Venoms in Race maps

[iZumo]

Due to very massive rage today on the Venoms, I've decided to run a small forum poll on them about what people think about them here, before giving some criticism.

[Takeo]

The Venoms are very good to get some action into race. [exaggeration]However, the biggest problem is that it takes more than 20 attempts to finally kill the venom. [/exaggeration]

Together with adding venoms to the map I would place AVRILs and weapons without projectiles (i.e. shock beam, lightninggun) to the map as well in order to balance the addition. Furthermore, I suggest we create a modified version of the AVRIL which only locks on air-based-vehicles (raptor/venom) to prevent spamming the actual racers.

[Azarael]

Venom - it's the best.

Things about the Venom that people think are problems:

- Driver damage. This has been massively nerfed and from the perspective of someone who actually whores the craft, I can tell you it's now negligible, and the Bender will be destroyed first.

- Agility. The maneouverability of the Venom is required to prevent it from being a free hit (such as the Dragonfly, Cicada and Raptor). Given that we know Dragonflies are very easy to hit consistently even when you are bad in the regular game (as I am at the moment), I will not consider nerfing the Venom's agility unless Hellbenders lose their instant-hit twin beams, at which point Venoms would need to be removed because the primary purpose of the craft (fighting itself) would be compromised by the loss of maneouverability required to balance it against a projectile twin beams. In such a situation, the Dragonfly would become balanced as opposed to underpowered, and should replace Venoms in maps were this to be implemented.

I should note that an associated whine is that the Venom can outrun AVRiLs. The AVRiL is a crutch for noobs, and even the ONS players think so, so quite frankly I'm not going to lose any sleep over noobs being unable to hit Venoms with a weapon which plays the game for you. They should be grateful that their weapon provides any return at all - it forces the pilot to move.

- Laser damage output. This weapon deals 850 damage over 2.2 seconds and cools for 6.8 seconds for an average of 94 dps. Hellbenders on Venom maps have 1250hp or more and are also possessed of shield and repair facilities.

- Passive regeneration and the perception that Venoms are indestructible. A Venom has 700 hp and heals for 6hp/s after 10 seconds out of combat. This was originally higher, and intended to reward teams for pressurising the craft in order to destroy it, but raisers are raisers so it was nerfed by popular request. A Venom will not self-regenerate if the back thruster is emitting flames (50 hp or less) and a Venom at 100hp (3 bender shots) will take 110 seconds (100 heal + 10 wait) to heal itself to maximum without external aid.

In an 8v8 game, 3 two-man benders per team can be fielded against a Venom. If that kind of advantage is not enough to destroy a 4-shot craft, then the error is with the players.

Things about the Venom that actually are problems:

- Venom truces. Not a problem with the craft itself, but with its users. While a Venom truce should theoretically not stop a game, because the game is still filled with Hellbender twin beams, ill-will is still generated when there are too many raisers in Hellbender seat 3 for a Venom to be destroyed in any manner other than air combat.

- Extreme power with Seeker missiles and lasers when used against Mantas, which take major driver damage (probably because of the proximity of the driver to the faces of the hitbox combined with a high driver damage multiplier for open-topped.) Mantas are rare but J-Vehicle Rais is making this an issue.

- Ramming. It's still a viable tactic against Hellbenders and high speed and agility make it even more shit than it was with Raptors. There is a rule against it, however, so report it if you see it.

- Starburst against ground. The main disadvantage of Starburst (its poor turning speed) is negated against Hellbenders, which are large, slow and move predictably because of the constraints of the track. While balanced against air vehicles, with its main uses being to destroy fleeing players or deliver high damage against groups, it's pretty easy to use against ground vehicles.

- Hypervelocity range. Hypervelocity outranges twin beams.

--

Now I'd be interested to know how many of the players complaining in game have made reference to the last few points as opposed to continuous unsupported bitching about how Venoms are OP.

[iRobot]

Agree with (most) of the above, but I still think hellbenders, and drivers, are too easily killed.

