Main > Gameplay

1.3.3 ENGINEER AND REPAIR TOOL BALANCE

<< < (7/13) > >>

Serenum:
I have to agree that if a redesign of the chem spray is not a viable solution then rolling back on this latest change on the fire extinguisher seems like the only viable option, imho. Buffing the chem spray would just screw the balance even more and potentially make fire useless again.
Closest thing to a solution would be the chem spray buff lasting longer but reducing the power of components as suggested above, but I really don't understand why we have this changes implemented in the first place.
What was wrong with the fire extinguisher?

Asteria Bisset:
I'm actually loving the fire Extinguisher changes since it actually made using the Extinguisher a little better. If you did have a fire and reacted to it, I loved not having everything go up in flames again immediately in the next instant while I'm trying to put out other things. I will agree though that the Chem Spray does need something to make it useable in combination with the Fire Extinguisher. Usually what would happen with the Chem Spray is even if someone had it on board and was using it to actively prevent fire, it didn't last through a fight. It's effect is too short if you weren't sitting on a component and rotating it in-between wrench and hammer whacks. (It does make for a pretty funky beatboxing beat. TING TING TING THUNK THUNK SPSSSHH)

Even if you used it in tandem with the Extinguisher, the fire stacks ate through the components faster than you can spray + extinguish them, which would be the ideal situation but it could never be done.

awkm:
The reason why the extinguisher received its immunity during cooldown was purely from a design standpoint.  The reason is as follows:

The extinguisher is meant to be a reactionary tool.  You see fire, you go over to extinguish it no matter how many charges there are.  If you don't respond, you are penalized by the DPS that fire does.  The problem was that if you respond successfully, during its cooldown (where you can't respond any more) you can accumulate more stacks.  Not being able to respond in this situation denies the player of their intended play style.

While there weren't many complaints regarding this, it's very poor design.  I'm confident enough to say that you also felt this wrong on a subconscious level but just dealt with a crap design.

Now, the ramifications of immunity during cooldown means that the component will be taking less DPS.  However, the situation is still similar in that if a component catches fire while cooling down (old extinguish) or an enemy is still flaming you and ignites a component after cooldown (current extinguisher) you are still required to respond.  Difference is that the system doesn't render you helpless (can't extinguish during cooldown).  You always had the ability to sit at a component and baby it with the extinguisher.

What comes out of this, again, is less damage on the component overall.  Because we don't deny your ability to extinguish now, you can theoretically respond perfectly to all fires on the ship and take no damage at all (impossible, of course).  Before, if you respond perfectly you'd still fail because stuff would still be on fire during cooldown.

While this is better than the gunner thread, please go into matches with flamers and take a closer look at what is going on.

It may be true that chem spray, the preventative tool, may be very difficult to pull off.  Again, it might be something that a higher level engineer would do.  Idea is that chem spray engineer never stops running around.  Probably, buff/chem engineer.

Now the question is, what changes can be made to make prevention feel more like prevention?  I think extinguisher is right now.

The Djinn:

--- Quote from: awkm on October 30, 2013, 11:24:20 am ---Now the question is, what changes can be made to make prevention feel more like prevention?  I think extinguisher is right now.

--- End quote ---

Here's a thought:

What if the Chem Spray had a much longer duration, but instead of providing blanket immunity or percentile reduction instead prevented the next X stacks of fire on the element in question? It allows an Engineer to prep multiple parts before combat and still do his job in combat (repairing where necessary instead of running around chem-spraying everything repeatedly), while making it so that large fire offensives require an Engineer with an Extinguisher to really deal with.

In a case like this I'd lower it's cooldown to 2-3 seconds (and maybe reduce it's power to only removing 2 stacks), but only apply the preventative buff when there are no fire stacks on the component already: that keeps it feeling good for preventative purposes, but bad for reactive use.

Of course, this would probably require a new graphic for Chem-Sprayed components, possibly with a number indicator (or color-shifting indicator) to show how close the Chem Spray is to being removed. This would allow attentive and quick-to-act Engineers to keep the part safe by refreshing the Chem Spray before it actually gains fire stacks. Once the fire has actually breached the protection, however, the Chem Spray is strictly worse than the Extinguisher.

So something like this...

Chem Spray
Extinguishing Power: 2
Cooldown: 2
Special: Applies a fire shield to non-ignited components for up to 2 minutes. The first 8 stacks of fire damage that component would take are negated. Once 8 stacks of fire damage have been negated, the buff is removed.

geggis:
I'd like to see some sort of blue fire-proof timer/gauge, similar to the buff tool's, showing how much time is left before the chem spray needs to be reapplied because as a budding buff/chemgineer myself, keeping stock of what's freshly sprayed and what needs another blast while I'm running around in and out of fights is very tricky. 20 seconds might not sound like much but if you're clearing enough space and the damage is coming in thick and fast you need to know whether it's worth repairing or spraying in those crucial split seconds. You may have a circuit of spraying to keep a mental clock going but all it takes is one broken or focused component and suddenly all those timers start getting staggered! I think some sort of indication of how much protection is left would go some way in making the chem spray more forgiving to use without altering any of its stats. I'm not saying its stats shouldn't be altered but I think this would be a big improvement in a future patch.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page