*sam* Posted May 12, 2008, 11:05 pm	There's quite a few new things in here: * New combat arena event type: "free for all" (no teams). Weapons are allowed after a 10-20 delay at the start (similar to deathraces). These arena combats will initially be available for custom events and professional events only. * Pedestrians can now score points in the arena. They are calculated as having CR 40 for this purpose. * You can now exit your vehicles in all event types. Note that characters have not been implemented ?as containers? for looting yet. * The Laserfire specialism has been reduced in effect. * From the top menu in the game you can now propose a new turn length (between 10 and 120 seconds) ? it is then voted on by all active players (the majority wins). This is only possible after 5 turns have elapsed, and only once every 10 turns. If a player has consistently taken much longer to take their move then everyone else, they don?t get to vote. I don?t want to give the precise details of what ?consistently much longer? means, since that could lead to attempted work-arounds by ?time griefers? * If you are close to or are moving towards a town safety zone faster than all enemies and are closer to it than them, you cannot become demoralized. Also, if there is no non-crippled enemy vehicle within 150m then you cannot become demoralized. (Note: a demoralized enemy is not necessarily crippled, since he may still be able to fire) * I have made some more changes to help the vehicle-stuck-on-terrain problem Please keep a careful watch on arena scoring, since the code changed a lot -- this was necessary to enable the upcoming pedestrian arena combats (and a bit later, the insect arena combats muhahah).
*sam* Posted May 12, 2008, 11:26 pm	I'm just figuring out where the client engine build has gone wrong and is crashing you when downloading objects. Should be sorted out soon...
Parduz Posted May 12, 2008, 11:32 pm	YEAH! PEDS IN DESERT!!!! Bring your sunglasses, guys  Sam: two questions: 1) Quote: Note that characters have not been implemented ?as containers? for looting yet Do this mean that peds can't loot hand weapons, or what? 2) A "crippled" enemy means an enemy that can't move, can't fire, both, or what else? Thanks for your work!
*sam* Posted May 13, 2008, 1:15 am	Quote: "developer goes on Holiday and everything works fine...He comes back and game is screwed" It's not a bit surprising really. It's hardly likely to break when I'm not modifying it.. heh. Anyway, I'm just repatching the server, I finally tracked down the problem. Thank you all for your patience. This was a really nasty bug.
*sam* Posted May 13, 2008, 1:47 am	Quote: Do this mean that peds can't loot hand weapons, or what? That's right. They can't yet change their equipment at all, in the wilderness. Quote: 2) A "crippled" enemy means an enemy that can't move, can't fire, both, or what else? Can't move.
madmax Posted May 13, 2008, 2:21 am	So dead engine and/or chars?
Jansan Posted May 13, 2008, 5:56 am	The patch I've been waiting for, looks great! Is 120 the cap though, or for larger-car amounts, could we consider upping that?
Seiler Posted May 13, 2008, 9:01 am	Oooh, now that we have peds in the wilds, can we get some specs for handgunner skill?
*Longo* Posted May 13, 2008, 9:41 am	Sam- If my 1 car turtles, and I exit the car, and escape as a ped, is there a 100% chance my ganger will make it back to town, or is there that chance Ill starve, get eaten by the natives, join another gang etc?
*viKKing* Posted May 13, 2008, 10:22 am	Quote: is there a 100% chance my ganger will make it back to town, or is there that chance Ill starve, get eaten by the natives, join another gang etc? On "gates" maps it is always 100%. On other ones it is randomized.
Alocalypse Posted May 13, 2008, 10:41 am	Quote: if there is no non-crippled enemy vehicle within 150m then you cannot become demoralized. (Note: a demoralized enemy is not necessarily crippled, since he may still be able to fire) I assume this works both ways? So if you have really good gunners or are mortaring from 150m the NPCs won't surrender?
*sam* Posted May 13, 2008, 1:13 pm	Quote: So dead engine and/or chars? Yes. Quote: Is 120 the cap though, or for larger-car amounts, could we consider upping that? My concern is that this anti-griefing device could be used for griefing, if we give a high upper limit. Imagine a scenario where a one-player squad attacks a two-player squad... Quote: some specs for handgunner skill? I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for here Seiler? Quote: Quote: is there a 100% chance my ganger will make it back to town, or is there that chance Ill starve, get eaten by the natives, join another gang etc? On "gates" maps it is always 100%. On other ones it is randomized. Vikking is correct here, although I do need to go and check the code to make sure it will actually happen that way. There are a number of potential scenarios at the end of a wilderness event that need monitoring for bugs now we have peds in the mix. Quote: Quote: if there is no non-crippled enemy vehicle within 150m then you cannot become demoralized. (Note: a demoralized enemy is not necessarily crippled, since he may still be able to fire) I assume this works both ways? So if you have really good gunners or are mortaring from 150m the NPCs won't surrender? Yes, alo. Is 150m too short? I picked it as an approximate maximum range of weaponsfire (disregarding fluke hits, which shouldn't pose enough of a threat to make you demoralise). Should the 150m range be higher? -- 200m?
