[Suggestion] Make Light Assaults more suited for teamplay.

Discussion in 'Light Assault' started by Luminiouscow, Sep 22, 2014.

  1. Demigan

    I don't want the LA to be able to ferry MAXes but I know what you mean. I still think that the Heavy jet would bring more than a glorified taxi service with it's flying stability allowing ADS/hipfire. What other mobility advantage could the LA bring without you requiring just one LA to ferry entire Zergs somewhere?
    I really liked Movoza's idea. Adding more advantages that reduce the LA's own attacks (smoke/flash grenades, avoiding by mobility) while increasing it's own effectiveness against other classes. I already tried to add a few idea's of that with the smoke module on the Jumpjet and other things.
    I think that that's what we all should be going for. Idea's that enhance the confusion abilities of the LA (more smoke and flash abilities, things that mess with radar signatures). That way the LA could become similar to the HA. The HA does not offer an actual team ability, but it's AV/AA rocket launcher, shield and LMG bring enough to the table to make it an effective class without having to be a "support" class. The LA could gain that as extra ability, confusing enemy lines and killing them.

    I don't think it's been discussed here properly, but previously people have mentioned giving the LA a grenade launcher utility. It could function as a light AV weapon that replaces the C4 (should make some people happy, less C4 fairies). The weapon coul dhave as additional abilities that it bounces light grenades around, damaging nearby enemies. It could be a great boon to shoot a dozen light grenades, bounce them into a room and see how the enemy try to avoid them. That would cause some extra confusion.
  2. z1967

    Steel Rain: Flash drop edition. The new method for collecting flash roadkills and taking out aircraft :p.

    Its seems like such a silly yet obvious idea. Biolab fights will never be the same again lol.
  3. Rovertoo

    Yes! I can see it now, a coordinated Flash-drop on top of an enemy Sunderer! Kablooey! And the brave squad rides away into the Indar sunset.

    (also can't wait for that recon drone, can you imagine sticking C4 to it?)
  4. z1967

    Poor tankers. And all the poorly made 9/11 jokes :p
  5. Rovertoo

    I really like the grenade launcher tool idea, and I really like your confusion/mayhem goals. I can get behind that. I just don't really like the idea of hoisting people around, honestly. Seems to me it would just make the LA be abused as a mobile elevator.

    An awesome tool idea I read somewhere was for a stim pack that would increase running speed, reload speed, weapon speed, etc. I think this would ply real well into LA territory and help it considerably in 1v1 fights, which it currently has problems with if the LA doesn't have surprise on it's side. I can imagine it'd look kinda like a medpack and have so many uses per cert level.

    But your idea of having LA be the chaotic brother of the HA is a good one. Some confusion tools would be way nice! (buff to current flash bang maybe?). Higby suggested the Rocklet rifle/Thumper grenade launcher in his latest stream, he mentioned letting it have multiple ammo types. If that was our tool, we could have our choice of weak AI ammo, AV ammo, (AA ammo?) and flash/smoke/concussion ammo! That would just lob metal cases of confusion and destruction. Another thing on the same strain is maybe a radar jammer, or a 'slow feild' that would decrease the mobility of enemies.
  6. Cest7

    Give them grenade bandoleer as a passive, let them dual wield pistols? Currently its super gimped, Engineer with none of the good utils and only a jetpack...
  7. Corezer

    9/24

    So I've been working on this a good bit, trying to figure out a solution that enhances what I perceive as LA's current roles (infantry cluster disruption and specified vehicle elimination) and have come up with a list of changes that will result in LA being better able to perform it's role(s), while better directing the class' power so that this isn't as simple as 100m c4 throw distance (which while increasing the number of situations where LA can perform it's role, would be OP as hell)

    Currently, the class crutches hard on C4 for a couple of reasons.

    1) it is our only effective explosive (our grenades are made of flubber, our special nades don't work, and UBGL is not worth the sacrifice of a real gun) is C4. Because of this, in order to perform either class role, we need to be, on the X axis, at most 5 or 6m away from out targets, greatly limiting situations where an LA based counter is feasible.

