Necriol
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Posts posted by Necriol
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Have you read the OP, and a good majority of the responses agreeing with it? This is not a case of "someone killed me, X is OP." This is a measured and reasonable reaction to perceived imbalances with the Gunships.
That said, you are correct that the Devs won't read this thread and go "holy crap, we messed up, let's do what he says!" They have their own objective and empirical metrics which let them know what, if anything, is broken and/or subject to abuse, and they will keep their own counsel when it comes to what fixes will be done (if any).
But what measured and reasonable posts like the OP _can_ do is bring issues to the Dev's attention, and provide suggestions (which may or may not be practical for the devs to implement), and these constitutes VALUABLE feedback to the devs. This is why they do read the forums, to learn and see emerging trends in the gameplay, particularly high "level" gameplay, which was never truly tested on the PTS (closed or open).
Indeed, high "level" gameplay balance is something any Devs know is heavily influenced by players finding the golden combinations that maximize effectiveness, and they rely on live data to find those (mostly because there's no way a QA department can match the efforts of thousands of players poking at the cracks of their design). Furthermore, the devs also rely on live feedback to maximize the "fun factor", as it were. If something bothers the fan base and makes the gameplay experience less enjoyable, that's something they can ONLY learn through feedback like this thread. There's no metric for "fun" or "frustration."
So yes, this is a good thread, and the OP provides a valuable service to the Devs, and the community in fact. It brings to the dev's attention several issues, some of which I doubt the Devs would otherwise have been aware of even with their metrics (I doubt any of them was looking for "how often are ion railgun snap-shots used to stunlock anyone and make gameplay extremely frustrating" before this thread came along
).Thank you.
First, I did read the OP, and pretty much every other post in this thread, forgive me for not qualifying that the OP is not included in the class of posts that you might call 'tears posts'. Second, I'm not convinced these threads are of much value yet. In general, 'suggestion' threads tend to elicit an out-sized amount of low-quality 'negative' feedback (i.e. calls for nerfs out of frustration, conflicting opinions, uninformed people, etc). For instance, I don't think any of the OP's points are valid except for the one about ion railguns, which has been pointed out in posts that predate this one and is fairly obvious to anyone who plays enough GSF. If a dev is reading this who is he going to agree with? I wager he'd side with the person who is arguing for the thing that most closely resembles his design intent. Maybe if you're the Cicero of suggestion threads you'll convince them, but usually suggestions are just noise.
I do agree that these types of threads can give the devs an idea of how much fun/frustration there is (mostly, since it's likely possible that fun and frustration are measurable based on player behavior
). But it's not the quality of a post, it's the tone that gives the devs this information. -
I can't imagine using anything other than evasion armor, since having no evasion is definitely noticeable for enemy gunships and makes you a big fat easy kill. I used hull strength armor until I realized that it wasn't giving me any noticeable increase in survivability, then switched to evasion armor and it was like night and day. The survivability increase from evasion just blows the other types of armor out of the water with the way things are now. IMO alternatives to lightweight armor need some buffing to compete, especially damage reduction armor which is totally ignored by slug railguns.
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While I realize this is a joke thread, I think OP, potentially unwittingly, touched on a salient point.
Much of the griping about 'balance' stems from GSF having a very low skill-floor and a very high skill-ceiling. Players that don't know what they're doing or don't have properly upgraded ships are pretty much totally ineffective, whereas it can seem at times that good pilots just god-mode around and rack up the kills. Some people realize they're not very good pilots and just want the skill-gap to be narrowed, and the only way they can think to achieve this is to 'nerf' the things that they perceive as being responsible for said skill-gap. Some people just can't come to terms with the fact that there are people out there who are better pilots than them, so the fact that someone was able to thwart them with X is evidence that X is overpowered.
Having a big skill-gap is an issue, that's why the goal of matchmaking systems is to cluster people of similar skill/gear levels together. Since I don't have any analytics on hand this is just a theory, but my guess is that the GSF population is just not large enough to always prevent the situation where exceptional pilots are matched up with total newbies, which of course is going to end in a massacre and create the perception that X is overpowered.
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Thankfully the devs never read these things or care what people think. No matter what we write at the end of the day they will sit around a conference table and make decisions entirely on their own on if something needs to be changed and how to go about it.
And this is exactly the way it should be. The way that human psychology works, people who think that GSF is fine, good enough, or don't care, which is likely the overwhelming majority of people who play it, aren't going to run to the forums to say "I'm content with GSF". People that aren't happy with the way it is are much more likely to voice that on the forums. Add on to that the fact that most complaints are just "someone killed me, this is clearly evidence that X is OP because I am the greatest human being to ever walk the planet and the only way for me to be bested is if my opponent has an unfair advantage", and it becomes exceedingly difficult to distinguish the signal from the noise. Finally, end users typically don't have the tools or experience to really understand the balance picture, whereas the developers at least have the ability, in theory, to gather metrics and understand how well things 'on the ground' are matching up with their intended design.
