Target Release Date: Tuesday
December 29th, 2020
Context & Vision
Many of you may already know but for those who don’t, we think the differences between races are what make the game fun. Generally speaking all the races use the same weapons so without unique skills, race specials, or effects there is nothing else differentiating them. We think this is a good thing and what makes PvP encounters always unique depending which races and classes are involved.
That being said our first major update is going to further accentuate race specials. These changes are where we’d like to move the race specials in terms of how things work mechanically.
The tuning of these effects is not finalized but we have set them to be the highest values we expect might be reasonable. We are doing this so the players can experience the new effects a bunch! We may need to dial some of it down once people provide additional feedback or even turn it up, but increases seem very unlikely since we’re intentionally starting with values that we think are already high.
The value details will be at the end of this post. Let’s dig into the mechanics!
Cora Summons
We’ll start here because the groundwork for this was actually laid out by CCR a long time ago and it’s what inspired us to expand to content that they never implemented or come up with new things ourselves.
This is an image which has been around since the beginning but many people overlook that according to the image, once the animus reach max rank(lv 50) they are supposed to cast a spell “periodically”.
We have decided to use 10% as the chance to cast a spell. Relics are 10% and if memory serves correctly the chance to cast is 5% for the gold point “rare d” weapons, general “rare D” weapons, and elan special weapons.
Paimon
Will cast “Enfeeblement” or “Power Drain”.
Saps the target’s strength, temporarily reducing attack power.
Note: Seeling is what this debuff is called in the server files.
Inanna
Instead of casting “Holy Shield” it will cast “Refresh” or “Purge” to the animus owner.
Removes harmful dweomers, removing a Force debuff.
Note: We would have preferred Inanna refresh the person receiving the heal but we were unable to figure that out.
Hecate
Will cast “Weakness”.
Weakens the target’s armor, temporarily decreasing defense power.
Isis
Will cast “Entangle” or “Ensnare”.
Entangles a target with vines, preventing them from running.
Note: Spin a Web is what this debuff is called in the server files.
Bellato Massive Armored Unit
Goliath
TLDR No changes but we would like to so please provide feedback or ideas for them!
While quite boring, goliath almost certainly does not need to be made more effective but we couldn’t think of any new utility or mechanics that would make it more fun. The closest thing we thought of was maybe changing the goliath to have a chance to apply nets when punching, and also make the punch an AOE. It kind of came to mind based on the lv 30 goliath which does the Donkey Kong ground slam as an attack animation. Anyways, other ideas and feedback for goliath changes would be great!
Catapult
These have been one of the most difficult things to balance in the game. Across all of RF that I’m aware of there are only two scenarios for catapults. If they are able to kill their enemy, it’s generally because it is an enemy which dies in one or two shots. Anyone who can survive those two shots will almost always be able to create the 2nd scenario which is the catapult losing. This is accomplished because the player can fully face tank the shots or the player will just pop in and out of the catapults range to whittle it down. This first thing we are going to attempt to address is how easily they become completely helpless in PvP.
Suppressive Fire
Catapults shots will now apply “Suppressive Fire”, a new debuff, to their target on every shot. That sounds op! You would be right, but luckily we have the most creative minds there are.
- Duration: 2 Seconds
- Reduces movement speed
- Reduces defense power
Note: Only immediate follow-up shots will deal additional damage since Suppressive Fire will lower the target’s defense.
The short duration will mean there is no lasting effect spread across the battlefield by a single unit and ultimately should not over-bearing to anyone except one person whilst taking fire from the catapult.
The slowing effect allows the Driver to create a larger window of opportunity from an enemy charging them or fleeing from them.
The reduced defense power means that all successive shots after the first will deal increased damage if it is within 2 seconds of the last shot. This rewards catapults focusing a target which will inherently encourage them to focus one target instead of having to restart the process on a new target. Granted, that may still happen but the buffs which the catapult is receiving don’t reward the random target changing shots, but only the focus fired targets.
Rapid Fire
We are most excited about this change because it will directly help lower level characters that are frequently “1-shots” and gives them some counter-play. It doesn’t matter how much considering there is zero counter-play when you are 1-shot.
Overall we think the damage output of catapults isn’t a problem, just that the slow attack speed means it deals one huge damage blow infrequently. Rapid Fire is a simple and effective solution which will deal the exact same amount of damage but deliver it in a smoother fashion.
- 1/2 Damage
- 2x Attack Speed
To reduce the damage we are not editing any of the inputs of damage calculations. The damage on Catapult arms will be the same as it always was. Our damage logging feature already has the value of damage you take and notifies it to you via the chat system to help make it easy to see incoming damage, even from “muli-tick” sources like vulcans. All we are doing is taking the final number calculated and cutting it in half.