El Kabong Posted May 13, 2008, 1:21 pm	As to Seiler's comments about hg specs, are vehicular gunnery specialisns (sniper, rapid fire...) applicable when firing hand weapons?
Parduz Posted May 13, 2008, 1:28 pm	*sam* said: Should the 150m range be higher? -- 200m? I can see no-demoralizing anymore in this condition good for when you're not taking damage (so other ppl dying and so on don't have no more influence on your morale). "Breaking" this rule when you take direct hits will solve any problem, even if you got hit from 200mt by a very lucky shot.
Alocalypse Posted May 13, 2008, 1:42 pm	*sam* said: Quote: I assume this works both ways? So if you have really good gunners or are mortaring from 150m the NPCs won't surrender? Yes, alo. Is 150m too short? I picked it as an approximate maximum range of weaponsfire (disregarding fluke hits, which shouldn't pose enough of a threat to make you demoralise). Should the 150m range be higher? -- 200m? Yeah 200m would be pretty much safe for what I was concerned about, though I've had to mortar down stray runners at 200m+ at least a couple of times. It should either only apply to player cars and/or cancel out if it's the only thing keeping the car from surrendering and it's being hit by weapons as Parduz suggests. Also 1-2 possible bugs: Event ID: S46397 I had a car with a 5% engine that couldn't get up the hill to the gateway so I dumped it and had my char run to the town and hide while I tried (and failed) to kill all the NPCs (There was 1 LR left when I ran out of ammo ) So I escaped all my cars (but not the ped), the event ended and it said my character made it back to town safely - which would be normal if I had abandoned/surrendered her, but since she was inside the town limits she should've auto-escaped. Should the event end if one side has only peds left? Also the AI went mental on the abandoned and empty car, which was a totally pointless waste of ammo and I could see a strategy exploiting that and abandoning invaluable cars as "bait" for the AI to shoot at to take less heat.
Parduz Posted May 13, 2008, 2:01 pm	going to buy a couple of Racoon immediatly
*sam* Posted May 13, 2008, 2:21 pm	Quote: So I escaped all my cars (but not the ped), the event ended and it said my character made it back to town safely - which would be normal if I had abandoned/surrendered her, but since she was inside the town limits she should've auto-escaped. Thanks for that. I'll look into auto-escaping.. this is quite important since without it, you could hide a ped as a insurance against losing due to all cars being demoralised. Quote: Should the event end if one side has only peds left? This is a difficult one. I can see circumstances where it should, and others where it shouldn't. Maybe a ped needs to be within say 40m of a drivable, commandeerable car, if he/she is to stop you losing?? Quote: the AI went mental on the abandoned and empty car, which was a totally pointless waste of ammo and I could see a strategy exploiting that and abandoning invaluable cars as "bait" for the AI to shoot at to take less heat. I'll check that thanks..
Seiler Posted May 13, 2008, 7:46 pm	*sam* said: Quote: some specs for handgunner skill? I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for here Seiler? Specializations, ya know, sniper, rapidshot, etc, the kind of things every other skill and even leadership has, but Handgunner is glaringly devoid of?
Jansan Posted May 13, 2008, 7:56 pm	Seiler said: *sam* said: Quote: some specs for handgunner skill? I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for here Seiler? Specializations, ya know, sniper, rapidshot, etc, the kind of things every other skill and even leadership has, but Handgunner is glaringly devoid of? Those would be great, I know that currently some of them might cross over, like Combat Psychologist is in First Aid and Leadership. Rapid Reloading is another one that is in multiple disciplines, etc. I believe currently rapid shot from the Gunnery branch works with hand weapons, I'm guessing Sniper and Rapid Reload do too. I know you can use Rapid Shot from Gunnery spec with Large Guns as well, so the crossover is consistent (double-firing radar guided missiles!). So some of those crossovers would be nice, at least would give us something to choose if nothing new has time to be entered.
