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31
Discussion / Re: Knew I wasn't crazy!
« on: November 01, 2007, 11:45 »
Hm, not sure if that's even the right picture, but IIRC I was playing UV, so it's possible...
32
Requests For Features / Re: Directional LOS i.e. FOV
« on: November 01, 2007, 11:43 »
FOV has been discussed and Kornel decided the lighthouse problem (take a step, turn in every direction, take a step...) was too much inconvenience for too little gain (you could argue that you wouldn't have to play that way, but you'd be far likelier to die by not doing so). It's also been done in a proof-of-concept fashion with a game called Urban Warfare, but in that game there's a significant time cost for turning which means that you can't do the lighthouse thing and have to skulk close to walls so as to have the best chance of seeing the bads before they see you (it's also a bit more forgiving than DoomRL would be in similar situations; you can get out of sight and not necessarily be pursued, and you can also take 10 hits total where in DoomRL you'd be lucky to survive 5 hits by BOH fire).
33
Requests For Features / Re: A coupla little things
« on: October 28, 2007, 00:41 »
Ah, the Mortuary. IME, letting the rezzed army get big enough that they can snag the corner loot is pretty much damning anyway.
34
Requests For Features / Re: A coupla little things
« on: October 27, 2007, 05:46 »
I believe I once fought three Viles which decided to rez each other; I've not seen it happen again but it was kinda frightening. Fortunately the super-speed of AoMr allowed me the strategy of lowering the health of the various Viles before killing them in the time between their actions (such that they could neither fry me nor rez the fallen).
35
Discussion / Knew I wasn't crazy!
« on: October 26, 2007, 21:09 »
Arch-Viles *do* leave corpses!
sergeant is bleeding! The bleeding stops. The former sergeant loses
blood. The former sergeant dies.
########################
#....#....>............#
#....#.................#
#....#.......0.........#.
#....#.................##.####.##############
#0.../...........................}............
#....#.................#........}.|}|..........
#....#.................#..........[}}}.........
#....#............................}|}.|..}.%....
#....#.................#....0>...}|}}}....|.....
#....#...........0...../.%........%.}%%..........
#....#.................#...............@.........
#....#.................#################/####+
#....#.................+ ...
##################/##### ...
....
###+
Adam Ring Armor : none Phobos Base Lev2
Health: 58% Exp: 2/26% Weapon: pistol (2d4) [2/6]
coward
:/ I know that doesn't look like much, but the only way I could really get better proof is through a video recording of some sort, and I'm not sure how to work that. Suffice it to say that my final bullet knocked and killed it out of sight, and a caco did come around too, but it got shot out of the way such that I was able to see this, which finally proves that I *wasn't* crazy that time a long while ago when I had to fight three Viles which rezzed each other. Also, no, there weren't any other enemies I killed in this area. The Vile was the first thing to poke its head through the door, and the only one I killed. Acid and lava don't do bleeding damage, so it couldn't have been either of those on a different corpse.
>_> Sorry if this inspires more fear in you all... at least they don't resurrect each other often! Oh yes, they also have a *melee* attack, which appears to be somewhere between former foo and demon strength, so there's a new weakness as well. :grin: Happy hunting!
sergeant is bleeding! The bleeding stops. The former sergeant loses
blood. The former sergeant dies.
########################
#....#....>............#
#....#.................#
#....#.......0.........#.
#....#.................##.####.##############
#0.../...........................}............
#....#.................#........}.|}|..........
#....#.................#..........[}}}.........
#....#............................}|}.|..}.%....
#....#.................#....0>...}|}}}....|.....
#....#...........0...../.%........%.}%%..........
#....#.................#...............@.........
#....#.................#################/####+
#....#.................+ ...
##################/##### ...
....
