Firestorm Thought - Hitbox resizing

[Grav_Starstrider]

Since Firestorm was arbitrarily unlocked to be equippable to every single possible Rifle weapon, I feel like it'd only make sense for the mod to increase the hitbox of the standard bullet firing in addition to the radial effects. That way it's not just an "increase the alt-fire radius" effect 90% of the time, but is instead a useful mod 100% of the time.

(For weapons with literally pinpoint hitboxes it would just be a small additive hitbox radius, turning from a "line" of fire to a small cylinder)

Also in general.... Seeing the facts on the wiki about how Firestorm (and Amalgam Furax Body Count) DOESN'T work on so many things is just really frustrating. If something mentions a stat, that stat should be affected.

[Leqesai]

Maybe I'm not really following the logic behind this but what would the point of increasing the projectile hitbox actually do aside from making it harder to be precise (bullets clipping walls/objects beyond the object itself since the projectile hitbox is no longer the projectile itself)?

[Grav_Starstrider]

21 minutes ago, Leqesai said:

Maybe I'm not really following the logic behind this but what would the point of increasing the projectile hitbox actually do aside from making it harder to be precise (bullets clipping walls/objects beyond the object itself since the projectile hitbox is no longer the projectile itself)?

In an ideal world the "hits object and fizzles out" would remain dependent on the original hitbox/bullet-line, and headshots/weak-points would-be hits would occur instead of body-shots from the increased hitbox size as well.

The point of the mod at that point would be that it's consistently a "makes things easier to hit" mod, instead of ONLY a "makes AoE things more AoE" mod.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, Grav_Starstrider said:

In an ideal world the "hits object and fizzles out" would remain dependent on the original hitbox/bullet-line, and headshots/weak-points would-be hits would occur instead of body-shots from the increased hitbox size as well.

The point of the mod at that point would be that it's consistently a "makes things easier to hit" mod, instead of ONLY a "makes AoE things more AoE" mod.

For reference, I believe the Catchmoon kitguns follow this: their "object" hitbox isn't the same as their "enemy" hitbox, so the edges can pass through objects and hit enemies so long as the center doesn't impact the object in question. So it has precedent.

Also, this sort of adjustment could become useful in a few situations:

1. Hitting headshots, which bolsters on-headshot things like the Laetum, Argon Scope, etc. It is surprisingly easy to nail heads with the tree-trunk-launching Nataruk, as an example.

2. Taking better advantage of punch through, which can be effective by itself, but can be even more so if punch through is only a factor for the centre of the shot hitting enemies or objects. In other words, the same sort of behaviour on the Catchmoon mentioned above, but applying to both objects / terrain and enemies.

3. Potentially increasing the size of other "diameter" weapons, like Fulmin, Arca Plasmor, etc. (assuming they aren't affected already).

[Grav_Starstrider]

Just now, Tyreaus said:

snip

Exactly!

There's already precedent, it's just a matter of expanding it to other things so that there's more incentive to use the less-meta non-AoE weaponry.

[Tyreaus]

4 minutes ago, Grav_Starstrider said:

Exactly!

There's already precedent, it's just a matter of expanding it to other things so that there's more incentive to use the less-meta non-AoE weaponry.

There is, however, one little mechanical caveat:

Firestorm enhances existing AoE.

Single-target weapons have an AoE - even a diameter AoE - of 0.

So we'd have to increase it by a flat amount. Should we set it at 1m for Primed Firestorm? If we do, do we increase diameter weapons by 1m, or by the 66%? Or do we go by which result is bigger? Which is smaller?

I'm sure DE could figure that out if they wanted to, but it does make it a little more complicated than just slapping it onto a bullet diameter and grabbing a drink.

[Grav_Starstrider]

Just now, Tyreaus said:

There is, however, one little mechanical caveat:

Firestorm enhances existing AoE.

Single-target weapons have an AoE - even a diameter AoE - of 0.

So we'd have to increase it by a flat amount. Should we set it at 1m for Primed Firestorm? If we do, do we increase diameter weapons by 1m, or by the 66%? Or do we go by which result is bigger? Which is smaller?

I noticed that!

3 hours ago, Grav_Starstrider said:

(For weapons with literally pinpoint hitboxes it would just be a small additive hitbox radius, turning from a "line" of fire to a small cylinder)

For literally every single one of the weapons that this applies to, we would just have to decide on a standard alternative amount across the board by which it "upgrades" the hitbox from a line to a cylinder. It should (imo) clearly after being buffed by PFirestorm/PFulmination be smaller than what the smallest current "cylinder" hitbox is after being affected by PFirestorm or PFulmination, but I assume even just half of whatever that value is, would be far larger than the pinpoint line's size.

4 minutes ago, Tyreaus said:

I'm sure DE could figure that out if they wanted to, but it does make it a little more complicated than just slapping it onto a bullet diameter and grabbing a drink.

I never want to underestimate how difficult a piece of coding would be. But taking the easy way out of just not changing anything ever isn't how the game would improve, so it's always just gonna be dependent on how much benefit we see compared to the ease or difficulty of the coding lift. I figure they're already probably planning on mixing up and changing a lot of the functionalities of mods on account of their initiative in making the modding process more transparent and clear, so it could be a good moment to suggest this.

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

I would be highly against such changes. It'll be like melee Sargas Ruk all over again. There's a reason why DE have pinhole targets in this game. Making sure the players have a way to screw it up isn't a good idea.

[Grav_Starstrider]

48 minutes ago, (PSN)jaggerwanderer said:

I would be highly against such changes. It'll be like melee Sargas Ruk all over again. There's a reason why DE have pinhole targets in this game. Making sure the players have a way to screw it up isn't a good idea.

How so? I'm not sure what you mean by "making sure players have a way to screw it up", or what "reasons" DE would have to have pinhole targets in the game, or what pinhole targets you're referring to. Some people may consistently choose the path of least resistance (most braindead), but we're talking about adding at most a 66% wider hitbox radius to projectile and hit-scan guns/weapons. This would only add DPS for the lazy and inaccurate players and guns, it's not like it'd be a brokenly OP mandatory mod for all of the top tier players to utilize.