The Kuruma Issue

[War Crime Enjoyer]

Wait! Wait! Calm!

I myself own an armoured Kuruma. I also own a variety of powerful, military vehicle such as the Insurgent (both varietes) and the Savage attack chopper. Okay, ♥♥♥♥ me - I get that.

I am not proposing the removal or the continued stay of the Armoured Kuruma in its present state. Any opinions that I put forward in this thread are just that - opinions. With that little disclaimer out of the way, let's begin.

The Karin Kuruma (1) is unlocked through the Fleeca Job heist and costs around 625,000 GTA Dollars I believe. The figure is a rough estimate, so please don't hold me to this. The cost places it at the lower end of the High-Tier super cars and the mid-upper range of Luxury Motorsport cars. It is a sports class car with decent handling, acceleration, and top speed.
What seperates the Kuruma however is its armoured variant. The armoured variant enjoys an increased resistance to general wear and tear and bullets. However, where it shines is its reduced window size to prevent oncoming bullets from killing the driver. As a result this vehicle is regularly used in both PVP and PVE due to the difficulty of hitting the driver, coupled with the relative ease of hitting your opponent when inside the Kuruma.

Naturally, this does come with trade offs. The vehicle suffers from reduced firing angles which seem to worsen with additional passengers - in addition to this the offensive capabilities are further crippled as thrown items are unusable due to the small window slots. This limits the destructive capability of the Kuruma and makes the Kuruma vulnerable to those willing to use explosives against it.

In theory, this system is perfect. It trades offensive capability for defence capability and leaves an Achilies heel for opponents to exploit. Issues begin to arise however when we take a look at the systems that surround not only the Kuruma but player owned vehicles as a whole.

During PVE missions and other freeroam events the AI seldom (if ever) utilises explosives - the achilies heel of the Kuruma, meaning that against our AI counterparts they're left with little hope to kill the player.

PVP is where most of the controversy arises however. The speed and acceleration of the Kuruma makes a hard target for many to begin with - couple this with a decreased firing window the only solution for most players seems to be the use of explosives. Understandly, the Kuruma cannot retaliate with explosives which would suggest that the vehicle is different, albeit balanced. This would be true if it were not for the 'Insurance' and 'Bad Sport' systems which plague the game. The insurance system is a money sink and an effective one at that. Up to about 17,000 can be taken from ones account for the destruction of another players vehicle, coupled with the cost of the explosives invovled in destroying said vehicle. The cost of the Kuruma to the aggressor is just short of 7000, plus expect another 7000 after a brief mechanic call in. To effectively put down a player in Kuruma harassing you, expect around 14000 upfront followed up by approximately 7000 every five minutes.

I've long since believed that the Kuruma is in theory a balanced vehicle, but made unbalanced by a poorly designed insurance system.

On the other hard the Kuruma's big, military grade brother the Insurgent should be a greater threat. Afterall, its marked on the map as a dangerous vehicle. It can take a huge amount of damage, a fully upgraded Insurgent can force its way through road blocks almost half a dozen cars thick in a matter of seconds, and an vehicle unfortunate enough to be on the ramming side of this thing will pay the price. Should anyone drop enough explosives on this monstrosity of a vehicle to blow it apart, they're faced with insurance costs of about 17000 plus the somewhat tremendous cost of the explosives involved. If we say that 5 stickybombs are used, then if memory serves that's approximately another 3000 assuming all hit the vehicle. In total, you're looking at about 20000 to blow this vehicle apart... all to see it back again in a minute or so.

So what makes this beast of a vehicle any better?

The strength of the Insurgent is the inverse of a Kuruma. Where the Kuruma was designed to keep one safe from bullets but render one weak to explosives, the Insurgent was designed to keep one safe from explosives but weak to bullets. As such, getting shot in the Insurgent isn't really a rare occurence, if anything, the somewhat large side windows and obnoxiously large front windscreen are like barn doors for any decent (or even poor) marksman looking to remove an insurgent from the map.
How much does it cost to exploit the Insurgent's weakness? A single, well placed sniper round. No more than 10 dollars, really.

So how do we fix this insurance protected Kuruma issue? Simple, drop the insurance costs dramatically, or weaken the Kuruma dramatically. The Kuruma needs substantially lower insurance costs and removal of the bad sport warning for players blowing it apart. Similarly, if we want to keep this money sink, the Kuruma does need nerfing. Perhaps no tinted windows to allow people to have a better clue of what exactly they're shooting at, or slightly larger window slots, or just greatly decreased firing angles for the driver.

