How to balance Gibraltar on both platforms! [ Edited ]

[ZeptikkHue]

Hi!

I've been having a lot of discussions on this forum lately regarding Gibraltar. I am a PC player and on PC he is clearly the worst legend by quite a lot, but according to the console players in these forums he is among the top legends on their platform. So buffing him further would probably make him balanced on PC and OP on console, which in a perfect world should be avoided.

So, to balance him on both platforms here is what could be done:

1. Make it so his personal shield cover everything except his legs when standing. (Headshotting him makes shield useless on PC, as it's very easy to do headshots there compared to console) When crouching his whole frontal body should be protected, from head to toe.

2. Make his personal shield have 50 HP again. (Or else it might be OP when covering whole frontal body)

3. Make shield appear faster when ADS'ing.

4. Make shield repair faster after being broken. Have a clear visual + audio queue when it can be used again.

You are welcome, Respawn.

[Anlbrd]

@ZeptikkHueI think really if they're going to balance for both platforms : they should balance them separately and appropriately.

My view on the various foibles in the game at the minute is that you can't cancel out something being imbalanced by trying to add imbalance in the opposite direction.

What I mean by this is : the reasoning put forward to justify all the various buffs people suggest is that his hitbox is massive. If his hitbox being massive greatly imbalances him : his hitbox and model should be corrected to bring him into line.

I personally have seen him played viably on xbox just as he is and I think the whole Fortified/Low Profile thing is just a friggin TERRIBLE idea as a workaround to correcting a problem which shouldn't even exist in a competitive multiplayer shooter.

My hope would be that they would normalise character sizes. Send Caustic and Gibraltar to the gym ffs.

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In the absence of them doing the above...
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I think not being able to hit him AT ALL from the front without burning his shield down is categorically OP, even with how it currently recharges. I could use someone explaining to me exactly how fast it recharges and quite how it works, if it constantly trickle-charges or if it has to break to then recharge and come back full etc. I'm speaking only based on how it feels when I've played as him, rather than from a position of being 100% sure on the recharge mechanic.

The leap from "he's easier to hit than anyone" to "he should have a mechanic disabling ANYONE from hitting him from the front until they break his passive" is a big one to me. FORCING headshots whilst being ADSed by him means that someone has to s**t or get off the pot with their aim in order to facetank him anyway because of the dmg debuff. If ALL players on PC are going for the head anyway, and his head isnt bigger than anyone elses, it means they've all got the same chance for headshots - but Gib takes 15% less dmg on his, and if you miss his head you're hitting a shield which doesnt affect his armor or health. That's strong, whether streamers admit it or not.

With whatever buff he's given or not - if he's bigger and easier to collect body shots on, and more vulnerable to craptastic weapons like the Peacekeeper, -  the issue is still going to be there because he's not going to be facing forward and ADSing all his enemies.  It means at further ranges people will hit him with 2+ unchoked triple take pellets and stuff like that, which I don't think can be balanced with anything like Fortified. 

It's frustrating because we already know the SPECIFIC thing they could do to help balance him : change the model/hitbox size.  Any general/vague attempts to balance the scales by adding weight elsewhere is just more imbalance in other areas.  It's spreading the problem around instead of dealing with it at source.

[Anlbrd]

I think the arguments that all PC players are getting constant headshots so Gib isn't a good character because his passive doesnt cover his head is a weak one.  If all players were damaging the head - he still takes LESS damage than other players and is at an advantage. 

[ZeptikkHue]

@Anlbrd 

1.

So far I've never seen Respawn doing balance changes only for one platform. Therefor I believe this is their philosophy and I doubt it will change. It's therefore meaningless for me to discuss solutions which require separate implementations.

I disagree about sizes, I think they should keep them as they are and compensate with perks and abilities like they try to do. This makes for more variation and interesting characters.

I basically agree with every decision Respawn has made regarding balance fixes and mechanics design, they just need to do a couple more minor tweaks like the ones I proposed.

2.

Every legend have conditional abilities, some more than others. Gibraltar is designed to be a tank so let's make sure he is one in reality. Going toe to toe with him close up should be dangerous since he is so easy to pick off at a medium to far distance, and every angle except his front WHEN he has the shield out in close combat.

3.

I am trying to follow what I understand as Respawns philosophy. Your proposals goes directly against them and I therefor think you will have an issue with anything I would propose.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback.

[Leo_the_Lion25]

Gun Shield indeed needs to go back to 50 HP if they going to make him 15% reduced damage. His gun shield doesn't even count towards our damage either.

[ZeptikkHue]

@Leo_the_Lion25

What do you mean if they are going to make him 15%? He got his base health (100 HP) fortified increased from 10 to 15% for the Season 2 update. The only reason the gun shield should get back to 50 HP is if it also covers his head, which it should to make it usable on PC and not OP on console.

[Anlbrd]

@ZeptikkHueAnything that covers his head is OP. Currently if you get the benefit of the doubt on saying headshots are always easy to hit and that's all anyone on PC does anyway : he's got the same size head as anyone but he takes less damage in it. Why would he need a buff so that you can't headshot him while he's ADSing?

[edit] -  Are you 100% sure that the fortified buff only affects his health?  If this was true our damage numbers on his armor would be the same as they are on other legends : and they're not.  They're lower even if he has armor. 

[ZeptikkHue]

@Anlbrd

1. He needs a buff because he is too weak on PC. If you can think of any other ways to buff him without making him OP on console, please come with suggestions. Every legend is OP in some situations, I want Gibraltar to be OP in 1 or 2 situations, which is head on close combat and maybe when sniping, since he is basically UP (under-powered) in every other situation. He is UP when running, walking, sitting, near, far and from every angle except the front IF he is ADS'ing without a broken shield. On PC he is UP even with his arm shield up since he can't really dodge bullets. It's so easy to shoot him in the side, head or legs that his shield does not really matter.

2. Actually you made me double check and it seems like Fortified might affect shields now too after they resolved some bugs, but I did not find any actual tests\empirical evidence yet. I will have to run tests myself I guess. Anyways 15% even with body armor level 3 is not much considering his model is 240% larger than Wraith's. Point is I've played both as him and against him more than enough to be absolutely 100% sure that he is a terrible legend on PC. I've yet to see a top player or streamer play consistently as good with him as with other legends as well. I've seen some good plays on console though, but even Staycation who is pretty big on console admits he is not quite up there even after the Season 2 buffs, although his initial reaction would lead you to think otherwise. I like challenges so I usually get a bit sad when I see Gibraltars because I know the chance of them being an easy kill is 9 out of 10. (mainly because mostly newbies choose him as they are not aware how bad he is. I bump into good Gibraltar players more often in Season 2 due to players choosing him to do missions, but I always get a confidence boost when I spot him)

[Anlbrd]

@ZeptikkHueYou keep saying he is underpowered because he is too big. The way to fix that is to make him smaller :S Anything else just either adds another imbalance or a red herring mechanic that doesn't do anything to change the underlying issue of him being easier to hit.

The 240% of wraith thing isn't accurate.  He is bigger than her but that statistic takes into account loads of stuff on his model which isn't a part of his hitbox.  Wraiths hitbox is more or less pixelperfect as far as I've tested.

[Pretzelnutcake]

@ZeptikkHue Gib is in no way OP on console I assure you, so any buffs wouldn't break him. His strengths are purely situational and you need a competent squad doing the heavy lifting at close to mid ranges for him to be of any use since his biggest weakness is not being able to dodge shots like the smaller legends can at close ranges