DruidsRPG 190?

Playing LA isn't what it used to be and, I though I like it, I am lately not happy with my decision to switch to this class. Since the last nerfing round, peeps have flat out quit asking for the LA player's help. So much for the support role.

I really liked that part.

Nobody really cares about maxing out poisons, force, vampiric or the other non-super lethal weapons. I used to get requests all the time before. Now without the support role function, my LA character is just a different type of LW player. Also because of the missing support role (where most weaponry isn't worth boosting for others), I really don't have much else to do so I burn adrenalin on the TD and try to keep up with LW folks, and because I can, the LWs get miffed, but if I don't, no points or exp. It's a really twisted cyclical situation.

In truth, LAs never really got class defining experience points anyway. So it never really was much more than a novelty until LAs figured out the use of the TD and folks wanted to shut them down. Now it's a topic that's hotter than the core of the sun.

I agree that something should be done, but don't know what it would be. I do think the LAs need to have a function, but if it only really revolves around the weapons, and all weapons get nerfed until everything is equalized (and without class defining experience), well..........where did the point go? Again, it's a twisted cyclical situation.

After thinking about the whole mess for awhile, my biggest issue isn't the proposed changes. Instead, it stems from the manner in how all this got started and the ensuing divisions it has led to. I really don't know what Dru's vision for the end result is or what he is looking to do with it as I have only a generalists' view.

But I will say this; Dru has never ever failed to make fair decisions from my perspective and has always kept everyone's interests at heart AND he has never set the interests of one individual or group of individuals above another for selfish reasons that I am aware of. So, I give him the benefit of the doubt and I'll just have to wait and see what DC evolves into next.

Chys

Yikes.

Druid is doing a great (and mostly voluntary) job.

People are so heated because they love the game so much and because they've put so much time into their characters. It's a natural result. If no one cared, no one would bother taking the time to complain. I think it's all healthy to a point.

It's been a fun ride so far. New changes just mean new strats. Best know I'll be breaking them down and finding the advantages.

Chyster wrote:

Since the last nerfing round, peeps have flat out quit asking for the LA player's help. So much for the support role. I really liked that part.

Nobody really cares about maxing out poisons, force, vampiric or the other non-super lethal weapons.

Well, I guess I could start asking more ...

I don't have much of a concept about ready an AM is to max a weapon. I do constantly ask (when I have one) to have my vorpals and sometimes even my rage weapons maxed. Poisons, as I tend to be the odd player that likes them, don't, damage wise, seem to have a wide range from +1 to +4 - I mean, there's not much of a difference, really. Force weapons? I understand when you get an avril, it makes a difference ... but as I'm only good with the primary fire on a shock weapon, where's the force factor there?

I could go through all the weapon types, and give reasons why I don't ask for them to be bumped. One of the core things though is that I've had one or two AM's I know can bump weapons get quiet when I ask - either they don't listen to voice chat or they sometimes ignore text requests. And there are so few of you on these days to start with - easier to find a Medic than it is to find an AM that can boost weapons.

And finally - I have some idea of how hard it is for you guys, so I figure you've got better things to do than bump my weapons.

So, as this thread is to be used for suggestions ...

Dru, maybe you could bump some weapons up a % point or two when it comes to the extra damage they do. Folks might have reason to ask for weapon bumps.

Maybe the MWM that AM's get should become non-droppable for them, and work differently than the MWM everyone else gets. I know there's going to be a lot of coding overhead, but I think an AM's MWM should be more likely to make a * weapon than everyone else's.

Maybe AM's should be able to, perhaps with a loss of a + factor, clone some * weapons (obviously not the rage and vorp). I think I've already suggested something similar elsewhere ...

Of course, some of these suggestions need to balanced against the higher level AM's ability to get Denial 3 - but I'm thinking that when an AM gets Den3, they're more likely not to *need* Den3 ... Hmmm ... things to think about ...

Like Chyster, I have noticed a bit of a drop in the maxing requests, and as for weapons, it is getting to the point where I am having problems giving away most of them, including INF weapons like the mini. The exception to this has been the normal + weapons. Of course, even there, it has been hit and miss. I think in the past two weeks, I have probably maxed maybe half a dozen, a dozen at the most, and at least 3/4 of that was normal + weapons. So with the new version, that will obviously change. Will folks ask for other weapon types being maxed or will the requests just evaporate? I honestly do not know.

