Nullifiers As A Bandaid Fix And How To Balance Them.

[GreyEnneract]

Nullifiers were introduced as a quick way to try and quell ultimate spamming and frame camping, which is a nice idea. However it doesn't seem like it was thought out too well, leaving Nullifiers with a few hefty problems. These are a few proposed changes I've seen around the forums and have thought up on my own from experiencing them on an almost daily basis.

 

1. Nullifiers don't just nullify powers, they also nullify any low fire rate weapon.Though joking aside, punch-through and /or damage should be the heavy factors when taking down their bubbles, not fire rate.

2. Nullifier bubbles are huge, reduce their size by X amount. Personally, I feel reducing it by 1/3 would be fine.

3. Nullifier bubbles should not regenerate after being taken down once. This one is self-explanatory.

4.  An alternate suggestion I've seen is that Nullifier bubbles should only block powers, and that bullets can just pass straight through the bubble

5. Nullifiers should not be able to dispel already applied buffs (such as Invis, Vex Armor, Etc). Being able to completely block powers, and disabling power usage from the inside should be enough. Not to mention the past update, "Sword Alone", seem like it was just a joke. That's for another topic though :^)

6. Make Nullifiers melee units due to them already having great defensive capabilities. Not sure if I feel one way or the other about this one.

7. Make the Nullifier itself a tank, immune to powers, but without the bubble. I actually liked this idea.

 

Those are the ones I've seen or have had so far. You don't have to agree with all of them, and each one is a sort of separate idea. These are just suggestions that are trying to lead to a consensus on fixing Nullifiers to not be cheap artificial difficulty by offering too much in a single unit. Other suggestions are highly appreciated.

[RahuHordika]

Well before you get invaded by the 'challenge' and 'getgudn00b' crowd, let me add that to me gun punchthrough and not disabling buffs seem either like a most acceptable change for them.

I understand their purpose, but as of now they do that in a bit of a crazy way. Oh and sure they are weak inside the bubble and you can just slide attack them, some will say, but their buddies that acompany them on the levels where it's truthly dangerous aren't.

Ps. Not to backseat mod but I feel this would have amore useful place in feedback.

Edited July 5, 2015 by RahuStalker

[Senketsu_]

I never really have problems dispatching them.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

There are many valid points, however I cannot agree with some.

 

If DE gives us a way to actually kill the nullifier without going inside the bubble or destroying the bubble, Nullifiers may as well not exist, unless they have either nullifying aura or bubbles are damn giant (which is pretty much the same as aura).

 

Turning Nullifiers into melee? I'm all in, despite them being rather squishy up close, they excel at long range, having nigh impenetrable defence and one of the best offensive capabilities.

 

Making Nullifiers the only unit immune to powers? They might as well not exist.

 

 

The one thing I would apply to bubbles, would be giving it a flat HP value so they can be instakilled under certain conditions, however, when shot, only the very base, unranked and unmodded damage would apply. It would still seriously mess with crit weapons, but most of them still have either high firerate, or decent base damage to go with.

[RahuHordika]

@Mofixil

Funny thing is, DE supposedly implemented something like this already, except that they didn't and the bubbles on both varieties still decrease based on hits.

[DitsyPixie]

I'd say either: Not have them disable buffs and make changes so that slow fire weapons don't become even more obsolete, e.g. change the dmg cap.

or

have  a cap of how many enemies can be protected by them  or make it so that only the nullifier himself can attack from within the shield - but other shielded units cant shoot through it => no more squadrons of bombards nuking everything while being covered by 3 overlapping nullifier shields...

As it stand Nullifiers haven't really achieved their stated goal of culling 4-to-win spam, but instead only made slow firing weapons even more obsolete/niche (sans some few exceptions like the torrid)

Edited July 6, 2015 by DitsyPixie

[Lowsodium]

I would only make one change. Make it so shotguns one shot nullifier bubbles at close range.

[[DE]Grzegorz]

@Mofixil

Funny thing is, DE supposedly implemented something like this already, except that they didn't and the bubbles on both varieties still decrease based on hits.

Bubble has 100-400 damage cap, giving it 6%-24% shrink of current size with base size being 150% and it goes to zero after certain threshold... Bubble has some seriously fked up maths behind it.

