What is the Flamethrower for?
Price
Join Date: 2003-09-27 Member: 21247Members
Join Date: 2003-09-27 Member: 21247Members
<div class="IPBDescription">are cysts temporary?</div>If cysts are only temporary, forget this discussion, but the UWE team spend a lot time with the cysts system, so i guess this prototype:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s</a>
will never be used.
I mean cysts are ok but the flamethrower lost the task in my mind.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The primary role of the Flamethrower is to help clear the spread of the Kharaa Infestation.
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However, the flamethrower is not effective against most Kharaa structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Flamethrower" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Flamethrower</a>
So the flamethrower was made against infestation.
But marines just have to shoot the cysts instead of dynamic infestation, does this not kill the primary role for a flamethrower?
Sure its good to drain the "attack-energy" of aliens but thats not the reason it was made for.
Whats with remove the flamethrower and using a welder which sets aliens/structures on fire too? just for a shorter time.
I know the welder will come, they announce it in 191 :)
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMMiKKv7g7s</a>
will never be used.
I mean cysts are ok but the flamethrower lost the task in my mind.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The primary role of the Flamethrower is to help clear the spread of the Kharaa Infestation.
+
However, the flamethrower is not effective against most Kharaa structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Flamethrower" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Flamethrower</a>
So the flamethrower was made against infestation.
But marines just have to shoot the cysts instead of dynamic infestation, does this not kill the primary role for a flamethrower?
Sure its good to drain the "attack-energy" of aliens but thats not the reason it was made for.
Whats with remove the flamethrower and using a welder which sets aliens/structures on fire too? just for a shorter time.
I know the welder will come, they announce it in 191 :)
Comments
Super duper anti-Skulk firewall o_o
then, I agree, the flamethrower has a very different role in the game. maybe we are on the way to what the description of flamy says? now we can put most of the surfices on fire..
If marines don't have a way to harm infestation without tech, aliens can just spread infestation wherever they try to build and then they'll never get the tech...
I am not sure if a flamer should really set the infestation on fire. This could be a performance issue with this many particles.
1) Aliens now have regen upgrade which basically hard counters flamethrower dot.
2) You will never catch a good fade out energyless. He will just harass.
3) Whips dont whip grenades. So the grenade launcher is more effective at taking out alien structures. Probably a bug though im assuming.
Given the 30 res cost, i'd rather a shotgun and 2 mines anyday.
I actually do miss the days when flamethrowers were necessary to kill infestation mm.
1) Aliens now have regen upgrade which basically hard counters flamethrower dot.
2) You will never catch a good fade out energyless. He will just harass.
3) Whips dont whip grenades. So the grenade launcher is more effective at taking out alien structures. Probably a bug though im assuming.
Given the 30 res cost, i'd rather a shotgun and 2 mines anyday.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The problem is not the damage of the flamethrower the problem is the energy burning. One your on fire you dont regenerate energy. Which means you can spend your remaining energy, then your f____. As a fade you cant fight or blink away, the marine can axe you to death and all you can do is run away. When you are in their base and being set on fire without enough energy to blink out = death. And killing a mid-/lategame marine with flamethrower is dangerous because he need so many hits to be killed. Also normaly there is no marine running around alone, which means that some other weapon will kill you even if the flamethrower just burns your energy.
yea i realised i didnt make myself clear and edited in my point
2) A good fade will never be caught without energy.
You blink in, notice a flamethrower and start managing your energy so that you leave enough to get back out even if it means not attacking. You don't need to stay there and fight him to the death. A good fade will harass and never overextend himself, meaning he might make multiple blinks in to kill an armour 3 marine although generally he wont need to because flamethrower marines are so slow and easy to hit. Given fade mobility, flamethrower energy drain is just a gimmick really that buys your team time while the fade manages his energy.
Flamethrower doesn't burn your energy. It stops energy regeneration for a period of time. It has some utility yes, but the question is whether its worth it compared to everything else.
Also, that prototype video is quite old and the whole creep without cysts system didn't work very well (flamethrowers took a very long time to research and were the only way to stop creep, which was easily spread into marine bases and surrounding res points).
yea i realised i didnt make myself clear and edited in my point
2) A good fade will never be caught without energy.
