Building an Anti-Personnel Turret in the Grace time of tower-gas..

[Lupusceleri]

Too long post to reply to all of it, and here's the general answer for you gatester:

APT have gotten love lately, so no, you can not survive them anymore. Attacked by APT == death, even for your L30 agent.

Quit trying to solo tower sites.

We're not trying to.

[erozc]

Want to nerf some things, let's try these:

1- Nanite casting TL3 traders
2- 80-90ish agents with SPSs

1: You mean TL2.
2: Also lower agents.

[Gatester]

Too long post to reply to all of it, and here's the general answer for you gatester:

APT have gotten love lately, so no, you can not survive them anymore. Attacked by APT == death, even for your L30 agent.

I never liked the fact that APTs could actually alpha people, I tried making a thread requesting means remove burst and FA from them but people clouded it up with whines.

Tl2 can still tank APT's, more AR hurts more, but OSB's are still overpowering them if you have a properly built toon. Tl5 my advy and fixer both still handle APTs relatively well and my enf at tl7 can still tank one long enough to cap control points.

I'd say when FC fixes the blunt line for enforcers and the mouse scrolling, they will have the fix for APTing in grace. OSB's are still a bigger problem than APTs will ever be. However, I hardly see you guys whining as much about them as you have about APT's which stop 1/100 tower wars from succeeding.

[Mikenche]

I'd say when FC fixes the blunt line for enforcers and the mouse scrolling, they will have the fix for APTing in grace. OSB's are still a bigger problem than APTs will ever be. However, I hardly see you guys whining as much about them as you have about APT's which stop 1/100 tower wars from succeeding.

You mean tower attacks. It's a success for the defender when the attacker is successfully repelled.

As for the original issue... I find it kinda silly to whine about how a single APT can stop an attack "force" of 3 players when tower wars were intended to be massive events, with tens of players on each side.

If FC removes the ability to APT up during grace period, they also need to make all outside buffs terminate when entering 25% gas to keep it fair.

[PingBong]

Dear fc, while ur at it please nerf the ****ing apts, their insane AR forces people to mech and lets be honest - mech pvp is a complete failiure which most of us want to avoid as much as possible.

[Flyingengi]

I'm just curious of one more thing...

Towers are part of the Notum Wars expansion right?

Froobs get the Notum Wars expansion.

Mech's are part of the Lost Eden expansion.

Froobs don't get the Lost Eden expansion.

APT's can only be killed by mechs from LE.

APT's can kill ANY un-meched toon/group of toons before they can kill a control tower.

So therefore: mechs make it impossible for froobs to play the Notum Wars expansion as intended.

Right?

[Chrys]

Dear fc, while ur at it please nerf the ****ing apts, their insane AR forces people to mech and lets be honest - mech pvp is a complete failiure which most of us want to avoid as much as possible.

QUEUE EFF TEE

o

[Notcrattey]

So therefore: mechs make it impossible for froobs to play the Notum Wars expansion as intended.

Right?

Yeah they should pay

[Reids]

Dear fc, while ur at it please nerf the ****ing apts, their insane AR forces people to mech and lets be honest - mech pvp is a complete failiure which most of us want to avoid as much as possible.

I knew this would happen, all the TL7s would start to whine that they are getting alpha killed by them, FC would take note when i've been saying they should be nerfed at tl3/4 ever since they were introduced. This could actually be a blessing in disguise

[TheDdevil]

tl7 apt's are still far from the insta kill machines they are at tl3/4 though
my mp and advy can still cap points with 1 apt defending quite easy most of the times.

[Mereditche]

APT's are no problem at low TL tower wars. If they can't mech up in grace they become useless. They aren't spammable so you only see them once during the attack on the CT and most of the time they are there before you begin your attack on the CT and they don't return afterwards since the CT goes down before the mechers rezz and can mech up again.

If you can't get a team of a few attackers together and aren't capable to react to challenges like someone popping up next to CT and obviously meching up, then you shouldn't win. Most of the time those defenders come alone, so it really is as easy as running out of range and meching one or two persons depending on which mech type was spawned.

I really don't understand why this thread exists. I can't imagine anyone having trouble with mechs. I can only guess what is the reason behind it: either it's people who want to take out sites all alone, or people who hate the effort it takes to mech up and kill the apt/avb. Maybe there's another reason but if its one of those it's just to stupid.

FC should also consider that most attackers know very well which twinks are in the defending org due to the small player base, and will check who's online in the defending org before they attack. I think attackers already have a huge!!! advantage over defenders. Mechs don't change the balance. They only slow down the attacker for a few minutes at the moment, which is a good thing imo.

