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61
Requests For Features / Re: Balance suggestions
« on: April 10, 2013, 12:34 »Quote
Translocator, Subtle knife, Mjolnir: uniques are unique. They're not supposed to be always better. They are unique.
As mentioned, a weapon that isn't worth anything to use may as well be empty space. If it's linearly worse than everything, there's no point in it existing, except for joke value. Translocator might have joke value, but it could easily have joke value and strategic use at the same time, and if there's a joke in the other two, it goes over my head. (Perhaps Subtle Knife is too subtle for me.)
It's novel to see a bad weapon, once, but after that you just ignore it. Or pick it up and set it down again for the register on your uniques record.
Basically, it's one thing if it's not better than what you have. I'm not saying that Mjolnir and Subtle Knife should compete with even the Butcher's Cleaver, let alone Longinus(which, realistically, most maingame melee builds will use). Just that they should have something that makes them have a theoretical use.
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Frag Shotgun: treat it another way: you have spare space and no shells to fill it with so you take this and 10mm ammo. So if suddenly you're out of shells, you still can fight.
Your primary weapon is probably going to do more damage than a Frag Shotgun is, though, thanks to the incredibly long 1.5s shot speed. Even a Combat Shotgun's pump only takes 0.2, so it takes 1.2 per shot and is more controllable. And that's a common weapon.
Also, the question of why you're heavily running shotguns enough to run out of ammo for them a lot, while still holding tons of 10mm in stock, does come to mind. Learning to manage and balance your ammo better would be much better than running a Frag Shotgun.
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Survivalist: main problem of this trait is that in DoomRL you need to kill your enemies, not die longer. That's why when you meat 372 revenants somewhere in hell, most players choose build that allows them to kill things faster. Preferably even before enemies shoot.
That's more of a question of what's effective when, which is really more of a general system balance question than one of that skill in particular...which means that it's basically out of the scope of Survivalist. Retooling Survivalist probably shouldn't involve retooling the entire armor/resistance system.
I admit, tanking is sort of a weird topic in DoomRL, but I don't think it's totally useless. Just not as good as other builds.
The main difference is that a heavily mobility oriented build keeps you in control more often(generally more valuable), a heavy damage build ends combat faster(generally more valuable), and a heavy defensive build raises the amount of time you can survive when you're neither in control, nor can damage enemies fast enough to drop them.
Generally less valuable...but not worthless. Sometimes you just go down a stairs, hit a group of two Archviles and four Hell Barons, and your Phase Device lands you in a dangerous spot too. Or maybe the entire level is a mess floor and it's just very difficult to avoid some damage. That sort of time is where two/three layers of TaN can slow down a lot of the damage you take, meaning that you'll be less likely to run out of healing on the floor, and more likely to be able to take valuable powerups with you to start the next floor, which in turn means you're more in control for the next, floor, etc.
The point I'm making is that Survivalist adds very little to that kind of insurance effect. So it's basically not helping with what I see as the advantage of tank builds.
62
Requests For Features / Re: Balance suggestions
« on: April 10, 2013, 11:49 »
I suppose I ought to come up with a short list of what I, as an entirely new random player with an okay enough record now to comment on stuff(maybe), have seen as weirdly imbalanced. By the game's standards, not my standards of balance, that is.
You see, complaining about intended imbalance is right out. Shotguns might be the better weapons overall in the game, but that seems known and intended(See the various differences in Angel difficulty commentary).
So, given a system of intended imbalance, only two types of things are worth commenting on. Those that would dominate the entire spectrum of builds, and those that would never be used. (And anything that almost always dominates, or almost never is used, etc.)
Since, if someone will always use something every time it appears, it kills the game being interesting(one optimal build completely dominates the game and everything else becomes challenge runs-except for those challenge runs that allow the optimal build, of course.), and if they never would use it, it's a waste of space.
For the former category, the only example of this seems to be Dragonslayer, and Dragonslayer is...a standard Roguelike conciet of the ultra-hidden weapon being best, so I can skip it on that grounds. People have talked way too much about it anyways, from what I saw skimming the forums before posting.
So, here's the stuff that struck me as bad enough to see little or no use, just from the on-paper. Obviously, I am bringing these up for discussion, not trying to just toss my opinion around. I've done some similar assessments on ToME forums, with suggestions people usually liked, so it's worth a try here, I think.
Talents:
-Survivalist.
Classic case of a win-more skill-if you're nulling damage to 1 constantly, nulling it to 0 isn't going to be that much different, and if you're not, the skill does very little. Allowing you to overheal on Medkits only matters if your inventory is full...and if it's full, you're either hoarding a whole lot of ammo, or have half a dozen to a dozen medkits, depending on the build. Or things you consider as valuable as Medkits.
If you're in the situation where this is optimal-you're taking a lot of 1 damage and have a ton of Medkits so you just want to use the ones on the floor instead of picking them up-you're in extremely good shape anyways. If you're not, the skill does nothing. And I question if the skill is actually better at saving you HP/Armor than a single level of Hellrunner(to say nothing of the fact that it seals off Dodgemaster-a strong tanking build with that on it would be very, very hard to kill.).
Oh, and if I read it correctly, Large Medkits heal you for 50% of your life or to 100%, whichever is better, with Survivalist. A heavy tank build, even on N!, only very rarely is going to lose 50%+ of its life in a single action(Or, rather, it can very easily do this, but you're likely to die if you let this happen commonly-with good play, it's very rare.), so it's more optimal to save Large Medkits until you actually need the heal than it is to overheal with them as a defensive buffer.
