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An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing
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Nark51 Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:54 pm Posts: 855 Location: United Kingdom	An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing Right, fck all this sht I wrote before, I thought it would work but then I realized Lightweight and its downside are key to differentiating capping from chasing within one class, here is what will fix chasing: viewtopic.php?p=1085388#p1085388 viewtopic.php?p=1092422#p1092422 viewtopic.php?p=1095496#p1095496 viewtopic.php?p=1095517#p1095517 ------Old Post Not really sure where to begin with this, but I feel the need to once again put forward some ideas which could help towards better chasing. Now, we all know Rage is a bandaid fix, but it's a necessary bandaid fix, everyone can acknowledge that, the chaser/capper balance was definitely not working well before its existence and it was still having a lot of trouble throughout. Chasers still initially opted to use Reach rather than Rage because the range of the effect was far too small and was forcing chasers to play "Pathfinder on flag" within literally a meter or two of the flag (making them very vulnerable to Heavy Offense bombardment). Rage has had its ups and downs since it was first implemented, HiRez buffing the range, buffing the range again, and again, adding mass reduction. The best version of Rage in my opinion was in the pre-Lightweight patch, where Rage gave -35% mass reduction. I feel adding Lightweight was a major mistake, with Rage (Slot 1) so close to being properly viable, its ability to be used with Egocentric (Slot 2) was what made it good and genuinely helped chasers, you didn't have to bring yourself down to 50hp to have hopes of catching the capper. When HiRez added Lightweight, they severely nerfed Rage's mass reduction to -10% and gave Lightweight (Slot 2) the -30% (a total gain of -40% mass). The main problem with Lightweight is that you are locked out of being able to use Egocentric with it, this coupled with the 3x longer regeneration timer means you as a chaser will be more damaged than ever while trying to catch up to the capper. Allowing any roaming enemies or even the capper himself to chain away the last of your health with little effort. Then, in the last patch, HiRez nerfed Impact Nitrons. I guess they had the intention of nerfing the capper's ability to gain speed for little health loss, but instead introduced the problem of chasers being even more unable to chase than ever before. A chaser relies on Impact Nitrons to catch up to the capper, especially if he's using Lightweight (because they damage you less than discs do and you will have no foreseeable regen in sight). This nerf in-fact turned out to affect cappers less than chasers, with the discjumping impulse buff, cappers still usually end up at the same high speeds as they were before due to their ability to frontload speed. It did slow them down a bit if they were to use nitron jumps over discs, meaning a capper might come in with less health than usual, or slower than before. The Impact Nitron nerf is in-fact a buff (of sorts) to Sentinels, by forcing Pathfinders to discjump and trade more health for speed, Sentinels have to plink less shots in on the target to melt them away. A Sentinel on D can snipe the chaser after his capper from across the map, or snipe the enemy capper in less shots than before because they come in either slower or with more health lost. This is why (at least as I have noticed) Sentinels have become a lot more common in pubs as of late, with chasing becoming nigh-impossible in higher level games and cappers being easier to pick off with the sniper rifles. Now, a lot of this is just ancient history, with the exception of the recent Nitron nerf. What I propose should happen would be to remove Lightweight completely and re-buff Rage accordingly, it's a horrid bandaid fix that gimps chasers by being unable to use Egocentric. The way the perk is built also doesn't fit in with the rest of the perk designs (it has a downside, no other perks do, except maybe a Super Heavy user's lost ability to discjump effectively). The existence of Lightweight has also opened up a host of other problems, such as Raiders abusing Lightweight through use of the Shield Pack to go speeds as high as 260-300 KM/H (I should know, I'm the one who turned this into a personal meta). Heavies capping from a Grav Cycle jump while using their Spinfusor/Titan to boost along, one-hill routes that minimize coordination of offense with cappers running long routes. Proposed changes for Rage: Buff the mass reduction back to -35% or -40% Increase the trigger radius to be truly base-wide (from the edge of the sensor building in Drydock over to the vehicle pad, or something similar). Instead of having the radius be dynamic based on where the flag is, make it based on the size of bases themselves in each map. Nerf the Energy regeneration side of the perk, instead make the perk give a one-time instant +full energy when it triggers, like the way the +health works on the perk, this will help to make sure Phase Rifle/Rage snipers don't get too strong, stopping them from reaping the benefits of the energy regen from the other side of the base and allowing them to spam endlessly, by making it just a simple instant one-time +full energy. The +full energy gain should also help the would-be chasers who have been jetting around prior to the grab, allowing them to simply thrust out of the air instead of waiting for the fast energy regen to fill up and let them make proper use of the thrust pack. Disable the Rage effect on in-the-field pickups by the enemy, so long as they are a certain distance from the stand (we know good players like to keep the flag safe off-stand in the event that the enemy messes up a grab). This perk gets really ridiculous in standoffs when the enemy start passing the flag around, or if they fumble it and pick it back up. The +50% Health is insane if you keep stacking it on during a standoff. Proposed changes for the Impact Nitron and Spinfusor impulse problem: Revert the impulse changes back to what they were pre-patch ONLY for Pathfinder, keep the impulse buff to other classes' explosive weapons. If this is the only way to keep cappers from going even faster whilst still making chasing possible, then so be it. Maybe a further nerf to impulse gain from the Light Twinfusor, as I understand it one of the reasons for the Impact Nitron nerf may have been (read: speculation) because it made cappers with the Light Twinfusor too powerful, allowing them to self-clear the stand better than before. By nerfing the Light Twinfusor impulse a bit more it would disallow cappers to do their nitron+disc combos, thus making use of the Light Twinfusor as a capping weapon mean the capper may be slower than before. P.S. The change to the Light Assault Rifle, while long overdue, is MUCH appreciated as a chaser, but there aren't many high speed situations where I can make full use of it's increased chasing effectiveness due to the difficulty of actually chasing since the nerf to Impact Nitrons. _________________ Important things: Possible solutions to D-stacking and ways to incentivize O Nark, certified #1 Chaser & #1 Scrambler Capper in Europe. Also #1 in Rabbit. Last edited by Nark51 on Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:10 pm, edited 7 times in total.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:01 pm

