Let turrets fire when carried

[danielduner]

Since #204 and #208 turrets no longer fire when you carry them. I suggest that we revert that change, because it was totally awesome and added detail and polish to the game.

The change was because lvl3 turrets became an overpowered weapon when carried. But instead of removing an awesome detail from the game (turrets shooting when being carried) we should balance this in another way.

Other solutions:

• Add a recoil effect, so that you get pushed back when carrying a turret that fires - more powerful turret gives more knockback, making it harder to use
• Make the turrets less powerful or more expensive
• Make sure the hand-weapon scales better, by making it upgradable or adding more weapons (so that it's less atttractive to carry a turret)

[eterzenbach]

i like it more the way it is now. like someone said in an old thread, carrying turrets should have a drawback.
and daniel, you should be working on something else ;)

[danielduner]

The drawback is that you can't fire your own weapon!

Turrets firing when you carry them was one of the things that made me fall in love with this game. It just feels awesome.

[master-lincoln]

I also like the feature...

Another idea for a drawback would be to make the player slower in movement when carrying sth.

This would make it a pain to place turrets or harvesters. But this could be changed if we have the railcart

[danielduner]

Another possible drawback is that you can't pick up money when carrying a turret.

[eterzenbach]

ok, i agree this could also be balanced in other ways. it's just my personal opinion, that carrying a turret while it's firing as hell feels somehow not right. also we haven't even started with balancing, that is imho a complete different issue.
sorry, but clearly -1

[danielduner]

The feature was only removed due to balancing. Which makes that decision to remove it invalid (because we haven't started balancing).

Also, if your problem is that it's firing as hell: we could make it fire at a slower pace when being carried. There are lots of ways to fix it, that doesn't include removing an awesome detail from the original game.

[eterzenbach]

what you recognize as an awesome detail, bugged me already, when i was watching the lifestream. really, i thought wtf?! they gotta fix that! i was happy, when it was removed for whatever reason ;)

[xDreamCoding]

+1 daniel.. i loved it when i played it the first time and bought a turret and it was shooting my way trough to the spot i wanted to place it.
I was like sadface when i saw it doesnt work anymore

[Flet]

Honestly, turrets shooting while carrying makes little sense to me.

As a game design decision, having turrets not fire while holding adds some tension to the game. The player has to be strategic in placing turrets now. There is a clear cost (running without shooting) and a clear benefit to that cost in the end (turret in a remote spot killing baddies).

Is it clear enough to run out with a turret? should I drop the turret and clear more space with my gun?

This additional bit of tension, in my mind, makes the game more dynamic and more fun. Standing in one place while the turret shoots down all baddies in every direction is neat, but as a game mechanic it feels like it could make the game less dynamic and not captivate the players attention as long. "The game is easy, just make a sentry and carry it everywhere."

While its "cool" and makes the player feel powerful, I feel strongly that it makes the game less interesting in the long run.

[eterzenbach]

You Sir, are a master of argument!

[xDreamCoding]

@Flet your argument is invalid because turrets are truely op atm.

why would you walk with a slow firing turret when u could just simply clear out the creeps with your handgun?

[Flet]

@xDreamCoding Indeed, turrets are overpowered right now, but it does not make my argument invalid.

What is the intent of the turrets? are they intended to be a weapon the player carries around?

Okay, assume it fires slower when being carried, It still auto aims with great accuracy in all directions. So, should that be tweaked as well? Why even give any incentive to use a carried turret as a weapon? Having the turret fire at all decreases the tension by reducing the cost of carrying a turret and thus reduces the reward of having a remote turret setup.

What makes carrying a turret that shoots cool? How could this be designed to do that cool thing while still making the game challenging and rewarding? Should this cool feature of turrets be a reward for leveling up?

[xDreamCoding]

I'm all for a leveling system with talents/perks to spec into after every level... why not make a gunner tree and a gadgeteer tree.
both of which improve/enhance the use of their respectiv features

[oncet]

I, sincerely, loved turrets firing while carrying them, but it's just a minor detail in my opinion. Slowing moving speed while carrying sounds nice (btw, I've seen other mods adding a "sweat" feature which is very nice).

[Flafla2]

We could also disable it if you are playing on hard/nightmare and enable it on easy/normal.

[Shephiroth]

I have another idea to "balance" it.

While carrying turret, turret get level -1. Wich means, if turret basic = no fire. turret+1 = turret basic fire, etc.....

This way, is better for the player to place it instead of carrying.

[aattss]

I think that it should not be okay unless it's a really high-end perk that's very hard to get, and the recoil would remain. Other than it not being usable in maps with lots of black spaces, it would make the game more interesting in multiplayer.

