Breakdown of Gunship Issues and Suggested Fixes (from a confessed Gunship abuser)

[Nemarus]

Re: Barrel Roll. I do agree that it's overpowered for all ships, not just Gunship. If you take anything but Barrel Roll, you are severely crippling your ability to move around the map compared to other ships who are using it.

 

I called it out here though because for Gunships in particular, it directly negates what I believe is to be an intended weakness and balancing factor for Gunships--that they are slow and ponderous. Just looking at their other engine abilities makes that clear, not to mention the text descriptions of the class on both sides.

[Xakthul]

I agree that the debuffs for Ion weapons are insane. I get destroyed by Interdiction Drive-ion chains all the time.

 

However, shield bypass is something that needs to not be removed. If it were to be removed, Gunships would never be able to shoot down scouts without ion guns. Also, Barrel Roll is the only thing that makes the Gunship fast enough to compete with strikes for speed.

[MCaliban]

You make some very good points especially about the ion cannon debuff and the charge required. That needs looking at. Does anyone know if the plasma railguns DoT affect applies the full amount of DoT if it is not fully charged?

It does not. Though the debuff and crit chance remains the same.

[BrianDavion]

Bypass is extremely powerful, for any ship. It so far out-strips other co-pilot abilities that either it needs to be nerfed or the others need to be buffed

 

best nerf I could think for bypass would be make it apply only to primary weapons.

 

that's remove it as a factor for railshots and missiles

[Armonddd]

Re: Barrel Roll. I do agree that it's overpowered for all ships, not just Gunship. If you take anything but Barrel Roll, you are severely crippling your ability to move around the map compared to other ships who are using it.

 

I called it out here though because for Gunships in particular, it directly negates what I believe is to be an intended weakness and balancing factor for Gunships--that they are slow and ponderous. Just looking at their other engine abilities makes that clear, not to mention the text descriptions of the class on both sides.

 

You're not wrong, but I don't think that's the whole story. Yes, Barrel Roll is the best engine ability in the game for getting around maps - it's an amazing augment to your overall speed and boost capabilities. It also has a significant downside - it essentially removes you from combat with anyone tailing you, which makes it very hard to counter-attack them. Barrel Roll is very good at what it does, but it's not as clear-cut a choice as you imply it is.

 

I've been using Retro Thrusters since I learned they existed and they've treated me very, very well. Someone's tailing me? Wait for a missile warning, tap afterburners, then retro thrusters. Nine times out of ten they react to my afterburners with their own and go flying ahead of me, setting me up to tail them instead. Going head to head with someone? Wait for the missile warning, hit retro thrusters, maintain blaster file, finish my own missile lock, and release. Again, nine times out of ten I score a kill, and I've significantly reduced the damage he's dealt to me.

 

I haven't done much with the U-turn, snap turn, or power dive, because I haven't seen any reason why I would want them over retro thrusters. I haven't used Barrel Roll on my Ocula or Rycer because both of those ships have sufficient map-covering capabilities. The Rycer could certainly use more engine power, but I still prefer Retro Thrusters because of the massive offensive utility it provides - and when I'm on a strike fighter, I want offense, not engines.

 

Barrel Roll is especially good on a gunship, however, because it shores up one of their weak points: their poor dogfighting skills give them only a few options when an enemy fighter comes for them. Barrel Roll shoots them far enough forward to be out of range of most weapons (including most missiles), which gives them a huge advantage in the ensuing chase. All they have to do is stall for the ten seconds it takes Barrel Roll to recharge and repeat the process as necessary. Essentially, it takes that downside - removing you from the dogfight - and turns it into another benefit.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Armonddd

[Armonddd]

Suggested Fix: Reduce/Eliminate Bypass co-pilot ability, such that a defensively upgraded Scout can never be one-shotted.

