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Dante

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quote:
No one in this thread is talking about the APM cruch.


Soon ZK will not need for human players because everything will be automated and AI will do it in our place. We will don't need select factory at start because it will be 'brain crunch' and if someone will want play with 'apm crunch' like old school player then he will be quickly obliterated by players who will use 1000x1000 widgets for their units. And this will be no human skill which win game but just one who can put more better widgets in game.

And yes, dante is micro managing nightmare. So two dante is optimum and three is maximum for salvo efficient use. I do not build more then two in most times. It doesn't pay back. And that limit salvo spam use to unlimited levels. However scorpion and ultimatum also is heavy micromanagment units. Even paladin is because you cant afford to just send it in front and let die by ultis or two scorpion. Striders all should be 'apm crunch'.
+2 / -0

22 months ago
quote:
- I am not sure that it is really all about automation, because then GF`s original thread would be about how to implement it, not about how you could change D-gun-parameters.


quote:
Dante feels wrong. When manualfire weapons were introduced I had this idea that they should have niche, deliberate, use. That they shouldn't be spammable, since that is just forcing players to micromanage something which could be implemented as automatic weapon fire.


In reality most micromanagment is used not to spam d guns but get unit in right position to fire or spam it and not reveal until you get enemy by surprise. And it going for scorpion and ultimatum also. And you dont have any time to micromanage something another in game while you trying in dynamic frontline led your cloaked unit to target.
+0 / -0

22 months ago
quote:
precisely such a strider - cost similar to Dante, with a medium sized laser.

Heh, isn't this basically resurrecting *A's Sumo ?
+0 / -0

22 months ago
Dante is a really good Riot. Raiders are the dynamic defense forces of Zero-K. They literally evaporate near Dante, as well as any light assaults that are also sometimes used as raiders. The D-gun is a decloak spell that does damage, and it is enough damage that it threatens cloak balls of artillery and skirmishers which makes them and Dante mutually super effective against each other.

I have no recommendations for improving Dante at this time.
+3 / -0
22 months ago
I think I understand the issue of "feeling wrong": Dante sometimes feels like it's being used like Merlin, so why not just let it fire its salvo every 20 seconds automatically instead of having to keep pressing D every 20 seconds, just like you don't have to for Merlin or Firewalker? I don't know how good the following idea is, but... One way to fix this might be to make the weapon fire automatically, but with shorter range, fewer rockets, but higher AOE and burst damage per rocket. Then add a different D-weapon for longer range... OTOH, it really feels like Dante is pretty good now, minus the occasional hiccup with its flamethrower being the only weapon fired.
+1 / -0

22 months ago
If that ever gets turned on, I would personally abuse the shit out of it by sneaking glaives behind it for the dante to kill its team.
+0 / -0
quote:
I think I understand the issue of "feeling wrong": Dante sometimes feels like it's being used like Merlin, so why not just let it fire its salvo every 20 seconds automatically instead of having to keep pressing D every 20 seconds, just like you don't have to for Merlin or Firewalker? I don't know how good the following idea is, but... One way to fix this might be to make the weapon fire automatically, but with shorter range, fewer rockets, but higher AOE and burst damage per rocket. Then add a different D-weapon for longer range... OTOH, it really feels like Dante is pretty good now, minus the occasional hiccup with its flamethrower being the only weapon fired.


And nobody use it because only way to keep dante alive is under cloak.. And even less option has to support it in combat because there is automatic salvo and everyone must be aware of it to not get harm own units.. Napalm rocket already is great team damager.. Controlled napalm rocket salvo is ok. But these rockets is mostly more problematic then good. They so much limit dante support use.
+1 / -0
22 months ago
USrankchaplol and LVrankSenaven: Yes, that's why I expressed doubt about that idea. Nobody said that it couldn't have an on/off toggle though.

The real point of my post was to try to understand what the original post was about (and maybe offer a starting point for a discussion about a solution).
+0 / -0


22 months ago
There is a lot of good discussion here. Unfortunately I didn't feel like I had the time to talk about it until the weekend.

I'll start with some simple things.
quote:
make it spew fire. change the missile mechanic to be a toggleable swap between a scaterfire artillary

I'm not so sure about toggleable weapons. Making it shoot the right mode at the right target sounds fiddlier than having separate commands for different "fire modes", as it does now.

quote:
molten core:25% haste on all actions for 10 seconds, 60 second cooldown. this sounds incredibly boring, and easy to run into limitations with engine on fast fireing weapons

quote:
What about if it gained a d-gun armored form, which would reduce an incoming damage for a few seconds to a half/quarter, with a larger cooldown?

I don't think ZK should be a game of applying limited statistical buffs and playing around their cooldowns. The game happens mostly in the space of weapon projectiles and units moving around. Simple generic rules determine how units and projectiles move, a bunch of complexity arises from trying to make your projectiles hit enemy units, and then simple things happen once a unit is hit. Existing haste and armour abilities are extreme or permanent. Lingering haste or armour feels at odds with the rest of the game.

quote:
Is it intended that Dante doesnt always shoot all its weapons?

