Cutstuff Forum

Gaming => The Ghoul's Forest => Topic started by: Eruanna on December 09, 2010, 02:47:08 PM

Title: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 09, 2010, 02:47:08 PM
I would like people to post their ideas here regarding how and what should be changed regarding balance. Preferably in a simple and organized, easy to understand format.

I've created a template here to help guide the process along. Using the template is not required, but would definitely help me a lot.

Please base your ideas on b2v9, the latest current official version of GvH.

If nothing should change on any line of this template, or you don't have any idea, feel free to simply omit it. As I've stated, this is mostly to help you guide the thought process along.

Lastly - two more things. At the end of your post, please include a summary of the total "effect" you are trying to achieve (what problems are you trying to solve?) - and also, when making the list, try and keep the list itself balanced too. (i.e. if you want to change every single class, hopefully you have a damn good reason why)

Please remember not all ideas will be accepted. This is just to get a general idea of things to focus on.

Maps
What maps should be changed? Feel free to include ideas such as extra corridors, widening/narrowing of hallways, texture changes, etc. Please focus on balance issues when suggesting map changes, as that is the purpose of this thread. Also note that some maps have been updated since v2b9 - if you strike on one of these maps your proposal will be subject to much heavier review (as the previous changes may affect your proposal differently).

Marines
General Thoughts: (consider ammo availability vs consumption, health, armor, defenses, vulnerabilities, etc, here)
Grenades:
Dual Pistols:
Riot Gun:
Machine Gun:

Cyborg
General Thoughts:
Flight:
Plasma:

Hunter
General Thoughts:
Default Bow:
Lightning Bow:
Fire Bow:
Ice Bow:

Ghost Busters
General Thoughts:
Default Plasma:
Traps:
Soul Plasma (ex-creeper):
Bone Cannon (ex-jitterskull):
Sonic Echo (ex-sjas):
Blood Spreader (ex-choke):
Ice Fountain (ex-frostbite):

Engineer
General Thoughts:
Nail Gun:
Steam Cannon:
Saw Launcher:



Sjas
General Thoughts:
Normal Scream:
Reflective Defense:

Jitterskull
General Thoughts:
Charging Attack:

Creeper
General Thoughts:
Direct (melee) attack:
Curse Ball:

Frostbite
General Thoughts:
Charging Attack:
Freezing Wind:

Choke
General Thoughts:
Chomping Attack:
Blood Ball:
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Blox on December 09, 2010, 06:40:58 PM
Marines

General Thoughts: Can be quite overpowered, if used by someone that can shoot properly that is.

Grenades: Ten grenades can last for a while in TLMS, in TDM; however.. Spamityspamspam? They're very powerful too, which makes spam just worse.

Dual Pistols: They are kinda useless nowadays, back in the day they have been useful. But now.. I don't know what should be done about them. Higher damage perhaps?

Riot Gun: Moderate accuracy, high damage, unlimited range and 50 shots. Lower the ammo to 25? Or increase the amount of tracers, but decrease damage?

Machine Gun: It's useless, upping the damage a bit could help. Or just give it some more tracers. I don't know, since I can't see what it can be used for.

Cyborg

General Thoughts: Very overpowered, especially against Choke.

Flight: It's okay as is. Maybe increase the 'dive' lenght by a little bit. Though you may want to do a bit of hax. That is, make the cyborg check for whenever it's not on the ground. And lower its' gravity if it has a special item. Just so that 'bunny-jetting' will be less effective.

Plasma: The damage is way too high, at times it gets up to 70 a shot. +STRIFEDAMAGE should balance it a bit. (Or a custom damage randomizer.) Choke's doom. You can't take down a cyborg as a choke. (Unless lucky/VERY cowardly)

Hunter

General Thoughts: A pretty nifty class, though quite annoying when used by them cowardly hitandrun players that only pull out the time. (See: Camping, then running)

Default Bow: Could be a bit faster/stronger, but just a bit. Quite useful against sjas, but other arrows usually outperform it. The magic could do with a BIT bigger range. (Maybe two explosions, one small and strong. Another 'relatively' big and 'relatively' weak.)

Lightning Bow: Quite useful at times, but only if you're lucky to not have your aim suck ATM. I'd agree on being a bit kinder to jitterskull, as two instant arrows on a big target is a bit too cheap. Altfire should be a horizontal lightning though, as the ceiling one is just nightmarish to get right.

Fire Bow: Fine as is, maybe a tiny bit faster. As it's pretty 'weak' compared to the other magical arrows. I have no idea what to do with the altfire.

Ice Bow: I'd say fine, but the altfire is EXTREMELY weak. As everything can jump and avoid it. And even if you hit all the spikes, it'll do 25 damage. Maybe make it a 'freeze ball', like the creeper's. But have a shorter effect, as we're talking about ranged weapons here. (Not melee)

Ghost Busters

General Thoughts: Pretty useless, but at (very rare) times - it's the best class ever.

Default Plasma: Drains ammo up really fast, and doesn't do a lot of damage unless you hit with most of it. Maybe make the 'useammo' flag a "random(0,1)"?

Traps: Quite useful, though useless against cowardly (AKA the majority of) ghouls. Useful against jitterskulls anyway.

Soul Plasma (ex-creeper): Very useful, but it drains ammo too quickly. I'd say make it drain 3-4 ammo per shot. (Not 6) A great tool for picking off Sjas(fags)'.

Bone Cannon (ex-jitterskull): The ultimate weapon you'd strive for.. Unfortunately, it takes a second to fire for the first time, and the ammo usage drains your ammo very quickly. Nothing to change here.

Sonic Echo (ex-sjas): It's very useless, to be honest. The ammo usage doesn't really make it better. Maybe make it spread out radius damage?

Blood Spreader (ex-choke): The ultimate weapon when it comes to NOT wanting to have it. It's blantally useless; low damage, close range. A blood cannon would be cool though. A chargable shot of blood that is. The more you charge it, the more ammo it uses, while at the same time damages more (and flies faster?)..?

Ice Fountain (ex-frostbite): A great tool for picking off sjas, and ghouls in general. It's almost as hard/harder to get than the bone cannon, so it's worth the effort. An alternative would be to make it a frost-air/shard gun. Although this is cool too.

Engineer

General Thoughts: Pretty balanced guy, with one flaw.

Nail Gun: The unholy grail of spam, this piece of damn has unlimited ammo. All while it has hardly visible projectiles, a fast rate of fire AND no reload of any kind. UGH, a reload would be appreciated.

Steam Cannon: Pretty funky and useful, but a bit too powerful if you fire it above the enemies. (DEATH FROM ABOVE) Maybe limit the range of the stuff that falls down?

Saw Launcher: A very nice and balanced weapon, though hardly usable. I don't know, more ammo?



Sjas

General Thoughts: Up-Down zig-zags are faggish, not to mention that they screw with the actor definition. As in, I have multiple times shot a sjas dead-on, yet it didn't hit because they were doing this. Though this can't be fixed. I'd prefer to have this as some sort of 'support' class.

Normal Scream: A bit too powerful, to be honest. If you're experienced with the controls, positions and timings; you're unstoppable. Again, I'd personally prefer having this as some sort of support/chaser class. (Low damage & health, (very) high speed.)

Reflective Defense: Pretty cool, but it bugs up at times. I would recommend to make the 'stop' last a bit less, because if a cyborg is firing right at you; there's a chance that you'll get hit.

Jitterskull

General Thoughts: Pretty funky, though a bit annoying that you don't get anything from the killing delays. (HEALTH NOM) Shotguns and lightning arrows make 'us' RRRASDFRR though.

Charging Attack: The only thing I dislike about it is that damn pushback, and the (at times) absurd range of the insta-kill part.

Creeper

General Thoughts: A pretty nice class, though very annoying in TDM. (When someone ONLY uses it.)

Direct (melee) attack: Not much to say here. Though I'd wonder if the range could be dynamic. (More health = a bit less range)

Curse Ball: The creeper should have a very low mass, so that pretty low values of A_RadiusThrust would make it possible to 'balljump'. Otherwise, I'd say the cursepain should cause A_Gravity(10) to the target.. Unless it's not in the air. (Then apply it if it lands in the time it lasts?) As that would prevent jumping.

Frostbite

General Thoughts: A hard tank, though a bit slow. Painful to kill with some classes (Ghostbuster, engineer) - too easy to kill with others (Marine, cyborg).

Charging Attack: It's okay, except the extremely LAGGY movement it causes. If that wasn't the case, it would be so very fine.

Freezing Wind: It's okay, if not a bit too powerful.

Choke

General Thoughts: Very weak, only good for chasing down fags.. Er, 'cowardly players'. Unless it's one of those (very) rare cases, where you're just ace at everything (and utterly slaughter everything). Too weak against plasma.

[b]Chomping Attack:[/b] Kinda weak if you have any kind of delay. But at the same time a bit too strong in close quarters. Pretty fine by me, but it's kinda annoying without a source of health. As you're going to get QUITE the beating because of the aspect of this attack.

Blood Ball: Funky, but hardly usable. If it was somehow more useful, all while it drained life; it would be cool. Of course, Choke would need regeneration if that was the case.

[/holycrapthattookawhiletowrite]
Quick edit: Made it more readable.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 09, 2010, 07:18:53 PM
You're basicly saying every class is overpowered...

Cyborg is fine,
Hunter is fine,
Marine has too many grenades and shotty is more like a freekin' sniper.
Engeinner's nailgun is too weak but spammy.
Ghostbusters traps die too quickly for them to be usable.

Sjas could do with being faster but with less health. This would make them require less shots to kill but even more dangerous.

Creeper... too fast (because of bunny hopping). Way to easy to get kills with being almost invisible. Also ball jumping please...

Jitterskull needs to take less damage from Lightning and shotgun fire when in the cool down state ( if possible).

Frostbite is fine but I agree with the chomp being laggy. If there is another way to do code this attack without lag it would be good.

Choke is almost fine, although it would be nice of the chokeball worked almost like the hunter bow. So you gargle holding down altfire then let go to fire (Being slow of course). The vomit can be used if you hold it for too long or fire too early. Also, eat corpses for health please.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 09, 2010, 10:08:28 PM
Marines
General Thoughts: Near perfect
Grenades: He has too many in TLMS, way too many, I'd recommend giving him 5
Dual Pistols: Maybe make it a little stronger.
Riot Gun: Make it work like the first GvH, it was a lot slower.
Machine Gun: Needs higher fire rate or a bit more damage

Cyborg
General Thoughts: None really
Flight: Maybe give him very slow gas recharge?
Plasma: Its fine.

Hunter
General Thoughts: He used to be worth playing
Default Bow: People never use him, perhaps a bit more damage for regular fire?
Lightning Bow: Make the shot completely straight, but make sure it can only 3-4 hit jitterskulls.
Fire Bow: Perfect, if people complain that they hurt themselves because they want the arrow back, they should just shoot farther instead of directly in front of them like a dumbass.
Ice Bow: Cool I guess... I liked the old 3 shard thing better though.

