DoomRL > Discussion

Balancing Assemblies

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Tormuse:

--- Quote from: Evilpotatoe on April 05, 2016, 03:04 ---Btw, feel free to record a gundancing demo if you enjoy it, I'll be your first viewer ^^

--- End quote ---

Now, that sounds like a challenge!  :D :D :D

Shadowfury333:
Is Gun Kata totally useless, then? I've beaten HNTR and nearly beat HMP with it (panicked while well stocked, YASD, and I realize it's not UV), but it encourages the opposite of corner shooting, though I suppose it's partially compatible with it if you have Int2, a backup Shotgun, or are willing to waste pistol shots guessing at enemy positions. I would have to agree about the power of speedloader pistols, though bulkmodded pistols are okay once you get MGK and can reload for free, which makes speedloaders more of a backup option.

Out of curiosity, how would DoomRL even work without a way to prevent all damage? I guess stronger dodging might work, but given how punishing getting hit is, leaving that to chance seems like a great way to run out of medkits and die.

appuru:

--- Quote from: Shadowfury333 on April 06, 2016, 18:10 ---Out of curiosity, how would DoomRL even work without a way to prevent all damage? I guess stronger dodging might work, but given how punishing getting hit is, leaving that to chance seems like a great way to run out of medkits and die.

--- End quote ---

Roguelikes like DCSS (or just "Crawl") work just fine with extreme amount of variance on damage and hit rates, it's all math and probability in the end (you just gotta make sure the math checks out and you don't have extreme scenarios like too little/too much damage). However, being forced to use tactics to avoid damage is fun, specially when you're threatened by potentially lethal amounts of damage. Cornershooting works surprisingly well with relation to how monster damage currently works, but I'm sure this strategy can be fleshed out into a more elaborate way of gaining positional advantage (maybe for JH :3 *hint hint*)

Thomas:
I haven't played in a while and I only make basic APTB assemblies, but here we go:

Way too good:
Tactical boots
Nobody cares about anything on boots except for movespeed.
How to fix it: Another complete overhaul of the boots/liquid mechanics? Again? We didn't go far enough years ago!?

Tactical shotgun
Upsides over combat shotgun:

* More damage
* No pumping
* Reloads all 5 shells on shottyman movement
* Negative opportunity cost: Frees up your inventory slot(s) from the mods that you wanted to put on your combat shotgun anyway.How to fix it: uh. give it some kind of downside.
Anything would work. Maybe a recipe that makes 'less damage' make more sense, like TT or AT. Then it can be 6d3 and at least it would be a poor choice against armored targets.

Speedloader pistol
ugh, who even plays pistol games
This is pretty clearly the best direction to take your pistols in because it's the only basic pistol assembly.
How to fix it: Introduce an alternative.
How to actually fix it: Reduce damage. Damage and reload time are basically the big things for pistol users so you might as well have one trade off for the other.

Good:
Micro launcher
Bordering on too good. The regular rocket launcher is bad for actual combat, and the micro launcher improves it in all the right ways with little downside.
How to fix it: Don't fix this, fix the regular rocket launcher!

Tactical armor
The only armor assembly I bother with. There's no other basic armor assemblies, but P-modded armor is good enough (and armor, fragile/plentiful enough) that it's not a no-brainer.

Elephant gun
Even in a world where the tactical shotgun exists, I still use this from time to time. Easy to make, good armor penetration. The only buff it needs is a nerf to its compeditor.

Gatling gun
ugh, who even plays rapidfire
It's alright. Honestly it might be too good, but it doesn't feel like it because it gets in direct competition with the plasma rifle shortly after you make it.

Almost there:
Fireproof armor
Oh right! Tactical armor isn't the only one I bother with!
Nobody ever remembers this exists. It seems good, fire and melee are both important so it's an interesting trade.
How to fix it: Put big neon letters in the title screen telling the player how to make it.

High power
So you get two extra sides on your dice. Isn't that just what we call P2-modded?
How to fix it: Make it do the reverse power mod - it increases the lower XdY number by 1. Then when everyone's melting faces with their 2d7 plasma rifle, nerf it down to balanced from there.

