SamsaraHold Resurrection + Enhancer

[Untitled]

Not the first to point this out - spamming the ally beacons is a very effective win strategy. In fact...

Hard mode is a relatively recent invention of mine - I initially invented it in 0.11, I think in the beta stage (wasn't in stronghold at all).

It was not actually invented for the purpose of making the game harder - it did, but the initial purpose of it, was for the purpose of breaking these kinds of "camp the spawn point" strategies.

Hence why, in case you don't know, hard mode activates at high player counts - regardless of whether or not you are on hard mode. How many players before hard mode activates varies between map to map (some maps, it's higher, some, it's lower). You can camp the spawn points if they consist of 20-500 HP enemies, but it's much harder, with say, 1500+ HP enemies (The advanced hell nobles, mostly).

[bruiserdaemon]

I don't know if you already tried this, but place down 5 turrets, then spawn normal and elite reinforcements, they will literally fuck the waves up ( on UV, normal mode ). Yes there needs to be some " dumb " mode for random players and a tougher mode for experienced players. Then you can lower the difficulty level during the game using the buttons at the marine base... sounds good to me.

[HexaDoken]

Or nerf turrets/reinforcements.

I'm not sure how much my opinion values given that I am not a stronghold/samsarahold player, but in my opinion, if what separates an experienced player from a newbie is the former's ability to lock down waves with turrets/reinforcements, then something is goddamn wrong with this.

[Espio]

I wouldn't say waves literally get locked down from turret and reinforcement spam; they're going to eventually be destroyed unless one is an invulnerable turret.

Was that mentioned anywhere? Yeah there's been invulnerable turrets for a while now; they tend to tear up a good chunk. Especially if put in proper places. Reinforcements are just weak meatshields going into at least the fifth wave of anything.

Besides, why would you want to put down all the reinforcements in one go in the first place? Seems like a waste of possible later meatshielding to save your bacon.

[bruiserdaemon]

Playtested a little more, yeah the game is overall fun but there are still some pretty nasty unbalancements ( and some broken waves here and there but you can skip to the next by typing " puke 930 1 " on the console command ).

- corvus totally OP, his weapons eat very little ammo and are effective, the firemace is too strong for a slot 2. His elite summon is the best too, the iron liches will tear apart the waves. The tome of power is very strong too.
- duke's rocket launcher is weak and the freezethrower is pointless for a slot 6, plus he is weak because of the 10% extra damage he takes. Totally the worst hero.
- ranger's double shotgun is pointless, weak damage and eats 2 shells per shot. His other weapons are good though.

PS: why is the ranger class avaiable only on multiplayer??

The rest is pretty fine, but

[bruiserdaemon]

Or nerf turrets/reinforcements.

I'm not sure how much my opinion values given that I am not a stronghold/samsarahold player, but in my opinion, if what separates an experienced player from a newbie is the former's ability to lock down waves with turrets/reinforcements, then something is goddamn wrong with this.

This is because the player is too much reliant on powerups, some of which are way OP, like the quad damage. The quadded wraithverge will fuck through anything and everything, as well as the repeater and the spear of destiny, tweak down the overkill weapons for god sake. The nuke attack is dumb too, powerful but kills the players.

Just keep your inventory filled with powerups... the game would be much better if say, quad was only double, players more resilient. Screw the portal maps wher 1 demons fails the mission, make a minimum of 10 demons to lose.

[Untitled]

Playtested a little more, yeah the game is overall fun but there are still some pretty nasty unbalancements ( and some broken waves here and there but you can skip to the next by typing " puke 930 1 " on the console command ).

- corvus totally OP, his weapons eat very little ammo and are effective, the firemace is too strong for a slot 2. His elite summon is the best too, the iron liches will tear apart the waves. The tome of power is very strong too.

I actually agree!

Now, of course, this is my fault - I silent-buffed him a couple patches back, but mostly because no one plays him very often.

- duke's rocket launcher is weak and the freezethrower is pointless for a slot 6, plus he is weak because of the 10% extra damage he takes. Totally the worst hero.

Duke's rocket launcher is interesting in that, for the most part, it's strictly worse than, say, the doom rocket launcher.

Except it does over twice the damage against boss monsters. It's specialty is that it tears bosses apart.
On average, it takes 45 doom rockets to down a cyberdemon.
It takes exactly 20 duke rockets to down one.

So yeah, it's a specialized rocket - but it's effective at what it does. Not the best otherwise, but it's decent.

Freezethrower is useless against 90% of the beastiary - but it operates like the fusion pistol - fire-based monsters (archvile-line, bruiser demons, pyro demons) all take much higher damage from it.

On the whole, you're right - Duke's extra damage adds up, and he takes a lot of rocket ammo, and his freezethrower is kind of terrible. But more on that later.

- ranger's double shotgun is pointless, weak damage and eats 2 shells per shot. His other weapons are good though.

PS: why is the ranger class avaiable only on multiplayer??

Ranger's double shotgun is the only weapon ranger has that can use shells. Yes, it's weak. Yes, it uses 2 shells per shot. It's a junk weapon; it's designed as a junk weapon. Consider this, though:
-He gets double the shell ammo.
-His bullet usage is the best in the game, once you get the super-nailgun.
-His rocket usage, is well, ranger. Rockets, rockets, and more rockets.
-Giving him good shell usage would make him ridiculous.

Also, you need to remember there was a time where EVERYONE played ranger. Because of that, I tend to stick on the weak-side - everyone likes playing him, so if I buff him too much, EVERYONE plays him.

I don't like seeing teams entirely composed of one hero.

Anyways, the bigger point is this:

Balance matters less than perceived balance.

