The DCUG Back on Track!

[BentonGrey]

Ahh, perfect!  Great work as always, my friend.  I think you got exactly what I was going for.

[BentonGrey]

Okay guys, a couple of notes today.  First off, I've been trying to learn how to convert maps, and apparently I'm not QUITE as dumb as I thought I was.....just mostly....I think everything is working pretty well.  I should be able to convert some of the FF1 maps to go with the mod, so you will be able to duke it out in some DC locations...if I can get the creators' permission, that is.  Once I actually manage to convert them and work out all the kinks, I'll start contacting them. 

Second, I was wondering if there was anyone watching this thread who could take a image I sent them, and format it for use as the background for the main FF menu.  A friend of mine borrowed my photoshop cd before my hard drive went kaplooie, and he keeps forgetting to send it to me :P

[the_ultimate_evil]

Thanks TUE, I believe I'm currently using more than a few of your skins :).

cool i'd be interested in finding out which

[BentonGrey]

Haha, I'll try and do a survey TUE, but it may take a while.  Please understand that I've got a LARGE catalogue of characters, and a lot of skins and meshes ^_^

Let's see, off the top of my head, I think I'm using:
Clock King
Two Face
Batzarro (although I haven't added him in yet)
Zatanna

Probably a few more.

[the_ultimate_evil]

no problem, its just something thats interested me, what if any of my skins are actully used by others amd if so which

[BentonGrey]

Ohh yeah, I'm also using your Ventriloquist (great skin, that one). 

[quiet]

Here are some sites that may help with strings/general research for this project

http://dcanimated.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.rapsheet.co.uk/index.asp

[the_ultimate_evil]

Haha, I'll try and do a survey TUE, but it may take a while.  Please understand that I've got a LARGE catalogue of characters, and a lot of skins and meshes ^_^

Let's see, off the top of my head, I think I'm using:
Clock King
Two Face
Batzarro (although I haven't added him in yet)
Zatanna

Probably a few more.

lol out of the ones you said, 3 need badly redone and the 4th AA did a better one lol

[quiet]

just a character specific question, is black manta going to be in the the really cool looking guise of "Devil Ray" seen here from JLU



or is he going to be the saucer headed guy from the comics?

[BentonGrey]

The short answer is that he's going to be in the comics' costume.  The long answer is that there exists no mesh that really suits that version of Manta...although it just occured to me that a skoped version of Deadshot_VX would be PERFECT.  If I had a skin and hex for that version, I would use him in a heartbeat, as I've never cared for his top heavy look.

[FLASH_22798]

Maybe add an Iron Man helmet from one of Tommy's meshes to the Deadshot_VX?   The pic isn't big enough to so much detail, so I don't know what else would be needed.

[quiet]

this is all I could find for devil ray, I'll put it in the request thread as well.

[Blitzgott]

I don't mean to pressure you guys, but what's going on with the mod? I read some of the past posts and it looks like you've been struggling with the files a bit. Looks like yousendit messed up or something of the like.

I hope it's nothing serious and I would appreciate some feedback on how things are going. If you can't tell, I'm really looking forward to test it out. :O

[BentonGrey]

Haha, I really appreciate your enthusiasm Blitzgott, and I am also anxious for all of y'all to dig and tell me all about the many mistakes I'm sure I made!  :D  Ha, as far as what's going on, well, Cat is still working putting everything together on his end, and in the meantime as I was working on things for the beta, I discovered a LOT of errors, and sent him an updated version to go ahead and fix them.  So, it may take a little longer, but you're getting a better product for it ;).  When Cat is ready, he'll let me know, and I will PM all of the interested testers with download info. 

[BentonGrey]

Okay guys, just to update you, Cat has had some troubles with the files service I used to send him the alpha, but I've re-sent it with another one, and it should be okay. 

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I've got it.  I'll fiddle with it a bit and upload it sometime tomorrow (well, technically today)

[BentonGrey]

Thanks Cat, and thanks again for going the extra mile for us!

[Blitzgott]

And now, a few minutes ago, came to an end my first ride on BentonGrey's DCU Mod.

After the grueling work of changing the path of all templates from the standard path to the path where was the game and the meshes on my PC, I entered the rumble room and started a team mode game.

