228 replies to this topic

[Sylhiri]

Chocksa, on September 20 2013 - 01:04 PM, said:

I agree with Kimon, most ppl here are complaining about the technician that it heals to much. I don't think it heals to much, i think the ppl are focussing on the heavy mech shooting at them and not firing at the technician healing the heavy mech shooting at them. It is all about prioritizing, when there is a technician against you take it out or make it flee. Once the tech is gone that heavy mech shooting at you is easy to take down.

I don't know about other people but I never expected one mech to change the entire playstyle of the game to "Kill X to continue playing". Reaper and Raider didn't seem to do that. It's not that it heals too much, it's that it heals continually and it being in the game forces the developers to think "but what happens if it involved the tech in some way".

We have 13 other mechs in the game, the biggest tactic involves killing one_ Does that not seem odd to you_

Edited by Sylhiri, September 20 2013 - 01:23 PM.

[GOmaDn]

@Sylhiri and others
A good tech forces you to use flanking maneuvers to attack it, removing support from the front-line and allowing your team to make a push.

A good sharpshooter, reaper, rocketeer, or bruiser forces you to infiltrate behind the line of battle to attack it, removing the source of suppressing fire that prevents your team from effectively utilizing the air or crossing open terrain.

The scout, infiltrator, and raider are designed to do these things very well.

The other mechs all tend to be slight variants on an attacking theme and are best used on the front-line as part of the attacking/defending force. You have to destroy them before you can safely attack the objective/enemy base.

Something I've been working on almost since I bought my first mech months ago has been filling my garage with a variety of mechs and leveling them up. This way I will be able to select the best mech for a given map against opponents and the mechs they are using. I'm not a great player by myself, but when in a team I try to round out whatever mechs they are using by choosing ones that complement theirs or counter the enemies whenever I can.

What really kills my enjoyment of the game is watching an entire team choose all [A classes kitted for super speed/dps'ers that just wander around in a giant ball of insta-death/auto-lockers that send enough rockets to kill any mech whenever one pokes it head around the corner]. Although, the auto-lockers are not quite as bad as the other two.

So yeah, the tech makes it hard to kill one or two mechs standing in front of it. Cry me a river.

The health orb launcher idea sounds pretty cool. Make the special ability launch a super orb with enough health in it to fully heal even a heavy would be my preference. Might wait to see how these crazy internals and tuning systems work out though.

[AsianJoyKiller]

GOmaDn, on September 21 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

@Sylhiri and others
A good tech forces you to use flanking maneuvers to attack it, removing support from the front-line and allowing your team to make a push.

And therein lies the problem with the way the Tech heals.
You are forced to attack the Tech.

It becomes a game of Kill the Tech before anything else can take place.
Strategy is reduced to a single variable: Is there a Tech to kill first_

What we want is the ability to play around healing, because that opens up much more varied and interesting gameplay options.

[Torchcamp]

SethStaples, on August 25 2013 - 05:49 AM, said:

Yes, complain about Mech's. Beg for nerf's. How many awesome games have I seen destroyed by little boys that cry about everything. The Tech is squishy as hell so, stop shooting the c-class in front of him and aim for the tech behind him. Don't start begging for nerf's as that is a very rocky road to go down and in the end it will only make things worse. Example, If they nerf 1 mech they are going to nerf others to keep all the community happy. AND they will most likely buff other things about those same Mech's to even it all out.

THIS. Not many people play techs and when there is one on the enemy team people don't seem to be realizing why the guy in front of them ain't dying. But even if you are alone in focusing the tech and are playing some class that has decent mid-range abilities you should be able to push away / kill the tech SOLO. I really don't think that they deserve a nerf. It's just broken when one team has 1-2 techs and the other team has none, but that is about team composition and not the class being overpowered.

But I agree with what some other people have said, the fact that it makes the game stagnant and boring. That's why I think there should be some kind of anti-healing ability, like the EMP but against healing. Let's just theory-craft; An item that allows you to shoot out a projectile that has a few meters AoE, and everyone that is hit by it will have their healing received reduced by 50% for a few seconds. This will mean that if you hit both the tech and the target being healed they will both go down pretty quickly or have to back off.

Edited by Torchcamp, September 21 2013 - 04:38 PM.

[GOmaDn]

@AJK
That is an overly simplistic strategy and has nothing to do with anything I said or that little bit you quoted. Yes, when the enemy is a tech you kill the tech and when the enemy is a reaper you kill the reaper. Other than potential tactical benefits, it doesn't matter what the enemy is. You have to kill them when and where you are able. Your obsession with killing techs seems to be more than a little myopic and a potential weakness for the enemy to exploit. Much like the wounded scouts I can't help but chase into ambushes.

