Messages

106

Closed / Re: Changing the Base Skin: Giving the Tournament Robot a Fa

« on: May 09, 2016, 11:49:35 PM »

Well there you go.

I'd suggest removing chest and shoulder pieces, using Protoman's jumpsuit as basis (arm pieces/belt/boots blue, shoulders black, torso and legs cyan), and perhaps making Maestro a little shorter.

As for his helmet...

(click to show/hide)

This is the best I could make: a mixture between "Sniper Joe" and Doomguy's helmet. A face-covered, slightly oval-shaped helmet with few linear marks on his jaw area, his ear pads and over his "eyes", a black monitor display acting as a visor with two digital eyes a-la Galaxy Man (with no physical separation between it and the lower/upper parts of the helmet, flat and uniform), and a single protusion on the front top that very slightly comes down.

107

Closed / Re: Changing the Base Skin: Giving the Tournament Robot a Fa

« on: May 09, 2016, 06:11:25 PM »

Giving the faceless character a face defeats the purpose of inmersion, at least from my point of view. The tournament robot, with his display module "off", is not meant to be seen, but is instead meant to be given a different form by the player with any other skin they've got, core or custom.

It's easier to understand why the Mega Man skin is the default base skin, easier to explain, easier to forgive, easier to relate to the concept of it: it's a filler form. Replacing it with this original character raises more questions than answers, and disassociates the game from the series. Imagine being in the shoes of a new player, joining an online match, and seeing the default skin: if he sees Megamen, it's easier to relate him with the concept of an automatically displayed default skin in place of missing custom ones; if he sees any other official character, the concept is still graspable and relatable to something already established and known and accepted; if he sees an original, fan-made character, there's nothing to relate it to other than being some guy's randomly plastered original character skin into the game because of favors or influence and whatnot. It feels like walking into a server with a lot of people wearing Yoshi the Hedgehog skins at the same time: better for the default skin to be a core, official character than a fan-made one, because the former is more known and relatable to the concept of a blank slate, basic, default display skin. You can't miss with Mega Man (or any other official Mega Man character) as the default skin, unlike with a non-official one.






There's essentially three topics colliding with each other:

-The faceless tournament robot as a character the player fills in. This is, in my opinion, an idea that should be kept intact, as its been. But this is not the point of the topic, despite coming into play when you introduce...

-"Maestro" as the "face" of the faceless tournament robot, who is in my opinion a very cool idea and a nice looking character, which will probably get a skin and class of its own, things I'll actually encourage. The thing is, officially giving a predetermined form to a "formless" character where players are expected to give it form of their own machinations is wrong (not even bad). This is just discussing the quality of the character itself, which is also not the point of the topic, which is...

-Changing the base skin. I've already argued that Mega Man is and has been a better candidate for the base skin than anybody else for its widely known and commonly accepted status, as well as his very plain and basic design (which lends itself naturally to all the color schemes because, you know, they were designed for him to begin with). You can try and redesign Maestro to mimic Mega Man's blue/cyan color distribution more, but at that point, why even care about designing Maestro as the base skin when Mega Man is more relatable and accepted? Don't change it: Maestro feels like something that I'd expect to see in CutmanMike's MM8BDM Concept Art sketchbook (49.59), as an unused character.

I'd go as far as say that, now that you've unveiled Maestro as a base skin replacement and a personification of the player, you've already established it as a character separate from the personal, individual form each player has given it, and by relation given to themselves, over the years: it's already been retconned.

108

Closed / Re: Changing the Base Skin: Giving the Tournament Robot a Fa

« on: May 09, 2016, 04:42:03 AM »

I see that things are already cleared up:

-You play as "the tournament robot", not Mega Man. Mega Man is part of the tournament at one point, he is a different character from you. Even the main villain acknowledges you as a separate character.

