Flamethrower
Floodinator
[HBZ] Member Join Date: 2005-02-22 Member: 42087Members, Reinforced - Shadow
[HBZ] Member Join Date: 2005-02-22 Member: 42087Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Unused</div>Almost all games I played in the last weeks of build 187 I noticed that the Flamer is never used. Only new players use it for the cool efect. Since the gameperformance increased and all alien types are killable, not like in older days where the flamer was the counter to Lerks, Fades and Lag, the flamer lost his role. Even as support weapon he is useless because the other weapons are just better even if it is a suicide GL.
Also if we look at the competive side a flamer with FF on is to risky to play, f.e. Burning the MS while hitting a alien. So I doubt to see it often there. Also in pub no one really use it.
I think the Flamer needs a buff or change of his role.
The reason why is, increasing the performance of the game improves all the other guns but flamer, the gorge can put the fire out really easy, it block your FOV, it has a really short range (modern flamers reach more than 100m but RL does bot matter here) and it is to expensive for so much cons.
He has only some smaler pros. First he stops energy gaining, he has an AOD, ignores walls (bug), non alienview aliens lose the view and he does little DOT. So in fact there are only the pros of AOD and DOT.
I can Not find a good solution to get the flamer back in the game. Maybe even change his role to midrange high DMG dealer or whatever.
For his support role I would suggest a 2. Attack for him that can neutralise Ubra, Fury and Spores by pressing out the cold fluid without burning it so the bacteria dies by cold (maybe even decrease alien movement speed if getting hit by it).
My lates thoughts about a good but usless weapon in NS2.
Also if we look at the competive side a flamer with FF on is to risky to play, f.e. Burning the MS while hitting a alien. So I doubt to see it often there. Also in pub no one really use it.
I think the Flamer needs a buff or change of his role.
The reason why is, increasing the performance of the game improves all the other guns but flamer, the gorge can put the fire out really easy, it block your FOV, it has a really short range (modern flamers reach more than 100m but RL does bot matter here) and it is to expensive for so much cons.
He has only some smaler pros. First he stops energy gaining, he has an AOD, ignores walls (bug), non alienview aliens lose the view and he does little DOT. So in fact there are only the pros of AOD and DOT.
I can Not find a good solution to get the flamer back in the game. Maybe even change his role to midrange high DMG dealer or whatever.
For his support role I would suggest a 2. Attack for him that can neutralise Ubra, Fury and Spores by pressing out the cold fluid without burning it so the bacteria dies by cold (maybe even decrease alien movement speed if getting hit by it).
My lates thoughts about a good but usless weapon in NS2.
Comments
Other than that, the thing I dislike the most about the flamer, is that it blocks your own, and your teammates LOS. You should be able to see through the effect, imo.
It's already kind of an anti-fade weapon, you just need others(shotgunners) to do the real damage.
It's restricting them from blinking much.
I mean you can take a hive the old fashioned way chipping away at it slowly.
But a flamer is an does some multiplier of damage just against hives.
I'm sorry but I love it when they burn the hive....even when its mine.
So entertaining.
Also it is still the best counter with shotguns against fade.
Can anyone come up with a way to communicate this to players.
The first thing I thought of was a bestiary like in RPG games.
Something you mostly ignore but when you go read you are like "damn all i needed was a pike"
It also doesn't help that some servers insist on having friendly fire on, making the flamethrower a nightmare to use inside any marine base, or where any number of teammates are nearby, and make the weapon even less of an appealing weapon and just a nuisance for players on both sides. Its no fun to be the guy running around with the flame thrower because:
1) You move painstakingly slow, usually causing your teammmates to run ahead you, leaving you on your own.
2) You do so little damage to anything tougher than a skulk or a gorge, and the bulk of the total amount of damage you do is the gradual burning effect afterwards, so you usually will kill a skulk 1v1, but you would still likely get killed by the skulk before its burning wounds kill it.
3) The ammo indicator is crude, and as far as i know there isn't a way to know for sure how many additional magazines you have, at least now you can see how much gas is in your current mag
4) It is unpredictable whether you will actually make any major impact on the fade that ripped your whole squad apart, as the burning time could be ridiculously long, or practically non-existent.