If players think something is better, they will gravitate. Even if something else is clearly better, there is some crowd-mind. Because of this, I balance things not to be as perfectly balanced as possible - that's actually really hard - but to try and make it feel balanced when 8 players are dishing everything out.

Corvus? Most players don't realize how good he is. As such, not many people play him, and, well, he stays overpowered until then.

Duke? He might be weak, but most people love playing him. No reason to buff him, giving even more incentive to play him.

Ranger? Again, he feels more broken then he actually is; such that people still play him. I think he's starting to fall out of favor, so I might buff him just a bit; but I'm on edge from the era where 4/8 players being ranger was common.

[Espio]

Corvus? Most players don't realize how good he is. As such, not many people play him, and, well, he stays overpowered until then.

Yeah remember when you had to nerf the shit out of Laz because I got bored of BJ and rekt every wave of everything? :^)

[bruiserdaemon]

Balance matters less than perceived balance.

Pardon but if even you know something is unbalanced why do you keep it such? There's no point to have duke's special damage against bosses but helpless against non bosses, imagine if two dukes remain alone on the battle after the others got killed... what are they supposed to do, quit the game?? I don't get your point.

Anyway since i'm expecially good at balancing things, i will now point out what you have to do in order to have a GOOD balancing, please take note because you'll find it is worth it:

- tweak down a tiny bit corvus firemace damage.
- speed up duke's explosive shotgun by a 20%, decrease radius a bit, decrease damage a tiny bit.
- give duke's rockets a little less damage than doomguy's rockets, but more radius, take away bonus against bosses.
- give ranger's double shotgun some more pellets fired per shot but less accuracy.
- spear of destiny is OP, tweak down the damage by some 30% but increase the fire rate by a tiny bit, increase ammo usage by a tiny bit.
- wraithverge is ridicolously powerful, take away a 30% damage but decrease ammo usage by a tiny bit.
- doomguy's chaingun is weak for a slot 4, speed up the fire rate a tiny bit.

Now on to the items:

- carrying 3 quads is too much, make 2.
- 5 guard spheres are too much, 3 are enough. 3/4 of damage absorbed is totally OP when coupled with armor and health upgrades, it is like an invuln. Make it 1/2.
- no smart bomb, it fucks up all the demons and the players on sight too, it is both dumb and OP.
- 5 turrets per player is, say, the perfect camping thing, it means that 6 players can deploy 30 turrets all pointed to the enemy... sit down and watch. Make 3 max normal turret, 1 max elite turret.
- 3 weapon upgrade packs are way too much, make just 2 ( it makes ammo infinite for a period of time ).
- 2 morph sphere are way too much, the terminator is very powerful and plus you can couple it with quad and invuln. 1 is more than enough.
- 2 elite reinforcements are quite OP, 1 is enough. 5 normal reinforcements are also too much and all together they make the game messy, let's say 3 are enough.
- helper drones are quite OP, they will fry the demons and last quite long. Give them a 25% less damage and let's say it's ok.

NOTE: remember that stronghold's weakness is basically the overpowered items and helplessness of players who don't buy enough of them. Items should be there to help you, not to win the game for you, this whole concept of winning the game by buying all the items is quite lame, plus you get a lot of money by winning missions.

Now to the players:

- 100 base health is very low compared to the demons you face. It is true you can pump up to 400 and buy armor but when you die you are back to 100 and no armor. What's the point having 9 lives but extremely weak once respawned? Make all players base health 200 but only 5 lives. Health can be pumped up at max 300, 400 is too much.


Note that if i'm criticizing samsarahold it is because i like it, and i want it to be good, i don't play much videogames but when i find something good i get passionate. Please do the modifications suggested above, you won't regret it.

[Untitled]

Corvus? Most players don't realize how good he is. As such, not many people play him, and, well, he stays overpowered until then.

Yeah remember when you had to nerf the shit out of Laz because I got bored of BJ and rekt every wave of everything? :^)

That's different - You see, if you are completely annihilating every single wave, it's no longer secret that something's broken - it's an obvious fact, and you can't deny it.

Balance matters less than perceived balance.

Pardon but if even you know something is unbalanced why do you keep it such? There's no point to have duke's special damage against bosses but helpless against non bosses, imagine if two dukes remain alone on the battle after the others got killed... what are they supposed to do, quit the game?? I don't get your point.

None of the heroes are so bad as to be unusable; as long as you're good, you can handle any hero - just some less well. And that's the thing - I balance not absolutely, but according to what common interest is. I don't want to encourage popular classes to get any more popular.

On another note, I tend to side on the more broken side of things more often than note (as you can probably tell), because I figure this isn't competitive; the demons are not gonna complain (mostly from being dead, but still), and most people don't mind broken stuff - I only really try to nerf things if people like them too much.

Duke actually has a unique utility you've probably been overlooking; the Jetpack. It's actually REALLY useful, as I've found out, as long as you keep watch on your fuel. In midair, you can dodge things much, much, much better, counteracting his defense problems, and if you fire explosives straight down into a crowd, you get effectively double the explosion damage, because instead of hitting the front of the crowd and having half of the rocket damage get wasted (no monsters in that part), the explosion is being entirely used, almost doubling your damage by rockets.

Anyway since i'm expecially good at balancing things, i will now point out what you have to do in order to have a GOOD balancing, please take note because you'll find it is worth it:

Don't say you're that good at balancing things yet; I can't say I'm good at it either (ahahaha no), but the thing is, you REALLY have to play multiplayer. At least, when I throw the server up again tomorrow. Single player testing is...I don't like to say it, but almost completely useless except for surface bugs that I should've caught early.

- tweak down a tiny bit corvus firemace damage.