Ghost Busters
General Thoughts: MEH
Default Plasma: Its fire rate is WAY too fast, revert it to how it used to be.
Traps: Maybe the traps should have a little higher y-axis reach?
Soul Plasma (ex-creeper): It's op. Does too much damage, and traces in every single shot. See: Creeper.
Bone Cannon (ex-jitterskull): Perfect, well earned.
Sonic Echo (ex-sjas): Useless, slow, all it does it bounce of walls and nothing else.
Blood Spreader (ex-choke): Needs to do ALOT more damage.
Ice Fountain (ex-frostbite): Perfect.

Engineer
General Thoughts: Spammy class.
Nail Gun: Make the nails stronger, but put a every 20 shot reload thing.
Steam Cannon: Its allright I guess, but it lags in TDM
Saw Launcher: Make it have a larger range when its on the floor.



Sjas
General Thoughts: OP OP OP
Normal Scream: OP - The reach is way too far, it does way too damage, it should only instant kill when touching the enemy.
Reflective Defense: Perfect.

Jitterskull
General Thoughts: He used to be alot more fun.
Charging Attack: I'd sacrifice 30 of his hp to unnerf his charge, I mean he has to friggin eat his food, why do we keep his charge nerfed?
I'd just keep the same distance of the charge but kill the delay.

Creeper
General Thoughts: Kinda op
Direct (melee) attack: Perfect
Curse Ball: Remove tracer. Just remove it, it just makes you aim worse. Remember to remove Gbusters tracer as well.

Frostbite
General Thoughts: OP
Charging Attack: Too laggy, too fast.
Freezing Wind: One wind projectile can wipe out 50 health, nerf.

Choke
General Thoughts: Used to be perfect.
Chomping Attack: Seriously, revert the damage it used to do, what was the fucking point of making it weaker, it wasn't even OP in endless war.
Blood Ball: What DTD said.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 10, 2010, 12:29:59 AM
I seem to disagree with 99% of what Bluewiz has said.

Maybe if you play as random all the time like I then you'll understand the strong points and the weak points more accurately.

Quote
Marine
Grenades: He has too many in TLMS, way too many, I'd recommend giving him 5
I agree with this statement.

Quote
Marine
Riot Gun: Make it work like the first GvH, it was a lot slower.
LMFAO what?!

Quote
Hunter:
Default Bow: People never use him, perhaps a bit more damage for regular fire?
I disagree, the bow is really good against chokes and running away.

Quote
Sjas:
Normal Scream: OP - The reach is way too far, it does way too damage, it should only instant kill when touching the enemy.
I don't belive you ever play as Sjas. So this statement can be ignored.

Quote
Creeper:
Curse Ball: Remove tracer. Just remove it, it just makes you aim worse. Remember to remove Gbusters tracer as well.
It helps me aim...
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 10, 2010, 01:01:21 AM
Lets see... This'll be fun.
(click to show/hide)
Well maybe it'll help. Where no change is specifically suggested, i'm fine with the balance of that thing. Though i couldnt resist adding my opinion along with some of the things either, ah well, it has facts in it too.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Anonymous on December 10, 2010, 01:14:06 AM
In my general opinion, every class is overpowered, it all depend on you skill.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 10, 2010, 01:16:24 AM
Creeper being my best class, I can say I can wipe out an entire team while my team mates die at the start of the game.

I do like the idea of regaining creeper balls after a kill but I still say the speed of the creeper should be reduced ever so slightly.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 10, 2010, 03:32:33 AM
Quote
Quote
Marine
Riot Gun: Make it work like the first GvH, it was a lot slower.
LMFAO what?!
Try it, its slower.

Quote
Quote
Sjas:
Normal Scream: OP - The reach is way too far, it does way too damage, it should only instant kill when touching the enemy.
I don't belive you ever play as Sjas. So this statement can be ignored.
I have an easily exploitable flyup/flydown bind that can easily wipe out 5 humans.

Quote
Quote
Creeper:
Curse Ball: Remove tracer. Just remove it, it just makes you aim worse. Remember to remove Gbusters tracer as well.
It helps me aim...
Well you said we needed to nerf creeper, why not take away the tracer?
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 10, 2010, 06:13:11 AM
Quote from: "bluewiz"
Quote from: "DoomThroughDoom"
Quote from: "bluewiz"
Marine
Riot Gun: Make it work like the first GvH, it was a lot slower.
LMFAO what?!
Try it, its slower.
I wasn't talking about the speed, I was talking about the over 9000 damage autoaim black hole creating massively overpowered holocaust gun.

Quote from: "bluewiz"
Quote from: "DoomThroughDoom"
Quote from: "bluewiz"
Creeper:
Curse Ball: Remove tracer. Just remove it, it just makes you aim worse. Remember to remove Gbusters tracer as well.
It helps me aim...
Well you said we needed to nerf creeper, why not take away the tracer?
That's not really nerfing, that's just taking away a preference.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 10, 2010, 09:12:29 PM
Seems he's right. Its just a tad slower in the really old versions. Though it honestly does NOT need that little amount of slowness back, like it'll help! It needs a nerf on other things instead.

And the Creeper ball gaining idea in case it is not clear would only give 1 ball, ideal to atleast escape with or try and go for a kill. A speed increase after killing might work too, in any case, the creeper needs something after killing someone, if they have friends nearby, he rarely ever lasts! (Especially ones with explosives...)

Not sure what you're going on about on the Creeper needing less speed, i kinda find it slow already, though if it comes paired with a buff like mentioned above, hmm... Perhaps. Speed is vital for avoiding, fleeing, and even attacking, though. Just look at Sjas if you want to see what speed can do with a good weapon!
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 11, 2010, 06:55:37 AM
This topic isn't closed yet, these are just some ideas for adjustments that I have in mind for now.

Marines
Grenades: Possibly reducing the amount of grenades, but this is debatable. Will require more discussion.
Dual Pistols: Possible slight increase in damage
Riot Gun: Is, as of now, nerfed on the SVN. Everyone universally seems to  agree that it needs to be slightly reduced. The spread has been increased and the damage is randomly slightly weaker (it is now random(7,8)*random(1,3))
Machine Gun: Possible slight increase in damage

Cyborg
Plasma: May slightly decrease the damage, but this will require more debate

Hunter
Default Bow: May slightly increase the damage

Ghost Busters
General Thoughts: All around ammo seems to be this guy's biggest bane. I might double the ammo amount to 200.
Soul Plasma (ex-creeper): Debating this one
Bone Cannon (ex-jitterskull): Since this seems to be the most balanced weapon in GB's arsenal and not many people are complaining of its ammo consumption, its ammo usage will scale with any ammo change this class gets (so you will run out of ammo just as quickly as before).
Sonic Echo (ex-sjas): Debating this one
Blood Spreader (ex-choke): Debating this one

Engineer
Nail Gun: I really hate the idea of a reload, but we might do this. However, I will need sprites on the weapon in order to do any effective reload with this. I could also just do a simple offset toward the edge of the screen however that will be a short reload and there might not be any real gain associated with that.



Sjas
General Thoughts: Personally, I don't find the Sjas as easy to play as some people do. But the people who can play them do massively well with them. This class will also be under debate.

Jitterskull
Charging Attack: I'll load up GVHv2b7 and see what the delay was after charging - but I'm going to probably set it to a value somewhere in between from now and then. Again, debatable. This is a real touchy class with regards to changes in balance, in my opinion, since it is in fact so powerful.

Creeper
Curse Ball: The homing ability is a trademark of the class, so it should not be removed, in my opinion. But if it is too powerful, it can still be subjected to other adjustments.

Frostbite
Charging Attack: I am definitely going to look at this and try and redo the same thing as done here to try to be lag free.
Freezing Wind: Since the effect is slow moving and easy to avoid, I won't be touching this for now.

Choke
Chomping Attack: One person proposed an idea of making the choke regain a bit of health if he successfully chomps a human. This might be something that will push it up from being the weakest of ghouls, even if it is only a very small amount. I'd like to see this idea discussed a bit before any decision is made on it though.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 11, 2010, 05:16:49 PM
Suppose i'll post my thoughts on the proposed changes.

Marines
Grenades: While i rarely ever had a problem with grenades as Jitterskull, i suppse a number like 6/8 works. The grenades are alot more problematic in TDM though, i'd suggest making the number in TDM like around the half of the number thats going to be used. It might be as easy as running a script in the Marine's spawn state, and then never running it again.
Dual Pistols: Doesnt look like it needs that damage increase, it will be the marine's most accurate weapon and the ghouls cant even look at them without getting hurt fairly much then! Old pistol damage seems fine for a weapon to fall back on or snipe ghouls with.
Riot Gun: Ah, suppose i agree on this blasted thing finnaly getting its well-deserved nerf.
Machine Gun: Hmm... Hope the damage increase isnt too servere, once Cutman buffed it, and well, you know... Ouch...

Cyborg
Plasma: Perhaps... Though it should still be enough to consider not to be too reckless in invading his personal space, i guess?

Hunter
Default Bow: No-one ever did like that thing. Maybe it'll help. Dont make it too effective though, it is without running speed reducement after all! Dont want an repeat of the super fast hit'n'run hunter's goin' around.
Oh, ever considered the lightning arrow reduction vs Jitterskull? I mean, that's just plain cruel... They just cant avoid it.

Ghost Busters
General Thoughts: Needs testing, i'd say. Give it a go online with some reliable people perhaps. I wouldnt mind helping out either, i'd love to see how much of an easy target aspect of theirs has changed.
Soul Plasma (ex-creeper): Also needs testing. Its rather powerfull, make sure the ammo cost is worth it.
Bone Cannon (ex-jitterskull): Seems fine if it'll eat as much ammo to always cost 4/5 shots (forgot what one).
Sonic Echo (ex-sjas): I'd still say it can use a slight buff.
Blood Spreader (ex-choke): Utterly useless, thus could use a buff. I'll be suprised if a buff can actually make it alot more powerfull.

Engineer
Nail Gun: Hmm... I dont think there are any reload sprites, having it lower to the bottom, make some noise, maybe twitch a bit, seems all just fine. Doesnt really have to be that short either if doing so, if you ask me. No idea about when it should reload though.

Sjas
General Thoughts: Well, some people still suggest a slightly decreased radius of his scream attack. Suppose it doesnt seem too harmfull to do so.

Jitterskull
Charging Attack: Hmm... Wont that buff it? Personally it seems rather fine to me. Jitterskull was always a tad slow, thus easy to run from on large open area's, though getting past one was trickier when cornered.

Creeper
Curse Ball: Homing ability...? Do you mean autoaim? Dont think that ever was a problem if so, its rather costfull anyway, those Creeper balls. Invaluable for attacking.

Frostbite
Charging Attack: Seems fine, i guess. Though it never lagged me, but is rather difficult to work with for people who think it works like a Jitterskull.
Freezing Wind: I wouldnt say it needs any change either, anyway.

