Nerf Weapon Buff

(chasm) #1

As many of you know, the increased weapon buff gives players an additional 33% weapon damage, which feels too high. My solution would be to decrease this to ~20% for the reasons below…

My main issue is how it slows down the game considerably, and how it often favours the defensive side…which we surely don’t need more of. It slows the game down by making the attacking team wait and buff up before even standing a chance at assaulting a heavily fortified defense with decent aimers.

If the attacking team fails the first couple pushes, it only becomes harder from thereon as the defensive team will certainly have both kevlar and weapon buff…a 53% advantage over the attacking team. Moreover, the majority of teams playing attack can only afford to run 1 engineer (with the exception of repair objectives), while the defensive team can always have 2.

It also takes skill away from the game because a 1v1 between two top tier aimers (which isn’t saying much in this game), the one with weapon buff will win almost every time. The other player should at least have a decent chance to win.

The nerf would also add some variety to engineer’s tactics as it would cancel with kevlar (which is 20% protection) and not be the usual: give everyone weapon buff first.

For those saying that it will decrease the ttk, simply give everyone a 13% or more passive buff. The exact amount is a whole other topic, but imo it should be around 20%.

(Rahabib) #2

I think my major complaint with all abilities is that you can use them too often. You can buff half the team before you need to regenerate.

There are a couple of solutions. This is just options, not saying that all or any of them are the answer:

  1. cool down for buffs. You cant buff the entire team off the bat. You buff one guy then wait 20 seconds. This may be unpopular in pubs, but I think it needs to be done. Adds more strategy as to who you want to buff, not just making like Oprah and “everybody gets a buff!”
  2. slower regen for pips. I think it needs to be 25% slower to regen, so that you have to choose whether to buff yourself or someone else more wisely because its not going to fill back up in 10 seconds. Again, may not be popular with the pubs, but this could work (and possibly in conjunction with #1)
  3. lower the buff stats (as stated in OP). Take it from 30%-20%. The only thing I dont like about that, is that, it makes the teamwork with buffing slightly less important. However, this would lower the amount of “I lost that firefight only because he was buffed and I was not” complaints.

personally, I think #1 and #2, possibly combined would work. The ultimate solution would be to have these as server settings so that pubs/consoles are not affected and competition or custom servers can tweak these to better suit competition. In fact most abilities should have server variables to tweak so we don’t have to out right ban most of them (which I have posted many times so Ill spare you the listing).

(BMXer) #3

I %100 agree. %30+ percent damage increase is WAY too much IMHO. It’s fine for pub play where people need more stuff to grind for and more stuff to get XP, but for competitive play, the disparity between a buffed player and a non-buffed player is crazy. Why even bother shooting if the guy is doing 1/3+ more damage? It just seems too much to me.

And then we get into all this “obvious defensive bias” talk. The increased weapon buff does nothing but make it worse! Its tons easier to get your weapon buffed when you are playing defense and basically sitting around waiting/camping 3 feet from the spawn. As soon as the offense starts to get split up in the slightest, getting weapon buffs becomes much harder.

The regular weapon buff is plenty! The engie class still retains its core mechanics. When actually playing, no one would even notice. It’s not like dropping an ability all together, its still there, its just not so excessive that it becomes the SINGLE REASON PEOPLE WIN/LOOSE FIGHTS.
I personally think that when even 1v1s happen, buff or not, you should still have a chance. 33% more damage and you basically have no chance.

And before anyone says anything…
Are the pubbies who are on the fence about playing competition going to say “we would play but there is no enhanced weapon buff, its too much like COD now.”? Adrenaline and homing beacon maybe, but weapon buff, no.

(burawura) #4

Way too drastic of a measure. Knee jerk reaction? Game has still only been out 3 weeks.

(chasm) #5

I wouldn’t call 13% drastic at all…have you even scrimmed this game?

(Shinigami) #6

HELL NO to nerfing ANY buffs. The people who say that the buffs are too much for competition are ridiculous. How can you call yourself a competitive gamer when instead of ADJUSTING to the gameplay mechanics to instead ask that the mechanics be changed to your convenience? Play better as a team and buff each other more strategically.

As a matter of fact you will soon be given the option to purchase a skill that tells you the buff of enemy players so you can more carefully pick your targets.

(needforWeed) #7

As a matter of fact you will not purchase anything for competition. If it’s allowed then you have it. Server config. So it should be easy to disable all improved buffs. +1 to that.

