one wants to look at it).

It seems an obvious conclusion that the challenge is therefore lessened as a result of this new class. This is not to say this class is a detriment to the server, not at all. But I think the difficulty could use a bump to compensate.
Sour_Grape

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It is tons easier for me now than it used to be. But, I used to be totally ignorant about everything. Really. Never even played a UT game except some version I have on Nintendo 64. I think I started right after LA came out because I remember having to choose. BTW, this is going to ramble alot, so just take what you can from it. I'm a very "casual" gamer with an incredibly short attention span. I don't think I've ever played three maps in a row. I can only think of a handful of "regulars" who aren't around anymore. With all this being said, we are all better now than we were. I know I am. If medics were around when I started, and the healing weapons were, I wouldn't have faired much better. Sheild nalis and Titans would have still made me cuss alot. I think the easy is just a stronger player base.

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Shadow-Yoda

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I agree with pretty much every above post. Things have definitely gotten easier since I played last year or so. I remember when wave 12 was hard. Medics have definitely had a big influence on the difficulty of winning maps. I also agree that the weapon changes really only hurt the lower level players.

As for what to do. I am definitely no expert, but the things I would change would be: Adding new monsters (Satore Monster packs have some really interesting monsters, both too look at and play against), Maybe some more waves (make it go to 20 or so), Take out the useless monsters that only hel produce lag (Cows and others I cant remember right now).

When we had that crash on April 2nd, I actually had to completely start my character over, I bought no skill or stats what-so-ever until roughly level 10 or 15. I lasted every time up to wave 10, and then it all depended on the map.

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Mac_Knife

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Yes i whole heartedly agree the server has become much easier now that new classes have been introduced and players have acquired higher levels as well as become more skilled.
I remember the days when i was pre lvl60 (and there was no adrenaline or healing classes), just before 16 would start, everyone would stock up on health, ammo and shields and then go find a hiding spot and pray that they or atleast one other player would survive. I remember, during prime time when the server would be full or almost full, we would beat a map about 50% of the time, while at night, when it would be me and 3-5 other players, completing a map almost never happened. Now, during prime time when the server is always full, its basically a mass slaughter on the mobs behalf. And now that the server is much more populated than it used to be, during the night when there use to be average around 4 players on, there is now atleast 10 players on, and not beating a map is quite rare.

I say, if the mobs are not going to be bumped up in difficulty, introduce more waves. Make it UT2003 invasion with 32 waves (now THAT was a challenge back in the day when DC had it), or 24 perhaps. Just something more than 16.

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v0rTeX

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Increasing the monsters skill can be done two ways.

If you go from 'Experienced' to 'Godlike' the way you would increase bot difficulty in a DM game, they will be a little smarter and move around more when they attack, but it isn't a huge change. And anyone who has any deathmatching skills will quickly adapt to this and go back to living through the entire map again.

I would recommend Druid increase the 'Monster Adjust' factor in RPG. It's set sort of low for the number of monsters vs. the number of players on the server. Increasing this setting will mean the monsters get a higher fraction of the levels the lowest living player has. This will have a bigger effect on the real difficulty of Invasion.

If any of you have ever tried Invasion with the default game settings and no mutators on you will know how hard Invasion was meant to be originally. Those were some tough games I played back when 2003 came out and RPG didnt exist. Sometimes even the Regeneration mutator wasnt enough to keep people alive.
deidog

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I dunno about 32 waves .. might lose my mind on some of the maps I don't like... for instance 30 waves .. or 45 min of spacenoxx would have me baning my head on my desk. However UT2003 invasion does seem to be more challenging and interesting. Well at least every server I played that used Invasion 2003 was more difficult. Dunno how much of it was just settings.

Perhaps even just add it to the possible game types for voting. The when its lower lvl players and less crowded the current version can be played and when people want more of a challenge they can vote in UT2003 invasion.

Spacey

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I would agree that things are easier as well. I re-started a LW player some months ago and pretty rapidly got up to level 24. And I noticed that after I got LW1 and resupply, things were much easier, and I was scoring perhaps 80% of my normal LA3 player @ level 90 or so. How much of it is the medics and LA players in the game, how much is the skill of the other players, how much is my skill, etc., I do not know. But I do know that my getting a flak/RL +5 was not common, and since this was around the time that talk was starting about nerfing them, I tended to avoid them, and was relying mostly just on what LW1 was giving me.

Will nerfing the flak/RL help? I don't think it will help as much as folks might think. I think that the first thing we might consider is bumping the level from Average to perhaps a notch or two higher. Secondly, adjusting the level skew between the monsters and players might help.

As for 32 waves...well, that would probably be interesting to some of us old-time players who were on DC before 2K4 and RPG (e.g. back in the days when Dru, myself and a few select I were often the only players alive in the later waves), but then there is the fact that the lower level players would be sitting there waiting for things to end. Shoot, that is even the case at times in VINV, where I have kept going 10+ minutes after everyone else is out while I try to kill the warlords from the raptor. And having suffered that myself in LMS back in my UT99 days on the old BEL clan server, I know how boring that can be.

I would also suggest that if we get to the point where the wave is won perhaps only 40-50%, a boost in the survival xp might be in order. And perhaps a differential might be in order based on whether you survived 16, how many you survived, etc. But if so, I would not make it too great of a difference, as this would then favor the higher level players (including myself) perhaps too much.

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