MrGrey
Austin joined
Elite Tester For Modular Combat. Mr. Grey, at your service. If you'd like to see my previous blogs for MOD:COM please click the "Blog" tab above.
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We have something very special planned for PVM!
We hope you can find this new "Super-awesome-secret" and love it as much as we did creating it!
There is also another very special release I have been allowed to speak of! May I now introduce a new mechanic of game play: Factions!
We now have three factions, based upon the player skin you choose at the beginning of the character creation page.
The three new factions are as follows:
The Resistance:
The Resistance was formed during and slightly after the Seven Hour War. It is made up of citizen and the few remaining Black Mesa employees. Their objective is to fight off the Combine. The combatants are backed up by Isaas Kliener and the other remaining Black Mesa scientists. They are the underdogs, the scrappers; the faction who places the most emphasis on camaraderie more than anything else.
The Combine:
The Combine are a viral-like species who want nothing more than to rule the universe. They are made of up of mindless drones and easily manipulated humans. The combatants are backed up by their gracious benefactors. They are the militants, the faction who who places their emphasis on efficiency.
Aperture Science:
Aperture Science was Black Mesa's competing company. They had brilliant scientists and eccentric leader - all of which were destroy with the creation of GLaDOS. The remaining scientists (who had taken a day off) and their test subjects make up what is left of Aperture Science. The combatants are backed up by GLaDOS who provides them with the Aperture variation of weapons. They are the thinkers; the faction who puts the most emphasis on furthering science.
Each faction brings to the table new benefits when they are with one of their own too!
Resistance: When 2 or more rebels are near each other, they are under the effect of camaraderie - and will gain slightly more experience. Scales slightly as more and more rebels fight together.
Combine: When 2 or more Combine are near each other, they gain tactical advantage - and will deal slightly more weapon damage. Scales slightly as more Combines fight together.
Aperture Science: When 2 or more Aperture combatants are near each other, they gain the technical advantage - and will recover auxiliary power slightly faster. Scales slightly as more of them fight together.
As I've been allowed to reveal this, I full well think it's within my bounds to also provide my personal opinion on a few bits and bobs from the new update that you're all going to love!Personally I find this factions deal to be very team oriented, meaning that any sort of team game modes that may be implemented later in the updates will have to be three-way fights, with maps designed as such to support team orientation.
This also allows for "Alliances" of a sort in game modes, meaning two factions could ally against one for a time in certain game modes. It all depends though as we have not looked into that all the way. Honestly, this will allow for new skins for each alliance, and even new weapon models.
I feel that personally if we start making separate weapons for each faction and giving them different damages it'd be very hard to keep them balanced; as one faction would always have the upper hand. But different visuals? Cool by me. Different resistances needed for each faction? Cool by me!
Honestly this is one of many steps in the right direction for Modular Combat. I feel this is going to benefit game play as a whole and allow for new friendships and enemies to erupt from team play.
Hope to see you all on the battlefield!See ya next time, space cowboy.
P.s-
Man-hack minions. Gonna fucking rock.
That is all.
Well people as of now there's really nothing to report. So for this post I'm going to try my best not to be the jackass you've all come to know and hate.
Modular Combat has been a very gracious host. Winston and Dryden especially have been kind enough to let me join them in working on this game. Though I'm not a programmer or texture artist, I am a thinker; and they like that. Chewy (Joe, UbertankshotgunguyIhate) was one of the first people to introduce me to this mod, during what seemed to be a shotgun hireing, I was brought into the testing group and suddenly sprung into the working set of gears you all know as the "Team".
Modular combat, has in my personal opinion benefited from all of you, the players. You've given up your time and effort to be willing to supply ideas, no matter how strange -Cough-ManhackChopper-cough-. You've always been one to give good feedback, and always have been patient with us as a team in working on this mod. I thank you for it, personally as a tester, not as part of the team but from me -personally-.
I will be reviewing all suggesstions in the forum, compiling a list of all the item's that are relevant to better the game, and will present them all to my fellow testers and dev's when possible. But to do all this I need your help, yes you the player. And you, with the face and two arms! What I need from you is to keep on playing, spread the word about our game. The more people we have playing, the less Dryden uses the bullwhip, so it's good to have more people!
:D
(Now if you're having trouble reading me out, it's because I'm crazy, and have no actual path on what I discuss and when. So BE HAPPY. :D)
Personal Testing Log for 6/6/09
Manhacks-
Altitude issue when not targetting an enemy. They begin to float upwards until in contact with skybox.
At maximum level health exceeds 100. Proposed numbers should be below 100.
Energy cost and cooldown time far too high for something so easily killed with a g-gun or via vort.
Damage scale should not reach beyond a max damage of 50. With four of these out they nearly obliterate a 100 hp player in an instant if they do not own resistance or regen.
