Who thinks Engineers are balanced as-is?

Honest question up there in the title.

I guess I just didn't want discussion to drop just because time has passed, thus a topic was born.

Personally I think Engineers' offense is fine. Defensively, I'm still a little concerned about how easy it is to keep sentinels alive...If a queen or a warlord or whatever targets my (lightning) sentinel, it's not even a contest, if you just maintain a linik with it, it's nearly invincible. It takes multiple hard-hitting monsters all attacking in sync/a titan to kill it while it's being linked to. And I think I've seen the sents of some higher level engineers even take a rock and not die. Yet sents (or at least lightning sents) are fragile when you're not around to doctor them. Anyway, I guess I'm saying that I think the heal rate for the engineer link (any link? is there a difference in heal rate?) is too high. <- Take all the opinions of the lowbie engineer with a grain salt.

Other than that, engineers still all seem to congregate in one room on many maps, that may or may not be a concern.

What about everyone else? Especially those who've played their engineers more than me (a lot of people)? Thoughts?

If think they are fairly balanced...I belive that the reason behind the lightning sents breakign with ease is because they are so effective..they can damage all enimes within their range meaning an engineer (or a medic with a link *cough*) and use it to distract/confuse the monster as they poull out some damage on the said anemy..

Defensively I can say yeah they have it pretty good BUT they also cant regen...aside form shields but even that is precautionary cus it depends on not being hit by projectile for a few sec

As for healing sents i believe its based on wep speed as is partially shield healing, the faster The wep can fire its alt fire enrergy so to speak the more it can counter that fast incoming projectiles...
So if Im playing as engineer I still may ask for back up unless in a group of sents..seeing my wep speed isnt fast enough to top out most creatures..and also my damge reduc isnt high either..(the latter affecting the sent as well as me..) so ingeneral when beign pounded with few players left in..and ones near by epically and enigneer..i ask for some linking..

So even though the engineer has massive defensive advantage one wya ..he also had massive dis advantage...
cus if a lava skaarj lands one on me...and im not max out health..max out shield...Im dead..and even if I i dont die i cant regen that health and have to avoid the rest of skaarj on that wave, every shot...untill i either find lots of health ..or a medic then hide near my sents...

On side note..I wa son my medic the other day linking up Elite with my medic link..cus i dotn like the warlords wave.....but then i had to do something quick...so i left it linking.(aah the alt fire bind..)...And he then wiht my extra power and and essentiall health boost..essentiallu became invincible....And topped out Violator...pretty sweet,,,/

The engineer class also taught me how to dodge like crazy , cus of the whole...one shot i die sorta thing...so thats fun..

..thou i still occasionally dodge into rocks..:/.

But yeah Id say little tweaking must be done to balcne it out

ps Long post eh?

ps ps A clusster of enigneers with some medics is near unstoppable...

ps ps ps The linking to link turrents sitll doesnt provide Xp ..thou the feed abck method of shield healing does...

ps ps ps ps..HAHA..four ps's..

..

FogRaider(_MM) wrote:

... Defensively, I'm still a little concerned about how easy it is to keep sentinels alive...If a queen or a warlord or whatever targets my (lightning) sentinel, it's not even a contest, if you just maintain a linik with it, it's nearly invincible. ....

Agreed. The Engineers link has to have a certain amount of healing power in order to be able to repair turrets/vehicles in a reasonable time frame. So, in low waves, if you link to the sentinel, it will keep alive. However:

While you are linking, you are not killing things yourself. That is half your score gone.

Once you get to level 60, you can spawn two sentinels. You cannot link to both - so this is a low level strategy, not a high level one

While you are linked to the sentinel, unless you are hiding, you are likely to get hurt. You cannot see what is coming up behind you, and cannot dodge effectively

Remember the Engineer link beam has a much shorter range than the normal link, so the Engineer has to stay close to the sentinel to keep linked to it.

I believe Engineers will perform best with two sentinels and a link turret. If you are in a link turret, you are not going to want to be linked to the sentinel - it is a big waste of fire power. Take out the monsters, occassionally topping up the sentinels when you have time.

Once the Engineer has spawned a sentinel, it is quite a while before he can spawn another one. So you can't let the one you have just spawned die. You have to heal it. So although the sentinels are good at distracting monsters, they also distract Engineers.

I do not want to encourage the "engineer safely hiding in a room linked to a sentinel outside" type of play. I could make it so sentinels will only target something if the player can also see the target - but I am reluctant to do so as it forces all Engineers to stay near sentinels, even if they are not linked. Or make it so sentinels will not fire while they are being healed, but again I think it is too limiting.