I choose as my team Supes, Guy Gardner, the Bat and Flash, with the computerd-controlled help of Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter.

As for my opponents, I picked Doomsday, Amazo, Bizarro, Prof. Zoom, Brainiac and Lex Luthor.

The battlefield would be city and I set the difficulty as hard.

So... BEGINS THE BATTLE!

The first thing I noticed as Guy Gardner threw his first emerald bolts is that the FX weren't working correctly for me. Instead of a pretty green blast or whatever, all I saw was a heavily pixelated purple... thing. But I'll get to it later.

Anyway, the second thing I noticed is that choosing Lex Luthor as an enemy was a terrible mistake, as Supes and Amazo started moving slowly and punching like middle-school girls. Still, not discouraged, I followed on my quest of riding the world of those foul personalities.

The first casualty was, surprisingly, Brainiac. MM raped him from a safe distance with his martian vision while the Bat gave it to him with his electrical batarangs. He put up a fight, though, and almost put the Bat down for the count when he got fed up of him throwing those d*mned batarangs and decided to engage him in melee. The beating the Bat took left him with a little over 10 points of hp before I (who wasn't even paying attention to their fight, since I was too busy trying to figure a way to hit that godd*amned Prof. Zoom) noticed his condition and spent a hero point to recover his hp, saving him on the last minute. Brainiac fell shortly with the combinated efforts of MM and GG, who decided to join MM after noticing that his attacks were but little nuisances to Amazo.

Meanwhile, Flash and Prof. Zoom were in a heated superfast fist fight that was going nowhere, since they hit each other once every 10 tries for almost zero damage and healed themselves faster than they ran, so they stayed fresh for a long time.

Wonder Woman, despiste being the only female member of the team, showed having the biggest b*lls when she engaged, without any help, the fearsome Doomsday in battle. Surprisingly, she was beating the cr*p out of him, so I just left her alone and concentrated on Luthor and Prof. Zoom, who were really getting on my nerves.

Luthor was the first one of the two to fall under the might of the heroes. He put up a good fight and almost killed the smallest fry, the Bat, who once again managed to escape death when I noticed his existance in the last minute. I later almost felt guilty for giving him so little attention when he gave the final blow on Luthor and showed himself vital on beating Prof. Zoom and gave a good help against Doomsday.

When Luthor finally fell, I felt beyond overjoyed, since I though that, finally, Supes could start doing his thing. However, was not big my disappointment when I found out on the worst possible way that, even if Luthor died, the effects of the kryptonita wouldn't go away...

Well, whatever. Now there ware only three left. Since Amazo was every bit as useless to the other team as Supes was to mine, I just ignored his existance and concentrated on Prof. Zoom, who somehow was starting to win the brawl with Flash and putting the hurt on him real bad. So I took Bat and GG to lend him a hand. It took a while, but the little bugger finally fell down when I remembered that Supes had the heavy hitter attribute and put it to good use on PZ's skull with the help of a nearby lamp.

Three down, three to go.

Meanwhile, WW was still beating DD silly. As for MM, apparently he finally run out of tea and decided to lend a hand to his fellow teammate. I also sent the Bat to help them, and now it was only a matter of time 'til DD fell down. I then decided to concentrate on Amazo, who at that point still hadn't lost a single dot of hp.

I had Supes beating him up with lamps, since he couldn't do anything else. Every now and then Amazo threw a punch, but it couldn't go past Supes invulnerability, so the fight was very one-sided. I sent Flash to help him since he at least could stun Amazo, so that it would be a little easier for SM to beat him silly. It didn't took long before Supes used all the lamps nearby, so I had to change the location if I wanted to keep damaging Amazo. As Supes crawled to the next block with the speed of a paraplegic turtle, I sat down and watched as the threesome MM, WW and Bat gave DD a licking. When returned my attention to Supes, I realized that, by taking some distance to Luthor, he at least could use some of his powers, so I had him using his dash to get a big distance from Amazo. Now that they were far away and since the parking loot was nearby, I decided to have Supes throw cars on him instead of just using lamps, who weren't even inflicting that much damage anymore, for some reason.