(chasm) #8

[QUOTE=Shinigami;331090]HELL NO to nerfing ANY buffs. The people who say that the buffs are too much for competition are ridiculous. How can you call yourself a competitive gamer when instead of ADJUSTING to the gameplay mechanics to instead ask that the mechanics be changed to your convenience? Play better as a team and buff each other more strategically.

As a matter of fact you will soon be given the option to purchase a skill that tells you the buff of enemy players so you can more carefully pick your targets.[/QUOTE]

It isn’t a matter of teamplay…you clearly did not read/understand my post.

(Kalbuth) #9

SImple off/def issue here :
Say engie can buff half a team
1st wave, half attackers buffed, half def buffed
If 1st wave doesn’t go through, next wave will still be half buffed, no magic here.
More in def will be buffed, because engie will have replenished (or died) and the already buffed defenders still alive won’t need a buff
Meaning starting at second wave, you have mathematically more buffed defenders than buffed attackers …

This + insane 30%, bit too much.

(Tandem) #10

[QUOTE=chasm;330847]the one with weapon buff will win almost every time.
The other player should at least have a decent chance to win.[/QUOTE]
True.

Reduce it or how about giving it to covies
I wouldn’t care if it was gone period.

I doubt we see changes.

(chasm) #11

[QUOTE=Tandem;332690]
I doubt we see changes.[/QUOTE]

I think it would be pretty easy to do with the ESL server config. Just take out “weapon_buff2” in g_abilitiesEngineer, so only the level 1 weapon buff is available, which is 17.5% extra damage. I would like to see it 20%, but I suppose its a quick band-aid fix for now.

(BMXer) #12

+1 and a :stroggtapir:

(wolfnemesis75) #13

I’d like to see how the buff effects competitive play before I’d say one way or the other…

(its al bout security) #14

[QUOTE=chasm;330847]As many of you know, the increased weapon buff gives players an additional 33% weapon damage, which feels too high. My solution would be to decrease this to ~20% for the reasons below…

My main issue is how it slows down the game considerably, and how it often favours the defensive side…which we surely don’t need more of. It slows the game down by making the attacking team wait and buff up before even standing a chance at assaulting a heavily fortified defense with decent aimers.

If the attacking team fails the first couple pushes, it only becomes harder from thereon as the defensive team will certainly have both kevlar and weapon buff…a 53% advantage over the attacking team. Moreover, the majority of teams playing attack can only afford to run 1 engineer (with the exception of repair objectives), while the defensive team can always have 2.

It also takes skill away from the game because a 1v1 between two top tier aimers (which isn’t saying much in this game), the one with weapon buff will win almost every time. The other player should at least have a decent chance to win.

The nerf would also add some variety to engineer’s tactics as it would cancel with kevlar (which is 20% protection) and not be the usual: give everyone weapon buff first.

For those saying that it will decrease the ttk, simply give everyone a 13% or more passive buff. The exact amount is a whole other topic, but imo it should be around 20%.[/QUOTE]

i dont know where you came up with 33 percent but i do recall badman saying SD doesnt put out their percentages on anything because they are all subject to cahnge and that lvl 1 weapon buff is less than 20%, so if you doubled that i would doubt it comes out to anything more that 20 (as i rembember he said this was a HUGE number in compairison to what it really is) might have to find the post, unless you want to show some proof of your figure (33%)

(Smautix) #15

You use the console to determine current health values… it’s 33%.

(deems) #16

An alternative might be to have the buffs expire over some (not too long) period of time. This in conjunction with slower pip regeneration could make it less “automatic” for defending teams to have all of their buffs, while the offense team would be starting each time with full supply pips.

This might increase strategy more than nerfing the buffs.

Just an idea…

(GreasedScotsman) #17

Competition can simply deny the Level 2 Weapon buff through g_abilities* CVARs. Problem solved.

(BMXer) #18

I’m pretty sure everyone is aware of that fact.

The point of this thread is to point out the fact that up to this point, no competition configs have addressed this issue. All Brink competition up to this point, as far as I know, has included the 33% damage increase.

(bjorn) #19

I tend to agree with this, it is strange that, regardless of position and movement, someone with (below) average aim can win a firefight over someone with good aim (not entirely the fault of the improved weapon buff, but plays a huge role). Some people will say ‘zomglol remove make like cod lolol’ even if the buff is still there, just not the extra damage, because at the moment there is almost no skillgap in aiming in this game and that’s just how some people like it

(chasm) #20

Yes, mostly because this game requires little to no aim (twitch wise) and random spread, which results in a low skill ceiling. Maybe making weapons like the AR and sniper viable (instead of the typical smg spray) would turn this game around…but I don’t see that happening any time soon.