Topic: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

Whats wrong:  The bonus/penalty is static.

Why its wrong:  Allows for armor plates to completely negate a demob.  Weaker demobs get a larger % "buff" when against LWFs.    (40% demob becomes 60% for a 50% increase while a 60% demob becomes 80% for a 33% increase)

What needs to happen:  The bonus/penalty needs to be dynamic based on the strength of the demob.  (Ex: Armor reduces demob strength by 25%, so a 50% demob becomes 37.5%)

Why its right:  The effect will scale with the power of the demob as well as the power of the LWF or armor.  It will also never be able to fully negate a demob, as each plate reduces the remaining demob power, not initial power.


Example:  (with my suggested system)

Tackle:  2 50% demobilizers
Tank: 2 armor plates that reduce demobs by 25%.  Movement speed is 50kph.

For each demob, the first armor plate reduces its effectiveness to 37.5%, and the second plate reduces the remaining amount to ~28%.

With the calculated demob strength, the first demob reduces the tank's speed to 36kph, and the second demob reduces it to ~26.


Regardless if you put 3/4 armor plates one it, you could never get the demob strength to 0.  This is the most important part.  These effects need to have a stacking penalty, and be dependent on the strength of the demob.  The actual numbers are just for example, and I'm not suggesting the numbers I used.  I just wanted to show how my suggestion would work in practice.


*If you need anything cleared up, please let me know.  Its late, I'm tired, and I was determined for this to be my first post today.  Thanks.*

I am Perpetuum's Most Dangerous Agent and an equal opportunity troll.
-> You just lost The Game <-
"Perpetuum sounds like a something I would stick up my *** for enjoyement." -Kaito Kurusaki

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

That sounds pretty accurate. Been kinda surprised it didn't work that way when it came live btw.

3 (edited by Alexander 2010-11-19 14:17:31)

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

Nice idea Neoxx.
The static system is terrible. I like that LWF suffer for if caught and I like that armour plate users don't suffer so much but not suffering at all seems very overpowered. It's very easy to completely resist demobs (2 or 3 plates) and still maintain a speed that will enable you to deploy, escape, teleport.

All this promotes is armoured blobs. Slow moving with demob tackle testicles extending forward to grab the pray. It's very hard to pick off slow people in an armoured blob as they all move about the same speed and demobs have very little effect. Even the overpowered Zenith will be useless against it.

The Game

4 (edited by Michael J Caboose 2010-11-19 16:30:24)

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

Alexander wrote:

All this promotes is armoured blobs. Slow moving with demob tackle testicles extending forward to grab the pray. It's very hard to pick off slow people in an armoured blob as they all move about the same speed and demobs have very little effect. Even the overpowered Zenith will be useless against it.

so, how exactly is the worse then having resist-tanked high-speed blob which only speed limit is the RR Bots top speed. The resist-tanks can keep up speed with any target if necessary, but can also stay alive as long as the RR works. You should know for the best, how long it takes to refill a Seth's hitpoints from almost dead to sparkling new, with a few medium Repair hits, if its based on resistence.

Armorplates increase your real Hitpoints, so repair takes much longer and need more AP. They are also heavier then Hardener and slow you down.

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

Alexander wrote:

demob tackle testicles extending forward to grab the pray.

I certainly don't want this is the game...

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

how fast is the bot with the plates? if he is only going 50 kph with all the plates whats the issue? Demobs are great against LW's plates just happen to be the counter too a demob.

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

GotEvil wrote:

how fast is the bot with the plates? if he is only going 50 kph with all the plates whats the issue? Demobs are great against LW's plates just happen to be the counter too a demob.

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

Having a tanked mech that does 50 compared to a tanked mech that does 10 is a huge difference when he's trying to dodge behind obstacles to avoid damage.  Demos are never useless, and being able to fully mitigate a demob is a stupid mechanic.

They are even basing this around light bot combat, too.  You might be able to fully mitigate a demob in a light, but with a heavy mech or even a destroyer down the road, demobs wont even be an option because nearly all of them will be fitting 2+ plates in any important engagement.

I am Perpetuum's Most Dangerous Agent and an equal opportunity troll.
-> You just lost The Game <-
"Perpetuum sounds like a something I would stick up my *** for enjoyement." -Kaito Kurusaki

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

Well, you already pay a speed penalty when you plate up.  The question I have is the resolution to this situation:  You are in a bot which has 2 medium plates equipped, and you get double-demobbed.  How quickly should a squad of equal-sized bots, same equipment, but 1000M away be able to catch up to you?

The Blind Bot -- watch your six, my aim aint so good these days!

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

Cid Jorgumeri wrote:

Well, you already pay a speed penalty when you plate up.  The question I have is the resolution to this situation:  You are in a bot which has 2 medium plates equipped, and you get double-demobbed.  How quickly should a squad of equal-sized bots, same equipment, but 1000M away be able to catch up to you?


Assuming demobs are at 70%+ strength, 53 seconds.

Re: Demobs, LWFs and Armor Plates

My math is a bit wrong I suspect, but I think that means you're saying that after demob the 1000M away squad should be able to have something like an 88% speed difference to the demobbed target. 

The problem I see with this is that I think it will discourage fights, because I dont think 53 seconds will be a reasonable amount of time for a hypothetical rescue squad to deploy and get to our hypothetical demobbed guy.  I suspect such a mechanic would merely discourage small fights, as you would have to write off someone caught at any distance as a unrecoverable loss.

IMO, demobs should enable one to force commitment to a fight, but not to make it hopless to try to rescue someone thats demobbed.

As such I would propose a mechanic that results in double demob on someone thats doubleplated to result in the doubleplated fellow to be at say -30-50% speed, and not -70% speed.

In my limited experience, I would believe this to be a better balance between forcing fights and just providing gank targets.  From the PVP (very little, I admit) I've been in so far, it seems safe to say that 2-3km is a reasonable travel distance.  For 2KM, even a lightweight squad averaging 75kph (im not going to say sillyfit to 100kph even though I could see a lolintaktecm squad doing that) will take about a minute and a half to join the fight. So IMO, a time difference of 53 seconds is not enough I think.

As neoxx said, being able to fit passively to mitigate any demob attempt is kinda silly, but neither do I belive they should be something like a 'lolnano' button, for lack of a better descriptive term.  Allow demobs to force a fight, but dont make them so powerful that the plated+demobbed guy has no chance to be rescued.

Balance to encourage uncertainty, which I think encourages small group combat, and less blobban.

The Blind Bot -- watch your six, my aim aint so good these days!