The idea proved to be very good, as Supes incredible strength enabled him to throw cars with the potential to inflict around 90 points of damage. However, I soon ran out of cars. The nearest one was in front of the police station, so I had Supes walking towards there. Meanwhile, the combined efforts of Bat, WW and MM proved enough to put an end to DD once and for all. I anxiously waited for them to go lend Supes a hand, but apparently they weren't really on the mood, so just stood where they were and took a coffee break.

Meanwhile, Amazo, now fully capable of using his powers (sort of...) catched up to Supes and started to change his state like crazy, leaving him stuck where he was. Realizing that I had to go help him, I sent the Bat there and had Flash hit WW and MM with super speed charge until they got near enough to Amazo to notice him and start attacking. It took long, but I finally managed to get them close enough for WW and MM to start god-murdering hellspearing him. They did their job very slowly, though, because MM apparently prefered to stay in the air using his freeze breath (who, by the way, freezed his friends too) instead of doing something useful and engaging Amazo in melee combat. He sometimes would land to punch Amazo, but he really liked to fly, and WW herself couldn't deal that much damage on Amazo due to his high invulnerability, so I, controlling Supes, realized that I couldn't trust on those fools and started my quest to find another thing to throw at him.

As I turned around a nearby corner, who was that that I saw? Yes! Bizarro himself. He stood there doing nothing for almost the whole battle and, therefore, was fresh. I though "D*rn!" and tried to move Supes away from that place as soon as possible, but Bizarro was quicker and caught up to him (for some reason, kryptonite didn't took his speed, although he was still as weak as Supes). Bizarro then started punching SM like crazy, but, fortunately, he was too weak to go through Supes invulnerability; still, he could knock Supes down, which was really d*mn annoying, let me tell ya.

I then sent GG and Bat to help him out, since WW and MM were too busy utterly destroying Amazo to go help. As expected, neither GG or Bat could inflict any damage on Bizarro that was enough to go through his invulnerability, but they still served as bait long enough to let Supes run to a nearby lamp and start beating Bizarro up.

Meanwhile, MM and WW were still slowly defeating Amazo. Flash was taking a coffee break because he was useless at that point, anyway.

Back to Supes, GG and Bat, I finally run out of lamps nearby at that location, and so Bizarro started retaliating furiously. First, he utterly destroyed the Bat. Secondly, he started knocking Supes down AGAIN. GG just kept watching, since he couldn't any damage on Bizarro.

Now, finally, Amazo was defeated by WW and MM. Then again, they got fed up with all the fighting and took another break. This part was really annoying, because Supes was really far from where WW and MM were, so it took a while before Flash finally managed to super speed charge them near Bizarro.

When MM and WW did start fighting, though, it didn't took too long before Bizarro was beaten. And so, finally, my first experience with BentonGrey's mod came to an end.


Now for the little technicalities:

Like I mentioned, I can't seem to run the mod's fx properly. It probably isn't a problem with the mod as much as me not knowing how to do it right. Anyway, if anyone could help me with this I'd be very grateful.

Another thing: I noticed that Doomsday had Supes kryptonian attribute. I think you need to fix that, since neither Doomsday has vulnerabily to anything (that I know of) or flies. I believe I saw some other minor flaws, too, but I can't remember anymore, even though I quit the game only a few minutes ago. Gotta hate my weak memory.

Another thing I noticed is that you, IMO, overly used the invulnerable attribute. Myself, I think that anything beyond 10 points of invulnerability is too much. Hell, even 10 points is too much. Even for the most powerful characters I only give 5 points. I think that, if you want to emulate their superhuman resillience, you could give them physical resistance instead. Sure, they will take damage from most attacks, but it'll not be that much damage and it at least gives non-powerhouse heroes, like Flash, Batman and others, a chance to hurt even the thoughest foes. I know that is realistic, comic-book wise, that the big boys be every bit as god-like as you represented them, but in a game there must be some sort of balance. This is only a suggestion, though. If you want to stick with invulnerability, do so. I'll play the mod regardless. =]

As for the powers, I didn't had much time to look through most heroes other than the ones I used, but so far I think they are pretty well represented. I'll play more later and get back to you on this.

Overall, my first experience was pretty fun, if a bit weird and goofy.

