DUST Search - The Heavy: Tank vs DPS

Varoth Drac wrote:

The fact that hp modules provided a straight hp increase instead of a percentage increase was a big problem and caused fitting to be counter-intuitive. Fitting an hp mod on a scout suit provided a much greater relative benefit than fitting it to a heavy.

The only reason tanked scouts greatly diminished was that the buffed assaults made a much better suit than a tanked scout. Really that is how it should be. If you want to use a light suit fitted with lots of hp instead of speed and stealth, you should be better off just using the suit designed for that type of combat. Not that there is anything wrong with hybrid builds, which should be somewhere in betweeen. The nerfs to scout stealth were mostly unneccessary. Scouts were only replaced as the best general combat suit once assault hp and module slots were buffed, and armour plates were nerfed. Scouts were then rightly used (in most cases) optimised for speed and stealth. Unfortunately the nerfs to stealth and the buffs to assaults left the fast/stealthy scouts somewhat underpowered by the end.

Fitting a heavy felt kind of stange, as I was always aware that the hp mods were less effective than on mediums, however the role strongly encouraged fitting tank.

Making hp mods provide a percentage bonus would solve both these problems by encouraging fitting tank to heavies, and discouraging it from lights, thus making the fitting process more intuitive and encouraging suit variety.

Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.


