Stardust's Workshop

[OtakuAlex]

Am I the only man alive who has no issues killing any boss with Mega Buster? (Unless I get cornered or blocked, of course. Or if I start getting slippery with my dodges.)

Edit: I bring this up because MrL mentioned that PO Roll goes downhill fast if under certain conditions and using Buster was one of them. I seem to have no issue with using my buster against PO Roll or Mudkip, so I had this question pop into my head.

[Stardust]

Saxton Hale was nerfed to half damage/no knockback (no knockback is a very rewarding power, especially for melee hales which are fast), but his rage lasts a bit longer to rebalance this. Your math starts getting wrong at the number of hits needed, as this actually varies, if the map has DOUBLEAMMO on or not... if it's not, this raises up to 125 hits. Soooo yea
Actually this is a factor of HUGE hax pretty much nobody knows about. Double Ammo doubles Curly's charge, Super Jump's charge, and the Rage as well. And, this was never noticed. I plan to fix the ammos next version so DoubleAmmo can't double/halve them :

You also forgot to consider something, yeah of course Roll has 500 + 235*P health if she uses the rage, but... then her rage just allows her to have the same health as SH.
Then, Saxton Hale has 500+235*P health too... except he has his rage in addition to that, he doesn't need any healing rage to have this high health scaling.
Like SH, Roll can't ragefeed when using the rage. Unlike SH, she still takes knockback. Way to go to FlashBomb her to death without carring about the actual ragefeeding as it doesn't feed.
Anyway, the rate at which the rage feeds (like with ripping, Crash Bomb or Flash Bomb) is another story, it concerns the hitstun amount. The same would happen with any offensive hales. If you feed him, many Rocket punches will explode this day ==> overwhelming power. If you feed Roll, she'll cast a lot of healing ==> overwhelming defense.
But, the hitstuning, in my opinion, is a fighting way in SH : the more you hitstun, the more it feeds the rage... HOWEVER, the more you hitstun, the more powerful attacks like Hard Knuckles or Top Spin as well as most melee attacks like Slash Claw or Flame Sword are to strike, and in some cases, these "rape sessions" with hitstunning weapons can pretty much delete 1500 HP of a hale, and this last one being blocked by the hitstunning, they won't even be able to positionate correctly to use the rage.
To picture that, once I was Morshu in a server of ~10 players in Rebalanced, and I just got killed by a SINGLE Yamatoman who Yamatospinned me forever until I died. I could just, not move at all.
PORoll being the only hale who has a rage dedicated to selfhealing, I'm not going to remove that gameplay, in that case I prefer to remove the whole hale ; I just don't want to modify the concept of one of the unique hales from Silversin's and leave her alone in that case.

Mudkip's allies get a health nerf.
Then, spawning Torchic and Treecko frequently... no. Mudkip's health formula is like, 90 HP for each player ; he has 1000 HP when there are 10~12 players in game. Whereas most melees would easily have more than 2XXX. You can't make him able to rage often.

The idea between Flash Man and Dio Flash is the same. The scale of power isn't. You wouldn't expect a hale to have Flash Man's buster to kill all the survivors right
Talking about Exit Unit, the dangerous situation is the same with Gilga and Rocket Punch, and no Exit Unit in your bag. If you find Gilga on your way as the last survivor, you have no chance to dodge it, the blast is too big and powerful to flee or resist, even an average player can't miss with this rage.

[Legtendga]

Ok, then remove PO Roll. Many were wonder why you brought her back in the first place. The healing is just inane, and she's no fun to deal with because of it. You also have yet to address her ridiculous attack range.

Mudkip does indeed rage multiple times in a match more often than not. He also gets 2~4 heals per rage, allowing him to heal enough to get another rage that he would've not gotten otherwise.

I don't think that you've really addressed the problem with Dio. If you hear the charge sound from Gilga, you can run or jump away, unless your too close. You have a chance. Dio can kill you regardless of where you are when he uses his rage, even if you anticipate it.