    2) explosives are the only effective (as in not most effective, but the only one which has any effect at all) means of disrupting infantry clusters. Due to our inability to stay out of cover and how fast medics can pick players up, it would literally be impossible to do the level of damage to a group that would cause them to consider abandoning their position using small arms, be it Carbines, ARs, or even LMG's. The carbine is a personal defense weapon for use traveling between our friendly and objective positions.
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    Now that we have that out of the way, here is my intent for changes that would actually impact the number of situations in which we can be used. For the sake of garnering support from other communities, I am putting compensatory nerfs first.

    1) C4 replaced with magnetic shaped charge. The shaped charge has a very small inner blast radius of 0.3m and drops to 0 damage by 0.5m in a frontal cone to simulate its effect. Damage is 1.25x the inner blast of C4. The charge is on a 10 second timer (from throw) giving the vehicle driver an opportunity to kill the LA, and can be disarmed by the engineer tool in 2-3 seconds. There is also an audio cue of metal hitting metal upon stick, so you know what to do and have time to do it if the LA isn't guarding the charge. for physics these things would have no bounce to them. To compensate the charge is given coyote effect (magnetic) sticking the front to vehicles, aircraft, and MAX units within 2.0m (the inner blast radius of C4)

    This ensures several things:
    It will be much harder to "C4 Fairy" as your distance above them cant be too high or it detonates in the air, and it cant be too low or they get ample time to disarm and in that case you may as well land, put it on their tank, and shoot it.

    Strength in numbers is more effective, as LA can't hang around in LoS of a tank line for 7-8 seconds watching to make sure the charges dong get disarmed, and there would still be much less likelihood of an LA being able to get the perfect height to time the fall so it lands just as it goes off.

    If it doesn't land in the max damage range of C4, it wont do damage at all, meaning no possibility of "partial" hits on throws that are missed by a large margin still destroying a weakened tank.

    Much less usable as a trap, since we do not control the detonation.

    No (or rather very unlikely) vehicle multi-kills

    still cant solo a sunderer with blockade or deployment shield

    Can't insta-gib players in full health vehicles, even if I got to the perfect altitude to make them go off as they landed on your tank, there would be a good couple of seconds between explosions, or between audio cue and blast if I get 7-10 seconds above the tank and throw them in the same spot (which is undeniably difficult as jumpjet use constantly moves you forward) at least not in the same quick and cueless way as throwing 2 c4 from up high, and already having the detonator out and ready by the time they land.

    On the plus side:
    Coordinating with team mates is much more plausible, as the number of rocket hits required to take a tank down using 1 charge is reduced.

    More potential vehicle damage in your loadout
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    Even though, as a direct combat tool, this is a weaker disposable than C4, due to the higher damage it is a better tool for surgically removing that one tank who got himself on top of a mountain to fire into your base, and is a bigger/better contributor for using LA in pushes against sunderers.
    I am fine with this, our mobility is supposed to be used for flanking and being sneaky, not for rushing headlong at opponents and hoping we don't get shot before we detonate. it gives up some of our overt combat ability, which is crappy anyway, and gives enough surgical capability to be noticed as an asset in that area. Plus the stuff is so powerful, we can't expect to hear our cries to be less situational to be heard. Right now C4 is our AI, AV, and AMax, all wrapped into one super strong but not often usable tool. That not often usable part is what keeps us from being thought of by commanders, and that super strong part is what keeps us from being more often usable.

    This change does however leave a big hole in our anti infantry play, which is where the next changes come in.

    2) Replace flash grenades. Flash grenades currently are ineffective, and even if they were made to work would only do a lesser job of what Concs are for, since flashed enemies can still dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge around to be harder targets than conced ones. Replace flash grenades with a v3 mini like grenade. each ranke of grenade bando will give you one more, not 3. The nature of the v3 is to provide a large, lower damage splash area, and more control over where they go due to low bounce mechanics, perfect for LA's job. Each grenade would cost 30 resources, or 90 for a loadout when u use them, 180 for 6 with grenade bando. 3 minis would have the expected killing power of 2 frags, which is not much if you're lucky, nothing for most people. The choice is between whether or not you want grenades that bounce around a lot for throwing against door frames, or if you want something you can throw into the middle of a group and expect it to blow up in the area you threw it. 6 minis when using max grenade bando is the same as 4 frags, so kill potential between the 2 types evens out, just the same choice as before.