Seiler Posted May 13, 2008, 8:01 pm	I'd still personally prefer gunnery and LG skill not crossover to handgunner, in all honesty, since firing a mounted weapon is a very different discipline than firing from your shoulder.
hallen Posted May 13, 2008, 9:38 pm	Wondering how people are getting on with the laser reductions - understand that they needed to be dropped a bit - but my laser specialist 3 struggled quite a bit but was first time out so will give another go before jumping to conclusions. There doesnt seem to have been a drop in the lasers CR yet though?
pweelg Posted May 13, 2008, 10:04 pm	Also on lasers, have done some testing and spotted an important bug. Lasers feel a bit more realistic now i think but i agree with hallen, as their functionality has diminished , so should their cr.
*sam* Posted May 13, 2008, 10:05 pm	One of the things I changed was that lasers no longer recharge on the same turn that they fired (that's how it was before, mostly due to laziness). I upped the recharge rate to compensate, but the overall effect may be a slight nerfing "under normal usage conditions". Feedback from laser users and especially those with laser specialism would useful..
*sam* Posted May 13, 2008, 10:07 pm	I'll take a look at handgunner specialisms in a couple of days time, after dealing with the more pressing ped/wilderness/looting bugs.
madmax Posted May 13, 2008, 10:23 pm	I think thats a good solution, as it will stop them from firing every turn.
Jansan Posted May 13, 2008, 10:48 pm	The people who specialized in this are going to be disappointed of course, as are most people who get nerfed. But I think you have to seriously realize how dominating that spec and weapon combo was and consider if it is really in line with the other weapons. Let's not kid ourselves. It needed to be fixed.
pweelg Posted May 13, 2008, 11:05 pm	yes it did need something, however as it stands at the mo its 3 shots with a level 3 before reloading on a weapon that is more CR than a tank gun....not right not when a paint gun can disable 2 fire trucks for 5 to 10 rounds
hallen Posted May 13, 2008, 11:10 pm	Jansan, go back and read what was written - we all agree that lasers had to be toned down a bit, but we are discussing the relative values of this, obviously disappointed personally as I have put a lot of effort into laser specialisms, but we were discussing it not slagging the changes off.
Jansan Posted May 13, 2008, 11:26 pm	*SirLatte* said: Why is it that people keep saying that? Are we really trying to make every weapon equal? I understand your frustration Latte, but equal is not the same as balanced. I was never suggesting it be equal, just balanced. Pros and cons. I've helped Seiler score some heavy lasers, and Radon Rancher appear often enough in Badlands that if lasers are the best weapon, soon we'll all be using it because its the only weapon worth using. And then the game will have to be balanced around using an over-powered weapon, and its a downward spiral. And hallen, I did read what was written, but okay I'll back off and let you guys discuss it then. I've said my piece on this particular change, that's all I wanted to do. My apologies. Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far the other way. I'll just say that I've never seen Sam make a weapon change without a deep investigation. It took an insane campaign just to get rockets tweaked. Some people complained, because, well they all had rocket trucks built because they were overpowered, and people don't like to give that up. It's human nature, but sometimes you have to step back and look at the big picture in a game like this. I'm not invalidating your points though. Like I said, the pendulum can swing too far the other way. Maybe the tweak was too much? I have not seen it in action myself.
Jansan Posted May 13, 2008, 11:40 pm	*SirLatte* said: Thank You Jansan, I appreciate your comments. I would rather see weapons become harder to get than changing how well they work... We all should be trying to get the very best weapons in the game. Hell if they had hand held nukes Id want them too. That's certainly a very fair viewpoint, in fact, if I had to place a wager I'd bet most people would more agree with you than me. But for me, I'd rather unique or rare weapons not be "better", just "unique". Like the laser is unique in that it has infinite ammo, it has unique properties as its own damage type, yet a car rifle could outshoot it consecutively since a laser drains power. The car cannon/atg/tank guns have splash damage from the explosive shells but have huge bulk and tiny clips. Machine guns, the most common weapon, are tiny in bulk, but have high clip, low recoil, and have average distance and low damage. So people who don't go for rare weapons have less strategy and less options available. We have rockets, machine guns, gatling guns, car rifles, etc. Lasers and cannons, having their own unqiue properties, are available in smaller quanities, and the advantage people have who use them is that even though the weapon itself isn't "super superior". However, it is a different type of weapon with its own virtues and flaws that you can't buy at Jakes. In very very brief terms, I can sum up my point by saying I perfer "sword and axe", versus "sword and sword+1".
madmax Posted May 14, 2008, 12:03 am	I would like a balance between the two. Weapons can be better, just not unfairly so, and thaey must have some drawback. I think that at laserfire lvl1 it should be maybe 7 turns of fire before it starts doing too little damage, then maybe 10 turns to return to full power, or a bit less.