------PROPOSED FIX-----------
Adjust manhack spawn amount to summon three manhacks, keeping cost and cooldown time to the same as is. Manhacks should then either act as a squad and attack one player, or act separately as three workers. Spawnlimit on manhacks should be maxed to three to limit any more than such. If spanw limit is raised then perhaps a lower damage ratio should be in order to introduce "Mass attack" instead of many massive damage dealing foes at once.
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Zombie-
Doubtful these things are very useful, with exception to -very- close quarters combat. Hp and strength are at right levels.
---------PROPOSED FIX-------------
We need to look into giving the zombie a priority list, if the enemy is too far then it should select a nearby prop to slam into and sling the prop at the enemy. This gives them a slight ranged capability.
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Fast Zombie-
No comment. Nor will there ever be. These are balanced.
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Vort-
Slight issue with the follow a.i on this one it seems, even when set to defensive and recalled, they sometimes will not follow a given order and wander off anyways.
Aim and damage seem to be overpowered.
------------PROPOSED FIX------------------
Exchange thair current attack beam with a "Progectile" version, and program to have a cone of fire, in which a random percentile controles where in that cone it will fire, much like the smg or pistol induces during constant fire.
Force the vort to stop turning after reaching a certain point in the attack charge, giving the player opprotuniy to out strafe the attack.
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Crow-
Damage to level ratio slightly underwhelming. Though this isnt meant to be a mainstay attack in the first place.
--------------PROPOSED FIX-------------------
There seems to be a "jamming"/"sensory issue" with the bird, due to being so low to the ground. The proposed ideas is to allow the bird to "leap" at least three feet into the air, to give it ample movement room to aim and fire away. Timing and speed are just right, so this is the only issue.
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(Name hidden at this time)-
The a.i to this specific minion seems to be lacking, as it takes too long to attack the target and when it does the power is very underwhelming. Please look into boosting either damage or the speed at which it attacks or senses the enemy.
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Regeneration-
You know how this works.
--------------PROPOSED FIX----------
Half it's effectivness. Allow base healing to be 1 with a scale of 1. This means they will gain a maximum of +5 hp a second instead of the highly overpowered +10.
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Resistance-
We know how this works too.
-------------PROPOSED FIX--------------
Halfing the cap, thats right, make it a five level skill but only max out at 25% damage reduction.
I've done the math and if a player deals 40 damage in a second, that damage is halved to 20. But if they owned the +10 regeneration as well they only take 10 damage. With the proposed change, they will suffer 25 damage even if they max out resist and regen.
This is far more balanced and requires the player to make use of cover and escape skills if things get too hairy.
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Mind Absorb-
We know how this works, no bugs here.
----------PROPOSED FIX-----------------
As we've seen, at max level this deals nearly 100 points in damage. Personal opinion speaking this should be halved. This does not AFFECT it's AUX stealing power, only the damage it does to the player. So for every two points the player steals in AUX, there is ONE point in damage to the enemy.
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Proposed changes.
-Consider removing fast headcrab from the minon spawn list in replacement to manhack. The fast headcrab is far underused and seems ill effective in combat at lower levels.
-Consider tweaking MIRV to detonate on contact, like frost and fire nades do.
-Consider nerfing strength down to a 50% boost. To counteract any changes to resistance or Regen that may make it far too overpowered.
-Consider buffing the damage scale of crowbar and stunstick, o make them more viable in melee combat situations.
-Consider changeing lasermine color to deep purple in replacement to green. Much of the textures in our current maps are green in tone, and make them impossibly hard to see at times.
-Consider nerfing down damage cost to destroy laser mines. Forcing players to either refresh the mines every four kills or every two minutes.
-Consider allowing for color changes on trails for grenades and rocket reticles. For visual difference (as suggessted in forums). Do not allow for mines, as this can cause abuse from people whom turn it to light colors to make them nearly invisible beams.
-Consider hitbeep sounds on connection of a hit for a player, allowing for confirmation of a hit in combat.
-Consider a revisioning of the fast headcrab, possibly a conversion to poison headcrab?
Suggestions-
-Scale down a version of the Antlion guard and dub them "Vanguards". Scale them to bigger than an antlion but small enough to fit through doors. Allow them to be the Yin to the vort Yang; Making them CQC giants, whilst Vorts take the hold on Ranged. Scale down HP and Damage to suit balanceing needs.
-Reskin a larger scaled up version of Poison headcrab. Pale brown or lighter colors will do, then skin on some visual effects like antenne and such to give it personalization. Speed up motion to allow them to be nimble, if this is not possible replace for fast headcrab model to allow it more movement room. Its attack will be much like the "DogSquid"??? From Halflife-1. In which it will move nimbly to it's intended target and then splay out it's legs, beginning to rumble it's middle portion of the "body" to generate a high roar. Upon release this will knock enemies away from the minion, causeing a SLIGHT motion blurr as well as stunning them from useing guns for .5 seconds or so. We'll call them "DevilDogs".
