Antibuff - remove it from PPU - give it to everyone else.

[William Antrim]

Ok so this thread has come about due to an issue over the weekend. However this is not a rant. It is a legitimate gripe with current game mechanics and if it becomes more popular I can honestly see dark days for nc pvp.

Currently the only class that has antibuff is the ppu.

Yesterday we (some clan mates and myself) got into some fights. All well and good. Numbers were matched evenly and we won some and lost some. Happy with that.

As per the norm however some people (names wont be mentioned in the thread) came back a while later with more people. Faction alliances and "blue on blue" attacks aside I noticed one serious issue in the game that I feel needs to be addressed. The role of antibuffing.

My guys had 2 tanks and 1 ppu. 3 Players in total. Not noobs by any stretch. All fairly good pvpers. The other side had 3 people also. Again pretty decent players clearly. However they brought 2 ppus to one fighter. Now I know what youre thinking - its going to be one of those flame fest threads but it really isnt. Their fighter was not that good and his damage output was neglible to be fair. However with 2 ppus constantly buffing him and antibuffing us we were at a distinct disadvantage. This to my mind is an issue.

We could not do enough damage significantly to worry the ppus whilst buffed and the only times we made them even get a tiny bit worried was when we antibuffed them. Even whilst pretty good at pvp the fact that we could only antibuff one at a time and 2 were able to rebuff we had a disadvantage.

Some people will stop reading now and go "get some more ppus". We have some. We each (the three guys there) have one. But we didnt because we prefer "fair" fights. It protracted into a stalemate due to the lack of antibuffing in small scale skirmishes and that is why I am here today making this thread.


For those who only want to skip to the end and dont read the rest -


WE NEED ANTIBUFF FOR MORE CLASSES. It should not be just the ppu - the hardest player to kill on the battlefield - who has the antibuff. PEs or Spies or someone else should have an antibuff tool as well. It should be given to multiple classes also to prevent the targetting of these players first by opposing teams. I am all for the PPU having the antibuff AS LONG AS others get to have it also.

The problem I see with this is as time goes on more people will just bring more and more ppus to op fights until the game becomes a "how many ppus can we bring" fight.

With PPU-buffing zoneline p2 fights being considered a standard mo now I do not want to see this tactic go the same way. It will be the death of real PVP and not something I would honestly like to see in nc.

P.s this is not a flame at the guys we were fighting, it just highlighted a pretty severe issue in my eyes.

[Izeo]

I should begin by reiterating that I'm not experienced in PvP - I understand the basics and how things "should" work but I don't know about advanced setups..

.. but it seems that the fact that "Antibuff" itself exists is a huge problem. Without antibuff existing, that fight would've been a lot more fair...fairer? more fair?

Then, the only factors would be:
- the team of 2 ppus and 1 fighter -> ppus are quicker to defend their fighter, since they have two, but do less damage because of one fighter
- the team of 1 ppu and 2 fighters -> ppu is slower to defend his fighters, since there's just one, but do more damage because of two fighters

^ That seems balanced.

But then, adding antibuff in, you're right -- the side with 2 ppus then has a bigger advantage. blergh..

[CMaster]

For the record, there are currently antibuffs available to PEs and probably also spies (although spies may need to drug for them). However, as said antibuffs take the form of a nanite injector, they aren't the most viable of options (I'd urge you to give them a try on the test server though, and describe well why they aren't a good option, so future antibuffs are better).

Anyway, I'd say that this is just indications of broader problems with PPU as a skill, and the passive-monk as a class, than something as simple as antibuffs. Psi needs to mean more to the PE and spy who use it than it does at the moment, while PPUs need to be drastically toned down - PPU + fighter should really be weaker than 2 * fighter. Dedicated PPUs should really only start to make sense at 4+ team sizes (in my opinion)

My support is still for making the APU an antibuff-and debuff class, and making said skills a core part of playing an APU - so an APU fighting a PE solo would typically antibuff the PE as part of the fight.

Making antibuffs more readily available is perhaps a form of band aid that could be implemented, rather than rebalancing PPU buffs itself. The question next of course is what form should these antibuffs take? Something that replicates current antibuff behaviour, or something that works quite differently?

The big risk of course is that by making antibuffing easier and more frequent, the response is more PPUs to replace the shields again. While one PPU might be able to keep three people shielded and buffed at the moment, if antibuffs get spammed, perhaps we encourage everyone to do damagedealer + PPU pair again, so they can best keep buffs up...

[William Antrim]

Cmaster if you make the ppu less viable than 2 fighters noone will play one. If you give everyone antibuff you can bring an extra fighter OR the ppu as either balances out the issue. It's not a band aid but a viable solution.

P.s nannites.... Just no.

