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Kierkegaard Soren
THE HANDS OF DEATH
RUST415
598
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Posted - 2014.12.22 12:37:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hello hello. I've been sitting on a few idea for a while now, and I've finally got the time to throw them out there to the wider community.
Fundamentally, I believe that skirmish has become stagnant and predictable, and the battlefield itself is mostly inert when in the presence of mercs. All too often a single squad can sweep from null cannon to null cannon, obliterating all resistance and effectively locking out the map without having to think too hard about hoe to go about it. What I want to propose are a series of changes that might, when taken collectively, give all players and many of the roles a more satisfying game mode. Please do read and feedback as you see fit.
Null cannons have damage profiles
Skirmish maps consist of three to five null cannons. Currently they all work exactly the same, but what if we changed this to offer teams some deeper tactical considerations to play with? I propose that nulls should have individual damage profiles that mimic those of our weapons; EM (laser), thermal/kinetic (hybrid) and explosive. Hey would react to hitting the MCC in exactly the manner you would expect them to, with EM missile nulls dealing better damage to its shields whilst performing poorly against it's armoir, explosive nulls would work in the opposite fashion and hybrid types would function as they nulls do currently. When capturing points teams might not want to to go for the closest or easiest to acquire first but instead go for the null that will do the most damage to the MCC based on its current health.
In a five-point match you would have a split of two explosive, two EM and one hybrid, with the hybrid being the most centrally placed null on the map. In s three point match the split would be EM/hybrid/explosive.
Null cannons can be crippled, repaired and reinforced.
As I understand it, skirmish 1.0 allowed for the desteuction of nulls, but this created major game issues (correct me if I'm wrong on that though). Regardless, I believe that allowing nulls to be seiged and possibly crippled brings a wealth of tactical options to the co-ordinated team and wolf-pack squad alike, and gives tanks and AV a new role that they can really get there teeth into.
Essentially, a null can never be destroyed outright and it will always be capable of damaging the enemy MCC; however, the installation can be crippled if enough heavy fire is directed at it. Giving them a hefty amount of health and a damage resistance profile that reflects the damage type they deal (for example, EM nulls naturally resist laser weapons etc) makes them tough nuts to crack, but once broken they suffer a crippling -75% reduction to rate of fire until repaired.
Repairing a null is as simple as interfacing with the control panel much as you would do to hack the null. It would take about as long as a counter-hack, can be performed by any suit but logistics would relieve an inherent bonus to this action. Once restored, the null functions normally.
Reinforcing a null cannon allows teams to increase the damage resistance of a null and its RoF by an impressive 25%, but is in itself and a lengthy process to achieve. Again, done through the interface terminal by any suit but eith logis being a bit quicker, the process should take between two to three times as long as a standard counter hack.
For the sake of balance and dramatic tension, only one suit can be allowed to repair or reinforce a null.
Squad Leaders may spend WP to change the damage profile of a null
Your opponents might hold more territory, but you're the better squad and you're going to make it tangibly count; by directly interfacing with a null cannon that your team controls you may spend your squads wp to alter the damage profile of that null to one of your choosing, be that EM, explosive or hybrid. Changing the profile takes time, but spending more wp can speed the process. The cost should be tiered to normal (slow change, low wp cost) and fast (quicker, high wp cost) and the process can be interrupted if the null is successfully hacked or crippled by the opposing team.
That's pretty much the core of it. Thanks for reading,many thanks for the feedback.
Dedicated Commando.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -Paul Atreides.
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Kallas Hallytyr
Skullbreakers
1190
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Posted - 2014.12.22 13:10:00 -
[2] - Quote
Null Cannon damage profiles would be good, but really should wait until we have player-bought/-chosen MCCs.
Disabling Null Cannons, however, is a good idea and one that should return.
Alt of Halla Murr. Sentinel.
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Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
886
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Posted - 2014.12.22 16:57:00 -
[3] - Quote
@Kallas Hallytyr: I concur. Null cannon damage profiles should wait until we can choose MCCs ourselves. That would definitely be one of the features that pulls racial parity in MCCs.
Null cannon crippling however sounds like a great idea and should be reintroduced into Dust. It's a mechanic well known from other games and easy enough to explain. Shoot it to cripple, use repair tool to repair.
