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Skihids
The Tritan Industries
1085
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Posted - 2013.03.23 21:36:00 -
[1] - Quote
Way back in the closed beta I posted a thread stating that GÇ£Challenge is what makes a game fun.GÇ¥ The specifics were about the then hotly contested strafe speed and hit-scan mechanics, but the general point was that to be enjoyable long term a game of skill should be just that. The weapons and controls should require and allow a player to apply their personal skill to the game respectively. Free kill weapons are fun for a time, but that fun wears off quickly due to the lack of any challenge. ItGÇÖs like a slot machine that pays off with every pull of the lever. Similarly itGÇÖs extremely frustrating not to be able to apply the skills you do possess due to clunky control systems (hence the many threads on that topic).
That is not to say that every system has to be balanced against each other directly at every range as some AR proponents occasionally request, but rather that every system needs to be balanced in terms of the personal skill required vs. its effectiveness. For example, not long ago the two second Locus grenades caused an uproar when they required no skill to toss and were powerful enough to OHK any opponent. There was a perceived imbalance between the skill needed to panic toss a grenade and the effectiveness of the weapon (OHK). CCP quickly reversed the hotfix. Skill at cooking grenades and planning when to do it were reintroduced to balance their effectiveness.
That brings me to the current debate about the Swarm Launchers, especially vs. Dropships. While GÇ£realisticGÇ¥ in the sense of a war simulator, the SL requires no player skill to operate. All the user has to do is point the weapon in the general direction of the target and pull the trigger once lock-on is achieved. ItGÇÖs fire and forget. The user can run off and do something else at that point, while his missiles perform their auto-tracking and auto-hit. The dropship pilot has no counter, never mind a skill based counter to this weapon. The only thing he can do is tank the damage or run away out of range. The recent afterburner hotfix nerf has greatly hobbled the ability to do the latter. A dropship pilot cannot apply his skill at flying to avoid the SL, he can only cower far away.
So does the SL have a place in a skill based game? If so, how do you balance a weapon that takes no skill to use against its potential to deal damage? If you tried to reduce its damage to equal the skill required for use you would end up with a worthless weapon system. You could perhaps introduce an equally no skill counter. In this case it could be a chaff launcher. The SL user sees a dropship and fires his missiles, the pilot sees the missiles and fires his chaff launcher to counter them. The problem I see with that is that the slot balance isnGÇÖt really balanced. Any infantry unit could pick up any no skill weapon (assuming there are more varieties introduced) and target a dropship which would have to carry a counter for every variety as they canGÇÖt hot swap in battle as infantry unit can.
So is there a place for the SL in DUST?
If so, what would it take to balance it? What are your thoughts?
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Skihids
The Tritan Industries
1088
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Posted - 2013.03.24 00:21:00 -
[2] - Quote
The specifics here are about the SL, but I'd like to get back to the general case.
Using the slot machine analogy,
1) How frequently should the machine payout (get a hit) for every pull of the lever?
2) How often should that result in a jackpot (target kill)? |
Skihids
The Tritan Industries
1088
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Posted - 2013.03.24 04:47:00 -
[3] - Quote
Perhaps a good part of my opinion that the SL is a no skill weapon comes in its use against dropships rather than HAVs as dropships are far more exposed than tanks. You may need to get close to a tank to get LoS on an experienced driver, but it's trivial to get LoS on a dropship hanging in the sky. You don't have to put yourself at any risk to do so. You could be hanging back at one of your objectives protected by other infantry and just send flight after flight. I'm thinking specifically of someone holding point "A" on Manus Peak being able to cover the whole map with very little exposure to enemy fire. The SL has a huge range advantage over a dropship's small turrets. The SL could have several flights off before the dropship came within small blaster turret range of the SL user and run under cover when it arrived.
I like that people are coming up with ways to make the SL a more player skilled weapon.
A big problem I see with it is that an auto hit weapon is that it doesn't present much of a player challenge. It's like bumper bowling. I don't see people posting a video montage of their leet SL skills. I think anyone who did would get laughed off the forums in the same way as if they bragged about their score at bumper bowling. Yes, the SL serves a purpose, but I think it would be far better for both sides if the weapon required more player skill to operate. |
Skihids
The Tritan Industries
1088
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Posted - 2013.03.24 07:34:00 -
[4] - Quote
low genius wrote:Vermaak Doe wrote:Show me where the SL touched you on the doll ^this
Must everyone trot out this tired trope every time balance is discussed?
I didn't call for it to be removed, I asked if it were appropriate to have a no skill weapon in a skill based FPS. The SL certainly exhibits no skill properties, especially vs. dropships. But hey, if no skill weapons are fine lets let them lock on to dropsuits as well. You wouldn't mind that because they are so vulnerable to CQC and woud take great skill to lock on o a running merc who is close up. It would have the same challenges as the laser so no complaints about not having vulnerabilities.
Perhaps it could be a variant that sacrifices two missiles for the added scanner tech to lock on to the smaller signature of a dropsuit. That way it would take two flights to kill a top tier dropsuit. |
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