Evasion Is Fine

[Delta_V]

I have to wonder, if a scout has Dfield why on earth are you going head-to-head with it? Pull up. Continueing to charge head on is no different than shooting a demo round at Saber reflect and expect something other than eating your own demo to happen.

 

As a FF who uses Quick-charge I pull up when anything comes head-to-head with and then back around and shoot the crap out of them in a dogfight. If they have DField pull up don't be a lamb to the sluaghter.

 

just say'in

 

Because going head-to-head against a Scout is one of the few situations that normally favors a Strike, otherwise the Strike will get outmaneuvered and killed. But then when the Scout pops D-Field, they either kill the Strike or at least survive the first pass, so then they can outmaneuver and kill it. D-Field basically negates the primary weakness of Scouts, and lets them win one of the primary encounters that are supposed to favor Strikes (the description of the Flashfire even says that it can't go head-to-head w/ Strike Fighters and must rely on maneuverability instead).

 

As someone who's been flying a Flashfire w/ D-Field, that's how most of my encounters w/ Strikes go. If they do manage to gain the upper hand, I can usually use my superior speed (and D-Field if necessary) to escape and reengage on my own terms. The only Strike pilots who routinely give me difficulty kick my butt even harder when they fly a Scout instead.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

3) you keep going back to that same argument that base stats decide a ships role. ok so if they made the scouts base evasion 106% you woulnt have a problem with it? doubtful.

 

and noting that it would be blatantly OP in that scenario doesn't exactly disprove my point that it isn't balanced albeit not horribly OP.

 

1) not as good but can if they want and i have seem some do it

 

And that's kinda my point. Base stats make it so while they technically can dogfight no ability can grant them the capability to dogfight to the point where they are actively seeking dogfights out. I have very serious doubts that if we saw gunships looking to dogfight and not snipe thanks to an ability everyone would be pointing to the base stats saying "they're not supposed to do that!" not "well the ability is perfectly balanced because if they weren't meant to dogfight on equal terms to a striker they wouldn't have an ability that allows them to do so in the first place."

 

2) i thought thats what distortion field does? hmm

Indeed it does, and my point is that it does it too well. Instead of mitigating a weakness it outright eliminates it so they can do things they ordinarily wouldn't be able to. Mitigation of weaknesses are one thing, outright elimination of weaknesses so only their strengths remain is something else

 

3) yes they do all have cd's so you cant keep them up, if they were active all the time they would be passive abilities.

Right that's my point, I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with my point that because abilities have CDs base stats have a larger, long term impact on role during a match.

 

4) ok? whats the point just stating the obvious?

Pretty much yes. That's because the person I was responding to seemed to be treating active abilities as if they were exclusive to that class. By stating the obvious it contributes to my later points.

 

I grant it may seem silly to bother stating the obvious but I find sometimes it helps make a later point clearer when you take the time to state the obvious first rather than just assume they automatically follow your train of thought because it builds on something that is obvious.

 

5) well when looking at the Sting i can see it has double the evasion of thee Quell so that tells me its an evasive ship, the Quell has 1450 HP and 14% dmg reduction and the sting has 1064 HP and 9% dmg reduction telling me the sting cant take a hit as well as the quell. its all in your ship stats if you would like to take a look, but they cant give scouts a base evasion all that high cause that would make it imbalanced and make it not fun for anyone that has to fight one.

 

I think you missed my point here. My point was that only the base stats can tell you what a ship's intended capabilities are because only base stats are exclusive to a ship's class. I was by no means arguing that active abilities should just have all their buffs made into passive buffs as you seem to be implying.

 

4) what? so what you saying is because i am able to shred right through a GS without distortion field is that they shouldnt be that evasive then because there base stats arent that of an evasive ship?

 

No I'm saying that maybe it is balanced on a gunship because it doesn't affect gunship in such a way that they gain offensive performance outside of it's intended capabilities. Nor are they really gaining defensive performance they would otherwise not have since they can already tank quite a bit of damage with their shields; in this case it's just another way to tank damage. Whether it allows them to tank too much damage I couldn't say as I don't have a gunship to test different configurations on but I suppose it's entirely possible. By comparison scouts use it in order to completely nullify their major weakness so they can do things offensively they would otherwise be incapable of. Just because it's balanced on a gunship doesn't mean it's automatically balanced on a scout. I'm also noting that because it's an ability shared by both the gunship and scout maybe it's perfectly balanced on a gunship because of the limitations imposed by it's base stats but too powerful on a scout.

