Chaosforge Forum

DoomRL => Requests For Features => Topic started by: Nick on February 20, 2013, 16:25

Title: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on February 20, 2013, 16:25
I'm probably wrong but I feel
1) Gatling must require two Tech mods and a Chaingun, not two Bulk mods. Or, at least, T+B.
2) Both single and double Shotguns must have the Elephant calibre.
3) Double and Combat Shotguns must appear a bit earlier. On Normal, they are too late for the party in 95% cases.

Also, why Angel of Light Travel can't have the RL on Arena and beat The Wall to have the Backpack? Is it done on purpose or?..
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Equality on February 20, 2013, 22:32
1. = (no matter). B- mods and T- mods both are common.
2. Oh, eah! Double elephant shotgun! Cyberdemon size! But that can ruin balance and make shotguns incredible powerful. Recipe must be in Master category and looks like "shotgun + PPPF"
3. ? actual game looks balanced
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on February 20, 2013, 23:21
1) Yeah, but B is required for most basic recipes, T is not that useful.
2) Sounds perfect.
3) Looks like I have to learn more shotgun tricks :(
About the level generation.
4) All rooms are accessible thru doors. So teleports don't affect the gameplay enough. Just imagine a risk of teleporting into unknown place/situation vs. trying to explode the wall vs. leaving the level without checking the place.
5) In cave levels, good weapons must tend to appear in diagonal corner areas, to make player check everything to find them. BTW, I love caves :) they forces me to be cautious and carry enough life-saving supplies.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 21, 2013, 01:19
2. Oh, eah! Double elephant shotgun! Cyberdemon size! But that can ruin balance and make shotguns incredible powerful. Recipe must be in Master category and looks like "shotgun + PPPF"
Then you would nearly never actually assemble this thing, and MAD would never ever see it. I would love to see such a shotgun, but perhaps as a basic assembly with a huuuuuge reload time (normal elephant gun is at 2.5s, so here something like 4s may sound reasonable).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on February 21, 2013, 03:33
Requests :

My point of view about your ideas
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on February 21, 2013, 04:27
Storm-modded blaster with SoB5 is quite an ammo saver.
Pistols and melee are underpowered unless you train it specifically, and it actually makes sense. And similar to Doom.

Though, I'd not mind if default pistol were a little improved. Most standard weapons can be quite good when upgraded, but with pistol's crippling magazine size of 6 little can be done with it.
In RL, pistols use in police and army have at least 10 rounds, as far as I could google. 6 rounds are either WW2 era, or mini-pistols, or revolvers. But if it is a revolver, it should have better punch, no?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on February 21, 2013, 07:25
Double and Combat Shotguns must appear a bit earlier. On Normal, they are too late for the party in 95% cases.
Used to be the case.  Nerfed because no one used the Shotgun.

In cave levels, good weapons must tend to appear in diagonal corner areas, to make player check everything to find them. BTW, I love caves :) they forces me to be cautious and carry enough life-saving supplies.
Reduction of random element.  Not rogue-like.

Buff pistols, nerf SoAG ! I never use pistols if I didn't go specifically for a pistols build. I tried once to use a blaster to save some ammo... didn't seem to be a good idea.   OTOH, SoAG is insanely powerful... am I the only one bothered by this imbalance ?
No.  Pistols were modelled after their Doom counterparts, not CS.  If you think SoG is insanely powerful, why not suggest nerfing MAD also?  I mean, it makes shotguns ignore armour completely, which does not make sense because well, shotguns!  Right?

Add bullets ammo in city of skulls ! This level is already hard enough without shotguns... add some 10mm, please !
You can choose to enter the City of Skulls.  Heck, you can even choose if you want to fight anything in the City of Skulls.

Why he hell is halls of carnage a free BFG ? I like BFG, but I never understood why one is here... in fact, I'm just realizing, writing this, that I probably never died in this level.
Wait till 0.9.9.7 comes out before you complain any further about access to BFG...
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on February 21, 2013, 10:19
Used to be the case. Nerfed because no one used the Shotgun.
I think elimination of the Arena Master must give the Double Shotgun as well as the Staff. At Normal, I usually drop the shotgun there because one full stack of the Chaingun ammo is better than the Shotgun or it's ammo. Unless I already have the DS, of course.

Reduction of random element.  Not rogue-like.
Not THAT much, of course! More corner areas, more good things there, less good things instantly accessible. Non-linear random element feels "more random", if it's done properly. If Minecraft terrain generator just fills the area with random 50% air and 50% solid blocks, who needs it? I probably had not speak clear enough. I've tried to speak about "good" way of correlation and dependence in semi-random functions.

Either way, I love caves. And the fact they are not balanced. Troubles must be troubles, bad luck must be bad. "Be ready for everything, carelessness can kill even a Titan" -- it's my noobish vision of the "roguelikeness", of it's main feature.

No.  Pistols were modelled after their Doom counterparts, not CS.
+1

You can choose to enter the City of Skulls.  Heck, you can even choose if you want to fight
+1.

Wait till 0.9.9.7 comes out before you complain any further about access to BFG...
For now, BFG looks like a guaranteed way to make boss levels playable, no matter how lucky the player is. Proper decisions and good knowledge about the game universe almost always lead to victory. One just have to know where to get it, how to collect enough cells and... But I don't think getting BFG must be easier than getting the Backpack. Even if it's "the guaranteed way to ma..." one have to fight for it. Glad to hear one will have to soon.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on February 21, 2013, 14:11
Confirm me something please : pistols suck, right ?
When I say they should be buffed (and SoAG nerfed), it's mainly because
(I don't understand your comparison with CS... pistols suck in CS too :/  Well, deagle scores headshots, btw, but it's not as good as a real weapon... just cost effective.
Oh, and a trigun is actually way better :p)

What I'm saying is just that it's a shame that if you don't go for a pistol mastery, pistols & SoAG just won't be used... I might be wrong, of course, but do many people pick only one or two levels of SoAG ? And are guns often used outside of a pistol build ? (except for uniques, & maybe blaster).
If they are good weapons (e.g. because they have a good precision), I just have to learn using them. But I'm afraid they are just not, and that's what I'd like to see improved.


About city of skull, sure, you're not forced to go in... but is there any reason not to put bullets in ? If there is one, it's ok... but if the map designer just forgot about bullets when he filled the valuts, I'd like it to be fixed... it could replace the rockets, for example... does anyone fire them in this level ? O_o

Oh, and glad to learn that Santa will stop distributing free BFGs  btw :)
I hope it's the same for missile launcher & backpack !
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on February 21, 2013, 16:59
Confirm me something please : pistols suck, right ?
So do Combat Knives.

I never use them. even when I find a combat pistol at 2nd or 4th floor, unless I went for a gun mastery. The reason ? they are just too weak
So do Combat Knives.

SoAG is very efficient, but outside of a gun build... it's fully useless. While SoB or reloader, which are (initially) dedicated to rapid fire and shotguns, work on all weapons.
What about Bru?  Or Ber?

What I'm saying is just that it's a shame that if you don't go for a pistol mastery, pistols & SoAG just won't be used... I might be wrong, of course, but do many people pick only one or two levels of SoAG ?
Again, Bru.  Or Bad.

If they are good weapons (e.g. because they have a good precision), I just have to learn using them. But I'm afraid they are just not, and that's what I'd like to see improved.
I see that you are going to argue that Combat Knives need a buff too then.


About city of skull, sure, you're not forced to go in... but is there any reason not to put bullets in ? If there is one, it's ok...
Design decision.  Not all special levels are supposed to be fair for all builds.  See also Unholy Cathedral.

Oh, and glad to learn that Santa will stop distributing free BFGs  btw :)
I only said to wait for 0.9.9.7.  I did not say anything else.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on February 21, 2013, 17:46
Masterless pistol build can be quite interesting on high enough levels. SoB5+SoAG5+DG+Rel3+TH2+EE+2 storm bolters... 240 damage in 0.2 seconds. 0.8 seconds to reload. If you have Beretta/Combat Pistol or nano mod(s) you can have quite ridiculous DPS.

Cateye mastery works well with pistols too (because it is only burst mastery that is not chainfire-specific)

Berserk is very good for everyone, because it kicks in on getting damaged too.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on February 21, 2013, 18:39
Berserk is very good for everyone, because it kicks in on getting damaged too.
At the cost of 2 early levels of Bru?  Not really.  Not getting hit is better than trying to proc 'zerk on damage.

2xFin or even 2xHR is a better investment for the 2 levels of Bru if you are not playing a melee character.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on February 21, 2013, 18:59
Masterless pistol build can be quite interesting on high enough levels. SoB5+SoAG5+DG+Rel3+TH2+EE+2 storm bolters... 240 damage in 0.2 seconds. 0.8 seconds to reload. If you have Beretta/Combat Pistol or nano mod(s) you can have quite ridiculous DPS.
Yep.
Quote
Cateye mastery works well with pistols too (because it is only burst mastery that is not chainfire-specific)
It is one of the best masteries for Pistols :) .

Quote
Why he hell is halls of carnage a free BFG ? I like BFG, but I never understood why one is here... in fact, I'm just realizing, writing this, that I probably never died in this level.
Wait till 0.9.9.7 comes out before you complain any further about making it out alive from there
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Napsterbater on February 21, 2013, 22:18
T might be underused in assemblies, but they're still the best weapon mod. A combat shotty with a single T mod can fire and pump in about the same time it takes a tactical/unmodded assault shotty to fire. Save Ps for armor if not taking WK. If any mod needs rebalancing I think it's bulk, if only to reduce its drop rate in favor of other mods. I always end up leaving a bunch on the ground. I don't like making fireproof/ballistic armor because of the maluses to melee/fire.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Equality on February 21, 2013, 23:08
Quote
About city of skull, sure, you're not forced to go in... but is there any reason not to put bullets in ? If there is one, it's ok... but if the map designer just forgot about bullets when he filled the valuts, I'd like it to be fixed... it could replace the rockets, for example... does anyone fire them in this level ? O_o
of course fire! Rockets good for rocketjumping and evade surrounding. They do knockback for Souls. If not a Vampire build, and not a AoSh, rockets are very usable here. As usual - first shot is from BFG (found at Halls of Carnage), and second too. Then shotgun or double shotgun, and sometimes rocket launcher or mini-launcher (I love it!) for quick escaping. So, energy cells, rockets and shells. Clear City of Sculls with 10mm weapon (pistols/chaingun) looks dangerous.

Quote
Why he hell is halls of carnage a free BFG ? I like BFG, but I never understood why one is here... in fact, I'm just realizing, writing this, that I probably never died in this level.

For next special level - City of Sculls, of course ;) Really, without BFG we have very hard start in CoS. We need MVm build or homing phase - or can die in 4-5 turns even with double shotgun. BFG makes start in CoS relatively easy.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on February 22, 2013, 00:49
Is Angel of Light Travel restricted to melee?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 22, 2013, 01:43
Is Angel of Light Travel restricted to melee?
Not at all. But melee is very useful there due to the fact you don't have to worry about ammo, leaving your precious inventory slots for other things.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on February 22, 2013, 02:28
Can I have the Backpack on Normal? There are no RL on Arena.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Equality on February 22, 2013, 03:01
Can I have the Backpack on Normal? There are no RL on Arena.
1. Ask it in Quick questions tread (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,3999.0.html)
2. On normal game without challenges you can find RL past completing Hell Arena, somewhere on level. Completing means fully win 3 waves (initial + 2). Completing 1 wave = chaingun. Completing 2nd = 10mm & shells. Completing 3d = RL, blue armor, large medpack and supercharge globe, 27 rockets and 60 energy cells. Look carefully, do not forget pick up them ;)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on February 22, 2013, 03:19
Looks like I couldn't speak clearly again :(
There are neither RL nor rockets on the Arena for the AoLT.
I need those RL and rockets to get the Backpack, which is probably the most wanted device for AoLT.
Is it done for balance reason, to prevent me from upgrading my "angelic" inventory too easily?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on February 22, 2013, 06:31
@Nick
I think it is. While removing RL on AoMr or AoB looks obvious, it just seems to be a nerf for AoLT.
You can still hope for a vault or lucky drop to get one. On high difficulties, I think it happens quite often.
The easiest way for AoLT tough, is to go for melee. Also, if you find a plasma shotgun and a nano mod, like I did once, you can praise to the RNG :D it's a freaking secondary !

--

About combat knives, currently, they are indeed only useful in AoB (and for killing AoD without taking damages... which, imo, shouldn't be the case.). Since they are a "ranged melee weapon", and can be modded, I think they are quite fine as they are. If I played AoB more often, I think I would use them more.
But I wouldn't be against a revamp of melee weapons, so that it's not always chainsaw & scythe. So, yes, why not create some cool melee weapons ?
Here's one funny I just got: a soul stealer weapon. When you melee kill something, it stores one soul as ammo. Then, you can use it's alternate attack to shoot a lost soul on an opponent. Wouldn't be that cool ? Would also sinergize well with melee build, by allowing to block enemies lines of fire before rushing on them. I'm sure other things could be added: fast-attack or throwable weapons, a (unique) vampiric blade... UC's weapons shouldn't always be the best choice.

