Messages

61

Off Topic / It's the end of the world...

« on: April 27, 2005, 09:19:57 PM »

all the splitting and reconnecting lagged me on wow =[ kept getting scared since i thought i was loading players..(pvp server)

62

General / Friendly Fire Poll, Take Two

« on: April 26, 2005, 12:48:38 PM »

worth a shot imho. gameplay is crappy as is, if its worse with ff off, hey we can look forward to playing with it on again.

63

Off Topic / Legion: 1, Angry Drivers: 0

« on: April 26, 2005, 12:44:59 PM »

is it bad if i thought this was about a computer driver confliction? =\

go you, though, legion =]

64

General / the problem

« on: April 25, 2005, 08:25:12 PM »

appreciate the input, zunni. the pr for the last patch was nice, at least we got to hear some things. any kind of input is nice, just tell us as you add it =] always nice to have those little annoying things fixed to look forward to, then you can say "well thats annoying, but at least its gone next patch." etc =]

also, the server side only patches are nice. good show for pr imo, shows you're keeping up with the issues at the very least, maybe you're more ahead than we know =P

i'd still be curious to see armor3 rushes in clan matches, if anyone has a demo to point me towards where it was used during 3.02 i'd be curious to see it.

65

Off Topic / The Mens Public bathroom

« on: April 25, 2005, 08:46:13 AM »

funny, although i never use public bathrooms so i don't know how real it is.


..then again, i never really leave the house.

66

General / There is one problem with NS.

« on: April 25, 2005, 08:45:00 AM »

http://www.lunixmonster.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3025

basically says the same thing. perhaps if you took the time to read it :p res is the problem yes, marines can't match the aliens abilities res-wise. taking down the rts is the only choice, but if they get even three(which is very easy) its still outlook good for aliens.

67

General / the problem

« on: April 24, 2005, 03:31:21 PM »

If anything its the Aliens + the amazing skill power + missboxes.

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Bolded for effect. Skulks now have an invisible kevlar helmet.

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you're implying that the hits register then. which they don't. missboxes ftw!

68

General / random stuff

« on: April 24, 2005, 07:58:54 AM »

last two parts were just something you can do. if you spin around enough while holding use, you can build any # of structures at once. fastbuild was on for those, btw, figured it would make the vid smaller anyway.

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That is not a bug, it's exactly how it should work. As you spin around, the target you are building switches between the buildings. You are not building multiple structures at once, but instead are rapidly switching between which one you build.

You had fastbuild on, so they all finished rather quickly.

Think of it this way; you're dividing your build time among the structures.

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nope, you build them all at once. resets every different structure you use. i'll try to get a demo ors omething of me doing it in a normal building speed game

I noticed that primal scream makes the turret factories got down in 5 shots compared to 8 using regular damge....didn't know primal affected bile....does it affect parasite too?

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primal increases all damage and speed. be it xeno, para, acid rocket, gas, or healing. only the speed affects things like umbra and stomp obviously =]

I'm pretty sure that the bug is that it DOES build all the structures at once...

As for the other stuff... Wow, HL's explostion code sure is crappy.  No wonder seige is so unfixable...  <_<

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yea, its pretty crappy. been told its probably going to remain as an issue as long as we stay on the hl engine. but the full aoe damage bug, i think, is what overpowered sieges so hard vs players. i also think its why sieges are so strong vs structures atm.

69

General / The problem, Part II

« on: April 24, 2005, 07:55:03 AM »

as much as i love FF, i'm beginning to wonder if it is a cause of a problem in imbalance or not. we do indeed abuse the mc to hive trick here, which when combined with lifeforms just destroys whatever is in that room.

theres also the fact that leaping the hive or whatever won't set off an alert. any hits on the hive = really bad news.

then theres the fact that we won't be able to catch some llamas as easily, since tking seems to be their favorite thing to do. but then theres always the fact that you won't have to deal with the random paras or unlucky spits killing you, etc. biting an rt won't be a deadly situation anymore.

list goes on and on of +s and -s. comes down to mainly does it break balance? argueable, which is the point of this thread. i have no idea how it will play without it, but i'd like to try it at least for a limited time.

