Zerathustra wrote on 03/11/13 at 17:40:35:


I completely disagree for 2 reasons.

1. Reaper is far more vulnerable then Talon and he isn't even the quickest ground vehicle in the game. Talon can escape from and stalk any vehicle in the game. The only real way to do a combination attack on him is to catch him when he's out of AA, or freeze him then combo him on the ground. Reaper is not only slower but has way less places to hide from enemy fire and even with his high damage special he can't kill his enemies as fast as they can kill him if he allows him self to be hit. Talon can sit there firing remote bombs and eat 2 Stalker missiles then just shield while he flies to the nearest health.

2. Talons Trigun is easily abused. It has an extremely far range and the bullets never miss as long as you are locked on to the enemy you are firing at. Combine that power with Talons ability to fly high and behind things like buildings and terrain where vehicles can't normally reach. Then you have the perfect weapon for chipping away at the enemy without putting any risk upon yourself. It's especially good for using on players who are already fighting an opponent. Because they won't be able to kill you at fill health very easily, and your opponents enemy will probably kick his ass if he takes his focus off of them. Allowing you to get in cheap shots miles away, most likely taking the kill as well.

The fact it's 150 over many shots makes it even more powerful because it means you can miss 50% of the time and still do 75 damage. Plus by the time you collect all your favorite pickups you'll probably have 3 specials or 450 bullets. In combination with Remote Bombs, Snipers, Stalkers, and everything else. So you'll have enough damage potential to kill several vehicles and you can do it over many shots instead of having to place the entire risk into a single shot or a combination attack. All from a perfectly safe distance.

Talons special would make more sense if it didn't lock on to opponents and the bullets traveled instantly. At least then you'd be aiming for those long distance shots and it would take a reasonable level of skill to stay hovered just right behind unreachable terrain while pegging people with it. But even then that would be a real bitch move. Considering the only real way to combat that is to pick Talon or try to chase em away with Sweet Bot. Even a direct rodent rocket hit won't kill Talon.

If you could 1 shot kill Talon with a direct hit from a Rodent Rocket i'd consider him fair. At least then Talon would have to seriously watch his ass. As it is he can tolerate just about everything as long as he doesn't hover near the ground. His flight, speed, maneuverability, and AA bar makes it so any player can camp as him and simply fly away to refill their health if anyone comes close to actually killing them.

He is the least balanced vehicle ever introduced into Twisted Metal. He makes Spectre and TMB Axel look tame. Even Juggernaut doesn't have the choice of just ignoring the players and whoring the health so he's really not as bad. I don't even mind him. A wily Reaper player can decimate a lone Juggernaut.

If Talon was in the game i'd mind Juggernaut in ranked. But all things considered Juggernaut does less to disrupt the balance of the game then Talon does. Juggernaut is like if they invented a level of vehicle above Heavy and balanced it into the game correctly. Talon is just a helicopter in a car combat game. He's like a cheat code character like the UFO in Rogue Trip. Where Juggernaut is more like a tougher version of TMBO minion.

Luis wrote on 03/11/13 at 23:44:33:


Talon has more health then Spectre, he's physically faster, and Spectre's special alone doesn't do enough damage to keep Talon away. Nor does it do enough damage to kill him outright in 3 shots. So even if you landed all 3 Spectre missiles, Talon could easily run away to refill his health before your 4th one even charged up.

It would have to be a very small map for Spectre to have any kind of advantage.

Sweetooth's version can do everything the Spectre missile can do. But it's slower, has less homing, and it can be shot down as well (people always forget this). Talon's special is actually perfect for that. You can shoot down 3 tooth missiles almost instantly if you are good at abusing the auto lock. Mega guns also work.

in fact if someone is locked onto you and you fire a ghost missile directly at them their targeting often swaps to the ghost missile. Pretty useless considering you'd have to be psychic to use it as any kind of a block. But there is potential for it to be a defensive move against heavy hitting homing attacks such as Swarmers. I've had more then one Tooth missile distract a mega swarm by accident.

I think the way the Trigun is designed was meant to be something which you used in short bursts and swapped out of to continue normal combat.

Playing as Talon i'd often fly above my enemies fighting my allies and use the Trigun to rain down extra damage on them giving my team the advantage of having a consistent and unavoidable attack. But that simply isn't how his special is used. It's used more like a player would use a piece of cover in a FPS game. Where the player can rain down bullets. Except even in FPS games with auto aim you have to aim the actual weapon a little.