bosketaru Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:33 am Posts: 56	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing +1 good ideas, rid Lightweight for the specified reasons
Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:14 pm

Sofab Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 8:38 am Posts: 12	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing Sounds good. I agree with pretty much everything.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:55 pm

theSteelSentry Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:52 pm Posts: 2	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing I agree, this would definitely help balance a lot of the issues currently present in the game. Chasing needs to become viable once more.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 6:08 pm

orseoste7o Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:27 am Posts: 307	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing +1 All i want is for them to revert the nitron-nerf, then ill be happy. _________________ Limyc wrote: uFr49 wrote: long live life You heard it here first, folks. Long Live Life!
Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:30 pm

Bored Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 1:14 am Posts: 325	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing Rage needs some serious reworking. I like the idea of it replacing energy rate with a simple energy boost like the health, this makes Rage essentially reset a chaser into ideal conditions. It does need a range boost to allow defenders to properly defend without having to actually worry about the range, and it should only be activated when the flag is close to the stand to avoid standoff usage. Finally it should have a egocentric like effect on activation making Rage a sort of activated/mini ego and lightweight, then chasers could choose either lightweight or ego as their more style defining perk. For lightweight the issue is the regen debuff is just too harsh on chasers making it very hard to stay alive, close to the flag, and with good health. It forces a reliance on rage to be anywhere useful. To fix this the debuff should be tied to distance from your flag allowing chasers to regen on the chase and at base.
Sat Jul 28, 2012 11:31 pm

SkepticTA Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 7:41 pm Posts: 3062	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing You can catch fast cappers with rage/lw and a explosive nitron jump, but it leaves you hurting and you don't have any FFD. Even though 3 sentinels can lock down a flag, so can 3 pathfinders as chasers. One path isn't going to get far against three sents, and one sent isn't going to stop 3 paths. Three paths vs three sents is a pretty fair contest of skill, but one path vs one sent leans toward the latter. Three paths vs three paths is also balanced, and three sents vs three sents would just be silly. It is all about team balance now, no more cowboy tactics. _________________ (AHK) T:A Physics Profiler
Sun Jul 29, 2012 4:30 am

wickwire-mr Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:13 pm Posts: 484	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing very good post, about sums up the whole situation. Nark51 wrote: Proposed changes for the Impact Nitron and Spinfusor impulse problem: Revert the impulse changes back to what they were pre-patch ONLY for Pathfinder, keep the impulse buff to other classes' explosive weapons. If this is the only way to keep cappers from going even faster whilst still making chasing possible, then so be it. removing or changing regen would be a better idea than class-specific impulse changes IMO if they wanna nerf capper speeds. _________________ (01:28:16)<Aile>ahh a milf player (01:28:18)<Aile>enemy spotted.
Sun Jul 29, 2012 7:04 am

