Increasing Rocket spawntime

[Alxa]

Hi!

I think the Rocket harms CtF gameplay. It destroys any kind of strategy your team is trying to create. It's even worst when you're on the losing team, because the other team has much better map control and obviously has control of the rocket.

Basically, it unbalances unbalanced matches even more. On D&C and BB it isn't as bad, but the problem still exist.

What i suggest to solve this problem is to reduce the rocket spawntime.

On "CtF" it could spawn only 3 times per match; at 7:30, 5:00 and 2:50.

On "Defend-and-Control" and "Bomberball" it could spawn 5 times per match; at 10:00, 8:00, 6:00, 4:00 and 2:00

This way, the rocket wouldn't ruin the strategy your team has and it would make the fights for it even more fun. What do you guys think?

[shirepirate]

re doesnt have powerups like quad dmg, so its important to have a fun factor. it could possibly be reduced to 2:00 spawn times instead of 1:00, but it might be a better idea to just weaken it's area of effect or nerf it in some other more appropriate way. the tradeoff for its power is respawn times are not very long and there is health regen. that's why there's no rocket in survivor/duel.

[molexted]

Currently, rocket spawns are very difficult to predict, especially for the people not present when the rocket was last grabbed.
Effectively, making the rocket spawn at certain times rather than after a cooldown is tantamount to adding a timer; you can quickly look at the clock and determine when the next rocket is going to spawn.

I would think that a similar effect would be caused by adding a warning or timer to the rocket spawn so that a team has a chance to make a coordinated effort rather than just hoping to control the middle of the map long enough for it to spawn. This would make it easier for the "down" team to make a move in order to contest the rocket spawn from the "up" team, because as it is currently implemented, the "up" team with control over the center of the map is extremely likely to happen to be present to pick up the rocket. Making the rocket spawn more obvious and easy to plan around would be a more useful way to allow the "down" team to capture a rocket and perhaps change the momentum of the game than reducing its presence outright. Really, the entire point of such a weapon is to promote a change in momentum and reducing its presence would, in my opinion, make team games even more a challenge of weapon skill rather than tactical use of a short term advantage (the rocket) in order to gain an advantage.

While setting times for the rocket spawns would make it possible to at least know when the next rocket shows up, it is easy to lose track of arbitrary numbers on the game timer (especially if they differ in different gamemodes, like you propose) . Having a dedicated countdown would likely be more intuitive and useful than just fixing the spawns to the game clock.

I'd like for the rocket to remain a weapon which almost guarantees at least one kill; I'd be weary of nerfing it to the point of being only somewhat more valuable than an ordinary grenade.

To be clear, I am not personally opposed to fixing times on the game clock when the rocket spawns; however, I do think that just relying on the game clock to predict rocket spawning is probably not intuitive enough while in the thick of a battle.

[qreeves]

I actually like the idea of a countdown timer on the HUD. The other option is how other games handle the Quad-damage, by announcing that it is going to spawn (Sauer uses "in ten seconds.." for the Quad and Health Boost).

[freezurbern]

A countdown timer that appears just before the spawn, say a minute out would be interesting.