The Energon Pub

[Mkall]

Let's try to keep discussion to my journal here please.

Thanks!

Here's the journal itself, since until I get Admin privileges it'll keep falling down the page: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=35233

[Venomous Prime]

I didn't read it through the first time and just saw one random part about winning "VP's and I was like..."how are you going to win multiple versions of me?"

Gave me a giggle once I reread it though

I got faith in ya buddy.

Glad you're going to keep us updated like this too

[Burn]

Victory points = nothing more than fancy decorations indicating how great you are?

Arena -vs- missions - Yeah well ... i'm off the belief that the arena should morph into the Challenge Arena and simply be for bragging rights.

Some people have jumped up and down about not wanting to be part of the war map and want missions left alone while a new option is introduced for the war map.

So the question is, will people still be able to play HMW without having to be part of the Battle for Cybertron?

[Mkall]

Victory points = nothing more than fancy decorations indicating how great you are?

Aye

So the question is, will people still be able to play HMW without having to be part of the Battle for Cybertron?

Yes, the missions will remain as they are now in v2

[Tammuz]

this where i'll try and explain why reacharge times have to go;

the first problem is we don't have a reliable attack rate for any character, as this based off courage(and a lesser affect speed) of all live characters in combat, and is RNG based so in some missions you might atack every 24 seconds, while in others you can go without attacking for 240 seconds as much.

so if we assume that you will attack at least every 240 seconds(which is a lie the average attack rate is somewhere around half way between 1 infinity seconds)

so we create a weapon(let's call it Mkall's Cannon) with 0frp & 0 skill requirements, and a recharge time of say 240 seconds and we give it an average raw damage of 50%

now lets create another weapon(Tammuz's sword) with the same stat requirements but a recharge of 24 seconds, now in order to balance with mkall's cannon, this has to have a base damage of 5%

unfortunately this means that NR weapons like brawling (which for arguments sake have a recharge of 1 second have to do absolutely pathetic amounts of damage(in this example 0str would do 0.2% damage)

which is pathetic


so lets try the other way round

lets make unarmed 0str do some damage, say 1%

then a 24 second 0frp/0skil weapon would 24% damage

a 240 second weapon would 240% damage!

would there be any reason to level up? the overkill alone is worth more than the actual damage inflicted!

so here we have rather the problem in order to make slow weapons viable, we have to nerf fast weapons to near uselessness and say good bay to NR, or we have to make slow weapons so incredibley powerful that they OHK before even taking stats into account!

the reason i proposed making all weapons NR is that it removes one of the greatest imbalances in them, and its VERY easily implemented(its a quick fix, but a damn good one). cealus has gone through with a template and calulated damage ranges for all weapons that correspond to their stat requirements(likewise for armour), all he was waiting for was for OS to fix brawling so that it and weapons would work off the same damage mechanic.

that never happened.

[Burn]

So the question is, will people still be able to play HMW without having to be part of the Battle for Cybertron?

Yes, the missions will remain as they are now in v2

Which then brings up the problems of people jumping up and down saying "we're losing the war because such and such is a missions dweller!" and if the BFC comes into a battle for resources, should mission dwellers then be entitled to those resources.

So really, why do we need to keep missions? Can't a person simply play the BFC without having to be under the thumb of their faction?

[Dr. Caelus]

As far as long-recharge weapons doing over 100% damage, what if we finally added an Area of Effect feature to weapons? As recharge increases, so does damage. But as damage increases, so does area of effect.

Essentially, with all other things (stats of attacker and target) being equal, we don't really want a weapon in the game that can do 100% damage, so any weapon that could do >x damage, would have its damage divided up amongst multiple targets, not doing more than x damage to any single opponent (even if there is only one present). So, the wielder gets great xp gain, and bloodies the enemy, but it isn't the end-all-weapon-of-doom, since it can't instant KO, and has a long reload.

And it makes sense from a role-play stand point. Long recharge weapons like say, a Fusion Cannon should do AoE damage. A 0 Recharge weapon like a hand-to-hand attack could only hit one target.

One thing I'm not sure about though; should a 240% damage weapon potentially do 48% damage to 5 enemies, or 24% damage to 10 enemies?

[Tammuz]

either way you end up with stupid amount of XP for one move

espeically one you add in STR, FRP, SKLL, and Endurance modifyers

you're talking 2880xp for beating up level 0s in one move! the earliest you could do that would be level 3.

that's way too powerful that's 3.5 times the base value of a level 3!

the AoE i don't have a problem with, as long as it doesn't send out stupid amounts of damage(and thus earn stupider amount of XP)

[Chaoslock]

And how about the 240% damage would be only a "critical" damage, that happens once in 50 or 100 moves? So, a weapon with 240 damage max. would have a minimum of 24 damage, an average damage of 48 a non-critical damage max. of 72-80, and a critical of 240?

