The Energon Pub

First of all, I want to say thanks to Mkall for all the hard work he did on giving the Maximals and Predacons their alts and the new alt classes. It looks like it was a massive undertaking and I don't want to take away from that, whatsoever.

But I've got a problem with how so of the new alt classes came out. I look for some of my old alts, and find them in horribly suboptimal alt classes. Things that used to be in the optimal Land Animal category are now "Fast Land Animals," an Avoid 1k single-tactic alt that will become useless beyond 2nd or 3rd level. Worse, dragons went from the optimal Air Animal class to the horridly subpar dragon class, a Strafe 2k single-tactic alt.

The problem I'm having is not in how Mkall specifically did them, but more in the arbitrary way alts have always been done. I actually think Mkall did a good job in that many more of the alt classes are optimal than there used to be; but that's mostly because so few alts were optimal (jets, cars, air animals, airplanes, land animals and emergency vehicles were pretty much it; you were gimping yourself, at least a little, by taking anything else).

Which leads me to the title of my little discussion. In the character optimization boards for Dungeons & Dragons, they've coined the term "trap" for any ability a player might take that actively gimps the character, making it significantly less powerful than other characters who did not take that ability. And many of the alt classes (both old and new) are traps.

How is an alt class a trap? Lets look at an old alt class, the arachnid. It was a 4k avoid alt (I believe it also had a skill pre-req just to unlock this horridly overpriced tactic, which was even more laughable). Now, barring that fact that single-tactic avoid alts are useless at high-levels, the fact that it is 4k base made it even worse. Why did the Arachnid need to spend so much XP for it's one tactic when there were other single tactic avoiders that got Avoid at 1k base; worse, there were dual-tactic alts that got Avoid at 1k as well as getting another tactic, like the airplane that got Avoid 1k and Strafe 2.5k. I tried setting up Blackarachnia as an arachnid; no matter what I did, she sucked. The arachnid alt was a trap (and it showed, no one really played it unless they REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted to play a spider). Fortunately, no alt class is QUITE as suboptimal amongst the new alt classes.

In the new alts, the dragon springs to mind, a Strafe 2k alt. Looking at the rest of the Maximal's alts, we also have Ferocious Land Animal with Strafe 1k; Opportunistic Insect with Strafe 1k, and Tank with Strafe 1k and Ram 4k. Anyone with their hearts set on a dragon are pretty much setting themselves up to be less powerful than those other alts over pretty much their entire career.

My opinion is that no character should be penalized based solely on what alt they want to choose. Each and every alt class should be viable over the course of a character's career - and this is possible, even with just the current tactics.

I've got two ideas on how to do this.
1. Just make sure that no alts are single tactic, while standardizing XP costs. Single tactic alts are less optimal than dual-tactics, for a number of reasons. First of all, you are lower level, which means you are getting into lower level missions, which means less XP. Second, any alt with a single suboptimal tactic will not be chosen - ever (Repair alts at low levels, Avoid alts at high levels). Standardizing XP costs means that I don't need to feel bad about choosing the Dragon instead of the Ferocious Land Animal; my character is equally good either way.

2. Some alt classes have pre-reqs that unlock tactics. Under this plan, I suggest making Intelligence a pre-req to unlock the second tactic on ALL alts, and would further suggest that a higher Intelligence would unlock a third tactic. Each alt class would have their primary tactic at 1k, would unlock a second tactic at, say 5 Intelligence that would cost 5k; and a third tactic at 9 Intelligence that would cost 9k (pre-reqs and costs are for example and not what I think the final numbers should be). This plan not only gives Intelligence a meaningful function but should also balance all the alt classes. I believe it will also make single-tactic alts more viable, as a bot that declines to unlock a second tactic is not blowing XP in the otherwise-useless Intelligence.

This is just my opinion of what I believe is a problem and some suggestions on how to fix it; I obviously welcome further opinions, suggestions and feedback. I think now is a good time to discuss this, while very few people actually have enough XP to buy tactics yet.

One thing I urge you and everyone else to keep in mind is that Mkall has set up these alt classes to be expanded into different and new tactics that are not available yet. How it is set up now might not be how it will be set up in the future.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16091

Example: Large Land Animal [Charge/Ram/Absorb]

While things might be a bit mixed up and feel odd, current and future tactics and alt mode classifications can always be changed.