The first thought I have for this skill is 10-15% damage resistance, or 20-25% in a few areas(Maybe Plasma/Acid/Fire, since it's easy to imagine a survivalist type somehow living through large explosions. This is proper FPS/action movie thinking, right?). This makes it grant a unique tanking advantage, and makes it more likely that the first advantage(the nulling 1 damage to 0) will actually be relevant.
Of course, it's basically a blank slate as it is, so adding any advantage, or strengthening the ones that are there(Say, having it null damage randomly that is above 1, at a rate of (1/(N+1)) where N is the damage-so, null 1 50% of the time, null 2 33% of the time, etc.) would work too.
Juggler:
Not actually imbalanced per se, but, IIRC, I've seen discussions about how this ability is much better for the heavily spoiled player that digs through config files than it is for the average player.
Honestly, the answer seems simple to me. Make it two levels, make the first level grant N% speed to all equipment changes(weapon, armor, prepared item, etc.) and make swapping to the prepped weapon take 0.1 seconds(like it does now), and make the second grant N% more.
0.66/0.33 for swaps or 0.5/0.1 both seem reasonable to me. Depends on how good you want it to be. Being able to swap armor faster would make up somewhat for the loss in weapon flexibility, and it functions much more sensibly.
-Scavenger, Entrenchment
See above discussion. I'd be interested to see if anyone defends Entrenchment. Scavenger arguably doesn't belong anyways, on the grounds that anyone going for Assemblies will care about it anyways-so it effectively can function as a challenge run in and of its self, with a kind of long term achievement as the goal.
As I mentioned, Scavenger being able to mod all uniques once(Or even being able to mod them into basic assemblies) would increase the niche of the build-it would go from a rapid fire to a potential all-rounder. Still probably better at rapid fire than most things, though basic assemblies could be randomly funny. (Plasmatic Shrapnel Jackhammer.) And at least picking up a high end unique pistol(Like Cleric) would make them clearly the best user of it.
Entrenchment just seems like a case of needing more damage resistance. As mentioned, the reason that things like Malicious Blades work is because you're getting such good resistance off of it. Standing still is a pretty large downside, much like having to operate in melee is a downside for Berserker/Malicious Blades(well, Blades doesn't make you, but the skills leading up to it make it hard to avoid.).
-Gun Kata
I'm a little reluctant on this, because I have seen defense of it. I just can't entirely get why. The main upside seems to be the automatic reloads(0.1 shots after a dodge is nice, but SoG3 gives 0.4.), but with cutting out SoB, the damage potential is lower than other pistol builds even counting in the saved reload time, long term. You might be able to balance that out with specific setups, but the flipside is that you can balance out the requirement of reloading repeatedly with specific setups too(like just Bulking up your Pistols some.).
And the main time it's beneficial is the situation you least want to be in, again-in the open, being shot at long enough for both repeated dodges to be required and repeated reloads to be necessary.
This is less me saying the skill is useless, and more wondering what it does that, say, SoG3 and a few levels in Reloader wouldn't. And given its lack of SoG req, and the fact that SoG is very important for pistol builds, it seems like a late pickup at best...and late means that it's having to deal with iffy to dodge enemies like Mancubi. I dunno, it just seems a bit weak given how focused it is.
Weapons/Armor/etc.:
-Mjollnir
Haven't actually gotten this yet. Wiki claims it's a weapon that can only appear later than a Chainsaw, does less damage than a decently modded Combat Knife, and...that's it? Is the wiki missing some trait here like that it boomerangs when thrown? Even with that it might be questionable at 1-15 damage range. Regardless, if it doesn't boomerang, it probably should. :)
-Subtle Knife
3d5 is, again, kinda questionable, and for some reason the ability, despite being fairly similar to the Arena Master's Staff, takes MHP. I don't see a reason why. This is, at least, a bit better than a Combat Knife(...though it's oddly close to a heavily modded Combat Knife.), though, so it has some vague use for Malicious Blades builds. That ability doesn't really need to take MHP though, that I can see.
-Demolition Ammo
Another one I have to trust the Wiki on(There's only so fast I can get everything in the game.). It says, if I read it right, that it converts the damage of the weapon it's installed into to (Original Dice+2)d2 and makes it deal damage in a blast radius of 1.
I think the only times that actually nets higher damage are with a Combat Pistol and a Chaingun, and in both cases it's basically negligably better. Many times, that seems way worse. And radius blast normal shots can be self harming as well, making it a rather weirdly mediocre mod considering how good the other Master Assemblies are.
Considering that it takes four mods, wouldn't something more like (Original Dice+2)d(half original sides, rounded up) make more sense? It only impacts 10MM, and considering that a Firestorm, a Power and two Technical are involved, that seems more the pace of the investment involved.
Sure, you can make a really amazing 3d4 rad 1 Chaingun then, but how often are you going to want that over a Plasma Rifle with heavy mods? It's got some advantages and some disadvantages as well, it seems like. And if that's too good, you can always make it round down instead(which mostly makes it good for Combat Pistols and Chainguns, again, but at least a 3d3 Chaingun is worth mentioning.).
-Frag Shotgun
I'm not sure why there's a Unique Combat Shotgun that uses funny ammo, but it crunches enough of that funny ammo so that it's not more ammo efficient(A stack of shotgun shells is 30 and a Combat Shotgun eats one at a time, this eats four of 10MM, and they show up in 100 stacks. It's not even that much more efficient on a by-enemy-drop basis, since you get 140~ 10MM from a Commander and 30~ shells from a Sergeant), it doesn't do more damage, it hits the same cone, etc.
