[T:V] Packs revisited.

I just thought of something... The "jammer" has long been the red-headed stepchild of the "used" packs. Even with the "active all the time" classic pack, it's only marginally useful.

Combine the personal Jammer with a VERY scaled down shield pack for the active mode, say about half of the Shields passive mode, with about double it's energy draw.

Counter-argument/opinions?

My pack observations:

This (http://images.tribalwar.com/images/tribalwar/media/55/repairpack-tw_1280.jpg) is obviously a Repair Pack


Ehrr no.... why it is obvious a repair pack?
I only see 1 repair kit and a sniper rifle.

I have a pic of it

http://www.tentharmored.net/images/hosted/Repairpack.gifhttp://www.tentharmored.net/images/hosted/Repairpackext.gif

And it's obvious because it has the same activation key as the other packs...
http://www.tentharmored.net/images/hosted/Unknownpack1.gif
and we know that the pack mounting point is on the hip.
http://www.tentharmored.net/images/hosted/Unknownpack1ext.gif

Hmm...

The main problem is not with HOs. It's with the light armor. In arena and other dueling gametypes, the medium with a shield and chaingun can simply whore the light until the sun goes down.

I just thought of something... The "jammer" has long been the red-headed stepchild of the "used" packs. Even with the "active all the time" classic pack, it's only marginally useful.

Combine the personal Jammer with a VERY scaled down shield pack for the active mode, say about half of the Shields passive mode, with about double it's energy draw.

Counter-argument/opinions?

I use the jammer pack extensively in Classic. Its really only useful when its "always on" so I agree with the comment about the jammer in Base. I find it preferable to not be visible to turrets or radar especially since the Classic maps are HO friendly. Ill even use it in medium or light armor occasionally. I use it more often than any pack other than the energy pack. And I almost never go HO without it on.

At this point I think there's some type of cloak pack, at least in single player.

The main problem is not with HOs. It's with the light armor. In arena and other dueling gametypes, the medium with a shield and chaingun can simply whore the light until the sun goes down.

Repair pack. Unless it gets left out of arena, a whoring S-packer will lack the ability to efectively killshot a light with a repair pack.

Frankly I think that the shield will go the way of the heavy in Arena (if it's in T:V at all,) simply because of the imbalance it offers in damage absorbption, same thing with the Repair pack. If you get dangerously low on life, you run your ass off and hope your teammates can pick up the slack until you've gotten repaired by your trusty little repairpack monkey.

Seriously, with a repairpack or a shield pack (or both) on the arena field, it boils down to a contest of ammo conservenancy. If you can't KILL the enemy outright, you're better off not shooting till you can.

I use the jammer pack extensively in Classic. Its really only useful when its "always on" so I agree with the comment about the jammer in Base. I find it preferable to not be visible to turrets or radar especially since the Classic maps are HO friendly. Ill even use it in medium or light armor occasionally. I use it more often than any pack other than the energy pack. And I almost never go HO without it on.

Yes, and I will agree with you that the classic pack is the most useful of the incarnations (barring the jacked up, hideously overpowered stealth-shield from a T1 mod that actually provided the inspiration for my idea) but it should have an active mode that's at least as useful as the repair pack's or the E-pack's, right?

Any other ideas for an Active Jammer Pack mode?
(no, I am NOT asking for "cloak effect" to be it. This is before T1, and cloaking was "new" tech in T2)

I don't think neither the new repair pack, or the shield(assuming it's in, and has a similar function as before) have the potential to make arena fun. It might seem like a good idea to keep diversity, but I don't think it's worth it if you basically ruin the reason anyone ever plays it.

I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy being whored by a shielded light/medium, and I'm pretty sure I won't enjoy trying to kill people who flee every 20 seconds to whore the repair pack. Hell, I doubt you'd even need to run. Just inject yourself and pull your gun back out.

Assumptions, but that's all I can go on right now. Thrax, feel free to jump in and correct/calm them, if you wish.

I don't think neither the new repair pack, or the shield(assuming it's in, and has a similar function as before) have the potential to make arena fun. It might seem like a good idea to keep diversity, but I don't think it's worth it if you basically ruin the reason anyone ever plays it.
Agreed.

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Hell, I doubt you'd need to run. Just inject yourself and pull your gun back out., You can trigger the pack without changing weapons. The constant (passive) effect is to repair you continously, so if you run, it's just to buy time till your repairpack shovels you full of life.

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Arena should be about Skill and the Golden Rule of combat. "Do unto others, before they do unto you."

Not "I'm a fudgeing turrent, short and stout. Here is my shield pack, and my bullet spout."

You don't need to alter the base gameplay that will be in most T:V gametypes (CTF,Ball,C&H type game) just because there's a problem with one of the gametypes. Shield too powerful in arena? Take it out of arena. Same with the repair pack.

Exactly the approach I recommend Theta.

Ugh, but that destroys a big part of what makes Tribes Arena different from <a lot of other games> Arena. The variety of packs is a *good thing* and adds to the strategies possible in Arena. If you remove both the Shield Pack (assuming it's in) and the Repair Pack from Arena, you're pretty much just left with everyone using the Energy Pack or the other unannounced pack (which I doubt will be as useful as the aforementioned packs in Arena).