Now, as for the asking to max...I will have to say that if you text message me, I am likely to miss it unless I am out. I look at the screen in what could be referred to as a "wide view" or unfocused way. This is something which I learned to do in martial arts (see attacks from all directions), and so I do not focus to the point where the message area, or even the aspects of the HUD like health, radar, ammo are really noticed. Now if you verbally ask, that is more likely to get a response, but even then, if I get focused down in the middle of a fight, you may have to ask a second time.

As for the need for LA players having denial 3, it is definitely there, even at nearly level 100. The last thing I need to do is have to go hunting weapons after I die. The effect would be the same if you were to take a low level player, with no regen, no vamp, and no LW, and drop them into play at that wave (nasty at waves like 14). This is especially true, when you consider that in an ideal situation, I have weapons for gaining back health, weapons for doing damage, and such. Indeed, it varies from wave to wave and situation to situation. I use different weapons for up close work for that nali that came after me, for that titan/queen/warlord which is near me, or the ones across the map. Some weapons don't work against certain monsters well, and others do. Indeed, if a miracle occurs and I have a vorpal shock, it can be suicide to use that against a monster which can reflect it back (queen, merc, etc.) So if all I had was that vorpal shock and a cursed flak, I am toast. Meanwhile, the LW5 player, who spawned with all magical weapons including the deemer, the painter, the avril, etc. does not have to worry about the curse and can attack as they so desire. And whether or not they delay just enough to take advantage of the artifact pinata (me) or not, I cannot say. But put simply, while some moan and groan about denial 3, it is one of the few things which does anything towards getting the LA player back towards equality with the LW player.

Now, as 320 said, I think Dru is doing a fairly good job, especially considering that it is PT/voluntary. I will also say that even where things are less than ideal, his intentions appear (best I can say, since I cannot read minds, etc.) to be very good and well balanced towards everyone. But nobody is perfect, and just as Dru and I do not intend to code bugs into programs I write, I know they exist., And in this case, I think that some of the upcoming changes, rather than ballancing things out, are actually going to be disproportionally affecting the LA players (particularly those at the lower/mid levels) in favor of the higher level players and the LW players, and will instead exacerbate an imballance that I see. Can I prove it? No, given that we have no logs, etc. to analyze (and we would need long-term logs as well). And so, as someone who has their main player which is just as old as Dirty_Deeds, Shantara and some of the other mega-high level players, and older than many of the other players on this system being affected, I will say something when I see something which I perceive as affecting the fun and ballance. And if I were able to spend the number of hours which some people spend playing in a day/week, instead of the couple of hours a night if lucky, I would be even more upset. Yes, it is just a game, but there is still the investment in time, even if it is just a couple of hours a day. But it adds up.

I think you are ignoring the massive advantage LA players have with the TD. You have Drip, Surge, and Leech, which combined virtually guarantee you a non-stop triple damageing weapon. LW players have to rely on kill adrenaline and energy weapons to maintain a triple. Any weapon in the game on a TD is more powerful than the most powerful weapon without one. In a game where XP is based on damage, this is not a small advantage. Also you have the ability to run weapons at double modifiers which LW players do not, especially useful with Vorpal's where your chance to insta-gib literally doubles. You can max any weapon in your inventory you choose, you can remake any weapon in your inventory you choose, and you spawn with all these artifacts that are not even available to LW players with the exception of the TD and MWM which we usually have to pick up from a corpse which is also being considered for removal. This update is not one sided at all. LW players will miss the Flak+5 just as much as LA players. I think it's only fair to play out this new version before tearing into it. I have an LA player, and early on it is very hard, but by the time I reach level 100 I suspect it will be more powerful than my LW character was there.

I will chip in with my thoughts here once again,

I see alot of posts refering to the maximum abilitys of the 3 classes. I would quote some of them, but they are all over the place. The thing is, each side is looking at what the other gets at what I consider high level (yes I know ME ME ME) I can only talk from my own prospective on this one.

DRUIDXPAWX:

You have a very tough job, congrats on putting togather a comunity where people care this much about you and each other.

My OPENINON: you want to keep play balanced between classes and players.
when you make the changes that you have outlined above, high level players, and very high level players will maybe redistribute points, or change tactics, lower level characters and players like myself (ones who regularly commit suacide 5 times a map) will just gain less experiance, and take longer to go up in level. I feel that with the changes that you are making, I will need to get my TD artifact as quickly as I can. I was not going to buy it until I had my adreniline skills higher.

Again, even with the changes you are making, you run a fun server to play on. I have not been chalanged by a first person shooter this much in about 6 or 7 years.

BTW, I just got a port of DOOM for my phone! MUHAHAHAHA

What's all this complaining from the LA players?

1. We have a harder path

You picked that path, so you can only blame yourself.

