PRE - WIPE Madness test server launched

[Hazard]

Please make pre-wipe madness test server until 20:00 GMT + 1

[maszrum]

personally i dont like thoes changes with strengh and penalties, however my sniper loves it. almost nobody has stonewall in yesterday test so that was like heaven for my sniper

[avv]

I also completely don't get the reason for removing -to hit penalty- for strength and one hander. Yeah, the new penalties are painful allright against any combat with cripplers, but in some cases it isn't - so you can easily make 1str alt for some purposes, in which it will be much better than any other char. Not much, but  I feel some players will learn to abuse it - they always abuse when given the chance, so why give the chance?

Making 1str bg is nonono. I just tested what kind of armcrits a sniper does to such char and every armcrit ended up as cripple and gundrop. The sniper probably won't kill you any time soon, but in team pvp it's a big deal if sniper can disable one of the opponents with one hit.

[Wunglorz]

personally i dont like thoes changes with strengh and penalties, however my sniper loves it. almost nobody has stonewall in yesterday test so that was like heaven for my sniper

Well you might not like these, but lemme explain what's the problem: BG players as me or others liked that they could take 1 st and put point in other thingies they like with no penaly, because what? you dont need that st because you'll get anyway some cw, you'll get eventually more BG skill like 250%+ and take buffout, only thing may don't like you is the crippling or that you couldn't loot - now the way it will be, they will get hurt for minimaxing their characters and won't be able to do the "ultimate build" at least for some time.

[skycast]

I also completely don't get the reason for removing -to hit penalty- for strength and one hander.

Because it is useless, even with big penalty you can compensate it by 300 combat skill, also it was very hard to lvlup char with low str before weapon handling or drugs, which cause painful grind. And now even if you have needed str for weapon buffout not useless for you. So if you have 5str and weapon require 5 after you take buffout you can avoid 10% cripples/drops.

[DrapiChrust]

I also completely don't get the reason for removing -to hit penalty- for strength and one hander.

Because it is useless (...)  it was very hard to lvlup char with low str

[trolling] If it was so hard, then it wasn't that useless  [/trolling]

Don't get me wrong. I like the new penalty. I just think it would work best together with the original one (-20, the test session penalty was an overkill). The old limitation wasn't useless. It was penalizing, but only on lower levels, this is why people ignored it and grind their way through it cursing about the grind, but doing it nevertheless. New one is also penalizing, this time only on higher levels (90% mobs don't shoot arms or shoot them rarely) . If we had both (-20% + cripple chance), having low strength will be penalised at every level, just as it should be.

I'm afraid leaving the low levels without any penalty (at least I see none) will encourage some strength exploits. Imagine needler char. I'm planning one for my friend and I don't see any reason to put STR above 1. Now until about level 20, he will be able to run around with any gun he wants most of the time (what low level mobs attack arms often? Bandits and?). Later, after level 20, he'll just take buffout and switch to needler (which was the target weapon) - voila, 1STR char with no penalties throughout the whole game.

The same goes for my p90 burster. I can put STR2 and one hander, and use any weapon I want with no problem, until real battles come, when I'll just take buffout and stick to p90 to get max effectiveness.

Yes, I know having proper STR has its advantages now. I like it. But erasing old -20% is a new incentive to put your STR 2 points below requirement, as it isn't really penalising at all. cripple chance penalty + to hit penalty would work best together, cripple penalises pvp and high level pve, to hit chances penalises humble beginnings.

[jacky.]

nice nice...Sky please write full changelog and features, because many of us who are in reloaded dont know much about this server. I loved first sesion but after few months on reloaded I have to change my habits. What we need is good character planner, and some tutorial for beginners and players from fo:r. I hope you server will kick ass and you will have average 500 players online.

[Flre]

Skycast, at the first time i can actually say : Good Job! After some "strange" changes before, i thought it wont be that good server, and i'm really glad that i was wrong !
Changes are great, snipers are dangerous, bursters are devastating at close distance. After few days of playing on test server, i liked nearly everything. The only weapon which i didn't like is avenger (without upgrades p90>ave in everything), so to use ave u really need only upgraded one.

[zuhardu]

Spoiler

I also completely don't get the reason for removing -to hit penalty- for strength and one hander.

Because it is useless (...)  it was very hard to lvlup char with low str

[trolling] If it was so hard, then it wasn't that useless  [/trolling]

Don't get me wrong. I like the new penalty. I just think it would work best together with the original one (-20, the test session penalty was an overkill). The old limitation wasn't useless. It was penalizing, but only on lower levels, this is why people ignored it and grind their way through it cursing about the grind, but doing it nevertheless. New one is also penalizing, this time only on higher levels (90% mobs don't shoot arms or shoot them rarely) . If we had both (-20% + cripple chance), having low strength will be penalised at every level, just as it should be.

I'm afraid leaving the low levels without any penalty (at least I see none) will encourage some strength exploits. Imagine needler char. I'm planning one for my friend and I don't see any reason to put STR above 1. Now until about level 20, he will be able to run around with any gun he wants most of the time (what low level mobs attack arms often? Bandits and?). Later, after level 20, he'll just take buffout and switch to needler (which was the target weapon) - voila, 1STR char with no penalties throughout the whole game.

The same goes for my p90 burster. I can put STR2 and one hander, and use any weapon I want with no problem, until real battles come, when I'll just take buffout and stick to p90 to get max effectiveness.