I'd like to keep a great deal of the choices available in Arena, and would hate to see it turn it into a gametype in which players are forced into a specific pack or weapons.

I also think most of the items and equipment available in CTF should be available in Arena as well, just for the sake of consistency.

and would hate to see it turn it into a gametype in which players are forced into a specific pack
That's the goal with considering the removal of the packs as well. Because if you have to use X-pack to win, you are forced just as much as if you didn't have X-pack to play with. With only 4 packs to choose from however, it's an easy choice between 2-3 ok packs and 1-2 gamebreakingly powerful ones available (that offset each other in advantages to boot), and 2-3 equally balanced packs.

The problem with having stuff available in CTF and Arena simply for consistancy is that you get the Heavy and the mortar right back too. If it breaks the game it either needs to be changed or go away. Arena might need to lose the repair pack and shield pack, along with the heavy and mortar. (or have them radically altered like the sniper rifle.)

I don't play Arena competitively, so I may be way off base, but I think that the repair pack as it will exist for CTF might be too powerful for Arena.

I agree that there needs to be some differences in gameplay and weapon/equipment availability, and I think the Heavy Armor (and thus the Mortar) should definately be removed from Arena, and depending on how powerful the Sniper Rifle is, that as well.However, I would hope that such inconsistencies would be minimized.

I personally don't see the Shield Pack or Repair Pack as being overpowered in Arena at all. Most of us have never used either pack in T:V (or even played T:V period), so we don't know exactly how powerful either pack is... but of course we can speculate.

Just as a note; the Repair Pack was almost never used in T1 Arena.
The way I see it; In indoor Arena maps, most players will end up using either the Shield Pack or the Repair Pack.
In T1 the case was that most players just used the Shield Pack.
In outdoor Arena maps, most players will end up using either the Energy Pack or the Repair Pack.
Competitvely, in T1 Arena, outdoor maps (Dangerous Crossings comes to mind) usually had at least 2 players on the team get in Shield, and at least 2 players get an Energy Pack for the Sniper Rifle. I felt that the major reason that the Shield Pack was used at all outdoors was to absorb sniper fire, and chainwhore -- hopefully the Sniper Rifle will not be in T:V Arena, and it seems like chainwhoring will not be as effective anymore.

This is an idea of how I think the packs in T:V should be balanced. I'm going to assume that the four packs will be the Energy Pack, the Repair Pack, the Shield Pack, and the Sensor Jammer/Cloak Pack.
Each pack should have an environment that is advantageous to it in a 1v1 fight. Here are my ideas, corresponding to each pack.

Energy Pack -- outdoors map, ledges for flying on top of for height advantage
Repair Pack -- a hilly, large outdoor map, with plenty of space to run away if necessary and facilitating hit and run attacks
Shield Pack -- small indoor map
Sensor Jammer/Cloak Pack -- turreted map (not sure how cloaking would work, and I'm not going to speculate here)

Now the way I feel is that if a person using a specific pack is on a map where their pack has the advantage, he/she should almost always win in a 1v1 battle (assuming that both players have about equal skill).

I guess my simple point is that I don't think the Shield Pack and Repair Pack will be overly powerful in Arena, and I feel that there will be (or should be) a good amount of balance between the packs.

I guess we'll have to wait until beta to really find out, but I certainly hope that the beta is released with all the packs included in Arena at first -- we can remove the "bad" ones later if necessary.

I guess we were having a similar discussion over here; http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=280092&page=3

Has Arena been listed as a T:V base gametype?

No!?

Then it's totally a moot point. If the T:V Dev team does not include Arena as a base gametype, then it will be modded as it was in the previous games. As such, the developers of the Arena mod can choose to exclude or include whatever they feel like.

If Arena is included, and you dislike it, mod it and call it Arena2.

Yes it has (by "base gametype" I assume you mean a gametype that ships with the game).

I would prefer that there not be a mod for Arena, and rather have it so that it's done right the first time around. I seems like you never played Arena very much and that's probably why you have the "if you don't like it, mod it" mentality (I could be wrong).

I feel that mods of gametypes are generally bad for the gametype as they usually just end up splitting the community over relatively small changes.

Has Arena been listed as a T:V base gametype?

No!?

Then it's totally a moot point. If the T:V Dev team does not include Arena as a base gametype, then it will be modded as it was in the previous games. As such, the developers of the Arena mod can choose to exclude or include whatever they feel like.

If Arena is included, and you dislike it, mod it and call it Arena2.

I took KP's comment (http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5951187# 5951187) in the Arena thread to mean that there will be an arena game type in the box. Or atleast something very much like it (Maybe better, they have been doing some very cool stuff so far).

In the IGN video interview, it was established that there will be an arena gametype. They didn't say if it'll be called that, but I really don't see the point in changing the name.

You don't need to alter the base gameplay that will be in most T:V gametypes (CTF,Ball,C&H type game) just because there's a problem with one of the gametypes. Shield too powerful in arena? Take it out of arena. Same with the repair pack.
I never said change it, I was just expressing my concern and hopes of seeing a certain degree of restriction. I don't know how this would work out with the dev's consistency approach for the game, having some things in one gametype, but taking them out in another. I'm just worried they'll make CTF without the flags, and stamp the name 'arena' on it.(Not that I don't have faith in thrax and IG..)