MM8BDM v5 - Weapon Tuning (Leaf Shield)

[NemZ]

What if it started doing little ticks of damage to you if held at full charge for more than a few seconds?  That discourages charging it up out of the way and waiting for someone to stumble into you around a blind corner or the like.

[HeelNavi]

If it's so OP, just make it harder to obtain...

[LlamaHombre]

Ok, I think we have enough info to work with from here so I'm moving on to the next weapon. One thing I don't think I mentioned clearly enough is that you all can suggest that for more than one weapon to be looked at a time, even if we're only focusing on one individually. This is especially the case because...

Code: [Select]

Search Snake ---- II
Silver Tomahawk - I
Scorch Wheel ---- I
Noise Crush ----- I
Star Crash ------ I

...we have a four way tie for what weapon's gonna be discussed after Search Snake. So for now let's see what everyone has to offer in regards to possible Search Snake tuning.

[Korby]

As a quick note, I've put forward a change that Search Snake will be aimable, similar to how it works for snakeman in Classes.
It doesn't shoot out terribly far, but it's something.

Thoughts?

[Knux]

That would most likely greatly help the weapon as being able to aim snakes means they will go up walls faster and be potentially more accurate.

[Gumballtoid]

That's definitely a start. I've been hoping it would happen eventually.

One thought I had was to give the snakes some kind of homing ability (putting the "search" in "Search Snake"). Obviously that would have its own host of problems, and since Hornet Chaser will have a similar function, that might be kind of stepping on its toes, but it's merely an idea that I've been mulling around.

What sets Search Snake apart for me is the sheer number of snakes in one clip. I think that's something that should be preserved through any changes it sees.

[Thunderono]

Search Snake's most infamous problem is that its opponent can simply hold the spacebar to render the weapon almost entirely useless.  This isn't a problem seen with most other floorhuggers-- even water wave, a weapon notorious for the same issue, has a long duration to make it more difficult to jump over.  Unfortunately, I can't quite think of a way to fix Search Snake without fundamentally changing the weapon-- the only thing I can think of is a vertical hitbox increase to make it harder to jump over, but then that creates a massive disparity between the sprite size versus the hitbox size, creating an issue similar to Pharaoh Shot's.

I'm not a particular fan of adding homing properties to Search Snake, either.  It wouldn't really fix the issue, anyway-- a player could still just as easily hop over the snake, except now it can circle back around.  The thing moves so slowly that it'd hardly matter in the first pla-

Actually, what if the snake just moved faster?
As it stands, Search Snake is currently slower than your average Mega Buster shot.  With faster snakes, enemies would have less time to react to a barrage, and it may be easier to score a couple of hits.  It would also give it something to stand apart from the likes of Ice Wave and Bubble Lead.

Speaking of floorhuggers, why not talk about Ice Wave?  As it stands, it's currently the best ground-based option available.  If that doesn't work out, I'll default to my earlier suggestion of Silver Tomahawk.

[Messatsu]

Personally I'd like to see the role of Search Snake change a little bit.  It currently hits pretty hard (28 damage) and has a moderately fast RoF.  The problem I personally have with it is that I find the Rof and damage to create a weapon that generally hits opponents out of luck rather than proper aiming.  While I'm sure it's possible to lure someone into a shot, I've just not had success myself with it.  So my proposal is to swap it to a faster but weaker shot.  At this point we have Bubble Lead as the power for the ground and Water Wave for speed.  For the wall climbers, we have Ice Wave which can deal heavy damage and it's also quite good at forcing a player to move, but we don't have a speed equivalent.  The high ammo capacity also lends itself well to this style of change.

That's just my thought on it.

[Bikdark]

Search Snake's most infamous problem is that its opponent can simply hold the spacebar to render the weapon almost entirely useless.

Popping in to say that this is a complete lie. Please do not think this.

