Looking great Dragon

A few more ideas yet again:
1) Allow attack, follow, and stay commands for pets.

I took a look at the monster summoning code a bit and noticed that Szlat had already implemented these features. Not sure if he intended to follow through with it or not, but it doesn't hurt to have more control over your pets! I'll probably turn these into artifacts since that's the most simple way for me.

The attack command works like the auto sentinels; pets will attack whatever target you're looking at. The stay command simply sets the pet's speed to 0, so your pet becomes a sitting duck (could be useful, you never know). The follow command is actually what is normal now -- on default, your pets follow you unless it sees an enemy. So it's a bit of a misnomer and could be renamed to "Normal Mode" or something like that.

And at the request of a particular summoner class critic (*coughGavcough*), I'll allow the teleporting function on pets to be toggleable. All of these would most likely be for Summoners only. So we're looking at at least four new artifacts for Summoners (Attack, Stay, Normal Mode, Toggle Teleport).

2) Allow a "Target Lock" artifact for Auto Engineers

The player's crosshair will lock on to a monster so that your Auto sentinels will keep firing at it(especially Stinger sentinels since they seem to stop firing once your crosshair is off-target, but that's a different issue for me to solve). Is it cheating? Sort of.. especially if you use hitscan weapons like shock or lightning. You can use the AVRiL this way too though, and at least with a Target Lock artifact, you can use different weapons.

I'll make it so that if you use Target Lock, your weapon damage will decrease, but your sentinel damage will increase. Once the target is killed or when Target Lock is deactivated, revert back to normal weapon damage and normal sentinel damage. This will allow Auto Engineers to go back and forth between weapon and sentinels, and enhances that 'mechanized-weapon' play style.

3)Improve core stats for ClassicRPG

Since these guys don't get anything besides the upcoming weapon upgrades, we could give them abilities similar to Advanced DB and DR that just simply enhances the other core stats like weapon speed, health, adrenaline and ammo. Nothing too large, 10% - 15% tops. Players will need to max out the stat first before buying the ability, and I'll make it the same for Adv DB and DR.

With the weapon upgrades, rather than giving them all at once like Loaded Weapons, I'll make each weapon available at a particular level. So you can get the Upgraded Lightning Gun at level 25, the Upgraded Bio Rifle at 35, and so on (and yes, Lightning Gun would most likely be low-leveled since there wasn't much room for me to make non-large changes). I won't be doing non-standard weapons like Minelayer or Grenade Launcher, and no super weapons too. Those should all be WM stuff.

4) Make Base Builders more defensive and Engi Weaponry more offensive
Alright, so both of these subclasses need to be tweaked, and I'm not satisfied with how both are playing. My goal is to make it so if there is a Builder and a Weaponry on at the same time, there will be synergy between the two, but if playing individually, will still be able to be self-sustainable, as all subclasses in all classes should (otherwise, why even play it?).

What I want to do is encourage Builders to take on more of a "repairman" role. I really don't like having the Ball Turret for this class -- it just does too much damage, even with the recent turret nerf. IIRC, Base Specialist on old DC only had a Minigun turret. What I'd like to do is replace the Ball Turret with a lower-damage Plasma Turret (so Energy, Mini, and Plasma), and keep the Ball exclusive to Weaponry. And to encourage that "repairman" role, here's what I'll do for Builders:
1) increase the XP-per-hit value for defense sentinels
2) give an ability to reduce damage on constructions from Tech monsters. An "Anti-Virus" ability of sorts (creative, eh?)
3) give a "Link Bomb" artifact that will heal constructions for a period of time
4) reduce turret damage to promote linking

For Weaponry, the problem is there isn't enough risk. With 3-4 def sents and seven blocks, you can still make a solid base as long as you're in a corner or hideyhole. Lets:
1) Make defense sentinels less effective: so decrease the range, decrease the rate, the XP, etc.
2) OR, limit to 2 def sents. I think a combination of 1) and 2) would be too much of a nerf.
3) Limit to 5 blocks
4) Increase Armor Regen and Vampire so that despite a sucky base, you can still be self-sustaining.
5) And of course, nerf the Solar Turret and Odin Turret.