Who knows, I'm not a developer, I'm just a concerned player.

[Dealman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Blast:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von MusicalEclipse:

tl;dr

tl;dr for you is learn to read.

That doesn't work with today's generation of kids. They can't be bothered to read more than one sentence or they'll get a nasty headache.

[Machin Shin]

its a big problem:

there one side of ppl who wants you did rive kuruma in missions
there are one side who hates ppl who drive kuruma


so what should everyone do now ? :)

[Gundam Az Ver.Nix]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von PitchBlackSun:

its a big problem:

there one side of ppl who wants you did rive kuruma in missions
there are one side who hates ppl who drive kuruma


so what should everyone do now ? :)

Whatever they want and not care about someone else's opinion on the internet.

[Rambo First Blunt]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von God Lobster:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von ☣Dealman the Provocator☣:

So me trying to provide feedback on how the Kuruma is imbalanced means that I haven't got a life? How about you try to contribute to the thread at hand instead?



I also blow up Kurumas on sight because I can afford it now. But only because I can afford doing that now doesn't mean that the car is balanced - does it?

I really don't understand how anyone can dispute the fact that it's not balanced for GTA Online.

They want you to blow them up, because it costs you a lot of money. And then there's also the fact that this car will almost assuredly defeat a fully crewed Intruder every time.

It simply is not balanced in any way.

Ok, so both we do the same thing and think the same thing about Kuramas balance.

I'm not talking about balance of the car, or the fact people in them get a laugh out of you paying 6 or 7 grand to blow up the car.

What I am saying is, people like us who blow up Kurama's on sight are jerks. We have no right to grief Kurama players by blowing up their vehicles, and we should always wait for a kurama player to open fire on us before blowing them up.

Short summary by Rambo First Blunt, in this same thread.....

LOL at your high morals, you are so much better than me. The car is fine, other than its a little slow. The other day someone killed me in a lobby, i proceeded to take out my aggression on the entire lobby, my KD ratio went up .6 points lol.

[Pudding]

Kudos to OP, very good write-up. Also to some of the actual on topic posts compared to all the "LULZ I TROLLDZ U SO HARDZ CUZ I GUD!" and the chronically dyslexic generation with all their "tl;dr"s.

But back on topic:

What I also have to add is, in comparison, the Kurumas drawbacks are pretty much completely nil. They are pretty much drawbacks on paper only.

If you are not a completely halfassed players, you will not fall for C4 traps.

You can take as much time as you want to realign for a good shot, because you have pretty much zero pressure in the Kuruma because of its armor and how hard it is to hit a Kuruma thats moving even just slightly, thus completely irrelevating the reduced aiming angle of it.

Even if you do not concider the insurance and bad sports system in place, one of the biggest and least discussed issues on the balancing of the kuruma is its agility. It is goddarn hard to blow up a Kuruma driver (that, again, is not a halfassed braindead zombie) in addition to its general protective abilities. Compared to that a Tank is a sitting duck (a dangerous at that, but it still is) thus an easy target to blow up. The Insurgent has huge ass windows to directly take out the driver. Neither of these apply to the Kuruma, effectively making it a car that is extremely hard to take out because you can't really kill the driver and only really vulnerable to explosives, which they can easily outrun anyway, making these obsolete as well.

And don't even get me started on the cheesability inherent to the Kuruma. 9 out of 10 players driving a kuruma suck bloody balls if they have to openly fight in the actual game world, facilitating cover and such. Because they are so goddarn used to their godmode on wheels. The degradation of challenge it delivers to players really shows on your general public heist lobby, where 9 out of 10 players get blasted away by the simplest of missions.

And yeah, it really kills diversity. if you join up a lobby with 29 players and yourself in it, 25 of these will drive in a Kuruma. Why not remove all the other cars anyway, since the Kuruma is the sole go-to at the current state anyway. There is literally zero purpose for the other cars to be in the game, if not for vanity and races. That pretty much kills off a lot of the beauty in GTA Online, where you have all the different tuned cars running around.

It definitely needs adjustments, one way or the other.

And inb4 randomkurumafanboi replies on the level of gitgud, noneed2changebrah or itrolledu2hard:

Get a grip, your penis is just average sized if at all anyway. If you can't see that there is defenitely something wrong with the Kuruma, you clearly are in no way educated or intelligent enough to even participate in such a discussion. Deal with it.

PS: gently bumping the topic.

[r 0 z i j n]

Stop thinking of Kuruma as a means for kids to shoot everyone on sight, it is also used by players who want to drive around without being stalked and killed every few minutes.