I agree totally with Ratboy's point above but would add a couple of other things

when categorising things people tend to fall into two groups, clumpers and splitters, i'm a clumper, i tend to look at two things yeah they're pretty much the same lets call them all the same thing, then there are splitters who go but this one is a different shade of pink lets call it something else to distinguish it. so for me i see a bunch of really unneccassary titles, is there any real reason why Walker tanks are a different alt class from weapons? game wise its they're same thing

what makes this worse is that it appaears that factions are now missing entire alt classes which, i really hope that what's one factions weapon class is not another's gadget class. it's an unnecassary duplication

the loss of the 2006 xmas Tournie Prize alts is irking me on a personal, the number of tanks the cons lost means i can't do justice to half my team.

crazyfists wrote:One thing I urge you and everyone else to keep in mind is that Mkall has set up these alt classes to be expanded into different and new tactics that are not available yet. How it is set up now might not be how it will be set up in the future.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16091

Example: Large Land Animal [Charge/Ram/Absorb]

While things might be a bit mixed up and feel odd, current and future tactics and alt mode classifications can always be changed.

True, the additions of extra tactics would change things considerably, especially if it means each alt class gets three tactics - that would be an admirable third solution. I would have mentioned it myself but I don't know what the final fate of those other tactics were.

I still think making extra tactics always unlockable off Intelligence would be very good for the game.

Int needs to do something.

Int itself was meant to unlock tactics and at one time was also a requirement to join some missions. While I can neither confirm nor deny how tactics would be unlocked (mainly since I don't know so don't ask), we're only looking at the first few steps toward doing something new and changing/adding new tactics for the first time ... ever (not including removing self-repair or stun via a tactic, etc).

i swear repair wasn't in the initial launch, and it's been dicked around so much we went two years where Int didn't actually boost as for what we need to change/add

Armour : bugged to hell only a ver rough correlation between rank and effectivness
Endurance: I’ve never liked that endurance acts differently for non-tactic attacks, and tactic attacks.

Brawling: another run of instinctive balancing (thanks OS) means that this is way out of whack too at the rather than have a nice fixed rate of increase, it's gets exponentially better with more upgrades in STR, the last version (which is out of date) started you off weaker than the 0/0 weapons, but 10 STR was worth almost as much as the 10/10 weapons.

Weapons: due to the nature of the admin panel the game only accepts integers as min/max damage values for weapons so we had to round values, this means that for weapons increases in SKL, FRP, & STR do not perfectly balance.

So we could replace the current NTA mechanics with a universal one;
DAMAGE=[~12.5]*[(1+[STR/10])*(1+[FRP/10])*(1+[SKL/10])]/[(1+[END/10])*(1+[RNK/10])*(1+[TON/10])]

Where;
STR = attacking TF’s STR
FRP = FRP requirement of attacking TF’s weapon
SKL = SKL requirement of attacking TF’s weapon
END = defending TF’s END
RNK = RNK of defending TF’s armour
TON = No. of tons of defending TF’s armour

If this is working correctly each stat maxed would double the damage done by the attacking TF (so maxed STR, FRP, & SKL, would be an 8-fold increase), with each maxed stat for the defender halving damage (for an 8-fold decrease in damage with END, RNK, & TON)

Brawling would act like a 0/0 weapon.


Recharge Times:basically recharge times to be balanced means missions need to be balanced in the number of turns people get, and their length unfortunately this is pretty **** impossible with a probabilty based attack rate unless we make all mission the same numbers single level and have a perfect leveling system. even then we would have the problem of that we would need to make the longest recharge infinitely more powerful than all NR weapons(including brawling) so we either end up with stupidly powerful OHK weapons, or stupidly weak 0.0001% dammage NR weapons(Brawling included)

so we either need to make weapons recharge uniform, I know you’d like to bring in COF, so heres my maths

• Assuming brawling has a raw damage of 12 at 10 str it would do 24
• If we make an NR weapon that has a raw damage of 20.
• over 4 turns it would do 80 damage
• if we made a COF 0.25 weapon for the same stats if would have to do on average 80 damage over 4 turns
• but this would be broken down into 3 brawling attacks, and one weapon attack
• so the weapon attack needs to do 44 damage (80-(3x12))

• now lets look at 10 STR
• brawling does 24
• NR does 40 or 160 over 4 turns
• COF0.25 therefore would do 160-(3x24), or 88 damage
• So we can conclude that COF0.25 needs it’s damaged multiplied by 2.2

So using similar maths
COF1 raw damage is multiplied by 1
COF0.5 raw damage is multiplied by 1.4
COF0.33 raw damage is multiplied by 1.8
COF0.25 raw damage is multiplied by 2.2




