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Okay. I didn't see a lot of beam spamming last night, thank christ, but what I did see was a lot of potential for it. One guy had a powerlevel that was MUCH higher than everyone else's and in all honesty it wouldn't have been difficult for him to have kame'd us all to hell. It got me to thinking about the gameplay style of many players...and you know, how they play like total *******s. Not just beam spam but all the little BS tactics in general (the guy I mentionmed earlier hit me twice every time he hit me, and with ease, too...and someone in the server named esfn00b who was asking how to beam jump was able to do it to me too). So I decided that maybe it's time to really start to consider ways to bottleneck players away from using the lamer tactics, and I have had this variant on a popular anti beam-spam idea for a long time now, so here goes:
The Problem: Sitting in a corner miles away firing beams can be much more beneficial and productive to a less experienced or less melee-oriented player than any other form of attack.
Now, it's not to say that people who use the beams a lot are a problem. But there are some people who abuse the fact that an SSJ kamehameha can do some serious damage. And subsequently, since it comes off as more effective than melee for them, they sit and fire away.
The Solution: To understand and develop a solution to a problem, we need to understand the problem. The simple fact is that after a point the beams are powerful enough that they require little to no caution when in use. You get massive power and a safe distance every time you fire until someone notices you.
The trick is simple enough. It's been suggest many times that the beams become weaker with each consecutive use. That seems like a good idea but there are drawbacks and holes with that overly simplified solution. So here's my idea: a slight delay along with the lowering power of the beams. There's a lot of variables involved, so here goes. (Please, also bear in mind that this applies only to the higher power attacks--FF, Kame, BBA, SBC, etc.)
Situation: You are SSJ Gohan. You've just fired a massive kamehameha wave. It missed.
Current Result: Recharge, re-fire until achieving desired effect.
Idea-based Result: The player is going to charge up and fire again if the first attack wasn't a money shot. To make it simple, the game will have a simple delay of not even a full couple of seconds. If you try to immediately perform the move again within say...4 seconds, for the sake of argument. The character will play a sound that is one of those doubtful phrases, like "I don't have the energy to keep up with this guy!" or one of those types of things. Long story short, you wouldn't be able to CONSTANTLY refire. This way, there would be some sort of detriment to using beams repeatedly (you would have a period of minor vulnerability that would make it longer slightly in order to fire a consecutive blast). Think of it like this: each time you fire, the beam will take slightly longer to begin charging.
Situation: You are SSJ Gohan. You've just fired a massive kamehameha wave. It hit an enemy and killed his sorry ass instantly.
Current Result: Easy money. "Keep firing, *******s!" No penalty to bear, so why do anything else? Stick with what works.
Idea-based Result: Okay. Here's where the power differential comes in. Your big beam missing would not make the next one you fire actually get weaker. Instead, it would be based on the killspam, in a way. For each enemy you kill with your beam, THEN the next consecutive beam you fire will be weakened slightly. The idea is simple enough; the more guys you kill with that beam, the less damage it will do (and possibly it could be made to suck up even more ki each time as well). Keep in mind: This is NOT an effect that happens for every kame you fire in a row!! Instead, it is something be considered everytime you big-beam someone and they die. The number would have to be a reduction in a chunkish percentage like 10% or 15%. And if your blast kills multiple enemies, the effect would stack, making your next beam a longer, more expensive charge for notably less damage. Different beams could have different properties (since the FF uses so much juice, it could have less of a damage reduction and more of a ki reduction, etc.). This effect would of course reset each time you use the beam freshly (as in, after attacking an enemy with another move such as melee or generic beam, etc.)
New Problem: What's to stop me from switching to a different move, then switching back to the beam, and avoiding this penalty effect entirely?
Solution: The technical design of this system will make the changes in damage portion of it dependent on the kills. If you get two or more kills in a row with the same "bigbeam," the game will alter the damage by the appropriate percentages until you obtain a kill by another means; this spells out to the bottom line that beam spamming will eventually lead you to have powerless beams that drain your ki too much for too little damage. The charge time principle is also fundamentally difficult to avoid: if you fire the same bigbeam a few or several times in a row, then the charge time will be penalized more each time. Whether you switch to another weapon or not (which might make it a pain to code, but it'd be necessary); the charge will be penalized if you fire off the particular bigbeam of your choice multiple times. It would also have to ignore swooping and only count actual melee contact, otherwise just swooping for a second would dodge the penalty as well.
