My view on The Patch

Jordash01 · 2004-02-24, 08:43 PM

First and foremost I would like to point out that I am VS (though I play TR and NC on occasion), and I agree that the Lasher is more powerful than it should be, currently. This is not another "nerf teh Lasher!!!11" post, nor is it another complaint about the New Conglomerate's sudden drop from the limelight of Heavy Assault. Sorry if it rants a bit, but my thoughts are fairly unorganized, so...

Now that that is out of the way... People, especially those complaining (you know who you are), please remember what it used to be like before the "Player Response" patch went live. Sounds of heavy shotgun fire usually had people shaking in their boots, for fear that they would meet the receiving end of a surged, dreaded four-shot-kill New Conglomerate weapon. The Jackhammer. In my experiences it used to be the most effective means of killing in the whole of PlanetSide, aside from perhaps the Flail (used properly, not just random fire). Yes you read me right - even more effective at killing than tanks, reavers, or any other machine of war. The New Conglomerate perfected this shotgun-surgile action to an artform, usually able to warp around the screen and lay down a hail of pellets if let close. Like a tiger, these Jackhammer weilders were best dealt with from a distance, to not allow the stinging flurry of destruction rend your soft flesh.

The Jackhammer was, and still is, a formidable weapon in the hands if its masters, and those who did not have the luxury of weilding it learned to deal with it. The numerous complaints to Auraxis's masters did nothing to change the Heavy Weapon, so people learned to adapt to the difference in firepower. Although this quad-shot-death handicap was more powerful than the others, it could still be dealt with, and could still be overcome. Many Terrans and Vanu learned how it was done, and thus effectively put up a resistance against the onslaught of death. Then one day, the battlefield was evened. The changes went into effect, and suddenly there was a new threat, especially to the New Conglomerate: the Lasher.

The power of the previously underdog weapon was not increased intentionally - the only changes meant to affect anything was supposed to have been the reload time decrease and clip size increase. But, the new Lasher's extended lash proved to bite harder than intended. I do not believe the developers intended the appearing "lash behind" effect, nor did they intend the shot distance imbalance with the Heavy Assault weaponry.

With change comes adaption: all should know this. Many speak of tactics, and I tend to agree with these words more often than not. The Jackhammer was not intended to kill as it did, and now the Lasher is not intended to kill as it does. Until the playing field is again changed in hopes of finding the perfect forumla for the masses, the playing must be changed.

In a nutshell my message to the New Conglomerate is this: your glory days are not over, those days are just suspended. Learn how to deal with the weaponry as did the purple and red.

Those Vanu who have loyally held the Lasher in their hands (myself included) since the beginning are finding it easier to wield, easier to kill with. The old tactics are now proving to not equal the fighting as it did, but (with the new power) are now proving to be an advantage in a fight. Soon it will pass, and people will adapt to how the Lasher fights as it is.

And, a message to those who suddenly "blessed" the Vanu population with their presence - those who fly with the easy: please, experiment all you like, but eventually (soon) go back to your old empires. Please. Go back - most of us don't want to be the next zerg, and will be happy to lose the drifters to the other two empires. The Vanu do not make your beds and tuck you in at night; we are not your family, and our place is not your home. Go find it elsewhere, be where you belong.

And to all the haters out there... WE players are not the ones "at fault" for anything. We play the game as you do, and, namecalling, flaming, ridicule - all of those things are unnecessary and immature. Stop and think before you let your tongue fly; you may say - type - something you did not intend, and later on will feel stupid for it.

Anyways, now that my mix of jumbled rants is through, I will end this post. I hope I said at least one thing reasonably intelligent in it (too lazy to review), and said something for at least someone to think about. My two cents.

-Jordash

bryan25 · 2004-02-24, 10:57 PM

Dude, that was beutiful. You captured everyones opinion perfectly and put it in a easy to read way.

You should post this on Official Forums it sais what most people really(myself included)can't put into words.

DemiInuyoukai · 2004-02-25, 12:23 AM

i just wondering, if we NC have a the best damage per shot basis, why is the lasher beter? this ain't a nerf teh Lasher response, i'm just wonderin

KeviN · 2004-02-25, 04:38 PM

Stand behind anyone shooting a lasher. You'll soon find out.

gonnagetyou · 2004-02-25, 06:00 PM

Very nice post. If only most people were so level headed and sane.

Kayith · 2004-02-26, 04:50 PM

Personally, I think the worst thing about the patch is the fact that InfilAssassins have no effective means of killing REXOs now, since they increased armor and damage absorption. It used to be you could follow a REXO and nuke them with an AMP or some grenades. Now, Knife/MeleeBoost-2-Hit-Fatalities and Boomers are the only way you're going to do it, unless they're a total newbie.

