22 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

Come on, we've all had a bit of fun, watching people in flamer builds overheat and die without doing any damage what so ever. And yeah, there's a certain amusing irony in that. But it's time to move on. Let's make flamers a weapon, rather than the 31st century version of this:

There's no infantry coming in this game. We can't set things on fire. No one cares that the flamer sucked in Tabletop, because this isn't tabletop.

Can we just increase the damage from the flamer a bit, to the point where it's not a joke anymore? Watching players in the Adder desperately try to defend themselves with flamers is like watching Ewoks go up against Storm Troopers. It's a bit funny at first, but then you just start feeling sorry for them.

Please fix the flamer. You did so well with the MG and NARC, which used to be equally useless.

[KamikazeRat]

doesnt even need a damage buff, make it apply more heat than it generates, and it would at least make flamer-trolling more effective.

EDIT: not to say a damage buff wouldnt make it useful, just that ANYTHING would be better than it is currently

Edited by KamikazeRat, 19 September 2014 - 04:55 PM.

[Koniving]

Alistair Winter, on 19 September 2014 - 04:48 PM, said:

There's no infantry coming in this game. We can't set things on fire. No one cares that the flamer sucked in Tabletop, because this isn't tabletop.

Flamers didn't suck in TT / BT. You could use them for stealth by creating fire and smoke screens (makes you hard to see and renders heat-seeking weapons pretty much worthless if you get a good fire going). It was handy for blinding thermal vision. Firing a flamer in front of you makes it harder for an enemy to aim for a specific body part or at you in general. Setting the ground on fire billowed smoke for the same reason.

You could use it for offense, by raising the enemy's heat you could cause ammo, heatsinks, etc. to cook. In MWO originally, flamers could deal damage to your internal structure without going through your armor (by causing the ammo/heatsinks/etc. to be destroyed).
Seen here. Look at this guy's internal damage.


If nothing else...
To have a flamer be able to damage items inside your mech (when your heat is above 80%) would be quite a buff right there.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Flamers are OP in that they can completely blind someone when aimed at their cockpit.

A thinner stream of flame might alleviate that.

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[Alistair Winter]

Koniving, on 19 September 2014 - 04:58 PM, said:

In MWO originally, flamers could deal damage to your internal structure without going through your armor (by causing the ammo/heatsinks/etc. to be destroyed).
Seen here. Look at this guy's internal damage.
If nothing else...
To have a flamer be able to damage items inside your mech (when your heat is above 80%) would be quite a buff right there.

Seems like the way to go. Make it something more than an energy-based MG.

Being able to stun lock enemy mechs will result in boring gameplay, IMO. Lolcusts with flamers just disabling enemy mechs until reinforcements arrive.

[Koniving]

Alistair Winter, on 19 September 2014 - 05:17 PM, said:

Seems like the way to go. Make it something more than an energy-based MG.

Being able to stun lock enemy mechs will result in boring gameplay, IMO. Lolcusts with flamers just disabling enemy mechs until reinforcements arrive.

A 9 Flamer Hunchback couldn't stunlock anything but a 10 standard heatsink mech. And it only happened because flamers at that time (as seen in the video) would remove ALL heat you generated when you fired them. Meaning you can fire them forever.


What's a Locust going to stunlock? And for that matter, how long will it last? 3 seconds? If even? You'd shut down and start back up in that time anyway.


2:52.
Standard heatsinks on Terra Therma versus a flamer Spider.

Edited by Koniving, 19 September 2014 - 05:25 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Koniving, on 19 September 2014 - 05:21 PM, said:

A 9 Flamer Hunchback couldn't stunlock anything but a 10 standard heatsink mech. And it only happened because flamers at that time (as seen in the video) would remove ALL heat you generated when you fired them. Meaning you can fire them forever.
What's a Locust going to stunlock? And for that matter, how long will it last? 3 seconds? If even? You'd shut down and start back up in that time anyway.
Standard heatsinks on Terra Therma versus a flamer Spider.

You're talking as if we're dealing with a given set of values here. We're not. I'm just saying that I don't want flamers to be stunlock weapons. The reason I'm saying that, is because it's a fairly common suggestion. So I'm making a counter-argument to people who are in favour of that.

What stats the flamer may have had in the past is of minor importance to me. I'm more interested in coming up with new solutions, something that works with the current game.

We're just discussing different ideas, and I'm saying that stunlock is probably a bad idea that will lead to boring gameplay.

[Koniving]

Alright.
Well in War Thunder, I found that being stunlocked by being tracked is a bad situation, but the result is anything but boring.