Choke
Chomping Attack: Either by attacking or by killing, either way works, because he has to get really close to someone, he's simply bound to get hurt because of it, so he'll need it. Not like he has fancy mid-air evasion tactics, can make sudden lounges forward, or anything fancy. Ah, atleast he's a silent mover... :P
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Anonymous on December 13, 2010, 03:18:02 PM
I have some suggestions for the maps:

just in general, the majority of the brightly colored maps should be darker and more atmospheric, so as to regain some of the original feel of Ghoul's Forest.

Just in general, make it so that there are less spots available to camp from or set traps from. It's hard to describe, but just in general I see human players camping in one area of an entire map just setting up traps, using the claustrophobic areas as funnels. Makes it difficult to operate at all as the ghoul team.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Wartorn on December 14, 2010, 02:35:55 AM
Marines
Grenades: I honestly think an overall radius reduction would be nice. Not too much but enough to where players don't use it as a crutch.
Dual Pistols: Seems alright.
Riot Gun: Is fine in the SVN version I played.
Machine Gun: a little bit more damage maybe but slow down the player as he fires

Cyborg
Plasma: Projectile speed decrease but size increase to compensate for the damage done by it

Hunter
is awwwwwwiiigghhhtt

Ghost Busters
General Thoughts: +1'ing Eruanna's statements here

Engineer
Nail Gun: Decrease firing rate and maybe give it some sort of reload. I've never used a nailgun as fast as this one in my life time.
Steam Cannon: Radius is holy god damn awful. Definitely think it needs some sort of decrease.



Sjas
General Thoughts: Is perfect. The scream is actually a little harder to work with if you have Unlagged enabled since it seems to only reach directly around the player, not in front (or spawned behind in flight).

Jitterskull
Charging Attack: No real opinion on changing this.

Creeper
Curse Ball: Likewise. Although I will say that it's sort of difficult to hit things with it but that's probably just me.

Frostbite
Charging Attack: Possibly a damage decrease, to even the balance between using breath and biting.
Freezing Wind: S'all good.

Choke
Chomping Attack: Gaining health on a successful kill would be a cool idea.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 14, 2010, 10:43:03 PM
I'm getting rather worried the extra ammo will overpower the Soul Plasma of the Ghost Buster. I do hope the ammo cost will still be equal to its power (not to mention it sometimes tracks targets and is spammable)!

Hmm... Cant say i'll ever find Blood Spreader threatening though, even with 200 ammo.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 15, 2010, 05:09:45 PM
I'll adjust Soul Plasma's ammo cost too, then, I am fearful this one can be too powerful as well. Same type of adjustment as the bone cannon.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 15, 2010, 05:35:54 PM
Jitterskull: Reduced charging delay, though not as much as GvHv2b7.
Choke:  Added 2 health per bite, 15 health per successful kill
Frostbite: Slightly reduced bite damage, made each ice chomp appear after a delay to help with net lag.
Creeper: No change
Sjas: No change

Marine: Machine Gun and Double Pistol damage slightly increased. Riot Gun still slightly nerfed from before. Grenade radius now randomly reduces in size.
Ghostbuster: Doubled ammo capacity and regeneration rate. Adjusted Bone Cannon and Soul Plasma to compensate.
Cyborg: Slightly reduced plasma projectile speed, also made it a little larger (more unwieldy)
Engineer/Santa: Primary nailgun (snowball) attack is slower.
Hunter: No change
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 16, 2010, 02:28:28 AM
I'm playing right now, and I'll say what I think of it, if you care :?

 *GvH33 has too many creeper camp spots, each round took longer than 10 minutes.
 *GhostBuster's plasma is... Too much. Perhaps lower it to 150, and lower its damage but a point or three, and make it shoot faster?
 *Choke is perfect, nice!
 *GvH35 is too big, too bland, too boring. It'd be a miracle to kill a camping creeper in the first 7 minutes. Also, try making the music a tad louder. Even, AmmaR killed himself to exit the map.
 *Cyborg is near perfect!
 *There are WAY too many maps that look the same, (GvH30). GvH30 was never any fun to be honest. This is putting GvH regulars off. It just doesn't seem fun anymore.
 *I like what you did with Santa and Engineer, but due to it being slow as hell, how about increasing its damage a little more? Maybe center it?
 *GvH36.... Oh boy. No one likes overused maps (EternalBlood), its boring. There's nothing addictive about it. We actually skipped this map 5 seconds into game.
 *GvH40.... WAAAAAAAAAAAAY TOO BIG. WAAAAAAY too big! You might also wanna but some impassible lines on the waterfall. This map can actually be 3 separate maps. I actually asked the creeper to meet me by the waterfall.
 *GvH34 is actually kinda nice.
 *GvH39 is awesome.
 *GvH35 and GvH36 is hands down one of the worst maps in the entire GvH mappack. It's just not feeling it.
 *4 of the other maps is basically one big indoor area with alot of boxes everywhere.
 *What really puts me off, is the constant nerfing, instead of nerfing everything and making it boring, how about actually buffing things, time to time? Buffing the damage of snowballs/nails would actually bring them up to par.
 *I really think, when the jitter stops charging and pauses for that split second, the damage done in that specific moment should do more damage. Because, that's when you're SUPPOSED to attack. It's an opening.
 *Sjas damage radius is too large.
 *Frost is perfect.
 *I actually change my mind, let marine keep 10 grenades in TLMS only.


Overall, the maps are WAY WAY WAY WAY too big!
Some of them look way too similar.
Others are straight ripoffs.

I'm not a GvH regular but, since AmmaR is, he was really really put off for some reason. "What did they do to it?".

But thankfully, that's what prereleases are for! To improve its official release. I hope mine, and AmmaR's thoughts don't go unheard. Thanks for reading this.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 16, 2010, 04:46:12 PM
I would actually like to see more comments with brutal honesty. If there's something you don't like, please post about it here!

Anything you tell me or my team in-game usually goes through one ear and out the other. We aren't very receptive of stuff in-game because there's too much going on. The server was way too busy.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Grymmoire on December 16, 2010, 05:01:11 PM
Quote from: "bluewiz"
*GvH36.... Oh boy. No one likes overused maps (EternalBlood), its boring. There's nothing addictive about it. We actually skipped this map 5 seconds into game.
 *GvH35 and GvH36 is hands down one of the worst maps in the entire GvH mappack. It's just not feeling it.

Others are straight ripoffs.

Well keep in mind GVH36 was not supposed to be in ETBL, it was a fluke, and pretty much ruined any purpose for the map to be used where it was supposed to be (like how everyone remembers it as "that one ETBL map"). Almost every map that was in ETBL shouldn't have been in it.

Also, you could be more specific. Personally I didn't "feel" it for any of the new maps, but that didn't stop me from working on some of them.

On another note, I too noticed the similarity between those 4 maps you mentioned. They were also all made by CarThief, so one could say that's just his style. Do they play well at least? After all, that's what really counts.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 16, 2010, 09:57:50 PM
The 4 maps, hmm, they all play almost the same... Kind of boring due to creeper camp spots and such.
Needs more music.

About GvH36, it doesn't feel addictive like some other maps. Don't ask me how they can become addictive, but it's kind of boring like GvH00. Besides, that theme is heavily overused.

One main reason that I could come with is that it fits eternal blood's theme perfectly, whereas it doesn't really feel like GvH.

Quote
I would actually like to see more comments with brutal honesty. If there's something you don't like, please post about it here!

The 4 maps that are way too similar, there's nothing unique about it, its all the same theme, gameplay, etc. Heck, it's made by the same person as far as I know. I mean there's no problem for making 4 maps for the same wad but, you can't make every single map the same theme. GvH needs to be more diverse.

That map that looked like the hallways of some AoW map was just, plain terrible, it's ripped, boring, etc. Not to mention that the whole map is plain bland. AoW isn't really praised for its details.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 17, 2010, 12:33:10 AM
GVH36: One of my favorite maps in the pack. As well as GVH40. I don't know why you hate them so much, but I think they're both very good for what they are.

GVH35: Remmi is working on that. Just because it's an AOW rip doesn't mean it's a bad one - he created that all himself. The only thing he got from another person was the basic layout and even that has been changed quite extensively before its final implementation. The caves pretty much were deleted and then redone from scratch.

In all, from what I'm seeing you're the only person griping about these. I solicited for more opinions and nobody posted nearly the same kind of thing you did.

I'd like to please everyone but obviously I cannot please you. I appreciate the effort you've put into the post, though.

As far as CarThief's maps go, I agree they could do with less crates. I am going to see about removing a lot of them - the simple ones, at least. Anything that he might've spent more than 5 minutes on though I'll probably leave in.

I'll give the Engineer a slight boost with the nailgun. It seemed people were quite happy with the changes made to it, though, so I'm not sure how much of a change is really needed. The last thing I need is for it to be more spammy than it already is - both Engi and Santa are the spammiest classes in the game.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 17, 2010, 01:29:46 AM
The huge delay really unspammed them imo
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Blox on December 17, 2010, 10:56:24 AM
"Nostalgic memories" (GVH40) Is a great map, as the outcome depends on who is playing it,
- and how they are playing it.

Unlike pretty much every single map, where the outcome is mostly about luck. (And the amount of (class) spamming)

And I really would recommend to increase the ammo usage of the proton ray, as right now you can fire it for 40 seconds straight.


As for the snowgun, try making a slightly random attack rate. Just try adding a random jump to one of the shorter/longer states, at the start of the fire state. (Which should just be an average of the states)
Maybe make the snowgun kinda spammy, but (very) weak. While keeping the nailgun as is, maybe a bit faster.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 17, 2010, 03:24:23 PM
Well i'll give my feedback on how the specific maps went and other things.

The maps:
(click to show/hide)
And of course there's the Lightning Arrow, thats now the new fad, apparently. Can it be a tad slower, or slightly less damaging, perhaps? Its absolute murder to even THINK of LOOKING at a Hunter as an Jitterskull. Let alone kill one without getting hit for over 1/2 hp with just one mistake. If not dieing while doing so.

Edit: The nailgun looked rather pathetic alright. Honestly, if its slightly faster then currently, i can still hardly call it spammy. And even in its old form it was meaningless against far away ghouls.
Oh, and should i edit my maps or do you want to if you're going to fix/change anything at all?
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 17, 2010, 05:22:06 PM
Your maps are already being edited. If you want I can give you access to the SVN so you can edit them directly if you want to introduce further tweaks.

The only one I haven't touched yet is the Ghostbuster HQ - some crate reduction is planned for that one too, as well as seeing if I can find a way to make the poison gas vents more damaging when you're airbourne.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 17, 2010, 05:35:58 PM
Hmm... No idea... I assume this SVN is some kind of place where files are stored and edited/replaced to keep it up to date while having several people work on the same thing? Ah well, whatever it is, maybe. I'm sure other people are capable of doing those edits themselves as well. Though if you're somehow at a loss i guess i wouldnt mind giving it a try.