For now I'll say that you did a very good job, BentonGrey. I have high expectatives for the official release. =]

Edit: Oh, I just recieved Benton's PM with the fix to the fx problem. You can ignore that part of my post.

[BentonGrey]

Great post Blitzgott, and I suppose I should probably clear a few things up.  In case anyone is wondering, I let a few of the testers have option of downloading the non-packaged version of the mod if they wanted.  Looks like someone decided to take advantage of that opportunity!  As far as the specific points of your post:

Well, the fx thing is my own darn fault!  I'm retarded and forgot a file.  I uploaded it to the service I was using, and if Cat hasn't already packaged up the rest of it, I'll send him a link.  If not, it doesn't matter, and can easily wait 'till the beta. 

Good point about Doomsday.  I may have to make another attribute for him, 'cause, even though he can't fly, he should still have the other abilities.

As far as the invulnerability, I have agonized over this SOOO much.  I finally have decided to try and go with mostly comic accuracy.  So, for Bats to hurt supes, he's gonna' need some kryptnoite.  I'll try and figure something out for things like that for the final.  I think it makes team matches interesting, because you've got to strategize to defeat an invulnerable opponent if only one of your team can actually hurt him. 

Anyroad, I'm very glad that you've enjoyed it, please keep me updated with any balance issues, missing meshes, or just plain out bugs you find!

:EDIT: On an unrelated note, Golden Age fans, are there any villains of the Golden Age that I should include?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Yeah, send the fix over.  Use regular email if you can.  For reasons I'd rather not go into, I can't use your newest file hosting service anymore, although I did get your previous stuff downloaded.

[BentonGrey]

Hmm, well, it's 67 megs of textures......if I knew which ones were new (not included in EZFX) I could just get those, and it would be a much smaller batch, I imagine.  However, I haven't a clue.

[Blitzgott]

And now for some more stuff I came across:

I don't agree with Aquaman being made of wood. I know that you want to give Aquaman electrical resistance without giving him charged, but I don't think that's necessary, because I don't think Aquaman is specifically resistant against this kind of damage. I mean, he may have survived a bolt of lightning, but how many other DC characters have survived deadly attacks without being specifically resistant against them? I think Aquaman survived it for being very tough, like you represented well by giving him endurance 6. Flesh is good enough material to make Aquaman out of.

Speaking of stats, I think they are mostly well represented, except for speed. I'd give Aquaman one more dot in speed, because he is one d*mn fast runner on land. I also think you should give land-based Aquaman energy 2 and give him battery powered, to simulate that, outside of water, Aquaman slowly loses his powers. You could also give him metabolic (strength and speed) and tune down his speed and strength to four or so, so that Aquaman, as he loses his energy, loses his superstrength and speed too.

As for water-based Aquaman (if you are even going to include him, that is) you should give him flier (to simulate swimming) and fast flier (he is VERY fast in the water). I would also give him nimble flier, to simulate that, in the water, Aquaman is more at ease, and therefore is harder to hit, but that's up to you. Maybe it would be better to, instead of giving nimble flier, give him two more dots of agility underwater. Also, perhaps a sprint power for when underwater Aquaman "lands" would be a good idea. Water-based Aquaman can, like you made standard for the three AMs you included, have energy 5 and should not have battery powered, because in the water he won't lose his powers.

Another thing I don't agree is danger sense. You should give him enhanced senses or tracker to simulate his super-hearing and night-vision. Solid skeleton is also not needed.

I actually think Aquaman is not vulnerable to fire, unlike what you simulated by making him of wood, and instead resistant to it, but I'm not really sure. You are right in giving him hirsute, but if you agree with me on Aquaman being strong against fire, just give him temperature control instead of hirsute.

Underwater Aquaman can have summon, too, if you manage to find sea-life meshes to make his minions.

As for powers, I'll check it later. I talked enough about Aquaman for now.


On the invulnerability topic:

Myself, I gave my Supes physical resistance and 5 points of invulnerability. I think it works well, because this way he can shrug off most very low and low magnitude attacks (except melee attacks from very strong hitters) and the damage that does go through his invulnerability will be very small. That way, weak characters have at least a chance of hurting the very powerful ones, but they will still have a hard time doing it. For very omnipotent characters, such as Darkseid, you can give physical resistance and 10 points of invulnerability instead of 5.

