I do feel that balancing the flamer is a challenge, as its not just every other weapon with damage, but has the heat damage element too, plus its exponential heat generation makes sense, as some weapons even in real life can overheat or jam from long usage.
Now flamers can have regular damage, it just can't outweigh its heat damage effect, explanation below:
the Current Flamer does have the right stats that are general characteristics (or rule) of flamers that the devs have programmed:
1. Its range is shorter than any weapon, as it is supposed to be.
2. Its damage is supposed be less than any other weapon, except the narc, as in some past games, it deals 0.1 damage.
3. It should deal heat damage, and cause heat to self when exponential kicks in. Its Heat damage should exceed regular damage, not like plasma cannon which is damage first, then a little of heat damage.
I think where it is failing is when we get to exact characteristics instead of general:
-Even in ww2: tanks had flamethrowers that could do 150m, namely the Churchill crocodile, now while the mechs use plasma vs napalm, the flamerthrower has lost 60m...in 1000 years from now??? Kind of unlikely. General characteristic satisfied...but exact characteristic is off. 150m would still satisfy the general characteristic as shortest range weapon. ECM was 90m, and was increased to 120m, so this is not out of the question.
-Heat Damage should out exceed regular damage. Current stats satisfy the general characteristic, but once we get to exact, the flamer is like plasma cutting torch...should it be doing a bit more regular damage then that? Thus why 0.2 to 0.4 regular damage would not fail the general characteristic, as it is half of the damage of light MG. Heat Damage could be dropped as low as 2.0, thus taking away the extreme griefing effect, while still having more heat damage then regular damage as required. HSL can be moved to 6 to then match up with other small weapons
-To make it simple, general characteristic can still be satisfied even if the exact characteristic is changed, so as long as it does not break through a set range, allowing a better weapon, and hopefully a less annoying one for both user and foe.
Sidenote: if heat damage is dropped to 2.0, regular damage 0.2 to 0.4, range to 150m, general characteristic or rule of flamers is still reached, but less annoying for flamer players to use, or foes to get hit by.
Conclusion: General rule of flamers were successfully implemented as they should be, now to get the exact characteristics right.
My new suggested 2.0 heat damage instead of 4.0, is because all other small weapons have 6 hsl, and the micro lasers have 12, so if it is going to fit as a small weapon that it is, the heat damage has to be dropped more to line up the hsl values. This also means no one gets to grief mechs with just 4 flamers, and has to actually be invested in getting better mechs to use the higher hsl limit. Lots to digest here, but good analysis will get the job done.
Edited by SockSlayer, 02 September 2024 - 11:03 PM.