35 replies to this topic

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Changes:

- Improved Eldar FoF behaviour when retreating

- DE soul abilities won't target units out of view range anymore (Rend soul, soul storm, corrosive cloud)

- Some capturing improvements (No biggy...)

[Zenoth]

That was fast, and thanks Arkhan for doing improvements about the Dark Eldar's Soul Essence powers. See, it proves you guys, the fans, that feedback and suggestions is important, and if time and will and possibility allows it then something will be done, the team shall not ignore its fans and supporters.

[LarkinVB]

Changes:

- DE soul abilities won't target units out of view range anymore (Rend soul, soul storm, corrosive cloud)

Do they have a cooldown timer or can the AI spam them if the enemy is in sight ?

Just curious.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Do they have a cooldown timer or can the AI spam them if the enemy is in sight ?

Just curious.

I just included a sight restriction! (Actually, it's an attack restriction like the IG scan, but it's usually an elegant and fast way to check visibility, even it's not 100% correct all times.)

[Zenoth]

Hmm, Thudo must be busy, the build is not up for grabs yet.

In hope to see it there today, but it's ok, the "delay" allowed me to focus on my Fallout 3 game, hehe!

[thudo]

I'll be up tonight -- my back died on my Tuesday night and could not even sit at a computer desk without pain. Now all is coming back to me.

[Inquisitor]

Can I test it with the 1.2 patch?

[thudo]

You mean Soulstorm 1.10 + Hotfix -- yes its meant to work with that.

[Inquisitor]

Yes, exactly. The 1.2 patch.

[thudo]

Yep although with only 3 documented changes its a wee hotfix!

K.. will send up latest release when I get home minus the bad nerve pinch in my lower back. :( Gawd thats painful! A cripple for 36hrs..

[Inquisitor]

Yep although with only 3 documented changes its a wee hotfix!

But even so, they still call it v1.2.

K.. will send up latest release when I get home minus the bad nerve pinch in my lower back. :( Gawd thats painful! A cripple for 36hrs..

Sorry about you back, Thudo! I have had some trouble as well in the past, so I know it's really bad. Hope you will get better soon!

I have a few observations about the ailing Necrons in 3.1. beta 2, if anybody cares:

• I see little NW dancing. Is this intentional? They're the best dancers in the game.
• FO always spawns behind lines. Why? The Big Mek always manages to teleport right in the thick of battles, but never FO.
• Necrons still upgrades all LP's even though they're next to useless (when there's much else to spend power on). Suggest putting these wayyy down in the priority.
• Necrons upgrades second HQ (useless upgrade) even though Vehicle Cap is at 3.
• Builds turrets like insane even though Vehicle Cap is at 3 with two idle Monos. Suggest reducing the AI's likeliness to build turrets.
• Many turrets has another downside: They're built around the Monos and eventually prevents vehicles (i.e. destroyers) from moving because the turrets make nice little fenced yards for them to play alone in.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

@Thudo

Take your time, and get well soon. Health comes first. The changes are minor anyway.

In hope to see it there today, but it's ok, the "delay" allowed me to focus on my Fallout 3 game, hehe!

How's the game? I'm pretty much a Fallout fan, but I wasn't pleased to see that they changed the good strategic 2D core of Fallout 1 & 2 to a primitive 3D ego splatter fest.

[thudo]

@Inquisitor -- good points but surprised by that because all I hear is generally wining and complaining how powerful Necrons still are. Still, LP addons, 2nd Monolith addons, and turrets useless? LP addons and turrets provide zonal defense and disruption -- how is this a bad thing? Necrons generally have enough coin because their economy is behind the lines in those gens whereas all other use exposed strats. I thought 2nd and 3rd Monolith addons provide unit build speed bonuses as well as allowing 2nd and 3rd Monoliths to build higher tiered units from em -- how is that useless?

[Zenoth]

How's the game? I'm pretty much a Fallout fan, but I wasn't pleased to see that they changed the good strategic 2D core of Fallout 1 & 2 to a primitive 3D ego splatter fest.