Done for next alpha, most likely, along with a bit of dragon claw decrease (to counteract the earlier buff I gave). I'll see, it depends on how many people play him.

- speed up duke's explosive shotgun by a 20%, decrease radius a bit, decrease damage a tiny bit.

Eh, it's a high-power weapon, honestly, it completely wrecks zombie and imp waves. No reason to mess with it.

- give duke's rockets a little less damage than doomguy's rockets, but more radius, take away bonus against bosses.

They do 208 damage compared to 148-288 of doomguy's (average 218). The bonus against bosses makes up for how useless the freezethrower is except in fringe cases (i.e. vile line, bruisers, pyros, inferno)

- give ranger's double shotgun some more pellets fired per shot but less accuracy.

It's a deliberately useless weapon, so probably not - by it's very nature, to avoid giving ranger dominance, he has the downright worst shell usage in game - completely deliberately. Use the rockets when applicable.

- spear of destiny is OP, tweak down the damage by some 30% but increase the fire rate by a tiny bit, increase ammo usage by a tiny bit.

Already done so - though firerate/ammo usage is staying. Ripper hitboxes are getting nerfed for next patch - that was the real problem.

- wraithverge is ridicolously powerful, take away a 30% damage but decrease ammo usage by a tiny bit.

Wraithverge is driving me nuts because it's such a divisive weapon; it's either useless or overpowered and cannot, by it's very nature, avoid it. Since it requires literally zero skill (it aims for you, remember), If it doesn't do enough damage, it's plain useless, and will ALWAYS be useless - you can be the best player or the worst player, you won't get more or less. On the flipside, if it's overpowered, it will ALWAYS be overpowered, due to the nature of, again, zero skill. Probably getting some nerf-buffs; nerfs to general damage, buffs to boss damage (since it does either 1/3 or 1/4 or 1/12 damage to bosses iirc). Again, I have to highly careful since if it gets useless; it's totally useless, and if it gets overpowered it's totally overpowered.

This is compounded by the fact that parias is not generally regarded as the strongest hero; his focus of melee range makes it very skill-intensive to play him. As such, I feel as if it's okay for him to get the strongest 7 (which doesn't even super-destroy bosses, so it's not that good).

- doomguy's chaingun is weak for a slot 4, speed up the fire rate a tiny bit.

The problem is doom internally runs at 35 tics/second. The doomguy chaingun fires at 4 tics/shot, or roughly 9 shots a second. The problem is the next value is 3 tics/shot, or 12 shots a second. A 33% fire rate increase is, uh, more than a little bit, and would put his chaingun on tier with some of the others, if not higher - much like ranger's shotgun, it's deliberately the worst chaingun in the game - which, to be fair, doomguy probably has the best shell usage (and will DEFINITELY have it after I nerf the firemace).

Now on to the items:

- carrying 3 quads is too much, make 2.

Considering I find myself usually using all 3 quads - and often enough not having enough to buy 3 more unless I've used it on a BFG scenario - I'd stick on the side of caution.

- 5 guard spheres are too much, 3 are enough. 3/4 of damage absorbed is totally OP when coupled with armor and health upgrades, it is like an invuln. Make it 1/2.

That's because you're good at the game - usually I couple it with the regeneration sphere, but the thing is that guard spheres require some skill - if, you, say, eat a pyrodemon's pyroblast (which can do 300/300 to zero in one hit), that still hurts. The reason why it's so plentiful (unlike the invuln) is that the invuln, once activated, requires zero-skill. What you can't do with this is run into the demons, rocket everything in melee, and not even try to dodge even the deadliest of demons. If you're smart, the protection item is quite useful.

- no smart bomb, it fucks up all the demons and the players on sight too, it is both dumb and OP.

It's like the quad in that it's a one-time save your life item - but unlike the quad, you get exactly zero money for things killed with it, and you can only carry one - It's also very iconic, and it's one of the few items that can save a mission if things start going badly - I'm merciful and try to give players second chances.

- 5 turrets per player is, say, the perfect camping thing, it means that 6 players can deploy 30 turrets all pointed to the enemy... sit down and watch. Make 3 max normal turret, 1 max elite turret.

Certainly, but A: once bosses show up, they're as good as dead, B: at 6 players a lot of the hard modes start activating which can destroy many of those and C: it won't help when, say, 3 entrances (which at 6 players is very common).

- 3 weapon upgrade packs are way too much, make just 2 ( it makes ammo infinite for a period of time ).

Weapon upgrade packs aren't samsarahold - that's untitled patch, which, has a right to be overpowered when you consider that it's 750$ - it's not worth it unless it's doing on average 6 times the damage you'd normally deal.

For the samsarahold special item, again, it's a teamwork item:
-Doomguy gets shell ammo and cell ammo.
-Chexter gets lots of armor.
-Corvus gets random powerups.
-BJ gets bullet ammo (and a little cell ammo).
-Parias gets personal ambits (which spread stuff out on use, but are mostly for him).
-Duke gets rocket ammo (and a little cell ammo).
-SO gets health (lots of health)
-Ranger gets 1.5X damage powerups and 2X damage powerups.
For the ones that get ammo; I respond by saying nobody likes running out of ammo, so my decision is based on fun factor.

- 2 morph sphere are way too much, the terminator is very powerful and plus you can couple it with quad and invuln. 1 is more than enough.

It's 1000$. Remember, quad is $500, invuln 400$, so unless you can say it's better than a quad AND an invuln put together (remember, this allows you to do things like running in melee with a quad-devastator, ignoring hits entirely, getting maximum damage), it's not that overpowered.

- 2 elite reinforcements are quite OP, 1 is enough. 5 normal reinforcements are also too much and all together they make the game messy, let's say 3 are enough.

