[Balance, Improvements, Flamethrower] Flamethrower improvements discussion

gzhegow

Very important topic for improvements flamethrower.

http://wiki.unknownworlds.com/ns2/Flamethrower
Official wiki says: Damage: 2325 over 12.5 seconds (186dps).
But 16 to player, and 18 to structure.
It is generally considered as? 16 * 12.5 = 200. VS clogs maybe???

My reasoning is based on the play experienced players, it means that aliens will not run on the machine-guns, and marines are at least bounce and keep his distance from aliens.
Let's see, what to do against this weapon.

Wiki haven't information about basic alien regeneration without upgrades. I will try to calculate without that info.
Again, there is no information about the Wiki what type of damage (Light, Normal, Heavy) have a flamethrower. That is, we do not know how much damage falls on the armor, and how much to hp.

Ok, maybe you can stop Skulk, but...
HP 70 (+3 per Biomass) | Armor 10 (17 / 23 / 30)
16 dmg is 4.5 seconds (0.9 sec per damage tick) of holding AFK alien in the crosshair.
If he is good player, it is 8-10 seconds.
Skulk can bite you 15 times. In battle it's - 5-6 times. Are you grandmaster in running?
* Without regeneration
* Without hive
* Without upgrades
* Without crag
* Without gorge
* Without babblers
Basic skulk need the grandmaster skill, what you think about it?

You can not stop Lerk, it is too far from you.
HP 125 (+2 per Biomass) | Armor 45 (50 / 55 / 60)
Is 9.5 seconds of damaging AFK lerk. In battle you can touch him 1-2 ticks, no more, he's flying out.

You can not stop Fade, he has too many health even relatively Skulk.
HP 250 (+5 per Biomass) | Armor 80 (93 / 107 / 120)
It's 19 seconds contact with fade. No comments. Fade must be stupid noob.

You can not even hurt Onos.
HP 900 (+25 per Biomass) | Armor 450 (517 / 583 / 650)
76 seconds. You need 3 full tanks to AFK onos, if you want to kill them. Maybe in dreams or folk music?

You can not even hurt Gorge.
HP 160 (+2 per Biomass) | Armor 75 (83 / 92 / 100)
15 seconds contact with gorge. He's long range unit. Ok, you can move in assasins_creed_mode, for kill the fat demon

Ok, flamethrower can create flame-stack. If you're attack some Kharaa, they ignites and take advanced 3 damage in next 6 seconds. Maximum stacks is 20 (20 seconds contacting with lifeform);
When you're good in math calculations, you can calculate - if you are alone, when you create 8th stack, the 1st stack is done. Maximum advanced damage is 7*3 = 21 advanced damage. Some as 2 flamethrowers per second, after 6 seconds of contacting.

Ok. for killing the aliens this weapon SERIOSLY need a GRANDMASTER skill.
Maybe it can help us VS buildings?

http://wiki.unknownworlds.com/ns2/Template:Flammable
Ohoho!
At some buildings they gain 2.5x extra damage from flame (ignition and flametick).
At some buildings they gain 5x extra damage from flametick of weapon (cyst, clog).

Wiki somewhere calls, what this doing 600% of damage. Somewhere - 5x damage. Somewhere 250% damage. What is right?

But Kharaa building can Maturity - they become stronger every second of living!

Let's calculating.
Clog
250. And ability to absorbing big damage. Flamethrower do 90 dmg (it's structure (2x), flammable(250%)) (i think, he's do not absorbing flame). And create tick - 3*2*2.5 = 15 dmg per second per tick... Max 105 additional damage.
It's ~2 seconds. Ok it's really good weapon VS Clogs.

Cyst
70(450). 90 dmg, 5 seconds if he's in finished state. + ignition stacks - ~3 seconds for finished cyst.
Ok it's really good weapon VS Cyst.

Contamination
Contamination now can't be killed.

Hydra
350(450)/10(50). 90 dmg, 6 seconds when in finished state, ignition stacks... ~4+ seconds. One hydra deal 30 damage to you. If we have 3 hydra's - time is now 16 seconds (you can't attack 3 hydras sometimes).
Received damage will be 45+45+30+30+15+15 = 180. That's enough for killing marine, when they have less than 2 armor.
Ok, maybe it's good weapon VS Hydra's, if you are NINJA or you haven't resistance.

Harvester
2000 (2300) / 200 (320). Damage now is 36. It's structure (2x), but not flammable. To structures - 18 dmg. With ignitions they need ~45s time.
Basic Axe dealing 50 damage. With DMG3 - 66 dmg at 0.9 sec.
You need attack harvester 7 seconds, if you want deal with fire-stack damage like the axe.
For killing the harvesters you need 2 flamethrowers, they do this some as 4 axes (they will create 2 stack per tick). But one FT killing with speed 1 axe.

