Zeylon Rho
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
3095
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Posted - 2013.12.23 03:34:00 -
[1] - Quote
Having clusters of hives in some spots is useful. For instance if you put some links on a roof, and you're raining terror from there. Keeping the contingent from your team both supplied, repped, and having at least a couple spawn points up there is useful.
Having a few around a supply depot is also useful for similar reasons strategy-wise. People defending the position can get reps from hives and spawn back at the point to defend it. This is true of any position really, a little bit of equipment spam from logis in various places isn't uncommon.
I recall devs stating that part of the issue involved here is that's active scanning gels poorly with equipment spam, and that can/might cause the lag/frame-rate issues... presumably because you get multiple players making requests for "present location of blank" to the server when there are many many things to send data back on, and combinations of that with the rendering issues of massive quantities of items causes the game-engine to explode.
Presently, a single logi can pack 3-4 slots of a fitting with a different type nanohive in each, and spam that on top of a building... or wherever. They can do the same with links, proxies, etc. A supply depot becomes a center of these shenanigans because it lets them switch fittings quickly. A particularly lazy logi can do it right there quickly without going anywhere, which is why it gets centered around those areas. Even if it weren't "strategically" useful to have hives/links in that area, it would still be useful to a logi (or person possessing those suits) because they can drop equipment and then switch to another fit to collect WP without actively doing anything after the fact.
The fact that spam causes lag is just gravy for the people that are into that.
Any solution has to adjust to the fact that being able to have multiple equipment/items out from a single character that persist after you die is built-in to the strategy and gameplay of Dust. Many of us have probably been in a pub game before where one team seems to have literally ZERO hives/links out during the whole match. On the other hand, a single logi character with link-centric fits and hive centric fits can cover a map in useful droplinks and probably hive-spam up a depot area. Perhaps that's part of what they mean when they call a Logi player a "force-multiplier". The problems come up more with the experienced teams/corp squads that have multiple logis covering the maps.
Restricting the equipment a single logi can put out needs to take that into consideration. Consider the fact that "slayer" logis are considered bad in that people think they go against the intent of the character. If they nerf logistics combat-power AND restrict the amount of equipment they can put out, you wind up with a pretty serious nerf to the class. Current TTK means repping isn't the most viable practice either.
Some equipment types just aren't very useful when you can only drop a single variation as well. Consider proximity mines. Great for "possibly" blowing up a vehicle... if they happen to drive right over where you left them... AND you happen to have dropped a full set (you need hives/depot to actually even put out a full complement of a single tier of mines) AND you bothered to drop more than one tier. Three proxies of a single flavor are unlikely to kill anything but the most injured tank. So, successful Proxy strategy seems to hinge on people doing a little bit of spamming and hoping that they get enough in one place and that the vehicle actually trips all the mines. I'm not saying they couldn't fix this somehow, but the current use of the item seems predicated on using it in a certain way. Probably so a single character with a single equipment slot can't easily dispatch any vehicle at a choke point.
Persistent equipment and the amount of stuff a single character can put out is built-into the way the game works, and has been for awhile now. The effect and usage of equipment may need to be examined globally if any fix aims to curtail that dynamic. I can see the lag being bad of course, and I know about the would-be "slayer-logi" adjustments too. It's possible that early game balance design wasn't thinking about a logi laying out equipment, then switching to a proto-assault to have the best of both worlds (as many older characters can easily do).
One possible solution might tie the effect and usefulness of equipment both to the skills of a logi and what they currently have equipped. For instance, let's say all hives/links/etc. suddenly got a huge nerf in effects. Logis then had their bonuses replaced with effect bonuses for equipment (amount of nanites in hives, repair amount) such that the hives didn't really last when assaults used them. The catch is the effect would be tied both to the level of the logi (skills) and to what they currently have equipped. So, to get the bonus to hives, the hive-type would have to be currently equipped to that logi. So, if they try to equip something else to spam that.. their hives suddenly become ******. Same thing if they switch to assault. That alone wouldn't fix things, but it would reduce the benefit of switching a lot to put out tons of different kinds of equipment while keeping it persistent.
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