Implemented Buff To Vortigaunts

[Alfie]

Greetings!

I wish to bring forward the possibility of a buff to Vortigaunts due to a specific circumstance. To give you people some insight to the whole thing, i wish to start with the stats of Civil Protection. As most of you know, Civil Protection officers are equiped with 100hp along with a kevlar vest providing 50 additional hp. Adding up to a total of 150 HP. Similar to a standard Rebel provided with a kevlar vest and a suitable gun.

We then got Rank leaders within the Civil Protection with a total of 175-200HP. It is unclear if this is due to them having 125 Default HP or if they are provided more armor giving them above 50+ armor. There's nothing equally worth within the RebelScene to provide a fair match if it was a 1v1.

Last but not least we got OTA. Staggering at a maximum of 300 HP which is beyond an unfair fight for standard Rebels. And this is where Vortigaunts come into play. Acting as the RebelScenes' 'OTA' and protectors. Yet Vortigaunts fall short within HP Stats and combat efficiency. The difference within total stats is a 50+ hp boost to Combine OTA. Along with the OTA having the possibility to move and shot. Vortiguants do not bare the same Combat efficiency as the OTA. Along with only allowing you to either shot or run. As the Action-points do not provide a stability of both. It would only seem fair to provide a suitable buff to Vortigaunts. Especially within the Combat/Stat catagory.

 

[Sagsworth]

We then got Rank leaders within the Civil Protection with a total of 175-200HP. It is unclear if this is due to them having 125 Default HP or if they are provided more armor giving them above 50+ armor. There's nothing equally worth within the RebelScene to provide a fair match if it was a 1v1.

If this is true it's absolute BS.

 

[dno]

If this is true it's absolute BS.

disagree with this post if you like men

 

[dno]

^ Yo?

 

[Spine]

Armor doesn't function like HP, it just doesn't add up like that. Armor can be easily bypassed by some bullets.

If you have 100 armor and 100 health. You will die before your armor reaches 0.

 

[john dee]

Armor doesn't function like HP, it just doesn't add up like that. Armor can be easily bypassed by some bullets.

If you have 100 armor and 100 health. You will die before your armor reaches 0.

does that work with OTA tho?

 

[Sagsworth]

Armor doesn't function like HP, it just doesn't add up like that. Armor can be easily bypassed by some bullets.

Do cop RLs, or any other cops that aren't OTA have 75 armour or 125 hp? I get it's kind of tangential to the suggestion, but if it's true that needs to be looked into so that rebels are able to meet this somehow.

Where you put OTA compared to vortigaunts is a different question entirely though, and one I don't know enough confidently to talk about.

 

[Gr4Ss]

Vortigaunts already have 200HP, which is objectively better than armor. Armor only applies to the chest, torso, generic and gear bodygroups, and thus is useless if hit in the head, arms or legs. HP always applies. Regular CP's have 50 armor (no exception here). RL/OfC's have 75 armor (which again is ignored unless shooting their chest). OTA have 150 HP and 150/200 armor (depending on the exact OTA). There is no special code for OTA armor to always apply they don't get special treatment (otherwise I'd care more about their armor values being quite high). Basically 1 OTA = 1.5 rebels in terms of health (2 rebels if including armor), but only 1 rebel in damage output (AR2 is just an assault rifle, same stats as rebel AR's) so 2 rebels vs 1 OTA = rebels win

Vortigaunts are not made to be 1-to-1 with OTA. OTA is not made to be taken on in a fair fight. Vorts also are special in that shock damage from their beam always gets 50-50 split over HP and armor regardless of where the hit lands. This doesn't allow them to really bypass armor like bullets do (that is how the vort leads requested it to be though so don't blame me).

On the other hand, rebels also have the option to pick up better weapons than CP can use. CP is limited to an MP7, with SMG's being solidly inferior (not by much, but the difference is there)

Assault rifle base damage: 24
Chest damage (crit): 24*0.95 = 22
8-shot (2-turn) damage potential: 8 * 22 = 176 -> 2HP over the target (people die when they end at 1HP or less so only 174HP damage needed)

In other words, AR's kill in 2 turns when hitting armor and getting all crits, but also ignores a whole bunch of stuff. Whomever fired first gets an additional shot (adding damage potential). It assumes no OOC missed shots. It assumes you are equally trading shots. It assumes you got a brain and the skill to use an AR to get 100% crit chance. But worst of all, it assumes you are dumb and shoot at their armor.

Assault rifle base damage: 24
Leg damage (crit): 24*09 = 21
8-shot (2-turn) damage potential: 8 * 21 = 168 -> 69HP over the target -> only 5 shots needed to kill! (and no amount of armor changes this!!!!!!!) leaving you with 1 spare shot and 1 spare action point

The above numbers would look slightly better when going for headshots (you get full 24 base damage) but changes nothing to shots to kill. Also might not work in the future if I add in helmets.


