What makes gunships problematic?

[Grimbot]

As a scout, the thing I fear most are other scouts. Sure, a gunship can one-shot me, but I can take out a gunship once I know where he is. And he's probably thinking he's getting one-shifted by me, even though it's three or four shots and a missile point-blank in rapid succession.

 

I was actually thinking that the game is remarkably balanced, but maybe there just aren't as many gunships on my server. There are only one or two gunships on my enemies list, but there are even more strike fighters and scouts...

[Zoom_VI]

As a scout, the thing I fear most are other scouts. Sure, a gunship can one-shot me, but I can take out a gunship once I know where he is. And he's probably thinking he's getting one-shifted by me, even though it's three or four shots and a missile point-blank in rapid succession.

 

I was actually thinking that the game is remarkably balanced, but maybe there just aren't as many gunships on my server. There are only one or two gunships on my enemies list, but there are even more strike fighters and scouts...

 

Well most of the gunships now are not very good at all. I played on the PTS and the gunships there where way better than all but a few I have encountered on live.

 

And I pray the never fix dampening.

[TUXs]

I think they're very well balanced. The narrow field of vision they have makes it difficult for them to see incoming scouts. If I'm 1-shot by a Gunship, I usually have power to weapons (my fault) or I'm already damaged...I make damn sure they don't get me a second time though by flying straight to them and killing them.

[Delta_V]

Well most of the gunships now are not very good at all. I played on the PTS and the gunships there where way better than all but a few I have encountered on live.

 

And I pray the never fix dampening.

 

This. Most Gunships aren't very good. I've played numerous games where the enemy had 4 or more gunships, and they were little more than cannon fodder because they didn't know how to position themselves and lacked anything resembling situation awareness. Bad gunships are actually worse than bad scouts or strikes, since even if they don't get many kills or do much damage, bad scouts/strikes can at least clog up the nodes and make it harder for the enemy to capture. Bad gunships, on the other had, are just free kills for the other team.

 

The problem is Gunships who understand positioning (i.e. they don't sit out the middle of nowhere in plain sight) and have an ounce of situational awareness (don't just sit there while I light up their shields). If you get multiple gunships in a match who understand what they're doing, they can just dominate a match with almost no communication required, and anything less than a coordinated, simultaneous strike against each of them (good luck w/out voice chat) doesn't stand a chance.

 

 

 

Oh, and I too hope they never get around to fixing sensor dampening. That was just absurdly annoying on the PTS. At least now we can see the gunship who is shooting at us.

[Danylia]

The problem is Gunships who understand positioning (i.e. they don't sit out the middle of nowhere in plain sight) and have an ounce of situational awareness (don't just sit there while I light up their shields). If you get multiple gunships in a match who understand what they're doing, they can just dominate a match with almost no communication required, and anything less than a coordinated, simultaneous strike against each of them (good luck w/out voice chat) doesn't stand a chance.

Today I encountered such organized Gunship group (4-5 Gunships) and quickly developed the most effective strategy against it: I stopped queueing. It was so much "not fun" that I cannot properly describe it. When I came back two hours later I ended in a 8 vs. 8 match with no Gunship on either side, and it was the most awesome GSF match I had so far ( final score 1000 - 890).

[thewatcheruatu]

That's true enough.

 

Though to be fair, I think the main problem with gunships is that they are intrusive.

 

Basically, people will be happily dogfighting, minding their own business, then BAM, gunship hit. Now they need to stop what they're doing and run like heck, and possibly track down their attacker and figure out what to do.

 

So, while gunships can and ARE countered by good teams, this will never take away the feeling of frustration dogfighters get whenever they are suddenly targeted. And when dealing with a coordinated gunship group, it forces people to avoid doing what they like the most in GS and either give up the fight in their area, deal with the gunships, or head for another location.

 

And that really is the main issue. Gunships can essentially dominate an area and prevent people from doing waht they enjoy the most, and so that frustrates people.

 

How much this is a problem that needs fixing is certainly up for debate: Gunships certainly add depth to the gameplay, but I doubt the complaints will ever go away (and the same will be said of all future roles introduced).

 

This is a fairly apt assessment, at least from my perspective. Just don't really enjoy being one-shot in my scout. I'm not going to make excuses for feeling that way. Having to deal with these guys pulls me too far away from objectives and I feel that it detracts from the give and take, skin-of-your-teeth mortal combat of dogfighting. I don't really like them at all.

