Introduce Manual Aiming to bring player skill to the game?

Hello everyone,


It has been a long since I've made a post here, but I can assure you I have been lurking around still.


I've just posted a video very recently critiquing War Robots and offering a suggestion on how to bring a more skill focused element (back) to the game.


If you can spare a moment, please watch my video on the topic, and for further elaboration if you wish, the pinned comment I left on the video page, which I will also copy and paste under the video link. After doing so, voting accordingly on this thread and/or expressing your thoughts on the matter either here or on the video.

I'll send the link to this thread alongside my video to Pixonic's community manager, so they may take note of the feedback.


Thank you in advance!


Sincerely,


Ace





War Robots used to be a fairly skill based game where weapons were not overly powerful and required a decent amount of time to destroy an opponent. This rewarded player focus.

Also, damage output from weapons was not overly high and sudden so the recipient of attack had time to evade and plan a counter strategy before losing too much health, leading to more interesting, diverse and skill based encounters. 

This was before the introduction of plasma.



The movement speed and floaty movement mechanics of the robots and the lack of evasive capabilities afforded to player supported the more longer, drawn-out form of engagements the game used to possess.

The firing mechanics of the Punisher and Molot are testament to this.



Now we have the Trebuchet, Taran, Trident and to some extent the Aphids and Magnum, that deliver huge amounts of damage in a very short time, and with firing speeds that are almost impossible to evade. 

But the movement mechanics and speed of the game have not evolved to match this spike damage, so everyone naturally resorts to running the robots that can either deliver as much damage as possible, soak up as much damage as possible, or a hybrid of such. (The latter point being why Lancelot is so prevalent)



It's now all a damage race, and with very little input from the player on how these weapons perform, it leads to nearly all encounters playing out the same way.



A player in the higher tiers who dares not run a shielded robot can have 50%~+ of their health depleted from the start of the match by a Trebuchet Fury who has to do absolutely no aiming to achieve that

...followed by a double/triple Trident or Zeus, then a double triple Taran/magnum combo...

All huge damage in an incredibly short space of time (all auto-aimed with no effort to use) that the game in its current state simply was not made for...is it any wonder players behave as they do now?   



Removing these weapons or nerfing them heavily is not an option, so manual aiming is the only means I can think of to help justify the inclusion of these spike damage weapons by making the player have to work for the damage they can output.



Additional Considerations For Manual Aim:



- Targeting and Range

Currently weapon fire centralises at the range of the enemy when grouped together. With manual aim the current implementation of the weapons centering on the nearest enemy can still remain with little issue, only the player has to manually track the target on both axes.



With consideration of splash detonation; The player can still retain the ability to 'hard-lock' a target of their choice if they wish and the splash detonation can be set to a occur a couple of metres above the target's location if possible, to help mitigate the splash exploding too early (maybe this is already implemented?).

This idea could even be exploited by clever players in some way to use the range lock to  hit another target that might otherwise have been unhittable. (Latter example is theoretical only)



- Camera

Maintaining and tracking a target whom is circling you and/or close would be difficult, and if the target is fast moving and circling then the player would have to remove their thumb or finger from the screen possibly multiple times.

This is no different to what we have to do now except we don't have to consider the vertical axis. Considering the additional axis is very easily achievable if the player input reading is implemented well by Pixonic.

There are many app games which already do this fine.

Can we take over manual control of PIX?