[De-M-oN]

I can easily shrink every Battlelord and I thought so: This can't be intentional??

I mean normally they need 6 RPGs and the yellow key room with these 3 battlelords (E2L5) - I just again shrinked them all with one single shot and this made me feel: This cant be intentional somehow? Its way to easy to be that intentional.

So I asked an other "Lets Player" who played the game in dos. And he indeed said that its not possible to shrink THAT easy a battlelord. He even said you need really good luck and a good hit to get success.


Now I wonder, why I can shrink them that easy?

And I even use no autoaim, so it is really that easy to shrink them.

I use:

e:\Duke3D -- neu\autoload\duke3d_hrp.zip
e:\Duke3D -- neu\autoload\duke3d_music.zip
e:\Duke3D -- neu\autoload\duke3d_polymost_hrp_override-5.2.413.zip
e:\Duke3D -- neu\autoload\xxx_pack.zip

and DukePlus 2.35

eduke Logfile: http://pastebin.com/xreR1KV4

[Loke]

They shrink if you hit them in the groin area. Of course this is very easy to do if you're not using autoaim.

I use autoaim when playing and can only shrink them if close while crouching, which is generally a suicide move against a battlelord.

[Fox]

Yes, you can shrink them with ease because you are not using autoaim.

[TerminX]

Indeed. All of the original game scripts (which EDuke32 loads and uses, of course) have code for shrinking the Battlelord in them, so it's definitely an intentional feature. The only way to really "fix" the issue with autoaim here would be to enable autoaim unconditionally, on just the shrinker...

[Fox]

Basically what happens is that the auto-aim seeks for the middle of the Battlelord Sentry, although the actor actually "exists" beetween his feet. Because the Shrinker radius explosion is too small (680 units) it is not big enough to reach the feet of an actor as tall as the Battlelord.

To fix this problem it would require the radius explosion to be based on the middle of an enemy instead of the feet, which would also increase the damage of all other weapons with a radius explosion...

[De-M-oN]

Interesting it is because of the autoaim, but there is then another strange thing then:

Someone else does a LP with exactly the same files I use, but he uses autoaim though (both, bullets and projectile autoaim, activated like in the original game).

But he could shrink the battlelords too that easy.

[Jimmy]

You can still do it with auto-aim on if you know what you're doing. This is nothing new and not a bug.

[Micky C]

 Fox, on 05 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

Basically what happens is that the auto-aim seeks for the middle of the Battlelord Sentry, although the actor actually "exists" beetween his feet. Because the Shrinker radius explosion is too small (680 units) it is not big enough to reach the feet of an actor as tall as the Battlelord.

To fix this problem it would require the radius explosion to be based on the middle of an enemy instead of the feet, which would also increase the damage of all other weapons with a radius explosion...

Wow, so you're saying for maximum damage with explosive weapons you should actually aim for the feet?

[Player Lin]

......I always think I needed to deal some amounts of damage on battlelord and able to shrink him......






(Because I have 95% of time when I shoot shrinker on battlelord and he get shrink after I deal some of damage on him. If he's not get hurt, even I used all of ammo and he still fine at all...I always use auto-aim so didn't know that... I guess I misunderstood that since 1996... )

[De-M-oN]

Here I assume this is due to the lower damage done by the shrinker with enabled autoaim.

But:

Quote

You can still do it with auto-aim on if you know what you're doing. This is nothing new and not a bug.

He is a newbie with duke and did just shoot them and they got always shrunken.

[The Commander]

 Captain Awesome, on 05 March 2013 - 11:28 PM, said:

You can still do it with auto-aim on if you know what you're doing. This is nothing new and not a bug.

Wasn't it you just shoot them when they are still asleep. (as in hasn't seen the player and activated yet)

[Forge]

 The Big Cheese, on 05 March 2013 - 11:37 PM, said:

Wow, so you're saying for maximum damage with explosive weapons you should actually aim for the feet?

i play with autoaim off. i always aim at the feet of bosses & mini-battlelords. if i aim center mass a rpg round more often than not will pass right through them

[Fox]

 The Big Cheese, on 05 March 2013 - 11:37 PM, said:

Wow, so you're saying for maximum damage with explosive weapons you should actually aim for the feet?

Yes.

[Jimmy]

 De-M-oN, on 06 March 2013 - 03:45 AM, said:

He is a newbie with duke and did just shoot them and they got always shrunken.

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter if you're a newbie or not. There's just a certain way you have to do it, and I guess he figured it out. Seriously guys, there's no mystery here. If you shoot the Battle Lord in the dick with the shrinker, it'll shrink. The amount of damage and all this other nonsense doesn't enter into it.

[Jblade]

 Captain Awesome, on 06 March 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter if you're a newbie or not. There's just a certain way you have to do it, and I guess he figured it out. Seriously guys, there's no mystery here. If you shoot the Battle Lord in the dick with the shrinker, it'll shrink. The amount of damage and all this other nonsense doesn't enter into it.

Wait, wait, wait. you lost me here man. You mean the battlelord shrinks if you shoot it in the dick, or just its dick? Cuz I don't remember seeing THAT in the CON files.

