Personally, I played some more, and the shine wore off. The mechanics are good, but I've realised that many of the underlying problems are still there. The currently unintended JPA meta is not helping, but that's actually a separate issue I tried to keep out of my post. To address what has changed my perspective for me, I'll go through my points above and explain: This was the first time I've played the new Olipsis, so I haven't been doing much unbraced shooting until now. We've actually been slowly losing brace points by the removal of the option on certain terrain, and now this map has lost even more by design. Dbash hasn't changed at all for me. Unreliable click and pray, so melee remains unfun for me. This makes a strong melee meta disproportionately bad for me See point 1 regarding not doing much unbraced shooting. It wasn't until last night that I got a good feel for how much harder it is to kill with it than braced, and I got a very clear example which I put into the video above. Unbraced firing also makes it more likely that a melee will try a frontal rush on me, and last night demonstrated to me that this was still a viable tactic, and once again provided some good examples for video. It also showed how map design can actively encourage and enable that tactic, with no means of preventing it. The Plasmagun beating me at range has been creeping up on me, and last night was just two clear examples of how effective they are are ranges where I'm not. Basically, the HB has been made fun again, but it's not translating into fun matches as often as I thought it would, due to how it sits in the rest of the game and map design.
I understand the Brace Points issue. My thought is that when braced on a low wall this should be a superior damage dealing position instead of the baseline. After all, we must be adaptable and mobile to Teamplay(tm). Also, some maps will have more of these (Fortress) compared to the small skirmish maps, I don't see it feasable for every map to excel for every build. Part of knowing the map could allow us a 2nd loadout option for room to room combat kind of idea. And like I said before, I pre-aim in corridors so I don't have the wind up. Gotta move slower but that part of having the biggest Boltgun. As far as Bash. I have heavily argued in another thread against it being a trump card (with a stagger). The Devs have stated that they want Devastators to simply only be able to delay death until they get help. It is the same with Reapers, unless they have the Shuriken Cannon which is an Assault weapon, not a Heavy weapon.
All true, in fact I now have two HB loadouts, long range support with extra ammo, and CQB with toughness and DR and not much else. However, I don't see any of the maps punishing other weapons or classes to the same degree. Perhaps we should get a map that is largely inside with ceilings too low for JPAs to boost. My primary issue with dbash is it not actually working. Fast attacks often just stagger me and it never goes off. In reply to your comment though, that seems a poor design choice to me. I can only delay death for about 1-2 seconds anyway, not enough to make a difference. Even if someone comes to help, I'll die before they reach me, and then the scrum of melee will down me. And expecting us to only delay death has no counterpart when we're attacking anyone. It goes back to comments I've made before regarding unavoidable death: if we face that situation, where is our opportunity to mete it out?
Damn thoughts that come after hitting "post"... If unbraced is baseline, then it should be as effective in its role as other weapons. For me, it's not. If braced is baseline, then the opportunity to brace also needs to be baseline, or at the very least, far more often than it is now. It simply can't be one mode baseline, but balanced for the other.
Hmmm, so, when I was not killing on Friday I chalked it up to me not being good, the bullet spread issue, and not a big deal due to the reasons I went roundy-round with Forj over earlier this week. Sounds like there might be something else. I also lamented the lack of brace points in my initial feedback on the changes. I think that braced should be the default option, but for that to happen, we need more brace points. Not just that, but ones that make tactical sense, and actually afford some sort of advantage. Seems like most of the points either leave us horribly exposed, or facing the wrong direction to do any good, or offer a pathetically small useful region (only about 10 degrees of my arc overlaps the Cap I am supposed to be guarding...) We can keep up with the troops, even popping from brace point to brace point, but we need the brace points to be effective. It is frustrating there the is so much cover to break our LOS, but so much of it is so high that it can't be braced on. How about some lower cover? I am sure the Tacs won't mind crouching to take advantage of it if they so choose. Instead of a column of crates that goes to the ceiling, how about just 1 crate? I think the unbraced option should be something for those players with a little time in the game and want to go the Leaker wandering route or get The Emperor's HB of Stability, +10% accuracy when unbraced, and want to capitalize on it. Personally, I find it hard to judge how much I should complain about melee killing me. They are the HB's natural counter, so I would expect them to shred us. But, I concur with Forj and would like to think I can do more than flail and delay death by 1-2 seconds. Seems like even if someone has 1 hour in the game, then can melee me down with no trouble. And that hurts my precious ego.