 

The overall point being that you can't judge what a ship is meant to be capable of based on an ability that has also been balanced for use by another ship class. It is entirely possible that it hasn't been properly balanced for use by one of those ships. It's kind of the inherent problem of shared abilities, you might design it so when used by one ship it seems all perfectly good and balanced and the flaws/imbalance only show up when it's used by the other ship class.

 

5) while your argument is to avoid details that dont suit it. im sure lots of things for all the ships still need balancing no pvp game is ever 100% balanced and to believe so would make you naive. and i dont think your using logic, i pointed out they each have there own ability i never said it would only be OP if they could use each others. granted i miss understood part of the SF's and thought it to be a buff and not a debuff but that doesnt change the fact i never said anything like that, but if you need to twist words now to "win" your argument then so be it, the devs arent as naive as you probly think they are and they will know what needs to be buffed/nerfed.

 

I was responding to a different person with this point. I honestly have no idea what point your trying to make by refuting an argument directed at someone else as if it was directed at you.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Zoom_VI]

Or you could equip Directional shield as DS in the forward position is just as hard to crack in those 3 second head-to-heads as Dfield is.

 

ofc you could pop overcharge, Dfield, and bypass and still win but balancing around ships using every possible cooldown they could have at one time is silly, and I have yet see any good pilot who uses all their cooldowns like that.

[Brilo]

As far as the 30% chance to hit, again, that's a best-case scenario; with the blasters you use to actually kill a target (Quads, Heavies, Rapid-Fires), it will be even closer to zero.

 

That 30% chance to hit is a laboratory scenario against a ship that is not moving from a ship that is not moving with the target ship exactly in the center of the shooter's reticle. The reality of the tracking penalty means you will never see a 30% chance to hit an Evasion built Scout using DF in combat even with a ship fully built for accuracy with the most accurate weapon and all accuracy passives and actives, even if the target is sitting still in space.

 

Even if it did, DF would still be the best defensive ability in the game by multiple measures.

 

Incidentally, one of the best accuracy buffs is Targetting Telemetry, which is unavailable to the Strike FIghter class.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Brilo

[Lymain]

D-Field basically negates the primary weakness of Scouts, and lets them win one of the primary encounters that are supposed to favor Strikes

 

In my opinion, that's not really a weakness of scouts because they can easily just avoid those situations with their superior speed and maneuverability. I struggle to see how a strike fighter would ever beat a scout of equal skill/upgrades in a fair, 1v1 duel scenario whether the scout has D-Field or not.

 

I fly my strikes as a middle ground between gunships and scouts. I pick off targets that are already engaged. If a dangerous scout decides he wants me dead, I have to basically stall until my teammates can handle him.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Lymain

[Sharee]

Your argument is simply the mere ability of a ship to use an active ability means whatever it allows a ship to be capable of is balanced and intended.

 

My argument is that the developers balanced the game WITH active abilities in mind. How anyone could think any different is beyond me.

 

Distortion field enables the scout to avoid almost all laser fire for a short period of time, and nothing else. If the developers gave this ability to the scout, then they MEANT the scout to be able to avoid almost all laser fire for a short period of time.

 

Are you suggesting they somehow did not expect the scout to use the ability while making a head-to-head run against a strike fighter? When that's exactly what the ability was designed for?

 

Please.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sharee

[Sharee]

if evasion is fine, then why is it the choice that all guides say to take. Why when its an option to people max this out over other defensive stats? When people don't take distortion field, its usually because its not an option on their ship of choice.

 

Because Internet.

 

Someone claims something is OP, and everyone copies it over and over and before you know it, its "EVERYONE says that...".

 

I win ~90% of my fights in a flashfire when i face enemies flying a scout. You know why? Because they explode in 2 hits, and i do not. Because they read all the guides, and i did not. Because they have 910 shields, and i have 1820 shields. Because they use distortion field, which i can see and simply evade them (the manual kind) for 6 seconds, then 2-shot them when its down.

 

This is what it looks like when my Flashfire with directional shields fights an opposing team with mostly scouts using distortion field: http://i.imgur.com/ApEw6yQ.jpg

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sharee

[Sharee]

Except it's not, because merely getting more Accuracy than the target has Evasion isn't enough - if you have 10% more accuracy than the target has evasion, you have a whopping 10% chance to even hit the target. You need to stack accuracy to 141% to overcome just the passive evasion available to scouts, which requires active abilities. With Distortion Field active, even if you can get your accuracy slightly higher than the target's evasion, your resulting chance to hit is so small as to be inconsequential.

