Rhino balancing

(tokamak) #1

Rhino really seems to have it all. And although it certainly works therapeutically after Brink’s weak mini-gun play, this seems to be leaning a bit too much towards ‘brainlessly easy’.

Rhino is fast, can take a punch, has unlimited ammo with surprisingly accurate and highly lethal minigun.

The only weakness seems to be the lack of IS, the very fast spinup and the mildly punishing overheat.

My first, impression based on very limited experience is telling me that this guy is too powerful.

My concern that immediately follows is that this guy is going to receive the same treatment the Brink heavy received and is going to be compromised on every strength just a tiny bit until he’s set neatly back towards the mean again.

What I’d like to see:

Rhino should be about supressive fire. That’s his strength and that should be his only strength. A Rhino player should constantly have to be thinking about where he’s going to aim that thing and how it’s going to help the rest of the game.

This means that all his facilities that contribute towards this goal need to be kept and everything else can be nerfed about him.

NERF

Combat mobility. This dude can now JUMP with a minigun while firing it. Wow. That’s over the top.

Lethality. The minigun doesn’t need to hurt the players as much. The consequences of being hit by that thing shouldn’t result in so much direct damage. Instead it should have indirect consequences, like a high stopping power that breaks running or messes up the aim of players.

Heath/armour. Rhino doesn’t need to be a tank. Or at least, he shouldn’t be THE most resilient character around. Reserve that to someone who is at least as armoured and big as this dude but has a less offensive power. I still want to see a character who’s main purpose is to soak up damage.

Accuracy: Yes, it’s not the most accurate gun, but unlimited ammo, high rate of fire make up for that already. Compensate with higher spread.

Ease of use: The minigun is really easy to handle. The spin up is too fast and the overheat takes too short. A player that knows the weapon should in theory be able to keep a certain point under constant fire, but only if he knows how to dose it just right.

KEEP:

Unlimited ammo. Please never compromise on this. This is the main strength of this guy and it adds a lot of depth when it comes to team-play. It’s an extreme specialisation that needs to be cleverly employed and should sends a lot of brains cracking to get around it.

Traversing speed. When the minigun isn’t deployed then Rhino should just be able to move as he’s doing now. This was one of the most frustrating things in Brink. The heavy bodytype was never able to be at the right place where he was needed the most.

ADD:

Snare/stoppingpower/debuff any sort of prolonged nastiness that makes players want to stay out of his fire other than damage so that the damage itself can be reduced. Being hit by a minigun shouldn’t cause damage but it should make you extra vulnerable against Rhino’s team-mates.

All in all, this guy shouldn’t be able to win a lot of 1on1 fights (as he does now). Once he’s in place then it should be very difficult for a player to get him away from that spot. But other than that Rhino needs to rely heavily on more agile combat-mobile players to protect him while he’s getting in position.

When Rhino is facing multiple targets straight ahead of him, that’s where he needs to be unstoppable. A Rhino player should be able to completely lock down a choke if he choses to.

PS: Still would like to see an actual tank character. One with limited close/short range power but extremely difficult to kill. Perhaps because he has a ridiculous permanent combat regeneration that needs a certain amount of sustained dps before he lies down.

(Smooth) #2

He is currently a little OP but only marginally so. Will probably be introducing slightly harsher damage falloff, higher spread and a slightly longer spin-up time.

Not a fan of compromising on his high damage output, since it’s a minigun and that’s kind of expected.

Also FYI his Minigun is going to become an ability (like the grenade launcher) with his new primary weapon being a shotgun.

(tokamak) #3

Harsher falloff, spread and spin up is all great, completely supported.

The damage output was more about making way for a debuff that would create higher vulnerability on being hit. This would shift the weight further towards suppressing rather than killing.

Now, looking at the way Nader’s ability functions I’m really sceptical about the minigun. Two concerns:

  • Will it put the infinite stream of bullets to bed? I’m a really big fan of the infinite stream of bullets. If there’s one character that is able to do that then I think it’s worth nerfing everything around that skill for compensation.
  • Commiting an extra finger. Nader’s ability is a ‘hold’ ability. For a minigun, which should be used for longer amounts of time (especially considering the thing needs to spin up) this leads to very awkward controls. Most people have Q and E for these keys, which is fine for most abilities, but not for one you’re going to have to hold all the time.

One way to solve it is to use it as a toggle, but by then you’ve just turned the ability into a weapon bank while it could have been used for an actual ability to further define Rhino’s task. Like putting the minigun into overdrive, wrecking it and requiring an ammo crate to fix it again.

So yeah, I love the way Rhino plays right now, I see the infinite stream of bullets as something that doesn’t pose too much gameplay problems if threated in the right way. I’m feeling anxious about any limitations that will be put on that ability. I’d rather see the nerfing happening on his other attributes.

(Smooth) #4

The minigun overheat behaviour will remain pretty much the same, just transferred to the active-cooldown system.

Q will become a weapon equip (rather than fire) and the same will be happening for the GL and any other ability-weapons. For the GL we’ll probably also have a longer recharge filling up to 6 grenades at once, rather than one at a time but that’s a different matter.

(RasteRayzeR) #5

I like the three weapons principle : main, secondary, ability

just needs a grenade and you have real mercs haha (EDIT: one per life if you want, as long as we can have a nade ^^)

(spookify) #6

Rhino is fine… Just shot him in the head! (Many Many Times but yeah he’s fine)

He’s very noob friendly so they can play him!