So with these changes, Builders will have very solid bases, but lack firepower (only up to Mini/Plasma turret, reduced turret damage if using). Weaponry will have firepower and turret sustainability, but lack defense (inefficient defense sents, limited blocks, lowered construction HP). If played individually, they can get by, but together, a Builder and a Weaponry should kick some monster ***.

And of course, I do have new turrets in the works, so Engi Weaponry won't be limited to Ball/Odin/Solar.

Those are what I have for now, please comment. As an update on progress, I'm just about finished with the weapons section, so all the Upgraded weapons for ClassicRPG and a few of the new grenades and mine deployers for the Explosives class. Dragon is still working on the modeling for the Rail Gun which will be a Sniper subclass addition, but I have the firing properties and function down.

With the Mine Deployer, it'll interact with a Detonator Artifact as I mentioned before. The mine sticks to any surface including walls and ceilings, and alt-fire simply undeploys the mines rather than explodes them. There is a Bio Detonator, Flak Detonator, Frost Detonator (more dmg to fire monsters), Wildfire Detonator(more dmg to ice monsters, and points if you get the reference), Shock Detonator which will electrocute nearby monsters and do more damage to tech monsters, and Link Detonator which is non-damaging but heals nearby constructions for a small time.

Finally started on the RPG portion, which will probably be the largest and most time-consuming. I recently finished the detonator artifacts for the Explosives subclass, along with some abilities that will grant the artifacts and the weapon.

"You've heard of wildfire?"

"Of course."

"The Mad King was obsessed with it. He loved to watch people burn, the way their skin blackened and blistered and melted off their bones. He burned lords he didn't like. He burned Hands who disobeyed him. He burned anyone who was against him. Before long, half the country was against him. Aerys saw traitors everywhere. So he had his pyromancer place caches of wildfire all over the city. Beneath the Sept of Baelor and the slums of Flea Bottom. Under houses, stables, taverns. Even beneath the Red Keep itself."









Would've looked a bit more destructive if I turned my decals on

Impressive! Very nice job

Thanks Spike! I'll post more screenies as I go along.

I had a new movement idea for the new AM subclass, and that's to allow players to move more quickly when submerged in water. Of course, this is very limited since it depends on the map, and even if there is a water volume, it's usually a small pond of sorts. But there are maps like Highlander, BoomBoomBridge, Grotto, ArcaneTemple, UrbanBay, Angkor, etc. where this can be useful.

We could also give players immunity from drowning, maybe some damage reduction while in water, and have them do more damage with lightning-based artifacts and weapons.

So the types of movements we have then are flight (good for fall off maps), teleport (good in most maps), and aquatics(good in those few water maps).

As an update on progress, I'm still working on the Explosives class but I feel like I am nearly finished. Next project will probably be the drones for Auto Engi and some more auto sentinels.

Everything seems great so far, very nice screenshots, and nice of you to update us on your progress.
Can't really say I don't agree with the majority of your ideas 1)2)3)4), as they sound reasonable, with a minor exception:

Engineer Weaponry nerf needs to be substantial, and with 2 Dsents, 5 blocks, you're pretty much at the same spot as you are now, if using 2 offensive sentinels alongside your Dsents. I think doing only one of the nerfs (Dsent variants) will barely have an impact. Maybe the class might even get more survivability if you only do 1 of the Dsent variant nerfs now that more Regen and Vamp will be provided. This could be a huge issue.

As for the Base Engineer I have an idea: Overhealing Shield. Basically how the Healer can heal you 100 over your maximum health, the BaseEngineer could potentially "overshield" you with 50/100shield over your maximum capacity (stacks with Shields up!). Thus the BaseEngineer would also get slightly more xp for healing shield, and thus have a yet again, more supportive role. If you don't want "overshielding" then you could slightly increase the xp for Shieldhealing for BaseEngineers.

