mod changes committee

[monsTo]

what follows is a separation of a post that wraith made in a diff thread. Separated here so ppl know about and can discuss it wihtout jacking the other formerly dead thread.

I've been looking at the coding for the druids rpg and I know I can make some changes to the mod. I'm not sure if it is wanted or needed, and I see some people have good ideas for what things should be at. With that in mind, I know I can easily do changes such as how much adren a healer needs to make a healing weapon which is currently at 10. Lowering the amount of the advanced damage bonus from 4% per level to 3% per level etc. Things such as this is easily doable.

there's 2 potential issues i see with doing this:
1) as soon as we get to the point of beta use, druids next version will come out with all it's neato class thingys. at the same time, if you wait, it'll be NEXT april till it comes out. It might behoove you or someone to contact them, tell them what you want to do, and just get a feel for when their release is coming.

2) the current install of the mod has a bunch of shit running around. If you're going to make tweaks or even actual changes, i would suggest reinstalling the mod from scratch with all default values. Then install only a couple mutators like weapon mods and the wave notifier and that's it. I'm not even sure i'd have more than the default and the satore basic monster pack. THEN Import the character data and mod from there. This way, there's no infighting with your changes and one or more of the things installed. There shouldn't be anyway, but this just reduces the potential impact.

This of course would need to be on the 'test server.' Therefore, I would say to make the test server public access and put in the MOTD or the Join message or whatever that "Levels could be reset at any time. This is a server for testing the mod." While traffic would be relatively low i'm sure, it would be mostly regulars and would let you more accurately test the changes.

The single biggest concern I would have is all the screaming, yelling, and complaining that probably would happen if any changes were made. If there were some sort of "committee" to decide what and how much of a change should be done, could this possibly happen in a civil manner. Would someone care to create a committee of reasonable adults who can calmly and rationally ratify any changes wanted and some method for others to protest said changes posted and a means to overturn proposed changes for the betterment of the rpg mod?

i had said and retracted in the other thread that it might be good to create another forum specifically for this. Well ima retract the retraction. A dedicated forum would allow each topic to get discussed without being in the way of other topics under the same post (threaded forum anyone? (= )

On top of that, it'd be easier to discipline. I think we're all grown enuf to attempt being civilized. But if someone stops being civilized, then they should lose at least post access to that forum and maybe even all access. That keeps it clean, open and threatening enuf for people to just fucking behave.

I've not been around as much lately, but i wouldn't mind moderating that forum. it's about time i did something more with the title of President & CEO than wear it on my name tag.


What follows is your machine gun volley of questions which i'll chime in just as quickly as they were asked... this isn't the place for in depth discussion.

Some things I would like to see are players who depend on other classes a bit more than they currently do. Or should they depend less on players and just have advantages depending on their style of play?

teamwork is always a good thing. the real problems with teamwork in Monstoers are 1) reward for work and 2) time to be a teammate. Currently, wave 5+ has too much crap goin on to be able to play teammmates unless yoiu're campin somewheres. Creating more ways to team up may very well result in some frustrating deaths and no additional teamming.

Should we be able to toss negative weapons?
-what about magic weapon makers (MWM) that can possibly make a negative weapon?

No. being able to toss a neg makes it toothless. being able to MWM a neg tho is bunk... unless the adren usage is reduced appropriately. I don't want to spend as much if i could get an absolutely useless weapon.

Should we depend more on getting lucky enough to get the magic weapon maker by not allowing adren master to make us better weapons?

you mean not allowing AMs to toss weaps? That might actually work IF MWM is cheaper to use and appeared more often.

Should a magic weapon maker always be good for X amount of uses or single use only?

I can't accurately weigh in on this cuz i dunno how good it is atm for non AM. Of course you could always get brainy with it and say that a particular skill or purchased feat helps it last longer before it breaks.

What about costs for the abilities? make it higher?, lower?
What about the number of levels needed to be able to buy the second level of some of the things, such as advanced damage bonuses etc?

The whole "reset to default" thing i think would take care of these.

I'm just going to throw this out in the wind, see what happens, not expecting anything, just the thought that I know I can make changes to the mutator if we had some some civilized method of doing this. At the first sign of all hell breaking loose and or the sky is falling, then the chance for change will be lost as I won't do it.

copasetic with me.

