B.E.A.S.T. hunting, Thematically, feels horrible.

Rylek

I've been playing IRE since Achaea was in beta. I have many friendships that I actively enjoy and maintain from my years in the various games. Recently, I tried to convince one of my best buddies to come to play Starmourn. I really like the setting, and how things look so far. My buddy, almost exclusively hunts. He bashes shit all the days long. Amusingly, he cares less about 'best hunting class' and more about 'decent hunting class, with a theme I enjoy'. Which is something I respect.

So my buddy is asking me about each of the classes and what they're like in pve.

Nanoseer - uses nanites to fuck shit up. "Cool theme"

Engineer - uses bots to fuck shit up. "Obvious, but cool"

Scoundrel - uses gunslinging to fuck shit up, very han solo "Inntteeerreessssting"

Fury - Channels fury and battle built 'rage' through a special sword to dice shit "Okay Trunks"

Beast - slaps a ho, then stabs them repeatedly with a wrist-mounted blade "So...they use swords like furies?"




Holy crap did that conversation REALLY drive home what has been bothering me about a class I was REALLY excited to play for like a year now. Have ya'll seen the picture over at https://www.starmourn.com/classes/beast/ at all? The wristblade is the damn most insulting afterthought weapon there. "You saw the picture, right? "Fuck you up" mostly covers it...."  

Why is it a class with SEVEN weapons, SIX Of which are wicked cool ranged options, are we stuck with being wanna be sword guys? There's an entire class dedicated to being sword guys. Miniguns seem to drop a ton for most BEAST operators I talk to. Can we focus on them? I even like the backhand/wristblade combo in concept. I don't know why wristblade of all things does more damage against someone inflicted with an affliction that improves mental damage. Can we change that?

I imagine, if you distill playing time for any given class down across all players of that class, the vast majority will be time spent hunting. So, the theme of the class has to be bright and obvious while hunting. Or, it should be, i think. Can we move BEAST away from wristblade for pve? Missiles are bloody useless, can we make some sort of missile/minigun interaction akin to backhand/wristblade? Can we also make plasma on par? Change douse to not require HEAT? Why does it require heat? doesn't even make sense. Or at least make it last a long time the way daze does.

I mean, there's no reason not to have several equally viable bashing options on a class that's whole thing is "weapon arsenal" right? Let people play Ironman, Gundam AND Firebat. Please?

I'm super tired of using a dirk in combat when I'm wanting to play WarMachine. I feel like I have the tools, I don't understand why the dirk needs to be more effective than a minigun, railgun, missiles, what have you. I don't -mind- that the dirk path is good. I just want other options to be on par. Or at least for our best option not to be, stab shit like the furies!

Cheers

Rylek

-------------------------------< Player stats >--------------------------------

Stat Base Assigned Rewards Total Effective

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Strength  150 0 0 150 150

Aim         150 100 0 250 225

Lifeforce  150 50 0 200 200

Evasion   150 0 0 150 150

Regen     150 50 0 200 200

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Currently, with a ton in AIM and nothing in strength, backhand/wristblade is better damage than any ranged option. Even Douse/burn. Its depressing

Squeakums

I've been bashing with railgun partly for this reason. (and that I have a level 1 wristblade still, but that's not as relevant at the moment.) It feels like it fulfills the class fantasy better when I use my massive weapon to blast things. The damage is pretty massive too, even if the DPS might be a bit inferior. 

Rylek

I have really close to equal railgun and wristblades installed. The wristblade does upwards of 100 damage more per hit, at 3.0 instead of 3.75, and that's with 100 into AIM and 0 STR.

Should also be noted that after testing back and forth and using as many attacks as I can, BEAST doesn't seem to get any scaling from AIM or STR at all right now? Kinda confusing because a few days ago someone else reported otherwise.

Amondrask

Personally I'm more than happy with the melee angle being viable for BEAST, as it's how I intended my character to fight with his BEAST - Though I would much rather that ranged be just as viable, so everyone is happy. I really, really do not want to see melee nerfed so hard it's not viable for hunting as a consequence of this. I'd rather that the other options be brought up to par so that there's variety. Different loadouts or specs would be cool, so I could spec towards melee with the wirstblade/melee weapon and a shield or some such, whereas someone else could gear towards pure range. 

Kirin

I kinda agree with @Rylek here. You are a walking weapons platform and you use a wristblade ... sounds like you wanted Ironman/ Warmachine and you ended up with The Shredder. I mean even an impact hammer would be better than a wristblade. 