[Tammuz]

And how about the 240% damage would be only a "critical" damage, that happens once in 50 or 100 moves? So, a weapon with 240 damage max. would have a minimum of 24 damage, an average damage of 48 a non-critical damage max. of 72-80, and a critical of 240?

we where talking average damage before

a weapon with a tenth of the recharage (24 seconds) of the one you devise chaoslock would have an average damage of 4.8%, and brawling would do 0.2% damage

this is the problem; in order to make the fast weapons decent, the slow weapons become horrifically powerful, but in making the slow weapons damage manageable, you make the fast weapons pathetically weak

we either need to make sure that all TFs have a constant attack rate(i.e. they attack after a period of time) or make the weapons RNG based like how the game sorts out who attacks currently

the advantage of the latter is that we already have a similar code for tactics

a chance to attack----->if unsusccesful you don't attack
II
\/
if succesful you attack
II
\/
chance to do tactic----> attack with tactic
II
\/
if unsuccesful you do a non-tactic attack---->attack with tactic
II
\/
chance to do weapon attack---->attack with weapon
II
\/
if unsuccesful you do a unarmed attack

[megatenoh]

This isn't the thread for game ideas but ill drop couple of mine.
In addition to tactics why not have skills? simple example:You got a laser sniper rifle and use it as just a weapon,a skill would not involve a transformation like tactics but would help in the current action.
If you got by chance a weapon attack then between the cool down time of the skill you can use the skill with weapon attack.As for the skills it self something like this"Sniper stance,for next attack you enter Sniper stance that lets you snipe a single enemy doing 50% more damage to it."

As for tokens... how about Faction points?
There can be also added some titles that you can show off.Example:
Gladiator title:You need to earn points in arena lets say 100 to get title rank (1) that has a name of Veteran Gladiator,when you get 300 points you can get a next rank (2) that can be called vanquishing Gladiator and so on...

[Colonel Brawl]

So the question is, will people still be able to play HMW without having to be part of the Battle for Cybertron?

Yes, the missions will remain as they are now in v2

Which then brings up the problems of people jumping up and down saying "we're losing the war because such and such is a missions dweller!" and if the BFC comes into a battle for resources, should mission dwellers then be entitled to those resources.

So really, why do we need to keep missions? Can't a person simply play the BFC without having to be under the thumb of their faction?

I agree. Removing the missions would help a faction take over Cybertron. Arena dwellers will also be forced to leave the arena, they can't just ignore their faction.

[Psychout]

So really, why do we need to keep missions? Can't a person simply play the BFC without having to be under the thumb of their faction?

As there will always be those who resist change, no matter how great the advancement.

To Mkall,
If the arena is a 'prize' earner (an idea I really like) then why not keep a reduced set of missions as xp earners?

Then make the warmap scored by Veep's, based on how well the faction is performing instead of mission numbers won per sector, the overall core of HMW.
With good tactical play, points can still be accrued if your side loses so organised play will be encouraged but not essential. Then, when a sector is taken by a faction, award a modifier to xp gains in mission play as well as a resource bonus for the BFC. E.g. if the Maximals hold their capital city, then they get a 0.01 bonus on their mission xp gains, so the BFC retains its importance but also rewards team work and organisation within a faction, something that has never been taken into account before as far as I know.

We will all have at least 6 minions to play with at any time and so all 3 areas should have a use in the game, and this way you can also think about how to format your entire team depending on what combat they are best suited to and where the points/advantages are needed the most.

It also means that missions and arena are still playable for the solo players who dont want to join in the faction war.

*shrug* Just thoughts.

[Malicron]

A question / suggestion.
Do we know if the BfC will include actual tactics (troop movements, supply raids, sabotage, ect) and if not, would it be possible to include it?

[Dr. Caelus]

Here's a quesstion - is the Guardians of Cybertron faction still planned?

[Blaster_6267]

Since Mkall said it would be so easy, once the game is running again, we can expect maybe....more character slots???

[Necessary Evil]

Since Mkall said it would be so easy, once the game is running again, we can expect maybe....more character slots???

You mean have more than 12 characters?

I've only just started to think about adding a 10th 'Con to my team!

[Starlock]

Since Mkall said it would be so easy, once the game is running again, we can expect maybe....more character slots???

Still think if that happens it would need to be unlocked somehow. Probably through VP, badges and/or arena prizes. Make that extra slot(s) cost some work and effort.

[cocuutje]

Is there anybody who knows when HMW goes on again ...... I miss the game and my bots.

[Dr. Caelus]

Is there anybody who knows when HMW goes on again

No.

I miss the game.

So do we.

[Tammuz]

Since Mkall said it would be so easy, once the game is running again, we can expect maybe....more character slots???

You mean have more than 12 characters?

I've only just started to think about adding a 10th 'Con to my team!

just becuase you can have 12 bots doesn't mean you should


i could father 12 or more kids, but i damn well aint gonna do that.

[Blaster_6267]

Actually, i alos must wonder...how close could we be to having character pics on there profile pages?

[Evolution Prime]

Actually, i alos must wonder...how close could we be to having character pics on there profile pages?

That would actually be quite cool. That way you could get rid of the robot mode altogether since Mkall said he didn't like giving them abilities to the TF itself. Jut make it be a certain file or pixel size and have to host it yourself. Another possibility is keeping the generic robot mode for those who don't have a picture to upload but when a pic is used, that would go away.

[Tammuz]

i'm not sure that's a technical issue but more of a how many people are gonna use it to post in appropriate material?

[Burn]

Well that's where the "Report this bio" button would come in handy.

Unfortunately it means someone still has to see it. Best way to avoid that happening is to not allow it at all unless you want someone to manually approve each pic.