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Topics - Imrin

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1
Closed bugs / [Map] Barrels of Fun trap
« on: September 30, 2013, 10:46:40 pm »


This was a 1 vs 1 match. This is primarily just to inform people to not use this part of Hinkley until this is fixed. If you do get stuck in it, use ~suicide.

2
Closed suggestions / Weapon viability in PvP
« on: September 29, 2013, 02:25:46 am »
I'll start by stating an absolute: Avengers are the only viable weapon in PvP currently.
EDIT: Avengers and rocket launchers. My most insincere apologies to the single guy who absolutely had to whine about this to me even though that's not the point of this thread.

Expanding, viability of weapons is a matter of weighing usefulness to availability. Avengers are commonplace and perhaps one of the easiest Big Guns to get. They are currently the highest damaging weapon in the game all things considered, ergo they are the most prevalent in PvP. Balancing these is not necessarily an issue of their damage or immediate usefulness in PvP but also their availability. Consider how easy they are to find as loot from various sources and to craft, consider their range, damage, and how commonplace the ammunition is with even better conditions. Now it becomes obvious that all other weapons are discouraged from use in PvP, which leads to the act of fighting other players being incredibly uninteresting and devoid of diversity.

Specifically, the issue of weapon viability in PvP is also an issue of economy, where gross weapon availability nets the constant use of the best possible weapons: avenger miniguns. Fixing the economy will make great strides in increasing weapon diversity in PvP. Actually balancing all of the weapons is another way to go about it, which I'm definitely a supporter of. Currently weapons in general do far too much damage for any semblance of tactics to be viable. It's currently a matter of standing in a firing line and waiting in the case of defense, and in the case of offense locating said firing line and attacking it from the side. Everyone uses an Avenger and a rocket launcher or they aren't viable.

How these weapons are actually balanced appears to be entirely up to the developers, being aware that most the community is heavily biased. Although not the purpose of this thread, I'd like to recommend all BGs force walking. Big Gun users would become far more stationary and their role in PvP would be different, rather than making Small Gun users redundant, or Energy Weapon users worthless. It would encourage the use and effectiveness of ambushes, and even a wealth of availability of big guns would not cause them to overshadow all other weapons.

3
Closed suggestions / Advice for improving the economy
« on: September 29, 2013, 01:50:24 am »
Due to the economy, private mines are now commonplace. This should not be balanced around permanently as an inevitable wipe will reset this assuming that the then-economy would be stable. If we account for this, however, it's evident that without reducing the frequency of HQ ore as it is now, even further reduced sale prices will not balance the mass sale of Good Metal Parts as even a stack of 500 is trivial to the massive amounts that private mines provide. Furthermore, the current use of private mines is to supply an entire faction with resources adequate to equip all of its members. For this, it makes little sense that only a single player has access to this mine, and hugely encourages the use of slaves in these private mines such that one player is in control of an enormous amount of worth for an entire faction. Of course, the actual investment of 70k for a private mine is currently trivial, which creates a self-sustaining cash flow of Private Mine -> HQ ore -> Good Metal Parts -> Extended Cap. Battery -> Caps -> Private Mine, which results in a massive surplus of caps and resources. This process should be inhibited to improve the economy, the changes of which should eventually be reverted after the ideal economy is achieved or a wipe is enacted. Players who have exploited the unbalanced areas of the game will be at an enormous advantage during this time but this will not be an issue as these are otherwise inept players.

I recommend: Treat private mines as an additional faction base, requiring a faction for their creation, and adding a faction terminal to the private mine. With this, you can increase the cost of private mines without discouraging their use. After easier changes, this should be a priority, as it's an enormous contributor to the current state of the economy. Reducing the length of private mines to 1 week from 2 temporarily should also help to sort this economic issue out, requiring the mines to be purchased more frequently as an entire faction endeavor, making the cost more reasonable. Current private player-owned mines should remain unchanged until depleted.

4
Problem: Private mines provide far more HQ ore than anything else. Although not necessarily a balance issue initially, this means that HQ ore is commonplace and, therefore, so are items derivative of HQ ore. This is the chief contributor to the use of Good Metal Parts, Extended Cap. Batteries, and whatever else is being used to make absurd amounts of caps. This also means that regular ore and minerals are rarer than HQ ore and minerals while the reverse should be true.

Steps to recreate:
1. Obtain a private mine.
2. Either mine resources manually or use slaves to do it.
3. Observe as gathered resources are mostly HQ ore. The very low amount of regular ore and minerals reduces the ability to craft PvP gear, which implicitly discourages it while the focus of this server is on PvP.

Solution: Increase the frequency of normal ore and mineral nodes in private mines, reduce the frequency of HQ ore and slightly reduce the frequency of HQ minerals.

5
Closed bugs / [Balance][Exploit] Extended Cap. Batteries sale prices
« on: September 29, 2013, 01:00:18 am »
Problem: Extended cap batteries require only 1 good metal part and sell for a price comparable to the pre-nerf good metal parts. The use of Extended Capacitor batteries to bypass the Good Metal Parts nerf has become commonplace. I have tested this personally as well have killed many "traders" carrying 50+ extended cap batteries to various towns to sell to various traders for all of their caps. This practice further exacerbates the issue of the broken economy in Reloaded and should be quickly and swiftly remedied.

