Balance changes and ideas.

[ViruS]

[quote="WhiteTech"]
Mathematically, its almost impossible to kill a larmoured/no helm human with rant charge. Its probably due to the fact that the damage has been nerfed (im fine with this, prevents instant-kills) and the slow repeat rate (come-on, three times slower? With damage modifiers on, thats like 15ish dmg per hit on a bsuit, and within the charge time, only about 9 will hit maximum, by which every hit afterwards will decrease by about 1.5 dmg... thats like 70 dmg within three seconds of constant contact... difference between lightarmour and bsuit modifiers being only 0.1...)

[Khaoz]

Never meant to heat the discussion up in first place, I am sorry if you feel offended.

1) Secondary fire has 1400 speed. How is that ridiculous? It's just a bit faster than pulse rifle, with 1sec repeat it's not really useful, sometimes you might kill a dretch if you get lucky, but most of times you'd better just charge a little bit and let the splash damage do its job. May look dangerous on paper, in game - it's not.

Yes this is ridiculous. It can 1 shot a dretch (as apposed to a pulse rifle bullet). And do significant damage to other aliens.

2) Luci can hit tyrant bad? Where's the issue? That's the most powerful weapon in humans arsenal it's supposed to hit aliens bad. Skilled human with luci can kill a rant? Where's the issue? He earned it. Skilled rant (or any alien TBH) should rather be able to avoid (yes, it is possible, luci is not a hitscan weapon) it.

Luci can hit any alien with ease (assuming you aren't shit and can aim).
With the amount of damage it does it's just ridiculous.
Luci is now far superior to rant. I actually don't think that getting 100 bonus HP is a justified reason to use it instead of an advanced goon.
Sure your attacks are a bit stronger but you are now a huge target with little mobility and no ranged attack.

A luci that can kill a rant with the 1.1 version of the lucifer cannon deserves the kill, it take little skill but at least some.
Killing a rant with a luci feels no better than killing anything with an MD, it's taken the reward out of getting good kills.

Also, no the rant won't be able to just get out of the way, unless the distance is there.

[PaN61]

The Lucifer Cannon is too Over Powering. As you say that it can dodge, it actually can't if you aren't far away enough to move out of the way, and you have to be a considerable distance away to do so, otherwise 250dmg dealt to you in an instant. With the Speed as well, It's too fast for aliens to have a chance to get away from the lucifer ball. Aliens are going to be more OP during s1 without the crouch-damage reduction. A player gets dragoon and that's basically it, forces camping to humans if they aren't willing to feed the aliens so the game ends faster. Especially if the players are good players.

The snipes also don't make you feel proud about getting a kill like 1.1 did because of the splash damage it deals if it hits the radius around the player. It requires less skill to kill the player, and doesn't really make it balanced. Especially since the adv goon from s3, is now at s2. Aliens are even more OP in this instance unless humans get s3, which then makes Humans too OP because of the luci.

I don't see how 1.1 was unbalanced. All my time playing 1.1 on AussieAssault has been very balanced between both teams. It also made it that you have to earn your kills with a bit of skill involved instead of no skill at all.

[Ishq]

I know you guys do not like GPP, but these changes have been tested over the course of a few years in GPP. They are not as game breaking as you portray them to be. 1.1 was fine 5 years ago, when few people knew how to exploit all the bugs. Now, as Asvarox described, it is largely a game of humans camping and hoping for a lucky break. I hope this is not the balance you are describing?

One thing you have to realize is that you cannot play Unvanquished as you play 1.1. The play styles are different. Luci in 1.1 was slow, so you could get closer. In Unvanquished, you have to maintain your distance and attack while the human is charging to take advantage of the longer charging time. I think you need time to adjust to these changes.

Goon barbs in 1.1 were used primarily as a means to attack a base. They were rarely used in combat because they generally only helped when you got in a lucky shot. Adding in the splash allows them to be useful when attacking players as well.

[Khaoz]

Goon barbs in 1.1 were used primarily as a means to attack a base. They were rarely used in combat because they generally only helped when you got in a lucky shot. Adding in the splash allows them to be useful when attacking players as well.

It's not lucky if you where actually trying to hit the human and do get the kills regularly. The added splash allows noobs to get kills as it was apparantly too hard before.

It just seems like this game is being made to be too easy.

I totally disagree with many of the GPP changes (especially the lucifer cannon buff). Even at close range the lucifer cannon is still deadly (assuming you don't stand still and let the aliens kill you).

You even said on Aussie Assault server to us that you would trial the old luci on the server to see how it pans out, just to test it, but it doesn't look like thats going to happen.

I feel that even if a majority of people dislike the change nothing will be done anyway. This thread will most likely be ignored by devs and is thus completely useless.
Might as well just sit back and play "Trem 1.2 (with new models)" / Unvanquished, as it seems our feedback isn't being considdered.

Also whats with the Marauder having wallclimb?

[DeathByMe]

Ok, so after having a day for people to write posts, some things have come to my attention.

