Why is the sentry gun garbage?

(KeMoN) #21

I have to agree with Glottis here. For the Bushwacker turrets I can only speak from the receiving end, but since Proxy is my number 1 merc I can compare that farely well.
Both things are easily neutralized and horribly uneffective in the open. If you place them in a random spot (like the Terminal wall), run away and expect them to magically crerate a killing spree for you, then I dare to say you are not understanding this game or rather these mercs very well.
However once you place them with awareness, logic, tactic or whatever you want to call it, they are highly effective. Place them in spots that are not directly visible and combine them with a distraction (e.g. firefight) from a different angle (like mentioned previously).

The mines are especially effective combined with the ludicrous speed of proxy, simply walljump in a crowd, throw down a mine and while you are walljumping away shoot it.

(Destroy666) #22

Bushwhacker is my favorite and most used merc and I disagree that the turret is garbage. If placed well, its low detection range shouldn’t matter. With a bigger range it’d be easily destroyed by Vassilis, Redeyes, Kiras, etc. anyways. The lock-on time is ok as well if you don’t give your opponents time to react - again, good placement is crucial.

The only 2 problems I see with turrets are:

  • reappearing bugs which don’t let you place turrets in the best spots (hopefully they’re fixed forever now)
  • bad map design, e.g. there is hardly any good spot on Chapel. As I said many times on this forum, the design of most maps is just too plain/schematic and too flat with too many inaccessible spots.
(DeadAlive) #23

While I wouldn’t call it garbage, it is definitely a weak asset that requires finessing and constant babysitting. I am always watching it and try to pick it up before it sparks.

Personally, I would like to see a 50% increase in base health, and use the lock on time from the ‘lock on’ augment as the new base time, with the augment increasing from there.

The HP and lock on time are both as low as you can go before I would call it ‘garbage’. It also does have tracking issues many times, not locking people within the sweep area and range, so it’s got some bugs. I think if they get that fixed up (if they’ve even acknowledged it?) then we might not need a buff.

The damage is fine by me at this point. I also wouldn’t oppose a decrease in damage if I got the HP and lock on buff above.

The issue really comes down to the fact that there are always two types of gamers in shooters: Those who prefer more standard shooters, with little to no deployables, extras, boosts, etc, and those who like a full array.

I’m in the latter group. The more cool deployables you can put in, as long as the’re reasonably balanced, I’m going to love. For me, a turret is just something else that has to be dealt with as I move up the battefield. I don’t care about its’ accuracy, or that it’s a bot and has no ‘skill’, or anything else. As long as I have a reasonable chance against it when playing half way smart, then I’m fine with it. I prefer full fledged war games, rather than ‘aim games’, like CS and CoD.

How many times have we all seen 2 or more enemies come around a corner and just hose us down with no chance of surviving it? Guess what? You can do exactly the same thing with a turret, and it’s a whole lot easier than bagging a player.

I would also like to see something else. Once a turret has been too badly damaged, it starts sparking and then desreses. I would like to see the engineer be able to do a quick repair (1 second) during the sparking period and save the turret. The balance to this would be:

  • Engineer is vulnerable while repairing, and is otherwise ineffective during repair

  • A turret that continues to take fire while under repair can be destroyed before the repair is finished

  • Turret cannot fire while being repaired (i.e, still sparking)

  • Repair work could be limited to BW only, or just Engineers, or those with repair augment, or open to anyone

To be clear, the 1 second repair I suggested may seem short, but the sparking period is already super short, and the engineer may not even get to the turret in time. To make this work, the sparking period might have to actually be increased or the Engy may hardly ever get to it in time. If the sparking time is increased significantly, then repair time could be increased as well.

(DeadAlive) #24

Oh, forgot to mention one other thing. Now that we have Thunder with his mega-combo Concussion-Flash/Whiteout-EMP grenade, the percentage of up time for turrets will decrease. How much, whose to say at this point? But turrets were already weak enough, and now they have a new foe.

(Szakalot) #25

Like the repair idea on the turrets, +1

(poiuasd) #26

But you can already pick the turret up when it’s sparking which gives you a cooldown refund just as if the turret was at full health. A repair mechanic would probably just take too much work to implement properly.

(Szakalot) #27

if you pick up the turret you have to put it down again. 1sec repair is really not that long. Admittedly it would require giving us the repair tools that you could pull out before reaching any specific obj (really miss that from ET and QW)

(DeadAlive) #28

I’ve never once been able to pick up a turret once it starts sparking. The sparking indicates it is lost. The HUD helper text is not there once it starts sparking either.

As far as implementation, all of the mechanics are already in the game for other items and other ways. I don’t think it would be hard.

I don’t know why the repair would need to be any different than for other objectives. You just press the ‘use’ button while next to the turret just like you do if you’re planting or defusing, or repairing a generator. (Btw, I also played both of those games and loved them! I’ve played QW as recently as last winter/spring…there were still enough sometimes to fill a server)

(watsyurdeal) #29

Really wish we could rotate Turrets

(Apples) #30

I dont see how repairing turret will go with the fast paced game DB aims to be…