36 replies to this topic

[Ek1981]

Short background about player; I have been around mech games since Mechwarrior 1, got my good deal of FPS since Wolfenstein 3D and started to multiplay since BatMUD. I have played and also own every mech game there is and I have played most of the FPS that are around. I scored a quadra with Incinerator after playing it 10 hours.

B3-AR: BBY aka Baby bear
Has decent damage output, fires when commanded and the buildup is not too bad. No real lead needed and quite easy to learn. Can be used for offence or defense, as needed. Heat build is quite low thinking about the needs of SAARE but that balances it nicely. Surprisingly accurate but as a suppressive fire it is not enough to kill anything on a long shot except if they can't get to cower.
Really good for gunning down low health targets as there are very little damage overhead.

Feedback, wish, suggestion:
Does not really feel like an auto cannon. Seems like only every third barrel is firing. More bullets, less damage per bullet to keep the DPS the same would it feel more like an 'auto' and less a 'cannon'.

B3-AR: PPA aka Papa bear
Does not shoot on command, instead needs a buildup thus the supposedly superior damage is postponed. Also has stronger spread so you need to get closer and to get closer you need to sprint. If you happen to sprint too long, the spin is lost thus cutting your damage significantly. If you stop to shoot one round, you loose the sprint race.
Excellent for gunning down low health targets as there are almost no damage overhead.

Feedback, wish, suggestion:
Does not really feel like a auto cannon. Seems like only every other barrel is firing. More bullets, less damage per bullet to keep the DPS the same would it feel more like an 'auto' and less a 'cannon'.

B3-AR: M4MA aka Mama bear
Again. does not shoot on command, instead needs a long buildup thus the supposedly excellent damage is postponed. Postponed a lot. If you happen to sprint too long, the spin is lost thus cutting your damage drastically. If you stop to shoot one round, you loose the sprint race. If enemy can get you to sprint too long, even a tech can you kill as you need to wait several seconds until the damage starts to be decent. Easily even.
As the shots are small area explosions combined with its accuracy it can hurt targets at the edge of your vision field. Except the projectiles travel so slowly that they can be avoided by walking. At the distance when they travel fast enough to not to be dodged, the enemy is so close they can sprint and hug, thus denying the use of Papa bear or SAARE as they both do area damage thus forcing the user to damage himself. If the enemy has any ways to make non-area damage the incinerators pilot is surely out-damaged and soon dead.
The projectiles also leave visible, distinct line of fire thus giving the shooters position out with a mere glance.
The heat build is excellent as soon as it gets going but that is the only good part of the weapon. It feels more like that it swaps the the secondary weapon and primary weapons roles as M4MA's heat build allows to use SAARE's stronger attacks as frequently as when shooting weaker SAARE attacks with BBY or PPA thus allowing to spit strong area attacks every other second.

To me, this weapon cuts Incinerator's balls as it can henceforth only be used as slow artillery that cant really sprint. Easily avoided artillery with no real teeth. It does not feel nor behave like several tons mech with a auto cannon bolted in to its arm, instead it feels like paintball gun with only semi-auto mode enabled.
If you happen to pilot a mech with superior flight capabilities, fly around Incinerator and watch it pee a red stream around its surroundings. Looks hilarious and is not one bit dangerous.

Feedback, wish, suggestion:
The weapon would be viable if its projectiles would share the speed of previous weapons projectiles i.o. near instant or just really really fast to make it look like stream of bullets. Also having a rate of projectiles that looks and feels like a auto cannon would be beneficial. There are multiple barrels but seems like only one is used and even that is used every second full circle. Of course adjust the other aspects accordingly so that its DPS does not increase.

SAARE
Games slowest moving projectile, even so slow that its fly path seems unreal. With decent skill shots can be used to bring down any opponent, provided they are close enough. Excellent support weapon when used in skirmishes that involves multiple mechs as its alternative (stronger) fire mode can be used lot more frequently because of the surrounding heat build. Great for keeping enemies on their toes and flushing out rabbit holes.
The weapon is ready to shoot when you build enough heat, not when the animation is finished reloading unlike as one would suspect. Although this is only a graphical glitch, it is still providing confusing information to the pilot.

