The Energon Pub

Would the Triplechangers balance better if tactic upgrades affected your xp costs the way the rest of your upgrades do?

Caelus wrote:Would the Triplechangers balance better if tactic upgrades affected your xp costs the way the rest of your upgrades do?

Yes. But I think a better option would be to treat transformations like a "special move" that would keep bots from having unlimited tactics every turn. That kind of setup would resolve the repairbot type issues we've had in the past and keep new options from being taken advantage of.

2 More Questions:

Would it be possible for players to choose their alt combinations, or will preassigned combos be the only way to go?

Could the coding for a Triplechanger be modified to code for Duocons as well? I figure the distinction being that Duocons would always execute two tactics, one immediately after the other, at a reduced strength or frequency.

"Slamdance attacks Squawkbox. Squawkbox transforms into an air animal and a land animal and avoids the attack. Squawkbox rams Slamdance."

Caelus wrote:2 More Questions:

Would it be possible for players to choose their alt combinations, or will preassigned combos be the only way to go?

Could the coding for a Triplechanger be modified to code for Duocons as well? I figure the distinction being that Duocons would always execute two tactics, one immediately after the other, at a reduced strength or frequency.

"Slamdance attacks Squawkbox. Squawkbox transforms into an air animal and a land animal and avoids the attack. Squawkbox rams Slamdance."

Isn't Squawkbox a combiner?

Absolute Zero wrote:

Caelus wrote:2 More Questions:

Would it be possible for players to choose their alt combinations, or will preassigned combos be the only way to go?

Could the coding for a Triplechanger be modified to code for Duocons as well? I figure the distinction being that Duocons would always execute two tactics, one immediately after the other, at a reduced strength or frequency.

"Slamdance attacks Squawkbox. Squawkbox transforms into an air animal and a land animal and avoids the attack. Squawkbox rams Slamdance."

Isn't Squawkbox a combiner?

Well yes, technically, but for game mechanics he would work better as a Duocon.

Plus he was one of my favorite toys as a child, so I used him as an example instead of Battletrap purely out of favoritism.

If Triplechangers became feasible and playable to us would there be a way to make custom ones? Or would it just be a set of them like normal alts? Also how would they be balanced? Since obviously if they have 3 tactics everyone would probably use them instead of the other alts, which only have 1 or 2 tactics.

Actually, triple changes might have two tactics. Not every alt has 2, so I guess it would be possible to have triple changes with only two tactics - one per alt.

I would think that triple changers would have a very high starting cost for that third tatic, and probably only available after unlocking it by a certain amount put into Int and or Skill; like maybe a 8k starting cost, and unlocked after 3 in Int and 5 in Skill or something.

I think tripple changers would need at least 2 tactics per alt, concidering all alts will get 3 tactics come the arival of the mythical V2.

Or perhaps 3 total, one for each of the extra forms, and one on the base to assist in the chance of the change occurring ?

crazyfists wrote:Actually, triple changes might have two tactics. Not every alt has 2, so I guess it would be possible to have triple changes with only two tactics - one per alt.

Depending on the XP cost for those two (meaning: if the cost was less) that would be worthwhile.

i would think having tactic costs of triple changes mirror the waty stat costs increase would be a good way of doing things

I think the best way to implement triple changers is through bringing back robot modes. Instead of having robot modes give a static stat boost (which proved to be unbalanced given the math of the game), have the robot mode instead give a new tactic, reflavored to reflect the special abilities of certain TFs such as holograms, teleportation, grappler lines, whatever. A triple-changer would essentially be choosing an extra vehicular tactic as your robot mode ability rather than a dedicated robot mode ability.

That implements a number of things people want and is easy as heck to balance within the game.

Rat Convoy wrote:I think the best way to implement triple changers is through bringing back robot modes. Instead of having robot modes give a static stat boost (which proved to be unbalanced given the math of the game), have the robot mode instead give a new tactic, reflavored to reflect the special abilities of certain TFs such as holograms, teleportation, grappler lines, whatever. A triple-changer would essentially be choosing an extra vehicular tactic as your robot mode ability rather than a dedicated robot mode ability.

That implements a number of things people want and is easy as heck to balance within the game.