 

Bypass isn't the problem - it's perfectly fine for every ship but the gunship. The problem is that the gunship is designed to be an invisible kill ship - about half the time I have no way of telling that a gunship's about to fire at me until I get hit, and bypass is what turns that hit into a kill (if it wasn't already). On every other ship, bypass is an important but not essential cooldown that can score a crucial kill when used at the right time and on the right target.

 

I like bypass because it requires skill to use properly. You can use it at the wrong time, the enemy can dodge it or maybe even pop another cooldown in response (Wingman comes to mind, but there might be another), it makes a noticeable audio and visual cue when it's used that the other players can watch out for, and you can just flat out miss your shots after using it. It has a short duration, but that's ok, because not only is the duration enough if you use it at the right time, and because it's so short, the player is encouraged to learn to use it better - if they mess it up, they don't get the reward of pretty explosions on their screen. If you do blow it, you're faced with a relatively hefty cooldown before you can try again.

 

Unfortunately, like so many other mechanics, gunships take the risk-reward scenario presented to dogfighting ships and throw it out the window. It's impossible to notice the audio and visual cues of a ship that's fifteen kilometers away from you (and when you're closer, the visual cue is drowned out in the giant cloud of energy as they charge their weapon). It's very hard to dodge gunships in general, and any half-decent player will only use bypass when they know they'll score a kill with it. Even then, if the RNG screws them on an evasion roll or the target suddenly weaves, bypass lasts long enough for them to get off a second shot (possibly at reduced power, I'm not sure). The huge cooldown isn't nearly as big a drawback for a gunship because their railgun does so much damage that they can often score kills on a weakened target anyway, and thus they only need bypass for strong targets. The only ways bypass can go wrong for a gunship are if the player completely fails their snipe because they didn't play the tutorial and don't know to aim for the lead reticule when the target slows down, and if the target player miraculously dodges two railguns in a row (assuming they even know the gunship is there).

[Osoygatitalove]

best nerf I could think for bypass would be make it apply only to primary weapons.

 

that's remove it as a factor for railshots and missiles

 

Please make a thread i will support it with my life.

[BoushhDC]

Okay, here is the *real* source of imbalance at the moment: Beta testers should have been delayed early access for the amount of days closed beta was available. There, I fixed it for you. I've read many a post from testers that advertise their successes & uberness (the guy who won 141 or so straight matches, comes to mind as an example) which they attribute to being in the beta. The reason I make that assertion is that while those of us who were not fortunate enough to have gotten a beta invite were in the first days of early access still trying to consistently not fly into sh*%, the beta testers had maneuvering down, had figured out what ships they wanted to fly, what they wanted to upgrade and done so. If what I write here was invalid, then Dulfy wouldn't have been one-shotting me in my gunship from her strike fighter. lol. Either that, or the gunship isn't OP and you can flesh out that argument. By the same token, this shouldn't be an issue when GSF goes fully live (to include a new crop of pilots from the F2P ranks) because there will be matchmaking so the new pilots will be with others of similar skill (or so the lead dev for GSF posted). Beta vets & subs will still be in together. Just because you guys (beta testers) have gotten it all figured out and are ready to move on (switch from normal mode to hard mode) while the rest of us are enjoying our learning curve, let's put away the friggin' nerf bat for awhile. I've still got deep scars from that from the ground game. Edited December 17, 2013 by BoushhDC

[ObiWanJabroni]

Okay, here is the *real* source of imbalance at the moment: Beta testers should have been delayed early access for the amount of days closed beta was available. There, I fixed it for you. I've read many a post from testers that advertise their successes & uberness (the guy who won 141 or so straight matches, comes to mind as an example) which they attribute to being in the beta. The reason I make that assertion is that while those of us who were not fortunate enough to have gotten a beta invite were in the first days of early access still trying to consistently not fly into sh*%, the beta testers had maneuvering down, had figured out what ships they wanted to fly, what they wanted to upgrade and done so. If what I write here was invalid, then Dulfy wouldn't have been one-shotting me in my gunship from her strike fighter. lol. Either that, or the gunship isn't OP and you can flesh out that argument. By the same token, this shouldn't be an issue when GSF goes fully live (to include a new crop of pilots from the F2P ranks) because there will be matchmaking so the new pilots will be with others of similar skill (or so the lead dev for GSF posted). Beta vets & subs will still be in together. Just because you guys (beta testers) have gotten it all figured out and are ready to move on (switch from normal mode to hard mode) while the rest of us are enjoying our learning curve, let's put away the friggin' nerf bat for awhile. I've still got deep scars from that from the ground game.