 

You seem to assume that for distortion to be balanced, there needs to be enough accuracy buffs in the game to COMPLETELY NULLIFY it.

 

That is like assuming that marauder undying rage would only be balanced if there was enough damage buffs in the ground game to completely nullify it.

 

What makes distortion field balanced isn't the amount of accuracy you can pile up to negate it. What makes it balanced is the fact that 1) it is only active for a short period of time, and 2) when it is not active DS shields can be drained in one hit (along with a good part of the hull). Unlike, say, directional shields.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sharee

[Delta_V]

You seem to assume that for distortion to be balanced, there needs to be enough accuracy buffs in the game to COMPLETELY NULLIFY it.

 

That is like assuming that marauder undying rage would only be balanced if there was enough damage buffs in the ground game to completely nullify it.

 

What makes distortion field balanced isn't the amount of accuracy you can pile up to negate it. What makes it balanced is the fact that 1) it is only active for a short period of time, and 2) when it is not active DS shields can be drained in one hit (along with a good part of the hull). Unlike, say, directional shields.

 

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that there needs to be a way to completely nullify the active ability - I was just refuting the claim that it was possible to stack enough accuracy to overcome it. Although I do think the power of the active ability might be a little too much compared to the other defensive abilities in the game. In the ground game, any defensives with that kind of power come with significant drawbacks - Guarded by the Force sacrifices half your remaining health while the Sage/Sorc bubble prevents you from taking any action.

 

As far as the weakness of your shields w/out the active ability - Quick-Charge Shields have the same shield penalty, and their active only regens a portion of you shields, which just seems weak compared to virtual immunity to blaster fire (which coincidentally gives your shields a chance to recharge on their own). Quick-Charge passively boosts your shield regen, but D-Field passively boosts your evasion. You might only need 2 shots from BLCs to kill a D-Field equipped scout, but if you have to pull the trigger 3 or 4 times to land those hits thanks to the passive evasion, that gives the scout time to get out of your sights. And I don't think saying BLCs are an effective counter means much, considering they counter, well, pretty damned near everything. I'd say they're one of the cheesiest weapons in the game, right up there with slug railgun but behind the silliness that is the ion railgun.

[Lymain]

As far as the weakness of your shields w/out the active ability - Quick-Charge Shields have the same shield penalty, and their active only regens a portion of you shields, which just seems weak compared to virtual immunity to blaster fire (which coincidentally gives your shields a chance to recharge on their own). Quick-Charge passively boosts your shield regen, but D-Field passively boosts your evasion. You might only need 2 shots from BLCs to kill a D-Field equipped scout, but if you have to pull the trigger 3 or 4 times to land those hits thanks to the passive evasion, that gives the scout time to get out of your sights. And I don't think saying BLCs are an effective counter means much, considering they counter, well, pretty damned near everything. I'd say they're one of the cheesiest weapons in the game, right up there with slug railgun but behind the silliness that is the ion railgun.

 

As I and others have stated, the primary advantage of Quick-Charge Shield is the passive engine power regeneration.

 

The fact is that a lot of effective scouts currently opt not to use Distortion Field because we feel that it is (at best) balanced with the other shield options available. It's also not very popular among gunship pilots from what I've seen, but I don't have access to gunships yet. It does seem to be a popular choice for inexperienced scout pilots because it allows them to get easy, "gotchya" kills against reckless or inexperienced pilots. With all of that in mind, I believe any nerf to Distortion Field would make it a non-option at higher levels of play.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Lymain

[Sharee]

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say that there needs to be a way to completely nullify the active ability - I was just refuting the claim that it was possible to stack enough accuracy to overcome it.

 

The claim you were replying to(in the part i quoted) was Goosegrim's "oh yea as it has been pointed out ACCURACY is the counter to evasion. " Which is true. Accuracy counters evasion. Not all of it, but that's not what he was saying.

 

Although I do think the power of the active ability might be a little too much compared to the other defensive abilities in the game. In the ground game, any defensives with that kind of power come with significant drawbacks - Guarded by the Force sacrifices half your remaining health while the Sage/Sorc bubble prevents you from taking any action.

 

The drawback is the permanent -30% shield capacity a DS user suffers.

