Balance Discussion MegaThread: For The Metaperor

[weeping.moon]

@dannylew8299

If you don’t want to talk about their HP

Maybe it’s a chicken or the egg situation, but i don’t think you should drop new mechanics on a perfectly balanced game, cause they will break the balance anyway. So add new things to test them, then balance stats. I might be wrong, it’s just an opinion.

@dannylew8299

Right, and you suggested they enter a rage state below 30% hp. But how are they living long enough to get to a rage state if the current balance is nuking them?

You mention AOE. That’s cool, how’re we supposed to deal with groups of AOE attacks in melee? Does the AOE go through block or send us flying like Plague Ogryns? Is the goal to discourage fighting in melee and pushing people into anti-carapace guns? Should we even nerf bolter or plasma at that point?

Well these was just examples, concepts. Diving with them is very speculative.

@dannylew8299

But how are they living long enough to get to a rage state if the current balance is nuking them?

Not everything. Some things are able to chip dmg HP, you have rumbler blow here, frag nade there, trauma blast after, etc.

Would you like to have every crusher enraged everytime? Probably not, it would be annoying. It should happen from time to time. On top of that you can change HP threshold, duration of enragement, animation speed, etc.

Scrakes in KF2 behave kinda like that, they trigger from damage dealt to them. And fleshpounds trigger on timer and go on cooldown after enrgaement phase.

As i said, it was an example. If there will be need stat tweaks after implementing new mechanics and you see they aren’t being triggered in 99% of times, then sure stats should be adjusted. There are internal testings and beta branches also, it’s not like i’m saying you should just release it and adjust stats month after.

@dannylew8299

Does the AOE go through block

I would say yes, since it’s inderect and ground pound. If attack is telegraphed properly, has audio cue and somewhat not crazy you have time to dodge or interrupt it with stagger.

@dannylew8299

send us flying

I personally don’t like any mechanics that turn off player’s input or mess with placement - stunlocks, pushing, etc.

@dannylew8299

Is the goal to discourage fighting in melee and pushing people into anti-carapace guns?

That’s a good question. I don’t think it will. Depends on if it’s 360 AoE spam or like a cone area infront that is properly telegraphed and happens occasionally. Sometimes there is no other way but go in melee cause of resource managment. On top of that you can encourage people to melee with making melee weapons strong.

Also i wouldn’t say it’s bad if some range options are extremely good vs melee enemies, and some melee weapons good vs ranged enemies (like some enemy witch that casts protective bubbles of rot flies that reduce incoming range damage)

@dannylew8299

Even if/when the three biggest offending weapons get adjusted, the game will still be largely geared towards killing carapace as fast as possible.

Yes, because there is nothing much to specialize against to and because FS made rend to be universal, so there is no trade off. Devs enabled to be a jack of all trades and good at everything.

If all none-horde enemies would be able to throw some shenanigans and there will be new enemies, like dangerous infested elites. For example plague bearers that works kinda like Bile Troll in V2 - infested, high hp, regeneration, invulerable towards bleed, vulnerable towards fire (fire also stops regeneration) - people will have different specialization loadouts.

@dannylew8299

I’d love to see some of your suggestions on brand new enemies, too, btw.

Eeeehh i mean we can generate a lot of ideas here, but realisticaly what FS would bring probably nothing. Would be cool to have all enemies from the concept arts atleast. I believe things like that could work

@weeping.moon

Enemies need counterplay mechanics, for example:

Snipers and scab gunners should be able to see invisible players cause they have prey sense goggles or something. Dogs should be able to smell your stinky ass aswell

And something like ability to channeling howl and summon lesser dogs. Go seek and destroy.

Some dreg witch that casts area/places totem them stops any toughness regeneration to counter VoC, for example.

Scab psyker casts some clouds of rot flies that buffs enemis against ranged damage

Etc.

Enemies need mechanics to increase target priority, deccision making and fast adaptivity aspects for more ingaging, interesting and adrenaline pumping gameplay.

But, not gonna happen. Flamers tanks can explode is the maximum.