Nark51 Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:54 pm Posts: 855 Location: United Kingdom	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing SkepticTA wrote: You can catch fast cappers with rage/lw and a explosive nitron jump, but it leaves you hurting and you don't have any FFD. Even though 3 sentinels can lock down a flag, so can 3 pathfinders as chasers. One path isn't going to get far against three sents, and one sent isn't going to stop 3 paths. Three paths vs three sents is a pretty fair contest of skill, but one path vs one sent leans toward the latter. Three paths vs three paths is also balanced, and three sents vs three sents would just be silly. It is all about team balance now, no more cowboy tactics. I understand what you're saying, but in a more competitive environment you absolutely cannot sacrifice 3 spots on a team for Pathfinder chasers. The Impact Nitron's impulse nerf affect chasing so much that it just makes Sentinel that much more attractive. wickwire-mr wrote: removing or changing regen would be a better idea than class-specific impulse changes IMO if they wanna nerf capper speeds. Also been suggested several times. And while I absolutely 100% agree, we and everyone else know that HiRez isn't going to make a change that big to the game (removing regen) now that it's not in beta anymore (they should put it back INTO beta, if you ask me, or allow us to test major changes on custom servers or something). I'm opting for something a lot more simple for HiRez to do without making any major game-wide balance changes (fixing Rage and removing Lightweight). At most they would have to refund the tiny amount of exp/gold people spent on Lightweight, rather than lose a lot of the more casual players who aren't happy with the game having no regenerating health. _________________ Important things: Possible solutions to D-stacking and ways to incentivize O Nark, certified #1 Chaser & #1 Scrambler Capper in Europe. Also #1 in Rabbit.
Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:04 pm

Ardris Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2010 10:17 am Posts: 14	Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing I definitely agree to the changes you proposed. However, I strongly believe Hirez has to start tackling the problem of the capper/chaser balance more from the side of the cappers and/or map design. The way it is, the time window to actually chase a decent capper is just way too small. Nerfing cappers would also allow them to further nerf sentinels and autos without completely breaking the game.
Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:55 pm

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An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

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Nark51

Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:54 pm
Posts: 855
Location: United Kingdom

An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

Right, f*ck all this sh*t I wrote before, I thought it would work but then I realized Lightweight and its downside are key to differentiating capping from chasing within one class, here is what will fix chasing:
viewtopic.php?p=1085388#p1085388
viewtopic.php?p=1092422#p1092422
viewtopic.php?p=1095496#p1095496
viewtopic.php?p=1095517#p1095517

------Old Post

Not really sure where to begin with this, but I feel the need to once again put forward some ideas which could help towards better chasing.

Now, we all know Rage is a bandaid fix, but it's a necessary bandaid fix, everyone can acknowledge that, the chaser/capper balance was definitely not working well before its existence and it was still having a lot of trouble throughout. Chasers still initially opted to use Reach rather than Rage because the range of the effect was far too small and was forcing chasers to play "Pathfinder on flag" within literally a meter or two of the flag (making them very vulnerable to Heavy Offense bombardment).

Rage has had its ups and downs since it was first implemented, HiRez buffing the range, buffing the range again, and again, adding mass reduction. The best version of Rage in my opinion was in the pre-Lightweight patch, where Rage gave -35% mass reduction.

I feel adding Lightweight was a major mistake, with Rage (Slot 1) so close to being properly viable, its ability to be used with Egocentric (Slot 2) was what made it good and genuinely helped chasers, you didn't have to bring yourself down to 50hp to have hopes of catching the capper. When HiRez added Lightweight, they severely nerfed Rage's mass reduction to -10% and gave Lightweight (Slot 2) the -30% (a total gain of -40% mass).

The main problem with Lightweight is that you are locked out of being able to use Egocentric with it, this coupled with the 3x longer regeneration timer means you as a chaser will be more damaged than ever while trying to catch up to the capper. Allowing any roaming enemies or even the capper himself to chain away the last of your health with little effort.

Then, in the last patch, HiRez nerfed Impact Nitrons. I guess they had the intention of nerfing the capper's ability to gain speed for little health loss, but instead introduced the problem of chasers being even more unable to chase than ever before. A chaser relies on Impact Nitrons to catch up to the capper, especially if he's using Lightweight (because they damage you less than discs do and you will have no foreseeable regen in sight).

