[R#186] T#186-T#197 Patch Discussion

**walkman** · 29-04-14, 04:49

I had review my vision situation with DoTs. I suppose what we have in current time on Titan is acceptable behavior for current, so called "broken", DoT system. We no need to warry about mobs on Veedena and focus on PvP part. After that you should to able to adjust damage for mobs. Because, when DoT works as we wish then mobs, of course. deals a lot of damages. It is ok.

Also, may be I am wrong here and I need to check my idea. Perhaps, DoT bypass armor and stat resistance. If you are sure that is wrong, then, seems to be we need to decrease DoT damage to acceptable levels. And everything will be fine.

Next. About Steiner 1.0 and stun effect. In future are you plan to add correct behavior for this effect? I will be glad to see its re-worked. I see this like that. Suppose effect should decrease char stats, such ATH/AGI. And if this effect would be stackable, then with more stacks the player char will move slower and slower. This is all that we (at least me) expect. Of course some mobs will cause this effect too. As I know warbots throw shock effect, and this is why warbies so slow.

I think no one believed that we will be so close to right behavior of weapons. DoT it is not exception, we just was not prepared to see it working almostly perfect. Also you should note, that DoT is damage which does not requires any skills except run far away. The hunter need just cover in safe place and wait while victim is dying. Of course, victim should use antidotes and antishockers. And all these tools already is present in game. So, we going on right way.

And do not be angry if I said obvious things.

Thanks!

P.S. Please fix fall damage. It is not fun.

**Sevendust** · 29-04-14, 12:14

THe main problem still with APUs is the buggyness of the new spell no-miss aiming. It seems if you fire too fast (clicking again right when it's ready to cast another), it'll bug & take 2 - 2.5X the normal cast time. Like a long fizzle, except it actually damages at the end. Problem is it happens alot.

**Alduin** · 03-05-14, 10:43

T#191 is live! Shields and heals have been rebalanced. Also the overall damage output has been lowered by a factor of ~ 2. Please focus testing on PvP in general and keep in mind: we dont have pure DoT weapons. All weapons which deal DoT usually only deal a minor DoT effect. Read their descriptions carefully!

**lawless** · 03-05-14, 18:23

So i just made a character on the testserver. Twilight Guardian because.. fun and stuff..
I like the transportation right out of the MC5 to plaza 1. Yet i forgot to take the generep there, marched for the SUPER HARD MISSION guy and got killed by the rat. I haven't got killed by a rat in years.

Alright, back at the canyon (remember - no generep taken at plaza 1, how unthoughtful of me

), i jumped down towards the next staircase like i always did. Then i died.

Alright, back at the canyon i took the stairs down to the generep, activated that stuff, jumped in the railing of the stairway to have a better look down, tripped and then i died.

Alright, back at the canyon i looked for an exit to plaza 1, now tired of looking and making another character (no to remember to get plaza 1 generep

).

When did the death-by-fall be activated again?

**lawless** · 03-05-14, 19:49

You may have some problems with your code regarding the checks on how much damage a runner will take in an fall. I just slided like 2 metres in the wastelands and ended up dead (tank, nearly capped).

What i do like for now is the balance aligned to the techlevel of the items, which will hopefully give a push to pistols and melee again. I would propose to set the alignment free with the next retail patch.

Regardless the overall damage output of a tank is now 1 / 3rd of what it has been on retail:
Creed 32.864 -> 11562
SP CA Plasma Wave 28.500 -> 10.790

With that in mind, do not forget to balance PVE also. Make them do less damage if you want to keep their health (which has been greatly pushed when BDoY arrived as far as i remember).

For PVP balance the TL-alignment is alright.. yes there is some need of minor adjustments for resist skills and armor - i just do not think you will be able to do that from the minimal data you get from the testserver.

Keep up the good work though, i like what i've seen so far

**Bragi** · 04-05-14, 04:55

Originally Posted by lawless

You may have some problems with your code regarding the checks on how much damage a runner will take in an fall. I just slided like 2 metres in the wastelands and ended up dead (tank, nearly capped).

We are aware of the problem; Due to some background changes the base fall damage value was increased. It should be fixed before anything hits retail.

With that in mind, do not forget to balance PVE also. Make them do less damage if you want to keep their health (which has been greatly pushed when BDoY arrived as far as i remember).