I'm not quite with you on using the console interaction to repair a damaged null cannon though. The console is often in a very different place than the cannon itself and thus it isn't very intuitive why standing in front of a console repairs the cannon itself. I subjectively prefer using the repair tool to repair null cannons. This draws on experience many players gained in different games where crippling is a thing.
Three questions come to mind:
- How much damage should it take to cripple a null cannon? Since it takes a minute to take over a null cannon it should take much less than that to disable it. A Logi with 4 stacks of packed remotes does 27k damage in less than 20 seconds if I'm calculating this correctly. That should be a good point of reference for the discussion.
- How long should it take to repair a crippled null cannon? The most effective repair tool I found on protofits was the 'Splinter' Axis Boundless Repair Tool at 262 hp/s after repair tool operation V. Using resistances we can dial in the amount of time in takes to repair a null cannon. If e.g. it takes 27k ehp of damage to cripple a null cannon and we give null cannons a flat 80% resistance to any damage, we arrive at a native hp of 5.4k hp. It would take a single Logi with the mentioned reptool 20.6 seconds to repair the crippled null cannon. Again, these numbers are just to start the discussion.
- Can a Null cannon be hacked after it was disabled? I think so. You can cripple a Null cannon before hacking it to make it stop shooting during the contested phase, but the punishment is that you'll have to repair it yourself afterwards. |
Kaeru Nayiri
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
381
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Posted - 2014.12.22 18:02:00 -
[4] - Quote
Love all the ideas in this thread, by OP and other commenters.
Would seriously give HAV's a raison d'+Žtre. |
Kierkegaard Soren
THE HANDS OF DEATH
RUST415
603
|
Posted - 2014.12.22 19:56:00 -
[5] - Quote
Will reply when back from work, but great feedback so far. Thanks!
Dedicated Commando.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -Paul Atreides.
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True Adamance
Praetoriani Classiarii Templares
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
16217
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Posted - 2014.12.22 20:23:00 -
[6] - Quote
Kaeru Nayiri wrote:Love all the ideas in this thread, by OP and other commenters.
Would seriously give HAV's a raison d'+Žtre.
Sounds wonderful. Give it a week and you and everyone else in the game would be complaining that 1-2 HAV pilots were locking down the entire map and making it impossible for you to win.
This will be followed by a universal Large Turret Nerf......followed by many small subsequent nerfs until all I have of my once proud vehicle will be hydraulic suspension that doesn't even work properly.
*"He spoke, and we made it so all worlds were one, all peoples were one, all faiths, creeds, and nationalities were one.
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Kierkegaard Soren
THE HANDS OF DEATH
RUST415
603
|
Posted - 2014.12.22 23:37:00 -
[7] - Quote
Right.
I hadn't thought about MCC's being bought and controlled by players, seems a bit of an odd one to me, but I agree that should they be implemented then null damage types should be introduced as part of that particular roll-out of features, although I'd like to stress that the idea is still completely workable with what we currently have available in Skirmish. MCC type should be the icing on the cake of the system, and not its foundation.
Secondly, when I i talk about "Null cannon", what I'm really referring to is the little hut that we all huddle around to make stuff happen, and not the launcher itself. My idea around crippling,more pairing and reinforcing is that teams attack the most vulnerable part of the installation, and that would be the control hub. The launcher itself is far too large and sturdy to be troubled by small arms fire and tank shells. I'm open to the idea of EvE player orbitals being capable of knocking out nulls completely, though. That would be cool.
But no, the idea is that crippling, repairing and reinforcing is as much an EWAR thing as it is a physical process; crippling it knackers the circuit boards or what have you, and mercs must bring it back on line by re-routing power and other technical thingy-things to essentially jury rig the launcher back online. More importantly, it allows all players to participate in this aspect of the game. Logis should have an inherent bonus because obviously this would something they were built to do, but I don't want them to be forced to run a repper just to do that. HOWEVER, repairing the armoir of a null hub whilst it's taking damage is awesome.ni like that.
