Get rid of ground flames

[slipher]

Related Problem issues: #25 (point 3)

The flamethrower can start fires on the ground. In my opinion ground flames are not very fun as a game mechanic. As an alien, it's annoying to have to avoid them. As a human, you often don't get the satisfaction of knowing that you are killing someone because more often than not the attacker is far away at that point in time, due to their long lifetime. So I propose to remove ground flames.

Note that this proposal would not affect flames on alien buildables.

[Gireen]

We could remove ground fire from the primary attack and turn it into a separate mechanic as secondary attack. For example it could be deploy fuel on the ground that can be ignited with the flamer. It would be less spam and a possibility to create traps, if the damage is increased.

[superdupont-fr]

And, the flame on ground by the flamethrower can make only very few damages? And be alive shorter time?

[Gireen]

Depends on what we would want to achieve with it. The fire could burn for a few seconds and create a wall that is harder to pass. Or a short explosion like burst that creates high damage in a short time.

[ghost]

It would be less spam and a possibility to create traps, if the damage is increased.

I like the idea overall, but the fuel on ground should be a bit visible, at the very least, and maybe have effects by itself (slippy?). That itt's visible won't be a problem for the trapping thing, because it means one could create false traps, too.

[Viech]

As a human, you often don't get the satisfaction of knowing that you are killing someone because more often than not the attacker is far away at that point in time, due to their long lifetime.

1. you get hit indicators on your crosshair
2. your momentum bar flashes when the victim is (later) killed
3. you get some partial credits when the victim is (later) killed

I personally find all of this very satisfying.

On the other team, I find ground flames very easy to circumvent with jumps, except maybe with the basic granger (which you should not be at the point in time when humans have fire unless they have a clear momentum advantage, so this is fine to intended) and with the tyrant (who rarely cares about that little damage). I am personally also not annoyed by having to use such movement, I even think it's fun. The floor is literally lava!

[ghost]

with the tyrant (who rarely cares about that little damage).

Those damages are nothing but little, especially when facing a flame-carpet. I think I had numbers put in some issue or maybe in forum, ground flames are very dangerous... to aliens, not to humans, though.

[ghost]

There is a thread on forum here which talks a bit about that.

[Viech]

I have only skimmed over it, but what you suggest (fires cannot stack but they can have their AoEs overlap) makes sense as an explanation for a high damage potential.

This particular issue though, I believe, will not get us much further: it mixes two perceived problems with a proposal which are arguably all controversial. The referenced #25 was controversial as well (though it lead to action that then spawned #51). I'm sure we can identify the healthy and fun and the problematic and frustrating aspects of fire as a game mechanic if we take smaller steps (like @bmorel did in that forum thread).

[cu-kai]

you often don't get the satisfaction of knowing that you are killing someone

You do because of the indicators on the crosshair as well as the damage indicator beacons as mentioned by @Viech.

Removing ground flames will make the flamer even less useful than it is now, will remove the purpose of the firebomb.

I think ground flames created by the flamer should be a little more powerful than they are now but this is difficult to balance and we have tried many times.

[DolceTriade]

Not to get off topic, but flamer being useless isn't a good reason to keep ground flames. There are other ways to make the flamer more useful...

Ground flames can be abused quite a bit (see any PvE map where we spam fires to keep aliens at bay...). I do like the idea of creating burn damage but not ground flames.

I think all of these ideas are worth testing.

[sweet235]

Ground flames can be abused quite a bit (see any PvE map where we spam fires to keep aliens at bay...).

To repair that, we simply make the bots smarter. We need PvE games to be able to play with new players, who would not stand a chance otherwise. But imo they should not be our main goal.