 

As far as the weakness of your shields w/out the active ability - Quick-Charge Shields have the same shield penalty, and their active only regens a portion of you shields, which just seems weak compared to virtual immunity to blaster fire (which coincidentally gives your shields a chance to recharge on their own). Quick-Charge passively boosts your shield regen, but D-Field passively boosts your evasion. You might only need 2 shots from BLCs to kill a D-Field equipped scout, but if you have to pull the trigger 3 or 4 times to land those hits thanks to the passive evasion, that gives the scout time to get out of your sights.

 

The strength of quickcharge shield does not lie in the active ability, but in the passive ability to continue recharging at 60% rate even while under fire, and two buffs to passive shield regen(15% regen speed, 6% regen amount)

 

Just to put this into perspective: I am using quickcharge on my striker, and directional on my scout. The scout recharges 65 points of shield per second when not under fire. The strike fighter regenerates 70.2 points of shield/second while under fire(and 175.5/sec when not being shot at). Combine this with the fact i can instantly replenish 30% of shield every so often, and you get the picture.

 

Another way to look at it: The scout regenerates a completely drained shield arc in 28 seconds. The strike fighter regenerates a completely drained shield arc in 5.7 seconds (assuming hes not under fire and accounting for the active ability). That's five times faster

 

(The above is achieved with the scout being modded for shield capacity while the strike is modded for shield regen, its not just base shields that result in those numbers, so take that into account)

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sharee

[Gavin_Kelvar]

My argument is that the developers balanced the game WITH active abilities in mind. How anyone could think any different is beyond me.

 

Distortion field enables the scout to avoid almost all laser fire for a short period of time, and nothing else. If the developers gave this ability to the scout, then they MEANT the scout to be able to avoid almost all laser fire for a short period of time.

 

Are you suggesting they somehow did not expect the scout to use the ability while making a head-to-head run against a strike fighter? When that's exactly what the ability was designed for?

 

Please.

 

It wouldn't be the first time a game developer created something and only expected it to do Y and no more but players found out it could do Z as well and being able to do Z was unanticipated nor intended by the devs. I'm unaware of any game where the devs got everything 100% balanced the first time around and didn't discover thanks to the players that something they created was too strong, too weak, or capable of doing things that were unintended (such as being used for tactics the devs never intended a class to be capable of). That's why looking at what a ship can do when only relying on the capabilities granted by base stats is important: those base stats tell you exactly what the devs had in mind with each ship's capabilities and limitations which in turn means you can judge whether something is too powerful (or too weak for that matter) or balanced based on how they are impacting the ship's ability to perform it's intended role and the stat limitations that restrict it to that role.

 

Considering that the Flashfire's in game description says it can't compete head on against a striker it would seem odd for the devs to say that if, as your suggesting, they fully intended the Flashfire to go head on against strikers. That choice of wording combined with the inability (to my knowledge) of scouts to regularly win against strikers in a joust when only relying on the capabilities granted by their base stats gives more support to the idea that players found a use for Distortion Field that was unanticipated than it gives to the idea that the devs anticipated and intended all possible uses of it.

 

Your argument relies on the idea that it isn't possible for the devs to create something that players are then able to use to do things that weren't anticipated/intended. By assuming all possible uses of an ability were anticipated and intended it makes it impossible for something to be imbalanced because imbalance could only be created by something that a given ship doesn't even have available for use.

 

But for the sake of argument if all possible uses of an ability were anticipated and intended by the devs using your logic how would you determine if it was imbalanced since base stats cannot be used as a means of assessing whether an ability is granting a ship class capabilities beyond what were intended?

Edited January 4, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Armonddd]

Considering that the Flashfire's in game description says it can't compete head on against a striker it would seem odd for the devs to say that if, as your suggesting, they fully intended the Flashfire to go head on against strikers. That choice of wording combined with the inability (to my knowledge) of scouts to regularly win against strikers in a joust when only relying on the capabilities granted by their base stats gives more support to the idea that players found a use for Distortion Field that was unanticipated than it gives to the idea that the devs anticipated and intended all possible uses of it.

 

Your argument relies on the idea that it isn't possible for the devs to create something that players are then able to use to do things that weren't anticipated/intended. By assuming all possible uses of an ability were anticipated and intended it makes it impossible for something to be imbalanced because imbalance could only be created by something that a given ship doesn't even have available for use.