Good ability of FT is a stopping crag, shift and whip abilities, killing lerk gas fields, gorge bilebombs.
But... lol THEY CAN NOT KILL THE WEBS. I check that - with welder webs will be killed, with flamethrower - no
Maybe they have a lot of HP? Or i need to shot at web-place, not at web?

RESUME ABOUT FLAMETHROWER:

GOOD:
Can attack through units (several units sometimes).
Can ignite units with a stacks.
Killing lerk spores, bile bombs
EXTRA STRONG vs CLOG, HYDRA, CYST
Stopping abilities of WHIP, CRAG, SHIFT
Slowing down alien energy regeneration.
Can be used as a "Scan"

BAD:
Small distance.
Do not stop SHADE ability, before they killed.
Do not stop HIVE regeneration ability.
Do not stop bilebombing corrosion effect.
Very weak vs all LIFEFORMS.
Weak vs STRUCTURES. You MUST use 2-3 flamethrowers for take EXTRA STRONG effect - they can do 108 dmg to LIFEFORM (16+16+16+60).
Ignition requires marine stack - you MUST use 2-3 marines with some weapon.
Can't kill the WEBS, as i see. But wiki sayd, he's can.

I think, the flamethrower is so weak for 2nd level weapon, what requires researching AA.

Thank you, guys, thanks to me, thanks to Wiki.

gzhegow

Possible improvements:

* Increase attack speed to 2x, but damage div by 2. To creating more stacks with one marine.
* Killing webs.
* Stop SHADE abilities.
* Where in-flame, turn off regeneration (not healing, natural regeneration) at all (onos may be weakest vs FT)
* Not slowing, stop alien energy regeneration at all. You can capture fade and kill it with allied shotgun.
* Ignites can't put out the fire when you now attacking. Now 1 marine can create only 7 stacks, no more, but max is 20. How about continue stacking, when you every 6 seconds add more flame damage? ("healing" a ignites with the flamethrower)
* Stop bilebombing corrosion effect.
* Flame ignore target's armor at all.

Impossible improvements:

* Explode flamethrowerer when be killed
* Drop oiltank and kill them to explode as secondary attack
* Can pour gas, then to shoot and blow it as secondary attack (mix with drop oiltank)
* Add flame grenades, replace stupid clusters.

gzhegow

I did tested, flame ticks is working only at ground.
At aliens it not work correctly, the eggs receive 3 dmg after i attack them at 4 seconds. If you attack the ground at egg position they take 3 dmg at egg, and 3 dmg from each tick, what count is 6-7.

Calculation:

-> attacking egg with a stream without ground:
(16) + (16 + 3) + (16 + 3) + (16 + 3) + ....

-> attacking ground at egg position
(16) + (16 + 3) + (16 + 3 + 3) + (16 + 3 + 3 + 3) + (16 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3) + 16....

Resume - if you attacking a harvester - turn the flame direction to ground in harvester position, you will give some more damage.

SantaClaws

Am I understanding correctly, that the damage procs every 4.5 seconds on the flamethrower?

Cannon_FodderAUS

Just a disclaimer on the wiki's flamer damage. I edited it to include the latest changes, but wasn't sure how the damage was calculated. So the change in damage is correct 16vs player, 18 vs structure (as per build 274), but I wasn't sure how they did the 1260 calculation.

Cannon_FodderAUS

Umm, all your possible improvements already happen with the FT...

It stops all structures from functioning (crag, shift, shade, hive) when it is on fire.
energy regen is slower or stopped when you are on fire, it burns up spores and umbra and bile.

the FT was never meant to be a damage weapon, it is a support weapon, that is very powerful in clearing out fortifications as all Kharaa structures are flammable (they take 2x damage to flame), and it disables the regen of crags, and stops whips and hydras from dealing damage.

Nordic

Everyone knows the FT is a little too weak and very difficult to fend off even a lone skulk with, even for a support weapon. The recent drop to 15 pres is much better.

The real problem with the flamethrower is how often damage is done. FT actually works as a long-range melee attack that fires twice per second. A fades, lerks, sometimes even skulks can fly by only being hit once or twice. It was made this was in alpha for performance reasons.

krOoze

Good: chaos - I have seen how skulks panic or it lags for them too much to chew on you

Now really, it is good to protect ARCs from bile and skulks, to clean hydras, whips and good clog fortresses and to protect your team from spore. And you don't have to aim that well. Usefull to protect your GL friend from skulks. It is good to have one FT in team.

