WhoDunIt - Finally Released!

[Theshooter7]

I just saw this post, and I'd like to point out that you could spawn them in one area, then move them to mapspots randomly (in 1 tic, and yes, reliably in any gamemode.)

I suppose but this seems more like a clutch than anything. I might just move spawn points around or something. We'll see.

[Peanut]

Yeah, I'm gonna need like... a week's time to finish everything up.

[TheMisterCat]

a week sounds good for me. shooter?

[Theshooter7]

Yeah I'll give everyone another 10 days. :) I have some more work to do anyway and another map or two I'd like to get in myself.

[Killer2]

All right, I think I'll give up on playing this game. My favourite part of the game (being the murderer) has been completely murdered! I've had some very good scores in the past, and I did pretty well most of the time. It's now impossible to win as the murderer in any way shape or form, and the innocents win all of the time (unless the guys with the guns somehow get backstabbed and no one else knows how to aim a melee weapon). Anyways, this is it. It's been fun while it lasted, but I guess I'm saying farewell to this cool little mod I used to love.

This will probably be my last bug report too:the chainsaw doesn't work as intended, it's animations are weird and sometimes you can't activate it or deactivate it. Dropping it also doesn't work at times.

[Jigsaw]

Read back some posts, the weapons will be balanced. It is indeed pretty hard to get a successful murdering session, because of the shovel and pool cue. I don't exactly know the plans about changing but IMO they need a nerf, and the molotov needs a buff (or adding stun to it).

tl;dr: Don't quit the mod, things will be allright.

[Mooseknuckle]

The weapons, except for maybe the pool cue, are perfectly balanced. I've gotten a perfect score numerous times.

[legion]

the wrench/pipe needs some sort of buff
wrench is almost impossible to hit anything with and the pipe does piss poor damage
pool cue is alright, it doesnt do nearly as much damage as the shovel when you are murderer (holy cow I swore the shovel did like 50 damage to me at one point) and pool cue is mostly about stunning anyway
just a few passing observations

[Theshooter7]

All right, I think I'll give up on playing this game. My favourite part of the game (being the murderer) has been completely murdered! I've had some very good scores in the past, and I did pretty well most of the time. It's now impossible to win as the murderer in any way shape or form, and the innocents win all of the time (unless the guys with the guns somehow get backstabbed and no one else knows how to aim a melee weapon). Anyways, this is it. It's been fun while it lasted, but I guess I'm saying farewell to this cool little mod I used to love.

I have had many successful games as the murderer. When it comes to guns, it becomes a game of baiting the other player to waste his extremely limited ammo on you for minimal or no damage. I think the Beretta and M1 are pretty balanced for the most part; the Beretta could be set to spread every shot like the M1 (at current, the first shot is always perfectly accurate), and either it's damage or magazine size could be reduced. The M1 is slow and has a small magazine size, and can jam randomly.

The only gun I'll admit is extremely unbalanced (and difficult to balance as well) is the Shotgun. Increasing it's spread doesn't do much, since it's meant for close range anyway, and altering it's damage, when it has some of the most difficult ammo to gather, is a bit silly. I could make it jam randomly like the M1 I suppose, but I don't know how players would like that. It also doesn't help that the murderer does not really have a means of medium or long range attack; the knife is pretty much the only weapon he has that can do high direct-combat damage to a player. One change I can make for sure though, is actually adding an "empty" sound to the shotgun when trying to fire it empty. Right now, it doesn't make any sound or do anything when you are out of ammo, so the murd doesn't even know when the guy has run out and is practically in constant fear of the thing.

I am open to suggestions on this. And no, throwing the knife will never be an option.

the wrench/pipe needs some sort of buff
wrench is almost impossible to hit anything with and the pipe does piss poor damage
pool cue is alright, it doesnt do nearly as much damage as the shovel when you are murderer (holy cow I swore the shovel did like 50 damage to me at one point) and pool cue is mostly about stunning anyway
just a few passing observations

I could add extra attack frames but that's about all I can do. The Pipe is meant for fast attack with a mob but not so good 1v1 with the murd. I could up its speed a tiny notch (not like it was in the first Final5, but just somewhere in between that and how it is now). The Wrench of course has it's pretty high damage but slow speed. Giving extra attack frames to these weapons and thus making it easier to hit with them might upset the balance. This is another thing players would have to decide on.