-The tournament robot is faceless because the player is supposed to fill in the blanks with whatever they want, even their OC, Maestro. Forcing a predetermined original character as the supposedly faceless tournament robot kinda defeats the entire purpose of it in the first place. Keep it as officially faceless as possible. EDIT: the idea of randomly assigning a fresh install player a random skin at the beginning of the singleplayer campaign (not multiplayer, that should be the default base class skin, Mega Man) was thrown around 2 years ago, but ultimately dropped. Or something like that.

-Mega Man is the default skin perhaps because Mega Man is the most recognizable character in the entire franchise, or because he's got a far more basic design than any other character, but not because the tournament robot is Mega Man: this is very clearly stated by every other character in the game. Mega Man's skin design makes any color scheme change a dead giveaway: from any angle you can clearly see what color scheme any player is wearing, it is very evident and conveys itself very easily. Giving this fact any lore importance or using this as an argument for giving the faceless player character a face is a moot point: the story very clearly separates the tournament robot from Mega Man.

-Maestro is a good OC, I'll give you that. Maybe some would consider the lack of Doom-like nods in its design a sin, maybe some would call him Staff (a musical staff, where you write all musical compositions) or Raster (the writing tool used to draw musical charts), but Maestro's a nifty name. Not in my MM8BDM, though.

-Sniper Joe being the default skin (different from the canon "face" of the tournament robot) instead of Mega Man clearly has enough approval of the community, as seen twice already, and it makes sense, as explained twice already. If it's the right choice or not, that's honestly something that should be up to Mike. Not me, not you, not the "mayority" of the "community", not any transitory devteam chief, but Mike.

109

Closed / Re: Changing Team Colors: Two More Teams?!

« on: May 09, 2016, 04:07:46 AM »

EDIT: Let me just spoil this up, it's hella ugly.

(click to show/hide)

Cossack Team: Orange and yellow like his logo, orange and gold, some yellow-ish/orange-ish color with green like the suit under his labcot, NOT ALL GREEN.







King Team: A more soft blue-ish looking purple, less corrupt-ish more regal-ish, if not gold on dark gray like King himself. LOOK AT HIS COAT, THAT'S A ROYAL KIND OF PURPLE.












Stardroid Team: Green is kinda fine, Sunstar was purple/blue on peach? so wrap your head around this, Stardroid logo looks like this. As an alternate, weird and out of left field suggestion, Gameboy green as its color scheme.







Light Team: Fine.

Wily Team: Fine.

Mr. X Team: Gumballtoid's palette.

EDITEDIT: Also

(click to show/hide)

Wily Team:


No no.

110

MM8BDM Discussion / Re: MM8BDM v5 Public Thread - MM9 Expansion

« on: May 09, 2016, 12:39:02 AM »

Those are some wide corridors you got there...

111

MM8BDM Discussion / Re: MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Pharaoh Shot)

« on: May 08, 2016, 06:31:03 PM »

That's not right. The idea of Pharaoh Shot only dealing a lot of damage on direct hits, while keeping a small explosion only if it misses and hits anything but a player should be the way to go. Said explosion should not overpower Drill Bomb's in any way.

If we go the non-explosive way, Gumball's idea is a more logical conclusion: make it pass through killed enemies instead (for whatever that's worth >:^/).

If we go the explosive way, reduce the radius of the explosion, add a small graphic to it, and nerf either mid charge shot to 4HKO and the full charge shot to 60. Any other design choice, like silent charge or no charge shot spam is up to you.

112

MM8BDM Discussion / me too

« on: May 08, 2016, 04:29:27 PM »

I was mostly intending P.Shot's explosion to look like the ones from those asteroids from MM5

(which i had to rip myself because nobody ripped them before)

Where the projectile visibly gets "torn apart" by the explosion
(I'll also try to make the explosion the size of the actual damaging radius, however big that is)

That looks ok, might be a bit too big? The explosion radius is not as big as Drill Bomb's, anyways.



















and if it is, it shouldn't be.

