RoaDiE wrote on 03/25/18 at 09:35:24:
I'd like to take FULL credit for that Meat Wagon nerf.
When the online demo was around and early in the game launch I was big into the freeze + MW ram + alt special combo, it was his big hitter EZ derp combo weapon and people complained like mad to get it nerfed, so they added that cooldown timer or whatever wait there is after using his alt now.
And then there was the "needed" Axel nerf after we would land like a bazillion crushes in a row. The tears were endless and then he got nerfed too.
But in the end, balance was never my big thing I cared too much about. Fun factor and interesting gameplay mechanics were it, if it had that, balance issues wouldn't have mattered.
On the ramming side of things - why are we even talking about ramming? whatever, its something to talk about!
Yeah TM2PC ramming is all about the setup and combos, it gave bigger cars a lot of options and technically infinite - BUT having turbo added a ton of damage to those rams, so it was helpful. Smaller cars in general did suffer because they couldn't produce that kind of damage out of thin air. Like for example, HH (who was absolute ass, mind you), could do 75% to a possible 100% ram damage on a grasshopper or grimm with a little bit of turbo and ramming the side of their cars. Or if playing teams, two big dogs can destroy ANY car if they both ram either side of a car, and the cost is minimal if anything. This is why in TM2PC it was very doable for a team of 2 to win against a team of 3 or even 2v4 (there is one on youtube) if you had the right rammage on the one team!
For a grimm or grasshopper to do that level of damage on any other car they had to have the weapons or the AA. So they had less tools in their kit because of the ramming disparity. I will say that Spectre was amazing tier IF YOU KNEW how to play her, which was literally no one but me or PX.
Best approach to ramming imo is it should be used as a tool to help setup combos, and not necessarily all about the damage.
To me that's what makes ramming cool. One, the feel (in both TM2 and TMBO when it's Darkside or other ramming vehicles) the sound and visuals give you impact. The huge BOOM makes it feel like something happened. Yeah, it's aesthetic, but it's nice. I never felt that in the new game. Ramming with DS in particular was a mondo letdown.
Second, was the setup for future moves. Twisted Metal 2 was the absolute best at this. Ramming was a way to link combos, which is a high skill attack.
Now, about TM2's big cars. It's an odd duck, but essentially what it did for some of the cars was weak sauce their specials . . . KIND OF (which I said earlier). Take Mr. Slam, his damage from his special is technically high, but because it has to actually grab the enemy car, and be done up close, the difficulty to pull it off essentially just makes it part of the ramming attack. So really Slam's special is just an extension of his ramming, and USUALLY a freeze has to be done because of lag factors. When I would get hit by Slam online I'd get frozen, rammed and during the course of the damn ram get shovel attacked while machine guns and other weapons were fired. If you were a small car, it was instant death. If his special had in anyway shape or form been easy to pull off, particularly from a distance, it would have been insanely out of balance.
Hammerhead is kind of the same idea. He HAS to be close, and because of lag involved, it's really just a ram attack. Also, SURPRISE, since all big cars can ram, Hammerhead really doesn't have much of a special to begin with. Remember what I said earlier? If you have a high damage ram the special has to be weak sauce. Whether on purpose or not, that's exactly what happened with Hammerhead. His special is his ram.
Axel is just what Axel always is. He breaks all the Goddamn rules. This was his first foray into Godhood and he maximizes it in TMBO. His special is weaker than his ram though, which is continuing along the same theme lines already mentioned.
The only regular tier big car that remains is Warthog, and as I'm sure anyone who played TM2 remembers, he's an EXCELLENT choice for a newb precisely because he has amazing armor, powerful rams, and an easy to use high powered special (though in following what I said, as I recall his special is weaker than his rams).
The exception to all of this is Minion, which has ludicrously great EVERYTHING, but with that car, no one would ever claim, nor was he intended to be, balanced.
There you have it. The best Twisted Metal of all time if you prefer ramming - and the specials are weaker.