The only reason I bring this up is cranking the monster to be ever harder is becoming fruitless, and newbies have an awful hard time now as it stands, while high level players such as RM (not meaning to pick on you personally) can be nearly invincible while being under a 300 level. While I want the players to eventually become nearly invincible, I didn't think that could happen so fast. I don't like the idea of redeemer creatures either, as its too hard on the newbies and its just unfair.

DW>Wraith

can you put on a player log of some sort? somethign where you can see the time that players are on the server. I'd be really interested to see what times some of use have in game.

On the subject of super high level players, a player like RM makes it tuff for anyone else to play effectively. I'm not whining at him, it's just the way it is. he has 40eleven more levels than the next guy and he played his way to that level. go him. when he plays tho, i can't power my globe!! (= no, seriously...

there's a couple of potential answers, but again should be separated.

[DW_Bomzin]

The only reason I bring this up is cranking the monster to be ever harder is becoming fruitless, and newbies have an awful hard time now as it stands, while high level players such as RM (not meaning to pick on you personally) can be nearly invincible while being under a 300 level. While I want the players to eventually become nearly invincible, I didn't think that could happen so fast. I don't like the idea of redeemer creatures either, as its too hard on the newbies and its just unfair.

DW>Wraith

Damage reduction is to high , The higher level medics don't take damage like you would expect . They don't even have to try and avoid anything other then a big rock . I have no idea how high it is 300+ . You may be better off with a lower DB and make them have to atleast move in on the higher waves. Make them invest in health points instead.

Death should always be an option .

[DW_Wraith]

Just a reminder, all I want to change at most is a few simple adjustments, or values in the rpg mod, such as going from 4% advanced damage reduction to 3% and/or things like that. I certainly do not want to add anything new to the mod.

If theres a new version that is coming out soon, then I can certainly wait. Should it have new things added, I wouldn't mind the thought of resetting everyone and having everyone start from the beginning using default or modest values in areas as weapon speeds with the idea that its always easier to raise or give than to take something away from a player. This is only with a group consensus approval, although a new rpg rev may make it a moot point and we have no other choice.

[DW_Bomzin]

ok drop the DR to 290, see how they run .

[DW_ACY]

What do you mean by leveling so fast bomzin? We have been playing the server for 5 months and some have been playig every day where others (myself and you) play when you can. I havent been going non stop but I do try to play one or two hours a night if I can. Even with that amout of time my level is only 112 and I can only own a map on occassion. RM who has been on non stop some days has earned his levels with time.

I believe more monsters is the way to go. New players have to take their lumps it happens on any server. Not eveyone is supposed to make it to Lucy and survive. I remember back on UI in the early days before the DW server came up I died and died and died until I was about level 40, and they started you off on level 5. So I had a learning curve of 35 levels before I was able to face lucy and live through the experiance and that was onlyabout one third of the time. I was a weapon master back then and I remember not haveing any where to stand around after level 5 or 6 because that is when the numbers really picked up. We don't have those numbers on our server. More monsters = more oportunities for them to kill you. meaning you find a bolt hole and work from it or you have the adren to run glob and go kill but even then I have a 160 character on UI now and I died on wave 13 because of the # of monsters able to storm a position. I had fun we all died and picked a new map and played some more.

The map was a very tight no adren DM clock Work map. Those types of maps lend themselves to the anniliation of characters and don't get picked when we have open spamfest maps. Maybe we need to rethink if the idea is it to survive everytime to lucy or is it to play, have fun. I believe part of the challenge is knowing that I might be dead on any time if I don't stay sharp becase of the number of monsters.
I don't know I may be rambling alot but I just find that the same maps being played time in and time out where even the low level characters survive to see lucy is a little un challenging. Maybe rolling back the que to 20 would force more new maps. I mean heck we start them off a level 25 with a number of points. They need to struggle, if you are to frustrated to continue then you can play somewhere else! I play because of the people and team work that many of the regulars have devloped. I find very little of that among new players and a few others who from the beging where strictly out to level up! It takes me a week now to get a level and I by no means am frustrated with playing the game because of the people I play with, you guys and gals of DW and SVA.
So what ever the changes to the server I will be there because of who is there. Keep up the good work Wraith I know you have taken on alot with the MM server and game play but I must say you have done a fabulous job and no matter what, you have my support.