[ratakresch]

Nanites

The anitshield nanites could be used by APU's, Spies and Pe's, but this crap is worth nothing. I played a spy setup ones where you could use these nanites with a psi 3 buff or with havenin x forte. The thing is. You have to hit the target directly in a minimum range with these nanites. Next the shield your going for will run out. This will take like 10 seconds (if i remember it correctly). During this time the ppu has full protection of the shield while seeing it running out. So he could easily cast a new one at the end. He is never unprotected. Only usefull if the ppu is rezzing, and even then you have to hit him, which is not easy these days (clipping bugging etc.).

PPU

I'm with you guys, if it comes to PPU zerg. I know to good what it means to fight against an outnumbering enemy with more ppus then our whole opfight team. We are outnumbered in fighters and PPU's in every fight. This is going so far that we fightet with 4 people (2ppus 2 fighters) against a team with 6 PPU's and 6 fighters. Normaly you could never win this fight. But it's possible. With the right tactic you could a least win over time or bring them to retreat. And i dont think it's a lack of fun.
BUT:
This could not be the normal way, and not for all people on the server!

I dont think there is a quik solution to this. I will think of one later. :P

[CMaster]

Cmaster if you make the ppu less viable than 2 fighters noone will play one.

Imagine PPUs, if you will as a "combat multiplier" - ie, they make people more effective by a certain amount. Right now that amount is something like a 3x - 4x multiplier. - One person PPUed fights like 3 or 4 people (certainly as you saw, they're at least level pegging with 3). When right now, in a 2vs2, or 2vs1, the fact that t. Where the number "should" be is something like 1.4x. So one person PPUed fights like 1.4 people. So 3 people PPUed fights like 4.2 people. It's not quite so simple of course, but you see where I am coming from: PPUs make sense in large teams, but don't abruptly make any one person unstoppable like they do at the moment. How to achieve this is harder of course.

If you give everyone antibuff you can bring an extra fighter OR the ppu as either balances out the issue. It's not a band aid but a viable solution.

Nope. As long as PPU buffs make people stronger than simply having another fighter on the team, adding more antibuffs will just mean bringing more PPUs to replace the buffs. Unless you make the antibuffs so strong people that people just give up on buffing entirely. There's probably a happy middleground to be found where antibuffs are only used under certain situations, but it's important to be aware of those risks. Simply making all characters able to antibuff doesn't make all characters equivalent - that's ignoring every other way that PPUs change the fight.

P.s nannites.... Just no.

?


@Izeo - the real problem is that PPUs are too strong. A single PPU offers enough protection that their fighter is unlikley to ever lose to one or two opponents. A single additional fighter on your team has no equivalent effect.

[William Antrim]

Thank you for the feedback. I cannot edit the previous post (I am at work currently and using an old browser).

The reason why I don't think it will come down to one PPU and one fighter ratio is because if the other team brings lots of fighters (IE NON PPU) then they can focus for example 1/3 of their number as dedicated antibuffers and the other 2/3 as damage dealers on said debuffed person.

Yes more ppus act as a force multiplier but standing directly opposite that are other antibuffers ready to take on the role of antibuffing the rebuffed player. Suddenly OP fight pvp becomes more about antibuffing and buffing the fighters tactically than it does about clipping around a pillar for example. I think that this form of tactics and skill is a lot more fun than fighting a team of unkillable ppus with a small handful of damage dealers.

You would have to be a very good ppu to survive with all of these debuffs and it would be probably marginally easier to kill some of the antibuffers before you start to kill the ppus for example. Again it is another tactical advantage that both teams have to think about. Do you kill the "better" players on the ppus or do you go for the easier kills in the ranks of the antibuffers. These are all tactical decisions. At some point the scales will tip one way or the other and there will come an end to that round of fighting. Then the flame wars can start on trade but tbh I have no solution for those...

All antibuffs (regardless of type) HAVE to act in EXACTLY the same way however. No one class can have a better one than any other. It would cause the same problems we have now. Whoever can antibuff the best gets to do it. If the PEs and Spies have some dex-based (even tanks too could use this) shield breaker type deal then it would need to function in the same way (RoF/Range/Cast time) as the Psi equivalent. Otherwise its not worth having.

I recommend Dex based weaponry because then more classes have access. Doesnt have to be a "gun" as such but some form of tool with the same range as the psi spell is required.

[CMaster]

Some vauge thoughts:

Probably want the antibuff to be inconvenient enough that it wouldn't be used on PEs (or spies) without PPU support, otherwise you start to give tanks (and APUs) quite an advantage.

Should the inconvenience be in the form of a big warmup time, like we have at the moment for antibuff - it gives both the recipient and the people going to deck the recipient time to prepare - or should it be in the form of a big cooldown, meaning it can be used more quickly in reponse to circumstances?

What if the cost of using the all-class-antibuff was to antibuff the user as well? Makes it a real choice to use it in a fight, and might create some interesting informal rolls, like antibuffing-stealther/sniper spies. (Vauge concern with this is it might make fighting back when outnumbered harder.