Flames are affective against alien structures at all.
Flames can keep the aliens from attacking enough for sentries to be built.
Maybe flame thrower is just not your type of weapon.
All in all- keep the flames.
-B1ackSmoke
currently the flamethrower is undergoing a second pass. it will become more useful and our FX guy (the real one, the talented one, not me :) ) is working on improving the effects as well. there is a lot of room for reducing the performance hit, increasing the effect quality and usefulness of that weapon, so don't worry
I would prefer that you fix the shotgun instead of working on the flamethrower.
A little inspiration for the flamethrower. Right now it just obscures LOS way too much and the 75% fps drop doesn't help its case.
Although I guess however way you cut it, its still gonna make a mess of things if you fire it at other marines faces.
I like the new visual effects, and I think artistically the flamethrower is moving in the right direction. However, more attention must be paid to the purpose of the flamethrower with regard to its role and effectiveness, as others have mentioned.
He was important some pre cysts/pustules builds to destroy the infestation and harassing melee projectile lerks and it was the best late/lag game weapon too.
But since the cysts entered the game, the lerk got hitscan/new spores and the performance increasment (you hit something with SG and LMG) the flamers often not even get researched.
The Aliens also don't fear the flamers, because even a group of marines has trouble killing a skulk that gets covered by the flames giving the aliens some advantage if there is a flamer in the group. And I am sure the Onos love some hot dogs to eat.
Sure we shouldn't forget the DOT and the regen stopping but a gorge can heal it out. Maybe we could start here and disalow heal to put the fire off and setting a min and max burn time depending on how long you have been burned.
I think at some point flamethrowers will become vent clearing weapons though when UWE makes them volumetric
What if you ramped up the damage of the flamethrower considerably, but gave it only a few seconds of fuel per reload? People would conserve their shots more making it easier to see. This could also introduce more skill to the flamethrower since you cant just spray it everywhere and hope to win.
1) <b>Power</b>
As a skulk I see flamers as a free kill, even needing 3 bites there is no way a marine with a flamer can kill me before I kill him. This is crazy and needs to be fixed. I also spend a lot of time being able to 2 bite marines, this makes it even worse.
2) <b>Roles</b>
The flamer is mildly useful killing fades but is hampered by 2 things. Firstly an extra shotgun is just as useful as the flamer and secondly the flamer blocks marine sight so they cant shoot the fade.
I think the flamer needs more roles. Burning lerk gas away being one role. I also think the flamer should block alien flashlight vision (like they are heat vision). As the moment as a flamer marine, if I see a skulk coming and start flaming I block my own view, while the skulk can see fine all the time. Aliens spend most of the game in alien flashlight because of all its advantages, this would help balance that use out.
oh i like this...
do it like an NVG getting washed out from bright lights
combine this with better structural damage than the shotgun (or diminish the shotgun's effectiveness in this area) and wala, you have a reason to use this bad boy once again.
do it like an NVG getting washed out from bright lights
combine this with better structural damage than the shotgun (or diminish the shotgun's effectiveness in this area) and wala, you have a reason to use this bad boy once again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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Burning Lerk gas with the flamethrower is a task on our programming schedule.
We are also going to be doing another pass on the alien vision mode, to figure out a better look for it, and what the gameplay pros and cons of it should be, so the flamethrower blocking it could be a possibility -- though at the moment its not intended that alien vision is a heat vision effect, but more like sonar.
--Cory
We are also going to be doing another pass on the alien vision mode, to figure out a better look for it, and what the gameplay pros and cons of it should be, so the flamethrower blocking it could be a possibility -- though at the moment its not intended that alien vision is a heat vision effect, but more like sonar.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To be fair, flamethrowers are really noisy too; all that burning air and propellant could be pretty hard to bounce a sonar signal through if it suited gameplay.
Too overpowered...
Maybe an upgrade... And in a certain radius of the player.
I was wondering the same idea. It is quite powerful asset though. Maybe this could be thought as an upgrade instead of an ability that all aliens have.
