Vampire relic and 'non-personal' kills

Post by **R.Flagg** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:09 am

Ordinarily I'd be posting this in the dev section, but things have been slow - so just to give browsers something to read today (and reply to perhaps) ....

I think it would be better if the vampire relic did not bring you health giving blood-trails for 'non-personal' kills. Things such as laser mines and proxy mines and turrets. I think this is both odd (in logic, look, and feel), and bad for game-play. It seems to make the vampire relic too powerful in some situations with these 'remote' kills.

I also think that perhaps too much health is being given thru this relic in normal use..., but one step at a time.

jb · Post by jb » Fri Jul 08, 2005 2:09 pm

Hmmm

not a bad point about the non-personal kills. However its not a easy thing to sort those out. I mean you have to make a big list of damage types that not included for the health and thats not only messy but we would not be able to catch all of the cases. Maybe we can put a life tile on the health trials so that if you dont get them say in 5 sec you loose. That would mean you would have to be in the area where the damage was caused and help to cut down on the non-personal benifit? (as if a turret kills some one and your on the other side of the map the health trials will not reach you in time)? Plus we modled this like all the other older vampaire relics in muts that came before us so not sure we need to make changes to the damage model as I think it first pretty well.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:57 pm

Isn't there a variable that holds the weapon class responsible for the damage? Just have the vampire relic read that variable and not give health if it equals laser mine, proxy mine, or turret.

LoQtUS · Post by **LoQtUS** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:04 pm

IMO, I dont want to see this changed. I really dont believe it should matter. Should we next take away the score for an indirect kill?

Post by **Shadowstar** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:09 pm

Well, if its a balance issue, then it should be considered. Vampire health gain is not the same as a score. Alot of it also depends on the player themselves.

I'm not sure either way, but I will still try to brainstorm the simplest way to implement it if we decide to do that.

LoQtUS · Post by **LoQtUS** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:20 pm

Shadowstar wrote:Well, if its a balance issue, then it should be considered. Vampire health gain is not the same as a score.

Someone please tell me how this is a game balance issue.

Agreed, no its not exactly the same, but that would be the next logical step after hobbleing the relic. No? I mean really you didnt get that kill by skill. All you did was place something. So if that is the logic behind removing it you should hobbel the kill score too.

Post by **R.Flagg** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 4:54 am

Shadowstar wrote:I feel that if we can make it play well and improve the gameplay, any changes we have to do to accomodate that are acceptable.

Quoted from another thread, but the point remains just as true here. Tweaking gameplay is an ongoing process.

Keep in mind folks that many, many things over time are the way they are, simply because nobody has addressed them yet, or because they weren't considered priority for a certain release, or whatever - not because any 'master-plan' was put precisely into effect. We often start a new weapon or feature with "rough" numbers and methods of operation, and then tweak as we go.

This is sorta like how when folks get used to bugs in UT200x, and then Epic finally fixes them. It's not "nerfing" anything in those cases, nor is it in this one. It's an ongoing effort to improve the game.

jb · Post by jb » Sun Jul 10, 2005 2:47 pm

Shaodw,

the probablem with indirect kills is its very hard to get them all. We can get some but we can not get them all. So besides the technical reasons we have a bigger one...

And its obvious that we have some that think this needs tweaking as well as others that dont. Then we have to look at that if you play the built in vampire mut, they dont take indirect kills into account. Nor did the original relics in UT. The vampire rules have been around for a long time and have more or lessed worked.

The Question becomes does the current vampire relic tip the balance in favor of the holder? IMHO no. Its a strong relic to have. But try to go up against Geman and his ERDW and the vampire relic holder will die ever time

But one thing we could do is put a simple line of site check. That way you have to see your damage to get the health. We could say that the "health" trails need to see you to give you health... however its not clear to me that the need to be change as not every one thinks the need the change...

Iceboy · Post by **Iceboy** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:12 pm

I think the only real potential for abuse is the case where someone lays down a bunch of trip mines and goes into hiding for whatever reason (let's say low health).

IMHO this is fairly cowardly, albeit smarter than just waiting in the open. However with the vamp. relic it encourages that rather than running around looking for health pickups/vials.

The LOS idea would counter this fairly well, or a simple "anti-camp" measure would work well too.

Also I think LOS would look better, since you won't have the health lines travelling through walls and all that (it's been a while so I don't remember if they actually go through walls and all that).

My $0.02

Post by **Shadowstar** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:25 pm

They do... I always thought it looked kinda funny, but then its kind of unavoidable... Even with LOS checks, they'd still have the potential to go through walls. I dunno on this one...

Post by **Tim** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 9:18 am

Shadowstar wrote:Even with LOS checks, they'd still have the potential to go through walls. I dunno on this one...

Mabye you should make that trail a projectile, which relases the trail. And make the projectile stop at walls.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:43 pm

I think it already is a real projectile... The only problem with allowing it to collide is that it requires cpu time to process the collision and can also create lag in online games. Plus, we'd have to replicate it, which is a whole other monster.

Post by **R.Flagg** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 6:16 pm

Iceboy wrote:I think the only real potential for abuse ...

That's one area that fits into the overall picture, but 'abuse' or 'skill' (as someone else mentioned) aren't the reasons I am sure the relic needs tweaking. It's overall game play, and whether or not the thing is balanced and fun. Currently, it 'feels' over the top to me, and that's why the thread.

Even with 'personal' damage given (ie: not even a kill), it's too much IMO. For just one starter example, I missed with one rocket, got some splash damage on my opponent, and the vamp relic blood trails took me from 34 health to 100. That's after only 1 rocket, that missed and got splash damage only.

Yeah, to me, that's over top.

Maybe we can quote other specific examples of actual results from various uses of this relic.

... however its not clear to me that the need to be change as not every one thinks the need the change...

It's not clear to me that all of those who've spoken against possible tweaks have spent enough time in-game testing it, taken it seriously, and looked closely at exactly how much health is being given in certain situations. That's important to establish (for the team members anyway, since it's us who'll decide) if quality input on game play is what we really want.

Maybe we ought to also be discussing what exactly is the intended plan (the actual numbers) for how much health you receive from the relic, just in case we're seeing a bug here in addition to possible tweaks.

jb · Post by jb » Wed Jul 13, 2005 11:06 pm

R.Flagg wrote:It's not clear to me that all of those who've spoken against possible tweaks have spent enough time in-game testing it, taken it seriously, and looked closely at exactly how much health is being given in certain situations. That's important to establish (for the team members anyway, since it's us who'll decide) if quality input on game play is what we really want.

R.Flagg wrote:Maybe we ought to also be discussing what exactly is the intended plan (the actual numbers) for how much health you receive from the relic, just in case we're seeing a bug here in addition to possible tweaks.

Its suppose to be 1 to 1, meaning for every damage point you cause you get them added to your health.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:45 am

We should check to make sure that each trail is not giving 1 to 1, because since there are 4 trails that would be 4 to 1... That would explain the large boosts Flagg is referring to.