Others have answered this, but I'll add that making the missile better could be a good way to make the dgun more of a tradeoff.

quote:
quote:
I feel like Scorpion has the best designed manualfire among the striders.


partially wrong, when you move merlin attack to be d-gun attack. any sane person uses merlin as if it has dgun attack. the rest just likes to kill allies.

This highlights a lot of my problems with Dante missiles being a dgun. Merlin may be best used on hold fire, but you've still got the option to fire at will if you don't have the attention, or use Set Target (maybe with fire towards), or Avoid Bad Targets, and even just to right click to attack rather than press the D hotkey. There are a lot of ways to dial in the level of attention you want to pay to a normal weapon that don't exist for dguns.

quote:
If one gets Dante to turn it's torso while d-gunning, it will raise it`s arms (?), resulting in a
somewhat random missile trajectory that goes far above the normal reach.

Cannot reproduce.

quote:
Funnel and reef is already killed. Now dante?

I'm not sure Funnel or Reef were ever truly alive.

+0 / -0


22 months ago
quote:
- I am not sure that it is really all about automation, because then GF`s original thread would be about how to implement it, not about how you could change D-gun-parameters.

Simply automating something that feels like it should be automated is the naive response to that feeling. Take Kodachi prefire. People realised that it could be worth firing old Kodachi at the ground, and some people were so annoyed at now being "forced" to do this that they wrote widgets to automate it. In theory the widgets could have been merged (or at least, gadget versions), but they weren't. The feeling of automateability was revealing an annoying behaviour and automating it didn't make the annoying behaviour go away. So Kodachi was reworked until nobody felt the lack of automation. I even wrote a gadget version of prefire later, but as far as I can tell nobody uses it.

The best automation is when nobody feels the need to automate anything. There are broadly two ways to do this:
  • Make the action rarer.
  • Add UI options for controlling the action.

So this thread isn't about how to approach automating Dante dgun. It's about the feeling that Dante dgun is unreasonably automateable. Merlin doesn't feel unreasonably automateable because it can already be automated. Microing your first Merlin is reasonable, but if you want to make three or more then maybe giving them a shared queue of force fire commands is sufficient. Maybe even Avoid Bad Targets, Set Target and Fire at Will is good enough. Also, this aspect of Dante isn't a huge issue, but I feel like there is something to gain here.

Since Dante is a dgun there isn't much we can do to improve the UI. The most impactful change would be to make it not fire beyond max range while keeping its behaviour unchanged. This would involve giving it about 850 range for the purposes of the command, but having it target at 460 range for anything beyond its current range. This would at least let people target Dantes without having to process where the Dante is and the direction it needs to shoot to hit the desired target.

There is a lot that could be done to make the dgun rarer. Unfortunately all the options are balance changes, and Dante doesn't seem to need one. By rarity I don't mean theoretical rarity, like how a Scorpion could fire its dgun every 30 seconds. I mean practically how often players want to do the action in games. Scorpion works so well because firing its dgun in many situations would be a waste of its dgun. It's a deliberate choice each time, so manual control is appropriate.

It is hard to control three Scorpions at once, but that is due to the deliberate decisions required, not just because it has a button that could be pressed every 30 seconds. Dante seems to always want to be firing its dgun towards the enemy lines, so the difficulty in controlling a lot of them does seem mainly to do with there being a button to press every 20 seconds, not that pressing the button takes the same level of deliberation as Scorpion.

The Paladin dgun seems a little better than Dante in terms of decision making in that saving it for shields or clumps of units seems good. However I'd still say that Paladin mostly gets away with its dgun because the unit itself is much rarer than Dante.

I'm not sure if it is possible to make the dgun not feel spammy at 20s reload. Maybe Dante is good enough to take an increase to 25s. I also like the idea of buffing the main missiles as a way to impose a greater cost at simply spamming the burst.
+1 / -0

22 months ago
I don`t think that would change much, at least in the clusterpot. The rockets are not virtually unimportant because of their damage, but because they are 1. often a source of friendly-fire and 2. because we are forced to hide Dante behind our lines. As it stands, you could basically disable all normal weapons as cost of d-gunning, and Dante would still be forced to be used the same way.
+0 / -0
quote:
It's about the feeling that Dante dgun is unreasonably automateable.


I do not think it is ureasonably automatable, but maybe I do not quite get what you have in mind. I guess in case of merlin-automatisation you mean a ground-attack-order. But Dante cannot do so because that would mean standing still on front, or you constantly shoot your own units in their back. Standing still on front means you are impaler or lance-fodder. Remember to fight these, Dante needs to sneak close to them cloaked.

quote:
Dante seems to always want to be firing its dgun towards the enemy lines, so the difficulty in controlling a lot of them does seem mainly to do with there being a button to press every 20 seconds


No, the main problem is usually to get them to NOT shoot each other.

quote:
There is a lot that could be done to make the dgun rarer. Unfortunately all the options are balance changes, and Dante doesn't seem to need one.

vs.
quote:
Dante is good enough to take an increase to 25s. I also like the idea of buffing the main missiles as a way to impose a greater cost at simply spamming the burst.