Shovel is getting some slight changes. It's supposed to do a lot of damage but with the changes to the stun system it has become extremely powerful since stun is actually noticeable now.

[Peanut]

And no, throwing the knife will never be an option.

What about a slingshot?

[Killer2]

I think the Beretta and M1 are pretty balanced for the most part; the Beretta could be set to spread every shot like the M1 (at current, the first shot is always perfectly accurate), and either it's damage or magazine size could be reduced. The M1 is slow and has a small magazine size, and can jam randomly.

The only gun I'll admit is extremely unbalanced (and difficult to balance as well) is the Shotgun. Increasing it's spread doesn't do much, since it's meant for close range anyway, and altering it's damage, when it has some of the most difficult ammo to gather, is a bit silly. I could make it jam randomly like the M1 I suppose, but I don't know how players would like that. It also doesn't help that the murderer does not really have a means of medium or long range attack; the knife is pretty much the only weapon he has that can do high direct-combat damage to a player. One change I can make for sure though, is actually adding an "empty" sound to the shotgun when trying to fire it empty. Right now, it doesn't make any sound or do anything when you are out of ammo, so the murd doesn't even know when the guy has run out and is practically in constant fear of the thing.

I am open to suggestions on this. And no, throwing the knife will never be an option.

Well I do have some...suggestions. First, yeah, I suggest reducing the pistol's accuaracy on 1st shot thing. You can just tap the fire button to get accuarate shots every time, while firing pretty fast. As for the shotgun, perhaps a way to know he actually HAS the damn thing? Most shotgunners bait you by showing fists and start shooting you when you're very close range.

As for the pool cue, let's compare it to the wrench a bit.
-the wrench is hard to hit with. The PC is not;
-the wrench does unnoticeably more damage, but with a lower "rate of fire";
-the wrench either doesn't stun, or stuns a lot less that the PC;
-once you hit once with the PC, you can hit again and again, since the murd is slowed and can't run or attack you efficiently;
-PC+Shovel combo is bullshit.
I guess you're starting to see the problem.

What to do:
-buff the wrench's damage (the weapon with the highest skillcap shouldn't be completely useless);
-lower the pool cue's damage significantly. Remember, this weapon is about the stun, which is very useful in a teamfight. You shouldn't be supposed to 1v1 the murd with this and win.

Last thoughts:
You seem to either overbuff (Shovel, PC), or overnerf (wrench) things too much. You should do more internal testing, with both very experienced and average players, to agree to a better consensus and set of changes that will benefit this mod the most. And don't tell me you've done enough testing, because if you would do we wouldn't have bugged M1's and chainsaws all over the place, and the walls in WDI10 would actually kill you. Peace.

As for the leaving WDI forever thing, it was just me being very pissed last night. It's very rare for me to actually RQ something and never come back. However, my comment about my experience with WDI is true, the overall experience went down significantly since last patch. That's all I have to say for now. I await your replies.

EDIT:Adding more attack frames to weapons is a bad idea. It will make all weapons 1 dimensional and boring, as well as making all weapons easy to use. More variety is always a good thing.

[legion]

I think one extra attack frame to the wrench would be enough. it is so hard to actually land a blow with it, especially if your connection is not that great

but to be honest, the greatest problems I have are:
fists do piss poor damage against murderer. getting punched by altfire should do more than a tiny bit of damage. this game is essentially: you have fists? die. you have lead pipe/wrench? die. anything else? you are home free
that weapon-disappearing bug is extremely serious and should probably be #1 on the to do list (which I think it is anyway)

[Killer2]

I think one extra attack frame to the wrench would be enough. it is so hard to actually land a blow with it, especially if your connection is not that great

but to be honest, the greatest problems I have are:
fists do piss poor damage against murderer. getting punched by altfire should do more than a tiny bit of damage. this game is essentially: you have fists? die. you have lead pipe/wrench? die. anything else? you are home free
that weapon-disappearing bug is extremely serious and should probably be #1 on the to do list (which I think it is anyway)

Well...I've done well with the wrench in the past, when it didn't suck. And it is usable, just harder to hit with (it also has a pretty big range). I've also seen people do very well with the lead pipe, and getting caught between 2 pipe guys is more annoying than pretty much any other normal combination (or...was, before some weapons became too powerful). The fists are supposed to not be too good, since you're actually supposed to find a weapon, though changing the altfire damage to something like 10 instead of 8 could work.
As for the connection issues, I think unlagged might do the trick, but I'm not sure.