We doubled the attack speed and the animation appropriately animates faster to accommodate. This negates the 1/2 damage reduction and bringing the total damage output back to whatever it was.
Accretia Siege Kits
First, we just want to briefly cover an idea which we almost decided to try but didn’t. We realized that every Accretia and class can use siege kits already so ideally we’d like to think of a reason for a warrior or a spec to siege up for more than just afk hitting a chip. We had one idea for this which we didn’t pursue at this time but maybe it’ll spark better ideas from the community we love so much.
The idea was to remove compound siege from the Striker class and instead give it to all classes. Similar to the way the jetpack skill becomes usable once equipped, we were thinking to add compound siege there requiring a launcher and of course being sieged. This would cause Strikers to not be changed at all but also give a reason for other classes to siege hopefully. The damage probably wouldn’t do much but it would give a splash skill for people to use during farming or damaging a chip. It might sound op giving everyone the compound siege skill but keep in mind, the Siege Mastery buff that a Striker gets has 50% damage increase in it… that’s why striker damage is so high so maybe without that it might not be a bad change. Ultimately we were unsure if this was helpful since it didn’t change the Accretia striker class at all which is really the only one currently using siege kits anyways so we did not make this change.
We only mention this to hopefully spark other good ideas.
Anyways onto the change we did make…
The cumbersome siege kit system seemed like the best opportunity for improvement. There are a quite a few changes in this explanation and it only makes sense when keeping all of them in mind. Overall we think the pros outweigh the cons plenty.
Siege Kits
- All the siege kits will have their range increased to have the range of the sniper kit.
- Siege mode requires Calibration.
Calibration
When entering siege mode, the character is buffed with Calibration automatically. It is a brief duration and uses a buff slot. Strikers usually have a buff slot empty so this shouldn’t be a problem.
This new buff is quite complicated and while all classes will benefit from it, our goal was to give Strikers a worthy update on par with the other races. Our concern was regarding Strikers specifically since they were essentially the only ones using the race special.
- Duration: 15 Seconds
- Reduces skill accuracy
- Reduces launcher attack range
This all sounds terrible!
As the single highest burst and dps class of the game our hope was to give them a way to be stronger with the opportunity for counter-play. Overall this will just create more windows of time with changing circumstances to keep PvP dynamic and less predictable.
Cons
- Strikers can’t siege directly into sniper kits with insane range.
- Strikers are more vulnerable when having just recently sieged because of their reduced accuracy and range.
After Calibration is complete all siege kits will have the range of a sniper kit. Now the Striker can choose between kit effects without only having one option for range.
- Attack speed kit
- “Sniper” kit
- 50+ “Attack” or “Defense” kits
The idea for this was around the concept of snipers in shooter games or even real life, once they’ve settled in and controlled their breathing they have better accuracy, and in this case, the range of the sniper kit.
Once Accretia are “setup” on a location it is hard to push them off, but they receive no benefit to their classes while on the move. This accentuates the dynamics of PvP with Accretia, which is our goal.
This makes them more vulnerable while not having “held” an area for a while. This also helps with strikers running nearby and sieging to be able to instantly chain rocket someone with a sniper kit. This also makes strikers a tiny bit easier to deal with during Calibration if you are a dodger(what comes to mind is the frequent complaint “only tanks can approach a striker”). There’s plenty of other things that come to mind but it accentuates the general strategy that should’ve always been employed against Accretia, make them have to chase you so you can turn and hopefully kill their strikers in time. Yes this is going to make it harder for strikers in mobile pvp, but their job isn’t to be mobile beasts, it’s to be stationary death dealers.
Initial release configuration and values
All of these features require the player to be level 50 or higher.
Cora
- Animus will have a 10% chance to cast a spell at any target.
- Level 5
- 30 Seconds
Bellato
- Suppressive Fire debuff is cast 100% of the time but only applies to PvP targets.
- -2.0 Movement Speed (the same as GM velocity)
- -90% Defense Power (the same as GM weakness)
- 2 Seconds
Accretia
- All siege kit ranges changed to match sniper kit range.
- Calibration buff is applied when entering siege mode.
- -30 Skill Accuracy
- -50 Launcher Range
- 5 Seconds
As always we thank you for your time and being a part of our community,
RF Altruism
I suggest return back the compound siege dont make some changes since it was design since from the start acc player will quit playing if compound will be removed, im just saying because been playing rf more than 20yrs up to now