DrNarf
02-02-04, 23:19
Ok, everyone knows that in large scale fights the side with the best ppu force will win 90% of the time. This is mainly beacuse of the obsene ammount of things they need to do in a fight. Here are a few ideas to help remedy this situation (long but worth the reading and colour coded for ease of reading :)):
(1) Resistance. Currently, the natural resist 'cap' for a player is 76%, however shelter and deflector allow someone to raise this resistance factor above 76%, meaning the whole world and his dog wants to have ppu buffs. I propose that this natural resistance cap be moved to about 90%, with the effectiveness of current resist points increased to compliment these changes (the same ammount of points being needed to cap the natural resistance from those points) and the ability for shelter and deflector to raise the resistance above this removed. Also a player's con level would count for about 40% of this resistance factor.
Example
A tank, a PE and an Apu Monk currently have enough points in con and armour resistance to cap the natural resistance for energy and all have capped con (probobly not realistic but this is just to illustrate the point). With these changes:
- The tank could reach the resistance cap without shields as he has enough con points and armour to cap the resistance from them. Also, as he has 100 con, he gets 100% of the possible 30% resistance from con, meaning he has the full 90% resistance for energy without the need for shelter.
- The PE also gets the full ammount of resistance possible from skill points and armour (50%). However because he only has 65 con, he only gets 65% of the possible 40% resistance from his con level, so his overall resistance factor would be 76% energy resistance. However because he is able to cast shelter on himself, he can raise this factor to the resistance 'cap' himself. (if shelters aren't already that effective then they could be changed to that level of effectiveness).
- The Apu, while having enough points in energy resist to get the maximum 50% energy resistance from them, only has 45 con, and so only gets 45% of the possible resistance from con. This means that his overall resistance for energy without shields would be 68%. However, because he could get a holy shelter from a ppu, this resistance factor could again be raised to the cap of 90%. (again the effectiveness of holy shelter and deflector could be changed to compliment this)
With these changes the need for ppus in a fight would be greatly reduced, as only a heal is needed as oppose to heals + shelter and deflector on tanks and PEs. Also these changes compliment the different character's abilities as they were always meant to be, the tank being the most able to take damage, next being PEs, with monks and spies being the weakest and people would be more tempted to try the different classes, as monks wouldn't be as 'uber' as the rest of the classes. The numbers used above wouldn't need to be exactly the same, but to that effect.
(2) Stealth. Currently it is the sole job of a ppu to counter stealth, which gives them a level of responsability they could really do without. I propose that kk create a drone which would allow the droner to see stealthed spies and pes in the drone screen. Although only the droner could see people while they were stealthed, the droner could shoot the spy or PE with the drone, which would uncloak them and prevent them from stealthing again for 2-3 seconds. If the person was shot when they weren't stealthed, it would still prevent them from stealthing for this length of time. However the range of this drone's weapon would be limited, meaning the droner could only see the stealther at a distance, not uncloak him.
Not only would this mean ppus wouldn't be the only people capable of countering stealth, but the droner would be able to move close to the stealther to uncloak him a lot more easily. However at the same time it would give the stealther an oppertunity to survive as this drone would be relatively weak and easily destroyed.
Example
In an op fight, there is a pe stealthing inside the op and a sniper spy stealthing around the hills nearby. Inside the op there is very little space to move around so the ppu has at least some chance to counter the stealth with his TSS (true sight sanctum). Also the droner could use his drone to prevent the PE from stealthing again, forcing the PE to fight rather than hide.
Because of the TSS's limited range, the ppu would have a very hard time countering the stealthing spy. However the droner could use his drone to fly up to the hills after the stealther as he can see him even when he stealths (the drone would fly similarly to a particle beam drone). Once the drone gets close enough he can counter the spy's stealth allowing his teammates to kill him. However in both the op and out in the hills, the drone could easily be taken down, allowing the stealther to once again move around unnoticed.
(3) Buffs. Currently a ppu needs to carry an obsene ammount of booster spells to cover every situation, so why not merge some of them together? Spells such as pistol and rifle boosts or heavy and melee boosts could be merged to give stats for both, meaning it is easier for ppus to keep everyone in his team buffed. The 3 tradeskilling boosts could also be merged into one buff for ease of use, after all people would simply wait for one buff to wear off before casting another. Obviously resistance boosters would remain seperate to prevent people from having higher than normal resistances, but a lot of buffs simply do not matter if they were merged into one spell, all it does is create a higher than necessary ammount of stress for the ppu.