How about trying 375 HP max on tyrant? it would be a significant difference, but not a game breaking change. also, you dont have to revert tyrant to how it was, but try tweaking it in ways that might make it as useful as 1.1.

How about an attack damage aura? or not bringing back his hp aura, but increasing his base regen? or just get Kreative? there are lots of things you can do, im almost certain. and ignoring some people blindly Hating, or defending the games "balance", Try something thats completely different. Make it so that the change from ADV goon, to Tyrant feels like a worthwhile one.

remember, Alpha is there to make forgivable bad choices, because you can always undo them.

the main thing that sticks out with tyrant is, why evolve? Adv has also been the slightly better, "go to" alien for the higher skilled players. but now the extra 100hp, for reduced mobility and range is just to big a difference to make me ever wanna evolve.

[ViruS]

I'd say yes to +25 hp...

[Kreative]

snip

Also whats with the Marauder having wallclimb?

Mara's don't have wall climb, and what's with the rant saying the devs are doing nothing lol. I'm not even going to respond to that, if you believe that, then, oh well.

Anyways, here's an idea, I wouldn't mind the 375 hp, but since you guys say the Lucifer is so overpowering, (which I still am going to try to argue it's not), why don't we give Tyrant trample a less overpowering buff. When a Tyrant charges, it takes less damage, maybe 40% less. Never been good at math, so this is probably wrong, but that would make a fully charged Lucifer do 150 damage instead of 250 while charging, and then the rant could just finish everyone off with claws or run away while taking minimal damage. (In my opinion this is unneeded, but heh, I'll throw it out there anyways)

or just get Kreative?

;)

Also guys, how much have you really played Unvanquished? And how much against actual "decent" players and not bots lol? The current gameplay hasn't even been fully play tested yet, so it's probably best to discuss gameplay after it has been. But of course, there's nothing wrong with brewing up ideas for the future too!

[danmal]

I feel that even if a majority of people dislike the change nothing will be done anyway. This thread will most likely be ignored by devs and is thus completely useless.
Might as well just sit back and play "Trem 1.2 (with new models)" / Unvanquished, as it seems our feedback isn't being considdered.

Community feedback is very important and it's something that definitely guides development. However it's important that everyone has a chance to get used to gameplay changes before we fiddle with them again. Personally I think luci might be OP but I'm not going to advocate for it to be nerfed until everyone has more time to play around with it. Aussie Assault hasn't been up for all that long after all.

More generally I'd like to mention a couple of things. As always feel free to ignore them

1) Be careful of power creep when advocating for balance changes. A few people are talking about increasing rant hp because the upgrade from adv goon to rant doesn't feel great. It might be more prudent to consider nerfing good/adv goon especially considering how strong they are vs stage 1 humans.

2) Concentrate on what feels unfair rather then comparing what each team gained/lost from 1.1. It's important that we get fun gameplay rather then trying to achieve perfect balance.

3) Loss of crouch is more then made up with the introduction of dodge + high stamina for humans. Dodge is a lot more skillful then crouching and I can't see much of a reason to re-introduce crouch. If humans suck too much at early stages there's other things we can do before re-introducing crouch.

4) This is an awesome thread! It's quite encouraging to see that everyone is keeping their cool and not bashing other peoples suggestions.

[Khaoz]

Mara's don't have wall climb, and what's with the rant saying the devs are doing nothing lol. I'm not even going to respond to that, if you believe that, then, oh well.

They don't literally have wallclimb. But they can climb walls (ie, holding w and spacebar allows you to scale a wall and then stick to the ceiling.

Anyways, here's an idea, I wouldn't mind the 375 hp, but since you guys say the Lucifer is so overpowering, (which I still am going to try to argue it's not), why don't we give Tyrant trample a less overpowering buff. When a Tyrant charges, it takes less damage, maybe 40% less. Never been good at math, so this is probably wrong, but that would make a fully charged Lucifer do 150 damage instead of 250 while charging, and then the rant could just finish everyone off with claws or run away while taking minimal damage.

This sounds like a pretty good idea if it was implemented right. I think the lucifer cannon should still always be able to kill rant with 2 charged shots (just not at the pace the lucifer cannon is currently firing at).

Also guys, how much have you really played Unvanquished? And how much against actual "decent" players and not bots lol? The current gameplay hasn't even been fully play tested yet, so it's probably best to discuss gameplay after it has been. But of course, there's nothing wrong with brewing up ideas for the future too!

We have been playing unvanquished quite regularly, (we usually have scheduled games a on tuesdays just to encourage people to come on) on the Aussie Assault server http://www.aussieassault.net/ (so no bots, you can't test a games balance with bots). There have been a few decent players (many of them have given up on tremulous), but some have stuck around to see this new Unvanquished game through and most have 4+ years playing tremulous (give or take a few newbies who started late 1.1 early 1.2GPP). You probably wouldn't see anyone on the Aussie Assault server due to time zone differences.