So here we are again guys, we got the lancer and now we have the vortex. Whether you love these weapons or hate them, whether they are OP or UP it cannot be denied that the majority of the VS user base view these weapons and their accompanying charge mechanic as undesirable. Lets first try to determine why that is. One problem facing both the vortex and lancer is their damaged reputation, at release the lancer was clearly UP, evident by the buffs that it has recieved so far. I cant really blame SOE for this one considering how different this weapon was when compared to all other AV weapons in the game, it was bound to take some time to figure out how to balance it. Unfortunately a lot of players will still have the notion that these weapons are weak and whether they are or not is not really the purpose of this thread. I believe the major undesirable trait of the charge mechanic is its lack of usability when compared to other weapon mechanics like lock on and wire guidance. I will list some traits which i think make the charge mechanic more challenging and skill requiring; You need to aim ( I know shocking right?) You need to time your charges You need to know when to spam single shots and when to charge You need to spam mouse buttons while controlling recoil and maintaining your aim Your DPS is linked to your spam speed/ability (unless you want to setup a macro, I know some people have resorted to this) You have no zoom ability on what is essentially a AV sniper rifle Clearly there are some issues with the mechanic, and while it is unique and interesting it probably needs to be improved to be more user friendly and fun. Solution: When you pull out your charge weapon it will automatically charge up to max level. Upon firing the charge will start again until it is fully charged once more. If you wish to fire single shots you can hold down your mouse buttons, this will result in a fully charged shot followed by single shots until you release the fire button. You can interrupt the charging process at any time and the shot fired will be equivalent to the amount of charge that had been accumulated at that point. (May be needed for balance)If you go into sprint your charge is depleted, upon slowing to a walk your weapon will start charging again. SOE wants to push this charge mechanic on us - rumours of a charge pistol are circulating now - and yes the artists did a great job on the animation and i love the sound design too, unfortunately it just doesnt play well. Please discuss any other fixes we could make to improve the charge mechanic and make it more user friendly or if you disagree with me entirely feel free to tell me why.
Found some interesting numbers, the amount of players that have played for more than 60 minutes with these weapons between the 3rd and 12th of May are as follows; Striker: 1391 Phoenix: 971 Lancer: 641 Fracture: 359(left arm)/1835(right arm) Raven: 203/961 Vortex: 122/488 Source:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AmUavphHXmIxdFhHUzJfN1VYalRnWS0xMnBUdTJpM1E&gid=66
These are all true and the Lancer does have a (slightly) higher skill required than other ESRLs but is rewarded for it in other categories which I won't bother rehashing. The charge mechanic in and of itself is not a problem, it only becomes a problem when it is blindly applied as some form of overall class "trait" as though it is some form of "benefit". It isn't a benefit, it is a throttle to control various aspects of a weapon. So when applied to the Lancer it is fine (because all missiles except dumbfires have some form of "firing delay" implementation, be it lock on, guiding during flight time, charge, whatever). When applied to the Vortex its is pointless because it serves no purpose on a moving MAX which typically needs to fire quickly in and out of cover at close range, also when everyone else has effectively the same weapon without your throttle. When applied to the pistol it is completely nonsensical because it runs completely counter to how pistols are used in this game. You can tell how SOE development are thinking. They see charge up as a benefit "the longer you hold the shot, the more damage you do" rather than the throttle it is "unless you hold it to maximum charge its ability is significantly scaled back". If they wanted to make a charge pistol viable and fair it would need to do 150% of the damage of a Commissioner with AE splash damage. Clearly they can't introduce something like this in game without breaking it. The problem has become how to balance a 1st and 3rd charge state without making one useless and the other broken, this is the basic problem with a charge mechanic. They also forget that hitting a target directly in an FPS with mouse cursor control is relatively easy so the most valued attribute is simply straight damage to target. No one wants special effects like damage over time or splash or other such things. The fact that my laser is burning into you for 5s doesn't help me if I'm dead on the floor with 2 Commissioner bullets in my brain pan. They lucked out on the Lancer because the arena of missile combat luckily suits the charge mechanic, other areas, not so much. I don't think they need to adjust the charge mechanic on the Lancer, I think they need to stop using the charge mechanic AT ALL until they can wrap their heads around the benefit vs throttle idea and actually find situations where it suits (not often).
