Best Of
Re: Earth Media
Animated porn.
Earth's great legacy is hentai. That's all we have to show for ourselves, folks.
Earth's great legacy is hentai. That's all we have to show for ourselves, folks.
Quell
3
Scoundrel progression feels bad.
Okay, let me preface this post by saying this is mostly just my opinion. While there are some facts in terms of numbers (DPS while bashing, squishyness, etc), those can be tweaked fairly easily without any major overhauls.
Scoundrel progression feels bad. I'm not sure how many of you opted for the lesson packages, but playing a Scoundrel without them doesn't feel fun. Numbers aside, I don't feel any more effective at level 15 than I did at level 4. I have played a few of the other classes in the game, and I get a sense of clear progression from them. BEAST in particular feels great early game, even without a lesson package.
To start, the whole cover mechanic feels like a complete waste of time. I get the idea of a Han Solo character hiding around corners and blasting bad guys. But mechanically it just doesn't work in game. The website says "When you're behind cover, you get partially protected from ranged attacks, and completely protected from melee attacks until someone just jumps behind the cover you're behind and punches you in the face." Why didn't you go with that version for the actual mechanics? Why do things get bonus melee damage against me instead?
Reloading sucks. I know Scoundrels get some cool reloading abilities eventually, but the mechanic feels detrimental until you get those cool abilities. There's nothing more terrible than ending a fight with one or two bullets left and not being able to reload outside of combat. Why is this a thing at all? Surely a Scoundrel should be able to reload their gun whenever they want to outside of combat. Mag is particularly bad. It hits for about 1/3 as much damage as a Crackshot, and doesn't really do anything else. Sure, it's a mild damage upgrade over Quickload, but it's so minor it feels insulting. Not to mention it's immediately made obsolete with Fling fairly early on in the IED tree.
This also brings up the issue of ability bloat and obsolescence. As I level up Gunslinging, I'm awarded with minor upgrades that make previous abilities completely pointless to use. Why is Regular a skill? It does nothing but turn off skills you get deeper into the tree. Why couldn't its functionality be baked into said other skills as an on/off toggle? Same issue with Ammoselect. Why do Scoundrels need two essentially useless skills lodged into their primary offensive tree which can just as easily be toggled into ammo skills baseline? The BEAST skill Nozzle is a good example of how to do this the right way.
It leaves me feeling like I'm not rewarded at all until I get super deep into each tree. Impairing ammo seems relatively worthless in both PvE and PvP as the afflictions it inflicts aren't very good. It doesn't seem to open up any instant kill mechanics that I'm aware of, and is rendered useless by more potent affliction ammo deeper into the tree. I was super exited to finally get Rapidfire, but in practice it's not as great as it seems on paper. The second hit of Rapidfire always hits for considerably less damage. At almost twice the balance cost, it probably just breaks even damage wise compared to spamming Crackshot. It's probably more useful when better reload skills are factored in, and it's certainly better for afflictions in PvP, but it's not much of a boost for bashing when compared to Nozzle. Also I've noticed my weapon durability being completely thrashed when using Rapidfire in my bashing sessions, could be a coincidence but I feel like it's bugged.
In the end, I hope that the design choices for Scoundrel aren't final. I'm sure the class plays fine with more lessons, I just wish it wasn't such a slog to get there in direct comparison to other classes.
Scoundrel progression feels bad. I'm not sure how many of you opted for the lesson packages, but playing a Scoundrel without them doesn't feel fun. Numbers aside, I don't feel any more effective at level 15 than I did at level 4. I have played a few of the other classes in the game, and I get a sense of clear progression from them. BEAST in particular feels great early game, even without a lesson package.
To start, the whole cover mechanic feels like a complete waste of time. I get the idea of a Han Solo character hiding around corners and blasting bad guys. But mechanically it just doesn't work in game. The website says "When you're behind cover, you get partially protected from ranged attacks, and completely protected from melee attacks until someone just jumps behind the cover you're behind and punches you in the face." Why didn't you go with that version for the actual mechanics? Why do things get bonus melee damage against me instead?
