Wirehead Studios

The invul may be good for nostalgia, but it kinda sucks for gameplay. Powerups like the quad are very powerfull, but you still have a chance to beat the other guy if you're on the receiving end; if you make a well placed shot ro two, or cache the guy off gaurd. But the invul has no weakness, there's no way you can win, and everyone has no choice but to run away. It just slows down the game because everytime someone gets the invul, everyone spends the next 30 seconds running away and hiding.

What I propose is a cvar to switch invulnerability with the envronment suit. It may seem like a weak powerup, but Q3's environment suit was pretty good; almost like being invinsible to rockets. I would assume in Gen it would also make you invincible to napalm fire, plus, no more easy splash kills with the mortar. If it still seemed too weak, you could add temporary damage absorbtion, like armor, except it doesn't have a number value that gets diminished. I don't even care if there's new models and effects for it (although it would be nostalgic to see a white labcoat-looking enviro suit for Doom, and new designs for other classes) I just want an alternative to that annoying invul powerup!

Anyone agree?

Actually, I do agree. No hazard/splash damage & 50% direct damage like the battle suit works better for gameplay imo.

As much as I would like to disagree, I must grudgingly admit that the invuln, even set at a 4 minute respawn timer, is a "godlike" powerup.  People who are already in the "top killers" list are made indestructible, while people who tend to be cannon fodder MIGHT get a kill or two.  I think some kind of compromise option might be workable down the road.

maybe you should have them alternate? battle suit first spawn..invuln next?

maybe you should give each class atleast 1 weapon that can get past the protection , like in team arena where those proxymines could get trough the shield.

Well, the thing about the prox mine was it became the anti-shield weapon partly cause it wasn't good for anything else besides spaming your flag base. It would be hard to choose a weapon like that in Gen cause most weapons are pretty usefull on their own. Heh heh, I guess you could have the invul be vulnerable to fist/blaster/knife/axe, but you would still have no chance unless you had berserk. IMO the battle suit is more practical.

If by chance you guys decide to implement this, it'd be nice if (time allowing) it made it in for the bug patch, just cause I really hate the invul on Deeper Blue, which is on the top of central's map rotation.  :)~  Just, ya know, maybe if there's nothing left to do, time's left over, and Phoenix gets bored, it'd be cool.  :thumb:

Well a pre-Thanksgiving release looks fairly much out of the question at this point.  I still have some stuff to finalize, and I might toss it into the bugpatch.  I think I'm going to skip a full manual update and just toss the changes into a readme file.

Let's not forget that even while players hold the invuln powerup, they are STILL pushed and thrown bu large rocket splashes and heavy shotgun blasts - something people can use during the thirty seconds of the powerup's duration.

or you can do something the oppsite of the ENVI suit . and make you only vulnerable to splash damage and fire .

Right, let's penalize the players who are accurate or who don't have a rocket launcher or flamethrower because they spawned right in front of the guy and reward those who need lessons in aiming.  I think I'd rather try making the invulnerability work like the battle suit - no environmental damage, no splash damage, 50% direct hit damage across the board.  We'll see.

Sounds good to me. Invul was a good powerup in single-player games, but even with nostalgia in mind, it's just not fun to play with/against. The battle-suit setup is alright with me, I've always liked that rocketjump-tool ;]

Sounds like Communism to me!

communism is a wee bit difirent .

I still don't think this is a good idea... Overpowered as it may be, it only lasts 30 seconds...

The key is to replace 'overpowered' with 'powerful', which denotes that it is not the end-all of combat =]

After giving it a bit more thought, I'm not entirely sure I like this idea anymore.  Here's the dillema.  Right now we have the invulnerability, which respawns every 4 minutes unless the mapper changes the timer.  If we change it to the battle suit, we have to throw it back to the old standard powerup timer, and that's not a good idea.  Most players rely a lot on splash damage from rockets, while the "elite" players are pretty much railgods.  So instead of giving any player 30 seconds of unkillableness every 4 minutes, now we're back to making the top players nearly unkillable every minute or so.  Sure, you can do damage with a direct hit, but at only 50% that 200/200 Tekhead or Phoenix or Tabun is going to require 7 Strogg rails or Earth rifles, or 8 Arena rails to take out of action, whereas he is only going to require 1 or 2 shots to do you in.  If we keep the battle suit on a 4 minute timer then all you're doing is nerfing the invulnerability and making it a bit of a useless item.  I don't mind waiting 4 minutes even for a Quad, but for a battle suit?

I think perhaps a better option is to bump the timer up by a full minute so it's the 5 minute timer like in Q2.  We've tested it at 4 minutes and the increased timer does help.  Maybe we just need to increase it a little more.

I guess it comes down to personal preference. I would still rather have a chance of killing you or Tab or Tek when you have invul than non at all, even if it means dealing with the powerup more often. If it's still too powerfull, instead of using a 1 minute timer or a 4 minute timer, you could make it 2-3 minutes as necessary. Plus, it only sounds like such unbeatable odds when you stack it with 200/200 health/armor, and in the FFA games we usually play, there's too many people running around for even the elites to get to everything before someone else does.