Another thing I don't like is giving characters "invulnerability" passive defenses. I think their attributes already make them invulnerable enough. I did give Supes a passive defense, though, but it's only to frequently deflect piercing projectiles, and it's more for the kicks than anything else.

I'm not going to mention using TMX's system for flying melee as I'm sure you're already working on it.

Again on the passive defenses topic, I don't think you should use "speed force aura" passive defenses either. I tend to believe that those auras only take action when the speedster is running fast and, although they do protect the speedster from air friction, windchill and whatever other ill effects that superspeed running can cause, they are not powerful enough to shrug off attacks. I think giving them that is just a waste of power slots.

I also think that giving super breath-esque attacks extreme angle is too much, and so is long range. Myself, I think wide or normal (I prefer wide) angle and medium range is more appropriate, and even looks better.

I think that's all for now. There might be more stuff I saw and forgot to include on this post, but I'm too tired to type anymore than this anyway.

I'll play more later and report anything else I find.

Edit: Actually, it might be a better idea to give 2 points of invulnerability and physical resistance to very resillient characters and 5 points of invulnerability to god-like ones. Believe me, it works very well.

[BentonGrey]

Okay, some solid observations, and a couple things I see that I need to change.  However, I feel that I should probably explain my approach to Aquaman. 

First off, check this out:http://www.killermovies.com/forums/375903_1-the-official-aquaman-respect-thread

It has a lot of info about Arthur, showing his various abilities and his incredible resistance to damage.  I think you may be right about the speed, and I will look into that.  As for him losing energy, well, if I wanted to do a purely Silver Age AM, you would be absolutely right, however, as this is my own flavor of DC, I'm working on something with Silver Age morality mixed with modern sensibilites.  Aquaman, in modern comics, can stay out of water for at least a day before he starts feeling energy loss, and since no game mission would last more than 24 hours, I consider it a non-issue.

His material type and solid skeleton....well, Arthur is obviously tougher than just regular flesh, being able to withstand the rigours of the ocean depths and trade punches with super powered beings, but he's not tough enough to warrant an invulnerability score.  So, for me, the closest I can get is for him to be super tough.  Now, a punch from a normal strength opponent won't really hurt him, and gunfire will only hurt a little bit.  However, let Doomsday hit him, and he'll take some major damage.

I am going to include water-based versions of all of the Aquaman characters, and I already have versions prepared that include pretty much what you're talking about there ^_^, so we're on the same page about that.  As far as summonable sealife....well, that is a bit more difficult, but hopefully I can find SOMETHING.

Energy....well, this is really something that I should have talked about earlier.  I HATE the new energy system, actually, hate is too soft of a word.....I DESPISE it!  I hate it so much, that I've actually considered just making everything zero-cost.  However, I've resisted that temptation, and I feel like I've actually adjusted decently well to it, but I am in the habit of giving characters more energy than they really should have, because otherwise you can NEVER freakin' use a power that costs energy.  I mean, even brawler who shouldn't have to have anything but race enregy needs it pumped up to 3 or 4, just so that they can occasionally use their combos. 

How does this relate to Aquaman?  Well, I believe his water-hand version should have more energy, but his regular version is no slouch in this department.  He is often described as a hero with VAST untapped potential, and in fights he constantly finds reserves of hidden strength to pull through.  So....I think the energy is alright, but I will give it a review.

Danger Sense!  In several of the instances in that respect thread I posted above, 'ol Arthur is being hunted by assassins.  He has such acute hearing and such heightened reflexes, that he hears the click of the bolt being drawn back from a block away, dodges the bullet, then leaps five stories to pummel the fool.  I'd say that is the picture of Danger Sense. :D

Fire vulnerability: This is one that I've agonized over for a long time.  Should he, should he not?  What eventually made my decision was that he can get dehydrated by intense heat, so a vulnerability to heat made sense in that light.  Now, I'm not married to this facet of my interpretation, and if others also dislike it, I'll be happy to remove it.  From a gameplay standpoint, I thought it was interesting giving him a vulnerability to one of the most common damage types.  It certainly makes Black Manta a LOT more threatening.