Oh, and i remembered what the missing sprites (probaly in the vents) where for, they where steam spawners that would activate while steam gass is currently being pumped into the vents, making noise and giving a visual and rather loud idea of when its going on, and when it has ended. Might need a replacement for that effect unless all going green is enough, you think? A sound would help, in any case.
I think ACS can damage mid-air things, but i dont think it'll increase the damage on its own, if that is the intention.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 17, 2010, 07:34:38 PM
What happened with the steam spawners was I was trying to fix script errors. There were a ton of DECORATE errors, especially after adding all the new maps, and your map generated some of them.

So I went through a comment-out craze and removed the majority of actors that were causing so many issues.

Unfortunately your steam spawner happened to be one of them. The thing was, though, I didn't know it was using a DoomEd number that wasn't being used yet.

So I have went through the DECORATE code again, uncommented it out, but gave it a unique name (GVH38SteamSpawner). It works fine now.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Crystal King on December 22, 2010, 01:26:11 AM
Quote from: "CarThief"
And of course there's the Lightning Arrow, thats now the new fad, apparently. Can it be a tad slower, or slightly less damaging, perhaps? Its absolute murder to even THINK of LOOKING at a Hunter as an Jitterskull. Let alone kill one without getting hit for over 1/2 hp with just one mistake. If not dieing while doing so.
I think we should just give certain classes lightning resistance. It is fairly BS for Jitter, but like I had said in an other thread, if you can hit a creeper with that small of a hit radius it should die. I still think that more ammo wouldn't have been needed for the Ghostbuster if we gave him regenerating traps. (At a really slow rate, mind you, and they would only regenerate if you were under a certain amount, like 3 traps (and you couldn't place more then a certain amount at a time)) Back when I played as GB, if I ran out of ammo, I'd place some traps in a circle, activate them, then stand still to regain some ammo. The ghoul could risk it and try to hit me (usually losing their life in the process, causing them to lose the frag they just gained.), or a patient creeper could time their ball correctly and still get me, but most ghouls aren't foolish enough to go charging into a vortex of doom. As for my opinions on some other weapons...

The new Marine is a little better then the other one, but I still find that the grenade's radius hates me when I play creeper (Which is most of the time now that nobody wants to play ghouls that much anymore).

Everything the Cyborg has is fine. Maybe a jetpack regen (but will only regen up to a certain amount, like 40, so they can still boost but can't stay in the air too long.)

The Engineer... As one user put it... "Your nail launcher sounds like spam spam spam." I agree with a reload.

Hunter has always been a wildcard to me (sometimes I can fail terribly and other times I can kick ass). I feel the ice magic isn't as good as fire and lightning but it is made up for the ice arrows being great at close range and magic is only useful for close range. Fire arrows are great for Sjas. Lightning is too powerful vs Jitter but just right for other classes such as Creeper.

Ghostbuster, I believe I said everything I wanted to on the matter on my beginning paragraph, to sum it up: Possible trap regen (to a certain amount), and if so, they don't need that much extra ammo. On an extra note, Blood Spreader is somewhat useless, but perhaps it could work more like a trap? For instance, the blood it spawns stays on the floor for a little bit and deals damage. It would help in taking down the ghouls who like to spin in circles.

As for ghouls...

Creeper is fine, possible balljump addition would be welcome.

Choke is better now that he regains health, but still can't stand up to Cyborg unless caught by surprise. I suppose that's fine though, because Choke is silent.

Frostbite is fine. Maybe a slight frozen wind nerf could benefit, but I'm fine with what we have now.

Jitterskull is pretty good, But I think the addition of a way for him to om nom upwards might lead to some interesting results (in particular getting rid of those annoying flies we call cyborgs) Lightning resistance is also welcome for the Jitterskull.

Sjas only needs a range reduction.

Santa's alt fire snowballs seems to fire really fast. I can't see the point in using normal snowballs when the alt fire is so much faster. (Which is why Santa owns the Yurei.)

I also found something really strange in the bowl map...
(click to show/hide)
Is this supposed to happen? I activate the elevator and this section comes down. I also notice that there's some missing linedefs on the sides of where this section comes down. (not shown in this picture).

There's my thoughts. All in all, the balances being done appear to be going in the right direction. Keep up the good work.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 22, 2010, 01:31:44 AM
Ghostbuster has too much ammo!
The talking about trap regain, I disagree with. This will support major camping if the GB could put down a few traps and when the traps die he'll just replace them.
Basicly NO.

Choke needs stronger regain because he is such a small threat.

Marine still have too many Grenades.

I know this is a strange request, but the cyborg, could you make it so he regains 6 ammo rather than 5? 5 is really slugish.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Crystal King on December 22, 2010, 01:45:48 AM
If it takes a really long time for them to regen, like 10-12 seconds per trap, and it only regened up to certain number, like 3, and you could only have 3 traps on the field at a time, it wouldn't be so easy to camp. Fake the Ghostbuster into activating his traps, then chase after him. Since every ghoul can outrun the ghostbuster outside of creeper who can stun them anyways, I think it'd be fair, or at least worth experimenting with.
And as if the humans don't camp enough anyways. TLMS is one big human campfest nowadays. 4 humans (3 marines mind you) are reluctant to search out a single creeper and would rather be pilgrims. :roll:
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 22, 2010, 07:08:22 AM
Ghostbuster - I really wasn't sure what all to do to help this guy. If he has too much ammo now, then we can bring his ammo capacity back down. It's easier to work with exact multiples though (i.e. 2), because things divide evenly and correctly and without error.

Sjas - Seriously? Range reduction? He's a melee class. He might be pretty tough but he's also vulnerable and it does take actual skill and practice to master him. I'm getting mixed opinions about him, some people think he's fine, some people think he needs a range reduction. To be honest, I'd like to hear it from people who actually play Sjas and find it too easy.

Choke - If he's still too weak I'll give him a boost. But I'm iffy now. He needed help before, now it's to see if he still needs it. Some people are able to master this guy real well. If you buff him too much you'll get too many people from the other side saying that he needs to be nerfed.

Engineer - A possible reload is planned in the future, but I did not get to it this time around, because it would take a bit of effort to do it correctly. Also, having some extra sprites would be exceptionally handy for this. A reload is not effective at all unless you can make it last a critical amount of time, and you can't do that and make it look right with a simple offset lowering.

Hunter - This is another pretty tough class to play. I'm real iffy on changing the lightning arrows. Although I will say the Jitterskull probably should be a little bit tougher since he can't dodge at all - but maybe the Hunter is the Jitterskull's "arch nemesis", so to speak, his "weak spot." I don't see anything wrong with that idea.

Marine - Again, iffy on the grenade count change. I had planned to do it but didn't get around to it - too busy debating what, how much, and if it'd fix any actual problems. Additionally, the grenades themselves were already nerfed.


Remember one thing about balance - keyword: balance.

In the end, you want both sides (not any specific class) perfectly and equally able to kill the other. There's too many variables and that's why it's a tough subject. The more you change the more you risk overdoing any particular thing - and all changes affect everything else.

What you do NOT want is anyone to be too powerful. You don't want people to pick favorites and master them without skill. You don't want anyone to be invulnerable. In all, every class should require approximately an equal amount of effort to kill with every opposing class, even if part of that effort comes from general skill.

You also want this to be newbie friendly, since this mod does attract a lot of people who are really wet behind the ears - some of Skulltag's betters of today started with hours upon hours of GvH every day.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 22, 2010, 11:52:42 AM
I'm not too sure the archnemesis relationship between Jitterskull and Hunter is as equal as that of Cyborg and Choke. While choke can run like hell from his most feared enemy (and try and get in some bloodballs as small chance counterattack), Jitterskull is not even safe at a distance! Choke can safely look at an Cyborg and run, with the Hunter you're dead the milisecond he sees you, if unlucky.

Thus the reason for the small damage reduction (Jitterskulls still get hit a little by plenty other things like riotguns or spammed projectiles while approaching humans, or even stray explosives!)
The other crazy idea is to give him 200 hp to make up for his lack of evasion, but thats probaly overkill when he's rather close to his enemies. Unless he gets increased damage from some close range weapons, perhaps.

Hmm... Just an idea i guess. I'm so far quite fine with the maps and the other classes. Though i didnt have too much of an oppertunity to play it yet. I wonder if the Soul Plasma has increased cost yet, could have sworn it looked like it didnt cost much at all.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Blox on December 22, 2010, 12:34:22 PM
I'm all in for a sjas nerf. Because the gotcha-range is too big, of course it can be a lifesaver, but that just makes it an easy way out.

As for hearing it from someone that plays Sjas a lot, well here you go; an ex-sjasfag.

I've personally been thinking of Sjas as a 'catcher' class, though Choke is probably better suited for that.

I'd suggest beefing the speed up a bit, reducing the health to something like 75-80 and making the scream make two explosions.
One for the radius damage, the other for killing everything just around it. (And maybe a bit less damage than that.)
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 22, 2010, 05:55:30 PM
Hmm... Do keep in mind any changes to the direct damage output of Sjas's scream will serverely affect it. Once it starts to only 2-hit people instead of a 1-hit (though obviously they gotta earn that 1-hit-kill), it will be worthless. A second Choke, that flies. Thats it. (And ghouls cant dodge point blank attacks. :P)

A speed or slight radius decrease would be less drastic, or atleast would have less chance of being a too large nerf. Though i guess i've seen plenty human (abusers) hating all Sjas users that seemingly rather easily own them.
Dont count me in as some regular Sjas user though. Though i probaly could be as good with a few hours to a day of practise.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Arctic on December 22, 2010, 08:24:15 PM
Snowgun killed my jitterskull in two secondary shots.

One shot brought me down to 49.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Crystal King on December 22, 2010, 11:46:46 PM
On second thought, trap regain might not be such a good idea. Forget I mentioned it.

The snowball launchers alt fire needs to be WAAAAAAY slower. Forget the fact the Yurei's a joke with with fast of a projectile (Fight the Yurei's meteor storm with snowball gun's alt fire. Total joke.), it's also incredibly powerful. One alt fire pwns Creeper with some left to spare.

I think what Blox said would work, but I'm not sure the Sjas needs to be any more faster then he is. Currently, he's as fast as the hunter, who is the fastest human, which is fair because Sjas has more freedom of movement then the Hunter.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 23, 2010, 02:52:20 AM
The snowgun is quite rediculous overall. No matter how i move, i cannot avoid being hit by the extremely fast blast, not to mention its easier to use then the lightning arrow, and does considerable damage, still!

Aside having cover, but it'll hurt getting hit by those in any situation. Meh, there's been worse but it definetly seems a wise idea to nerf the snowgun's altfire somehow in the next version (preferabaly speed wise in a significant way, if you ask me.)