You blink in, notice a flamethrower and start managing your energy so that you leave enough to get back out even if it means not attacking. You don't need to stay there and fight him to the death. A good fade will harass and never overextend himself, meaning he might make multiple blinks in to kill an armour 3 marine although generally he wont need to because flamethrower marines are so slow and easy to hit. Given fade mobility, flamethrower energy drain is just a gimmick really that buys your team time while the fade manages his energy.
Flamethrower doesn't burn your energy. It stops energy regeneration for a period of time. It has some utility yes, but the question is whether its worth it compared to everything else.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe i suck as a fade but it happend a few times to me yesterday. I really think the flamethrower is to powerfull. Imagine marines attacking a hive, where the aliens cant waste time. If there is a single marine with a flamethrower who focuses on setting all aliens on fire they cant defend at all. The gorge if he wasnt killed already by the GL spam on the hive wont be able to heal. The fades cant just do 1 hit blink out wait to stop burning and for their energy to refill and go back in. As the onos isnt in yet but i wonder how fast he will be and if he will be killable by a single flamethrower jetpacker because hes burning all the time and cant escape.
The secondary fire surely can be something useful, but I don't know if helps if the basic functionality is lacking depth and possibilities.
And this coming purely from a theorycrafting viewpoint. I have no idea if someone has figured out something sweet with the ft, but so far I haven't found it.
Off-Topic: I am wondering myself why it is not in-game now. It has been 5 years since the video. - Is it that hard?
not hard, but just not a priority right now, the current infestation system itself is just a single huge place holder to test the infestation gameplay. the prototype from the video was still made in the hl source engine, which is actualy not as flexible as spark, since uwe can add the features they want to their own engine.
i think you kinda missed the tweets and news posts about the infestation spreading system they are testing now, there are quite alot of parameters like speed, area, distance and reach. flayra introduced this 3rd party networking/relation software a few months ago used to test the parameters for the actual infestation system, it looks quite complex and flexible, forgot its name though..
Flamethrower vs. fade is way to much, isn't it?
Shotgun already did a good job, same as Rifle.
Specifically, I'd like to see fire destroying infestation dynamically and doing extra damage to buildings. I don't know if Kharaa structures have armor, but if they do, I'd like to see the flamethrower-jet doing structural damage and flamethrower afterburn ignoring armor.
For 30 res, a cripplingly slow move speed, and less self-defense ability (and range, while we're at it) than any other gun in the game, I need to absolutely wreck buildings.
This weapon also has been redesigned many times on what its actual function in-game, it should tell you something as well, developers themselves have no idea.
Yes, it reduces power and deters aliens - but it is not satisfying to use. I just feel really lost when using it.
You get it late game, at that point aliens have Fades, and any good Fade ALWAYS goes for the flamer guy - and always wins.
You can't fight a Fade with flamer, so it becomes pointless.
I get the whole 'teamplay role' and can see Clans using it very effectively when co-ordinating hive attacks, but I think most want it to be more than the 'numbers game' that the pros play.
If it is about crippling please double the range, narrow the stream and let areas on the floor burn for a lot longer. I wouldn't even mind a damage drop if that was the case.
This would allow it to be a whole lot more tactical.
As it is, the best "debuff" Marines can inflict on Kharaa is death, and shotguns do a pretty damn good job of applying that. If you want Marines to pay 150%, drop their overall damage output, and actually commit to a large (and vulnerable, since they have less people defending the base and the group can easily be wiped by an ambush) push in order to bring this weapon to bear, you're going to have to make it <u>worth it</u>.
I've got to say: fun-factor of immolation aside, the flamethrower isn't worth it right now. We only see them popping up because of the over-saturation of resources due to rfk that occur when one team starts to roll the other. Maybe when the Onos comes around, it'll be worth draining their energy? Shotguns will still wreck; flamethrowers will still be slow, squishy targets; and Kharaa will always have a friendly gorge&crag filled healing post right around the corner from the front lines, so I doubt it.
Thanks for giving us the most unhelpful description ever. You might as well just admit you don't know.
