deusex2, on December 29 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
Firaphex, on December 29 2012 - 08:56 AM, said:
deusex2, on December 29 2012 - 06:31 AM, said:
Firaphex, on December 25 2012 - 05:37 PM, said:
Am i the only one that's NOT concerned with the EMP_
I've been hit with it a quite a few times but honestly i don't really care that much. All it means is that i have to switch from attack to defense/dodging for a short period and in the end i still feel i have a decent chance of walking away alive from the encounter.
I've also begun using it myself and find that it's only really good in a few scenarios like when fighting multiple enemies or when your target has no/little chance of escaping or evading. The best use i've found for it is as a kind of a last resort when i'm about to overheat or low on armor and need a few seconds to correct this before engaging in another fight. So to me the EMP is situational.
This means it has to be timed and used correctly to be effective and while getting hit can get you killed, it is rare for it to be unavoidable. So basically it's down to pilot skill just as it is with most things. I mean it really has no effect if you're good enough not to get hit, and that should be a priority no matter if you are hit with an EMP or not.
Running away is only an option for A and B class mechs. Any C class mech that gets hit by EMP is basically dead because of severe lack of mobility. As for EMP being situational, that's a load of fuzzy bunny, because it flies in a straight line, just like TOW, and has a huge radius. So shooting someone's feet with it or make them lend into it during 1v1 is a piece of cake, really.
Well, lack of mobility is kinda the prize you pay for going with a C-class isn't it
Also i don't see how the EMP firing mechanic has anything to do with what i said about it being situational_ It's not like you can fire them off one after another so you have to pick when to use it and be aware of when it will be of most benefit. This of course depends on your own playstyle and what situations you are in. Myself i mostly use the EMP as a way to survive while fighting multiple enemies, or to run away when low on armor. But not everyone uses the EMP the same way, hence the situational part. It's just a question on which situations that apply.
You haven't played muc C-class mech, haven't you_ C-class mech get a little more HP then Fred, while gaining HUGE hotbox and losing tons of mobility. Not to mention that unlike other mechs, they have no useful active ability and their weapon choice in most cases is inferior to other mechs(exception being Brawler, who has the same loadout as Scout).
Furthermore, your understanding of term "situational" is a bit messed up. Term "situational" means that use of certain ability benefits you on very few, rare occasions. For example, C-class mech's turret mode is completely useless, however Brawler's turret mode regen makes it situationally useful for spawn camping at some maps, during siege mode. Other than that, turret mode is completely useless-that is called "situational."
EMP, on the other hand is anything but situational, it has countless uses and no matter for what purpose yu use it, you only gain from using it. Be that escape tactics, a means to finish off one opponent or use it as crowd control against a group of them-you only gain from using it. That is NOT "situational"
Nope, i hunt C-class, i don't play it
(Tried it, didn't like it).
Never been a fan of the "big but powerfull"-type. But i do think they need to be harder to kill, because i when i see that huge lumbering hulk coming i expect to have to stay on my toes to make it. This is however not the case most of the time. Simply put, hunting C-class mechs would be more fun if they where harder to kill.
And yeah, maybe my idea of situational is a bit messed up. The point i wanted to make in any case was that even if the EMP can be used for almost any situation, it is not an item that can be used all the time, so one has to pick the moments. This as far as i've seen leads to a rather specific usage-pattern depending on the player. And patterns can be predicted, meaning that after a few rounds it is not impossible to get a little bit of a feel for when a certain player is going to fire that EMP.
Tangible, on December 30 2012 - 12:00 AM, said:
Wow all this arguing back and forth, the way I see it is, if the devs removed the EMP from the game, it wouldn't be a "missed mechanic", the only time it would be missed would be because you're being surrounded by a team of mechs (which you probably deserve to be anyway, if you walk around alone on TDM) and you're able to EMP everyone and get away OR, which can also be likely, take down one or two before running... the reason I say it wouldnt be missed would be, well being grouped is normal and the EMP seems to be something random that doesnt really seem to be needed, and is adding more confusion, hate and frustration to the game then it is fun. And yes we can dodge them, but if they weren't there in the first place, we wouldn't have to at no cost at all to the person who shot it
I would miss it.
I would even miss getting hit by it.
Rosengren, on December 29 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:
Firaphex, on December 29 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:
I've been saying for what, 4-5 posts now that yes, the EMP could use some tweaking, but that i think any major problem is not in the EMP or it's mechanic itself but in it's lack of counters.
What would meaningfully counter the EMP without being a resource drain like current countermeasures, being by far the best defensive item or making the EMP as broken as ever if you don't got it but trivial if you do got it_ I think that the major flaw with what you say is the assumption that the EMP itself doesn't need more than just a tweak. The basic mechanic is extremely powerful and is something we have to seriously ask if we really want in the game. Is it worth it putting in the effort to create a counter to an item that is so good that you will need to use that counter when you could instead just make the offending item sensible from the start_
Suggesting that the EMP needs a counter reveals just how much the EMP warps the game. Do we have specific counters for HE charges_ Radar arrays_ Scramblers_ The shield weakens the use of certain weapons but it isn't absolute. What kind of item would be broadly useful, a good enough counter to the EMP to stop it from being the single best item
and also not be mandatory because it counters the EMP_
I'm not really demanding that you answer these questions because neither of us designs games for a living or anything but their difficulty shows that changing the EMP itself requires much less effort. All you need to come up with is a decent item that in a broad sense causes disruption.
The basic mechanic of the EMP is the same as every stun-mechanic in every other FPS. It's a pretty basic mechanic that has been around for ages. Actually the EMP is a bit less already since you get to keep your vision, making escape and doding an alternative. In most other FPS games all you get is a white/blurry screen and a respawn. But i still firmly think that a stun-mechanic has a place in a FPS-game.
And it should never be trivial to get hit, not by the EMP and not by anything else. Part of what i've been saying is that getting hit should be bad, just like it's bad to be hit with a HE or a TOW and so on. There has been several good suggestions in this thread about how the EMP could be altered to fit in better, but personally i prefer the benefit/drawback choise where you get to choose if you want to be vulnerable or not, and if the choice is not to be then there is a drawback for that benefit. The drawback in this case being your countermeasures slot.
There could of course be other alternatives. The more i thin about it the more i kinda like the idea of an internal that reduces the effect, or a countermeasure/defensive item that you have to activate yourself but that in return is a onetime purchase. I think that an EMP with the same blastradius as the HE (no invisible parts) and a duration of 5-6 seconds would be good. Then bring down the price of countermeasures to 20% of the current price and add an internal that reduces the duration to 2-3 seconds and/or a defensive item that breaks the duration when used.
That way people can choose for themselfs how vulnerable they want to be, and i belive that having the choice is always better than forcing a change across the board by simply removing or nerfing the EMP into a "meh"-mechanic.
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