Please do something about MINES

I've been playing this game for about a year now and I have worked my way to Nightmare League recently. I've been a VIP member for about 7 months. Every step of the way has been fun and I enjoy trying out new weapons, game modes, ships, talent trees, and everything else the game has to offer. Sure there are some bugs but that's not a deal breaker for me. Rovio seems to work hard at improving the game with each update. What's killing the game for me though isn't any of the bugs, it isn't the problems with matchmaking, the unregistered shots aren't fun but I can deal with that, but the mines are too much. Every single game I play the map becomes a mine field. Every choke point has a mine, all open areas have mines, events are unplayable because of mines. Something needs to be done, they need to be nerfed and I suggest 20%-25%. This alone would stop the mine spammers and make events fun again. I have at least 2-3 mine users per game and I feel like it gets worse in ranked.

My issues with mines don't stop at the absurd number per game but the absurd damage they do. They are among the highest hitting weapons in the game. Firebombs got nerfed because of the number of people using them and the damage they output but mines have yet to be touched. In fact Rovio just had an event for mines and gave them yet ANOTHER perk. They just made mines even stronger with the new perk. I've seen mines hit for 6k. Most epic mines can hit for about 5k-5.5k and a lot of the higher level players swap damage perks for range perks because they already hit for half of someones health. Very few weapons can hit for that much and most take some sort of set up. Let's take a brief look at the weapons that come close to that amount of damage. First we have cannons; Explosive cannons and blast cannons. Both require the target to be set on fire and/or crit perks. Either way they can't hit 4k+ on their own. Even if you have multiple crit perks on your cannon the chance of getting a crit is pretty low. This makes the crazy damage output from these acceptable because it's not every time. Now let's look at big torpedoes. In order to hit 5k+ you need all damage perks and you also have the small chance to set a ship on fire. Even if the fire damage isn't proportional to the damage done and always does max damage if it hits that's still not a massive deal considering it's still a small percent chance to set someone on fire. Big torpedoes are easy to dodge if they have all damage perks on them and you can avoid staying next to walls for the splash damage. You also have the option of using the frost torpedo combination but that takes a lot to set up, no one can hit them while they are frozen, and you still have to aim the torpedo so it's rare to get big shots like that.

Keeping those weapons in mind they all take something that mines do not, AIM AND SKILL. You have to aim most weapon to hit and most hard hitting weapons require something else to make them hard hitting. Mines do not. Mines hit harder then almost every weapon in the game and require no set up, no aim, and no skill and so many people are using them for this reason. You can block off area and sit in the back with a fixer and just wait. If you truly want to reward players for their skill then why do you still have mines hitting so hard? Speeders are becoming useless because of this and it fully encourages "bunker-ing". Why try to hit someone with a torpedo or a cannon or a mortar when you can sit in a corner and surround yourself with mines? You'll surely get a kill or capture the point that way. I know people are thinking, "just dodge them and you won't have an issue". It isn't that easy. You can't "just dodge" them in they are in every choke point and around every corner, you can't just run through them because they hit so hard, and you can't just wait for them to disappear because games are only 5 min long.

In conclusion mines need to be nerfed. They hit way to hard and require no skill to use which makes them way to abundant. Nerf them about 20% and it will solve these issues. I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way it's most of my guild, a lot of my friends, and a good amount of people in VIP chat agree. Please do something about mines. They are a good weapon (even if I hate them) and are essential to the game for a lot of peoples play style but there is no reason they should be one of the hardest hitting weapons in the game.

 

I have no problem with the damage. My beef is with the absurdly large hitboxes. If they were contact detonation (as they appear to be), they would be far less annoying. I should take 2k damage if I'm dumb enough to drive over this thing, but no way should I take 2k for driving next to it and not touching it whatsoever.

 

I agree mine spam gets out of hand and can prevent us from having fun, but I don’t think nerfing them is the answer
A mine is a stationary object, easily seen and easily avoided once noticed.
They need to have a devastating effect if someone runs into them! If not then what’s the point of using them?