---------------

Invulnerability: I feel that a punch from Batman should NEVER hurt Supes, neither should an explosive batarang.  *shrug* Let's let the other testers weigh in on this one, and I'll consider it after I've heard some more opinions.

Yeah, you're probably right about the 'invulnerable' PD's, and I'll try and edit those to only deflect projectiles or something.

Flashe's Speedforce Aura, whoops!  That's supposed to say 'superspeed dodge.'  The game handles dodges somewhat well, but a character like Flash should be nearly untouchable, unless you hit him with an area attack.  This PD is supposed to add some extra dodging ability to him, and nothing else.  It should only protect im from melee and ranged attacks, nothing else.  I'll check on this.

Super Breath: Well, I haven't really tested this one, I'll give it a look.  I imagine I won't be adverse to decreasing it, but I'm curious what the others think of it. 

Okay guys, keep 'em coming!

[Blitzgott]

On the invulnerability topic:

I take it back. Invulnerability 2 plus physical pesistance is too weak. Attacks that causes 8 of damage will inflict 2 points of damage. Batman's normal punches were hurting supes almost all the time.

I then tested physical resistance plus invulnerability 5 and now Bat's punches didn't harm Supes at all. At lest normal punches. Overpowered punches inflicted around 1 or 2 points of damage, and so did normal batarangs. Overpowered batarands inflicted around 7 or 8 points of damage.

Although it might not be realistic from a comic stand-point, remember that a game needs balance. A character cannot be 100% or near 100% useless against another character.

If you want, you can give invulnerability 10 to monstrously powerful characters such as Darkseid, but 5 is reasonable enough, I think.¨

On speed force aura:

Actually, I wasn't talking about Flash. The one with speed force aura is Kid Flash.


I think you should remove bedeviled from Superman. He is not really vulnerable to magic. As far as I know, the problem with it is that Superman has no defenses against it; he is as vulnerable to magic as a regular human being.

I still stick with my point that Aquaman should have enhanced senses instead of danger sense. Another option is giving him both.

On the energy thing, the reason I told you to give Aquaman energy 2 and battery powered when he is on land is because battery powered gives you energy accordingly to your endurance, so having a high energy score is pretty much meaningless, but having only one point leaves you with no energy whatsoever. Also, battery powered gives you a cr*p load of energy, so you can really spam attacks that cost energy; however, you should not, because the energy bar won't regen. I think it would be cool giving him it and metabolic (strength and speed) in order to simulate Aquaman's inevitable loss of power when outside of water, but if you want to just stick with the mission time not being long enough for it to happen, it's pretty reasonable too.

Good point on Aquaman needing to be resistant in order to survive underwater, but I still think his material should be flesh. I disagree on him not being tough enough to deserve a invulnerability score if it's very low, like 2 or 5 (without physical resistance). If you give him invulnerability, you can ignore solid skeleton. I for one believe that Aquaman is not weak against fire damage, so I'd give him temperature control. If you disagree, just give heat sensitive and hirsute.


There are more stuff that I intend to post, most of it concerning some character stats I don't agree with. But I'll do it later. Too tired of typing right now.

[BentonGrey]

I'm not sold on the invulnerability thing, but like I said, I'm curious what the others think, so I'll reserve final judgement for now. 

As far as Supes and his bedeviled....I kinda like it, even if it's not purely canon.  You're probably right, but I'll have to think about it.

Enhanced Sense AND Danger sense....hmmm...that might be a good idea.  I'll add that to the list.

Many of my character stats might be subject to change (Aquaman being an exception, seeing as he's my second favorite character and I've spent A LOT of time working on him ;)) so I welcome any thoughts you have on them!

[Shazam]

On the subject of invulnerability? 5 Blitzgott? 10 for Darkseid? No way. Game balance? You actually want to have Batman and Superman duke it out with Batman being able to hurt Supes with an overpowered punch or batarang? Lets not forget this is the DC universe according to Grey, hell, even DC writers wouldn't allow for that. One of my first rumble room missions once this beta was installed was Superman vs Darkseid. I think the values of invulnerable were fine. If they had been lower the fight wouldn't have lasted long enough for me.

