SCP Beta 3 Issue Reporting

[67400849e550cMarvin]

Open the wav file in a sound editor, adjust global volume, done. Takes half a minute.

[67400849e57afZylonBane]

How about a mini mod to reduce the rapier volume?

Even more than it already has been?

[67400849e5bbdJoin2]

-the rapier humming sound has been toned down intentionally as it was annoying. ANNOYING. A.N.N.O.Y.I.N.G!

OBJECTION!

It made me feel like a Jedi. It's just cool, and I don't even like Star Wars (but don't dislike it either).

Open the wav file in a sound editor, adjust global volume, done. Takes half a minute.

True. But I'm not sure newbies should miss out on it either. I never found it annoying in the slightest.

[67400849e5d13voodoo47]

it's still there, just not as loud. nobody is missing out on anything.

[67400849e5e00Join2]

I can't hear the damn thing even with headphones and high volume. I have to stand in a non-busy area with no ambiance (which is not common) to be able to just barely make it out.

[67400849e5ed4ZylonBane]

You're welcome.

[67400849e5fbdJoin2]

Mutiny against SCP devs for this horrendous crime. Voting begins now.

In the meantime, I shall be continuing my playthrough.

[67400849e62f4Join2]

Done.

-Tank is definitely OP on impossible. 6-8 would be an enticing number without being too much.
-Delacroix's first transmission to the player in command could perhaps be triggered earlier, as the vanilla trigger is right next to a bulkhead again.
-Nice BOTM upgrades. Got me in your sinkhole!
-ICE/Epstien/Kit numbers are definitely too high.
-Stuck with power armor the whole playthrough. Used two batteries in it. My experience is biased though, because as a veteran progression through the game is faster so the charge runs out less.
-Another bed with subtle z-fighting blood tex. The bed was raised at an angle and shoved into a shower in the crew annex.
-Glad you removed EMP rifle penetrating Shodan's shields. The weapon still dominates that boss battle, but now a bit more sensibly.
-Modify lvl of 3, all weapons fully upgraded no hassle. Absolutely should not be the case.
-Played the piano in rec - no audio issue. Not sure what happened in ops, but something was causing crackling.
-Even the rumbler organ was research-able at lvl 1. Seems a no-brainer to change.

Thoughts on the mod:

Most subtle mod of all time considering its been in development for four years. About the same time as mine. Subtle by design of course. "As if irrational spent two more months in development" sounds about right, if you ignore they'd have been balancing systems some more.
It absolutely should be the default gameys mod for newbies and purists if secmod is deemed too progressive and unsuitable for whatever reason (some things in secmod need to be more purist. I hope they address them in the future).
Highly perfectionist, nothing broke my immersion nor broke the original design. The game was nicer to look at, level design oddities in vanilla are gone, and all that's left to purify is the nagging systems and occasionally problematic AI. The mod is near flawless. Achieves everything it sets out to do, and it's so subtle that nobody would dispute that you've took it upon yourselves to label it an authentic update. Except for the removal of the Rapier's ambient sound, damn you.

Overall highly recommended for die-hard purists and newbies. I resent the restraint you had with the gameplay, some things simply need fixing and you've teased a step in that direction with the OS upgrades, things like Shodan's shields, as well as some progressive stuff like the BOTM sinkhole, but I cannot fault you for the soft hand in that regard in the slightest. It's simply not what you wanted to do, and heck I forget modification in that regard is very problematic due to no SDK.

Anyhow, if the choice is vanilla or SCP, there is absolutely no reason vanilla should be chosen. There isn't really any highly subjective changes, not really. Heck, there's not even any moderately subjective changes..except the Rapier.
It is System Shock 2 but better, so congratulations on a mission accomplished.

[67400849e6786Djant]

...because as a veteran...

This explains most of your complaints about some things being easy or having low requirements. Since you know the systems and AI well, you can exploit them for the utmost benefit. But newcomers and people with skill levels not as high won't be able to do so, and so they need those safety nets. Don't forget that System Shock 2 is considered one of the hardest first person horror shooters ever made.

Some points about the balance and such are valid, but a lot of care has to be taken before implementing changes to them. This mod is partly aimed at easing people into System Shock 2 too through more polish and minor tweaks, so rebalancing the game to make it harder may not be desirable for the creators.

[67400849e692eJoin2]

This explains most of your complaints about some things being easy or having low requirements

No, it doesn't explain shit.