Oh, and it's 1.5s firing speed. For some mysterious reason. This seems like a good candidate for worst weapon in the game, and it's even unique so you can't mod it. At least you can make a Combat Shotgun into a Tactical, so it's better in every way, then. This weapon confuses me; I don't even know where to begin with it.
-Combat Translocator
Not actually a concept I dislike, but it consumes ten cells a shot(higher than a Plasma Rifle, two thirds that of a Tristar Blaster!) and randomly phases enemies.
The funny answer that comes to mind is to greatly lower the cells(to be honest, 1 would be okay) and have it function as a homing phase device when it hits enemies. Sending them to the stairs. Where you know where they are and can plan around that.
Of course, if you don't know where the stairs are, or are just trying to get through fast, spraying that around might be a bad idea. Then again, you can figure out where the stairs are pretty fast that way.
Alternatively, just give it an alt fire where you can shoot yourself with it. That might be too good, but it does take a turn to swap to...
-Bullet-Proof Vest
You know, I'm reluctant to list this one because the description its self implies that it's not expected to be worth much.
It's still not worth much, though. It's basically worse than a green armor to me, because I consider the main earlygame threats to not use bullets, so it's basically a worse green armor. And chances are, I'll be able to find a green armor.
So yeah.
It's not really that long of a list for me. There's some debate for some of it, too, surely.
You see, complaining about intended imbalance is right out. Shotguns might be the better weapons overall in the game, but that seems known and intended(See the various differences in Angel difficulty commentary).
So, given a system of intended imbalance, only two types of things are worth commenting on. Those that would dominate the entire spectrum of builds, and those that would never be used. (And anything that almost always dominates, or almost never is used, etc.)
Since, if someone will always use something every time it appears, it kills the game being interesting(one optimal build completely dominates the game and everything else becomes challenge runs-except for those challenge runs that allow the optimal build, of course.), and if they never would use it, it's a waste of space.
For the former category, the only example of this seems to be Dragonslayer, and Dragonslayer is...a standard Roguelike conciet of the ultra-hidden weapon being best, so I can skip it on that grounds. People have talked way too much about it anyways, from what I saw skimming the forums before posting.
So, here's the stuff that struck me as bad enough to see little or no use, just from the on-paper. Obviously, I am bringing these up for discussion, not trying to just toss my opinion around. I've done some similar assessments on ToME forums, with suggestions people usually liked, so it's worth a try here, I think.
Talents:
-Survivalist.
Classic case of a win-more skill-if you're nulling damage to 1 constantly, nulling it to 0 isn't going to be that much different, and if you're not, the skill does very little. Allowing you to overheal on Medkits only matters if your inventory is full...and if it's full, you're either hoarding a whole lot of ammo, or have half a dozen to a dozen medkits, depending on the build. Or things you consider as valuable as Medkits.
If you're in the situation where this is optimal-you're taking a lot of 1 damage and have a ton of Medkits so you just want to use the ones on the floor instead of picking them up-you're in extremely good shape anyways. If you're not, the skill does nothing. And I question if the skill is actually better at saving you HP/Armor than a single level of Hellrunner(to say nothing of the fact that it seals off Dodgemaster-a strong tanking build with that on it would be very, very hard to kill.).
Oh, and if I read it correctly, Large Medkits heal you for 50% of your life or to 100%, whichever is better, with Survivalist. A heavy tank build, even on N!, only very rarely is going to lose 50%+ of its life in a single action(Or, rather, it can very easily do this, but you're likely to die if you let this happen commonly-with good play, it's very rare.), so it's more optimal to save Large Medkits until you actually need the heal than it is to overheal with them as a defensive buffer.
The first thought I have for this skill is 10-15% damage resistance, or 20-25% in a few areas(Maybe Plasma/Acid/Fire, since it's easy to imagine a survivalist type somehow living through large explosions. This is proper FPS/action movie thinking, right?). This makes it grant a unique tanking advantage, and makes it more likely that the first advantage(the nulling 1 damage to 0) will actually be relevant.
Of course, it's basically a blank slate as it is, so adding any advantage, or strengthening the ones that are there(Say, having it null damage randomly that is above 1, at a rate of (1/(N+1)) where N is the damage-so, null 1 50% of the time, null 2 33% of the time, etc.) would work too.
Juggler:
Not actually imbalanced per se, but, IIRC, I've seen discussions about how this ability is much better for the heavily spoiled player that digs through config files than it is for the average player.
Honestly, the answer seems simple to me. Make it two levels, make the first level grant N% speed to all equipment changes(weapon, armor, prepared item, etc.) and make swapping to the prepped weapon take 0.1 seconds(like it does now), and make the second grant N% more.
0.66/0.33 for swaps or 0.5/0.1 both seem reasonable to me. Depends on how good you want it to be. Being able to swap armor faster would make up somewhat for the loss in weapon flexibility, and it functions much more sensibly.
-Scavenger, Entrenchment
See above discussion. I'd be interested to see if anyone defends Entrenchment. Scavenger arguably doesn't belong anyways, on the grounds that anyone going for Assemblies will care about it anyways-so it effectively can function as a challenge run in and of its self, with a kind of long term achievement as the goal.