[GreyEnneract]

Bubble has 100-400 damage cap, giving it 6%-24% shrink of current size with base size being 150% and it goes to zero after certain threshold... Bubble has some seriously fked up maths behind it.

I can deal damage over 400, but I do agree that the math is shoddy.

I remember before DE saying they adjusted their bubbles, but in the end all that matters still is fire rate.

For me personally, the most important point is for them to not cancel already applied buffs when entered.

A sort of separate suggestion I saw that wasn't exactly something being applied to the Nullifier was that abilities that spawn out of the ground (Ember Ult, Hydroid Ult, Hallowed Ground) should be able to appear within the bubble.

[An_Atheist]

Well before you get invaded by the 'challenge' and 'getgudn00b' crowd, let me add that to me gun punchthrough and not disabling buffs seem either like a most acceptable change for them.

 

Would a per-shot damage cap suffice? What i mean is that the bubble functions as it currently does, but if you hit it hard enough, about 5k damage in one shot, it overloads and completely collapses, which should fix to problem with high damage/low ROF weapons being useless, since most can hit 5000 damage relatively easily.

Tested using partially modded (catalyst,no forma) on Vectis, Opticor, Dread and Paris Prime. All achieve 5000+ damage on a single shot. Build used is 3 90% elementals, Serration and Split chamber

[CapedBaldy]

If DE gives us a way to actually kill the nullifier without going inside the bubble or destroying the bubble, Nullifiers may as well not exist, unless they have either nullifying aura or bubbles are damn giant (which is pretty much the same as aura).

That method already exists, it is called the Atomos and explosive guns.

 

Anyway, Nullifiers are cheap cheap cheap, just fix them already. They're meant to block powers, but they block guns too? Okay, good defensive unit, no problem. Wait, arbitrary damage cap? I guess it's back to Boltor Prime. Oh, they hit hard with sniper rifles too? Ugh, guess we'll have to cheese it, just like every other encounter in this game.

 

Maybe they should accelerate duration loss of buffs rather than dispelling them outright. Thematically fits too.

[KingTaro]

1. Nullifiers don't just nullify powers, they also nullify any low fire rate weapon.Though joking aside, punch-through and /or damage should be the heavy factors when taking down their bubbles, not fire rate.

Indeed, fire rate based mechanics renders a lot of weapons useless.

As a melee player, my only issue is that the melee hits are a bit too buggy in the bubble. It damages the bubble and shrinks it, instead of damaging Nullifier, while my blade is clearly cutting through the Nullifier. This has something to do with the range of the weapon.

 

2. Nullifier bubbles are huge, reduce their size by X amount. Personally, I feel reducing it by 1/3 would be fine.

The smaller the bubble, the less effective the melee weapons become. If mele weapon is hitting the unit while reaching outside the bubble, the unit doesn't get damaged at all and only the bubble gets hit.

I don't mind if the bubble gets smaller, but if it does get smaller, then at least the melee bug should be fixed along with it.

 

4.  An alternate suggestion I've seen is that Nullifier bubbles should only block powers, and that bullets can just pass straight through the bubble

Not sure if this is actually a good idea. But I'm ok with punch-through weapons (or weapons with punch through mods) being able to pass through the bubble.

 

5. Nullifiers should not be able to dispel already applied buffs (such as Invis, Vex Armor, Etc). Being able to completely block powers, and disabling power usage from the inside should be enough. Not to mention the past update, "Sword Alone", seem like it was just a joke. That's for another topic though :^)

 

That's probably asking for too much.

At best, instead of instantly stripping the buffs, it could instead speed up the buff decay (maybe like 5x?).

For instance, if you have 30 seconds of invisibility left, it will be gone in 6 seconds if you stay in the bubble. So each second, you'll be loosing 5 seconds of the buff.

For powers without a timer, such as Iron Skin, the Iron Skin percentage will go down 10 per second. So a full Iron Skin will go down in 10 sec.

For toggle powers that rely on the Energy. The energy cost would be increased 5 to 10 fold inside the bubble.

If Excal uses his ultimate, instead of loosing 2 energy every second, he'll be loosing 10 to 20 energy, etc...

 

6. Make Nullifiers melee units due to them already having great defensive capabilities. Not sure if I feel one way or the other about this one.