To be honest, the normal marines probably are; but it's a bit of a skill-gate; it's disproportionately good in the early tiers and fades out in later tiers - they're pretty much useless in tier six unless you know all of the maps well enough to know placements or unless you consider having most of them there for 1-2, maybe 3 waves a good investment.

The Elite Reinforcement Unit - ugh; I honestly wish I could go to my past self and hit him; there are some ideas for that I think would be much better, and at the same time, much worse.

- helper drones are quite OP, they will fry the demons and last quite long. Give them a 25% less damage and let's say it's ok.

They are quite powerful; but the they're an inverse of the allies; they don't shoot enough to make them worth using on the weakest enemies; making them an anti-boss weapon. And again, your max is two. Also, they're not effected by the quad damage.

NOTE: remember that stronghold's weakness is basically the overpowered items and helplessness of players who don't buy enough of them. Items should be there to help you, not to win the game for you, this whole concept of winning the game by buying all the items is quite lame, plus you get a lot of money by winning missions.

Items, do in fact, win the game for you, but the issue is that trying to nerf them might make some missions utterly insane - like, insaner than they already are. Remember that many missions, are, in fact, balanced with the assumption that players are coming in prepared; many of them are quite literally impossible without the use of items (originally, this could happen as early as Tier 2 UV single player, now it's more in tier 4). Most of tier six, again, comes to mind.

I mean, in the optimal world, the items were ALWAYS less powerful (remember this isn't mine at all; it's based on samsara (TerminusEst13) and stronghold (Tormentor667)), maps are all perfectly balanced so a theoretical optimal play could beat it, and all of that.

We don't live in that world.

The thing is, many players are regulars; they've adjusted to what has become standard, and trying some of these changes would brutally ruin runs going into Tier six, but more on that topic later.

Now to the players:
- 100 base health is very low compared to the demons you face. It is true you can pump up to 400 and buy armor but when you die you are back to 100 and no armor. What's the point having 9 lives but extremely weak once respawned? Make all players base health 200 but only 5 lives. Health can be pumped up at max 300, 400 is too much.

That's doom for you - it's always been like that.

The resetting back to 100 health when you die at first annoyed me, but then I stopped getting as mad about it because it balances out - otherwise you could pump up in tier one, and then spend tier 3-6 at 400 health, which combined with armor and items, would allow you to start tanking hits, which I'd rather avoid.

Also, a lot of demons are balanced with the 100/200/400 HP thresholds in mind - having a bunch of monsters denied their ability to potentially one-hit a player makes them MUCH less threatening.

To be honest, I've felt 9 lives was less for having 9 lives and more for giving out lives for players that are in jail; and remember, you automatically go to jail for entering a mission late (>1 minute), so often you need to do this, which brings us back to why I've made the game forgiving until tier six. Heh.

Note that if i'm criticizing samsarahold it is because i like it, and i want it to be good, i don't play much videogames but when i find something good i get passionate. Please do the modifications suggested above, you won't regret it.

Hey, you're doing better than a lot of the complainers; you post on the forum, you don't shout mercilessly (I wish I was kidding when I say that people have asked me to add Caleb from Blood), you don't ask for pointless things; all of the things are things that make sense.

And, you know, on a single-player basis, you probably are right; most of them are changes I feel would personally make the game flow.

The issue is that. Actually, you know what, Players in general.

Players in general are pretty resistant to change unless it's an obvious change that everyone knew was coming - or if it's a change the people don't notice, which I do a lot. Stealth-nerfing/buffing, as it's called. As such, the generally stability of the mod means that I'm sticking with what works - and, indeed, some nerfs are happening (looking at you, Spear of Destiny), but I'm trying to stay in spirit.

That's why I can't suddenly change the paradigm; too many players would get tripped up and many days would be ruined, and then I'd have to deal with everyone complaining.

For the weapon and player changes. Well.

It's called samsarahold, not stronghold with a bit of samsara; As such, I'm trying to stay in spirit with a lot of samsara (and with stronghold as well), hence why I'm stubborn about changing things that aren't damage values or that aren't related to the original game the heroes hail from; I loved both of the mods, and I personally preserve as much as I can.

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Now, on a completely separate notice; I'm starting to notice, that, for all of what I've done, many of the maps are, well, starting to get old.

http://realm667.com/index.php/en/de/sit ... -reference

This is the stronghold editing reference.

In addition to that, you're going to need to follow some of the map templates from strnghld_v1.pk3 (my map templates are modified a lot; but don't worry, that's my problem, not yours).

So, what is this, you may ask? If you, for whatever reason, want to map, feel free to post your maps here!

If we get enough of them (i.e. we get a new hub for the new missions, mostly, because I can't map at all), we might even compile a Stronghold map pack!

The truth is, mapping for stronghold is really easy.

Probably not for the next version, though. The version after 0.12, maybe.

EDIT: Few restrictions, now that I mention it.
1. Try to use the resources from stronghold (textures in particular), as we should avoid ridiculous filesizes if possible, and we have a wonderful texture set. Music files can be from stronghold for from my music that I put in (/music files from the samsarahold core pk3/untitled patch pk3).
2. If you are to use custom music, try not to make it too large; Stronghold's 150MB, and samsarahold's 70, so we might as well not try and make it too much larger (though the map pack is almost certainly going to be a separate pk3, so whatever, I guess).
3. Don't throw custom monsters in just for the sake of doing so; Make use of stronghold's monsters (or, if you use the untitled patch, stronghold's monsters + satyrs + minicybers). Again, feel free to use my custom monsters, but don't throw things in without reason - it makes things harder for me, and it's not fun.