I tried rockets in city of skulls once or twice.. well, for me, it'll still be one BFG shot + shotty. Nice to learn it can work, tough.

Oh, and of course CatEye, it a gun mastery.
But I wonder about Bullet dance, which I didn't even try... probably not that bad, but since pistols weakness is clip size, I don't understand the point of this mastery at all. Also, I don't know what is meant by "firing extra bullets at half the time cost". does it increase the firing time ? would be even worse...
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on February 22, 2013, 07:02
Really, without BFG we have very hard start in CoS. We need MVm build or homing phase - or can die in 4-5 turns even with double shotgun. BFG makes start in CoS relatively easy.
Not really. I did fine with MAc build there and used Elephant (or maybe it was even basic Shotty) to clear out the stuff. You just need shellbox for this.

Quote
But I wonder about Bullet dance, which I didn't even try... probably not that bad, but since pistols weakness is clip size, I don't understand the point of this mastery at all. Also, I don't know what is meant by "firing extra bullets at half the time cost". does it increase the firing time ? would be even worse...
It sounds as if you would shoot 2 bullets instead of 1, at 150% fire time cost.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on February 22, 2013, 09:53
Oh, I forgot one more thing about pistols: Alt-Fire allows you to aim, which increases the precision much.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on February 24, 2013, 14:35
Actually, Double Elephant already exists as the Super Shotgun. I didn't think about it at time, BEFORE I post :(
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on February 24, 2013, 15:27
Super shotgun is not assembly. Double shotgun assembly is Focused Double Shotgun. Their stats are actually exactly the same, except SS is fully moddable, but FDS is Juggler-compatible.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on February 24, 2013, 16:45
Quote
but FDS is Juggler-compatible

All weapons are juggler compatible.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on February 24, 2013, 17:41
All weapons are juggler compatible.
By editing config? It feels like cheating for me.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: UnderAPaleGreySky on February 24, 2013, 18:55
By editing config? It feels like cheating for me.
Or by having any weapon in the prepared slot, which requires no editing at all.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 03, 2013, 09:53
Maybe Dualgunner should have two levels? First, instantly available, works for pistols (except green and maybe some yellow, built with rare modpacks). Second, requiring SoaG 2, works for all pistols and one or two other guns.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: ZicherCZ on March 03, 2013, 10:36
Maybe Dualgunner should have two levels? First, instantly available, works for pistols (except green and maybe some yellow, built with rare modpacks). Second, requiring SoaG 2, works for all pistols and one or two other guns.
And which would those be? I can't really see any of the other weapons being used single-handedly. Unless we go, say, for a sawed-off shotgun, and that would be fairly redundant in the current weapon setup.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 03, 2013, 11:18
Something high-tech and lightweight, I think. Assault Laser Rifle because it has no recoil, maybe Assault Plasma Rifle as well. For some accuracy penalties, I think.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 03, 2013, 12:28
Imho it's overcomplicating dualgunner. And as DG requires only SoG it's not logical for it to work with something else.
And idea about using two non-pistol weapons could be used for general marine master. Current survivalist trait is boring and (i think) rarely used.
But in any case simple accuracy penalty doesn't cut it.

I also think that second level of badass should have another benefit. Once it was pretty good trait, now you need two traits for same effect, so small bonus would be nice.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: ZicherCZ on March 03, 2013, 15:00
A simple accuracy penalty doesn't cut anything at all, when it comes to dual-wielding shotguns.
And then what? A major fire/reload speed penalty? This would render such a trait useless.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 03, 2013, 15:41
No. No shotguns. Maybe blaster + assault laser rifle, but no shotguns. Even sawed-off.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: ZicherCZ on March 03, 2013, 16:17
Hmm. The idea of dual-wielding the lighter assemblies (assault rifle? tac rocket launcher?) could lead to some really interesting combos.
How about a burst from an assault plasma rifle and then a rocket from a tac launcher, knocking the target out of LOS?

It does sound overpowered, sure - but oh boy does it sound interesting :).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Fanta Hege on March 03, 2013, 20:10
Wouldn't mind a rapid fire dual weild for that feel of old classic action movies.
Two shotguns probably wouldn't work but one could.
Jackhammer + Railgun dual fire, you're welcome.




Though the thing is, it could be bit hard to make work out well, as a master trait it could work. I'd imagine it to chew a lot of ammo.
Only real penalty I can think of is to dodge and knockback, maybe to resistances.
Firing two guns should leave you quite open for enemies afterall.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 03, 2013, 21:07
Late game, few things survive one volley. So, it would be best if it were possible to shoot at several enemies at once.
Such as:
Immediately after you fire at enemy, you will also fire with prepared weapon automatically at 1/3 speed. You target same enemy, or if it is already dead, nearest one to it.

Other variant:
After you fire, you switch to prepared slot automatically. If your next action is also firing, it will be at 6/10 speed.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Equality on March 03, 2013, 23:39
Mmm, interesting about sawed-off... 5 shells in clip, class pistol, wide shotgun blast, 7d3, single shot, +DG... +assemblies like storm bolter ^_^

2Nick:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

IMO new additions and changes must not make a game easy. May be leave as it is. May be make one challenge easy but another harder. So, addition a dual-welding of any weapon (not only pistols) must be nerfed by some restrictions or negative effects. Firetime*1.5 or armor -N. Or dodge chance =0.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 04, 2013, 03:16
I have played AoMr a lot and I am against it ...

If you want to make shotgun-like pistol, just introduce some kind of sawed-off shotgun or rifle that functions like a pistol.
Could be similar to the famous weapon from Fallout 1:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/.223_pistol_%28Fallout%29
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 04, 2013, 15:28
Maybe "sawoff" assembly  (AT?) that makes shotgun(s) into (wider spread, lower damage) pistols?

As for overpower-ness of dual-wield, I think if it is a mastery, it would still be weaker than ammochain or cateye. Especially with some restrictive trait locks.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 04, 2013, 22:21
>Spoiler
No, I'm not going to show it like xbox kid. BTW, wonder how can I kill those lava elementals on Ao100 without a nanopack... there are not nearby enough ammo on levels. R.I.P. Tech, I'll never forget your Cybernetic Armor [9] O+P+A.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 05, 2013, 01:32
~4 volleys from plasma rifle do the trick.
Or melee.
Or pistols.
Or something else you found.
Or simply don't kill them.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 05, 2013, 02:27
During my most recent try I've depleted EVERYTHING. I've tried to save some cells for them by leaving rockets to Bruiser Brothers, but they took all my rockets and asked for cells. So on level 80 Nightmare Cacodemons caugh me almost unarmed. There were no Chainsaw (Piercing Chainsaw[T] could save me as it usually does), and few ammo for Plasma Double Shotgun allowed me to kill some and than use the Phase Device to seek for some ammo. I've encountered more N Cacodemons instead. YASD.

Enough offtopic, I don't suggest to change balance. It's kinda bad luck, either Chainsaw, scavenged or found Nanopack etc could save me. Maybe Onyx could be more useful... if there were weak light boots with good protection. But my Fireproof Phaseshift boots became less Phaseshift after becoming Fireproof, so I've used Agility instead to restore my speed. It's almost necessary for me to have one Onyx, but it's almost useless to have another one.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 05, 2013, 03:46
Or simply don't kill them.
Some people do aim for YAAM.

And I do agree about those plasma volleys :) .
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 05, 2013, 03:54
Later Ao100 is indeed too ammo-starving. If you haven't found none ammo-regen weapons (or nano), several levels without formers and/or arachnos and you are screwed. Except if you are ammo-chain or melee-heavy, probably.

I think there should be some ammo-regen assembly with common mods. Why there are no weapon WK2 assemblies without rare mods, btw?

Oh, and hyperblaster >>> plasma rifle, ESPECIALLY if you don't have much ammo to spare. Hyperblasters, storm bolters, shotguns are all good options to get more bang per inventory slot.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 05, 2013, 05:27
I think Double or Combat Shotgun should have another assembly depending on player traits rather than on mod packs. If you have no Chainsaw, no Nanopack etc at ~50lev it's a good time to lay your bet on this trait. Maybe 2nd level of Shottyman + some assembly should give one a shotgun with a focused blast, fast reload and the armor piercing option (like Plasma Shrapnel). So shotgun shells will help the "ammo starvation".
For example, SM2 can allow one to find vulnerable spots on enemies. Without this trait, this assembly is not really useful and can probably be less effective than others. With this trait and with the last [P], it rocks like Jackhammer (but should not work the similar way; I speak about overall effectiveness).

"Ammo-regen assembly with common mods" is TOO easy. The way to save yourself must be require good game knowledge and decision done on time, to develop this trait and assembly the effective shrapnel-user.

Speaking about the normal game: I had the Longinus Spear twice. Both times I managed to get to that damned Assholy Cathedral with a nuke and Inv power-up still working. KARABARABOOOOOM!!! and the Spear is mine. It's useful for non-melee fighters and allows to save ammo. Is it imba or just a proper award for being that lucky?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on March 05, 2013, 07:01
Speaking about the normal game: I had the Longinus Spear twice. Both times I managed to get to that damned Assholy Cathedral with a nuke and Inv power-up still working. KARABARABOOOOOM!!! and the Spear is mine. It's useful for non-melee fighters and allows to save ammo. Is it imba or just a proper award for being that lucky?
Suure you get the LS, but you don't get the achievement for beating it if I remember correctly.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on March 05, 2013, 08:25
I didn't play much AO100 games, but I think lack of ammo in the end is a real problem.

btw, if you found any nano, or just a single nuclear plasma rifle, you're quite safe, but this is only luck related, and when it has such a big impact, I really hate depending on luck.

Needing to manage ammo is part of the game, of course, but I think it's way too random in AO100.
Why not just increase the size, or number of ammo stacks in late AO100 ?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 05, 2013, 09:00
Later Ao100 is indeed too ammo-starving. If you haven't found none ammo-regen weapons (or nano), several levels without formers and/or arachnos and you are screwed. Except if you are ammo-chain or melee-heavy, probably.
That is why you need to introduce some kind of strategy into this game :) .
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 05, 2013, 09:05
Is it imba or just a proper award for being that lucky?
Luck is a big factor in DoomRL.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Equality on March 05, 2013, 09:14
Quote
Later Ao100 is indeed too ammo-starving.
I think we have a lot of rockets and power cells here... arachnotrons, mancubi and revenants becomes common. So, melee, rocket launcher and plasma rifles )
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 05, 2013, 12:45
If you use rockets again something that drop rockets, you usually blow up rockets they drop. So, mancubi is not a reliable ammo source. And arachnos are scarce except "lucky" caves.
Also, nightmare mobs need much more hits to kill.

Why do you think most Ao100 are ammochain?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 05, 2013, 13:08
Yes, Ao100 is ammo-starving. And that's why you should plan ahead.
And yes, Ao100 imposes some limitation on character building. Shotgun builds have it tough.
But that's no surprise, you know what's ahead of you when you choose that challenge.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 05, 2013, 22:39
But that's no surprise, you know what's ahead of you when you choose that challenge.
Problem is, I don't. It's a gamble on drops. It has it's own charm, but I would like to have "long mode" where I'm not limited to few builds and  not screwed after three hours of playing just because RNG.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 06, 2013, 02:49
If you use rockets again something that drop rockets
***
Why do you think most Ao100 are ammochain?

Juggler rules. A foreplay with some rockets and than !!PWN!! with Gatling[P].
I think Marine/Ammochain and Tech/Scavenger are balanced.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 06, 2013, 05:06
Quote
Problem is, I don't
You do. You know that you have to pass 100 levels and that requires a lot of ammo.
And pretty much any build can be modified (modifiing as taking additional traits) to pass Ao100.

Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Uitë on March 12, 2013, 18:21
That's why on every one of my successful Ao100 runs, I've gone Sharpshooter with a 3P-modded combat pistol. 23 damage per shot means that a stack of 100 bullets goes a long way, and captains aren't that few and far between. And the combat pistol is common enough that you're very likely to run in to it at some point during such a long game. Until then, a storm pistol works very nicely too.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Equality on March 12, 2013, 22:35
Quote
I think Marine/Ammochain and Tech/Scavenger are balanced.
Ammochain looks like a cheat - 1 ammo -> 6-8 shots :)
Scavenger not balanced at all - we can disassemble ONLY weapons. So, a lot of traits wasted, blocked Th, DG and Ber and ... what we can do with that medical armor, Maleks armor, 2x phaseshifting boots and so on? Nothing! seek weapons for disassemble, drop rare armor if not useful. And as a rule we gain almost useless firestorm mod - so, disassemble and drop away this junk
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 12, 2013, 23:14
Scavenger is not wasted. WK2 is useful, EE2 and Int are useful too.
TH, DG and Ber blocked is not a big deal. Surely you can't go pure melee, but if you want melee, you don't aim for MSc usually.

Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on March 13, 2013, 02:56
For the few Ao100 I played atm, I always went for scavenger.
WK 2 looks like a must have for such a run, and I think Int2 is a good investment too.

I don't "rush" the mastery, though, since it's not immediately useful, but improving chances of getting good mods, and thus, becoming overpowered, is THE best way to go.

Also, I hope something will be done to make it able to use not only armors, but also melee weapons... and make the dissasembled mods less random, e.g., by tweaking weights of mods depending on what has been already obtained with disassemble. Currently, with some bad luck, you won't even get one nano in 100 levels, which doesn't look normal to me.


About ammochain, I think it's overpowered (AO100 or not). What would people think of using 2 ammo per volley ? I'm sure it still would be one of the best available traits.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Equality on March 13, 2013, 04:03
make a couple of Ao100 runs (best one ends on 84 level) as a Scavenger. Usually disassembling give me the next:

firestorm (combat pistol)
firestorm (missile launcher)
bulk (combat pistol? don't remember!)
sniper (Grammaton Cleric Beretta)
bulk (minigun)
firestorm (Railgun)
firestorm (laser rifle)
nano (Jackhammer)
bulk
firestorm (nuclear BFG)

it's from last attempt, but previous was very similar. So, mastery looks useless :) Take a good weapon, disassemble it - and drop useless firestorm mod pack. no, thanks :( or RNG hates me?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 13, 2013, 04:39
Firestorm needs to be made into something useful, as noted and proposed in the other topics.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 13, 2013, 05:26
Firestorm needs to be made into something useful, as noted and proposed in the other topics.

Such as (u)sing it to convert it in to 2 ammo chains/packs of your choice?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on March 13, 2013, 05:45
About your runs... I think firestorm and sniper are more common than nano and onyx (IIRC, the wiki says every mods have the same levels/weights... well, I think it's outdated), but I'd say the RNG hates you.
Though, I wouldn't have dissassembled a nuclear BFG. I would have put two firestorm on it and made it a biggest nuclear fucking gun ! (I even think it can be useful in some desesparate situations).
At least, you'd have used some of thoses...

Quote
Such as (u)sing it to convert it in to 2 ammo chains/packs of your choice?

I think a mod should just mod weapons. not pop medkits, gib every corpses on level, or create walls :p

But y, firestorm seems so much useless atm :(
Maybe make it increase damages (e.g. equivalent of 2 power mods, using only one slot. Not very original, but useful. err... maybe not, if it gives you knockback on your beloved weapon ;p)
Or instead of increasing ammo shot, just reduce firing time ? Well, not very original either ^^ but would keep the concept of firing faster, without making it useless. T mods are great on weapons, so a "big T mod" should be even better, right ?

Also, I think it should have some use on other weapons. currently, I think increasing radius of explosives weapons is usually a malus rather than an improvement, so, I would replace / pair this with a significant damage increase.
I'd also make it useful at least on shottys. it could increase damages, reduce armor penality to x1 and x0 for F1 and F2, or even reduce damage reduction with distance.. (but this suits WAY more to sniper mod. Hey, why did nobody think to this before for sniper on shottys ? isn't it a good idea ?)

On melee weapons... I don't know if it should work... and don't think it would be much useful anyway (since current melee = chainsaw -> artifact, and modding the chainsaw isn't really necessary)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 13, 2013, 06:31
May be just Firestorm x non-auto/explosive = more knockback? +50% knockback or so.
Or - +50% knockback for pistols, enabled knockback for melee, wider fire cone for shotguns.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on March 13, 2013, 06:41
Actually, my immediate idea about firestorm was allowing to apply it on armor for a +30% fire protection O.o
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on March 13, 2013, 07:11
Making it usable on armor could indeed be a good idea, but atm, it clearly seems too weak on weapons, so why not buff this aspect too ?

The goal is just to make it worth being a rare mod. For the moment, nano is clearly way superior to every other mods (onyx is great, and sniper is good, but they don't offer as much choice. also, 2nd onyx is often useless).
Firestorm is just... well, needing rework ^^
What do you think of making it a "double P or T" mod ? (or a "P+T") on rapid fire ? and giving it some use on shotguns ?

@Tylor
I think knockback on rapid fire or melee weapons would be negative in both cases.
I like the idea of a wider shotgun cone, but I'm not sure it would be more useful than colatteral-damaging either :)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on March 13, 2013, 08:08
Anyway, I think we'd need more opinions, to get really constructive results (i.e. not just improve firestorm, but also rework bad balanced assemblies, items, traits, enemies...).
I don't have much skills in organization, but what about creating a place for balance discussion ? A single forum thread won't be enough, so what should it be ? Simple separates posts here ? A dedicated forum section ? Online shared spreadsheets ? "Tickets" on some tool like Mantis or Redmine ?
All we'd need, finally, is to have a place with separate discussions for every under/overpowered thing, and have it easily readable / commentable, so that everyone can give his opinion, and learn about the other's, so this forum might be enough... though, a dedicated place would be better, since forums are quite messy.

Having played some very different games, like Hengband, blizzard's RTS, or DotA, I must say I HATE imbalance by now.
e.g., in Hengband, 95%, or 99% of found stuff is plain useless... it took me time to realize it, but it's a huge problem, which completely cripple's gameplay, and makes it too repetitive, while in DotA, every hero or item can impact a game's issue (even if there's some I never use).
Of course, DoomRL's is way more interesting and balanced than Hengband, but I think many thing could be improved with a little step back, to look at the big picture, and a few good ideas to correct it's weaknesses...
For me, the hardest part is not to correct, but to spot those weaknesses.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on March 13, 2013, 08:14
Problem is that this discussion is way too late in the dev cycle. We'll have to wait for the 0.9.9.7 release that is almost imminent. Afterwards the next release should be lot earlier than the last, so it will be a perfect moment to talk about balance :)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Fanta Hege on March 13, 2013, 09:48
You know firestorm is kind of "EH" on the mods compared to the other rares.

Buffing it on weapons though is pretty hard, in my opinion it is pretty nice on rapid fire.. But otherwise? really situational, you rarely want more splash as it destroys items.
Few ideas though:
-On Rapid fires, make it so that the extra shots provided by firestorm are not drawn from the weapons clip. If you're gonna shoot a bigger volley, why not get a bit of extra on top? Simple, ammo efficient and desirable.
-On Explosive: Make it the damage buffer same way that the bulk mod effects meelee weapons. Give more raw power on them. Make it a real storm.
-It could also have some sort of effects on pistols and shotguns? It could give double shotguns more pellets per shot, this would make it really desirable for a double shotty user. +1 additional spread on other shotguns? No idea here really.
No idea how it should effect pistols though. Maybe make it a combination of tech and power mod for pistols or something in same way? Though it could be bit OP for pistols then.

The fire resistance on armors sounds like a lovely idea. Make it effect boots too so we can get some more out of plasteels? :P
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 13, 2013, 14:52
I think knockback on rapid fire or melee weapons would be negative in both cases.
Knockback on NOT rapid fire guns. I.e. pistols. Knockback on melee is more negative thing than not, yes, but who knows, may be someone will find a use for it? :)  Like killing demon.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 13, 2013, 16:04
Actually, my immediate idea about firestorm was allowing to apply it on armor for a +30% fire protection O.o
Sounds like taken from my mind:

http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6124.msg53051.html#msg53051

Also some other posts there:
http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,5472.msg44746.html

Quote
Problem is that this discussion is way too late in the dev cycle.
Blah, blah, blah.

I found it in a quite few places on ChaosForge that people complain about it ...for months, if not years.

And you complain about people giving no feedback, nor ideas ...Thou Shalt Read More, God Hand!


...
Having played some very different games, like Hengband, blizzard's RTS, or DotA, I must say I HATE imbalance by now.
I feel the same while playing many games, bro.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 14, 2013, 03:10
Too much balance is good for RPG, not for RL. RL just should have "a proper way to response to RNG". To build wise and uneasy plans to solve situations RNG creates, always possible but never easy. No nano? OK, we'll not disassemble this item because it's sorta ammo-saving. And there must be no methods which ALWAYS lead to victory. There must always be place to suddenly change your plans because of bad surprise.
On my second thought, Ammochain should be replaced with Headshot Maestro. "Bursts are for dummies, your tough life had taught you to save ammunition. With first level of this threat, you use 1/2 ammo per volley. With second level, you use 1/3. You already hit the most vulnerable spot so the damage you cause remains the same."
I love to "transmutate" mods with Scavenger. T+T+Rocket Launcher or T+A+Pistol never brought me another T or A yet. Am I that lucky or it's a RNG limitation to always give a mod which IS NOT included in the assembly scheme? If not, it should be. And maybe disassembling of ALL rare/unique items is good, but it requires to nerf the entire scheme. 50% you'll get another "related" item instead of a mod (Rare or Assembled from Unique and Common from Rare, for example, Combat Pistol from Trigun, Ripper from Longinus Spear, Plasma Rifle from Nuclear Plasma Rifle, Red Armor from Cybernetic Armor etc) and 50% a mod with current weights.
About Firestorm, I suggest to allow it for Plasma Shrapnel. It will buff both Sniper and Firestorm a bit. A wall of plasma shots and a wall of plasma shots with radius 1 are very different things because most enemies will get caught by two adjacent shots. Maybe also Demolition Ammo should not be THAT weak for a Master Assembly.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Kornel Kisielewicz on March 14, 2013, 03:21
Too much balance is good for RPG, not for RL. RL just should have "a proper way to response to RNG". To build wise and uneasy plans to solve situations RNG creates, always possible but never easy. No nano? OK, we'll not disassemble this item because it's sorta ammo-saving. And there must be no methods which ALWAYS lead to victory. There must always be place to suddenly change your plans because of bad surprise.
QFT.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 14, 2013, 04:33
If you decide to nerf nano (I hope you'll NEVER do!!!) I suggest to limit Nanomanufacture to Plasma/Laser rifles (in other words, non-BFG with Plasma damage type), while common Nano applies on everything as usual. Also, Nano + Nuclear must instantly cause the Nanomanufacture effect without full assembly. Let's call the nerfed Nanomanufacture kinda "Nanoreactor" or "Cold Fusion Reactor". Than again, I hope you'll never do it but if life force you, you'll do it this way.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on March 14, 2013, 05:38
I agree with this

Quote
RL just should have "a proper way to response to RNG". To build wise and uneasy plans to solve situations RNG creates, always possible but never easy. No nano? OK, we'll not disassemble this item because it's sorta ammo-saving. And there must be no methods which ALWAYS lead to victory. There must always be place to suddenly change your plans because of bad surprise.

but not with this part
Quote
Too much balance is good for RPG

I said the game had to be balanced, not that it should give you guarantees, or be repetitive. (As I said somewhere, I'm tired of assembling tactical boots at every game)
If you played Blood bowl, it's kinda representative of how I expect a RL to be : the omnipresent randomness may screw the best situations without giving you any chance, but most of the time, you'll be able to recover if you play correctly. Generating different situations, needing "proper responses to the RNG" is a pillar of the RL gameplay, and shouldn't be removed, of course.

The nuance might not be obvious. To make things a little more clear :
-I'd like to see ammochain nerfed for this kind of reasons : it ensures you you'll always have plasma ammo... way too easy for me. I'd like it to be "more reasonable". Also, the way it combines with some spider's lair's reward looks to me like the worse munchkin examples in doomRL.
-I'd also like to see most other non-random aspects reworked. I love "Inferno"'s mod special level's rewards : only a few guaranteed items. No free missile launchers, BFGs, backpack, or nuclear weapons, just big bunch of stuff... sure, you may get unlucky, but usually, you'll always get some useful toys, including mods, ammo boxes, and exotics or uniques.
-On the other hand, some guaranteed items are needed. e.g., at least a nuke and the lava element at every game, so that if you aim for full win, you won't have to rely on drops. Same for a good melee weapon... playing melee build with only knives would be quite frustrating when you're not hunting badges. I guess simple items like HA's armors and ammo boxes are not a problem, either.

The problem with firestorm is that it stands in place of a great mod. Which, in HA, is currently supposed to be guaranteed. It's like if my backpack was replaced with a schematic... or when I get acid proof boots at the end of the arena, as AoHu : it justs makes me wants to suicide (and I sometime did it :p)
Having some mods more useful than the other is not a big deal (well, I think leveling things a little would do good.. currently, nano is way above the other), but trying to get 4 mods of "equal" power wouldn't make much sense... your needs have to vary from one game to another, anyway.

