230 replies to this topic

[Hyginos]

After re-watching some of my old footage I think if damage disables orb pickup it would have to be more like 1-2 seconds than .5-1 seconds. Particular these cases here and here make me think something in the 1.0 - 1.2 second range would be good.

Edited by Hyginos, 28 July 2016 - 09:22 AM.

[devotion]

i don't really care for orb disable on damage. orb usage in combat can lend some strategic depth to the game if you're careful about the numbers; i think that decreasing orb intake is the better design approach overall.

[Charcoal]

I'd like to see the Orb movable,like a pool ball.

 

Orb Lord? TOW or Grenade the Orb away, or to your teammates.

 

By making it a stealable/movable item, it'd add a dimension to placement strategy.

Edited by Charcoal, 28 July 2016 - 10:05 AM.

[StubbornPuppet]

What if, when you stood in the 'orb', it drained the 'orb' while standing on top of it, even if you are full armor? This would mean the orb would still heal you while it exists in the game world. This would help curb the benefit from multiple orbs in the same location, as they would be constantly be draining while standing in them.  This change would also give some incentive to move around instead of 'tanking' hits from inside the orb, as to not drain the orb's power.

 

As a note, all other mechanics surrounding the orb, including the health recovery rate, drain rate with multiple players touching the orb, and other related mechanics would still apply.

 

It seems like a simplistic change that would reduce the effectiveness of 'orblording'. What are your thoughts?

 

 

A problem I see with having them constantly draining when in contact with a mech is that it damages the concept of throwing an orb for other teammates to use.  I like to throw orbs down in places that I know my teammates will benefit from passing over them while trying to hold an objective like the AA.  Most of these places are choke-points or corners, so having them drain anytime someone steps on them would really waste them.

 

Now, I can see where the argument could be made that "players will need to be more thoughtful of where they walk"... but I'm just not sure this is a mechanic I would want to change that way.

 

Perhaps the approach I would take is two-fold:

1. Adjust orbs so that they can only be deployed 1 at a time per player - where, even if your cool-down timer for deploying an orb has run out, you cannot deploy another if the first one is still existing.  This would force a player to be very thoughtful of where and when they deploy them, because if they run off from where they put one before it is drained or disappears, they'd have to find it and drain it... or wait for it to vanish before they could use another.

 

2. IF you're going to make them constantly drain, even when at full health, while being stood on - make it so that only happens to the person who deployed the orb.  That way, other players won't ruin the orbs unintentionally and those who do need the orbs teammates are dropping for them can take advantage of that.  It would also foster a teamwork mechanic that is sorely lacking at times.

[TheButtSatisfier]

i don't really care for orb disable on damage. orb usage in combat can lend some strategic depth to the game if you're careful about the numbers; i think that decreasing orb intake is the better design approach overall.

 

As an observation: if orb healing was disabled on damage, then I imagine that orbs would only be less viable in open combat. Their viability in corner play probably wouldn't be affected to the same degree.

 

I don't have a particular attachment to the suggestion of disabling orb healing on damage, but I figured that its worth exploring the potential changes in gameplay mechanics.

[Hyginos]

i don't really care for orb disable on damage. orb usage in combat can lend some strategic depth to the game if you're careful about the numbers; i think that decreasing orb intake is the better design approach overall.

 

Can you elaborate on that? It seem to me that being able to pick up orbs in combat effects your positioning with respect to the orb, but so does not being able to. They just have different a effect on the same thing.

 

I would also note that if the disable time is something near 1 second that gives you plenty of time to pick up some HP if you've turn capped someone, rubbed their attention off on someone else, or even dodged a volley from something like a heat scout. It's short enough that it may not have even made a difference in, for example, the reaper fight I posted before.

 

With that said I definitely agree that tweaking numbers is a viable option.

[MomOw]

I do appreciate the fact that the team ask the players about balance. But I'm a bit puzzled.

I'm don't get some devs choice about the Console release of hawken.

The PC competitive community banned the orblording builds (no extractors, no repair kit), and discussed a lot about how repair charge should be nerfed.

