What enemies need a buff or nerf?

[Guest]

Jul 12, 2013 19:48:50 GMT -5 amitp said:

quicklite, it seems like we'll end up in an endless escalation. More powerful enemies, more powerful buffs, round and round, until top players are so far ahead of new players that they can't play in the same areas anymore.

This has been happening for a while now.

Yep, it's pretty sad.

[gingerbear]

I think that it's worth to mention that generally there are 10 - 20 people online in "high time", rather than the usual 5. Which means people will shear through everything a lot easier. Assuming the game gets popular, then clearing a region will be no trouble at all in larger parties.
If that is an intended model, then there is nothing wrong with Grid right now. If progression is supposed to be hard, then, unfortunately, as the population grows then so should the challenge, too.

My idea:
Change the HP/Shield (maybe damage) dynamically for the enemies, based on the sector population. So wherever the most people are, they meet the tougher enemies, for the same loot. Which would mean that cluttering up would result in tougher fights (can be a good thing for convoy banzai too, as following through infested areas would be increasingly harder - in which case pally heal buff please), and if people desire a relatively calm clearing, then they have to disperse evenly in the available sectors...

EDIT:
The mechanism above can be expressed by some lore, too: Where the resistence is bigger, opression is bigger too. Originally, Zeta towers are responsible to move around the energy/materials extracted from the Grid, these invisible forces are responsible to make the gridders life miserable. As soon as a region is cleared, there is nothing left for the Zeta to control, so it gets rid of the cloaking field and initiates its transposition into another sector, which will happen in 5 minutes. Unless, of course, if it gets killed...

[quicklite]

Jul 12, 2013 19:48:50 GMT -5 amitp said:

quicklite, it seems like we'll end up in an endless escalation. More powerful enemies, more powerful buffs, round and round, until top players are so far ahead of new players that they can't play in the same areas anymore.

What, why? All the so-called tank 'buffs' have been for everyone, new and old, so there's stilll little to no difference. After all, the only things really seperating new players from old ones are augments, and those definitely do not make a big enough difference to seperate the crowds. The reasons I was suggesting buffs is that a) more people are online now, and that b) since these fortresses were designed, triggers have been further refined and upgraded to the point where they are a lot more useful overall than they were beforehand. It's a little bit like how o1's health went from 10000ish to 85000, and how his attacks got fancier and in some cases (though not all ofc) stronger. It wasn't to seperate the new from the old, it was because there were just more, better people around.

[Ood]

Grid can expand in more ways than just player base.

Currently there are 12 unique structures groups.

12.

How many enemy groups were in RotMG?
Yes, they were divided into areas, and we don't want that. That isn't to say, however, that we can't have some enemies be very difficult (even for newbies, sorry), and others easier. A greater variety of structures (and structure types) is more called for than just further increasing the current lineup's difficulty artificially with bigger numbers. Massive fortresses was slated for build 40 initially. It keeps getting pushed back. Let's wait for that new dynamic to get put into play before drastically doing anything major. A small difficulty increase on the 'hard' stuff to satisfy people in the mean time isn't a wholly bad idea.

Rob:
Can we bump up massive fortresses to sometime soon instead of not yet?

[hypevosa]

I don't think that's the problem amitp, the problem is really just having enemies (that are meant to be hard) where you can literally sit on their stoop and kill them with little danger at all. Lazy killing behavior is something we can try to extinguish for non trivial enemies.

[amitp]

Ah, ok, I was thinking (a) augments must be useful (I haven't many so I assumed wrongly on this one), (b) the rarer tanks are more powerful. Glad to hear it's not bad and that I keep dying just because I'm unskilled

[quicklite]

amitp just to more concisely answer your concerns:

a) Augments give you a 0.5 stat boost per augment. It costs a lot of VP, aug items, and time to get a tank at all stats auged by 10, and only the most expertise, veteran players can get a single tank's stats close to all 20. But say someone did (and someone probably will eventually) achieve all 20, which believe me would get a really, really long time. Their reward would be, well, a 10% stat boost on everytyhing. Okay, this is substantial, and will help said tank out, but will it completely seperate this tank from the masses in its strength? It will not. Augments are useful, but they'll only take you so far.

b) Well, I'm not gonna lie here, the rare tanks are pretty damn powerful. To give examples, the paladin is an incredible support tank, and a great asset to any group, the cutlass is unparalled in anti-convoy dps (providing you have the guts to sit on the convoy ), the wildfire is one of the most competent clearing tanks and great to solo with, and the spectre is not only the second most long-ranged tank, but also capable of impressive dps. But then we go to the other end of the spectrum. The corsair, as you all know, is the most tankiest tank, capable of absorbing more fire than any other tank, along with an impressive turret and the most potent offensive trigger in the game. And it's unlock level? 1. The avenger (4) is not only brutal at close quarters, with a dps that matches most and surpasses some of the 'rare' tanks, but also has a potent immobilize trigger and one of the most powerful disarm triggers in the game. The predator (6) is one of the most adaptle, all-rounded tanks in the game, being able to excell in any situation it's put in. The valkyrie (7) is one of the best tanks for clearing.