Not using a BFG when you play a shotgun game is a choice (pre-game choice, if you play AoSh, but still a choice), but not using your rare mod because it sucks isn't one. It's just bad luck.
I sometimes find a 2nd (unneeded) onyx mod in the dungeon... I'm always glad to, and will often keep it, even if I already got good stuff to wear, just because it's great.
But firestorm in armory ? I sometimes don't even bother to grab it...
See the difference : in both cases, I won't use the mod, but in the first, I feel like the RNG gave me something great, while in the second, I feel fooled, since I was expecting the usual reward... and got this instead.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 14, 2013, 06:52
QFT.
And I disagree.

Atm we have balance of "useful Nano mod vs 'useful' Firestorm mod".
Balance of "almost always made tactical shoes vs almost never made grappling shoes".
And so ...

I am not saying that we should make everything equal, like in some wicked kind of socialism.
I am saying that we should make the game more interesting, by introducing more choices, options, variety - call it whatever you want.
I prefer to have 10 different options for playing the game rather than having "super optimal option" and 9 trash ones.

Quote
Too much balance is good for RPG, not for RL. (...) And there must be no methods which ALWAYS lead to victory.
And this is silly and contradicting. Bad balance = there is ALWAYS the best method, which leads to victory FAR more often than the other ones.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on March 14, 2013, 07:11
Is it me or am I starting to think that Assemblies are the bane of all that is RL?  I mean, giving control to the player to figure out what thing to make?  Maybe we can re-introduce the colour mechanic of potions here -- limit the number of assemblies, but make their construction based on random mods per run.  The reward of course is that the built assembly is highly OP, but no one will complain because it requires luck, right?

That way, you don't need to worry about the boredom of assembling tactical boots every time.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 14, 2013, 07:26
Is it me or am I starting to think that Assemblies are the bane of all that is RL?  I mean, giving control to the player to figure out what thing to make?  Maybe we can re-introduce the colour mechanic of potions here -- limit the number of assemblies, but make their construction based on random mods per run.  The reward of course is that the built assembly is highly OP, but no one will complain because it requires luck, right?

That way, you don't need to worry about the boredom of assembling tactical boots every time.

Agree - assemblies allow players to micromanage outcomes to suit the situation: One size fits all. Sounds very intriguing in theory - in practice it's boring as hell :(

EDIT: Now if the mods were somehow used like a tickets to a lottery type system...that could make RNG reign supreme! :P
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 14, 2013, 10:17
That way, you don't need to worry about the boredom of assembling tactical boots every time.
So, you do want to change the variety of one optimal assembly into the variety of one possible assembly? What an interesting idea you got there.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: singalen on March 15, 2013, 03:57
Maybe the right answer will be to nerf the tactical boots.
Say, to remove the speed bonus and only leave dodge and (spoiler).
Three great bonuses feels like too much for a basic assembly.

edit: other idea: Leave assemblies' mod requirements as is, but make bonus SIZE randomly variable.
Like, dungeon can generate +3 sword or +5 sword - you can assemble +5% speed tactical boots, or +15% tactical boots (and +0% or even -5% dodge).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 15, 2013, 03:59
Maybe the right answer will be to nerf the tactical boots.
It is not only about nerfing one thing. It is also about making other stuff more useful :) .
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 15, 2013, 05:44
I would also argue that it's not about the use(ful)(less) quality of the options but the lack of use of Agility mods in general.
"Hey I found an A-mod I'll just dump in to tact boots/armor because I don't have an accuracy problem"

Buff everything else or nerf tact boots and you know what I'll do? I'll still make tact boots

Anyway the whole mod system is a case-study in systems dynamics and decision theory - it's difficult to balance it without starting over completely
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Uitë on March 15, 2013, 11:58
I feel these two episodes of Extra Credits are very relevant to this discussion. It may well be worth your time to watch them. They're only 6-7 minutes long, but contain a wealth of information.

Depth vs. Complexity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI4Gs9Gt2Iw)

Perfect Imbalance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbnlKb8kA70)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 15, 2013, 12:25
I would also argue that it's not about the use(ful)(less) quality of the options but the lack of use of Agility mods in general.
"Hey I found an A-mod I'll just dump in to tact boots/armor because I don't have an accuracy problem"

Buff everything else or nerf tact boots and you know what I'll do? I'll still make tact boots

Anyway the whole mod system is a case-study in systems dynamics and decision theory - it's difficult to balance it without starting over completely
Maybe speed is too overwhelmingly important in this game, just to simply ignore it?

And A-mods are quite useful for Ammochain, for example.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 15, 2013, 16:16
Tactical Boots are not the problem. Lava/Acid protection is the problem. You don't need it often enough to make other parameters of boots as important as the speed/dodge bonus is. You encounter impassable areas you have to walk on very rarely, and when you do, they cause too much damage to use boots anyway -- you have to use an envirosuit pack or a homing phase device.

Don't concentrate your attention on symptoms and look deeper: it's never lupus.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on March 15, 2013, 19:03
Tactical Boots are not the problem. Lava/Acid protection is the problem. You don't need it often enough to make other parameters of boots as important as the speed/dodge bonus is. You encounter impassable areas you have to walk on very rarely, and when you do, they cause too much damage to use boots anyway -- you have to use an envirosuit pack or a homing phase device.

Don't concentrate your attention on symptoms and look deeper: it's never lupus.
Well, the most problems I had with lava were due to level-flooding levers. Aside from that, there were not many cases in which I died to lava. Most of my deaths were due to Mancubi blasts I bet...
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 15, 2013, 22:27
Pretty simple solution would be adding part of boots protections to your torso protection. And nullyfying all protections for anti-grav assembly.
Suggested values are somewhat like +(10+2*protection) to acid for protective boots, same for fire for plasteel and twice that for acid for plasteel.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 16, 2013, 00:43
I thought about splitting all damage to areas. A=5d2, body_damage=damage*A/10, feet_damage=damage*(10-A)/10. Too much importance of feet resistance will probably make tactical and nerfed antigrav boots useless.
Wait, what? Agravboots require NANO!!! Nerfing it means nobody will waste nano on it ever. Even through their excellent parameters, I never make them. Never got surplus nano packs, lol.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 16, 2013, 03:01
Moving 2 (or 2.5 with additional A) times faster is never useless. Even if protection and resistances would be zero. To be honest, would it be my choice i would remove this assembly for it's too game-changing (read it as game-breaking).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: tylor on March 16, 2013, 04:06
There are just not enough variance in boots to make it interesting. It boils down to speed, dodge and lava immunity. Last one is more situational, and not available until much later anyway. And first two are both on one assembly. So, actual choice is just make tac boots before or after wk2.
I think we need more boots variation ideas. May be, Mighty Kick (bonus to unarmed damage)? Or Jump Boots (jump several meters instantly, get tired).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 16, 2013, 04:17
Why do Tact Boots or any assembly have to have static stats?

Each stat (Dodge and move speed) gets RNG'd when you make it
20% chance for AWESOME <stat>
50% chance for NORMAL <stat>
30% chance for just better than nothing <stat>

So there's a 4% chance you'll get boots with AWESOME move speed and dodge bonus

EDIT1: There may even be a small chance that an entirely unexpected stat gets modified
EDIT2: If we're keeping assemblies, I would highly advocate a system like this to make sure RNG gives us the fun rides we like in our Roguelikes! Chaos should be easier to balance than the Order of things now
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: VANDAM on March 16, 2013, 05:10
Then if you want to  make something random, why not add random basic weapons: rl 6d6 or 6d7 or 7d6 or 5d5? Or, if you're lucky 7d7
for example
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 16, 2013, 05:45
Then if you want to  make something random, why not add random basic weapons: rl 6d6 or 6d7 or 7d6 or 5d5? Or, if you're lucky 7d7
for example

If done tastefully, it could work. And it might just break the standard weapon monotony like pistol -> shotgun -> chaingun because you found an 9d3 shotgun and you prefer it over a weak chaingun. *just an example

It would have to be interesting though because given enough enemies, youll always get the same "rare" weapon. So I mean 1% chance

EDIT: And it wouldn't be just damage for weapons, a fast reloading shotgun or an extra volley-size plasma rifle could really change the course of a single game (but not every game in the same way)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: VANDAM on March 16, 2013, 06:10
And enemies with random health ofc.
former human health: 4d5 (min 5 max 20) and so on.
accuracy: -5 + 3d1
speed: 70 + 10d4
resistances...
And yes, only random damage is boring, accuracy, fire speed and so on.
And also, traits should be less predictable. The build should vary, based on some facts like in adom as for an example. (born with one hand or is slower then usually or has 1 dam threshold)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 16, 2013, 09:35
And enemies with random health ofc.
former human health: 4d5 (min 5 max 20) and so on.

This I'm not completely sold on - the reason being that the randomness should have a meaningful impact the way players handle the game. Finding an interesting weapon or a mod blessing will change the way a player thinks about the run. However, I'm not so sure a player will likely change strategy for each former or lost soul that wanders in to view. Is there a reason that a health 18 or health 22 former would change player reaction? Do we even have a way for them to tell what kind of former it is?

The difference is subtle, but I think important in decide how to handle RNG's interference. Promoting micromanagement of each individual encounter beyond what we already have to do is probably a bad approach
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: VANDAM on March 16, 2013, 09:50
hmmm, I think you're right.
The difference in weapons will give an opportunity to change run, and also enemies will be more dangerous (they're using those weps).
I think that uniques should have the same properties. Do not know about exotics.
And there was a problem that bosses have the same amount of health, and the only more or less dangerous enemy is Angel of death.
Cybies are predictable and with new set they are useless, Lava Elemental is better but useless when you wear new set. Shambler and Mastermind are predictable too. The main idea is to overrun them and/or find a suitable wall.
They could be more dangerous if they will try to make predict shots (not to fire in you but in the near block) and if they will fire out of LoS (they hear your footsteps and they can miss). And I think that M Apo JC C should be rebalanced (health, damage).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 16, 2013, 10:39
To qualify the point about different stat weapons - It maybe be better restrict enemies and their drops the base weapon and only the randomly generated weapons on the ground could be of the randomized variety

Why would this be better?
To avoid the inevitable cycle of kill the former, check the drop, kill the former, check the drop. After 100 formers you will likely have the upper-tier shotgun/chaingun in EVERY run. Hence there would be no variety. Ultimately, we should try to avoid mechanisms that become a monotonous grind outside of the already obvious Ao100.


Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: MaiZure on March 16, 2013, 10:53
Cybies are predictable and with new set they are useless, Lava Elemental is better but useless when you wear new set. Shambler and Mastermind are predictable too.

Sorry for the double post.

To the bosses being predictable, I would say that rather than have one AI rule the boss. Have each boss with a set of AIs that the game chooses from at the beginning of the game. Sometimes Cybie tries to hide and shoot, or charges right at you, etc. This way you can't know for sure what to expect every time.

This game, Cybie will charge but the Bruisers will camp their shelter area and wait for YOU to act.
The next game could be the opposite.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on March 17, 2013, 06:39
I didn't know extra credits. Very interesting, everyone should watch that !

I think I agree with everything he said, about perfect imbalance, the facts that games should be easy to learn (e.g. with tutorial(s)), that there's no excuse for a counter intuitive interface, or that irreductable complexity is *very* bad. (I didn't try Dwarf Fortress, and will probably never... for this obvious reason)
Though, in doomRL's balance, we're not in LoL or DotA : the RNG can't "counter pick" with lava filled levels when you go tactical boots, or increased number of revenants when you choose DodgeMaster.
That's why we should keep things as much balanced as we can (don't read equal), so that when you find some great items (especially early), it makes you think again about you build. Last time I found a super shotty at level 2, I wondered if I should go for Shottyhead instead of CatEye, but I didn't :
 -Shotguns are great, but unless you find a plasma one or a sniper mod, they sometimes lack power. Plasma rifles don't have this problem.
 -Shotgun shells may sometimes not drop in later levels. With a nuclear plasma rifle and 2 B-moddable BFGs, you solve all ammo problems.
 -Shottyhead doesn't seem worth picking to me. I think taking no mastery is, at least, as good as picking it. It blocks SoB, and shooting speed is only useful in the open... (read mortuary ?).

Of course, my point of view is probably not 100% accurate, but why would I have switched to a weaker build while some special levels ensure me I'll drop the best (plasma) weapons of the game ?
On the other hand, if I had had the option to switch to MAD (which I don't like, but would have made a good use of the weapon), I probably would have done it, just to take advantage of the occasion.

Same problem applies when you find a good gun, which is quite useless if you're not going for SoG... good rocket launchers, well, it's called missile launcher, and can only have some use in N!, to make the arena easier, since you'll get one at Lv7 anyway.
The result is quite obvious : you'll keep on your ammochain build in most cases, just because it's safer and more efficient than the other ones... :(

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There are just not enough variance in boots to make it interesting. It boils down to speed, dodge and lava immunity. Last one is more situational, and not available until much later anyway. And first two are both on one assembly. So, actual choice is just make tac boots before or after wk2
I think we need more boots variation ideas
Fully agree. Removing movement penality on all resistances boots (and improving gothic to something usable, like -20% EDIT : nvm, gothic boots have -15%, only armor has -70%) would probably be a first step. Does anyone think it would be too powerful ?