113

MM8BDM Discussion / Re: MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Pharaoh Shot)

« on: May 08, 2016, 04:16:00 PM »

Force shot release is counterproductive for offensive medium range fighting, which is what Pharaoh Shot seems to be most used in, and for charge weapons in general IMO. You want to keep your shot with you for the right time to fire it and deal the direct damage: adding a too short time constrain or any other penalty without something to justify it like Atomic Fire's killer shot, in the exclusive case of Pharaoh Shot, is a bad idea.

If a time limit is used as Pharaoh Shot's charge holding penalty, then maybe a larger span like 6 or 10 seconds should be more fitting to an offensive weapon like it, and for the giant compressed heat ball to dissipate. I wouldn't advise it, though: it feels like an awful idea in execution.

EDIT: For an original explosion graphic, may I suggest taking inspiration from Pharaoh Man's Pharaoh Wave? I imagine Pharaoh Shot's "explosion" to mostly be the result of the shot shortly bursting into a mini heat wave: nothing too flashy, nothing too big, nothing too noisy.

114

MM8BDM Discussion / Re: MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Pharaoh Shot)

« on: May 08, 2016, 03:03:54 PM »

Plant Barrier never healed you in MM6, Atomic Fire was not aimable in MM2, and so on and so on: certain changes are needed to better accommodate the FPS gameplay or to make the weapon more interesting, which is why the (weak) hidden explosion, while mostly unneeded for its basic functionality, adds a layer to the weapon's usefulness without treading into Drill Bomb's explosive nature.

The subject of identity...is something that shouldn't be taken literally for the purpose of our designing convenience. And besides, MM8BDM's Pharaoh Shot feels like MM4's Pharaoh Shot, because MM4's Pharaoh Shot was just an aimable charge buster with its projectile sticking out before firing, which the 8BDM counterpart already portrays in both look and function. Anything else that is added to the 8BDM counterpart, however small it is, has been an addendum that IMO: a) doesn't strip the weapon of its identity, b) exists to liven up the weapon, and c) exists to better function in a multiplayer FPS plane.

115

MM8BDM Discussion / Re: MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Pharaoh Shot)

« on: May 08, 2016, 02:24:36 PM »

I have to agree with Smashbro here, Pharaoh Shot is a silent charge weapon solely because it also was in MM4, its only an advantage that has very little drawback to it. Every charge weapon makes a lot of noise while charging (which I assume is one of its drawbacks), except Tengu Slash, which is a melee weapon, and Pharaoh Shot. Also, didn't we just have a talk about charge weapons that don't force enough drawbacks onto the player for holding down a charge forever?

A silent charge weapon that deals 65 damage at point blank that can still deal explosion damage if missed feels wrong IMO. Pharaoh Shot as it is is a very solid weapon, one that clearly outclasses most other weapons of its same kin, but if we're to keep its full power for design purposes:

-That 3HKO mid charge shot needs to go, too short of a charge time to already get 34-49 damage. You don't even need two full charge shots to kill a player: just finish him off with the mid charge shot.

-That silent charge needs to be awfully reconsidered as part of its design (I've got unused Pharaoh Shot charging and alternate firing SFX if the need ever arises   ).

-And right off the heels of that previous bullet point, the same principle discussed for Atomic Fire charging needs to be considered for this one weapon as well: players can hold the charge forever, with even less penalties to it than Atomic Fire.

-As a suggestion, please consider adding a way to efficiently spam the small Pharaoh Shot projectile.

-And as another suggestion, please add to Pharaoh Shot's ammo bar the same thing Scorch Wheel's has: a flashing ammo bar layered on top of the regular one, that rises up to indicate what level of charge you have. Instead of it slowly rising up like CBM's Pharaoh Man, it should instantly fill midbar when it reaches mid charge point, then fill up completely when it reaches full charge. Out of all the charge weapons, Pharaoh Shot is the most offensive-centered one, and as such this kind of information is critical for the player to know.






EDIT: Oh, and Astro Crush's explosion graphic to the actual hidden explosion or something along those lines, nothing too flashy, nothing too noisy.

116

Skins & Bots etc / Re: Geno's Skin Place (UPDATE! Wily Panic!)