This nerf in-fact turned out to affect cappers less than chasers, with the discjumping impulse buff, cappers still usually end up at the same high speeds as they were before due to their ability to frontload speed. It did slow them down a bit if they were to use nitron jumps over discs, meaning a capper might come in with less health than usual, or slower than before.

The Impact Nitron nerf is in-fact a buff (of sorts) to Sentinels, by forcing Pathfinders to discjump and trade more health for speed, Sentinels have to plink less shots in on the target to melt them away. A Sentinel on D can snipe the chaser after his capper from across the map, or snipe the enemy capper in less shots than before because they come in either slower or with more health lost. This is why (at least as I have noticed) Sentinels have become a lot more common in pubs as of late, with chasing becoming nigh-impossible in higher level games and cappers being easier to pick off with the sniper rifles.

Now, a lot of this is just ancient history, with the exception of the recent Nitron nerf. What I propose should happen would be to remove Lightweight completely and re-buff Rage accordingly, it's a horrid bandaid fix that gimps chasers by being unable to use Egocentric. The way the perk is built also doesn't fit in with the rest of the perk designs (it has a downside, no other perks do, except maybe a Super Heavy user's lost ability to discjump effectively).

The existence of Lightweight has also opened up a host of other problems, such as Raiders abusing Lightweight through use of the Shield Pack to go speeds as high as 260-300 KM/H (I should know, I'm the one who turned this into a personal meta). Heavies capping from a Grav Cycle jump while using their Spinfusor/Titan to boost along, one-hill routes that minimize coordination of offense with cappers running long routes.

Proposed changes for Rage:

Buff the mass reduction back to -35% or -40%

Increase the trigger radius to be truly base-wide (from the edge of the sensor building in Drydock over to the vehicle pad, or something similar). Instead of having the radius be dynamic based on where the flag is, make it based on the size of bases themselves in each map.

Nerf the Energy regeneration side of the perk, instead make the perk give a one-time instant +full energy when it triggers, like the way the +health works on the perk, this will help to make sure Phase Rifle/Rage snipers don't get too strong, stopping them from reaping the benefits of the energy regen from the other side of the base and allowing them to spam endlessly, by making it just a simple instant one-time +full energy. The +full energy gain should also help the would-be chasers who have been jetting around prior to the grab, allowing them to simply thrust out of the air instead of waiting for the fast energy regen to fill up and let them make proper use of the thrust pack.

Disable the Rage effect on in-the-field pickups by the enemy, so long as they are a certain distance from the stand (we know good players like to keep the flag safe off-stand in the event that the enemy messes up a grab). This perk gets really ridiculous in standoffs when the enemy start passing the flag around, or if they fumble it and pick it back up. The +50% Health is insane if you keep stacking it on during a standoff.

Proposed changes for the Impact Nitron and Spinfusor impulse problem:

Revert the impulse changes back to what they were pre-patch ONLY for Pathfinder, keep the impulse buff to other classes' explosive weapons. If this is the only way to keep cappers from going even faster whilst still making chasing possible, then so be it.

Maybe a further nerf to impulse gain from the Light Twinfusor, as I understand it one of the reasons for the Impact Nitron nerf may have been (read: speculation) because it made cappers with the Light Twinfusor too powerful, allowing them to self-clear the stand better than before. By nerfing the Light Twinfusor impulse a bit more it would disallow cappers to do their nitron+disc combos, thus making use of the Light Twinfusor as a capping weapon mean the capper may be slower than before.

P.S. The change to the Light Assault Rifle, while long overdue, is MUCH appreciated as a chaser, but there aren't many high speed situations where I can make full use of it's increased chasing effectiveness due to the difficulty of actually chasing since the nerf to Impact Nitrons.

_________________
Important things:
Possible solutions to D-stacking and ways to incentivize O

Nark, certified #1 Chaser & #1 Scrambler Capper in Europe. Also #1 in Rabbit.

Last edited by Nark51 on Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:10 pm, edited 7 times in total.

Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:01 pm

bosketaru

Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:33 am
Posts: 56

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

+1 good ideas, rid Lightweight for the specified reasons

Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:14 pm

Sofab

Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 8:38 am
Posts: 12

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

Sounds good. I agree with pretty much everything.

