Rifleman Archive

GAH! They deleted the old post! Luckily I've quoted it and stored it in a place they can't delete! Here's a link to my reply, complete with quote from TH so you can read it for yourselves.

OK, so it was only a response to the problem, not an answer. Below is my response to it, along with an observation by a LLJK_Griz. I've posted it into the In Live Discussion thread, hoping to get an actual answer.

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DVader539 wrote:

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LLJK_Griz wrote:

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Thunderheart wrote:

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DVader539 wrote:

Here's a real, real, real simple fix for you.

Spraystick is supposed to be Acid damage
Tusken Rifle is supposed to be Kinetic damage
T21 is supposed to be Blast damage

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The correspondents and I have looked at this many times. Sorry, but its not an easy change. Damage types have a relationship to damage and by changing the damage type, it also changes the damage modifiers (numbers) and throws them out of whack. This is something Im checking to see if we can address in the weapon balance part of the larger combat balance, but I don't know what the answer might be. And in any event, concentrating on these minor things before the weapon balance isn't productive. We'll want to look at things when the combat balance is on TC.

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If that is true, then why did the Tusken start off as kinetic and then mysteriously change to another useless energy rifle around publish 4? Why has it taken this many months of weaponsmith and rifleman correspondents complaining before we got ANY response on this?

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First off, thank you TH for a response to this issue. Before you read anything else in my response, please understand I am directing no anger at you, since I know you are only fielding the question, and are not responsible for the error nor ignoring the error.

With that said, LLJK_Griz makes a very valid point. If it's not an easy change, then how did the Tusken Rifle change it's damage type? If it was unintentional, then I'd like to meet the unlucky guy who by-mistake did the complex job of reprogramming it. If it was intentional, then I'd like to meet the doofus who went to all that complex work to screw up a weapon. Or is this a case of "if you had a dozen programmers sitting at a dozen terminals typing randomly, in twelve days they would reprogram a complex variable of this game"? of course that last one was a joke. I hope...

Finally, what bass-ackwards logic made the Dev team make a weapon's stats not variable-entry based? That being, a weapon's code is a string of numbers, each number representing a stat. Like 1=energy damage, 2=heat damage, 3=kinetic damage, etc. Then a seperate function takes certain numbers during a fight and puts them through an equation set to figure out damage and such. If the Dev team made it any more complex than that, then please hire my service of logical thinking. I'll sell you my services at a good price since I'd enjoy making this game better. (p.s. I'm serious.)

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gotta love how he ignored your post in there, eh?

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HARP00N wrote:
dude you gave the devs so much lip as if you know what you are talking about. How many games have you made?

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I've been in several teams that have made a total of 7 or so games, with three more in the works right now. Personally I've only ever made three small games all by myself, of which I only shared with my friends because they were my target audience, you could say.

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HARP00N wrote:
Do you know how to coordinate your damage type functions with every other aspect of the entire game?

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Yes, they're called functions and classes. They make programming much easier.

Any other questions?

edit: Oh, I'm sorry, were you referring to video games, or all games? If it's all games, then I've also designed well over a dozen board/card/rpg games and actually got to play four of them with friends. Very fun, lets you customize the experience for a small group.

Message Edited by DVader539 on 03-08-2004 07:34 PM

Ummm....so why is the T21 supposed to do blast damage? :-/

It's a heavy repeating blaster rifle...it fires laser bolts, like a DL44 pistol only bigger.

I just revived the topic on the later pages for even more to see, hopefully he won't just ignore me as well

Oh, and I also must ask. I thought that the T-21 was always energy and only the tusken and stick were broken. I mean it being blast would be nice but I don't think it is actually fair to request.

Petition to kidnap the SWG developer team, place them in the middle of a central African nation, and put DVader539 in power.

/Sign

Thunderheart ignored all the real questions in that thread and in the "In Testing 7-2: Preliminary Combat Balances" thread.

He ignores all the REAL questions and just answers the morons who want their Jedi fetish stroked.

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Juggalosaurus wrote:

Ummm....so why is the T21 supposed to do blast damage? :-/

It's a heavy repeating blaster rifle...it fires laser bolts, like a DL44 pistol only bigger.

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To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely certain myself. I only know that I'd read the T21 was/is supposed to be blast.

There's reasoning behind both damage types. Certaintly it fires energy bolts, which is covered under energy damage. But the T21 is supposidly strong enough to puncture military-grade armored vehicles, which is something a regular blaster bolt can't do. To puncture vehicle armor requires a considerable amount of firepower, something that would most likely be covered under blast damage.

And to explain a blast effect from a blaster bolt? Well, normally bolts "explode" after their mag seal fails (either due to time or colliding with a physical object aka target) It is then there energy is released in a literal explosion of energy, though with normal bolts this is hardly a big explosion and is often 90% of the energy is directed in a lateral direction. With more power (AT-ST cannons, E-webs, and other repeating blasters like the T21) the explosion is much greater, something that releases a noticable explosion.

Oh, and Psycho... thank you, it'd be a honor, though I'd still need a team to implement it all. Though, I hear Africa is very nice this time of year.

Venom is unncecesary, the original poster is --probably-- correct. I highly doubt that actually making the change to the damage type is some huge, complicated procedure (unless you actually do the database crawl/write to change the current weapons). My educated guess would be that the complications arise from having to analyze the impact of changing the damage type on the professions "uberness".

Lame reason, IMO, but a valid one.

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Wabit wrote:

honestly i think blast should belong to commando's... giving the T-21 blast back would render turrets useless (blast vuln)

but i would like some kind of varity in the choice of weapons...

right now we have the only cold damage (that i can think of) in the game (worthless cause its AP0), the best stun damage weapon in the game, and a bunch of choices of energy... only 2.5 (laser, t21, and a few e11) actully get any use, other than the dtl20 wich gets used till marksman get the cert for the laser... and now the new geno rifle which does acid...

but all and all we are better off than TKA for choice of damage type... thay can choose from kinetic (VK's) or kinetic (fists)...

Wabit

ps. /sign PJ's petition

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Wabbit,

I would agree with you, but ATSTs used to be heavy armor and weakest to blast (they are now Medium AR, and I assume they are still weak to blast). Most (all?) turrets are weakest to blast. Thus, since the T21 is the only Heavy AP weapon in the game, we have to assume that they, along with commando weapons, were intended to be the counter to these weapon systems. It would, therefore, be logical that the T21 was originally intended to have blast damage.