Thanks for giving us the most unhelpful description ever. You might as well just admit you don't know.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Way to keep playing the same old role, konata. UWE meant that they intend the flamethrower to hamper enemies in ways other than simply killing them, and I find it difficult to believe you've got the intelligence to come up with all these cynical things to say, yet still don't know what it means to cripple something/someone.
It isn't particularly helpful, but it is quite good at setting people, buildings, map geometry and so forth, on fire.
I quite like setting everything on fire, if you could find a way to make that more useful it'd be nice.
It isn't particularly helpful, but it is quite good at setting people, buildings, map geometry and so forth, on fire.
I quite like setting everything on fire, if you could find a way to make that more useful it'd be nice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1 Fire is fun.
I don't even mind how useless it is; I still buy a flamethrower whenever I'm slowly steamrolling my opponents with 120 Pres in the bank.
Cripple has many definitions and contexts attached to it. It's a worthless adjective on its own about a game play role.
I think the problem is less that the flamethrower is bad, but that the shotgun and grenade launcher are universally excellent. And kind of the same gun at this point what with the range on the grenade launcher being so short. They both kill stuff in a wide area in front of them. They also both kill everything equally well.
The flamethrower at least has a shorter range of killing everything in front of it in a wide area and isn't as good against players because they get out of the way.
You know come to think of it this game has a lot of guns that kill everything in front of you fairly easily.
I don't think this is a bad design direction, but I do think they need to make it <i>better</i> (in killing, destroying, debuffing, whatever. Something) if they want to make it worth the economic, mobility, and vulnerability costs.
Making flames obscure Alien Vision might do it. It'd be a step in the right direction.
<i><!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Seeing as how flames are noisy, roiling things that give off just about every imaginable form of sound, pressure, temperature, light, and (nanites permitting) electromagnetic radiation as it is.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></i>
If the fire stream affected alien movement for example, so charging a flamethrower head on would be difficult and painful, as you'd get pushed back/slowed down by the flames.
You'd probably need to incorporate some sort of aim slowing effect though on the marine side.
Honestly the flamethrower really seems like it should be a heavy weapon, it doesn't really work if you can run around willy nilly shooting fire on everything, because either the fire has to be useless, or the flamethrower kills everything because it sets everything on fire.
Making it perhaps less good at setting EVERYTHING on fire might be a good start at balancing it, as that way at least you can balance its power around not being able to hit everything ever at once.
If it was more of a heavy weapon, and maybe longer ranged but narrower, and maybe a little more burst fire based rather than spewing fire constantly, that'd be interesting.
I like the idea of precisely laying down fire on specific areas as a sort of area denial effect. If you keep the ability to set geometry on fire for damage/immolation effects, and maybe add some pushback if you get hit by the fire stream head on, a flamethrower could be very useful for disorganising an alien team. An attack would scatter to get out of the fire, a key onos or fade could be knocked out of step with the rest of the advance, a key gorge position could be made untenable by being covered in fire.
There's definitely a role I think for a controller-type weapon in the game. It doesn't have to do much direct damage, but you could make it do a lot of damage if you don't get out of the way of it. Even if you don't kill anyone, forcing aliens to run around disorganised and on fire is pretty satisfying I think, and of course it would still be effective against structures.
Still, it seems a bit meh even to me. It really is hard to think of a good role for the gun, the game is kinda saturated with guns amazingly, at least guns that fill roles conceivably fillable by a flamethrower.
If they made the flamethrower able to push back aliens not only would that be awesome but i think everyone would use flamethrowers non stop :p.
Aliens would know that when they take FT damage they have a few seconds to either find cover or murder the Flamethrower before they roast, making their response to it a tactical one. Having bodyguards could provide additional obstacles for kharaa to go through in order to kill the FT, making retreat a smarter option in some cases. Plus, kharaa attacking a FT will tend to take a very predictable route past the bodyguards into the source of the flame, making them easy to target and kill if they charge in recklessly.
The increasing damage with respect to time even makes sense in practical terms: as the aliens' thick exoskeletons get hotter and hotter, their insides are burned/damaged/destroyed quicker and they are eventually cooked within their own armor after too long (if the armor hasn't simply burned away).
FT and escort counters lone kharaa, or even small 2-3 groups. Coordination and ambushes counter the FT. 1 skulk > 1 FT, but 1 FT + 1 SG > 3 skulks.