Bolt needs revision

[RandyMcStud]

Bolt is an awful ability. I understand they want a skill based ability, but the timing on this thing is ridiculous. Maybe it varies with the weapon type, but with Scorch, I can barely achieve about 1 in 3 outside combat. Inside combat, there are other things to focus on besides an absolutely minute time window and it is maybe 1 in 50 of shots.

There is no visual feedback at all to indicate when you should release. The window appears to be around 0.1-0.2 seconds and if you are also focussing on dodging enemies, movement and landing headshots, it is incredibly difficult to hit this timing and trying to do so almost invariably means performing worse than just holding a max charge and making sure to land a headshot.

It also is directly anti synergistic with 2 perks that require this talent. Firstly and most obviously, the ability that allows you to hold a max charge without firing until you chose to do so requiring an ability that specifically requires you not to be at max charge is just achingly stupid. Secondly, the ability which increases charge speed after releasing your bolt and stacks 3 times is also ridiculous. The window is TINY as it is with no visual cue, and now the window gets even smaller and does so incrementally, meaning you have to get the muscle memory for 4 different timings? This is beyond stupid.

Look, just have it trigger at max charge. Players will actually be able to use it effectively and then associated abilities will vaguely make sense. Bolt is functionally a dead mechanic and just makes you feel bad when you don't pull it off, not rewarded when you do. It actively makes the gameplay worse.

 

[Crimsomrider]

There is no visual feedback at all to indicate when you should release.

There are two;

• The sight of each tech weapon will blink when it's Bolt-charged.
• There is also the buff icon right next to the healthbar showing when exactly the player should release

Personally I have no issue triggering this at all, here are two examples which I've took for someone on Steam forums asking how Bolt works;

They could increase the timing just a tiny bit, but personally I don't find an issue with it at all to consistently trigger every shot.

 

[ZairSilversky]

There are two;

• The sight of each tech weapon will blink when it's Bolt-charged.
• There is also the buff icon right next to the healthbar showing when exactly the player should release

Personally I have no issue triggering this at all, here are two examples which I've took for someone on Steam forums asking how Bolt works;

They could increase the timing just a tiny bit, but personally I don't find an issue with it at all to consistently trigger every shot.

You're not consistently going to see a buff icon and react to it in time. A teach weapon charges in about .75-.85s on average. The human reaction time is about .15-.3s. If it pops when you should release, even at .15s, you're late. What it needs is a cast bar on the HUD. The Nekomata has this cast bar on its scope, which makes it so easy to properly use, but ones that charge quickly and have no scopes, no attachments, nothing and charge quickly like the Commander (Base Burya is fine since it's .25s charge time so you don't even have to hold it, you just don't move your finger off the button/click like you would normally and it works most of the time) feel awful. If Tech got its own Hand cyberwear to enable such a thing, that would be absolutely amazing.

 

[RandyMcStud]

There are two;

• The sight of each tech weapon will blink when it's Bolt-charged.
• There is also the buff icon right next to the healthbar showing when exactly the player should release

Personally I have no issue triggering this at all, here are two examples which I've took for someone on Steam forums asking how Bolt works;

They could increase the timing just a tiny bit, but personally I don't find an issue with it at all to consistently trigger every shot.

Firstly, your videos do not show in combat gameplay where you have to make headshots and avoid enemy fire, so is in no way representative of how difficult it is to execute in practice. And even in a short 30 second video which presumably was selected for good performance, a few of the shots were fluffed and this is with nothing else going on. Give me 5 mins of unedited footage in combat on very hard difficulty whilst landing head shots reliably, which do far more to boost damage (get police aggro for example), and lets see what the success rate is then.

Secondly, the weapons in question are much easier to hit the timing window for (I have since tried to Lizzy and its a heck of a lot easier than Scorch).

Thirdly, how in the hell is a visual cue next to your health bar any use at all? You need to, you know, aim your gun, not look at the top corner of your screen.

Fourthly, the charge display on your weapon still gives no visual indication of when you are in the right window and again, requires you to look not at your target but at something else, which is going to ruin your aim.

Fithly, the associated talents obviously make no sense. Speeding up your charge speed with a stacking buff makes triggering bolt significantly harder. Being able to hold a max charge is entirely incompatible with bolt: if you use this functionality, you CANNOT trigger bolt.

Seriously, try this with scorch at all, let alone in an actual combat scenario. Its absurdly hard to hit the timing in practice.

 

[Crimsomrider]

As I said; the videos are a mere feature demonstration originally intended for a person on Steam asking how Bolt works.

They're not meant to show off my skill in combat, but to demonstrate how the sights (and the buff icon) give away when to shoot and when not to in order to learn the timings, so the two shots I missed were intentional misses for demonstration purposes.

I merely linked them because you claimed there are no visual indicators, so I felt maybe the videos may help just like they helped the person on Steam. Obviously the player won't be looking at the sights nor depend on them to fire Bolt consistently, but it's a start until the player gets the timings right and it becomes muscle memory.

Which is why I personally have no issue at all firing it off consistently in heavy combat, since it became muscle memory in less than 30 seconds. This ain't something new as Tech precision charging existed even before 2.0, with about the same timing.

 

[RandyMcStud]

As I said; the videos are a mere feature demonstration originally intended for a person on Steam asking how Bolt works.

They're not meant to show off my skill in combat, but to demonstrate how the sights (and the buff icon) give away when to shoot and when not to in order to learn the timings, so the two shots I missed were intentional misses for demonstration purposes.

I merely linked them because you claimed there are no visual indicators, so I felt maybe the videos may help just like they helped the person on Steam. Obviously the player won't be looking at the sights nor depend on them to fire Bolt consistently, but it's a start until the player gets the timings right and it becomes muscle memory.

Which is why I personally have no issue at all firing it off consistently in heavy combat, since it became muscle memory in less than 30 seconds. This ain't something new as Tech precision charging existed even before 2.0, with about the same timing.

The fact that under ideal circumstances with weapons with much easier timings than scorch you cannot hit the timings wholly reliably over only 30 seconds, a 30 seconds of your choosing, would suggest that the functionality of this in actual combat with the weapon in question (Scorch) is quite low. For me at least, its almost entirely useless. If you want to show it off with scorch in combat whilst executing headshots, be my guest.

Personally, I can see no reason not to make it just trigger at full charge. It would work a lot better with the other talents and it would actually be playable.