The Decimator

[WildEagle]

Elf KotOR is out for pc just not yet

[SmokeJumper]

The Decimator secondary refire rate change is not a bug.

On the other hand, it got added one patch too early.

There's a large balance pass being done now and the Decimator change was one of the (many) changes that should have waited until next week.

On the other hand, the incredibly accelerating Decimator projectile (it got up to 1000 m/s at the end of its lifespan) is now fixed also, so it no longer creates oddities in the game either, so doing the release now instead of next week works out anyway.

[Eldanesh]

Next week... Balence pass! Can't... wait...

(Kinda makes me glad I decided to try to learn how to use the Phoenix before the Deci bug was fixed.)

Argh... Balence pass will be cool. I am hoping it will be something like a microscopic striker tweek-nerf, Lancer adjustment, and Phoenix buff (Again, small one).

And now, to break out the soap-box.

Striker really should just make ya stand still to get a lock-on. Phoenix ya have to, lancer you have to (unless you really want to miss that broad side of a barn).

Lancer, nerf infantry damage; buff vechicle damage. Max damage is fine. (I should not be able to loot one, shoot two vs maxes out of the air, then turn around and blast some infantry in 2-3 shots.)

Phoenix, give it a dumbfire mode and maybe a clip. (Or just make it something like an empire specific guided-decimator that you use ammo for, rather than the sitting duck-sniper-magnet you currently are with an obcenely long ttk on anything; maxes, I can deal with 3 shots to kill, but 3 boxes of ammo plus the one in the gun to kill a prowler?! the time to reload+fire the missle+guide it in its extremely slow flight path is just crazy as is.

Fine... I'll get off my box and stop hijacking. :o

[Bismarck]

Originally posted by Happy lil' Elf
Prophaniti,
Step One- Rephrase your message to make it coherent and perhaps more importantly to have a point.
Step Two-...

Step Three- Profit.

UNDERWEAR GNOMES


Um, back to the topic, this is a good thing. Escpially for us Pounder guys.....

[Flammey]

Uh, yeah, are we forgetting something? The Decimator is not AV. it is SA. It's a weapon meant to do many different things. Special assault catagory is weaponry meant for a broad range of things, such as, base killing, which includes gen killing, spawn tube killing, and other, it is also useful for anti infantry, anti vehicle and anti max. EVERY other weapon catagory has one main purpose. SA does not. I have used the Decimator, and it is fine in first firing mode. It should be the same for both mode, not different refire rates for different modes. The Pulsar doesn't fire any faster in secondary mode, why should the Decimator?

[Veteran]

Decimator users have gotten so used to easy kills, it's only natural to expect a backlash. Kinda ungrateful if you ask me. It's not an AV weapon. Many people who take SA do so solely for the Deci. Now we'll see a rise in empire-specific AV, which is a scary thought considering how few people realize how good the Phoenix and Lancer really are.

[MuNsTeR]

what did the decimator thingy even do?

[MuNsTeR]

Yay!!! im a soldier.. finally.. i have a long way to go though till next ranks and stuff

[Happy lil Elf]

Elf KotOR is out for pc just not yet

You do realize that's a contradictory statment, right? I know it's coming out for PC. But it's not out yet and there is no reason it should should have been released on X-Box months before PC other than Lucas Arts was giving Microsoft head. Once it comes out on PC I'll probably drop it from my sig, If I remember

P.S. I think I'm gonna pick up Jedi Academy and I'm really excited about the new Sam and Max game. Finally Lucas Arts is getting back to some of their best games. Now if only they could come up with a new Full Throttle and a Sequel to X-Wing Alliance

[Cease]

Decimator users have gotten so used to easy kills, it's only natural to expect a backlash.

That holds a lot of water coming from a Striker user.

And to all these "Decimator is no AV" comments. You're ignorant of the game. But if you don't believe me I'll just post you a little description the Planetide web site gives on the Decimator:

The dumb fire DECIMATOR is the most powerful anti-vehicular missile launcher and features a disposable design; once its payload is fired, the Decimator launcher is immediately discarded. This design is what allows the Decimator to be smaller than other missile launchers.

It's an AV weapon - get a clue.

Yeah this will send more people to the empire specific AV. Yeah this will make Maxes last longer in battles. Both of these "results" favoring TR more than the other empires.

