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Thread: Fire Could Use Some Changes

  1. #11
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    If you want me to take a deeper dive into your suggestion, I'll do it. Here we go.

    1. Removing fire delay on flamer would pretty much remove the only opening xeno have to engage you with, since you can just spray and pray to prevent most xeno from doing shit. I know that it seems like fire doesn't do much to xeno, but that's why you need to play xeno and see how cancerous it is. It takes 3-4 resists with each of them stunning you for 3-4 seconds. Just that alone means that the xeno will take a minimum of 9 second stun and a maximum of 16 second stun. Fire also removes queen healing, as said above, so the xeno immediately has to run back and shakes or has the fire put out or it will die to every other weapon without having the safety net of queen heal.

    2. Queen and Rav fire immunity. It's 100% needed due to the fact that just spraying fire in a path to block xeno is so braindeadly effective, that there needs to be a counter to it. If anything, if flamer has a bigger fire delay and you don't need to stun yourself for 9-12 seconds to remove the fire, they wouldn't need to have fire immunity.

    3. I already mentioned above. Mini pyro kit comes with extinguisher already, and on the Almayer alone you can find 30 something extinguishers to outfit marines with. All of these extinguishers can be refilled with a water tank you can find either on the ship or on the planet. Xeno only has 3 castes, 1 being T2 that needs a strain for it (the strain is a pure downgrade); and the other 2 being T3s. Xeno will need to have 50 xeno to outfit 15 T3s, and all of those 15 T3s need to be boiler or base/RG prae to even compete with marines in terms of extinguishing fire. Extinguisher can put out a 3x2 radius (6 tiles), while boiler can only do 1x6 (6 tiles) and prae can only do 1x5 (5 tiles) or a cone of 1-3-5 (9 tiles) and vomitter spitter can only do 1x4 (4 tiles). But, here's the thing. If you miss your extinguisher spray the first time, you can just spray again with little cooldown, while the boiler/vomitter/prae needs to wait 10-15 seconds to be able to spray again.

    Real problem: Fire is too easy to just spray out there and stop any combat from happening, for both marines and xeno. It stops weed healing, queen healing. It takes 9-12 seconds to shake the fire off (unless it's LV river); or 1 of 3 castes

    Real solution: Make resist takes less time, and remove the RNG in the amount and time needed for resist to shake off the fire. Then you can buff fire damage or lessen the delay. Also, reduce the availability of flamer. Old flamer can instakill most T1s (braindead gameplay, but still has the same counter as current flamer), but you can only get 2 of them per SL and that's pretty much it.
    Last edited by DefinitelyAlone0309; 04-03-2020 at 01:12 AM.

  2. #12
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    I take flamethrower every round because its really good. I killed a spitter 1on1 with flamer and my buckshot shotgun when people say spitters are hard counters to buckshot and flamethrowers. Yall just are bad. Im not even good. Go watch Troller play with a flamethrower and see what a robust marine can do with it.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by DefinitelyAlone0309 View Post

    Real solution: Make resist takes less time, and remove the RNG in the amount and time needed for resist to shake off the fire. Then you can buff fire damage or lessen the delay.
    Pyro main chiming in. I think this would be a fine tradeoff. Fire is a great fallback and retreat weapon when you are fleeing caves or trying to get back to the FOB. Even during assaults it can really create some strong openings. If you manage to flame one xeno and that xeno runs away and you chase it down, you will often find 1-2 other targets trying to help put the flames out. Then it gets juicy. You can flame multiple xenos since they get bunched up and they flee in terror most of time.

