The Energon Pub

[Mighty Scorponok]

The patch, that would prohibit more weapons than characters be a good idea......since any given character cant have more than 1 weapon anyway. Anyone for that idea?.

[Dr. Caelus]

The patch, that would prohibit more weapons than characters be a good idea......since any given character cant have more than 1 weapon anyway. Anyone for that idea?.

Disregarding the part where this argument has been gnawed to death...

It won't work for everyone, because some players experiment too much with their configs to be buy/sell their weapons everytime they change something. Since the weapons value depreciates, we'd burn away all our energon in a couple weeks. A max of 24 weapons might work, but people would still bitch when they found out someone was fighting bareknuckled and had a stock pile of 24 Battleblades or Dols.

Still, I think I'd prefer a limit on weaponry over degrading weapons or constantly buying ammunition

[Archanubis]

Personally, I liked shockwaveUK's idea about the firepower affecting the damage ratio of a weapon. If I could only find where he posted that...

[Psychout]

Right here

Why not scrap the weapons shop and have a standard weapon given to all TF when they are created, these can't be sold but could be unequipped for brawlers. You wouldn't have to buy new weapons but the one weapon could be upgraded indefinitely at cost, better upgrades would be made available with FP stats as armour is with rank.

Its the best idea to come out of this whole weapons farce so far, and i wholeheartedly support it.

[Knight Hawk]

Right here

Why not scrap the weapons shop and have a standard weapon given to all TF when they are created, these can't be sold but could be unequipped for brawlers. You wouldn't have to buy new weapons but the one weapon could be upgraded indefinitely at cost, better upgrades would be made available with FP stats as armour is with rank.

Personally, its the best idea to come out of this whole weapons farce so far, and i wholeheartedly support it.

I agree with Pyschout... If there is to be a change I think this is what it should be.

[Dr. Caelus]

Right here

Why not scrap the weapons shop and have a standard weapon given to all TF when they are created, these can't be sold but could be unequipped for brawlers. You wouldn't have to buy new weapons but the one weapon could be upgraded indefinitely at cost, better upgrades would be made available with FP stats as armour is with rank.

Personally, its the best idea to come out of this whole weapons farce so far, and i wholeheartedly support it.

But how exactly do I upgrade my standard issue sword to a rifle? Or my standard issue rifle to a sword? Would each TF, in the new system, start with a melee weapon (dagger) and a ranged weapon (pistol)? And do I have to spend time and energon rebuilding my custom weapons every time I reset my character?

[WarHorse]

Right here

Why not scrap the weapons shop and have a standard weapon given to all TF when they are created, these can't be sold but could be unequipped for brawlers. You wouldn't have to buy new weapons but the one weapon could be upgraded indefinitely at cost, better upgrades would be made available with FP stats as armour is with rank.

Personally, its the best idea to come out of this whole weapons farce so far, and i wholeheartedly support it.

I agree completely. Great idea. It allows both customization and fairness.

[Psychout]

Again i must stress, this isnt my idea, but Im happy to promote it as I rate it very highly.

I dont see why you would have to rebuild it everytime you reset your minion, but it would make sense to have to 'reset' the gun/sword to alter an upgrade other than to just improve on it.

[Burn]

Right here

Why not scrap the weapons shop and have a standard weapon given to all TF when they are created, these can't be sold but could be unequipped for brawlers. You wouldn't have to buy new weapons but the one weapon could be upgraded indefinitely at cost, better upgrades would be made available with FP stats as armour is with rank.

Its the best idea to come out of this whole weapons farce so far, and i wholeheartedly support it.

If only the idea didn't benefit strafers so much. Unless of course you're going to have the damage output of punch/kick increased at the same level by strength as the damage output of weapon by firepower. But then we'd all be running around with the same weapon with the same damage output ...

[ShockwaveUK]

Basically there would be no weapons shop as we know it but instead there would be a number of upgrade parts available to customise your standard weapon. Each FP point would allow one more upgrade to be added. I was thinking the upgrades at each level would have the same value of power but would use cost to determine the recharge time. eg. a L10 upgrade costing 5000E would have the longest rechrge time at it's level rarely firing but would still be extremely powerful when it hit, a L1 costing 5000E would have the shortest recharge at it's level and fire almost every turn but it's power would be very weak. This way there would be nobody calling foul when the best weapons are gone because upgrades would be always available and each bot would only have as powerful a weapon as each player is willing to invest in it. The L10 top upgrade would cost say 1000000E so we wouldn't have L1s running around with the ability to deal as much damage as a L10.