Heat dispersion
Using heat as a resource for the ability is brilliant except when reaching the best damage the mech decides it is overheated and flushes the heat while denying the use both of the ability and SAARE. Which is out right disappointing.
As it has distinct and lengthy animation it enables a pilot with even mediocre reflexes to be able to dodge far enough to cut the damage to next to harmless.
Heat dispersion is most effective if it can be used by sneaking up to a repairing enemy while having almost full heat level. Then again, why not simply shoot a stronger SAARE on it finishing it off and saving you the trip for getting close.
Using heat dispersion middle of a skirmish ensures that everyone targeting the Incinerator are also surely going to hit it and thus it simply blows up before the damage part kicks in. Also a Incinerator rushing middle of a skirmish is also dead give away and also most likely to fail as the surrounding heat build might reach the max level thus denying the use of the ability and making the Incinerator a toothless target until the shutdown is over.

Feedback, wish, suggestion:
Making the animation faster, even instant, and allowing the mech to walk around with full heat level (thus only SAARE and the heat dispersion as a ways to reduce it) would make the ability lot more usable.
Another take would be to remove the stomping animation, simply exploding on command and also explode automaticly when maximum heat level would be reached, thus flushing the heat.
At its present state it is more like a curiosity compared to other abilities as their effects are deployed near instantaneously.

Edited by Ek1981, February 18 2014 - 06:32 PM.

[Silverfire]

Decent feedback, but OP, your sig made my day.

[CptCoy]

I posted a thread on the same topic earlier, your thoughts are a lot more detailed than mine.

In short, I love the Baby as a standard weapon, but the "upgrades" if you can call them that (Mama and Papa) are disappointing and don't really match the benefits I see other mechs getting when they unlock their new weapons. Other mechs get mini-guns and other more dangerous weapons, where these are underpowered, and a hassle to use. I got plenty of kills with Baby consistently, and with Mama it is just a glorified heat generator.

The only benefit to them is the increase in heat generation means you can (read: have to) spam more rockets than ever.

[caduceus26]

 Ek1981, on February 18 2014 - 06:23 PM, said:

snip for length but highly endorsed for clarity and detail!

Excellent analysis on the Incinerator.  Not the usual "Oh kr4p! This mech is so fuzzy bunny!" Helps me understand Issues that I experienced with this mech and its weapons systems but could not properly articulate--the heat dump/shutdown problem and sprint/spin in particular. I like the idea that not only are the problems documented but reasonable recommendations for mitigation are included. As I've said before, I stay with the BBY as the other primaries are disappointing. The ability is highly situational and runs a high risk of non-survivabiliy when used. I tend to pay attention only to the heat bars for my visual cue for secondary readiness so the animation glitch went unnoticed.

As I've said before, I stay with the BBY as the other primaries are disappointing. The ability is highly situational and runs a high risk of non-survivabiliy when used. Because of the animation mismatch I tend to pay attention only to the heat bars for my visual cues for secondary readiness. I really like this mech but I want to love it. It is fun to pilot despite its shortcomings. As a matter of course, I switch to another mech if an Incinerator is already on my team as I feel that two put the team at a severe disadvantage.

Thank you for putting in the work on this.

Edited by caduceus26, February 18 2014 - 09:18 PM.

[motakudgi]

After minor patch 19.02.14 PPA is ok.
MMA still not viable because of extreme low projectile speed.

[CptCoy]

M4MA's heat is now even worse, before it was a sort of plus because unlimited rockets, now you have to spin up and down to keep from overheating, in addition to not being able to keep it spun up because of dodging and low spin up speed when the gun fires once per revolution.