The proper tactics are determined by the situation and used to achieve a strategic goal. The only game type that values tactics over strategy at the moment is straight up deathmatch because there is no cooperation. Everything else must consider the needs of the moment first.

One strategy in team deathmatch, when it's not a roving band of insta-kill meth heads, would be to take control of an easily-defended portion of the map when in the lead. Or to coordinate attacks on the enemy territory when behind on points. These goals are achieved through the use of tactics. Defenders will have brawlers / vanguards in the front with techs behind them to provide support and sharpshooter / reaper / rocketeers / bruisers behind those to apply suppressing fire. Attackers will use high DPS and indirect fire in an attempt to break through the enemy lines. Both sides will send out scouts, infiltrators, and raiders to harass the opponents flanks. Furthermore, the particular territory under dispute will change as the game progresses because players won't spawn next to their allies and may not be able to return to the original position.

There is already more to this game than most players see in the majority of matches they play because very few players use sound tactics and even fewer teams have an effective strategy. All I'm getting out of your comments is that this one mech shouldn't be worth your time and energy to destroy or that players using it should have to try harder.

Edited by GOmaDn, September 21 2013 - 05:29 PM.

[ChubaMecha]

Tech is one of my favs. Sure its green beam may need a nerf for the kids out there, but as of now it is a pretty solid mech. If it takes a nerf in its ability than it should finally get its 3rd primary weapon maybe like a shooting orb gun something like what the people said earlier. And for those of you who can't kill techs, You need some more VR Training cuz that snizzits is easy
Btw 2 techs with many c mechs are an unstoppable team on the right map.

[tektzby]

I told that before and i tell that once more. Tekies are awesomely balanced, overheating is basicaly (with low armor) their "best friend". If someone feel like "they need to nerf" i dont know why. If you find them in battle just take them out before you take out other guys. Its simple and easy and thb i really like this "pure strategy bot" coz its show how coop can be usefull instead "CoD style run´n´gun" around.

[Sylhiri]

I can't help thinking this is a lost cause when we say "The technician beam mechanics are a cause for stale gameplay" and people keep thinking "you want nerf heal beam_ lrn2killtech guy lulz".

The core gameplay mechanics were never made with the Technician in mind, when the tech got here some of the basic mechanics this game was altered to allow the tech to exist and even was detrimental to balance. Heat gen, burst damage, brawler ability, C class turret mode, C class health. All of these are directly effected by the technician. Nerfing the healing amount or adding a hard counter will NOT fix the issue with the tech. You do NOT need a sticky beam for the technician to be effective. < That does not mean removing a healing function, just reworking it.

What it does introduce is forced, fake teamplay. If your not communicating with your team, I can't call it teamwork. Deathball is not teamwork (yes, tech very much encourages deathball).

Edited by Sylhiri, September 21 2013 - 09:07 PM.

[Tracer13ullet]

Sylhiri, on September 21 2013 - 09:03 PM, said:

I can't help thinking this is a lost cause when we say "The technician beam mechanics are a cause for stale gameplay" and people keep thinking "you want nerf heal beam_ lrn2killtech guy lulz".

The core gameplay mechanics were never made with the Technician in mind, when the tech got here some of the basic mechanics this game was altered to allow the tech to exist and even was detrimental to balance. Heat gen, burst damage, brawler ability, C class turret mode, C class health. All of these are directly effected by the technician. Nerfing the healing amount or adding a hard counter will NOT fix the issue with the tech. You do NOT need a sticky beam for the technician to be effective. < That does not mean removing a healing function, just reworking it.

What it does introduce is forced, fake teamplay. If your not communicating with your team, I can't call it teamwork. Deathball is not teamwork (yes, tech very much encourages deathball).

This right here.  This man/woman gets it.

[Kryppers]

I think 'nerf' is such an ugly term. It suggests that the technician is some goliath of a mech that cannot be taken down by any means and needs to be taken down a few notches. I think 'readjustment' would be a better word. In my experience both playing and opposing the technician I found them as a mech that requires very little skill to play.

I could run behind any other mech on my team; heal them, heal myself and provide additional fire support. I think therein lies the problem, no other mech has that breadth of ability in combat. Yes, it's the only support mech currently available so you'd expect it's gameplay to be somewhat different from the others but it achieves so much whilst requiring such little investment of effort.