 

But I guess this is how the Galactic Starfighter game mode is meant to work. I get it--they're glass cannons. But for me, I'll just go back to warzones, where I've never once felt that I didn't have a chance to recover from a devastating alpha strike. People complain about smashers, for example, in warzones, but say what you will, I've never been one-shot by one.

[Danylia]

This is a fairly apt assessment, at least from my perspective. Just don't really enjoy being one-shot in my scout. I'm not going to make excuses for feeling that way. Having to deal with these guys pulls me too far away from objectives and I feel that it detracts from the give and take, skin-of-your-teeth mortal combat of dogfighting. I don't really like them at all.

 

But I guess this is how the Galactic Starfighter game mode is meant to work. I get it--they're glass cannons. But for me, I'll just go back to warzones, where I've never once felt that I didn't have a chance to recover from a devastating alpha strike. People complain about smashers, for example, in warzones, but say what you will, I've never been one-shot by one.

Completely agree. I said it before and I will say it again. Matches with Gunships aren't unbalanced, they are simply not enjoyable (well, at least for me; I assume the sworn gunship players/gunship groups which I'm starting to see regularly, perceive it otherwise).

[funkiestj]

Just be glad that there aren't Falcon 4.0 or DCS FC:3 Virtual Squadrons flying in Galactic Starfighter, if you spent the whole match getting camped at your spawn point you'd realize how much more unbalanced communication and cooperation are compared to mere gunships.

 

I played Falcon and years ago (way before 4.0). Looking at GSF actually got me looking at the latest version of Falcon 4.0.

 

My experience in GSF is very very limited but I agree that the roles in GSF seem very traditional. It is amusing to see how often people express frustration that they can't solo another class in a game that emphasizes combined arms. That and the fact that it is an MMO -- you should group up and be in voice chat people!

 

TANGENT: It really would be nice if SWTOR added in game voice chat. Given that mumble/murmur is open source with a fricken BSD license, you'd think adding voice chat to the game would be a tractable feature request. Sure this is not a small feature (getting it working for everyone would no doubt be a pain -- I've run across at least different people who have each complained that voice chat <x> crashes or works badly for them for each <x> in {mumble, ventrilo, teamspeak}). I think if the default was that you heard your teammates (the one's with mics) talking when ever you entered WZ you (the hypothetical guy without a mic) would be more inclined to get a mic and use it. Everyone would have more fun too.

 

Ah well, a guy can dream. Given that we have a really good work around (3rd party voice), I reckon that things like cross server PvP and bug fixing (hello targeting bug) should take far higher precedence.

[funkiestj]

This is a fairly apt assessment, at least from my perspective. Just don't really enjoy being one-shot in my scout. I'm not going to make excuses for feeling that way. Having to deal with these guys pulls me too far away from objectives and I feel that it detracts from the give and take, skin-of-your-teeth mortal combat of dogfighting. I don't really like them at all.

 

You're a scout. Your primary objective is reconnaissance.

[Phantasym]

The number of nerf operatives threads agree with you

 

Pretty sure he means all healers must be OP in Warzones if having to use a strategy to deal with a class makes something OP based on the original poster.

 

Gunships like healers in warzones, or snipers in warzones can change the course of a fight if left alone, but if you target them are not an issue just like you focus down a healer in a warzone you do something similar to a gunship.

 

As far as someone saying one shots if they happen often should be removed I think that is really the question do they happen often. I think the answer to that is no. What it takes to get a one shot is using your active shield penetration skill on a slug railgun that has been upgraded at least past to the first 3 points and hitting with that shot. Being an active from a companion it last 6 seconds, and has a 60second cool down, this means that probably only 1 in 10 shots can have this shield penetration and even then it only will one shot a scout. To oneshot anything else requires a crit ontop of this which will at most have a 30% chance in those 1 in 10 shots, and that's assuming they don't miss due to evasion etc.

 

"One shots" generally only happen when your hull is already damaged but have full shield because they don't need to do a lot to the hull to finish you off, the except is scouts but they know picking the class they are fast and lightly armored and shielded, its the class draw back right in the description. Again even scouts cannot be one shot killed without being damaged or the use of a long cooldown. I don't see any problem with this. It is no different then the blaster overload cooldown of other classes that let them destroy a target in 6 seconds or so same as the charging gunship.