Fixing up Alpha 7.10

[ChromeAngel]

Alpha Test 7.15 After Action Report
Good turnout for the test tonight, which I like to see.  VC fex felt a lot more balanced than in previous versions, even if his individual attacks felt weak.  Assault marine felt more problematic, the effects were looking great, but it was just too dangerous for tier 1.

I also got the bug where you have points, but the class menu wont let you pick anything (greyed out 1st tier classes).  Does anyone have a theory about what causes this?

Tweaks

• Kill icons are required for the VC and talons.
• Give AM their grenades back and move them to tier 2.
• Stealer leap is taking too long to charge up.

Future
OK, here's my new plan.  To be prepared for an Xmas beta I need to have a release candidate ready for December the 16th.  That will give me a week to nail it down, build installers and full zips, upload mirror copies and prepare media for a release on the 21st, 22nd or 23rd.

That gives us only 2 more weekly alphas in which to find a good balance, tidy up the place-holder assets and sort out some new loading screens.  The new specialist weapons will have to wait until after the new Beta, there is no way we can get them in and balanced in time.

Nqss : You're either going to have to make some mad progress on the new Ichar or the next beta will ship with Loxn's version.

[Nqss]

increase speed of AM jumps or of jumps in general
so it will tweak him for better , charge up in close combat faster , so enemy wouldn't have much time to react

tweaking vore for 7.15 is more then important , for such thing as 7.15 (public patch , right?) most of things must be tuned
moving veteran to t1 is also important if you are going to move AM to t2
vet and AM should never be in a same tier

[ChromeAngel]

increase speed of AM jumps or of jumps in general
so it will tweak him for better , charge up in close combat faster , so enemy wouldn't have much time to react

tweaking vore for 7.15 is more then important , for such thing as 7.15 (public patch , right?) most of things must be tuned
moving veteran to t1 is also important if you are going to move AM to t2
vet and AM should never be in a same tier

Speed as in leap length or speed as in charge up time?  Do you even mean "leap" the AM/GS/L ability or the "Jump" most classes can do?

How can I tweak the vore?  I was thinking of giving it some armour (not as effective as the fex).

I've not settled on a version number for this Beta, it could be 7.15, 7.25, 7.5 or 8.0 depending on how different it feels to 7.0 when it comes time to package the RC.

I think the veteran can stay on tier 2, his combos are too good for tier 1.  At this point the veteran only exists for variety, rather than any sound gameplay reasons.  That and I don't want the contributors who worked on him to feel like their time was wasted.

[Nqss]

Speed as in leap length or speed as in charge up time?  Do you even mean "leap" the AM/GS/L ability For the "Jump" most classes can do?

speed of movement in the air

How can I tweak the vore?  I was thinking of giving it some armour (not as effective as the fex).

i already told you
basic energy allows vore to shoot 2 sporemines rapidly and then it slows down
i want you to give enough energy to shoot 3 sporemines rapidly , i already told so
Lack of speed / health / close combat for vore means that most tweaks suppose to touch its main weapon. This beast MUST be in covers and annoy enemy from there
It is not going to OP , trust me , this will help vore to defend self and be as good as thrope.

And cut off tentacle collision of sporemines (AKA MAKE IT SMALLER) so they would't stop by the touch of a pixel

I think the veteran can stay on tier 2, his combos are too good for tier 1.

NO
they are AS effective as boltgun
I cal kill same amount of enemies with boltgun or even more , since i can attack from cover. Veteran must be exposed due to the lack of the accuracy and he also got the chainsword , which makes him to be a close combat guy , who suppose to figh close combat race.
just give it a try , put the vet in t1 , im not saying about deleting him as class or anything
just leave him his combo weapons and grenades

[Stahlhagel]

veteran as tier 1 class... i like that. but give him boltpistol csword combo, the current weapons are a joke (any sound nid player will kick your ass to the stone age).

the vores main problem is the lack of range on maps. its a ranged support unit, supposed to be far enough away to not come under fire. however, on any map, you cant even shoot over a building. i guess there is really a need to buff the spore mine luancher either in ROF, or in damage since i doubt well get some battlefield like maps like digsite where its potential comes to a bearing.

also im sad to hear that im gonna have to wait that long for the flamer

[ChromeAngel]

Alpha 7.14 After Action Report

1000th personal posting

Today's alpha seemed particularly chaotic, it's very hard for me to draw any particular conclusion form such chaos.  All I know is that we played 4 maps and tyranids won every time.  I have no idea why.

New objective icons in the HUD contributed by Jake Coggins, were reported to be "too big" by play testers, despite being the same size as the previous set.  Jake I think we need to reduce the opacity on these.

AM seemed fine to me on tier 2, but not everyone felt this way.  Some want it nerfed slightly and added back to tier 1.  Nerfing the spread or ROF of the BP would be a problem for the other classes that now use the same combo.

Buffing the Stealers by reducing the time between leaps felt great, that's staying.
I did not see much use of Veterans to judge of the powerchainsword was doing the trick.
Buffing the Biovore by increasing their ammo reserve from 2 to 3 mines felt fine, but I feel it does not address is underlying vulnerability.