The console released put emphasis on orblord build on some C-class buy setting default (fixed) loadout to true orblord, and in the meantime buffed repair charge with the "mkII/MkIII" versions.

 

To balance orblording, what are the assumptions we have to take into account ? fixed loadouts as per console release ? extractors / repair kit allowed in competitive games ? Should it be balanced for 1 vs 1 duels ? Team vs team ?

 

Most good points have already been said, and the proposed modification in the OP, which most see as just a quick and dirty fix, wont solve everything, even if it is still a modification in the good direction.

Edited by MomOw, 28 July 2016 - 10:54 AM.

[Kopra]

After re-watching some of my old footage I think if damage disables orb pickup it would have to be more like 1-2 seconds than .5-1 seconds. Particular these cases here and here make me think something in the 1.0 - 1.2 second range would be good.

 

I would advocate for 2 seconds because that would let every primary weapon (even slower firing ones like the EOC) be able to interrupt healing and it's more in line with other in/out of combat heal timers.

[devotion]

Can you elaborate on that?

having an orb out in combats usually means you're forced to make a decision: do you stick with the orb and it's placement for better or worse, or do you make full advantage of all movement options and not have the orb? historically, with extractor, it's almost always correct to just take the orb. it hardly matters if your positioning is suboptimal, because you regen at pretty much the same rate that a slug ss can deal dps.

 

if you halt orb uptake on damage, you either make the duration you can't heal so long where you effectively cannot heal in open combat, or so short that you can get a little in provided misses (but likely nothing to plan around). the former means that your correct option of play is to always prioritize your own positioning (and thereby eliminating the "choice" of staying/leaving), whereas the latter functions as an indirect nerf to burst and an indirect buff to sustain (sustain having a higher refire rate/being more forgiving of misses, making it more likely to refresh the no heal condition).

 

if you decrease orb uptake altogether, you leave several existing mechanics and incentives intact. it's still worthwhile to pre-orb a fight, but the reward is lessened. as an opposing force, you can still elect not to engage while the orbs are active (the mirrored dilemma), but pushing becomes a more reasonable option than it has been in the past. it not only leaves, but magnifies the original orb dilemma as well; do i focus my movements around this small, focal point (for less reward than ever), or do i consider my actions with all movement options available?

 

also, it leaves a little play available for consecutive engagements. if you kill someone and are put into the position where you're back into the fire, you have a reward for killing the first person: their orb. it allows you a little leeway in this scenario, rather than to just get killed and watch them take both orbs.

 

if you asked me personally, i would say that these decision trees lend worthwhile depth to the game. orbs being available after every death means that it's a huge aspect of hawken's play; these options are present numerous times in every game. i think it could be a step in the wrong direction to make an overly heavy-handed change that could have an appreciable effect on the feel/flow of gameplay.

Edited by devotion, 28 July 2016 - 11:09 AM.

[Kopra]

It's also worth noting that the Rookie mech has the Repair Kit but carries no orbs to capitalize on that (have fun in Siege). One could say that's a... rookie mistake.

The Repair Kit could use some changes to be more universal and not require the orb item to be used effectively.

[Hyginos]

having an orb out in combats usually means you're forced to make a decision: do you stick with the orb and it's placement for better or worse, or do you make full advantage of all movement options and not have the orb? historically, with extractor, it's almost always correct to just take the orb. it hardly matters if your positioning is suboptimal, because you regen at pretty much the same rate that a slug ss can deal dps.

 

if you halt orb uptake on damage, you either make the duration you can't heal so long where you effectively cannot heal in open combat, or so short that you can get a little in provided misses (but likely nothing to plan around). the former means that your correct option of play is to always prioritize your own positioning (and thereby eliminating the "choice" of staying/leaving), whereas the latter functions as an indirect nerf to burst and an indirect buff to sustain (sustain having a higher refire rate/being more forgiving of misses, making it more likely to refresh the no heal condition).

