Balance - since I missed the last topic

[Dirty Rooster]

Yeah APCs, hitting the special/Blink button
should start the charge-up and activate when
fully charged,
it could make for some very entertaining mistakes.

Oh oh, didn't mean to hit that button! zzzzZZZZZ-Pong!
Too late ...

Phoenix, Def might get used by a few commanders
just until blast Sabres are around, then everyone tends
to get Abs to be able to duel it out at max range
and deal with Gts.
With all the shield choices 'seeming' to give very
little protection against shadowers there isn't
much urge to use Def later in the game.
Upping Def shield protection against Shadowers
would give scions more reason for Def but might also
allow more Blast/Laser kills against them ...

[Commando]

I thought of the charge cost too. Ã, If you continue to hold down the mag cannon, you are still using up ammo even when you aren't getting any more power out of the cannon. Ã, An ammo cost associated with holding down the blink too long could be a good way to discourage holding down the special. Ã, Even setting a shut off timer could help. Ã, For example, setting a 3 second delay and shutting off blink if it is held down for more than 10 seconds. Ã, It would require tweaks by GSH.

[Dirty Rooster]

Here's another idea to even the scion-EDF balance
at the start : Scion-plasma joggle-boom-boom.
Everyone is in full scouts.
Mini/FaF eats scion scouts when it hits, and it
hits more than scion-plasma hits.
Scion plasma is a great weapon with good damage
against unarmoured and light armoured targets,
increasing the damage would just make it even more
of a turret-killer which I think would be too much.

Try this idea ;
Scion-plasma having a small joggling effect, like a
toned-down sonic/arc effect, bumping the victim.
This fits in exactly with current scion weapon effects and
would even fights up tremendously in scout-v-scout
doggyfights.
The slight joggling effect would cause more misses by
the mini/FaF EDF scouts, thus balancing without changing
and other game balances.

Gimme your serious consideration fellas.

[DarkFox]

I was thinking of just having blink suck up ammo like mag does, as you charge it. After about 5 seconds, you can release the key to blink. It'd certainly make blink remain a useful tool without having it the ultimate weapon that it is now.


RE: Deflection shields - I know they can be useful, but the issue is a *good* ISDF commander doesn't have to go around hitting pools against scions, he simply denies the scion player any pools while taking them for himself. He acheives this pool denial simply by blowing up every scout he sees. As such, he'll typically be using laser, to which about the only answer for an early-midgame scion is an EMP warrior, or a scout, with stasis shields, and a lot of luck.
Making missile scouts more effective is just a final nail in an already rather tight-shut coffin for the scion early game.

[Angelwing]

the plasma magnetic effect seems interesting, but it'd be making it into somewhat a lighter version of the Sonic Blast (just a slight bit worse) - seems a good idea though, that or increasing the speed of the plasma shots so you don't have to be aiming a mile infront of them to get a hit in.The damage/range seems fine to me as it is

The main reason why Deflection isn't used so much is that it gets eaten alive by Blast.
Without any shield, the warrior takes 600 damage per Blast hit. With deflection, it takes 800 - a significant amount more. (statis only reducing it from 600 to 500, and absorb all the way down to 300)

Absorb however dosen't suffer NEARLY as much of a hit from kinetic-based weaponry. Shad damage does 180 to light armor, but 200 to absorb - and Chain damage is normal.
Seems the drawbacks of using Deflect are far greater than those of using Abso, especially considering the main late-game combat weapons are energy-based.

How about:
Increase damage from kinetic weapons (chains, shad) to abso, but reduce energy damage (mainly from blast) to the Deflection shield so that there's more choice involved in shield selection rather than knowing one is clearly far superior to the other.

[Dirty Rooster]

Anglelwing I absolutely agree with your shield
ideas. Make the choices work properly, rather
than the lopsided current advantage to Abs.

I disagree to make scion-plasma shots faster,
the target-leading is a crucial and fun part of
learning to use scions. Even scion iongun has
a slowish shot speed and looks very scionish.
If you speed up the plasma shots you are simply
making it nearer the minigun in aiming, no fun there.

[Spawn]

angel, you do know that the damage to sheilds is only exactly what it says in the odf for none armor, for light or heavy its ratioed down/up

[Angelwing]

It is? do you know the ratio? i'm pretty sure I take more damage with deflect+light armor than light armor by itself.

[DarkFox]

The ratio is only applied when light armour is used in addition to shields. Since a warrior has no armour at all, the damage it takes when using certain shields is exactly the value read in the odf.

I like the plasma 'joggle' idea, it'd certainly be more interesting than just upping damage.

Remember one thing though - even if plasma fired as fast through the air as mini does - 2 scouts firing at each other (WITHOUT faf) would still kill each other at exactly the same time. 1800 health and 200damage/second mini, vs 1200health and 300 damage/second plasma. thunderbolt is larger, drone is slower... If plasma DID travel at the same speed as mini, and FAF were taken away (hypothetical here) it'd still be a pretty fair fight now that lag is reduced.

[Spawn]

i didnt know warriors had none armor, was sure they had light

[deadscion]

Then comes PB2 and everyone says----Oh hoot!! we have to start over-----

heh heh

[Zero Angel]

Scion plasma being slow is an early game weakness of the scions that counters its late-game strengths (blink). A scion player is forced to fight defensively to survive his opponent, since plasma is more effective if the scion is retreating backwards.

As to PB2, any balancing can be done with recy variants. I'm almost certain that Timevirus will make one of his famous MP mods that will make 1.3 PB2 far better then 1.2, now that a lot of things can be configured.

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

since plasma is more effective if the scion is retreating backwards.

not always, since the scion scout is more sluggish its harder to dodge with it while moving backwards

the best way is *if you can* jump right on the isdf scout and be literaly on his ass - or, get them to chase you on a hill (a tactic that works for ISDF as well)


blink: activation and only then being able to blink to the spot you looked at when activating sounds alright - but sounds like it'll need DLL tweaking and not simple ODF changes
if its like mag its still a problem, people will learn that at 30-35 they should start pressing fire-special, if things gets worse they just blink like they intended too, if not and they ok they just look up and realse fire-special


shields: if you touch absro and tweak it down statis will be the shield of choice preaty much always, right now it looks like that statis does almost as good as a job as defle (I know it doesnt but being at risk of getting owned up by laser, blast, shads and other energy weapons you'd rather go for statis and take alil more hit from kinetic and alot less (in compare to delfection only) from energy weapons)
tweaking the shields isnt gonna be an easy task IMO
touch one and it effects the other two

faster plasma -
problem with faster plasma is it'll make it much much more useful vs tanks as well
and faster plasma is like giving scions minigun that just looks diffrent and is considered as a cannon - even though it might work cant say I like the idea

[Spawn]

chain eats through stasis

also, each weapon's damage to certain sheilds can be tweaked individually, not sure if PF knew this (he is teh noobiest )

[Avatar]

About shields, they could be Assault/Combatted...  that is, you can have Stasis in Combat mode and shift to Deflection when morphed...

Would that add to the mix or just make it more muddled?

-Av-