My post-3.0.3 Mine Layer rebalance idea

[jolly mauve]

Hello. Alright folks, I've got a really simple Mine Layer balancing suggestion, built on the latest patch of Team Fortress 2 Classified and taken from the mod's Steam community hub. Here are the stat changes that I am proposing for it:

🔵 Reduce firing speed penalty from -50% to -25%
⛔ Mines have 1,5 second slower arm time against enemies (can be set off earlier by the user stepping on them).

How's that for a slight tweak on the Mine Layer, ladies and gentlemen? I think it'd be nice as a no 100% overhaul solution to the pre 3.0.3's spam issues while letting Demo keep his Mine Jump mobility intact. Also, it'll be faster to set landmine traps once more at the cost of these mine traps having an enemy detection sensor prep-time increased to reduce instablowing unless the user is willing to sacrifice themselves for setting those advanced detection technology sensors off early.

Here's the original thread from Steam's Team Fortress 2 Classified hub forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/3545060/discussions/0/758429831032577062/

[shadow drift]

Currently minelayer has no firerate penalty

It used to have a +33% firerate bonus, which was removed on the 3.0.3 update

And I'm confused on what would the slower arm time "against enemies" mean, do you mean the actual arm time itself, the time it takes to explode after being triggered or both?

[jolly mauve]

Where did you pull that removal of firerate bonus out from? It clearly states in the Steam news that it lowered firerate by 50%, which is more than the 33% bonus, whatever that means.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/3545060/announcements/detail/508479417583927311?snr=2___

Also, yes, the arm time is still the actual arm time, the time it takes for the detection sensors to start operating against enemies. It's basically double the penalty of the vanilla Scottish Resistance arm time, except the user themselves are unaffected by it: https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Scottish_Resistance

The explosion time is still the same.

[shadow drift]

I know, it's weird

but previously the minelayer had a +33% firerate

and a +50% projectile speed

3.0.3 removed the firerate entirely (so now it fires as fast as the stickybomb)

and has a -25% projectile speed (so 25% slower than stickies)

[shadow drift]

ye currently minelayer has the same arm time as the stickybomb, but with the added time that it requires to detonate once triggered

aka 0.7s arm time + 0.5s explosion time

so 1.2s

[jolly mauve]

So that means that the firerate penalty stat change is redundant then. And doing the math with the arm time stat change I supplied, that means:
0.7s arm time + 0,5s explosion time = 1.2s total time it takes for mines to detect the user (basically the same as the current patch version)
2.2s arm time + 0,5s explosion time = 2.7s total time it takes for mines to start detecting the opponents after setting up.

[shadow drift]

Looks like you'd be correct in your numbers yes

I do feel 2.7 is tooooo long but wouldn't mind trying it

[jolly mauve]

Hm... now that I think about it, perhaps giving a double of Scottish Resistance's arm time for the mine layer might be too much.

Still, it should probably be more than Scottish to differentiate the automatic landmines from vanilla TF2's pick stickies.

How about 1 second of arm time if 1.5 is too much?

[shadow drift]

I've had a chat with people and yeah I'm kinda convinced that the issue is the idea overall

Making mines only good for traps is useless since stickies can do that Even if it requires more commitment

Allowing mines to be spammed from afar even with a 3s arm time will still result in the victims not shooting the mines for some reason

The idea is kinda doomed

[jolly mauve]

Hmmmm... Yeah, this is probably a difficult thing to address. I honestly went with the current stat basis mostly for the sake of keeping the current identity of the landmines while improving what can be improved (at least shoving an attempt at it ) (ala counterplay intuition).

The thing is, I don't really get the point of the reworks as they are far in a way either leaning into "automatic stickybombs" (which the Mine Layer is not made for, the weapon itself clearly says "landmines, not stickies"), adding unnecessary gimmicks like weight identification (still neutered by disguised spies probably), or whatever else.

At least I tried and the weapon is actually still operational.