So, although I do not like the potential abuses, I personally think it is ok. But I am interested in hearing the feedback of others.

FogRaider(_MM) wrote:

Personally I think Engineers' offense is fine.

I am not sure. Elite_Engine(AI) is regularly getting pretty good scores that are perhaps a little high for a level 60ish player, so we may need a slight downwards tweak at some point - perhaps limiting 2 sentinels to level 70 rather than 60 - if necessary. However, bear in mind

Elite_Engine's strategy of a link turret plus 2 sentinels in the busiest part of the map, means he is probably getting as many kills now as he ever will.

More ConstructionHealthBonus and ArmorVampire will mean less times jumping out to heal, so a slightly higher score

He is stuck in one place. So he can't chase after monsters, he can only get those in that spot. The link turret isn't instant hit, so a shock/lightning shot at the same time will get the kill

There is a tendency for low level engineers to build in groups. This means that kills will tend to get shared out between them. A WM/AM can move easily to a different spot if too many people are sharing his kills. Engineers are stuck

So, again probably ok, even though perhaps peaking slightly early. However, the big challenge will come when we get level 200 Engineers as the only ones left alive. How long will they last I wonder?

-Jason_x- wrote:

ps ps ps The linking to link turrents sitll doesnt provide Xp

Agreed. When the Engineer links to a sentinel/turret/link turret, he is healing the turret. Nothing more. And you do not get xp from healing turrets. So, no xp.

Try it with a non-infinite link. It will probably only use ammo when healing the link turret. When the turret is at full health, the link gun will not use ammo. Which means it isn't boosting the link turret.
(link turrets may heal & boost other link turrets - I haven't checked. But that would be a different thread)

I am very reluctant to make the Engineers link heal the turret, boost power and share xp at the same time. Way too powerful.

Remember this thread started with the thought that repairing sentinels may be too effective. You wouldn't want to suggest we also boosted the power of the sentinel at the same time?

Yeah...I once played game b4 the price increase wiht 3 link turrents..me being in one of them..close together.....2 of them linked me..but it was massivly powerful.....It invovled the 2 other players not getting kills and sharin in the xp but it was megga effective..

(some titans..3 hits...)

so yeah...

I have an engineer character ZOGineer level 57 with LE 14. I just rec'd the Link turret ability. I just scored 1249 yesterday playing on Achilles I think. (almost all my points were from my sent & turret)

I also have a WM at level 127 [DC]ZOG (more than double the level of my Eng). I have found that I can do almost as well with either character. My high score with my WM is 1,439.

I'm guessing that by level 60 with a few more abilities and 2 sent's that they will be (in my opinion) relatively equal.

I like scoring lots of points with my engineer. It's fun. My official opinion is that the engineers are still OVERPOWERED and it gets worse as they level up. And let's not forget the annoyance factor that seems to be prevalent among many Non-Eng players. (blocked doorways especially)

The other thing we can't forget is that while I agree the engineer is often stationary, the Goliath tank is quite mobile. If there is a tank or two on the map, that player is usually one of the top three scorers for that map regardless of his/her level. (I know of a level 31 ENG that can summon a Goliath for example)

Would it be too radical to suggest that we eliminate the vehicles?

I love this server and sincerely appreciate all the work that goes into coding this stuff. (I know I can't do it) This is just one opinion and I too covet the opinion of other players.

Thanks!!

Z0G wrote:

I have an engineer character ZOGineer level 57 with LE 14. I just rec'd the Link turret ability. I just scored 1249 yesterday playing on Achilles I think. (almost all my points were from my sent & turret)?

And when you get to level 60 you can have 2 sentinels....
As you increase in levels now, you can increase ConstructionHealthBonus, ArmorVampire, ArmorRegen, ShieldRegen etc to help you keep alive. But there isn't really anything else that will increase your killing power, apart from minor adjustments to weapon speed and damage bonus. So, at 60, your killing power will have pretty much peaked. And by then you may be getting 1500 scores with the extra sentinel.
If you were level 100, your scores would be fine - its just a bit high for a level 60.
So my thought might still be that Engineers are peaking too soon, and we need to delay further when they can spawn the link turret and the second sentinel.

Z0G wrote:

Would it be too radical to suggest that we eliminate the vehicles?

There are other options. Not allow goliaths to be spawned before wave 12. Have the goliaths with the same fire power, but much less health - so monsters like brutes can take them out. We could reduce the firepower or fire rate.
Is the goliath worse than the link turret?