 

Yeah I'm not a big fan of nerfing something a few weeks in and without all the pieces(bombers). That said, number one on his list is pretty legit. I consider it more of a question if it's truly working as intended. I think Bioware needs to step up and say something one way or another to clear the air.

 

We can wait a few weeks for a fix. Hell, I played Commando all the way till 2.0 and barely complained on the forum, after the stupidest nerf in MMO history...which btw... Played out on the forums a lot like this current back and forth about star fighter is. I'd rather Bioware get it right the first time, or at the very least have the time to think it through.

[BoushhDC]

Yeah I'm not a big fan of nerfing something a few weeks in and without all the pieces(bombers). That said, number one on his list is pretty legit. I consider it more of a question if it's truly working as intended. I think Bioware needs to step up and say something one way or another to clear the air.

 

We can wait a few weeks for a fix. Hell, I played Commando all the way till 2.0 and barely complained on the forum, after the stupidest nerf in MMO history...which btw... Played out on the forums a lot like this current back and forth about star fighter is. I'd rather Bioware get it right the first time, or at the very least have the time to think it through.

 

I agree with your statements.

[Lethrian]

Subscribed. Fully agree with most suggested fixes. Great post OP!

 

I have been a strong supporter of Gunships despite the many cries on the forum and in game about their suposed over powering. (I mostly play a scout myslef about 200 matches). I believe they add a fun complexity to the game that would otherwise have turned into a simple dogfighting around the sattelite. With gunships around, there is a need for scouts to actually go out and scout, and hunt for gunships. They free sapce at sattelites, makes defending of node more difficult and at same time the game more dynamic because of more capping etc.

 

Now that a couple of weeks have passes since GSF came out players are starting to reach the max tier of upgrades and this is where gunships have truly become over powered and in many ways game breaking. If you disagree you most likely have not had the misfortune of matching up against a team with a couple of fully upgraded gunships. I really hope the devs take a look at this thread as original poster has hit the nail on the head.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Lethrian

[Necriol]

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.

[Phantasym]

I agree that the debuffs for Ion weapons are insane. I get destroyed by Interdiction Drive-ion chains all the time.

 

However, shield bypass is something that needs to not be removed. If it were to be removed, Gunships would never be able to shoot down scouts without ion guns. Also, Barrel Roll is the only thing that makes the Gunship fast enough to compete with strikes for speed.

 

Pretty sure that last statement is the issue, gunships are not supposed to compete with strikes for speed... they are supposed to be slow and take a longtime to get to objectives, that's their disadvantage to offset the exactly on target 15km massive damage railshots.

[Itkovian]

Yeah I'm not a big fan of nerfing something a few weeks in and without all the pieces(bombers). That said, number one on his list is pretty legit. I consider it more of a question if it's truly working as intended. I think Bioware needs to step up and say something one way or another to clear the air.

 

We can wait a few weeks for a fix. Hell, I played Commando all the way till 2.0 and barely complained on the forum, after the stupidest nerf in MMO history...which btw... Played out on the forums a lot like this current back and forth about star fighter is. I'd rather Bioware get it right the first time, or at the very least have the time to think it through.

 

While I personally think that all the suggestions are valid and would be worth implementing, it's probably a good idea for the devs to take it slow, and implement changes one by one until a proper balance is reached.