Which brings me to the next point, that being the health values of the null hubs themselves. As already mentioned, stacked RE's and the like can push out a tremendous amount of alpha damage, so nulls have got to be tough, and taking them offline has to be the product of serious effort and coordination from the enemy team. In terms of HP, I honestly couldn't say. I'll leave that to the dedicated number crunchers to chew on. But they should have significant damage reduction profiles built into there stats so that knocking them out requires you to really pound on them for a good few minutes at least. Partially as a balancing factor so that, as True has already alluded to, tanks cannot lock out whole chunks of the map on there own, partly because it would cause some really cool pitched battles between AV, vehicles, infantry and installations around some really small areas of the map, and becAUSE ultimately I still want hacking and holding a null to be the most effective and efficient method of winning the game. Siegeing the null should be a deliberate choice that you plan for, and want to execute because taking and holding it would be too costly or just out right impossible.
Thirdly, just to reiterate on True's point about how horribly bad this could go if not done properly; I am fully aware that this is possible, but when I was thinking of this design I kind of had tanks, squad leaders and logis at the heart of it, in that order. I want tanks to have more in this game to do than to hunt other tanks and then stomp infantry for the lols because really, both the vehicles and the players that committed to mastering them deserve so much more than that. And I say that as a dedicated anti-tank infantryman. Allowing them to really shape how the game plays out by attacking the very source of the Win Condition itself is, I feel, a way of making vehicles fuckin terrifying to deal with. If left alone they can and will ruin your teams day. And as a tanker, why wouldn't you want to make sh*t explode and win the day? That is cool. I want that in my game. But of course,not has to be balanced. They, nor anything else, can be the iWin button. Obviously.
A way, I think that covers most of what I've read here this far. Please do continue to feedback, show supports and raise concersns. Thanks.
Dedicated Commando.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -Paul Atreides.
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True Adamance
Praetoriani Classiarii Templares
Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris
16222
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Posted - 2014.12.22 23:52:00 -
[8] - Quote
Pitched Battles between AV and HAV? There's no pitched about it...... 3 AVers vs 3 HAV will always win..... and if they can't...... just ....wow.....
*"He spoke, and we made it so all worlds were one, all peoples were one, all faiths, creeds, and nationalities were one.
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Kierkegaard Soren
THE HANDS OF DEATH
RUST415
603
|
Posted - 2014.12.22 23:57:00 -
[9] - Quote
Thag is a problem concerning the current balance of AV vs vehicles, and the idea I've outlined has already assumed that tanks have basically been fixed so that they are sturdy murder boxes. What I'm asking for, True, is for you to put current specific concerns to one side just for a moment and consider if, all things being equal unless you're in a tank in which case you're twice as awesome, you would WANT to do this kind of thing in a skirmish.
Dedicated Commando.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -Paul Atreides.
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Kaeru Nayiri
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
385
|
Posted - 2014.12.24 18:27:00 -
[10] - Quote
Something I thought about:
Spending warpoints to change the damage type of a Null Cannon defeats the purpose of fighting over specific null cannon installations. I propose instead, that spending warpoints could allow a powerful squad to swap the damage type of the MCC's on board cannon (the MCCs are always shooting at each other as well as the null cannons on the ground). |
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Kierkegaard Soren
THE HANDS OF DEATH
RUST415
605
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Posted - 2014.12.24 18:56:00 -
[11] - Quote
That is an excellent idea.
Dedicated Commando.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -Paul Atreides.
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Terry Webber
Molon Labe.
General Tso's Alliance
531
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Posted - 2014.12.24 20:51:00 -
[12] - Quote
I like a lot of these ideas, Kierkegaard. I'm sort of iffy on the warpoints for changing the damage profile though. |
Kierkegaard Soren
THE HANDS OF DEATH
RUST415
605
|
Posted - 2014.12.24 21:30:00 -
[13] - Quote
Yeah, me too after thinking about it. I was just wondering how squads could use wp in a way that was more nuanced than "kill all the things". I was hopin that the heavy laser strike recently introduced could directly hit the MCC. Oh well.
Dedicated Commando.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -Paul Atreides.
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Terry Webber
Molon Labe.
General Tso's Alliance
532
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Posted - 2014.12.25 00:42:00 -
[14] - Quote
There was a thread that talked about adding the MCC-killing strike into 1.9. For some reason, I think CCP decided not to add it. But this is not the point of the topic of this thread. |
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