Not sure about how hard it actually hits, but im more worried about the insane speed making it practically a free near-railgun, doing decent damage, i guess. Heck, while trying my UAC Base map (probaly GVH33), the lack of cover destroyed me in seconds when trying to even look at an Santa. Its worse then the lightning arrows! :P
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 23, 2010, 05:43:44 AM
I'm not happy about nerfing the Sjas at all. But I'll do it. I'll reduce his attack range by 3/4ths. To be completely honest, though, I think this is a bad move.

Santa snow-gun alt-fire - since this is intended for temporary use only (gone after Christmas) I didn't initially pay as much attention to the balance of this class as I probably should have. I'll give the alt fire a little spread in addition to slowing it down - horizontal instead of vertical like the Engineer's. (Even though the Engi is basically a reskin of him I don't want both the classes exactly alike, except with numbers).

Choke - I'll give him a little bit extra health per chomp, but not much. I don't want to see this dude becoming a sudden God. With the way the choke's chomp is set up, it's actually possible to give him a different amount of health per chomp based on which class he attacks - i.e. if he hits a marine he can heal more damage, than for example, a cyborg. A good use for this would be to have the more riskier classes at close range more rewarding for him.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 23, 2010, 05:51:17 AM
Quote from: "Eruanna"
i.e. if he hits a marine he can heal more damage, than for example, a cyborg.
I know this is an example but I think this is unnessessary because Cyborgs are the most dangerous class for Chokes.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 23, 2010, 05:56:33 AM
I'm just saying it's possible. The inverse, obviously, is also possible. :)
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Blox on December 23, 2010, 12:17:34 PM
That's the exact thing I did in my experimental 'patch'.

Normal humans gave random(1,3) health, cyborgs gave random(0,2). Which pretty much made the cyborg the arch-nemesis of Choke. (Except that plasma wasn't TOO effective against him.)

Don't forget to give Sjas a medium-short range damage, in a separate explosion that is. Not too much, but so that he can damage the target a bit without getting too close.

A_Explode(20,156,1) Should do, or something. (random(10,30)?)
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 24, 2010, 01:38:30 AM
The more hp being rewarded depending on the tougher the foe is to Choke seems interesting. It would help if he gets a little more out of it. Wasnt the heal like 2 health per bite? Seems a good thing he'll get a little more out of it. He only gets a few succesfull bites off someone anyway before they either die or notice him and he has to run off.

I guess Sjas is currently the dominant attacker due to his easy to use and easy accesibility to each and every area. Not to mention he's great for ambushes when hiding in the ceiling or whatnot. I guess it should be interesting to see how it goes with a slight radius nerf. Keeping the one-hit-kill effect is critical though.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CutmanMike on December 24, 2010, 10:04:58 AM
Quote from: "Crystal King"
(Fight the Yurei's meteor storm with snowball gun's alt fire. Total joke.)

Christmas spirit is her one weakness!
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 24, 2010, 10:13:33 AM
Quote from: "CutmanMike"
Christmas spirit is her one weakness!

I actually chuckled in real life, lol.



Anyways, yes the snowgun altfire is op, I've seen people do, bind mouse1 "+altattack". Instead of using their regular configuration. It's incomparable to its default attack. I'd suggest giving it a BIT less damage and some spread, but give the regular fire less off a spread.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Mobius on December 26, 2010, 05:34:24 PM
Marines
General Thoughts: Versatile class
Grenades: 8 is fine. I play both Ghouls and Humans and believe 8 is more than enough in TLMS. The only class worried about grenades are creepers, and you're a scrub if you let spam kill you as anything other than.
Dual Pistols: Needs more power as an incentive to use it.
Riot Gun: Add spread to reduce its sniper like potency
Machine Gun: Decrease the spread a little to compensate for the delay.

Cyborg
General Thoughts: Complete combat class compared to everyone else.
Flight: Fine
Plasma: Fine

Hunter
General Thoughts: Scout class
Default Bow: Fine
Lightning Bow: Needs more predictability for Hunter users. I hate firing a precise lightning arrow and it somehow veers off. Lightning magic is hella great in low ceiling maps
Fire Bow: Fine
Ice Bow: Fine - do something a bit more creative with his magic ffs

Ghost Busters
General Thoughts: Control class depending on the map
Default Plasma: Fine. The ammunition is enough to make-up for the lack of strength.
Traps: Needs more life
Soul Plasma (ex-creeper): Needs more intervals between shots
Bone Cannon (ex-jitterskull): Fine
Sonic Echo (ex-sjas): Contrary to popular belief, Sonic Echo is formidable especially on creepers
Blood Spreader (ex-choke): Needs more an incentive to use
Ice Fountain (ex-frostbite): Ridiculously OP from behind thin sector walls or small and hard to reach areas (MAP11)

Engineer
General Thoughts: Spam
Nail Gun: Spam. The damage is fine, the ammunition is shit. Give it some sort of reload mechanism
Steam Cannon: Retarded, but fine
Saw Launcher: The only reasonable weapon in his arsenal



Sjas
General Thoughts: Unlike some of the scrubs in this thread, I am/was one of the best Sjas users besides Tai. He's fine.
Normal Scream: Calculate random damage properly so a close quarter scream with physical contact actually kills someone, and distance screams don't do 988257985 HP damage (fix the RNG ffs)
Reflective Defense: Fine

Jitterskull
General Thoughts: Fine
Charging Attack: Again, only scrubs complain about his delay.
No Clip: This ability everyone seems to forget he has because they wanna rush humans. It's fine.

Creeper
General Thoughts: Fine.
Direct (melee) attack: Fine
Curse Ball: Fine. He doesn't need RJballs because that's stupid. He is already hard to hit.

Frostbite
General Thoughts: This class showed everyone worth a shit in this forum that the GVH in-game community is completely fuckin` hopeless. Seriously the first day I saw someone say he is OP was the day I just died a little. He's fine, minus one thing.
Charging Attack: This needs to be fixed where there isn't a huge delay between chomps. Fine.
Freezing Wind: If you are a dumb fuckin` scrub then you deserve to die to this.

Choke
General Thoughts: Needs help
Chomping Attack: Painstate health regain
Blood Ball: Fine, but needs less charge time cause standing still is suicide no matter how far it is.

This is all according to the version before the latest release.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Crystal King on December 26, 2010, 06:21:37 PM
Quote from: "Eruanna"
I'm not happy about nerfing the Sjas at all. But I'll do it. I'll reduce his attack range by 3/4ths. To be completely honest, though, I think this is a bad move.
3/4ths is a little much. 1/2 at the most. I agree it needs a nerf, but I think that 3/4ths is overkill. I still think the two explosion idea Blox suggested would work better.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 26, 2010, 06:27:34 PM
Hmm... You forgot Santa (the most fucked up class currently).  Though aside that... incredible error (that i highly suggest removing, for time being, considering he's merely an addon, he's truly game-breaking).

I dont see how the Sonic Echo is that usefull, aside in small area's, but who knows. Blood Spreader does need a reason to be used alright, its rather worthless, perhaps a special effect to it of some sorts...

Meh, people always try to overreach with Frost Bite. And i still wouldnt mind a jumping boost for Creepers that costs a Curse Ball (NOT A ROCKET JUMP). Not like he'll masterfully dodge explosives with it, he just lacks movement to go over obstacles or sneak up on high-up camping people.

Edit: 3/4!?!? I probaly misread that as an 1/4. Seriously, that seems overkill, perhaps like he said, 1/2, tops. It gets rather hard if you need to get into your opponents face 90% of the time to kill it.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 26, 2010, 07:06:26 PM
I meant 1/4th. Very small.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 26, 2010, 07:22:32 PM
Well thats an relief. Would be horrible if he had no range at all aside hugging people's hitboxes. :P

Also, Santa's snowgun still has an rediculously powerfull altfire, and he just so happens to be an addon. Perhaps consider removing the santa addon untill it gets fixed?
If you're wondering why, well...
The altfire is PURE MURDER against say, a Jitterskull, Sjas, Choke, and perhaps Frostbite too if armor helps at all, it even manages to hurt Creepers decently. I did not test to see how much damage it deals, but i know that its quite powerfull for an 90% unavoidable attack with minimally 30 damage.

Some claim it damaged them for 50, or even 70 or more damage. I can guarantee getting hit by 2 santa's at the same time atleast does around 60 to 70 damage.
So, i hope its worth considering before this gets out of hand. Due to most people not all going Santa yet, GVH's still quite playable (and its an addon, merely requires a server restart :P).
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 26, 2010, 07:46:24 PM
Santa was intended for holiday use only. He'll probably be gone again before the year is out. I really don't understand why there's so many constant complaints about him - he's intended only as a temporary appearance.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Zocker on December 26, 2010, 09:42:42 PM
Santa is really broken, but if it's only over the holidays I can live with it (even if he made me quiet mad sometimes >.>).

Besides that the Ghostbuster's Plasma Weapon has turned into a spam weapon. Why did you double the ammo, in my opinion it was fine?
If it's a problem that he is rather helpless if he has no ammo I'd think about a little gameplay change on the Ghostbuster.
We could give him a slow, but constant plasma ammo regeneration and that should solve the problems. A combined solution of this and the still standing regeneration could work too.

I wouldn't say that the bloodsprayer is useless, it can be quiet powerful. A higher spread range could make it more useful though.

What Carthief said about the Creeper jump is interesting, but this would need some testing to see whether it's overpowered or not.

Besides that it's more or less OK, some classes could be tweaked a little like the Frostbite but other things have priority.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 26, 2010, 10:01:26 PM
Ah, yes. The complaints are due to thats the only thing people can do about him. It sometimes appears undefeatable in the hands of a rather... cowardly player, as long as the ghouls try to reach out to him, and he gets away, he WILL hit them and damage them quite well.

He might be even worse then the Riotgun issues, or the Lightning Arrows vs Jitterskulls. Even worse! Thus i highly suggested removal (or alter the file and keep it in a while, if you like, either way).

Hmm... I had no problems yet with the Ghostbuster, i just need to dodge it a little more now. Atleast i assume the Bone Cannon is still the same in ammo, percentage-wise. Oh, and the ammo regeneration is an somewhat important factor too, if that hasnt been altered, he would now technically need to wait longer to get his Bone Cannon ammo.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 26, 2010, 10:07:48 PM
Kill Santa please. It's not Christmas anymore.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 27, 2010, 06:26:47 AM
Quote from: "Zocker"
Besides that the Ghostbuster's Plasma Weapon has turned into a spam weapon. Why did you double the ammo, in my opinion it was fine?
Because a lot more people complained about his lack of ammo, that he ran out rather quickly.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on December 27, 2010, 06:49:02 AM
I think he should of just been able to regain ammo whule running like frostbite.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 27, 2010, 05:59:32 PM
Uh, ever considered how strong the Bone Cannon would have been if he had that? Its already strong enough, 2-hits anything, just comes with a significant defence flaw, kinda like Jitterskull's rather powerfull crunch attack, i guess.