    Unless there is a rav. Then god help you. Although I usually take a training nade with me as a bluff to get me some breathing room when it starts to chase me. (works 90% of the time)

  4. #14
    Whitelisted Captain BatHoovyDood's Avatar
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    I think there is some truth to the flamers weakness, and I could definitely see it getting an RoF buff to make it a cqc alternative, but to me it was always more of a utility item than a primary weapon. Usually if I am squad lead I will bring a shotgun and use that, and then burn eggs and xeno defences out with a flamer. Its also good for covering a retreat, as the faster bugs (i.e runners) tend to be very scared off by it.
    - Squad Leader Cassandra 'Boston' Ellis (and overconfident CO)

    (Probably already dead)


  5. #15
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    fire is good, just cuz you dont see a xeno die from it doesnt mean they dont. i tried to run away from marines to extinguish myself plenty and died to fire
    Former staff, also former Synthetic senator.

    Now just a shitposter and lurker.

  6. #16
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    flame is really good if you chase

    like when im SL i always take flamer because i can reliably have at least 2-3 marines with me, which means i can flame a xeno, move order, whistle and point spam the marines behind me, then chase after the lit on fire xeno with marines as backup behind me if i get too deep in

    i get at least 3-4 kills every round as SL using this tactic; it works especially well against lurkers because they don't expect SL's with flamers to chase them down across the entire map just to flame them again while they are resisting the fire

    never use the flamer for its intended purpose (aka frontline flame support) because its shit that way. its a chase weapon and a "oh shit we gotta retreat, light the path behind us" weapon
    Last edited by Swagile; 04-03-2020 at 06:30 AM.

  7. #17
    Senior Member Madventurer's Avatar
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    Flamers are not as weak as depicted in the original post, but they're definitely not as strong as they should.

    As pointed out, RoF is an issue, but it shouldn't be buffed too much to not bring back the days when flamers could fire faster than pulse rifles. Otherwise, solid idea.

    I've always hated that Queen and Ravagers are outright immune to a spec's primary weapon. AT THE VERY LEAST pyro spec should be able to do some damage to Queen/Rav, not set them on fire, maybe even change the immunity to strong resistance, so that walking through a screen of flame would actually make ravagers think twice and queen to reconsider if it's worth the lost ~20%-25% health.

    IMO the latter is more urgent issue, since it makes a weapon utterly useless against those castes. Shotgun with buckshot is poor against crushers, but it does damage. Shotgun with slugs does barely anything to any caste, but it does something. Flamer, does not.
    Tyson 'Bunny' Sphere


  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by DefinitelyAlone0309 View Post
    Also, if you want people to respect and want to discuss with you, stop calling everyone who disagrees with you a xenomain. It really kills your argument when you call MasterShake who's been playing more marines than xenos (like 2 times more) in 2020 a xeno main.
    I know he’s not a xeno main. I’ve seen plenty of his posts, and have a good idea of what he plays. I took offense to his casual dismissiveness, saying essentially “ok this one sentence means you suck, git gud.” So I responded dismissively in kind.

    So, like a child, yeah.

    I’ll take this time to apologize to Mastershake for lashing out. I usually don’t mean to offend, but in this case, I obviously did. So I am sorry.

  9. #19
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    Just letting you know since if it's a shouting match you want, it's a shouting match you'll get, and it's a shouting match you'll lose because MasterShake and I used to shout at people to give xeno some kind of identification.

    But yeah, flamer isn't weak. It's at a nice place in terms of balance, though there are just way too many bad flamer users to make it look bad. I'd suggest playing both xeno and marine to get a wider perspective on how bullshit stuff can be on both sides. Don't play marine as a cade hugger, actually try to rush in and get kills for once. Don't play xeno as a boring one note ABC camper, actually try to duel people in 1v1 for once. You'll learn pretty quickly how the game goes.

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by DefinitelyAlone0309 View Post
    2. Queen and Rav fire immunity.
    That is why I said that the flames still shouldn’t do damage, and that the side-effect should really only happen to the Queen or Rav (I just know from a coding standpoint it’s probably easier to redo code for what fire applies than to write separate code that only affects two unit types). The blind effect is really more of what I was aiming for as a possibility (I just threw the other things in as alternatives) and that wouldn’t prevent a Ravager or Queen from charging a cade line and tearing it to shreds during an FOB assault, but if you stumble on a Rav, or one stumbles on you, you‘d have more than your pistol to keep you safe (I’m assuming if you’re going full mini pyro, you take the backpack and can’t carry any spare weapons other than a pistol or smg, not to mention that if you’re a pyro spec you don’t even have a choice with the backpack).