I don't know if you'd like it Arkhan, because of course whatever I say here about it is my own opinion, but I like it. However, it does have many problems and various seriously lame mishaps. In another discussion forum I said that with lack of words in how to describe how I feel about Fallout 3 with precision that I simply considered it as being both the best and worst game that Bethesda has developed so far.

The scope of the game is immense, exactly in lines with Oblivion (number of side quests, length of side quests, number of places to find and explore, etc). A lot of people think that saying that Fallout 3 is just "Oblivion with guns" is a nonsense, but I beg to differ. It is to me Oblivion with guns, but that's not exactly a bad thing at all. I liked Oblivion, and when I played it I remember thinking how awesome it would be to have a full conversion modification set in a futuristic world or at least in another context altogether, basically to have guns. And that's basically what Fallout 3 is.

They kept many references about the previous two Fallout games including our beloved Harold/Bob character, the Conclave, the Brotherhood of Steel and other Vaults, and many more. It's set 200 years after the Great War, but to be honest the time line doesn't make much sense. The way the game world is built, the way people talk, their accents, the culture in general, the events that occur and the way people describe how they remember things that happened like 150+ years ago doesn't hold it, but that's rare, keep that in mind.

The one thing that sets Fallout 3 apart from Oblivion is the content in the game world and just how unique looking each locations are. In Oblivion there are about five or six variants of Forts, Ruins, Caves and so on, and those variants are repeated (copied/pasted) all over the place, and the only thing that is different other than that is how many enemies are in there, and how the clutter is placed and what type of items and traps and so on can be found. But the "skeleton", the designs is very repetitive. But in Fallout 3 that has been "fixed" if I can say. All locations are unique, perhaps with the exception of the subway stations but even then, there's so many things to do.

And about the subway/metro network, it's absolutely great what they've done with it. Basically you can travel through pretty much all of the game world by taking those underground paths, as much as in real life you can travel through a whole city, from north to south, and from east to west by metros, you don't have to go all around by outdoors levels. Also the data loading part of the engine has been enhanced. The way that the cells levels load is made faster, there's much less pop-in of the rocks and trees and buildings in the distance than what could be seen in Oblivion, it's still there though, but much less noticeable now (on highest settings that is).

My personal complaints with it is the interface. As much as the Pip-Boy was part of the previous games and part of the Fallout lore I really don't like its presentation in a 3D game now. It feels too old, feels cramped, looks like an old dual-color monitor, but the 1950's theme oblige it, that's the problem, they had to stay true to the lore, that's fine, but now that it's made 3D I feel like I preferred the vanilla Consoles-ish Oblivion interface, which by itself was horrible. I also don't like the various key-binding issues I have, I also don't like the musical score much, but I added a music mod which adds the score from Fallout 2 instead, maybe it's just due to nostalgia. And let's not even talk about third-person animations quality... it just looks horrendous, please stay away from third person view, everyone, or else your eyes will bleed. And, also, the 20 Levels cap is rubbish, and it can be reached in a matter of just 15+ hours of game-play. I'm already level 20 now, but I'm far, very far from having explored even half of the place.

And I skip a number of other things I hate about it but overall, the immersion level, the attention to details in each locations, the sheer number of items that can be found, the Morrowind-like level scaling of enemies (an improvement over vanilla Oblivion's level scaling, definitely), the various characters, their quests, their dialog (some bad, some good, but overall all unique), and many other good things make Fallout 3 quite a good game. To be honest yes I am a little disappointed if I take into consideration both previous games. I myself would have made Fallout 3 a 3D game but viewed from a top/isometric view à-la Diablo III's point of view, with 3D polygonal characters and environments, but with game-play untouched from Fallout and its sequel, because right now it feels like it's a first-person-shooter who's trying to act like an RPG, rather than being an RPG acting like an FPS.

I could keep talking about it but hey, I'm already quite off topic now (you asked for it Arkhan!), hehe.