Not one word from anybody on this. I will reiterate once more how disappointed (read: pissed) I am about this weapon. What is the point_

[DesuDesu]

I'm having trouble getting used to the ppa myself, I've tried and tried and tried, but more often than not I lose the spool up that I've been trying to maintain when I have to take cover or dodge a lot of incoming fire. I wish there was a visual indicator somewhere that gave me a better idea of how close the cannon was to being ready to fire and how close it was to resetting the timer. If nothing else it would allow me to decide, "oh, I can engage now, I'm ready to shoot" instead of, "I've been trying to keep this thing spooled up, I guess I'm ready to shoot.. *goes to shoot* nope." I understand that it's a difficult weapon to use, I've been trying and trying and trying tog et used to it, I've played at least fifteen games with it. I know that's a paltry amount, some of you probably picked it up and dominated with it in the first go, blah blah blah. I'm still new to the game as well as to the genre. Historically I have played very few shooters, so I'm still getting in to the mindset of it, but damn, it's starting to get a little frustrating. I suppose the bby made things too easy, but the jump in difficulty seems a bit steep, and I've heard nothing but negative things about the m4ma. I'm starting to think that trying to grind for one won't be worth my time. Granted part of my frustrations might be that so far I've only really played TDM, which makes managing my heat while trying to keep myself spooled up enough to be able to fire when I need it even harder when I stick with my team.

[caduceus26]

Let's concede that the M4MA and PPA weapons require a higher skill to use.  Still, practice as I might these weapons almost guarantee that the opposing team will get to run up its kill tally on you. That along with the broken SAARE functioning correctly in the big shot mode takes a lot of the fun out of this mech. The concept is excellent but the implementation needs some more work.

I'm guessing that we've beat this horse to death and you guys (Devs) have heard us. But I beseech you (now there's a word you don't see on the forums often ) --- Devs! Please, please, please put the fixes for the Incinerator weapons and ability high on your list of things to address in your planned changes!  

It is probably not said often enough --- Thanks for the job that you guys do with this game!

Edited by caduceus26, February 21 2014 - 12:36 PM.

[Arcart]

I support your idea that the Primary weapons need to be adjusted it needs to become somthing like the Point D vulcan since when i first bought the incinerator i was expecting something like that something like the MINIGUN that just sprays endlessly

Saare Alternative mode should be changed to a flametrower that uses the heat so it makes up for the bad damage from the failure alternative primary weapons   aka default mode of Saare stays same for artillery purposes but the alternative mode when the after u press middel mouse button it changes into a flamethrower that uses the heat as fuel for its burning rage
kinda like the original incinerator mech concept suggestion before this was made into an abbomination thats not quite the threat its name makes it out to be

F could be reworked to buff that causes enemy champions to overheat and burn for DoT aka Damage over Time builds little damage and heat overtime  and doubles heat generated by enemy  instead of a useless spammable ability id rather have a longer cooldown and something that can be put to use

Edited by Arcart, February 20 2014 - 01:35 PM.

[Duralumi]

SAARE just needs a projectile speed buff on the uncharged mode and an AoE buff on the charged mode.

[DFTR]

Does the AOE mode now do more damage -80_  Does it have more spread_  

As indicated in the Weapon spreadsheet:
https://docs.google....xPVWthNXc#gid=7

Based on animation, I didn't realize the issue before.  
Wish the Devs would mention fixing things like this on the forum or patch note.

[Duralumi]

Finally got to try the PPA. It's awful.
Spinup time and the heat rate need to be seriously looked at. When a chain gun overheats at the same speed it takes to get going, something's wrong. Even when you spam charged shots you can barely fire for 5 seconds.
It basically goes against the nature of a chaingun as you can't spam bullets for any real amount of time. So why is it one_

Quick-fix suggestion_ Drastically reduce the spin-up time or outright remove it. It'll still be bad, but it won't be as awkward to use.

Bigger suggestion_
Turn it into a 3-shot burst rifle that builds almost enough heat in one burst to fire a charged shot.

EDIT:
Learned how to use the gun ages ago, but I still feel that the spinup time needs to be reduced.

Edited by Duralumi, May 03 2014 - 03:04 AM.

[Hijinks_The_Turtle]

That would make Incin a lot more interesting!  Sure miniguns are fun and all, but I want different weapons that are radically different from each other!