It's pretty bad when you can lodge three Frag grenades in a REXO's head and he can turn around and Lasher spam you to death, or even fire straight foward and hit behind himself if you're AMP'ing him.

I hear a lot of TR and NC complain about 4 hit Agile kills, but Infiltrators like myself are really the ones suffering. Personally, I think the Lasher should be nerfed for the 5 meter lash zone. You shouldn't be able to blindly blanket the ground with a full clip and kill every Infiltrator within a mile radius of yourself

What I think is the effective way to fix hallway disco-ball death zones is to make the lasher explode on impact, instead of running through multiple guys for instant deaths. That and the bug fixes would make it a fair weapon.

I used to play NC Jackhammer with Thumper for base assaults. (Until they totally fucked up Special Assault by removing the Decimator, which was mostly why I got the cert in the first place.) I didn't even know about the quad attack. Personally, while it was dangerous up close, it sucked against anything long-range, and was owned by Thumpers, grenades, and TR Chainguns.

As it is now, VS Lasher abusers can run out into the OPEN and blanket an area, shooting at trees and lashing through them. At least the JH is vastly limited by range. Lasher abusers can now sit behind trees and fire out, getting instant kills, while Lightnings and Magriders keep infantry huddling behind objects that provide virtually no protection against the spamming.

And the Lash-a-MAX is out of control. I saw a Scatter MAX get completely owned within three seconds by two Lasher spammers. As far as I know, he had full health and armor. It just shouldn't do that kind of power that quickly.

At least TR and NC have to consciously switch ammo, first, leaving them open to infantry... MAXs are supposed to be the largest armor. Two Agile softies shouldn't be able to take one down like that.

Madcow · 2004-02-26, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by Kayith

Personally, I think the worst thing about the patch is the fact that InfilAssassins have no effective means of killing REXOs now, since they increased armor and damage absorption. It used to be you could follow a REXO and nuke them with an AMP or some grenades. Now, Knife/MeleeBoost-2-Hit-Fatalities and Boomers are the only way you're going to do it, unless they're a total newbie.

Honestly, I'm having no issue at all as an infil assassin. I've pretty well dumped pistol use altogether (even the MagScatter which I love is just too shaky now w/ the ammo change and shots to kill, 3 shots just ain't happening) but that's fine with me. It's helped me to just morph my game into other areas. Enhanced targetting is now an absolute must have implant for me, moreso than any other implant. Since it no longer drains stamina it's amazingly helpful at keeping you away from enemy spits and putting a spotlight on the weakened troops who are the ones you should be picking off anyhow. Not carrying a pistol and ammo boxes has freed up my inventory space for more ACEs, and at this point I'm just the annoying guy setting Spitfires up behind you and then knifing you.

Pretty fun, actually.

Kayith · 2004-02-26, 05:25 PM

To be true, ninja cloak boomers are very impressive, walking up to snipers and Phoenix abusers and boomering them; surging into AMS dens and boomering back terminals; surging into spawn rooms and boomering them; camping tower tubes with boomers and catching unlucky spawners.

But that shouldn't be the only weapon available. The knife, while effective, requires three certs to be useful: darklight/advtargetting, surge, and melee booster. You need all three to make it a sure tactic.

Sorry, but I'm not going to start a new InfilAssassin character just so I can eventually, after 14 hard-fought levels, get 3 implant slots to use the only truely effective Assassin weapon.

Make a new knife that you can cert for, that does good damage of its own, WITHOUT THE DEATH-VIBRATOR-GIVEAWAY NOISE, and takes up a pistol slot (good advantage and disadvantage, there), or increase our pistols so they do more than make REXOs itch and perhaps break out into a mild rash.

As of now, the only use an AMP is for is against non-HA Agile newbies/supporters and other Infiltrators. Not enough exp there.

Personally, I don't want to hunt down other Infiltrators my whole character's lifespan.

EDIT:

And hunting down only half-dead people would kill the rush I get from successfully playing off someone else's lack of peripheral vision, followed by their death at my hands for it.

Zatrais · 2004-02-26, 05:29 PM

All those nice words and none for the TR... bloody barneys

Then again its not much of a change for us TR's either. Got Lasher bunnies now instead of JackHammer bunnies. Same difference hehe.

Madcow · 2004-02-26, 05:52 PM

I made it to level 12 using melee boost only pretty much with my NC char, and it really wasn't that hard. I've come across a grand total of 2 people so far who were able to get health packs downed fast enough to take 3 stabs instead of 2. I still kill fully healthy rexo folks, but the key to enhanced targetting is weeding people out of groups. Killing a fully healthy rexo in a group is suicide, those guys you wait until they fall from the flock a bit.

I'm actually getting to the point where I resent infils using DL. I'll stick with my enhanced targetting/melee boost until I get to level 18. By then I'm assuming Silent Run will be fixed and I'll be grabbing that. This char also lives without Surge quite nicely, although surge makes knife kills easier if your target is quick enough to move. It's not necessary.