@LB - if we don't find it to change balance at all, can we have another vote to return to FF(provided we turn it off)?

70

General / random stuff

« on: April 23, 2005, 09:59:15 PM »

boredom leads to random stuff. was playing around with stuff, ended up making the following;

http://www.blackmage.org/hdevil/pwn.avi

i pwn'd those structures =]

as well in that attempt to abuse bilebomb's ae bug, i made this from the crappy set of vids;

http://www.blackmage.org/hdevil/wtfaez.avi

which shows how crappy the ae system is in HL. (devs are aware, etc.)

but figured i'd share them since i can. divx codec required to view =]

explaining the first vid:

using cheats for all of it. no highdamage or anything though. scream/bb is leet =] drops a base fast. as for the turrets, thats the set i got to work. you can see a non working buggy one in the other vid. the armories show a bit of a bug as well, but pretty cool ending to them imo

last two parts were just something you can do. if you spin around enough while holding use, you can build any # of structures at once. fastbuild was on for those, btw, figured it would make the vid smaller anyway.

enjoy i hope =]

71

Off Topic / I'm back

« on: April 23, 2005, 03:58:21 PM »

who are you again?
wb! :D

72

General / the problem

« on: April 23, 2005, 09:30:36 AM »

Perhaps.  But in the current environment, it just seems wrong that all it takes is one uberfade to carry the whole team.

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yea, one fade can do a lot. two are near unstoppable, depending. but the only idea i can come up with to fix this would be the following:

add "lifeform expansions". these would be relative to chambers or hives or something, and cost res. they can add health/speed/adren/whatever. perhaps consider immunity to mt as one of them(sensory based). just a random idea. you can then weaken the fade/onos, so they aren't godmode at hive1, they need a second hive to start being effective solo.

also you can mix things, say you need mcs + dcs to get a lifeform expansion that gives you extra innate regen(nullified if you choose regen) and better adren regeneration(not actual amount)

billion ways to go with that, but its the best idea i can think up. you can nerf a lot of things with that considered, and no it won't be overpowered really. if the lifeform dies, the player has to repurchase the lifeform, and the expansion(s). onos would have to wait a while to get them, but it would be more effective for the onos. fades can get one or something after re-fading, maybe two if they had 100 res.

so yea, summary: lfieform expansions that increase lifeforms abilities to some extent, bought with res. allows nerfing to hive1 lifeforms slightly, so you have to spend more to obtain the now version of the fade.

73

General / the problem

« on: April 23, 2005, 08:45:02 AM »

Aliens get less res-per-tick as the team gets bigger, but they get more starting res, so i don't know if the whole "speed up the ticks per player" would work, but its an interesting idea.

As for marines, they only lose if their com is lazy and allows that second hive to go up. At 3-5 minutes he should constantly be checking for that lone gorge putting up hive2 and send a rush to take it down asap. As soon as leap, biobomb, and that second chamber come in, he's done for.

Basically the whole game rides on hive2 for both teams. Winning and losing isn't a problem with the res system or balance, its about what the team does with its res.

Its like playing a tower defence map in wc3. If you have 500 gold, you could build 50 towers randomly and it will kill a few enemies. You could also take that 50 gold and build 50 towers into a maze that holds the enemies back longers and kills off a lot more of them.

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good points, aliens *do* get a lot of starting res, i overlooked that. it is what basically allows for the 3 minute fade/hive, i'll think about that some more.

the wc3 reference is nice, yea its how the team uses the res. but compare it to marines, they have to build a few things to get started, left with about enough for 1-2 rts off of starting res. aliens can build 2 rts and still have 4 players with 25+ res, so perhaps that is the problem.

The problem as I see it is that the game is won or lost based on the aliens' second hive... primarily through Bile Bomb.  Third hive nowadays (ever since lifeforms were unchained from hives) is just a benny... nobody really cares about it.

So basically, in order to win, rines have to hold base, get res, and lock down two hives within the first three minutes of the game in order to have a =chance= at winning (on average), and even then they have to contend with the Three Minute Wonder Fade.