 

if you decrease orb uptake altogether, you leave several existing mechanics and incentives intact. it's still worthwhile to pre-orb a fight, but the reward is lessened. as an opposing force, you can still elect not to engage while the orbs are active (the mirrored dilemma), but pushing becomes a more reasonable option than it has been in the past. it not only leaves, but magnifies the original orb dilemma as well; do i focus my movements around this small, focal point (for less reward than ever), or do i consider my actions with all movement options available?

 

You still have to choose whether to contest the orb though, you would just contest it by applying enough pressure that the enemy can't grab heals from it rather than standing on it yourself. The choices are much closer together functionally but I would argue that the choice still exists.

 

Not being able to heal in open combat is sorta the point of the change I suggested, as that seems to be the crux of the issue for a lot of people.

 

The point about death orbs is something I had not considered. Disabling pickup would definitely close off some aggressive options in addition to making vultures easier. This does have the potential to slow the pace down a bit at the top end, though unfortunately that seems to be leagues out of RLD's scope of consideration.

 

I guess the question becomes if reloaded wants to make extractor an internal that is great between combat but bad in combat (like reconstructor), or sorta good at both (like armor fusor). Making them great in combat but bad out of combat seems like it would take a total upheaval mechanically, and it would push out deflectors and fuel converter so it seems safe to rule that out.

 

A repair kit fix needs to happen regardless of what other tweaks are implemented to balance orb pickup IMO.

Edited by Hyginos, 28 July 2016 - 11:50 AM.

[devotion]

I guess the question becomes if reloaded wants to make extractor an internal that is great between combat but bad in combat (like reconstructor), or sorta good at both (like armor fusor).

balancing both orbs and extractor meaningfully is a pipe dream. i stand by my suggestions here to remove extractor so there's at least a shot of making orbs manageable.

[Hyginos]

balancing both orbs and extractor meaningfully is a pipe dream. i stand by my suggestions here to remove extractor so there's at least a shot of making orbs manageable.

 

Fair, but removing something from the game outright (as much as it would be nice: fuzzy bunny scanner) is bound to create problems. I would argue that a huge mechanical rework is a preferable option to flat out deletion.

 

In the vein of effectively removing the extractor: is the in-combat orb pickup rate without any orb internals acceptable as it is now? Can any other TPG players chime in here about how things went after the repair-kit/extractor bans after season 2? 

 

Right now the technician heals less for a few seconds after it takes damage. Maybe instead of disabling orb pickup on taking damage you could just disable the extractor for a few seconds. Might even be able to use the same code that governs the reconstructor.

Edited by Hyginos, 28 July 2016 - 12:07 PM.

[eth0]

The proposed solution does not fix the issue of a mech being functionally invincible with a full orb build while it is standing on 2+ orbs. In my opinion, taking damage should prevent a mech from getting any heals from orbs at all for about 500-1000 ms, much like it stops healing while a mech is repairing. Literally just re-use the code that makes a mech stop healing for a second when it takes damage in repair mode.

 

Does this resonate with anyone else? It does for me, in my (limited) experience.

 

I think this is the best suggestion so far.

 

What Hyginos said. Outside of orbs and armor fusor, every other form of healing (repair, tech beam, reconstructor, Brawler turret) is interrupted or diminished by taking damage AKA entering combat. Why are orbs an exception to this?

[Flifang]

I have just a few ideas that after skimming through a lot of all this I didn't immediately see.

 

1. I feel like orb on death is somewhat out of place and could be removed.

2. If not, I feel like the orb on death should be the only orb you can get, or make the item orb significantly less powerful. There are no other internals in game that have synergy with an item. Quite a few internals however, reward or give an effect when certain, purely combat related things occur. 

3. Make orbs have a similar "black hole" effect to the shield if and when you attempt to place items within their hitbox. this could reduce orb stacking but I'm not really confident this is a good fix at all just an idea.

 

My biggest issue with the orb lording is that it is plain better to use it than 90% of the other healing alternatives for about any mech. The exception of course being a predator that is being played as an assassin and not as a skirmisher or a technician who racks up many assists and could potentially get more use from re-constructor or armorfuser.