EDIT 2: A few tips:
1. Make sure you account for multiplayer. This is single-handedly the most important thing you have to account for; multiplayer stronghold/samsarahold is all of the rage.
2. Figure out where your map is going, placement-wise; I shouldn't have a map structured like a tier 1 mission, then suddenly have, say, advanced hell nobles appear.
3. Avoid use of the cinematic monsters (Inferno Demon, Moloch, Cyberdemon Mk. II, Overmind) unless you are trying to take a special slot where their use is justified; end of tier missions, for example.
4. Within the stronghold beastiary, there are four monsters you should be very weary of:
-The Diabolist, who's presence can make a mid-tier wave into a wave that requires mandatory item use to survive.
-The Pyrodemon, who does so much damage that you must give the player some leeway with the wave to fight.
-The Azazel, who has a lot of really really really hard to avoid attacks - make sure that the player has the chance to adequately get behind cover.
-The Terminator, in its SamsaraHold/Untitled Patch incarnation, with its deadly weapons and a ton of health, will push the players back unless they are equipped with, say, a BFG. And even then, if they are multiple in number, they'll push the players back anyway (This doesn't apply as much to vanilla terminators which are whimps).

[bruiserdaemon]

You keep saying that changes are no good because of the players? The game as it is is, frankly, a bit of a mess because you are helpless in some situations, but godlike when you get the right weapon and couple it with the quad. Quad is frankly the dumbest item because coupled with some weapons they become game breaking ( expecially the wraithverge ).

Money is pointless... you get a lot of it by winning any mission, enough to restock quads, invulns, guard spheres and turrets ( and this considering that most missions DO NOT require all of your items in order to win ). It doesn't matter really if a morph sphere costs 1.000 $, if you play the missions properly you will always end up with a surplus of money.

Unbalanced? Yes it is, pointless to deny it. If 6 players all spawn turrets and reinforcements they will chew through the first waves. And when the powerful waves start, just take out a quad, an invuln, and chop them down. Frankly, to lose in samsarahold you have to be playing with noobs. Noobish players will of course make you lose because they add to the monster multiplier ( 1.5 x player ) but contribute very little to the fight ( they will trigger the hard modes too, as you pointed out, so let's say you get cruelly owned ).

[Untitled]

You keep saying that changes are no good because of the players? Only a dumb player can complain about changes for good like those i suggested. The game as it is is, frankly, a bit of a mess because you are helpless in some situations, but godlike when you get the right weapon and couple it with the quad. Quad is frankly the dumbest item because coupled with some weapons they become game breaking ( expecially the wraithverge ).

I've actually learned legitimately failing runs more than once per mission (and really even more than once per tier) is rather discouraging to casual player-bases, actually.

Money is pointless... you get a lot of it by winning any mission, enough to restock quads, invulns, guard spheres and turrets ( and this considering that most missions DO NOT require all of your items in order to win ). It doesn't matter really if a morph sphere costs 1.000 $, if you play the missions properly you will always end up with a surplus of money. It is frankly quite dumb by itself to buy the items which will basically win the mission for you, don't you think so? As one user said, when the difference between a good player and a noob is the ability to camp and lame through waves using the quad damage, it means that something IS broken. I'm sorry that you disagree with me i thought you were enthusiast about a consistent improvement to the game.

Actually, unless you get tons of bonuses (particularly godlike), tier 1 is very inefficient to farm - T3M5 is the best for it, if you have time.

Unbalanced? Yes it is, pointless to deny it. If 6 players all spawn turrets and reinforcements they will chew through the first waves. And when the powerful waves start, just take out a quad, an invuln, and chop them down. Frankly, to lose in samsarahold you have to be playing with noobs.

EXACTLY MY POINT (though, I wouldn't use the term "noobs" so much as "inexperienced players", due to "noob" having a negative connotation associated with the term).

You can't control who you play with - sometimes, you play with someone who plain can't keep up with a mission's demands - sometimes they join in the middle of a mission, for example.

Because of this, items are balanced such that one player can single players can take out, say, 2x, or, with the right item set, 4x their monster quota, simply because samsarahold is popular enough screwing bad players out of playing is not really as much of an option - optimally, good players can compensate for bad ones. If we have an equal number of really good players (of which, I'll mention, I'm not a part of; I can't actually beat a lot of the stuff I put out in single player), and an equal number of bad players, the mission still needs to be possible - well, except in Tier 6. There's a reason why server popularity hits a decline there, usually (though that has more to do with people crashing, admittedly).

Noobish players will of course make you lose because they add to the monster multiplier ( 1.5 x player ) but contribute very little to the fight ( they will trigger the hard modes too, as you pointed out, so let's say you get cruelly owned ).

The original scale for monsters was 0.5 * PlayerCount + 0.5 (1.0 for single player) * 1.5 for UV (ammo and health were 0.7 * PlayerCount + 0.3 (1.0 for single player), but I use the enhanced scale, which is 0.95 * PlayerCount + 0.05 (1.0 for single player), (ammo and health are 1.05 * PlayerCount - 0.05 (1.0 for one player) meaning I have less leeway with that kind of thing.

For what it's worth, I have never ONCE gotten to 8+ players and had every single player be good, and that's the thing - if the balance is delicate enough that one bad player ruins the team, I can't do it - call them "filthy casuals" if you want, but I'll be honest, 66% of the time I'm one of them - stupid deaths, failure to dodge things, falling off ledges, item misfires, stuff like that.

- duke's explosive shotgun is powerful but very very slow. Really, it is nearly useless because by the time you reload the next shot, the demons are already at you.