[Cruduxy]

I find the wrench the only weapon I can actually hit with! how is that hard to use...
Also shovel and cue are semi-impossible to dodge they shouldn't be so strong -just because I don't want to join the 10 stims club.. plz make the ranking system actually hurt the score when you spam +3 stims its ridiculous to see 10 stims with 90%

[Minigunner]

So I decided to post a rundown of the damage that the melee weapons did over the releases, as well as put out my recommendations:

Beta 1:
-Primary: 1 attack, 2-20 dmg (Doom fist damage).
-Alternate: 2 attacks (in the same tic), 2-20 dmg each. (This was a kick.)
Beta 2-4:
-Primary: 1 attack, 12 dmg.
r236:
-Primary: 1 attack, 10 dmg (left fist), 8 dmg (right fist).
Final 1-5:
-Primary: 1 attack, 3 dmg (right fist).
-Alternate: 1 attack, 8 dmg (left fist).

My Recommendation: Change the right fist's damage to 3-5 dmg (the only melee attack with randomization), and make the left fist deal 2 5-dmg attacks, one tic apart from each other, for a little extra stun. Also, if possible, the weapon drop key should function as a kick button for this weapon only. Said kick could deal 3 4-dmg hits at the same time.

Beta 2-3:
-Primary: 3 attacks (combo), 15+20+25 dmg.
Beta 4, r236, Final 1-5:
-Primary: 3 attacks (combo), 10+15+20 dmg.

My Recommendation: Increase the combo delay 1 or 2 tics. It is a bit fast at the moment, but I wouldn't want it be too slow for everyone else.

Beta 2-4, r236:
-Primary: 3 attacks (combo), 25+30+35 dmg.
Final 1-2:
-Primary: 3 attacks (combo), 20+20+25 dmg.
Final 3-4:
-Primary: 3 attacks (combo), 20+25+27 dmg.
Final 5:
-Primary: 3 attacks (combo), 25+25+30 dmg.

My Recommendation: Change the damage combo to something along the lines of 20+25+35 dmg. Same overall damage as the current version, but the final blow really counts.

Beta 4:
-Primary: 8 attacks (every 1 tic), 2+2+2+2+2+4+4+4 dmg (22 total).
r236, Final 1-2:
-Primary: 8 attacks (every 1 tic), 3+3+3+3+3+5+5+5 dmg (30 total).
Final 3-4:
-Primary: 8 attacks (every 1 tic), 4+4+4+4+4+6+6+6 dmg (38 total).
Final 5:
-Primary: 8 attacks (every 1 tic), 4+4+4+4+4+3+3+3 dmg (29 total).

My Recommendation: Perhaps a 2+2+2+2+2+5+5+5 dmg combo could work (that totals to 25 dmg), because it seems that Final 5's cue deals the most powerful shots first, and the older formulas allowed the "victim" to move out of the way (when possible) before he got hit by the more damaging blows. Also, the total damage in my formula is less since it takes into account the increased ROF and the complaints about damage.

All versions as of Beta 4:
-Primary: 2 attacks (every 1 tic), 20+20 dmg (40 total).

My Recommendation: Speed up the animation please (without changing the ROF); it looks like you're trying to push rather than whack.

I think the Beretta and M1 are pretty balanced for the most part; the Beretta could be set to spread every shot like the M1 (at current, the first shot is always perfectly accurate), and either it's damage or magazine size could be reduced.

Perhaps the pistol's damage should be toned down to 9, but the fire rate upped from 16 tics to 12 tics. The overall damage output would be similar, but the ammo will drain faster and the likelihood of missed shots is higher.