What I'm trying to say here is that yes, the rare tanks are worth it. They've gotta be, or else nobody will try for them. But what I'm also saying is that the cool, shiny rare tanks don't make the others any less useful or vital. I love dipping into the playstyles of the high-end cutlass and paladin, but you'll also see me (and other people who have everything) using tanks such as the avenger, predator, and corsair very frequently. You don't unlock tanks to get stronger. You unlock tanks to get more versatile. Someone who was confined to the first 5 levels of tanks could still be a very useful player.

[gingerbear]

A bit off topicing here (tank augs), but for the record I'd like to stay that my most beefy tanks (all 14 - 16 augs) are corsair, avenger, and spectre, two if which aren't that hard to get. Just like ql said, every tank is good in its own way (I still think phantom needs a buff, though), and it depends more on the individual playstyle of chosing a tank. Also for the record, with about a 6 hours intense play, you can easily meld up to level 12 -13 tanks (assuming you joined for convoys), and can level 9+ aug up an individual tank just from the drops (assuming you were clearing too for the low level augs). Which means that after a few intensive days of playing, the difference between olds and news are basically storage differences, experience, and about 3 - 4% bonus in augments, not all that relevant in terms of gameplay.

I agree with Ood regarding the low number of enemy towers. If the game provides a "target rich" environment, then maybe the single defects of the individual enemies become less important. GCT's got a loot nerf to avoid their cherry-picking, this has translated to deltas and super tanks, so is there a good solution to buff / nerf existing stuff? Maybe before dramatically rebalancing everything, we should add more content and see how it fares. (Well, and I maintain that the easiness comes from the increased number of players)

Also, +1 to the Drill having an actual drill. It would be a nice visual effect, and combining with the lore that towers are actually extracting material from the grid, it would be even a fitting element!

[A Nonny Muse]

Jul 12, 2013 23:54:50 GMT -5 quicklite said:

amitp just to more concisely answer your concerns:

a) Augments give you a 0.5 stat boost per augment. It costs a lot of VP, aug items, and time to get a tank at all stats auged by 10, and only the most expertise, veteran players can get a single tank's stats close to all 20. But say someone did (and someone probably will eventually) achieve all 20, which believe me would get a really, really long time. Their reward would be, well, a 10% stat boost on everytyhing. Okay, this is substantial, and will help said tank out, but will it completely seperate this tank from the masses in its strength? It will not. Augments are useful, but they'll only take you so far.

b) Well, I'm not gonna lie here, the rare tanks are pretty damn powerful. To give examples, the paladin is an incredible support tank, and a great asset to any group, the cutlass is unparalled in anti-convoy dps (providing you have the guts to sit on the convoy ), the wildfire is one of the most competent clearing tanks and great to solo with, and the spectre is not only the second most long-ranged tank, but also capable of impressive dps. But then we go to the other end of the spectrum. The corsair, as you all know, is the most tankiest tank, capable of absorbing more fire than any other tank, along with an impressive turret and the most potent offensive trigger in the game. And it's unlock level? 1. The avenger (4) is not only brutal at close quarters, with a dps that matches most and surpasses some of the 'rare' tanks, but also has a potent immobilize trigger and one of the most powerful disarm triggers in the game. The predator (6) is one of the most adaptle, all-rounded tanks in the game, being able to excell in any situation it's put in. The valkyrie (7) is one of the best tanks for clearing.

What I'm trying to say here is that yes, the rare tanks are worth it. They've gotta be, or else nobody will try for them. But what I'm also saying is that the cool, shiny rare tanks don't make the others any less useful or vital. I love dipping into the playstyles of the high-end cutlass and paladin, but you'll also see me (and other people who have everything) using tanks such as the avenger, predator, and corsair very frequently. You don't unlock tanks to get stronger. You unlock tanks to get more versatile. Someone who was confined to the first 5 levels of tanks could still be a very useful player.

From what I understand, the first few tanks are the most basic and the later ones are more unique. Like wildfire is similar to hurricane with different twist.

[Kelsoo]

I highly disagree and agree with watchtowers, while squares appearing underneath them is cheap, you should be able to see your health going down and have adequate reaction time to back up or Orgin. The mines should be re-worked but at the same time I could never blame the death on lag because it was my own fault, wanting to just be done with it.

I propose watchtowers spawn less mines in their final hours and add a slight health buff to them. I like watchtowers but they need some more work.

Drills are trivial but adding the ability for walls to turn just adds to the time to kill them and basic insta kills if you run straight in, and nobody would do them as they would take even longer because now you have to clear even more. I think one of the minion spawners should remain invincible until the Drill is dead so you have to focus on two things instead of taking out all the minion spawners thus making the Drill a cakewalk with rotation of the shields.

Delta's hardly ever spawn and when you do get one they can be fun with a few people. They need more health though and maybe move the spawners to the front so they swarm the outer shields faster.

I propose a security tower buff. As of now all you have to do is take out a single laser then the corresponding wall and now you're only dealing with the turret like in Drills. I realize they are supposed to make chasing convoys harder, but it's rare anyone chases them very far in anyways.

For the buff maybe adding a supply station to the main turret in the same vain as super tanks but this could be annoying, maybe adding a mini explosion for every 6 seconds to the main turret so you are forced to move out instead?

Super tanks are far to easy to solo and can be farmed for easy pulches, I think a nerf on their loot or a buff to the turret guns and then take away a small portion of the minions can do. The minons are easy to take care of if you just rotate shields then retreat to shield back up.