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Ruminating about MAc balance and Game Balance in general...

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Passionario:

--- Quote from: Game Hunter on April 13, 2010, 17:30 ---I would argue that the point of any offensive build is to kill the enemy before they have the chance to fire (MAD?  Cateye??)
--- End quote ---

Not quite. MAD is passive defense, Gun Kata is active defense, Cateye is tactical defense, and Ammochain is pure offense.

Here's a repost from the Beta Testing balance thread that explains the terminology:


--- Quote ---In DoomRL, there are three primary defensive strategies: passive (be resilient enough to absorb all incoming damage), active (dodge enemy fire so that you don't get hit) and tactical (kill the bastards before they get a clear shot at you). A player may choose to combine these strategies, or concentrate upon one.

Passive defense is based on traits like TaN, Ironman and Badass. Its obvious advantage is that it doesn't require any special actions during the actual firefight; apart from an occasional mid-battle medikit use or armor change, all preparation is done beforehand, so you can concentrate on killing your enemies. Furthermore, it has very few "hard counters" that completely nullify it.

Active defense, on other hand, requires you to sidestep incoming projectiles, most likely while running and/or under influence of Hellrunner. When it works, it allows you to avoid 100% of the damage with no permanent expenditure of resources. Alas, it has many disadvantages: you'll still get hit far too often, sergeants, revenants and viles won't be fooled by your dodging skills no matter what, the terrain layout might not allow for enough room to maneuver, and, most importantly, a turn spent moving is a turn not spent shooting.

Tactical defense is basically the art of shooting at enemies that can't fire back. This includes corner tricks, firing into darkness and listening for sounds, trapping your victims behind walls of lava/acid, using your intuition (and possibly Intuition).
--- End quote ---

Game Hunter:
No way MAD is passive defense, I've never used it to absorb all incoming enemy damage.  What's great about MAD is that you can scout enemies AND kill them before they're ever on-screen, making it tactical defense (by the definition being used).  MFa can be split along the lines of a passive/active mix, since you can still take TaN/Bad if you're up to it or solely depend on avoiding projectiles/splash.  I agree with MGK's and Cateye's descriptions; Blademaster would fall under active defense if anything.

If anything, Vampyre probably fits the tune of passive defense better than any master trait build: run up to the enemy whatever the cost, kill him and get your health back.

Although I'm curious, given what actually remains as possibilities, what an offensive build actually entails.  Passive and active defense I can understand, but tactical seems far more offensive than defensive.  Is a damage-pistol build, with its ridiculous firing speed and probable knockback, offense because it seeks to kill within normal range, or tactical defense because it seeks to kill before allowing anything else to attack?  Is Ammochain, with its no reloading times and chain-firing speed, offense because it has no way to easily attack anything outside its range, or tactical defense because it can spew its infinite ammo into the darkness and hope for a shot?

In my opinion, anything that seeks to kill, regardless of the circumstances, is an offensive build.  We can call it passive and active offense (like with defense), where passive offense is equivalent to tactical defense and active offense is just killing everything in range, if you want.  Whether something goes into any category also tends to depend on how the player uses the build: for example, Fireangel has, by itself, active defense properties, but it can also be used to get as close as possible to the enemies and blast 'em with a double shotgun (something pretty impossible without nullified splash damage against things like Revs and Viles), thereby making it quite an active offense in those situations.

Well, this is getting a little off-track.  Though, in the context of these categories, we could argue that Ammochain is overpowered on the grounds that it can simultaneously employ active and passive defense without even sacrificing ammo.  MAD, at least, has to play the ammo game when it goes scouting.

Passionario:
Perhaps a small clarification is needed. By MAD, Gun Kata, Ammochain et al, I mean the master traits themselves and their corresponding prerequisites. So, when I say "MAD", I mean "MAD+Tan2+Badass+Rel2+Shottyman", not just the basic effects of MAD itself - and certainly not the individual playstyle of every player who uses MAD.


--- Quote from: Game Hunter on April 16, 2010, 12:51 ---No way MAD is passive defense, I've never used it to absorb all incoming enemy damage.  What's great about MAD is that you can scout enemies AND kill them before they're ever on-screen, making it tactical defense (by the definition being used).
--- End quote ---

Individual playstyles are a matter of personal choice. If you choose to use MAD to kill off-screen enemies, more power to you, but it doesn't provide you with any extra scouting tools. If anything, it takes them away, by blocking Cateye and Intuition. On other hand, Tan2 and Badass provide solid passive defense, even if you never make use of it.

Jarkko:
How about this for Ammochain:

-Remove infinite Ammo
-Increse amount of ammo per inventory slot for 10mm and plasma to x4, or whatever seems like a good number for balance
-Still no reload required

I think this would be good. Remove the "OMG inf ammo overpowered!", and would add more of a "holy shit I'm guzzling through ammo like crazy" feeling, but let's you hoard the amount of ammo needed for constant chainfire shootings. Having LOTS of ammo instead of INFINITE ammo just means you can't clear all levels just shooting monsters out of your LOS without retaliation.

Shoop da Whoop:
When I read the description at furst time I thought: "Wow, no more reloading! Mohrrr dakka!"
But when I realised that no ammo is used I thought: "Hey! Is it a bug or what?"

Voting for no realods, by description; possibly - increase ammo stacks, but... BFG 9000, you know.

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