2. We drop our artifacts and we don't want anyone else getting them

I learned at 4 years old to share, it's about time you learn it too.

3. LW players use a triple and take all the kills

Your class shouldn't be fighting as much as you do. You should be maxing weapons for others, just as the medics should be healing. You should be getting exp for that maxing though.

4. Our weapons are being "nerfed"

As far as I see, everyones weapons are being nerfed. It's not just yours.

Things change ,..sometimes for the better .sometimes for the worse...

but complaining about it before its even introduced is pointless.. see what happens.. everyone is affected by the change.... low lvls to high lvls.. medics to LW,,
in respect to druid and the other coders, relax and see what happens..

Quote. sometimes changes seem bad, but end up being great,..giving them the benefit of the doubt, will make you all the more helpfull. <greg landry>

Is it just me or does Spacey complain a lot?
No offense man but your constructive criticisms sound very negative.

Anyway, from the sounds of it, if you guys are right in what you say about the LA players being an undesired skill path, it must be because of the DC server setup (stat caps, monsters, etc) because on our server there are twice as many LA players and they love it. Between Vorpals, Venom, and Reflecting guns, and the Globe running whenever the Triple Damage isnt, they sure fare a lot better than LW players do on the higer waves.

The way I have things set up, a LW player has an advantage for a while but when people get to mid-high levels the LA players seem to outperform them.

As an example, we recently reset our server, and right now the Top 10 highest level players consist of the following:
6 LA players
2 LW players
2 people who havent chosen either path

v0rTeX wrote:

...if you guys are right in what you say about the LA players being an undesired skill path...

Its not, I think that most of the discussion is about not knowing what the worth of this class will be after upcoming changes.

Personally, I think everybody should take a deep breath and chill. No one knows for sure what it will be like and all this defensive posturing over guessing what it will be like is drumming up a whole lot of discontent.

Chys

Chy is right we could be crying over spoiled milk right now..I guess its just the thought of it what is scary but you never know till we give it a chance

crabman2 wrote:

What's all this complaining from the LA players?

1. We have a harder path

You picked that path, so you can only blame yourself.

2. We drop our artifacts and we don't want anyone else getting them

I learned at 4 years old to share, it's about time you learn it too.

3. LW players use a triple and take all the kills

Your class shouldn't be fighting as much as you do. You should be maxing weapons for others, just as the medics should be healing. You should be getting exp for that maxing though.

4. Our weapons are being "nerfed"

As far as I see, everyones weapons are being nerfed. It's not just yours.

Guess who is getting coal for Christmas....

First, to reply to Crabman...

1) Tell me crab, how would you, as a LW player, feel if suddenly, you could not use booster, speed, or any of the other adren boosters, when you started out down a path that was that way? And while we are at it, no artifacts. After all, it is all adren based, and you are a LW player who should not be relying upon adren. Well, that is pretty much what has happened here. I never heard anything about LA being strictly a mage like class when it was created, but I will admit that I may have missed something on the forums. But in a bit, I will point out why it is worse.

2) Yes, I am tired of being a freaking pinata, especially when LW players drop at most one weapon when they die.

3) Well, have you ever bothered to keep track of the games you play to see what the various high scorers have as a class? I have, as I take at least 3 screen shots after each game, showing the scoreboard, my F3 stats, and my RPG stats. On the scores, you will find that they are predominately the LW players. The odd LA player who does get up there is someone like Chys or Ooo, who are well over level 130. Yes, I know that score does not equal XP, but short of being able to view a XP gain for each game (we cannot do that, can we??), score is the only way you can really compare how players did in a given game.

Trivia Pop Quiz: Who are the LA players in the top 50??

A: (DC)DaRedeye (#3, lvl 252),
(DOF)CptCrunch (#7, lvl 206)
<DC>Chyster_LA (#11, lvl 189)
{DC}Shantara (#14, lvl 175)
Ooo (#16, lvl 164)
{DC}TheDruidXpawX (#27, lvl 130)
Soupman (#28, lvl 130)
Duck-Hunter-2 (#45, lvl 100)
*BEL*_e (#46, lvl 9

Gordon_Freeman (#48, lvl 96)
GETSOME (#50, lvl 92)

And of these, the only ones I am not 99% certain are conversions are Duck, Gordon and GETSOME.

Pop quiz #2: Who are the other non-LW players in the top 50?

{DC}DruidNali
{DC}SironaShan
{DC}DruidNaliCow

BTW...no problems with this...they have to test the medic class.