[DW_ToxicWaste]

What do you mean by leveling so fast bomzin? We have been playing the server for 5 months and some have been playig every day where others (myself and you) play when you can. I havent been going non stop but I do try to play one or two hours a night if I can. Even with that amout of time my level is only 112 and I can only own a map on occassion. RM who has been on non stop some days has earned his levels with time.

I believe more monsters is the way to go. New players have to take their lumps it happens on any server. Not eveyone is supposed to make it to Lucy and survive. I remember back on UI in the early days before the DW server came up I died and died and died until I was about level 40, and they started you off on level 5. So I had a learning curve of 35 levels before I was able to face lucy and live through the experiance and that was onlyabout one third of the time. I was a weapon master back then and I remember not haveing any where to stand around after level 5 or 6 because that is when the numbers really picked up. We don't have those numbers on our server. More monsters = more oportunities for them to kill you. meaning you find a bolt hole and work from it or you have the adren to run glob and go kill but even then I have a 160 character on UI now and I died on wave 13 because of the # of monsters able to storm a position. I had fun we all died and picked a new map and played some more.

The map was a very tight no adren DM clock Work map. Those types of maps lend themselves to the anniliation of characters and don't get picked when we have open spamfest maps. Maybe we need to rethink if the idea is it to survive everytime to lucy or is it to play, have fun. I believe part of the challenge is knowing that I might be dead on any time if I don't stay sharp becase of the number of monsters.
I don't know I may be rambling alot but I just find that the same maps being played time in and time out where even the low level characters survive to see lucy is a little un challenging. Maybe rolling back the que to 20 would force more new maps. I mean heck we start them off a level 25 with a number of points. They need to struggle, if you are to frustrated to continue then you can play somewhere else! I play because of the people and team work that many of the regulars have devloped. I find very little of that among new players and a few others who from the beging where strictly out to level up! It takes me a week now to get a level and I by no means am frustrated with playing the game because of the people I play with, you guys and gals of DW and SVA.
So what ever the changes to the server I will be there because of who is there. Keep up the good work Wraith I know you have taken on alot with the MM server and game play but I must say you have done a fabulous job and no matter what, you have my support.

+1000

I obviously don't play a lot. I've been around since the beginning, but I'm only a level 72 WM.

TBH, I rarely die. TB even more honest, I find it hard to score XP on some maps. Everyone is globing, lighning rodding, summoning 4,000 pets on these wide open maps. When the server is rocking, the monsters are half dead by the time I even spot them.

I remember when 2k3 was on its last legs, and DW went through it's invasion phase. We had a blast. There was no RPG (at least in the beginning), there were no maps with hiding places. There was no huge pile of adren and health. We considered it a victory to get to wave 12, or 13. We rooted like hell for the last guy in a wave, huddling in a semi-sheltered part of a regular DM map hoping for timeouts. It was a blast! When we introduced RPG to the mix, we had a guy who played morning noon and night. He had stats through the roof. His weapon speed was something ridiculous like 700. I asked him if he was bored with it all knowing he was impossible to kill, and he admitted it was. BTW Wraith, that was Tie (Payback) if you don't remember.

I like the invasion server, I have a lot of fun playing on it. But I don't feel that desparation I felt playing it in 2k3, like we're all going to die and never make it. I agree with ACY. No knocks on the current server, but we need to start killing some people off.

But I'm not sure more monsters in the answer. I think they need to be smarter. Can you set skill level for monsters? Can we remove wide open maps? Can we have maps that are not 100% safe (like Blackhawk, unless you have changed it since then)? Do we force the map limit to something drastic like 15 or 20 so that we are not playing dome every 5th map?

And what happens ultimately when you reach a point when you become invincible? Do you just start a new character? Become bored and move on to a new server?

Do we need to have "Campaigns" where we reset the stats every 6 months or so to get people excited again? That's kind of drastic, but IMHO, if we don't change something, we're going to have a server filled with level 300 folks scoring major XP via globe, lightning, pets, and the newbies will not get a chance to even score any. How can you expect a new person to level up? Hell, *I* can't level up!