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Why do Tact Boots or any assembly have to have static stats?
Because non-assembled modded weapons have static stats. If your assembled hyperblaster can be worse than your AT2 plasma rifle, you'll stop assembling it (or only try one when you have mods to dump).
As for weapon's damage dices randomization, I agree that, "If done tastefully, it could work", but I'm sure it's a wrong way. Having to check every shotgun looking for a 9d3 would be inuintive and annoying, but wouldn't bring much to gameplay. In other words, it would increase game's complexity, but not depth.
In fact... we already have exotics for that purpose.
The problem is that some are guaranteed (like missile launcher or good plasma weapons), while the other aren't (e.g. good guns/shotguns, or minigun), which makes some strategies reliable... while the other have random efficiency.
What makes gun masteries (namely, MGK, MCE and MSh) efficient is that SoG is OP, and thoses masteries are good. Same for MAD, which lets you obliterate any enemy with a simple shotgun, but a Shottyhead or Fireangel build, for example, will be too much impacted by available weapons (not that it's a bad build, but it's not reliable. It doesn't ensure the freewin that other masteries, like MAc would)


If we want to add randomness in the game, I'd rather see enemy's behaviour reworked. Not only for bosses. I think having several AI for enemies (e.g. stand still / wander randomly / explore level / hunt player [in group]) would be nice : you could camp wandering monsters, but not the whole level... and should have to worry more about exploring formers or knight, since their aim would be to run through the level and grab as much stuff as they can before you do.
For bosses, it could be interesting too, but if some AI are more efficient thant the other, we'd end up with an ugly, randomly-refereed balance problem, again.
This can probably be made better, with bosses changing strategies during the fight, but is that enough ? e.g. Cybie could keeps hunting player until he comes close enough, then, choose, after every attack, between charge to melee, normal attacks, aimed attacks, radarshooting, or a few turns of strategical retreat. (melee or retreat/radarshooting would only trigger at close/long range, btw)
Anyway, while this kind of ideas is interesting, it would need a lot of testing. That's why balancing some game elements, which clearly need it (boots, other useless assemblies, F-mod...) looks like a more sensible approach than from scratch remakes, atm.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on March 21, 2013, 23:51
Sniper pack can be improved enough for it's "rare" status by simple changing it's effect on shotguns. It must change blast angle to next narrow angle. Like "focused" assembly for double shotgun, but for any shotgun unless it already most focused possible.

Doing this also allows to replace the Sniper pack in the Plasmatic Shrapnel assembly with the Firestorm pack.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on March 22, 2013, 01:58
I think with the fact that sniper is exotic, it would be more fitting for it to simply reduce damage dropoff by one grade. And firestorm could widen the cone.
Second sniper mod would reduce damage dropoff to zero - this looks strong, but how many times have you seen 2 sniper mods outside of Ao100?
Second firestorm would increase the angle to 360 degrees (ok, that's just a joke :) )
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 07, 2013, 11:30
Some successful Ao100 runs made me change my mind about Scavenger. You should get different things from different item classes.
0) You disassemble rare and unique weapons as usually;
1) You get a random mod pack from Assembled weapons, but never ones used in the assembly scheme ("Modpack Alchemy");
2) If either weapon or some mod packs were exotic, you get an exotic pack;
3) If you disassemble a weapon with one or more upgrades, you get a random used pack back only if the weapon itself is neither assembled nor exotic. Shotgun[P1] always gives you P. Elephant gun[P1] gives you B, or A, or T, but never P, as well as Elephant gun[none] due to (1);
4) If you disassemble a "holy" (unique) melee weapon, you can get an Onyx pack, or permanently get +5 hit points, or some other character upgrades. Maybe Longinus Spear must have it's own special effect, which is not random;
5) Rare melee weapons (yeah, the Chainsaw) must give you a Power or a Firestorm pack;
6) Armor must give you an Onyx pack, or any of common packs, or an Envirosuit, or a Backpack, or permanently add +25 (+50?) dur. to the armor you wear.
7) Boots must give you a good kick... sorry, I mean (6) without Backpacks, Envirosuits and upgrade boots of course!
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Motorheadbanger on April 08, 2013, 01:41
What... I just... What.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 08, 2013, 01:47
What... I just... What.

My thoughts exactly.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 08, 2013, 10:30
Sorry... Looks like I've said something wrong again :(
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 08, 2013, 11:11
Sorry... Looks like I've said something wrong again :(

No such thing, your idea just seems far too complicated. What is it exactly that you want to change about Scavenger? In words, I mean, not in game terms.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 08, 2013, 11:28
To expand it's power onto ALL rare and unique stuff, not ranged weapons only. And to do it without flooding the player with tons of cheap mod packs.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 08, 2013, 12:19
Don't underestimate the use of 'cheap' mod packs.

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. I think that's very much worth not being able to disassemble any- and everything that comes in your path. I'd have to give it a try to be sure - was planning to do an MSc A100 some time soon anyway - but I'm betting the combination of traits and addtional mods makes for a pretty feisty techie.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 08, 2013, 12:29
By "cheap" I mean "given for almost free". If EVERYTHING can be disassembled for a mod pack, Scavenger will be even more imbalanced than Ammochain. That's why I've written that table. I want to have more disassembly abilities but I don't want to ruin all the fun by having 2-3 Nano packs for free every time I play as a Tech.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 08, 2013, 12:40
Hmmm... I'm kinda lost now. On the one hand you say you want to be able to disassemble more stuff:

To expand it's power onto ALL rare and unique stuff, not ranged weapons only.

...while on the other you recognize that this will severely tilt the balance:

If EVERYTHING can be disassembled for a mod pack, Scavenger will be even more imbalanced than Ammochain.

And your table does indeed restrict what mods you'd get, but not the number of mods, thus force-feeding you more than you could ever hope to use. Assuming that Scavenger is only really useful/used on A100 and AA666, and bearing in mind the huge number of mods you'll already run into just scattered around the levels, plus the fact that you have access to all basic traits, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that bumping Scavenger any further would really screw up the game.

Mind you, I'm just one player, and not a very good one to boot. Maybe others share your view.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 08, 2013, 12:47
Look at the table. There are few new modpack sources. Most new sources give modpacks very rarely but commonly give weird and useful stuff. Most modpack sources in the list are existing (but act a bit different than I suggest).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 08, 2013, 13:16
Most new sources give modpacks very rarely but commonly give weird and useful stuff.

Whether the benefit comes in the form of a mod pack or of something else, it's still a benefit, which I think MSc offers more than enough. I don't think you're going to convince me.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 08, 2013, 13:33
...and I don't even argue with THIS part :) Because if you're right, it can be nerfed somewhere else. For example, by adding also ammopack/armorbonus drop which is way less useful. I didn't even tried to think about the overall balance, I've concentrated on the local one. This time, I leave the overall balance to others.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on April 08, 2013, 14:14
Personally, I'd like scavenger to be able to scavenge melee weapons and armors. Maybe not artifacts... looks like a blasphemy to me :) but for once, I'd be glad to get a chainsaw :D !!

I don't think your table is balanced at all, but there is ideas I like. Beeing able to disassemble an armor to get an envirosuit could be cool. Since armors should give protective items, why not also find armor shards, or maybe even health bonus (or invu/soul/invi globes...) ?


In Ao100+, we find way too much firestorm & snipers, but it's a particular case, even if I never play MSc anymore outside of thoses.
The fact that firestorm sucks  is a real problem. Except for (bad) assemblies, I think a T mod is always better, which makes this mod pretty useless.

I think beeing able to disassemble an exotic to a chosen mod could be good. You don't find that much exotics in a normal game, and scrapping your BFG and missile launcher to get shitty mods is just... well, it's the reason why I won't go scavenger again in a normal game. Maybe it should cost another mod to choose what you get, but not beeing able to find a simple bulk or agility when needed is so annoying... really makes you wonder why you went scavenger.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on April 08, 2013, 14:32
Disassembling chainsaw makes some sense, but disassembling cleaver or spear gives you what? Blade and handle?
Making mod depend on a category would ruin your fun a bit. Because that's just like finding that mod. Random is more fun i believe.
My opinion? Don't improve MSc, improve F and S mods. And preferably extend O to weapons as well.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin 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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: ParaSait on April 08, 2013, 15:29
Disassembling chainsaw makes some sense, but disassembling cleaver or spear gives you what? Blade and handle?
Yeah come on let's slowly change DoomRL into Vagrant Story! Who's with me?! :P
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 08, 2013, 23:21
I agree with just about everything you say; like I mentioned before, I wouldn't play Scavenger in a 24 level game either, and even in an A100+ game, it's not my first choice - I'd only take it to get some Technician Badges.

This however:
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

is not quite true. 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 (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6223.0.html), and whenever I play a rapidfire build I tend to take only the minimum number of levels in TH, since they waste a lot of ammo (SOB+EE(+possibly FIN) combined generally do enough damage to not need the extra bullet/cell. My experience with rapid fire is minimal, though, maybe a more seasoned player feels the need to comment on this.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 09, 2013, 01:28
Disassembling chainsaw makes some sense, but disassembling cleaver or spear gives you what? Blade and handle?

...and a permanent character boost from eternal forces, of course! We're talking about weapons able to freeze time and pierce steel!

> the only weapon specific skill it doesn't block is...Shottyman.

Scavenger is my favourite trait on Ao100. Because even if I can't find Nano with it, I usually get the Super Shotgun. And Super Shotgun + Shottyman + P + S + P = "Pizdets Vsemu (F**kin' End to Everything)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SU-100#Development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SU-100#Development). And armed with Pizdets Vsemu weapon class for a cheap pair of shotgun shells, I can solve the ammo-starving trouble in most cases. Of course, Super Shotgun + P + P + N + P is kinda insta-win but without Nano, PSP is OK.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: bwross on April 09, 2013, 05:50
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.

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.

Oh, and another thing.  MSc is quick to get and I find that a Juggler start can work quite well (even though it puts off things for two levels).  Juggler helps with the toys you'll have later, and helps provide early offense with a stack of weapons (especially shotguns).  Weapons which you can also store mods on for later, giving you a boost to inventory size.  It's not amazing, but storage potential is a perk of MSc that's overlooked.

This is essentially what you can reasonably plan for and pull off in the standard game.  Getting an N mod is sweet, but you can't count on it, so you shouldn't take MSc expecting that.  It's not an incredible package, but it is what it is, and you can make it work if you don't ask for more than it's likely to give you... meaning scavenge ruthlessly (ie upgrade your rocket launcher so you can scrap missile launchers) and make your plans around getting S and F mods.  N and O mods are bonus and are easy to work with if they do show up.  Part of the fun of the lesser master traits like MSc is figuring out how to make them work and then executing it.

As for improving MSc... improve mods/assemblies and MSc just naturally improves (as does things for other characters).  But I wouldn't go so far as to mess too much with how scavenging currently works.  I'd rather see scavengers get the ability to mod things better... something like the ability to add more than one mod to some assemblies (or add one mod to more uniques), or perhaps the ability to add a mod to an assembly made before getting WK2.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Klear on April 09, 2013, 06:03
or perhaps the ability to add a mod to an assembly made before getting WK2.

I believe unability to mod assemblies made prior to getting WK2 is there because of technical difficulties with implementing it. If it could be done, everybody would be able to do it.

In any case, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin 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.

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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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: bwross on April 09, 2013, 13:55
Well, yeah, assuming that the build is an all round flexible build is part of the problem.  MSs and DG are only two of the reasons why MSc shouldn't go pistols... the clincher is the unique pistols.  You're bound to see one and if you have it in your mind that you might use it then you've pretty much given up on truly scavenging from the start, because that's too many of the few unique items that you can tear up.  Ideally, your plan should be to maximize the number of weapons you're willing to tear down.  That means having a solid plan on what you will be using, right from the start.  Don't be fooled into playing it as a General master... it will definitely suck if you do.

