Krysyth
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Posts posted by Krysyth
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1 hour ago, Nazrethim said:
-About the "melee becomes useless cr*p". Well, that wasn't entirely, it was more like, "Stanced melee become's useless crap, except for Dual Blades and Jat Kittag"). I don't consider 'quickmelee' and 'non-stance' to be 'melee'. I should have made that clear, I'm sorry. Quickmelee and non-stancemelee were better than proper combo use, where do you think the "E-spam" comes from?
-True, not all weapons are good, some are really weak (Fists, Sparring) or need an animation speed buff (NOT attack speed stat, just the animation, for example the spinning attack of the Scythe stance).
-Well, 'pause' combos are in fact the strongest combos on most weapons, I think only one or two weapons the RMB combo is better.
-Yeah, Staggers back wasn't a good move. I'm proponent of adding "Encumbering"(named after one of Ivara's arrows) to lock a player from Bulletjump, Aimglide and Wall latch for 3s on hit, essentially locking the affected player from aerial escapes but allowing for ground based evasive maneuvers (roll, sidespring, backspring) wallhop escape (you can't fire a gun while wallhoping, unlike aimglide/wall latch, and it's not as fast and 'cheap' as bulletjump) or counter attacks.
-I think the aerial attack nerf was a good bandaid, as I stated earlier it was mostly a gunplayer tools to kill a melee player that got close (when they bothered to even use it, most of the time it was bulletjump into space>aimglide>fire a gun). I expect for proper, stanced, aerial combos to be added in the future(like, a quick 1-2-3 with the first two strike keeping the player slightly in the air and the third hit being a high damage+high momentum attack) with E being an aerial aimed attack (you propell in the direction you are aiming) and the (currently unused in melee mode) R key being the ground slam, so you can do aerials to targets below you without accidentally plummeting to what could be your death. And leaving Quickmelee aerial attack mechanically the same we have now.
Ah, I understand what you mean now. Yeah, stanced melee was quite bad pre-SotR simply because of stances being contextualized only to PvE. Would not even dream of contesting that.
I'm out of state for a bit, so I cannot actually go check, but if I recall correctly at least Heavy Blades, Staves (Tipedo's reaaaaal nasty if you can connect) Glaives have unusually strong block combos. I suppose that, musing on it, the problem is more than the weakest combos are often on unmodified E-spam, but that block combos actually are equally easy to pull off and provide the added benefit of transitioning directly into or out of block states and are thus inherently a better payoff unless the block combo is significantly weaker than the neutral combo. I would like to see combos re-ordered on weapons so that every weapon class's strongest combo (highest combined damage/CC potential) is on pause, every weakest combo is on block, and the neutral combos are a midpoint between them.
That sort of encumbering seems quite reasonable, although I think the penalty just on bulletjumping might be sufficient - aimglide and wall latching aren't terribly useful as evasive maneuvers until one can quickly reach great distance. If anything, I think limiting or preventing wallhopping under encumbrance would be a bit better as it would prevent the burdened player from reaching places where latching would stop melee players from harming them.
It was a good bandaid, but too limited in scope. Rather than nerfing just the unusually strong-and-fast air attacks of reapers, the rebalance was an across-the-board nerf of air attacks that ultimately took a valuable tool from melee-only players instead of just making a certain type of quick-melee less powerful... and even then, honestly, I don't know for sure that I think it was merited - consider that reapers were (and are) terrible weapons for equipped combat and air attacks were their only redeeming feature.
As for equipped air attacks, rather than combos with just some directional momentum, why not two-step combos with a small softlock window, maybe half the size of Volt's Shock softlock, to direct the momentum? Limit the softlock to activate only if the player is within 3-5m of their target, so that melee players would still need to latch onto and "follow" their targets with skilled movement.
I do still love the idea of slams on R, though. It could also open the way for an E-E-R or similar aerial combo that forces an opponent to the ground if landed.
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7 hours ago, N64Gamefreak said:
This proposal would serve the greatest benefit to those who get the most kills, so...no.
That is not even remotely warranted.
