Reduce Flare Rate of Fire

[Deceth]

4.0.0

• Reduce flare rate of fire so that they are significantly less effective against a player stuck in a DFG.

Rushing said:

"Why 5 DFG's? DFG's are the counterpart to Mines. When they were both lowered, it was even, then dfgs got 5, and it was already unfair for the attacker. Then you added flares. This is HORRIBLY unfair on defenders. 4 dfg's is much fairer."

[Deceth]

DFG's were increased from 3 to 5 when the holding time for DFG's was reduced. This was done before flares were added.

The question is, was this a good update before flares were added? It was very annoying being stuck for 7 seconds. At the same time, DFG's are a skill item. The idea was to increase use of the skill item, while making it weaker and less annoying so people could escape more often.

When flares were introduced, it was not anticipated that they could be used to kill people in DFG's. In general flares are very low damage, but it wasn't realized that in close range all 3 flares would hit and cause very quick death.

So is the solution to do something to DFG's, or is it to do something to flares? Again keep in mind, the initial design was for a flare to be weaker than a laser. The ability to kill someone in a DFG with a flare faster than with a laser is an unintentional off-specification bug.

The best way to kill someone in a DFG is supposed to be using a bomb, friendly turret fire, or a cougar. Not a flare. The flare is supposed to be two things.

1: a newbie item to make defending easier for newbies because they can use the flare spam defensive tactic.

2: an offensive item to help give an attacker more room. A defender can't chase you as closely if you drop flares. They need to give you space, which gives a skilled player room to get out of visual range, use a cloak, and strike again.

[Rushing]

Notes on 2: You cannot shoot or do pretty much anything whilst you use a flare, and you can't run off screen and cloak because the defenders can follow the trail of flares. All in all, the only thing they are used for that was planned is spamming, and I rarely see a newbie using flares anyway, only medium players, the kind of player who is sort of reguler, but not exactly a force of nature.

If you wanted a spam-like-weapon, then you should remove them with some kind of Area of damage attack, like the widely discussed EMP idea. An item in the inventory which by means of CTRL or right clicking the item, a circular ring of flare-shots is shot from your tank, and the item is used up and thus removed from your inventory to be researched on the factory again. 5 per city means that the newbies can just take all five, run out and spam all of them at once, causing an almost unavoidably barrage of shots. They can also be used on defence, for example to hit alot of bombs at once. And the fact there is a limited amount of them removes the issue of DFG spam.

[Deceth]

When a defender is sticking to me like glue and I start shooting flares, they instinctively back off all the time. They don't stop defending me, but they give me some space to breathe. This gives me a chance to use a med, place a DFG, retreat, send a message to my team, and/or cloak to strike again somewhere else with possibly enough time to set off a bomb.

This is even more true in larger battles. If 3 people are attacking a city and you give yourself some flare room, if you time things right you can easily disappear using cloak while they check radar or move on to defend someone else.

As for newbies - yes a brand new player wont use flares. A brand new player probably wont use any items. But a mediocre player, whom I would still call a newbie, will definitely use the flare spam defensive tactic as one of his/her earlier ways of defending.

I'm not arguing that its a perfect item, I'm just arguing that its simple and easy to use and strategically could have multiple applications.

[Deceth]

Another option to consider... increase the damage done by flares, but make the item a 1-time use items like a bomb.

For example, when you use your flare, it would shoots for 5 seconds, then it's done. Once you use it, it's gone. You can save it to rid yourself of someone stuck in a DFG, or if you're close to a bunch of people, shoot it and hope to hit something while you run off to some other area.