 

I agree regarding the hitbox, reduce the radius and it will make it more balanced, its also frustrating when u in da banana boat and u see minefields like pimples on my face all around you, can't move= dead

pretty much what the op said, no skill required, all mines, charge and spit them things everywhere

 

I think for a weapon with as much damage as it does, it really shouldn’t be a one slot weapon, and/or the cooldown should raised, and/or the range should either be reduced to contact only or, directly next to it.

 

Then it’ll ruin its use on enforcer! Making it a two slot weapon isn’t the solution
Remember it’s not an almost guaranteed hit like cannons or most other weapons lol most mines sit around and do nothing for thier entire life span
Even when used by a good player, it still falls almost entirely on the victim to be either stupid or make a mistake to hit hit one
Yes spamming mines can make it almost impossible to avoid them, but remember spam is the problem not mines themselves

 

I don't think the Dmg Nerf would be enough to stop the spam. I'm not sure about the games under 3k infamy but in nightmare league minefields are like everywhere. The bigger issue is that it blows up even when you don't step on them which doesn't make any sense. It nearly one-shots a speeder, and it's truly hard for them to dodge mines simply because of their speed. I understand "mines" need to be deadly, so why it's just a 1 slot weapon ? Something that deals more than twice the damage of a weapon like rail gun should be alot more challenging to use. Not to mention the event perks have made the weapon balance a big joke.
Anyways, My solution would be any one from them:
1. Make it a 2 slot weapon. It will definitely prevent them from spamming.
2. Let us detonate mines by shooting torpedoes and napalms at them.(I don't prefer this one)
3. Raise it's CD time and drastically reduce its range and radius.
4. Raise its CD time and decrease its duration to half.

 

Mines can be used skillfully in some loadouts. Example:Mine+torpedo.

Nerfing mine directly will also hurt the skillful players not spamming. A simple solution is if a mine explodes, so do others near it. The mines set off by a chain reaction do 1/8 of the original damage.

 

1. I’d honestly hate for mines to be a 2 slot item! I don’t use my one much, but when I do it’s on enforcer if I couldn’t use it on enforcer I’d scrap it
2. I use to feel shooting mines to detonate them would be good but feel that it would open up a new exploit? Since their damage aoe is bigger then the proximity needed to detonate a user could simply lob them near an enemy then shot it them selves
3. I feel CD could be reduced but not thier range or radius (unless radius refers to proximity required for detonation and not damage aoe) simply because mines need to be placed where the enemy needs to go in order to be effective and if you need to expose yourself too much to place them then it becomes suicide
4. Duration could also work?

Tho these areas that seem ok to nerf will really hurt players who use only a single mine and aren’t simply trying to spam them
I know it’ll never happen but I think the best solution to mine spam is simply locking the ability to fit multiple mines to a boat and better match making so you don’t get mine heavy teams
Anything else will just ruin mines altogether lol not that I’d personally mind if they went the way of lube or rudder I have a leggy one that gathers dust for the most part I’d love to exchange for an ex cannon

At the end of the day none of those ideas or any others will deter mine spam! Look at most event mine spammers and you’ll see a shooter for instance who has 1 maybe 2 decent mines and 3 crap low tier and even rarity ones that don’t do much damage! most solutions I hear would likely have no impact on the players spamming them, and worse still nerfs effecting damage would quite possibly encourage more spammers as the rest of us stop fearing mines and become more likely to hit them giving spammers as much or even more overall damage
P.s I am in favour of getting rid of mine spam lol I don’t support it in anyway, I’m just scared of the item becoming redundant

 

maybe set a limit on the placeable mines so after the x amount has been placed, counting those undetonated, the earliest mine to have been placed will detonate allowing the most recent mine to be placed?