Mention that idea there too, i like it. Shame we cant add weapon powers like stun/freeze/pyralysis using the games ram physics.

That was one of the ideas I originally started with, FP adding one slot per point to the maximum of 10 where upgrades cold be added. Upgrades being things like sniper scopes to boost accuracy, armour peircing to negate armours, stuns and poisons to influence the targets subsequent turns etc. but I figured that would be a pain in the arse to implement effectively.

But, with V2 Glyph may want to change things like stats and weapons to a degree where this wouldn't be feasable, I don't know. I haven't figured everything to the last degree either for that same reason, would FP determne ranged and SK determine melee or would they both be more or less the same thing as they are now? I don't know.

[Redimus]

I have never bought weapons I wasnt planning on using, but if I change my build, Im not gonna sell the weapon from the old build UNLESS I dont think I'll need it.

I have a spare dol and 2 or 3 BBs cuase of resets. I fully intend to use them in the course of time.

A patch to stop us storing weaopns to use later is stupid. Why should I sell a weapon I know I'll probably need later?

[ShockwaveUK]

The patch, that would prohibit more weapons than characters be a good idea......since any given character cant have more than 1 weapon anyway. Anyone for that idea?.

Say I have 3 team members each equipped with x-rays, I visit the weapons shop to see 3 dols in stock but I can't buy them due to already having the same number of weapons as characters. I unequip my x-rays and sell them off, I go to the shop to find the dols have already been sold. Okay I'll by back my x-rays. Oh no! In the time it's taken me to scan for those dols someone's bought all my x-rays, now I'm down on energon and I've got no weapons.
It'll happen.

[Redimus]

The patch, that would prohibit more weapons than characters be a good idea......since any given character cant have more than 1 weapon anyway. Anyone for that idea?.

Say I have 3 team members each equipped with x-rays, I visit the weapons shop to see 3 dols in stock but I can't buy them due to already having the same number of weapons as characters. I unequip my x-rays and sell them off, I go to the shop to find the dols have already been sold. Okay I'll by back my x-rays. Oh no! In the time it's taken me to scan for those dols someone's bought all my x-rays, now I'm down on energon and I've got no weapons.
It'll happen.

Here Here!

Oh what? we all need ot have at least one brawler to avoid this?

[Psychout]

Right here

Why not scrap the weapons shop and have a standard weapon given to all TF when they are created, these can't be sold but could be unequipped for brawlers. You wouldn't have to buy new weapons but the one weapon could be upgraded indefinitely at cost, better upgrades would be made available with FP stats as armour is with rank.

Its the best idea to come out of this whole weapons farce so far, and i wholeheartedly support it.

If only the idea didn't benefit strafers so much. Unless of course you're going to have the damage output of punch/kick increased at the same level by strength as the damage output of weapon by firepower. But then we'd all be running around with the same weapon with the same damage output ...

Strafers have been nerf'd anyway, whatever damage they give out has to be shared amongst the opposition unlike Ram which only targets one opponent (and stuns them too.)

Again, the idea was never fully polished, but i think it has far more potential than a system that involves constantly looking at the weapins page in the vain hope that the ultra rare weapon for your unresettable build appears, and, if the armour missons are anythign to go by, massive overstocking after extended play.

The idea of finding weapons on a mission i really like - the TF equivalent of treasure. Having to constantly replenish used weapons i dont. I figured this was a great way to balanace to the game.

[Tammuz]

Right here

Why not scrap the weapons shop and have a standard weapon given to all TF when they are created, these can't be sold but could be unequipped for brawlers. You wouldn't have to buy new weapons but the one weapon could be upgraded indefinitely at cost, better upgrades would be made available with FP stats as armour is with rank.

Its the best idea to come out of this whole weapons farce so far, and i wholeheartedly support it.

If only the idea didn't benefit strafers so much.
Unless of course you're going to have the damage output of punch/kick increased at the same level by strength as the damage output of weapon by firepower. But then we'd all be running around with the same weapon with the same damage output ...

not necassairly, not if its balanced if say 1 fp/skill allowed one .1 fator increase in a single item, say accuracy, minimum damage, maximum damage, recharge or recharge rate.

and as for strafe, we know that's two good anyway, it needs nerfing so strafe just affects the the chance of performing one and FP just affects the number of shots. i can do 81% strafes on targets of my own damn level, strafes a is just to powerful when configured right.