###+
Adam Ring Armor : none Phobos Base Lev2
Health: 58% Exp: 2/26% Weapon: pistol (2d4) [2/6]
coward
:/ I know that doesn't look like much, but the only way I could really get better proof is through a video recording of some sort, and I'm not sure how to work that. Suffice it to say that my final bullet knocked and killed it out of sight, and a caco did come around too, but it got shot out of the way such that I was able to see this, which finally proves that I *wasn't* crazy that time a long while ago when I had to fight three Viles which rezzed each other. Also, no, there weren't any other enemies I killed in this area. The Vile was the first thing to poke its head through the door, and the only one I killed. Acid and lava don't do bleeding damage, so it couldn't have been either of those on a different corpse.
>_> Sorry if this inspires more fear in you all... at least they don't resurrect each other often! Oh yes, they also have a *melee* attack, which appears to be somewhere between former foo and demon strength, so there's a new weakness as well. :grin: Happy hunting!
36
Requests For Features / Re: Chaingun Overhaul
« on: October 26, 2007, 18:38 »
Well, I wouldn't mind being able to control my fire past the first 5 for chaingun shots as a part of Triggerhappy. In fact, that's pretty much the only reason I never take more than a single level of it; I often feel like I'm wasting my bullets even when I only take one level of it thanks to the effects of SoB and EE as applied to former foos.
37
Requests For Features / Re: Intuition
« on: October 26, 2007, 18:34 »
For my idea on how the determination of threats with Int 3 should be handled, I think that these presumptions are likely correct:
1. The program always has the map on hand (nearly full maps are dumped on death, and there's also the Computer Map powerup).
2. The program can tell how far away the enemies are from the player at all times (a little stretch, but a credible one since you can get exact measurements within sight range; why wouldn't this be possible all the time?).
The most general logic, which could apply on any map (even before we discuss power, red doors, groups vs. singles, and such), is that the game looks to see what's around in the range of one normal vision range past the player's natural sight range (8 squares past the player's, which can be increased with Cateye even though the extra range of Intuition cannot be increased by Cateye, which is likely simpler to program than the alternative of allowing Cateye to directly affect Intuition range [and technically we could make it even simpler by making it so the computer assumes the player has no Cateye ever, which probably wouldn't be a huge deal balance-wise]), and upon finding a monster compares it to the axes; if x/y are zero or equal to each other, there's no more work to be done and the computer puts a green light in the relevant cardinal direction, and if not then the numbers of the cardinal directions are compared to the numbers of the enemy, and whichever cardinal direction is closer gets the light, and if both relevant directions are equidistant, then the computer will make the arbitrary preference of the relevant diagonal direction. Three examples:
1. Player is at 5, 23; Monster is at 17, 23. Game checks the axes, finds that the monster position relative to the player position is 12, 0 and sticks a green light in the square to the player's right.
2. Player is at 5, 23; Monster is at 17, 25. Game checks the axes, finds that the relative monster position is 12, -2, figures out that 12, 0 is closer to that than 12, -12, and sticks a green light in the square to the player's right.
3. Player is at 5, 23; Monster is at 17, 29. Game goes through this up to the point when it finds that 12, -6 is an equal distance between 12, 0 and 12, -12, shrugs its shoulders and sticks a green light in the square to the player's bottom-right.
Of course, I am not a programmer, so I may be missing something crucial, but from what I know of it that seems easy enough to pull off. The green light is as far as I can tell the only potentially clumsy part of that (either it covers up items, or it necessitates tiles (one copy for no light and one copy with a light), and I only use that because I'm not sure what else would work better for a *basic* rendering of the idea. The next part of that is to compare monster proximity; that could be done by comparing single relative monster positions to each other (within the detection range of Int 3, obviously). Monsters within normal sight range (8 tiles as I understand it) of each other are, for the sake of simplicity, considered a part of a group. This is probably not the best way to do it, and ideally walls/doors would be taken into account, but as I said, I'm not a programmer, so I'm trying to go a bit slowly here. Also interesting to me is the idea that Intuition 3 can still be considerably useful even if it (and perhaps because it) incidentally overestimates the danger, so it may not be a problem to have this behavior to begin with. As for determining group strength... well, that seems like a tough case. Either too much gets into the formula and it becomes crazy convoluted, or not enough gets in and the players disagree. I'd take armor, damage, health, and experience into account, but that may be too much... not sure how I'd fix that.