Yes, I know having proper STR has its advantages now. I like it. But erasing old -20% is a new incentive to put your STR 2 points below requirement, as it isn't really penalising at all. cripple chance penalty + to hit penalty would work best together, cripple penalises pvp and high level pve, to hit chances penalises humble beginnings.

Well, except the obvious (easier leveling and gameplay for newcomers) everybody here was bitching about OP big gunners so this is also a small step in trying to nerf the build. If you also add the speed nerf from the avenger, things are going in the right direction. Of course, now they will need to do something about P90 tanks (low STR req, one handed so almost imune to cripple, low AP for shooting, decent damage).

Now, my 2 cents:

What's with the hilarious encounter spawn? What is it based on? The spawn should be logical:
- low PE usually have high dmg res and high PE have low dmg res
- a character with high PE will spot enemies earlier, it just makes sense
- 10 PE should be placed at 50 hex, 9 PE at 45, 8 PE at 40 and so on...
I really don't understand the logic in spawning almost every time in the middle of the mobs. Fix this, please!

Drugs - I know this is a little late but you should consider adding extra explanation about drugs. New players don't want to bother to learn so much, every drug should have a new line - "Effect: +3 fov"; "Effect: +3 action points". It would help a lot of people in my opinion and the change is so easy to be made...

Also, I don't know if I brought this up before but: POST THE NEW COMPLETE CHANGELOG, PLEASE

One more question: weapon handling negates cripple penalty? It should negate it, but I don't know if the mechanic has been implemented.

[DrapiChrust]

Well, except the obvious (easier leveling and gameplay for newcomers) (...)

Newbies never tried to exploit strength, as they did not know the exploit. All the newbies I met had decent strength on their first chars, which was one of the reasons their builds sucked when compared to ours.

+1 to the rest, including full changelog

[skycast]

What's with the hilarious encounter spawn? What is it based on? The spawn should be logical:
- low PE usually have high dmg res and high PE have low dmg res
- a character with high PE will spot enemies earlier, it just makes sense
- 10 PE should be placed at 50 hex, 9 PE at 45, 8 PE at 40 and so on...
I really don't understand the logic in spawning almost every time in the middle of the mobs. Fix this, please!

We did huge reworking job to wordmap, encounters and etc. Next step will be new spawn system.

One more question: weapon handling negates cripple penalty? It should negate it, but I don't know if the mechanic has been implemented.

Ye, it work this way.

[avv]

What's with the hilarious encounter spawn? What is it based on? The spawn should be logical:
- low PE usually have high dmg res and high PE have low dmg res
- a character with high PE will spot enemies earlier, it just makes sense
- 10 PE should be placed at 50 hex, 9 PE at 45, 8 PE at 40 and so on...
I really don't understand the logic in spawning almost every time in the middle of the mobs. Fix this, please!

No spawning can save a weak sniper from getting swarmed by mobs, unless he has a lot of ap, it's tb fight and the map is big or urban. Real time pve is about tanking, damage and movement. Snipers can't tank and their damage isn't as reliable as burst so there you have it.

Snipers need their own skill move to defeat mobs with good ap/damage ratio.

One thing that could be done with mobs is that if they are shot from beyond their FOV, they shouldn't just immediately know where the shot came from but move around in random direction, trying to find the enemy. Once the player hits their fov, that ncp in question would charge the player.

Also high PE chars could open up maps that are suitable for them and spawn in the fringes of it.   

[Glumer]

What's with the hilarious encounter spawn? What is it based on? The spawn should be logical:
- low PE usually have high dmg res and high PE have low dmg res
- a character with high PE will spot enemies earlier, it just makes sense
- 10 PE should be placed at 50 hex, 9 PE at 45, 8 PE at 40 and so on...
I really don't understand the logic in spawning almost every time in the middle of the mobs. Fix this, please!

No spawning can save a weak sniper from getting swarmed by mobs, unless he has a lot of ap, it's tb fight and the map is big or urban. Real time pve is about tanking, damage and movement. Snipers can't tank and their damage isn't as reliable as burst so there you have it.

Snipers need their own skill move to defeat mobs with good ap/damage ratio.

One thing that could be done with mobs is that if they are shot from beyond their FOV, they shouldn't just immediately know where the shot came from but move around in random direction, trying to find the enemy. Once the player hits their fov, that ncp in question would charge the player.

Also high PE chars could open up maps that are suitable for them and spawn in the fringes of it.

if someone shoot you, you will now direction at least, you will feel it by pain in part of body

[zuhardu]

We did huge reworking job to wordmap, encounters and etc. Next step will be new spawn system.

Ye, it work this way.

That's great to hear, thanks!

One thing that could be done with mobs is that if they are shot from beyond their FOV, they shouldn't just immediately know where the shot came from but move around in random direction, trying to find the enemy. Once the player hits their fov, that ncp in question would charge the player.

This was working before wipe (couldn't check now because of spawning changes) when you blinded enemies, and it made sense. In TB, the blind NPC would only go for you as long as you were shooting him, if you ended turn without shooting and you were out of his fov, he would go back at his position. This way snipers were able to farm any mobs except enclave and nightkins (to big PE).

[Tracy Baker]

Hi , i have question.
Do that unarmed skill affect running speed still ?
thank u