Example
Before an op fight, a ppu needs to give long buffs to a melle tank, a heavy tank, a pistol pe, a rifle pe and an apu monk. As it is currently, he would need to cast the seperate melee, heavy, pistol, rifle and psi boosts on each of these people, changing spell each time (assuming these people actually took those buffs). If some of these spells were merged, he could cast one buff on the two tanks, one on the two pes and a psi boost on the apu, creating less work for the ppu. After all they wouldn't go to attack the op until everyone was buffed anyway, so the extra time taken with the current spells isn't really needed.
(4) 'Passive' spells and their effects. Currently ppu spells, which are supposed to be 'passive' often aren't as they are actively cast onto other players (eg. paralaysis and damage boost). I propose that all the paralysis spells be changed (not removed, changed) in their effects. Instead of preventing someone from running around or aiming, para spells could reduce the target person's rate of fire using weapons and spells by about 25%, but where they could still use them effectively.
Also the damage boost be changed so that it only increases damage taken by 50% of what it does now, but that whenever the person who was damage boosted attacked anyone else, he would take about 20% of the damage himself.
Example
Hypothetical situation, say there was an apu, a pe and a tank shooting a ppu in a fight. The ppu could parashock each of these 3 enemies, reducing the rate at which they shot the ppu. The apu would still be able to run cast his spells (assuming he could already), just not be able to cast them as quickly. The PE and the tank, if they were using a burst weapon, would fire the bursts just as quickly, but the time between bursts would be slower (eg. for a judge, it would be *piew**piew*..............*piew**piew* as oppose to *piew*....*piew*............*piew*....*piew*). In the case of antibuffs, these would also be slower.
As for damage boost, say the apu was using a holy lightening and the random damage effect didn't exist (so constant damage ammounts). He shot the ppu without being damage boosted and the ppu took 100 damage (unrealistic in most cases, but a nice round number to work from). If he was damage boosted, he would only take half of the 'extra' damage from other people shooting him, but when he shot the ppu, dealing 100 damage, he would take 20 damage as a result. However to prevent people from dying due to damage boost, this damage taken while shooting others could only ever take you down to 25% of your maximum hit points, the rest would need to be dealt by other people (once the person is below 25% of his health, shooting other people no longers hurts himself). Also damage boost would not have an opposite effect with heal spells. :p
Overall
All of these changes would mean that the ppu isn't as relied upon in fights, and so people could still win fights with less ppu support for PEs and Tanks, but at the same time leaving apus in need of it. Although apus would be able to take the least damage of the four classes, I don't think this would matter too much as they are designed to work with ppus and are supposed to be the worst at taking damage due to their high damage dealing abilities (this isn't the case in some situations, but it is in most).
(1) Resistance. Currently, the natural resist 'cap' for a player is 76%, however shelter and deflector allow someone to raise this resistance factor above 76%, meaning the whole world and his dog wants to have ppu buffs. I propose that this natural resistance cap be moved to about 90%, with the effectiveness of current resist points increased to compliment these changes (the same ammount of points being needed to cap the natural resistance from those points) and the ability for shelter and deflector to raise the resistance above this removed. Also a player's con level would count for about 40% of this resistance factor.
Example
A tank, a PE and an Apu Monk currently have enough points in con and armour resistance to cap the natural resistance for energy and all have capped con (probobly not realistic but this is just to illustrate the point). With these changes:
- The tank could reach the resistance cap without shields as he has enough con points and armour to cap the resistance from them. Also, as he has 100 con, he gets 100% of the possible 30% resistance from con, meaning he has the full 90% resistance for energy without the need for shelter.
- The PE also gets the full ammount of resistance possible from skill points and armour (50%). However because he only has 65 con, he only gets 65% of the possible 40% resistance from his con level, so his overall resistance factor would be 76% energy resistance. However because he is able to cast shelter on himself, he can raise this factor to the resistance 'cap' himself. (if shelters aren't already that effective then they could be changed to that level of effectiveness).
- The Apu, while having enough points in energy resist to get the maximum 50% energy resistance from them, only has 45 con, and so only gets 45% of the possible resistance from con. This means that his overall resistance for energy without shields would be 68%. However, because he could get a holy shelter from a ppu, this resistance factor could again be raised to the cap of 90%. (again the effectiveness of holy shelter and deflector could be changed to compliment this)
With these changes the need for ppus in a fight would be greatly reduced, as only a heal is needed as oppose to heals + shelter and deflector on tanks and PEs. Also these changes compliment the different character's abilities as they were always meant to be, the tank being the most able to take damage, next being PEs, with monks and spies being the weakest and people would be more tempted to try the different classes, as monks wouldn't be as 'uber' as the rest of the classes. The numbers used above wouldn't need to be exactly the same, but to that effect.