 

The Ion Railgun issue I feel is the most critical fix, being objectively clear-cut and hopefully can be implemented before the abuse becomes too great. So far we're lucky only a few of the top gunship are using it, but with threads like these this is sure to change. With gunships being so "disruptive" already (I mean that in the sense that they interrupt dogfighting and capping points by forcing you to get out of their sights), it won't take long before Ion Railgun Rage becomes daily occurance on the forums.

 

I'd personally like to see Barrel Roll removed from their list of drives. They already have an escape mechanism more tailored to gunships anyway (interdiction field), which does not allow them to zip across the map. It feels a lot more balanced to the gunship role than Barrel Roll (which, personally, I quite like as is, but it really should be the domain of Scouts and Strikes IMO).

 

Beyond that, I think a big part of gunship balance is highly dependent on the players. If the average player base wakes up to the dangers of gunships and learns to hunt them down, then it may well be that gunships will be fine. But if not, then it'll be a very big issue. One thing is certain: gunships can make a match extremely frustrating, when you're stuck in a bad team.

[Itkovian]

However, shield bypass is something that needs to not be removed. If it were to be removed, Gunships would never be able to shoot down scouts without ion guns. Also, Barrel Roll is the only thing that makes the Gunship fast enough to compete with strikes for speed.

 

Gunships can shoot down scouts the same way they can shoot down strikes, by hitting a couple of times instead of just once. The whole PROBLEM with bypass is that it allows one-shots, and that one-shotting is _not_ a good thing. It's needlessly frustrating to the victim (remember, this is a game, the victim needs to have fun too!), and breaks the one thing that SHOULD balance gunships: the ability of the target to react to the gunship's first attack and get to safety (or even engage the gunship).

 

As has also been said, Gunships should NOT compete with strikes for speed. What you wrote is _precisely_ why Barrel Roll on gunships is a problem. Gunships should be slow, balanced out by the fact they don't need to get close to kill things (and also when you kill one they won't be back in position instantly). Gunships should be slower than Scouts and Strikes, and should not have any abilities that allows them to compete like this. They already have their own special anti-pursuit component with Interdiction Field (which does not make them faster, as it should be), let them use that.

[Yorumi]

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.

 

You can hit a scout with 1 ion shot at minimal charge and then forever keep him out of gun range never running out of fuel. The scout can literally never catch you and the gunship will never run out of boost fuel. It's faster than using afterburners. If it's speed isn't going to be changed, or it taken off gunships then it needs to consume about 4x as much boost fuel.

[Sarlegant]

I pray that BW/EA doesn't read these forums... if they do, and they start nerfing useful skills, then where does it stop...

Seriously, I just read a pilot thinks Barrel Rolls on Gunships are OP...

every ship in the fleet can barrel roll for speed or evasion... it has a cooldown... working as intended.

 

OK, I get it... a gunship can get to the fight faster... he is still out of gas when he gets there... a strike is half out of gas, and a scout is full of gas... OP for whom?

 

At this pace... well imagine how a pawn feels about a knight feeling like the bishops own the game, while rooks feel disadvantaged on the side of the board, while a queen is jealous of the attention a king gets. Somebody needs to get the nerf stick and wack Chess.

 

Forget the dag gum nerf sticks, and play the game the ways it's written right now!!!

 

Gunships can't be OP, as long as the other side gets Gunships too... weaken gunships, and scouts rule the skys, till there are no more gunships to hunt, and then strikes own the board playing around the Sats for the win.

 

Weaken scouts, and then there will only be gunships in the skys, till theres no more strikes to hunt...

 

The White Queen is NOT the most powerful piece on the board, until the Black Queen is dead!

 

Just play the game with what we've got! Calling for nerfs won't ever make it better.

[Yorumi]

I'm starting to wonder if some people are reading the thread, understand what's being said, why it's being said, and exactly why people feel there is something wrong.

