Would you buff Kevlar?

[Queen of Love 451]

We are looking KV3 in the wrong way.

More Health defines less Speed.

Why?

 

Let's try to give different penalty to the Health benefits , KV3=health 30% :

1. +Reload mag reduced. KV4 +35%
2. +Zoom Aim slower. KV5 +40%
3. +Increase jump landing damage, KV6 +45%

this is some example, but there could be more. (less magazines, orange mod cooldown increase..)

 

[Todesklinge 143]

This is the only way to balance all green modifications in the game.

 

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by Todesklinge

[Nagletz 215]

There is a lot of ways to balance it. Currently, I don't see any reason that Kev3 should compete CA3, it's a risky mod, and ppl choose it on their own risk. Any kind of buff may made the game unplayable for non-kevlar users, so it's better be left untouched. (or if u so impatient, make very small movement buff, like I said before, but not sure about it already)

[mojical 159]

23 hours ago, Frosi said:

 

I think in an ideal world Clotting agent and base regen should be looked at in a way that doesn't change how the regen speeds etc work currently. What I mean with this is to take the route of making CA2 (Currently the fastest regen in the game) the BASE regen, this is to primarily help out new players. On top of that Clotting Agent 3 simply turns into "Clotting Agent", this would mean that a lot of math would have to be done to keep CA3's regen speeds the same as it is now due to the base regen being the equivalent to CA2 now. This work however would free up a lot of potential buffs to underused green mods to not necessarily make them become meta but put them in a more healthy spot compared to Clotting Agent. 

 

This is a very good idea in my opinion. Both Kevlar and Flak arguably suffer more from not being stackable with CA3 than from their own downsides, even though consumables partly alleviate this.

However, I wouldn't reduce CA3 to a single level, but turn CA1 into "CA2.33", CA2 into "2.66" and CA3 being the exact same as it is now, to allow for more flexibility in between current CA2 and CA3.

 

If D is the base (unmodded) delay before regen and T is the time it takes to regenerate, we would have according to the mods' stats:

Current CA2: 0.5D, 1.5T (-50% delay, +50% time)

Current CA3: 0.2D, 2T (-80% delay, +100% time)

 

Here's what new stats for CA mods could look like:

Proposed base: 0.5D, 1.5T (like CA2)

Proposed CA1: 0.4D, 1.65T (-20% delay, +10% time)

Proposed CA2: 0.3D, 1.80T (-40% delay, + 20% time)

Proposed CA3: 0.2D, 2T (-60% delay, + 33.3% time) (just like current CA3)

[striker891 6]

Kevlar is a newbie mod by design. No advanced player would sacrefice speed over health. Meanwhile for newbies with bad positioning it can solve at least a tiny gap of the huge skill gap to get at least one or two kills. It's not designed to be competetive. Also any changes that would make it viable for good players will automatically make it overpowered compared to Clothing Agent, which has a huge negative stat if you haven't observed that.

Edited October 3, 2020 by striker891

[Hexerin 1140]

Speed/mobility is the strongest stat in the game, period. Kevlar completely gimping speed/mobility is why it will forever be a useless mod (outside of meme builds, of course). The only way to make Kevlar useful, is to completely remove the speed/mobility downside and instead give it a more reasonable downside. Or just completely rework what the mod does.

[Cr0 328]

It's a modification mostly used by low threat players struggling to survive. If that's all it's meant to be (I don't know the answer to that question) then it's balanced, otherwise it isn't.

 

Edited October 5, 2020 by Cr0

[Noob_Guardian 417]

On 10/2/2020 at 10:26 AM, Frosi said:

With the way things are currently absolutely not. If you like it or not the game has been balanced around Clotting Agent for many years, even prior to LO taking over, if Kevlar were to become Meta the way things are right now it would throw all this balance out of the window and make the game even slower. APB's movement is fantastic, any downside to movement speed will put you at a disadvantage in many scenarios. Kevlar also has recieved a somewhat direct buff with the buff to Med Spray, having instant regen that twice as fast syngerizes really well and it is on a low cooldown on top of that.

 

I think in an ideal world Clotting agent and base regen should be looked at in a way that doesn't change how the regen speeds etc work currently. What I mean with this is to take the route of making CA2 (Currently the fastest regen in the game) the BASE regen, this is to primarily help out new players. On top of that Clotting Agent 3 simply turns into "Clotting Agent", this would mean that a lot of math would have to be done to keep CA3's regen speeds the same as it is now due to the base regen being the equivalent to CA2 now. This work however would free up a lot of potential buffs to underused green mods to not necessarily make them become meta but put them in a more healthy spot compared to Clotting Agent. 

 

APB is a fast paced game and the base regen is incredibly slow and I think this is where the primary issues with Kevlar / Fragile / Flak Jacket lies, however, lets say CA2 regen speed was the baseline, this would obviously be too much, however, this way they could apply multiple changes to Kevlar for example without having to almost remove the downside of Kevlar which is the movement speed. Here's an example of what I mean.

 

Currently Kevlar 3 gives you the following stats:

 

+30% Player Health (1300)

-20% Sprint Speed

-20% Run Speed

 

With CA2 being the baseline you not only help the new player experience but also open yourself up to giving Kevlar a slight buff by adjusting its regen time to be somewhere around CA1 right now. (Theoretical nerf because CA2 is baseline but having the fastest regen in the game on top of 30% health would be broken.)