Grappling boots
Bordering on garbage. But occaisionally I'll be playing a melee game and I'll be getting knocked around by enemy attacks and the whole world will go in to black and white infomercial-vision.
"There has to be a better way!"
and if grappling boots were better, maybe I would buy them for 5 easy payments of $11.99.
How to fix it:
-50%? We'll double it! -100% knockback!
Use the new "Toggle boots" keybinding to turn the knockback reduction on and off without taking any time!
Order now and we'll throw in a fancy new shotgun, absolutely FREE!*

Garbage:
Nanofiber armor
I already have infinite armor. I'm leaving entire suits of armor on the ground because I can't fit any more in my inventory.
Infinite durability is actually a pretty small upside (on regular armor. on really good armor with movespeed bonuses, holy moly that's not true)
How to fix it: Remove all protection penalties. The only downside should be "you used two mods to make an armor with no +protection or +movespeed"

Fireproof boots
come on, do I need to spell it out
How to fix it: "The intense heat of Mt. Erebus/The Lava Pits has hardened your fireproof boots! A glorious new power is welling up in the bottom of your sole!"
"You now have equipped: Neo-fireproof boots [99/99]"
How to actually fix it: overhaul of liquid/boots system

Chainsword
Okay so this weapon is actually pretty good for malicious blades and whatnot, but it gets to be the big poster child for "melee assemblies are a bit dumb"
All melee assemblies have two big problems:
1. you get artifact melee weapons for free outside of A100, and other melee weapons basically don't try to compete with them
2. They're all basically just 'the same thing but more damage'.

How to fix melee assemblies:
When I was playing with the modding tools back in the day, I made a combat knife variant called the "big stick". 10d2 damage, +6 acc, 3.0 firedelay. I also heavily reduced ammo drops to force myself in to a really generalist playstyle. So while nobody with any levels of Brute is going to choose that over the chainsaw, my usual kind of character would be nervously counting the shotgun shells in his jeans pocket as he gets in to batting stance for the lost soul charging at him.

Basically I'm trying to make two points:
1. I have great ideas.
2. Even after modding your game pretty hard (I really reduced ammo drops) there's only a small amount of melee weapon design space to explore.


--- Quote from: appuru on April 07, 2016, 03:51 ---Roguelikes like DCSS (or just "Crawl") work just fine with extreme amount of variance on damage and hit rates,

--- End quote ---

As someone who disagrees with you right here, Crawl's long fights and big damage swings work (for people who like that game) because of its other mechanics, like the regenerating HP system.

Personallly I vastly prefer games balanced around non-regenerating HP - it's much more intuitive to be terrified because you're on 5 HP and the next fireball will kill you rather than because you're on 0 scrolls of blinking (note: I am garbage at crawl. Obviously I mean "consumables in general", though) and the next entire fight with a centaur (really garbage) will.

appuru:

--- Quote from: Thomas on April 07, 2016, 07:16 ---As someone who disagrees with you right here, Crawl's long fights and big damage swings work (for people who like that game) because of its other mechanics, like the regenerating HP system.

Personallly I vastly prefer games balanced around non-regenerating HP - it's much more intuitive to be terrified because you're on 5 HP and the next fireball will kill you rather than because you're on 0 scrolls of blinking (note: I am garbage at crawl. Obviously I mean "consumables in general", though) and the next entire fight with a centaur (really garbage) will.

--- End quote ---

Regenerating HP has little to do with making this high variance work though.. it works because you can react even to worst-case scenario rolls with an appropriate action, and there's (almost always) enough information on screen to tell you whether or not you should be taking a particular fight. Heck, there's classes centered around not being able to regenerate (deep dwarves) and they work just fine, they work quite well in fact: you just have rough parallels to DoomRL's TaN traits, medkits and vampirism to keep you alive.

Don't get me wrong, I actually dislike the swinginess of Crawl's damage and I wish enemy damage was easier to anticipate, but it works just fine. I wouldn't *want* DoomRL to go this route without a good reason, I'm just trying to say it's definitely possible to have a system where you're not always able to avoid damage even with ideal positioning. Would said system be more fun and interesting IN DoomRL? I don't know! But whatever becomes of DoomRL and/or JH I'd be glad to test it out.

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