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Nerf everything. Revert to Pong.
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Is it really that hard to just read the in-game tooltips and look at the upgrade trees for the various ship components? It states clearly on the distortion field upgrade tree that it can be upgraded to break missile locks when activated.
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Oh look, another gunship tears thread, we needed more of these.
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Since 'up' and 'down' are relative positions, there's never any 'up' or 'down', not even on earth, unless you're specifying what the 'up' and 'down' are in relation to. Further confusing matters, what we typically describe as 'up' and 'down' when we talk about atmospheric flight is really closer/further from a planet's center of gravity or surface (aka altitude). For instance, 2 planes on opposite sides of a planet can go in opposite directions but still be going 'up' and gaining altitude.
With the semantics out of the way, I encourage you to define an 'up' and 'down' in relation to some object(s), and use those to stay oriented whenever you can. This will go a long way towards being able to quickly ascertain your position and where your next maneuver will take you.
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Barrel roll is fine, and it's the only way for a gunship to lose a tail that isn't brain damaged. I just don't see why anything the OP said is a problem with barrel roll, it's how the ability is meant to work. Despite the OP's claims, I have yet to see anything that suggests that in all situations and scenarios a gunship must be less speedy or maneuverable than a scout/strike. There's just no real justification for the nerf other than people using barrel roll effectively.
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As a gunship pilot, I would have to say that the ion railgun's engine disabling abilities do border on gamebreaking with their current implementation, it's just hard to see how the ion railgun could be altered to make it as desirable to use as the others, since without the engine disabling ability, it's an underwhelming weapon.
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What the hell are you talking about?
Please tell me, where the heck I was talking about "damage isn't high enough" in my post?
Maybe YOU should re-read my and even your own post again, because you're just babbling nonsense...
LOL, ok, here we go....
The one who doesn't understand game mechanics is you.People have already done the math in several threads and they've proven that it's possible to 1-shot a scout with full health and full shields.
All you need is an upgraded slug railgun and Bypass co-pilot ability.
You could even 1-shot a striker on a crit with tier 5 crit upgrade.
That's you, arguing against me as if I stated that it's not possible for a gunship to 1 shot a scout.
Maybe the 1 shot that actually rolls as a hit kills youThat's me stating clearly that 1 shot can kill. It's qualified to state that the shot actually has to land.
Everything I've said is pretty clear and concise, but I'll reiterate the main point plainly for you: There's more to a 'hit' than just mousing over someone and releasing the trigger, this effectively increases the number of shots that a players needs to take in order to expect a kill. I realize this subtlety is likely lost on you, but this in no way implies that 1 shot kills are impossible.
Now, if you want to continue to beat up strawmen to make yourself feel better, go ahead, but if you still don't get it then you're a lost cause.
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The one who doesn't understand game mechanics is you and it also seems, you've never played a gunship yourself.
People have already done the math in several threads and they've proven that it's possible to 1-shot a scout with full health and full shields.
All you need is an upgraded slug railgun and Bypass co-pilot ability.
You could even 1-shot a striker on a crit with tier 5 crit upgrade.
Nice reading comprehension. I wasn't arguing that the damage isn't high enough. Go ahead and re-read the post now.
Or just keep wailing away at that strawman.
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People complaining about '1-shotting' scouts obviously have never played gunship. Maybe the 1 shot that actually rolls as a hit kills you, but it could be the 3rd or 4th shot that the gunship has 'hit' you with. Of course this is the internet, so understanding how game mechanics work before complaining would just be absurd.
Not to mention that all of the ships can, when properly outfitted, kill nearly instantaneously if not also deliver 1-shots.
On another note, I agree that bypass causes serious issues, with all ships but particularly with the gunship.
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Sounds like people need to learn how to fly by instrument and stay properly oriented. I have no problems with the minimap.
Once you learn to stay properly oriented, or to re-orient yourself, you'll be able to navigate with the map again.
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There is definitely 'too much' engine boost in the game. My guess is that this is to accelerate the pace of play so that there's less time spent farting around between objectives and more pew-pew. Couple this with the ability to stop quickly and hover then immediately accelerate to max speed with boosts, and the result is that people can do things that would typically be suicidal in a real dogfight, like bleeding all of their speed while surrounded by hostiles in enemy airspace.
At the end of the day, you have to realize this isn't a flight simulator. It's an arcade game that's designed to be playable with a mouse and keyboard.
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The initial hit doesn't pierce shields but the DoT does.. like 80% of the damage (if not more) is the DoT..
if you wanna see big instant numbers then the slug IS better but while it can take me at least 1-2 shots to kill a scout i can usually one shot it with my plasma cannon because the DoT is really strong and the DoT damage the hull and shields at the same time.
