Healthy changes for the game (personal thought)
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Hey guys, i just been playing the game for a little over a week now and really loving it so far. Even though i love the game there are still a few problems that are a bit too persistent in my games that i figured were worth mentioning.
Stealth
The biggest problem that i keep coming across is for sure was stealth. As someone that has been on both sides of it i have to admit it's pretty ludicrous. Using it while being in the middle of being comboed and then dissapearing for a hundred years like the avatar is fine but it brings a lot of problems to the game and needs to be nerfed to some level. I personally think stealth should be more about being elusive but it seems to be more of a "untargetable/ invincible" type move. What i mean by that is stealth should be used for getting in or out of situations and not be abusable. I have daemons cheating the power supply game modes 2/3 games now. If you get the perma stealth mod all you have to do is horde and turn in while no one is there. Or situations where people you try killing go stealth and dont even run they just stay right there contesting and taking points knowing you see them standing there abusing the fact that you can't target them. Some recommended ways of fixing that, i would consider would be that the 1st second of invisibility could be immunity to flinching and knock ups or any kind of CC and true invincibility. Then after 1 second you get a small movement speed bonus while being invisible but taking moderate damage will reveal you or people within a few paces of you can see and target you. Also to fix power supply, i think it is a cool strat to stay perma stealth but it shouldn't be absolute. So maybe something like picking up and turning in power supply reveals you. Then lastly for objective control simply make it to where you can be invisible on points but you cant contest it from other players while invisible... because the way it is now is crazy. I can hit daemon with rock-it on gizmo at full charge and send him flying and he can still remain in stealth and just go heal up.Makuta
I think he is fine as is even though he is one of the weaker tanks. I think he can be just as good as the others but he is a bit more off-tankish or utility/melee/ peeling support. But anyway there should definitely be a fix with his immunity ult during power supply. All people do is hold his ult then turn in their supply and nothing can really stop his team.Low Health Mobility
I think its kind of weird and annoying that everyone can always get away at low health. (probably shouldn't be complaining since im the main one getting away) i understand it give some characters their purpose to be able to chase and finish off low health targets but it happens a bit too much in the game. You should always be able to outplay and get away at low health but right now it isn't even out play. All people do is get very slightly out of your range then run in a perfect straight line and they cant finish you off. Just keep the camera turned so if they mount up you can too then you are definitely gone. So to fix this I'm honestly not sure what is best. Maybe something like a 10% low health debuff where your character staggers or limps when not attacking after previously taking damage the last 2-3 seconds. Something to where when people get away its because they went behind a pillar or wall then mounted up and not because they got a head start on leaving and was 2 cm out of your attack range while at 2 hp and running like they are completely healthy.Misc.
Other than that i think there are still some issues with some of character in the game but its not that bad at all compared to those 3 main things. Like meeko, cass, maeve, and the other "difficult" characters are a little slightly over tuned in my opinion. I understand you should make champs that are MUCH harder to play more rewarding but at the same time they could feel a little too oppressive to play against. Not only that but it only takes about 5 more games than normal to learn how to play those characters than the nornal characters so having them sometimes feel 3-4 time stronger is an over estimate. -
Stealth definitely needs nerfing. Daemon's infinite mod needs to be removed altogether to stop the Power Collection exploit, and the damage and CC immunity needs to be removed or nerfed as well, since it seems extremely unfair that someone can just go stealth and sit there even though your attacks are clearly going through them.
Also the nature of targeted abilities and lock on needs looking at, cuz some like Gizmo's Sucka are pretty fair (it's easily avoidable, making it less effective to just toss it where your target is), but Bastardo's leap feels broken at this point. It happens so fast, it's basically unavoidable, and it tracks mid air which is completely ridiculous for a GROUND SLAM move. I could easily avoid him as Gizmo or Cass by leaping to a higher platform, but he'll just leap too and instantly stun me back to the ground, despite being mid air with no ground to slam!
I completely DISagree with the low health mobility debuff idea. It's the nature of these games to sometimes escape by the skin of your teeth through good skill or incredible luck. I just finished a game today where I made it out of a fight with literally 1HP. It's seems really unfair to punish someone further even if their low health is the result of being ambushed and not getting any heals.
