My Crypto Ideas (in depth)
SO EVERYONE! While Crypto has seen his place in ALGS, he still struggles in pick rate among the general player base, coming in at 1.6%, the lowest along with Newcastle. This, I believe, is because h...
Forum Discussion
I am not a fan of advocating for Crypto spending just as much time in drone mode, just with a faster moving drone.
The risk reward part as you mentioned is the issue, the risk is disproportionately large compared to Crypto's reward, almost exclusively because his drone destroyed cooldown is egregiously long.
But at the same time, defenders need a means to stop both his vision, and emp. Allowing Crypto to just say "haha, 50 shields and all your devices gone while I stand behind this wall deal with it" is not an acceptable solution.
That said, that is why I recommended that the drone be given a recharging health pool that recharges when stored, and auto-recalls at 1 hp when it takes damage rather than being destroyed. That way Crypto can still be silenced temporarily, but he can still send out his drone at 1 hp, making a visible EMP attack unlikely to succeed in that state.
I also recommended a follow mode, allowing Crypto to use the drone effects without entering drone mode, and it can be sent to allys so that you can support them without having to be right on them. Rather than giving Crypto perpetual threat vision (an epic grade effect), he has to have his drone following him or someone else to get that effect, allowing the drone to again be silenced by being shot at by the defenders.
Allowing Crypto to use his kit without his drone is akin to making things like the singularity, wrecking ball, or totem invincible. These are all effects that benefit the team greatly, but also can be silenced by the enemy through damage. Risk reward, like you said.
The point being, Crypto needs to spend less time in drone mode checking billboards, but also needs to be able to have his threat vision disabled by enemy fire. His risk needs to be reduced by allowing him to send out the drone at 1 hp, rather than a destroyed cooldown completely silencing his kit.
@Kinesis862Understandable, but I do have a few questions. What would be the button inputs for follow mode, especially on controller? How to switch it to a teammate? Wouldn’t it being recalled at 1hp mean follow mode isn’t all that cancellable either, since you could put it right back out at 1hp immediately in follow mode again? Sure it might take a couple seconds to redeploy but that’s about it. While I like your ideas (especially in terms of balancing the scan) I also don’t think they work in combination, as it would be the same essential function as what i suggested with extra steps, and too many button inputs for the follow mode concept.
If there is a way to make the ability simpler to use and still cancellable to a greater degree, that’s what I’d suggest looking into, otherwise great ideas, I like them.
My suggestion, if there is a way to use it with simple controls, implement the follow mode via a passive that’s a second mini-drone separate from Hack. Have Hack utilize the returning at 1hp feature, and the second mini-drone be destroyable with the current 40-second cooldown that Hack has. When the mini-drone recharges, it is automatically deployed on you, and can be disabled or enabled like seer’s passive. It could be moved around between teammates or left in a single spot to scan an area. That way they are mutually exclusive and one doesn’t rely on the other, so the scan is still cancellable.
@ThisIsYourMomentSo input wise:
Tap tactical enters follow mode on yourself
Hold tac enters follow mode then immediately drone mode
In follow mode tap tac to send fo surface or open air
In follow mode, tap tac over an ally to send to follow mode on ally
Recall key recalls to storage in all modes
If its not too complicated they can make tapping tac again in ally follow or sentry mode go back to self follow mode.
The drone can be shot in follow mode, forcing it to recall to storage with 1 hp, you still have to deal with the 2 second recall delay, then the redeploy animation if you chose, but it will still be at 1hp.
The point is not to completely silence his kit on damage, but to force them to take counter action by chosing to redeploy and waste in combat time or focus on the fight without the drone to allow it to regain hp on storage.
Since all hack provides is a line of sight a near crypto or risk forced recall from any damage, forcing a recall from a single hit effectively suppresses his ult in most cases and limits drone range to point blank around crypto for the time being, that being an appropriate level of suppression for his kit as it becomes a micromanged tac sight instead of a proper long range resource.
Having any destroyed cooldown or equivalent longer than 5 seconds just renders his kit impossible to use for anything other than extreme range syrvey, or you risk a rev ball to the face just to know that an enemy is downstairs for 1 second.
- @Kinesis862 Interesting, though i would like a way for throwing out the drone to a specific position to be as quick as it is now, instead of going through follow mode first before sending it outward. Perhaps instead of going straight to follow mode it goes out it a line like normal, and a subsequent tactical press sends it to follow mode (just reversing the order). A definite concern of mine is noise related with having at your side, but I guess it can be used situationally for times when the enemy knows where you are and stowed otherwise for stealth and getting the jump on the enemy. One question i do have is how close is the drone to crypto in follow mode? If it has a hitbox at least to gunfire does that mean it can get caught on walls and low overhangs or doorways as it follows you? I would say make it pass through objects but then that would be really glitchy to try and patch in from if it happens to get caught inside something at the time. Perhaps it recalls before patching in in follow mode but then it wouldn’t be able to patch in from wherever your teammates are if in follow mode on a teammate.
Anyway, still great ideas, I just hope we can make it function properly! Thanks for the comments bro@ThisIsYourMomentJust so happens I got around to making a video to demonstrate follow mode:
To you questions/Concerns:
I don't really see it as a big issue that you need to be in follow mode to throw for recon, the idea being that you should be sticking in follow mode unless you are trying to be really sneaky.
My concerns with reversing the order is that it unnecessarily makes his kit more clunky. For instance if you just want your drone out after landing or after you are forced to redeploy your drone, you would have to tap twice rather than just once.
Noise wise I agree that the drone noise is a bit much for its limited sight range. I think they should either make it less noisy or give it better spotting range to compensate.
For follow distance, it should ideally be right behind his left or right shoulder and follow his movements. It does make it suceptible to spray fire, but that is intended so that a self-EMP can still be countered in follow mode.
With it following right around his shoulder, it should not have any issue with the Gibby sized doors, but persay it does have an issue they can just let it "grind" against the wall until it catches up to its target.
If you enter drone mode while the drone is in follow mode it would stop in place once you gain control.
Always good to discuss this stuff, its hard to explain the intricacies of the mode over a forum post.