The only gun I'll admit is extremely unbalanced (and difficult to balance as well) is the Shotgun. Increasing it's spread doesn't do much, since it's meant for close range anyway, and altering it's damage, when it has some of the most difficult ammo to gather, is a bit silly. I could make it jam randomly like the M1 I suppose, but I don't know how players would like that.

The jamming animation could be the player forcefully trying to pump the shell out, and it takes twice as much time as regular pumping.

[Theshooter7]

Last thoughts:
You seem to either overbuff (Shovel, PC), or overnerf (wrench) things too much. You should do more internal testing, with both very experienced and average players, to agree to a better consensus and set of changes that will benefit this mod the most. And don't tell me you've done enough testing, because if you would do we wouldn't have bugged M1's and chainsaws all over the place, and the walls in WDI10 would actually kill you. Peace.

First off, I want to say that since WDI10 is not an official map right now (it will be whenever the next release rolls around), that the non-existent kill lines on that map are not my fault in any way, nor anyone else fault except the map author's. Since I've taken control of this project, I've been careful to QA anything that comes my way, from maps to new weapon ideas, sprites, etc. I've received some extremely good things (which you've seen already; the Molotov, although I redid ALL the coding for it from scratch, was a user addition. A lot of stuff Minigunner submitted was added because they were really well done, Mooseknuckle's brick idea and sprites were added in, etc.). I have also received some really bad stuff that has been rejected and/or required heavy modification from the submitter.

As for over buffing/nerfing things, this is partly a result of how WDI's combat system relies on so many different factors. Unlike a typical FPS game where you merely have DPS, Accuracy, Reload Speed, etc., you also have factors like reach, stun power, attack frames, ammo limits, and possibly more. These are not things that are extremely easy to balance all at once and it's sometimes a miracle things are even the way they are at current (reasonably balanced but needs some extra tweaking). At the very least, we don't have a balance mess like AoW2 or ZH, and this is certainly within the means of being fixable. For instance, the Pool Cue's current damage and speed did not really factor in how powerful the stun system had become after I had made tweaks to it and made it actually effective; in prior betas and releases, the stun system was often barely noticed if at all, and even the Pool Cue didn't do much to slow people down a whole lot. But then I made some changes; I made the system actually count down from the last time you took a hit that inflicted stun (instead of a global timer), and reduced the speed of the player when stunned by a certain percentage, and lastly increased the maximum amount of stun duration that can be stacked on the player. All these changes ultimately made the pool cue much stronger than before. The same goes with the shovel, as no one had complained about it before and it's probably the only weapons that has remained entirely untouched since it's introduction.

Now, the funny thing about the bugged weapons is that strangely these "vanishing weapon" issues never happened before. I did make some tiny changes to the drop code beforehand when they started cropping up, but I only changed it so that all the drop states terminated in the same manner (beforehand, some of them ended with a stop, others ended with a loop. I had changed all of them to stop since it seemed the most logical). It was actually really challenging to track this bug down, and the only way I even figured out what was happening was through some rcon commands in conjunction with the same commands on the affected client; after seeing the differences between the results, I knew what was happening and developed a system to rectify it. The M1, in this regard, was an oversight because I kept the weapon in a separate file, and forgot to open it up and change it when I was modifying all the other weapons. These things happen, this is why it's a beta. And the Chainsaw? Well I really don't understand why it's broken, but I'm guessing it's a similar issue with the weapon drop problem. As such, I'll likely have to alter the entire Chainsaw system for it to work right, but it'll be fixed for sure. The funny thing is I seriously hadn't changed anything regarding Chainsaw states; only damage, fuel consumption, etc. When the weird chainsaw issue started appearing, the only last change I made was commenting out the lines of code that reset the Chainsaw to it's "on" mode when switching weapons. That's it.

Testing is definitely something I wish I could work on, but there are two problems: For one, I don't have a reliable, dedicated host that I can setup the test server for select people to play on, and hand out a test version to said select people. However, now that Wartorn has finished his move from phenomer to the-powerhouse, I MIGHT be able to work something out with him, but having control over the server myself and being able to upload a new test version at any time would certainly be helpful. Bringing this up has gotten me to think about it some more so I suppose it's time I took steps to ensure this happens.