We can adjust PvE damage and EvP damage quite easily. We aim to look at PvE in more detail at a later stage, PvP being the priority, but a 'temporary' fix could be put in place.

there is some need of minor adjustments for resist skills and armor - i just do not think you will be able to do that from the minimal data you get from the testserver.

Our current focus is on the shape of the Proportional DPM curve and if what we have come up with fits with what is experienced ingame.
As I mentioned in my previous post about the different stages of the process, some aspects of the game are deeply flawed; armour, resists and the implant system are not conducive to variety or balance.
All of those will be addressed at some point.

**Dasore** · 04-05-14, 20:45

okay so first impressions of the new patch:

-PPU shields: We were killing a tank with a Creed, with ppu shields and without. It always took the same amount of shots. 8.. Hc 230 TC 110, the victim got 80 Energy resist and 186 Armor Energy, creed was high voltage. So the Ppu shields dont change anything on the dmg taken by high tl weapons, slasher/disruptor/creed. Thats what we first thought of. After a bit of testing it seems like deflector and protector work, but the absorber isnt. Both lower the dmg taken by about 25%

-Healing light did 2x40 on a tank without shields/resists/armor, and the first love did 160 a burst, disruptor was 500 a burst. So sth wrong with the dpm?

-Tl10 Pe casted heal heals as much as a holy of a ppu

-The Dmg a stack weapon does seems to be right 280 on hit of devourer and 70 a tick, with cerosion ammo (78 fire/22 for 16 secs)

After a bit of testing everyone still feels like the dmg is still way to high, honestly the low-midrareweapons doing okay, just need to be lowered a bit, but the high tl onces, fl, creed, disruptor do way too much. Strange is that the healing light for example doesnt really do dmg...

**Kame** · 04-05-14, 20:57

Well on the "Proportional DPM/TL" :

I still completely disagree with that idea. It's bad, and the time I HAVE spent today with my clanmates on Vedeena proved what I've been saying this whole time :

WERE ALL STILL GOING TO USE THE MOST DAMAGING WEAPONS IN THE RANGE FOR PVP !!!

I mean it's not rocket science, people are competitive about pvp and the fact that lower TL = less damage speaks by itself. That is if you have the ability to reason in a logical and practical way. Not everything in life is as good as appears on paper.

Also the way it felt in early NC2/NC1 was : TL of weapons was mainly used to limit access to weapons based on implant setup/character class.

On PPU shields :

I dont even why this is being brought up in focus at this point. You guys showed us a timeline and youre supposed to focus on weapons yet you leave the weapons characteristics intact and then go ahead and adjust PPU modules. You obviously created an issue with your module adjustment tooling system and are too stubborn to reconsider and are trying to patch it left and right (fall damage, ppu modules, stack damage... lol EVERYTHING damage realated).

Bugs :

-The PE cast TL10 heals is healing as much as a PPU cast foreign holy heal.

-The blue shield doesnt work at all (no damage reduction).

-Also stupid design features like heal bonus on headshot heal is still effective.

Last thoughts :

Why do you guys not look at the overall features instead of focus on raw numbers (which you still get wrong, because you dont analyse properly in the first place) ??

You seem to be trying to adjust all modules (ppu spells, weapons, etc) with the same tool, in one go, based on TL.

Then you tell us you only want to focus on weapons, but you adjust/tweak ALL MODULES (including PPU modules, stack damage, fall damage) ???

Wrong approach, wrong tool, hence the weird unexpected in-game behavior and then the resulting waste of time.

**Torg** · 04-05-14, 23:30

kame, may i remind you that at least serious parts of Neocron are spagetti code from hell? development of this game was started in another millennium (literally. before 2000) and has been reworked numerous times by different coders since. so changing one thing can get you several unexpected results. i dont believe the current dev team isnt capable of solving those problems. but, you know, its a jungle out there. thats why all this tweaking and analyzing is happening on a copy (vedeena), not on the original (titan) server. if everything goes boom on Ved, we still can unplug it and keep partying like its 1999 (or 2005, sortof).

**Drachenpaladin** · 04-05-14, 23:39

Originally Posted by Torg

kame, may i remind you that at least serious parts of Neocron are spagetti code from hell? development of this game was started in another millennium (literally. before 2000) and has been reworked numerous times by different coders since. so changing one thing can get you several unexpected results. i dont believe the current dev team isnt capable of solving those problems. but, you know, its a jungle out there. thats why all this tweaking and analyzing is happening on a copy (vedeena), not on the original (titan) server. if everything goes boom on Ved, we still can unplug it and keep partying like its 1999 (or 2005, sortof).