I have to say I love the MM server, and have a lot of fun playing there. I played on the UI server once and wondered what the big deal was. Wraith has shown us what INV can and should be. It's the best invasion server out there, I have no doubt. He's done a spectacular job. But this is where the tough part comes in. Balancing one group's fun vs. another group's fun. Some people think just getting loads of XP dropping mines from a safe zone is fun. Some folks think fighting for survival, using every resource you have, being down to 10 HP several times a wave, heart pumping, is fun.

How to balance?


Just throwing some stuff against the wall.

Rich (TW)

P.S. Is this the first sign we need two servers?

[DW_Hornet]

Toxic thats the inherit problem with the old maps we used to play on. Everything was about giving players everything (and then some) needed to kill them. There was never a question is this too much.

I believe we need to have a sit down with the code and server configs and see what we can change or do. Wraith has always mentioned issues with the timers, lack of a way to increase monsters, issues with new monsters and hit sounds, ect. I don't think were going to have a better playing experience without custom coding the mutators.

Hell we have the test server for that reason :P.

[SystemError]

I think some weapons should be removed. The Avril, shield gun, Assult Rifle, Sniper Rifle, and maybe the Grenade launcher & goo gun(although a few people might like these guns but most dont use it).
I see alot of players scrolling through their guns dropping these guns. They mostly useless. Lightning gun does the job of the sniper rifle.
2nd point. All 3 classes were mostly ballanced till mostly every map became adren feindly. Now adren master is the way to go. Meds are becoming rare, and wm have no real apeal anymore.

I like how the ghost titans were taken out. BUt I loved the tech titans. Why were they removed? The green/red titans are not really dangerous.
Wave 15 should be like 70% tech titans. I liked the fact that whent he ghost titans were in every one was like "oh shit wave 15, HIde!" Even though ghost titans were cheap, I liked the fact that people didnt just stand in the middle of the map like unkillable gods ready to slaughter the wave 15 monsters.

BUt if little is changed then its cool. I like the server. Keep up the good work.

peace out.

[DW_Bomzin]

What do you mean by leveling so fast bomzin?

I don't know where I ever said that ,you mis-understand .

The amount of monsters that are on the floor at one time is just about perfect IMHO for all maps . If a higher level player wants to see how much he can chew up , he's going to chew them up .

But balancing , we talked about this in the begining , trying to figure out what level to cut things off at , if ever . That along with a slew of other things .

Where I am coming from is no matter what level you are there should be a chance of death on the higher waves if you are atleast not trying to stay alive .

High level Medics , like it stands now , can stand mid floor , and have no worries. Maybe have to worry alittle on the raptor waves, unless they're running mines. The damage reduction with the advance damage bonus has been pushed to high .

Watching RM last night on a very small map was a joke and in reality kills the fun for everyone else. He takes no damage , with the exception of a very big rock on 15. This was with the average level of the server sitting at 107.

This is why I say lower the Damage Reduction . Just like was done for Damage Bonus. I know why it was done and despite all best intentions think it has gone the wrong way.

You want to do something big that will help even the Server tremendously and make it more fun for all .

Do away with Awareness . I hit things from across the map I can't even see just because I aim right below the little green bar. No more little green bar will mean more monsters for all . Also it will stop the XP theif's from taking the final shot , I find myself doing it . I will go for a critter in the red before I hit one in the green .

You want to even out the globe masters alittle , limit adren to 250 , that is all that is needed for the relics.

[DW_Hornet]

Even at 300 limit it will only take roughly 11 seconds (maps with super adren) to fill that back up. Basically the main issue is that there is too much reward for very little to no risk. The fact thats its an RPG makes the risk less every time you level.

Also the friendly monsters aren't too bad, their problem is that they take the player who summoned them stats. So your looking at monsters with all the DB, DR, WS, ect of their owners. Artifacts such as globe are also transfered to the monsters. This obviously means you have up to 3 extra heavy hitters on a map at all time.

Low level WM's just get shafted in general. High WM with vamporism do well however. It is the hardest class to play for certain.