It's not my game of the year, and it's not even on my top ten games ever, but really, I do honestly believe that Fallout 3 is good enough to purchase. I've put in around 60 hours so far, with my first character, on Normal difficulty, and I've yet to find most places (I play without the Points if Interests marker on the compass which forces me to find each places by myself rather than being told where to look at by the compass, which I believe is quite a stupid thing made for lazy console players), and I haven't even touched the second quest in the main story line, I've only done side quests and explored and scavenged.

I'd give an overall score of 7.5/10 in my book, it's certainly good and addictive, but I've seen better, much better. Just like Oblivion I believe that Fallout 3 will be redeemed by the modding community (and it was also the case for Morrowind). I can say however that when good overhaul mods for Fallout 3 will be out, it'll be a whole other story.

[thudo]

**UPDATE**

New 3.10b3 build available to testers!

[Pseudonymn]

DE soul abilities won't target units out of view range anymore (Rend soul, soul storm, corrosive cloud)

w00t! You guys are simply the best!

[RobertW7928]

what about the ork waagh! banner population with massive battle? if i recollect correctly they were still at max 100 while other races had a 20 - 30 max pop change, shouldn't the ork pop be 150 with massive battle?.

Edited by RobertW7928, 14 November 2008 - 04:46 AM.

[LarkinVB]

Do they have a cooldown timer or can the AI spam them if the enemy is in sight ?

Just curious.

I just included a sight restriction! (Actually, it's an attack restriction like the IG scan, but it's usually an elegant and fast way to check visibility, even it's not 100% correct all times.)

Shouldn't there be a time restriction as the AI can spam the abilities otherwise ?

[Inquisitor]

@Inquisitor -- good points but surprised by that because all I hear is generally wining and complaining how powerful Necrons still are.

Have you tried pitting cron AI vs any of the other races recently? It's not a pretty sight. Also, the word on the street are that Eldar, DE and Tau are currently the most OP races. After those probably Chaos, Orks and then the rest... It's not a coincidence that the 1.1 patch (which wasn't a balance patch) included a buff for the crons eco, you know.

Still, LP addons, 2nd Monolith addons, and turrets useless? LP addons and turrets provide zonal defense and disruption -- how is this a bad thing? Necrons generally have enough coin because their economy is behind the lines in those gens whereas all other use exposed strats.

The LP's are not useless. They're just not as useful as other races LPs because they don't provide an eco boost. They're an especially bad choice when they are close to cron HQ or very far from enemy HQ as opposed to cron HQ. LP2 costs 75 pow which is a lot when you consider that a mobile FO squad costs 135.

I thought 2nd and 3rd Monolith addons provide unit build speed bonuses as well as allowing 2nd and 3rd Monoliths to build higher tiered units from em -- how is that useless?

2nd HQ upgrades has no other purpose (nothing, zilsch, zero) than making the structure able to be Awakened. It costs 450 pow just to go Tier 2 and should only ever be built if power is abundant. Certainly not when vehicle cap is 3/20. Any Monolith can build all 'researched' troops - even if it is T1.

Hope this helps!

[thudo]

Have you tried pitting cron AI vs any of the other races recently? It's not a pretty sight. Also, the word on the street are that Eldar, DE and Tau are currently the most OP races. After those probably Chaos, Orks and then the rest... It's not a coincidence that the 1.1 patch (which wasn't a balance patch) included a buff for the crons eco, you know.

If thats the case why break whats already fixed if in fact Crons got a boost?

2nd HQ upgrades has no other purpose (nothing, zilsch, zero) than making the structure able to be Awakened. It costs 450 pow just to go Tier 2 and should only ever be built if power is abundant. Certainly not when vehicle cap is 3/20. Any Monolith can build all 'researched' troops - even if it is T1.

This will have to be investigated because I remember adding additional addons to additional Monoliths provides an advantage (ie. unlocking higher tiered units in that Monolith). Seems stupid if there were no benefit.

If anything, the Cron LP's issue should be moot since the Cron's LPs are there for distruption but its worth testing your suggestions by "delaying" the LP and addons on additional HQs a little.