Anyway, if worse comes to worst, I would still rather get raped ever minute or so and have a chance of fighting back, than get raped with no chance of fighting back at all every 4 minutes. Maybe it's just me...

I understand, but I have to consider all the players who might potentially benefit from a powerup.  I don't think it's a good idea to nerf an item just because of one or two players who already do exceedingly well.  That penalizes everyone else, but how does it really penalize the already "unkillable" players?

In a big FFA just about anyone can end up grabbing that invuln.  Throw Kajet on the server and I guarantee powerups will be scarce.  He has a knack for showing up at just the right time to deny you an item.  :smirk:

Gee... thanks for the endorsement Pho...

Still, the Invulnerability  is a god-like item right now, and rolling its effect back to the Q3 battle suit effect would not necesarily be be nerfing the item, since it is still quite useful.

Bumping up the respawn time of the powerup doesn't help much either since the item is still overbearing in power, although it is just less frequent. Bumping up the timer to 5 minutes would also effectively cause the powerup to spawn only twice per map, almost removing it from the game.

If the invuln's power was altered back to the battlesuit and the respawn timer of it was 3 minutes, I think some interesting gameplay could be the result.

(edit: on a side note, anyone at 200/200 is fairly rare in gen =)

In an large FFA I'll grant you that Tek, but if there's only a few people on the server I find myself running around at 200/200 quite often.  I'm sure you and Tab do the same a lot too.

I tell you what.  How about we do some beta testing?  I can modify the powerup for the internal beta later tonight and then our beta testers can give it a shot and see how it plays with the default Q3 battlesuit on the default timer.

Well, I'd even feel better if only 5% of the damage would get through. There's something wrong about not being able to dish out _any_ damage at all. Only a slipgater with plenty of rockets can  do something about an invul doomer on the prowl :]
In my experience, 200/200 is not uncommon, certainly not in maps like Howling Wilderniss etc.
200/200 in combination with a powerup is less common, as long as there's more than one person who keeps track of their digital/biological timer..

I'm up for any kind of tests, as per usual - that is, if it isn't at 5 am GMT+1..  I don't know what'd best without testing anyway. At one hand, invul is just too much. On the other hand, it's 100% nostalgia.. which is what we are about anyway. Oh well, I'll be looking forward to whatever gets cooked up :]

LOL, it's true, I think I see Kajet with the invul atleast as much as Pho, Tek, and Tab. The problem is not so much that the invul gives the elite players too much advantage, simply that it doesn't make for very fun gameplay (regardless of who has it). If you're the one with the invul, it's boring because there's no risk. If you're the victim, it's boring because all you can do is run away. Its very effect is penalizing everyone because it's not fun for anyone.

On the other hand, the battle suit still has a risk. This makes it fun for the guy using it because it gives him an advantage but he has to keep on his toes, and it makes it fun for the victim because he has a chance of fighting back, and if he wins he can take the battle suit for himself. It's just more fun all around, for everyone.

As for 'nerfing', why is nerfing the invulerability ok, but nerfing the battle suit isn't? And how does the battle suit really give more advantage to elite players than other power ups? If it's not a problem that the elites and get quad and rape everyone, why is it a problem that elites can get the battle suit and rape everyone? In any case, if there was a problem, a slight bump up on the respawn timer would make an optimal compromise in my opinion.

It gives an advantage to the elite players because they can aim better than the more average players. I'm hardly ever at 200/200 in any game. I might be at 200/150, at best, when I have the chance. If I pick up the battle suit, chances are that somebody like Pho is going to cheat like he always does ( ^_^ ) and rail me to death anyway, while he wouldn't be able to do that if I'd just picked up invulnerability.

That said, I still hate the invulnerability. I've never thought it was a fun item outside of a single-player game (the exception being Mario Kart -- if somebody uses a Star, half the fun is trying to stay away, and there are still things you can do against it). I'd be just as happy to have it removed entirely, to be honest.

I disliked the battlesuit, but not as much as I dislike the invul. The arguement about being able to bounce/dislodge an incoming player means nothing unless you're stocked up and have a lot of ammo.

Strogg can do virtually NOTHING against an incoming invul player. Rockets are too slow with too little spash. Chaingun just slows 'em down...for the 2 seconds until you run out of ammo. Rail you have to be a dead-eye, never miss, and pray your opponent can't aim.

Earth is nearly as bad, but at least the mortar can slow invul players down a bit, and the flamer can disorient them by setting them on fire.

Slipgate fares well, if they have a lot of rockets. One slippy rocket can put another player halfway across the map, if aimed well.

Arena is almost as good as Slipgate, but the real winner in the OH SHIT ITS AN INVUL PLAYER RUN contest is the Doom guy, who can outrun, outspam, and flat-out out-anything.  Plasma will stop someone in their tracks. Rapid-fire rockets can do the same. The SSG will blow an aggressive player away.