 

If you're going head to head with a strike more often than your cooldowns are available, you're gonna spend a lot of time dead.

 

Distortion Field is designed to be used while being shot at. It's pretty obvious that you're going to be shot at in a head to head. Therefore, it's pretty effing obvious that Distortion Field was designed to be used in a head to head, among other things.

 

You'll notice that Distortion Field also passively reduces your total shields by 30% per arc. This is part of why scouts can't afford to go head to head with strikes unless they have Distortion Field ready - they're just going to blow up. Even if you take something else, a scout's shields are simply not strong enough to survive that kind of encounter unless you're lucky and skilled enough to blow them up first. In short, scouts cannot go head to head with a strike unless Distortion Field is up (or Retro Thrusters, but that's a whole different argument because it competes with Barrel Roll, which has a completely different use and set of advantages and disadvantages).

 

Looking at the base stats of a ship is completely unrealistic, even at this early stage in the game. The bonuses provided by upgrades change things dramatically - the potential for crits alone makes me fly much more carefully than I might otherwise, and makes my strafing runs significantly more dangerous.

 

If you think scouts cannot regularly joust with strikes, well, you're not wrong... but the scout that tries is going to end up dead. Scouts don't win head to head fights unless they have an ace up their sleeve (harr mixed references); they instead get their kills by being faster, more maneuverable, and more sneaky than their opponents. This is true both with base stats and with mastered ships.

 

There are times when the devs create something without realizing all of its potential. Distortion Field being used against strikes is not an example of this.

[GooseGrims]

 

Considering that the Flashfire's in game description says it can't compete head on against a striker

 

it says May Not, does not say Can't.

 

all throughout this thread youve been repeating yourself over and over just rewording it and twisting ppls words/meanings and now your twisting the words of the ingame description.

 

"When the Corelia StarDrive appeared on the verge of losing its military contract, the company refocused on a new scout model-one that would trade away sensor and communications range along with specialized sensor tech in return for more powerful laser cannons, mid-range missiles and stronger defenses across the board. The result is the Flashfire, combining other scouts' speed with deadly offensive capabilities. A Flashfire may not compete head-on against a strike fighter, but its maneuverability may be the edge a skilled pilot needs."

 

the line that says may not (not cant) leads me to believe it can easily against a star guard (or empire version) but might not want to against a pike (or empire version) which means maybe you have the wrong impressions of what the ships should be capable of doing and how it is determined.

 

the lines i underlined say plain as day its stronger than a normal scout but its senors are crap in comparison, maybe they can nerf the sensor more or give them another draw back idk, im not gonna pretend i know how the ships should be balanced.

[Lymain]

Considering that the Flashfire's in game description says it can't compete head on against a striker it would seem odd for the devs to say that if, as your suggesting, they fully intended the Flashfire to go head on against strikers. That choice of wording combined with the inability (to my knowledge) of scouts to regularly win against strikers in a joust when only relying on the capabilities granted by their base stats gives more support to the idea that players found a use for Distortion Field that was unanticipated than it gives to the idea that the devs anticipated and intended all possible uses of it.

 

If you feel that Flashfire's shouldn't be able to joust effectively with strike fighters, then just say that. Speculating about what the devs intended is silly.

[Armonddd]

it says May Not, does not say Can't.

 

Even if we pretend the context doesn't exist, this is incredibly nitpicky. In context, it's complete bollocks.

[GooseGrims]

Even if we pretend the context doesn't exist, this is incredibly nitpicky. In context, it's complete bollocks.

 

thats your opinion.

 

and its totally asinine to twist words to suit their argument and pretend they know what the devs intended.

 

and thats my opinion.

 

and was it not "nitpicky" of you to... pick out a half sentence from my comment and leave out the part pertaining to it that they have been twisting ppls words this whole time?

Edited January 4, 2014 by GooseGrims

[Armonddd]

thats your opinion.

 

and its totally asinine to twist words to suit their argument and pretend they know what the devs intended.

 

and thats my opinion.

 

and was it not "nitpicky" of you to... pick out a half sentence from my comment and leave out the part pertaining to it that they have been twisting ppls words this whole time?

 

You realize the massive irony in saying other people are pretending they know what the devs intended, right?

 

It was not at all nitpicky of me to take the core of your argument and address it, thus invalidating the rest of your post. It's easier than quoting the entirety of your post and leaving you to wonder which point I was addressing.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Armonddd

[GooseGrims]

You realize the massive irony in saying other people are pretending they know what the devs intended, right?