1. The program always has the map on hand (nearly full maps are dumped on death, and there's also the Computer Map powerup).
2. The program can tell how far away the enemies are from the player at all times (a little stretch, but a credible one since you can get exact measurements within sight range; why wouldn't this be possible all the time?).
The most general logic, which could apply on any map (even before we discuss power, red doors, groups vs. singles, and such), is that the game looks to see what's around in the range of one normal vision range past the player's natural sight range (8 squares past the player's, which can be increased with Cateye even though the extra range of Intuition cannot be increased by Cateye, which is likely simpler to program than the alternative of allowing Cateye to directly affect Intuition range [and technically we could make it even simpler by making it so the computer assumes the player has no Cateye ever, which probably wouldn't be a huge deal balance-wise]), and upon finding a monster compares it to the axes; if x/y are zero or equal to each other, there's no more work to be done and the computer puts a green light in the relevant cardinal direction, and if not then the numbers of the cardinal directions are compared to the numbers of the enemy, and whichever cardinal direction is closer gets the light, and if both relevant directions are equidistant, then the computer will make the arbitrary preference of the relevant diagonal direction. Three examples:
1. Player is at 5, 23; Monster is at 17, 23. Game checks the axes, finds that the monster position relative to the player position is 12, 0 and sticks a green light in the square to the player's right.
2. Player is at 5, 23; Monster is at 17, 25. Game checks the axes, finds that the relative monster position is 12, -2, figures out that 12, 0 is closer to that than 12, -12, and sticks a green light in the square to the player's right.
3. Player is at 5, 23; Monster is at 17, 29. Game goes through this up to the point when it finds that 12, -6 is an equal distance between 12, 0 and 12, -12, shrugs its shoulders and sticks a green light in the square to the player's bottom-right.
Of course, I am not a programmer, so I may be missing something crucial, but from what I know of it that seems easy enough to pull off. The green light is as far as I can tell the only potentially clumsy part of that (either it covers up items, or it necessitates tiles (one copy for no light and one copy with a light), and I only use that because I'm not sure what else would work better for a *basic* rendering of the idea. The next part of that is to compare monster proximity; that could be done by comparing single relative monster positions to each other (within the detection range of Int 3, obviously). Monsters within normal sight range (8 tiles as I understand it) of each other are, for the sake of simplicity, considered a part of a group. This is probably not the best way to do it, and ideally walls/doors would be taken into account, but as I said, I'm not a programmer, so I'm trying to go a bit slowly here. Also interesting to me is the idea that Intuition 3 can still be considerably useful even if it (and perhaps because it) incidentally overestimates the danger, so it may not be a problem to have this behavior to begin with. As for determining group strength... well, that seems like a tough case. Either too much gets into the formula and it becomes crazy convoluted, or not enough gets in and the players disagree. I'd take armor, damage, health, and experience into account, but that may be too much... not sure how I'd fix that.
38
Requests For Features / Re: A coupla little things
« on: October 26, 2007, 17:11 »Have you seen Baron with BFG?
Have you seen Baron with Red Armor? It is *not* fun, though I admit BFG would be.. worse (but then, I'm not sure when a Baron would get the chance to snag one, either).
39
Discussion / Re: Fixed SoaB will be broken as hell.
« on: October 25, 2007, 20:14 »
Dual-wielding is better for certain than single-wield; the only real questions are "can you get enough mods for two pistols?", "can you snap up enough levels for SoG, Finesse, Whizkid, and finally Dualgunner?", and "do you really want to bother seeing as one is plenty awesome on its own?"
Also, way attack speed is calculated is like this:
1 turn = 100 energy, all player actions before modifiers are taken into account = 10 turns or 1000 energy (this goes for everything, not just attacks).