Movement Ideas:
Pounce/Leap: Basically it is like a big forward dodge, but in the direction you're looking. So if you were to look straight up, you'd be doing a big dodge upwards. Look at a 45degree angle, and you could leap quite far, both into and away from danger.
Skiing: Basically just a flat % increase in movement speed, but to balance it, every surface you are on will be slippery (much alike the ice in 'SnowBoundPark'). Will be effecient in most, if not all maps, and the slippery mechanic is not a dealbreaker. (Could potentially also increase your speed beyond the maximum if going downhill, keeping momentum?)

Also, as a suggestion for the 'Aquatic movement' type, you should probably look into negating (disabling) water "colour" as the UED specify it as. Basically the underwater "colour"/fog that prevents you from seeing far is what I am talking about.

Magic affixes on Weapons:
Poison: Re-introduce poison, but slightly altered. Burn currently does 35x4 damage (35ish damage per 'tick', 3 or 4 ticks approx. not sure of exact values) of burn damage.
Poison however could be set to poison targets over a long period of time, say 5x20 damage (5 damage per 'tick', 20 'ticks). This will be great for high waves with lots of big monsters, and particularly great for low level players who can easily acquire some extra XP like this. (Also, it'd be neat if you could re-introduce the poison effect so you know which monsters are poisoned, like burn has a burn effect) both for this and for poisonblast.
Force:Currently one of the least used magic affixes, as it does not offer much. I suggest buffing it, with a property from the Mercury Launcher. Each + will increase the chance of the projectile penetrating the monster(s). Since it shoots forcefully, I think it would make sense, for it to also impact forcefully. The mechanic could also be set to "will penetrate after moving x distance" like it is with the Mercury Launcher.
Infinite/Solarpower/(Medic):
LinkGun: Should be able to be Infinite/Solarpower. It is a highly sought out weapon, and is simply not fair it is exclusive to the, in my opinion, already highly controversial Engineer class. The problem is clearly not that the LinkGun is too powerful for these affixes, but more likely the problem with players linking Engineer's turrets etc. for easy XP. Which is why I think, TurretLinking should be changed so you ONLY receive XP for it, if the weapon you are using is an Engineer LinkGun. Any other LinkGun will not grant XP for TurretLinking.
Utility Rifle: The shield is not that big, and having an infinite version of it is nowhere near gamebreaking. Would make for a great weapon on any wave, particularly on higher waves if you are running to a base and have no time to pick up weapons. Makes little sense as to why it is not possible as of now.
ShieldGun: Look above. If you are lucky enough to get a ShieldGun of infinity, you deserve the protection.

Lastly: Perhaps a new ability for ClassicRPG as it is still a very bareboned class; Adrenal Effeciency (or something like that).
Basically, for every AdrenalinePill you pick up you receive 1 extra Adrenaline. (so 2 is standard - 3,4,5,6 per pill). AM's don't really need this, and ClassicRPG is more focused on running around, making the most of the map and the pickups. And since most maps don't offer many AdrenalinePills, it won't have a big impact, but certainly a nice one.
These abilities already exist for health (Smart Healing), more ammo on pickup (Max Ammo Bonus), and more shield on pickup iirc (Shields Up!), so why not Adrenaline as well?

nickgavran wrote:
Engineer Weaponry nerf needs to be substantial, and with 2 Dsents, 5 blocks, you're pretty much at the same spot as you are now, if using 2 offensive sentinels alongside your Dsents. I think doing only one of the nerfs (Dsent variants) will barely have an impact. Maybe the class might even get more survivability if you only do 1 of the Dsent variant nerfs now that more Regen and Vamp will be provided. This could be a huge issue.
We'll do things one at a time. If it seems like they need further nerfing after one of the def-sent change, then I'll do another.

nickgavran wrote:
As for the Base Engineer I have an idea: Overhealing Shield. Basically how the Healer can heal you 100 over your maximum health, the BaseEngineer could potentially "overshield" you with 50/100shield over your maximum capacity (stacks with Shields up!). Thus the BaseEngineer would also get slightly more xp for healing shield, and thus have a yet again, more supportive role. If you don't want "overshielding" then you could slightly increase the xp for Shieldhealing for BaseEngineers.
No shielding beyond the Shields Up! max since it takes away from medics and healers. Higher XP is a possibility though for Builders.