[Hunter Frags]

PORoll being the only hale who has a rage dedicated to selfhealing, I'm not going to remove that gameplay, in that case I prefer to remove the whole hale ; I just don't want to modify the concept of one of the unique hales from Silversin's and leave her alone in that case.

-The reason why I'd suggest an idea for a replacement Roll-themed hale. ._.-


ANYWAY, if I may ask, what are your thoughts about Bitter End compared to Rocket Punch as Gilgamesh's rage? I've heard from some that liked Bitter End better -as well as me liking it a liiittle more myself- , but which do you think is a better rage or would you feel like giving Bitter End a shot for this next version?

[Stardust]

The reason was simple, nostalgia (and tribute to Silversin's) but by "removing" I mean, "turning it off". She won't appear anymore ; the RNG couldn't select this hale. However, if the host (and obviously the players that want her), she could be forced for a round by the host. It's not fun dieing neither.
I would love to see you jumping or fleeing from rocket punch. Jumping won't help if you blast the punches to the ground, neither does running. When Gilga does the charging sound, you have less of a second to flee from the giant radius. They work like very fast Drill Bombs, you fire them on the victim's feets and they get hit by the blast.
You can dodge Dio's attack, and you can realise it better if you actually get in the situation of the hale.
When you're about to freeze time, there's a huge cooldown when you can't move. The players can notice it because the stand (cream flash man) is in an awkward sprite. Then, Dio gets slowed down when he's moving with the time frozen. Also, there's a small delay between the time unfreeze and the knives are chasing. The knives only hurt when they're moving. If you spam the item use button, you could use Exit Unit before all the knives pierce you. In any other case, you must keep the biggest distance with the hale. Remember of the cooldown before the time get frozen (which might get increased even more if needed), and also try to hide in secret corners if some maps allows you to. You can eventually outrun Dio / get out of his sight.

I haven't tried Bitter End yet, I'll give it a spin now, but chances of being used are low if it's a "small" rage (which need 125 ammo, like most hales do. "Big" rages include Za Warudo or Rocket Punch, they need 250 ammo. Which version was Bitter End used in?)

[OtakuAlex]

Maybe you could come up with some way to make the host able to choose Gilgamesh's rage through the means of cvars, variables in the boss setup (where HP and music are done), custom inventories, and A_JumpIfInventory all working together.

[Legtendga]

You also have yet to address her ridiculous attack range.

This is a HUGE thing, so I'll drop Dio for now. What will become of her insane range? Unless, of course, you're concidering turning her off.
(The Bitter End from which version?)
Additionally, would you concider a V1H release to implement the rebalances of the existing Hales and see how well they work out?

[Stardust]

But concerning PORoll, I noticed that for some reasons, her melee, indeed, I didn't notice it at first, but it clearly had a bigger range than the other hales, so yeah, it's real ; her main is OP. It's being nerfed and turns into Saxton Hale's fist range next version. Roll's health is the lowest of all the melee hales ; and these usually have a higher health (compare Gilgamesh and Morshu)

It's until some weeks ago I noticed her range was clearly bigger ; or at least, the attack had a bigger hitbox. I'm not sure if Silversin gave her this range on purpose (to rebalance her health for instance ; most melee hales's formula is about ~210 HP for each player, whereas on her case, it was ~155 HP.) Still it's planned to be reverted back to a normal Fist range =)

I'll try to speedup for v2, but I prefer to make a hotfix only if a major bug is desesperatly needed to be fixed (or something threatening, like the infinite freezing case they had with Frost Man in v7a)

[Legtendga]

Alright then.
Anyway, Dio can kill you wherever you are on the map, no matter how near or far. Set knives inside player, dead when time starts again. Kill anyone reliably. No other Hale can do that.

[Stardust]

Not really. He can't even travel half of MM8GRE while using the rage.

[Legtendga]

I'm almost certain that that's inaccurate. I cannot test it alone, though.
Regardless, suggestions for a new/modified rage aught to be considered.

[MrL1193]

Argument ahoy:

(click to show/hide)

Saxton Hale was nerfed to half damage/no knockback (no knockback is a very rewarding power, especially for melee hales which are fast), but his rage lasts a bit longer to rebalance this. Your math starts getting wrong at the number of hits needed, as this actually varies, if the map has DOUBLEAMMO on or not... if it's not, this raises up to 125 hits. Soooo yea
Actually this is a factor of HUGE hax pretty much nobody knows about. Double Ammo doubles Curly's charge, Super Jump's charge, and the Rage as well. And, this was never noticed. I plan to fix the ammos next version so DoubleAmmo can't double/halve them :

Oh I'm fully aware that DOUBLEAMMO is the culprit. But knowing that doesn't change anything; my math is still accurate with regard to what you'll actually see in servers. Assuming that 125 hits are needed is what would have resulted in "wrong" calculations.

You also forgot to consider something, yeah of course Roll has 500 + 235*P health if she uses the rage, but... then her rage just allows her to have the same health as SH.

Bolded for your convenience:

Now, mind you, this is all assuming that the survivors are being fairly prudent in choosing their weapons. Seeing how close this puts Roll to Saxton Hale in overall resilience, that suggests to me that this would be reasonable if the survivors would (or could) do this every time. However, if they start using stuff like rippers, land numerous glancing blows with explosive weapons (Crash Bomb and Flash Bomb come to mind), or simply run out of ammo for their powerful weapons and switch to the buster, things start going downhill fast. And in my experience, that happens very often--not everyone is experienced enough to use the proper tactics against Roll, and the RNG is not always kind enough to provide a good powerful weapon to fight her with.

Then, Saxton Hale has 500+235*P health too... except he has his rage in addition to that, he doesn't need any healing rage to have this high health scaling.

Saxton Hale doesn't have a defensive mechanism that ruins your ability to damage him with weak rapid-fire weapons. Against him, 10 damage is 10 damage; you don't have to worry that he'll regain it all because you used the wrong weapon. And again, let me remind you that Saxton Hale's health is high. The fact that Roll can have equivalent health even when the survivors are mostly limiting themselves to "strong" weapons is what makes her superior to him overall (not counting the broken range on her attack).

Like SH, Roll can't ragefeed when using the rage. Unlike SH, she still takes knockback. Way to go to FlashBomb her to death without carring about the actual ragefeeding as it doesn't feed.
Anyway, the rate at which the rage feeds (like with ripping, Crash Bomb or Flash Bomb) is another story, it concerns the hitstun amount.

A wonderful idea, except that Flash Bomb causes NO hit stun. (It used to, but then it was OP against almost every boss.) Also, she takes even less damage overall when the rage is active. 35% damage reduction > 25% healing. Any way you look at it, she's just far more difficult to kill than she should be.

The same would happen with any offensive hales. If you feed him, many Rocket punches will explode this day ==> overwhelming power. If you feed Roll, she'll cast a lot of healing ==> overwhelming defense.

Gilgamesh requires twice as much rage as Roll to perform a Rocket Punch. He's also much slower than other melee bosses and has shorter than average range on his normal attack (the same as Starman's). It makes him much more manageable overall.

But, the hitstuning, in my opinion, is a fighting way in SH : the more you hitstun, the more it feeds the rage... HOWEVER, the more you hitstun, the more powerful attacks like Hard Knuckles or Top Spin as well as most melee attacks like Slash Claw or Flame Sword are to strike, and in some cases, these "rape sessions" with hitstunning weapons can pretty much delete 1500 HP of a hale, and this last one being blocked by the hitstunning, they won't even be able to positionate correctly to use the rage.
To picture that, once I was Morshu in a server of ~10 players in Rebalanced, and I just got killed by a SINGLE Yamatoman who Yamatospinned me forever until I died. I could just, not move at all.

