Thoughts on turret skill overhaul

[jinn.6392]

As I see it, one of the main problems with turrets are that they are set-it-and-forget-it skills. You cast them, then ignore them until either destroying them for the blast finisher, or recasting them because they expired or were destroyed. Since it doesn't take much skill to use them, it's natural that they don't offer too much damage, either. A rifle turret has 1,000 range, and it would be unbalanced if it could deal lots of damage from such range continuously. To ensure that it is balanced, it must deal reduced damage, resulting in a skill that can't justify its use in endgame content. To fix it would require making it more strategically complex but also more powerful, while making sure it doesn't become cumbersome.

 

I propose the following changes:

- Placing the turret remains similar to how it is now.

- Decrease the range of turrets substantially, and increase their damage to make them strong damage sources.

- While a turret is deployed, replace the turret skill with a command skill — similar to necromancer minions — that is ground-targeted. This skill will partially heal the turret and move the turret to the new location you select. I would suggest teleportation with a delay, giving enemy players time to react. Alternatively, you could seek inspiration from 'Ventari's Will' or 'Ride the Lightning' when deciding how the turrets should move.

- If a turret fails to shoot at or hit any targets for a certain period of time, maybe 5-10 seconds, then the turret will automatically despawn.

 

Lore-wise, this would be justified by incorporating Asuran technology, which uses this sort of remote control and teleportation-based movement.

 

Some advantages I see are as follows:

- Turrets play a more active role in combat. They act similarly to the renegade warband, providing area control and concentrated damage.

- Turrets require skill to use. A poorly-placed turret despawns due to inactivity, so placement is important. Well-controlled turrets apply pressure and deal heavy damage.

- Turrets require skill to counter. An opposing player can despawn turrets by simply staying out of their small range, but will be punished if they fail to do so.

- Turrets justify their damage output. Since their range is so small, it is not unreasonable for them to have a larger damage output. This makes them more applicable in dps-sensitive contexts, like raids, fractals, and pvp.

 

Turrets are currently underutilized in several high-skill areas. They are easy to deploy, and have a large range. Thus, they are only balanced because they have a small damage output. By decreasing their range, increasing their damage, and putting their movement in the hands of the player, they can be transformed into an interesting, engaging, and powerful skill type.

[Stalima.5490]

You need to think about turrets in reverse, the toolbelt skills as your main function and the turret itself as the extra function, the turrets do often have fairly powerful toolbelt skills.

 

 

[Cisii.8317]

Just bring back Accelerant Packed Turrets and we good. 

[Kodama.6453]

On 9/22/2021 at 1:04 AM, Stalima.5490 said:

You need to think about turrets in reverse, the toolbelt skills as your main function and the turret itself as the extra function, the turrets do often have fairly powerful toolbelt skills.

 

 

Rifle turret has a strong toolbelt. Rocket turret is arguable, it can hit fairly hard, but is almost useless at range, since the travel time is way too long.

But all the other toolbelt skills from turrets are bad, tbh.

[jinn.6392]

On 9/21/2021 at 5:04 PM, Stalima.5490 said:

You need to think about turrets in reverse, the toolbelt skills as your main function and the turret itself as the extra function, the turrets do often have fairly powerful toolbelt skills.

 

 

I understand that the tool-belt skills are a major aspect of why turrets are useful. My first sentence still applies, though. The core behavior of a turret (drop it and then ignore it) is inherently difficult to design well. The obvious approach is to make them more involved, but it's hard to think of a way to do that without making them feel cumbersome. This post is only meant to discuss ways to make the 'static damage source' idea more interesting.

[Doomfrost.5728]

On 9/21/2021 at 7:04 PM, Stalima.5490 said:

You need to think about turrets in reverse, the toolbelt skills as your main function and the turret itself as the extra function, the turrets do often have fairly powerful toolbelt skills.

 

 

 

I think it says something to how underwhelming turrets are when their toolbelt counterparts end up being the real bread winners in an engineers arsenal. 

[Stalima.5490]

On 10/21/2021 at 9:54 PM, Doomfrost.5728 said:

 

I think it says something to how underwhelming turrets are when their toolbelt counterparts end up being the real bread winners in an engineers arsenal. 

well not really, I mean the toolbelts are part of the turret after all and the turrets also have pretty strong overcharges, especially the thumper turret.

 

I with a rifle turret and rocket turret you can actually drop some crazy burst damage onto enemies, that rocket toolbelt can crit over 10k after all, you just need to stun and point blank things with it.

[Doomfrost.5728]

Cool, then we should move the toolbelt skills to the utility slots since they're the ones providing the bread and butter. Here's what I'm sayin, toolbelt skills shouldn't outshine the utility they came from. Once upon a time those skills didn't even exist because instead turret toolbelt skills were actually meant to self destruct the turret and overcharging was a utility skill that was available once the turret was placed. 

 

Controlled overcharges while still having the option to self destruct. It worked for fine, if you needed to move a turret either pick it up or if your enemy was wailing on it, blow it up in their face and put it somewhere else. Didn't need anything else. When they replaced that toolbelt mechanic by adding new skills, turrets became less the stars and more the background characters. 

 

If they really wanted to move detonation into turret utility then they should have moved overcharging to the toolbelt slots instead, not create a new set of skills that outshine the utility they came from.

 

 

[Liewec.2896]

they ruined turrets when they made them activate their abilities one single time when placed.

turrets should be placed in strategic spots preemptively,

so this silly "use once and then just low damage" goes entirely against how turrets should work.

we need the activateable abilities back.

if i could redesign turrets i'd make them ground target placeable with a short range (how they were years ago),

i'd give them slow constant health regen ticks,

once placed i'd toggle the skill to the ability to use the turrets "overcharge" with a short CD (as it used to be)

i'd have the toolbelt skills as 2 part skills, activating the toolbelt skill will use the toolbelt skill as it does now,

but while the toolbelt skill is on cooldown it toggles to the turret detonate skill.

and i'd have the turrets scale more with the engies stats,

so if you're stacking power and crit your turrets will be hitting harder and critting more.

i'd also do away with the self destruct after 5 mins, that just seems like an archaic relic of the past,

i think it was to prevent afk farming bots, but we already have MMs doing it, soooo....

Edited October 23, 2021 by Liewec.2896

[Doomfrost.5728]

Oh and btw, before I forget, remember with the mechanist that you're losing your toolbelt. So those powerful toolbelt skills that you got for equipping a turret won't be around to provide additional damage. Now if we still had overcharging as a utility...

 

Furthermore I could do without self detonation in the first place. I'd take overcharging over self detonation any day of the week.