In half-life 2 mod dystopia there were implants similar to ns1 upgrades. One of the upgrades was <a href="http://www.dystopia-game.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sound_Wave_Triangulator_%28SWT%29" target="_blank">sound wave triangulator</a> that enabled you to see the the distance and angle the sounds are comign from. It looked like the blue circle in the middle of the screen here: <img src="http://redmine.punyhumangames.com/attachments/2591/dys_silo0001.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Dystopia of course had an implant that made your footsteps and shooting totally silent. I don't see how this would fit the marine team in NS2 though.
It would be cool to see more upgrades in ns2, upgrades were something that made ns1 gameplay much better. Using their own engine UWE is also able to build very cool stuff and come up with unique upgrades not seen in other games yet.
Balance refers to the flamethrower's power, speed, cost.
Utilization refers to proper/intended "use" of the flamethrower.
As new elements are introduced into the game both of these aspects will change... and depending on the element, this can make or break the balance or utilization completely.
Currently, the flamethrower seems to be a support weapon. The flamethrower is not to be used solo, but rather in conjunction with a squad of gl'rs or shotgunners. The idea is that the flamethrower is more like a "spell" that reduces the amount of time the marines are exposed to combat by deterring higher lifeforms from lingering, which rely more heavily on hit-and-run tactics.
I have noticed a strong correlation that a squad with a flamethrower survives longer against hit-and-run fades than one without.
The flamethrower sees its most effective use in slow pushes where the marines are huddled into a small group. As the marines spread out the flamethrower is not capable of providing his "area-of-effect spell" to all squad-mates.
A few responses -
The flamethrower is indeed far less effective against skulks... but as pointed out, that doesn't mean it should reign supreme on the battlefield.
Nor, should its cost dictate its all-around effectiveness against all alien classes. When used "properly" the flamethrower provides the additional protection the marines need for 30 personal resources.
Though, it may seem logical for the flamethrower to be an anti-structure weapon there are already several elements on the marine team that provide that anti-structure functionality... axe, gl, pistol, ARC.
That doesn't mean there aren't tweaks that can be made, but they need to be made carefully as new features are released into the game.
The real question is: Is the flamethrower serving a role, unfulfilled by any other weapon/class to the extent that it does, under situations deemed effective use?
I see the flamethrower as an effective weapon under certain situations, but should never be equipped beyond one marine.
If I can choose between 2 SGs,GL and 1 SG or 1 flamers and SG, the last one would be the weakest and most expensive to deal one fade.
It can only dealy the things with the flamer, f.e. Fade retreats earlier causing not to land the final hit in him, causing more hit and runs than longer fights.
Also his support role is strange. He causes the aliens to reatreat earlier and the aliens also pay more attention if a flamer is in the game, this often results in a flamer hunt. Also his offensive side is non existent in relation to its price. The olbligate fade support gorge heals and puts out the flames so this support perk turns to usless often.
Comparing a GL that cost less than a flamer
A GL can destroy skulks, gorges, lerks and all buildings (not the hive) in 2-3 shots and stills has an LMG to defend. 2 in 1 gun.
A flamer can't even kill a skulk without dying nothing more to said...
It is just a waste of res. If it would be cheaper than the GL or even at the price of a SG it could be a usfull gun ( looking at the price and value). Just like tax.
Edit:
Btw wasn't the flamer expected to be the main weapon against the DI? And it changeg it role to much by the new cyst prototype. So if the final DI is implemented in the game (maybe no more cysts) it could be again the main counter to DI increasing the importance of the flamer so its costs are ok then.
You are right that the game changes and the balance also (flamer is the best example for this IMO) but UWE said also the actual build should be balanced so lets find ways to fits the flamer in the actual state of the game so we may discover new features/potentials for the weapon/game.
The continued existance of the flame thrower is an evil made necessary by blink making fades invulnerable and untrackable. The new blink looks cooler but the blink from natural selection 1 plays much better; I prefer reimplementing the latter and consigning flamers to the dustbin(at least as far as the official game is concerned; leave the art assets in and comment out the code; modders might want to play with it).