 

The things I would focus on fixing is pretty much what others have suggested. Definitely change the orb-lord internals themselves, by making them non-compatible with each other, and/or reducing their effectiveness in some way via a condition that is combat related or an overall reduction. The only other thing I could see working is change the armor gained to be percentage based like the armorfuser, which is the only other healing alternative that comes close to competing with the orbs for on the fly aggro healing.

And the second big thing would be changing the orbs themselves in some fundamental way that would reduce a player's ability to almost completely rely on them to survive and win a firefight. Whether that's a mechanics change that the OP purposed, or a total health percentage (or damage percentage) based amount of healing, something needs to be tweaked.

 

One more thing I thought of was changing the orb lord internals to something else entirely that's not completely unique to internals in interacting with an item so much. Maybe have a repair kit increase any amount of healing received by a small amount per tick when outside of combat. Fundamentally changing the extractor could work too. I was thinking change it so it increases the range at which a player can gather eu and orbs from a location. Or we could just change it to a siege based internal but I fear that if customization is limited and mechs are given set internals that it would take away from a mech's ability to perform on any other gamemode due to being an internal down from everyone.

 

One last idea came to mind while I was ending this and it was maybe changing the on-death orbs to be scattered in very small orbletts in an area around the slain player in a similar way the battleship in siege scatters eu when it is destroyed. The smaller orbs would have much less "health" and would benefit a lot less from percentage based increases in effectiveness. 

 

Edit: Yes, an A-class can tank a lot of damage on multiple orbs, but you can't outheal a one-shot 

Edited by Flifang, 28 July 2016 - 01:05 PM.

[comic_sans]

First, thanks for being consistently clear, up-front, and detailed with your posts about the game's mechanics so far.  Your brand of community interaction is the exact kind all of us whiners want and have been asking for since ADH days.

 

About the proposed change: I'm down to give it a shot as long as you guys are down to try something else if it doesn't work.

[Lunatic_Fringe]

I have the same impression.

CL Man suggested moving on off orb quickly is equated to skillful movement.

I'm ok with the mechanic especially if it is easy to build, it'll leave more capacity for other pc changes, he said with quiet insistence C05.

Plus it'll make Scout the true orblord and Crafty/Poop will finally be right.

[JeffMagnum]

What about making it so that the healing rate doesn't stack if you're on multiple orbs as well as introducing a mechanic that causes the armor per second you repair to fall off with distance from the center of them? That would allow Repair Charges and death orbs to get you back into fights quickly if you repair directly on them behind cover while also significantly reducing their effectiveness in combat and preventing the effective invulnerability that more than one gives you in an intuitive way.

[CZeroFive]

First, thanks for being consistently clear, up-front, and detailed with your posts about the game's mechanics so far.  Your brand of community interaction is the exact kind all of us whiners want and have been asking for since ADH days.

 

About the proposed change: I'm down to give it a shot as long as you guys are down to try something else if it doesn't work.

 

We're definitely listening to you guys, and we're totally down to try out multiple ideas if the original proposed plan doesn't work or feels horrible. We wouldn't have opened the discussion if I was simply telling you 'this is what we're doing, and you have to live with it, look at what we did it's awesome', as that would have been unfair to the community.

 

I think the 'damage disabling repair' change proposed here makes a lot of sense - having your mech damaged should stop any form of repairing, and 'orbs on the ground' should count as repairing. This would turn the orbs into a 'mobile repair station' that can be depleted as opposed to a shield from incoming damage. When repairing with an orb, you can quickly react to any incoming damage as opposed to a stationary repair that makes you vulnerable. Orb internals would hasten the repair process instead of providing health over time during combat.

 

This kind of feedback is precisely why we asked you guys your opinions. Do you see any downside to the above change? It may shorten the length of fights, but that's expected when orblord builds are actually dying.