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8 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:
A brief history of melee combat:
>Conclave 2.0 is implemented
>Melee is unbelivably broken due to knockdown slide attack spam and broken combos
>Stance Multipliers are removed and replaced by 2x on 'pause' combos, most melee weapons become useless
>Age of the Jat Kittag, Final Harbinger, Astral Twilight and Blind Justice
>Jat Kittag slam nerf, Nikanas overnerf.
>Melee becomes useless cr*p. Stubborn Melee players keep trying and achieve decent results vs the unstoppable gunspam
>Present day: Age of the Conclave Stances: Melee becomes viable and balanced for the first time. Seasoned Melee players have sharpened their skills with wet noodles and now with actual weapons become gods of war, complacent gunplayers who relied on "back away slowly emptying a clip on an animation-locked melee player" get massacred. Skilled gunplayers remain unfazed because they know how to avoid a melee player.
I am not sure that I would agree with your assessment of the current day as "viable and balanced." Melee was mostly fine before Specters, with the exceptions of a few outlier weapons (Dark Dagger, DSS, etc.) and the problems with melee dependence on Energy for really effective offense or defense. The new Stances probably are a step in the right direction, but their implementation is extremely inconsistent - I would for example expect the combos to be arranged as Worst > Decent > Best : Block > unmodified > Pause, meaning that the "hardest" combo gives the highest return on investment. Re-implementing stagger on-hit was a bad thing for the overall health of melee as it almost guarantees kills with faster weapons; your once-posited "burdening" would have been a much better method, I think. Also, the melee damage rebalance completely killed the ability of melee users to deal with effectively mobile targets in any way - previously, air attacks were strong enough to offer recourse, but now they are near-useless except as a vector manipulation tool.
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11 hours ago, Jakku said:
Picking and choosing how to player bash in itself is not what this game is about.
...I am really quite confused. There is no player-bashing occurring, and your post is a complete non-sequitur.
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On 7/22/2016 at 3:21 PM, Pythadragon said:
1. It's like a gun that only consumes ammo if it hits
There should be a penalty for channeling melee if you do not hit a target. Currently, it only drains energy on hits, therefore a melee equip player can run around doing channeled melee combos forever without care.
It should be a conscious decision for a melee player to use a channeled strike or not, and other players (melee and gun players!) should be able to bait out the melee player so that the melee player wastes energy on a strike that does not connect.
Channel melee only consuming energy on hit is similar to the idea of a gun only consuming ammo on hit. Just as there is a penalty to blindly shooting a gun (ammo consumption), there should be a penalty to blindly swinging a channeled sword (energy consumption).
2. Interactions with +30% block while at full energy mod
The melee channel situation is even more funky due to IO mod granting +30% blocking while at full energy. An equip melee player who is 95% blocking can here and there attempt to use channeled melee strikes and miss without fear of losing the +block bonus because unless they connect, they do not lose energy. If the do connect with a channeled strike, odds are, the target is dead.
If you rely on the +30% block while at full energy mod, then channeled strikes should be a calculated decision.
Characterizing melee as "a gun that only uses ammo if it hits" is something of an oversimplification. While melee can leverage Energy to augment offense and defense, doing so forces it into a position of unparalleled dependence on Energy to be effective at all.
Consider the following:
Melee Inherently Suffers
- TTK comparable to many guns
- Terrible range
- Small windows of opportunity (less so now with stagger, but that is a problem in itself)
- Inability to deal with midair opponents effectively (more so now with heavy-handed air attack nerfs)
- Inability to attack while blocking (no eHP tradeoffs contingent on meee itself)/taking generally defensive actions
- Low compatibility with Elemental BJ mods (procs cost energy needed to use IO)
- Low compatibility with Warframe powers (cost energy needed for IO)
Channeling Gives
- Conditionally better damage
- Conditionally better defense while blocking
Channeling Suffers
- High dependence on energy for better damage
- Moderate dependence on energy for better defense while blocking
- Low compatibility with Elemental BJ mods (procs cost energy that Channeling needs)
- Extremely low compatibility with Warframe powers (cost energy that Channeling needs)
As it stands, setting stagger aside (and praying to the based god that it is reverted, because it is not a good solution), melee suffers from moderate kill times but low windows of opportunity in which to realize those kill times. Channeling should function by allowing a user to strategically allot a scarce resource to lower kill times so that they fall inside a specific window of opportunity, or allot a scarce resource to mitigate the inherent disadvantage of playing melee against hyper-mobile projectile weapon users.