Well, since I'm playing melee only anyway, this would make things alot easier for me, but again, melee bug (explained above) should really be fixed. Other than that, I think it would become more difficult to face them for those who're not into melee. Because if they become melee units, they'll be constant rushing at you.

 

7. Make the Nullifier itself a tank, immune to powers, but without the bubble. I actually liked this idea.

Basically, like the Stalker?

Nullifier alone is not challenging at all. What makes nullifier interesting is that he can cover up all these dangerous units. (Bombards in the void).

[Kaiser_Suoh]

Too late bro.

 

I was complaining a lot of times for a balance for them.

 

DE hear, DE dont care.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Kaiser_Suoh

[GreyEnneract]

Too late bro.

 

I was complaining a lot of times for a balance for them.

 

DE hear, DE dont care.

Being a player since U7, I know that DE doesn't have a good balance track record.

Doesn't mean I'll stop speaking my mind though.

[-Amaterasu-]

1. Nullifiers don't just nullify powers, they also nullify any low fire rate weapon.Though joking aside, punch-through and /or damage should be the heavy factors when taking down their bubbles, not fire rate.

2. Nullifier bubbles are huge, reduce their size by X amount. Personally, I feel reducing it by 1/3 would be fine.

3. Nullifier bubbles should not regenerate after being taken down once. This one is self-explanatory.

4.  An alternate suggestion I've seen is that Nullifier bubbles should only block powers, and that bullets can just pass straight through the bubble

5. Nullifiers should not be able to dispel already applied buffs (such as Invis, Vex Armor, Etc). Being able to completely block powers, and disabling power usage from the inside should be enough. Not to mention the past update, "Sword Alone", seem like it was just a joke. That's for another topic though :^)

6. Make Nullifiers melee units due to them already having great defensive capabilities. Not sure if I feel one way or the other about this one.

7. Make the Nullifier itself a tank, immune to powers, but without the bubble. I actually liked this idea.

1. I Can agree with this the nullifier shields need some form of balancing or at the very least allow weapons to penetrate it with punch through.

 

2. While I the bubbles are rather big I don't think reducing the size is very realistic as the AI would probably need to be altered in some way to seek it out as cover for it to remain effective.

 

3.I Dont see this as a need if you have managed to take the buble down in the first place then you can probably kill the nullifier before it regenerates.

 

4.Not really for or against this while I think it would be nice i think part of the purpose of a nullifier it to protect its allies from all sources and the bubble is probably intended to work the way it does.

 

5.This would destroy the whole purpose of a nullifier if it cant nullify pre cast powers the only logical middle ground I can see for this would be to cances powers such as invisibility and vex armor only while you are in the bubble and reactivating them for the remaining duration once you leave.

 

6.Making them meele would probably severely reduce their defensive abilities as most units are ranged I think a change in weaponry to a slightly less one shotty gun would be good for balancing though as the void is already annoying enough with bombards and ancients.

 

7.I think this would illiminate the whole reason for the nullifiers existance which it to prevent powers instakilling everything if everything but a nullifier dies then thiere is no point to it even being an enemy.

 

8. As a personal suggestion I would say reducing the spawn rate would be a fine enough balance they arent too hard to deal with and if you dont have to see a whole wall of them I think they wouldent really be a problem.

[Chaosdreamer]

For those saying Nullifier is a challenge , is it not , it's just annoyance , it take a bit more time to kill , make many weapon useless 

block your skills

 

Oh wait , it's totally block your skills , this is something like mind breaking ...

 

Corpus have technology to BLOCK 100% your powers and having hight capacity to survive / tank ...

 

Simple question : what really stop them for making only Nullifier or actually "nullified powers planet"? You know what I mean , As soon you enter your power is gone until your destroy whatever powering it...

[VCaptiion]

I never really have problems dispatching them.

Thanks to players like you, this game is getting ridiculous.

 

DE removes power spamming, you have coptering and spin attack.

Now DE wants to remove coptering, you still talking like that.

What's next? Nerf your beloved Loki Prime and Boltor Prime?

[Kasseopea]

I don't really see a problem with them. Nullifiers encourage to charge in, melee and charge out. Sure, you wont be doing it at Minute 70 T4 Survival, but let us be honest - one only gets there by exploiting powers, like Mag's Shield Nuke or Trinity's Life Link.