Now, remember I said I would point out where it is worse...well, here it is, in direct reply to your quip of "Your class shouldn't be fighting as much as you so..." Well, how the blazes is a LA player supposed to get XP and level if they do not kill bugs??? HUH??? Unlike the medics, we get 0, zilch, zippo for doing the support function the LA provided. I did it because I enjoyed giving a helping hand. So, what happens if we don't kill bugs... besides not advancing, odds are we do not have the adren to max your nice weapon, or we are dead, perhaps thanks to that nali or titan which spawned right on top of us.

4. Yes, everyone's weapons are being nerfed. But given that the LW player has been spending their points on weapon speed, damage bonus and damage redux along with vamp and regen, instead of piling it into the adren related skills, the LW player hits much harder (gaining more XP) and survives better than the LA player. The only way a LA player can really hit decently right now is a +5, which is the same as a damage bonus of 100. It has only been the past few levels where I have been slamming into WS and DB where my scores and XP have started returning to what I could get as a LW5 player around level 60...and here I am nearly 40 levels after that!!! Mind you...I was also a player who tended to constently be in the top 5 as a LW player.

So, with this in mind, if Dru was trying to reduce the damage which the LW and higher level LA players were doing, then he effectively threw out the baby with the bath water.

Spacey wrote:

1) Yes, I am tired of being a freaking pinata, especially when LW players drop at most one weapon when they die.

2)Trivia Pop Quiz: Who are the LA players in the top 50??

1. I'm more than happy to become a pinata when I die. Seems fair enough.

2. It's hardly fair comparing the top 50 for who is what class when the LA class is only 6 months old and the LW class is a couple of years old, thereby having more characters and more experienced characters. You said it yourself, only three players switched classes.

v0rTeX wrote:

Is it just me or does Spacey complain a lot?
No offense man but your constructive criticisms sound very negative.

Anyway, from the sounds of it, if you guys are right in what you say about the LA players being an undesired skill path, it must be because of the DC server setup (stat caps, monsters, etc) because on our server there are twice as many LA players and they love it. Between Vorpals, Venom, and Reflecting guns, and the Globe running whenever the Triple Damage isnt, they sure fare a lot better than LW players do on the higer waves.

The way I have things set up, a LW player has an advantage for a while but when people get to mid-high levels the LA players seem to outperform them.

As an example, we recently reset our server, and right now the Top 10 highest level players consist of the following:
6 LA players
2 LW players
2 people who havent chosen either path

Hey Vortex. Not going to put you down, but I can tell you have not worked tech support. Having worked tech support, I can tell you that the only folks you generally hear from are those folks who are complaining because they are upset or have a problem. Yes, most of my posts here recently have been in this category, but it is because I generally lurk instead of filling up the forums with chit-chat unless I have something to contribute.

As for why...I don't know. As a scientist and computer engineer, my solution is to use instrumentation to record a bunch of numbers, and then I look at it for trends. So I would be doing things like turning on stats logging and adding additional data from the RPG mod itself to capture things like class, starting XP, ending XP and perhaps even recording things down to the point where I could tell if someone spent points into DB, used a +5 flak, a +3 RL w/ triple, etc. And I would do all this before making adjustments. This is exactly what I do when I make modifications to tuning settings, networking or filesystem code, etc. when I am concerned about performance. But apparently, Dru says they hammer the machine when they are on, so we have no such data. Instead, he is doing his changes with no data, just as I have seen some nice, well meaning sysadmins do, in the hopes of correcting what they perceived as a problem, only to end up with it FUBAR, and having to reinstall or at a minimum remove all the tuning which existed before they decided to mess with it.

WRT the game, people have this misconception about most LA players (I do not consider those above level 130 or so as normal, as by then, the LA related skills are almost certainly maxed and things like damage bonus and weapon speed are probably almost there as well), and seem to think we walk on water or some such. But we do not. We do not just use 100 adren to make a good weapon and another 150 to max it, or 750 and get 3 good weapons. I checked, and it has been probably 100 games or so (just over 300 screen shots) since I last created myself a vorpal or picked up on, as since I returned from my trip to CA, I have not done so. Now, figure that I spend about half my time making on flak/rl, and the other half making on lg, sniper and shock (I love shock combos and headshots). If you figure I can do about 2 MWM activations per wave, this works out to conservatively over 10 MWM makes per game or 1000 attempts trying for a vorpal, using 1000 adren per game and 1000000 total. Yes, 1 MILLION adren, and no vorpal. Lots of protection +1, healing +2, luck, penetrating, piercing, etc...but no vorpal.