The DoT is 50% of the damage, it tells you right on the tooltip that the plasma railgun does 1800 damage. A fully charged plasma shot will initially do 900 damage, leaving 900 additional damage to be dealt by the DoT.
The slug railgun can also one shot, and get's a much bigger burst from its crit mechanic than the plasma railgun does from its own (i.e. the plasma railgun crit is calculated on both the initial hit and each DoT tick, so while you might see increased damage more consistently, you're not very likely to see the big numbers the slug does).
If you don't believe me, just look at what the best gunship pilots are using, I'll bet that unless they're bored, they're using slug/ion.
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The plasma railgun seems weak to me. I actually don't even use it anymore now that I have fully upgraded my slug railgun (the slug is simply more effective as it always damages the enemy hull without having to burn through shields first).. If anything, it could use a slight buff since I don't really see any other experienced gunship pilots using it over the ion/slug..
The plasma railgun is meant to be the high-damage output railgun, with the trade-off that it doesn't pierce shields. Unfortunately, in my experience, this leads to a lot of 'wasted' damage that doesn't directly contribute to a kill.
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People keep talking about these players that get 30 kills. I've not seen that much; it is very unusual on Shadowlands.
On the Shadowlands server, I have played religiously since launch of 2.5. I am almost always in the top 5, but I usually have only around 5 kills (8-10 assists), preferring to stay close to nodes in order to protect them or racing to nodes to cap or keep from capping. Staying close to nodes limits the ability to kill with frequency. The top people in kills generally have around 10. I play on republic side and we dominate the imps. Republic v Republic matches are much closer, but the group I am in usually wins. I've never really played space sims much; its come naturally with lots of practice. In the past week I've gotten two ships' components maxed to the 15k upgrades. Two other ships are at the 5-10K upgrades. So... i've played alot... absolutely love it!
Maybe there are people farming up that many killing blows, but I think it's typical for people to say killing blows + assists = kills. I haven't seen anyone crack the 20 killing blow barrier yet myself, and that's in over 100 games. WIth that said, I see people getting 20-30 kills + assists pretty frequently (at least half the time).
There isn't much distinction between an assist and a killing blow other than the killing blow says that the damage you dealt resulted in the kill, I could probably get upwards of 30 KBs if I just bolted around with a slug railgun ninja'ing KB's on people with low health, but I don't see that all that often.
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The whole 'gunship running back to spawn' thing is getting very old. There's a couple people on Harbinger that do this all the time.
As a gunship pilot, part of the reason I run back to spawn is so that I can lap up the delicious tears of rage-chasers. Also it's because as a gunship I dogfight between the ranges of 10-15km, and if someone is dumb enough to engage me where I'm invulnerable, who am I to turn down the free kill?
Also it's fun to consistently score 20+ kills without ever dying.
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It's pretty easy to get back from even past midfield with full boosters in a gunship with upgraded barrel roll. Once you figure it out, you pretty much don't die unless you're being careless. With that said, gunships can hit players near their capital ship, so if it really bothers you, then just roll a gunship and chase players to their capital ship then sit at ~12km and blast them, assuming you don't get pummeled by enemy fighters and scouts first.
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I don't see what the big deal with gunships is. They are meant to primarily output damage, which they do admirably. If you play a gunship long enough, you'll realize that unless you're fighting people who are totally oblivious about how to avoid/counter gunships, you'll typically get more assists than kills. Gunship effectiveness is usually a credit to the gunship's team's ability to maintain tactical superiority, or in other words, a gunship isn't that great if you don't have teammates to protect you and mop up the people you damage. If you're pugging, it's likely that you'll end up with a pretty terrible team from time-to-time, and if your opponents have some good gunships, they're going to make your life miserable.
Claims that there's no flying in a gunship are pretty rich. The obvious case where some skill in flying is needed is in evasion, but it's also needed for proper positioning. Flying a gunship requires a good amount of precision. It's kind of like flying an A-10 Warthog. It's not meant for dogfighting, but it's still pretty nimble because that's what deploying its weapon systems requires.
I'd say the only thing that seems overpowered is gunship survivability. In ~20 games today as gunship, I died twice to enemy players, both times were to multiple fighters attacking me AND I waited for a full charge of my railgun before trying to evade. Once barrel roll is upgraded, gunships can trivially return to the spawn turrets, even from slightly past midfield on the map.
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Galactic Starfighter Stats Records
in Galactic Starfighter
Posted · Edited by Necriol
Necriol (Cerez) - Gunship(Mangler) - no guild - Prophecy of the Five - 41.32 Kill/Death Ratio http://tinypic.com/r/25k1zmf/9
Necriol (Cerez) - Overall - no guild - Prophecy of the Five - 33.68 Kill/Death Ratio
http://tinypic.com/r/x0ny2p/9
I can verify in-game.