108 replies to this topic

[Tarogato]

They seem good for two things right now:
1. shooting at peoples' cockpits so they can't see properly.
2. making people shutdown if they're in a hot caldera/lava and already overheating.

They simply aren't worth taking over any damage-dealing energy weapons and if you stack more than one they tend to cause more heat for you than they do to the person you're shooting.

They need the ability to cook off ammo and actually deal some heat. The damage is fine, they shouldn't deal damage, but they need a rework.

[Walluh]

Make them dump heat from your mech when you fire instead of create it. Heatsinks are lame, I want to cool down by SPEWING FIRE

[Sethliopod]

I think you'ld have a harder time finding someone who doesn't think they need help. Probably just a low priority.

[CocoaJin]

They would need to have the ability to set the environment on fire...or have infantry and soft targets to engage.

I don't see how you could make the flamer reduce heat...it's like a fusion reactor leak(maybe not that hot, but it is plasma) being focused through parts of your mech. It's not scavenged heist from mech operations.

[Rhialto]

Just yesterday I was asking Russ about flamers...

Answer was this.

BTW, a post I wrote about flamers a long time ago and there is another one interesting from when Ask the devs was still running. Does it make sense?

Edited by Rhialto, 10 December 2014 - 09:48 AM.

[Hobo Dan]

I think if you reduced the amount of heat generated for the mech firing the flamer and made them more likely to cause ammo explosions, we would see some more usage. I think quirking certain chassis *cough Firestarter cough* may also help increase usage.

It’s a shame too because the art and sound for Flamers is really good.

[JediPanther]

Only way they could be usefull is if they didn't work in reverse overheating you instead of whatever you're spewing it at. Six flamers on a mech kind of work for about three seconds before you have to pull a monty python to run away to cool down.

[Walluh]

Even Russ hopes flamers will eventually git gud.

[FupDup]

It's so sad.

[Bhael Fire]

Flamers have been the ugly deformed gimp locked in MWO's basement ever since this game came out.

They need some serious love. I think simply increasing the amount of heat they generate on the targeted mech and reducing the heat on the flamer would make them more useful. Basically should be the energy equivalent of the machine gun, trading ammo dependence for slightly higher heat than the MG.

[Hamish McPiton]

Flamers getting a buff would be good, just like having spotlights, flares, smoke, and twenty other good ideas they've never got around to doing yet.

[Monkey Lover]

Going to be funny when they buff them so hard it makes them op and they will have to nerf them haha

[Roland]

Sethliopod, on 10 December 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

I think you'ld have a harder time finding someone who doesn't think they need help. Probably just a low priority.

Paul thinks they're fine.

In reality, to make flamers useful, you need to actually enable them to forcibly shut down another mech, dealing significantly more heat to the target than to the shooter.

Some people think that this is somehow bad, because they imagine mechs could somehow load up tons of flamers and shut you down and then kill you... ignoring the fact that it would require the rest of your team to just let them do that, and the fact that doing it would require a lot of time since they'd be using all their hardpoints for tons of flamers.

In MW4, you could shut down enemies with flamers, and it was not really broken at all.

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

Roland, on 10 December 2014 - 09:56 AM, said:

Paul thinks they're fine.

In reality, to make flamers useful, you need to actually enable them to forcibly shut down another mech, dealing significantly more heat to the target than to the shooter.

Some people think that this is somehow bad, because they imagine mechs could somehow load up tons of flamers and shut you down and then kill you... ignoring the fact that it would require the rest of your team to just let them do that, and the fact that doing it would require a lot of time since they'd be using all their hardpoints for tons of flamers.

In MW4, you could shut down enemies with flamers, and it was not really broken at all.

Imagine quirked DRG-1N:s with buffed flamers,AC5:s and SRM4:s,its bye bye brawling in general

[Rhialto]

Roland, on 10 December 2014 - 09:56 AM, said:

Some people think that this is somehow bad, because they imagine mechs could somehow load up tons of flamers and shut you down and then kill you... ignoring the fact that it would require the rest of your team to just let them do that, and the fact that doing it would require a lot of time since they'd be using all their hardpoints for tons of flamers.

In MW4, you could shut down enemies with flamers, and it was not really broken at all.

Exactly... even if a 9 flamers HBK is trying to cook someone, without help from a teamate he won't ever kill that guy because ennemy will come to rescue the teamate and with only flamers you can't do much.

I see the flamers as a support tool to limit fire's ability of one target keeping him close to overheat but someone else must be around to finish him.

Edited by Rhialto, 10 December 2014 - 10:08 AM.

[CocoaJin]

If people see "useful" as flamers being more or less able to be spammed continuously/indefinitely, then you'd be asking for something that would be inherently exploitable and unbalanced.

Flamers have to have a downside as a light weight, hit-scan ordnance. I'm fine with flamers being buffed with higher heat delivery, but it has to come at tremendous heat penalty to the user I order to force them to disengage. This way, the flamer is used to not to perma-freeze as a griefing tool, but only forces the opponent for a period to reduce its damage output or delay firing out of fear of shutting down. Ideally, as both flamer and target approach critical heat levels, the flamer user would find it difficult to outpace the cooling of its target...assuming neither fired weapons as critical heat levels were approached.

I do like the idea of increased chance for ammo cook off, but that should only be after the target has reached a certain heat level in which cook off was possible already.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

The easy fix is to borrow from MechCommander.

Make the Flamer do 5 damage in a single hit, for 5 heat and with 3 heat transferred to the target. Range bracket would be 100/200, and cooldown would be between 4-5 seconds.

It would offer a unique capability while being unquestionably more useful than it is now. It'd serve as a PPFLD short-range, light-weight energy weapon, which we currently do not have.

[Rhialto]

If you have a Twitter account, you may add to this discussion going on.

Edited by Rhialto, 10 December 2014 - 10:17 AM.

[verybad]

I'd rather they gave us suitable targets for them, ie infantry.

Flamers are next to worthless in the TT game also, unless you're shooting at meat targets, in which case they're nasty.

Meat targets with some next to uselss ai that stay near cover would help the game. (Tanks would be cool also)

[FupDup]

verybad, on 10 December 2014 - 10:17 AM, said:

I'd rather they gave us suitable targets for them, ie infantry.

Flamers are next to worthless in the TT game also, unless you're shooting at meat targets, in which case they're nasty.

Meat targets with some next to uselss ai that stay near cover would help the game. (Tanks would be cool also)

Everybody who says this usually forgets that MWO lasers have a nifty mechanic called the Beam Duration.



This nifty mechanic allows you to click and drag your laser beam over a given area. If we had meatbags to shoot at, we would have the ability to sweep our beam over multiple infantry guys and kill them instantly. In other words, lasers would be just as good against infantry as Flamers, while also being not useless against other targets.