 

That I think would deter most people from spamming mines, but we’d still get the hoopleheads who’d try spam them anyway lol and they would hurt non spam users lol
And remember a large % of humans are exceptionally stupid so we’d still get a good number of spammers lol there has to be another way

 

I agree, their detonation radius need to be reduced. If I go next to a mine and it explodes It’s frustrating. But my problem isn’t so much the mine spammers with 2+ per ship it’s just the amount of mine users per game. It’s not just 1-2 people using mines, it’s 3-5 people per game. I can’t blame people, it’s by far the hardest hitting single slot weapon in the game and you can block off every choke point or entrance especially if you have a few mine users per team. The whole reason so many people are using them is because they hit so hard. If the damage was reduced 25% they wouldn’t become useless and would still be viable. Still 4k+ damage isn’t something to frown upon. You can still tactically place them in areas and and use them strategically. You would just have less people using them because they wouldn’t be extremely over powered damage wise. You also can’t increase the cooldown timer considering they released a legendary perk that reduces cooldown for mines. I believe a quick and easy fix to start with is a damage reduction. It might be a partial bandaid but it’s one the game needs.

 

One aspect that I believe has been ignored in this conversation so far, is that an effective mine user has to be within close range. Once you have made it through the missiles/firebomb/mortar bombardment, you still have the cannon/torpedo/grenades/mines to deal with. If you complain about mines while also using a high percentage of long range weapons...your arguments will fall on deaf ears if I am your expected audience! Also...you know you don't have to get near the big, bad, scary mines, right?

 

First, some people have mine range perks from events that make this less true. And second, that may be true of shooters but pretty much every other type of ship fights up close, or in the case of fixers ends up close due to needing to stay together. I'm not calling for a damage nerf just something to keep the number to a reasonable amount so the map doesn't look like it got a case of the chicken pox.

 

There are so many flaws in your argument and that’s why it hasn’t been addressed. All boats that need to get close or be front liners don’t play a part in your argument because they have to get close. There are many maps that you can’t just sit back and long range people due to the environment (rooftops, corners, arches, etc.) Also the fact that mines are so strong and allow people to hide near most capture points and just lay a mine field down. Not to mention mines on quick boats allow them to place the “Big scary mines” in most choke points that other boats need to pass through to get into the fight. Again, I understand they need to be a part of the game and they should be used like that but there is no reason they should hit so high and be able to hit you without event touching them. There is also the simple fact that one item, the mine, shouldn’t make all other close range weapons useless because you can’t ever get in range. That defeats the playstyle of a good portion of the community.

Most people place mines in key choke points before a single shot has been fired from either team. So there isn’t “making it through the fb, missiles, and cannons”. Just another thing to think about.

 

I would like to see Mines changed, so that they only do a very small amount of ‘subtraction’ damage, but a large amount of ‘division’ damage. For instance, a Mine might do: 100 + 50%(hp), where hp is the target’s remaining hp (the actual formula could vary based on training and what the devs think would be balanced).

For example: if a Fixer with 3000hp remaining, were to trigger the above Mine, then she would receive 100+1500=1600 damage, leaving her on 1400hp. However, if she then hit a second Mine (exactly the same), she would only receive 100+700=800 damage.

This would mean that Mines are still very useful, for softening up enemy targets, but it would get rid of the annoying ‘instant death’ out of nowhere, while you still have 2/3 of your hp left.

Mines should be something that ‘assists’ your team in scoring kills, rather than something that does all the killing for you (unless the target is very weak). That makes more sense to me, for a weapon that is primarily random luck, rather than aimed.

 

I thought about suggesting this too. Mine damaging in % but it would be horrible for the defenders. A single mine taking out 12k from a 24k HP defender.

 

Did you just assume that Fixers gender!?

 

Defenders would lose the most, but they also have the most to start with, and would end up with the most. Proportionally, they actually lose the least, and they’re also the least susceptible to mines in general.

Under the current system I can lose ~75% of my ‘total’ hp to a single Mine. So I would argue that the current system is much more ‘horrible’.

The Fixer is entirely hypothetical, and I decided (given an inadequate selection of personal pronouns) that ‘she’ would self-identify as female, because why not?