27 replies to this topic

[Hecatoncheires]

After failing on both my Bruiser and Rocketeer, I gave up on both of them. I did, however, come up with some ideas on how to possibly improve the hellfire's mechanics with my limited experience.

 

 

Hellfire

Think about each of these ideas separately.

 

1) Air burst - Allow the user to air burst the missiles similar to a tow rocket, but with a larger AoE radius. This would make blind-firing feasible.

 

2) Volley - Each of the hellfire's six(?) missiles fire separately, one at a time. Kind of like the EOC, but at a slower rate. The missiles would continue firing even if you were to boost or dodge directly after firing them.

 

3) Boosting - Allow the user to fire hellfires even while boosting or dodging. To be honest, I have no idea whether or not this is already possible.

 

4) Proximity - Hellfires will detonate if the missiles fall back into positive(edit, woops) range from the target. This would make dodging them more challenging, but would offer more interesting methods of minimizing damage. This would only work if the weapon was locked on.

 

5) Reduce projectile speed and increase fire rate - I feel the missiles move too quickly sometimes. This is just me romanticizing missile trails, though. Course, there's also a believability aspect to it, since a tracking missile moving at a similar speed to the tow is a bit meh. 

 

6) Wider arch - Hate firing the hellfires to the side only for them to correct themselves and go straight into a nearby wall. Would be great if you could quickly charge them in order to get a wider or narrower arch, like a bow's draw strength in other games.

 

7) Unlimited lock-on range - No idea why the mech is classified as 'long-range suppression' when it lacks the former.

 

8) Combination of them all - because, why not.

 

 

Just my thoughts.

Edited by Hecatoncheires, 07 August 2016 - 08:26 PM.

[ArchMech]

make them shoot straight to the ground beneath the shooters feet

[ArchMech]

actually, better idea make them fly all over the map be4 hitting their target

killcam must watch the whole thing

[DemitronPrime]

wait whut...

 

you are saying hellfires need to be EASIER to use? ....

 

 

ummm Im going with no... no no no no....

[Hecatoncheires]

make them shoot straight to the ground beneath the shooters feet

Only if it makes them jump.

 

 

actually, better idea make them fly all over the map be4 hitting their target

killcam must watch the whole thing

That's an airstrike. Sounds awesome.

[Hecatoncheires]

wait whut...

 

you are saying hellfires need to be EASIER to use? ....

 

 

ummm Im going with no... no no no no....

Actually, I just feel they need to be more complex so their use isn't so limited.

[MomOw]

Hellfires "locked on" don't need a buff, it would lead to a slaughter in low MMR server.

 

What should be done is to buff the dumbfire mode : a lower spread and faster initial speed.

[SatelliteJack]

1) Air burst - I feel like since Hellfires already have a tracking utility, airburst is overkill.

 

2) Volley - I really like this idea. I do think though that boosting/dodging should cancel the firing sequence. Besides, this would give you a magazine of sorts. Fire off two shots, boost, fire off two more, reload. Something like that could be interesting.

 

3) Boosting - ^

 

4) Proximity - I like this. Especially for lock-on only.

 

5) Reduce projectile speed and increase fire rate - Fire rate boost sounds good, but projectile speed seems to be right around where it should be. 

 

6) Wider arch - Again, I think the curve is good as is.

 

7) Unlimited lock-on range - This sounds great.

 

8) Combination of them all - Plz no

Edited by SatelliteJack, 07 August 2016 - 09:09 PM.

[Hecatoncheires]

Hellfires "locked on" don't need a buff, it would lead to a slaughter in low MMR server.

 

What should be done is to buff the dumbfire mode : a lower spread and faster initial speed.

 

As much as I agree with you, I don't really care for buffing anything. I'm looking for changes that may help improve the use of the weapon, not strengthen or diminish it. And lowering the spread and increasing the initial speed makes it too similar to the tow rocket/heat cannon, especially when the goal is to highlight its unique features, like the lock-on. Might as well replace the weapon with a tow if you're going to conform it.