    Real solution: Make resist takes less time, and remove the RNG in the amount and time needed for resist to shake off the fire. Then you can buff fire damage or lessen the delay. Also, reduce the availability of flamer. Old flamer can instakill most T1s (braindead gameplay, but still has the same counter as current flamer), but you can only get 2 of them per SL and that's pretty much it.
    That feels like a fair trade-off, reducing fire resist time in exchange for a better RoF. I would agree to take out the RNG portion of the resisting flames without saying there should be a trade off. I’m not a fan any parts of the game that use RNG. Considering the already inconsistent performance of BYOND, the game has enough random system variables.

    ~~~

    Anyways, the things I listed are just suggestions to make the weapon more versatile or fun to play, not a list of “this must be the fix.” I do well enough with the incinerator now. I consider myself proficient with it as it currently is, it only took several rounds per day of practice for the last month to get to where I felt comfortable with it. But it still is just plain janky sometimes, and completely useless in other situations (Queen and two Ravs charge the cades). I just feel that mini-Pyro kit and pyro spec, should be able to stand on their own

    Fire just does some weird things that it wouldn’t normally do irl (I know it’s a game, but there’s creative license and then there’s “physics don’t work like that”), or that someone with an actual flamethrower would never do unless they were actually flame-proof. Like the stream of fire automatically setting the ground it passes over on fire, unless the pyro is supposedly spraying from down by their feet (very bad idea) out to their chosen target.

    One of the other ideas I had for the incinerator (that I didn’t list because the weapon would essentially have to be completely redone, and it would drastically change how the weapon works) was to treat it the way the spray bottles work, where you spray out a single “stack” of flames that travels out to where you clicked. Once it hits the square you clicked, that winds up being the only tile that is on fire, since that’s where the flammable liquid landed. If the spray is blocked by something on its way, the stack is transferred to that obstacle or mob instead. So, if something runs in the way of your incinerator, it, and not the ground, would be on fire. The “normal” fire mode for the incinerator would be short puffs of flame, with a burst fire setting that unleashes five stacks of flame, one after the other. This means that a tile or mob could pick up more stacks depending on whether it got hit by all the stacks or ran through just part of the stream and only caught 1-4 stacks. The important thing with that setup would be making it so, the stacks would not leave the ground on fire as they passed. Nor would they necessarily damage anything it passes over, just where it eventually hits. Then you give the line and cone effects as nozzle settings for the Pyro spec, which is something I think they should have; their current setup where different fuels do different shapes of fire instead of just changing the heat/burn duration of the fire is just weird. The fact that the longest burning fuel burns the hottest doesn’t bother me, since it’s a special, refined, and complicated fuel mixture. With the whole OT becoming a thing, I do hope the Pyro spec gets some love with custom fuels. And I think the mini-Pyro should be limited to one fuel type. If they’re not going to get fire-resistant gear (I dunno, a Mylar cape or something), then they should just have the fuels that burn up very quickly.

    And, back to the spray bottle thing, the main reason I say it should work like the spray bottle is because of another idea; you would be able to spray stuff down with fuel without the igniter on. Then you can have puddles of gasoline lying around (they should evaporate on their own if not lit, say a few minutes removes a stack from a tile? it would have to be tinkered with). But then you could set up some nice traps and stuff, or do the cool guy thing and throw your cigarette for a cinematic big whoosh (I know cigarettes don’t smolder hot enough to ignite gasoline).

    So, obviously I have more radical ideas, that might help, or severely hinder fun gameplay. That’s why I asked for other ideas, to see how they mesh, see what people’s thoughts are. The more in depth “this is why it will or won’t work” comments I’ve been getting are very helpful, especially the ones that list possible tradeoffs and alt fixes.