As I mentioned, Scavenger being able to mod all uniques once(Or even being able to mod them into basic assemblies) would increase the niche of the build-it would go from a rapid fire to a potential all-rounder. Still probably better at rapid fire than most things, though basic assemblies could be randomly funny. (Plasmatic Shrapnel Jackhammer.) And at least picking up a high end unique pistol(Like Cleric) would make them clearly the best user of it.
Entrenchment just seems like a case of needing more damage resistance. As mentioned, the reason that things like Malicious Blades work is because you're getting such good resistance off of it. Standing still is a pretty large downside, much like having to operate in melee is a downside for Berserker/Malicious Blades(well, Blades doesn't make you, but the skills leading up to it make it hard to avoid.).
-Gun Kata
I'm a little reluctant on this, because I have seen defense of it. I just can't entirely get why. The main upside seems to be the automatic reloads(0.1 shots after a dodge is nice, but SoG3 gives 0.4.), but with cutting out SoB, the damage potential is lower than other pistol builds even counting in the saved reload time, long term. You might be able to balance that out with specific setups, but the flipside is that you can balance out the requirement of reloading repeatedly with specific setups too(like just Bulking up your Pistols some.).
And the main time it's beneficial is the situation you least want to be in, again-in the open, being shot at long enough for both repeated dodges to be required and repeated reloads to be necessary.
This is less me saying the skill is useless, and more wondering what it does that, say, SoG3 and a few levels in Reloader wouldn't. And given its lack of SoG req, and the fact that SoG is very important for pistol builds, it seems like a late pickup at best...and late means that it's having to deal with iffy to dodge enemies like Mancubi. I dunno, it just seems a bit weak given how focused it is.
Weapons/Armor/etc.:
-Mjollnir
Haven't actually gotten this yet. Wiki claims it's a weapon that can only appear later than a Chainsaw, does less damage than a decently modded Combat Knife, and...that's it? Is the wiki missing some trait here like that it boomerangs when thrown? Even with that it might be questionable at 1-15 damage range. Regardless, if it doesn't boomerang, it probably should. :)
-Subtle Knife
3d5 is, again, kinda questionable, and for some reason the ability, despite being fairly similar to the Arena Master's Staff, takes MHP. I don't see a reason why. This is, at least, a bit better than a Combat Knife(...though it's oddly close to a heavily modded Combat Knife.), though, so it has some vague use for Malicious Blades builds. That ability doesn't really need to take MHP though, that I can see.
-Demolition Ammo
Another one I have to trust the Wiki on(There's only so fast I can get everything in the game.). It says, if I read it right, that it converts the damage of the weapon it's installed into to (Original Dice+2)d2 and makes it deal damage in a blast radius of 1.
I think the only times that actually nets higher damage are with a Combat Pistol and a Chaingun, and in both cases it's basically negligably better. Many times, that seems way worse. And radius blast normal shots can be self harming as well, making it a rather weirdly mediocre mod considering how good the other Master Assemblies are.
Considering that it takes four mods, wouldn't something more like (Original Dice+2)d(half original sides, rounded up) make more sense? It only impacts 10MM, and considering that a Firestorm, a Power and two Technical are involved, that seems more the pace of the investment involved.
Sure, you can make a really amazing 3d4 rad 1 Chaingun then, but how often are you going to want that over a Plasma Rifle with heavy mods? It's got some advantages and some disadvantages as well, it seems like. And if that's too good, you can always make it round down instead(which mostly makes it good for Combat Pistols and Chainguns, again, but at least a 3d3 Chaingun is worth mentioning.).
-Frag Shotgun
I'm not sure why there's a Unique Combat Shotgun that uses funny ammo, but it crunches enough of that funny ammo so that it's not more ammo efficient(A stack of shotgun shells is 30 and a Combat Shotgun eats one at a time, this eats four of 10MM, and they show up in 100 stacks. It's not even that much more efficient on a by-enemy-drop basis, since you get 140~ 10MM from a Commander and 30~ shells from a Sergeant), it doesn't do more damage, it hits the same cone, etc.
Oh, and it's 1.5s firing speed. For some mysterious reason. This seems like a good candidate for worst weapon in the game, and it's even unique so you can't mod it. At least you can make a Combat Shotgun into a Tactical, so it's better in every way, then. This weapon confuses me; I don't even know where to begin with it.
-Combat Translocator
Not actually a concept I dislike, but it consumes ten cells a shot(higher than a Plasma Rifle, two thirds that of a Tristar Blaster!) and randomly phases enemies.
The funny answer that comes to mind is to greatly lower the cells(to be honest, 1 would be okay) and have it function as a homing phase device when it hits enemies. Sending them to the stairs. Where you know where they are and can plan around that.
Of course, if you don't know where the stairs are, or are just trying to get through fast, spraying that around might be a bad idea. Then again, you can figure out where the stairs are pretty fast that way.
Alternatively, just give it an alt fire where you can shoot yourself with it. That might be too good, but it does take a turn to swap to...
-Bullet-Proof Vest
You know, I'm reluctant to list this one because the description its self implies that it's not expected to be worth much.
It's still not worth much, though. It's basically worse than a green armor to me, because I consider the main earlygame threats to not use bullets, so it's basically a worse green armor. And chances are, I'll be able to find a green armor.
So yeah.
It's not really that long of a list for me. There's some debate for some of it, too, surely.
63
Requests For Features / Re: Balance suggestions
« on: April 10, 2013, 10:25 »Quote
Doesn't matter. A standard issue pistol transformed into a storm bolter turns into a handheld doomsday device when backed by those stats.
