Shield breakers

[William Antrim]

The mechanics of this would work just the same as the debuffs available to monks. No damage would be delivered just the debuff and yes monks can do the same with store bought debuff spells. Just replace psi with stamina. The entire proposed mechanic is based on the psi debuff. I presume the rare would have better range and rof than the store bought one.

I understand your point about the drones perfectly. However I feel that try were badly implemented due to broken mechanics.

[demonssword]

Just replace psi with stamina.

And the point about using stam boosters granting instant stam up to your cap vs psi boosters being a slow gain (about 10 seconds i think) like medpacks giving meaning that you cant just eat one and immediately do it again, vs monks who would still have to wait 10 seconds for their psi pool to recover using a booster.
I think the only way to make it so you cant use it quickly would be to have a long reload time / animation giving a delay, or again resorting to the buff / debuff solution like with nanites that maybe if you fire it you gain a stacking debuff. So for instant if its the freezer weapons or electro shockers you will use you get 30 charges of chilled or electrified or whatever they want to call it. On reaching 120 stacks of this it gives you a negative effect. If you follow the nanites example they end up with drug flash and cant use the heal nanites till it fades. If you make the debuff only last say 20 seconds it would be close enough to the monks recharge time. So you could fire off 3 of them in a row but then you would have these 20 seconds downtime, or fire 1 every 5.01 seconds and still be ok by the time it gets to the 20.04th second then your first stack of your debuff has faded to you wont get to the 120.

I understand your point about the drones perfectly. However I feel that try were badly implemented due to broken mechanics.

Maybe when they / if they add this do a drone overhaul at the same time to make the mechanics the same as preposed.

One of the drones i always had interest in when there was a big talk about new drones ages ago was a some form of slowing drone or one that leashed itself to the target to slow it or drain / slow regeneration of a stat. But again that is a different topic.

[William Antrim]

I am not gonna lie I ignored the drone stuff because you are going way off topic.

As for the other wall of text - no psi boosters and stamina seem to work at a similar rate to me so truthfully I do not see a problem. At no point does my psi booster usage take 10 seconds to refill my pool.

I am not sure where you are getting that info from but if thats what you are basing the rest of your post on then I do not think it is accurate.

[hatmankh]

Psi boosters clearly aren't instant though, while stam boosters are.

[Biglines]

how about making a shocker a constant on weapon, as long as you're hitting a target with a freezer weapon, you're lowering their shield by a certain amount for a very short time. That way you at least need another damage dealer to make it effective, and you need to be consistently on target. I feel that your original proposal is too powerful, even at 20/min RoF, it becomes just a question of an entire clan taking out their freezers, trying to hit a ppu, switch to damage gun, drop target.

I feel it should only weaken shields, and leave the full anti-buff with the ppu (or change it to the apu)

[Gunshifty]

Just going to throw this out there...

What if Freezers (or rather their PSI manipulation) was actually.... get this... a MOD. Imagine you could mod your _____ to have a freeze effect (that actually slowed the person down). To hell with Thunderbolt and all those other things.. Just make a mod that slows people by 5-15% of their runspeed.

[Dribble Joy]

Still not a fan of any kind of para effect on a PvP weapon (though a heavy para effect in PvE would be nice).

Nobody gets forced any more than anyone else. At present the PPU has the only antibuff. It gives people the option to be able to remove/weaken shields or just go for pounding them to break them.

The problem is that it may force people to carry freezer weapons in order to be viable, both in a solo and team environment. It has to be balanced so carefully that it's not a waste of time, yet is not a necessity.

[William Antrim]

I would rather everyone had a freezer gun than everyone had a ppu to fight by their side. I do not see how this is a problem at all.

[Dropout]

how about making a shocker a constant on weapon, as long as you're hitting a target with a freezer weapon, you're lowering their shield by a certain amount for a very short time. That way you at least need another damage dealer to make it effective, and you need to be consistently on target. I feel that your original proposal is too powerful, even at 20/min RoF, it becomes just a question of an entire clan taking out their freezers, trying to hit a ppu, switch to damage gun, drop target.

I feel it should only weaken shields, and leave the full anti-buff with the ppu (or change it to the apu)

This is actually a very good idea. Weaken shields, as long as they are being hit with the freezer weapon.

[William Antrim]

You can always copy the mechanic of the psi booster and the antibuff Rof. As in make the proposed freezer guns RoF scaled (by TL) to that of the antibuffs.

Perhaps psi boosters and stamina boosters should work in the same way? Thats potentially something for discussion elsewhere.

