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Flak cannon fix: reduce effectiveness at medium range


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#1 flimsy

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Posted December 23 2013 - 09:30 AM

The flak cannon is in a problematic place. It's a bit too strong on the scout, but the brawler is still overall somewhat weak. As a result, any adjustment to the flak that brings the scout back in line with other mechs will adversely affect the brawler. Also, straight up damage, heat or fire rate nerfs tend to make weapons less fun and interesting, as we saw with the heat cannon. They're good short-term fixes to weapons that are wildly out of whack, but something like the flak needs an adjustment that affects the risk/reward ration of the weapon to make it slightly less powerful overall, but ultimately more interesting.

I play the flak scout quite a lot, as you sort of have to in high level games where many of your opponents are going to be both better than you, and also probably running around in a flak scout. I also pilot other mechs against the scout pretty frequently, so I think I have a pretty good perspective on which situations favor the scout, and which don't. One thing I've noticed is that it's a lot harder to out-damage a flak mech at range than it should be.

The general pattern of a mech with a close range weapon fighting a mech with a long or medium range weapon, is that the longer range mech will try to stay back and wear away at their opponent, while the shorter range mech tries to close the gap. However, whenever I fight flak mechs, I notice that the flak actually does a fair bit of damage at medium range. I notice this quite a bit if I'm using a heat mech, because it often seems like my flak opponent is able to out-damage me at ranges that should really favor my weapon, and I can't really force them to try to close the distance. As a consequence, the only mechs who really force range considerations on flak mechs are burst hitscan mechs, and the scout's speed, small hotbox and special ability make it exceedingly good at running away when vulnerable to long range fire.

My solution is to modify the range profile of the flak cannon so that flak users have to close the gap more than they currently do in order to use the high damage potential of the weapon. This involves two changes, and we should recall here that the damage profile of a weapon can fundamentally be whatever we want to be, and we don't have to really worry about the flak projectiles if we don't want to.

1) More damage falloff at medium (average) range.

Most fights in Hawken happen at a range that is just about bounded by the footprint of a the AA structure*. Any longer range than that, and a mech can often escape before dying. The flak currently performs very well at this range, which means it's doing almost full damage in the majority of fights. Optimally, we'd want a close range weapon to operate well in a range that's shorter than the average range of a fight. I suggest introducing a damage dropoff of 35-45% at 75% of average range. The scout and brawler have to get a little closer to do full damage, but it suffers a drawback at average range. We'd need some actual testing to see what the correct numbers would be, but the idea is that the flak should do less damage than any of the weapons optimized for medium range combat at those ranges, but more damage than those weapons at closer range. This is currently not the case, which is why I think the weapon is too strong.

The brawler has absolutely no trouble being up in people's faces, so while this will be a slight nerf to the platform overall, I don't think it will have a tremendous impact, and it can be offset with buffs that the brawler needs in any case. The scout would prefer to play peekaboo at medium range, but this change would make that a lot harder.

2) Introduce an absolute range cutoff for the flak

Flak users shouldn't be able to plink away at opponents at long range. The nature of the flak means that the damage at long range, while slight, is pretty much guaranteed given that it's a hitscan weapon. It's particularly problematic for an A class opponent, and there's just no reason that a close range weapon should do any damage at long range. You can stand on the edge of the central structure in facility and do damage to mechs standing on S2. That's just silly. Give the flak an absolute range cutoff like the MIRV, though at a somewhat longer range.

*I think this has a lot to do with TTK and game speed. The lower the TTK and slower the game, the more damage you can do at longer range without your opponent being able to flee or seek cover.

#2 EliteShooter

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Posted December 23 2013 - 10:16 AM

Flak needs a nerf for both mechs ! BOTH

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#3 Muffintrumpet

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Posted December 23 2013 - 11:34 AM

Falk pellets seems to be randomly spread within each shot, rather than normalised in some way to ensure an even spread
that means you can sometimes snipe at medium range if the RNG gods smile upon you but at other times you can bang away over and over to little or no effect
no weapon should have RNG damage but at slightly beyond short range that's exactly what the Flak becomes
only when the weapon fires a normalised spread of pellets can the weapon's effectiveness at range be properly measured
(other games use a fixed spread pattern and instead randomise the rotation of that pattern, which sounds like a far better way of doing it)

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#4 Fstroke

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Posted December 23 2013 - 12:11 PM

Same problem though. The hard part about playing a brawler is it already has trouble closing distances to get into optimal range. Any mech can dictate its combat range against a brawler. Also the spread of the weapon really hampers how much damage it can do at range. Even if two mechs were standing on opposite ends of the aa I dont think the flak is doing anywhere near full damage. Its worth tesring I guess.

While I agree with you that the flak shouldnt hit from across the map I dont think its too much of a concern. Anyone taking shots with los with a flak is exposing themselves to recieve fire from much better ranged weapons. If someone wants to plink away with a flak to S2 they can enjoy a powershot slug/sabot to the face for their troubles.

#5 Bazookagofer

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Posted December 23 2013 - 12:23 PM

They should just get rid of the flak on scout... Problem solved... flak should be brawler only...

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#6 flimsy

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Posted December 23 2013 - 02:52 PM

We should totally test the damage that the flak does at certain ranges, though I won't have access to a machine that can play Hawken until next weekend. Also, even though the graphics that accompany the flak may indicate a random pattern, that doesn't necessarily mean that flak damage is any way related to the apparent damage pattern.

#7 Muffintrumpet

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Posted December 24 2013 - 02:38 AM

I rock a Brawler now ... Yay!* ... and IME the pellet pattern is so random that against all targets that don't fill the RNG cone the damage ends up being highly random
(latency accounted for)
for example, if a target only occupied half of the Flak cone I'd expect to see each shot doing ~40-60% damage every time
that doesn't happen
it's more like 20-80%
(with the uncommon 0% / 100%)
firing at targets in the distance often does nothing, sometimes does a bit, but on occasion hits as hard as a Slug

I'd be up for a test if someone wants to take the time and do it to confirm my in game observations
(UK)

* she's slow, very easy to hit, you're only as good as the rest of your team, utterly useless on at least two maps, has no ability that's worth a damn, heats up too fast, doesn't earn XP anything like as fast as the A-classes do, no-one thanks you when you bodyblock to save them but everyone thanks zero-risk Techs for holding down right-mouse-button, your teammate A-classes evaporate when things get messy leaving you to die alone, HEs/Dets/EMPs affect you far more often than they do against any other mech type, but even after all of that fat bottomed girls still make the world go round :)

"To the untrained eye this chart may indeed appear to demonstrate a steep and sustained downward trend; however, what you're actually seeing is the line being dragged down because of the strengthening gravitational pull of a player base that is actually increasing in density.  Rest assured, this is all going completely according to plan."


#8 ThatDamnedBoedy

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Posted January 04 2014 - 10:41 PM

View PostMuffintrumpet, on December 24 2013 - 02:38 AM, said:

I rock a Brawler now ...

* she's slow, very easy to hit, you're only as good as the rest of your team, utterly useless on at least two maps, has no ability that's worth a damn, heats up too fast, doesn't earn XP anything like as fast as the A-classes do, no-one thanks you when you bodyblock to save them but everyone thanks zero-risk Techs for holding down right-mouse-button, your teammate A-classes evaporate when things get messy leaving you to die alone, HEs/Dets/EMPs affect you far more often than they do against any other mech type, but even after all of that fat bottomed girls still make the world go round :)






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