I would like to see more ways to hunt with your favorite platform for roughly equal damage. Either railgun or missiles. 

Praefuro

I actually picture it as kind of "the iron giant" brute type class after reading all its skills, mainly setting things on fire and beating the shit out of em with machine enhanced strength. Though I also pictured a sort of siege war machine with the railgun/jumpjets. Until I saw the railgun is mounted on your fist. But beast is basically built how it's supposed to be, a flame throwing, brute, with a few toys on the side. 

I'm not sure, and this is purely speculation. But alot of the races when you look through their individual information on the site show: voidblades, vibroknives, and "soldiers" with assault rifles/shotguns. So if you're like me and stuck between a pistol and a railgun, maybe soldier will be an eventual class.

Minion

Must be equally depressing for engineers to be most efficient in hunting with a crane bot instead of a shrapnel shotty and/or minitank...

Shinonome

Minion said:

Must be equally depressing for engineers to be most efficient in hunting with a crane bot instead of a shrapnel shotty and/or minitank...

Junkjet you at least can use, even if it's damage is lower.

Minitank, yeah, is flat out a pvp bot. (Well... ram on the 90s repeat CD might be useful now that it affects mobs). Spike on a 20s CD does less damage than a single carrybot claw, so it's not worth the balance time, and outside of that it can't even do damage.

ArquenTavas

My biggest irritation is probably the minigun. For something that has no afflictions, it seems to hit like a wet noodle.

Tecton

We've definitely got a lot of numbers passing to do, we were primarily focussed on the low-level experience for launch, that's why most of the combos you use near the start persist (for probably too long). Don't worry, you'll find there will be more viable options in the very near future!

Rylek

@Tecton the BEAST pass just went through, without any of these changes. Other than plasma douse, which still is very much inferior to wristblade use even with the exact same stats allocated. Did these plans get shelved, or are they separate from the other passes?

Tecton

They'll be part of future updates, we're working on getting the existing elements balanced before we expand.

Uachet

I personally am a bit disappointed in this class. I misunderstood the focus of the class, thinking the class would be soldiers in powered armor or mobile infantry suits. What seems to actually be the focus is mechanized street fighters. We focus more on melee weapons and augmented unarmed attacks, instead of our weapon platform ordinances of a minigun, missiles, and a railgun.

I find it amazing that my minigun and missiles, do far less damage than a simple pimp slap shank combo. Am I a futuristic soldier or a street thug?

Joscelin

Uachet said:

I personally am a bit disappointed in this class. I misunderstood the focus of the class, thinking the class would be soldiers in powered armor or mobile infantry suits. What seems to actually be the focus is mechanized street fighters. We focus more on melee weapons and augmented unarmed attacks, instead of our weapon platform ordinances of a minigun, missiles, and a railgun.

I find it amazing that my minigun and missiles, do far less damage than a simple pimp slap shank combo. Am I a futuristic soldier or a street thug?

Yeah. I burned all of my free changes going back and forth between Beast and Scoundrel, and I'm still not sure I settled on the right one. MWP and Suittech seem like they're exactly reversed as far as I what I thought the focus of the class was. 

Rylek

I feel like we're shitty armored wanna be furries. It's immensely disappointing to have this massive weapon list to pick from, and be back handing shit. 

We don't have any future tech either. No pulse cannons, no energy rifles. No sonic cannons. It's disheartening fighting npc's with cool future tech weapons, and I'm using a piece of metal and modern tech

Darios

I think you mean furies? I hope you mean furies.

Satomi

I think the admins said they are looking into doing another pass on BEASTs... it's just the ranged changes haven't been implemented.

ThePlaintiffReturns

Devil's Advocate: I can see a 'mech-suit brawler' class being several shades of awesome, link mechmonks or cyberninja whatever. I'd quite possibly invest in such a class, but yeah, that isn't what I expected from B.E.A.S.T. Looking forward to the changes.

Joscelin

ThePlaintiffReturns said:

Devil's Advocate: I can see a 'mech-suit brawler' class being several shades of awesome, link mechmonks or cyberninja whatever. I'd quite possibly invest in such a class, but yeah, that isn't what I expected from B.E.A.S.T. Looking forward to the changes.

If you gave Beasts wristblade, shield, maybe a netlauncher, they could easily be melee brawler enforcer types without blinking an eye. It's honestly just the ranged options that feel out of place. I could easily see a line of B.E.A.S.T.s functioning as brutal riot control with that kind of stuff. Hell, Smoke and Acridsmoke in Plasma slot right into that kind of fantasy, too.

