ClonesGame.com Forums

[rt]

During the March multiplayer jam one player suggested that when a clone goes nova it should shatter or stun any spinning clones nearby. This is an interesting concept. Some thoughts:
- Should only spinning Light Clones be vulnerable to this?
- If the spinning clone is shattered then it makes single-clone sabotage more risky since at some point you'll probably have to spin (e.g. the drill spin trick) which gives the defending team a chance to destroy your saboteur.
- This is basically the same as the doppel dilemma we went through and decided that doppels should shatter to be fair.

We'll probably be adding experimental support for this, but if it's obvious from play testing that it enhances the gameplay then it will become the default behaviour. What do you guys think?

[CCX]

I'll defer to the experts like Simon and geoo for better analysis. The initial gut feeling is that a general shatter on any spinner may be a little too much, though I can see its place for the saboteur destruction idea rt mentioned. On the "against" side I'm wondering for example about a case like this:

1) player A's saboteur does something (nova, drill, etc.) to break through a platform, causing a bunched-up number of player B clones to starting falling.

2) player B quickly tries to spam-assign spin to as many of those clones as possible to avoid certain splat death...

3) ...but player A uses either the saboteur, or another one of his clones nearby, to nova and shatter those spinners player B assigned in vain to avoid catastrophe.

Perhaps it doesn't play out as often or as dired as I might picture. (And perhaps one can argue that player B allowing the initial sabotage to happen means he probably already screwed up to start with.) Thus deferring to the multiplayer experts.

For the stun approach, one thing to make sure is that you can't recover from the stun immediately via skill assignment, which I think might be the current behavior if I recall correctly (at least from such levels as "mushbombing", but maybe that's a different kind of stun).

[rt]

Hmm, yes that example you gave makes me think that going Nova should only take out the nearest Spinning clone, not all Spinning clones. This isn't a problem with Doppel shatter because it's unlikely that many Doppels will be stacked on each other.

When a clone is stunned you should be able to de-stun it by issuing a morph. But now that i think of it perhaps there should be some minimum time before you can de-stun?

[Simon]

Yes, I believe the originally suggested idea actually makes more types sabotage better than it makes types of sabotage worse. CC explained the reasons well already.

If sabotage is too strong, you should directly nerf saboteur-typical skills, or buff the fixing skills. I have no experience with the super molder option yet.

If the light clones with spin are too strong, consider not being able to control light clones at all while they spin, instead of just denying skill assignments to them. You should not modify general game rules when only the light clones seem off: The most interesting levels don't feature light clones.

-- Simon

[rt]

Yes, I believe the originally suggested idea actually makes more types sabotage better than it makes types of sabotage worse. CC explained the reasons well already.

Does that mean you are in favour of a nova clone shattering a nearby Spinning clone?

[Simon]

I wouldn't use this, rather. It would be defensively better if it killed only one enemy spinner, but then you'd get a strange inconsistency in mechanics.

-- Simon