@ Szlat
My current theory of engineers being overpowered due to defense is based on these lines of logic, which I will explain by analogy.

What is the difference between a level 60 WM and a level 200 WM?
A level 60 WM can easily have all offensive abilties maxed except Advanced DB, if they want to. (That WM would have 133 points left after buying LW 5, max weapon speed and DB, easily enough to buy a few essential abilities not directly related to offense, like resupply) So in theory, a level 60 WM and a level 200 WM should be able to do nearly the same amount of damage, with the level 200 WM having about 7% more DPS.

But it seems obvious that most level 60 WMs do not score within 7% of high level WMs. It seems obvious that the difference is survivability; high level WMs can afford to be in the fray more.

I honestly don't think that there is much different between the DPS of an engineer who takes time off to heal junk and a WM with a good weapon (I could be terribly wrong though). The main difference IMO is that an engineer has more of an abilty to stand and fight, and also a faster recuperation time after the fight.

Your post did seem to indicate that an engineer can sacrifice the short term survivabilty of a sent in order to increase DPS, and simply rebuild afterward. So there are two paths, offense and defense, both overpowered? It's not too much of a stretch.

So sent damage output + occasional turret firing when sent is fully healed~~Weapon master damage output~~Full time turret damage output(is less than)Full time turret with Sents? And WM survivabilty~~Non-mid-battle healing Eng survivabilty(is less than)Mid battle healing Eng survivabilty? Eh...I'm not sure if I agree with my own conclusion...but it's not too much of a stretch.

Still, one key difference between WMs and Engineers is that an engineers main defence abilty is also their main offence ability: Loaded Engineer. Its a cheap abilty considering its usefulness. Maybe you (all of you devs) should consider, that instead of creating more limits on what you can get based on level, you should create more restrictive point costs for LE. This would attempt to either make engineers choose between LE and something else, and/or limit the amount of points engineers can spend on Weapon Speed/DB/etc early on.

Oh yeah, and I forgot about tanks in my 1st post, they do seem overpowered.

BTW, my less than symbols were acting up, thus the text versions.

FogRaider(_MM) wrote:

Still, one key difference between WMs and Engineers is that an engineers main defence abilty is also their main offence ability: Loaded Engineer. Its a cheap abilty considering its usefulness.

Yeah, perhaps LoadedEngineer is too cheap. Or perhaps we should increase the number of levels to 20 or 25. There are ways of balancing.
However, LoadedEngineer isn't really the Engineers best defense. It is probably ArmorVampire. The WMs survive due to Vampire. This is the Engineer equivalent. So perhaps scores will go up when Engineers are stronger defensively.

But lets put things in context. If Engineers can score up to 1500 at level 60, what scores can other classes get at 60?
I noticed a few days ago a level 53ish medic got 1100. And Hobo got around 1100 a month ago with his medic.

I scored 1250 b4 on my medic whos just hit 63...
Which is fairly good considering that the medics dont have much offensively..especially my medic whos damage bonus is only 26...so I dont think 1 k + scores for lvl 60 engineers is bad ..for skilled players....not syain im skilled cus i can onyl puill it off genrerally when Im amoung the higher players on ..but echo or caz come on im certain to to lose my lead but i think its pretty good...but yeah increasing the 2nd lvlv of amor vamp wudl be good..the first lvl doesnt do much ...

I do think the tanks are overpowered. If I had to choose between tanks and turrets I would suggest that tanks be eliminated or limited in some way b4 I would change turrets.

I personally feel that they are a great annoyance on small maps. Perhaps the space needed for spawning a tank could be increased. Not too close to walls or other items. (just a thought)

Is there any easy way to allow players to "walk through" blocks and still not allow monsters to do the same? That would help a lot.

I think we should wait awhile to get a good baseline of what people are capable of doing across the levels.

Even if one person is doing particularly well does not indicate that something is broken. If I looked at scores produced by Fro when he was playing his character without a class I would have to assume that playing without a class is broken or too powerful.

The engineer does not seem to be quite as hard as the adrenaline master, but also does not have the potential to lay down massive amounts of damage in a very small period of time.

A level 60 engineer can and has outscored me, and I'm a level 280+ Weapons Master. And he did that from a stationary position which is even more impressive.

{AW}Violator wrote:

A level 60 engineer can and has outscored me, and I'm a level 280+ Weapons Master. And he did that from a stationary position which is even more impressive.

There was one time that the same engineer player outscored both Violator and I thru 14 waves of a map. The only reason he lost to us was a direct hit to his turrent from rocks thrown by 3 titans at the same time on the 15th wave (I think).