The future of Lugormod

Lugormod was originally aimed at combative game play, and filled this purpose long before accounts and entity placement were ever added to the mod. From my own visits to various servers (now undercover, as I no longer can use my name on a server without someone deciding to flame me, or just spew insults for the hell of it), it is obvious that this "fun" the multitude speaks of is based on player vs player combat, and this is where I should focus my effort. Of course, this is nothing new. The new is that now I have finally started putting long held plans into motion to improve Lugormod as a game for its players, rather than as quest building mod with a focus on administration. Slaughtering NPCs is dull, and while several interesting and unorthodox quests have been created, its still ultimately the same interaction every time, still the same slaughtering of NPCs and traversing the map in search of checkpoints.

In an event that hasn't happened for years, Lugormod will once again start focusing on its players.
The old game types are being revived, and accounts are being modified to properly work with pure combat based game play, so that it will be feasible to run a Lugormod server 24/7 on the various gems of game types that Lugor added long ago, which now only seem to be used by my own occasional tournament.

With this refocus will come great changes. The stale professions will be given life in new skills, new abilities, and new ways to play. But before these changes can be made, balance must be considered, so that the resulting game play is always fun and equally challenging for everyone (as much as is fair with a leveled account system, at any rate).

Click the title to read more. What follows are several paragraphs on a possible future for Lugormod.

Balance has traditionally been performed at the level of weapon damage and general player abilities. However, this results in generally monotonous game play without any interesting variations. After all, the perfect balance by this definition is a game where every player is identical. While a fun game is balanced, balance does not mean fun.

With this in mind, I am considering balance not as resulting from the attributes of the player, but in the effective tactics that an individual can use against any given profession. Some tactics, like the nearly unbeatable jet pack hover with splash damage spam, have a negative impact on game play and overall enjoyment. Others, such as the interactions between grip and absorb, or sniper and sense, add a strategic element to the game play that has the potential to be fair, balanced, and entertaining for all sides.
Ideally, every tactic should be moderately to highly effective in one situation, but have another tactic that is highly effective against it. Changes to the game will be made with the intent of tweaking the effectiveness of these tactics.

The result of this is that players must always be aware of their surroundings, and seek to get the opponent into a condition where a tactic becomes effective while avoiding any effective tactics against themselves.
This idea does take a different route than Lugormod has usually followed, and a different route from the arcade hack-and-slash style of JKA altogether. However, from my observations, this is the only way to make an enjoyable game when the players are segregated into professions that have very different skill sets, as opposed to the ubiquitous saber and random weapons JKA has been and Lugormod has had trouble taking into account.

With this in mind, I will focus on the combat abilities of both sides. The following are ideas I am perusing on the various professions. I will experiment with these and choose what I feel works best. Keep in mind that these are ideas and prototypes, not final products or set tasks. Nor are these all the ideas I have, or the only ideas I will ever have.
Do not bother to start up another flame war on the approaching differences. If I consider them to bring about balanced, entertaining, and realistic game play, I will pursue and implement them.

Force users are close combat specialists, and their abilities will reflect this. Their powers will be potent but short ranged, and they will be able to cover short distances rapidly to engage their foes, as often seen in the various movies. In the mid term, they will gain finer control over their force powers, being able to make trade offs on range, power, and other various usages. A long term goal is to bring in more force powers in the form of "alternate powers", which will change the behavior of a force power when a certain key is held. For example, the alternate power for heal would be to meditate to gain a temporary increase in maximum health, while the alternate power for lightning would be to blast lightning in a 360 degree radius.
Recently, I experimented with bringing about realism by causing force users to have a large supply of force energy (200+), but have a slow regeneration time. While this brings the mod both balance and parity to the general star wars universe, it was met with some negative feedback. However, due to the recent events, I will reconsider it, as I still think it has a high potential as it creates counter-tactic opportunities to those who rely entirely on their force powers at the detriment of their saber usage (lightning and heal spam, mostly).
As an aside, keep in mind that force push/pull levels 4 and 5 are overpowered by an order of magnitude. The constant spam of these powers to immobilize with knockdowns or steal weapons will no longer be nearly as effective.

As for mercenaries, they will closely follow in the footsteps of Boba Fett. Weapon ranges and accuracy will be increased, although not as far as to invalidate the pending force user rush tactic. They will become masters in their trade, putting their experience to use in increasing accuracy, carrying more ammo, and even improving projectile damage in certain classes of weapons as they gain more experience. They will also need to choose their load wisely, as heavier weapons mean more weight, leading to easier knockdowns and slower movement.

Their jet pack will also get a major overhaul. Gone will be the unrealistic, non-"star wars" gravity defying hover pack, and in its place will be Fett's own rocket powered jet pack designed to reach high places, dodge around and get behind enemies, and flee the area as fast as possible should the outcome become bleak. The use of weapons is impossible when using such a jet pack, as the speed at which it moves, the concentration required, and the requirement of using hands and arms to control the flight path makes it impossible to fire something as bulky as a repeater or as delicate as a sniper rifle. I am still considering lower weapons, such as a blaster or a pistol. If so, their accuracy will be reduced while using the jet pack.

As an aside, the jet pack experiment on MF that started the flame war is a far cry from the intended final result. Its limited fuel was a temporary (and arguably failed) hack to correct for the massive vertical speed obtainable in addition to the removal of the height limit. Once the jet pack speed and maneuverability is correctly implemented, fuel will be adjusted to keep the balance. My current thought is that a level 1 jet pack should have just enough fuel and speed to retreat 1.5 times the level 2 grip distance. A level 3 jet pack should have just enough to make it across the ravine near the t2_trip starting point. Level 5 might have infinite fuel, but only if I decide to give the jet pack a large turning radius and not allow midair maneuvers.

As to the grapple/stun baton issue brought up in the flame, the experimental jet pack was hard coded to always include a stun baton and always allow a grapple hook. In addition, the mercenary is able to switch weapons and still maintain the grapple connection, allowing them to latch themselves into high places to shoot from. This maintains the aerial attack strategy while adding counter-tactics due to the immobility of the Merc while performing this.

Consideration is also being given to grant the Merc skills that were pioneered in the U# attempt at a Tech profession, such as traps, remote cameras, and the ability to remotely deposit a money stash from anywhere in the map at the cost of a significant increase in time and a required motionlessness. However, these ideas are currently on the reject list.

I will hopefully get around to start detailing the plans I am forming in the task list, but I doubt the wisdom of doing this as it will probably lead to more snap judgement. In the interest in not abandoning the community altogether, I will have to trust a newly appointed administration team (most likely consisting of the previous RPD.Net admins), or an exclusive and unobtainable posting privilege if it gets out of hand again.

I would ask for your trust on this, but its obvious I do not have it. Likewise, I cannot seriously expect your patience. The only thing left is that I ask you to respect my authority over Lugormod and my administrative control over this site.
The best products are made by those who actively use and enjoy them, so if you have any trust to give, trust that I am aiming for a mod that I enjoy playing, no matter what level or profession.

Note: This depends on Lugormod actually having a future long enough for these ideas to come to fruition. Whether this is the case or not is indeterminate, and depends entirely on how much the work I put into it is worth my time.