It's primarily an anti-zombie and anti-imp weapon; most of the monsters in that tier (except zombie tanks, which aren't zombie tier at all, catharsi, and phase imps) die in one shot - don't try it against anything with high movespeeds.

- duke's rockets felt very weak against some monsters, i mean, 5 rockets to kill a hell knight?? Wtf... something's not right there.

That's odd, actually. I'll have to look into that.

- the quadded wraithverge is ridicolous... totally. It is a one weapon wins it all, frankly it is one of the lamest things i've ever seen, i can already imagine if 4 players use it all together on the waves... feels like cheating, but i know you'll find a solution to this.

Yeah, wraith's getting some nerfs to general crowd damage next patch - it's clear it's had it coming for a while. Just trying to not wreck it's boss-power; I don't want to make the advanced hell nobles a 100% impossible challenge for parias.

- ranger's double barrel is purposely weak because he has very tough rockets and nails ok... but instead of a pointless weapon and some overpowered ones wouldn't it be better to have a stronger shotgun but a bit less powerful nails and rockets?? Just a rethoric question.

Theoretically yes, but he's from quake - and as such, the weapon dynamics are preserved; in Quake, the rockets were the big weapon - the weapon you almost always stayed on, and 75% of the reason people played ranger was purely for the rockets - I can't nerf them in good nature; I'd be betraying Quake.

And now, to list weaknesses:
Doomguy: Chaingun - he can't use bullet ammo.
Chexter: Low-tier; his DPS is crap until you get your rocket launcher.
Corvus: After the balancing; pure damage will be kind of crappy.
BJ: Ammo. He chews through bullet (and shell, by extension) ammo like there's no tomorrow.
Parias: Range. He can't do long range things until you get the Wraithverge.
Duke: Takes lots of damage, requires rocket ammo to function well.
SO: Range, again. Can't do long range except for KKV and WMC.
Ranger: Scenarios that require shell-usage.

Optimally, a hero should have a few things they have trouble with; Ranger can't play on shell-required maps, which is his hero weakness - that's what I use to encourage players to try new heroes - which is half the fun; the variety of heroes in multiplayer, where players make up for weaknesses; doomguy grabs the shells which he can use his ASG and SSG, ranger gets the bullets for his SNG, SO rockets for the SPNKR.

- same goes for doomguy's chaingun, yeah it is very weak but the other weapons are tough. Please make it stronger, it won't broke to game to have a bit tougher chaingun. The game breaking weaps are others, surely not this...

See above.

- lives are frankly a dumb thing, dying and respawning feels a bit like cheating but anyway... i really think 200 base health but less lives would help. Going to jail for entering late is pretty dumb too, and anyway lives are just 50$! I mean... feels a bit retarded.

Remember, players in jail increase monster count - IF I could fix this, 9 maximum lives might no longer be a thing.

But, alas, I do not have the means to fix it, because I'll be honest I don't understand half of strnghld.acs despite using it regularly.

- terminator sphere + quad + invuln makes you totally god. Yeah they cost money but money you have plenty... this felt REALLY like cheating,by doing this i chan chop down an overmind to 20% of his health, then finish him off with another round. It is lame you know i hope you understand.

Yeah, that's a bug - the overmind should have enough invulnerability time; a quad only lasts 30 seconds, so I can't figure out how you get that far (unless you use two). It works great in multiplayer, though - We often fail overmind at 6+ players.

Also, if you get to 20% health left and you haven't killed any other monsters you're kinda gon die to everything at once, unless you have a quad-invuln remaining - which, to get it to 20% that quickly, you're probably gone through your quad-invulns already.

- as for the Guard Sphere... just pump your health to 400, buy an armor, then activate it on the field... i don't know if you tried it but it is really like an invuln, no it's even better because it lasts double the time. So... please consider this before saying it is good as it is.

Guard Sphere lasts 45 seconds compared to invuln's 40. Not double the time. And again, because of losing all of your health when you die - most players don't go for the health increase because of that and due to this reason:

Why the hell does your health increase work? For some reason it only gives me 1% half the time. This is annoying.

Also, again, I design items for the more casual player than for the players who optimize - again, the average player needs to be able to beat this - it gets the impression at times, but unless you are playing through the hard modes (heh) it's not meant to be HR/HR2/Scythe/Scythe 2/SoD/Resurgence/whatever levels of difficult.

I mean, no, the game should not be like that. What you did is put insanely strong waves with insanely strong items to beat them, it is dumb. The players are supposed to win by ability with some help from their items, health upgrades etc. not by the amount of money they have . If it was about the money i'd play monopoly not doom.

The thing is, items aren't so much for helping you take out your monster quota as it is for taking out your monster quota and then taking out someone else's monster quota - If, say, 50% of the players die in a mission, it should be possible for the remaining players to pull together if they are prepared.
[/quote]
I'll be honest, I often can't tell when something is going to be that hard - and that's why having overpowered items I find fun on occasion - it can turn a literally 100% impossible mission into something beatable, which has been necessary on a couple occasions.

And anyway, the waves are not insane at all by themselves, it is when you play with noobs that you get owned, otherwise they are everything but hard to beat. I can solo the whole game on hard mode and UV with the powerups, and no trouble at all ( a bit of a strategy is required though ).

And optimally, it's not meant to be that hard - it's a thought process in some cases, but the average player should be able to clear samsarahold if he plays well - remember, I'm not actually in the better half of things - I can't clear almost anything I create without items, TBH. Typically, my Tier 6 item loadout is: 5 marines, 5 sentries, 2 super marines, 2 super sentries, 3 quads, 2 invulns, 1 time freeze, then whatever items from there on - and I'm not that good, so often I go through them all - typically a quad-invuln a wave starting from the third-last wave.

