Balance Pass Post 2: Nanoweave and Related Features

MBT HE GON BE GUD

I can do both.

This is a buff to AP mines, UBGLs, splash damage everywhere which is already a stupid unfun mechanic.

On the other hand, this also means that people who go for headshots are given an even bigger leg up. I can't wait to completely dumpster everyone who is more body shot oriented before I get killed by roll of the dice explosions out of the blue.

Yes, that wildly hyperbolic statement is exactly what I meant

It worries me that it looks like they are further reducing Grenades, HE, C4, and AI Mines damage against Infantry... and for what? Infantry are the primary counter for infantry by a long shot, but if you don't put something in there, where there are tools that can eliminate infantry more readily than other things, infantry's only counter will be MORE infantry. So to beat 50 infantry, you need 60 infantry. To beat 60 you need 70 and so on. It actually starts to get worse the higher you get in number to. So while 12 infantry are best countered by 8-15, 48 infantry working together are most effectively removed by using more like 48-70. The more infantry you have currently, the less effective vehicles are, because you'll have more heavies, which will mean, more anti-vehicle weapons (By default, as a heavy will ALWAYS have an AV weapon on it at all times, it's just a question of whether it's a lock on or a default). Your just going to keep feeding the infantry massing tactic, until the ONLY option is zerging harder, or getting into one of those bases where you can channel people.

That, Really worries me.

I highly doubt this will come out positively for any explosive weapon. They outright stated that EVERY explosive weapon is getting looked at, and judging by SOE's balance policies regarding explosions and the fact nanoweave will now only apply to small arms, I would heavily bet on the plan being to nerf explosives across the board.

Any change you could make semi-automatic weapons immune to nanoweave? These weapons are not in good on their designated roles and nanoweave takes away even that little usefulness what they have.

They're also planning on buffing flak, so I'm hoping they'll take that into consideration as they rebalance explosions. Something they could do is lower or maintain damage, while increasing splash radius, so that they are more effective as crowd suppression against unprepared infantry.

I doubt it. They out of the blue decided that AP mines needed a stupidly huge buff so that they're pretty much impossible to get away from if placed correctly. If they nerf explosives enough so that they're in line with current values, half of the explosives in the game are still too strong.

Those two things are not correlated at all but okay. Explosives should be nerfed against infantry because a lot of them are stupidly strong against things they shouldn't be (UBGLs, Rocket pods, Rocket Launchers), some of them shouldn't exist (AP mines), and vehicles currently do just fine against large amounts of infantry. You shouldn't be able to drive into a group of 30 HAs by yourself in a tank and expect to get out alive.

I think the removal of headshot damage reduction will be a good thing for semiautos, since they tend to be headshot-based weapons. It'll be nice to have Battle rifles & slug shotguns not have their headshots require 2-3 more shots because of nanoweave reduction. It'll definitely cause a bigger divide between shooting for the body and head, though.

NUC buff confirmed

As long as they are reduced to a point where explosions that currently OHK still OHK an unarmored/Nanoweave infantry, then ok, a balanced decision. People DO need a reason to cert into Flak armor after all... and MBT HE shells should OHK with inner splash anyone who is not wearing Flak armor. Period, end story, no further questions, thank you. HEAT shells should be the ones that two shot an infantry with splash, HE should be the OHK splash shells. This goes along the vein of making a balanced game with specializing roles to perform. If you need to reduce MBT HE direct hit damage to justify the inner splash OHK kill against infantry, then be my guest, it'll be for the better of the game IMO.

I remember AP mines got buffed a few patches ago in order to OHK a nanoweave player. I hope this is what you mean. Grenades too? Just the little stuff that people don't have a learning curve for. If this turns out to be a nerf to Vehicles/Aircraft, then I can't support this decision.

Something just occurred to me.

What about shotguns?

Will the shotguns return as the OHK wonders if they land a head-shot? Will spray and pray weapons become even more effective in CQC by simply landing lucky head-shots? Will the nano-weave reduction stack with resist shield for HA hilarity?

There a ton of unintended ramifications this change could cause, and I'm sure I haven't thought of the worst of them yet.

I liked everything except for this.

I love to snipe and this kills it for me. 150 meters is way too short since an LMG can outclass your sniper rifle at this range.

The last thing a sniper wants to do is to try to measure how many meters they are away from a target so they can know if they are able to OHK or not. If your really going to cap the range for OHKs........

Then please put a range finder in the scope display so we can see if we should take the shot or not!

Headshot multiplier damage on people with Nanoweave is going to go from 1.125 to 1.5 soon. So yeah, they're going to be a whole crap ton better than body shots, like wow.

Its a start but not enough to make these weapons useful like they were before everyone started running with nanoweave. Semi-automatic weapons exchange their fire rate into a high damage, which is the only thing that makes them useful in their designated roles, so they should not be affected by things like nanoweave.

Never playing Infantry ever again.

There's already too many Invisible people around and this will make it worse.

After this the forums will be filled with Nerf Infiltrator threads.

These changes seem to be unnecessary and unnecessarily complicated.

Nobody outside of a few very loud, very whiny snipers complains about NW.

Nerfing NW against explosions is also puzzling. Vehicles are pretty good at farming infantry. The fact that it is referred to as farming speaks volumes. The change is not needed.

I disagree on a few points here, the same points as others in this thread, but for different reasoning all together.

1. Reducing explosive damage: there is no need. Yes, explosive damage will do more damage on average to targets with Nanoweave now, but that's the point. Don't like being killed via splash damage? Cert Flak armor. That's what it's for. Buff Flak armor slightly if needed, but don't fiddle with the explosive damage amounts. Why mess with such a complicated structure when you can simply vary Flak's effectiveness by a few percentage points to get the balance right?

2. 150m range limit for OHK headshots: this range limit is much too short. You're putting a (detrimental and poorly thought out) skill cap on sniping by doing this. If I can make a 300m or 400m headshot, I should be rewarded just as much, if not more, than those who can do the same at 150m. Don't like being killed from 300m? Then don't sit still and camp. Most of the guys I kill at render distance are jerk AV MANA turret abusers anyway. /sarcasm And we *clearly* need more of those guys around, right? /*sarcasm

If snipers won't get OHK headshots after 150m, then you'll see players simply not taking shots outside of 150m, which totally removes the point of sniping in the first place, along with any reason for high power long range sniper rifles and high magnification scopes.

The Dev team is overthinking the problem and the results are an overly complex solution to the current game design. Keep it simple, keep it consistent.

Suggestion regarding OHK headshots: what about the option to have another armor type and/or introduce a specific helmet armor type that when equipped would protect specifically against OHK headshots at the expense of regular body armor (for the armor type) and at the expense of other helmet bonus options if a dedicated helmet slot was created? Additional helmet slot benefits could be similar to implant ideas, being very powerful and ensuring that the armored helmet wasn't the defacto choice. Options could be advanced targeting information, enhanced audio detection, enhanced communication capabilities (better spotting, enhanced information distribution etc.), the list goes on.

I'm not a big fan of this for one big reason: Snipers in other games don't turn invisible on command.

The fact that you can scan for targets under cloak means there is really no way you're going to get spotted before you shoot, so the first hit is practically free for a good sniper.

The only thing that keeps Infiltrators from being seriously overpowered in PS2 is just the fact that there is little room for them in the big picture. A random invisible dude killing you is annoying as hell, but when it comes to flipping bases it's not a particularly big contribution to your overall progress.

Is it just me or does this really screw up the NW + Resist Shield combo?