Perhaps I would add a black trail to burned lifeforms, which length/duration would be proportionate to the damage dealt. And special cool fire Blink effect for fades, perhaps dealing more damage when blinking away. But that is more of a "fades are OP" thing .

SantaClaws

I'm so confused.

What. Is. The. Firerate. On. This. Thing?

Nordic

SantaClaws wrote: »

I'm so confused.

What. Is. The. Firerate. On. This. Thing?

Twice per second. So .5

SantaClaws

So what is the tick rate wrt the burn damage?

Martigen

Cannon_FodderAUS wrote: »

energy regen is slower or stopped when you are on fire, it burns up spores and umbra and bile.

Just to be clear, but FT doesn't clear bile on structures. Which doesn't exactly align with the fact you can counter them mid-air.

I also would like to see it deal damage more frequently, even at reduced damage for the same total damage, for the reason noted above -- skulks, lerks, fades you're lucky if they get a single damage tick flying through the flames.


Also:

gzhegow wrote: »

Calculation:

-> attacking egg with a stream without ground:
(16) + (16 + 3) + (16 + 3) + (16 + 3) + ....

-> attacking ground at egg position
(16) + (16 + 3) + (16 + 3 + 3) + (16 + 3 + 3 + 3) + (16 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3) + 16....

Resume - if you attacking a harvester - turn the flame direction to ground in harvester position, you will give some more damage.

Sounds like a bug to be fixed?

Nordic

SantaClaws wrote: »

So what is the tick rate wrt the burn damage?

I don't know that. If you use the flamethrower with hit sounds on it is really funny sounding. Boop.......... boop............ boop............. compared to the rifles boopboopboop

gzhegow

Nordic wrote: »

Everyone knows the FT is a little too weak and very difficult to fend off even a lone skulk with, even for a support weapon. The recent drop to 15 pres is much better.

The real problem with the flamethrower is how often damage is done. FT actually works as a long-range melee attack that fires twice per second. A fades, lerks, sometimes even skulks can fly by only being hit once or twice. It was made this was in alpha for performance reasons.

I think, we can add some flammable effects, what do basic damage without contacting with flame stream
I check, the tick effects now working only at ground, and can no be sticked at all.
Flamming ground do 16 damage to target, some as flame stream.
If you attack enemy - attack the ground on his position, and we take some more damage - it will be 16 from stream, 3 from ignition and 16 from ground. You can kill the Harvester, when be alone in 8 seconds, when you attack RESOURCE-NODE. Or you can kill them in 18 seconds if you attack the building.

You can test them.
Start Server, and put in console:

cheats 1;autobuild;alltech

* alltech is not required
then go to main hive location (you need contamination, as i think).

Put there in console:

create Cyst;

and cycle:

skulk;create Harvester;marine;give flamethrower;

Kill them, and repeat that 20-30 times, when attack ground, air, harvester eye, or ground through harvester. Test and you see - you can kill Harvester in 8 seconds. Or in 18 seconds.

If you not are alone, you can kill Harvester with Hive effect + Crag effect with 5 seconds in 2 FT's.
Maybe 2nd level weapons must be "non-support" class at all?
Onos is non-support unit. Lerk is non-support unit.

Its really difficult to kill marines, if them use Exos + teamplay.
Its really difficult to kill aliens, what use all lifeforms as well.

gzhegow

Ok, maybe we add:
- clear-corrosion after bile
- clear webs
- increase attack rate, but decrease damage?
- ticks on life forms? if you attack them 3 ticks, they may be receive 3+3+3 damage (Wiki info), but receive 1 dmg/sec without stacking.

Nordic

gzhegow wrote: »

Lerk is non-support unit.

Lerk starts out as early aggression so aliens can hold rts, but as marines become more teched lerk falls into a support role. A lerk chips enemies with spikes so they die easier. Umbra is a support ability. Spores are too dangerous to use in combat on your own, so really are only good a support weapon.

RaZDaZ

I honestly think they need MUCH more structure damage, like double the amount they do now. Since the drawbacks of FL are enormous (being virtually useless in combat for damage) and having relatively poor structure damage now, it is purely utility and that's not good enough.

GL has good structure damage and is generally efficient because it can be used outside of the attack range of most aliens and has very high burst damage both against structures and against lifeforms.

The FL ONLY offers disabling of structures which is powerful but useless without heavy team support AND the FL needs to be very close range often close to an onos/fade/skulk to be effective.

meatmachine

Double FT current damage would put it on par with the GL dps wouldnt it? Well, that'd be like 70-something damage per tick! That's insane levels of structure damage for something that disables structures and has a fuel tank that will outlast the lifetime expectancy of the sun.

