descentchampions.org

Got thinking on the "why not D2?" question today, considered that most of the reasons people trot out are totally fixable, and... maybe we should actually fix them? There is a particular part of the D2 story that is great for 1v1 - I saw glimpses of it playing Nysa against Djcjr a while ago and I think that's kind of the guiding light, from my perspective. There are a few things that would need to be done to get there.

Built-in afterburner should be mandatory.
Everyone keeps complaining about that aspect of the burner, and we already have a fix for it. Let's just always use it - it does make the game better.

Spreadfire/Fusion balance fixes should be mandatory.
This applies once 1.4 is done, mainly. There's no reason not to use them - if they were balanced for no burners, they're going to be balanced with burners too.

Ban the Gauss.
I am not even joking about this one. As I said earlier today, the less Gauss there is in a game, the more skill there is in that game. (Or something like that.) We've already got Vulcan, which serves the same role, but actually has weaknesses (yes, Gauss can splash-damage the user, but good luck turning a match around with that).
It's okay in a free-for-all, but in a 1v1, it just makes the game dumber and more one-dimensional. We don't need it.

Fix the Flash missile, and make the fix mandatory.
I think this one is still in development so we don't get it right now. Flash missiles don't necessarily make the game terrible if done right. It just needs to be tricky to completely blind people with them (direct hit), and the blinding effect has to be consistent.

Consider nerfing the Mercury missile.
And yeah, I'm in two minds about this one. I do like the missile (a little too much) but I can't deny that in levels with a lot of them, even without Gauss, an awful lot of kills are going to come from splashing your opponent with wall-shots. Would the game be better if they did half the damage? Or should be just prefer levels with less mercs for D2? I'm not really sure. This one is my weakest suggestion - we can just try things out as-is and see if it really needs any further tweaking.


I'm not suggesting these changes to the Rangers because I know there'll be a lot of resistance, and it doesn't matter that much for FFA anyway - but in 1v1 these are totally legitimate quality-of-play issues with D2. And while things like Gauss are usually considered "part of D2" - if it serves as a disincentive to play the game I'm not really sure it's for the best.
There will still be differences with D1 - the burner means that you can close distances faster, and that means good D2 1v1 levels are probably going to be a little bigger. That and the weapons (particularly Mercury missiles) have more "reach" which means you're hitting from longer distances - D2 games can have a "peekaboo" element to them with those sorts of weapons, not unlike facing a guy toting the Vulcan in D1 when you're low on shields. That's not terrible as long as you're not sniping at each other for the whole game. Getting a good mix should help the better parts of D2 to shine a little brighter.

Sirius: you have described the reasons I don't even have D2 installed.

Will people be willing to make these changes in the spirit of 1 on 1 competition.....not so sure.

My solution has been to simply play D1. However, I must admit, that I would be interested in playing D2 under those conditions.....as the AB will bring an interesting aspect to the game that totally changes it....even if all else was the same as D1...it would still be totally different.

This is what D2 is...or has been...imo. AB-Gauss-Mercs-Insta-Death! bleh!! Thus my pilot nick of D2Blows

One other option I have, is try to be the "D2 DKH"... make a bunch of 1v1 maps with no Gauss and like 1-2 Mercs. White Rose has no Gauss and it works pretty well. Pulling Teeth has no Gauss and it's worth the occasional play (it's a bit too large). Nysa has very little Gauss and it's fairly good. Neptune has lots of Gauss and just blah.

You should play The Duellists (Naphtha's 6-level set) to get a feel for how D2 can be done right.

Level 1 is only original D1 weapons.
Level 2 adds mercs and super lasers.
Level 3 is a gauss-n-merc showcase.
Level 4 is a Helix showcase.
Level 5 is Phoenix.
Level 6 is omega-v-gauss (a contest over distance), and it's very well done.

I totally agree that spawn with burners, D1 weapon values, and fixed flash missiles are important. Mercs and gauss don't need to be nerfed as long as the amount of ammo and the level are appropriate (but this does point to using the "low vulcan ammo" setting in some levels, along with mcap 2.)

D2 burners with D1 fusion is a frightening combination. By which I mean, speaking as someone who is happiest with heavy guns at point blank range, I love it so much. Highly recommended. I don't know if it will ultimately turn out to be too powerful, though. We haven't played with it enough. If there's anything that stops those options from seeing widespread use, though, I suspect it'll probably be that.

Adjusting weapon values beyond what's been done is crossing lines I don't want to, though. Putting fusion and spread at D1 values in D2 as an option, fine, that's been a crying need since D2 came out. Making flash missiles fair, ok, makes sense, they're currently broken. We'll pick a value in the current range and make it consistent for everyone, like with the homers. But that's it. We're not going to start nerfing and buffing weapons overall. No. Mercs are mercs.

Gauss is actually a lot less painful now that spreadfire is fast enough to provide something resembling a counter. There didn't used to be anything that could really stand up to it! Light Vulcan Ammo helps too, but I'm not persuaded it's totally necessary all the time. It is nice to have that control, though, and the games I've played with gauss-light-ammo, you had to be really careful with it. Like mercs. Pick your shots. It was really pretty okay.

D2 does handle weapons mods in levels, so if you want to shop a light damage / light splash merc around to the community, there's nothing to stop you from trying to sell it. But modded weapons are a huge turnoff for me as a pilot, personally. I'd have to see a huge proportion of the community playing with a modded weapon to even consider putting it in Retro, even just as an option. The only reason I did the spread/fusion in D2 is that such an overwhelming number of people asked for it.

But I do agree with this: with D1 spread/fus, spawn with burners, and light vulcan ammo . . . D2 is ready to shine again. We'll have to see if it catches on, but I could see those eventually becoming default settings.

how long in seconds or ms does it take to kill someone with direct hits of gauss and mercs?

True, Djcjr, but it's a lot easier to use gauss+mercs correctly than most of those other weapons. There is some kind of balancing issue with them.

Low Vulcan ammo might be a good enough solution though. It's going to hit the actual Vulcan Cannon harder than Gauss, but facing facts... you have both in the level, you're not going to be using Vulcan anyway.

And I'm definitely more in favor of banning weapons than modifying them - but I'm not sure banning Mercury Missiles is something anyone really wants to do. Keeping the number low is still a good enough solution, though; that way you're forced to pick your moment rather than using them as a de-facto primary weapon. Not entirely dissimilar to how we currently treat homing missiles in D1.

I'm not entirely sold on Gauss at the best of times, but if you only had 1250 ammo per life - barely enough to kill someone if you connect with all of it - you'll be a lot more careful when you use it. Sort of like Vulcan in the likes of Logic.

(Also, I don't do weapon mods in my levels; something about the fact that you have to copy the entire HAM file just to modify a handful of values doesn't sit right with me. Feels awfully close to copyright infringement...)