The player didn't need 10hp Tank vanilla. Newbies managed just fine with power armor that wasn't quite so useful. Modify was always utterly crap with investment past level 3, meaning a player that invests in the skill expecting to find something of value instead gets robbed, unless they are smart and see modify as nothing much of value like a veteran would. It's totally unnecessary and fixing it would have negligible impact on game difficulty.

And that was about the full extent of my balance notes. I didn't even go into vanilla issues much, just the really obvious stuff in dire need of fixing.  Furthermore many of my points were accompanied with "should be exclusive to x difficulty mode/s".

I really wish you'd stop this passive aggressive bullshit. You're always looking for any excuse to argue with me or prove me wrong, not sure which it is you are after but you're not doing a very good job if it is the latter. I already asked you to stop on another board.

[67400849e7266Dj 127]

The player didn't need 10hp Tank vanilla.

Because nobody took Tank vanilla unless they were on Impossible, which was the only time the 5 HP even came close to being a difference.

Newbies managed just fine with power armor that wasn't quite so useful.

Power armor was just as useful vanilla as it is in SCP, the only upgrades SCP gave to it was the 10% protection from toxins and radiation(very small effect, doesn't really come into effect) and 20% protection from normal damage sources uncharged(which is the exact same as light combat armor, which most players ditched after Hydroponics anyway).

Modify was always utterly crap...

This is the only valid observation you made in this post, and the only one that could potentially be fixed without raising the difficulty or causing other balance issues.

I really wish you'd stop this passive aggressive bullshit.

Ironic you should say that, considering that you have raised a bunch of heated passive aggressive arguments in other forums, including this one. I'm only pointing it out because I feel your viewpoint is biased, since you're a System Shock 2 veteran and you tend to desire challenge out of your games. But not everyone will have the same mindset as you, and the SCP developers have repeatedly stated that they don't want to screw with the base gameplay too much since their goal is to ease players into System Shock 2 and give it more polish, not drastically change it.

[67400849e74b5Join2]

Ironic you should say that, considering that you have raised a bunch of heated passive aggressive arguments in other forums, including this one.

Not really, because I'm not constantly on the case of any particular individual as you are. Remember when I mentioned on this forum approximately half a year ago you were only here for me? Check you posting history, seldom will you find an independent post, if at all. I'd be flattered if it weren't always passive aggression.

Power armor was just as useful vanilla as it is in SCP, the only upgrades SCP gave to it was the 10% protection from toxins and radiation(very small effect, doesn't really come into effect) and 20% protection from normal damage sources uncharged(which is the exact same as light combat armor, which most players ditched after Hydroponics anyway).

That's "just as useful", is it?

I'm only pointing it out because I feel your viewpoint is biased, since you're a System Shock 2 veteran and you tend to desire challenge out of your games.

Yet you conveniently forget I am a mod maker and have to consider other playstyles and skill levels all the damn time, and that's clearly exactly what I've been doing here, hence my repeated mentions of making x thing scale based on difficulty level...sigh.

Tank is a problem...on impossible. I never said it should be nerfed for easy, for example. In fact I suggested it be better (12hp).

[67400849e801avoodoo47]

-Tank is definitely OP on impossible. 6-8 would be an enticing number without being too much.
-ICE/Epstien/Kit numbers are definitely too high.
-Stuck with power armor the whole playthrough. Used two batteries in it. My experience is biased though, because as a veteran progression through the game is faster so the charge runs out less.
-Glad you removed EMP rifle penetrating Shodan's shields. The weapon still dominates that boss battle, but now a bit more sensibly.
-Modify lvl of 3, all weapons fully upgraded no hassle. Absolutely should not be the case.
-Played the piano in rec - no audio issue. Not sure what happened in ops, but something was causing crackling.
-Even the rumbler organ was research-able at lvl 1. Seems a no-brainer to change.

-veteran players will almost always end up swimming in resources, and newbies are almost always starved for them, whether it's medkits or epstein tools. no way around this.
-aware that modify, research and repair are not too useful beyond level 3, but again, no good way around this. also, it's not a big deal, as if the player pays attention to how systems work, he should find out pretty soon and act accordingly. anyway, I have a minimod in works that will give more value to repair.
-the emp penetration was an ADaoB thing, it's been gone for a while now.
-again, changing item requirements is currently out of scope, but might be considered in the future.
-will keep an eye out for that piano.
-tank was just useless with 5hp, 10 is about right. the idea is to not have OS upgrades that are good and ones that suck, just ones that are more or less fit to your particular playstyle. for example, cyber assimilation kind of sucks, as only big bots drop the healing kit, but might be worth consideration if all turrets are added as well. spatially aware is now utterly worthless, but maybe if we add item/AI detection to that.. who knows.