I don't think you can mod a Storm Bolter at all. (There is in fact a topic where Kornell said this recently, IIRC?) So the usual "Just slap a A/S on it to mitigate accuracy" doesn't work as well.
Storm Bolters gain +3.5 on average with Sharpshooter, and benefit reasonably well from Eagle Eye. A SoG5/SoB5/EE2/3 build will eventually outclass a Sharpshooter one reliably, but that's closer to L20 than L15, and the Sharpshooter build would have been able to build some defensive stats with their saved points in that time, so it isn't even entirely one-sided even then. Sharpshooter's reqs of relevant-to-pistol-build skills really help out that comparison, here.
And it's not especially hard to build a Storm Bolter without Scavenger.
I'm not arguing that at extreme levels(20+) a Scavenger Build won't outclass a Sharpshooter build. It will, eventually. It just takes a very long time, and by that point you're probably in pretty good control of the game, from what I've seen.
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I'm not saying that TH is useless ofc, it's just the real power lies in SoB.
Well, I can't argue that. SoB is definitely the more important skill.
64
Requests For Features / Re: Balance suggestions
« on: April 10, 2013, 08:57 »Quote
MSc and pistols are not compatible? Ha! SoG5, SoB5, P3B2 combat pistol (3d6) [26/26]. DG? Unique mods? Unique pistols? Aint nobody have time to use them when you have 3d6+10 damage each shot. Less than 3*6+5, but still A LOT.
That's also the best modding assembly, though.
Pretty much everything is a drop from that, and there's no guarantee you'll see a Combat Pistol on a run(or that you won't be able to mod it that fully, for that matter. Or at least, get the Ps, which are what really matters.).
This reminds me that I don't really know the rules for when and where you can stack standard mods, though. It'd help if I did at points.
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But they all come with disadvantages, and MSc basically have none except inability to take another master.
And the part where you lose Triggerhappy.
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But +30% is not that good. Like you care that hell barons will deal not 12 but 8 damage. Still too much. And there's also the fact that you have to stand still.
I'm pretty sure that Protection kicks in after resists (And I think it kicks in after shotgun falloff damage reduction, too. Hard to be absolutely certain, of course.).
So, 12 reduced to 8 and then having 4 protection applied is pretty different from 12 and then 4 protection applied. It looks a lot more competitive then.
Having said that, yeah, I don't know about the standing still thing. Using it correctly seems difficult. It may not even be a high enough boost, even with that, to justify bothering-it's certainly not high enough to just stand and shoot groups of enemies, your armor will get torn up and it really won't be any different from 12-30% then...
I can't say it seems great on paper.
65
Discussion / Re: Poll: which medals can we do without?
« on: April 09, 2013, 15:08 »That is so 0996. No seriously, I ran into DS a couple of runs back and it didn't register. Dangdest.
I can confirm this for this version-I found it once, poked at it a while, decided it wasn't worth time I'd rather spend playing the game to figure out, and wandered off. Despite trying a dozen or so times to pick it up, no register for me.
66
Requests For Features / Re: Balance suggestions
« on: April 09, 2013, 14:43 »
If it's only good for rapid setups-which, correct me if I'm wrong, is basically what you're saying?-then doesn't it have to compete with Catseye, Ammochain and Entrenchment, the Rapid-specific skills?
Ammochain is very close to giving you a Nanomanufacture Ammo for any chain fire gun you pick, and Cateye...Cateye is basically great, as far as I can tell, granting you an entirely unreproduceable and reasonably powerful benefit that's going to be, at best, subjective to compete with.
So it has to compete with 30% resistance to all attack types while Chain firing, which is on the same class. Someone who's tried that might be able to give a better opinion of how it works out than I(I tend to forget Chain Fire exists, sadly, and haven't gotten around to that skill build yet, so it's a bit of a blank.), but Entrenchment sounds better to me, on paper. (Wide spread and strong resistance is really good, look at Malicious Blades/Berserker.)
Ammochain is very close to giving you a Nanomanufacture Ammo for any chain fire gun you pick, and Cateye...Cateye is basically great, as far as I can tell, granting you an entirely unreproduceable and reasonably powerful benefit that's going to be, at best, subjective to compete with.
So it has to compete with 30% resistance to all attack types while Chain firing, which is on the same class. Someone who's tried that might be able to give a better opinion of how it works out than I(I tend to forget Chain Fire exists, sadly, and haven't gotten around to that skill build yet, so it's a bit of a blank.), but Entrenchment sounds better to me, on paper. (Wide spread and strong resistance is really good, look at Malicious Blades/Berserker.)
67
Discussion / Re: Corner shooting oddities
« on: April 09, 2013, 09:23 »
Yeah, I'm normally a big proponent of symmetric LoS, but the asymmetries are both thematic(plenty of FPS have had times you can shoot enemies that can't see you), fairly easy to grasp(draw a line between yourself and the enemy) and fairly necessary on higher difficulties.
You'd essentially have to overhaul the entire game, it feels like. I think a good corner shooting tutorial would be more valuable than doing that, at this stage.
You'd essentially have to overhaul the entire game, it feels like. I think a good corner shooting tutorial would be more valuable than doing that, at this stage.
68
Discussion / Re: Poll: which medals can we do without?
« on: April 09, 2013, 09:19 »
No option for Fallout Gold/Platinum? The medals that literally exist to show the world that you got really lucky and got to skip a whole lot of floors?