I haven't tested as much as Blitzgott, unfortunatly I don't have as much time, but one character I thought was too tough was Lobo. I think that is mainly because he overpowers quite alot. I put him upgainst Darkseid and although Darkseid came out victorious it was narrow. I also put Doomsday up against him, and Lobo beat him silly. One other character I put up against him was Black Adam. He got beat by Lobo the worst, lol. I know Lobo is tough, but is he really that tough?

I won't post anything more here as I've already PM'd Benton direct with missing meshes etc. I think we all know I like the invulnerable attribute hence the extra levels were added to FFX. The levels that are in there now are grades that IPS came up with. My original invulnerable code installer had more levels in it. It's a shame that my attribute solar stores is no longer in FFX as that and body aura together were coded by me with Superman in mind. I also used those attributes for other invulnerable characters who became 'weaker' when they were tired. It made it interesting as when they became low on energy they had to run away and recoup.

[Blitzgott]

I disagree with everything Shazam said concerning invulnerablity.

First, it's not only 5 or 10 of invulnerability. It's 5 or 10 plus physical resistance.

The damage Superman will be taking from Batman or other weak characters is minumum, even when they overpower their attacks. I think it's pretty reasonable, since I believe it's lame as hell to put some characters in a game and let them be barely useful against only 25% of the roster of characters. It makes their presence feel somewhat pointless.

Besides, with the nigh-inexistent damage he will be inflicting, you will never see the Bat beating Supes one-on-one. However, Bat plus a bunch of other "weaklings", such as Flash, Green Arrow and what have you, might have a chance, if slim, of winning, which I think is very appropriate.

On this same topic, physical resistance plus invulnerability 10 is very reasonable for Darkseid. In fact, even high magnitude ranged attacks will have to be overpowered 8 out of 10 times or so to go through it, and even then for almost no damage. How is that not powerful?

Fights will last long enough with my suggestion. In fact, if you play on very hard, those fights will be very epic, and yet not extremely long to get annoying (like the Supes vs. Amazo fight I described on one of my later posts got).


Since you mentioned Doomsday having been beaten silly by someone, I'd like to use this opportunity to say that, for some reason, Doomsday is really easy to beat in this mod. I don't know why, but in my first (and only, up to this moment) rumble room fight I had, like I already mentioned, a computer-controlled Wonder Woman was fighting Doomsday by herself (she recieved help later, but she wasn't in need of it at all) and she was single-handedly beating the cr*p out of him. I think it might have something to do with the AI, because Doomsday stats look good enough for me.

[BentonGrey]

Yeah, I was curious about that myself!  WW should barely be able to hurt him....I'll have to look into him a bit more closely.  As to the note about Lobo....hmm, maybe I'll turn down his invulnerability a bit.

:EDIT: I've modified both of them, should be a bit more appropriate now.

[Blitzgott]

I'm posting again to defend my point on why invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance is a better choice than high invulnerability.

I'll be using invulnerability 20 (the amount you gave for Supes) for the following example:

So... we have two heroes being hit by a beam that inflicts 60 points of damage.

Hero 1 has invulnerability 20. When he is hit, he takes 60 - 20 points of damage, which equals 40.

As for Hero 2, who has invulnerability 5 and physical resistance, he'll take 60 - 5/2, which equals 27. Yes, 13 less points of damage.

So, unlike what it appears at first glance, against really wicked attacks, invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance is more powerful than invulnerability 20.

However, invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance also has a drawback (which I think is actually a plus) in that most attacks, even from weak characters, will inflict damage. So, if in one hand invulnerability 20 will take 40 points of damage against that beam, it'll ignore all attacks that inflict less than 20 points of damage. As for invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance, all attacks that inflict less than 12 (or 11, but I think the game rounds down the final damage value) will inflict nothing. So Bat's electric batarang, while useless against Hero 1, can cause around 3 to 5 points of damage on Hero 2 normally, and around 11 when overpowered.