[Jagd]

First of all, claiming that the Pounder is the only good MAX in the game, and therefore anything that makes it harder to kill a MAX is a buff for the TR is not only bullshit, it also makes you sound like an idiot.

Second of all, special assault is one cert that I will never unlearn, and I can tell that none of you whiners have used the Decimator otherwise you wouldn't be claiming the old secondary fire rate was an "exploit." Let me explain; when you are firing in camera mode you have to detonate the missile before you can fire the next round. This means that you have to wait for the rocket to travel to the target (initially at a very slow speed) and then click to detonate the missile before you can get back to first person view, make sure you're still lined up, and fire again. There are very few situations where an enemy MAX is close enough to you that you can successfully guide the missile to him, detonate it, adjust your aim, and snap off your second shot faster than the primary reload rate. We're talking about extremely close range for this to even be possible, and unless you're behind him you're already full of scatter cannon pellets.

That said, I don't have any problem with them synchronizing the refire rates because it makes sense that they would be the same. I wish people would actually think about what a change is specifically doing, and how much it actually affects gameplay before they start screaming and yelling about how it's a nerf, and how everyone will unlearn the cert, switch factions, cancel their subscription, blah blah blah. Calm down people, they aren't trying to systematically strip all the fun out of the game, they're making adjustments here or there and just because you have an anecdote that suggests they may be tweaking it in the wrong direction, doesn't mean they are. I am certain they have much more accurate statistics and information avaiable to them, and they seem to think pretty carefully about any changes they include in a patch.

So yeah, I'm not trying to be an apologist for SOE cause they still have a lot of work to do to get this game stable, but I sure am sick of all you forum spammers overreacting every time they make a change. See you out there, and I dare you try special assault with a re-exo for a week. You'll never look back.
-Jagd

[SandTrout]

It always seemed odd to me that the Deci could fire faster in secondary mode, but now that they fixed the decimator bug that seemed to be the closest thing to balanceing the Pounder in the game they need fix the pounder balance problems.

As it stands, the pounder is the most powerful AI weapon in the game, bar none. This is mainly because of the indirect fire option available to the grenads. The Pounder is the ONLY MAX with the ability to atack infantry around corners, and combined with large splash damage radius, they are extreamly hard to dislodge.

This is not saying that the pounder is the only effective MAX, only that is the most effective. I've had plenty of kills with the scattercannon, but nothing compared to what I've seen pounders rack up. The simplest(and probably most effective) way to balance the pounder would be to remove the indirect fire ability, makeing an anchored pounder vunerable to Thumpers, which anchored MAXes are suposed to be vunerable to.

[Jagd]

I wouldn't have a problem with that, except that it doesn't make sense considering the fact that every grenade in the game has the ability to go around corners. Is the pounder really that overpowered? Jackhammers kill me way faster and way more often, so I don't know if I agree with you about pounders being the ultimate anti-infantry. The one thing I notice with any MAX armor is that I'm basically a big bullet magnet and unless I've got a couple engineers to support me I'm not lasting long.

[WritheNC]

I think this is a good change for the Decimator. As a MAX user and an SA user, I think changing the secondary ROF is a good move.

There are other ways to kill Pounders. Other MAX's, and bouncing plasma nades from a thumper upstairs to kill the support crew(yes, you are going to die doing this) are good ways of dealing with it.

SA is awesome, but I think AV is better for open-field combat for all empires.

[Slice]

One thing I'm sick of hearing about the pounder is how good it is. Have you ever seen a pounder unanchored? It gets destroyed so quickly the person doesn't know what happened. (happens to me from time to time) Now, you really don't see em unanchored too often, but think about this: NC, how would you like to have ur scattercannon max fire rate reduced to a crawl unless you completely immobilized yourself and reduced the radius you could turn? Now, I agree, indirect fire makes the pounder versatile, but like some have said before me, if thumper grenades can bounce around corners, why shouldn't a max's be able to? And YES, I have played against the pounder, and it IS a bitch, but I think it makes the game fun because you have to figure out innovative ways of destroying it. What's more fun then killing a Pounder that then sends you a tell "NO! I HAD JUST GOTTEN THAT! NOW I HAVE A TIMER!!! YOU SUX0R!!!!"


And off topic, sorta, I wanna post a pounder max's wet dream:


Imagine what would happen if you could load a pounder with Plasma nades!