I certainly do like that the old MWO heatsinks had far more value than they do now.

The old ones only did 0.04 damage per second, which was 0.4 damage in 10 seconds. Yet as you can see in that video, it KILLS things.

Now, it does 0.7 damage per second, dealing 7 damage per 10 seconds (to the MG's 8 damage per 10 seconds). It has high crit chances, but who can use them long enough to really get those to work?

But if it could get those crit chances before getting through armor... Then again.. If it could actually just heat you up until you strike hit penalties like the old MWO 80%+ heat led to heatsink damage, ammo damage, weapon damage... which eventually lead to heatsinks melting, ammo exploding, and weapons being disabled.

MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Release the Flamer Stalker!

[Wolfways]

Would be nice if Firestarters actually had a reason to use flamers.

[Naduk]

they need to not have a cap on the heat they issue
when you see a enemy over heat from firing their 6x ER LL , thats the perfect time to hit them with your flamer and score a kill

what ever the case , flamers need to be much more than a funny way to remove paint

[keith]

Koniving, on 19 September 2014 - 04:58 PM, said:

Flamers didn't suck in TT / BT. You could use them for stealth by creating fire and smoke screens (makes you hard to see and renders heat-seeking weapons pretty much worthless if you get a good fire going). It was handy for blinding thermal vision. Firing a flamer in front of you makes it harder for an enemy to aim for a specific body part or at you in general. Setting the ground on fire billowed smoke for the same reason.

You could use it for offense, by raising the enemy's heat you could cause ammo, heatsinks, etc. to cook. In MWO originally, flamers could deal damage to your internal structure without going through your armor (by causing the ammo/heatsinks/etc. to be destroyed).
Seen here. Look at this guy's internal damage.


If nothing else...
To have a flamer be able to damage items inside your mech (when your heat is above 80%) would be quite a buff right there.

can i get that game back? CB was SO much fun, beside all the bugs. and it looked better

[Lefty Lucy]

KamikazeRat, on 19 September 2014 - 04:51 PM, said:

doesnt even need a damage buff, make it apply more heat than it generates, and it would at least make flamer-trolling more effective.

EDIT: not to say a damage buff wouldnt make it useful, just that ANYTHING would be better than it is currently

I'd much rather it have a damage buff with the heat as a minor side effect. Stunlock mechanics in PVP games are boring and frustrating.

[Demi-Precentor Konev]

Flamers in MW2 were amazing. You could beat most missions with just a Fire Moth and 3x Flamers.

[Mad Dog Morgan]

Tone down the damage and let it cook internals. Dealing damage to internals would make it far more insidious and a good hard counter to gauss builds.

[FupDup]

I could live with a Flamer damage increase, but I would prefer that we try to somehow distinguish the weapon's utility purpose instead. No matter what approach we use, the exponential heat gain for the user should probably go, as it's arguably the biggest bane of the weapon (especially since it emphasizes prolonged exposure time).

If we are trying to avoid the "stunlock" type weapon, then one thing to do might be to make it sort of "debuff" enemy heat efficiency rather than simply adding heat. Basically, their cooling and capacity would get penalized as if they were on a hot map (unless they were already on a hot map, in which case they would have a really bad time). The longer the flames are held on target, the larger the debuff. The debuff probably should linger on the target for a short time, otherwise it would be fairly easy to just walk out of the short range of the weapon and then be home free. Maybe even have some low DoT as part of the "afterburn."

Edited by FupDup, 19 September 2014 - 06:43 PM.

[Xarian]

Russ already responded to a similar topic complaining about flamers. He said that the weapon would require an overhaul, which I agree with. He also said that it's pretty low priority compared to everything else right now and he didn't want to pull anyone off of anything else to work on flamers.

[mike29tw]

How about raising the chance of ammo explosion when you crit ammo with flamer?

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

If flamers are ever viable, imagine mounting 14 of them on a nova.

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edit --

mike29tw, on 19 September 2014 - 06:43 PM, said:

How about raising the chance of ammo explosion when you crit ammo with flamer?

How about no.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 19 September 2014 - 06:47 PM.

[FupDup]

I Zeratul I, on 19 September 2014 - 06:44 PM, said:

If flamers are ever viable, imagine mounting 14 of them on a nova.

.

I for one welcome our new range-limited and heat-limited overlords with mediocre hitboxes and average speed.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

FupDup, on 19 September 2014 - 06:45 PM, said:

I for one welcome our new range-limited and heat-limited overlords with mediocre hitboxes and average speed.

.

I for one welcome me piloting a Pretty Baby, Nova and inner sphere mechs and utterly obliterating people with them.