1.3.6 Flamethrower Changes

[-Mad Maverick-]

I could totally live with fire doing shatter-ish damage and not hull(aka explosive) dmg

[Cancaro]

I've played a single match and I've made some tests in the sandbox with the new flamethrower. My opinion is that yes, flamethrower right now is op, but it doesn't mean that you can't beat someone using it, but surely you need a damn good crew to best it. I don't think the flamer must be nerfed like it was before, I like how it has become a useful gun, but something must be done.

Right now I think the DPS is the main problem of the flamer, it takes down hull armor too fast (and of course at the same time it disable everything, basically it's a weapon that does everything xD).
There are a lot of suggestion that could balance things back, like this one:

Might I suggest the buffing of the chem spray duration, along with the amount of firestacks it removes (i.e 4 instead of 3)?

I personally think that reducing the ammo of the flamer as long with is recharge time could rebalance things a bit, because it gives engeneers some time to counter the fires.

I preatty much agree with Skrimskraw.

so lets say you chemspray your entire ship, ok you are immune, then suddenly chemspray wears off, if your engineer is not there on the spot at the moment to renew it you are screwed: 20 stacks incoming fast and your component is down, repairing it takes time and meanwhile your other ship parts catches fire and you are now under completely lockdown by 2 flamethrowers that never stops shooting.

are we to put chemspray on our gunners, and have chemspray on all engineers? that seems to be the only solution here if you end up in a brawl with these double flamers.

the second you start shooting back, some part of your ship loses chemspray and catches fire, you either go full dps and try to get the kill, which you wont due to the fact that your guns will soon be useless. Or you go full defense and die anyway.

[Mezhu]

Buffing spray is by no means an answer, quit suggesting it.
It's an extremely effective tool, already far superior to the extinguisher. Besides, buffing the spray wouldn't solve the issue of mobulas/spires being unplayable and gunners being useless versus new flamethrower.

Decrease range to 80%, drop the damage to minimal, maybe also increase the reload a tad and flamer becomes a very short ranged yet powerful disabler that's still relatively easy to counter and doesn't break ships all by itself.

[Dutch Vanya]

Buffing spray is by no means an answer, quit suggesting it.
It's an extremely effective tool, already far superior to the extinguisher. Besides, buffing the spray wouldn't solve the issue of mobulas/spires being unplayable and gunners being useless versus new flamethrower.

Decrease range to 80%, drop the damage to minimal, maybe also increase the reload a tad and flamer becomes a very short ranged yet powerful disabler that's still relatively easy to counter and doesn't break ships all by itself.

Mobula and spire are not unplayable... as long as they have (more) flamethrowers.

[Mezhu]

Well if you think you can maintain a mobula versus the current flamer as an engineer, good for you- I know I can't.

[Skrimskraw]

when flamethrower counters flame thrower lol

[Crafeksterty]

I almost want the damage gone entierly And keep on with the heavy stack throwing but do no real flamer hits of damage.

By removing the direct damage entirely, the flamer could be rendered entirely useless  with chem-spray again. That's a feature which made the flamer quite unpopular in organized matches. Hence I don't like this approach to fix the current flamer.

But now in the main game, the flamer does stacks like crazy. That is because of the fix. And that is why i want the damage to be gone.

And for the one on the dev app, its better. I havent fully tested anything for real versus a ship or anything. But 3 flamers couldnt take down a dummy which should be better versus real ships... [Telefone rings] guys wanna test?

[Kraxuss]

Just got out of a match with one goldfish opting for dual flamers and hwacha. Took a screeny:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=254480433



Notice:
 - the Blue Team's junker, behind, is disabled, only two guns up, none firing at the time.
 - only the flamer is hitting the 'Mai Tai'

Video evidence may have been better, but this is the best I can do.
Does that seem out-of-range to anyone else?

[awkm]

I might just do something with damage modifiers.

I'll be playing more on dev app but what's there now is a nerfed little burnt turd.

Needs more of this:

[redria]

I would be more hesitant about changing modifiers:
As I understand, the modifiers affect both how the particle directly damages a component, and how the firestack damages a component. So say you were to nerf the modifer on armor or balloons. Now the flamethrower not only does less damage, but the fire stacks it makes do less damage. This is basically the reason why most engine fires can be ignored while under attack: unless there are very high stacks (10+) the engines just don't get hurt enough for it to really matter.