[Fox]

I already explained it above, the radius explosion must reach the "feet" of an enemy, so the Shrinker only affects the Battlelord if you aim low.

You can solve the problem by increasing SHRINKERBLASTRADIUS to 800.

[De-M-oN]

 Captain Awesome, on 06 March 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter if you're a newbie or not. There's just a certain way you have to do it, and I guess he figured it out. Seriously guys, there's no mystery here. If you shoot the Battle Lord in the dick with the shrinker, it'll shrink. The amount of damage and all this other nonsense doesn't enter into it.

He didnt figure out anything. He just shot at them and they did shrink.^^

http://youtu.be/xNVQn9OMEXc?t=6m9s
http://youtu.be/xNVQn9OMEXc?t=11m25s

[Jimmy]

He's not using auto-aim and he's not even playing the vanilla game. (He's using modifications, other than the HRP, too.)

[De-M-oN]

 Captain Awesome, on 06 March 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

He's not using auto-aim and he's not even playing the vanilla game. (He's using modifications, other than the HRP, too.)

He is using autoaim.
Why you think he doesnt? (I know that he uses autoaim, a) he told me, b ) you can see it in his videos.

He uses the same files like me. HRP 5.2 with DukePlus 2.35.

[Jimmy]

In quite a few parts it does not look like he's using autoaim on projectiles. But I'm not watching any more of it because I don't care.

[De-M-oN]

 Captain Awesome, on 06 March 2013 - 01:34 PM, said:

In quite a few parts it does not look like he's using autoaim on projectiles. But I'm not watching any more of it because I don't care.

He definitely does on projectiles too. I said that already in earlier posts.

I can prove you that with a timestamped youtube link if you want me to do that.

[Micky C]

What's the big deal though? We know it's possible to shrink the battlelord, and the guy is shrinking it. Case open and shut. The minor details aren't really relevant.

[De-M-oN]

The thing is, it seems to be not intentional by the original game that this works that easy to shrink it. And the battlelords are barely a danger if you can shrink them that easy.

Maybe I should be myself the workaround and just dont use the shrinker against battlelords anymore.

[Jimmy]

I think this guy is smoking crack or something. As my good friend Raleigh says, "You are indeed a cassette, and unfortunately you just don't get it."

[Micky C]

 De-M-oN, on 06 March 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

The thing is, it seems to be not intentional by the original game that this works that easy to shrink it. And the battlelords are barely a danger if you can shrink them that easy.

Maybe I should be myself the workaround and just dont use the shrinker against battlelords anymore.

For all we know it might be unintentional that the mini battlelord was so hard to shrink. After all, they went through the trouble of putting the code in, what's the point of a weapon that randomly may or may not work?

Although I do agree that it does take a bit of the challenge out of it.

Then again you can say the same thing about the destruct button on the back of pig cop tanks. Part of me was happy that there's a new and interesting way to kill them, but the other part of me was sad that there was no longer this cool, tough, armoured unit that I could only destroy by lobbing several RPGs at.

Maybe when eduke32 gets around to having a gameplay compatibility menu with options for things like enemies with pals have double health, this can get added in as an option. But probably not.

[LeoD]

Maybe there are some subtle changes for the auto-aim/shrinker/mini-battlelord behaviour in the DukePlus CONs...

[Loke]

 The Big Cheese, on 06 March 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

Although I do agree that it does take a bit of the challenge out of it.

Despite this the game isn't even that challenging though mostly due to Duke's overpowered arsenal. The only enemies that pose some threat is... well, the battlelords. And packs of enforcers.

I've always found Shadow Warrior much more challenging (hit-scan enemies galore!).

[Fox]

Everything points out that the Battlelord Sentry was indeed meant to be shrunk, and that the error is in the Shrinker not working properly. And it is no coincidence that there is a Shrinker hidden close to the very first Battlelord Sentry found, in E2L3.

Maybe the Shrinker is overpowered when used against the Battlelord Sentry, but that's how the game is. I guess this was changed in Duke Nukem 64 for a reson.

There are some possible ways to fix this error:
- Increase the radius explosion of the Shrinker;
- Make it so that the Shrinker is no longer an weapon with a radius explosion, which would make grantee that it would work 100% of the time, but you would no longer be able to shrink multiple enemies at once;
- Change the auto-aim code, so it aims at the same distance from the floor for all enemies;
- Completely rewrite the radius explosion code, so it will be calculated based on the middle of the enemy, not the base. That would also increase the damage of all explosive weapons.

[Mikko]

 Fox, on 06 March 2013 - 06:16 PM, said:

Everything points out that the Battlelord Sentry was indeed meant to be shrunk,

Maybe at one point, but I'm guessing they intentionally left it the way it is for the final product, deciding that it's better that you can't shrink them.

[Forge]

who knows, unless you ask the person who coded it

they left the code in so mini-battlelords can be shrunk, but they made it pretty difficult to do it until you learned the trick.

could have been left that way so the player has a last ditch attempt to get by that enemy by unloading the shrinker at them and getting in a lucky shot if they've used up all their other ammo & resources.