Merc Feedback: Kira

(badman) #1

Kira’s just your average bright, sunny, genki young girl next door who just happens to control a weapon satellite in near-earth orbit. She does not want to borrow your Manga. She does not want to watch Anime with you. She is all in favour of using “to Godzilla” as a transitive verb. She’s friendly, vivacious right up to the moment she destroys you with a pillar of fiery light from the sky.

Kira’s Orbital Strike ability calls down a hot, melty beam of destruction from the heavens. It does a LOT of damage over a small area but can be directed, so you can wipe out whole groups of enemies, one by one. She can also deploy an Ammo Station to resupply her teammates even while she’s bringing down her Orbital Strike.

Tactical Tip: wait for your enemies to bunch up before unleashing your fiery sky-strike.

                        Please post your thoughts about Kira in this thread. Here are a few   questions to think about when putting together your feedback:
  1. Is Kira fun to play?
  2. Is Kira’s ability fun to use?
  3. Does Kira fill a useful role within the team?
  4. How would you improve Kira?
(Glottis-3D) #2
  1. yep
  2. Yep.
  3. Yep.
    4.1. Make 2nd mode of her primary weapon (i.e. add singleshots)
    4.2. I’d like to have a charge time for her Laser. much like Plazma Canon did in etqw.
(acutepuppy) #3

Her ability feels loose and wobbly. Drawing a path for the beam might be more fun than actively redirecting, and allow you to return to combat.

On that note, FOPS targeting abilities could be cool from a command map view instead of in the field.

(BomBaKlaK) #4

I like the real time effect you can change direction on the fly.

(Glottis-3D) #5

and you can combine it in-fight with your gun (if it ran out of ammo)

(Runeforce) #6

I’d combine the weapon (the one with bullets) and the OS targeting tool into one, so f. ex. going into IS (perhaps combined with pressing the ability button) enages the ability if ready.

(Humate) #7

Dynamic gun, plays quite differently depending on range.
It can play a bit like vassilis sniper, in that the window of opportunity for the opposing player to kill you is pretty large if you miss. On the flip-side of that coin, you hit them once - its over for them, unless they are playing Rhino… A single tapshot to the head vs standing target brings a player to about 10HP.

Her role is to force the opposing team into predictable pathways, protect plant objectives on attack, and defend hack objectives on defense all with her ability, and her other role is to rambo.

Overall I think shes one of the more interesting characters in game. I feel her ability is best used in “static” mode on objectives, instead of targetting players on the move. And her weapon, in the right hands is ridiculous… and fun.

(Loffy) #8

1. Is Kira fun to play?
Well, yes, but at the same time nah, because the other classes compete for my attention.

2. Is Kira’s ability fun to use?
The orbital striker is fun, especially the fact that you can manuover it in all directions. Pretty hard to get any kills though. It also seems un-polished, so it is hard to know whether the un-fun depends on bugs rather than faulty weapon mechanics/functions design.

3. Does Kira fill a useful role within the team?
Nah, her special ability (the striker) is really cool, but still so-so, which leaves here pretty low on the list of must-haves for a team, imho

4. How would you improve Kira?
Kiri would shine on larger, outdoor maps (valleys, rifts, canyons) where she would sit up high on a hill, in the distance, and hunt packs of enemies in bottle-neck areas with her orbital striker.

The rifle: OK
Gun: Incredible kicking recoil. Must try and master it.

(RasteRayzeR) #9

  1. Is Kira fun to play?
    As long as you have very good accuracy, yes. Otherwise she’s kinda tough to use imo. Not the merc you begin with in the game.

  2. Is Kira’s ability fun to use?
    Certainly is but does not suit the maps. As Loffy said, kira would have been great in bigger maps with vantage points. In QW she would have been great. XT maps are simply not suited for her ability because you have to get exposed to point the targeting device correctly, and then you die in 2 seconds after you started to pour hell on earth.

  3. Does Kira fill a useful role within the team?
    The ammo station is too defensive for an offensive merc such as kira. I think it just cuts her ability to push in. I’d rather have her distribute ammo packs like skyhammer. Also I find her a bit weak concerning her HP but again, I’m far from being an accurate shooter and I’ve seen others get a lot of kills with her. I guess her learning curve is too steep.

  4. How would you improve Kira?
    Ammo packs instead of the station, slightly more HP, less recoil on her pistol so that the average player can use it if the main is too hard to master (at least just to give a chance to survive an opponent).

For her ability, I guess it’s the maps that have to change. She needs both cover and vantage points.