[Pudding]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von r 0 z i j n:

Stop thinking of Kuruma as a means for kids to shoot everyone on sight, it is also used by players who want to drive around without being stalked and killed every few minutes.

Sadly, this is not how it is used by a good 90% of the online community using it. Your point is utmost utopical.

[KookiePoo]

Ditto !

Ursprünglich geschrieben von r 0 z i j n:

Stop thinking of Kuruma as a means for kids to shoot everyone on sight, it is also used by players who want to drive around without being stalked and killed every few minutes.

[Dealman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von r 0 z i j n:

Stop thinking of Kuruma as a means for kids to shoot everyone on sight, it is also used by players who want to drive around without being stalked and killed every few minutes.

Those are the people that should use Passive Mode. Not us, who enjoy the free-for-all aspect of GTA Online. But the Kuruma has just entirely killed freeroam, and heists.

I have pretty much since stopped playing GTA Online, I only jump online to help friends with heists.

I used to enjoy doing heists, but now that everyone has the Kuruma - they just ride straight into the object and sit there with their invulnerability car. And if you don't get in, because you actually want a challenge - they run you over and then leave the lobby.

[KookiePoo]

I blame the COD KOS syndrome a psyop program by the NSA/DOD/CIA to condition prepubescent minds for desensitization, and more accommodating for war. Next gen cannon fodder is drone fodder.

[KookiePoo]

Kuruma was built for heists, if you want a challenge go solo or join with ppl that like flagellation.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dealman:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von r 0 z i j n:

Stop thinking of Kuruma as a means for kids to shoot everyone on sight, it is also used by players who want to drive around without being stalked and killed every few minutes.

Those are the people that should use Passive Mode. Not us, who enjoy the free-for-all aspect of GTA Online. But the Kuruma has just entirely killed freeroam, and heists.

I have pretty much since stopped playing GTA Online, I only jump online to help friends with heists.

I used to enjoy doing heists, but now that everyone has the Kuruma - they just ride straight into the object and sit there with their invulnerability car. And if you don't get in, because you actually want a challenge - they run you over and then leave the lobby.

[War Crime Enjoyer]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KookiePoo:

I blame the COD KOS syndrome a psyop program by the NSA/DOD/CIA to condition prepubescent minds for desensitization, and more accommodating for war. Next gen cannon fodder is drone fodder.

...What.

OP here again though, since this thread has been necro'd. I think in the longrun the Kuruma will be damaging to shark card sales. I own a Kuruma as I previously stated and it just renders gameplay awkward. Ever seen two Kuruma's getting into a fight? It's similar to watching two tortoises with nitrus in their backsides try to kill each other. Hilarious, but boring.

Whilst the issue initially seemed to be lowbies getting ganked, it goes far beyond that. People flock to the most powerful option. Ain't no ones fault, it's natural. But when everyone takes this option the game homogenises. The wide variety of vehicles, weapons, and characters is reduced down to a single vehicle.

[Dealman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KookiePoo:

I blame the COD KOS syndrome a psyop program by the NSA/DOD/CIA to condition prepubescent minds for desensitization, and more accommodating for war. Next gen cannon fodder is drone fodder.

I'm not a fan of CoD, nor its community but what you said is a very redundant thing to say. CoD is a shooter, its very purpose in Multiplayer is to shoot one another; so saying that it's a CoD Kill-on-Sight syndrome is... redundant :P

[KookiePoo]

You fail to see the point, i'm talking about the SYNDROME not the game, read it again.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dealman:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KookiePoo:

I blame the COD KOS syndrome a psyop program by the NSA/DOD/CIA to condition prepubescent minds for desensitization, and more accommodating for war. Next gen cannon fodder is drone fodder.

I'm not a fan of CoD, nor its community but what you said is a very redundant thing to say. CoD is a shooter, its very purpose in Multiplayer is to shoot one another; so saying that it's a CoD Kill-on-Sight syndrome is... redundant :P

[Gandorques Hikla]

The easiest solution would be a refined insurance system.
Armed and armoured vehicles are designed for combat use, if it gets destroyed in combat, the owner should pay the insurance fee.
That way the whole problem regulates itself.

If you know how to deal with a armored attacker, you dont have to pay for their insurance just because you defend yourself.
And if you want to go around and hunt down players (which can be fun sometimes), you have to pay if your car gets wrecked.

This should of course, only go for armored cars where its really hard to kill the driver without wrecking the whole car.