-Shield Wall module, this module will launch a small bar of metal that will have struts to either side to keep it from tilting, looking much like an I---I when laying down. In between these two bars a curtain of Combine stasis shield will slide up it, allowing for a player to shoot out from one side, but keeping all fire away from him on the other side! The shield can only hold for so long or for so much damage, so it'll fail after awhile. This skill should not be allowed to cool down faster than it takes to destroy one, so be careful on this.
-Flare. Tossing a small flare inside a room, this thing suddenly goes off in a vibrant and very bright display of light to blind anyone inside. This flare lasts a VERY SHORT TIME and acts much like a flashbang. The effects of lightblinding last slightly longer than the flare, allowing the caster to rush in and attack an enemy who may be camping a little too hard.
-MiniStryder. Scale down the Stryder to somthing the size of a hunter perhaps. Change out it's sounds to something lesser so as to allow for realism in how it sounds compared to it's size. It's auto cannon should be changed out for something much like an AR2, in which it uses to attack the enemy. This thing should also be able to strafe while fireing, giving it good medium ranged/ranged combat capability.
-KamakazeCombine. Scale down the Combine APC to something about the size of a crow, if not a little bigger. This little apc will rush around the map, going around obstacles and backing out of jams until it finds a target. It will then gives off the "combine death squeal" you hear when killing a combine, this sqeal does not end until it either loses the target or detonates on the target in a grenade-esq explosion.
-Oilslick. Creates a small puddle of ooze that when stepped on will make the enemy slide in whichever direction they were headed excrutiatingly fast, perhaps slipping into a small slam nest, or maybe into the waiting arms of a grenade. :D
-Trap. This is a very broad term for what I'd like to see done. I'd like to see some sort of trap skill that allows a player to lay traps that will spring when an enemy gets too near them. These traps would have a tell-tale sign of their existance via a small antenne that stuck about 5-8 inches from the ground with a small glowing colored orb. Depending on the color, would show the trap. Perhaps yellow for a sandtrap that will slow them down a fuckton until they escape it. Perhaps Red will spring a massive fireball in the general area, causeing burn damage until it extinguishes 5-10 seconds later or the player runs out of it, still burning from afterburn. It all depends on what the devs want to do with this.
-Critical Strike. When cloaked, the player has a 10-50% chance of doing x4 damage to a player with a melee or crossbow. Five levels, no aux cost.
Thats all for 6/6/09
Cya next time, Space Cowboy.
6/7/07 Personal Testing logs.
Zombie-
It seems there is a strange crash related to the zombie. I'm unsure if it's due to a command or if it's part of their programming. But since I've been trying to use them it seems that every time I do it will randomly crash the servers I play on. I'm unsure of the fix, so for now we need to look into the code and see whats buggy.
------------PROPOSED FIX---------
It's to my understanding after getting feedback from many players that Zombie is underused except in PVM where as it's a "Tank" to kill off things while they sit there and wait. I feel that this is not how it should be played out. In my own personal proposal I ask that we actually replace the Zombie with the "Zombine" from half life 2:ep 1.
The zombine is capable of minor running, and when low on health it'd be pretty neat to have it yank out a grenade in a final rush to the enemy. I'd advise we keep HP and strength as is. Since it's run speed is far below what an average sprinter can do, it should be easy to counter them.
If this is not so, we can see how they work in testing and tweak them otherwise.
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Changes-
As stated on forums, I propose that we allow "Admin" commands like Votekick to be instituted into the game, after a certain number of consecutive kicks the player should be banned for one half hour. I'd also like to propose that when a callvote is activated by a player, that the player not be allowed to pull up another callvote until either the next map or until half a round has passed. This is to stop vote spamming, which seems to be at a high sometimes for people who are dissatisfied and want to force their wants on others.
Suggesstions-
---Complete removal of Dm_cloudcity until teleporter blocks are reset. It seems the map allows for quite a few exploits that allow a teleporter to hide well and camp certain points. Also, it seems that even if there is no real threat to going out of map, the teleport skill will not work unless aiming DIRECTLY ahead on the bridges. It's odd, so we need to fix it.
---Crystal modules. We have four stones/crystals representing the four seasons. These "Crystals", when activated will disable any other crystal in use by the player. These crystals will also allow the player certain "elemental" boosts to their attacks or defenses. For example, the "Winter" crystal/ Diamond; Will allow players to do minor slowdown damage or perhaps increase defense verses plague and incendiary grenades.
Thoughts?
Thats all for 6/7/09
Cya next time, Space Cowboy.
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