 

 

 

1) Air burst - I feel like since Hellfires already have a tracking utility, airburst is overkill.

 

2) Volley - I really like this idea. I do think though that boosting/dodging should cancel the firing sequence. Besides, this would give you a magazine of sorts. Fire off two shots, boost, fire off two more, reload. Something like that could be interesting.

 

3) Boosting - ^

 

4) Proximity - I like this. Especially for lock-on only.

 

5) Reduce projectile speed and increase fire rate - Fire rate boost sounds good, but projectile speed seems to be right around where it should be. 

 

6) Wider arch - Again, I think the curve is good as is.

 

7) Unlimited lock-on range - This sounds great.

 

8) Combination of them all - Plz no

 

Wow, thanks for your input. I really like your idea with the magazine. It would be very cool if the missiles slowly reloaded over time, or had to be charged similar to EOC mines, in order to be refilled for the next volley. Maybe you fire the volley by keeping your button down, and if you let go, the volley stops, leaving you leftover missiles in the launcher tubes. This could really work for higher skill matches, since it would add another level of strategy and give the Rocketeer better dueling ability.

 

I was thinking allowing the volley to continue while boosting/dodging would great for escape or other uses, but I can see how it wouldn't be since it may end up pretty unfair against low-armor mechs. The idea came from games like Armored Core or Gundam or such since I loved the image of firing missile volleys in a stream. 

 

Edited by Hecatoncheires, 07 August 2016 - 11:27 PM.

[DemitronPrime]

Making hellfires more like the eoc COULD be cool but then wouldnt it be much like a seeker?

[Hecatoncheires]

Making hellfires more like the eoc COULD be cool but then wouldnt it be much like a seeker?

I guess you could say that, but it would be a much 'heavier' seeker(which it kind of is already). I don't know, conceptually it is similar, since we're giving it more sustain potential, but it leans more toward inconsistent use. I guess it would probably be better if the launcher didn't reload until all the missiles were fired then.

 

So, you would fire them one at a time by holding down the button, letting go would stop the volley, leaving missiles in their tubes, and holding down the button again would fire from the rest, until the tubes are empty. Once empty, the weapon's delay begins for its reload. etc.

[Anichkov3]

Leave the Hellfire alone. How much longer can mock these weapons? Just add the damage and increase the splash. 

And remember that it is support the mech, and not a tank ... 

[Hecatoncheires]

Leave the Hellfire alone. How much longer can mock these weapons? Just add the damage and increase the splash. 

And remember that it is support the mech, and not a tank ... 

The problem is, even if you buff numerical values, it still isn't doing its job as a suppression weapon(other than stacking). The main strength of the weapon is instilling fear onto locked-on targets, which, I guess has its uses. Also, I don't even think it has splash damage right now.

[dorobo]

Don't mind Anichkov. He's in a conflict of interests.. he plays Rocketeer exclusively

Manages to survive pretty good with whats there now :]

Edited by dorobo, 08 August 2016 - 01:11 AM.

[Anichkov3]

The problem is, even if you buff numerical values, it still isn't doing its job as a suppression weapon(other than stacking). The main strength of the weapon is instilling fear onto locked-on targets, which, I guess has its uses. Also, I don't even think it has splash damage right now.

You want to make another new weapon. Why change the Hellfire? Make new weapons. Look at the example Advanced triple-Seeker ...

https://community.pl...ker/#entry12986

[XFXFuryX]

I really like the Volley idea. I also agree though that boosting should cancel the firing. A toggle to make them fire like the US Javelin would be cool to.

[6ixxer]

IMO it could do with slightly tighter turn radius and better dumbfire.

 

In mid-tier the hellfire isn't anywhere as effective as a tow or grenade.

 

i expect that it still wont be balanced in high tier, but it shouldn't be any worse for noobs getting rekt cos they don't dodge hellfires as they are currently.

