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MM8BDM Discussion / Re: Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch V5 - STORY OVERHAUL!
« on: November 11, 2016, 08:47:19 PM »
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't comment any further on this forum unless someone brought up the very issues that I had complained about repeatedly. As a note on the below, I'm NOT saying that changes weren't warranted on the weapons. What I AM saying is that the changes for the most part were so piss poorly thought out that it's just inexcusable.
There's so much more I could comment upon, but I'm done.
Messatsu out.
Edit: I've modified this post to tone down the vitriol as that was not my intention.
(click to show/hide)
Proto Buster - The change goes against the very design of the weapon. This is a charge weapon. There is almost NO scenario where you aren't going to be charging it. The shield is now rendered entirely pointless. Why is it even there? No player is ever going to walk around uncharged with an unreliable shield. There was literally NO thought put into this change at all, just a slap dash hack. The only reason it was altered was because of concerns with duel and that's just sad if that's the entire reason for a change like this. Look, if the problem is that the shield gives it too much defense combined with a great offense, then there are other ways to mitigate it. Make the shield fly off or something when too much damage is taken, or have more weapons that can pierce the shield. Changes that require both players to use more tactics. If you're just going to apply a lazy "fix" like this, don't do it. This isn't fun, or interesting. It's just taking a nerf bat to something that was only an issue in one mode that could easily be patched around anyway.
Atomic Fire - Another weapon that has a foolish change. Sure this one had community feedback, but the rational behind the change was equally stupid. That complaint about being OHKO'd from across the map? Yea, this doesn't even remotely address that problem. It just makes the weapon harder to hit with and that's fun right? That will solves ALL the problems! The only thing this change does is remove skill from the weapon and just make it more luck based. The EXACT OPPOSITE of what should be done. This weapon was not even off the power scale either. It has a horrible firing rate for the big shot, abysmal ammo and the projectile travels slow. Aside from the OHKO potential, just about every other charge weapon is better from a power scale standpoint. There was absolutely no reason to take a nerf bat to this weapon. Instead, other weapons should have been taken into account to help mitigate it the OHKO potential. The fact that this wasn't done or even considered really highlights a massive failing in the design of this weapon.
Leaf Shield - I can totally understand this not being an easy weapon to work with so I won't be as hard here. However, the end result is basically just a variation on Mirror Buster. The biggest issue is that the effect of the weapon is almost nothing like the canon Leaf Shield. While not horrible, it just doesn't feel right for the weapon it's supposed to be.
Skull Barrier - This is another one I can understand not being easy to work with. The problem here is inconsistency as it's the only weapon you can switch off of. If you're going to have shields be switchable, then just fucking do that. This half-way bullshit is confusing! There's no communication to the player about this being a feature unless the person accidentally stumbles across it. The lack of conveyance here is an issue. It's also functionally useless if activated in the proximity of players at all. By the time you activate it and switch off of it, you've probably already taken the 1 hit needed to take it down. As Mega had also pointed it, the protection against 1 hit also overlaps with Leaf Shield as well, so while there are differences between the weapons, having both revamps share that trait is lame as fuck.
Mirror Buster - Again changes that are just straight up so idiotic that it's baffling. Primarily the strong shot. Previously it could OHKO the opponent, but here it caps out at 45 damage. So yes, if someone shot at you with a Proto Buster shot that deals 50 damage, the most you can fire back with is 45. How in the hell does that make any sense to anybody? This weapon requires you to be in the line of fire, not have the weapon cool down on you, have enough ammo AND aim at the player correctly to score a hit and SOMEHOW this weapon is so OP that it needs to be nerfed that hard? I know the argument put forth was that when someone had mirror buster out it ground the flow of combat to a halt. Problem being this, ONCE AGAIN, doesn't address that issue. It only makes the weapon less desirable to use by reducing it's viability against powerful weapons. The very nature of this weapon is to COUNTER power weapons like Atomic Fire for god's sake. Like I mentioned in the Atomic Fire commentary, you NEED to have something that can mitigate threats like that. You're removing them in favor of just making everything crappier. That's a horrible design philosophy.