Sat Jul 28, 2012 5:55 pm

theSteelSentry

Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2011 11:52 pm
Posts: 2

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

I agree, this would definitely help balance a lot of the issues currently present in the game. Chasing needs to become viable once more.

Sat Jul 28, 2012 6:08 pm

orseoste7o

Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:27 am
Posts: 307

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

+1

All i want is for them to revert the nitron-nerf, then ill be happy.

_________________

Limyc wrote:

uFr49 wrote:

long live life

You heard it here first, folks. Long Live Life!

Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:30 pm

Bored

Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 1:14 am
Posts: 325

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

Rage needs some serious reworking. I like the idea of it replacing energy rate with a simple energy boost like the health, this makes Rage essentially reset a chaser into ideal conditions. It does need a range boost to allow defenders to properly defend without having to actually worry about the range, and it should only be activated when the flag is close to the stand to avoid standoff usage. Finally it should have a egocentric like effect on activation making Rage a sort of activated/mini ego and lightweight, then chasers could choose either lightweight or ego as their more style defining perk.

For lightweight the issue is the regen debuff is just too harsh on chasers making it very hard to stay alive, close to the flag, and with good health. It forces a reliance on rage to be anywhere useful. To fix this the debuff should be tied to distance from your flag allowing chasers to regen on the chase and at base.

Sat Jul 28, 2012 11:31 pm

SkepticTA

Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 7:41 pm
Posts: 3062

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

You can catch fast cappers with rage/lw and a explosive nitron jump, but it leaves you hurting and you don't have any FFD. Even though 3 sentinels can lock down a flag, so can 3 pathfinders as chasers. One path isn't going to get far against three sents, and one sent isn't going to stop 3 paths. Three paths vs three sents is a pretty fair contest of skill, but one path vs one sent leans toward the latter. Three paths vs three paths is also balanced, and three sents vs three sents would just be silly.

It is all about team balance now, no more cowboy tactics.

_________________

(AHK) T:A Physics Profiler

Sun Jul 29, 2012 4:30 am

wickwire-mr

Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:13 pm
Posts: 484

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

very good post, about sums up the whole situation.

Nark51 wrote:

Proposed changes for the Impact Nitron and Spinfusor impulse problem:

Revert the impulse changes back to what they were pre-patch ONLY for Pathfinder, keep the impulse buff to other classes' explosive weapons. If this is the only way to keep cappers from going even faster whilst still making chasing possible, then so be it.

removing or changing regen would be a better idea than class-specific impulse changes IMO if they wanna nerf capper speeds.

_________________
(01:28:16)<Aile>ahh a milf player
(01:28:18)<Aile>enemy spotted.

Sun Jul 29, 2012 7:04 am

Nark51

Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:54 pm
Posts: 855
Location: United Kingdom

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

SkepticTA wrote:

I understand what you're saying, but in a more competitive environment you absolutely cannot sacrifice 3 spots on a team for Pathfinder chasers. The Impact Nitron's impulse nerf affect chasing so much that it just makes Sentinel that much more attractive.

wickwire-mr wrote:

removing or changing regen would be a better idea than class-specific impulse changes IMO if they wanna nerf capper speeds.

Also been suggested several times. And while I absolutely 100% agree, we and everyone else know that HiRez isn't going to make a change that big to the game (removing regen) now that it's not in beta anymore (they should put it back INTO beta, if you ask me, or allow us to test major changes on custom servers or something).

I'm opting for something a lot more simple for HiRez to do without making any major game-wide balance changes (fixing Rage and removing Lightweight). At most they would have to refund the tiny amount of exp/gold people spent on Lightweight, rather than lose a lot of the more casual players who aren't happy with the game having no regenerating health.

_________________
Important things:
Possible solutions to D-stacking and ways to incentivize O

Nark, certified #1 Chaser & #1 Scrambler Capper in Europe. Also #1 in Rabbit.

Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:04 pm

Ardris

Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2010 10:17 am
Posts: 14

Re: An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing

I definitely agree to the changes you proposed.
However, I strongly believe Hirez has to start tackling the problem of the capper/chaser balance more from the side of the cappers and/or map design. The way it is, the time window to actually chase a decent capper is just way too small.
Nerfing cappers would also allow them to further nerf sentinels and autos without completely breaking the game.

Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:55 pm

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An Exhausted Topic: Rage, Lightweight and Chasing