Friday with Means - January 9th, 2009

[Ebondevil]

Zone 1: Center of blaster (ground zero to 20 meters) 90% health removed and 75% nano removed. Knocked back 160 meters and snared for 30 seconds. Removed from combat mode and targeting queues cleared.

Zone 2: Life Sucks radius (20 meters to 40 meters) 70% health removed and 50% nano removed. Knocked back 110 meters and snared for 15 seconds. Removed from combat and targeting queues not affected.

Zone 3: What was that radius (40 meters to 80 meters) 50% health removed and 25% nano removed. Knocked backed 60 meters and snared for 5 seconds. Removed from combat and targeting queues not affected.

I do like the zone Idea myself, though I'd suggest the health damage percentages to be 90%, 60% and 30% respectively, then it's nice and easy being 3 PvP capped hits, 2 PvP capped hits and 1 PvP capped hit.

I'd probably say Zone 1 wants to be a relatively small radius, couple of meters at most, with Zone 2 stretching to a few meters outside that and Zone 3 about the same as the current radius of Orbital strikes. Meaning the majority of people would be in Zone 3, while a few would get caught in Zone 2, and very few if any would get caught in Zone 1.

Not sure I like the idea of a Nano drain on it though.

Huge Knockback on it could be real fun, flying miles through the air and landing half a zone away would be an interesting way of managing it.

As for konckback in relation to the zones, I'd recommend the following:
Zone 1: No knockback, the blast is right on top driving them to the ground, not away from the blast.

Zone 2: Huge knockback, the blast is right next to the player, the force being thrown at them enough to send them a great distance away from the blast. Short stun on landing (1-2 seconds) followed by a moderate snare (dizzyness), should take a few minutes for the players to return to the field.

Zone 3: Smaller Knockback, the blast isn't that close the the player, but still close enough to send the player flying a short way off, small snare after the knockback, these people should be able to rejoin the fight relatively quickly.

Pretty Picture to help Illustrate things:

   /                              \   !   /                              \
  /                       .   .    \  !  /    .   .                       \  
 /                     .         .  \ ! /  .         .                     \    
/                    .              .\!/.              .                    \

Pretty Picture Key
Zone 1 and Blast: !
Zone 2: \ /
Zone 3: ...

[Hacre]

Option 2.

[Armus]

Gz man. Took me literally 2 seconds to figure out what would happen when I first saw this, and it did. Took you two years.

I certainly hope that at the very least you (as in FC, not you personally) are embarrassed.

ps. You're about to make an equally bad, if not worse move with fear/knockback nanos. (I hopefully won't be here to do the "told you so" thinge in 2 years though.)

[Hacre]

Gz man. Took me literally 2 seconds to figure out what would happen when I first saw this, and it did. Took you two years.

I certainly hope that at the very least you (as in FC, not you personally) are embarrassed.

Do we know if Means had power to veto this prior to him being made GD? Cos he sounds like he's never been too crazy about it.

Sil didn't seem to care and the guy before him was an idiot.

[Dagget]

Option 2, for sure, but should add in some Damage and DoT and a scaling snare. It may be too complex from a programming PoV to have the effects differ depending on your distance from blast center, though.

[Ebondevil]

Option 2, for sure, but should add in some Damage and DoT and a scaling snare. It may be too complex from a programming PoV to have the effects differ depending on your distance from blast center, though.

Not if it creates three different effects with different radii, the Zone 1 effect preventing the Zone 2 effect which would prevent the Zone 3 effect. If they land in sequence, one after the other, and have a short after-effect they would be capable prevent the weaker versions from landing on people effected by the stronger versions.

[SSK]

With zone idea it can be 3 separate nukes with different range 30% dmg each, so in closest range you get all 3 nukes and less if you're not that close to tag.

[Boltgun]

Both options sounds nice, it's weird to be hit by a huge laser beam without damage.

How about both :
- 2x 5k damage, no piercing (so 10k damage capped at 60% hp)
- Knockback
- Shellshock snare and init debuff

Or maybe a more complex with several AOE :
- 2m : center of blast, 4x huge damage with piercing (aka death)
- 10m : 2x 5k damage
- 20m : 1x 5k damage, knockback, snare
(they stack btw, if you're in 10m you can 2x5k and 1x5k with kb, snare)

I'm against systematic capped hits, making high hp a good thing is well, a good thing.

[BigT]

My two cents on the issue:

Orbitals aren't an issue in and of themselves. If you pay enough attention you can avoid a poorly placed/timed one and get right back into the thick of it. My issue has always been the timing/frequency with which you can use the orbital. I have no problem being insta-gibbed by a space-lazer-beam of doom, it's not much different from being called for some professions, but to get bombarded with multiple Orbitals in a given time is what really gives them their overpowered nature. If you were to shift the limit on the orbital from org based to LCA/side based, it would still let the current form be used to try and weed out the numbers on the opposing side, without the orbital itself being the 'main power' behind your defense, just more of a Hail Mary to start you off and try to grab an advantage. This would also free up orgs to defend multiple tier sites at one time should the need arise (I know it's not a frequent occurrence but still makes more sense.)

Also I think IBTK.

[If6was9]

Orbital strikes are great, maybe a bit OP but I love the concept, their graphics and sound.

The problem is that OT SB's - in conjunction with anything - hose Clan. They were OP when SL was released and OT suddenly figured out they could throw out a 2k/hit damage shield into a lagfest where you wouldn't get feedback on anything for 45 seconds. Result, all Clan that were attacking died. Always. We lost every high base in a weekend. And after that we lost most participants in every large Clan org on Atlantean. They left the game.

