Currently, in the alpha, we are seeing a small pool of alternate class loadouts at once. This often makes me wonder just how many class loadouts is Splash Damage intending? I am sure this could be something that is ever expanding as a stream of revenue for this free to play game. The small pool we are seeing though limits players in a game from spreading out. Plus when new flavors of the month get introduced we are all enticed to try it; especially if the new flavor has damaging capabilities that rival every other class like the current engineer.
So, again, feathers get ruffled because we are seeing the new flavor being abused in servers. However, at this stage of the game, I think it is right that feathers are ruffled because the current engineer is a showstopper. Let’s analyze.
First, for those of you wanting a gun that allows you to sneak up on three people and blow them all away before they turn around, you got it. The engineer’s shotgun can one shot kill. Playing the engineer allowed me to run behind enemy lines and flank the opposition whose attention was solely squared in on the objective. Maybe this is intended, but it got to the point where I could rack up kills (and deaths), shutting down enemy waves. Not to mention dropping mines for when they returned.
One jarring issue with the shotgun (besides its damage) is a bug that prevents you from firing when on command. I thought it was tied to clicking too fast, but apparently it has to do with when you are sprinting. So, for someone like me who uses toggle sprint, I had to take that off in order to walk and fire the shotgun. The mechanic is designed so that you can’t hold down LMB to fire the shotgun and that is fine. However, not being able to fire immediately due to sprinting kind of “jamming” gun the up is definitely something that needs to be fixed asap.
What do I propose for the shotgun? Well, increasing the shotgun spread and slightly lowering the rate of fire. The spread seems fairly consistent even at medium to long ranges. At point blank range I think you should absolutely be able to one shot kill (or at least pretty close to it) with the shotgun. However, at a short distance it should take at least two to three shots to kill. This is especially important since the engineer’s secondary is a machine gun pistol.
The engineer’s mines are a source of contempt for many. Probably mostly due to the fact that there are so many engineers trying out the new hotness that there are so many extra mines littering the battlefield. Honestly, I think the mines are almost quite where they should be. I like the short (automatic) arming time and I think the damage is just about right.
I read someone posting there should be more of a delay with the land mines so that you don’t always get killed by them. I think that defeats the purpose of the mine. It is, by design, suppose to kill via the element of surprise. Is it annoying to die to? Absolutely. Would I rather the game didn’t have any mines at all? Yup.
Right now, there is almost a slight delay with the mines where I have spotted one late and jumped away and lived. Could there be an extra two tenths of a second delay added? Maybe. I think the real problem comes with spotting them and my next point.
What can we do to reduce the mine clutter? Well, for one the engineer should only be able to drop one mine per life. I think Anti said that is actually what is intended, but instead we get a recharging ability where you can drop up to two when the meter fills up. Second, the mine should be tied to the life of the engineer. Meaning, if the engy dies then the mine deactivates. This could be tied to a slight delay of 5 seconds where the mine will stay active up to five seconds after the engineer dies. Finally, I am not sure what the “hitpoints” of the mine is right now, but one or two shots should be able to destroy a mine regardless of range or actual damage done to it.
What about enemy detection of mines? There could be that the beeps you hear get audibly louder (or faster) as you get closer to the mine. I think a great example is detecting where C4 is planted in CS. The beeps help you locate the C4 as well as the glowing, pulsing, red light. Also, the mine model itself should be larger. This would help with enemy detection, especially since right now the game’s color palette seems very gray and muddled. And, if an enemy places a mine at the top of a set of stairs a larger model would let you shoot it from below the stairs (if the mine peeks out over the first step) or at least be able to reach the top and shoot it from a safe distance. Obviously, these are subtle changes just to help balance the usage of mines so that they are placed a bit more strategically instead of the willy nilly mine lacing attitude we currently have.
For what its worth, I think the idea of manually arming mines is just another mechanic that would slow down the gameplay. Pulling out the pliers to arm a mine you dropped is just bothersome. If there was a compromise it would be a slight “arming” time percentage bar that pops up when you go to drop the mine. And, this could be done in the players hand so he could run with the mine primed. This is a direct plea to Splash Damage. Please refrain from introducing mechanics that will stop a player or cause a player to slow down his gameplay. In fact, please feel free to introduce mechanics that will speed up gameplay! Like increasing the base speed of movement (ie: backwards, strafing, and forward – when not sprinting). Also, increase the jump height of the character instead of just altering map objects to the player. Let the player be able to jump and be free. Players are peacocks, damn it! You gotta let them fly!
Back to the engineer. Overall, I don’t think the new engineer is a terrible loadout. It just has some very, very significant flaws. Some of these flaws are however gamebreaking since it gives a player the feeling that they need to abuse them to win (since the other team will). Let’s take the BFG in Quake 3. Most game maps or game modes get rid of the BFG since it is quite overpowered. Also, players killed by the BFG feel cheated due to dying to a cheesy weapon. If Rocket Arena had the BFG as part of its standard gamemode then every round would start off with players spamming the BFG. Players would feel compelled to use the BFG to win because it is an almost certainty the opposition will be doing the same. At this point we either have two options, ban the BFG or tweak it to make it fun for everyone on the team.
TL;DR: Ask LeeStyle for the summary.
) which looked incredibly funny. It also almost entirely was used by the pubs, not by the comps. But that might have other reasons. Just saying that there are enjoyable mechanics which require you to hold on for a moment and that there are annoying slowdowns. Especially the more natural movement slow-downs are what i would classify as annoying for me personally, but arming a mine would belong to ‘quite enjoyable’ (depends of course on the concrete implementation and if stuff feels right within the context). Probably comps do not want to bother with this, so they want to just lovelessly throw it ‘somewhere’ so that stuff kills. Btw. not speaking for all pubs, just what i think about this.