[danielduner]

@Flet
The tension comes from the difference (handgunEfficieny - carriedTurretEfficiency = lostEfficiencyWhenCarrying). The simple solution is to not remove the nice detail of the turrets firing, but to make the difference large enough. It doesn't have to be (handgunEfficiency - 0 = handgunEfficiency). To get the tension it would be enough to have (handgunEfficiency - 0.1_handgunEfficiency = 0.9_handgunEfficiency). Possibly with an additional drawback like recoil, which would further increase the tension.

@ Everyone
Please stop arguing from a balancing stand point. Your assumption that it will be too powerful is not valid, because balancing will make sure that it's always disadvantageous to carry a turret.

[Shephiroth]

Add @ yourself into that @ everyone.
that efficiency formula is balance.

Arguing about type of drawbacks is design matter, the quantity/quality of them is balance matter.

[danielduner]

Huh? I'm not arguing for turrets firing from a balancing stand point. I'm arguing for it because it adds polish, detail and awesome to the game. And that we shouldn't remove things that were in the original game, unless we really need to (this is the only thing that has been removed, as far as I know).

I am only presenting balancing arguments to point out that there are other solutions to that issue. So no, I'm not arguing for this because of balancing issues.

[eterzenbach]

it's not a fact, that it adds polish, detail and awesome to the game, just your personal opinion. to me it looks awkward and unpolished. that may also be the reason why it was (still) in the original version. because mojang had no time to polish.

[Flet]

I guess its a matter of opinion. It does not feel like "polish" to me.

As long as there is a real cost for carrying them, which there is not currently, I'm cool.

[danielduner]

@Elosanda
Of course it's my personal opinion. Design is mostly about such concerns. But if makes you happier: I'm arguing for it because I strongly feel it adds polish, detail and awesome to the game. ;)

[eterzenbach]

It's just not the expected behavior of a portable device like this.
Do you also feel the need for the harvester to be active while being carried?

[Flafla2]

Okay, so let's combine the popular ideas. How about when the turret is carried:

• There is recoil
• Player movement is slowed(just a little, so as not to be annoying)
• Turret's level gets lessened by 1(as @Shephiroth has suggested)

I think that that would make everyone happy, right?

[dredclaw]

As much as I love the feature of a turret shooting while in your hand, like a few have said, it is a mechanic that makes sense and adds tension when you are forced to move your turrets.

Dont forget that some of these features could be developed and added, if we did not like them we could always tweak or remove them.

[danielduner]

@Elosanda
Having something behave as expected is very important in many situations, where the player would otherwise have a hard time figuring out what's going on. But I don't think this is the case here: if the turret fires the player will instantly understand how it works.

I am convinced that most players will be positively surprised (and get a nice feeling) when turrets fire when carried. But we don't have any actual data on this. Perhaps we could try to collect some empirical data, by asking a bigger group of players about things like this?

@Flafla2
Making the player move slower makes intuitive sense, but getting turrets to the front lines already takes very long. So perhaps it would be mostly annoying to reduce movement speed? (This a current problem, though, and might be fixed some other way.)

And rather than decreasing the level (which would look weird) I think it would be better to just reduce some properties (range, accuracy, power) with a suitable percentage. I think it is important to reduce range a lot, especially if we add recoil. It is a good way to reduce the turret's potency, but also a good way to avoid triggering the recoil effect too often (which would be annoying to the player)

[Shephiroth]

"And rather than decreasing the level (which would look weird) I think it would be better to just reduce some properties (range, accuracy, power)"
And what do you think level does??? Change sprite, add a second gun, add speed, add range, add dmg..........

[danielduner]

The level changes the sprite and behaviour of the turret. If the turret changes type (sprite and number of cannons) when picked up, it would be very confusing for the player. Just using the values (power, speed, range etc.) from the lower-level turret wouldn't be a good idea either, as that would give us less parameters to change when balancing the game.

[aattss]

I'm going to agree with Dredclaw. I think it's more interesting when you can't just go to the opposite side of the map while carrying a turret. I'd prefer it when you can't venture too far into area not being covered by other turrets.

[jakub-stejskal]

+1
I agree with Daniel. I considered turrets shooting while being carried to be really cool detail.

I think decreasing accuracy of the carried turret would make the most sense and be the most "realistic" - the movement confuses the aiming system of the turret.
I also think that recoil would be major annoyance for the player, as it would unexpectedly move him from his path (possibly into a hole or an enemy) and prevent him from controlling his character - what a "feature" to hate :-)

[Maescool]

I agree with @jakub-stejskal it should be demoted to carry the turrets, because we disabled the turrets firing while carried because the players were using the turrets in stead of their gun..