Speed mod = -100 energy (10% of 1000)
Son of a Gun = -200 energy (20% of 1000)
Finesse = -100 energy (10% of 1000)
So for a guy with 3 SoG, 2 Fin, and 1 speed mod on his pistol, he shoots with a cost of (1000-(3*200)-(2*100)-100) or 100 energy, which is the lowest possible amount of energy any action can take. If this person added another speed mod to his gun, it wouldn't have any effect at all, and they're already shooting once every turn. So, yes, where most would only get 1 shot, you will get 10. Of course, in practice you probably won't actually take 10 shots in that timespan since the nasties *will* get a chance to act in that time (which means if you, like me, use aggressive tactics for the +tohit and/or the +todam boost, you'll likely get smacked in the face by whatever gets thrown), and you'll really want to either try to dodge or heal instead of shoot. Also, a person using Dualgunner 1 will have to use two speed mods instead of one to achieve an energy of 100, otherwise they will have to live with an energy of 140 (translating to about 7 shots in a normal turn).
Also also, the bit about this being Intuition 3 on crack is rubbish even with this being a significant balance change. Back before the nerfs, Intuition 3 games, when properly managed, allowed players to kill pretty much every single enemy on the level without ever once getting into range of attack, obliviating the need for medkits and armor alike. All you really needed in an Int 3 game was rockets for blowing holes in the walls, lots of 10mm ammunition, and a good amount of caution and foresight, and the only way it could have been made any better would have been magic map style revealing of the level structure and items. Now, it's useful, but it's not nearly as easy to abuse. SoB 3 just means that you spend less time fighting the hellspawn head-on; you still have to give the enemy the chance to attack and kill, which you never had to do with Int 3.
Also, way attack speed is calculated is like this:
1 turn = 100 energy, all player actions before modifiers are taken into account = 10 turns or 1000 energy (this goes for everything, not just attacks).
Speed mod = -100 energy (10% of 1000)
Son of a Gun = -200 energy (20% of 1000)
Finesse = -100 energy (10% of 1000)
So for a guy with 3 SoG, 2 Fin, and 1 speed mod on his pistol, he shoots with a cost of (1000-(3*200)-(2*100)-100) or 100 energy, which is the lowest possible amount of energy any action can take. If this person added another speed mod to his gun, it wouldn't have any effect at all, and they're already shooting once every turn. So, yes, where most would only get 1 shot, you will get 10. Of course, in practice you probably won't actually take 10 shots in that timespan since the nasties *will* get a chance to act in that time (which means if you, like me, use aggressive tactics for the +tohit and/or the +todam boost, you'll likely get smacked in the face by whatever gets thrown), and you'll really want to either try to dodge or heal instead of shoot. Also, a person using Dualgunner 1 will have to use two speed mods instead of one to achieve an energy of 100, otherwise they will have to live with an energy of 140 (translating to about 7 shots in a normal turn).
Also also, the bit about this being Intuition 3 on crack is rubbish even with this being a significant balance change. Back before the nerfs, Intuition 3 games, when properly managed, allowed players to kill pretty much every single enemy on the level without ever once getting into range of attack, obliviating the need for medkits and armor alike. All you really needed in an Int 3 game was rockets for blowing holes in the walls, lots of 10mm ammunition, and a good amount of caution and foresight, and the only way it could have been made any better would have been magic map style revealing of the level structure and items. Now, it's useful, but it's not nearly as easy to abuse. SoB 3 just means that you spend less time fighting the hellspawn head-on; you still have to give the enemy the chance to attack and kill, which you never had to do with Int 3.
40
Discussion / Re: Weapon mod question?
« on: October 25, 2007, 01:33 »
Frankly, I feel anything higher than Whizkid 1 for an AoMr game is nearly pointless; you won't need speed mods with Fin 2 and SoG 3 past the first (the traits knock your firing speed down to 2 turns from 10, and the speed mod knocks it down to one turn, the lowest possible amount of time *any* action can take), and magazine mods aren't really necessary either with the way your gun turns into an Uzi. Of course, the ideal 3D3R1S1M isn't reachable *every* game, and by the time you hit 8 mods you've technically got things nearly beat anyway, so it's not like you need to worry about it too much if you go for WK 2... :)
41
Discussion / Re: Fixed SoaB will be broken as hell.