Instead, the energy-greediness of Channeling shackles players to the tradeoff "Effective melee v. powers/utility," and even then is not that effective, as Channeling does not even solve the inherent problems that melee has.
Rather than pushing melee even further into a corner, rally for what @Nazrethim suggested some time back and decouple Channeling from Energy, placing it on its own separate "Stamina"-esque resource that has limited regeneration and does not force melee players to suffer so much just for using melee.
Rally also for revisions to air attacks so that melee can truly compete in the mobile arena of Conclave in a way that depends on mastery of that mobility.
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Regarding IO interactions... same problem, essentially. Melee players are not guaranteed a kill if they connect one channeled strike, and unless they very, very carefully feather their Channeling trigger than they run a serious risk of spending energy on accidental Channel-blocking while trying to make those attacks, crippling their defensive potential because of how awkwardly interwoven Energy and melee are. Even while depending on IO, channeled strikes are already always a strategic choice as attacking divests the player of all defenses, making them as vulnerable as they will ever be while equipping a melee weapon.
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Just now, Nighttide77 said:
I don't think you understood what I said. "More people have been complaining...why I said what I did" means I have the solid opinion that the current glaive iteration isn't as much of an issue.
Community servers will resolve many latency issues.
I understand what you said. But I am offering a reason that your perception of the Glaive issue is perhaps inaccurate. Besides, even if more people have been complaining about other weapons, that in no way renders criticism of Glaives irrelevant.
As for community servers, I very much hope that they do... if they arrive before the next ice age.
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Of course, see @Pythadragon's separate thread on removing Emergent Aftermath from the Vectis. That is a huge source of unreasonable power for the weapon, holding all else constant.
That aside, snipers in general are in a weird place. Vectis is the "power" sniper but cannot 1HKO on headshot for some frames, Rubico is basically just a crappier Grinlok, and the Snipetrons range from cheesy Latron-esque rifles in unskilled hands to godlike powerhouses when the user can aim well or capitalize on their punchthrough. Vectis Prime is just garbage. They need a broad retooling for Conclave.
And a revision to the ill-conceived mechanical rework from some time ago... but that's for Weapons Feedback.
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1 minute ago, Nighttide77 said:
Eh...the combos also leave you a sitting duck. Latency cannot be a balancing factor, because even a simple Grakata can be OP with enough lag. More people have been complaining about other melee weapons than glaive, which is why I said what I did.
Again, the sitting duck issue is easy to overcome by staying away from open areas where long lines-of-sight exist for aiming. But, in general, the Glaive stance isn't balanced exceptionally well within the overall schema of melee - still too much range and speed.
Latency should not be a balancing factor, but I am hesitant to wholly disregard it because it does have a huge impact on the game in the current matchmaking environment. The fact that the new melee stances and re-implementation of stagger seemed to occur without accounting for sour interactions due to latency is one of the reasons that melee is in such an uncomfortable place at just the moment.
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Definitely.
Also, if the Conclave playerbase grows enough to support more stratification, it might also be nice to include an additional separate tier to the matchmaking pool between RC and the upper level. This could help smooth out the transition from "newbie" to "regular."
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On 7/22/2016 at 8:53 PM, Nighttide77 said:
what...complaints about the glaive stance? Glaive stance is probably one of the least enjoyable ones because it leaves your frame rather vulnerable while attacking.
The Glaive stance's pause and block combos both include extremely fast, multi-hitting attacks with considerable range and little windup. Once latency and stagger come into play, running around spamming Glaive combos mindlessly is unreasonably effective, and it is easy to assuage vulnerability by staying away from the most open parts of the Conclave tiles.
On 7/22/2016 at 8:58 PM, Jakku said:Player skill and items will always be unbalance but other then that you need a since of value in it all. This is where the prizes come in and if they don't hold your eye then it is all for naught.
This sentence does not make sense.