(2) Stealth. Currently it is the sole job of a ppu to counter stealth, which gives them a level of responsability they could really do without. I propose that kk create a drone which would allow the droner to see stealthed spies and pes in the drone screen. Although only the droner could see people while they were stealthed, the droner could shoot the spy or PE with the drone, which would uncloak them and prevent them from stealthing again for 2-3 seconds. If the person was shot when they weren't stealthed, it would still prevent them from stealthing for this length of time. However the range of this drone's weapon would be limited, meaning the droner could only see the stealther at a distance, not uncloak him.
Not only would this mean ppus wouldn't be the only people capable of countering stealth, but the droner would be able to move close to the stealther to uncloak him a lot more easily. However at the same time it would give the stealther an oppertunity to survive as this drone would be relatively weak and easily destroyed.
Example
In an op fight, there is a pe stealthing inside the op and a sniper spy stealthing around the hills nearby. Inside the op there is very little space to move around so the ppu has at least some chance to counter the stealth with his TSS (true sight sanctum). Also the droner could use his drone to prevent the PE from stealthing again, forcing the PE to fight rather than hide.
Because of the TSS's limited range, the ppu would have a very hard time countering the stealthing spy. However the droner could use his drone to fly up to the hills after the stealther as he can see him even when he stealths (the drone would fly similarly to a particle beam drone). Once the drone gets close enough he can counter the spy's stealth allowing his teammates to kill him. However in both the op and out in the hills, the drone could easily be taken down, allowing the stealther to once again move around unnoticed.
(3) Buffs. Currently a ppu needs to carry an obsene ammount of booster spells to cover every situation, so why not merge some of them together? Spells such as pistol and rifle boosts or heavy and melee boosts could be merged to give stats for both, meaning it is easier for ppus to keep everyone in his team buffed. The 3 tradeskilling boosts could also be merged into one buff for ease of use, after all people would simply wait for one buff to wear off before casting another. Obviously resistance boosters would remain seperate to prevent people from having higher than normal resistances, but a lot of buffs simply do not matter if they were merged into one spell, all it does is create a higher than necessary ammount of stress for the ppu.
Example
Before an op fight, a ppu needs to give long buffs to a melle tank, a heavy tank, a pistol pe, a rifle pe and an apu monk. As it is currently, he would need to cast the seperate melee, heavy, pistol, rifle and psi boosts on each of these people, changing spell each time (assuming these people actually took those buffs). If some of these spells were merged, he could cast one buff on the two tanks, one on the two pes and a psi boost on the apu, creating less work for the ppu. After all they wouldn't go to attack the op until everyone was buffed anyway, so the extra time taken with the current spells isn't really needed.
(4) 'Passive' spells and their effects. Currently ppu spells, which are supposed to be 'passive' often aren't as they are actively cast onto other players (eg. paralaysis and damage boost). I propose that all the paralysis spells be changed (not removed, changed) in their effects. Instead of preventing someone from running around or aiming, para spells could reduce the target person's rate of fire using weapons and spells by about 25%, but where they could still use them effectively.
Also the damage boost be changed so that it only increases damage taken by 50% of what it does now, but that whenever the person who was damage boosted attacked anyone else, he would take about 20% of the damage himself.
Example
Hypothetical situation, say there was an apu, a pe and a tank shooting a ppu in a fight. The ppu could parashock each of these 3 enemies, reducing the rate at which they shot the ppu. The apu would still be able to run cast his spells (assuming he could already), just not be able to cast them as quickly. The PE and the tank, if they were using a burst weapon, would fire the bursts just as quickly, but the time between bursts would be slower (eg. for a judge, it would be *piew**piew*..............*piew**piew* as oppose to *piew*....*piew*............*piew*....*piew*). In the case of antibuffs, these would also be slower.
As for damage boost, say the apu was using a holy lightening and the random damage effect didn't exist (so constant damage ammounts). He shot the ppu without being damage boosted and the ppu took 100 damage (unrealistic in most cases, but a nice round number to work from). If he was damage boosted, he would only take half of the 'extra' damage from other people shooting him, but when he shot the ppu, dealing 100 damage, he would take 20 damage as a result. However to prevent people from dying due to damage boost, this damage taken while shooting others could only ever take you down to 25% of your maximum hit points, the rest would need to be dealt by other people (once the person is below 25% of his health, shooting other people no longers hurts himself). Also damage boost would not have an opposite effect with heal spells. :p
Overall
All of these changes would mean that the ppu isn't as relied upon in fights, and so people could still win fights with less ppu support for PEs and Tanks, but at the same time leaving apus in need of it. Although apus would be able to take the least damage of the four classes, I don't think this would matter too much as they are designed to work with ppus and are supposed to be the worst at taking damage due to their high damage dealing abilities (this isn't the case in some situations, but it is in most).