I like that idea

Original Sin wrote:

Rat Convoy wrote:I think the best way to implement triple changers is through bringing back robot modes. Instead of having robot modes give a static stat boost (which proved to be unbalanced given the math of the game), have the robot mode instead give a new tactic, reflavored to reflect the special abilities of certain TFs such as holograms, teleportation, grappler lines, whatever. A triple-changer would essentially be choosing an extra vehicular tactic as your robot mode ability rather than a dedicated robot mode ability.

That implements a number of things people want and is easy as heck to balance within the game.

I like that idea

Especially if acquiring that mode has some up front cost or the upgrades to it affect levels.

Perhaps then tournament or other awards could be additional robot modes rather than just alt-modes.

Ratty's idea could work nicely, attaching special abilities to the botmode and tactics to the alts. It could also be the route to adding Gestalts eventually?

Psychout wrote:Ratty's idea could work nicely, attaching special abilities to the botmode and tactics to the alts. It could also be the route to adding Gestalts eventually?

Meaning - certain Robot Mode(s) enable gestalt combination?

Psychout wrote:Ratty's idea could work nicely, attaching special abilities to the botmode and tactics to the alts. It could also be the route to adding Gestalts eventually?

Possibly; a lot of things could be done just by how the tactics use is worded... Like for teleportation, it would say something like, "utilizes his special ability and teleports away from the attack;" a triple changer's robot mode tactic would utilize the standard vehicle tactic text, "transforms into a tank and rams X." Gestalts could be a robot mode ability that gains power depending upon how many other bots on the side have the same tactic, and the text would read, "combines with X, X1 and X2 and attacks Y."

I was also thinking that making robot mode abilities into tactic-like abilities should have the side effect of making single tactic alts more viable; if I get to high level as an Avoid alt, I can cover my offensive deficiency by choosing an offensive robot ability. I was vaguely worried that two-tactic alts would still have a signficant advantage, but then it occurred to me that ram/strafe tanks aren't really viable until high levels due to stat needs and strafe/repair is almost never viable for the same reason, so it seems a distinct possibility that a well-chosen robot ability/tactic duo could be just as good as an alt with two good tactics, and just as good or better than a bot trying to split his stats to cover two tactics and a robot ability.

Wingspan wrote:or the upgrades to it affect levels.

This kind of goes without saying; any stat a TF can buy should count towards leveling. Any time stuff hasn't (like tactics back in the day, or the original incarnation of robot modes) it has proven to be borked.

Gestalts have always been the grail of HMW as they are incredibly hard to fit into a game of this style. The problems of not being able to to put your bots together in the same mission is the biggest, then there is the distribution of xp amongst the combining group, the fact that you only transform to execute a tactic and then revert back to robot mode meaning that sustained combination is impossible (and that they are supposed to be extremely rare) all lead them to be near impossible to implement.

In the same way as adding the ability to triple change to a bot, adding the ability to link with (multiple) others in a mission for a more powerful attack could lift the emphasis off 'special' alts and would make more sense.

And on your other point; teleportation, invisibility, stealth, holograms... all could be modifications of avoid. We currently have multi-attack, dodge and direct damage (+stun) abilities which id hazard a guess cover 90% of the robot mode gimmicks out there.

Triplechanging could be as simple as adding an extra tactic from the list via the robot mode.

Psychout wrote:Gestalts have always been the grail of HMW as they are incredibly hard to fit into a game of this style. The problems of not being able to to put your bots together in the same mission is the biggest, then there is the distribution of xp amongst the combining group, the fact that you only transform to execute a tactic and then revert back to robot mode meaning that sustained combination is impossible (and that they are supposed to be extremely rare) all lead them to be near impossible to implement.

In the same way as adding the ability to triple change to a bot, adding the ability to link with (multiple) others in a mission for a more powerful attack could lift the emphasis off 'special' alts and would make more sense.

And on your other point; teleportation, invisibility, stealth, holograms... all could be modifications of avoid. We currently have multi-attack, dodge and direct damage (+stun) abilities which id hazard a guess cover 90% of the robot mode gimmicks out there.

Triplechanging could be as simple as adding an extra tactic from the list via the robot mode.

Exactly. Ram could cover things like entangling with webs and grapple lines (because of stun), multi-attack could cover things as disparate as a speedster rushing to hit multiple enemies to an inventor throwing special bombs; and repair could even be flavored as a Commander granting inspiration and resolve to continue fighting (a lot like the D&D 4e hit point system).

i've always hated the idea of just renaming tactics to create "new tactics"


but that's a damn fine idea ratboy!