I dont feel like the FT is underpowered, it can make otherwise-impossible hive pushes much easier for the team as long as you just have one, and you use it to bathe everything in flames for the passive effects rather than dps everything. Lifeforms not being able to heal/energise under the hive/other structures makes pushes possible that wouldnt usually work (for eg if they have numerous fades/lerks picking marines and healing).

Yojimbo

Flamethrower is a support weapon, thats all it is, if you find it underpowered you are not using it correctly as part of a team. The havok I've unleashed on hives with a couple of lmg, shotgun and a GL marines is insane.

Tweaking it any further isnt really needed to be honest.

SantaClaws

If you deal 1260 dmg in 12.5 seconds,
the firerate is 0.5 sec,
the base damage is 18.

Then the amount of burn damage in 12.5 seconds is:
= 1260 - (12.5/.5 +1)*18 = 792

In relation, that is roughly 63% of the damage.

That is wrt to structure damage though. If I understand it correctly, the burn damage is the same against lifeforms.

So the raw damage against a lifeform in 12.5 seconds would be:
= (12.5/.5 +1)*16 = 416

So against lifeforms, the relation would be closer to 66%

I think, if you kept the dps, but made that relation smaller, it could improve the weapon a lot, at least against skulks.
The fact that the damage is delayed (because 2/3rds of the damage is from the burn), means the time to kill is delayed as well.

Martigen

SantaClaws wrote: »

If you deal 1260 dmg in 12.5 seconds,
the firerate is 0.5 sec,
the base damage is 18.

Base damage vs lifeforms is 16. But on the equation, not sure what you meant by reducing the relation. Wouldn't that be reducing the percentage damage of the total (so not clear how that improves it vs skulks)?

@Yojimbo I think tweaking is needed tbh. To summarise (what I can see from thread so far):

• Half the damage, double the tick rate. Same total damage, but fast moving skulks/fades/lerks actually get more than 1 tick damage when flying by
  
• There appear to be a few bugs/unintended 'features':
  • Targeting a structure doesn't stack the flame as it should. Targeting the ground at a structure does, according to @ghezgow's tests. Hence directly hitting a structure doesn't appear to be working as a player might logically expect. This fix alone would increase DPS to structures (no need for @razdaz's suggestion)
  • Webs should also logically be cleared by FT (not that anyone uses webs *sadface*)
  • Bilecombs are destroyed by FT in air, but not the corrosion on a corroding structure. This is also not consistent. However, my personal op, this may make FT's too good -- e.g. bilebomb rushing stopped by a couple of FTs. It's not a gurantee, so many things depend on a successful rush (player numbers for one), but there it is anyway.

SantaClaws

Martigen wrote: »

SantaClaws wrote: »

If you deal 1260 dmg in 12.5 seconds,
the firerate is 0.5 sec,
the base damage is 18.

Base damage vs lifeforms is 16. But on the equation, not sure what you meant by reducing the relation. Wouldn't that be reducing the percentage damage of the total (so not clear how that improves it vs skulks)?

The 1260 figure I assume was tested on a structure - I did not run this experiment, I'm taking it on faith from @Cannon_FodderAUS .

What I mean about reducing the relation is simply; increase the base damage and reduce the burn damage and keep the same dps. Or change the dps, I wouldn't object to that; my main point is that the burn damage is too high in relation to the raw damage.

RaZDaZ

meatmachine wrote: »

Double FT current damage would put it on par with the GL dps wouldnt it? Well, that'd be like 70-something damage per tick! That's insane levels of structure damage for something that disables structures and has a fuel tank that will outlast the lifetime expectancy of the sun.

I dont feel like the FT is underpowered, it can make otherwise-impossible hive pushes much easier for the team as long as you just have one, and you use it to bathe everything in flames for the passive effects rather than dps everything. Lifeforms not being able to heal/energise under the hive/other structures makes pushes possible that wouldnt usually work (for eg if they have numerous fades/lerks picking marines and healing).

But the GL is already pretty good vs lifeforms as well in addition to being a long range weapon.

meatmachine

RaZDaZ wrote: »

meatmachine wrote: »

Double FT current damage would put it on par with the GL dps wouldnt it? Well, that'd be like 70-something damage per tick! That's insane levels of structure damage for something that disables structures and has a fuel tank that will outlast the lifetime expectancy of the sun.

I dont feel like the FT is underpowered, it can make otherwise-impossible hive pushes much easier for the team as long as you just have one, and you use it to bathe everything in flames for the passive effects rather than dps everything. Lifeforms not being able to heal/energise under the hive/other structures makes pushes possible that wouldnt usually work (for eg if they have numerous fades/lerks picking marines and healing).