I had no reports of problems with the class menu or weapon icon, so it looks like those are actually fixed.

New kill icons are for the VC and talons. are looking good.  Assault combo as alternative wargear for the tactical marine felt fine to me, but you have to pick and choose the wargear for the situation, CC for confined spaces, Bolter for open ones.  Server skulls were clumping up on Digsite, I don't think it was related to the model update.  

Moving the objectives around on ex_thunderhawk, didn't make much difference.  The incidental changes made it much less frustrating for the nids, but they still struggle to get to the objectives before the marines.

Bugs

• Ragdoll related crash, must be related to a player changing team.  May be related to the tactical marine model.
• Client crash caused by melta beam particle system, nothing obviously wrong with the code.
• Spore mine kill icon seems to have picked up something extra (venom ?)
• Left thigh of the warrior ragdoll sticks out 90 degrees.

Tweaks

• Nerf the lictor leap, either un-cloak him when leaping or halve the range.
• Slight Buff needed to the AM and Steal leap ranges I want to be able to leap out of the firing range on the test lab.
• VC seems unpredictable, but it's only random aspect is the spread, try buffing the accuracy by 1 degree.

Stahlhagel's Report
Gameplay is better. thats the most important thing.  

A good tac will hold against a stealer. a good dodging stealer might kill the tac, so it seems balanced enough.  Warrior is kinda meh due to unpredictable gun. sometimes you just die without a kill sometimes you kill 3 marines alone.  

veteran... depends on situation, it can kick ass for sure. but if youre unlucky you just get wiped due to low health and very fast melee combat. apoth is good so far, melta... dunno , dint use it at all.  AM.... not worth it in tier 2 somehow. rather use medic or veteran now, maybe melta if fex rush occurs.

The heavy kicks ass as always, like it should.   Termie... dies too fast to those damn thrope bolts instead to the warp blast!  ( ed: this may just be an example of me picking the right counter class ).

stealer is excellent at the moment. it can kill stuff, and be easily killed if you dont aim properly.   warrior is meh

thrope... not my thing , dies very fast with its low health and poor accuracy and slow travel of the warp bolts,  as a thrope you better hit you target, or youre dead meat quickly.  vore... sucks due to slow speed, self killing with splash, health is ok , but spore mines just never hit their target because they explode wherever they scratch the ground.  I actually prefer laying mode so the damn things don't blow up mid flight, i can kinda hit a marine somehow that way.  the rof buff was a good decision.   lictor needs a nerf. stealth and jumping just dont go together well. id remove the recoil from the claws like on stealer, nerf its jump range. also make clear where the hell those claws hit when used. still too unpredictable in close combat.

fex... currently my favourite al rounder. the vc is way unpredictable though, sometimes you kill a marine with 2 hits, sometimes a lone tac just drops your health to half until you kill him.  cc fex... not using it anymore, the numerous issues and gettign stuck all the time is too much when every second you lose to get to the enemy means you're closer to death. i think something needs to be done about this.

[Nqss]

my opinion

vore , a bit of ROF increasing
Lictor jumps can become much rare
As i jumped around in cloak all over the place , nerfing the regeneration of energy would do the trick , to have one escape
vet is working as i expected , i even cut some fex during tests
behavior - stay with your mates or sneak around , as expected
you may delete his boltgun and start working with powersword as i think
AM is fine , killing t1 and t2 with similar attitute , melta bombs and longer leap (and change the ARCH of the leap to be more like a strieght line)  would be nice
stealer longer leap (and change the ARCH of the leap to be more like a strieght line)
specialist uhhhhh...well , replacing his boltpistol with spare clips of meltagun would be nice and flamer / plasma for future
Close combat tacts was a bad idea , i agreed with you
Thrope is fine
Fex everyone prefer VC fex , huge amount health and heavy damage on the range
Termies - they can have their ammo back , +2 clips additionaly , they are need it now actually

[Dark Marine]

I vote that the AM should go to T1. He was a good counter part to the stealer. The Tyranids have atm the advantage at the beginning of a round to catch the objectives faster than the marines with the stealer. The other thing is if the tac. Marine have the same weapon option like the AM then I ask me whether the AM is be worth with his 75 points to choose. Just the jetpack as a gain is a little bit to less for T2 and the vet is current the stronger cc fighter.

With the other classes Iam happy. Especally with the healing Thrope. Its nice to heal myself.
Ok one exception is the Lictor. He is really to strong in his current appearance. Slower stamina regeneration or uncloaking while jumping could be a good solution.

P.S.: Gratz to your 1000th post, Chrome.

[Stahlhagel]

i think removing the jump , buffing its stealth

or bumping refresh time of the jump to ten seconds so you have to really think forward

[Nqss]

Can we decide propertly with the AM tier?
it is the 4th or 5th time it will be changing tier
Lets think , DEEPLY about that , is he actually need that?