(tokamak) #7

Oh right I forget that I was talking about something mentioned in a different thread.

The ability I referred to is a ‘permanent overheat’ in exchange for a burst of extra damage.

[QUOTE=tokamak;495353]Rhino’s ability should be to make his minigun go into overdrive. It’s a one-click and then the whole thing just roars into a flaming inferno of bullets completely out of control. The overdrive will drain his health (and lasts until he’s at 1hp (and no sooner). So a full hp rhino will have a longer overdrive madness than a wounded rhino.

OR rather than hp it the overdrive will deplete the miniguns ammo. Rhino will need to pick up ammo before he gets the infinite supply back again.

I feel this is more suitable and true to the character than the near-suicide version.

Or either one, I guess this is a nice example of how to alternate versions within a character through further customisation.[/QUOTE]

However, if the minigun’s overheat is classified as a cooldown then the same is already achieved. A fieldops could actually instantly fix an overheat by dropping an ammo pack on Rhino. That’s a sweet mechanic.

(Smooth) #8

Properly timed it could be quite effective, however you can only pick-up ammo packs if your primary/secondary ammo isn’t full :wink:

(tokamak) #9

Not if your ammo is infinite.

//youtu.be/faQBrAQ87l4

(Violator) #10

Rhino is very OP atm but fast he is not :). He doesn’t seem to take headshot damage (certainly from the back but I think this is a long-standing bug for all soldier classes) though it will play a hs ding. His fast ROF and the annoying screenkick you get when he hits you makes him hard to fire back on before you are dead.

I would remove the headshot modifier for his main weapon. Though it is very spray and pray you can still take an enemy down at medium long range with a couple of (lucky) headshots. He should be effective CQC only and have to resort to the (useless) pistol otherwise.

He does seem to pick up ammo packs even if the pistol is full to fill the minigun black hole :).

I’ve stopped playing him as it was annoying too many players and feels very cheap due to the issues above.

(tokamak) #11

Yeah I’m also in favour of removing the headshot modifier.

(Violator) #12

He seems a bit more nerfed from yesterday’s patch - was getting hit more anyway I guess due to the hitbox changes. Maybe the headshot bug is fixed :).

(Erkin31) #13

On thing I liked with the minigun in nuclear dawn is the “suit lockdown mode”. The exo crouch, is weapon is more precise, it take less damages, but he can’t move.
Visible in this video, when “suit lockdown” is displayed at the bottom right of the screen :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7-BBwerqag

(tokamak) #14

I like that. Maybe infinite ammo and slower overheat on lockdown? That would get us closer to the good old MG40 role W:ET.

I just want to see him get to a point where he’s able to deny an entire route to the enemy team. That should take a cost (immobility) but for that he needs to get enormous control over whatever bottleneck he wishes to deny.

The entire ‘supressive fire’ concept is used constantly in real life combat. Makes sense because you’re fighting with people who are actually concerned about their lives. So spraying in the general direction is enough of a deterrent.

To achieve that same type of deterrent in a video game is incredibly difficult. You need to build incredible costs to compensate for ‘scary’ firepower otherwise it just ends up being merely the most powerful weapon.

That’s why I’d like to see a merc that is able to dish out loads and loads of fire that is scary but not necessarily lethal. It needs to be a clear and obvious ‘you’re screwed if you get hit’ signal that can continue to be aimed and dished out towards a single point in the map.

This means that for such a thing to work we need to think clearly about the consequences of being hit by such a weapon, the visual and audible effects that signal these type of warnings and the required costs to stop this from being a bodycount weapon (which it really shouldn’t be).

(trickykungfu) #15

he is totally overpowered. I know SD is not really looking at the competitive side. On public he doesn’t look very strong because he is to slow and only good for infight. But this is where i see rhino: Trainyard MG House combined with that shotgun medic and the healing station. He is totally overpowered then and there will be no big change to kill him in there.

(DJswirlyAlien) #16

That was sounding good up until the mingun becoming an ability. That sounds really harsh. I would think 400 rounds would be enough and give him “lock down” ability that decrease spread and reduces over heating but he can’t move for 5 seconds or something.

(tokamak) #17

Then again, this is also the kind of synergy between team-mates that needs to be encouraged. It shouldn’t be too easy or obvious but we definitely need more of this. Field ops upgrading turrets with more powerful bullets by dropping ammo on them or something. I don’t know.

(trickykungfu) #18

ahhhhhhh omfg we don’t ****ing need this. Are you crazy? ITS LIKE BRINK BUFF BUFF BUFF BUFF AHHHHHHHHHHH

(xdc) #19

[QUOTE=Smooth;495514]He is currently a little OP but only marginally so. Will probably be introducing slightly harsher damage falloff, higher spread and a slightly longer spin-up time.

Not a fan of compromising on his high damage output, since it’s a minigun and that’s kind of expected.

Also FYI his Minigun is going to become an ability (like the grenade launcher) with his new primary weapon being a shotgun.[/QUOTE]

The shotgun idea is a sign of a bad design, this game already has too many shotguns. Shotguns ruin the flow of the gameplay, especially when almost half the mercs in the game have them.

If anything the weapon should be replaced with a hyper-blaster type weapon from ETQW, i think you guys went overboard with the minigun

(tokamak) #20

I also regard shotguns as ‘filler’. It chips away at class diversity.

A hyperblaster type of weapon, IE something with more power but faster overheat would be cool. There’s place for both the current minigun and a hyperblaster. Rhino can have a whole range of heavy machine weapons.