Reloading sucks. I know Scoundrels get some cool reloading abilities eventually, but the mechanic feels detrimental until you get those cool abilities. There's nothing more terrible than ending a fight with one or two bullets left and not being able to reload outside of combat. Why is this a thing at all? Surely a Scoundrel should be able to reload their gun whenever they want to outside of combat. Mag is particularly bad. It hits for about 1/3 as much damage as a Crackshot, and doesn't really do anything else. Sure, it's a mild damage upgrade over Quickload, but it's so minor it feels insulting. Not to mention it's immediately made obsolete with Fling fairly early on in the IED tree.
This also brings up the issue of ability bloat and obsolescence. As I level up Gunslinging, I'm awarded with minor upgrades that make previous abilities completely pointless to use. Why is Regular a skill? It does nothing but turn off skills you get deeper into the tree. Why couldn't its functionality be baked into said other skills as an on/off toggle? Same issue with Ammoselect. Why do Scoundrels need two essentially useless skills lodged into their primary offensive tree which can just as easily be toggled into ammo skills baseline? The BEAST skill Nozzle is a good example of how to do this the right way.
It leaves me feeling like I'm not rewarded at all until I get super deep into each tree. Impairing ammo seems relatively worthless in both PvE and PvP as the afflictions it inflicts aren't very good. It doesn't seem to open up any instant kill mechanics that I'm aware of, and is rendered useless by more potent affliction ammo deeper into the tree. I was super exited to finally get Rapidfire, but in practice it's not as great as it seems on paper. The second hit of Rapidfire always hits for considerably less damage. At almost twice the balance cost, it probably just breaks even damage wise compared to spamming Crackshot. It's probably more useful when better reload skills are factored in, and it's certainly better for afflictions in PvP, but it's not much of a boost for bashing when compared to Nozzle. Also I've noticed my weapon durability being completely thrashed when using Rapidfire in my bashing sessions, could be a coincidence but I feel like it's bugged.
In the end, I hope that the design choices for Scoundrel aren't final. I'm sure the class plays fine with more lessons, I just wish it wasn't such a slog to get there in direct comparison to other classes.
Endler
1
Re: Scoundrel - Skill Feedback
I feel zero pity. At all. The bugs will be fixed but the balancing concerns are just not there. You're playing the strongest class discounting BEAST, and we all know that BEAST right now is a mistake and will be fixed one day. Scoundrel deals the damage that a light armour class shoud be dealing, not BEAST.
Scoundrel's heal is the lowest cooldown out of all classes and requires no prep or resources to cast unlike Nanoseer or Engineer. It ALSO has a reduced balance time. BEAST has the same balance cost but no cooldown reduction. Fury balance is 2 seconds, but this is because of how their other balances work. Automatic heal is 14% health.
Scoundrels have a few ways of defending themselves or disabling their foes to protect themselves. If you can't see those, I'm happy to leave a Scoundrel without them.
Scoundrel's heal is the lowest cooldown out of all classes and requires no prep or resources to cast unlike Nanoseer or Engineer. It ALSO has a reduced balance time. BEAST has the same balance cost but no cooldown reduction. Fury balance is 2 seconds, but this is because of how their other balances work. Automatic heal is 14% health.
Scoundrels have a few ways of defending themselves or disabling their foes to protect themselves. If you can't see those, I'm happy to leave a Scoundrel without them.
Wuff
1
Re: Hacking
Finding the processor is never the limiting factor to success or failure for me but yes gridscan makes it even easier to find. Unlucky room combos or not getting password drops on non-AV are the reasons I fail and I feel like I have zero control over either.
The more hacks I do the less and less strategic it feels to me. Random damage, random drops, random layouts, random spawns. None of the skills I can unlock look like they will fundamentally change this.
Jam - very limited use case that requires prior knowledge of bordering rooms.
Ping - I might use this if it gave info for every room in a straight line, right now it is not worth it.
Decoy - If I have to use this the run is already in trouble (bad scanner or polymorphic) and regardless it does nothing to help me win just slows down a loss.
Lure - Perhaps you could combo this with Decoy? Honestly I have no idea why I would ever want to stack ICE on myself. In addition it also requires knowledge of the surrounding rooms.
Slice - Most of the time I am killing firewalls as a way to get passwords so I have no reason to bypass them. I don't have access to this skill yet so it is not clear if it also works on honeypots and I do not understand why you need to give two directions.