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On 7/23/2016 at 2:38 PM, Pythadragon said:
If the source of the ability is killed, then the effect should go away in all cases.
Simple example: I got molecular primed by an enemy nova. While primed, I killed the nova. The nova respawned and reengaged me while I was still primed.
Other abilities are affected by this as well. Most notably for me right now is saryn spore, where I often can watch the player who killed me die due to spore while I'm watching the death cam.
While I agree with the general sentiment, I do not think that all abilities/effects should obey this, nor can I really think of any abilities that currently persist after death that are really problematic apart from the two you name. Even then, Spore is a DoT and one strategic use is the almost Pyrrhic attempt to kill from the grave when death is certainly or highly likely.
Molecular Prime in particular just needs a heavy duration nerf; its effect lasts much longer than is even remotely reasonable for its combined effects. I would rally for a more equitable version of MPrime before an MPrime that automatically dispels on Nova death.
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On 7/20/2016 at 0:00 PM, Burnthesteak87 said:
Reduce mobility (with stamina or locking the number of achrobatic interactions a player can do in a lapse of time) and leave Red Orbs spawn as it is.
Sooner or later someone's gonna get short of escape mechanisms.Mobility is currently in a good place, and both a Stamina system and a harder limit on acrobatics (a soft one exists - one double jump, rolls are time-gated midair, etc.) would only serve to further bastardize Conclave's gameplay by diluting the effect of player skill. Your intention makes sense - eventually someone loses the ability to continue their flight - but this kind of change would not only disrupt runners but also chasers and people actively using 3D mobility for strategic purposes in their engagements. The spillover is too great.
On 7/20/2016 at 0:18 PM, Nazrethim said:Why not remove the orbs and replace them with a passive +2 health/s ? Just brainstorming.
Similar to my arguments elsewhere for why the passive energy regen should be reduced (which I know you have read), adding passive regeneration only serves to reward players who do nothing. In this case, though, I think it would actually exacerbate the problem as passive regen is much stronger than fixed-location pickups in terms of strategic utility - wounded players can just run infinitely and unpredictably while still gaining health, no need to tag specific locations anymore.
On 7/20/2016 at 0:24 PM, Nighttide77 said:How about making them into health regeneration stations? After a couple seconds of standing still on such a pad, it begins to regenerate health at 2 per second, so long as they remain on the pad and stationary. The moment they take action or take damage or status effect, the station stops providing health.
This is basically the point of health pickups. A few seconds to start regenerating health even at the old 50-over-a-few-seconds rate would be far too much for an arena shooter based on high speed exchanges. Pickups effectively combine locus-based healing with scarcity as it is; the recent changes have just made them too available.
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Very reasonable. Vectis should be strong as effectively a "bolt-action" rifle, but EA just pushes it into an uncomfortable place - from experience I've had a few Annihilations lately where the combination of speedy reloading and the combo counter have let me pick off three or four frames in as many shots...
Positive change, full support.
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Reduced blocking value of the Impenetrable Defense Conclave mod to 30% from 40%.
Fixed Radial Disarm script error if Loki died and respawned while it was active, causing the effect to be permanent until death in Conclave.(This is actually broken, thanks)Conclave mod 'Follow Through' effects changed to Respawn with +5 Energy and rarity lowered to Uncommon.
Reduced Mesa's passive health bonus with no melee equipped to 25 from 30 in Conclave.
If the direction of Conclave balancing changes is moving away from "rewarding skill" to "homogeneity with PvE mindlessness," could we at least get some kind of developer post to that effect? These changes do not make much sense.
- Follow Through has been changed away from actively rewarding a player for being successful in combat and now just gives away more free energy. This was already a huge problem with the ridiculous knee-jerk change of tripling passive energy regeneration for all players, and changing Follow Through does not do anything to fix the problem. This change should be reverted and the energy regeneration reduced so that energy is a reward for successful kills and successful map movement/control, not just a free resource.