But the GL is already pretty good vs lifeforms as well in addition to being a long range weapon.

It also has a much longer reload time and requires considerable skill/luck to put all 4 nades into an evasive life form.
And since the lifeform dmg nerf its much less effective against fades etc. I think it's even 4 direct hits to kill a mid-bio cara gorge?

Flamethrower very easy to aim, huge hitbox, depletes energy like cray cray. It feels like they are less likely to deter life forms from engaging in the first place (unlike GL where they have to wait for the 4th *dunk* sound before they know they're safe-ish) but more likely to mess them up once they do engage due to the energy issues.

Yeah it's pretty hard to compare them actually :P

I do agree with what @SantaClaws is saying in that the damage ratios could be tweaked a bit better. It'd be more in-line with the rest of the game mechanics, I think, if the direct-hit damage from the flamethrower made up a higher proportion of the total damage. I think burn-damage stacking is good but should perhaps be less important, and additionally work properly as @Martigen pointed out.

SantaClaws

Man, I don't even care about balancing the damn thing, I just wish somebody would correct the damn wiki page already!

SantaClaws

@meatmachine - idk how dated it is especially with the grenade launcher changes. But according to my spreadsheet it takes 3 shells to kill a gorge regardless of cara and biomass level.

IronHorse

Martigen wrote: »

Just to be clear, but FT doesn't clear bile on structures.

Uhh.. That's a bug then, because it should. That's one of the many benefits of the FT.
The acidic dissolve effects may still remain momentarily, but the dmg being done to the structure is supposed to be stopped by the FT.

Edit: Everyone is telling me this has changed.. I am trying to find it in a changelog somewhere, because damned if i don't still FT armories that are biled..

Martigen

SantaClaws wrote: »

@meatmachine - idk how dated it is especially with the grenade launcher changes. But according to my spreadsheet it takes 3 shells to kill a gorge regardless of cara and biomass level.

If the spreadsheet is correct, that's 7 patches behind. 274 nerfed GLs.

Am I the only one who enjoys reading changelogs?

On FT, also fine with direct damage going up and burn down or the DPS change.

SantaClaws

Martigen wrote: »

SantaClaws wrote: »

@meatmachine - idk how dated it is especially with the grenade launcher changes. But according to my spreadsheet it takes 3 shells to kill a gorge regardless of cara and biomass level.

If the spreadsheet is correct, that's 7 patches behind. 274 nerfed GLs.

Am I the only one who enjoys reading changelogs?

On FT, also fine with direct damage going up and burn down or the DPS change.

274 was a hotfix, no mention of gl nerf. But the 273 patch nerfed the damage to 132 which is what my sheet says. So it appears up to date. Idk if the rest of the stats are correct though.

Edit: Stats

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91554/NS2%20CompMod%20Analysis%20-%20Raw%20Stats.pdf

OscarTheCouch

IronHorse wrote: »

Martigen wrote: »

Just to be clear, but FT doesn't clear bile on structures.

Uhh.. That's a bug then, because it should. That's one of the many benefits of the FT.
The acidic dissolve effects may still remain momentarily, but the dmg being done to the structure is supposed to be stopped by the FT.

Thats always how it was, you can still knock down bile from the air but it was OP to have it burn off from structures and armor. It wasnt a bug it was designed that way.

Martigen

Hello ladies,

@ironhorse has commented in this thread but no other CDT members and I can't see anything on Trello indicating changes. Will these changes be integrated? I presume they'd be quick to do and easy for PTs to test. To quote myself for a summary of the thread:

• Half the damage, double the tick rate. Same total damage, but fast moving skulks/fades/lerks actually get more than 1 tick damage when flying by
  
• There appear to be a few bugs/unintended 'features':
  • Targeting a structure doesn't stack the flame as it should. Targeting the ground at a structure does, according to @ghezgow's tests. Hence directly hitting a structure doesn't appear to be working as a player might logically expect. This fix alone would increase DPS to structures (no need for @razdaz's suggestion)
  • Webs should also logically be cleared by FT (not that anyone uses webs *sadface*)
  • Bilecombs are destroyed by FT in air, but not the corrosion on a corroding structure. This is also not consistent. However, my personal op, this may make FT's too good -- e.g. bilebomb rushing stopped by a couple of FTs. It's not a guarantee, so many things depend on a successful rush (player numbers for one), but there it is anyway.

Note that, in some small way, this may go towards addressing that big discussion about balance in the other thread whereby aliens win 55% of the time -- which, frankly, is a pretty good result anyway but these changes may help edge the marines a little closer considering the FTs reduced cost to 15.