Thats why I think possible changes should be d-gun-internal.

+0 / -0


22 months ago
quote:
I'm not sure Funnel or Reef were ever truly alive.

Funnel at least was alive from Apr 25, 2019 to 11 Dec, 2020
+2 / -0

22 months ago
I still believe that Dante's ridiculous burn time and spray-ability is a necessary evil (bullshit) to counterbalance the strength of cloak in general in big games.

Also Lobster + Dante is great combo I enjoyed to use, since it allows it to quickly get in and out of range to dish out its great dps from up close. Great for early game rushes.

I agree with GoogleFrog's starter intention to address the problem with Dante's DGun being not so fun (on both ends) interaction, to make it proxy as an area denial artillery/cloak counter. I wouldn't touch the issue until the cloaker dominance is addressed though.

quote:

quote:
If one gets Dante to turn it's torso while d-gunning, it will raise it`s arms (?), resulting in a
somewhat random missile trajectory that goes far above the normal reach.

Cannot reproduce.


^ To maximize the area to spray with fire, the good practice is to issue an order and cancel it right away with move order, so it turns and yes, raises guns to its rest position (which is higher than when it aims at ground). For furthest shots it's best to use terrain to advantage, for example a little hill from dirtbag to increase your angle and again, cancel the order to turn.
+1 / -0

22 months ago
quote:
I'm not sure Funnel or Reef were ever truly alive.



Drone funnel was one of few options that could challenge late game artillery dominance. And allowed option how to break porc stalemate games when you massed them enough (and this mass wanst cheap). Detris at that time was trash but now it have jump, more hp. So it would be better counter to funnel now especially if upgraded with better anti air. Now such drones is only available for coms and are mostly useless in late game. Now funnell is just big shield to allow porc more or just sink all energy to recharge it and make reclaim for more funnel building. So it was alive old times and players build it.
Reef was partially alive with antinuke to protect fleet and long range impaler gun. As aircraft carrier it was never alive even partially.. Gull was always bad and rarely pose threat when medicore aa present was. Disarm missile only niche use and cost metal. Have seen only few times to efficient use.
+1 / -0

22 months ago
quote:
It is hard to control three Scorpions at once, but that is due to the deliberate decisions required, not just because it has a button that could be pressed every 30 seconds. Dante seems to always want to be firing its dgun towards the enemy lines, so the difficulty in controlling a lot of them does seem mainly to do with there being a button to press every 20 seconds, not that pressing the button takes the same level of deliberation as Scorpion.


Did you tried play with two or three dantes on team game? I suggest to try in practice this theory. Especially when only thing what keeps you alive is cloak. I think you will fast find that you will need deliberate aim at targets to use dante missile salvo effectively and it takes great micromanaging. And when first widow will be sighted its possible that you start spam napalm salvo in most cases not even at enemy but just trying decloak potential threat from lightning spider.
Anyway i can agree that missiles fly too far. I hate when enemy or even ally missile just fly from kilometer in my units..
+0 / -0

22 months ago
So my main use of dante is a counter to swarms getting out of hand. I'm perfectly fine with the long range of the incendiary missiles and in fact I think its a plus when dealing with swarms of light units. That said if the dgun feels spammy (I think it's perfect) then consider lowering the metal cost of Dante to 3000 and the rocket salvo cooldown to 30s.

That way it keeps its anti riot function while making it more accessible by a bit.

I often find the best use of dante is to emerge from cover, launch the rocket salvo, kill a few key targets and then run before it dies so as to repair.
+0 / -0

22 months ago
quote:
And when first widow will be sighted its possible that you start spam napalm salvo in most cases not even at enemy but just trying decloak potential threat from lightning spider.


+1 / -0
Parroting: you need to spam d-gun because you cannot screen yourself properly.

+ I do not see how raising reload-time would solve that problem. Yes, now you have more time for other things, but the infiltrator can get through even easier...
+1 / -0

22 months ago
quote:
And when first widow will be sighted its possible that you start spam napalm salvo in most cases not even at enemy but just trying decloak potential threat from lightning spider.


As i understand that point was about that dante d gun can be automated and used too much. Main problem is that you need use salvo against widow manually because you not always know where it is precisely. So it brings another problem - you cant efficiently use napalm salvo against enemy and if dante is cloaked you give out your position and that can mean dead by lance or artillery and so surprise moment is lost. Automating dante salvo doesn't solve problems with widow. It allow even more easy to sneak and stun it because you can even calculate auto salvo timing. Another thing is support. Manual salvo use at least allow to avoid to some degree from friendly fire.
You can't use salvo efficiently just spamming automated. In such mode dante will not work good. Too much counters. That's why cloak use is most efficient way.
I like how devs made game to so much way to automate units and then try solve problem that some units can be automates if main problem is that everybody can write widgets for themselves and this gives advantage.
+1 / -0
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