- The blocking value of Impenetrable Defense was fine at 40%, as it could not actively be used while attacking regardless, and because Impenetrable Offense is not why melee has suddenly become an unfun crapshoot - that is the poor implementation of the new stances/melee damage. This change should be reverted, melee made wholly independent from Energy mechanics (i.e., Channeling), stagger-on-hit removed, air attacks buffed, and the new stances normalized so that there are neither exceptionally strong (Glaive, Heavy Blade) nor weak (Sword, Reaper) stances.
- Reducing Mesa's passive health bonus is just exceedingly random. Who asked for this? Did anyone? It was not that powerful until the SotR melee botch-fest, where culling strong air attacks further incentivized Mesa abandoning a melee weapon by removing all potential for a meaningful trade-off. Revert this, fix melee. Literally that simple.
Even if my ranting is meaningless or nobody agrees, I do think that the community should at least engage in one particularly important endeavor:
Be more vocal about demanding transparency and reasonable forewarning, testing, and contextualization of updates. PvP is a minority sector of the game, but it does have at least a few staff dedicated to its development. Let them know that we deserve better communication, because recent hotfixes have been wildly different from most of the feedback currently on the forums, and balance does not exist in a vacuum.
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Oh wow. I always thought something felt really off about sniper scoped aim, but I ascribed it to latency/scope sway even when looking back over recordings...
It seems really vindictive to include something like this, especially if it's just to discourage quick-scoping.
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3 hours ago, Pythadragon said:
RE: sustained fire.
Sorry, I used the wrong value for Daikyu charge time when calculating the >24 and >30 second values. I am not clear by what you mean by power weapons, but I'll assume Opticor, Vectis, Snipetrons based on what you wrote later. I am correcting/have corrected those erroneous values in my initial response.
Sustained fire is a metric that can be used to better understand the need to cease combat and resupply ammunition. This includes charging, emptying the magazine, and reloads. Daikyu was excessive at 46.4 seconds. It was reduced.
This table does not include charge guns, burst guns, or explosives. Daikyu at 46.4 seconds was exceeding all other weapons in pvp.
RE: "The same logic that says the Daikyu encouraged the opposite of precision applies at least as much, if not more, to weapons like the Opticor, Vectis, or particularly the Snipetrons."
No. The only weapon you have listed there with punch through are snipetrons, neither of which have the capability of 1 shot bodyshotting any frame, unlike daikyu with SLB. Furthermore, those weapon you have listed are accurate hitscan weapons (unless you want to get into folk using them improperly by quickscoping with bad accuracy). There is no lottery of "maybe after I loose this arrow, someone will walk into its flightpath". Accurate hitscans are either hit or miss. There is no flight-time lottery that rewards imprecise aim due to enemies wandering into the trajectory.
For clarity, these follow the bolded order paragraph-wise.
I do mean those weapons, and more generally weapons with very low HTK - usually within 2-3 shots from average eHP. In other games this is usually the category of snipers, shotguns, and explosives/launchers, but obviously the variety of weapons in Conclave makes the category smear at the edges a bit.
I understand what sustained fire is as a metric (though I do not think it exceptionally more useful than qualitative reasoning except when comparing minute differences between very similar weapons); my point is that it is not very meaningful for the Daikyu or, more generally, bows and other power weapons - this because it is a statistic that only ever exists in a vacuum for some weapons. With weapons such as those listed, the low HTK tends to grant high ammo economy, even with relatively poor aim, and also tends to reward a hit-and-run style of engagement. These two things coincide to give these weapons nearly indefinite sustained fire as a player moves around the map and adds incidental ammo pickup (even in the midst of combat) to their engagements/downtime. That in mind, the Daikyu having 46.4s of sustained fire does not really matter.
Even if the only weapons listed with punchthrough were Snipetrons, the problem still exists - as it exists for any weapon, but especially those with the ability to push out many high-damage shots in low periods of time. Even though hitscan weapons do not have that "lottery" period, it is still entirely possible for an enemy to wander into the way of a shot and take damage/die in the space of time before firing, between shots, or as a result of accuracy-related deviations from the point of aim. I will grant that the problem is not as bad, but it is not unique in any way to the Daikyu; the one and only exception is the case of punchthrough, where the number of kills is negligibly low (I've had maybe 15-20 from random firing through doors in over 5k Daikyu kills). This effect just isn't a compelling reason to nerf the weapon.
