ZDoom

That was most helpful, thanks!

I guess if I have one (minor) complaint about the mod so far, it is that the Blastmaster's starting weapon is way too powerful.

After all, it has unlimited ammo, yet is crazy powerful to the point where it tends to overshadow the weapons that do use ammo. Since this is a single-player mod, I guess it does not really matter if a weapon is overpowered, but it feels weird in contrast to the other classes, which require you to be smart with your arsenal and to not rely on a single weapon.

Another (minor) complaint: it seems like the Special Weapons that you get from crates all use the default Doomguy gloved hands. Not a big deal at all, but with it looks weird when playing as the Tech Monk, who wears visibly different gloves and never misses an opportunity to remind you of them.

JohnnyTheWolf wrote:Another (minor) complaint: it seems like the Special Weapons that you get from crates all use the default Doomguy gloved hands. Not a big deal at all, but with it looks weird when playing as the Tech Monk, who wears visibly different gloves and never misses an opportunity to remind you of them.

He takes them off while using the crate weapons, same reason you can't use the Kame Bomb or Striker while they're equipped.

Alright, I've updated Combined_Arms to v2.2, fixing a few bugs and issues brought up. The Ice Beam on the Blastmaster will need to be tweaked for another day though.

Woah! I was not expecting you to change anything about the Moon Beam, especially after I was told how to more successfully pull off chain attacks. Thanks anyway!

Oh yeah, and out of curiosity, do the Clash Ball and the Pearl Laser have a third chain attack? I do not seem to get visual cues for those after executing a second strike.

JohnnyTheWolf wrote:Woah! I was not expecting you to change anything about the Moon Beam, especially after I was told how to more successfully pull off chain attacks. Thanks anyway!

Oh yeah, and out of curiosity, do the Clash Ball and the Pearl Laser have a third chain attack? I do not seem to get visual cues for those after executing a second strike.

They do not. Originally the Pearl Laser had a three chain combo but I found the second tier to be really redundant, so I scrapped it in favor of streamlining the weapon

The ice beam is not overpowered. Try it in some harder maps before you say otherwise.

Funky Gnoll wrote:The ice beam is not overpowered. Try it in some harder maps before you say otherwise.

It does encourage bad behavior though, possibly hanging back and using the regenerating ammo to stay safe and kill monsters.

IMO, Ice Beam is quite powerful for the starting weapon. Perfect accuracy with decent DPS, and it doesn't use any ammo.

Funky Gnoll wrote:The ice beam is not overpowered. Try it in some harder maps before you say otherwise.

Now, now, there is no need to be condescending...

I am actually playing the mod with Jimmy's excellent harder-than-vanilla Deathless mapset as well as with my personal Nightmare difficulty replacement mod that doubles monster health and replaces former humans, Spectres and Hell Knight with Realm667's Imp variants (Cyber Imp, Devil, Catharsi), Mech-Demons and Hell Warriors, respectively.

Combine_Kegan wrote:It does encourage bad behavior though, possibly hanging back and using the regenerating ammo to stay safe and kill monsters.

Pretty much! Maybe instead of nerfing the Ice Beam, you could leave it as is and buff the other weapons so they are more appealing?

JohnnyTheWolf wrote:Pretty much! Maybe instead of nerfing the Ice Beam, you could leave it as is and buff the other weapons so they are more appealing?

Not a snowball's chance in hell. That'd just make this problem even worse.

JohnnyTheWolf wrote:I guess if I have one (minor) complaint about the mod so far, it is that the Blastmaster's starting weapon is way too powerful.

After all, it has unlimited ammo, yet is crazy powerful to the point where it tends to overshadow the weapons that do use ammo. Since this is a single-player mod, I guess it does not really matter if a weapon is overpowered, but it feels weird in contrast to the other classes, which require you to be smart with your arsenal and to not rely on a single weapon.

I've now been playing as the Blastermaster mk2 for 18 big maps so far and I'd say the Ice Beam is actually 100% alright as it is.

It is better than Artificer's sidearm, certainly, but compared to blastermaster's other arsenal, Ice Beam's low DPS + single target only at a time makes it much less preferable to all the other BM mk2's weapons. I feel BM mk2 overall is a more empowered character - providing a unique experience as a class. I think this is good.

I've only messed around with the other 2 later classes in Kinsie's test map, but suffice to say combined arms provides a varied experience with each class:
Blastermaster Mk2 - easy
Artificer - medium / default
Tech Monk / Link Man - hard

Because of this, its perfect for BM mk2's Ice Beam to be good. I've been playing for hours, but I've very rarely switched to the Ice Beam during that time - all other weapons are far better and faster at killing than it is.

I even like how it has a special niche that still makes it occasionally useful to switch to; freezing pain elementals to prevent lost soul spawn, sniping something really far accurately (no scope tho), or shooting a monster through a very narrow gap in a wall (most other projectiles are too fat to fit through).

Well, as I later went on to concede, the Ice Beam is fine on its own and I think the problem is that it overshadows the rest of the arsenal, which I feel is just not powerful enough.

As far as I am concerned, Past-Linked is the easiest class despite being the least conventional, as the starting shield will block most attacks, the ladder arrow basically allows you to sequence-break and the meat bait will lure monsters away from you. The Tech Monk is a close second thanks to the Pegasus Meteor FistStriker Beam.

My two cents, after having played a bunch with all classes, I'd say the ice beam is fine as it is. The main reason to use it IMO is really to overheat the gun so you can use stronger firing modes on the other weapons.
The TTK is much slower than other guns even if it has recharging ammo and pinpoint accuracy.