Another problem is playing scavenger with Ao100.  I did that once, figuring it might be useful without the special level mods.  It didn't work out that way, I had more mods than I knew what to do with anyway making it seem pointless.  So I quit that game, and tried scavenger in standard, which proved to be more fun and felt more useful.  Especially the ability to store all those mods from the special levels, which tend to be early in the game, until I was ready to build things with them and WK2.  It felt like I was definitely getting advantages I could not get any other way... no other character gets real benefit from an A modded shotgun (and, yes, the Cerberus boots were easier to make, I even A modded them).  Is it great?  Not at all... but it works better if you play to it instead of trying to play something its not.  This isn't a no-brainer master... you need to work the role, otherwise it's not going to be fun (or seem to work in any way).  Everything should lead towards your planned goal, accepting that you'll be passing on things that might have made your life easier, simply because that's not the role you're playing.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin 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.)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 09, 2013, 23:59
Although most of what's been said makes perfect sense, I still don't agree that MSc doesn't work as a pistol build: with EE2 required for the master, access to both SOG and SOB (and REL+FIN, for those that want it) and the ability to make a simple pistol into a killing machine (a P2 modded storm bolter, for example). Take another level to get INT2 and you'll be killing most enemies before they step in sight (and propel them back out again if they do).

Currently doing MSc on AA666, mainly to get (close to) Technician Platinum and Heroic Gold (via the Experience Cross); if it works as well as my previous non-master pistol build on A100 (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6223.0.html), I'll get you a proper mortem. Give it a day or three, though :S
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on April 10, 2013, 03:15
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.
About MSc and rapid-fire. Assault chaingun and hyperblaster are your best friends until you take enough levels in SoB. Later assault rifle assembly becomes useless, but hyperblaster always rocks.
The only real loss that MSc suffers is Ber. And when i go for MSc i decide that i'm not playing melee game so mostly i don't care.

MSc doesn't have to compete with anything. Of course MAc is more reliable when it comes to rapid-fire, MSs is better in terms of DPS, and MCe is safer.But they all come with disadvantages, and MSc basically have none except inability to take another master.

About Entrenchment: it's mediocre and low difficulties and quite bad at high difficulties. Ber and MMB give >50% resistance, so a lot of the time damage is reduced to 1.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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Klear on April 10, 2013, 03:37
I agree about entrenchment. I used it a couple of times I played a masterless build and realized it didn't block anything too important, and the bonus might have saved me a couple of HPs, but it was nothing to write home about. More of a "might as well" trait, rather than something to build to.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 10, 2013, 08:57
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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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 10, 2013, 09:06
there's no guarantee you'll see a Combat Pistol on a run

Doesn't matter. A standard issue pistol transformed into a storm bolter turns into a handheld doomsday device when backed by those stats.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: ZicherCZ on April 10, 2013, 09:10
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.).
True, at least according to the wiki.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on April 10, 2013, 10:11
Yes, it's true that protection kicks after resistances and resistances from different sources are addictive. That's why as example i chose baron as there's no normal armors that give you resistance to acid.
Actually to be fair while wearing fireproof red armor and chain-firing with MEn you could care less about M,V and R. But you can do the same with normal red and MMB.
And as you noticed there's also armor damage problem.
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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.).
Yeah, combat pistol is not guaranteed but it's relatively common. You're pretty much bound to get in Ao100 and in normal game basic pistol will suffice. Power and bulk mods are not really a problem for MSc build. There's also storm bolter, which i never assemble coz don't like but they say it's good.
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And the part where you lose Triggerhappy.
I don't see it as a much of a problem. I used plasma rifle, chaingun, hyperblaster without TH and was perfectly satisfied. If you want to fire more shots per second you can take Fin which is universal.
I'm not saying that TH is useless ofc, it's just the real power lies in SoB.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 10, 2013, 10:25
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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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 10, 2013, 11:19
I don't think you can mod a Storm Bolter at all. (There is in fact a topic where Kornell said this recently, IIRC?)

Yeah, I actually had the audacity to log a bug report for that. My bad.

closer to L20 than L15

Bear in mind that one of the assumptions in my argument was that MSc only finds its true use in A100/AA666 games. In that case, the worries about levels after the first 10 kinda fade into the background. On my current run, I think I'm about level 18 with SOG 5, SOB 3 and EE 3 and...

...it's not especially hard to build a Storm Bolter without Scavenger.

My point exactly. Screw TH, screw DG, DIY a storm bolter from the pistol your superiors gave you and wreak havoc.

Having said all this: doing the run I'm doing now, I'm starting to agree with Nick that MSc needs some change. If this is what it is, chances of me ever doing another MSc again after I have all the Techinician Badges are slim to none. And even for those, MSc isn't all the help I had hoped it to be. What the hell do I need 4 sniper mods in 50 levels for??
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin 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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on April 10, 2013, 12:16
My opinion on your notes and items in reversed order:
Bullet-Proof Vest: it has small advantage over green armor - it has no movespeed penalty. Not like -5% on green is noticable though.
Translocator, Subtle knife, Mjolnir: uniques are unique. They're not supposed to be always better. They are unique.
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.
Demolition armor: it is more or less okay on pistols. However Fire damage type horribly backfires when you attempt it on chain-gun. Because rapid-fire knockback in DoomRL is a bit messed up, most likely your target will get knocked out of bullet path and a lot of shots miss. Same with trying to use this again groups - first bullets knocks everyone in different direction without you doing much damage.
Scavenger: well, i still believe that it's perfectly okay with problem being the mods.
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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 10, 2013, 12:34
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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.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on April 10, 2013, 12:44
Well, they're better than combat knife. And that's what you get in Ao100.

As for Frag shotgun - let's say you're doing AoSh UV/100% and want to do maximum number of special levels. There's a limited amount of shells in the game. Even if you take them all, sometimes you can still have free space. So you fill it with Frag Shotgun and 10mm. If you find them more shells you throw some 10mm away to take it.Seems obvious to me.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 10, 2013, 12:52
I saw your post and don't have time to really dig into it, at the moment - but I will, looks good - but here's some quick thoughts:

-Scavenger

I actually really like the idea of this trait. From what I've seen so far though, the options for obtaining mods should indeed be better, possibly at the cost of a couple of basic traits being made unavailable.

-Gun Kata

What makes GK count is the fact that you fire fast, reload fast upon killing and not get shot. Ok, against large numbers, trouble will arise, but one on one this trait really shines. Doing a no-invul Cyberdemon's head on AoMr with this trait is a blast.

I'll get back to you on this a.s.a.p., good stuff.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 10, 2013, 13:05
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Well, they're better than combat knife. And that's what you get in Ao100.

Why not use 8d2 Chainswords, instead? (Never mind that Chainsaws do show up randomly.)

Those don't even take Whizkid. The higher damage average on a Chainsword(12 vs Subtle Knife's 9 and Mjollnir's 8) makes up for Subtle Knife's Plasma for the most part. Mjollnir's not even a special element, IIRC.

I think even a Piercing Blade does more(3d5, 9 average, piercing so totally ignores armor).

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As for Frag shotgun - let's say you're doing AoSh UV/100% and want to do maximum number of special levels. There's a limited amount of shells in the game. Even if you take them all, sometimes you can still have free space. So you fill it with Frag Shotgun and 10mm. If you find them more shells you throw some 10mm away to take it.Seems obvious to me.

I think if a Frag Shotgun(Or Plasma Shotgun, as they do the same thing, much better, with Power Cells, or a Nano-Shrapnel) was remotely required to do 100%/UV/Conquerer/AoSh, I would be incredibly surprised.

For starters, Archviles can be used to farm shotgun shells.

For another thing, I have a mortem of doing 97%/AoS/UV run(I didn't have enough Cells to shoot through The Wall, which was the only thing I used that Plasma Shotgun for-dumped it after, it was a MAD build. That's why it's not 100%... :( ). From that mortem;

    [b] shotgun shell (x50)
    [c] shotgun shell (x50)
    [d] shotgun shell (x50)
    [e] shotgun shell (x50)
    [f] shotgun shell (x50)
    [g] shotgun shell (x25)
    [h] shotgun shell (x50)
    [i] shotgun shell (x50)
    [j] shotgun shell (x50)

I admittedly used an Elephant Gun most of the time, which is more ammo efficient than your average Double Shotgun, but I would be rather surprised if there was over 400 shells worth of enemies in the areas I skipped, with no replenishment at all at any point. I know Limbo/Mortuary can get nasty, but that's a hard sell.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Matt_S on April 10, 2013, 13:09
Mjollnir is quite a bit of an oddball with its damage.  It does boomerang, though.  Can't say I'd choose it over any other melee weapon except maybe a combat knife though.  It might have some utility as a secondary weapon in AoB for corner-throwing fun or something.

Does the Subtle Knife's BFG Plasma damage mean it gibs things that you kill with it?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 10, 2013, 13:16
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Does the Subtle Knife's BFG Plasma damage mean it gibs things that you kill with it?

Well, it's not going to be Longinus about it-it's not likely to do more than 50 damage tops, even with Berserk and a ton of Brute, so it's no guaranteed gib. (You have to do 200% of the monster's max health to gib it on kill, with a plasma weapon, according to the wiki. 400% with most melee.)

But yeah, it's probably better at that than a normal weapon.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 10, 2013, 13:32
And even for those, MSc isn't all the help I had hoped it to be. What the hell do I need 4 sniper mods in 50 levels for??

It's sorta S/F/N balancing question. I've already brought some ideas above. I didn't figure yet how 0.9.9.7 actually works, looks like Alchemy is already there... or I'm that lucky again so RNG gives me "alchemic" mods.

About the Frag Shotgun... I can't say for sure (didn't tried it yet) but it's parameters look so purple. Looks like the only problem with it is the fact it is green.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on April 10, 2013, 13:52
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(Never mind that Chainsaws do show up randomly.)
Not for me.
Never in my DoomRL life i saw random chainsaw or random bfg9000.
As for Frag Shotgun: i'm merely stating that it can be useful. I'm not saying it's an awesome weapon or something.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on April 10, 2013, 17:14
I agree with most of your points. Nothing should be fully useless, nor OP

New melee weapons :
everyone knows melee was too weak, and needed a buff xD
Bah, I love subtle knife, even if I'll probably never use it. Mjollnir... well, I guess it's useful for melee with juggler. Juggler needed a buff too, right ?
More seriously, I like the increased number of melee weapons. This looks good, especially good for Ao100+, where chainsaw were quite rare. The fact that melee is OP is another problem.

Demolition ammo
Sucks for other reasons. Costs WK2 and F-mod, but knockbacks everything with 1st bullet... so, AOE can't be used effectively. Also, damages are quite weak & can destroy items...
I guess fire damages can be of some use on a gun... but it's 1 game over 1000.

Frag shotty
Looks good to me, except one point : WTF with firing time ? 7d3 is ok. I can take 2.5 sec to recharge if I need to save my ammo, but 1.5 firing time ??? I don't get it.
Sure, it can be useful, but I think it should be improved. I doubt it would be too good with 1s firing time... not moddable, low damage, 4 shells, long reload and shorter ammo stacks... sure, it has a use, but compared to a Jackhammer... :/)

Combat translocator
I like your suggestions. Spamming translocator shots could be very fun, and I doubt stacking enemies aroud stairs would be much abusable (well, it could improve RL/BFG value significantly, but Ithing it could be a good buff). A secondary fire acting like a phase would need some big drawback (e.g. 3+ seconds firing time, and NOT homing, of course)

Bullet proof vest
Will be useless 80% of the times, but it's not a bad armor in early game (quite good against formers or the player, and doesn't reduce ms).



Also, about masteries, from my point of view :
MSv is useless, for said reasons
MSc is... well, useful to get techies badges, or hope for a few lucky nanos, but probably not goot for the rest (even if it only blocks Ber). Getting only F and S really sucks in non normal games, which seems to be THE place where this mastery could shine.
MGK... is weird. Reloading guns automatically is great, but OTOH, I think it's a weak mastery. As said, it gives nothing particular for what it costs. I'll prefer good mods or MCE to improve my char. Btw, my gun runs are MSh, since I want access to WK

I just never tried MEn or MBD... There are reasons for this :)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 11, 2013, 00:14
Not for me.
Never in my DoomRL life i saw random chainsaw or random bfg9000.

Don't know about 0996, but in the A100/AA666 runs I've done on 0997, I've seen a couple of chainsaws and a BFG.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 11, 2013, 04:30
Frag Shotgun can also be an assembly. Chaingun + T + T + A, for example. But as a "purple thing", it can be a part of powerful assemblies, both 10mm and shotgun ones. It bumps it's weak parameters but not too much because assemblies are not free. Demolition Ammo Frag Shotgun will probably be a treasure for any shotgun build, competing with the Jackhammer. Plasmatic Frag Shotgun can be as well.
Just a crazy idea: Dum-dum rifle (I already love the name!) Four 10mm bullets hit the target and if it's gibbed, a wide shotgun blast appears from it's square. It's the parts of exploded bullets which additionally hit other monsters. So shooting nearest zombie in a crowd can kill 2-3 at once.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Klear on April 11, 2013, 05:06
Just a crazy idea: Dum-dum rifle (I already love the name!) Four 10mm bullets hit the target and if it's gibbed, a wide shotgun blast appears from it's square. It's the parts of exploded bullets which additionally hit other monsters. So shooting nearest zombie in a crowd can kill 2-3 at once.