    The reason I even started the thread though, is because there’s just a few things (on both sides for sure) that go past the “need to get better” or getting schooled by a superior player. Losing to a superior player is fine. If they dodged better, they clicked more accurately, they used their abilities well, or are just too tanky for you to solo with your weapon, I have no problem with that. It’s the things like your weapon (which is essentially a gasoline spraying hose) not being able to fire for several seconds, mobs that don’t even get slightly annoyed by your strongest attack, and hell, all I really want regarding extinguishers is to get rid of the safety, which may or may not engage/disengage when I click it, depending on how janky BYOND is being that day.

    Anyways, I’m ranting again.

    Quote Originally Posted by AcuteCircle View Post
    fire is good, just cuz you dont see a xeno die from it doesnt mean they dont. i tried to run away from marines to extinguish myself plenty and died to fire
    Yeah, I’ve died to fire as a xeno before too. Certain castes die far more easy than others, typically all t1s except defenders, really. But once you get to t2, you have a lot more leeway in your escape. I think I wrote somewhere in that original massive post that lighting a xeno up can make them miscalculate when they need to run from a fight. With t1s, it’s usually immediately. As for t3s, I think the crusher and praetorian can weather fire pretty well; one time as a mature crusher, I got lit up on the Almayer, charge/stomp combined the guy who did it, dragged him back into his own flames, then moved from the starboard stairwell to the port hallway, and charge/stomped some other guy there before I found a quiet enough place with weeds to put myself out and heal. I think I was down to a quarter health, maybe a little under, and that was after being shot by other random marines I came across as well. But... the crusher is a T3 tank, so the durability is understandable. Boilers burn rather well, at least.

    Quote Originally Posted by DefinitelyAlone0309 View Post
    Just letting you know since if it's a shouting match you want, it's a shouting match you'll get, and it's a shouting match you'll lose because MasterShake and I used to shout at people to give xeno some kind of identification.

    But yeah, flamer isn't weak. It's at a nice place in terms of balance, though there are just way too many bad flamer users to make it look bad. I'd suggest playing both xeno and marine to get a wider perspective on how bullshit stuff can be on both sides. Don't play marine as a cade hugger, actually try to rush in and get kills for once. Don't play xeno as a boring one note ABC camper, actually try to duel people in 1v1 for once. You'll learn pretty quickly how the game goes.
    1st para: I’m not interested in a shouting match. I apologized.

    2nd para: I’m not saying it’s weak. It’s fun, I think I put that in the original post, it was a long rambling mess. But there’s jank. And I hate jank. It’s why none of my suggestions are of the “buff only plz” variety. If any of those changes happened, I’d expect a trade-off of some sort.

    I guess I should just get used to people assuming I’ve never played the game before, even though I’ve been around since what, November I think? Anyhow, I play as both marine & xeno, with more time towards marine. And while I do appreciate backup, since it prevents lurker stunlock, I hate large crowds of friendlies, since I try not to FF. Which is why I usually go Bravo, and ask to be on the response team. When I do end up front lining, I’m usually the guy who runs ahead of the others, ignites the boiler that just planted themselves to start gassing, and then find myself running away at high speed because the Ravs got up from rest and no one followed me. I don’t really consider myself robust, even having won in several 1v1 with xenos, mostly because they were bald as hell and because I’ve seen plenty of people who put my efforts to shame. But I’d consider myself proficient. I think one of my better combat accomplishments was as CMO, where I killed two defenders with PB buckshot shenanigans while the xenos swarmed medbay.

    Now, I’m definitely nowhere as good at playing xenos as I am at playing marine, but I’m good enough to 1v1 solo marines as most of the lower tier combat castes. If the other person is robust though, I will prolly get my tail handed to me. Maybe I’ve mostly come up against people who suck with the incinerator, but I’ve just never had issues fighting against it. Just dance in and out of range to make them shoot, then go around the fire and punish them. Or if you’re a Rav, walk through the fire, laugh, and take off one of their hands.

    Anyhow, rambling again.

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