Merc Feedback: Sparks

(badman) #1

Meet Sparks, the newest Merc to join Extraction’s line-up. Sparks wields the prototype REVIVR Smart Rifle, constructed for her by her best buddy Proxy.

The REVIVR can resuscitate incapacitated teammates from a distance the perfect companion for hit-and-run attacks on enemy positions. Better yet, the REVIVR can be charged up to electrocute enemies with a bit of precision aiming.

Sparks also comes with standard issue Med Packs, allowing her to resupply her teammates with health.

Please post your thoughts about Sparks in this thread. Here are a few questions to think about when putting together your feedback:

  1. Is Sparks fun to play?
  2. Is Sparks ability fun to use?
  3. Does Sparks fill a useful role within the team?
  4. How would you improve Sparks?
(Finko) #2

I think this REVIVR rilfle pretty spam thing, maybe making this rifle as special ability, like Nader’s granade launcher?

(badman) #3

Feedback posts from the Nexon forums:

Originally posted by Scarhand:

  1. Yes, very unique weapon that handles pretty well.

  2. Weapon is fun, medpacks just feel like sawbones’ but I don’t think enemies can pick up his but can pick up hers. I like enemies being able to pick them up.

  3. Seems to be competing with phoenix for the combat medic role in a way.

  4. The gun is absolutely most effective when just tapping the fire button rapidly rather than charging and firing (except for initial shot). I actually like this though, but I don’t know if that is how it was intended. It is interesting to have a highly effective first fire and then have to play it almost pistol like after that despite being a primary, very unique. I would suggest nerfing the initial damage slightly though, since it as a “semi-auto” gun is a little bit stronger than the other medics with the fact that ammo isn’t a problem (and is a massive problem with phoenix, making him pretty useless as a combat medic despite that being his role).

Also the gun seems to be having issues with hitting the head. Direct fire into the head from directly in front of the enemy may only do body damage and doing the exact same thing afterwards might give head damage (testing damage at full charge). Is there a lot of invisible spread? I haven’t noticed this with other weapons, but it could be possible.

Originally posted by S0und:
Tip for Spark:

If you are holding the weapon full charged for more then X seconds, after that you take XX% of damage every second. There must be a HUGE penalty for playing Snipermedic.

Originally posted by FireWorks:
If you charge the weapon and drop a med pack, the weapon is still charged afterwards. That feels a bit over the top.

Medpack style is a big plus.

Unlimited ammo is a big plus.

Originally posted by Glot:
Medpack are awesome to the max!

Gun should have boost with altfire and low damage no boost primary fire.
Pistol not nessessary.

Originally posted by xdc:
Sparks changes the whole game, the game is now a lot more fast paced.

Her weapon shouldn’t save charge when you switch weapons (glitch),

(suggestion)
Her weapon should be a very fast projectile (like a fast arrow), that curves slightly downward (makes long range revives require more skill),
weapon should have less spread if this change happens.

This would counter her sniper ability, making her weapon require more skill.
Class is slightly overpowered beyond short range

Originally posted by Fana:
Really interesting character, please don’t ruin it by adding heat mechanics or some of the other kneejerk suggestions that have been made.

I don’t think Sparks is OP, as some have been claiming, especially since her medpacks are the worst of the medics (most of the time you only have enough healing to keep yourself supplied, forget about teammates), but I think it’s too easy to continually revive with the revivr, and I think fully charged headshots do too much damage.

I suggest adding a cooldown to reviving (make the gun only charge to 95% during cooldown period, for example), reducing fully charged headshot damage to 90hp and slightly increasing medpack recharge rate.

I assume being able to keep the revivr charged by switching weapons is a bug (charge revivr to max, then switch weapons before releasing mouse1, and then switch back to revivr, and then it stays charged and shoots a fully charged shot on tapping mouse1), but I actually think it’s a good mechanic. There’s a danger element to it as well, since there is a delay in switching between the guns, which has gotten me killed on several occasions, which means that there are “choices and consequences” involved with doing it (more choices and consequences is always good!). Some of the best mechanics in gaming history have been added unintentionally as bugs (bunnyhopping comes to mind…), but the response these days is unfortunately often to simply remove said unintentional mechanics rather than reworking them to less janky legitimate gameplay mechanics.

What I’m going to suggest, is that you give love a chance and rework the mechanic rather than simply removing it as a bug. Obviously the switching-weapons-to-keep-it-charged part is too janky, but I think it should be possible to rework how the revivr works to make keeping it charged be a legitimate mechanic. My suggestion is pretty simple. Since it doesn’t have iron sights anyway, add a “lock charge” functionality to the iron sights button. There should be a reasonable length animation, during which the gun can’t be fired, when the charge is being locked, to add the same danger element it currently has when switching weapons. This adds a little more depth and fun to using the revivr.

Originally posted by prophet51:
Also love the way the medpacks work but the weapon is outrageously overpowered. The only weapon that should 1hk is a sniper.

Charged shots do too much damage.

(FireWorks) #4

Got in a match as rhino with only a sparks as medic. It ended in an endless fest of revives. I got revived, dropped an enemy, died, rinse repeat in maybe 4second cycles. We held that delivery on Whitechapel for some pretty long time but the mechanics seems a bit weird. We never got in the thinking of dropping medpacks or holding out of combat for a second. It just wouldnt matter with her weak medpacks, so I had a sparks standing behind me with a charged up gun for all the time. No chance to advance and only annoying the other team.

My suggestion would be medpacks with a +n%-Healing so even “tanks” have a chance of getting healed. (If it is already, add 5% pls :P)

(DarkangelUK) #5

I wonder if it would be best having the ranged revive on a cooldown but still give her standard paddles as well that can be used like the other medics.

(FireWorks) #6

With the 100% revive the others got now, Id like to test that option.