I'm willing to patiently wait for a bashing pass to bring the other weapons up to viability for PvE, at least, but I'm not sure what to do in PvP to keep our kit coherent and not leave large swathes of it behind.

Yalau

Yeah I honestly think BEAST are versatile, and that's their thing.  Just consider when group fights start happening, they can do decent ranged damage with railguns, hit and run with missiles, or go brawling.

Indi

Thoughts on weapons belonging to small slots being equippable in larger slots? But not vice versa.

Rylek

I actually think both "smalls" could be equipped at the same time and it'd be okay. 

I still get annoyed shield doesn't, you know, shield

Satomi

Allowing you to forgo slots of the appropriate size in favor of multiple smaller slots would be a cool thing.. but I think the issue isn't the size of the weapon, but the placement. You only have one slot on your arm, one mount for your heavy weapon, etc etc. Unless you want your shoulder mount to have some blades sticking out for shoulder-charge situations.

Squeakums

None of the ability descriptions say it fires from a particular part of your body. Even the concept art has a railgun and a wristblade on the same arm. 

Joscelin

And the concept art has a railgun and missile launcher mounted at the same time, which are both large.

Darios

Launcher Description: A boxy, sloping ramp of deadly force is engineered to socket into the shoulder of an assault suit. This launcher has an array of small, short-range missiles able to be fired on command. The launcher is retractable when not in use, sinking down into the armor to leave a seamless curve.

Minigun Description: Formed from a dull, tactical metal, this minigun has been constructed with hard use in mind, reinforcing bands of military grade transteel supporting every seam. Though small, the gun is heavy, and verges on overengineered. A proprietary socket allows it to be locked into the shoulder armor of an assault suit, magnetic technology providing state of the art recoil absorption. Plentiful ammo is contained in a pair of long cartridges that slot along the bicep and the back, the empty casings reabsorbed and repurposed as fuel by nanite recycling arrays when the rotating business end of the gun does what it was meant to do.

Netlauncher Description: A round, gunmetal gray military-grade construct has a squat, empty hole in the front, from which large, nonlethal net projectiles are launched with thudding impact. The launcher retracts into the shoulder socket of the assault suit it is meant to be attached to when not in use, leaving a seamless curve of armor.

Shield Description: This basic shield is a staple of many exoskeletal assault suits, a collapsible device that is locked to the forearm socket via a sturdy, proprietary connector. When collapsed, it takes up little space, simply forming a portion of the suit's armor. When expanded, layer after layer of rubberized, anti-ballistic materials unfurl with mechanical efficiency from the forearm to lock into place, forming a protective barrier nearly two meters high.


Think its fairly clear that one medium slot is on one shoulder, one large slot on the other, small slot on one arm and I imagine our plasmacasters on the other arm.

Squeakums

Huh, that's pretty clear. I missed that! Thanks for clarifying. 

I had pictured the shield as a Reinhardt energy shield due to the force field ability from BLOCK. So I'm guessing it's both--a 2m riot shield style thing that expands/collapses into your forearm, and an energy shield that extends from it too. 

Kestrel

I'm mainly interested in how the unisex crotch protector comes into play.

Annesani

I haven't tried the whole B.E.A.S.T. thing and nor do I want to because it is just too hulky for my tastes, but I wonder if there may be some other bashing methods that aren't being explored? It doesn't sound like it, but it does make me think of how people think Engineers just bot claw and la la la. I typically use the junkjet in combination with the magnetron and recently I was introduced to Turret Control, though the latter either takes good timing or coding on the part of the player.

If there really are no other viable methods, then I really hope you all get some on another pass. It doesn't make sense to have that many weapons and no variety in your ability to destroy things. PVE is already a bit of a drag and any new ways to make it happy are always welcome - across all classes I'm sure! 

Squeakums

A lot of things have been tried. Tear used to be an option but serrate and tear both got nerfed/changed at once so now it's no longer a good contribution to damage. 

You can try bashing with other parts of your kit, and many of us have tried many alternatives. Some are viable if you vastly over level your wristblade (like when I was 25 and still had a level 1 wristblade) but if your gear is pretty similar, Backhand+WB is miles ahead of the others. Sometimes I fight mobs without my bashing attacks, as if I were PvPing instead, but that's just to give me a sanity break from pressing F2 and the time it takes me to kill them is significantly longer.

Also @Kestrel I got a Compensator 3000, it's a worthwhile investment.