...and yourself.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 11, 2013, 06:17
What make you think the wide shotgun blast can be directed toward player ever? Can't even imagine this geometry.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Klear on April 11, 2013, 06:27
Oh, a shotgun blast. For some reason I was imagining an explosion of said doomed enemy, going in all directions. My bad.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 11, 2013, 06:39
Now I see :) By the way, since I've already made the picture...
(http://i011.radikal.ru/1304/45/deea4d07fa40.jpg)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Radagast on April 11, 2013, 07:49
Nice creativity but somehow I feel this might be a bit too much, in making the game far easier with a shotgun that is. Feels somehow overpowered since at high difficulties you do get to shoot at many enemies at the same time. On the other hand, rockets and other blast weapons practically do "almost" the same thing so I don't know, "maybe" with the right tweaks/stats on the weapon it "could" work.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 11, 2013, 08:34
Nice creativity but somehow I feel this might be a bit too much, in making the game far easier with a shotgun that is. Feels somehow overpowered since at high difficulties you do get to shoot at many enemies at the same time. On the other hand, rockets and other blast weapons practically do "almost" the same thing so I don't know, "maybe" with the right tweaks/stats on the weapon it "could" work.

Yeah. THIS one is a really "green" item.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 11, 2013, 08:37
@Radagast: I agree; in essence it's a good idea, although it'll need some tweaking. Say for example - as it was intended to be a dum dum rifle instead of shotgun - the first shot being a bullet which triggers a (reduced) shotgun blast upon impact. Something for the unique items thread (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,1859.0.html) maybe?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 11, 2013, 08:59
I've tried to say the same thing... bullet (technically as one big shot or as four of std ones) hits the first target and ends it's way if target remains the whole piece of meat or triggers a blast if target gets gibbed. I'm not sure the discussion worth being in the U. I. thread because we sorta finished it. At least, it's started as the FragSG balancing. I love the fact Bengali দমদম (Dômdôm) sounds like "Doom-Doom". Not exactly (more like "Dom-Dom"... can't find any mentions on Youtube or elsewhere to listen).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: skarczew on April 12, 2013, 17:41
"Pizdets Vsemu (F**kin' End to Everything)"
Ahh, screw that Wiki shitty legends :) .
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 12, 2013, 18:58
Random idea: If Firestorm is made into a Fire resistance mod, changing Fireshield to BTF would give Firestorms a very interesting and strong, but niche and not universal, defensive assembly option. (It could be nerfed some if the current extremely high Fire resistance is too much for a bit more common of a mod. Then again, it's not that incredibly much better, in practice, than Fireproof Red.)

An interesting option in the same vein might be to make a ATS armor that would be high melee/shrapnel/bullets resists. Since Sniper's a optical aid mod, maybe calling it Displacement Armor would work.

Edit: Another random thought that has occured to me; Generally speaking, the basic boots are a lot worse balanced than the armors.

Green Armor is worse than Blue Armor but is generally good against damage that's common when you get it, Blue Armor's similar but less extremely so with its own Plasma resist, and Red's generally the best.

Boots are extremely linear, though.

Also, there's a common complaint about Tactical Boots being overly powerful and monopolizing runs.

Why not just improve the overall balance, then?

Ditch Iron Boots. Replace them with Enviroboots, make those the weakest boot type, and give them 50% Acid resistance-which is the most common type of damage ground early-and 25% Fire, but just 1 Armor. Place them where Iron Boots are now.

Remove Tactical Boots as an Assembly, make them a normal boot type with 2 Protection and +5% Speed, no resists. This ends up the same amount of movement speed with an Agility mod as Tactical Boots are now, without being an assembly. Place them where Enviroboots are now.

Then make Plasteel Boots grant a dodging bonus of 5%. (Perhaps renaming them would make this more sensible, though...) Have the Technical Mod be able to boost any boot's dodge boost by 5%, instead of the knockback, too.

Boots in general are pretty hard to destroy, so the loss of regen on Tactical Boots isn't a big deal, and the speed is the same with a mod(and they get a little compensation for this loss by having a Protection value.). Enviroboots are the best defense early, while the new Plasteel would be the best defensive boot for dodging, but not for movement.

The overall bonus would probably be linear, but it's not very clear cut. I'm probably missing something here, but it sounds good in my head.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: lmaoboat on April 14, 2013, 12:06
Started playing again, and finally managed to beat the game on HNTR, so I thought I'd post some thoughts.

It kind of feels like pistol variety is lacking compared to the other weapons. Everything else has at least one other guaranteed upgrade, and their two-mod assemblies also seem better. I also feel like Oynx, Sniper, and Firestorm are a bit behind Nano in terms of assemblies. Also, don't if it's a bug, but Shamblers don't make hit sounds, which makes it hard to tell if I'm hitting them or not.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 14, 2013, 12:11
It kind of feels like pistol variety is lacking compared to the other weapons.

That may be true, but once you get a couple of levels in SOG, even normal pistols do incredibly well. The exotic 'combat pistols' are pretty common, though.

I also feel like Oynx, Sniper, and Firestorm are a bit behind Nano in terms of assemblies.

Agreed, but you don't need to use these in assemblies to make them effective.

Also, don't if it's a bug, but Shamblers don't make hit sounds, which makes it hard to tell if I'm hitting them or not.

There are more creatures around that tend to do that. Luckily you can see what state they're in when they teleport in right next to you :S
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 14, 2013, 20:02
Considering that all Nightmare class enemies(not to be confused with enemies on Nightmare! difficulty, which are different, though some of them are Nightmare enemies...) don't make noises when hit, I assume it's on purpose.

It also makes Nightmare Archviles very, very annoying. "Why are these enemies reviv-oh."

As to pistols...I think the variety's fine. Blaster's a moddable, plasma damage, ammo regenerating pistol. Combat Pistol's notable for having a far bigger clip(This is a big deal, pistol setups are generally somewhat point intensive and it's hard to get Reloader fast). Cleric is essentially a pseudo-chaingun, Jackal...well, it's weird and I'm not sure how good it is(I want to get it on a pistol setup) but it's definitely different, and Trigun...well, Trigun's ability is amazing, though as a pistol it's basically a 3d6 pistol with a big reload time. Still, even that's not too bad for differences.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: lmaoboat on April 14, 2013, 21:10
I meant just the generic weapons. Like melee, shotguns, and chain guns all have guaranteed upgrades at some point.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Radagast on April 15, 2013, 02:00
I meant just the generic weapons. Like melee, shotguns, and chain guns all have guaranteed upgrades at some point.

To be honest I kinda agree with this, just for the sake of more options and more variety in the game, in terms of pistols.
I actually encountered my first exotic pistol after way too many runs. I know it's random but finding a better pistol than the initial one after 10+ runs is somewhat not that logical. I did find a trigun though in one of those runs. I think..

And it's kinda strange considering the variety of pistols in real life. I mean come on it's a common weapon after all.
Check a list of pistols here for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pistols

I'm not saying the game needs that many pistols ofc, but it "could" actually use a minor or alternate upgrade or two in later levels, such as a colt, or a glock for instance. Other alternate ideas "could" be a desert eagle. This could provide a better damage/piercing option at the expense of higher reload time and low magazine number.

Just my humble opinion. :)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: AlterAsc on April 15, 2013, 03:53
The problem with adding another common pistol that's better than basic pistol is pistol's high scaling with SoG. Even a small upgrade translates in quite a noticeable difference later. For example combat pistol having initial 3d3 which is not much better than 2d4 becomes best single-shot pistol with 3d6 after P3 modding. And it also have super-high clip size, which is upgradable too...
I would like to use something other than what i got right on the start, but i don't think this can be easily balanced.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on April 15, 2013, 04:15
I think some more pistol variety would be nice, but I don't think guns need to be buffed. (Well, to be exact, I want guns buffed and SoG nerfed, so that guns could have a use in other builds)
Anyway, I'd rather put new "alternative basic pistols" than new exotics/uniques, which are usually more powerful.

Basically, fire time quickly becomes negligible, so a 'quick fire' pistol could be good for the couple of first levels in the game... and useless after that.  Unless you start with it, it doesn't seem worth to create such an item, I guess.
Most relevant parameters seem to be magazine size and precision. SoG makes most of the damages, but reaching 12 or more makes a difference, since it enables knockback.
What could we do with this ?

Here are some basic guns variants ideas :
Basic gun (just for comparison) :
1.0s firing time
1.2s reload time
2d4 damages (avg 5)
+4 precision
6 bullets magazine
Alt. fire : aimed shot (+3 precision, firing time doubled)
Alt. reload : dual reload

Precision gun :
1.2s firing time
1.2s reload time
3d2 damages (avg 4.5)
+7 precision
4 bullets magazine
Alt. fire : aimed shot (+7 precision, doubles firing time)
Alt. reload : none (or dual reload, if you want, but such a command shouldn't be on the weapon. It should belong to the interface. And anyway, it's quite useless)
The idea is just to have a gun with built-in EE, making shots more reliable. Weaker, and even worse than basic gun in terms of reloads, but better precision, which should also increases ammo efficiency. Since I think it might be quite weak, I buffed alt-fire (not sure it does a difference, but the goal is to improve out-of sight shooting accuracy)

Mammoth gun :
1s firing time
0.8s reload time
6d2 damages
+2 precision
2 bullets magazine
Alt fire : dual shot (-3 precision, fire both bullets at once, doubles firing time)
Alt. reload : same as previous.
Basically, this one is intended to give a chance of knockback to non MSS builds.

Glock 42 :
(9 or 12 bullets magazine, burst of 3 bullets, terrible precision) -> Either awful damages or overpowered ones (witg SoG). Too powerful with MSS or too weak with anythinf else -> bad idea (IMO)



Btw, I'm afraid those suggestions are not balanced, but I don't really see better ideas to improve pistols variety without reworking all guns & SoG itself.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on April 15, 2013, 04:21
Also, forgot to say I agree with SageAcrin (& some older posts) about boots problem : boots are currently non interesting at all. Most of the time, you'll go tactical boots since they are the only useful ones. Acid-protection ones are useless, acid-proof are rarely useful, and plasteel don't protect you enough for the lava pits, which is the only place where you could need them.

Reworking all the boots would probably be the best choice, with a split of useful stats on different items (speed, dodge, protection, maybe some activations... like Aegis boots, getting 100% protection for a short time full feets protection, etc.)

I also like the idea of T-mods improving dodge on armors/boots, since knockback reduction doesn't seem of any use.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Radagast on April 15, 2013, 04:24
The problem with adding another common pistol that's better than basic pistol is pistol's high scaling with SoG. Even a small upgrade translates in quite a noticeable difference later. For example combat pistol having initial 3d3 which is not much better than 2d4 becomes best single-shot pistol with 3d6 after P3 modding. And it also have super-high clip size, which is upgradable too...
I would like to use something other than what i got right on the start, but i don't think this can be easily balanced.
Agreed, you do have a point of course. It would need to be carefully thought of, to avoid upsetting the balance.
The way I see it, the only way to add another pistol, is to nerf the initial one. Also keep in mind that one could also play with the reload time AND/or accuracy and fire time on each pistol, to provide better variety/options without upsetting the balance much. Which means making them all useful, depending on playstyle and the time you find them in the game.

For example a possible scenario "could be" :

1. pistol (could be renamed to handgun btw, pistol is kinda plain):
Dmg: 1d7 or 2d3 instead of 2d4 (and/or could reduce it's accuracy by 1), clip size 6 as it is.

2. Colt/Glock. (or whatever you want to call it)
This could appear on later levels such as when the combat/double shotgun/rocket launcher appear.
Dmg: 2d4, clip size 8 or 10 instead of the 6 the initial pistol has.

This way you have a solid improvement to the normal pistol without making it overpowered such as the exotic/unique ones. This also makes the player save the mod packs for something better than the normal initial pistol which I find great since it happens with other initial weapons too. :)

3. Alternate Pistol - Desert Eagle (I'm not suggesting this just as a normal pistol. It could actually be an exotic one. :) )
Clip Size: 7, Dmg: 3d4, Acc: +5 , fire time: 1.1 sec, reload time: 1.8sec

You might think the above is overpowered due to it's damage. (better than combat pistol) But it's actually pretty balanced since the clip size is very low (well that's the bad thing with the desert eagle isn't it), and the fire time is slightly worse than the combat pistol.

Ofc feel free to suggest other stats, this is just a small idea after all with many possibilities.
I believe it can happen though, as long as it is carefully thought of, without upsetting overall balance much. :)

As for SoG I think it becomes ludicrously overpowered at high levels, so IMO to balance it, at least the 5th level of it should be removed as an option. 4 levels of SoG are imo more than enough for this game. And I know sharpshooter lovers will hate me for saying this, but it's one of the few skills that could easily get nerfed to 15% fire time reduction per point, instead of 20%. And it would still be good enough. :P

PS1 : Keep in mind that 1-2 of the assemblies would likely be affected too, so they could slightly change as well along with the pistol addition.

