Lerk's accuracy
mikeditka
Join Date: 2012-03-31 Member: 149764Members, NS2 Map Tester
Join Date: 2012-03-31 Member: 149764Members, NS2 Map Tester
I have been playing a lot of Lerk recently and I was wondering if there was a thought of making it a bit more accurate while in flight. This is coming to because the Lerk's spikes damage is not a high output. Just making a little bit easier to hit marines while flying at high speeds might balance Lerk play a little more. Not saying make they a lot more accurate or change the damage to do a lot more. Just make it more conducive to kill the marines quickly when you have the upper hand. The Lerk is hard to master and for new players this might be a benefit for them.
Just throwing it out there.
Just throwing it out there.
Comments
Perhaps make it so that accuracy is lost over time, so that emphasis is placed on burst firing.
Perhaps make it so that accuracy is lost over time, so that emphasis is placed on burst firing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes. I keep suggesting this everywhere I can because it's a good idea.
It fits the idea of "strafing targets" like a fighter jet, and it discourages circling somebody and suiciding if they can aim. It would do so much for making lerk more fun in the early game, and more approachable from the marines' point of view (by creating separate windows of time where it's attacking you, and where it's fleeing).
It could even be a shift/shade upgrade. I don't care. Just give me a way to have this mechanic!
lets face it, a lerk staying in place spiking is risky - if he survives he is usually very hurt.
so why not corrosive shotgun spikes? pop in, fire, pop out. or burst fire corrosive spikes? latest iterations of BB really allow the lerk to shine finally, and i believe this is because of the damage over time model.
When you repeatedly pass by targets damaging them, but escaping to safety, you are doing the same thing that spores/bile do. The only major difference is you're aiming more precisely because you're not just spewing AOE clouds on people. You focus your damage on single targets, rather than areas, but you're still whittling the targets down as you repeat your strafing shots.
Spikes can be a great way to vastly increase the lerk's skill ceiling and they can still fit its new role.
maybe reduce rate of fire, and trade damage for a slow acid burn attack?
The buff would be that his starting accuracy is higher. At least that's how I'm understanding this..
Yea, its actually very high. The only real problem is it doesn't scale well with marine armour. I don't mind the inaccuracy at range as it prevents lerks absolutely rolling over shotgun marines and/or camping in crevice the whole game.
<!--quoteo(post=1921111:date=Apr 3 2012, 10:21 AM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Apr 3 2012, 10:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1921111"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->so why not corrosive shotgun spikes? pop in, fire, pop out. or burst fire corrosive spikes? latest iterations of BB really allow the lerk to shine finally, and i believe this is because of the damage over time model.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No more damage over time please, this isn't WoW. You don't need gimmicky mechanics to harass. This is ns2. Use map awareness and control.
this is the coolness of bile bomb, though!
bile bomb scales with marine armor upgrades (sorta) by attacking them directly, and marine health never gets bigger
They merely encourage the lerk's role further by allowing him to<b> fire and leave the area quickly.</b> He is not a combatant, but rather, as you said, the harasser.
Staying in an area to fight will lead to his death - especially, as you once again pointed out, as the game moves into later stages. The damage over time model assists in this.
So what idea would you propose?
<ul><li>Almost nonexistent aim requirement</li><li>Very little opportunity for opponents to react (bile does its damage without fail, spores are fully opaque and deal damage VERY quickly, while costing very little energy for the area they cover)</li><li>Using both effectively hinges on the fact that marines can't/won't aim effectively at lerks in the current state of the game</li></ul>
They're both very geared toward low-skill environments, and they're not designed with change in mind. They do so much for so little, and while they do make the lerk effective, they won't be fun in a couple weeks' time when I'm still robotically biling/sporing the whole map and getting away with it scot-free. When I play lerk right now, the only decision I ever make is 'stay or go' - if I stay I just mash my two mouse buttons and never fire a single spike.
For the record, I think the damage over time design is cool. It just needs to be more skill-indexed so players actually feel like they're doing something beyond the most base button pressing. Otherwise you get into a game of telephone where a bunch of people say "lerk imba op nerfnow!!!" and then a bunch of changes happen to the lerk that make it useless and boring, then we start over again..
As for what I propose, I need to flesh it out a bit more because I'm not entirely sure yet.
They merely encourage the lerk's role further by allowing him to<b> fire and leave the area quickly.</b> He is not a combatant, but rather, as you said, the harasser.
Staying in an area to fight will lead to his death - especially, as you once again pointed out, as the game moves into later stages. The damage over time model assists in this.
So what idea would you propose?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
spores arn't exactly a dot because its not something you simply apply to a marine. Not to mention their useful function is not so much the damage at all! :p. What i mean by gimmicky is something that doesn't have a deep involvement of mutual player engagement or even 'skill'. The strength of dots is the ability to do damage while not being physically present which causes binary and uninteresting situations where you simply get harassed to death without much opportunity to defend in both the spheres of movement and aim.