Most subtle mod of all time

that's why we call it a patch.

Anyhow, if the choice is vanilla or SCP, there is absolutely no reason vanilla should be chosen. There isn't really any highly subjective changes, not really. Heck, there's not even any moderately subjective changes..except the Rapier.
It is System Shock 2 but better, so congratulations on a mission accomplished.

yep, that was/is the idea, thanks. and about the rapier.. well, you just can't have everything.

[67400849e8510Join2]

-veteran players will almost always end up swimming in resources, and newbies are almost always starved for them, whether it's medkits or epstein tools. no way around this.

Secmod made plenty things scale based on difficulty level.

-tank was just useless with 5hp, 10 is about right. the idea is to not have OS upgrades that are good and ones that suck, just ones that are more or less fit to your particular playstyle.

It's not on impossible. It's double your default health and equivalent of four or so endurance boosts (ignoring the hazard defense it gives you).

that's why we call it a patch.

Most patches aren't in development for four years. That's what earns it the "most subtle" title. Most subtle when considering the man hours gone into it. 

-aware that modify, research and repair are not too useful beyond level 3, but again, no good way around this.

Not without stepping outside SCP's scope anyway.

[67400849e86c7System Shocked]

Concerning Value-Rep replicator lights, I've read through the SCP Beta 1, 2 and 3 "issues fixed" readme document and noticed several entries about fixing missing lights within them. Could this be the original Dev's intentions, as is the case with many other lights on the two ships being defective in some way? Isn't there one at the first tram station that exhibits a lower tray blinking light?

I think it would lend more believability if more of the replicator units exhibited issues with their lights. Assuming they have an upper front panel light and a lower tray light, and that this is doable for the front upper panel, setup a few more different instances throughout the game as suggested below:
1. Upper front panel defective.
2. Upper front panel randomly blinking.
3. Lower tray defective.
4. Lower tray randomly blinking.
5. Disco Mode - both upper front panel and lower tray lights blinking, at different intervals.

Add any panel damage textures on occasion, as necessary.

[67400849e8ce8Dj 127]

Not really, because I'm not constantly on the case of any particular individual as you are. Remember when I mentioned on this forum approximately half a year ago you were only here for me? Check you posting history, seldom will you find an independent post, if at all.

I found quite a few independent posts, and the only reason I'm on your case is because you have a bad posting history, and tend to annoy people almost everywhere you post stuff not related to your mod. Rocketman was essentially right about you and gave you some good advice, but you haven't followed it.

Either way that is pointless forum debate, the main point of my reply was that you weren't considering the needs of newcomers and less skilled people enough, that's why you kept insisting for higher skill requirements for modify or getting rid of some tools(and you didn't specify doing it for different difficulty levels either). By default most people will not take Modify or Repair very high simply because there isn't much to modify or repair, compared to hacking or maintenance tool usage, so this is mostly for balance or difficulty than for polish.

That's "just as useful", is it?

Yes, because those two changes don't matter much. The 10% radiation and toxin defense doesn't protect you much, and the 20% defense uncharged only means you're wearing light combat armor when it runs out of charge. I guess you could say it helps because it's still some damage reduction, but light combat armor simply didn't help much past Hydroponics, you would usually still die almost as fast as you would without any armor.

[67400849e8ddcJoin2]

My god...

[67400849e8ecbZylonBane]

For the record, I don't care about balancing for Impossible almost as much as I don't care about multiplayer. It is by far the least-used difficulty mode, and thus nearly irrelevant to balance considerations.

[67400849e91f0JML]

[...]It is by far the least-used difficulty mode, and thus nearly irrelevant to balance considerations.

Are you sure about that? On the first playthrough I agree, but SS2 has a high replayability and people usually increase difficulty in the next playthroughs. I'd think that Hard and Impossible would be the most played difficulties all playthroughs considered.

[67400849e9313ZylonBane]

Most gamers don't even finish the games they play.

[67400849e9416voodoo47]

the google doc is now linked in the first post (simple, but should do for the moment. I'll make it nicer later, my excel skills are a bit rusty right now). all reports should go there from this point on (those who already reported a few things are encouraged to copy them there).

[67400849e9513voodoo47]

pretty sure things will be much improved as long as the doc is used and a few basic rules are adhered to. and by that, I mean mostly the don't-submit-an-issue-unless-it-exists-in-beta3-or-else rule.

[67400849e95fevoodoo47]

I was expecting the doc to be flooded already, but guess not. I am dissapoint.

can someone check whether a regular user is able to add stuff properly?

[67400849e9863Olfred]

I just did, seems to work fine.