For comparison, MP7:
SMG base damage: 15

Chest damage (crit): 15*0.95 = 14
12-shot (2-turn) damage potential: 12 * 14 = 168

Barely less in ideal circumstances, but keep in mind that SMG against armor has an immediate 50% crit chance modifier which is too much to still get 100% (vs 90% on assault rifle) and the SMG needs a lot more shots to crit (aka if you don't have 100% crit chance you are more likely to land at least 1 hit)

On legs with MP7:

Leg damage (crit): 15*0.9 = 13
12-shot (2-turn) damage potential: 12*13 = 156 -> 8 shots needed to kill, leaving you with 1 spare shot and 1 spare action point

Aka, rebel with at least same level of gun as CP vs CP is balanced. End-game rebel vs RL is also balanced still. Vortigaunt sits between CP and OTA. Forget about going 1v1 with OTA - you will die in a straight up fight.

And all that aside, cover is still king. They can't kill you if they can't deal damage and they can't deal damage if they can't OOC'ly hit you. That or just make sure you have more guns on your side then the enemy has on theirs. Or grenades. Or get the enemy body-blocked in a chokepoint. Or the million and one other tactics you can use that will make ten times more impact than the gun/armor differences.

 

[Gyrann]

Experienced vortigaunts should easily be able to defeat a OTA in a 1vs1.

An entire squad is another thing of course.

 

[Robert]

​

I will start by simply saying no... Let me break the entire system down for you.

Cps have total values of:
Basic units (RCT to RL) - 100HP + 50 armour
Officers - 100HP + 75 armour

OTA have total values of:
150HP + 100 Armor
EOWs (Super rare soldiers) are an exception with their health stats sitting at 250HP + 150 armour.

Rebels can have a total of:
100HP + 50 Armor

You may then assume that CPs have 150HP and OTA have 250HP, with Rebels only getting 150HP... however that is actually wrong. First of all, there is a few things in our weapon balancing which changes the way combat works. Starting off with your skills:

The most important skills to combat is your Gun and Speed skills, sometimes Melee skill too. Guns affect how well you can use different kinds of weapons, hit chance, crit chance, effective range, etc. Speed affects your movement and AP you get per turn. The higher these stats are, the more you will do. If a rebel was to max out their combat abilities or get them to a decent level, killing a squad of CPs isn't too hard. (This was proven to us when we had a CP vs Rebels thing a while ago and Rebels won 90% of the time with some pretty average gear.)

If you max them, who knows what you would be able to do in combat. Next is the different properties of all our weaponry. Each weapon has a set base damage, range, skill level requirement and armour pen. To start with basic weaponry... pipe weapons are ONLY good against NPCs like Zombies and Antlions (Not the HL:A variant). Then you move up to things like Uzi's, Mp7's and so on which are quite good against CPs. Then you go up again to AK's, M4's, AUG's, etc which are good against OTA.

Now, you might sit there and ask yourself what the difference between all these weapons are? Well, the key 2 things to point out is Armor pen and skill requirement. First of all, you need to make sure that with guns, you have a high enough skill level to actually use the weapon you have. The game won't tell you this, but you can guess if most of your shots miss, you do little to no crit damage, or the game tells you directly that you suffer a skill penalty.

Then there's the super important one... armour pen. Now let me start by saying TFA, weapon balancing and TBC overall... can give less of a shit about how much armour you have. What I mean is, even with 1000 armour... you can still die in like 4-6 shots of a high powered rifle. Why? Because armour pen values exist and not to mention, source armour does not work the same way as most modern games. Bullets will still deplete your HP even though you still may have 3257834275984375893427583276539827583925938276 armour. The game doesn't care, the game only cares about your HP. All armour does is damage reduction, that is it. And even then, TFA and Weapon balance which allows armour pen to be even higher... meaning a rifle like the M90 which we added as the anti-ota weapon has basically 100% armour pen. The AK in comparison has 70% armour pen. The M4, 60%. Pipe weapons only have 10-20% armour pen.

In the end, you don't simply add armour to ones HP because that is not how that works at all. What matter is your actual HP value. Armour is basically something that only makes you survive 1 or 2 extra shots before you die. Not to mention, some higher tier weapons do 30-40 damage per hit. Snipers do a straight 80-120 damage. Basically, almost an insta kill regardless of your armour.

Vorts on the other hand only need the vortessence skill and their skills is specifically anti-ota. Vorts are extremely dangerous to OTA which is why OTA send squads at them as 1 has managed (in server) to almost kill 7 soldiers all at once in 1 attack (Was S2RP, but still works as a showcase for how powerful a vort actually is). Another thing to account for is your vorts age. In TBC, a vort with a basic beam can dish out 80 damage to an OTA soldier, ignoring their armour. And well... you get the point with all I said so far about damage and all that.