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Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7970	Posted - 2016.11.01 18:13:00 - [1] - Quote On the Biomass podcast Xel mentioned the gaming standard where the highest HP class, the Tank, is supposed to have low DPS. This obviously was not the case in DUST, as the HMG Heavy had both health and damage. CCP tried to balance this in other ways, and did an ok job, but I thought I would propose an approach which would make sense and more closely follow the classic MMO class standards. Add a weight mechanic, and give each Dropsuit size a different Strength rating. The Dropsuit is basically a powered exoskeletal suit that includes life support and the structural base for attaching power supplies, armor/shields, and other modules to. Dropsuits should have the HP of a soda can until either Shields or Armor are added. What you can fit would not just be effected by PG and CPU, but also by weight. - Heavy Weapons would be Very heavy, so that only a Heavy Suit has the strength to carry them. - Armour comes in Light, Medium, and Heavy. Shield Generators come in Light, Medium, and Heavy. A Heavy Dropsuit is strong enough to carry a Heavy weapon, or equip Heavy Armor and/or a Heavy Shield Generator, but not both. So a Heavy with an HMG would have to equip Medium Armor and be a slow moving DPS. A Heavy with Heavy Armor would have to equip a light weapon with no special suit bonuses and be a low damage Tank. Give all Heavy suits the ability to equip two Light weapons and you would have Commando and Heavy in one suit, and Commando would actually make sense as the Tank class. Weight would prevent a Heavy from equipping both a Heavy and Light weapon without gimping themselves. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7970	Posted - 2016.11.01 18:40:00 - [2] - Quote From a Lore or just common sense perspective a weight mechanic would just be a more intuitive way of explaining why only Heavy Dropsuits can use Heavy weapons and why Scout Dropsuits only ware the lightest armor. It also prevents Heavys from being both High Damage and High HP at the same time, which makes them much easier to balance against other suits. It also gives CCP another balance metric to make it easier to balance weapons, modules, and equipment. Armor can have high weight, while a Cloaking Device would have high CPU requirements. Give Scout and Logi suits high CPU, and Heavy Suits high Strength. Then you have mechanical suit restrictions, without having to impose arbitrary suit restrictions. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7970	Posted - 2016.11.01 19:43:00 - [3] - Quote Joel II X wrote: Every suit should be able to wield any weapon (ie HMG-using scout) if there is a weight mechanic. This way, if they use that weapon, they'd have to sacrifice their modules/equipments. Maybe make it like dark souls where it you're over 100%, you can't run. Well, I think that equipping an HMG would overburden a Scout even with nothing else equipped. Maybe a Medium could make a viable HMG fight, but everything else on the fit would have to be very light with some empty slots. Not being able to run when overburdened is an interesting idea, but I am not sure that I like a hard cut-off like that. I had been thinking that for every 1% you are over weight both your walk and run speeds would be reduced by 1%, but we could have the walk speed reduced by 1% and the run speed reduced by 2%. It we did that, at what point would the run speed be slower than the walk speed? That might be a good point at which to make the fitting invalid. I suggest having a fit that is two overburdened be an invalid fit mainly to prevent new players from making a big mistake, and because at a certain point a very overburdened fit has very little use except as a turret. I am not sure we want to encourage turret fits. (HMG+Heavy Armor. Use a LAV to move him to the objective and dump him there for defense.) Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7970	Posted - 2016.11.01 19:50:00 - [4] - Quote Nomed Deeps wrote: If heavies had a defensive activation while similarly buffing/minimizing stats like in Hawken, there would be alot more strategy to playing as a heavy then merely making sure you don't overheat. This is a bit off the weight topic, but an active Shield Extender module would be cool. You could even have an overheat mechanic on it that if you don't turn it off before it overheats it drops your shields and has a 3 second delay before the shields start to recharge again. (I know you were talking about overheat on the weapon, but it gave me the idea.) It would not have to be Heavy specific, but of course an Active Shield Extender would be most effective if you had a Heavy Shield Generator fitted. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7971	Posted - 2016.11.02 12:49:00 - [5] - Quote Sergeant Sazu wrote: I like this idea quite a bit Mr. Gaden. I see no flaws. DUST Fiend wrote: I don't think I'll ever hate a weapon as much as Swarm Launchers, and I'll never hate a class as much as Dual SL Commandos 2 Swarm Launchers would've been silly. The lv. 5 Commando reload speed made things fast enough, and no decent vehicle pilot stayed exposed long enough for 6 consecutive lock-ons. Nonetheless, the SL was a failed weapon several times over, as they were far too strong against anything other than HAVs. They never took my suggestion for repurposing the Assault variant as a faster but weaker anti-dropship version. The Swarm Launchers would have been fine if they had a counter. Dropships should have countermeasures including flack/flares to decoy missiles. They also need Radar Ping, Missile Lock, and Missile Incoming warnings, maybe even with a distance tacked onto the warning. Not only would that give the Pilot an idea of when to release countermeasures, it would also make rendering issues less of a problem. But all of that is off topick. You are welcome to dig up my thread from last month on vehicles or create a new thread. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7971	Posted - 2016.11.02 14:32:00 - [6] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: As an example, if you brace your weapon, and you go full-on rock and roll on the enemy, then you're probably doing it on medium to long range. but when you brace, you turn slower. The transition from standing to braced and back should, ideally have it's own animation, and scouts and fast-movers should be able to look and go "hey now, that guy's a turtle, let's go flip him on his ass." That's assuming that the mechanic even gets used. But as a counterpoint, let's use the HMG on the move as an example: If you're not braced, you're probably fighting recoil, your arms aren't locked, the thing is vibrating like a rock-crusher and you're trying to control it while trundling along. Ok, sure, you can hit someone and do lots of damage, if they're in shotgun range coming at your face. The smart ones are going to duck behind cover and get behind you, or back up shooting you to keep out of the short range until you get frustrated and brace, then bolt around something to stab you while you're locking down or locked. I am struggling to recall the details of exactly what was technically wrong with the HMG back in the day before they got some loving from Rattati and became popular. If I recall, at the time I thought it was that there was too much dispersion, but I think it turned out that there was no dispersion on it at all and it was the recoil and moving around that was causing it to miss on hip fire. Anyway, what ever was going on, for those who were not playing Heavies at the time, there was a time in DUST when the HMG was not overly effective but was very accurate at a decent range if you crouched. There was a great Rattati quote from when he was just a stats guy in Finance who really liked playing the game like the rest of us fans. I think he said something like: "but when your crouch the angles sing!" Anyway, stance control was a big thing back then. When to crouch and when not to crouch, that was the question. Because when crouched your movement was so slow that you could not just duck behind cover, you had to take that extra step of standing up before you could really move. It added a tactical decision to the Heavy game play that I really liked, so I agree that requiring a crouch or braced position for medium to long range accuracy is a good way to balance the HMG. Basically, make the HMG highly accurate (low dispersion) but make it kick like a mule... no, make it kick like a jackhammer with many small kicks... so that your target reticle moves slightly in a random direction with every round fired. At close range the operator should be able to keep the reticle mostly on target, because a close target is fairly large, but as the target gets farther away and smaller it would be harder and harder to compensate for the random movement of the aiming reticle so that an HMG in hip fire is only effective in very close range. Have ADS be a standing brace position that reduces kick a bit, while also slowing turn speed. Have the crouched or braced position completely remove the kick, but with very slow movement until you stand up again. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7971	Posted - 2016.11.02 15:22:00 - [7] - Quote DUST Fiend wrote: Heavy weapons should probably only slightly slow you down if fired from the hip, but to ADS you get a more severe movement and turning penalty. It was there in DUST but wasn't all that noticeable most of the time. Just do that and you make them far more vulnerable when they're dishing out the hurt. That is a good point that the turning penalty was there in DUST, just very minor. The tern speed nerf on the Heavy Dropsuit was removed in patch 1.4, but what most people did not realize was that there was a turn speed effect on weapons as well, and as one of the heaviest weapons the HMG had the slowest turn speed. That is why when a Scout got close in it was sometimes better to switch to your sidearm to more easily track it. Of course people could counter the slower turn spead by increasing the sensitivity on their controls. I think the Shotgun had a slower turn speed than the rifles did. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7972	Posted - 2016.11.02 19:16:00 - [8] - Quote Jack Boost wrote: Tell me when Heavys where overpowered and still need nerf? Hit box and slow speed (already in game) make this class almost unplayable. From patch to patch this class get more nerfs, one by one and get one bonus when resists comes. And after game-death you wont more ? Fine... If you talk about combo with logi... still no valid cus if you see logi + assalut or scout and what they can do, heavy is still underpowered. If you talk about heavy vs vehicles... talks ends here... I am talking about a new balancing metric, not a specific nerf for Heavy's. If the weight mechanic means you have to chose between Damage, HP, and Mobility and can only pick two of those, then the HMG can be allowed to be a powerful weapon because there are balances to keep it from being OP. - You can be a low HP Heavy with HMG and movement mods. - You can be a medium HP Heavy with HMG. - You can be a high HP Heavy with a light weapon. - You can be a relatively high HP Heavy with an HMG, but with a 30% movement speed nerf. The point is that the weight mechanic lets you decide what nerfs you are willing to accept for the buffs you want, rather than CCP having to hard code the nerfs by making Heavys slow or gimping the HMG. They can even have an HMG variant that is lower damage but also lighter, so it can be equipped along with some Heavy Armor. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7972	Posted - 2016.11.03 14:44:00 - [9] - Quote How about giving Heavys an ability to act as mobile cover? Like maybe a wide collapsible riot shield, using Nano tech to unfurl and support the shield for a limited amount of time. The shield would have an additional hit point pool, be wide enough for two people to take cover behind the Heavy, have a limited deployment time, and have a cool-down before it can be deployed again. Since Heavy's don't have equipment slots, it could be categorized as a Sidearm and make it only practical on Heavy suits the way Cloaks are only practical on Scouts. - You would have an Armor version (riot shield) and a Shield version (projected shield wall). This would be ideal for pushing on enemy positions across open ground. It would work best in a fire team of 4 with a Heavy, two gunmen providing cover fire from either side of the shield, and a logy trailing to keep the Heavy up. - Have the shield not cover the head and feet so it is still possible to damage the Heavy directly. - The shield has a hit point pool, so do enough damage and you can drop it early, leaving the fire-team in the open. - The Heavy cannot use a weapon while the external shield is deployed. - The Heavy cannot sprint while the shield is deployed. Ok, so this is a new idea, so there might be some holes in it, but what do you guys think? This would allow the Sentinel to really accomplish the traditional MMO Tank role. It only works for a limited time, but provides a strategy for pushing heavily defended positions. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7973	Posted - 2016.11.03 18:36:00 - [10] - Quote Sergeant Sazu wrote: Also approved. Every game needs a Reinhardt. I don't play Overwatch, so I am not giving Blizard credit for this idea... well... I guess playing a Warrior tank in WOW back in 2009 may have influenced my thinking, so maybe I should give Blizard some credit. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.

Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7973	Posted - 2016.11.04 14:21:00 - [11] - Quote LHughes wrote: Games dead, go get laid. My wife has this really nasty cold right now... I am not sure that I want to get that close... Anyway, the point was to figure out what could be done better in the new FPS. DUST is just used as a point of reference. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7978	Posted - 2016.11.09 15:54:00 - [12] - Quote Varoth Drac wrote: The fact that hp modules provided a straight hp increase instead of a percentage increase was a big problem and caused fitting to be counter-intuitive. Fitting an hp mod on a scout suit provided a much greater relative benefit than fitting it to a heavy. The only reason tanked scouts greatly diminished was that the buffed assaults made a much better suit than a tanked scout. Really that is how it should be. If you want to use a light suit fitted with lots of hp instead of speed and stealth, you should be better off just using the suit designed for that type of combat. Not that there is anything wrong with hybrid builds, which should be somewhere in betweeen. The nerfs to scout stealth were mostly unneccessary. Scouts were only replaced as the best general combat suit once assault hp and module slots were buffed, and armour plates were nerfed. Scouts were then rightly used (in most cases) optimised for speed and stealth. Unfortunately the nerfs to stealth and the buffs to assaults left the fast/stealthy scouts somewhat underpowered by the end. Fitting a heavy felt kind of stange, as I was always aware that the hp mods were less effective than on mediums, however the role strongly encouraged fitting tank. Making hp mods provide a percentage bonus would solve both these problems by encouraging fitting tank to heavies, and discouraging it from lights, thus making the fitting process more intuitive and encouraging suit variety. You make a solid point. Also, if HP modules worked on a % rather than being a straight HP add, the stacking penalty would also discourage stacking too many of one module type and encourage more fitting diversity. There were times when other modules were underutilized because stacking HP was so effective. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7985	Posted - 2016.11.14 13:36:00 - [13] - Quote Yeah, I like the Brace idea. Considerable dispersion and kick when hip firing, making the HMG only effective at very close range. Less dispersion and kick when in ADS mode (standing brace) along with slower turn speed and slower movement speed, making the HMG more effective at near mid rang and less effective in close range. No dispersion and Kick when crouched (kneeling brace), but with even slower turn speed and very slow movement speed, making the HMG effective out to the extent of its range, but also making the Heavy an easy target and very vulnerable to closer range combat. Stance dancing would be a real skill for the Heavy player. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 7986	Posted - 2016.11.14 16:55:00 - [14] - Quote 2 seconds to get into a full Brace (crouch) in a PVP environment might be a little much. Isn't that about the reload time on a sidearm? Maybe 1 second would be a good balance? That should be enough to make a full Brace a proactive rather than a reactive move. Maybe with a Skill allowing you to reduce it to 0.5 seconds. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.