First, I should say that I agree that hit stun vs. low rage buildup is a good balance to encourage in the weaponry. (That's why I don't like the switch to damage-based rage buildup in Tails's Rebirth version.) The idea of a boss who is resistant to one of those two types of attack is interesting in theory, but it's resulted in a very boring rage, and in her current state, Roll is too unforgiving about it. And do remember that inescapable stun locks have become exceedingly rare in non-classes Saxton ever since Flash Bomb's hit stun capability was taken away. (In fact, I can't think of any good way to completely paralyze the boss in the current version.)

PORoll being the only hale who has a rage dedicated to selfhealing, I'm not going to remove that gameplay, in that case I prefer to remove the whole hale ; I just don't want to modify the concept of one of the unique hales from Silversin's and leave her alone in that case.

In that case, I second Legtendga's motion to remove her entirely.

Mudkip's allies get a health nerf.
Then, spawning Torchic and Treecko frequently... no. Mudkip's health formula is like, 90 HP for each player ; he has 1000 HP when there are 10~12 players in game. Whereas most melees would easily have more than 2XXX. You can't make him able to rage often.

I'm just telling you what I've seen in the servers. Legtendga and the others aren't lying; Mudkip can sometimes build up enough rage to summon its allies again immediately after they're finally killed off. Treecko's healing is not to be underestimated.

And speaking of Treecko, I should point out that there's a problematic glitch that can occur with it: Treecko can sometimes spawn outside the map (or in a wall). If that happens, Treecko becomes an invulnerable source of healing, making it extremely difficult to finish off Mudkip. (It gets even worse if Torchic also spawns in an inaccessible area, constantly amplifying the healing.)

The idea between Flash Man and Dio Flash is the same. The scale of power isn't. You wouldn't expect a hale to have Flash Man's buster to kill all the survivors right

I wouldn't expect a good boss to have a cheap ability like Flash Man's at all, actually, let alone a ridiculously over-the-top version of it. >_>

Talking about Exit Unit, the dangerous situation is the same with Gilga and Rocket Punch, and no Exit Unit in your bag. If you find Gilga on your way as the last survivor, you have no chance to dodge it, the blast is too big and powerful to flee or resist, even an average player can't miss with this rage.

They do miss sometimes. Even I miss occasionally. Rocket Punch is very powerful, but the boss player still has to put a little effort into aiming it. Dio's rage requires absolutely no effort whatsoever--and you usually can't even survive it with the Exit Unit.

The reason was simple, nostalgia (and tribute to Silversin's) but by "removing" I mean, "turning it off". She won't appear anymore ; the RNG couldn't select this hale. However, if the host (and obviously the players that want her), she could be forced for a round by the host. It's not fun dieing neither.

That sounds fine. As long as you don't pick her very often.

I would love to see you jumping or fleeing from rocket punch. Jumping won't help if you blast the punches to the ground, neither does running. When Gilga does the charging sound, you have less of a second to flee from the giant radius. They work like very fast Drill Bombs, you fire them on the victim's feets and they get hit by the blast.

Again, the boss player still has to aim. And if you have an Exit Unit, you can reliably avoid the attack.

You can dodge Dio's attack, and you can realise it better if you actually get in the situation of the hale.
When you're about to freeze time, there's a huge cooldown when you can't move. The players can notice it because the stand (cream flash man) is in an awkward sprite. Then, Dio gets slowed down when he's moving with the time frozen.

This all sounds great in theory, but in actual practice, it's not nearly enough time to get away--if you even notice what he's up to in the first place (and don't assume that he's just frozen because of lag).

Also, there's a small delay between the time unfreeze and the knives are chasing. The knives only hurt when they're moving. If you spam the item use button, you could use Exit Unit before all the knives pierce you.

Which is what most players do--myself included. So far, I've never pulled it off myself, and I can't recall seeing other players manage it either. If you have the Exit Unit, that means you're the only target for Dio--and that means he can concentrate on you and completely fill the air around you with knives. Some of them will inevitably end up at just the right range so that there's simply not enough time to warp away before they hit you, even when you're mashing the item key like mad.