Not to mention that when playing, I rarely found myself in trouble when caught out on my own. I wasn't encouraged to retreat back to my team-mates for help, the only tactically viable option was to charge into the attacking mech and use my deconstructor to heal myself whilst dealing substantial damage.

If it were up to me, I would be tempted to remove the self heal when using the deconstructor. All mechs can self heal, and with it we face hazards to balance that out. I don't see why the technician should be any different. It would force the technician to focus on his positioning more carefully to avoid damage, and encourage it to remain close to his allies (as a support mech should). The deconstructor would then be a tool to switch from healing to DPS to help it out in situations where allies aren't present.
Perhaps though it would be interesting to keep the self heal function of the technicians Special ability, to allows it to be used situationally just as any other mech's special.

[GOmaDn]

For everyone that wants to change the tech for whatever reason. How does this setup look_ I clearly based this on someone else's suggestions and I take no credit for them. All I did was to assign values based on numbers found at the wiki. I also took the liberty of including a prestige that could fend off scouts and infils trying to disrupt the support structure.

Technician

Primary 1   Redox-02
Primary 2   Hawkins RPR
Prestige     Flak Cannon
Secondary Helix Repair Torch Launcher (HeRL)

Ability Amplification
Increase the amount of health in each orb for 10 seconds usable every 60 seconds.

Change the Helix Repair Launcher so that it shoots health orbs in an arc at a rate of 0.25 shots per second. Can be charged to shoot up to 3 orbs at once. Orbs contain 100 health each. Amplified orbs contain 250 health. Also generates 12 heat per shot.

OR

Technician

Primary 1   Redox-02
Primary 2   Hawkins RPR
Prestige     Flak Cannon
Secondary Helix Repair Augmentation Torch

Ability Amplification
Increase the buff/debuff of the Helix Augmentation Torch by 3% for 10 seconds usable every 60 seconds.

Change the Helix Augmentation Torch so that it shoots a mildly elastic beam up to 50m that can buff allies' targeting speed/overheat recovery time/reload times and reduce damage taken by 3% OR debuff the enemies' targeting speed/overheat recovery time/reload time and increase damage by 3%. Also generates 5 heat per second of use.

[tektzby]

Can someone tell me reall reason why tekies should be nerfed or its just becoause its one and only suppro mech in game_! I tried it and i can tell this bot is perfectly balanced throud overheat/low armor side of it.

[Sylhiri]

Someone coined the idea of a defensive buff instead of healing, generally does the same thing but your target will need to repair at some point (repair changes, manual repair) as will you. If we keep the sticky beam then I think this is one of the best alternatives. Of course you have to modify it to lessen the effect of the beam when using it with turret modes as the new internals would make it very overpowered if you add it all up. I wouldn't like a sticky beam but redoing how a gun functions seems to give the devs (at least the boys in programming) a sad face.

@GomaDn  I disagree on adding the best cqc burst weapon to a support mech. It's support and all it's guns it has now is more of a "Oh ****" alternative if caught in a corner. There would be no reason to use Redox or RPR when paired with the Flak, you'd see a lot more "battle" techs and you can't balance it for tech usage as it would directly effect other mechs that use the same weapon. Tech will have a new weapon, I'm pretty sure of it because it's in the same state that the Sharpshooter was in before the Reaper.

I'm not entirely sure about the health orb idea as well with the current internals. I'm sure they will nerf the Repair Kit and Extractor at some point but who knows how much and when. Currently, if you have the orbs laying around even an A class can tank like a C due to the regen rate and added health.

Edited by Sylhiri, September 22 2013 - 07:28 AM.

[tektzby]

What about this, just make sticky healing beam shorter. Honesly to all who thing tekies needs change, boyos try them you will basicaly overheat every "few second" when u healing.

Edited by tektzby, September 22 2013 - 07:35 AM.

[GOmaDn]

@Sylhiri
You don't want the techs to spend the entire match healing their teammates, you don't want the techs to be able to fight on an even footing with the mechs they are most likely to face in combat, just what role do you think they should have_

I chose the flak because techs tend to be stuck in corners while healing to avoid fire from the front lines. Their biggest worry comes from flanking mechs which tend to be infils, scouts, and raiders. Each of which is capable of dealing massive burst damage and escaping before the situation becomes too rough, not to mention starting with no heat unlike the tech who was just healing the heavy in front. So yeah, give the tech 3 or 4 shots from a flak before overheating at least.