Well, what happened with DBash is it stopped Staggering people, and Force Tiers were amplified. So, you still can interrupt their attacks by using RPS but you'll never be able to kill them in Melee. The problem is that the game trained you that one DBash was enough to get away. Its not. You need to keep bashing their fast attacks, then when they switch to Heavy you need to Fast attack to interrupt that, and if they Bash you then a Heavy Strike will interrupt it. I am hoping it will not return to the trump card system of DBash, because most skilled assaults will just Heavy Attack you all the time and you won't be able to bash them either. Basically, if you execute proper RPS, even as a Devastator, you could concieveably hold off death for at least 5-10 seconds. Force Tiers will eventually put you into the dirt though, especially if they have a heavy weapon like Powerfist, Chainfist or Thunder Hammer and equivalents. There was plenty of talk before about Devastators getting Knives and Pistols. I still don't agree with it, but Bayonet as a weapon mod would be extremely useful to Devastators and Reapers alike. If you could hit with the strength of a Combat Knife, you might possibly be able to fight off some Assaults (unless they outskill you) instead of it just being based on Loadout and nothing else. Also on the flipside, to your "It goes back to comments I've made before regarding unavoidable death: if we face that situation, where is our opportunity to mete it out?" Statement, what do Assaults do when you have them dead in your sights at 25m while your braced? How is their death unavoidable? Do they need their Pistols buffed so they stand a chance?
Valid points, I guess. One of the things that intrigued me about the Devastator class though was that it was sold to be such that one didn't need to worry about the RPS mini-game and melee in general. It is a ranged juggernaut that doesn't need to worry about the RPS system. Personally, I liked the mechanic that would occasionally crop up (though elements being broken) of being able to land a DBash, and hop back and take the person out with my HB. While I am not saying you are wrong, your statements mean that the HB is now just another class that has to play the RPS game. Perhaps that was always the intent, and the Alpha-ness trained us otherwise, but I would still prefer to have an option other than playing that RPS mini-game. If we, in theory, haven't given up our melee power in exchanged for ranged power, then why does the giant hunk of metal known as the HB do such meager damage? If the HB is now expected to play the RPS like everyone else, then we really need that knife/pistol, or a massive increase in melee damage. All the skill in the world won't keep you alive when landing a hit just tickles the other person.
I take no issue with being strongly disadvantaged in melee, don't get me wrong. Take another look at the portion of the video where I mention dbash. Every time he Fast Attacks, I'm pressing my dbash button. About 1 in 20 (number pulled out of my arse) melee engagements work like you describe, and usually end in my death 5-10 seconds later. Those ones, I enjoy. What I'm talking about is the system completely failing to work for me from the outset. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but it's not clear to me what, or how to change. What do most assaults do when I have them dead on at 25m? Jink to put my aim off, then boost and lunge to close. Or boost/roll into cover, then move around it so they only need to close 10-15 meters. In my personal experience, 25 meters is not far enough to reliably kill an assault before they reach me. Note: this is going by my estimation of range in game, which I will admit is not good. Take a look at the gap closing in my video for how quickly a JPA can close for what's driving my feelings on this.
Hmm... You never WEREN'T supposed to be able to Melee. Just not be very good at it. Ironically at one point, Lascannon users could out-melee almost anyone, provided they landed that DBash. lol The Stagger is just too strong. Read this thread: http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/melee-combat-rules.52694/page-21#post-1178168
For melee: i think our d-bash stagger should be long enough to jump back and shoot at least one bullet. This would allow us to do some damage after a successful d-bash, like almost every other class. This will force the melee to either run straight into our bullets some more or roll out of our cross-hairs. It will allow the HB to punish melee for messing up. It shouldn't kill them instanly, but should make them pay for their mistake. The increase in stagger could come as a trinket, making people pay a bit for more melee survivability. For Bracing(since it seems like it is the main focus for HB usefulness): What if we can press a button or something so we can brace while standing, removing movement and maybe be slightly less effective than bracing on cover. It could take time to brace, maybe longer than bracing on cover, and a small bit of time to unbrace, like cover.