EDIT: aye psychout! when was the last time we actually worried about armour stocks? is there a point in having a finite amount of something if we continually increase the amount faster than we deplete? wouldn't it just be simpler to have infinite ammounts?

currently the weapons represent one side of the knife edge (where demand out strips supplies) and armour the other (where supply outstrips the supply), unless the game spits out a degradle weapon each time one bites the dust it's either going to make having quantities pointless, or change nothing. and i don't beleive we have ability to make the game balance that perfectly.

[Psychout]

You have clearly forgotten your days as a peon Tammuz.
Strafe sucks down here.

[Dr. Caelus]

You have clearly forgotten your days as a peon Tammuz.
Strafe sucks down here.

As far as I can tell, strafe sucks all the way up until you get to level 6.

[Tammuz]

you can do an 81% strafe with 7 strafe and 4FP, with equal numbers on both sides. that'll set you back a whopping 142K minimum
can anyone provide me with a log of a 4 str 7ram doing 81% damage.

strafe is inconsistent yes, and it's mechanics are just plain odd, but it's still one of the few ways you can kill someone in 1 move, the only otyhers require millions of xp investment.


degrading weapons SUCK!

[Elcor]

and i don't beleive we have ability to make the game balance that perfectly.

Balancing anything - stats, weapons, etc. - is infinite process. But after 3 or 4 repeats the results are so close to perfect that nobody notices the difference.

How would I balance the weapons in their current system without changing the requirements?

Easily.

First, I'd make not only "short recharge" or "no recharge", but also "long recharge" and "very long recharge". So, now I'd have not only min damage and max damage to tweak, but recharge time also.

Second, I'd take the weapons which are now overpowered (those what are all sold out) and reduced their stats on 1 point (either min damage or max damage or longer recharge time).

Third, I'd take the less bought weapons (by the numbers of weapons in stock that' over 500) and up 1 stat of them (either min damage or max damage or shorter recharge time), checking that no result is completely similar to other already existing weapon.

Fourth, I'd wait for a month or two. If there are more stocks of "sold out" and/or "not bought at all" weapons, I'd repeat pp.2 and 3 for them.

After three or four repetitions, I'm sure, we'd have a balanced weapon system. After all, that's how it's done in big game-making industry... Only they hire special tester people for that, and in our case we'd all be testers.

Of course, this would never be approved by the majority of players. They wouldn't like the weapons they've bought instantly become worse.

What can I say for that? Nothing, just encourage them to play nevertheless. After all, the similar thing was done not once in "World of Warcraft" (with class abilities, not with weapons though) and it worked

And those people who were crying against are still playing...

[Tammuz]

except that the HMW population is not stable.there won't be the same number of players each week month, and their choice in weapons is affected by other's choice in weapons, they assume that a popular weapon is a good weapon, this really is not true.

oh and i like SWUKs idea a hell of alot better.

[Dr. Caelus]

Of course, this would never be approved by the majority of players. They wouldn't like the weapons they've bought instantly become worse.

That's actually pretty normal in this game.

I think the problem is you're wanting to fix it "how it's done in big game-making industry", but we don't have the resources of the big-gaming industry. What you're describing would mean Glyph going through each individual weapon and changing a bunch of numbers around, that he may only have a guess as to what they mean. That'd be like pulling your own teeth with the added random chance one could explode.

And thinking about it, here's something I've been taking for granted...

The 'new' people do know that Glyph didn't design/program/create the game right?

Heavy Metal War was set up by a member known as Vir, who bailed soon after completing it. Seibertron got hung with maintaining something he didn't really have a grasp of (programming a web-page is very different than programming a game as I understand it).

Glyph finally came along a year or two ago and volunteered to help, basically saving the game. Since then, anytime he's had to 'fix' something, he's actually had to start from square one and figure out how it works, usually through trial and error. That's why the game has so many bugs, and why they get ironed out so slowly. Though they do get ironed out. Eventually. One at a time.

[Psychout]

Glyph finally came along a year or two ago and volunteered to help, basically saving the game. Since then, anytime he's had to 'fix' something, he's actually had to start from square one and figure out how it works, usually through trial and error. That's why the game has so many bugs, and why they get ironed out so slowly. Though they do get ironed out. Eventually. One at a time.

This is an official 'quoted for truth' post.

Where is old 'Wheeljack' anyway?

[Tammuz]

ill, or being father, or a husband.
or any combination of the above.

[Psychout]

Pretty good excuse if you ask me.

[Bun-Bun]

Pretty good excuse if you ask me.

I'll remember that when I bail in a month or so.