Behind the Scenes: April 2013

[strilmus]

actually, some folks actually did use melee because people are all "raaaugh i use my drygores on everything"

 

generally you'd do enough damage to not get to the quake part of the cycle

 

wait darn it you already said that

 

uh

 

play me off jimmy

 

*piano music*

 

(but really, their defensive stats are enough of a deterrent to welfare combat)

[Alg]

Even if you disagree with this, I don't see why you would want them to be stunnable? That'd still only make them easier. I think I would like for them to be of the same difficulty as Glacors, but that's just me.

It would turn them into the only monster that you can't just wail away on until they die. It's sort of similar to the mechanic they used on the Pest Queen and Sigmund, where stunning them interrupts their gimmick.

 

Perhaps they could change the other two kinds so that you couldn't avoid the earthquakes without using that trick.

[Saradomin_Mage]

Even if you disagree with this, I don't see why you would want them to be stunnable? That'd still only make them easier. I think I would like for them to be of the same difficulty as Glacors, but that's just me.

It would turn them into the only monster that you can't just wail away on until they die. It's sort of similar to the mechanic they used on the Pest Queen and Sigmund, where stunning them interrupts their gimmick.

 

Perhaps they could change the other two kinds so that you couldn't avoid the earthquakes without using that trick.

You can block TD attacks by prayer switching, dodge Glacor attacks by simply side-stepping, so what's wrong with allowing you to stop Automaton attacks by simply using a stun ability? You trade off a damaging ability (unless you're using Destroy), and in turn you know you're going to be safe from the quake attack for how ever few seconds a stun lasts (like, all of one attack round). It'd actually encourage more intelligent ability use rather than just spam spam spam till dead.

 

In any case the ability to kick them to avoid wasting maybe 5 seconds on the quake attack is hardly going to cause the gloves to crash hard, that was already done by increasing a well-balanced drop rate and being able to get to them in 5 seconds.

 

why are we even discussing this on the BTS thread?

[Yoko Kurama]

You can block TD attacks by prayer switching, dodge Glacor attacks by simply side-stepping, so what's wrong with allowing you to stop Automaton attacks by simply using a stun ability?

 

Glacors and TDs have other little abilities that you also have to watch out of for. Automatons only have this one thing. If you can stun it, it takes away most of their damage output. If you melee with drygores/Maul, you can kill them faster than with Mage/Range, but there's still a chance that you could run into their Quake attack, you sort of have to watch out for it, and if you get caught up in it, you can die or take a lot of damage. If you can stun, that completely takes away the element of trying to run far away to escape, you just use a stun special and pound away with all your specials. I can't see how that solves anything or has any appeal.

 

You trade off a damaging ability (unless you're using Destroy), and in turn you know you're going to be safe from the quake attack for how ever few seconds a stun lasts (like, all of one attack round). It'd actually encourage more intelligent ability use rather than just spam spam spam till dead.

 

On the contrary, I think this will only encourage people to use the stun specials, and pound away with other specials. It's not going to break the trend in EoC of spamming specials mindlessly, in fact it will only be an addition to that trend. The intelligence required to correctly perform a stun is no different than knowing how to spam basics and then use a threshold at the right time.

 

 

In any case the ability to kick them to avoid wasting maybe 5 seconds on the quake attack is hardly going to cause the gloves to crash hard, that was already done by increasing a well-balanced drop rate and being able to get to them in 5 seconds.

 

I was opposed to the drop rate increase as well. Not becuase I thought Automaton's drop rate was fair (it wasn't), but they increased it far too much. Myself and several other people had killed thousands and only gotten 1 gloves or less. Post-update, people who had never done any were getting them under 15 minutes.

 

As for whether this will help the gloves crash, it will most certainly make it very easier for meleers to kill them. Most meleers use Void to kill them and were rather cautious, running away to dodge the quakes even when they weren't being used by the Automatons (the Automatons sometimes appear to be using them but don't actually go through with it). Now they can forget about taking much damage. I don't think this update will be the major impetus for the gloves to crash, but it will certainly add up with the other one.

 

why are we even discussing this on the BTS thread?

 

Good catch. I hadn't noticed that until now. I must have accidentally placed this here instead of the other thread. Perhaps a Mod can merge this into this week's update thread.

[strilmus]

how can you mistake when they're quaking? the dust effect that starts up is very visible