As for the triple...no walking on water there either and keeping the triple going through an entire wave. I have 204 adren, and the best I have ever done is maybe 60 seconds, with a wave averaging 112 seconds (30 min/game). And that was on a map like GrassyKnoll during a titan round, with either a vorpal or something like a +5 shock. While the RL is generally fast enough to fire, by the time the rockets get to the monster, it is dead. And the flak does not really go far enough. So the end result is that I either run a huge risk and get close to the titans and such, or I run out of bugs and adren (204 adren only gets you 29 seconds of triple).

So, in reply to the idea of the "massive advantage have with the TD" (as was stated in a different reply in this thread), I think that is a bunch of meadow muffins of the bovine manufacture, at least as far as "average" LA player, who is below level 100 is concerned.

Now...getting back to your reply...you mentioned that most of your players are doing LA. Well, have you tried finding a LA player on DC recently? Most of the time, there are more medics than LA players, and there have been quite a few times I have been the only LA player on the server. One other LA player said the same thing, noting he was probably the only really active LA player. If that does not strike a chord, take a look at my other reply and start thinking about when the last time you saw some of those top LA players I listed. Been awhile for some of them. While I will grant you that real life, computer problems (I think this is part of Ooo's absense) and such is partly to blame, I think there is also a certain amount of...well, Chyster said it... It isn't what it used to be. And like him, I am starting to regret switching class pretty big time. So, if things continue, start kissing your sweet maxed out weapons good-bye. Those of us with the adren to be maxing your weapons will either be back to playing other classes, move on to other servers, or just stop playing after being repeately nerfed and mostly taken for granted/ignored. And then what happens to Dru's work on the LA player...mostly wasted, just as it is appearing more and more like folks like myself wasted time on playing LA, fun as it used to be...

BTW... you state that out of the top 10 players on your server, 6 are LA, and that at mid-high levels, the LA players dominate. Well, let me ask you this....what do you consider to be mid-high level, and can you tell me the relative time spent playing for those top 10 players when compared to the rest of your server population? As a scientist and engineer, I know how statistics can be misleading, especially when looking at small samplings or incorrect variables, and can even be made to lie. (ever wonder why it is only 4 out of 5 dentists??) But this latter issue about their playing time is important, as until Ooo gained some levels on me, we were generally pretty well matched up as players in terms of scoring. But he played many more hours than my 2-3hrs/night, and so advanced in levels much faster than I did, and is now level 164. But again, I would not guarentee that it is all playing time either.

So, I will quit complaing (or as I view it, providing what I think is useful feedback), at least in this reply and get on with more reading and then probably to bed (since it is 0141 as I finish this up)... And I will wait and see how things turn out after 190/200 comes out. But if my playing earlier today is any indicator (not using + flak/rl, and not using the triple for the titan rounds), my scores and XP will be much lower.

I usually don't post much but I figured if everyone else was going to get dragged into this I might as well also. Although there isn't a darn thing I can do about it, if the +5 flak goes I will be really disappointed. Why? Most of the time it is the best weapon I have...period. When you get a bunch of protection & poison weapons and you get a +5 flak, you don't feel like just suiciding and hoping you do better on your respawn. Honestly, getting 4 or 5 weapons with jinky properties just makes you want to try sometimes. Ones I really hate are protection, poison, piercing,penetrating and rage. Why rage? Because you need to be like lvl 200 with vamp 4 & regen 4 ro 5 to make it worth using. I know it won't take you below 80 HP but at 80 HP your meat for just about anything. Healing is pretty close to being on that list but only misses as occasionally you actually can get it on a weapon that you can self-heal with. Rockets I could wave bye to and never look back but not the flak.

Now, as for ye old LA vs LW debate: LA does have a harder path to follow but the reward seems to be greater. I don't know if I will ever start a LA character but just from an observational point it would seem you can do a whole heck of a lot more with a LA character than a LW one. Higher adrenaline, artifacts at spawn, maxing, double magic, etc certainly make them a force in the game. At level 83, I know it will be a long time before I can stand with the "big guns" but even then I'll never be able to run a globe or triple like a LA player can. Plus breaking a MWM after changing a Sniper of Proection +1 to a Sniper of Protection +2 is just annoying as all get out.

Personally, if I had a vote (and I don't) for a new LW ability I would make it an A or B choice. "A" would be the ability to buy extra damage ability with your points or "B" the ability to just get smashmouth weapon bonuses (like knockback, null, freezing, etc) BUT have it so that you loose something in return like Ghost, or Denial or you cap out on the health bonus at 100 extra HP. Anyhow, just my 2 cents on things....