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Oh so you play a bit of gizmo too? You ever noticed that annoying bug where the sucka bomb aim reset if you change elevations like jumping on something or falling? And yea i feel you on that el bastardo thing. It annoys my soul to the last fiber when el bastardo or daemon just run up to you disrespectfully completely brain dead and can kill you even though you are completely out playing them. I'll perfectly time my jump pad and bastardo will tackle me out of the air just because it locks on even when he is mid air.
This is the real annoying part. You know how hard it is to actually space out your evades and not spam them, to time these short window deflects, and perfectly posistion turrets by predicting where the fight is going to be before it even happens? I have melee champs (the worst being bastardo and daemon) coming out of the sky or invisibility to get what they think is an easy kill. I perfectly kite and deflect a few of their spamming X attacks while my turrets hit them and showing x4 as much skills, patience, and understanding of my character just for me to be allowed to break even.. because they can leave the fight whenever they want but you cant... the reason i thought of the staggered walking status effect was to offer a solution to finishing off targets that over extended themselves. But i can understand my bias in that. It is just annoying knowing they can play a fight at 20% and get a kill and gizmo has to do it 110% just to get a draw.
Maybe this can be fixed my giving gizmo a passive that can help with that. I noticed she is the only if not one of the few who for some reason dont have a passive. -
Looking at these posts what I gather is this: a general lack of understanding of how to outplay/counter another hero and miss use of abilities. If you play Gizmo and expect to beat Daemon and El Bastardo often, you will find yourself losing more than winning. Daemon and El Bastrdo both HARD counter Gizmo. You can use your evades wisely, but they both have one more than you. You can use your bouncer to get some elevation, they both have vertical mobility. You can place your turrets to increase your dps, Daemon can approach undetected and El Bastardo can kill turrets and damage Gizmo simultaneously with his Death Spiral. And on top of it all melee heroes naturally counter ranged heroes once they get into close range since they can inflict "flinching" with their basic attacks. Either you need to swap heroes, because you're being countered, or you need teammates to peel for you so you can melt. These kind of counters NEED to exist otherwise Gizmo would be RIDICULOUSLY op and would have to be nerfed into oblivion just to make her existence even remotely fair.
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@thetruepilliger Idk if you glossed over everything or if you fully read what we were saying but i admitted that in the second message that ik what i was going to say was bias and was just complaining about how easily they can blitz me.
Now my real unbiased problems with the game is what i said in the main post about how invisibility itself is kinda whack and power cell gameplay problems
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@Black-Furiouse I wanted to focus on player problems, not game mechanic issues. As for those problems they can still be solved through slight coordination. Permanent stealth lowers Daemon's combat effectiveness. If your team splits when collecting cells Daemon can't collect as many and can be easier to keep a record of his movements. If he can't collect then he has to fight using a mod build he is weak against. Makutu suffers the same problem but his is bigger. His build would be based around only turning in cells, meaning he doesn't have an ultimate to fight with and can be punished in a variety of ways.
A few thoughts on the subject -
@thetruepilliger that was a great break down of some counter play and all of it is actually some great ideas on how to handle those situations. Despite that the reason why it's considered kind of broken isn't because there is no way to beat it but because it lacks variety of counter play compared to all of the other strategies in the game while being easier to pull off. It offers too many pros with only 1 con or so.
For example the solution you gave with daemon. Yes it takes his combat out of the picture and heavily decrease the teams fighting power making it a 3v4 while he is hoarding, and yea its true that splitting up to get cells is also viable. The problem is that half of these ideas dont really stop it, it just softens the problem. Like daemon get picks and flanks easily. If you split up to get cells he can simply just pick people off and steal and if not he can sit there inside the cell so when you break it he still has a 50% chance of getting it (happens even when i play makuta) and if you team roams together he will just stay on the opposite side of the map to get those cells. If that's not problematic enough if you say screw the cells just kill daemon first then he kites you away amd let his team get it then his teamates walk in their base dropping them letting daemon hold them. And on the topic of decreased fire power it isnt exactly a bad thing to have your team 3v4. If daemon is holding all the cells and his team fights then there isnt any risk factor for them. Best case they kill you and take your cells too. Worse case they just get one of you low and daemon comes through finish off a kill and dip.