[demonssword]

Perhaps psi boosters and stamina boosters should work in the same way? Thats potentially something for discussion elsewhere.

But if you are saying you want the stam pool to be linked with this antibuff weapon then it is still part of the same discussion.
I would like to know if you think if they were to change stam or psi boosters which one you would want. Psi boosters becoming instant like stam, or stam being recovery over time like psi boosters. Personally i think the stam booster would have to become recover over time if your idea was to work. And TBH i dont know why they arnt as i dont see any reason for them not to be over time.

An alternate source of controlling how frequently you fire as i said above would be like the nanite system. But another could of course be your health pool. If the weapon actively damaged the user then you would have to think about if it is to much of a risk to fire it, have you got a heal on to recover.
As i said before the trouble with weaponising it is as someone else pointed out, people will just switch from freezer to normal weapon every X number of seconds or when they see a certain buff being put back on with very little or no consequence for doing so. Because as pointed out above if you are doing less damage because a target is shielded, but you when use a weapon that will break that shield meaning your main weapon will do its normal 4-5-6X damage on the target compared to when shielded. You will use the breaker then fire off a full clip of your normal weapon and then switch back and repeat.
Atleast with the PPU one as i said, it has a negative effect of costing a large amount of your casting resource (psi pool) what will take a while to recover and prevent you from shielding / healing yourself or other friendly targets. Rather than i swap my low dmg for low dmg shield break then high dmg for a while after.

[William Antrim]

Stamina should recharge over time. Not the other way around. Agree on that point.


fights with a ppu involved are already imbalanced as the person will have a heal AND shields on them anyway. the entire idea of this mechanic is to give a non-ppu player the chance to carry out some of the offensive ppu capabilities. In effect 2 players could be on a par with one and a ppu. Currently a ppu buffed player has an advantage. It might make people use less ppus in non op fight situations.


No weapon does 4x the damage unbuffed compared to buffed...

using the antibuff weapon will remove/weaken the shields but the holy heal will still be ticking bear in mind. this just gives you an extra weapon against a superior opponent.

the idea of switching weapons to remove a buff while your friend damages the guy is a good one. Thats the intention.

final question - why the hell are you using the rare antibuff over a store bought one that does the same job for a fraction of the cost!


The vision I see with having this idea implemented is to have a weapon system that allows a non ppu player to have the offensive capabilities currently only posessed by a ppu.

[demonssword]

Sorry in advance for a lot of text in a big post, but that is the way i tend to post as i dislike 1 liners as they in general arent always well thought out or dont explain clearly enough the concerns people may or may not have.

fights with a ppu involved are already imbalanced as the person will have a heal AND shields on them anyway.

Nothing stopped the other person having a PPU with them. 2 dmg dealers and a ppu vs 3 dmg dealers of course the one with the PPU should win ATM, but war isnt always fair and one of those dmg dealers could have rolled a PPU but didnt or didnt want to play it It is there own fault if they arent prepared.

No weapon does 4x the damage unbuffed compared to buffed...

I was just throwing out random numbers as examples. If you have the figures that are closer to your expectations of what dmg your weapon should be doing if any while antibuffing then throw them out there.

using the antibuff weapon will remove/weaken the shields but the holy heal will still be ticking bear in mind. this just gives you an extra weapon against a superior opponent.

I like the idea of more weapons in peoples arsenals, but not if it means that you just end up with a situation what means PPUs becomes useless or heal bots. Because say you have 10 people in a group. 3 PPU, 3 Rifle Spu, 3 HC Tanks, 1 APU (random group). Currently 1 of the PPUs will likely be only focusing on healing, buffing and stuff like that. 1 will likely be switching between heal / buff / antibuff. The last probably focused on calling targets and removing their shields so hopefully the other 7 DPSers can nuke them out before the shield is back up.
Now if you have a new debuff weapon the likely chance is even given the same format. The 3 PPUs will all be healing and buffing, a couple of the DPS will be debuffing while the others assassinate. So not much of a difference there. Apart from the fact now the PPUs are going to have to be more important to repace any lost buffs that dpsers have been removing from their targets.

Now on to a small fight, 1 PPU and 1 DPS vs 2 DPS will likely make DPS win 100% of the time vs currently people would probably say the oppasite. 1 DPS could be debuffing / dmg the other sides DPS while the other one kills him. Then they can finish off the PPU. Remember the PPU is no threat to the 2 DPS as well as he cant hurt them, so taking out their DPS means the PPU can only run away.

final question - why the hell are you using the rare antibuff over a store bought one that does the same job for a fraction of the cost!