Tactics: all stats need to be weighted equally, this is nigh impossible with half of them boosting a probability based attack so we need more tactics, but we also need the to be balanced

• Strafe; we all know its self feeding as you can invest just in strafe and not only will this give you a higher chance of performing a strafe, it will also increase the number of shots(and thus damage). i would change it so that the big shot(first auto hit) does equal damage to a 0str ram, and then each point in FP gives you 2 tiddlers(aimed at everyone) with a base damage 1/10th of the big shot, this way on average ram and strafe would do the same damage(though depending on the RNG and numbers strafe could do anywhere between half or double the the amount of damage as ram.
• Ram; the only nice way of doing this is either make ram do it's base damage and then each point in STR increases the chance of stunning, or some how have a floating stun/damage ration. However I find the stun affect to have far too much power in battle and would just rather see it removed altogether.
• Avoid, this really needs to work against both Tactics and NTAs, if speed boosts avoid as I hypothesise by 10 speed doubling the rate of activation to 60%, once people max their tactics it’s only valind against 40% of attacks, or a 24% activation rate

So, here’s what I’d do;

• RAM
FRQ=RAM*0.03
DMG=[RNG(10~16)]*[1+(STR/10)]*[2-(END/10)]
health is subtracted from target
Damage is boosted by attackers STR, and hurt by targets END
earns xp = damage*2^lvl

• REPAIR
FRQ=REPAIR*0.03
DMG=[RNG(10~16)]*[1+(INT/10)]*[1+(END/10)]
health is added to target
Damage is boosted by attackers INT, and by targets END
earns xp = damage*2^lvl

• AVOID
FRQ=AVOID*0.03*(1+[SPD/10])
TF may avoid ALL types of attacks at above frequency
Xp is 10xp*2^lvl of the avoider


• GRAPPLE
FRQ=GRAPPLE*0.03
TARGET DMG=2*[RNG(10~16)]*[2-(END/10)]
ATTACKER DMG=[RNG(10~16)]*[2-(END/10)]
health is subtracted from BOTH target and attacker
Target's Damage is hurt by targets END
Attackers Damage is hurt by attackers END
earns xp = target’s damage*2^lvl

• INSPIRE (MULTI-REPAIR)
FRQ=INSPIRE*0.03
FIRST SHOT DMG=[RNG(10~16)]*[1+(END/10)]
FOLLOWING SHOT DMG=[RNG(1~1.6)]*[1+(END/10)]
all hits repair allies
in an INSPIRATION you always get 1 first shot(which always hits a target), and then a number of following shots equal to double your RNK; Following shots are aimed at all TFs in the mission, only hits on ALLIES show up in logs; any hits against ENEMIES are ignored. so if the missions has equal numbers for each side, you should get about 1+RNK shots in each INSPIRATION.
earns xp = damage*2^lvl

• COVER
FRQ=COVER*0.03*(1+[CRG/10])
TF becomes target in place of an ally at above frequency
defender earns xp = damage*2^lvl


• STRAFE
FRQ=STRAFE*0.03
FIRST SHOT DMG=[RNG(10~16)]*[2-(END/10)]
FOLLOWING SHOT DMG=[RNG(1~1.6)]*[2-(END/10)]
all hits damage enemies
in a strafe you always get 1 first shot(which always hits a target), and then a number of following shots equal to double your FRP; Following shots are aimed at all TFs in the mission, any that hit ALLIES are ignored; only hits against ENEMIES show up in logs. so if the missions has equal numbers for each side, you should get about 1+FRP shots in each strafe attack.

• DRAIN
FRQ=DRAIN*0.03
DMG=[RNG(5~8)]*[1+(SKL/10)]*[2-(END/10)]
Damage done to enemy is returned to attacker as health
earns xp = damage*2^lvl

Courage: this needs to be standardised, it's had instinctive balancing done to it far too often (thank you glyph) and it's effected by to many factors out side a players control. i think something like each player having a 1+(CRG/10) chance of attacking out of Σ1+(CRG/10) would be nice

speed: this is actually one of the few balanced stats, IF it didn't some how affect your chance of attack, i might tweak it a little in the basal rate, but nothing too serious. It needs to have its attack boosting affect removed.

Intel: this needs to do some thing other than feed repair, i quite like the idea of it increasing the xp you get, mainly cos its simple idea, and i like keeping it simple.

A trap??!

Ratty wrote:I still think making extra tactics always unlockable off Intelligence would be very good for the game.

If i may be srs for a moment, this is a great idea.