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47 minutes ago, Knaimhe said:
Grabbing energy orbs and scoring kills are part of active gameplay.
Passive energy gain rewards players for doing nothing. Why bother with orbs or kills when passivity gives you such a great effort-reward ratio?
We should not be encouraging players to hide and occasionally peekaboo out with a Radial Disarm or Cataclysm.And what is "elitist" even supposed to mean in this context? Sounds like a buzzword people toss around when they hear something they don't like.
It is right that players should be rewarded for active gameplay. It is wrong for passivity to become so rewarding that it dilutes the value of actually playing the game.Pretty much my sentiments exactly.
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15 hours ago, Pythadragon said:
Total damage decreased from 208.3 -> 185.5. That's 22.8, or a 11% decrease.
Daik with SLB and impact mod was one shotting every single frame without EHP mod. One shot potential with punchthrough on every frame with a huge ammo capacity (20) that require >30(!) seconds of sustained fire to empty all ammo was bad game design due to the following:
It encouraged random shooting through doors and unaimed shots at distance opponents hoping for a lottery chance at a one hit kill on 43/43 unmodded frame possibilities. It was encouraging the opposite of precision.
Now having a tank frame's EHP actually means something vs daikyu, and ammo capacity was reduced to only allow >24(!) seconds of sustained fire. Daik still one shots 32/43 unmodded frame possibilities
Using daik, you should be trying to be engaging at >15 meters due to SLB. If you want a short range engagement bow <15 meters, you should be using the other bows options (paris, paris prime, mk1 paris, dread, cernos, mutalist cernos, rakta cernos... that's 7 other options!).
Saying that the Daikyu's ammo capacity was huge is solely a judgment, one that seems odd considering that this ammo reserve size is on par with other power weapons. The size of the magazine was fine because, as a bow, the Daikyu has a substantially higher chance to miss than hitscan weapons on a perfectly aimed shot due to the interceding time period between release and impact during which the target could move, die, or be moved by other agents.
Sustained fire time is just flat-out irrelevant. Of >30s of "sustained fire" over 1/3 of the time is spent just to draw the bow, while the very brief periods of offensive action (releasing the arrows and its movement through space) comprise only a very small part of that period. To cite sustained fire time as a reason to nerf the Daikyu is disingenuous to the mechanics of the weapon. This applies similarly to other bows, though to a much lesser degree because of their ability to snap off uncharged shots and to benefit from Soaring Strike.
It was (as still is) possible to play with the Daikyu by firing wildly into crowds or through doors, but it is not nearly as effective as actually aiming carefully or taking intuitive shots the way we all do with precision weapons. The same logic that says the Daikyu encouraged the opposite of precision applies at least as much, if not more, to weapons like the Opticor, Vectis, or particularly the Snipetrons.
Having a tank frame's eHP always meant something against the Daikyu, as it prevented one from being one-shot save by headshots when close to a Daikyu user; this encouraged appropriate counterplay of closing so that SLB did not benefit the Daikyu user. Now, though, it is possible for a tank frame to survive a Daikyu shot with SLB regardless of range, with some overshielded frames even surviving headshots below 15m; simultaneously, chunkier midweight frames can also survive at range, hurting the niche power of the Daikyu as a killer for all but super-tanky frames that took on huge penalties to usability in exchange for that strength.
I absolutely agree that the Daikyu should be a bow for mid- to long-range engagements, which is why a penalty should be placed on SLB, not the Daikyu itself, and tied to the range condition. This would make the Daikyu markedly less damaging at close range and really emphasize the counterplay of closing with and disrupting the Daikyu user, as opposed to just robbing the bow of its power niche.
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5 hours ago, Nazrethim said:
-Well, I DID suggest returning Stamina for Channeling alone, the bar is still there, DE just needs to give it use. I even suggested two equally viable models. Would also give melee players a reason to equip Impenetrable Offense and it's full-energy depenant mechanic.