PS2: Damn someone beated me in posting specifics. :)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 15, 2013, 09:33
I think the main reason there's no baseline, common Pistol upgrade is because Doom doesn't have one.

Combat Pistol basically fills that role, but the weapon set that's common is because it was common in Doom, is my impression.

The best idea I can think of to fix that would be to have an assembly that actually allows you to make fully moddable, normal Combat Pistols from normal Pistols. At that, it'd be a good replacement for Speedloader(Which, while not actively bad, is sorta...not much, I'd rather just load a normal pistol with a couple of Bulks.).
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: grommile on April 15, 2013, 11:42
Rename the pistol "revolver", and I'd stop whining about it only accepting six bullets. (A semiauto pistol chambered in 10mm would have at least a ten-shot clip.)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 16, 2013, 07:23
Doom pistol MUST be weak. It's the part of the Doom universe %)

By the way, I've finished dual Ao100/AoShot today and already want to begin Ao100/AoMark. Let's see what pistols are for :)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: bwross on April 16, 2013, 12:16
On tact boots:  They're not the no brainer they used to be.  I've largely stopped making them, just settling for a set of A-mod steel speed boots for the early game.  The extra speed is of minimal benefit, I can live without the regen (repairing is good enough for boots), I get to keep the 1 point of protection on my feet (not great, but it is something if I need to run across some acid), there isn't the guarantee of the early A-mods from the Chained Court (so there's not the surplus there once was, making saving a second A mod much more tempting), and, of course, there's no dodging bonus now.  I don't think they need to be changed.  They're still good (the extra 5% speed is sometimes exactly what I need, so I have reasons to build them), but I also think about going with A-mod plasteel (or any other better boots I can get).  So I think the balance is quite good, although some people might still be tact boot junkies out of habit.

That said, and to move on to the subject of mods... one of the big problems with S and F mods is that many PCs can't make use of them.  Assemblies for the weapons that can't sue them helps a bit (I was surprised by PS/Plasmatic Shrapnel... I would have gone with an F assembly and the real life dragonsbreath rounds).  But what pretty much guarantees a mod is useful is if it has a good use on armour/boots... there isn't a Naked Angel challenge or badge yet, so, other than personal challenge, everyone likes wearing clothes.  Improving things along those lines would help a lot... suggestions like giving T and F mods the ability to boost resistances on armour is a good step in that direction.  For S mods and armour/boots, I'd suggest the possibility that they do sort of the inverse of what they do on guns by granting "stealth" to make you harder to hit.  Since mechanically that would mean dodging, that would allow people to build the old tactic boots by adding an S mod to them.

I think that pistols are just fine without a common upgrade.  The other benefits from traits and mods make up for it.  So much so, that that's another part of why I don't consider using MSc with guns... it's not much harder to build the twinky gun out of your starting pistol going masterless with just WK2, and then you still have the option to take DG for when you find the GCB.  It just wouldn't feel like I was using MSc (and I think that's largely going to be the case with MSc in the big dungeons... it might seem like that's the place MSc should shine, but you'd have it backwards, large dungeons are where MSc will obsolete itself, and that will always be the case), and if that's the case, I might as well go no-master.  The basic pistol development path is just that strong.  It's also nice to know that you can finish the game with the weapon you start with... one of the things that's always bothered me with CRPGs is the trope where the hero character starts the game with some sentimental weapon like their father's sword, and ends up tossing it a couple levels later like it was nothing. 

Not being able to really "use" MSv is part of it's problem, too.  The use of it is too passive to really give a feel that you've gained much over no-master.  Which is important, if you aren't actively using something then it's going to seem like that... I once started up a game and had a rough time of it until I leveled up and "discovered" that I was shooting things with a Bru3 Vampyre.  Another time, I fought the Shambler twins with MGK, and proceeded to forget the whole "Kata" bit, and took an embarrassing amount of plasma bolts.  So even if you do have a master, if you're not working it, it will never seem better than none.  But that's only part of the Survivalist's problems, because unlike Scavenger, it doesn't give any offense in the skills required to build it.  It also takes 6 specific traits... meaning that when you compare it to the somewhat similar Vampyre (in that both are good for being robust, with Badass and an ability to build overcharge as part of the trait), it comes up doubly weak (Vampyre has a lot of offense, and only requires 5 traits -- one of which is a wild card).  Now, I can see a reason for having the tanking marine option available, but at the very least, the requirements should be lowered.  I'm thinking -2 Iro and +1 wild card (ie require 5 traits like the other quick masters (which include MSc): Iro1, TaN2, Bad1, plus a fifth).  The wild card is important (instead of just dropping 1 level of Iro)... it gives people the option to still go with another Iro, or to go with a Bad, or to take an offensive trait (or two because the master is quick to get).  Another change might be to change the anti-requisite SoB to TH (or something else).  Survivalist could make a decent rapid-fire build (becoming the heavy weapon guy), but having no access to the rapid-fire trait tree at all is a bit too much (especially since MSc at least has limited access).  That's at least what I recommend as a start for reforming MSv.

As far as Juggler goes... splitting it into two levels is too much.  It can still be improved without going there.  The problem is largely that keybindings can be defined to give 'quick_command' access to any weapon, and that's not obvious to most people.  So my suggestion would be to rework the whole quick key system so that the player can assign specific weapons to be juggled by assigning them to one of the ten quick keys.  So instead of having "6" be "find me the most loaded chaingun", it would be "wield the specific weapon I've assigned to 6".  Only weapons that are assigned would be able to be juggled, and any command to wield one (swap, inventory, mouse wheel, whatever) would cause juggling.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on April 16, 2013, 16:14
I think you're right about Tac boots, but acid protective boots still suck, and most other assembled boots don't seem much more useful. Those should be improved to encourage more boots diversity. New assemblies could be created too.
Simple examples could be A+T boots giving 10 or 15% dodge, and maybe regenerating, or boots making you run faster or longer (but +0% normal ms).
Those are not exceptionnal ideas, but seem like decent alternatives, so why not add such items ?

About rare mods, I like the idea of specific ones (like onyx working only on armors), they just need to be really useful (for most builds). I think S is fine as it is : it improves any ranged weapon's precision significantly, and also has a use for shotguns builds. And if you fiund a second, it stacks ! I rarely don't know what to do with.
F has serious issues, since it doesn't give anything, and wastes ammo more than it increases DPS.
I think the biggest problem is about MSc, which gives 99% F&S, and is mostly used in Ao100+... where it reaches it's cap too fast.

Pistols are rather balanced, but I hate the fact that bad weapons are balanced with an OP weapons-specific trait : It makes them useless in most non-pistol-build games (save Trigun)

Fully agree on MSv. I think the first step to make it useful would be to remove the SoB block. Examples of offensive buffs it could give : increased powerup duration (really suits the mastery theme imo), or zerk proc when you take too much damages (would be way weaker than Ber, but at least, might protect you in real times of need)

For juggler... I think 2 levels could be fine, it just has to be buffed & made more usef-friendly (I suggested reduced time to swap armor/boots & use items, somewhere)
1 level with limited number of bound weapons was my previous idea too, but I think there is issues it won't solve : how can we change those binds, in-game ? Do we need to quit & manually edit config ? Anyway, changing binds between games would be too confusing... so it'not a good idea. Btw, you could restrict to only basic bounds (i.e. standard weapons), but is that really interesting ?
Of course, it shouldn't be restricted to quick swapping, which is absolutely counter-intuitive.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 19, 2013, 10:27
9.9.9.7 is perfect. The only sad thing I can't torture that Former Commando who corner-shot two barrels I couldn't even see, throwing me into a pool of lava, and than used a phase device to reach another room, and stolen a red armor and than suddenly attacked me from an unexpected direction. I've wasted all my medikits. I've killed him but I'm sure death is not nearly enough. I want to attack him from a corner, grab his weapon, knock him down, tie him up and than slowly, painfully kill him. First, I want to pull his right index finger out. Than I want to put his right palm on a brick and hit it with another brick until... damn, he was a human upon a time. Hell with him, death was enough.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: LuckyDee on April 19, 2013, 12:22
....erm.... time to switch to decaf, Nick? ;)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Klear on April 20, 2013, 02:27
Time to switch to n!. Then you can kill any enemy over and over and over again... plus you get tons of extra ammo!
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on April 20, 2013, 21:00
... plus you get tons of extra ammo!
I wonder if we should nerf that farming... thing.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: SageAcrin on April 20, 2013, 22:46
Only if you nerf respawning.

Infinite respawns need infinite ammo to kill. :)
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Evilpotatoe on April 21, 2013, 03:51
I think it's good as it is.
A nerf could be, for exampe, to double all ammo stacks & drops size, but remove drops from respawned monsters...
The problem is it would make ammochain, nanomachic weapons... and melee xD even better than they currently are, which would probably be a really bad idea in terms of balance.
Also, challenges like AoMr or AoSh would become a real pain, and might even need some adjustments (like tripled ammo quantities...) to be playable.

While I agree that current ammo farming is quite easy, I think it's a good system atm, and many other more important aspects of the game remain to improve.
You'll always get some levels without ammo anyway. In my 1st full N! game, yesterday, I got a level filled with barons, imps and demons... without some correct ammo management, this hurts :)
Btw, I also had a few caves filled with cacos... and the "best" cave you can expect in terms of ammo is... an arachnotron one ^^.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: appuru on April 21, 2013, 08:03
I wonder if we should nerf that farming... thing.

This would just drive everyone to rely on nano/nuclear/melee stuff. In a situation where we *can't* use any of those and we're forced to deal with scarce ammo, it doesn't sound very fun or necessarily challenging, just frustrating.

Also, farming the ammo isn't "free", you still have to isolate an enemy of interest while making sure you're ready for any wandering enemies, or alternatively wipe out the entire floor while leaving a corpse or two intact. Even if a wandering imp can't kill you, he could still shoot a fireball and accidentally gib a corpse.

On tactical boots: they aren't great, but they're still quite good if you assemble them with WK2, so you can get a total of 25% movespeed with an additional A mod. I guess outside of WK2 it just doesn't feel useful to assemble them. Maybe allow the assembly on any boots, but with halved protections or something? Exotics should be excluded of course, otherwise you'd have A modded tactical phaseshift boots which would pretty much be free anti-grav boots.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on April 21, 2013, 14:38
I understand why respawned enemies give no exp., but why summoned are do the same? Summoning switches are dangerous and are never infinite, two or three packs are not that much.
And why I can't combine Ao100 and AoLT? It could be a light, but hard travel :)
BTW both AoMark and AoShot tastes great with Ao100. Dual challenges are outstanding. As well as all 6->7 changes are.
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on May 01, 2013, 12:38
True spacemarines can do wonders with bare hands :)
(http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6111.0;attach=1462;image)
Why I can't combine Ao100 and AoLT?
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: thelaptop on May 01, 2013, 13:02
Why I can't combine Ao100 and AoLT?
Because the game doesn't allow you at this point.

Dual-angels are a very raw and untested concept.  There is almost no attempt to "balance" anything under that combination.  You can even think of Dual-angels as being in a public beta mode so that we can garner extra information on what combinations work well (i.e. fun), what don't (i.e. !@#$% sucks), and what are missing.

Also, I would think that Kornel didn't pair Ao100 and AoLT because it would be deemed as being too cruel, though I beg to differ.  If the players are masochistic enough, we should definitely humour their... perversions.  >.>
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: White Rider on May 01, 2013, 13:46
I'd play AoLT+100. Then again, I'd play AoLT with just about anything.

Hell, the only remaining combinations of AoLT Dual-angels I haven't tried are Purity (f that) and Darkness
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Fanta Hege on May 02, 2013, 06:44
Also, I would think that Kornel didn't pair Ao100 and AoLT because it would be deemed as being too cruel, though I beg to differ.  If the players are masochistic enough, we should definitely humour their... perversions.  >.>

can't wait for the possibility of angel of purity + angel of impatience for maximun limitation
Title: Re: Balance suggestions
Post by: Nick on May 04, 2013, 14:26
I think it must be a constant array
unsigned char Duals[N][N]=
{
0, 0, 32, 48, 128, 48, 64, 16,
128, 0, 64, 16, 0, 0, 32, 48,
64, 16, 0, 0, 32, 48, 128, 48,
 * * *
48, 64, 16, 0, 0, 32, 48, 0
};
keeping dual challenge weights. Sorry for my C.
N = number of single challenges.
0 = not compatible
non-0 = minimal rank

On first screen, all strings are active. On second screen, when line is selected, unlocked challenges from this line are active, locked ones are inactive and "zeroed" (such as AoMark + AoShot or anything + itself) are not even shown.

And I don't think Ao100 + AoLT is THAT difficult. Most inventory-restricted challenges such as AoMark and AoShot are less difficult with Ao100.