Final Thoughts:
Pick a mode and focus on it. This wishy-washy crap where changes are made for specific modes only is creating some lazy and idiotic nerfs. Every attempt at this has resulted in changes that just make weapons less fun to use. You could easily have weapons play off each other and counter one another to deal with balance issues, but nobody seems to want to give the attention needed to rectify this problem. I would like to think that ZDR v3 will allow for more creativity in the future, but given how these changes were handled, I have absolutely no faith in the future of this game. By this, I mean that the time and attention to address serious game design problems are being ignored in favor of "Look at the new shiny!" I hope I'm wrong, but at this point, I'm not holding my breath.
Atomic Fire - Another weapon that has a foolish change. Sure this one had community feedback, but the rational behind the change was equally stupid. That complaint about being OHKO'd from across the map? Yea, this doesn't even remotely address that problem. It just makes the weapon harder to hit with and that's fun right? That will solves ALL the problems! The only thing this change does is remove skill from the weapon and just make it more luck based. The EXACT OPPOSITE of what should be done. This weapon was not even off the power scale either. It has a horrible firing rate for the big shot, abysmal ammo and the projectile travels slow. Aside from the OHKO potential, just about every other charge weapon is better from a power scale standpoint. There was absolutely no reason to take a nerf bat to this weapon. Instead, other weapons should have been taken into account to help mitigate it the OHKO potential. The fact that this wasn't done or even considered really highlights a massive failing in the design of this weapon.
Leaf Shield - I can totally understand this not being an easy weapon to work with so I won't be as hard here. However, the end result is basically just a variation on Mirror Buster. The biggest issue is that the effect of the weapon is almost nothing like the canon Leaf Shield. While not horrible, it just doesn't feel right for the weapon it's supposed to be.
Skull Barrier - This is another one I can understand not being easy to work with. The problem here is inconsistency as it's the only weapon you can switch off of. If you're going to have shields be switchable, then just fucking do that. This half-way bullshit is confusing! There's no communication to the player about this being a feature unless the person accidentally stumbles across it. The lack of conveyance here is an issue. It's also functionally useless if activated in the proximity of players at all. By the time you activate it and switch off of it, you've probably already taken the 1 hit needed to take it down. As Mega had also pointed it, the protection against 1 hit also overlaps with Leaf Shield as well, so while there are differences between the weapons, having both revamps share that trait is lame as fuck.
Mirror Buster - Again changes that are just straight up so idiotic that it's baffling. Primarily the strong shot. Previously it could OHKO the opponent, but here it caps out at 45 damage. So yes, if someone shot at you with a Proto Buster shot that deals 50 damage, the most you can fire back with is 45. How in the hell does that make any sense to anybody? This weapon requires you to be in the line of fire, not have the weapon cool down on you, have enough ammo AND aim at the player correctly to score a hit and SOMEHOW this weapon is so OP that it needs to be nerfed that hard? I know the argument put forth was that when someone had mirror buster out it ground the flow of combat to a halt. Problem being this, ONCE AGAIN, doesn't address that issue. It only makes the weapon less desirable to use by reducing it's viability against powerful weapons. The very nature of this weapon is to COUNTER power weapons like Atomic Fire for god's sake. Like I mentioned in the Atomic Fire commentary, you NEED to have something that can mitigate threats like that. You're removing them in favor of just making everything crappier. That's a horrible design philosophy.
Final Thoughts:
Pick a mode and focus on it. This wishy-washy crap where changes are made for specific modes only is creating some lazy and idiotic nerfs. Every attempt at this has resulted in changes that just make weapons less fun to use. You could easily have weapons play off each other and counter one another to deal with balance issues, but nobody seems to want to give the attention needed to rectify this problem. I would like to think that ZDR v3 will allow for more creativity in the future, but given how these changes were handled, I have absolutely no faith in the future of this game. By this, I mean that the time and attention to address serious game design problems are being ignored in favor of "Look at the new shiny!" I hope I'm wrong, but at this point, I'm not holding my breath.
Messatsu out.
Edit: I've modified this post to tone down the vitriol as that was not my intention.