A silent knife would just be overpowered. I still normally get the first stab in before people recognize the noise, and I'm more than happy to die to those bright enough to recognize the noise in the middle of a firefight who turn around and blast me. They deserve it.

I get about 2x as many rexo kills as agile kills each night (since the rexo patch), and the rexo kills are probably split evenly between thinning the weakened and taking on fully healthy people. While the infil has many issues which need work, and hopefully are being worked on, it doesn't need to be any easier for us to kill.

Wraithlord · 2004-02-26, 06:09 PM

well said

However, what you are saying really only applies to the knife, effective pistol use is now very difficult at best. It takes more time to kill with them, and more ammo now, I think pistols should have their own ammo to make up for this, pistol ammo in the real world is usually smaller than rifle rounds, thats why they dont pack the same punch or range, they dont have as much powder. Nothing will be done though, infils are second-class citizens in the eyes of the developers.

sigh*

Madcow · 2004-02-26, 06:19 PM

Pistols do blow now. I still loot Repeaters and Beamers to kill nearly dead enemies from a distance, but I no longer run around with pistols being my main weapon (I actually hadn't for a while before the patch). Losing them doesn't bother me, but I can see why it would bother some. Hopefully the grenade inventory change will open things up a little more for us as well, I believe that will give us another option.

It's a fine line for the devs, though. I understand your thoughts on the pistols now seeming weakened, but in reality all weapons take longer to kill the rexos now. Why should pistols get a pass? Rexo is just more in line with where it should have been all along, previously there was really no reason to even take note of what armor your target was wearing. TTK was so stinking close it didn't matter. Now you have to take that into account, and it can change things on the battlefield. I'm not convinced that's a bad thing.

Kayith · 2004-02-26, 06:32 PM

While I can appreciate InfilAssassins needing skill to get good kills, I'm still disappointed that their weaponry is so limited in its effectiveness. As it is, everyone and their grandma has DarkLight, for the fact that Pistols were once very effective at killing all manner of natural softy-life, and SurgeyBoomers roamed the free plains in great numbers.

DarkLight should be limited by more than viewing range... I liked the persons idea of giving it a one or two second start-up, where it didn't kick in immediately. It wouldn't make it any less useful, it would just give Infiltrators a fighting chance. If you've got the drop on an opponent by your own skill at movement and hiding, they shouldn't be able to swivel and fire on you immediately by turning on DarkLight.

A silent knife isn't such a bad idea, really. Instead of giving it a grinding, dead give-away noise, you could make it to where it's slightly reflective while drawn, giving away your position by it being slightly less invisible than your body. (Sort of like how careless metal surfaces, buttons, and such give away foolish snipers in real life.)

Give it more damage, but a slightly decreased RoF, so you have to be sure that when you trigger the swing, it'll hit the person, or you'll have to wait a second to try it again.

Perhaps a cloaker pistol that has limited ammo, but hurts a lot within a short distance of the target, losing power at range? Sort of like the MagScatter, but it could be silenced, so people don't instantly converge on your position.

If not, the least they could do is give the AMP more killing power vs. REXOs, and increase the ammo of the MagScatter to 8 and/or give it back its old pre-patch damage.

TheN00b · 2004-02-26, 06:46 PM

Meh, while pistols are cool, IMHO they just aren't the way to go for InfilAssassins. Now, I don't play an Infil myself, but my brother, like Madcow, has made it to BR12 with just Melee Booster and just grabbed Enhanced Targetting. Pistols really weren't that effective in the first place; Even before the ReXo buff, an Infil's target could just spin quickly and spam/trip-shot. With the knife (I think), it deals 100 damage per hit (w/ MB and Secondary), which leads many players to believe they've just been hit by a sniper bullet. Besides, using a knife makes your inventory look absolutely beautiful: When BR12, it's preferably 3 ACEs, 3 Jammers, and a REK.

Kayith · 2004-02-26, 06:56 PM

The only problem with ACEs is that good Snipers will go into third-person while reloading, watching for cloakers trying to lay boomers. The only way to catch them then is to wait until you see their character moving his rifle, which means he's in X4/8 mode, aiming. A lot of snipers also have CE, too, and will set up Spitfires, if possible.

Luckily, most snipers really suck. It seems to be a newbie cert, just like HA.

Except HA really, really hurts.

And ACE Boomers don't catch moving people unless you mine a chosen path. Spitfires can't be placed in enemy territory... and mines catch friendlies nearby, since they're triggered by enemies.

My point is that the Devs shouldn't make InfilAssassins (or even basic Infiltrators, for that matter) throw down their pistols and run around with their knives out, especially not when you need certs to make it useful. At this point, pistols are useless to everyone, even if they're not cloakers.