*sam* Posted May 14, 2008, 10:32 am	Sorry to frustrate you Latte! The reason I asked for feedback is that I will, of course, increase the effect of laser specialism if necessary, following feedback from you guys. How much should laser CR be reduced by?
Alocalypse Posted May 14, 2008, 10:46 am	A few more (minor) bugs Despite showing all that info it didn't actually tell me what I wanted to know - distance to target. Also showing this much info might be revealing too much, though we can get pretty much all the info except injuries recieved from the NPC's gang page and injuries would be observable anyway. When targeting pedestrian NPC names show up like this, they also show like this when you hover over a weapon in the management tab. As far as the weapon argument goes: In principle I'd like to see what Jansan is suggesting, but I consider "rarity" another unique attribute that can be used to balance weapons just like damage/ammo/bulk which can 'force' people to trade more. I haven't tried out lasers since the change but from what I read in this thread it seems an excessive nerf, the problem was that at LF3 the power wouldn't go down at all after the first shot, LF2 and LF1 were fine in my opinion. If you're going to reduce the Laser CR I'd say reducing it by about 20% would be ok, though I don't think it's really needed. Also I think that if specialisms are nerfed the characters with the affected specialisms should maybe get an option to re-spec the char since it's hard to see these things coming...
*sam* Posted May 14, 2008, 12:03 pm	Quote: Sam... I am not Frustrated at just this. Its just everything combined that has been talked about of late. I'm in a difficult position here. On the one hand, I have players lobbying for change, and on the other hand I have other players who don't agree. I can't please both sides... what do I do? The current debate on lockup/garage/marketplace fees is a good case in point - there's no real consensus there. Going back further, take a look at the fog of war thread -- it's a stalemate. Look at the camp combat thread - so many conflicting opinions. btw, I'm going to un-nerf LF specialism somewhat. FYI, there will be no benefit to going beyond LF level 3.
Parduz Posted May 14, 2008, 12:21 pm	Sam, i hear you. If i can make a tiny critic about how the things are going, then i'd say that maybe a more "thematic" way to go should help a bit. I mean: Did you think that is time to retouch our economic life, and how money is charged to Gangs? Then plan it, ask for opinions, take YOUR decisions and finally code them in a whole bunch. Same as for weapon tweaking: group them in a single patch,if needed, so you will "hurt" the whole community, not a single player that maybe take that weap. as his only way to go. This way we will see almost all the whole picture and we will know in advance where things will goes. Hey, Sam, i'm not complaining at all about how you do your work, and sure i'm not teaching anything. Read my post as a very peaceful opinion from someone that sometime think is difficult to plan somewhat 'cause he "fear" the next changes.
*sam* Posted May 14, 2008, 12:22 pm	There is an inherent problem whenever a change is made: this is that players have spent time and effort tuning their gang to the current system, under the assumption that the system wouldn't change. I have seen enough examples of changes being debated without any  strong consensus. I think the best thing is to apply this rule in future: significant system changes won't happen unless there is a strong agreement from the players.
lordbam Posted May 14, 2008, 1:02 pm	*sam* said: Quote: "developer goes on Holiday and everything works fine...He comes back and game is screwed" It's not a bit surprising really. It's hardly likely to break when I'm not modifying it.. heh. Anyway, I'm just repatching the server, I finally tracked down the problem. Thank you all for your patience. This was a really nasty bug. this was indeed inteded as a joke. We have an expression in dutch:" if you don't do anything you can't do anything wrong". So by improving the game accidents happen. laser discussion: my idea is that if it is rare, it is allowed to be more powerfull. Why would you otherwise risk going to BL to get the item. I used to play ultima and it took me a long time to get that BEST ultra rare weapon in the game. That also gives you a reason to keep playing. changes in the game: Sometimes they HAVE to happen. Even if the players don't like it. I used to play planeshift, and was there when the "wipe" happened to get out all the bugged characters and items None of the players liked it, but most of them kept on playing. I'm not saying that we need to "wipe" dark-wind (that is another discussion) but from every change you can recover. garaging fees: right now i own about 26 cars and i need them. i do a lot of missions, cargo runs and so on. at the moment i have +-10 cars traveling. When i have time to scout i scout with 2 cars. so i need atleast 4 cars to do 2 scouts. a couple of racers with different engines. so as you can see, 26 cars isn't  a lot.