Yay! Reason! Here! In this forum!

Anyway. Roughly seven to nine years have been invested into borking Neocrons code. Its not gonna be untangled in just one or two. Whether code wise nor mechanics wise.

**Kame** · 05-05-14, 04:45

Originally Posted by Drachenpaladin

Anyway. Roughly seven to nine years have been invested into borking Neocrons code. Its not gonna be untangled in just one or two. Whether code wise nor mechanics wise.

I dont code a lot of things in life, but if I had a whacky code to work with, last thing I would do is implement a function that interracts on a lot of aspects all at once. Common sense in my opinion.

/Edit

All this talk about how shit the code is do not excuse the fact that were going at it the wrong way right now.

Why not simply adjust every item from TL75 and up manually ??
Youre still going to have to re-adjust them no matter what the Porportional DPM/TL curve is.

**Kame** · 05-05-14, 20:10

Originally Posted by Torg

kame, may i remind you that at least serious parts of Neocron are spagetti code from hell? development of this game was started in another millennium (literally. before 2000) and has been reworked numerous times by different coders since. so changing one thing can get you several unexpected results. i dont believe the current dev team isnt capable of solving those problems.

Now this.

Ill agree with you for once Torg and go ahead and say that I dont believe the dev team is capable of solving those problems either.

It doesnt matter one bit how old or how tangled the code is. What you need to understand is that the way we go about it right now is wrong. I much favor small, incremental and controlled changes instead of a "tool" that dynamically arranges every aspects of weapons/damage parameters based on a given expected output.

They are creating more issues and raising more questions with the current approach.

Example : they wanted to focus on weapons, but now they have to put time on shields, heals, fall damage, stack damage and possibly more.

Reason : wrong approach to the current problem. That "adjust all in one go" mentality...

Fix :

[Edited]

Im gonna go out on a limb and say this : Krazor, Giga and Mr Trip altogether can probably fix PVP balance in Neocron way better than the current dev team.

**Tino** · 05-05-14, 20:48

Unfortunately I have fought against hackers in neocron who could change 1 gun to what they wanted....why can't the dev team do this too?

**aKe`cj** · 05-05-14, 22:52

Originally Posted by Kame

Im gonna go out on a limb and say this : Krazor, Giga and Mr Trip altogether can probably fix PVP balance in Neocron way better than the current dev team.

going by what I know and have seen of either parties work, I must strongly disagree.
they could sticky-tape-hot-glue-adjust PvP to a workable state, probably yes.
the NST would be able to do the same if they wanted, but they chose not to (personally, I believe it might have been worth the distraction just to ease the pain for players while the long term balancing changes are being worked on behind the scenes).

they have chosen to fix the underlying mechanics, which is more in line with their announced agenda of putting effort in long-term solutions, rather than quick fixes. I don't want to put words in the mouth of the NST, but I believe they looked at the 2.2 project and the intention behind those game-breaking changes - to create robust, future proof balance mechanics that make it easier to introduce new items and tweak balance without fear of unwanted side effects.

as much as I stand behind this agenda in general, I very much fear that the amount of work required to pull this off is beyond what the NST can contribute and I don't think that crowdsourcing the effort will work, due to the complexities involved.

I really don't believe that the people working on the task are the problem.
There are extremely(!) capable tech guys and extremely committed contributors among them.
I fear that the task, as has been set by those people, could just be too grand.

**Kame** · 06-05-14, 19:04

Originally Posted by aKe`cj

(...)
they could sticky-tape-hot-glue-adjust PvP to a workable state, probably yes.
the NST would be able to do the same if they wanted, but they chose not to (personally, I believe it might have been worth the distraction just to ease the pain for players while the long term balancing changes are being worked on behind the scenes).

I fully agree with that there.

I also agree that the dev team have the talent to get us where we want to go. They have proven their talents with previous patches, by fixing decade old bugs and annoyances.

However I have a lot of doubts as to the approach taken to balancing, as it sounds exactly the same as the 2.2 balancing, and it failed so miserably.

Thread: [R#186] T#186-T#197 Patch Discussion

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