Aeon Amadi
A.N.O.N.Y.M.O.U.S.
2426
   |
Posted - 2013.08.10 15:08:00 -
[1] - Quote
As I've outlined extensively with the below post, there are a few notable bugs with Mass Drivers (and Splash Damage in general) that need to be worked out:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=99917
But this isn't a copy/paste of a previous thread. No sir, instead this is a thread asking for the community opinion on a bit of a conundrum - a paradox, rather. It's a situation akin to what came first, the chicken or the egg.
To explain in brief (without all the videos and testing methods/results located in the linked thread) Mass Drivers have a two main inherent issues:
1.) Splash Damage does not take into account resistances from tanking style. In the case of the Mass Driver, this means that rounds do full damage to shields instead of 30% less and full damage to armor instead of 30% more. While this is not exclusive to the Mass Driver (any weapon with splash damage will result in this bug) it is the most prominent case as the weapon was designed for that goal in mind.
2.) Splash Radius is halved on the person using it, so if the round has a 4.0m splash radius it won't start damaging the person using it until it's in the 2.0m area. That's not what this thread is about however, it just required mentioning.
So, with this in mind - we can look at Arkenai's thread on Armor Tanking and all of the variables that add up to it being less effective than shields. I'll go ahead and link that below:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=87752&find=unread
So now that we have the baseline problems for two vastly different things we can consider the fact that Mass Drivers may very well be on their way to becoming the Flavor of the Month weapon now that Flaylocks have been re-balanced. The ease of use, accessibility and risk vs reward makes it a very effective weapon once you start putting skills into it. That's neither here nor there but it is something to take into account.
"In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state."
What does this mean and why is it important? Well, let's assume that the Mass Driver is becoming more popular and there are more players using it. Let's also assume that the bugs associated with it are fixed first, instead of the Shield/Armor balance. What will inevitably occur is that more players use the Mass Driver and given that it is far more effective against armor than shields (-30/30) there will be a decline in armor tanking as players who chose that play-style become frustrated with the mechanics.
It's entirely plausible to say that this could result in Armor Tanking being on such a decline that it puts Shield Tanking into the Flavor of the Month category as well (assuming that it isn't already). What we then see is that with the rise in Shield Tanking there is a rise in it's counter, most notably Flux Grenades and Laser Weaponry. Armor Tanking could become a thing of the past and the overall health of the game is disrupted because there is no specialization due to it being more worthwhile to use the tactic that everyone else uses.
"Power creep is the gradual unbalancing of a game due to successive releases of new content."
Now, this is all circumstantial but I've spent enough time both playing video games and testing/developing them to see patterns before they arise and I'm fairly convinced that I'm accurate in that this will be the inevitable outcome if one bug - a minor slip-up - is fixed before an overarching balance issue that applies everywhere. When you fix one thing in a game that has the complexity such as Eve/Dust it affects everything. Buffing a weapon effectively nerfs the rest by comparison and the playstyle that it was meant to counter.
So - here's the big question that I'd like to ask the community:
What gets fixed first: Mass Drivers or Armor? |
Aeon Amadi
A.N.O.N.Y.M.O.U.S.
2427
|
Posted - 2013.08.10 15:34:00 -
[2] - Quote
DEZKA DIABLO wrote:SCOUTS ,REMOTE EXPLOSIVES, SHOT GUNS, NOVA KNIVES, HIT DETECTION, STRAFE SPEED, MELEES, INVISIBLE A$$HOLES, LAVS, VOICE CHAT,CORUPTED SYNC FILES,DEAD FREEZES, RED LINES, HIT BOXS THAT INCREASE WITH SPEED, THEN MAYBE YOUR IDEA
Kay.
1.) Lose the caps.
2.) Go read my other posts in the 'Perfecting the Roles' series. I give Scouts and their general playstyle way more attention than I do anything else.
3.) While I think all of those are good topics, Armor Tanking applies to a large percentage of the player base - just as much if not more than speed tanking.
Thanks. |