[Fractalsponge]

While I personally think that all the suggestions are valid and would be worth implementing, it's probably a good idea for the devs to take it slow, and implement changes one by one until a proper balance is reached.

 

The Ion Railgun issue I feel is the most critical fix, being objectively clear-cut and hopefully can be implemented before the abuse becomes too great. So far we're lucky only a few of the top gunship are using it, but with threads like these this is sure to change. With gunships being so "disruptive" already (I mean that in the sense that they interrupt dogfighting and capping points by forcing you to get out of their sights), it won't take long before Ion Railgun Rage becomes daily occurance on the forums.

 

I'd personally like to see Barrel Roll removed from their list of drives. They already have an escape mechanism more tailored to gunships anyway (interdiction field), which does not allow them to zip across the map. It feels a lot more balanced to the gunship role than Barrel Roll (which, personally, I quite like as is, but it really should be the domain of Scouts and Strikes IMO).

 

Beyond that, I think a big part of gunship balance is highly dependent on the players. If the average player base wakes up to the dangers of gunships and learns to hunt them down, then it may well be that gunships will be fine. But if not, then it'll be a very big issue. One thing is certain: gunships can make a match extremely frustrating, when you're stuck in a bad team.

 

Railguns are supposed to be disruptive to dogfighting and capping. If they weren't, there would be zero reason to play gunship other than to put out a big "KILL ME" sign and feed scouts kills. I fully agree they have to be balanced so that they cannot one-shot someone without a crit (RNG). Ion should also scale its effects. But the key thing is to NOT nerf their mobility and group utility so badly that you hand over control of the match to scouts, which already determine how easily matches are won. Multi-gunship team compositions already suck at winning matches in the current meta unless ALL of the gunship players are really good.

[Itkovian]

Railguns are supposed to be disruptive to dogfighting and capping. If they weren't, there would be zero reason to play gunship other than to put out a big "KILL ME" sign and feed scouts kills. I fully agree they have to be balanced so that they cannot one-shot someone without a crit (RNG). Ion should also scale its effects. But the key thing is to NOT nerf their mobility and group utility so badly that you hand over control of the match to scouts, which already determine how easily matches are won. Multi-gunship team compositions already suck at winning matches in the current meta unless ALL of the gunship players are really good.

 

I don't have an issue with anything you wrote, actually. The object is to make gunships balanced, not useless. Though I will say that gunship teams don't need to be really good to completely lock down a satellite .

 

Yes, they are disruptive, and they should be (if the role is to have any purpose), but that still needs to be carefully balanced. Because if it's not (and ion railguns do overpower it), then it becomes far too disruptive and that leads to a lot of player frustration, more than can be acceptable.

 

As for mobility, they'd have plenty of mobility without Barrel Roll, just not as much as the other classes, which is how it should be. Let's not forget that Gunships don't NEED to be as mobile to be as powerful. They don't need to be able to travel as fast and as far as any other class in order to get to where they can be effective. They have the ability to reach out and touch anyone 15k out, AND each map has been carefully designed to give gunships useful positions to do exactly that (using the satellites as reference). They don't need the ability to cross that 15k quickly, unlike scouts and strikes.

[Nemarus]

best nerf I could think for bypass would be make it apply only to primary weapons.

 

that's remove it as a factor for railshots and missiles

 

Great suggestion. I've changed the Suggested Fix for the bypass issue to this one.

[Fractalsponge]

I don't have an issue with anything you wrote, actually. The object is to make gunships balanced, not useless. Though I will say that gunship teams don't need to be really good to completely lock down a satellite .

 

I have yet to see this hypothetical satellite lockdown against decent opposition (i.e. not silly enough to just circle the node while they were killed one by one). I've cleared and capped satellites against 2-3 people doing this, but it's really not a fair example. I've seen some pub multi-GS premades (I assume premades) on shadowlands that attempted to cover each other, but I'm fairly certain they lost those matches. There are a lot of better premade compositions than 4x gunship, and anyone that coordinated could do more to win matches with a bunch of scouts.