[Brammers]

So give the anti-buff to other classes? You didn't say which ones, so I'll assume all of them

Let's see what the end result is would be. A fight starts, everyone anti-buff's each other and shoots each other dead. Fight over in less than 30 seconds.... I can just see the all tank clans coming along with Warhammers and anti-buffs.

@William Antrim - You really want short fights or proper fights? Personally if Anti-buffing is going to have a role, think about giving it back to the APU. Although the nanites do need a look at again.

[William Antrim]

Sorry for double post. Lack of editing rights is irritating.

Ratakresch already pointed out the flaws in nannites as they stand. If they worked properly I would be all for them - see my last post.

As for the PPU force multiplier maths model no i see it differently.


If I bring 3 ppus and 3 fighters I can send one guy to debuff and only have 2 doing damage. If you have 5 ppus and 1 fighter your guy is going to get well looked after. However if I bring 1-2 ppus and 4-5 fighters your guy is getting knocked on his arse no matter how many ppus you have. There will be a point where TOO MANY ppus are there. If you lose the ability to do damage you pretty much lose the fight. PPUs will run around trying to be an annoyance or they will GR out. Regardless, if they hang around with my 3-4 guys having antibuff and damage (and noone to worry about damaging them) theyre either going out of the battlespace via a gr, whether that costs 4k or 6k.

PPU buffs have to make people stronger or what is the point in having them? This is not a ppu nerf thread. I DO NOT WANT TO NERF THEM THEYRE FINE! More balanced than the other classes imo by far.

As to your last point, I disagree. Based on the fight yesterday with 2 fighters vs 1 fighter ppu buffed (which was part of our fight) we could have killed him quite easily. However due to external factors that have been addressed in TS patches (clipping and movement generally) we did not manage to do this. The more you pound a ppus shields the less effective they become. PPUs have already been nerfed considerably. They dont need any more nerfing. 2 decent fighters can do enough damage (with balanced weapons) to a single ppu buffed fighter in my opinion.

If more weapons were viable then yes that would solve this issue but I am wholeheartedly against nerfing the ppu just because weapon damage is considered subpar. If anything the damage should be boosted.

[Dropout]

Too much text to read for me atm to read the Whole thread..
..But you couldnt outdamage a PPU's heals? Did you Guys use Alt+H?

2 fighters + 1 PPU should ALWAYS win against 1 fighter + 2 PPUs (not counting skill here).
Only good thing about having 2 PPUs to 1 fighter, is that both can be half asleep while PPU'ing lol.

if your PPU was really bad, then fair enough I guess.. Or did you use TSU rifles and Wyatts or something?

BTW, the tank wasent Falk Keegan by any chance?

[William Antrim]

Brammers if you did that I would spread my guys out across the zone and stealth in and debuff your guys one by one and take em out. Your guys would not (I would imagine) risk AOE-ing so close to their own troops who are getting debuffed. To every tactic there is a solution. I am not going to start quoting Sun Tzu per se but the man had a point!

Walker sorry but I am going to ignore your post as it doesnt contribute anything. No offence. Starting with "too much text to read..." made me switch off.

I want proper fights yes. I want discussion about proper fights which is why I made the thread. I am happy to be proved wrong but I think that the PPU (only) having antibuff is a flawed concept.

I would rather have a fight over in 30 seconds than one that ends in a clipfest lasting over an hour.


Cmaster yeah I agree. I dont want it to be an antibuff spamfest. These things should take a while to cast and be used tactically. Not as long as a rez but the antibuffer (imo) should be stationary at the time of using it. This gives the "defending" team a chance to counteract his actions - ie kill him before he gets the antibuff off. The only scenario I can give you to liken it to is the combat rezzes of NC1.

[CMaster]

First off, just to say I misread the start of this post and hence misunderstood the complaint somewhat - I'd thought that your team had no PPUs, vs the other team having 2.

Yeah, the fact that PPUs outnumbering fighters is currently viable is well, beyond silly.
Moving antibuffs away from PPUs is the obvious solution to this indeed.
Giving them to everybody helps avoid making any one class more important.
So yeah, thumbs up to this idea I guess - although not without some reservations (I still think there's space for antibuff as a much more regular part of the APU arsenal, in exchange for approriate damage on the APU).
I do also think it's still important to avoid locking the game into a 1:1 fighter:PPU ratio at op fights, which could happen if antibuffing is too prevelant.

Oh, and Brammers - you can rebuff after being antibuffed you know. Team fights are more about focussing firepower than spreading it out like you suggest would happen.

[Ivan Eres]

It looks like the solution is already in game. This was meant to be.

Just make the nanite antibuff work correctly and there you go.

[Netphreak]

It looks like the solution is already in game. This was meant to be.

Just make the nanite antibuff work correctly and there you go.

How would you make it comparable though.
It needs to be able to work at some kind of range rather than melee distance, and it needs to work much quicker, rather than take 10secs to take a shield off which can easily be seen and recast in that time.

I think there would probably be an awful lot of work involved in getting it comparable/were it needs to be.