I also happen to like being a combat medic; able to keep the members of my team in the fight a little bit longer or jump into the fray if it starts to get hairy. Isn't part of the problem you have with techs that the only thing they're good at is being toilet paper for heavies_

The repair orb is a double-edged sword though. Anyone can use them that can get to them. Same thing with the internals that increase the orb healing. Being able to fire them from a gun just makes the tech have to think about placement in order to prevent attackers from benefiting as well.

[Sylhiri]

GOmaDn, on September 22 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

@Sylhiri
You don't want the techs to spend the entire match healing their teammates, you don't want the techs to be able to fight on an even footing with the mechs they are most likely to face in combat, just what role do you think they should have_

Support. Making a Scout that can heal is not a support role. It has a debuff gun and a gun that does low sustain damage is fine because your primary role is to assist others. It should have an impact in a match as much as any other mech, it should be no more or no less then that.

GOmaDn, on September 22 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

I chose the flak because techs tend to be stuck in corners while healing to avoid fire from the front lines. Their biggest worry comes from flanking mechs which tend to be infils, scouts, and raiders. Each of which is capable of dealing massive burst damage and escaping before the situation becomes too rough, not to mention starting with no heat unlike the tech who was just healing the heavy in front. So yeah, give the tech 3 or 4 shots from a flak before overheating at least.

It's weakness is cqc. If i'm healing a Brawler with my continually healing beam (or heal orb ball gun thing), I have a gun that does secondary type damage with a fast fire rate, it's also hitscan and one of the best peekaboo weapons. That means I'm healing myself and the brawler while doing massive damage. If we focus fire on one mech, he only has a short time to live. In the case where both of the mechs target the tech, it's guaranteed that one of them goes down with a high chance that the other one will be severely injured as the brawler never needed to worry about health. It's over 400 damage in the first initial shot and near 250 per double flak shot.

Now imagine a Tech+EOC raider. Not to mention item usage, which is better for a combo like the tech since you have a moving healing orb.

Edited by Sylhiri, September 22 2013 - 02:35 PM.

[Kithkinlord]

Not really sure what every one is unhappy about, the tecnician is very squishy. i play tecnician alot, i find most of the time all i can do is look at my allies butt and hope i'm not getting flanked. if anything i think the tec needs a small speed buff and the ability to see more then the 90degree with out losing his lock maybe 270 or something like that. i think alot of people dont like tecs because they dont often have one of their team.

[GOmaDn]

@sylhiri
Ok. what kind of support should it provide then_ And how are you measuring impact on the match_ Any support it provides will unbalance combat in the recipients favor.

I highly recommend not flanking from the front. It kind of defeats the purpose and completely eliminates the element of surprise. Walking in front of a brawler is not the best way to kill the tech behind it. Try approaching from their blindside and alpha-striking the tech as you run around a corner. Then check to see if the brawler is chasing or even noticed that the tech is no longer there, and if not, spray a couple rounds all over its backside to clear the point for your team. Even if the brawler does notice, it turns too slow to be able to save the tech in most occasions and will then be facing fire from two directions (something no turreted mech wants to do because of the huge damage increase from one side). There is absolutely no reason you should be able to approach a defended position from the front without having a greatly increased chance of being killed.

[Volitle]

Classic. People complain about no skill techs, when it really takes no skill at all to target one and kill their measly 510 armor. While we're on the note of stupid arguments, are you gonna complain about the damage increase for turrets from behind too_ I mean it's too easy to kill them from behind, and therefore needs a buff/nerf, right_

[Sylhiri]

GOmaDn, on September 22 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

@sylhiri
Ok. what kind of support should it provide then_ And how are you measuring impact on the match_ Any support it provides will unbalance combat in the recipients favor.

Impact on the match means that having one mech while the other team does not doesn't mean that the entire gameplay revolves around killing that mech. One team can have a sharpshooter and it doesn't effect the enemy team that much, they don't have to go out of their way to kill the sharpshooter before killing someone else. A tech that needs to pause or plan ahead to use his secondary (like every other secondary) would allow for the enemy team to counter that, it would give the tech more leeway in survival. Instant healing all the time doesn't add anything to the fight, it just makes the healed mech invulnerable unless outnumbered. Right now you can even turn a fight between a enemy with 20% health left (1v0.2) into 1v2 once the green beam is pulled out. If a scout came to the aid of an infiltrator (20% health) it would end up as a 1v1.2, you can still kill the infil and work on the scout (or escape if need be).

I honestly don't think we'll see eye to eye, it's looking like no matter what I say you won't consider what I'm saying.