 

As for barrel roll, I'd be fine with restricting the ability to jump all the way across the map quickly using it. Let's not forget gunships already have a limited engine pool compared to scouts. If you tweaked the barrel roll cost so that usage on cooldown restricts afterburner use in between, that might address the cross-map mobility OPness of barrel roll while still giving gunships a meaningful option apart from interdiction drive.

 

I've thought the same for balancing in the ground game before, but it's really salient here: for high-variance classes, do not balance based on player outliers unless they are locking down games. Let's be honest, domination match wins give the best rewards, not bruising scout egos. Gunships can do the latter, but offer no guarantee for the former, even in the current meta. The best GS pilots are going to be dangerous, period. Nerf the potential of the class until those pilots are not dangerous any more, and the class is dead for the average pilot.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Fractalsponge

[Kurkina]

If at this point serious NON-gunship players are still crying about gunships, its time for a long look in the mirror. Learn to play.

 

I am a strike-fighter only pilot, I hunt gunships, I get at least 5-10 gunship kills in every match and honestly, I cannot remember the last time a gunship has killed me. I am not boasting, I am simply trying to refute the claims that gunships are overpowered. They ARE overpowered if you are flying a scout/striker and are totally oblivious to where the gunships are. However, if you enter encounters with a tactical awareness of where the gunships are and how to take them out, they are sitting ducks.

 

Gunships add a very needed tactical element to GSF: if they weren't there, we would just endlessly circle each other and die of boredom. But with gunships present, it is not enough to be a "good pilot". You have to be a good tactician, with good spacial awareness in each and every encouter. It separates the average pew-pew space cowboy from a real skilled player.

[Luneward]

Alright, from the perspective of another gunship pilot...

 

1) Ion Rail: I couldn't agree more here. That's just kind of messed up.

 

2) Barrel Roll: I would consider it more a problem with barrel roll itself. It's too powerful for even a scout or strike. Only my most dedicated dogfighters even consider taking retro thusters or snap turn. And even then I usually opt for a barrel roll since it gets me out of a dogfight so I can turn around and reengage on my terms. I would only get behind taking it away if it were tweaked down in the first place.

 

3) I'm in the 'bypass is the problem' camp. So your suggestion to have it only work on primary weapons is good - though in another thread someone figured out all you would have to do is lower bypass by 1% to make a gunship incapable of one shotting a defensive based scout. So taking bypass down to 30% might be all it needs.

 

4) Burst lasers I'm a little more torn on. They're actually less dps than most standard lasers - it's just they play well to gunship weakness in that you don't need to track your target for long periods of time to land solid hits. While a gunship should be at a severe disadvantage in a dogfight, they shouldn't be helpless either. This sounds more like a skill imbalance issue between pilots. Much the same we get more rail gun kills on targets that aren't moving around much, we get more close range kills off of people who don't try to outmaneuver us in close quarters. If you've popped them once or twice then manage to kill them after sneaking up on someone, it's their own fault for not getting out of a way to a ship that is far less agile.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Luneward

[Yorumi]

If at this point serious NON-gunship players are still crying about gunships, its time for a long look in the mirror. Learn to play.

 

I'm not picking on you specifically but your response is similar to other in this thread. If you think the detailed descriptions, data gathering, and level of discussion going on here is "crying" then you have not bothered to read the thread and understand it. Simply put we can have no real discussion about anything if people are going to just show up, not read the thread and instantly launch into ad hominem attacks.

 

If you look at some of the proposed solutions they're things like reducing bypass by 1%, or restricting it to primary weapons, making barrel roll not allow the slowest currently available ship to out speed a scout, or not having ion railguns apply their full effect at minimal charge.

 

If all you can do is classify this level of mature discussion as crying then your posts are simply not helpful nor productive to the discussion at hand. If you want to argue against the points being made then do so point by point, not with ad hominem attacks.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Yorumi