« on: May 07, 2016, 02:43:45 AM »

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that Dr. Wily has had multiple forms of his walk cycle: the classic two frame panic run from the NES and I think GB games, the Wily Wars panic walk as seen in your skin, MM9's regular non-panicked walk cycle, and Mega Man's Soccer alternate panic walk cycle. IIRC, no skin of Dr. Wily has rotations of his MM9 walk cycle, and IMO MMSoccer's panic walk is much better than the others.

117

MM8BDM Discussion / Re: MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Search Snake)

« on: May 05, 2016, 12:52:50 PM »

I'm kinda iffy on how your changed Search Snake projectile is as fast as a Mega Buster bullet, maybe make it just very slightly slower, somwehre between 20 and 25?. The rate of fire is fine, maybe just slightly slower than what I would expect. Aimable snakes seem too versatile of an idea for the base weapon IMO. The damage tradeoff is fine by me.

118

MM8BDM Discussion / Re: MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Search Snake)

« on: May 04, 2016, 11:08:37 AM »

The problem here is that Search Snake is overshadowed in terms of power, speed and "stackness" by every other ground crawling weapon in the game. The only redeeming factor Search Snake has is its large ammo count, four times larger than the rest.

Every other ground crawling weapon is essentially more effective in terms or stacking up projectiles than Search Snake, save for Ice Wave. Every other weapon deals more damage per full hit than Search Snake, excluding Ice Wave's ability to go through enemies. Ice Wave, Water Wave and Wind Storm (yeah, let's not forget about that one) are harder to jump over than Search Snake. And for all intents and purposes, all ground crawling weapons that instantly go down OR don't stick to vertical walls are by default faster and more versatile than Search Snake, which is to say all except Ice Wave.

The problems with Search Snake don't come from its design, but from its underperformance in comparison to others of its kin, where it even becomes unfair. I'd personally either increase its rate of fire/make it aimable to make the counterplay of jumping less effective, or make Search Snake vertical climbing way faster than what it is now. (I would like to say making the copy weapon aimable would force the Snakeman class to be changed, but core shouldn't bother about that)

A homing/leaping ground crawling projectile sounds like a very interesting idea, but then comes the question: should all Search Snake projectiles be like that or just some of them, and how do you control when you fire leaping ones and when you're not? Would it be like Axl's "blue shot", where it comes out after firing a set number of projectiles? Honestly, I'd rather keep Search Snake's design the way it is instead of adding something new, as its main problem is its underperformance rather than a flaw of its design and as such it should only require some tuning instead of a new mechanic added to it.

119

Rejected / Re: [Suggestion] CTF Weapon Behavior

« on: April 27, 2016, 09:35:58 PM »

EDIT: Before any of that, some considerations:

- Given that MM8BDM is full of slow moving projectiles, the flag carrier should not be able to outrun most of these projectiles. Making the flag carrier's movement speed slightly slower should do the trick. If such is the case, then weapons that increase your movement speed shouldn't be changed at all, as they would make the already slowed down flag carrier achieve close to regular player movement speed while using these.

- If a weapon in a map allows a flag carrier to reach places or make jumps that other players normally cannot reach or make without any other weapon in the map, then it's the map's fault for allowing this and its layout thusly should be changed, not the weapon.

- Replenishing items such as E-Tanks or W-Tanks or M-Tanks, despite their functionality, are only obviously unbalanced for CTF if they are way too abundant or respawn too often. And again, this is on the map's fault.

- There is really no reason for CTF variants of certain DM weapons to exist only for CTF. Don't imply that we must work with the same weapons from DM, variants can be created solely for CTF. This does not mean that said variants should behave way too differently from its DM counterpart, there should be some similarities.





Time Slow: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Weapon itself behaves the same.

Oil Slider: Sliding behaves like CBM Oilman, ammo consumption increased, puddles cause slowdown and very little damage on enemies.

Time Stopper: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. To be changed for v5, as of now it should behave like CBM Time Bender.