[Daronicus]

Just a note that I agree with everyone saying internals need to be addressed in addition to the orbs.  Right now, there are a lot of ways to impact effective health in the game, and balancing them all both against and with each other makes for something of a nightmare.  Repair kit+extractor are so powerful together that it makes it difficult to make one alone worthwhile without making both together overpowered (note:  I think they're both overpowered alone right now, which compounds the problem).

 

As for actual orb changes, I kinda like the idea of making it time-based rather than health-based, where it heals anyone around it for a flat rate but only exists for a short time, but I'm not sure that actually fixes any problems with it without introducing its own balance issues.  Kinda spit-balling on that one.

 

Right now, I'd take the proposed change, but a lot of that has to do with wanting anything at all to decrease the power of orbs.  I'm not about to let perfect get in the way of good.

[PsychedelicGrass]

I agree with the suggestion to prevent orbs from healing for a short time after taking damage. Start low and gradually increase the delay until it feels right maybe?



The original idea of drawing from orbs even at full health is much better than what we have now but I feel like there's too much potential for the orbs to be wasted accidentally/intentionally and it'd be easy to circumvent that mechanic by stepping off the orb when not needed, as I think almost everyone else mentioned


Internals should be reworked, definitely shouldn't be able to use repair kit and extractor together and a nerf might be good.


Also I don't think you should be able to heal from multiple orbs at once, or if you can the rate of healing should be the same as a single orb. Sitting on two orbs with an extractor gives you such a high rate of healing that in some cases you'll be gaining health while multiple enemies lay into you as if their weapons shoot tiny orbs.


Perhaps a delay after healing from an orb before you can draw from another? There could be a certain threshold of hp obtained from an orb before this takes effect.. for example say you take 50hp from an orb and stop drawing from it for whatever reason or you use all of it or J disappears.. you then cannot draw health from ANY orbs for like 5 seconds or whatever would be balanced, I dunno.




Orbs should be there to help mitigate some damage during combat, not heal yourself completely while fighting.

Edited by PsychedelicGrass, 28 July 2016 - 03:20 PM.

[crockrocket]

balancing both orbs and extractor meaningfully is a pipe dream. i stand by my suggestions here to remove extractor so there's at least a shot of making orbs manageable.

 

Fair, but removing something from the game outright (as much as it would be nice: fuzzy bunny scanner) is bound to create problems. I would argue that a huge mechanical rework is a preferable option to flat out deletion.

 

Could also make extractor a more niche internal and have it only work for EU. That still removes it from every mode except SG and co-op but at least you aren't completely removing content.

[Hyginos]

I think the 'damage disabling repair' change proposed here makes a lot of sense - having your mech damaged should stop any form of repairing

 

Armor Fusor is in a reasonably good place though so be careful.

 

As another alternative, I notice that we don't have any internals that do anything with heat. Perhaps after fixing repair kit rework extractor to do something with heat instead of pickup speed. For example, you could have -10% damage taken while overheated, +run speed based on how much heat you have, or it could vent some heat with a kill and/or assist, or some other combination of those.

 

I would also suggest that, depending on the severity of the extractor changes and healing nerfs, the repair charge item be brought down to the same healing capacity as the mech soul dropped on death.

 

On further consideration of the points devotion made against the idea of a complete disable on damage I think I agree with him. Picking up the death orb allows for a refreshing dose of calculated aggression in a game where defensive play is heavily rewarded. Disabling only the extractor on damage (along with a mild stat tweak of base orb capacity/pickup or extractor values) could be an elegant and minimally invasive solution.

 

But if you fixed repair kit and made extractor do something with heat instead of orbs you would suddenly be free to balance the repair rate and capacity of orbs without fear of having to change much else.

[crockrocket]

 +run speed based on how much heat you have

 

+1 give incin battle turkey speeds

Edited by crockrocket, 28 July 2016 - 04:00 PM.

