Post your ideas regarding balance

[CarThief]

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.

[Eruanna]

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.

[Eruanna]

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

[bluewiz]

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.

[Eruanna]

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.

[Grymmoire]

*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.

[bluewiz]

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.

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.

[Eruanna]

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.

[bluewiz]

The huge delay really unspammed them imo

[Blox]

"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.

[CarThief]

Well i'll give my feedback on how the specific maps went and other things.

The maps:

(click to show/hide)

GVH33: Hmm... Too little data. But when i tested it, the humans could rather fiercely attack the ghouls outside, though the not too great movement space would still allow the ghouls to surround and trap humans.
Perhaps i may like using crates, but in this map its not that bad, and it kinda needs some cover, especially outside.

GVH34: Was fun. Ghouls practically danced around and due to the actually decent number of cover, able movement for Jitterskulls and Sjas, we managed to destroy the human team. They could fight back decently and probaly won atleast once, though. I cant find anything that needs changes yet.

GVH35: Hmm... Didnt play this alot. Seemed alot like a Human map, but we won. Strange. Perhaps they werent abusing hunters that time. There is extremely little cover, but a little ghoul teamwork can do miracles here. And its not an neverending loop either. I guess it depends who's playing it.

GVH36: Hmm... Lots of ways to go and easy to get seperated. Its clumsy moving here with a class like Jitterskull, dangerous, even. Battle here seems more based on the individual skill instead of grouping, especially when wandering around. Its too cramped to get any good teamwork off there sometimes. No suggestions though.

GVH37: Hmm... I guess that's alot of crated. Go mad, remove some, i guess. Try to keep some as strategic cover though. Gameplay wise, i suppose the ghouls had the upper hand most part. If you can sneak inside, thus take a shortcut to the human's destination, they're not too difficult targets. Perhaps the outside (ring-ish) area needs to be... wider? With cover, of course, though. Dont want a copy of GVH28 - White Out.

GVH38: Hmm... People complained in GVH31 about the doors, perhaps keeping them open will help in here too. I suppose removing some crates wont hurt either. Though its a small map and easy to get surrounded.
Oh, its having slight errors, too, "Unknown type 10031 at (1304, -1560)". Probaly some steam thats no longer there, probaly in the vents, uh, maybe remove it? It would be nice to keep the steam in the frozen area's, though.

GVH39: Oh god. This map plays dreadfully. There's absolutely no escape from hitscan abusers (lightning arrows in particular), and merely going outside is suicide when there's 4 fucking hunters waiting at the entrance. Perhaps switch the team spots around so humans spawn inside, ghouls surround them outside (especially a few on the parking spots)? More cover is otherwise nice too.

GVH40: Too little data for exact gameplay details. I think the ghouls won alot there, however. Ah, like any map with alot of unpredictable corridors, corners, hallways, etc. At least there's no obvious see-all camp spot they hit and run from yet.

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?

[Eruanna]

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.

[CarThief]

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.

[Eruanna]

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.

[Crystal King]

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.