In any other case, you must keep the biggest distance with the hale. Remember of the cooldown before the time get frozen (which might get increased even more if needed), and also try to hide in secret corners if some maps allows you to. You can eventually outrun Dio / get out of his sight.

Any non-idiot Dio player can force you into a position where you can't get away. Avoiding Flash Man's limited-range Time Stopper is hard enough--avoiding Dio's rage by any measure of your own skill (as opposed to boss idiocy or sheer luck) is just plain impossible.

I haven't tried Bitter End yet, I'll give it a spin now, but chances of being used are low if it's a "small" rage (which need 125 ammo, like most hales do. "Big" rages include Za Warudo or Rocket Punch, they need 250 ammo. Which version was Bitter End used in?)

Bitter End required the same amount of rage as Rocket Punch. (I actually used it in my last couple versions of Rebalanced Class Saxton Hale as Gilgamesh's rage on lower difficulties.) It's similar to Ballade's alt in YD Classes, only faster and with a much bigger boom. Most people seem to think it's more fair than Rocket Punch, and I'm inclined to agree.

Not really. He can't even travel half of MM8GRE while using the rage.

Again, you'd have to be an idiot to use the rage when no one is nearby. And bear in mind that some maps just aren't very good for hiding or escaping.

If you're really hell-bent on keeping Dio's rage as "Time Stopper + instagib knives," at least make it so that when he prepares to use it, there's a big obvious warning that everyone will notice even if they don't have a line of sight on Dio, and give the survivors more time to hide.

[Stardust]

So if I resume in a nutshell, all your propositions aim to say that healing in SH should be banned, only offensive rages should be used ; even if it's reduced down to a very low healing because "if they hitstun her a lot, they'll make her rage a lot". The danger of her rage, is to have her healing often. The rage is supposed to be useful and dangerous *cough cough hyper dash cough cough*
To control her rage abuse you might want to reduce your deadly hitstunning Flash Bomb Party and in exchange I'll reduce the healing even more, to like, 150 HP. You said she actually healed ~250. Flash Bomb doesn't completly stop indeed, but it does recoil (might upgrade it to total stop because it does like ~4*number_of_hits when it blasts... even less, sometimes.)

Treecko's leafblade (or blade leaf) will deal less damage, so he can't like, OHKO by behind when you try to kill him. In v2a I took a quick glance, and he has about ~80HP if 3 players are playing (that's about 20 HP for each player or something). Treecko has lower health than Torchic. Of course he's a healing support, and in video games it's a common practice to kill the healer of the team first, so the nags can't recover.
I can't really detect if Treecko is "outside of the map", the only thing I can do is killing instantly Mudkip's allies after some time (after one or two minutes?). Otherwise you can still try to kill him. For instance in MM3NEE if I'm not wrong, you can have Treecko to wander in the outside portion (after the tall, yellow wall), but if you jump on this wall, you might kill him from above the wall. Or in MM6TOM, in that situation, you could kill Treecko, too.

(click to show/hide)

.

To make Za Warudo more avoidable, I could either increase the cooldown before casting ; or reduce even more Dio's speed. But you know, it's not that rare seeing Za Warudo being used when there is a big server, and only a few kills. (one, two, sometimes, all the knives fail to kill.) Za Warudo is a duel skill whereas RPunch is a deathmatch fragging attack, like if you'd use Rain Flush or throw a Junk Cube in the middle of MM2FLA. If you're alone, it's probably difficult to avoid it, especially since it's a LV2 rage. If you can't dodge it, don't provoke it. Za Warudo isn't the kind of rage you can deal with alone. Gameplay-wise, it's just, something focused on individual killing. It frags a few players, but it frags them well. And even though the knives just pass by without even touching any victims.

[OtakuAlex]

I've had a few times where I put a group of knives in front of every player and thought they'd work, then they somehow survive and only one or two of them die. Za Warudo isn't as great as it seems. Also, there have been times where I've easily escaped its clutches, too.

[Superjustinbros]

So we're keeping Mudkip around?
Didn't people say he was like, the least favorite of everyone?