Overwrite - If this is more efficient than Infect it is great, otherwise it would be of very limited use.
Backdoor/Tunnel - Useful to save some ops if you somehow know enough about the layout to set it up before you have already sunk those ops.
Nothing helps with password drop rates (except perhaps overwrite). Am I missing something?
Re: The Ideas Thread
With Starmourn having three levels of elevation but those levels not being actually separate rooms, could elevation be implemented into gmcp? Whether a table of items in room (eg gmcp.Room.Info.Elevation.mid = { "thing1", "thing2", "person1"}) or just a personal elevation gmcp (eg gmcp.Char.Status.elevation = mid), this would be super useful for people trying to code stuff revolving around flying. Pretty please 
Halcyon
2
Re: Scoundrel - Skill Feedback
Well this is absolutely hilarious to see.
Scoundrel can deal damage to any subsystem they want to, and apply some of the best afflictions from every single list at will.
Use Suckerpunch twice?
Gritblast is an AoE you use while technically off-balance if you have no other reload.
Scoundrels probably have the best kit for proning and keeping enemies proned... Trip is a melee interrupt, which a lot of classes don't have.
Stim is not an "okay" heal, it's probably the best heal available for all classes.
Bind, try doing as the skill advises you to?
I'd like to see Pummel in action.
Incite reads like it could be absolutely insane.
I'll trade you improvisedcover for repair.
Jetwash is probably an instakill at this point in time.
lmao at that Rouse comment.
Track/Wipetracks might be useful in fights that aren't clunky spammy skirmishes.
I assume Pointblank applies affs. Also, more interrupts are nice.
Ironsights is one of the few things that targets out of room.
Outgunned is your class AoE, every class has them, I've seen this personally used to wipe about 3 people after a terrible misplay.
Disrupting bullets are OP as fuck, I'm not going to explain why, but jesus christ.
Arcing bullets is strange for Scoundrel but helps you set up for other classes.
I'm not going to comment on the rest of your ammo types because it's absurd that you think that's bad at all.
Your reload options all seem fair.
As someone who's been involved in real PVP, Cover is useful, you disregard it way too much.
Stickybomb probably combos with that ability that sets off IEDs.
Not commenting on IEDs but those late game ones do what Nanoseers have to spend five balances to do to one target, to an entire room.
*Sweat.*
Scoundrel can deal damage to any subsystem they want to, and apply some of the best afflictions from every single list at will.
Use Suckerpunch twice?
Gritblast is an AoE you use while technically off-balance if you have no other reload.
Scoundrels probably have the best kit for proning and keeping enemies proned... Trip is a melee interrupt, which a lot of classes don't have.
Stim is not an "okay" heal, it's probably the best heal available for all classes.
Bind, try doing as the skill advises you to?
I'd like to see Pummel in action.
Incite reads like it could be absolutely insane.
I'll trade you improvisedcover for repair.
Jetwash is probably an instakill at this point in time.
lmao at that Rouse comment.
Track/Wipetracks might be useful in fights that aren't clunky spammy skirmishes.
I assume Pointblank applies affs. Also, more interrupts are nice.
Ironsights is one of the few things that targets out of room.
Outgunned is your class AoE, every class has them, I've seen this personally used to wipe about 3 people after a terrible misplay.
Disrupting bullets are OP as fuck, I'm not going to explain why, but jesus christ.
Arcing bullets is strange for Scoundrel but helps you set up for other classes.
I'm not going to comment on the rest of your ammo types because it's absurd that you think that's bad at all.
Your reload options all seem fair.
As someone who's been involved in real PVP, Cover is useful, you disregard it way too much.
Stickybomb probably combos with that ability that sets off IEDs.
Not commenting on IEDs but those late game ones do what Nanoseers have to spend five balances to do to one target, to an entire room.
*Sweat.*
Wuff
2
Re: Scoundrel - Skill Feedback
Looks fairly accurate. Only thing I'm unsure about is your comment on Eject. I thought the purpose of it was to give you access to a reload ability (probably fling) on demand without having to wait to empty your gun, since it then lets you do a reload.
kaeus
1