 

It was not at all nitpicky of me to take the core of your argument and address it, no.

 

i think you need to look up the word irony, it would be irony if i was saying i knew what the devs intended. im not the one crying over and over that the ships base stats determine what it can do. im not the one saying what scouts shouldnt be able to do.

 

and no it was nitpicky, that question was rhetorical.

[Armonddd]

i think you need to look up the word irony, it would be irony if i was saying i knew what the devs intended. im not the one crying over and over that the ships base stats determine what it can do. im not the one saying what scouts shouldnt be able to do.

 

Whoops, it would help if I could keep names straight. My bad.

[GooseGrims]

Whoops, it would help if I could keep names straight. My bad.

 

 

it happens, i did the same thing yesterday, the harm no foul lol

[Sharee]

It wouldn't be the first time a game developer created something and only expected it to do Y and no more but players found out it could do Z as well and being able to do Z was unanticipated nor intended by the devs.

 

Well yes that's the thing you see. There is nothing else a distortion field can be used for than to make oneself hard to hit for a few seconds. Therefore scouts using it for precisely that purpose can hardly have been an oversight by the devs.

 

Considering that the Flashfire's in game description says it can't compete head on against a striker it would seem odd for the devs to say that if, as your suggesting, they fully intended the Flashfire to go head on against strikers. That choice of wording combined with the inability (to my knowledge) of scouts to regularly win against strikers in a joust when only relying on the capabilities granted by their base stats gives more support to the idea that players found a use for Distortion Field that was unanticipated than it gives to the idea that the devs anticipated and intended all possible uses of it.

 

For one, it is silly to assume a choice of words in a flavor text description that most likely wasn't even written by the devs who actually designed the scout somehow carries more weight(is a stronger statement of intent) than the abilities the scout actually got in-game.

 

Second, the 'may not compete against a strike fighter head on' might very well reflect the very fact that you use in your argument, namely that scouts can only compete while the ability is up, while strikes can compete all the time, and thus the scouts are less suited for it. If one craft can compete all the time, while the other only sometimes, its only natural for the scout description to mention them being less suited to head on fights than strikes. That does not mean they are not intended to EVER do it, however.

 

But for the sake of argument if all possible uses of an ability were anticipated and intended by the devs using your logic how would you determine if it was imbalanced since base stats cannot be used as a means of assessing whether an ability is granting a ship class capabilities beyond what were intended?

 

The devs have ways of determining whether something is imbalanced or not. They know exactly how much damage scouts are expected to do, taking every possible variable into account, they know what the expected life expectancy of scouts is, taking every possible variable into account.

 

If some of the expected parameters are not met, red lights go off.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sharee

[Gavin_Kelvar]

totally asinine to twist words to suit their argument and pretend they know what the devs intended.

 

How is observing that there is a in-game statement relevant to my point and seemingly in support of it "twisting words" to suit my argument? Should I just completely ignore everything the devs say and/or in-game text regardless of whether it would seem to support an argument (or depending on the context refute an argument)?

 

I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that these are my opinion of what I believe is the devs intent but to be fair the pro-Distortion Shield side is no more capable of knowing what the devs intents are then I am.

 

Looking at the base stats of a ship is completely unrealistic, even at this early stage in the game. The bonuses provided by upgrades change things dramatically - the potential for crits alone makes me fly much more carefully than I might otherwise, and makes my strafing runs significantly more dangerous.

 

Perhaps base stats was the wrong choice of words as I'm not sure my intent/goal in using those words is clear. What I'm saying is that you should look at what a ship is capable of without an ability and then compare it to what ship is capable of when using active abilities to determine whether an ability is too strong, too weak, or giving them tactical capabilities beyond what they should have. (base/passive stats creating inherent strengths/weaknesses that in turn dictate what that class is meant to be capable/not capable of and in so doing determine it's role in the game)

 

If for example a gunship active ability was so good gunships began actively looking for dogfights instead of sniping people would likely conclude it was imbalanced because they were performing outside of what they should be capable of. The way people would know it was performing outside of it's intended capabilities would be the base/passive stats and the limitations those stats impose on the tactics gunships employ.

 

Well yes that's the thing you see. There is nothing else a distortion field can be used for than to make oneself hard to hit for a few seconds. Therefore scouts using it for precisely that purpose can hardly have been an oversight by the devs.