Well, my idea is shotgun spikes (without a dot) :p. I know i'm sounding like i can't innovate or think of new ideas and instead blindly defend abilities that have already been removed but i swear i'm suggesting shotgun spikes because well, it worked and was really synergistic with flank harassing. How you fit it into the current weapon group bindings i have no idea though, maybe bilebomb to 3.
Give the lerk a sword. The lerk will repeatedly fly in and out of the attacked area and chop off the marines' heads. You can make the sword weak on a per-hit basis, but over time the effect adds up. It adds up because the lerk player is skillfully performing their harassment, which is made of a bunch of tiny atomic tasks.
Give the lerk shotgun spikes, and they can do the same thing. It isn't an area of effect and it doesn't have a timer, but it does let you deal damage over time, because good flight and energy management lets you attack continuously better than any other lifeform. You can shoot from range for piddly (but potentially useful) damage, or you can swoop past people and use it like a bite. It gives the player options and decisions to make on a per-situation basis, instead of just holding down right click and painting the whole room with spores.
Give the lerk a bunch of stuff where they don't look at their enemies, instead choosing to fly through rooms holding down buttons, though? Sure, they'll do damage over time, but it's not as much fun for everyone involved. It's a nightmare to "balance" stuff like this because it's so easy for the lerk to do it, but if it has no payoff what's the point?
If I'm right (and of course I am! I'm internet explorer!) you could start slapping virtually any kind of weapon on the lerk, and try to fit it to "flight and repeated attacks" rather than the current AOE/DOT stuff, and create something really cool.
Elodea's explanation of DOT was much more accurate!
<!--quoteo(post=1921221:date=Apr 2 2012, 07:29 PM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Apr 2 2012, 07:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1921221"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The strength of dots is the ability to do damage while not being physically present<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
@Elodea: yea.. i agree with you about shotgunspikes, t<b>hey work in groups, too,</b> (<i>You know, how marines usually travel?</i>) whereas spikes do not. i wish there was a way to upgrade spikes to that or something if it doesn't fit as an extra weapon button :-/
@I.E.:<i> "Using both effectively hinges on the fact that marines can't/won't aim effectively at lerks in the<u> current state of the game</u>"</i> I underlined the part that is most important in that sentence, giving reason not to make changes in that area juussstt yet. :)
@both of you: I believe that most would agree with me when i say the lerk is often considered to be the most difficult to play effectively. (keeping in mind i consider it easy, oddly enough) and this is because of the meta game that is <b>flying effectively.</b> In regards to priority, your firing of a few spikes pales in comparison to staying alive to fight again. The skill ceiling created by this meta game is responsible for the Hp/Armor numbers, and to some degree the ease of using weapon X. Yes pressing a single button wasn't much interaction with your enemy/environment in comparison to a skulk dancing with a marine, <b>BUT</b> you have to complete this scenario by multitasking the aforementioned meta game of <b>flying effectively</b> - else, you just lost your 30 res and were not effective. THATS what makes it difficult to balance, and THATS why i can't consider his support abilities like BB and Spores to be gimmicky. Oh, and considering interactions to fades are just as similar to lerk when the fade swipes you <i>"to death without much opportunity to defend in both the spheres of movement and aim."</i> (and considering what your quote above says regarding performance) Also, I really really really really do like having the lerk viable finally! he's getting some play time these days! Wait til you see "pro" players enter the scene and play him ::evil grin::
I can't do the same with spikes, because I have to aim them (which changes my flight path). I can hit with 1 bile bomb and not have to do any more aiming with bile for <b>at least</b> the next 4 seconds, but if I just shoot 1 spike and turn away I probably did no practical damage.
Also, I wouldn't say flying is a 'metagame' ...it's just part of the game itself. The metagame is in ideas like "All-In likes to do <i>this </i>strategy so we're gonna do <i>this</i> one". I hate to nitpick, though, so I'll shut up.
If I'm not mistaken, pro players do play lerk (like Swalk). I'd be interested to hear what the really competitive players think of spores/bile, as well as some people who have played other FPS games competitively.
When I say that spores/bile hinge on marines not being able to aim effectively, I'm trying to explain how they're both bad designs. If/when performance improves and marines can aim well at lerks, both weapons will vanish from high-level play like a cheap magic trick. Spikes will still remain as something that scales with player skill, and hopefully at that point they won't be hideously weak outside close range.
Not only is the 'strength' of damage over time the ability to deal damage while you're not present, but it's also an enormous source of what I call 'balance nightmares' - it has to be fairly weak in some way, because it does more than other things for less player input (a spore cloud often does more than a few spikes in the span of a second, but the difference in skill-indexed activity between them is enormous). If spores/bile did even more damage than they do right now, I can guarantee you would see a lot more complaints along the lines of "lerk OP gets free dmg nerfnow :("
The problem is that weak, static mechanics like "press button to make damage cloud" offer nothing to people who dedicate time to the game. They don't afford replayability because players don't grow with them. Contrast the flamethrower and the rifle - how much better is the best rifle user than the worst? How much better is the best flamethrower user than the worst?
The lerk's flight has a very big skill ceiling to it, but nothing else about the class does, and this isn't a flight simulator.