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third hive allows for acid rocket, which is nice if marines get heavies, but basically as you said, rines have to do an idiotic amount of things in order to stand a chance =/

74

General / the problem

« on: April 23, 2005, 08:27:45 AM »

edit: hey, it isn't about shotguns!

running these thoughts by you guys, if it becomes anything of worth perhaps i'll report on ns forums:

atm everyone sees aliens as the team that pretty much wins unless the aliens screw around and do nothing. which sadly, is very, very accurate. "the games are won by 5 minutes played", is indeed the problem we face. hive two can be put up by 3 minutes if you get ~3-5 kills, depending on rfk and rts. i've gotten it up earlier in a full game, but due to luck of owning marines early into the first minute. but as you can plainly see, its  possible to get 25 res in about two minutes, as the free(skulk), non upgraded lifeform. RFK may be to blame(in that case it is), but this isn't the only problem.

everyone knows marines can turtle, its not even funny how well they can do it. it'll eventually be broken, with the right combo of abils+lifeforms. however, add heavies to the mix, and its that much harder to break. especially with phasegates. they also have shotguns, which are ridiculously good, but i can't call them overpowered due to the netcode issues. so okay, netcode saves aliens often, but sometimes it also kills them("im down the hall yay" bob killed fade with shotgun "..")

so problems from two short paragraphs are: rfk and netcode. on top of those two issues, we also have the alien res system setup. the way it works, as far as i've noticed, is the following:

say you have 3 res towers, 6 people on a team. very easy to get on most maps, and just as easy to hold. every 4 seconds 3 res is distributed. it goes to every player in an order. so, players 1-3 will get one res a piece for that "tick" of the rt. the next one, the other 3 players get 1 res a piece. and repeats every 4 seconds. pretty nice wouldn't you say, 1 res every 8 seconds for holding a hive, something you need to win anyway? then you can throw in the hope that aliens will be holding hive2, or some other rt. just makes it go faster every time.

RFK gives the resources solely to the killer. so lets say jim kills a marine. he'll get 1-3 res at random, and the normal res from the res tower. throw that together how you want to, 1-3 res is an extra speed of 8-24 seconds. 24 seconds is a long time in this game to just obtain for killing a player, something you have to do. as well, every lifeform can obtain RFK. so that gorge laming up that one room gets all the res for his kills, never really getting back its worth(vs good players) for total cost, but defending a room and getting more res faster(8-24 second skips remember!) to defend yet another room.

overflow allows this to become even nicer! its like removing an entire player calculation wise, while retaining his form and usefulness. free upgrades allow aliens to retain their res better than before, as well. gorges can just build without care or worry if the entire team has overflow.

okay so we have the issue, alien res system is insanely good if they hold res towers at all in a 6 player game. obviously the math dies a little if you add 7/8 players, but ns is "balanced at 6", so thats out, but even at 8 players, 3 rts can win the game for aliens.

marines get all their res to one player, yes. but he has to spend it on high cost global upgrades, which can be argued is cost effective, and they are very nice, which they are. but the problem is he has to save up as much as a gorge does to get these things, and he can't ALSO be giving out weapons(like fades and whatnot), and meds/ammo, rts, phasegates. you can have ~4 upgrades going at once depending, armory/arms lab/obs/arms lab#2. most scenarios, comms will just be upgrading the arms lab for the most part. even then, 40 res early on for a1/w1. comes about the same time aliens start hive2. compareable? not really. add the fact that aliens can also have a fade and a lerk and chambers by now. really uncompareable.

the problem i'm having with all of this is that marines can be very, very strong after they get armor3 heavies with hmgs. they can't be touched. ever. siege anything, just owns. only thing that really hurts them is screamed acid rockets, but to do any real armor damage the fade has to be in los of the marines, and can die to a gl+hmgs(GL does hurt a fade, a lot, if it hits) but theres the giant tic tacs(tactics) arguement you can do, but realistically marines will end up siegeing whatever their target is to death.