As for the leaving WDI forever thing, it was just me being very pissed last night. It's very rare for me to actually RQ something and never come back. However, my comment about my experience with WDI is true, the overall experience went down significantly since last patch. That's all I have to say for now. I await your replies.

We all have bad days once in a while, it's not a problem.

EDIT:Adding more attack frames to weapons is a bad idea. It will make all weapons 1 dimensional and boring, as well as making all weapons easy to use. More variety is always a good thing.

I must agree with this as it's something that sets the weapons apart and gives them unique strengths and weaknesses.

@Minigunner: I appreciate this compiled list. I'll take your feedback along with Killer's and legion's and come up with some things. I'd still like some more discussion about this however before I sit down and make decisions.

[Killer2]

A weird bug I noticed is that very often you can't pick up thing situated on something like a table (chainsaw and pistol in museum map, some stims in Men's night out). This only happens occasionally. Also, I've noticed a complete lack of keys on Clock Town (very rarely 1 key will spawn). I think the number and frequency of key spawns should be upped a little.
As for the chainsaw, it has 2 problems. First, it will sometimes not drop. Seccond, sometimes, when it's turned on, you can't turn it off without switching weapons first.

Also, sorry about doubting your testing, it's just what these bugs made me think (which was obviously wrong, and I can see why now that you've told me).

And I know all I've did until now is to criticize things, but I've gotta say most of the additions are awesome. Men's night out is a very good map. The brick and molotov are very innovating weapons (although I rarely use them), and they're pretty well balanced and interesting to use (especially molotov, which can be used as a mini berth against the murderer). The new sprites for shovel and pipe look very good, and the crossbow sprite looks fantastic. The new sounds for Pool Cue make it satisfying to hit with. Also, you blocking off all abusable areas was a very good move. Far too many times the innocents were standing on ledges, piling up and done disruptive things. Not anymore.

I'd like to apologise for my other posts, as I posted only the negative side of my thoughts in them, perhaps giving you a wrong impression.

[Theshooter7]

A weird bug I noticed is that very often you can't pick up thing situated on something like a table (chainsaw and pistol in museum map, some stims in Men's night out). This only happens occasionally. Also, I've noticed a complete lack of keys on Clock Town (very rarely 1 key will spawn). I think the number and frequency of key spawns should be upped a little.
As for the chainsaw, it has 2 problems. First, it will sometimes not drop. Seccond, sometimes, when it's turned on, you can't turn it off without switching weapons first.

I agree, I really need to go back through some of the maps and look at the key spawning scripts again. I fixed it for WDI02, I just have to apply a similar fix to all maps with a scripted spawn.

And I know all I've did until now is to criticize things, but I've gotta say most of the additions are awesome. Men's night out is a very good map. The brick and molotov are very innovating weapons (although I rarely use them), and they're pretty well balanced and interesting to use (especially molotov, which can be used as a mini berth against the murderer). The new sprites for shovel and pipe look very good, and the crossbow sprite looks fantastic. The new sounds for Pool Cue make it satisfying to hit with. Also, you blocking off all abusable areas was a very good move. Far too many times the innocents were standing on ledges, piling up and done disruptive things. Not anymore.

I'd like to apologise for my other posts, as I posted only the negative side of my thoughts in them, perhaps giving you a wrong impression.

Hey, I appreciate feedback. It is nice to hear positive stuff once in a while but I wouldn't be much of a developer if I didn't work through the negative things (and not just from you; don't you worry about that).

[Mooseknuckle]

The new sprites for shovel and pipe look very good, and the crossbow sprite looks fantastic.

[Theshooter7]

Here is something else regarding the shotgun that I've thought about Perhaps I could force the shotgun to start with only 1 or even 0 shells? This would force people to find the ammo and give the murderer a lot more time to actually pick out his targets, get himself situated, etc. before the shotgunner barrels down the halls and kills him immediately. People will also have to share ammo with him, and it means that passing the gun around will be less effective. This is an idea I could implement with all the weapons if desired, either reducing the start ammo amounts, zeroing them out entirely, or something else.

Thoughts?