[JeffMagnum]

My problem with them not healing while a player is taking damage as well as with your initial change to a lesser extent is that positioning effectively around orbs is an integral part of fighting especially against multiple enemies that allows for more fluid and satisfying combat with less downtime. Having no way to handle small amounts of damage without Armor Fusor as long as someone can tickle you with an SMC from across the map would also be annoying. My suggestion would address all the issues brought up that cause orblording to be so dominant and frustrating in a more immediately obvious and visually-representable way than the other proposed ideas while keeping Repair Kit and Extractor viable options (but not overwhelmingly strong ones even when combined since you'd no longer have effective invulnerability if orbs are drawn from consecutively instead of simultaneously) as internals. It'd also indirectly bring burst weapons up in power without adjusting stats as continuously dancing around an orb in the open doing sustained DPS would be less effective at extraction than intermittently moving off and on one deployed behind cover would be.

[_incitatus]

I don't like the idea of disabling healing from orbs when taking damage.

The problem is the internals. Especially when stacked. When these internals were banned from TPG, most of us stopped using them all together. It made a noticeable difference. Orblording was a non issue in TPG S3 - Because the problem is the internals.

Changing the way everyone heals just to address the orblord brawler in howken just doesn't make sense. (Assuming we can't customize mechs)

Not saying the heal rates or the healing capacity on orbs shouldn't be tweaked, just not in response to a problem that only affects a couple mechs in howken.

Also, disabling healing from orbs while taking damage doesn't make sense mechanically. When you hit c to heal, there is a drone physically repairing your mech. It makes sense that taking damage would disrupt a healing drone. But orbs are simply absorbed, so why would taking damage affect that?

Edit: I forgot about how the techs beam is affected when the tech or the patient is being damaged. Perhaps slowing the healing rate when damaged while sitting on an orb could work, but stopping it completely would be taking it too far.

Edited by _incitatus, 28 July 2016 - 08:01 PM.

[Daronicus]

Didn't see Jeff's post before I put mine up, but I actually really like that idea.

[talon70]

This is a great thread to address a huge issue. I just want to add as an objective observer, I think the devs should bring the TPG folks in to test a few solutions then discuss and tweak the best one before changing the game.

 

Thanks CZeroFive

[HubbaBubba9849]

Almost every healing mechanic in the game is affected by shooting the healing target. Healing gained by 'C' gets interrupted for a short time after taking damage,

This. This is a big part of the solution. Make it so getting shot stops orb absorption for a second.

[Charcoal]

Seriously, make it a movable item

 

:)

[-Tj-]

 

I think the 'damage disabling repair' change proposed here makes a lot of sense - having your mech damaged should stop any form of repairing, and 'orbs on the ground' should count as repairing. This would turn the orbs into a 'mobile repair station' that can be depleted as opposed to a shield from incoming damage. When repairing with an orb, you can quickly react to any incoming damage as opposed to a stationary repair that makes you vulnerable. Orb internals would hasten the repair process instead of providing health over time during combat.

 

Do you see any downside to the above change? It may shorten the length of fights, but that's expected when orblord builds are actually dying.

 

You can also react quickly to incoming damage when repairing, since getting shot in the slightest makes you able to dodge out of repair instantly. Making it so that the orbs stop repairing players who are getting shot would change the way the game currently plays not just for orblord builds, but for ALL builds. The game is especially fluid when enough practice is put in, and having orbs around that can heal you in the thick of battle means you don't necessarily need to leave combat completely to repair or fight to the death without hope of survival. The orblord build itself has a tendency to negate the "death" part to the point where it's nigh impossible to destroy a player standing on several orbs (though this can be true when there's more than one orb doing the repairing even without the orblord internals). Orbs can also be dropped on players in battle to increase their fight potential for just long enough to win the battle. Changing the way orbs heal mechs would definitely change this for the worse, and it's not something I would like to see go away.

 

If you first limit the rate at which the orbs can heal, no matter how many are doing the healing, then you can use the other internals to boost that limit. There's already a mechanic in the game that kinda does this: the EU stations. If more than one mech attempts to absorb EU from the station, the EU amount is divided amongst the mechs absorbing it. Similarly, albeit in a reverse way, if one mech is absorbing from 3 orbs, I don't see why the mech couldn't just repair at the same rate as 1 orb. This way, I don't even think you'd need to change the orblord internals much at all... they'd only increase the orb absorption rate by a a little.

