OTA-Level Cops

[Divine]

Imagine if you will, you're sitting idle on Triumph street, enjoying a bagel on a bench. You sit yourself up, and trot off into the slums. You're enjoying that bagel as you walk around looking for trash to scavenge; the typical slummer on the hunt for goodies. All of a sudden, you hear some gunshots.

Oh? Someone's hunting zombies in the sewers. Then come the beeps, and the boots, and the "<:: Don't move! ::>" commands. That's right, the cops deployed 7-strong into the slums because someone shot a zombie in the deep underground.

You have a gun on you, some cheap armor, maybe you could take them. You consider fighting back, and you might make a decent escape attempt - only one thing in your way.

Every single cop from i5 to i3 has 75 armor and MP7's
Oh, and of course...
Every single cop from i2 to CpT have 100 armor and MP7's (or shotguns)
​

That's normal, right? The 7 cops with SMGs and armor equivalent to OTA rushing into the slums en-masse, about to stop and frisk you; you'll die here, or you'll die fighting with your meager 25 armor and pistol.

This isn't balancing, this is using incompetence and failure to justify dropping cops at a place that is not at all reachable by rebels. Every single cop currently has riot armor and MP7's on marginal socio-code. Even if they didn't have riot armor, a recent buff has pushed cops to have 50 (RCT-i3), 75 (i2-i1), and 100 (RL-CpT).

Now admittedly, 75 armor for command units isn't all that bad! See, this can help combat against random shotcops or quick deployments against high-tier rebels who also have heavy armor. It would be rare on both sides, but that 75 armor can make a big difference - especially since they wouldn't have to run off to get riot armor; however, basing the entire faction's capabilities around the biggest threat solely will do zero good for low-tier rebels or scrappers. Even if they outnumber cops, they would need proper rifles to stand a chance.

Ask yourself:
Why are we rewarding the Combine failing to take proper steps to protect
themselves with buffs that make it impossible for low tier players to survive?
​

100 armor is bizarre, especially given cop & OTA co-deployments are allowed - and recently, we've seen OTA deploy over an i4 dying in the underground metro even though they were meant to be shelved and only used if rifles or heavy vortigaunt presence was clear.

I think this balancing decision needs to be looked at again. I do not want to encourage shotcops, but if somebody wants to evade cops sweeping for the 752nd time because the voice in their head told them to, they should have a chance to live. This whole 'let's sweep slums 500 times' thing gets old when it interrupts roleplay or just blatantly kills off people with zero chance to fight back. Not carrying your gear is one thing, but not everybody has that luxury.

Say "No" to 100 armor for cops.​

 

[MrTuki]

• Two random cops enter sewers for no reason
• They are downed and captured by rebels
• One minge-runs after getting up, because the rebels captured them
• The cop that ran gets shot down and PKed
• Same cop approves his own deployment
• Cops do a half-assed deployment with 4 OTA
• They all die, again.

Stop doing half-assed deployments, stop rewarding cops with buffs for failing, they have to be strong. But one thing is if the rebels are pushing onto the main streets, another is if they are defending themselves in the only real "safe" place they have, the sewers. They lose because they deploy into sewers with only pistols, they lose because they just bombrush and never know how to properly deploy. They lose because they do not how to answer to ambushes.

This balance decision is wrong, the worst thing they have done since the gigantic deathsquad deployments back in City 8 where CCR, Cops and OTA deployed and even a synth. Get this shit looked at.

 

[Divine]

I want to reiterate and say again: I do not believe the buff of command unit armor is unjustified - command units DESERVE the standard armor buff. 75 armor for i2-i1 passively is a good thing, it is the riot command armor (and RL/CpT armor) I disagree with. I do not want the Partisans or any other group that reaches that level to be some insane immovable object. The rebels should be struck hard if they make a wrong move.

I was in the Partisans, but even I was scared when we went up against 4 OTA. We nearly died, and would have all fallen if they didn't under-deploy.

I want cops to have an equal footing and be able to strike at the high-tier rebels. Using GMs to deploy manhacks and rollermines mid-combat would be a cool tactic (If GMs would respond to requests in the S2K) - and this is just one idea of how to help cops. 100 armor isn't it.

Equal footing isn't giving one side extra armor (that is unachievable by the other side) when they already outnumber the opposition, it's making sure each side has the same limits. That's what I am upset about, 100 armor. Especially when all cops have riot armor across the board. We practically have OCS grunts roaming the streets and responding to every BOL blip.

Cops should not be easy pickings for high-tier rebels, they should be formidable but not a god compared to a slummer. It's 100% difficult to balance the Combine-Rebel scene, so I don't blame anyone, but this 100 armor only to one side goes above everything that was promised.

 

[Stanford]

Not to mention that this armor buff leaves vortigaunt practically useless. The whole reason vorts were nerfed was so OTA could deploy less and now we have stats wise OTA roaming the streets...

 

[Pierrik]

GIVE THEM 200 ARMOR

 

[Marco]

command units do not have a 100 armour...

^
(The screenshot in civpro barracks was an event item spawned by a staff character called dr.green and I think he dropped it there accidentally)

anyhow, I believe this will be changing very soon and your complaint will be addressed as the city moves to the 'blue' socio-code, in which there would really be no justification to continue this riot loadout action further.

That being said, severe skill issue on the cop-side, and we can't stop coping.

 

[Divine]

command units do not have a 100 armour...