 

So a buffed Kevlar could look like this:

 

+30% Player Health (1300)

-12% Sprint Speed

-12% Run Speed

~Regen Values: Clotting Agent 2 > Clotting Agent 1 

 

This is technically already possible but my approach would tackle a few issues all at once, namely balance issues with Green mods, New Player Experience and Item Bloat. 

 

There's a lot in this approach that would have to be thought through such as the math behind the whole thing and what to do with other mods but balancing the underused green mods is not an easy task and one would have to be extremely careful with what exactly is done because on paper mods like Kevlar being strong or possibly too strong could quickly end up as a terrible feeling for actual gameplay mainly because of weapon balance but also gameplay flow, muscle memory and game sense being thrown out of the window, however, if executed well the way all levels of Clotting Agent behave the exact same way and other green mods could have a slightly increased regen.

Kevlar 3 barely does much to begin with, even if speed was buffed and regen decreased from base, it only protects from 1-2 bullets depending on gun, and it doesn't even matter against others like several shotguns. It should do a % damage reduction, that way it'll have a better effect rather than more life, which still barely matters considering you die to most explosions all the same. Kev is only decent atm with cqc weapons or shaw. If someone's using kev, they're still sniper, grenade, ltl, and shotgun bait.

 

Any regen buff should be approached extremely cautiously. While I agree it would be "nice", it also could make the game feel much worse unless CA was removed or made into a single mod like fragile/flak if regen was messed with.

 

Regen is slow, for a reason, and it's honestly not a bad thing, this game was meant to have much higher TTK's than we currently see in APB as well. You can see this from the lack of cover and how RTW had higher TTKs. (Ironically G1 seems to have intentionally botched both high TTK tests) It's also a bit ironic that you want to bring back jump shooting, which is broken in its own right, especially due to the fact that you can simply "jump" and fire and hit enemies as if they didnt have any cover, even AFTER G1 slightly modified cover and hitboxes in an attempt to reduce (but not fix) the issue.

 

Edited October 5, 2020 by Noob_Guardian

[Motorola 107]

id actually delete kevlar line entirely... its nothing more than a troll mod and doesn't make the game more or less tactical

[ElectroStingz 53]

I would say re-work Kevlar mod instead.

 

When equipped the player will have the ability to take a hit without losing HP, only for the first shot.

However when hit, you cannot shoot for a duration and you slow down.

It is a consumable therefore when damaged it is useless. (re-purchase)

 

Kevlar 1

You can take 1 hit

When hit 2 second delay before you can fire (you are in pain)

Reduce speed by 30%

 

Kevlar 2

You can take 2 hits

When hit 4 second delay before you can fire (you are in pain)

Reduce speed by 40%

 

Kevlar 3

You can take 3 hits

When hit 6 second delay before you can fire (you are in pain)

Reduce speed by 50%

 

The above is just an example and I have no idea how this woould work in a game environment, maybe useful for VIP or area where this is no cover / open space to get to cover.

Once the timer starts follow up shots don't stack, so if you take a hit, the timer starts that is it, you are now back to normal HP and can be killed as normal.

For Kevlar 2 and Kevlar 3, if you do not take any further hits during the timer your plates are still useful so after the timer you are back to having the ability to take 1 hit but obviuosly your armour life is consumed.

 

EG, Kevlar 2.

You got shot once and the 4 seconds is up.

The armour now has 1 life left, next hit will destroy armour.

Edited October 7, 2020 by ElectroStingz

[vsb 6171]

1 hour ago, ElectroStingz said:

When equipped the player will have the ability to take a hit without losing HP, only for the first shot.

However when hit, you cannot shoot for a duration and you slow down.

you'd buff kevlar by doubling down on the mobility penalty?

[Noob_Guardian 417]

6 hours ago, 404 said:

you'd buff kevlar by doubling down on the mobility penalty?

and preventing firing at enemies to boot kek

[xHenryman90x 129]

Buff or complete rework, dunno.

 

Kevlar is not completely useless If you use medsprays with it and play with weapons which require you to be nearly stationary such as ALIG, SHAW, OSMAW and AAEPD.

[ExpectoPatronum 22]

Kevlar would be fine (again) if people missed some shots now and then (again) lol. It's still fine in bronze! lol

 

And yeah it's better with certain loadouts obviously, most people like to play fast so CA was always more popular anyway. Make it viable again, the less and less people miss (or not at all) makes Kevlar help the enemy team; moving behind or between cover / running towards cover - then CA is way better. Taking position and trying to be a turret is more the Kevlar idea ... but kind of useless if only a couple extra hits still kill you while not being able to relocate lol.

 

Maybe make movement / armor almost normal when not crouching and make kevlar kick in with a little improvement and slowdown when you do? lol 

Edited October 8, 2020 by ExpectoPatronum

[Zatro 49]

fragile/flak/no green mod + med spray > all

[MaxJedburgh 18]

I use K3 on one of my characters, and I don't think it needs a buff.

 

 

[DeadPixels 253]

Everybody prefers mobility over more health which is natural. Kevlar may need a slight change, but this modification is still more used than Flak Jacket and Fragile.  

[Revoluzzer 274]

Wild idea: Kevlar turns lethal damage into non-lethal damage and vice versa. No speed penalty, but sprinting consumes stamina. Also no more levels.