Not a PPU myself, but as far as i remember the rare versions have longer range and faster cast times. Also if in a warzone then its not like you can drop the thing anyway.

The vision I see with having this idea implemented is to have a weapon system that allows a non ppu player to have the offensive capabilities currently only posessed by a ppu.

So where is the balance then? Where is the offensive capability given to the PPU that the non ppu players currently get? Seems rather odd to to say give this unique tool to everyone and you not only become less useful in the process, but also this will make your job a lot harder now cos you will be easier to deal with.

[William Antrim]

I am going to bullet point my points to reply to your questions.

- No weapon damage - purely for antibuff purposes - the same as the PPU spell currently.

- the ppu can only run away when his charge dies. Yes exactly - this means in small scale skirmishes people should opt to bring more fighters and less ppus. PPU should be available for op fights/levelling only. He has too large an effect on small scale skirmishes.

In answer to your response about not being a PPU - I am one. Have had one for 10 years and have attended 90% of the op fights I have been to/pvp engagements I have been to as that char.

The rare antibuff is shit. It empties your psi pool for nothing. I made that comment from experience not theory.

Last part = where is the balance..... huh? Where is the balance in giving the PPU any weapons? do you want hybrids to return? What? The ppus offensive capabilities that I am referring to are the abilities to debuff and antiheal people. These should not be in his arsenal. They should be in the APU arsenal.

This change doesnt make the PPUs job any harder. It removes the need for 100s of ppus to come to a big fight as theyre the only ones who can debuff. It gives PEs (possibly) a role at op fights and it moves small scale skirmishes back to that of the damage dealers. It spreads the tactics out a little more. It makes the game a lot more Rock, Paper, Scissors than Rock Scissors. Surely you can see that?

It does not make the ppu easier to deal with. It makes him removable. Currently small scale fights with a ppu involved end with the damage dealer dead and the ppu alive or the other team dead. With this tool being implemented, in the situation you describe (2 DPS vs 1 DPS and 1 PPU) the opposition team (2 DPS) has a tool that can either do one of two things - make the ppu die or make him GR out. This is exactly the same as if both teams had 2 damage dealers instead of a PPU. The two guys could be killed or they could win.

I am not going to sit here all day long with theoretical scenarios, I am not Cmastar. I can only comment based on experience of pvp in nc over 3 servers and ten years of playing.

I fondly remember the days of Polarity changing peoples opinions of PPUs on Pluto and Neofrog and Bad Ass redefining Hybrids on Uranus. I was here during the 7 second Rezzes and 8 hour op fights because both sides refused to give an inch. I used to be one of those godlike unkillable ppus.

I think today the PPU is about as balanced as he has ever been and is still a lot of fun to play in op fights. However I think that in small scale pvp he should not have the effect he has currently and more people should be able to debuff one another. I think it works for the good of the game as a whole for the reasons laid out above.

[demonssword]

Last part = where is the balance..... huh? Where is the balance in giving the PPU any weapons? do you want hybrids to return? What? The ppus offensive capabilities that I am referring to are the abilities to debuff and antiheal people. These should not be in his arsenal. They should be in the APU arsenal.

I agree it should be APU and have for ages.

The thing about taking it away from the PPU would be you need to give them something in return. I hate when the nurf bat gets swung around blindly like it does in a lot of games and makes people roll flavor of the month characters because X is better than Y but now Y is better than X cos they gave the thing X had to Y as well. But either didnt take anything from Y or give anything to replace the loss of their unique thing to X.
So all i was saying is if you are going to take 1 big unique thing from them you have to replace it with something else. You cant just let spys to wear duranium and inquisition armor because its unfair that only tanks can get such high energy / fire resists.

I do think there is a problem that in 1v1 with a ppu you generally cant kill him, but equally he cant kill you. in 2v2 if 1 side has a ppu they will likely win unless the other side has a ppu, and the odds scale up as you go, i dont know how many people without a ppu would take to kill a ppu or the people with the ppu if they dont have one themselves. BUT given that a PPU cant kill anyone. If a dmg dealer is given an antibuff weapon then in that 1-1 the ppu can only run away or die, probably the same in 2-2, 3-3 and so on.

TBH this is spiralling off in to "OMG PPUs are to good" stuff, so will end it there for a while. But i hope you can see that giving out a major unique ability of the class / roll to everyone would get a lot of negative feedback from those playing that role not feeling unique anymore and having their toys stolen without getting any new ones, or large balancing issues due to a huge dynamic of the game being changed.