Changing clip size seems like an interesting change to me. It has a direct effect without a direct damage effect.

Having particles pass through components is a neat feature of the gun and not one I would take away. Yes, a particle of fire wouldn't pass straight through the entire ship. But a bullet is going to get stopped dead by the armor. A jet of flames will roll around the armor and set fires past the armor, even if not in a direct line from the original stream. It makes the flamethrower viable in close quarters combat no matter what your position is. You can always hit the balloon and armor and maybe get a gun or an engine. It's a heft threat, and part of why I used it competitively before the patch.

I will bow out to people spending more time on the dev app, but I think a quick patch reducing the direct damage and reducing the ignition rate would help a lot and allow us to get more positive feedback from a much larger part of the community. Make play time relevant for now while you hammer out the best possible change.

Personally I want to be able to play using fire (like normal) without being seen as a terrible person.

[awkm]

I tested, and I'm not touching the modifiers.  As you said yourself, it has too great of an effect on the fire charges.  I want the charges to be devastating.  So I'll just be looking at lowering raw dmg output and tweaking ignition % so it's not stupid.

[Imagine]

Video evidence may have been better, but this is the best I can do.
Does that seem out-of-range to anyone else?

Almost certainly lesmok rounds. It increases the range, but not the graphical range for it.

[awkm]

Uhhhg will need to look into those particle effects then.. ahlaesijfae.

[GeoRmr]

I was playing with geo earlier and explaining to him how it felt a lot like the beta flamer because the fires were catching way more consistently will bring back the heat sink thus making the gunner a viable class again!!

Why would I prefer a gunner with heatsink over an engineer with dps-optimizing ammo and chem spray, especially when considering heatsink doesn't prevent fires during reloads?

sorry I was using stating this with the assumption that the dps gets nerfed back down.  with that done if I have a goldfish facing a flamer squid or pyra or whatever I'll go hwacha with a gunner that will have heavy/burst and heatsink.   this gunner will be able to fire from long range and if a close quarter engagement is imminent he can go heat sink to protect from disable while disabling the flamer in turn.  then switch to burst or charged to finish the boat off... he will use a buff or wrench depending on the opponents loadouts...  if I had a blender fish I would go engi for sure though because I would just have him go full repair load out with heavy clip since no other clip is really that helpful for the caro so versatility in ammo type isn't as important

The only problem with this is that heat-sink is broken, and it has been broken for a very long time; ever since the patch that prevented forced reloading of preloaded special ammo by players without that ammo in their loadout, heat-sink does not prevent fire stacks during reloads. [5th time I have posted this please notice me muse] Since this patch I have been using heat-sink with the hades to protect from all the op flames and reduce its minimum range, however with one flame-thrower directed at our ship as soon as the reload began my gun almost instantly gained 8 stacks and kicked me off before the next clip of heat sink was loaded. I experimented taking chem-spray as my one gunner tool - which although as of this patch is the only tool a gunner should bring, the amount of direct damage from the flamer was enough to break my gun relatively quickly.

Heat-sink clip, until this patch I used this ammo frequently but never for its intended purpose - I believe that it should be fixed to once again protect from fire damage during a reload. If that is difficult to program you could implement it by allowing for 15 seconds fire protection after your clip has unloaded (the same amount of time a fully repaired hwacha takes to reload) fire protection overlapping with other clips on other guns would be an added perk. Second, make heat-sink clip gradually reduce the number of fire stacks on an already burning gun (or reduce the number of stacks once by a fixed amount when ammo is loaded into a burning gun, same as spraying it with chem-spray)

_{* You've been gone for quite some time Mav - gunners are a necessity for several competitively viable play styles.}

[Mezhu]

Two fixes for the heatsink that could be easy to implement are

• Every time heatsink clip is loaded x fire charges are extinguished
• Every time heatsink clip is loaded, gun is fire immune for 20 seconds (regardless of ammo changes or heatsink clip running out). A gun with heatsink clip can still catch fire if 20 seconds have passed since its' reload

The latter might be a cool idea, it adds a time management concept to gunning that's usually more prominent in engineer roles