October 7, 2012

The Cat Brought in Another Update

Another small batch of changes. Here is one of them mediafire thingies for your perusal. There might be a v1.34 after this but I'll probably jump straight to 1.4 with major system patches. Yes, that is what I said last time but I really mean it this time, pinkie swear. I hope

General Changes:
-Typos and awkward turns of phrasing still existed, and were thus corrected.
Character Creation:
-Nothing, barring a few fixes of the ^^see above^^ variety.
Mecha Construction:
-Potentials now offer a static bonus to stats on specific circumstances, after Tension has increased to 10, or 5 if enhanced.
-Sub-Units modified to now work off three upgrades instead of two: Expansion Packs, Sidekicks, and Assistants. Abilities linked to them like Security Escort were modified accordingly.
Playing the Game:
-Cooperate no longer gives Tension.
-The Assist Action now uses the Advantage and Disadvantage mechanics.
-There were no drawbacks to attacking a target outside of a Duel while you were in one. This has been rectified.
Running the Show:
-Blank.

Potentials have been a thorn on my side for a while, taking way too long to give effects that are either gamebreaking or achieve nothing. Now they should all be useful for their price. Sub Units are now split into super packs/full armor (which can be purged defensively), a subpilot who can use cooperate and a number of genre powers, and the crappy adorable sidekicks like boss borot that we know and love. Notice that Sidekicks no longer use your own stats, I may use a similar approach for Remote Weapons later.

Perhaps the most surprising change is the one to duels, mostly because how the hell did I not notice that thing about Duels all this time? Cooperate should be a lot less overpowered now, and Assist has been streamlined. Aaaand that's it. Tests for the newer, cooler stuff are going well so I'll probably have some of those online before too long.

8 comments:

  1. Just for the sake of clarity, is it required to get all three Sub Units at once if purchasing them in tandem? I should hope the answer is no, as otherwise that raises the cost of such a unit significantly. I would rather be able to purchase just Expansion Pack and Sidekick, for instance, or just Expansion Pack and Assistant.

    There's also a line misplaced in Assistant. "This power is at your disposal to use with your own Genre Points" should go in the Enhancements line.

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  2. The clarification and misplaced line are simple enough fixes that they have been retroactively added to the document. Thanks!

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  3. Its kinda funny, as I thought of the Potentials as being really good before. Well, that's just me.

    Bullseye: This is quite bad. You're buying an upgrade and building tension to then get a boost only when under specific circumstances: takes things a step too far I'd say. Also, it does not specify whether this applies when YOU assist or when you ARE assisted.

    Frenzy: This is a fairly solid change. The chance and output have both been lowered, but +5 penetration 20% of the time is a decent boost. The armor-bypass made it very interesting before, but its probably okay.

    Foresight: Took a bit of a hit there, as blast weapons can't be defended against with the upgrade anymore. It "resets" your evasion to what it was at the beginning of the battle, though, so its never felt too useful unless you're piloting a personal or at worst well-upgraded dynamic.

    Invincible: This is hard to use now. The Range 3 upgrade was kinda hard to justify, but now there's no range 5 to it anymore. Certainly won't use it if you're 'mobile' unless you're melee, and it does feel kinda odd that you can't prepare for incoming hits when you see those missiles coming in from range 8, but can from a lux-cannon at range 2 ya know?


    The Sub-Unit changes I rather like. The new Full-Armor option should probably get a line barring Core upgrades from it, but it should also be guaranteed as your first maim: Not so much for right now, but if you're still planning to switch the choice to the defender.

    Then again, the special-modes make a lot of sense on there and they're core-only too. Perhaps just block exceptionals?

    For one thing it'll prevent "a single one-shot piece on every actual part, and ALL the upgrades save Core on the full armor. Lose arms, head, torso, legs before they can even damage 95% of my points value" or the like. At this exact moment since its attacker's choice there's no problem though.

    Is 1.4 what would involve customizing and missiles getting buffed? I'm interested in seeing how exceptional attributes will change. They do feel like the 'right' thing to put in Core, but if the costs go down to compensate for less stat-upgrades [I still say allowing a +1 extra or cheaper incrementals in that one stat is a good thing to have there] it could give some room for other things.

    Looking forward to it anyways

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    Replies
    1. General consensus regarding Potentials was that they were great when it came to duels or other small, slower battles easier to control but that chaotic large scale operations have too many glass cannons walking about to let them make a real turnabout - the battle was usually decided before then.

      Bullseye'd Assists work both ways, the big plus here is that you are entirely in control of it, so instead of applying randomly or being a static bonus the enemy can mitigate, you get the boost when you make the tactical choice yourself.

      Packs are going to need a refit when Maiming gets changed, but that's already taken into account.

      And yes, 1.4 would be the first of the big changes update to see how they work out.

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  4. Will weapons return to being a bit more varied, in particular with customization being added?

    It feels kind of weird not having 2-5s, 3-7s, 2-3s and the like, as they're so common in SRW.

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    Replies
    1. I know, and I'm all for variation, but when you have only one character instead of a dozen (or two dozens, or fifty) the utility of each individual weapon is that much more important. Not being able to fire a gun at someone who is close by often feels both like an unnecessary and nonsensical restriction.

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    2. While one obviously should not create a mech with only a bunch of 3-5s -though "vulcans and a 3-5" can make interesting mooks sometimes- Its not bad having one or two such weapons per category, so long as they are understandably worth it, and one doesn't forget to get weapons that can cover other ranges.

      Having nothing but a gun you can't fire at the enemy because he's close is certainly bad, but given the options available its also one's own fault.

      Perhaps to compensate one can reduce min range by one or two if they don't move or if they aim?

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    3. After some deliberation I figure that, while I don't want weapons by default to have a minimum range higher than 1, having increases to the minimum range as a custom drawback opens some strategic and tactical options.

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