« on: October 25, 2007, 01:16 »
Ok, let's look at the math calmly.
In my experience with the beta, this actually gives a fair amount of help to shotguns; it's still not as handy as being able to reload while moving, but it gives a noticeable boost such that you won't need to be quite as close to land a killing blow. Obviously, a person using shotguns primarily will have more important trait picks first, but the effect from SoB is appreciable as it pads the effect of distance some.
Your first figure on the armor math is wrong; the lowest amount of damage from a hit that is at all possible, including things not normally called hits like acid and lava damage, is 0 (as far as everything I've ever seen indicates), and I'm about 99% sure that gunshots/punches/the like have to do at least 1 point of damage on a successful hit, thus it would not be 7.5 damage but 12.5 damage (((1+4)/2)*5). But I know the response already; an 80% increase still seems like too much of a change, and granted, the possibility that I'm wrong about the single point of necessary damage would up that to 125%. The trouble with giving percentage changes is that when the numbers are low, so's the effect; the number difference, for conservative arguments' sake is 0-4 versus 2-7. It's not clear just from that that things are going to suddenly turn into a cakewalk. Before we go ahead and declare that SoB's gotta get removed, or perhaps changed such that it makes hits less accurate, or that it makes only a decimal increase in the damage, let's see what the wiki says about HP totals...
..and compare the number of times you'd have to shoot our most notorious foes (assuming all bullets hit their mark and that armor can reduce a hit to 0 damage) before they go down, since that's what will ultimately determine the change in the usefulness of the chaingun and the level of difficulty in the game (plasma rifle ignored for the moment, simply because the chaingun uses *the* most plentiful ammo type in the whole game and is the most powerful weapon using said ammo):
Before SoB:
O - worst case: never, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: never, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: never, average case: 6 times, best case: 3 times.
A - worst case: never, average case: 5 times, best case: 2.5 times (halfway through the third).
V - worst case: never, average case: 7 times, best case: 3.5 times (halfway through the fourth).
After SoB 3:
O - worst case: 3 times, average case: 2 times, best case: 1 time (8*5=40; ouch).
B - worst case: 4 times, average case: 2 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: 6 times, average case: 3 times, best case: 2 times.
A - worst case: 5 times, average case: 3 times, best case: 2 times.
V - worst case: 7 times, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
With results like these, I gotta admit there's a balance problem. I think the best way to fix things while keeping the spirit of SoB is to change SoB so that it affects either the min or the max damage of hits but not both; I'm not totally sure which one would be better but I'm inclined towards the min damage as mods already cover the max damage portion.
It obviously won't do too much with shotguns, BFGs, and stuff like that, but the boosts it gives to Chainguns and plasma rifles are absolutely rediculous
In my experience with the beta, this actually gives a fair amount of help to shotguns; it's still not as handy as being able to reload while moving, but it gives a noticeable boost such that you won't need to be quite as close to land a killing blow. Obviously, a person using shotguns primarily will have more important trait picks first, but the effect from SoB is appreciable as it pads the effect of distance some.
With Chaingun, you get +5 armor piercing damage per attack per level, meaning that at SoaB(3) you'd get +15 armor piercing damage per attack. This means that against unarmored monsters your average damage would be rising from 17.5 per attack to 32.5 per attack- that's almost twice as much damage! And that's without thrwing armor into the mix. Against an enemy with level 2 armor, you'd be going from an average of 7.5 damage to an average of 22.5 damage- a 200% increase.
Your first figure on the armor math is wrong; the lowest amount of damage from a hit that is at all possible, including things not normally called hits like acid and lava damage, is 0 (as far as everything I've ever seen indicates), and I'm about 99% sure that gunshots/punches/the like have to do at least 1 point of damage on a successful hit, thus it would not be 7.5 damage but 12.5 damage (((1+4)/2)*5). But I know the response already; an 80% increase still seems like too much of a change, and granted, the possibility that I'm wrong about the single point of necessary damage would up that to 125%. The trouble with giving percentage changes is that when the numbers are low, so's the effect; the number difference, for conservative arguments' sake is 0-4 versus 2-7. It's not clear just from that that things are going to suddenly turn into a cakewalk. Before we go ahead and declare that SoB's gotta get removed, or perhaps changed such that it makes hits less accurate, or that it makes only a decimal increase in the damage, let's see what the wiki says about HP totals...