What do you guys think?
The Problem: Sitting in a corner miles away firing beams can be much more beneficial and productive to a less experienced or less melee-oriented player than any other form of attack.
Now, it's not to say that people who use the beams a lot are a problem. But there are some people who abuse the fact that an SSJ kamehameha can do some serious damage. And subsequently, since it comes off as more effective than melee for them, they sit and fire away.
The Solution: To understand and develop a solution to a problem, we need to understand the problem. The simple fact is that after a point the beams are powerful enough that they require little to no caution when in use. You get massive power and a safe distance every time you fire until someone notices you.
The trick is simple enough. It's been suggest many times that the beams become weaker with each consecutive use. That seems like a good idea but there are drawbacks and holes with that overly simplified solution. So here's my idea: a slight delay along with the lowering power of the beams. There's a lot of variables involved, so here goes. (Please, also bear in mind that this applies only to the higher power attacks--FF, Kame, BBA, SBC, etc.)
Situation: You are SSJ Gohan. You've just fired a massive kamehameha wave. It missed.
Current Result: Recharge, re-fire until achieving desired effect.
Idea-based Result: The player is going to charge up and fire again if the first attack wasn't a money shot. To make it simple, the game will have a simple delay of not even a full couple of seconds. If you try to immediately perform the move again within say...4 seconds, for the sake of argument. The character will play a sound that is one of those doubtful phrases, like "I don't have the energy to keep up with this guy!" or one of those types of things. Long story short, you wouldn't be able to CONSTANTLY refire. This way, there would be some sort of detriment to using beams repeatedly (you would have a period of minor vulnerability that would make it longer slightly in order to fire a consecutive blast). Think of it like this: each time you fire, the beam will take slightly longer to begin charging.
Situation: You are SSJ Gohan. You've just fired a massive kamehameha wave. It hit an enemy and killed his sorry ass instantly.
Current Result: Easy money. "Keep firing, *******s!" No penalty to bear, so why do anything else? Stick with what works.
Idea-based Result: Okay. Here's where the power differential comes in. Your big beam missing would not make the next one you fire actually get weaker. Instead, it would be based on the killspam, in a way. For each enemy you kill with your beam, THEN the next consecutive beam you fire will be weakened slightly. The idea is simple enough; the more guys you kill with that beam, the less damage it will do (and possibly it could be made to suck up even more ki each time as well). Keep in mind: This is NOT an effect that happens for every kame you fire in a row!! Instead, it is something be considered everytime you big-beam someone and they die. The number would have to be a reduction in a chunkish percentage like 10% or 15%. And if your blast kills multiple enemies, the effect would stack, making your next beam a longer, more expensive charge for notably less damage. Different beams could have different properties (since the FF uses so much juice, it could have less of a damage reduction and more of a ki reduction, etc.). This effect would of course reset each time you use the beam freshly (as in, after attacking an enemy with another move such as melee or generic beam, etc.)
New Problem: What's to stop me from switching to a different move, then switching back to the beam, and avoiding this penalty effect entirely?
Solution: The technical design of this system will make the changes in damage portion of it dependent on the kills. If you get two or more kills in a row with the same "bigbeam," the game will alter the damage by the appropriate percentages until you obtain a kill by another means; this spells out to the bottom line that beam spamming will eventually lead you to have powerless beams that drain your ki too much for too little damage. The charge time principle is also fundamentally difficult to avoid: if you fire the same bigbeam a few or several times in a row, then the charge time will be penalized more each time. Whether you switch to another weapon or not (which might make it a pain to code, but it'd be necessary); the charge will be penalized if you fire off the particular bigbeam of your choice multiple times. It would also have to ignore swooping and only count actual melee contact, otherwise just swooping for a second would dodge the penalty as well.
What do you guys think?