 

To me, this would be the best solution. Orblord builds won't be as viable, but they'd still increase the amount of repair, the general flow of battle won't be messed with by much, and the internals will serve the purpose a lot of us had hoped internals would serve by being slighter upgrades as opposed to granting godlike powers.

 

Edit:

Adding to the part where one mech repairing would only repair at the rate of one orb, if multiple mechs are repairing from one or more orbs, each should also have the same rate of repair. If it's 40hp/sec, then that should be it for all mechs, till the orbs are depleted.

Edited by -Tj-, 28 July 2016 - 09:23 PM.

[ArchMech]

but it'd be so much easier* to balance it if you just gave up and unplugged the servers!

Edited by ArchMech, 28 July 2016 - 11:00 PM.

[crockrocket]

If you first limit the rate at which the orbs can heal, no matter how many are doing the healing, then you can use the other internals to boost that limit. There's already a mechanic in the game that kinda does this: the EU stations. If more than one mech attempts to absorb EU from the station, the EU amount is divided amongst the mechs absorbing it. Similarly, albeit in a reverse way, if one mech is absorbing from 3 orbs, I don't see why the mech couldn't just repair at the same rate as 1 orb. This way, I don't even think you'd need to change the orblord internals much at all... they'd only increase the orb absorption rate by a a little.

 

 

I think this would actually work if we had higher pop

[Draigun]

I agree that the initial change proposed by the OP would solve one aspect of orblording, but not all of them. I also have mixed feelings of implementing such a low level change to the game.

 

Initially, it was a change that made absolute sense to me, but after some forethought, I am no longer taking that stance. I feel that even though the change would solve one problem of orb-lording, it also affects other parties that have nothing to do with orblording. For example, when not running orblord and when you take insurmountable amount of damage, the orb will not give you an advantage�in fact, it would be far more better to establish a better position. But, are the orbs useless? Not at all�there have been numerous times where you re-position yourself towards the orb located in the back, waiting for your opponent to engage from the side; in the end, you are almost on equal footing. I think this aspect of the game is something that shouldn't be taken away.

 

By no means am I saying that the proposed change removes this. But I do think it's going to just promote a more convoluted form of combat in the game. It's a bit silly that you have to avoid an orb to preserve it. It's also counterintuitive, since many think that the orbs can give you more armor.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a nerf to the internals that are directly responsible for orb lording. Restricting the components for player combinations (builds) probably isn't a good idea though, regardless. Revolving a build around an internal isn't necessarily bad for the game, but rather it's the way that internal's effect is implemented into the game. As it happens, armor is a very important resource that should ideally be kept at maximum at all times. Orb lording is an issue because there exists internals that allow an excessive amount of HP to be gained.

 

So how do you nerf orblording without affecting the internals or HP values? Implementing the same mechanism as repairing would certainly do that. But is this what the game should be in the future? Just like the first solution proposed by the OP, I find this change to be counterintuitive to the game's combat design. On the other hand, I do recognize that for better or for worse, it will force a different positional and movement strategy; orbs that aren't in the open are far more valuable than orbs on the frontlines. It's still possible to heal from an orb in the middle of the battlefield. In some cases, perhaps you will see some benefit to draining an orb even when in combat.

 

Nerf the internals responsible for orblording, and if you have an (or all, depends) orblord internal(s) equipped, disallow regeneration while taking damage for x amount of seconds. On the subject of the build's hidden, "second nature" regeneration aspect: implement the same time delay when you manually deploy an orb globally for all orbs on the battlefield.

Edited by Draigun, 29 July 2016 - 12:42 AM.

[harmless_kittens]

I agree that nerfing orbs in general is not the solution, because that affects more than orb-lording, which is the real problem.  It is the internals which need to be nerfed/fixed, not orbs in general.

 

(And remove Tech.  Sorry.  Can't help myself.  I REALLY hate that mech.)