Of course, the opposite is true as well. When invul, the Doom class STILL has the edge, as the other classes don't have the same stopping power or speed (trickjumping aside) to get away. Earth also rocks invul, as speed don't mean jack when you have a gun for everything and you don't have to worry about dodging.

I vote go back to battlesuit (or perhaps something in between, like a flat 5-10% damage from everything: splash and direct hits both).  Some classes rely on splash more than others, like Slipgate.

I agree with most of you however replacing the invulner with a battlesuit..well aslong as the MODEL aint changed and the NAME  that's fine with me!

lol Reb. Don't worry about the model - I'm not about to make any replacements for those invul's, whatever way this turns out :]

Everyone is bringing up some very good points here, and it seems to be the general consensus that "we don't like the invulnerability".

Maybe if we modified the battlesuit concept a bit, like making it act as blocking 66% of direct damage, and say 75% of everything else, keep the player invulnerable to environmental effects (slime, lava, drowning) and "on fire" damage?  I think that would toughen it up a bit, allow for some splash, and allow me to set it on a standard respawn timer instead of the 4 minute rule.  How's that sound?

Sounds like something that would be worth giving a shot, at least.

:offtopic: If it isn't obvious by now: I'm alive again. Sorry for vanishing like I did. O_o

I personally like Invulnerability because it gives me more freedom to screw around without inflicting damage upon myself.  However, I do agree that invulnerable players are rather hard to ward off if they're chasing you.  (I tend to ward them off by dying and respawning in a different location. ;))  I don't really have an opinion about how it should be altered so I'll just accept whatever the final decision is. :)

Nah, I'd say have it 50% direct damage and immune to splash/enviromental damage. This way, good accuracy (rather than spam) is rewarded to whoever shoots down the guy with the powerup. Plus, direct rocket hits look damn cool =D

Tek:  You're describing the default Q3 battlesuit.  That's still an option too, as mentioned before, but I'm kind of partial to the idea of making it a bit tougher to kill the guy but maybe allowing some splash through.  We can tinker with it and see what we like.

Don't worry Kain, true Invulnerability will still make it into the "oldschool" mode that's going to be forthcoming in 1.0.  That's going to be whack when I get everything together for it.  I think Strogg will get his ass handed to him in Oldschool mode, but hey, that's why we'll have "normal" mode too, eh?

And welcome back Makou!

Standard being three minutes.. right?
And yes, oldschool mode will rock. I'm already looking forward to totally unfair oldschool custom nights :]

If there was a way to reward someone for killing a battlesuited player, then I'd agree that the default is the way to go. Unfortunately, the standard Q3 battle suit forces some classes to play an entirely different game than they ever should have to, with zero benefit for being able to do so other than being able to pick up the suit from the dead player.

Let's give Pho's suggestion a try, first.

Just to be sure (this is a really stupid question, but ), doing this will not have an impact on spawn protection, right?

Er... what classes will be playing a different game than Generations? Zero benefit from what?

Please be clearer in what you're trying to say, I can't understand it.

Earth and Strogg come to mind.

I'd say Doom Earth and Strogg receive the greatest benefit from a true invuln.

Doom because he can chase you down with impunity, Earth and Strogg because it offsets their iron pants.

You've never seen a Slipgater use it to rocket-jump across a map at high speed then. ;)

And no, spawn protection will remain full invulnerability, but thanks for bringing that up so I don't forget to put in an exception for the timer.

Also, our invul should make one immune to one's own splash/fire

I'm all for a 75% damage reduction 'invul' powerup.

So you're suggesting:

Invulnerable to self damage
Invulnerable to environmental damage (sans telefragging, squishing, hellfog, etc)
Invulnerable to being onfire (will still be on fire, just not take damage from ir)
75% direct hit damage from other players
75% splash from other players

Correct?

Yes, although I've always HATED being on fire while invul, especially during spawn protection.

I had planned to take it out for spawn protection.  I'll check to see if I've done it for .99f yet or not.  I may have already done so.

Um, hey Pho, Con said "75% damage reduction", while you said "75% damage" (which would only be a 25% reduction.) Just making sure you guys undertand eachother. Obviously the tthe 2 things are rather opposite, and I would think most people would find taking an entire 75% damage durring battle suit to make a rather weak powerup.

Wait.... if it's 75% damage reduction from everything, why not just call it a timed Power Armor pickup?

I do not like that idea =/

As I recall, there was a statement made somewhere that if the power armor was ever put in Generations in any form, it would be a timed powerup.

I would much rather have only a quarter of my damage getting through than absolutely none of it. It would at least make me feel like I might be able to do something, since most of the time I meet a player who has the invul, I have nowhere to go.

Well, maybe we should just stick to the tried an true 50% damage from the vQ3 battle suit then?

Why not do as Phoenix recommends; test the shit out of something, before fighting over exact values..