:(
Voted for Gutt's Heart/Iron Skull/Gambler's Shield. Gambler's Shield requires you to play negatively on purpose(not judging the switches, just randomly mashing them) and since mashing switches randomly can kill you randomly, but probably won't, this is less hard and more RNG. Iron Skull requires specific build boring degenerate play, from what I've heard.
Gutt's Heart...I'm not as fretted about Dragonslayer as some people. But simply getting Dragonslayer, and being able to equip it, probably means you're going to clear on whatever difficulty you're on, given the range of floors it can appear at and how powerful it is. That's not really something that needs a medal, and Dragonslayer wearers already get the entry in their uniques anyways to note that they did it. (And there's another medal related to Dragonslayer, I think.) So ehn, seems kinda trite. At least Cleric Cross means you may have had to swap to a pistol to finish off Mastermind, which is at least a little annoying...
:(
Voted for Gutt's Heart/Iron Skull/Gambler's Shield. Gambler's Shield requires you to play negatively on purpose(not judging the switches, just randomly mashing them) and since mashing switches randomly can kill you randomly, but probably won't, this is less hard and more RNG. Iron Skull requires specific build boring degenerate play, from what I've heard.
Gutt's Heart...I'm not as fretted about Dragonslayer as some people. But simply getting Dragonslayer, and being able to equip it, probably means you're going to clear on whatever difficulty you're on, given the range of floors it can appear at and how powerful it is. That's not really something that needs a medal, and Dragonslayer wearers already get the entry in their uniques anyways to note that they did it. (And there's another medal related to Dragonslayer, I think.) So ehn, seems kinda trite. At least Cleric Cross means you may have had to swap to a pistol to finish off Mastermind, which is at least a little annoying...
69
Requests For Features / Re: Balance suggestions
« on: April 09, 2013, 08:32 »Quote
I'll grant you that playing melee without BER (or MMB to compensate) is going to be a pain in the ass, but a pistol build without DG is no problem whatsoever,
In this case, the problem is no DG and you're passing up Sharpshooter, though.
There's no way to reconcile the damage drop compared to Sharpshooter, for a lot of levels. It'd be one thing if it was a sidegrade build, but this is the class that gets a really good single gun build as well.
The only skill that Sharpshooter notably blocks(besides Dualgunner, of course, but it's obvious why it blocks that.), that can't be replaced with another skill, is SoB, and SoB takes until the final levels unlock at 12+ to exceed it. (And the exceed then is debatable...I know if you had, say, an Energy Combat Pistol, that's going to do basically as much damage with L5 SoB as Sharpshooter, same with a Cleric in single shot mode.)
So, again, it's still essentially only worth considering as competition incredibly high levels(Where you can get L5 SoB/L5 SoG and come out ahead-which is of course ten levels worth of skills alone, and only achievable at L14.). While I haven't really ran ridiculously high difficulty at ridiculously high levels yet(My N! run cleared rather low level), I have the sinking suspicion that you're basically not in that much trouble at extremely high levels, and that Scavenger is rarely getting you a notable advantage early on.
Basically, just because it works doesn't mean the skill's any good. Besides, the skill is neat and gets people some of the grindier badges faster, meaning that people would take it if it was totally useless anyways.
Quote
The only one that matters with Scavenger is Triggerhappy. Building towards melee or pistols doesn't make as much sense when your master trait is pretty much designed to give you a source of S and F mods, so Scavenger should be treated as a rapid-fire build. You do get offense as part of building it: the two levels of EE make rapid-fire weapons much nastier (pretty much required if you care about actually getting any efficient use of ammo and time with RF weapons), especially when you add an S mod. You also need the first level of Int, taking the second and making it an SS weapon makes things even better... it's a poor man's MCe, you don't get the damage per bullet, but you do hit with almost every bullet and at further than normal sight range... plus, you get fancy toys because you have WK2. Losing Triggerhappy isn't too bad... one F mod can replace it on a weapon for you, allowing you to spend those two levels on something else without losing too much.
Building towards melee would be kinda weird, yes, but the option is denied anyways.
I think the above discussion shows how I feel about pistols, but it's worth noting that there's definitely some debatability to saying it's a bad build for pistols. I agree that rapid fire is still the obvious option.
The problem with it as an optimal rapid fire build is that, in the beginning, you can't rely on getting any specific mod-much like anyone can't. If you look over the numbers on the wiki(which are presumably still accurate?), there's two 1/6 chances on an exotic weapon, for Sniper/Firestorm. Now, a Unique has good odds, but there's no guaranteed Uniques, as there shouldn't be, and the fact remains that you may actually want to use a unique, instead of taking a spin on the RNG.
Those are nice on a rapid fire, but Sniper is redundant with EE to a degree-you'd really rather have SoB-and if you can reach the fixed chance Exotics, it's usually not much more of a jump to reach for the fixed chance special mods that can appear in early areas as well.
In other words, you can reproduce a maybe advantage with a certain advantage, just by going with Triggerhappy instead, and possibly reproduce that mod advantage as well. From the viewpoint of reliability, going with Triggerhappy is better, and from the viewpoint of trying to game the RNG, while Scavenger does it more reliably, it doesn't actually produce any advantages you can't get another way, or give much of any reliable advantages.
This boils out a little differently long term due to the fact that you're likely to get a lot of lesser mods, though. The biggest advantages of Scavenger seem more likely to be things like "Moderately reliable Cerberus Boots/Tactical Boots" and "Being able to mod any decent armor you come across with your basic mods/assemblies of preference", but they still take forever to get going as advantages, and you still have to accept a restricted set of abilities for it.