nickgavran wrote:
Infinite/Solarpower/(Medic):
LinkGun: Should be able to be Infinite/Solarpower. It is a highly sought out weapon, and is simply not fair it is exclusive to the, in my opinion, already highly controversial Engineer class. The problem is clearly not that the LinkGun is too powerful for these affixes, but more likely the problem with players linking Engineer's turrets etc. for easy XP. Which is why I think, TurretLinking should be changed so you ONLY receive XP for it, if the weapon you are using is an Engineer LinkGun. Any other LinkGun will not grant XP for TurretLinking.
Not sure where you're getting your info from. Infinity was removed from the link gun to improve server performance -- not my choice but Szlat's. That's how turret linking is already. You only receive XP if you are linking a turret with an engineer link. No other class can do that.

nickgavran wrote:
Lastly: Perhaps a new ability for ClassicRPG as it is still a very bareboned class; Adrenal Effeciency (or something like that).
Basically, for every AdrenalinePill you pick up you receive 1 extra Adrenaline. (so 2 is standard - 3,4,5,6 per pill). AM's don't really need this, and ClassicRPG is more focused on running around, making the most of the map and the pickups. And since most maps don't offer many AdrenalinePills, it won't have a big impact, but certainly a nice one.
These abilities already exist for health (Smart Healing), more ammo on pickup (Max Ammo Bonus), and more shield on pickup iirc (Shields Up!), so why not Adrenaline as well?
If I do make an ability for this, it'll be available to all classes just like Shields Up or Smart Healing.

Laser Mine Deployer for Explosives subclass:




Drones for Auto Engi:


The drones will closely follow and circle around the player, so the pictures are a bit misleading in this regard.

I've taken a small break from Engineers and have started redoing the Necromancer subclass. I also want to approach this class differently in terms of its role.

First order of business was 'zombifying' resurrected players into a revenant state. When you are resurrected, you will move slowly as if frozen, but you're also invulnerable - basically like a green skeleton minion (you'll glow green too!).

Instead of rewarding 40 XP to Necromancers for using the resurrect artifact, the Necromancer will instead receive XP as a percentage of how much the revenant player scored during his zombified state.

Here's where things are different:

The revenant state will be for a certain amount of time. Say 30 seconds to a minute (changes with Loaded Necromancer ability). After that time, the revenant player is sent back to death.

So the huge change here is that players don't actually get resurrected. If you are resurrected, you'll die after the timer is up. You are essentially the Necromancer's pawn, under their control.

If the Necromancer dies, anyone in a revenant state will also die(like Sorcerers and their skeleton minions). If a new wave starts while you're a revenant, your revenant state will end and you'll be "alive" again. Necromancers will not be able to resurrect other Necromancers.

So, for instance, it's wave 16. The Necromancer is the only one alive. He resurrects two players during that time. Those players will respawn as if they're alive, but once the timer runs out, they die again. If the Necromancer dies, they all die and the game is over. The Necromancer is essentially the only one alive.

I think this approach better balances out the game. Once players are dead, they should stay dead(especially since we have Ghost and Engineers). It's a win-win situation as well- dead players get to earn XP, and Necromancers get their share of XP and additional help, as if the players were pets themselves. Of course, there will need to be some counter balances as well, such as a limited number of revenants allowed, and lower damage for revenants so they don't get as much XP while dead, etc.

What a revenant will look like:

No crazy visuals, changing player models into zombie-skeletons would be beyond me.

A chain is linked between the resurrected player and the Necromancer as a visual for the player to see who the Necromancer is and to quickly find them. It's in the player's best interest to help out the Necromancer. Additionally, if you are a medic, engi, or have sphere artifacts, you can heal your Necromancer while in the revenant state to help balance out the fact that XP to the Necromancer is score-based (so resurrecting a Healer or Medineer would've been useless).

