Info > Feedback and Suggestions

The Case for Falloff Damage and a Third Damage Type

(1/6) > >>

Richard LeMoon:
The guns in this game are terrifying in power and range. If every shot hit every time, the damage would be insane. This brings in a certain problem we are all very familiar with. In order to 'balance' the high damage, they have made the guns hard to hit with. The guns with the most damage potential have been given such a high amount of spread that no amount of skill can compensate. Heavy clip broke this, and had to be nerfed to compensate.

This removes much of the fun factor, especially for new players that don't understand why they are missing. It is also irritating for those of us that know exactly why we are missing.

This proposal seeks to solve this issue by revisiting falloff damage, as well as introducing a third damage type on each gun. It would also allow the reintroduction of 100% jitter reduction Heavy clip for all your lazer Hwatch needs.

So, lets start with the obvious question. Why a third damage type? As of now, we have two damage types: Primary and Secondary. Secondary has both burst (Area of Effect) and Arming (activates after n range). This adds the ability to make guns devastating at range, but not very dangerous up close. This adds a lot of countering abilities. Get close and don't worry. My initial idea was to add falloff time to secondary to reduce the effective range of a gun, but that does not make a lot of sense to guns that are already disadvantaged by Arming Time. After some thought, I wondered how it would work to put the falloff on the Primary. Again, this did not make much sense, would be seen as a nerf, and would not add any improvements to the game. Finally, I wondered about simply adding in a third damage type that would be effected by the falloff damage. Suddenly, interesting possibilities started presenting themselves. Let's explore those possibilities.

For starters, reducing the damage of a gun at range allows the removal of some spread, increased velocity, causing higher hit rates. In other words, more fun. It is never fun to not hit your target. It is much more fun to hit your target, even if you are not causing as much damage. This was the basic benefit I was looking for when proposing Falloff. Putting it on a third, independent damage adds extra benefits well beyond that initial goal. In some cases, it could turn the meta game on its head.

Some examples are in order.

We can start with the black sheep of close range heavy guns: The Typhon Heavy Flak. Close range, this gun is a joke. Flakfish are seen as the weakest Goldfish build. Direct damage, 150 Explosive. Burst damage, 180 Explosive with crippling arming time of 300 meters. What happens when you add in a third damage type? Falloff: 100 Piercing (just as an example), falloff range of 290m. Before the shell arms, it is just a big, heavy bullet. This would give it different properties than an exploding shell, closer to a Merc or Gatling. Suddenly, a flak on a Goldfish is much more dangerous, but still requires strategy and skill to fly other than just trying to run away.

Moving on to another gun, this time one that suffered a spate of range and spread nerfs: Hellhound Heavy Carronade. The idea here is to remove a lot of the spread (and bring back heavy clip), increase the range substantially, and split the primary flechette between Direct and Falloff with a falloff range of 300-400meters. Starting to drool yet? Let's continue.

Manticore Heavy Hwatcha. How can this gun be improved through falloff? A primary improvement would be the reintroduction of Heavy clip providing laser missiles, but with the trade off of shifting some damage to falloff. The further a rocket flies, the less fuel it has, and the less boom it makes. Arguments could be made on whether the Explosive direct or Shatter burst damage should be divided. Personally, I would cut the Shatter and move 25% or so to falloff. I would also add arming time to Burst of 100 meters or less.

Whirwind Gatling: I pondered giving this the same treatment as the Hellhound, but thought we could mix it up a bit. Leave the other damage types alone, and put Fire damage on Falloff with a range of 30meters or less. The reasoning is that hot bullets, muzzle flash, and fresh tracers would cause fires at very close range.

Flamethrower would receive much needed balance, splitting the damage and causing much more fire damage close up than further away. I would set the falloff to 75 meters.

An interesting thing that could be done to the Lumberjack would be to add a small amount of Impact damage and a small push like mines and the Minotaur.

Speaking of the Minotaur, add a good deal of Impact damage up close.

Each gun can find a new balance between ease of use and damage, or interesting strategies based on new abilities. The downside, of course, is finding the right balance. Though I don't think that would as large an issue as trying to balance the guns with just the two damage types.

Finally, old and new ammo types can be designed to effect falloff damage, extending, reducing, or eliminating it. Lochnagar, for example, would reduce the range or remove falloff damage completely. Other ammos could remove Burst and reduce Direct damage while removing the falloff limit, turning the Hflak into a possible long range piercing gun. That would be pretty hard to balance, though, and great care should be taken.

Thoughts? Ideas on other ways Falloff could be used?

BlackenedPies:
It would certainly make it more interesting but complicated. I don't think every gun would need falloff or a third damage as it would be confusing and overwhelming for new and returning players. Flamethrower is the perfect candidate for this mechanic.

Heavy flak shouldn't be balanced to the flak fish because it has no use. Any buff to flak fish would be a bigger buff to flak spire. There's no balanced way for it to work.

Richard LeMoon:
I don't think it would buff a flak Spire much, since you would have to get close to benefit from the falloff damage. If you use loch at close range (as you should be doing), you lose the falloff damage. Really, though, there are far better guns you should be on if they are that close to your Spire. Goldfish are adept at closing distance and manipulation positions as well as rams, so would benefit much more than the other two ships. It would still be risky business getting close with a Flakfish.

You are right that all guns would not need it. I could not think of a good reason to give the Hades, mines, harpoon, flare, or Banshee falloff, for example. Did not put too much thought into it, though.

As for confusing new players, I think arming time is more confusing. This would bridge the gap, giving armed guns some use up close, so even the nub that brings a ramming Flakfish would still be of use to your team.

Caprontos:
A long time ago when Muse was talking about new ammo types, I realized the biggest issue with gunner value was gun ranges... The gunner class is more useful on longer range guns then short ones because of ammo giving variable ranges.. (long mid and short).. But lots of guns don't actually have this use because the ranges they work at, don't have a lot of situational value (or just good at one specific thing like the merc).. One ammo is basically sufficient.. In other words more ammo doesn't really change that..

This idea, could possibly create that value on more guns that lack longer range options(like guns that are mid-short range) because "closer" range would have a different value then just close range(if that makes sense)... If so more ammos would be useful on various guns (depending what you wanted to do).. and maybe open more possibilities on what loadouts to bring even for full engi ships..

I can't make suggestions on use though because I don't really understand it enough to..  But your ideas sound fine to me..

BlackenedPies:
The point is that everything can out dps a flak fish and it has no ability to 1v1. It would buff spire because with an added 100 piercing at 290 meters for example, an in-arm buffed charged flak would deal 248 armor damage per shot. Similar for meta galleon where you have an engi with charged. Anyways it's not hard to stay out of arm range with buffed flak spire. It's the one spire I bring moonshine on and with buffs is more maneuverable than squid. There's little reason to bring a gunner when buffed regular does 99% of the dps of charged.

The value would have to be a percent of arm time in order to account for both velocity and arm reduction ammos. So yeah the mechanic would have a place in the game but I don't think it's necessary with the existing arm time guns. But again it's impossible to make flak fish viable or at least comparable to double mortar pyra.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page