[Lupusceleri]

Up.

Mereditche, when was the last time you've done a lowbie tower war and seen an APT please? Pre-18.1? If so, I recommend you try again. It really is unfunny.

As for your recommendation to run out of range and mech, well, that is precisely the problem.

[Hellsranger]

I watched a CT in our org get reduced from 100% to dead by a single toon in less than 3 mins the other day. I have such a high amount of disdain for PvP I didn't even bother popping a mech to defend, I could care less.

However, if you can't mech up, kill APT, demech and pwn the tower before the poor lowbie medsuit gimp can rezz and repop and build another one, go twink some more.

As others have said, I know the pvp'ers in my org, and the sites they capture are very rarely attacked when they are online. Attackers have many advantages, quit crying cause there is one advantage tossed to defenders to help them against small team zergs.

[EDIT]

I would also like to add, as i did once in another APT whine thread, when NW was launched I find it highly doubtful that a team of 6 or 7 could have completely pwned a field on their own. A small raid force, could have been easily broken by a few defenders assisted by the tower buffs and debuffs. Since then. player power has increased by several magnitudes, while the towers have gotten gimper and gimper. APT's really just offset the increase in power and force you to gain a tower site the way it was originally intended, with a larger force and more cooperation.

[avo345]

While I don't mind the concept of removing meching while under grace, I do have one issue...

Has anyone come up with a viable alternate solution? If there's 1 team attacking your org's CT, and you grid in...how are you expected to use APTs at all? If you don't allow people to mech under grace, you've got 15 seconds (or w/e) to alpha them...more than enough time when they are completely defenseless.

By removing meching under grace, you make it so that APTs can never be used

And although all the arguments about how billion+ cred twinks shouldn't be killed by medsuit APTers will come up, the fact remains that APTs must remain *useful.* FC won't just make them 100% useless, you need to find a viable alternative

[Flyingengi]

While I don't mind the concept of removing meching while under grace, I do have one issue...

Has anyone come up with a viable alternate solution?

We call them twinks.

[avo345]

Twinks are not an alternative way to make APTs useful; don't quote me out of context like a fool.

As a friend of the OP, I'll keep the flames away, but as I said, the uber twink argument doesn't work as an alternative to APTs. You're essentially asking for mechs (or at least APTs/AVBs, which can't move onto the site) to be made useless on a tower site, because it's impossible to ask someone to last 15 seconds, entirely defenseless, while they APT.

I am not opposed to the concept of twink PVP; I am working on a twink of my own, replete with expensive equipment and everything else people use as justification for why they should own tower sites - but it's not reasonable to ask for the nullification of one part of the game, without coming up with an idea as to how it could be changed and still remain VIABLE.

[Reids]

I just can't keep out these threads like i try to.

And although all the arguments about how billion+ cred twinks shouldn't be killed by medsuit APTers will come up, the fact remains that APTs must remain *useful.* FC won't just make them 100% useless, you need to find a viable alternative

As i said in the previous thread on this subject, remove all specials from apts and instead of them doing damage they fire off a proc, the proc is 100% land rate and it does a random roll to decide what proc will fire off:

Stun
Root
Snare
Nanopool drain
DoT

This way they'll still be an annoyance to an attacker and still be useful (the on-foot defenders will have a much easier time against an enemy thats procced on)

I can't see the downside.

[avo345]

APTs doing no damage doesn't help in a case where they *need* to do damage. If they don't do damage, that doesn't force the defenders to rethink their strategy. You're implying that there have to be twinks to defend the site as well; sometimes there just aren't twinks - APTs are a decent backup solution to that.

At the moment, there definitely needs to be a change to APTs. However, removing their damage entirely, or allowing them to be alpha'd before they're even up (by removing meching from grace) is not the solution.

For my part, I think the best idea is for an APT to be extremely overpowered in a 1v1 situation against a player on foot, but able to be taken down relatively easily by 4+ people on foot. Some sort of team bonus mechanic or similar would be perfect. This solves the problem of having an APT hold off a team alone, but still allows an org to defend a tower site against 2-3 people when no twinks are online.

Note that teams of APTs should get the same bonus however - a team of 6 twinks should not be immune to a team of 6 APTs.

I guess what I'm trying to say is something like this:

Right now, players do what...10% damage to an APT, compared to normal PVP damage? I think that number is right. Reduce APT HP a bit, first of all. Reduce all mech HP. I'm not sure how to scale it at TL2 or other low levels, but for this example, let's say a TL7 APT has 50K hp.