so my conclusion on the problem is that the aliens early res flow compared to use is too little. its difficult for marines to start off atm. use a lot of res early, and its usually easily killed since your marines have to be elsewhere taking rts, can't guard everything. if you decide to try the elec strat and elec everything, you're stuck on no upgrades for a good amount of time, usually you're starting a1/mt by the time aliens have hive2 going with chambers up, and a fade or two. but the plus side to that strat is if you push hard enough early, you can take the aliens expansions and hold them for some time, buying you much needed time. but you need what kind of godly marines to do that? clanners probably could do it, but they won't since "gorge healing+skulk = dead elec rt". yea, since it doesn't take them 5 years to do that its a bad idea =]

honestly, only thing marines can do this patch is buy time by going directly for the expansions and holding them. holding them being the hard part, but turrets/elec can handle that at the beginning, which is where the problem is. but again, risk vs reward, you can end up getting owned and have nothing.

moral of my post? ns is unbalanced. the devs want comebacks, which is what the alien res system allows if the marines two hive lockdown but don't get their res, and aliens push back early enough so that marines don't jp or ha the hive to hell and back. so its basically a giant rt battle. for the first 3 minutes. then it really doesn't matter, just as long as you have a few good lifeforms and hive2 out.


i'm not sure how to fix this problem, though. perhaps its the marines fault, for not killing aliens expansions early enough. but in comparison, marines can have 3 rts for the first 3m, all they'll get is pushing to hive2, not what aliens can get(two fades, lerk, hive2, chambers). perhaps vary the tick speed based on the number of aliens on a team? then increase it as the game goes on, or perhaps when a hive goes up, making it so if aliens have 3 hives and 1-2 rts(for whatever random reason, but just an example) they can still come back. i suck at ideas for balancing, so don't take that from the post, just take what im trying to identify as the problem, alien res flow.

75

General / Brief Console Primer

« on: April 20, 2005, 05:17:51 PM »

for spaces you can do
name jim%bob

% acts as a space.

for autocomplete, you can just hit spacebar, it'll add the space+finish the cvar or whatever.

76

Off Topic / A classic moment in the admin channel

« on: April 19, 2005, 10:57:13 PM »

he really needs a @FIXTHESERVERPLSLB highlight though. really.

77

Media / The LM Paint Game!

« on: April 15, 2005, 04:20:17 PM »

my crappy attempt at anything. its supposed to be some kind of knight in armor

[attachmentid=1126][attachmentid=1127]

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General / Rates and ffp

« on: April 15, 2005, 03:24:50 PM »

for pings <100, i'd suggest starting with

cl_updaterate 90

cl_cmdrate 101

cl_rate 20000

rate 20000

ex_interp 0 // auto sets itself to minimum value.

and lower updaterate until your choke stays steady at 0 when staring straight into the ground doing nothing. it WILL go up a bit during fights, especially ones with voice comm going. lower it if its a big problem lag-wise though.

those should help you hit a lot more than you normally do. i played with it for a long time, and after finally hitting shotgun shots at point blank i knew i got it right :p

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wanted to note that i did interp zero with my rates, model movement got laggy. so minimum interp i suggest is .02, but its really strange. just play with it, .05ish is nice.

79

General / Rates and ffp

« on: April 14, 2005, 10:00:17 AM »

for pings <100, i'd suggest starting with

cl_updaterate 90

cl_cmdrate 101

cl_rate 20000

rate 20000

ex_interp 0 // auto sets itself to minimum value.

and lower updaterate until your choke stays steady at 0 when staring straight into the ground doing nothing. it WILL go up a bit during fights, especially ones with voice comm going. lower it if its a big problem lag-wise though.

those should help you hit a lot more than you normally do. i played with it for a long time, and after finally hitting shotgun shots at point blank i knew i got it right :p

80

General / Holy Devil Wins

« on: April 12, 2005, 08:15:01 AM »

uh where the hell can i find the thread?!

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Yeah, where is it?

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http://www.lunixmonster.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2571

read the freaking top sticky? >_>

other one is

http://www.lunixmonster.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2927