CommunityFortress

Time for a lil day dreaming. A lil long winded, although it coulda been longer because there are a bunch of features I want to see changed/random ideas I have. Click read more to see my ideas regarding the Heavy Weapon's shotgun and the Demoman's Scottish Resistance.

Heavy Weapons Guy: Decrease the amount of time it takes to change to the shotgun from the mini-gun.

While the mini-gun cool down plays a small but important role in the mechanics of the mini-gun itself, the amount of time that it takes to change from the mini-gun to the shotgun is prohibitively slow. The cool down of the mini-gun is in place to ensure that the decision to start winding up has some sort of impact. If a heavy decides to wind up they are slowed down during that duration. Once they choose to stop winding and pick their gun back up they are at a disadvantage as they are unable to fire. The cool down animation (during which the heavy can walk at full speed) can be interrupted by the decision to start winding up again. However, one cannot interrupt the animation by switching to shotgun.

I believe this is a hold over from the desire to get away from CS style quick switches (Awp -> knife -> Awp) and should be done away with. Enabling the wind-down animation to be interrupted by switching to shotgun cannot be exploited to get a quicker wind-up as the wind-down animation can be interrupted at anytime to re-wind. Once full walking speed is returned, the switch to shotgun should be enabled. Due to the prevalence of sandvichs, there needs to be more reason for Heavies to use the shotgun. This switch would promote shotgun usage in the middle of fights and promote mobility. Defensive heavies will still most likely stick with the sandvich, but for attacking heavies the ability to use the shotgun in between mini-gun positions would be very beneficial. This change doesn't alter how awesome Sandviches are, it just provides more attacking options for the heavy.

Scottish Resistance: Fix sticky jumps and re-work detonation process

I love the Scottish Resistance as a concept. In pub games, where the crowds usually offer a demo more protection against a scout running right up to their face the SR is a dominating force. In the competitive game, one big issue stands in the way of its integration more than anything else, sticky jumping. Using the SR for sticky jumping is very unpredictable. Sometimes a single sticky does extra damage and launches you very far, sometimes you can get the no-look jump det working fine, and sometimes you are just out of range of the auto-detect detonation range.

The damage numbers and launching potential definitely needs to be made consistent. If scottish sticky jumps deal slightly more damage than a single regular sticky, but less than a double sticky jump, the SR demoman would have to use different rollouts. In some cases they might end up getting their faster. In others they'd be slower. And that's alright. But without the ability to make consistent jumps, it won't be brought out very often in the competitive scene. If it is no-look dets that are causing the problem, then get rid of em. The consistancy issue is whats worse, if the SR demo knows they must look at their sticky to jump, then they'll do it every time. The no-det spacing is consistant, so if thats not whats causing the damage variability, leave it in and SR demos will  get their spacing/timing down.

Another thing I'd like to see with the SR, is a circle that demonstrates the area in which the SR's directional laser pointer will activate stickies. Yes they light up when you look at them, but being an SR demo is all about spacing your stickies out. With a clear indicator of where your laser range is, it'd be easier to plan your distribution. This could be setup with a custom crosshair, which maybe could be set to match the toggling between the SR and regular stickied, but a direct implementation would be prefered. Especially if there was a way to tweak the size of the circle you are using on the fly.  Larger circles would grant easier dets, but would almost limit the player to only setting SR stickies in 4 directions. Smaller circles would be more helpful when trying to hold a choke points or planting multiple traps in a small area. Of course with a smaller circle, the demoman needs to be more precise where they are looking when they det. Thus the desire for on the fly manipulation during panic moments. With the circle size bound to your mouse wheel, the SR demoman would have much more control over what they are detting and where.

The SR would still have it's limitations in terms of detonation timing, but it's laser-pointer mechanics would be more clearly communicated with the player through the use of the detonation circle. The ability to change it's size would allow demomen to be more precise with their dets and raise the skill level of the weapon.