You are right about wraithverge - that's getting a nerf next alpha, which should be next week.

Also, if you really feel the need for challenge, try nightmare mode - heh heh heh heh. Or hard mode. Or Hard Nightmare, if you feel like a challenge you will never ever beat (short of ludicrous item spam; hence why you get 2000$ for beating any mission on nightmare period).

Also, throwing up the servers again, so come join in with the rest of us, if possible.

[bruiserdaemon]

I can already beat the game on nightmaere mode, even hard + nightmar using all the items... as i said before, do something like this: 1 mode for general gameplay ( experienced + noobs, or even all noobs ), and that's the game as it is. Then put in a second mode which is only for good teams who know the game, coop, or singleplayer ( yeah the game is actually fun even on single player ).

This is because an experienced team will fuck up the waves with little trouble, the noobs will get owned. So let's say that 2 different modes are mandatory because of the extreme variability of the players ( super good to total noob ). Let's say it'd be perfect like this, play the hard mode ( which should be really though ) if you get in with your pals, or single player, choose the normal mode if you know there will be noobs.

[Untitled]

I can already beat the game on nightmaere mode, even hard + nightmar using all the items... as i said before, do something like this: 1 mode for general gameplay ( experienced + noobs, or even all noobs ), and that's the game as it is. Then put in a second mode which is only for good teams who know the game, coop, or singleplayer ( yeah the game is actually fun even on single player ).

What.

On nightmare mode most of tier six becomes a series of item checks - like, every single wave requires item usage (I can't beat wave 1 of most tier six missions on nightmare without items, and if I use items, I don't have enough to get to the last couple, where things get insane). You certainly can't quad EVERY wave - your max is 3!

This is because an experienced team will fuck up the waves with little trouble, the noobs will get owned. So let's say that 2 different modes are mandatory because of the extreme variability of the players ( super good to total noob ). Let's say it'd be perfect like this, play the hard mode ( which should be really though ) if you get in with your pals, or single player, choose the normal mode if you know there will be noobs.

Yeah, admittedly I need to figure out how to retool that - the issue is that the internal coding treats hard mode on replays; as such, there's no override mechanism to induce hard mode properly (there's a few other changes aside from monster variety, most of which aren't noticable, but they're there), so that's tricky - but it's something I want to do.

In order to do this, you should simply do this: normal mode is samsarahold as it is, hard mode ( for the good team or SP ) you can carry less items, have less lives, 200 base health instead of 100 and know the game quite well ( still beatable without getting mad though ). For players which are really really good at samsarahold, they can try to replay the missions on hard mode ( which should be really a challenge, not for everyone ). This way you will meet everyone's need, isn't it?

The issue is that many of those properties are intrinsic values of the items themselves - DECORATE is a surprisingly inflexible language; items cannot change properties based on context, as awesome as that would be.

PS: do something about the overmind mission because with 2 morph spheres + 2 quads i can cheat win... a shame because all the fun of the potential challenge goes totally wasted... if you feel he is too powerful that way just nerf down his attacks a bit so the players get more time to do the thins.

This is tricky.

The issue is, there's simply no way to make it so you can't item cheese - even if the max of the terminator suit is, say, one, and the quads two, you could still chain the items in terminator => quad/invuln => quad/invuln, though it'd be harder. If I give it enough health/invulnerability time in single player as to prevent this; the mission takes forever, and becomes pretty much impossible to win in circumstances without items.

Essentially, Stronghold in general is a damage race - you race to deal damage, and use items to deal the damage if you can't do enough. The problem is, the unique structure of the overmind mission means that dealing more damage is directly proportional to winning the mission faster - in fact, you don't even really need items; start playing high-damage heroes and you get to observe this in motion.

It's actually a fascinatingly tricky problem, and it's compounded by the fact that the mode has a bad tendency to crash if I so much as look at the code funny.

So actually, I'm open for ideas on how to improve the mode - honestly, making him item-proof in some fashion would be awesome.

EDIT: And again, open for maps, too, if you read the post a couple posts back.

[TehRealSalt]

I can already beat the game on nightmaere mode, even hard + nightmar using all the items...

Please run us through your technique; maxing out your items still does not give you enough to blaze through some of the Tier 6 waves. How did you beat it no sweat?

[bruiserdaemon]

Please run us through your technique; maxing out your items still does not give you enough to blaze through some of the Tier 6 waves. How did you beat it no sweat?

Maybe Tier 6 is a bit tricky sometimes, all of the rest is perfectly beatable on nightmare, hard mode. Well i was using Parias though, his wraithverge is overkill, and the rest is pretty good too. If i was playing Duke, say, i'd have a horrible time beating the game like that, not sure if i can but surely it can be done if you know well the waves, place all the towers correctly, summon elite and normal reinf, buy quads, invulns, gaurd spheres and pump up health and armor before entering the mission.

So what was your point exaclty? It is impossible to beat the game on nightmare alone? It is absolutely possible and i'm not a kind of a superplayer, but i admit i can manage the items well ( which often results in laming through the waves, and that was my point, the game winning items which require you just use them at the right time ).

Aside from that, to be honest, the zombie waves are ridicolous because they will kill each other in seconds expecially the zombie rockets lol. Also, the modder places often cybruisers and bruiserdemons at the back of the wave, resulting in them severely damaging other demons, and outright kill all of the lesser demons. Maybe you should take note of this because some waves really require you to do nothing, just dodge and watch them kill each other lol.

