Too Shy Guy posted:

Oh, that's good to know. I'm still at the phase of the game where I forget to turn the difficulty down when I go to level a new character.

Does the keep open up as you progress through the game? I was loving around last night and figured out how to get on top of the little hut by the target dummies, which got me up above the forge and the water wheel. From there I made it up to the upper keep balcony and the outdoor toilets, but didn't see any way further up than that. Did I figure out how to get somewhere cool or are the blocked doorways going to open up anyway once I beat more missions?

SuperKlaus posted:

As stands her active is useless outside of boss fights and maaaaybe Chaos Warriors.

fadam posted:

This is going to sound dumb, but does anyone know if there's a reliable way to suicide off a cliff edge as Bright Wizard? I can't get the teleport to work.

I wrote an AHK script that queues for the cliff map, runs into the bridge, waits for the ultimate to charge, then uses a dash/jump to suicide (shoutouts to the guy who posted this strat in here earlier), and BW is the only class I can't get to work.

Ssthalar posted:

I'm probably missing something here, but why..?

Ssthalar posted:

I'm probably missing something here, but why..?

Ssthalar posted:

I'm probably missing something here, but why..?

Cowcaster posted:

it turns out the experience you get for losing the mission and to the amount of time it takes to do that is extremely disproportionately large so it's the quickest way to slam a character to level 30 if you don't care about the mind numbingness of it all

Motherfucker posted:

I really wish the flame sword for sienna ruled because whats the point of being a fire-wiz if I am not burning rats

fadam posted:

This is going to sound dumb, but does anyone know if there's a reliable way to suicide off a cliff edge as Bright Wizard? I can't get the teleport to work.

I wrote a really basic AHK leveling script that queues for the cliff map, runs into the bridge, waits for the ultimate to charge, then uses a dash/jump to suicide (shoutouts to the guy who posted this strat in here earlier), and BW is the only class I can't get to work.

Rufio posted:

Using a leveling macro in a casual rat bashing game is p sad

Drythe posted:

cant you just blow yourself up

Cowcaster posted:

use the dagger, same great flame, faster taste, more damage

Uganda Loves Me posted:

If you crash or disconnect after a mission, you can miss out on the reward. If you leveled, that means you miss out on the blueprints you should have received. My Kruber is still missing his halberd blueprints because of this. In one game, we all had backend error 1342, but the host claims he still received his reward. It might affect the host differently.

fadam posted:

I imagine the bots will just keep picking me up. You have to do it on recruit difficulty to get the most XP. The suicide works because there's nothing for the bots to rescue.

Ra Ra Rasputin posted:

If it helps in your quest in anyway, at the start of skittergate there is a odd angled cliff edge that let's you jump off without being able to hang off the side, but there are enemies in the way that might mess up automation.

Digirat posted:

Quoting this so I can find this whenever it’s inevitably brought up again, and adding that poor balance tends to destroy variety and lead to a homogenized experience in any game with enough difficulty to pressure you into it

ChickenWing posted:

It'd be neat if they changed beamstaff to escalate damage the longer it stays on target to give it its own sort of niche as a dedicated bosskiller, with the fireblast as a secondary panic button to give you time to swap over to melee.

fadam posted:

I imagine the bots will just keep picking me up. You have to do it on recruit difficulty to get the most XP. The suicide works because there's nothing for the bots to rescue.

Fuuka Ayase posted:

Except making sure everyone has the same contributions in the same situations, so drama queens don't get hurt they don't get the green circles, leads to homogenization doesn't it?

This game has different kinds of threats all over the place and different methods of contribution than something as simple as L4D. You can have a relative contribution that's just as valuable despite not having the same killer numbers. That's how games with team comp work.

A Bug posted:

If you go down enough times without a heal you just die. And in bot-only games it fails the map if you die. You can just overheat and blow yourself up 2 or 3 times if you really want.

Please dont do this though, enjoy killing rats instead.

Taffer posted:

There really needs to be better measurements at the endgame screen, as it is it really just measures damage and ranged capabilities. Tanking, blocking, controlling don't get measured at all, although I'm not sure what the metrics for that could be.

FunkMonkey posted:

I feel like "most damage taken" should always have been "most damage blocked."

Anyway, who seriously gets in a twist over having the highest numbers in a game like this? Good grief.

Fuuka Ayase posted:

Except making sure everyone has the same contributions in the same situations, so drama queens don't get hurt they don't get the green circles, leads to homogenization doesn't it?

Keru posted:

The best part of Shade is clowning the heck out of a group of Chaos Warriors because you'll end up killing half of them before they have time to react once you get Glaive's mechanics down to a science.

Coolguye posted:

A Bug posted:

If you go down enough times without a heal you just die. And in bot-only games it fails the map if you die. You can just overheat and blow yourself up 2 or 3 times if you really want.