    3) Replace Smoke Grenades (hand) Currently smoke is just crappy, and limited, and resource costing, UB smoke. My idea is the nanite cloud grenade. This grenade makes a big green cloud (cause nanites are green, duh) just like a smoke grenade makes a black one, but the nanites are programmed to attack anything inside the cloud. They hit for 1 damage every half second. The purpose of this is to get shields to blink often. UB smoke is an engineer thing to put between allies and enemies so enemies can't observe allied movements. This is to disrupt enemy clusters, they need to leave the area or risk being assaulted by allies, who can see them reasonably well even without HSNV scopes (enemies with HSNV can still retaliate by seeing out, and allies that go into the smoke can be seen just like enemies, to prevent the effect from having too much power) Basically it does the same thing as offensive smoke use with HSNV does, but without having to get everyone to equip HSNV, which just isn't plausible in most situations.

    4) increase movement speed, while jets are active by 20% This isn't enough to cause de-synch issues, as a matter of fact it is still slower than max charge, but it does make out movements between friendly and objective positions a little faster and thus a little less hazardous. Obviously reduce fuel to compensate so distance traveled on a full charge remains similar.

    5) Remove UBGL from S carbines and ARs, and make UBGL, UBSL, and UBSG it into tools for LA. The devs have already shown that they can in fact put multiple rail attachments on a weapon. The current UBGL, while not as insanely lethal as the prior iteration, is still good for dispersing infantry formations, UBGL will be made to no longer penetrate spawn room shields, so it can't be spammed from inside, and starting ammo will be 1 in the pipe, 2 in reserve. UBSG/smoke can still be used by engineers and medics. On LA the underbarrel launchers are removed, but an S carbine gets 1 more shot in the selected LA tool by default. This keeps purpose for the S carbines on LA, less effective weapon for another grenade/shell/smoke. This gives our ability to disrupt infantry clusters some more reach, while not being quite as effective up close as dropping C4 on a group, our abilities are usable along a wider array of situations than just ones where we can get within 6m on the x axis, and are still potent enough to be thought of. Auraxium carbines will have their shotgun replaced by the selected LA tool. The tool is switched to by simply pressing the F key, releasing the F key will launch the shot and switch back. You can cancel the usage by switching weapons while holding F. quickly pressing F will result in a shot being fired as soon as the weapon is ready. in either case you will have to press F again to reload.
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    These changes widen the number of bases where we will be able to perform our functions by a good amount, while not allowing the class to do as much damage in said occasions (while I C4 groups of infantry with glee, I can understand why they wouldn't want us insta-gibbing 4-6 people after maybe a 3 second prep time, in a majority of fights) Additionally, the class doesn't rely on just one tool (C4) for both AI and AV, so there is a more reasonable choice to be made in the utility slot. Basically while not becoming OP, we are relevant in more situations, which takes care of the weakness of being irrelevant in most cases

    While quick access to shotguns and grenades doesn't make us a heavy on the front line, we aren't as weak as support classes either.

    With faster jet speeds, insertion dangers are reduced, while discovery (combined with skillful usage of the Q button, motion spotters, recon darts, scout and proximity radars, radar bolts, etc.) still hurts the mission pretty gravely, and flying still isn't safe by any stretch as we still have poor means of retaliation.
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    To summarize the effects of changes, by going back to my list of perceived strengths and weaknesses:

    We can flank quickly (and now actually more quickly, as opposed to simply more conveniently)
    We can disrupt enemy clusters (and now often enough to get remembered by squad leaders)
    We surgically remove vehicles we can maintain a position on

    We still need to move back and fourth between objective positions and allied positions often for supplies
    We still undergo great danger while doing that
    We still have to start from square 1 (spawn room) almost every time we die
  8. Chris Bingley

    Here's an idea.

    Why not move the Jump/Drifter jets to the tool slot and introduce a bunch of abilities, say 2-3 common pool options and a faction specific one. Prioritise the abilities to push the idea of a LA being the vanguard of an assault. For example, one of the abilities could reduce the time taken to cap a point (although Valve may have something to say about that), another could be a temporary movement speed boost (similar to adrenaline boost, but activatable and doesn't stack).