[TheButtSatisfier]

Making it so that the orbs stop repairing players who are getting shot would change the way the game currently plays not just for orblord builds, but for ALL builds.

 

The more I think about it, the more I agree with this statement. Many of us probably take the current orb meta for granted - there would be significantly less open play if damage disrupted orb heals. Jeff's argument that damage interrupts further widens the utility gap of burst vs sustain is also a really concerning point.

 

In retrospect, I'm agreeing more with the sentiment that the issue isn't orbs - it's the internals themselves. Hyginos pointed out that the repair kit not only increases the amount of HP received per orb, but that the siphon time is still the same - which means you get more HP/S, and that a repair kit is essentially an extractor in it's own right.

 

In my opinion, any changes to address orblording should be small and incremental. The repair kit should be changed so that it doesn't act like an extractor (meaning that the health received per second from an orb is the same as a mech without the repair kit). Reduce the bonuses for both the extractor and repair kit to a degree that they're not such appealing picks. By doing this, the balancing attempts only affect the core issue.

Edited by TheButtSatisfier, 29 July 2016 - 08:58 AM.

[_incitatus]

What if orb healing was only interrupted when you have the orblord internals equipped?  You can heal super fast, but there's a trade off involved AND it only affects the orblord meta mechs...

[TheButtSatisfier]

What if orb healing was only interrupted when you have the orblord internals equipped?  You can heal super fast, but there's a trade off involved AND it only affects the orblord meta mechs...

 

That's a pretty big shift from existing internal mechanics. Currently no internal has a negative characteristic, so I think making an exception for orblord-related internals would be a bit heavy-handed. Reducing the bonuses that the repair kit and extractor provide until they're not such obvious picks (and throttling the HP/S that a repair kit provides) seems like the least disruptive balancing attempt that can be made.

 

The way I think about it, if the repair kit and extractor only provided a 1% bonus for each of their respective mechanics, then nobody would pick them. In their current state, the bonuses they provide are so good that they're obvious picks except in rare circumstances. There has to be a Goldilocks % bonus that is neither too low or high so that they're just as appealing as picking any of the other internals, so it would then come down to playstyle preference to determine what internals a pilot chooses instead of "damn, this is clearly the best loadout, so this is what I'll run".

[_incitatus]

That's a pretty big shift from existing internal mechanics. Currently no internal has a negative characteristic, so I think making an exception for orblord-related internals would be a bit heavy-handed. Reducing the bonuses that the repair kit and extractor provide until they're not such obvious picks (and throttling the HP/S that a repair kit provides) seems like the least disruptive balancing attempt that can be made.

 

The way I think about it, if the repair kit and extractor only provided a 1% bonus for each of their respective mechanics, then nobody would pick them. In their current state, the bonuses they provide are so good that they're obvious picks except in rare circumstances. There has to be a Goldilocks % bonus that is neither too low or high so that they're just as appealing as picking any of the other internals, so it would then come down to playstyle preference to determine what internals a pilot chooses instead of "damn, this is clearly the best loadout, so this is what I'll run".

 

Oh I agree the internals are what should be addressed.  Just tossing that idea out there since we were discussing interrupting orb healing as a possible solution, but that solution would affect all mechs where orb healing isn't really a problem.  My thought was if it went that route to only limit the interruption in healing to the mechs affected by the internals.

 

Nerfing orbs and healing rates across the board really doesn't do much to address the problem IMO since ALL mechs would be affected equally and there would still be a distinct advantage to the orblord setup, possibly making it stronger since the opportunity to pick up health from an orb is reduced.  Picking health up faster and at a higher percentage rate seems like it would be a even more beneficial if orb healing was interrupted on damage.

[phed]

at 40 armor per sec, with a max 120 armor in an orb, this would make the orbs dissipate after 3 secs of "lording" regardless of the number of orbs in the vicinity or the incoming dps...

 

 

i like this idea.

 

 

there's gonna be a lot fewer orbs laying around for anyone, let alone the orblords...