[SkywalkerH]

I try papa gun many times and I just cant trust it in the field. The times it needs to warm up is too long and the times it work's too short. It's not a minigun, it's like a kid try to warm up before he throw a rock.

In my opinion, incinerator more like the expendable unit in the field and I dont care how much time it falls if that can help the team. But at least the minigun should be trust by the pilot .

Just cut the warm up time and let the minigun act as it should like.

Edited by SkywalkerH, February 26 2014 - 01:09 AM.

[Stingz]

PPA is a good concept but the stats fuzzy bunny it over royally.

[5 Heat/Shot, 3 Second overheat, less DPS (, fire rate, damage) than Vulcan.]
The heat is equal to a rotary Seeker, WHY DID YOU DO THIS DEVS!_

Edited by Stingz, February 26 2014 - 09:07 AM.

[Hijinks_The_Turtle]

I still find it rather odd that the BBY has a higher dmg per shot than PPA and it heats up 5 times less than PPA.  It makes no sense to me.

[thebloodgod0]

PPA is amazing, it changes the incinerator's playstyle a lot but its still viable. You just have to learn how to manage the Heat and the spin up time, then combine it with the Butt slam ability.
In case you didnt know, Incinerator with PPA has 210.6 DPS and 140+ burst damage. The only buff this thing needs is the spin up time.

[Tessai]

As I was playing with the BBY it was frustrating to me I couldn't use the alt fire mode on the SAARE consistently since it was doing amazing damage per shot but drained heat way faster than i could gain it.

When I unlocked the PPA and saw how much heat it was building (when it eventually started firing ;p) I instantly realized its potential.

So yeah, When I tried to continuously fire both guns I found out the SAARE alt fire actually couldn't even beat the PPA heat build up. I was totally psyched about this because this meant that with proper heat management the SAARE firerate could be max indefinitely (which was/is crazy to me).

So this is what I started practicing hard and I am now totally comfortable with the PPA / SAARE:

keeping up the spinning in between/before fights and knowing when to stop shooting the PPA briefly to prevent overheats while spamming SAARE alt basically nonstop = holy damage batman.

It took some work but at the moment I'm doing very well in games and multiple people so far have called OP on the incenerator as a result of it which I do enjoy : )

Having said all that... the M4MA is just worse (imo). Primary shooting projectiles with drop off is a con to me but way more importantly the heat building is not high enough to sustain the SAARE alt fire mode at max firerate, which hurts damage and my timing

To conclude, I LOVE the incenerator all thanks to the amazing PPA / SAARE (alt fire) combo and this should sooner be nerfed than buffed imho.

EDIT: Oh right I forgot to mention his ability! I really like it since it can very reliably totally murder those pesky A classes as they try to zoom around you > Hit them with 1-2 SAARE shots and if they are close enough (which they often are as they are trying to fly over you and stuff) focus on heat and go BOOM at the right moment = awesome kill... Add to that an almost non existant cooldown and yep it's awesome.

Edited by Tessai, March 02 2014 - 06:45 PM.

[Hijinks_The_Turtle]

Thanks, but is this in high level play or low level play_  I'm glad for you guys helping me out, but it can be really difficult to use in high level play.  (I hope I didn't insult you guys, asking this.  :c)  I'm level 25 and my MMR is 1430-1550ish(_) I'm pretty sure my MMR is complete garbage.

Edited by Hijinks_The_Turtle, March 02 2014 - 08:06 PM.

[Wasabi_Wei]

I play at the low end of high-level play and it is very team-dependent but the P4PA does ok if you can stay near your team and you understand how long the rotary momentum lasts. It will resume pretty quickly after about 3 seconds, but if you wait 4 or 5 or overheat you are in trouble. Stay in alt-fire mode on the SAARE and don't be shy about lobbing a fireball at an empty corner to keep heat low. If you are spun up you can get more heat pretty quickly.

Edited by Wasabi_Wei, March 02 2014 - 08:21 PM.