A single person would cap @ 1500 damage against this APT. A team of 2 would enjoy 3000 damage caps. A team of 3 would get 4500 damage caps. By the time you're at 6 people, you have 9000 damage caps against an APT. More than enough to take it down.

At the same time, a single person would take 100% damage FROM an APT. By the time you reach 6, maybe each person only takes 50% damage.

The APT team bonuses could increase HP. Maybe a team of 6 would all have 100K HP by the end. They'd also get damage bonuses. A team of 6 would maybe do 150% damage each against a single target. And a team of 6 would take only 5% damage each from a single person.

When it's 6 APTs versus 6 people on foot, make all the damage taken/given values go back to default. (The APT HP bonus would remain, ofc)



Obviously, these are all theoretical numbers, and I have no idea if the mechanics are even possible. But the way I see it, something like this promotes teamwork in a tower battle, which SHOULD NOT be a solo event. APTs remain useful, but can be defeated, and twinks can still take down a tower site without having to resort to mechs themselves. Mechs can still be brought in if there are only 1 or 2 people at the site.

[Reids]

APTs doing no damage doesn't help in a case where they *need* to do damage. If they don't do damage, that doesn't force the defenders to rethink their strategy. You're implying that there have to be twinks to defend the site as well; sometimes there just aren't twinks - APTs are a decent backup solution to that.

At the moment, there definitely needs to be a change to APTs. However, removing their damage entirely, or allowing them to be alpha'd before they're even up (by removing meching from grace) is not the solution.

For my part, I think the best idea is for an APT to be extremely overpowered in a 1v1 situation against a player on foot, but able to be taken down relatively easily by 4+ people on foot. Some sort of team bonus mechanic or similar would be perfect. This solves the problem of having an APT hold off a team alone, but still allows an org to defend a tower site against 2-3 people when no twinks are online.

Note that teams of APTs should get the same bonus however - a team of 6 twinks should not be immune to a team of 6 APTs.

I guess what I'm trying to say is something like this:

Right now, players do what...10% damage to an APT, compared to normal PVP damage? I think that number is right. Reduce APT HP a bit, first of all. Reduce all mech HP. I'm not sure how to scale it at TL2 or other low levels, but for this example, let's say a TL7 APT has 50K hp.

A single person would cap @ 1500 damage against this APT. A team of 2 would enjoy 3000 damage caps. A team of 3 would get 4500 damage caps. By the time you're at 6 people, you have 9000 damage caps against an APT. More than enough to take it down.

At the same time, a single person would take 100% damage FROM an APT. By the time you reach 6, maybe each person only takes 50% damage.

The APT team bonuses could increase HP. Maybe a team of 6 would all have 100K HP by the end. They'd also get damage bonuses. A team of 6 would maybe do 150% damage each against a single target. And a team of 6 would take only 5% damage each from a single person.

When it's 6 APTs versus 6 people on foot, make all the damage taken/given values go back to default. (The APT HP bonus would remain, ofc)



Obviously, these are all theoretical numbers, and I have no idea if the mechanics are even possible. But the way I see it, something like this promotes teamwork in a tower battle, which SHOULD NOT be a solo event. APTs remain useful, but can be defeated, and twinks can still take down a tower site without having to resort to mechs themselves. Mechs can still be brought in if there are only 1 or 2 people at the site.

Not sure what level your new twink is going to be, but if its 60-130ish you'll soon be re-thinking this.
I'm pretty sure apts were put in to help the more casual players get involved in tower wars, so they stand a chance against the uber twinks, but that doesn't mean that a naked character can alpha someone who is twinked. Yes let them have a use, the proc idea will still mean they're useful, but have 1.2k AR at 76 with full auto/burst/fling that all cap isn't the way to do things.

It's hard to get the numbers for a tl3/4 battle so you hardly ever get more than 3 people to attack, meaning all the org needs to do is have about 5/6 people online in that range and your attack is over, regardless of the defending orgs equipment.

[Lupusceleri]

Has anyone come up with a viable alternate solution? If there's 1 team attacking your org's CT, and you grid in...how are you expected to use APTs at all? If you don't allow people to mech under grace, you've got 15 seconds (or w/e) to alpha them...more than enough time when they are completely defenseless.

By removing meching under grace, you make it so that APTs can never be used

Make an APT when there's no attackers near your APT-spot. Failing that, kill the attackers with twinks before you turret up. Failing that, lure the attackers away before you turret up.

This works fine in Battlestation, where you're always attackable and STILL see APT at other places than around decon-exit. It works in this case, too.

APT can and will be used if meching under grace is removed. Don't try to deny it, we both know it from experience.

PS: What makes you think you should wipe 1 team of attackers by APT?