-Shuriken has an easy fix: buff Ash's other abilities (or rework them for better, DE already has plans for bladestorm,they may as well go full rework and make Ash better in general). The only reason players spam shuriken is not because it's strong, is because it's the only reliable power of the whole dam set. Oh, and by the way, Shuriken isn't as mindless spam as you would think, another reason to spam it is because the auto-tracking is so mind blogglingly sh*tty that you need two or three casts to hit you target because the shurikens will hit the floot, walls or ceiling roughly 30% of the time, hit another unrelated and full health player another 40%, so you need to have good "aim" with it otherwise it's a waste of energy like Ash's other abilities.
I think that the idea of a Stamina bar exclusively for Channeling is a good idea, honestly, and would make much more sense than any solution that upholds the ridiculous interdependence of melee and energy.
Smoke Screen is actually quite reliable as a form of invisibility - it behaves the same way that Loki's Invisibility does, breaking when a player takes damage, and is not appropriate for use in active combat because of this. While I think invisibility skills could use something of a rework (Halo's active camouflage comes to mind), the two skills work just fine. Teleport and Bladestorm are pretty much entirely rubbish now, though, and I will gladly agree that they need a buff.
As for Shuriken, many of the Ash players I see do not make much of an attempt to use it strategically. I cannot begin to count the number of times I seen this sequence:
- Shoot Ash and swap to secondary
- Ash turns and proceeds to wildly shoot and cast Shuriken until out of energy while dying
- Ash dies, I teabag him because I am a terrible and discourteous person
Sure, the ability has some definite problems with tracking, but I think that you are probably giving the "average" Ash player a bit more credit than deserved. The same thing happens with Shock, Spores, Fireball, Slash Dash and so on with varying outcomes... but in the end, most of it is just mindless spam.
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10 hours ago, Rhaenxys said:
With 0,75 energy per second i wouldnt call all of this "ability spam" not in the slightest, also most of the abilities listed there are not unbalanced even when spamming.
Also, no, making abilities ONLY utility based is an awful idea, so why people can do damage with weapons but not with powers? yes, most of them have softlock but even with softlock they cant compete with an automatic in both, terms of damage and accuracy, spraying an auto is still more accurate than most powers and ammo is a way more common source.
It's not just the fact that 0.75e/s regeneration exists, but that it exists alongside the Follow Through (regen on kill) mod and energy pickups on the map. Before energy regen was tripled, a player had to either capitalize on energy spawns or kill other players, both of which required attention and player skill, and both of which were susceptible to counterplay. By adding a huge amount of additional regeneration to all frames free of any condition or tradeoff, the energy economy of a match was disrupted tremendously, allowing more frequent access to high cost powers and nearly-ubiquitous access to low-cost powers. If neither FT nor spawns existed, 0.75e/s would be reasonable, maybe even low, but in the presence of either of those things - let alone both together.
To understand why more power access is a problem, it is important to consider the role that powers play in Conclave. The primary damage source for all players comes in the form of firearms, while powers are the main avenue of accessing utility such as CC, self-buffs, auto-aim, and so on. Under the previous schema of FT, pickups, and 0.25e/s regen, powers offered access to their benefits as a reward for killing players or as a reward for making efficient map circuits and capturing energy spawns. This is because, in one 10:00 match without any other input, regeneration would only grant 150 total energy assuming a player never died - enough for only a handful of circumstantial power uses. Now, the same 10:00 match with 0.75e/s regneration gives 450 total energy. Taking a 1.1 Volt as an example, that is 6 Shocks or 3 Electric Shields before the change versus 18 Shocks or 9 Electric Shields after; the swell in potentially-accessible damage and utility is extreme with no requirements of the player. Once we add in energy pickups and energy from kills - kills, keep in mind, that are made easier by having more access to powers - this problem only burgeons further.
And as for the powers listed not being "ability spam," I am unsure what threshold you would draw. Before Lunaro, a player who could constantly cast any of the listed skills had to have killed numerous other players or controlled energy spawns effectively in order to do so, and now that requirement has been dramatically relaxed. All this change served to do was dilute the requirement of player skill.
And of course, none of the above discussion even accounts for the high relative utility of powers that include CC, such as Slash Dash or Sonic Boom, which can easily turn a losing engagement into a rout or cause chaos at little absolute cost. Making these abilities more accessible with high regen only encourages wild use of them and skews balance in favor of frames with such powers.