And the makuta strategy exist just because they DON'T take heavy fights. Now i will give you this it isn't as dummy proof as the perma invisibility strat but it's still good. If you have the most orbs all you do is kite and get buffs and then when delivery time happens all you do is rush to turn in first uninterrupted so that you have 2 min to block or kill the enemies turning them in.
Now dont get me wrong I'm not saying get rid of perma invisibility. Im just asking for more counter play. Like interacting with cells will reveal people when picking them up and turning them in, taking moderate damage like an ability not auto attacks can reveal people, and youncant contest a point while invisible. If we had these nerfs that would make it a lot more balanced.
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Just wanna defend these things.
[Stealth]
As strong as that indefinite stealth mod is, it does play to Daemon's strength very well. And I'd argue it's still balanced considering it requires 1 third of your mod slots and effectively makes Daemon useless in a fight if he wants to keep stealthed that long. Also, becoming untargetable when timed right is how being elusive works isn't it? And yes, it's kinda cheesy to use it to horde power cells but in fairness that is at the risk of leaving their team stuck in teamfights as a 3v4. With that in mind, it's very counter-able if the enemy team plays with more focus on the objective in which case they could be winning teamfights because there's one less Daemon to worry about and can basically force the Daemon to be useless if they are blocking points forcing him into a 1v4. And let's not forget that Daemon is actually really damn squishy. Thus such a situation is a fair high risk/ high reward case, in my opinion at least. Like if a Daemon hoards well enough, they just need to get caught out once to put their team behind. It takes a smart Daemon to use that strategy when the time's right and it's totally doable regardless of indefinite stealth or not. As far as objective control goes, if a stealthed Daemon is taking a free point, that's mostly because the enemy left it open for him. You can counter that by just standing on the point and he can't do anything about it without abandoning stealth.[Makutu]
One of the best tanks I've found for defending points on objective control. Plus you can combo his charge and repellent very effectively to push enemies into environmental hazards. I'd agree his passive is marginal and the pushback from repellent could definitely be a tad better. As for the immunity super during power supply, that again is just a smart strategy and an effective use of SUPER that requires decent coordination with your team. And considering it lasts for less time than it takes to complete a delivery start to finish, it requires timing to pull off effectively. Even then, if the enemy is right on top of them, they should be able to nullify it either preemptively (which ye should be doing anyways, contest as a team whenever you can) or just as the super runs out just before the delivery completes, depending on when the Makutu times it. It's a solid play and I get the impression that those who don't like it are just salty. Besides, as the devs release more fighters, I'm sure there's gonna be way more options as far as counter-play goes for both Makutu and Daemon.[Low Health Mobility]
I really like this debuff idea but I feel it would work best as a passive for a new fighter sometime in the future. However for the most part, chasing is typically counter-productive to completing objectives, especially in objective control. If someone is smart enough to know when to run from a fight against you and succeed then more power to them and congrats, that still means you won the fight and fended them off. Your whole argument here seems to be just because you're thirsty for kills which is a nightmare to experienced players. However if the devs add a TDM or just plain DM mode I totally see that debuff being a very good addition.[Misc]
As someone who has made a point since beta to try spread play time with all fighters as evenly as possible whenever I do get the time to play, I sincerely feel the roster as they are currently are very well balanced. I will admit that the BC oil slick plus mods were pushing it but that was adjusted nicely. They have been in my opinion since the closed beta. Before I even got to play the game, I have witnessed that for every content creator calling a fighter trash, another is calling them OP which just tells me that these fighters capabilities vary widely depending on who's playing them and if they suit that person. And truthfully, until we see how all these fighter matched up against each other in high-skill tier ranked play, I don't think we can fully figure out what's broken or not, at which point I will gladly eat my own words because I am by no means a top tier player. I just design games as a hobby and I've had many a harsh lesson about balancing to the point I feel I know the difference between something actually game-breaking and something that's just simply strong in the right hands.So... that's my rant. @thetruepilliger did say it better though xD. Sorry if it's a mouthful. I tend to ramble when it comes to these things since I can't articulate very well. Anyways your post was very well put together and engaging. Also welcome to the game by the way!