Compare to VET

Unlike VET he can jump around and kite the CC enemy , shooting with boltpistol and then jumping to the enemy to manage final hits with sword
Unlike VET he can easily escape (even jump to apothecary) or close up with enemy
Unlike VET he can dodge projectiles
Unlike VET he can reach unreachable enemies

VET can slice t1-t2 in close combat easily now
Since VET attached to the ground and doesn't have much speed tweaks , only longer running , he can help dealing with close combat attacks , but really weak againist ranged tyranids

Should i also mention that t2 of nids got artilery / ranged support / ultimate CC with ability to sneak and jump and marines got healing close support / ultimate CC with no jumps / and firepower support
I can see VET being counter for lictor
I can see support marines being usefull at defence and certain situations
but , who is going to counter vore and thrope? Assualt Marine , dodging projectiles and reaching them faster or even jumping around a corner before they notice
and if AM is available for everyone , nids of t2 would be mostly spammed with those guys

[Stahlhagel]

i think all the dodging you talk about is a bit overrated. the only ability that makes the am so special is the jump, but thats pretty much it. hes not constantly travelling at the speed of light or something like that.

close up trope bolts are a real pain, and will likely get you killed before you kill the vore off

biovore is frankly not a danger to anyone, even a tier 1 is more likely to kill a vore than the opposite

actually, im thinking something must be done about the warrior. i prefer to play stealer, since i know if i play it right i have a good chance to show up in a marines face and kill him in close combat.

id prefer warrior for its good alround capability, but i hate the unpredictable main weapon. i rarely know if i do actually any damage to a target and if i should close in before the bolters chew me up... just some thoughts about that. not sure how people feel about it in general now that every class excells at what it does when used right and - with skill.

[Nqss]

my opinion:
-the bolter of veteran is not needed anymore (not used in the first place , proved by several players)
-the vore still need that collision tweak
-lictor was pain because he could jump alot , you added him ability to jump around even more often and reduced the range. This , what i can not understand.
-new objective icons needs to be reduced in sizes , maybe by2 at the maximum size. and become more transparent(50%maybe).
-terminator can have the additional ammo back(he is not game breaking , with new VC)
-VC must have splash damage (which is not down to zero , the lowest line is about 20), but less overall damage

-wating for the specialist weapons , flamer and plasma , expecting plasma specialist to counter thrope on range in t2


wierd , i killed 2 tyranids (t1 and t2) with AM before i died and could get much points (had about 40)

[ChromeAngel]

Alpha 7.15 After Action Report
A little more stable at my end this time.  The server still felt the need to give everyone a "full client update" at one point which caused everyone to time out.  But the server and my client managed to stay up for a full hour without crashing.

Lictors were less rampant than in previous builds.  The leaps all felt good to me.  VC was not noticeably more deadly ( at least not when I was using it ).  No-one lamented the loss of the chainsword tactical.

Tyranids are still winning most rounds.  I still don't know why, but I suspect it may be due to Stealers claw speed buff.

Gunguy's HUD messed up an put the ammo floodbar next to the health floodbar "making a heart shape", shortly before crashing.  GG also reported a case where he could not respawn or change teams.

[ChromeAngel]

my opinion:
-the bolter of veteran is not needed anymore (not used in the first place , proved by several players)
-the vore still need that collision tweak
-lictor was pain because he could jump alot , you added him ability to jump around even more often and reduced the range. This , what i can not understand.
-new objective icons needs to be reduced in sizes , maybe by2 at the maximum size. and become more transparent(50%maybe).
-terminator can have the additional ammo back(he is not game breaking , with new VC)
-VC must have splash damage (which is not down to zero , the lowest line is about 20), but less overall damage

-wating for the specialist weapons , flamer and plasma , expecting plasma specialist to counter thrope on range in t2

wierd , i killed 2 tyranids (t1 and t2) with AM before i died and could get much points (had about 40)

• Fair enough veterans don't use the bolter, however having it does not make him OP.  Speaking of the veteran if i've got to give him a power weapon i'm going to need power weapon sound effects.  We can't exactly have him swinging a sword making chainsaw sounds.
• I can't get the Spore mine collision tweak to work, so forget about it.  Help me find some other way to buff the vore,
• New icons are the same size as the old ones, we've just got to wait for Jake to tweak opacity of the art.
• The area damage function does not give me an option of minimum damage it drops off to, that is always zero.  I could reduce the max by 20 and do 20 damage to everything in reach, but that would not take into account things like cover, water and the other half a dozen tricky things the built-in function does.
• The new specialist weapons won't be included in time for the next beta.  Maybe I should just nerf the warp bolt damage a bit?  Warp Bolts seems to have been getting more use since the new effect went in.
• Maybe you just finished them off for someone who had already done most of the work?

[Dark Marine]

ChromeAngel wrote:

Tyranids are still winning most rounds.  I still don't know why, but I suspect it may be due to Stealers claw speed buff.

This could be true. With the old stealer I never got so much kills like with the new one.
But I like him how he is now.

There is a little problem with the Thrope. If you have the healing ability, then you always loose your "heal power" independent whether a teammate is in range or your own health is full. I tried often to heal some teammates, but I got no feedback that Iam out of range, because I loose the power anyway. This shouldnt happen. To fix my mentioned problem would be helpful to know whether I heal something or not.