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46 minutes ago, pauli133 said:
Breaking the endless, ugly Orokin Void tileset treadmill, with its monotonous missions and infuriating drop tables, was the best thing to ever happen to this game.
So we can hop on the "do an extractor in the middle of random missions, move the grind time to gaining relics" treadmill? I really preferred the Void over the current fissure implementation and I greatly hope that the new system is expanded.
Things are the same as they ever were, but now players get to indulge in fetishization of personal agency with the refinement and end-of-mission choice systems so that they do not have to readily acknowledge that the grind has not changed, but has merely been relocated to relic-dispensing missions.
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6 hours ago, Nazrethim said:
I agree with Nighttide77.
This energy regen buff fixed Channeling being a pointless energy sink (unless you were using a weapon that was already powerful).
From the abilities listed so far I only have problem with Sonic Boom (too much damage IMO) and Spectral Scream (too much range).
Shuriken is only good for finishing someone who is running away in low health, don't see the problem with it, but if you think it needs to be axed then make the rest of Ash's ability set reliable (Smoke Screen no longer breaking from sneezing, Teleport having some CC like a stagger or encumbering and Bladestorm only wasting only 50 energy on miss)
There are more elegant solutions to channeling than just giving energy regeneration a flat buff, though. Solutions to a broken melee mechanics should not have a bleedover effect on power usage. These are two separate areas of gameplay and should not be so interdependent. An alternate power source specifically for channeling, or the removal of channeling altogether coupled with an appropriate buff to melee damage, would be highly preferable.
An Ash with 100 energy can throw four sets of shuriken on demand in the space of under two seconds, and this is by far the most effective offensive use of energy out of all of an Ash's powers since Bladestorm was over-nerfed and both SS and Teleport are underwhelming. The problem is that, while this is the most effective offensive ability usage for the frame, it is also mindless ability spam requiring little or no skill, aim, judgment, or any other discriminating criterion. This is antithetical to the skill-based gameplay of Conclave and is very unhealthy for the game.
2 hours ago, rockscl said:the true reason of energy abundancy are the energy gains on kill
I disagree. The reason for energy abundance is the concurrent existence of gains on kill, pickups, and buffed energy regeneration; however, power spam was not as prevalent before the regeneration buff, and only the regeneration buff does not require that the player be successful in order to use powers - this makes it the exception, and the most eligible for re-tuning.
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2 hours ago, Nighttide77 said:
On the other hand, why not decrease the effectiveness of these powers to be more utility-biased rather than grant easier kills?
This way they're an augment to fighting, rather than a crutch for a lack of hand-eye coordination.
The main reason is that fixing energy regeneration is significantly less work-intensive, and as a result is probably a bit more likely. Besides, most of the abilities were fine, but are a bit broken now that they can more readily be spammed.
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With the Lunaro update, energy regeneration in Conclave was increased from 0.25/s to 0.75/s. This strongly encourages wild ability spamming around which the abilities are not balanced. This is especially problematic with the following:
- Sonic Boom
- Spores
- Shock
- Slash Dash
- Landslide
- Electric Shield (augmented)
- Rhino Charge
- Psychic Bolts
- Null Star
- Pull
- Crush
- Radial Disarm
- Shuriken
- Spectral Scream (augmented)
Most of these abilities offer significant damage/CC potential with quick cast times, tracking, or other effects. Tripling the normal rate of energy regeneration makes these powers - all of which are already very effective - too easily accessible, especially with the presence of energy pickups and Follow Through.
I suggest the following change:
- Energy regeneration reduced from 0.75/s to 0.33/s
This is still higher than the previous rate to encourage somewhat more ability involvement, but a much less egregious change that is less likely to encourage ability spam.
Conclave Archwing, yay or nay?
in Conclave
Posted
I think that this would be an intriguing idea, although I think that it would require at least the following fundamental changes:
I like the notion of flying around in a sort of ZoE-AC hybrid mode. It could be very fun and interesting if balanced appropriately for combat.
And of course - though not personally my dish of tea - the race modes could potentially be a big lure as well.