 

For one, it is silly to assume a choice of words in a flavor text description that most likely wasn't even written by the devs who actually designed the scout somehow carries more weight(is a stronger statement of intent) than the abilities the scout actually got in-game.

 

I concede that dodging blaster fire in and of itself quite probably isn't an oversight but the tactical applications of that immunity or the extent of it's use could be an oversight. The devs would have to be omniscient to anticipate all possible tactical uses and the extent those tactics would be used in order to get everything balanced right in the first go.

 

Second, the 'may not compete against a strike fighter head on' might very well reflect the very fact that you use in your argument, namely that scouts can only compete while the ability is up, while strikes can compete all the time, and thus the scouts are less suited for it. If one craft can compete all the time, while the other only sometimes, its only natural for the scout description to mention them being less suited to head on fights than strikes. That does not mean they are not intended to EVER do it, however.

 

Accepting for the moment that scouts are meant to do it only some of the time whereas strikers are meant to do it all of the time then logically it means overall jousting is a strength of strikers not scouts.

 

This still means it's imbalanced since one of the arguments that has been used in favor of distortion field's current balance is that jousting plays to the strength of scouts and that strikers should not joust scouts as it plays to the strength of the scout class. Arguably in practice jousting would seem to support this conclusion as the mobility of scouts gives them a very good chance of avoiding a joust whenever it wouldn't be in their favor. It may not be a correct conclusion but it's certainly understandable why it might get argued that jousting plays to the scout's strength if they have the mobility so that the majority of the times they joust it is in their favor.

 

The devs have ways of determining whether something is imbalanced or not. They know exactly how much damage scouts are expected to do, taking every possible variable into account, they know what the expected life expectancy of scouts is, taking every possible variable into account.

 

If some of the expected parameters are not met, red lights go off.

 

Perhaps I should rephrase as it would seem my question wasn't clear. I'm not asking how do the devs assess balance but how do we the players assess balance. My assumption here being that if players don't flag something as imbalanced the devs won't necessarily look into it (or at least examine it in a timely manner) as they'd assume that if it were unbalanced players would say something. To be fair it might never even occur to the devs to try something and see if it's possible if it goes against how they expect it will be used; the players have the advantage there as we don't have any such preconceived notions to limit our experimentation of what we can actually do. Who knows how long it would take the devs to discover the whole ion railgun love tap trick on their own as we got this far towards the full release of GSF without the devs noticing (to my knowledge) and I very much doubt that they intended it to function like that.

 

So to rephrase: If all possible uses of an ability were anticipated and intended by the devs using your logic how can the players assess whether something may be imbalanced since base stats (ie the ship's capabilities without abilities) cannot be used as a means of determining whether the ability is too strong and allowing a ship to perform beyond what was intended?

Edited January 5, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[GooseGrims]

How is observing that there is a in-game statement relevant to my point and seemingly in support of it "twisting words" to suit my argument?

 

i stopped reading here cause i already explained how maybe you should go back and read it again...

 

and it wasnt relevant to your point, you said it states it cant, and it does not say that, i even copied the ingame description word for word in that post.

Edited January 5, 2014 by GooseGrims

[Gavin_Kelvar]

i stopped reading here cause i already explained how maybe you should go back and read it again...

 

Ok I did.

 

the line that says may not (not cant) leads me to believe it can easily against a star guard (or empire version) but might not want to against a pike (or empire version) which means maybe you have the wrong impressions of what the ships should be capable of doing and how it is determined.

 

What makes you conclude that it can easily do so against a star guard and not a Pike since it clearly says strike fighter implying the whole class not one AC of that class (AC since the variants are in essence advanced classes). With either ship they can only use 1 blaster and 1 secondary at a time so neither striker AC has an inherent advantage over the other when combating distortion field.

 

I honestly don't follow how "may not" translates into "can easily against a star guard (or empire version) but might not want to against a pike." Please clarify how you conclude this as I don't follow you.

 

the lines i underlined say plain as day its stronger than a normal scout but its senors are crap in comparison, maybe they can nerf the sensor more or give them another draw back idk, im not gonna pretend i know how the ships should be balanced.

 

I'm honestly not following how this is relevant. I never questioned it being balanced that it is more powerful than the base scout. If I implied that at all I apologize for my miscommunication. Please clarify how being more powerful to the base scout is relevant to the "may not" part you were responding as I sincerely don't see how it is related.