[FRX23]

HF are fine.

Just wait for the shot after moving backward and/or apply a curve to the trajectory.

[Flifang]

Make them low damage and function like a sustain weapon with a cooldown time after you do a full volley.

Make them stream out one by one like the OP suggested and make their homing closer to that of the seeker.

 

Or not. I just like this idea a lot.

[Darktim300]

And the ability should auto lock on to the whole enemy team and fire 6 sets of rockets out that are guaranteed to hit with 200% damage. 

 

Felt that fit with most of your suggestions.

[asipo]

I play bruiser in 1.8k tier, Because lag 100ms
1 solution I suggest is to allow lock after you shoot

[coldform]

1 solution I suggest is to allow lock after you shoot

Uh.. dont-don't you... need a... lock on BEFORE you shoot?

[Silverfire]

My hellfire changes:

Increase full hellfire salvo damage to 140 damage.
Decrease refire cool down from 3.25 seconds to 3 seconds.
Increase initial acceleration of dumbfired rockets (but leave speed alone).
Slightly increase splash radius of rockets.
Maintain lockon slightly longer when mech lockon signature is still in FOV.

[asipo]

Uh.. dont-don't you... need a... lock on BEFORE you shoot?

if you lock, enemy will quickly duck into cover

 

so you timing/gamble, shoot first and hoping the enemy show them self and lock and hit

[DallasCreeper]

Wait... Can Hellfires lock on mid-flight?

[coldform]

Wait... Can Hellfires lock on mid-flight?

We gonna science the fuzz out of this tonight.

[DeeRax]

My hellfire changes:

Make Worst Shotgun better.

Yes.

[StubbornPuppet]

Wait... Can Hellfires lock on mid-flight?

 

No.  If you fire them without a solid lock, they fly basically outward in the direction you were pointing.  There is absolutely no in-flight locking.  In fact, a targeted opponent can even break the lock after you've fired by being immediately out of range or behind significant cover - but that is pretty rare.

 

What Hellfire needs is exactly what Adhesive planned to do and never got around to... and I wouldn't have to repeat this if we didn't keep creating new topics instead of using the existing ones. :P

 

This is the fact that the Hellfires used to have a slightly unfair advantage in average skill to low skill lobbies... people who couldn't dodge them complained... and Adhesive replied with, "We are going to work on the Hellfires.  We're going to start by giving an excessive nerf to their speed and tracking, see what results that brings and then slowly build them back up until we feel we've hit the sweet spot.

And so they performed their excessive nerf to travel speed and tracking turn rate... and then never made another single update to the game again - left it exactly as it sits now.

So, in my opinion, that's the first thing that needs to happen: someone at ReLoaded needs to start slowly increasing their travel speed and tracking until that is in a good place.

Then I think they need to work on the warning system other players get when they have been fired - so that it is easier to tell the general direction they're coming from and how close they are.  Thus making them something that most players can learn to dodge with good timing.  They aren't hard to dodge right now, because they barely turn to track at all and fly slow.  The people who have spent so much time on the game and have exception reflexes and situational awareness can dodge them by instinct... but a better warning system would make it possible for more players to have a reasonable chance of dodging Hellfire rockets that are faster and turn more quickly.  Harder but also easier - better for everyone.

Then, there's improving dumb-fire.  It's my opinion, still, that the dumb-fire only needs slight adjustments to get it to a good balance that makes it useful, but does not make the Rocketeer OP by making it too versatile at all ranges.  I think if they're dumb-fired, they should move just a little faster, have just a little better grouping and have just a bit more splash damange.  Also, their damage should be absolutely consistent with being locked on - meaning each individual rocket should do the same amount of damage just because it hits the target - locked on or dumb.  It's still the same rocket and carries the same payload either way.  So, if 4 of my rockets hit a target I've locked on to, they should take away the same amount of health as if 4 of my dumb-fired rockets hit the same target.  Same for splash damage.