(Humate) #7

Does Sparks fill a useful role within the team?

Depends on the mode that is being played and the style that is used.

I think the mass-revive-play-from-the-back style doesnt suit stopwatch, and I feel its a really inefficient and ineffective method of playing medic.

As a push strategy it tends to only add time to the clock; the revived players dont get the health or protection they need to sustain their position on the map. So in order to mitigate that somewhat, another medic needs to play as the healer to those that have been revived. The problem with this is, versus a team of soldiers and fops adding an additional medic may tip the damage output advantage to the opposing teams favour. And the second issue with this style of Sparks, molotov acts a direct counter.

Aside from that, yes she has a useful role - but i dont feel her ability to revive at range adds to that, and I think in terms combat shes easily replaceable. If the skill floor for combat was higher across the board, reviving at range would have far more value, because fighting on lower HP levels would be viable.

(amazinglarry) #8

I was playing against her tonight (PixelTwitch) and she could raise people faster than I could gib them with my SMG on Bushwhacker.

We were on Canary Wharf, and I had an enemy player locked down, cornered. Took him out and he was raised immediately. Realizing Sparks was around, I took him out again and kept firing to gib him, but to no avail. He was raised AGAIN. It happened 3x in a row total (and must have been annoying as hell for the guy being raised – can’t hit ‘K’ fast enough).

I haven’t personally played her, but is there a visible indication of her ranged revive? If there was, I couldn’t see it. Her revive needs to be at least a ~3 second focus.

(Mustang) #9

I’d rather the incapped HP was reduced rather than decreasing the Revivr firerate, because for me it feels like gibbing is too slow in general, regardless of whether a Sparks is around or not.

(PixelTwitch) #10

Sorry posted this in the wrong thread.

Sparks is good and strong. :smiley:

(BAMFana) #11

The biggest problem with gibbing right now, at least to me, is that sometimes the way the body falls makes it impossible to hit the head from a safe distance. Gibbing with headshots is pretty fast, but gibbing with body/leg/arm shots takes forever. Since the player has no control over how the body is positioned, repeated bad luck leads to frustration. Rewarding headshots on incapped players doesn’t really add any depth, so I think hitzones should be equalized on incapped players. There should be no difference between a bodyshot and a headshot, for example. The actual bullets to gib would then have to be adjusted; I guess somewhere in the middle between the amount of bullets it currently takes to gib with headshots and the amount it takes to gib with bodyshots.

(Glottis-3D) #12

agreed. like 50 hp. or may be 40% of full-live HP.

(Smooth) #13

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to BAMFana again."

(RasteRayzeR) #14

Agreed, been saying this for quite some time … really see no reason why we should headshot to gib. It also leads to inconsistencies such as killing with two shotgun shots but gibbing with 3 …

(BomBaKlaK) #15

+1

can be nice

(Mustang) #16

I think we all agree with equal hitzones for gibbing.

(tokamak) #17

Sparks reviving requires way too much precise aiming. I’d rather see her revive from a distance through a cone.

A cone for the offence ability wouldn’t be too bad either. Right now the fight outcomes are way too erratic.

I thinke UT2k4’s shield weapon would be a nice example for how this should function.

//youtu.be/P_yyJHIVjjg

Of course it shouldn’t be as lethal, but the ‘general direction is enough’ attitude of the weapon fits a medic much better.

In the end being a supporting roll is all about making split-section decisions among lots of different options with different priorities. Having to charge a weapon with incredibly precise aiming required just filters out the strategy.

Another option would be to reverse the healing. Like a QW technician over range. You need to keep aiming and firing at a team-mate to load his revive.

(amazinglarry) #18

I feel like that’s the trade-off to be able to raise people at range. The further you are, the more difficult it should be due to the distance you are from the incapped player.

I don’t like how quickly she can charge up and raise somebody though, and how there isn’t much feedback to the opposing team other than seeing the merc you just killed resurrected by the hand of God.

I like the raise over time – and wouldn’t mind seeing a ‘beam’ connected to the player a la the Team Fortress 2 heal (where it would lock on provided you’re pointing in the general direction after the connection is made). At least then it gives some visual indication to both teams that the merc is being raised… so I can hunt the sob down more efficiently…

(tokamak) #19

The window to revive someone at range is usually much smaller than the window to kill someone at range. So having a ‘revive sniper’ is fun on paper but in reality it’s only frustrating.

Another thing that leads to frustrating is that charging it on Spark’s side of things is missing any communication with the patient you’re trying to save. That’s going to lead to a lot of tap outs before the revive hits.

Reversing it makes more sense. So having to hold a (less accurate) connection with your target and charge up a revive (like the QW technician). That way you can instantly ‘connect’ with the dude you’re trying to revive, that player will be able to make a better informed decision (and probably not tap out). You could even then give the downed player a quick ‘revive’ shot, one that only starts the charge up just to give a nudge that you’re aware of his situation and that you’re the next priority for reviving.

This would also allow Sparks to juggle several revive projects going at the same time. This would deeply reward players that know how to prioritise.

So what I’m basically pleading for here is, please make Sparks a ranged Strogg Technician (but do by all means keep her looks).

AND on offense this works as well. Sparks could ‘microwave’ the opponents. That is to say, the gun doesn’t do any damage until the 100% charge on that player has been reached. Again, QW technician over range, but lethal on enemies.

The fun mechanic on this is that it would completely ignore the hp of the enemy. So it doesn’t matter if the target is wounded or fully charged, once the 100% has been reached on that player, he’ll go ‘pop’ .

The microwaving could also give a visual effect. That way the target knows he’s being ‘microwaved’. Again, health stays the same but the visual could get get increasingly severe to the point of blindness and then pop.

So in short, Ranged Strogg Technician revive/kill is the way to go.