Next up on the list are the 'Life Drain' artifacts where Necromancers can drain a monster's HP and add it to theirs, like vampire. Visually, it would probably look the same as above, except with a red chain between a monster and the Necromancer. So probably no screenie for that(and sorry for the image spam, but I'm assuming most of you don't mind )

Extremely busy with life responsibilities at the moment, so I haven't made much progress this past week and most likely won't next week either

Several points to this post:

1) I managed to conjure a 'Life Drain' and 'Mass Drain' skill for Necromancers. I renamed Life Drain to Decay to differentiate between the names a bit.

Not very happy with these at the moment, and the culprit is in the balancing. These skills are supposed to replace Vampire and Resupply to shift Necromancers away from a WM-like gameplay.

Decay will drain a target's HP indefinitely until it is either dead, the Necromancer is dead, or the distance between the target and Necromancer is out of range. The HP decay is at fast intervals but in small amounts, and it adds to the Necromancer's health, 1 for 1 at 100%.

Mass Drain is similar, but it hits all enemies within the Necromancer's radius just once. The damage is a percentage of the target's max HP, currently around 20%. There is a cool down timer on this skill. HP gain is also 1 for 1, so 100%.

None of these skills, which are artifacts, cost adrenaline. These will be the primary ways for Necromancers to survive. Also takes care of the problem for substituting resupply.

What I'm getting boggled down on is deciding how much damage and HP return these skills should do. It is essentially like Vampire- damage a monster and convert it to HP. The only difference is that Vampire is weapons-based at a max of 50% HP return, and Necromancers are artifact based at 100% HP return.

Damage per second (DPS) on Decay is around 20-25. Mass Drain DPS is variable since it's a % damage and there are multiple targets, but with a 10 second cool down. 20-25 DPS is so small when the lowest weapon DPS is the Lightning Gun at around 40. Vampire is better in this sense. However, because of 100% health return, you are getting 20-25 HP per second through Decay. Considering Necromancers are so killable, 20-25 HP regeneration might seem reasonable, especially since you have to stay within the target's radius or the chain will break, but at the moment, a Necromancer can decay up to 3 targets at a time, so that's 60-75 HP regeneration. Is that too much? Even considering that the Necromancer must stay within range, or the Decay will lose effect? I sort of think so, but these things are more easily conclusive through lots of playing.

So my dilemma here is balancing out the DPS and the regeneration per second. Should I make Decay and Mass Drain similar to Vampire so that there is some balance between DPS and HP regen? Or should the role of Necromancers be restricted to resurrecting- and not killing? (and thus warranting a lower DPS but higher HP return as currently is).

Let me know about ideas/suggestions. If inconclusive, I'll probably go with the flow and throw it on the server and then tweak in later 206 A, B, C versions.

2) Base Builders and Engineer Weaponry

I've been thinking about how I want to approach this.

From a few posts ago, I mentioned that my goal for these subclasses were to be survivable enough on their own, but together create synergy by maximizing in their respective attributes (defense or offense).

I had the idea of creating a "symbiotic link" between a Builder and Weaponry. So when a Builder and Weaponry are on but unlinked, they'll have normal attributes similar to a normal Engineer. So normal weapon damage, normal turret/sentinel damage. They'll still have their unique constructions and point amounts.

Once they link up via a Symbitoic Link artifact(point at player and activate), the attributes for that subclass will apply. So a Weaponry will get a boost in sentinel and turret damage, but weaker weapon damage, slower/less efficient defense sentinels, and weaker blocks. Builders will get less weapon, sentinel, and turret damage (yikes), but a boost in defense sentinel efficiency, construction HP, and shield XP/link XP, and immunity/damage reduction to Techs. I'll need to make sure that XP return for Builders is commensurate with that of Weaponry.

If either of them die, the link is broken, and the surviving player goes back to the normal attributes. Also have it so they have to stick together, within a radius, or the link will break, otherwise it'll be exploitable.

The point here is to make it so linking up will always be more desirable than unlinking. I could go for a slightly lower multiplier when unlinked (20% less in all kinds of damages for example), and then use the subclass multipliers when linked. But again, they need to be survivable on their own.