While he had ammo problems indeed, some weapons where simply balanced around that issue. Hmm... And any idea's on how to deal with this santa issue yet? I hope he'll either leave soon or get a nerf, it could be as simple as restarting the server and having a new santa file on wadhost or wherever the system will look in for missing files.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 27, 2010, 09:42:14 PM
I'd like to fix Santa, but it will take some time to do so.

And the biggest problem is, he isn't going to be around all the time. I've already removed him from Obsidian. Christmas isn't technically over, in my opinion, but eh, apparently he was causing too much problem, and the 25th of December has already passed anyhow. :)

I'd like to make it so he can at least be played properly year-round, but I originally intended to only run him during the holidays otherwise.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 29, 2010, 06:49:55 AM
All you need to do in order to fix santa is change his snowguns RAPIDFIRE damage and make a little delay, and thats it. Nothing to it.

Obsidian isn't necessarily the only GvH hoster.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Blox on December 29, 2010, 07:49:54 AM
It's the only one hosting v3, though.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on December 29, 2010, 06:31:18 PM
Node is hosting V3 with Santa, and what if others want to use santa? They'd want a balanced one.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on December 29, 2010, 06:45:12 PM
I would not directly support them, then.

Santa was removed, and replaced by the Engineer for a reason. The amount of effort I will put into Santa when it's not a holiday season is quite minimal, at best.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TheBladeRoden on December 29, 2010, 07:12:53 PM
You can play as Halloween masks all year round though
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Arctic on December 29, 2010, 11:19:54 PM
Quote
You can play as Halloween masks all year round though

Touché.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on December 31, 2010, 07:08:56 PM
I dont care if they're holiday themed, as long as im fighting something that isnt overpowered. Its just no fun fighting santa in its current state, not to mention the chance to win from one is quite... Low.

Hmm... I'd try to be more on-topic, but it seems quite well balanced without santa, there's already some more good changes coming, and i dont think much more needs to be added. Just need more GVH servers using v3 AND NOT SANTA being actually played! Dont remember the last game i had on a lag-free server without santa...

Maybe the lack of overpowered classes scared away the newbies who normally own people with their overpowered weapons, instead of getting and using skill in a fair one. All i can think of is to give the humans some more... Defensive tools, or escape tools, a buff that isnt an damage increaser for once, or the likes.

Edit: Something like limited amounts of barricades per human or in total regardless of humans, that basically acts as an wall neither can go or shoot through, but can attemp to destroy. Quite some possibilities to make things a little more difficult for the ghouls but not get them raped by small overlooked weapon buffs.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on January 01, 2011, 05:47:13 AM
Yes, but Eruanna, the amount of effort required to fix him IS minimal, all that's unfair is the amount of damage his alt fire does, perhaps its speed as well.

Also if it isn't much to ask, can you make hunters regular arrow fire somehow more useful? At this point, I only use it to challenge myself. Maybe give it a bit more damage, or center it?

Speaking of arrows, can you make them stay in-game longer? They disappear awfully fast. Especially when a hunter unloads his arrows on a frostbite.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on January 01, 2011, 06:46:18 AM
Rather minimal effort required indeed. Hell, you could simply throw me an idea of how it should be, and i could copy/paste some code! Its that simple!
Ah, or perhaps get that team to work on it, in any case there's bound to be someone willing to do it, if you really dont.

Got an possibily better idea to make the regular bow more usefull too. Why not make it cost no ammo? Its a weapon that can hurt, but is hard to use, doesnt pay off too much, but is better then magic for when out of ammo (considering ghouls are best up close).
Or somehow have the hunter generate ammo through useinventory for the normal bow specifically.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Blox on January 01, 2011, 07:28:53 PM
Heh, that's a good idea. But just 'gaining' arrows is a bit strange, so here's a 'possible' implementation of it.

Takes 25 health to use, gives 20 arrows AND removes fire/ice/lightning bows.
That's right, after you lose all your arrows, and you still have over 25 health; you'd be able to have a 'last chance' against the ghouls.. Using only your trusty bow (and magic), that is.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on January 01, 2011, 11:52:47 PM
That kind of forces you to use the arrow, I'd like the regular arrow to be used not to challenge yourself, but to use it as an asset.

Blox's idea is pretty good, but I don't really like the losing 25 health part, losing all of your powers is already a big sacrifice on its own.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: XutaWoo on January 02, 2011, 07:00:19 AM
Yeah, that way it's more like you're simply using up all your mana to create more ammo, which makes sense to me.

On a late and unrelated note, Choke's jump is rather underwelming. I can't check the .pk3 to see what the value is (due to non-standard zipping) but shouldn't a mobile class have a slightly increased jump? It would help him being able to literally leap into places it'd taken him more time to get to.
Maybe just enought to let him clear 64/72 unit heights, allowing him to bound over crates in the least.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on January 03, 2011, 03:12:05 PM
Seems logical in such an aspect, just hope one doesnt trigger that on accident, hehe...
Hmm... Once Santa gets hit with the nerfhammer, most idea's just seem to consist out of (small) buffs. I guess its time for that again, various small buffs to make lifes of the humans a little easier, but not to make it too bad for the ghouls (again).

Hmm... Not sure if the humans these days just plain suck or are in need of some defensive buffs. I know REALLY GOOD Cyborg players actually can kill me (and sometimes do so unharmed, even), but no-one ever invests their skill into a class that isnt seen as cheap! Meh, aside that one cyborg. Maybe they dont deserve any significant buffs at all.

Off-topic old-time GVH things:
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Arctic on February 07, 2011, 04:12:50 AM
V3b1 as of lately for some reason:

Creepers needing two lightning shots and Sjas and Jitterskull four? And Creeper and Jitterskull still being able to instantly kill?

Sorry, but that's just unfair. x/
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Korby on February 07, 2011, 04:13:35 AM
Ball Jump.
That is all.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on February 10, 2011, 09:54:26 AM
Okay - well - so some ideas...

- Change Santa's snowball gun so the alt-fire is a bit more like the Engi's.
- Give the creeper's balls an A_Thrust (this might come back to haunt us later... just saying)
- Review Hunter's lightning arrows (might not need much change, to be honest...)
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Arctic on February 10, 2011, 11:10:45 PM
Wasn't talking about the lightning arrow in particular. The damage reduction is just a bit... off. It took a whole minute for three other marines and myself to kill one Sjas (the Sjas player was lagging a little bit, but still). Four lightning arrows for a Jitterskull/Sjas may seem balanced 1vs1, but in a match with four players on each team or even more, balance will tip over into the Ghouls' favor completely. Also, lightning arrows are sort of a skilled player's last resort (not counting lucky ice shots) when a full-health Creeper is approaching them. If the player using the Creeper at that time isn't an idiot, he'll make sure he kills the hunter before he's able to fire the shot, or simply flees out of sight.

I've played a couple of v3b1 games on both European and American servers. 90% of human players consists of Marines constantly chucking grenades and dog-piling static Jitterskulls with riot, and winning. x/

Anyway, enough ranting and on to the supportive critique, lol. With quite a bit, but sadly not enough knowledge from v3b1 (stupid Oblacek server), I'd say:

---
Marine
---

One close up shot takes down half of a Jitterskull's hp. One mistake with two marines close by (or simply kill a player) and you're dead. x_x Wouldn't really know how to balance this myself (yet). Perhaps make the spread 1,5-2 times larger. It's meant for close combat, not for killing Creepers at long range.
Also, a max of 5 grenades and waaay more damage to self (like maybe 40-50) would surely tone down the nuclear holocaust that is GvH lately.

(Only downside: Ammar will then be rendered unable to play marine. ;P )


---
Hunter
---

Maybe have the normal arrow have some sort of use besides showing off aim, or annoying Ghouls with. (Poke, poke, poke... x) ) It'd also maybe be a good idea to increase the loading time of lightning arrows a bit. (Ouch, electricity hurts his hands!)
Also, four lightning arrow shots for a Jitterskull, eep. If you'd want to tone lightning damage down, I'd say make lightning have to hit Jitterskulls thrice, and boost ice's damage against them. Every class needs a weakness.


---
Cyborg
---

Near perfect. Only thing bugging me is the insane amount of damage one plasma ball -can- do. Sometimes they do 30, sometimes 70 (not kidding). Makes Choke's life hard.
Also, wasn't the charge supposed to make you invulnerable while using it?


---
Ghostbuster
---

Perfect, keep as is I'd say. (Also, please tell me how to fix invisible traps...?)


---
Engineer
---

Really nice touch on the nailgun there, waaaay better now. Only one thing: if you aim correctly (not hard to perform), you can cover the entire map in a monsoon of molten lava with about two/three other Engies. It'd be awesome if the range could get toned down just a tad. x)


---
Santa
---

Snowgun and star (the slow one) damage, nuff said. x_X



---
Sjas
---

Toning down the scream's damage to non-OHKO is a bit of a harsh punishment for the floating head. So much effort put into a scream, only to get killed right after.

Anyway, lol, I think it should have a high chance (like 80%) of killing instantly, at least when it's dead on close (meaning exactly like in v2b9), only with a slight, tiny decrease in range.
The only thing that annoys me quite a bit sometimes is the duration of the  reflect. It takes sooooo long (even longer than its animation), and can be used nearly constantly (troll-Sjas vs cyborg/ghostbuster).


---
Jitterskull
---

Keep as is I'd say, almost. Just one thing: increased speed after a kill for one second (like triple speed, only for one second). Getting sort of an asterisk of lightning arrows perforated through you after every kill is quite demotivating. After a miss, sure, that's the Jitter's fault. x)


---
Creeper
---

Keep as is, along with the ball jump! Though, please don't overdo on its altitude, lmao. They're hard enough to spot as is, in general.
(Also, there's a tiny bug in his pain sound, making it really short while walking. Really easy to fix, though I can't remember how exactly. Something with "global" or something... can't recall.)


---
Choke
---

I think he be fine now.


---
Frostbite
---

One thing has been bugging me from day one he entered the arena: a single cloud can kill. If they'd disappear after doing a set amount of damage (30-50 maybe), this'd be fixed in a way humans'd appreciate, and ghouls would barely notice.

-----------

Lastly: would you please be so kind as to ask the host of the Oblacek server to update it and enable spectator chat and votes? It's starting to become even more overshadowed by AOW that way. :P[/size]
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Balrog on February 11, 2011, 12:58:36 AM
Quote from: "Arctic"
(Only downside: Ammar will then be rendered unable to play marine. ;P )

Ammar can barely play Marine as it is. I'm pretty sure suicide by grenade is universally known as an "Ammar" by now.

But anyway, Marine grenades really just need their range and number toned down to make them less spammable. As it stands a Creeper just looking at a grenade explosion is enough to instagib him.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on February 11, 2011, 09:06:37 PM
So far im aware v3b1 DOES have two-hit kill lightning arrows, what is quite... discouraging. Though the riotgun has been nerfed, though it still 2-hits a Jitterskull with extreme luck, you'll have to do 2 direct, full hits, and it either dies or is left with 2 to 10-ish hp.
Hmm... All i can think of is to make it do less damage to the point of it taking 3 hits on a Jitterskull but perhaps still 2 hits on a Choke or other things with similar slightly hp, aside Frostbite, assuming armor takes off some damage, but still will one-hit a Creeper. Mostly due to Jitterskull's... unwanted breaks in the worst situations.

