The original intention of ripper friendly fire being turned off was so that it wasn't useless on teams that wanted to push. While your marines/medics are in front making a push you could support them by firing ripper bullets without them being stopped by the team.

yep, which is why when it was turned off it was absolutely useless

ATs are powerful now. If they lose dash, it's doubtful anyone will be use it over marine. The increased movement speed it has now isn't enough on its own to reliably get in range. I'd suggest removing the movement speed buff. We could slightly increase the reload on the dash and/or reduce armor somewhat and/or give rippers armor bypass to counter AT. I'd be in favor of another small buff to rippers (maybe a very small amount of kinetic armor, a very small movement speed buff, increased fire rate, firing through teammates, or some other thing, just throwing out ideas). I still like the idea of using molotovs to complement nader's choke holding/slowing a push, but the damage was much too high.

AT complements teams of all kinds but especially aggressive teams. Nerfing them slightly isn't a bad idea, but I would prefer to add a counter to them and slightly buff a class that favors the defensive playstyle as a balance to AT.

I'm with Sov and somewhat with Dave

-armor, dash, speed and range are the variables. Which means we have 24 options: ie:
1. Remove dash, keep Armor, Speed, Range
2. Remove dash, armor, keep speed, range
3. Remove dash, armor, speed, keep range
4. Remove all
5. Remove armor, keep dash, speed, range
6. Remove armor, speed, keep dash and range
Etc etc

-we can go round and round on what you want. Think we should land on concepts.

For me: Sov makes the most sense. We want the class to be used. Purpose of dash was to allow for scouting and escapes and getting close, but shouldn't then also have armor and range. I think if we can mostly agree that Dash is needed to keep the purposes of the class, then we need to address the armor / range / speed. Seems most don't care about speed, I think dash accounts for that. That leaves armor and range. I'm in favor of addressing the armor as you should be punished a bit more for having the speed advantage. If you address the range, it may not be a relevant class anymore you can basically out range them

Torch, I think you and I are in agreement or at least open to the same idea: reducing the armor. There's at least a couple ways to do that.

1) Nerfing AT armor only (kinetic/explosive specific values TBD)
2) Making certain weapons bypass armor (ripper, demo, etc)
3) Both of the above options. A slight reduction in overall armor, and adding bypass to specific weapons.

I'm not as much of a fan of only nerfing AT armor, because I'd like to encourage other classes besides marine to be played. Whether that is by making them a counter to AT and/or buffing their overall damage/movement/something, barring new weapons/abilities.

One other question that should probably be answered before all of this: how many people want other classes besides marine/med? I know some have voiced their opinions about wanting to keep relatively the same meta of marine/med usage, but how widespread is support for varied class usage?

Just wait for the Infantry 2.0 class aka Black Ops to be reintroduced with the BR + law + throwing knife and nades xd. Last time it had an emp grenade to stall meds that should be removed but seeing the battle rifle again was cool.

Also the BR was a good counter to AT armor if i remember correctly but the last time i had HS devving and introducing changes people were up in arms.

Agree Dave on all points. Need a consensus on marine / med META. I hope people are open to viability of other classes and the balancing we're talking about as it encourages diversity of leadership, and opportunities to win on other people's strengths

I'm of the opinion you should just decrease AT Armor and not buff the other classes ability to bypass the armor. Seems like we're over engineering the solution

It really says a lot about the class when you see certain players go from AT to Marine and the level of performance drop in a blink of an eye. Really low floor to contribute as AT.

AT was fine before the increase range and movement speed added. The class needed a small buff from the original version to be a bit more viable. The new AT became the strongest burst class (which was balanced by reduced range), the strongest tank class (makes sense when the class had to go close range to do DPS), the strongest mobile class (randomly gave movement speed because sure why not?), and has nades/incid/law/dash (literally the most effective utility). Oh wait I forgot the strongest melee (chain) sword as well.

Class had clear draw back before. Every change from AT is going to be a nerf until it's balanced.

Also one thing with the addition of Oct new classes and other changes is a lot of people are looking into the lens of viability. No one really talks about how it impacts med who now get dropped at the beat of a heart since our "balance" is just add more damage.

We always run back to "give med more HP" when in reality these classes that aren't viable don't work in USL. Need to change the identity of these classes to be viable in USL without "more damage". I know meds who don't like half these garbage changes because they don't consider med input and how "fun" it is to play against these classes.

Great point

need SL med, so more people will actually med

playing medic is just stressful now. Before it was at least somewhat fun, now you gotta worry about ATs dashing at you/getting sniped and either killed or useless for a fight with no nrg.

What is Oct new classes, Sov?

Already got something in the works for viability that isnt just damage related. I have some things for med as well I am working on so they are a bit more fun.

The tricky part about balancing medic is you either make them more aggressive and then people stop healing their teammates and focus on killing or you make them more defensive and the "better" squads just get stronger.

That and then the server is so bad you just miss heals right next to people, it's a hellscape. Nobody wants to med except for the people that have been doing it for years.

Exactly.

You could give medics more firepower and reduce their medkit heal a bit and give marines 1-2 stimpacks per death. Gives medic more of an aggressive role but doesn't completely screw over the team since they will be able to self sustain.

Rough out here for a medic

Playing med is getting harder, especially if you want to be vocal and focus on the bigger picture vs. the immediate fights.

When it was just marines you pretty much had a handle on when to fight and when to heal. You could add that extra firepower and a med with some combat competency could make a difference in a battle.

You didn't have an incendiary nade fly halfway across the screen or an unstoppable AT dash and suicide for you. Or a sniper 6 coordinates away taking potshots.

Nowadays it's easier to just stop trying fight anymore and throw out heals which actually makes playing med boring as shit.

decrease sniper damage or range?