^
(The screenshot in civpro barracks was an event item spawned by a staff character called dr.green and I think he dropped it there accidentally)

anyhow, I believe this will be changing very soon and your complaint will be addressed as the city moves to the 'blue' socio-code, in which there would really be no justification to continue this riot loadout action further.

That being said, severe skill issue on the cop-side, and we can't stop coping.

No. A buff has been confirmed across the uniforms.

Functionary: 50
Riot Functionary: 75
Command: 75
Riot Command: 100
Rank Leader: 100
Captain: 100

 

[Tsunami]

Just RP

 

[Jfish]

Cops suck at S2K right now, there I said it.

I fully support this, great work.

 

[MrTuki]

command units do not have a 100 armour...

^
(The screenshot in civpro barracks was an event item spawned by a staff character called dr.green and I think he dropped it there accidentally)

anyhow, I believe this will be changing very soon and your complaint will be addressed as the city moves to the 'blue' socio-code, in which there would really be no justification to continue this riot loadout action further.

That being said, severe skill issue on the cop-side, and we can't stop coping.

Literally spawn in a riot command uniform rn on main server, you will see it is 100 armor...

 

[pite]

Tbh, I'd return 50+ armor to be from i3 and up - the initial buff from 25 to 50 for RCT to i4 made some low tier weapons such as pistols less viable and almost extinct. That's just my opinion though.

 

[Stanford]

Literally spawn in a riot command uniform rn on main server, you will see it is 100 armor...

 

[MrTuki]

Tbh, I'd return 50+ armor to be from i3 and up - the initial buff from 25 to 50 for RCT to i4 made some low tier weapons such as pistols less viable and almost extinct. That's just my opinion though.

Scrap weapons went from "Okay maybe you can kill a 25 armor cop..." to "Ok this is useless".

Scrap guns are not even viable anymore. They barely even do the job against NPCs

 

[Divine]

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Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.

 

[MisterMysteryMan]

Scrap weapons went from "Okay maybe you can kill a 25 armor cop..." to "Ok this is useless".

Scrap guns are not even viable anymore. They barely even do the job against NPCs

Not to mention you can't make anything to compete with said 25 armour cop (bar pistols). These days it's extremely difficult to get your hands on anything that isn't scrap weapons

 

[MrTuki]

Not to mention you can't make anything to compete with said 25 armour cop (bar pistols). These days it's extremely difficult to get your hands on anything that isn't scrap weapons

I am doing my best to put other handguns in circulation, but, well. It's hard due to the 600 morbillion MCP plants and snitches.

 

[Divine]

Although I would like to offer a suggestion to balance this out, I don’t have one. Balancing cops around mid-tier rebels is probably the safest route; while we don’t want the high-tier rebels to be unkillable, we also cannot make the cops impossible to take down.

But we also can’t neuter cops down to 25 armor to compensate for low-tier rebels with scrap guns. Pick and choose your fights and all that. Dropping cops down to 25 would be horrendous and just have them be wiped doubly so by mid-tier and high-tier rebels. Low-tiers shouldn’t fight cops, they should go on expos and write their stories.

Obviously sometimes there isn’t a chance to avoid a fight, and you need to run and you might get shot down by their superior firepower. I don’t know how I would go about fixing this, besides less sweeps/patrols in the slums for awful reasons, but we can NOT have cops with 25 armor again - bad idea.

 

[nath1234567]

I think the massive differences between each weapon tier is the driving cause of balance issues on Willard. I had mentioned this during C8 when the abundance of pulse weaponry in the hands of rebels was a topic of debate.

Combine leadership restrict their units from using anything beyond mid tier, which is SMGs and shotguns if you want. Rifles are something that only rebels ever end up using, with the next tier being pulse weaponry only ever being used by OTA.

The overall balancing mentality of separating weapons into tiers, with each tier yielding weaponry that is far more effective than the previous one, is seemingly what is responsible for all balancing related headaches.

The server currently is clearly intended to be balanced around mid tier weaponry, which are SMGs and shotguns. This leaves us with two tiers that exist above that in strength but are considered problematic/controversial if used because the server isn't balanced to allow them to be used except in certain circumstances. When rebels use rifles, cops are fucked because their weapons cannot keep up. When OTA use pulse weaponry, rebels are fucked (in theory the parking garage meta still wins) because rifles cannot keep up.

Closing the damage and overall TTK disparity between each tier would make it so that we don't have to have some big debate about balancing and tiers at all. We shouldn't have entire tiers of weaponry that the server balance doesn't account for being in circulation. Rifles wouldn't need to be treated like some endgame pot of gold that needs to be carefully monitored and controlled if they weren't so much better than SMGs.

Genuinely just make all guns actually hurt while keeping scrap guns worse than everything else. The tiers are too separated currently which I think brings more issues than we realize.

 

[MrTuki]

Little fun fact even the RCTs are getting Riot armor and an SMG. This is just insanity.

 

[Marco]

One thing I noticed, the 'spikewall' is practically a command unit with a shotgun and a bigger hitbox.

They have 75 armour despite being built like a brick shithouse; Normal OTA shotgunners have 100 armor.

OCS (grunt soldiers) have the same armour level as the spikewall.

Spikewall's are meant to be deployed when a deploying protection team can't contain an outbreak, but a full OTA deployment would be overkill. Either we buff the amount of spike walls deployed to cope for this, or we increase the armor for the Spikewall so that they can take a bit more damage, rather than being 3 hit by vorts same as all other command/ground units with riot armor.

An alternative to just, spiking up cops would be to buff these intermediary deployment units so that they can effectively assist with their superior armour.