The snakes don't come slow and one at a time -- people shoot them in massive barrages that sneak up on you and ruin your whole day... or at least that's how it works in CBM. Search Snake only sorta fulfills that fantasy in vanilla. It works, but the problem isn't what you think it is. The lack of control disallows any variance in playstyle (HUGE FUCKING WAVE vs indirect combat, or aiming high vs aiming low, respectively). The set height at which they fly makes them hard to lead into people, making most people put the weapon down for something much simpler like PShot. Allowing the player to aim the snakes lets them use the weapon how they want -- something not necessarily fleshed out in vanilla 8bdm (most weapons do one thing and one thing only).

The only things you should consider touching are aiming (which is already 90% chance of being implemented as I can see), damage (reduce to 15), and RoF (increase considerably). Let players decide what they want to do with the weapon: create big waves and force the enemy to jump right as you use GHold, stack 7 of them for an ohko shot, or do something inbetween. The ability to aim the snakes is an extremely powerful buff to an already criminally underrated weapon. Indirect combat is strong, and 4koing people from god-knows where with a massive barrage of snakes can push the weapon over the edge and turn duels into even bigger campfests.

[King Dumb]

Allowing the player to aim the snakes lets them use the weapon how they want -- something not necessarily fleshed out in vanilla 8bdm (most weapons do one thing and one thing only).

This is an interesting point. I don't really think it's in the interest of the game to 'flesh out' every weapon in this manner... Trade-offs among weapons is a primary balancing factor in every arena shooter, and this is even more important for MM8BDM than most because of the number of weapons (and also because of the underlying philosophy of the Mega Man games themselves). Classes are a different matter, because you're left with one or two weapons to navigate every situation you find yourself.

I think it's pretty wrong to consider Search Snake "criminally underrated" - this is a currently terrible weapon - but I do think that the ability to aim it will be a very powerful buff. I understand there is some conflict of niche going on here but I can see a solid case for S. Snake as the (relatively) close-range cousin of other floor-huggers. I think playtesting with this change applied will be able to tune damage.

[BiscuitSlash]

The problem I've always had with Search Snake is using it as an actual weapon. The snakes are too small and slow to be any good at actually hitting opponents, and they'll often have enough reacting time to avoid pretty much every snake. It's good that the opponent isn't completely helpless, yes, but it's bad that the weapon is rarely helpful for the user.

It's good for areas where the terrain is a bit unhelpful, as the snakes go over that easily and it's harder for the opponents to keep track of and avoid. These areas are rare however, making this a bit of a moot point at the moment.

I remember hearing about giving it a slight homing feature, which I was fond of. Though I prefer the idea of increasing their speed. It would make the weapon much easier to aim with. Maybe also consider what maps have Search Snake and which ones would most benefit from having it. As I said earlier, this weapon seems to work best when using the terrain to its advantage.

[Sonnitude]

Personally with search snake, my thinking is make it where it can cause some kind of DOT, so when you hit with it, it does more then just the initial impact.

[Hallan Parva]

Honestly I'd prefer if the snakes moved slower instead of faster. Currently the best thing to do with core Search Snake is to stack up a bunch of 'em like a charging wall of tiny snake-like terror, and watch them climb over terrain to swarm a dude. If they were sped up, they would be easier to jump over since the group of snakes has less effective time spent passing underneath the target. However, if you slow the snakes down, they linger for that much longer, which not only makes them harder to dodge, but also allows the snakes to serve as a sort of poor man's terrain control, helping you lock down foes to land shots with other weapons. Ice Wall already moves really quickly, and is generally a decent weapon even at close range, so making Search Snake into a "pressure" weapon (slowing the projectile, allowing the user to freely aim) would help separate the two even further.

Might not be the change you're looking for, but I'd say it's at least worth testing out.

[NemZ]

Maybe change their pathing to include a bit of a sine wave 'wiggle' along the vector rather than just straight?  That plus slowing their forward momentum just a little would make avoiding them significantly more difficult.

[BiscuitSlash]

Slowing down the snakes + giving them a wiggly path

seems like something worth considering actually. It's a creative and effective way of making them not so easily avoidable, and would maybe be good for doing traps and whatnot.


For the next weapon discussion, whenever that is, I vote Flash Stopper. Honestly that weapon's pretty garbage for a rare weapon.