Please dont do this though, enjoy killing rats instead.

Cowcaster posted:

not that i advocate his behavior but you realize the entire point of what he’s doing is because it’s very fast and macro programmable and having to repeat something 3 times with delays in between for the bots to pick him up defeats the purpose right

Lunethex posted:

So I just learned that the Dwarf Ranger's level 15 talents are way better than given credit for. They don't replace his ammo drop, they ADD to it. So if you pick Battle-brew or Potion thing, you can get free frag bombs from specials or potions, in addition to ammo. It's loving INSANE. This dwarf was KILLING it with Grudge raker and just bombs everywhere.

Too Shy Guy posted:

Actually I find leveling alts in this game super fun because you get to start around the same hero power you left your main at. I started on the elf after getting Saltzpyre to 16 and her bow feels like a railgun in Recruit.

Coolguye posted:

'the same' isn't really the same thing as 'equal' in the quoted post. yeah the end game stats are bad and slant things toward saying 'hey the magic lady and the elf carried ur asses' but the ideal isn't to have everyone with similar numbers, it's to give them a threat that they can feel like is 'their job' during the level, whether or not that shows up in the end game stats.

if either pyro sienna or waystalker elf is on the ball in recruit or vet, with the current balance someone is going to be out of a job - possibly 2 someones. if BOTH of them are on the ball in champ the same is true. the player base has largely already figured this out, which you can tell if you run down the list of lobbies for champion. it's rare to find a single game where the elf isn't already taken, and sienna is only a little behind.

unlike many folks i don't see the focal point as nerfing all ranged forever but some of that will have to be part of the solution. the elf's longbow definitely needs to go from "approximately all the rats" penetration to a flat 2 or 3 to clarify its position as a sniper weapon. if you want a horde clearing weapon, the swiftbow is right there and should retain its current godlike penetration for that status. the beam staff needs to have something happen to it; i would prefer for its shotgun move's impact damage to be cut way back, but keep the knockdown and DoT on it. this would clarify its position as a sniper weapon but still allow sienna to jump in and help control an oncoming horde. if you want a designated horde clearer, take the fireball staff.

ultimately though you are going to have to fix a ton of poo poo making melee untenable first, including, but not limited to:

- skating enemies, especially the heavier chaos units. skating makes it incredibly difficult to judge the distance you need to create an opening, and also interferes with your judgment on when an opening exists. maulers and chaos warriors skating is entirely unforgivable because the punishment is so severe. on legend, all elites can 1 hit quit players. if they skate around a corner it is frequently gg.
- melee hits refusing to register for whatever reason. when exploiting an opening you do not have the luxury of missing. the window you have to safely attack is measured in milliseconds. having a weapon go straight through an enemy to no affect is unacceptable under any circumstance. this isn't morrowind. i'm not rolling dice to see if i connected.
- enemies spawning directly behind players because reasons. this is stupid for everyone but disproportionately punishes melee because if the fighter turns around to face the jerk that spawned out of thin air, they will get hit from the 50 jerks they just turned their backs on.
- sane stacking of enemies per square inch. this was not a problem in VT1 because enemy counts were much lower back then, but with the far higher density of dudes in VT2, enemies can shiva-stack to an unacceptable degree. i think it's perfectly fine for there to be some level of enemies stacking inside each other both for technical sanity and for effect, but if enemies are stacked 4+ on a single tile then they need to take some penalties or undertake different behaviors. again, this punishes melee WAY more than ranged because while ranged characters will fire multiple times from range, melee characters at current will have their windows of opportunity whittled down all the further because you have to wait for that entire shiva-stack to be vulnerable, not just the threats in a line or arc in front of you. the 4th+ enemy in an intersection like that should simply not be able to attack and should be forced to wait until they can move or something dies.
- latency compensation or some sort of client 'bullshit' detection that functions well. currently people will get hit when an enemy is facing away, get hit when an enemy is reeling, gently caress, i have gotten hit by an enemy after i've killed them and they've dropped their weapon. this doesn't affect ranged characters by default because a 200ms error just involves an enemy stepping forward a few more paces before keeling over - or, at absolute worst, a gas rat throwing a globe after he's been on the floor for a noticeable while.

that's just off the top of my head. if all this poo poo was fixed you would still need to nerf some ranged stuff but as it stands you can nerf ranged all day long but it's not going to bring melee back. people will just continue to figure out how to solve as many of their problems with ranged as they can.

that said, we could do better at not having a few isolated ranged character/weapon combos eat EVERYONE'S lunch until those sorts of very fundamental issues get worked out.

fadam posted:

I imagine the bots will just keep picking me up. You have to do it on recruit difficulty to get the most XP. The suicide works because there's nothing for the bots to rescue.