(Violator) #10

1. Is Kira fun to play?
What Raste said :slight_smile: The scope is also pretty unusable due to the green x-hair wobble issue. Only headshots seem to do any appreciable damage. Pistol is extremely hard to hit anything with for us mere mortals.

2. Is Kira’s ability fun to use?
Can be, but hard to see where its hitting - the big red X helps but it also blocks your view quite a bit. Leaves you a sitting duck when using.

3. Does Kira fill a useful role within the team?
Beam is useful for denying objectives and choke points. Ammo station not so useful. She seems a bit of an anomaly - main weapon is more effective up close yet her beam is designed for long-range which leaves the ammo station less viable. How about a unique supply ability such as a targetted ammo drop?

4. How would you improve Kira?
Fix scope issues with main weapon and make it more usable by anything other than the top few players. Add ability to predefine beam path as someone suggested though being able to direct it manually is good, albeit leaving you dead most of the time while doing so.

(k1ruaa) #11

Just got an idea!

Allow us to manœuvrer the beam directly with his main weapon : By pressing the ability key, the beam goes where you aim with your main weapon. That way you can fire and move your beam at the same time. I think it could be really efficient.

(trickykungfu) #12

  1. Is Kira fun to play?
    She is fun to play because her weapon is the overall best atm. Like Arty was a couple of patches bevor. Now no1 playes him… You most likely win most 1v1 even her only having 80hp.

  2. Is Kira’s ability fun to use?
    useless

  3. Does Kira fill a useful role within the team?
    she’s the 1 to do the frags

  4. How would you improve Kira?
    i would change nothing. strong weapon, weak ability. thats ok for me!

(tokamak) #13

Kira is going to appeal to the CS crowd.

The orbital laser is fun but also problematic. That’s due to it being a constant laser in a game where hardly anything is a constant (bullets and everything come in ‘packets’)

Things would be easier to comprehend for a player if the orbital laser was quickly pulsating rather than a constant stream. Both in graphics as in damage. The damage should oscillate between high and low between the pulses.

Also I don’t think it should require constant baby sitting. If players like to hold the button then that’s fine, but after the laser has charged it only should be steerable with simple point clicks to set the path.

(modded) #14
  1. Yes, I feel that her main weapon is very strong if used properly.
  2. No, it’s way too risky with not enough reward. Compared to Arty’s power, it has a much quicker activation time, and the delay means you are out of sight when your opponent rounds the corner. Kira’s power leaves you vulnerable in all stages of its use, and I find it hard to actually hit anything with it (or I die whilst activating it).
  3. As a fragger, she is great. But you can say that about other mercs. She’s not bad by any means, but there’s no specific reason to use her unless you like her primary weapon IMHO.
  4. Slightly lower the activation time of her beam and/or make it so that moving the position of the beam does not reset the activation timer, right now you have expose yourself too much for her power to be useful.
(Scarhand) #15

Wow, gun is strong. Every new merc gets strong weapons, and the original mercs like sawbones are left in the dust. Vassil is the only original merc who can still hold is own.

(Glottis-3D) #16

okey. Orbital laser.

  1. Less damage, more area. so that Laser is more fire support, than total annihilation.
  2. different laser mechanics. be that:
  • Minimap pointing (this gives opportunity to damage from spawn)
  • Delay (like it was suggested before), so that it demands a good prediction of traectory.
  • Short impulse laser, instead of continious one. with recharge time and instant speed.
(INF3RN0) #17

I was also thinking the orbital laser would be better either

(A) similar to etqw vio mechanic

or

(B) similar to arty’s barrage call down

A pulsing laser with more damage and AOE would be preferred to the current.

(DJswirlyAlien) #18

I like her a lot. Generally I agree with all the positive things said about her on this thread.

The only changes I would want to see made is her scope on her primary (when aimed) is pretty horrible, not a fan of that in the slightest. It works perfectly fine but it seems really crude.

And her orbital laser strike seems to be fairly unreliable when calling in. The ‘channel time’ on that ability is pretty brutal as it is in the heat of a fight I don’t think it needs the ‘perfect space’ requirement too. Obviously it shouldn’t be clipping through buildings and such but things like a chest high wall shouldn’t bother something shooting from orbit.

Otherwise really like her overall. Really don’t think she needs tweaking.

(DJswirlyAlien) #19

Will we get Kira back at some point?

(Anti) #20

Yes. We’ve taken some characters out of the beta as we feel they need a lot of balancing/reworking, so we don’t want to leave them playable in their currently misleading state.

All of the characters will be back as soon as we’ve finished that work though.