Essentially, it isn't actually useless, it's just not notably better than nothing(that is, no Master traits). If it's better at all.
It's also really not that bad with shotguns, incidentally. I just went with the weapons I happened to find when I used it, and they happened to be good Shotguns, so I rolled with it. The only problem was, it never gave me any realistic advantages-since it was Ao100, I ended up using Unique armors and an Onyx I found on the floor, and my main weapon was a Nano Shrapnel Double Shotgun, with the Nano also found just laying around.
Thinking on it, that flexibility is part of the problem, isn't it? Uniques are really good, the build is an all-rounder designed to mod the best weapon it finds, and it has to break down some of the best weapons it finds to get any really special mods reliably. (And, of course, it can't mod them at all.) It actually plays counter to the all-rounder style it's meant to represent. Funny.
70
Requests For Features / Re: Balance suggestions
« on: April 08, 2013, 15:00 »Quote
Also, put the trait in perspective: unlike all other masters, Scavenger doesn't block any basic traits, allowing you to apply it to just about any build you want.
This is true, but with it blocking Dualgunner, Berserker and Triggerhappy, the only weapon specific skill it doesn't block is...Shottyman.
Which isn't incredibly important to the playstyle as those other three skills are anyways, so you can just skip it if you wanted anyways.
And then, of course, you don't get a straight up damage boost Master skill.
Basically Scavenger, unlike most mastery skills, makes you vaguely bad at dealing...damage, in general, from the one run I've done with it(Ao100 Normal, cleared that.). In exchange, you get more mods, but in general it's one or two rare mods a run tops. At least, based on Ao100, which is more likely to give rare mods than a normal run, it seems like.
And a lot of the best assemblies take rare mods. Especially ones that create playstyle defining weaponry(Nano types...mostly Nano types really, though I think the BFG variants can certainly define a few floors very explosively.).
I can't say that I feel it's totally useless (that nod goes to Survivalist, which seems like it would only save you more than 50 HP a game if you were such a tank that you don't actually need it to clear anyways) but I wouldn't want to take it outside of Ao100(where, at least, the fact that it doesn't block any base traits means that your 15+ levels are better.), or Ao666 I suppose. And it mostly felt like I was using it for laughs there, wouldn't take it on a higher mode than HNTR honestly.
Honestly, seems easiest just to rename it(Techhead or something) and give it the added effect of allowing all (all non-artifact?) items one mod. That way you get more common mods, and always will have something to do with them, no matter what your luck is, and it defines the skill as a generalist more.
I really do like the idea of Firestorm adding fire resistance to armor and Sniper narrowing a shotgun's spread(or maybe lowering its falloff damage penalty%, so that you don't get Doubles going 15 squares suddenly.), incidentally.
71
Nightmare! / Re: [N!|64%|YAVP] Not bad for a couple of weeks.
« on: April 06, 2013, 21:50 »
Well, I don't want to give the impression this is my first Roguelike or anything-it's about #5(Depends on if you call FTL a Roguelike, I suppose.), and that includes a ridiculous amount of ToME clears and a Dungeon Crawl 15 Rune clear.
I'm still very happy with grasping the game that fast, though. I didn't spoil myself at all before the first HNTR clear(Always glad when I can do that with a Roguelike!), and the corner shooting mechanics are simultaneously both one of the weirdest mechanics I've ever seen and one of the most easily described. (Just draw a line mentally between yourself and the target and, if there's a wall in the way at all, they almost certainly can't see you.)
Grasping that helped a ton, and I've always been pretty good at understanding enemy AI, which is really a huge focus of the game. So it worked out. :)
I'm still glad to see other people think it's neat too, though. I was really proud of getting N! this fast! :)
I'm still very happy with grasping the game that fast, though. I didn't spoil myself at all before the first HNTR clear(Always glad when I can do that with a Roguelike!), and the corner shooting mechanics are simultaneously both one of the weirdest mechanics I've ever seen and one of the most easily described. (Just draw a line mentally between yourself and the target and, if there's a wall in the way at all, they almost certainly can't see you.)
Grasping that helped a ton, and I've always been pretty good at understanding enemy AI, which is really a huge focus of the game. So it worked out. :)
I'm still glad to see other people think it's neat too, though. I was really proud of getting N! this fast! :)
72
Nightmare! / Re: [N!|64%|YAVP] Not bad for a couple of weeks.
« on: April 06, 2013, 13:27 »
Good catch on that; I almost swapped to exactly that, but without experience on a lower mode with it, I wasn't sure how it'd play out in practice against some things. Mostly Cyberdemon, really, given that nasty 5 armor. Then again, without dodges he tends to deal a ton of damage, too, so that'd help in that way. (I also considered a classic Catseye build.)
I've been mucking with the builds I didn't try out before since that, got a H/AoB/100% run using Malicious Blades a bit ago. (Azreal's Scythe is fun.) So I definitely want to give that a try. :)
I've been mucking with the builds I didn't try out before since that, got a H/AoB/100% run using Malicious Blades a bit ago. (Azreal's Scythe is fun.) So I definitely want to give that a try. :)
73
Nightmare! / [N!|64%|YAVP] Not bad for a couple of weeks.
« on: April 05, 2013, 15:39 »--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
E, level 14 Hell Knight Captain Marine,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 64044 turns and scored 542452 points.