Parduz Posted May 14, 2008, 1:14 pm	*sam* said: There is an inherent problem whenever a change is made: this is that players have spent time and effort tuning their gang to the current system, under the assumption that the system wouldn't change. I have seen enough examples of changes being debated without any  strong consensus. I think the best thing is to apply this rule in future: significant system changes won't happen unless there is a strong agreement from the players. Mh... talking for me only, if i know that, as example, the whole tax/fee system will change in a couple of week, i've plenty of time to "tune" myself to the new system. Sure, buy a weapon for a lot of money to have it tuned down after a day (or selling V8 motors for not too much to have them ultrarare after 2 days) hurts a bit, but if a change is due, it have to happens. More, i think you don't have a very large base of players to listen: the names i see in the forum are almost always the same, and they are all from medium to very rich players. So, while i really apreciate that you ask to us before doing somewhat, i see that you have to take your decisions based on your vision of the game. To summarize, you may have some complains from me in the future (thinking at the fee changes and how i play with my friends) but finally i will accept what will happen as a dued change.
*Longo* Posted May 14, 2008, 1:57 pm	Sam- I like your thinking. Stalmates are just that. These topics can always be re-debated after a while (Is re-debate a word?). There are alot of things in the game that Im sure everyone would like to see improved, not just a part of the DW community. Keep up the good work!
Alocalypse Posted May 14, 2008, 3:29 pm	*sam* said: I have seen enough examples of changes being debated without any  strong consensus. I think the best thing is to apply this rule in future: significant system changes won't happen unless there is a strong agreement from the players. Sometimes changes that aren't very popular are neccessary, for example the camps nerf, I don't think there would have been a consensus on that had people known the full extent of the changes ahead of time. Though in the end I think everyone agrees that it improved things. Most people will vote based on their own selfish interests instead of what's better for everyone and in the end we're players and not game designers so I don't think we should have the final say really. That said the community can usually provide with good arguments for and against new ideas which you can use to weight them by. Also sometimes it is better to leave things as they are instead of changing them when there's no critical need to and the pro's and con's are tied.
Dr Mathias Posted May 14, 2008, 4:08 pm	Give everyone a heavy laser and a lvl 3 laser spec so everyone can test the change.
hallen Posted May 14, 2008, 8:16 pm	Just to be absolutely clear, I was simply wondering how other people were getting on with the laser change, I was not sure if my experience was the same as everyone elses. Indeed I learned from Pweelg that the autofire remaining on even when not firing at the enemy due to a loss of los stopped the laser recharging as it should was a bug - and this was at least part of my problem in my first scout after the laser change. I absolutely agree that the lasers were too powerful as they were. I am not lobbying for change, I was genuinely wondering how other people were getting on with the change. Apologies to you Sam I certainly did not intend to cause you to feel pressurised to change the effect.
pweelg Posted May 14, 2008, 8:36 pm	maybe we should have all specialism skills peak at lvl 3 so we all know where we stand? lvl 1 Rookie lvl 2 expeierenced (sp?) lvl 3 professional and if someone is lucky enought to get a lvl 4 capable they know to choose a different specialiastion
*sam* Posted May 14, 2008, 9:05 pm	Quote: Apologies to you Sam I certainly did not intend to cause you to feel pressurised to change the effect. Not at all; tweaking things is always possible. It's much more efficient to playtest through use rather than me spending lots of time doing it when I could be making better use of my time. Quote: maybe we should have all specialism skills peak at lvl 3 so we all know where we stand? I'm not sure if that's a good idea pweelg. Each specialism is implemented so differently that some have no natural 'cap'..
Jansan Posted May 14, 2008, 9:26 pm	*sam* said: I'm in a difficult position here. On the one hand, I have players lobbying for change, and on the other hand I have other players who don't agree. I can't please both sides... what do I do? It's your game, sir. You can do whatever you want. And if there is but one true statement in this world, it's "You can't please all of the people all of the time." I humbly suggest you take what we all say keeping mind the perspective we have. What Alo said was right in that regard. You have the numbers, you have the data, and it's your game that you want to succeed. Sometimes, you have to make unpopular decisions for the overall health of the game or to make the game fit what you want it to do. No matter what you do, it will attract certain people and push others away. If these polls are evident of anything, it is that different people like different things. Use us as a sounding board, but the polls should be a guide, not the rule. We can't force you to do anything. Well, the worst we can do is stop paying you to play. But if someone quits the game over a balance-change, they were going to quit sooner rather than later anyway. In most cases, I don't reallly think there is a wrong answer. Go with your own logic, intution, or desire. Most of us wouldn't be here if we didn't like what you've done already.
Jim Posted May 14, 2008, 10:29 pm	well said Jansan