In Talons case you just get a lock on like you would in a normal vehicle, and each bullet is like a little missile which homes in on it's opponent. Talon would be better if instead of a Trigun his special were just his old homing mega guns. At least then he'd have to get up close for big damage.

As it is the only encouragement he has to get close is his magnet special which is the least effective one in the game. Unless you are doing some wild team tactics. Separating one of the enemy from your friends. Or pulling a friend out of a 3 vs 1 fight. Which would be great if people actually did those kinds of things in multiplayer games.

Just the fact that having a counter talon player isn't guaranteed is the main thing which makes him unbalanced. If the game forced 2 players to be Talon and 2 to be Juggernaut then the game would regain symmetry and Talon would be less abused.

Imagine playing a game of Hockey but only one team has a Goalie because no one on your team wanted to be one? It would screw the game up quite a bit.

Except i think someone physically blocking the goal in a sport is less of a detriment to the game then Talon is to TMX. Talon breaks symmetrical game logic in several ways. The only possible way for him to be balanced is for both teams to have at the very least a moderately skilled Talon player in Ranked TDM.

Or jack Talons health down to 90 so Vermin can one shot him with a direct hit Rodent Rocket. Which would take skill to do but not nearly as much as the current method of hitting him with a flamesaw takes. The damn thing can fly it's literally on a different level then cars. You can't balance Talon like Reaper or Juggernaut.

I'm not even getting into the fact that Talon has access to far more weapons due to all the multilevel areas nobody on the ground visits. He doesn't even need his Special. In fact as cheap as his special is it would slow him down compared to doing a very calculated weapons run and building up a killing spree so he doesn't have to make as many trips out. At that point he could even focus on kill stealing to replenish his arsenal without making any trips out at all with an active full power kill streak. No one benefits from the killstreak system the most then Talon.

I don't think he needs anything more then a health reduction. You have to balance talon to the most powerful playing style. He's a good camper with the best maneuverability and speed in the game. Especially once you factor in flight and not just the rate that he moves.

He's also the only vehicle capable of strafing in place which is partially why he's so effective at camping. Even if you camped as Axel or Tooth you have to move forward or backwards to turn. Talon can move any direction he needs to from a completely still point.

I think if his armor were weak enough that a direct rodent rocket hit were fatal it would be more balanced. The rodent rocket is meant to weed out campers and getting a direct hit on Talon is only really easy when he's sitting in a single area distracted by his own attacking.

As it is there aren't enough resources for players on the ground to effectively fight him. Good talon players won't even take damage because they balance out their shields and absorb freezes. Taking advantage of their speed to ensure they can reach cover before their shields deplete.

I don't really think his special is so bad. It's just not well designed for a hit and run vehicle. Which Talon should be. But considering he's not played as a hit and run vehicle and he's mostly used to strike from a very far distance behind cover. He should have health comparable to Crimson Fury.

In fact it's kind of unfair to vehicles like Crimson that they have less armor then Talon considering they are still slower and restricted to the ground.

I still say the thing that really makes Talon unbalanced is that in most scenarios where he's being abused there is only 1 talon player. Or like that scenario that one poster faced where the Talon player had a secondary Sweet Tooth that he kept hidden and idle to fire ghost missiles in order to distract his targets as Talon.

He's the last vehicle that needs extra health. If he were weak to the point of sucking it would actually improve the game balance more then it would to try and keep him competitively strong. He doesn't need to be so weak that you can kill him with a power missile or a mega swarm. But how much health does he have? Cause if it's over 90 that's crazy for what he is. It's as bad as the old Juggernaut HP and AA bar.

Zerathustra wrote on 03/15/13 at 02:22:27:


On the ground Crimson can reach a higher max speed but i'm counting the fact that Talon can clear any terrain. The fact Crimson has to maneuver around things only makes him faster on a straight path.

I think Talon is unbalanced based purely on the merit he can fly. If he were grounded or had limited flight it wouldn't be nearly as bad. It would also be less of a problem if he were more vulnerable to attacks because he can hit and run without any personal risk as long as he uses his shields and flies for the hard to reach health that are almost always available to him.

It's not so much i think he needs to be toned down. It's more that he doesn't belong in ranked matches. Neither does Juggernaut honestly. It's kind of a middle finger to people who played any of the previous games.

Even worse that the way the maps are balanced for the most part give an advantage to Talon. The bigger the map the more items and health he has to scoop up. Fast vehicles like Crimson can do the same thing, except it takes them longer and it's easier for other vehicles to chase them. They even have less health.

You never hear a Talon player say "Pick Grindhouse and Skid Row!".