Santa's snowgun altfire is currently the largest (but removable) problem. It is virtually unavoidable, does HIGH damage, and not to mention the infinite ammo and spammability. Though im sure its already getting nerfed/altered.

Hmm... Cant say much about the Cyborg, they've always been easy to me, i dodge their plasma, and kill them, admittedly its... trickier for other classes. So i cant really judge much about its damage, i'd say avoid it, like the plague, always avoid, hit, and possibily run. Not like he has long-range attacks or explosives.
The Marine aint too bad currently either, so far. Riotguns on v3b1 arent as overpowered damage-wise, everything else is avoidable or limited in range or whatnot, though that grenade trick with the ceiling still exists...

A reasonable Creeper Ball Jump would be REALLY USEFULL! It costs the Creeper vital ammo anyway, so why not?
Jitterskull wont need a buff if you ask me, though lightning arrows are a tad... harsh, anything else isnt too unbearable.

Oblacek really does need an update too. Wouldnt mind if someone convinced the server owner, because v2b9 is HORRIBILY unbalanced, EVEN WORSE when Santa is added in its current state. Getting hard to find reliable, low ping servers with v3 preferabaly without that godamn santa these days.

Hmm... I think you've played the wrong server with the wrong files to see these kind of things happen. Also note that sometimes it looks like the lightning arrows hit their target, it does produce an hit sound/animation/debris, but it does NOT neccesairy actually damage too. Noticed this several times while being shot at, and sometimes shooting. The hitboxes for ghouls (aside Creeper's) tend to be smaller then the picture, actually it is no larger then your regular marine in Doom/Skulltag.

Edit: Ammar's suicides are legendary by now, huh? :P Should see him in dodgeball sometimes, oh how even gravity is against him, hehe... Ah, the countless controls RCON has (oh, anyone know any other fancy settings aside setting sv_gravity, fastweapons, infiniteammo/inventory, thats fun to mess up the game with?).
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on February 13, 2011, 08:09:55 PM
Quote from: "Arctic"
Lastly: would you please be so kind as to ask the host of the Oblacek server to update it and enable spectator chat and votes? It's starting to become even more overshadowed by AOW that way. :P
I do not have any influence over him. You'll have to talk to him yourself.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Arctic on February 17, 2011, 06:39:08 PM
Apparently someone else did already.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on February 17, 2011, 06:55:38 PM
Seems ever since Oblacek FINNALY updated, GVH recieved ALOT more people. Only problem is that it uses the stupid lms_spectatorchat settings and votes are disabled except for useless time votes and other useless votes. But atleast it just shows its still very well alive and kicking, attracting old and new players.

Oh, and something somewhat unrelated about cheating;
(click to show/hide)
Well, considering its still doing well, hope someone updates the damn thing eventually.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Zocker on February 18, 2011, 12:06:46 AM
I and Carthief shared some thoughts about the Frostebite and here are some of my ideas referring to him.

Currently he is very stereotypically balanced, since it can be an horrendous foe if you camp in small rooms or a vent but it is also easy as hell to run from him away and prevent any damage at all if you play on big maps.
Neither Frostbite's speed nor his breath are as fast as a human.

While his bite is strong and quick it can be hard to control on all ranges and you must be very good at controlling him to hit a second time in a row to kill a human.

This makes him neither underpowered nor underpowered but somehow a bit unbalanced.

Increasing his speed would make him more useful in open areas but it could also make him too strong since he could evade projectiles easier in addition to his already thick armor. And increasing the range of his bite would only make it less controllable.

So I had the simple idea to change his breath. Instead of slow, inaccurate clouds of death they are now rather a support attack.
They are faster and have a freeze effect that slows humans down and make them easier to be bitten.
But in return they are less damaging and last less long (to keep his range).

This should make the clouds far less fatal in small areas because currently a lot damage comes from the bounced clouds that do high damage and hit humans over and over again.

The more a human gets hit by the clouds the slower he/she will be, down to a minimum of let's say 60% of the original speed.

For example if you encounter a human on Castle Ghoulenstein a Frostbite normally has no chance, the humans will keep running away and shoot him from distance (if it's not a noob).
However with his new breath it will be easier to hit and bite them afterwards. Maybe the armor should go down a bit if the Frosty uses his breath to make him a bit more vulnerable.

Of course all these new variables would need testers and I would volunteer as one of them.

It would also be great if you could add that freeze death from Heretic/Hexen if a human dies because of his breath ^^.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on February 19, 2011, 03:50:36 PM
Ah, that slowing breath would indeed be quite interesting, though i guess the breath should still be a viable (if not slow) means of killing, in case approaching them and getting in range just isnt doable.
The breath idea certainly seems worth trying, i mean, he always has been a bit... Useless, against fast foes and in open areas.

Edit: Humans used to be frozen by the Hunter's Ice Arrows, assuming they where reflected and hit the shooter (or can hurt his allies, too). It was hilarious, but i hear ice statues like those lag the game, but if not, by all means, bring them back! It was awesome!

And some suggestions from recent games i've played (about time there's a good v3b1 server!), Hunter seems to be getting used ALOT lately, like, almost half the team minimally, only due to its lightning arrow, and of course other things to kill other classes with. Lightning arrow itself has no true weakness, as long as you fire at reasonable distance and can dodge stuff, and the amount of damage this does among the hitscan weapons makes it practically the new riotgun.
Perhaps reduce the damage to something 55-62ish and make the recovery time after shooting a tad longer? Or just make it a longer recovery, but worth the damage if it hits, but currently, i'd say its a bit... too usefull.

Oh, and either its that Cyborgs are explicitly designed to destroy Jitterskulls, but some good ones are UNTOUCHABLE when firing and jetpacking around, if it means nothing can kill them in the end, perhaps remove the invulnerability on it. Some say the damage is a little over the top too, depends if the class can avoid it i guess.
Though im guessing a Cyborg that Jetpack spams all the time to avoid EVERYTHING is probaly a little over the top, perhaps alot less fuel or no invulnerability? Now its just a free out of jail ticket, basically. Kinda needs more skill to cheat death with, or luck.

Engineer seems to need a little buff in usefullness however, his nail gun just sucks, aside a lucky close up altfire kill, it just sucks. His other weapons seem to do fine though. So perhaps a buff to make the nailgun a tad more usefull but not as spammy would work, though it already does considerable damage if it does hit.
Either that or perhaps he's well off with having some new defensive things.

Oh, dont forget to alter Santa's snowgun altfire for obvious reasons.

It may just seem anti-human (like usual), coming from me, but powerfull hitscan just proves constantly that when a large enough group of people learn to abuse it, it just gets really annoying. I'd rather have a powerfull thing with an actual weakness to it, but so far neither mentioned things have any significant weakness, if one at all. Its alot more playable then previous versions though, and admittely only a few cyborgs rampage entire ghoul teams in such a way. Still, its about a class's maximum potential rather then the player in it, if you truly want to balance something.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on February 19, 2011, 10:44:37 PM
Stop nerfing shit, I don't want GvH to be just sticks and stones. I want guns, plasma, etc.

You should take a look at the early version of GvH, its a lot more balanced and more fun than the current one.

Seriously, comparing the early GvH to the current one is basically shows how ruined the wad is now due to terrible suggestions and nerfs. We don't need to fix things that aren't broken.

Unless, if it's BLATANTLY obvious.

@cartheif, you can't expect the jitterskull to be able to kill every other class. Besides, the cyborg has a limited amount of gas and flying makes up for his speed. All you're basically doing is complaining about what a Jitter can't kill.

@people who are working on GvH
Fix santa, just because you guys don't want to use it doesn't mean everyone else will agree. Besides, the effort required to reduce the alt-fire damage can be accomplished by a trained monkey.

Engineer was perfect, why is his nailgun so drastically slow?! Either make it stronger or faster.

GvH40 - Is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too big! It can easily be 3 maps, maybe even 5.

Eru... since you aren't really into ST anymore... maybe GvH should be passed on to a group of people? [Assuming if you aren't really as active]
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on February 19, 2011, 11:59:44 PM
I assume you read incorrectly, it was not specifically about Jitter vs Cyborg only, though the fuel cost is quite low, for a charge in any desired direction, and invulnerability frames.
I mean, i dont mind if humans can easily take out a ghoul, as the ghouls can do so to humans, but on a range, it has to be somewhat balanced, ghouls dont have instakill ranged attacks (aside Choke's obvious bloodball, with even more obvious drawbacks).

I suppose earlier versions seem more fun to you because i dare say as a human you had more power to wield at less cost or skill requirement. Though it was hardly fair on the ghouls back then when say, the lightning arrows INSTAKILLED an ghoul. Though they still do, only to Creepers now, fortunately.

Yes, nailgun does need an buff (i dont think the previous version of it had so much damage per projectile as it has now, was it hard to dodge, all that nailgun spam?). And indeed anyone could improve Santa's snowgun, heck, they could just ask for what should be done and have any random person make the changes, test it, and post the code on the place of the request.

Edit: Quite my suggestion to have it to a group of people instead of one person too, considering it wont be too related to a single person's ideals and preferences in such a case.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on February 20, 2011, 03:49:57 AM
I played the early version of gvh with a bunch of people a while ago. It was balanced to BOTH sides. Since well, ghouls are stronger as well. (Jitt - no breaks during attacks, -sjas faster and can insta kill -creeper creeper)

The thing is, classes are supposed to take specific classes out.

EX... Marine > Creeper
 Creeper > Cyborg
 Cyborg > Jitterskull
 JitterSkull > hunter
 hunter > sjas

etc etc etc
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on February 20, 2011, 12:57:15 PM
Perhaps, but if you're talking about some classes being such a threat to another class that they would lose the fight 65% of the time, that's hardly ever happening with all-rounded classes like Hunter and his hitscan, creeper deterrent, and projectile instakiller. And possibily the same for the Marine's Riotgun being able to take out anything decently, and have easy grenade acces, though it was somehow a tad slower back then.

I suppose its not bad having a pokemon-style weakness against one class, but its currently not there and my observations are often that these classes have no such weaknesses. Meh, back in first few beta's everything raped everything, stuff was yet to be balanced, of course the worst part it was humans raped equally to ghouls - on a distance!

From my observations, you could say humans lose alot, but i also noticed a few humans standing out, using their class to the max. Now, imagine uh... 10 Hunters with that said extreme skill at raping with lightning arrow - even VS Creepers, it would be annoying, unplayable, anything but fun. Most humans just tend to suck a little and have a higher skill requirement at dodging ghouls.
Unfortunately i dont see much of a solution to this situation, other then balancing the classes according to how much one would, uh, rape with it. :P
Why, even Jitterskull got a nerf due to such, although mostly due to fairly known Jitterrape issue.
Thats basically what my reasons of nerfing/buffing are posted for.