Hmmm... new tactics.... makes me feel not so bad for becoming attached to dragons.

If all tactics were equal (ala rock/scissors/paper,) then they should all be of equal cost. A "better" power should cost more.

If everybody got the same amount, they should cost the same, if an alt got a extra one, both should cost a little more (500-1000 base xp extra.)

As far as the new tactics would go, we won't know for awhile which are the best and which the weakest, but if they are flavors of the originals, base them off the price of the originals.

So fer instance, throw down some baselines... make repair 1000, dodge 1250, ram 1500, and strafe 1750. If that, indeed, is the ranking of their effects on battle.

Then a single-tactic alt would get its tactic at the base price.

A multi-tactic alt (say 2) would get each at a cost of +500...
An unlocking alt would get its base at +250 and the unlocking at +500, maybe +250. Or some semblace thereof, cheaper to start than the 2-tactics.

Maybe have an unlocking actionmaster, with cheaper tactics once unlocked, say -250 for single alt, or base-price for 2.

If everybody were to have 3 tactics, forget all that, make them all cost the same amount, and let the mix make the balance. say 1000/2000/3000 for base costs.

It just makes no sense for one alt to get a tactic at a base cost of 1000 and another to have the same at 4000.

I know one thing I would love to see is having avoid be able to dodge tactics, but that might make it too good (unless the exp for doing it is far less or not at all, purely defensive).

Or the ability to dodge tactic attacks is a made into a seperate tactic itself?

A tarp you say?

Merc With A Mouth wrote:A tarp you say?

Look shes is like 16 thats such a trap

Let's reel it back in gentlemen.

Prowl240z wrote:

Merc With A Mouth wrote:A tarp you say?

Look shes is like 16 thats such a trap

No he's older then 16. And no, that wasn't a typo.

The only thing i don't exactly like about the new alt classes tactics is the stat costs, the amount of difference between tactic A and tactic B seems to be larger than it was before. I know there used to be one or two that were 1k/2k or 1k/2.5k with and without having to have Skill or Intel upgraded. Now it seems like theres not a single one that's even 1k/2.5k with or without the other upgrades required. (though i could have overlooked since i still haven't memorized too many of the new classes)

pRedimus wrote:I'll be honest, Im not sure why all tfs dont have one tactic as standard with a cost of 1k, and another unlockable tactic with a higher xp cost (2k? 4k?).

Hopefully they'll consider something like that, preferably with Intel as the unlock stat so that it does something useful.

But mostly I'm hoping for more standardized costs. The current costs are too arbitrary and make many alt classes, as I've said before, into traps.

pRedimus wrote:I'll be honest, Im not sure why all tfs dont have one tactic as standard with a cost of 1k, and another unlockable tactic with a higher xp cost (2k? 4k?).

I'll side with you on that, I want to pick certain alts so that I can weave a story with my team, It's hard though when you're restricted to some alts having 2,500xp for the first stat, whist other alt modes you don't want you have to take up to make up the difference.

Here's my question, why does this problem exist? Why can't it be 1,000xp for the primary tactic and 4,000xp for the secondary? It would make picking alts a lot easier.

So, as far as costs go, make them all like the fighter alts? I'd like that myself, there are some great looking alts in there that I won't use because they've been rendered impotent by their stat costs.

And preferably give all alts (at least) two tactics; even if the other tactic is usually Avoid. The Intelligence unlocks thing would just be gravy.

Actually, that sounds pretty good. Now all we have to do is get a mod to look in here and think the same thing.

pRedimus wrote:Another idea i had was to make certain tactics cheaper for certain factions.

Ie:
The 'good' factions would get cheaper repair (becuase they want to preserve life).
The 'bad' factions would get cheaper strafe (becuase they have no problem ending life).

The Beast factions would get cheaper avoid (becuase they are fast and agile).
The Mechanical factions would get cheaper ram (becuase they're bigger and stronger).

So:
Bots get cheaper Repair and Ram
Cons get cheaper Strafe and Ram
Maxs get cheaper Repair and Avoid
Preds get cheaper Strafe and Avoid

That make any sence to anybody?

Creates too much imbalance. Strafe is a big XP generator in mid-levels, it gives a big advantage to the factions that are getting cheap Strafe. The factions getting cheap Repair will get an advantage, but it won't come until the highest levels, which most players will never see.

I look at that and think, "if that ever gets implemented, I made a big mistake going Maximal." It also gives the best advantage to a faction already taking up the top 50 spots in the game.

No thanks.