Steps to recreate:
1. Obtain Good Metal Parts.
2. Obtain EW Crafter level 2 - a small investment.
3. Craft Good Metal Parts into Extended Cap Batteries at an advanced workbench.
4. Sell Extended Cap Batteries to a merchant which accepts them.
5. Observe as they sell for a far greater amount than their actual worth and a price comparable to pre-nerf Good Metal Parts.

Solution 1: Nerf the sale price of Extended Cap Batteries.
Solution 2: Increase the crafting requirements of Extended Cap Batteries.

Screenshot:

6
Closed bugs / [Exploit] Front Faction
« on: September 28, 2013, 06:10:11 am »
The current punishment scheme for cheating players permits a certain number of bans before their faction is banned from TC. At this point, those factions can simply create a new one or have a front faction that serves the same purpose but is supported by members of the (otherwise would be) banned factions. This already appears to be occurring.

Problem: To avoid their factions being banned for cheating, players have created front factions which they support. These factions collect TC loot and otherwise serve the same purpose, and are used to entirely bypass punishment as well as a number of other benefits.
Steps to recreate:
1. Be banned multiple times.
2. Realize that further cheating will incur a punishment of banning faction from TC.
3. Devise underhanded, delusional plan to avoid being punished, rather than simply not cheating anymore.
4. Create a new faction and support it in PvP, likely utilizing dual logging and cheating itself to start a TC counter and hide within the TC zone.
5. Actual PvPers dying does not matter as front faction continues taking the town and are hidden somewhere.
6. Bans are avoided, efforts of moderation is insulted.
7. Observe as cheaters are, in fact, 100% pure human refuse totally incapable of good sportsmanship or participating on an even playing field in a competitive environment.

Solution:
Recognize front factions and the purpose they serve. Punish the use as seen fit.

7
Closed bugs / [Exploit] Sneaking prevents damage
« on: September 23, 2013, 01:37:49 am »
Problem: Damage can be prevented by successfully sneaking within the ping time of the attacker. This still consumes their AP because attacking is client-side, whereas server-side the damage is not registered due to the person being attacked having a different state (not visible). Where a player may be pursuing a sneaker, if they stop to attack, the sneaker has the opportunity to move out of range and automatically sneak successfully again, mitigating any damage from their pursuer. Invisible cannot be hit whereas visible can, so within the ping time of the attacker if the sneaker switches states, the attack will not hit.

Steps to recreate:
1. Create an environment where one player (player 1 henceforth) has a steady, high ping.
2. Have another player (player 2 henceforth) with 300% sneak or some guarantee for successful sneak.
3. Have player 1 attack player 2.
4. Before the data can be sent to the server, have player 2 sneak.
5. Observe as Player 2 takes no damage but player 1 loses their AP.

This problem manifests mostly as chasing a sneaker and being unable to damage them despite having a clear shot client-side, but the above will prove the presence of the issue in a more controlled environment.

Proposed workaround 1: Seeing a sneaker disables their sneak and it is not automatically activated when they would have a successful sneak. The sneaker will know that they have been caught as they will no longer be transparent, a cue that they must move elsewhere and resneak.

Proposed workaround 2: Calculate AP reduction after ammo reduction. This prevents the AP being sapped with no damage done. (implies AP is deducted after server registers hit.)

Proposed workaround 3: Play animation after ammo reduction. This prevents the attack animation from inhibiting a player with a ping higher than their opponent from hitting said opponent. (Implies animation is played after server registers hit.)

Personal experience: Although a frequent problem, it was most notable in tonight's TC when a sneaker survived a wealth of gunfire that would have killed him a hundred times over because he was at such a distance from his pursuers that by the time they played the animation to attack him, he was already far enough out from their FOV that he would have a successful sneak, so he was marked as invisible and not damageable. This was later tested with other sneakers in an isolated setting, with my having 400 ping providing convenient conditions for testing. This is the only time I have ever benefited from my ISP being incompetent.

Solution: Permit damage to invisible players by other players. Invisible players cannot be targeted by other players anyway, so if an attack is directed at them then it should register. Disabling damage to invisible players is redundant.

8
The Thunderdome / Forum PvP
« on: September 20, 2013, 03:23:40 pm »
Others may have screens of the 6-7 other NetLoss we killed, but this is the only screen I got.

That was TTTLA and Shortbus, not NetLoss.

I was even AFK and we ruined another faction. Lol.

ForgottenSoldier, don't even bother against someone with Metal Armor MK2 if you're using a gatling laser. This is why me and my companions wear the stuff. Consider a different build.

9
Problem:
Slaves set to mine in a private mine disappear from said mine if the owner of said slaves logs off inside said mine. Slaves reappear in party when owner goes to map but are entirely gone from the mine upon fully logging off, where slaves stop serving their purpose of mining as a result.

To reproduce:
1. Go to private mine with owned slaves.
2. Tell them to mine resources.
3. Log off.
4. Log back on, observe as slaves are absent and therefore not mining.
5. Go to map, observe as slaves populate party.
6. Investigate inventories of slaves, observe as inventories do not possess appropriate resources.

Workaround:
Do not log off inside of your private mine when you intend for your slaves to mine resources in it.

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