Hello,
First off, thanks for all your effort in making a wonderful game,
Secondly, this is more of a thought thing, its no suggestion, yet its meant to be one, so take it as you will!
1- Regarding the support xp, the missions are such a huge grind, I get how you’re viewing this and I agree with your points, in a game, someone can spam their packs of ammos or heals and get tons of xp (before it was nerfed)
But right now compared to the other types of xp, its become so underwhelming.
When you look at combat xp and game xp, they are much more rewarding than sup xp.
A few kills, a few thrown nades, gibbing enemies, planting c4, repairing, ect… they reward a huge ton of xp.
Granted those roles sometimes go into sticky situations, front lines, ect, but I as a medic (not really discussing ammo mercs here) sometimes play aggressive, long jump revives, leading charge and keeping everyone topped up.
It rewards me less in terms of xp, than it should. I mean yes, overall xp, imo you’ll rack up most if you’re a good medic (get kills, revive and heal, do objectives) but in most cases its gonna be you tending to your own role.
So what I want is a more rewarding system, maybe reviving allies right before they’re gibbed or things like revive underfire… these are all concepts, maybe heal and ammo packs should be balanced a bit, maybe not, right now I feel its a grind, mission xp-wise at least.
2- Sparks is my fav merc, she’s been so ever since I saw her first… but there’s a catch, she isn’t as viable as sawbonez.
she’s great at long distance and if you move around carefuly, but right now, I think she is way too squishy in the front end.
Is it a good thing?
On a merc like aura, she has a shotgun (or an smg) and a healing station, so when she has 80 hp, it makes more sense, she has a constant heal and good fire power, yes she may be underwhelming at range, but she can still hold an angle even at range (due to how shotguns magically work at times and how good her station is if not attended to)
Right now, if I play sparks, almost everytime I go in a firefight in close quarters, i’ll lose that firefight, her laser gun is great! but it needs pin point accuracy, in certain hands it can become a beast, but more often than not it means she’s the most vulnerable merc out there.
Whether I should compare her to aura or not, is a debate of its own, but I believe she needs 2 things:
a- as @Szakalot pointed out before, she needs better health packs (either healwise or cd wise or just deploy animation wise)
sawbonez has much more hp than sparks which means, when he goes into throw his med packs (which are more rewarding btw) he can take a few shots, but sparks, not so much, she’ll end up using those medpacks for herself to be able to keep sniping/reviving. this means, she is less rewarding than other medic mercs but more rewarding as a sniper then again i may be wrong, but I think the current hp packs, provide too little hp and such a slow rate (rate of throw) which means throwing those packs is much more risky and in the long run, much less rewarding than someone like sawbonez.
b- more hp!!! I can’t stress this enough, I’m not saying she needs 120 or even a 100, but 80 for this merc is a bit low.
in most maps, if you want to get that range revive (you both need to expose yourself and have it charged) usually when someone is downed, there’s either gonna be focus on gibbing them or focus on taking out the medic who comes for revives) and in a map like church you’re always taking a risk by peaking out.
in a map like bridge or terminal, 70% of the time there is no clear shot, which means you’re gonna need to move out of cover and into danger to get a revive.
With 80hp, and a half sec revive gun charge needed, you’re bound to be weaker than others.
And lets be real, in cqc her laser isnt of much use (can be used but hardly will) and the pocket smgs or the empire 9 needs you to hit headshots while dodging their attempts, this means you’re most likely to lose firefights in close quarters.
Why? because 1 hit by shotgun, 1 hit by nader’s nade, 1 headshot and a body shot by any assault rifle or a few bullets by any smg and you’re dead.
Sparks needs more hp if she is to be viable in a competitive scenario (one of the reasons why aura isn’t that viable is her hp and her healing station being an easy target for more veteran players)
sawbonez’s packs are less risky than an aura heal station and he has the hp to take a few hits and revive or throw a med pack, sparks doesnt.
3- is nader balanced? nader is one of those classes that either performs very well, gets kills, baits enemies into martyr and spams areas with nades OR performs very badly (someone who doesnt use the nade launcher well, or situations where she is picked off from afar (hence not able to land nades) or maybe too close where nades arent of much use to her (still are useful, just not as much)
Is she too spamy? yes, is that good? that’s debatable… both yes and no… for a nader who tends to try and clear out camping spots, the spam is a good thing (not directly hitting nades) for someone who doesn’t its OP.
right now, looking at fragger, he is hands down one of the strongest mercs, that is because of his frag, hp and gun choices.
However when playing fragger you have to be wise on using your frags, because of the cd, if you use them at the wrong time (or place) it might cost you.
Nader on the other hand, not so much, she gets nades fast, spam spam.
Another thing is, the spam to damage ratio.
you know how a sniper rifle can’t 1 shot any merc with body shot? why should nader be allowed to do so with a single nade? why shouldn’t she? but then again, looking at a sniper rifle, how much harder is it to hit a shot compared to nader’s launcher? why am i comparing the 2? they’re totally different!
See I think, nader is great when facing enemies at a certain range or in certain types of areas, beyond that she underperforms (just like how rhino is bad at range or if you get close to him and run circles around him).
I think her direct nades shouldn’t 1 shot anyone, i think the spam should be rewarded, more nades you hit, more damage the person hit with em takes or more nades you hit, more damage your nades do.
Those are my jibberish thoughts on her, I think she is in a good spot right now, maybe needs some tweaking, maybe not.
Again,these are just my points of view which i wrote late at night which means my brain isn’t functioning as it should, but then again my brain never fully functioned anyway.
Take them as you will, they’re not suggestions, just my thoughts.
Regards,
A.T. the pub scrub