In short summary:

1. HP matters, Armour does not... Vorts have 200HP, OTA have 150HP, CPs have 100HP and Rebels have 100HP.
   1. Armour simply saves you 1 or 2 extra shots before death. Congrats.
2. Skills matter, if your skills are low for combat... then you won't do so well chief.
3. A vort is capable of taking down a group of OTA. But neither side should underestimate the other. Both sides should be wary since their capable of destroying each other in combat.
4. Gr4Ss's post above this one also helps in understanding combat and why HP is more important than Armour.
   1. Probably explains better than me in terms of actual values.
5. Welcome to RPG balancing mechanics.
6. It will be a long while until Rebels start directly challenging the OTA. CPs are far easier to fight than OTA in terms of skills, weaponry and overall gear. Getting OTA attention is hard unless you are a free vort or an explosives expert who just wiped out an entire block of buildings.

 

[Alfie]

Experienced vortigaunts should easily be able to defeat a OTA in a 1vs1.

That's the thing... You don't... You lack severe factors in combat efficiency and in S2K as a vortigaunt. you don't have the adaptive-ability of spending one action point on moving, and another action point on shooting. You either shot, and take the risk of being in the open. Or you run, without being able to return fire.

Peaking and shooting from cover as a Vortigaunt is none-existant and is most likely the cause of losing a 1v1 in any senario. Addition to this, S2K is insta death for vorts. It takes you 2.5s to shoot your beam along with literally being blinded by your own green-light when the animation is being preform. Combin this with having to side-step to dodge incoming projectiles if you were to 1v1. Any vort can refer to this and it's awfull.

I doubt the 1 vort against 7 OTA is real. Seeing the extreme cases and complaints of powegaming regarding OTA. And i'm quite sure is not how armor works. I recently got hit with 2 bullets of the Pulse rifle. With 90% armor pen and 25 dmg. It fully depleted my armor and didn't even touch my health. If Robert can hope on, perhaps we can actually try some stuff out.

Something that could surely be boosted and buffed is Vortigaunt armor. Currently, there's two types of armor for Vorts. Antlions Guards plate and Kevlar vest. There's also a couple of "RP" kevlar based items sush as the Vortigaunt Helmet. It would be fun to see sush an item turn into perhaps a small 10 armor bonus if equiped. Currently, it has no use.

Antlion Guard Plate quite literally covers each body part of your vort, while the standard Human kevlar, roughly fitted for a vort barely comes close to sush defense as the guard plate. Yet they bare the same armor value.

EIther way, a minor boost to:

200 ---> 230 Hp

And perhaps bring out some creative ideas regarding the Vortigaunt armor and increase the armor values.

 

[Gr4Ss]

Armor pen modifies crit chance when hitting armor. It doesn't allow you to bypass armor. So even with armor pen your armor will still go away first, just guns with low armor pen will have an absolutely abysmal crit chance when hitting armor.

In hindsight I could have made it bypass armor, but it is what it is for now.

 

[araskes]

Armor pen modifies crit chance when hitting armor. It doesn't allow you to bypass armor. So even with armor pen your armor will still go away first, just guns with low armor pen will have an absolutely abysmal crit chance when hitting armor.

In hindsight I could have made it bypass armor, but it is what it is for now.

buff the vortigaunt armor pen and the vortigaunt armor itself and we'll be happy.

 

[Robert]

I can maybe increase the armour value. I don't mind that.

But increasing the HP of vorts even further will have to think about that one since atm, Vorts do have the highest HP values in the server already at 200HP, with OTA at 150HP.

I will do some testing before I make any decision on this.

 

[Gr4Ss]

After some further thinking, I kind of disliked the fact that vorts could not bypass armor in any way (even when hitting non-armor body parts). So had a little discussion and changed how shock damage (used by vort beam) works.

Shock damage will now always apply full damage to HP and thus always fully bypass armor. This will make vort beams hurt armored players a lot more without buffing their damage. In addition, when hitting armor, half the damage gets dealt as bonus damage to armor until the armor reaches 0 - this damage will not overflow to the HP pool though.

Aka: max level vorts now kill everyone in 2 turns (2*80 damage to HP > 150 so even OTA will die). Low level vorts can still kill regular CP's and citizens in 2 turns (they need to reach 50 damage per shot ~ level 15 in vortessence). When engaging with other players, vorts will remove regular armor almost completely (max level vort = 80 damage -> 40 armor bonus damage, leaving 10 armor), assuming they hit an armor bodygroup.