So I was in a match the other day and noticed that you are able to fire through your own team's bots. This is a huge strategic advantage for a player 'hiding' behind a pack of Blackjacks as the majority of incoming damage will be mitigated to them and not the Pro. It also allows them to fire with a protective shield in front of them without having to create a line of sight path to their intended target. Anyway, I think it would be ideal if neither team was able to fire through their own bots. Thoughts?
I like it this way. I get extra protection. Although shooting though Jackbots are another thing. Slims and Blackjacks are fine, imo.
I'm guessing that using your bots as a shield to push lanes is an intended strategy. Isn't that actually a protip? It's not like you can't get hit from the sides or behind, or like the bots themselves even form an impenetrable shield.
We made it possible to shoot through your own fodder for a number of reasons. It makes it easier to escort your fodder in to the enemy base when they aren't constantly blocking your shots on the enemy fodder. We found when fodder blocked your shots you had to put your back to the enemy base, or stay above the fodder to shoot down at them. Letting you shoot through them, as well as walk through them, opened more of the playing field to the players. Another reason was some of our older maps were a lot more cramped. A player could often get in to situations where they would be "stuck" between fodder from either team with no where to go. While our maps are no longer as cramped, it was still possible to get trapped between fodder. Something of the last straw for the change comes down to the fact that fodder cannot be controlled. The location of turrets, and to some degree other players, can be controlled or predicted by a player. Most other players will move out of the way if they see themselves getting shot in the back, and turrets you know where they are before hand. Fodder are intentionally dumb, so they can inadvertently walk in front of a player blocking their shots. Most players will just move if their shots are blocked, but for a deployed Tank or Gunner it can be a major disadvantage. Fodder were always supposed to be used to help a player and their team, both offensively and defensively. We wanted to make sure players actually liked their own fodder, not hate them.
I've noticed that the sniper's exploding rounds seem to trigger even when passing through one of my own bots, is this the case or am I just seeing things? I know I've gotten kills against pros by shooting bots they were near, but I can't recall having done this by shooting friendly bots (although I'm pretty sure it makes the explosion effect).
No idea if it's a bug or intentional, but yeah the sniper's exploding rounds do hit his own fodder and explode. I was playing last night with a friend who is relatively new to the class, and he was basically just unloading on our own jackbot, not realizing that the shots were exploding and not getting through to the enemy jackbot (until I pointed it out to him.) Also, snipers will do this intentionally if an assassin is grappling a jackbot. Shoot the jackbot, hit the assassin with shrapnel from the exploding round.
The first upgrade to his passive skill gives the bullets a penetrating effect, so they will continue through any number of targets until they hit a wall or something. This coupled with the exploding bullets enables a sniper to control bot lanes with ease.