Leaf Shield: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a short time. Weapon is inmediately fired if the walk button is not held (mimicking Leaf Shield's original MM2 behavior, running means automatic firing) or if the mainfire button is released (while shield is active, you become 50% slower), consuming ammo.

Skull Barrier: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. To be changed for v5, as of now it should slow players down, remove pit protection, and force drop flags.

Gravity Hold: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Weapon behaves the same.

Charge Kick: Ammo consumption could be increased.

Centaur Flash: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. To be changed for v5, as of now firing it should force drop flags and prevent users from picking it up for a short time.

Flame Blast: Power protection is granted to enemies hit by it to prevent deadly stacks.

Plant Barrier: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a short time. Firing the weapon force drops the flag, can't pick up the flag while it's active, and heals other players instead of healing the user.

Junk Shield: While the shield is up, movement speed is slowed down.

Scorch Wheel: No speed boost.

Tornado Hold: No damage to enemies that get caught in it.

Astro Crush: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. One time use, deals much less damage.

Flash Bomb: No hitstun, deals less damage, power protection granted to enemies hit by it to prevent deadly stacks.

Tengu Blade: Charge time is slightly increased, or a longer movement halt is added at the end of a dash.

Lightning Bolt: Weapon token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Weapon is changed: fires a high damaging singular bolt wherever you aim it at, uses up as much ammo as the normal one.

Ice Wall: Wall has less HP, after firing one wall it can't be refired again until completely gone.

Remote Mine: Other Remote Mines destroy each other, deals less damage, mines can only be fired once the previously fired one's explosion fully fades away.

Mirror Buster: Ammo consumption is increased.

Sakugarne: Ammo consumption is doubled.

Bass Buster: Token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Movement speed is reduced while firing it.

Super Adapter: Token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Double jumping force drops the flag. Slightly increased jump height to compensate. Buster stays the same.

Arrow/Laser Buster/Duo Fist: Token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Deals less damage, charge colors/sound effects are distinctively different to differentiate them from other charge weapons.

Treble Boost: Token disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Same case as Super Adapter: double jumping activates flight, ammo is consumed way faster, double jumping force drops the flag.

E-Tank: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. E-Tank healing is progressive and not instantaneous, healing is stopped by taking damage.

M-Tank: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. M-Tank replenishing is progressive and not instantaneous, or it only replenish 50% of all special weapons.

Item-2: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. If hit while riding it, sticky script is forced to end, and you will unstick from the rocketboard.

Rush Jet: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. As is, cannot pick up the flag while using it, inmediately drops the flag on usage. OR a revamp with these same flag rules: it replaces the Megabuster, fire to summon Rush and ride him like Item 2 with slight differences: slightly slower, jumping or weapon switching will make it go forward without you/disappear, can turn, cannot strafe, cannot go straight up or straight down, can only use the Megabuster while riding it.

Wire Adapter: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Can only carry one at a time.

Beat Call: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Behaves more closely to its MM7 appearance: no controlled flight, slows down players by 50%. Flag can still be carried.

Exit Unit: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Drops the flag on usage.

Reggae Call: Item disappears upon pickup, respawns after a long time. Drops the flag on usage. OR a revamp, works differently from its DM counterpart: if you are carrying the flag, Reggae will home into any nearby player and give them the flag, taking it from you: this means he can target both allies or enemies, so be careful. If Reggae cannot target anybody, it will simply teleport away after a short time and inmediately respawn the flag back at its base.

120

Events / Re: Cutstuff CTF Competition 2: That's My Horse!

« on: April 27, 2016, 05:30:26 PM »

The concept of a straight up banlist for certain weapons is something I don't like seeing, the design of the map's weapon choices and layout should be left entirely on the map maker, be it "faulty" or not. Any weapon, especially those on the "no-no" or "suspect" list, can be made to function completely fine depending on how the map maker plans them out, and instead of forcing lists of "weapons that probably shouldn't be on your map under any circumstance" onto map makers, these lists should be put together as one big "be careful if you plan on using these weapons" list. Maybe the term "soft ban" would make sense here.

Please, no apriori ban lists, nor banning lists.