It's not OS that's OP - it's SB's that force Clan to react in seconds when real battles have lag - both personal and technical - that measure in significant chunks of minutes.

OS's actually helped this in a way by cutting down on lagfests. They still favor OT in a big way, because of roots now, not reflects, and because high tower fields actually do provide advantages... ql 250+ towers actually can individually hurt a dispersed field of attackers - not to mention significantly enhancing the defenders. But OS's only need a tweak, maybe keep the damage at the middle but rapidly diminish it with distance... like a series of concentric AOE's where only the innermost stays as powerful as now.

Mech battle in general hasn't caught on because there's not much skill involved and the attacks don't make sense. I can blow away a turret but only tickle a leet? It doesn't cost me anything to climb into a mobile tank and everyone who uses it has the same skills? There's nothing I can do to make them go faster, or shoot better, or repair damage, or anything.

I consider OS part of the mech addition that needs tweaking. Not sure how it should be done but I think it's all connected.

Honestly, large Clan battles have been so nerfed for so long that I barely know how Mechs and SAMs and OS's are supposed to work. I've only been stomped a few times. That was enough.

[MachSchau]

I mentioned in one of the game suggestion threads not too long ago that OS should reduce the person's health by a significant amount and have a knockback affect. There, I fixed OS.

[Bolen]

I think reducing OS damage to something on the order of 50% of people's health, with a big knockback and short snare would be a huge improvement. I think it would still be a nice weapon, but I think those changes would make it a lot less overpowered.

[Theonora]

Having read further, I'm really liking the zoned idea also. Makes the most sense. Especially if the people in the very center either DO die, or are snared in place and nearly die.

Theo

[Ashram]

I like the idea of progressive areas.

I think a very small area in the center of the blast should remain as is. You -ARE- getting hit with a weapon designed to destroy spaceships after all, death is to be expected from a direct hit, no matter how much notum you are infused with. Approximately 3 meter radius, getting hit with this means you are either ignorant, or rooted.

The second radius should deal a single massive hit (still subject to the 40% rule), knockback, STUN, snare, dot and AAO debuff. maybe 12 meter radius?

The third radius should deal some dammage, and knockback. Take this to 3/4 of the current OS size.

The fourth blast should simply be a stun for three seconds, and a BLIND for ten. The force of the blast didn't hit you, but it sure as hell knocks sand and debris into your general direction.




Anyway, is there any word on re-working airstrikes/bombing runs? THey seem weak at the moment. Also, I think that bombingruns don't get shot down by sam turrets, I've never seen it happen.

[Hacre]

Check out the Omnis weighing in on this trying to slam on the brakes on the nerf.

"Wooooooaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh there a minute, it should at least do lotsa damage still so we can chain em up still and get some easy kills still! Make us work for kills at NW? PSSSSSSSHHHHHHHAWWWWWWWWWW haha yeah right pffffffff make sure it does lotsa damage plx"

[Paladine]

Check out the Omnis weighing in on this trying to slam on the brakes on the nerf.

"Wooooooaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh there a minute, it should at least do lotsa damage still so we can chain em up still and get some easy kills still! Make us work for kills at NW? PSSSSSSSHHHHHHHAWWWWWWWWWW haha yeah right pffffffff make sure it does lotsa damage plx"

lol took the words out of my mouth

[Solstiare]

er...

A Giant Death Ray Laser Beam Explosion from space SHOULD kill you. But for the sake of having an even fight, have OS locked out for 10-20 minutes per side for that LC area...targeting issues from the dust clouds, say.

[Lektronik]

Means,

I'd like to request your viewpoint and/or plan of action regarding Credit Spammers for next weeks FwM. It seems that FC is not concerned with this issue of serious harassment. Not only that, but on RK1, /ignore still remains broken. In my book, your failure to have someone monitoring chat channels, even at random intervals, along with your failure to fix /ignore makes you just as guilty as the spammers themselves.

Why don't you do something about this? What holds you back?

And before you mention it, petitioning is a very poor means of dealing with credit spammers.

Thanks.

[Mekh]

Option 2... or the idea with various radius effects...
That's a neat and cool idea.

-----------------

When that is said....
- Let OS be as it is
- Let SB be as it is
- Let credit spammers rain all over us, reigning supreme on all channels
- Remove /ignore if you want to
- Delay the booster 1 year
- Delay the engine update (unless it helps with the below mentioned issue)
- Basically whatever....

Just...do...something...to...fix...the...lag/sync issue that makes my keeper unplayable and all my other profesions annoying to play...
I miss playing my keeper but everytime I log him, I log him off after half an hour in disgust of "out of range" messages... Even in PvM and even with regard to mobs/obejcts that are not actually moving...

That is my no. 1 priority above all... By far... Like.... very, very, very far...

[Crat360]

Means,

I'd like to request your viewpoint and/or plan of action regarding Credit Spammers for next weeks FwM. It seems that FC is not concerned with this issue of serious harassment. Not only that, but on RK1, /ignore still remains broken. In my book, your failure to have someone monitoring chat channels, even at random intervals, along with your failure to fix /ignore makes you just as guilty as the spammers themselves.

Why don't you do something about this? What holds you back?

And before you mention it, petitioning is a very poor means of dealing with credit spammers.

Thanks.

I do agree here. IMO this weesk FwM lacked information about what is going on in the game, but just masked it by mentioning and OS nerf.