[iZumo]

Well as of me:

Hellbender Twinbeams & Agility - to start off, with Hellbender you can give 200 damage in 3.25 seconds (2.5 charge + 0.75 pause), so we have around 61,5 DPS. Then, there currently is a netcode issue, due to server authoritative twin beams: both Venom & NitroBender are fast vehicles, so even a short ping causes the weapon to miss even if you fired well on your client, because on the server it fires when the vehicle is several meters away (usual speed with nitro ~ 40 MPH = cca 1500 UU/s => with ping 100 ms, you miss up to 150 UU) . This isn't a problem with the linearly moving Hellbenders (as they will still be hit), but then Venom changes it's move rapidly, so you may randomly miss. I'm just stating this, as the problem rather on the bender side.

Laser damage - Eventhough a good move with the laser not damaging the driver anymore, it's usually quite easy to destroy a bender with one full laser strike (or need a half of another) - for a simple reason: benders don't hold truce among themselves, so they are likely to get a some damage before they face Venom, and usually you don't repair yourself to get full hp.

Multiple gunners - It rarely happens that more benders are close to each other (because of sol noobs but also as they shoot each other down too), the fight is very oftenly one bender vs venom as even when two drivers are close together, you'll usualy find a position how to where the gunner of one of the benders can't reach you.

AVRiL - I agree here, AVRiL actually serves well enough to distract the pilots.

Ramming - In TakeImpactDamage, use ImpactInfo.Other to see if the venom rams (or is rammed by) other vehicle.

Venom truces - Even if the Venoms hold truce, for half of the drivers it's same as when one of the Venoms is dead.

Difficulty - It's being said on every place that TwinBeams are super easy to hit, however see nowhere is stated that it's ridiculously easy to hit a bender with hypervelocity cannon (with extreme range, outranging the benders) as well as with lasers, as given their linear movement, you miss very rarely, and you absolutely don't need any skill for hitting the benders, no matter how much you wave yourself in order to try avoiding the beams.

Starburst - Hmm, I haven't found myself in need to use starburst as I always considered lasers as a better alternative. However thinking about it, you can combo lasers with starburst to give a massive strike, can't you?

Now I'd be interested to know how many of the players complaining in game have made reference to the last few points as opposed to continuous unsupported bitching about how Venoms are OP.

Hmm ... "continuous unsupported bitching". If even players with some skill can't bring themselves to submit a feedback that is not bitching (speaking about most of the EMP ragers, practically all of them except you), don't tell me that you expect any difference from race noobs.

[Azarael]

The Venom's size was increased and it's still quite a large target. Hellbenders vs. other Hellbenders and vs. normal vehicles are completely free, and players themselves must be led to account for ping, with much faster movement relative to their size.

Laser damage - it's not possible to destroy a bender in a single laser strike, and most Benders do shield when under laser attack. Just got owned hard in a game of HotRais. ._.

Some places in some maps offer good cover - others don't.

For the sake of clarification: Twin beams hit any vehicle easily. Venom fires hit ground vehicles easily. Both are not great against infantry, but the Venom is better. I'd say that twin beams are just as big a problem as the Venom itself when viewed with respect to the rais gametype, and there's a lot to gain from using a projectile implementation with Dragonflies instead.

On the EMP ragers... touché.

--

I've noticed that a lot of votes are being placed on "drivers being killed too quickly." You will not kill a 100hp driver with a Venom before destroying the Bender. I don't know where exactly the threshold is, but I haven't managed to kill a driver in 3 games before his vehicle was destroyed.

[iZumo]

Ah, I've modified the poll option from "drivers" to "benders", as I suppose that everybody voting that meant it as it's easy to kill the benders, not the drivers themselves.

[iRobot]

I meant drivers. With a few repairs, the driver will die before the vehicle does.

[iZumo]

goes to BOT, Nardaq and Jate for choosing the first option.

EDIT: THEXalez as well

EDIT2: Generage already has special rank, Ultra goes pink too.

[Azarael]

NARDAQ chose the first option?

*shock*