[Untitled]

So excerpt from about 30 minutes ago:

<Untitled> ARGH
<Untitled> I HATE THE WRAITHVERGE
<Untitled> SO MUCH
<Untitled> SO SO MUCH
<Untitled> (really I just hate hexen native functions in general)
<tehvappy50> what's broken this time
<Untitled> well
<Untitled> it's actually balance and not bugs
<Untitled> I nerfed it
<Untitled> again
<Untitled> but, there's a problem
<Untitled> in that it does 1/4th damage to bosses and wears out the spirits twice as fast
<Untitled> wait
<Untitled> not twice
<Untitled> 3 times as fast
<tehvappy50> huh.
<Untitled> which basically means that
<Untitled> it's god damn useless against the advanced hell nobles
<Untitled> I'd like to change that if possible
<Untitled> because all of the advanced hell noble variants count as bosses
<Kyle873> rip
<Untitled> ...and I just tested it
<Untitled> the damage type does NOTHING
<Kyle873> don't you just love hardcoded stuff?
<Untitled> (as a test, I gave pyrodemons damagefactor "Wraithverge", 32)
<Untitled> (they did not, in fact, die 32 times as fast)
<Untitled> so now I'm stuck trying to figure out a better solution
<Untitled> which is giving me some problems
<Untitled> namely that I don't have any
<Kyle873> handcode the entire thing
<Untitled> if I could code the unique behavior of the Wraithverge
<Untitled> well then yeah
<Untitled> guess what I can't do!
<Untitled> so yeah
<Untitled> I really hate the wraithverge right now
<Untitled> what do

The wraithverge is giving me some problems, to say the least.

[bruiserdaemon]

The fact that the wraithverge doesn't cause much damage to bosses is actually good for balance sake! It already wipes out everything when quadded, only struggling a little against the most powerful demons.

[Untitled]

The fact that the wraithverge doesn't cause much damage to bosses is beneficial to the game balance! It already wipes out everything when quadded, only struggling a little against the most powerful demons. So... take away a 20% damage, decrease fire rate by a 20% ( in fact the perfect solution to everything would be to heavily nerf the quad damage but since you absolutely don't want to do it... in my opinion you are struggling this much for nothing, just halve quad damage duration or make it just double damage. and everything will turn out nice ).

Remember that it's getting nerfed next patch - though actually, I wanted to talk to you about quad wraithverge - As much as I hate to say it, it will ALWAYS be overpowered.

The thing that's special about the Wraithverge, is that, on a per-shot basis, it actually doesn't do any more damage than say, the LAZ device, or the WMC, or the Spear of Destiny.

What makes it powerful is that it removes the pesky ability to miss or the pesky ability to get stuck on something and kill the monsters that don't need it. It does all of the aiming for you, and as soon as the monster it's currently on dies, it moves on to then next, and starts there.

What this means is that it hits a like a BFG shot if the BFG shot did it's logical maximum damage every single time - because of the nature, the Wraithverge WILL always do this much damage.

The quad damage, despite it's name, doesn't actually usually quadruple the damage of the powerful weapons - the reason being that normally you overkill monsters - the area of all of your weapons hasn't changed, and unless you can play super-well, you probably aren't utilizing all 4X of the damage (not that you need to, usually).

Remember what I just said about the Wraithverge? Well, because of that, this happens: The wraiths do their 4X maximum damage. Zero damage is getting "wasted", which means that every single extra point of damage is going to killing demons.

As such, Quad Wraithverge will ALWAYS be overpowered.

But I admit, that's not the problem I wanted to talk about.

The problem is it's not "does less to bosses" - I actually like that, it's that it does so much less to bosses that pretty much what you do is stop playing Parias when they show up, it's that bad (unless you have players who are good enough to handle it).

Well, let's say it takes 1 wraithverge shot to kill a monster, and that this hypothetical monster has exactly enough health to die to it without getting overkilled.

The same monster would now require 12 wraithverge shots.

That's not "does less", that's "completely useless" - Imagine if suddenly it took 12X as many shots to down a cyberdemon, with any weapon:
BFG - relatively useless, as 30 BFG shots isn't worth it.
LAZ? Powerful, large blast, but now useless (25 shots, about).
Tome of Power? Don't get me started.
Spear of Destiny - even it, as powerful as it is, would be useless at 1/4th damage and 1/3rd ripper duration.
Wraithverge? Being demonstrated already.
Devastators? Too little damage (as is they may actually get a buff).
WMC? Charging that long to not-killthe thing you're aiming at is pretty terrible. Quad Damage? More like "1/3rd Damage!"

Actually, that's a pretty good way to put it - the 4X damage is a BFG, so we have a measuring stick. Not a good measuring stick, but something nonetheless.

1/12th damage is so weak, even the most overpowered weapon in the game is rendered near-useless in single player.

If so much as a single Terminator shows up, Parias pretty much cries in a corner, as it takes (last time I checked) over 20 Wraithverge shots to kill one - that's literally his entire ammo supply just to kill one of the damn things.

[bruiserdaemon]

Well that happens if only parias is playing the game, against the strongest bosses you just need to use another one of your ( many ) items, like the quadded terminator, the smart bomb, the flying drones, or the quadded AXE ( parias axe does something like 800 per hit when quadded, you can axe down a terminator with just 9-10 hits! ). So much about parias.

Now to the guard spheres, when coupled with 400 health and 200 armor it acts like a sort of invulnerability, i hope you can figure out what to do in order to make it less worth than an actual invulnerability ( which frankly i rarely use, i just need the guard spheres! ).

There's something inerhently wrong about the money too... rich players with all the items get even richer and restock, players who didn't get much money will get poorer because they don't kill enough demons.... again, you should do something for this ( but do not increase the amount of money for everyone, that'll make the game so much easier... you should make people carry less items instead, so that a player without money has a fair chance to make some ). The difference between a rich player and a poor player is WAY too much i hope you understand ).