The reason why I think invulnerability 5 plus physical resistance is better is because it makes the character both very resillient while at the same time doesn't make a cr*p load of attacks useless against him. I mean, why is it that Supes should ALWAYS overpower his mighty heat vision (that causes 20 points of damage on BentonGrey's mod, by the way) if he wants to at least hurt a bit a guy like Doomsday, who also has 20 points of invulnerability? That just screams ridiculous. And no, I'm not saying that Doomsday is not resistant enough to take a bunch of supes heat beams (which couldn't be more far from being true), but at least, with invulnerability 5 and physical resistance, Supes normal heat vision will inflict at least around 5 points of damage on him, which I think is more realistic even from a comic book stand-point than inflicting no damage at all. Also, like I stated already, there's the balance thing. And if you ask me, even with invulnerability 5 and physical resistance, it's already unbalanced enough. Just because Supes has invulnerability 5 and physical resistance instead of 20 points of invulnerability it doesn't mean he won't defile Bat on the blink of an eye; only the Bat will at least be able to put up a fight for a little bit. And, like I said, it gives a group of weak characters the chance to at least hold their own against the very mighty ones.

[Blitzgott]

Some stuff I noticed:

Both of Captain Atom's blasts (atomic and full, I think) are exactly the same attack, with the only differences being the name (duh!) and fx (and maybe also animation, but I'm not sure).

Something more serious:

Although I don't really like that you completely removed Freedom Force from the mod (having mainstream characters and FF characters duking it out never gets old), it's not that big a deal. However, I noticed that you removed some of the villains/minions, which you should not have done. If you remove villains from the game, several game modes, such as iron man, action and race, will not work correctly.

And still on the invulnerability topic:

I tested a bit and I think that the best option is either 10 points of invulnerability to very powerful characters (Superman level) and 15 for god-like ones (Darkseid level), or 15 for very powerful characters and 20 for god-like ones ones. I recommend the former (that way, not all knockback damage will be ignored), but you seem to like high invulnerability levels, so the later might be a better choice for you. 20 and 30 is just too much, IMO.

Physical resistance should be ignored.

Captain Marvel:

I completely disagree with your Captain Marvel built-in. First, I think Captain Marvel, although incredibly strong, is not stronger or even as strong as Superman. I gave my Captain Marvel a strength level of 9.

Also, speed 6 for CM is way too low. CM is faster than Superman. In fact, much faster. Superman's top flying speed is considerably below light speed, while CM can reach beyond the light speeds (both on space). I think giving speed 8 to CM, dropping Supes speed to 7 and removing fast flier from him and giving CM fast flier is more accurate. In fact, I don't even think it; I'm sure of it. Even on DC's table-top RPG Captain Marvel was given higher speed than Superman.

I agree with his endurance level, but disagree with his energy level. I think CM should have at least 6 of energy.

I disagree with agility 5, too, but not so much. I gave him 6, but 5 is not bad either.

I completely disagree with the way you simulated Aquilles' courage. Why a passive defense? And why one that protects against most types of damage? I think you should remove it and give him fearless instead.

As far as passive defenses go, I think CM should have a frequent passive defense that protects him from all forms of mystical attacks. He must have unbeliever, too, like you already gave him.

I also think that you should give CM danger sense to simulate his clairvoyance, and tracker to simulate his accute senses (I won't say enhanced senses because, although CM's senses are very accurate, they are not SM level. For example, he does not have x-ray vision, for one).

Invulnerability is up to you, but I think 10 points is good enough. I also like giving acrobatic (amateur) to most fliers and heavy hitter to most bruiser-esque heroes, but both are optional. I don't like giving heavy lifter, but, just like agility, it varies from person to person. If you think you should stick with heavy lifter, then do so.

As powers go, you might want to give him an afterburner power for (even) quicker airborn movement, but it's optional too. A self-healing special power is also a good idea.

Superman:

I think you should remove nimble flier from him. Don't know why, but I wouldn't give it to him. Also, you should him enhanced senses and solar powered (to recover energy more quickly).


A miscellaneous suggestion would be giving freezing attacks the tag of affecting targets on the ground only. I know most freezing attacks in the comics also affect airborn opponents, but, in this game, flying characters that were frozen, instead of instantaneously falling down, will be transformed in motionless flying ice cubes and will fall down only after the ice melts, which is goofy, if anything.