Ideas: New Blue Items

Hey, Battle Bay!
We currently have a cool variety of blue items that do a good job of covering all of our base stats and a bit of self-healing, but something feels weird: we only have a single 2 point item to choose from, the big shield. There's some discussion about the repair pulse going on as well, and I thought maybe blue items need more variety, too. If you have any cool ideas for new blue items, 1 or 2 points, shoot them below! I'm curious to hear about more blue item ideas!

 

I'll drop one of my own ideas here.

Overshield [2pt]
edit: alternate name "Regenerative Shield" suggested by @StormDevastator

This is an alternative option for players who use the bandage. It does not give the player more health, but instead has its own health, similar to a Tesla Shield. Damage is dealt to the Overshield instead of the player until its health is depleted (extra damage on breaking the shield does carry over).

Its health is about the same as a standard shield. It heals 10% of its health per second if the player doesn't take any damage for 10 seconds, or 5 seconds for burn damage.

So it heals faster than a bandage, but it doesn't work in combat and cannot be repaired by a fixer. This is an item that rewards hit-and-run or shoot-and-cover strategists, as they can quickly regenerate their Overshields behind cover. Its weakness is its low health for 2 points. It can be easily countered by overwhelming the user with focused firepower, as it only has enough hitpoints to save a couple of shots before needing to regenerate.

Update: I made some visuals to better explain the item.

The example here is a player with 500hp looking to take either a Standard Shield with 500 hp or an Overshield with 500 hp (example's numbers set to make visualization easier)
A - Equipped Standard Shield - in this example, the player simply has 1000hp (500 base hp + 500 std shield hp)
B - Equipped Overshield - in this example, the player has 500 hp and a second life bar with 500 hp (the gray life bar does not display its hp, so its hp is ambiguous to the enemy, like the tesla shield's)
C - Equipped multiple Overshields - simply showing what multiple Overshields look like. Damage starts from the top bar (weakest first) and works its way down to the ship's hp.
D - Equipped Overshield, lost 250 health, then regenerated Overshield - in this example, the player's Overshield had been broken, then they took 250 damage to their ship. They then retreated to cover and regenerated their Overshield. The gray bar was refilled, but they remain at 250 hp. Only a fixer or bandage can refill the ship's (green) health. Conversely, if a fixer came to help this player out, they could only refill the green portion, while the gray portion would remain empty until it healed on its own. As far as fixers and bandages are concerned, if this player's Overshield is broken, they only really have 500 max hp.

 

Enhanced Turbo [2pt]
edit: alternative name "Twin Turbo" I forgot who mentioned this, sorry (point yourself out if you want lol)
This is an alternative option for the turbo. It's a little more effective than the turbo, boosts acceleration, and gives an agility boost. It could be used in place of a turbo+rudder instead of a big shield, and the acceleration boost is unique.

Edit: Maybe make it give some frost resistance? It needs to be appealing enough that players would give up a big shield for it, after all.

 

Scrambler [1pt] [2pt]
Equpping this blue item makes you invisible on the enemy team's minimap. Additionally, if an unfriend spots you, the rest of their team is not given vision of you. This item can be used to assist in flanks or assassinations without the enemy team taking notice. Pair it with a turbo and a big shield or the aforementioned overshield on a speeder and you have a solid assassin setup. Since it's a 2pt item now, I'd drop the overshield and pair it with a turbo and bandage.

Leveling up this item decreases the user's visibility range. A maxed legendary would reduce the range to about half the original distance. This item's effects do not stack with duplicates. Firing temporarily disables its effects for 5 seconds (firing torpedoes and mines does not). Edit: Taking any form of damage also disables its effects for 5 seconds.

 

Now that is interesting. You'd need to make it also so that it breaks upon being hit and torpedos should definitely count. But yeah, I like the idea of limited stealth.

 

Torpedo attacks are the culmination of stealth attacks though lol they have no flash when firing. By that logic, dropping mines shouldn't cause you to become visible either. Remember that you can still see the projectile being launched. I will edit in that its effect is broken when shot for 5 seconds.

 

So this basically a balance between bandage and shield...thats what i need...hehe

 

I agree...

 

Honestly, stealth is such a potential game-breaking feature that if Rovio is intrigued by this they'll need endless design discussions then play tests to get it balanced. Even extremely limited stealth would turn what I do day-in, day-out on my speeder into something vastly more powerful. When I'm approaching the unfriend team it's always the approach itself that is the most dangerous. Even if it turned off the moment I used any ability or got within X units of them it'd be a game-changer because I'd still have my nitro and overboost when it became time to flee. I can only imagine the sort of kamikaze run I could do on my shooter if they allowed all that firepower to get in among them undetected.

Even so, I really hope Rovio takes a look at the idea. I like adding a new battle mechanic with potentially complex interactions into the game. If they do look at it, I hope they look at limited and partial visual stealth packaged along with it.

 

All of this happened in less than 10 minutes?! Are you tired from typing?

 

I work an 8 hour grave shift 5 days a week, you would not believe how much free time I have. It took me less than a week to go from new member to well-known member lol.

You're absolutely right. Maybe it should be a 2pt item so that you have to give up loads of hp for it. I think adding my sonar idea from another thread would help counter it efficiently as well.

 

The sonar idea goes well with this. Adding a slot point wouldn't balance it. Nothing can balance something which is "game breaking". The effect itself has to be balanced. Again, I'm all in favor of this idea. And I'm in favor of it for exactly this reason.... that it's a brand new mechanic in the game which is what makes it potentially game breaking. But the balancing bit is going to need to be performed by Rovio. I don't think us armchair game designers have the focus or time to really do the job.

 

True... glad to have you on board lol

 

Bump

 

I'd be a big fan of this! So troublesome having to have either a fixer or a bandage to heal up!

 

I'm gonna add a poll real quick. Lemme hear some more ideas from everyone! Even if you've made your own thread for blue item ideas, let's bring them all to one place! I'll add your ideas to the poll as well ^^

 

they should combine rudder and gearlube into 1 item, make the overall stats less ofcourse, but it would be more popular on more ships than they are individually.
PS. im so sick and tired of ONLY getting those 2 in epic combines

 

Interesting idea, but most people don't use either of them so they'd probably still cast it aside lol. What if there was a 2pt item that did the job of the turbo, rudder, and gear lube?

 

that would be op. Defenders would become as mobile as enforcers, but with 16k hp

I cast rudder and gearlube aside, cause they are horrible seperatly. Joined i think they would work wonders on mk6 shooter, defender and speeder.
Fixers would benefit so much aswell, but they arent alowed 3 blues.
On that topic, still dont understand why speeders should be tankier that fixers. So unfair my fixer cant wear a big shield

 

Wow, very nice ideas. I would like to see all of them but especially a stealth item. I thinking it must be a yellow item but i love this too. I hope devs will add more items and mechanics. That would be awesome!