 

They also force a team to coordinate, rather than being 4 headless chicken. I dislike them when fighting them, but i find them a great game concept per se.

 

They prevent from going endless-mode, since you WILL take damage most of the time if taking them down melee and waste lots of ammo if attacking ranged. Ofc there are still launchers or Castanas, but hey, one would have to use his brain, so its out of question.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Kasseopea

[Kaiser_Suoh]

Its annoying, unnecesary, OP in some way.

 

But is the counterattack of DE for Viver Gate problem. Because community won that battle against one act of tirany.

 

So nullifier will be OP forever.

[GreyEnneract]

5.This would destroy the whole purpose of a nullifier if it cant nullify pre cast powers the only logical middle ground I can see for this would be to cances powers such as invisibility and vex armor only while you are in the bubble and reactivating them for the remaining duration once you leave.

The purpose of Nullifiers were to negate spammed AOE abilities such as Molecular Prime, Shield Polarize, Chaos, Radial Javelin, Peacemaker, Etc.

Their purpose is not to negate everything in the game other than high fire rate weapons. Also,

 

3.I Dont see this as a need if you have managed to take the buble down in the first place then you can probably kill the nullifier before it regenerates.

In action, this is not the case. For Corpus Nullifiers, Shield drones improve their survivability. Then in the void, there are shield drones and ancient healers with their high damage reduction. Nullifiers are always surrounded by other enemies. It's not that simple.

[Vesiga]

Make them not be able to one shot me through 300shields and 1100 HP with almost 600 armor at them being lv 40 and I'll be good.

[Vesiga]

Thanks to players like you, this game is getting ridiculous.

 

DE removes power spamming, you have coptering and spin attack.

Now DE wants to remove coptering, you still talking like that.

What's next? Nerf your beloved Loki Prime and Boltor Prime?

That is. 

Some salt.

Nullifiers aren't hard to take out, they do get in the way, but they're meant to be prioritized. 

Just tank other bullets, zig zag, get in the bubble, and shoot them. 

Live dangerously.

They're a sniper enemy. Their accuracy is dramatically lowered the closer you get. Rush to them. 

This game is still easy despite the annoying types of mobs there are. 

 

My tonkor has had enough bouncing off them

[Autongnosis]

I would sincerely only rebalance them a bit. As in:

- Tone down a tad their offensive capabilities. What i would do is give them the Tech's weapon to be honest. So that they are quite lethal at close range if you just blindly charge into them, but they won't one-hit KO you from across the map.

- Fix the damage cap. So that bow/sniper rifle users do not get spanked. OR fix the swap speed. So that a balanced loadout gets to be used properly.

- Fix the shrink speed. I mean, at the moment i can unload a bunch of Braton P shots into them, and then i'll still have to wait about 3 seconds before the bubble is down, even when the gun would take less than one second to do it. Just speed up the shrinking a bit.

[-Amaterasu-]

The purpose of Nullifiers were to negate spammed AOE abilities such as Molecular Prime, Shield Polarize, Chaos, Radial Javelin, Peacemaker, Etc.

Their purpose is not to negate everything in the game other than high fire rate weapons. Also,

 

I understand their purpose is to negate AOE but they cant really do that if you allow non AOE powers to go through it things like Hysteria, Iron Skin, Invisibility, ect. would make killing nullifiers far too easy and not allow them to fulfil their purpose and if someone has the technology to nullify some powers why would they not be able to nullify all powers.

I never said they should negate everything in the game other than high fire rate weapons and most of the weapons i use are generally low rate of fire.

 

 

In action, this is not the case. For Corpus Nullifiers, Shield drones improve their survivability. Then in the void, there are shield drones and ancient healers with their high damage reduction. Nullifiers are always surrounded by other enemies. It's not that simple.

 

The only thing here that can really give them any survivability is ancients other than that 200 shields really wont make a difference. Personally I have never had a problem one shotting nullifiers with a slide attack and the only time I ever really take their shields down is when im in a defense and have a mesa killing everything.

[SanctumDraconis]

Thanks to players like you, this game is getting ridiculous.

 

DE removes power spamming, you have coptering and spin attack.

Now DE wants to remove coptering, you still talking like that.

What's next? Nerf your beloved Loki Prime and Boltor Prime?

DE please listen to this player and nerf the ugly-looking noob-inducing boltor prime