Author Topic: 0.905 out now.  (Read 4796 times)

Offline orzelek

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,096
Re: 0.905 out now.
« Reply #30 on: September 11, 2013, 11:00:33 am »
I'm not sure I agree with Lion's Den's.
I tried only one tho and it was quite early.. but all the bots were in 2 large rooms with small corridor on side of one room.
Starting position was safe but to move anywhere applied use of rockets was needed. And later use of a bit sneaky tactics.. after I lost my assault to DoomBot I think with one shot.

Increased ranges on enemies will mean you will be forced to take damage. It might not be large problem on Easy/Normal - but are you sure it's a good idea for Hard and above?
From what I noticed you can't really stealth out on each encounter and if bots have 1 range less then your ones... it will get into tricky areas. Having range increaser as required components on all bot weapons makes for a bit.. dull equipment :D

My main issue would be the sight range. It can't be increased and you can hit further than this quite easily - maybe reconsider range increases and instead do some range reductions on long ranged weapons for both players and bots. Making base laser to range of 8 looked like making things easier and from what I noticed it did.

Offline Misery

  • Arcen Volunteer
  • Core Member Mark V
  • *****
  • Posts: 4,109
Re: 0.905 out now.
« Reply #31 on: September 11, 2013, 11:23:07 am »
I'm not sure I agree with Lion's Den's.
I tried only one tho and it was quite early.. but all the bots were in 2 large rooms with small corridor on side of one room.
Starting position was safe but to move anywhere applied use of rockets was needed. And later use of a bit sneaky tactics.. after I lost my assault to DoomBot I think with one shot.

Increased ranges on enemies will mean you will be forced to take damage. It might not be large problem on Easy/Normal - but are you sure it's a good idea for Hard and above?
From what I noticed you can't really stealth out on each encounter and if bots have 1 range less then your ones... it will get into tricky areas. Having range increaser as required components on all bot weapons makes for a bit.. dull equipment :D

My main issue would be the sight range. It can't be increased and you can hit further than this quite easily - maybe reconsider range increases and instead do some range reductions on long ranged weapons for both players and bots. Making base laser to range of 8 looked like making things easier and from what I noticed it did.

Hmm, for Hard and above, I do think it's a good idea; you're supposed to be making good use of equipment on those difficulties after all, so the way you build up your team is important.  There are many items that can increase the range of your weapons, and with careful setup you can get long range and a decent to heavy attack value.   On my current team, the range values of most of my weapons is 9-12.   Even the Welding Laser and Kinetic Burst are at 5, which is the lowest range I have, and the Science Exo's Laser Rifle comes in at a totally unnecessary 13.   This is WITH the high attack values that I'd mentioned earlier in the thread.  EDIT:  And this is well before the midpoint on this particular game.

That being said, range isnt everything, and there's plenty of other ways you can go about different situations, some of which may often be less risky depending on what's going on and what you're fighting.   You can use Sentries to distract and add damage, you could try to get a couple of reprogrammed bots into a crowded room to deal some damage for you, you can lure things into strings of mines (or trick them into running into their own mines).  And of course you can use the walls and layout to your advantage, as well as using the enemy's quirks and bugs to your advantage.  The high ranges on my stuff is mostly just my preferred playstyle/tactics. 

Increasing enemy range a bit wont make things impossible, and I dont think it forces the player to jam nothing but range-increasers on their weapons, particularly as a number of weapons have a nice starting range as-is.  It'll be dependant on the player's own playstyle and tactics as well as the team they've chosen and the roles those Exos are playing..   
« Last Edit: September 11, 2013, 11:30:45 am by Misery »

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: 0.905 out now.
« Reply #32 on: September 11, 2013, 12:09:54 pm »
Right, pretty much what Misery said.  You still outrange most enemies, but what this does is give some of them a chance to land some shots if you approach too many of them at once.  This encourages the use of either range-increasing stuff for your weapons, or the use of halls and other blind alleys, or the use of mines or turrets, or the use of stealth, or simply the judicious selection of which targets you hit first.  Or how you use AOE.  Or cover.

In other words, I think that it creates a pain point which has not one, but many solutions, which is the idea.  We'll see how it bears out in testing, but so far with my playing on Hard for testing purposes it feels pretty natural.  I'm not playing full missions at the moment, though.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

 

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk