Verain's suggested balance fixes

[Kuciwalker]

However distortion is another story. On my Flashfire, i use directional shields along with large reactor. A scout with distortion dies in two hits. I don't.

 

A scout with distortion never dies because it is never hit.

[TrinityLyre]

You keep spreading this misinformation. It's completely false. When I pop distortion field, I know 100% that no shot is going to hit me, even dead center. And I've shot - dead center - at other gunships using distortion field and missed.

 

Stop spreading lies.

 

Correct, a target that is dead center with distortion field active, can and WILL evade shots. Being dead center does NOT give the shooter a guaranteed hit.

[BuckeyeChris]

A scout with distortion never dies because it is never hit.

 

Uh huh. Most people don't even have it upgraded to 6 seconds yet. It lasts three seconds. Surely you can kill a scout in some window of time outside of those 3 seconds. I seem to be able to.

[Zoom_VI]

Correct, a target that is dead center with distortion field active, can and WILL evade shots. Being dead center does NOT give the shooter a guaranteed hit.

 

So your telling me that you *know* your target was at (0,0) on your screen. 100% is a huge muliplier, and I have stated before that its murky as to the exact mechanics.

 

regardless I am 100% positive evasion does not work in any shape the same way as ground dodge does.

 

And lol at people that apparently can't hit a target after distortion field, its not like its a 100% uptime.

[Zoom_VI]

Uh huh. Most people don't even have it upgraded to 6 seconds yet. It lasts three seconds. Surely you can kill a scout in some window of time outside of those 3 seconds. I seem to be able to.

 

ikr...The funny part is all my high kill matches are agianst teams that had a lot of Blackbolts and Stings.

[Sharee]

A scout with distortion never dies because it is never hit.

 

Tell that to the blackbolt pilots that keep dying to two hits of my burst laser

[Verain]

I disagree with a lot of this, but the larger point that I seem to keep repeating is that these knee-jerk "balance suggestions" are not helpful at this early stage.

 

For Domination, no, it's absolutely correct. We've played lots of hours already man, it's not like no one has a clue. Finer details, such as quad versus light, or the role of heavy lasers, are I think probably still too early to call- at least for me.

 

You are not a GSF expert, and your opponents aren't either.

 

I sort of disagree. While I could envision someone who has a transcendent or professional playstyle, and that's not me or anyone else yet, that guy isn't important for this discussion. We're already good enough to have discussions at this level, as many of the players of this game won't be too far away from this.

 

The big thing is this: we are going to see more ships, and we are going to see more maps. I tried to make some suggestions with this in mind.

 

At a rough glance the balance is pretty good overall and that being the case the best course is to go with it for a while. "Balance" suggestions are more likely to F up what could be a good thing.

 

So like... already, everyone who is good is running very nearly the same build. We already see lots of imbalances, and MANY of these are only going to be exaggerated as more players play more and have access to the full builds.

 

Ex: Flashfires almost all have the blaster cooldown, and beyond that there's only a few options. Distortion Shield is wildly popular as well, as it grants 3 or 6 seconds of blaster and railgun immunity, and that's often important. It's very hard to sell, say, the Novadive, when the Flashfire is standing there.

 

Ex: Gunships are able to one shot scouts. Not like, "he had full shields and half hull, but didn't see me". Stuff like "he was coming right at me and didn't have distortion active, so he died from full health and shields".

 

Most of my suggestions, which I think you didn't even read, mention uncontroversial buffs and nerfs, such as the copilot abilities. Do you think those are fine? Too early to call? Get on a scout versus a gunship, get farmed, and come back and disagree with my "Bypass needs to be changed" call. What's wrong with lines like "these abilities should have different cooldown lengths" and "the abilities that effect allies within 1000m should probably have that value extended vastly, like up to 10km"? Do we have to be pros to understand these moves? No one is using them and for good reason.

 

Only the most egregious, glaring issues (like, IMO, the ion railgun love tap) should be corrected at this point and anybody suggesting this many changes at this detailed a level needs to take a step back and realize there's a lot they still don't know.

 

I think you underestimate what we do know.

 

A target dead center of you should never evade.

 

I can evade a dead center target, and I have had them evade on me. I have talked with them in teamspeak, and this is not controversial at all.

 

So your telling me that you *know* your target was at (0,0) on your screen.

 

So your position is also unfalsifiable, eh?

 

 

 

I would much rather see an automatic refill occur from friendly sats than a scrapping of secondary ammo. Scrapping it would just lead to even more missile spam since there would no longer be any reason to choose whether or not to use missiles.

 

I think the refill on sats would be good. I don't think it would make a difference on THIS map, because I can play a Pike with protons and clusters and NEVER run out of missiles. It's rare to be able to fire all measly 8 torpedos- I have way more partial locks than full ones, after all. With your statement in line, I ran two games with a Pike today and didn't die. In both games I never ran out of either, and the lowest count I got to was 3 torps. I literally right click anything in my face, I am 100% always trying to missile lock something. I could not be perfect at it, I would buy that, but I would have to be twice as good for ammo to matter, right? And I could just dash into an asteroid to "refill".

 

Missiles aren't a choice right now really. You always try to shoot them when you can, right?

 

I suggested the sats because if there was another map- say a campaign style map, where dying could put you back 2 minutes by booster, or you had a limited number of stock to accomplish a goal, or a map with a number of dangerous NPC turrets- then ammo might become very precious, as it might be able to save you other resources, such as hull, or time. Plus, I think we all want it to be finite. But the numbers don't add much to the current game at all, is sorta my point.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

You keep spreading this misinformation. It's completely false. When I pop distortion field, I know 100% that no shot is going to hit me, even dead center. And I've shot - dead center - at other gunships using distortion field and missed.

 

Stop spreading lies.

 

Correct, a target that is dead center with distortion field active, can and WILL evade shots. Being dead center does NOT give the shooter a guaranteed hit.

 

I agree, and out of curiosity I looked into the math (using Dulfy's website for the stats of quad blasters). Assuming my math was correct the only way to produce the 100% chance to miss of distortion field that so many have experienced is if evasion is a straight penalty to accuracy that acts independent of tracking penalties.

 

On quads that have a 1.5% accuracy penalty per degree a 106% percent increase of that penalty buffs it to 3.09 degrees (1.5 * 2.06 = 3.09). So firing off center by 5 degrees at 3K meters would get a tracking penalty of 15.45% (3.09 * 5 = 15.45). Without any multiplier the tracking penalty would be 7.5% (1.5 * 5 = 7.5), and if I did my math right a 106% increase of 7.5 still works out to 15.45 (7.5 * 2.06 = 15.45) so regardless of what point the tracking penalty got multiplied it would still be 15.45%. That means you would still have an 86% chance to hit (at 3K meters quads have a base of 101% accuracy so 101-15.45 = 86) and I'm pretty sure no one has experienced that kind of accuracy firing even a single degree off center much less 5 when distortion field is active.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Kuciwalker]

Uh huh. Most people don't even have it upgraded to 6 seconds yet. It lasts three seconds. Surely you can kill a scout in some window of time outside of those 3 seconds. I seem to be able to.

 

I'm talking about a competent scout.

[Zoom_VI]

I'm talking about a competent scout.

 

And I'm talking about a competent opponent fighting that scout.

 

Seriously all these ancedotes make me think people are braindead. Can you really only hit things in head-to-heads? Did it ever occur to you to bait them into distortion field and then blasting them to peices?

[LeonBraun]

And I'm talking about a competent opponent fighting that scout.

 

Seriously all these ancedotes make me think people are braindead. Can you really only hit things in head-to-heads? Did it ever occur to you to bait them into distortion field and then blasting them to peices?

 

^ Some true stuff here.

 

There are some very good pilots out there on all ships, and lots of strategies being devised and countered at a quick rate. Lots of things are going to even out also, being still in this early state.

 

I see many of the same players on both sides, have noted who get killed and how many kills they get, and it may surprise people that a lot of time it balances out, because people get to know the great pilots and team up on them.

 

One pilot may get several kills one match, and then get completely wiped out on another. I know on Harbinger there are some really good matches; my last battle before logging was one that we won by less than 20 points in a battle that was frantically going back and forth.