He played for 1 hour, 5 minutes and 49 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 731 out of 1142 hellspawn. (64%)
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 4
Levels completed : 0
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Cyberdemon's Head
UAC Star (bronze cluster)
UAC Platinum Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
#>###################.............%....................####
######################...............####...............###
###################........X##.#.....####.....####.......##
################..............##.....####.....####........#
#################............###.....####.....####.........
#################............###..............####.........
################...........................................
################.....####............................####..
################.....####............................####..
################.....####............................####&.
################.....####............................####..
#################..........................................
################............####..............####.........
#################.#.........####.....####.....####.........
####################........####.....####.....####........#
#####################.......####.....####.....####.......##
######################...............####...............###
#>#####################................................####
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 81/110 Experience 80134/14
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +0 ToDmg Ranged +1 ToDmg Melee +1
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Marine
Ironman (Level 5)
Tough as nails (Level 3)
Son of a bitch (Level 1)
Reloader (Level 2)
Badass (Level 1)
Shottyman (Level 1)
Army of the Dead (Level 1)
TaN->TaN->Rel->Rel->SM->Bad->MAD->Iro->Iro->Iro->SoB->TaN->Iro->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] nothing
[b] [ Weapon ] elephant gun (12d3) [0/1]
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] nothing
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1] (T1)
[b] red armor [1/4] (6%)
[c] shotgun shell (x50)
[d] shotgun shell (x50)
[e] shotgun shell (x50)
[f] shotgun shell (x50)
[g] shotgun shell (x21)
[h] phase device
[i] power mod pack
[j] agility mod pack
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
None
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
128 former humans
97 former sergeants
68 former captains
122 imps
55 demons
67 lost souls
20 cacodemons
18 hell knights
21 barons of hell
18 arachnotrons
14 former commandos
6 pain elementals
46 revenants
12 mancubi
16 arch-viles
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
7 elite former commandos
2 bruiser brothers
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
He left without a fuss.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 9 he assembled a elephant gun!
On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
He left the Deimos Lab without drawing too much attention.
On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
Not knowing what to do, he left.
On level 13 he assembled a fireproof armor!
On level 14 he assembled a tactical boots!
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
Level 23 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You stop running.
You reload the elephant gun.
Boom! You are hit! Your red armor is completely destroyed! You are hit! Boom!
You dodge!
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You reload the elephant gun.
You hear the scream of a freed soul! Congratulations! You defeated the Spider
Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
115 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
91 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
3 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 7 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
13 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
3 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
8 killed the bitch and survived.
2 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Well, the first Mortem I ever made was on the 26th of last month, so a bit less than two weeks. Pretty fun game.
I'm not terribly fond of N!, I have to say-respawn, especially as fast as it happens(way too many cases of killing a group of enemies/having one instantly pop up again and require multiple turns extra to put down) isn't very fun to me, so me getting a high kills run probably won't happen. Challenges on lower difficulties are more fun for me. :)
Also, I cannot beat Hell's Arena on N! for the life of me. I've gotten pretty close, since I kinda want that Platinum, but I'm utterly lost as to how to do it consistently enough to get through. Shame, though it didn't surprise me much.
Still, low kills, it's reasonably fun. I hit on a strategy I liked during UV; Take TaN1, go straight for MAD after, take TaN2, get good armor, and pretend my Marine is some kind of moderate maneuverability armored vehicle that sprays a very strange shrapnel tank cannon. Found that the Elephant Gun worked really well for this strategy, so I generally shot for it. This got me through 100% UV and AoS UV(Sadly, not the same run. Because I thought my 80 cells worth of Plasma Shotgun would get through The Wall, and they didn't. :( ), but I recognized pretty quick that tanking is not really that optimal for N!.
On the other hand, I didn't have a better idea of which new strategy to learn, and I figured the build would work decently(Modified it a bit for TaN2 early, though.).
Got lucky on Power Mods, which was good, as I didn't get lucky on Double Shotguns(I think I finally found one in Hell. I didn't bother with it.), got a lucky Phase Device for Phobos Anomaly(Is this even possible to live through without either a Phase, Hellrunner 2 or rocket jumping?) and a nice Shell Box that, combined, got me through with very reasonable 20%~ damage, and since this was my first run that had gotten past Anomaly at all, I figured I was pretty dead somewhere along the line.
Nope. I managed to get my Elephant Gun on F9, which helped massively, got fairly good luck on Medkits(which is to say, I got some), and even managed to get a lucky Invinco on F...14. Fortunately F15 was a cave, so it was time to run as fast as I could. The invinco lasted about five turns after Cyberdemon, so I definitely cut that close.
Hell had multiple close calls(including one situation where I had to Homing off the entire floor nearly instantly and pray that the other end wasn't too guarded. It wasn't.) and my armor was pretty shredded towards the end-I got lucky and picked up a Red and a Ballistic Vest somewhere in there, for the final.
Unfortunately, I still don't really entirely get Spider Mastermind's kiting AI, but I got two lucky breaks. First, I happened to remember to try rocket AoE shooting him, which broke off about 30% of his remaining 50%~ life after I ran out of Medkits.
Secondly, that broken pillar that I made during that confused the poor thing greatly. I wasn't sure what it was going to do, but I was never sure what it was going to do, so I figured confusing the AI by ducking through it would make for a good strategy. I'm not sure if it did or not, but I got enough out of LoS shots to win, so I figure it was a good plan.
Phew, too close though. I would have had a nuke for it, but a jerk Hell Baron blew it up while I was standing on it. :(
Still, pretty happy, considering how little I've been playing. :)