Quote from: theWiki
O = 40 HP, 1 Armor
B = 50 HP, 1 Armor
B = 60 HP, 2 Armor
A = 50 HP, 2 Armor
V = 70 HP, 2 Armor
..and compare the number of times you'd have to shoot our most notorious foes (assuming all bullets hit their mark and that armor can reduce a hit to 0 damage) before they go down, since that's what will ultimately determine the change in the usefulness of the chaingun and the level of difficulty in the game (plasma rifle ignored for the moment, simply because the chaingun uses *the* most plentiful ammo type in the whole game and is the most powerful weapon using said ammo):
Before SoB:
O - worst case: never, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: never, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: never, average case: 6 times, best case: 3 times.
A - worst case: never, average case: 5 times, best case: 2.5 times (halfway through the third).
V - worst case: never, average case: 7 times, best case: 3.5 times (halfway through the fourth).
After SoB 3:
O - worst case: 3 times, average case: 2 times, best case: 1 time (8*5=40; ouch).
B - worst case: 4 times, average case: 2 times, best case: 2 times.
B - worst case: 6 times, average case: 3 times, best case: 2 times.
A - worst case: 5 times, average case: 3 times, best case: 2 times.
V - worst case: 7 times, average case: 4 times, best case: 2 times.
With results like these, I gotta admit there's a balance problem. I think the best way to fix things while keeping the spirit of SoB is to change SoB so that it affects either the min or the max damage of hits but not both; I'm not totally sure which one would be better but I'm inclined towards the min damage as mods already cover the max damage portion.
42
Pre-0.9.9 / Re: [H|89%|7|AoP] Did I say I hate Hell Knights ?
« on: October 22, 2007, 19:05 »
Be aware that stuff shot from a distance will move towards you, and that your chance to hit from out-of-sight is halved. But yes, that's what Int 3 is for. Of course, in the end even just knowing where the bastards are is enough to be able to approach the situation properly, even if you couldn't hit stuff from outside vision range.
43
Requests For Features / Re: Chaingun Overhaul
« on: October 22, 2007, 05:17 »
An initial warm-up period for the first time you pull and hold the trigger for the chaingun, followed by on repeated use of the fire option faster (though less accurate) bursts would, given proper testing, make for a significant yet probably balanced change in the feel of the chaingun; proper use would require being out in the open where you are quite likely to get shot, which is rather dangerous and not quite reliable, but in some cases the only way to be sure you can belt stuff out in time to slay all the critters; ideally you'd either have to lose a significant amount of turns to burst-pause-burst-pause, which gives the critters time to hurt you, or you'd have to go nuts and risk missing most of your shots. I like it in principle, but I'm not too sure about how the particulars will work.
44
Discussion / Re: Question about AoMr
« on: October 12, 2007, 13:51 »
Also, the 'switching' on AoMr is between pistols; it won't work if you have nothing (or something other than a pistol) prepared, so you'll still have to 'e'quip the spare in your reserve rather than 'z'witching to the empty reserve and then using the spare pistol.
45
Discussion / Re: Is Ironman actually good?
« on: October 11, 2007, 09:24 »
Ironman is good, yes. It's inevitable because it gives a significant boost to health, which means that large kits and the small health powerups go farther, you can take more hits before keeling over, and the fact that the 10 HP boost is immediate means that if you're low on health it's almost like getting half a small kit right away. I don't take it very often because I prefer having weapons that blast the huge guts of my enemies to pieces in a short time span to having a beefy character that has to make do with a (mostly) generic weapon because I couldn't take the traits needed to make the awesome weapons (besides simply being lucky enough to find something truly awesome like an advanced chaingun). But then, that's part of what makes the game interesting; not being able to get everything in one go. :)