If you really want a pokemon-style weakness factor though, i'd say use the damagefactor element in DECORATE coding, and make some attacks less effective on some classes.

Edit: Thinking again... Currently its based on everything vs everything, being a tad better in smaller games, why, it would probaly be useless to even try if such a weakness system was applied then, when there's only 1 ghoul left against 1 human. Hmm... The battle would already have been decided.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on February 20, 2011, 04:00:33 PM
I remember someone made an armor patch or something, that made things pretty balanced imo. Maybe some servs should use it.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Mobius on February 23, 2011, 04:07:03 AM
The best balanced GVH was post-CD release when Engineer was introduced. The only disagreeable shit was riotgun and Engineer's nailgun. Listening to the general population, which most suck at GVH to begin with, is a terrible idea.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on February 24, 2011, 08:55:48 PM
Quote from: "RedHomo"
Listening to the general population, which most suck at GVH to begin with, is a terrible idea.

Agreed X100, look at what these dumbass suggestions have done.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on February 28, 2011, 02:13:21 AM
Hey eruanna, are you working on this anymore?

If it doesn't fit your time, you can just give it back to cut or something.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on March 01, 2011, 08:14:50 PM
Quote from: "bluewiz"
Quote from: "RedHomo"
Listening to the general population, which most suck at GVH to begin with, is a terrible idea.

Agreed X100, look at what these dumbass suggestions have done.
No matter what you do, somebody's not going to be happy. Unfortunately, it had to be you two, but I had to use my best option given my capabilities at the time. I actually had a bit of Wartorn's help with deciding which suggestions to implement and which ones not to.


Quote from: "bluewiz"
Hey eruanna, are you working on this anymore?

If it doesn't fit your time, you can just give it back to cut or something.
I'll be talking with Cutman about this myself.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Mobius on March 02, 2011, 08:24:17 PM
Quote
No matter what you do, somebody's not going to be happy. Unfortunately, it had to be you two, but I had to use my best option given my capabilities at the time.

That's fine. It's a bit of a learning experience for a game that has seen its best days, which has came to an end already. You guys tried what you thought was right and no one can take it from you. I just read this thread every week wanting to speak up but I'll just give up. I've had so many meta debates on this forum that I might as well make a compilation sticky, but it isn't my project totally and trying something new is better than nothing.

I think I lost all functional hope when people started complaining about Frostbite's altfire.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CutmanMike on March 03, 2011, 11:58:37 AM
Indeed, I don't think GVH is ever going to get as packed as it used to now and no balance tweaks or new maps are going to bring them back. GVH as far as I'm concerned, has lived it's life. Without some kind of massive overhaul (whether that be in quality, new classes or gameplay mechanics etc), I don't think GVH will be getting as played as much as it used to.

Still, was very very very fun while it lasted. Will happily play again some time  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on March 03, 2011, 05:02:25 PM
Well atleast it would be nice if it was balanced when it dies off. Not to mention nice for the people who still play it from time to time. Perhaps to make that little side project an fan-made addon, perhaps that'll give it some life, if i ever bother to finish it.

Atleast the balance issues are minimal, though humans are complaining they cant do a thing, though if you ask me most just suck on the offensive part, atleast they can run, ussually. All i ever meet these days is lightning arrow hunters though, gets annoying.
Atleast it gave alot of interesting memories, ah, that one time messing about in the Lets Bowl map... It even had a youtube video, good times...

But, is anyone currently still assigned to update gvh? I mean, some damage changes or stuff nearly everyone should be capable of. Only issue among most people is to get time to do it.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Mobius on March 03, 2011, 09:09:36 PM
Carthief, you rarely ever play when you do get on.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: bluewiz on March 04, 2011, 03:49:20 AM
Cart, I know you hold GvH very near and dear to your heart. But, it has lived for long enough, its about time to end its two year reign and see if something else can replace it.

Though I do wonder what cuttie is going to do after MM8bitdm... Assuming that he'll ever stop :P
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Ivory on March 04, 2011, 03:59:09 AM
I agree. I played and loved GvH for a good year and a bit. Now it's just starting to run a bit dry. Outside of a few sparse games for old times sake, I just don't think it has the same spark it used to have.

I for one am willing to let it go. It had it run. It survived loads of skulltag drama and is now dieing peacefully. I can't think of a better way to end the game.

Also bluewiz, Cutty plans to end his skulltag modding career with MM8BDM. Move on to some other engine. I'm not sure of the details, just that MM8BDM should be the last major skulltag project we can expect.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Korby on March 04, 2011, 04:08:28 AM
MM8BDM is raising tons of young modders as well, so at least one is bound to follow in Mike's footsteps.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TheBladeRoden on March 09, 2011, 10:24:29 PM
I missed the first GvH boat so I say it needs to live on somehow, maybe it needs a ground-up sequel!
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on March 09, 2011, 10:55:23 PM
I think if that happens it should be Cutman who designs and pens up a story for it. I don't mind actually making it but if he invests the time into doing that then I do believe that he will probably already want to make it himself anyway because he'd have it fresh in his mind and he'd probably want it a certain way. :)

GVH is still his and he's made that clear.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CutmanMike on March 09, 2011, 11:25:41 PM
While I don't have the skill or team for it (yet), I would love to bring GVH to the next level (not in doom!).
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: TERRORsphere on March 10, 2011, 02:23:20 AM
Quote from: "CutmanMike"
While I don't have the skill or team for it (yet), I would love to bring GVH to the next level (not in doom!).
Last Bastion won't be out for a while  :p
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on March 11, 2011, 05:46:34 PM
Hmm... I cant imagine nowadays FPS games being as editable as Doom and Skulltag are, not the more serious ones, in any case. Heh, and GVH with models seems hard to imagine compared to what we have now, if it ever jumps onto another game/port.

You could always ask someone to host GVH if you really want to play it. I'd suggest giving GVH a singleplayer campaign with 20 human and 20 ghoul fights (considering there's 40 maps by now, oh how time flies...), but i doubt anyone's going to work on it by now, though i guess it doesnt need much work on balance in this state (except that damn Santa).
Oh, and i could host GVH on request too, though if you're going to ask by PM or other means instead of when im in a game, it'll probaly get confusing with all the different time zones and whatnot.

Ah well, no excuse to not release my GVH addon thingy if i ever finish it, like good ol times with GVH and a weapon drop addon on my server...
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on March 16, 2011, 03:34:15 PM
It does not seem this mod is quite as dead as we thought... it's still getting a little bit of active playtime and it's still attracting players here and there.

So I'm gonna pose a challenge to you all...

If you guys can make some "add-on" wads which change the stats of the weapons and classes to what you think is more balanced, it would help me figure out what to change and how much in the next version.

Nothing speaks louder than hardcore solid numbers!!! :D
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on March 16, 2011, 08:17:15 PM
It just needs a good (LOW PING!) server and a couple of players and watch it grow. Hmm... Quite the timing too, i just finished a small thing i made, its merely a small balancing thing, adding nerfs and buffs, though not many.

Its already on wadhost.fathax:
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalancePatchv1.zip (http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalancePatchv1.zip)

And here's some information copied from the wad's txt file:
(click to show/hide)
Edit: Probaly needs a little more defensive/survival buffs on the human side though. If i can think of anything.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on March 25, 2011, 05:36:51 PM
Normally i wouldnt doublepost, but considering any edit would go unnoticed by the probaly inactive developers... :P

Might as well list a few things first, there's an small crate trap on the docks map, or rather, the containers trap something as large as a Frostbite inside it if unlucky!
(http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/29/screenshotdoom201103251.th.png) (http://img854.imageshack.us/i/screenshotdoom201103251.png/)

And might as well give a suggestion some other (rare) Jitterskull users might enjoy, basically the Creepers tend to be absolutely IMPENETRABLE roadblocks to Jitterskulls, and they're slow, too. Making them non-blocking to specifically Jitterskulls would probaly help out, or perhaps other ghouls too, if you feel like it. Shouldnt the +GHOST flag or something be able to do this, along with the through ghosts flag?

And as said at the start of the post, where's all the activity? Has the previous post even been looked at? Some feedback is nice too if you're trying the small patch, if you feel like it.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: Eruanna on April 10, 2011, 07:41:03 PM
I've seen it, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I'm sorry.

And yeah, development on this has been very inactive lately.
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on April 10, 2011, 10:14:17 PM
Heh, due to all the inactivity i've took the liberty of messing about unofficially with GVH myself, in hopes of showing it to cutman and hey, maybe he'll like it and implement it. Had some help, suggestions, and whatnot from some of the best players and friends, so i doubt it will suck in any case.

In order from first to last excluding the one posted previously, here's whats uploaded so far:
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBala ... 2Test1.zip (http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalancePatchV2Test1.zip)
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBala ... 2Test2.zip (http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalancePatchv2Test2.zip)
Edit, just new: http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBala ... 2Test3.zip (http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalancePatchv2Test3.zip)

Inside the files is of course the list of changes, was thinking of fixing GVH's archievements too, but no attemp so far on the current system fixed it. Meh, no idea if i'll do archievements in v3 or v4, i'll probaly need to take a guess at remaking the system if it keeps failing.
Oh, and its probaly far from completely done, i still remember having to make some changes... Hmm... But its getting close.

Hmm... So far most public test sessions went quite well with practically little to no complaints, the odd suggestion, and just good ol gvh action, just with less unfair Lightning Arrow rape and the likes. No idea how that server was kept active for like 9 to 10 hours in a row, heh.
Perhaps take a look at this Cutman if you feel like making decisions in regards to GVH development?
Title: Re: Post your ideas regarding balance
Post by: CarThief on April 25, 2011, 08:45:11 AM
Hmm... Not much in the way of activity here. In the meanwhile updated my patch even more, in case anyone's interested anyway... Also made a Santa patch with achievements included.
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBala ... 2Test9.zip (http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalancePatchV2Test9.zip)
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalanceSanta.zip (http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/GVHBalanceSanta.zip)

Meh, at this rate of inactivity i wouldnt mind trying to do official updates on GVH myself. Perhaps apply some of the ideas in the patch(take a look if you're curious), but most importantly the balance changes. Might not be the best person to add new stuff, but i can try and improve just about anything.

So... If you need new people for it anyway... If so its handy to know if you still want people asking your opinion on stuff or let them have their own way. Wouldnt mind seeing another update to GVH and some activity again anyway, even if i have to do it myself.

Edit: At this rate, fighting those godamn Hunters again with the unavoidable 1/2- hit kill attacks, i INSIST on trying to get an update going, i already have most ideas worked out in the patch i made in my free time. I got plenty of free time anyway to do all this in one go. Only thing that i dont really have is large scale testing available(though an announcement/beta probaly does the job).
So... You need more people? (Though im entirely dedicated and certain enough to do such a thing on my own. But second opinions and suggestions always help. :P)